Personal reminiscences of a great crusade

By Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler

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Title: Personal reminiscences of a great crusade

Author: Josephine Elizabeth Grey Butler


        
Release date: May 3, 2026 [eBook #78588]

Language: English

Original publication: London: H. Marshall & Son, 1910

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF A GREAT CRUSADE ***




               Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade


                         By JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER

                             _NEW EDITION_

                       DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
                          SIR JAMES STANSFELD


                                 LONDON
                         HORACE MARSHALL & SON
                                  1910


                            BUTLER & TANNER
                       THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS
                            FROME AND LONDON




                              Introduction


Our long years of labour and conflict on behalf of this just cause,
ought not to be forgotten. A knowledge of, and a reverence for, the
principles for which we have striven ought to be kept alive, for these
principles are very far from being yet so clearly recognised as that our
children and our children’s children may not be called upon to rise
again and again in their defence.


SECOND EDITION, 1898.


The system that Mrs. Butler and her coadjutors so successfully combated
in England, still exists in various parts of the British Empire and of
the Continent of Europe, and in Japan and South America. Enactments
similar in principle also threaten from time to time this country and
the United States of America.


NEW EDITION, 1910.




                      Prefatory Biographical Note


A very charming _Autobiographical Memoir_ of Mrs. Butler has been edited
by George W. and Lucy A. Johnson, and may be obtained for 6_s._ through
any bookseller, or from the publishers, Arrowsmiths of Bristol, or
Simpkin Marshall of London. This memoir consists mainly of extracts from
Mrs. Butler’s published works. We are indebted to it for the following
facts:—


In an introduction to the Memoir in question, the Rt. Hon. James Stuart,
her warm personal friend, and fellow-worker for many years, thus
describes her personality: “She was at home in every class of society.
She was very beautiful, and of a very gracious presence, and the
impression made by first seeing her and hearing her voice has, I expect,
been forgotten by none who ever met her. She was of a very artistic
temperament. She was a good painter, an extremely good musician. She was
a bold rider, and active, though always of a somewhat weak health. Her
industry and application were unbounded. She was very full of humour,
and, while deeply in earnest, had the faculty of being at times
charmingly gay. She dressed with great taste and simplicity. She, above
all things, loved her home and her husband, and that love was wholly
returned. She was extremely cosmopolitan. At the same time she was a
great lover of her own country, and particularly of the borderland
between England and Scotland, where she was born, and where she now lies
buried in the churchyard of Kirknewton, where many of her ancestors lie.
For she came of an old Border family; and bravery, and the alertness of
battle, and the power of self-sacrifice, and the indignation against
wrong which characterized her, came to her, perhaps, partly through her
descent. She was a great reader of the Bible, and a humble suppliant
before the throne of God. But, while her own beliefs were clear and
definite, she had no narrowness in her views, and the very names of
those who have been her foremost supporters show how wide her sympathies
were, and how acceptable she was to people of all creeds, as well as of
all politics and all climes.”


Josephine Elizabeth Grey was born at Milfield Hill, in the county of
Northumberland, on April 13, 1828. She was the fourth daughter of John
Grey, and of his wife Hannah Annett. John Grey’s ancestors were wardens
of the East Marches, and Governors of Norham, Morpeth, Wark, and Berwick
Castles in the old Border days, from whom are also descended the
Tankervilles and the Greys in the House of Lords.

John Grey was appointed to the charge of the great Greenwich Hospital
Estates in Northumberland in 1833, and as a pioneer in the scientific
improvement of waste lands, turned it into a very valuable property.
Mrs. Butler says of this period, “Our home at Dilston was a very
beautiful one. Its romantic historical associations, the wild informal
beauty all round its doors, the bright, large family circle, and the
kind and hospitable character of its master and mistress, made it an
attractive place to many friends and guests. Among our pleasantest
visitors there were Swedes, Russians, and French, who came to England on
missions of agricultural or other enquiry, and who sometimes spent weeks
with us. It was a house the door of which stood wide open, as if to
welcome all comers, through the livelong summer day. It was a place
where one could glide out of a lower window and be hidden in a moment,
plunging straight amongst wild wood paths and beds of fern, or find
one’s self quickly in some cool concealment, beneath slender birch
trees, or by the dry bed of a mountain stream. It was a place where the
sweet hushing sound of waterfalls, and clear streams murmuring over
shallows, were heard all day and night, though winter storms turned
those sweet sounds into an angry roar.”

John Grey was a man of wide and deep sympathies, and besides being a
great influence for good in his own immediate neighbourhood, was a
personal friend and fellow-worker of Clarkson in the Abolition of the
Slave Trade. His daughter speaks of “his large benevolence, his tender
compassionateness, and his respect for the lights and liberties of the
individual man. His life,” she says, “was a sustained effort for the
good of others, flowing from these affections. He had no grudge against
rank or wealth, no restless desire for change for its own sake, still
less any rude love of demolition; but he could not endure to see
oppression or wrong of any kind inflicted on man, woman, or child. ‘You
cannot treat men and women exactly as you do one-pound notes, to be used
or rejected as you think proper,’ he said in a letter to _The Times_,
when that paper was advocating some ill-considered changes, beneficial
to one class, but leaving out of account a residue of humble folk upon
whom they would entail great suffering. In the cause of any maltreated
or neglected creature he was uncompromising to the last, and when
brought into opposition with the perpetrators of any social injustice he
became an enemy to be feared.”

Mrs. Butler’s mother was also a fine character, and warmly seconded the
efforts of her husband for the general good. She was descended from a
Huguenot family.

As Mrs. Butler grew into young womanhood the sad and tragical recitals
which came to the family from first sources of the wrongs inflicted by
slavery on negro men and women “broke,” she says, “her young heart,” and
keenly awakened her feelings, especially “concerning the injustice to
women through this conspiracy of greed and gold, and lust of the flesh,
a conspiracy which has its counterpart in the white slave-owning in
Europe.”

“For one long year of darkness,” she says, “the trouble of heart and
brain urged me to lay all this at the door of the God, whose name I had
learned was Love. I dreaded Him, I fled from Him, until grace was given
me to arise and wrestle, as Jacob did, with the mysterious Presence, who
must either slay or pronounce deliverance. And then the great
questioning again went up from earth to heaven, ‘God! Who art Thou?
Where art Thou? Why is it thus with the creatures of Thy hand?’ I fought
the battle alone, in deep recesses of the beautiful woods and pine
forests around our home, or on some lonely hill-side, among wild thyme
and heather, a silent temple where the only sounds were the plaintive
cry of the curlew, or the hum of a summer bee, or the distant bleating
of sheep. For hours and days and weeks in these retreats I sought the
answer to my soul’s trouble and the solution of its dark questionings.
Looking back, it seems to me the end must have been defeat and death had
not the Saviour imparted to the child-wrestler something of the virtue
of His own midnight agony, when in Gethsemane His sweat fell like great
drops of blood to the ground.”

The next stage in the preparation of Mrs. Butler for her great
world-wide work was her marriage in 1852 to a man of singularly noble
character, George Butler, son of the Dean of Peterborough. It was in
this year that the portrait was taken which appears on the cover of this
work. The first five years of their married life were spent at Oxford,
where Mr. Butler did important work in the University, as tutor,
examiner and lecturer. Here they met many leading people, and Mrs.
Butler says, “In the frequent social gatherings in our drawing-room in
the evenings there was much talk, sometimes serious and weighty,
sometimes light, interesting, critical, witty, and brilliant, ranging
over many subjects. It was then that I sat silent, the only woman in the
company, and listened, sometimes with a sore heart, for these men would
speak of things which I had already revolved deeply in my own mind,
things of which I was convinced, which I knew, though I had no
dialectics at command with which to defend their truth.

“Every instinct of womanhood within me was already in revolt against
certain accepted theories in society, and I suffered as only God and the
faithful companion of my life could ever know. Incidents occurred which
brought their contribution to the lessons then sinking into our hearts.
A young mother was in Newgate for the murder of her infant, whose
father, under cover of the deathlike silence prescribed by Oxford
philosophers, a silence which is in fact a permanent endorsement of
injustice, had perjured himself to her, had forsaken and forgotten her,
and fallen back, with no accusing conscience, on his easy social life,
and possibly his academic honours. I wished to go and speak to her in
the prison of the God who saw the injustice done, and who cared for her.
My husband suggested that we should write to the chaplain of Newgate,
and ask him to send her to us when her sentence had expired. We wanted a
servant, and he thought that she might be able to fill that place. She
came to us. I think she was the first of the world of unhappy women of a
humble class whom he welcomed to his own home. She was not the last.”

In 1857 Mr. Butler accepted the post of Vice-Principal of Cheltenham
College. Here Mrs. Butler met with a terrible trial in the sudden death
by accident, of her only little daughter Evangeline, in the year 1864.
This was followed by a long period of darkness and intense depression of
spirits, which was only dispelled by visiting amongst the four thousand
poor women in the jails and workhouses of Liverpool, where she sat
amongst them and picked oakum, until she gained their confidence. Her
husband had previously taken the Principalship of Liverpool College,
following the celebrated Dr. Howson, who vacated it to take the position
of Dean of Chester. The result of her work here was, she says, “to draw
down upon my head an avalanche of miserable, but grateful womanhood.”
She first of all filled the basement and attics of her house with “as
many as possible of the most friendless girls who were anxious to make a
fresh start.” This becoming inconvenient, a “House of Rest” was started,
which continued for many years, and was finally taken over by the town
as a municipal institution.

1864 was the date of the commencement of the last stage of the
preparation of Mrs. Butler for her great life-work of attacking and
undermining the world-wide evil of State regulated vice. 1864 was
likewise the date of the introduction of State regulated vice into
England, which was the last of the countries of Europe to adopt it, as
it was also the first, in 1886, to abolish it. Mrs. Butler’s part in the
great Abolitionist Struggle is detailed in the following pages in her
own words.

Mrs. Butler lived the last few years of her life at Wooler, near
Milfield, the place of her birth. There she died peacefully in her
sleep, on December 30, 1906, and was buried in the churchyard at
Kirknewton, where many of her ancestors had been buried.

The editors of her biography conclude, “Surely we may say of her, but
very slightly altering the words of Bunyan: As she drew nigh unto the
beautiful gate of the City, she asked, ‘What must I do in the Holy
Place?’ and the shining ones answered, ‘Thou must there receive the
comfort of all thy toil, and have joy for all thy sorrow; thou must reap
what thou hast sown, even the fruit of all thy prayers and tears, and
suffering for the King by the way. There also thou shalt serve Him
continually, whom thou desiredst to serve in the world, though with much
difficulty because of the infirmity of thy flesh. There thine eyes shall
be delighted with seeing, and thine ears with hearing, the pleasant
voice of the Mighty One. There thou shalt enjoy thy friends again, that
are gone thither before thee; and there thou shalt with joy receive even
every one that follows into the Holy Place after thee.’ As she entered
in at the gate, then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the City
rang again for joy, and that it was said unto her, ‘Enter thou into the
joy of thy Lord.’”




                               CHAPTER I
            ORIGIN OF THE SYSTEM OF STATE REGULATION OF VICE

               “Our fathers to their graves have gone,
               Their strife is past—their triumph won;
               But sterner trials wait the race
               Which rises in their honoured place—
               A moral warfare with the crime
               And folly of an evil time.”

               “So let it be. In God’s own might
               We gird us for the coming fight,
               And, strong in Him whose cause is ours,
               In conflict with unholy powers,
               We grasp the weapons He has given—
               The light, and truth, and love of Heaven.”


The late Professor Emile de Laveleye, at our International Conference at
the Hague, in September, 1883, gave some account of the inauguration of
this system, which took its rise in France under the auspices of
Napoleon I. The system was first suggested by Aulas in 1762, and by
Restif de la Bretonne in 1790. It was brought into full operation on the
eve of the establishment of the French Empire in 1802. “It could only
have had its birth,” said Professor de Laveleye, “at a period of
disturbance, when the rights of human dignity and individual liberty
were forgotten or misunderstood. History, in recounting the saturnalia
of vice in Asia Minor, in Greece, and especially in Imperial Rome,
narrates horrors which cause us to shudder. But never, either in Rome,
or in Athens, or even in Corinth, was the spectacle witnessed of public
abodes of shame kept open by the State. Juvenal paints Messalina gliding
thither under cover of night. But even Heliogabalus never constituted
himself their patron as nowadays do the Municipal and State authorities
of our Christian communities in the full sunshine of the 19th century.”

Then the same accomplished speaker, in a very forcible address, showed
what the legalising of vice has been and has produced in all those
nations which, following the example of France, have adopted it. “It has
been the source of profound disorders, both moral and physical: of moral
disorders, by destroying the aversion which vice should inspire, and
thereby strengthening its power; of physical disorders, by exciting
incontinence, and all its concurrent evils, with proffered facilities
and promises of immunity.”

I shall have occasion later to draw attention to the different dates and
methods in which this system was introduced into the several countries
of Europe. England was the last country in which it found a foothold.
When, in 1872, I was summoned to give evidence before a Royal Commission
to inquire into this question, I stated on the authority of Mrs. Harriet
Martineau and other venerable writers and politicians, a fact which has
never been contradicted in any way, _i.e._, than an attempt was made
during the Melbourne Ministry to introduce this Parisian system into
England. It was deemed impossible, however, to place such an Act of
Parliament in the hands of a young virgin Queen for signature, and the
attempt was dropped. There was a renewed endeavour during the life of
the Prince Consort, but this was also abandoned, from the knowledge that
was obtained of the Prince’s distinct disapproval of this Continental
system. Prince Albert died, and it was during the first year of Queen
Victoria’s widowhood, when she was presumably absorbed in her private
grief, that the promoters of this system in England succeeded in pushing
an Act through Parliament, and obtaining for it the Royal signature.

There were four Acts; the first, tentative, in 1864. This was repealed
when the Act of 1866 was passed, and this, after verbal amendment in
1868, was still further extended by the Act of 1869. This last Act was
not allowed much peace, for it was in the autumn of the same year that
the opposition arose; in fact, a powerful protest had been raised
shortly before the passing of this complete Act. Mrs. Harriet Martineau,
with all the shrewdness and enlightenment of a true woman and an able
politician, had seen the tendency of a certain busy medical and military
clique in this direction. The then editor of the _Daily News_, who was
favourable to our views, asked Mrs. Martineau to write a series of
letters in his paper. This she did, and her letters are extremely
weighty, and wonderful to read at this day, when we have an immense
accumulation of evidence to support her and our views, which she, of
course, did not possess. Her advice on this matter concerning our army
is admirable. Speaking of our poor soldiers, she says:—“But while
favouring the element of brutality in him (the soldier), we had not need
go further and assume in practice that his animalism is a necessity
which must be provided for. This is the fatal step which it is now hoped
that the English Parliament and the English people may be induced to
take. If the soldier is more immoral than his contemporaries of the
working class, it must be because the standard of morality is lower in
the army than out of it. Shall we then raise it to what we clearly see
it might be, or degrade it further by a practical avowal that vice is in
the soldier’s case a necessity to be provided for, like his need of food
and clothing? This admission of the necessity of vice is the point on
which the whole argument turns, and on which irretrievable consequences
depend. Once admitted, the necessity of a long series of fearful evils
follows of course. There can be no resistance to seduction, procuration,
disease, regulation, _when once the original necessity is granted_.
Further, the admission involves civil as well as military society, and
starts them together on the road which leads down to what moralists of
all ages and nations have called the lowest hell.... It is a national
disgrace that our people should have even been asked to regard and treat
their soldiers and sailors as pre-destined fornicators.” And in another
of her letters to the _Daily News_ Mrs. Martineau, writing of her
experience of Continental cities, said: “There is evidence accessible to
all that the Regulation System creates horrors worse than those which it
is supposed to restrain. Vice once stimulated by such a system imagines
and dares all unutterable things. And such things perplex with misery
the lives of parents of missing children in Continental cities, and
daunt the courage of rulers, and madden the moral sense, and gnaw the
conscience of whole orders of sinners and sufferers, of whom we can form
no conception here. We shall have entered upon our national decline
whenever we agree to the introduction of such a system.”

We, the women of England, were not the first to arise in opposition to
this iniquity. For at least fifteen years before our call to the work,
warning lights had been held out from time to time by persons or
societies who thoroughly knew the system, and dreaded the disastrous
effects for our country of its establishment in our midst.

A group of Baptist and other Nonconformist Ministers, in which my
relative, the late Charles Birrell, took a leading part, early went to
the Government, conveying an earnest warning and protest on the subject.
I cannot fix the exact date of this event; but I have a vivid
recollection of the account of it given to me by Mr. Birrell. I believe
it was during the Administration of Lord John Russell.

In 1860 a Committee of the House of Lords sat to consider the question
of introducing the Acts for the regulation of vice into India, or
establishing a more complete form of Acts already existing there. The
majority of the witnesses examined by that Committee were wholly opposed
to the system. Miss Florence Nightingale was one of those witnesses. Her
recorded evidence and expression of opinion are lengthy, and exactly
what we might expect from a true-hearted and an experienced woman. Lord
Frederick FitzClarence, Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India, said
that “after giving the whole subject his best attention, he concurred
with his predecessors in command of the army in believing that police
measures of the kind in question could not be carried on without
involving the certain degradation and oppression of many innocent women,
and occasioning other evils which, in his opinion, would be very much
greater than that which it was their object to remedy.” Dr. Grierson (of
the Indian Army) said that when the natives of India saw the authorities
making such careful provision for the protection of immoral persons, and
at the same time doing little for the good of the other classes, they
were “sorely perplexed.” General Jacob said: “The proper and only wise
method of dealing with this question is to improve the condition and
moral well-being of the army. Coercion of any kind always increases the
evil. Moral forces alone are of any value.”

A third strong protest was that of the officers of the Rescue Society in
London. They made a series of very strong efforts against the threatened
introduction of the regulation system.

The late Mr. Daniel Cooper, the well-known and respected Secretary of
the Rescue Society, wrote to me in 1870: “You ask me to tell you what
the Rescue Society did to bring this infamous legislation under public
notice. In 1868 we published a pamphlet and waited on the Home
Secretary. With the pamphlet we presented a copy of a ‘Memorandum of
Objections’ to this legislation. This Memorandum was circulated by
thousands. We placed it in the hands of every member of both Houses of
Parliament; we forwarded it to all the principal clergy of the
Metropolis and other important towns in England, and also to the leading
Nonconformist ministers. We spent more than £100 in the circulation of
our papers, and with what result? I am ashamed to say that very little
effect was produced. The utmost apathy prevailed; people would not
believe our words and would not stir. The infamous Act of 1869 was
passed in spite of all our efforts.

“At this crisis we learned that the _Women_ of England were taking this
question in hand. We were rejoiced beyond measure when we saw the
announcement of your Ladies’ National Association.

“I tell you candidly I had felt an almost utter despair in seeing that,
after putting forth our pamphlet, and writing thousands of letters,
imploring our legislators, clergy, principal public men and
philanthropists to look into the question, such a stoical indifference
remained. We felt, on hearing of your Association, that Providence had
well chosen the means for the defeat of these wicked Acts. The ladies of
England will save the country from this fearful curse; for I fully
believe that through them it has even now had its death blow. The men
who charge the ladies foremost in the struggle with indelicacy are not
worthy the name of men. As to our Members of Parliament, pray do not
excuse their ignorance; do not try to palliate their error by saying the
Act was passed at the fag end of the session. The papers placed in their
hands by ourselves, the letters of warning we addressed to them, leave
them no excuse. Knowing, as none but ourselves can know, what was done
to arouse them, I cannot but conclude that, with a few honourable
exceptions, our Members of Parliament cared nothing about the matter
until public opinion forced them to look into it. But for the Ladies’
National Association we should have had no discussion, and the Acts
would by this date have probably been extended throughout the country. I
say this solemnly, and from an intimate knowledge of all the plans of
the Association formed to extend these Acts. Go on; give the country no
rest till this law is abolished.—Yours truly, DANIEL COOPER.”

The names of Dr. Charles Bell Taylor and Dr. Worth, of Nottingham, must
be gratefully remembered, for it was to those gentlemen that we, the
women of England, owed our first clear information of the nature and the
passing of the Act of 1869. I had been on the Continent with my family
in that year, and had been learning much there concerning the disastrous
effects of this system. On the journey home I found a telegram awaiting
me at Dover, begging an interview, and this was followed by a somewhat
mysterious appeal from these alert friends at Nottingham to “haste to
the rescue.” In a few days the whole state of the case was put before me
and a small group of friends. No organised action, however, was taken by
us until the close of December of that year. In fact, there was much
preparation of heart, nerve, and mind necessary for such a task as was
now opening out before us. It was not a thing to be taken up hastily.

Meanwhile, in September of this same year (1869), some other watchful
friends had taken occasion of the Social Science Congress meeting at
Bristol to introduce again a strong warning note, or rather now a
protest, against the legislation in question. The Rev. Dr. Hooppell, of
Northumberland, Mr. George Charleton, of the Society of Friends, and Mr.
Banks, afterwards for so many years the able and indefatigable secretary
of the National Association, proved themselves on this occasion already
well-armed and staunch advocates of the abolition movement, of which
they themselves were amongst the earliest initiators. They formed there
a local association, which was afterwards merged into the National
Association, which had its office in London.

I have already, in the “Recollections of George Butler,” recorded
sufficiently my own and my husband’s first call to this great work, the
inward preparation for which had been going on for many years
previously. I have spoken there of the horror, the dismay we felt on the
first full knowledge that this iniquity had been established by law in
England, of the weeks of self-questioning and hesitation which followed
for myself, of the tardy but firm resolution at last formed to imitate,
if I may use the simile, the example of Quintus Curtius of old Roman
fame, and to leap into this yawning gulf in order that the nation’s
wound might close again. But this Roman hero, I had read, met his fate
fully equipped, armed from head to foot, fearless, and in the perfection
of self-renunciation. I felt that, for such an enterprise, I should
require nothing less than “the whole armour of God.” I have recorded
also in that hook the noble and unselfish part which my husband took
from the beginning in this warfare; and to some extent I there also
indicated the sacrifices he made, and the anxieties he silently endured
for many years, after he had spoken to me that momentous word (to me a
consecration for the work), “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

This word was spoken after we had conferred fully together on the action
we should adopt, and after our conclusion that we must make an immediate
appeal to the great public.

Many persons, honestly judging the matter from the outside, have
mistakenly imagined that the persecution which had to be endured, the
ridicule by which we were constantly assailed in the Press, the social
ostracism, the coldness of many who had before been friends and
companions, the obloquy, false accusations, abuse and violence,
continued for years, must have been the greatest of the trials incident
to the part we were called to take in so dreadful an enterprise. So far
as my own experience bears witness, those who judge so are mistaken.
These things were for me light and easy to bear in comparison with the
deep and silent sorrow, the bitterness of soul of the years which
preceded. I recall those years of painful thinking, and of questionings
which seemed to receive no answer and to be susceptible of no solution;
those years in which I saw this great social iniquity (based on the
shameful inequality of judgment concerning sexual sin in man and woman)
devastating the world, contentedly acquiesced in, no great revolt
proclaimed against it, a dead silence reigning concerning it, a voice
feebly raised perhaps now and again, but quickly rebuked and silenced.
The call to action, the field of battle entered, with all its perils and
trials clearly set out before us, were a joyful relief, a place of free
breathing, compared with the oppression and the heart-woe which went
before.

Those alone who have trod the silent and secret “way of Calvary” will
fully understand me. Those who have not may well think the discipline of
being traduced, slandered, threatened, and “spitefully entreated” a very
hard discipline. But one who has endured the deeper and keener spiritual
discipline, when there seemed no escape, no ray of hope, must regard the
outward persecution and violence only as a welcome sign that the battle
is set in array, and that the enemy is roused to bitterest hatred
because his claims are disputed and his sovereignty is about to be
overthrown. The inward sorrow I believe to have been necessary for the
vitalising of righteous action, and the insuring of depth, reality and
constancy.

On the 1st January, 1870, was published the famous Women’s Protest, as
follows:

“We, the undersigned, enter our solemn protest against these Acts.

“1st.—Because, involving as they do such a momentous change in the legal
safeguards hitherto enjoyed by women in common with men, they have been
passed, not only without the knowledge of the country, but unknown, in a
great measure, to Parliament itself; and we hold that neither the
Representatives of the People, nor the Press, fulfil the duties which
are expected of them, when they allow such legislation to take place
without the fullest discussion.

“2nd.—Because, so far as women are concerned, they remove every
guarantee of personal security which the law has established and held
sacred, and put their reputation, their freedom, and their persons
absolutely in the power of the police.

“3rd.—Because the law is bound, in any country professing to give civil
liberty to its subjects, to define clearly an offence which it punishes.

“4th.—Because it is unjust to punish the sex who are the victims of a
vice, and leave unpunished the sex who are the main cause, both of the
vice and its dreaded consequences; and we consider that liability to
arrest, forced medical treatment, and (where this is resisted)
imprisonment with hard labour, to which these Acts subject women, are
punishments of the most degrading kind.

“5th.—Because, by such a system, the path of evil is made more easy to
our sons, and to the whole of the youth of England; inasmuch as a moral
restraint is withdrawn the moment the State recognises, and provides
convenience for, the practice of a vice which it thereby declares to be
necessary and venial.

“6th.—Because these measures are cruel to the women who come under their
action—violating the feelings of those whose sense of shame is not
wholly lost, and further brutalising even the most abandoned.

“7th.—Because the disease which these Acts seek to remove has never been
removed by any such legislation. The advocates of the system have
utterly failed to show, by statistics or otherwise, that these
regulations have in any case, after several years’ trial, and when
applied to one sex only, diminished disease, reclaimed the fallen, or
improved the general morality of the country. We have, on the contrary,
the strongest evidence to show that in Paris and other Continental
cities where women have long been outraged by this system, the public
health and morals are worse than at home.

“8th.—Because the conditions of this disease, in the first instance, are
moral, not physical. The moral evil through which the disease makes its
way separates the case entirely from that of the plague, or other
scourges, which have been placed under police control or sanitary care.
We hold that we are bound, before rushing into experiments of legalising
a revolting vice, to try to deal with the _causes_ of the evil, and we
dare to believe that with wiser teaching and more capable legislation,
those causes would not be beyond control.”

This Protest was published in the _Daily News_, and the fact of its
appearance was flashed by telegram to the remotest parts of the Kingdom.
The local press largely reproduced it. Among the two thousand signatures
which it obtained in a short time there were those of Florence
Nightingale, Harriet Martineau, Mary Carpenter, the sisters and other
relatives of the late Mr. John Bright, all the leading ladies of the
Society of Friends, and many well-known in the literary and
philanthropic world.

A pause ensued, a silence on the part of our opponents and undecided or
critical lookers on, induced by the first shock of this unexpected and
powerful manifesto. A member of Parliament, fully sympathetic with us,
said to me: “Your manifesto has shaken us very badly in the House of
Commons; a leading man in the House remarked to me, ‘We know how to
manage any other opposition in the House or in the country, but this is
very awkward for us—this revolt of the women. It is quite a new thing;
what are we to do with such an opposition as this?’”

But this temporary pause was succeeded by signs of much agitation and
business among our opponents in preparation for an organised stand
against our attitude and claims; and simultaneously was inaugurated the
great “Conspiracy of Silence” in the press, which continued unbroken
until the autumn of 1874, when a well-known Ex-Cabinet Minister spoke
powerfully at a public meeting on our behalf. After this one occasion,
however, the press, as if by common consent, fell back into its old
attitude of silence. This silence could not be in most cases attributed
to a regard for the feelings of readers, for statements in favour of the
Acts were continually admitted. We had, however, great encouragement
from many and often unexpected parts of the world.

Many persons on the Continent, working for social reforms, were even
then rejoicing in the trumpet-blast which had been sounded from England,
in open opposition to this vicious system. We had inaugurated a line of
action to the continuance of which we were pledged by sacred duty in
regard to the hopes which it had awakened throughout Europe.

Amongst the reforms which, it was hoped, would be aided by the present
agitation was one connected with the army, in the substitution of some
better system of national defence than that of a military army of
celibates, kept as a distinct class, and demoralized by unnatural
provisions, supposed to be needful for their exceptional existence.

The purification of the medical profession was also hoped for, and the
exposure and defeat of those deadly materialist doctrines respecting the
necessity of unchastity, which had been secretly and widely promulgated,
and which, together with the dogmatism and despotism of certain doctors,
had begun to exercise so fatal an influence over our legislative
counsels. The condition of the womanhood of our country for some time
past we often compared with that of the afflicted woman of whom we read
in the Gospels, of whom it was said, “She had endured many things of
many physicians,” and that she grew no better, but rather worse. The
afflicted woman alluded to, approaching the person of the great
Spiritual Physician, was healed by the touch of faith. A similar faith
was coming to the succour of the womanhood of the present day. Their
hearts were lifted up to God, with whom are the issues of life and
death, and they were taught to scorn the perversions of physicians who,
in the supposed interests of the body, trampled under foot the claims of
decency and the inalienable rights of every woman, chaste or unchaste,
over her own person. God would henceforth, we trusted, place His gifts
of healing in holy hands, and say to the poor afflicted womanhood of
this day, “Daughter, be of good cheer.”

The purification we hoped for was already indicated by the fact that,
among the men who gradually rallied around us in this cause, from all
ranks and all professions, pure-hearted physicians were among the
foremost, both in action and in indignant denunciation of the theories
and practices which we abhorred.

Not many weeks after the publication of our Protest, Mr. Gladstone, then
Prime Minister, received a Memorial from women of Geneva on the subject;
a beautiful and distinct echo from afar of our own cry for justice.

Even earlier than this, more than one sympathetic voice reached us from
Paris itself, the birthplace of the evil thing against which we were
allied.


Victor Hugo wrote:—


                                               “PARIS, _March 20, 1870_.

“I am with you, madame and ladies. I am with you to the fullest extent
of my power. In reading your eloquent letter, I have felt a burning
sympathy rise in me for the feeble, and a corresponding indignation
against the oppressor. France is apparently about to borrow from England
an evil institution, that of chamber executions—legal murders done
behind closed doors; and, in her turn, England prepares to adopt from
France a detestable system, that, namely, of a police dealing with women
as outlaws. Protest! resist! show your indignation! All noble hearts and
all lofty spirits will be on your side. The slavery of black women is
abolished in America, but the slavery of white women continues in
Europe; and laws are still made by men in order to tyrannise over women.
Nothing more hateful could be seen than the sight to-day—France copying
the feudalism of England, and England reproducing the medical tyranny of
Paris. It is a rivalry of retrogression—a miserable spectacle. It
disgraces justice in France, and the Executive power in England. Publish
this letter if you think fit, and be assured of my earnest sympathy and
respect.

                                                          “VICTOR HUGO.”


From Mazzini, to a member of our Ladies’ Association:—


                                               “ITALY, _February, 1870_.

 “MY DEAR FRIEND,—

“Can you doubt me? Can you doubt how eagerly I watch from afar, and how
heartily I bless the efforts of the brave, earnest British women who are
striving for the extension of the suffrage to their sex and for the
repeal of the vice-protecting Acts, which last question is but an
incident in the great general question of justice to women?

“Is your question less sacred than that of the abolition of slavery in
America, or of serfdom elsewhere? Ought it not to be even more sacred to
us—in reverence for our mothers,—and if we remember that the most
important period of human life—the first—is entrusted to women?

“Are not all questions of equality mere baseless rebellion, unless they
are derived from an all-embracing religious principle? and is not that
principle—(the oneness of the human family)—the soul of your country’s
religion?

“Have the men who deny the righteousness of your claims abjured that
religion, or forgotten the holy words of Jesus and of Paul:—

“‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe
on Me through the Word.’

“‘That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee,
that they also may be one in us.’—John xvii. 20, 21.

“‘For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.’

“‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there
is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’—Epistle
Galatians iii. 26, 28.

“Do they tell you these words apply to heaven? Ask them Who has taught
them to pray that _God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven_?

“No question such as yours ought to be solved without asking _how far
does the proposed solution minister to the moral education of society_?
The sense of self-dignity, the deep conviction that each of us has a
task to fulfil on earth, for our own improvement and that of our
fellow-creatures, is the first step in all education. We are bound to
start by teaching all whom we seek to educate the words you quoted; _you
are a human being: nothing that concerns mankind is alien to you_. If
you crush in man his innate sense of self-respect, you decree the helot.
If you sanction moral inequality to any extent, you either create
rebellion, with all its evils, or indifference, hypocrisy and
corruption. If you punish the accomplice, leaving the sinner untouched,
you destroy, by arousing the sense of injustice, every beneficial result
of punishment. If you assume the right to legislate for any class,
without allowing that class voice or share in the work, you destroy the
sacredness of law, and awaken hatred or contempt in the heart of the
excluded class.

“In these simple obvious principles lies the justice of your claims.

“In this legislation lies—forget it not—the germ of a moral disease far
more terrible than the physical evil they thus brutally and impotently
endeavour to ‘stamp out’; this first step backwards, taken in selfish
fear, will, if not speedily retraced, be followed by others, until the
moral sore neglected will become a cancer infecting the very life-blood
of your nation.

“In the moral principles I have stated you will conquer. Your cause is a
religious one. Do not narrow it down to what is called a right or an
interest. Let duty be your ground, both in protecting your unhappy
sisters and in urging your political claims. You are children of God.
You have the same duty to perform on earth—the progressive discovery and
the progressive fulfilment of His law. You cannot renounce that task
without sinning against the God who appointed it, and gave to you, as to
us, faculties and powers for its accomplishment.

“You cannot fulfil your task without _liberty_, which is the source of
responsibility. You cannot fulfil it without _equality_, which is
liberty for each and all.

“Your claim to the suffrage is identical with that of the working men.
Like them, you seek to bring a new element of progress to the common
work; you feel that you, too, have something to say, not merely
indirectly, but legally and officially, with regard to the great
problems which stir and torture the soul of mankind.

“As for the special cause of which you write, the repeal of these
hideous Acts, you will succeed. You have in your House of Commons men
whom surely no giant despair of physical disease can turn aside from the
straight path of principle and justice; but even if these should fail
you, which I do not believe, you have your people. Your working men have
shown us, during the Lancashire famine, how _they_ can feel for the
down-trodden and oppressed. Appeal to them. I have lived long enough in
England to know what their answer would be.

                                            “_I am, Dear Friend, Yours_,
                                                    “GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.”




                               CHAPTER II
               “λαμπάδια ἔχοντες, διαδώσονσιυ ἀλλήλοις.”

   “They, bearing torches, will pass them on from hand to hand.”
                                               PLATO, _Repub._, 328.


Our appeal, we decided, must be made to the Nation. Letters had
previously been written by us during the autumn of 1869 to every member
of both Houses of Parliament, and to many leading men, lay and
ecclesiastical. To all these letters we received only some half-dozen
responses which were at all sympathetic. We received others which
contained only a strong denunciation of my own and other women’s action
in the matter. These latter came in some cases from highly esteemed
dignitaries in Church and State, several of whom, I am grateful to
acknowledge, wrote to me some years afterwards in a wholly different
tone.

Having received so little encouragement from the persons whom we had
vainly imagined would have taken an interest in the question, we turned
to the working populations of the Kingdom. Here our reception was wholly
different. I am well aware that the working classes have their faults,
and that neither they nor any other class of men are wholly free from
the taint of egotism ; but of one thing I am profoundly convinced, and
that is, that when an appeal is made to the people in the name of
justice, they will in general respond in the truest and most loyal
manner. Though I had always had confidence in the good sense of the
working classes, I was, nevertheless, often surprised to find how
readily they were carried up to the highest standard in judging of a
moral question, and how almost universally they acknowledged the
authority of the ethical truths which we endeavoured to put before them.
At times I recollect purposely placing the question on so high a level
that I doubted whether the mass of humble people before me would fully
apprehend and respond to an appeal based upon motives so lofty.
Sometimes a few moments of profound silence would follow such an appeal,
and then there would arise that grateful and inspiring sound of the
voice of the multitude, deliberately, intelligently and enthusiastically
accepting and endorsing the thought which had been presented to them.

Starting from Liverpool with my husband’s benediction sounding in my
ears, I went first to Crewe, and addressed a meeting prepared in advance
by our friend Professor Stuart, of Cambridge, consisting of railway
workmen, engine-makers and boiler-fitters. They perfectly understood the
message, and acted upon it with intelligence. From there I went
(January, 1870) to Leeds, Newcastle, Sunderland, Darlington, and other
places, and shortly afterwards a series of visits was paid to Birmingham
and other towns of the Midland district. Everywhere the working men
themselves organised meetings, writing or telegraphing in advance to
friends and acquaintances in other localities to be prepared to give
their verdict upon a very urgent question. The meetings were followed by
prompt organisation for action, headed in most cases by leading working
men. In Leeds, the Trades Union and other leaders worked valiantly with
Mr. Algernon Challis at their head, whose ardour and self-sacrifice in
this cause deserve to be specially mentioned; and in Newcastle, Lord
Armstrong’s and Mr. Hawthorne’s men, engaged in the engineering works on
Tyneside, supported us strongly. In Birmingham a very complete working
men’s organization was at once formed, an example followed some time
after by Sheffield, Liverpool, and other towns. Petitions were poured in
upon Parliament, and at bye-elections the candidates were severely
questioned by the working men electors. Such was the effect produced by
this movement in the Northern and Midland counties, followed by the
lessons of the Colchester Election, that the Government felt obliged to
move in the matter. It moved in the direction in which Governments
generally move when a question is raised by the people on which the
members of the Government themselves have little knowledge and less
conviction—they appointed a Commission to consider it. We did not accept
the proposal of a Commission at all gratefully, for we felt that
although Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees are useful, or
necessary, in regard to some subjects, the cause we had in hand could
not be served, or usefully treated, by a Commission. Great principles
cannot be modified by any assembly, even of the wisest men, sitting to
consider them. The people had very largely already pronounced their
verdict on the principles of Justice, Equality, and Morality involved in
our question.

The Abolitionist associations, in presenting a united protest to
Government against the appointment of a Commission gave as one of their
motives the following:—

“Because we maintain that the great principles which have hitherto
protected the freedom, the honour, and the bodily safety of
Englishwomen, as well as Englishmen, from the tyrannical control of the
Executive, ought not to be referred for discussion to any irresponsible
and delegated body: least of all to a Royal Commission. They must be
vindicated as axioms, not debated as doubtful questions, and on the
floor of Parliament itself, where every word may be heard by the
nation.”

There was no unanimous conclusion arrived at by the Commission. They
produced a Majority Report, which pronounced itself hostile to us, at
the same time that it condemned the compulsory treatment of the persons
of women, which is the centre and core of the whole system of State
Regulation of vice. There was a Minority Report, in our favour; while
several of the members of the Commission personally recorded their
opinion, apart from, or in addition to either of the Reports.[1]

Generally speaking, the evidence given by our opponents served our cause
in after years as well as, or better than, anything said by our friends.

It may not be uninteresting to recall the varied character of some of
the meetings which were constantly held throughout the country during
the first two or three years of our movement. The denial to us of
publicity in the press made it of urgent necessity that we should
continually address the public in other ways. I will mention briefly one
or two of the meetings of those first years which stand out most
prominently in my memory. After several large gatherings in Leeds,
promoted by the energy and enthusiasm of the working people there,
strongly aided by members of the Society of Friends, a larger assembly
than any yet held was organised in that town. The Town Hall being found
inadequate for the occasion, Mr. Challis and his friends managed to
place seats in a considerable portion of the immense Corn Exchange,
which in the evening was filled to overflowing, many hundreds standing
during the whole time. On the platform we had an encouraging array of
M.P.’s, the most prominent as a speaker being Mr. Jacob Bright, who,
with his talented wife, was from the first one of the foremost in our
cause.

The most interesting speech of the evening was, however, made by the
well-known anti-slavery leader, George Thomson. He was then growing old,
and was in failing health. His zeal for our cause led him to stand upon
our platform, but with no idea of speaking. As the evening went on,
however, the fire of the old anti-slavery apostolate was re-kindled in
his heart, and he could not hold his peace. I recollect his tall and
fragile figure as he rose. He supported himself against a pillar,
leaning heavily. He began to speak in a low, husky voice, in the midst
of hushed attention; for the audience looked upon him as little less
than an oracle on any subject connected with the sacredness of the human
person and of individual liberty. Before he had spoken many minutes he
became perfectly audible, and his voice continued to rise until it
sounded forth with the old bell-like, or rather trumpet-like, clearness
and power which had so often stirred the heart of multitudes in the
United States. That remarkable utterance was one of the last delivered
by him; I well recollect the profound emotion which was produced by it.

As a rule we had weighty meetings, and found an excellent spirit, in
Scotland; but there was one occasion on which we were for the moment
baffled. This was in the great City Hall in Glasgow. The medical
students of that town, incited (it was said) by some of their own
Professors, came in a body to the hall, determined that we should not
have a hearing. There were Town Councillors—or, as they are called in
Scotland, Baillies—on the platform. Notwithstanding this, the noise,
violence and rudeness of the students continued for about an hour, until
the patient chairman made up his mind quietly to call in the police,
although we never liked resorting to this measure. The police of Glasgow
were a powerful body of men, physically speaking. It was with some
amusement, mingled, perhaps, with a little compassion for the misguided
boys, that we watched from the platform, where we had been unable to
speak a single word, these huge officers entering quietly from the
gallery behind, taking the students one by one by the collar, and
dropping them over the edge of the galleries as lightly as if they had
been kittens. The fall was not a great one, and no one was hurt. The
meeting was then continued in peace, though much curtailed. I asked one
of the venerable Baillies on the following day to define for me the
exact offence for which some of these students, we were told, had been
locked up for the night, or fined. His reply was in broad Scotch, more
racy, perhaps, than clearly judicial. “They were punished,” he said,
“for the offences of barking like dogs, mewing like cats, crowing like
cocks, whistling and rattling with their sticks.”

From letters written to my husband at home, I take a sketch of some
meetings held in my own border county to illustrate the honesty of
judgment which we generally found in the North.

“At Berwick-on-Tweed I stayed at the house of the Mayor, Mr. Purvis, a
pleasant old gentleman of the old school. There was a great threatening
of opposition, which continued even till we drove up to the door of the
Town Hall. We were told that the doctors were all ready to fight. The
United Presbyterians and other Scottish ministers were my best friends
here. The Rev. Dr. Cairns was timid about holding a meeting, although he
was wholly in sympathy with us, and he did not at first like the
advocacy of ladies. He is a man of much influence in the Scotch Church,
and is said to be one of Sir William Hamilton’s most distinguished
pupils. On reaching the platform he offered up a fervent prayer. It was
a full and excellent meeting, and, towards the close, unanimous. The joy
of the ministers and kind ladies afterwards was very great. I had heard
so much of the approaching opposition that I had prepared my arguments
with great care. I quoted the weighty evidence of Lord Frederick
FitzClarence against the regulation system in India. You know that he
lived at Etal. His name is remembered here in the North, and the
audience seemed struck by his verdict, based upon his experience as
Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India. Dr. C——, of Berwick, had been
put up to oppose us. He came to curse, and lo! he blessed us altogether;
that is to say, he came on the platform and applauded as heartily as any
one. This so often threatened opposition, which is so often over-ruled,
shows, I think, how slight is the knowledge most people in England have
of the subject, and how ready they are to take up the cry initiated by a
few experts or great personages in favour of this regulation system. It
shows, too, that we need only to appeal to their better judgment and
sense of justice. Of course, there are everywhere some bad people as
well as good; but I imagine there are few of the ruffianly class of men
in Northumberland who troubled us so much in South Wales. I shall go
back to my home with a deeply grateful feeling to my own county.

“I had not thought of visiting other towns in Northumberland, but poor
little Alnwick gave me the most pressing invitation which I have had
from any town. A leading man there wrote, ‘You surely will not leave
your own county without visiting us. We should feel much hurt.’ I did
not expect opposition at Alnwick. I thought the only difficulty might be
to keep my audience awake! When I arrived I found the Town Hall already
crowded to excess. I dare say the meeting was an exciting event in the
dull old town. A brave doctor took the chair for me. He read a carefully
prepared speech which he had written, in which he expressed the fullest
sympathy with our cause. He had come into the room with splashed riding
boots, as if from a visit to a distant patient, and with a
weather-beaten face. I have a great respect for these hard-working
country doctors; they are very unlike some insolent State physicians
whom we know, who seem to desire to rule us all on their own
materialistic and despotic principles. A strong resolution was passed
unanimously at Alnwick. At the end of the meeting I observed a number of
pleasant brown faces at the edge of the platform, looking up in the
attitude of the cherubs in Raphael’s ‘Madonna di San Sisto.’ They seemed
to have some communication for me, and when I came forward they smiled,
and one said, ‘We all knew your father well—old Mr. Grey.’ This was all
their communication, but I was pleased with the sympathy expressed in
it.

“I then went on to Morpeth. The meeting there had not been much
prepared, for the time was short. We had no Chairman. I met the Hon. and
Rev. Vicar walking down the street, and asked him to take the Chair, but
he said, with many assurances of respect for you and me, that he had
signed a petition in favour of the vice-regulating Acts, and that,
therefore, it would not be consistent for him to take the chair. In the
ante-room of the hall I saw a very superior working man, a man who bears
so high a character, I was told, that although of humble rank, no one,
they said, would more recommend the movement in Morpeth by leading it. I
asked him to preside. He seemed startled, thought for a moment, and then
said, ‘Well, if ye’ll just wait till I run in and put on my best coat.’
He soon returned with his best coat, his face shining with soap, and his
hair stiffly brushed. The hall was quite crowded with a very respectable
audience—all the tradespeople, many pleasant ladies, ministers, working
men, and a few gentlemen. I think I never spoke to so agreeable an
audience. Their grave, sensible faces were so intent and full of
inquiry. Many of the men stood up and leaned forward, and if the meeting
expressed approval of any sentiment there was immediately a sound of
‘hush’ through the hall, lest they should lose a single word spoken. The
attention did not flag for one moment. An allusion I made to my father,
speaking of myself as a Northumbrian, was most affectionately responded
to. I felt supremely comfortable, for it was a thoroughly Northumbrian
atmosphere. The audience was grave and shrewd, not noisily enthusiastic,
but just and fair, and very warm-hearted; and also of superior
intelligence; they quickly took up the constitutional and political
aspect of the question.

“After the meeting the Chairman took me into his bright kitchen, as
there was still an hour to wait for the night mail. I sat by the fire,
and a circle sat round—his handsome, comely wife and daughter, and his
son, who had all been to the meeting. His wife is a grand, clever woman.
What a difference there is between the intellect of such working women
and some Society ladies whom I have met! I could make a companion of
this woman at any time. T had a lovely walk to the station, and as the
train was not due for half an hour I wandered a little way into the
fields. It was a perfectly beautiful moonlight night—the air calm,
crisp, and not too cold. A light hoar-frost lay like a coating of silver
on the fields in the moonlight. The silence, the calm, the pure air, and
the beauty around me, with the memory of the kind reception I had had,
filled my heart with gratitude. I sent many loving thoughts to you all
at home. At last the express broke upon the stillness, bowling along
with its red eyes in front, and brought me to Newcastle in little more
than half an hour, where I found my kind Quaker friends waiting for me.”

Besides influencing electors throughout the country, we felt it our duty
to fling ourselves into the midst of contested Parliamentary elections
now and again. At this time the question of our army was much before the
Government, and there was a strong desire for a more capable
administration of military matters, both at home and abroad. An able
military man was wanted in the Government. Sir Henry Storks was a man of
world-wide experience, and of great reputation as an administrator. He
had been Governor of Malta, and had there administered the Regulation
system with so strong a hand that he boasted of having practically
stamped out in that colony the diseases incident to vice. The Government
had a special interest in securing this man for one of the new offices
which had been created in the War Department. To this end it was
necessary that a seat in the House of Commons should be found for him.
His first essay in that direction was at Newark. There he was strongly
opposed, even by persons of his own political party, and chiefly by our
excellent medical friends Dr. Bell Taylor and Mr. Worth, and a group who
followed them. He was signally defeated in his attempt to secure the
seat there. Colchester was next regarded as a place which would be
easily won for this purpose. It is a military depôt; the system we
opposed was in full operation there, and a Liberal candidate had been
called for. I must give some prominence to this hotly-contested election
at Colchester, as it proved to be somewhat of a turning-point in the
history of our crusade.

_The Shield_, commenting on the result, wrote as follows:—“Sir Henry
Storks’ name is prominently identified with legislation which is
abhorrent to the moral sense of right-thinking people. Our opponents may
laugh at the formation of a _new party_ on this question, just as their
prototypes in America were filled with derision when a ‘nigger party’
was first organized in that country. This new party here is to the cause
of insulted and down-trodden woman what the American Abolitionists were
to the despised negro. Our opponents are welcome to their hilarity. All
the coarse satire, all the virulent abuse, all the disgraceful rowdyism
in the world, will not prevent votes and seats being lost by the party
which has employed these ignoble tactics. Mobs were freely employed at
Colchester. There was a saturnalia of rioting which those who are so
sensitive about the antics of mobs in Paris and New York would do well
to take to heart.”

The Committee of the National Association in London undertook the
formidable business of organizing opposition to the Government
candidate. Their tactics and measures were excellent, and ultimately
successful. Dr. Baxter Langley very unselfishly consented to be put up
as a third candidate in order to divide the votes. The battle was a
severe one, for those were the days of hustings harangues, and open
voting. The former I have always considered a very useful and healthy
outlet for the free expression of opinion and the judgment of the people
concerning their candidates and the principles proclaimed by them.

