Objections to the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Act to the Civil Population Considered.

I shall now briefly consider some of the more prominent objections urged against the proposed extension of the Contagious Diseases Act to the civil population. These objections are based mainly on religious and moral grounds—the risk of encouraging sin,—and the injustice of Curtailing individual freedom.

From the language held by our opponents, one would imagine that they enjoyed a monopoly of love of liberty and regard for religion, but that we who desire to check disease, care for neither of these things. Now I desire the utmost freedom for all, except freedom to injure the community, and I reverence religion too much not to grieve when it degenerates into mere sentiment, and I repudiate the sensational and disingenuous arguments so freely used by our opponents in discussing these social questions. Among the many pamphlets recently circulated against the extension of the Contagious Diseases Act, I may notice, as a type of the class to which it belongs, one recently published by a provincial page 20 member of my own profession, Dr. Taylor. Its sensational character sufficiently appears from its title—

"On the Contagious Diseases Act—

(Women, Not Animals.)

"Showing how the New Law debases Women, debauches"Men, destroys the Liberty of the Subject, and tends to "increase Disease."

I may at least pay Dr. Taylor the compliment of saying that the subsequent pages of his pamphlet will sustain the character gained for it by its title page.

It is difficult to answer such loose assertions. So far as they come within the region of reason, I will endeavour to deal with them, but, I here quote them rather to show what extraordinary things some men will say, and some others, I presume, believe, than with a view to serious argument. Any one who will take the trouble to compare the clauses of the Contagious Diseases Act with these statements of Dr. Taylor's, will be at a loss to discover what foundation any one outside St. Luke's could have found for such wild and startling propositions. What, for, instance, are we to do with a man who actually believes, or at least asserts, that "one of these officials recently told a girl that his reason for arresting her was that he had seen her twice at a concert"—that "suspicions just or unjust are all that is necessary to condemn the best woman in the land," that "wherever this act is in force, no respectable woman is safe, and that in fact, in Paris, it is not safe for a young lady to walk abroad Such notions, as they have found a propagator, may also find adherents. It is some comfort to believe that such persons are never likely to exercise much influence on the course of legislation. The dark allusion to the peines fortes et dares of the middle ages, is even more incomprehensible to persons of ordinary minds than the other grotesque statements by which it is surrounded. Were it not for the proneness of mankind to believe that where there is smoke there must be fire, these random sentences might be left to refute themselves; but lest any page 22 one should imagine that this Act does really open the door to, if not actually introduce something very had indeed, I will now proceed to discover, if possible, and then to deal with the objections hidden under this cloud of words. They appear to be two: First, that this Act puts the virtue of the women of England in the hands of the police. Secondly, that the medical examination of a prostitute is an unjustifiable outrage, and is as painful to her as the worst form of torture. The first proposition is obviously untrue, and on examination must resolve itself into the milder, yet serious objection—that under this Act, it is possible for the police to be guilty of arbitrary and capricious conduct. If this be so, Dr. Taylor has doubtless succeeded in hitting a blot, for it is impossible to exaggerate the serious consequences to an innocent woman of being falsely accused of leading an immoral life. This, however, seems to be an objection to the particular Act, rather than to the principle embodied in it, and, if it can be substantiated, shows the necessity of guarding in future legislation against the possibility of any modest woman being treated as a prostitute, through the mistake or malice of a policeman. It seems to me that this can be done without much difficulty. I am aware that Mr. Mill^* is of a contrary opinion, "he does not think the abuses of power by the police mere accidents, which could be prevented. He thinks them the necessary consequences of any attempt to carry out such a plan thoroughly" This observation of Mr. Mill's would be undeniably true, if it were proposed to bring under supervision all the women of loose habits in the country; but I, at least, suggest no such enterprise. I shall be satisfied, if we can subject to the provisions of this sanitary law all the open and notorious prostitutes. As I have already shown, it is from these women that the mischief principally, if not altogether, proceeds, and whatever danger there may be, that women of good repute should from exceptional circumstances become the objects of undeserved suspicion, it is absurd to suggest that they could ever be mistaken for, or accused of being professional prostitutes, to whom alone it is proposed to extend page 23 the Act. If it be said that in dealing only with the notorious prostitute, we reach but a small part of the evil, and the experience of clandestine prostitution in France be advanced in support of this position, I reply, that there is no analogy between the fille clandestine of the continent and the secretly dissolute woman in England. The clandestine prostitute and the public prostitute belong to precisely the same class, the only difference being, that the one evades, and the other submits to medical inspection; the result being, that the one exhibits disease in the proportion of about 1 in 5, the other of about 1 in 200. In England all prostitutes living outside the protected districts are in the sense in which the term is used in France of being uninspected, clandestine, and may be reasonably supposed to be diseased in the same proportion as women similarly circumstanced in other countries. It is, therefore, perfectly accurate to speak of clandestine prostitution on the continent as the great source of danger to the public health; but such a statement with regard to prostitution in England is absolutely meaningless; and if by clandestine, the intention is to allude to the more reserved class of prostitutes, or rather to women who, though not prostitutes, are guilty of immorality, it is positively false.

