regular appointments in a disreputable saloon between the hours of six
and half-past seven in the evening
One such girl had for two years earned money for clothing by filling
regular appointments in a disreputable saloon between the hours of six
and half-past seven in the evening. With this money earned almost daily
she bought the clothes of her heart"s desire, keeping them with the
saloon-keeper"s wife. She demurely returned to her family for supper in
her shabby working clothes and presented her mother with her unopened
pay envelope every Saturday night. She began this life at the age of
fourteen after her Polish mother had beaten her because she had
'elbowed' the sleeves and 'cut out' the neck of her ungainly calico gown
in a vain attempt to make it look 'American.' Her mother, who had so
conscientiously punished a daughter who was 'too crazy for clothes,'
could never of course comprehend how dangerous a combination is the girl
with an unsatisfied love for finery and the opportunities for illicit
earning afforded on the street. Yet many sad cases may be traced to such
lack of comprehension. Charles Booth states that in England a large
proportion of parents belonging to the working and even lower middle
classes, are unacquainted with the nature of the lives led by their own
daughters, a result doubtless of the early freedom of the street
accorded city children. Too often the mothers themselves are totally
ignorant of covert dangers. A few days ago I held in my hand a pathetic
little pile of letters written by a desperate young girl of fifteen
before she attempted to commit suicide. These letters were addressed to
her lover, her girl friends, and to the head of the rescue home, but
none to her mother towards whom she felt a bitter resentment 'because
she did not warn me.' The poor mother after the death of her husband had
gone to live with a married daughter, but as the son-in-law would not
'take in two' she had told the youngest daughter, who had already worked
for a year as an apprentice in a dressmaking establishment, that she
must find a place to live with one of her girl friends. The poor child
had found this impossible, and three days after the breaking up of her
home she had fallen a victim to a white slave trafficker, who had
treated her most cruelly and subjected her to unspeakable indignities.
It was only when her 'protector' left the city, frightened by the
unwonted activity of the police, due to a wave of reform, that she found
her way to the rescue home, and in less than five months after the death
of her father she had purchased carbolic acid and deliberately 'courted
death for the nameless child' and herself.