My own personal recollections are chiefly of the numerous meetings which
we Abolitionists held for consultation day after day in a modest hotel,
the master of which was favourable to our views.

A great public meeting had been arranged for in the theatre. I was with
our friends previous to this meeting in a room in this hotel. Already we
heard signs of the mob gathering to oppose us. The dangerous portion of
this mob was headed and led on by a band of keepers of houses of
prostitution in Colchester, who had sworn that we should be defeated and
driven from the town. On this occasion the gentlemen who were preparing
to go to the meeting left with me all their valuables, watches, etc. I
remained alone during the evening. The mob were by this time collected
in force in the streets. Their deep-throated yells and oaths, and the
horrible words spoken by them, sounded sadly in my ears. I felt more
than anything pity for these misguided people. It must be observed that
these were not of the class of honest working people, but chiefly a
number of hired roughs, and persons directly interested in the
maintenance of the vilest of human institutions. The master of the hotel
came in, and said in a whisper, “I must turn down the lights; and will
you, Madam, consent to go to an attic which I have, a little apart from
the house, and remain there until the mob is quieter, in order that I
may tell them truly that you are not in the house?” I consented to this
for his sake. His words were emphasised at the moment by the crashing in
of the window near which I sat, and the noise of heavy stones hurled
along the floor, the blows from which I managed to evade. Our friends
returned in about an hour, very pitiful objects, covered with mud,
flour, and other more unpleasant things, their clothes torn, but their
courage not in the least diminished. Professor Stuart, who had come
purposely during the intervals of his duties at Cambridge to lend his
aid in the conflict, had been roughly handled. Chairs and benches had
been flung at him and Dr. Baxter Langley; and a good deal of lint and
bandages was quickly in requisition; but the wounds were not severe.

I should have prefaced my recollections of this Election Conflict by
saying that on our first arrival in Colchester we went, as was our wont,
straight to the house of a Quaker family. Mrs. Marriage, a well-known
member of the Society of Friends, received us with the utmost cordiality
and self-possession. At her suggestion we began our campaign with a
series of devotional meetings, gathering together chiefly women, in
groups, to ask of God that the approaching events might be over-ruled
for good, and might open the eyes of our Government to the vital nature
of the cause for which we were incurring so much obloquy. Among the
women who helped us most bravely were Mrs. King and Mrs. Hampson; there
were also many others.

I may be excused, perhaps, for mentioning an amusing incident of the
election. I was walking down a bye-street one evening after we had held
several meetings with the wives of electors, when I met an immense
workman, a stalwart man, trudging along to his home after work hours. By
his side trotted his wife—a fragile woman, but with a fierce
determination on her small thin face. At that moment she was shaking her
little fist in her husband’s face, and I heard her say, “Now you know
all about it; if you vote for that man Storks, Tom, _I’ll kill ye_.” Tom
seemed to think that there was some danger of her threat being put in
execution. This incident did not represent exactly the kind of influence
which we had entreated the working women to use with their husbands who
had votes, but I confess it cheered me not a little.

The following letter, which I have found among some preserved by my
children, may be interesting. It was written from Colchester to my young
sons at home:—

“I have tried several Hotels; each one rejects me after another; at last
I came to a respectable Tory Hotel, not giving my name. I had gone to
bed, very tired, and was dropping asleep, when I heard some excitement
in the street and a rap at my door. It was the master of the hotel; he
said, ‘I am sorry, madam; I have a very unpleasant announcement to
make.’ ‘Say on,’ I replied. He said, ‘I find you are Mrs. Josephine
Butler, and the mob outside have found out that you are here and have
threatened to set fire to the house unless I send you out at once.’ I
said, ‘I will go immediately; but how is it that you get rid of me when
you know that though I am a Liberal, I am practically working into the
hands of Colonel Learmont, the Conservative candidate?’ He replied: ‘I
would most gladly keep you, madam; undoubtedly your cause is a good one;
but there is a party so much incensed against you that my house is not
safe while you are in it.’ He saw that I was very tired, and I think his
heart was touched. He said, ‘I will get you quietly out under another
name, and will find some little lodging for you.’ I packed up my things,
and he sent a servant with me down a little bye-street, to a small
private house of a working man and his wife. Next day I went to the C——
Inn, the headquarters of our party. It was filled with gentlemen in an
atmosphere of stormy canvassing. The master of the inn whispered to me,
‘Do not let your friends call you by your name in the streets.’ A
hurried consultation was held as to whether our party should attempt to
hold other public meetings or not. It seemed uncertain whether we should
get a hearing, and it was doubtful if I personally would be allowed by
the mob to reach the hall where we had planned to hold a women’s
meeting. Some of the older men said, ‘Do not attempt it, Mrs. Butler; it
is a grave risk.’ For a moment a cowardly feeling came over me as I
thought of you all at home; then it suddenly came to me that now was
just the time to trust in God and claim His loving care; and I want to
tell you, my darlings, how He helped me, and what the message was which
He sent to me at that moment. I should like you never to forget it, for
it is in such times of trial that we feel Him to be in the midst of us—a
living Presence—and that we prove the truth of His promises. As I prayed
to Him in my heart, these words came pouring into my soul as if spoken
by some heavenly voice: ‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my
fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from
the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover
thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust; His truth
shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror
by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at
noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy
right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Because thou hast made the
Lord, which is my refuge, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall
thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give
His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’[2] Are they
not beautiful words? I felt no more fear, and, strong in the strength of
these words, I went out into the dark street with our friends.

“The London Committee had commissioned the two Mr. Mallesons to come
down to help us. I like them much; they are so quiet and firm. Someone
had also sent us from London twenty-four strong men of the sandwich
class, as a body guard! I did not care much about this ‘arm of flesh.’
It was thought better that these men should not keep together or be
seen, so they were posted about in the crowd near the door of the Hall.
Apparently they were yelling with the Regulationist party, but ready to
come forward for us at a given signal. The two Mr. Mallesons managed
cleverly, just as we arrived, to mislead the crowd into fancying that
one of themselves was Dr. Baxter Langley, thus directing all their
violence of language and gestures against themselves. Meanwhile Mrs.
Hampson and I slipped into the Hall in the guise of some of the humbler
women going to the meeting. I had no bonnet or gloves—only an old shawl
over my head—and looked quite a poor woman. We passed safely through
crowded lines of scoundrel faces and clenched fists, and were
unrecognised. It was a solemn meeting. The women listened most
attentively while we spoke to them. Every now and then a movement of
horror went through the room when the threats and groans outside became
very bad. At the close of the meeting some friend said to me, in a low
voice, ‘Your best plan is to go quietly out by a back window which is
not high from the ground, while the mob is waiting for you at the
front.’ The Mallesons and two friendly constables managed admirably.
They made the mob believe I was always coming, though I never came. Mrs.
Hampson and I then walked off at a deliberate pace from the back of the
Hall, down a narrow, quiet, star-lit street: about thirty or forty kind,
sympathising women followed us, but had the tact to disperse quickly,
leaving us alone. Neither of us knew the town, and we emerged again upon
a main street, where the angry cries of the mob seemed again very near.
I could not walk any further, being very tired, and asked Mrs. Hampson
to leave me and try to find a cab. She pushed me into a dark, unused
warehouse, filled with empty soda-water bottles and broken glass, and
closed the gates of it. I stood there in the darkness and alone, hearing
some of the violent men tramping past, never guessing that I was so
near. Presently one of the gates opened slightly, and I could just see
in the dim light the poorly clad, slight figure of a forlorn woman of
the city. She pushed her way in, and said in a low voice, ‘Are you the
lady the mob are after? Oh, what a shame to treat a lady so! I was not
at the meeting, but I heard of you and have been watching you.’ The
kindness of this poor miserable woman cheered me, and was a striking
contrast to the conduct of the roughs. Mrs. Hampson returned, saying,
‘There is not a cab to be seen in the streets;’ so we walked on again.
We took refuge at last in a cheerfully lighted grocer’s shop, where a
very kind, stout grocer, whose name we knew, a Methodist, welcomed us,
and seemed ready to give his life for me! He installed me amongst his
bacon, soap, and candles, having sent for a cab; and rubbing his hands,
he said, ‘Well, this is a capital thing, here you are, safe and sound!’
We overheard women going past in groups, who had been at the meeting,
and their conversation was mostly of the following description:—‘Ah,
she’s right; depend upon it she’s right. Well, what a thing! Well, to be
sure! I’m sure I’ll vote for her whenever I have a vote!’

“I always expected when it came to an election contest on this question
that men’s passions would be greatly roused, and that the poorest among
women would gather to us; and so it was.

“I went in the cab to the Priory, where all our friends were assembled,
looking rather anxious and awed. Mr. Heritage said, ‘I prayed for you
all the time.’ I have now got to my lodgings in the working man’s house,
which are very small, but clean. I hope to be with you on Saturday. What
a blessed Sunday it will be in my quiet home!”

To my husband:—“Dr. Baxter Langley, I hear, has had a letter from Mr.
Glyn, on behalf of the Government, entreating him to retire and let Sir
Henry Storks get in. Mr. Glyn says the Government are ‘quite aware of
the vast importance of the question’ we are contending about. They have
never been aware of its importance till now!! Dr. Langley answers that
he will _not_ retire, and is ready to be stoned out of the town if it
will advance our cause. It is cheering to see the consternation of Sir
Henry Storks’ party. The Government will have learnt a useful lesson by
the dogged and gallant opposition made. Dr. Langley has quite recovered
from the effect of the rough handling he has had. And now, do not fear
for me, dear husband. My part is over here, so far as public action
goes. God bless you all. If I telegraph to you it will be in the name of
Grey; you will understand.”

On such occasions as these, my husband’s calmness of faith was called
into full exercise. His duties as Principal of a great school made it
impossible for him always to accompany me to such scenes of labour and
difficulty. But his faith was in proportion to his unfailing affection
and kindness. On one occasion I was returning home from a distant town
in the depth of a very severe winter. The train was delayed by the
weather, extra engines having to be obtained to drag it through deep
snowdrifts. Due in Liverpool (our home at that time) at seven o’clock,
it did not arrive till some time after midnight. He met me at our door,
and on my remarking that I feared he must have been very anxious about
me (as many accidents had occurred) he replied, with an expression of
countenance which was a revelation to me of his implicit trust in God:
“No, I was not anxious (though I feared you would feel the cold), for I
believe that no evil will happen to you, so long as you are engaged in
this mission. God will keep you alive and strengthen you, until you have
finished the work to which He has called you.”

The day after the Colchester Election I was seated at dinner with my
family when the following brief telegram arrived, containing only two
words, “Shot dead.” We understood that this implied the defeat of Sir
Henry Storks. He was defeated by a large majority. Six hundred voters,
it was said, who were Liberals, and would have voted for him had they
not been enlightened on the subject of his views on our question, left
the town on the polling day, or stayed in their houses and abstained
altogether from voting.[3]

The moral of this election was not lost on the Government. They learned
that this question was not one which they could trifle with or ignore.
Some time after, Sir Henry Storks succeeded in getting into Parliament
by becoming a candidate for what was then known as “a pocket-borough”;
but his advocacy of the unjust and cruel laws in Parliament was reduced
to a simple vote. He also had learned his lesson.

On a later occasion Mr. Lewis, of Devonport, a very strong advocate and
practical supporter of the system we opposed, was defeated three times
at three different places in his attempt to get into Parliament. I think
his last defeat was at Oxford. I was not myself present at that
election, but the battle was bravely and skilfully fought by Mr. Henry
J. Wilson, now M.P., and members of the National Association. These were
severe and very needful lessons for our opponents.

Shortly after the Colchester triumph an immense mass meeting was held in
the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Mr. William Fowler, M.P., who was then
our leader in Parliament, and had brought in a Bill for the repeal of
the vice-regulating Acts, was among those on the platform, and with him
were Mr. Jacob Bright, M.P., Rev. Nassau Molesworth, Mr. Thomasson, our
true and staunch friend from the first, Professor Sheldon Amos, Rev.
Canon Butler, and others. Mr. Bright spoke forcibly on that occasion.
The crowded state of that great hall was an indication that the mass of
the people were fully awake to the wickedness and danger of the
legislation we opposed. We felt more and more that publicity was one of
the necessary conditions of success for us. The stratagems of our
opponents only raised deeper indignation because they were covert and
secret. About 6,000 people attended that meeting, and yet, except in a
local and partial manner, it was unnoticed by the Press. A marked
feature in the demonstration was the wonderful silence of the assembly
between the outbursts of applause which rang now and again through the
vast building. Their attention seemed more than usually absorbed, and
the temper of the audience was impatient of any interruption, lest a
single word or sentence should be lost. There was a resolute earnestness
and a sense of conscious power such as could only be manifested by a
great audience of more than average intelligence and moral feeling.

My husband was called several times to bear almost alone the brunt of
the opposition which arose occasionally at public meetings in which I
took no part, or only a subordinate one. The chief of these was the
Church Congress, held at Nottingham in October, 1871. It was a very
crowded meeting, presided over by the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Wordsworth.
My husband had prepared very carefully a paper on “The Duty of the
Church of England in matters of Morality,” in which he introduced, in
the most refined and unobjectionable manner, the question of the
regulation of vice. Such was the animus against our crusade at that time
amongst the upper and more educated classes, that the moment his
allusion was understood such a loud and continuous expression of
disapprobation arose from that great assembly that he could not proceed.
The majority of the clergy present had been carefully trained by evil
advisers to consider this legislation an excellent thing, while there
was a minority present who were better instructed, and who, the
following day, came to tender to us their expressions of sympathy and
offers of support. We had many times before heard rough and defiant
cries, and noisy opposition at meetings, but never so deep and angry a
howl as now arose from the throats of a portion of the clergy of the
National Church. I watched my husband’s attitude during the prolonged
tumult. He continued to stand upright, his paper in his hand, with an
expression of combined firmness and gentleness in his face. The
President, Dr. Wordsworth, though wishing to do justice to a favourite
old pupil of his own and to the subject, was forced to bow to the
tempestuous will of the assembly, and to ask my husband to withdraw his
paper and to sit down. William Lloyd Garrison once said in the midst of
his great anti-slavery conflict, “A shower of brickbats is an excellent
tonic.” Brickbats are not so much in use in polite and clerical society,
but hard words, groans and hisses supply their place to some extent as a
tonic to the person at whom they are hurled. I do not think my husband
required any such tonic; and as a matter of fact his keen sense of
humour led him to recognise a somewhat comic element in this otherwise
pitiful outburst of misguided indignation. He afterwards printed his
paper in pamphlet form, and continued to labour, during such rare
intervals of leisure as his arduous school work afforded him, to win
personally the clergy of the Church of England to our cause. In this he
was aided by other excellent clergymen, notably Mr. Collingwood, of
Sunderland.

Professor Sheldon Amos afterwards said of this meeting: “Mr. Butler
alluded to an objection frequently made, that it is not the business of
the Church to meddle with politics, or to make the people discontented
with the laws by keeping up such an agitation as ours. In other words,
it is the business of the Church to encourage political indifferentism,
to resist any progressive movement which involves changes in law, and to
dissociate herself and her influence from all the most ennobling and
invigorating parts of the true citizen’s duty. On the contrary, it is a
part of the Church’s work to refine the critical sagacity of her
children. The single-eye for moral purity is hard enough to retain
amongst the distorting and blinding colours of earthly interests; it is
for the Church and her ministers to be ever calling her children to the
acceptation of an absolutely equal standard of purity and goodness.”


In 1872, shortly after the Royal Commission had reported, Mr. Bruce,
then Home Secretary, gave notice of his intention to bring in a measure
as a substitute for the existing Acts. This Bill was printed on March 1,
1872. Its appearance marked an era in the crusade, for the controversy
upon it, which arose in our own ranks, resulted in a great sifting of
adherents, many of whom were not sufficiently clear-sighted to see its
dangers. In fact, it was so cleverly drawn, the good being so mixed with
the evil elements, that it required acuteness and careful study in order
fully to comprehend its real tendency. It was finally rejected.




                              CHAPTER III

                 “Nor dream, nor rest, nor pause
                 Remains for him who round him draws
                 The battered mail of Freedom’s cause.”


It may surprise some of my readers to learn that the first great
uprising against legalised vice had much less of the character of the
“revolt of a sex” than has been often supposed. We have heard much of
late years, and more than we did when our abolitionist movement began,
of the great “Woman Question” in all its various phases and
developments. I never myself viewed this question as fundamentally any
more a woman’s question than it is a man’s. The legislation we opposed
secured the enslavement of women and the increased immorality of men;
and history and experience alike teach us that these two results are
never separated. Slavery and License lead to degradation, political
ruin, and intellectual decay, and therefore it was that we held that
this legislation and the opposition to it were questions for the whole
nation at large.

We arose—we women as well as men—in defence of the grand old principles
which happily have prevailed and constantly been revived in the
Constitution and Government of our country since very early times until
recently. It is to those principles, and to the successive noble
struggles for their preservation, that England owes, in a large measure,
her greatness; if indeed we may venture to use that word. Those
principles, I have ever believed, and continue to believe, have their
foundation in the Ethics of Christ; and therefore it is that they have
endured so long, and prevailed against repeated and violent attacks. But
they are being lost to us now. Slowly, gradually, they have ceased to be
respected. They do not readily flow on alongside of all the Democratic
tendencies of our times. All political parties alike, it seems to me,
now more or less regard those principles as out of date, old-fashioned,
impossible as a basis of action. My heart is sorrowful as I record this
conviction. I recall the past of our country’s history, with its loyalty
and love for those great constitutional principles for which patriots
have suffered and died, and for which we, in our struggle, were also
ready to suffer and die. I contrast that loyalty and that love with the
present prevailing loose notions concerning the worth of the individual,
the sacredness of the human person, and of liberty. As I do so it seems
to me that I am standing by the side of a bier, and looking on the _face
of a dead friend_. If one writes a word concerning those principles now,
there is scarcely a reader who does not turn over to another page,
finding the subject dry and uninteresting.

It may be that, when present tendencies have developed into something
like the fetichism of Socialistic State-Worship, with its attendant
tyrannies and sufferings, there will be a reaction, and that men will be
driven, in self-defence, to look back and remember the great moral and
political truths, the sound and tried principles which have been lost
sight of, and that by reviving respect for these, they will be able to
plant them firmly once more even in the very heart of the Democracy of
the future. But that time is not yet.

A very old-fashioned statesman, who lived more than a century ago, when
urging his countrymen to retrace a false step, spoke the following words
in Parliament: “If I had a doubt upon this matter, I would follow the
example set us by the Reverend Bishops, with whom I believe it is a
maxim, when any doubt in point of faith arises, to appeal at once to the
great source and evidence of our religion—I mean the Bible. The English
Constitution has its political Bible also, by which, if it be fairly
consulted, every political question may and ought to be determined.
Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Petition of Rights, form the
Code which I call the Bible of the English Constitution.” And so, in
1869 and the following years, seeing, as we did, a direct violation of
the principles of just law in the enactments which enslaved the poorest
and weakest in the supposed interests of a stronger and a less worthy
portion of society, and fearing for the future of our country in
consequence, we were driven to search the annals of our past history, to
inquire into past crises of danger, and into the motives and character
of the champions who fought the battles of Liberty. This we did with the
keenness of search and singleness of purpose, with which, in an agony of
spiritual danger, a well-nigh shipwrecked soul may search the Scriptures
and the teachings of Christ, believing that in His Word he has Eternal
Life.

It is recorded in Whitelock’s “Memorials” that in the reign of James I.
Sir George Crooke obstinately opposed himself to certain corruptions in
the Government, while others, though noble men also, wavered. The
historian attributes this steadfastness to the influence of Crooke’s
wife, Lady Crooke, who continually urged him on, and bade him not fear
to do right; and the following words are added by the historian:—“It
were well for the country if our daughters as well as our sons were
taught and confirmed in the truth, _that public virtue is to the full as
important as private morality_, for then we should add a mighty strength
to the buttresses of our integrity.”

So far as I have been able to study history, I have never found that
there was a strong, virtuous and free nation in which the women of that
nation were not something more than mere appendages to men in domestic
life. They were also strong for public duty, unwavering in principle,
and courageous (in crises of danger) for the national defence. In
contemplating the present and future of our nation, the dangers ahead,
and its resources and means for regeneration, it is impossible not to
reckon among the latter the development in the last quarter of a century
of a multitude of truly patriotic women, none the less devoted wives and
mothers, and an adornment to their homes, because yearning over their
country, and far-sighted, not only for _her_ vital interests, but for
those of the other nations of the world.

The danger which threatened us, and the tyranny which had invaded us at
the time of which I am writing, were of a twofold nature; a moral as
well as a very grave political danger. The former, most good men and
women instinctively acknowledged. To fully appreciate the latter
required probably more instruction in the laws and constitution of our
country than most women then possessed; and we were driven continually
to urge our fellow-workers to strengthen themselves for the warfare in
which we were engaged by trying to master this part of the subject by
grave reading and thought. I read again, at that time, attentively, the
accounts of the great struggles of our forefathers on behalf of the
freedom and purity of our English Commonwealth, and was, more than ever,
deeply impressed with the fact that in striving for freedom they ever
strove for virtue also, and consciously so, for they knew the vital
character of the work they had in hand, and were, for the most part, men
who feared God and maintained the purity of private and domestic life,
while they defended even unto death, in many cases, the great principles
of justice upon which our Constitution was based. And their women stood
up side by side with them. Without pausing to wrangle, as has been too
much the case in modern times, over the idle controversy concerning
woman’s “sphere,” they simply came forward at the call of duty, armed
with some knowledge of law and history, as well as of Christian truth,
and were able calmly and clearly to meet and confute all who endeavoured
to violate the liberty of the subject in his person or his conscience.

There seemed to have been a retrogression in the public spirit of women
since that time. But, happily, in God’s Providence, in the early years
of our Crusade, the introduction of a great public tyranny again forced
upon women equally with men the solemn question, “Where ought human
legislation to terminate? At what point are we called on to decide,
shall we obey God or man?”

It was clear to us from the first that the character and conduct of our
opposition to the immorality and illegality of the vice-regulating laws
must be decided by the depth and sincerity of the moral and religious
convictions of the mass of our people. It was granted us, in response to
the deep desire of our hearts, to perceive already at that time an
approaching revival of moral faith and spiritual energy, simultaneously
with the rapid advance of a materialism culminating in this frightful
expression of medical domination and legislative tyranny. The opposing
principles were about to meet in a great encounter; it seemed as if
God’s voice was calling us to gird on our armour, to watch and be sober.
His eye was upon us. We became aware that from the first His hand had
been guiding our action in connection with all this movement, and
controlling the adverse elements; and we were about to learn more
clearly than ever before the force of a spiritual and moral revival as
an agency for political reform.

Our struggle, however, though bearing many points of resemblance to
former struggles in defence of freedom and virtue, stood almost alone in
one striking characteristic, viz., that in our case we had to combat
distinctly a double violation of principles. Formerly, encroachments on
our liberties did not always involve a direct outrage on public morality
and the sanctities of family life. Tyrannical aggressions in former days
were indeed ever the fruit of evil principles or passions in one form or
another, of the lust of power or of conquest, the greed of gain, or
personal indulgence or revenge; but the effect of such aggressions was
not so directly to demoralise the people. The immorality was, more or
less, confined to the tyrant and his immediate agents. But the
legislation which we had risen up to oppose sowed broadcast the seeds of
an immoral principle. It was a legislation which not only proceeded from
an evil source, but forced evil upon the people.

By the expression of the above thoughts I am anxious to make my readers
clearly understand that our early conflict in this cause was—at least
for myself and the considerable group of firm and enlightened women with
whom I had the happiness to work—much less of a simple woman’s war
against man’s injustice, than it is often supposed to have been. It was
wider than that. It was as a citizen of a free country first, and as a
woman secondly, that I felt impelled to come forward in defence of the
right. At the same time, the fact that this new legislation _directly_
and shamefully attacked the dignity and liberties of women, became a
powerful means in God’s Providence of awakening a deeper sympathy
amongst favoured women for their poorer and less fortunate sisters than
had probably ever been felt before. It consolidated the women of our
country, and gradually of the world, by the infliction on them of a
double wrong, an outrage on free citizenship, and an outrage on the
sacred rights of womanhood. It helped to conjure up also a great army of
good and honourable men through the length and breadth of the land, who,
in taking up the cause of the deeply injured class, soon became aware
that they were fighting also for themselves, their own liberties, and
their own honour.

Thus the peculiar horror and audacity of this legislative movement for
the creation of a slave class of women for the supposed benefit of
licentious men forced women into a new position. Many, who were formerly
timid or bound by conventional ideas to a prescribed sphere of action,
faced right round upon the men whose materialism had been embodied in
such a ghastly form, and upon the Government which had set its seal upon
that iniquity; and so, long before we had approached near to attaining
to any political equality with men, a new light was brought by the force
of our righteous wrath and aroused sense of justice into the judgment of
Society and the Councils of Nations, which encouraged us to hope that we
should be able to hand down to our successors a regenerated public
spirit concerning the most vital questions of human life, upon which
alone, and not upon any expert or opportunist handling of them, the
hopes of the future must rest.

My cousin, Charles Birrel, wrote to me at that time as follows:—“You and
your companion women have struck a note for which the ages have been
waiting, and which even the Church itself, in its organised forms, has
never yet intoned.”

The year 1873 was not marked by any great event bearing upon our Cause
in Parliament or in the country. But, on the other hand, it was marked
by an accelerated movement generally on behalf of our principles in
every part of the United Kingdom. The seed was abundantly sown during
this year which was destined to bear a rich harvest later. At the end of
this year there existed some dozen different societies in the United
Kingdom working in accord towards the one object, and having committees
and correspondents in more than six hundred towns.

First, there was the National Association, which moved its central
offices, about this time, nearer to the House of Commons, and which
continued to carry on the most active propaganda throughout the Kingdom,
and at the same time to bring strong pressure to bear upon Parliament,
and to watch every move of our opponents. Secondly, there was the
Ladies’ National Association, followed by the Northern Counties League,
the Midland Counties Electoral Union, the North Eastern Association, the
Scottish National Association, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Ladies’
Committees, the Dublin Branch of the National Association, the Cork
Branch and Belfast Branch of the same, and of the Ladies’ National
Association; and, lastly, but not less important than any of the others,
was the Friends’ Association, consisting of a number of the leading
members of the Society of Friends throughout the Kingdom, with the late
Mr. Edward Backhouse as President. I recall some of the most prominent
and honoured names in this Association, which gave to our cause from the
first the weight of those qualities which seem almost peculiar to that
body of Christians—great determination and calmness combined; all the
fighting qualities in the highest degree, together with a gentleness of
manner and procedure which wins opponents and softens the asperities of
conflict. Besides Mr. Edward Backhouse, we had the help and inspiration
for many years of the late Mr. George Gillett and Mr. Frederic Wheeler.
Many ladies, in fact I may say all the prominent ladies of the Society
of Friends, came forward in our work, and those who were less prominent
joined heartily and usefully in the rank and file.

This year was also marked by the fact that several other movements were
inaugurated which resulted in very important reforms. These movements
were begun and carried through by groups of the very same persons who
had risen up against the Regulation of vice. The vitality of our Crusade
appeared—if I may say so—to cause it to break through the boundaries of
its own particular channel, and to create and fructify many movements
and reforms of a collateral character. We felt that it was necessary,
while combating the State Regulation of vice, and forcing our Government
to retrace the false step it had taken, also to work against all those
disabilities and injustices which affect the interests of women. Thus a
Society was formed, of whom the great mover and promoter was Mrs.
Wolstenholme Elmy, for obtaining for the poorer class of married women
the right to the possession of wages earned by themselves, and which
developed into the Married Women’s Property Act. Another reform, which
we aimed at and attained, and in which Mrs. Elmy also took a prominent
part, was the reform of the Mutiny Act. This Act released soldiers, both
married and single, from all responsibility in regard to their children,
legitimate or illegitimate. This we felt to be a grave injustice, and it
was confessed on all sides to be fruitful of much mischief and misery.

Perhaps the most important of the Societies formed at this time was the
Association for the Defence of Personal Rights, which embraced a number
of points bearing directly upon the interests of women, and aimed at the
destruction of many abuses which tended directly or indirectly to foster
the great evil of prostitution.

I do not here mention the Women’s Suffrage Movement, which took its rise
before our Abolitionist Crusade began, and has continued to pursue its
own distinct and separate aim unceasingly throughout the years which
followed up to the present time, receiving an additional impulse,
however, from the enactment of the injustice which the Abolitionists
were banded together to overthrow, and from every other enactment which
attacked or ignored the interests of one-half of the human race.

I cannot, without departing from the immediate subject of my
Reminiscences, enter into the details of these or other movements which
were carried on simultaneously with our central one, and only mention
them in passing.

In this year an immense number of petitions were sent to Parliament, and
also Memorials to individual members of the Government and the House.
The working population of the country began to increase their
activities, which resulted somewhat later in the formation of the
Working Men’s League for Repeal, beginning with a list of names of
50,000 working men, who enrolled themselves as members in a very brief
time, and of which Mr. Edmond Jones, a working man of Liverpool, was the
indefatigable and able President for a number of years.

In the autumn of 1872 an opportunity again arose, through an election at
Pontefract, of reminding the Government once more that the claims of the
Abolitionists could not safely be ignored. The Right Hon. H. Childers
was obliged, by certain changes in the Ministry, to seek re-election. He
had been first Lord of the Admiralty, and in that office it had fallen
to his lot to administer the obnoxious regulations in connection with
our Naval Stations. Several orders had been issued from the Admiralty
during his term of office concerning the administration of the system at
Plymouth and Portsmouth—orders which had shocked the moral sense of many
persons who had not previously been able to see clearly through the
conventional wording of the Law itself, the iniquity of the principles
on which it was based.

Personally, however, Mr. Childers never seemed to me a very devoted
adherent of the evil system. His advocacy of it appeared rather to
express a confused comprehension of the matter than perverse moral
obliquity. His official responsibility, however, made it impossible for
our party to allow him to be re-elected without question or opposition.
We did not hope to secure his rejection as a Parliamentary candidate.
All we aimed at was the arousing again of the attention of the
Government to a sense of the importance of our demands. A certain number
of us, therefore, went to Pontefract.

On the first day of his canvass, Mr. Childers having engaged the Town
Hall at Knottingley, to address the electors there at nine o’clock on
the evening of the 13th August, the Abolitionists, wishing to have the
first word, secured the same Hall for seven o’clock, agreeing to move
out in time to leave the building clear for their opponents. Then Mr.
Childers’ party attempted to checkmate them by announcing that he would
address the electors at a much earlier hour, and from the windows of the
Buck Inn instead of the Town Hall. This enabled us to be present, and to
hear what Mr. Childers had to say. He made the customary excuses
concerning the delicacy of the subject, and asked those who desired it
to be dropped to hold up their hands. Mr. H. J. Wilson here enquired
whether he, as a non-elector (for Pontefract), might ask a question, and
the reply from the window was, “No! you are not an elector, you are not
wanted.” Groans followed this answer, and a hubbub ensued. Mr. Wilson
would have been roughly handled had not a body of working men placed
themselves on each side of him, saying, “Stand still; don’t move an
inch; you shall be heard; ask your questions; we want to hear the
answers.” During this time Mr. Childers’ chairman, carried away with
passion, was trying to reach Mr. Wilson’s head in order to castigate him
with his umbrella. The crowd swayed backwards and forwards, and Mr.
Wilson stood firm, with a smile upon his face. Some questions were asked
from the crowd, and not at all satisfactorily answered by Mr. Childers.

Suddenly a voice shouted, “To the Town Hall!” (for our meeting). The cry
was taken up, and the crowd started in that direction. With some other
ladies I had been watching the scene from a window, when several
gentlemen came up to us, and proposed to escort us to the Town Hall by
way of a quiet back street. Thereupon some of the working men cried out,
“No; never go down by a back way. Come along through the middle of the
crowd, and before their windows; we will protect you.” Our progress to
the Town Hall was thus converted into a sort of triumphal procession,
Mr. Wilson walking first, with the Blue Book of the Royal Commission
under his arm, attended by Mr. Edmondson and others, and loudly cheered
by the crowd of men and women in whose midst they moved; while Mr.
Childers and his friends looked with perplexed faces from the windows of
the Buck Inn upon their retreating audience, which had gone wholly over
to the opposition. It was not an encouraging scene for a Parliamentary
candidate.

One of Mr. Childers’ friends had, however, hurried to the Town Hall,
and, reaching the platform before we arrived, offered himself as
chairman. Mr. Wilson proposed another chairman, and a new disturbance
arose, which lasted for about half an hour. Eventually, however, Mr.
Wilson and others were heard with much attention and applause.

Mr. Childers’ party retorted by attacking and dispersing a meeting of
women the following day. We had arranged to hold this meeting of women
in the afternoon, when Mr. Childers was again to address a large
concourse from the window of a house. We had decided to hold our meeting
at the same hour, thinking we should be unmolested. We had been obliged
to go all over the town before we found anyone bold enough to grant us a
place to meet in. At last we found a large hay-loft over an empty room
on the outskirts of the town. We could only ascend to it by means of a
kind of ladder, leading through a trap-door in the floor. However, the
place was large enough to hold a good meeting, and was soon filled. Mr.
Stuart had run on in advance and paid for the room in his own name, and
had again looked in to see that all was right. He found the floor strewn
with cayenne pepper in order to make it impossible for us to speak, and
there were some bundles of straw in the empty room below. He got a poor
woman to help him, and with bucket of water they managed to drench the
floor and sweep together the cayenne pepper. Still, when we arrived, it
was very unpleasant for eyes and throat. We began our meeting with
prayer, and the women were listening to our words with increasing
determination never to forsake the good cause, when a smell of burning
was perceived, smoke began to curl up through the floor, and a
threatening noise was heard below at the door. The bundles of straw
beneath had been set on fire, and the smoke much annoyed us. Then, to
our horror, looking down the room to the trap-door entrance, we saw
appearing head after head of men with countenances full of fury; man
after man came in, until they crowded the place. There was no possible
exit for us, the windows being too high above the ground, and we women
were gathered into one end of the room like a flock of sheep surrounded
by wolves. Few of these men, we learned, were Yorkshire people; they
were led on by two persons whose _dress_ was that of gentlemen.

It is difficult to describe in words what followed. It was a time which
required strong faith and calm courage. Mrs. Wilson and I stood in front
of the company of women, side by side. She whispered in my ear, “Now is
the time to trust in God; do not let us fear”; and a comforting sense of
the Divine presence came to us both. It was not personal violence that
we feared so much as the mental pain inflicted by the rage, profanity
and obscenity of the men, of their words and their threats. Their
language was hideous. They shook their fists in our faces, with volleys
of oaths. This continued for some time, and we had no defence or means
of escape. Their chief rage was directed against Mrs. Wilson and me. We
understood by their language that certain among them had a personal and
vested interest in the evil thing we were opposing. It was clear that
they understood that “their craft was in danger.” The new teaching and
revolt of women had stirred up the very depths of hell. We said nothing,
for our voices could not have been heard. We simply stood shoulder to
shoulder—Mrs. Wilson and I—and waited and endured; and it seemed all the
time as if some strong angel were present; for when these men’s hands
were literally upon us, they were held back by an unseen power. There
was among our audience a young Yorkshire woman, strong and stalwart,
with bare muscular arms, and a shawl over her head. She dashed forward,
fought her way through the crowd of men, and, running as fast as she
could, she found Mr. Stuart on the outskirts of Mr. Childers’ meeting,
and cried to him, “Come! Run! They are killing the ladies.” He did run,
and came up the ladder stairs into the midst of the crowd. As soon,
however, as they perceived that he was our defender, they turned upon
him. A strong man seized him in his arms; another opened the window; and
they were apparently about to throw him headlong out. Some of us ran
forward between him and the window, thus just giving him time to slip
from between the man’s arms on to the floor, and glide away to the side
where we were. He then asked to be allowed to say a few words to them,
and, with good temper and coolness, he argued that he had taken the
room, that it was his, and if they would kindly let the ladies go he
would hear what they had to say. A fierce argument ensued. Meanwhile
stones were thrown into the window, and broken glass flew across the
room. While all this was going on (it seemed to us like hours of
horrible endurance), hope came at last, in the shape of two or three
helmeted policemen, whose heads appeared one by one through the
trap-door. “Now,” we thought, “we are safe!” _But no!_ These were
Metropolitans who had come from London for the occasion of the election;
they simply looked at the scene with a cynical smile, and left the place
without an attempt to defend us. My heart grew sick as I saw them
disappear. Our case seemed now to become desperate. Mrs. Wilson and I
whispered to each other in the midst of the din, “Let us ask God to help
us, and then make a rush for the entrance.” Two or three working women
placed themselves in front of us, and we pushed our way, I scarcely know
how, to the stairs. It was only myself and one or two other ladies that
the men really cared to insult and terrify, so if we could get away we
felt sure the rest would be safe. I made a dash forward, and took one
leap from the trap-door to the ground-floor below. Being light, I came
down safely. I found Mrs. Wilson with me very soon in the street. Once
in the open street, these cowards did not dare to offer us violence. We
went straight to our own hotel, and there we had a magnificent women’s
meeting. Such a revulsion of feeling came over the inhabitants of
Pontefract when they heard of this disgraceful scene that they flocked
to hear us, many of the women weeping. We were advised to turn the
lights low, and close the windows, on account of the mob; but the hotel
was literally crowded with women, and we scarcely needed to speak;
events had spoken for us, and all honest hearts were won.

On the day before the voting day we held a serious consultation of
friends in our hotel, and agreed to work all that day and night, and
leave the town early in the morning, before the polling began; as after
that we could be of no further use. We drew up a last appeal to the
electors of Pontefract, and had it printed quickly. The appeal was
short, and printed in large type. When night came, the gentlemen, about
half a dozen in number, obtained a plan of the town, and mapped out
their operations, each taking a certain district with the intention of
going to every house, and pushing this appeal under the doors, so that
it might catch the eye of every householder first thing in the morning.
It was already too late to secure its delivery in time by the post. The
appeal was as follows:—


“ELECTORS OF PONTEFRACT.

“Pause, before you exercise your solemn trust, to consider whether the
man can be worthy of your support who, for eight years, has been deeply
implicated in the immoral, cruel, and treacherous policy embodied in the
Acts we oppose, and in the Government Bill of 1872, which proposed to
extend the principle of these Acts to the whole country.

“If you vote for Mr. Childers you endorse the sentiment that a holy life
is impossible for unmarried men, and that women must be provided for
them by the State, and sacrificed, both body and soul, to their lust—a
sentiment which blasphemes God, insults manhood, and destroys both men
and women, body and soul.

“As you will have to answer at God’s judgment bar, will you uphold the
man and the Government who would thus demoralise and ruin the nation?

“If you are Liberals, save your party by forcing the present Cabinet
from their suicidal policy.”


The night was fine and calm, and the moon shone down upon the quiet
streets. The citizens seemed all to have retired early to rest after the
heat and excitement of the day. I was sitting at my open window in the
silence, and watched one after another of our scouts pass out of the
hotel door and quietly glide away each to his respective district,
carrying packets of our appeal to slip under the doors of the houses.
When they had all disappeared, a solitary figure passed beneath my
window, and a man paused, looking up. It was a member of the Town’s
Police. In a low but distinct voice he begged my pardon for addressing
me, and then went on to express his sympathy and that of his fellow
policemen in regard to the treatment we had received from the mob of
assailants at our women’s meeting and from the members of the
Metropolitan Police. He spoke indignantly of the latter, and begged me
to believe that had the Pontefract Police known of our situation they
would have acted very differently towards us women, even if our cause
had not been so just and good a cause. I felt grateful for these furtive
words of kindness spoken in the silent night.

After several hours, and towards dawn, our friends began to return and
quietly re-enter the hotel. Mr. Stuart had had some adventures. His
district of action included an old Church and graveyard. The moon had
set, and he, missing his way, wandered into this dark cemetery. After
stumbling about for some time over the crowded graves, with difficulty
he found an exit and regained the street.

We left the town betimes the next morning. The result of the voting was
such as to prove to the Government that we Abolitionists were on the
alert and determined, and the incidents of the Election contributed to
open the eyes of Mr. Childers himself to the true nature of the question
at issue, for he became later a convert to our principles.

The following letter was written to me after the Election by a working
man of Leeds. He had gone over to Pontefract from Leeds after his day’s
work was done, solely for the pleasure of aiding our efforts by the
distribution of papers and leaflets, though well aware that, in order to
accomplish his purpose without failing in his duties on the following
day, he would be obliged to perform the journey home (a distance of
nearly twenty miles) on foot.

I say nothing of the self-sacrifice required to undertake such fatigue
after the labours of the day. We were well used to such proofs of
devotion on the part of our working-class supporters, and we knew that
it brought with it its own reward:—


“MADAM,—I venture to give you a short outline of my proceedings. When
passing down Bridge Street, Pontefract, with the bundles under my arm of
papers which I got from Mr. Edmondson, they were noticed by people in
the streets, and more than one called after me, saying that if I went to
Knottingley with them I should be thrown into the river. An incident
occurred whereby I was on the brink of being torn to pieces. In
distributing papers I spared neither distance nor persons—men or
women—and after going the rounds of Ferrybridge and Knottingley, I
called at an Inn. I got permission from the landlord to distribute in
his house. I went round the room with the _white_ papers first, and so
far all was well; but I no sooner commenced with the red bills (Mr.
Childers’ colours) than the whole company rose up and surrounded me for
the purpose of demolishing me and the few bills I had left. The uproar
brought to my rescue the landlord and landlady, who remonstrated with
their customers, saying, ‘Fair play amongst Englishmen! one dog, one
bone!’ etc., during which I mounted upon a stool, and at the top of my
voice shouted out that, with their permission, I would be glad to tell
who and what I was, and would be happy to answer any question anyone
liked to put to me at the close of my observations.

“In addition to this uproarious meeting, I held two open-air meetings,
and have promised to send books and papers, etc., to certain addresses
which I took down. My thoughts were now directed towards home. To say I
was _tired_, to start with, is to give but a faint idea of my condition;
it was a case of _must be_; therefore I cheerfully accepted the task,
and, walking on through the night, I arrived home at 4.30 a.m.,
suffering more from want of food than the distance, for I could not get
anything before I left, as everything was locked up. The road to Leeds I
knew not; so, to get over the difficulty, when I came to finger-posts, I
lighted matches and paper to read them by. The silence of my journey was
only broken occasionally by the fluttering of game birds, or the sudden
dart of a hare across my path. For a part of the time it was extremely
foggy and dewy, so much so as to completely saturate my clothes, as
though I had really been dipped in the river at Knottingley. I was a
little drowsy during the forenoon, took a good sharp four-mile walk in
the evening, and am now glad to say that I never was better in my life;
and, if necessary, I am fully prepared to accept the same amount of
pleasure again in endeavouring to rid my country of these Satanic Acts.”


In the winter of this year the annual meeting of the Trades Union
Congress was held in Leeds. A Conference and a Public Meeting of our
Associations were arranged to take place simultaneously. Prominent
members of the Northern Counties League (Abolitionist) attended. My
husband and I were there. We met in friendly conference, and by
arrangement, the leaders of the working men, who were present in
considerable numbers. There were Joseph Arch, Henry Broadhurst, George
Howell, Mr. Pickard of Wigan, Mr. Banks of Newark, etc.; several of
these afterwards were elected members of Parliament, and their names are
held in honour for their services rendered to the cause of labour. It is
needless to say that their sympathies were wholly with us. At the public
meeting in the evening the speeches made by some of these men were
weighty and pathetic. I was most struck by that of Joseph Arch; he was
followed by my husband, who expressed his own and my deep sympathy with
the daughters of the working classes and the poor, from whose ranks so
many of the victims of the social evil are drawn.




                               CHAPTER IV

              “More than we hoped, in that dark time,
                When, faint with watching, few, and worn,
              We saw no welcome day-star climb
                The cold, grey pathway of the morn.

              “O weary hours! O night of years!
                What storms our darkling pathway swept,
              Where, beating back our thronging fears,
                By faith alone our march we kept.”


The year 1874 was a period of great depression and discouragement for
our cause, while in that same year were recorded, more openly than ever
before, the bold and vast designs of our opponents, the Regulationists,
throughout Europe. For them it was the year of the greatest hope, and of
the apparent approaching triumph of all their schemes.

Mr. Gladstone’s sudden resignation of office in the early part of the
year, and the dissolution of Parliament, took the country by surprise
and confused the reckonings of our Abolitionist party, who had for some
years laboured, and with considerable success, to win the personal
adhesion, one by one, of the members of the Parliament now dissolved.
Our faithful Parliamentary leader, Mr. W. Fowler, lost his seat in the
General Election which followed. Several of our best friends in the
House also failed to secure their return to Parliament. But still more
unfavourable for us was the excitement which prevailed during the spring
and summer concerning several other political questions important for
the people at large, causing our movement to take only a secondary place
for the time, even in the minds of many who were truly convinced and in
earnest about it. Our principles, indeed, seemed to be scarcely
represented in the General Election. Those among us who understood the
vital and far-reaching nature of those principles, and who had learned
wherein our true strength lay, now held many grave and rather sorrowful
consultations. It was at this time that one of our most solemn
agreements was formed for united waiting upon God. An invitation was
sent to our friends and allies throughout the United Kingdom to join, on
a certain day, in groups in their own towns or neighbourhoods, in order
definitely once more to place this sacred cause, and everything
connected with it, in the hands of the Omnipotent Ruler of all.

It will be necessary to go back in order to trace the growth of the
Regulation system in Europe, and the increasing audacity of the
pretensions of certain medical and administrative cliques, culminating
in a vast design, of which I am about to speak. This sketch shall be
brief, for it is not my intention in these Reminiscences to enter into
any of the medical and police details, which we were forced for many
years to look into and judge. The aspects of the question on which these
bear are set forth in other works, which are obtainable in England and
on the Continent; for at the time of which I am now writing, a vast
literature from the pens of the Regulationists had already been
produced. I may mention the most important of the works on that side,
namely: a ponderous volume by Dr. Jeannel, of Lyons; a large and, from
the literary point of view, meritorious work by Dr. Mireur, of
Marseilles; two books by M. Lecour, Prefect of the Morals’ Police in
Paris, and others in German and other languages.

Up to the times of the First Empire in France, all regulations and laws
directed against the social vice in the different countries of Europe
were simply repressive, sometimes ferociously repressive, and in general
taking effect upon the physically weaker sex only. Vicious men or women,
who were hopelessly smitten by the greatest physical evil resulting from
vice, were generally expelled or forcibly isolated. In some towns of
France at one period such were hanged!

I have already indicated that it was during the profound disorganisation
and misery produced by the wars of the First Empire that the system of
the Police des Mœurs was first discussed, and in some cases established
throughout the different countries of the European Continent. Gradually
the contagion in favour of this oppressive and delusive scheme spread,
until a complete network of regulations was formed, the meshes of which
were drawn more tightly year by year. At first, in some countries,
respect for individual liberty and for the private life of the humbler
citizens, opposed a feeble barrier against the wholesale adoption of
this system; but ultimately the hygienic question (considered solely
from the materialistic point of view) dominated all others, and medical
cliques sprang up in every country, claiming to be the sole repositories
of wisdom concerning this great question which involves principles of
justice, good government, economy, liberty, and virtue. This new-born
medical tyranny, once having found its feet, never paused in its onward
march, and it was generally acknowledged that the professional dictum of
the doctors on this subject must become of absolute and exclusive
authority. _Salis populi suprema lex_ was their boasted motto, applied
in a very limited sense, however, and, because (of necessity)
indissolubly linked with police and Governmental tyranny exercised over
one sex alone, it became a falsehood and a mere cloak for the most
selfish and cynical system ever devised by the materialistic egotist.

Having now grown bold, the defenders of this system began to feel that
there was only one thing more needed to crown their success, one step
further to be taken in order to complete this vast network. In 1825 the
Belgian Society of Natural and Medical Science had thrown out a feeler
in the direction of extending the system throughout the whole of Europe.
Ten years afterwards, 1835, this question was again discussed in
Brussels by the Medical Congress of Belgium. In 1841 the Council of
Salubrity of Marseilles discussed the question, and resolved on the
desirability of unity of action among all the different European
administrations. In 1843 there again was held a deliberative meeting on
the subject in the Belgian Academy of Medicine. In 1852 the
“International Hygienic Congress” met in Brussels and discussed “the
legislative and administrative measures necessary to impose upon all
Communes the duty of carrying out the Regulations.” Finally, upon the
invitation of the Belgian Government, the Belgian Superior Council of
Hygiene elaborated in 1855 and 1856 a project for this purpose for all
the Communes of their own Kingdom.

