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228 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
bute some small sum to these houses which
are to be kept for the benefit of women taken
from all countries in Europe.
Women who are convicted of procuring
girls for immoral purposes should be sentenced
to three years' penal servitude for the first
offence, and if a second conviction be brought
against them they should get a seven years'
sentence. There are horrible old hags going
about London now I have met two or three
of them myself who ought by all the laws
of justice to be hanged. How many an unfortunate
child they have caused to be done
to death no one will ever know ; nor will they
ever get their deserts in this world. They
go from street to street, from lodging-house
to lodging-house, they hang about outside
churches at night and in all places where
they are likely to meet clean, respectable
women and girls, and get into conversation,
worming themselves into their confidence, and
they offer to show these distressed and harddriven
sisters of ours the infamous way of
escape from poverty and hunger and friendlessness.
Eor this service they are paid by
the men for whom they procure these girls,
or by the keepers of houses of ill-fame, or by
the bullies. The only person who gets nothing
out of the contract is the victim herself.
Therefore, it is simply
sentimental wickedness
on our part to deal easily with these women.
Eor foreign procuresses there should be a
severe sentence of imprisonment with hard
labour , to be followed by deportation; and