conditions for working people, so that they
will not be 'driven to drink' and what follows it to forget their
troubles. Better factories and kinder treatment to the great number of
workmen, with fairer wage scale would bring nearer the possibility of
marriage--which takes not one, but two people out of the danger of the
gutter. Minimum wage scales and protection of working women would make
the condition of their lives better, so that they would not be forced
into the streets and brothels to make their livings.

"Why, Burke, a magistrate who sits in Night Court has told me that
medical investigation of the street-walkers he has sentenced revealed
the fact that nine of every ten were diseased. When the men who
foolishly think they are good 'sports' by debauching with these women
learn that they are throwing away the health of their wives and
children to come, as well as risking the contagion of diseases which
can only be bottled up by medical treatment but never completely cured;
when it gets down to the question of men buying and selling these poor
women as they undoubtedly do, the only way to check that is for every
decent man in the country to help in the fight. It is a man evil; men
must slay it. Every procurer in the country should be sent to prison,
and every house of ill fame should be closed."

"Don't you think the traffic would go on just the same, doctor? I have
heard it said that in European cities the authorities confined such
women to certain parts of the city. Then they are subjected to medical
examination as well."

"No, Burke, segregation will not cure it. Many of the cities abroad
have given that up. The medical examinations are no true test, for
they are only partially carried out--not all the women will admit their
sinful ways of life, nor submit to control by the government. The
system prevails in Paris and in Germany, and there is more disease
there than in any other part of Europe. Men, depending upon the
imaginary security of a doctor's examination card, abandon themselves
the more readily, and caution is thrown to the winds, with the result
that a woman who has been O.K.'d by a government physician one day may
contract a disease and spread it the very next day. You can depend
upon it that if she has done so she will evade the examination next
time in order not to interfere with her trade profits. So, there you
are. This is an ugly theme, but we must treat it scientifically.

"You