I cannot help remarking here on the fact that, while the public
authorities in Belgium seem to have been the first to adopt, and, I
might almost say, to devour greedily these evil principles first
promulgated under Napoleon I., and while, up to some twelve years ago,
the Belgian regulations were looked upon with profound respect by the
defenders of this system in all countries as being the most perfect, the
ideal form of this system, and the one which it was desirable should be
imitated everywhere, later Belgian _authorities_, on the other hand,
have been the first in Europe to take the initiative in endeavouring to
throw off the yoke of this detestable tyranny. I say the Belgian
authorities. In every other country the authorities have been slowly and
with difficulty moved by the persistent action of different classes of
the people, and the pressure of public opinion continued year after
year. Nowhere except in Belgium has there been witnessed the remarkable
sight of a Prime Minister with the majority of his colleagues in the
Government, men of weight, and of serious character, deciding to
endeavour themselves to bring about this reform which we advocate, and
openly coming forward to announce their agreement with the principles of
the Abolitionists. It is true that these honest men had been previously
influenced—I may say, quietly educated—on the whole question by the
“Belgian Society of Public Morality,” the prime mover in which was M.
Jules Pagny, of Brussels, who afterwards had the powerful support of M.
Emile de Laveleye, a Belgian himself. But till the year 1890, when we
were invited to hold our International Congress in Brussels, and,
indeed, up to the moment in which I am now writing, no Government of any
country except that of Belgium has placed itself at the front of this
movement, mastering the whole subject with an admirable humility and
patience, and studying the best means of combating immorality, beginning
with the abolition of this great public injustice and iniquity, State
Regulation of vice.[4]

To return. It was the example of Brussels in 1856, probably, which
influenced the doctors of Paris to promote a great demonstration by
inviting the International Medical Congress to meet in that city in
1867. At that Congress the question of a universal application of the
Police des Mœurs was considered. In order to give more _éclat_ to the
measures there proposed, the Congress voted by acclamation, before
beginning to discuss the question, that a Commission should be nominated
at the end of the discussion which should be charged to visit the
Governments of all countries to urge them to adopt a uniform system of
medical police government in order to stamp out throughout the world the
scourge of the physical effects of men’s vices. Among the numerous
papers read on that occasion the most important was that of Dr. Jeannel,
which entered minutely into all the international measures proposed to
be adopted.

In 1869, the same year in which our organised opposition to the system
arose in England, the question of international action in favour of
regulated vice was discussed at a Conference at St. Petersburg. In the
same year the well-known Dr. Crocq, of Brussels, and Dr. Rollet, of
Lyons, presented at the Congress of Florence a report which they had
been charged to draw up by the Congress at Paris. This report concluded
with a petition from the Commission to the French Foreign Minister,
praying him to further the appointment of an International Commission in
order to “draw up a uniform regulation which should have the force of
law in every country in the world.”

In 1873 the question was again brought forward in Vienna by the
International Medical Congress held in that city. It had been somewhat
cautiously, in the meanwhile, brought up at a Medical Congress in Rome
in 1871, and again in Bordeaux early in 1873. It was at this Congress of
Vienna, however, that the boldest and most triumphant note was sounded
which had ever been heard from the Regulationist camp. The Congress
demanded the prompt enactment of an international law in order to carry
out their vast designs. A majority of the speakers on this occasion
warmly recommended that the regulations of Brussels should be adopted as
the model, one of them asserting, amidst the approbation of the
listeners, that “_from the moment when prostitution shall become a
regular and recognised institution, admitted and regulated by the State,
its perfect organisation will become possible_.”[5]

We have strong evidence that the placing upon the English Statute Book
of the law 1866–69 for the regulation of vice had greatly contributed to
raise the hopes of the promoters of the international system which was
aimed at. They looked upon the action of the English Parliament as a
most happy presage; and from the year 1867 they had begun to act, with
increasing determination, to multiply their assaults everywhere, and to
arrogate to themselves the powers of legislators by drawing up endless
Bills (_Projets de loi_) which they believed they would ultimately be
able to impose on every nation. Everything pointed to the fact that they
were about to strike a blow which should bring all the Governments of
the civilised world down upon their knees before the great god of
so-called medical science, and force them to conform to its will.

At this moment, however, a little cloud began to be visible on the edge
of their vast and brilliant horizon. The Organising Committees of the
Medical Congress of Philadelphia in 1876, and of one which was proposed
for Geneva in 1877, learned with astonishment that certain doctors who
were to be present at these meetings were coming prepared to oppose not
only the great ideal International Project which had been so laboriously
built up, but the principle and essence of the system of the Police des
Mœurs itself. It would not do, they thought, to meet this opposition
unprepared, or in any way to be drawn into a compromise. The Committees
of these two Congresses therefore deemed it prudent simply to cut the
question entirely out of their programmes!

From that time forward the International Regulation System which had
been so imperiously demanded from the different Governments has been but
rarely and very timidly defended. One may judge of the decline of the
courage of the Regulationists by the ever feebler and fainter echoes of
that demand which have been heard in every succeeding Regulationist
Conference on the question, concluding by the Congress recently held at
Lyons (in 1894), where the system of the Police des Mœurs only found
three defenders.

On the 25th of June, 1874—the year of discouragement of which I have
spoken—a few friends of the Abolitionist cause met to confer together at
York. Their conference was in many respects a remarkable one. It
consisted of a mere handful of the most steadfast supporters of the
cause, who had come, some of them, from long distances. All were filled
with a profound sense of the solemnity of the purpose which had brought
them together. It was a time, as I have said, of deep depression in the
work. Those who were present fully recognised the powerful array of
organised forces against which they had to contend; they were filled
with a kind of awe in the contemplation of those forces and the
magnitude of the difficulties with which they were called to grapple. At
the same time, every one of that group seemed animated by a deep and
certain conviction that the cause would triumph. The circumstances under
which this conference took place were such as to call strongly for the
exercise of that faith which alone can animate reformers to contend
against a sudden increase of an evil at whose destruction they aim. The
voice of the Abolitionists had for a time been partially stilled by the
clash of parties in the general election. For a time even the most
energetic workers were unable to see what steps for the continuance of
the work could most effectively be taken. Having hitherto felt
themselves engaged in a battle for the abolition of the State sanction
of vice in Great Britain only, they had become aware that a large and
powerful organization on the Continent was seeking to increase the
efficacy of the vice regulations, and for that purpose was appealing
confidently to England to take the lead in organising under all the
Governments of Europe an international scheme for the application of
these regulations to every country, and to every seaport throughout the
world.

After a period of silence for united prayer, the Rev. C. S. Collingwood,
Rector of Southwick, Sunderland, addressed the little group around him
in words which have never been forgotten by those who passed through the
trial of faith of that year,—words which were assuredly inspired by God,
and were His message to us at that period of anxious suspense. He said:—

“Our ceasing to be heard in Parliament for a time, or in the Press, or
by public meetings, means necessarily so much clear gain to the other
side. We have a most solemn charge, and cannot even maintain our ground
except on the condition of ceaseless warfare. Much of the hostile
pressure comes from abroad, and we shall do well to consider the
propriety of carrying the war into the enemy’s country by establishing
relations with leading and earnest opponents of the regulation of sin,
say in France, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, etc., and stimulating opposition
in these countries, and perhaps holding our own International Congress.
There can be no doubt that in all the countries subjected to this
degrading system, a few sparks would create a great fire of indignation
and revolt against the immoral system.

“Observe the world-wide schemes of the enemy—they will not rest till the
whole world is under their regulations; and they have hitherto got all
they wanted, until they touched the sacred soil of England. From the
moment when that desecration was known opposition commenced. North,
South, East, West, the Regulationists have marched without let or
hindrance, and they dream not yet of anything but further conquests.
‘What,’ we may imagine them saying, ‘what are trifling checks at the
Cape of Good Hope, or in the United States, or in Bombay?[6] What is a
temporary delay in England to a party whose plans embrace the whole wide
world? There are plenty of other fields to occupy. Only keep up a steady
fire upon England; she is the centre of the position; carry England and
you are masters of the world.’

“We must not suppose that it is only the _Lancet_, or a Mr. Berkley
Hill, or a Mr. Acton that we have to face. Behind them is a sort of
International League of the doctors, supported by the institutions of
Continental Europe. What (they ask) are a few women, a few noisy
agitators, a few hundred thousand petitioners, a few superannuated
prejudices? Yes, what are we,—only a few Christian Englishwomen and
Englishmen—what are we against so-called science, and all the allies it
invokes, against Kings and Prime Ministers, many-voiced over all the
face of the earth? What, with International Medical Congresses,
International Conferences, Governments looking on us with contempt and
anger, newspapers stamping us out, the majority of a most influential
profession smiling scorn on our protests, all kinds of figures arrayed
against us, even the figures of our own insignificant minority, against
the voice of civilised Europe—What are we to think?—to do? Should we not
rest content with the verdict[7] of May, 1873, and leave the field to
the undisputed possession of supervised vice? _No! a thousand times no!_
We will remember the victory over Amalek, ‘the first of the nations,’ by
a feeble people sustained by prayer; we will think of the stripling
David, how he defeated Goliath with a sling and a stone; we will mark
the vanity of Sennacherib’s ‘great host’ and how it melted away before
the might of God, invoked by the faithful Hezekiah; and time would fail
to multiply encouraging facts which abound in modern as well as ancient
times, and command those who defend God’s cause never to despair.

“Some of us must remember how hopeless we used to think the abolition of
American slavery. The constitution of the United States, the political
power of the South, the apathy of the North, the attitude of the
religious bodies, all made it seem the wildest of hopes. But we have
seen it abolished, and we will never despair in any struggle where we
are sure God is on our side. It is the blessedness of history, both
sacred and profane, that when all the force is spent, and the noise of
the times is over, it tells us of the power of the pure, the just, the
true, and the impuissance of whatever has arrayed itself against these
angels of God. As ‘principles are rained in blood,’ so they have their
dark hours, which daunt no true man nor woman, but drive them to God’s
footstool, there to receive faith and strength for fresh encounters and
new efforts. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal; we believe, and
therefore we speak and fight; and comparatively few though we may be, we
measure not our prospects of success by numbers, or weight, or metal; we
recall those former Heaven-blessed struggles, in which the King’s
soldiers were as few and as feeble as we, and we know that we shall
succeed if we faint not.

“When Granville Sharp, in 1772, obtained the famous decision that a
slave is free as soon as he touches English territory, he did not think
it one of the first steps towards the general abolition of the slave
trade and of slavery everywhere; but it was so; and thus, when some
noble ones among us raised a cry of horror and indignation on finding
that supervised vice had presumed to desecrate our English soil, they
little guessed how far their voices would reach, nor what the work was
upon which they unwittingly were entering, nor what the victories which
they were to achieve. But they have already been able to produce great
effects in Africa, Australia, and the United States; and, though still
unsuccessful at home, we and they believe that the opposition which has
commenced in England will obtain its utmost success here, and that a
force of public opinion and true sentiment is being slowly generated
which will cross all lands and seas, and in its progress sweep away
everywhere the monstrous organisation of vice, against which we lift our
voices to-day.”

These words found an echo in the breasts of all present, and from that
conference all departed feeling that a new era was dawning upon the
whole movement, which could only lead to the final triumph of the cause
of justice and morality, far beyond the limits of our own country.

This conference at York marked the first step in that great expansion of
the movement which has called forth a protest against legalised vice in
so many countries, resulting in an organised international opposition to
that modern slave system. The meeting at York passed a formal
resolution, not embracing any large scheme, but merely accepting, with
approbation, a proposition to open correspondence with opponents of the
Regulation system abroad, and requesting the Ladies’ National
Association, who had already several foreign correspondents, to commence
operations, with a view to stimulate public opinion in Continental
countries.

This work of opening correspondence, in accordance with the resolution
above mentioned, was, in its beginning, an apparently feeble, as it was,
indeed, a laborious undertaking, carried on somewhat in the vague and in
the dark. Having obtained a list of addresses of philanthropic workers
in various countries in Europe, I posted a brief appeal to every address
contained in it, in the hope of drawing forth some expression of
sympathy in our objects.

One little incident may illustrate the manner in which, before and
during that campaign, every effort seemed to be providentially guided.

In August of that year I picked up, by what we call chance, a little
book containing the names and addresses of persons connected with some
international benevolent organization. I addressed a few letters to some
of these, making an appeal on this question. One of these was addressed
to a Mr. Humbert, of Neuchâtel. It never reached its destination, and,
had it done so, possibly might never have met with a response; but the
Neuchâtel postman made a mistake, as postmen sometimes, though very
seldom, do. In this case it was a happy mistake. He took the letter to
another Mr. Humbert, Mr. Aimé Humbert, who opened it. He was no stranger
to the question. He had for years said to himself, “When I am more free
from other public work, I must turn to this terrible subject.”

Shortly afterwards I received a letter from Mr. Aimé Humbert,
acknowledging my appeal as providential. I had told him of my projected
visit to the Continent that same winter, and in reference to that he
said:—“You are about to confront not only the snows of winter, but the
ice that binds so many hearts on the Continent. Bring among us, then,
the fire of that faith which can remove mountains. The breath of the
most High can break the icebergs in pieces, and kindle a mighty
conflagration.”

It was one of the most severe winters of this century (1874–1875), but
the opposition of the elements seemed a little matter in comparison with
that of the prejudice, blindness and passion which threatened at first
to block the way to success in such an enterprise.

As Mr. Aimé Humbert occupied for so many years a very prominent position
in our International Federation, I may here give a brief account of his
career previous to our becoming acquainted with him.

He was born in 1819, in the Canton of Neuchâtel, educated at Lausanne
and several of the German Universities, and married, in 1843, Marie
Müller, daughter of the Secretary of the Royal Consistory of Wurtemburg.
At the close of the revolution which severed Neuchâtel from the crown of
Prussia, M. Humbert, who was one of the principal actors in securing the
freedom of his Canton, was called to take a part in its Government, and
filled for ten years the office of Minister of Public Instruction.
Nominated at the same time a Member of the Federal Parliament, he
occupied for one year the Post of President of the “Chambres des Etats
Suisses.” The Federal Council charged him, in 1858, to act with the
Minister Plenipotentiary of Switzerland, M. Kearn, in concluding the
treaty of Paris concerning Neuchâtel. In 1862 he was entrusted by the
Federal Council with a Mission to Japan, as Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary, to bring about a treaty of Commerce with
Switzerland. His very excellent work on Japan, which has given him a
status in Europe as a geographer, has been translated into English.

In his character as a scientific man he was also appointed a Member of
the École Polytechnique of Zurich, Corresponding Member of the
Geographical Society of Geneva, and a member of the Honorary Committee
of the International Geographical Congress of Paris; besides being
appointed President or Member of many other Literary and Scientific
Societies.

But before I go on to speak of our first essay on the Continent, I must
record an event at home which gave a great impulse to our cause.

The defeat of the Liberal party in this year (1874), freed Mr. Stansfeld
from the restraints of office as a Minister of the Crown. In July Sir
Harcourt Johnstone invited a number of Members of Parliament to his
house to discuss the position of the Abolitionist question. Mr.
Stansfeld went there with others, and proposed that Sir Harcourt himself
should move in the House for leave to bring in a Bill for Repeal. This
he did.

On the 15th October a great public meeting was held in the Colston Hall,
Bristol, at which Mr. Stansfeld made his first public appearance as a
champion of our cause. It was a notable occasion. He was surrounded on
the platform by a number of the best and most devoted men and women, who
had worked from the beginning, and who watched his entrance upon this
field of battle with a very deep and solemn interest. It was the first
time that an ex-Minister of the Crown, a distinguished and recognised
leader of one of the great political parties, had appeared upon our
platform. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of such service
to our cause; but Mr. Stansfeld brought to it not only his widely known
name, but deep convictions, indomitable courage and great eloquence.
This, his first speech for us, attracted the attention of the whole
country, and led to a discussion of the question by the press of the
country, which for a short time abandoned the “conspiracy of silence,”
resuming it again, however, some weeks later. The _Times_ sincerely
regretted “that a statesman of Mr. Stansfeld’s eminence should identify
himself with such an hysterical crusade, in which it is impossible to
take part without herding with prurient and cynical fanatics.” The
_Saturday Review_ said that “Governments with real responsibility upon
them cannot regard life with this primitive straightforwardness, and
must be content to trust that what is required for the health of a
people is also the most in harmony with Christianity.” Which was a
supremely haughty way of saying that if the methods of Governments and
Christianity did not agree, so much the worst for Christianity.[8]

After an address of extraordinary power, full of lucid argument, Mr.
Stansfeld concluded with the following words:—“Full of a sense of
special responsibility, I have dived down into the very depths of this
question, and have impressed myself with the profound conviction that
this system is immoral and unconstitutional, and calculated to degrade
and debase the manhood and the womanhood of the country. I have watched
the insidious materialism creeping over the country and entangling in
the meshes of its wide-sweeping net many good men and good women
unconscious whither they were going, and deceived by appeals made to
them in the name of benevolence, and for the sake of diminishing
physical suffering. I have seen good men and women, brave men and braver
women master the intense repugnance which a refined and sensitive person
must feel on such a subject; I have seen women with all their exquisite
sensitiveness coming before the public to plead the cause of virtue
against that of legalised vice; and I have marked these women hounded
down, hooted at with unseemly language, gestures, and even threats, and
I know that, were not the spirit of the law of this country too strong,
their lives and persons might have been exposed to danger and to
outrage, as the lives and persons of the Abolitionists of America were
at the hands of the man-stealers and slave-holders of the South. I have
marked these things. I have put my hand to the plough; I have cast in my
lot with those men and women (for ever reverenced be their names!) who
hitherto have led a hope which too long has seemed a forlorn hope; and
never will I desist, and never will they desist, from this sacred
agitation until these degrading laws are blotted out from the statute
book for ever.”

Mr. Stansfeld made no vain boast on this occasion. He has kept his word.
He has fulfilled his promise. In numberless meetings at home and abroad,
on many important occasions, his powerful advocacy of our cause has been
heard, and up to the present time, in spite of the pressure of other
public duties, and of the encroaching disabilities of age, he has
maintained the same attitude; he has lent his powerful aid to the great
question of Abolition in India, and never fails in his interest and
helpfulness in any part of the work in which we are engaged.[9]


I left England for the Continent in December, 1874, and reached Paris,
accompanied by one of my sons, my husband and my other sons joining me
ten days later.

I was armed with some good introductions, or rather affectionate
recommendations from English friends to all and every one who might
consent to hear my message. One of these was signed by Mr. William Shaen
on behalf of our National Association, of which he was the able
President for a long period of years. Another was from the Friends’
Abolitionist Society, and was signed by leading men and women among the
Quakers. This body of Christians had gained the hearts of our
Continental neighbours in a remarkable degree by their devotion to the
sufferers (of both nationalities engaged) during and after the
Franco-German War. I found their name a ready passport on several
occasions. Lord Derby, our Foreign Minister at the time, very willingly
gave me a letter, written from the Foreign Office, stating briefly my
aims, and his desire for my safety and success. This last was useful in
Paris.

It was bitterly cold. The streets of Paris were filled with melting
snow, and a depressing fog hung over the city. After making several
calls on members of the Protestant community, I went to the headquarters
of the monstrous police tyranny in Paris. I gave an account of this
visit, in writing, to one of our leading friends at home. I reproduce
the letter here, as impressions recorded at the time are more vivid than
those which we may try to revive after many years.


                                                      “_December, 1874._

“I spent a part of yesterday at the Prefecture of the Morals’ Police; it
was an exceedingly painful visit to me. I was struck in the first place
with the grandeur of the externals of the Prefect’s office, and the
evidence of the political and social power wielded by that man Lecour.
The office is one of those handsome blocks of buildings on the banks of
the Seine. It has great gateways, within which guards are pacing up and
down; a broad stone staircase, where guards stand at intervals; a number
of official-looking men passing to and fro with papers, or accompanying
people desiring an audience. I reached the top of the stone stairs and
the Prefect’s outer door, over which in large gold letters were printed
the words: ‘_Arrestations, Service des Mœurs_.’ I was faint and out of
breath, and an old guard stared at me with curiosity as I gazed at those
mendacious words, ‘Service of Morals.’ I knew it all before, but here
the fact came upon me, with peculiar and painful vividness, that man had
made woman his degraded slave by a decree which is heralded in letters
of gold, and by a tyranny of procedure which, if it were applied to men,
would soon set all Paris in flames, and not merely a few of its
buildings. That _Service des Mœurs_ seemed a most impudent proclamation
of the father of lies; it so clearly and palpably means the ‘_Service de
Debauche_.’ M. Lecour’s whole conversation showed that it is debauchery
and not morals that he is providing for and serving.

“I entered, and was kept waiting in an ante-room for half an hour, until
the great man had dismissed certain business. At last a venerable
servant, in livery covered with gold lace, directed me to follow him. He
ushered me into Lecour’s audience chamber, a well-furnished room. His
appointments and surroundings are more imposing than the room of any
Minister of State that I have yet seen in England. There were two men in
the room whose business was not yet concluded; why Lecour admitted me
then I do not know; perhaps he was nervous about seeing me alone. He
might have guessed that I would take stock of all I saw and heard. He
was standing behind an imposing desk, with his visitors in front of him.
He waved his hand majestically, and bade me be seated, telling the
venerable servant to give me a newspaper to read. I pretended to look at
the newspaper, but kept my ears open to every word which was spoken.
What occurred left on my mind the most mournful impression. What a
tragedy there seemed to be implied in the scene which passed! The first
man Lecour asked to state his case was a gentlemanly elderly man,
fatherly-looking, grave and sad; he spoke in a low, hoarse voice, and
appeared to be making a great effort to repress his feelings; his voice
and words were those of a man full of wrath and sorrow. I thought there
was a look of suppressed vengeance about him. He leaned on an umbrella,
clutching the handle tightly with both hands; there was a long
altercation; on Lecour’s side flippancy, sentiment, many words, and an
apparent desire to get rid of the man by a few promises while making out
a case against a woman for whom this man had come to plead. Frequently
the Prefect lowered his voice so that I could not catch his words,
while, in the midst of his gesticulations and talk, the other man
repeated three times in a voice which I can never forget: ‘But you
accused her! you accused her!’ Then I heard Lecour detail in many and
rapid words how the woman (she might have been the daughter of the
elderly man; she was evidently some one dear to him) had at one time
been guilty of ‘levity.’ He hinted something mysteriously about her
antecedents having been questionable. I longed to fling back the charge
and ask the Prefect of his own antecedents, and the present life of the
men for whom he now provides shameful indulgence. Lecour then told of an
interview he himself had had with the woman (this seemed fearfully to
agitate the elderly man), in which he described how she wept and showed
signs of deep distress. ‘I told her,’ said the Prefect, ‘that if I saw
signs of a real repentance persevered in, I should _forgive_ her.’ These
last words were spoken in a tone of conscious power and pride. The man
Lecour appears to me—and I tried to judge without prejudice—very
shallow, vain, talkative; his arguments are of the weakest; he has a
certain dramatic cleverness, and acts all he says with face, arms and
legs. His countenance is to me very repulsive, although his face, which
is in the barber’s block style, might be called handsome as to hair,
eyes, eyelashes, etc. He has a fixed smile, that of the hypocrite,
though certainly he is _not_ exactly a hypocrite. He is simply a shallow
actor, an acrobat, a clever stage-manager. Probably he persuades himself
of what he is constantly saying to others; intoxicated with the sense of
power, chattering and gesticulating like an ape, at the head of an
office which is as powerful as that of the Roman Prefects of the City in
the time of Rome’s corruption. And such is the man who stands in the
position of holding in his hand, so to speak, the keys of heaven and
hell, the power of life and death, for the women of Paris!

“The elderly man was not in the least consoled by the assurance ‘I would
forgive her,’ and only repeated his sullen ‘but you accused her.’ I
think he was pleading to get her name taken off the register of shame.
That he did not succeed, and turned and left the room in silence with no
salutation to the Prefect, should show to our Englishmen what a tyranny
for _themselves_, as men and fathers, this horrible system may become.
M. Jules Favre tells me that the head of the Government in France can do
nothing without the consent of the Prefects of Police, permanent
officials, stronger than the Government itself, and that MacMahon sends
for these men first thing every morning to take counsel with them. Is it
not a good deal like that wretched time in Rome, when the Pretorian
Guards elected, deposed, or dictated to the Emperor of the time, and
became themselves the most oppressive of tyrants?

“The second man who had an audience was of a different kind. He was a
young, stout, overfed-looking man, and his conversation with Lecour was
of a friendly character. The Prefect called him near to him behind his
great desk, and much of the conversation was in whispers. It seemed to
be concerning the internal economy of some of the protected houses of
debauchery. The young man asked about the literature allowed in these
houses, and Lecour deprecated certain journals, which were too
republican, and ought not to be read by women. Lecour regulates the
reading in these houses, and he turned to a great bundle of papers to
show the young man those papers which were allowed. Lecour professed
affection and esteem for the young man, and there was a kindness in his
manner which contrasted strongly with his conduct towards the elderly
man.

“Having dismissed his young protégé, the great man was ready for me. By
this time anger had made me bold. I stood up before him, declining to
sit. I told him who I was, and why I had come to Paris. He said he knew
very well who I was. His manner became rather excited and uneasy. I
continued all the time to look very steadily, but not rudely, at him. I
knew that I, at least, was utterly sincere, and I inwardly invoked the
presence of Him who is the searcher of hearts, that He might be there, a
witness between us two. Instinctively, therefore, I kept my eyes fixed
on the man to see if there was any sincerity in him. He became more and
more talkative, as if to drown me with words; in fact, I could scarcely
get a word spoken. I therefore just put a distinct question or two in
the few pauses allowed, as if desirous of information, and then he
started off volubly with his answers. This was useful to me, for he
surely said much more than was prudent. I asked him the latest
statistical results. He hesitated, but when I pressed for it he opened a
desk and gave me a little book, the last written by himself, which has
some curious matter in it. I asked if vice and disease were diminished
or increased the last five years in Paris. He answered promptly, ‘Oh,
increased, they go always increasing, continually increasing’; these
were his words (in French, he does not speak a word of English). Then I
tried to hold him to a point, and get him to tell me the causes of this
increase. He attributed it solely to two things, which I think will
surprise you, _i.e._, to the temporary ascendency of the Commune, and
the increasing ‘coquetry’ of women. I could not restrain an expression
of contempt at his last remark, which he seemed to think quite a
satisfactory and exhaustive answer. I then made an onslaught, and said
(looking up at a speck of blue sky, which I saw through the window, and
holding on to it, as it were) that I—we—consider the whole system which
he represents as an absurdity, because of its inequality of application;
that men are immoral, and liable to the physical scourge of vice as well
as women, while the system only attacks women; and that any theory of
health, based on injustice and a supposed necessity for vice, must end
in not only ridiculous and total failure, but in increased confusion and
vice. He listened impatiently, still with his fixed smile. I purposely
avoided speaking of morality or religion, and tried to nail him to the
logical view of necessary failure through injustice and one-sidedness of
application. Off he went again, denouncing women and their seductions. I
interrupted him rather abruptly by reminding him that in this crime
which he was denouncing, namely, prostitution, there were two parties
implicated. I asked him if he had been so long at the Prefecture without
its occurring to him that the men for whose health he labours, and for
whom he enslaves women, are guilty in the same sense as women. This
challenge as to the equality of guilt, and, perhaps, a little irony in
my tone, roused him, and he became agitated and excited. He left his
retreat, and came out into the room and paced up and down. He then
acted, in the most disagreeable manner, an imaginary scene between a
poor woman, a temptress, and a young man. He seemed to think that I was
an ignoramus, and that this would convert me. He described in the old,
hackneyed, sentimental manner with which we are familiar, an ‘honourable
young man’ dining out, partaking _un peu généreusement_ of wine; a girl
meets him, marks his unsteady gait—and then he acted how she would place
her arm in his and tempt him. There was no comparison, he said, between
the two: the man was simply careless; the woman was a deliberate,
determined corrupter. ‘With what motive?’ I asked, ‘tell me, is it not
often the case that the woman is poor, for I know that in Paris work is
scarcely to be found just now; or else she is a slave in one of your
permitted houses, and is sent out by her employers on what is their,
rather than her, business?’ He smilingly denied this and said, ‘Oh, no,
no, it was not poverty, it was simply coquetry.’ Then he said in a
pompous and would-be impressive manner, ‘Madame, remember this, that
women continually injure _honest_ men, but no man ever injures an honest
woman.’ Then he stood as one who had cast down a challenge which could
not be taken up. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘you, yourself, have written
otherwise in your book. Here you speak of “wives and honest girls
injured by immoral and depraved men.”’ Then he changed his tone and
replied, ‘Ah, yes, but all that belongs to the region of romance; I am
only speaking of what can be recognised and forbidden by the police. The
police cannot touch the region of romance; nor can the State. You would
not desire that it should, would you?’ I replied that I desired justice,
but that I could not expect justice in this matter at the hands of the
police. Then he suddenly assumed a solemn expression and changed his
line of argument. He said, ‘Madame, écoutez! moi, je suis religieux; I
am as religious as yourself.’ Then he said, as a religious man, he must
admire the punishment of vice (in women only), and that when you could
not punish you must regulate; that among all the plans the world has
ever tried, which is of any avail, and the thing of which I would myself
become eventually the advocate, when I had had more experience, was his
own system, the system of arrests, constant arrests of women. He kept
reiterating that he was as religious as myself, and I said rather
sharply, ‘That may be, sir; I did not come here, however, to speak to
you about religion, but about justice.’ To me they are one. The religion
he spoke of was merely a bit of sentiment unworthy of the name. I
brought him back to the failure, hygienically, of his system, on account
of its injustice. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘But who hopes to
see perfect justice established? Who hopes for great hygienic results?’
‘Those,’ I replied, ‘belong, I suppose, to the region of romance.’ I
thanked him for his information, and asked him to be so good as to give
me a letter which would admit me to the whole of the St. Lazare. (The
St. Lazare was then entirely at the Prefect’s service, an immense
prison, hospital, and general depôt for all the unhappy women of Paris,
both for the vicious and those accused only of _vagabondage_, or who
were seeking work and had no friends.) He summoned a secretary, and in a
commanding way, directed him to write a letter giving me _carte blanche_
to see everything. When the man brought it back, Lecour sat down and
wrote a postscript, in which he requested ‘that every facility should be
given to the very honourable lady from England.’ Then he signed it
largely and stamped it with the stamp of the Prefect. So now I can go
about under his benign protection. I smiled as he wrote, thinking of the
shadowy fears which some of my friends felt when I was leaving England,
lest I should be seriously annoyed by the police. How wonderfully
Providence turns things upside down! Here was the very head of the
much-hated Morals’ Police himself sanctioning all I might wish to do
with a great flourish, and full of vanity in the performance.

“I could now enter even any of the dreadful houses which are under his
superintendence; his letter would be all-powerful. At the door, I
suddenly remembered the case of an innocent Swiss girl I had found, whom
his police are tormenting. I stated her case, assuming that he would at
once give orders for her to be let alone. At this his smiling character
suddenly changed for a moment. Almost spitting like a cat, he said, with
sudden irritation, ‘Mais quelles bêtises vous ont-elles dit!’ and a
strange expression came over his face. But he quickly recovered himself.
He evidently was making an effort to produce a good impression, and to
part friends. I felt very sad as I left his place.”




                               CHAPTER V

              “The curse which thro’ long years of crime,
              Is gathering, drop by drop, its flood.”


There was a whole world of misery contained within the walls of the St.
Lazare. As I reached the stone portico leading out of the street to the
large gates of the prison, a huge prison-van rolled in under the arch,
drawn by stout horses with clattering hoofs, and followed by
_gens-d’armes_, also on stout horses, and armed. The van was on high
wheels, and had apparently no window at all; strongly secured, and
dismal to look at, like an immense hearse. People fell back as if awed,
and the great iron gates rolled open; the _cortège_ rattled in, and the
gates rolled back again. I tried to make my way through the gates in the
wake of the prison-van, but there was no time, they closed so quickly
and looked so inexorable when shut. What powerful ruffians, what
dangerous, strong-sinewed criminals were they conveying with all this
show of armed force into the prison? The van contained only a few poor,
weak, helpless _girls_, guilty of the crime of not ministering to
impurity in accordance with official rules. I could not help exclaiming
to myself in my bitterness of soul: O, manly, courageous Frenchmen! ever
athirst for “glory,” how well it looks to see you exercising your brave
military spirit against the womanhood of your own country! You cannot
govern your own passions, but you can at least govern by physical force
the poor women of your streets, and swagger to your hearts’ content in
your hour of triumph, as you proudly enter the prison gates with your
trembling caged linnets. But no! miserable men, you cannot even do this;
you are beaten by your own women. They cannot meet you on stout horses,
with helmets and military swagger and police tyranny, but they beat you
with other and more deadly weapons.

We speak much of women, under the vicious system we oppose, being the
slaves of men, and we realise all the tyranny and oppression which has
reduced women to so abject a state; but when I went to Paris I began to
see the picture reversed in a strange and awful way, and to understand
how the men who had rivetted the slavery of women for such degrading
ends had become, in a generation or two, themselves the greater slaves;
not only the slaves of their own enfeebled and corrupted natures, but of
the women whom they have maddened, hardened, and stamped under foot.
Bowing down before the unrestrained dictates of their own lusts, they
now bow down also before the tortured and fiendish womanhood which _they
have created_. Till now I had never fully realised Nemesis in this form.
The degenerates of to-day plot and plan and scheme in vain for their own
physical safety. Possessed at times with a sort of stampede of terror,
they rush to International Congresses, and forge together more chains
for the dreaded wild beast they have so carefully trained, and in their
pitiful panic build up fresh barricades between themselves and that
womanhood, the _femme vengeresse_, which they proclaim to be a
“permanent source of sanitary danger.” M. Lecour, in his last book which
he gave me, appeared to regard every woman who is not under the
immediate rule of some man as he would a volcano ready to burst forth
under his feet; his terror had driven him to contrive a scheme by which
all the single women of Paris, the virtuous as well as vicious, shall be
netted by the police and held fast!

When a man abuses the good gifts of nature to brutalise himself by
excess in wine, that passive agent, in itself unconscious and incapable
of motive for good or evil, becomes to him a fiery scourge, his tyrant,
and he its slave; “in the end it biteth like a serpent.” Much more, and
in a far more awful sense, does abused womanhood become the fiery
scourge, the torment, and the tyrant of the men who systematically
outrage, in her, God’s best gift. Just so far as the soul of a woman is
above all inanimate things which are susceptible of abuse, so far is the
punishment of the man who outrages it increased. It is true he does not
become the slave of the woman, but merely of the _female_. Yet, inasmuch
as she is not a mere inanimate thing, like intoxicating drink, nor a
mere animal, but is endowed with intellect, affections, will,
responsibility, an immortal spirit, and inasmuch as men have turned _all
this to poison_, so is the vengeance suffered by those men in exact
proportion. The men who are guilty of the deliberate and calculating
crime of organising and regulating the ruin of women prepare for
themselves an enslavement, an overmastering terror and tyranny, compared
with which the miseries and enslavements brought about by other vices,
terrible as these are, are but as the foreshadowing of a reality.
Already they cringe, the abject slaves of the tyrant they have created;
they are ruled, cajoled, outwitted, mocked and scourged by her. They
rave at and curse her, as a wretched dipsomaniac curses his intoxicating
drink, madly grasping it all the time, and in the end she slays them.

A couple of surly-looking guards at the gateway of St. Lazare did not
vouchsafe me any answer when I asked how I was to get in; as I
persisted, however, one said “Vous pouvez battre,” jerking his head over
his shoulder towards a smaller and heavily iron-barred door. Yes! I
could “beat” no doubt, but my hand made no sound or impression at all
against that heavy iron door. I thought it rather typical of our whole
work on the Continent, beating at the outside of a strong Bastille of
misery and horror. Then the words came to me—“I have set before thee an
open door, and no man can shut it.” I went into the street and took up a
stone, and tried beating with that. It succeeded; a solemn old man in
livery opened; I gave him M. Lecour’s letter, desiring that they would
show me the whole place; and after looking at it narrowly, he passed me
on to the care of a nun, the second in charge.... I visited every part
of the building; it took a long time.... In the central court of the
prison, where a few square yards of blue sky are allowed to look down
upon the scene, troops of young girls were taking their hour of
prescribed “recreation,” namely, walking in twos and threes round the
sloppy and gloomy yard, where half-melted snow was turning into mud. It
was a sight to wring the heart of a woman, a mother! Most of them were
very young, and some of them so comely, so frank, so erect and graceful,
in spite of the ugly prison dress. Well might Alexandre Dumas exclaim,
“O besotted nation, to turn all these lovely women, who should be our
companions in life’s work, wives, and mothers, into ministers to vice!”
They were not all Parisian; they were from all the Provinces, and some
from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and England. I was not allowed to
speak to them. Never in my life did I so much long to speak; and I
fancied _they_ wished it too, for their steps slackened as they came
round, and they paused when they got near me, with looks of kindness, or
gentle curiosity. One knows enough of the heartless, artificial, or
hardened women of Paris, but my memory recalls _these_ who were the raw
material, fresh from nature’s hand, out of which Babylon manufactures
her soulless wild beasts who become a terror to their manufacturers.

After the other members of my family, with Professor Stuart, had joined
me from England, we accepted several invitations to hold meetings in the
salons of leading persons of the Protestant community of Paris. One of
the first who offered his aid was Pastor de Coppet, who suggested a
Conference at the house of a friendly member of the Chambers, where, he
said, “we shall all speak out what we have kept down in our hearts so
long.” Pastor Lepoids also strongly aided us in our efforts, and soon
after we gained the efficient co-operation of M. de Pressensé, M.
Theodore Monod, the venerable Dr. Monod (a physician), M. George Appia,
of the Church of the Augsburg Confession, M. Frederic Passy, Mme. André
Walther, and others; Madame Jules Simon and M. Victor Schoelcher,
Senator, gave their adhesion and advice. I received letters of sympathy
and approval of our efforts from M. Jules Simon, at that time President
of the Chambers, and from M. Louis Blanc. I had an interview by
appointment with M. Jules Favre, in his own house. My readers of the
present day may not perhaps know the position then held in France by M.
Jules Favre (who died not long after I saw him), nor the high character
of his utterances as an Advocate and politician. His words to me on this
subject were impressive. He spoke sadly and doubtfully of the
probabilities of realising so great a moral reform in his own country,
but yet resolutely as to the necessity of taking immediate steps to
create an improved public opinion on the subject; he expressed full
concurrence in our view of the absolute equality of moral responsibility
for both sexes. He gave me introductions to some Catholic gentlemen,
urging upon me the importance of appealing to all religious
denominations. He admitted that he had no faith in governmental help in
this matter, reminding me that “governments had never looked the
question fairly in the face, but when interfering at all, had almost
invariably done so in order to elevate the social vice into ‘an
institution,’ by which means they had increased and given permanence to
the evil.” He said: “Regard for the public health is their sole excuse.
But even the worst that could befall the public health is nothing to the
corruption of morals and national life engendered, propagated, and
prolonged by the system of official surveillance. It is utterly
inexcusable, and an act of supreme folly, to give a legal sanction to
the licentiousness of one sex and the enslavement of the other.” He
further spoke emphatically of the necessity of women being heard on this
subject. As he was curious to know by what methods the French system had
been introduced into free England, I gave him an account of the tactics
pursued, at which he appeared profoundly astonished.

Madame Jules Simon invited me to attend the annual meeting of the
committee of management of the Professional Schools established by
Madame Lemonnier. She said to me (though speaking sympathetically) that
my mission would not have any success in France, “because it was too
high and holy to be understood.” She said, and I feared there was truth
in this, that “all men, even the best men, in France had been from their
childhood so accustomed to look upon this shameful evil as a legal
institution that it would require a very long process of patient
educating to get them even to acknowledge that it is not honourable for
governments to create and maintain such an institution.” Madame Simon,
however, having read, ten months later, “A Voice in the Wilderness,”
wrote to me: “You are not under any illusion, for your voice is indeed
at present but a voice in the wilderness; but you have no grounds for
any discouragement; for those who do not understand you to-day _will
understand you to-morrow_.”

My sister wrote to me from Naples on New Year’s Eve, 1874–75:—


                                                            “_Midnight._

“Beloved of my Soul. I want to spend this solemn hour with you. My heart
is overflowing with gratitude to Him whose cross you bear. This passing
year, which began with so much discouragement, has finished gloriously
with the carrying of the standard of the fiery cross over the sea and
into another land; and you—God surrounds you with His shield. Everyone
out of England to whom I told your mission said you would be insulted
and outraged in Paris, and could not do any good. Even people who
believe in your mission told me of the way in which irreverent Frenchmen
ridicule anything spoken with a foreign accent, spoke of the dangers you
would incur, and the impossibility of your making any impression. When
they talked thus, I smiled and said, ‘Wait and see! this is of God, and
He will justify His handmaid!’ I felt so surely that God gave it you to
do, and whatever the world may think, God knows what He is about. He is
not an idealised Joss who lives in churches. He is present among us. He
can manage even the Paris police! How He laid your enemies under your
feet!

“Your mission is too high and holy to be understood, they tell you! Is
it not strange how people persevere in thinking it lovelily humble and
sweetly meritorious to go on picking off an evil-smelling leaf here and
there from the upas tree, instead of taking the sword of God and
striking at the root—nipping here and there the results of its growth,
instead of cutting off the source of its life? The long chain of
prejudice, habit, and received opinion twists itself, coil after coil,
around men’s minds. It is the virtuous and religious whom I mean who are
so chained, not by vice, but by faithlessness and timidity. It is not to
all that it is given to break the chains of others, but there seems to
me little excuse for those who do not allow their own chains to be
broken.”


We went on to Lyons, Marseilles and Genoa, at each place gathering
individual adherents, men and women of real worth of character. Thence
we went to Rome.

In Rome we first met one of the most ardent apostles of our cause whom
we have known in any country, Signor Giuseppe Nathan. His mother was a
distinguished Roman lady, and his family were friends of Mazzini. I had
been told of the recent overwhelming sorrow which seemed for a time to
have broken short the promise of Giuseppe Nathan’s noble young life, and
which had had so serious an effect upon his health as to alarm his
family. He had married a young English lady, who died very suddenly,
after a few months of an ideally happy marriage. He was a young man of
great ability and earnestness of soul. It was thought by some of his
friends that if some vital work were to be put before him at this time
he might recognise it as an authoritative call to action, and that it
might be to him a revival of interest in life, and a motive for living,
after all life’s sunshine, for him, was gone. The rapid progress made by
our principles in Italy after this first visit to Rome was almost wholly
due to the untiring energy and apostolic zeal of Giuseppe Nathan. He had
been known before to his countrymen as a friend of Mazzini, and had, in
fact, like most of that group, suffered for his principles. His personal
influence was great for one so young, especially among the working
populations, whom later he succeeded in arousing throughout the length
and breadth of Italy, travelling himself to every place, engaging the
best men and women in the work, and winning the hearts of all to our
cause. I recall my first interview with him. He looked sad and absent,
and was very weak in health. He had the appearance of a man who had had
a shock which might prove to be his death blow; and, in fact, he died
only six years later, the end probably accelerated by his arduous
labours in our cause telling upon a sensitive frame already shaken by
his domestic sorrow. His loss was a very serious one to our cause in
Italy. There was no one of like character who could entirely take his
place, although his brother, Signor Ernesto Nathan, has worked
indefatigably for the cause up to recent times.

The following quotations from letters which I received from Giuseppe
Nathan after my return from Italy to England will throw some light on
the gentle, chivalrous, and, I might say, almost inspired character of
the man. In addition to his arduous propagandist work, he laboured to
save individual victims of the curse against which he continually
protested, and had planned a work of rescue on simple, kindly and humane
principles. It was in regard to this effort that he wrote to me as
follows:—

“I wish you were here to teach me how to act in this case. I would ten
thousand times sooner face the mouths of twenty guns than a poor girl
who feels that she has lost all right to respect; though not in _my_
eyes. No! God is my witness that I judge _no_ woman unworthy of respect;
her womanhood outraged is in itself more than sufficient claim for the
respect of every man. Had not one of _my_ sex robbed her of her peace,
withered in its bloom all happiness, all that made life a blessing to
her, she might now have been happy and making others happy. Her poor
betrayed soul, her robbed innocence, her misery and suffering, call
loudly in God’s name for the respect which all men owe to grief and
suffering.

“It is impossible for me to tell you how much I long to be of some
slight comfort to these poor fellow-creatures of ours, whom cowardly man
has taught even to despair of the salvation of their souls. Could my
remaining years bring but one of them to hope in God’s everlasting
mercy; could I make but one of them feel that the possibility of
redemption is eternal as the everlasting soul with which God animated
their bodies; could I but awaken in one city the true, deep, fervid
faith, that without purity and morality no nation can possibly advance;
could I teach effectually in even one place the lesson, that because
woman is our _first_ teacher, her lessons can only bear good fruit on
condition that we hold sacred and _do not despise_ our teacher—then I
could understand why God has dealt so sternly with me, and I could
patiently wait till I should be able to prove to my lost angel through
my actions that _together_ she and I have accomplished on earth the task
appointed us.”

Later he wrote:—“I have received a paper from England relating to the
_Social Purity League_. I not only sympathise with the aim of the
League, but I consider its aim noblest among the noble. To talk of
purity is well, to lead a pure life is better, but it is best of all to
oppose impurity with all the powers of heart and intellect bestowed on
us by God, under whatever form it presents itself to our eyes, and by
whomsoever it may be promoted. Destroy purity, admit the necessity of
prostitution, and materialism and profligacy will have full sway; but
then efface from the English, language the words _Mother_, _Home_, and
_Heaven_.”

Under Mr. Nathan’s guidance we visited the Italian Parliament, where, as
in London, one may request an audience of any member of the Chambers.
Our guide knew very well upon whom in the Chambers he could depend for
sympathy in this matter, and we had several memorable conversations in
the Lobbies.

Signor Asproni, an old man, formerly a monk, but who had found it
impossible to continue in that character, had been, when we saw him, for
some years a hard-working Deputy. He was known as a most honest man,
attached to principle rather than party. He expressed great sympathy
with our movement. Several others, men of weight and character, took up
the question; and from these elements Mr. Nathan was enabled soon after
to form a Committee in Rome for active work.

I must go back a little to describe briefly the introduction of this
system into Italy, and the opposition which it had already met with.

In 1860 Count Cavour proclaimed the Regulation originally invented and
imposed on the French people by Napoleon I. Cavour seems to have deemed
it an admirable measure. An explanation of its professed benefits was
appended to a subsequent issue of it by the Minister Lanza in 1871.
Public opinion was at once aroused against this regulation, its meaning
having been thus explained. The Liberal party in the Chambers have been
at different times accused of party-spirited motives, in having from the
first protested against the Regulations of Cavour. It is not true that
the Radical party alone revolted against this system. Italian Radicals
assured us that from the first a protest had arisen from every part of
the Chambers. From Dr. Bertani, who sat on the extreme left, to De
Renzis on the left-centre, and Vittorio Giudici on the extreme right,
all took part in the revolt against what the Italian conscience
instinctively felt to be a measure degrading to women and to manhood.
Outside Parliament it was the same; “Men of all parties,” said a
well-known Deputy, “rebelled against the idea of this judicial
oppression of women, which no possible argument was found to justify.”
This awakening of the public conscience continued through all classes of
society until it reached Pope Pius IX. The Venerable Pontiff, shortly
after the Regulations were introduced in Rome, wrote a letter with his
own hand to King Victor Emmanuel, protesting against the iniquity which
had just been perpetrated, and solemnly adjured him to forbid that a
“patented merchandise of human flesh” should be established in the Holy
City.

So early as 1862 (only two years after Cavour’s publication of the
Regulation) the revolt against it was such that Rattazzi, then Minister
of the Interior, and President of the Council, was driven to appoint a
Commission to modify or alter it.

But little came of this. Attempted modifications of an essential evil
always fail.

After the impulse given by the exertions of Giuseppe Nathan, and when he
had successfully convinced and moved some of the most earnest public men
of Italy, the cause in that country went through the usual Parliamentary
course of Reports called for from experts, Commissions of Enquiry,
Parliamentary Debates, partial reforms and attempted substitutes; and up
to the present day it cannot be said to have got much beyond that stage.

To return. I was counselled to see Senator Musio and his wife. I first
saw her alone. She was in her bedroom surrounded by a number of ladies
who had formed a Committee for aiding the needy families of working men.
I gave her a little Italian paper setting forth the objects of my
mission. She read it slowly and carefully to the very last word, and
then said “Good! Musio must see this.” She had grasped the whole
question simply and clearly at once. She was very aged and
“old-fashioned,” but full of intelligence. She then tapped her snuff-box
and conversed with us in a low and feeble voice, but in a manner that
showed no feebleness of judgment. In the evening we called again, and
were quite as much pleased with her venerable husband as with herself.
He was a very distinguished jurist, and was then working at some
important legal reforms. I must not omit to mention Signor Maurizio
Quadrio, one of the old Mazzinians, a true patriot, who had suffered
much and long for his principles. He encouraged us much in our work. It
is needless to say that I found very hearty sympathy among the
Protestants (Evangelici) then working in Rome, Signor Ribetti, for
example, Mr. Wall, and others.

Of a very different kind was a visit I paid to the Minister of Justice
and Police, Signor Vigliani. I had been advised to appeal to him
concerning our mission; but when I announced to Mr. Nathan my intention
of doing so, he smiled and remained silent. I said, “Do you not advise
me to go?” He replied, “Oh, yes, go, but——”; and he smiled again. I went
alone. The reception Vigliani gave me was cold and scarcely courteous.
Few things are more chilling than the atmosphere of the audience chamber
of a great Government official, who has no sympathy with your errand. It
was clear to me from the first moment that nothing was to be gained
here; but I remained a little longer, just to get the Minister to
express his own opinions on the subject, which were curious enough,
though not new to me. He seemed immensely amused at the idea of
abolishing legal prostitution; spoke of the enslaved as _not human_ at
all, and of the errors of men as something to be regretted, but
inevitable, and to be taken into account, _i.e._, provided for. He said:
“A woman who has once lost chastity has lost every good quality. She has
from that moment ‘_all the vices_.’” And so pleased did he seem with
this theory that he smiled and repeated it, “Once unchaste, she has
_every vice_.” He asked, “Who have you got to help you in the Italian
Parliament?” and seemed to wait eagerly for the answer, which he did not
get! As I went down the broad marble stairs and through the gateway over
which the beautiful title of his office is inscribed, I thought, “You
are ill-named, Office of Grace and Justice!”

