THE GREAT PROCREATION FETISH 185 



seriously impaired. The Acts, known as the 

 Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, were passed. 

 Prostitutes, who beyond the rest of the community 

 were exposed to, and were liable to, spread in- 

 fection, were placed under sanitary inspection — 

 just as passengers from a plague-stricken ship, or 

 the inhabitants of a house in which diphtheria 

 has appeared, are placed under inspection. The 

 preventive measures, limited as they were to a 

 few garrison towns, were lamentably inefificient. 

 It was as though rabid dogs had been isolated in 

 Portsmouth and Devonport, but allowed to roam 

 at large in the rest of the country. Under the 

 conditions it was impossible to stamp out the 

 diseases in the garrisons, nevertheless some good 

 was done ; the health of the services improved.' 

 Thereupon the great procreation fetish was in- 

 voked. Fanatical and hysterical men and women 

 perambulated the country uttering misleading 

 phrases, mere claptrap,^ about the " State Regula- 

 tion of Vice," by which they meant the State 

 Prevention of Disease ; about the " State Recogni- 



^ Appendix J. 



^ " Public meetings were held in most of the subjected districts, 

 and in several large towns, at many of which meetings inflammatory 

 statements were made as to the character and operation of the new 

 law. Most of these statements, so far as they had any foundation 

 whatever, were perversions of the truth ; but they had effect." — 

 "Report of Royal Commission (1871) upon the Administration and 

 Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts," p. 5. 



