The “White Scourge” Problem.
The “white slave traffic” is as much a scourge as tuberculosis. This appalling problem is sapping the vitality of the nation, and every means of giving publicity to this menace, which, unfortunately, is not on the wane, should be used. We have the best possible publicity agent in the film. Such a film could be prepared and exhibited to initiate the ignorant, and to show those who practise in it that something is being done openly to expose this illicit traffic.
One reads in the newspapers almost daily of wrecked lives, fathers who have shot their daughters and then themselves, because she has trodden the downward path; and of others who have made away with themselves because they are beyond reclamation.
This subject is talked about, and often whispered, as if it were a plague and they were afraid of becoming infected with it.
It is a plague, and requires to be stamped out, like the Plague of London.
The daily life of the unfortunate daughter of the streets and her means of livelihood could not be portrayed more eloquently. The efforts of the reclaimer of lost souls would be strengthened. Mothers would give silent prayers for the imparting of such information to their daughters, which, although their duty, it is often shunned, to the detriment of her offspring.
In a clean, inoffensive and simple way it could be shown how unfortunate girls, attracted by finery and dress, are sometimes directly led into these channels.
If the book entitled “The Rise and Fall of Susan Lennox” could be suitably filmed, then much would have been accomplished in this direction.
Mrs. Caudle’s “Curtain Lectures” would not be needed at home. The impression upon the young mind would be indelible. The voiceless foster-mother would repeat the lesson to thousands of young people.
The allied question “venereal disease” has already appeared upon the screen and thousands have already benefited by it. The Manchester Corporation has taken steps to give publicity by means of the film, and if the idea is generally approved and encouraged, much will be done to educate citizens of the dangers of this malignant disease. Let us hope that greater efforts will be made to bring these evils home.