At the same time the protector spies on the police for the benefit of the prostitute. Sometimes he assumes the position of legitimate husband, so as to facilitate taking rooms. A "husband" of this kind, with a citizen's rights, is very useful to foreign prostitutes, for without him they would risk expulsion. The protector is generally a scamp of the worst kind, an absolutely depraved and idle vagabond who is entirely maintained by his "wife." Some protectors shine by their sexual power, and are at the same time the real lovers of the prostitutes, who keep them, and are plundered by them. While they submit to coitus with their clients without any pleasure, and only simulate voluptuous sensations, they abandon themselves to their protectors or lovers with ardor. It is needless to add that the protectors are often criminals, or of the criminal type. Those who are well acquainted with prostitution declare that it would be impossible without the protector, who is at the same time the friend, protector and exploiter of the prostitute, while the brothel keeper is only concerned with her wholesale systematic exploitation. =Brothels and Proxenets.=--Under the pretext of avoiding the dangers of prostitution in the streets, brothels were organized. These are generally managed by an elderly female profligate, often in partnership with a "husband," who is only a superior kind of protector. Officially, the prostitutes are free lodgers in the brothel, but in reality they are often prisoners or slaves. They are well fed and dressed in a way to attract the clients as much as possible. Clothes, food, etc., are placed to their account and the crafty brothel keeper generally manages to get them into debt so as to always remain their creditor. In this way these miserable outcasts of society, who are generally incapable of claiming their legal rights, are more or less reduced to slavery. Apparently they are free, but in reality they can hardly leave the house without paying their debts, and the brothel keeper who wishes to keep them arranges so that they cannot pay it. It is not always easy to distinguish between the different classes of prostitutes: the prostitute of the brothel, the street prostitute under inscription or not, the private prostitute and lorette or grisette. Sometimes a woman may rise from one class to another; but more often she falls lower and lower. We may mention here one of the dangers of brothels. Their good organization, their medical supervision, etc., are extolled; but the great danger of the arithmetical progression of mutations in sexual intercourse is ignored. While a private prostitute rarely receives more than one client in an evening, and is not absolutely obliged to receive more, every prostitute in a brothel is forced to receive as many as present themselves. A girl may thus have connection with men twenty or thirty times in the same night.