CHAPTER XXVIII.

Sec. 6768, Shannon's Code, 1896.

Any person who takes any female from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her without her consent, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, shall, upon conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty-one years.

Sec. 6462. Id.

Procedure.

Present the matter to the county attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

"Abduction" is the false imprisonment of a woman with intent to force her into a marriage or for the purpose of prostitution.

Article 629, Ch. 6. Revised Statutes of Texas, 1896.

If a female under the age of fourteen be taken for the purpose of marriage or prostitution from her parent, guardian or other person having the legal charge of her, it is abduction, whether she consent or not, and although a marriage afterward takes place between the parties.

Section 630. Id.

The offense of abduction is complete if the female be detained as long as twelve hours, although she may afterwards be relieved from such detention without marriage or prostitution.

Section 631. Id.

Any person who shall be guilty of abduction shall be punished by fine not exceeding two thousand dollars. If by reason of such abduction a woman be forced into marriage, the punishment shall be confinement in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years; and if by reason of such abduction a woman be prostituted, the punishment shall be confinement in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than twenty years.

Section 632. Id.

Procedure.

Report the alleged violation to the District Attorney or the county attorney within the district or county where the crime is alleged to have been committed. The matter may also be presented to a justice of the peace, in which event the county attorney should be notified.

The statutes of Utah have been strengthened by a recent enactment which prohibits the sending of female help to places of ill-repute. This section is as follows:

Any employment agent who shall knowingly send out any female help to any place of bad repute, house of ill-fame or assignation house, or to any house or place of amusement kept for immoral purposes, shall be liable to pay a fine of not less than one hundred dollars ($100), and shall be imprisoned not less than ninety days and on conviction thereof, inany court, shall have his, its or their license rescinded.

Chapter 21, Sec. 6, Laws of Utah, 1909.

Other portions of the statutes of Utah which directly affect the subject of white slavery are as follows:

Every person who inveigles or entices any female of previous chaste character into any house of ill-fame, or of assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, or to have carnal connection with any male, and every person who aids or assists such abduction for such purposes, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or by both.

Sec. 4222, Compiled Laws of Utah, 1907.

Every person who takes away any female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, with or without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five years, or by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or both.

Sec. 4223. Id.

Procedure.

The proper procedure to be taken is to present the matter to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime was committed. Full detailed information respecting the properprocedure under these statutes may be found by referring to Title 91, Ch. 1, Laws of Utah, 1907.

A person who keeps a house of ill-fame, resorted to for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, whether the same be occupied or frequented by one or more females, shall be imprisoned not more than four years, or fined not more than three hundred dollars.

Sec. 5893, Public Statutes of Vermont, 1906.

Procedure.

Present the facts in the case to the state's attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

If any person take away or detain, against her will, any female with intent to marry or defile her, or cause her to be married or defiled by another person, or take from any person, having lawful charge of her, a female under sixteen years of age, for the purpose of concubinage or prostitution, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than ten years; and every person who shall assist or aid in such abduction or detention for such purpose, shall be guilty of a felony, and shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by confinement in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years.

Sec. 3678, Virginia Code, 1904.

Procedure.

Report alleged violation to a justice of the peace or the prosecuting attorney in the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

If any person take or entice away any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, without their consent, for the purpose of prostitution, he shall upon conviction, be punished with imprisonment in the penitentiary for not more than three years, or by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars, and imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year.

Sec. 7065, Ballinger's Code, 1897.

It shall be unlawful for any child or children, boy or girl, under the age of eighteen years, to enter into or become an inmate of any house or houses of prostitution, or room or rooms where the same is conducted, either as messengers, servants, or for any other purpose whatever, whether the same be under license or otherwise.

Sec. 7254, Ballinger's Code, 1897.

Any person or persons owning, operating, or maintaining any of the places enumerated in the three preceding sections of this chapter, permitting or allowing in any way whatever any child or children, boy or girl, under eighteen years of age, to enter the same, shall bedeemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not less than fifty dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding ninety days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Sec. 7256. Id.

Every person who—

1. Shall take a female under the age of eighteen years for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse, or without the consent of her father, mother, guardian or other person having legal charge of her person, for the purpose of marriage; or,

2. Shall inveigle or entice an unmarried female of previously chaste character into a house of ill-fame or assignation, or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution; or,

3. Shall take or detain a woman unlawfully against her will, with intent to compel her by force, menace or duress, to marry him or another person, or to be defiled; or,

4. Being the parent, guardian or other person having legal charge of the person of a female under the age of eighteen years, shall consent to her taking or detention by any person for the purpose of prostitution or sexual intercourse or for any obscene, indecent or immoral purpose;

Shall be guilty of abduction and punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more than ten years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both.

Sec. 187, Chap. 249, Session Laws of Washington, 1909.

Every person who—

1. Shall place a female in the charge or custody of another person for immoral purposes, or in a house of prostitution, with intent that she shall live a life of prostitution, or who shall compel any female to reside with him or with any other person for immoral purposes, or for the purposes of prostitution; or,

2. Shall ask or receive any compensation, gratuity or reward, or promise thereof, for or on account of placing in a house of prostitution or elsewhere, any female for the purpose of causing her to cohabit with any male person or persons not her husband; or,

3. Shall give, offer, or promise any compensation, gratuity or reward, to procure any female for the purpose of placing her for immoral purposes in any house of prostitution, or elsewhere, against her will; or,

4. Being the husband of any woman, or the parent, guardian or other person having legal charge of the person of a female under the age of eighteen years, shall connive at, consent to, or permit her being or remaining in any house of prostitution or leading a life of prostitution; or,

5. Shall live with or accept any earnings of a woman prostitute, or entice or solicit any person to go to a house of prostitution for any immoral purpose, or to have sexual intercourse with a woman prostitute;

Shall be punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for not more than five years,or by a fine of not more than two thousand dollars.

