[199] In another respect the French code carries private rights to an excess by forbidding the unmarried mother to make any claim on the father of her child. In most countries such a prohibition is regarded as unreasonable and unjust. There is even a tendency (as by a recent Dutch law) to compel the father to provide for his illegitimate child not on the scale of the mother's social position but on the scale of his own social position. This is, possibly, an undue assertion of the superiority of man.
[200] The same point has lately been illustrated in Holland, where a recent modification in the law is held to press harshly on homosexual persons. At once a vigorous propaganda on behalf of the homosexual has sprung into existence. We see here the difference between moral enactments and criminal enactments. Supposing that a change in the law had placed, for instance, increased difficulties in the way of burglary. We should not witness any outburst of literary activity on behalf of burglars, because the community, as a whole, is thoroughly convinced that burglary ought to be penalized.
[201] Apart from the attitude towards immorality, we have an illustration of the peculiarly English tendency to unite religious fervour with individualism in Quakerism. In no other European country has any similar movement—that is, a popular movement of individualistic mysticism—ever appeared on the same scale.
[202] E.F. Fuld, Ph.D., Police Administration, 1909.
[203] Ex-Police Commissioner Bingham, of New York, estimated (Hampton's Magazine, September, 1909) that "fifteen per cent. or from 1500 to 2000 members of the police force are unscrupulous 'grafters' whose hands are always out for easy money." See also Report of the Committee of Fourteen on The Social Evil in New York City, p. 34.
[204] Fuld, op. cit., pp. 373 et seq. This last opinion by no means stands alone. Thus it is asserted by the Committee of Fourteen in their Report on The Social Evil in New York City (1910, p. xxxiv) that "some laws exist to-day because an unintelligent, cowardly public puts unenforceable statutes on the book, being content with registering their hypocrisy."
[205] It is also a blundering policy. Its blind anathema is as likely as not to fall on its own allies. Thus the Report of the municipally appointed and municipally financed Vice Commission of Chicago is not only an official but a highly moral document, advocating increased suppression of immoral literature, and erring, if it errs, on the side of over-severity. It has been suppressed by the United States Post Office!
[206] This system applies only to spirits, not to beer and wine, but it has proved very effective in diminishing drunkenness, as is admitted by those who are opposed to the system. A somewhat similar system exists in England under the name of the Trust system, but its extension appears unfortunately to be much impeded by English laws and customs.
[207] Jacques Bertillon, in a paper read to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 30th September, 1911.
[208] During the present century a great wave of immorality and sexual crime has been passing over Russia. This is not attributable to the laws, old or new, but is due in part to the Russo-Japanese War, and in part to the relaxed tension consequent on the collapse of the movement for political reform. (See an article by Professor Asnurof, "La Crise Sexuelle en Russie," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, April, 1911.)