STATE REGULATION OF VICE. 
REGULATION EFFORTS IN AMERICA. 
THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
BY 
AARON M. POWELL. 
NEW YORK: 
WOOD & HOLBROOK, Publishers, 
13 AND 15 LAIGHT ST. 
1878. COPYRIGHT. 
AARON M. POWELL. 
1878, CONTENTS. 
PAGE. 
Contents 3 
Introduction 5 
I. 
State Regulation of Vice 11 
II. 
Regulation Efforts in America 48 
III. 
The Geneva Congress 92 
IV. 
Address of New York Committee 124 INTRODUCTION. 
State regulated vice has long existed in 
Europe. Within the past decade noteworthy 
efforts have been made to secure its introduction 
in America. It was introduced in Great Britain 
by act of Parliament in 1864, and applied to sundry 
military districts. It is significant that its intro- 
duction there was apparently the signal for various 
kindred initiatory efforts here. America is in- 
debted to the old world for many good and 
ennobling institutions and influences, and some 
bad ones. The scheme to license, or regulate, 
social vice is of the latter class. 
An International Congress held in Geneva, 
Switzerland, in September, 1877, attended by 
over five hundred delegates, representing fifteen 
countries, to promote the abolition of State regu- 8 
INTRO D UCTION. 
lated vice, marks an important era of social pro- 
gress, and foreshadows the ultimate, and, we 
trust, not far distant, abolition of the regulation 
system in Great Britain and on the Continent. 
A vigorous and potential agitation to this end is 
now in progress, which has been much strength- 
ened and extended by the action and influence of 
the Geneva Congress. 
Though in America there is no regulation, there 
are Regulationists. In New York there have 
been annual official recommendations of licensed 
prostitution, in 1875, *876 and respectively, 
by a Committee of the State Legislature, by a 
Grand Jury of the City and County of New York, 
and by the Commissioners of Public Charities and 
Correction of New York. What Europe, in the 
light of a prolonged and bitter experience, is now 
struggling to abolish, it would be worse than 
suicidal folly for America, at this late day, to 
adopt. All true, high-minded men, and all women, 
should be on the alert to oppose and thwart all 
measures, by whomsoever proposed, and upon 
whatever plea, sanitary or otherwise, to give to 
prostitution a legal status and government sanc- INTROD UCTION. 
9 
tion in this country. The Paris hospitals, where 
regulation prevails, crowded with the victims of 
venereal disease, proclaim the system worse than 
a sanitary failure, and that it not only does not 
afford protection to the public health, but that, 
as might be expected, in promoting sexual immor- 
ality, it aggravates and augments the fearful mal- 
adies which that immorality begets. The regula- 
tion system imperils the liberty and security of 
all women, especially of poor women and working 
girls. Women should everywhere make their 
voices heard and their influence felt, against it. 
It is of the most arbitrary and unjust type of 
oppressive legislation. Men and women should 
join in securing to women full and equal enfran- 
chisement, that, as citizens, they may have a voice 
concerning legislation which involves so vitally 
not only their own personal welfare, but that of 
society and of the State as a whole. 
The following papers were prepared for as 
many different occasions, with no thought, when 
they were written, of connected publication. 
The first, upon “ State Regulated Vice,” was 
read before the New York Committee for the IN TROD UCTION. 
IO 
prevention of Licensed Prostitution, in April, 
1877 ; the second, upon “ Regulation Efforts in 
America,” was prepared for the International 
Congress at Geneva, which the writer attended as 
a delegate; and the third, upon “The Geneva 
Congress,” is a sketch of the Congress and of its 
important proceedings and conclusions. It is 
hoped, that as now presented to the public in 
this little volume, they may be useful as a warn- 
ing voice to prevent the introduction of State 
sanctioned vice in our own country, and as an 
appeal to the philanthropic, and to all good 
citizens here, to extend hearty sympathy and co- 
operation to those who are laboring for its aboli- 
tion abroad. I. 
STATE REGULATION OF VICE. 
In 1875 the Legislature of the State of New 
York appointed a Committee on Crime to investi- 
gate and report upon the causes and increase of 
crime in the city of New York. The report of 
that Committee was presented to a succeeding 
Legislature early in 1876. The report takes 
cognizance of prostitution, then and now regarded 
by the law of the State, as by the “higher law,” 
as a crime. The exhibit of the Committee in 
relation to the prevalence of prostitution, and the 
complicity of the police and other legal author- 
ites in connection with it, is indeed a painful one. 
Nor are the police and the prostitutes alone in- 
volved. The Committee say : “ Among the other 
curious elements that enter into this subject of 
prostitution, is the fact that a number of houses 12 
STATE REGULATION 
in the Eighth and Fifteenth Wards, which are let 
and occupied as low dens, are owned by highly 
reptitable people, some of them pillars in the Church 
and State.” They add, that “ quite a number of 
these persons have been indicted, but the indict- 
ments appear to be mere matter of form ; ” that 
“ an indictment stands on record against an ex- 
mayor of the city for owning a house of prostitu- 
tion.” 
The Committee assume that “ Houses of pros- 
titution, doubtless, must exist, and will continue 
to exist.” They, therefore, take it upon them- 
selves to earnestly recommend to the Legislature 
“ the regulating,; or permitting,; or,” as they phrase 
it, “ if the word be not deemed offensive, the Licens- 
ing of prostitution.” They say they are “ met at 
the outset with the suggestion that this is licens- 
ing crime,” and with objection to the word “ li- 
cense,” and they add, that, “ as to terms,” they 
“ are not tenacious.” “ If anybody’s conscience 
can be soothed, his moral doubts assuaged, by 
dropping the word ‘ license ’ and using the word 
£ regulation,’ the Committee have no earthly objec- 
tion.” They then outline a scheme for “localiz- 
ing ” houses of prostitution, as Wall Street is appro- OF VICE. 
13 
printed to banking and brokerage, the “ Swamp ” 
to leather, etc. The State is to give to prostitu- 
tion a recognized, legal status ; women, but not 
men, are to be licensed, registered, and officially 
inspected under police and medical supervision. 
In June, 1876, the Grand Jury of the Court of 
General Sessions of the City and County of New 
York, made an official presentment concerning 
the social evil, in which they say, “that however 
abhorrent to the views of some, any legislation 
may be which appears to legalize so great an 
evil, still the fact must not be lost sight of that it 
is an evil impossible to suppress, yet compara- 
tively easy to regulate and circumscribe.” They 
declare it “ wholly unwise to forego the benefits 
that may be derived from such a system ” of reg- 
ulation, “ through a dread of appearing to coun- 
tenance evil; ” and conclude with a memorial to 
the Legislature, “to adopt as early as practicable 
some system of laws calculated to confine houses 
of prostitution in the large cities of this State 
within certain specified limits, and to subject 
them at all times to the careful and vigilant super- 
vision of the Boards of Health and Police.” 
With the delinquencies of the police in dealing 14 
STATE REGULATION 
with prostitution, shown by the Legislative Com- 
mittee’s Report, and recognized by the Grand 
Jury, the expectation that the same police officials 
would be any more virtuous or vigilant in enfor- 
cing a system of license or regulation, would not 
appear to be well founded,—even if anything so 
utterly abhorrent to the moral sense of the better 
portion of the community ought, under any cir- 
cumstances, to be attempted. 
Among those who want a system of government 
“ inspection and control ” of prostitutes, while at 
the same time disclaiming any desire for the intro- 
duction here of the French and European plan of 
licensing prostitution, are such sanitarians as are 
represented by Dr. J. Marion Sims, of the Amer- 
ican Medical Association. In a late address be- 
fore that Association, Dr. Sims argues for a sys- 
tem of “inspection and control ” over women and 
men, by authority of the Legislature, by which 
“ to prevent the importation of syphilis from 
abroad,” and “ to take charge of the subjects of 
syphilis at home, and prevent them from spread- 
ing it through the community.” His scheme 
contemplates, in the matter of importation, that, 
“ in the absence of qualified surgeons on board OF VICE. 
15 
steamers or sailing vessels,” whether foreign or 
coastwise, entering port, it should devolve upon 
the quarantine officer to examine every sailor and 
roery steerage passenger before landing, and to 
send any and every case of syphilis to hospital for 
treatment.” 
Why his scheme omits from official “ inspection 
and control ” all first-class passengers, and in- 
cludes only those of the steerage, he does not say. 
It is quite certain that the “ first-class ” debauchees 
of both sexes who come to 11s from Paris and 
other European centres of “ State regulated vice,” 
are much more dangerous to the public health and 
morality. That would be a poor sanitary safe- 
guard indeed which, while maintaining official sur- 
veillance over the virtuous and vicious alike of the 
steerage, would allow well-to-do, “ first-class ” 
subjects of syphilis to import the odious disease 
without question or hindrance. Nor are we told 
how the system of. “ inspection and control,” 
which is to find out, and “ take charge of the sub- 
jects of syphilis at home,” is to be worked. 
Whether those only who live in “ tenement- 
houses ” are to be thus officially waited upon and 
inspected, or whether “ brown-stone fronts ” are 16 
STATE REGULATION 
to be equally subjected to the official jurisdiction 
of the Boards of Health and Police, remains to be 
seen. The “ inspection and control ” must in- 
clude all—the virtuous and vicious, women and 
men, the rich and the poor alike—to make the 
“ regulation ” effective. In the summer of 1876 
Dr. Sims, referring to his “ regulation ” scheme, 
wrote to a gentleman in England : “ I shall try 
to pass a bill through the New York Legislature 
this winter, and have it in operation before I come 
to England again next year.” He says : “In 
the Metropolitan Health Board, we find every- 
thing already prepared forsengrafting this amend- 
ment upon its organic laws.” We should be 
sorry to believe that Dr. Sims will have any very 
considerable following either in the Legislature or 
among intelligent physicians, in support of a 
“ regulation ” scheme so obviously worthless as a 
sanitary safeguard, so offensive morally, and so 
unjustly discriminating against the poor. 
Several efforts have been made to license or 
“ regulate ” prostitution in the national capital,— 
the most recent during the session of the Forty- 
fourth Congress. The vigilance of the opponents 
of regulation defeated this, as it had other earlier OF VICE. 
17 
kindred efforts, and the obnoxious bill failed to 
become a law. Unsuccessful efforts have been also 
made to inaugurate licensed prostitution in other 
of our larger American cities, including Phila- 
delphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and 
Baltimore. The only city in the Union in which 
the experiment has actually been tried is St. 
Louis, and there it was subsequently aban- 
doned. 
IS PROSTITUTION A NECESSITY ? 
It will be observed that, in the Official Report 
of the Legislative Committee, it is assumed that 
“ houses of prostitution, doubtless, must exist, and 
will continue to existand that the Grand Jury 
in their presentment refer to prostitution as an 
“ evil impossible to suppress, yet comparatively easy 
to regulate and circumscribe.” 
This assumption is the pivotal point of the 
whole matter. If a necessity, of course prostitu- 
tion neither can nor ought to be eradicated. Has 
God so created and endowed men and women as 
to render prostitution an inherent human need ? 
Such a need is not merely to be recognized and 
tolerated, but intelligently and conscientiously 5 TA TE REG ULA TIOiV 
provided for. If prostitution is a necessity, 
children should be trained and educated for it. 
If a necessity—and it involves the sacrifice of 
women—no home is too sacred to furnish its 
offerings. The alleged necessity is not for 
women, but for men. If a necessity for men, a 
victim class of women is inevitable. Who shall 
supply it ? What legislative “ Regulationist ” 
would willingly consign his own sister, wife, or 
daughter to such a sacrifice ? If a necessity, 
somebody's daughters must be despoiled, some- 
body's home destroyed. Self-sacrifice is one of 
the noblest of the Christian attributes. Is it 
possible to conceive of the Christian duty of self- 
sacrifice, on the part of women, to meet the 
alleged necessity for prostitution with men ? To 
ask is to answer the question. If such a duty 
were conceivable, then the most truly Christian 
women of the community are the ones whom our 
legislative “ Regulationists ” should designate and 
assign for the wretched service which they affirm 
it to be a necessity for somebody to render ; pros- 
titution should cease to be odious, and take its 
place as an honorable and an honored profession. 
The assumption, when analyzed, that prostitu- OF VICE. 
19 
tion is a necessity, is in itself monstrous—at war 
alike with enlightened science and with true 
religion. The fact that it everywhere and inevit- 
ably begets physical disease and demoralization, 
and that, as the experience of European cities 
shows, it is an “ irregularity ” which defies san- 
itary “ regulation,” is alone evidence, painful and 
positive, that it is wholly abnormal and in conflict 
with the Divine law. 
WORKING OF THE LICENSE SYSTEM 
What the Legislative Committee and the Grand 
Jury recommend for New York and all the 
larger cities of the Empire State, Paris and other 
European cities have had in operation for many 
years. Paris has a department of Police organ- 
ized with special reference to “ regulating ” pros- 
titution, at the head of which is M. Lecour. 
With singular impropriety, it is called a “ Bureau 
of Morals! ” The working force employed in 
this immoral “ Bureau of Morals,” consists of 
specially derailed police and a corps of medical 
me?i. It has under its control a special hospital 
and prison, St. Lazare, for the detention, medical 
inspection, treatment, and correction of women 20 
STATE REGULATION 
prostitutes. The policemen are called special 
inspectors, most of whom are engaged outside in 
a general surveillance of women known to the 
authorities as prostitutes, and of those who may 
be suspected of clandestine prostitution. A few 
are occupied in the dispensary or hospital prison. 
The doctors are organized into a corps of exam- 
iners, whose duty it is to visit the licensed houses 
of prostitution, inspect the women who live in 
them, and who are registered and licensed as 
prostitutes, and all other women, virtuous or 
vicious, who may, on the bare suspicion of the 
police, be arrested and taken to the headquarters 
of the “ Bureau of Morals ” as clandestine 
prostitutes. To such arrest, and the personal 
outrage of such an examination, any unattended 
woman, falling under the suspicion of M. Lecour’s 
policemen, is at any time exposed. All regularly 
licensed prostitutes are registered at the “Bureau 
of Morals.” Such as live in houses of prostitu- 
tion are subjected to weekly inspection by the 
doctors. Those who live in furnished lodgings 
are required to present themselves for medical 
inspection fortnightly. The latter class are fur- 
nished with cards, officially signed and dated, by OF VICE. 
21 
the surgeon of the *' Bureau ” at the time of each 
examination. On the backs of these cards are 
printed sundry rules and regulations to which the 
holders of them are required to conform ; one of 
which is, that they must show their cards when- 
ever requested by police officers and agents ; 
another, that during daylight and certain hours 
mentioned, they are forbidden to solicit and allure 
for purposes of debauchery ; they are not to 
address men who are accompanied by women or 
children; are to dress simply, and without orna- 
mentation of the hair; are not to form or walk 
together in groups, or to appear in the neighbor- 
hood of churches or chapels, or in other desig- 
nated portions of the city, as in the Champs 
Elysees. Though these rules are circumvented 
and disregarded in many ways, it is undoubtedly 
true that offensive street solicitation on the part 
of prostitute women is less obtrusive than in 
London or New York; and, also, that prostitute 
men presume to solicit unattended women w'ith 
much greater boldness and freedom than in either 
London or New York, and as a natural conse- 
quence of the regulation system. By it the free- 
dom of all women is restricted and men are 22 
STATE REGULATION 
emboldened to sin with a supposed greater 
immunity from disease, and with the implied 
sanction of the State. 
