H. M. Lytle

“ If at any time it should develop that Ella Gingles has lied throughout, that she was never attacked in the Wellington hotel—that Miss Barrett is not guilty of the charges made against her and that the weird story of conspiracy was born in a clever brain, rehearsed and then put on like any melodramatic bit for the delectation of a surfeited public it will go hard with the girl. ”

“ Was Ella Gingles, the little blonde Irish lace-maker, on trial for stealing $50 worth of lace from Agnes Barrett?
Or was the city of Chicago on trial for permitting an unsophisticated girl to be made the victim of a criminal corporation with its headquarters in another state, as Miss Gingles has sworn?
No more remarkable case was ever tried in the criminal court of Cook county, wherein some of the most amazing cases of which the world has record have been heard and decided. ”

“ I feel that there is no pit too deep for people who will send an innocent girl into a life of shame, who will throw temptation in a girl's way, and will, when temptation fails, resort to force to drive her into hades itself. ”

“ In the theatres, in the parks, in the shopping districts and on the streets of the city I have tried, for just a little while, to imagine myself the girl of the olden days. Always, everywhere, omnipresent has been the reminder that drove me back to the 'E——' with a sigh of relief and a sense of refuge. ”

“ It is the statement of the keepers of the dives themselves.
A visit to almost any of the dives of the Twenty-second street district will convince even the most skeptical reader of the truth of this statement.
Enter and inquire for a show girl.
True, she will not be the sprightly, supple and pretty creature one sees nightly on the stages of the better theaters of the city. Yet she is a show girl—or, rather, I might say, has been one.
She is a show girl who has fallen. The sparkle of wine, the glare of lights and the happy-go-lucky company of the after-theater parties have proven her downfall. ”

“ I can put you in a position where you can earn a respectable living and where you will be happy," pleaded the reporter.
For a time the girl was in deep thought. When she raised her head again her eyes were wet with tears.
"I couldn't do it. I can never be anything else now," she said. "Were I to take a position, it would be but a question of time until some man [Pg 20] who had seen me in this place would recognize me. I would be discharged and driven into even a deeper life of shame.
"It is impossible to even contemplate such a thing.
"When a woman falls, she falls never to rise again. ”

“ For she is an orphan girl and she was taken to rear by the two elderly maiden ladies in Springfield, Illinois, when she was a cooing, gob-gobbing baby in an orphan asylum. But that, as Kipling says, has nothing to do with this narrative.
If you are fortunate enough to enjoy the hospitality of her dressing-room, between the acts, you will notice the loving tones she uses in addressing her maid. An oldish woman is the maid, whose face betokens fading beauty, whose supple limbs echo of some stage experience of bygone days. ”

“ There was no trip to Europe. There was no trip planned to any place except a house in Twenty-second street or the private chambers of some wealthy libertine.
"Mrs. Schwartz must have received many hundred answers to that advertisement from young girls all over the city—even out of the city. The glamour of a trip to Europe, a salary to tour the world, would turn any young girl's head. The wording of the advertisement would arouse no fears or suspicions in the mind of even a worldly wise person. ”

“ The young woman appeared to have a thorough knowledge of the pitfalls that beset young womanhood in certain directions, and to be grossly ignorant of those that girls of less maturity in Chicago might be expected to avoid.
When, in the course of her examination, it developed that Ella Gingles was thinking in the way of a foreigner in a strange place while the state's advocate was cross-examining her as though she had been born and bred in Chicago, or at least in America, the assurance of the defendant charged with a crime was remarkable. ”

“ The answer is to be found on the police blotters of the Harrison street station.
The Arena hotel, at Thirteenth and Michigan, is the most notorious, the most terrible assignation house in the city of Chicago. When honest men are in bed the red lights of the Arena glare onto the boulevard like the bloodshot eyes of a [Pg 30] devouring dragon. The gilded sons of fortune tear up before its yawning doors in their high powered motor cars. ”

“ This is but one method whereby the great slave mart of Chicago is kept in operation, sacrificing its thousands of girl to the demon lust.
The stage, with all its attractions, can be but the stepping stone to a life of shame, unless the girl is surrounded with every home protection. ”

“ In the big den of vice there was no mourning. The mentioning of the dead girl's name was forbidden. The thought of death might act as a damper on the night's orgy. A day later she would not be missed. Another girl would take her place. Perchance some one might drop in some day and ask for her, but only in a matter-of-course way.
Only one girl in 80,000 dead. What did she count in that vast host?
One day, but a few weeks ago, I entered one of these dens on Armour avenue, in Chicago. I wandered up on to the second floor without the knowledge of the keepers. ”

“ In some instances the promise is even fulfilled, but the girl wife awakes to find herself even farther advanced toward the ultimate goal—the brothel.
Once on the downward path, there is but little chance of reformation. The thought of her shame drives her from her purer companions. She seeks company that is on a lower moral plane. The dull, innocent existence and the purer pleasures no longer attract her. Home and parents are forgotten in the mad whirl. Religion and home teachings are a thing of the past. The whole nature has changed. ”

“ When the court read from the slip of paper, "We, the jury, find Ella Gingles not guilty," bedlam broke loose. Men and women, many of them richly dressed, rioted madly. Several of the clubwomen and members of the Irish Fellowship Society ran to the girl's side and hugged and kissed her.
For several minutes the court made no attempt to still the outbreak. He, too, grim and stern, and used to tragedies in the court, seemed to feel the joyfulness of the occasion.
"I'm so happy," the little lace-maker told her friends. "I was certain I would be freed. ”

