Clara Bell - The Lost Girl Found
Discovered in a House of Ill Repute
Article taken from The Newark Daily Advocate, May 29, 1883
Lebanon, O., May 29.--
The missing Portsmouth girl, Clara bell, has been found here this morning, in a house of ill-repute, by her brother and a detective. The house is kept by the Ross family. Clara is scarcely more than a child yet, being only fourteen years of age, and scarcely able to realize the nature of the life she had entered upon. She was doubtless therefore easily seduced to forsake her home and take up with what appeared to be a life of ease and pleasure.
When found by her brother but a few moments sufficed to dispel the glamour with which the vile creatures who had enticed her had cast over what in common parlance is a "sporting life." She quickly realized that there is no sport about it, but a life of iguomy and misery. The scene between the brother and sister was extremely affecting.
The greatest indignation is expressed here, and threats of mobbing the bagnio are freely indulged in. As yet the child has probably not been permitted to see or experience the full measure of the bagnio's depravity.
About three weeks ago, Clara left her home in Portsmouth, Ohio, ostensibly to attend the Dramatic Festival in this city. Since then nothing has been learned of her whereabouts, and her widowed mother has been very uneasy. Her intention was to be gone four days. When the time for her return came and she did not appear her folks, thinking she had been detained with the friends she was to stop with, were not seriously disappointed. but receiving no word for two or three days, they became alarmed, and inquiry revealed the fact that she had not been in Cincinnati at all. Where she had gone the above dispatch reveals.