erein given
are strictly authentic, and have been collected with great care and
fairness either by myself or my assistants.

Statistical references have been taken from the writings of United States
Attorney Sims, Rev. Ernest A. Bell and others engaged in prosecuting and
reform work, all of whom I thank sincerely and wish well in what they are
accomplishing for good where it is so desperately needed in this submerged
underworld of our city.

* * * * *

So in bringing this eighth edition of CHICAGO'S BLACK TRAFFIC IN WHITE
GIRLS to you, a part of which has already been published under the title
of CHICAGO'S SOUL MARKET, it is the aim of the writer to give more thought
and time to real, existing conditions--descriptions and actual facts
relative to public prostitution and its attendant frightful results,
rather than to such matter as incidents, "cases," etc., knowledge of which
can usually be acquired by simply reading the daily press of Chicago or
New York. All descriptions, statistics and photographs are taken by the
author from actual contact with the great underworld and quoted with
names, dates, etc., of those concerned and are absolutely authentic.

We, together with thousands of others--editors, legislators, club women,
ministers and everybody else who has the welfare of the girlhood of our
Land at heart, believe that the time for prudery and concealment is past
and that honest men and women should know what there is to know about this
thoroughly organized, solidly financed system of White Slavery flourishing
and growing in America to-day--a system which controls and ruins hundreds
of thousands of women in our midst every year and which requires a
constant sacrifice of more than sixty thousand young girls annually to
feed its death and disease dealing machinery.

Most people think of harlotry or prostitution as something
secret--something to be kept from the public eye, something to be ashamed
of. Not so to the great throng of Chicago whore-mongers. Everything that
can be done to attract attention and custom is done by the five thousand
men and hundreds of hideous, brutish madams who in this city exploit the
bodies and live off the earnings of thirty thousand public women in our
midst. The twenty-seven hundred (quoting from a statement of Chief of
Police Stewart) houses of ill-fame here are conducted with as much
publicity and advertising as the grocery or meat market nearby. Each