If it be objected that the proposed legislation will create the clandestine class in this country—that is, that the same repugnance will be exhibited by prostitutes in England to the proposed moans of checking the disease by which they are afflicted, as is exhibited in France to being subjected to the police regulations in vogue there,—I reply, that this is jumping to a conclusion most unwarrantably. The places from which we should draw our inferences as to the possibility of effectually currying out a Contagious Diseases Act, are not foreign countries subjected to an entirely different system, but the protected districts at home, where the plan is already in successful operation. The first objection then is not to the principle of the Contagious Diseases Act, but to the supposed absence from it of sufficiently careful provisions; these, if the objection can be substantiated, may be supplied. I may fur- page 24 ther remark, that so far as this objection is countenanced by Mr. Mill, it appears to be on account of his misapprehension of what is really proposed to be done, and the amount of good that can thereby be accomplished. The second objection goes undoubtedly to the principles of the measure, but appears to be one of little weight. The charge conveyed by it is, that we are proposing to submit unfortunate women to a system worse than the worst torture. Can serious trifling be carried further, and can we be expected to believe, that women whose bodies are free to all the world, will, if examined by a surgeon, feel misery akin to that which drove modest women to prefer torture to violation? It is wonderful that a man professing so much regard for what is due to women should so travesty their most sacred feelings.

The public should be made fully aware of the fact that we are not legislating for "soiled doves" but for a class of women that we may almost call unsexed, who, I have elsewhere shown, have so far lost womanly feelings, that they will consort with as many as from eight to twelve different men in the same night. Acton on Prostitution, p. 25.

Objections Against Instrumental Examination.

Dr. Taylor alleges that disease is communicated by the speculum. This is a question of fact. I may observe, that Dr. Taylor has given no instance that has come under his own knowledge. During the last thirty years I have had some personal experience, and I fearlessly assert that if ordinary and proper precautions be taken, no qualified medical man will thus spread contagion.^*

I have personally seen all the classes of registered and unregistered filles clandestines and public women examined in Paris on several occasions, and I may refer the sceptical to page 119 of my last edition on Prostitution, where I state that I recently assisted at the examination of at least fifty registered prostitutes, brought promiscuously from different parts of Paris, and not a single one was found diseased—this arising from the efficiency of the police regulations in that city; similar visits have corroborated these views. How contagion can be spread where precautions are taken to cleanse the instruments, I am at a loss to conceive.

