“Yes,” said Mr. Lister. “I did not think but that you knew it, there are no courtesans. When woman saw that the success of her movement depended upon her solidly combining into one vast Sisterhood, she was confronted at the outset by the fearful chasm which existed between her and her so-called fallen sisters. How could the chasm be bridged? Studying this problem with agonizing earnestness, woman soon saw that the only way to solve it was for woman herself to at once and forever abolish the courtesan class. She clearly recognized the fact, and it was like a revelation to her, that the courtesan was but the extreme victim of an intolerably cruel and satanic dispensation; that the courtesan had been but a little more deeply trodden under foot than her more respectable sister. With this new view woman utterly discarded the idea that the courtesan was a special sinner to be approached with a moral tract and a condescending kind of forgiveness. The courtesan had been unspeakably sinned against, not only by man but by woman as well, and more, perhaps, than any sufferer from cruelty on the globe, deserved the loving pity and succour of her sisters. Seeing this, with real contrition the women decided at once that it was their first business to take these sisters who had been so cruelly perverted by man, to their own bosoms, not as if they were prodigals, but as if they were loved ones who had met with the most cruel blow of misfortune.” “This, bear in mind, was the first great act in the Woman’s Strike. By an edict which was as effectual and will be as celebrated in history as Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation, woman has forever abolished the courtesan class. There can never be another courtesan, simply because woman has formed a self-protecting league that will never permit it. Dastards there may be among men who will hereafter seek to take advantage of woman’s love, or her sweet complaisance toward man, but if such there be it were better for them if they had never been born. They only will be the sufferers. Held up to the scorn of the universe and forever ostracised by woman, their punishment will be as heavy as Cain’s. But whatever may take place, woman will never again allow one of her own sex to lose caste through man’s treachery. They will defend each other against the world.” “Can it be possible,” I said, “that so terrible a problem as the social evil, that has been hopelessly discussed by moral philosophers for ages, could be solved so quickly, and by woman, too?” “And who in God’s name,” said Mr. Lister, “if you stop to think of it, who but woman could ever abolish the courtesan class? Certainly not man. He is constantly creating courtesans. Nothing but a self-protecting league among all women, uniting them into one common sisterhood, could ever have stopped this evil. Moreover, the power to do it came with their combination into a universal sisterhood.”