cessful,
than they ever could be as workers. The sale of their sex opens up to
them the same opportunities of gain that gambling on the
stock-exchange or betting on the racecourse, for instance, opens up to
men. It also offers the same joy of excitement, undoubtedly a very
important factor. There are a considerable number of women who are
drawn to and kept in the profession, not through necessity, but
through neurosis.

There is no doubt that prostitution is very profitable to the clever
trader. I was informed by one woman, for instance, that a certain
country, whose name I had perhaps better withhold, "Is a Paradise for
women." Quite a considerable fortune, either in money or jewels, may
be reaped in a few months and sometimes in a few weeks. But the woman
must keep her head; cleverness is more important even than beauty. I
learnt that it was considered foolish to remain with the same partner
for more than two nights, the oftener a change was made the greater
the chance of gain. The richest presents are given as a rule by young
boys or old men: some of these boys are as young as fifteen years.

Now the really extraordinary thing to me was that my informant had
plainly no idea of my moral sensibility being shocked at these
statements. Of course, if I had shown the least surprise or
condemnation, she would at once have agreed with me--but I didn't. I
was trying to see things as she saw them, and my interest caused her
really to speak to me as she felt. I am certain of this, as was proved
to me in a subsequent conversation, in which I was told the history of
a girl friend, who had got into difficulties and been helped by my
informant. (These women are almost always kind and generous to one
another. I know of one case in which a woman who had been trapped into
a bogus marriage and then deserted, afterwards helped with money the
girl and bastard child, also left by the man who had deceived her.)
The story was ended with this extraordinary remark, "_It was all my
friend's own fault, she was not particular who she went with; she
would go with any man just because she took a fancy to him. I often
told her how foolish she was, but she always said she could not help
it._"

It was then that I realised the immensity of the gulf which separated
my outlook from that of this successful courtesan. To her _to be not
particular_ was to give oneself without a due return in money: to
me----! Well, I needed all my control at that momen