“ The wary old spider, bold enough when maneuvering the enslavement of innocent girls, had fled to cover at the first alarm.
"We'll have to give it up," said the detective to the young man. "She's skipped to different quarters. She's scheming out some new bait. Schwartz her real name? She probably has a thousand names. A different alias for every girl she marks as a victim." ”

“ 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 to Chicago, where she was disposed of to the keeper of an Italian dive of the vilest type. ”

“ Gradually the atmosphere, the viciousness of it seeped through me and took the place of the innocence, the wifely feeling, the mother love of which I had been robbed. The process of degradation, of evolution into accepting life in this prison came about swiftly. I found myself accepting this home, this place where I might exist.
"You know the verse:
"'Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.'
"That describes my case. ”

“ We shall visit the world. I have already prepared to engage passage for Europe and desire to sail Saturday, four days from today.
"In order that you may satisfy yourself as to whether or not you will like me I want you to call at my hotel tonight and take dinner with me. I am living at the Arena hotel, 1340 Michigan avenue. A quiet, retired little place."
"I will be delighted," said the girl. "I don't think that there is any question as to whether or not I will like you. You have charmed me already. I am alone in Chicago. The only relative I have here is my brother. ”

“ Recently in the city of Chicago a crusade was started against these places. Some alterations were made, but the condition in many instances is unimproved.
The young girls are taught and drilled that sex is to be forgotten on the stage.
Here feminine traits are to be left at home. If a girl is asked to kiss or throw her arms about a man, no matter what character he may be, it is her duty to do so. If she is asked to bare her body to the public gaze, with nothing but skin tights to cover her nudity, it is her duty to do so. That is what she is being paid for. ”

“ It is a long and hard way when one must set forth to expose one's own butchery, shame and misfortune, but I feel that in telling this story the very fact that I have been a victim will carry with it weight. ”

“ Schwartz' the widow, is a procuress—the most clever and fiendish procuress known to us. She works under [Pg 33] a hundred aliases. So keen is she, so clever in her plots to bring about the ruin of young girls, that we can not cope with her. She is a rich woman. Every dollar that she has made represents a soul blackened, an innocent metamorphosed into a drug sotted, degraded creature of the red lights.
"Your sister is not the only girl that advertisement was meant for. It probably has already written the ruin of a score of beautiful young innocents. ”

“ The days dragged by very slowly for me, for they kept putting off the case of trying me for lace-stealing, stealing the lace I had made myself, from time to time, and some days I cried and cried because the case was not over and I was not free, because I did not believe that anybody would convict me of stealing my own property, especially after the manner in which it was taken. ”

“ Her innocence is a thing of the past.
She is no longer a girl—she is a woman "who knows."
It was about a year ago that I saw a young girl, a beautiful little creature scarcely nineteen years old, at a Chicago theater. She was a beauty, even in comparison with the other comely girls in the squad of beginners.
While they were resting after an act I talked with her. She frankly told me she was stage struck, but that her desire to become a great actress was inborn and not gained by association. Before she came to the city from her home in a little town out in Iowa she had seen but one show. ”

“ Murphy, of Minneapolis, called upon me with reference to the poor young girl, Ella Gingles, whom, like a chivalrous-hearted Irishman, you have done and are doing so much to protect and defend. I know her well, her father is a member of the Congregation of which I am minister, as were his ancestors before him. He is a large farmer, well off, as Irish farmers go here in the North of Ireland, and his wife, Ella's mother, is an exceedingly nice, gentle-hearted woman. ”

“ The oaths and drunkenness that once were repellant to her are heard with an unmoved conscience. Her physical charms are attacked by this fly-by-night existence. All of the innocent attributes that once were applauded and extolled are dead. ”

“ To the fallen woman—once pure and innocent—dragged to her shame through her innocence—is held out no comfort. She is not given the opportunity to repent. She is a thing, repellant and abhorred. The very mention of her name brings a derisive laugh. No masses are said for the repose of her soul. Religious consolation is not to be thought of. ”

“ Every year the vulgarity becomes more and more apparent. New and more suggestive novelties must be introduced to satisfy this "taste." The songs must have a "meaning"—the dances, some of which bring the blush of shame to the brow of even the most hardened theater-goers—must also arouse the passion.
The good girl first rebels at such. Day in and day out, as she rehearses, she sees other girls doing the thing that is required without kick or [Pg 65] objection. She gradually falls into it herself. ”

“ As I left I could see a vision of the innocent girl of the year before, standing among the sceneries of the down-town theater, telling of her ambitions.
How far had her whole being retrograded from that day!
[Pg 70]
But she was only one of many—a victim of the stage.
Probably the greatest agency through which girls are lured is the fake "theatrical agency."
In Chicago there exists many of these clearing houses for the vice trust. Sumptuous offices are maintained in great office buildings down town. Large office forces are necessary to carry on the enormous business they conduct. ”

“ The recent examination of more than 200 "white slaves" by the office of the United States district attorney 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 degradation because their parents 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.—Hon. Edwin W. Simms, United States District Attorney at Chicago. ”