The Coconino weekly sun., 1896-07-16
WHOSE DAUGHrERs
BY W. A. LEWIS.

mythological form with increase not loss of power. The legend of the Mino- taur, half human and half beast, the creation and product of unbridled pas sion, which lives but to destroy and devour, teaches plainly that indulgence in gross passion always leads to the production of savage, brutish and unsuitable appetite for more evil. The periodic demand for the seven sons and the seven daughters, as the price of the deliverance of the City of Athens from destruction. emphasizes the truth that the evil of this world is ever de- manding as its tribute the sous aud daughters of the land; while the yolun- tary offer of Theseus to go as one of the victims with the set purpose on his part 10 accomplish the destruction of the destroyer, and his grand success, declare the truth that redemption is to be found In inspired and self-sacriicing effort. Our souls are stirred within us as we imagine the agony endured by the Athenians as they were compelled to make selection from their children and send q certain number from time to time to cruel death, and our hearts do not cease to quiver until the sorrow of Athens is turned into joy as they learn in the safe return of Theseus that the destroyer has been destroyed.
 There exists in this land at the pres ent time demon ten thousand times more cruel and destructive than the Minotaur. It is the demon of licen- tiousness. The roll of the lost ones in the land contains the names of daugh- ters that have been sacrificed by :he tens of thousands. Nor do they perish alone, for by the nature of this evil the sons of the land perish with them in the moral death. As in the Greek legend the sons and daughters alike are demanded by the demon. This fact is ignored by the multitude. as shown in a discussion by party of men. They had been thrown together in the fel- lowship of several days travel, and after talking of many other subjects began to discuss the social evil They laid down as the foundation principle the necessity of the evil arising from the physical nature of man, aud claimed that if opportunity were no, afforded men in houses of ill-fame for the qualification of their passions there would be no safety for our daughters, as lust and rape would, as demons, ravage the land. They therefore as- sumed that the only points to be con sidered in such discussion were the questions of so regulating the evil that it should fe confined To one quarlor of the city and be prevented from thrust ing it's degrading presence and inhu- ence among our homes, and that by efficient medical supervision and periodic examination and certificate and license men should be protected in tho indulgence of their passioLs and sin. Some of the party quoted from their observation and experience in the cities of the Old World, continental cities that as they claimed had grown wise in experience with the evil They eulogized the liceused quarters of those cities as being so safe under the police surveillance that man could enter and lodge in those places of sin as free from danger of violence or robbery as in the most fashionable hotels, and that as the result of the medical in- spection and certificate he would be ] equally assured of freedom from any | danger of disease as the result of his indulgence.
 These men grew eloquent in their eulogies of the system as it exists in the Old World and as eloquent in their denunciations of so-called puritanical restraint and prohibitory efforts. Then turning to the only one of their party who had not taken any part in the dis cussion they asked tor his opinion. "Having assumed" he replied, "the necessity for the existence of the so- cial evil. you have most assuredly pre. sented way in which sin on the part of men may have free course in ap- parent safety. But in this discussion you have also assumed as a matter of necessity and as something that you have perfect right to do. the sacrifice to living death and an eternal he'll of my daughter, or what is the same, of