DOES THE LICENSE SYSTEM GIVE IMMUNITY FROM 
DISEASE ? 
The only ground upon which the scheme for 
licensing prostitution here is, or is likely to be 
urged with any semblance of popular justification, 
is that of its alleged sanitary benefits. What, 
then, is the lesson of Paris in this respect ? Does 
the absence from the streets of the most obtru- 
sive forms of solicitation prove that there is there- 
fore little prostitution in the French metropolis ? 
One object of our Legislative Committee and 
Grand Jurors in recommending license and local- 
ization for New York, is to remove the evil as 
fully as possible from the notice of the general 
public. But would that insure, in any essential 
degree, immunity from the dreadful disease which 
prostitution engenders ? Paris, which gives to 
prostitution, under its license system, a recognized, 
business status, regulated by “due process of 
law,” has an enormous prostitute population. Says 
M. Lecour: “ Keeping within the limits of OF VICE. 
23 
scrupulous moderation, we may estimate the 
population of Paris prostitutes, which is being 
incessantly renewed, at 30,000.” He adds; “It 
must be distinctly understood that these figures< 
apply to the women who, on account of their 
habitual debauchery, are a danger to the public 
health, rather than to those clandestine prostitutes 
(en circulation), and occupying themselves con- 
stantly in acts of allurement.” Of course the 
value of any plan of registration and medical 
supervision, if it were possible to stamp out a 
disease and at the same time continue its produc- 
ing cause, must depend upon its being applied to 
all. ■ If any considerable number of diseased 
prostitutes, either women or men, are not duly 
registered, inspected, and treated, the public will 
remain exposed to infection, essentially as before. 
Of the 30,000 prostitute women, carefully esti- 
mated by M. Lecour, as dangerous to the public 
health, he succeeds in getting only about 4,000 on 
the register of his Bureau, and under police and 
medical supervision. In 1870 the total number 
was 3,656, less than one-eighth of the women whom 
he affirms to be given up to habitual debauchery, 
and a danger to the public health. Besides these, 24 
STATE REGULATION 
are the thousands of clandestine prostitute women, 
who avoid the police, shun registration, and who 
are without any medical supervision or control. 
There are, also, the ?nen who, as syphilitic pro- 
pagandists, are wholly unregistered, and uncon- 
trolled, and who consort with the 30,000 women 
whom M. Lecour regards as dangerous to the 
public health, and with the thousands of non- 
registered, uninspected, and clandestine women. 
If in Paris there are 30,000 prostitute women, 
there are, at least, as many prostitute men who 
consort with them. They are left wholly free to 
spread disease without limit. No woman ever 
does or can, as a prostitute, alone communicate 
syphilis to anybody. The guilty partner in her 
shame is always the special carrier and propagator 
of the disease. It is a marvel that anybody who 
pauses to reflect upon the subject could seriously 
expect a system which legalizes prostitution and 
dignifies it with an assured status, which subordin- 
ates women, and proffers immunity to men, to do 
other than increase prostitution on the one hand, 
and its accompanying fruition of disease on the 
ether. Venereal disease, so far from being 
“stamped out ” or controlled by the “ regulation” OF VICE. 
25 
system in Paris, constitutes a large part of that 
which comes under hospital treatment. The 
venereal patients alone are nearly equal in number 
to the aggregate of all others under hospital treat- 
ment. M. Lecour states the number of hospital 
venereal patients for 1868 at about 9,500, with 
diseases of a grave character, and he adds: 
“ Without fearing to be taxed with exaggeration, 
we may consider this number as representing the 
fifth part of the total number of venereal patients 
in Paris who are treated at home by medical men, 
or who apply for relief to druggists and quacks. 
We thus reach,” says Lecour, “ the number of 
47,500, which, though formidable, is probably 
below the truth.” 
Not only does prostitution, despite the small 
number of prostitutes exhibited upon the official 
register, prevail to an appalling extent in Paris, 
under the regulation system, but disease is fear- 
fully prevalent and continually increasing. It is 
a striking comment upon the futility, in a sanitary 
point of view, of police regulation and medical 
inspection that, during the past decade, M. 
Lecour’s official record shows an increasing pro- 
portion of syphilitic cases among the registered 26 
STATE REGULATION 
prostitutes, who are under the special care of the 
“ Bureau of Morals,” with its weekly medical 
inspection. During the first five years of this 
period, ending with 1869, the average ratio per 
1,000 of registered prostitutes found syphilitic was 
found to be 106.953 ; and during the second 
period, ending with 1875, the average ratio 
reached 179.271. The failure of the Bureau of 
Morals to control or to prevent the increase of 
venereal disease, is admitted by French advocates 
of the “ regulation system,” of whom Dr. Jeannel 
is a distinguished representative ; but it is alleged 
to be due to inefficient administration, and not the 
fault of the system itself. But there has been, 
according to M. Lecour, no relaxation of vigilance 
on the part of the police ; but on the contrary, 
the arrests for clandestine prostitution have 
largely increased, until for the year 1875, the 
number of women thus arrested, imprisoned, and 
officially inspected, together with the 4,564 
regularly registered, reached the enormous number 
of 14,515 i Within the limits of this paper it is 
impracticable to present at length the official 
details, which proclaim alike the immorality and 
the inutility of the Paris regulation system. They are given at length in an able, exhaustive, and 
thoroughly impartial article, which appeared in 
the Westminster Review for July, 1876, from the 
pen of Dr. Chapman, and from which we have 
quoted. They prove incontestibly the utter folly 
of attempting at the same time to perpetuate and 
control that which ought not to exist. 
OF VICE. 
27 
CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE OF THE SYSTEM. 
The regulation system involves for women, 
especially working girls, poor and friendless, un- 
told cruelty and injustice. Their dread of regis- 
tration and its consequences leads not infrequently 
to results most distressing and tragical. Young 
girls arrested by the police, as suspected of prosti- 
tution, and subsequently shown to be innocent, 
have been driven to suicide by the sense of out- 
rage and dishonor to which they had been subject- 
ed. Mrs. Butler, of Liverpool, a Christian wo- 
man whom God appears to have commissioned 
specially to lead in a righteous crusade against 
state regulated vice, and all social impurity—who 
is to the poor outcast victims of such vice what 
Elizabeth Fry was to the prisoner, or Florence 
Nightingale in the hospital—when in Paris visited 28 
STATE REGULATION 
among the humblest of the people in the poor 
streets, and found most “ painful examples of the 
cruel and crushing effects of this system on the 
very poor.” There are young girls in St. Lazare 
whose only crime is “ having no ostensible means 
of gaining a livelihood.” They are, without hesi- 
tation, assumed by the police authorities, to be 
living by sin. One of the unfortunate girls of 
Paris said to Mrs. Butler, “ Once in St. Lazare, 
and all is lost.” Mrs. Butler visited St. Lazare, 
and saw the inmates, but was not allowed to con- 
verse with them. In a letter to a friend she says : 
“ It was a sight to wring the heart of a woman— 
a mother ! Most of them so very young, and 
some of them (go and see for yourself, and then 
you will know I am not exaggerating) so very 
sweet, so comely, so frank, so erect and graceful, 
in spite of the ugly prison dress.” She adds 
“ Well might Alexander Dumas exclaim : { O, be- 
sotted nation, to turn all these lovely women who 
should be our companions in life’s work, wives, 
and mothers, into prostitutes ! ’ ” 
To entrap, arrest, and register these women is 
easy enough for the police, under the regulation 
code. So, also, the same machinery is sometimes OF VICE. 
29 
employed by vile persons to ensnare, by bearing 
false witness, poor girls whose ruin they thus seek 
to accomplish. Once on the register, to get off 
again is made well-nigh impossible to the poor and 
friendless. She must present her request to the 
office, give her abode and occupation ; “ she must 
bring forward some honorable person who will 
give a guarantee for her good conduct,” and be- 
sides this she must, for a period of three months, 
report once a week at the sanitary office, and sub- 
mit herself to official medical inspection. “The 
cancelling of the registration shall take place after 
the lapse of this period, if the conduct of the 
woman has always been regular.” Well may it be 
asked, “ But what hope is there for the poor child 
who, having no friends, none to claim or vouch 
for her, no means of subsistence, no place of abode, 
an orphan perhaps, friendless and poor, neverthe- 
less, abhors the degradation of the prison-house 
of shame, remembers her God, her infancy, her 
former home, pines for freedom, and aspires to a 
regenerate life ? ” A more “ forlorn hope,” in- 
deed, than that of the former American slave, even, 
who was the victim of a system fitly denounced as 
the “ sum of all villanies.” God forbid that there 30 
STA TE REGULA TION 
shall be established in this and other American 
cities, a yet more damnable slavery in the form of 
“ localized ” and “ legalized ” prostitution ! 
REGULATION IN ENGLAND. 
The regulation system was introduced in Eng- 
land under the title of the “ Contagious Diseases 
Acts”—the first in 1864, next in 1866, and the 
last in 1869. They apply at present to certain 
garrison towns and military stations, and to a 
given area of adjacent territory, embracing a total 
of eighteen English and Irish towns. Under the 
very general title, their introduction and adoption 
by Parliament was managed so quietly and adroitly 
that their real import was known and compre- 
hended only by a few regulationists, whose pur- 
pose it was to gain a legal foothold for the regula- 
tion of prostitution in connection with the army 
and navy, ostensibly for the benefit of the public 
service ; and subsequently to extend the system 
throughout Great Britain. When it became more 
generally known that the apparently innocent 
“Contagious Diseases Acts” meant the Govern- 
ment supervision and regulation of prostitution, 
the attempt to provide for lustful indulgence on OF VICE. 
the part of British soldiers and others in the dis- 
tricts under the Acts, by the registration and medi- 
cal inspection of actual and “ suspected ” prosti- 
tutes, there was awakened an earnest agitation for 
repeal. Many hundreds of thousands of petition- 
ers have asked Parliament for the unconditional 
repeal of these Acts. Once on the Statute-book, 
however, repeal is found to be a difficult task. The 
classes who unite to oppose repeal are the officials 
—the doctors and the police, who work the sys- 
tem, and who are reluctant to surrender place and 
power; the vicious class of prostitute men, who 
seek lustful indulgence, and who want to retain 
as their defense the Government patronage and 
implied sanction of prostitution, and their sup- 
posed greater immunity from disease ; and aban- 
doned prostitute women, who find that as “ Queen’s 
women,” as they now style themselves, officially 
certified by Her Majesty’s Government as free 
from infectious disease, they are more in demand, 
and can thus increase their gains. Some such are 
mentioned as having signed petitions to Parlia- 
ment, prepared for them by the medical and police 
officials under whose supervision they were, pray- 
ing that the Acts might be retained because their 32 
STATS REGULATION 
repeal would be a calamity to themselves and a 
misfortune to the country at large ! 
The only serious claim which is urged for the 
retention and extention of the Acts is on the 
ground of alleged sanitary benefit. In character, 
they do not materially differ from the regulation 
system of Paris and other continental cities—in 
Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. Reg- 
istration, enforced inspection, and compulsory 
hospital detention for the diseased, are the chief 
features. Any woman suspected by the appointed 
policeman of being vicious, may, on the bare sus- 
picion, be summoned to appear before a justice. 
He may order her to be subjected periodically to 
the outrage of an examination by a surgeon ap- 
pointed for the purpose, or she may “ voluntarily ” 
submit to examination without going before the 
justice. This “voluntary submission” is, how- 
ever, of the kind which prompted the frog to come 
out of the tea-kettle after a fire had been lighted 
under it. 
It is claimed by “ Regulationists,” that in the 
towns wherein the Acts are in force the number 
of prostitute women has been lessened, and that 
the average percentage of venereal diseases has OF VICE. 
33 
declined among the soldiers, as compared with 
other military stations not under the Acts. I can- 
not within the limits of this paper present a de- 
railed statement of the figures, comparisons, and 
testimony before the Royal Commission, but as 
summarized and given in the Westminster, by Dr. 
Chapman, in the article before referred to, and 
corroborated by official testimony which I have 
examined, it appears that: 
“ i. The average annual ratio of admissions to 
hospital on account of primary venereal sores was 
lessening at ten out of the fourteen stations under 
the Acts before they became operative ; and in 
the course of definite periods, before they did so 
equal in length to the periods which have elapsed 
since the Acts were put in force, the average an- 
nual ratio of admissions at those ten stations les- 
sened 2.8 more rapidly than it did during the. cor- 
responding period since the Acts were applied. 
At Windsor, where no basis for a comparison is 
afforded, there has been a positive rise in the 
ratio since the station was subjected to the Acts; 
and only at three stations out of the whole four- 
teen was there a rise in the ratio before the Acts 
were applied and a fall afterward. 34 
STA TE REGULA TIOJV 
“ 2. During said years before the Acts were ap- 
plied, the average ratio of admission on account 
of constitutional syphilis fell 7.95 ; but when the 
Acts came into force, the gradual improvement 
denoted by the figures was permanently arrested. 
“ 3. The decline in the average ratio of admis- 
sions on account of blenorrhagia has been less 
rapid and less continuous since the Acts came 
into force tban it was before, and during the three 
years ending with 1872, was 2.6 greater at the pro- 
tected than at the unprotected stations.” 
It will be seen from this summary, which any 
one who chooses may fully verify, that as in Paris 
so in England, the regulation system, in its gen- 
eral results, is even worse than a failure, so far as 
its alleged sanitary benefits are concerned. 
In the districts under the Acts, the official rec- 
ords show, as in Paris, a comparatively small, and 
a generally decreasing number of registered pros- 
titutes and of houses of prostitution. This, by 
English Regulationists, is quoted as a proof that 
prostitution, in the aggregate, is diminished by the 
Acts. M. Lecour and other Frenchmen recognize 
the fact, however, that prostitution defies their 
control, and that while registered prostitutes de- OF VICE. 
35 
crease, clandestine prostitutes increase, and they 
accordingly call for still more absolute power over 
the persons of all single or suspected women. In 
England the districts under the operation of the 
Acts are surrounded by others in which the Acts 
are not operative. To these, women who refuse 
to register migrate, and there practice clandestine 
prostitution. What is an apparent advantage in 
numbers in one district is, therefore, counterbal- 
anced in another. Referring to this phase of the 
subject. Dr. Chapman says: “ According to Cap- 
tain Harris’ Report for 1875, 011 operations of 
the Acts, during the six years ending last Decem- 
ber. 7,304 of the total number who were registered 
are officially reported to have thus migrated. The 
same remark is applicable to brothel-keepers. 
