}?
AND 1T&
OF
SAMUEL 1 J^AYNTER Ws LSON
CHICAGO AND ITS CESS-
POOLS OF INFAMY
BY
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON
Author of "Chicago br Ga Lieht", "Wilson's Epitome
of Historical and Chronological Facto" and
"WiUon'i Concise Hiitorj."
DEDICATED
TO THE GOOD
MEN AND WOMEN OF THE WORLD
WITH THE HOPE THAT THE
VICIOUS MAY BECOME BETTER
MEN AND WOMEN
r
CHICAGO
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON
SIXTEENTH EDITION
MR. SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON.
Chicago, 111.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
I have read your book with great interest. It
tells the truth, though no book can tell all the
truth. You have been a great help to our com-
munity by the practical and useful service you
have rendered in the investigation of vice and
the bringing of those responsible for it to justice.
Our city is the better for your work.
I hope your book will do much good. If par-
ents but knew the dangers that confront their
boys and girls in our great cities, they would at
least take some ordinary precautions before turn-
ing children adrift amid these perils.
Very sincerely yours,
MORTON CULVER HARTZELL,
President of the Douglas Neighborhood Club.
Contents.
Pages
Dedication 3
Hartzell's Letter 4
Preface 7-11
Chicago 13-22
Chicago Society 23-34
The White Slave Traffic 35-58
Smashing the Traffic 59-74
Why Girls Go Astray 75-85
More About the Traffic in Shame 86-90
Crime in Chicago 91-103
The Police 105-119
The Lost Sisterhood 121-140
Chicago's Crowning Curse 141-148
Gambling Hells 149-160
Criminal Operations 161-163
Life Under the Shadows 165-173
The Pawnbrokers 175-184
Pacific Garden Mission 185-191
Churches 193-196
Concert Saloons and Damnation 197-201
Divorces 203-215
Tramp's Paradise 217-219
Theatres ..220-223
PREFACE
Chicago is to the West what New York is to
the East. It is not only the Great Metropolis of
the western: states, but is the chief attraction upon
this continent, the great center to which our peo-
ple resort for business, and pleasure, and as such,
is a source of never-failing interest.
This being the case, it is natural that every
American should desire to visit Chicago, to see
the city for himself, behold its beauties, its won-
derful sights, and participate in the pleasures
which are to be enjoyed only in the metropolis.
Thousands avail themselves of this privilege every
year ; but the great mass of our people know our
chief city only by the description of friends and
the brief accounts of its sights and scenes which
occur from time to time in the newspapers of the
day. Even those who visit the city bring away
but a superficial knowledge of it, as to know
Chicago requires months of constant study and
investigation. Strangers see only the surface;
PREFACE
they cannot penetrate into its inner life, and ex-
amine the countless influences at work every day
in shaping the destiny of the beautiful city. Few
even of the residents of the metropolis, have
either the time or means for such investigation.
Few have a correct idea of the terrible romance
and hard reality of the daily lives of a vast por-
tion of the dwellers in Chicago, or of the splen-
dors and luxury of the wealthier classes.
One of the chief characteristics of Chicago is
the rapidity with which changes occur in it.
Those who were familiar with the city in the past
will find it new to them now. The march of
progress and improvement presses on with giant
strides, and the city of today is widely separated
from that of a few years ago. Only one who
has devoted himself to watching its onward career,
in prosperity, and magnificence or in misery and
crime, can form any idea of the magnitude and
character of the wonderful changes of the past
twenty-five years.
The volume now offered to the reader aims to
be a faithful and graphic pen picture of Chicago
and its countless sights, its romance, its mysteries,
its nobler and better efforts in the cause of
8
PREFACE
humanity, its dark crimes, and terrible tragedies.
In short, the work endeavors to hold up to the
reader a faithful mirror in which shall pass all
the varied scenes that transpire in Chicago by
sunlight and by gaslight. To those who have
seen the great city, the work is offered as a means
of recalling some of the pleasantest experiences
of their lives; while to the still larger class who
have never enjoyed this pleasure, it is hoped that
it will be the medium of acquiring an intimate
acquaintance with Chicago in the quiet of their
homes.
This volume is not a work of fiction, but a nar-
rative of well authenticated, though often start-
ling facts. The darker sides of Chicago life are
shown in their true colors, and without any effort
to tone them down. Foul blots are to be found
upon the life of the great city. Sin, vice, crime
and shame are terrible realities there, and they
have been presented here as they actually exist.
Throughout the work, the aim of the author has
been to warn those who wish to see for themselves
the darker side of city life, of the danger attend-
ing such undertaking. A man who seeks the
haunts of vice and crime in Chicago takes his
PREFACE
life in his hand and exposes himself to dangers
of the most real kind while in quest of knowledge.
Enough is told in this volume to satisfy legiti-
mate curiosity, and to convince the reader that the
only path of safety in Chicago is to avoid all
places of doubtful repute. The city is bright and
beautiful enough to occupy one's time with its
wonderful sights and innocent pleasures. To ven-
ture under the shadows is to covet danger in all
its forms. No matter how ' ' Wise in his own con-
ceit" a stranger may be, he is but a child in the
hands of the disreputable classes of the great
city.
In the preparation of this work the author has
drawn freely upon his experiences, the result of
a long and intimate acquaintance with all the
various phases of Chicago life. He ventures to
hope that those who are familiar with the subject
will recognize the truthfulness of the statements
made and that the book may prove a source of
pleasure and profit to all who may honor it with
a perusal.
But to destroy the pitfalls, and to blot out
forever the vicious places that yawn for the
10
PREFACE
youths of our land, is the chief aim in spreading
in plain view the picture here presented.
The monsters may snort and foam, and clap
their chubby hands for a while, and laugh at the
destruction they have wrought, but we say to
them, the ship is not wrecked yet, and in the lull
of the storm, we bid our readers to be of good
cheer.
The publication of any book must deal largely
in facts and if in presenting these dreadful pic-
tures to the public they may be the means of sav-
ing some mother's boy or girl from the " brands
of eternal burning," we shall feel that we have
accomplished that which money cannot buy a
clear conscience.
SAMUEL PAYNTER WILSON.
11
CHICAGO
Twenty-five years in Chicago! What amazing
tragedies, and heart-rending scenes have been cast
to the winds in that quarter of a century ? Could
a departed spirit of the earlier days be trans-
ported to modern Chicago, the grand panorama
would amaze it, even though it be endowed with
universal wisdom.
Many historical landmarks have given way to
multitudinous mountains of brick and mortar.
Where once stood the "low grocery," now are
erected monuments of commerce. Vicious places,
where lips have touched wine sweetened by vile
and despicable men, are now splendid buildings,
churches, temples of learning and other great
structures.
The growth and development of Chicago is
without parallel, and without precedent. Its fu-
ture has been often prophesied, but not always
understood. When we undertake to trace the
causes that have led to its commercial supremacy,
13
CHICAGO
and those that are now operating to increase its
prosperity, we are met by singular and fatuous
circumstances, which it was impossible to foresee
and not easy to comprehend. One thing is, how-
ever, certain, that the anticipations of the most
sanguine have always been more than realized,
while the prognostications of the doubtful have
only been remembered for their fallacy.
The progressive growth of the city has been
often capricious, so far as locality is concerned,
but the important factor of topography has al-
ways asserted itself, in spite of all efforts to ig-
nore it in the interests of individual projects.
The people of Chicago represent every nation-
ality upon the Globe, and thus give to the city
the cosmopolitan character which is one of its
most prominent features. But no city on the con-
tinent is so thoroughly American as this. The na-
tive population is the ruling element, and makes
the great city what it is, whether for good or for
evil. The children and grandchildren of foreign-
ers soon lose their old world ideas and habits and
the third generation sees them as genuine and de-
voted Americans as any in the city.
The besetting sin of the foreign born citizen is
14
CHICAGO
their race for wealth ; the very struggle for exist-
ence is so eager and intense here, that the peo-
ple think little of public or religious affairs, and
leave their city government, with all its vast in-
terests, in the hands of a few politicians. They
pay dearly for this neglect of such important in-
terests. They are taxed and plundered by politi-
cal tricksters, and are forced to bear burdens
and submit to losses which could be avoided by
a more patriotic and sensible treatment of their
affairs.
The race for wealth is a very exciting one in the
great city. The interests at stake are so vast, the
competition so constant and close, that men are
compelled to be on the watch all the time, and
to work with rapidity and almost without rest.
Every nerve, every muscle, every power and fac-
ulty of body and mind, is taxed to the utmost
to discharge the duty of the day. Go into any
of the large establishments of the city during bus-
iness hours and you will be amazed at the cease-
less rush and push of clerks and customers. It is
one of unending drive. They cannot always stand
the strain upon them, and die off by the hundreds.
15
CHICAGO
at a time of life when they ought to be looking
forward to a hearty old age.
A gentleman once said to the writer of these
pages :
"I came to Chicago at the opening of the
World's Fair to seek employment. I came up the
Mississippi River as far as St. Louis, full of hope
and confidence. The trip up the river gave new
life to this feeling. I knew I was competent, and
I was resolved to succeed. I landed at one of the
nearby depots and taking up my valise started
up town. I turned into State Street, and as I
did so, found myself in a steady stream of human
beings, each hurrying by as if his life depended
upon his speed, taking no notice of his fellows,
pushing and jostling them, and each with a weary,
jaded, anxious look upon his face. As I gazed
at this mighty torrent I was dismayed, I got as
far as State and Madison Streets, and then I put
my valise upon the pavement, and leaning against
a convenient lamp-post, watched them as they
passed me by ; they came by hundreds, thousands,
all with eager, restless gait that I now know
so well ; all with the weary, anxious, careworn ex-
pression I have mentioned, as if trying to reach
16
CHICAGO
some distant goal within a given time. They
seemed to say to me, 'we would gladly stop if we
could, and rest by the way, but we must go on
and on and know no rest.' I asked myself what
chance have I here? Can I keep up with this
mighty, eager, restless throng, or will they pass
me, and leave me behind?" "Well," he added,
with a sad smile, "I have managed to keep up
with them, but I tell you it's a hard strain. We
are all living too fast; we are working too hard,
we grind, grind at our treadmills all day and we
grind too hard, we break down long before we
should, this haste, this furious pace at which we
are going, at business, at pleasure, at everything,
is the great curse of Chicago life. ' '
Now, my friend's opinion is shared in by hun-
dreds, thousands of the most sensible men of the
city, but they are powerless to save themselves
from the curse they know to be upon them. So
they must join the crowd, and rush on and on,
seeking the glittering prize of wealth and fame.
The common opinion that Chicago is the para-
dise for humbugs and tricksters is somewhat over-
drawn. These people do abound here, beyond a
doubt; but they are short-lived. They flourish
17
CHICAGO
today and are gone tomorow, they take no root,
and have no hold upon any genuine interests;
they attain no permanent success. It is only gen-
uine merit that succeeds in the great city. Men
are here subjected to a test that soon takes the
conceit out of them. They are taken for just
what they are worth, and no more, and he must
show himself a man indeed, who would take his
place among the princes of trade, or among the
leaders of thought and opinion. He may bring
with him from his distant home the brightest of
reputations, but here he will have to begin at the
very bottom of the ladder and mount upward
again. It is slow work, so slow that it tries every
quality of true manhood to its utmost.
It is said that Chicago is the wickedest city in
the country. It is the second largest, and vice
thrives and reigns supreme in crowded communi-
ties. How great this wickedness is we may see
in the subsequent portions of this work. If it i
the wickedest city, it is also one of the best on
the continent. If it contains thousands of the
worst men and women in our land, it contains
^H
also thousands of the brightest and best of Chris-
tians. In point of morality, it will compare favor-
18
CHICAGO
ably with any city in the world. It is unhappily
true that the devil's work is done here upon a
large scale; but so is the work of God upon an
even greater scale. If the city contains the gaudi-
est, the most alluring, and the vilest haunts of sin,
it also boasts of the noblest and grandest institu-
tions of religion, of charity, and virtue.
I have spoken of the energy of the people in
matters of business; they are, in all respects the
most enterprising in the Union. They are bold
and self-reliant; they take risks in business from
which others shrink, and carry their ventures
forward with a resolution and vigor that cannot
fail of success. It is this that has made Chicago
great; its people take a large, liberal view of
matters ; they are cosmopolitan in all things.
As a place of residence to those who have the
means to justify it, Chicago is a most delightful
city. Its attractions are many and it possesses a
peculiar charm, which all who have dwelt within
its borders feel.
To the dweller in Chicago, State Street is what
the Boulevards are to the Parisians. It is the
center of life, gayety and business; the great
artery through which flows the strong life-current
19
CHICAGO
of the metropolis. From the Chicago River to
Twelfth Street it is thronged with a busy crowd
of workers, restless pleasure-seekers, the good and
the bad, the grave and the gay, all hurrying on
in eager pursuit of the "show street" of the city,
and certainly no more wonderful sight can be
witnessed than this grand thoroughfare at high
noon. As night comes on the great hotels, restau-
rants and business emporiums, send out a blaze
of light, and are alive with visitors. The crowd
is out for pleasure at night, and many and varied
are the forms which the pursuit of it takes. Here
is a family father, mother and children out
for a stroll to see the sights they have witnessed
a hundred times, and which never grow dull;
there is a party of theatre-goers, bent on an even-
ing of innocent amusement; here is a "gang of
roughs," swaggering along the sidewalks, jost-
ling all who come within their way ; here a party
of young bloods, out on a lark, are drawing upon
themselves the keen glances of the stalwart police-
man, as he slowly follows them.
All sorts of people are out and the scene is*
enlivened beyond description. Moving rapidly
through the throng, sometimes in couples, some-
20
CHICAGO
times alone, and glancing swiftly and keenly at
the men they pass, are a number of flashily
dressed women, generally young and prepossess-
ing. One would never take them for respect-
able women, as they do not intend that you shall.
These are the most degraded of the "lost sister-
hood. ' ' The men of the city shun them ; their prey
is the stranger, and should they succeed in attract-
ing the attention of a victim they dart off down
the first side street, and wait for their dupes to
join them.
"Woe to the man who follows after one of these
creatures. The next step is to some of the low
dives which still occupy too many of the so-called
"hotels" in the business district or perchance to
the back room of some pretentious saloon, where
bad or drugged liquor steals away the senses of
the luckless victim, and robbery or even worse
violence, too often ends in the adventure. These
women have gone so far down into the depth of
sin, that they scruple at nothing which will bring
them money.
The throng fills the street until a late hour of
the night, then the theatres pour out their audi-
ences to join in, and for an hour or more the res-
CHICAGO
taurants and cafes are filled to their utmost ca-
pacity ; then as midnight comes on, the street be-
comes quieter and more deserted. The lights in
the buildings are extinguished, and gradually up-
per State Street becomes silent and deserted-
Chicago has gone to bed.
Chicago Society
Good and Bad.
Society in Chicago is made up of many parts,
a few of which we propose to examine.
The first class is unfortunately smallest, and
consists of those who set culture and personal
refinement above riches. It is made up of pro-
fessional men and their families, lawyers, clergy-
men, artists, authors, physicians, scientific men
and others of kindred pursuits and tastes. Com-
pared with the other classes, it is not wealthy,
though many of its members manage to attain
competency and ease. Their homes are tasteful
and often elegant, and the household graces are
cultivated in preference to display, the tone of
this class is pure, healthy and vigorous, and per-
sonal merit is the surest passport to it. It fur-
nishes the best types of manhood and woman-
hood to be met with in the metropolis and its
homelife is simple and attractive. In short, it may
23
CHICAGO
be said to be the saving element of society in the
city, and fortunately it is a growing element,
drawing to it every year new members, not only
from the city itself, but from all parts of the
country. It is this class which gives tone to the
moral and religious life of the city. Its members
are generally sufficiently well-off in this world's
goods to render them independent of the forms
to which others are slaves ; they are always ready
to recognize and lend a helping hand to struggling
merit, but sternly discountenance vulgarity and
imposture. They furnish the men and women who
do the best work and accomplish the greatest
results in social and business life and their names
are honored throughout the city.
The second class consists of those who have in-
herited large wealth for one or more generations
of ancestors. They are generally people of cul-
ture, nothing of shoddyism or snobbery about
them. Their houses are filled with valuable works
of art and mementoes. Having an abundance of
leisure they are free to cultivate the graces of
life, and they constitute one of the pleasantest
patrons of society in the city. The class is not
large, but it is constantly receiving new members
24
CHICAGO
in the children of men who have made their way
in the world, and have learned to value money at
its true worth. They make good citizens, with the
exception of an easy going indifference to politi-
cal affairs, are proud of their city and country,
and do not ape the airs or costumes of foreign
lands.
The third largest class, that which may be
said to give Chicago 's fashionable society its pecu-
liar tone, consists of the " newly rich." These
are so numerous, and make themselves so con-
spicuous, that they are naturally regarded as the
representative class of Chicago society. They
may be known by their coarse appearances, and
still coarser manners, their loud style and osten-
tatious display of wealth. Money with them is
everything, and they judge men, not by their
merits, but by their bank account. They are
strangers to the refinements and small, sweet cour-
tesies of life, and for them substitute a hauteur
and a dash that lay them open to unmerciful ridi-
cule. Some of them are without education or
polish, and look down upon those who are less
fortunate than themselves, and fawn with cring-
ing servility upon the more aristocratic portion of
25
CHICAGO
i
society. To be invited to an entertainment of
some family of solid repute in the fashionable
world, to be on visiting terms with those whose
wealth and culture rank them as the true aristoc-
racy, is the height of their ambition. This they
generally accomplish, for money is a passport to
all classes of Chicago society. The better elements
may laugh at the "newly rich," but they invite
them to their houses, entertain them, are enter-
tained in return, and so do their share in keeping
the "newly rich" firm in its position on the
Avenues and Lake Shore Drive.
The ' ' newly rich ' ' look down with supreme con-
tempt upon the institutions which have enabled
them to rise so high in the social scale. It is from
them one hears so many complaints of the degen-
eracy of society, and it is the frown from them
that chills the ambitious hopes of rising merit;
lacking personal dignity themselves, they ridicule
it in others.
Some strange changes of names are brought
about by a translation to the upper circles. Plain
John Smith becomes John Smythe, and perhaps
Smyythe. Sam Long, who began life by driving
a dray, is now Mr. Samuel Longue. A coat of
26
CHICAGO
arms suddenly makes its anpearace, for the estab-
lishment in the city which deals in such matters
is equal to any emergency, and often a pedigree
is manufactured in the same way.
A mansion on Lake Shore Drive or in any of the
more pretentious avenues, newly acquired wealth
is liberally expended in fitting up the new house ;
and then the fortunate owners of it suddenly burst
upon society as stars of first magnitude. They are
ill-adapted to their new position, it is true, rude
and unrefined, but they have wealth and are will-
ing to spend it, and money is supposed to carry
with it all the virtues and graces of fashionable
life. This is all society requires, and it receives
them with open arms, flatters and courts them,
and exalts them to the seventh heaven of fashion-
able bliss.
Lucky are they who can manage to retain the
positions thus acquired. It too often happens that
this suddenly gotten wealth goes as rapidly as it
came. Then the star begins to pale and finally
the family drops out of the fashionable world. It
is not missed, however; new stars take their
places, perhaps to share the same fate, thus this
class of society is not permanent as regards its
27
CHICAGO
members. It is constantly changing. People come
and go, and the leaders of one season may be con-
spicuous the next only by their absence.
Sometimes even this class of society takes a
notion to be exclusive, and then it is hard to enter
the charmed circle.
Some years ago, a gentleman, a man of brains
and sterling merit, who had risen slowly to fortune
feeling himself in every way fitted for social dis-
tinction, resolved to enter society, and to signalize
his entree by a grand entertainment. At that
time he lived in a not very fashionable street, but
he did not regard this as a drawback. He issued
his invitations and prepared his entertainment
upon a scale of unusual magnificence, and at the
appointed time his mansion was ablaze with light,
and ready for the guests. Great was his mortifi-
cation, not one of those invited set foot within
his doors. In his anger he swore a mighty oath
that he would yet compel Chicago society to hum-
ble itself to him. He kept his word, became one
of the wealthiest men in the city, indeed one of
the merchant princes of the land, and in the
course of a few years, society, which had scorned
his first invitations, was begging for admission to
28
CHICAGO
his sumptuous fetes. He became a leader of so-
ciety, and his mandates were humbly obeyed by
those who had presumed to look down upon him.
It was a characteristic triumph; his millions did
the work.
Poverty is always a misfortune. Chicago brands
it as a crime ; consequently no poor man, or even
one of moderate means, can hold a place in Chi-
cago society. Indeed it would be impossible for
any one not possessed of great wealth to maintain
a position in what is termed "high-toned" society
here. To do this it requires an almost fabulous
outlay of money. As money opens the doors of
the charmed circle, so money must keep one with-
in it. Thus Chicago (as in most large cities) has
become the most extravagant in the world. In
few cities on the globe are such immense sums
spent.
Extravagance is the besetting sin of metropoli-
tan social life. Immense sums are expended an-
nually in furnishing the aristocratic mansions, in
dress, in entertainments, and all sorts of folly
and dissipation. It is no uncommon thing for a
house and its contents to be heavily mortgaged
to provide the means of keeping its occupants in
29
CHICAGO
proper style. The pawnbrokers drive a thriving
trade with the ladies of position who pledge
jewels, costly dresses, and other articles of femin-
ine luxury, to raise the money for some functional
folly. Each member of society strives to outshine
or outdress, his or her acquaintances, and to do so
requires a continual struggle and a continual
drain upon the bank account. Men have been led
to madness and even suicide and women to sin and
shame, by this constant race for social distinction,
but the mad round of extravagances and folly
goes on and on, the new comers failing to profit
by the sad experiences of those who have gone
before them.
The love of dress is a characteristic of the Chi-
cago woman of fashion. To be the best dressed
woman at a ball, the opera, a dinner, or on the
street, is the height of her ambition. To outshine
all other women in the splendor of her attire or
her jewels, is to render her supremely happy.
Dresses are ordered without regard to cost, and
other articles of luxury are purchased in propor-
tion.
Now this is well enough for those who can af-
ford it, but the majority of the Chicago fashion-
CHICAGO
ables cannot stand the strain long. As we have
said, their great wealth melts steadily under such
demands upon it, until there is nothing left but
bankruptcy and ruin and of the eternal grind.
From time to time the business community is
startled by the failure, perhaps the suicide of
some normally well-to-do merchant or banker.
The affair creates a brief sensation and is soon for-
gotten. The cause is well known, "living beyond
his means," or ''ruined by his family's extrava-
gance." Men suffer the tortures of the damned
in their efforts to maintain their commercial stand-
ing, and at the same time to provide their families
with the means of keeping their place in society.
They are driven to forgery, defalcation, and other
crimes, yet they do not achieve their object. Ruin
lays its heavy hand upon them and the game is
played out.
As for Madame, she must have money. The
husband may not be able to furnish it, and there
may be a limit even to the pawnbroker's generos-
ity; but money she must have. Fashionable life
affords her the means. She sells her honor for
filthy lucre; she finds a lover with a free purse,
and willing to pay for the favors. She acts with
31
CHICAGO
her eyes open, and sins deliberately, and from the
basest of motives. She wants money and she gets
it. Sometimes the intrigue runs on without de-
tection and Madame shifts from lover to lover,
according to her needs. Again there is an un-
expected discovery; an explosion follows.
Madame 's fine reputation goes to the winds, and
there is a gap in society.
No wonder so many fashionable women look
jaded, have an anxious, half-startled expression,
and seem weary. They are living in a state of
dread lest their secrets be discovered and the in-
evitable ruin overtake them.
