The Progress., 1893-05-13

! ing the earth Prostitution is a peculiar
/ product of the city. 1t is practically un-
known a. an institution in the rural dis
tricts. There public opinion is n power
against evil and evildoers. It is in tho
city's surging impersOnal mob that the
evil minded take refuge. In this shame
is easily hidden until shame is forgotten.
The city, in other words, is the CesSpOol
of the surrounding territory. 1t drains
the rural districts of its evildoera-malc
and female 1t is the mecca of the thief,
and the loafer, and the harlot. Boston
is the cesspool of New England; New
York and Philadelphia the cesspools of
the middle states: New York of the ra-
tion. Chicago is the ccSspool of the
northwest. San Francisco of the Pacific
slope; New Orleans of the sputh. Aud
SO each great city is the receptacle of the
filth and corruption of its respective
tributary districts.
If this filth were drained in TO be de
stroyed in the fire of q righteous life. all
might be well for the nation. But the
city Is the heart of the nation today
Into it flows its life. It flows ont again,
and il flows ont contaminated Cf nccCs-
sity by all the influences that mako or
unmake the life of the people who dwell
in the city. Luxury AMI idlencsS and
crime and poverty are in the cities su-
prcmc forces. These are the powers that
create prostitution. In the cities they
are massed. ald the aggregate results
from these causes make up its horrible
total,
There are scores of women who enter
this life because they are vicious i'll dis
position, because they are lazy and igno-
rant and because they prefer from vanity
and selfshness. u life of coarse luxury To
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 Mt 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 i'll the modern city an
established institution. 1t has become
a commercial enterprise. 1t has its law
of supply and demand. and the cOnse-
quent corruption of the life of the pcO-
pie is something incomprehensible to
.I,, OF lx-s -
A group of earnest Christian women.
impressed with this horrible fact and Of
its growing reality. went few years
ago to the editor of 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
monstrosity impossible i'll the English
world. They insisted upon its 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 The Maiden Trib-
ute to Modern Babylon"
An explosion followed the hurting of
that bomb which shook the world. Phar-
isees and hypocrites succeeded in putting
Mr.. Stead into prison for his bold as
sault. but the great and the noble III the
English world rallied in the hour Of trial
to his support. and the reaction swept
from the statute books of England every
disgraceful law that bound woman with
the chains of slave through the past
generation. The report of Mr.. Stead
was investigated by men of the highest
character 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 Mr.. 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
stance. who rule a certain class of pas
senger traffic. are almost every one in
the employ of these houses of i'll fame.
and beneath the seats of their cab cush-
ions are kept the cards of direction 10
the various establishments A sailor
cannot enter the port of New York with
out receiving letters inviting nm to
these brothels high and low Even some
of our own great newspapers print in
their personal columns with marvellous
effrontery. from Sunday to Sunday. the
advertisements 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 a man'to
enter IA saloon without coming in con-
tact with this underworld of social vice
Every gambling establishment in the
city is the yestibule to the house of i'll
fame.
Not only is this true, but thero are
vast districts of our cities through which
it is impossible for a man. young or old.
to pass Mt night without being addressed
and solicited by a woman vol1nO