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Page:Theodore Alfred Bingham - The Girl That Disappears (1911).djvu/46

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THE GIRL THAT DISAPPEARS

its attendant drink evil, but in cases of this sort that is seldom necessary.

In any event the girl who falls, rarely attempts to reform. To her simple mind the one evil act has completely changed her life and character. She has acted the part of an immoral woman, and she believes that she has thereby joined the ranks of the permanently immoral.

In the history of this particular boy the girl was a sixteen-year-old telephone operator. The boy was seventeen, and he was already acquainted with the ways of vice. Although he professed, not insincerely, a sort of an affection for the girl, he began very soon to use her as a means of profit. He did it only occasionally and at periods of financial distress.

This went on for several months, when one day the young girl, with a girl companion of her own age, were arrested on the street, and taken to the night court. Fright-

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