e aid of another social order,
the causes of prostitution, and, consequently, prostitution itself,
might disappear; none of them seeks to fathom the causes. Indeed, upon
one and another, engaged in this question, the fact at times dawns that
the sorry social conditions, which numerous women suffer under, might be
the chief reason why so many women sell their bodies; but the thought
does not press itself through to its conclusion, to wit, that,
therefore, the necessity arises of bringing about other social
conditions. Among those who recognize that the economic conditions are
the chief cause of prostitution belong Th. Bade, who declares:[102] "The
causes of the bottomless moral depravity, out of which the prostitute
girl is born, lie in the existing social conditions.... _It is the
bourgeois dissolution of the middle classes and of their material
existence, particularly of the class of the artisans_, only a small
fraction of which carries on to-day an independent occupation as a
trade." Bade closes his observations, saying: "Want for material
existence, that has partly worn out the families of the middle class and
will yet wear them out wholly, leads also to the moral ruin of the
family, especially of the female sex." In fact, the statistical figures,
gathered by the Police Department of Berlin, between 1871-1872, on the
extraction of 2,224 enrolled prostitutes, show:

Number. Per Cent. Father's Occupation.

1,015 47.9 Artisans
467 22.0 Millhands
305 14.4 Small office-holders
222 10.4 Merchants and railroad workers
87 4.1 Farmers
26 1.2 Military service

Of 102 the father's occupation was not ascertainable.

Specialists and experts rarely take up investigations of a deeper
nature; they accept the facts that lie before them, and judge in the
style of the "Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift," that writes in its No.
35, for the year 1863: "What else is there left to the large majority of
willing and unwilling celibates, in order to satisfy their _natural
wants_, than the forbidden fruit of the Venus Pandemos?" The paper is,
accordingly, of the opinion that, for the sake of these celibates,
prostitution is necessary, because what else, forsooth, are they to do
in order to satisfy their sexual impulse? And it closes, saying: "Seeing
that prostitution is necessary, it has the right to existence, to
protection, and to imm