district by the simple expedient of an unlimited allowance of alcohol.
But that for us is out of the question. The problem of what to do with
our half of a million drunkards remains to be solved, and few more
difficult questions confront the social reformer.

The question of the harlots is, however, quite as insoluble by the
ordinary methods. For these unfortunates no one who looks below the
surface can fail to have the deepest sympathy. Some there are, no
doubt, perhaps many, who--whether from inherited passion or from evil
education--have deliberately embarked upon a life of vice, but with
the majority it is not so. Even those who deliberately and of free
choice adopt the profession of a prostitute, do so under the stress of
temptations which few moralists seem to realise. Terrible as the fact
is, there is no doubt it is a fact that there is no industrial career
in which for a short time a beautiful girl can make as much money with
as little trouble as the profession of a courtesan. The case recently
tried at the Lewes assizes, in which the wife of an officer in the army
admitted that while living as a kept mistress she had received as much
as #4,000 a year, was no doubt very exceptional. Even the most
successful adventuresses seldom make the income of a Cabinet Minister.
But take women in professions and in businesses all round, and the
number of young women who have received #500 in one year for the sale
of their person is larger than the number of women of all ages who make
a similar sum by honest industry. It is only the very few who draw
these gilded prizes, and they only do it for a very short time. But it
is the few prizes in every profession which allure the multitude, who
think little of the many blanks. And speaking broadly, vice offers to
every good-looking girl during the first bloom of her youth and beauty
more money than she can earn by labour in any field of industry open to
her sex. The penalty exacted afterwards is disease, degradation and