Then I understood why Giuseppe Nathan smiled.

From Rome I went on alone for a week to my sister Madame Meuricoffre, at
Naples. We had there one or two quiet meetings. The medical men offered
some opposition at one of them, but, on the other hand, we had then, and
for some years after, the strong adhesion of Dr. Palasciano (who became
publicly an opponent of the Regulations) and of another distinguished
medical man of Naples. The tender sympathy of my sister, Madame
Meuricoffre, and her deep understanding of our motives, I need scarcely
say, were from that time, and have been all along, among my most
constant consolations and sources of strength. I cannot refrain from
giving the substance here of a letter which she wrote to me shortly
after my visit to Naples; for it expresses what comparatively few even
now understand—the hold which this question takes upon some thoughtful
and tender natures, and the reasons why it makes this impression:—


                                                NAPLES, _January, 1875_.

“I told my friends here that when you were sent to us I had asked to
meet you those whom I thought likely to wish to hear you, in order to
see if God would choose any of them to come forward to the rescue of
those most pitiful and most unpitied of Christ’s little ones. He who
looked for some to have pity on Him, but there was no man, neither found
He any to comfort Him, called _us_ to have pity on _these_. But none of
those to whom I refer have been led into _that_ work. Still, I must not
for this reason judge that they are not His servants. I have faith that
they are, and are working in some other way, for in His army there are
many kinds of soldiers,—sappers and miners to open up roads, artillery
to attack forts, troops who have an easy victory, and ‘forlorn hopes’
who will never see victory, but make a bridge of their dead bodies for
their comrades to march over. There are, I doubt not, many who have been
elected to this work who, when God first took them by the hand, shrank
back. It was the last thing they would have chosen for themselves, but
He kept them to it till they accepted it, and then taught them the
sweetness of the dedication, by letting them feel how close it brought
them to Himself. There is a great deal in ordinary society, even where
there is nothing bad, which imperceptibly hardens, or gradually
establishes in the mind slightly false standards; and I wish to tell you
how strikingly I felt that entering into and interesting oneself in your
work brought one back, every time one touched it, into realising the
Living God, His nearness to us and our dependence on Him, and forced one
to measure all one’s thoughts, acts, and feelings by the standard of His
purity, instead of lowering oneself to the convenient and conventional
standard of the world. A person whose conscience has never been wounded
about this question, whose heart has never burned and bled with pity for
the woes of the helpless, devoted to destruction, might wonder, and ask,
‘Why should _this_ subject, above all others, produce this effect?’
Well, I cannot quite tell; perhaps because _in it_ culminates the awful
contrast between the results of man’s devices when he forgets God and
the unspeakable tenderness and pity of Christ for the most forsaken and
lost. He stooped to take upon Himself our nature, and to minister to us.
How much less is the interval between the best man or woman and the most
fallen! and how He pitied them, and how awfully solemn are His warnings,
not only not to offend one of the little ones, the weak and young, but
not to pass them by with the cold, worldly doctrine that ‘it must be
so.’ Such doctrine rouses in me a passion of grief and indignation that
some of us should be so honoured, while others, born with like
capabilities for virtue and sweet family life and happiness, should be
sold to men’s lusts, and then held down by a network of laws and
regulations; _held down in hell_. You and your fellow-workers will
understand well what I mean when I speak of a vital interest in this
question becoming a sifting power and a purifying fire in one’s own
soul; I tremble for those who are obliged, or think they are obliged, to
crush it out. Pray for them.”


On our return journey we visited Florence. Several persons here told me
that the system of Regulation was, for the moment, practically at an
end. This was, in part, the result of the opposition of the country
people of Tuscany, who resist the registration of their daughters on the
roll of shame. The character of the Tuscan peasant is simple, honest,
home loving. Mr. McDougall, a Scotch clergyman, who had resided many
years in Florence, said to me: “In character they stand as high as the
peasantry of my own Scotland.” Some sad tragedies had occurred. A
peasant girl escaped from one of the Government houses of infamy and
fled to her parents’ cottage. She was followed by the police, who
endeavour to “reclaim,” that is, _bring back to bondage_, every girl who
escapes. The parents barricaded their house; a struggle followed, and
blood was shed. This and other incidents which I might relate,
illustrating the tyranny of the system, had become public; the
Florentine people have hearts; their sympathies had been roused for the
homes and daughters of the poor; the State regulation of vice had become
unpopular, and was then very languidly carried out in Florence.

In Milan we had again the advantage of the presence and organising
ability of Giuseppe Nathan, who joined us there. We had a large
conference in that city. There were present some ex-Deputies and
well-known doctors. Some of these latter were strongly opposed to us,
especially Dr. Pini, who spoke at some length. He was seconded in his
views by an advocate of Milan, and Signor Brusco Onnis replied to him.
The address of the latter made a great impression on those present. A
useful discussion followed. Dr. Pini made a kind of recantation towards
the close, and a resolution in our favour was passed almost unanimously.
_La Gazetta di Milano_ of January 28, 1875, reported the meeting, and
remarked favourably on our aims. It gave also the resolution, and a
brief address to the group of citizens who had supported us, which was
printed and circulated the next day.

The address was as follows:—


“Gentlemen! the expression of sympathy with the cause which I advocate,
conveyed to me through you from the city of Milan, is deeply gratifying
to me; and in the name of all who co-operate with me in this holy
crusade, I tender you my heartfelt thanks. For pioneers the path is
always arduous and difficult, especially when before building up they
have to destroy an evil which for a long period has been corrupting the
moral sense of the most civilised populations. Such is our own case. I
will not, at the present time, dwell upon the fact of man having gone so
far as to convert that which is in itself supremely a question of
morality into one of opportunity and facility for the satisfaction of
his physical instincts, simply as instincts, and of his having, in order
to attain this end, perpetrated the most flagrant violation of right and
justice by crushing one of two persons equally guilty, in order to
render more easy the commission of sin for the other.

“The question for us resolves itself entirely into a moral question—a
question of justice. Even if it were the fact, which is not the case,
that statistics seemed to prove that by means of the existing system it
is possible to diminish the maladies attendant on prostitution, our cry
would be precisely what it is to-day—war, war to the death against all
which tends to deaden the moral sense in man, and which, ultimately,
must of necessity enervate the race. We believe that the aim of all
legislation should be the gradual moral progress of the governed, and
that the labours of science should be directed to the furtherance of
that aim.

“In order to obtain pure laws, and a higher morality, we will lend all
the force of our intellect and will.

“Will you, gentlemen, give us your aid, and do what you can to form
throughout the whole of Italy, committees which will put themselves in
relation with our associations in England?

                                                  “JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.”


I must not detain my readers too long on this journey through Italy.

After a brief visit to Turin, we crossed the Alps to Geneva. It was at a
meeting at Geneva on this question at which one of the hardest and
longest portions of our conflict was inaugurated. Up to the present time
Geneva clings to the odious system which was on that occasion—twenty-one
years ago—first publicly arraigned, in spite of reiterated protests from
her best and noblest citizens, and blows aimed from many sides. But the
doom of the system is approaching, in spite of its apparent vitality.

Everything looked very dark for my first meeting beforehand. The
opposition threatened was of a different kind to that which we generally
met, which had been mainly materialistic. Here, in Geneva, there was a
good deal of sentimentality, much talk about the police being good
Christian men, and about reclamations effected by them. It was requested
by a friend that the legal aspect of the matter should be especially
dealt with. Professor Hornung was with us in sympathy from the first. He
was Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Geneva, and a very
able and distinguished man. My spirits fell, however, when a note came
in the afternoon to say that the Professor had been taken suddenly ill
and could not come to the meeting. The room was crowded at the hour
announced, and at the last moment Mr. Hornung entered, wrapped in shawls
and looking very pale. He took the presidency. Towards the end, when a
pause was given for objections to be brought forward, behold, there were
no objectors! but one after another stood up and gave in his adhesion to
our cause. Père Hyacinthe spoke very eloquently for us. He also wrote a
kind letter to me the following day, in which he said, “One feels, dear
Madame, that God is with you in your heroic crusade against what you
have so well called ‘the typical crime, the gigantic iniquity’ of our
race. God is with you, Madame; it is necessary that men should be with
you also. I beg that you will count entirely upon my weak but sincere
services.”

I cannot easily forget the impression of that first visit to Geneva, a
city of glorious traditions, and formerly the stern upholder of liberty
of conscience.

Geneva! still full of activity and life and educational movements, whose
glory is chiefly of the past, but in whose midst there is still high
profession of religion and spirituality, and at the same time desperate
social evils and Governmental iniquities which many of your best men and
women find too horrible to speak of; what, I asked myself, will be
_your_ judgment at the last?

Before the meeting many proofs had come to me of sinister influences
exercised to prevent my being heard, and to discourage people from
coming. Some of the professing Christians of Geneva seemed to be the
most deeply in love with the system of legalised vice. At one time the
anxiety was almost greater than I could bear, and I felt the pressure of
the responsibility all the more because at that time my husband had been
compelled to return to his duties at the Liverpool College, leaving me
to complete my immediate mission on the Continent without his comforting
and strengthening presence. My heart was burdened with all the shameful
things I had heard concerning the slave system in Geneva, the buying and
selling of young girls, and the corruption of young men, students,
school boys, and whole families. The good and venerable Pastor Borel had
told me of his experiences, and a tradesman of the town, M. W.——, who
had worked hard to try to save a few victims, called to see me. The
latter was an old, hard-sinewed man, apparently with little
sentimentalism about him; but during his recital he was so moved that he
burst into tears.

When the hour came, however, for the encounter, pity and sorrow were
stronger than the anger I had felt; and as I spoke I could see that the
people were moved. I happened to stand with my back to the light, which
fell fully upon the audience, and I was much struck by the rows of old,
grey heads and venerable faces. It was like an assembly of Elders, not
only of the Church, but Elders in science and in learning. I thanked God
when I saw that many of the Elders wept! Those tears made me glad. In
some sense no doubt this was a fruitful initiation of our Abolitionist
work; but of results we saw little or nothing for many years, in spite
of Geneva having become, two years later, the seat of our first great
and important International Congress.

On the morning following this meeting it was that I became first
acquainted with Madame de Gingins, whose name is so well known as one of
our most constant friends on the Continent. She was then emerging from
the shadow of a great sorrow, and felt that the call to this work would
be to her a revival of life and hope.

From Geneva I went on to Neuchâtel, where the tone was very different.
It was here that I first made the personal acquaintance of our beloved
friends and fellow workers for so many years, M. and Mme. Aimé Humbert,
and their family. M. Humbert speedily called together a Conference, and
it was on this occasion that I first gained a knowledge of his breadth
of view and intellectual grasp. His long experience of political life
and of men had endowed him with a readiness and tact and power of
controlling and guiding an assembly even of the most discordant elements
such as I have scarcely seen in any other man. I must give some extracts
from M. Humbert’s address at this first meeting.

“What response,” he asked, “shall we make to the appeal which has been
made to us?”

“We are not, it is true, in the same situation as the associations which
have been mentioned. The reformist agitation in England aims at
effecting the repeal of laws protective of immorality. In the first
place, no _Federal law_ analogous to these exists in Switzerland.
Legislation relating to public morals is within the province of the
several cantons. Then, again, in the canton of Neuchâtel, the criminal
code takes cognisance of vice, and visits it with correctional or
criminal penalties, as the case may be, without consideration of person
or sex. We have, then, a legislation protective of morality, and which
admits neither exception nor reservation. I may add that in general it
is respected, especially in our chief city of Berne, which is, perhaps,
of all Switzerland, the town the most exempt from the scourge of
prostitution. On the other hand, in our principal industrial centre, at
Chaux-de-Fonds, immoral houses were established some years since, as in
Geneva. The fact is public and notorious, and it has already called
forth the remonstrances of the Synod of the National Church of
Neuchâtel, which have been without result. Consequently our situation is
this:—We have, I repeat, a legislation protective of morality, but this
legislation is openly violated in a portion of our territory. Thus,
instead of seeking, as in England, the repeal of a law the enactment of
which constituted an innovation, we have to demand the strict observance
of the existing law. If we do not do this, we sanction by our silence a
state of things worse than in England. There, at least, there is no
longer any _legal hypocrisy_! the law declares openly what it intends to
tolerate. Here, on the contrary, the prohibition of vice is held to be
complete; it is officially proclaimed, and, nevertheless, in one portion
of our territory, all the crimes and misdemeanours which fall under the
ban of the penal code are daily committed with the full knowledge of
every citizen.

“Without respect for the laws, there is no true Republic. If a good law
becomes a lie, it tends to deaden the national conscience and to deprave
the people, just as much as a bad law could do. Let us, then, have the
courage of our opinions! If our law is good, let us compel its
observance; if, on the contrary, we judge that we ought to substitute
for it the toleration of immorality, let us boldly legalise vice! I am
persuaded that this will not be done. A law of tolerance is an
impossibility in our canton. Neither our present Grand Council, nor any
Grand Council of Neuchâtel, will ever sanction it. Could an institution
exist in our Republic of Neuchâtel which braves the legislative power,
and subsists in spite of public opinion? Such a thing would be the
commencement of the downfall of our Republic. And what description of
institution is it, for which we should have to introduce a _régime_ of
privilege incompatible with our constitutional guarantees? An
institution which is, in itself, a flagrant violation of individual
liberty, and of the equality of all the inhabitants of the country,
whether men or women, before the law. The inauguration of legal
prostitution is nothing else than the triumph of brute force, the
consecration of police despotism over the weaker sex—the protection of a
white slave-trade—in a word, the organisation of female slavery.

“But hygienic considerations are invoked. We are told that certain
diseases would thus become rarer or less pernicious. Well, let us admit
for an instant—what I consider by no means proved—that this assertion is
incontestable. I will tell you of another disease, which, wherever this
system obtains, becomes ever more deadly and less rare. It does not,
indeed, attack any single organ of the human frame, but it withers all
that is human—mind, body, soul. It strikes our youth at that unhappy
moment when first they cross the threshold of the abodes of State
regulated vice; and when they recross that threshold to the purer air,
oh God! what fatal deed has not been done! For them the spring of life
has no more flowers; the very friendships of their youth are polluted;
they become strangers to all the honourable relations of a pure life;
and thus it is that more and more in these days we see stretching wider
and wider around us the circle of this mocking, faded, worn out,
sceptical youth, without poetry, without love, without enthusiasm,
without faith, and without joy. And yet this is the generation on which
the hopes of our country rest!

“There is something truly mysterious in the way in which a social
scourge makes its way and propagates itself; but what is still more
astonishing, or rather more admirable, is the means by which Providence
puts an end to it.

“For some time past have Jules Simon, in his work, _L’Ouvrière_; Victor
Hugo, in _Les Misérables_, John Stuart Mill, Acollas, Hornung, and many
other writers denounced the crime of female slavery, and declared it the
duty of democracy to provide for the extinction of prostitution. Many
applauded; but the thing would have ended there had not the advocates of
legal prostitution in Great Britain themselves solicited and obtained
from Parliament an official sanction of this system of slavery. Then—not
till then—this system was unveiled in the full light of publicity, and
publicity is fatal to it; for on the one hand vice cannot bear the light
in a country where the Press is free, and on the other hand no _law_ of
Parliament can, in the mind of the British nation, over-ride the
_Charter_ of its ancient liberties, it having been one of the first
among the great nations of Europe to formulate the guarantee of personal
rights. The Charter of our little country of Neuchâtel is of still more
ancient date (1213). The first Compact of alliance of our Confederation
belongs to the close of the same century (1291). _Individual Liberty_
founded alike the greatness of England and the happiness of Switzerland.
We cannot, any more than the English, permit slavery upon our Republican
soil. It may not be allowed an entrance there, whether official or
secret. Let us all mutually unite to protect liberty and justice from
the evil which threatens them in common. Mrs. Butler’s mission will
prove to be for us a providential event, the opportunity which we must
quickly seize, in order to act upon our canton and upon Switzerland, and
to associate ourselves with the great reformatory struggle which is
coming upon Europe, and, sooner or later, upon the whole world.”

In company with Madame Humbert, I visited the largest industrial town of
the Jura, La Chaux-de-Fonds. There was much moral evil there, but also
many sternly just and good people. I was fully rewarded for the visit
there by the adhesion of persons who have remained constant to our
cause, and whose work was crowned by complete success in 1892 by the
final abolition of the infamous institution in that city, and in the
entire canton of Neuchâtel.

The town stands high on the Jura. I was warned that the cold would be
many degrees greater than at Neuchâtel; and, indeed, I found it so. Even
the extraordinary beauty of the vast expanses of snow, the black forests
of enormous pine trees, with their weights of heavy clinging snow, the
glimpses of the distant Alps, stretching from Mont Blanc to the
Wetterhorn and Wellhorn, scarcely gave me courage enough to hold out
against the cold as we ascended. Madame Humbert kindly accompanied me.
As we came near the town, however, I found I had not come among cold
hearts. Several venerable men met us a little way from the town, with
fur wrappings about them, and faces full of kindly welcome, and stood
with heads uncovered until the sledge started again for the town. The
deep snow made everything very silent; no rattle of wheels, only the
soft, sweeping sound of the sledges flying swiftly about, and the
musical ringing of the horses’ bells. We had excellent meetings there.

From Neuchâtel I visited Berne and Lausanne, finding warm friends in
each place. Thence I returned to Paris. It was on this second visit to
Paris that I made the acquaintance of Madame de Morsier, whose name is
endeared to many of us with whom she has worked on the Continent ever
since. M. Humbert joined me in Paris, having determined, after grave
consultation with his wise and gentle wife, to throw himself into the
cause, although it might involve for him some sacrifice from a material
point of view. “_God wills it_,” he said. “This was the cry of the old
Crusaders, and still more do I feel that it is the motto of those who
are being drawn into this great movement.”

I will not dwell upon the rather bitter experiences of the first part of
this my second visit to Paris, arising from the opposition and cynicism
which we met with. “It is a hard crusade,” exclaimed M. Humbert one day,
as he returned from a long and fruitless controversy with M. Mettetal,
ex-Prefect of the Morals’ Police, the predecessor of Lecour. M. Mettetal
was a Protestant, and esteemed a religious man, but on the subject of
justice, equality and legality, _he was stone blind_.

It is pleasanter to recollect the kindness, which never failed, of
certain warm friends, and the readiness to accept our message which we
found among the humbler classes of the people. Several interesting
meetings were held, promoted by M. Ed. de Pressensé and other
distinguished men of the Protestant community, and others by leaders
among the working men and women of Paris. At one large meeting, at which
there was a crowd of women present, an advocate opposed us. He proceeded
to say all the untrue and cowardly things which men generally say when
defending the enslavement of women, for they use the same arguments all
over the world. Before he had gone far, however, he seemed rather taken
aback, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the furious burst of
scorn and anger which proceeded from all the women, and almost all the
men, present. He endeavoured to go on, but the women hissed, and moaned,
and protested so energetically that his voice was drowned. It gladdened
my heart to see this furious protest from these poor Frenchwomen. The
advocate became somewhat excited and tried to fling back the scorn of
the women, getting, however, more and more into the mud, and floundering
hopelessly. When he declared that the unhappy women for whose civil and
natural rights we had pleaded, were the vilest of creatures, scarcely
human, and justly expelled from and scorned by society, the women
present sprang to their feet, and almost with one voice demanded, “But
the men! What about the men? Are they not equally guilty, base and
despicable?” I thanked God in my heart for this storm of righteous
indignation. But there was sadness, too, in it. It had a maledictory
sound which reminded me of the deep and deadly wounds which had been
inflicted upon the population of Paris, and spoke of still further
tribulation which might be in store for her.

Dr. Armand Deprés, a physician of the Lourcine Hospital, a man of great
statistical knowledge on this question, gave me valuable help during
this visit. He attended with me another large meeting, chiefly of the
working class, and addressed them with a wonderful tenderness, giving
also at the same time, clearly and delicately, the results which only a
medical expert like himself could furnish.

Many proofs of sympathy reached us from other parts of France. One of
the most touching of these was a letter from Mr. Charles de Bourbonne, a
magistrate of Rheims, who had pronounced a severe, just, and eloquent
judgment in a case which had occurred in carrying out the regulations in
his own city. On account of that judgment, which is a masterpiece of
clearly-stated principle _versus_ opportunism, and would well deserve to
be quoted in full, he was degraded from the magistracy. He wrote to me:—


“Madam,—Yours is a work of lofty aims and noble purposes. Your voice
will not sound in the desert. You will be able at length to create that
phalanx of workers so much needed, which shall constitute an
indissoluble alliance, an alliance indispensable to the cause which you
defend. England is a privileged country, since liberty of discussion
prevails there. It is not so in France. It is as a martyr in the great
Cause which I dared to defend, that I address you to-night. I have
committed the wrong of being in the right, and, after nineteen years of
arduous labours in the Magistracy, I am degraded for having dared to
oppose abuses which I considered infamous, and am now compelled at an
advanced age to seek some retired business which shall permit me to live
honestly. You ask me to become an honorary member of the International
Congress to take place next year. I accept it with all my heart, and I
am proud to do so.

                                          “C. DE BOURBONNE,
                                            “_Ex-Justice of the Peace_.”


This Magistrate had said, in his published judgment, “I have discovered,
and have proofs, that it is the police itself which is one of the main
causes of the depravity and demoralisation of our great cities. Without
much education, of a morality at least doubtful, and in possession of an
arbitrary power which is beyond any possible control, the agents of the
Morals’ Police are believed upon their simple word, and their reports
obtain credence.”

The close of this year was marked by a vigorous correspondence in the
French Press on the subject of the Police des Mœurs, which bore much
fruit, bringing many hideous things to light, and arousing slumbering
consciences in the matter.




                               CHAPTER VI

                “Thy will was in the builder’s thought;
                Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought;
                Through mortal motive, scheme and plan,
                Thy wise eternal purpose ran.”


Before I go further with the recital of the events in connection with
our crusade which stand out most prominently in my memory, I must pause
to speak briefly of some of the persons with whom I was most closely
allied in the early years of our work.

They rise before me now—those faces and those groups of faces of dear
friends and companions in labour, of all classes and conditions, and of
different lands and races. Many have passed away; but their memory lives
in the hearts of those with whom they were associated for a time in work
and prayer and hope.

First among the many groups comes that of the earliest and most active
leaders in the Ladies’ National Association. One of these, the Bristol
group, still continues to be full of life and energy. I refer especially
to the sisters Priestman and Margaret Tanner, with Miss Estlin and
others closely associated with them, who have been to me, personally,
through this long struggle, from the first years till now, a kind of
body guard, a _corps d’élite_ on whose prompt aid, singleness of
purpose, prudence, and unwearying industry I could and can rely at all
times, and the knowledge of whose existence and loyalty alone, even when
parted from them for long periods, is a continued source of comfort and
strength. The utter absence in them of any desire for recognition, of
any vestige of egotism in any form, is worthy of remark. In the purity
of their motives they shine out “clear as crystal.”

The mere mention of their names, and those of a host of others, is but a
cold and poor tribute. Nevertheless, I cannot pass on without a brief
allusion to others. Mrs. Kenway, of Birmingham, was another of my
strongest friends; her house was always my home in passing through and
working in that busy centre, a home in which I was always lovingly
received by herself, her husband, and all her family. I must mention her
sister also, Mrs. Henry Richardson, of York. Other names which crowd
upon me are those of Mrs. Edward Walker, of Leeds, of Mr. and Mrs.
Clark, of Newcastle, Mr. and Mrs. Spence Watson and the Richardson
family, of the same town; of Mrs. Pease Nichol, Miss Wigham, and Mrs.
Bright McLaren, of Edinburgh; of Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Maclaren and other
ladies of Glasgow, and Miss Isabella Tod, of Belfast, one of the ablest,
and certainly the most eloquent, of our women workers of those times.
Miss Lucy Wilson, whose loss to our cause through death some years ago
was a serious one, might be numbered as one of the legal helpers of our
cause. She had a remarkably keen intelligence and extraordinary capacity
for sifting evidence, unravelling tortuous argument, and dividing the
true from the false. She was often employed by our Parliamentary friends
to examine and pronounce upon doubtful proposals, emanating from the
Government or elsewhere. Her verdict was generally found to be just. Her
character and feelings as a woman, at the same time, were true and
tender.

There are many more names revered and honourable which I might bring in,
but I do not know how to enumerate them. I am forced, like the Apostle
who gives us the record of the heroes of faith, to sum up with the
words, “And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell”
of this and that standard-bearer of righteousness. Their record is in
heaven; they do not need my poor homage; they never coveted earthly
praise.

The lofty and perilous position to which the first women workers in this
cause were called, was indicated by Dr. Guthrie, one of the venerable
leaders of the Scottish Free Church, in a letter which was published in
1872, as follows:—

“There is a picture in the old Dutch town of Leyden which I have looked
on with the deepest emotions. Its object is the brave, and, by God’s
blessing, successful defence of that city when besieged by the forces of
those two fierce persecutors, Philip II. and the Duke of Alva. And what
there most moved my heart was the sight of women, in whom the fear of
outrage from the brutal soldiery had swallowed up the fear of death,
standing beside their fathers, brothers, and husbands on the crests of
the crowded ramparts. No place for women, that, it may be said. But turn
the light of history on the scene; read in Motley’s pages the
unutterable horrors to which both maidens and mothers were exposed, and
you will look through tears of sympathy on the beautiful woman, pale
with loss of blood, whom they are bearing off to die in a quiet chamber,
and on those of her sex who, undaunted by her fall, stand boldly by the
guns and, with hands used to gentler work, point the muzzle and fire on
the assailant. Circumstances, as they say, alter cases. They did so
there; they did so when, in lack of men, Grace Darling hastened to the
rescue, put her own young life in peril, and pulled for the sinking
wreck. They did so in Jerusalem also, when women, casting aside the
ordinary restraints of their age, openly followed our Lord to Calvary,
and, in the face of His raging enemies, bewailed and lamented Him.

“Such honour as I give to these I give to those ladies who have stepped
out of their ordinary sphere to publicly expose the vice-regulating
laws, and to become leaders of men,—to inspire the hesitating with
firmness and cowards with courage. A good while ago different persons
urged me to take pen in hand and address the mothers of our country, the
guardians of its homes and household virtues, on the jeopardy into which
both were brought by the authors and advocates of these foul laws. Fear
of being thought presumptuous made me, while I acknowledged the honour,
decline—at least delay—the task. But when these ladies, braving in this
crisis the scoffs of profligates, rising above all fear of
misunderstanding and misrepresentation by their public appearance on
such a subject, offered up a sacrifice on the altar of virtue that only
the delicate and pure and high-minded can fully appreciate, I were a
coward to hang back. They have thrown themselves into the breach, and I
cannot but follow.”

The position which the women took was also well described by our
venerable Christian statesman, the Right Honourable J. W. Henley, when
from his seat in Parliament he uttered these words: “It is objected that
this agitation is the work of women; but it is impossible not to see
that it is women who are above all others affected by this law. We men
do not know what they suffer. These women have set their feet upon the
Rock of Ages, and nothing will drive them from that position. They have
taken up the cross, despising the shame, and they will not shrink or
turn back.”

These words were uttered in the House of Commons, in which were many
cynics, in the midst of an awed and reverential silence. The character
and age of the speaker himself contributed to this feeling of respect.

If in the course of my imperfect narrative I have omitted to mention
some of those who are worthy of mention and honour, I ask that I may be
pardoned for that omission. We were many. As the years went on, we
gathered adherents from all parts of the civilised world; we came to be
a host which it would be difficult to number. There were in the front
many distinguished men,—men of European and world-wide reputation,
economists, philosophers, statesmen, writers, patriots, leaders of men;
and at the same time there were countless helpers whose contribution to
the great awakening and onward movement was a hidden one, resembling the
vitalising influence of a stream or fountain flowing underneath the
soil, whose presence is only known by the verdure and freshness of the
pastures around. How many victories have been won for us by the silent
prayers of these, while we were in the midst of the battle, will only be
known when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed.

Among the men who stood foremost in those early years, I have already
spoken of some. Emeritus Professor Francis Newman, brother of the late
Cardinal Newman, gave us strong help by his powerful pen and unflinching
rebukes of those in authority who had conspired to bring this trouble
upon our country. An anonymous friend won the gratitude of the Ladies’
National Association in its infancy, when its resources were meagre, by
a gift of £100. This friend proved to be the father of Mr. John
Thomasson, of Bolton. His son, in the same spirit, has never failed to
stand our friend up to the present day; his gentleness of character and
manner, combined with great firmness of principle, has made him to be
beloved by us all. Mr. R. F. Martineau, of Birmingham, was ever a firm
and clear-headed upholder of our principles, and was the inspirer of the
work, during many years, of his own creation,—the Midland Electoral
Union. He had strong supporters in Mr. Morgan, the Rev. J. G. Brown and
others at Birmingham. Mr. Joseph Edmondson, of Halifax, aided us
powerfully by his pen as well as by active labours. The tortuous
methods, arguments and subterfuges of our opponents, when they began to
take refuge from approaching defeat in manifold “substitutes,” were
exposed by him in a masterly manner in his pamphlet “The Regulationists
and their Policy.”

Mr. Henry J. Wilson was from the first, and is now, one of our strongest
champions.

I have already mentioned Mr. Edward Backhouse, who supported us
munificently year by year by his generous donations as well as by his
commanding presence on many public occasions. When his death was
announced it was said with truth, “A prince has fallen this day in
Israel.” His name again recalls those of many other pillars of the
Society of Friends, two of Birmingham, Mr. Albright and Mr. J. E.
Wilson, and more especially of those two pure and saintly men George
Gillett and Frederick Wheeler.

A year or two after our first attack on the vice-regulating laws, there
appeared, equipped for the battle, and powerful, though young, another
member of that Society, Alfred Dyer, whose action and influence in
India, and their important results, are well known to my readers.

For legal advice and help all through, we were greatly indebted to Mr.
William Shaen and Professor Sheldon Amos. Mr. Shaen held a prominent
position for many years as President of the National Association. I
first became acquainted with him in 1870, and retained his friendship
till his death. He was a man of great firmness of character, who on
first acquaintance appeared cold; yet his nature was one of great
gentleness, and his counsel was always kind. One could go to him for
advice in the most tragic and criminal cases, sure of his sympathy. Some
allusion was once made at a Conference to persons who might be called
the _refuse of society_. Mr. Shaen remarked: “For me, there is no refuse
of society.” Very valuable work was done by him for the British and
Continental Federation. He drew up several weighty documents on the
legal side of our question, which stated clearly the lines upon which
the legislation of the future, connected with the subject of our work,
should be based.

Of the National Committee which sat at Westminster, and worked
especially with a view to influencing Members of Parliament, the two Mr.
Mallesons were pillars of strength, Mrs. W. Malleson contributing by her
refined and able pen to our literature. Mr. Banks was from first to last
the able and laborious secretary of that Committee. As members of the
same Committee I must not fail to mention Mrs. Venturi, a friend of
Mazzini, and Mrs. Steward. To the latter was assigned an arduous task in
visiting Belgium in aid of the inquiry into the criminal “white slave
trade,” which was carried on between that country and our own. This
mission was promoted by the Abolitionist Committee of the City of
London, headed by our late venerable friend, Mr. Benjamin Scott, for
many years Chamberlain of the City of London.

Since the year 1880 a host of younger workers has gathered into our
ranks, of whom, while thinking of them with loving regard, I will not
attempt here to give even such an imperfect notice as the above.

I have named, after all, only a portion of those who deserve all honour
for the sacrifices they made and the good work they did. Our
Parliamentary friends, as well as certain leaders of Churches and
Denominations who were prominent in our work, are noticed in the course
of my narrative. Our principal Continental, American, and other friends
come in the same way into the story itself.

Most certainly we have had strong consolation and high privileges in the
midst of much obloquy, and some painful experiences. Among the former
advantages stands first the fact that the question we dealt with has
brought forward at all times, and in all countries, the best men and
women of those times and countries, welding them and us into a great
league of solid friendships and common aims. Those who have gathered
round the Abolitionist standard from the first till now have indeed been
of “the salt of the earth.”

Personally, it has been to me an indescribable blessing and strength to
have been surrounded all along by tenderly loyal adherents and
supporters in the persons of my own family, and of those dearest to me.
Few, perhaps, have been so highly favoured in this respect. My husband’s
character and his position in the work are known. My sons, following in
his steps, always gave me loving sympathy, and, as they advanced to
manhood, practical help, for which I here record my affectionate
acknowledgments. My five sisters were, at different times, more or less
associated in the work, and were always and strongly in sympathy with
it. One of them was for many years an active member of the Executive
Committee of the Ladies’ National Association, and at her death was
succeeded in that position by another sister. Another though frail and
in failing health, laboured closely with me for several years,
especially in promoting petitions and memorials from Churches.

The year 1875 has few clear recollections for me, personally, in direct
connection with our cause. Six years of work, and more especially the
winter months spent in very difficult work on the Continent, had
over-taxed my strength. My health gave way, and was only restored by
several months of rest, during which I heard only the distant echoes of
the conflict, while I remained at home.

Some of those echoes were of a mournful nature. The _Gazetta di Milano_
recorded early in that year several cases of girls who had committed
suicide to avoid the agony of being placed on the Government register of
shame, and of another who had been deliberately and cleverly entrapped
into the “service,” and who had locked herself into her room, and
attempted suicide by breathing the fumes of charcoal. She was found in
the morning, stretched on her bed quite insensible, with a crucifix
clasped in her arms. The immodest pictures, and other objects suggestive
of evil, with which her apartment had been furnished, were found all
broken to pieces by her hands, and lay strewed about the room. Happier
had it been for her if that sleep had been her last; but life was not
extinct, and she was restored to consciousness, to her own bitter grief.

In the month of March, Mrs. Percy, of Aldershot, a widow, who had for
some years during her husband’s illness maintained her children
honestly, drowned herself in order to escape from police persecution, by
which, if she had yielded, she would have been driven to be registered
on the Government roll of shame. Before taking the fatal resolve she had
written a letter to the _Daily Telegraph_. It was a wild appeal of
terror and indignation, relieved by a faint hope that some heart would
be touched, and her case would be taken up. No answer, however, coming
at once to her cry of anguish, she sought refuge from dishonour in
death. The National Association instituted a strict inquiry into all the
circumstances, which were found to be as Mrs. Percy and her young
daughter had stated. That Association also charged itself with the care
of the little orphan sons of Mrs. Percy, while her daughter was
committed to my husband’s care and mine, and was sent to our home in
Liverpool. Much indignation was aroused in the country; the Government
agent who had hunted this poor woman to death, however, retained his
position, possibly receiving a mild warning from the Secretary for War
to be more careful in future in the selection of his victims.

An Indignation Meeting was held in St. James’s Hall, London, at which
our Parliamentary leaders spoke out plainly on this matter. My husband
read to that meeting an informal deposition made to him by the young
girl soon after she came under our care.

“The statement,” he said, “which I am about to read to you was drawn
from little Jane Percy in the confidence of a quiet Sunday chat after
she had been a fortnight in our house, and it was written down
immediately. We asked her to tell us exactly all she could recollect, if
it was not too painful to her. She replied, ‘I will tell you exactly
what I saw and remember’; and then, speaking for the first time of the
bitter trial to which she had been subjected, she said: ‘They called the
police and ordered my mother to go up to the Metropolitan Police Office
and bring me with her. Mamma and I went. We there saw Inspector G——. He
was in his room, and mamma was first called in alone. I cannot,
therefore, tell what passed between mamma and the Inspector, because I
was not there. I can only tell you this, that mamma was never the same
person again after that hour. She told me that she assured Inspector G——
that she would rather sign her death warrant than the paper he gave her
to sign. I was then called in. I shall never forget the moment when I
stood before Inspector G—— and he accused me. He said, “Do you know,
girl, why you are here?” I replied, “No, sir, I do not.” He said, “You
are here because you are no better than you should be. You know what
that means, I suppose?” I said, “No, sir, I do not.” He laughed in a
horrible way when I said this. I continued to deny that I knew what he
meant; for, indeed, I did not. I knew what a bad character was: there
are plenty in Aldershot; but I could not understand that he meant to
accuse me and my mamma of being bad characters. He asked me if we had a
“pass” into the camp. I answered “Yes, we always had one: for we had
engagements to sing while papa was lying ill.” He then shouted to some
one, “See that these two women have their passes taken away from them;
we will put a stop to all that!” You see, mamma could not earn a living
after this. It hurt me so when he called mamma and me “these two women!”
Mamma said to me when we came out, “Jenny, this will be the death of
me.” She never looked cheerful any more. She was watched by the police
wherever she went. Then she wrote that last letter to the _Daily
Telegraph_. Soon after that we went away to try and get an engagement
elsewhere, but could not succeed. Mamma was always crying, and we began
to feel what a loss father was; for though he was so ill that he was not
able to earn a penny for two years, he was a good friend. We used to
tell him every trouble, and he would talk it over and advise us kindly.
Nobody but myself knows what mamma suffered. She could never rest at
night; for she said Inspector G——’s face was always before her, as she
saw it when he accused her. If she fell asleep, she would wake up
sobbing and in a fright. I consider that man has been the death of my
mamma. He said to her at the end, “I will not let you alone.” Well, a
friend came from Aldershot to ask mamma to go back there. We went back.
Friends used to say to her, “Cheer up! you will be all the more
respected when this is cleared up and the truth is known.” She again
said she would choose death rather than do as Inspector G—— wished her
to do!’

“Jenny spoke all this in a low, quiet voice, not at all excitedly. Her
visit to the police station seemed to haunt her even more than her
mother’s death. She is proud of her mother, and this pride helps her to
bear the loss. She said at last: ‘What a law this is! I never could
believe there was such a law. Since this law was made it is not
considered respectable to speak to a soldier, nor have one in your
house; but I can tell you that, though I have lived among soldiers ever
since I was born, I never had a rough word or an insult from one in my
life, and they were always respectful to my mamma. I think you will find
that all those who knew her spoke well of her.’”

In May of this year a very important series of conferences was held in
London on the occasion of the visit of several well-known Continental
members of the Federation whom we had invited to meet us. Among these
was M. Edmond de Pressensé. This distinguished man has been described as
“one of the most eloquent scholars and scholarly divines of the French
Reformed Church.” He had an intellectual countenance and a rich and
pleasant voice; but his success as a preacher was chiefly secured by the
solidity of his attainments and the depth of his religious convictions.
He published many solid works, among which are “Lectures on Christianity
in its Application to Social Questions,” “A History of the First Three
Centuries of the Christian Era,” and his “Life of Christ,” which was
published in 1866. He was a member of the National Assembly, and was
nominated by it as Chairman of a Committee for investigating the
Penitentiary Laws, and was later the principal actor on a Commission on
the prison of St. Lazare. He was created a Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour for his devotion in relieving the poor during the Franco-German
War, and was finally elected a member of the Senate.

M. George Appia, an Italian by birth, was well known as an ardent
apostle of the ancient Waldensian Church in Italy. He had been called to
Paris as a Pastor of the Church of the Augsburg Confession; a man of
genius and of a highly spiritual nature.

Two of our other visitors on this occasion have already been introduced
to the reader, viz., M. Aimé Humbert and M. Giuseppe Nathan. Père
Hyacinthe also was among the invited, but took ill after arriving in
London, and was prevented attending these Conferences. He addressed a
meeting some weeks later in St. James’s Hall on behalf of the
Federation.

A Conversazione was held in the Westminster Palace Hotel on the evening
before the Conference, when one or two informal addresses were given by
the Continental visitors. M. Humbert, speaking in French, said: “I must
tell you that the work of reform which you have taken up is not entirely
an innovation in our Continental history. As far back as twenty years
ago Pastor Borel undertook single-handed in Geneva the stupendous task
of bringing the question before the public, and of combating for the
abolition of these laws. But he was alone in the work; alone in signing
a petition to the Grand Council. He sent his petition. It was
acknowledged and sent back to be examined by the Council of State, and
no more was heard of it. The following year he made another charge, with
no more success than the first. He continued to labour on, and by great
tact and effort succeeded in securing the escape of several of the
victims from the tolerated houses. The track had been opened, and
pioneers came in. Two years ago the newspapers of Geneva acquainted the
public with the startling fact that an English lady had come for the
special purpose of holding Conferences on the question raised by Pastor
Borel. Every one said, ‘Ah, a very English proceeding, indeed!’ The
matter was treated with more or less of levity until the Genevese learnt
that a British and Continental Federation had been formed to deal with
the matter, and that the seat of the Federation was London. This news
stirred them. A Federation with its headquarters in London must be
something worth notice.... I believe that henceforward both sides of the
Channel will advance hand in hand in this great question of justice.”

A very large and representative Conference was held the following
afternoon. A crowd of delegates came from all parts of the United
Kingdom. Mr. Stansfeld presided Canon Butler read several letters, one
from Père Hyacinthe regretting his enforced absence, a second from
Professor Emile de Laveleye, whose attention had only recently been
drawn to this question, and who now sent us the expression of his
complete adhesion to our principles and work. Another letter was from
Pastor Theodore Monod, who was prevented joining us by the obligation to
attend a series of Conferences in the South of France. He wrote:—

“We are with you in spirit; we are providing ourselves with ammunition;
we shall make use of your guns on the battlefield. Surely it is high
time that every Christian should rouse himself to more earnest prayer,
more steadfast trust and more whole-hearted devotion, and, as a
necessary consequence, march forward in the Saviour’s might against
these citadels of iniquity.”

M. de Pressensé’s speech on this occasion was one of the most remarkable
we had ever heard. Mr. Stansfeld spoke of it as follows: “I knew that M.
de Pressensé was a politician with a great and well-deserved reputation
in his own country. I knew that he was an orator and a well-known
divine; but I did not expect the privilege which was in store for us in
the discourse to which we have just listened, a discourse displaying
merits which are very rarely to be found combined in the speech of one
man. It was the speech of a philosopher who has alike the instinct and
training of a statesman. It contained the clearest statement of
principle, and it was full of the divine sentiment of love which should
fill the hearts of those who preach the Gospel. It was delivered with an
energy and antithesis of eloquence of which, I fear, few Englishmen are
capable.”

Every word of this speech is worthy of reproduction, but I only give
here an extract or two.

“I entreat you to observe,” M. de Pressensé said, “that the State can
only defend rights conformably with right, and with respect for
individual liberty. Now in the case we are considering, not only does it
pursue the opposite of right, but the means by which it acts are a
flagrant violation of right. It withdraws the individual liberties of
thousands of human beings from the guardianship of law and of justice,
and delivers them over to the caprice of the administration; by this act
all those laws and rules made to prevent injustice being done, and to
prohibit imprisonment except under formally determined conditions, are
abrogated; they are replaced by the _régime_ of arbitrary will.

“I will consent, however, to come down to the lower ground of
consequences, of results, although, in advance, I assert I am convinced
that there can be no real conflict between principles and results, and
that evil must always bring forth evil. You, who are the partisans of
these sanitary laws, speak of the public safety. Well, I will confine
myself to this question—Who do you save? We will not speak of the woman;
she is the necessary victim of the system—the living material, which has
to be mangled and torn by the iron teeth and wheels of this pitiless
mechanism. We will speak of her later; for the present I leave her out
of account. I repeat my question, Who do you save? (putting out of
account the woman, doomed to irremediable perdition.) Is it the _man_
whom you save? I deny it! Placing myself even at your own materialistic
standpoint, I deny it. You speak only of the man’s body; you speak not
of his soul, and you are right. But you do not save his body. This is
certain, even from the documents furnished by the partisans of the
system themselves. A competent writer,[10] who has deeply studied this
subject, has uttered these words (speaking of Paris): ‘Prostitution
engenders prostitution. That which lights a fire at one point propagates
it everywhere.’ So true is this, that this sincere writer records the
fact that prostitution, outside of the sanitary laws, increases from day
to day in a most frightful degree.

“Statistics are peremptory in their condemnation of these laws. For one
victim who comes under sanitary observation hundreds escape you, and
your measures of protection are useless. How could it be otherwise? You
wish to regulate vice, but it is of the essence of vice to refuse to be
regulated. Vice violates moral law, and you may expect it to transgress
human rules. It is like a torrent which has overflowed its banks; you
cannot say, ‘Thus far shall thou lawfully go, and no further.’ It mocks
all your regulations. You will never succeed in making disorderly
passions universally well ordered in their gratification.

“You do not save the body! And the soul, the moral nature!—does not the
State contribute towards its perversion in sanctioning the idea that
debauchery at a certain age is a natural law, before which the young man
must bow—a law which the State recognises? And thus the State
facilitates the first steps to immorality, and becomes the tempter of
the young man. In facilitating these first steps, it favours public
immorality; for the patented evil has its recognised place in human
legislation. You speak of the harm which prostitution does to the body.
You would preserve the body, and you begin by poisoning the soul. Ah,
you have forgotten that _trifling thing_, the immortal soul! You have
forgotten the soul of youth, the soul of your country. You have
forgotten that this profligacy which you facilitate contributes to the
corruption of the youth of the nation, and sends it back to the domestic
hearth blighted, corrupted, prematurely aged, when it is not separated
for ever from the domestic hearth, as is the case now in certain
countries, where the complaint is made of the diminution of marriages,
and (as in the decline of the Roman Empire) rewards are held out to
those who will marry and bring up children. You have withered the
purity, the vigour, the moral energy of those young hearts. The Proverbs
of Solomon tell us that the house of debauchery (officially regulated or
not) is an open sepulchre—that it rests upon the tomb; and it is true.
And you wish that the State should hold the key to that chamber of
death—that the State should be the door-keeper to admit to it our
youthful citizens! You will not hinder, by your sanitary laws, the
realisation of the terrible genealogy of sin recorded by St. James:
‘When lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is
finished, bringeth forth death.’ Yes, prostitution kills the soul, even
when it does not kill the body. This is the dialectic of evil, which
follows its own inexorable course.

“The partisans of this system say to us, however:—‘Society has a right
to defend itself against physical evils which destroy it; it has a right
to resort to any means when it has to deal not only with debauchery, but
with debauchery which is a commerce; and these regulations, after all,
only apply to the infamous creatures who sell themselves, and have put
themselves beyond the pale of the law and of society: they are but the
dirt of the street.’ Now I do not under-rate the abomination of paid
debauchery. Yes, the vice which sells itself is abominable; what, then,
shall we say of those who buy it? But there are distinctions to be made
among those who sell. Let us look a little closer at the situation of
the woman whom Governments have submitted to a regulation which is a
complete and abject slavery. She deserves nothing but contempt you tell
us! She is invariably as morally perverse as you tell us she is! I ask,
how many of these girls are thrust upon the streets by abandonment after
seduction, or dragged down by want into the infamy from which they
cannot escape? What is your part in the matter? You engulf them further;
you thrust them down lower; you throw on them the last shovelful of
earth to hurl them to the abyss; you roll upon them the stone which
cannot be removed except by a supernatural effort. ‘Ah! you have fallen,
unfortunate creature,’ you say; ‘well, we will complete the work, we
will consummate your degradation: that which is already soiled shall be
made still more vile.’ This is logic; but it is the logic of demons!

“I have supposed the case—so frequently occurring—of the misfortunes
which precipitate into public vice a young girl, a weak being, a mere
child, perhaps, of fifteen or sixteen years, the victim of infamous
seduction. Let us go further, and passing beyond all the various shades
of difference, let us take the worst cases of degradation. I have
admitted, I admit, that the woman who sells herself is a shameful being;
but what, I have asked, and ask again, shall we say of those who buy? Is
the stronger sex, being the purchaser, worthy of greater respect than
the weaker sex which is purchased? You desire that the State shall
sacrifice to the supposed public security thousands of female victims
doomed to perdition, and you forget that the profligate man is equally a
peril to public health with the impure woman. When I look at this
extremity of degradation which is set before us in order to justify
measures so terrible as those we oppose, I remember that I belong to a
religion of divine pity, and that no Christian can dare to say that even
these most degraded beings are beyond hope. I remember that there is a
love which seeks the lost soul, the lost treasure, in the very dust of
the road, and that that love is faithful and powerful and hopeful. A
noble Christian has said: ‘The world will believe in God when it sees
that the disciples of Christ believe in the human soul’; or, rather,
that they believe in that immense charity which descends into the lowest
abyss to seek that which is lost. In the face, then, even of the
profoundest debasement, we have no right to say, ‘All is over! we may
now treat this being as vile matter which may receive the official stamp
at the custom-house of human merchandise.’

“Here is a poor sinner who has heard of Jesus of Nazareth; her heart
beats with a new hope; she curses her abominable life; she feels an
impulse to go forward and throw herself weeping at His feet. But the
State policeman steps in and says, ‘Stop! you cannot pass; you must wait
for our authorisation; you must wait till your name is removed from the
register: you belong to us, and we will not give you up until you have
been long tested.’ She turns away and waits, and while she waits her
tears dry up, her heart again hardens, and she returns to infamy. Thus
the poor drowning creature is plunged once more into the waves of
impurity, and when she would seize hold of the plank of salvation it is
dashed away from her trembling hands. Such is your system! and there are
_Christians who approve it_! I know that there was an age when pagan
temples were devoted to the worship of Venus, and where there were
priestesses who were also the victims of horrible vice; but I had
believed that, eighteen centuries ago, Eternal Love had appeared upon
the earth!

