But even this too amply demonstrated fact was not found
sufficiently highly spiced by the White Slave Traffic agitators. It was
necessary to excite the public mind by sensational incidents. Everyone
was told stories, as of incidents that had lately occurred in the next
street, of innocent, refined, and well-bred girls who were snatched away
by infamous brigands beneath the eyes of their friends, to be immured in
dungeons of vice and never more heard of. Such incidents, if they ever
occurred, would be too bizarre to be justifiably taken into account in
great social movements. But it is even doubtful whether they ever occur.
The White Slave traders are not heroes of romance, even of infamous
romance; less so, indeed, than many more ordinary criminals; they are
engaged in a very definite and very profitable business. They have no
need to run serious risks. The world is full of girls who are
over-worked, ill-paid, ignorant, weak, vain, greedy, lazy, or even only
afflicted with a little innocent love of adventure, and it is among
these that White Slave traders may easily find what their business
demands, while experience enables them to detect the most likely
subjects.
Careful inquiry, even among those who have made it their special
business to collect all the evidence that can be brought together to
prove the infamous character of the White Slave Traffic, has apparently
failed to furnish any reliable evidence of these sensational stories.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123