tions discharge their
precious human freight within the first ward of Chicago, the richest and
wickedest political ward in the world--the ward of Michael Kenna (Hinky
Dink) and "Bathhouse" John Coughlin--the ward feeding every district of
prostitution and gambling and unnatural horror in the City--the ward with
two miles of indecent resorts, whole armies of reeking lost women,
hundreds of pandering men procurers and White Slavers--the ward of
thousands of Turkish, Italian and Arabian immigrants, and opium-parched
pagan Chinese--the ward in which every day thousands of women, many of
whom without money or friends, are looking for work, are unloaded in this
seething cauldron of vice, their only refuge being, when without funds,
the Police Station or the house of ill-repute.

The horror of conditions surrounding a woman without money or friends in
Chicago makes the living of a moral life almost impossible for her. I have
in mind the case of a deserted little Italian woman, G. P----[2], living
in Plymouth Court, south of Polk Street. G. had three little baby girls,
the eldest only four years, and was expecting another child soon. She was
deserted by her husband and left without a dollar or a friend to face life
and care for herself and babies. The case came into the hands of the
Mission and she was cared for by them until the time of her confinement,
when, with her children, she was taken to Dunning Poorhouse where she was
kindly cared for. A baby boy was born to G. Great pressure was brought to
bear upon this little Italian mother who spoke no word of English, to
induce her to give up her children. Frightened and weeping, she refused to
do this, declaring she would make a living for them, and leaving the
Poorhouse, she started out taking the baby and another child with her,
hoping soon to earn the money to care for the other two.

This she was fortunate enough to accomplish, and, taking the four little
ones dear to her heart, went back to the little room on the top floor of
the tenement in Plymouth Court. G. got work in a sweatshop and made
button-holes at $2.50 a week. She worked hard to keep up, but the baby
sickened and died. The other children began to get thin and wan. They grew
hungry before her eyes and the mother's heart frightened and sank within
her. A fiend in human form, J. F----, came by and offered the half-starved
mother bread for herself and babies, offered her marriage as soon as it
could be arranged for.