Where slavery was banished in its outward appearance in society, prostitution, which is really a slave business, simply changed hands. The expert prostitute is the center of this traffic; she not only brings up young girls to it, taking her share of the profits, but to her gravitate the ruined or deserted women, who are too ashamed to go home or who perhaps have none to go to. Before her they feel no shame; and with her welcome, unspoiled by the cold reproaches of hard speech that the virtuous too often proffer with their assistance, she gives kindness and sympathy and also practical help and a means of subsistence.