Chapter XXXVII · (continued 2)

As an indication that the sentiments advanced in this chapter are entertained by others of the medical profession, and as endorsing our views to a considerable extent, the reader’s attention is requested to the annexed report adopted at a special meeting of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, New York, in reply to interrogatories addressed to them by Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house (by whose direction they are embodied in this work); and also to a report from H. N. Whittelsey, M.D., Resident Physician of the Nursery Hospital, Randall’s Island, on the same subject.

(Copy.)

“Report of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital in reply to Interrogatories of Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis.

“Office of the Governors of the Alms-house, Rotunda, Park, “New York, August 24, 1855.

“To the Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital:

“Gentlemen,—I am led to believe that a large number of the inmates of Bellevue Hospital are affected with syphilis in some of its many forms, and believing that the Governors of the Alms-house are called upon to take measures to remove, as far as possible, the cause of this great malady, to dry up the sources of an evil which prevails so extensively, saps the health and taxes the wealth of the city, etc., largely; and believing farther that, if the vice can not be stayed, humanity as well as policy would suggest that the dangers which surround it can be lessened, I propose a few interrogatories tending toward the accomplishment of this great object, desiring your views upon them in reply as early as 1st of October.

“1. What percentage of the total number of patients admitted to Bellevue Hospital suffer directly or indirectly from syphilis?

“2. Are there not patients admitted to Bellevue Hospital whose diseases are attributable to the taint of syphilis; and have not many of the inmates been forced to place themselves under treatment therein, and thus become dependent on the city, from being unfitted in body and mind for the ordinary duties of life in consequence of syphilitic diseases?

“3. Are not the children of parents thus affected unhealthy?

“4. What means, in your opinion, could be adopted to eradicate or lessen the disease in the city?

“By giving the above queries your earliest attention, you will greatly oblige your very obedient servant,

“Isaac Townsend, President.”

“At a special meeting of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, held December 18, 1855, the following report, in answer to a letter from Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house, dated August 24, 1855, touching the subjects of syphilis and prostitution, was read by Doctor Alonzo Clark, Chairman of the Committee appointed by the Medical Board to consider and reply to said letter.

“On motion, the report was accepted, and ordered for transmission to the President of the Board of Governors, after having received the signatures of the President and Secretary.

“John T. Metcalfe, M.D., “Secretary pro tem. to the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital.

“New York, December, 1855.”

“REPORT ON PROSTITUTION AND SYPHILIS.

“To Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house.

“In answer to your inquiries, the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital respectfully reply,

“That they caused a census of the Hospital to be taken on the 24th October last, for the purpose of ascertaining what proportion of the patients had suffered from venereal diseases. From that enumeration they learn that out of 477 persons then under medical and surgical treatment, 142, or about one third, had been so affected. In the several divisions of the house the numbers are as follows, viz.:

“Of 72 females on the surgical side, 17, or 1 in 4·24.

“Of 130 females on the medical side, 17, or 1 in 8 nearly.

“Of 118 males on the medical side, 45, or 1 in 2·6.

“Of 127 males on the surgical side, 63, or 1 in 2.

So that out of 245 males then under treatment, 108, or 1 in 2·27, had had some form of venereal disease; and among 202 females, 34, or 1 in 6, had been similarly affected.

“Of the whole number who confessed that they had had affections of this class, 106 had had syphilis, and 36 had had gonorrhœa.

“Of the 106 who had had syphilis, 53, or just one half, were still laboring under the influence of the poison with which they had been inoculated, in many instances, years before.

“As almost all these patients were admitted for other diseases, or with affections which the physician alone would recognize as the remote effects of syphilis, it is perhaps fair to assume that they represent, with some exaggeration, the class of society from which they come.

“The Board has been favored with the census of the New York Hospital (Broadway), taken for the purpose of ascertaining the proportion of syphilitic cases among the patients of that institution; from which it appears that the whole number of patients on the 8th of December was 233, and that 99 of that number had had venereal disease, and 37 were then under treatment for the same affections recently contracted. Counting the old cases alone, most of which were admitted, probably, for other diseases, this proportion considerably exceeds that above recorded for Bellevue Hospital, it being as high as 1 in 2·35. It is proper, however, in this connection to state that the returns for Bellevue Hospital are believed to be incomplete. They are based in a considerable degree on the confessions of the patients; and it is known that many, especially among the women, have denied any contamination, when facts, subsequently developed, have shown that their statements were not true.