Some strange things happen at these fashion-
able gatherings. Let your memories run back to
the early eighties and you will recall an incident
of a robbery in the very midst of festivities. In
most instances the articles taken are of value
that can be easily secreted, the criminal as a rule,
is no vulgar thief, but is one of society's privi-
leged and envied members. The papers of that
date recorded the following :
"In the dingy back room of a renowned detec-
tive was the scene of an impressive spectacle sev-
eral weeks ago. In the presence of the gentlemen,
32
CHICAGO
one a well known detective, the other a promi-
nent merchant knelt a fashionably dressed man
of middle age, confessing a shameful story of
crime, and imploring mercy.
"I admit all," he cried. "I stole the property,
but I cannot restore it, I was driven to the deed
in order to maintain my position in society. My
means had largely left me, and I could not resist
temptation."
"This statement fell like a thunderbolt upon
the merchant, who had known the speaker long
and favorably. To the detective, however, it was
not at all unexpected, as he had already satisfied
himself as to the guilt of the man. The stealing
which was here confessed was one of those crimes
in higher circles of society."
Only a decade has elapsed since the family of
a well-known lawyer living on a prominent Ave-
nue, gave a social entertainment to which per-
sons of high standing in society were invited.
The following morning it was discovered that
rings, watches and jewelry worth several hundred
dollars was missing. The most careful search and
close examination of servants forced the conclu-
sion upon the family that the robbery had been
tt
CHICAGO
committed by some one of the guests, although
this seemed incredible, as every name upon the
list of those present seemed to forbid the thought
of suspicion. The affair was put into the hands of
private detectives, who were unable, however, to
obtain the slightest clew to the thief of the prop-
erty.
Yet it is not the professional thieves that those
who get up fashionable entertainments chiefly
fear. The most dangerous class, because the most
numerous, are included among the invited guests
and are called, when detected, kleptomaniacs.
The
White Slave Traffic
The revelations made by investigators should be
given as wide a currency as possible. The extent
of the White Slave traffic and the machinery by
which it is maintained, should be brought home,
not only to the officials sworn to deal with crime,
but to parents sworn under higher law to guard
their young.
Thousands of girls from the country are eii-
trapped each year, and the pitiful fact is that the
parents of a large majority of these unfortunates
are unaware of their fate. As a consequence of
this state of public ignorance, the traffic proceeds
unchecked, save by the efforts of persons willing
to give time and money for the procuring of evi-
dence and prosecuting the offenders.
What is greatly needed as a supplement to vig-
orous prosecution of offenders is a campaign of
education. Writers, clergymen and officials should
35
CHICAGO
take up this appalling evil and instruct parents as
to the reality and extent of the danger. In small
towns there is virtually no knowledge of this ter-
ribly increasing traffic of buying and selling and
securing girls for houses of prostitution.
The problem is enormous, but by educational
means it can be largely solved. The responsibil-
ity for a broad and systematic campaign of en-
lightenment rests chiefly with the parents, who
should become enlightened upon the subject by
reading and inquiry, and then instruct their chil-
dren upon the educational lines to the end that
they may know the sad realities and gravity of
the evil and its conditions.
The vampires who deal in human bodies must
and will be punished. These wretches, who, for
a few dollars, will dig so low down in the quag-
mire of rottenness must be sent to prison. If
fathers and mothers could be brught to a realiza-
tion that thousands of young and tender girls
are being sold to vultures for immoral purposes,
they would raise a wave of indignation that
would sweep around the world.
It is notable, and a commendable fact that the
government, through its agents and courts, is ac-
36
CHICAGO
eomplishing results that will, it is hoped, forever
crush this awful business, and drive the keepers
of these cess-pools of vice and shame into the sea
of everlasting ignomy.
The sole aim in writing upon the White Slave
subject is to definitely call the attention of the
men and women of the United States, and espe-
cially those of the larger cities, to the vicious, and
thoroughly organized white slave traffic of today,
and <ts attendant, far-reaching, horrible results
upon the young man and womanhood of our land.
During a constant investigation, covering several
years' time in the central slum districts of Chi-
cago, I have gained much actual knowledge of the
questions of poverty, drink and prostitution
among the lost men and women of this great city.
Have become personally acquainted with very
many of them, visiting them, listening to their
heart stories and growing to know much of their
inside lives and have learned a real tender inter-
est and pity for them in their remorseful, help-
less, hopeless conditoin. Statistical references
have been taken from the writings of United
States District Attorney Sims, Ernest A. Bell,
Judge John R. Newcomer, Clifford G. Roe and
37
OHICAGO
others engaged in prosecuting and reform work,
all of whom I thank earnestly and wish well in
what they are accomplishing for good where it is
so desperately needed in this submerged under-
world of our city.
After these years of experience, and after hav-
ing visited in various capacities, disguised, etc.,
many of the worst haunts of vice and houses of
prostitution in Chicago, I personally came to this
conclusion : There is small chance for a girl, once
having been sold into or entered upon a life of
prostitution, to ever escape therefrom. Invariably
she is kept in debt to her masters, excessive bills
for parlor clothes, board, dentistry, laundry and
all conceivable expenses are kept charged up
against her. She is under constant threat of per-
sonal violence and blackmail in every form (her
owners securing, whenever possible, some knowl-
edge of her home and friends and continually
holding this knowledge as a dagger over her),
and then there are the ever-present whoremasters
and madams with drugs and drinks and bolts and
bars, guarding every possible avenue of escape
with blows and curses and brutality beyond con-
ception. Very few young girls enter a life of
38
CHICAGO
prostitution voluntarily, and few, once entering,
ever escape.
The recent examination of more than two hun-
dred "white slaves" by the office of the United
States District Attorney of Chicago has brought
to light the fact that literally thousands of inno-
cent girls from the country districts are every
year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and
degredation because parents in the country do
not understand conditions as they exist and how
to protect their daughters from the ' ' white slave ' '
traders who have reduced the art of ruining young
girls to a national and international system. I
sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the parents
of these thousands of girls who are every year
snatched from lives of decency and comparative
peace and dragged under the slime of an existence
in the "white slave" world have no idea that
there is really a trade in the ruin of girls as much
as there is trade in cattle or sheep or the other
products of the farm. If these parents had known
the real conditions, had believed that there is
actually a syndicate which does as regular, as
steady and persistent a "business" in the ruina-
tion of girls as the great packing houses do in the
39
CHICAGO
sale of meats, it is wholly probable that their
daughters would not now be in dens of vice and
almost utterly without hope of release excepting
by the hand of death.
It is only necessary to say that the legal evi-
dence thus far collected establishes with complete
moral certainty these awful facts : That the white
slave traffic is a system a syndicate which has its
ramifications from the Atlantic seaboard to the
Pacific ocean, with "clearing houses" or "dis-
tributing centers ' ' in nearly all the larger cities ;
that in this ghastly traffic the buying price of a
young girl is $15.00 and that the selling price is
generally about $200.00 if the girl is especially
attractive, the white slave dealer may be able to
sell her for $400.00 or $600.00; that this syndicate
did not make less than $200,000 last year in this
almost unthinkable commerce ; that it is a definite
organization sending its hunters regularly to scour
France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Canada for
victims ; that the man at the head of this unthink-
able enterprise is known among his hunters as
"The Big Chief."
" Judge John R. Newcomer of Chicago, said
40
CHICAGO
before the National Purity Congress at Battle
Creek, Michigan:
"Within one week I had seven different letters
from fathers, from Madison, Wisconsin, on the
north, to Peoria, Illinois, on the south, asking me
in God's name to do something to help them find
their daughters, because they had come to Chicago
and they had never heard from them afterward.
"If you mean by the 'white slave' traffic the
placing of young girls in a brothel for a price, it
is undoubtedly a real fact, based upon statements
that have been made in my court during the past
three months by defendants, both men and wom-
en, who have pleaded guilty to that crime, and in
a sense it is both interstate and international.
"Not one, but many shipments, of which I have
personal knowledge, based upon testimony of peo-
ple who have pleaded guilty, many shipments
come from Paris and other European cities to New
York ; and from New York to Chicago and other
western points; and from Chicago as a distribut-
ing point to the West and Southwest ; arid on the
western coast coming into San Francisco and
other ports there. No, it is a real fact ; and it is
something that we have got to take notice of, and
41
CHICAGO
something that, while it may have been developed
largely during the past ten years, the national
government itself has recently taken notice of its
existence. ' '
Mr. Clifford G. Roe, formerly Assistant State's
Attorney, who has prosecuted very many cases
against the traffickers in women, said before the
union meeting of ministers called to consider the
white slave traffic, at the auditorium of the Young
Men's Christian Association, February 10, 1908:
"A great many persons are yet skeptical of
the existence of an organized traffic in girls. They
seem to think that those advocating the abolition
of this trade are either fanatics or notoriety seek-
ers. They doubt the truth of the impossibility of
escape and content themselves with the thought
that girls use the plea of slavery to right them-
selves with their parents and friends when their
cases are made public.
"However, if these same people could have
been in the courts of Chicago during the past year
their minds would be disabused of the idea that
slavery does not exist in Chicago.
"The startling disclosures made in nearly a
hundred cases ought to arouse not only the citi-
42
CHICAGO
zens of Chicago, but the whole country to the
highest pitch of indignation."
Chicago's Soul Market.
"0, he keeps a bunch of 'fillies' in the shanty
down near the corner of Monroe and Peoria
streets, and they're not foreigners, either. They're
your nice American girls. No wonder he can make
a bet like that on a mere chance, from a roll of
yellow-backs." The speaker was a madam of a
Peoria street resort, the listeners a motley crowd
of women gathered in the rear room of a popular
saloon and gambling house not far from the cor-
ner of Green and Madison streets on the seething,
congested west side of Chicago. These women
assembled in that screened back room to risk their
hard-earned or evil-gotten money on the horses of
the Louisville race track.
There sat the little eighteen-year-old, brown-
eyed milliner, her dissipated face hollow and
drawn from worry and lack of sleep and an insuf-
ficient quantity of nourishing food, while near her
a white-haired old woman in shabby black was
tightly grasping two quarters, her entire worldly
43
GHICAGO
possession. Just across sat a well-dressed woman
restaurant keeper, a young Eastern Star, and half
a hundred others, above all of whom shone the
yellow-haired madam of the Peoria street resort,
the star patron of that great gambling room for
women, each one of whom was eagerly beckoning
the well-groomed bookmaker, feverishly anxious
to get her pittance on the race track favorite,
when a connecting door was pushed suddenly
open and in rushed a fashionably-dressed, brutal-
faced young Russian Jew, holding loosely an im-
mense roll of money. Tens, twenties, hundreds
he came with them until three hundred dollars
had been placed to win upon a ''docker's tip" in
that day's last race in Louisville.
There was a grim, deadly silence, eating, un-
bearable silence in that gambling room as they
waited the ring of the telephone and the name of
the winner. Again the yellow-haired madam's
voice screamed shrilly out, for she was indeed ill
at ease, her money, was on the favorite "Yes, a
bunch of American 'fillies' peddled out at fifty
cents an hour to all comers, black and white, sick
or sound. No wonder he can make a play like
that on an outside chance."
CHICAGO
Three hundred dollars! My heart stood still
almost. The thought flashed through my brain
that that wager meant hundreds of hours of shame
and slavery and horror to those girls in the shan-
ties down on Peoria Street, some mother's girl,
every one of them. I sat still for a little while
and watched the fevered, anxious throng about
me. My heart kept going faster and faster until
I could bear it no longer. American "fillies" and
body and soul under a brutal Russian Jewish
whoremonger! I slipped quietly out into the
street; night was coming on as I walked down
Madison street and south on Peoria. Yes, there
were the shanties poor, wretched hovels, every
one of them. Out shone the flickering red lights,
out came the discordant, rasping sound of the
rented piano, out belched the shrieks of drunken
harlots, mingled with the groans and curses of
task-masters in a foreign tongue, attracting the
attention of the hundreds of laborers, negroes and
boys, as they walked home on Peoria street from
their day's work. On I went until I came to the
little shed just north of the slum saloon occupied
by one S , and checking my steps I looked
around me on the squalid, wretched scene. I was
45
CHICAGO
in the midst of prostitution at its lowest the
heart-breaking dregs of Chicago's twenty-two
thousand public women. Yes, there they were
the fair young American girl, the stolid Russian
Jewess, the middle-aged, syphilitic harlot, living,
prostituting, dying, like so many hurt, broken
moths around that great Red Light Chicago's
west side soul market their poor, wretched
bodies, sold day and night at from twenty-five to
fifty cents an hour to all comers who could pay
the pitiful price demanded by their brutal, soul-
less masters; and as I looked the burning fire of
intense pity entered my soul for these drug and
drink-sodden, diseased, chained slaves my sisters
in Christ in this great free American Republic
and so with a heart full of consuming desire to
know more of the real lives of these scarlet women
and to help them, if possible, I began at once a
thorough personal investigation of Chicago's
public slave market, visiting these people in vari-
ous capacities whenever occasion offered ; talking
with them, gaming their much-abused confidence
until I gradually learned the inside lines of the
saddest story America has ever known since the
black mothers of our Southland were torn from
46
CHICAGO
their black and white babies and with shrieks of
agony and heartstrings bleeding and souls rent
with blackened horror were sold to death on the
plantations of Louisiana and Mississippi, and I
want to tell you who read this and who think
there is little truth in the now much agitated
question of white slavery in America, that in the
dives and dens of our city's underworld I have
heard shrieks and heart cries and groans of agony
and remorse that have never been surpassed at
any public slave auction America has ever wit-
nessed, as these girls, many of them, oh ! so young,
realizing their awful fate with scalding tears and
moans of horror, shut out from their hearts and
lives father or mother, or husband and child and
turned their sob-shaken, tortured bodies to face
the months or years of final, relentless wretched-
ness and woe, to be at last thrown out sick and
broken to die in some alley or be carted off to
Dunning poor-house to gradual physical decay and
a pauper's burial, and grave and obliteration,
while those who sold them just a few years before
go out in their diamonds and fine linen and their
great automobiles to buy up more girls (it might
be your daughter father, mother or it might be
47
CHICAGO
mine) to fill up the vacancy in the ranks of this
vast army of white slaves. A woman said to me
the other day, and it was a lofty, sneering tone,
too : "I doubt if these women are ever coerced or
even imposed upon.'* Listen! read, then listen!
Sitting in my office one afternoon, I listened, my
blood almost freezing, to the following story,
vouched for by Mr. C , an immigration inspec-
tor and brother of a well-known Chicago reform-
worker, and here it is as he told it to me : ' ' One
evening some time ago I was looking up a case
down in the Twenty-second street red-light dis-
trict, and visited and inspected, looking for immi-
grant girls held illegally at a certain house of the
lower class in that neighborhood of prostitution.
While in the house I noticed a young woman lying
very ill (in the last stages of consumption, if I
remember the story exactly) and in a semi-con-
scious condition, and to my horror upon inquiry I
learned that in the rush hours of business this
helpless, painracked young woman was open to all
comers holding an accredited room check." My
friends, there are true stories heard and known
every day around the city's seething, blood-red
soul market that cannot be put in print stories
CHICAGO
though, that, were they to become known, would
make decent Chicago rise as one man and cry
with a voice outspeaking Fort Sumpter, "White
Slavery in Chicago and America must cease!"
During my years of study of this question of
prostitution I learned to know personally many of
the characteristic white slaves of the west and
south side "levees." One "Alice" I shall never,
never forget. Beautiful, aside from her dissipa-
tion, a high-school graduate, grammar and syntax
perfect, manner exquisite, "Alice," seduced at
eighten, was at the age of twenty-one away down
the line in the west side levee underworld. I used
to talk many times with Alice as she sat in the
back parlor of the "house" on Peoria street that
gave her shelter, awaiting her call of "next" to
go "upstairs" with whatsoever negro, white or
Chinese might buy possession for one dollar (one
of o.ur dollars of the Republic on which is eter-
nally stamped the blessed words, "In God we
trust") of her beautiful body for one hour. Smok-
ing, always smoking her doped Turkish cigarette,
Alice told me much of her life, both in years gone
forever and of a daily "levee" existence. She
void me of a father and mother and a beautiful
49
CHICAGO
home, of a lover who came into it and led her
away by night into "levee" slavery of awful
disgrace and inheritance, of a little baby that
she only know one hour, of hours of insane re-
morse and anguish, until at last she would stand
and scream and scream with mental pain until
some whoremonger knocked her senseless, and
then she told me how she would crawl away to a
nearby shanty saloon and drink herself helpless,
to forget. As far as I know, Alice is still on Peo-
ria street, and oh, men and women, there are
twenty-two thousand of these "Alices," your sis-
ters and mine, in Chicago's great blasting soul
market today. United States Attorney Sims puts
the average life of a prostitute at ten years or less,
while other excellent authorities as low as five
years, as these women must constantly drink any
and all drinks purchased for them (as much of
the business revenue is from the sale of these
drinks) by visitors, thus forcing them at all times
into a continuel half-drunken condition, render-
ing them helpless to control or resist the abnor-
mal, sickening, mind and body-wrecking demands
made upon them. Very few women live therein an
average more than three, four or six years, and at
50
CHICAGO
the end of that time twenty-two thousand pure
young girls gathered from prairie homes and vil-
lage firesides and from our own suburban and city
families must march out in this great soul market
to take the place of the broken wretches whose
decaying bodies are cast into the refuse of our
alleys and sewers to become the menace of every
girl and boy and drunken man who comes within
their clutches or sets foot within their alley hovels.
The End of the Way.
At about ten o'clock on Saturday evening,
September 19th, I boarded a West Madison street
car and, transferring north at Halsted street,
alighted at Lake and walked west to L ^-'s sa-
loon. I discovered in the wine and back rooms of
the wretched place a crowd of perhaps fifty drun-
ken, dirty men and women, young white girls,
huddled in with the worst mob of negroes, whites
and Chinese I have seen in Chicago's slums, all
cursing, drinking, singing and blaspheming in
plain view and hearing of the street. I stopped a
moment to make sure I was making no mistake ra
what I saw and then crossed the street to inter-
51
CHICAGO
view the dark-eyed little foreigner who at its door
was boldly soliciting trade for the saloon and its
adjacent evils just opposite. I walked down to
Peoria and south on that notorious street. In the
row of houses running from Lake to Randolph
street there are approximately 300 white slaves,
and diseased, crippled prostitutes of the lowest
class, dumped from the city 's cleaner dives. And
on that night it was almost impossible to push
one's way through the mass of men and boys
whites, negroes, Turks and Pollocks, gathered in
front of these public abominations. At the corner
of Randolph and Peoria streets several earnest
looking men and women were holding a little gos-
pel street meeting, and stopping with them, I
counted during the thirty minutes I stayed there,
six hundred and forty (approximately) men and
boys stop in front of or enter this horrible flesh
market. As I left the scene a young girl in a
drunken, filthy condition, slipped out of an alley
and followed me, asking me to help her, and as
we sat on the steps of Saints Peter and Paul Ca-
thedral, corner of Washington boulevard and Peo-
ria street, she told me the worst, heart-breaking
story of wrong and vice and ruin I have ever lis-
CHICAGO
tened to. As I left that West Side levee of vice I
knew I had seen prostitution at its lowest ebb
and that out from these holes of horror finally went
those awful alley women of the night to sell their
souls to any young boy or drunken man who
could give them a few cents or even the price of a
drink of whiskey.
This girl was turned over to the Chicago Rescue
Mission, cleaned and clothed and fed and pointed
to Jesus Christ. Her story was investigated and
found true and after receiving medical attention
she was quietly returned to her country home.
Mr. J. J. Sloan, when he was superintendent
of the John Worthy School (which is the local
municipal juvenile reformatory), reported that
one-third of the street boys sent to him were suf-
fering from the loathsome diseases and distempers
of the red-light district, nor is this to be wondered
at when we consider the fact that sexual com-
merce may be purchased almost anywhere in the
South State street and West Side alleys for the
remarkably low price of ten cents, or even a glass
of beer or whisky from the gonorrheal and syphil-
itic denizens thrown out long ago from the better
class houses of prostitution to live off the half
CHICAGO
drunken men and young boys to be found in
swarms along South State, Halsted and South
Clark streets. Almost invariably the street boy
hunting these underworld sections of our city is
first led into sexual sin by one of the crippled,
half rotten, yet painted vampires of the street
whose only care or hope is a crust of free lunch
and enough whisky or "dope" to drown for a
time at least, the last throb of heart and con-
science and keep life a few days longer within her
wretched body, and the boy, having purchased
for the email fee his own destruction, trails out
again into the night and on into disease and crime
and prison, and finally death.
The average parent of today has little idea of
the temptations which constantly surround and
beset the growing boy. I recall a case in Des
Moines, Iowa, where a little degenerate girl of six-
teen, caused the moral, and in several cases physi-
cal, ruin of five young boys, all this happening in
an exclusive east side neighborhood and under
the watchful care of honest parents and friends,
so what must be the temptation thrown out to
the young boys of our city when through block
after block of our certain districts they must
54
CHICAGO
come in direct contact with those whose only mis-
sion is to ruin and debauch. It should be the di-
rect object morally and politically, of every father
and mother in this city to banish these human
parasites these leeches who suck the life blood
of our boys from Chicago 's streets.
Listen, father, mother, there are twenty-two
thousand poor, dearly-beloved young girls grow-
ing up in our midst today who within five years
must, under the present business system of white
slavery, put aside father, mother, home, friends
and honor and march into Chicago 's ghastly flesh
market to take the place of the twenty-two thous-
and helpless, hopeless, decaying chatties who now
daily behind bolts and bars and steel screens,
satisfy the abominable lust of (approximately)
two hundred and ten thousand brutal, drunken
adulterers.
I believe, as I write, that the final solving of
this reeking, hideous question lies in the moral and
Christian teaching and protection of the growing
girls of our land. I believe in a rigidly enforced
law that keeps girls under legal age and unat-
tended off the down-town streets at night after a
reasonable hour. Harry Balding, the convicted
55
CHICAGO
white slaver, in his confession before Judge New-
comer and Assistant State's Attorney Roe, says:
"We would be sent out by resort keepers to work
up some girls, for whom we were paid from $10
to $50 each, though the cash bonus was much
more. The majority of them were girls we met on
the street. We would go around to the penny
arcades and nickle theatres and when we saw a
couple of young girls we would go up and talk
with them. I will say this for myself I never
took a girl away from her home ; the girls I took
down there I met in the stores or on the streets. ' '
There is a league of masonry worldwide that
makes it possible for a mason anywhere in trouble
or distress, to raise his hand toward the heavens
with a certain sign and if there be a brother
mason within reach, that brother, no matter of
what nationality, kindred or tongue, is sworn to
give him all needed protection. Listen, father,
mother, sister, listen brother! Today from be-
neath Chicago's awful moral sewerage which has
sucked their hearts and souls and bodies under, a
thousand trembling hands are held up to high
heaven, and to you for help, hands reeking with
the blood on which some whoremonger has fat-
56
CHICAGO
tened; the hands though of your sisters and of
mine, and I believe that here in Chicago, the
greatest market for white slaves on the continent,
should be formed a league that would become
worldwide, of earnest, law-abiding men and wom-
en whose efforts united with those of the proper
police, municipal and Federal authorities, would
make it practically impossible for a girl to be
sold into or compelled to lead an immoral life,
and through whose influence such open public
flesh markets as our "red light" and levee dis-
trict would be banished forever from Chicago
streets. I believe in helping, God knows, with
heart and hand and money, every fallen woman
in our land whom there is the slightest chance to
help in any way, but I believe first of all in. using
every known measure to keep our girls from fall-
ing. You and I live beneath the only flag in all
the world that has never known defeat, and the
very basic principle upon which that flag is build-
ed is human liberty and human protection, and so
by personal work, .by song, prayer and by the
power of the cross let us set ourselves to help
these helpless ones in our midst until the angels
shall take up the story of shame and bitterness
in
CHICAGO
and wrong and bear to all the world and to
heaven itself the swift acknowledgement that you
are your brother's keeper.
