of their fallen sisterhood, no doubt can exist that the future of the woman called 'unfortunate' will command that attention which hitherto has been denied to her. I beg to assure these ladies that the medical profession has ever treated these unfortunate women with the most signal and marked tenderness and sympathy. If surgeons are left to deal with questions and to remove evils, the cognisance of which comes peculiarly within their province-if the ladies and the clergy, and all who have at heart the well-being of the race, will deal with those evils which they can severally remedy-and if all will unite in the common cause, not magnifying their own peculiar provinces, nor depreciating that of others, but, gaining and giving mutually all the help and strength they can, we may hope to see, not the extirpation of prostitution, for this can only come to pass when poor humanity ceases to be frail and sinful, but a considerable diminution of the number of prostitutes, and a great amelioration of their condition."

In 1869, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider whether it would be expedient to extend the operations of the Act of 1866. They report:" Prostitution appears to have diminished, its worst features to have been softened, and its physical evils abated." They recommended some changes, among which were that Gravesend, Maidstone, Winchester, Dover, Deal and Walmer, Canterbury, Dartmouth, Ivy-Bridge, and Southampton, should be included in the schedule of the Act. In spite of the continued opposition, the Act of 1869, as thus suggested, was passed; and when, in the following year, the first motion for the repeal of the Acts was brought before the House it was negatived by a large majority, and a Royal Commission was subsequently appointed to inquire whether the Acts should be amended, maintained, extended, or repealed. They recommended certain amendments, but reported favourably as to the amount of good which had been effected. This may be judged by a concise summary contained in a dissent from the above by seven of the most influential of the Commissioners (Sir John Pakington, Viscount Hardinge, Sir J. S. Trelawny, Bart., Drs. Paget and Wilks, Mr. Timothy Holmes, and Mr. Hastings), who considered that the Acts of 1866 and 1869 should be fully maintained. They thus sum up the results of the Acts:

(a) Religious and moral influence has been brought to bear upon large numbers of women, a great portion of whom had been from infancy familiar only with scenes of debauchery and vice.

(b) Towns and camps have been cleared or nearly so of the miserable creatures who were formerly to be found in their streets and thoroughfares.

(c) A considerable number of abandoned women have been reclaimed and restored to respectable life, and in many instances married.

(d) The number of loose women has been greatly reduced, and those who remain have been rendered more decent and decorous in appearance and conduct.

(e) The practice of clandestine prostitution, which too often degenerates into professional vice has been materially checked by fear of the consequences of such indulgence which are rendered probable under these Acts.

(f) The sad spectacle of juvenile prostitutes of tender age, so rife in such localities heretofore has been greatly diminished; in some instances almost removed.

(g) The temptations by which young men of all classes have been hitherto assailed have been to a great extent taken out of their way, and morality has thus been promoted.

A memorial also in favour of the Acts being left in full force was signed by 2,500 members of the medical profession, who must be regarded as impartial witnesses, since the extinction of these diseases has entailed considerable pecuniary loss to their brethren in districts protected by the Acts, which if universally adopted would extend this loss to all the members of the profession. With all these facts before us, facts which are stubborn things, we cannot be surprised at the result of the two different attempts which were subsequently made to repeal the Acts.

On May 22, 1873, Mr. Fowler brought forward his Bill for Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866, 1869, which was defeated on the motion of Sir John Pakington, by a majority of 123; 128 voting in favour, 251 against.

And on the 23rd June last Sir Harcourt Johnstone brought in a similar Bill, which was, however, lost by a majority of 182; 126 voting for, 308 against. We may therefore consider the Acts safe for a season, though we cannot hope that the opponents are silenced. But reason and common sense must carry the day, and we may now turn to a very practical part of the question, ought they to be extended to all large seaports? by considering what is the state of matters in some of those which are not under the Acts, as regards prostitution. We will take them first generally, and then give particular instances.

In some respects the merchant seaman is better off, undoubtedly, than his brother in the Navy. He has better pay, and can pick and choose his sphere of life to a great extent. He has also (though this is a doubtful advantage) more liberty ashore, and can abandon his seafaring life without having to pay any indemnity. But on the other hand these very freedoms are fraught with evil to him, and it cannot be denied that the Mercantile Marine contains amongst its seamen a large number who would never pass muster as A. B.'s on board a man-of-war. Then, though he has better pay, it must be acknowledged that he has very

little inducement to marry, and that a woman worth having has very little inducement to marry him. He is cut off from all those associations which make married life the happier one, except for a few weeks yearly; however sober he may be, and with the most rigid economy he cannot do more than "make both ends meet," while, if a numerous family come, he will have hard work to "keep the wolf from the door." She, on her part will have none of the support a husband gives to a wife in the daily and hourly troubles of life, her lonely life will expose her to many temptations, the monthly "allotment" will not suffice to keep her without assistance, while the sudden death of her husband from any of the many perils incidental to his calling will plunge her into the deepest poverty. Under these circumstances it is easy to see what the average seaman is more likely to adopt; what has been said before, and we repeat it as a sad truth, not as a joke, а wife at every port he calls at." And when we know that hundreds of men are landed weekly, sometimes daily, at our large seaports, who in a few days will receive sums varying from £5 to £20 each, all of which they are ready to squander as fast as possible, can we wonder that there are plenty of "sharks," both male and female ready for them. And what description can be given of these female sharks, the keepers of those dens of infamy which the Acts have so greatly reduced in Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Devonport, but which still exist in large numbers in Liverpool, Hull, Bristol, &c., and what shall we say of their inmates?

