THE DANGERS OF LONDON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12636, 22 May 1919, Page 7

THE DANGERS OF LONDON.

THE DRUG DEVIL. THE LOATHSOME SOUTENEUR ' AND HIS VICTIM. (By HAROLD BEGBIB, in “ Lloyd’s Sunday News.”) Although there liave been many exaggerated stories about cocaine, the true story is as tragic as anything you can imagine. But it is a most sordid story, and I can tell it in print only with great reserve in the matter of language. First of all, it is not true that thd drug habit exists as a. serious thing in the life of society women. I have excellent authority for believing that not once in a blue moon does oven the least moral-of society women descend to this hideous vice. It is, indeed, irvioe which-belongs, with a. markedly significant exclusiveness, to the very lowest dregs of our population It is the last step on a long stair of feminine depravity—beyond that step is the pit .of’abomination. You must realise, to begin with, that tbero is a real trade in this drug. Men. exist who make money by its sale, and who elaborate means for prosecuting this sale, although they themselves never make use of the drug. When you know the character of.these men yon will be able to judge where they find their victims. A CURIOUS RAGE. These men are the blackmailers and bullies who live upon the earnings of disreputable women. They are a curious race. Very seldom are they English Most of them are of an immediate foreign origin; many of them are Jews. The word “ bully ” is -somewhat misleading. They nro often regarded with teal affection by the women who keep them in idleness. It is a strange fact, one well worthy of reflection, that these miserable women, who live from day to day a life of perilous uncertainty, welcome the constant companionship and protection of one man. however base and'brutal he may be, and are willing to pay for it. Think how dreadful the, life of such a woman must be, how wretched with loneliness, how tortured by fear, how haunted by a. thousand vain regrets, when she is willing to provide for 'a man who beats her at on© moment, neglects her at another, and who never shows any lasting sympathy wilh her pains, her sorrows, or her ferns. > _ Such a woman does not turn criminal till she gets into the hands of these horrible men. She has been weak, foolish, wicked; but she has treasured a. moral code at the back of her mind, and has never descended to “ crime. But the day comes when she is afraid and lonely; she speaks to another girl of her fears and her solitude, and the other girl savs, “Why not do liko the others, and keep a. man?” AVAR ON FELLOW VICTIMS. If she takes that step she is don© for. So far as hope of any better life in this world is conceraea she might just as well fling herself into the river. Henceforth sb© is not a miserable prostitute; she is an acute and merciless criminal. She learns to steal, and she steals as a matter of business, as a matter of habit. She regards herself no longer as the plaything of sensual men, but as their enemy. It ministers to her selfrespect, which was almost at its last gasp, so to regard herself. These men would treat her as a common thing of tho London streets; very well, she will make war upon them. But she comes to make war upon, girls in a like condition to her own. One day the souteneur says to her: “Try to find out among the girls how many of them take a sniff of cocaino when they can get it.” A week later, hairing gone over her list, he chooses two or three of the best off, and tells his woman to cultivate their society in wine bars and restaurants, to learn from them where they go for their sniffing parties, and to hint that she knows wriiere she can get hold of the drug. The woman obeys- She herself io curious about cocaine. In the meantime the man is procuring supplies of the drug. How- does he get those supplies? Under the- Defence _of the. Realm-Act you would'say it must he <piite impossible for a scoundrel of this atrocious character to get hold of half a grain. What chemist would supply such a man ? What doctor would give liiru a prescription? WHERE THE DRUG GOESHe goes among two classes of men—doctors who have forfeited tho right to practise, and chemists’ assistants who go in for drinking, gambling and horse racing. He discovers that mnniig the volunteer workers at a em-jain hospital is a young chemist who c.;m get hold

