In a great city like New York there is a reason why this great evil meets us on all the thoroughfares. Within a few miles of Manhattan Island may be found naval and military depots, where large numbers of unmarried men congregate. Added to this we must count the men employed in the shipping interests, as New York is perhaps the greatest sea-faring town on the continent, and besides the many thousands of immigrants that come here every year, and, last of all, the yearly arrival of twenty to thirty thousand young men and women from rural homes, seeking employment in the great city. But the causes of prostitution or social vice are varied. In the fall of the year large numbers of young girls come to the city in search of employment. This is often the most trying period in their lives. If they happen to find work, all is well; but if not or even after they have been thrown out of employment, or when pinched for money to buy dress or pay living expenses, they go out on the street, it means their ruin. The temptations in the way of friendless girls in a great city are so numerous that unless they are surrounded and even fortified by moral and religious influences, they readily succumb to the forces of evil within six months after their arrival. I have been informed on good authority that certain men are continually on the lookout for such girls, and after the first or second introduction, use a ticket to the playhouse and a late supper, or a piece of money or jewelry to bring about their ruin. Men who have finally landed in prison have boasted of having seduced ten to twenty such girls within a few years. The modest amount of salary that ordinary girls receive in wages does not admit of their saving anything for a dull season. As a result hundreds of girls yield readily to evil influences and are soon borne down the swift currents of temptation into shame and ruin; and when they find themselves shunned by old friends, many of them end their days by suicide. In the Tombs and district prisons may be seen almost daily large numbers of women who have been taken from the street or from “dives” and other dens of iniquity after the police have raided such places. After a few years the prostitute becomes a repulsive, degraded and besotted specimen of humanity and sometimes a hardened criminal. Nemesis follows the unfortunate and unhappy female till she ends her days in the Potter’s Field. It is indeed sad to chronicle these things, but they are nevertheless true.