Sec. 188. Id.

Procedure.

Report the facts of the case to the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the crime is alleged to have been committed.

If any person take away or detain against her will a female, with intent to marry or defile her, or cause her to be married or defiled by another person, or take from any person having lawful charge of her, a female child under fourteen years of age, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than three nor more than ten years.

Sec. 4215, West Virginia Code, 1906.

Procedure.

Report the facts of the alleged crime within your knowledge to the nearest justice of the peace of the county in which the crime was committed, or refer the matter to the prosecuting attorney of the same county.

The Wisconsin laws are particularly far reaching. The extent and broad scope of the statutes of this state may be seen upon reading the statutes verbatim, which are herewith given. They are as follows:

Section 4581a. Any person who, by force, threats, promises or any other means or inducements, shall entice, inveigle, solicit, induce or take any unmarried female of previous chaste character of the age of sixteen years or under from her father, mother, guardian or other person having the legal care or custody of any such female, or from her home or other place of abode, wherever she may be, for the purpose of seduction, prostitution, or with intent to seduce, defile, deflower, or for the purpose of entering, causing, inducing or procuring her to enter any house of ill fame, assignation or other place of prostitution, for the purpose of prostitution, either temporarily or as an inmate of any such house or place, and any person who shall directly or indirectly cause, procure, aid, assist, knowingly permit or abet in any manner the seduction, defilement, deflowering or the having of illicit intercourse with any such female by any person, either at her home or other place of abode or elsewhere, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than ten years nor less than one year or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars.

Section 4581b. Any person who shall fraudulently, deceitfully or by any false representations entice, abduct, induce, decoy, hire, engage, employ or take any woman over sixteen years of age and of previous chaste character from her father's house or from any other place where she may be for the purpose aforesaidshall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not less than five years nor more than fifteen years.

Section 4581c. Any person who shall, by any such means as are mentioned in the next preceding section, entice, abduct, induce, decoy, hire, engage, employ or take in any manner any female from her home or from any other place where she may be, for the purpose of prostitution or for unlawful sexual intercourse, and any person who shall knowingly or intentionally aid, abet, assist, advise or encourage the doing of any such act for the purpose aforesaid shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than five years nor less than one year.

Section 4581d. Any person who shall detain any woman against her will by force, threats, putting in bodily fear or by any other means at a house of ill fame or any other place of any name or description whatever, for the purpose of prostitution or for unlawful sexual intercourse, and any person who shall aid, abet, advise, assist or encourage in such detention shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than fifteen years nor less than five years.

Section 4581e. Any person, being the owner, lessee or occupant of any premises, or having, in whole or in part, the management or control thereof, who induces or knowingly permits any female under twenty-one years of age to resort to or be in or upon such premises forthe purpose of prostitution or unlawful sexual intercourse shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison not more than five years nor less than one year.

Section 4581f. Any person who shall solicit, induce, encourage or entice, by fraudulent or deceitful representations intended or naturally tending to induce, entice or encourage, an unmarried woman of previous chaste character to leave her father's house or any other place where she may be found for the purpose of prostitution or for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse at a house of ill fame or assignation, and any person who shall in any manner aid, abet or assist in any such solicitation for such purpose shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than six months or by imprisonment in the state prison not to exceed one year.

Procedure.

Present all facts regarding violation of the above statute to the district attorney in whose county the offense is alleged to have been committed.

Wyoming has the following statutes respecting the seduction and enticing away of females for the purpose of prostitution:

Any male person who, under promise of marriage, shall have illicit carnal intercourse with any female of good repute for chastity, under the age of twenty-one years, shall be deemedguilty of seduction, and shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or be imprisoned in the county jail not more than twelve months.

Sec. 5057, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Whoever entices or takes away any female of good repute for chastity from wherever she may be to a house of ill-fame or elsewhere, for the purpose of prostitution, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or may be imprisoned in the county jail not more than twelve months.

Sec. 5058, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Whoever induces, decoys, procures or compels any female under eighteen years of age, or causes any female over eighteen years of age, against her will, to have sexual intercourse with any person other than himself; or knowingly permits any other person to have sexual intercourse with any female of good repute for chastity, upon premises owned or controlled by him, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than five years, or may be imprisoned in the county jail not more than six months.

Sec. 5064, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Wyoming is to be commended also for having the following statute respecting persons known as pimps:

Whoever being a male person, frequentshouses of ill-fame, or of assignation, or associates with females known or reputed as prostitutes, or frequents gambling houses with prostitutes, or is engaged in or about a house of prostitution, is a pimp, and shall be fined in any sum not more than one hundred dollars, and be imprisoned in the county jail not more than sixty days.

Sec. 5065, Revised Statutes of Wyoming, 1899.

Procedure.

Report violation to the prosecuting officer of the county in which the crime was committed.

By Melbourne P. Boynton, Pastor of the Lexington Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago.

At the request of the publishers this chapter will be very largely the relation of personal experiences in the war on the White Slave Trade. The personal pronoun is used in obedience to instructions. After all, that is the most useful testimony which grows out of what one has seen and heard.

