Causes,- Destitution, inclination, seduction and drink are given as the causes of this evil in the order named. Economic necessity driyes many to the haunts of vice. Stores, where girls work long hours for small pay; the homes that have few comforts, and practically no pleasures; the streets, where girls are often cast, still unknown to sin, but in want and without shelter; in a word, where distress and tempta tion stand present as a menace to purity and rectitude. Behind every effect there is a cause; in the case of prostitution, the real cause hes not in the girls who fall, but in the social con ditions that make the fall easy, and the men who tempt to the step and furnish the money to support degradation after the step has been taken. The money returns from vice furnish a very great temptation to girls to part with their virtue. Some fall because they cannot find work; some because they do not wish to work. Prostitution costs a man money; to a woman it yields money and many a girl of indolent or lazy disposition, comely and healthy withal, soon learns that there is a market for such as she; that she can earn more in a night by sin than she can in a week or a month by work. The stage, the concert hall, and the ball bear a large responsibility. The supreme social cause of prostitution to-day, however, is the crowded tenement, where boys and girls have no attractive home, no healthy playground and must play on the streets. There bad company captures more girls than in any other one way. The supreme cause then of the evil is the bad housing of the poor, ressulting from low :wages, and the poverty of the great masses in our cities— a terrible price to pay that a few may roll in wealth.
Regulation.— In the early ages of the race prostitution, not being considered an evil, was not legislated against; the one great ituquity being adultery on the part of the wife, who might thus foist an illegitimate heir on the property of her lord. The early Christian emperors were among the first to attempt repression of this social scourge. In the course of time the state took cognizance of the evil and set about its control. Licensing and regulation of brothels were among the earliest methods tried to COM-. trol prostitution. It is well to remember that its elimination was never contemplated, but it was desired to make of prostitutes a distinct class in the community and also to prevent dis order in the brothel. From these medizeval regulations have come the °systems of control)) which obtain in Europe to-day. In France the police register public prostitutes. There are recognized brothels of two classes—maisons de tolerance and maisons de pave. At the first named class there is a weekly medical examina tion of the inmates, while all other registered prostitutes are required to present themselves for examination every two weeks at the public dispensaries. Those found diseased receive hospital treatment. There are also certain rules in regard to solicitation, etc.; the infraction of which incurs a penalty of imprisonment of from 14 days to one year. No cognizance of prostitu tion is talcen in the French criminal code. The penalties above stated being inflicted solely for breach of the rules or regulations, the major evil being ignored. The whole French pro cedure is of doubtful legality.
In Germany the legal regulations are more explicit. While prostitution is not forbidden, women who practise it are liable to arrest unless they are under police control, that is, unless they have registered and have complied with the regulations of paragraph 361 of the code. In
this way the police regulation of prostitution obtains lmial sanction and the traffic is com pletely under the police power. While these regulations vary according to locality, they all include compulsory registration and weeldy or bi-weekly examination. Brothels are absolutely illegal throug.hout the German Republic.
In Austria prostitution is forbidden, yet the police are allowed to tolerate it under conditions ancl to regulate it and punish violation of these regulations. Procuration is a penal offense.
In Great Britain prostitution is regarded by the law in the light of a public nuisance. Van ous acts from 1755 on make it possible to deal with public brothels but it is generally left to the public to institute proceedings. Several cities have secured passage of special legislar tion for the prevention of aloitenng for the purpose of prostitution or solicitation)) Fines and imprisonment for short terms are the penalties imposed. The defilement of girls under 13 is felony; the defilement of those from 13 to 16 is a misdemeanor punishable by two years' imprisonsnent The procuration or at tempted procuration of any girl or woman is also a misdemeanor and subject to a similar penalty.
The French system has been copied in Bel gium, Russia, Hungary, Portuaral and Spain. Norway and Sweden follow in general the German plan, while Switzerland is divided be tween the two. Throughout the English-speak ing world the English system of moderate repression and comparative freedom obtains. All systems fail of their object Prostitution to a greater or leas extent prevails in all countries despite regulations. In the United States at tempts have been made at one time or another to introduce the registration system, but Saint Louis was the only large ci4t which gave the system an extended tnal. It was abandoned after four years of effort. The results proved an increase of 34 per cent in the number of brothels and of over 35 per cent in the number of registered women dunng the progress of the experiment. There was also an undoubted increase of clandestine prostitution. The per centage of diseased women rose from 3.75 per cent ut the first year of registration to over 6 per cent in the third year under the system. After a prolonged and embittered discussion the system was abandoned. The efforts to suppress houses of prostitution have also proved futile. In New York City, owing to the agitation con ducted by Dr. Parkhurst, hundreds of prosti tutes were turned out of their houses and the places closed by the police. The parlor moralists considered this a triumph of morals. But the women were not rescued to virtue, nor were their male partners in vice so redeemed. Even if the women had been reclaimed, those men remained to seduce other women. The women, ousted from their regular places of abode, in vaded the apartments of the upper middle class and the flats and tenements of those less well to-do. In their former abodes they came little in contact with home life and childhood. Now they were scattered among the homes and children of the city. As well might we say of cases of smallpox that they should not be allowed in houses by themselves, and therefore scatter them around among homes. Similar results have followed amoral crusades)) in other American cities.