“When I was a young man,” said a physician to the writer, “I used to think that if a woman who had just taken her first step in infamy were to visit certain of the wards in the great hospitals and see the masses of living putrescence, which were once fair women, who are there rotting away on their last couches, the sight would serve to drive them back into the paths of rectitude and virtue, though all other argument on earth would fail to do so. Doctors get used to terrible sights, but the venereal ward of an hospital never ceases to shock and disgust. No amount of use can make the physician on each recurring visit less sensible of the overwhelming calamity that has overtaken these hapless victims of brutal lust.” So certain are these terrible consequences to ensue on a life of shame, that women of this class seldom put in a year of the life without contracting one or other of the dreadful diseases which afflict and pursue them to the grave. Their time is spent between the bagnio and the hospital, and each recurrence of their disorders makes them more and more whited sepulchres, moving like an incarnate plague, dealing out poisoned contamination to their guilty male associates, a contamination that confirm in a striking way the terrible dictum of scripture, that the sins of the father shall be visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation. Verily “Her house is the way of hell, leading down to the chambers of death.” No matter what opinion may be entertained with regard to the proper methods of LESSENING THE EVILS OF PROSTITUTION it is impossible to witness the downward course of its victims without regret and pity. Even in cases where the life has been chosen with the utmost deliberation from the worst of motives, it is but natural that the condign punishment that surely awaits the modern Magdalen should awaken our sympathy, and kindle in the philanthropic mind a desire to turn out of the road of such calamity the erring feet of wilful women. It is not the purpose of these sketches to preach. The aim has been merely to point out what exists in our midst, and leave public opinion in its aggregate wisdom to settle the problems which these facts present. Every right-thinking person must sympathize with the efforts that Christian men and women make to rescue this class from their lives of sin. The legislators of the province in establishing the Mercer prison, dealt with the question both in a penal and reformatory spirit. Other lesser institutions have been founded by philanthropic persons entirely reformatory and helpful in their character. Of this nature are the Magdalen asylum and the Haven. Both of these undoubtedly do commendable work. The percentage of reformations effected is certainly small, but small as it is it encourages the willing workers to go on. Their chief endeavors should be directed towards eradicating from public sentiment the feeling that the woman who loses her honor CAN NEVER CLIMB BACK