individuals. Alcohol and vicious habits increase their abnormal
tendencies, so that their behavior leaves nothing wanting in the way
of temper, impulsiveness, cynicism and insolence. This is seen every
day in hospitals for venereal disease. As soon as a prostitute finds
her physical condition improve after a few days in hospital, sexual
abstinence arouses her appetite to such an extent that she indulges in
lesbian love with her companions, or shows herself naked at the
windows, etc. Some prostitutes of better quality suffer at first from
the scandalous tone of the brothel, but they generally become used to
it, and end with adopting it themselves. Honest women, infected
accidentally or by their husbands, suffer martyrdom when they are sent
to the venereal divisions of hospitals.

=The Fate of Prostitutes.=--What becomes of prostitutes in the course
of time? They cannot remain very long in the brothels for they only
accept young and fine-looking girls. It would be interesting to follow
the fate of all these women. At all events nothing is more absurd than
the common saying that the suppression of brothels increases
prostitution in the streets, and that their introduction suppresses
it. It is obvious that, as the women in brothels have to be
continually renewed, they must be continually thrown onto the streets.
No doubt many prostitutes die at an early age from the results of
alcohol and syphilis. The only resource left to many, when they are
ejected from the brothels, is to solicit in the streets or to join
clandestine brothels or taverns of the same nature.

The most profligate, those who look upon their profession from the
artistic or the commercial points of view, know how to advance
themselves and become "Madames"; but these are comparatively few in
number. Some end in suicide or lunatic asylums.

As a last resource, when no man will have anything to do with them,
many of them take to the lowest occupations, such as cleaning
lavatories, etc. At Munich it used to be proverbial that the class of
"Radiweiber" and "Nussweiber" (old women selling nuts etc., at the
street corners) were mostly recruited from old prostitutes.
Occasionally a better class prostitute succeeds in getting married.

If we consider without prejudice the miserable life of a prostitute,
we cannot hear the term "_fille de joie_" without a feeling of sadness
and indignation, for it conveys such bitter and tragic irony. If we
could ourselves experi