After this incident, although I saw no more drinking in the room, I observed that each time they re-appeared they were all getting drunker and drunker. The landlady of the house, a coarse, scowling woman, tried to keep them quiet, but they sang snatches of song, and swore, and quarreled, and blows were ever and anon freely interchanged. It was a scene I can neither describe nor forget, and I was overjoyed in more ways than one when I saw Pearl, who was the only one who was anyways sober, go to the door and return with my man. I had the handcuffs on him before he recovered from his surprise. When it was known that an arrest had been made in the house, there was a great hubbub. Women rushed here and there like demented things, and I took advantage of this consternation to slip out with my prisoner. Again, I say, that there is not one tinge of romance, sentiment or any other ennobling thing about the lives of evil women. There is no passion, not even sensuality on the part of the woman, nothing but a dirty account of bargain and sale, that one of the parties to the transaction may compound with a rapacious brothel-keeper for her lodgings and semi-occasional meals.” With this remark my friend moved away. CHAPTER XXXVII. LEADING DOWN TO DEATH. It is seldom possible to watch the whole career of an abandoned woman. As they step lower and lower in abasement they keep moving from city to city until they reach a stage where the next descent must be into the grave. It is, therefore, difficult to trace their progress, from the “high-toned” fast house to the hospital pallet where they finish a life of loathsomeness by a still more loathsome death. It has been calculated that the average span of existence for a woman who embraces a life of shame does not average more than five or six years. A year of the irregular life suffices to seriously impair that youth and their good looks, and then they begin to experience the bitterness and the hatefulness of the terrible trade which they have launched themselves. The extravagance and improvidence of their natures soon put them completely in the power of the soulless harridan who keeps the house. She contrives that they shall always be owing her money. She has good security in their wardrobes, and their lives from this time out become one long struggle with debt, hatred of the landlady who oppresses them, ill-health, and disease. Information derived from many quarters shows with unmistakeable distinctness THE AWFUL PUNISHMENTS which follow hard upon the heels of the sin of unchastity. Interviews with medical men set forth a state of affairs the recital of which beggars language to give it due utterance. All that is horrible in human misery and possible in physical debility and degradation visits the bodies of these poor outcasts of the earth.