522 PLAIN FACTS FOK OLD AND YOUNG 



though fulfilling them with a sore and troubled heart, 

 she allows him passively, never lovingly, to exercise 

 daily and weekly, month in and month out, the low 

 and beastly of his nature, and eventually, slowly but 

 surely, to kill her. And this man, who has as surely 

 committed murder as has the convicted assassin, lures 

 to his net and takes unto himself another wife, to 

 repeat the same program of legalized prostitution 

 on his part, and sickness and premature death on her 

 part." 



Professor Gerrish, in a little work from which we 

 take the liberty to quote, speaks as follows on this 

 subject : 



^'One man, reckless of his duty to the community, 

 marries young, with means and prospects inadequate 

 to supi^ort the family which is so sure to come ere long. 

 His ostensible excuse is love ; his real reason, the grati- 

 fication of his carnal instincts. Another man, in ex- 

 actly similar circumstances, but too conscientious to 

 assume responsibilities which he cannot carry, and in 

 which failure must compromise the comfort and tax 

 the purses of people from whom he has no right to 

 extort luxuries, forbears to marry ; but, feeling the pas- 

 sions of his sex, and being imbued with the prevalent 

 errors on such matters, resorts for relief to unlawful 

 coition. At the wedding of the former, pious friends 

 assemble with their presents and congratulations, and 

 bid the legalized prostitution Godspeed. Love shields 

 the crime, all the more easily because so many of the 

 rejoicing guests have sinned in precisely the same way. 

 The other man has no festival gathering. . . . Society 

 applauds the first and frowns on the second; but, to 

 my mind, the difference between them is not markedly 

 in favor of the former. ' ' 



