Let me, in conclusion, heartily bid God-speed to the noble efforts of your rescue societies, and to all those engaged in reinstating our fallen womanhood. I hail with deep satisfaction the meeting of this Conference. It is a brave and sincere action on the part of Christian women to meet together and hold serious counsel upon the wisest methods of overcoming the deep practical heathenism of our society—the heathenism of tolerating and protecting mercenary promiscuous sexual intercourse.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The power of being able to offer fair remunerative occupation is becoming more and more evidently a necessary condition of rescue work. The pitiful response, ‘It is my bread,’ is now often addressed to those many noble-hearted young men who, instead of yielding to, remonstrate with, the street-walkers.
[13] I cannot now enter upon a subject most difficult and important, a most prolific source of prostitution—viz., a standing army. I will only state to you for a special reason that my observations on the Continent of Europe have convinced me that the prevalence there of the system of universal military conscription—i.e., the compulsory enrolment of the entire male youth of the nation in the military service of a great standing army, where purity of life is not encouraged—is the greatest barrier that can exist to the gradual humanizing of sexual life. Let us, therefore, most gratefully recognise that in our own country we have not the gigantic evil of military conscription to overthrow, and let us ever hold in honour the memory of our ancestors, who have preserved us from that measureless curse.
PURCHASE OF WOMEN:
THE GREAT ECONOMIC BLUNDER
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| [Preface] | [135] |
| [CHAPTER I] | |
| The Foundations of Trade | [142] |
| [CHAPTER II] | |
| Trade in Women | [155] |
PREFACE
The object of this work is to show the real meaning of those relations of the sexes, which are commonly known under the term of ‘ordinary immorality.’
Customs in the midst of which we are brought up often befog the vision. Nations, like individuals, may journey on unsuspicious of danger, if no fresh wind lift the veil which hides the fatal precipice towards which they are rapidly moving.