Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-06-17
The CITY Authorities and the Unfortunate-
FIuuuiing md FlIrtIug.

The munlclpoA outhoritles OF the CITY are
now in one Of their annual, OF semtannual,
paro1ysms Of morality. The Mayor has
issued bis proclamation, in which he de-
rounces the practice of fduating and Rirt.
fro' by females on the public streets, as
criminal, and enjoins upon the police to
comprehend cut Of hand all persons of the
feminine gender, who are found indulging
in these reprehensible amusements.
We have looked diligently into the pages
of Blackstone, BoUUier, Walker, The Ohio
Criminal Lar, The Justices Guide, Ssoda's
Treatise and The Charter and Ordinances,
md, as yet, have been totally unable to find
the crime or crimes Of "haunting and firt-
ing distinctly defined, or to gain any clue
TO the manner in which they are performed,
or the effects they produce upon the party
upon whom they are executed. Medical
JvrisprpdeEce Is equally silent. We discover
no formulas by which the injuries produced
by Haunting and flirting" may be patho-
logically identified, or any means pointed
out for their cure or couuteraction.
Nevertheless, we do hear that females re-
ffeshinR themselves by street promenade,
upon the delightful evenings with which a
gentle Providence has favored us during the
past week, have been seized upon by the
members Of our virtuous, judicious and
highly. intelligent police force, and after en-
ioying comfortable lodgings in the elegant
apartments provided at the station houses,
bave been informed by His Honor Judge
Ssfin, at an early hour next morning that
probably in consequence Of the large ex-
penses to which we have been subjected on
account of the war-they were each required
TO pay 81 into the corporate Treasury; in
default Of which payment it became his duty
10 recommend their residence, bt few
days, at that well conducted and highly-en-
dowed educational and finishing institu-
tion-the City Prison.
We commenced by intimating that these
proceedings were the effect of new access
sion of the moral virtues on the part of our
civic potentates; but we have already gone
far enough to show that our ideas upon that
point are rather indstnct than otherwise.
We begin to suspect that the enterprise is
purely financial one. Our country is now
some say threatened with, and some say ac-
tually engaged-in a war. All known and
visible property and capital is in fair way
to be taxed all that it will bear to support
the Government and carry on hostile opera
tons; and we begin to surmise that these
females generally young and fashionably
appareied-have fallen under the suspicion,
in the minds of our keen and vigilant author
tiles, of keeping hid and out of the reach of
The assessor, valuables subject to taxation,
which have thus failed to be enumerated
upon the duplicate; and that this is an in
genious and delicate device by which the
tax or an equivalent penalty is to be col
lected.
We are strengthened in this belief by the
fact that this proceeding occurs cotempo
IaIeously with the semi annual ax-paying
aud furthermore, from the fact that it has
been announced from the bench that the
sum levied during the present week will be
s4, instead of the previous $2-the differ.
ence being, doubtless, in the nature of
penalty for delinquency, or an addition
growing out of further discovery of con.
cealed valuables by the Board of Equaliza-
tion.
The hauntipg and flirting may be an in
voluntary act of those who are subject to
this form Of levy, and have been chosen by
the authorities as the sign by which they are
to be deiected though there are persons
who prefss to believe in a totally different
view of The case, and to hold that, in the
esteem Of those to whom the guardians of
public morals are entrusted, Haunting and
flirting are themselves offenses, injurious to
society in the sum of 50 during the past
week, with a sliding scale and an upward
teIdency, which bring it to double that
smOunt at the beginning of the present.
Perhaps we had better intermit these
speculations upon the more recondite learn
ing of the affair, and turn our attention to
the facts. There is, we are told, on each
morning, quite an array of females, who,
after spending the night in virtuous repose
il the cages of the station-houses, are brought
before His Honor, the Judge of Police, in
the morning, each and every one of whom
has been required to come down with her
81, or, in default thereof, to take up her resi-
6enee in the furnished lodgings Of the City
Prison. The presumption is either that they
are something, or that they have done some
thing that justly entities them to be singled
out and dealt with in this manner Now,
we hold that no human being is subject to
molestation by the officers of the law for
what he or she is. The law Furnishes acts
not conditions, nor habits, nor trades, nor
stations. When man or woman is guilty of
an act which the law defines or forbids, he
or she may be, under the proper process,
arrested and dealt with: and any thing be.
yond that is tyrannical.
We saw, few evenings since, two young,
decently-dressed women, who were walking
Fourth'sneet conducting themselves, to all
appearance, properly, seized upon by a
watchman and carried off. They are, prob
ably, now expistipg their offeuse in Jail.
But what was their offense2 So far as we
could discover, it consisted in the fact that
they were females. We saw a plenty of
men, on the same evening, palpably drunk,
noisy and disorderly; but no delicately
organized and virtuously indignant guard
ian Of the public peace discovered, saw any
thing in their Haunting and flirting, to rem
der them obnoxious to his sense of proprety:
no judicial sentry upon the watchtower of
society was laying in wait to assess any
two dollars upon their finances.
0, but these women are unehaste; they
are - a variety of bad names, that it
will not do to mention; the very thought Of
which is contamination. Good Are there
no uuchaste men2 Suppose the police were
required to pick up and incarcerate every
man who had sinned with these unehaste