The officers of the different Lock Hospitals will, I am sure, bear me out in saying that contagion ought not to, and, in fact, does not take place in this manner. Dr. Taylor further objects that in a large proportion of cases it is impossible to say with certainty whether a woman is diseased or not. This, again, is a question of fact. If this assertion proves anything, it shows only that incompetent men must not be appointed to these responsible situations. I think men conversant with the subject will agree with me that if a woman presents to the practised eye no recognizable traces of disease, the instances are rare indeed in which she will prove a source of contagion.

It is worthy of remark that Dr. Taylor does not page 26 assert that be believes in these statistics, or has authenticated them, but quotes a clergyman, who believes he has proved by tables—which he gives us no means of referring to—that disease had increased;^* if this is not disingenuous conduct, I know not what is. I take upon myself to deny in toto the assertion, and my medical opponent ought, I think, to have discovered that he was misquoting the Parliamentary reports.

Those who maintain that the Contagious Diseases Act has not been attended with satisfactory results, forget to state that many of the soldiers said to be diseased, and

^* Since the discussion took place on my paper I have been at some trouble to discover where this Reverend gentleman could have obtained his information, as the latest official returns of the army only come down to 1867, although published in 1860. I obtained my latest statistics from the valuable treatise of Dr. Parks on Hygiene, prepared especially for the army. At page 503, that accurate observer remarks—"Taking all the stations, namely, Aldershot, Chatham, Plymouth, Devonport, Portsmouth and Woolwich, the mean admissions for Syphilis were, in the year 1867, 84.98 per 1000 men, and in the year 1868, 65.95 per 1000 men. It seems therefore clear that a good effect has been produced, and I think in the stations where it would have been anticipated."

page 27 who swell the statistics, are merely instances of relapse, and in other cases the diseases from which they suffer have been contracted beyond the protected district.

The Westminster Review, one of our most logical and powerful opponents, objects that the English Contagious Diseases Act confounds all prostitutes of every grade into one indistinguishable crowd of common prostitutes, and forces all the prostitutes to become inhabitants of brothels, in order that the hold upon them may be more secure.

The answer I have to make to this objection is, that the Contagious Diseases Act, as at present carried out at Aldershot and Woolwich, has no such tendency as this. Those who will read my description of these garrison towns, will see that the brothel proper is a house almost unknown in London! and in the above-named garrison towns the women live in lodgings, for which they pay a rent like any other lodger. My object—as the following extract from a letter I have recently written will show—is to abolish the brothel proper.

"I have so recently pointed out the objections to tolerated brothels in London, particularly if modelled on the French system, that I will not now repeat my objections to them. I may, however, remind ray readers that a brothel (proper) is a house almost unknown in London, the police returns only giving two for the whole metropolis, thus showing that the institution is alien to English feelings. In any future legislation, therefore, society must consider how we are to deal with clandestine prostitutes—that is, girls living in their own lodgings—as no one desires to introduce the French system or allow man or woman to profit by the prostitution of another. A further fundamental difference between the present system in France and that which I desire to sec introduced into England is that, whereas in France it is the object of the police to register and confine in a brothel every woman gaining her livelihood by prostitution, all that is proposed for England is to give authority to medical men by the Contagious Diseases Act to examine periodically all women who are known to be common prostitutes, and, if they find that they are diseased, to confine them in hospital as long as they are capable of communicating venereal complaints to those who may have relations with them. This interference with the liberty of the subject in England seems necessary, not only for the prevention of disease page 28 in the soldier or civilian, but even for the sake of the woman herself, who will in a few years give up a life of profligacy, and gain her livelihood by some other means.

"The English plan will not use up the prostitute, as must necessarily be the case if she enters a brothel; for, as I have shown elsewhere, girls once inmates of these dens of iniquity in Paris gradually descend from a higher to a lower grade of house, until they are useless for even the vilest of them. Under the foreign system there is no hope for the amelioration of the prostitute, we in England profess to believe that we can assist the girl in redeeming her position at the same time that we do so on purely sanitary grounds, without legalising vice."—Medical Times, January 15th, 1870.

