The fact, indeed, which constitutes one of the greatest and most insidious practical abominations in connection with these Acts is the fact that, in virtue of this non-definition of a prostitute, the policeman and justice of the peace ride rampant at their pleasure throughout all that immense border land of humble society which lies between the confessed prostitute and absolute virtue. All the objections which we have urged against these Acts, with respect to the unconstitutional method by which they decide whether a woman is a prostitute or not, are intensified tenfold by the absence from the Acts of any definition as to what constitutes prostitution. A justice of the peace is therefore set to decide the question of fact as to a woman’s character, in which decision there are involved, as we have shown, most grievous consequences; and he is set to do this with absolutely no guide as to what is the thing which he is to determine the woman to be or not to be,—no guide either from the Acts in question, or from the concurrent unanimity of society at large. The result of this is, and must be, that the definition of what a prostitute is, gradually falls into the hands of the policeman who accuses her; a grievous and lamentable consequence of this law, which constitutes one of its greatest oppressions, whereby the whole operation of the law degenerates into a mere hunting in the streets by policemen of women suspected by them of unchastity. In all offences which are punished by law, and which are capable of graduation, as all offences are, there is established a corresponding graduation of punishment, which usually varies through very wide limits. Under the Acts in question there is no graduation of punishment, although, as we have seen, there is such a graduation of offence that the law cannot even define where the offence begins. The same punishment is meted to all, and the same treatment. It may be necessary for the purposes of this Act that it should be so. If it is thus necessary, the Act again stands condemned by this very admission. Let the reader compare this law then with any other summary case, for instance that of petty theft. If a man steal, theft is defined exactly, and the case is submitted to the justice, who, taking into account all the circumstances of temptation, of youth, or of poverty, administers a punishment such as he may think commensurate to the particular offence. Here an offence distinctly defined is submitted to a justice, who selects a commensurate punishment. But in the case under this Act it is exactly the reverse. It is the punishment alone which is defined, and the definition of the offence is left to the justice. There cannot be imagined a greater opportunity for error, nor a more utter reversal of all the principles of justice.