The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1917-07-13
MOST HIDEOUS SPOT ON EARTH;
GRAVEYARD OF FALLEN WOMEN
(By J. Herbert Duckworth)

(By j. Herbert Duckworth)
l have just looked into the bottom
of the hell-pit that is the ultimate
end of the majority of the little vic
tins of the white slave ring.
Following the Shiny ramifications of
this semi-organized trade in the
bodies and souls of young women, 1
have come across the most desolate,
hideous and revolving piece of land in
the whole world.
1t is New York city's potters' field.
Here on Hart Island up Long Island
Sound are budied 10000 unidentified
dead. Here is the last resting place
of that vast army of doomed girls of
the Tenderloin who every year dis
appear into the great unknown.
These poor bodies that are brought
here are the remains, not only of New
York girls, for the hideous traffic in
souls, in the metropolis brings here
the flower of youth from wherever it
can be pucked.
over the world there are other fields
like this, not so large, in which are
buried bodies like these, bodies from
everywhere-the end of the road for
the great army of missing girls.
White slave investigators have no
delusions as to the last destination
of the victims of this traffic. When
girls like Ruth Cruger have been
caught in the clutches of the vice trust
their days are numbered. Soon their
youthful charm disappears. Worn out
and bedraggled they are dropped by
the panderers. They wander about
the streets homeless for a few
months. Then comes the hospital; or
body dragged from the river.
In few days these bodies lie in the
mortuary. Nobody wants them. They
are placed in rough board boxes,
taken down to the department of cor
rection pier at the foot of East
Twenty-siXth street and shipped to
Hart Island. Here they are taken off
by gangs of convicts.
l watched the gruesome operation.
[ watched the hard-faced criminals
and degenerates-more of society's
victims-stack up about so of these
rude coffins on the dock.
One man was told off with a hose
to sprinkle the boxes to keep the flies
away.
Each coffin had it's label tackled to
it. "From Bellevue hospital" or
"From the Morgue," they read.
Some black, square boxes, were
marked bellevue Hospital Refuse"
The "refuse" was the remains of Gun
knowns" that had come from the dis
secting rooms.
The coffins were piled into closed
wagon and taken to Potters' field,
overlooking the Sound.
Here 1 saw a huge trench made to
hold hundred coffins. These were
laid in two layers in the hole and
covered with earth.
The convicts seemed to enjoy their
job. When the keeper wasn't look
ing they would pry open a lid with
a shovel and, with morbid curiosity
look in.
There was no passing bell or fun
eral rites for these unknowns There
was no crypt or tomb for them. With
convicts as sexton and grave-diggers
the white slave victims were SHOW
elled into the hole and covered up.
That was all.
The guard blew his whistle, the
convicts formed up in double file, and
marched off to dinner, singing, "Pack
Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit
Bag"
The REGULARS" as the convicts call
them, get no monument or tombstone.
When 100 bodies have been put away,
"unknelled, uncoffined and unknown" !"
a numbered board is put at the head
of each pit and "Finis" is added to
100 more tragedies of big city.