"If, after she has endured this torture, she is found to be healthy and well, she is set free, with a certificate that she is _fit to practice prostitution_; but observe, she is never more a free woman, for her name is on the register of Government prostitutes, and she is strictly under the eye of the police, and is bound to come up periodically,--it may be weekly or fortnightly,--to be again outraged. "If she is found to have signs of disease, she is sent to a hospital, which is practically a prison, where she is kept as long as the doctors please. She may be kept for weeks or months, without any choice of her own. When cured, she is again set free with her certificate. During the first years of this law, a certificate on paper was given to every woman who had passed through this cruel ordeal; on this paper was the name of the woman, and the date of the last examination. The Abolitionist party, however, represented so strongly the shame of the whole proceeding, that the Government ordered that the piece of paper or ticket should not be given to the women any longer. But this change made no real difference, for it was well known that the women were forced to submit to the outrage of enforced examination.... You know that every criminal,--murderer, or thief, or any other,--has the benefit of the law; he or she is allowed an open trial, at which witnesses are called, and a legal advocate appears for the defense of the accused. But these State slaves are allowed no trial. It is enough that the police suspects and accuses them; then they are treated as criminals.... It will be clear to you that this law is not for simple healing, as Christ would have us to heal, caring for all, whatever their character or whatever their disease. This law is invented to _provide beforehand_ that men may be able to sin without bodily injury (if that were possible, which it is not). If a burglar, who had broken into my house and stolen my goods, were to fall and be hurt, I would be glad to get him into a hospital and have him nursed and cured; but I would not put a ladder up against my window at night and leave the windows open in order that he might steal my goods without danger of breaking his neck. "You will see clearly, also, the cowardliness and unmanliness of this law, inasmuch as it sacrifices women to men, the weak to the strong; that it deprives the woman of all that she has in life, of liberty, character, law, even of life itself (for it is a process of slow murder to which she is subjected), for the supposed benefit of men who are mean enough to avail themselves of this provision of lust. "Besides being grossly unjust, as between men and women, this law is a piece of class legislation of an extreme kind. The position and wealth of men of the upper classes place the women belonging to them above any chance of being accused of prostitution. Ladies who ride in carriages through the street at night are in no danger