It is just twelve years since my pastorate at the Lexington Avenue Church began. Half of that period had passed before I became really interested and informed concerning the strange thing now so widely known as the White Slave Traffic! What is this? Do you mean to tell me that girls and young women are bought and sold? Is it true that vile men own young women and live upon their earnings, the wages of sin? Is there a market to which these girls are brought and from which they are sent into all parts of the land? Are many of them tricked into infamous dens through promised employment and then locked in and kept for weeks and months and made to toil and respond to demands that at last break their hearts and drown their hopes?Are there men who spend their whole time traveling about the country getting acquainted with nice looking girls in the country stores, hotels, schools and even the homes, using every device, not stopping short of marriage, till they have sold their victims into the life that no language can describe and no clean mind imagine? Yes, O yes, it is more than true! When all this proved itself to my conscience, the facts burned themselves into my very heart. The call was so loud that response was immediate. But there were so few trying to do anything to stop the traffic. Rescue work was being done but the trade went on. The wicked men and women who bought and sold were not interfered with. The laws were weak and there were many loopholes. The workers were not of the earth's mighty and none of the churches and ministers were actively engaged. Here and there was a mission, now and then a Home opened, but all this was to save the sinner, who was there to find and punish the rascals? What could be done? It was a most discouraging and appalling task.

I remember that it was during the winter of the Spanish-American war that Rev. J. Q. A. Henry, D. D., then pastor of the La Salle Avenue Baptist Church of Chicago, invited me to go with himself and a friend to investigate the conditions in the "under world." At that time Dr. Henry was making a heroic fight on the frightful situation in the business district. Whole streets were given over to openvice. The vilest saloons flaunted their damning attractions in the face of every passer by. That good Minister of God had no small part in the awakening Chicago has since experienced. It was while with Dr. Henry that I visited for the first time the notorious resort at 441 South Clark street. It was then in its strength and full of pride. The madam carried a key to the police patrol box at the corner. No secret was made of the business carried on. The company within was friendly and tried to be entertaining, but under all was an awful sadness, the smiles were shallow, the whole air of the place spelled ruin. Only a few months thereafter and that house was closed. In the autumn of 1903 it was leased by Mr. O. H. Richards, superintendent of Beulah Home, and opened as Beulah Home South. Into those same parlors I went on Thanksgiving Day, 1903, and there united with a little band of Christian workers and helped to organize a company of people that has since given to the world the Midnight Mission in Chicago and the Illinois Vigilance Association for the suppression of traffic in women and girls.

In that house of sin, made into a house of prayer, I first met Rev. Ernest A. Bell, now the honored Superintendent of the Midnight Mission and the corresponding secretary of the Illinois Vigilance Association. It was he who suggested that the war be carried into the streets, and led by him a few men andwomen ventured forth and assailed the hosts of sin at the very doors of the brothels. The dens were invaded and men and women warned. The City Government was appealed to and in less than two years the business districts and Custom House Place, infamous across the world, were cleared of open houses of shame. Where the artful scarlet woman plied her deadly trade the streets are now full of children, and the houses once red with sin are now shops of new citizens, who have yet their mother tongue and the strange garb of lands across the seas.

So I was led to do what every true minister of Christ must do. I investigated the moral conditions of my home city. Knowledge of its culture, acquaintance with its commerce, friendship with its schools and homes and zeal for the respectable sinner were not enough. The man who is set to guard the moral interests of a community must go into the deeps and darks of his city. He must know first hand what the dangers to youth are, where the traps for girls and boys are set, what the bait used is, how the ruin is wrought and what the remedies are. Save as he does this his voice will not reach far, nor his protests have in them the moral ring of the man who knows. The daring youth and the toughened rascals soon detect whether a man talks from aroused conviction and a pointed purpose, or whether he is just preaching in the air and saying things that he thinks should be said.

My investigations convinced me that all thus far said was true, and far more than any respectable man can know was terribly rampant every night in Chicago. It was very apparent that more men and women of influence and power must give earnest thought and much time to the solution of this menacing problem. A Pastor's part was very clear to my mind. It is said that the Chinese employ a physician to keep the family in good health, he draws his fees while health obtains. That is something like the position of a Christian minister in his community. It is his business to promote good health, high morals, finest ideals; to rebuke evil in all of its forms, and especially that kind of evil nearest his own doors and in his own city. What would be thought of the physician that spent his time playing with the children, reading fine poems to the family, indulging in pretty speeches, but running away when dread diseases began to show themselves, refusing to treat cancer, smallpox, or other fearful plagues. So is the preacher who is content to do the ordinary work of his pastorate and takes no pains to investigate the moral and social conditions of his town. It is the sacred duty of every pastor to know his community on its unclean and diseased side.

But I saw that such a course would open one to grave misunderstandings. It is not according to the accepted order that a minister of a large city church should browse around the slums and visit in the brothels. The saloonswere not a part of his expected field of labor. It was prudent and indeed necessary that the Church should speak its own mind in these matters. Therefore the whole problem was laid before the Board of Deacons and later before the Church itself, with the result that the Church voted most heartily that the Pastor should feel free to use one day a week in such labors on behalf of the fallen and outcast as he might feel led to do. Further the Church placed the work of the Midnight Mission upon its regular calendar for 4 per cent of all the missionary funds, contributions to be made quarterly towards its work, thus putting the city-saving work on a level with every other missionary enterprise of the denomination. So was the Pastor given the endorsement of his people. Such action provided ample protection and was as wings for the accomplishing of the gigantic tasks set for a small band of heroic men and women. The Church was kept informed from time to time as to the progress of the midnight work. Care was taken not to allow this work to become a mere fad, but it was so presented as to rank with every other ministry of the Church. The young people were not drawn into this type of work at all, as it was not deemed advisable to take young people into the streets of sin where the fight against the White Slave Traffic was being waged. Earnest warnings were given the young folk and the young men were especially instructed in the dangers and allurements ofthe scarlet woman. Thus the Church was related to this needed warfare in both a physical and spiritual manner. The results upon the Church are most striking and satisfactory. It can be said with full agreement that the outcasts need the Church, but it is equally true that the Church needs this kind of service and without it suffers a loss of sympathy and aggressiveness that is fatal to the peace and prosperity of the Church. A Church ought to die fighting itself that refuses to give battle to the White Slave Traders! Shame on the minister and the Church that is indifferent under the revelations that are made every day showing to what depths the vile creatures of the red light districts have sunken to gain a little more of cruel gold! God will not hold guiltless men and women who, hearing the stifled cries of the enslaved, heed them not! It behooves the sons and daughters of the brave men who freed the black slaves to rise in another and holier crusade to free the white slaves from a bondage blacker and more damning than any the world has yet known. Yes, it is high time that every preacher of the Gospel investigated the conditions of his own city and town.

