n the country
store of the little town, became ill with rheumatism. In her desire to
earn more money the country girl came to the nearest large city,
Chicago, to work in a department store. The highest wage she could earn,
even though she wore long dresses and called herself "experienced," was
five dollars a week. This sum was of course inadequate even for her own
needs and she was constantly filled with a corroding worry for "the
folks at home." In a moment of panic, a fellow clerk who was "wise"
showed her that it was possible to add to her wages by making
appointments for money in the noon hour at down-town hotels. Having
earned money in this way for a few months, the young girl made an
arrangement with an older woman to be on call in the evenings whenever
she was summoned by telephone, thus joining that large clandestine group
of apparently respectable girls, most of whom yield to temptation only
when hard pressed by debt incurred during illness or non-employment, or
when they are facing some immediate necessity. This practice has become
so general in the larger American cities as to be systematically
conducted. It is perhaps the most sinister outcome of the economic
pressure, unless one cites its corollary--the condition of thousands of
young men whose low salaries so cruelly and unjustifiably postpone their
marriages. For a long time the young saleswoman kept her position in the
department store, retaining her honest wages for herself, but sending
everything else to her family. At length however, she changed from her
clandestine life to an openly professional one when she needed enough
money to send her brother to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she maintained
him for a year. She explained that because he was now restored to health
and able to support the family once more, she had left the life "forever
and ever", expecting to return to her home in Indiana. She suspected
that her brother knew of her experience, although she was sure that her
parents did not, and she hoped that as she was not yet seventeen, she
might be able to make a fresh start. Fortunately the poor child did not
know how difficult that would be.

It is perhaps in the department store more than anywhere else that every
possible weakness in a girl is detected and traded upon. For while it is
true that "wherever many girls are gathered together more or less
unprotected and embroiled in the struggle for a livelihood, near by will
be hovering the procur