YELLOW FEVER Is the “yellow fever bill,” so-called, with its $|w,fKKLap- propriation, to be used to introduce the A)Y legalized prostitution into the United States? [Bill approVrrtP June 2.] If not, why was Mr. Hamlin’s motion to recommit, with in- structions to report a code of rules and regulations to Congress, that they may judge of their merits, rejected? If not, why was Mr. Hoar’s amendment, requiring the nam- ing of the diseases over which the Board of Health should have power, rejected ? “ Parliament has appointed a commission of the opponents of the 4 British Contagious Diseases Acts,’ to inquire into their working—moral and hygienic. (An implied doubt of their util- ity!) * * * We are greatly encouraged. * * * Before, the commission was from friends of the acts. Sir Harcourt Johnstone and James M. Stanfield, M. P., are appointed on the commission.”—Josephine Butler, (Liverpool.) Mrs. Butler is the wife of a clergyman. She is lecturing in three languages for the repeal of the acts. IS IT RIGHT FOR LEGISLATORS TO DECEIVE THEIR CONSTITUENTS ? “One very great difficulty in the practical workings of a license-law would he the framing of a bill of an entirely unex- ceptionable character; as, if too conspicuous, it would at once call forth opposition. My opinion is that the entire subject better be brought in as it has been in England, under the head of a ‘ Contagious Diseases Act,’ a phrase not likely to excite suspicions, and would serve as a cloak to much that would otherwise be distasteful to the public.”—Dr. Gross. Comment is unnecessary. “We must follow our illustrious leader, Dr. Gross. * * * It is always the father who infects the innocent. Husbands thus murder their wives. * * * We must, manage to get control of the woman. * * * We must not use the word license, lest we seem to foster vice.” (!)—Dr. Sims. 2 “ If these laws are to be continued under the pretext that they are for the protection of innocent wives, mothers and chil- dren, in heaven’s name extend them to those that convey dis- ease to the wives and mothers.” [Cheers.]—James M. Stans- Jield, M. P., in a speech for the repeal of the “ English Con- tagious Diseases Act,” held in St. George’s Hall, Bradford, November 11, 1874. “ Prostitution is a necessity. * * * The object of a license- law is, not to prevent prostitution, but to arrest the spread of syphillis, and, through the agency of good men and women, to reclaim the so-called “fallen sister.—Dr. Gross. Then, why “ reclaim,” since others must take their places ? Can profligates aid in their reclamation ? If “ prostitution” is not a necessity for “good men,” why provide special necessi- ties for bad men? Have the advocates of legalized prostitution a daughter to dedicate to the debauchee f “A new law will disclose itself in the dim future, convert- ing a heretofore baneful class of society’into a blessing.”—Dr. Cressler, Pennsylvania. “ Hearing that my old friend and classmate, Hon. Mr. Dors- heimer had said: ‘A plan has been devised which will spring these regulations (of vice) upon the whole country,’ I inquired by letter if the statement was true ; he deigned not the courtesy of a reply. * * * Another member of the New York Legis- lature also refused an answer. These men must work in the dark.”—Wm. G. Elliott, St. Louis. “ The legalization of bawdy houses for so humane a pur- pose, (to protect his unoffending posterity,) startling as it may seem to a sensitive moral sense, has many powerful advo- cates among the thoughtful, wise,” (?) “ and philanthropic of the community. Dr. Gross, of Philadelphia, says: ‘ All must lend a helping hand in the great enterprise—the physician, the legislator, the philanthropist, the churchman, and the politician. W hen yellow fever prevails in a foreign country is not quaran- tine strictly enforced on all vessels touching our shores ? When the cattle plague prevails, is not the importation of cattle strictly prohibited ?’ I have alluded to this subject because it is at this time attracting the attention of sanitarians in various parts of the country, and may at no distant day be forced upon the con- sideration of the health authorities of this District.”