SAVED FROM WHITE SLAVERY.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6604, 26 May 1925, Page 2

SAVED FROM WHITE SLAVERY.

Three young Parisiennes, who believed that they were on the highway to fame and fortune as cinema artists have been rescued from the clutches of a gang of white slave traffickers, thanks to the vigilance of the Paris and Marseilles police. For some time the police here have known that a well-organised association was engaged in the white slave traffic, enticingyoung girls from their homes and shipping them to Egypt and South America, where penniless and friendless, they found themselves doomed to a life of shame. A close watch was threrfore kept on requests for passports, and when the police learned that a demand had been made at Cassis, near Marseilles, on behalf of four artists, they set a watch on the office. On the appointed day a taxi cab containing three women and a man drove up to the passport office; but as the detective steped forward the man took flight. The three women on being questioned said they were bound for Egypt under the guidance of this man, who had promised them a career as cinema artists. They related how a man and a companion, both well dressed and well provided with money, had made their acquaintance in Paris, and learning that they were unemployed told them he could give them highly-paid work for the screen if they would go to Egypt. He was to obtain passports for them and hand them over at Marseilles to another guide. The women told of an acquaintance who, approached at the same time as themselves, had already set out, and it was discovered that she had been smuggled away, without a passport, hidden in the hold of a vessel. Inquiries are also being made concerning another girl, a minor, who recently set out on the same journey but has not since been heard of. The police are now in possession of clues to the identity of at least three members of the gang, which is alleged to have operated on an extensive scale in Paris for some time past.