Dickens makes a point to describe the women who hang out at thee Cripples. How does he do so, and why?

".......... and women: some with the last lingering tinge of their early freshness almost fading as you looked: others with every mark and stamp of their sex utterly beaten out, and presenting but one loathsome blank of profligacy and crime; some mere girls, others but young women, and none past the prime of life; formed the darkest and saddest portion of this dreary picture."

Dickens makes a point of describing the women because this is what happened to the girls who hung out and obviously made a living as prostitutes at the Three Cripples. Note; he says the saddest portion of the picture is the "mere girls" or "young women," as they would soon become the earlier picture he paints of women "utterly beaten out."