—C. C. Cox, M. D., Board of Health Report, 1875, page 15. Do you allow throngs to visit vessels having yellow fever on board ? Do you let your cattle mingle with herds supposed to be infected ? Finding a man and woman with yellow fever, would you think of “stamping out disease ” by quarantining only the woman ? What an idiotic idea ! Why should not woman be protected as well as profligate men ? UNITED STATES SENATE. Contagious and Infectious Diseases Bill. (Congressional Record, May 1 to 24.) Mr. Whyte. The Senator from Tennessee, or who ever drew the bill which he has in charge, has put in here a provision authorizing the National Board of Health to adopt as its own any regulation of a State Board of Health. More than that, there is a power here which authorizes the National Board of Health to trample under foot any quarantine law or regulation of a State Board of Health which they do not approve, and substitute other regulations for them * * * which latter only are to be approved by the President. Hence, rules and regulations made bv a municipal or State board of health (made in secrecy) may be such as would place every poor man’s wife, daughter, sister, and female friend under police supervision and medical inspection, on suspicion of being a prostitute, and place her name on a “ roll of infamy,” with no law to protect her against outrage ; and if, through fear of removal, State and municipal boards of health “ fail or refuse to execute and enforce their own rules and regulations,” the bill passed by Congress authorizes the National Board of Health to adopt and execute and enforce them; and Mr. Harris, chair- man of the Committee on Epidemic Diseases, says : “ The sum of $500,000 is given to this board to make rules and regula- tions and to enforce them. In case of an epidemic, the sum would be too small.” No such provision is specified in the bill. Mr. Conkling. Is there any year when there is not an epi- demic ? No! Ditto pestilence. See Webster. A liberal sum truly for the preservation of the public health in the United States, which is superior to that of foreign coun- tries, where special provision is made to secure the health and lives of profligate men. For the week ending May 17, 1879, the death rate in the District of Columbia was 22.0 ; New York, 23.8. Week end- April 11: District of Columbia, 29.2 ; New York, 24.4 ; Bos- ton, 19.6; Philadelphia, 19.2. New Orleans, week ending April 13, was 23.9. Paris, 33.0.—Bulletin Public Health. 4 This statement justifies this assertion: The Administration has redoubled its activity, and yet sanitary statistics prove that clandestine prostitution is increasing, (proof of unwillingness to submit to enrolment as prostitutes,) and that it is becoming more dangerous than ever to the public health.—Lecour le Prostitution, Paris tt Londres, first edition, pages 254-255. During the administration of Governor Robinson of New York State the mayor of New York City stated in an address that the health of the citizens of New York was better than it had been in the last fifty years. Had licensed prostitution pre- vailed there for a few years, the friends of legalized vice would have attributed this fact to its “beneficent influence.” The views of John Simon, M. D., (Eng.,) are equally ap- plicable to the United States: On Programme of the Association for promoting the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866, to the civil population of the United Kingdom. To give a notion of the quantity of hospital accommodation which would be requisite to satisfy this programme, * * * if instead of insisting on these colossal estimates, we take only half their total result, the plan would require for London alone the creation and maintenance of new hospital accommodation nearly equal to that which is now given by the twelve general hospitals of London for all bodily diseases put together; ac- commodations, namely, for three thousand patients. The charge of maintaining (independent of constructing) such lazarets as the above, would probably represent a first cost little short of half a million of money. (Is the $500,000 appropriated by this Congress, for building and maintaining such lazarets as the above ?) Besides all which there would be considerable annual charges for police arrangements and medical inspections. And the requirements of other large towns would probably be in pro- portion. Demands like the above are not likely to be met by voluntary contributions. The result, if it can be got at ail, can only be got by action of law, and any such law whether empowering the central government to defray expenses out of general taxation, or empowering municipalities to assign local funds for the pur- pose, is, of course, in relation to minorities, compulsory. (Does Senator Logan see that our “ central government ” has appropriated $500,000 for something, they dare not tell what ?) Now, it is quite certain that, rightly or wrongly, the proposed appropriation of money would, in the eyes of very large num- bers of persons, be to the last degree odious and immoral. In most municipal constituencies there are swarms of persons who already find it no easy matter to satisfy the collectors of rates and taxes; they would see the prostitute kept in the hospital at their expense, not necessarily from the exigencies of any severe illness of her own, but essentially that she may be made ready tor hire. * * * They would remember, in contrast, that for themselves