Such measures as these have acquired a foothold in the United States
more than once, but have been driven out again. They are proposed
every year almost, at some State Legislature, and often have been
proposed at several different legislatures during a single year. They
are in operation, to some extent at least, under the United States
flag at Hawaii, in the Philippines, and at Porto Rico. The enforcement
of the Acts must depend to a large extent upon the co-operation of the
male fornicator with the police and officers of the law, and places
good women and girls terribly in the power of malicious or designing
libertines.

It appears from official records, that in Hong Kong, during six months
in 1886-7, out of 139 women denounced by British soldiers and sailors
as having communicated contagion, 102 were on examination found free
from disease, and only 37 to be diseased; and during a similar
period in 1887-8, out of 103 women that were denounced, 101 were on
examination found free from disease and only two diseased. We can
judge from this of both the worthlessness of the measure for tracing
diseased women, and the mischievousness of the measure as an aid to
libertines in getting girls they are endeavoring to seduce so injured
in reputation that they can easily capture their prey.

As a sanitary measure, the Acts have invariably proved a failure, as
shown by honestly handled statistics. There have, to be sure, been
many doctors, some of high scientific qualifications, who have
produced statistics strongly tending to prove the sanitary benefits
of such measures on superficial survey. But these statistics have
afterwards been shown to be mistakenly handled or designedly
manipulated to make such a showing. This is not a medical book, and