‘ Three brothel-keepers who were found to be 
harboring juvenile prostitutes, and permitting 
young girls to frequent their houses, closed their 
brothels and left the district on being cautioned 
by the police.’ Of course a vast clearance of 
this kind from any district will be regarded as 
a boon by the ‘ respectable ’ inhabitants of it, 
and therefore we experience no difficulty in either 
crediting or appreciating the facts recorded in the 36 
ST A TE REGULA TION 
following extracts from Captain Harris’ Report 
last mentioned: 
“ ‘ In towns where the Acts are in force, the voice of the 
general public is strongly in their favor; the opposition 
proceeds from persons .... who reside in places 
distant from the scene of their operation. 
“ ‘ Respectable persons, residing within a protected dis- 
trict, have been known to say that they would gladly pay a 
special rate for the maintenance of the Acts, so much do 
they contribute to the peace and quietness of a town.’ ” 
“ But we should like to know what ‘ respectable 
persons’ residing in the towns outside the ‘pro- 
tected districts,’ and to which the 7,304 prostitutes 
in question, together with numerous brothel-keep- 
ers, migrated, have to say concerning this migra- 
tion. We imagine that the small number of such 
persons who are duly acquainted with the nature 
and extent of it, take a view of it differing consid- 
erably from that entertained by ‘ respectable per- 
sons residing within a protected district,’ and by 
the officials who adduce it as evidence of the bene- 
ficient influence of the Acts. We imagine, too, 
that many ‘ respectable persons ’ who reside in 
the outside districts, but who know nothing of the 
migration in question, have a vague, uncomfortable 
feeling that the number of ‘ disreputable ’ women 
in their midst has largely increased, and that OF VICE. 
37 
evidences of sexual profligacy have lately become 
much more obtrusive than formerly. The fact 
that the application of the Contagious Diseases 
Acts has cleared the districts subject to them of 
some thousands of prostitutes, and of a large num- 
ber of brothels, may be, and of course is, adduced 
as a strong argument in favor of those Acts, an 
argument which, as we are well aware, tells 
wflth convincing force on that large number of 
persons who take only a superficial view of the 
matter; but, in fact, the social and physical evils 
produced in the districts outside and immediately 
adjoining those subject to the Acts are actually 
greater, and probably far greater, than those 
which are abolished within the ‘ protected dis- 
tricts ’ by the forced migrations in question.” 
Merely hiding from public view, or changing the 
locality of the great evil of prostitution, is a very 
poor equivalent for the shocking cruelty, the gross 
injustice, and the demoralizing and shameful gov- 
ernmental copartnership in iniquity which the 
regulation system involves. 
John Stuart Mill, before the Royal Commission, 
objected strongly to the Acts as opposed to “ the 
security of personal liberty.” He said : “ It ap- 38 
STATE KEGULA TIOjV 
pears to me that legislation of this sort takes 
away that security almost entirely from a particular 
class of women intentionally, but incidentally and 
unintentionally one may say, from all women 
whatever, inasmuch as it enables a woman to be 
apprehended by the police on suspicion and taken 
before a magistrate, and then by that magistrate 
she is liable to be confined for a term of imprison- 
ment which may amount, I believe, to six months, 
for refusing to sign a declaration consenting to be 
examined.” He adds : “ We ought not to give 
powers liable to very great abuse, and easily 
abused, and then presume that those powers will 
not be abused.” 
That the arbitrary and irresponsible power over 
women conferred upon those who are charged 
with the execution of these Acts is abused, there 
is evidence only too abundant and painful. Work- 
ing girls and unattended respectable women, mar- 
ried women of unquestioned respectability, under 
a great variety of circumstances, have been re- 
peatedly subjected to great annoyance, inconven- 
ience, and to positive danger and outrage, by offi- 
cial representatives of the Acts ; and sometimes OF VICE. 
39 
by others, who, for evil purposes, have personated 
those officials. 
A distinguished physician, for several years past 
a resident of London—Ur. Elizabeth Blackwell— 
well-known, and highly esteemed, and who has an 
intimate acquaintance with the subject, prophesies 
the repeal of the Acts in England, and says: 
“ The public agitation of this question is one of 
the great events of the age.” She adds : “ Any 
legislation which attempts to regulate evil without, 
at the same time, checking that evil, either directly 
or indirectly, educates the community in evil. The 
evil in this case is licentiousness (not prostitution), 
and the so-called Contagious Diseases Acts in- 
directly encourage licentiousness, and actively cor- 
rupt the moral sense of the community. 
“ All legislation applied to one sex only, in re- 
lation to an evil in which both sexes are concerned, 
is radically unjust; and unjust legislation is the 
profoundest immorality—the greatest crime that 
a government can commit against its people. Of 
the folly of this short-sighted legislation, which 
attempts to overturn immutable moral laws, we 
have a standing and flagrant example in the con- 
dition of France, whose medical advisers are sim- 40 
ST A TE REGULA TION 
ply in despair at the existing state of things in 
that country.” 
MRS. BUTLER—THE MORAL CRUSADE. 
To Mrs. Josephine E. Butler, of Liverpool, whom 
I have already mentioned, is due more than to 
any one person besides, a debt of profound grati- 
tude for the vigorous warfare now being waged 
against State regulated vice, not only in Great 
Britain, but also on the continent, in Switzerland, 
Italy and France. Mrs.. Butler is the wife of a 
Liverpool clergyman, the Rev. George Butler, and 
the mother of devoted sons. She is a devoutly 
religious woman, of superior intellectual ability 
and culture. She is accepted, loved, and honored 
as the true leader of the movement to abolish 
Government regulation and sanction of prostitu- 
tion. There are now at work in Great Britain 
numerous influential associations, embracing per- 
sons distinguished in Parliament, in the medical 
and clerical professions, and as philanthropists, 
urging the repeal of the “ Contagious Diseases 
Acts,” and promoting efforts for the abolition of 
Government regulation of prostitution on the con- 
tinent. In 1875 Mrs. Butler paid a visit to the OF VICE. 
41 
continent and held conferences and organized 
committees in Switzerland and in Italy. She made 
an auspicious beginning in Paris, of what is now 
rapidly ripening into a very important movement 
for the abolition of legalized vice in the French 
metropolis. The authorities will not allow public 
meetings to discuss the subject, but on the occa- 
sion of a recent visit to Paris by Mrs. Butler and 
others, a technically “ private ” meeting was held, 
attended by 2,000 invited guests. The meeting 
wras one of marked interest, and foreshadows im- 
portant results in the future. 
In Italy a powerful and thoroughly well-organ- 
ized movement is the Putgrowth of Mrs. Butler’s 
visit. In Switzerland a vigorous, effective agita- 
tion is in progress which has already been pro- 
ductive of excellent practical results. 
Zurich has published a decree abolishing the 
Regulation system, which, after reciting that 
“ toleration gives rise to a fatal confusion of 
ideas ; ” that “ a moral confusion no less fatal is 
produced among the employes and agents em- 
ployed in the morals police ; ” that “ Zurich owes 
it to herself to watch over the interests of the 
young confided to her care; ” that the existence 42 
STATE REG ULA 770IT 
of tolerated houses “ tends to foster and develop 
sensuality and to multiply the means of gratifying 
it; ” that “ the snare is all the more dangerous 
because presented under a false semblance of san- 
itary immunity ; ” and that “the opinion that tol- 
erated houses are a preservative against conta- 
gious diseases is refuted by modern statistics,” 
concludes with the declaration that “ the system 
of official tolerance of prostitution is irreconcila- 
ble with the idea of the State as a moral power, 
with every sound principle of social economy, and 
is regarded with just reprobation by the con- 
science of the great majority of the people.” 
It would be inexcusable' folly for us in America, 
at this late date in the nineteenth century, to 
adopt an immoral, suicidal system which the old 
world, in the light of bitter experience, is, at last, 
rising up against, and has already begun to dis- 
card. 
We owe a large debt of gratitude to the “ Brit- 
ish, Continental, and General Federation for the 
Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitu- 
tion,” for sending in 1876 to this country a depu- 
tation—Messrs. Henry J. Wilson and the Rev. J. 
P. Gledstone—to warn us of impending danger OF VICE. 
43 
here, and to awaken us to a sense of Christian 
obligation and duty to join in the holy crusade 
against legalized vice and immorality, the organ- 
ized iniquity and oppression of other lands. The 
visit of those gentlemen was most opportune, and 
their eminent fitness for their mission was fully 
attested and approved by the quality and effi- 
ciency of their labors. They laid successfully 
the foundations of a preventive movement which, 
I trust, will forestall all vicious schemes of State 
regulation here, and presently be prepared to ex- 
tend practical sympathy and encouragement to 
the heroic, Christian women and men who are 
laboring in the “ new abolitionists’ ” movement 
abroad. 
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. 
The movement against State regulation of vice 
has now reached‘such proportions as to render it 
both desirable and practicable to hold an Inter- 
national Conference to give it unity and increased 
strength. Such a conference has been sum- 
moned by the “ British, Continental, and General 
Federation for the Abolition of Government Reg- 
ulation of Prostitution,” to meet in Geneva in 44 
STATE REGULATION 
September, 1877, at which it is earnestly desired 
that representatives from America should be 
present. Dr. Jeannel and other French advo- 
cates of the regulation system are urging the im- 
portance, in view of the inter-communication be- 
tween nations, that there should be an interna- 
tional system of regulation and medical inspec- 
tion, that “ international arrangements be made 
by concert among the governments, so that no 
ship may be permitted to enter or leave any of 
the ports of the world without a full inspection of 
the crew,” etc. This concerns our own country. 
Committed already to this international scheme 
of regulation, as the American allies of Dr. 
Jeannel, are such well-known medical men as Dr. 
Sims, of this city, to whom I have already re- 
ferred, Dr. Gross, of Philadelphia, and such 
others as they may represent. For our own pro- 
tection, therefore, and to lend our co-operation in 
the abolition movement for the overthrow of a 
gigantic, iniquitous, old-world system of sensua 
slavery for women and degradation for men, we 
are now called upon to enlist heartily and earn- 
estly in the righteous, “ irrepressible conflict.” 
While womanhood* may be dishonored and sub- OF VICE. 
45 
ordinated, and women practically enslaved by the 
strong arm of despotic old-world governments, to 
afford supposed guarantees against loathsome 
disease, semi-respectability and enlarged, oppor- 
tunities for licentious men, womanhood, espe- 
cially among the poor and lowly, in America, and 
the general public morality, will be imperilled. 
THE SOCIAL PROBLEM AND ITS TREATMENT. 
Regulated or unregulated prostitution, as in- 
volving both sexes, is an evil of immense magni- 
tude. It may well challenge the thoughtful con- 
sideration of the sttidents of social science, of 
political economists, of Christian philanthropists. 
On no account must the State give to prostitu- 
tion, through any scheme of localization or tol- 
eration, even an implied sanction or legal status, 
or deal with it other than as a crime for men, 
who buy and solicit, as well as for wanton women. 
Law is in itself an educator, and its lesson should 
in nowise be one of license for iniquity. For the 
unhappy victims of the diseases begotten of sin, 
wretched themselves, and dangerous to others, 
there shoukl be afforded ample hospital facilities. 
After all has been clone which can be to eracl- 46 
ST A TE KEG ULA TION 
icate the disease which is the inevitable accom- 
paniment of prostitution, and to reclaim and re- 
habilitate its present victims, the major part of 
the importantjproblem remains still to be solved. 
It is the preventive. No solution is possible except 
upon the basis of an equal standard of morality for 
men and women. If prostitution is a necessity for 
men, it is honorable for women. It is neither a 
necessity for men nor honorable for women. 
Children should be taught the true function of 
sex, and the sacred obligations which pertain to 
true marriage and parentage. Young men should 
be admonished that there is*not for them, more 
than for their sisters, any proper season for 
“sowing wild oats.” Older men should aspire to 
a higher type of manhood than that which wor- 
ships at the shrine of undisciplined desire and 
ignoble passion. For women generally there 
should be enlarged and equal opportunities, es- 
pecially industrial, educational, and political, that 
vicious men may less readily take advantage of 
their helplessness and necessities. In this mis- 
sion for the uplifting of humanity, parents, teach- 
ers, enlightened scientists, physicians, and Chris- 
tian ministers, one and all, should bear a part. OF VICE. 
47 
Labor thus intelligently and conscientiously be- 
stowed cannot fail of a beneficent fruition. So 
long has the sinning man been condoned, and 
the sinning woman condemned, that to unlearn 
the grievous traditional lesson of moral inequal- 
ity, as between the two, is the first, and to society 
at large, not an easy duty. With faith in the ca- 
pacity of the human soul, and in the Grace of 
God, to the erring woman we must be able to 
say : 
“ Oh, wronged and scarred and stained with ill, 
Behold, thou art a woman still! ” 48 
REGULA TION EFFORTS 
II. 
REGULATION EFFORTS IN AMERICA. 
America at present has no avowedly legalized, 
or State regulated prostitution. It has had a sin- 
gle noteworthy experiment of license, in the city 
of St. Louis, which covered a period of about four 
years, and was then abandoned. It is not, how- 
ever, without advocates of regulation. Within the 
past decade they have made vigorous, but thus 
far unsuccessful efforts to introduce government 
regulation of prostitution, with police and medical 
supervision in the larger cities, including New 
York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, Wash- 
ington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco. 
The considerations urged are chiefly economic 
and sanitary; that license would yield to the State 
revenue for hospital and other purposes, and that 
official surveillance and medical inspection of pros- 
titutes would promote and protect the public IN AMERICA. 
49 
health. Property owners, some of whom would 
“ localize ” prostitution to relieve their own 
estates from the depreciating influence of a “ bad 
neighborhood;” others who reap large harvests of 
rent from houses used for social vice, and sanita- 
rians, chiefly associated with Boards of Health, 
are the most urgent and active in pressing the 
regulation system. The subject, as a matter of 
public discussion, is generally treated with reserve. 
The medical and sanitary advocates of regulation 
disclaim any immoral purpose. 
NEW YORK. 
New York, the chief American city, largely 
cosmopolitan in the nativity and character of its 
population, was the earliest, as, from its relation 
to other cities and the country at large, it is the 
most important, field selected by Regulationists 
for the introduction of the license system. 
In 1867,111 the Assembly of the New York Leg- 
islature, a resolution was adopted requiring the 
Metropolitan Boards of Police and Health to 
furnish that body with “ their opinion as to the 
necessity and the probable result of legislation 
looking to the more thorough restriction of pro- 50 
REGULA riON EFFORTS 
titution in the city of New York.” This resolu- 
tion was referred to the “ Sanitary Committee ” 
of the Metropolitan Board of Health. This 
Committee made an extended report, which was 
approved by the Board, and transmitted to the 
Legislature. The report proposed : 
i st. That all hospitals and dispensaries which 
receive pecuniary aid from the State shall be 
obliged to treat venereal diseases. 
2d. That all keepers of houses of prostitution 
and assignation shall be registered. 
3d. That when any woman gains admission 
she shall be at once reported to the police. 
4th. That a hospital shall be established for 
prostitutes. 
5th. That the houses and persons of all prosti- 
tutes shall be inspected. 
The object of these suggestions was stated to 
be the eradication of the venereal disease. The 
report recognized the fact that “ to speak of pros- 
titution and the diseases resulting from it, and es- 
pecially to treat these diseases, and subject the 
wretched women who pursue this occupation to 
police and medical surveillance, in hopes of erad- 
icating their disease, is at first sight revolting, and IN AMERICA. 
