, and sustained the assertion, that the
Public School system in Chicago had become so corrupt, that any
school-boy attending, who had reached fourteen years of age, was
whistled at by his companions as a _spooney_, if he had not a _liaison_
with some one or more of the Public School-girls!

"The Daily _Sentinel_, of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles,
and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis
also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending
Public Schools in Indianapolis."

And there are but too many cities to which the same order of remark
applies. Far be it from me to say that _all_ the children of the Public
Schools of any of these cities are corrupted. It is marvellous how some
are protected from even the _knowledge_ of vice, in these hot-beds of
pollution. But the _system_ of schools without the control of positive
religious teaching and discipline, tends only to one vile end. We are
assured, as to the City of New York, that smart girls, even of most
immature years, show their discontent at their neglected fate, from
hearing girls only a few years older tell what "_nice_" acquaintances
they have made on the streets, or in the cars, going or coming, and what
delicious lunches they have taken with these "gentlemen" at restaurants
of most unquestionably bad repute. These things I have learned from a
friend who heard them from members of the City Police, and from others
that could not avoid the unhappy knowledge of the facts indicated.

The moral character of the Public Schools in many of our cities has sunk
so low, that even courtesans have disguised themselves as school-girls,
in order the more surely to ply their foul avocation.

Does any one wonder, then, that we hear and read of "Trunk Horrors"?
Does any one wonder that we have divorces, despair, infanticides,
foeticides, suicides, bagnios, etc., and that other class, I fear not
less numerous, but certainly more dangerous, "_the assignation houses_"?
These you cannot "police," or "localize." They, like a subtle poison,
circulate through all the veins and arteries of that society called in
fashionable phrase "genteel," penetrating the vital tissues of the
social body, and corrupting, too often, the very fountains of life.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER?

Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be
the mothers of to-morrow. Mothers are destined, by God, to