# The Girl That Disappears/Chapter 10

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OTHER INSTANCES OF CADETS' WORK
IT may be a matter of profound mystery how these girls are led into a life so terrible. Policemen and women probation officers of the New York night court often come across unbelievable instances of ruin through innocence and ignorance. Not long ago a woman in probation work had brought to the door of her home a child scarcely sixteen years of age. The girl had been brought from a neighboring state by a male procurer. How he made the acquaintance of the girl, a factory worker, is not clear. It is only certain that he offered her easy work in New York City and that when she left her native town she had no idea of the life in store for her. Before she reached New York, however, she knew, but in such ​manner had her conductor described the life of the tenderloin to her, and so deep was the girl's ignorance of the physical facts of life, that she readily consented to the man's proposal.
The house to which he took her and from which he collected a commission is one of the most degraded resorts in the Borough of Manhattan. Any description of the place would be unprintable. It is sufficient to say that the little factory girl's mind became almost unbalanced. She could not comprehend the meaning of the scenes into which she was plunged. She could not take part in the riot and orgies of the place. After two or three days one of the women residents of the resort whose heart was not altogether corrupt, took pity on the child, and seizing the first opportunity led her to the home of the probation officer.
"There are some things even our kind cannot stand for," said the woman. Then ​she slipped back into the darkness.
The department store, especially in those divisions of it where wages are very low, is a regular stamping ground for the cadet. He picks out the attractive girl, scrapes up an acquaintance with her, and if he finds that she is without protection, so much the easier for him. He offers her opportunities for social enjoyment. He takes her to the theatre, to Central Park, to Coney Island. He commiserates her poor circumstances, and he points out to her handsome women dressed in costly gowns, riding in their motor cars. He tells her these were all wage earning women who discovered an easier way of life. Gradually the poison sinks into her mind, and soon there is another moth singeing its wings.
The strange part of it is that in a great measure he is pointing out to her the truth, for among the most beautiful gowns you will see in Central Park or on Fifth Avenue, many of them are worn by fallen women. ​For in the thirty thousand—these figures are not exaggeration, they are too conservative if anything—women engaged in the social evil in New York City there are many classes of women. There are some who live in the most magnificent luxury, whose incomes run far into the thousands. They, in most cases, are not the sort of women one generally puts under the heading of prostitutes. They have developed the business to a science and have a select and limited clientele. These women are held up to the girl who toils as glowing examples of success in life, but to the police eye they are one of the biggest factors in the social evil. They never place themselves in a position where arrest would be even remotely possible, and often are accounted persons of eminent respectability by their immediate neighbors.
Another level in the social scale of the half-world is occupied by the chorus girl, who had come to be an indispensable figure in the ​dramatic world. Most of these girls come to New York with the honest intention of earning a respectable living in the dramatic profession. Many of them do remain honest, but if they do the chances are strong that they advance little in their work, and their purity is retained only by overcoming numerous temptations. For so great a prize does the show girl become that there are in New York regular brokers who maintain in the theater districts secret agents to help them gain for any rich client the acquaintance of a girl whose face or figure has struck his fancy. Often the agent is some member of a chorus, and generally she is one who has been a previous victim. To these girls is held the lure of money, elegant clothing, wine dinners. Sometimes the basis is the offer of influence in gaining advancement on the stage.