ck on a summer night.
It is a small flat near Oxford Street, in which live two
women-Officers of the Army, who are engaged in the work of reclaiming
prostitutes. I may mention that for the last fourteen years the Major
in charge, night by night, has tramped the streets with this object.
The Titchfield Street flat is not in any sense a Home, but I saw a
small room in it, with two beds, where cases who may be rescued from
the streets, or come here in a time of trouble, can sleep until
arrangements are made for them to proceed to one of the Rescue
Institutions of the Army.

This work is one of the most difficult and comparatively unproductive
of any that the Army undertakes. The careers of these unfortunate
street women, who are nearly all of them very fine specimens of female
humanity, for the most part follow a rocket-like curve. The majority
of them begin by getting into trouble, at the end of which, perhaps,
they find themselves with a child upon their hands. Or they may have
been turned out of their homes, or some sudden misfortune may have
reduced them to destitution. At any rate, the result is that they take
to a loose life, and mayhap, after living under the protection of one
or two men, find themselves upon the streets. Sometimes, it may be
said to their credit, if that word can be used in this connexion, they
adopt this mode of life in order to support their child or children.

The Major informed me that if they are handsome they generally begin
with a period of great prosperity. One whom she knew earned about L30
a week, and a good many of them make as much as L1,000 a year, and pay
perhaps L6 weekly in rent.

A certain proportion of them are careful, open a bank account, save
money, retire, and get married. Generally, these keep their bank-books
in their stockings, which, in their peculiar mode of life, they find
to be the safest place, as they are very suspicious of each other, and
much afraid of being robbed. The majority of them, however, are not so
provident. They live in and for the moment, and spend their ill-gotten
gains as fast as they receive them.

Gradually they drift downwards. They begin in Piccadilly, and
progress, or rather retrogress, through Leicester Square on to
Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, and thence to the Euston Road,
ending their sad careers in Bishopsgate and Whitechapel. The Major
informed me that there are but very few in the Piccadilly
neighbourhood whom she knew when