were theirs to deal with as a matter of civic responsibility, one cannot
imagine that the existence of the social evil would remain unchallenged
in its semi-legal protection. Those women who are already possessed of
political power have in many ways registered their conscience in regard
to it. The Norwegian women, for instance, have guaranteed to every
illegitimate child the right of inheritance to its father's name and
property by a law which also provides for the care of its mother. This
is in marked contrast to the usual treatment of the mother of an
illegitimate child, who even when the paternity of her child is
acknowledged receives from the father but a pitiful sum for its support;
moreover, if the child dies before birth and the mother conceals this
fact, although perfectly guiltless of its death, she can be sent to jail
for a year.

The age of consent is eighteen years in all of the states in which women
have had the ballot, although in only eight of the others is it so high.
In the majority of the latter the age of consent is between fourteen and
sixteen, and in some of them it is as low as ten. These legal
regulations persist in spite of the well-known fact that the mass of
girls enter a disreputable life below the age of eighteen. In equal
suffrage states important issues regarding women and children, whether
of the sweat-shop or the brothel, have always brought out the women
voters in great numbers.

Certainly enfranchised women would offer some protection to the white
slaves themselves who are tolerated and segregated, but who, because
their very existence is illegal, may be arrested whenever any police
captain chooses, may be brought before a magistrate, fined and
imprisoned. A woman so arrested may be obliged to answer the most
harassing questions put to her by a city attorney with no other woman