But my surprise was greatest at finding that in H---- _there did not exist a lodging-house for women only_ apart from the charitable institutions. The only refuge for a destitute woman, therefore, was the common lodging-house with men and women (ostensibly married). I felt that to go alone into one of these would be like putting my head into a lion's den, for I was told that one of the men had put his arm round the waist of a lady visitor with the easy freedom born of sex relations there prevailing. What must have been the conditions for women in a town of this size before the erection of the Army Shelter some four years ago? The common lodging-houses, poor as they were, afforded shelter, I was assured, only for about seventy women, including those really married. But _between_ service, or respectable occupation of any kind, and the common lodging-house, existed in all its ramifications, like a spider's web, "the life," as a way out of destitution. Only those who fell out of this life through illness or from other causes, as a rule descended to the "lowest depths," the common lodging-houses, which therefore contained only the most abandoned women. Some efforts to reach these were being made, but the helpers despaired of really raising them, and with good cause. It is evident that though hope must not be abandoned for anyone, a woman who has sunk into poverty even out of a life of vice, and who still retains all her desire for it (which she indulges in if it is obtainable) must be a woman out of whom womanhood is perishing, love of drink taking hold in most instances. Yet God forbid that we should judge these poor creatures, often capable of love to one another, and of kindnesses which might make us blush. We do not know what circumstances, for which we may be responsible in God's sight, gave them the push downward.[100]
But, evidently, unless in this town there were charitable institutions dealing with the problem of destitution among women, a life of vice would be their only alternative, simply from the fact that a certain degree of poverty would force them to lodge with those to whom it was familiar, and they would naturally succumb.[101]
I had no means of ascertaining what other homes or remedial agencies existed, except that I was told there did exist one other semi-charitable refuge to which the police took girls found on the streets. I gathered, however, that this was more of the nature of a home than of a lodging-house. The municipality was building a large men's lodging-house, but not one for women.