VICE, Regulation of. The ((social evi1,0 as prostitution is euphemistically tertned, consti tutes four-fifths of the so-called vice of modern life. Prostitution is defined as pro miscuous unchastity for gain. It is not an evil peculiar to any age or country. It existed in ancient Babylon to a degree and ldnd almost beyond belief and in terrible forms was a part of the religious cults of the Syrians, Phrygians, Egyptians, etc. Similar rites were part of the idolatrous practices for which the Israelites were rebuked. In ancient Greece it was a matter of civic glory and prostitution was there taught as an art. Orgies took place in the baths and in the temples while the stage reeked with obscenity. In the modern world we find the evil in every portion of the globe, in India, in Japan, in Hawaii and everywhere in pro poruon to our knowledge of the social life of a country's population. Although publicly con demned to-day and with an ever-increasing number of the pure it is believed to be eating under the surface to a degree that comes nigh imperiling our modern civilization. It is con servatively estimated that there are in the United States alone 600P00 public prostitutes and about an equal number who have sacrificed their diastity but continue to have other means of livelihood. Great cities and often the lesser cities are the homes of the prostitute, while their male companions not only come from the cities but also from the towns and villages.
The social evil wears a specially sinister aspect in Great Britain because in no country do so many children become its victims as in England; in no country does traffic in girls, especially that of minors, flourish as in England. On the Continent the vice is also especially prev alent German dties regulate vice as do also the Scandinavian cities. France also regulates the vice by means of registration. That country is a den of vice as can be attested by very many men of the American Expeditionary Forces. Of the evils connected with prostitution there is scarcely need to speak. Many sociologists are coming to believe that the sexual evil, in its various forms, is greater even than that of intemperance. It is considered a more constant and fundamental cause of degeneration than drunIcenness. It certainly effects degeneration
of a more or less pronounced type in a much larger number of persons. It persists almost to the end in the most degenerate stocic, while it is at the same time operative among the healthier classes. Intemperance, however, is all but uni versally the companion of prostitution. Many observers state that girls rarely can, and men rarely do, continue a fast life without drink. The saloon is often the entrance of the brothel, while the brothel as frequently leads to the saloon. An eminent authority has stated that more boys are converted to drinking habits in houses of ill fame than in the saloons. One of the great benefits of Prohibition in the United States will be the dissolution of this sinister partnership. The physical evils attendant on prostitution it is impossible to describe too strongly. These reduce youth to premature, helpless old age, transform the body into a rotten shell and affect not only the sinner but his posterity. One of the abominations of this evil is child prostitution, of the extent of which few have the remotest idea. If one is to credit the sad whispers of grave officials of the Church as to the morals in boy choirs, or in private and public schools, one finds fearful evi dence of the existence, in all ranks of sodety, of various forms of unnatural vice. Alcin to this evil is that of the organized traffic in girls, which is declared to be world-wide. It has been publicly stated that °syndicates exist in New York and Boston for the purpose of supplying fresh young girls from immigrants arriving in the United States, for houses of ill fame; agents of the business go abroad and assist in this nefarious traffic. Immigrants arriving in New York furnish 20,000 victims annually.x' Much has been done by the Church and societies to protect these immigrants but the evil is still very real. When it is realized that the life of a prostitute is but five years, one can understand what a traffic there must be to recruit the 600,000 in the United States alone, not to speak of the other countries of the world in some of which the traffic is even greater.