THE GIRL THAT DISAPPEARS
The agitation resulting from this report was so great as to shake up the entire police force and to destroy for the time being at least an organized system of graft which reached pretty high up in police and political circles. The notorious Gingles case was given the widest publicity of all these graft cases.
The Gingles girl was an Irish lace-maker. In Chicago she fell into the hands of a notorious group of women procurers, and, according to her story, was tricked into going to a Wabash Avenue hotel. By her sworn statement she was horribly mistreated by certain politicians. She was found gagged and bound in a bath room of the hotel. After she made her charges against the women and the politicians, one of the women, a dealer in lace, had the girl arrested on a charge of stealing lace from her.
The young lace-maker was warmly defended, and the money for her maintenance and her legal expenses was provided by club-
34
