Excerpt from book: children of people in the working classes of society, which will be shown by and by to be the principal reason why they resort to a life of prostitution. PROSTITUTION AMONGST SERVANTS, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY PURSUE IT. Prostitution amongst servants is a very aggravated and unsuspected evil. Strangers, and often characters of the worst description, are by this means admitted into the houses of respectable families, where thefts, to a considerable extent, are not unfrequently committed. So many cases of this kind have come to the writer's knowledge, that he considers it his duty to disclose all that he knows to the public of those unjustifiable practices, and by this means put many on their guard who are unconsciously exposed to this evil. It has already been observed, that there may be about 300 servants in Edinburgh who deliver themselves up more or less to a life of clandestine prostitution. Three hundred families are thus at the mercy of unprincipled domesties, and are liable to have their property destroyed or carried off by individuals who have been admitted into their dwellings without their knowledge or consent. Were all who are admitted acquaintances of the girls, who are accessary to their entrance, there might be some plea in mitigation of the crime, or rather less danger of loss to the masters arising from it; but girls who are thus disposed, in general admit only those whose names and callings are at first utterly unknown to them. Their object in preferring strangers is, that they run less chance of being detected in their evil conduct, and that they may use greater liberties, and be enabled also to conceal their own names. Although girls do not in general admit the same individual oftener than once, instances sometimes occur where improper intercourse is...