victorious power, of his holiness.  Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! such creatures ought to be killed even more than gliding snakes, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf that falls upon the fold, or than the she-frog that falls upon the waters with her thousandfold brood” (Zend-Avesta, the Vendidad, translated by James Darmesteter, Farfad XVIII).

In practice, however, prostitution is well established in the modern East.  Thus in the Tartar-Turcoman region houses of prostitution lying outside the paths frequented by Christians have been described by a writer who appears to be well informed ("Orientalische Prostitution,” Geschlecht und Gesellschaft, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft 1).  These houses are not regarded as immoral or forbidden, but as places in which the visitor will find a woman who gives him for a few hours the illusion of being in his own home, with the pleasure of enjoying her songs, dances, and recitations, and finally her body.  Payment is made at the door, and no subsequent question of money arises; the visitor is henceforth among friends, almost as if in his own family.  He treats the prostitute almost as if she were his wife, and no indecorum or coarseness of speech occurs.  “There is no obscenity in the Oriental brothel.”  At the same time there is no artificial pretence of innocence.

In Eastern Asia, among the peoples of Mongolian stock, especially in China, we find prostitution firmly established and organized on a practical business basis.  Prostitution is here accepted and viewed with no serious disfavor, but the prostitute herself is, nevertheless, treated with contempt.  Young children are frequently sold to be trained to a life of prostitution, educated accordingly, and kept shut up from the world.  Young widows (remarriage being disapproved) frequently also slide into a life of prostitution.  Chinese prostitutes often end through opium and the ravages of syphilis (see, e.g., Coltman’s The Chinese, 1900, Ch.  VII).  In ancient China, it is said prostitutes were a superior class and occupied a position somewhat similar to that of the hetairae in Greece.  Even in modern China, however, where they are very numerous, and the flower boats, in which in towns by the sea they usually live, very luxurious, it is chiefly for entertainment, according to some writers, that they are resorted to.  Tschang Ki Tong, military attache in Paris (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), describes the flower boat as less analogous to a European brothel than to a cafe chantant; the young Chinaman comes here for music, for tea, for agreeable conversation with the flower-maidens, who are by no means necessarily called upon to minister to the lust of their visitors.

In Japan, the prostitute’s lot is not so degraded as in China.  The greater refinement of Japanese civilization allows the prostitute to retain a higher degree of self-respect.  She