The Morris County chronicle., 1901-08-30
MAYOR FOX At jamestown
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Continued from First Page.
subject of prostitution. There is a wide
spread sentiment that houses of i'll fame
may be allowed to exist provided they
confine themselves to certain localities.
| But what district will you assign tc
| them? There is no part of the town but
in it there dwell some respectable peo'
pie. There are thoroughly worthy
| families who by the necessities of their
work or by the stern poverty are COM
PEELED to reside in the neighborhood in
which it is proposed to allow vice to
flourish unrestrained Now by what
right can you pour out on their sur
roundings this flood of moral aud physi-
cal iiseaseg Ii the brothel cannot be
allowed TO exist among the homes of
the wealthy. no more should it be toll
Grated where dwell the worthy poor
who already are sufficiently handicap in
their efforts TO bring up their children
Alright. The first duty of municipal
government is to care for the struggling
people of limited mems. and therefore
If houses of vices are to be assigned
location let il be a Fifth avenue or
Beacon street, where dwell those who
are strong enough to defend themselves
against the plague.
As 10 the licensing of houses of ill
fame, which has been done in some
European cities, and which some have
proposed here, it should be noted that
there is an essential difference between
the licensing of liquor selling and the
licensing of prostitution. There are
men of high standing Intellectually and
morally who claim that the use OF al
cohol in moderation is not only harmless
but beneficial, and though we have the
right TO differ from them we cannot
rule out their ideas as utterly absurd.
But no one will claim that immortality
is harmless if INDUCED in moderation.
There is no parallel between thing
which thousands of good men declare
innocent and one which all agree to be
evil and only evil.
Some writers, G. g. Lecky in his His
tory of European Morals, deal with this
subject as if system of prostitution
were public necessity. 1t has indeed
hourished in all lands. But it should be
noticed that where it has received a liberal
toleration there have always existed IN
connection with it certain darker vices,
unmentionable degradations, which on
the same grounds as prostitution might
claim tolerance as necessities. There
are, however, thousands and tens OF
thousands of men of as strong physical
impulses as any who yet have maintain
ed pure lives, and any man can keep
himself from ordinary immortality as
we'll as he can restrain himself from the
unmentionable vices, by simply main
tanning a proper self respect, due re-
gard for the dignity of human nature.
For the suppression of the disorderly
house let both the offending parties be
treated the same way. When man
and woman are arrested together he
cannot be regarded as any better than
she and shonld receive no mllder treat
ment. If she is to be arraigned In the
police court let him also be fined or
sent up for 10 days. II It be under
stood that not only will disorderly hous-
es be raided but that the men caught in
them will be treated in just the same
Tay as the women, men will not risk
themselves in these places and they will
be closed from lack of customers.
| There are cases of illicit relations be-
| tween individual couples in which the
law may refuse to interfere on the
ground that there is no breach or the
public peace. But the brothel wages a
direct warfare on the well being OF
society. By it's open doors which are
practically a public advertisement, by
sending out runners perhaps by street
soliciting, many are led into immortality
who otherwise would never have
thought of it, and this increase of vice
necessitates in turn sending out of agents
to bring in still other young women
who but for such urging would not have
entered the evil career. Now IL is true
that the law cannot make men virtuous
but it can interfere with public and
systematic propagandism of vice. Be
it granted that of those who are vici-
Gus many will continue vicious but it
still remains that the law can and should
interpose to restrain the immoral from
leading still others into immortality.
The subject of this paper, be it observ-
ed, is not the extirpation of wee. That
can be accomplished only by the church
and other moral agencies. But the re-
striction of vice, the hinderance of its
propagation among those now innocent,
this is something which the municipal
government can do much to accomplish.
Ao Jonrrorc Of tha ANTONIO.