, and even married persons of high position. It is not
difficult for any one who reflects a little to see what this state of
things leads to.

=Prostitution and the Police.=--The police know very well that in
certain brothels prostitution is not only associated with alcoholic
excess, but that certain houses become the haunts of criminals. They
even regard certain low-class brothels and taverns frequented by
prostitutes as very useful for the discovery of criminals. Spies of
all kinds are met with in these places, from the secret agent who
tracks a criminal and flirts at the same time with the prostitutes, to
the counter-spy employed by the proxenets to watch the secret agent.
It is here that the criminal world acquires its rakish manners, but
its weakness for women and alcohol cause it to fall early into the
traps of the secret police. It is here also, as well as in the salons
of high-class proxenetism, that we meet with those indefinable
individuals who are to-day secret agents of the government, to-morrow
false noblemen or criminals, and the day after proxenets, and whom a
former minister of the German Empire designated by the euphemistic
term of "non-gentleman."

=The Psychology of Prostitutes and the Cause of Prostitution.=--The
psychology of prostitutes is a difficult and complicated subject.
According to the point of view of those who judge them, they are
considered as women of evil and incorrigible instincts, or as the
victims of our bad social organizations. These two assertions are by
their exclusiveness equally false. Urged by Christian charity, many
societies for the improvement of morality have attempted to rescue
fallen women; but, as might be expected, the results have not been
satisfactory. In fact, the mind of woman is quite differently
dominated by sexual ideas and their irradiations than that of man. It
is also less plastic, and becomes more easily the slave of habit and
routine. If, therefore, a woman has been systematically trained in
sexual aberrations from her youth upward, all her ideas are
concentrated on debauch and sexual intercourse, so that it becomes
impossible later on to restore her to a life of serious social duty.
Rare exceptions confirm this rule. Moreover, sexual excitation in
women awakens sexual desire, which becomes exalted by repetition and
habit.

On the other hand, it is necessary to recognize that girls who are
idle, of weak character, hysterical, easily suggestible, coquett