ic places
of meeting, its police, its hospitals, its prisons and its
literature."[110] "We no longer celebrate the festival of Osiris, the
Bacchanalia and the Indian orgies of the spring month; but in Paris and
other large cities, under the black cloak of night, behind the walls of
'public' and 'private' houses, people give themselves over to orgies and
Bacchanalia that the boldest pen dare not describe."[111]

Under such conditions, the traffic in female flesh has assumed mammoth
proportions. It is conducted on a most extensive scale, and is most
admirably organized in the very midst of the seats of civilization and
culture, rarely attracting the notice of the police. A swarm of brokers,
agents, carriers, male and female, ply the trade with the same unconcern
as if they dealt in any other merchandise. Birth certificates are
forged, and bills of lading are drawn up with accurate descriptions of
the qualifications of the several "articles," and are handed over to the
carriers as directions for the purchasers. As with all merchandise, the
price depends upon the quality, and the several categories are assorted
and consigned, according to the taste and the requirements of the
customers in different places and countries. The slyest manipulations
are resorted to in order to evade the snares and escape the vigilance of
the police; not infrequently large sums are used to shut the eyes of the
guardians of the law. A number of such cases have been established,
especially in Paris.

Germany enjoys the sorry fame of being the woman market for half the
world. The innate German migratory disposition seems to animate also a
portion of the women. In larger numbers than those of any other people,
the Austrian excepted, do they furnish their contingent to the supply of
international prostitution. German women populate the harems of the
Turks, as well as the public houses of central Siberia, and as far away
as Bombay, Singapore, San Francisco and Chicago. In a book of
travels,[112] the author, W. Joest, speaks as follows on the German
trade in girls: "People so often grow warm in our moral Germany over
the slave trade that some African negro Prince may be carrying on, or
over conditions in Cuba and Brazil, but they should rather keep in mind
the beam in their own eyes: _in no country is there such a trade with
white female slaves, from no country is the export of this living
merchandise as large as it is from Germany and Austria_. The ro