es the victims that
it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of. The meanest, most
depraved and decrepit man still considers himself too good to take as
his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even
though he might thereby save her from a life of horror. Nor can she
turn to her own sister for help. In her stupidity the latter deems
herself too pure and chaste, not realizing that her own position is
in many respects even more deplorable than her sister's of the
street.

"The wife who married for money, compared with the prostitute," says
Havelock Ellis, "is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more
in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master.
The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, she
retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled
to submit to a man's embrace."

Nor does the better-than-thou woman realize the apologist claim of
Lecky that "though she may be the supreme type of vice, she is also
the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, happy homes
would be polluted, unnatural and harmful practice would abound."

Moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one-half of the human race for
the sake of some miserable institution which they can not outgrow.
As a matter of fact, prostitution is no more a safeguard for the
purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against
prostitution. Fully fifty per cent. of married men are patrons of
brothels. It is through this virtuous element that the married
women--nay, even the children--are infected with venereal diseases.
Yet society has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no law
is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim.
She is not only preyed upon by those who use her, but she is also
absolutely at the mercy of every policeman and miserable detective on
the beat, the officials at the station house, the authorities in
every prison.

In a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of
a "house," are to be found the following figures: "The authorities
compelled me to pay every month fines between $14.70 to $29.70, the
girls would pay from $5.70 to $9.70 to the police." Considering that
the writer did her business in a small city, that the amounts she
gives do not include extra bribes and fines, one can readily see the
tremendous revenue the police department derives from the blood money
of its victims, whom it w