wonderfully little is done by authority to protect them, * * * and they might regard it as a strange caprice of law which should oblige them to con- tribute to the cost of giving an artificial security to their neigh- bors’ looseness of life. It seems to me very important * * * to consider on what principles, if any, the proposed intervention of law is to be justified. I suppose it may he assumed that, * * * whereas it (fornication) has some inherent inconveniences, among which is the liability to specific contagious maladies, such drawbacks from its attractions are not a matter of general social regret; that venereal diseases are, in principle, infections which a man contracts at his own option, and against which he cannot in any degree claim to be protected by action of others, the less so, of course, as his option is exercised in modes of life contrary to the common good; that thus, prima facie, the true policy of gov- ernment is to regard the prevention of venereal diseases as matter of exclusively private concern. Caveat emptor I. And though it must be admitted that, to some extent, the consequences of promiscuous fornication spread beyond the persons of the original performers, * * * this horrid fact is only one of many which might be cited, where innocent wives and children participate more or less severely in consequences which husbands and fathers have earned. * * * I very decidedly refrain from recommending any change in that neutral position which English law has hitherto held in regard to the venereal diseases of the civil population. * * * I believe that any departure from that position could do little but embarrass and disappoint. * * * Among arguments put forward to recommend a general superintendence of pros- titution, there is one which seems- to have gained for the pro- posal a considerable quantity of non-medical, particularly clerical, support. The report of the association alleges * * * im- provement in the moral and social condition of the women, * * * They may be cleanlier and mote orderly, changes on which no doubt the patrons of these persons and places may congratulate themselves, but which cannot, without extreme abuse of terms, be described as of any moral significance.— John Simon, M. D., in his report as medical officer to the lords of her Majesty’s most honorable Privy Council. Mr. Hamlin. Turning to the third section of this bill, we find that this board is made a co-ordinate branch with Congress. They are to make rules and regulations ad libitum. There are no restrictions, except that their measures are to be based on the laws of the United States. (And their bill gives them all the law they want.) * * * I think the committee should have given to us, that we may judge for ourselves, the rules. * * * This bill is the refiex, I take it, of this medical board. UNITED STATES SENATE. Mr. Edmunds. * * * I assert that in my solemn belief the Constitution of the United States has reserved to the States * * * the power to regulate the conduct of their own citi- zens in respect of health, * * * and therefore if you take this step you must follow it up. My friend from Maine (Mr. Blaine) goes the whole figure, and says it is in the power of Congress to enact a code of health laws for the whole Union. * * * If it has power to do that, it has power to do all the rest. * * * The act itself reads that whoever violates the regulations of a State board of health, which may be a mere private corporation like the ten thousand corporations that under the operations of the laws of the States and their society are continually raised up, and that are private corporations— eleemosynary, charitable corporations, health boards, &c., that have an independent corporate existence, and who have a charter that the State cannot change, unless it has reserved the power to change it when it granted the charter—whoever violates such rules and regulations as those shall be punished by a law of the United States. Both sanitary laws and quar- antine are provided for in this bill. For the information of the public (who have learned nothing of this debate from the press) we state: The bill creating this national board of health gave them $10 each per day when actually engaged, and $50,000 to defray their expenses. Another bill gave them $200,000 to experiment with a re- frigerating ship to freeze out yellow fever. Then a bill giving them $500,000 to use “ without restrie- tion,” when and where they please, For what ? Senator Harris (chairman of the committee on the bill) says: “ To make rules and regulations, and to execute and enforce the same.” Mr. Harris. In case of an epidemic the amount v-ould be too small. Subsequently, a little bill is passed authorizing this board to build hospitals and provide attendants for the same. When? Where ? For wdiat? None profess to know. June 20.