The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-11-09
w. {. 7.
The horrors OF the Wisconsin, HUMBER
Camps.

INC EROEEOF5 o tAC VkHCCFiSbo
Camps.
DR.. Kate G. Bushnell, as the evangelist
and special commissioner of the White
Cross and White Shield department OF the
National w. G.. T. T., was depited in
May last to visit and investigate the notori-
Gus Lumber Camps in Wisconsin, and
which have also their counterpart in Mich
igan, some of the shocking particulars of
the immoralities. and Of the cruelties aud
outrages perpetrated therein upon women
and girls, our readers are already familiar
with. DR.. Bushnell's delicate, difficult
and painful task occupied a period of four
months. Her methods of procedure are
not fully given to the public, but she had
the continual and hearty cooperation of
Christian women, pastors and other well
disposed persons in her labors. At the re-
cent National Convention Of the w. c.. t.
L. in New York, in a painfully interesting
account Of this Wisconsin Lumber Camp
Investigation, she said in part
son a careful investigation of some so or
60 of these northern dens, both of the or
binary sort and the stockaded dens, and on
the histories of some 81 cases of degraded
women, many of whom I conversed with,
and concerning all of whom l got reliable
information, | can only say this morning
that there is such a condition of things in
Northern Wisconsin as much worse than
ordinary slavery as being forced into a life
of shame is worse than being forced into
a life of industry. But the real difficulties
in the way are not just the obstacles of
which we have heard, at least they do not
seem to me to have been represented just
as they were in our newspapers. We all
know the accounts of enforced confinement
into those dens of degradation there.
While it is true that there are some features
not as terrible as represented in the amount
of force applied in these cases, there is a
connivance in aiding of the enslavement of
young girls by the officials of Northern
Wisconsin that goes away beyond anything
that any man feels as though he dared
publish in print, because it would cause
such a vast amount of trouble. | can tell
| HCu VI OllC lliSbdiCt w liN NV vi "a
of a city, and l nave abundant evidence to
prove it, was the means of entrapping
two young women and sending them north.
| could give you innumerable instances of
perfectly innocent girls entrapped and
taken to those northern regions. | could
tell you instances of girls escaping from
their terrible life to be taken back by the
local officials of the town, and immured
in their horrible dens once again. | could
tell you of instances where girls have tried
in vain to escape, and nave taken their
lives, and | bless them thatthey were noble
enough to do it. | could tell you Of one
we'll authenticated case where 4 young
girl escaped from one of those terrible
places and tried vainly to run dow the
street to the heart of the city to get some
body to project her. A railroad train
came just as she was crossing the track
and her pursuers after her. In her despera-
ton she sprang before the train, and then
off on the other side barely escaping, and
her pursuers did not dare to run such a risk
as this in that way she made a little time
while they were waiting for the train to
pass, and got a block beyond almost in the
very heart of that city, and this girl escap-
ing in This way was carrying a heavy ball
in her two hands that was fastened By a
chain to her ankles. In the heart of that
city almost she was caught and dragged
back into that den, and there was not SEN
timent enough in that town on the part of
those who knew of it to go and rescue her,
and God knows whether she is living there
yet or not. These atrocities are commit
ted against the womanhood Of our country.
When we see the condition of things In
which the foreigner of the North-because
all the den keepers without exception are
either foreigners or of foreign extraction,
and have not long been in this country
when these foreigners of the North work
as they do for the enslavemcnt of our
American girls, and nearly all of these
girls are American born and bred, what
shall we say OF this condition of things :?
Shall we allow it to exist? God help every
one to rise in her might, and cry day and
night to the God of Justice to avenge US
in our adversaries."