“I do not hide from myself the horror and the peril of the prostitution
which exists where there are not these laws—the horror and danger of
prostitution under every aspect, independently of the moral guilt of
governments which guarantee it. We must enter upon a grand crusade, not
only against legal prostitution, but against profligacy itself; we must
form an indomitable league.... We must pursue vice up to its source; we
must follow it in all its forms and in all its hiding-places; we must
attack the unholy literature, the impure art, and the debased drama
which are connected with it. Above all, we must combat the disastrous
delusion, so fixed in many minds, that vice is an inevitable fatality;
we must hold up before our youth the ideal of purity and of domestic
worth.

“One word more: contemporary Christianity has done much for the
furtherance of the Christian faith, and we are profoundly moved at the
sight of its noble works. This is the month in which religious societies
hold meetings and record their labours. Nothing better! but let us take
care that, in giving ourselves to these good works, we do not forget the
wrongs which lie at our door; that in the midst of this activity, so
rich, so varied, carried to the very ends of the earth, we do not
overlook the perdition in which are plunged the victims of our
civilisation. Let us take heed, lest the Master say to us, ‘Yes, you
have served Me; you have adorned My sanctuaries to receive Me with
honour; you have shown great zeal in the propagation of your religion;
but the Pharisaism of old did the same; yet I rejected it because it
rejected the poor lost woman. He who truly loves, loves that which is
lost; but you, O Christian who bearest My name, what have you done for
her that is lost? what have you _allowed_ to be done to her? You have
suffered her to be taken and devoted to infamy for the security of your
sons. Therefore I say to you, I cannot endure your solemn feasts.’ May
we be spared this condemnation!”

During the meeting a letter was received bearing the Paris postmark, and
handed to the Chairman, who pronounced it to be important. It was an
address expressing the fullest sympathy with the aims of the Federation,
and was signed by a long list of divines and laymen, Protestant leaders
throughout France.

Professor Sheldon Amos made a very weighty speech on this occasion, full
of close reasoning, and supported by legal arguments. He was followed by
Sir Harcourt Johnstone, the Rev. James Martineau, the Right Honourable
G. Shaw Lefevre, and others.


In April of this year Mr. Gledstone and Mr. H. J. Wilson started on a
mission to the United States as delegates from the Federation. I asked
Mr. Gledstone to write for me briefly his recollections of the chief
events of that important mission. He consented to do so, and the
following is his account:—

“It was, I remember, a cold stormy Thursday in April, 1876, when you
persisted in accompanying Mr. Wilson and me to the river, to see us on
board the _Adriatic_. The anti-regulation struggle has seen some
uncommon things; I think so now, as I recall your slender form seeking
shelter from the keen wind that swept through the little tug that
conveyed us to the huge steamer lying in the middle of the Mersey—two
strong men sent out on their mission and cheered to it by one woman!
Snow was on the tops of the Welsh hills as we got into the Channel. The
next day—Good Friday—was spent in Cork; then came a cold enough voyage.

“Bearing, as we did, letters of introduction to several of the leaders
of the old anti-slavery party, we thought of beginning our mission to
the American people at Boston, and using that as a centre for our
propaganda. Providence had arranged it otherwise; we began at New York
and ended at Boston, thus reversing our plan.

“First of all we tried, simultaneously with our missionary efforts, to
learn exactly the state of opinion on the system of State regulation of
vice, and what had been done to keep it out of the country. We found
that attempts had been made at many centres, in different ways, to get
the system a footing. Doctors and sanitary specialists were its
apostles. Some of the medical journals had, at odd times, for some years
past, been doing what they could to commend it to the notice and favour
of the profession. Although we never came upon any sign of the existence
of an organised pro-regulation party, we saw abundant evidence of the
existence, all over the States, of men, chiefly doctors, who were
resolutely bent upon having the regulation established in some form or
another. _The Medical Gazette_ of New York had been very zealous in
1870–71 in that direction.

“In New York, in Chicago, in California, in Baltimore, in the district
of Columbia, in Cincinnati, in Pennsylvania, unsuccessful attempts had
been made to get State or municipal regulation. In California the Bill
which was introduced into the Legislature became known to a quick-witted
woman, the wife of one of the members, who immediately had another Bill
drafted, exactly the same as the first, save one word—for _woman_ she
substituted _man_. She then got several members of the Legislature to
promise that they would bring her Bill forward if any further progress
was made with the other. The mere sight of hers drove the other into
oblivion! She played a bold and risky game, for had her Bill been
accepted along with the other, it would have lain a dead letter, whereas
the police would have worked the other with vigour. She saw, so far,
only the injustice of the proposed Bill, inasmuch as it touched women
and exempted men; but did not see that it was also immoral to apply
regulation even to men and women alike.

“On three occasions attempts had been made in the district of Columbia,
for the sake, of course, of including Washington. One of them was
defeated by the energy and resolution of Miss Edson. Learning late one
evening that a proposal was to be brought before Congress the next day,
she instantly left her home, and spent almost the whole night in
visiting newspaper offices, interviewing editors, and ringing Congress
men out of their beds to inform them of the character of the Bill, and
to implore them to oppose it. By this means time was gained, and with
the assistance of others she continued an opposition which was
ultimately successful. Her effort cost her her life; she soon fell ill
from over-exertion and died.

“In every case the women seemed to have been particularly vigilant and
resolute, and from them we got some of our most effective help. The
women doctors, who were just as capable as the men doctors of
understanding the question in its physical bearings, were entirely with
us; at least, I cannot remember one who was not.

“As an example of the service that may be rendered by one intelligent
and resolute man, I think I ought to name Mr. Francis King, of
Baltimore, a member of the Society of Friends, who, when the Chairman of
the Grand Jury broached the system of regulation, gave it his firm
resistance. Mr. King had studied the subject in Europe.

“One place, St. Louis, had been afflicted with regulation from 1870 to
1874. It had been introduced with a craft quite worthy of the ‘father of
lies,’ a clause of the City Charter which dealt with the suppression of
houses of ill-repute being modified by the introduction of two words,
‘or regulate’; the Charter was thus altered—‘to suppress _or regulate_
houses of ill-fame.’ Rev. Dr. Eliot, of Washington University, led the
opposition to it; 4,000 women petitioned for its repeal; and it was
removed by a unanimous vote of the Senate of the State of Missouri.

“There was evidently work to be done; more than the Federation which had
sent us knew of, much more than the American friends of purity for a
moment suspected. They were mostly living in happy ignorance of this
plotting against the rights of all the women of the States, and against
the morals of the whole Republic. If our mission did nothing else, we
have the satisfaction of knowing that it effectually broke up that
self-confidence.

“In New York, where we landed on April 24th, we found that preparations
had been made by Mr. Aaron M. Powell and Mrs. Gibbons for the holding of
a conference the next day. This was only a small gathering at Mrs.
Gibbons’ house of some twelve or fifteen ladies and gentlemen, to whom
we explained the object of our coming, and from whom we received
suggestions as to the best course for us to pursue. During the ten weeks
of our stay in America, we held six conferences in New York, each of
them interesting in its own peculiar way; one of them, in the New York
Infirmary, specially so, owing to the number of young women present who
were studying medicine.

“In Dr. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, we found a warm and influential friend; he
took me with him to the house of Mr. Dodge, where I had the opportunity
of addressing some twenty-five of the most noted Presbyterian, Dutch
Reformed, and Congregational clergymen of the city. The same privilege
was extended to me by the Baptist ministers, of whom a hundred were
present at the meeting. I believe that by means of these ministerial
associations I succeeded in addressing almost the whole of the ministers
in all the great cities of the East. They were, of course, busy in every
case with their own local concerns, and could not find time to discuss
the theme brought before them; but there is ground for believing that
interest was excited and sympathy gained.

“Among the more striking incidents of our tour was the presentment,
while we were in New York, to the ‘Court of General Sessions of the
Peace for the City and County of New York,’ of its own Grand Jury in
favour of dealing with the social evil by means of regulation. The
presentment closed with a resolution earnestly requesting the
Legislature of the State of New York to adopt some system of laws
calculated to confine houses of ill-fame in large cities to certain
specified localities, and to subject them at all times to the careful
and vigilant supervision of the Boards of Health and Police. This
presentment appeared in the _Evening Post_ of June 2nd (Friday), 1876;
and before we slept that night we had penned a protest against it in the
name of the Federation, taking up each point and answering it in the
light of our English and European experience. The next day we spent in
interviewing editors, and on Monday the _Herald_ published our protest;
three other papers also had articles on the presentment, either
condemning it as immoral, or making light of it as a suggestion made too
late in the day for acceptance.

“I cannot leave the subject of New York without saying a word about the
kind and devoted friends we met. Mr. and Mrs. Aaron M. Powell gave us a
cordial welcome and unstinted help, and have carried on, ever since our
return, the work of meeting and resisting all attempt to legalise vice.
Mr. Powell had formerly been editor of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, and,
like all the surviving members of the great anti-slavery movement,
seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of the great moral principles for
which we were contending. Mrs. Gibbons was another of our good friends,
and in the rooms of the Isaac T. Hopper Home (a benevolent home named in
honour of her brave, unselfish father) we had one or more of our
conferences. Mrs. Gay, of Staten Island, another Quaker and
Abolitionist, gave us excellent help, and has continued in the good work
till now. Mrs. Hussey aided us much among medical practitioners.

“As one result of our visit, a Vigilance Committee was formed, which has
kept a sleepless eye on the movements of the enemy, and has defeated
many insidious plans to introduce regulation through sanitary
arrangements, or municipal laws, or State enactments. It has also
created a literature, modest indeed in size, but appealing to all that
is best and purest in the nation. Ten years ago the _Philanthropist_, a
monthly journal, was started, to be the organ of the purity party, and
has done good service. I cannot but believe that in New York alone our
work was a quiet introduction to the energetic White Cross Crusade, and
to the daring attacks of Dr. Parkhurst upon the corrupt police and
municipal authorities. The friends who had co-operated with us have, for
almost nineteen years, not only kept up a protest against every form of
legalising vice, but have also thrown themselves into every available
form of service for the promotion of a sound public opinion on the
relation of the sexes.

“By the time we reached Washington a Bill had been framed by the Board
of Health and introduced into the House of Representatives, which, on
its face, looked innocent enough, but which really contained clauses of
a very dangerous character. Professing to be only a sanitary measure,
it, in fact, gave ample powers for working a system of inspection and
license. At one of our conferences we had the presence of the Rev. J. L.
Townsend, Chaplain of the House of Representatives, who, hearing of what
was being proposed, said he should confer with the Chaplain of the
Senate, so that together they might co-operate against the objectionable
measure. Mr. H. J. Wilson also had an interview with Mr. Willard, who
had introduced the Bill into the Legislature, but who frankly declared
that he had no intention to support the regulating system; he said the
phraseology of the Bill, which was evidently open to a bad
interpretation and use, must be altered.

“One of our best friends in this city was Mrs. Dr. Winslow; she was one
of the first women in America who took a medical degree, and in
consequence she suffered a good deal of domestic and social persecution.
The people who had smelt the fire of trouble for conscientious
convictions seemed to fall to our side by a kind of instinct; they
grasped the moral principles we set forth, and understood their bearing
at once.

“At Baltimore the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
was sitting. Dr. Rigg and the Rev. W. B. Pope, who were attending it as
delegates from the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in England, having been
entrusted with an address to it from the Wesleyan Society for the repeal
of the English Acts, the former gentleman carried out this commission. A
special Committee which was appointed to draw up a reply, heard evidence
from Dr. Rigg and myself as to the nature and futility of our English
Acts, and as to the great uprising of opinion on the Continent of Europe
against licensed vice. In their reply they expressed themselves as being
utterly opposed to regulation; and I believe I am right in saying that
both in America and by its missionaries in India this powerful Church
has always and consistently gone against regulation in any form.

“It is pleasant to recall the kindnesses and aid of single persons and
of groups of persons; Dr. Thomas, a Quaker physician, was the friend who
socially aided us at Baltimore.

“We had quite a remarkable experience at Philadelphia, both in the way
of assailing our opponents and in making for our cause new and
influential friends all over the States. At the time of our visit the
doctors of Pennsylvania were holding the annual meeting of their
Society, and gave our work aid which was as unexpected as it was
unwilling. They had been told by one of their journals that a ‘vehement
effort’ ought to be made by them to get prostitution legalised; it was
their ‘duty’ to do it. Of any intention to do their ‘duty’ they gave no
sign; but at the last moment, just as we were on the point of leaving
for Boston, two anti-regulation doctors, of whom the city had a goodly
number, informed us that on the following day a determined effort was to
be made to commit the Society to an active regulationist policy.
Thereupon we got Mrs. Franciscus, the President of the Women’s Christian
Association, and Mrs. French, President of the Moral Education Society,
to send a letter to all the doctors known to be opposed to regulation,
asking them to attend every meeting of the Medical Society, and resist
any such attempt. At the meeting of the W.C.A., the hundred women who
were present rose to their feet to signify their approval of the letter;
a feeling of intense indignation was aroused, and a regulationist doctor
would have had determined opposition from the women of the capital city
of the State. How it came to pass we never could learn, but it is
certain that the ‘vehement effort’ never was made. As we came across
many friends in Philadelphia who saw no need for doing anything—the
subject being ‘unpleasant’ ‘not before the public,’ and ‘not fit for
discussion before men and women’—we had the doctors to thank for
effectually scattering all these objections, and sending a shock of much
needed energy into our work. So the way of men was over-ruled by the
higher way of God.

“Let me recall the friendly faces and names of those who aided us—the
Rev. Andrew Longacre, the Rev. Joseph May, Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Lewis,
Bishop Simpson, Mr. Rowland (of the Y.M.C.A.), Dr. Herman Thomas, Mr.
and Mrs. Ingraham, Mrs. Harriet French, Miss Anthony, and that brave old
lady, Mrs. Lucretia Mott. To some of your readers, dear Mrs. Butler,
these names will mean nothing; but please let them stand on the pages of
your book of reminiscences, for they mean much to others, and deserve a
record.

“Our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Powell, of New York, were present during
part of the time of our visits to Philadelphia, attending the meetings
of the International Temperance Convention, and they kindly arranged a
meeting of Temperance friends from all parts of the States for us to
address. It was a choice opportunity, of which we made the most. Mrs.
Powell sent you home an account, in which she spoke of the meeting as ‘a
very impressive meeting,’ in which the power of the Spirit of God was
present, and where many of the audience, men and women, were in tears.
Yes; I remember it from a long distance of time as a season of help and
blessing.

“The city of Boston, which we had at first counted upon as sure to be
the most responsive and most easily worked, proved to be one of the most
difficult, until we obtained the countenance and co-operation of Mr.
William Lloyd Garrison. Even the women, usually the quickest to come to
the aid of our cause, were cautious and doubtful. That Massachusetts
should ever legalise immorality seemed to them to be as remote as the
end of the world. New York was a dissolute city, under the control of
foreigners, and might do anything bad; but Boston had some regard for
the moral law. Our arguments were met with simple incredulity and
indifference. Since then our warnings have only been too abundantly
justified.

“When Mr. Garrison, to whom we had the best of introductions, heard our
case and the difficulties which had been thrown in our way, he said:—

“Do not listen to the dissuasions from going on with your work, and
speaking the message you are entrusted with. I do not agree with those
who affirm that it is inexpedient to speak the truth here on this
question. Speak it; it will do good. But do not hold a public meeting.
Get those to hear you who will influence public opinion in the day of
need. My name is at your service for any circular you may issue, calling
such a conference as I have indicated.’

“This was the plan of operations we had followed all the way through,
and as soon as the great Abolitionist’s name was put upon our circular,
it was adopted by the leading reformers of the city. Never before had I
seen so great a change wrought by the word of one man; his judgment was
evidently regarded as a final court of appeal. With that splendid
loyalty to his old chief which always distinguished Mr. Wendell
Phillips, the great orator of the Abolition cause, he immediately gave
us his aid, and consented to preside at our Conference. About a hundred
and fifty of the most active of the reformers of the city came together
in the rooms of the Y.M.C.A. (that institution always had an open door
for us), and a most enthusiastic meeting was held. My colleague, Mr.
Wilson, had gallantly offered to do the hardest part of the work, viz.,
answering any question that might be asked, but after more than an hour
of severe catechising he was tired out, and I had to come to his aid.
You may know a subject very well, but when you have been tested by the
inquisitiveness of a Boston audience you may feel pretty comfortable
anywhere else.

“Our meeting was favoured with short speeches by our Chairman, by Mrs.
Livermore, and by Mrs. Stone.

“I cannot leave Boston without mentioning the inspiration which Mr.
Garrison’s words and influence were to every good work; he started me on
the study of the great Abolition movement, a cause which, indirectly has
done much for our own. Then, again, I remember with a tender heart the
modest kindness of Mr. Wendell Phillips in taking us to see some of the
sights of Boston, and in calling with us on some newspaper editors. I
remember his snug, quaint little house, which might have been taken from
one of the ancient streets of York or Chester; I see now the bust of
John Brown’s magnificent head, just arrived from the sculptor’s,
standing on the sill of the staircase window; and I still hear the soft
tones in which he said, as I parted from him—‘Don’t forget an old man.’
I can never forget him; his speeches have become to me the noblest
models of Christian moral teaching; I know nothing like them in the
whole range of English oratory, either for substance or for style.

“One strong desire which we felt at the termination of our work was for
the American people to make common cause with the English and with
Continental friends against legalised immorality; and this they have
done. The American Committee joined the Federation, and have frequently
sent Mr. Powell to attend its meetings; they realise that in this sacred
cause the nations are one. If we were permitted to render any service to
the great Republic, the debt has been more than repaid by the priceless
work of Mrs. Andrew and Dr. Kate Bushnell on behalf of India. Bonds of
love and sympathy have been woven which nothing can break.”




                              CHAPTER VII

                 “Who serves to-day upon the list
                   Beside the served shall stand;
                 Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
                   The gloved and dainty hand!

                 The rich is level with the poor,
                   The weak is strong to-day,
                 And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
                   Than homespun frock of grey.”


I went with my husband to Switzerland in the month of June of 1876 to
see the friends who were then preparing for the Congress of the
following year, and to seek among the mountains the calm of spirit which
we wished to possess, and to be able in a measure to impart in the midst
of the increasing conflict. We first visited Neuchâtel in order to
confer on the arrangements for the Congress with that master organizer,
M. Humbert, who accompanied us to a beautiful rural retreat on the Jura
for a short time of rest. A week or two later other representatives of
the Federation arrived in Switzerland, Giuseppe Nathan from Italy, and
Professor Stuart and one of my sons from England. My sister, Madame
Meuricoffre, and her family also came to their Swiss summer home. A
meeting was held at Berne, in July, for the purpose of forming a working
Committee to arrange for the Congress. The meeting and the Committee
were presided over by a distinguished Swiss gentleman, the Federal
Colonel Othon von Büren, whose memory lives in the hearts of his
countrymen. It was he who, in the disastrous Franco-German War, went to
Strasburg and drew out from that beleaguered city and other parts of
Alsatia a vast host of aged and feebled persons, women, and children,
and led them to Switzerland, to be received and nourished and protected
by that hospitable nation, which added in that year one more page of
heroic and pathetic beauty to the many noble pages of its past history.
Colonel von Büren performed this service with a patience, firmness,
military orderliness, and fatherly tenderness which endeared him to
every one. This service, added to his reputation as a soldier, and the
consistency of his Christian character, has made his name deservedly
renowned. He and two other well-known Swiss soldiers became from this
time staunch adherents of the Federation. Those others were Colonel
Steiger and Colonel de Perrot, the latter a Neuchâtelois. We were joined
later by another officer of high rank and noble character from Eastern
Switzerland, Colonel Kaiser, of Zug, who had, before our acquaintance
with him, written and published some excellent brochures on the work of
the Federation, “Letters to the Athenians,” addressed to the people of
Zurich, which was sometimes called the Modern Athens.

It was an overpoweringly hot day when we held this meeting at Berne in
the Hall of the Abbaye des Bouchers. It was in the afternoon, and
nothing less than the great interest of the approaching events about
which we were taking counsel together could have sufficed to keep us
awake! M. Humbert made a clear statement of plans and operations, M.
Nathan spoke with deep feeling concerning his own country, and my
husband explained the prominent position taken by women in this cause
with a force and gentleness which deeply impressed the ladies present,
and won many to leave their retirement and join our ranks. Our good
allies, Madame de Gingins, the two young Mesdames de Watteville, and
others, had already become leaders in the movement in their own country.

Once more my husband was obliged to leave me, being recalled, in the
month of August, by his imperative duties at the Liverpool College. I
went to stay with my sister, Madame Meuricoffre, at her home in the
Canton de Vaud. While there an unexpected invitation was sent to me to
address, the following day, a mass meeting of the working people of
Geneva in the Electoral Hall in that city. I had not yet addressed any
great popular assembly in French, and felt unable to do so at such short
notice. In my first tour in 1874–5 I had spoken in French and Italian,
but always with time for careful preparation. But as the invitation was
urgent I accepted it, on the condition that my sister, who was perfectly
at home in the French language, should accompany me, stand near me,
prompt me, and, if necessary, interpret for me. On the morning of the
day when the meeting was to take place I went to her room to confer with
and be strengthened by her concerning it, when I found to my dismay that
she was completely prostrated by an attack of faintness and severe pain
in the head. It was too late, however, to change my decision, and the
afternoon was a time to me of a good deal of anxiety.

Towards evening I went to say farewell to her before starting on the
short journey to Geneva. Her room was darkened, her eyes were closed,
and she spoke with difficulty on account of pain. I stooped to kiss her,
and she whispered to me, in a calm tone of conviction, the words, “_they
spake with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance_.” It was a
revelation to me, and I went in the strength of those words to the
dreaded meeting.

I was met in Geneva by M. Humbert, M. Sautter de Blonay, of the Canton
de Vaud, Professor Stuart, and others. An eye-witness wrote to friends
in England of the meeting as follows: “We arrived punctually at the
hour, and soon perceived what sort of a meeting we were about to have by
the fact that hundreds of people, chiefly working men, were coming away
from the hall saying, ‘no use, not a place to be had, even to stand’;
while not only the hall itself, but a long outside gallery surrounding
it, and open to the air, was crowded. The crowd was so dense that Mrs.
Butler and her friends could with difficulty press in. Even such persons
as the President of the Grand Council of Geneva, and Père Hyacinthe
Loyson, were obliged to stand, not finding a seat unoccupied. It was a
hot and brilliant moonlight night, and from the body of the hall might
be seen outside the doors and windows a sea of faces of persons standing
patiently the whole time to catch what they could of the words spoken,
while groups of men sat on the ledges of the open windows, or hung on
where they could.”

It was affecting to observe, even in Geneva, where the consciences of
the working population were said to be, in a measure, falsified by the
influence of the system of Regulation, that the sentiments which were
responded to with the most evidence of feeling were those which
expressed pity and sympathy for the fallen, and indignation concerning
the principles of justice and equality outraged by the system we oppose.
M. Sautter de Blonay and M. Humbert spoke eloquently, and I was able, by
God’s grace, to deliver my message with comparative ease to that large
assembly. At one moment there was a movement in the lower part of the
hall, and evidence of some sinister presence and influence; an attempt
to utter coarse words of opposition and insult, which was immediately
quelled by the working men surrounding the person who had risen, and who
was finally carried off bodily by them and placed in the open street. We
found, afterwards, that this was the keeper of one of the notorious
houses of debauchery in the town under the protection of the Government
of Geneva—a person holding an official authorisation, in fact, who felt
he had a right to be heard; a man with a most hideous expression of
countenance resembling a vulture greedily scouring the face of the earth
for prey.

I had not at this time visited any German town in the interests of our
cause; I therefore accepted a proposal to travel homewards by the Rhine.
I stayed some days in Frankfort-s.M., and was there encouraged, by the
sympathy of several leading citizens, above all by that of Dr. André, a
medical man, and a philosophical writer, whose convictions on this
subject were very deep, and supported by a very considerable experience
as a doctor. M. Gerard, a pastor of Swiss origin, called a meeting in
his own house, in which I was very kindly received.

I went next to Cologne and Elberfeld. In the latter town I found a very
considerable group of ministers and ladies, who showed an intelligent
sympathy with our motives and work. Returning from Elberfeld, I visited
Liége and Brussels. M. Emile de Laveleye was absent at that time from
Liége, but some little initiatory work was done in that city, through
the kind help and zeal of Pastors Durand and Nicolet. The latter was a
strong and active adherent from that time forward. It was during this
visit to Belgium that I made my first acquaintance with the awful crimes
and cruelties resulting from the system of regulation long established
there, and which were brought fully to light, later, by the action of
the City of London Committee, and the investigations so courageously
undertaken by George Gillett and Alfred Dyer. In Brussels our chief
friends were, in those early days, Pastor Anet and Mr. Cor van der
Maaren, the famous champion of Free Trade principles in Belgium, who in
the early days of his political career was stoned in the streets of
Brussels, and who, after his death, when his principles had triumphed,
was honoured by having a statue erected of him in one of the public
squares. He at once took up our cause, and gave me an introduction to M.
Couvreu, a Member of Parliament. Madame Behrends also helped us, and
became one of our correspondents for some years.


In the late autumn of this year a “newspaper war” on this subject broke
out suddenly in France. It was probably kindled by numerous cases of
Police brutality, and frequent arrests both of men and women for
resisting, or even speaking against, the _Police des Mœurs_. But a
deeper source of resistance was the growing force of public opinion
against that immoral system. So systematic did this Press conflict
become that every week the _Droits de l’homme_ had an article summing up
its results, and pronouncing upon the attitude of the different
journals, not only in Paris, but in the provinces. The journals which
demanded the instant and complete abolition of the Regulations were the
_Droits de l’homme_, _La Révolution_ and _La France_. Others which
attacked it, but without demanding its total abolition, were the
_Tribune_, the _Siècle_, the _Rappel_, the _Ralliement_, the _Nation_,
the _Estafette_, and the _Gaulois_. Beside these papers, which wrote on
the question continuously for several weeks, the following had single
articles in favour of abolition:—The _Republicain_, of St. Etienne; the
_Bien public_, Paris; _La Liberté_, Paris; _La Gironde_, Bordeaux; the
_Tribune des Travailleurs_, Lyons; the _Petit Lyonnais_, Lyons; and the
_Critique Philosophique_, Paris.

A meeting of citizens was held in Paris to draw up a petition to the
Government. It was a weighty and noble petition. Private letters were
poured in upon members of the Senate and the Chambers praying for the
redress of this great wrong so long endured in France. This
extraordinary awakening was compared by M. Aimé Humbert to the bursting
of a mine under our feet. Five or six respectable citizens were sent to
prison for various terms for taking the part of helpless women in the
streets. Many of the highest Municipal authorities ranged themselves on
the side of the Abolitionists. The conflict became more bitter every
week, and we looked on in wonder, almost in awe. A writer in one of the
Paris journals on November 13th said that M. Lecour “deigns not to
answer nor to argue; he only arrests. But his hour is come. It is
written up against him, ‘thou art weighed in the balances, and art found
wanting.’” Literary men, such as Pillon, Assolant, Tacussel, etc., wrote
nobly on the subject. Even the opponents of our movement, represented
chiefly by the Imperialistic journals, gave daily well-attested cases of
honourable women who were arrested by the Morals’ Police.

The Municipal Council of Paris now began to move with vigour. Two of its
members, M. Yves Guyot and M. Lacroix, brought before the council
towards the close of November a charge against the Police of Morals, and
made at the same time a proposal that the money which the Municipal
Council had always been called upon to provide for the expenses of the
Morals’ Police should be stopped. There followed soon after this a
prosecution by the Prefect of Police of M. Yves Guyot, of which I shall
presently speak. That that prosecution did not take place until after M.
Guyot had brought forward this resolution in the Municipal Council
suggested that it was an act of revenge, an attempt to terrify M. Guyot
into silence. One of the first steps taken by the Council was the
appointment of a special Committee to report on the matter. The report
of that Committee was to this effect:—That it was unendurable that such
an arbitrary power should exist in Paris as that exercised by the
_Police des Mœurs_; and that this same _Police des Mœurs_ had no legal
foundation for its existence. After a long discussion on the subject, M.
Thulié, the President of the Council, rose and said, “I do not think
this matter will be finally settled either by stopping the supplies, as
proposed by M. Lacroix, or by referring the matter to the Chambers. We
must first have a Commission appointed by the Municipal Council to
inquire into the whole question, with the view of having this system
completely abolished.” This proposition being carried, MM. Guyot and
Lacroix withdrew for the time their proposal to stop the supplies.

We learned later that the prosecution of M. Guyot had been instituted by
M. Voisin, the Prefect of the Correctional Police, at the instigation of
his personal friend the powerful and haughty Prefect of the Morals’
Police, M. Lecour. The report of the trial was full of interest. The
charge against M. Guyot was that of “Publishing false news,” he having
recorded the assault by the police on a well-known actress of good
character and reputation, Mlle. Rousseil, by an agent of the Morals’
Police. Mlle. Rousseil, made strong by the force of her just
indignation, had flung the man who attempted to arrest her with such
violence from her that he measured his length on the pavement. A crowd
gathered round, and as the young actress was a popular favourite, the
news of the scene spread rapidly. M. Lecour afterwards asserted that the
man who made this arrest was a private individual who had pretended to
be one of his agents. This was never believed by the public. M. Guyot’s
sole fault, then, was that he had said “an agent of the Morals’ Police,”
instead of “a person calling himself an agent.” For this he was
condemned to six months’ imprisonment and a fine. It was never proved
that the man was not an agent of police. The outcry in the Press had
alarmed M. Lecour, who gave orders to his police to appear at once to be
engaged in an energetic search for the false agent. The man was found
and tried. He came into Court frankly confessing—rather too frankly,
indeed—that he was merely a silly fellow who had done this for
amusement. He accepted a very brief imprisonment without more ado.
Meanwhile the courageous Town Councillor, M. Guyot, accepted his
sentence cheerfully, assuring us in England that it would do good to the
persecuted cause. Three times during these events did M. Lecour stand
before the Municipal Council of Paris and plead passionately and with
tears in favour of the honour and purity of his own motives and those of
his women-hunters (men who were recruited from the very scum of society
in all countries).

A Commission of Enquiry was appointed by the Municipal Council, the
following being the text of its appointment:—

“(1) Considering that the Municipal Council cannot avoid being concerned
with the question of the _Police des Mœurs_, which is a question of
great importance to the security of the Parisian population;

“(2) Considering that it has the right to control the services for which
it pays, and to study the ameliorations which they may require;

“(3) Considering that the acts of the _Police des Mœurs_ are not
authorised by any laws, and that they lead to the perpetration of crimes
punishable by the penal code;

“(4) Considering that at present it being difficult to propose to the
Municipal Council to refuse the money required for the _Police des
Mœurs_, a Commission of twelve members be nominated to study the service
of the _Police des Mœurs_, and to propose either its entire suppression
or such reforms as it requires.”

The Prefect of Police objected that the Municipal Council had no
jurisdiction in the matter of the Police des Mœurs, and signified his
intention to appeal to the Minister of the Interior; and, in effect, at
the next meeting of the Municipal Council, he laid on the table an order
signed by Marshal MacMahon annulling the appointment of the Commission,
because of the direct imputations on the conduct of the police which the
resolutions contained. M. Lecour therefore had “energetically defended
the Police des Mœurs, he had condemned a Municipal Councillor to prison,
and had secured the annulling of the Council’s Decree.” The Municipal
Council, however, were not to be beaten, and three days later they
passed a resolution in place of that annulled, simply providing for the
nomination of a Commission, without giving any reasons for its
nomination, and at once elected twelve of their members to act upon it.
Mr. Herrison, who had become President of the Municipal Council, was
elected President of the Commission.

That Commission invited a certain number of persons from different
countries, who had studied the question, to give evidence before it.
From Switzerland came M. Sautter de Blonay and M. Humbert; from Italy,
M. Nathan; from Belgium, M. Nicolet; and from England, Messrs.
Stansfeld, Stuart, my husband and myself. The Commission sat day by day
in a large room of the old Palace of the Luxembourg; their labours were
very conscientious and prolonged. When summoned there we were struck by
the old-fashioned stateliness of the ancient royal residence, now used
as Government offices, but still more were we impressed by the kind and
courteous reception which we met with. It was a true pleasure to me to
appear as a witness there, contrasting strongly with the effect produced
on me by the ordeal which I, with others, had passed through in 1871,
when giving evidence before the Royal Commission in our House of Lords.
All the foreign witnesses here sat round a large table, at the upper
part of which were the twelve Commissioners. We felt at once that there
was _here_ (though we were in Paris) no cynicism, no wish to perplex or
entrap the witnesses, no motive, in fact, except the desire to elicit
the truth, and to profit by the experience of other countries, in order
that the Commission might do the best possible for their own country, by
returning, in this matter, to the principles of just law, in place of
the arbitrary and illegal police rule which was, they felt, destroying
the foundations of liberty. The members of the Commission were not
wholly of one mind on all points, and it was rather a severe exercise of
brain and memory to meet and satisfy the various questions of a company
of quick-witted, logical Frenchmen. It was an exercise, however, which
left one feeling stronger and happier, because of the sincerity of
motive which we felt animated the questioners.

Some days after giving our evidence at the Palais du Luxembourg, a great
meeting was held (on the 21st January) in the Salle des Écoles, Rue
d’Arras. No public meeting could at that time be held in Paris without
the authorisation of the Government, which would not have been granted
for a meeting on the subject of the Police des Mœurs. It was, therefore,
styled a “private meeting,” to attend which several thousands of
invitations were sent out. These were fully responded to, and the hall
was densely crowded. The meeting had been arranged chiefly by M. Yves
Guyot and M. Lacroix. There was a considerable proportion of “blue
blouses,” working men from the St. Antoine and Belleville quarters,
students from the Latin Quarter, and some members of the Chambers and of
the Senate, besides Municipal Councillors. There was also a good
attendance of women. M. Laurent Pichat (_Senateur Inamovible_) presided.
M. Yves Guyot introduced the strangers of different nationalities to the
audience with a few words explaining the object of their visit to Paris
and of this meeting.

The several addresses given were listened to with extraordinary
attention and interest, and in a quietness which was remarkable,
considering the mercurial and excitable nature of a portion of that
audience. So keen was the sympathy (having its roots deep in bitter
experience) of the poorer part of the audience, especially the working
men, that it was necessary in some degree to restrain all that it might
have been in our hearts to say on the injustice and cruelty of the
system of which the victims were drawn so largely from their own ranks.

On our return to England we found that a bitter attack had been made in
the _Standard_ and other journals on my husband’s action in accepting
the invitation of the Municipal Council in Paris, and speaking at the
Salle des Écoles. “A clergyman of the Church of England,” the writers
asserted, “had no business to be addressing Republican mobs in Paris.”
My husband’s weighty and dignified reply is given in the Recollections
of him, which I have published.[11] It was our rule not to reply to
attacks of a purely personal nature, but in this case the censures were
directed against him in his character as the Principal of a great
College, and he thought it due to the parents of the boys entrusted to
his charge to place the matter in its true light. We have seen how
varied a gathering it was in Paris, and as to its being a “Republican
mob,” my husband reminded his traducers that “France being a Republic,
it was natural that any audience there should be a Republican audience!”

Several other meetings were held before we left Paris. One of those was
in the Salle de la Redoute, which was crowded with respectable working
women of Paris. There were also a few ladies of the highest social
position. M. Charles Lemonnier presided. M. Auguste Desmoulins, an
ardent friend of our cause, spoke in a most beautiful manner to the
working people present. A very affecting address was given also by Mlle.
Raoult, a working woman of powerful understanding and a loving heart,
and the chief organiser of a league of working women for their own
protection. I give a few sentences from her address:—

“It is at the _root_ that we must strike. Is the moment opportune? I
believe so. It is time to act; for our generation, corrupted by many
years of a nameless _régime_, presents deep wounds which must be
healed.” After describing the network of unhappy circumstances which
causes the fall of so many girls into evil, she continued: “But while so
many people make light of their morality, there are to be found in Paris
young girls who are faithful to the lessons learned from their mothers,
and to the memory of their homes, and who work and suffer without
complaining. To be known, they must be seen in their wretched garrets,
fabricating the most beautiful toilettes for the ladies of the high
Society, working from morning till night, and _dying without a murmur,
rather than yield_. These are indeed virtuous! It is an exact
acquaintance with all these sufferings which has constrained me to
depict them to you. No, lady, it is not in the wilderness that your
voice has sounded, but rather in the conscience of every man of feeling
those especially of the working class, who are invaded in their dignity,
and in their most cherished affections, by this horrible plague which we
are endeavouring to combat.”

Adhémard Le Clerc, a leading working man, confirmed in the most terrible
manner the facts given by Mlle. Raoult. He said: “Society with us has
come to a dead-lock, because of the condition of our women. It is an
accepted axiom in Paris that _a woman can no longer live by the work of
her own hands_. The great social evil lies in the miserable wages
granted to the work of women. This in itself, I say without hesitation,
is debauchery justified, necessary, inevitable. There are some workwomen
in Paris who have a father or husband, in which case the poor woman’s 10
or 20 sous a day help a little towards the _ménage_; but there are
thousands of single women in Paris who have no creature on earth to look
to for support. Marriage has long been on the decrease. Many of these
poor girls do not know their origin. As Dr. Desprès has said, ‘the
population is bastardised to such an extent that thousands of poor girls
know not of any relationship which they have ever possessed.’ They come
handicapped into the world, bastards, orphans, and outcasts. Their life,
if virtuous, is one terrible struggle from the cradle to the grave; but
by far the greater number of them are drilled from childhood by
exploiters and the police in the public service of debauchery. Ten
thousand women every year go through the prison of St. Lazare. Every one
of these, though she may have been imprisoned only for being homeless
and wandering in the streets, or for begging, leaves the St. Lazare with
the indelible mark upon her of shame and outlawry, which that word—St.
Lazare—conveys to all. Her character is gone; and thus are the ranks of
prostitutes recruited by the high hand of the Administration itself. The
cry now, as formerly, of our women in Paris is for _bread_: they must
have bread; they are ready to work for it, but when work cannot be found
they will sell themselves to have it. Society is responsible for this
misery and sin, for Society is _solidaire_, and must one day pay the
debt it owes to outraged and maddened womanhood. Our ruined monuments
are themselves prophetic of this. It will be again as it has been
before. The handiwork of ruined women is visible in the blasted walls of
the Tuileries. Their history is written in black smoke on the crumbling
walls of our palaces in flames. There is no need of a Daniel here to
decipher the handwriting on the wall. All the world can read, plainly
written there, the words, _La femme déchue_—the ruined woman.”

With this picture in my mind, and the memory of all I had seen and heard
in Paris of the condition of the honest working woman, hunted from
street to street and from room to room by the police, and looking at the
troubled and earnest faces all turned towards me, I could not refrain
from uttering these words: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have their nests; but the honest workwoman of Paris has not where to
lay her head.” Many burst into tears, or hid their faces in their hands.
In coming out from the meeting several poor girls came to me, their
faces swollen with weeping, and said: “Ah, Madam, how true those words
were about the foxes!”

The “Union Chrétienne,” a Protestant Society of Paris, invited us to
hold a meeting in their own hall. This meeting was interrupted and
closed by the police. Towards the conclusion of my brief address, during
which were present several police officers of high rank, I alluded to
what had been asserted by one of Lecour’s agents shortly before, _i.e._,
that parents of young girls sometimes came themselves to the Prefecture
and requested to have their daughter’s name placed on the register, and
how, he asked, could the Prefect refuse in such a case? I found it
difficult to believe that this was anything but a very rare occurrence;
but I asserted that in such a case the Prefecture was none the less
morally responsible. “Let us suppose,” I said, “that a father came to
the Prefect and said, ‘Cut my daughter’s throat for me’; if he consented
to do so, would not the Administration by such an act render itself the
accomplice of assassins?” The officials present, it seems, did not like
this; the order was given, the gas was turned out, and in a few moments
every seat was empty. The same officers reported to M. Lecour, that I
had said he was an assassin! The next morning the President of the
Association was summoned to the Prefecture, and a verbatim report of
what I had said was demanded. Three days later several members of the
“Union Chrétienne” were again summoned to the Prefecture and questioned.
Eventually they had to pay a small fine, and their hall was closed for a
time; but they were in no way dejected by this result. The same could
not have been said of the _Police des Mœur_ itself. Several persons who
had been present during M. Lecour’s consultations with his agents
reported to us that he had said “that the actual _régime_” was lost, and
that certain changes or ameliorations of an external kind would have to
be introduced, in order to calm the present agitation.

A final meeting during this visit to Paris was held in the large
Protestant Chapel in the Rue Roquepine. It was presided over by Dr.
Gustave Monod, and addresses were given by M. de Pressensé and M.
Theodore Monod. The speakers denounced freely the system we opposed; but
the police did not interfere with this meeting, the Protestant community
of Paris being too formidable a body, and too highly respected to have
one of their principal places of worship, and the words spoken in it,
interfered with even by so insolent a tyranny as that of the Prefecture.

M. Yves Guyot’s sentence of imprisonment was not immediately carried
into practice. He was allowed to postpone its execution for a few weeks.
He employed the interval of freedom by continued assiduous work on the
Commission of the Council, and in other ways, for the exposure and
condemnation of the _Police des Mœurs_. A number of Parisians were
examined on the subject by the Commission—among them Drs. Deprés,
Fournier and Mauriac, whose evidence threw some useful and curious light
on the hygienic inefficacy of the system. Dr. Cléve, head physician of
the Prefecture, was called; but the Prefect forbade him to give any
information to the Commission. “This is a proof,” said one of the
Liberal journals, “that many things take place at the Prefecture which
it is necessary to hide.” Another official of the Prefecture, being
called upon to appear, said furiously to the President, “Ah! if you
think we will give you information, you are mistaken; you shan’t have
any at all.” The Prefecture regards itself as an irresponsible Pashalik,
which, though it has a right to receive money from the Municipal
Council, is not bound to render any account thereof.

The following is a portion of a letter which I addressed to friends at
home at this time:—


                                               “PARIS, _February, 1877_.

“I think I told you how many poor working men and women appeal to us
after our meetings, some of them very shabby and ill-dressed, but with
much shrewdness and aspiration. Among these is Adhémard le Clerc, a
working man, whose powerful verdict on the state of Paris I will send
you. Among the waifs and strays who always follow us, the outcasts, the
diamonds hidden away among the dust, who come to join in our train, are
several of whom I should like to give you a sketch as an indication of
the varied character of those who gather to this work:—

“1. A tall medical student, of modest, gentlemanly manner, looking
rather delicate and absent, and not happy. You know, perhaps, what the
medical students of Paris are as a rule; but among them we have many
adherents of a character much raised above the rest. Indeed, many of the
young men of France are rebelling against the odious teaching of their
elders concerning the ‘necessity of vice.’ It seems to me that a deep
melancholy and disgust with life has taken possession of some of these
boys of eighteen or twenty; while together with this there is often a
readiness to grasp at some higher aim if it is set before them. The
student I speak of came shyly to our hotel to ask if we would think him
too bold were he to try to get up a meeting of students and workmen to
hear our message. We encouraged him to gather a meeting of these
students, which was held a little later.

“2. A poor and elderly woman, very wretchedly dressed, whom the master
of the Hotel where I stayed might have hesitated to admit had I not
counselled him never to turn away poor people, or oddities of any class
whatever. She had the appearance of having suffered years of hunger. Her
large eyes were sunk in their bony sockets, but had in them a look of
self-forgetfulness. To show me what she was she drew from her pocket a
very old, soiled prospectus of her school. She had started, fifteen
years before, a little school for girls in a very poor quarter of Paris,
to teach them small handicrafts which she herself had learned, and to
watch over them and to keep them from temptation. Her labour of love
still lives, in spite of police persecutions, her own poverty, the war,
and the revolution. She is put down as one of the ‘dangerous class.’ She
spoke very little of herself, but I heard of her from others, who said
her life was one long act of self-denial and secret heroism. At one
time, through want of food, her mind had given way, and she was taken
for a short time to an asylum. Some of her friends, seeing her fainting
on her walks through the streets on errands of mercy and helpful love,
would ask her if she had had any food that day. Sometimes she had a dry
crust in her pocket, which had to serve for to-morrow as well as to-day.
To all such I speak, as well as I can, words of courage. Sometimes, like
this woman, they would stand holding my hand silently, with tears
rolling down their poor faces. They seemed to have a vague idea that a
day of deliverance was at hand.

“We all know something of the wickedness of Paris; we do not yet know
the sorrows of the poor of this city—of those who are the least guilty.
A saying I commonly hear from them is, ‘The people have suffered more
than they can bear.’

“3. A Radical leader, Citizen ——, a ‘dangerous man,’ came evening after
evening to see us, alone, sometimes in the dusk before our seven o’clock
meal, sometimes later. His face is fixed in my memory as he sat at one
side of the little table in our receiving parlour, shading his keen
thoughtful eyes from the lamp with both his thin hands, and eagerly
looking, as it were, into one’s soul for an answer to his questions.
Supposed to be an atheist, yet he spoke of God and of Jesus of Nazareth,
not as men talk so often, but as if his life depended on the existence
of a Divine Saviour. He spoke low, almost in a whisper. He is a true
patriot, and his heart is almost broken for his country’s woes. He asked
us what hope we had for his ‘beloved poor France.’ He lingered on, and
said he would come again if we would allow him. There was a deep pathos
in his words and tones. His hair was almost white. He said, ‘I am older
than most of my radical confrères, and perhaps I have fewer prejudices
and illusions; but I think that France will accept your great idea. Yes,
the day will come when she will accept it, and not fear to argue it out.
She will, moreover, put it in the purest formulæ and dress it in the
most beautiful language. She will see it clearly and announce it
clearly. All your people will be indebted to her for this. Yes, I think
my poor France will bring forth this beautiful idea, and in bringing it
forth she will die.’ He uttered these words very slowly and mournfully,
repeating the last words,—‘elle mourira.’ I do not quite know what he
meant.

“4. Victorine S——, a washerwoman, tall and gaunt, with bright red hair
and a small, shabby, black velvet hat on her red head, with a very old
feather in it, a feather which has a look of misery, as if it had been
plucked from a very indigent bird. I love and revere her. You are
impressed in talking with her by her calm, womanly strength and good
sense. And slowly you see also her profound pity for her unfortunate
fellow women. Though big and bony, she has a remarkably soft and gentle
voice; she does not gesticulate, but holds her arms stiffly and
ungracefully by her side. Her hands, seamed with wash-tub operations, do
not fit well into her poor, brown cotton gloves. She made a speech at a
Working-man’s Congress. It was a masterly speech, filled with statistics
and facts illustrating the misery of Paris workwomen. She will do: one
trusts her.

“5. The Marquis de B—— came and sat down on a bench beside me in the
Tuileries Gardens. He is young, with yellow hair starting back from a
fair face which wears a very innocent expression. He always has the most
exquisite lavender kid gloves and shining boots, and belongs to an old
aristocratic family. I asked him—‘Where do you live? and with whom?’

“‘Alone,’ he replied.

“‘Have you no father or mother?’

“‘No; both dead.’

“‘Brothers or sisters, uncles or cousins?’

“‘No, not one.’

“‘Are you rich?’

“‘I have some money.’

“‘Have you finished your education?’

“‘Oh yes,’ looking rather proud, ‘long ago. I am twenty-eight years of
age.’

“‘Ah, that is good,’ I said. ‘Now what do you intend to do?’

“‘I wish,’ he replied, blushing a good deal, ‘to be a servant of your
cause. Ah! if I might, I should like to be one of the teachers in it.’

“A lady who knew him said to me one day, ‘he is a good youth. Make him
run messages or be useful in any way. He will do whatever you bid him.’

“Some time afterwards I was touched to see him addressing a group of
poor men and a few porters and students and odds and ends of humanity.
They were laying their heads together to think what they could do. ‘We
can at least,’ they said, ‘collect a little money from house to house,
and sign petitions, and perhaps we could even save a few of our poor
sisters.’ They spoke together with much humility and deep earnestness of
the small beginnings of what they could do. God will bless them. On this
occasion the young Marquis had taken off his lavender kid gloves and put
them in his pocket, and had become simply Citizen B——.

“6. A poor actor in a very inferior theatre; a man about thirty-five.
His life had been a failure. His voice was not good, and he had to take
the place of a kind of supernumerary. His life was a continual struggle
for existence, shouting and acting night after night, and returning home
to an attic with a very miserable bed in it. His poor soul took fire
concerning our cause. He did not put himself forward at all, but we
found he had been working really hard for us. He tells us he has now but
one aim in life; he must still sing for a living, but he can give his
days to our work. In conversation with him I could see that that poor
man had been pining for some work of redress, and grieving over the sin
and woe around him. He sees the whole of our objects with a clearness
which not one in a hundred of our English Members of Parliament do, I
fear; and his soul is filled with zeal for justice. He will pass on the
burning torch he carries to other hands, and increase his own fire in
doing so. I often think how sweet must be the sudden sense of
companionship in a good cause to such a solitary being. He does not mind
now the very feeble applause given to his poor singing on the stage, for
he has found an interest and treasure of which the audience know
nothing.

“I could go on multiplying these pictures, but these are enough to
indicate to you the very varied character of the people who flock to our
standard. My husband’s tender feelings are very much drawn out towards
the working women who call on me.”




                             CHAPTER VIII.