As our opponents reiterate in different forms these assertions, I think I cannot give the reader too many authentic statements proving the contrary.^*

Venereal Disease Asserted to be More Common in Paris than in London.

In a recent discussion I listened to at the Medical Society of London, the opponents to the introduction of the Contagious Diseases Act to the Civil Population, asserted that in foreign countries, where prostitutes are supervised, venereal disease was more prevalent than in England.

These gentlemen did not condescend to give us any data on which these opinions are formed. Several of those who made the assertions, had travelled on the Continent—had seen the magnificent institutions in Paris given up to the treatment of syphilitic patients—the hospital for males alone containing 336 beds, and as many as 140 out-patients being treated every morning. The conclusion they came to was that syphilis is very rife in Paris, much more so than in England. I admit that these special hospitals present almost every variety of syphilitic complaint, as the system in France is to consign all venereal patients to these special institutions. If, however, the student will enquire a little further, he will find that among the registered women in Paris, syphilis is almost unknown, as I have stated in my recent work on Prostitution, p. 157.

The women who spread syphilis broadcast, are found among the clandestine prostitutes, whom the police regulations cannot reach, or who have resided or do reside beyond what we should call the protected districts. The police authorities will tell you if you push your enquiries further, that much syphilis is imported into French ports from unprotected countries; and in the last international meeting of medical men in Paris, in 1867, England was pointed to, as being one of those unprotected countries that had contributed to prevent the disease being stamped out—in those countries that without such page 30 importations would have nearly freed themselves from the plague.

If, however, we consult the reliable statistics of the army, we shall find that venereal disease among the French troops quartered in Paris, is only 66 per 1000, instead of, as shown in report of the Medical Department for 1867, 263 per 1000 as among our Foot Guards quartered in London; yet it is on such casual observations as these that the false conclusion is arrived at that venereal disease is much more common in Paris than in London.

Having then shown that the Act, whose extension I advocate, does not, as asserted, place respectable women at the mercy of the police, and that the medical objections attempted to be urged against it, have really no weight at all, I may glance for a moment at the objections made on the score of interfering with the liberty of the subject.

Danger of Infringing the Liberty of the Subject.

I have no hesitation in admitting that the private life of the individual, so far as it does not affect society at large, is the concern of the individual alone, and in no way whatever of the state, and that any attempt on the part of the legislature to control the moral conduct of the individual, whether man or woman, is incompatible with the freedom which is the birthright of every person born in this country. This, however, is a very different case from that with which it is proposed to deal. The title of the Act sufficiently indicates that no infringement of individual freedom is intended, except so far as such freedom infringes on the public health. We desire to check the spread of contagious disease, and claim the right to interfere with the pursuits that produce the mischief. This principle is not a new one, as Mr. Simon, with strange inconsistency, suggests in his Report to which I have already alluded, when he tells us at page 13 that "prima facie the true policy of Government is to regard the prevention of venereal diseases as matter of exclusively private concern," but is in accordance with the principle so well enunciated by the same gentleman at page 31 page 21 of his Report, when dealing with a question that he could consider without prejudice. He there says that "it is the almost completely expressed intention of our law that all such states of property, and all such modes of personal action or inaction as may be of danger to the public health should be brought within scope of summary procedure and prevention" It is also untrue as Mr. Simon conceives, "that the principle at stake is whether the civil fornicant may reasonably look to constituted authorities to protect him in his commerce with prostitutes," (page 18); if it were, there might perhaps be some force in the argument that to interfere with women, in order to prevent their infecting men who can at their own option visit or abstain from visiting them, would be an unjustifiable interference with their liberty, though even this would seem to savour somewhat of a sacrifice of common sense to sentiment. With such a question, however, I am not called upon to deal. What we have to consider is, whether to prevent the spread of a contagious disorder, the effects of which are not confined to the person first infected, or whoso own act entailed the suffering, but which recoil to an infinite extent upon innocent persons, is justifiable or not. Is it, I ask with some confidence, possible to distinguish that last case in principle from the other cases of preventable disease with which the legislature interferes? An attempt has been made to do so by the Ladies National Association for the repeal of the Contagious Acts.

