270 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



APPENDIX K 



" Among the papers referred to this Commission by Your 

 Majesty's Government, and which we print in the Appendix, is a 

 memorial to the Secretary of State, ' Adopted at a conference of 

 delegates from associations and committees formed in various 

 towns for promoting the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act,' and 

 signed F. W. Newman, chairman. We do not propose to criticise 

 this paper at length, nor should we have thought it fair to notice 

 it at all, as representing the views of the opponents of the Acts, 

 had it come before us under less respectable credentials. The 

 memorial reads more like a vindication of the Rights of Prostitu- 

 tion, than a grave argument against the Acts on moral and politi- 

 cal grounds. Prostitutes, it is urged, ' value their personal liberty 

 as highly as other women do,' and to shut up a diseased street- 

 walker in a hospital until she is cured, would be ' to change the 

 whole structure and arrangement of her life ; the relations which 

 she had formed would be abruptly ended ; milliners, dressmakers, 

 sempstresses, domestic servants, etc., who eke out a pre- 

 carious existence, or provide themselves with coveted luxuries in 

 the form of dress, etc., by recourse to occasional prostitution, 

 would at once lose their business connections, or if in situations, 

 would be discharged.' One of the best apologies for these Acts, 

 if they need apology, consists in the fact that they deter the class 

 of women referred to in the above-quoted paragraph from resort- 

 ing to prostitution to ' provide themselves with coveted luxuries,' 

 or even 'to eke out a precarious existence.' The rest of this 

 paper consists mostly of frivolous objections to the machinery 

 of the Acts." — (" Report, Royal Commission Contagious Diseases, 

 187 1," paragraph 44). 



