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ons for this initiation, but leave it obscure as to the nationality of the men who initiate girls into the life of a brothel slave. But Chinese in San Francisco do not hesitate to make the charge that Chinamen recoil, through moral sense or superstition, from deflowering a virgin, and that this horrible privilege is purchased at a special price by the white, not the yellow patrons of Chinese houses of ill-fame. Baker alley has probably been the scene of more terrible brutality of this sort than any other part of San Francisco. Before the rubbish was cleared away, in the oasis of a broad desert of ashes in the burned city, we visited this region, and found carpenters busy at the work of reconstructing brothels. The slave pen was existent again, and we entered the gateway leading to it and gazed upon the rapidly growing structures within. Two white men of a class called "Watch-dogs," in the days before the fire, occupied a sort of look-out and kept guard, more especially upon the entrance to Baker alley. This region, so largely of American manufacture, like other sections of San Francisco's Chinatown, was displayed, by means of Chinatown guides for pay to tourists, who were led to believe that they were looking upon _Chinese_ views of life. The truth is, as we have shown in previous chapters, a display of vice is practically unknown in regions of China uninfluenced by Western civilization. Almost any wicked man, any tourist who would pay well, man or woman, could enter this place. The "Watch-dogs" were kept merely to prevent the entrance of mission workers to rescue slaves, and these "Watch-dogs" were, and always are, American, or, at least European men, not Chinese. There were more "Watch-dogs" than those about Sullivan Place, before the earthquake in San Francisco,--they were to be found in many parts, always for the one purpose,--to resist interference with the enforcement of brothel slavery upon Chinese women. American men undertook this part of the business, because a certain timidity in the Chinese character when dealing with American women, and a fear of arousing race-prejudice, unfitted the Chinaman for coping with the American women,--Miss Culbertson, the pioneer, now sainted, Miss Lake, Miss Cameron and Miss Davis, who have fought their brave battles for many years, to deliver the captives from the hand of the spoilers, often at the risk of life, unaided for the most part, unappreciated and unsympathized with,
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