Smashing The Traffic
There are some things so far removed from the
lives of normal, decent people as to be simply un-
believable by them. The "white slave" trade of
today is one of these incredible things. The calm-
est, simplest statements of its facts are almost
beyond the comprehension or belief of men and
women who are mercifully spared from contact
with the dark and hideous secrets of "the under
world" of the big cities.
You would hardly credit the statement, for ex-
ample, that things are being done every day in
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large
cities of this country in the white slave traffic
which would, by contrast, make the Congo slave
traders of the old days appear like Good Sama-
ritans. Yet this figure is almost a literal truth.
The man of the stone age who clubbed a woman
; of his desire into insensibility or submission was
little short of a high-minded gentleman when con-
trasted with the men who fatten upon the "white
59
CHICAGO
slave" traffic in this day of social settlements, of
forward movements, of Y. M. C. A. and Christian
Endeavor activities, of air ships and wireless
telegraphy.
Naturally, Wisely, every parent who reads this
statement will at once raise the question: "What
excuse is there for the open discussion of such a
revolting condition of things in the pages of a
Household magazine? What good is there to be
served by flaunting so dark and disgusting a sub-
ject before the family circle?"
Only one and that is a reason and not an ex-
cuse ! The recent examination of more than two
hundred ' ' white slaves ' ' by the office of the United
States district attorney at Chicago has brought to
light the fact that literally thousands of innocent
girls from the country districts are every year
entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and de-
gradation because parents in the country do not
understand conditions as they exist and how to
protect their daughters from the "white slave"
traders who have reduced the art of ruining
young girls to a national and international sys-
tem. I sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the
parents of these thousands of girls who are every
60
CHICAGO
year snatched from lives of decency and compara-
tive peace and dragged under the slime of exist-
ence in the " white slave world" have no idea that
there is really a trade in the ruin of girls as much
as there is a trade in cattle or sheep or the other
products of the farm. If these parents had known
the real conditions, had believed that there is
actually a syndicate which does as regular, as
steady and persistent a "business" in the ruina-
tion of girls as the great packing houses do in the
sale of meats, it is wholly probable that their
daughters would not now be in dens of vice and
almost utterly without hope or release excepting
by the hand of death.
The purpose of all our laws and statutes against
crime is the suppression of crime. The protection
of the people, of the home, of the individual, is the
purpose which inspires the honest and conscien-
tious prosecutor. This is what the law is for,
and if this result of protection to individuals and
home can be made more effective and more gen-
eral by a statement such as this, then I am willing
to make it for the public good. And the most
direct and unadorned statement of facts will, I
think, carry its own conviction and make every-
CHICAGO
thing like "preaching" or denunciation super-
fluous.
The evidence obtained from questioning some
250 girls taken in Chicago houses of ill repute
leads me to believe that not fewer than fifteen
thousand girls have been imported into this coun-
try in the last year as white slaves. Of course this
is only a guess an approximate it could be
nothing else but my own personal belief is that
it is a conservative guess and well within the facts
as to numbers. Then please remember that girls
imported are certainly but a mere fraction of the
number recruited for the army of prostitution
from home fields, from the cities, the towns, the
villages of our own country. There is no possible
escape from this conclusion.
Another significant fact brought out by the
examination of these girls is that practically every
one who admitted having parents living begged
that her real name be withheld from the public
because of the sorrow and shame it would bring
to her parents. One said : ' ' My mother thinks I
am studying in a stenographic school " another
stated, "My parents in the country think I have
a good position in a department store as I did
62
CHICAGO
have for a time, and I 've sent them a little money
from time to time; I don't care what happens so
long as they don ? t know the truth about me. ' ' In
a word, the one concern of nearly all those ex-
amined who have homes in this country was that
their parents and in particular their mothers
might discover, through the prosecution of the
"white slavers," that they were leading lives of
shame instead of working at the honorable call-
ings which they had left their homes and come to
the city to pursue. There are, to put it mildly,
hundreds yes, thousands of trusting mothers in
the smaller cities, the towns, villages and farming
communities of the United States who believe
that their daughters are "getting on fine" in the
city, and too busy to come home for a visit or ' ' to
write much," while the fact is that these daugh-
ters have been swept into the gulf of white slav-
ery the worst doom that can befall a woman.
The mother who has allowed her girl to go to the
big city and work should find out what kind of
life that girl is living and find out from some
other source than the girl herself. No matter how
good and fine a girl she has been at home and how
complete the confidence she has always inspired,
63
CHICAGO
find out how she is living, what kind of associa-
tions she is keeping. Take nothing for granted.
You owe it to yourself and to her and it is not dis-
loyalty to go beyond her own words for evidence
that the wolves of the city have not dragged her
from safe paths. It is, instead, the highest form
of loyalty to her.
Again, there is, in another particular, a remark-
able and impressive sameness in the stories re-
lated by these wretched girls. In the narratives
of nearly all of them is a passage describing how
some man of their acquaintance had offered to
"help" them to a good position in the city, to
"look after" them, and to "take an interest" in
them. After listening to this confession from one
girl after another, hour after hour, until you have
heard it repeated perhaps fifty times, you feel like
saying to every mother in the country: Do not
trust any man who pretends to take an interest
in your girl if that interest involves her leaving
your own roof. Keep her with you. She is far
safer in the country than in the big city, but if,
go to the city she must, then go with her your-
self; if that is impossible, place her with some
woman who is your friend, not hers ; no girl can
64
CHICAGO
safely go to a great city to make her own way
who is not under the eye of a trustworthy woman
who knows the ways and dangers of city life.
Above all, distrust the ''protection," the "good
offices" of any man who is not a family friend
known to be clean and honorable and above all
suspicion.
Of course all the examinations to which I have
referred have been conducted for the specific pur-
pose of finding girls who have been brought into
this country from other lands in defiance of the
federal statute, passed by Congress February 20,
1907. This act declares that any person who shall
"keep, maintain, support or harbor" any alien
woman for immoral purposes within three years
after her arrival in this country shall be guilty of
a misdemeanor and shall be liable to a fine of
$5,000 and imprisonment for five years at the dis-
cretion of the court. When the department of
justice at Washington decided that this law was
being violated, the United States district attorney
at Chicago was instructed to take such action as
was necessary to apprehend the violators of the
act and convict them. One of the first steps re-
quired was the raiding of the various dives and
65
CHICAGO
houses of ill fame and the arrest of the girl in-
mates as well as the arrest of the keepers and the
procurers of the white slaves.
"While the federal prosecution is officially con-
cerned only with those cases involving the impor-
tation of girls from other countries there being
no authority under the present national statutes
for the federal government to prosecute those con-
cerned in securing white slaves who are natives
of this country it was inevitable that the exami-
nation of scores of these inmates, captured in
raids upon the dives, should bring to officers and
agents of the department of justice an immense
fund of information regarding the methods of the
white slave traders in recruiting for the traffic
from home fields.
Whether these hunters of the innocent ply their
awful calling at home or abroad their methods are
much the same with the exception that the for-
eign girl is more hopelessly at their mercy. Let
me take the case of a little Italian peasant girl
who helped her father till the soil in the vine-
yards and fields near Naples. Like most of the
others taken in the raids, she stoutly maintained
that she had been in this country more than three
66
CHICAGO
years and that she was in a life of shame from
choice and not through the criminal act of any
person. "When she was brought into what the
sensational newspapers would call the ''sweat
box, ' ' in was clear that she was in a state of ab-
ject terror. Soon, however, Assistant United States
District Attorney Parkin, having charge of the
examination, convinced her that he and his asso-
ciates were her friends and protectors and that
their purpose was to punish those who had profit-
ed by her ruin and to send her back to her little
Italian home with all her expenses paid ; that she
was under the protection of the United States and
was as safe as if the king of Italy would take her
under his royal care and pledge his word that her
enemies should not have revenge on her.
Then she broke down, and with pitiful sobs
related her awful narrative. That every word of
it was true, no one could doubt who saw her as
she told it. Briefly this is her story: A "fine
lady" who wore beautiful clothes came to where
she lived with her parents, made friends with her,
told her she was uncommonly pretty (the truth,
by the way), and professed a great interest in her.
Such flattering attentions from an American la Jy
67
CHICAGO
who wore clothes as fine as those of the Italian
nobility, could have but one effect on the mind of
this simple little peasant girl and on her still
simpler parents. Their heads were completely
turned and they regarded the "American lady"
with almost adoration.
Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to
bring the little girl back with her, but held out
hope that some day a letter might come with
money for her passage to America. Once there
she would become the companion of her American
friend and they would have great times together.
Of course, in due time the money came and
the $100 was a most substantial pledge to the
parents of the wealth and generosity of the
"American lady." Unhesitatingly she was pre-
pared for the voyage which was to take her to
the land of happiness and good fortune. Accord-
ing to the arrangements made by letter the girl
was met at New York by two "friends" of her
benefactress who attended to her entrance papers
and took her in charge. These "friends" were
two of the most brutal of all the white slave driv-
ers who are in the traffic. At this time she was
about sixteen years old, innocent and rarely at-
IS
CHICAGO
tractive for a girl of her class, having the large,
handsome eyes, the black hair and the rich olive
skin of a typical Italian.
"Where these two men took her she did not know
but by the most violent and brutal means they
quickly accomplished her ruin. For a week she
was subjected to unspeakable treatment and made
to feel that her degredation was complete and
final.
And here let it be said that the breaking of the
spirit, the crushing of all hope for any future save
that of shame, is always a part of the initiation
of a white slave. Then the girl was shipped on to
Chicago, where she was disposed of to the keeper
of an Italian dive of the vilest type. On her en-
trance here she was furnished with gaudy dresses
and wearing apparel for which the keeper of the
place charged her $600. As is the case with all
new white slaves she was not allowed to have any
clothing which she could wear upon the street.
Her one object in life was to escape from the
den in which she was held a prisoner. To "pay
out" seemd the surest way, and at length, from
her wages of shame, she was able to cancel the
$600 account. Then she asked for her street cloth-
CHICAGO
ing and her release only to be told that she had
incurred other expenses to the amount of $400.
Her Italian blood took fire at this and she made
a dash for liberty. But she was not quick enough
and the hand of the oppressor was upon her. In
the widl scene that followed she was slashed with
a razor, one gash straight through her right eye,
one across her cheek and another slitting her ear.
Then she was given medical attention and the
wounds gradually healed, but her face was horri-
bly mutilated, her right eye is always open and
to look upon her is to shudder.
When the raids began she was secreted and ar-
rangements made to ship her to a dive in the min-
ing regions of the west. Fortunately, however,
a few hours before she was to start upon her
journey the United States marshals raided the
place and captured herself as well as her keepers.
To add to the horror of her situation she was soon
to become a mother. The awful thought in her
mind, however, was to escape from assassination
at the hands of the murderous gang which op-
pressed her.
Evidence shows that the hirelings of this traf-
fic are stationed at certain points of entry in Can-
70
CHICAGO
ada, where large numbers of immigrants are
landed, to do what is known in their parlance as
' ' cutting out work. ' ' In other words, these watch-
ers for human prey scan the immigrants as they
come down the gang plank of a vessel which has
just arrived, and "spot" the girls who are unac-
companied by fathers, mothers, brothers or rela-
tives to protect them. The girl who has been
spotted as a desirable and unprotected victim is
properly approached by a man who speaks her
language and is immediately offered employment
at good wages, with all expenses to the destina-
tion to be paid by the man. Most frequently laun-
dry work is the bait held out, sometimes house-
work or employment in a candy shop or factory.
The object of the negotiations is to "cut out"
the girl from any of her associates and to get her
to go with him. Then the only thing is to accom-
plish her ruin by the shortest route. If they can-
not be cajoled or enticed by promises of an easy
time, plenty of money, fine clothes and the usual
stock of allurements or a fake marriage, then
harsher methods are resorted to. In some in-
stances the hunters really marry the victims. As
to the sterner methods, it is of course impossible
71
CHICAGO
to speak explicitly, beyond the statement that in-
toxication and drugging are often used as means
to reduce the victims to a state of helplessness,
and sheer physical violence is a common thing.
When once a white slave is sold and landed in
a house or dive, she becomes a prisoner. The raids
disclosed the fact that in each of these places is a
room having but one door, to which the keeper
holds the key. In here are locked all the street
clothes, shoes and the ordinary apparel of a
woman.
The finery which is provided for the girl for
house wear is of a nature to make her appearance
in the street impossible. Then added to this han-
dicap, is the fact that at once the girl is placed
in debt to the keeper for a wardrobe of ' ' fancy ' '
clothes, which are charged to her at preposterous
prices. She cannot escape while she is in debt to
the keeper and she is never allowed to get out
of debt at least until all desire to leave the life
is dead within her.
The examination of witnesses have brought out
the fact that not many of the women in this class
expect to live m,ore than ten years, after they en-
ter upon their voluntary or involuntary life of
72
CHICAGO
white slavery. Perhaps the average is less than
that. Many die painful deaths by disease, many
by consumption, but it is hardly beyond the truth
to say that suicide is their general expectation.
' ' We '11 all come to it sooner or later, ' ' one of the
witnesses remarked to her companions in the jail,
the other day, when reading in the newspaper of
the suicide of a girl inmate of a notorious house.
A volume could be written on this revolting
subject, but I have no disposition to add a single
word but what will open the eyes of parents to the
fact that white slavery is an existing condition
a system of girl hunting that is national and inter-
national in its scope, that it literally consumes
thousands of girls clean, innocent girls every
year ; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbar-
ism that gives a new meaning to the word fiend ;
that it is imminent peril to every girl in the coun-
try who had a desire to get into the city and taste
its excitements and its pleasures.
The facts stated here are for the awakening of
parents and guardians of girls. If I were to pre-
sume to say anything to the possible victims of
this awful scourge of white slavery it would be
this : ' ' Those who enter here leave hope behind ;"
73
CHICAGO
the depths of debasement and suffering disclosed
by the investigation now in progress would make
the flesh of a seasoned man of the world creep
with horror and shame.
Why Girls Go Astray
Right at the outset let me say in all frankness
that I would never, from personal choice, write
upon a subject of this character. Its sensational-
ism is personally repellant to me and cannot fail
to be of actual protective benefit to many homes;
and to withhold the facts and disclosures which
have come to me as investigator would be to de-
prive the innocent and the worthy of a protection
which might save many a home from sorrow, dis-
grace and ruin.
The results of this work and of the explana-
tions of the conditions uncovered in this book
have brought to me a gratifying knowledge of the
practical rescue work being done by the settle-
ment and "slum" workers of Chicago. They are
not only specialists in this field, but they are as
devoted as they are practical.
So far as the matter of sensationalism is con-
cerned, that may be disposed of in the simple
statement that the naked recital, in the most
CHICAGO
formal and colorless phraseology, of the facts al-
ready brought to light by the "white slave" pros-
ecutions are in themselves so sensational that the
art of the most brilliant orator, or the cunning of
the cleverest writer, could not add an iota to their
sensationalism. And it may as well be said here
that it is quite impossible to even hint in public
print of the revolting depths of shame disclosed
by this investigation. Behind every word that can
be said in print on this topic is a world of degrad-
ation of which the slightest hint cannot be given.
If there are any who are inclined to feel that
the term " white slave" is a little overdrawn, a
little exaggerated, let them decide on that point
after considering this statement: "Among the
'white slaves' captured in raids since the appear-
ance of this book, is a girl who is now about eigh-
teen years of age. Her home was in France, and
when she was only fourteen years old she was ap-
proached by a 'white slaver* who promised her
employment in America as a lady's maid or com-
panion. The wage offered was far beyond what
she could expect to get in her own country but
far more alluring to her than the money she
could earn was the picture of the life which would
76
CHICAGO
be hers in free America. Her surroundings would
be luxurious; she would be the constant recipient
of gifts of dainty clothing from her mistress, and
even the hardest work she would be called upon to
do would be in itself a pleasure and an excitement.
"Naturally she was eager to leave her home and
trust herself to one who would provide her with
so enriching a future. Her friends of her own age
seasoned their farewells to her with envy of her
rare good fortue.
"On arriving in Chicago she was taken to the
house of ill-fame to which she had been sold by
the procurer. There this child of fourteen was
quickly and unceremoniously 'broken in' to the
hideous life of depravity for which she had been
entrapped. The white slaver who sold her was
able to drive a most profitable bargain, for she was
rated as uncommonly attractive. In fact, he made
her life of shame a perpetual source of income,
and when not long ago he was captured and
indicted for the importation of other girls, this
girl was used as the agency of providing him with
$2,000 for his defense.
"But let us look for a moment at the mention-
able facts of this child's daily routine of life and
77
CHICAGO
see if such an existence justifies the use of the
term 'slavery.' After she had furnished a night
of servitude to the brutal passions of vile fre-
quenters of the place, she was then compelled to
put off her tawdy costume, array herself in the
garb of a scrub-woman, and, on her hands and
knees, scrub the house from top to bottom. No
weariness, no exhaustion, ever excused her from
this drudgery, which was a full day's work for
a strong woman.
"After her scrubbing was done she was allowed
to go to her chamber and sleep locked in her
room to prevent her possible escape until the or-
gies of the next day, or rather night, began. She
was allowed no liberties, no freedom, and in the
two and one half years of her slavery in this house
she was not even given one dollar to spend for her
own comfort or pleasure. The legal evidence col-
lected shows that during this period of slavery
she earned for those who owned her not less than
eight thousand dollars!"
If this is not slavery, I have no definition for it.
Let us make it entirely clear that the white
slave is an actual prisoner. She is under the most
constant surveillance, both by the keeper to whom
78
CHICAGO
she is "let" and the procurer who owns her. Not
until she has lost all possible desire to escape is
she given any liberty.
Before me, as I write, is a letter from a father
which is a tragedy in a page. He begins the note
by saying that the warning has aroused him to
inquire after his "little girl." There is a pathetic
pride in his admission that she was considered an
uncommonly " pretty girl" when she left her home
to take a position in Chicago. Her letters, he
states, have been more and more infrequent, but
that she does occasionally write home, and some-
times encloses a small amount of money. From
the tone of the father's note it is evident that,
while he is a trifle anxious, he asks that his daugh-
ter be "looked up "rather to confirm his feelings
of confidence that she is all right than otherwise.
A glance at the address where she was to be
found left no possible questoin as to the fate
which had overtaken this daughter of a country
home. So far as a knowledge of the girl's mode
of life is concerned, no investigation was neces-
sary the location named being in the center of
Chicago's "red light" district.
However, the case was placed in the hands of a
79
CHICAGO
settlement worker, and at this moment the girl is
waiting, in a place of safety, for the arrival of her
father, who is on his way to take her back to the
mother and brothers and sisters who have sup-
posed that she was holding a respectable, but
poorly paid position. They will, however, wel-
come a very different person from the "pretty
girl" who went out from that home to make her
way in the big city. She is pitifully wasted by
the life which she has led and her constitution is
so broken down that she cannot reasonably expect
many years of life, even under the tenderest care.
What is still worse, the fact cannot be denied that
her moral fibre is much shattered, and that the
work of reclamation must be more than physical.
The "White slaves" who have been taken in the
course of the present prosecution have, generally,
been very grateful for the liberation and glad to
return to their homes. It has been necessary for
their own protection as well as for other reasons
to commit some of these unfortunates to various
prisons pending the trial of the cases in which
they are to appear as witnesses, and practically
every one of them gives unmistakable evidence
80
CHICAGO
that imprisonment is a welcome liberation by com-
parison with the life of "white slavery."
Now, as to the practical means which parents
should use to prevent this unspeakable fate from
overtaking their daughters. They cannot do it by
assuming that their daughter is all right and that
she will take care of herself in the big city. In a
large measure it seems impossible to arouse par-
ents especially those in the country to a real-
ization that there is in every big city a class of
men and women who live by trapping girls into
a life of degredation and who are as inhumanly
cunning in their awful craft as they are in their
other instincts; that these beasts of the human
jungle are as unbelievably desperate as they are
unbelievably cruel, and that their warfare upon
virtue is as persistent, as calculating and as un-
ceasing as was the warfare of the wolf upon the
unprotected lamb of the pioneer's flock in the
early days of the Western frontier.
I cannot escape the conclusion that the country
girl is in greater danger from the "white slavers"
than the city girl. The perusal of testimony of
many "white slaves" enforces this conclusion.
This is because they are less sophisticated, more
81
CHICAGO
trusting and more open to the allurements of
those who are waiting to prey upon them.
It is a fact which parents of girls in the coun-
try should remember that the "white slavers" are
busy on the trains coming into the city, and make
it a point to "cut out" an attractive girl when-
ever they can. This "cutting out" process con-
sists of making the girl's acquaintance, gaining
her confidence and, on one pretext or another, in-
ducing her to leave the train before the main
depot is reached. This is done because the vari-
ous protective and law and order organizations
have watchers at the main railroad stations who
are trained to the work of "spotting," and quick-
ly detect a girl in the hands of one of these hu-
man beasts of prey. Generally these watchers are
women and wear the badges of their organiza-
tions.
But suppose that the girl from the country does
not chance to fall in with the "white slaver" on
the train, that she reaches the city in safety, be-
comes located in a position or perhaps in the
stenographic school or business college which she
has come to attend and secures a room in a
boarding house. No human being, it seems to me,
82
CHICAGO
is quite so lonely as the young girl from the
country when she first comes to the city and starts
in the struggles of life there without acquain-
tances. All her instincts are social, and she is, for
the time being, almost desolately alone in a wil-
derness of strange human beings. She must have
some one to talk to it is the law of youth as well
as the law of her sex to crave constant companion-
ship. And the consequences ? She is sentimental-
ly in a condition to prepare her for the slaughter,
to make her an easy prey to the wiles of the
"white slave" wolf.
The girl reared in the city does not have this
peculiar and insidious handicap to contend with ;
she has been from the time she could first toddle
along the sidewalk educated in wholesome sus-
picion, taught that she must not talk with strang-
ers or take candy from them, that she must with-
draw herself from all advances and, in large meas-
ure, regard all save her own people with distrust.
As she grows older she comes to know that certain
parts of the city are more dangerous and more
"wicked" than others; that her comings and go-
ings must always be in safe and familiar company ;
that her acquaintanceships and her friendships
83
CHICAGO
must be scrutinized by her natural protectors and
that, altogether, there is a definite but undefined
danger in the very atmosphere of the city for the
girl or the young woman which demands a con-
stant and protected alertness.
The training is almost wholly absent in the case
of the country girl; she is not educated in sus-
picion until the protective instinct acts almost un-
consciously ; her intercourse with her world is al-
most comparatively free and unrestrained; she
is so unlearned in the moral and social geography
ef the city that she is quite as likely, if left to her
own devices, to select her boarding house in an
undesirable as in a safe and desirable part of the
city ; and, in a word, when she comes into the city
her ignorance, her trusting faith in humanity in
general, her ignorance of the underworld and her
loneliness and perhaps home-sickness, conspire to
make her a ready and an easy victim of the
"white slaver."
