t some
relative. Is it then credible that Jewish girls would leave their
parents or families, travel thousands of miles to strange lands,
through the influence and promises of strange forces? Go to any of
the large incoming steamers and see for yourself if these girls do
not come either with their parents, brothers, aunts, or other
kinsfolk. There may be exceptions, of course, but to state that
large numbers of Jewish girls are imported for prostitution, or any
other purpose, is simply not to know Jewish psychology.

Those who sit in a glass house do wrong to throw stones about them;
besides, the American glass house is rather thin, it will break
easily, and the interior is anything but a gainly sight.

To ascribe the increase in prostitution to alleged importation, to
the growth of the cadet system, or similar causes, is highly
superficial. I have already referred to the former. As to the cadet
system, abhorrent as it is, we must not ignore the fact that it is
essentially a phase of modern prostitution,--a phase accentuated by
suppression and graft, resulting from sporadic crusades against the
social evil.

The procurer is no doubt a poor specimen of the human family, but in
what manner is he more despicable than the policeman who takes the
last cent from the street walker, and then locks her up in the
station house? Why is the cadet more criminal, or a greater menace
to society, than the owners of department stores and factories, who
grow fat on the sweat of their victims, only to drive them to the
streets? I make no plea for the cadet, but I fail to see why he
should be mercilessly hounded, while the real perpetrators of all
social iniquity enjoy immunity and respect. Then, too, it is well to
remember that it is not the cadet who makes the prostitute. It is
our sham and hypocrisy that create both the prostitute and the cadet.

Until 1894 very little was known in America of the procurer. Then we
were attacked by an epidemic of virtue. Vice was to be abolished,
the country purified at all cost. The social cancer was therefore
driven out of sight, but deeper into the body. Keepers of brothels,
as well as their unfortunate victims, were turned over to the tender
mercies of the police. The inevitable consequence of exorbitant
bribes, and the penitentiary, followed.

While comparatively protected in the brothels, where they represented
a certain monetary value, the girls now found themselves on the
str