51 
has always met with opposition ; ” that “ no one 
can revive the subject without wounding the sen- 
sibilities of many worthy persons ; ” but that vene- 
real disease should be dealt with as the cholera, 
and crushed out in its origin. To that end regis- 
tration and inspection of prostitutes is recom- 
mended ; also the registration of all keepers and 
owners of houses of prostitution and assignation. 
Any woman admitted to a house of prostitution 
to be reported to the police, “ and the police shall 
not allow such woman to remain in such house 
unless she is a registered prostitute.” The deter- 
rent advantages of registration are dwelt upon, es- 
pecially as affecting girls and young women, though 
“the books which contain the names of registered 
housekeepers and prostitutes should never be 
open for public inspection, because the peace of 
many respectable families would be destroyed by 
the secrets contained in them.” It is suggested 
that “ the greater freedom from disease, caused 
by the early medical care given to the prostitutes, 
might lead the depraved to prefer them to all 
other women,” at any rate, “ to lessen the demand 
for the women who frequent the houses of assig- 
nation to practise debauchery secretly.” It is 52 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
also suggested that the Legislature provide the 
means to carry out the regulation measures and 
to “enable the police to compel obedience in case 
of resistance.” 
In 1868 an unsuccessful effort was made in 
the State Legislature to pass a bill for the city of 
New York, embodying the main features of this 
report. In 1871 the effort was renewed, and a 
bill, with little discussion, passed both branches 
of the Legislature. The Governor did not inter- 
pose his official veto, but allowed the bill to 
expire by “ limitation,” without his official ap- 
proval, which amounted practically to a veto, and 
thus a second time the efforts of the Regulation- 
ists failed. A few philanthropists, opposed alike 
to “regulated” and “ unregulated ” prostitution, 
and solicitous especially for the rights and 
freedom of women, among the most active and 
influential of whom were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
Susan B. Anthony and Lydia Mott, vigorously 
opposed, before legislative committees, by public 
addresses or personal appeals, these preliminary 
regulation efforts, and contributed largely to their 
defeat. 
In 1875 the New York State Assembly ap- IN AMERICA. 
53 
pointed a Special Committee to investigate the 
causes of the increase of crime in the city of 
New York. This Legislative Committee, after a 
prolonged investigation, made an official report, 
a conspicuous feature of which was a recommen- 
dation to license prostitution. They assumed 
the necessity of prostitution, that it must and will 
continue to exist, found houses of prostitution 
“ in some of the most fashionable and respectable 
quarters,” and that some of the buildings which 
are let and occupied as low dens “ are owned by 
highly reputable people, some of them pillars of 
the Church and State.” They proposed that the 
houses be “ located ; ” that the keepers “ be. 
required to remain in certain localities;” that 
keepers of houses, and prostitutes, should be 
provided with “permits;” that these should be 
forfeited for non-compliance with the specified 
regulations; that both should be under police 
control, and the latter under medical supervision. 
It is understood that a bill was prepared em- 
bodying the propositions of the committee to 
license and “ localize,” prostitution, intended for 
the Legislature of 1876 ; but that it was finally 
decided by the Regulationists interested in its 54 
REGULA TION EFFORTS 
success that it would be premature to introduce 
it then, and it was therefore withheld. 
When the Legislative Committee’s Report, ap- 
peared in the New York journals a memorial to 
the Legislature was promptly prepared, and copies 
circulated for signatures and forwarded to Sen- 
ators and Members of the Assembly by opponents 
of license, protesting against the proposed action 
to legalize prostitution. The memorial was as 
follows : 
To the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York: 
Your memoralists, residents and citizens of the 
City and State of New York, have learned with 
much regret and apprehension of the official rec- 
ommendation by the Committee on Crime to your 
honorable body to enact laws “ regulating,” 
“ permitting,” or “ licensing ” prostitution. We 
respectfully but earnestly represent that prostitu- 
tion is condemned as an unmitigated evil by 
enlightened science and by Divine law; that 
nothing which is morally wrong either needs or 
should receive the sanction of the State ; that 
experience abroad has abundantly demonstrated 
the failure of licensing prostitution as an alleged 
sanitary measure; that with a large population IN AMERICA. 
55 
of prostitute women and men, only a relatively 
small number of women are licensed and sub- 
jected to medical inspection, and diseased men 
are neither inspected nor restrained; that the 
proposed governmental inspection can be of no 
general value only as applied impartially to men 
and women alike ; that laws licensing prostitution 
are as readily ignored and perverted by an indif- 
ferent or corrupt police, and as easily evaded by 
the evil-minded as those which declare it to be 
unlawful and criminal; that such laws are espe- 
cially liable to gross abuse and injustice towards 
women ; that women, as a class, ask for no such 
legislation, but generally abhor and oppose it; 
that as prostitution, so theft and murder prevail, 
and have long abounded, but they are not, there: 
fore, to be “ regulated ” by State ordinances as to 
times and places, where, by the payment of 
“ fees ” and under government supervision, thefts 
and murder may be committed ; that it is wrong 
for the State to license immorality, and thereby 
in effect to say to its citizens, “ You may sin with 
impunity ; ” that licensed prostitution is opposed 
to the sanctity of marriage and to the Gospel 56 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
injunction to “ sin no more ” and to “ overcome 
evil.” 
We therefore pray that you will enact no law 
giving to prostitution legal status and guarantee- 
ing to it the protection of the State, but that you 
will provide by adequate penalties for its effectual 
restraint and abolition as a hideous immorality 
and crime. 
This memorial, signed and approved by many 
good citizens, and a kindred memorial from the 
“ Moral Education Society of New York,” served 
to delay and to discourage action by the Legis- 
lature. 
Iii May, 1876, in connection with a visit from a 
deputation, Henry J. Wilson Esq., and the Rev. 
J. P. Gledstone, representing the “ British, Con- 
tinental, and General Federation for the Abolition 
of Government Regulation of Prostitution,” a 
New York Committee for the prevention of 
licensed prostitution was formed, with Mrs. Abby 
Hopper Gibbons, as president; Emily Blackwell, 
M. D., Mr. W. H. Hussey, Anna Lukens, M. D., 
and Mr. Aaron M. Powell, vice-presidents ; Mrs. 
Cornelia C. Hussey and Mrs. Anna Rice Powell, 
secretaries, and Mrs. Elizabeth Gay, treasurer. IN AMERICA. 
The renewed activity of the regulationists ren- 
dered important the formation of such a com- 
mittee for systematic and effective work. 
In June, while the deputation from the Feder- 
ation were in the city, and immediately after the 
formation of the New York Committee, the 
Grand Jury of the Court of General Sessions for 
the city and county of New York, made an official 
presentment to the Court, representing the prev- 
alence of prostitution, and, assuming that while 
impossible to suppress, it might be easily circum- 
scribed and regulated, and suggesting legislation 
to this end. The Grand Jury’s presentment con- 
cluded with the following resolution as a petition 
from the Court to the Legislature of 1876-7 : 
Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of 
New York be earnestly requested to adopt as early 
as practicable some system of laws calculated to 
confine houses of prostitution in the large cities 
of this State within certain specified limits, and to 
subject them at all times to the careful and vigi- 
lant supervision of the Boards of Health and 
Police. 
The New York Committee for the Prevention 
of Licensed Prostitution, early in the session of 58 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
the Legislature, addressed an appeal to each 
senator and member of Assembly, accompanied 
with documents showing the inutility and immoral- 
ity of State regulated vice, and protesting against 
the legislation proposed by the Legislative Com- 
mittee on Crime and by the Grand Jury of New 
York. This appeal was as follows : 
Gentlemen of the Legislature : 
New York, February 9, 1877. 
We understand that, in accordance with the rec- 
ommendation of the Legislative Committee on 
Crime of 1875, and of the Grand Jury of the 
Court of General Sessions of this City and County 
of June last, an effort is to be made to secure such 
legislation concerning prostitution as shall provide 
for its legal toleration and regulation, with medical 
inspection and police supervision of prostitutes, 
under the direction of the Board of Health, by 
amendment of the law authorizing and governing 
that body. 
We should greatly deprecate such legislation, 
and we earnestly ask that, if it be proposed, under 
whatever guise, sanitary or otherwise, you will 
oppose it by voice and vote. IN AMERICA. 
59 
Prostitution is in every sense evil—a crime to 
be abated, not legalized. 
The experience of European cities has abun- 
dantly demonstrated that governmental supervision 
of prostitution, under a regulation or license sys- 
tem, has fostered and increased the evil, and that, 
with respect to alleged sanitary benefits, it is a 
signal failure. In illustration of this we invite 
your careful attention to the important, well-au- 
thenticated facts sent herewith. 
Furthermore, laws “ regulating ” or “ licensing ” 
prostitution are especially liable to gross abuse 
and injustice towards women. Women as a class 
are opposed to and abhor them. They are also 
misleading and deceptive to men, who are falsely 
assured by them that they may sin with impunity. 
Thus the evil is magnified, and disease and de- 
moralization are fostered by laws which are an 
abuse of the true function of government. 
Though other attempts to license and legalize 
prostitution have from time to time been made 
elsewhere, the experiment in this country has been 
tried only in the city of St. Louis. There it 
wrought only evil, shocked the moral sense of all 60 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
good citizens, men and women, and was speedily 
abandoned. 
We beg that you will scrutinize with great cau- 
tion the phraseology of any proposed amendment 
to enlarge the powers of the Board of Health of 
this city which, while seeming to be innocent and 
well-intended, may be subsequently so construed 
as to authorize a scheme of licensed prostitution, 
with medical and jDolice control. 
Remembering your own mothers, wives, sons, 
and daughters, we implore you to sanction no 
legislation which will imperil the purity of the 
home, the sanctity of marriage, and the safety of 
the wives, daughters, and sons of others. 
Beside the action of the New York Committee 
for the Prevention of Licensed Prostitution, the 
New York Yearly Meetings of Women Friends 
appointed a deputation to wait upon the Legisla- 
ture and present the following remonstrance : 
REMONSTRANCE. 
In view of the bill for legalizing prostitution, to 
be presented to the Legislature of our State, we 
would respectfully and earnestly enter our protest 
against its passage. 
We believe that it is opposed to the requisites IN AMERICA. 
61 
of the Gospel, and to the honor and safety of the 
manners and morals of the community, and there- 
fore pray that no such law may ever be enacted. 
We appoint Ruth S. Murray and Caroline Ladd 
our committee to present this remonstrance to the 
Senate and Assembly of New York. 
Though thus far the Regulationists have been 
unsuccessful in their efforts to secure Legislative 
authority for license, police and medical supervis- 
ion of prostitutes in New York, they have not 
abandoned their purpose. A fresh recommen- 
dation of licensed prostitution has recently been 
made public (August, 1877), embodied in the 
Annual Report of the New York “ Commissioners 
of Public Charities and Correction ” for 1876, 
addressed to the Mayor of the city. After dis- 
cussing at length the subject of prostitution, and 
the prevalence of syphilis, the report says: 
“ There appear to be only two ways of meeting 
the exigencies of the case, although they may be 
accompanied with utterance of pain by the moral 
portion of society, and they are : 
“ x. That all known places of prostitution shall 
be legally visited by duly appointed physicians at 
stated intervals, who shall examine all the inmates,  REGULA TIO.V EFFOR TS 
and immediately cause the removal of those tainted 
with syphilis or gonorrhoea. 
“ 2. The erection of a hospital where only vene- 
real cases are treated, and where subjects found 
in houses of prostitution shall be detained until 
entirely cured.” 
It adds : 
“ Although this system would induce the coun- 
tenancing of brothels, it wTould certainly restrain 
the propagation of syphilis, and become ultimately 
a boon to society. While we all acknowledge 
that, to license immorality, and to give it legal 
countenance, is a step no one sanctions except as 
a necessary evil, we ought not to forget the other 
side of the question,—the inability of any govern- 
ment to entirely suppress the public sexual vice 
without introducing it into the home of the morally 
innocent. Besides, the erection of a hospital of 
this kind could also receive the numerous cases of 
venereal diseases which crowd our charitable hos- 
pitals, and which are a source of great annoyance 
in the proper management of the latter, on ac- 
count of the evil influence the depraved poor have 
on the worthy poor that labor under other afflic- 
tions of the body.” IN AMERICA. 
63 
The chief American city, sometimes designated 
as the “ Paris of America,” must never be per- 
mitted to repeat the cruel and demoralizing 
Parisian method of legalizing and fostering social 
vice. 
In St. Louis the battle has been fought and a 
victory won on the side of the opponents of 
license. In 1870 the license system was inau- 
gurated in that city. The authority conferred 
was obtained by a legislative trick, the interpola- 
tion, without debate, of the two words, “ or 
regulate,” into an amendment of the city charter, 
intended, as was generally supposed, to suppress 
prostitution. The legal effect of the amendment, 
as was subsequently decided by the Supreme 
Court of the State of Missouri, was to repeal all 
State laws prohibiting prostitution, so far as St. 
Louis was concerned, and to give to it a business 
status as a legitimate industry. A German munici- 
pal office-holder was deputed to visit Europe, to 
familiarize himself with regulation laws there. An 
ordinance was subsequently adopted, requiring 
the registry of prostitute women. The city 
was divided into six districts, with one medi- 
ST. LOUIS. 64 
REGULA TION ERROR TS 
cal examiner to each. The salaries of the ex- 
aminers were from twelve hundred to twenty-five 
hundred dollars per annum. Each examiner was 
required to visit the houses and apartments of 
prostitutes, to make inquiries, and, if he thought 
necessary, physical examinations. He was to give 
such sanitary directions as he might deem best, to 
render prostitution safe, and to order any of the 
prostitutes to be removed to the hospital whose 
condition, in his opinion, required it. The keep- 
ers of licensed houses were required to pay a tax 
of ten dollars a month, and one dollar a week for 
each prostitute therein; each prostitute fifty cents 
a week. Each registered prostitute therefore 
paid about twenty-six dollars a year, and each 
keeper of a brothel an average of about three 
hundred dollars a year. As compared with the 
French system, the St. Louis experiment differed 
in appointing but a single examiner to visit, un- 
attended, prostitute women and girls in their own 
houses and apartments, and then to make phys- 
ical examinations, or not, at his own discretion. 
It is not at all surprising that the experiment ex- 
cited moral indignation and disgust on the part of 
good citizens, men and women, and that, so far IN AMERICA. 
