The Tragedy of the "Want Ad."

In April, 1909, a peculiarly worded advertisement appeared in the personal columns of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. It was worded as follows:

Traveling Companion: Widow preparing for extended tour of Europe wants to engage young lady as traveling companion and secretary. Must be young, beautiful, fascinating and accomplished. All expenses and suitable salary. Z 14, Tribune.

The advertisement was what is known in newspaper parlance as a "blind" or keyed ad. It did not give any street address, letters of application being sent to the newspaper and there held for the advertiser.

A young Chicago girl read the advertisement and answered it. In her letter of application she said that she had been called beautiful by her friends, that she spoke several languages, that she was convent bred and that she had previously traveled extensively. She also stated her age, which was 22.

The girl inclosed her address in the letter and said that, if considered favorably, she would be pleased to call upon the "widow."

The young Chicago girl was all that she declared herself to be. Her beauty was a matter beyond dispute. Her charm of manner and her accomplishments were on a plane with her innocence and purity.

The day following the mailing of the letter a caller was announced at the young lady's home. The caller was an elderly woman. She was dressed in black. Her adornment was rich. It bespoke an apparent command of wealth. The woman's language and general demeanor was that of marked social standing. She gave her name as "Schwartz."

To the young girl she made known the fact that she was the authoress of the advertisement which the young lady had answered in the papers. She said that her home was in southern California. She said that her husband had been a very wealthy resident of California and that most of her life had been spent in her own home. She said her husband had died a few months before, leaving her alone with no relatives and practically no friends in the world.

"I have always been a home body," she said. "My life was wrapped up in my home and my husband. When he died there seemed nothing else on earth to live for. God did not see fit to bless us with children. The death of my husband left me prostrated. The first illness of my life came then. Doctors told me that unless I sought a change in travel that I might drag out many long years alone as an invalid.

"I have all the money I know what to do with. When the physicians told me to leave the scene of my sorrows, and to leave at once, I packed hurriedly and departed from Los Angeles. I have had no time to think until I reached Chicago.

"Now that I am here I have realized that I must have a companion for reasons that you can very easily understand. I do not want an old person about me. It was the thought of the mental diversion that caused me to advertise for a young and vivacious girl. At the same time I must have some one who knows how to travel, how to attend to the endless details that travel involves. That is why your letter came to me as a godsend."

The widow wiped her eyes softly with a bordered handkerchief. To the innocent young girl she seemed the picture of grief. A little while was passed in conversation of a general nature. As the widow rose to go she said, "I like you. You seem to me the ideal of such a companion as I would have. The only question to be settled is whether or not you will like me.

"If you will come with me as my little daughter I can assure you that you will want for nothing. I will dress you as I would my own daughter. We shall visit the world. I have already prepared to engage passage for Europe and desire to sail Saturday, four days from today.

"In order that you may satisfy yourself as to whether or not you will like me I want you to call at my hotel tonight and take dinner with me. I am living at the Arena hotel, 1340 Michigan avenue. A quiet, retired little place."

"I will be delighted," said the girl. "I don't think that there is any question as to whether or not I will like you. You have charmed me already. I am alone in Chicago. The only relative I have here is my brother. He will be pleased I know to hear that there is such a pleasant occupation in store for me."

The widow paused in her going, as women do. The conversation prattled on. The girl spoke of her brother and, before she knew it, she was saying:

"I never take any steps without consulting him. He knows so much. I would love to bring him with me to meet you tonight, if you wouldn't—"

Her sentence was arrested by the cloud that passed over the widow's face. It was a look, sharp, keen, bitter, hard as a look can be. Even the girl, unwise as she was in the study of human nature and the ways of the world, felt an intuitive thrill that bordered on suspicion. She didn't finish her sentence exactly as she had meant to. Instead, she said: "In fact my brother would hardly let me go, you know, without first meeting you himself and talking with you. You can understand."

Quickly as it took to say it, the woman in black recovered her self-composure. Before the girl had finished she was all asmile.

"You dear child," she said, holding out her hand, "I'm so glad to hear you say that. Indeed, I couldn't think of taking you away from him without having him feel certain in his heart that it would be for your good. I'd love to have him call with you tonight. You'll both dine with me, of course. Do you remember my address?"

"Why, no, I—"

Again a peculiar look came over the widow's face. This time it was not hard, not sharp, not of dismay nor apprehension, but a sly, fox-like, satisfied smile that the girl afterwards remembered and understood.

"I'll just write it down for you," said the widow. "I'll give you the street number, too, so that you won't forget. Pardon me, I haven't a card."

The girl produced a slip of paper and a lead pencil. On the card the widow wrote:

"HOTEL IROQUOIS, 3035 Michigan avenue."

And then Mrs. Schwartz departed.

When the girl's brother arrived at home an hour or so later he found a sister bounding with joy, bubbling with excess of spirits.

The brother was a man of the world. He knew, as a cosmopolitan must know, of the guile and trickery and fraud and deceit that a great city contains. Yet, when the girl told him the story of the California widow and her desire to hire a traveling companion at an enormous salary, he doubted it not. His spirits were equally as high as his little sister's when he dressed for the trip to the Iroquois hotel. It was a smiling young couple that tripped into the lobby of the hotel an hour or so later and asked the clerk to notify Mrs. Schwartz that her guests were awaiting her pleasure.

