and ambition of the parents, and
the false modesty of the public, and thereby undermines innocence and
steals the purity from the home.

Many and various schemes are resorted to by these auctioneers of souls.
It is because no set rule for inveigling their captives away from home
has been followed that they have succeeded so long in baffling
detection.

The question of white slavery is economic as well as social. The
condition of the working girl, the low salaries paid by employers, the
desire for better clothes, and the great increase of the number of girls
earning a livelihood contribute their share to the downfall of girls.
All of these things are considered by the crafty trader who procures the
girl to be auctioned into a life of slavery. Then, too, the confidence
of the girl is gained by arousing her ambition or love. This is done by
appealing to her vanity, by referring to her ability or her beauty.

True it is that some girls go willingly to the block to be auctioned
into a disreputable life, only to find later their terrible mistake. The
system of making bad girls worse is just as vicious as making good
girls bad and all this is white slavery.

The most worked method of securing the confidence by appealing to the
ambition of the girl is by the stage or theatrical route. It is because
so many girls are "stage struck" now-a-days that this method has been
worked most successfully. Perhaps of all the cases that have been tried
in nearly the last three years in Chicago, the girls who have been
procured by inducements to go upon the stage outnumber all others. The
slave trader represents himself as the agent of some theatrical manager,
or perhaps as the manager himself. Going to a factory town, for example,
he makes it his business to meet some girl who is working there who he
has learned is "stage struck." After the formalities of an introduction,
which he secures in one way or another, he leads up to the subject by
telling that he is a theatrical man and is looking for new recruits.

The girl is at once interested. She is naturally ambitious. She wants to
better her condition in life. She doesn't suspect that a fiend with the
heart of a devil is masquerading before her as the agent of some
theatrical manager. He explains to her that if she will accompany him
she can make from $15 to $20 a week at the very start and in a year she
will be playing a part, and a year or so later she will possibly be
leading lady. Th