Many girls, said Ellice Hopkins, get into mischief merely because they have in them an element of the "black kitten," which must frolic and play, but has no desire to get into danger. "Do you not think it a little hard," she added, "that men should have dug by the side of her foolish dancing feet a bottomless pit, and that she cannot have her jump and fun in safety, and put on her fine feathers like the silly bird-witted thing she is, without a single false step dashing her over the brink, and leaving her with the very womanhood dashed out of her?"

[203]

A. Sherwell, Life in West London, 1897, Ch. V.

[204]

As quoted by Bloch, Sexualleben Unserer Zeit, p. 358. In Berlin during recent years the number of prostitutes has increased at nearly double the rate at which the general population has increased. It is no doubt probable that the supply tends to increase the demand.

[205]

Goncourt, Journal, vol. iii, p. 49.