Thus, for instance, we find Irma von Troll-Borostyáni saying in her book, Im Freien Reich (p. 176): "Go and ask these unfortunate creatures if they willingly and freely devoted themselves to vice. And nearly all of them will tell you a story of need and destitution, of hunger and lack of work, which compelled them to it, or else of love and seduction and the fear of the discovery of their false step which drove them out of their homes, helpless and forsaken, into the pool of vice from which there is hardly any salvation." It is, of course, quite true that the prostitute is frequently ready to tell such stories to philanthropic persons who expect to hear them, and sometimes even put the words into her mouth.
C. Booth, Life and Labour, final volume, p. 125. Similarly in Sweden, Kullberg states that girls of thirteen to seventeen, living at home with their parents in comfortable circumstances, have often been found on the streets.
W. Acton, Prostitution, 1870, pp. 39, 49.