Country ministers have great opportunity in this warfare on behalf of women and girls. It is in the country that the procurers work. There is need for education, outspoken, persistent warnings that parents must be compelled to hear. The wise and earnest words of United States District Attorney Edwin W.Sims, found in another chapter of this book, should be carefully pondered by all who desire to protect young womanhood. Here the country preacher will find his cue and will be instructed as to what he can and ought to do.

There is need that the Pastor co-operate with existing organizations that have for their purpose the suppression of this frightful evil. Already in nearly every city of any size there are companies of good people banded together to wipe out the White Slave Traffic. Let the Pastor seek out such folk and give them a hearty word of cheer. Such action will attract other persons of influence and wealth and give character and power to the crusade. If the folk already engaged in this holy cause are humble, unlearned and obscure, let the man of God remember that "He hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty."

If the Pastor is wise there is a surprising weight of public sentiment that will arouse at once at his call. The Press in nearly all of its forms will aid him and give wide currency to his protests and suggested methods. This has nowhere been more clearly shown than in the late session of the Illinois State Legislature. Two new bills were up for passage, they had passed the Lower House without an opposing vote and were on the calendar of the Senate on a morning when I happened to be present. The President of the Senate entertained a motion to send the bills to third reading without reference to a committee, one of the Senatorswas busy at his desk reading a report or something when he became suddenly aware that some bills were passing to third reading without the customary reference to a committee. With startled air he arose and demanded what those bills were. The President waved his gavel at him and said, "the White Slave Bills"! "O," said the Senator, "that's all right," and sat down to resume the reading of his report. The bills then passed to third reading without a sign of opposition on any man's part. This action proved to me how very strong and immediate is the response of the good people of any community to a call like that which this book send up.

We have always found the police ready to help in any practical line. It is now nearly three years since Superintendent Bell of Midnight Mission, Miss Lucy A. Hall, a deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church and myself made a thorough canvass of the red-light district and put the Illinois Statute on White Slavery in the hands of nearly every dive keeper, madam and many of the prostitutes themselves. This is the form of that leaflet distributed, which had no small part in starting the crusade against the White Slavers in Chicago.

It is a penitentiary offense to detain any woman in a house of prostitution against her will.The Criminal Code of Illinois makes the following provision for the punishment of this crime against American liberty:Sec. 57c. "Whoever shall unlawfully detain or confine any female, by force, false pretense or intimidation, in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for purposes of prostitution or with intent to cause such female to become a prostitute, and be guilty of fornication or concubinage therein, or shall by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation attempt to prevent any female so as aforesaid detained, from leaving such room, house, building or premises, and whoever aids, assists or abets by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation, in keeping, confining or unlawfully detaining any female in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for the purpose of prostitution, fornication or concubinage, shall on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years."No "white slave" need remain in slavery in this State of Abraham Lincoln who made the black slaves free. "For freedom did Christ set us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," which is the yoke of sin and evil habit.

It is a penitentiary offense to detain any woman in a house of prostitution against her will.

The Criminal Code of Illinois makes the following provision for the punishment of this crime against American liberty:

Sec. 57c. "Whoever shall unlawfully detain or confine any female, by force, false pretense or intimidation, in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for purposes of prostitution or with intent to cause such female to become a prostitute, and be guilty of fornication or concubinage therein, or shall by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation attempt to prevent any female so as aforesaid detained, from leaving such room, house, building or premises, and whoever aids, assists or abets by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation, in keeping, confining or unlawfully detaining any female in any room, house, building or premises in this State, against the will of such female, for the purpose of prostitution, fornication or concubinage, shall on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years."

No "white slave" need remain in slavery in this State of Abraham Lincoln who made the black slaves free. "For freedom did Christ set us free. Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," which is the yoke of sin and evil habit.

In this canvass we had the most cordial support of the police. Captain Harding of the 22nd Street Station detailed a detective to accompany us and he showed us the most faithful attention.

It was in this canvass that we visited the most infamous and notorious house in the West. The madam of this particular house told us, in the presence of the policeman, that she had paid $160.00 each for two girls that had been sent her from the South. She also explained how safe her house was from violence and how free from disease, and yet, before our conversation ceased she admitted that she had placed 105 girls in a neighboring Christian hospital for treatment. Since then that hospital has stopped doing this sort of business. The President of the institution attested the truth of the woman's statement and afterward put an end to her patronage of his hospital. Only last winter I had the opportunity of holding a Christian service in that same house of shame. Two of our lady workers secured permission to conduct such a meeting for the poor girls and invited me to take charge of the service. On a Sunday night at about 12:30 four of us went to that house and preached Christ to some fourteen of the poor creatures. One of them, a married woman, was rescued the next night. We had assurances that two or three others determined to quit the evil life and go home. The meeting was such a success, from our point of view, that the madam said she did not think another service of the sort could be arranged. There are, however, many places open for just such effort andPastors that have the support of their Churches and can find a company of faithful, sensible companions in the work, can powerfully assault the strongholds of Satan in the dark places of the cities. This phase of the work is difficult, delicate and perhaps dangerous. The most fruitful and most possible kind of effort on behalf of the outcasts is in the open air meetings, the street gatherings, where the gospel can be sung and preached by the hour. Crowds of men, mostly young men, stand for hours listening to the familiar hymns and the old, old story of the Cross. Where is the Pastor more needed than in just such gatherings? Let it be said for the Pastors of Chicago, that the mightiest of them have counted it a joy and privilege to preach from the curb-pulpit of The Midnight Mission. If the list of the ministers, lawyers, judges, physicians, teachers, deacons and other laymen was given here it would look like an honor roll of the City of Chicago. The presence of the Pastor in this sort of work is of value from more points of view than that of preaching alone. To see the accepted ministers of the city in such meetings is to lift the meetings to a plane with the Church work and worship. It gives protection to the workers when the Pastor can not be with them. It secures the respectful attention of the unchurched portion of the community and assures the police that the efforts are sane, sound and determined. It should be the purpose ofevery Pastor to promote such open air work for the sinful and hopeless of his city.