“Is it to be believed, then, that one in three, or even one in four, of that large class of our population whose circumstances compel them to seek the occasional aid of medical charities, are tainted with venereal poison? This the Medical Board do not think they are authorized to state. But the facts here cited, and others within their reach, justify them in saying that venereal diseases prevail to an alarming extent among the poor of the city. The large number of women sent by the police courts to be treated for these diseases at the Penitentiary Hospital would alone be sufficient evidence of this. Yet such persons constitute but a small proportion of those who, even among the poor, suffer from these disorders. Dispensary physicians, and those in private practice, can show a much longer list of the victims of impure intercourse.

“But the disease is not confined to this class. The advertisements which crowd the newspapers, introduced by men who ‘confine their practice to one class of disease, in which’ they ‘have treated twenty thousand cases,’ more or less, demonstrate how large is the company of irregulars who live and grow rich on the harvest of these grapes of Sodom. And yet their long list of ‘unfortunates’ would disclose but a fraction of the evil among those who are able to pay for medical services. The Medical Board are unable to state what proportion of the income of regular and qualified physicians in this city is derived from the treatment of venereal diseases, but they know it is large, and that many who never advertise their skill receive more from this source than from all other sources together. They believe that there is no one among the unavoidable diseases, however prevalent, for the treatment of which the well-to-do citizens of New York pay one half so much as they pay to be relieved from the consequences of their illicit pleasures.

“The city bills of mortality give little information regarding the frequency of venereal affections. Lues Venerea keeps its place in the tables, and counts its score or two of deaths annually. Although this class of disorders is not frequently fatal, except among children, it is credited with only a fraction of the work it actually performs. The physician does not feel called upon, in his return of the causes of death, to brand his patient’s memory with disgrace, or to record an accusation against near relatives. During infancy the real disease is buried under such terms as Marasmus, Atrophia, Infantile Debility, or Inflammation, while in adults, Inflammation of the Throat, Phagedæna, Ulceration, Scrofula, and the like, take the responsibility of the death.

“These affections are strictly what the advertisers denominate them, ‘private diseases’—a leprosy which the ‘unfortunate’ always strives to conceal, and, so long as it spares his speech and countenance, usually succeeds in concealing. The physician is his only confidant, and the physician refers all to the class of ‘innocent secrets,’ which are not to be revealed. The public, therefore, know little of the prevalence of such diseases, and still less of the fearful ravages they are capable of making.

“Still, as has been just said, syphilis is not often the immediate cause of death in adults. After its first local effects are over—and these, though generally mild, are sometimes frightful—the poison lingers in the system ready to break out on any provocation in some one of its many disgusting manifestations, often deforming and branding its victim, threatening life and making it a burden, and yet refusing the poor consolation of a grave. Like the vulture which fed on the entrails of the too amorous Tityus, it tortures and consumes, but is slow to destroy, and often its visible brand, like the scarlet badge once worn by the adulteress, proclaims a lasting disgrace. The protracted suffering of mind and body produced by this class of distempers, the ever-changing and often loathsome form of their secondary accidents, and the almost irradicable character of the poison, seem almost to justify an old opinion, sanctioned by a papal bull as late as 1826, that these diseases are an avenging plague, appointed by Heaven as a special punishment for a special sin.

“The relentless character of syphilitic diseases stands out in painful relief in its transmission from parent to offspring. Here it is, indeed, that the children’s teeth are set on edge, because the fathers have eaten sour grapes. The contaminated husband or wife is left through years of childlessness or of successive bereavements to mourn over early follies, and to repent when repentance is fruitless. The syphilitic man or woman can hardly become the parent of a healthy child.

