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The Review of Reviews. 



some smart dress is given her, ami she is encouraged 

 to be willing and submissive, by promises of greater 

 liberty, and plenty of money. The girl is tempted 

 to drink, and, by degrees, she is enlightened as to 

 the nature of the house. It is a dreadful awaken- 

 ing. What is she to do? In all London she knows 

 no friend — no one to whom she can appeal. She is 

 never allowed to go outside alone. She dares not 

 speak to the policeman, for he is tipped by her 

 •mistress. If she asks to leave, she is told she must 

 .serve out her term, and then every effort is redoubled 

 to seduce her. If possible, she is made drunk, and 

 then, when she wakes, she disco\'ers her ruin has 

 been accomplished. Her character is gone. Hope- 

 less and desperate, without money, without friends, 

 all avenues of escape closed, she has only one 

 choice. " She must do as the others do " — the 

 great formula — or starve in the streets. • No one 

 will believe her story, foiT when a woman is out- 

 raged, by fraud or force, her sworn testimony weighs 

 nothing against the lightest word of the man who 

 perpetrated the crime. She sees on one hand leisure, 

 luxury; on the other blank despair. Thus the 

 brothel acquires a new inmate, and another focus of 

 sin and contagion is added to the streets. 



ENTRAPPING IRISH GIRLS. 



I have already spoken of procuring children and 

 silly London girls. Of a deeper shade of criminal- 

 ity is the system of entrapping innocent girls by 

 inveigling them into houses of ill-fame which are 

 represented as respectable lodging-houses. A few 

 years ago, when great numbers of Irish girls used 

 to arrive in the Thames, they formed a con.stant 

 source of revenue to the brothel-keepers of Ratcliff 

 High\va\ . 



Cardinal Manning assured me that, so terrible was 

 the havoc among these immigrants, that one notori- 

 ous procuress in those jjarts boasted that no fewer 

 than 1600 girls had pas.sed through her hands ! 

 That, however, was some years ago. The Irish im- 

 migration has almost ceased. 



RUINING COUNTRY GIRLS. 



The country girl offers an almcst unresisting 

 quarry. Term time, when young girls come up to 

 town with their boxes to seek situations, is the great 

 battue .season of the procuress. To such a pass has 

 it come, that when a member of the Girls' Friendly 

 Society comes to town to a situation, the 

 .society deems it indispensable to send some- 

 one to meet her, to see that she does not 

 fall into bad hands. In dealing with Eng- 

 li.sh girls, the woman is .sometimes dressed as a 

 deaconess. " It makes one's heart bleed," said a 

 porter at one of the Northern raihvay stations, " to 

 see the-sc poor girls snapped up by these l)ad 

 \vom«>n." I'.ven if they escape from the railway 



THE LABYRINTHS OF LONDON. 



It is easy enough to get into a brothel ; it is b\- no 

 means easy to get out. Apart from the dress houses, 

 where women are practically prisoners, forbidden to 

 cross the doorstep, and chained to the house by debt, 

 cases are constantly occuring in which girls find 

 them.selves under lock and ke}'. Kvery now and 

 then fervent Protestantism lashes itself into wilil 

 fury over the alleged abduction of some girl who is 

 belie\'ed to have been spirited away from con\'ent 

 to convent. These abductions and imprisonments 

 are constantly going on in the service of vice, bnl 

 no one pays any heed. The labyrinth of London, 

 like that of Crete, has many chambers and under^ 

 ground passages; the clue that leads to the entrance 

 is easily broken. 



THE POLICE ,\ND THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRAFFIC. 



No one \vho has an\ acquaintance with the enor^ 

 mous \'ariety of the duties which modern civilisa- 

 tion imposes upon tlie police can s\mpathi.se with 

 the abuse so ignorantly and uncharitably showered 

 upon the force. The constable is the official upon 

 whom modern society has devoh'ed all the duties 

 of the ancient knight-errant. There is no more use- 

 ful being in the world, and there are few nobler 

 ideals of human activity than the daily life of a 

 really public-spirited, chivalrous policeman. iiut 

 the majority of policemen, being only mortal, aic 

 no more to be trusted with arbitrary power th.in 

 any other human beings, especially over the other 

 sex. Its possession leads to corruption, and the 

 more that power is increased, the more mischief 

 is done. I ha\e no wish to bring anv railing accu- 

 sations against a body of men who are constantly 

 performing the most arduous duties in the public 

 service ; but those who think most highly of thi; 

 force should be most anxious to sa\e it from an\ 

 increase of a temptation which already .seriously 

 impairs both its morale and its efficiency. In this. 

 1 am informed. I am expressing not. only the unani- 

 mous opinion of our Commission, but also the 

 matured con\iclion of some of the best authorities 

 in the force. 



THE POWER OF THE POLICE ALREADY AMPLE. 



'J"he power of the police o\er women in the streets 

 is already amjjle, not merely for the purposes of 

 maintaining order, and for jireventing indecency and 

 molestation, but also for the i)urpose of levying 

 blackmail upon unfortunates. I have been assured 

 by a chaplaiti in one of Hrr ^L^jestv's gaols, who, 

 [K-rhaps, has more opportunity of talking to these 

 women than any other indi\idual in the realm, that 

 •there is ab.solute unanimity in the ranks, that H 

 ihey do not ti)i the jiolice thev get run in. l''roiu 

 the highest to the lowest, he informs me, the nni- 

 \ersal testimony is that ytiu must ])av the constabk', 

 or vou get into trouble. With tliem it ha.s come t<i 