The Pastor is the channel through which the people can be stirred on these grave social questions. Let him educate his own flock and mightily agitate his own community. In the city of London the most influential clergymen are not hesitating to take the lead in reaching the submerged portions of the population. Witness this testimony found in "The Churchman" for May 2, 1908.

"During this Lent Dr. Ingram has taken as the field of his regular Lenten mission, the districts of central London. In addition to the many parish churches in which he has spoken, he has given addresses in connection with the mission at Westminster Abbey.

The last week of his work was marked by a midnight Church Army procession, which, with brass band and torches, perambulated the most squalid quarters of Westminster and Pimlico. For an hour and a quarter, the Church Army workers, headed by the bishop, marched slowly in the rain through the muddy streets, halting before the public houses (saloons), where addresses were given by the bishop. By the time the houses were closed the procession received large additions from the crowds of carousing men and women, who came out of them early Sunday morning. A meeting washeld afterwards in the schoolroom of one of the parish churches near by, where there was a half-hour of hymn singing, and a final address by the bishop."

The Bishop of London, whom Editor Bok of The Ladies' Home Journal calls the best loved man in England, has taken a foremost part in the purity reform. He preaches in the slums at midnight, and on the other hand pleads with the leaders of his church and nation to oppose with the light of truth and the fire of earnestness the evils of impurity which so threaten the national life. He protests in public by voice and pen against the false modesty which keeps young people in ignorance of the wages of sin, and so thrusts them blindfolded into the pitfalls and traps which the evil-minded always have in readiness for the untaught and unwary. The good bishop insists that the children and youth of the British Isles shall know the truth, that by the truth they may be made free. He is unsparing in his criticism of those who would have the people go on in ignorance to their injury or ruin.

Surely every true minister of the Gospel needs only to know the situation and become acquainted with the black facts of rampant sin, to buckle on his armor and give battle to the hosts of iniquity. Why then should I labor to convince my brothers in the ministry? O, Pastor, Who-ever-you-are, investigate, co-operate and agitate until all the slaves are free and the "mauvais sujet" are converted to Jesus or consigned to jail!

After many days and weeks of united prayer, that God would interpose against the destruction of young girls and young men in the shameful resorts of Chicago, I asked Miss Ella N. Rudy, on an August afternoon in 1904, at a meeting at 441 South Clark street, if she would come the next night, with a view to holding a meeting in Custom House Place, which at that time had half a hundred vile resorts peopled with about seven hundred ruined girls. Miss Rudy is a woman of strong and earnest Christian character, and I appealed to her because I knew that she would surely come if she promised. She hesitated a moment and promised to come. I then announced to the score of persons present that such as would like to join us should come the next night at eight o'clock for prayer and at ten we would go to the street. The announcement was received with intense interest. Pastor Boynton, who was chairman of the meeting, immediately asked permission to preach the first sermon, which was gladly granted. Fifteen devoted people stood with him when he came to preach.

Miss Rudy is now a missionary at Ping Nam, Kwang Sai Province, South China. On December 7, 1908, she wrote me:

"Yesterday the little Prayer Advocate came and in it I noticed your request for prayer for The Midnight Mission and I was reminded of the beginning of this most blessed work. I think I could point to the spot where you said, after telling the need so earnestly, 'Miss Rudy, will you stand with me, for the Lord says where two agree He will do what they ask?' I said, 'I will,' and we did pray fervently, for, having come in contact with Beulah Home and other refuges, I had seen the great need of going out to seek the lost. I remember our first night, when we hardly knew who would go with us. I put the permit near so if an officer came we could show it. I do praise God for the way He has blessed you in this work. I have never ceased praying for this work and have always held it up to others for prayer, as I have gone from place to place in evangelistic service. I was so sorry to leave Chicago, but God's call lay in another direction. I know I never was missed, for so many rose to their privilege in Jesus. But I would have been missed had I not come to China for we are so few in number here."

Before she went to China, Miss Rudy was at one time holding a gospel meeting in Pennsylvania, when a man came up to her and said: "You do not know me, but I know you. I heard you speak at midnight in Custom House Place in Chicago, and I have been a Christian man since that midnight."

As I was a missionary in India and MissRudy is a missionary in China, and as we constantly minister at midnight in the streets of Chicago to Chinese, Japanese, an occasional Persian, Hindu or Arab, French, Polish, Russians, Germans, Italians, Jews, and almost every nationality under heaven, The Midnight Mission has some features of a foreign missionary society.

From the very beginning of this unique work many earnest people came to help us. During the five years past nearly a thousand persons have taken part with us—pastors, professors, deaconesses, foreign missionaries on furlough, evangelists, judges, lawyers, physicians, "Gideons" and other business men, and many good women. All these, with breaking hearts, have shared our midnight toil and peril, snatching the lost from the fire in the very vestibule of hell. Among the well known ministers, professors and physicians who have come to help in the meetings are: Rev. Dr. Cain, moderator of the Presbytery of Chicago; Rev. Robert H. Beattie, the recent moderator; Rev. Dr. John Balcom Shaw, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church; Rev. Dr. A. C. Dixon, pastor of the Moody church; Professor Graham Taylor, Professor Solon C. Bronson, Professor Woelfkin, of Rochester, New York; Professor G. H. Trever, of Atlanta, Georgia; Drs. Linnell, Pollack and Van Dyke—the last a lecturerin the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is the medical department of the University of Illinois.

