Moreover, Satin inspired her with an awful fear of the police.

She was full of anecdotes about them.

Formerly she had been the mistress of a plain-clothes man, had consented to this in order to be left in peace, and on two occasions he had prevented her from being put "on the lists." But at present she was in a great fright, for if she were to be nabbed again there was a clear case against her.
You had only to listen to her! For the sake of perquisites the police used to take up as many women as possible.

They laid hold of everybody and quieted you with a slap if you shouted, for they were sure of being defended in their actions and rewarded, even when they had taken a virtuous girl among the rest.

In the summer they would swoop upon the boulevard in parties of twelve or fifteen, surround a whole long reach of sidewalk and fish up as many as thirty women in an evening.