65 
as sanitary results were concerned, it should end 
in a disgraceful failure. The Regulationists of 
St. Louis, connected with its Board of Health, 
attempted to show by the figures of the earlier 
registrations, made at intervals of a few months, 
a diminution in the number of prostitutes in the 
city ; but, says Dr. William G. Eliot, President of 
Washington University, of St. Louis, “ In fact 
they had scotched the snake, not killed it, and in 
all probability the number of prostitutes had not 
been diminished at all. To scatter a nest of 
hornets is a very different thing from its destruc- 
tion.” The sequel during the progress of the ex- 
periment proved an increase of 34 per cent in 
the number of brothels, and an increase in the 
number of registered women of more than 35 per 
cent. There was also an undoubted increase of 
clandestine prostitution. Concerning the sanitary 
aspect, Dr. Eliot says : • 
“ What is still more startling, when the stamping 
out process is examined, it appears that while the 
number of diseased women under treatment in 
1871 was 18 out of 480, or 3 it has risen 
now to an average of 40 out of 653, or over 6 per 
cent. Showing the remarkable fact—to which, how- 66 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
ever, we can find a parallel in Paris itself— that 
even among the registered and regularly-inspected 
prostitutes the hateful disease may increase ; a 
result which, though unexpected, ought not to 
surprise us so long as the male prostitutes are 
themselves exempt from medical inspection. But 
what shall we say of a sanitary system which is 
liable to such failure as this ? ” 
How incomplete was the registration and of 
how little practical value, in a sanitary point of 
view, the system of medical inspection was, may 
be seen from the following significant figures pre- 
sented by Dr. Eliot from the reports of the Chief 
of Police of St. Louis, for the years 1871 and 1872 
respectively: 
“ The year 1871, ending March 31, shows that 
out of 3,722 females arrested, 1,526 were pros- 
titutes and 218 keepers of bawdy-houses (the 
Board of Heatth report of the same date shows 
480 registered prostitutes and 99 keepers !), being 
a total of 1,744, or 46 per cent of all females ar- 
rested. The year 1872 shows that out of 3,187 
females arrested, 2,613 were prostitutes and 71 
keepers of houses, or a total of 2,684, being over 
64 per cent of all females arrested, and an in- IN AMERICA. 
67 
crease of 940 prostitutes arrested or 18 per cent 
more than the previous year.” 
Dr. Edmund Andrews of Chicago, commenting 
upon the sanitary results of the St. Louis license 
law, in a late letter ( August, 1877) writes : 
“ The authorities in St. Louis at the time of 
their effort made a show of a great diminution of 
venereal diseases in the hospitals and charity in- 
stitutions under their controlafter the license law 
went into operation. 
Knowing that it is easy to make a delusive 
show by simply exerting a pressure through the 
head officers to keep out some cases, and to fal- 
sify the records of others by putting down com- 
plicated cases under other heads in the record, 
and omitting to enter the syphilitic part as well as 
by calling all doubtful cases by other names, I 
determined to enquire of an institution not under 
their control. I therefore got the statistics from 
the United States Marine Hospital there for 
nearly a year before and after the time when the 
license law went into effect. The result was that 
the Marine Hospital of St. Louis showed an ac- 
tual increase of the percentage of venereal diseases 
among its patients when the license system went 
into operation.” 68 
REGULA TION EFFORTS 
When it was discovered what had been accom- 
plished by legislative legerdemain, that license 
for the social evil had actually been inaugurated, 
much indignation was aroused and a vigorous 
agitation for repeal began under the able and in- 
fluential leadership of Dr. Eliot, whose contribu- 
tions to the St. Louis press, and otherwise, not 
only served powerfully to aid the end for which 
they were designed in St. Louis, but to educate 
and enlighten public opinion in other localities 
upon the important subject. 
Dr. Eliot was ably seconded by Lieut.-Gov- 
ernor Charles P. Johnson, who made an effective 
speech during the progress of the Senate debate 
in favor of repeal. A petition for repeal was 
signed by four thousand women of St. Louis, and 
presented to the Missouri Legislature. The arch- 
bishop, bishop and Catholic clergy, nearly all the 
Protestant clergy, and a majority of the St. Louis 
Bar were enlisted in the cause of repeal. A peti- 
tion was also signed by over a hundred and fifty 
physicians and lawyers. The Legislature of 
1873-4, after a prolonged and embittered discus- 
sion, finally voted the repeal by a vote of three- 
fourths of all the members of the Senate, and in IN' AMERICA. 
69 
the House by ninety to one. Thus ended the 
license experiment in St. Louis, after having been 
in operation about four years. 
Since the repeal was effected unsuccessful 
efforts to re-establish license have been made by 
the discomfited regulationists. In 1876 thirteen 
“ Freeholders ” of St. Louis were appointed to 
prepare a new charter for the city. An earnest 
attempt was made to engraft a license proviso 
upon this charter, but the proposition was defeated 
by a vote of nine to four. The new charter was 
adopted by a majority vote of the citizens of St. 
Louis, in July, 1876, and with its adoption the 
former prohibitory provisions of the State laws 
against prostitution, and against letting houses 
for use as brothels, were revived and are again in 
force in the city. 
Not satisfied to abide by their defeat in a fair 
and open contest, the regulationists made still an- 
other effort, in January, 1877, to override the 
wishes of the majority of good citizens, and to re- 
establish license in St. Louis, by special act of 
the Legislature. But a proviso of the new city 
charter in relation to special legislation, requiring 
that “ every proposal for amendment must be sub- 70 
REGULA TION ERROR TS 
mitted by the law-making authorities of the city 
to the qualified voters thereof at a general or 
special election, held at least sixty days after the 
publication of such proposals, and accepted by at 
least three-fifths of the qualified voters voting 
thereat,”—caused their defeat, and it is hoped 
and believed has now put the question in St. 
Louis definitely at rest. 
CHICAGO. 
In 1870 and 1871 vigorous efforts were made 
to introduce the regulation system in Chicago. 
The attempt met with vigorous opposition, espe- 
cially on the part of women. Among the most 
active were Mrs. Caroline J. Corbin, Mrs. K. N. 
Doggett, and Mrs. Elizabeth Gay, then a resident 
of Chicago. The “ Social Purity Society ” ap- 
pointed a special committee with the Rev. L. T. 
Chamberlin as chairman, which rendered import- 
ant service in preventing action by the City Coun- 
cil. About three years later, in 1873-4, certain 
physicians again revived the effort to secure regu- 
lation. But the good seed previously sown by the 
opponents of regulation had prepared the public 
to meet with vigorous resistance the renewal of IN AMERICA. 
71 
the license scheme. Dr. Andrews, a leading 
physician of Chicago, through a very able pamph- 
let, “ Prostitution and its Sanitary Management,” 
embodying the results of careful scientific and 
statistical study of the subject, both in Europe and 
at home, dealt a powerful blow against regulation, 
not only in Chicago, but also in other American 
cities wherein kindred efforts were being made to 
introduce it at about the same time. The best 
portion of the citizens were thoroughly aroused. 
The city was canvassed by squares with petitions 
and thousands of signatures were obtained, pro- 
testing against the proposed regulation scheme. 
While the agitation was in progress, the Illinois 
Legislature being then in session at Springfield, 
the following bill to prohibit the licensing of 
houses was prepared, introduced, and passed, thus 
rendering the scheme of the Chicago regulation- 
ists unlawful, and protecting that and all other 
cities and towns in the State against any future 
kindred efforts: 
THE ILLINOIS LAW. 
“Sec. i. Be it enacted by the State of Illinois, 
represented in the General Assembly, that it shall 72 
REGULA TION EFFORTS 
be unlawful for the corporate authorities of any 
city, town or village in this State to grant a 
license to any person, male or female, to keep 
what is known as a house of ill-fame or house of 
prostitution ; and it shall be unlawful for any 
Board of Health (or any member or employee of 
the same) now existing, or which may hereafter 
exist, under the laws of this State, to interfere in 
the management of any house of ill-fame or house 
of prostitution, or to provide in any manner for 
the medical inspection or examination of any in- 
mate of the same. 
“ Sec. 2. Whereas, the legislative authorities of 
certain cities in this State are about to license 
houses of ill-fame, therefore an emergency exists 
why this Act should take effect immediately. 
Therefore, this Act shall take effect and be in 
force from and after its passage. Yeas, 115; 
Nays, 6.” 
March 27, 1874. 
The following was also enacted concerning the 
keepers and patrons of disorderly houses : 
DISORDERLY HOUSES. 
“ Sec. 57. Whoever keeps or maintains a house IN AMERICA. 
73 
of ill-fame or place for the practice of prostitution 
or lewdness, or whoever patronizes the same, 01 
rents any house, room, or other premises for any 
such purpose, or shall keep a common, ill-gov- 
erned or disorderly house, to the encouragement 
of idleness, gaming, drinking, fornication, or other 
misbehavior, shall be fined not exceeding two 
hundred dollars. When the lessee of a dwelling- 
house or other building is convicted under this 
section the lease or contract for letting the prem- 
ises shall, at the option of the lessor, become void ; 
and the lessor may have the like remedy to re- 
cover the possession as against a tenant holding 
over after the expiration of his term.” 
The regulationists of Chicago have, for the pres- 
ent, expended their full force and exhausted their 
opportunity. The moral convictions of the major- 
ity, and the statutes of the State, have pronounced 
against them. 
PHILADELPHIA. 
In 1874 an effort was made in the legislature of 
Pennsylvania to secure the passage of a bill to 
license prostitution in Philadelphia and other 
cities of that State. A bill was introduced by Dr. 74 
REGULA TION EEEOR TS 
A. L. Cress! er, a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, entitled “An Act to provide for the 
decrease of a Social Evil, and for the better gov- 
ernment of cities in relation to Houses of 111- 
Fame.” The bill provided for the registration of 
prostitutes and of houses used for prostitution, 
and the medical inspection of prostitutes ; em- 
powered Boards of Police Commissioners, or other 
officers appointed by City Councils, to issue per- 
mits to prostitutes, and to keepers of houses of 
prostitution and assignation ; and from the rev- 
enue derived from examination fees and hospital 
dues to establish and maintain an Industrial Hos- 
pital for the confinement and medication of pros- 
titutes under the joint direction of the Boards of 
Health and Police. As soon as the introduction 
of the bill became known, Dr. Harriet S. French, 
president of the “ Moral Education Society,” of 
Philadelphia, Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Lewis, Dr. 
Morton and other opponents of the license sys- 
tem commenced a vigorous and effective agitation 
in opposition to the proposed legislation. The 
following memorial was addressed to the legisla- 
ture bearing the signatures of over fifty well-known 
.physicians, including some of the most eminent IN AMERICA. 
75 
and influential in the city of Philadelphia and 
vicinity: 
“ PROTEST AGAINST HOUSE BILL 88, FOR LICENSING 
PROSTITUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
“ To Hon. Senators and Representatives of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania : 
“ We, the undersigned, Physicians and Surgeons 
of Philadelphia, members of the College of Phy- 
sicians, County Medical Society, etc., etc., ear- 
nestly protest against license, or any sanction by 
law, of prostitution, as a concession to evil for 
which there is no excuse, a system to which France 
gave birth in its worst days of misrule, and which 
M. Lecour, chief of police, the man responsible for 
carrying out this system in Paris, declares to have 
increased instead of diminishing the evil. The 
view of society from which such laws can proceed 
is low and sensual, entirely inconsistent with the 
maintenance of social virtue and truth. There is 
neither physical nor social necessity for men or 
women to yield themselves to a life of evil; and all 
law should tend to save them from such a fate. 
Nor is there any excuse for discrimination in 
favour of the strong against the weak, by setting 76 
A’A G ULA TION EFFOK TS 
apart, under sanction of law, a class of women 
who are to be held as the instruments of the legal- 
ized lust of habitually profligate men. The wel- 
fare of society demands that all men should be 
held amenable to the same standard of morals as 
is required of women. Therefore, we do protest 
against any recognition of the false and demoraliz- 
ing claim, that this most destructive of vices and 
crimes is a necessity. We affirm that the evil is 
a moral and social one, and must be overcome by 
moral, not legislative means. The battle, to be 
victorious, must be fought with the weapons of 
pure moral principles.” 
Protests were also sent from the Moral Educa- 
tion Society, and from a Methodist Episcopal 
Church Conference, and petitions from many citi- 
zens in various portions of the State. The Moral 
Education Society issued a public warning against 
the license scheme. Anna E. Dickenson spoke 
with great power and effect against it. Mr. and 
Mrs. Lewis caused Dr. Eliot’s St. Louis articles 
to be reprinted in pamphlet form and to be placed, 
together with the physicians’ memorial, in the hands 
of each member of the Legislature. Thus the 
measure was defeated, and the city and the State IN AMERICA 
77 
saved from the demoralization and disgrace. But 
Philadelphia is the home of Dr. Gross, the fore- 
most of the American medical advocates of Regu- 
lation, and continued vigilance on the part of its 
opponents will be important. 
WASHINGTON. 
Simultaneous with the attempts already men- 
tioned to introduce the regulation system in other 
cities, kindred efforts have been made in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, including Washington, the na- 
tional capital, to secure its introduction there. 
The District of Columbia is under the immediate 
control of the Congress of the United States. 
Though not a commercial metropolis, like New 
York, Washington is a representative national 
city. The introduction of the regulation system 
in Washington would be an influential precedent 
for all other cities, in the several States of the 
Union. The Regulationists well-understand this, 
and have been on the alert to secure from Con- 
gress the necessary legislation to confer upon the 
Board of Health the requisite authority to intro- 
duce their scheme in the nation’s capital. In 
1870-71 they succeeded in obtaining the passage 78 
REGULA TION EFFORTS 
of a “ Sanitary Act ” by both Houses of Congress 
without its real and intended purpose being appre- 
hended by most of the Senators and Representa- 
tives who voted for it. Its true meaning was how- 
ever exposed by earnest, conscientious and clear- 
sighted women, opposed to regulation. When, 
subsequently, the bill was amended to exclude ve- 
nereal diseases and thus to leave the Health Board 
without the coveted power to regulate prostitution, 
it was, at the request of its authors, withdrawn ! 
Another unsuccessful effort in behalf of regula- 
tion was made in connection with the local Dis- 
trict Legislature, during the period of its existence. 
It was most persistently urged, and but for the 
heroic vigilance of Dr. Susan A. Edson, and others, 
would undoubtedly have been successful. 
The latest effort of the Regulationists to achieve 
their object in Washington was through a bill in- 
troduced in the House of Representatives of the 
Forty-fourth Congress in 1876, to confer additional 
power upon the Board of Health of the District of 
Columbia, and in such terms as would include the 
regulation of prostitution as one of its legitimate 
functions. The bill (No 2440) contemplated 
among other things the enforcement of quarantine, IN AMERICA. 
79 
at the discretion of the Health Board against 
passengers of vessels, railroad cars, or other con- 
veyances, “ including all reasonable inspections, de- 
tentions, and purifications, to prevent the introduc- 
tion and spread of contagious or infectious diseases 
in the District of Columbia, and to provide for 
the summary removal of persons,” etc. It was 
provided also that the'Health Board should have 
“ the exclusive control and management of all 
hospitals, for the care and treatment of persons 
afflicted with small-pox and other contagious and 
infectious diseases in the District of Columbia,” 
and power to provide “ for the prevention, abate- 
ment, and removal of any other matter or thing, 
within said District, dangerous to human life or 
the public health.” This effort to secure increased 
power on the part of the Board of Health was 
foreshadowed in the annual report of that body 
for 1875, which stated that “in a number of our 
principal cities ordinances have been enacted look- 
ing to the medical inspection of prostitutes,” and 
referring to such legislation, said, “ startling as it 
may be to a sensitive moral sense,” it “ has many 
powerful advocates among the thoughtful, wise, 
and philanthropic of the community.” Among  REGULA TION EFFOR TS 
these it designated “Dr. Gross of Philadelphia, 
than whom no higher sanitary authority exists.” 
