recklessly in the streets is a legal offence in a cabman; but to take a fare within prescribed limits and to drive in the streets is no moral offence at all. The same kind of argument holds true of all the technical offences created by the Acts of Parliament above alluded to. It is the exceeding of a certain limit (thereby causing inconvenience to society) which constitutes the legal offence under these economic regulations. But in the Contagious Diseases Acts the case is wholly different. Prostitution itself is morally criminal. The State—placing the Contagious Diseases Acts on the category of merely economical regulations—makes the crime dealt with under them to consist in acting as a prostitute _when out of health_. It says to the trader in sin, “You are guilty, unless you pursue this trade under certain conditions prescribed by Act of Parliament,” thus plainly implying, “You are not guilty so long as you ply your trade in compliance with the conditions imposed by our Act,”—hence the fearfully immoral influence of such a law upon the people at large! Whatever may be said, on the ground of expediency, against certain recent Acts of Parliament, it can never be said that their influence is _directly_ immoral, for the technical definition by the State of the crime treated in these cases does not involve the recognition of the lawful and innocent character of actions in themselves vicious, condemned by God’s Word, and ruinous to society; finally, it is clear that little or no injury to character is incurred by a false accusation under these economical Acts, whereas a false accusation under the Contagious Diseases Acts is ruinous. Footnote 42: The practical working of this Act turns upon the voluntary submission. The clauses which refer to this are as follows:— Act 1866, clause 17.— “Any woman, in any place to which this Act applies, may voluntarily, by a submission in writing, signed by her in the presence of, and attested by, the superintendent of police, subject herself to a periodical medical examination under this Act for any period not exceeding one year.”