Pale and trembling the pitiful creature rises and hurries out into the street to search for more prey.
That man is the woman’s “cadet.” That is the more polite word for the old word “pimp.” That is her master:—the man who takes from her the infamous earnings of her body.
Lower than the murderer, in the moral scale, are these debased creatures. They are men stripped of every instinct of honor, lost to every sense of shame. They are the lowest form of the human parasite.
In the borderland of the levee they live, breathe, eat and drink off the earnings of thousands of depraved women. From the earnings of their slaves they pay the police to grant their women immunity from prosecution.
These men are also termed “macks.” The name means nothing; it is the character of its bearing that is the horrible fact.
In the South side levee district, including the places that encircle the open houses of prostitution, there are 800 of these low vile creatures. We are but describing one of the levees of the city. Conditions are similar in the others.
We have seen them in the notorious cafes of the South side but they exist in swarms within the levee zone proper.
The hours are swiftly passing and our trip is by no means over. Let us leave the haunts we have just visited.
Let us go down to one lower level of crime and vice. We have reached Twenty-second street and Wabash avenue and we stand on the edge of the Great White Ulcer.