“A young man has imbibed the contagion; it has become constitutional. After a few weeks, or months perhaps, of treatment, the visible signs of the disease no longer torment him. He has contracted a matrimonial alliance, and soon marries a healthy and virtuous woman. He flatters himself that he is cured. A few months suffice to give him painful proof of his error, for then his growing hopes of paternity are suddenly blasted. Instead of the child of his hopes he sees a shriveled and leprous corpse. This is but the first in a series of similar misfortunes. He has poisoned the fruit of his loins, and again and again, and still again, it falls withered and dead. At length nature seems to have triumphed over this foe to domestic happiness, and the parents’ hearts are gladdened by the sight of a living child. Their joy is short-lived. The child is feeble and sickly, and in a few days or weeks another death is added to the penance list of the humbled and grieving father.

“This mournful story will need no essential changes in the narration, should the poison of impure intercourse, legitimate or illicit, linger in the veins of the mother.

“A child of such a connection may be born in apparent health, but before six months have passed, some one of the numerous forms of infantile syphilis will be likely to appear and threaten its life. In the contest which follows between disease and the treatment, the physician is commonly victorious, but the contest is in many cases protracted, and often it is to be renewed again and again. And after all, it is not believed that children thus tainted at their birth often grow up and acquire that degree of health and vigor which is popularly ascribed to a good constitution.

“These are facts familiar to physicians practicing in large towns. But the history of inherited syphilis is not complete. If, in the case just recited, the wife escape contamination from her husband and her unborn child, yet the sad consequences of that husband’s folly are not yet exhausted. That tainted child, now a sickly nursling at her breast, has a venom in its ulcerated lips which can inoculate the mother with its own loathsome poison, while it draws its sustenance from the sacred fountain of infantile life. But this is not all. These little innocents sometimes spread their disease through the whole circle of those who bestow on them their care and kindness. The contagion spreads through the use of the same spoon, the same linen, and even by that highest token of affection, a kiss. It has been known that a single diseased child has contaminated its mother, a hired nurse, and, through that nurse, the nurse’s child, and, in addition to these, the husband’s mother and the mother’s sister. Such are sometimes the weighty consequences of a single error.

“PREVENTION.

“That the great source of the venereal poison is prostitution, requires no argument. The first question, then, to be answered, is, Can prostitution be prevented? In answering this question, it is necessary to remember that the history of the world demonstrates the existence of this vice in all ages, and among all nations, since the day its first pages were written. The appetite which incites it has always been stronger than moral restraints—stronger than the law. No rigor of punishment, no violence of public denunciation; neither exile, nor the dungeon, nor yet the disgusting malady with which nature punishes the practice has ever effected its extermination, even for a single year. Great as this evil has always been, it can not be denied that in our own time some of the accidents of what is called the progress of society tend, at least in large towns, greatly to increase it. The expenses of living are every where the great obstacle to early marriages, whether such expenses be positively necessary or be demanded by the social position of the individual, the fashion of his class, and therefore become relatively necessary. Wherever these expenses increase more rapidly than the rewards of labor, marriage becomes impossible for a constantly increasing number, or can only be purchased at the price of social position. But abstinence from marriage does not abolish or moderate the natural appetites. The great law of nature on which the existence of the race depends is not abrogated by any artificial state of society. Moral or religious principles will restrain its operations in some; human laws in some; the fear of consequences in some; yet there always have been, and probably always will be, many of both sexes who are not restrained by any of these considerations. These have sustained, and probably will continue to sustain, not only prostitution but houses of prostitution, in the face of every human law. Suppressed in one form, it immediately assumes another. Again pursued, it retreats to hiding-places where darkness and secrecy protect it from the pursuer.

“Severe penalties have heretofore only increased the evils of prostitution. If a hundred women are consigned to prison for this vice to-day, before a month has elapsed a hundred more have taken their places, and the hundred, though punished, are not reformed. Impelled by a love of their profession, or some by the passion to emulate the more fortunate of their sex in the finery of dress (a passion which first occasioned their fall), many by want, and all by a sense that they are outcasts, they are no sooner liberated than they return with new zeal to the life from which they have been detained only by force. Severe laws compel secrecy; they can do no more. When prostitution is criminal, disease, if known to others, is a practical conviction. Under such circumstances the contaminated will be slow to confess disease, and so subject themselves to punishment. Yet their passions and their necessities alike forbid even temporary abstinence. They spread disease without limit.

