iting them, but
they know that they can frequent them habitually, without fear of
discovery. Their outward appearance of respectability is a great
assistance to the scoundrels who seek to entrap an innocent female within
their walls. They form the worst feature of the Social Evil, and
something should be done to suppress them.

III. THE STREET WALKERS.

Strangers visiting the city are struck with the number of women who are
to be found on Broadway and the streets running parallel with it, without
male escorts, after dark. They pass up and down the great thoroughfares
at a rapid pace peculiar to them, glancing sharply at all the men they
meet, and sometimes speaking to them in a low, quick undertone. One
accustomed to the city can recognize them at a glance, and no man of
common sense could fail to distinguish them from the respectable women
who are forced to be out on the streets alone. They are known as Street
Walkers, and constitute one of the lowest orders of prostitutes to be
found in New York. They seem to be on the increase during the present
winter; and in Broadway especially are more numerous and bolder than they
have been for several years. The best looking and the best dressed are
seen on Broadway, and in parts of the Fifth and Fourth avenues. The
others correspond to the localities they frequent. They are chiefly
young girls, seventeen being the average age, but you will see children
of twelve and thirteen among them. Very few promenade Broadway below
Canal street. The neighborhoods of the hotels and places of amusement
are the most frequented. Some of the girls are quite pretty and affect a
modest deportment, but the majority are hideous and brazen. New faces
are constantly appearing on Broadway, to take the places of those who
have gone down into the depths.

Many of these girls have some regular employment, at which they work
during the day. Their regular earnings are small, and they take this
means of increasing them. The majority, however, depend upon their
infamous trade for their support. There have been rare cases in which
girls have been driven upon the streets by their parents, who either wish
to rid themselves of the support of the girl, or profit by her earnings.
We have known cases where the girls have voluntarily supported their
parents by the wages of their shame. There were once two sisters, well
known on Broadway, who devoted their earnings to paying off a heavy debt