I go on to add, that our immorality is _cruel_. If it be a folly to preserve certain men from the natural contagion consequent on their vices, it is a crime to multiply opportunities for vice, so as to decoy the individuals who, after disgracing themselves on the faith of what society holds out to them as safe, bequeath to us a heritage of curses when they are on the brink of the grave prematurely dug by their own profligacy. It is a crime of treason against the nation to send carcases, whether dead or living, back to families needing citizens and regulators of social education. Let us, then, get rid of all the frightful tolerations which set prostitution free from the rebuking and regenerating influences of a personal initiative. At all events, as the dens of infamy would not exist if there were not proprietresses to keep them, and men to frequent them, measures of repression brought to bear on girls only must be ineffective, since they do not reach the source of the evil. The same action should be brought to bear by the police on these houses as on gambling houses. This practicable and greatly-needed reform would inevitably be followed by the making every excitement to debauchery in the public street illegal, and by the right of complaint for every man accosted by a woman to whom he is not known, as for every woman addressed by a man with whom she was not previously acquainted. What a shame it is that, owing to debauchery, a civilization should tolerate, at particular hours, in these human flesh-markets, the suspension of God’s laws, which is the cause of ruin for thousands of young men who would never have become acquainted with profligacy if it had not been offered to them daily with such persistency, and who are unable to take a step, in our towns, without meeting with it.[52]