  “The violation of one law may sometimes be the fulfilment of a higher;
  and there are laws, which to obey is infamy.”—_Words of Lacordaire
  when tried for contempt of the law._


Notwithstanding the apparent diminution of the agitation in favour of
Repeal in England, which somewhat discouraged our supporters during the
early part of the year 1877, a careful retrospect of the progress made
proved that year to have been one of the most auspicious since the
movement began. The year in which the first International Congress took
place upon a question involving neither territorial aggrandisement,
dynastic ambition, nor commercial development, but something higher and
greater than all these—national morality—was a year destined to remain
memorable in the history, not merely of our movement, but of the world.
It will never be forgotten that in the year 1877 the equal rights and
responsibilities of the weaker half of humanity, whose voice had
hitherto been unheard in the councils of nations, were solemnly and
publicly acknowledged in an assembly of over 500 male and female
delegates representing the most advanced minds of Europe and the United
States. “This public recognition of the equal rights of all human souls
was the logical outcome of the grand truth proclaimed by Christianity—of
the worship of God, not as the Deity of a single people or race, but as
the Father of humanity. For the first time since the days of the early
Christians the children of the Heavenly Father stood side by side,
without distinction of sex or race, to preach God’s law of purity, and
many of the women there present, and many of their sisters, who, with
beating hearts, watched their action from afar, recognised that that
Congress was for them the first step towards the realization of the
magnificent promise—‘the Truth shall make you free.’ The first timid,
imperfect recognition by mankind of a portion of the heavenly law
decreed the extinction of the slavery of colour; a fuller, higher
comprehension of its divine justice has decreed the extinction of the
slavery of sex.”[12]

In the early part of this year, as if to prepare the moral atmosphere of
Switzerland for the great Congress to be held at Geneva, a bitter
conflict arose in the Canton of Neuchâtel between the supporters of the
opposing principles on this question. The story of it is briefly this.
Several infamous houses had been established at la Chaux-de-Fonds, a
great industrial centre in the Jura, and had been authorised, or
licensed, not by the Government of the Canton of Neuchâtel, but in some
irresponsible manner by the Magistrates of the town. M. Humbert and his
friends made an attack upon this system, and a request was formulated by
himself and other persons of weight in the town of Neuchâtel that these
houses should be closed. Thereupon the municipality of Chaux-de-Fonds,
who appear to have been largely in favour of the system, in order to
secure its continued existence, held a meeting with closed doors, in
which they voted by a considerable majority not only to maintain the
houses, but to use their authority to license them after the manner of
Paris. Thus the municipality of Chaux-de-Fonds, in the Canton of
Neuchâtel, took upon themselves the responsibility of more firmly
establishing this evil system in that canton, which had hitherto been
free from any such public recognition of vice. The conflict was made the
more painful to M. Humbert because a number of the members of that
municipality had been his former friends and school and college
companions. M. Humbert wrote to me, “I hope we shall succeed in making
the people understand that we are threatened with a dreadful innovation,
and that unless we resist it with all our power, official profligacy
will become an accomplished fact in the Canton of Neuchâtel. Locle, a
town of between 10,000 and 11,000 inhabitants, distant one league from
La Chaux-de-Fonds, is the most directly interested. I was invited to
hold two meetings there. I held the first of these on the 5th March, at
the German Temple, where I was the sole speaker for over an hour to a
numerous and attentive audience. The second meeting was equally well
attended. I have been told that the people of Locle are very strongly
impressed, and have decided in favour of supporting us. I spent the
morning of Wednesday at La Chaux-de-Fonds, returning in a sledge. There
were two feet of snow, and I was reminded of your campaign of February,
1875, in our watch-making Siberia.”

The Neuchâtel Committee of the Federation met soon after, and drew up a
full declaration and protest to the municipality of Chaux-de-Fonds. On
the 22nd March, a mass meeting was held at this town. The large Temple
was completely filled; the political atmosphere of the town was very
stormy. “We were assured,” wrote M. Humbert, “that there would be great
excitement at the meetings, and some of us received threatening letters.
The President’s speech was made amid considerable noise. As soon,
however, as M. Sautter de Blonay began to speak there was silence. He
treated the subject in a most masterly manner, and although it is not
the custom to applaud in a church he was loudly applauded at the end of
his speech. Other speakers having followed, it was now nine o’clock, and
there still remained to me the difficult and delicate task of treating
the question in its local character, and of speaking of the vote of the
Municipal Council and the results which were sure to follow.”

Scarcely had M. Humbert commenced his address, exposing what had taken
place in the Municipality, than a cry arose from a chorus of voices in
the gallery, where a number of upholders of the regulation system were
seated, among whom were three Municipal Councillors. At the moment when
M. Humbert uttered the words “with regard to the Municipal vote,” this
group cried out, “The Municipal Council did well, they did well!” M.
Humbert replied, “You are free to express your opinions; as for me, I
will finish my speech.” He then drew a striking picture of the
difference between the present state of morality in the town and its
ancient state. He himself had been a member of the Council in 1849, when
the first house of ill-fame was secretly established there without any
official recognition at all. He then in his address attacked the
institution itself, giving a number of facts, and demolishing, stroke
after stroke, the arguments of his opponents.

When M. Humbert had finished his masterly speech and come down from the
tribune, and the President had risen to close the meeting, it seemed as
if a victory had been gained for us, and the crowd was beginning to move
towards the doors, when M. Robert, Municipal Councillor, got up, and in
the midst of great excitement in the meeting, cried out that if this
institution were closed they would be taking the bread out of the mouths
of women! At these words there arose such a tumult of indignant protests
that the President was obliged to beg in a loud voice that they would
allow M. Robert to speak. Nevertheless M. Robert was unable to say
anything more, except that he protested against the morality of the town
being supposed to be worse than it had been. This was in allusion to a
portion of M. Humbert’s speech in which he quoted the beautiful
description which Jean Jacques Rousseau gives of the moral life of the
Neuchâtel mountaineers in his letter to d’Alembert, in connection with
which M. Humbert had recalled many honourable names of mechanicians,
engravers, painters, etc., speaking of them as the moral nobility of the
Jura, whose memory ought to be an inspiration to us in the great work we
have now to accomplish. The partisans of legalized vice had now gone
down from the gallery, and were yelling around M. Robert, while M.
Humbert’s adherents were shouting in their turn. It was thought better
not to prolong the meeting. The Municipal Councillors could not fail to
see that M. Humbert had used the utmost possible delicacy in speaking of
them; indeed, they confessed this, while they saw also that the
impression on the people was most unfavourable to them. One of them said
to M. Humbert, “You ought to have attacked the Council of State, who
have caused us to fall into this wolf-trap.” The majority of the people
of Chaux-de-Fonds were gained, though our adversaries were very bitter.
The women worked well.

The next event of importance that followed was a very bitter personal
attack made on M. Humbert, who was selected as the scape-goat of the
angry and defeated Municipal Councillors. This attack was printed and
largely circulated before the date fixed for the meeting of the Grand
Council of Neuchâtel. All the journals of the Canton began to be
occupied with the subject, and our opponents, in fact, aided our cause
by themselves obtaining for us the thing they most fear—complete
publicity.

To this public accusation M. Humbert wrote a most dignified reply. I do
not give it here, as it is lengthy. It is pathetic in its dignity. About
the same time M. Humbert wrote me, “You will only receive this on the
last day of your mission week on behalf of the cause. But you do not
require it as an assurance that our hearts have been with our
fellow-workers in England during that time. The past two or three weeks
number among the most sorrowful and painful of my life. You can
understand what I have gone through. It is necessary to have grappled
face to face with the powers of darkness, in order to learn what there
may be of sadness even in a victory gained, even in the congratulations
one receives.”

_The Shield_, remarked, “M. Humbert has fought the good fight in so
uncompromising and resolute a manner, that one is apt to forget the
great personal sacrifice involved in a struggle maintained, as his
struggle with the Municipal Council of La Chaux-de-Fonds has been,
against fellow-citizens and former friends. How dearly the moral victory
has been won can only be appreciated by those who have themselves
undergone this species of social martyrdom, and their sympathy,
admiration and gratitude is for ever assured, to M. Humbert.”

On April 25th I wrote as follows to M. Humbert:—


 “DEAR FRIEND,—

“Your letter concerning the storm of feeling raging in your Canton
reached me to-day. My first impulse was to kneel down and give thanks,
so plainly do I see the footsteps of Jehovah in the storm. Did I not
tell you long ago that you in Switzerland would have to go through the
same fires that we went through five and six years ago? This persecution
is the divine seal set upon your mission; let us rejoice and be glad,
for it shows that the battle of the Lord is set in array against those
principalities and powers which are leagued with the spirit of darkness.
You ought not to regret that this struggle in your own country occupies
so much of your time. Your country is to be the scene of our first great
International Congress, and it is well that the country in which that
event is to take place should be well prepared. If it were not so,
Switzerland would not be so fitted to be the central battlefield of our
International conflict. We will do our best to keep up correspondence
with France and other countries, in order to leave you more free.

“I see in the conflict around you the same features which we have
observed elsewhere—the same secrecy of procedure on the part of our
adversaries, the same tactics when forced to act publicly, the same
weakness in their own camp. If you yourself have to bear the brunt of
the opposition, you will win adherents far more rapidly on account of
this. If those in authority, if the Federal Government itself, were to
pronounce against your principles, and its agents were to calumniate
you, it will not do you any real harm, and will only be temporary.
Wherefore let us ‘stand fast in the Lord.’ We have had already for seven
years the whole authority of our Imperial Government against us, and our
names have been blackened in public and in Parliamentary debate. In some
cases incomes have been lessened and times made very hard for us, but
the cause gains daily in strength and is consecrated by the sufferings
of its advocates.

“Tell dear Madame Humbert that now is the time for _women_ to be strong:
women have never shrunk from martyrdom; they must not do so now.

“We have had a week of prayer for our cause, beginning on the 17th. We
were glad to think that you and your family were with us in spirit. I
told the tale of your Swiss conflict and we prayed for you all. The
women who promoted this union for prayer are brave, instructed women who
are not afraid of the reproach of being ‘political women,’ who have, in
fact, made the ‘last sacrifice,’ by giving their names to public scorn
for the Lord’s sake who gave Himself to public scorn for their sakes. I
trust that the dear Swiss ladies will be ready even to become
politicians in order to deliver their sisters from slavery!

“My only regret concerning that splendid meeting which was held at La
Chaux-de-Fonds is that there was no woman strong enough in the strength
of the Lord to enter that meeting alone and uninvited, and cry aloud to
the men there, the good and the bad alike, ‘You men have no right to
discuss the question, shall you or shall you _not_ maintain female
slavery in the interests of vice; the question is already judged, the
verdict is already given, for I tell you in the name of all women that
you shall not maintain female slavery in the interests of vice; and it
is the voice of God which now declares that you shall not.’ Such a
proclamation, coming from the woman’s side, strikes a kind of terror
into the hearts of our adversaries, such as even the noblest man’s voice
does not inspire. Why? Because it is the voice of the slave herself; and
the oppressor, with the abettor of oppression, fears, saying to himself,
like Herod, ‘It is John the Baptist whom I beheaded; he is risen from
the dead!’ The only thing yet wanting, dear friends, in your noble
campaign is the resurrection of the slave in the person of some devoted
woman or women who will tell the tyrant in the woman’s voice, gently but
terribly, ‘You shall not do this thing.’ Perhaps your ladies will be
moved by the guidance of the Holy Spirit to put forth a united protest
of this kind—gentle, solemn, but firm and powerful. Now is the moment to
do it. It will shake the adversary in his inmost soul and will
strengthen our noble masculine champions.”


In quoting these words, written so long ago, I cannot help taking a
brief mental retrospect, and tracing the wonderful and steady progress
of the women of Switzerland in this matter. The fear of “meddling with
politics” oppressed them at first. An important group of them now
interest themselves actively in every social and political question
which bears directly or indirectly on the interests of women; they have
brought strong personal influence to bear on their Cantonal and Federal
Governments, an influence which the late M. Ruchonnet, as President of
the Federal Council, acknowledged to have been of the most salutary
kind. Their labours are taken account of in the new Project for the
Reform and Unification of the Penal Code; and under the skilful guidance
of Professor Louis Bridel, they have already witnessed the achievement
in certain cantons of a reform in the Civil Code, similar to our
“Married Woman’s Property Act,” by which a woman’s earnings and property
are secured to herself. They are proceeding to follow this up by further
reforms.

On the very day—the 22nd of March—when those men of the two Councils,
the Municipal Council and Council of State, of Chaux-de-Fonds, the
friends of M. Humbert’s youth, furious with him, were recording their
accusation against him of calumniating his native city, the corpses of
two young working women of Chaux-de-Fonds were being dragged out of the
River Doubs at Brenets, on the Jura. One was a young widow of
twenty-three, and the other a girl of eighteen. They had fled from one
of the strongholds of debauchery at Chaux-de-Fonds, had run as far as
Locle, and then to Brenets. Friendless and poor, and fearing to return
to the town or to say whence they had fled, having been enticed only
lately into this slavery, and horrified at their lives therein, they saw
no way of escape, they knew not of any human deliverance, and so they
tied themselves together by an arm of each with their shawls and plunged
into the water together. The corpses were dragged out after three days,
silent witnesses of the justice of M. Humbert’s denunciation of this
vile slave system, for which he was now suffering bitter wounds even in
the house of his friends.

About the same time another of those incidents occurred in Geneva which
are the natural fruits of a system of organised vice. A young girl
contrived to make her escape from one of the regulated houses there, and
fled through the streets. She was pursued by the keepers of the house.
One of the Police des Mœurs came to the aid, not of the victim, but of
the pursuers, and by the strong hand of an authority which has no legal
existence, the girl was forced back into the den from whence she had
escaped, in spite of her agonised cries in the open streets. A gentleman
of Geneva, a jurist, who had studied this question of modern slavery,
observed, _apropos_ of this event, that “we have, in fact, returned to
the permitted practices of the slave-holders of America, and logically
we might now also set up the practice of keeping bloodhounds to trace
and hunt down the fugitives.”

The conflict in the Canton of Neuchâtel was successfully concluded in
September, about the time of the Geneva Congress, by a declaration on
the part of the Prefect of La Chaux-de-Fonds that the municipality had
withdrawn its official protection of the houses of evil repute, and that
this withdrawal had been confirmed by the Prefect himself.


To return to events in France. During this time fresh fuel was added to
the rising indignation of the people of Paris against the Police of
Morals by the arrest of Mlle. Marie Ligeron, a gentle girl of
irreproachable character, who was insulted and arrested by one of
Lecour’s hunters while walking with her fiancé, to whom she was shortly
to be married. The police discovered their mistake only after she had
gone through all the misery and shame of being taken to the Depôt and
questioned, and detained in the prison of St. Lazare until sufficient
influence was brought to bear to secure her release. Her case was taken
up by our friends on the Municipal Council, and at their instigation a
prosecution of the Prefect was instituted by the fiancé of the girl,
whose sufferings were scarcely less than her own. That one of the people
should have dared to prosecute the man who had hitherto been a
practically irresponsible tyrant over all the poor women of Paris was a
proof of the growth of public opinion there.

But Marie Ligeron was only released from the St. Lazare by death. That
cruelly injured woman never recovered from the shock of the mental and
physical horrors she was forced to endure in that depôt of shame, and
sank under the illness to which it gave rise. She died. She was twenty
years of age. Her death made a deep impression in France. It afterwards
transpired that her cowardly medical inquisitors themselves had
pronounced her to be a pure virgin, and that they had detained her in
that horrible place, the St. Lazare, after this verdict as a kind of
“curiosity.” Some of the newspapers asked, “Could even the Turks have
devised a more cruel method of slow murder?” The _Marseillaise_
concluded a long and pathetic article on her fate with the words, “We
will no longer endure this Police Inquisition which slaughters women.
Every human being has a right to Law. If this is your civilisation, know
that it is the civilisation of assassins! Sleep, poor dead girl! _you_
have pardoned them, perhaps. We will not pardon them.”

During the preparations for the Geneva Congress, a controversy arose in
Switzerland concerning the part to be taken by women in the Congress.
Certain gentlemen there, though friends of our cause, insisted that
ladies should be excluded from special sections. Some of the ladies were
inclined to yield on this point, and it was hoped that our English
Parliamentary leaders would give the word as to the advisability of
ladies absenting themselves from certain meetings, and that this word
would be authoritative. Mme. Humbert having fully explained the
situation to me, I replied in the following letter, which I am induced
to reproduce here, seeing that the same question, in one form or
another, still occasionally arises, and that it may be useful to the
coming generation to know the reasons for the firm stand which the
pioneer women took in the matter.


 “DEAR FRIEND,—

“I cannot disguise from you that the subject of your letter has been a
cause of anxiety to me and my friends. We are to hold a private
conference on the subject. Meanwhile, I give you my personal answer to
the ladies of Switzerland. Here it is.

“Ladies! you have appealed to me to use my influence to cause to be
authoritatively closed against women a portion of the sections and
public meetings of the Congress. It is not I who rule the Congress. I
have some influence, but if I were to make use of that influence with
our men of England, who are allied with M. Humbert in the organisation
of the Congress, in order to obtain this exclusion of women, they would
not grant my request, and would be amazed at such a request coming from
me. In fact, I believe there is not a man among them who would attend
the Congress if a public announcement should be made of the exclusion of
women from any part of the deliberations. Our gentlemen here would look
upon such a public act as an abandonment of principle. It is precisely
this peremptory exclusion of women by statesmen and others from all
participation in council and in debate on such vital questions which has
led to the present terrible wrong to Society by the passing of these
oppressive and God-defying laws. Eight years of conflict and experience
have convinced a portion of the Christian manhood of England that this
has been at the root of many of the most fatal errors of legislators. I
have sent your letter on to the gentlemen members of our Committee. I
know their feeling will be on reading it, ‘We have laboured hard all
these years in the cause of womanhood, and, in doing so, we have learned
the absolute necessity of the co-operation and the advice of women; and
here there are women themselves who, bowing to the authority of certain
men, ask us to bid them stand apart!’

“Do not imagine, dear friend, that I do not feel much sympathy with your
ladies on the subject of being present in the Hygienic Section. Tell
them I understand their feeling, and that so far as their having a tacit
understanding in any group of themselves that they will not attend the
Hygienic meetings, I have no objection to make. This can be quietly
done. No one can find fault with any of the Swiss ladies for absenting
themselves individually. None of us could wish any woman to attend who
feels that the sacrifice is more than she could bear. It is perfectly
legitimate for you to adopt your own plans in this respect, and this
involves no abandonment of principle. You see the immense difference
between such action and the public announcement on the part of men that
no women are to be admitted.

“It is utterly useless for you to ask Mr. Stansfeld to promote such a
public act of exclusion. He will not do it. You might as well ask him to
strike you or thrust you out of the room. I think you hardly know what
our best Englishmen are. They will be true to women now, even in spite
of those women themselves.

“I hope, dear friends, I have made the matter clear. I would not do
anything to shock public opinion so as to do harm. On the other hand, I
will never, God helping me, bow down to public opinion when that public
opinion is so far from being just and pure as it is now. Did our Lord
ever bow down before public opinion? Would this Crusade ever have been
begun at all if some English women had not openly defied public opinion?
Believe me, when this Congress is over, you will be astonished to find
how easy and useful it is for men and women to work and consult
together, and how wonderfully the cynics have been silenced. Yes, I know
very well some of the cynical and indelicate medical men you speak of.
There will be few of such among us; but granted that there will be some,
I do not fear their influence. They will be overpowered by the dignity,
gravity, and determination of our abolitionist medical men.

“I believe, dear ladies, you will act for the best under the guidance of
God, who will not fail us, and who will silence the enemy.”


I take from a number of my own letters to M. Humbert, written at this
time, which he returned to me, the following, which recalls some of the
circumstances of the year of our first Congress:—


 To M. HUMBERT.

                                                       _April 30, 1877._

“We have much correspondence just now concerning the visit of members of
the Paris Municipal Council to London. M. Yves Guyot was to have been
one of the number; he was to come as representing the Commission on the
Police des Mœurs, while the other visitors represented other
Commissions. The Lord Mayor of London sent them an invitation to a
banquet at the Mansion House, and we were making preparations for a
Conference with M. Guyot and the other Paris Councillors who are in
sympathy with us in the interests of abolition all over the world. But
the Prefect of Paris was unwilling to allow Guyot to come to England,
and has insisted on his taking his imprisonment now at once. The
Minister of Justice refused a formal request from the President of the
Paris Municipal Council to give Guyot a week’s reprieve in order that he
might fulfil his important mission to London. M. Desmoulins writes that
M. Guyot went to the prison of Ste. Pelagie last Friday evening, the
27th, regretting much to bid farewell to the spring and summer.

“Our earnest fellow-worker, Mr. Collingwood, of Sunderland, is now in
Paris doing good service for our cause. He is a man of great faith, and
is endeavouring to persuade our Protestant friends in France that they
ought to take political action at once, and not merely pray and make
speeches. He tells me that they have begun to petition the Chambers, as
M. Caise’s group has been doing.

“I thank you for your _compte-rendu_ of the Conference of the presidents
of the five sections of our approaching Congress. In return I send you a
little news from England. Our position is peculiar; for we have no
Repeal Bill before Parliament this Session. Our chief Parliamentary
leaders believe it would be quite useless to bring the question before
the present Parliament. The news that there is to be no debate on
abolition this year has been received throughout the country with deep
regret. There never was a period in which so much activity and life was
manifested in our work as now throughout the country. The Working Men’s
League and all the other Associations throughout Scotland and Ireland as
well as England are in an attitude of suspense waiting for the word of
command in order to renew the conflict with more determination than
ever. But as it is, memorializing, petitioning, and deputations to the
Government would be unfruitful. The question with us now is, to what
point shall we direct the energies of our Abolitionist population? An
international object does not afford an immediate scope for the
activities of our working class abolitionists, though it has their
earnest sympathy. We have thought of promoting formal delegations to the
Congress from our working men’s societies, and I should be glad if you
could send me addresses of some working men’s societies in Switzerland
who might be put into communication with our working men’s Abolitionist
Committees in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow, etc.

“We have lately had some exciting Parliamentary elections, resulting in
victories for our cause. At Oldham there was a hard-fought contest,
which resulted in the election of Mr. Hibbert by a majority of 2,000
votes. Mr. Hibbert has been for many years a strong adherent of our
cause. It is thus that in England we win slowly, step by step, our
Parliamentary victories.

“Poor Yves Guyot has just written to me from the prison of Ste. Pelagie,
in dread lest his colleagues of the Municipal Council should fall into
the hands of our adversaries in London rather than of abolitionists in
seeking information. Mr. Benjamin Scott, who holds a high civic office,
that of Chamberlain of the City of London, has presented an address from
his own Committee to the Paris Councillors, which I think will have some
weight. Mr. Martineau, town councillor of Birmingham, has done the same
for his Midland Counties Committee.

“Your daughter Amélie asks for some account of our women’s activity
during the time of our severest conflict here. I doubt whether such an
account might not be a little appalling to your ladies at present,
because in England, necessarily, our activities are very strongly
directed towards public meetings and election work. Our ladies worked at
a number of elections, beginning each conflict with devotional meetings.
It was on these occasions that we suffered most annoyance; but we gained
great triumphs in convincing Parliament of the power and vitality of our
principles. Amélie knows how truly gentle and womanly are the women who
take part in this active political work. What you tell me of the women
of Switzerland and their increased zeal is most encouraging. If women
had votes, there would be less need for them to ‘agitate.’ Your letters
and report of the proceedings of your Grand Council were read at our
Federation Council Meeting on Monday. We follow with profound interest
every step of your conflict. The ‘powers that be’ are terribly committed
to false principles on this question throughout the world. It is a happy
thing when they speak out plainly. When they proclaim themselves aloud
in favour of corrupt and immoral institutions, then, and not till then,
do slumbering Christians and patriots wake up to perceive that we are
indeed in the midst of war, and that our battle is the battle of the
Lord against the mighty. We shall be anxious to know how your elections
end.”


As the date of the Congress drew near, the discussions among the members
of the different sections became more eager and anxious. Several
complications having arisen in regard to the relative importance and
position of the different questions to be considered, the Committee in
London accepted the offer of Mr. Stansfeld to go in advance to
Switzerland in order to meet and confer with all the different
Presidents of the Sections, with Mr. Humbert and others. This visit of
Mr. Stansfeld had very happy results, in contributing to the harmony
which eventually prevailed.

It is not my intention to give any complete account of the great
Congress at Geneva. The proceedings were published in two large volumes
entitled “Les Actes du Congrès de Genève” (to be had from M. Henri
Minod, 6, Rue Saint Leger, Geneva). These volumes contain also all the
most important papers and addresses given on the occasion. There were
present at the Congress five hundred and ten delegates, representing
fifteen different nations. It should be understood that these delegates
were all convinced of the necessity of the abolition of all regulations
of vice. This was the only condition that was required of them in order
to become members.

About 120 papers and reports were presented to the various sections of
the Congress, after the reading and full discussion of which,
resolutions were formulated and submitted to the different sections for
renewed discussion, amendment and final adoption. International
Committees had been established several months previously, in which the
different sections met periodically for the study and discussion of the
subjects to be brought before the Congress. Finally the resolutions
adopted by each section were placed before the whole Congress for
approval and acceptance. Rarely has there been recorded such a unanimous
expression of international opinion, emanating from representatives of
so many different countries; nor an expression of opinion, founded upon
investigations so extensive and so conscientious. The following are the
resolutions of the five sections:—

On the 17th of September, the first day of the Session, immediately
after the nomination and election of the Bureaux by the General Assembly
of the Congress, the Five Sections in combined Session passed the
following resolution:—

“The Congress recognises the many-sided character of the question which
it has assembled to discuss.

“It acknowledges that its solution is only to be sought in the collation
of the results arrived at by the labours of each of the Five Sections,
in such manner that the conclusions of each particular Section may
finally be accepted from the point of view of all the Sections; and it
is with this understanding that it proposes to contribute, by its
decisions, to the general conclusions at which the Congress desires to
arrive.”

Towards the close of the Congress the Section of Hygiene affirmed—

                                    I.

  That self-control in the relations between the sexes is one of the
  indispensable bases of the health of individuals and communities.


                                   II.

  That prostitution is a fundamental violation of the laws of health.


                                   III.

  Being convinced that the province of Public Hygiene should not be
  restricted to the surveillance and prevention of specific maladies
  which affect populations, we declare that its true function is to
  develop all the conditions which conduce to Public Health, whose
  highest form is necessarily included in Public Morality.


                                   IV.

  The Section of Hygiene condemns, in view of their complete failure,
  all systems of Police des Mœurs whose object is to regulate
  prostitution. The Section bases its condemnation on the following
  amongst other grounds, namely: that the obligatory examination of
  women is revolting to human nature; that it can only be carried out in
  the case of a certain proportion of women; that it is impossible to
  rely upon this examination to discover the most serious constitutional
  form of venereal maladies, or to hinder its progress; and that,
  consequently, it gives a false guarantee of the health of the women
  who are subjected to it.


                                    V.

  The Section of Hygiene desires especially to see removed all obstacles
  which at present prevent venereal maladies from being as extensively
  treated as every other form of disease in the hospitals which are
  controlled by municipalities and other public bodies, as well as in
  those which are supported by private liberality.


                                   VI.

  The Section of Hygiene also expresses the hope that the ordinary
  police will strictly maintain order and decency in public streets, and
  repress every public scandal, whether caused by men or women.

The Section of Morality affirmed—

                                    I.

  That impurity in men is as reprehensible as it is in women.


                                   II.

  That the regulation of prostitution tends to destroy the idea of the
  unity of the moral law for the two sexes, and to lower the tone of
  public opinion in this respect.


                                   III.

  That every system of organised prostitution encourages profligacy,
  increases the number of illegitimate births, develops clandestine
  prostitution, and lowers the standard of public and private morality.


                                   IV.

  That the compulsory medical examination of women, the basis of every
  system of regulation, is an outrage on woman, and tends to destroy,
  even in the most degraded, the last remnant of modesty which she may
  retain.


                                    V.

  That the registration of prostitutes is contrary to common law, and to
  the principle of liberty.


                                   VI.

  That in regulating vice the State forgets its duty of affording equal
  protection to both sexes, and in reality degrades the female sex and
  corrupts both.


                                   VII.

  That the State, whose duty it is to protect minors and to assist them
  in every good effort, on the contrary, incites them to debauchery, in
  so far as it facilitates it by regulation.


                                  VIII.

  That in authorising immoral houses, and in raising a reprehensible
  trade to the rank of a regular profession, the State sanctions the
  immoral doctrine that debauchery is a necessity for men.


                                   IX.

  That it is desirable to address an appeal to all authors, editors,
  printsellers, and booksellers in Europe and America, urging them to
  lend no encouragement to the sale or circulation of pictures or works
  of a corrupting tendency.

Questions proposed by the President and answered by the Section of
Social Economy.

                                    I.

  Are the economic interests, rights, and independence of women
  sufficiently respected and guaranteed at the present day by the law,
  by opinion, and by the customs of society?

  _Answer_ (unanimous).—No.


                                   II.

  Is the continuous exercise by a woman of a profession involving manual
  labour consistent with the proper performance of her domestic and
  maternal duties.

  _Answer._—That depends upon the profession and the individual
  circumstances of the woman.


                                   III.

  Is the pay accorded to the manual labour of women sufficient to
  satisfy their legitimate wants?

  _Answer_ (by majority).—No.


                                   IV.

  1. What are the principal causes of the insufficiency of women’s wages
  in industrial occupations?

  _Answer_ (by majority).—The inequality established between men and
  women by the law, the customs of society, general ignorance, and the
  regulation of prostitution.

  2. Is it possible to remedy this inferiority in women’s wages?

  _Answer._—Yes, by equal laws, by the improvement of morals, by the
  abolition of regulated prostitution, and by the spread of general and
  professional education for women.


                                    V.

  What are, or will be, the consequences in regard to the economic and
  moral condition of women of their employment in manufactories?

  _Answer._—The consequences will vary according to circumstances. The
  Section considers that no industrial employment should be closed to
  women which may enable them by their own labour to protect themselves
  from want and prostitution.


                                   VI.

  Should Government interfere to prevent the labour of women in
  factories?

  _Answer_ (with two dissentients).—No.


                                   VII.

  What advantages can women gain from the principles of union and
  co-operation among themselves?

  _Answer_ (unanimous).—The same advantages as are gained by men.


                                  VIII.

  How can women’s education be organised so as to contribute most
  effectually to the amelioration of their social and economic
  condition?

  _Answer._—By throwing entirely open to women every branch of
  education, and by assuring an equal expenditure by the State and by
  society on the education of the two sexes.

The Section of Preventive and Reformatory Work affirms—


                                    I.

  That the ideas which are involved in the system of the regulation of
  vice are entirely incompatible with the work of rescue.


                                   II.

  That it is proved that the Regulation of prostitution is a great
  hindrance to the success of works of Rescue and Reformation, inasmuch
  as registration and medical examination are opposed to all sentiments
  of feminine modesty, which are never absolutely extinguished in any
  woman, and inasmuch as they render more difficult the moral
  restoration which we can and ought to hope for in the case of every
  fallen woman, however abandoned she may be.


                                   III.

  It is desirable to have widely established homes, in which the system
  should be as little as possible of a penitential character, inasmuch
  as sympathy and Christian love are the only efficacious means of
  rescuing and reforming young women.


                                   IV.

  It is desirable to establish a system of intercommunication between
  all countries in order to prevent the trading in women and girls for
  immoral purposes, and in order to protect friendless women who are
  seeking employment in various countries.

The Section of Legislation declared—

                                    I.

  That the State has not the right to regulate prostitution, for it
  ought never to make a compromise with evil, nor to sacrifice
  constitutional guarantees to questionable interests.


                                   II.

  Every system of official regulation of prostitution involves the
  arbitrary action of the police and violation of the legal guarantees
  against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment which are assured to every
  individual, not even excluding the greatest criminals. The compulsory
  examination of women is equally contrary to the law. Inasmuch as this
  violation of the law is solely to the disadvantage of woman, there is
  made between her and man an excessively unjust distinction; the woman
  is lowered to the rank of a mere chattel, and is placed beyond the
  pale of the law. Moreover, by the regulation of vice the State
  directly violates its own penal law, which forbids incitement to
  debauchery, by making itself the accomplice of such incitement, in so
  far as it is offered by the houses and the women sanctioned by its own
  authority. The State herein also violates its duty of affording
  protection to minors.


                                   III.

  The system of regulation does not attain the object desired, for
  regulation fosters and develops prostitution instead of diminishing
  it. The increase of clandestine prostitution in the towns where the
  system exists suffices to show that the regulations are eluded with
  increasing frequency. The development of venereal maladies and the
  number of indecent assaults in these same towns prove also that
  regulation does not accomplish the desired results.


                                   IV.

  It results from the preceding that the State should renounce the
  project of pursuing the hygienic aim, the more so that in this case
  there is no question of an external danger such as an epidemic
  menacing the general public health, but of a danger to which those who
  expose themselves do so knowingly and of their own free will. The
  State ought, therefore, to abandon this arbitrary administrative
  procedure, and to recur to law alone. It should confine itself to the
  protection of minors and to repressing by legal and judicial means all
  that is contrary to public order.


                                    V.

  The State should continue to punish incitement to debauchery when
  directed towards minors of either sex, and should treat procurers with
  special severity. It should punish the decoying of minors for immoral
  purposes. It should prohibit every collective organisation of
  prostitution by punishing the offence of keeping an immoral house open
  to the public, and that of letting apartments for such uses. An
  analogous case is that of gambling houses, which are prohibited by
  penal enactment in almost all countries.

  We would retain unchanged the penal enactments concerning outrages on
  public morality, and particularly _public_ solicitation and indecent
  assaults, and the illegal confinement and detention of women and the
  decoying of those who are under age.


                                   VI.

  As to the causes of prostitution, from a legal point of view, the
  State might punish the seduction of a minor, when that seduction has
  been effected by means of false pretences.

  A question which merits consideration is whether the State should not
  re-establish the right of affiliation in those countries where it has
  been abolished, in order to equalise the position of the man and the
  woman in relation to their illegitimate children.[13]

The following is a personal reminiscence in the form of a letter
addressed by myself to a relative, towards the close of the Congress:—

“I can only give you a brief sketch of the past week; full reports will
be published. The anxiety which we could not but feel went on augmenting
up to Friday. On Friday we began to see daylight, and all has ended
well. Many of us are tired and stupefied for want of sleep, but at the
same time inwardly giving thanks to God. This Congress has been a
wonderful event. There were 510 inscribed members, besides the numerous
public which attended the meetings. It is, they say, the largest
Congress that has ever been held in Geneva. On the first days people
continued flocking in from all nations. There were Greeks who came from
Athens; and Russians from St. Petersburg and Moscow. There were
Americans, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Germans, Pomeranians, Italians,
French, and Spaniards. Senor Zorilla, the late President of the Spanish
Cortes, spoke on Wednesday, and was nominated as one of a Committee to
consider what action could be taken in Spain. On Sunday, in the
Cathedral, Pastor Rörich preached a powerful sermon to a very large
congregation on the question before the Congress, and in all the
churches we and our work have been prayed for.

“We always anticipated that when the final resolutions should come to be
voted upon, then would be the real war, and so it was. On Thursday
morning the voting began. Our faithful bands of ladies worked and
watched in their different sections quite splendidly. First we had a
considerable conflict in the Social Economy Section. Then came the
voting in the Legislative Section, in the smaller Hall of the
Reformation, which was densely crowded. Professor Hornung presided. The
discussion lasted three hours. Some lawyers were present who are now
busy in the prospect of the revision of some parts of the penal code of
Switzerland, notably a young Jurist, an able man, who spoke well, but as
a downright opponent. There followed a stormy scene, which the President
with difficulty controlled. People of many different languages stood up
at the same moment, each with a finger stretched out, demanding to
speak. “Je demande la parole,” sounded from all sides of the room. Mr.
A——, the young Jurist, made the President indignant by asserting that a
resolution drawn up by him was not _juridique_. Seeing that M. Hornung
is Professor of Jurisprudence at the Geneva University, and possesses
the very highest reputation, this was rather strong, and I do not wonder
it irritated him. But it did good, for it stimulated him to come out on
the last day of the Congress with a splendid judicial speech, by far the
best and clearest utterance of the kind I have ever heard in any
country. We shall translate and circulate it. Hornung is a delightful
man. He has that good gift of God, an enlightened intellect, as well as
a pure heart, together with great refinement and gentleness of manner.

“At one o’clock, when we were all feeling the need of food, and our
throats were dry with the dust of the room, an Italian Advocate got up
and declared there had not yet been enough discussion of each point. The
Chairman was aghast. He had expected the voting to be got over just at
that moment. A kind of barking, House of Commons cry arose of ‘Vote,
vote!’ while the President stood open-mouthed, attempting to read the
resolutions so as to be heard. A sort of stampede seized some of the
German and Swiss members, and they made for the door. Half the meeting
would have gone out, and so damaged the worth of the voting. So I
ventured to shut the door and set my back against it, declaring that no
one should have any food until he had voted! This half startled and half
amused the assembly, and they all sat down again obediently. After
another half-hour of discussion, it was agreed that we should meet again
for a final voting at half-past six the next morning.

“On the same day the resolutions of the Moral Section were passed very
satisfactorily. Then came the Hygienic Section. The discussion here was
so long that it was also adjourned until an evening hour.

“At eight o’clock that evening we all went to the Hall of the Hygienic
Section, and there sat crowded together, or stood, amidst a scene of
intense interest, till midnight. Dr. Bertani, of Rome, took a leading
part. Our ladies all went to the meeting; but they had been up so early,
and had worked so hard all day, that by eleven p.m. this is the scene
which one of my sons described as having observed at the back of the
hall: ‘A long row of ladies _all sound asleep_’; but they had appointed
a watcher, Mrs. Bright Lucas, who sat at the end of the row, and whom
they had charged to keep awake, and to give them the signal whenever
voting began on each clause of the resolution. Mrs. Lucas was wide
awake, with eyes shining like live coals!

“We had prayed that God would direct this meeting, and it was wonderful
and beautiful to see how the truth prevailed.

“Dr. de la Harpe, the President, acted well throughout. At the end I
shook hands with him and Dr. Ladame, thanking them for their excellent
words. Dr. de la Harpe replied, ‘You owe us nothing; it is you and your
friends who must be thanked, who have brought us so much light.’

“At the end of the Congress all the Resolutions came out satisfactorily.
We owe a good deal of this result to Professor Stuart’s tact and
patience in talking to the different presidents individually. We think
our resolutions are, on the whole, excellent as a statement of
principles—clear and uncompromising; and shall we not thank God for
this? His hand has been over us for good all this time, convincing men’s
hearts and consciences, and controlling their words and actions. The
earnest daily prayers offered up have not been in vain.

“These resolutions will be sent to every Government, and to every
Municipal Council throughout Europe. They have been telegraphed to the
English press _in extenso_. My son George was charged with the work of
telegraphing, and had necessarily to exercise much alertness and
activity; M. Humbert is impressed with the excellence of whatever work
he undertakes.

“In the Legislative Section we had an energetic discussion over the
seduction laws of different countries, and the _réchérche de la
paternité_, subjects not immediately in our programme, but closely
touching it. The discussion became so hot that it seemed difficult for
some of the members to remain calm at all. Signora Mozzoni, a delegate
from Milan, burst into tears over it, and one or two of our good
gentlemen lost their tempers a little. One cannot wonder, for this is
one of the important questions upon which people of different nations
and creeds hold very different views. Miss Isabella Tod and Mrs. Sheldon
Amos took a line on the point of the age to which protection should be
given, in which I could not quite follow them, and I felt obliged for
once to oppose my own countrywomen. Professor Hornung was pleased with
what I said, as it seems it accorded with the views of most Continental
Jurists. The young advocate who had opposed us called yesterday to say
that he had come round to our views, chiefly influenced by that
desperate little impromptu legal discussion among the ladies. He had
imagined, he said, that we were a number of ‘fanatical and sentimental
women,’ but ‘when he heard women arguing like jurists, and even taking
part against each other, and yet with perfect good temper _like men_
(!), he began to see that we were grave, educated, and even scientific
people!’ He came afterwards to every meeting, and, as he said, weighed
all our words.

“I think I have not mentioned the resolutions at the Section of
Bienfaisance, under good Pastor Borel’s presidency. Those also were very
satisfactory.”




                               CHAPTER IX

  “When the necessary revolution in the mind of the people is completed,
  that in the institutions of the country will follow as the day follows
  the night.”—W. LLOYD GARRISON, the leading abolitionist of negro
  slavery.


A great extension of our work followed the Congress of Geneva. As the
cause was taken up in several countries of Europe and in British and
other Colonies, its history comes naturally to be less of a personal
record. My own reminiscences become more limited in proportion as our
principles were gradually extended by the force of their own vitality,
throughout the world. The originators of the movement could not be
everywhere at once. Many stirring scenes and events connected with our
work only came to our knowledge through correspondence or press notices,
while we continued to direct the work to some extent from our central
Committees in London and Geneva, with occasional journeys to and work
in, other countries.

It was at the Congress of Geneva that we first made the acquaintance of
M. Pierson, of Holland. I lately asked him to remind me of some of the
circumstances connected with his first entering into the work, to which
he has been so great a strength. (I have already said that M. Pierson
was the successor of the well-known Pastor Heldring.) He wrote, in reply
to my request, from Zetten, as follows:—

“I saw Heldring first in 1847, and went with him to spend some days in
his family. Heldring was forty-three years old, and I thirteen. He was
then building his Refuge of Steenbeck. On January 1st, 1848, he opened
this Refuge. A lady, Miss Petronella Voûte, of a well-known family in
Amsterdam, descendants of French refugees in the reign of Louis XIV.,
was placed at the head of the Refuge. She worked with Heldring till his
death in 1876, and died the following year under most remarkable
circumstances. There were various branches of Heldring’s great work.
Before his death he had founded institutions for the aid of women and
girls in different circumstances. I myself have added to these two
smaller homes for young girls, and the Magdalena House for unmarried
mothers, with a house for the children born there. For some time my
relations with Heldring had been somewhat less intimate, though we were
always friends. I had been first, for some years, a minister in a rural
district, among staunch Calvinists, and afterwards for seven years in
Bois-le-Duc, a town of 25,000 inhabitants, thoroughly Roman Catholic,
where Protestants were as one to ten against the Catholics. During this
time Heldring now and again expressed strong doubts as to the
regulations of vice, which had been silently and slowly introduced in
several of our towns in 1852 and after. He felt instinctively that there
was something rotten in the State which allowed the introduction of such
measures, and as soon as he heard of your first endeavours to attack the
system he took note of it, and expressed his hope that a new era was
approaching.

“He wrote to Van den Bergh (afterwards my son-in-law), in March, 1870,
some words which, as coming from an old man of seventy-one years, show a
little uncertainty, but which, taken in connection with his declarations
at former periods, prove that he had always seen the true bearing of the
question. He stood quite alone in Holland in this matter. He and a
friend together had published in 1852 an anonymous pamphlet, in which
every kind of regulation is condemned. That pamphlet was lying in a
bookseller’s garret. I bought the remaining copies, some hundreds, in
1858 for £2.

“In July, 1876, Heldring died, and in January, 1877, I came here in his
place. Miss Voûte, the Directress of Steenbeck, had been a friend of my
wife and myself from our childhood, and was very happy that we should
take Heldring’s work. But some five or six weeks after my arrival it
became evident that her physical forces were giving way. Once—it may
have been in March, 1877—speaking of Heldring and of me, she said to me,
‘I feel such strange forebodings, I don’t know why; but it seems as if
the whole work of Steenbeck will be changed and begun anew.’ ‘In what
sense?’ I asked. ‘In every respect,’ she replied; ‘but I don’t know
how.’ On the 14th April I went to see her, because we thought her end
was approaching. After having prayed and spoken some words I left her,
but I had not been gone an hour when some one came running to tell me
(what, in fact, I already saw) that the Refuge was in flames, and Miss
Voûte lying on her death-bed! I spare you the details. It is enough to
mention that we brought her to my house. At first it seemed as if the
shock had aroused her instead of doing her harm, but four days later she
died suddenly.

“Steenbeck was burned to the ground. I had much to do in the following
weeks, and when the invitation to the Geneva Congress came, I felt much
inclined to accept, simply because it would give me a few days of
leisure. But I honestly confess that I had some hesitation; I had always
disliked the sanitary measures of the regulations, and abhorred the
system of organised houses of shame; but I had the impression that the
Congress was not taking up the great and central question, and that it
took the humanitarian point of view rather than the Christian. I did not
require to be converted by the Congress, for I already agreed with the
principles proclaimed by it; but I came back from it persuaded that the
question _was much more important_ than I had imagined.

“I immediately felt two things: first, that we had been made dupes of by
a false and stupid medical science, so-called; and second, that our
question was the ‘tendon of the heel of Achilles’ of the whole matter of
moral reform. These two points fitted in precisely with my state of
mind; for I hate the humbug of false, would-be scientific men (I have
seen too much of it); and I enjoy dealing with a question which involves
a great many other questions, and which may be said to be a touchstone
to try the minds of men.

“So in 1878 our first appeal in Holland was made to the public.

“Steenbeck burnt down ten months after Heldring’s death, Miss Voûte
dying almost beneath the falling walls, had made a deep impression.
Money came in from every side. In five months a large building was
erected. Meanwhile the inmates had been lodged in the Church. The work
had not been dropped for a moment. On the day of the opening of the new
building friends came from every part of the country to assist at the
ceremony, and I used the occasion to draw the attention of the assembly
to the work of the Federation. There was some opposition. Some thought
that I was steering in another direction from Heldring; but as I have
said, having discovered that Heldring’s pamphlet of 1852 was lying at
the bookseller’s, I bought all the copies left, for which the good
shopkeeper was very glad. It was a strong weapon. I could show that I
was only taking up the thread where Heldring was obliged, for want of
sympathy, to let it drop.

“I drew up a circular letter, adding with each letter a copy of
Heldring’s pamphlet, and distributed these. In March, 1878, I invited
some four to five hundred persons to a meeting at Utrecht, in the centre
of our country. The assembly was numerous. The foundation of our work
was laid. A good report of this meeting may be found in the _Bulletin
Continental_ of June, 1878.

“In recalling those zealous days of our early entering upon the
struggle, I instinctively feel the first holy fire rekindling in my
heart and mind. God has been with us, and is still blessing his work by
his gracious presence. We have not done as much as we wished or could
have done; but we have not lived in vain. To him alone the glory, and
blessing to our posterity.”

M. Pierson adds some words in the same communication which are worthy to
be reproduced, inasmuch as they describe a state of mind which we have
met with and have had to combat in many countries, and which appears
again and again. He writes: “Here in Holland we often find ourselves in
enforced opposition to our well-intentioned friends, especially among
Christians. In one of our cities some years ago a Committee was formed
for promoting purer morals. They were in favour of attacking immorality,
but refused to express any opinion about the public regulation of vice.
It seems, at the date I am writing, that this Committee sleeps very
quietly. I once named them Nicodemites, which much scandalised them.
What Christians ought to realise—but seem very much to forget—is that in
Christian countries _they are responsible for the spirit in which the
laws are made_. Many of them seem to think that the Government, in its
very essence, is a worldly, ungodly institution, somewhat in the same
way as if they were living in a Pagan land, under the Roman Emperors.
The Church, in those circumstances, had nothing to do but to save as
many souls as could be brought into the fold of Christ. The Christians
were not responsible for the Pagan laws and their destructive influences
in those times. But with us it is quite a different thing. It will take
a long time to make our principles widely understood, but it is not lost
time.”

I have gladly hailed at all times, and in all countries, the entrance of
our question into its true and necessary political phase. The word
“political” terrifies many people, some of them being the best and most
earnest Christian people, because they do not, in fact, understand its
true meaning. They see the spectre of party feuds, of party political
interests in conflict. But there is no question of party in the politics
of this sacred cause of ours. It is a question which vitally concerns
our social life through all the classes, from the head of the Government
down to the poorest toiler for his daily bread. It is a moral question
which affects the moral and spiritual life of the peoples of the earth,
and through their spiritual individual life, the domestic, social, and
public life of the community. _But it must be fought out on the lines of
law and Government—on political lines._ Corrupt magistrates, rulers,
experts, and profligates of all grades will not look at the standard
which the spiritually-minded man or woman holds up to them—the standard
of Christian ethics. They pass it by with a smile. They confess no
allegiance to any such law. But these rulers, and these inventors and
upholders of State regulation of vice, must bow to the law of the land.
They may scoff at Christian teachers, but, sooner or later, they must
reckon with that which is at their door, the _Penal Code_, which, though
thrust aside, or violated for a time, still stands there, a rock against
which they will stumble and fall, or else it will fall on them and crush
them out of place and power. And how can we bring the law of the land to
bear against an illegal and criminal institution, except on the field of
politics, and by means of political action? For my part, I have never
been able to hail our salvation from this horrible system as _near_, in
any country, until the question has entered into the political stage.
While saying this I hold firmly the truth that “our weapons are
_spiritual_, to the pulling down of strongholds”; that it is by the
faith of the true servants of God, by their persistent prayers and their
confidence in Him, that we shall win the victory. But in all matters of
human action and conflict we use means. The hand of the warrior grasps
the sword, while his heart is stayed on God. We reach out for every
lawful means, on every side of us, for the destruction of this iniquity;
and a long experience, as well as the lessons of history, prove clearly
that the public, political means afforded us by the just laws and
Constitutions of our several countries are above all the most effectual
means for the destruction of legalised illegality, of the slavery,
oppression, greed, cheating, murder, and shames embraced in the
institution of State regulated vice.

