lady usually occupies a
flat at some distance but within easy reach of the red light district.
It is sumptuously furnished and, as the elderly woman explains, is a
home for several young ladies who are working in stores in the city.
Here the country maiden is given every luxury free of expense, is
entertained royally, and, alas, very many times before she attempts to
leave for her home has been caught unawares and so compromised that she
dare not face her home folks again. The city of Chicago in certain
sections is full of apartments of this kind, where an elderly lady,
usually a semi-retired keeper of a house of prostitution, has furnished
an apartment and runs a supposed respectable home for working girls.
Three to five girls live with her. Her telephone number is furnished to
hotel employees and elevator operators, to "steer" male inquirers who
are in search of a "pleasant evening" to the flat in return for a
commission of fifty cents or a dollar for each customer. The girls who
live in this class of places are girls who come from the country and who
have fallen, but who are not low enough to go to the regular houses of
prostitution in the red light district. Clerks from department stores,
whose meagre salaries are not sufficient to support them while away from
their parents, seek these houses as a means of supplying the deficiency
in their weekly earnings. They are thus enabled to dress tastily and
just a little bit better than the virtuous girl who works next to them
upon the same salary but who does not sell herself for lust. In such
places as these I have known of girls who came to the city to study
painting, stenography, bookkeeping and other occupations, and who, while
ostensibly pursuing their daily labor, are all of the time going to
these houses of assignation whenever there is a dollar to be gained
which will place them in a position to dress better or go to some place
of amusement which costs money.

What, then, shall we do to protect our daughters and our sisters? That
is the question which is puzzling not only prosecuting officers and
police officials, but one upon which economists and charitable
organizations are spending months debating. One safe and sure protection
we all have. That is, do not permit the daughter or the sister to go
from the country village to the large city unless you know absolutely
and beyond the peradventure of doubt, that the hotel where she shall
stay, or the people whom she sha