the system of "maisons de tolerance," which had so great an influence over
modern European practice during a large part of the last century and even
still in its numerous survivals forms the subject of widely divergent
opinions.

On the whole, however, it must be said that the system of registering,
examining, and regularizing prostitutes now belongs to the past. Many
great battles have been fought over this question; the most important is
that which raged for many years in England over the Contagious Diseases
Acts, and is embodied in the 600 pages of a Report by a Select Committee
on these Acts issued in 1882. The majority of the members of the Committee
reported favorably to the Acts which were, notwithstanding, repealed in
1886, since which date no serious attempt has been made in England to
establish them again.

At the present time, although the old system still stands in many
countries with the inert stolidity of established institutions, it no
longer commands general approval. As Paul and Victor Margueritte have
truly stated, in the course of an acute examination of the phenomena of
state-regulated prostitution as found in Paris, the system is "barbarous
to start with and almost inefficacious as well." The expert is every day
more clearly demonstrating its inefficacy while the psychologist and the
sociologist are constantly becoming more convinced that it is barbarous.

It can indeed by no means be said that any unanimity has been attained. It
is obviously so urgently necessary to combat the flood of disease and
misery which proceeds directly from the spread of syphilis and gonorrhoea,
and indirectly from the prostitution which is the chief propagator of
these diseases, that we cannot be surprised that many should eagerly catch
at any system which seems to promise a palliation of the evils. At the
present time, however, it is those best acquainted with the operation of
the system of control who have most clearly realized that the supposed
palliation is for the most part illusory,[157] and in any case attained at
the cost of the artificial production of other evils. In France, where the
system of the registration and control of prostitutes has been
established for over a century,[158] and where consequently its
advantages, if such there are, should be clearly realized, it meets with
almost impassioned opposition from able men belonging to every section of
the community. In Germany the opposition to regularized co