"_It is evident that placing the houses at Blois out of bounds has had a wonderful effect, not only in lowering the venereal rate, but in improving the morality of the soldiers and also of the civil population._" Of course, these few figures and scattered facts cannot tell the whole story; they do, however, indicate with sufficient clearness what may be done by firm and fearless action. V Let me try to make the position clearer by means of another and quite different illustration. The results of restrictions on the drink trade in England during the war showed that legislative interference with strict rules can do much more than many of us believed.[134:1] Wipe off all that is doubtful in the results, all evasions of the law, all that was due to the absence of a large number of healthy men, yet the State interference--prohibition of treating, great shortening of hours, provision of weakened beer--these undoubtedly have acted so as to reduce drunkenness. Surely this must serve as a great proof that the removal of temptation is the one effective remedy to help men and women and to prevent sin. A man who got into trouble with a woman not very long ago, gave as a defense in police court: "You can say 'No' to one woman, but when they are round you all the time you can't." The three objections specially urged by women against laws directed against prostitution and prohibiting solicitation are:-- (1) That such laws cannot prevent all solicitation. This may be granted, but it does not prove that they may not greatly lessen the evil of solicitation. It may be granted, in the same way, that no State prohibition can prevent all secret drinking. But this is no reason for or against prohibition; the question is what it does do, not what it does not do. (2) That such laws act unequally for the two sexes,--that is, that a man is never, or almost never, made specially liable for soliciting and worrying women. This objection is really quite absurd, and it is only on account of the frequency with which it is urged by women that I refer to it again. For the life of me, I cannot see how any woman reconciles it with her conscience to bring forward such a silly evasion. A woman can always give a man in charge who annoys and insults her; moreover, in the vast majority of cases she could without effort protect herself from any such annoyance. Laughter is a weapon that will dishearten the most persistent man-follower. Besides, as every one of us knows, solicitation is the woman's act, and not the man's in ninety-nine out of a hundred of these cases. The man may be ready, possibly he may seek, but he seeks only where he knows the one sought will invite. This objection cannot then, in honesty, stand.