“Well, sir, I didn’t come here to be made a target for your humor. Where is the editor in chief?” “You will find him down stairs, sir.” But the editor was out. He is always “out” when cowardly cattle who beat their wives are around. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE SCARLET WOMAN. The pickpocket who steals your watch, the burglar who invades your house in the middle of the night, or the foot-pad who knocks you down with a sand-bag, are citizens whom it is rather unpleasant to have any experience with, but it were better a thousand times to become the prey of any of these hawks of the night than that of those pitiless kites—the scarlet women of a great city. Against the thief the good burgher locks his doors and bars his windows, but these legionaries of passion assail a citadel where the master himself opens the gates and lets the insidious foe enter unopposed, if not with welcome. Every city on this continent, not to speak of other lands at all, is afflicted with this army of iniquitous women. They form by far the largest section of the vicious classes in every great community of people. The evils they inflict on society, and the terrible consequences of their manner of life to themselves, temporally and spiritually, have constituted a theme for the moralist and a problem for the social reformer in all lands and in all ages. Toronto, as has been before remarked in these sketches, is not a particularly wicked city. Few great crimes are perpetrated in our midst and but few great criminals claim this city as their home. But the fact that about 400 women openly live by a life of shame in this city speaks for itself. In the day time the public promenades are liberally sprinkled with FLASHY FEMALES