little personal knowledge.

Essentially this is a woman's question. What do women know about it?
Almost nothing. We are really as ignorant of the character, moral,
mental and physical of "the fallen woman," as if she belonged to an
extinct species. We know her only to pity her or to despise her, which
is, in result, to know nothing that is true about her. To deal with
the problem needs women and men of the finest character and the widest
sympathy. There are some of them at work now, but these, for the most
part, are engaged in the almost impossible task of rescue work, which
does not bring, I think, a real understanding of the facts in their
wider social aspect.

Women are, however, realising that they cannot continue to shirk this
part of their civic duties. These "painted tragedies" of our streets
have got to be recognised and dealt with; and this not so much for the
sake of the prostitute, but for all women's safety and the health of
the race. The time is not far distant when the mothers of the
community, the sheltered wives of respectable homes, must come to
understand that their own position of moral safety is maintained at
the expense of a traffic whose very name they will not mention. For
the prostitute, though unable to avenge herself, has had a mighty ally
in Nature, who has taken her case in hand and has avenged it on the
women and their children, who have received the benefits of our legal
marriage system. M. Brieux deals with this question in _Les Avaries_:
it is a tragedy that should be read by all women.

For this reason, if for no other, the existence of prostitution has to
be faced by women. Apathy and ignorance will no longer be accepted as
excuse, in the light of the sins against the race slowly piled up
through the centuries by vice and disease. But what will be the result
of women's action in this matter? What will they do? What changes in
the law will they demand? The importance of these questions forces
itself upon all those who realise at all the difficulties of the
problem. What we see and hear does not, I think, give great hopes.
Every woman who dares to speak on this great burked subject seems to
have "a remedy" ready to her hand. What one hears most frequently are
unconsidered denunciations of "the men who are responsible." For
example, I heard one woman of education state publicly that _there was
no problem of prostitution!_ I mention this because it seems to me a
very grave danger, an in