In so far as prostitution is the outcome of ignorance, laws and police are powerless; only knowledge will aid. In so far as prostitution is the outcome of mental or moral defect, laws and police are powerless; only the intelligent guardianship of the state will avail. In so far as prostitution is the outcome of natural impulses denied a legitimate expression, only a rationalized social life will really forestall it. In so far as prostitution is due to alcohol, to illegitimacy, to broken homes, to bad homes, to low wages, to wretched industrial conditions--to any or all of the particular phenomena respecting which the modern conscience is becoming sensitive,--only a transformation wrought by education, religion, science, sanitation, enlightened and far-reaching statesmanship can effect a cure. Our attitude towards prostitution, in so far as these factors are concerned, cannot embody itself in a special remedial or repressive policy, for in this sense it must be dealt with as a part of the larger social problems with which it is inextricably entangled. Civilization has stripped for a life-and-death wrestle with tuberculosis, alcohol and other plagues. It is on the verge of a similar struggle with the crasser forms of commercialized vice. Sooner or later it must fling down the gauntlet to the whole horrible thing. This will be the real contest,--a contest that will tax the courage, the self-denial, the faith, the resources of humanity to their uttermost. EUNICE TIETJENS. The welfare of mankind is as much promoted by the mistakes and vanity of fools and knaves as by the virtuous activity of wise and good men.--The late Professor Churton Collins in The English Review. The Critics' Critic MASCULINE AND FEMININE LITERATURE