[1] The nature of prostitution and of the White Slave Traffic and their relation to each other may clearly be studied in such valuable first-hand investigations of the subject as _The Social Evil: With Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York_, 2nd edition, edited by E.R.A. Seligman, Putnam's, 1912; _Commercialised Prostitution in New York City_, by G.J. Kneeland, New York Century Co., 1913; _Prostitution in Europe_, by Abraham Flexner, New York Century Co., 1914; _The Social Evil in Chicago_, by the Vice-Commission of Chicago, 1911. As regards prostitution in England and its causes I should like to call attention to an admirable little book, _Downward Paths_, published by Bell & Sons, 1916. The literature of the subject is, however, extensive, and a useful bibliography will be found in the first-named volume. [2] This is especially true of many regions in America, both North and South, where a hideous mixture of disparate nationalities furnishes conditions peculiarly favourable to the "White Slave Traffic," when prosperity increases. See, for instance, the well-informed and temperately written book by Miss Jane Addams, _A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil_, 1912. [3] See Havelock Ellis: _Sex in Relation to Society (Studies in the Psychology of Sex)_, Vol. VI., Ch. VII. [4] "The White Slave Traffic," _English Review_, June, 1913. It is just just the same in America. Mr. Brand-Whitlock, when Mayor of Toledo, thoroughly investigated a sensational story of this kind brought to him in great detail by a social worker and found that it possessed not the slightest basis of truth. "It was," he remarks in an able paper on "The White Slave" (_Forum_, Feb., 1914), "simply another variant of the story that had gone the rounds of the continents, a story which had been somehow psychologically timed to meet the hysteria which the pulpit, the Press, and the legislature had displayed." [5] G.F. Collas, _Geschichte des Flagellantismus_, 1913, Vol. I., p. 16. [6] I have brought together some of the evidence on this point in the chapter on "Immorality and the Law" in my book, _The Task of Social Hygiene_.