"Schwartz?" said the clerk, as he glanced over the room book a second time. "No such person of that name here. Sure you got the name right?"

The girl produced the slip of paper in the widow's own handwriting:

"Margaret Schwartz,
Iroquois hotel, 3035 Michigan avenue."

"Maybe we've transcribed the name wrong from the register," said the clerk. "Where is she from?"

"Los Angeles, California," said the girl.

"Nobody been here from Los Angeles since December, when we put in this new register," said the clerk after running over the pages.

The tears that came to the young girl's eyes were tears of mortification, of bitter dismay. Her only thought was that she had been made the victim of some peculiar person's idea of a practical joke. It was not until the two were back in their own apartments that the girl remembered vaguely the conversation of the widow and the woman's peculiar starts.

"Charlie," she said to her brother, "that woman told me a different hotel at first. It was the Aree—, Areen—, the Arena hotel, that she told me first. She asked me to go there first. She CHANGED THE NAME WHEN I TOLD HER I WOULD BRING YOU WITH ME!"

"Hell!" said the brother. And there was a look on his face such as Cain must have worn when he committed the first murder.

"Why?" you ask, in astonishment. The answer is to be found on the police blotters of the Harrison street station.

The Arena hotel, at Thirteenth and Michigan, is the most notorious, the most terrible assignation house in the city of Chicago. When honest men are in bed the red lights of the Arena glare onto the boulevard like the bloodshot eyes of a devouring dragon. The gilded sons of fortune tear up before its yawning doors in their high powered motor cars. The keys to the doors were thrown away long ago. Without it is dismal and somber. Within it is pallid with the erotic gleam of many incandescents. Its music is the popping of champagne corks, the laughter of wine debauched women, the raucous roars of the huntsmen—huntsmen whose sole sport is the slaughter of the innocent, whose only game is the chastity of the maiden. A ten dollar bill is necessary for the purchase of the meanest private dining room in the Arena for a night of revelry. There is not a private dining room in the place without a bedroom in comfortable proximity.

The hoi polloi, the common herd, is not admitted at the Arena. To enter there you must be known, and you must be known as a spender.

The price of food is treble that of any other place. The cost of liquors is double that of many. The Arena is the sporting ground of the rich. And sport in the Arena comes high.

The brother of the young girl in question determined to probe the widow and her mystery to the bottom. He determined, in the first place, to give her the benefit of doubt despite his own convictions. He went to a telephone and called the Arena hotel. He asked for "Mrs. Schwartz." A woman answered the call.

"This is Mr. ——," he said. "I believe you called upon my sister today."

"What is that?" the woman's voice answered. "Who are you? You must be mistaken. Who do you think you are talking to?"

"Mrs. Schwartz, isn't it?"

There was a moment of hesitation. The man imagined it a moment of confusion. And then the voice answered: "Oh, no, this is Miss Gartz. You are talking to the wrong person." A mocking laugh and a click of the receiver announced to the man that he had been rung off.

He called up the Arena again. He asked for Mrs. Schwartz. He was told that there was no such person there. He asked the clerk for Miss Gartz again. The man was sorry, but Miss Gartz had just left. Repeated telephone calls for both Mrs. Schwartz and Miss Gartz were answered in succeeding days with the information that there were no such persons there. Miss Gartz was not on the hotel register. Neither was Mrs. Schwartz.

The brother of the young Chicago girl went to the offices of the Chicago Tribune and the Daily News and asked for the name of the woman who inserted the "Traveling Companion" advertisement. He was told that the papers were sorry, but that would be impossible. The clerks who had charge of the want ads were under bonds to divulge no information regarding blind advertisements. They could not tell who inserted them, anyway, as no names were taken. The letters when received by the newspapers were held until the advertisers called for them. The newspapers could not maintain the integrity of their advertising columns if they asked impertinent questions of every advertiser.

The newspaper men were sorry. No one regretted the creeping into their columns of such matter so much as they. Both papers employed detectives to scrutinize the want columns and to hunt down and expurgate such advertising if the least possible suspicion was attached to it, but many want ads were so cleverly and innocently worded that they would creep in despite every possible precaution that might be taken.

The young man employed detectives himself. He went to a large agency and told the manager the circumstances. Hardened as he was through constant association with crime and its varied phases, the manager of the agency winced when the story was finished.

"You've saved your sister from a living hell," said the crime expert. "You've saved her from the most terrible spider that ever wove a net for the accomplishment of ruin. 'Mrs. Schwartz' the widow, is a procuress—the most clever and fiendish procuress known to us. She works under a hundred aliases. So keen is she, so clever in her plots to bring about the ruin of young girls, that we can not cope with her. She is a rich woman. Every dollar that she has made represents a soul blackened, an innocent metamorphosed into a drug sotted, degraded creature of the red lights.

