The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1919-03-28
AND THIS THING
INCUR OWN CITY
Poor Little Girl Forced Into
Immoral Life By Brutal
Woman

The most revolving story of human
depravity and outraged girlhood in the
court annals of Pasquotank County,
was unfolded to County Prosecutor
Earnest L. Sawyer Wednesday morn
ing, by Mittie Shores, the 18s year old
child OFF. W. Shores OF this city.
: Mittie Shores is 18 but looks like a
'fftetfe@ ctffd of f2 or 13 years, and fraiI
even for those years. Her mother died
when she was an infant and she does
not remember her mother at all. She
has been raised by a step-mother and
this stepmother is a dope fiend and an
immoral character.
Little Mittie Shores told Prosecutor
Sawyer that she had been forced into
prostitution by her stepmother and that
whenever she refused to yield to men
who dealt with her step-mother, her
step-mother beat her numerically.
She named man after man in Eliza
beth City with whom she had been
forced into illicit relations by her STEP
mother. She said Mrs. Shores took the
money received from such transactions
and spent it for laudanum, paregoric,
Bateman Drops and other Infamous
dopes that are sold by irresponsible
grocers in Elizabeth City and manu-
featured, in some cases in Elizabeth
City.
Mittie Shores did not tell her story
under coercion. Judge Sawyer asked
her for the truth and interviewed her
in the presence Of her own father Her
father professed to be dumbfounded at
the revelation. He works most of the
time out of town and says he did not
when he was away. The Shores live on
the corner of Church and Perse streets,
one of the most respectable residential
sections of the city.
The Elizabeth City policee have
known about goings on at the Shores
house for several years, but never did
anything about it. Former members of
the police force have been accused of
frequenting the place. But on Tuesday
night of this week Mrs. Shores gave her
step-child an unmerciful beating.
Neighbors heard the cries of the child,
as they had heard them oft before, and
Shores. It was then that the truth
came out.
Little Mittie Shores had worked all
day in mill where she was employed.
After her ten hour day at the machines,
she had come home tired and depressed,
Every bone in her frail little body ach-
ed. But there was an Infamous man
who wanted her and her step-mother
wanted the money the man had offer
ed. When Mittie tried to beg off her
step-mother sprang upon her like an
enraged beast and beat the child until
she was PROSTATE with pain and fright.
Judge Spence in the Recorders Court
gave Mrs. Shores a, sentence Of 12
months in Jail and then suspended
judgement upon condition that she re-
port to the court every so days and
show good behavior
Mittie Shores will be taken away
from the hideous dive in which she has
spent her life and will be placed in new
and refined surroundings by the Wo-
mans Missionary Society of the Meth
odist Episcopal Church South. Her
father has consented to this
In meantime there are four little chill
dren of whom Mrs. Shoes is the moth
er. Three of them girls, one a boy. The
oldest is eleven. What to do with these
children is now the problem of the
county authorities. An indignant pub