The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-17
| WHITE SLAVERY
 OUT IN EUROPEAN CITIES
Sex Education Is Problem Abroad As Well As Tn
 United States

commissioned by the Bureau or Soclai Hygiene, of which John D. Rocke- felTer Jr, is chairman, has come to the conclusion that police regulation of the social evil in Europe is a fail-' 'l ure and is rapidly dying out. Stringent legislation, on the other hand has practically stamped out the so-cailedg g white slave traffic in young girls, and segregation, he finds, is non-existent anywhere in England or the conti- nent. s
 Mr FIexner spent more than a year in Sthe preparation of his report in addition to the twelve months con sumed in gathering material. It is published under the auspices of the Bureau of Social Hygiene in the hope that ultimately some effectual means will be found to combat the evil in the United States.
 aSex seduction,'' says pr. F'lexner, ..issthe subject of as much controversy in Europe as in this country Despite the prevalent notion to the contrary he writes, stthe subject of sex-educa- ton is as yet very largely in the realm of stheory or controversy. As to this point, strange misconception ob- tains In England, one hears that great progress has been made in this field in Germany, in Germany one is referred with equal positfveness to land, whfther. however. I did not pur- sue the will-os -Wisp. II 5s E z 95. <
 ssThe facts are these: No recogni- ton is given to instruction In Eng fish schools at all. The headmaste@s and house. masters in some of the great public schoo notably Etonr endeayor, however, to gain the conh- dence of the boys individually. In Prussia which is representative of the States of the German Empire, sex-in- struction of. any. kind is very rarely given at the popular schools.
 l Denmark "
 either of a general or a compulsory character exists; Sweden practically repeats Prussia, offering no instruc- ton in popular schools. an optional higher secondary schools, particularly those for girls, in the discretion of the head-master or head-nistress Sys- teTnatic or general instruction has de- ve1oped at yet nowhere. in Europe
 Explaining the decline in the sys- tematic traffic in young girls, the writ CT details successive steps in Iegisla- ton due to popular agitation in late years, and asserts that the entrapping and immurfng of a girl may be class ed as the exception, like a mysterious murder or robbery.
 ssUnder existing conditions he says. there is absolutely no reason to think that such eases occur frequent 1y. though there are those who would be quick to take advantage of any re-
 taxation of vigilance on the part of governments, the police, and the pri- vate organizations constantly on the alert. In the cases to which, from time to time, attention has been sen sationally called, the women involved are neither innocent nor deceived On the other hand, there is evidence to
 suggest that European cities and ports are utilized for purposes of transit to
 South American ports, where the trade still hourishes. A trafficker
 may entice a girl from Poland and Ga1icia on the promise of marriage or Europe has a list of men thus engag- ed. The countries from which women are procured are believed to be main ly Hungary, Galicia, Poland and Ru-
 mania; the countries to which they are carried, Brazil, Argentine, South Africa and the Leyant. ,'
 It was found that there exists an extensive trade in fallen women to
 meet the demand of underworld re-
 sorts, and back of all the crass com mercialisrn of the cadet and the dis orderly house keeper, promoters of an industry ttdeliberateIy cultivated by
 third parties for their own profit.'' While public opinion is slowly changing for the better, MT. Flexner
 believes, he still finds that there is no social inhibition as regards immoral lity in man. Europe has been a ma n,s V and largely for men-and cynical men at that-men distinctly lacking in re- spect for womanhood, specially of the working classes. The military, the laristocracy, the student, are all con- Iceded their fling. Women, whose in 1 straining1y, have been trained not to pry into the pre-matrimoniaI records l of their husbands; fathers fashion their sons, as a rule, after their own image
 ..Anid conditions as they exist in
 Paris, Berlin and Vienna, and the
 smaller towns like Geneva, which as- pire to be world cities by being 1icen- ltious, growing youth is characterized
 not by a normal, healthy and natural development, but by an over-stmu- lated and purely artificial excitatfon ! of instinet.''
 s.In the hands of the good women lilies the power for reform says Dr Flexner. Though no quantiatfve evil
 dence of improving morality can be
 given. various movements supply
 proof that opinion is undergoing a change which must in the end affect EcOnduct. Custom once practically
 constrained the French student in the
 Latin quarter to swim with the cur l rent; now it has become possible to I lead a blameIess life without incur
 ring contempt for his idiosyncracy; an I impassioned literature appealing to
 the German student has made it's ap-
 pearance. The woman's movement Twill unquestionably destroy the pas
 sivity of German women in respect to
 masculine Irregularities. The task of
 developing confluence in nations habi-
 tuateds to indulgence is one of inex- l pressibIe difficulty; but it may be fair
 ly said that now for the first time it has been deliberately faced on the l lContinent by a small but earnest band | of men and women bent 1Ipon5 inc purification of Iife.' | There are 16 naples in the United l States. most of them being eastern | species. The most valuable, not only because of the product of it's sap but
 also of the lumber, is sugar maple. |