The question of the harlots is, however, quite as insoluble by the ordinary methods. For these unfortunates no one who looks below the surface can fail to have the deepest sympathy. Some there are, no doubt, perhaps many, who--whether from inherited passion or from evil education--have deliberately embarked upon a life of vice, but with the majority it is not so. Even those who deliberately and of free choice adopt the profession of a prostitute, do so under the stress of temptations which few moralists seem to realise. Terrible as the fact is, there is no doubt it is a fact that there is no industrial career in which for a short time a beautiful girl can make as much money with as little trouble as the profession of a courtesan. The case recently tried at the Lewes assizes, in which the wife of an officer in the army admitted that while living as a kept mistress she had received as much as #4,000 a year, was no doubt very exceptional. Even the most successful adventuresses seldom make the income of a Cabinet Minister. But take women in professions and in businesses all round, and the number of young women who have received #500 in one year for the sale of their person is larger than the number of women of all ages who make a similar sum by honest industry. It is only the very few who draw these gilded prizes, and they only do it for a very short time. But it is the few prizes in every profession which allure the multitude, who think little of the many blanks. And speaking broadly, vice offers to every good-looking girl during the first bloom of her youth and beauty more money than she can earn by labour in any field of industry open to her sex. The penalty exacted afterwards is disease, degradation and death, but these things at first are hidden from her sight. The profession of a prostitute is the only career in which the maximum income is paid to the newest apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the beginning the only exertion is that of self-indulgence; all the prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever new embodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost farthing. Human nature, however, is short-sighted. Giddy girls, chafing against the restraints of uncongenial industry, see the glittering bait continually before them. They are told that if they will but "do as others do" they will make more in a night, if they are lucky, than they can make in a week at their sewing; and who can wonder that in many cases the irrevocable step is taken before they realise that it is irrevocable, and that they have bartered away the future of their lives for the paltry chance of a year's ill-gotten gains?