A movement in favour of our cause had been energetically promoted in
1878 in Spain by M. Empeytaz and other upholders of our principles in
Spain. The “Voice in the Wilderness” was translated and distributed in
Barcelona and Madrid. Pastor Fritz Fliedner, the well-known German who
founded the deaconesses’ institution of Kaiserswerth, was at that time
travelling in Spain, and found that the Governor of Madrid had
suppressed the Spanish edition of the “Voice in the Wilderness.” He
called on the Governor, and also procured the intercession of the German
Ambassador on behalf of the work, and the prohibition was withdrawn.

In Spain we also found a brave champion of our principles in the
Countess de Precorbin (Spanish by birth), who had joined us a few years
before. This lady held meetings in several towns and districts of Spain,
giving addresses to soldiers, students and others, and was everywhere
graciously received. So great was her desire to gain the ear of the
working people, that in one district, where a large proportion of the
male population was engaged in working in mines during the day, she had
herself let down into a mine in a basket. It was a surprise to the
miners to see this gentle lady in the midst of them, and to hear her
message concerning justice, equality, purity, and the sacredness of home
life; they heard her gladly and reverently. A Spanish lady of high rank,
Donna Concepion Arenal, continued for some years to advocate our Cause
in a periodical edited by herself, _La Caridad_. This ceased at her
death. The movement in Spain languished after a few years, yet we
continue to hope that it may be revived in some manner in future. During
this year we received expressions of personal sympathy and adhesion from
several influential Jews. Zadok Kahn, the Grand Rabbin of Paris, wrote a
beautiful letter to the Federation, expressing his full sympathy and
that of the best men of his people. The Grand Rabbin Wertheimer, of
Geneva, gave his adhesion. I had called on the Grand Rabbin Astruc, of
Belgium, on my way through that country in the previous year. From that
time he became also a firm adherent. Ben Israel, Grand Rabbin of
Avignon, also wrote several letters full of sympathy with the work.

Dating from the Congress of Geneva, we began to store up an arsenal of
good weapons in the form of literature. Books innumerable had been
written by the defenders of regulation, and there was no lack of solid
literature on their side. The only Continental work of any consequence
which had been used to counteract their influence up to 1878 was the
modest little book entitled, “A Voice in the Wilderness;” this was a
collection of my first appeals made on the Continent of Europe, ably
edited by M. Aimé Humbert. This work never appeared in English. It was
translated gradually from the French into every other European language.
This little book was, as M. Humbert rightly said, merely a call to
battle, a challenge—and this assertion was reproachfully echoed by our
adversaries. “We want,” they said, “something scientific, statistical
and closely reasoned. We do not want merely the expression of a woman’s
revolted feelings against a system which we believe to be useful and
necessary.” They had not long to wait for the scientific arguments and
close reasoning which they professed to desire; for the two bulky
volumes published after our Congress of 1877, entitled _Les Actes du
Congrès de Genève_, furnished all that could be desired in that
direction, being a collection of the weighty utterances, prepared for
our Congress, of philosophers, statesmen, medical men, jurists, women of
experience in social work, and of thoughtful leaders among the working
classes, drawn from many different countries of the world. It may not be
uninteresting to my readers to see the relation of our first literary
effort to what followed, as expressed in a quotation here given from a
letter which I wrote to M. Humbert in reply to his proposal in 1875 to
publish in pamphlet form the principal portions of my appeals on the
Continent.

“I feel with you every day,” I wrote, “that some such _voice_ is needed
just now. It would, perhaps, have been better had we been able to bring
out a complete book as our first—a book which should contain all the
scientific and juridical arguments as well as a complete review of
historical facts relating to this subject. But such a complete book is
at this moment impossible; I therefore beg you to communicate what I now
say to Messieurs Sandoz and Fischbacher (publishers). We want statistics
and facts—yes,—but would English statistics and facts alone, drawn from
a limited experience, be much or generally valued in other countries? I
think not, if they stood alone. Facts from a larger area we must have
later, and we shall have them, for, thank God, they stand as
indestructible witnesses everywhere of the folly and futility of the
attempt to regulate vice. How much more powerful, how overwhelming, in
fact, would it be for our opponents, and how strengthening for our
Cause, if we could show facts and statistics gathered from every country
and over a larger period of time. This is precisely what we are now
aiming at. We have received all the most recent reports from Italy,
France, Germany and other countries. On every hand there is confession
of the failure of regulation. Mireur, Jeannell, Diday, Deprés,
Pallasciano, Huet, Crocq, all confess to hygienic failure. The proposals
of some of these men to insure future success (a success which they
confess they have never yet ensured) are of such a wild and ghastly
nature that one has only to read their books to see that the beginning
of the end is at hand.

“From out these statistics there appear here and there deeply pathetic
facts such as this: that four-fifths of the poor girls subjected to this
tyranny (according to one writer) are orphans; many are foreigners in
the country of their enslavement; many are young widows. Does not our
God, who is the God of the Fatherless, of the Widow, and of the
Stranger, take note of these things?

“You see that in a year or two we shall have a mass of evidence against
this system which will give the doctors and materialist legislators a
hard task to refute.

“I care little that men accuse me, as you say, of mere sentiment, and of
carrying away my hearers by feeling rather than by facts and logic. Even
while they are saying this, they read my words, and they are made
uncomfortable! they feel that there is a truth of some sort there, and
that sentiment itself is after all a _fact_ and a power when it
expresses the deepest intuitions of the human soul. They have had
opportunity for many years past of looking at the question in its
material phases, of appreciating its hygienic results, and of reading
numberless books on the subject, statistical, medical, and
administrative. _Now_, for the first time, they are asked to look upon
it as a question of human nature, of equal interest to man and woman, as
a question of the heart, the soul, the affections, the whole moral
being. As a simple assertion of one woman speaking for tens of thousands
of women, those two words ‘_we rebel_’ are very necessary and very
useful for them to hear. The cry of women crushed under the yoke of
legalised vice is not the cry of a statistician or a medical expert; it
is simply a cry of pain, a cry for justice and for a return to God’s
laws in place of these brutally impure laws invented and imposed by man.
It is imperfect, no doubt, as an utterance; but the cry of the revolted
woman against her oppressor and to her God is far more needful at this
moment than any reasoned-out argument. I think, therefore, and my
husband agrees with me, that it is better to publish the ‘Voice in the
Wilderness’ simply as the utterance of a woman, and to do it quickly. It
will rouse some consciences, no matter how imperfect men may find it. On
the eve of a war it may be said that the sound of the trumpet is
imperfect because it only calls to the battle, and that we want to see
the troops, their arms, and the strength of muscle on either side; yet
the call to battle is needed: the close grappling with the foe will
follow. It is only when the slave begins to move, to complain, to give
signs of life and resistance, either by his own voice or by the voice of
one like himself speaking for him, that the struggle for freedom truly
begins. The slave now speaks. The enslaved women have found a voice in
one of themselves who was raised up for no other end than to sound the
proclamation of an approaching deliverance. Never mind the imperfection
of the first voice. It is the voice of a woman who has suffered, a voice
calling to holy rebellion and to war. It will penetrate. Then by-and-by
we shall come down on our opponents with the heavy artillery of facts
and statistics and scientific arguments on every side. We will not spare
them. We will show them no mercy; we shall tear to pieces their ‘refuge
of lies’ and expose the ghastliness of their ‘covenant with death and
their agreement with hell’; we and our successors will continue to do
this year after year until they have no ground to stand upon.”

There was, and is, of course, this marked difference between the
character of the literature of the regulationists and our own—namely,
that the motive of all their arguments is that of expediency, based upon
the assumption of the necessity of vice; the moral and the higher
hygienic aspects of the question are ignored by them. This has been well
expressed by Sir James Stansfeld on several occasions. He wrote shortly
before the Geneva Congress to M. Aimé Humbert as follows:—“You and I
have a great work in hand. Speaking for my own country, I have neither
doubt nor fear of the issue of the conflict. There is no case in the
history of England of the failure of any movement based upon the moral
and religious sense and convictions of the community in which any
considerable number of men or of women have had the courage and the
faith to persist; and there are men and women enough prepared to spend
their lives in this holy cause thus to insure its success. We had the
weakness, we incurred the guilt, of borrowing and accepting this unholy
and indecent law from France. It stole its way on to our Statute Book
under a miserable hygienic pretence. Its contrivers seem to me as men
deprived of the consciousness of the unity of the law of God. They would
sacrifice morality to health, the soul to the body, the immortal to the
mortal part. They cannot look high enough or far enough to see that it
is a philosophic, a scientific, as well as a religious truth that there
cannot be dissonance between the laws of Nature and the laws of God, and
that it is, therefore, inconceivable that the immoral should be a truly
sanitary law. Even partially and temporarily applied as these laws are
here, they are already a proved sanitary failure, proved upon the
figures of the Government Returns.”

Besides the more solid works which began from this time to appear in
favour of our cause, each country interested in it, beginning to find
the necessity of some record of its own activity and that of other
nationalities, started a special organ of its own. Beginning with the
_Bulletin Continental_, published monthly at Geneva, there followed
special organs of the Abolitionist Societies in Holland, Belgium,
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, and Italy.

Up to this time we had not obtained much support from the Roman Catholic
section of the community in different countries, except in individual
instances, such as that of Archbishop, afterwards Cardinal Manning, who
some years previously had expressed his strong disapproval of the
principles of the Regulationists at the Papal Court on the occasion of
several of his visits to Rome. Our friend Mme. de Morsier, of Paris, had
been prompted by some of the writings of Archbishop Dupanloup on the
subject of woman’s education to pay a visit to that prelate on behalf of
our cause shortly before the Congress of Geneva. I give the account of
her visit in her own words written to me at the time.

“We went to the house of Monseigneur Dupanloup. The residence of the
Archbishop is situated on the banks of the Loire, in the midst of
verdure; on one side there is the college which he superintends, a large
building standing close to the woods which descend to the river; on the
other side stands an ancient castellated mansion, covered with ivy,
climbing roses, and honeysuckle. It is in this house that the
Monseigneur himself lives. On the terrace, embosomed in woods, the table
was spread for the evening repast. The Monseigneur had just arrived from
Rheims, whence he had come expressly to receive me. In spite of his
fatigue and the suffering caused by an accident to his finger, he did
the honours of his house with graceful courtesy. When he appeared and
crossed the lawn, dressed in his purple robe, his white hair uncovered,
I must confess I felt surprised. I had only known him by Parisian
report, so that I had expected to see a proud and rather pompous old
man, receiving his guests amidst the luxury and ceremonial of the
cardinals of the Middle Ages. But I saw before me a gentle and holy
looking man, so simple in his manner and bearing, that in talking to him
I soon forgot his high position and great talent, and felt quite drawn
to speak to him freely as an equal. The table spread upon the lawn, and
among the flowers, the venerable old man invoking a blessing on the
repast, the nightingale which was singing the first notes of evening,
and the strains of the ‘Angelus’ which reached us from a distance, all
together formed a striking picture of peace and happiness. It was in the
midst of this scene that, summoning courage, I spoke to him of those
dark horrors and of that hard struggle in which I had come to claim the
support of his sympathy. The Monseigneur listened without remark, asking
from time to time some question. Several times he exclaimed, ‘Your
Congress delights me; that is the important point. It will require a
thunderbolt to awaken consciences.’ His secretary, an Abbé of great
talent, manifested his approbation of our cause. Monseigneur described
to me how much the conscience of their religiously educated youth
revolted when they learned that vice is actually legalised by the State.
He himself had had, he said, only very recently a complete revelation of
the state of things, from the work of Parent Duchâtelet which had fallen
into his hands. The evening passed in conversation. When I was leaving I
offered him my hand (which I afterwards found was contrary to etiquette)
and said to him, ‘Monseigneur, may I now feel assured of your sympathy
for our cause?’ ‘Yes, assuredly,’ he replied. ‘Do you authorise me,’ I
asked, ‘to make use of your name as a convinced adherent.’ ‘Yes,’ he
said; ‘I consent fully.’ Then he himself extended his hand to me, and
finally, in parting, I said: ‘Monseigneur, I recommend our cause to your
prayers.’ ‘You have them,’ he said. The carriage rolled away, and I felt
my heart full of gratitude to God, and I said to myself, ‘Ah! if all
Bishops were like this one, and all Abbés like those I have seen at
Orleans, the true friends of progress would have little excuse to make
war against the Catholic religion.’”

Up to the time of which I am writing very little progress had been made
in Germany in respect of State abstinence from compromise with public
immorality. In the year 1876, M. Humbert had some correspondence with
eminent members of the German Inner Mission, and from that time onward
we had several distinguished individual adherents in Germany, men and
women; but they were few.

A Petition had been presented in that year to the Reichstag, signed by
Dr. Dorner in the name of the Central Committee of the Inner Mission. It
was as follows:—


                                                    “BERLIN AND HAMBURG.

“The undersigned Central Committee takes the liberty of drawing the
attention of the Reichstag to the following:—

“Upon the occasion of the revision of the Penal Code by the German
Empire, upon the 15th May, 1871, there were proposed certain additions,
emanating from the Reichstag itself, Sections 180 and 361; additions
which would have for their effect to accord in Germany a legal existence
to houses of infamy, and to thereby introduce them within certain
portions of the limits of the Empire in which they do not at present
exist. It is not to be doubted that the motive which has dictated this
proposition is that of acting in the supposed interest of the public
health, but we are none the less convinced that its adoption would be
injurious to the public welfare, and that the moral foundations of our
social life, already menaced, would be thereby still more profoundly
shaken.

“The trade of the procurer, which hitherto has fallen under the ban of
severe penalties, would find itself, by virtue of the observance of
certain formalities, with which it would be easy to comply, placed
henceforth under the protection of the law. The number of women,
especially in the large towns, who practise vice under the supervision
of the police would also be materially augmented; once legalised, the
trade of the procurer would be given up to a depraved competition, and
all this would tend in the highest degree to the public demoralisation.
Further, confidence in the Imperial legislation, and consequently in the
Empire itself, which has need rather to be strengthened, would
experience a serious shock amongst very considerable and important
portions of the population; and the supreme authority, which, according
to the declaration of the Government and of the Chancellor of the
Empire, was to be augmented by the revision of the Penal Code, would
find itself instead materially weakened. As regards the sanitary reasons
which are put forward in support of the proposition, we believe
ourselves authorised in saying that their value has not yet been
sufficiently established from the experimental and scientific point of
view, and that, on the contrary, in this respect also, the proposition
is open to serious objections.

“We will add, lastly, that this proposition is put forward precisely at
the moment when we are witnessing, in England and in Switzerland, a
movement as profound as it is earnest, which has for its aim, with ever
increasing prospects of success, the abrogation of all legalisation of
vice, whether on the part of the Legislature or of the Administrative
function.

“In virtue of these considerations, we address to the Reichstag the
following prayer:—

“‘That the Reichstag be pleased to reject every proposition tending to
alter the provisions already enacted by the law against the trade of the
procurer, or to authorise in any manner whatever the exercise of that
trade by placing it under official protection.

“‘In the name of the Central Committee of the Inner Mission of the
Evangelical Church in Germany, for the President, Dr. Dorner, Member of
the Superior Consistory.’”


This petition, it will be observed, was directed, not against the then
existing system of legalised vice in Germany, but only against a fuller
development of it which was threatened. Then, and up to the present
time, in most cities in Germany, a permission to follow their calling
was and is given by the police to unfortunate women living in their own
lodgings, on condition of their conforming to certain prescribed police
and sanitary rules. This is in itself an open, official sanction. A
people, having become accustomed to this amount of official license, is
easily, and, indeed, logically, carried on to acquiesce in the more
complete form of Governmental sanction of vice, namely, the licensed and
protected house of shame. There is, therefore, to the convinced
Abolitionist, a fatal omission in this otherwise excellent petition, in
the absence of an additional protest against the license which was
_already accorded_ in Germany.

The light which is now falling so fully and steadily upon this question
will surely in time reveal clearly to reformers in Germany, as
elsewhere, the necessity of attacking any and every compromise with
vice, in whatever form. In official compromise with sin there is no
standing still; there is a perpetual advance towards more shameless and
elaborate organisation of profligacy. The house of ill-fame _never
existed_ in England as an openly recognised and State-protected
institution, but it came by degrees, under the regulations now
abolished, to be tacitly permitted, and the English Abolitionists knew
well that, unless a blow were struck at the root principle of the whole
system, the open recognition of organised houses of debauchery would
follow in their own, as in all other countries, where the system of
regulation has once obtained a footing. This matter is clearly stated in
the Berlin Regulations instituted in 1850. The following words are
translated from the German of the _Resolution of the Royal Presidency of
Police of Berlin, December 11th, 1850_, which precedes the Regulations:—


“The method of tolerance may be twofold: permission may be given to the
women to have each a domicile of her own, upon submitting to a stringent
regulation; or, on the other hand, they may be confined in special
houses, under a responsible householder.

“This last method offers more guarantees and greater security to
police-regulation, and facilitates supervision. No doubt the moral
sentiment revolts at the idea that the public authority should tolerate
and protect houses set apart for purposes of vice, _but experience has
proved that this mode is, for Berlin, the least objectionable_.”


In March, 1878, a visit was paid to the district of Torre Pellice, in
North Italy, the cradle of the Waldensian Church. The pastors and people
of that country were quickly and securely gained to our cause, as is
usual with persons who have suffered for a truth for which they have
been called to contend.

In 1879 I visited the Ban de la Roche in Alsace, with my husband; here
Pastor Dietz and others were won to be warm adherents of our cause. We
passed through Colmar and Muhlhausen, but it was not until some years
later that we made the acquaintance of M. Schlumberger, Mayor of Colmar,
and heard of the unique part which he had taken in the cause of justice
and morality.

The principal event on the Continent of the year 1879 was the Annual
Conference of the Federation, held at Liége, in Belgium. The following
account of that event was written by Mme. de Morsier, of Paris.

“There is an advantage in choosing middle-sized towns for these annual
meetings. In large centres like Paris and London our action is partly
lost on account of the vastness of the place. No doubt the active
members of the Federation feel the benefit of them, but very little
impression can be made on the public, whilst in smaller towns, like
Liége, we may, as we have seen, produce a great impression, even at an
unfavourable season, when the higher class people are away.

“Our public meetings in Liége, Verviers, and Seraing, were attended by a
numerous public, chiefly men. The earnest attention with which we were
heard convinced us that the good seed did not fall on barren soil. Even
the press did us the honour of discussing our question, and some papers
published very good articles. However, we had the opportunity of
noticing that Belgian editors, like those of other countries, are
extremely full of solicitude for us, and eager to caution us against
many and various dangers. ‘Beware the perilous paths;’ they seem to say,
‘if you take the right one we will follow you; but what is wanted are
works of rescue; leave the police alone and create _Refuges_.’

“Well, the Conference of Liége answered in a very categorical manner to
this, the constantly repeated suggestion of the over-prudent and timidly
charitable.

“The one thing that struck us was how much the question has developed,
how much enlarged is the view taken of the subject—the really essential
aspect of it, _i.e._ the defence of individual liberty and right. And
this is the result of the _logic of facts_. The strength of a principle
lies in this, that it gradually imposes itself upon all true and serious
minds, and leads them to accept its logical and necessary consequences.
I have no hesitation in saying that, in my opinion, the main fact of the
Conference in Liége has been this unity of feeling among the Delegates
present on the great question of the sacredness of personal liberty and
individual right.

“This is the firmest basis upon which to act, our best security against
inconsistency. If we deny to the police the right of sitting in judgment
upon the morality of women, we must be ready to refuse this right also
to every form of arbitrary rule, whether it be the arbitrary rule of an
Assembly of well-intentioned people, or the arbitrary rule of corrupt
agents or officials. Our experience during our struggle for this cause
has opened our eyes to the fact that all the great struggles of the
present day, whether political, social, economic or religious, may be
summed up as one great war between the two principles, Compulsion and
Liberty, and if the first principle is still so powerful in countries
boasting of liberal institutions, is it not to some extent because the
partisans of the second principle have thought it prudent to temporise
with the first; being led astray by the beautiful modern
invention—_opportunism_? It was, therefore, with double satisfaction
that I saw the Federation fortifying itself more and more by relying
upon absolute principles. I will quote as an example the energetic
speech of Mr. Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of the City of London, at the
public meeting of the 22nd August in Liége. Mr. Benjamin Scott regarded
the subject from an extremely elevated point of view, and showed himself
as daring as truth itself.

“‘You are not free,’ said he to the citizens of Liége. ‘Liége is not
free; Brussels is not free; and Paris is not free, though she has
battered down the Bastille, and placed the statue of Liberty on the
column of July.... It could never be said that the United States were
free so long as they held four millions of negroes enslaved. Paris,
Brussels, and your fine city of Liége are not free so long as any woman
may be deprived of her civil rights at the caprice or tyranny of a
police agent, or through the denunciation of a scoundrel.’

“You may be sure that M. Yves Guyot did not fail to fling many keen
shafts at the Police des Mœurs, on the ground of its illegality and
violation of individual liberty, enforcing his powerful arguments by
quotations from the Belgian Code, which fell like battering-rams on the
hypocrisies of the system. M. Humbert traced in broad outlines the
history of the Federation in all countries. With the readiness of mind
and tact of a man accustomed to act as chairman, he took the opportunity
of a rather violent speech from M. O—— B——, of Liége, to re-affirm the
large and independent point of view maintained by our Association. ‘We
are not here to enter into any political or religious polemics,’ he
said, ‘we seek to recall your minds to those humanitarian truths and
principles in which all those who desire justice and respect the rights
of human beings can unite.’

“M. Pierson, Director of the Asiles of Zetten, Holland, gave some
interesting details of his special work, and declared that his
experience in such practical endeavours had convinced him of the truth
of the principles maintained by the Federation.

“Let the editors of papers be at rest; we also approve and encourage
works of rescue and reformation, and especially when their founders
understand the duty of thus publicly proclaiming the lessons they have
learned through such private experience.

“The public meeting of Liége will take its place among the brilliant
successes of our cause. Seven hundred people expressed their adherence
to our principles by their enthusiastic cheers. M. Nicolet, President of
the Committee of Liége, must have been well satisfied with his
countrymen.

“On the Thursday evening we held a women’s meeting. The schoolroom
placed at our disposal was full, and, notwithstanding the warnings as to
the necessity of _prudence_ which had been given us, we stated the
question plainly and frankly. The expression of mingled curiosity and
amazement, which we first observed on the faces of the listeners, was
soon succeeded by an expression of attentive sympathy.

“The Baroness de Stampe spoke of Denmark, the Countess Schack of
Germany, and Mme. de Morsier related some facts which she had witnessed
in Paris. A hearty vote of sympathy was granted to us, and on our
leaving the room, many hands pressed ours, and heartfelt words of
encouragement were spoken.

“We had also the great satisfaction of seeing many young men of Liége,
students, etc., at our business Conference, where we invited them to a
private meeting at the Hotel de Suède. A great many came, students, and
some workmen also. That evening’s reunion will remain one of the best
souvenirs of Liége. Nothing moves me more deeply than to see on the
faces of young men the expression of noble impulses and generous
enthusiasm. Whatever the struggles, the failures, or the wreck of
illusions which life may bring, a spark of the true fire will always
linger in the soul of the man who sincerely believed in justice and in
true love when he was twenty.

“M. Humbert’s words found ready response when, in a splendid
improvisation, he drew for them the picture of a truly noble, active,
and useful life, and spoke to them of the march of humanity on the path
of progress, guided by the light of the two beacons of science and
faith.

“M. Testuz and M. Durand of Liége, spoke also some heart-stirring words
to this youthful assembly.

“On Sunday 21st, the delegates of the Federation were invited to a
friendly tea-party, in the _Presbytère de la Chênée_, by M. Nicolet,
which was rendered delightful by the feeling of true fraternity which
united us through sharing the same moral aspirations and hopes, in spite
of our many differences of opinion upon other points. We may construct
systems, found religious sects, or analyse scientific facts, but the
focus of true life, the lever elevating humanity to noble aims, will
always be the spirit of _Love_ and _Justice_.

“On Sunday we were awakened by the sound of the funeral bell, which
announced the death of the Archbishop of Liége. We were invited at four
o’clock to visit the Pastor Nicolet, at Chênée. About the same hour M.
Yves Guyot gave a conference in his own name, personally, to the
Associations of _Libre Penseurs_, and the Countess Schack accompanied
him. Some of us took the route to Chênée in a carriage. The presbytère
(pastor’s house) is situated in the middle of the village—a pretty
little house, the ground floor of which is the chapel. Above is the
drawing-room, which opens upon a wooden balcony with a charming view.
Next to the house is a garden extending to the bank of the Canal de
l’Aurte; beyond, to the right, a little village with its bell-tower and
church. On the left the great furnaces of the Vieille Montagne;[14]
further down, and all round, wooded hills.

“Nature here is as amiable and peaceful as the charming hosts who
received us. M. Nicolet offered to have a service in the chapel in
English for the English workman delegates. Those of us who remained on
the little balcony enjoyed the sound of the manly voices singing their
beautiful hymns. The setting sun was covering the west with gold, and a
light mist slowly rose from the valley. In the drawing-room there was
conversation, grave and gay. Mr. Stuart was compelled to pay a fine in
aid of the Maison Hospitalière. He had made a bet that the English
working men delegates would not find their way to Chênée; but they,
setting off on foot at the moment that we entered our carriage, had
arrived at the door of the presbytery before us. Mme. Nicolet proposed
that we should all visit the Chapel. It is charming, this little chapel
in its great simplicity, with its iron pillars and its Gothic windows,
which open upon the garden, the river, and the hills.

“There was a harmonium; why, we said, should we not sing? M. Nicolet
brought his violin, and took the shoulder of M. Pierson as a _chevalet_,
young Gustave took the harmonium, and the singers grouped themselves
round the window. The sweet melody rose and fell like a wave, and our
souls were quieted and elevated by this flood of harmony. The last rays
of the sun, broken by the lattice work, bathed the group of singers in
their golden light, playing round the white hair of the venerable
violinist. At the same moment M. Yves Guyot and the Countess Schack
silently entered the Chapel, and took a seat on one of the benches.

“We shall not soon forget the peaceful presbytery of Chênée, the balcony
garlanded with flowers, the group in the chapel, lighted by the setting
sun; and above all, the kind pastor and his wife, whose loving Christian
friendship gained every heart. Whenever I may hear again Luther’s hymn,
the Hallelujah of Beethoven, or the sorrowful melodies of Calvary, I
shall see again, in thought, the chapel of Chênée, and the friends who
were assembled there that Sunday evening, the 24th of August, 1879.

“Gustave and Clement accompanied us to the railway station. The pale
crescent moon rose above the horizon, and the furnaces of the Vieille
Montagne flung their flames into the cool evening air.

“On Monday, at 3 o’clock, the Federation was under arms; it was time to
go to Verviers, where a conference had been prepared. Verviers is a
pretty little industrial town; the houses have a comfortable look, which
is somewhat reflected in the faces of the citizens. At 7 o’clock we were
at our places in the Hall of Emulation; the public alone was late. This,
however, allowed us to enjoy upon the balcony a magnificent spectacle.
The town had just been inundated by a storm of rain, the western sky was
on fire, here and there clouds torn asunder revealed calm expanses of
the heavens, of a pale blue or green, which harmonised with the purple
tints of the evening. The wet pavement reflected the burning sky, and
the whole place seemed illuminated. Some of us admired in silence, while
others analysed every changing effect.

“The meeting began coldly. We were told that the hour fixed was too
early, and that the workmen had not yet left the foundries. By degrees,
however, the hall filled; there were a great number of men, and some
women—a very attentive audience, though less enthusiastic than that of
Liége.

“M. Yves Guyot, Mrs. Butler and M. Pierson spoke. Mr. Lucraft, a
delegate of the London workmen, improvised a speech full of fire; the
ardour of his manner and voice captivated those even who did not
understand what he was saying. Mme. de Morsier translated for him. Mr.
Bonjean, a citizen of Verviers, in a brief speech, thanked the
Federation.

“The hurry to reach the train at night was not very favourable to the
orators; nevertheless, the meeting was good. As we entered the railway
carriage, M. Humbert complained bitterly of the blows which he had
received in the back from ladies’ fans, which they thus made use of to
remind the speaker that the time was getting late! He demanded that at
Seraing fans should be prohibited!

“On Tuesday our partings began. The representatives of the North
disappeared from amongst us, with the Baroness de Stampe and Dr.
Giersing, of Denmark. M. Testuz (from Sweden) disappeared like a
shooting star. Those who had exchanged thoughts with him at the dinner
table of the Hotel de Suède, would gladly have once more shaken hands
with him before his departure. Why did M. Testuz disappear like a
shooting star?

“M. and Mme. Pierson next took their departure, and the Parisian
deputation also began to be dismembered. Nature seemed to wish to soften
our regrets, for the weather was beautiful, the heavens blue, and the
bright rays of the sun tempered by an autumnal breeze.

“It was pleasant to linger in the Botanical Gardens where underneath the
canopy of pines, the gentle breeze carried to us the scent of the
heliotrope, roses, white campanula and giant daisies flowering together
in the beds in that beautiful disorder which is more agreeable to the
eye than the mosaic horticulture which is now the fashion.”

But it was time to start for Seraing. We went by the river, the whole
party—at least, all who still remained. The wind had risen, it fluttered
the ladies’ veils, and it seemed that the classical hat of the Cambridge
Professor had a design to make acquaintance with the waves of the Meuse.
Madame de Morsier, depositary of the precious Belgian Code, carried the
volume with a respectful awe, which caused her to be charged with
fetichism. The Belgian Code! It is the Krupp cannon of our artillery!
Madame de Morsier asked what certain orators would do that evening if,
putting out their hands to take it for quotations, they should find it
had disappeared.

“The boat flew quickly through the water. We glided past wooded hills,
at the foot of which the furnaces, with their blackened walls and tall
chimneys, launched out columns of smoke mixed with flames. Here and
there were workmen’s villages nestling in the woods. Nature and industry
were united in a powerful harmony; it seemed like a key-note of our age.
Those who despise the romance of the Rhine might enjoy themselves here.
At every moment the scene changed; it was a succession of little
pictures of varied style: here a slope of dark woods, against which
rises a great furnace; there an island in the middle of the river, in
which one caught glimpses of mysterious paths; further on, a meadow of
brilliant green, meeting at its horizon line the western sky all decked
in gold; here, a boat, whose brown sail stood out against the sky, while
lower down on the horizon, clouds of capricious form, lighted up by the
departing rays of the sun, presented the most varied tints, or, tearing
themselves asunder, revealed to our sight the transparency of a
boundless horizon. Occasionally the boat stopped to take in passengers.
We saw on the shore a friend waving his hat in our direction, the wind
blowing back his silvery hair. It was the good pastor of Chênée and his
excellent wife, standing on the little pier, ready to join us.

“At last we reached Seraing, coquettishly seated upon the two shores of
the Meuse, bound together by a bridge of iron which is not wanting in
elegance. Opposite the place of debarkation, in the middle of a little
parterre, stands the statue of Cockerill, the founder of these vast
ironworks. Around the pedestal are grouped figures representing the
workers in the foundries with their various implements of toil; their
countenances and their marked features have something noble and proud
about them; one reads in them the character of men who feel themselves
masters of their art. We walked through the streets of the village,
women and children gazing at us with curiosity from the door steps.

“On this occasion we had no time to lose, only just time to take a cup
of coffee at the little Inn, before going to the hall placed at our
service by the Society of Seraing. We found all the seats already
occupied, but there was no gas lit; it was not the custom to light up
before a quarter past seven. We took our places upon the platform whilst
attempts were made to light up. The patient audience interested itself
much in this operation, and gave advice. At last a few burners consented
to be lighted, and the meeting began. There was a crowd of workmen and
women who listened attentively. We found here a more complete sympathy
than at Verviers. The enthusiasm was not so loudly expressed as at
Liége, but there was something convinced and quiet in the audience;
whenever the smallest noise occurred, the meeting demanded silence.
These people we saw had not come to be amused, but to be instructed. The
speakers were MM. Minod, Humbert, Guyot, and Mrs. Butler. Mr. Stuart
concluded a brief speech with the words, ‘The police of morals is the
greatest mystification of our age. It is a servant which has never
fulfilled its task. Dismiss it.’

“We had this time leisure to go quietly to the station through the
beautiful air; the moon and Jupiter were shining brightly in a deep blue
sky. We passed along the side of the great foundries; immense jets of
fire were flung out from the chimneys; we heard the dull heavy blows of
the steam hammers, and then a roaring sound like the breaking of a great
wave. It was the flowing out of the boiling fountain of metal into the
mould, accompanied by the shouts of the workmen announcing the success
of an operation. A mighty spectacle, but one which has its melancholy
side, when one thinks of those men compelled to such hard nocturnal
labour, exposed to the heat of that burning lava, condemned to a life
apart from other citizens, and only coming out from the foundries in
order to go to rest, when others are awaking up. The eternal problem of
social industry—will it ever be solved?

“But here was the train, and the last joyous return to our hotel. Once
more a repast together: to-morrow the great adieu.

“Wednesday morning, the 27th August, the friends who remained
re-assembled once more for conversation in the drawing-room of the Hotel
de Suède. The conversation took that tender and serious tone which often
precedes the hour of parting. Each one traced back the thread of his or
her memories, and recounted the events or circumstances which brought
them first in contact with the great idea which unites us. Strange
coincidences some of them appeared to be. ‘The chances of life’ one
said. ‘Perhaps something more than that,’ said another. Yes! there is
something here more than chance.

“That same day the trains for Paris, for Antwerp, for Cologne, and for
Calais carried away the last of our band. A farewell grasp of the hand,
a parting smile, a bouquet of flowers presented, and then all is said.

“Each one drove away towards his destination, and to the encounter with
new duties.

“And now, little town of Belgium, sitting on the banks of the Meuse,
surrounded with green hills, let me take one parting look at you! We
have only known you a few days and now you live in our memories a
luminous point in the past. Many of us arrived within your walls
strangers to each other, and have parted friends; some arrived
sorrowful, discouraged, asking what will be the end of all this? They
return peaceful, and fortified with the conviction that work is
happiness, and conflict a duty.

                     “_Manet alta mente repostum._”

M. Lecour, the well-known chief of the Morals’ Police in Paris, had been
advised in 1878 to retire from his post, and was appointed chief
_marguillier_ (bell-ringer) of Notre Dame.

On the 23rd and 24th January, 1879, the editor of the _Lanterne_ was
prosecuted by the Government for a series of letters published in that
paper containing charges against the administration of the police,
including the Police des Mœurs. The editor was condemned to three
months’ imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 francs.

The disclosures made at the trial of the _Lanterne_ induced M. Gigot,
the Prefect of Police, to beg M. Marcère, the Minister of the Interior,
to appoint a Commission of Inquiry.

M. Naudin, M. Lecour’s successor, was heard before this Commission on
the 7th April. Nothing could be more shallow than his deposition; a
_rechauffé_ of administrative phrases, uttered with an air of
conviction, as if they were novel truths. His evidence was to the effect
that “all the officials hitherto employed at the Prefecture had but one
idea—to maintain appearances; avoid mistakes in arrests; exercise the
greatest prudence in the most delicate functions; and, above all,
prevent public scandal, and maintain the secrecy of their operations.”

The Commission had arranged with the new Prefect of Police, M. Andrieux,
to hear his deposition. They met and waited some hours, to be told
afterwards that he had forgotten his appointment. A fresh appointment
was made, when the Prefect again insulted the Commission in the same
manner.

Soon after the celebrated articles published by the _Lanterne_ (M. Yves
Guyot), under the signature of a “Vieux Petit Employé,” were resumed,
and they pointed out that the greater number of the officials who were
implicated in the atrocities brought to light at the trial of the
_Lanterne_ were still in office, while those of their subordinates who
had dared to speak the truth had been summarily dismissed the service
without compensation.

The Appeal which had been made in the case of the _Lanterne_ was
decided, and that courageous journal was again condemned by French law,
and victoriously absolved and applauded by French public opinion.

The damning evidence brought against the Prefecture of Police had caused
the retirement of M. Gigot, the chief members of his staff, and later,
of the Minister of the Interior, M. Marcère. In more than one country,
the light which our crusade threw upon men and deeds caused many a man
in office to disappear, to melt away out of sight. The new Prefect
continued to countenance the same abuses, and the _Lanterne_ continued
its public censure of them. M. Andrieux then calumniated that journal in
his place in the Assembly, declaring it to be the centre of a
Bonapartist plot, of which the “Ex-Agent des Mœurs,” “The Vieux Petit
Employé,” and the “Médécin,” were the leaders.




                               CHAPTER X

                “What though the cast-out spirit tear
                      The Nation in his going,
                We who have shared the guilt must share
                  The pang of his o’erthrowing;
                        Whate’er the loss,
                        Whate’er the cross,
                  Shall they complain of present pain
                  Who trust in God’s hereafter?”


It was in the year 1880 that we first began to see that we were
approaching a turning in the long road which we had traversed for ten
years, and were facing towards victory, the victory which we had always,
even in the darkest hours, believed we should one day see. I have
described in a former chapter the chill which fell upon our hopes for a
time in the year 1874, when the General Election of that year resulted
in the return of a reactionary or indifferent Parliament from which we
had little to hope for our cause. The seven years’ existence of that
Parliament having expired, and our principles having meanwhile gained
ground, through our unceasing efforts, in the public mind, the new
Parliament of 1880 was hailed by the Abolitionists with a hope which was
not destined to be deceived, although there were yet five years more to
run before we saw the virtual demolition of the hated tyranny against
which we had so long made war, and six years before the seal was put
upon its legal abolition by Queen Victoria’s signature to its death
warrant, given on the 13th of April, 1886.

Younger workers in other parts of the world may, we hope, be encouraged
and fortified in present or future conflicts against injustice, by a
knowledge of our seventeen years of labour, crowned at last by complete
success. A first or a second defeat sometimes causes a sense of dismay
in the minds of those who have had as yet a limited experience in such
warfare. Such may perhaps take courage by looking into the deeper
meaning of our long struggle. Had our victory been more quickly or more
easily won, it would not have been a solid or durable victory. An early
success based on a partial awakening of the public conscience would have
left us an easy prey to renewed designs for the reestablishment of the
evil system, based on the old corrupt traditions. God, in His
providence, had a far deeper and wider work in view than we had any
conception of when we first arose at His call to oppose an unjust Act of
Parliament. His purpose embraced also our own education, the education
of those who were called to the front, and for whom a prolonged and
stern training was needful to enable them to “endure hardness,” and to
become worthy representatives of the truth which was to be handed on by
them to the people of other lands and to their own descendants. He
brought them through all the trials and vicissitudes which were needful
for the strengthening of their faith, the maturing of their judgment and
the perfecting of their patience.

A Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry on the subject of the
vice-regulating Acts have been appointed by the late Government. Its
proceedings were necessarily closed by the dissolution of the Parliament
which had appointed it. Its Report was printed, which contained a
recommendation of the appointment of another and similar Committee by
the New Parliament, with the same objects in view, _i.e._, to take
evidence on the subject from all sides. This new Committee was
appointed, and some of our best friends and leaders were elected members
of it. The scope of the inquiries and examinations made by it was of a
much wider and more comprehensive character than that of any former
parliamentary inquiry on this subject.

It was in January of this year, 1880, that a deep impression began to be
made on our English public by the revelations coming to us from time to
time of the extent and cruelty of the white slave traffic between our
own country and several Continental cities, more especially Brussels,
Antwerp, and other towns of Northern Europe.

I cannot and need not here undertake to give at length the story of the
noble and self-denying enterprise of Alfred Dyer and his friend George
Gillett. Their work has already been described in a brochure[15]
published by the Abolitionist Committee of the City of London, under the
auspices of the late Chamberlain, Mr. Benjamin Scott. The two men who
undertook this difficult and heroic research were members of the Society
of Friends, men of the highest character; and it may be imagined what
such men had to suffer for their boldness in entering personally the
Belgian prison houses of cruelty and shame, with the design of rescuing
young English girls who had been betrayed by the merchants of vice, and
sold to these institutions. They not only risked their lives through the
violence and rage of the keepers of these slave dens, but bore to be
ridiculed, traduced and slandered on account of their action, by persons
in high position whose own lives and theories of life were a constant
denial of the possibility of virtue in man. I realised some of the
outward and tangible results of this courageous action (considered
independently of its far deeper moral effects) eleven months later, when
I received, at midnight, on the 15th of December, the following
telegraphic message from Mr. Alexis Splingard, an advocate of Brussels,
written on leaving the Court in that City, where a number of the
_Tenanciers_ and Slave-traders of Brussels had been tried. “All
condemned, Regnier to three years of prison, Roger two, Parent
twenty-two months, Landre eighteen months, Perpéte eighteen, Andronnet
eighteen, Mayer ten; five others to different terms of penal servitude.”
I sent this telegram the next morning to my sister in Naples,
accompanied by the following words, in a letter which she returned with
others to me: “This news will strike incredulous people perhaps a little
as corroborative of our statements concerning the cruelty and guilt of
these men, statements which, in my own case, my friends sometimes think
to be coloured by my sympathy for the victims. We are thankful to know
that some of these prison doors are now opened, and some of the slaves
set free; but alas! for the thousands who are gone, dead, murdered, who
found no deliverer!”

“Sometimes I feel like Dante, who fell prone ‘as one dead’ on witnessing
inexpressible human woe. I do not find in ordinary evangelic teaching
anything which meets this mystery of wrong and pain, this woe of the
murdered innocents, (for indeed many are innocent, mere children, having
no choice, but thrust violently into hell). But God is above all human
teachings. If _He_ would reveal Himself more clearly to me, I feel sure
I should be stronger to act. Religious teachers never lead us to hope
that God makes up hereafter to these outraged creatures of His for all
they have endured, _unless_ they have gone through a proper repentance
here below. Some day I believe He will tell me Himself what He has done,
and is doing for them. The winter is long and dark; but summer will
come, and will bring more light.”


One of the most important meetings which had been held upon our subject
in France was held in the Salle Lévis, Paris, in April of this year. The
room was crowded to excess. The following report was written by one of
the principal assistants:—“The chair was taken by Dr. Thulié, a former
president of the Municipal Council, who, in an extremely eloquent
address, explained the aim and action of the Federation, of which the
existing French Association regarded itself as a section, and showed the
immorality and utter uselessness of the Police des Mœurs.

“‘These English women,’ he said, ‘are the apostles of this great cause;
they have the virtue, the self-abnegation, and the daring of apostles.
Now, for the first time, woman comes forward to plead her own cause,
instead of awaiting the _bon plaisir_ of man. She has a right to life;
she has therefore a right to liberty. If it should be attempted ever to
apply to men the cruel and exceptional measures that are applied to
women, all the world would cry out. For one act of self-abandonment to
evil, you impose upon a woman a whole existence of torture, while you
leave man irresponsible for his libertinage. We must begin by replacing
woman under the protection of the Common Law, and thus restoring her to
her true dignity.’

“Professor Stuart spoke shortly and ironically against the Police des
Mœurs, and the stupidity, uselessness, and false pretences of those who
were always ‘going to stamp out the disease,’ but who, during the
hundred years that they had been going to do so, had never yet so much
as begun to succeed.

“Mr. Benjamin Scott said that he had been commissioned by the City
Committee to congratulate them on their having obtained the right of
public meeting; but he regretted to find the congratulation was somewhat
premature, the admission to the present meeting having been, he found,
limited to those bearing tickets. He hoped, however, that this great
right would soon be theirs; liberty of the press and liberty of speech
were as the air we breathe; without it we die.

“Mrs. Butler followed. Her speech was thus described in _La France_:
‘_It was a prayer_, an urgent appeal, to this popular audience so
accessible to generous emotion.’ ‘M. Lecour argued with me,’ said she,
‘that as the regulation of vice was established by law in England, and
we English have so much respect for the law, we were bound to respect
this law. M. Lecour spoke in profound ignorance. It is because we
respect the law that we desire to have our laws worthy of respect. This
law is not worthy of respect—it will be abolished.’

“M. Yves Guyot followed. He concluded by moving the following resolution
based on the principles of the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man.’ It
was carried by acclamation, the audience rising to their feet.

“‘Considering that the principles of 1779 form the basis of our Common
Law:

“‘That the proclamation of the rights of man applies equally to the
rights of woman:

“‘That article 1 of that proclamation declares all citizens equal before
the law:

“‘That article 5 declares that no action that is not forbidden by the
law shall be interfered with officially:

“‘That article 7 declares that the law shall be equal for all, whether
it protect or punish:

“‘That the same article 7 declares that no one shall be accused,
arrested, or imprisoned, save in such cases as are specified by the law,
and according to the forms prescribed by the law:

“‘That those who solicit, facilitate, execute, or cause to be executed
any arbitrary act, are liable to punishment:

“‘That the creation of all or any exceptional laws being contrary to the
principles of the Common Law, it is _a fortiori_ impossible to tolerate
those police regulations which are in flagrant violation thereof:

“‘That the Common Law is sufficient to repress all violations of public
morality or order:

“‘This meeting, approving the objects of the Association for the
Abolition of Regulated Prostitution, requests the representatives of the
people, Municipal Councillors, Deputies, and Senators, to put an end as
speedily as possible to the system known as the Police des Mœurs, a
system illegal in its origin, arbitrary in its application, and immoral
in its effects.’”

“This resolution was voted with an enthusiasm, which sufficiently proves
that the abolition of the Police des Mœurs interests a large portion of
the honest and industrial population of Paris.

“The Prefecture of Police comprehends this, and attaches the greatest
importance to the meeting of yesterday, they having sent to it a
considerable number of their agents. Lurking behind a pillar was the
_sous-chef_ of the Police des Mœurs, Remise, taking notes and listening
with an impatience he could not dissemble. A certain number of his
agents were in attendance.

“The Chief of the first brigade of the detectives had sent the Inspector
Guyot de Lencleuse, who M. Brissaud had formerly charged with the
surveillance of the _Lanterne_. The second brigade of detectives was
represented by the Seigneur Antonny, who took more than twenty pages of
notes. There were other police officers of lower grade scattered over
the room. If M. Andrieux did not obtain the most completely detailed and
faithful accounts of the meeting, he had, nevertheless, taken all the
precautions for that purpose.”


The distinguishing event of this year was our second great International
Congress, which was held in Genoa at the end of September. In August the
Hon. Depretis, Italian Minister of the Interior, issued from Rome a
Circular to all the Prefects of the Kingdom, requiring them promptly to
“send in their observations as to the results of the provisional
regulations now in operation, in order that they may be considered in
the compilation of the permanent regulations.” So, “a month before
representatives of the civilized world,” said one of the Journals of
Rome, are to assemble in Congress to prove by facts that every form of
Governmental regulation of vice is noxious, the Hon. Depretis proposes
suddenly to enforce a new regulation in Italy by a simple royal decree.

The _Dovere_ of Rome published the following eloquent defiance addressed
to the Minister:—“From the 27th of September to the 4th of October next
a Congress will be held at Genoa to discuss the principles of the
Federation. You, sir, hold in your hands and at your orders the
countless phalanx of those interested in the revolting system of
officially regulated and patented vice. Despatch all those persons to
Genoa at that epoch, bid them take part in the Congress, and bid them
defend the system which you are still striving to uphold. Let them
advocate your cause, and to them will make answer those men and women of
conscience and of science who have sacrificed time, thought and labour
to this great question. The conscience of the people will decide between
the two, and, be assured, that to the decisions of that conscience you,
whether you will or no, will have to bow down sooner or later.”

The _Liberta_ of Genoa and the _Nazione_ of Florence had articles or
addresses to the Minister in the same spirit.

A delegate to that Congress wrote to friends in England as follows:—

“It would be impossible to give you within the scanty limits of a letter
any adequate idea of the really imposing character and the splendid
success of the second Congress of the Federation. Full details will be
furnished later, which will afford you the means of publishing matter of
deep interest to our friends in England. There can be no doubt that a
great step in advance has been made, and that a real international
progress must have taken place in public opinion before so unanimous a
declaration of principles could be formulated—one might almost say
without discussion—inasmuch as the complete accordance of principles
which existed among the delegates from Associations and Committees of so
many distinct nationalities was evident at the first great public
meeting—and not merely in the Executive Committee and the Conseil
Général. The formal public declaration of those principles at the
popular meeting in the vast Hall of the Carlo Felice Theatre, was voted
over again by acclamation by the people. The Federation found itself in
a city of friends and believers in their principles. It was unnecessary
to argue those principles out in detail. The various orators who
ascended the tribune in turn were greeted by the Genoese as old and
tried friends, whose services they were met together, not to discuss,
but to approve. It was almost confusing to those who had gone to the
meeting prepared to prove their case to find it already understood and
judged by a public as intelligent as it was enthusiastic.

“You are probably aware that the Syndic and Municipality of Genoa had
already freely granted the use of the huge Opera House to the Italian
Committee of reception, and that the Syndic himself was among the first
to inscribe his name among the Genoese adherents to our principles.

“The various _ordres du jour_ will give you a general idea of the course
of the proceedings on each day, but I have only time to tell you now of
the winding-up. The Government appears to have become alarmed at the
vast concourse of people from all parts of Italy that had signified
their intention of thronging the theatre on the last morning. Delegates
from the Working Men’s Associations of all the towns of Italy were to
arrive and join the Working Class Associations of Genoa in procession
with their various flags and bands of music, and the Prefect at the last
moment forbade the opening of the vast theatre of the Opera House to the
public. It soon appeared that this was an injudicious act on the part of
the Prefect; for the demonstration was far grander in consequence. The
Hall of the Carlo Felice Theatre opens upon an enormous stone balcony,
the whole length of the building, which looks upon the largest square in
Genoa. To that square the crowd proceeded, in perfect order, each
Association arriving in turn, with flags flying and trumpets sounding,
and ranged themselves in a compact mass underneath, awaiting the public
announcement of the final Resolutions of the Congress. All the members
of the Federation went out in a body on to the long stone balcony; a
platform was hastily improvised for Professor Bovio, Deputy of the
Italian Parliament, whose magnificent voice could be heard from one end
to the other of the immense piazza, and absolute silence was maintained
while he read, one by one, to the people, the Resolutions which had just
been voted in the Hall within. Each Resolution in turn was voted by
acclamation by the multitude with deafening cheers, which ceased as if
by magic when he again held up the paper in his hand as a sign that he
was about to read again.

