Many of this class have been known to leave this wretched life for months together, when it became possible for them to earn what is called an honest livelihood. Again, instead of leading a life of pleasure, such women suffer intensely, and twelve out of every fifteen examined testify, that they could not sustain its physical horrors without their daily dram. It is stated on good authority, that the strongest constitutions sink under this life in less than three years, and the cases are numerous in which, after a much shorter period,the victim commits suicide. I have stated these facts to show that no woman will remain in this life who can quit it, that there is hope for those who will hold out hope to them, and to show that inadequate remuneration for honest labor is one great reason why their number is so large. In making this statement, I depend not merely on the statistics published at Paris and London, but on my own observation in New England.
Many persons imagine that the horrors detailed of foreign cities find no parallel here.
This is not true. The public sense of decorum in Boston drives vice into close corners, but terrible indeed would be the revelation that a Duchatelet of our own must make. Passing the other evening through a street at the North end of the city, I saw three children, under ten years of age, cuddled close together for warmth, and sound asleep on the brick pavement, at the base of building erected to store flour. Returning, at a late hour, I found, not far from them, three of the most wretched of the women alluded to. They were scantily clothed and starving.