CIML SOCIETY AND C'lll;TSTIA>;iTY. 3'J 



be magnified. Cast your eyes, also, upon the friuliiful 

 ravages "wliich corruption is working anionic women. . . . 

 Pardon this groan extorted from me by the ignominy 

 of the daughters of my people, the daugliters of Israel 



and of Cliristian France At our very doors, in 



England and in Prussia, to say nothing of otlier coun- 

 tries, there arc severe and efficient laws against seduc- 

 tion. Is there nothing for you to do, to guard for our 

 daughters— above all, for the daughters of the common 

 people, for the Avorking-girls in shops and factories — 

 the first, most sacred liberty of all, the liberty of being 

 chaste ? The things you censure in the laws, do not 

 approve in books or on the stage. Strive against im- 

 morality under every guise which it puts on to work 

 our ruin. Yes ! I will not leave this lesson half said ! 

 Strive against evil in the bosom of your own family. 

 "What! you would be the lawgivers of the nations; you 

 Avould teach France first, then tlie West, by what flying 

 leaps the summits of progress and civilization are to be 

 reached! Begin then, lawgivers of the people, by ob- 

 serving the laws of the fiimily, the laws which make 

 husbands virtuous and fathers respected and obeyed. 

 Livy and Seneca speak of the father of the family as a 

 magistrate in his own howsQ—mar/isfya/us denncsticus. 

 Ye household magistrates, check your own passions, 

 control your own homes, and you shall then be worthy 

 of being magistrates of the empire and the common- 

 wealth. 



