The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1885-07-17
Roval Debauchery.

itself a nuisance on the face Of the earth
Many events demonstrate this impressivey
A prince of the ruling House of Hohenzollerl
in Germany, gets into brawl in house 0
prostitution this week, strikes soldier in tht
face, the poor fellow Is So mortified that he can
not resent the indignity that he goes and com
mlts suicide, and Kaiser Wilhelm writes a
letter of coincidence to the beresved father. why
I shouldn't the toling masses Of Germany be
asking themselves why millions Of dollar,
are wrung from their hard earnings every year
to support this brood of royal prohigates in
idle debauchery and bagnio brawling? ~
A thousand times more impressively mus,
this question be forcing itself upon the English
people. Tha Pail Mall Gazette exposures
however exaggerated they may be, however
much "sensationalsm" may have been worked
into them, show most hldeous state OF beastli-
ness in the UPPER strata Of London society. The
curtain which Dickens prayed to be lifted, in
Dombey and Son, has been lifted, and state
of crime disclosed of which Dickens could never
have dreamed, of crime so revolving and un-
bridlcd that it is wonder that the society
which contains it does not at once relapse to
turned upon it last week in all its fury, warned
it to be careful, unless it wanted to see the very
foundations of social order overturned by the
summoning Of the ''princes o. the blood" into
court to confront the victims of their lust 1t is
understood and conceded now that the Gaz-
ette's revelations are based on facts, the gov
ernment prosecutor admits he will not proceed
against the paper and as Is shown by our "Old
World" news, some of the best men in England
have consented to act as committee, before
whom the Gazette shall confidentaly place its
evidence.
The worst of the Gazette's charges is that
there exists regular conspiracy anu traffic in
young and innocent girls for the lusts of the
nobility and the so-called aristocratic classes.
These girls are procured from all over the
world, regardless of expense, allured into
employment bureau" or some other trick and
in some private room brought by force or
threats into submission to tristocratic beastli-
ness. Tha desire for tends and beautiful VIC
Tins seems to have developed into mama, and
like all forms of unnatlss ice, sweeps every
thing before j. "a aame saff,~as known to
exist 252esfs ago, as is shown ry odlc.aiinves-
Aganons at that time, and the law has contrib
uted II its rapid progress. These otFenses
of ordinary degree ars not easily reached by
criminal law; only civil damages are permitted.
And it is not easy, Ill is nooriously and iniquit-
onsly difficult, for the fa,lers and brothers of
poor working girls in England to push civil
process against a memberoS. the titled classes
So notorious and so 81 stameufis the miscarriage
of English criminal procedure in this partcu-
lar; SO hard is il for poor men to start against
powerful transgressors, its I1aibrous, intricate,
md antiquasd mechanism ,s;l,;ch even when
started can bS denecrett aad retarded in a thou.
land crooked and clandestine ways, that 4
weeping renovation of the whole apparatus has
ong figured among Radical demands, and the |
Pail Mall Gazette, as Radical organ, has made |
erlibly clear the need of it. Now one of the |
projects OF reform gravely proposed in Paria- |
nent is that the agewhen girl can legally con-
ent to criminal intercourse be raised from IL to
S years. What means It, that with more or
ess knowledge of this evil wise Legislators have
ermitted the law to stand in Its present shape
Il these years Does the British gorernment
pander to the vices Of its pobility'
The Gazette has made publfe-lo fiames in Its
evelations except to declare that "princes of
be blood" are among the criminals. No Won
er. For what else do the miserable idlers ev
IT, squandering millions of the English peoples
honey Events are fastening with rapid tread
owards political upheaval in England. The
utfrage has been enlarged and extended to the
ountry districts; the demand for what honest
Id John Bright calls real land reform has ex-
ended from Ireland to Scotland and England
ersef, and the people are coming to see that
ne common sense of the age demands the total
b!iteration of the old privileges and extortions
feudalism; the House of Lords itself is the
lbject of political attack; political party is
whose watchword and whose
vowed aim is Democracy, and even the Con-
,rvative party sees that its only chance of pow
is in seeming to be at the head of this current.
hese revelations Of the rsttenncss, the absolute
ltrescence of the titled classes, must iney itably
Id great impetus to the revolution.
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