When publicly called to an account for this feature 
of their report, the Board disclaimed any purpose 
to encourage, or enforce license legislation. 
The Moral Education Society of Washington, 
of which Dr. Caroline B. Winslow is president, 
addressed to the United States Senate and House 
of Representatives the following memorial : 
MEMORIAL. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives in Con- 
gress assembled : 
Whereas, covert attempts have been made, and 
are still being made, to force upon the District of 
Columbia a system of licensing the trade in the 
bodies of women and girls, which system, we 
claim, is essentially immoral in its tendencies, in- 
asmuch as it offers bounty to licentiousness in 
men, in that it proposes to protect them in vice, 
through regulations bearing only on women, and 
degrading to womanhood ; and, whereas, this sys- 
tem has been permitted in European cities through 
the neglect and sufferance of the people, rather 
than through their consent, and has not been able. IN AMERICA. 
8i 
after long experience, under the most favorable 
circumstances, to show such results as to justify 
the experiment being made by our Government; 
therefore, we, the undersigned citizens of the 
United States, pray your honorable body to make 
a careful examination of each clause of any sani- 
tary bill, which may, under a false name, be pre- 
sented for your consideration and designed to 
clothe a body of men with power to inaugurate 
and enforce such a system. 
A committee of women of Washington, consist- 
ing of Dr. Winslow, Mrs. Senator Sargent, Mrs. 
S. S. Mitchell, Mrs. Annie A. Riddle, Mrs. R. W. 
Black, Mrs. E. T. Cowen, and Susan A. Edson, 
M. D., addressed an earnest appeal to the women 
of the District of Columbia and of the whole 
country, to use their influence to prevent the pas- 
sage of the Health Board Bill, with its highly ob- 
jectionable features. The timely and efficient ef- 
forts of these women and their associates were 
influential both with members of Congress and 
the general public, to defeat and discredit the pro- 
posed infamous legislation. 
The New York Committee for the Prevention 
of Licensed Prostitution, while the Health Board 82 
REGULATION EFFORTS 
Bill was pending in the House of Representatives, 
also addressed a memorial to the Senate and 
House of Representatives, asking that they would 
“enact no law to permit the licensing or regula- 
tion of a hideous social vice and crime by author- 
ity of the Congress of the United States.” Copies 
of this memorial were also circulated, influentially 
signed, and presented to Congress from different 
localities in other States. 
The objectionable bill failed to become a law 
prior to the expiration of the Forty-fourth Con- 
gress on the fourth of March, 1877. The Regu- 
lationists of Washington, defeated in their several 
efforts, can hope to succeed in obtaining from the 
Congress of the United States the coveted power 
to introduce and enforce their regulation scheme 
only through covert measures and indirection, 
such as prevailed in the British Parliament. 
An important effort is being made in Washing- 
ton by Mrs. Sara J. Spencer, and an associate 
committee of ladies and gentlemen, to establish in- 
the District of Columbia a Girls’ Reform School, 
and a Home, wherein the unfortunate may find 
shelter, protection, kindly care and encourage- IN AMERICA. 
83 
ment for their reformation, and have the benefit 
of thorough industrial training. 
OTHER CITIES. 
In Baltimore, Maryland, efforts have been made 
to introduce the license system, one through the 
Grand Jury, which was thwarted by Francis T. 
King, a well-known citizen, and a member of the 
Society of Friends, familiar with the character of 
the regulation system in Great Britain and on the 
Continent. Another effort to establish license, 
and escape from frequent and troublesome inter- 
ference by the police, was made by keepers of 
brothels, but this scheme was also frustrated by 
the timely interposition of good citizens. The 
latest effort for regulation is of recent date (April, 
1877), in a meeting of the “ Medical and Chirur- 
gical Faculty of Maryland,” wherein a resolution 
was offered and supported by its mover, that a. 
committee of five be appointed to memorialize 
the next Legislature upon the propriety of placing 
public prostitution under sanitary control. The 
experience of European cities was cited to show 
that State regulation therein had been attended 
with highly beneficial results. The resolution was 84 
REGULA TION ERROR TS 
vigorously and successfully opposed by Dr. J. 
Carey Thomas, also a member of the Society of 
Friends, who urged that the proposed regulation 
would be extremely harmful to public morality, 
that the practical working of the experiment in 
St. Louis had been to increase the social evil. 
After the discussion the resolution was tabled. 
In Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1874, an attempt made 
in the Board of Aldermen, to establish a Regula- 
tion ordinance, was defeated by the prompt and 
efficient action of a committee of influential citi- 
zens, and by numerous petitions against the 
scheme. 
In San Francisco, California, in 1871, an at- 
tempt made through the Legislature of the State 
to legalize prostitution was defeated, largely 
through the efforts of a woman, the wife of one 
of the members, who antagonized the proposition 
with a duplicate bill, which simply substituted the 
word man for woman in her bill. When the char- 
acter of the first measure was thus exposed it was 
dropped by its movers, and failed to become a 
law. 
Other minor efforts to introduce the Regulation 
system have been made during the last few years IN AMERICA. 
85 
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in Detroit, Michigan, 
in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in Denver, Colorado, 
but without success. 
MASSACHUSETTS. 
In the State of Massachusetts, a noteworthy 
step was taken by the Legislature of 1876 for the 
restraint and punishment of solicitation by male 
prostitutes. The full text of the new law is as 
follows : 
AN ACT RELATING TO NIGHT-WALKERS. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 
Representatives, in General Court assembled, and 
by the authority of the same as follows : 
Any male person who, by night, frequents the 
streets, highways or public places, or who goes 
about or abroad with the intent to entice, allure 
or invite any one to illicit sexual intercourse, 
shall be deemed a common night-walker, and 
shall be punished in the same manner as those 
now deemed common night-walkers are punished 
by law. 
Approved, April 6, 1876. 86 
KEGULA TIOJV EFFORTS 
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. 
In the earlier, as in the later efforts to intro- 
duce the regulation system in America the lead- 
ing public advocates have been and are of the 
medical profession. Urging the one point of the 
control of venereal disease as a sufficient justifica- 
tion for the proposed governmental sanction of 
vice, they ignore essentially the immorality of 
prostitution itself. Foremost among the public 
advocates of regulation in America is Dr. S. D. 
Gross, of Philadelphia. In 1874, in an address 
before the American Medical Association, at 
Detroit, Michigan,—an address remarkable both 
for the boldness with which it pronounces for 
legislation of the grossest immorality and injus- 
tice, and the logical weakness with which the 
propositions are supported, he discussed “Syphilis, 
in its relation to the National health.” A com- 
mittee was subsequently appointed by the Asso- 
ciation to report, “ On proper legislation to pre- 
vent the spread of syphilis,” with “ Dr. Samuel 
D. Gross, of Philadelphia, as chairman.” This 
committee, appointed in 1874, was expected to 
report at the meeting in 1875, ut did not. It IN AMERICA. 
87 
was announced as expected to report at the meet- 
ing in Philadelphia in 1876, but again the report 
was not forthcoming. Nor was it made at the 
meeting for 1877. 
It would appear that Dr. Gross finds it a diffi- 
cult matter to suggest a code of legislation, on the 
basis of Government sanction of prostitution, in 
connection with the effort to control syphilis, 
which he would have any reasonable prospect of 
getting endorsed by the great body of American 
physicians. His difficulty is likely to increase from 
year to year by the larger number of earnest, in- 
telligent, conscientious women, graduated as phy- 
sicians and admitted to fellowship in the medical 
associations. Dr. Gross says distinctly : “ But I 
am not waging war against prostitution. The ob- 
ject of the licensing law is not to prevent this evil 
but to arrest the spread of syphilis.” He takes 
occasion also to commend the prostitute women 
of St. Louis, who, as prostitutes, under the minis- 
tration of the Regulationists of that city, while the 
license system wras in vogue, “had been seeking 
the purer and better way, and had become so 
fully aware of the physical advantages arising out 
of the law, that not a few of them voluntarily sub- 88 
REGULA TION ERROR TS 
jected themselves to inspection, at their own ex- 
pense, after the abrogation of the ordinance.” 
While advocating licensed prostitution as the rem- 
edy for venereal disease, Dr. Gross realizes the 
force of the public antipathy to such a proposition, 
and would have “great judgment and care” in 
“ the selection of a proper title,” that “ license ” 
be not made “ too conspicuous.” He says ; “ my 
opinion is that the entire subject should be brought 
in, as it has been in England, under the head of 
the ‘ Contagious Diseases Acts,’ a phrase not 
likely to meet with serious opposition as it would 
serve as a cloak to much that would otherwise be 
distasteful to the public.” He adds : “ The word 
‘ licensing ’ should not be used at all; ‘ regulate ’ 
would be better; but even this has its objections.” 
Dr. J. Marion Sims, of New York, next to Dr. 
Gross, is most pronounced in his advocacy of the 
regulation scheme. In an address as President of 
the American Medical Association, he took oc’ 
casion publicly to endorse Dr. Gross, of whose 
address at Detroit, in 1874, he said it was “com- 
plete and exhaustive,” and to commend him for 
having “ the courage to reccommend legislation to 
restrain the spread of syphilis.” IN AMERICA. 
89 
The Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter, 
and the New York Medical Gazette (not now pub- 
lished) have been outspoken advocates of regula- 
tion. As a class a large majority of American 
physicians, it is safe to say, will decline to follow 
the leadership of Doctors Gross and Sims in their 
advocacy of license and regulation. Women phy- 
sicians will be essentially a unit against them. 
PREVENTIVE WORK. 
There is in America, as yet, no general organiza- 
tion, embracing the whole country, to oppose the 
Regulation efforts. In the localities where these 
efforts have been made sufficient preventive work 
has been voluntarily done by earnest, conscien- 
tious women and men to ensure their defeat. 
More efficient, and general organization is, how- 
ever, a need of the present period. It is desirable 
not alone for preventive work in America, but to 
co-operate with the efforts for repeal and abolition 
in Great Britain and on the Continent. A visit to 
America in 1876 by a deputation from the British, 
Continental, and General Federation, Henry J. 
Wilson, Esq., and Rev. J. P. Gledstone, was most 
opportune and useful, and marked the beginning  KEGULA TION EFFOR TS 
of systematic and efficient labor to oppose the 
schemes of the Regulationists and to enlighten 
the public mind in relation to the danger involved 
to America, and as to what has been, and is being 
done in Europe both to perpetuate and to abolish 
Government regulation of prostitution. Important 
conferences were addressed by Messrs. Wilson 
and Gledstonein New York, Boston, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore and Washington, and Committees were 
organized in the several cities as the nucleus of 
future and more extended efforts. 
THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS. 
Regulation efforts in America owe their origin 
to European example and influence. The friends 
of social purity in America therefore hail with 
especial satisfaction the efforts for repeal and abo- 
lition in Great Britain and on the Continent, which 
have culminated in the holding of an International 
Congress. Regulationists project international 
measures to make the application of their scheme 
of “inspection and control” universal. They 
must be met and defeated at every point. The 
only normal remedy for the dread disease they 
claim to seek to conquer, is to be found not in the LV AMERICA. 
91 
regulation and perpetuation of prostitution, which 
inevitably begets the disease, but in efforts to 
lessen and abolish prostitution itself. To this end 
degraded manhood, outraged womanhood, purity 
of the home, and reverence for the Divine law 
should admonish all to labor. 92 
THE GENEVA CONG HESS. 
III. 
THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
ORIGIN OF THE CONGRESS. 
In the continental cities of Europe, government 
regulation of social vice has long been in vogue. 
In 1864 the Regulation system, under an act of 
Parliament bearing the ambiguous title of “ Conta- 
gious Diseases Act,” applying to sundry military 
districts, was introduced in Great Britain. As 
soon as the real import of this legislation became 
known, beyond the limited circle responsible for 
its introduction and consummation, it gave rise to 
a profound agitation for repeal. Foremost in this 
agitation, since that period, has been Mrs. Joseph- 
ine E. Butler. Around her have rallied many 
noble women and men in Great Britain in the 
crusade, still in progress, against State sanctioned 
vice. In 1875 Mrs. Butler, supported by the sym- 
pathy and co-operation of English friends, under- 
took an important mission on the Continent, THE GENE VA CONGRESS 
chiefly in France, Switzerland, and Italy. Her 
reception in Paris was cold, and anything but en- 
couraging, but her observation in the French cap- 
ital of the practical workings of the regulation 
system there, served to render still more obvious 
the urgent need of reformation. In Switzerland 
she found more encouragement; and in Italy, in 
many cases, she was welcomed with enthusiasm. 
Out of this mission, as a preliminary preparation, 
grew the recent International Congress at Geneva, 
under the auspices of the “ British, Continental, 
and General Federation for the Abolition of Gov- 
ernment Regulation of Prostitution.” 
CHARACTER AND ORGANIZATION. 
The attendance at the Congress was large and 
exceeded the anticipations of those by whom it 
was called. The delegates numbered five hun- 
dred and ten, representing Switzerland, France, 
Germany, Russia, Denmark, Poland, Belgium, 
Holland, Spain, Italy, Greece, England, Scotland, 
Ireland, and America. Among them were many, 
both women and men, distinguished for intel- 
ligence, scientific attainments and philanthropy. 
Among the Italian delegates were Dr. Bertani, an 94 
THE GENE FA CONG A’ESS. 
eminent physician and member of the Italian 
Parliament, Signor Nathan, of Rome, an able 
journalist, and co-worker with Garibaldi, Mile. 
Mozzoni, of Milan, and Professor Colona, of 
Salerno. From Italy came also a deputation re- 
presenting i,660 societies of workingmen. Spain 
was represented by Signor Zorrilla, formerly a 
leader of the Madrid Government. From Ger- 
many came Dr. Baur, a distinguished Court 
preacher, bearing a message of sympathy to the 
Congress from the Empress, also Pastor Instorp, 
of Pomerania. Among the delegates from France 
were the eloquent preacher, M. Pressense, Dr. 
Gustave Monod, M. Desmoulins, a Paris jour- 
nalist, M. Leon Richer, an earnest advocate of 
the enfranchisement of woman, Dr. John Chap- 
man, author of 'the valuable Westminster articles, 
Mile. Raoult, a working women, and founder of a 
“Women’s Trades Union” in Paris, and M. 
Charles Lemonnier, a leading member of the 
Peace and Liberty League. Denmark was repre- 
sented by a distinguished physician, Dr. Meyer. 
Madame Behrends, M. Nicholet, and M. Hutton 
were delegates from Belgium. Holland was ably 
represented by M. W. Van den Bergh, of the THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
95 
Hague, and Pastor Pierson. The largest delega- 
tions were from Switzerland and Great Britain. 
