THE MATAMOROS PAPERS.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1926, 8 July 1869, Page 2

THE MATAMOROS PAPERS.

No. IV.

However much we may be used to the presence of what is called the “Social Evil” amongst us, aud look upon it as a thing of course, against which no possible precautions can be of any avail, there can be no doubt that we are in a far more favorable position for rooting it out altogether, or at least preventing its growth, than any old country can possibly be. In the first place, in old countries females are induced, not uufrequeutly, to enter the ranks of the professional prostitutes by sheer want of the necessaries of life. Thousands of poor needlewomen in London, for instance, are annually pressed into this deplorable way of life, because they cannot keep body and soul together by honest work. For such poor creatures we may at least feel nity. Here the case is altogether different. Servants' wages are very high, and no woman need ever be in want of food or even of most of the luxuries of life. Few women need even remain unmarried. Even for those who have gone wrong, the return to a virtuous life, if this is desired, is by no means difficult. It would seem then that the women who carry on this trade, so disastrous to the health and morals of the community, do so from choice, aud not from any ne cessity whatever. There can* then be no reason why the State should shrink from the sternest measures of repression why they should not carry out the statutes in force to the very letter. This is, we are aware, a very unsavoury subject, but the journalist who fails, in spite of its unsavouriness, to call attention to it from time to time, comes lamentably short of his duty. If there is a service greater than the others which the press renders to the public, it is that it exposes abuses. What can be a worse abuse than this same social evil, polluting and poisoning, as it does, the whole mass of the population, more or less 1 The absence of a permanent “ lowest class” here is another circumstance which should render the extinction of this horrible profession easier than it is in an old country. In England, as a rule, it is only the daughters of the “ poor” who take to this mode of life. A landowner or a merchant needs experience but little fear that one of his children or grandchildren will become a prostitute ; but here he who is at the head of society to day may be at the bottom of it tomorrow, and vice versa; and consequently, no one can feel secure as to the future fate of his children. It is only obstinate folly that can make a man believe that he and his, at least, are secure from a fate which he sees may quite possibly happen to one of his neighbors. Hence it is manifestly the interest of every decent person in this place to do all in his power to do away with what is evidently fraught with such direful possible contingencies to him and his. But it will never be got rid of, or even diminished, by the methods at present resorted to. To an uninterested spectator, it would appear that we, with our occasional raids on houses of ill-fame, were endeavoring for the sake of appearances to annoy the inhabitants of those places, and to let the world know that we don’t, on the whole, approve of their conduct. But no one could, for an instant, suppose that we were seriously endeavoring to do away with them—to rub them out. To those who suppose that nothing can bp done in the matter, we would point out tlxe New England States, where for more than two centuries, the Social Evil could gain no footing. It appears to us that what is really required to do some good in this matter is increased, and above all, constant vigilence on the part of the police; aud that the vagrancy and other laws op the subject should be duly enforced in evezy case. This would do half of the work required. The other requisite is an improved moral tone. Only a very small portion of our male population, it is to be hoped, ever visit such places. But pressure must be brought to bear on those who do. Let all respectable men and women treat persons, whatevertheir.s*to/Ms,whoareknown to epppurage this vice, as outcasts unfit for the company of decent people; and thus make a broad distinction between

vice and virtue. What makes the exercise of such a profession possible is that there is a regular and almost imperceptible gradation from the chaste and upright gentleman down to the scum of the earth who lives on the wages of infamy. Once make a clear line of demarcation between those who are entitled to be called men, and those who are merely, sensualists, and then there would be a good chance of wiping out this foul stain on our civilisation.