“He then addressed a few stirring words to the people, and on his
retiring, Signor Brusco Onnis—the oldest living friend of Mazzini—was
called for. He is a great favourite with the people, whom he has done
much to educate in the principles of true equality and morality. Mr. and
Mrs. Butler took the opportunity of going down among the people during
Signor Brusco’s speech, and on their return reported that so perfect was
the silence and order maintained that every word he uttered was
distinctly audible to the furthest extremity of the immense square. A
business meeting of Delegates was held on the morning of the 4th, and a
friendly banquet of the Foreign Delegates, the Commissariat and the
Members of the Italian Committee took place on the evening of that day
in the Restaurant of the Café Roma, a pleasant conclusion to a week’s
work which will not soon be forgotten by those who had the privilege of
sharing in it.”

Our President at this Congress was Signor Aurelio Saffi, who had been
associated with Mazzini and Armellini, the Triumvirate who governed in
Rome for a short time after the Revolution.

His presidential address was very eloquent, philosophical, and closely
argued, its colouring here and there heightened by flashes of personal
recollections of the years of exile he had spent in England, and by
touches of deep emotion. Among his closing words were the following:
“Let us arise, let us arise, with the courage that wins every battle
against this doctrine (of the necessity of vice), the accomplice of
tyranny, and against the guilty policy of those Governments who have
made use of it to legalise their false authority. Let us arise, in the
name of humanity, to protest against such abominations as those which we
have recently seen to be sanctioned by the vice-protecting laws of
Belgium, which permit base wretches to corrupt innocent, betrayed
children. Let us not permit the power of truth and the sense of right,
the fire of Prometheus, to be extinguished in the soul at the bidding of
the high priests of vice and the pontiffs of tyranny. Let us fight
against them to the death. The protest of a single victim of the guilt
and selfishness of the whole world has, in the end, more influence on
the course of human affairs than all the crimes—armed and decorated
though they be—which outrage and crush all that is immortal and sacred
in the human being.”

Several recollections of those bright days in Genoa stand out in my
memory with a vividness of which, perhaps, they may not seem quite
worthy, when compared with the great and serious work done at that
Congress. The weather was brilliant; the beautiful city was bathed in
unbroken sunshine; and the hearty welcome given to us by our Italian
friends was cheering and grateful beyond words. Numbers of the poor
industrious Ligurian working people, as well as some of the sunburnt
seamen and captains of merchant ships lying in the harbour, managed to
find time now and again to attend our meetings, following with
intelligent interest all that was said.

I recall the devotional meetings, morning after morning, in the Church
of the Scottish Minister, a warm friend, and the words of encouragement
and inspiration spoken there by my husband and M. George Appia, of
Paris.

The brilliant appearance of the city was enhanced by the enthusiasm
aroused by the fact that Garibaldi was then staying at his daughter’s
house in Genoa. He invited the leading members of the Congress to pay
him a visit there, as he was then failing very much in health, and
unable to move without the help of his faithful servant, a tall, dark
Nubian. He received us in his room, with some of his children around
him, and spoke to us cheering words concerning the ultimate triumph of
our cause, which was the cause of truth and justice. It was his habit to
take a daily drive, reclining in a large easy carriage. One day he
passed thus along the Acqua Sola, and down the Via Nuova. The streets
were a living mass of human beings, every window filled, and even the
housetops covered with people, eager to see and greet the old hero. On
this occasion his carriage stopped for a moment in front of the Hotel
Isotta, where some of the English members of the Federation were
staying. One of my sons, who was at the window of our salon, said to me,
“I think he is asking for you, mother.” I went to the window, and
Garibaldi, looking up and smiling, raised his poor crippled right hand
with a movement of salutation. He was disabled in almost every limb by
rheumatism.

On returning one evening from one of our sessions, we found around the
door of the Hotel Isotta a group of women of humble rank, some with
babies in their arms. The Master of the Hotel said that this was a
deputation, which had waited for more than an hour to see me. He bade
them enter the hall, where these poor women presented to me a formal and
neatly written petition, evidently prepared with extreme care, and
slightly ornamented. This was a respectfully worded request that I
would, before leaving Genoa, come and address them in their own
“People’s Hall.”

Wishing to know more particularly the object of the request, I asked
them if they desired that I should speak to them on the subjects which
were before the Congress. [Some of them had been at our meetings, and
had caught some words of sympathy concerning the wrongs of the daughters
of the poor.] One of them came forward, and speaking for the deputation,
replied: “We beg, Signora, that you will come and speak to us of the
_Man of Nazareth_.” “Of Christ our Saviour?” I asked. “The same,” they
said, bowing their heads. There was a patient, grave self-restraint, and
a look of trouble in those poor faces which went to my heart. It was not
in me to resist such an appeal, and I said I would come. Some evenings
later two workmen came to conduct me, the Countess de Precorbin and
Signora Schiff, of Milan, to their Hall. I find a letter, in which I
wrote of that meeting as follows:—“It was an excellent meeting, and in a
certain sense more practical than any of the others. Though I had been
invited to address women, when we arrived we found a number of men also
gathered round the door. One of the women said, ‘Many of our brothers,
husbands, and sons are waiting outside, and are very desirous to be
allowed to enter with us to hear your words.’ Too gladly did we welcome
them; I always prefer mixed meetings; and among the working people,
separate meetings are never asked for, nor desired. The audience
understood perfectly the question dealt with by the Federation. There
was no need for us to point out to them the cruel injustice and shame of
the vice regulations. They knew all that only too well; and in a
conversation with a group of them afterwards, we felt that many a story
of wrong and woe lay behind the quiet tears that were shed. I did not
forget their special request, and took as the basis of my address
several incidents in the life of Jesus, in which he especially showed
himself as the great Emancipator, the friend of womanhood, and of the
poor and the weak; the only absolutely Just One, the Saviour of all. The
faces of the poor women evidenced deep but quiet emotion. At the close
they all, men and women, crowded up to the platform to pour out their
pennies on the table. There was quite a little mountain of pennies, and
of little soiled papers of _Una Lira_. This was a contribution towards
our Federation work. I often observe how much more readily in general a
poor audience offers a contribution than a richer or higher class
audience. I was much touched by it. They then wrote out and passed
unanimously a resolution of adhesion to the principles of the
Federation, which was signed, later, by the whole assembly.”

I must not omit to record that the whole of the Catholic Press of Rome,
and almost of Italy, wrote that week in support of our cause.

The imposing and affecting demonstration of sympathy given by the
concourse of representatives of Operative Societies from every part of
Italy was one of the most striking features of the Genoa Congress. This
result was mainly due to the missionary efforts of Giuseppe Nathan, and
to the confidence in and love for him which prevailed among the people
of his country. He wore himself out in the cause; his whole heart and
soul were in it. He died only a few months after the Congress of Genoa.
He had been already suffering and weak before the Congress. We had
written from England to his mother, Signora Sarina Nathan of Rome, to
ask her to use her influence with him to persuade him to take greater
care of himself. Her reply was worthy of a true Roman matron of the old
times: “The cause comes first,” she said, “my son’s life second.” She
did not long survive that beloved and revered son.

And now we are still waiting to see this yoke of legalized vice removed
from the necks of the people of that beautiful country. They have been
deceived again and again by promised or partial reforms. In some parts
of their country the system is falling to pieces through its own
corruption. But the victory is not yet. Revived energies and a leader
are wanted. Poor Italy! when troubled about her I recall the words of
Dr. Commandi of Florence, who, after speaking of her poverty, her
weakness and her many difficulties, said, “But we know that our God will
have the last word, and that word will be _Salvation_.”

I must turn to a darker page in my memory of this year’s events.

On the 1st May, 1880, I published in England a statement which was
afterwards reproduced in French, Belgian, and Italian Journals, in which
occurred the following words:—“In certain of the infamous houses in
Brussels there are immured little children, English girls of from ten to
fourteen years of age, who have been stolen, kidnapped, betrayed,
carried off from English country villages by every artifice, and sold to
these human shambles. The presence of these children is unknown to the
ordinary visitors; it is secretly known only to the wealthy men who are
able to pay large sums of money for the sacrifice of these innocents.”
There followed a recital of incidents which had been sworn to by
witnesses, but which I need not repeat. I concluded with the words: “A
malediction rests on those cities where such crimes are known and not
avenged.”

Much indignation was felt by certain persons, and especially by some of
the chiefs of the police in London and Belgium, at the audacity of these
assertions. Many of my friends cautioned me not to publish such
statements, declaring that all sensible persons would say that the
writer of them was mad. I persisted, however, in giving them publicity.

In the autumn after the appearance of these statements, M. Levy, a “Juge
d’instruction” of Brussels, instigated probably by the police of that
city, challenged me to prove a single case in Brussels of outraged
childhood in any house of the kind referred to. This challenge was sent
through the “Procureur-Général” to our Home Secretary, Sir William
Harcourt, and took the form of a demand that I should be required, under
the Extradition Act, to make a “deposition on oath” before a magistrate.
There was considerable hesitation amongst my friends as to whether I
ought to accept this challenge or not, as the legality of the demand
made by the Belgian authorities was questionable. I quote the following
from a letter written to my sister in Naples: “We are still in suspense
about this affair. There is a doubt as to whether I should submit to the
Home Secretary’s demand, and answer all the questions, or whether I
should refuse to answer, and so incur the full legal penalty. On
Saturday last my husband, travelling to Oxford, met in the train Mr.
Stamford Raffles, the stipendiary magistrate before whom I should have
to make my affidavit. Mr. Raffles appeared very nervous about having to
take my statement. I was not well that evening, and retired to rest
early; but I was not allowed to be quiet very long, for before 5 o’clock
in the morning I was awakened by a loud knocking at our front door. It
was a confidential messenger from the Chamberlain of London. He said he
had travelled down from London through the night with a sealed packet,
containing a message for me, which it was not desirable to trust to the
post, and which was to be delivered as quickly as possible. It was quite
dark. I lighted my candle to see to read the letter, and Jane made a
fire downstairs and prepared some tea, etc., for the messenger, who was
shivering with cold. He was to return to London again by the first
train. I felt a little confused in the cold and dark morning, reading a
mysterious letter from the Guildhall, which contained also a telegram in
cypher from Brussels, warning me that there was some trap being laid for
us, and probably some collusion between the police of London and that of
Belgium. I do not think that this latter is the fact, but I suspect that
certain enraged Belgian authorities have prompted this arbitrary act on
the part of the Home Office with a malicious purpose, and also, no
doubt, in the desire to clear themselves from the charges of the crimes
which we have imputed to them, and with which I mean to continue to
charge them. I am sure that neither at our Home Office nor at Scotland
Yard, shall I or our cause meet with sympathy. This early-morning
letter, which enclosed several communications from friends in Brussels,
implored me to refuse to give evidence, adding, ‘it would, if you
declined, be worth everything to the cause for you to suffer the full
legal penalty of refusing to answer. This would arouse the public as
nothing else could.’ I appreciate this point of view, but on the other
hand, if I refuse, the Belgians and our opponents elsewhere would
naturally say it was because I had no positive charges to make against
them. Moreover, I am longing to make known in the most public way, those
terrible cases. We wish these iniquities to be known. It has been said
to me several times, ‘You may be prosecuted for libel,’ but my Counsel
says, ‘Who are the persons who would prosecute? Not the keepers of these
houses or their clients. Perhaps the Procureur du Roi on their behalf,
but would he dare to do it? I scarcely think he would.’

“Such days as these must come, we know, sooner or later, for us or our
successors, and it is not for us to draw back. M. Humbert writes to me
beautifully as follows:—‘The father of lies will employ all his strategy
in order to parry the blows of your denunciation. I am persuaded that at
Brussels the police have strict orders to cause all the proofs
(including persons) to disappear which could afford justification of
your statements, and those of Mr. Dyer. In the face of all, advance
courageously, even into the jaws of the dragon if need be, and even if
the monster is concealing himself in the sacred precincts of the Hotel
de Ville or the Palais de Justice. It was inevitable that this phase in
our history should arrive. Primitive Christianity itself needed, in
order to become known, that its adherents should be dragged into the
Judgment Hall and before the Tribunals.’

“Mr. Scott had received a carefully sealed letter from a friend in
Brussels; who wrote, ‘Do you know that you are walking into the jaws of
hell?’ Mr. Scott answered, ‘I know it. How is it possible but that hell
should be moved to its depths, now that its right to swallow up its
thousands of yearly victims is questioned?’

“M. Bosch, a good man and honourable magistrate in Brussels, said to our
colleague, Pasteur Anet, ‘Oh, take care what you do, especially in the
matter of the children found in these houses. You know not the depths
and bitterness of the infernal hatred you are rousing against
yourselves.’ This is true, but then the cry of the children is sounding
in our ears, and also those words, ‘Take heed that ye offend not one of
these little ones.’

“The words of the 94th Psalm come often to my mind:—‘They slay the widow
and the stranger; they murder the fatherless; yet they say, the Lord
shall not see it.’ And also the tenth chapter of Isaiah:—‘Woe unto them
that decree unrighteous decrees, and write grievousness which they have
prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the
right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey, and
that they may rob the fatherless.’ When half awake at night, I feel
anxious and sad; and sometimes I am impelled to get up, in spite of the
cold, to arouse myself, and kneel and pray; and then sometimes a great
calm takes the place of the waves of troubled thought, for I see clearly
that God is working, and that we are only like little flies, so very
small, though His instruments, in the midst of the great events which
may be about to be evolved.

“I am writing to try and encourage Mme. Splingard; her son Alexis has
been with us, and has returned to Brussels. His life has been
threatened, and he might one day be a victim to malice.”

I made my deposition in the month of November, in the Room of the Chief
Magistrate. There were present, besides my husband, half a dozen of the
most solid and honourable citizens of Liverpool, who were deeply
interested in the whole matter, my Counsel, Dr. Commins, and a reporter.
My deposition was forwarded to Sir William Harcourt, and by him to the
Procureur du Roi, at Brussels. _From that time forward there were no
more attempts to deny the charges I had made._ The proofs of everything
I had said were too strong to be set aside, while Mr. Dyer’s action, and
the facts cited in my deposition, produced results in Belgium for which
all the friends of Justice were thankful.

Besides the facts which I stated on oath, others had been published in
Belgium, in spite of efforts to hush them up; among them was the
following:—

“On the 19th January last, two persons, Constance Delvaux and Catherine
Reniers, were brought before the Correctional Tribunal of Brussels,
charged with the offences indicated in the following narrative:—Madame
P——, of an honourable family of Brussels, had placed her little daughter
at a school in that city. She was accustomed to call for her child at
the end of the week, and to take her home to spend the Sunday with her.
On a certain Saturday she called as usual, and on asking if her daughter
was ready, she was met by a look of astonishment from the ladies at the
head of the establishment, who replied, ‘But, madam, you sent for your
daughter some days ago, and she went to you, accompanied by your
messenger.’ It transpired that a woman had called, bearing a letter,
apparently signed by Madame P——, saying that owing to special
circumstances she wished to have her daughter at home that week, and
had, therefore, sent a servant to bring her. This letter was a forgery.
It was proved in the trial that the Baron de Mesnil Herman, of the rue
des Arts, No. 17 (why should I spare him the publicity he deserves, and
had attained?), of forty-three years of age, had somewhere set his
adulterous eyes upon this child, and that he had engaged the women above
named to bring her to him. The child was taken to the notorious Café
Riche, a place of assignation much resorted to by gentlemen of high
society, councillors, diplomatists, military officers, etc. Therèse
Daubremist, called as witness, said that Constance Delvaux had asked her
to write the fraudulent letter; ‘I thought she was the child’s mother; I
wrote the letter.’ Constance Delvaux replied, ‘I caused the letter to be
written in order to oblige the Baron de Mesnil.’ Catherine Reniers
stated, ‘I had gone previously to the school to ask for the young girl,
but the directress required that a letter should be brought to her from
Madame P——. It is so natural that we should wish to oblige Monsieur le
Baron de Mesnil.’ The Public Prosecutor commented on the depth of
immorality revealed by the conduct of the two women, and demanded a
severe application of the law. The two women were condemned to seven
months of prison. _The Baron de Mesnil was not even summoned as a
witness at the trial?_ The poor child, after having been introduced to
‘indescribable scenes’ at the Café Riche, was sent with one of the women
above named to Aix-la-Chapelle. Her mother went immediately in pursuit
of her (this lady is a widow), but her child had been hastily removed
thence to some other city, and no trace of her could be discovered.
Silence on the subject was for a long time maintained by the press, on
account of the high position of the Baron de Mesnil. Then there came a
rumour of the young girl having been found in Paris, whence, it was
said, ‘the police will return her to her native land.’” Return her! but
in what condition? I republished this story in an appeal to the mothers
of England, in which I said :—“Reflect what it would be to you, to have
one of your pure and tenderly cherished darlings returned to you, after
having been forced to witness and take part in such unspeakable
horrors—ruined in body and mind, the poor young brain never more able to
get rid of the spot blacker than death, which no tears from the heart,
nor even a mother’s love, can efface! Reading these things, you will not
be among those who blame me for ‘wounding the susceptibilities’ of
persons in high office, perverted judges, luxurious livers, who condone
and even take part in such horrors. If we mothers were to hold our peace
the very stones would cry out.”

Similar revelations of this kind began to come to us from France and
other countries. I wrote to my sister:—“The present time resembles an
era of incendiarism, in which fires are breaking out with lurid light on
all sides, north and south, east and west. We have scarcely taken breath
after hearing of one tragedy before the post brings us tidings of
another. It is well it is so. For long years past the slaughter of the
innocents has been going on. We knew it not, or only had a partial
knowledge of it. Now we know, and before God we are responsible for that
terrible knowledge.”

From Bordeaux, in France, there came to us a terrible story of the two
little children Delemont. The scandal in this case was so great that
several gentlemen of high position were arrested and tried, among them
being Commandant A——, a man of advanced age, and another, a Colonel C——.
The former was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment. The latter was
acquitted, on the ground of his having fought bravely at Metz. The
Minister for War, M. Ranc, however, did not deem it a brave action to
have taken part in the destruction of a little child, and shortly
afterwards expelled him from the army. The evidence given by the
children was tragic and heart-rending. They identified the criminals at
once when they were brought before them with a number of other men. Very
awful must have been the steadily pointed finger of those innocent
victims for any culprit not wholly reprobate. These men, however, were
past shame. But a judgment day awaits them, when the pointed fingers of
the children will be worse for them than the heaviest judgment of any
earthly tribunal; for

                   “The child’s sob curseth deeper
                   Than the strong man in his wrath.”

In the late autumn, the trial to which I have before alluded took place,
resulting in the condemnation of large numbers of the slave-dealers and
slave-owners of these modern times. The evidence brought against them
was of the most awful kind, showing that the exaggeration with which we
were sometimes charged had had no existence; and, in fact, no words
could have been strong enough in which to describe or denounce the
atrocities perpetrated in these bastilles of shameless vice. One young
girl, having escaped from one of these houses in Brussels, came to us,
and was a refugee in our house for some time. She was taken with another
English girl to Brussels, under the kind care of Mrs. Steward, to be
witnesses against their tormentors. I was not present at those trials,
but was told that they gave their evidence with firmness, and sometimes
with an indignant _brusquerie_ which was not unbecoming. These events
certainly had a purifying effect for a time on the moral atmosphere of
Brussels, and the publication of the sentences pronounced on the
culprits conveyed a kind of electric shock throughout the infamous world
of slave-dealers, both in Belgium and other countries, which we believe,
for a time at least, to have materially lessened the evil.

The Public Prosecutor wrote kindly concerning our poor young English
witnesses, saying that Pasteur Anet and Mrs. Steward would have
permission to sit by their side in the Court. One of these girls, on
returning to my house, told me that the brutal creature Roger,
afterwards imprisoned, meeting her in a passage of the Court, fell on
his knees before her to beseech her not to give evidence concerning his
violent treatment of English girls, of which she had been both a witness
and a victim.

Another of the poor refugees helped by Pastor Anet to escape from
Brussels came to our house in Liverpool. She appeared to be in pain, and
on being questioned she replied that she was suffering from unhealed
stripes on her back and shoulders from the lash of this tyrant. I called
in our physician, Dr. William Carter, of Rodney Street, Liverpool, to
certify to the truth of her declaration; and, in very deed, we found the
livid marks of the stripes of which she had spoken. We seemed to stand
before a victim of some cruel overseer of slaves in the cotton
plantations of one of the Southern States of America in the past times.
I drew from her, when alone, the story of her martyrdom. The keeper of
this house in Brussels, enraged with her because of her persistent
refusal to participate in some exceptionally base proceedings among his
clients, had her carried to an underground chamber whence her cries
could not be heard. She was here immured and starved, and several times
scourged with a thong of leather. But she did not yield. This poor
delicate girl had been neglected from childhood; she was a Catholic, but
had had little or no religious teaching. She told me with much
simplicity, that in the midst of these tortures she was “all the time
strengthened and comforted by the thought that Jesus had Himself been
cruelly scourged, and that He could feel for her.” Before her capture
she had one day seen in a shop window in Brussels an engraving of Christ
before Pilate, bound and scourged. Some persons, no doubt, may
experience a little shock of horror at the idea of any connection in the
thoughts of this poor child between the supreme agony of the Son of God
and her own torments in the cellar of that house of debauchery. We often
sincerely mourn over these victims as “lost,” because _we_ cannot reach
them with any word of love or the “glad evangel.” But _He_ “descended
into hell,” into the abode of the “spirits in prison” to speak to them;
and I believe, and have had many testimonies to the fact, that He visits
spiritually these young souls in their earthly prison, many a time, He
alone, in all His majesty of pity, without any intervention of ours.

And yet we continue to mass all these victims under one great ban of
social excommunication; to treat them as a _class_, to make exceptional
rules and laws for them; and in our various police codes we continue to
call them all by the ugly name of _prostitute_, and to pile on fresh
penal clauses in order to deal with them more and more severely, in the
idea that we are “repressing vice.” The Judgment Day will reveal some
astonishing things.

At the close of the year I wrote to my sister in Naples as follows:—“I
received some weeks ago a letter from the Editor of the _National_, of
Belgium, telling me that he was summoned to give evidence before the
Commission now sitting at the Hotel de Ville on the complicity of the
police in the crimes divulged in the late trials, and asking me to send
him all the information I could, and especially, for his own use, my
deposition made before the magistrate. I sent him this, having already
sent one copy to the Bourgmestre of Brussels. I imagined he would make
use of it in some way, but not exactly as he did. He took this document
to the Hotel de Ville, read it all through before the Commission, and
next day published it entire in his paper, with all the names. I had had
it printed, you understand, simply for private or judicial use. It seems
that the editor of the _National_ is an enterprising man, and no doubt
he would like to gain some notoriety for his paper, as I have been told
he wishes to become a _Grand Seigneur de la Presse_, but in a good
cause. I dare say his motives are somewhat mixed. He gave the whole
evidence, with a fine summing-up on the principle. 60,000 copies of his
paper were sold before the evening; a second edition was called for, and
the next day 20,000 more were sold. Of course, at once his life was
threatened, pistols were levelled at him, prosecutions for libel were in
preparation, of which he is the object, as the publisher in such a case
is prosecuted and not the author of the accusations; his office was
besieged, and is still so, by people threatening him, and by a yet
greater crowd of persons pouring out their griefs and wrongs which they
have suffered through the Police des Mœurs, revealing many terrible
tragedies. For the moment this editor is a great man, and the agitation
throughout Belgium is considerable. About two-thirds of the Press of
that country, they tell me, are now warmly on our side. The _Journal de
Mons_ thanks the English for this ‘chastisement.’ All honest and decent
people are aroused, many are indignant, many more are incredulous. The
_Courrier de Bruxelles_ speaks of ‘profound emotion,’ and of ‘the
conscience of the people being aroused as by a thunderbolt.’

“You can imagine that on first hearing of this I felt a little troubled,
and as if I had been ‘given away.’ Also, persons friendly to us, such as
Lambillon, Hendrick and others, who had given us information from a good
motive, were angry at seeing their names published as having had any
knowledge whatever of these evil things; and I was pained to think of
_their_ pain.

“I was pondering all this one evening, when I suddenly recollected that
on New Year’s Day of this year, and many days after, I had taken upon me
to make a special and definite request to God for light to fall upon
these ‘dark places of the earth wherein are the habitations of cruelty.’
Some strong influence seemed to urge me to make this request. I used to
kneel and pray, ‘O God, I beseech Thee, send light upon these evil
deeds! whatever it may cost us and others, flash light into these abodes
of darkness. O send us light! for without it there can be no destruction
of the evil. We cannot make war against a hidden foe. In the darkness,
these poor sisters of ours, these creatures of Thine, are daily
murdered, and we do not know what to do, or where to turn, and we find
no way by which to begin to act. Send us light, O our God, even though
it may be terrible to bear.’ I had made a record of this petition, and
then I had forgotten it. But not so our faithful God. His memory is
better than mine! He did not forget, and He is now sending the answer to
that prayer. Then I thought of the words;—‘O fools, and slow of heart to
believe.’ Here is the very thing I had asked for, brought about in a way
I had not dreamed of.

              ‘We cannot ask the thing that is not there,’
              ‘Blaming the shallowness of our request.’

“The Journals speak of that number of the _National_ as ‘a flash of
lighting,’ and use almost the language of my own soul about it, and I
bow my head in thankfulness, seeing the hand of God in all.

“M. Humbert wrote to me in the early days of this year:—‘I begin this
year under a sense of awe; I _can but hold my pen obedient to the
dictation of incalculable events_.’ It is interesting to know that some
of these slave-owners of Brussels shut up their houses and fled on
reading the accusations in the _National_. ‘The wicked flee when no man
pursueth,’ but only the echo of a far-off woman’s voice! M. Humbert
quotes a German proverb, ‘_the dead fly fast_.’ Long-lasting corruption,
when ripe for dissolution, is not slow in suiciding. But alas! the
poison has spread far and wide. There is an infection in the presence of
deathlike corruption which even the best can scarcely escape; and we may
ask, ‘Can these bones live?—Ah, Lord God, Thou knowest.’

“I have been a little troubled by an article published in a Brussels
newspaper by an ardent young Belgian friend, who makes it seem that his
own generous, but too violent, and even fierce expressions convey my own
feelings. One cannot be too indignant or too full of scorn in such a
case, but I never in my life spoke of _physical_ force! ‘Our weapons are
not carnal, but spiritual, to the pulling down of strongholds.’
Nevertheless I can forgive people longing for pistols who have not
experienced the superior power of moral weapons. Indeed, at some moments
I do also!

“Events have followed each other rapidly. M. Lenaers, the famous Chief
of the Police des Mœurs in Brussels, and his second in office,
Schroeder, were both summoned to the Hotel de Ville, and at a secret
sitting of the _Echevins_ Schroeder was censured. These two worthies,
however, instituted a prosecution against the Editor of the _National_
for libel, on account of the statements regarding them. The Editor was
jubilant. He took no advocate, but pleaded his own cause, and accepted
the whole responsibility of his publication of my accusations. I asked
myself, ‘Will his jubilance endure if he is condemned to imprisonment,
poor man?’ We have the Catholic Press largely on our side, but our best
individual champions are not Catholics. His Majesty the King looks on!
Parliament has taken up the matter. Reuter’s telegram announced in our
_Daily News_ that “the Minister of the Interior had been questioned on
the misconduct of the Police des Mœurs.’ A short debate took place. M.
Jacob, a deputy, spoke gravely and well ‘amidst a deep and significant
silence.’ He solemnly called on the Minister to take a bold step and
dismiss certain functionaries. The Minister replied that the accusations
published in the _National_ were ‘probably a libel,’ whereupon a great
hubbub arose in all the Journals of the two following days.”

“One evening, before her departure for Brussels, Mrs. Stewart was with
us, and when we were gathering for family prayer she asked, ‘Shall we
not pray for those wretched men now in prison? What must their thoughts
be, waiting for the earthly judgment, in anticipation of the awful
judgment to come?’ My husband replied, ‘Yes, we may indeed pray for
mercy for them;’ but his heart bleeds, as mine does, for their victims.”

A Memorial concerning this traffic in child slaves had been drawn up at
the Guildhall by the City of London Committee, addressed to Lord
Granville, our Foreign Secretary at that time. The City Committee
commissioned me in October to present a similar Petition to the
Bourgmestre and Echevins of Brussels, enclosing also a copy of the
Memorial to Lord Granville. I went with these to the Hotel de Ville,
where I was courteously received. After presenting the Memorials I
ventured to request the Bourgmestre to dismiss the officials and other
persons in the room, which he did, looking a little troubled; for my
heart urged me to speak to him face to face concerning his own
reponsibility in all this matter. It proved to be rather an affecting
interview—rather terrible even. I think I trembled, and the Bourgmestre
covered his eyes with his hand. He treated me with courtesy and
gentleness.

Some time later, two or three official personages, to whom these
revelations of evil had come forcibly home, found that the state of
their health required them to visit the South of France. In one case it
was found necessary greatly to prolong this residence in the south, for
he never returned; ‘his place knew him no more.’ MM. Lenaers and
Schroeder, Chiefs of Police, were dismissed from office. But the system
of Government-patented and regulated vice _continues to exist_, and the
friends of Justice continue to work and to wait.

Looking back over the ten or eleven years of our crusade, and observing
the admirable organisations which had arisen in that time, I felt
impelled to point out a danger, which often threatens the success of
vital work, though seldom recognised as a danger, namely, the tendency
to lean too much on a perfected organisation, which sometimes in itself
cramps the life within it. I sent out a circular to my friends on this
subject, in which occurred the following, which I reproduce, because the
same tendencies may arise again. “This international work of ours seems
to have entered upon a phase through which all movements of the kind are
liable to pass, and to point to the danger which there is even in the
attainment of a high and satisfactory organisation. This high
organisation is often reached at the expense of individual initiative
and independent personal effort. We are now incurring the risk of
substituting stereotyped office work for the vitality of missionary
zeal. M. Humbert lately wrote to me that he considers our propagandist
activity is at the present moment somewhat paralysed, and I think we
must ourselves confess that the individual activities of the members of
our League are not on the increase at present. Some of the prominent
members of our Central Committee are unable to give more than a small
fraction of their time to our work, being heavily charged with other
business of a public or political kind, and this necessitates to a great
degree their reliance on the regular machinery and steady work of a
bureau.

“In the winter of 1874, taking counsel only with my own heart, I
started, as you know, on a mission for our cause to the Continent. In
the summer of 1876 our two able comrades, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gledstone,
went forth to America, to stir up a spirit of watchfulness there. More
recently, Mr. Dyer and his friend undertook a difficult and hazardous
enterprise in Belgium. I cite these incidents as cases in which there
was no danger of sacrificing missionary zeal to system. These missions
and others of a similar nature have proved to be very fruitful, and I am
deeply convinced that our cause will cease to make such rapid progress
as heretofore if individual propagandism of this nature is altogether
abandoned, while we, sitting at home, or largely absorbed in other
business, leave the cause mainly to the working of office machinery, and
expect its triumph to be achieved by agencies established in London and
in Switzerland, however perfected those agencies may be, and however
skilled the agents. It is not by official machinery that we shall
conquer, though that is necessary _as a scaffolding of operations_, but
by self-sacrifice and unwearying missionary zeal, without which no great
cause was ever won. I have observed that we are sometimes even betrayed
into the error (unconsciously probably) of discouraging the initiative
of honest and humble persons who have been filled with the desire to do
something independently for the cause. Their ardour must have been
checked rather than stimulated by being directed to follow in the path
of a centralised organisation, the very existence of which tends to make
people think their own personal efforts are not required. We cannot, of
course, dispense with our valuable organisations and bureaus, but it is
quite possible at the same time to welcome the efforts of every
individual, however humble, and to stimulate independent activity on all
hands. We need missionaries in all countries. The discovery of these,
and the impulse to be given to them, must greatly depend on the
maintenance of a vigorous correspondence of an informal, personal kind,
wherever there is an opportunity for it; and when such persons are
found, a generous confidence as well as prudence may well be exercised
in the amount of encouragement given to them to go forward, even if
their plans and methods may not be wholly familiar to, or approved by
us. The essential is that they should have a clear grasp of our
principles.”




                               CONCLUSION

  “Being in the line of Duty, and realising my oneness with Omnipotence,
  I cannot possibly fail of success; for Omnipotent Love is pledged for
  the accomplishment of _that for which I trust_. The zeal of the Lord
  of Hosts shall perform it. ‘Thou shalt decree a thing,’ He hath said,
  ‘and it shall be established unto thee.’ There is no room for doubt.
  Because of the imperativeness of duty and the faithfulness of God, I
  am fully equipped with power to fulfil that duty.”


In concluding this volume of personal reminiscences, I am reminded of
the survey of the work of the decade which expired in 1880, which I was
asked by our friends to bring before them on the occasion of the Annual
Meeting of the “Ladies’ National Association” of that year. The thoughts
which rose to my mind then, come again vividly before me now. I may
fitly close this record by some extracts from that address, as follows:—


“The fact that a Select Committee of Parliament is now sitting to
inquire into the working of the system which we oppose, produces a
certain lull in the more public and demonstrative action of the
Abolitionist movement. Our question is again placed _sub judice_ by the
House of Commons, and our Parliamentary leaders consequently have their
lips closed. For five years past successively, we have had the support
of the eloquent voice and powerful arguments of Sir James Stansfeld, who
always on all occasions asserted that, amidst all his convictions, deep
and strong on this question, he had none deeper or stronger than
this—that women must continue to stand in the forefront of this battle,
and that, if they should cease to do so, the battle would be lost. Mr.
Stansfeld is now, however, a member of the Parliamentary Committee of
Inquiry, and cannot be with us here. Sir Harcourt Johnstone, our
Parliamentary leader, is in the same position, being also a member of
that Committee.

“We are this evening called once more, therefore, to plead publicly our
own cause; and this happens to be the case just at the close of a decade
of labours, as if to call us, as women, to look back and record what God
has done for us, perfecting His strength in our weakness, in these past
ten years.

“These circumstances seem to prompt us to an attitude of grave
retrospect, and of calm and deliberate preparation for the future.

“We must remember that the principal labours of a great movement do not
consist in those public demonstrations and exciting parliamentary
debates in which they culminate. Thought leads, after all, and the
intellectual battle must continue to be waged by solid argument, by
repeated assertion of principles, and by the unwearying pursuit of the
multifarious fallacies and falsehoods to which a retiring cause
inevitably betakes itself. Above all, ours is a spiritual warfare, and
the victory must be won by the deepening of our own convictions, by
increased faith in the permanence of the eternal principles of justice,
and by a more absolute trust in Him in whose cause we are engaged.

“Since our first uprising in 1869, we have been gathering around us an
increasing number of adherents of the medical profession, the breadth of
whose views has led them to take a foremost place, not only in our
crusade, but in the ranks of scientific teachers; they have set forth,
not only the true medical aspect of this question, but also its far
higher scientific aspect, in its relation to ethics and jurisprudence.

“The Society of which Elizabeth Fry was a distinguished member was, as
we might naturally expect, among the first to welcome the public action
of women in this matter; and the earliest public meetings addressed by
women on this question were held in Quaker meeting houses. I cannot
refrain from expressing my gratitude to those who, while most persons
were scandalised by women’s action in those early days of our conflict,
frankly gave me the right hand of fellowship, asking for no credentials
whatsoever, except my own assertion that the cry of the oppressed and
the voice of God within me were calling me to this work.

“It would be impossible for me, in this brief hour, to enumerate the
succession of conferences, debates, mass meetings, and stormy election
conflicts in which we have taken part during the last ten years; and my
address to you this evening is not in any sense a report of work done,
but only a most brief and imperfect survey of the rapid expansion of our
cause....

“Let me lead you on to the spring of 1874. At that date we became aware
of a vast enterprise, conceived and planned by the advocates of
regulated vice,—an enterprise which involved a world-wide scheme for
bringing under this degrading system all the nations of the earth. In
order to meet this international action, it seemed to us that we must
ourselves make an appeal to all the nations of the earth.

“A few of us—very few—met in York in June, 1874; our small number seemed
utterly incommensurate with the vastness of the scheme before us. Faith
enough was found, however, in that little band to welcome the suggestion
of one member of it that she should go whither God would send her on the
Continent of Europe.

“On the eve of her departure a company of friends assembled at
Birmingham to commend to God this mighty enterprise in its small
beginnings. The conference of that evening began by the reading of those
prophetic words—for, in fact, they proved to be prophetic—‘I will say of
the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust;’
‘He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy
ways;’ ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder’ (violence and
treachery).

“The history of that winter’s journeyings and labours is known to you,
as well as something of the subsequent progress of the work on the
Continent. This being the anniversary of the Ladies’ National
Association, I may fitly mention that women on the Continent are
faithful to the call they have received. Indeed, the hearts and
consciences of women, especially of women of the humbler classes, bear
the same witness in every land, concerning this question. At a meeting
of women lately addressed by the Baroness Stampe and the Countess Moltke
in Copenhagen, the poor women crowded up to sign their names, and pay
their little contributions as members of our great League. One, who was
very poorly clad, said, ‘If I have to sell my shawl in order to become a
member, I will do it.’ If every woman in the more favoured classes of
life were willing to make a sacrifice in proportion to this which the
poor Danish woman was ready to make, we should have a mighty force added
to our army.

“Another important feature of our progress is that of the establishment
of a branch of our work in the United States of America, to prevent the
encroachments of the Regulationists there, who are making constant
efforts to introduce this system. Every great cause is propagandist in
its spirit. Mr. H. J. Wilson and Mr. Gledstone went over as delegates
from England to America, to arouse the lovers of virtue and freedom
there. The seed they sowed has been very fruitful.

“The great event of the Geneva Congress, in the autumn of 1877, is well
known to you all. I may remark, however, that an important element in
our success has proved to be the importation into England of Continental
opinion on this subject, opinion which is the more weighty as our
Continental neighbours have had a prolonged experience of the regulation
system, which has been comparatively recently introduced here. We have
now in our hands a powerful weapon to employ for this work; I mean the
published _Actes_ of the Congress of Geneva. The conspiracy of silence
of the press has done us this service—in that it has forced us to create
a literature of our own.

“If we ask ourselves what are the results which we have gained, in the
form of the actual abolition, in any part of the world, of the
regulations against which we contend, we must confess that they are
small. But the approach of victory is signalised not so much by the
definite results which we are able to record in the shape of abolition
as by the attitude and manœuvres of our opponents, accompanied by the
progress of public opinion everywhere, on the question of morality and
of the equal application of the moral law to both sexes. The Spartan
general Brasidas, surveying the ranks of his enemies, said, ‘I see by
the shaking of their spears that the rascals are preparing to run.’ We
see as clearly by the ungraceful and eccentric dance now being performed
by our opponents that they are preparing for a forced retreat from the
position they have so long and so proudly maintained. The whole army of
Regulationists have changed their front during these past ten years,
having introduced the most extraordinary alterations in their tactics;
and, as is generally the case when a bad cause begins to fall, they are
introducing changes in the most opposite directions; on the one hand
exaggerating all their pretensions and demands, and on the other hand
making concessions, with the hope of prolonging their own existence.

“I may enumerate the concessions which have already been made to the
advancing force of public opinion in the form of committees or
commissions of special enquiry into this question: First, the Royal
Commission appointed in 1870, the report of which was contradictory and
inharmonious, resembling the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel.
Secondly, the Italian Parliamentary Committee, which sat in Rome, and
which, at the close of its inquiry, proposed some kind of compromise.
Thirdly, the Commission of the Municipal Council of Paris, now sitting.
Fourthly, the Hong Kong Commission, which reported unfavourably of the
Government establishment of vice in that colony, but gave way
practically to the urgency of medical men in maintaining an amended form
of the system. Fifthly, the Parliamentary Committee actually in session
in London.

“Through all the cycles of human history, certain crimes and cruelties
have in a great measure succeeded in hiding themselves, but now the
fierce light is bursting in upon them on every side. The horrors and
agonies of sensual sin are appearing in view. We continually receive
from all parts of Europe revelations such as men had never guessed of
before. The international slave traffic in human souls (that _necessary_
adjunct of State-organised vice) has prospered in silence and secrecy;
but _it_ also is now coming to the light; it has been and is carried on
on a larger scale and in more horrible ways than is generally suspected
or can be easily conceived.

“It is possible, even probable, that the most anxious and difficult days
of our struggle are yet to come; that when the upholders of the existing
regulations of vice in various lands shall see it necessary to abandon
their present position, they will come to us with offered compromises;
and then there will be a sifting-time; our principles will be tested,
and our integrity severely tried. That such compromises, various in kind
and more or less subtle in their nature, will be proposed, and that they
are already being concocted, I cannot doubt. We shall require clearness
of insight to discern their nature, and firmness of purpose to deal with
their propositions.

“We have experience enough to demonstrate that, whenever a practical
victory awaits us, we may look for a corresponding attempt on the part
of the Regulationists to re-establish the evil principle in, it may be,
an extremely modified form or in a misleading guise; hence the supreme
importance of clearness of discernment on our part, of wisdom and
penetration, of skill to separate the old leaven to its last particle
from every plan for the future, and to reject, at the risk of being
deemed vexatious irreconcilables, every proposal which bears within
itself the theory that prostitution is a necessary evil, and the
consequent admission that a certain number of God’s creatures are
doomed, also by a fatal law of necessity, to be transformed into mere
instruments for the basest and most unholy purpose.”

                                                                   1897.


And now, my dear Friends and Fellow-workers who have followed so far
with me this record of our first ten years of conflict, my concluding
words shall be addressed to you.

As I look back through our long warfare there rise before my mind not
only our united band in untiring conflict with injustice, but many
pleasant adventures, social gatherings, and sweet friendships, taking
their rise in a common aim, cemented by fellowship in trial and in hope,
and ripening, year by year, for the higher communion of the life to
come. Many pleasant memories are revived, and some sorrowful ones. Ties
have been riven, ties so dear and so familiar that when they vanished
our weak hearts were rent. Fair households amongst us have been
scattered. Some who were active in the work are now disabled by
permanent physical weakness or approaching age; and we daily feel that
our dearest communion fronts the hour of death. We have mourned together
when some of our ablest helpers and boldest champions fell in the heat
of the battle. But we have had strength given us to rise again, to put
on our armour, and to turn our face to the foe.

We are of those (it has been said) who represent the imperishableness of
principles, one of the many assurances of immortality. Let us be of good
courage, then! He who has helped us hitherto will be with us to the end.
More than twenty-seven years ago, while we were but a small, feeble
company, and few cared to give ear to our appeal, much less to join in
our aggressive action, we may have said in our hearts, ‘Who will rise up
for me against the evil doers, or who will stand up for me against the
workers of iniquity?’ and, indeed, I may say for myself, ‘Unless the
Lord had been my helper, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.’ But the
heavy curtain of darkness was lifted up at last, and we now see that
there were celestial warriors on our side, and more for us than against
us. The event foretold by Christ is coming to pass; the secret sins of
Europe are beginning to be proclaimed from the housetops; the light of
truth is already falling upon the dark places of the earth, full of the
hideous habitations of cruelty; the hidden things of darkness can escape
the dreaded light no more.

Looking forward, as we must, to another term of conflict, and
considering what may, and probably will be, the special trials which
await us, I counsel you, Friends, to be strong. Cultivate a sound
judgment. Take this question into the solitude of your chamber; let the
light from God’s presence penetrate your inmost thoughts; see clearly
and act firmly.

            Let this be all our care
            To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds
            Judge us perverse.

God forbid that we should ever trifle with the righteous conditions of
success, for we know that every compromise is a loss of power, and would
force us to begin all our work over again! May He grant us the
disciplined conscience whose unfaltering logic shall hold its own
against every fallacy, and continue to pierce through an iniquity which
has corrupted more or less all the Governments of Europe, and blinded
even the Churches, in which there can be no real health until they have
openly taken their stand on God’s side in this matter.

Our opponents continue to tell us that ‘something must be done.’ True!
practical effort is wanted on every side, economical, industrial,
social; legal reforms are required, as well as moral and spiritual
forces. We do, in fact, already combat, from all these sides, by means
of the many collateral organisations which have gathered around us, the
great evil of prostitution itself. It is true we had long neglected this
work; but let those who blame us look round now, and survey the array of
forces and agencies which have sprung up in many countries during these
last twenty-seven years, animated by our protest, and working hand in
hand with us. Let them regard these efforts and their results, and say
whether we have not fully recognised the fact that ‘something must be
done,’ and whether we have not faithfully endeavoured to do that
something. But what some men mean when they call for something to be
done, is that some provision of some sort must be made, whereby impurity
may be divested of its unpleasant physical consequences,—that some
organisation must be planned, based on the recognition of prostitution
as a necessity of our social condition. To these we have but one reply:
while it is our turn to remind those persons that ‘something must be
done,’ and that that ‘something’ is that men must learn to live
virtuously; that is the only possible remedy for the physical plague.
But there are men who do not like to hear this; they will try everything
rather than this. The end, however, will be the failure of their every
effort to separate the moral and the physical laws of the universe, and
the confirmation of this truth—that the only cure for the evils which
they so much dread is _purity of life_.

O! that men would turn from the evil of their ways, for then, though
their sins should be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and
they shall find themselves in the hand of a Saviour who is able to save
_to the uttermost_!

Let holy charity continue, dear Friends, to be the inspiration of all
our work. Pity for the suffering; justice for all; the oppressed to be
delivered; the slave to be set free; the moral law to be obeyed to the
last tittle; the soul of the poor to be delivered from the hands of the
spoiler; and the Governments of the world to be warned of that logic of
retribution whereby men and nations reap as they have sown. Such has
been our programme in the past; such it will continue to be in the
future.


                                THE END.


    Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

-----

Footnote 1:

  The members of the Commission were: the Right Hon. William Nathaniel
  Massey, the Right Hon. Viscount Hardinge, the Right Rev. the Bishop of
  Carlisle, the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., M.P., the Right
  Hon. General Peel, the Right Hon. W. F. Cowper-Temple, M.P., Sir John
  Salisbury Trelawney, Bart, M.P., Sir Walter Charles James, Bart.,
  Vice-Admiral Collinson, C.B., Charles Buxton, Esq., M.P., Major
  O’Reilly, M.P., Peter Rylands, Esq., M.P., A. J. Mundella, Esq., M.P.,
  Professor T. H. Huxley, the Rev. Canon Gregory, M.A., the Rev.
  Frederick Denison Maurice, the Rev. John Hannah, D.C.L., S. Wilks,
  Esq., M.D., John Henry Bridges, Esq., M.D., T. Holmes, Esq., F.R.C.S.,
  George E. Paget, Esq., M.D., Holmes Coote, Esq., F.R.C.S., George
  Campbell, Esq., D.C.L., George Woodyatt Hastings, Esq., Mr. Robert
  Applegarth.

Footnote 2:

  Psalm xci.

Footnote 3:

  One of the utterances of the defeated candidate did, perhaps, more
  than anything else to turn the working men’s votes against him, viz.,
  this: in a public document regarding his Governorship of Malta, Sir
  Henry Storks had stated that he much regretted his inability to bring
  soldier’s _wives_ under the degrading and disgusting tyranny of this
  legislation.

Footnote 4:

  Unhappily a _Projet de loi_ which has since been proposed in Brussels
  as a substitute for the actual system contains all the old evil
  principles in a more veiled form. The sincere men who had embraced the
  Abolitionists’ views had more or less retired from public life, and
  the work of so-called reform fell under the influence of experts who
  are not sincere in their aim.

Footnote 5:

  Dr. Schneider, Report of the Vienna Congress, p. 49.

Footnote 6:

  We had gained, up to this time, the abolition of the system in the
  Cape Colony, and in Bombay; also in St. Louis, U.S.A., a victory had
  been won.

Footnote 7:

  Alluding to the Bill proposed by the Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce, which
  would have been practically a repetition of the Regulations.

Footnote 8:

  Mr. Benjamin Scott’s “A State Iniquity.”

Footnote 9:

  These lines were written while our revered friend was still living and
  at the post of honour among us.

Footnote 10:

  See the book of Lecour, “La Prostitution à Paris et à Londres.”
  1782–1872.

Footnote 11:

  “Recollections of George Butler.” Arrowsmith, Bristol.

Footnote 12:

  _Shield_, 1877.

Footnote 13:

  Owing to the great pressure of time at the close of the Congress, and
  to the variety in the laws in this respect in different countries, the
  Section was unable to give an exhaustive discussion to this question;
  but several members of the Congress, after the framing of this
  resolution, signed and handed into the Bureau at the Public Meeting
  the following declaration:—A Congress which has, at the outset,
  admitted the principle of equality of the two sexes before the law
  has, in virtue of that admission, affirmed the equal responsibility of
  the man and of the woman in respect to their illegitimate offspring.
  Though it may defer for the present the consideration of the possible
  and practicable means of establishing the right of affiliation, it has
  in reality already admitted this principle.

Footnote 14:

  One of the largest iron foundries in Belgium.

Footnote 15:

  “The European Slave-trade in English Girls. A narrative of Facts.”
  Dyer Brothers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
 ● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final
     chapter.
 ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.



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