The “Louisiana Review” said of it:
“A more revolting proposition than this has never come under our notice, and we are amazed that the health committee failed to detect its character, however artfully it may have been screened by the pretext that it was intended to lessen the harm of the social evil.”
The “New Delta,” in its issue of August 31, said: “The queer and ill-favored monopoly which the ordinance for the regulation of houses of bad repute sought to establish has not been successful on the first effort. It goes back to a committee. Let us hope that it will remain buried there forever, and decent people be saved the infliction of a public discussion of the miserable scheme. Such systems of ‘regulation’ would disgrace the devil, and the proposition for the city to share in the plunder of these poor wretches would shame a Piute village.”
The Woman’s Journal, September 19, said:
“It is well that this measure has failed on the first attempt; but to refer a matter to a committee is not necessarily to kill it, and its fate in the committee should be closely watched. The laws establishing the state regulation of vice in England were smuggled through Parliament about 1 o’clock in the morning, when half the members were absent or asleep; but it took seventeen years of painful and distasteful agitation to repeal them. Prevention of bad legislation is better than cure.”
This attempt was finally defeated through the energetic opposition and work of Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon.
[73] The reporter, while the committee was still in session, went to a procuress and ordered a pretty girl, 14 years of age, certified by a physician to be good, to be delivered to his order as “agent for gentlemen of 60.” The madame accepted the order, and in a short time produced the girl certified. The reporter investigated the child’s history, and ascertained that her father was dead and her mother was a poor working woman. The girl was dressed in an old black frock. Having completed the purchase of the girl, the reporter hastened to arrange for her delivery anywhere and to any person designated by the committee.
[74] A committee composed of Cardinal Manning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London and two laymen, examined the evidence respecting criminal vice in London, becoming satisfied that the statements made by the “Pall Mall Gazette” were substantially true.
[75] The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon preached a powerful sermon upon the patrician iniquity of London, comparing it to the worst sins of ancient nations, one sure, sooner or later, to bring destruction upon both individual and nation.
[76] When you see a girl on the street you can never say without inquiry whether she is one of the most-to-be-condemned or the most-to-be-pitied of her sex. Many of them find themselves where they are because of a too trusting disposition; others are as much the innocent victims of crime as if they had been stabbed or maimed by the dagger of the assassin.... These women constituted a large standing army, whose numbers no one can calculate. Gen. Booth.—Darkest England, 51-56.