New-York tribune., 1871-04-22
THE TRADE IN SOULS.

N
public with q revolving story of the sordid
crime that is eating the heart of the city. In
the interest of public morals we have made a
thorough investigation of some OF the haunts
of the monsters who devote their lives TO the
work of corruption. For the third time we
call the attention of the Chief of Police to his
sworn duty. Let him read on the first page
of the triple sheet which we publish this
morning the full and accurate account there
given of the work of these servants of the
devil, and let him do what his oath of Office
demands. We have suppressed the names and
addresses Of the foul hags who stand i'll these
ante-rooms of perditiOn, to avoid giving i'm
proper information to the vicious or the
thoughtless. But these are retained at this
Office at the disposition of Superintendent
Kelso, if he can be presumed to be so Ignorant
of his field of labor as not to know them
already.
We have been led to lay this frightful ex-
hibit before the world on account of late incl
dents and letters received by The TRIBUNE,
which seem to indicate that this moral ulcer
is growing and spreading with ominous rapid
ty. 1t is useless to mince the matter any
further. The truth must be told at once, and
in way to bring the fact vividly before the
conscience of the community. Under the
guise of folly and fraud is concealed the most
atrOcious of vices. The pretended Fortune
tellers who ply their vocation in this city are
simply PROGRESSES and all the more danger
GUS because the calling which they profess
and publish makes them the medium of COM
munication between depraved men seeking
victims and ignorant young girls or vain women
already corrupted. AS Fortune -telers, they
prey upon the ignorant and superstitious and
it is difficult to punish the taking of the money
of the foolish under the false pretenses of Civ
ing information of the future But as Pro-
curesses they debauch the innocent and increase
crime and pauperism; and as such they are
amenabe to the laws If we cannot exter-
inmate them, we can at least make their vile
trade so Infamous and so unsafe that their ef-
forts to escape detection and punishment will
deprive them of half their power to harm.
OF course, we need not warn our readers to
discriminate between the straightforward
statements of our reporters and the SLAM
derous utterances Of the PROGRESSES. What
ever the representatives of THE TRIBUNE
state in regard to their investigations is
literally true, but it would be unsafe to con-
clude that the lOathsome calumnies which
these she-fends scatter broadcast upon the
women of New-York are anything more than
the natural OutpOurings of their own vile
hearts. They indulge in this violent exaggera-
ton of the extent of their power and resources,
partly to impose upon the licentious vanity of
the men who hire them, and partly as an i'm
potent protest of fallen nature against the
virtue which shames and condemns it. But
there is enough to startle and admOnish us in
the unquestionable fact of the existence of so
many of these carrion-kites. They are at once
the effect and the cause of most deadly
social disease, and it rests upon the authorities
to 90 to the extreme limit of the law to
make this infamy the most dangerous and
most Improbable of trades.