The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-06-27
EXPERIENCE OF A MISSION
WORKER RELATED.
THE PITFALLS And MISERY
Girls Attracted by Luxurious Sur
roundings and Fine Clothes-En-
shaved to Opiun,-Death the Only
Relief

Mrs Mary Atherton, who, for the
past seven years, has been mission
worker in Chinatown in New York
City, related few days since her ex-
perience. She said:
There are only about twelve Chinese
women in Chinatown. Ordinarily there
are about 800 or 400 white women here.
In the seven weeks that Capt. Calvin
has been i'll charge of this precinct he
has done more to clear it out and clean
it up than has been done in all of the
seven years | have been here Never
were there so few girls in Chinatown
as now, but no one knows how many
there are, for when girl comes here
she generally just ceases to exist for
the remainder of the world. She drops
out of sight.
There are women here who have
not been outside of their own doors for
years-who will never go out again un-
til they are carried out in their collins.
They hit the pipe and spend their days
in a seni-conscious state, drunk on
opium, too languid to move, or even to
think, with no desire left in them but
the cease1ess craving for opium, and
more opium. Almost all of these worn-
en-, strange as it may seem, are from
the better grade of society Many are
we'll educated, and several that | know
of are graduates of Vassar and Welles-
ley and several of them convent bred.
THE lives these women lead are the
strangest in the world They literally
live on opium. They eat scarcely any
thing, because opium deadens the appe-
tite, and SO they mostly, subsist on fruit
and coffee They do not read. They do
not sew They do not visit They do
not shop. They do not attempt to
amuse themselves in any way. Every
thing is swallowed up. by the pipe. If
they have remorse of conscience, if
they have shame for the present, if
they have fear for the future, X is all
lost N the fumes that deaden every
sense and leaves them inert humps of
flesh, mindless, purposeless, lolling
against their silken cushions, scarcely
clothed at all, prey TO their Chinese
Under this life woman's youth and
beauty withers like flower in hot
simoon Ten years at most is the span
of a woman's life down here. Then
she disappears
How do girls happen to come here?
For many reasons. For one thing, it is
the end of the toboggan slide. China
town is the terminal station of vast
ed life There is no depth beyond it.
The derelicts of fate float here, outcast
from everywhere else.
Many women come here, allured by
he luxurious surroundings and the fine
clothes and the easy money. Others
come here to conceal their shame
girls who have made a false step and
n their frenzy of desperation want to
hide where there is no possibility of
heir ever being found again.
The chop suey restaurants are re-
sponsible for bringing many more
1oung women, who come out of mere
to see what Chinatown is like,
md who get fascinated with its life.
Girls get in to the way Of coming to a
estaurant, they get into conversation
With Chinaman, perhaps he makes
hem a few presents, and they accept
us invitation to see an opium joint
They try the pipe They marvel at the
nell of the burning opium that is the
most delicious perfume on earth, and
efore they know it they have the habit.
he remainder follows as inevitably as
he night the day
Or perhaps an American brings a
irl down into Chinatown on lark.
,he IS taken to an opium joint, and out
4 sheer daredeviltry tries the pipe It
always the pipe. She is not used to
t, and she. drifts off on rosy dreams
nd into Inconsistencies and when she
fakes the AMERICAN is gone and yell
DIV face is bending over her and
,hinese voice is telling her how beau
iful she is, and that he loves her. Then
here is another pipe before the girl
lilly comes to her senses, and the girl
robably never goes out of Chinatown
gain. She may never even leave that
ouse again"