A Report as to the operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts has been recently issued and sanctioned by Government, which contains the following clause:—“The improvement that has taken place in the persons, clothing, and homes of the common women as regards cleanliness and order is most marked. Many of the women formerly looked bloated from drink, whilst others were greatly emaciated and looked haggard through disease. Their language and habits are greatly altered—swearing, drunkenness, and indecency of behaviour have become quite exceptional; the women now look fresh and healthy, and are most respectful in their manner; in fact, these poor creatures feel that they are not altogether outcasts from society, but that there are people who still take an interest in their moral and physical welfare.” If the Report is to be regarded as a mere statement of fact, we who object to these laws on moral grounds could find no stronger argument than these words to prove the tendency of the law to extend the practice of fornication among men. The tone of satisfaction, however, with which the framer of the Report evidently dwells on this result of the Acts, cannot but be felt to be, to a certain extent, a verification of what I have said about submission to these Acts usurping the place of virtue in public opinion. But the full force of that statement is verified very terribly when we find a supporter[80] of these Acts quoting this sentence, with the words, “the women now look fresh and healthy,” in italics, as the crowning moral benefit conferred on society by the Acts. I would observe here that the writer of the Report has taken refuge in an expression calculated to mislead hasty readers. He uses the word “the women” in a sense in which our opponents are peculiarly fond of using it. I wish simply to challenge the writer of this Report to show his meaning more clearly by asking him this simple question: To what women do you refer when you boast of their moral and physical improvement? Clearly not to those women who are escaping, or have escaped, from the toils of sin; because the moment they begin thus to escape, they are removed from your supervision and cognisance, they return to virtuous life, or seek the privacy of the Refuge, and henceforward cease to be objects of interest to you in the matter of the clearness of their complexion or the amiability of their manners. Who, then, I ask again, are the women of whose moral and physical improvement you boast? I will answer for you; and now let us read this sentence again with the proper and honest word substituted in the place of “the women:”— “_The harlots_ now look fresh and healthy, and are most respectful in their manner.” We find in the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, which sat on these Acts, and recommended their recent extension, the following piece of evidence:—