Book excerpt: During the course of the years in which I have been more or less closely associated with other prostitutes I have frequently listened to explanations as to just what this one or that owed her degradation; the particular villainy to which she attributed her advent into a life of shame. The usual story is one of seduction by a lover under the inevitable extenuating circumstance of "before I really knew anything," with the occasional variation, "he put something in my drink, and when I came too..." or, "he was stronger than I was and I couldn't do anything." In these glib stories, in which none but the inconsequential details vary, the man is always to blame and the girl is never a willing accomplice. She is always, by artifice, force or deception, and subsequent abandonment, the victim of some man's depravity. I confess that I have listened to these tales and even witnessed a few tears of self-pity, with a certain amount of scepticism. In thinking back over my own life I can find nothing which would serve as a valid excuse to shift upon somebody else the responsibility of my own condition, nor can I in justice accuse any man of having instigated my moral degradation, although the number of those who have taken advantage of my voluntary delinquency is legion. True, were I to hypocritically search for some contributing factor with which to justify myself in my own mind or in the minds of others, I might place some blame upon the environment under which I was raised as a child, yet, a conscientious analysis of my subsequent life leads me to no other conclusion than that had these conditions been entirely normal I would still, just as water seeks its level, have drifted into a life analogous to that in which you find me. I do not believe that character is made by environment or training. I am something of a fatalist and it is my conviction that the seeds of goodness or badness, kindness or malevolence, virtue or viciousness, are implanted in the soul right from the beginning, and while some slight modifications either for better or for worse may be possible under varying circumstances, the net result will not be greatly changed. In my childhood days I knew two brothers, sons of affluent parents highly respected in the community. These two boys were raised under the most favourable home and moral environment possible to imagine. The elder, always the personification of honour and circumspection, occupies a position of trust high in the affairs of the nation. The younger child of the same parents, raised under exactly the same conditions and influences, early in life manifested all the characteristics of an irresponsible nature and is today being sought for his participation in a robbery which culminated in murder. I know of other such instances.