n in the
old Custom House district]

The accompanying photograph secured by the writer gives at least a faint
idea of this frightful trap against the pitiless walls of which have, no
doubt, beat the agonized shrieks of many an innocent girl--your sister and
mine--as, baptising this hell-hole with blood and tears, her quivering
body was crucified upon a whore-monger's cross of gold and then torn down
to be cast, bruised, bleeding, but yet alive, into five years of the
awful, seething moral Golgotha of prostitution and then into =lingering
death=.

The Chicago Rescue Mission and Woman's Shelter of which the writer is
President, has for two years occupied the premises at 114 Custom House
Place. Upon moving into the place we found every window incased in heavy
iron bars while between the bars and the glass of each window was mortised
a one-half inch steel screen (see cut). Entrance or exit from the building
was as utterly impossible as from a penitentiary, excepting by the =front
door=, and to bring the place within the requirements of the City law it
was necessary to bring a suit through the Municipal Court against the
owner of the building, Mrs. Spiegel, against whom through the aid of
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Oleson, we obtained a verdict and forced
her thereon to put in a rear stairway (see Court records).

114 Custom House Place is only one of the fifty similarly notorious dens
in the old Redlight district, and yet it is impossible to make some people
believe that there is such a thing as forcible detention of a woman in a
Chicago house of prostitution.

FROM THE "WOMAN'S WORLD"

I quote the following incident cited by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Roe
in an article of recent date in WOMAN'S WORLD, illustrating some of the
schemes and plans for leading a girl into a life of ill-fame. Mr. Roe
says:

"A year ago last summer, 15-year old Margaret Smith was working about
her simple home near Benton Harbor, Michigan. The father, employed by
the Pere Marquette Railroad, was away from home a good share of the
time. One day a graphophone agent came to the house and the family
became interested in one of his musical machines. Shortly afterward
this agent brought with him to the Smith home Frank Kelly, and
introduced him to Maggie, as she was called by her folks. In a day or
two Margaret was on her way to Chicago with Kelly who promised her an
excellent position in the