The Ideal State 291 



the van of civilisation. Miss Jane Addams has brought 

 out a remarkable book on this subject, and she calls it 

 " A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil." She shows 

 forth the awfulness of this traffic ; the deceit used 

 to trap young girls into it, who, ignorant in many 

 instances of the most elementary matters of sex, 

 become an easy prey ; the insignificant salary which 

 young women receive in many establishments forcing 

 them to seek other means to augment their income so 

 as to have any security of lodging or any ordinary 

 comfort in life ; and the impetus given to the traffic 

 by alcohol. As General Bingham, formerly Police 

 Commissioner of New York, says : " There is not 

 sufficient depravity in human nature to keep alive this 

 very large business. The immorality of women and the 

 brutishness of men have to be persuaded, coaxed, and 

 stimulated in order to keep the social evil in its present 

 state of business prosperity." This would show that, 

 without the evil stimulus of alcohol, chastity and self- 

 control possess men and women much more than is 

 at present understood. The desire for purity is of the 

 essence of the soul, and when this is nourished by the 

 love and self-sacrifice of Christian ethics it becomes a 

 potent force in the direction of abatement of this ever- 

 present evil. 



The Vice Commission appointed by the Mayor and 

 City Council of Chicago reports that " prostitution in 

 the city is a commercial business, controlled largely by 

 men, and producing a profit of more than three millions 

 sterling a year." The number of women engaged in 

 it is approximately five thousand. As A. J. Allen 

 says in a recent number of the " Church Quarterly 

 Review " : " The annual revenue of three millions a 

 year profit made by men from the moral and physical 

 damnation of five thousand women is probably one 

 of the very blackest spots on the escutcheon of any city, 



