It is the custom for people to say that evil has existed from the beginning, and will continue till the end of all things. And as far as anybody knows this is entirely true, but the application which a great many put on it is entirely wrong. They make the truism an excuse for ceasing all efforts for lessening evil and confining it to as few of our fellow-creatures as possible. When, some 18 months ago or more, a few gentlemen in the city got up a movement for the suppression of one of the forms of vice which, of all others, is the most degrading, destructive, and terrible in its results, they were met in the outset with the old saw, “This evil has always existed and will continue to exist.” They did not propose to be put down by such an aphorism, and they pressed their ideas on the police authorities, the commissioners, and the magistrates until steps were taken to scorch at least, if not altogether kill, the viper. No one can deny one result which followed. Our principal streets, which were formerly thronged with wantons attired in purple and fine linen, became freed of them to such an extent that the presence of an occasional one caused remark. In the auditoriums of our places of amusement, where they were wont, like the Scribes and Pharisees, to occupy the prominent places, THEIR PAINTED FACES and flashing jewelry were missing. This was undoubtedly the result of a couple of months’ work. It is well known that they left the city in droves. The heavy hand of repression has since then been removed, and once more the soiled doves flutter their plumes on all the public promenades. Two years ago York street was one of the worst streets on the American Continent. It would be impossible to conceive of lower dens or more desperate denizens than those who haunted the darksome cellars and holes on that street. There were dozens of keepers of these places, but a man named McQuarry occupied a bad pre-eminence above them all. McQuarry was an addition to our population which was contributed from rural parts. He had sold a farm and in some way or other lost the money in the city and started a store on York street. This store rapidly became a mere illicit drinking place and very soon was the resort of bad characters of both sexes. The state that the street had drifted into began to attract the notice of the newspapers, and the police also paid some attention to the phenomena connected therewith. The result was that raids were made on the places and severe encounters took place between the roughs and the officers. In one case an officer was dangerously stabbed, and the knife-user had his head battered pretty badly with the officer’s club. Then the man with the phrase we have quoted above began to be heard from. You couldn’t cure these things by drastic remedies. Evil always did exist, etc. A judge on the bench at one of the trials spoke in severe terms of the conduct of the officers. The prisoner, however, received a pretty severe sentence.