or the life of the procurer, and it is from such
groups that they are recruited. There is almost a system of
apprenticeship, for boys when very small act as "look-outs" and are
later utilized to make acquaintances with girls in order to introduce
them to professionals. From this they gradually learn the method of
procuring girls and at last do an independent business. If one boy is
successful in such a life, throughout his acquaintance runs the rumor
that a girl is an asset that will bring a larger return than can
possibly be earned in hard-working ways. Could the imaginations of these
young men have been controlled and cultivated, could the desire for
adventure have been directed into wholesome channels, could these idle
boys have been taught that, so far from being manly they were losing all
virility, could higher interests have been aroused and standards given
them in relation to this one aspect of life, the entire situation of
commercialized vice would be a different thing.

The girls with a desire for adventure seem confined to this one dubious
outlet even more than the boys, although there are only one-eighth as
many delinquent girls as boys brought into the juvenile court in
Chicago, the charge against the girls in almost every instance involves
a loss of chastity. One of them who was vainly endeavoring to formulate
the causes of her downfall, concentrated them all in the single
statement that she wanted the other girls to know that she too was a
"good Indian." Such a girl, while she is not an actual member of a gang
of boys, is often attached to one by so many loyalties and friendships
that she will seldom testify against a member, even when she has been
injured by him. She also depends upon the gang when she requires bail in
the police court or the protection that comes from political influence,
and she is often very proud of her quasi-membership. The little girls
brought into the juvenile court are usually daughters of those poorest
immigrant families living in the worst type of city tenements, who are
frequently forced to take boarders in order to pay the rent. A
surprising number of little girls have first become involved in
wrong-doing through the men of their own households. A recent inquiry
among 130 girls living in a sordid red light district disclosed the fact
that a majority of them had thus been victimized and the wrong had come
to them so early that they had been despoiled at an average age of eight