Again, of the two millions of the remaining women, what reasonable man
would not throw out a hundred thousand poor girls, humpbacked, plain,
cross-grained, rickety, sickly, blind, crippled in some way, well
educated but penniless, all bound to be spinsters, and by no means
tempted to violate the sacred laws of marriage?

Nor must we retain the one hundred thousand other girls who become
sisters of St. Camille, Sisters of Charity, monastics, teachers,
ladies' companions, etc. And we must put into this blessed company a
number of young people difficult to estimate, who are too grown up to
play with little boys and yet too young to sport their wreath of
orange blossoms.

Finally, of the fifteen million subjects which remain at the bottom of
our crucible we must eliminate five hundred thousand other
individuals, to be reckoned as daughters of Baal, who subserve the
appetites of the base. We must even comprise among those, without fear
that they will be corrupted by their company, the kept women, the
milliners, the shop girls, saleswomen, actresses, singers, the girls
of the opera, the ballet-dancers, upper servants, chambermaids, etc.
Most of these creatures excite the passions of many people, but they
would consider it immodest to inform a lawyer, a mayor, an
ecclesiastic or a laughing world of the day and hour when they
surrendered to a lover. Their system, justly blamed by an inquisitive
world, has the advantage of laying upon them no obligations towards
men in general, towards the mayor or the magistracy. As these women do
not violate any oath made in public, they have no connection whatever
with a work which treats exclusively of lawful marriage.

Some one will say that the claims made by this essay are very slight,