Open [35.2 MB]

74 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
At Shanghai the American element is very
pronounced. A place called the " Harem " is
gorgeously furnished, and the most strict
forms are observed. A liveried footman opens
the door, and the visitor is shown into a drawing-room
with which any fine lady might well
be satisfied. About twenty American girls
are kept in the ((
Harem," but they do not
remain there long, as this woman's charges
are so fearfully high she must of necessity
keep fresh supplies almost continuously en
route. She works together with a notorious
gang in San Erancisco. Where the American
girls disappear to, once they leave the
" Harem," is a secret surrounded with much
mystery, as few if any of these particular
women find themselves in the Chinese dens at
Scott's Eoad. Scott's Eoad is a very notorious
quarter containing about three hundred
Chinese dens. Each den shelters from ten to
fifteen or twenty girls of every nationality.
The place is as dangerous as it is loathsome.
If a drunken man or licentious European
reprobate enters these quarters,
the chances
are ten to one against his ever coming out.
The place is the home of Chinese murderers
and revolutionary cut-throats. Disreputable
Chinese women do a large trade in bringing
little Chinese girls many of them children
into these dens of infamy. Only the other
day a man and woman, both Chinese, were
arrested in tl^e act of taking six little girls
from the hills into these dens.
It is on this acre of fearful iniquity that the