In view of what I have learned in the course of
the recent investigation and prosecution of the
"white slave" traffic, I can say in all sincerity,
that if I lived in the country and had a young
daughter, I would go to any length of hardship
CHICAGO
and privation myself rather than allow her to go
into the city to work or to study unless that
studying were to be done in the very best type of
an educational institution where the girl students
were always under the closest protection. The
best and surest way for parents of girls in the
country to protect them from the clutches of the
"white slaver" is to keep them in the country.
But if circumstances should seem to compel a
change from the country to the city, then the only
safe way is to go with them into the city; but
even this last has its disadvantages from the fact
that, in that case, the parents would themselves
be unfamiliar with the usages and the pitfalls of
metropolitan life, and would not be able to pro-
tect their daughters as carefully as if they had
spent their own lives in the city.
35
More About the Traffic
in Shame
The dragnets of the inhuman men and womjen
who ply their terrible trade are spread day and
night and are manipulated with a skill and pre-
cision which ought to strike terror to the heart
of every careless or indifferent parent. The won-
der is not that so many are caught in this net,
but that they escape ! ' ' I count the week I might
almost say the day a happy and fortunate one
which does not bring to my attention as an officer
of the state a deplorable case of this kind,' ' said
Mrs. Ophelia Amigh.
Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets
of these fishers for girls are spread, let me tell
you of an instance which occurred to a girl from
this institution:
This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very or-
dinary looking girl, and below the average of in-
telligence, but as tractable and obedient as she is
ingenous. She is wholly without the charm which
CHICAGO
would naturally attract the eye of the white slave
trader.
Because of her quietness, her obedience and her
good disposition, she was, in accordance with the
rules of the institution, permitted to go into the
family of a substantial farmer out in the west and
work as a housemaid, a " hired girl" her wages
to be deposited to her credit against the time
when she should reach the age of twenty-one and
leave the Home.
She had been in her position for some time and
was so quiet and satisfactory that one Sunday
when the family were not going to church, the
mistress said:
"Nellie, if you wish to go to church alone you
may do so. The milk wagon will be along shortly
and you can ride on that to the village and here
is seventy-five cents. You may want to buy your
dinner and perhaps some candy. ' '
When Nellie reached town and was on her way
past the railroad station to the church, the train
for Chicago came in, and the impulse seized her
to get aboard, go to the city and look up her
lather, whom she had not seen for several months.
She went to the city and hardly stepped from the
87
CHICAGO
train into the big station when she heard a man's
voice saying, ' ' Why, hello, Mary ! ' '
Instantly foolishly, of course she answered
him and replied :
"My name is not Mary, it's Nellie."
' ' You look the very picture, ' ' he responded, ' ' of
a girl I know well whose name is Mary and she's
a fine girl, too! Are any of your folks here to
meet you?"
"No," she answered, "my father's here in the
city somewhere, but he doesn't know I'm coming.
I've been working out in the country for a long
time and I didn't write him about coming back."
Her answers were so ingenious and revealing
that the man saw that he had an easy and simple
victim to deal with. Therefore his tactics were
very direct.
"It's about time to eat," he suggested, "and I
guess we 're both hungry. You go to a restaurant
and eat with me and perhaps I can help you to
find your father quicker than you could do it
alone."
She accepted, and in the course of the meal he
asked her if she would like to find a place at
which to work. "I know a fine place in Blank
88
CHICAGO
City," lie added. "The woman is looking for a
good girl just like you. ' '
"Yes, I'd be pleased to get the place, but I
haven't any money to pay the fare with," was her
answer.
' * Oh, that 's all right, ' ' he quickly replied. " I '11
buy your ticket and give you a little money be-
sides for a cab and other expenses. The woman
told me to do that if I could find her a girl. She '11
send me back a check for it all. ' '
After he had bought the ticket and put her
aboard the train going to Blank City, he wrote
the name of the woman to whom he was sending
her, gave her about $2 extra and then delivered
this fatherly advice to her :
"You're just a young girl, and it's best for you
not to talk to anybody on the train or after you
get off. Don't show this paper to anybody or tell
anybody where you're going. It isn't any of their
business anyway. And as soon as you get off the
train you'll find plenty of cabs there. Hand your
paper to the first cab driver in the line, get in and
ride to Mrs. A 's home. Pay the driver and
then walk in."
Believing that she was being furnished a posi-
CHICAGO
tion by a remarkably kind man, the poor girl fol-
lowed his direction implicitly and landed the
next day in one of the most notorious houses of
shame in the state of Illinois outside of Chicago.
How she was found and rescued is a story quite
apart from the purpose which has led me to tell of
this incident that of indicating how tightly the
slave traders have their nets spread for even the
most ordinary and unattractive prey. They let no
girl escape whom they dare to approach !
Crime in Chicago
Strange as it may seem, men and women of
certain grades of intellect and temperament de-
liberately devote themselves to lives of crime.
These constitute the "professional criminals,"
who make up such a terrible class in the popula-
tion of every great city. In Chicago this
class is undoubtedly large, but not so large as
many people assert. That it is active and danger-
ous, the police records of the city afford ample
testimony. It is very hard to obtain any reliable
statistics respecting the professional votaries of
crime, but it would seem, after careful investiga-
tion, that Chicago contains about 3,000 of them.
These consist of thieves, burglars, fences and
pick-pockets.
In addition to these we may include under the
head of professional criminals, the following:
Women of ill-fame, 20,000, keepers of gambling
houses and of policy and lottery offices about 600,
making in all about 23,600 professional law
91
CHICAGO
breakers. This is a startling statement, but un-
happily true.
The populatoin of Chicago is more cosmopoli-
tan than that of any city in the union and the
majority of the people are poor. The struggle for
existence is a hard one, and offers every induce-
ment for crime. The political system which is
based more or less upon plunder, presents the
spectacles of dishonesty. The professionals are
not ignorant men and women, however. Among
them may be found many whose abilities, if prop-
erly directed, would win for them positions of
honor and usefulness. There seems to be a fascin-
ation in crime to those people, and they delib-
erately enter upon it.
The principal form which crime assumes in Chi-
cago is robbery. The professionals do not deliber-
ately engage in murder or the graver crimes;
though they do not hesitate to commit them if nec-
essary to their success or safety. They prefer to
pursue their vocation without taking life; and
murder, arson, rape and capital crimes are, there-
fore, not more common here than in other large
cities. Robbery, however, is a science here, and it
92
CHICAGO
is of its various forms the following pages will
treat.
The professional criminals in Chicago constitute
a distinct community; they are known to each
other, and seldom make any effort to associate
with people of respectability. They infest certain
sections of the city where they can easily and
rapidly communicate with each other, and can
hide in safety from the police.
Chicago thieves are of two sorts those who
steal only when they are tempted by want, or
when an unusual opportunity for successful thiev-
ing is thrown their way, and those who make a
regular business of stealing. A professional thief
ranks among his fellows according to his ability.
Many professional thieves are burglars. They
drink to excess and commit so many blunders
that they are easily detected by the police. They
gamble a great deal. When successful they quar-
rel over their booty, and often betray each other.
A smart thief seldom drinks and never allows
himself to get under the influence of liquor. He
tries to keep himself in the best physical trim;
and is always ready for a long run when pursued,
or a desperate struggle when cornered. He must
93
CHICAGO
always have his wits about him. A thief of this
class makes a successful bank robber, forger, or
confidence swindler. Professional thieves seldom
have any home. Many of them find temporary
shelter in a dull season in houses of ill-repute.
They associate with and are often married to dis-
reputable women, many of whom are also thieves.
The sm&rtest thieves do not have homes, for the
reason that they dare not remain long in one place
for fear of arrest. During the summer, Chicago
thieves are to be found at all summer and sea-
shore resorts. Later in the season they attend the
county fairs and agricultural shows, and any
place where large crowds assemble and come
back to the city at the beginning of winter. They
are fond of political meetings and reap a rich
harvest at some of these gatherings.
If I were asked whether there were any place
in the city where thieves were educated in their
business, I would answer, No." It would be im-
possible for such places to exist without being dis-
covered. Thieves educate themselves, or get their
knowledge by associating with other thieves more
expriencd than themselves. Those people who
believe in the existence of schools where boys
94
CHICAGO
are taught the art of picking pockets, have got
their belief from works of fiction like Dickens'
"Oliver Twist." The dram-shops and brothels of
the city where the thieves congregate, are the
only places which can be called schools of crime.
For the purpose of communicating with each
other, the professional thieves have a language,
or argot, which is also common to their brethren
in other large cities. It is generally known as
"patter," and is said to be of Gypsy origin. A
few phrases, taken at random from a leaflet hand-
ed me, will give the reader an idea of it. "Abra-
ham," Jew; to sham, to pretend sickness; "Au-
tumn cove," a married man; "Autumn cacler," a
married woman; "Bag of nails," everything in
confusion; "Ballum rancum," a ball where all the
damsels are thieves and prostitutes; "North and
South," State street; "Booked," arrested; "City
College," Harrison Street Station; "Consola-
tion," assassination; "Dopie," a girl; "Draw-
ing," picking pockets; "Family man," a receiver
of stolen goods; " Gilt-dabber, " a hotel thief;
"Madge," private place;" Ned," a ten dollar gold
piece; "Plate of meat," man with fat pocket-
95
CHICAGO
book; "Poncess," a woman who supports a man
by her prostitution, and so on.
The professional thieves are thoroughly familiar
with the language, and can speak to each other
intelligibly, while a bystander is in total igno-
rance of their meaning.
The professional thieves are divided into vari-
ous classes, the members of which confine them-
selves strictly to their peculiar line of work. They
are classed by the police, and by themselves, as
follows: Burglars, bank sneaks, safe blowers,
sneak thieves, confidence men and pickpockets.
A burglar will rarely attempt the part of a sneak
thief and a pickpocket will seldom undertake
burglary.
Bank Burglars.
A burglar stands at the head of the professional
class, and is looked up to by its members with ad-
miraton and respect. He disdains the title of
"thief* and boasts that his operations require
brains and nerve to an extraordinary degree.
The safe blowers are also classed by the police
as burglars, and are acknowledged by the craft
96
CHICAGO
as confederates. The country banks and the larg
er business houses are their "Game." They dis-
dain smfaller operations. When a plan to rob a
bank has been formed, the burglar proper calls a
safe blower to his aid. One man often prepares
the way by opening a small account with the bank
and drawing out his deposits in small amounts.
He visits the place at different hours of the day,
learns the habits of the bank officers and clerks,
and makes careful observations of the building
and the safes in which the money is kept. Fre-
quently a room in the basement of the bank build-
ing, or in an adjoining building is hired and occu-
pied by a confederate. "When all is ready, a hole
is cut through the floor into the bank room ; the
services of the safe blower are called into action.
The former takes charge of the operation when
the safe is to be blown open. He drills holes in
the door of the safe by the lock and fills them with
gunpowder or other explosives, which are ignited
by a fuse. The safe is carefully wrapped in
blankets to smother the noise of the explosion,
and the windows of the room are lowered about an
inch from the top to prevent the breaking of tfce
glass by the concussion of the air. The explosion
97
CHICAGO
destroys the lock, but makes little noise, and the
door of the safe is easily opened. When it is
desirable not to resort to an explosion the safe
blower makes the safe fast to the floor by strong
iron clamps, in order that it may bear the desired
amount of pressure. He then drills holes in the
door, into which he fits jack screws worked by lev-
ers. These screws exert tremendous force, and
soon burst the safe open. Sometimes, when small
safes are to be forced open they use only a jimmy
and a hammer, wrapping the hammer with cloth
to deaden the sound of the blows. The safe once
opened, the contents are at the mercy of the burg-
lars. They never attack a safe without having
some idea of the booty to be secured, and the
amount of risk to be run. Saturday night is gen-
erally chosen for such operations. If the work
cannot be finished in time to allow the burglars to
escape before sunrise on Sunday, they continue it
until successful, and boldly carry off their plunder
in broad daylight.
The Bank Sneak.
The bank sneak is simply a bond robber. He
confines his operations to stealing United States
98
CHICAGO
and other bonds, preferring coupon to registered
bonds, as they can be more easily disposed of.
He frequents a bank for a long period, and pa-
tiently observes the places where the bonds and
securities are kept ; this he manages to do without
suspicion, and when all is ripe for the robbery,
he boldly enters the bank, makes his way unob-
served to the safe, snatches a package of bonds,
adding to it a package of notes, if possible, and
escapes. If the plunder consists of coupon bonds,
it is easily disposed of; but registered bonds re-
quire more careful handling. Generally when
the bank offers a reward for their recovery, the
thief enters into communication with the detec-
tive appointed to work up the case, and com-
promises with the bank by restoring a part of
the plunder on condition that he is allowed to
keep the rest and escape punishment.
Sneak Thieves.
The sneak thieves are the lowest in the list of
professional robbers. They confine their opera-
tions, principally to private dwellings and retail
stores. They are in constant danger of detection
99
CHICAGO
and arrest, and are more often secured by the po-
lice than any other classes we have mentioned.
The dinner hour, which in the winter is after
dark, is their favorite time for entering houses.
They gain entrance by open doors or windows, or
by false keys, and take everything within their
reach. A favorite practice of sneak thieves is to
call at a house advertised for rent, and ask to
be shown the rooms. Another plan is to visit the
offices of physicians and other professional men,
and to steal articles of value in the waiting rooms
while they are left alone. The majority of those
who steal from stores are women, who take ar-
ticles from the counters, while the clerks are bus-
ily engaged in laying out goods for their inspec-
tion. The practice of "shop-lifiting" has become
so common that many of the leading stores keep
special detectives to watch the customers.
Confidence Men.
Confidence men make use of the credulity of
country people and strangers in the city. A fav-
orite plan is to watch the hotels, and get the
names and addresses of the guests. The method
100
CHICAGO
is as follows: Mr Smith comes to Chicago, puts
up at some prominent hotel, and after dinner
saunters out for a stroll. A confidence man who
has been on the watch for his appearance, meets
him some blocks away from the hotel, and, rush-
ing up to him says, "Why, Mr. Smith, how glad I
am to see you. When did you arrive? How did
you leave them all in Smithville?" Mr. Smith is
taken by surprise at being recognized in the great
city, and if he is at all credulous, the confidence
man has no trouble in making him believe they
have met before. The swindler joins him in his
stroll after a few moments of conversation, con-
fides to him that he can draw a large prize in a
lottery and invites him to accompany him to the
lottery office and see him receive the money. On
the way they visit a saloon and enjoy a friendly
drink together. Another stranger now drops in,
and is introduced to Mr. Smith by the swindler.
The newcomer draws the swindler aside and ex-
changes a few words with him, whereupon the
latter tells Smith that he owes the stranger a sum
of money, and has unfortunately left his pocket-
book at his office. He asks his unsuspecting victim
to lend him the amount until they reach the lottery
101
!
CHICAGO
office, when he will return it. Smith produces the
money, which is handed to the newcomer, who
then takes his departure, and the friends resume
their stroll towards the lottery office. On the
way the swindler manages to elude his victim,
who seeks him in vain, and goes back to his hotel
a sadder but wiser man. Strange as it may seem,
this is one of the most successful tricks played in
the city. It is often varied, but is never attempted
upon a resident of the metropolis.
Pickpockets of Chicago.
The pickpockets of Chicago are very numerous.
The term pickpocket is regarded by the police as
including not only those who confine their efforts
to picking pockets and stealing satchels and va-
lises, but also gradations of crime which approach
the higher degrees of larceny from the person,
and highway robbery. The members of this class
of the thieving fraternity are well known to the
police and the detectives are kept busy watching
them. Their likenesses are contained in the
"Rogues Gallery" at police headquarters, and the
authorities know the thieves well, as their ca-
102
CHICAGO
reers embrace generally, long records of crime,
Instances are not rare in which a whole family,
from the oldest to the youngest, is equally deep
in crime, the little one having been thoroughly
and systematically educated by their parents in
the different branches of stealing, beginning with
the simple picking of the pocket of some unwary
person, and finally becoming able to commit the
most daring burglaries.
The police endeavor to have all known profes-
soinal thieves constantly under surveillance, but
the task is a difficult one. In addition to constant-
ly changing their places of abode, they are in and
out of the city frequently. Several saloons and
localities, however, have become notorious as re-
sorts for pickpockets. Saloons on State street,
Wabash avenue, West Madison street, and Hal-
sted street are frequented most by this class of
thieves. Great dexterity is sometimes acquired
by pickpockets. Acting in the capacity of a news-
boy they have been known to skillfully extract a
watch from a customer's pocket while offering a
paper for sale.
Harrison Street Police Station. Attempted Suicide.
The Police
A Night at Harrison Street Station.
Though honest men sometimes do not seem able
to put their fingers upon a policeman at the in-
stant they want him, rogues find far oftener that
the policemen are on hand when not wanted.
In the earlier days of police history, when poli-
tics were eliminated from the force, the ordinary
policenwi was more effective, and guarded the
''beat" upon which he traveled with a jealous
eye. Wander where he might, the ruffian could
not get away from the law. This constant sur-
veillance exasperated bad characters. They chafe
under the restraint, make feeble efforts to rebel,
but it is useless. The power of the police over the
evil circles of society is enormous; they have a
mortal fear of the force. They know that behind
that silver star there resides indomitable courage,
and in that close buttoned coat are muscles of
iron and nerves of steel.
105
CHICAGO
The "Boiler Avenue Boys" and roughs were all
cowards and they knew it. They dare not meet
half their weight in righteous pluck.
I have seen a great bully cringe and cry under
a policeman's open-hand cuffing. Very likely he
had a bowie-knife, or revolver, or slung-shot
or all three in one, as I saw one night on Fourth
avenue in his pocket at the time, yet he does
not attempt to use it on the officer of the law, the
occasional exceptions to this are rare and notable.
How many times has a single policeman arrested
a man out of a crowd, and not one of his fellows
raised a finger to help him; they dare not, they
have too wholesome respect for law, for that re-
volver in the pocket; most of all they are awed
by the cool courage of the man who dares to face
them on their own ground.
Yet in spite of all this the policeman's life is
full of danger. He must patrol streets which are
known to be dangerous, narrow alleys, where a
well-delivered blow from a slung-shot, a skill-
fully aimed thrust from a knife, or a bullet from
a revolver, would make an end of him before he
could summon help. He is an object of hatred,
as well as of fear, to the dangerous classes, and
106
CHICAGO
they do not hesitate to take advantage of him.
Often some brave fellow is set upon by a gang of
toughs and beaten or wounded. Yet, whatever
danger, the policeman must face it all, and to the
honor of the force be it said, he does not shirk.
Whatever their faults may be, cowardice cannot
be charged against the police of Chicago.
I remember well a tough basement saloon in
Clark street ; it had been growing worse and worse
and one dismal November evening, hearing a dis-
turbance, Captain Mulligan and the officer on
that post went in. There were about fifty persons,
men and women, of every color and nationality,
all of the worst characters, and some notorious in
crime. The captain took in the situation at a
glance, and determined without a thought to ar-
rest the whole party. Placing his back to the
front door he covered the back door with his re-
volver, and threatened death to the first person
who moved. Then he sent the patrolman to the
station for help, and for fifteen long minutes held
that crowd of desperadoes at bay. They glared
at him, squirmed and twisted in their places,
scowled and gritted their clenched teeth, and tried
to get at their knives and tear him to pieces; but
107
CHICAGO
all the while the stern mouth of that revolver
looked at them, and looked them out of counte-
nance, and the steady nerve behind it held sway
over their brutal ferocity. It was a trial of nerve
and endurance. Captain Mulligan stood the test
and saved his life. They could have shot him a
hundred times. Certainly it was not because they
had any scruples against it, for the first two pris-
oners sent to the station killed Officer Burns with
a paving stone before they had gone two blocks.
Captain Clare made an almost precisely similar
single-handed raid on the famous "Burnt Rag"
saloon in Boiler avenue one winter night in the
Seventies.
Let us take our seat beside Sergeant Cameron.
It is 10 o'clock and the night cold and keen
without, but the room is brightly lighted, warm
and comfortable. With the exception of a few
early lodgers who have been given quarters, no
one has put in an appearance, and we begin to
wonder if it is to be a dull night after all. The
sergeant smiles, and remarks that there will be
business enough in the next three hours.
The door opens as he speaks, and a woman in
a faded black dress, a battered bonnet, and a
108
CHICAGO
very dirty face, enters, and hesitatingly ap-
proaches the desk.
"Can I have a night's lodging, sir" she asks.
The sergeant makes no reply for a minute, but
gazes at her with curious interest, and then asks
abruptly: "When did you wash your face last?"
' ' I washed it in Bridgeport, sir, ' ' she answered,
"an" I come from there today, and never a drop
o' water have I seen."
"Give her a lodging," says the sergeant, nod-
ding to an officer standing by. "But see here,"
he added to the woman, "what are you doing in
this district?"
"Ah! it's a long story, sir," she begins. "It
was a man that was the cause of it an* bad
luck to him. He left me after deceivin' me, an'
I've come here to find him."
"How did he deceive you?"
"Oh, the way they always do. He got the best
of me because I was innocent, an' he promised to
marry me. When he was tired of me he walked
out, an' I've never seen him since."
(i Where do you expect to find him?"
"Here in this city; I'd know his skin on a bush,
an 'I '11 find him or die."
109
CHICAGO
"Well, you had better take a rest for tonight."
The woman goes off to her hard bed in the
lodging room, and the office is silent again; but
only for a short while. The door opens again, and
this time with a crash, and an officer enters, with
a prisoner in his vice-like grasp. The man's coat
is pulled over his head, his hat is gone, the blood
is running from his nose, and his gait so unsteady
that he would certainly fall to the floor but for
the firm hold of the policeman. His shirt front is
covered with blood and beer, and his eyes are
bruised and bloodshot.
"Well, officer, what is it?" asks the sergeant,
taking up his pen, as the patrolman drags his
prisoner to his desk.
"Drunk and disorderly, sir," replied the patrol-
man. ' ' Wanted to fight everybody he met on the
street. He got pretty badly damaged in being put
out of Schlosheimer 's saloon, and I had to take
him in charge."
"What is your name, and where do you live?"
asked the sergeant of the prisoner.
The man gives his name and address, in a sort
of incoherent manner, and is sent back to a cell,
110
CHICAGO
while the sergeant jots down the circumstances
of his arrest in his ' ' Blotter. ' '
The door opens again, and a woman neatly
draped in mourning, and with a pale, sad face,
enters timidly, and approaches the desk. In a low
voice she asks the sergeant if he can tell her of
any respectable place in the neighborhood where
she can obtain a lodging at a moderate price. Her
manner is that of a lady, and the sergeant listens
with respect to her request, and gives her the ad-
dress of such a place as she desired. In the same
low tone she thanks him, and disappears, and the
stern face of the officer of the law for a moment
has a troubled expression.
The door is thrown open violently once more,
and two flashily dressed women enter, and hurry
forward to the desk. Their faces are flushed, they
are greatly excited, and have evidently been
drinking. They begin their story together, talk-
ing loudly and angrily. They will not stand it
any longer, they declare. Madame Loraine owes
them money, and they "are going to have it or
raise h 1." The sergeant, having listened pa-
tiently, mildly interposes with the hope that noth-
111
CHICAGO
Ing of the kind will be raised in the station house,
and then asks : ,
"How much does she owe you?"
"Seventy-five dollars," they reply in one voice.
' ' And why don 't she pay you ? ' '
"Because she thinks by keeping herself in our
debt we won't leave her," they respond together,
"and we want a policeman to come along and
make her hand over."
The sergeant considers for a moment and then
declares the matter does not come within the ju-
risdiction of the police, and that he can do nothing
for them. They stare at him in blank amazement
for a while, and then flounce out of the room,
loudly cursing the whole police force, and the
sergeant in particular.
