292 The Ideal State 



almost enough to justify the laconic description given 

 by a visitor to the Great Lake City : ' Chicago is hell.' " 

 This description would, sad it is to tell, apply to many 

 great cities of the world — with certain modifications. 

 Now this terrible state of matters is the result of one 

 cause only — the lust for gold. Men find in it an easy 

 livelihood, or even affluence; and when stranded through 

 the committal of some offence which bars the way to 

 future employment they take up this awful traffic as a 

 ready means of subsistence, and associate with it the 

 gambling den and the drinking saloon. But men are 

 not alone to be condemned : it is only recently that 

 men have taken up this foul business : women were at 

 one time the sole, as they are now partially the pro- 

 curers of our white slaves, 1 whom Lecky calls " the 

 most mournful and awful figure in history, who remains 

 while creeds and civilisations rise and fall, the eternal 

 sacrifice of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people." 

 Miss Addams argues that this evil will only be 

 remedied by the extension of the franchise to women. 

 This is unfair and unjust. In England it was W. T. Stead 

 who took up the cause and sacrificed himself, suffer- 

 ing no end of obloquy and slander, but who by his 

 action secured the passing of the Criminal Law Amend- 

 ment Bill. It is doubtful if women would be joining in 

 the cry now but for the valiant efforts of Stead, that 

 noble man who moulded his life upon that of his 

 Master, and did more for the reign of righteousness and 

 self-denial than any other of his generation. An Act of 

 greater power has recently become law, and will do 

 much to control and ultimately smash the traffic. The 

 altruism of Christianity moulding the thoughts and 

 lives of men will cure this malady of the body politic 

 — not the extension of the suffrage to women. This 



1 Just recently an aunt got five years' penal servitude for trying 

 to " procure " her own niece in London, 



