on into those cases dealing with the international
trade, those with the state and interstate traffic, and the regulations
with which the municipality alone is concerned.
First in value to the white slave commerce is the girl imported from
abroad who from the nature of the case is most completely in the power
of the trader. She is literally friendless and unable to speak the
language and at last discouraged she makes no effort to escape. Many
cases of the international traffic were recently tried in Chicago and
the offenders convicted by the federal authorities. One of these cases,
which attracted much attention throughout the country, was of Marie, a
French girl, the daughter of a Breton stone mason, so old and poor that
he was obliged to take her from her convent school at the age of twelve
years. He sent her to Paris, where she became a little household drudge
and nurse-maid, working from six in the morning until eight at night,
and for three years sending her wages, which were about a franc a day,
directly to her parents in the Breton village. One afternoon, as she was
buying a bottle of milk at a tiny shop, she was engaged in conversation
by a young man who invited her into a little patisserie where, after
giving her some sweets, he introduced her to his friend, Monsieur Paret,
who was gathering together a theatrical troupe to go to America. Paret
showed her pictures of several young girls gorgeously arrayed and
announcements of their coming tour, and Marie felt much flattered when
it was intimated that she might join this brilliant company. After
several clandestine meetings to perfect the plan, she left the city with
Paret and a pretty French girl to sail for America with the rest of the
so-called actors. Paret escaped detection by the immigration authorities
in New York, through his ruse of the "Kinsella troupe," and took the
girls directly to Chicago. Here they were placed in a disreputable house
belonging to a man named Lair, who had advanced the money for their
importation. The two French girls remained in this house for several
months until it was raided by the police, when they were sent to
separate houses. The records which were later brought into court show
that at this time Marie was earning two hundred and fifty dollars a
week, all of which she gave to her employers. In spite of this large
monetary return she was often cruelly beaten, was made to do the
household scrubbing, and was, of course, never all
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