—Still another. Mr. Goode, (Va.,) from the Committee on Epidemic Dis- eases, reported a bill appropriating $25,000 for a quarantine hospital in Hampton roads. We are told what this is for. HOUSE. Is the contagious diseases bill—this offspring of the Board of Health—this result of “ the capacity of medical men devoted to reform, and the inherent originality of the American mind”— is it, we ask, the bill that was to be “passed in the dim future ”— the “phrase that will serve as a ‘cloak’”—the “plan that was devised which will spring these regulations (of prostitution) upon the whole country ? ” While men are planning to legalize prostitution “throughout the country,” it would be well to remember that the National Capital has no law to punish incest or fornication; but twenty dollars fine for adultery ; none for abducting or enticing girls into houses of ill-fame; and men can seduce them at the age of twelve years, as, under the law, they are held to be of legal age to consent to their ruin. Women only are punished for enticing to prostitution. Should prostitution recei ve special protection under “ permits,” who will say the procurer’s trade will be less profitable than now; and what friend of legalized vice could complain if victims were taken from his own household ? Mr. Edmunds. Here you provide for a regulation of health per se. * * * I do not believe the powers of the United States extend to the health of the citizens of the United States. UNITED STATES SENATE. Mr. Hoar. The committee (on contagious and infectious diseases bill) undertake to extend the power of this quarantine board to every kind of contagious disease * * * 0f men and women, (women ?) Had you not reason to believe that prostitution was to be licensed under the power given in this bill, and that five hundred thousand dollars of the peopled money was to be appropriated to sustain a system which imperils the safety of every working man’s daughter wherever it ex- ists ? The police are authorized to suspect of prostitution the daughters of the mechanic, the artisan, the small tradesman, the shop-keeper,the milliner, the dressmaker, and the domestic servant.—J. Birbeck Neoins, M. I)., Senior Lecturer in the Koval Infirmary School of Medicine, Liverpool; James M. Stansfield, M. P., London. To this list may be added the daughters of your constituents. Men are already watching them. Who will watch the fallen men ? “ Police supervision ” and doctor torturing was so intolerable the poor victims tied their old haunts. Hence this order. So would it be here under such regulations. Put yourself in her place ; O, profligate man ! The remarks of Mr. Voorliees (on the bill relating to cattle) are equally applicable, slightly changed, to woman, who had no champion in Congress to protect her. “It (the contagious diseases act) clothes men, if they choose to abuse their trust, with a power over ” poor girls and women “which ought not to be given to any one,” much less to members of a profession large numbers of whom are in favor of “ licens- ing prostitution.” It gives the Board of Health the power to employ police spies, as in Europe, to suspect of prostitution the daughters of the poor man and place her name on a roll of infamy, if they choose, and under such rule, “by a look, a nod, a suspicion, a suggestion, that a man’s ” daughter is a prostitute, a police spy or unprincipled villain, through lust or revenge, could rob her of her reputation, the price of which is “ far above rubies,” and bankrupt her character, (quite as important as the interest of the “ stock-raiser,”) in the interest of those who desire the ruin of a victim. Strengthened in our suspicion by the discussion of this bill, advised, as we have been, of the efforts of members of the medical profession to secure the legalization of vice in this coun- try, that deception was advocated, that a “ plan was devised which would spring these regulations upon the whole country,” that “ in the dim future a bill would be passed ; * * * that Dr. Ira F, Hart, (Elmira, N. Y.,) had great faith in State and national Boards of Health administration; would not say he would propose the strict adoption of the F1 remit system of1 inspection, (not the strict,) but mistakes the capacity of the medical men devoted to reform, (?) and the inherent original- ity of the American mind, if a board of State and national health administration cannot devise methods whereby disease which must become hereditary can be circumscribed,” and that Dr. Verdi (member of board of health) “ was enthusiastic in his admiration of the sanitary system existing in France, and earnestly advocated a similar system to be adopted in the United States,” * * * it is not strange- that we should view with apprehension the remarks of Senators in the discus- sion of “ the so-called yellow fever bill ” and that our suspicion was more than aroused as to its real intent. When Dr. Verdi had secured the name of a prominent clergyman to a paper asking him to lecture upon sanitary subjects, the divine, having had his attention called to the quo- tation in the Star, asked him, by letter, if he meant the system of licensed prostitution. Dr. Verdi replied that prostitution in France was under police supervision. But who does not know that has studied the question, that police supervision is the out- growth of the sanitary system existing in France, according to M. Jeannel’s plan ? “Dr. Jeannel, of Bordeaux, has recently published the second edition of a large work in favor of police regulation of prosti- tution, and its extension by international treaties throughout the world. But he is clear-sighted enough to see that any law that regulates this vice (page 306) thereby recognizes it, makes it a profession, and confers rights, (p. 323,) and gives it a sanc- tion ; for what it forbids under certain conditions of health, or in public places, is thereby authorized, under certain other con- ditions, (p. 302;) therefore, as he informs his readers, no legis- lature has ever ventured to take up such a position. Did law occupy the ground, he says, it would become the accomplice of immorality, and would incur public contempt. (P. 306.) His plan is, therefore, to have no law upon the subject of regula- tion, but to have a law authorizing the police to make what rules they think necessary for the management of their own towns, apparently thinking that by putting the responsibility upon the police, he relieves the law from the infamy of sanctioning vice. “ Is the National Board of Health to empower the police to place under similar supervision the honest toiling daughters of our working men ? While acting 4 under the authority of law ’ conferred by the ‘ central government,5 they need not fear re- moval.” 10 effect of police supervision in France. In no country in modern times has prostitution been so mUeh inspected and controlled as in France; and yet, in no other country has there been a progressive diminution of the people and a progressive deterioration of the race. The proportion in ten decennial periods, from 1801, is given by Dr. Proust, of Paris: 1801 to 1810 32.9 per cent. 1811 to 1820 31.7 1821 to 1830 30.6 1831 to 1840 28.7 1841 to 1850 27.5 1851 to 1860 26.1 1861 to 1870 26.3 In Prussia the average was 38.1 “ In England the average was 35.0 “ And increasing in both countries.—Edinborough Medical Journal, 1878; vol. 23, (Congressional Library.) A difference of opinion existing regarding the merits of the contagious diseases bill, and the power which it gives to the National Board of Health, we give in this paper only the re- marks of some, who, earnestly desiring to prevent yellow fever, could not vote for the unlimited power and the enormous ap- propriation of $500,000 given to the Board of Health. Were it possible that any member of Congress could be de- ceived regarding the power delegated to this Board of Health, or the design of the Board in introducing this bill, we have given ample cause for suspicion. “ Medicus ” was not alone when he said: “We believe that this measure—the contagious diseases act— strikes a fearful blow at the liberty of the individual; legalizes (or will legalize) prostitution, and will prove quite as dangerous to the liberties and morals of our people as the presence of the army at the polls.”—Post, June. 9. We believe it is taxation of the poor and virtuous to support an effort to protect the vices of the abandoned and debauched. This is not an appropriation of $500,000 to build yellow fever hospitals; for this Congress declines to avow, but a discretion is reserved to apply it to any contagious and infectious disease whatever. TO LEGISLATORS AND THE PUELIC. Animated and inspired by the noble example of our English sisters, (among whom are the names of Mrs. Josephine Butler, Florence Nightingale, and the late Harriet Martineau,) we take this method of informing you that we are preparing for a cam- paign against legalized vice in the United States ; and if you are not willing to bear the responsibility with which you may be charged—should this National Board of Health inaugurate a system in this country which has demoralized France—which roused to indignation the citizens of St. Louis and compelled the repeal of the social-evil law—you have only to provide against the possibility of legalized prostitution by enacting a law prohibiting the States (since you legislate for the States) and the National Board of Health from making any “laws, rules or regulations for the prevention of the introduction into or spread within the United States of any contagious or infectious disease, except yellow