The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-24
GOtham'S Welcome
 To Unprotected Girls
Guarding Their Safety In New York-Foiling the White Slave Agent-1,OOO Girls Month Helped.
ORIN c. BAKER,

ORIN c. BAKER,
 General Secretary Travellers Aid So-
 ciety.
 Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau.)
 Fifty thousand young women and girls are lost in the United States every year. They simply drop out of existence This is not fiction told to arouse your interest. It is the deiib- crate statement of Theodore Bingham, former Commissioner of Police in New York city.
 pears in the sworn testimony of the United States Immigration Commis- sion on file in Washington to which national and even international atten- tion has been drawn and in the re- ports of. recent eases tried in the United States courts in New York and Illinois, dealing with the white slave traffic. A report Of the Imm+ gra- tfon League of Chicago for 1910 says that in one year 1,70O young women totally disappeared between the port of New York and Chicago alone, of whom no trace could be found.
 Every year thousands of ambitious young women come to the great cit ies looking for chance to better their condition and to win an honorable livelihood. Rich in hope and ambi- tion but lacking in experience and re- sources, they fall easy prey to the agents of disorderly houses who pa SIaIlOnS ana piers ana travel on trains and steamships and are ever alert to discover unprotected women and girls.
 In order to protect girls from the existing perilous social conditions and to stand between them and the many hands Outstretched to draw them to their ruin, an effort was made six years ago to guard the terminals and docks of New York through which so many destined to other parts. of the country pass. Sixteen great railroad systems discharge passengers con tinually at seven terminals every regu ar trans-AtIantic- steamship com panies land thousands of passengers every year. Ninety lines of steam ships plying between New York city and ports on the. coast of the United States and all over the world, land thousands more. Of this never ceaS- ing and ever increasing multitude of travellers, many thousands are young women and girls, both foreign and American, who need protection. Friends and relatives often find it inn posSlb e to meet them. In such cases the offer of a stranger who has shown apparent interest and kindness to es- cort the young traveller to a hotel or boarding house is in. many cases ac- cepted.
 To guard against this danger the Travellers Aid Society, which is the only non-sectarian society. definitely organized to cover the entire field of travellers aid work, provides informa- tion, advice, guidance. protection and aid to all travellers who through ig- norance, illness or other disabilities, are in need of assistance Agents of the society who speak different Ian guages meet, aid and conduct the travellers at any time of the day or night to their destination in the city Or to trains or steamships to her points. This supervision is continued by notifying societies at other ter rninaI points, until the traveller is known to have reached the proper des- tination.
 The society co-operates with many other societies doing travellers aid work from New York to San Fran eisco, and also with travellers aid or4 ranizations in nine foreign countries Through these the society is notified hat a certain person will leave for New York on a specified day and train or boat. The society then as