One day he comes in, he bring me a little short dress and red garters and big red bows for my hair. He say, “You put on.” I say, “No, I not put on. I shamed.” Then he slap me and beat me and put pistol to my face and I go way from him and I go down to Carmine Street to Mary, who is a good woman and some relation to him, and I tell her about it. She say, “My God! Is he so bad?” She send for him and say, “What you mean when you get a good girl? What for you want to put her in this bad life?” And he say, “Oh, I don’t want to; I just crazy,” and he say, “Come home, I not ask you any more.”
We go home and his cousin Jim is there and we have coffee to drink and he put something in the coffee. And by and by my head go round and I stupid and he say, “Come out in the air”, and I go out and get on the car and we go some place on the Battery in a house and he leave me there. Pretty soon a man come and he say, “Why you not undressed?” and I say, “I not undress. I not bad girl. I married. I not want to be bad.” And he say, “Then you get out of my house. I not want to get into trouble,” and I go back. I afraid to go home because I get married without my brother seeing the man I marry.
Then Frank say, “I got work in a barber-shop, come.” We go down to Houston and Mott Street and there he get ticket and money and then we go to Gran Central, and get on train. This was Wednesday of the next week when we married. It was six o’clock and we rode and it gets to be nine o’clock and I say, “Where we go? How long it takes?” He say, “We going to Chicago!” Then I cry, “Now I know you put me in the bad life.” He say, “You make noise on train, I kill you.” We get to Chicago and he take me to a house where a man live, his name is Nino Sacco. There he show me razors and pistols and say, “You do not do what I tell you, you be dead.” One day I get out, but that man Sacco, he come after me and take me back. Another time I get out of the house, but every time they catch me and take me back. Then I get sick and cannot do business, and they say, “She no good”, and my husband he write to my brother and say, “You want your sister back, you be on Bleecker Street in drug store, and I give you back your sister. You bring $100 and I give you your sister.”
Then he bring me to New York. He say to me, “You put police on me you be dead girl. I not ’feard for myself, I can get free. I know how. I have had other girls; but you try and I kill you.” Then we met my brother. He gave Frank $100 and he took me home. I wait two days, then I tell police. Frank he get arrested and then we found he had another wife. I was only one month in Chicago, but my life is spoiled and my family ruined and I sick and can’t work. [Marino and Sacco were sentenced to five years in prison.][[90]]
82. I am a girl from Galicia. I am neither old nor young. I am working in a shop like other girls. I have saved up several hundred dollars. Naturally, a young man began to court me and it is indeed this that we girls are seeking. I became acquainted with him through a Russian [Jewish] matchmaker who for a short while boarded with a countryman of mine. He is really handsome and, as the girls call it, “appetizing.” But he is poor, and this is no disgrace. He became dearer to me every day. One day he told me he was in want owing to a strike, so I helped him out. I was never stingy with him and besides money also bought him a suit of clothes and an overcoat.... Who else did I work for if not him? In short we became happily engaged.
Some time after, we hired a hall in Clinton Street and we were on our way to the bank to draw some money for the wedding expenses and also to enter the savings in both our names. On the way we passed some of his countrymen who were musicians, and we needed music, so we stopped in. He introduced me as his bride. I offered to have them play at our wedding. Incidentally, I inquired about my fiancé and they gave good opinions of him. Only a musician’s boy pitifully gazed at me and remarked, when my fiancé was not near us: “Are there not enough people from the old country to ask for their opinion?” I understood the hint and asked him for an address, which he gave me. Meanwhile, we were late for the bank, and fortunately, too. I could hardly wait for evening when I rushed over to his countryman and inquired about him. They were surprised at my questions and told me he had a wife and three children in —— Street. As I later found out she was the same woman whom he introduced me to as his boarding mistress.... I cannot describe my feelings at that time. I became a mere toy in the mouths of my countrymen. But what more could I do than arrest him? But his wife and children came to court and had him released.
I found out of the existence of a gang of wild beasts, robbers who prey upon our lives and money. I then advertised in a Jewish newspaper, warning my sisters against such a “fortune” as befell me. I was not ashamed and told of my misfortune wherever I came and gave warnings. The East Side has become full of such “grooms”, “matchmakers”, “mistresses”, “sisters”, and “brothers.” Inquire of their countrymen. There are plenty of their kind.
A girl from my country has also married one of the band, the one who was my former matchmaker. To the warnings that he had a wife and child in Europe, she replied, “Well, if she comes she will be welcome.” And good countrymen did indeed send for her and she came with a four-year-old boy. Her predicament is horrible to describe. She is poor and lonely and my countrywoman did not welcome her as she boasted, and her husband said: “Whoever sent for you may support you.”[[91]]
White slavery has never been a quantitatively important factor as the beginning of delinquency and together with the cadet system it is passing out, partly as the result of public indignation and severe penalties, and partly as the result of the changing attitude of the women concerned, who have become “wise” and are going more “on their own.” Many of them scorn the pimp. The change is a part of the general individualization.