We are told that "unlike all other laws for the repression of contagious diseases to which both men and women are liable, these two apply to women only, men being wholly exempt from their penalties." I may remark, by the way, that this idea of penalty and punishment, which runs through the whole of the ladies' appeal, is most unfounded. The provisions of the Act are sanitary and merciful; those only are obnoxious to penalties under the Act who offend against its provisions. In any case where it is possible for men to offend, they are included in the penalties. It is evident that the law cannot deal with remote causes; it can only deal with those that are immediate. Whether man's vice or woman's is page 32 the cause that prostitution exists, is a very wide question to enter upon, and one not easily answered—one calculated, moreover, to gratify curiosity rather than to serve any useful practical end. Let the original cause be what it may, the fact remains that there is a certain class of women productive of the greatest injury to the community. There is no corresponding class among men; if there were, we would attempt to deal with it. Prostitutes are the direct, visible cause of the prevalence of syphilis; it is among them that we find "such modes of personal action as may be of danger to the public health," and we propose to extend these Acts on the principle lying at the very root of the existence of society, that, for the common good and for the advantages obtainable by this means only, each member of the state must be content to be deprived of the power to do exactly as he pleases—that is, must surrender for the sake of social order a portion of his freedom. So much for the arguments adduced against the proposed legislation on the ground of interfering with the liberty of the subject. But, after all, what is this liberty? It is not liberty, but wanton licence. It is not freedom, but, lawless indulgence.

"They talk, sir," says Dr. Guthrie, "of the liberty of the subject. Let no man confound the liberty of the subject with licence and licentiousness, and I hold that the worst enemy of liberty is he who does so confound them. Why, the liberty is all on the side of evil-doers."

I now turn to the

Religious Objections.

The Saturday Review for January 1st, 1870, has so well answered the charge brought against the Contagious Diseases Act, that it is an interference with what is called the Providential punishment of vice, that I am tempted hero to reproduce it. "The' poison does not arise from promiscuous or illicit intercourse, but only from intercourse with affected persons. A man may lead an immoral life for fifty years, and never experience the 'retribution' which yet may fall on the first lad who, half from silliness and half from passion, gets momentarily entrapped into a vicious course. To the page 33 worst form of English vice—the seduction of the innocent,—it can never, from the nature of things, be a punishment; rather, the fear of such a retribution tends to spread wide the tendency to seduce, and thus becomes in itself a source of more evil than the 'retribution' ever could by any possibility cure."

On this point 1 may further cite the opinion of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, who

"believes that the argument respecting retribution for sin, which has had most weight with clergymen, is an untenable one. I believe that I should be guilty of a pious fraud if I told any young man that he would inevitably incur the punishment if he yielded to the temptation. I believe that I should be injuring his conscience both by the falsehood and by setting before him a low motive for abstinence; and I know not where the application of such a maxim could stop. Is gout not to be treated medically when it is proved to be the result of gluttony. Or madness, when it can be traced directly to drunkenness. Strike at the cause by all the moral influences you can use; but the effects ought to come under the cognizance of the physician."

Daily News, Jan. 19, 1870.

