Creator:
Andrew, Elizabeth Wheeler, 1845-1917, Bushnell, Katharine Caroline, 1855-1946
who ride in carriages through the street at night are in no danger
of being molested. But what about working women? what about the
daughters, sisters and wives of working men, out, it may be, on
an errand of mercy at night? and what, most of all, of that girl
whose father, mother, friends are dead or far away, who is
struggling hard, in a hard world, to live uprightly and justly
by the work of her own hands,--is she in no danger of this law?
Lonely and friendless, and poor, is she in no danger of a false
accusation from malice or from error? especially since under this
law _homeless_ girls are particularly marked out as just subjects
for its operation; and if she is accused, what has she to rely on,
under God, except that of which this law deprives her, the appeal
to be tried 'by God and my country,' by which it is understood
that she claims the judicial means of defense to which the law of
the land entitles her?
"I will only add that this law has a fatally corrupting influence
over the male youth of every country where it is in force. It
warps the conscience, and confuses the sense of right and wrong.
When the State raises this immoral traffic into the position of a
lawful industry, superintended by Government officials, what are
the young and ignorant to think? They cannot believe that that
which the Government of the country allows, and makes rules for,
and superintends, is really wrong."
STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS
LONDON
CONTENTS:
THE INCONSIDERATE WAITER, J. M. Barrie
THE BLACK POODLE, F. Anstey
THAT BRUTE SIMMONS, Arthur Morrison
A ROSE OF THE GHETTO, I. Zangwill
AN IDYL OF LONDON, Beatrice Harraden
THE OMNIBUS, "Q" [Quiller-Couch]
THE HIRED BABY, Marie Correlli
THE INCONSIDERATE WAITER, By J. M. BARRIE
Such measures as these have acquired a foothold in the United States
more than once, but have been driven out again. They are proposed
every year almost, at some State Legislature, and often have been
proposed at several different legislatures during a single year. They
are in operation, to some extent at least, under the United States
flag at Hawaii, in the Philippines, and at Porto Rico. The enforcement
of the Acts must depend to a large extent upon the co-operation of the
male fornicator with the police and officers of the law, and places
good women and girls terribly in the power of malicious or designing
libertines.
It appears from official records, that in Hong Kong, during six months
in 1886-7, out of 139 women denounced by British soldiers and sailors
as having communicated contagion, 102 were on examination found free
from disease, and only 37 to be diseased; and during a similar
period in 1887-8, out of 103 women that were denounced, 101 were on
examination found free from disease and only two diseased. We can
judge from this of both the worthlessness of the measure for tracing
diseased women, and the mischievousness of the measure as an aid to
libertines in getting girls they are endeavoring to seduce so injured
in reputation that they can easily capture their prey.
As a sanitary measure, the Acts have invariably proved a failure, as
shown by honestly handled statistics. There have, to be sure, been
many doctors, some of high scientific qualifications, who have
produced statistics strongly tending to prove the sanitary benefits