Note 42 — Chapter III

The practical working of this Act turns upon the voluntary submission. The clauses which refer to this are as follows:—

Act 1866, clause 17.— “Any woman, in any place to which this Act applies, may voluntarily, by a submission in writing, signed by her in the presence of, and attested by, the superintendent of police, subject herself to a periodical medical examination under this Act for any period not exceeding one year.”

Act 1869, clause 6.—“Where any woman in pursuance of the principal Act (1866) voluntarily subjects herself by submission in writing to a periodical medical examination under that Act, such submission shall, for all the purposes of the Contagious Diseases Acts 1866 to 1869, have the same effect as an order of a justice subjecting the woman to examination, and all the provisions of the principal Act respecting the attendance of the woman for examination, and her absenting herself to avoid examination, and her refusing or wilfully neglecting to submit herself for examination, and the force of the order subjecting her to examination after imprisonment for such absence, refusal, or neglect shall apply and be construed accordingly.” If a woman do not desire to sign the voluntary submission, the process under the Acts is that in conformity with the clause 4, Act 1869, already cited, she shall be summoned before a justice, by whom the question as to her being a prostitute or not is first to be tried, and then if he is satisfied that she is such, she is ordered for examination. It is not until after this process of law, and until she has absented herself wilfully from the examination thus ordered, that there are any penal consequences. (See clause 28, Act 1866, quoted below.) The arbitrary character of the offices to which the carrying out of these Acts is intrusted is to be seen from the orders given by the War Office to the policeman, with respect to the voluntary submission, one of which orders is as follows:—“Should any woman object to sign, she is to be informed of the penal consequences attending such refusal, and the advantages of a voluntary submission are to be pointed out to her.” Now, there are no penal consequences legally attending such a refusal; on the contrary, penal consequences attend signing: and the War Office here utterly ignores all the process of law which intervenes between the accusation of the woman, under clause 16, Act 1869, and the penal consequences which, according to clause 28, Act 1866, may under certain circumstances ensue. Perhaps nothing could be such a striking comment as this on the utterly flimsy character of the whole process of law to which the woman is subjected. The War Office has here leapt at once from the suspicion of a policeman to the woman’s condemnation, as if the suspicion of a policeman alone were sufficient proof of her being a prostitute. Indeed, under the Act it seems fundamentally to be assumed that policemen are infallible judges as to whether a woman is chaste or not.