One of the saddest cases that had come under his experience this clergyman related to me as follows: It will be remembered that his parish includes that street stretching from Yonge street to College avenue, which may well be termed the vicus sceleratus, the Wicked Street, of Toronto. Several years ago a young lady visited him at his vestry, who was evidently in great distress. She had the manners and appearance of one who had been carefully and respectably brought up. Her story was soon told. Her parents held a good position in the town of ⸺, Ontario. She was engaged to be married to a young gentleman of good professional prospects. Within a week of their appointed marriage, when the wedding trousseau had been provided, he forced the unsuspecting girl to yield to his wishes, then made an excuse for postponing the wedding day. After several months of this deception her condition necessitated flight. He took her to Toronto and placed her as a boarder in one of those nefarious “high-toned” fast houses where the Mother of Infamy entertains the daughters of death. When the girl found out the character of the place in which she had been left by her lover, who had now wholly abandoned her, she at once ran away, and obtained work as servant at a hotel. A day or so afterwards she was followed by the woman (the word seems misapplied) who kept the “high-toned” den from which she had fled. This wretch informed the poor, trembling girl that she knew her entire history, and would expose her if she did not return. Most unhappily the girl had not the presence of mind either to appeal to police protection, or to throw herself, surely not in vain, on the womanly goodness of the hotelkeeper’s wife. She yielded, and became once more the slave of the procuress. She now appealed to the Rev. Mr. ⸺ for aid to escape
A LIFE WHICH SHE ABHORRED.
He gave her money to go at once to London and a letter to a kind-hearted Church of England clergyman in that city, promising to send further help on receiving news of her arrival. He heard from her several times. Two years afterwards he saw her again in Toronto, driving in a cab with two other girls. She turned her face away. Once more he was summoned to visit her. She was ill in a poor cottage on Elm street. For the last time he visited her, when on her deathbed in a wretched tenement on Teraulay street. She was dying, not from any disease, but simply from exhaustion, worn out with sorrow and despair. A name that is not her own is inscribed on the humble tombstone above her grave. Her parents, who are respectable people in good circumstances, have never known what has become of their lost daughter. “And the man whose selfish lust has brought about this ruin,” said the Rev. Mr. ⸺, as he concluded the above sad and over true story, “still walks the streets of Toronto prosperous and respected; still has the entree of the best Toronto society. I am a clergyman but there are times when I feel like taking a horse-whip and teaching that fellow a lesson which in this country can only be taught by lynch law. The Charlton Bill for making seduction a criminal offence, is necessary if private vengeance is not to be practically legalized. It is all nonsense to talk about the danger of black-mailing; a jury can always judge of facts and discriminate between cases of real moral turpitude and those which may be got up for the sake of money or intimidation.”
A BABY FARM.
A Methodist minister of much experience among the Toronto poor corroborated to a great extent the views of his brethren. Among his more novel experiences the following was communicated in reply to questions about baby farming:
“Some of my most painful experiences have been in visiting ‘baby-farms,’ poor and generally narrow premises, for the most part situated in one or other of the slums. I think the popular idea about these places is erroneous—they are not intentionally shambles for infant lives, and poor as their accommodation for the little waifs and strays may be, are the only refuge of a vicious or unfortunate mother—a degree, at least, above desertion or infanticide! I was sent for last March to visit a sick child at one of these places, a cottage on St. David street, in the eastern part of the city. The cottage was a small frame building of but three rooms, in the largest of which, the ‘living room,’ were stowed seven infants, three playing about the floor, the rest in bed. Most of the children were pale and unhealthy-looking; they seemed to have none of the exuberant vitality of healthy childhood; even in their play they were languid. The little one I was called to visit was a child of six, whose pecky, shrunken face, large dark eyes, and unnatural development of forehead betokened the form of cerebral disease peculiar to childhood, ‘water on the brain.’ She was a gentle and intelligent little girl, and joined in the simple prayer I offered with a winning, gentle and tired, but earnest voice. It was her greatest wish to pass away from the world which had been to her one busy scene of suffering, unrelieved by any home or love beyond the casual kindness of strangers. A few days after my visit she sank quietly into sleep—her last. She was the illegitimate child of a young person in respectable position in society in a town of Ontario. Her mother paid regularly for her keep, but never visited her. Poor little Nellie! had her cradle known a mother’s knee, the first symptoms of her sickness been met by a mother’s care, she might have grown into a bright girl; affectionate and true I feel sure she would have proved. But perhaps it is best so, and the heathen saying, ‘Those whom the gods love die young,’ might be adopted as a motto by most baby farms.”
CHAPTER XX.
A PEST HOUSE WIPED OUT.
It is the custom for people to say that evil has existed from the beginning, and will continue till the end of all things. And as far as anybody knows this is entirely true, but the application which a great many put on it is entirely wrong. They make the truism an excuse for ceasing all efforts for lessening evil and confining it to as few of our fellow-creatures as possible. When, some 18 months ago or more, a few gentlemen in the city got up a movement for the suppression of one of the forms of vice which, of all others, is the most degrading, destructive, and terrible in its results, they were met in the outset with the old saw, “This evil has always existed and will continue to exist.” They did not propose to be put down by such an aphorism, and they pressed their ideas on the police authorities, the commissioners, and the magistrates until steps were taken to scorch at least, if not altogether kill, the viper. No one can deny one result which followed. Our principal streets, which were formerly thronged with wantons attired in purple and fine linen, became freed of them to such an extent that the presence of an occasional one caused remark. In the auditoriums of our places of amusement, where they were wont, like the Scribes and Pharisees, to occupy the prominent places,