me back if she does get out.

Then, too, she is in debt. As soon as she arrives at the house, an
account is opened with her, although, perhaps, she never sees the books.
She is charged with the railroad fare that has been paid to bring her to
the city; she is charged with the price that was paid for her to the
thief who betrayed and stole her; she is charged for the alleged
garments that are given her in exchange for her clothing--charged four
times the price that they cost.

Of course, the police will tell you nowadays that the old debt system
has been abolished, and that girls are not allowed to be in debt to the
house where they are kept, and it may be that a sort of fiction is
maintained, by which, if an investigation were forced, the divekeeper
would pretend to be an agent for the storekeeper that sells the
supplies. But the condition of debt is none the less real, although as
always it be fraudulent. The divekeeper, the storekeeper and the police
are all partnership in it.

Of course, it is not lawful to keep a girl a prisoner because she
happens to be in debt, but she is made to believe that it is. She is
told strange stories about laws that are enacted for the government of
her "class," and she recognizes, all too plainly, the power of the arm
of the police always outstretched in behalf of the divekeeper.

Police officers come and go in the dive. They register all "inmates"
upon arrival and give formal, though, of course, unlawful sanction to
the business. If a girl becomes refractory and the divekeeper threatens
her with the vengeance of the police, she has every reason to believe
that the threat is well founded, whether it is or not.

If, in spite of all this, a girl should be brave enough or rash enough
to try to make her way out of the dive, and escape, almost nude, as she
is kept, into the street, perhaps she would be allowed to go. Perhaps,
too, the police might not bring her back, but they certainly would not
assist her escape; and if they did not force her back into the den from
which she had escaped they would certainly send her to prison.

I have seen dozens of girls who wanted to get out from these dives,
wanted to leave the life that they were living, but who, under the
conditions that I have enumerated, did not--I think I may fairly
say--could not do it.

I had been in my position as housekeeper but a little while when my
owner discovered that I could be profitably employed in another line,