quack doctors. Sensational and horrifying signs adorn their windows, they advertise their “cures” in the columns of the daily newspapers. They are the destroyers of health instead of the givers of strong physiques and clear minds. Their prey is, in the most part, out-of-town men and women and the illiterate of the city, who suffer, or fear they are the victims of unmentionable diseases.

Do they fatten on the proceeds of this crime, free of trust-tribute?

Far from it. They pay a stipend from the fee wrung from the unfortunates who enter their laboratories of crime.

The professional bondsmen, usually “lieutenants” or friends of the men “higher up” are useful assets in times of emergency. When the outlook is dull, when the collection days are far away, they do good service, aided by members of the police department.

Suppose an unfortunate cesspool has failed to meet its obligations to the vice lords. As a result the police are ordered by the “powers” to raid it. They do so. At least a score of men are caught in the net. The professional bondsman signs their bonds at a price ranging from $5 to $25 each. The bondsman retains a small percentage, as also the police. The rest goes to the vice rulers.

THE KIMONA TRUST AND THE VAMPIRE TRUST.

The light, cheap and thin apparel worn by the lost women of the dens of pollution contribute their small share to buy diamonds for the vice-magnates.

There is a vice-asset called the “Kimona Trust.” Every stitch of clothing worn by the women denizens of the underworld is made and sold by its agents.

For that trade it pays a regular and definite tribute.

We could go on enumerating indefinitely and never reach an end.

Graft, graft,—every kind from every dreamed-of source!

The Vampire Trust is one of the novelties of Chicago’s crime-world. It is of recent creation. It is a subsidiary corporation of the “big combine.”

One hundred women, it is estimated, form its rank and file. They are women of luring, attractive appearance, insidious “good-fellows,” smartly educated and vice’s students of human nature.

Like vultures they prey on Chicago’s wealthy visitors. They infest the lobbies, restaurants and cafés of Chicago’s most exclusive hotels. They search out their victims, wile them away from business cares by sensuous charms, take them “slumming,” drug them and rob them.

Then they divide their ill-gotten gains with their protectors.

Then, too, there is the “hotel thieves combine.” It is estimated that more than $1,000 worth of valuables is stolen from the hotels in a month.

Bell boys are numbered among the hotel thieves. The police watch them and follow them to the “fences”—the places where the stolen property is sold for less than one half its value. Once more the trust does its work. The “fence” manager must pay tribute or go to jail. He pays, of course.

That is the story of GRAFT, its origin, source and magnitude.