244 PLAIN FACTS FOB OLD AND YOUNG 



signs of vice and ignorance more plainly seen than in 

 the metropolis of the world. 



It would be well for mothers to read carefully the 

 following paragraph from the Pall Mall Gazette at the 

 time of its exposure of vice in London: 



"The Responsibility of Mothers."— The igno- 

 rance of these girls is almost incredible. It is one of 

 the greatest scandals of Protestant training that par- 

 ents are allowed to keep their children in total igno- 

 rance of the simplest truths of physiology, without 

 even a rudimentary conception of the nature of sexual 

 morality. Catholic children are much better trained; 

 and whatever may be the case in other countries, the 

 chastity of Catholic girls is much greater than that of 

 Protestants in the same social strata. Owing to the 

 soul-and-body-destroying taciturnity of Protestant 

 mothers, girls often arrive at the age of legal woman- 

 hood in total ignorance, and are turned loose to con- 

 tend with all the wiles of the procuress and the temp- 

 tations of the seducer without the most elementary 

 acquaintance with the laws of their own existence. 

 . . . The culpable refusal of mothers to explain 

 to their daughters the realities and the dangers of 

 their existence, contributes to fill the brothels of 

 London. ' ' 



The committee, which included Cardinal Manning, 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, and other eminent gentle- 

 men, appointed to investigate the charges of the Pall 

 Mall Gazette, reported as follows: 



''After carefully sifting the evidence of witnesses, 

 and the material before us, and without guaranteeing 

 the accuracy of every particular, we are satisfied that, 

 taken as a whole, the statements in the Pall Mall 

 Gazette on this question are substantially true." 