The next comer is in charge of another officer.
He is very dirty and wretchedly drunk. His tall
hat is smashed in, and there is mud sticking in
his hair. He is placed before the desk.
"Drunk and disorderly, sir," says the patrol-
man. "I found him trying to climb a telegraph
pole in front of Pottgieser's saloon. He said he
always went to his room by way of the fire escape,
when he came home late. ' '
112
CHICAGO
The prisoner is silent, but tries to listen to the
officer, and fixes upon the sergeant as solemn a
look as his bleared eyes will permit. He is too
drunk to give his name, and is sent to a cell, where
he is soon in a drunken slumber.
Toward midnight, a poor woman, shabbily
dressed, with a thin, well-worn shawl around her
head enters, and approaches the desk.
"Can you tell me if anything has been heard of
my husband yet?" she asks the same question
she has repeated every day for the past week.
"No, ma'am, nothing," answers the sergeant,
briefly; but his eyes as he glances at the poor
sorrowful creature, have a pitying look in them.
"What is your husband's business?"
"He was a stevedore, sir."
"And you were married to him how long?"
"Eleven years and over, sir, we had four chil-
dren, all dead now but the youngest. He was a
good husband to me ; but he took a drop too much
now and then, and was cross and noisy. He left
the house three weeks ago, and we have never
seen him since."
"Did he leave you any money?"
"He left us nothing, sir. The child and myself
113
CHICAGO
live on the charity of neighbors; hut we can't
expect to live that way always. ' '
"Well, I'll speak to the captain," says the ser-
geant, kindly, ''and see what can be done for you,
and if a dollar will do you any good, here it is. ' '
And the good-hearted sergeant passes a silver
coin over the desk, and sends the woman away
sobbing out her expression of gratitude.
Loud voices are heard on the station steps as
the woman passes out, the door is thrown open,
and six well-dressed men enter, accompanied by
two policemen. They approach the desk, talking
excitedly, and charge and counter-charges, mixed
with much slang and profanity, are brought be-
fore the sergeant, who sits steadily gazing at the
party, waiting for a return of something like or-
der. There is a lull in the talking, and one of the
policemen states that two of the men have been
engaged in a drunken assault at a political prim-
ary held in the neighborhood, and that the other
two have come to prefer charges against them.
The charges are made and entered in the "Blot-
ter," and the accused prefer counter-charges
against the other two, but as the policemen do not
sustain them, the accusers are suffered to depart,
114
CHICAGO
and the accused are sent to a cell where they
raise a tremendous racket.
As the officers are departing for their beats
again, two more enter, this time having in custody
two handsomely dressed, fashionable looking
youths, whose flushed faces show they have been
drinking, but not enough to prevent them from
feeling the shame of their position.
"Drunk and disorderly, sir," says the officer,
"Knocked an old woman's peanut stand in the
street, knocked all her stuff into the mud and
then tried to run away."
"But, sergeant," pleads one of the youths, "it
was only for a lark, you see. We will make it all
right in the morning with the old woman."
"Your names and addresses?" asks the ser-
geant, coldly.
They are given, but are evidently fictitious.
"It was only a lark, sergeant," begins the
young man who spoke before, "we didn't mean
"Lock them up," says the sergeant, cutting
him short, "you can state all that to the court in
the morning."
And they were led away.
115
CHICAGO
The silence that has fallen over the room after
the young men have been led out is rudely broken
by the hasty entrance of an officer from the direc-
tion of the cells. He is pale and excited.
"Sergeant," he exclaims, "the woman in num-
ber ten has committed suicide. She's hung her-
self."
The sergeant springs up, tells the officer to
take charge of the room, and hurries to the cells.
We follow him. The door in number ten is wide
open, and the doorman is in the act of cutting
down the woman, who has suspended herself by
the means of a line made of her garters. He
lays her on the floor, in the cell, and he and the
sergeant bend over and gaze into the bloated face.
The woman is not dead and exhibits signs of re-
turning life. Efforts are made to restore her, and
are successful. As she recovers her consciousness
she raises herself on her elbow, and glaring
around savagely, curses bitterly the men who
have saved her from death, and begs for a drink
of whisky. No liquor is given her, however, and
when the officers are satisfied she is out of danger,
she is hand-cuffed, to prevent her from attempting
further violence. The rest of the night she keeps
116
CHICAGO
the place lively with her yells and blasphemous
cries.
We return to the desk with the sergeant, who
enters the occurrence in the " Blotter." We are
scarcly seated when two of the worst looking
tramps to be found in Chicago enter, and come up
to the desk.
' ' Cap 'n, ' ' exclaims one of them in a thick voice,
"let's have a shake-down for the night?"
"All right," says the sergeant, "show these
men back."
The tramp who has spoken, encouraged by the
ready granting of his request, says coolly, "You
hain't got a chew of tobaccer, Cap'n, you can
let a fellow have?"
"No, I hain't," answers the sergeant, imitating
the voice and expression of the tramp; "but I'll
send you in an oyster supper presently, with a
bottle of Mum's extra dry, and a bunch of Henry
Clay's; and perhaps some of the delicacies of the
season, if they are to be had."
The tramps laughed at this sally, and followed
the officer to the lodging room.
Half an hour later four policemen enter the
room bearing a stretcher, on which is laid a badly
117
CHICAGO
wounded man, while two or more lead in the as-
sailant, who is securely hand-cuffed, and bears the
marks of the officers' clubs. He had assaulted and
stabbed the wounded man in a brawl in a saloon
on Fourth avenue; had resisted the officers who
attempted to arrest him, and had proved so dan-
gerous that they had been compelled to club and
hand-cuff him. The wounded man is sent to a hos-
pital in an ambulance and the statements he made
are recorded in the "Blotter" by the sergeant.
The name and address of the prisoner is also writ-
ten down, and he is sent to a cell, with the irons
still on him.
Shortly after 2 o'clock another detachment of
officers bring in a batch of about twenty prison-
ers, male and female. They are dressed in all
manners of costumes. .Here are dukes, Don
Caesars, Hamlets, Little Buttercups, Indians,
Princesses and Warriors and the like. They have
been to a "fancy ball, "and left it so drunk that
they fell to fighting among themselves in the street
and were taken in custody by the officials. They
are a motley lot indeed and lent a strange aspect
to the station. They appear to feel the ludicrous-
ness of their position, and beg to be let off; but
118
CHICAGO
the sergeant has no discretion, for the testimony
of the officials is positive and the charge is a seri-
ous one. So they go back to the cells, and in the
morning will appear in full costume before the
Court to answer to the charge against them.
So the hours of darkness pass away, and the
remainder of the night is only a repetition of
many scenes we have described.
1U
w
I
c
I
C
1
8
<!
The Lost Sisterhood
Prevalence of Prostitution in Chicago.
Prostitution is an appalling evil in Chicago.
One can scarcely look in any direction without
seeing some evidence of it. Street walkers parade
the most prominent thoroughfares, dance houses
and low concert halls flaunt their gaudy signs in
public, and houses of ill-fame are conducted with
a boldness unequalled anywhere in the world.
The evil is very great, and is assuming larger pro-
portions every year, and I now make the startling
assertion, that the prostitutes of Chicago are as
numerous as the members of the largest denomina-
tion of the city. From the most reliable informa-
tion obtainable there are about six hundred houses
of prostitution and about two hundred and fifty
assignation houses in Chicago. The number of
women known as prostitutes, and those who *"' re-
ceive" privately, and associate with women whose
121
CHICAGO
character is beyond reproach, is astounding. Of
the number of women who resort to prostitution
as a means of securing money, or from other mo-
tives, who yet manage to maintain positions of re-
spectability in society, of course no estimate can
be made. They are, unfortunately, very numer-
ous, and are said by persons in position to speak
with some degree of accuracy to equal the pro-
fessionals in numbers.
These things are sad to contemplate and disa-
greeable to write about. The whole subject is
unsavory; but no picture of Chicago would be
complete did it not include an account of this ter-
rible feature of city life, which meets the visitor
at almost every turn ; and it is believed that some
good may be accomplished by stripping the sub-
ject of all its romance, and presenting it to the
reader in its true and hideous colors.
The professional women of Chicago represent
every grade of their wretched life, from the hells
of the fashionable houses of ill-fame to the slowly
dying inmates of a Dearborn street brothel. They
begin their career with the hope that they will
always remain in the class into which they enter,
but find, when it is too late, they must go steadily
122
CHICAGO
down into the depths, closing their lives with a
horrible death and a pauper's grave.
The so-called first-calss houses of Chicago are
conducted with more or less secrecy. It is the
object of the proprietress to remain unknown
to the police as long as possible, but she finds
at last that this is impracticable. The sharp-eyed
patrolmen soon discover suspicious signs about
the house and watch it until their suspicions are
verified, when the establishment is recorded as a
house of ill-fame, and placed under police surveil-
lance. These houses are not numerous, however,
and not more than thirty in the entire city. Large
rents are paid for them, and they are generally
hired furnished. They are located in some quiet,
respectable portion of the city, and outwardly
appear to be simply private dwellings. It often
happens that the neighbors are in ignorance of the
true character of the house, long after it is known
to the police. It is a notorious fact that some of
our finest avenues and boulevards are infected
with the infamous "houses." The proprietress
is a woman of respectable appearance, and passes
as a married woman, some man generally living
with her, and passing as her husband. This en-
123
CHICAGO
ables her in case of trouble with the authorities,
to show a legal protector and insist upon her
claim, to be a married woman.
The inmates are women in the first flush of their
charms. They are handsome, well dressed, gen-
erally refined in manner, and conduct themselves
with outward propriety; rude and boistrous con-
duct, improper language, and indecent behavior
are forbidden in the parlors of the house, and a
casual visitor passing through public rooms of the
place would see nothing out of the usual way.
It is difficult to learn the causes which induce
these women to adopt a life of shame. No reliance
whatever can be placed upon the stories they tell
of themselves. It cannot be doubted, however,
that they are generally of respectable origin, and
some of them are otherwise fitted to adorn the
best circles of society. Some are young women
who have been led astray by men who have failed
to keep their promises to them, and have drifted
into sin to hide their shame, others are wives who
hare left, or have been deserted by their husbands ;
others still have deliberately chosen the life, grati-
fying their love for money and dress ; and others
again appear to be influenced by motives of pure
124
CHICAGO
licentiousness. Whatever the cause of adoption
of such a life, it is evident they have seen bet-
ter days. They are still fresh and attractive, and
for a while pursue their gilded career of sin and
shame, hoping that they may be fortunate enough
to retain their place in the aristocracy of vice.
The proprietress will have no others than attrac-
tive women in her house; and as soon as the in-
mates begin to show signs of the wretched life
they lead, as soon as sickness falls upon them, or
they lose their beauty and freshness, she sends
them away, and fills their places with more at-
tractive women. She has no difficulty in doing
this, for she has her agents on the watch for them
all the time, and unfortunately new women are
always soliciting admission to such places. Be-
sides this, the proprietress knows that her patrons
soon grow tired of seeing the same women in her
establishment. She must make frequent changes
to satisfy them, and she has no scruples about
turning a woman out of her doors to begin the
descent of the ladder of shame. Therefore, about
one or two years is the average term of the stay
of a woman in a fashionable house. A few do re-
main longer, but the number is so small as to
125
CHICAGO
constitute scarcely an exception to the general
rule. As long as her ''boarders" remain with her,
the proprietress treats them fairly enough, apart
from the fact that she manages to get out of them
all the money she can. The women earn large
amounts of money, but a considerable portion of
this goes for board and other expenses in the
house, and their extravagant habits and tastes
exhaust the rest. They save nothing, and if taken
sick must go to the Charity Hospital for treat-
ment. Their dream of saving money lasts but a
short time, and they leave the fashionable houses
penniless.
The visitors to these houses are men of means.
No one without a full pocket can afford such in-
dulgence. Visitors are expected to spend consid-
erable money for wine, which is always furnished
by the proprietress at the most exhorbitant prices,
and at a profit of about 200 per cent. A large
part of her revenue is derived from such sales,
and she looks sharply after this branch of the
business. The shamelessness with which men of
standing and prominence, many of whom are
fathers of familes, resort to these houses and
display themselves in the parlors is astounding.
126
CHICAGO
Indeed, the keeper of one of the most fashionable
houses boasts that married men are her principal
customers. Sometimes the visitor desires that his
visits shall not be known. For such persons there
are private rooms, where they are sure of seeing
no one but the proprietress and the woman for
whom their visit is intended. These houses are
largely attended by strangers visiting Chicago;
these, thinking themselves unknown in a large
city, care little for privacy, and boldly show them-
selves in the general parlors. The proportion of
married and middle-aged men among them is very
great. You will find among them lawyers, physi-
cians, judges of the courts, members of congress,
and even ministers of the gospel, from all parts
of the country. This may seem a startling asser-
tion, but the police authorities will confirm it. If
the secrets of these places as regards their visi-
tors could be made public there would be a ter-
rible rupture in many happy families throughout
the land, as well as in the metropolis. Men who
at home are models of propriety, seem to lose all
sense of restraint when they come to Chicago.
These same gentlemen would be merciless towards
127
CHICAGO
any female member of their families who should
display a similar laxity.
To return to the women: the inmates of the
first-class houses rarely remain in them for more
than two years. Their shameful and dissipated
lives render them by this time unfit for compan-
ionship with their aristocratic associates. The pro-
prietress quickly detects this and remorselessly
orders them from her house. She knows the fate
that awaits them; but her only care is to keep
her house full of fresh and attractive women.
The Next Step.
Having quitted the fashionable house, the
wretched woman has no recourse but to enter a
second-class house, and then go down one grade
lower in vice. The proprietress is cruel and exact-
ing, and boldly robs her boarders whenever oc-
casion offers. The visitors are more numerous,
but are a rougher and coarser set than those who
patronized her in the first stages of her careef.
Money is less plentiful, her life is harder in every
way, and she seeks relief from the reflections that
will crowd upon her in drink, and perhaps to
128
CHICAGO
drunkenness adds the vice of opium. Her health
breaks fast, what was left of her beauty when she
entered the house soon fades, and in two or three
years she becomes unfit to even remain in a sec-
ond-class house. She is turned into the street by
the proprietress, who generally robs her of her
money and jewelry, and sometimes even of her
clothing, save what she has on at the time. The
wretches who keep these houses do not hesitate
to detain a woman's trunk, or other effects, upon
some trumped-up charge of arrears or debt, when
they have no longer any use for her. The poor
creature has no redress, and is obliged to submit
in silence to any wrong practiced upon her.
The woman whose career opened so brilliantly
is now a confirmed prostitute and drunkard,
bloated, sickly and perhaps diseased ; she is with-
out hope, and there is nothing left. It is only four
or five years, perhaps less, since she entered the
fashionable boulevard mansion, beautiful and at-
tractive in all the freshness of her charms, and
little dreaming of the fate in store for her. She
is not an exception to the rule, however. She has
but followed the usual road, and met the inevita-
ble doom of her class.
129
CHICAGO
Going Down Into the Depths.
From the second-class house the lost woman
passes into one of the bagnios of the "red-light
district" or some similar place. Here her lot is
infinitely more wretched. Her companions are the
vilest of her class, and the visitors are among the
lowest order of men who cannot gain admittance
into places such as she has left. She finds herself
a slave to the keeper of the house, who is often a
burly ruffian, and even more brutal than a woman
would be in the same position. She is robbed of
her earnings, is beaten, and often falls into the
hands of the police. She becomes familiar with
the courts, the bridewell, and whatever of woman-
ly feeling remained to her is crushed out of her.
She is a brute simply. She remains in Green, Peo-
ria or some other like street for a year or two
human nature cannot bear up longer under such a
life and is then unfit to remain even there. "Would
you seek her after this you will find her in the
terrible dens and living hells even in places of
infamy and degredation that a former Mayor was
compelled to stamp out, so utterly repugnant was
it to even the lowest instincts of man. To the
130
CHICAGO
burning disgrace of Chicago, some of these pes-
tiferous vice-breeding places are allowed to exist
by the "stink-pots" who govern the city. These
poor, vile, repulsive women, slowly dying from
their bodily ailments, and the effects of drink and
drugs, have reached the bottom of the ladder, and
can go no lower. She knows it, and in a sort of
dumbly, desperate way, is glad it is so. Life is
such a daily torture to her, that death only offers
her any relief. She is really a living corpse. The
end soon comes. Some die from the effects of
their terrible lives, and oh! such fearful deaths;
and others are killed or fatally injured in drunken
brawls which so often occur in this locality; and
others still seek an end of their miserable exist-
ence in the dark waters of Lake Michigan.
I draw no exaggerated picture of the gradual
but inevitable descent of a fallen woman in Chi-
cago. Every detail is true to life. Seven years
is the average life of an abandoned woman in the
great city. She may begin her career with all the
eclat possible, she may queen it by nature of her
beauty and charms in some fashionable house, at
the beginning, and may even outlast the average
term at such places; it matters not; her doom is
131
CHICAGO
certain. The time will come when she must leave
the aristocracy of shame, must take the second
step in her terrible career. Seven years for the
majority of these women, then death in its most
horrible form. Some may, and do, anticipate the
end of it by suicide ; few ever escape from it.
"The wages of sin is death." Some cherish the
hope that after a few years of pleasure, they will
reform ; but alas, they find it impossible to do so.
A few, a very few, do escape, through the aid ex-
tended to them by the "missions," but they are so
few that they but help to emphasize the hopeless-
ness of the effort. The doom of the fallen woman
is swift and sure! "The wages of sin is death."
Once entered upon a career of shame, the whole
world sets its face against her. Even the men who
associated with her in her palmy days would turn
a deaf ear to her appeals for aid after she has
gone down into the depths. I would to God that
the women who are about to enter upon this terri-
ble life could walk through the purlieu of the
"red-light" district and witness the sights that I
have seen there. I would they could see the
awful, despairing faces that look out from the
132
CHICAGO
bagnios of that terrible nieghborhood, and realize
that, however brilliant the opening of their career
may be, this must be the end of it. It is idle for
them to hope to escape the doom of the fallen
woman. "The wages of sin is death." Would
anyone know what sort of death ? Let her come
to Chicago and see.
Many of the women of the town never pass
through the various gradations of vice that I have
described.
Many never see the inside of a fashionable house
of ill-fame, but begin lower down the scale, as
inmates of second-class houses, as waiter girls in
concert saloons, as inmates of dance houses
which were so prevalent in Chicago years ago
or as street walkers. These meet their inevitable
doom all the more quickly, but not less surely.
The city is full of people, men and women,
whose object is to lead young girls into lives of
shame. They watch the hotels, depots and large
stores and lure respectable girls away on various
pretexts. Every inducement is held out to work-
ing girls and women to adopt the vile trade, and
many fall willing victims. Hundreds of these
women are from rural districts of adjoining states.
133
CHICAGO
They come to the city seeking work and are some-
times successful. Often, however, they can find
nothing to do, and when poverty and want stare
them in the face, they listen to the voice of the
tempter, become street walkers or inmates of
houses of ill-fame. Sometimes, while they are in
the first days of their success, they will write
home that they are pursuing honest callings in the
city and earning respectable livings, and will even
send money home to their deluded parents. After
a while the letters cease the writer has gone
into the depths ; they are lost !
It is, indeed, strange to see how these women
will cherish the memory of their homes even in
the midst of their shame. They will speak at the
pleasant home, or their aged father and mother,
in accents full of despair. Often these memories
will cause them to burst into uncontrollable weep-
ing. If one should try to take advantage of this
moment of tenderness, and urge them to make an
effort to reform, they are met with but one an-
swer: "It is too late."
The keepers of the bagnios of the city use every
means to lure young women into thei: 3 power.
Some years since, a girl who LUG. managed to
134
CHICAGO
escape from a notorious brothel, told the follow-
ing story:
' ' I watched the advertisements in the papers to
see something that would suit me. I learned that
a Mrs. G of street wanted two girls to do
light chamber work, and I hastened there, with a
friend, in quest of the position. We were received
by Mrs. G , who began to explain to us the
nature of the duties we were expected to perform.
Itywas an awful proposition. She kept a house of
ill-fame. "We fled. I was much discouraged. Not
so my friend, who told me there was another lady
down the street, who was really in want of a girl
to help her. "We went to her house. It was an-
other of the same sort ; but after I got in there my
clothes were taken from me, and the woman fur-
nished me with some sort of silk, trimmed with
fur, and tried to make me act like the other girls
in her establishment. I remained there from Sat-
urday to Wednesday night, because I could not
get away. I had no clothes to wear in the streets,
even if I should succeed in reaching them, which
was impossible, and the woman who kept the
house was angry with me, brutally so, because I
would not comply with her wishes. I and another
135
CHICAGO
young girl tried to escape by the back yard. The
other girl got away, but I was discovered by the
keeper, who drove me back into the house with
curses. On Wednesday evening I was made to sit
at a window and call a man, who was passing, into
the house. He turned out to be a detective, and
arrested me, and was the means of my freedom ! ' '
The police are often called upon by relatives
of abandoned women to assist them in finding
them and rescuing them from their lives of shame.
Sometimes, in the cases of very young girls, these
efforts are successful, and the poor creature gladly
goes with friends. Others again refuse to leave
their wretched haunts; they prefer to lead their
lives of infamy.
One night a young man called at the "Apollo,"
a theatre and dance house on Third Avenue now
Plymouth Place and inquired for his sister Dora,
who, he had learned, was in that place. The
young lady came out, while he was speaking, in
company with a well-dressed man. Instead of
complying with her brother's entreaties, she en-
tered a carriage, with her escort, and drove to a
nearby police station to seek relief from her
brother's importunities. The brother followed,
136
CHICAGO
told the sergeant the story of his sister's shaine,
and asked him to keep her there until he could
summon the father. The sergeant complied with
the request and the father soon appeared. He was
a respectable oil manufacturer and had lavished
wealth and fine dress upon the wayward child.
He confirmed his son's statements, and appealed
to his daughter to go home with him, She an-
swered him flippantly, and the indignant father
cursed her for her sin, and would have attacked
the man with her had not officers prevented him.
The woman was locked up for the night in the
station house, and brought before court the next
morning. The father urged that she should be
sent to some reformatory establishment, but the
woman met him with the statement that she was
twenty-three years old, beyond legal control, and
therefore entitled to choose her own mode of life.
Her plea was valid, and the magistrate was un-
willingly compelled to discharge her from custody,
though he endeavored to persuade her to return to
her family. She then left the court room, was
joined by several flashily-dressed women, and
departed in high spirits, completely ignoring her
relatives.
137
CHICAGO
One of the worst classes of abandoned women
consists of street walkers. On any of the business
streets and even in outlying districts these wom-
en are very numerous. They are generally well
dressed, and, as a rule, are young. They pursue
certain regular routes, rarely pausing, unless they
"pick-up" a companion, when they dart off with
him to some side street. On the brilliantly lighted
thoroughfares the police do not allow them to
stop and accost men, but they manage to do so.
The neighobrhoods of the "hotels" and the places
of "amusement" are their principal cruising
grounds, and their victims are mainly strangers
to the city. Many of them have regular employ-
ment during the day, and ply their wretched trade
at night to increase their gains. They accompany
their victims to the "bed-houses" which are con-
veniently at hand, and if an opportunity occurs
will rob him. They frequent the dance halls and
concert saloons ; in fact, every place to which they
can obtain admission, and lure men into their com-
pany. As a rule they are vicious in the extreme,
drink heavily, and in some cases are fearfully
diseased.
in former years many of the street walkers
138
CHICAGO
were in the regular employ of the "panel-houses,**
which were numerous at that time. These houses
were kept by men, who were among the most
desparate roughs in Chicago. The woman is either
mistress of one of these men, or in his pay. The
method pursued was as follows : The street walker
secures her victim on the street, or at some con-
cert hall, or dance-house. He is generally a
stranger, and ignorant of the localities of the city.
