It is, indeed, strange to see how these women will cherish the memory of their homes even in the midst of their shame. They will speak at the pleasant home, or their aged father and mother, in accents full of despair. Often these memories will cause them to burst into uncontrollable weeping. If one should try to take advantage of this moment of tenderness, and urge them to make an effort to reform, they are met with but one answer: “It is too late.”
The keepers of the bagnios of the city use every means to lure young women into their power. Some years since, a girl who had managed to escape from a notorious brothel, told the following story:
“I watched the advertisements in the papers to see something that would suit me. I learned that a Mrs. G—— of —— street wanted two girls to do light chamber work, and I hastened there, with a friend, in quest of the position. We were received by Mrs. G——, who began to explain to us the nature of the duties we were expected to perform. It was an awful proposition. She kept a house of ill-fame. We fled. I was much discouraged. Not so my friend, who told me there was another lady down the street, who was really in want of a girl to help her. We went to her house. It was another of the same sort; but after I got in there my clothes were taken from me, and the woman furnished me with some sort of silk, trimmed with fur, and tried to make me act like the other girls in her establishment. I remained there from Saturday to Wednesday night, because I could not get away. I had no clothes to wear in the streets, even if I should succeed in reaching them, which was impossible, and the woman who kept the house was angry with me, brutally so, because I would not comply with her wishes. I and another young girl tried to escape by the back yard. The other girl got away, but I was discovered by the keeper, who drove me back into the house with curses. On Wednesday evening I was made to sit at a window and call a man, who was passing, into the house. He turned out to be a detective, and arrested me, and was the means of my freedom!”
The police are often called upon by relatives of abandoned women to assist them in finding them and rescuing them from their lives of shame. Sometimes, in the cases of very young girls, these efforts are successful, and the poor creature gladly goes with friends. Others again refuse to leave their wretched haunts; they prefer to lead their lives of infamy.
One night a young man called at the “Apollo,” a theatre and dance-house on Third Avenue—now Plymouth Place—and inquired for his sister Dora, who, he had learned, was in that place. The young lady came out, while he was speaking, in company with a well-dressed man. Instead of complying with her brother’s entreaties, she entered a carriage, with her escort, and drove to a nearby police station to seek relief from her brother’s importunities. The brother followed, told the sergeant the story of his sister’s shame, and asked him to keep her there until he could summon the father. The sergeant complied with the request and the father soon appeared. He was a respectable oil manufacturer and had lavished wealth and fine dress upon the wayward child. He confirmed his son’s statements, and appealed to his daughter to go home with him. She answered him flippantly, and the indignant father cursed her for her sin, and would have attacked the man with her had not officers prevented him. The woman was locked up for the night in the station house, and brought before court the next morning. The father urged that she should be sent to some reformatory establishment, but the woman met him with the statement that she was twenty-three years old, beyond legal control, and therefore entitled to choose her own mode of life. Her plea was valid, and the magistrate was unwillingly compelled to discharge her from custody, though he endeavored to persuade her to return to her family. She then left the court room, was joined by several flashily-dressed women, and departed in high spirits, completely ignoring her relatives.
One of the worst classes of abandoned women consists of street walkers. On any of the business streets and even in outlying districts these women are very numerous. They are generally well-dressed, and, as a rule, are young. They pursue certain regular routes, rarely pausing, unless they “pick-up” a companion, when they dart off with him to some side street. On the brilliantly lighted thoroughfares the police do not allow them to stop and accost men, but they manage to do so. The neighborhoods of the “hotels” and the places of “amusement” are their principal cruising grounds, and their victims are mainly strangers to the city. Many of them have regular employment during the day, and ply their wretched trade at night to increase their gains. They accompany their victims to the “bed-houses” which are conveniently at hand, and if an opportunity occurs will rob him. They frequent the dance halls and concert saloons; in fact, every place to which they can obtain admission, and lure men into their company. As a rule they are vicious in the extreme, drink heavily, and in some cases are fearfully diseased.
In former years many of the street walkers were in the regular employ of the “panel-houses,” which were numerous at that time. These houses were kept by men, who were among the most desperate roughs in Chicago. The woman is either mistress of one of these men, or in his pay. The method pursued was as follows: The street walker secures her victim on the street, or at some concert hall, or dance-house. He is generally a stranger, and ignorant of the localities of the city. She takes him to her room, which is an apartment provided with a partition in which there is a sliding door or panel. The confederate of the woman is concealed behind the partition, and at a favorable moment slides back the panel, enters the room and strips the clothing of the victim of the money and valuables contained in it. If discovered, the panel thief endeavors to disable the victim. The latter is no match for his assailant, and is from the first at a disadvantage. The thief is desperate, and is generally armed. He does not hesitate at anything, and, if necessary, will murder the victim, the woman assisting him in the fearful work. Then the body is left until near morning, when it is placed in a wagon engaged by the thief, carried to the river or lake, and then thrown into the water. Generally the robbery is accomplished without the necessity of resorting to violence. The victim either puts up with his loss in silence, or reports it to the police. The records at headquarters contain reports of numerous robberies of this kind. So the evil went on. Strangers in this city incur terrible risk in accompanying street walkers, and women whom they meet on the street, at concert and dance halls to their homes. In nine cases out of ten, robbery is certain. Murder is too often the result of such adventure. Truly, Solomon was wise indeed when he wrote: “He hath taken a bag of money with him—with her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with flattering of her lips she forced him—he goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hastened to the snare, and knoweth not it is for his life—her house is the way to hell going down to the chambers of death.”