Having cited Mr. Maurice as a witness in my favour, it is only fair to remind my readers that he has not only ceased to advocate the extension of the Contagious Diseases Act, but that he has actually passed over to the opposite ranks. This conversion appears to have been wrought by the ladies' appeal, and the Reverend gentleman considers that such acts are objectionable, because the question that now ought to be considered is, how can prostitution be extirpated? I say, in reply, I shall be delighted to discuss with him this question, if he will also consider with me how can diseases be abated; neither the questions nor the objects are repugnant. It is not to be expected that a disease of nearly 6,000 years' duration will yield to slight pressure, or in a short time, I ask but this, that for the interval that must elapse between the present day and that on which its extirpation shall be accomplished, all the necessary means for dealing with the evil which, so long as it continues to exist, will also endure, may be provided. If Mr. Maurice will believe me, we are both labourers in page 34 the same vineyard; we both desire to improve the social, moral, and sanitary condition of unfortunate women, and all I ask of him is, not to neglect the fallen, while he is considering how they shall be made to cease from falling. As I have already said, the Contagious Diseases Act is only one of many measures that I desire to see in operation for checking prostitution, and the mischiefs arising from it. Surely the healing the prostitute's body, and reducing the amount of the suffering by her inflicted on the rest of the community, is no obstacle, but rather a help to the extirpation that he desires. I pass from Mr. Maurice, to the appeal that wrought his conversion, and here I cannot forbear to express my surprise, that a mind so logical should have been changed in its opinion by an appeal that contains so little reason.

Objections Made in the Ladies' Protest.

It is professedly of two parts, descriptive and argumentative—the first part affects to describe the state of things introduced by the Acts, the second part to give eight reasons against that state of things. Unfortunately the description is wholly drawn from imagination and sentiment, and is as argumentative as the second part; it is not therefore surprising that the eight reasons are mostly fallacious, and none of them weighty, and I must frankly say that the impression left on my mind after perusing their Appeal, was that the Ladies had composed and signed it without having read the Act of which they complain, and that they were proceeding to pass judgment in a controversy, as to the terms of which, they were in a state of the most positive ignorance. For an obvious reason, I shall not attempt to argue with these ladies. I will merely observe that any objection contained in their protest that requires an answer, has already received one in the refutation given to other objections.

Apart from their pardonable want of logic, I must, however, thank the 130 ladies who signed this protest, for having come forward in defence of their sex. Now that they have taken up the cause of their fallen sisterhood, no doubt can exist that the future of the woman page 35 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. I have during the last thirty years seen some thousands of women examined by different medical men, and I venture to say that their womanly feelings were respected, and as much deference paid to decency as is shown in private practice.

If I may venture to direct the Ladies' Association to a very necessary reform, I would suggest that the Association carry out those excellent suggestions made by Miss Muloch in her chapter on "Fallen Women." The Ladies could, indeed, aid the cause if they would urge the mistresses of households not to turn out into the streets at a moment's notice, and this in spite of their husbands' remonstrances, a good and faithful female servant, but who had been seduced by one of those handsome fellows ladies retain in their service. I shall doubtless be told that it would be inconsistent with a woman's matronly duties to suffer such a hussey to remain in her establishment. I do not ask her to do this, but I have proposed an alternative;^* and as a medical man, I often blush for the inconsistency of the sex, when I find that the identical Fanny A., who has been dismissed from the service of Mrs. B., is taken into the service of Lady C. as wet nurse, her ladyship knowing that the single woman has been just confined of an illegitimate child. Surely these are reforms well adapted to be carried out by a Ladies' Association; and I think I may venture to say, if the Ladies will leave the care of the health of these women to the medical profession, and will call upon the public, and Members of Parliament to agitate for a change in the laws relating to seduction, a more healthy state of public opinion will arise, and they will be instrumental in conferring on their sex an inestimable benefit.

If surgeons are left to deal with questions, and to remove evils, the cognizance 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 page 36 deal with those evils which they can severally remedy—and if all will unite in the common cause, not magnifying their own peculiar province, 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.

Postscript.

I have much satisfaction in stating that the Association of Officers of Health met on Wednesday, February 2, 1870, to consider the subject, and unanimously came to the conclusion that—"Supposing the Legislature should determine to recommend the introduction of a Contagious Diseases Act among the civil population, it would be possible and feasible, under a well-organized system, to carry out its enactments in the Metropolis."