of acquiring what she wants by more easy methods, dispenses her from the necessity of crime, and on these very grounds prostitution represents the specific form of feminine criminality.”  The authors add that “prostitution is, in a certain sense, socially useful as an outlet for masculine sexuality and a preventive of crime” (Lombroso and Ferrero, La Donna Delinquente, 1893, p. 571).

Those who have opposed this view have taken various grounds, and by no means always understood the position they are attacking.  Thus W. Fischer (in Die Prostitution) vigorously argues that prostitution is not an inoffensive equivalent of criminality, but a factor of criminality.  Fere, again (in Degenerescence et Criminalite), asserts that criminality and prostitution are not equivalent, but identical.  “Prostitutes and criminals,” he holds, “have as a common character their unproductiveness, and consequently they are both anti-social.  Prostitution thus constitutes a form of criminality.”  The essential character of criminals is not, however, their unproductiveness, for that they share with a considerable proportion of the wealthiest of the upper classes; it must be added, also, that the prostitute, unlike the criminal, is exercising an activity for which there is a demand, for which she is willingly paid, and for which she has to work (it has sometimes been noted that the prostitute looks down on the thief, who “does not work"); she is carrying on a profession, and is neither more nor less productive than those who carry on many more reputable professions.  Aschaffenburg, also believing himself in opposition to Lombroso, argues, somewhat differently from Fere, that prostitution is not indeed, as Fere said, a form of criminality, but that it is too frequently united with criminality to be regarded as an equivalent.  Moenkemoeller has more recently supported the same view.  Here, however, as usual, there is a wide difference of opinion as to the proportion of prostitutes of whom this is true.  It is recognized by all investigators to be true of a certain number, but while Baumgarten, from an examination of eight thousand prostitutes, only found a minute proportion who were criminals, Stroehmberg found that among 462 prostitutes there were as many as 175 thieves.  From another side, Morasso (as quoted in Archivio di Psichiatria, 1896, fasc.  I), on the strength of his own investigations, is more clearly in opposition to Lombroso, since he protests altogether against any purely degenerative view of prostitutes which would in any way assimilate them with criminals.

The question of the sexuality of prostitutes, which has a certain bearing on the question of their tendency to degeneration, has been settled by different writers in different senses.  While some, like Morasso, assert that sexual impulse is a main cause inducing women to adopt a prostitute’s career, others assert that prostitutes are usually almost devoid of