"Your sister is not the only girl that advertisement was meant for. It probably has already written the ruin of a score of beautiful young innocents. It was a lure. A lure only. There was no trip to Europe. There was no trip planned to any place except a house in Twenty-second street or the private chambers of some wealthy libertine.

"Mrs. Schwartz must have received many hundred answers to that advertisement from young girls all over the city—even out of the city. The glamour of a trip to Europe, a salary to tour the world, would turn any young girl's head. The wording of the advertisement would arouse no fears or suspicions in the mind of even a worldly wise person.

"When Mrs. Schwartz called upon your sister and proposed that she take dinner with her at her hotel she wanted the girl to go alone. When the girl accepted, Mrs. Schwartz named the Arena because she could accomplish her purpose there. It was the after-thought of the girl's that saved her and covered Mrs. Schwartz with confusion. She wrote down the name of the Hotel Iroquois for the express purpose of destroying the recollection of the Arena in the girl's mind. The Hotel Iroquois is a quiet family hotel of good reputation.

"Mrs. Schwartz, as she calls herself, knew that the game was up when your sister mentioned you. Daring and bold as she is, she knows better than to try her wits with a man.

"Had the girl accepted the invitation without mentioning your name the stage would have been set for her reception at the Arena. I doubt if the proprietors of the place would have known anything about this. The Arena is an assignation house, not a brothel. Had the girl gone to the Arena alone she would have been sent to the apartments which Mrs. Schwartz would have taken for her reception. She would have been plied with flattery, smothered with blandishments. Her little head would have been turned with compliments. At the psychological instant dinner would have been served. Dinner would include wine. Did the girl refuse to touch wine despite the subtle invitations and arts of the widow, her food and her water would have been 'doctored.'

"Mrs. Schwartz is an adept in the gentle art of administering drugs. In less than an hour the innocent child would have been in the throes of delirium, wild, drunk, robbed of her morality through the insidiousness of the widow's dope.

"Then the man would have been introduced. The scene would have changed from the little private dining room to the adjoining bedroom."

The young man shuddered, and shut his eyes as if to close out the picture. The big detective went on, mercilessly:

"The widow Schwartz and her male accomplice would have rejoiced in their triumph as the drugged innocent was robbed of her chastity.

"Give the widow Schwartz two hours and the end would have been written. Then to call a cab, carry the unconscious child out of the Arena, bundle her off to the market place and sell her for one hundred—two hundred—five hundred—"

"Stop!" said the young man.

After an interval he said, "I put my possessions, such as they are, at your disposal. I want you to trap this woman. I want you to catch her. Surely you can—"

"Catch her? Maybe. We'll try." The detective pressed a button.

"Send in Miss B——," he said.

A young woman returned with the messenger. She did not look like a detective. A young girl she was, of good figure, of pleasant countenance. Her eyes were large and striking. The detective held out a copy of the "Traveling Companion" want ad for her perusal.

"Miss B——," he said, "the woman who inserted that advertisement is a procuress. The ad is a lure. Will you be willing to take this case? If so, I want you to write an answer on delicate stationery. Give your address as your home. Say that you are 'convent bred,' beautiful, alone in the world through a tragedy that wiped out both your relatives and your fortune, that you are young, talented, a mistress of repartee, anything that will tantalize that woman and convince her. Then, if the trout takes the fly, you will have to go to this woman's apartments alone, let her drug you and trust to us to be on hand for the climax. I do not ask you to take this case unless it is of your own volition."

The girl hesitated. When she answered it was to say that she would not only take it, but, were it necessary, she would take it without pay.

"I will inclose my photograph with the letter," she said. "My photographs make me appear far more beautiful than I really am."

Both letter and photograph were mailed. To make sure as to whether or not it was too late the detectives called up the newspapers and were told that the advertisement was "paid in advance to run until Saturday."

The letter, a cunningly and alluringly worded missive, was mailed to the newspaper office. The photograph, which betokened a ravishing little beauty, was inclosed. Shadow men were posted at the newspaper offices to follow the woman when she called for her mail.

Wednesday passed. Thursday, Friday and Sunday came with no response. At the newspaper offices the publishers said there were more than 200 letters awaiting the pleasure of the woman who wanted a "traveling companion." Yet the advertiser neglected to call for her mail.

When convinced that there would be no answer the woman operator went to the Arena to call for Mrs. Schwartz. She was told that there was no such person there.

The wary old spider, bold enough when maneuvering the enslavement of innocent girls, had fled to cover at the first alarm.

"We'll have to give it up," said the detective to the young man. "She's skipped to different quarters. She's scheming out some new bait. Schwartz her real name? She probably has a thousand names. A different alias for every girl she marks as a victim."

Do you want to investigate this story for yourself? Do you want corroborative evidence? The writer of this book has affidavits from the principals as to its truth. The want columns of any great metropolitan daily will supply material for your investigations. Look for the "chorus girls wanted" ads. Look for the "roommates" ads. Peruse the personal advertisements. Look through the column headed "Wanted, Female Help, Miscellaneous." Once in a while you'll read an innocent little paragraph that is sending young virgins to the slaughter pens and the slave marts. Mrs. Schwartz is not the only woman in the business.