Among the former were Prof. Amie Humbert, of 
Neuchatel, a man of distinguished position, and 
greatly gifted for the work of organization, Dr. De 
la Harpe, of Lausanne, an eminent physician, Pere 
Hyacinthe, as well known in this country as in 
Europe, Prof. Hornung, of Geneva, a distinguish- 
ed jurist, the venerable Pastor Barel, and M. 
Sautter de Blonay, a retired gentleman. From 
Great Britain there were, beside Mrs. Butler, her 
husband, the Rev. George Butler, and their two 
sons, many of her most helpful allies and co- 
workers, including the Right Hon. James Stans- 
feld, M. P., formerly a member of Gladstone’s 
Cabinet, and President of the General Federation, 
Sir Harcourt Johnstone, the leader of the Repeal 
movement in the House of Commons, Prof. 
James Stuart, of Cambridge, William Shaen, Esq., 
President, and Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Banks, secre- 
taries of the National Repeal Association, Lon- 
don, Mr. Ashurst, of London, Henry J. Wilson, 
of Sheffield, one of the deputation to America in 
1876, George Gillet, Esq., of London, Secretary 
of the Friend’s Repeal Association, Mrs. Marga- THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
ret Lucas, of London, sister of John and Jacob 
Bright, Edward Backhouse, Esq., President of 
the Northern Counties League, Edmund Jones 
Esq., President of the Workingmen’s Repeal As- 
sociation, Dr. Nevins, President, and Mr. Burgess, 
of Liverpool, Secretary, of the National Medical 
Association, Henry Richard, M. P., of London, 
Dr. Carson, of Liverpool, P. W. Bunting, Esq., 
and Mrs. Sheldon Amos, of London, Miss Estlin, 
and Mrs. Russell Carpenter of Bristol, Mrs. Rich- 
ardson, of York, Mr. R. F. Martineau, Rev. W. 
Wastell, and Mrs. Kenway, of Birmingham, Eliza 
Wigham, of Edinburgh, Miss Tod, of Belfast, 
Henry Allen, Esq., of Dublin, and others. 
America was represented by Mrs. Julia Ward 
Howe, of Boston, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, and 
A. C. Winslow, Esq., of Washington, and Mr. 
Powell, of New York. 
The congress was organized, with Mr. Stans- 
feld as president, and divided into five bureaus 
or sections, with each a president, vice-president 
and secretary, and six additional members of dif- 
ferent nationalities. These bureaus or sections 
were: i. Hygiene, presided over by Dr. De la 
Harpe, of Lausanne ; 2. Morals, presided overby THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
97 
M. Sautter de Blonay; 3. Social Economy, Prof. 
Dameth, of Geneva, president; 4. Beneficence, 
Pastor Borel, of Geneva, a veteran in rescue work, 
president; 5. Legislation, presided over by Prof. 
Hornung, of Geneva. Much of the laborious prof 
liminary work of organization devolved upon Prof. 
Humbert, of Neuchatel, assisted by Prof. Stuart, of 
Cambridge, and Mrs. Butler. 
PROCEEDINGS. 
The opening proceedings, and the general meet- 
ings of the sections, were held in a large hall ap- 
propriately named the “ Hall of the Reforma- 
tion.” The audiences at these meetings were 
large, intelligent and attentive, and included many 
who were not delegates. It is an unusual circum- 
stance on the Continent for women to take part, 
as in this congress, in public deliberative gather- 
ings. M. Laurent Karcher, president of the 
Geneva Reception Committee, made a brief ad- 
dress of welcome, in which he cordially greeted 
the delegates as having assembled there “ in the 
course of a crusade against depravity, and against 
the infamous trade in unfortunate women, carried 
on under the patronage of governments.” After THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
the delegations from different countries had been 
announced, and the organization ratified, brief 
addresses were made by Mr. Ashurst, of London, 
as representing the London City committee; 
Signor Cevasco, who spoke for Italy; Eliza Wig- 
ham, of Edinburgh, in behalf of the women of 
Great Britain ; Mr. Lishman, of England, in be- 
half of the Workingmen’s Repeal Association; 
and Mr. Powell, as from America. 
Mr. Stansfeld, as president, subsequently made 
a formal opening address of marked ability, stat- 
ing the objects and aims of the congress, and pre- 
senting the various aspects of the question, as 
represented by the several sections. He arraign- 
ed the regulation system as a failure hygienically, 
as well as wrong morally; as oppressive to women, 
delusive to men, and inconsistent with the prin- 
ciples of enlightened jurisprudence. While he 
would join with the medical faculty for the cure 
of those diseases which demand care, even though 
born of vice, and also in preventing disease by 
methods which will not promote its cause, he 
would not have the medical profession degraded 
by becoming the servant of the lowest vice. Re- 
ferring to the regulation system, he said : “ These THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
99 
laws are and deserve to be a hygienic failure, be- 
cause those who invented them and those who 
have administered them were unable to see that 
no law which offends against human nature can 
be a hygienic success. Even where they are ap- 
plied, these laws will always be evaded and there- 
fore impotent. But they are far worse than a hy- 
gienic failure, they are an outrage against moral- 
ity, justice, law itself; and have been and will be, 
wheresoever they are retained, a cause among the 
nations of the ruin of liberty and law, of a general 
depravation of morals, and of an equal physical 
degradation and emasculation of our race. They 
bring us back to the vices, the decadence of the 
Lower Empire. There is no nation in the world’s 
history which has given itself up to sexual vice 
without becoming enslaved, or disappearing off 
the face of the earth, as if at the breath of God. 
“ I appeal against these laws to all friends of 
liberty, of justice, and of equality ; I appeal to the 
jurist to support the dignity of the law ; to the hy- 
gienist to rise to the true hygienic level and refuse 
to sanction laws which, by depraving the morals 
of the people, prepare the way for their physical 
degeneration. I appeal to the legislator, because  THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
he ought to know that every law has an educa- 
tional influence for good or evil, and that this in- 
fluence ought at least to lean to the side of virtue ; 
that no law is ever superior in its action and ef- 
fect to its source and aim ; and that the aim of 
these laws is, not to diminish vice, but to render 
it physically harmless. I appeal to the moralist 
against systems which deny the possibility of vir- 
tue ; I appeal to the philosopher and I appeal at 
the same time to the believer, because both faith 
and science teach us the Unity of the law that 
governs human life, and reject the idea that a law 
which sins against liberty, against all respect for 
humanity, however feeble and fallen, and against 
morality, can be a truly hygienic law or ever 
crowned with success ; I appeal to Man, to all 
that is generous and courageous in man, not to 
soil his hands with this cruel and cowardly in- 
justice towards the weaker sex.” 
His closing appeal was to women. He said : 
“I have always maintained the right, the chief 
right of women to be heard on this question. It 
is their right, it is more, it is their duty. We men 
may aid them, but only in the second rank, for it 
is, above all, a woman’s question. The evil we THE GEE'EVA CONGRESS. 
attack is the very existence of prostitution; we 
cannot succeed in this work so long as women 
leave their own part undone. The existence of 
the legalized, sanctioned, regulated prostitution of 
women, in order to satisfy men’s ignoble desires, 
would be, not only an indignity, it would be a 
shame to women if they were not to resist it, to 
protest against it. I rejoice that there are those 
amongst them who do this, and I revere them for 
it. But woman, as a sex, as a class, has not yet 
risen to the level which her very sex demands 
from her. Many women shrink from this subject 
because of its horrors : let them, too, learn to bear 
this cross. Let them resist, as an outrage against 
their whole sex, the outrage inflicted upon these 
unhappy ones, the most degraded of their sisters ! 
Let them study history and its lessons of providen- 
tial progress. The cause of justice triumphs in 
this world when classes, nations, races feel the 
instinct of individual sacrifice for the common aim 
—their emancipation, their rights. Let woman call 
to her aid such fortitude, such faith. To her I 
address my final appeal that she will acknowledge 
the duty imposed upon her by her sex and by the 
cause of purity—her own cause—of protesting at 102 
THE GEAEVA CONGXESS. 
any cost, in the name of the rights, the dignity, 
the purity of one half of the human race, against 
this white slave trade carried on to satisfy the lust 
of man. 
Mrs. Butler followed Mr. Stansfeld in an ad- 
dress of great power and eloquence. She said : 
“ The President has uttered words of earnest 
appeal and words of blame to us women. Yes, I 
confess it; I confess it for all women, we have 
been guilty in this matter, and not merely in the 
past, we are so still; we are not ready for all sac- 
rifices. But a new light has arisen, a new era 
dawns upon this question; a voice has been 
raised, feeble at first, but daily gaining strength, 
until at last a great cry has gone up which has 
echoed across Great Britain, Europe, and America, 
and resounded to the extremities of the -world. A 
new influence has made itself felt, an influence 
which, from the moment of its uprising, owing to 
that natural and providential law which rouses the 
oppressed to struggle for deliverance, was pre- 
destined to reach the root of the evil. What is 
the new social force which has hitherto been 
absent, and which is indispensable to all effica- 
cious action upon this question ? It is the action TIIF, GENEVA CONGRESS. 
of women. The-voice of God—as far as we may 
recognize it from the world’s history—has called 
to this work, not merely a few devoted women, 
but a large army of women, who have identified 
themselves with the crowd of unhappy and degra- 
ded women who are their sisters. Herein con- 
sists—I beg of you, gentlemen, to note this—here- 
in consists our strength ; the strength of us women. 
Our strength consists in the fact that we are 
united and identified with the sufferings of this 
class of our enslaved sisters. This forlorn class 
has recently found a voice—our voice, the voice of 
happier women, who abhor the degradation into 
which their sisters are sunk, and who love them, 
although they be guilty and fallen. We have been 
awakened out of our deep sleep by a terrible 
shock ; but we will never sleep again. 
There are certain truths of human nature which 
can never be clearly seen, certain questions which 
can never be efficiently treated, dark social prob- 
lems into which the light will never enter, so long 
as they are examined and directed by men only, 
even though these men be guided by just and 
equitable principles. These questions can only be 
solved when illumined by the combined light of THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
the conscience and intelligence of man and woman. 
During the present week, we have before us a 
great task. We shall discuss this grave question 
in five different sections. As to the Regulations 
of Vice with which we are already acquainted, it 
is probable that we shall all agree that they ought 
to be abolished. But when we quit this work of 
abolition, and come to the consideration of future 
measures, we may find ourselves disagreeing, and 
perceive considerable dangers in our path. 
With regard then to the discussions about to 
begin, allow me gentlemen, to address to you a 
word of warning. Gentlemen, you will no longer 
find before you a silent and submissive class, 
having no will of its own, a class of women who 
have been named by Dr. Hippolyte Mireur “ the 
things of the Administration ; ” you have now be- 
fore you a class which, for the first time, has 
found a tongue ; a revolted class, which com- 
prises all the women upon this earth. It is not 
merely the unhappy class, now down-trodden, who 
are wronged ; if they are wronged, we are still 
more so in their wrongs. 
“ Inasmuch as ye have done this unto one of 
these little ones, you have done it unto me.” THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
You hygienists, you legislators, you are men ; 
you it is who make the laws, who order public 
measures and prescribe the means of preserving 
the public health. You are learned and sincere 
men, but forget not in making your plans for the 
future that you may not dare ignore this new 
element, this new force, the awakened conscience 
of women who demand from you an account of 
your decisions; the rebellious hearts of women 
who will never forsake their unhappy sisters. You 
have to take into your account the holy revolt of 
rebels who have rebelled in the name of justice 
and of the law of God. 
Now ladies, now sisters, I have a word for you 
also. If it is henceforth forbidden for men to 
undertake the solution of this question without 
the help of women; so also have women a moral 
obligation before man and before God to play an 
active and aggressive part in the execution of this 
task. You can no longer neglect your high respon- 
sibility upon this question without being guilty of 
unfaithfulness towards men, who are your brothers, 
your husbands, your friends, your sons. Our part 
is not merely that of healing the wounds which 
men have made, of gathering around us and of  THE GENEVA CONGRESS, 
saving the broken fragments of this forlorn portion 
of humanity, which has been destroyed through 
our selfishness and cowardice. Our duty it is to 
prevent such destruction; to unite actively and 
aggressively with men in every work of destruc- 
tion and of reconstruction which has for its aim 
an attack upon the sources of the evil; our duty 
it is to rectify the judgment of society at large 
upon this question ; to enter into the disscussion 
and the accomplishment of every measure, public 
or private, legislative, hygienic, or economic, by 
which its solution is sought; for this question 
never has been, and never will be solved by men 
acting alone ; so long as they act alone they must 
inevitably fail. The noblest amongst men are the 
first to admit this. 
At the present day we are called upon by the 
voice of God himself to accept this great respon- 
sibility. If we are unfaithful, if we do not answer 
to this call, we shall deserve the curse of future 
generations. 
I would make a special appeal to Christian 
women. Do not limit yourselves to the works 
of rescue and help, noble and necessary though 
they be, to which you have already devoted vour- THE GENEVA CONGE ESS. 
selves. These works, be sure of it, will develope 
themselves all the more for your having the cour- 
age to assume the complete responsibility of which 
I have spoken. Experience teaches us that no 
new good work that you undertake will hinder 
those you have already in hand, and that each 
noble endeavor becomes the source of a thousand 
other good actions. In no part of the gospel do 
we find one-half only of the character of Christ set 
before us as an example for women. If Christ 
came for all, He was an example to all. I hear a 
good deal said in these days about the mission of 
woman. I know not what this mission is if it be 
not that of imitating the whole of the most perfect 
character that the world has ever seen. It is true 
that Jesus cured the sick, blessed little children, 
and fed the hungry, etc., but He also severely 
denounced the false judgments of the world; He 
stood up with all His strength against the injus- 
tices wrought by the strong against the weak ; He 
levelled all false and arbitrary distinctions ; He 
was a reformer so daring and radical .’ that the 
corrupt society of His day thought it' most con- 
venient to put Him to death. 
Do you wish to follow Jesus, my sisters ?You  THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
must then stand up like Him against the false 
judgments that poison society, and if you are 
ready to follow Him in this, you must be ready to 
endure contempt, calumny, and persecution, for 
these trials will pursue you to the end. As for the 
men who seek to shelter themselves behind their 
lying and cruel devices to escape the penalties 
that follow the indulgence of their vices, I will 
quote for them the words of the old prophet:— 
“Wherefore hear the wrord of the Lord, ye 
scornful men that rule the people which is in 
Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made 
a covenant with death and with hell, are we at 
agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall 
pass through, it shall not come unto us: for 
we have made lies our refuge ; and under false- 
hood have we hid ourselves : 
“ Therefore, the Lord God hath said : Judgment 
also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the 
plummet: and the hail shall sweep over the refuge 
of lies and the waters shall overflow the hiding 
place. And your covenant with death shall be 
disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall 
not stand ; when the overflowing scourge shall 
pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
109 
From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you : 
for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day 
and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to 
understand the report.” 
As a speaker Mrs. Butler has great power and 
influence with her hearers. In this respect she 
has few equals on either side of the Atlantic. 
Following Mrs. Butler’s address, some of the 
addresses forwarded to the Congress from various 
committees and organizations in different countries 
were read or announced, including an address 
from the New York Committee for the prevention 
of licensed prostitution. 
