them with the girls who ply their trade in disreputable saloons under
the guise of serving drinks.

The following story would show that mere friendly propinquity may
constitute a danger. Last summer an honest, straightforward girl from a
small lake town in northern Michigan was working in a Chicago café,
sending every week more than half of her wages of seven dollars to her
mother and little sister, ill with tuberculosis, at home. The mother
owned the little house in which she lived, but except for the vegetables
she raised in her own garden and an occasional payment for plain sewing,
she and her younger daughter were dependent upon the hard-working girl
in Chicago. The girl's heart grew heavier week by week as the mother's
letters reported that the sister was daily growing weaker. One hot day
in August she received a letter from her mother telling her to come at
once if she "would see sister before she died." At noon that day when
sickened by the hot air of the café, and when the clatter of dishes, the
buzz of conversation, the orders shouted through the slide seemed but a
hideous accompaniment to her tormented thoughts, she was suddenly
startled by hearing the name of her native town, and realized that one
of her regular patrons was saying to her that he meant to take a night
boat to M. at 8 o'clock and get out of this "infernal heat." Almost
involuntarily she asked him if he would take her with him. Although the
very next moment she became conscious what his consent implied, she did
not reveal her fright, but merely stipulated that if she went with him
he must agree to buy her a return ticket. She reached home twelve hours
before her sister died, but when she returned to Chicago a week later
burdened with the debt of an undertaker's bill, she realized that she
had discovered a means of payment.

All girls who work down town are at a disadvantage as compared to