“Under this fact lies an important thought. Were it no more disgraceful to contract syphilis than it is to have fever and ague, the diseased would seek early relief, which is nearly equivalent to certain relief, and the disorder would soon be confined to the pitiable few who have lost in drunkenness and misery the instinctive dread of all that is foul and disgusting in personal disease. Prostitution, it is true, would then be restored to its old Roman dignity, yet venereal disease could then be reached, and all but eradicated. But a respectable syphilis does not belong to our age and nation. It lost caste in the beginning, and its exploits in modern times have not been of a character to win it friends. The supposition aims only to show, by contrast, the evils of well-intended, but probably injudicious legislation. Regarding pains and penalties: if the whip, confiscation, and banishment, in the hands of Charlemagne and St. Louis, aided by a right good will and all the powers of a military despotism, could not suppress prostitution, or even prevent the opening of houses of prostitution; if penal laws in Europe, from the days of these earnest princes until now, have utterly failed of their object, as they notoriously have, it is fair to ask how much more can prohibitory laws accomplish in a country where the right of private judgment and personal liberty in speech and action are the very foundation of the body politic? They have hitherto been ineffectual. In spite of such laws, the vice is increasing. In consequence of such laws, its most enormous physical evil is extending its baleful influence through every rank and circle of society. It is still emphatically the plague of the poor; it still brings sorrow and misery to the firesides of the affluent and titled.

“A utopian view of the perfectibility of man might look for the remedy to this evil in universal early marriages, in domestic happiness, and in a universal moral sense which will compel men and women to keep their marriage vows. But, taking man as he is, we find the tides of society set with constantly increasing strength against early marriages; that domestic happiness is not synonymous with marriage, whether early or late; and that the moral sense which should teach all men to observe even their solemn promises would be miraculous. For these things the law has done all that has been thought wise to attempt, probably all that it can do.

“But it may be asked, If government has the power to relieve society of the vice of drunkenness, why despair of its power regarding prostitution? In reply it may be asked if the drunkard himself is ever cured of his vicious appetite by penalties? The statute despairs of this. It even recognizes its inability to prevent the sale of intoxicating drinks while they exist; it therefore claims the right to seize and destroy them. Can it seize on and destroy the inborn passion which fills and supports houses of prostitution? Then it can not do for the one what it hopes to do for the other.

“Again: the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade have been cited in this connection as illustrating the power of law. In trespass, theft, violence, or fraud, some one is wronged; and those who have been injured seek to bring the offender to justice. Here there is no aggrieved person. All who are in interest are so in interest that they deprecate the interference of all law, except what they claim to believe is the law of Nature.

“But is there no hope in the societies of moral reform? For the suppression, or even checking of the general vice, none whatever. The association in New York deserves much praise for its zealous benevolence. They have brought back some of these erring women to the paths of virtue, but they have done no more to stop the current of prostitution than he could do to dry up the current of the Hudson who dips water with a bucket. In truth it may be said that the paths of virtue have been found to be slippery places for some that would be thought converts. Wisdom’s ways have been found too peaceful for these daughters of excitement. This is said in no spirit of disparagement to the efforts of the society. They may well be proud of what they have done. But it is said to show how little the kindest and the best can do to reclaim those who have once fallen from virtue and honor.

“Let the great fact, then, be well understood, that prohibitory measures have always failed, and, from the nature of the case, must forever fail to suppress prostitution.

“Let this additional fact, illustrated in the foregoing remark, be well considered, that penalties do not reform the offender, but that they enforce secrecy in the offense, and silence regarding its consequences, which is a chief cause of the present wide diffusion of the venereal poison.

“What, then, is the proper province of legislation in this important matter?

“The wise lawgiver does not attempt impossibilities. He knows that laws which experience has demonstrated can not be enforced, teach disrespect and disobedience to all law. He knows that human passions can not be changed by human legislation. He knows that, if he attempt the impossible greater in the control of vice, he is certain to neglect the possible and important less. He knows that the river will not cease to flow at his command. If it overflows and desolates, he raises its banks and dikes in the flood to prevent a general inundation. For hundreds of years the governments of Europe have tried in vain to dry up the sources of prostitution; with the opening of the present century they began to dike in the river and prevent avoidable mischief. For a long time we too have had laws against prostitution, which, with every proper effort on the part of those in authority, have proved as useless as those who live by this illicit traffic could desire—as mischievous in spreading disease as the quack advertiser could wish. Is it not time, then, to inquire whether we have not attempted too much; whether, if we attempt less, we shall not accomplish more? May we not be able to limit and control what we have not the power to prevent? If we can not do all that a large benevolence might wish to accomplish, in the name of humanity is it not our duty to do what is useful and practicable—all that is possible?

