t was true--and the man who sold her and the woman who
bought her were both sent to the state penitentiary as a penalty for the
transaction!

Another fact which the public finds hard to believe--especially the
public of mothers--is that girls who are lured into the life of shame
find it impossible to make their escape, and that they are prisoners and
slaves in every sense of the word. I recall one instance of a girl from
a good home who had fallen into the hands of a white slave trader and
been sold to a house in the red-light district. Her people were frantic
over her disappearance and made every possible effort to locate her, but
without success. Several months after the excitement and publicity
aroused by her disappearance died away, a newsboy who had delivered
papers at her home--which was in a very good residence district of the
city--happened to be passing along a cross street of the red-light
section--just on the fringe of it, in fact. Suddenly he heard a tap on
the window, looked up and saw the anxious face of the lost girl. Then
she disappeared.

Knowing the story of her strange disappearance, he hurried straight to
her home and told of his experience. Instantly the father secured
officers and the little newsboy led the posse back to the house, in the
window of which he had caught a glimpse of her face. They raided the
place and rescued the girl. The story of the terrible treatment which
she had received cannot be told here. It is enough to say that she had
been held as a captive, imprisoned as much as any inmate of a
penitentiary is imprisoned, and that if the friendly newsboy had not
happened to pass as he did, the window from which she was looking out,
she would undoubtedly be there today or in some other similar prison of
shame through the process of exchange.

One other matter in this connection needs to come in for clear and
decisive emphasis: the fact that the runaway marriage is the favorite
device of the white slaver for landing victims who could not otherwise
be entrapped. These alleged summer resorts and excursion centers which
are well advertised as Gretna Greens, and as places where the usual
legal and official formalities preliminary to respectable marriage are
reduced to a minimum, are star recruiting stations for the white slave
traffic. I have never seen this point brought out with any degree of
clearness in any article, and I earnestly urge all mothers to give this
statement the most seriou