so many are caught in this
net, but that they escape! I count the week--I might almost say the
day--a happy and fortunate one which does not bring to my attention as
an officer of the state a deplorable case of this kind.

Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets of these fishers for girls
are spread, let me tell of an instance which occurred from this
institution:

This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl and
below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient as she
is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would naturally
attract the eye of the white slave trader.

Because of her quietness, her obedience and her good disposition, she
was, in accordance with the rules of the institution, permitted to go
into the family of a substantial farmer out in the west and work as a
housemaid, a "hired girl"--her wages to be deposited to her credit
against the time when she should reach the age of twenty-one and leave
the Home.

She had been in her position for some time and was so quiet and
satisfactory that one Sunday when the family were not going to church
the mistress said:

"Nellie, if you wish to go to church alone you may do so. The milk wagon
will be along shortly and you can ride on that to the village--and here
is seventy-five cents. You may want to buy your dinner and perhaps some
candy."

When Nellie reached town and was on her way past the railroad station to
the church, the train for Chicago came in, and the impulse seized her to
get aboard, go to the city and look up her father, whom she had not seen
for several months. She went to the city and had hardly stepped from the
train into the big station when she heard a man's voice saying: "Why,
hello, Mary!"

Instantly--foolishly, of course--she answered him and replied:

"My name's not Mary, it's Nellie."

"You look the very picture," he responded, "of a girl I know well whose
name is Mary--and she's a fine girl, too! Are any of your folks here to
meet you?"

"No," she answered. "My father's here in the city, somewhere, but he
doesn't know I'm coming. I've been working out in the country for a long
time and I didn't write him about coming back."

Her answers were so ingenuous and revealing that the man saw that he had
an easy and simple victim to deal with. Therefore his tactics were very
direct.

"It's about time to eat," he suggested, "and I guess we're both hungry.
You go to a restaurant and