-five per cent of the cases the original
cause, direct or contributory, was a desire for luxury which took the
form of fine clothes. Now these women tell one what they think one would
like to hear, and, where they scent sympathy, as much as possible
attribute their fall to man's deceit. But acumen develops in the
investigator; the figure of twenty-five per cent is correct or may even
be an underestimate.

The conclusion is that from fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand
women now on the streets of London have been brought there by a desire
for self-adornment. Meanwhile there is no labor available for the poor
consumer, because the energy of the dressmaker is diverted toward the
rich; while Miss So-and-So is paid $4000 a year to design hats, the
workwoman wears a man's cap rescued from the refuse heap.

I shall be told that the rich are not responsible for the luxurious
desires of the poor; but that is evidently nonsense: the rich themselves
are not innocent of prostitution. I have had reported the case of a
well-paid Russian dancer whose dress bills are paid by two financiers;
that of a French actress who calmly states that she needs three lovers,
one for her hats, one for her lingerie, and one for her gowns; and a
close inquiry into the "bridge losses" which occasionally provoke the
fall of rich men's daughters will show that these are dressmakers'
bills. All this is not without its effect upon the poor. The girl of the
lower classes, hypnotized by fashion plates, compelled to witness at the
doors of fashionable churches, in the street, at the music halls, and
even at the picture palaces, the continuous streaming past of the
fashion pageant, develops an intolerable desire for finery. You may say
that she is wrong, that she should practice self-denial, but this is not
an age of self-denial; luxury is in the air, we despair of happiness and
take to pleasure, we feel the future life too far ahead, we want to
enjoy. It is natural enough, especially for girls who are young and who
feel unfairly outclassed by richer women who are neither as young nor as
beautiful; but still it is base. If baseness is to go, the lesson must
come from the top; if there is to be self-denial, then _que messieurs
les assassins commencent!_ Until the rich woman realizes that her
example is her responsibility it will be fair to say that the Albemarle
Street $500 gown has its consequence in a prostitute on the Tottenham
Court Road.

The rich w