Rev. A. H. Harnly, now an evangelist for the Baptist State Association of Illinois, has preached many times with exceptional power in our midnight meetings. Rev. C. A. Kelley, Rev. Ralph Waller Hobbs and Rev. W. E. Hopkins, formerly a missionary in India, have labored much in this cause. Scores of pastors of Baptist, Christian, Congregational, Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian churches have preached from the little box which is our only pulpit, except when now and then a good friend brings his automobile and lets us use it for a pulpit.

Mr. Rufus S. Simmons, a lawyer, a personal friend of President Taft, is president of the mission since it was organized at the end of 1906; for more than two years there was no organization. Mr. Simmons very often attends the meetings and takes part. His partner, Mr. S. C. Irving, comes occasionally and speaks. Judge Scott of Paris, Texas, spent one night with us, and former Judge Devlin labors diligently.

Mr. C. E. Homan, president of the Chicago camp of "Gideons," an organization of Christian commercial traveling men, and many members of that order have steadily helped in this work.

Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, Miss Helma Sutherland, Miss Florence Mabel Dedrick, missionary of the Moody church, Miss Mary F. Turnbull and scores of good women have toiled with us in the night. No speaker is more interesting and alarming to young men than Miss Turnbull, who was formerly a nurse in an asylum for the insane in New York and knows why many of the patients are there.

One of the best addresses ever given in our meetings was by a young Jew, Mr. Nathan, a reporter, who asked leave to speak. For about forty minutes he spoke with the earnestness of a prophet, though he spoke more of temporal than eternal considerations. The sweat poured down his face as he reasoned of righteousness and temperance, with some reference to judgment to come.

Another friendly Jew, Mr. Richard L. Schindler, has come scores of times to our meetings, not to speak, but to use his influence to help protect us and otherwise encourage our work.

Still another friendly son of Abraham gave me information when enemies were plotting against me. He warned them that he would expose them if they did me any harm.

Pastors and church people usually have no idea of the multitudes of men and youths from avenues, boulevards and suburbs, who swarm by the ten thousands through the vice districts of great cities on Saturday and Sunday nights,and by hundreds or thousands every other night. Fathers and mothers, sisters, sweethearts and neighbors are ignorant of the ruinous folly of several million American young men. I have counted them passing one street corner in the center of Chicago's red light district—red with the heart's blood of mothers, wives and babies—at the rate of 3,500 an hour. These are the young men of whom we read, "void of understanding" as the book of Proverbs fitly describes them. They gather by troops at the harlots' houses and throng the streets of shame without a blush. They are even ready to give reasons why they should support these slaughter houses, not knowing that "the dead are there and her guests are in the depths of hell."

One night I dreamed that I saw a young man stepping carelessly on and off a railway track, near a curve around which the express train might come thundering and screaming at any moment. Whether on the track or off it, the young man was indifferent to danger and wanton in his movements. But as I looked I saw in my dream, that there was nothing whatever above his coat collar—he had no head. This explained his recklessness. A hundred times I have told this dream to crowds of young men, to illustrate the folly of men who have heads and do not use them—"void of understanding." We have warned probably one hundred thousand of these foolish young men.

The Bible is always with us and alwaysforemost. But some who would pay no regard to an open Bible in the street preacher's hand, instantly give heed when they see the Revised Statutes of Illinois open at the criminal code, and they listen carefully to the section which pronounces them criminal if they patronize an evil resort.

We quote to them the great utterance of Judge Newcomer, spoken before the Methodist Preachers' Meeting of Chicago, September 17, 1906, when he said:

"The great majority of criminals now are young men—an appalling crop of them year by year. After seven and a half years' experience in the state's attorney's office, during which I have dealt with six thousand criminal cases, sending seven to the gallows and hundreds to the penitentiary and reformatory, I believe that the chief causes of crime among young men are: 1, Liquor; 2, Lust; 3, Drugs; 4, Bad associates. Of these, liquor, bad as it is, is not the chief cause of crime among young men. The chief cause is that next after liquor. The welfare of the city, of the commonwealth, of society as a whole, of the national life itself, is menaced, to a degree exceeding any other cause, by the social evil."

We have never hesitated to warn our hearers by the prisons, by the gallows, by the most tremendous issues of life, death and eternity.

Some who are willing to harden themselves against the laws of God and man alike, lay to heart the evidence of a standard medical treatise on insanity when it is opened and read to them in the street. The description of the brain of a dead lunatic, who lost his mind and his life as the wages of the sin upon which they are bent, brings a pallor over the faces of crowds that seem nailed down to the pavement and unable to move away. Others heed the medical testimony concerning the fearful suffering likely to come upon their present or future wives in consequence of their iniquity. Modern surgeons attribute 25 per cent of surgical operations upon women—mostly innocent wives—to these sins against chastity. Statistics of the German Empire, Austria, Denmark, and Holland show that 40.25 per cent of the blind in the asylums of those countries owe their blindness, usually dating from earliest infancy, to one of the diseases associated with prostitution—not the disease commonly most dreaded.

We distribute leaflets specially prepared and attractively printed in two colors, telling plainly the criminality of vice and the ruin that it brings upon the body and brain and character of transgressors. We have printed more than 150,000 tracts and cards, which are eagerly taken by many thousands of young men, to the anger and loss of the keepers of the criminalresorts. The work of tract distribution is carried on in all weather, often when street meetings are impossible.

