The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1914-07-29
VICE RE|GNEO IN
CHICAGO TUNNEL
Where Helpless Girls Were
Lured To Die
OR ENDURE A LIVING DEATH
Vigilants Describe Many Tor.
lures and Crimes In.
flicted On Girls.
AWFUL CONDITIONS REVEALED

Chicago, ILL.,, July GA hundred
weird tales of the mysterious disap-
pearance of young girls and women.
and even of men, never to be heard
of again, that have filtered through
to reform associations in Chicago in
years past, sprang suddenly to the
surface to-day with the revelation
of the big system of tunnels and I'M
derground passages discovered by
the police beneath the Twenty-sec-
ond street vice district
Young girls escaping from the
dives and making their way to res
cue homes have told strange tales
of dark underground dens and dun
geOns-places where persons disap-
peared mysteriOusly and were not
seen again, or places where girls
who revolted against the cruelties
of the divekeepers were hidden for
days at time.
Probably a greater number of
these stories surround the allegedly
notorious Van Bever gang of white
slavers" than any other group of
divekeepers in the district.
eve have long had knowledge of
those tunnels, underground passages,
Easements and endorsements" said
Writ w. Hallum, Secretary of the
Illinois Vigilance Association, to-day.
1.-TWO years ago, during excavation
work for new building on the site
of former dive, the hang-out of a
world-notorious gang of white slav-
ers. subterreanean passages We're
found
''These led to underground room
dens. Some of them had wretched
beds i'm them. Others of the rooms
had large quantities of quicklime,
while underneath the surface of one
of the underground rooms was act
ually uncovered the skeleton of a
human being.
"At the time the belief was ex-
pressed that the quicklime was stor-
ed in the place for the purpose of
obliterating trace of bodies buried
in it.
''Time after time-hundreds of
of times-we have been told of
rumors of young and innocent girls,
trapped by white slavers and taken
by stealth into the vice-ridden dis
trict, being hidden i'm these under
ground dens, where they were beat
en- into submission and became in
mates of the vice dives that they
might escape the tortures inflicted
on them in the underground dun
geons.
"In fact, 1t is notorious that in
nocent girls have been imprisoned
In the endorsements twenty and
thirty feet under ground, where
there was no possibility of their
cries being heard outside"
Rev. Ernest Bell, who conducts
the Midnight Mission at Federal av-
enue and East Twenty-second street,
declares that scores of girls have
told him of the horrors and tortures
of the underground dungeons.
Girls who revolted against the
wrongs heaped upon them in the
dives. or who sought to escape from
the clutches of the dive keepers,
were imprisoned in dark under
ground dungeons. where they We're
often left for as long a two days
without water or food.
One girl was locked in an under
ground dungeon, where she was
kept for more than week. and f.
nally to escape the horrors OF the
place and get away from the rats
and mice continually chasing
through the dungeon and visible in
the dim lantern light, the girl beg
ged to be permitted TO return to the
rooms of the dive above the ground.
Arthur Burrage Farwell. of the
Chicago Law and Order League. has
knowledge of girl. who, first lured
into dive, sought to escape. Dis
covered in this she was thrown into
an underground dungeon, where
white SLAYER told her tales of girls
being killed who tried to get away,
,ne of the means as described to her
being to smuggle the girls into dis
ant woods. and. after saturating |