Connecticut western news., 1893-05-11

II Oln bflCoC CdttSSS DlcbhC lto total.
 There are scores of women who enter this life because they are vicious in dis position, because they are lazy and igno- rant and because they prefer, from vanity and selfishness, a life of coarse luxury to a life of honest toll. A large per cent, larger than one would wish who believes in the best there is in man, will be found in this class. And yet to many an hon est working girl in our great cities there comes again and again the unspeakable, horrible alternative, which rises and will not down at the bidding, either to beg, to steal, to starve, to commit suicide or to sell her body. This is the sad story which the city writes in these modern days for the lover of the race to read.
 ITS BRAZEN BOLDNEss.
 Second-The house of the strange wo- man has become in the modern city an established institution. It has become a commercial enterprise. It has it's law of supply and demand, and the conse- quent corruption of the life of the peo- pie is something iucomprehensible to those who have not seriously studied it. A group of earnest Christian women, impressed with this horrible fact and of it's growing reality, went few years ago to the editor of 8 great newspaper in London and laid before him the facts of this social evil in his great city. At first he hooted the idea. 1t seemed to him impossible in the English world. They insisted upon it's truth. He decided to investigate it for himself; he did investigate it. The result was that he hurled that immortal thunderbolt into modern society printed in the Pail Mall Gazette, entitled 1.-The Maiden Trib ute to Modern Babylon"
 An explosion followed the hurling of that bomb which shook the world. Phar isees and hypocrites succeeded in putting Mir. Stead into prison for his bold as- sault, but the great and the noble in the English world rallied in the hour of trial to his support, and the reaction swept from the statute books of England every law that bound woman with the chains of slave through the past The report of MT. Stead was investigated by men of the highest and every statement and every allegation was found to be substantially true.
 If the truth were known today in the great cities of America, the story written by MT. Stead could be rewritten here with equal force and unanswerable log ic. So great is this power as an institu- ton that it lays hold of society in our city on every side. The cabmen, for in- who rule certain class of pas senger traffic, are almost every one in the employ of these houses of ill fame, and beneath the seats of their cab cush- ions are kept the cards of direction to the various establishments. A sailor cannot enter the port of New York with out receiving letters inviting him to these brothels high and low. Even some of our own great newspapers print in their personal columns with marvellous from Sunday to Sunday, the of these infamous estab- lishments. Nearly every saloon in the city of New York and in all our great cities has private parlors in which women of loose character are found, and it is scarcely possible for man to enter saloon without coming in con- tact with this underworld of social vice. Every gambling establishment in the city is the vestibule to the house of ill fame.
 Not only is this true, but there are vast districts of our cities through which it is impossible for man, young or old, to pass at night without being addressed and solicited by woman. A young woman newspaper reporter recently un- lertook the experiment of walking the streets of New York through the entire night to see what adventure might be- fall woman unaccompanied. She wrote her experience for one of the daily news papers In it she declared that she was not addressed or solicited by any man at any hour of the night or on any street, and she passed through some of the most unfrequented and dangerous. She gave it as her opinion that a woman who went about her business could go and come the streets of the city at any time unmolested. But I dare to say to this young woman that she will meet an unpleasant revelation if she will array herself in masculine attire and walk the streets of the city. It will be scarcely possible for her to report accurately ev- cry incident that will occur.
 The boldest of these spirits that con- duct the commercial transactions in this underworld often accumulate great power and wealth. The great masses who feed their coffers go down in disease and despair and death. The horrible of those who are thus given to the corruption of the youth and the manhood and the homes of the nation is something appalling. As the modern city grows ill numbers this evil grows apace, and even in higher ratio than the proportion.
 It is said by those who have studied the situation most carefully that in the city of Paris there are 100000 women given to this evil life. There certainly are not less than 50,00O in the city of New York, and the lowest estimate for Chicago places the number at 30,000, while other cities will be found to main tain similar proportions, some greater, some less. It is said and on the best au- thority that the city of Washington, the CdP1IebA VI DiAO hdplOu, oAo"6 1 ulEilCI percentage of disreputable women than any city in America. And this is Q prob lem which the politicians who inhabit the city should not be slow in confessing and solving. It certainly rests at their door.
 Third-It can but threaten the life of society because of the terrible nature of this evil. The debauchery of the body is something whose horrors surpass be- lief save to those who come in daily con- tact with the facts in the great medical world. A practicing physician told me that large proportion of his daily prac- tice was given to the results of prostitu- tion, and he said that every physician of large practice could bear practically the same testimony. Dr. Currier declares, and bases his declaration upon the sta tistics gathered from the outdoor poor department for the city of New York, that there are from 5000 to 1000 cases of contagious disease from this cause