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88 THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET
I lifted the poor creature in my arms,
while the frightened Chinese hag assisted me
to place a cloak around the drugged form and
a cloth over the pallid features.
Then I carried the unconscious girl down-
stairs, placed her in the rickisha, and we sped
rapidly away from that disgusting den.
The girl was placed in a sheltering home,
away from her tempters, but whether she
stayed there or not I do not know.
During next day's rambles around the city
with a Chinaman who is well acquainted
with the vile doings of Shanghai's nether
world, I had my eyes opened still further,
for he was able to point out to me quite a
number of these dens of iniquity, where
to feast
nightly a queue of coolies form up
their eyes on the limbs of a drugged, stupefied
white woman.
They pay there according to a fixed scale
an embrace may be had for a dollar they
may kiss her lips for two. The unfortunate
creatures in these dens are the dregs of the
European houses of infamy, women who,
driven to frenzy by the constant exactions of
their so-called male protector, the "pimp," or
who are on the verge of despair through the
terrible existence forced upon them in "the
house," will take to drink or opium, and they
are then lured away into the lower hells,
having lost their "market value" in the
richer "bad houses."
Once in these dread places, they find that
to revolt is to court death, and such death as