Prostitution is very largely the effect of the unfortunate circumstances of these poor girls, and the material for brothels is largely recruited from the stores, the factories and the "sweat-shops," where they must work many and weary hours for cruelly small pay. Factory Inspector O'Leary, of New York State, in urging the abolition of the sweating system, says in his Eleventh Annual Report (1895): "With knee pants bringing but from 50 to 75 cents per dozen, vests from $1 to $3 per dozen, trousers from 12£ to 75 cents per pair, and coats from 32 cents to $1.50 each, with a percentage off these prices for the 'boss sweaters' and another reduction off for cost of carting, which the workman is obliged to pay, we cannot expect to find anything but destitution, suffering, intellectual and moral depression, existing among the unfortunate victims of this pernicious system".
The temptation which men offer to these poor distressed and destitute girls is but too successful a menace to their rectitude, and reform is hardly to be looked for until the social conditions which make the fall so easy are righted by legislation and public sentiment.
Men are all agreed upon the fact that women are not well equipped by nature to engage in the struggle of life, and that it is a shame for any woman to be obliged to earn her own living; but many a poor girl is compelled to leave the shelter of her home in order to support herself and perhaps her dependent relatives.
It seems hardly necessary to accentuate the fact that great-hearted men are specially gallant to these unfortunates ; but they are offset by the lustful beasts of prey who assail the young women as they quietly walk home from their work at night, and spread before them all sorts of allurements to lead at first a gay, and then a fast life. Familiarity and disrespect are shown to almost every attractive woman who has no guardian; and though many of them resent it, quite a large number can be led astray if they are in straitened circumstances and skilfully approached.
Men of all ages and conditions, married and single, who are received and recognized in the best social and business circles, have money in abundance with which to purchase the degradation of these young women whose " virtue and purity are the most marketable elements in their lives".
The defencelessness of their position and the sad circumstance that they are compelled by the hardest kind of work to eke out a bare subsistence should incline the hearts of men to help and protect them; and if they have fallen on account of the outrageous villainy of others, they should be judged very tenderly, while no punishment could be severe enough for the seducers.
Some Girls are Almost Bom into This Profession, many of them being illegitimate, basely born children, or the offspring of sensual parents, who perhaps begot them while drunk. But, as a rule, if a prostitute has a girl as her illegitimate child, she would rather strangle it than see it lapse from virtue. However much parents may desire to see their children grow up to a better life, this can never be realized as long as the force of an evil example is operating; and unless the mother, particularly, be virtuous, there is little hope that the children will grow up to be sweet and pure.
But though the mighty love of even a fallen woman for her child would impel her to shield it from harm, exceptions are yet as common as the inconsistencies of human beings for sometimes a mother will make a handsome living by selling her daughter's favors.
Absence of Religious Training and Belief leads straight to a life of unchastity in a large number of instances. Eeligion is the strongest incentive to purity, and, as a rule, when it is put aside, morality expires.
Most prostitutes, however, have been brought up in some religious belief, and some are actually churchgoers, though few make any attempt to screen themselves under the gospel colors. It cannot be said of this class of women that they are hypocrites; that they make any attempt to appear to be wearing "the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in"; or that they pretend to be anything but what they are.