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Newspaper Page Text
THE PUBLIC FORUM WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. Last evening I talked with a young lady who has come to Chicago to prepare for a part with a moving picture company. She is forced to live in the loop and to take her meals down town. She tells me that the leading restaurants in town refuse to serve a woman who is unescorted, except ing at certain hours. Now what I fail utterly to under stand is why a woman, capable of earning a good living a woman who must necessarily come in contact with all sorts of people of both sexes, who is desirous of taking her meals in a high-class restaurant and who has good United States money with which to buy her food should not have the privilege, so long as she conducts herself in a dignified man ner, of chosing her dining place, without the escort of a man. Does the mere presence of a man at your table give the woman the right to take what is hers by right of the free laws of our country? The writer fails to see how laws can be jnade so unjust for the wom an. The very male presence which makes it legal, lawful, respectable and dignified for woman to exercise her rights as a citizen of the city and of the United States is the very thing that year by .year is forcing woman into the commercial world to try to earn for herself the living which most men are unwilling or incapable of earning for her. I am not a dyed-in-the-wool suffragist, but I am a woman who has earned her own liv ing in Chicago for eleven years, and I know that there must be, in his city of ours, hundreds of women who feel as keenly and deeply this insult which has been thrust upon us by some governing head of the city. Perhaps it is out of line to criticise these laws through the newspapers, but I hope for the sake of those of us who are not patronizing restaurants qv other jeaspns than to jet . a "square" meal, that you will have one of your writers say a few words in behalf of the female representa tives of the commercial world. C. E. Richmond. "PALACES OF HELL." I am a young woman of 24 and have had six years' experience in the show busi ness with burlesque and musical comedy companies. I have been from coast to coast and have had stunts of all kinds tried on me by all sorts of men. I came to Chicago four weeks ago, and as I had no work I thought I would try to enjoy myself. I went with a girl friend to a big dance hall on the South Side and I was never so surprised in my life as I was at the conditions which existed there. There are two separate places, one where liquor is sold and the other is supposed to be better, though I failed to see it There were any number of prosti tutes mixed up with the young, de cent girls who did not know who they were mixed up with. Young, drunken gallants would go from hall to hall, making vile remarks to the girls, trying to make later dates with them. I had several spring now hot air wrinkles on me, but as I am no greenie I found them very amusing. I cannot understand how a large city like Chicago will stand for anything so raw as this place. Across the street are several hotels, and as there are railways depots nearby it is easy to see where they get their trade. Young girls and boys sit at tables, drinking, cursing and putting on rough stuff. Waiters'.make. strange couples acquainted. I have been in all kinds of joints from the' Barbary Coast in 'Frisco to the Bowery in New York. Usually the places are bad or good, but these mixed Palaces of Hell are the worst If I were a respectable working girl I would not be seen in these places .for any priest y? went 9