"Believing these to be facts, I could not bring myself to think that any practical good would be accomplished by giving you the statistics of these institutions alone. It would have been merely doing what has been done before, and would have yielded no additional information for your guidance. But it appeared to me that the time had come when your attention might be solicited to the various facts attending the aggregate prostitution of the city; for, despite all our prohibitory laws, it is a fact which can not be questioned or denied that this vice is attaining a position and extent in this community which can not be viewed without alarm. It has more than kept pace with the growth of our city. Unlike the vice of a few years since, it no longer confines itself to secrecy and darkness, but boldly strides through our most thronged and elegant thoroughfares, and there, in the broad light of the sun, it jostles the pure, the virtuous, and the good. It is in your gay streets, and in your quiet, home-like streets; it is in your squares, and in your suburban retreats and summer resorts; it is in your theatres, your opera, your hotels; nay, it is even intruding itself into the private circles, and slowly but steadily extending its poison, known but to few, and entirely unsuspected by the majority of our citizens. The whole machinery of the law has been turned against these females without success; its only result having been a resolve, on their part, to confront society with the charge of harsh, cruel, and unjust treatment. "From these considerations, I felt it my duty to obtain all the facts which could possibly be collected having any relation to the vice in question, assured that you were desirous of taking a comprehensive view of it; and hence the resolve, if possible, to trace to the fountain-head prostitution and its attendant diseases, so as to be enabled to bring the subject before you in a form which should exhibit it in its proper colors and dimensions.