fever, cholera, small-pox, plague, or ship fever, and any new disease not now known.” To the “ Christian statesmen ” who have been duped by the mistaken idea that “ licensing,” “ regulating,” “ controlling ” or “permitting” (exacting “hospital dues”) prostitution under police supervision and medical inspection is for the protection of the innocent, we suggest the perusal of the letters of Revs. F. D. Maurice and Thomas Markby, and other testimony in this paper—always remembering that whatever “promises im- munity from disease ” to profligates, whether by “ regulating ” or compelling a brothel-keeper to turn a poor sick girl into the streets, “ encourages and stimulates vice.” Can any disease be “ stamped out” when but one out of hundreds afflicted with it are quarantined ? A. B.—In the interest of working men’s daughters, and in behalf of the National Committee for the Prevention of Legal- ized Vice in the United States. To the Editor of the Daily News, (.London:) * * * That ladies should have madethe tremendous self-sacri- fice which their appearance as protestors against the measure in- volves, is a fact which must strike all of us, and which must awaken us to deep and earnest reflections. I am one of those who signed a petition for extending the operation of the Act. I cannot pretend that I signed it hastily, or in forgetfulness of my office, as a clergyman, * * * having learned more from them (doctors) than I could ever teach them. I felt that any suggestion upon a subject which they understood was en- titled to our confidence. (He forgot that God never made special provision for safety in sin beforehand.) Yet I am con- vinced that I was wrong. There were aspects of the subject which I had not sufficiently considered, and which my defer- ence to the judgment of medical men did not excuse me from overlooking. * * * I think the protests of the ladies have shown us that we shall involve the innocent with the guilty; that we shall degrade the guilty more; that we are iufficting an injury on the whole sex by assuming that any woman can exist to satisfy the lust of a man. I write to you, not because I can offer much aid, but because I think it is due to your brave correspondents and to their cause that I should own they have convinced me of mv error in asking the legislature to extend the operation of the Act. I am, etc., F. D. Maurice. I find nothing more admirable than the letter of the late Rev. Thomas Markby. These papers resist such inspection, as I understand, on four grounds: 1. The indignity implied in it to the whole sex of woman. 2. Demoralization ot the people. 3. Danger of entrusting a power of this kind to the police. 4. Inefficacy of inspection as a check to the spread of in- fection. Iii fact, the bill comes to this: A superintendent of police carries a general warrant against every woman in his district. For, in populous districts, a magistrate must be, in regard to the character of women in humble station, completely at his mercy. * * * A more terrible power than that proposed to be con- ferred, concerning as it does a matter in which the passions of lust or revenge may be called into tierce play, I cannot im- agine. I say it is a power safe in the hands of no man. Why, again, should men be spared ? Unless they, too, are inspected, the act is nugatory. The answer is plain. No statesmen dare propose it. If any minister doubts this let him procure a bill to be passed enacting inspection of men sus- pected. * * * It could not be upheld for a week, except at the point of the bayonet. * * * Women do not choose such a life. The history of almost every prostitute is either that she was seduced by some scoundrel who left her to death or the streets, or else that she was bought in childhood, by one of the hags who trade in women, for some wealthy customer to violate. Might not the legislature, before passing such a law, do well to establish a censorship to keep men of notorious prof- ligacy out of high place and office ? The proofs of the need of some step of this kind are as well known as they are terrible, and until it is taken, it is a mockery to pray that magistrates may have grace to execute justice and maintain truth. * * * 13 I, too, for one, stand aghast at the grim irony of a generation which, mocking the queen with an adulation unparalleled in the annals of the monarchy, forces her to confirm by her royal assent an indignity to her sex heretofore undreadecl by the most unhappy of English women at the hands of Englishmen. * * * It is painful to have to write, in detail, on a subject so de- testable ; but unless one uses the plainest language it is impos- sible to convey to the minds of people unacquainted with the horrors of the system what villainies will, under this bill, be recognized and sanctioned by the law. I am certain that under it, every existing shame and cruelty of prostitution will be deep- ened, and a tyranny over women introduced hitherto unknown in England. It is time to speak out, even to women. * * * The Phariseeism of the day is eager to bestow its daughters on men steeped in debauchery, reserving anger for the miser- able victims of their selfishness. Christ holds the balance dif- ferently. He has no word of hope for fornicators, but harlots, in the fullness of a divine pity. He invites to find in Himself the way, the truth, and the life. If clergy would oftener re- mind young men of this in their sermons, instead of mangling questions of doctrine they do not understand, perhaps we might have less occasion for laws of this sort.