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108 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
they earned themselves. And so they travel
back and forth to Europe as a regular busi-
ness, seeking their victims in many a quiet
village or in industrial towns where the
economic conditions are so severe that girls,
having nothing to look forward to but sordid
homes and life-long toil, fall readily into the
arms of a man who promises them marriage
and a good time abroad. There is also another
side to the trade which these slavers follow ;
and that is, while they have in their possession
girls or women whom they are taking to the
East, they are ever on the look-out for men
especially young men who are not overburdened
with intelligence but who have
money. They set themselves to trap these
men, they play cards with them, and compel
the women to tempt them in one way or
another.
The " pimp " is, without any exception,
a cur. The one thing he would dread would
be a horse-whipping. Even now he avoids,
with studious care, the long arm of the law.
Therefore, they choose the men with whom
they have to deal with great care, just
as they pick their girls with consummate
caution. Most of them have been
criminals from boyhood, and if not degenerates
physically, they are so mentally and
morally. Often they have been compelled
to leave their own country for their country's
good, being suspects, sandbaggers, pickpockets,
blackmailers, and informers in criminal
circles the followers of some disreputable