I will endeavour to supply the missing answers.
Eighty per cent. of the women charged repeatedly with drunkenness belong to one class, and may be described as "unfortunates." The number of these women has increased tremendously during the last twenty years. The growth of London accounts partly for this increase in the number of "unfortunates," and the growth of provincial towns supplements the growth of London. In all our large centres we have, then, a large army of women whose lives are beyond description, whose vocation renders drinking compulsory, and whose habits bring them into conflict with the police. Their convictions, which number many thousands, should be charged to another evil.
Of the remaining twenty per cent. I must also give some description. Ten per cent. of them are demented old women, who spend their lives in workhouses or prisons, upon whom a small amount of drink takes great effect.
The remaining ten per cent. may be considered more or less respectable, but my experience has led me to believe that less rather than more would be a fitting description. I want it to be clearly understood that I am now speaking of women "repeaters," not of women who are occasionally charged with drunkenness.
In considering female intemperance, the above must be eliminated, and when this is done I think it will be found that the alleged increase of drunkenness among women is not proved. At any rate, it is not proved by criminal statistics. But a great change has come over women: they are no longer ashamed of being seen in public-houses, for respectable women are by no means careful about the company they meet and associate with in the public-houses. In police-courts I have noticed this growing change. Time was when few or no women were found among the audiences that assembled day by day in the courts. It is not the case now. Formerly, if women had any connection with cases that were coming on, they discreetly waited in the precincts of the court till they were called by the police or the usher.
It is very different now, for there is no scarcity of women, ready to listen to all repulsive details of police-court charges. Sometimes, when the order is given for women to leave the court, some women are ready to argue the matter with the usher; and when ultimately compelled to leave, it is evident they do so under protest, and with a sense of personal grievance.