— T homos Markby. WIIAT FRENCH DOCTORS SAY. Notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, the best man- aged regulations cannot guarantee freedom from disease; and the hope of escaping punishment multiplies vicious habits.— Acton on Prostitution. The acts give a false security, especially to married men, and thus constitute a real danger for those whom they are so falsely supposed to protect.—Dr. Vintras. There are some police laws designed to regulate debauchery; thus the liberty of some women has been destroyed in order to give security to debauched men, (not to women,) buf the result has not justified the expectation. * * * Besides, the means used are almost always illusory. Dr. Armand Despres, for thirty years surgeon to the Lour- cine, the great hospital devoted to * * * women, in his work “ Traite Theorique et Pratique sur le Syphilis,” said at a large meeting in Paris: “ The efforts of the police have been, at least in Paris, a complete failure. They protect no- body from the bloody poison arising from the class of maladies to which I allude, and they tread down a sound principle. In Brussels, where prostitution is a hundred times more severely regulated than in Paris or any other town, the number of 14 marriages has diminished 8 per cent. Hence a notable decrease of births among the classes having the means to bring up their progeny decently, and an increase in the back slums of the city. (A fact worth considering.) Antiquity presents examples of the withering effect on population of the kind of vice which I am bound to declare police regulations stimulate. The more the fallacious belief is inculcated, that the contagion can be stopped by police supervision, the greater disinclination will men feel for marriage and the duties it involves. They become effeminate, and shrink from the burdens their shoulders were made to bear. * * * What must be—looking facts stead- ily in the face—the great total of all this? National loss of vigor, industrial deterioration, physiological poverty, the death of every noble sentiment, and social misery.—London Weekly Dispatch, February 11,1877. In Brussels, which is almost the beau ideal of the advocates of this legislation, the shop windows in the most frequented and fashionable streets, exhibit engravings that would subject any vender of such things in England to a criminal prosecution, and the debased moral tone which stimulates and encourages such exhibitions, is further shown by the absence of conceal- ment about illicit connection. It is universally said by the principal and thoughtful inhabitants of Brussels that immoral- ity is universally diffused throughout that city. “ The moral nerve has been extracted from the people of Brussels,” said a gentleman to me one day. * * * “ Immorality is so cheap,” said a third, “ that the Maison Toleres are not well attended.” These are the statements not of one or another person, but of every thoughtful person with whom I have conversed in Brus- sels, and I have met persons there of all classes in society whose evidence is cumulative, not repetitive.—Prof. Stuart, Fel. Trin. Coll., Camb., (Eng.,) Medical Enquirer, November 15, 1876. It is suggested that “ doctors who would license or regulate prostitution expect to reap a harvest from this promised immu- nity from disease which stimulates vice.” If a doctor, what have you done to protect the innocent ? What have these doctors done ? Question asked No. 1: Do you protect the innocent wife by warning her of danger ? Answer. Why, I should break up families. Same to No. 2.—Answer. I should lose all my practice. Same to No. 3.—Answer. It would be a violation of pro- fessional confidence. To the fourth : What do you do to protect the innocent? 