the street."

CHAPTER VIII.

MORE ABOUT THE TRAFFIC IN SHAME.

By Mrs. Ophelia Amigh, Superintendent of the Illinois
Training School for Girls.

One of the most disheartening things in the work of protecting innocent
girls and restoring to useful lives those who have been betrayed from
the path of right living is the blind incredulity of a very large part
of the public. There are hundreds of thousands of women in the homes of
this country who know as little of what is going on in the world, so far
as the safety of their daughters is concerned, as so many children. They
are almost marvelously ignorant of the terrible conditions all about
them--and all about their children, too.

Of course, their blindness to these awful actualities makes them more
comfortable, for the time being, than they could possibly be if awake to
the perils which beset the feet of their daughters and the daughters of
their friends and neighbors. But there is no permanency to this sort of
peace--and thousands of mothers of this class are annually brought to
their senses and recalled to earth by discovering that their own
daughters have made the fatal misstep and have passed under the brand
of the pariah. The awakening of such parents comes too late, generally,
to do much good. Not always, but in a majority of cases. Many, many
times after I have related to a casual woman visitor the simple details
of a typical "case" brought here to the State Home, the caller has
exclaimed: "How terrible! I didn't dream that such things were going on
in the world!"

Now, if you had something of great value which needed to be protected
day and night, would you select for such a task a blind watchman? or one
who was firmly possessed of the idea that there was really no danger, no
occasion for watchfulness? Certainly not! There is nothing in the world
of such priceless value to a father or a mother as the honor, the
purity, the good character of a daughter. No parent will possibly
question this statement. And still there are many thousands of parents
entrusted by Providence with the safe-keeping of this priceless treasure
who are themselves in the position of discharging that great
responsibility with closed eyes, with dull ears and with a childish
belief that there is no real peril threatening the safety of their
daughters! These parents do not live on earth, their heads are in the
clouds and their ears are filled with the cry of "'Peace! Peace!' when