United States gives the result of a careful inquiry into "the relation
of wages to the moral condition of department store women." In
connection with this, the investigators secured "the personal histories
of one hundred immoral women," of whom ten were or had been employed in
a department store. They found that while only one of the ten had been
directly induced to leave the store for a disreputable life, six of them
said that they had found "it was easier to earn money that way." The
report states that the average employee in a department store earns
about seven dollars a week, and that the average income of the one
hundred immoral women covered by the personal histories, ranged from
fifty dollars a week to one hundred dollars a week in exceptional cases.
It is of these exceptional cases that the department store girl hears,
and the knowledge becomes part of the unreality and glittering life that
is all about her.

Another class of young women which is especially exposed to this
alluring knowledge is the waitress in down-town cafés and restaurants. A
recent investigation of girls in the segregated district of a
neighboring city places waiting in restaurants and hotels as highest on
the list of "previous occupations." Many waitresses are paid so little
that they gratefully accept any fee which men may offer them. It is also
the universal habit for customers to enter into easy conversation while
being served. Some of them are lonely young men who have few
opportunities to speak to women. The girl often quite innocently accepts
an invitation for an evening, spent either in a theatre or dance hall,
with no evil results, but this very lack of social convention exposes
her to danger. Even when the proprietor means to protect the girls, a
certain amount of familiarity must be borne, lest their resentment
should diminish the patronage of the café. In certain restaurants,
moreover, the waitresses doubtless suffer because the patrons compare