large number of girls meet with difficulties and temptations while
soberly at work. Many of these tempted girls are newly-arrived immigrant
girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty, who find their first work
in hotels. Polish girls especially are utilized in hotel kitchens and
laundries, and for the interminable scrubbing of halls and lobbies where
a knowledge of the English language is not necessary, but where their
peasant strength is in demand. The work is very heavy and fatiguing and
until the Illinois law limited the work of women to ten hours a day, it
often lasted late into the night. Even now the girls report themselves
so tired that at the end of the day, they crowd into the dormitories and
fall upon their beds undressed. When food and shelter is given them,
their wages are from $14.00 to $18.00 a month, most of which is usually
sent back to the old country, that the remaining members of the family
may be brought to America. Such positions are surrounded by temptations
of every sort. Even the hotel housekeepers, who are honestly trying to
protect the girls, admit that it is impossible to do it adequately. One
of these housekeepers recently said "that it takes a girl who knows the
world to work in any hotel," and regretted that the sophisticated
English-speaking girl who might protect herself, was unable to endure
the hard work. She added that as soon as a girl learned English she
promoted her from the laundry to the halls and from there to the
position of chambermaid, but that the latter position was the most
dangerous of all, as the girls were constantly exposed to insults from
the guests. In the less respectable hotels these newly-arrived immigrant
girls, inevitably seeing a great deal of the life of the underworld and
the apparent ease with which money may be earned in illicit ways, find
their first impression of the moral standards of life in America most
bewildering. One young Polish girl had worked for two years in a
down-town hotel, and had steadfastly resisted all improper advances even
sometimes by the aid of her own powerful fist. She yielded at last to