by Elizabeth Blackwell

“ It is as a light shining upon us that an example is even now set before us indicating that vice may be restrained; that a way is open to us consistent with morality and religion.
A right national choice, made now and consistently carried out, will rescue from unspeakable evil thousands of helpless children just coming forward into life, and myriads as yet unborn, and shall save our national life and civilization from that sure and swift destruction that inevitably follows from a wrong decision on a matter of vital import. ”

“ But in the defence of their children the mothers of the race must be heard; their right to act in such a cause is indisputable, and when women call on men to support them in this sacred duty of motherhood—the guardianship of the young—men will rally to their aid, and no power of ancient or modern evil custom can withstand their united energy.
The great and urgent need of our civilization is the united action of men and women in the mighty contest with social evil which is now beginning. The conflict will be tremendous; but this age is full of promise. ”

“ Coming from a woman, this book is unique, but its testimony is so bravely given, its arguments are so dispassionately and calmly piled up, without oven the bias of sex, and its physiological authority is so complete, that it must be welcomed by all sincere moral workers as one of the ablest, if, indeed, it is not the ablest appeal that has been made in our time in behalf of chastity and sexual nobility of life. ”

“ It is seen also that the last system gradually destroys individual responsibility; little by little it produces cynicism, corruption, and a deep-seated moral degradation in all classes of society, which at last kills the sense of evil in the individual conscience, and thus destroys both the will and the power of a nation to regenerate itself. ”

“ It is a weighty fact, which is supported by incontrovertible and most abundant evidence, that vice in both sexes increases far more rapidly, and assumes an intensity of corruption unknown to us, whenever the State accepts, registers, and guards prostitutes, instead of repressing promiscuous intercourse. In such a State, corruption eats into the life of all classes of the community. ”

“ This demoralizing tendency of vice, supported by law, is fully borne out by British experience. Wherever immoral legislation is allowed to proceed, unchecked by a death struggle, with an enlightened and vigorous public opinion, resolved to overthrow it, it immediately begins to exhibit the same signs of awful demoralization, cynicism, and cruelty that we observe in Brussels. ”

“ Notwithstanding the frequently expressed opinion of well-meaning people, who take, as they state, a philosophical view of prostitution and brothel-keeping, and, from their mode of reasoning, arrive at the conclusion that both are necessary evils, and incapable of being either eradicated or greatly diminished, I consider myself justified in the opinion that the results indicated above, and which have been brought about by a steady and persistent application of the law by the authorities, have been of very great advantage to this community. ”

“ Law is made for the protection of human beings in right-doing, not for the protection of the vicious in wrong-doing. The argument that a fornicator must be protected in his evil-doing against a young girl who offers to lead him astray, is the most cowardly instance of moral obliquity that can well be brought forward.
There are, alas! too many adult women ready to supply the demands of vice, making broad and easy the road for the unmanly fornicator. ”

“ Here is a book which examines in a sufficiently plain-spoken, yet clean and wholesome and profoundly earnest way, questions which perplex and occupy the mind of every mother—questions of vital import to the well-being of youth, and of decisive bearing on education and society. ”

“ Finally: "Men carefully selected for the work should receive sufficient emolument from the funds raised under the ordinance to ensure trustworthy and competent men, who must be looked for in this country if there is any difficulty in finding them in the Colony."
That is, that a system which is proved by long experience in Hong-Kong, and in every country that has adopted it, to demoralize the agents who enforce it, can only be carried out safely by agents who are not demoralized! ”

“ The state of society in Paris has become very immoral. Obscene literature abounds everywhere, and has led to obscene manners. One of the most repulsive forms of this obscenity is the increase of what are politely called the frail sisterhood, who now infest every quarter, high and low, far and near, to such an extent that from morning to night the streets are encumbered with them. The papers have complained, the inhabitants have petitioned, but to no purpose; somehow or another the Government appears powerless to grapple with the growing evil. ”

