ous girl lying on
the damp, filthy straw, that swarmed with vermin. It was cold as well as
damp, and the chill of a bleak November day began creeping into her warm
blood. But the stupefying draught had been well compounded, and held her
senses locked.

Of what followed we cannot write, and we shiver as we draw a veil over
scenes that should make the heart of all Christendom ache--scenes that
are repeated in thousands of instances year by year in our large cities,
and no hand is stretched forth to succor and no arm to save. Under
the very eyes of the courts and the churches things worse than we have
described--worse than the reader can imagine--are done every day. The
foul dens into which crime goes freely, and into which innocence is
betrayed, are known to the police, and the evil work that is done
is ever before them. From one victim to another their keepers pass
unquestioned, and plunder, debauch, ruin and murder with an impunity
frightful to contemplate. As was said by a distinguished author,
speaking of a kindred social enormity, "There is not a country
throughout the earth on which a state of things like this would not
bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny;
there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."

And we are Christians!

No. Of what followed we cannot write. Those who were near the "Hawk's
Nest" heard that evening, soon after nightfall, the single wild,
prolonged cry of a woman. It was so full of terror and despair that even
the hardened ears that heard it felt a sudden pain. But they were used
to such things in that region, and no one took the trouble to learn what
it meant. Even the policeman moving on his beat stood listening for only
a moment, and then passed on.

Next day, in the local columns of a city paper, appeared the following:

"FOUL PLAY.--About eleven o'clock last night the body of a beautiful
young girl, who could not have been over seventeen years of age, was
discovered lying on the pavement in----street. No one knew how she came
there. She was quite dead when found. There was nothing by which she
could be identified. All her clothes but a single undergarment had been
removed, and her hair cut off close to her head. There were marks of
brutal violence on her person. The body was placed in charge of the
coroner, who will investigate the matter."

On the day after, this paragraph appeared:

"SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY.--The coroner's inquest eli