commonly approached through their vanity
The girls attending the cheap theatres and the vaudeville shows are most
commonly approached through their vanity. They readily listen to the
triumphs of a stage career, sure to be attained by such a 'good looker,'
and a large number of them follow a young man to the woman with whom he
is in partnership, under the promise of being introduced to a theatrical
manager. There are also theatrical agencies in league with disreputable
places, who advertise for pretty girls, promising large salaries. Such
an agency operating with a well-known 'near theatre' in the state
capital was recently prosecuted in Chicago and its license revoked. In
this connection the experience of two young English girls is not
unusual. They were sisters possessed of an extraordinary skill in
juggling, who were brought to this country by a relative acting as their
manager. Although he exploited them for his own benefit for three years,
paying them the most meager salaries and supplying them with the
simplest living in the towns which they 'toured,' he had protected them
from all immorality, and they had preserved the clean living of the
family of acrobats to which they belonged. Last October, when appearing
in San Francisco, the girls, then sixteen and seventeen years of age,
demanded more pay than the dollar and twenty cents a week each had been
receiving, representing the five shillings with which they had started
from home. The manager, who had become discouraged with his American
experience, refused to accede to their demands, gave them each a ticket
for Chicago, and heartlessly turned them adrift. Arriving in the city,
they quite naturally at once applied to a theatrical agency, through
which they were sent to a disreputable house where a vaudeville program
was given each night. Delighted that they had found work so quickly,
they took the position in good faith. During the very first performance,
however, they became frightened by the conduct of the girls who preceded
them on the program and by the hilarity of the audience. They managed to
escape from the dressing-room, where they were waiting their turn, and
on the street appealed to the first policeman, who brought them to the
Juvenile Protective Association. They were detained for several days as
witnesses against the theatrical agency, entering into the legal
prosecution with that characteristic British spirit which is ever ready
to protest against an imposition, before they left the city with a
travelling company, each on a weekly salary of twenty dollars.
