"She learned the pitiful story, that they must suffer who live,
While selling her soul in the gutters for all that the gutters give."
—From Lost Souls.
There was a cold air running along the street when I stepped into the open and took my way along the town to Moran's model where I lodged. I felt disappointed, vexed, and ashamed of my ludicrous exhibition on the stage. Forty-seven seconds! As I walked along I could hear the referee repeating the words over and over again. Forty-seven seconds! I was both angry and ashamed, angry at my own weakness, and ashamed of the presumption which urged me to attack a professional athlete. I walked quickly, trying to drive all memories of the night from my mind.
The hour of midnight rang out, and the streets were almost deserted. Here and there a few night-prowlers stole out from some gloomy alley and hurried along, bent, no doubt, upon some fell mission which could only be carried through under cover of the darkness. Once a belated drunken man swayed in front of me, and asked for a match to light his pipe. I had none to give him, and he cursed me as I passed on. I met a few women on the streets, young girls whose cheeks were very red, and whose eyes were very bright. This was the hour when these, our little sisters, carry on the trade which means life to their bodies and death to their souls. It is so easy to recognise them! Their eyes sparkle brightly in the lamplight; they speak light and trivial words to the men whom they meet, and ever they hold their skirts lifted well over their ankles so that those whom they meet may know of the goods which they sell. The sisters of the street barter their chastity for little pieces of silver, and from them money can purchase the rightful heritage of love.
These, like navvies, are outcasts and waifs of society. They are despised by those who hide imperfections under the mask of decency, men and women who are so conscious of their own shortcomings that they make up for them by censuring those of others.
White slavery is now the term used in denoting these girls' particular kind of slavery. But, bad as it is, it is chosen by many women in preference to the slavery of the mill and the needle. As I write this, there are many noble ladies, famed for having founded several societies for the suppression of evils that never existed, who believe that the solution of the white slave problem can only be arrived at by flogging men who live on the immoral earnings of women. This solution if extended might meet the case. In all justice the lash should be laid on the backs of the employers who pay starvation wages, and the masters who fatten on sweated labour. The slavery of the shop and the mill is responsible for the shame of the street.
A girl came out from the shadow of a doorway, and walked along the street in front of me, her head held down against the cutting breeze. Sometimes she spoke words to the men who passed her, but all went on unheeding. Only to those who were well-dressed and prosperous-looking did she speak.
I thought of my own sisters away home in Ireland, and here, but for the grace of God, went one of them. At that moment I felt sick of life and sorry for civilisation and all its sin.
I detected something familiar in the figure of the woman before me. Perhaps I had met the woman before. I overtook her, and when passing looked at her closely.