painful, perhaps: the traffic in white women.

Here is one of the singular things connected with and
characteristic of this poignant disorder of our civilization:

Every gaol contains a prisoner who is known as the "artist."

All kinds of trades and professions peculiar to prisons
develop behind the bars. There is the vendor of
liquorice-water, the vendor of scarfs, the writer, the advocate, the
usurer, the hut-maker, and the barker. The artist takes
rank among these local and peculiar professions between
the writer and the advocate.

To be an artist is it necessary to know how to draw? By
no means. A bit of a bench to sit upon, a wall to lean
against, a lead pencil, a bit of pasteboard, a needle stuck
in a handle made out of a piece of wood, a little Indian
ink or sepia, a little Prussian blue, and a little vermilion in
three cracked beechwood spoons,--this is all that is
requisite; a knowledge of drawing is superfluous. Thieves are
as fond of colouring as children are, and as fond of tattooing
as are savages. The artist by means of his three spoons
satisfies the first of these needs, and by means of his needle
the second. His remuneration is a "nip" of wine.

The result is this:

Some prisoners, say, lack everything, or are simply
desirous of living more comfortably. They combine, wait