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Page:Theodore Alfred Bingham - The Girl That Disappears (1911).djvu/29

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THE GIRL THAT DISAPPEARS

What the presentment really said was this:

It appears, from indictments found by us and from the testimony of witnesses, that trafficking in the bodies of women does exist and is carried on by individuals acting for their own individual benefit, and that these persons are known to each other and are more or less informally associated.

We have also found that associations and clubs, composed mainly or wholly of those profiting from vice, have existed, and that one such association still exists. These associations and clubs are analogous to commercial bodies in other fields, which, while not directly engaged in commerce as a body, are all as individuals so engaged.

This is how the grand jury "exonerated" The New York Independent Benevolent Association:

After an exhausted investigation into the activities of the association and of its members, we find no evidence that the association,

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