hteous air, and becomes 'I don't
want to know anything about the diseases which are the just
punishment of wretches who should not be mentioned in my presence
or in any book that is intended for family reading.' Wicked and
foolish as the spirit of this attitude is, the practice of it is so
easy and lazy and uppish that it is very common, but its cry is
drowned by a louder and more sincere one. We who do not want to
know, also do not want to go blind, to go mad, to be disfigured, to
be barren, to become pestiferous, or to see such things happening
to our children. We learn, at last, that the majority of the
victims are not the people of whom we so glibly say, 'Serve them
right,' but quite innocent children and innocent parents, smitten
by a contagion which, no matter in what vice it may or may not have
originated, contaminates the innocent and the guilty alike, once it
is launched, exactly as any other contagious disease does; that
indeed it often hits the innocent and misses the guilty, because
the guilty know the danger and take elaborate precautions against
it, whilst the innocent, who have been either carefully kept from
any knowledge of their danger, or erroneously led to believe that
contagion is possible through misconduct only, run into danger
blindfold. Once knock this fact into people's minds, and their
self-righteous indifference and intolerance soon change into lively
concern for themselves and their families."

The facts seem so plain, and yet there is still great opposition to the
promotion of a knowledge of sexual cleanliness and self-disinfection. Only
a short time ago (the end of 1920), Sir Frederick Mott, the great
authority on syphilis, felt obliged to oppose some opponents of
self-disinfection at a public enquiry in London in this fashion:--

"The point is that large numbers of innocent women have suffered
from disease. They are rendered sterile, have miscarriages and
abortions, and large numbers have been ruined. I have been
connected with the London County Asylums for twenty-five years, and
I have seen in those asylums people from all states of society, and
I have seen them die of general paralysis. Five per cent. of the
people who get syphilis, in spite of treatment, develop this
disease. That is only one aspect of it. I was on the Royal
Commiss