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HAUNTS OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRADER 61
this trade are often quite decent creatures
of their sort. They do not rob or attempt
to blackmail men who consort with them,
and the occupation is followed often from
generation to generation, The women in
this class dress in a peculiar manner, and
can always be distinguished. They look indeed
pretty in their clean, gay garments.
It is a common thing for women to go from
Persia to Bombay, Calcutta, Poona, and Burma,
from very poor districts, and to stay there
in the city for purposes of prostitution,
having set before them the task of collecting
twenty thousand rupees ; and when this sum
is saved out of their earnings they return
to their villages, and marry and settle down.
These women avoid disease, and do not realise
the sin or shame, or both, of their occupation.
They are not Christians. They go out into
the field far from their own country, earn
money in the way described, and return rich
to their poor people. Of course, these are the
women who escape the plagues which usually
follow prostitution.
The worst horror which the victims of the
white slave traffic have to face when they
are taken out to the East is that they are
sold, not to European men exclusively only
the very attractive ones and those who keep
a healthy look have that fate but to any
of the natives who pay for them, and if they
are unattractive or troublesome they are
actually sold to the vilest opium dens and to
shame. How can we possibly suppose that