Manhattan alone, in 1912; while personal visitation established the
existence of over sixteen hundred houses where the gratification of
lust could be bought. Not all, certainly, were counted; and this list is,
of course, entirely exclusive of the great number of girls occasionally
and secretly selling themselves to friends, acquaintances, and employers.
Many hundreds of men and women, keepers of houses, procurers,
and the like, live on the proceeds of this great underground industry;
and to some extent-though to what extent it is, of course, impossible
to ascertain the forcible retention of young girls is exist in most of the
world's cities. What is being done to abolish this ghastliest of evils?
In most great cities, scarcely anything, for two reasons: the one being
that so many men, perhaps the majority, secretly wish to retain an
opportunity for purchasing sex gratification, the other that the police
generally find the protection of illegal vice an easy source of revenue.
If the police are honest, they break up a disorderly house-and let the
inmates carry the lure of their trade elsewhere. The magistrates fine
them, or give them sentences just long enough to bring them needed
rest and nutrition, and send them back to their business. Or they drive
them out of town-to swell the numbers in the next town. Attempts at
legalization and localization are frank admissions of inability or
lack of desire to fight the evil; their effect is to make the way of
temptation easier for the youth. Compulsory medical inspection gives
a promise of immunity from disease which is largely illusory, and entices
men who are now restrained by prudential motives. There are, however,
many promising lines of attack:

(1) When women gain the vote, they can be counted on to fight the
evil. The prostitutes themselves, being mostly minors, and, in any case,
anxious to conceal their identity, seldom vote; and the remaining women
are almost en masse bitterly opposed to the trade. With women voting,