Twenty tales by twenty women: From real life in Chicago

The woman whose nature is depraved, who is too coarse to realize or heed the depth of her own infamy, and the woman whose circumstances have forced her to a life of shame. Of the former, it is useless to take heed for she understands nothing outside of her own depravity, and looks upon reformation as a thing to be avoided. Fortunately she constitutes but a small percentage of the half-world.

The reclamation of the other woman is almost as utterly impossible for the reason that she has realized and suffered too much. We have homes of refuge for the friendless, retreats for the fallen, and hospitals for the poor, but after all the red tape formula for admittance has been complied with, they dispense only the cold crusts of charity.

Where can a woman turn, whose suffering soul is tottering on the brink of the world’s damnation? To whom shall she turn for the tender touch of Christian pity, the charity of a human undertaking half divine? Surely, not to the church that “Bows the knee to pomp that loves to varnish guilt;” not to the women of merciless hearts and useless lives who boast of chastity because of frozen veins; not to public charities who advertise her squalor and her shame; not to the worldly man, whose aid is; almost invariably extended in return for favors their families know not of, but she turns to the hell of the world’s lost souls when men no longer find her a convenience.

The modest woman of mental refinement finds a rival in the person with a good figure (no matter how blatant), who is able to set the pace that lures the men.

Whatever her personal merits may be, her position precludes the possibility of her re-entering social circles that would be agreeable to her. She sees the girls about her who have smothered their moral scruples, wearing good clothes, going to entertainments and receiving the attentions of gentlemen who have no hesitancy in being parted from their money, if value is received, and it is small wonder if she, too, takes the initial step that leads to the “crib” in the “tenderloin.”

After having established the reputation of being “game,” there is no dearth of so called respectable men who are willing to be “kind” to her. The men who are responsible for these conditions are not the rough men of the lower classes, but the professional men, the men in business; many with families and nice homes, who represent the respectable element in the community.

If all the ancient prudes and wind-jammers, who are so intensely interested in the fallen, would give their support to the decent men who give their employes living wages, instead of straining their corsets to wedge in next to the bargain counter in the department stores, whose scale of wages breeds prostitution and moral depravity, they might discover in the next decade, more self-supporting, decent women, and less fair faces flushed with lust in the glare of the red light “brothel.”

In presenting this work to the public it is not the intention of the author to bruise the hearts of fond parents, who may be able to recall sad occurrences, after having read the following chapters; nor to censure the subjects, whose life stories are told in the following narrations; not to bring down unjust criticism on the head of any class; but rather to point out in a measure, the reasons most apparent to a man of the world, for licentious crime.

If asked why I have chosen Chicago as the field from which to gather data for this volume, my answer would be, “because of its great population”; because to it visitors flock from every part of; the United States and many foreign countries; because it is nearer to the center of population than any other large city, hence more often sought by wayward girls from the surrounding territory, and the inducements which are held out to the pleasure-loving public, whether those in quest of enjoyment be saint or sinner, wolf or lamb, in gay Chicago are conducive to the character of amusement and excitement necessary to the life of those whose stories are herein told.

This book will claim its right to life by detailing the life story of each one of these children of God, from the child-life in a quiet, peaceful home in some rural hamlet, through the trials and vicissitudes of unfortunate or misspent life.

This book, unlike the Bible, is all written in Chicago. The twenty disciples come from twenty different places. They, endeavoring to lose their identity in the whirl of racy life and excitement, seek the phantom happiness in this great city. For a time all goes well. Gaiety and mirth mingle, and fortune conspires with pleasure to mislead the novice; then the scenes grow old; happiness eludes the grasp; tawdry garments no longer please the eye; the tinsel tarnishes; disappointed hope begets despair, and then a few grains of a friendly drug or the cold waves, of the lake offer rest and relief. The city becomes pregnant with these poor unfortunates, tortured by regret and shame, goaded down by necessity and the scorn of former friends. Then there is birth—this book is born. It goes out into the world to tell the naked truth for the good of mankind.

While this work is prepared from a truly moral standpoint, let it be known that it is the intention to entertain as well as to instruct, to deal with bare facts in order that the reader will thoroughly understand the situation as it exists.

Should the reader, while in the act of drinking in the words of these crushed flowers, find an instance wherein, by the recital of her story, by sheer accident or otherwise, recognize the possessor of that story, do not, for the love of humanity, be so unkind as to say, “I told you so.”

