whether, though this theory will shock many people, other virtues
can exist and flourish entirely distinct from, and after the
loss of, that which we are accustomed to believe the
indispensable prime virtue of our sex--chastity. I cannot explain
it; I can only say that it is so, that some of my most promising
village girls have been the first to come to harm; and some of
the best and most faithful servants I ever had, have been girls
who have fallen into shame, and who, had I not gone to the rescue
and put them in the way to do well, would infallibly have become
"lost women"'" (_A Woman's Thoughts About Women_, 1858, p. 291).
Various writers have insisted on the good moral qualities of
prostitutes. Thus in France, Despine first enumerates their vices
as (1) greediness and love of drink, (2) lying, (3) anger, (4)
want of order and untidiness, (5) mobility of character, (6) need
of movement, (7) tendency to homosexuality; and then proceeds to
detail their good qualities: their maternal and filial affection,
their charity to each other; and their refusal to denounce each
other; while they are frequently religious, sometimes modest, and
generally very honest (Despine, _Psychologie Naturelle_, vol.
iii, pp. 207 et seq.; as regards Sicilian prostitutes, cf.
Callari, _Archivio di Psichiatria_, fasc. IV, 1903). The charity
towards each other, often manifested in distress, is largely
neutralized by a tendency to professional suspicion and jealousy
of each other.

Lombroso believes that the basis of prostitution must be found in
moral idiocy. If by moral idiocy we are to understand a condition
at all closely allied with insanity, this assertion is dubious.
There seems no clear relationship between prostitution and
insanity, and Tammeo has shown (_La Prostituzione_, p. 76) that
the frequency of prostitutes in the various Italian provinces is
in inverse ratio to the frequency of insane persons; as insanity
increases, prostitution decreases. But if we mean a minor degree
of moral imbecility--that is to say, a bluntness of perception
for the ordinary moral considerations of civilization which,
while it is largely due to the hardening influence of an
unfavorable early environment, may also rest on a congenital
predisposition--there can be no doubt that moral imbecility of
slight deg