She takes him to her room, which is an apartment
provided with a partition in which there is a slid-
ing door or panel. The confederate of the woman
is connealed behind the partition, and at a favor-
able moment slides back the panel, enters the
room and strips the clothing of the victim of the
money and valuables contained in it. If discov-
ered, the panel thief endeavors to disable the
victim. The latter is no match for his assailant,
and is from the first at a disadvantage. The thief
is desperate, and is generally armed. He does
not hesitate at anj'thing, and, if necessary, will
murder the victim, the woman assisting him in
the fearful work. Then the body is left until
near morning, when it is placed in a wagon en-
gaged by the thief, carried to the river or lake,
139
CHICAGO
and then thrown into the water. Generally the
robbery is accomplished without the necessity of
resorting to violence. The victim -either puts up
with his loss in silence^ or reports it to the police.
The records at headquarters contain reports of
numerous robberies of this kind. So the evil went
on. Strangers in this city incur terrible risk in
accompanying street walkers, and women whom
they meet on the street, at concert and dance
halls to their homes. In nine cases out of ten,
robbery is certain. Murder is too often the re-
sult of such adventure. Truly, Solomon was wise
indeed when he wrote: "He hath taken a bag of
money with him with her much fair speech she
caused him to yield, with flattering of her lips she
forced him he goeth after her straightway, as
an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the
correction of the stocks ; till a dart strike through
his liver; as a bird hastened to the snare, and
knoweth not it is for his life her house is the way
to hell going down to the chambers of death."
140
Chicago's Crowning Curse
The curse of Chicago is the vile, repugnant
saloon. No one can realize the picture of its rot-
tenness all at once ; everything is deceptive about
it, and it takes time to grasp the magnitude of
this hydra-headed monster. But by degrees the
immensity and appalling environments assert
themselves, and the beholder, while visiting these
pest holes, feels and knows that he is in close
proximity to the devil. The very atmosphere
seems laden with his satanic majesty's presence,
which permeates every nook and corner of the
iniquitous place. Here, above all other places, the
devil's work is supreme. Awful, indeed, is the
anguish of the mother as she looks upon the face
of her ruined son or daughter.
Oh! Chicago! big, bustling Chicago! Storms
and tempests may rage around, and the sun's
fierce rays descend upon your brow ; you may be
victorious in commercial conflict, but sink into in-
141
CHICAGO
significance when facing the greatest of social
evils.
There are, however, no rivals among these dan-
gerous dives, which stand out like projecting
rocks as pitfalls for the weak.
There are about 7,000 saloons in Chicago. At
each of these places liquors are sold by the single
glass or drink. They represent every grade of
drinking establishments, from the magnificent
Buffet to the "Barrel-houses." All these places
enjoy a greater or less degree of prosperity, and
the proprietors grow rich, unless they cut short
their lives by becoming their own best customers.
For alcoholic and malt liquors served over the bar
hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent daily.
It is estimated that in the vicinity of the board of
trade 7,500 drinks are disposed of every day. The
"bulls and bears" require heavy stimulants to
keep them up to their exciting work, and their
daily expenditure for such purposes is about
$2,500. Probably this may account for some of
the queer scenes to be witnessed in the pit.
The quantity of beer consumed in the city is
about twelve times that of whisky, and is the
most common of the alcoholic drinks. The true-
142
CHICAGO
blooded German beer drinker will consume from
one to two dozen glasses of his favorite beverage
in twenty-four hours and his American and other
imitators follow closely in his footsteps.
A popular bar will take in $200 to $400 a day,
but the majority of the liquor dealers are content
with from $30 to $50 a day. Some of these places
remain open all night, and are filled with dram
drinkers at all hours. At the first-class establish-
ments the liquors sold are of good quality, but
as the scale is descended the quality of the drinks
fall off, until the low-class bar-rooms are reached
in which the most poisonous compounds are sold,
under the name of whisky, brandy, gin and rum.
The American saloon is the curse of the nation.
Hundreds of thousands of men and women are
being ruined annually, and our government, it
seems, is powerless to curb the destroying monster.
There are over 1400 girls in the training school
for girls, and with few exceptions they have been
children of an alcoholic inheritance. Are they to
be blamed for the circumstances surrounding their
young lives? Not at all. The whole blame lies
at the door of those who have voted to license the
saloon which has made it possible for the parents
143
CHICAGO
to so poison their physical being that it is not pos-
sible for them to bring into the world normal
children with the powers that would enable them
to cope with the world.
The number of moral imbeciles that are in the
state institutions is simply appalling, and there
are object lessons enough in Chicago to cause any
one who will give the subject but a moment of
good, unselfish thought, to. go to the polls and de-
clare that no longer shall be fostered in our midst
that which in the course of time will make us
no better than a nation of lepers. Some day
parents will recognize the responsibility of bring-
ing children into the world.
The American woman of the fashionable set
lives in a whirl of unhealthful stress and excite-
ment. She sleeps too little and keeps her nerves
constantly on the Qui Vive. She tipples and
drugs, she is often a degenerate and a mother of
degenerates if, indeed, she be a mother at all.
This drinking among women is more prevalent
than we are willing to believe, and it is one of
the greatest dangers with which we are confronted
today. The hurry and fret of Chicago life is
144
CHICAGO
turning out degenerates at a rate that will one
day stagger the world.
Ignorance and bad parentage are doing the
work in many instances, and girls comparatively
good are led off by bad men and worse women.
Children who have been well born and should
have been well reared, find their way into the
schools of delinquents, the jails, penitentiaries,
and insane hospitals. The heredity of many of
these children is appalling and the environments
does the rest.
The "barrel-houses" are located in the poorer
sections of the city where the liquors of the vilest
kind are sold. Their customers are the poor and
wretched. Only the cheapest and poisonous
liquors are sold here as a rule.
It is impossible to estimate the amount of drunk-
enness in Chicago. The arrests represent but a
small part of it, as thousands upon thousands of
habitual drunkards manage to keep out of the
hands of the police. Respectable men patronize
the bar-rooms regularly, and are constantly seen
reeling along the streets. So long as they are
not helpless, or guilty of disorderly conduct, the
police do not molest them. Systematic drinking,
145
CHICAGO
which does not amount to actual intoxication,
but kills by slow degrees, is very common. Among
the most liberal patrons of the bar-rooms are
young men and even boys, who thoughtlessly be-
gin their careers that will one day end in sorrow.
Drunkenness is by no means confined to men.
Women are laregly addicted to it. Out of some
twelve arrests for this cause three are women.
In the more wretched quarters of the city, women
drink heavily and are among the most constant
customers of the cheap groggeries which thrive
among the poor. Even women of respectability
and good social positions are guilty of the vice
of intemperance. They all do not frequent bar-
rooms, however, but obtain liquor at the restau-
rants patronized by them, and it is a common
sight to see well-dressed womeo, married and
single, rise from a restaurant table under the
influence of intoxicating drink.
The poem of Francis E. Bolton, tells the story
of the rum demon.
Within a home of woe and shame,
A drunken father nightly came,
146
CHICAGO
And called the only child he had,
lo come and kiss her poor old dad.
A darling little girl was she,
Who climbed upon that father's knee,
And kissed him with a look half sad,
Although she loved her poor old dad.
Drunken and dirty, weary and sad,
She always kissed her poor old dad,
But lower, lower sank his soul,
Infatuated with the bowl,
One comfort only then he had,
The kiss that always welcomed dad.
One night a Christian brother came,
And won him from his woe and shame,
He found the Lord, who made him glad,
That night she kissed a sober dad.
Days came and went, his eyes grew bright,
His clothes were neat, his heart was light,
His home was heaven, his child was glad,
Some marvelous change had come to dad.
One night he called her as of yore,
As she stood white-robed upon the floor.
His tone a deeper loving had,
"Come, pet, and kiss your poor old dad."
147
CHICAGO
Loyal and loving, manly and glad,
She knew some change had come to dad
Her eyes lit with a radient smile,
She paused in thought a little while,
She said as slow as she looked him o'er,,
"You're not my old dad any more."
"What then, my pet?" he asked with awe,
"Why, now you are my new papa."
He caught her to his breast with praise,
"So may I be through endless days."
Loyal and loving, noble and true,
Praise to the Lord, old dad is new,
O, glorious grace of God! 'tis here,
For those who sigh in sin and fear.
Come unto Christ who can restore,
Nor be the old man any more.
In Jesus Christ the world is true,
You are a creature wholly new.
The blessed spirit now implore,
Nor be the old man any more.
Loyal and loving, noble and true,
The soul that lives in Christ is new.
148
Gambling Hells
Past and Present.
The statutes of the state of Illinois pronounce
severe penalties against gambling and gamblers,
yet games of chance have flourished in the past
and do yet to a greater extent than in any other
city in the country. There are said to be about
20,000 men who maintain an existence through
gambling in one form or another. In late years
the laws against gambling have been enforced
more rigidly than formerly, and the number of
professional gamblers has somewhat diminished.
Yet there are enough of them left to make their
business a very marked feature of metropolitan
life.
At the head of the fraternity are the faro deal-
ers. This game is too well known to the average
American to need any description here, and has
always been popular in this country because of its
supposed fairness.
149
CHICAGO
"In the good old days," as one celebrity ex-
pressed it, there were between forty and fifty
faro games in Chicago, some of which were pala-
tial establishments. The busiest of these were to
be found in Clark street, and numerous side
streets; outwardly these places appear to be sim-
ply private clubs, for they have a silent, deserted
air during the day, giving no signs of life. The
blinds are kept down and only men are seen to
enter and leave the houses. The better class are
furnished with great magnificence, and costly
paintings adorn the walls; the softest carpets
cover the floors, the most costly furniture fills the
apartments and superb chandeliers hang from the
ceilings and shed a brilliant glow through the
rooms. The servants are colored, and the attend-
ance is all that could be desired. Delicious sup-
pers are spread nightly for guests, and rare wines
and liquors are at the command of all who honor
the place with their presence. In the house are
all the various conveniences for gaming. In the
first-class houses no one is asked to play, but it is
understood that all who partake of the proprie-
tor's hospitality are expected to make some re-
turn by risking something at the tables. In the
150
CHICAGO
best houses the games are generally fair, the pro-
prietor trusting to the chances of the game, which
are nearly all in favor of the "Bank," and the
skill of the dealer. Great care is exercised in the
admission of visitors. The proprietors of these
places discourage the visits of young men; they
prefer the company of men of means who have
something to lose. Poker is also largely played
in all first-class establishments.
The second-class houses or "hells," are scat-
tered all over the business portion of the city.
The visitors to these establishments are chiefly
young men and strangers in the city, who are
lured or "roped" into them by agents of the pro-
prietors. Faro, roulette, poker and numerous
other games are played here, but fair games are
unknown, except among the professionals who
frequent the place. The "skin" game is used
with the majority of the visitors, for the proprie-
tor is determined from the outset to fleece them
without mercy. In these places everything per-
taining to gaming is boldly displayed chips,
cards, faro boxes, roulette wheels, handsome gam-
ing tables, and side-boards containing liquors and
tigars. The entrance to the houses are carefully
151
CHICAGO
guarded, the doors are secured by heavy bolts
and bars, and sliding panels afford every oppor-
tunity for inspecting the visitor before his final
admission to the rooms. Though roulette is fre-
quently played in these establishments, faro, as
we have said, is the principal game. It is simpler
than roulette, and gives a heavy percentage in
favor of the "bank," and "skin faro," the only
game played here, offers no chance to the player.
In "skin faro" the dealer can take two cards
from the box instead of one, whenever he chooses
to do so. The box is so arranged that the dealer
can press on a lever within the box in the right
hand corner. When this is pressed upon the
mouth of the box is opened, so as to allow two
cards to slip out at onco. The cards being
"sanded," stick close together, and the player
can not perceive that there are two. On the with-
drawal of the pressure from the lever the mouth
of the box is closed by a spring, so that only one
card can slip out. There are some boxes, called
"sanded-boxes," by the use of wlnV-h the dealer
can press on the end of the box and take out two
cards, still keeping his fingers in the natural po-
sition, instead of being obliged to reach inside of
152
CHICAGO
the box in order to press the lever. No tally is
kept of these games, and the player is unable to
see how many cards have been dealt out. Should
he discover the trick, it is highly dangerous to
attempt to expose it, as nearly all the persons
present are in league with the "bank," and are
united in the effort to get possession of the play-
er's money. The safest plan is to bear the loss
and get out of the place as soon as possible, as the
men present will not hesitate to provoke a quar-
rel with or assault a stranger who disputes the
fairness of the game. A quarrel once started,
every advantage is taken of the player, and his
life is not worth a farthing. The safest plan of
all is to remain away from these hells. The man
who enters any gaming house in Chicago, espe-
cially a stranger in the city, is a fool, and deserves
to lose his money. He who ventures into one of
the second-class houses, risks not only his money,
but his life. However wise a man may be in his
own conceit, however he may rank as an oracle
in his distant home, however brave, resolute, or
skillful he may be, he is no match for a Chicago
gambler. In nine houses out of ten his life is in
153
CHICAGO
danger unless he submits quietly to be robbed in
the most barefaced manner.
One of the worst and most demoralizing forms
of gambling is "pool selling." The pool business
flourishes at the present time, and is winked at
by the police officers, and tribute is generally
understood to be levied against the proprietors.
The business is conducted by professional gam-
blers, and though seemingly fair, is a swindle
throughout. Pools are sold on horse-races, prize-
fights, boat-races, political elections, and in short,
on all and every conceivable contest into which
the element of chance or doubt; enters. The pool
is a fixed number of chances, each of which is
sold at a certain price. The managers charge a
percentage or commission on all tickets sold, and
do not hesitate to sell as many as there are appli-
cants for, even though the legitimate number is
exceeded by such sales. A favorite trick is to
receive the money invested in pools and then
spread reports which shall discourage the bettors,
and induce them to withdraw their bets. The
managers return the amounts invested, minus
their commission, which they retain, and in this
way, while seeming to act with perfect fairness,
154
CHICAGO
fill their coffers at the expense of their victims.
The great evil of "pool" gambling is that it
encourages young men and boys to enter into the
combinations, and thus give them a taste for
gambling. The possibility of winning consider-
able money by investments fascinates them. Dur-
ing a political campaign officers of two of the
largest banks in the city called upon the Chief of
Police, and stated that they suspected that many
of their clerks visited the pool rooms. They
feared that the excitement and allurements of
gambling might impair the integrity of these
young men, and induce them to appropriate
money belonging to the bank. Detectives were
employed, and the suspicions of the bank officers
were confirmed. Business men are constantly
finding that their clerks and salesmen are regular
visitors to the pool-rooms. Messenger boys, boot-
blacks, and others who earn only a few dollars a
week, invest all the money they can get hold of
in buying pool tickets. Men of high respectability
fall victims to the same vice, and the evil goes on
increasing. The only persons who profit by it
are the managers of the pools, who do not hesi-
tate to resort to any trick to retain the money
155
CHICAGO
intrusted to them, and who cooly swindle their
infatuated dupes, old and young, with the same
cheerful alacrity.
Another vicious form of gambling is the lottery
business, closely connected with which is "policy
dealing." Lotteries are of two kinds the single
number system and the combination system. In
the former as many single numbers as there are
tickets in the scheme, are placed in a wheel, and
are drawn out in regular order. The first number
drawn wins the capital prize, and so on until
as many numbers are drawn as there are prizes.
In the combination system, seventy-five numbers
are generally placed in the wheel, and from these
a certain set of numbers are drawn, according to
the provisions of the scheme. The chances are
much greater against the ticket holders in this
system than in the single number schemes, as,
in order for a player to win a prize, the various
numbers must be drawn in the exact order repre-
sented on his ticket.
It is, of course, possible for a lottery to be fairly
drawn, but it is a well-known fact that in the ma-
jority of the schemes advertised no drawing of
any kind ever takes place. A bogus drawing is
156
CHICAGO
published, and, though prizes are assigned, not a
single ticket-holder ever receives one. Even if
the drawing is fair, the business is to be denoun-
ced on the ground that it is not only illegal, but
demoralizing. The purchasers of lottery tickets
are, as a rule, persons unable to afford the expen-
diture generally the very poor. This species of
gambling has a fascination which holds its vot-
aries with a grip of iron. They venture again and
again, winning nothing, but hoping for better luck
next time, and so continue until they have lost
their all. There are hundreds of well-authenti-
cated cases of men and women being reduced to
beggary, despair and suicide by lottery gambling.
The managers of the various lottery schemes
are professional gamblers. They are without prin-
ciple, and do not intend to pay any prizes to
ticket-holders. They receive their money from
their dupes, announce a bogus drawing, in which
no prizes can be found by any ticket-holder, and
then coolly ask their victims to try again.
Policy dealing is one degree lower in infamy
than the lottery business. There were at one time
about 200 policy shops in the city, whose principal
customers are negroes, sailors and foreigners.
157
CHICAGO
The mazes of policy are not well known tf the
general public. Few games are so well devised for
a sure loss to the player, even when honestly
played, and the more influential sellers make this
assurance doubly sure by playing to suit them-
selves. The game consists of betting on certain
numbers, within the range of lottery schemes,
being drawn at high noon or night-drawing.
Seventy-eight numbers usually make up the lot-
tery scheme, and the policy player can take any
of these numbers and bet they will be drawn,
either single, or in such combinations as he may
select. The single numbers may come out any-
where in the drawing, but the combination must
appear as he writes it in making his bet. He pays
one dollar for the privilege of betting and re-
ceives a written slip containing the number or
numbers on which he bets. If a single number
is chosen and drawn, he wins $5.00, two numbers
constitute a * ' saddle, ' ' and if both are drawn the
player wins from $24.00 to $32.00, three numbers
make a "gig" and win from $150 to $225; four
numbers make a "horse," and win $640.00 A
"capital straddle" is a bet that two numbers
will be among the first three drawn, and wins
158
CHICAGO
$500.00. The player may take any number of
4 'saddles," "gigs," or "horses," paying $1.00 for
each bet.
Now all this seems very fair, but the policy
managers are equal to the emergency. As soon as
they receive the drawings, they change the order
of the numbers, and thus condemn the players to
a total loss. These alternated numbers are printed
on slips, and distributed to the various policy
shops. In some cases, after these copies have been
sent out, it is discovered that the players have
even then won too much to suit the managers.
The copies are immediately recalled as misprints,
and new copies, altered to suit the managers, are
distributed.
All sorts of people engage in this wretched
game, black and whites, rich and poor. The
grossest superstitions are indulged in respecting
"lucky numbers," Such numbers are revealed
by dreamers, which are interpreted by "dream
books." To dream of a man is "one," of a woman
"five," of both "fifteen," and so on. Thousands
of copies of these "dream books" are sold every
year, and among its purchasers are said to be
many shrewd operators on the Board of Trade.
159
CHICAGO
So great is the rage for policy playing that men
and women become insane over it. The lunatic
asylums contain many patients who have been
brought there by this species of gambling.
160
Criminal Operations
One of the greatest evils of the city is the exist-
ence of a class of men and women some practic-
ing physicians who make their living by practic-
ing abortion upon women who have been betrayed
and upon married women. These abortionists are
known as a rule to the police, who make no effort
to break up the infamous business. They continue
to flourish, and advertise in such city journals as
will admit their advertisements, and reap large
profits from the sale of drugs and the perform-
ance of operations upon pregnant women. Their
calling is illegal, and the statute books inflicts
grave penalties against them. To bring on prema-
ture confinement, which shall result in the death
of a child, is made by law a grave offense. In spite
of this, however, infanticide flourishes i Chicago,
and every year the city journals contain numer
ous accounts of the death of women at the hands
of professional abortionists. They are arrested
and punished whenever a clear siaa <mn be made
161
CHICAGO
out against them; but others spring up to take
their place, and the infamous business continues
to thrive. Some of the more cautious practition-
ers will not undertake the premature delivery of
a woman, but content themselves with receiving
her, and carrying her safely through her confine-
ment. They require that she shall be ''backed"
by some responsible man. The child, when born,
is sent to some foundling asylum, or given to per-
sons willing to adopt it. Often the practitioner
places it in the hands of some person to care for
it, and, when the parents are of good position in
society, and possessed of wealth, holds it as a
means of extorting money from them. Large
sums are wrung from parents in this way, in
order to avoid an exposure, and men and women
have been driven to despair and suicide by the
wretches in whose power they have placed them-
selves.
One of the most notorious women of this class
was the late Madam S . A large part of her
income was derived from the sale of drugs war-
ranted to bring on miscarriages. She amassed a
large fortune, by her business, built a magnificent
house on a prominent street, and lived in royal
162
CHICAGO
btyle. She would never commit an abortion out-
right, but would safely deliver her patients, take
care of the children born in her house, and use
them as means of extorting money from the par-
ents. Her patients were invariably women of
position in society, in the city and other parts of
the country, and she received no one in her house
unless "backed" by a man of known wealth. At
length her wicked ways threw her into the hands
of the police. The evidence against her was over-
whelming, and to escape the just punishment of
her crimes, the wretched woman committed sui-
cide.
A physician of standing in his profession once
said to me, "The number of young girls in their
teens who come here begging my services is as-
tounding. Many, of course, have been betrayed,
and seek to remove the consequences of their
sin."
163
"Poverty in Chicago."
Life Under the Shadows
Poverty in Chicago.
It is a terrible thing to be poor in any part of
the world. In Chicago poverty is simply a living
death. The city is full of suffering and misery.
Some of the wretched people who endure it have,
no doubt, brought it upon themselves by drink,
by idleness, or by other faults, but a large major-
ity are simply unfortunate. Their poverty has
come upon them through no fault of their own;
they struggle bravely against it, and would better
their condition if they could only find employ-
ment. They are held down by an iron hand, how-
ever, and vainly endeavor to rise out of their mis-
ery. They dwell in wretched tenement houses, in
cellars of buildings in the more thickly populated
parts of the city, and in shanties, and hovels in al-
most every quarter of the city. A few families,
even in the midst of their sufferings, manage to
keep their poor quarters clean and neat, but the
165
CHICAGO
majority live in squalor and filth. But little fur-
niture is to be seen in the rooms of the poor.
Everything that can bring money has been sold
for the means with which to buy food. Many of
these wretched homes have been stripped of all
their contents for this purpose. A cooking stove
sometimes constitutes the only article of furniture
in a room, and the inmates sleep upon the floor.
Not a chair or table is to be seen. Often there is
no stove, and the only food that passes the lips of
the occupants of these rooms is what is given
them in charity.
The inmates of these wretched homes are often
families who have seen better days. Once the
husband and father could give those dependent
upon him a comfortable home, and provide at
least the necessaries of life. But sickness came up-
on him, or death took him, and the little family
was deprived of his support. In vain the mother
sought to procure work to keep her children in
comfort. What work she could procure was at
intervals, and the little she earned barely sufficed
to keep a Foof over their heads. Little by little
they sank lower and lower, until poverty in its
worst form settled upon them. The city is full of
166
such cases, and missionaries, whose labors among
the poor bring them in constant contact with
scenes of suffering, confess that they do not know
how these poor people manage to live. Whole
blocks are filled with families on the verge of
starvation. They would gladly work if they could
get employment ; but the city is so full of sufferers
like themselves that they cannot escape from their
wretched condition. The so-called Ghetto and
other localities present scenes of misery which
almost surpass belief. Many of the dwellers here
pick up a bare subsistence.
