[394] “The root of all improvement must be the mistress’s own conviction, religious and sincere, of the truth that she and her servants share one common womanhood, with aims, hopes, and interests distinctly defined, and pursued with equal eagerness; with a life here meant as a school for the next life; with an immortal soul.”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 130.
[395] “Neither labor nor material can possibly be got ‘cheaply,’ that is, below its average acknowledged cost, without somebody being cheated: consequently, these devotees to cheapness are, very frequently, little better than genteel swindlers.”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 72.
[396] Mary Barton, by Mrs. Gaskell, vol. i., p. 258 (London edition.)
[397] Report of the Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, to the Governors of the Alms House, 1854, p. 26.
[398] On a former page the results of a police investigation of the number of prostitutes in London in the year 1857 is given. It will be remembered that only 8600 common women were reported, in a population of nearly 2,500,000. The inquiries in New York and London would alike lead to the opinion that the extent of the vice is generally overrated.
[399] Report of Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, to the Governors of the Alms-house, New York, for 1856, p. 40.
[400] Ibid., 1857, p. 26.
[401] The list of questions inclosed was a printed copy of the interrogatories used in New York, and already given in these pages.
[402] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49.
[403] Ibid. p. 87.