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generally described with considerable minuteness, and the time and place of meeting foretold. This may be fictitious, and it is fortunate for her if it is so. Rut the seeress too frequently needs no powers of clairvoyance or ratiocination to make these disclosures, for some _roue_; who has exhausted the ordinary rounds of dissipation, or some fast young fellow seeking a change, has made a bargain with the prophetess for a new and innocent victim--the amount of the fee to depend on the means and liberality of the libertine and the attractiveness of the victim. The vain, silly girl is dazzled with the wily woman's story, and readily promises to call again. At her next visit the man inspects her from some place of concealment, and if she meets his views, either an introduction takes place or a rendezvous is perfected. Thus the acquaintance begins, with the result which every intelligent reader can see for himself. Sometimes the picture of the scamp is shown, but in every case there is but one end in view on the part of the seeress, and that end is almost invariably achieved. The girl thus becomes clandestinely "gay," and spreads the influence of her evil example and impure associations among her shopmates. Pope has told us in four immortal lines the effects of a constant contact with vice. In the second epistle of his Essay on Man, he writes: "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace." In the case of the class of young girls under consideration this truth is peculiarly applicable. In consequence of their associations they hear and see things whose influence is almost wholly bad and pernicious. Those disguised advertisements in the newspapers called "Personals" are of this evil character. To young girls, with minds imperfectly disciplined, there is a fatal fascination in the mystery of surreptitious appointments and meetings. Mystery is so suggestive and romantic, and the young girl who, from piqued curiosity, is tempted to dally with a "Matrimonial" or a "Personal," is an object of commiseration. From dallying and reading and wondering, the step is easy to answer such notices. She believes that she has a chance of getting a rich and handsome husband, who will take her to Europe, and, in other respects, make her life a sort of earthly paradise. The men who write such advertisements know this beset
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