To those who visit these sections of the city,
each one seems worse than the other. The "Ghet-
to" is the most wretched haunt occupied by hu-
man beings in the country. It is easily found.
Cross the river at Harrison street, go west to
Jefferson street, turn south. Anybody can tell
you where it is. There is no mistaking the place.
A junkman's cellar in the front of the house opens
widely to the street, and, peering down, one may
see a scene of men and women half buried in dirty
rags and papers which they are gathering up and
putting in bales for the paper mills. This is the
general depot to which the rag-picker brings his
167
CHICAGO
odds and ends for sale after he has assorted them.
Just as we emerge from this cellar, a rag-picker,
heavily laden, passes up the stoop, and enters the
hall above. Standing here and looking up, one
beholds a sight that cannot be imagined. Rags to
the right of him, rags to the left of him, on all
sides nothing but rags. Lines in the yard draped
with them, windows hung with them, every avail-
able object dressed in rags and such rags! of
every possible size, shape and color. Some of
them have been drawn through the wash-tub to
get off the worst dirt, but for the most part they
are hung up just as they were taken from the
bags, and left to the rain and snow to cleanse
them. The exterior of the buildings is wretched
enough; the interior equally so.
Some of the rooms on a cloudy day are as dark
as dungeons, with but little light coming through
the dirty window on the front and the smaller one
on the back. Every inch of the ceiling and walls
is black and dirty. Against this dark background
are hung numerous hats, kettles, pans, joints of
raw meat, partly consumed Bologna sausages,
gowns of women, and so on. The beds are almost
invariably covered with old carpets, that still re-
168
CHICAGO
tain some bits of their original color. None of the
chairs have backs, and hardly any of them have
four legs. Seated upon these uncertain supports,
or often an empty soap box or upturned boiler, are
the rag-pickers. Every man in the house has his
hat on, including the one in bed napping after the
hard work of the early morning. Not one bare-
headed man is seen anywhere. Some of them are
sitting dreamily by the stove, but most of them
are sorting rags or cutting up old coats and pan-
taloons that are too much used to wear, and stuff-
ing the bits into the bags for the junk dealer. In
one room is a woman washing bones with her
dirty hands, in another place four men are seated
on a big chest, with a bit of Bologna sausage in
one hand and a chunk of black bread in the other,
making their noon-day meal. These same hands
have just finished turning over filthy scraps from
the garbage boxes and the gutters. On the ground
floor a man, who looks for all the world like a
brigand, is stirring broth over the fire, and the
horrible odor of rotteness that comes from the
pot is enough to knock one down.
Few of the members of the Italian colony speak
English, except here and there one has mastered
169
CHICAGO
a few common phrases ; but there is one word that
all of them understand, and that is "Beer." Here,
as in other quarters where the poor are found,
sour beer is dealt out at a cent a glass. I once
asked a police officer if there was much drunken-
ness there. "Oh, yes, sir," he replied; "we can
go in there any night and get a cart load of drun-
ken men and women."
Passing through these quarters of abode of our
foreign born brethren you will often find two or
more families occupying a single room. Some-
times as many as a dozen people are to be found
living in a small room. Often a family of five will
take in lodgers at five cents a night. There are no
beds. Chalk marks are made on the floor allotting
a space 2x6 feet to each other. To add to their
income they sell sour beer at 2 cents a quart. The
place is filthy beyond belief. The upper floors are
not quite so bad ; but they contain sights that baf-
fle description. The inmates are huddled together
in disregard of cleanliness and decency. The
rooms are dirty and the air is foul. The food is
gathered principally from the garbage boxes of
the streets or from the offal of the markets. The
eooking is done from time to time and fills the
170
CHICAGO
room with horrible odors. There are no bedsteads.
Filthy looking mattresses on the floor, or on
boards placed upon supports. The inmates never
undress, but go to bed with their clothes on, in-
cluding their boots and shoes. The children are
wan and pinched in appearance, and frightfully
dirty. What wonder that sickness and disease
hold high revel here !
Bad as is the lot of these people, they at least
exist upon the face of the earth. Those who dwell
in the cellars of these wretched quarters are in-
finitely worse off. They have but one entrance,
and a single window gives light and ventilation.
There is no outlet in the rear and the filth of the
street drains steadily into them. They are occu-
pied by the poorest of the poor, and the amount,
of misery and wretchedness, dirt and squalor to
be witnessed in them passes description. In the
winter a stove heats the place, and renders the air
so foul that one unaccustomed to it cannot breath
in the room. Many of these cellars are lodging
houses into which the wretched outcasts who walk
the streets during the day, crowd for shelter at
night. They pay from two to five cents for a
night's lodging, and sometimes as many as from
171
CHICAGO
twenty-five to fifty are packed in these terrible
holes.
There are sections of many streets in the busi-
ness part of the city that equal in wretchedness
and misery those previously described. They are
terrible streets, and even the police venture into
them with caution. Drunken brawls, fights and
stabbing affrays are of nightly occurence.
John Chinaman is a stranger and a waif in the
great city, but he has managed to establish a dis-
tinct quarter in Clark street. In other portions
of the city are Chinese laundries, where the
almond-eyed Celestials conduct their business of
washing and ironing; but here are the headquar-
ters of the Mongolians, their gaming and opium
dens. Though peaceable as a rule, they are some-
times troublesome, and the police find them hard
customers to handle. They are inveterate gam-
blers, and one of their chief dissipations consists
in stupifying themselves by smoking opium. The
opium dens are simply dirty rooms provided with
wooden bunks, and sometimes beds, in which the
smokers may lie and sleep off the effects of the
terrible drug. Many of these places are patron-
ized by white people, and some number women
CHICAGO
of the lower class among their customers. Half
nude men and women of all nationalities and
colors are sometimes found lying in heaps in a
single room. These cases are rare, however, as
the authorities are watchful for this class of law-
breakers.
The Pawnbrokers
The stranger passing along Clark street is
struck with the number of quiet, dingy looking
shops over which are suspended the old sign of
the Lombards three gilt ball signs; all Of the
latter more or less dingy, may be seen in many
other quarters of the city, but they are nowhere
so numerous as in the street we have mentioned.
These pawnbrokers' shops, and, as a rule, the
proprietors, are leeches sucking the life blood
of the poor, and grow rich upon their miseries.
Of course, in all large cities there must of neces-
sity be a great aggregation of poverty and misery.
To the poor, th pawnbroker is a necessity. They
must have some place to which they can repair at
once and, by pledging such articles as they pos-
sess, raise the pittance they so sorely need. Muni-
cipal legislators the world over recognize this ne-
cessity, and endeavor to throw such safeguards
around the business of pawnbroking that the
poor shall not be entirely at the mercy of the
175
CHICAGO
brokers. The great state of Illinois has in the last
few years passed a state pawners law which has
given to thousands of the poor low rates of inter-
est.
In Chicago the law requires that licenses to do
business as pawnbrokers shall be issued to none
but persons of known good character. The Mayor
of the city alone has the power of issuing such
licenses, and mayors of all parties have been in
the habit of putting a very liberal construction
upon the law. None but those so licensed can do
business in Chicago. Mayors of all cliques and
parties, have exercised their power with appar-
ently little sense of the responsibility which rests
upon them. They have not ordinarily at least, re-
quired clear proof of the integrity of the appli-
cants, but have usually licensed every applicant
possessed of particular or other influence. There
is scarcely an instance where they have revoked
a license thus granted, even when they have been
furnished with proofs of the dishonesty of the
holders.
Very few, if any pawnbrokers, pay any atten-
tion to the law. They know that the great major-
ity of their customers are ignorant of the provi-
176
CHICAGO
sions of the statutes and that those who are famil-
iar with it will not avail themselves of its protec-
tion, as they fear to lose the favor of the pawn-
brokers. Consequently they fix their own rate of
interest, which may be said to average five per
cent per month, or any fractional part of a month,
or sixty per cent per year. Some of the more un-
scrupulous members of the fraternity, where deal-
ings are exclusively with the poor, charge a much
higher rate, extorting as much as ten per cent a
month from those whose needs are very great.
The writer recalls a case where a widow of a
few days came into a pawnshop on Clark street.
She was clad in a light calico wrapper with af
small shawl thrown about her head. She was des-
titute, and had been ordered from her little three-
room flat near by, unless the almost fabulous sum,
to her, of seven dollars and fifty cents, should be
paid over to the landlord at once. Trembling she
entered the dingy "store" and offered her en-
gagement ring in pawn. Being asked the amount
she wanted for the pledge, she was told that she
would receive just one-quarter of that amount.
"Oh, sir," she pleaded, "I must have that
amount, my baby is sick and the doctor said that
177
CHICAGO
to remove her now would mean to kill he*; The
ring is the last and most precious gift I have of
my dear, dead husband. I will redeem it, if God
gives me life and strength to do so."
The hardened man refused to give more, and
taking the ring from his hand, with tears stream-
ing down her pale cheeks, she started toward the
door.
My sympathies were naturally with the poor,
grief-stricken woman, and advancing toward her
asked if I might assist her in any way. She told
me a story of want and deprivation. How she had
sold everything of value she had in order to fur-
nish medicine for her husband who had been sick
for a long time. How, one by one, her most cher-
ished and useful articles of furniture, bric-a-brac
and jewelry had been sold or pawned, keeping to
the last, the ring, the one token that meant so
much to her.
Turning to the keeper of the shop I instructed
him to give her the amount she had previously
asked for, stating that I would pay him that
amount if the woman in question failed to redeem
the ring within sixty days. I shall never forget
the expression of gratitude that seemed to per*
178
CHICAGO
meate her whole being, and with profuse thank-
fulness, and ' ' God bless you, sir, ' ' she departed.
Another source of profit to the pawnbrokers
arises from the sale of unredeemed articles. Ad-
vances are made at so low a rate that the proper-
ty pledged is sure to bring more when put up for
sale than the sum loaned upon it.
The majority of the pawnbrokers of Chicago
are Polish and Russian Jews, and are the most
rascally of that race. They do not monopolize the
business, however, for there are Englishmen, Irish-
men and even Americans engaged in it. The most
honest dealers are found among the Americans
and Englishmen. The pawnbroker is by nature a
scoundrel, and so far as the observation of the
writer goes, has not one redeeming quality. He
advances the smallest amount on goods pledged,
extorts the highest rates of interest, and is the
most merciless in his dealings with his customers
of any of the fraternity. The Jews are so numer-
ous in this business, that they have given it its
peculiar reputation. These wretches suck the
very life blood from the poor, and having gotten
possession of their property, do not hesitate to sell
it for many times its value, when they see an op-
179
CHICAGO
portunity for doing so. When the owner conies
for his or her property, the pawnbroker declares,
with well feigned regret, that it cannot be found,
and either turns the owner out of doors, or buys
up his pawn ticket at a very heavy discount. He
knows the disinclination to seek redress at law.
These wretches do not hesitate to deck their fami-
lies out in the clothing, shawls and jewelry pledg-
ed to them. Often the clothes are worn out, and
the return of the pledge is either refused or the
articles are restord in such a damaged condition
as to be useless. Sometimes a spirited depositor
will demand full redress for the loss so inflicted
upon him, and will threaten the broker with an
appeal to the courts. If the broker is convinced
that the depositor is in earnest, he settles up
promptly ; but there is an end to his dealings with
that person. He has no wish to have his transac-
tions brought to the light of Justice. Such pro-
ceeding would bring unpleasant consequences in
its train, and he does not desire such customers.
The majority of the pawnshops are dirty and
repulsive in appearance. Before them hangs the
sign of the three balls, and the windows are filled
with unredeemed pledges for sale, and are adorned
180
CHICAGO
with signs stating that money is loaned here on all
kinds of property at the most liberal rates.
Pushing open the dirty door, we enter a dingy
apartment. The air is close and stuffy, and the
room smells strongly of garlic or onions. A man
with an unmistakably Jewish face and a villain-
ous expression of countenance stands behind the
narrow counter. We take our stand inside, in-
visably of course, and watch the proceedings.
A young man enters, well dressed, and rather
dissipated in appearance. The child of Abraham
watches him narrowly, and begins to shake his
head and groan, as if in pain. The visitor ap-
proaches the counter, and lays a gold watch upon
it. The broker clutches it eagerly, examines it,
and groans louder than ever.
' ' Vat you want on dis vatch ? " he asks mourn-
fully.
"Fifty dollars. It cost me one hundred and
rlfty," is the reply.
"Fifty tollar! fifty tollar! Holy Moshish, vat
you take me for?"
Then turning, calls wildly, "Abraham! Abra-
ham! you shust koom heir, quick."
A second Jew, dirtier and more disreputable
181
CHICAGO
looking than the first, makes his appearance, and
the proprietor, passing up his hands, shrieks out,
as if in despair :
"Abraham! he vants fifty tollars on dat vatch.
De man is crazy."
"Ve shall be ruined," echoes Abraham, hoarse-
ly. "Ve couldn't do it. Tish too much."
The proprietor waves his arms wildly, takes the
watch from Abraham, and eyeing the owner
sharply for a moment, says :
"I tell you vat I do. I gif you fifteen tollars.
How long you vant de monish ? ' '
Only for a month," replies the young man,
evidently struggling between disgust and despair.
"I let you haf fifteen tollars for de month,"
says the pawnbroker, seizing a ticket and com-
mencing to make it out. "You pay me one tollar
for de loan, and pay me fifty cents to put de vatch
in de safe, you know it might get stole if I leaf it
out hier. Dat shuit you, mine young frient?"
The young man has "been there" before, and
knows that remonstrance is useless. He nods a
silent affirmation, and the pawnbroker makes out
a ticket for fifteen dollars, and hands him thir-
teen dollars and fifty cents, having deducted the
182
CHICAGO
interest and the charge for storage. The young
man receives the money and ticket, and goes out
in silence.
"Dat ish peesness," says Abraham, admiringly,
as the proprietor puts the watch away.
"Yesh," mutters the pawnbroker, with a satis-
fied air, "de vatch ish vort a hundred tollar. If
he don't take it up, it will bring us dat. "
The next customer is a poor woman, who comes
to pledge some article of household use. She is
ground down to the lowest cent, and charged the
highest interest ; and so the proceedings go on un-
til we become heartsick, and leave the place as
invisibly as we can.
The principal dealings of the pawnbrokers are,
as we have said, with the poor. Life is hard in
Chicago, and those who dwell under the shadow
are obliged to make great sacrifices of comfort
to keep body and soul together. Everything that
will bring money finds its way to the pawn shop
and the miserable pittance received for it goes to
provide food. Too often articles of household use
or clothing are pawned to raise money for drink,
and the possessions of the family are one by one
183
CHICAGO
sacrificed for this wretched purpose, until noth-
ing is left.
The pawnbrokers find a very profitable class of
customers in the respectable working people of
the city; many of these regularly pawn articles,
sometimes of value, at the first of the week, and
redeem them when they receive their wages on
Saturday. It is to the broker's interest to be
obliging to these people, since they are regular
customers, and he reaps a rich harvest from them
in the exhorbitant interest they pay him.
It is a common belief that the pawnbrokers
are also receivers of stolen goods. Some of the
more unscrupulous may make ventures of this
kind, but as a rule the brokers have nothing to
do with thieves ; the risk of detection is too great,
so they confine themselves to what they term
their "legitimate business," and leave dealings
in stolen property to the "fences," who consti-
tute a distinct class.
184
Pacific Garden Mission
In one of the vilest sections of the city is a
modest looking brick building, known as Pacific
Garden Mission. Over the door hangs a lantern
bearing the inscription, "Strangers Welcome."
When the shades of night come on, and the rays
of the lantern shine out, revealing the legend in-
scribed upon it, they illuminate a region full of
vice, crime and suffering. In earlier days the
street was lined with long rows of rum-shops,
ratpits, low-down dens, and thieves' dens of the
worst description. Here and there are dance
houses, brilliantly lighted, and ornamented with
gaudy transparencies. Strains of music floated
out into the night air, and about the doors and
along the sidewalks stand groups of hideous
women, waiting to entice the stranger into these
hells where they are made drunk with drugged
liquors, robbed of their money and valuables and
turned helpless into the streets. Groups of drunk-
en and foul-mouthed men and boys lounge about
185
CHICAGO
the street, bandying vile jests with the women,
and often insulting respectable passersby. High
over all this sea of wretchedness and sin, the
Pacific Garden lantern shines out like a beacon
light, the only sign of cheer and hope to be seen.
If you listen you will hear sounds of music in this
building also, but the strains are of praise and
thanksgiving strange sounds to hear in such a
neighborhood.
Some years ago a wretched building, that had
long been used for vile purposes and known as one
of the toughest places which Chicago then sup-
ported, was secured by George R. Clarke and his
wife, and was opened as a Christian mission, and
devoted to saving the drunken and sinful dwellers
in this section of the city. The work was slow at
first, but it prospered and at length assumed such
proportions that the old building was found in-
adequate to the purpose of the mission and the
German Methodist Church building at 100 Van
Buren street was secured and has been continu-
ously occupied by the Mission for over twenty-
five years.
The surprise of this quarter of the city at seeing
George R. Clarke and his wife in its midst in the
186
CHICAGO
guise of missionaries was not unnatural. Minister-
ing to, caring for, and saving the drunkard and
the harlot is the work planned for the corps of
workers.
Colonel Clarke, as he was familiarly known,
died some years ago. It was while he was en-
gaged as a western miner that he became imbued
with the spirit to save souls. Returning to Chi-
cago, he married, and the two began the work of
saving the lost and friendless. Their meetings
were well attended; many came to see and hear
and others to make fun; but the earnestness of
the devoted pair had its effects and the curious
and scoffers became converts in their turn. Little
by little assistance began to be held out to the
Mission, and at length a strong body of Christian
men and women came to its aid with money, and
the Mission placed upon a sound and safe basis.
They have gone among the outcasts and the
wretched, the sinful and the degraded, and have
rescued them from their vile ways, brought them
to the saving knowledge of God and His religion,
and have started them in a new and better course
of life. Their efforts often failed ; many of their
converts lapsed into their old ways, but the num-
187
CHICAGO
her of those who are actually reforming is surpris-
ingly large, and the lasting results achieved are
great and glorious. No one, however wretched,
however far gone in sin, is ever turned away; a
helping hand is extended to all, and the vilest
outcast is made to feel welcome and confident that
there is still a chance for salvation left him.
There is no more interesting sight in the city
than one of Pacific Garden Mission Gospel meet-
ings. The audience is made up of men and women
of various classes, including many who avoid
other Christian agencies, who have never been in
a place of prayer or heard the Bible read except
by the prison Chaplain; the poor and friendless
who have drifted into Chicago from all parts of
the world; drunkards, thieves, roughs and dis-
charged convicts, sailors, and many prodigal sons
who have wandered away from Christian mothers
and have fallen into crime and beggary.
The meetings are held in a pleasant, well-light-
ed and ventilated room on the first floor. Near
the entrance hangs a sign, inscribed as follows:
' ' Strangers and the Poor Always Welcome. ' ' Over
the inside walls is the favorite scriptural verse
of Colonel Clarke, which reads: 'Christ came
188
CHICAGO
into the world to save sinners, among whom I
am Chief." The room is neatly furnished, an<J is
provided with a cabinet organ.
The genius of the place is Harry Munroe, the
assistant superintendent of the mission. He is a
powerful messenger of the Gospel to the lost ones
of the great city. He is a man with sharp eyes
and quick, decisive manner. He is thoroughly in
earnest in his work, and understands the charac-
ter and habits of the class to whom he appeals.
Being intense in his purposes and animated by
a desire to win sinners to the Saviour, he is able
to speak with effectual power to these rough men,
who listen respectfully to his words, and are
attracted to him by those personal peculiarities
that fit him for his work a work that is unique,
and has become one of the most important in the
great city.
As the clock points to the hour for song and
testimony, Harry opens his hymn-book, and calls
out in a strong, cheery voice, "sixty-nine," and
thereupon the singing begins, accompanied by the
cabinet organ, and the singers whose voices were
once raised only in blasphemy. If the singing is
a little faint, Harry spurs up his audience by call-
189
CHICAGO
ing out, "Don't be afraid of your voices, boys;
sing out with your whole soul, ' ' and generally the
volume of praise grows stronger and fuller.
The testimonies roll in as the meeting progresses,
strange and startling many of them, some so
quaintly worded that they would provoke a smile
in a more "respectable" prayer-meeting, but all
given with an earnestness and pathos that is won-
derful. Sometimes a drunken man will endeavor
to interrupt the meeting. One night a man of this
kind staggered to his feet, and hiccoughed, "Jesus
saves me, too."
"That ain't so," replied Harry, emphatically;
"Jesus don't save any man that is full of rum.'*
And down sits the man, utterly abashed by the
quick retort.
Harry acts as his own policeman, and meets all
attempts at disturbances on the ground. The of-
fenders are seized in his powerful grasp, and led
to the door, and put into the street, first being
entreated to be quiet and lead better lives.
As the testimonies are given the audience is
deeply moved. Yonder is a street-walker, kneel-
ing on the floor, with her face hidden in her
hands, sobbing bitterly. Mrs. Clarke, or one of
190
CHICAGO
the co-workers goes down to the poor outcast, and
whispers to her despairing soul the only words of
hope she ever heard. Others give evidence of
their desire to be saved, and the meeting devotes
itself to prayer for them. Mrs. Clarke's keen eye
sweeps the room, and at once detects the hesi-
tating. In an instant she is at their side, devoting
her mild, but powerful eloquence to urging them
to take the decisive step then and there.
There is something wonderful in her mild grasp
of the hand, and in her earnest tones, "Come, let
the Good Lord save you. He has saved others,
and I know there is a chance for you. ' '
"And He took him by the right hand and lifted
him up." Lifted him up! my brother!
191
Churches
Among the great institutions of Chicago is the
church. No greater force for righteousness exists
anywhere. The great, stately edifices are scat-
tered over the entire city ; from the business cen-
ter back to the grand trees of the suburbs. Their
tall spires point solemnly heavenward, as if to
lift the soul above the vulgar worship of mam-
mon, and at intervals the sweet tones of chimes
come floating down into the streets, telling that
wealth is not all, folly is not all, business is not
all! but that there is something purer, nobler,
waiting high above the golden cross which the
sunlight bathes so lovingly.
The music at the fashionable churches is superb.
The organist is a professor of reputation, and the
choir is made up of singers of some note who de-
vote themselves to concerts and public amuse-
ments on secular days.
Not many years ago the tenor of one of the
best choirs in the city was also the popular singer
193
CHICAGO
in a State street "Free and Easy." He had a
magnificent voice, and his secular engagements
were constant and profitable; often keeping him
in the concert hall all through Saturday night,
and until the small hours of Sunday morning.
The tenor unfortunately had a weakness for his
glass, and it was a constant wonder to his friends
that he contrived to get his head clear enough by
church time on Sunday morning to take his
place in the choir of St. church. For a long
while, however, he managed to fill both engage-
ments creditably, but at length misfortune over-
took him. He had sung at the "Free and Easy"
on Saturday night and had gotten through the
morning service with credit. The eloquence of
the preacher lulled him into a profound slumber,
and all through the sermon he was dreaming of
the concert hall and the jolly crowd assembled
to hear him render his great song of "Muldoon."
The sermon over he was aroused from his slumber
by a fellow member of the choir, who whispered
that they were waiting for his solo. Still half
asleep, and with his head yet full of the saloon
and the applause awaiting him, he staggered to
194
CHICAGO
the choir rail, looking about him, broke out lus-
tily:
''Come and see me, I'll trate ye decent,,
I '11 make ye drunk ; 1 11 fill yer can,
Sure, when I walk the strate,
Says each one I mate.
