Re: Confidence

centre of the room. Toward the front, on either side, in alcoves,
partitioned off in part from the remainder of the room, were
opium couches, with pipes and lamps ready for use. We give this
description in full, as it applies, almost without variation, to
all the others which we visited in the immediate neighborhood.
Food was furnished on order, intoxicating drinks, and opium. At
the second place, on the opposite corner of the same block, the
men told us that the place was used for the same purposes. We
asked where the women were, and they answered that it was too late
to see them, but if we would come earlier we would find them. When
asked where the women came from, they pointed down to the street
below, to the open brothels, and said there were a great number of
degraded women who lived close by; said the brothel-keepers sent
them. They said that white men as well as Chinese came to their
place. After this we walked the length of the several streets and
side-streets, in the near vicinity, and proved the truth of what
the men had told us as to the swarming numbers of degraded girls
and women.

"The next night we went to the same neighborhood, and revisited
the two places already mentioned, and others also. As we reached
the top of the stairway and passed into the front room of the
place where they had invited us to return, there was quite a
flutter of excitement, and we instantly saw that there was
a number of girls present, all very young, and several mere
children. On our left a fat, middle-aged Chinese man sat, with two
or three little girls, one in his lap and one on either side of
him, in his arms; two more were throwing something that resembled
dice on a table within the front