This statement shocks you: but poor pay strikes as heavy a blow as a husband's right arm; and these seven thousand eight hundred and fifty women in New York supported hundreds of men in ease, before they dropped from the seamstress's chair to the curbstone and the gutter.[12] Tait says that the permanent prostitution of any city bears a recognized numerical relation to its means of occupation. You ask for proof. Out of two thousand cases in the city of New York, five hundred and twenty-five pleaded destitution as the cause. One of the police-officers testified of one girl, "She struggled hard before she fell; living on bread and water, and sleeping in station-houses. In three years, I have known more than fifty such cases." A young girl of seventeen was left with the care of a sick, crippled sister. They were left to touch the very brink of despair. A kindly, fair-faced woman brought work which saved them from death. More was promised, on conditions that you can guess; and the toils so skilfully woven, that the young and healthy longed for her sister's sickly face and broken limb to ward off her fate. "When a whole day's work brings only a few pennies," said another to Dr. Sanger, "a smile will buy me a dinner." Out of these two thousand women, one thousand eight hundred and eighty had been brought up "_to do nothing_:" but, of all the trades, dressmaking furnished the largest proportion; and yet you think you pay your dressmakers well! Out of the two thousand, all but fifty-one had been religiously educated. "It has been shown elsewhere," says Dr. Sanger, "that the public are responsible for this evil, because they persist in excluding women from many kinds of employment for which they are fitted, while for work that is open they receive inadequate compensation. The community are equally responsible for non-interference with openly acknowledged evils." Thus far I have spoken of New York. I might speak to you of Philadelphia and Boston, and tell you of ruin wrought under my own eyes; of the daughter of a State-street merchant found in the gutters of Toronto years ago; of a daughter whom that wealthy father dared not deny, when I wrote to him, though he refused to furnish the bread that would have kept her from sin. I know how hard it is for a true and good man to open his eyes to the wickedness and misery near at hand. I have no desire to draw down upon myself the local wrath of small clothiers and petty officials. You know what wages are in England: let us go thither for our concluding facts. There are five hundred thousand single women in England, and one out of every thirteen is a thing of shame; that is, there are thirty-eight thousand four hundred and sixty-one women of the town. Almost none of these women are drawn from domestic service. Many were found in New York who had lived out for twenty-five cents a week, and from that dropped to moral death.