Chapter I: Front Matter

[Frontispiece: If ever prayer came from the depths of a broken heart, it was that forlorn plea for the lost sister.]

TRAFFIC IN SOULS

_A Novel of Crime and Its Cure_

BY

EUSTACE HALE BALL

_ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SCENES
IN THE PHOTO-PLAY_

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS ---- NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

_Traffic in Souls_

_This novel is based in part upon the scenario of the photo-drama of the same name written by Walter MacNamara and produced by the UNIVERSAL FILM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, New York City. The incidents and characterisations are founded upon stories of real life. Actual scenes of the underworld haunts are faithfully reproduced. The criminal methods of the traffickers are substantiated by the reports of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Investigating Committee for the Suppression of Vice, and District Attorney Whitman's White Slave Report._

Press of

J. J. Little & Ives Co.

New York

TO
THAT FEARLESS AMERICAN CITIZEN
AND STERLING PUBLIC OFFICIAL,
CHARLES S. WHITMAN,
DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR THE BOROUGH
OF MANHATTAN, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
THIS BOOK IS ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED.
E. H. B.

"_What has man done here? How atone,
Great God, for this which man has done?
And for the body and soul which by
Man's pitiless doom must now comply
With lifelong hell, what lullaby
Of sweet forgetful second birth
Remains? All dark. No sign on earth
What measure of God's rest endows
The Many mansions of His house._

"_If but a woman's heart might see
Such erring heart unerringly
For once! But that can never be._

"_Like a rose shut in a book
In which pure women may not look,
For its base pages claim control
To crush the flower within the soul;
Where through each dead roseleaf that clings,
Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
To the vile text, are traced such things
As might make lady's cheek indeed
More than a living rose to read;
So nought save foolish foulness may
Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
And so the lifeblood of this rose,
Puddled with shameful knowledge flows
Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose;
Yet still it keeps such faded show
Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
The sweetness of the sanguine stain,
Seen of a woman's eyes must make
Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
Love roses better for its sake:--
Only that this can never be:--
Even so unto her sex is she!_

"_Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
The woman almost fades from view.
A cipher of man's changeless sum
Of lust, past, present, and to come,
Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx._

"_Like a toad within a stone
Seated while Time crumbles on;
Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
For Man's transgression at the first;
Which, living through all centuries,
Not once has seen the sun arise;
Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
Which always--whitherso the stone
Be flung--sits there, deaf, blind, alone;--
Aye, and shall not be driven out
'Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
And the dust thereof vanished as smoke,
And the seed of Man vanished as dust:--
Even so within this world is Lust!_"

--From "Jenny," by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. NIGHT COURT
II. WHEN LOVE COMES VISITING
III. THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT
IV. WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID
V. ROSES AND THORNS
VI. THE WORK OF THE GANGSTERS
VII. THE CLOSER BOND
VIII. THE PURITY LEAGUE AND ITS ANGEL
IX. THE BUSY MART OF TRADE
X. WHEN THE TRAIN COMES IN
XI. THE POISONED NEEDLE
XII. THE REVENGE OF JIMMIE THE MONK
XIII. LORNA'S QUEST FOR PLEASURE
XIV. CHARITY AND THE MULTITUDE OF SINS
XV. THE FINISH

ILLUSTRATIONS

If ever prayer came from the depths of a broken heart, it was that forlorn plea for a lost sister . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"This is my friend, Sam Shepard, the theatrical manager, Miss Lorna. He's the man who can get you on the stage"

"I'm going to shoot to kill. Every court in the state will sustain a policeman who shoots a white-slaver"

The deep tones of the stranger's voice filled Mary with a thrill of loathing

Father and daughter were frantic with grief

The pretended philanthropist was cornered at last

TRAFFIC IN SOULS