This educational work is carried on in friendly co-operation with The Chicago Society of Social Hygiene—organized by the Chicago Medical Society—which supplies us with circulars for this purpose. This feature of our work led to an invitation to our superintendent to address The Physicians' Club concerning the work of The Midnight Mission. Dr. Archibald Church, editor of The Chicago Medical Recorder, has asked for and accepted an article on this work for his paper.

"I respect you," said a divekeeper who with others has since abandoned his loathsome business, "because you work in the rain and you work in the cold." I find it equally blessed to be Christ's witness by the Martyrs' Memorial in classic Oxford, on the hot sand beneath the palm trees of Ceylon and India, and on a snowbank among Chicago's red lights. Everywhere large audiences stand eagerly listening to the messengers of God. Our midnight street meetings continue three, four, five, and even six hours at one place, in the summer.

Several women have repented and have been cared for or restored to their relatives. But our effort has been chiefly directed toward thethousands of men and youths whose money supports the institutions that destroy manhood and womanhood alike. Hundreds of repentant men and boys have knelt in the dust of Custom House Place, Peoria Street, and Armour Avenue. In social and business position they range from a wholesale merchant and a fallen minister to gamblers and wrecks.

But what can be better than conversions—that make glad the heart of God? Nothing, except preventing the children of God from plunging into deadly sin. If the only good accomplished by our midnight cry were the prevention of the ruin of a dozen youths in a year, it would be gloriously worth while to keep on crying. But hundreds have turned back from the brink of perdition, including university students and Church members. With outstretched hands and glad gratitude, they say to us: "We thank you; you have kept us from sin tonight!" When we recall Dr. Prince A. Morrow's estimate, quoted by Dr. Howard A. Kelly in a paper read before the American Medical Association, that 450,000 American young men make the plunge into the moral sewer every year, we see what an enormous field there is for this preventive work.

One Sunday night a young husband from Racine, Wisconsin, whose wife was in poor health, listened to our plain words and turned back from the sin he intended. He had never been warned and he was very thankful; he told me he was a Catholic and had never gonewrong. Another evening a very handsome young man, twenty-eight years old, listened to the words of warning and then came to me quietly and said: "I am a Christian and a church member and I have never gone wrong, but I was just about to go into one of these houses of shame, while waiting for a train which is late, when I saw your gospel meeting and have been kept back from sin by your message. Most men would be ashamed to tell you, but I tell you for your encouragement."

Among the hundreds of repentant men and youths who have knelt in the dust of Chicago's most infamous streets, in the open air meetings of The Midnight Mission, is one whom we will call Joe.

One Saturday night Joe came to our meeting and told us that he was a gambler, a pickpocket, a drunkard, a libertine and worse—enticing girls from their homes and placing them in houses of infamy. He asked us to pray for him, which of course we did. Joe disappeared for an hour or so, but returned at midnight to our meeting, and at half-past twelve knelt in the street, with another repentant young man, confessing his ruinous and shameful sin.

For four years since that night we have kept in touch with Joe. We were obliged to advise his father—living in another state, an elder in the Presbyterian church, who never suspected anything wrong in his son—to take more interest in Joe, and not to take less interest in the class of other men's sons that he was teaching in Sunday School. On his own motion Joe told his father the whole heart-breaking truth. Unspeakably humiliated, the father proved himself a father indeed, and did everything in his power to restore the young man to a right life, at great cost to himself.

Joe now has his own home and his own business. He is a respected citizen, instead of—God knows what—most likely a despicable white slave trader in Chicago or Detroit or New York. He is one of hundreds who have heeded our midnight protest against terrible sin, our midnight testimony for the Lamb of God, who takes away sin.

At the beginning of our work the keepers of evil resorts were respectful and to a degree friendly. During the second summer, 1905, the meetings increased very greatly in power. Sometimes we continued preaching from ten o'clock at night till three in the morning. Workers reached their homes after daylight, with hearts almost bursting for gladness because many sinners had repented. As many as fifty workers were engaged in the same block at once, holding four simultaneous meetings. All were working voluntarily and without pay. I myself was earning my expenses with my pen.

Thousands of misguided men had their attention called to the cross of Christ and the holy life every week. The revenues of the resorts were seriously diminished. One manager, who had been misled in his boyhood and genuinely regretted the loathsome life he was leading, said to me, "If you Christian people keep coming, we've got to go." The Christian people kept coming. That man has since quit his awful business.

With our increasing spiritual power, keepers of saloons and resorts became alarmed for their revenues and began to offer resistance. They hired express men to drive into our meetings and organ grinders to disturb us with their noise. On one occasion a cab driver was paid to drive at high speed into our meeting, where deaconesses and many Christian women were assisting. Many times automobiles were stationed near us and made as noisy as possible in order to harass us. They wasted some nice fresh eggs on us, and a melon. As we were proceeding lawfully, under legal permits from the police department, we called upon the police for complete protection. While an American patrolman was on the beat we had no trouble, but a foreign-born officer showed us considerable disfavor. We had our own opinion of the source of his ill-will. Chief Collins was entirely just and friendly and took all necessary measures for our protection.

At length, managers of resorts, saloons and gambling dens in notorious Custom HousePlace calculated that each hour we worked they lost $250, and they determined to give us "the worst of it" even if they had to hire thugs to slug me. We kept steadily calling upon God and faithfully preaching His truth. At length, near the end of October, such representations were made to Chief Collins that he ordered our meetings stopped at ten o'clock—when they began—on the ground that we were disturbing the sleep of lodgers in hotels two blocks away!

Thereupon, accompanied by Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, Miss Lucy Page Gaston, Deaconess Lucy A. Hall, Miss Eva Marshall Shonts and others, eleven in all, we called upon the chief of police, explained our surprise at being stopped in our work, which was entirely lawful, and requested him to cleanse that street of resorts which were entirely unlawful. This he immediately promised to do, on condition that we would not stir the newspapers or arouse public sentiment to compel him to do it. We accepted his word and awaited fulfillment. Two months later—namely, at Christmas, 1905, he notified the resorts, and published in the newspapers, that they must vacate on the first of May, 1906.

