is
depth. You can find in these hells women who, but a few years ago, were
ornaments of society. No woman who enters upon a life of shame can hope
to avoid coming to these places in the end. As sure as she takes the
first step in sin, she will take this last one also, struggle against it
as she may. This is the last depth. It has but one bright ray in all
its darkness--it does not last over a few months, for death soon ends it.
But, O, the horrors of such a death! No human being who has not looked
on such a death-bed can imagine the horrible form in which the Great
Destroyer comes. There is no hope. The poor wretch passes from untold
misery in this life to the doom which awaits those who die in their sins.

The keepers of these wretched places use every art to entice young and
innocent women into their dens, where they are ruined by force. The
police frequently rescue women from them who have been enticed into them
or carried there by force. Emigrant girls, who have strolled from the
depot at Castle Garden into the lower part of the city, are decoyed into
these places by being promised employment. Men and women are sent into
the country districts to ensnare young girls to these city hells.
Advertisements for employment are answered by these wretches, and every
art is exhausted in the effort to draw pure women within the walls of the
dance house. Let such a woman once cross the threshold, and she will be
drugged or forced to submit to her ruin. This accomplished, she will not
be allowed to leave the place until she has lost all hope of giving up
the life into which she has been driven.

The Missionaries' are constant visitors to these dens. They go with hope
that they may succeed in rescuing some poor creature from her terrible
life. As a rule, they meet with the vilest abuse, and are driven away
with curses, but sometimes they are successful. During the present
winter they have succeeded in effecting a change for the better in one of
the most notorious women in Water street.

[Picture: NOONDAY PRAYER MEETING AT WATER STREET HOME.]

VI. HARRY HILL'S.

Harry Hill is a well-known man among the disreputable classes of New
York. He is the proprietor of the largest and best known dance house in
the city. His establishment is in Houston street, a few doors west of
Mulberry street, and almost under the shadow of the Police Headquarters.
It is in full sight from Broadway, and at night a huge