Such people as I have indicated, do not offer the problems which assail the rank and file. Personality, which in its ultimate, means resistance, is difficult to destroy, but given a long monotone of semi-starvation and lack of easy sleep, its fibres disintegrate and gradually weaken. Change of suffering is a stimulus; the sudden alternation of prosperity with penury inspires the imagination and revives the spirit. My friend of the plush coat had known such contrasting periods and by such means maintained her capacity to fight. But the overwhelming majority of the destitute work an unending treadmill in which lean day succeeds lean day, varied only by the fitful night.

Such an existence effaces individuality, weighs down the will, clogs the instinct to do battle which is the heritage of man. And so my sisters of the street have not the power to find out newer ways of making pence. They respond automatically to a rebuff and human sympathy has lost for them its interior significance.