creature, no matter how debased, in the hope of being ultimately
married by him. This consideration, in addition to their helpless
condition when once character has gone, makes them suffer cruelties
which they would never otherwise endure from the men with whom large
numbers of them live.

One case in illustration of this is that of a girl who was once a
respectable servant, the daughter of a police sergeant. She was
ruined, and shame led her to leave home. At length she drifted to
Woolwich, where she came across a man who persuaded her to live with
him, and for a considerable length of time she kept him, although his
conduct to her was brutal in the extreme.

The girl living in the next room to her has frequently heard him knock
her head against the wall, and pound it, when he was out of temper,
through her gains of prostitution being less than usual. He lavished
upon her every sort of cruelty and abuse, and at length she grew so
wretched, and was reduced to so dreadful a plight, that she ceased to
attract. At this he became furious, and pawned all her clothing but
one thin garment of rags. The week before her first confinement he
kicked her black and blue from neck to knees, and she was carried to
the police station in a pool of blood, but; she was so loyal to the
wretch that she refused to appear against him.

She was going to drown herself in desperation, when our Rescue Officers
spoke to her, wrapped their own shawl around her shivering shoulders,
took her home with them, and cared for her. The baby was born dead--
a tiny, shapeless mass. This state of things is all too common.

HOPELESSNESS--SURROUNDINGS.--The state of hopelessness and despair