Most students of the problem would not now countenance the licensing or inspection of houses of ill fame, since this confers the sanction of law upon the barbarous trade in women, but would simply, if they do not become too bold, permit them within certain limits by themselves and meanwhile fight the evil by raising the general moral standard of the community. The segregation system seems im possible even if it were altogether desirable, which it is not. When vice is confined to a specified district, the latter at once becomes notorious; the thieving, lawless and seditious elements malce it their rendezvous, and men fear to enter it because of the risk of identifica tion. Since the income of its inhabitants must come from without, resort is had frequently to robbery, intimidation, blackmail, etc.
While all measures have failed, yet there is little hope in leaving the evil alone. Lack of restriction works no cure, as the experience of the London authorities amply testifies. M.any believe that the evil is best reached through personal religious or ethical work, by raising the level of the standards of personal purity, and, above all, striving for an equal standard of morality for both men and women. On all sides it seems to be agreed that the existing dual standard of morality is, or will be, doome now that society, and especially the female portion of it, is .coming so keenly alive to its evils. Woman's increasing influence in political and economic fields is bound to be felt and her influence is assuredly for good. It is also felt that unless masculine morality is raised to a higher level, feminine morality may fall from the exalted position it has held so long, as it awakes to the full value of the fact that its purity. is only playing into the hands of the impunty of the other sex. Many paths of reform have been mapped out, the chief of wluch are: (1) The movement started by those who believe that the purification of our social morals can only be attained by setting up for men the same high standard of chastity and purity of life as that which has been hitherto considered as binding only upon women of the protected and wife-supplyitaoclasses; (2) the course advocated by those take an exactly cpposite view, and who believe that the end is to be reached by sonie extension of sexual freedom to all classes of women. They regard the attempt to raise men up to that high level of morality hitherto reserved for women as a natural_ impossibility or Utopian dream. They would lower the standard for women in order to bridge over the wide gulf which now exists between the average sensual man and the average chaste woman, 'and still more behveen the latter and the woman of the streets; (3) the views of those who avoid both these ex tremes and advocate a middle course, viz., the
reform of sexual morality through more liberal divorce laws. They believe that erring hu manity ought to have the opportunity of re trieving even its matrimonial mistakes and failures, and that the sacrifice of individuals to an absolute system is neither moral nor ex pedient To these are opposed a great number of religious bodies opposing divorce, and es pecially the oldest of the Christian churches, which denies its adherents the right of divorce and urges the teaching of a more practical Christian morality as the best means of raising social standards. In the populous centres of America prostitution, the drink evil, the pro hibited drug traffic, and lcindred evils have flourished because of systematic understandings between the proprietors of prohibited callings and the forces of law and order. To uncover these nefarious agreements investigations by pnvate associations and by public officials have been instituted at frequent intervals. Of these the most sweeping were those made of the white-slave traffic in New York and akago.
Bibliography.--(House Reports) (on White Slave Traffic, 61st Congress, 2d Session, No. 47, Washington 1909) ; (Senate Documents) (61st Congress, 3d Session, No. 702, ib. 1910) ; United States Immigration Conmfission, (Importing Women for Inunoral Porposes) (In (Senate Documents,) 61st Congress, 2d Session, No. 196, Washington 1909) ; Chicago "Vice Commission, (Social Evil in Chicago) (4th ed., Chicago 1912) ; Minneapolis Vice Commission, (Report to the Mayor) (Minneapolis 19 ,11.) • New York Committee of Fourteen, (The Social Evil) (New York 1910) ; Committee of Fifteen (New York), (The Social Evil) .(2d ed, 1912) ; Kneeland, G. J., (Commercialized Prosti tution in New York) (ib. 1913) ; Seli E. R. A., (The Social Evil) (2d ed., 151171)1; Sanger, W. W., (History of Prostitution) (2d ed, New York 1895) ; Amos, W. F., (StaW Regulation of Vice); (Comptes Rendus) of the International Conference (Brussels 1899) ; Fiaux, (La prostitution en Belgique); Gibbon, E, (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire); Sturmer, 'Die Prostitution in Russland); Tar nowsky, (La prostitution) ; Zehnder, (Die Gefahren der Prostitution.) Consult also Bliss, W. D. P. (ed.), (The New Encycloptedia of Social Reform) (New York 1910) ; Butler, J. E., (Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade) (1898) ; Marchant James, (The Master Problem) (New York 1917) ; Corbett Smith, A., (The Problem of the Nation) ; Flexner, Abraham, (Prostitution in Europe) ; Martindale, L., (Under the Surface); Wilson, A., (Some Causes of Prostitution' ; also col umns of the Shield, Vigilance, Prevention, and other periodicals.