n cause in inducing them to adopt this career. "Of all the causes of
prostitution," Parent-Duchatelet wrote a century ago, "particularly in
Paris, and probably in all large cities, none is more active than lack of
work and the misery which is the inevitable result of insufficient wages."
In England, also, to a large extent, Sherwell states, "morals fluctuate
with trade."[164] It is equally so in Berlin where the number of
registered prostitutes increases during bad years.[165] It is so also in
America. It is the same in Japan; "the cause of causes is poverty."[166]

Thus the broad and general statement that prostitution is largely or
mainly an economic phenomenon, due to the low wages of women or to sudden
depressions in trade, is everywhere made by investigators. It must,
however, be added that these general statements are considerably qualified
in the light of the detailed investigations made by careful inquirers.
Thus Stroehmberg, who minutely investigated 462 prostitutes, found that
only one assigned destitution as the reason for adopting her career, and
on investigation this was found to be an impudent lie.[167] Hammer found
that of ninety registered German prostitutes not one had entered on the
career out of want or to support a child, while some went on the street
while in the possession of money, or without wishing to be paid.[168]
Pastor Buschmann, of the Teltow Magdalene Home in Berlin, finds that it is
not want but indifference to moral considerations which leads girls to
become prostitutes. In Germany, before a girl is put on the police
register, due care is always taken to give her a chance of entering a Home
and getting work; in Berlin, in the course of ten years, only two
girls--out of thousands--were willing to take advantage of this
opportunity. The difficulty experienced by English Rescue Homes in finding
girls who are willing to be "rescued" is notorious. The same difficulty is
found in other cities, even where entirely different conditions prevail;
thus it is found in Madrid, according to Bernaldo de Quiros and Llanas
Aguilaniedo, that the prostitutes who enter the Homes, notwithstanding all
the devotion of the nuns, on leaving at once return to their old life.
While the economic factor in prostitution undoubtedly exists, the undue
frequency and emphasis with which it is put forward and accepted is
clearly due, in part to ignorance of the real facts, in part to the fact
that such an assumption appeals