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222 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
sold, imported and exported
to and from
the ports and cities of Europe ; that the
trade is influenced by the ordinary laws
of supply and demand ;
and that the capi-
talists have their purveyors and agents
in other countries than their own, who
recruit likely subjects for the business.
(( It will naturally occur to remark that
such traffic involves slavery, whereas the
status of slavery is abolished in civilised
Europe, and any person
can claim her
freedom. The answers are, first, that a
girl once compromised tends to fall into
an obscure pariah class, which has not
the usual protection against oppression
afforded by the habits of society; that
the unprotected condition is doubly dan-
gerous when she is once in a foreign
country in which she has no friends,
and of which she does not understand
the language ; that many of the girls
are minors, and in such circumstances
acquiescence may be easily enforced."
Will the most cold and incredulous of the
law-makers at Westminster doubt the words
of such a thinker and such a critic as Sir
Percy Bunting?