During the intervening months the white slave traders, gamblers, keepers of the worst disorderly saloons and some property owners and real estate agents who made money outof that precinct of perdition, raised a slush fund, employed an attorney and used every device in their power to gain a continuance of their nefarious traffic in the heart of Chicago—for they were between the Federal building containing the post office, and the Dearborn passenger station, used by the Erie, Grand Trunk, Santa Fe and Monon railways.

Mayor Dunne told Pastor Boynton and myself, at the Sherman House on the evening of March 15, 1907, when his political enemies were accusing him falsely of being the friend of vice, that the divekeepers offered him $50,000 if he would allow them to remain four months more in Custom House Place. Mayor Dunne, a man of the highest character, attested this statement by an appeal to God. Chief Collins had previously told me that the dives had made this offer but he had replied to them, "If you had Marshall Field's money you cannot stay there after the first of May, if I am chief of police, so help me God." No political or other influence could induce him to waver or to reverse his order, and when the first of May came he drove them out with a mailed fist.

Mayor Dunne told us that while he was on the bench the case of a Polish girl came before him, which had prepared his mind to act against the resorts if he should ever have power. This innocent immigrant girl had arrived at the Dearborn station and had been lured into one of the adjacent dens, her clothes taken from her, and herself made a white slave.

In 1906 we worked principally on the vice-ridden streets of the West Side. After the earthquake in San Francisco many depraved women, with their parasites, took refuge in Chicago. These were very brazen women, and the vile young men who lived on their shameful earnings were cunning in thwarting the police. Conditions became insufferable. So wide open was the district that a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in walking four blocks on the sidewalk was solicited by sixty-two women from their open doors and windows. A police court justice was accused of assessing petty fines against these offenders when the police brought them into court.

We steadily preached the word and prayed to God to abolish those frightful traps for boys. We learned of one boy, a choir boy in a Methodist church, who was dragged forcibly into one of those dens, and infected with a disease from which he soon died.

Captain Barcal, of the Desplaines street police station, in plain clothes and unknown to the evangelists, visited our midnight gospel meeting in Peoria street at the corner of Randolph, Saturday night, September 15. Several repentant young men were on their knees in the dust, surrounded by missionaries working with them and praying for them. The captain said to Alexander Cleland, one of the secretaries of the Central Young Men's ChristianAssociation: "I will not tolerate any interference with this good work."

One Sunday afternoon as we were working on Sangamon street a beautiful, sinful Jewess insulted me and justified herself by saying with a strong Jewish accent, "You spoil our business." The next Sunday or so a young Jew parasite succeeded in breaking up our meeting. Captain Barcal was indignant and took better care of us than ever. One Sunday a Jew said to me, "The girls say you have spoiled their business." Soon afterward a police order and the new municipal courts utterly transformed that region. Business interest were weary of such outrageous conditions and demanded a decisive change. Some months afterward a policeman remarked upon the transformation and explained, "The Lord's time came to work and He has been working." There is still very much to be done there, but the former flagrancy of vice has been abolished.

Mr. Henry De Vries, Mr. and Mrs. F. J. Macdonald and Mr. R. M. Hawkins worked with me during our conflict on the West Side. Mr. Macdonald was killed the next year by a train.

For the last three years since our mission was organized, chiefly through the efforts of the Rev. Dr. John Balcom Shaw, we have labored mostly in the great vice district andwhite slave market at Twenty-second street. Of course we had no very glad welcome, after the preceding conflicts. I have been assaulted three times in that district and several who have worked with us have been roughly handled. Vile drugs have been thrown into our meetings and on our clothes—assafoetida and hydrogen sulphide. Viler words have been hurled into our ears. One French trader threatened to break me to pieces and send me to a hospital if it cost him a mint of money, but he afterward became friendly and finally quit his loathsome business.

Objection was made to our scientific teaching and circulars. Even the police captains, who have always taken splendid care of us, were influenced by our adversaries to object to our telling the young men about the diseases that are on sale in the resorts. Our circulars and the circulars of the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene were referred by the chief of police to the corporation counsel who promptly approved them. He said we were like the Knights of the Garter and our circulars not immoral but highly moral. We have circulated nearly a million pages of these circulars. Young men hear us gladly and accept the circulars with thanks. I have counted two hundred men listening at once to Evangelist J. R. Beveridge, who is very plain speaking, while he was working with us.

The Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America do not hold meetings in the vice districts of Chicago, but women officers of those societies do visit the resorts selling papers. At times both Salvationists and Volunteers have taken part in our midnight meetings. Many people passing our meetings suppose that we are from the Salvation Army, as it is believed to do such work. The Army has rescue and maternity homes and does much good work for the fallen, but the preaching in the vice districts is done by our own and similar recent organizations.

Rev. V. A. M. Mortensen, a Lutheran minister, has organized The Rescue League, which looks for support chiefly to the Lutheran churches. Mr. Mortensen preaches in the night, chiefly on the West Side. He is much interested in the work against the white slave trade. Through his agency Jennie Moulton was sent to Joliet under a sentence of twenty years for procuring young girls for some degraded Greeks. Mr. Mortensen has also been very diligent against dealers in obscene pictures and postcards.

Rev. N. K. Clarkson has worked part of the time with The Midnight Mission and part of the time independently. He has organized The White Cross Midnight Missionary Association, which is very diligent, preaching sometimesalmost all night and never ceasing for rain or snow. This heroic work compels respect.

Dan Martin works Saturday nights in the vice district with a large company of devoted people. Hundreds of men and youths have knelt in the dust, confessing their sins, in Mr. Martin's meetings.

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