The fiendish brute induces her to take the drink. You see her take another. She seems suddenly to become stupid.
“Come on, it is about time to go, Kid,” you hear the man say.
The young girl lurches into his waiting arms.
That night another victim is claimed by the monster!
Somewhere a little, gray-haired mother prays that her daughter may be protected from the sins of a great city.
There is an unfathomable abyss waiting for that girl, a chasm in the depths of which lurk torture, sin, disease and death.
In that cafe all is levity and enjoyment. It is a living in the present, a forgetfulness of the past, a shutting of the eyes to the terrors of the unborn future.
In one night while the music pleases the senses, while song brings an ephemeral joy, while drink quickens the pulse, while the atmosphere lulls the conscience to sleep, innocent young girls, barely out of school, are inoculated with the poison of forbidden fruit.
Every year, hundreds of young girls, undefiled and pure, drift into the wickedest city in the world, are carried away by the glare of the “Great White Way” and the sensuous lures of the dazzling cafes and the Bohemian pleasures, and become unconsciously, the recruits of the great absorbing Vice Trust.
As we pass from this cafe,—the type of hundreds of others,—note the attractive pictures on the wall,—pictures of popular actresses, actors, prizefighters and men of the world of sports.