There goes Muldoon; he's a solid man."
The reader may picture to himself the sensation
the tenor's solo produced in the church.
The recklessness with which the churches rush
into debt is appalling. No other class of real es-
tate in Chicago is so heavily incumbered as that
of religious associations; and this in spite of the
fact that no sort of property has a more uncer-
tain tenure of its income, the whole depending, in
a large measure, on the popularity of the minis-
ters, and the good will and prosperity, of the
members. Nearly the whole of the debt thus
created, is for the enlargement of the churches or
constructing new ones. Scarcely any of the con-
gregations go into debt for the purpose of increas-
ing the minister's salary, or to enlarge the con-
tributions to missionary funds or charitable enter-
195
CHICAGO
prises. All is for show. Old fashioned, comfort-
able churches, free from debt, are torn down or
sold, and new edifices, rich and costly in every
detail, are erected. A little money is advanced,
the church plastered over with mortgages, and the
next generation left to pay for the vanity of the
present. Sometimes the mortgages are paid, but
too often the reverse is the case. The mortgage
is foreclosed, the beautiful temple is sold, and per
haps is converted into a theatre, concert hall or
factory.
So handsome are the churches, as a rule, so
conspicuously do wealth and fashion thrust them-
selves forward on all sides, that the poor rarely
seek them. They are too fine, and the pride of
the honest poor man will not permit him to take
hi* place in a house of worship where he is cer-
tain to be looked coldly upon, and made to feel
his lack of wordly goods.
Fashion and wealth rule with iron hands, even
in the house of God, and in these gorgeous tem-
ples, the class who were nearest and dearest to
the Master 's heart, have no place. But what have
the churches to fear ? Are they not strong in the
power of God?
196
Concert Saloons and
Damnation
The concert saloons are among the worst fea-
tures of the social evil. They flourish in almost
every quarter of the city, and are so many places
where the devil's work is done. The better class
of citizens are helpless to abate the nuisance. The
vipers in human form, who keep these soul-
destroying places, are men so small in principle,
that their paltroon souls would rattle in the eye-
balls of the most infinitesimal animalculae that
ever infested a stagnant mud-hole. These are the
men the city authorities allow to continue their
nefarious business, against the wish of a majority
of property owners of Chicago. Woe betide a
mayor or chief of police who will deliberately ig-
nore requests for decency on the one hand, as
against immorality on the other.
These concert saloons provide a low order of
music, and the liquors furnished are of the vilest
197
CHICAGO
description. In former days the service of the
place was rendered by young women; many of
whom were dressed in tights and all sorts of
fantastic costumes; the chief object being to dis-
play the figure as much as possible. The girls
were hideous and unattractive, and were foul-
mouthed and bloated. The visitors were princi-
pally young men, and even boys, though older
men, and even gray heads, were sometimes seen
among them. The women are prostitutes of the
lowest order. They encourage the visitors to
drink, shamelessly violate every rule of propriety,
and generally ready to rob a visitor who is too
far gone in liquor to protect himself. These places
are frequented by all classes of society, from the
lowest dregs to men and women who claim re-
spectability, and occasionally a man and his fam-
ily are seen in these places. Ruffains, bent on
robbery, keep a close watch on the visitors, and
when one of the latter, overcome with liquor,
staggers out of the place, follow him, lure him
into a back street, rob him, and if necessary to
their safety, murder him. Oftentimes they lure
their helpless victims to the river front, and there
rob and kill him, and throw his body into the
198
CHICAGO
water, where it is found by the harbor police.
The dance halls are often handsome places, but
were simply rendezvous of street walkers, and
men who came to seek their company. The prin-
cipal establishment of this kind was the infamous
Apollo theatre and dance hall, previously men-
tioned. All were admitted free. We enter
through a lobby into bar-room, back of which is
the dance hall. The place was furnished with
tables, and chairs are scattered about the sides
of the first floor, but the central space is kept clear
for dancing. The galleries are also provided with
tables and chairs. At the back is a dimly lighted
space, fitted up like a garden, where those who
desire may sit and drink. The place was always
well filled. The women present were the inmates
of the neighboring houses of ill-fame, and street
walkers. Each one is a prostitute, and each one is
intent upon luring some man into her chamber.
The men are mostly young, but on "gala-nights"
and during the "balls" which were given here in
the winter of 1877, would cause the givers of the
First "Ward annual ball to turn green with envy.
An orchestra in the gallery opposite the entrance
provides the music, and the dance is on. The air
199
CHICAGO
is heavy with tobacco smoke. Men and women
are constantly passing in and out; drinking is
going on in every part of the hall. In spite of its
brilliancy and splendor, the place is but one of
the numerous gateways to hell, with which Chi-
cago abounds.
Men meet abandoned women here, and accom-
pany them to their houses, risking disease, rob-
bery, and even death, with a recklessness that is
appalling. Young men of respectable families
come here nightly, and spend hours in company
with these abandoned women who frequent the
place. These same young men would shrink
with fastidious horror from even a moment's con-
versation with the cooks and housemaids of their
own homes. Yet here they find pleasure in the
association with women equally as ignorant and
unrefined and in every way unworthy to compare
with the honest and virtuous maids of their homes.
A great deal of immorality is carried on in the
city of which the police cannot take cognizance,
and of which it is impossible to obtain statistics.
This grade of vice is confined largely to persons
of normal respectability. The columns of certain
city journals contain numerous personals by
200
CHICAGO
which appointments are made, and communica-
tions exchanged between persons engaged in in-
trigues. These people support the numerous as-
signation houses which abound in the city. Some
of the most fashionable are furnished and owned
by men of respectability. They put a woman in
charge of the house, and share the large receipts
with her.
Great efforts are being made by benevolent
people to lessen the amount of vice with which
the metropolis is cursed. The problem is fearful
to behold. The most successful of these various
means that have been adopted to rescue fallen
women from their wretched lives, are the mis-
sions. They are open to all who seek refuge in
them, and invitations are scattered among them
by agents. The women are treated with kindness,
and encouraged to reform. They come voluntar-
ily, and leave when they wish to do so. They are
always welcomed, however often they may wan-
der back into sin. "Until seventy times seven,"
is the rule.
201
Divorces
If you watch the daily papers you will fre-
quently see advertisements reading similar to the
following :
Divorces without publicity, in 30 days, all causes; every
state; consultation free; experienced lawyers; success
guaranteed. 86 street.
SMITH, JONES & CO.
Divorces cheaply, without publicity; desertion, incom-
patibility, non-support, intemperance, compulsory mar-
riages; any state; explanatory blanks free, always suc-
cessful; consultations free; confidential. 105 St.
LAWYER SMOOTH TONGUE.
The divorce lawyer is a prolific sort of a fel-
low, and somewhat of a nuisance. No self-respect-
ing attorney cares for divorce court practice. It
is considered by attorneys of established reputa-
tion to be degrading.
The divorce lawyers announce to the public
that they have powerful influence with the judges
and that it will be an easy matter for them to
secure a divorce for the unlucky man or woman
and that they can untie the marriage knot, and
the guarantee to do it with the ease and celerity
203
CHICAGO
with which it is tied. This would seem strange
in a state where the laws regulating divorce are
so rigid; but the divorce lawyer knows how to
set even these at defiance, and that his efforts are
successful is shown by the handsome income he
enjoys and the elegant style in which he lives.
He does not rely upon Chicago alone for his field
of operation ; some states are more liberal in this
matter, and if the separation of husband and wife
cannot be procured in Chicago, he can easily ac-
complish it in some other part of the Union.
The divorce lawyer devotes himself to this
branch of his profession almost exclusively. He
is sometimes an ex-member of the Bar, who has
been disbarred for dishonest practices, and can-
not appear directly in the case himself. He hires
some shyster lawyer to go through the formalities
of the courts for him, and sometimes succeeds
in inducing a lawyer of good standing to act for
him. His office is usually in the quarter most
frequented to by practitioners of standing, and is
located in some large building, so that his clients
may come and go without attracting special
notice. The outer office is fitted up in regular
legal style, with substantial desks and tables, and
204
CHICAGO
the walls are lined with cases of law books. The
private consultation room is elegantly furnished,
and is provided with the coziest arm-chairs, in
which the clients can sit at their ease, and pour
into the sympathizing ears of the " counsellor"
their tales of woe.
Let us seat ourselves, unseen, in the private of-
fice of a leading divorce firm. They are located in
fa superb building on La Salle street and have ele-
gantly fitted up apartments. Counsellor ,
the head of the firm, conducts the consultations.
He is a portly, smooth-faced, oily-tongued man,
possessing great powers of cheek and plausive-
ness, just the man to lead a hesitating client to
take the decisive step. A clerk from the outer
office announces a visitor. A richly dressed,
closely veiled lady is shown in and the portly
counsellor, rising courteously, places a chair for
her. The seat is taken, the veil thrown back, and
the counsellor finds himself face to face with a
woman of beauty and refinement, and evidently
of wealth a most desirable client. In his bland-
est tones he invites her to state the nature of her
business with him. Then follows a long tale of
domestic unhappiness, the sum and substance of
205
CHICAGO
which is that she is tired of her husband and
wants a divorce from him.
"Upon what grounds, Madam?" asks the coun-
sellor, settling down to business.
''Grounds?" is the startled, hesitating reply,
"Why t hat is I am so unhappy with him."
"Is he unfaithful to you?"
"I do not know. I hope he is I am afraid not,
however. I thought you would ascertain for me."
"Certainly, madam, certainly. Nothing easier in
the world. We'll find out all about him. We'll
learn the innermost secrets of his heart, and I've
no doubts we shall find him grossly unfaithful.
Most men are."
"Oh, not at all, sir," the lady cries, a little
startled. "I'm sure that "
Good sense comes to her aid, and she pauses.
She must not tell all, even to her ' ' legal adviser. ' '
The counsellor smiles; he has seen such cases be-
fore. It is only an affair of exchanging an old
love for a new one.
"Has he ever maltreated you struck you?"
he asks.
"Oh, no!"
"Never attempted any violence with you?"
206
CHICAGO
"He once seized a paper weight on the library
table, very much excited, while I was talking with
him."
"Indeed! he tried to dash your brains out with
a paper weight, did he? That is very important
evidence, madam, very important. ' '
"But, sir, I did not say that he "
' ' Oh, never mind, madame. Wives are too ready
to forgive their husband's brutality. The fact
remains the same, however. This infamous at-
tempt upon your life will be sufficient evidence
with the western judge before whom the case will
be tried. I congratulate you, madame, upon the
prospect of a speedy release from such a mon-
ster."
The woman is delighted, pays the retainer,
which is a handsome one, agrees upon the amount
to be paid when the divorce is granted, and the
parties separate, mutually pleased with each
other.
The counsellor now goes to work in earnest.
Operations are carried on in some western state.
Witnesses are provided who will swear to any-
thing they are paid for; the divorce is duly ob-
tained; the fee is paid; and the madame coolly
207
CHICAGO
informs her husband that they are no longer hus-
band and wife.
A year or two ago the Chicago paper contained
an account of a man who had gotten one of these
patent divorces from his wife. Not caring to part
from her just then, but wishing to do so when he
pleased, he locked the papers up in his desk, and
said nothing to her about the matter, and for ten
years she lived with him as his mistress, in total
ignorance of her true relations to him. At last
becoming tired of her, he produced the decree of
divorce and left her.
All sorts of people seek the assistance of the
divorce lawyers to free them from their matri-
monial ties. Extravagant and reckless wives of
men who are not able to meet their demands for
money ; dissolute actresses, who wish to break up
an old alliance in order to form a new one; mar-
ried women who have become infatuated with
some scamp they have met at the theatre mati-
nee, or through the medium of a personal; mar-
ried men who are tired of their wives and desire
to be united to a new partner ; lovers of married
women, who come to engage fabricated testimony
and surreptitious divorce for the frail creatures
208
CHICAGO
whose virtue is still too cowardly to dare the
more honest sin ; all who, with or without protest,
seek a release from the married bond. For each
and all the divorce lawyer has a ready ear and an
encouraging word. Nothing is easier than to ob-
tain a divorce, he assures them. If the cause as-
signed by them is insufficient, it can be made
strong enough; if evidence is lacking, it can be
obtained manufactured, if necessary. He re-
ceives a retainer from each, and all, and sends
them away with the happy consciousness that
their matrimonial troubles will soon be over.
A divorce costs anywhere from twenty-five dol-
lars to whatever sum the applicant is willing to
pay for it, and can be obtained in Chicago, or in
any state, according to the wishes of the party
and the desire to avoid publicity. Any cause may
be assigned ; the lawyer in a great many instances
guarantees that the evidence to support it shall
be forthcoming at the proper time. It is a little
more troublesome to obtain a Chicago divorce,
than in some states, but the machinery of the law
is sufficiently loose even there to enable a well-
managed case to be successful. The divorce law-
yer has witnesses upon whom he can depend, some
209
of them are regularly in his pay. They will swear
as they are instructed. The proceedings are often
private, the courts using their private chambers
for the hearing, and are no doubt frequently in
collusion with the lawyer conducting the case.
Even the newspapers fail to record the occur-
rence. The defendant has been kept in ignorance
of the proceedings, and naturally does not appear
in court in person or by counsel to offer any ob-
position, and the case goes by default. The judge
hears the evidence, which has been carefully pre-
pared, in the case ; submits a decision in favor of
the plaintiff; and the first thing the defendant
knows is a dissolution of the marriage.
Adultery is a favorite ground with the divorce
lawyer, and strange as it may appear, it is easy to
fasten such a charge upon the defendant, if that
person happens to be the husband. This is how
it is done : One of the ' ' agents ' ' of the firm makes
the acquaintance of the husband, who is in total
ignorance of the plot against him, and after be-
coming somewhat familiar with him, invites him
to a quiet little supper at some convenient restau-
rant. "When the wine has done its work, a party
of ladies drop in, quite by accident, of course,
210
CHICAGO
and are pressed by the agent to remain. The in-
nocent victim joins in the request; he would be
an ill-bred fellow if he did not. A dead set is
made at the victim, whose wits are generally
somewhat confused with the wine, and the nat-
ural consequences follow. The "agent" coolly
looks on, and takes his notes, and the particular
beauty who has won over the victim to her charms
becomes an important witness in the case. There
is no difficulty in proving the charge.
Where the husband is a jolly, good-natured
man, and loves to take his pleasure, the "agent's"
business is greatly simplified. He has but to
shadow his victim, note down his acts, even his
words, for the most innocent deed can be distorted
by a shrewd divorce lawyer into damaging evi-
dence of guilt. The least imprudence is magnified
into sin, and little by little all the needed evidence
is obtained.
Sometimes all these arts fail. Then the lawyer
has but one course, to employ paid witnesses to
swear to the husband's guilt, where no overt act
lias been committed. The divorce must be ob-
tained at any cost ; and the lawyer knows no such
word as failure.
211
CHICAGO
Sometimes business becomes dull. People ap-
pear to be satisfied with their partners, and appli-
cations for divorce fall off. The divorce lawyer
is equal to the emergency, however, and sets his
agents to work to drum up business. They pro-
ceed upon a regular system, and seek high game.
They operate among persons able to pay large
fees, and seek women as their victims in prefer-
ence to men. A member of the Bar, conversing
with a friend, not long since, thus explained the
system pursued:
"You understand, of course, that society is not
happy in all its honors. All the brownstone
houses have to have closets put in every year in
order to accommodate the skeletons. Still, many
a woman and man, if let alone, would bear his or
her connubial burdens meekly, rather than to face
the scandal and publicity of a divorce trial. Our
special divorce lawyers know this, and so they
invade society. They transfer the base of opera-
tions to the drawing rooms. How! By using
swell members of the fashionable world to first
find out where there is a canker in the case, and
then to deftly set forth, in a perfect way, how
divorce is the only ''cure." Nine tenths of this
212
CHICAGO
delicate business is employed in pursuing hesi-
tating wives. Husbands could hardly be ap-
proached in their own homes with a proposition
to break them up. Take an impressionable wom-
an, already unhappy, who has once been thinking
of divorce, and the case is different. She is clay
for the moulder. The serpent whispers how nice
it will be to bank her alimony, tells her lies about
the old man, induces her to believe that the firm
down-town will put in no bill if they don't suc-
ceed, and so the affair is arranged.
For this despicable service the " agent" receives
ten per cent of the fee paid the divorce lawyer by
the wife, which fee, be it remembered, comes out
of the husband's pocket.
Oftentimes the "agent" is called upon to per-
sonate the husband, especially in serving the sum-
mons of the court upon him. The lawyer in
charge has the case quietly put on record in the
proper court, and has a summons prepared for
service upon the defendant. A boy is called in
from the street, anybody will answer, and is paid
a trifle to take the summons to the defendan't
place of business or residence, and deliver it to
him in person. Arriving at his destination, tlut
213
CHICAGO
boy is met by the "agent" of the divorce lawyer,
at the door or on the steps. The agent sharply
demands his business, and is answered by the
boy that he wishes to deliver a paper to Mr. X .
"I am Mr. X ." The boy in perfect good faith,
for he has never seen Mr. X in his life, delivers
the summons upon the defendant in person. He
is then dismissed, and plays no further part in the
case. His affidavit is sufficient for this part of
the proceedings, and the shameful mockery of
justice proceeds to another stage.
This is no exaggerated description. The acts
of these divorce lawyers are well know in Chi-
cago, and members of the Bar are familiar with
their mode of proceeding. Reputable barristers
denounce them as a disgrace, not only to the pro-
fession, but also the judges on the bench know
these men by their ways. Yet, neither the Bench
nor the Bar Association make any effort to stop
the evil or disbar the wretches, who thus prey
upon the most sacred relations of life. Lawyers
of standing are afraid to attempt to bring it to
justice, lest they should draw upon themselves
the vengeance of the courts and so injure their
214
CHICAGO
own professional prospects. So the evil will con-
tinue to grow. It will flourish as long as there
are foolish people to take advantage of it.
Tramps* Paradise
Chicago is the paradise of tramps, the term ib
generally applied to able bodied men and women
who are too lazy to work, but prefer to pick up a
precarious living by begging food and clothes
from house to house. In mild weather they sleep
in the parks and public squares, and in winter
take refuge in the police stations. During the
warm season they leave the city in large numbers,
and wander through the country, going into many
states, but in winter they flock back to Chicago,
where they are sure of food and shelter. Some re-
main in the city throughout the year. They are
dissipated as a rule, and the majority have been
brought to their present condition because of
drink.
They will steal and even commit highway rob-
bery, rape, or murder, if they get a chance, and
are a terror to householders of the city. They
haunt the beer saloons and low class bar-rooms,
beg for drinks, and will even drain the few drops
217
CHICAGO
left in the empty beer kegs in the sidewalk. They
will solicit passers-by for money, and in this way
often manage to collect enough to buy whisky or
beer. Their food they beg at the doors of resi-
dences, keeping a sharp lookout all the while for
an opportunity to steal something of value when
the servant's back is turned.
The parks are the favorite lodging places with
them in warm weather. Under cover of darkness
they creep into the shrubbery and make their
beds on the grass. Sometimes they sleep on the
benches scattered throughout the grounds, but as
they are apt to be disturbed by the police, they
prefer the shrubbery.
The more fortunate tramps patronize the cheap
lodging houses, which are very numerous in some
portions of the city. In some of these places a
bed may be obtained for five cents.
Some of the more aristocratic places charge
ten cents, and each occupant is furnished with
food in the morning. Nightly scores of men and
boys apply for lodging at the police stations.
Many deserving persons are classed among the
tramps. They are friendless, homeless, and with-
out money or work and must adopt the tramp's
218
CHICAGO
life in order to maintain existence. Such per-
sons gladly accept any work offered them, and
escape from the wretched companionship as soon
as they are able to do so.
It is easy to distinguish them from the genuine
tramps, however, for they are eager to work,
while the tramp pure and simple, regards an offer
of labor as an insult.
Theatres
Good and Bad.
In nothing does Chicago show its metropolitan
character more strikingly than in its amusements.
At the head of these stand the theatres, which are
very numerous, and some magnificent. Among
the theatres of established reputation, are: Mc-
Vickers, Powers, Grand Opera House, Auditorium,
Illinois, and others, which enjoy a degree of sub-
stantiality. Besides these there are a number of
second-class variety establishments and several
third-rate theatres in different parts of the city.
There are still other houses which are vicious and
should be closed by the police. These places have
no rating for decency and are pitfalls to the un-
sophisticated visitors in the city. Burlesque is the
principal amusement here, and is of the lowest
order. Absolute indecency reigns supreme. The
performers, mostly women of the underworld, are
paid to amuse the audiences by kicking up their
220
CHICAGO
heels the higher they kick the more they are
paid. The "hooche-cooche" and the "Salome"
dances are here given in all their rottenness. Vul-
gar sayings and gestures are indulged in to a de-
gree that is amazing in this enlightened age. The
theatres which provide this class of entertainment
are liberally supported by all classes of men and
receive an immense patronage from the great
throng of strangers constantly in Chicago. Old
men and boys of tender years are frequenters of
these theatres, and here and there may be found
the prostitute seated beside some young boy. The
price of admission is low and the performance
suited to the tastes of the audience. These places
have saloons attached to them which are generally
in the basements. The women performers are re-
quired to drink with men, and solicit them boldly
to buy drink for them. It is a common thing to
see these girls stupidly drunk. They are paid a
commission on all drinks purchased through their
solicitation.
The galleries of these establishments are filled
chiefly with boot-blacks, newsboys, and the juve-
nile denizens of the city, ranging in age from
eight to twelve years. The orchestras are made
221
CHICAGO
up of amateurs and old men, and furnish a cheap
class of music.
The keepers of houses of ill-fame need no bet-
ter advertisement than the cheap burlesque show-
houses of Chicago. The baser elements in man are
all enacted here in plain view of the audience and
winked at by the police. Arrests are made, and
the managers pay fines, but continue the same im-
moral productions.
Perhaps the most remarkable dramatic estab-
lishment Chicago ever had, was launched in the
early eighties. It was known as "Grand Duke's
Theatre," or, it was better known to its patrons
as "The Grand Dooks Theatre." It began its ca-
reer in a vacant store building on South State
street in a very humble way ; but with increasing
prosperity removed to more suitable quarters.
The prices of admission were as follows: Boxes,
25 cents; orchestra, 15 cents; balcony, 10 cents;
gallery, 5 cents. The establishment was managed
and controlled by boys and its audiences were
composed of boys and young men. The company
was composed of youths yet in their teens, and the
performances were of the "blood-and-thunder"
order, interspersed with "variety acts" of a start-
222
CHICAGO
ling description. The house and appointments
were primitive, and the stage equally so. The
orchestra was made up of amateur musicians, and
was placed out of sight at the back of the stage.
The footlights consisted of six kerosene lamps
with glass shades. Two red-plush lounges, stuffed
with saw-dust, and in a sad state of dilapidation
served as boxes; while the orchestra stalls were
represented by half a dozen two-legged benches,
and the balcony and gallery were composed of a
bewildering arrangement of step ladders and dry-
goods boxes. The manager acted as his own po-
liceman, and enforced order by knocking the
heads of disorderly spectators or by summarily
ejecting them. The performances were crude, but
they satisfied the audiences, and never failed to
draw forth a storm of applaus, mingled with shrill
whistles and stamping of feet. The boys were
satisfied. What more could be desired?
228
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA
CHICAGO AND ITS CESS-POOLS OF INFAMY 16
