Tragedies of the White Slave

by H. M. Lytle

It is a far cry from the green hills of Larne, from the wet meadows, glistening with the rains, from the song of the nightingale in the gathering dusk, the sweetness, the beauty of that green island which I call my home and which will henceforth be my only home, to the mire and filth of a criminal court in the city of Chicago, to the unspeakable horrors through which I have been dragged, and to the desperation to which I was driven.

Yes, this is a very far cry, from sweetness and light to mire and filth, but I feel that in justice to myself I must tell this thing as it is. I do not feel now as if this mire and filth had touched my person. I feel today that although I have been the victim of human fiends, although I have been more monstrously abused than any other girl of my age or character in the world, I myself am as clean and pure as on the day when I left that little Irish homestead 18 miles from Belfast and came to America. One who is murdered is not a murderer, nor is one who is outraged a person of bad character. And a clean mind soon forgets even the most terrible episodes, the most awful happenings. Yes, I will forget everything that has happened and become again the girl who left Ireland such a short time ago to become a victim of fiends.

There are things that one must try to forget, although I know in my heart that my sleep till my dying day will be haunted by the pictures of the demons who have worked their will upon me and who if they had their just deserts should burn in deepest hades forever. But I will forget, I must forget. If I do not forget I shall go mad.

They say that I have been cool, calm and collected on the witness stand during my trial. I have been cool, calm and collected because I was telling the truth, but the reaction from those awful hours in court have been so terrible that I shudder even yet to think of them.

It was only the thought of the green hills, of the heather, of the blossoms in Spring and the yellow corn at harvest time, of the cuddling mother love, of the kindly faces which will not turn away because I have been tortured—just the green hills, the green hills, and the rains and the sunshine and the light and the purity—I can say no more, but they will help me to forget, they will help me to become again the girl who won the lace prizes in Larne and the girl who had not been the victim of fiends. I will forget there. I could never forget here. America has become to me a nightmare, a horror; the name stands to me for all that is vile, horrible, unmentionable.

I am telling my story, not because I have any animus against anybody, not because I wish to get even with anybody, not because I wish to clear my own name, because I believe that has been cleared before the world by the solemn edict of a jury—not because I wish to create or to have brought forth the terrible things which were done to me.

I am telling this story in the hope of saving other girls, who like myself may be in danger from the beastly "slavers" and a life of shame. If I can but save a few girls from this horrible fate, if I can only help, in some modest way, to protect womanhood from the horrors of white slavery, I shall feel happy for laying bare my soul and giving to the world the true story of the attempt to make a white slave out of me.

I feel that I must write it, that American girls, and girls of foreign birth who come to America, will not be misled and trapped as I was into the veritable jaws of hell. If I can keep a single girl out of this hell on earth by telling the plain story of what happened to me, I shall feel that I have done my duty by myself.

I am told by men who know about these awful things that my case is only one of many. What happened to me may be an isolated instance and I am told that it is representative of the workings of the panders for the "upper ring," or the dealing in girls' bodies by rich men, rather than the selling of girls to cheap resorts through a quicker route.

I feel that there is no pit too deep for people who will send an innocent girl into a life of shame, who will throw temptation in a girl's way, and will, when temptation fails, resort to force to drive her into hades itself.