In France, the police authorities entrust the lucrative estate (_fermé_) of profligacy (which private persons are not authorised to farm out) to brothel-keepers who represent a considerable capital. At Paris, where their business connexion is sometimes transferred at prices as high as those of solicitors’ and notaries’ practices, the moveable effects of one of them have been appraised as high as 100,000 francs (£4,000). The sums invested compel the brothel-proprietresses to hunt up buyers incessantly, and God knows how they perform their task. It would be difficult to form an idea of the corruption they sow in our boroughs, in our villages even, by sending to them detachments of girls whom authority tolerates as soon as they place themselves under the government regulations. France is no longer anything but a vast field of prostitution, since railways have brought this traffic within reach of our rural districts. The brothel-keeper, whose receipts are enormous, has agents who accustom the workman and the female domestic servant to look upon her house as an institution for the deserving. The procuress, having full authority for mixed education, takes further upon herself the social education of the young men living away from home in our towns: she puts herself on the track of students, collects from the _Botin Almanac_ the address of certain known men, sends them ambiguous letters by gold-laced lacqueys, whose business it is to supplement the intimations. For the negotiations about girls under age, the brothel-keeper goes out herself from apartments fitted up in princely style, steps into her carriage, has herself announced by her footman, introduces herself into aristocratic drawing rooms, has a perfumed note delivered on a silver salver, announcing to such and such an important personage the purpose which brings her there. It is asserted that the inefficiency of our laws is so great as not to admit of the guilty being reached once in a thousand times, and never effectually represses them, as we shall see from the sequel of this investigation.[9]