\ of h,3 much cocaine ns ho wants. This young, chemist, has been in trouble once or twice. But war provided him with an opportunity, chemists being so few, and here ho is in a huge hospital with nothing to prevent him from helping himself, with discretion, from the stores of forbidden drags. The souteneur meet* tins man, and the terms are soon, arranged. He buys for a lew shillings supplies of one of the deadliest drugs in the world, and the supplies, through the agency of his woman, he will 'sell for many pounds. You can guess to whom the drug goes. It goes to the woman who is not able to slay her self-respect by moans of alcohol, and who has never mute been able to live her unnatural life as if it were only a matter of business; it goesto the woman who feels she must kill herself unless she can get something to give her real courage for this hateful existence, some power which wdl enable her to silence the groan and the sob of her self-respect, some merciful intoxicant that will make her sublimely careless of God and man. HUGE PROFITS. How cruel a fate that this deathblow, this assassin’s stroke, should bo delivered by another woman, living the same life! The souteneur very often receives a sum of money ranging from £6 to £lO for a little pinch of cocaine which boa cost him a shilling* But oven this profit does not suffice him. When he has made sure of his victim he will put the! tiniest touch of cocaine into a pill-box half-filled with bo rack; powder' and sell it as cocaine. • Nor is he satisfied even with tho profits arising from this swindle. Tho next step is bo practise blackmail on his victims. By this time he has learned trom hi* woman where the sniffing parties are held, who goes there, and the monetary value of the guests. Among these women—none of whom are moral, but some of whom are not of tire pavement —ho may find the rich man’s mistress, the musical comedy actress, and even a so-called lady or two from the studios •of Chelsea. It goes har’d with any of these women when the souteneur begins to threaten exposure. HELPLESS VICTIMS. You cannot fathom the foul iniquity in this man’s soul if you do nob realise that cocaine is a drug; which gives its l victim not one single chance of escape, and whose action is absolutely destine- 1 Live of soul and body. 1 know of a woman to whom conscience) or revenge made a last flaming , appeal, and who came to the authorities at her final gasp of moral life, to expose a trafficker in cocaine. She was almost blind, she was on the verge of madness, and her body was little more than a twitching spasm. The souteneur thinks that this is the inevitable end, but the drag is not more pitiless thou he is, not more pitiless, not more destructive. You may see him, as I have seen him, sitting in a wine-bar of Spho.yith his, fellow scoundrels, smoking, rand drinking at his ease, laughing gnd‘talking like the rest, and out in the night is the woman carrying his little, pill-boxes of cocaine and passing them, into the hands of his victims at dark' comers of the wintry streets. Tho man whom our police call “ a good thief”—that is to say, the clever and bold criminal who goes in for a big haul, of jewellery—would murder any souteneur who dared to address him, so abominable is this scoundrel even in the eyes of his fellow criminals.’ 1 And yet lie is allowed to be ablarge. We could mnko a clean sweep of him to-morrow. Wo could put him into tho dock, and prove that ho has done no stroke of work for years; prove, also, that he has lived, upon the earnings of immoral women ever since ho last came out of prison. ; But a short sentence such as. our law allows would do, nothing to rid society of this great evil. He would come out from prison utterly unchanged, and go back to tho woman waiting eagerly to welcome him “home.” Those who know the terrible effect of this cocaine* habit are asking anxiously what is to he tho fate of thousands of miserable women when tbo ban of the Defence of the Realm Act is lifted, and to traffic in cocaine will bo no crime. IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED. Parliament should take, steps in this matter without delay. First of all, no dangerous drag of any kind should be in the hands of any but the most respectable and responsible people. Second, the penalties for illegally dealing with these drngis should he second only in severity to the penalty for murder. And, third, the men who live .upon' unhappy women should bo rounded up at once and deported. I do not know where one could find a story of human misery and human iniquity more tragic than this story of the wretched woman of the streets craving for some anodyne to make her hideous life endurable, of the less wretched woman living tho,same manner of life coming to her with a. promise of cocaine, and of the loathsome souteneur in the background calculating,bis enormous profits as he fills his little pillboxes with tho powder of death. It is in these black regions of London life that the drag habit is spreading, and if the law is unable to stamp it out there, at least no effort should 1 be spared to prevent t overflowing into other quarters.