The worst effects of drunkenness are, perhaps, after all, its indirect
ones. It is a sad sight to see man stricken down in his prime, and woman
in her beauty; to see individuals' hopes and prospects blighted; to see
in that carcase staggering by the utter wreck and ruin of an immortal
soul. But this is but a small portion of the damage done to humanity by
the ravages of intemperance. Look at our great social evil. I need not
name it. No one who walks the streets of London by night requires to be
informed what that is. Has drink nothing to do with it? Ask that
unfortunate, who has just commenced her evening's walk. She will tell
you that when she parted with her innocence she had previously been
drugged with drink; that if it were not for drink she could not pursue
her unhallowed career; that her victims are stimulated by drink; and that
without the gin-palace or the public-house she and such as she could not
exist. I do not now speak of the worst forms of prostitution, of the
gin-palaces in the East frequented by drunken sailors, where women are
kept as a source of attraction and revenue; but of the better classes, of
the dashing women who are supplied with expensive dresses by respectable
Oxford-street tradesmen in the expectation of being paid by some rich
victim; the women whom you meet dressed so gay in Regent-street or
Portland-place.

Once upon a time there was a rascally old nobleman who lived in a big
house in Piccadilly. Mr. Raikes describes him as "a little sharp-looking
man, very irritable, and swore like 10,000 troopers, enormously rich, and
very selfish." He sat all day long at a low window, leering at beauty as
it passed by, and under his window was a groom waiting on horseback to
carry his messages to any one whom he remarked in the street. If one did
not know that we lived in a highly moral age, one would fancy many such
old noblemen lived in the neighbourhood of Portland-place, for in the
streets leading thence, and reaching as far back as Tottenham-court-road,
we have an immense female population, all existing and centred there, who
live by vicious means--all with the common feeling of their sex rooted
out and destroyed; all intended by nature to diffuse happiness around;
all a curse on all with whom they have to do. In this small circle,
there is enough vicious leaven to leaven all London. It is impossible to
get a true estimate of their number. Guesses of all kinds have been
made, but