The offence of treating for girls under age also demands a more severe law. The uncertainty of the penalty, the feeble attempts to put down the evil, as they appear when viewed with reference to the certainty of immediate advantages to be gained by it, do not stop the agents of procuration. The impunity assured to the person for whom the sale is effected also gives to this kind of offences a deplorable frequency and daring, in a country that punishes for a triple complicity, and by civic degradation, the printer, author, and editor of writings whose offence has sometimes been disseminating useful truths. Profligacy driven from the public thoroughfares in this way, and from establishments frequented by men without a home, the honour of the girl under age being efficiently cared for, inexperienced youth will no longer fall into the inextricable pitfalls of prostitution; no one but the depraved man will, with the utmost caution, go into these sties of infamy, to gratify a vicious propensity which would be left to its natural consequences. A community which sanctions the family principle should, further, spare us the scandal of actions for debt and theft brought by the prostituter against the prostituted. When our courts of law intervene to annul the engagements which those above or those under age have contracted with courtesans, it follows that these corrupters or these corrupted ones have procured for themselves, by false pretences, on credit or for a specific period, a gratification which the judge, as they have reason for knowing, will take upon himself to make a gratuitous one, and that their disgrace, which ought to close the ear of justice to their suits, finds such privileges as to permit them to do a wrong to the tradesmen who supply them with goods. Sound views will recognise the validity of these debts, or, in annulling them, punish the complainant for the fact of having prostituted himself; it is, above all, for cases such as these that article 60 of our Criminal Code should be declared applicable, thereby punishing _every individual who incites to profligacy by presents_. Very much to the contrary, the application of the law becomes deplorable in this matter; Lovelaces aged from 15 to 20, precocious Don Juans, become villains with impunity by the assistance of the law’s protection—spend some hundreds of thousands of francs in orgies, with the certainty of committing robbery; they promise, give their signatures, subscribe documents, and the court declares them white as snow, provided they do not pay anything; and this is the education by which we prepare young people for their life as citizens! What! is it to be supposed that these young men, who to-morrow will be electors, citizens, public officials, judges, magistrates perhaps, are not capable, at the age of 19 and 20 years, of a greater moral responsibility than the infant in long-clothes? Cancel their debts, if you like; but at least brand them for their cynical attacks on the