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Rh women (in France the proportion is said to be much worse) and on the average the unfortunates there lead this sort of life only for four years, whereupon they "marry" and become "respectable wives and mothers." For this increase the "married state" shows itself sufficiently grateful.

Mrs. Branch emphasizes the fact that five-sixths of the frequenters of houses of prostitution are married men! And how necessary present society considers prostitution to be, is shown by the answer with which the Mayor of New Bedford met the request that the houses of prostitution should be abolished: "If these houses are abolished, our wives and daughters will no longer be safe anywhere — on every street they will be in danger of being insulted." (That reminds one of the worthy Mr. Stringfellow, who argued that slavery was necessary, because the female slaves were a moral lightning-rod, so to speak, for the Caucasian women.)

Insulted on the street! "But," Mrs. Branch asks, "by whom would they be insulted? Not by any man outside of the world, but by somebody in the world, somebody here and there and everywhere — sixty thousand of these men are in the streets of New York daily, they meet you everywhere, their warm breath fills the air, and the purest and most modest girls are constantly brought into contact with them! Who are they? Who but husbands, fathers, brothers? Whose husband, father, brother? Is it yours? Is it mine? The blood rushes into my cheeks as