ich is practiced in these places. The one object of those concerned in
the subjugation of a girl who has become a victim of the wiles of the
white slaver is to break down all hope of escape from the life of shame
and bitterness into which she has been entrapped. Nothing has been found
so effective a means to this end as the debtor system. The first thing a
girl is compelled to do on being thrown into one of these houses is to
buy an expensive wardrobe at from five to six times its actual value. To
be more definite, I have in my possession bills rendered against certain
inmates taken from the dens. In these bills stockings costing 75 cents
have been charged at $3.00; shoes costing $2.50 are charged at $8.00,
and kimonos costing $4.00 are charged at $15.00. As the goods themselves
were seized as well as the bills for them, I am able to make this
statement. In every case I have found that the girl was compelled to
renew her outfit of finery whenever the keeper so dictated, without
regard to her need of it. Our investigations have all shown that when
a keeper imagined that a girl, an inmate, is intending to leave the
place either openly or secretly, a new outfit is forced upon her at
absurd figures and she is told that she cannot leave until every cent of
her indebtedness has been wiped out, and that if she attempts to do so,
they will "put the law on her." In the dozens of cases which I have
examined there has not been a single one which has failed to show
evidence of this kind. I have in my possession numerous copies of bills
rendered against these wretched women in which their costumes reach as
high a figure at $1,200 and even $1,500. This indebtedness system is
mutually recognized and enforced between the keepers of all houses; in
other words, no girl can leave one house and enter another unless she is
able to show that she leaves no indebtedness behind her.

[Illustration: HON. CLIFFORD G. ROE]

[Illustration: HON. HARRY A. PARKIN]

As this phase of business in the underworld is one of the main props of
white slavery it is well to go into it with definiteness and to give
examples which illustrates its operation.

In one of the recent raids a big Irish girl was taken and held as a
witness. She was old enough, strong enough and wise enough, it seemed to
me, to have overcome almost any kind of opposition--even physical
violence. She could have put up a fight which few men, no matter how
brutal, would care to meet