The union Democrat., 1870-08-06
A Necessary Kyil.

necessary evil BY the city authorities Of
Omaha.
| II seems almost contradiction to say that
anything necessary for any purpose can, re-
la,ive 20 that purpose. beesil. To blow up
house, no conHagra.ion threatening would
be evil. To blow up the house. as means
and the only means of averting that cortla-
grafton would not be esil. If any action or
course Of life on the part Of any human being,
be, owing to circumstances, necessary, IT does
not theo seem all for evil.
| The authorities Of Omaha have simply de-
cided that the exercise Of natural function
or whatever we may term it. is necessary.
iii he necessary il cannot be entirely evil.
The intelligent mind OF the day admits GER
tain physical necessities. Without compli-
| ance with these demands Of nature, il admits
the result to be evil.
Here convensionalty, custom and opinion
step in and declare that compliance with an
acknowledged necessity unless under certain
formal conditions is rholly evil.
! Matrimony is tie Shiboleth of society. In
eide Of it, demand can be rghtfully filled.
Outside Of it, this demand Of nature according
to the dictum Of conventionality may not be
properly gratifed.
Then all men should marry. True. But
to-day, in this, the latest, brightest moment
of our Nineteenth Century civilization, all
men cannot marry, for all men, work as hard
as they may. according 10 the capacities scith
,caich Nature has endoaoed them, are scarcely
able to provide for themselves, let alone the
wife and probable children.
Capital, energy. enterprise, keerness, fore
sight, frugality, industry end often pure stin-
giness take most of the financial prizes.
These enable the man to support the wife and
family. All men are not equally endowed
with capital, energy, enterprise, keenness,
foresight, frusality and pure stinginess.
Tkey take the blanks. They, poor devils,
swell the ranks of armies in time of war. glad
without anxiety to earn bread and clothes, a
little wine and little tobacco for the chance
Of having their entrails torn out by an i'm
proved rifle bullet. Snch to-day swarm French
and Prrssian, by the hundred thousand on
the banks of the Rhine and Moselle.
On these men, equally with the compare
lively favored few, Nature imposes her laws
ard necessities.
You may say, ''TheJ ought to have energy
and industry and this or that quality which
will enable them decently and comfortably
to provide for themselves and their mates.
"OugLt" is q senseless word. If Nature in
some way is niggardly toward a man, all the
"Oughts" in the world spoken censoriously by
Others will not supply his DEFICIENCIES. Be-
sides, many men have talents and capabiii-
ties of no use in an age devoted to money
getting. They must go to the wall. Sill on
these men. Nature imposes her physical ne
cessities. end if they cannot get bread, they
must have husks.
And again your industrious single young
man, healthy and vigorous, is not exempt
from this necessity. lie may repress; he
cannot quench.
We are not essaying an inaidious defence
Of houses of prostitution or prostitution or
universal license or free lust or free love in
the common ncreptation of that term. We
regard prostitution as nm evil and terrible
one Yet bad ns it is, what thoughtful man
will without reflection condemn the reported
verdict of the Omaha authorities? May not
such evil be regarded as substitute, poor
ore it is true, supplying want, and not
merely want but an absolute necessity
Nor do we fear but that this opinion will
meet thesecret approval Of every honest man
in this or any other community.
We must learn to look at things as they
are. provide for them as they are, and not as
we contend they ought to be.
The subject is called delicate one. It's
discussion is generally met BY the jest, the
smirk, the grin or the frown of disapproval
But as a whole. it involves terrible facts and
results from the violation or repression of
Physical Laws. Ask your fair, out spoken.
candid physician. Ask the man who knors
whet has been going on and what is going on
behind the curtains of society. Ask and
learn that the rottenest sepulchers are not
those found in the day Stunned house of IL
fame. Ask and learn that vice and criminal
;ty and unchastity, far reaching and widely
spread, creep solitary and CHASTITY within the
very bosom Of responsibility. Ask and learn
that there fed 10y morbid and unchecked imag-
inatior. solitary crime and sin. eat and gnaw
and sap and wilt thousands and tens of thou
sands of lives yearly.
But to all this, Society shuts its eyes and
the closer it comes or may CONS to our own
households, the closer are the eyes shut So
long as the outside is kept tolerably fair all
is we'll. A healthy body and brain are we'll;
but sound reputation for morality and vir-
tue arc better.
We know that the natural laws Of human
j organization ara as immutable and inevitable
in their workings as the revolutions of the
planets. But it is the so called moral Law
that must be obeyed. Nature swerves net
l. n