ucted successful prosecutions against
one hundred and fifty of these disreputable young men in Chicago, nearly
all of them were local boys who had used their personal acquaintance to
secure their victims. The accident of a long acquaintance with one of
these boys, born in the Hull-House neighborhood, filled me with
questionings as to how far society may be responsible for these wretched
lads, many of them beginning a vicious career when they are but fifteen
or sixteen years of age. Because the trade constantly demands very young
girls, the procurers require the assistance of immature boys, for in
this game above all others "youth calls to youth." Such a boy is often
incited by the professional procurer to ruin a young girl, because the
latter's position is much safer if the character of the girl is
blackened before he sells her, and if he himself cannot be implicated in
her downfall. He thus keeps himself within the letter of the law, and
when he is even more cautious, he induces the boy to go through the
ceremony of a legal marriage by promising him a percentage of his wife's
first earnings.

Only yesterday I received a letter from a young man whom I had known
from his early boyhood, written in the state penitentiary, where he is
serving a life sentence. His father was a drunkard, but his mother was a
fine woman, devoted to her children, and she had patiently supported her
son Jim far beyond his school age. At the time of his trial, she pawned
all her personal possessions and mortgaged her furniture in order to get
three hundred dollars for his lawyer. Although Jim usually led the life
of a loafer and had never supported his mother, he was affectionately
devoted to her and always kindly and good-natured. Perhaps it was
because he had been so long dependent upon a self-sacrificing woman that
it became easy for him to be dependent upon his wife, a girl whom he met
when he was temporarily acting as porter in a disreputable hotel.
Through his long familiarity with vice, and the fact that many of his
companions habitually lived upon the earnings of "their girls," he
easily consented that his wife should continue her life, and he
constantly accepted the money which she willingly gave him. After his
marriage he still lived in his mother's house and refused to take more
money from her, but she had no idea of the source of his income. One day
he called at the hotel, as usual, to ask for his wife's earnings, and in
a quarrel ove