You may know, aye adore, some man whose fault it is that that particular girl was placed in the position which makes the tale of her life so miserably sad to some and yet so racy and full of color to others. If, after having read the story of his wrong-doing, together with the pain he has caused, he does not develop into a different sort of a man, put him down as an iniquitous night-bird, fit to flit and hoot by night in search of prey; one in whom a spark of manhood never glows and whose crimes and abominations are myriad, marking him as a loathsome creature, who fears the truth and shuns the light of day; one whose conscience is seared beyond redemption and who possesses no conception of charity, pity, sorrow or regret.

It is a pitiable and cruel fact that the great source from which the ranks of scarlet are replenished, are young women from the country, who, disgraced in their own community, fly from home to escape the infamy and rush to the city with anger, desperation and revolt in their hearts. Oh, that society would punish more severely the respectable seducers and destroyers of innocent women.

Another lamentable fact is that those who enter into this diabolical traffic, are seldom saved. We have avoided no labor or pains in our researches on this subject, and we wish all who read this to mark well our words.

When a woman once enters a house of prostitution and leads the life of those who dwell there, it is too late for redemption and there is no hope for her. When a woman once nerves herself for the fatal plunge, a change comes over her whole character and, sustained by outraged love, transformed into hate by miscalculating but indomitable pride, revenge and the excitement of her new environments, her fate is fixed, her doom is sealed.

Hence this book, “TWENTY TALES BY TWENTY WOMEN.”

A WOMAN’S ANGUISH.

“Sitting alone by the window, watching the moonlit street; Bending my head to listen to the well known sounds of your feet; I have been wondering, darling, how I could hear the pain, When I watched with sighs and tear-wet eyes and waited your coming in vain.

“For I know the day approaches when you will tire of me, When by the door I may watch and wait for the form I will not see; When the love that is now my heaven, the kisses that make my life, You will bestow on another, and that other will be your wife.

“You will grow tired of serving, though you do not call it so; You will long for a love that is pure, the love that we two know. God knows that I loved you dearly, with a passion strong and pure, But you will grow tired and leave me though I gave up all for you.

“I was pure as the morning when I first looked upon your face; I knew I never could reach you, on your high exalted place, But I looked and loved and worshiped, as a flower might worship a star, But your eyes shone down on me and you seemed so far, so far.

“And then I knew that you loved me, loved me with all your heart, But we could not stand at the altar, we were so far apart; If a star would wed a flower, the star must drop from the sky, Or the flower, in trying to reach it, would droop on its stalk and die.

“And you said that you loved me dearly, and swore by the heaven above, That the Lord and all His angels would sanction and bless our love, And I was weak, not wicked, my love was pure and true, And sin itself seemed a virtue, when only shared by you.

“We have been happy together, though, under a cloud of sin; But I know that the day approaches when my chastening will begin. You have been faithful and tender, but you will not always be, And I think I had better leave you while your thoughts are kind of me.

“Oh, God! I could never bear it; it would madden my brain, I know; So while you love me dearly, I think I had better go. It is sweeter to feel my darling, to know as I fall asleep, That some one will mourn and miss me, that some one is left to weep.

“That to die as I would in the future, to fall in the street some day, Unknown, unwept and forgotten, when you have cast me away; Perhaps the blood of the Savior can wash my garments clean; Perchance I may drink the water that flows through the pastures green.

“Perchance we may meet in heaven, and walk in the streets above, With nothing to grieve or part us, since our sinning was all through love. God says, ‘Love one another,’ and down to the depths of hell Will he send the soul of a woman, because she loved and fell.

“Perchance if we had never met, I had been spared this last regret, This endless striving to forget; and yet, I could not bear the pain Of never seeing you again. Ah, leave me not, I love but thee; blessing or curse whiche’er thou be; Oh, be as thou hast been to me, forever and forever.”’

And so in the moonlight he found her, as around her beautiful clay (Lifeless and pallid as marble, for her spirit had flown away), The farewell words she had written she held to her cold, white breast, And the buried blade of a dagger told how she had done the rest.

TALE ONE.

THE DIARY OF A CHICAGO GIRL.

This story is a copy of the diary kept by a wealthy Chicago girl, who was found dead in her room.

“When lovely woman stoops to folly And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?

“The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is—to die.”