“While the Medical Board are persuaded that by a change of policy, such as is suggested by the facts and reasons herewith submitted, much can be done to limit and control prostitution, and much more toward the eradication of venereal diseases, they are not yet prepared to offer the details of a plan by which they hope these important ends can be attained. With the assistance of the Board of Governors, they are now in correspondence with the medical officers of many of the larger cities of Europe, where restrictive measures have replaced prohibitory. When they have obtained the information which they hope this correspondence will furnish, they will ask leave to submit a supplementary report.

“John W. Francis, M.D., President.

“John T. Metcalfe, M.D., Secretary pro tem.

“Note.—It is believed that not far from ten per cent. of the inmates of Bellevue Hospital are admitted for affections which have their origin remotely in venereal disease. A certain form of rheumatism, certain inflammations of the throat, eyes, bones, and joints; stricture and cutaneous eruptions are the most common diseases of this class. What proportion, if any, of those who suffer from scrofula and scrofulous inflammations, from consumption and other chronic diseases, owe their present illness to a constitutional syphilitic vice, inherited or acquired, there are no means of determining satisfactorily.”

Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital, New York:

JOHN W. FRANCIS, M.D., President.

Isaac Wood, M.D. John T. Metcalfe, M.D. Alonzo Clark, M.D. Benjamin W. M‘Cready, M.D. Isaac B. Taylor, M.D. George T. Elliott, M.D. B. Fordyce Barker, M.D. Valentine Mott, M.D. Alexander H. Stevens, M.D. James R. Wood, M.D. Willard Parker, M.D. Charles D. Smith, M.D. Lewis A. Sayre, M.D. John J. Crane, M.D. John A. Lidell, M.D. Stephen Smith, M.D.

(Copy.)

“Report of Doctor H. N. Whittelsey, Resident Physician of Randall’s Island, in answer to certain queries of Isaac Townsend, Esq., Governor of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis:

“New York, November 28, 1855.

“Dear Sir,—From repeated conversations with you, I am led to believe that many diseases incidental to the children on Randall’s Island may properly be traced to parents who are affected with constitutional syphilis. Please give me your views as to the following questions as early as 10th December.

“1. Among the children under your care, to what extent does inherited syphilis exist?

“2. Under what form does constitutional syphilis present itself, and what diseases are attributable to its taint?

“3. Are not the children of parents thus affected unhealthy, scrofulous, subject to diseases of the eye, joints, etc.?

“Very respectfully, “Isaac Townsend, Governor A. H.

“Doctor H. N. Whittelsey, Resident Physician, R. I.”

“Randall’s Island, Dec. 24, 1855.

“Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house.

“Dear Sir,—In regard to the interrogatories contained in your note of a recent date on the subject of hereditary syphilis, I have the honor to reply:

“1. Regarding its prevalence. It is a matter of record that nine tenths of all diseases treated in this hospital during the past five years have been of constitutional origin, and for the most part hereditary. These diseases assume a variety of forms, and involve nearly every structure of the body, terminating in cachexia, marasmus, phagedæna, etc., etc. The exact proportion which hereditary syphilis bears to this sum of constitutional depravity can not be stated with accuracy for the following reasons:

“Children are admitted to this institution between two and fifteen years of age, thus throwing out of the category infantile syphilis in all its forms; and except in few cases, showing none of its specific characteristics, having been modified by appropriate treatment, but manifests itself by general constitutional depravity, and determines a great variety of diseases, embracing nearly every form of skin disease, affection of the mucous membranes and their dependencies, diseases of the eye and ear, of the bones, especially of joints, etc., proving the prolific and lamentable source of many of the diseases incident to children of the class presented in this institution. Making, then, due allowance for its masked form, in which the consequences of inherited syphilis appear in this institution, together with the absence of the previous history both of patients and parents, it is believed an approximate estimate may be made of the part which this malady bears to the sum of constitutional disease. From the foregoing facts, and from careful observation during the past few years in this branch of the Alms-house Department, it appears that human degradation is the source of the stream of pollution supplying this hospital with disease; and farther, that of all the vices which make up the sum total of depravity, both moral and physical, prostitution and its consequences furnish the larger proportion.

