touch the home and which intimately concern motherhood and the welfare
of children, were brought forth--facts concerning infantile blindness,
almost one-third of which is caused by excesses on the part of the
fathers; facts concerning certain forms of ill health in married women,
and the increase of sterility due to the spread of specific diseases
among men. The horrible results to innocent women and children of these
maladies, and their frightful prevalence,--seventy-five per cent of city
men, according to reliable authority, being affected,--aroused in the
women a sentiment of indignation and revolt. The International Council
of Women put itself on record as protesting against the responsibility
laid upon women, the unassisted task of preserving the purity of the
race.

In the United States, women's clubs, women's societies, women's medical
associations, special committees of women in many cities have
courageously undertaken the study of this problem, intending by means of
investigation and publicity to lay bare its sources and seek its remedy.

The sources of the evil are about the only phase of the problem which
has never been adequately examined. It is true that we have suspected
that the unsteady and ill-adjusted economic position of women furnished
some explanation for its existence, but even now our information is
vague and unsatisfactory.

A number of years ago, in 1888 to be exact, the Massachusetts Bureau of
Labor Statistics made an interesting investigation. This was an effort
to determine how far the entrance of women into the industrial world,
usually under the disadvantage of low wages, was contributing to
profligacy. The bureau gathered statistics of the previous occupations
of nearly four thousand fallen women in twenty-eight American cities.