260 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



be said of the inconsistency of which nearly every 

 civilized community is guilty, shown in the mainte- 

 nance of laws regulating prostitution and licentiousness 

 a crime, while at the same time this deadly traffic is 

 winked at and not infrequently protected and encour- 

 aged! 



These facts are commended to the consideration of 

 those who are anxious to introduce into this country 

 laws for the regulation and inspection of prostitutes. 



Hace Deterioration.— The infection of one tenth 

 of the entire male population of a great city like Berlin 

 with so horrible a constitutional malady as syphilis, 

 means race deterioration at a most terrific rate, and 

 yet this estimate is probably none too large, for even 

 a larger estimate has been made in relation to Vienna, 

 Paris, and some other continental cities; and emi- 

 nent specialists do not hesitate to place New York upon 

 an even footing with Berlin. Dr. Sanger affirms that 

 ''nearly one half of the 40,000 female prostitutes in 

 New York, admit that they are or have been sufferers 

 from syphilis," and, says Dr. Gross, "since the estab- 

 lishment of railroad travel it has penetrated every 

 rural district." We say "race deterioration," for the 

 reason that the evil consequences of vice are not to be 

 studied alone in the vicious, but may be traced with 

 equal distinctness in the progeny of the unchaste. Vice 

 of every sort, but most of all, sexual vice, places an 

 indelible mark upon its victims. The progeny of the im- 

 pure are not only the subjects of special ailments which 

 have been traced directly to the various specific infec- 

 tions communicable through unchastity, but they are 

 also subject to general constitutional feebleness, weak- 

 ness of will, lack of mental, moral, and phj^sical stam- 

 ina with little resistance to disease and a proneness to 