The several sections held separate meetings 
daily, and one general meeting of the members of 
all the sections was held each day, under the 
particular direction of some one of the sections. 
There were about one hundred and twenty papers 
upon various aspects of the question presented, 
and many of them of great value. They were 
distributed to appropriate sections and read in 
full or in part as time would allow. The discus- 
sions were searching and earnest, but character- 
ized to a remarkable degree by courtesy and a 
kindly feeling. The proceedings were in French THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
and English, the former predominating. There 
were frequent translations, that all might be 
reasonably well informed as to the substance of 
the deliberations. 
Among the English speaking delegates, Mrs. 
Howe, of Boston, spoke with exceptional fluency 
and ease to herself and her hearers. She parti- 
ipated in the proceedings of the sections on 
Morals and Legislation, and addressed briefly the 
closing session of the Congress. She invited 
attention to the desirability of co-education for 
girls and boys, and of enfranchisement and equal 
opportunities for women, and was listened to with 
marked attention. Dr. Winslow, of Washington, 
read a paper before the Hygienic Section on the 
moral attitude of the medical women of America, 
and received the thanks of the section, and also 
spoke in one of the general meetings of the 
efforts for and against the introduction of the 
regulation system in Washington. 
At the general meeting of the Legislative sec- 
tion, Mr. Powell, of New York, presented a paper 
upon “ Regulation Efforts in America.” Sir 
Harcourt Johnstone read a paper of much inter- 
est upon the progress and prospects of the Repeal THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
111 
movement in Great Britain. The papers as a 
whole covered a wdde range of topics and em- 
bodied a large amount of most valuable in- 
formation concerning the causes, consequences 
and methods of dealing with social vice. Con- 
tributions were also sent from America by Mrs. 
Caroline H. Dali, of Boston, Dr. Lozier of New 
York, and the Woman Suffrage Association of 
New York. 
CONCLUSIONS. 
The conclusions of the Congress will be of 
most importance to the general public. Each 
Bureau or section formulated a series of resolu- 
tions or propositions which were discussed and 
adopted by the section, and which were also 
subsequently presented and ratified at the general 
meeting at which the members of all the sections 
were present. 
In view of the great diversity in habits of 
thought, in education and experience in so large 
a body, representing as many nationalities, the 
unanimity with which the important conclusions 
of the Congress were reached was something 
remarkable. They are as follows : 112 
THE GENEVA CONGE ESS. 
SECTION OF HYGIENE. 
I. 
The Section of Hygiene affirms: That self-con- 
trol in sexual matters is one of the indispensa- 
ble bases of the health of individuals and of 
nations. 
That prostitution is a fundamental violation of 
the laws of health. 
II. 
'III. 
Considering that the duties of the Department 
of Public Health ought not to be restricted to 
the prophylaxy of the diseases which afflict the 
population, we declare its true function to be that 
of developing in the people all the conditions 
favorable to health, of which public morality is 
the highest expression. 
IV. 
The Section of Hygiene repudiates all sys- 
tems of police regulation of prostitution, on 
account of their entire want of success. It bases 
this view upon the following reasons, among 
others: That the compulsory surgical examination 
of women is revolting to human nature ; that it THE GENEVA CONGRESS 
can only reach a certain number of prostitutes; 
that it is not to be relied upon to discover the 
gravest constitutional from of disease, or to arrest 
its progress ; and that consequently it gives a 
false security in regard to the health-of the women 
examined. 
The Section of Hygiene urgently desires the 
removal of the obstacles which prevent the treat- 
ment of venereal diseases as readily as all other 
diseases, in all hospitals under the control of 
municipalities or other public bodies, as well as in 
all those supported by voluntary contributions. 
V. 
VI. 
The Section of Hygiene also expresses its de- 
sire that the ordinary police should cause decency 
to be respected in the street, and in all public 
places, and that it should repress all public scan- 
dal, whether caused by men or women. 
SECTION OF MORALITY. 
The Section of Morality affirms: That the 
practice of impurity is as reprehensible in men as 
in women. 
I. T-IIE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
II. 
That “ Regulation ” tends to destroy the idea 
of the Unity of the Moral Law for both sexes, and 
to lower the tone of public opinion upon this sub- 
ject. 
III. 
That every system which organizes prostitution, 
is an incitement to debauchery ; that it augments 
the number of illegitimate births, increases 
clandestine prostitution, and lowers the level of 
public and private morality. 
IV. 
That the compulsory medical examination of 
women which is the basis of all systems of Regula- 
tion, is an outrage upon the woman, and tends to 
destroy every trace of modesty in her. 
V. 
That Registration is an offence against personal 
liberty and the common law. 
VI. 
That the State, by the system of Regulation, 
ignores its duty of equally protecting both sexes ; 
corrupts them both, and degrades woman. THE GENE VA COXGEESS. 
115 
VII. 
That the State, whose mission it is to protect 
minors and assist them in their endeavours to live 
virtuously, does on the contrary incite them to 
debauchery, by facilitating the practice thereof 
through the system of Regulation. 
VIII. 
That by authorising houses of debauchery, and 
making of prostitution a regular profession, the 
State sanctions the immoral prejudice that de- 
bauchery is a necessity for men. 
IX. 
That an appeal be made to the conscience of all 
editors, authors, booksellers, and hawkers, upon 
the two continents, urging them not to aid or favor 
the diffusion of corrupt literature, licentious books, 
and obscene pictures. 
SECTION OF BENEFICENCE. 
I. 
The Section of Beneficence affirms : That the 
ideas implied by State Regulation of Vice are 
incompatible with all ideas or endeavors after 
rescue and rehabilitation. 116 
THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
II. 
That it has been proved that the Regulation of 
prostitution is a great obstacle to the success of 
works of rescue, because registration and the 
medical examination are opposed to every senti- 
ment of female modesty ; a sentiment never utterly 
extinguished in any woman, however degraded, 
and render more difficult that rehabilitation which 
may and ought to be hoped for in the case of 
every woman. 
III. 
That it is desirable that ITotnes should be every- 
where established in which the system adopted 
should be as little penitentiary as possible, because 
Christian love is the only efficacious method of 
saving young girls. 
IV. 
That it is desirable that a system of communica- 
tion be established to put a stop to the white 
slave trade in all countries, and to watch over the 
interests of women seeking employment in all 
countries. THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
SECTION OF SOCIAL ECONOMY. 
(The resolutions of the Section of Social Econ- 
omy take the form of answers to a series of 
questions propounded by the President.) 
Are the interests, rights, and economic inde- 
pendence of women sufficiently guarded/by laws, 
customs, and manners ? 
Answer (unanimous) : NO. 
I. 
II. 
Can the practice of a mechanical trade or pro- 
fession by a woman by reconciled with her duties 
towards the family and the domestic hearth ? 
Answer : That depends upon the profession 
itself, and the individual position of the woman 
herself. 
Is the present rate of remuneration for women’s 
labour sufficient to satisfy their legitimate wants ? 
Answer (with a minority dissentient) : NO. 
III. 
What are the principal causes of the insufficient 
payment of women’s industry ? 
Answer with a minority dissentient) : The 
IV.  THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
inequality which laws, customs, want of education, 
and the regulation of prostitution introduce be- 
tween women and men. 
V. 
What are, or will be, the consequences on the 
economic and moral position of women, of their 
employment in manufactories, workshops, etc. ? 
That will depend on circumstances ; but the 
law ought not to close against women any in- 
dustrial employment by. which they could gain an 
honest living. 
VI. 
Is Governmental or legal interference in favour 
of women in the organization of labour (length of 
hours of work, salary, &c.) desirable ? 
Answer (with a dissentient minority of two) : 
No. 
VII. 
What use can women make of the principle 
of association, for the amelioration of their con- 
dition from an economic point of view ? 
Answer (unanimous) : The same use that men 
make of it. THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
119 
VIII. 
How can instruction and education be best 
organized so as to contribute most effectually to 
the social and economic relief of women ? 
By not closing any branch of instruction or 
education to them, and by taking care that neither 
in society nor the public service is any special 
favour shown to men. 
SECTION OF LEGISLATION. 
I. 
The Section of Legislation affirms : That the 
State has no right to regulate prostitution, for it 
ought never to compromise with evil or sacrifice 
constitutional guarantees to questionable interests. 
Every system of official regulation carries in its 
train the arbitrary rule of the police and the viola- 
tion of the judicial safeguards guaranteed to all 
individuals, even to the greatest criminals, against 
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. 
II. 
The compulsory sanitary examination of prosti- 
tutes is equally opposed to the common law (/<? 
droit commuri). 120 
THE GENE FA CONGRESS. 
As this violation of the common law is only 
committed towards women, it produces a mon- 
strous inequality between woman and man ; 
woman is degraded to the position of a mere 
instrument, and is no longer treated as a human 
being—she is outlawed. 
Moreover, by the regulation of vice, the State 
flatly violates its own penal law, because that law 
forbids all incitement to debauchery, and the 
State becomes at least an accomplice in such 
incitement, whenever practised in the establish- 
ments or by the women authorized by it. 
The State, moreover, thereby ignores its duty 
of protection towards minors. 
III. 
The aim is missed, for Regulation creates and 
developes prostitution instead of diminishing it. 
The increasing development of clandestine 
prostitution in towns where vice is regulated, 
suffices to show that the Regulations are always 
evaded. The increase of venereal disease, and 
the numbers of crimes against morality, in the 
same towns, are also a proof that Regulation fails 
to reach its proposed aim. THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
121 
IV. 
That the above reasons show the State should 
renounce the pursuit of the Hygienic aim, more 
especially as, in the present case, it is not a 
question of an external danger threatening the 
general public health, like epidemics, but a dan- 
ger which individuals knowingly and voluntarily 
bring upon themselves. 
The State ought then to abandon the adminis- 
trative and arbitrary course, and limit its action 
to its judicial functions, and the Common Law. 
V. 
That the State should continue to punish the 
incitement of minors, of either sex, to debauchery, 
and especially to punish procurism. 
It ought also to punish the kidnapping, hiring, 
or corruption of minors for purposes of debauchery. 
It ought to interfere to prevent all collective 
organisation of prostitution, that is to say, it ought 
to punish the keepers of houses of public de- 
bauchery, ancl to punish the letting of houses or 
other dwellings for such purposes. We may in- 
stance the case of gambling houses which are 
interdicted by nearly all penal legislations. 122 
THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
We would preserve unaltered the actual penal- 
ties attached to outrages upon public morality, 
and especially all public provocation to debauchery, 
outrages upon individual morality, corruption of 
minors, and illegal sequestration. 
VI. 
That, as to the causes of prostitution which can 
be dealt with judicially, the State ought to punish 
the seduction (of minors) when brought about by 
false representations. 
(The question ought to be studied as to 
whether the State ought not to re-establish the 
recherche en pate mite in order to equalize the posi- 
tion of women and men.) 
The Congress has thus furnished a common 
platform for all countries, as the basis of an ef- 
fective opposition to a common enemy. It will 
mark in history the beginning of a new era in so- 
cial progress. It has been found possible for a 
large congress of intelligent and highly reputable 
men and women to meet and deliberate, with a 
becoming delicacy, and a profound reverence for 
truth, upon the gravest of the problems whicl] 
concern social science, Christianity, civilization THE GENEVA CONGRESS. 
123 
The oppressive silence so long maintained, has 
been effectually broken. Hereafter there will be 
a freer and more enlightened discussion of the 
causes and consequences of social vice, and of 
the best methods, not to regulate, but to cure and 
prevent it. Already there are most encouraging 
signs in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, and 
in Great Britain, of renewed activity and in- 
creased earnestness in well-directed efforts to 
promote the abolition of the odious system of 
government regulation, and to diminish prostitu- 
tion itself. 
America is fortunately free from the incubus of 
State regulated vice. Ours is the duty to see 
that it is kept so. Forewarned by such ineffec- 
tual efforts as regulationists here have already 
made, let us also be forearmed. We need also to 
organize and enlist in common with our fellow- 
workers elsewhere, in the grand moral struggle to 
break the fetters of State vice in other countries, 
and thus at the same time to preserve immunity 
for our own. 124 
ADDRESS. 
IV. 
ADDRESS 
OF THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE. 
New York, August 13, 1877. 
To the International Congress concerning Govern- 
ment Regulation of Prostitution: 
The New York Committee for the Prevention 
of Licensed Prostitution hails with much satis- 
faction your important convocation, and sends to 
you most cordial greeting. 
Our chief American city, though suffering from 
the great evil of social vice, is as yet free from 
such governmental regulation as would extend to 
prostitution legal sanction and encouragement. 
We have, however, regulation advocates who seek 
to introduce, by authority of the State, the im- ADDRESS. 
125 
moral and oppressive license system. Failing 
in earlier attempts, they have again sought to 
obtain for New York special legal authority 
to regulate and “localize” prostitution with 
police and medical supervision. We are grateful 
that thus far they have been unsuccessful. Our 
chief danger is that, in some indirect, covert 
manner a regulation scheme may be thrust upon 
us. Our safety will be assured only when the 
regulation system shall have been abolished 
in Great Britain and on the Continent. The 
perpetuation of Governmental regulation of 
prostitution in Europe is a standing menace to 
us in America. 
We rejoice to note the progress of repeal work 
in Great Britain, and of the profoundly important 
agitation for abolition on the Continent, especially 
in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and Spain. 
This agitation, which has made possible your In- 
ternational Congress, marks the beginning of a 
social revolution vital to the welfare and happi- 
ness of the human race, and most important as 
allied to the progress of true Christian civiliza- 
tion. 126 
ADDRESS. 
Having, in America, abolished the cruel and 
unjust system of chattel slavery, we shall resist to 
the uttermost the introduction here of another, 
and, in some aspects, a yet more odious slave 
system which’ legalized prostitution creates for its 
victim class. We shall welcome, with thanksgiv- 
ing, each new triumph in the interest of social 
purity and personal liberty in Europe, and shall 
labor and pray for a speedy, complete victory for 
the “ new abolitionists’ ” movement. With emi- 
nent wisdom its code of morality exacts as indis- 
pensable an equal standard of personal purity for 
men and women, for the rich and the poor; its 
principles are synonymous with those of the Gos- 
pel of the Prince of Peace. 
We trust that your Congress may result in a 
new and an enduring bond of fraternal fellowship 
between all civilized nations, and give a powerful 
impetus to humane, philanthropic effort to rescue 
the weak and tempted from the moral and physi- 
cal devastation of both “ regulated ” and “ unreg- 
ulated ” prostitution everywhere. 
Invoking for you the guidance of Divine Wis- 
dom in your deliberations, and the abundant bless- ADDRESS. 
127 
ings of the All-Father, we are your friends and 
co-workers. 
A. H. GIBBONS, President. 
Aaron M. Powell, 
Emily Blackwell, M. D., 
William H. Hussey, 
Anna Lukens, M. D., 
Vice Presidents. 
Cornelia C. Hussey, 
Anna Rice Powell, 
Secretaries. 
Elizabeth Gay, Treasurer.