“Inflooence” is first cousin to Mrs. Grundy. Inflooence is king—Mrs. Grundy queen.

Note you how some men leave their quiet and virtuous homes where Mrs. Grundy’s goggle eyes are on every side, and go to New York where Mrs. Grundy is not watching them. How intent they are on seeing the “elephant,” and how they do buy green goods and gold bricks! Great is “Inflooence”—great is Mrs. Grundy!

A grimy tramp with thick neck and knotty club possesses “inflooence.” His wishes in rural districts at least are often respected.

Now you are a woman. You may be free from guilt and you may not, but if you are purity itself—sorrowfully do I say it!—in the year of Our Lord, 1891, innocence is not a sufficient shield; and if you are weak, weary and footsore, from the miles and miles you have come down through years of injustice, and the crowd is pressing you close with intent to stone you, it is a miracle if from out the mob there steps the commanding figure of a man, and raising his hand aloft to warn them back, says in a voice not loud but which all can hear,

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!”

[CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FREEZER.]

The freezer in No. 10 police-station is a very warm place—an iron cage set up on a platform in a large stone room; said cage being made of iron bars, set three inches apart, with iron floor; the furniture consisting of just two pieces, a wooden bench and an iron bucket. This cage is open on all sides. “So as to give ventilation,” I was told by the officer who helped me up the steps. He remarked as the grated door swung to with a snap, “Oh, now me charmer, you will feel at home, for you have been here many a time afore. Oh, we knows you, we do. If yer wants anything jist tech the ’lectric bell.”

This kind of cell, I am told by those who have tried both, is much worse to be dreaded than a dungeon. Open on all sides, the light is glaring; and any one coming into the room, can walk around the cage, viewing the unhappy prisoner from every side.

It was eleven o’clock Sunday morning when I was locked up, and about every hour an officer came in and looked at me as though I were a wild beast. Once two men came together, and stood carrying on a joking conversation between themselves. One seemed to be a philosopher, for as they went out I heard him say, “It beats the devil to what depths a woman falls when she does go wrong!”