“But we must abhor and reject all those odious measures which treat woman as an impure being for debauchery to profit by. Scorn all the advice which may be given you, on this subject, by timid or corrupt men, who can see nothing beyond that which actually exists! The progress of prostitution in France is frightful, and the number of public women is said to be doubled even since the Great Exhibition. Every day new houses of infamy are opened, authorised by the _Chef_, who replies to any one who remonstrates, ‘_It is because they are necessary, &c., &c._’ “We shall do well, I think, in our International League, to give ourselves especially to questions of justice and of human dignity in connexion with the relations of the sexes, and to endeavour to bring all the nations of Europe to the adoption of uniformly just laws on this subject—a subject on which it is not permitted to cherish with impunity false sentiments or unjust laws.” Who shall dare to prophesy for the future of England, if, at such a crisis as the present, when the eyes of France—of Europe, it may be said—are upon us, the Parliament whose wisdom is vaunted on the Continent, should endorse, and not repudiate, the policy of a clique who have succeeded in gaining a footing in our country for a system which elsewhere has been tried and condemned? JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER, Hon. Secretary to the Ladies’ National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. FRENCH MORALITY, UNDER THE REGULATION SYSTEM. I. INFAMY AS KNOWN TO THE LAW AND SECRET INFAMY; PANDERS AND COURTESANS. “There are so many drawbacks attached to the loss of virtue in women; this principal point being taken away is the cause of so many others falling with it, that public unchastity may be looked upon as the greatest of misfortunes.”—_Montesquieu._ “Woman is the embodiment of evil when evil exists about her: she is the impersonation of evil when society must be ruined through evil.”—_Pierre Leroux._ Public immorality has pushed its excesses so far as to cause the poor woman to become a nuisance which has neither a name nor a right in our code. I have undertaken the painful duty of considering with attention the profligate portion of the community, which is controlled by the police authorities; I shall not flinch from my sorrowful task—one that will not, in any way, afford the lovers of scandal cause for laughter.... Is it my fault, indeed, if, after having gone back to Eden itself for woman as created in God’s image, I must pick the infected vase out of the gutter and look into it for woman as made in man’s image?