“ Our youth, until the age of eighteen, most imperatively require the guardianship and help of law and custom. It is the most cruel injury that we can do to childhood and youth to allow the vicious adult to trade upon impulsive inexperience; or to suffer corrupt age to plead that ignorant youth tempted it to evil. The physiological plea, urged in opposition to the protection of the young girl, is false, for the physical woman is a moral child, in the great mass of minor girls. ”

“ The foregoing evidence from the experience of the great city of Glasgow furnishes positive proof that the public manifestations of vice, and the evil results—disease and crime—may be effectually checked by methods which do not destroy the sense of right and wrong, and degrade womanhood. ”

“ The first method to be considered is that of "letting social vice alone" to run its course unchecked. This is the system employed in London. [2]
No systematic and efficient action is taken to check public manifestations of licentiousness. The great Metropolis is not kept in decent order day and night. Solicitation by men and women is not treated as a nuisance in the public thoroughfares, but the streets are allowed to become the assembling places of vicious persons, openly plying a disgraceful trade. ”

“ Elizabeth Blackwell discusses, with commendable frankness and earnestness, a subject which is of the gravest importance not only to parents and the youth they have in charge, but also to society at large, which is, in fact, only a family circle of wider dimensions, whose interests are clearly identical, and not easily separated from those of the narrower band of home members. ”

“ The State is, therefore, compelled at the outset to leave the most important half of the trade unregulated—that half, namely, that injures the innocent, the unfallen—and that half that supplies all the capital of the trade, the money without which it could not be continued for a week. ”

“ The efficient protection of minors from the corrupting influence of vicious adults by just and severe law, and the energetic execution of such law, will destroy the chief root of licentiousness. It will prove the true radical method which law should adopt for checking disorder and disease. It is on this central ground that the great fight between, virtue and vice must be fought out. All the forces of evil will rise in opposition to such protection, knowing well that the corruption of youth is the stronghold of vice. ”

“ The growing sense of justice, when the authorities work in the right direction in checking social vice, is shown by the determination of the Glasgow municipality to obtain the power of arresting men in brothels. ↑ At common law—" Every brothel is a nuisance liable to indictment." "Every brothel-keeper is liable to fine and imprisonment." "Solicitation in the streets is a legal offence in London as much as it is in Glasgow." ”

“ The broad, downward path which leadeth to destruction, vitiating the strong and treading underfoot the helpless and the weak, or the steep, up-hill path, which shall lead us to a higher and purer national life,—a path needing courage and vigilance and devotion to pursue, but leading to assured success—the path of Christian morality—of salvation for one and all. ”

“ It is this corrupting influence of the law on the moral sense of womanhood, through the "acceptance" by law of a life of public lust for any woman, which is the most direful and ominous sign of this our nineteenth century of Christianity. ”

“ The chief value of the book to the young themselves is its convincing statement of the fundamental truth that happiness, health, and power are on the side of morality. Stated merely as an ethical proposition, this will not have any new weight. But shown as a physiological principle, founded in Nature herself, bearing always with it its own rewards and penalties, physical and moral, it must be of immense service. ”

“ I vainly seek a remedy for this flood of evil, which will infallibly destroy us, as the Roman Empire was destroyed."
The one true principle of all legal action in reference to sexual vice, with its deadly evils, is now clearly visible to the intelligence of the 19th century; it is this: Male lust must be restrained, in order to check female obscenity. The action and reaction of cause and effect can not be separated. All attempts to do so, result in increasing corruption.
The facts and causes of national demoralization are now plainly before our eyes. ”

“ It is seen that the first system permits great and dangerous evils to run into license, leaving them to be dealt with solely through individual effort, and through the action of the moral and religious organizations, which in a Christian country gradually arise to combat them—organizations indispensable to social progress, but lacking the coherence, force, and educating influence of righteous law. ”

“ Such persons require no exceptional protection from the law. But our children we are bound to protect. Christian society is imperatively called on to demand that the young shall be guarded by law—the more defenceless the more carefully guarded—until age and experience give them the power of distinguishing between good and evil.
The future education of the young into respect for their own human bodies, and into mutual reverence, can only be effectually accomplished when the vicious adult is prevented by heavy punishment from corrupting minors—boys equally with girls. ”