🚀 go-pugleaf

decorated the walls. Toward the back of the room hung the sign,
    '283 Licensed Eating House.' There was a large table in the
    centre of the room. Toward the front, on either side, in alcoves,
    partitioned off in part from the remainder of the room, were
    opium couches, with pipes and lamps ready for use. We give this
    description in full, as it applies, almost without variation, to
    all the others which we visited in the immediate neighborhood.
    Food was furnished on order, intoxicating drinks, and opium. At
    the second place, on the opposite corner of the same block, the
    men told us that the place was used for the same purposes. We
    asked where the women were, and they answered that it was too late
    to see them, but if we would come earlier we would find them. When
    asked where the women came from, they pointed down to the street
    below, to the open brothels, and said there were a great number of
    degraded women who lived close by; said the brothel-keepers sent
    them. They said that white men as well as Chinese came to their
    place. After this we walked the length of the several streets and
    side-streets, in the near vicinity, and proved the truth of what
    the men had told us as to the swarming numbers of degraded girls
    and women.

    "The next night we went to the same neighborhood, and revisited
    the two places already mentioned, and others also. As we reached
    the top of the stairway and passed into the front room of the
    place where they had invited us to return, there was quite a
    flutter of excitement, and we instantly saw that there was
    a number of girls present, all very young, and several mere
    children. On our left a fat, middle-aged Chinese man sat, with two
    or three little girls, one in his lap and one on either side of
    him, in his arms; two more were throwing something that resembled
    dice on a table within the front alcove, and the rest were sitting
    on