The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1914-02-26

| In an annual report of the State board OF char
tiles and corrections for the present year, on
page two. find the following:
sc A very large percentageS of prostitutes
are feehIe-minded In 1911 the department of
research of the New Jersey training school Tor
feeble minded tested fifty six delinquent girls
/ all of whom had probably committed the worst
| offense young girl can Fifty-two were found
| to be mental detectives A test recently made
kof one hundred girls taken at random from
| the New York reformatory for women, AT Bed-
! ford by the board of social hygiene. established
| by John D. Rockefeller. Jr showed that all
were apparently feeble minded. Their average
physical age was twenty years. nine and seven
tenths months their average mental age zen
and five-tenths years AS shown elsewhere III
this report a test of inmates OF our reformatory
| FOR delinquent white girls revealed the fact that
| thirty out of thirty-fve were mental detectives
study of this subject by DR.. Hastings H.
| Hart of the Russell Sage foundation, shows tnat
In the Mnssa Chusetts Industrial school for girls
| freform SCHOOL,. fifty per cent were rec
bic minded. and that in the MARYLAND lndns-
trial school for girls (reform SCHOOL, sixty per
cent were so afflicted.
Miss Mary r. Campbell. a psychologist, re-
Gently made intensive study OF the mental
status Of la out of 235 inmates Of tn" WIS
cousin industrial school for girls AZ Milwaukee,
and found that sixy-three per cent were men
tally deficient, and at our own reform school
a recent test showed that eghty-seVen per cent
were feeble minded
officer Of New York in a letter recently pun
lished says:
at is true that it is the exceptional girl who
is declared normal and not the exceptional Elri
(. who is declared mentally deficient we are
having evry girl. who comes to us now men
tally examined hy mental expert We ma
that the majority of girls from sixteen to twenty
wears Of age have mentality of not more than
nine or ton wears, and that many OF them arg
not responsible for their acts.
II believe that mental deficiency is more
responsible for bringing large number OF girls
into prostitution than any other factor
In a recent publication Of the Michigan Health
Onicers' association Or. Ed. Goodwin. or Bay
| City. in discussing such measures as are Pr"-
posed here says:
"All I am here for is 10 offer up plea; to
| beg Of Won health officers If you have the social
evil in your CITY, AS many Of you have. 70 not
| think that by eradcating ii with one blow YOU
! have accomplished q world of good You have
not yon have made things could
! go into details and tell you why. yen have made
4 things worse, hHt will only say that the ms
tory of those cities who have followed TINS
/ method, has proven this fact.
| Then he sites specific cities.
! And DR.. Goodwin seems to have voiced the
sentiments Of all the doctors present.
/ In our own city an intensive study OF the
origin of the diseases so enormously ATTRIBUTED
| to the social evil. shows that sixty per cent
Of all such diseases in men, treated by one al
tho leading specialists. were contracted not from
professionals but from "occasionals
I Further; II there is organization which Is.
4 more than any other. devoted to wagng warfare
on the evils under discussion, IT is the Bureau
Of Social Hygiene. recently established under
an endeavor of John u. Rockefeller. Jr. with
| laboratories at Bedford Y. y. This bureau IS
undertaking to attack these evils in a scientific
way which precudes hasty and il-advised ac-
ton Tt has sent to Europe. DR. Abram Flex-
ner to study the question there. and the result
after two years of assiduous toll, IS a volume
of data comprising more than four hundred
and fifty pages DIR, F1exuer. II any one. would
he expected TO urge such action IS hero pro-
posed but on page 327, he saws:
| "The street walkers of London tend to con-
gregate in apartment houses or mansions.
/ from which respectable parties are crowded out:
In the provincial towns they occupy small houses.
RI renting rooms to prostitutes is in itself
made a crime, the law is broken. as at Berlin.
and, of course most regularly in case of the
more clever and well-to-do; or the stupid and
wretched are pushed into vagahondage rather
than out Of prostitution"
/ And in his final chapter. he states that until
cities have many times the present institutional
facilities. IT is useless TO hope to eradicate the
evils discussed.
Now let MS turn to some Of the results as
shown in cities which have tried the plan pro
posed.
! In Atlanta land it is proper here to state
4444.4+-A t44t.44.s-ttt rrrt-rccr- s1cn Hs IS
pnew proposed but wiped ont its red light
district by the Invocation Of laws similar to
those possessed by usl the evil has shown
no dlminution since the Establishment of the dis
trct
In a letter just received from that city writ
ten by a lawyer Of high repute the following
statement is made: 'My honest opinion Is that
the designation houses and cheap hotels are do
ing more prosperous business than they
formerly did, though I have means of VERT
flying this statement"
Mr.. cosson. attorney general NJ Iowa, the
author of the original bin of which the Land bill
is n COPY when under cross examination In
Chicago. made the statement that after more
than year of diligent enforcement Of the law.
the city of Davenport go, 600 pnpuation) had
not over a hundred houses Not over a hum
bred! Richmond. with $4,000 population, is
said to have considerably less than hundred
houses and we have such law as is proposed.
segregation that is not my purpose here. My
one proposition Is this That the majority of
women of the type attacked feeble min led,
that a feeble m inded woman is adult,
as concerns his her temptations. appetites
and passions, and a child in ability to with
stand them. That driving them on the streets
and deprivine them of roof is cruel heartless
and un-christanlike, and that until pre-
pared to care for those who cannot possibly care
critically cleansing statute book and leaving
society soiled I contend that the woman of
the type mentioned is less. in fact quite
| more. dangerous unsupervised and home
| less center Of infection, moral well ply