In the presence of this corruption, which has never had a precedent except on the eve of the downfall of kingdoms and empires, certain short-sighted moralists are exclaiming: “It is the passions of concubines that are dragging us into a bottomless abyss.” I could point out that the passions of rich women have not the social consequences of the necessities of poor ones, and that there is a deplorable legislative fault wherever man pays woman to corrupt her, while she must pay the man for trying to reform him by marriage; but I shall say, “Misfortune, a thousand times misfortune upon civilizations which fear the passions because they do not know how to direct them.” Suppress this source of devotedness and progress, and there will no longer be either vices or virtues, and the facility, the satiety of profligacy, will hurry society on to an irremediable fall. II.—PENITENT GIRLS. “The harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you.” —_Gospel according to St. Matthew._ If we recall the causes which force women into the sewer of prostitution,—if we remember the humiliations of registered and non-registered girls,—we shall not be at all astonished that common prostitutes often feel all the horror of their lot, and we shall understand the talent of observation presented by certain types rendered familiar by literature. Apart from romance and the drama, the authors who have, at Paris, studied this subject with such scrupulous accuracy, declare to us in like manner, that a great number of these “unfortunates” are conscious of their degradation, and hasten to quit their infamous means of living when they find normal means of livelihood. Unhappily this recovery is but an exceptional fact; the brothel-keeper, who collects the proceeds of their sale, makes them giddy by intoxication to dissemble from them the horror of their degradation. Their mirthfulness is often but a mere external display, provoked by the impure jokes of those who support them. Among those confined in the St. Lazare, too, are found instincts of shame, united to the sentiments of motherly love. Most of them impose heavy sacrifices upon themselves to bring up their child, the only creature, say they, who will _not at all despise them_.