(b) Prostitution is an unceasing source of the venereal diseases, the character of these in any district being intimately associated with the characteristics of prostitution in that district. The principal seats of prostitution are the true foci of the venereal diseases.
(c) The matter of women’s wages has already been discussed.[7]
(d) Prostitution leads to the corruption of children’s morals and drags them into vicious courses. Prostitutes usually live in those quarters of the town, in those streets, in those houses, in which the population belongs mainly to the proletariat. It is utterly improper that prostitutes should live in the same house with persons who have young children. Indeed, the question arises whether prostitutes should not be absolutely forbidden to live in any house in which there are persons under age.
(e) No official statistics exist to show how many children are born to prostitutes. According to certain private statistical data, collected in large towns, two children are born each year to every hundred prostitutes. Many regard it as inexplicable that prostitutes, who have sexual intercourse so often, should so rarely become pregnant. But it is precisely on account of over-use that the female reproductive organs, in these cases, lose their functional reproductive power. Where everyone walks, the grass never grows. Moreover, there is no necessary association between coitus and conception. In most cases, alike in the prostitute and in the man who has intercourse with her, the idea and the desire of procreation are non-existent. Many make excuses for prostitution on the ground that, since prostitutes seldom have children, we have here a counterpoise to illegitimate births. But it is statistically proved that where prostitution is general—as, for example, in great towns—illegitimate births are commoner than in the country, where prostitution is practically unknown. We need not stop to consider here whether the wider diffusion of prostitution would be more desirable than the occurrence of a greater number of illegitimate births. It is obviously necessary that the children of prostitutes should be removed from the care of their mother and brought up elsewhere.
Those who regard every prostitute as a degenerate being will reject a priori any attempt to rescue them. It is a fact of experience that attempts to reform prostitutes are rarely very successful. Experience shows also that the reformatory education of boys is more effectual than the reformatory education of girls, and that such an education gives better results in the case of girls who are merely neglected than of those who are morally fallen. But this difference is not due to the fact that prostitutes are congenitally degenerate, but simply to the fact that they have become degenerate owing to the conditions of their life. For in women a life of prostitution develops all those qualities—laziness, love of adornment, hypertension of the sexual impulse, &c.—which make it impossible for people to earn their bread by regular work. As soon as the girl is subjected to the supervision of the police des mœurs, she is for ever lost. The supervision breaks down completely her power of resistance, exposes her to contempt, and permanently excludes her from what is called respectable society. For these reasons, girls under age should on no account be subjected to the supervision of the police des mœurs. Precisely because it is almost impossible to induce a prostitute to adopt any other mode of life, we must, in our campaign against prostitution, devote ourselves above all to those prophylactic measures by which girls may be withheld from the first steps which will lead ultimately to the marketing of their bodies.
[CHAPTER IV]
PUNISHABLE OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN
The Two Groups.—Previously we have spoken of punishable offences committed by children; we pass now to consider those committed against children. These latter may be classified in two sub-groups. To the former group belong the punishable offences in which the primary aim is to injure or destroy a child. To the latter group belong offences against children in which the injury to the child is incidental. The precise line of demarcation between these two groups differs in the legal systems of different countries. The most important offences in the former group are: infanticide, the exposing of children, abortion (these three crimes occur chiefly in connection with the birth of illegitimate children), criminal offences against the chastity of women (for example, rape, seduction, procurement). It is only with regard to offences in this first group that statistical data are available. In association with the development of capitalism, there has been a great increase in their number. But, according to official statistics, there is not one of the offences above specified which occurs to the extent of 1 per cent. of all criminal offences; most of those named are considerably less than 1 per cent. In the case of the other criminal offences, only private statistical data are available.