Now the question will arise, Has the world's indifference produced these evils? Undoubtedly it has, and in the following manner: Laws have been placed upon the statute-book declaring prostitutes, and houses of prostitution, and all who live by such means, illegal and immoral. There the law yet stands. At uncertain intervals some poor and friendless woman is arrested as a vagrant, and, to appease the offended majesty of law, she is sent to prison, a scapegoat for five thousand of her class. It also sometimes happens that another woman equally guilty, but with money or influence, is arrested at the same time and for the same offense, and before she reaches the prison walls a legal quibble has been raised and she is free. Is there no culpable indifference in this? Houses of prostitution are proscribed by law. How many of them are ever indicted, or, if indicted, how many are suppressed? This, too, is owing to criminal neglect, and it is aggravated by the injurious effects arising from the mere circumstance of allowing a law to exist, and making no efforts to enforce it. The character of a people is judged, not by the laws that are made, but by the strictness with which those that do exist are enforced and observed. In regard to the first, there may be exhibited an acute perception of an existing evil, and a desire to reform it by legislation; but a second glance may reveal no wish to make this legislation effective. In the special matter of prostitution, the opinion is expressed elsewhere that prohibitory laws are worse than useless, and in the experience of New York City there is nothing to shake that opinion, notwithstanding the fact that the efforts made to enforce them are so "few and far between." Had existing laws been more vigorously enforced, their inefficiency would long since have been much better understood than it now is, and people would not have rested under the delusion that every thing necessary has been done. There are yet other cases of culpable indifference. These same proscribed houses of prostitution are suffered to exist uncontrolled, and to spread disease and increase crime and vagrancy in all parts of the city. It has been generally conceded that they can not be suppressed. What effort has been made to hold in check their baneful influence? None--literally none. The statesman has looked on appalled at an evil of whose magnitude he could form no correct idea; the clergyman has hesitated to encounter those who he judged would not respectfully receive his admonitions; the masses of society have shrunk from considering a subject which was repugnant and distasteful. Is there no guilty indifference in this? There can be but one answer to this query; but one opinion as to the share this general apathy has had in fostering the evil.