trouble, doctor. But, you know, I do get a queer
feeling--maybe it is in my head, from that brick, but it feels in my
heart--whenever I see one of these low scoundrels who live on the
misery of their women. This Jimmie the Monk is one of the worst I have
ever met, and I can't rest easy until I see him landed behind the bars."

"There is no greater curse to our modern civilization than the work of
these men, Burke. It is not so much the terrible lives of the women
whom they enslave; it is the disease which is scattered broadcast, and
carried into the homes of working-men, to be handed to virtuous and
unsuspecting wives, and by heredity to innocent children, visiting, as
the Bible says, 'the iniquities of the fathers unto the third and the
fourth generation.'"

The old doctor sat down dejectedly and rested his chin on his hand, as
he sat talking to Burke in the rear room of the station house.

"Doctor, I've heard a great deal about the white slave traffic, as
every one who keeps his ears open in the big city must. Do you think
the reports are exaggerated?"

"No, my boy. I've been practicing medicine and surgery in New York for
forty years. When I came over here from Scotland the city was no
better than it should have been. But it was an _American_ city
then--not an 'international melting pot,' as the parlor sociologists
proudly call it. The social evil is the oldest profession in the
world; it began when one primitive man wanted that which he could not
win with love, so he offered a bribe. And the bribe was taken, whether
it was a carved amulet or a morsel of game, or a new fashion in furs.
And the woman who took it realized that she could escape the drudgery
of the other women, could obtain more bribes for her loveless barter
... and so it has grown down through the ages."

The old Scotchman lit his pipe.

"I've read hundreds of medical books, and I've had thousands of cases
in real life which have taught me more than my medical books. What
I've learned has not made me any happier, either. Knowledge doesn't
bring you peace of mind on a subject like this. It shows you how much
greed and wickedness and misery there are in the world."

"But, doctor, do you think this white slave traffic is a new
development? We've only heard about it for the last two or three
years, haven't we?"

The physician nodded.

"Yes, but it's been there in one form or another. It caused the ruin
of the Roman Empire; it broug