Old women, with a long record of shame and immorality behind them, and with their bold faces covered with cosmetics to hide the ravages of time.

Rough men, with their flannel shirts and their trousers tucked into their high, mud-covered boots.
Young men of the city, dressed well and apparently respectable, yet all yielding to their passion for strong drink and the charms of lewdness and indecency.

A strange, wild gathering of all grades and conditions, mingling in a disgraceful orgie which the pen refuses to depict.

How many stories of happy homes wrecked and broken could be related by these painted lizards who now were swimming in this whirlpool of licentious gratification! How many men, whose past careers of honor and reputation had been thrown away, were here gathered in this brothel, participating in so-called amusements, which a few years ago would have appalled them! Ah, humanity is a strange study, and debased humanity the strangest and saddest of them all.
[Illustration: Manning and his companion stood for some time gazing at the scenes around them.] The detective was aroused from his reflections by the voice of his companion.
"What do you think of this ?" "I scarcely know," answered Manning, sadly.

"I have seen much of the under-current of social life, but this exceeds anything I have ever before experienced." "Oh, this is comparatively nothing," said the other.