“Here we have the sad picture presented of a large number of children doomed to an early grave, or to breathe out their miserable existence bearing a loathsome disease, carrying the penalties of vice of which they themselves are innocent, being a generation contaminated, and capable only of contaminating in turn.

“In the above sketch I have confined my statement to syphilis as manifested in the Nursery Hospital, where the average number of cases of disease treated is about two thousand. From this field is excluded every variety of the disease except the one, viz., constitutional syphilis affecting children after having been modified by treatment in the infant.

“H. N. Whittelsey, M.D.”

It has been stated already that the information obtained in the course of this investigation is, to a very great degree, undoubtedly reliable; but a few words more in reference to the same subject will not be out of place, if we consider the importance such information assumes when it is made the basis of serious deduction. These women were examined singly and alone, and a person who has been engaged for a number of years in any particular inquiry is able, by his experience, to judge whether his informants are speaking the truth in their replies. For this, among other reasons, we are satisfied that in almost every case there was no deception practiced, but that the answers obtained were true in all essential points. Another evidence of correctness is the degree of congruity that characterized the greater part of the replies. Farther than this: a reference to the questions themselves (as reprinted in Chapter XXXII.) will show that they were so arranged that falsehoods would be easily detected unless very carefully contrived before the time of examination, of which those examined had no notice, and consequently no opportunity for fraud or deception could possibly exist.

It is not denied that there were many difficulties to be encountered, although the mode of operation was simple. It may be briefly described as follows. The captain of each police district (and oftentimes the writer with him) explained his object to the keeper of the house, assuring her that there was no intention to annoy, harass, or expose her; and, particularly, that no prosecutions should be based upon any information thus collected. This latter promise was supported by a letter from a high legal functionary addressed to the Mayor and Police Department, assuring them that the particulars they collected should not be used in any manner prejudicial to the women themselves, as it was believed that a collection of the necessary information required by such a work as the present would be productive of good to the city. When satisfied upon the subject of prosecution, they were told that the real motive was to obtain correct particulars of prostitution without exposing individual cases, so as to enable the public to judge of its extent, and assist them in forming an opinion as to the necessity of arrangements which would ultimately become protective to our citizens at large, as well as to housekeepers and courtesans, and many of the housekeepers expressed a hope that the design might be accomplished. Their interests, therefore, led them to speak the truth. In short, from the precautions taken, and from the result itself, very little doubt can be entertained as to the authenticity of the principal part of the replies on all essential points; and upon this consideration these replies have been made the basis of the description and remarks upon Prostitution in New York.

The task is completed, and the reader’s attention may be invited to the various facts substantiated, as embodied in the following

RECAPITULATION.

There are six thousand public prostitutes in New York.

The majority of these are from fifteen to twenty-five years old.

Three eighths of them were born in the United States.

Many of those born abroad came here poor, to improve their condition.

Education is at a very low standard with them.

One fifth of them are married women.

One half of them have given birth to children, and more than one half of these children are illegitimate.

The ratio of mortality among children of prostitutes is four times greater than the ordinary ratio among children in New York.

Many of these children are living in the abodes of vice and obscenity.

The majority of these women have been prostitutes for less than four years.

The average duration of a prostitute’s life is only four years.

Nearly one half of the prostitutes in New York admit that they are or have been sufferers from syphilis.

Seduction; destitution; ill treatment by parents, husbands, or relatives; intemperance; and bad company, are the main causes of prostitution.

Women in this city have not sufficient means of employment.

Their employment is inadequately remunerated.

The associations of many employments are prejudicial to morality.

Six sevenths of the prostitutes drink intoxicating liquors to a greater or less extent.

Parental influences induced habits of intoxication.

A professed respect for religion is common among them.

A capital of nearly four millions of dollars is invested in the business of prostitution.

The annual expenditure on account of prostitution is more than seven millions of dollars.

Prohibitory measures have signally failed to suppress or check prostitution.

A necessity exists for some action.

Motives of policy require a change in the mode of procedure.