appeals to the girls to leave their lives of shame, and offering aid to
any one who might apply to the Army, was published and hawked through
the Yoshiwara. When the keepers and their employees found out what the
strangely costumed news-venders were about, they charged down upon them,
and after a street fight, drove them out of the quarter. Thus the war
began, but the T[=o]ky[=o] police took up the matter, the T[=o]ky[=o]
press joined hands with the Salvationists, and in the end the whole
country was stirred to aid in the attack. In return, the brothel-keepers
and their employees, feeling that the profits of their business were at
stake, made it extremely warm for any Salvationists or newspaper
reporters who dared set foot in the disreputable quarters, and in their
zeal sometimes made mistakes and drove out their would-be patrons. The
office of one newspaper was wrecked by sympathetic roughs, and it took a
squad of fifty or sixty police to escort Army officers when they had
occasion to visit any of the houses to secure the release of a girl. No
lives were lost, though some hard knocks were received, and the work was
kept up with unabated noise on both sides, until every girl held in
unwilling bondage knew how she might escape and to whom she could go for
aid.

During the month of September, 1900, as a direct result of the attacks
of and upon the Army, the number of visitors to these houses in
T[=o]ky[=o] was decreased by about 2,000 a night. On October 2, a
government ordinance was issued that at one stroke removed all obstacles
in the way of a girl's securing her freedom at any moment when she
wanted to leave the business. The new regulations made the descent to
Avernus as difficult as possible, and the return to the upper world a
mere step. In T[=o]ky[=o] alone, in the first four months after the
promulgation of this order, 1,100 out of the 6,335 girls who were
licensed as prostitutes left the houses in which they were employed,
most of them returning to their homes and families, and as many as
applied being cared for in the Rescue Home of the Salvation Army. The
places thus vacated are not easy to fill, because the keepers will not
advance money to the parents of a girl, now that they can no longer hold
her as security for the debt. In consequence, too, of the revelations of
the evils of the system, the business has fallen off alarmingly. Thus
many of the houses have been obliged to close, owing to lack of custom
a