It should incline us to a merciful consideration of the fallen-woman when we reflect on the monotony of misery her existence is. She is to herself vile, and she has no other resource but to flee to the gin-measure, and therein hide herself from herself. She has no pleasure even. Never was there made a grimmer joke than that which designates her life a short and _merry_ one. True, she is found at places where amusement and wild reckless gaiety is sought; but does she ever appear amused, or, while she remains sober, recklessly gay? I am not now alluding to the low prostitute, the conscienceless wretch who wallows in vice and mire and strong liquor in a back street of Shadwell, but to the woman of some breeding and delicacy, the “well-dressed” creature, in fact, who does not habitually “walk the streets,” but betakes herself to places of popular resort for persons of a “fast” turn, and who have money, and are desirous of expending some of it in “seeing life.” Such a woman would be a frequent visitant at the Argyll Rooms, for instance; let us turn to Mr. Acton, and see how vastly she enjoys herself there. “The most striking thing to me about the place was an upper gallery fringed with this sort of company. A sprinkling of each class seemed to be there by assignation, and with no idea of seeking acquaintances. A number of both sexes, again, were evidently visitors for distraction’s sake alone; the rest were to all intents and purposes in quest of intrigues. “The utter indifference of the stylish loungers in these shambles contrasted painfully with the anxious countenances of the many unnoticed women whom the improved manners of the time by no means permit to make advances. I noticed some very sad eyes, that gave the lie to laughing lips, as they wandered round in search of some familiar face in hope of friendly greeting. There was the sly triumph of here and there a vixenish hoyden with her leash of patrons about her, and the same envy, hatred, and malice of the neglected ‘has-been’ that some have thought they saw in everyday society. The glory of the ascendant harlot was no plainer than the discomfiture of her sister out of luck, whom want of elbow-room and excitement threw back upon her vacant self. The affectation of reserve and gentility that pervaded the pens of that upper region seemed to me but to lay more bare the skeleton; and I thought, as I circulated among the promiscuous herd to groundlings, that the sixpenny balcony would better serve to point a moral than the somewhat more natural, and at all events far more hilarious, throng about me. As far as regarded public order, it seemed an admirable arrangement; to the proprietor of the rooms, profitable; of most of its cribbed and cabined occupants, a voluntary martyrdom; in all of them, in making more plain their folly and misfortunes, a mistake.