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The surgeon of Her Majesty's ship Audacious at Hull, in his annual report of the health of the crew for the year 1872, describes the lower parts of the town as a "filthy focus of foul prostitutes, and reckless and degraded seamen." During the year, in an average force of 416 men there were 125 cases of the worst form of venereal disease, being an annual ratio of 300 per 1,000.

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Again, Bristol and Cardiff each have localities in their midst which might be described in similar terms. In fact it must in the very nature of things be so when all the circumstances are considered. worse form of the disease which these Acts were passed to prevent has existed for thousands of years, and still remains unchecked though perfectly preventible, and capable by judicious laws of being stamped out. And yet from the inseparable way in which it is bound up with vice and impurity, no disease has, perhaps, received so little attention from the charitably disposed. Thus, though it may be laid down as an axiom that in every seaport at least one-third of all the women known to the police as common prostitutes are diseased, what has been done by voluntary aid towards providing hospital accommodation for them or any proportion of them? In Liverpool (as we shall see) there is a Lock hospital with twenty-five beds for females. There is no Lock hospital in Bristol, Hull, or Cardiff,

and, so far as we are aware, no Lock wards in any of the hospitals in these towns. Again, when the Government sought at first to obtain accommodation for infected women in the civil hospital at Plymouth and elsewhere, and made liberal offers towards cost and maintenance, their offers were rejected, and the unfortunates, with their diseases, were left to take care of themselves. It was found necessary, in order to cope successfully with the evil, to provide 162 beds for the three towns-Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse; and 120 beds for Portsmouth. Then, and then only, was the disease reduced. Hence we gain some idea as to how necessary a Lock hospital is in every large seaport. It need not be a large, permanent one, especially if the Acts be enforced. A small hospital will suffice, provided there be arrangements for making increased temporary accommodation.

But some will say, "There are workhouses, are there not? What about them?" The answer is that they are not hospitals, but places for paupers of the parish in which they are situated; and when "unfornates" can from disease no longer continue their dreadful calling, to the workhouse they must go, since they have become paupers. But who shall measure the amount of misery and suffering they have both caused and endured during the interval which has elapsed from the first onset of their malady till their appearance at the workhouse or hospital door? This can only be guessed by those who see them on their arrival-the medical officers of workhouses and Lock hospitals. And even if voluntary hospitals were provided in abundance, it does not follow, unfortunately, that they would be availed of as they should be. On this point we may quote from the last report of the Association for Promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts:

"The voluntary system has been tried and has proved an utter failure. It has never been found practicable to induce the public in London or elsewhere to support Lock hospitals or Lock wards, on a scale at all adequate to the requirements of the population. But even if such a system could be fully carried out, there is no reason to believe that it would have any appreciable influence in abating the general prevalence of contagious venereal disease. This was amply shown by the working of the Permissive Act of 1864. It was the main reason of the compulsory clauses of later Acts, and as shown by the evidence taken by the Royal Commission, the fact was perfectly well-known to those who have had experience in the treatment of prostitutes. These women are far too reckless of consequences, and the inconvenience which they suffer in the early stages of disease is far too slight to induce them voluntarily to seclude themselves for treatment. With rare exceptions they will not apply for admission until their disease has reached a stage which renders it impossible for them to carry on their vocation any longer; while, on

the other hand, the great majority will insist on departing as soon as their more serious symptoms are abated and no longer cause them any appreciable inconvenience. Under the Act of 1864, women still uncured constantly insisted on leaving hospital when they heard of the arrival of a regiment or of a ship being paid off. In the words of an experienced witness before the Royal Commission, the voluntary system must necessarily fail because the women will not come in soon enough, and will not stay in long enough.'

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"To treat them as out patients, which is now done on so large a scale at the various hospitals and dispensaries, is a positive injury to the public health, for they are in the great majority of cases compelled to follow their occupation, the alternative being either to do this or starve; and the treatment only enables them to practice prostitution, and to disseminate disease with less pain to themselves and for a longer period than they would otherwise be enabled to do."

From all this, it will be seen that the Government in legislating on this matter have acted with the greatest consideration, not to soldiers and sailors only, but to these wretched outcasts of society who were utterly unable to take care of themselves, and reckless of consequences both to themselves and others. The unreasonable opposition to these most excellent measures has provented their general extension, but only for a time. The last report of the Association we have already named and alluded to, contains this paragraph :—

"Under present circumstances, we do not aim at so wide and immediate an extension of the Acts as before, but the case of certain seaport towns not subject to the Acts, which are known to be hotbeds of disease introduced by sailors of the merchant service of our own and of foreign countries, is so glaring, and is attended with such disastrous consequences, that we feel it our duty to call for the special interference of Parliament to repress the evil."

This is judicious and reasonable, since all good measures have been effected in this country rather on the "slow and sure" than on the fast and uncertain principle. We will give a few particulars concerning Liverpool, one of the largest-if not the largest-seaport in the kingdom.

It possesses a population of half a million, and of this 50,000 may be reckoned as the number of seafaring men present at any time, this number being subject to great variations, according as the winds are favourable or the reverse. This population is contained in an area of 8 square miles. From the last report of the head-constable of the borough (Major Greig, C.B.), it appears that there are between 1,100 and 1,200 prostitutes "known to the police," and upwards of 400 brothels. The only Lock hospital it possesses was built in 1834, and contained 50 beds, a number which was not considered then as at all excessive, and half the