Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls Part 32

2. Shall ask or receive any compensation, gratuity or reward, or promise thereof, for or on account of placing in a house of prost.i.tution 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 prost.i.tution, 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 prost.i.tution or leading a life of prost.i.tution; or,

5. Shall live with or accept any earnings of a woman prost.i.tute, or entice or solicit any person to go to a house of prost.i.tution for any immoral purpose, or to have s.e.xual intercourse with a woman prost.i.tute;

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.

WEST VIRGINIA.

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 prost.i.tution 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.

WISCONSIN.

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, prost.i.tution, 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, a.s.signation or other place of prost.i.tution, for the purpose of prost.i.tution, either temporarily or as an inmate of any such house or place, and any person who shall directly or indirectly cause, procure, aid, a.s.sist, 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 aforesaid shall 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 prost.i.tution or for unlawful s.e.xual intercourse, and any person who shall knowingly or intentionally aid, abet, a.s.sist, 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 prost.i.tution or for unlawful s.e.xual intercourse, and any person who shall aid, abet, advise, a.s.sist 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 for the purpose of prost.i.tution or unlawful s.e.xual 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 prost.i.tution or for the purpose of unlawful s.e.xual intercourse at a house of ill fame or a.s.signation, and any person who shall in any manner aid, abet or a.s.sist 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.

Wyoming has the following statutes respecting the seduction and enticing away of females for the purpose of prost.i.tution:

Any male person who, under promise of marriage, shall have illicit carnal intercourse with any female of good repute for chast.i.ty, under the age of twenty-one years, shall be deemed guilty 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 chast.i.ty from wherever she may be to a house of ill-fame or elsewhere, for the purpose of prost.i.tution, 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 s.e.xual intercourse with any person other than himself; or knowingly permits any other person to have s.e.xual intercourse with any female of good repute for chast.i.ty, 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, frequents houses of ill-fame, or of a.s.signation, or a.s.sociates with females known or reputed as prost.i.tutes, or frequents gambling houses with prost.i.tutes, or is engaged in or about a house of prost.i.tution, 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.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A PASTOR'S PART.

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 p.r.o.noun 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 pa.s.sed 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 open vice. The vilest saloons flaunted their d.a.m.ning attractions in the face of every pa.s.ser by. That good Minister of G.o.d 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation.