Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/287

 him into a premature grave. He was an odd man, born so far out of his time that the sins of others never troubled his conscience. He was so great, and knew so much of life, more perhaps than he did of history, on every page of which he would have found the confirmations of the opinions life had taught him, that he divined all lewdness, all obscenity to be subjective and not objective, so that he found less to abhor in the sins of the vicious than in the state of mind of their indefatigable accusers and pursuers. And he had his own way of meeting their complaints. Once a committee of ladies and gentlemen called upon him with the demand that he obliterate the social evil, off-hand and instantly. They were simple, brief and to the point. They informed him that the laws providing for chastity were being broken, that there were prostitutes in the city, and in short, urged him to put a stop to it.

"But what am I to do?" he inquired. "These women are here."

"Have the police," they said, a new, simple and happy device suddenly occurring to them, "drive them out of town and close up their houses!" They sat and looked at him, triumphantly.

"But where shall I have the police drive them? Over to Detroit or to Cleveland, or merely out into the country? They have to go somewhere, you know."

It was a detail that had escaped them, and presently, with his great patience, and his great sincerity, he said to them:

"I'll make you a proposition. You go and select