15 Answer. I ch-a-r-g-e him. (Always “him,” for no woman ever did or can so harm the innocent.) So, rather than “ break up families,” (which might be otherwise interpreted;) rather than “ violate professional confidence,” by exposing a villain ; rather than “ lose his practice,” they assuage their consciences by “ charging” the guilty to protect the innocent, and let her die, if she must. Should not those doctors be held as acces- sories to the “ murder of wives!” How can they talk license ? “ Some claim that a license law is favorable to the reclama- tion of prostitutes, but such a result is obviously at variance with the intent of the method. * * * ‘ License,’ ‘ regulate,’ ‘ control,’ all are used to designate the same plan when the details are considered; * * * I am aware that Gross and others declare it to be unbecoming to consider the moral as- pects of the prostitution question, and stigmatize the utterances of those who differ from them as ‘unmeaning twaddle.’ But it is difficult to see how the ethical bearings of the problem can fail to receive the attention of any man who really desires to understand the subject and studies it impartially. Lecour, the chief of the regulation department in Paris, said, long ago : ‘The evil must be overcome by moral, not by legislative, means.” * # * In 1876, he reported as follows: ‘In presence of the statistics, proving so conclusively the progressive and consider- able augmentation of clandestine prostitution, I persist in the opinion which I expressed in 1870. I said then, and I say again now, this state of things reveals the existence of a social malady which no mere police measures are able to cope with and destroy.’ Protection does not protect, and does not deserve to. Even if health were promoted by the license law, which it is not, moral considerations would forbid our supporting it; for it cannot be sustained consistently with a belief in those principles on which alone society can safely rest. * * * Those who defend this system are unwittingly speaking in the inter- est of a vast horde of the most depraved members of the com- munity who only want the sanction of law to renew the horri- ble debaucheries of Greece and Rome. A man may well be anxious when he receives the commendation of such a class. An Athenian orator, being applauded by the rabble, stopped in his speech, and, with great solicitude, asked a friend: ‘ What evil have I done, that these should cheer ? ’ All the approved methods having failed, we must seek some other de- vice by which to arrest the evil. * * * We must attempt to remove the causes on which it depends, among the prin- cipal of which are poverty, pride, love of dress, seduction, low wages, want of employment and ignorance of useful labor. 16 * * * I can hardly forbear to call your attention to the fact that, underlying almost every one of them is easily to be found the injustice which has, from the very dawn of history, so often and so conspicuously characterized man’s treatment of woman. The limited number of occupations to which women are admitted, their less pay than men receive for an equal amount of work of the same quality, the obstacles which are thrown in the way of their learning those kinds of business which men regard as most desirable, the advantage which, with lamentable frequency, is taken of their willingness to trust the- promises of those who have won their affections, simply to effect their ruin by the most damnable treachery, and the destitution which results from each of these, stand as deep and shameful blots on our social system. * * * We are accustomed to treat the courtesans as if they were the only violators of law and order and decency and morals; as if they were the tempters and their paramours innocents, for whom it was impossible to resist the siren allurements. As a matter of fact, it is the men who are the more guilty, and they should be held accountable. * * * So habitual is our in- justice in such affairs that Hugo’s words might well be made to apply to America: “They say that slavery has disappeared from European civilization. This is an error. It exists always, hut it weighs only on woman, and is called ‘ prostitution.’ * * * Whenever a case of small-pox breaks out in a town the physician in attendance is obliged to report it at once to the authorities. “ Why should we not treat the great pox in the same way ! As soon as a surgeon finds a case of primary syphilis, let him report it, and let the case he shut out from the possibility of spreading its contagion. It need not be objected that it would be a violation of professional confidence, for, if the fact was generally known that the law required such action, a syphilitic patient would have reason to feel aggrie ved at the recording of his name. As soon as man takes a contagious disease he be- comes a public nuisance, and should be treated occordingly. Such a man ‘is a traveling death-warrant, and ought to be promptly quarantined. “Frederic H. Gerrish, M. D., “ Portland, Maine. “ Professor of Materia lVLedica and Therapeutics and Lecturer on Public Health in Bowdoin College.” “An honest man is the noblest work of God.” Washington, D. C.,\June 30,1879.