tional system. I sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the
parents of these thousands of girls who are every year snatched from
lives of decency and comparative peace and dragged under the slime of an
existence in the 'white slave world' have no idea that there is really a
trade in the ruin of girls as much as there is a trade in cattle or
sheep or other products of the farm.

"I have no disposition to add a single word to what will open the eyes
of parents to the fact that white slavery is an existing condition--a
system of girl hunting that is national and international in its scope,
that it literally consumes thousands of girls--clean, innocent
girls--every year; that it is operated with a cruelty, a barbarism that
gives a new meaning to the word fiend; that it is an imminent peril to
every girl in the country who has a desire to get into the city and
taste its excitement and pleasures."

One of the worst obstacles to be overcome in the work of protecting
innocent girls and restoring to useful lives those who have been
betrayed, is the blind incredulity on the part of a large percentage of
the public. There are thousands of women all over the country who know
as little about what is going on in the world as do so many children.
They are wonderfully ignorant of the terrible conditions that are in
existence all around them. Of course their blindness to these awful
conditions makes them more peaceful and contented for the time being
than they possibly could be if they realized the temptations and perils
that are lying in wait for their daughters and the daughters of their
friends. But this peace is not permanent and every year thousands of
mothers are rudely awakened from their sleep of peace to find that while
they were asleep to the perils of the world their daughters have been
drawn into the whirlpool. The awakening of such parents comes too late
usually to do any good. The recent agitation along this line has caused
many a mother to exclaim, "How terrible; I did not dream that such a
condition of affairs could exist in this country."

If you possessed a rare jewel and knew you were surrounded by those who
would try to obtain possession of that jewel you would not entrust it to
a blind or a deaf watchman or one so ignorant of the wiles of the
robbers that he would trustingly allow it to pass into their possession.
There is nothing in the world so priceless to the father and mother as
the virtue and happiness of the