TJNCHASTITY 247 



Nor are those terrible practices confined to the Old 

 World. Any one who is at all acquainted with the 

 police records of our large cities must be fully aware 

 of the fact that crimes approximately as enormous in 

 extent, if not fully as great, are perpetrated constantly 

 in New York and other great American cities. In an 

 address presented at the eleventh annual meeting of 

 the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 

 held at Philadelphia, Miss Frances E. Willard, the 

 president of that great organization, in dwelling upon 

 the need of an active department for the suppression 

 of the social evil, remarked as follows: 



''The effect upon our minds of such unspeakable 

 disclosures as those of the Pall Mall Gazette, and the 

 horrible assurances given us by such authority as Dr. 

 Elizabeth Blackwell, that we should uncap perdition 

 in the same direction were the hidden life of our great 

 cities known, has so stirred the heart of womanhood 

 throughout this land, that we are, I trust, ready for an 

 advance. Had we to-day the right woman in this place 

 of unequaled need and opportunity, we could be in- 

 strumental in the passage of such laws as would pun- 

 ish the outrage of defenseless girls and women by mak- 

 ing the repetition of such outrage an impossibility. 

 Women only can induce lawmakers to furnish this most 

 availing of all possible methods of protection to the 

 physically weak. Men alone will never gain the cour- 

 age thus to legislate against other men. Crimes 

 against women seem to be upon the increase every- 

 where. 



' ' It is a marvel not to be explained, that we go on 

 the even tenor of our way, too delicate, too refined, 

 too prudish to make any allusion to these awful facts, 

 much less to take up arms against these awful crimes. 



