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116 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
to decoy. They amuse them and entertain
them, playing with them almost as if they
were children. They take them to places of
entertainment and to the seaside, and make
themselves pleasant until they gain a very
then they take them
strong hold on the girls ;
ahroad, and if the girl is troublesome they
kick and heat her, and hrutally ill-use her
till she is utterly terrified and willing to do
what is asked of her.
On the way out to the East the girls are
often made very useful to their masters by
being set to decoy some young Britisher who
is travelling. The girl is compelled to at-
tract the young man and begin a flirtation.
The slave trader so contrives that the guilty
pair are caught in a compromising situation,
and as what he wants is money the young
man who has been trapped is unscrupulously
blackmailed. The girl is ordered to keep to
her cabin, while the " pimp " extracts the
young fool's money from him. Another trick
which is quite a favourite one with these men
is to make the girls rob men of papers or of
cards, and to use these stolen documents for
blackmailing purposes. A well-known princelet
in the East with a very bad reputation
has been compelled to pay fabulous sums
for the return of documents stolen by some
of the white women whom he bought. The
women unfortunately get nothing out of it.
It is the men who owned them originally
who reap the harvest. This and similar cases
are quite well known by those who are aware