Once this has happened, it is very difficult for a girl to get back to routine work. To begin with, she will have no reference, for⁠—and this is an important point⁠—in the majority of instances she will not face her former mistress and give a tangible account of her absence, nor will she tell the truth. Most girls in such a case prefer to lose the wages due to them and forfeit their clothes⁠—and the pressure of hard facts soon sends them on to the street.

I have mentioned that many of these girls come from the North of England, particularly from Liverpool. The explanation for this is interesting. In Liverpool, as elsewhere, if a girl be convicted a number of times for solicitation, she is more or less marked down by the police, and the surveillance renders it difficult, if not impossible, for her to approach likely clients. For this reason she migrates to London with its larger area and its many avenues of escape from official espionage. As a rule, it is but rarely that this type of prostitute is arrested. Of necessity she plies her trade in out-of-the-way spots, not venturing into competition with her more opulent sisters of Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly.