"The first step in this investigation was to obtain ample and reliable information of the extent of the vice as it exists outside of these departments--a step which would have been beyond my power alone. From the bold and reformatory stand which his honor Mayor Wood had taken in regard to many matters connected with our city government, it was believed that he would render his assistance if convinced of the propriety and prospective usefulness of the investigation, and the result of an application by President Isaac Townsend to his honor fully justified the correctness of this supposition. He was found not only willing to aid in this great work, but fully alive to its necessity and importance. The plan adopted to forward the inquiry was to take a census of the city, so far as regards prostitution, including the number of houses of prostitution; the number of prostitutes; the causes which led them to become such; their ages, habits, birth-places, early history, education, religious instruction, occupation, etc., and which census is now being taken by the Chief of Police, George W. Matsell, Esq., and the Captains of Police. "Simultaneously with this, inquiries are also being prosecuted concerning the extent of venereal disease in New York, which will afford interesting information. This, of course, will be done without individual exposure, nor will the report, when completed, assume the form of a guide-book by which persons can find houses of ill fame. I am desirous of obtaining the aggregate facts of the vice, and shall be cautious to take no steps toward gratifying a prurient curiosity or lacerating a rankling wound. "When these facts are before you, they will be their own argument for the necessity of action. "I do not trouble you on this occasion with any remarks upon the deadly nature of the venereal poison, but when you are informed as to the facilities for its diffusion will be the proper time to do so. Neither would it be consistent with this stage of the inquiry to enter into any discussion as to the plans that could be adopted in mitigation of the vice; for although prohibitory measures have failed to suppress, or even check it, yet, until its full extent is known, I do not imagine that you would deem it prudent to attempt to grapple a monster whose strength was not fully ascertained. "You perceive that to obtain all the information necessary on this matter will be a work requiring both time and labor, and I respectfully ask your forbearance, with the assurance that I will lay the result of my inquiries before you at the earliest possible opportunity, and with the hope that the magnitude and importance of the subject will be an apology for the time to which it is necessarily protracted.