Virginia, hoping to earn large wages in order to help their families.  They arrived in the city penniless, having been robbed en route of their one slender purse.  As they stood in the railway station, utterly bewildered, they were accosted by a young man who presented the advertising card of a boarding-house and offered to take them there.  They quite innocently accepted his invitation, but an hour later, finding themselves in a locked room, they became frightened and realized they had been duped.  Fortunately the two agile country girls had no difficulty in jumping from a second-story window, but upon the street they were of course much too frightened to speak to anyone again and wandered about for hours.  The house from which they had escaped bore the sign “rooms to rent,” and they therefore carefully avoided all houses whose placards offered shelter.  Finally, when they were desperate with hunger, they went into a saloon for a “free lunch,” not in the least realizing that they were expected to take a drink in order to receive it.  A policeman, seeing two young girls in a saloon “without escort,” arrested them and took them to the nearest station where they spent the night in a wretched cell.

At the hearing the next morning, where, much frightened, they gave a very incoherent account of their adventures, the judge fined them each fifteen dollars and costs, and as they were unable to pay the fine, they were ordered sent to the city prison.  When they were escorted from the court room, another man approached them and offered to pay their fines if they would go with him.  Frightened by their former experience, they stoutly declined his help, but were over-persuaded by his graphic portrayal of prison horrors and the disgrace that their imprisonment would bring upon “the folks at home.”  He also made clear that when they came out of prison, thirty days later, they would be no better off than they were now, save that they would have the added stigma of being jail-birds.  The girls at last reluctantly consented to go with him, when a representative of the Juvenile Protective Association, who had followed them from the court room and had listened to the conversation, insisted upon the prompt arrest of the white slave trader.  When the entire story, finally secured from the girls, was related to the judge, he reversed his decision, fined the man $100.00, which he was abundantly able to pay, and insisted that the girls be sent back to their mothers in Virginia.  They were farmers’ daughters, strong and capable of taking care of themselves in an environment that they understood, but in constant danger because of their ignorance of city life.