[2] Although there are not yet any very clear signs of the decay
of prostitution in civilisation, there can hardly be a doubt that
civilisation is unfavourable to houses of prostitution. They offer no
inducements to the more intelligent and independent prostitutes, and
their inmates usually present little attraction to any men save those
whose demands are of the humblest character. There is, therefore, a
tendency to the natural and spontaneous decay of organised houses of
prostitution under modern civilised conditions; the prostitute and her
clients alike shun such houses. Along this line we may foresee the
disappearance of the White Slave Traffic, apart altogether from any
social or legal attempts at its direct suppression.[3]
It is sometimes said that the relation of the isolated prostitute to her
_souteneur_ constitutes a form of "white slavery." Undoubtedly that may
sometimes be the case. We are here in a confused field where the facts
are complicated by a number of considerations, and where circumstances
may very widely differ, for the "fancy boy"--selected from affection by
the prostitute herself--may easily become the _souteneur_, or "cadet" as
he is termed in New York, who seduces and trains to prostitution a large
number of girls. The prostitute is so often a little weak in character
and a little defective in intelligence; she is so often regarded as a
legitimate prey by the world in which she moves, and a legitimate object
of contempt and oppression by the social world above her and its legal
officers, that she easily becomes abjectly dependent on the man who in
some degree protects her from this extortion, contempt, and oppression,
even though he sometimes trains her to his own ends and exploits her
professional activities for his own advantage.
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