The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-10-07
SEGREGATION OF VICE,
Miss Maude Miner, Of Night
Court, Favors This System

cadets live on the earnings Of
prostitutes; almost every woman of
the street is supporting some man,
and the worst taunt n of them can
give another is that her cadet has
| other women. 1t is a fact that many
| cadets have five Or six women work.
! ing for them. The cadet follows his
woman in the streets, sees how much
| she takes in, takes it away from her.
beats her and threatens to kill her if
, she tells of him in the courts"
The School Of Philanthropy re-
served it's most dreadful problem to
the last, and prostitution, considered
at it's closing session, formed a sor-
rowful climax to the long array Of
scenes from the underworld which
have been unrolled on the top floor
of No. los East Twenty-second street.
Miss Maude Miner, probation Off
Ger at the night court, was the
speaker.
ct is exceedingly difficult" she
continued, "to get any girl to testify
against the cadet who has had her in
bondage. She is afraid Of him. 1t is
very, very hard to get any man SEN
fenced who has been living on the
earnings of such a woman. and when
he is it is only to six months on the
island. I have known a girl to be
driven to the street by her cadet
within three weeks after the birth
of her baby by threats Of exposure to
her parents, from whom she was
carefully hiding the sort of life she
was leading. I had turned I'VE to
my care last night a girl who was
soon to become a mother. She was
i'll and miserable and needed care,
yet she was soliciting on the street.
I induced her to take me to her
home, and found that she was sup
porting a mar who had driven her
out to work. Some white women are
supporting negro men; some Italian
men are living on the tainted earn
ings of Jewish girls, and some Jewish
men on those of Christian girls. The
number of foreign men who are TAX
ing up this kind of life is astonish-
ing, and it is extraordinarily difficult
to convict them"
Miss Miner unqualifedly con
demned the probation system for
these women, excepting in n in
stance-that of the young girl ar
rested absolutely for the first time,
who can be sent back to home, par
ents or friends by the probation Off
Ger.
There are girls who have been ar
rested twenty times and never sent
away" said she; INSTEAD Of benefit
ing them, that is harming them. The
only thing they really fear or care for
is Imprisonment in a reformatory or
elsewhere. I don't know that that
would reform them, but it would pre-
vent great numbers of young girls
entering the life. AS it is now, the
girl of the street tells the working
girls that there is no danger; she
won't be sent away Certain impri-
sonment for every arrest would deter
great numbers of girls from entering
the life. 1t is also almost impossible
to get a bond forfeited. Some man
puts up a bond for the girls good be-
havior. If she goes back to the
street he should be made to forfeit
that bond, but that rarely happens.
1t all tends to make the girl despise
the whole court system.
Young girls will continue to en-
ter this life as long as so many men
are going about the smaller towns to
get girls into the life. This is a plain
fact with which we are confronted
every day. The girls are induced to
come to New York, sometimes to get
work or better wages, sometimes for
a good time. One girl Of seventeen
was put under my care who at four
teen had been invited to a r%oadhouse
neal a small town. She was kept a
prisoner for a few days, and when
she came out ruined it was only to
come to New York and go into the
life.'
Miss Miner declared strongly in
favor Of segregation of vice.
I'm the last three years prostitu-
tion has spread alarmingly in the ten
ements," she said. 1T is because of
the activity Of the police in raiding
the houses Of the Tenderloin. l had
n girl who rented a room in a tene-
ment fiat occupied by a man, wife and
four children, and the children un-
derstood the whole matter. The scat
tering Of these women through the
tenements horribly increases tempta-
ton to young girls"
Miss Miner, can a man help at all
in this work." asked one of the men
students.
why, certainly she replied. I'm
the whole cadet side of the question
a man can be infinitely more useful
than a woman. How can the woman
probation officer secure evidence to
convict those men? And what can I
do with a girl when 1 know that the
instant 1 let her out of my sight two
or three men are just waiting to get
hold Of her, in order that she may
be forced to support the one that
gets her? The duty of men who
want to help is to root out the cadet
system"
More even than cadets, however,
Miss Miner found low wages and lack
Of earning capacity at the bottom of
the evil.
IF could offer the girls anything
! more attractive" said she, 1T would