Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/33

Rh 5th. Those who have been registered under false certificates, which is a penal offence, are held in constant terror of the law. Lastly, they are medically inspected twice a week, and, being always exposed to infection, they spend their time between the brothel, the hospital, and the prison.

The key-note of this whole system is the acceptance through registration of females who, from whatever cause, have begun a life of vice; for registration is the first tentative step taken in the system of female regulation. To this is gradually added the arrangement of minute and stringent regulations respecting residence, dress, behavior, and control of their bodies. As long as they observe the regulations laid down they are unmolested, and are even considered to be fulfilling a necessary and useful function in society.

The idea of wrong-doing is entirely set aside when a prostitute is registered. She becomes by that municipal act an accepted member or trader of the community, and the whole powerful system of accepted and regulated female prostitution follows as a necessary result, as will be seen later.

Besides the organization of licensed brothels, there is an immense number of women living singly in their own apartments (filles isolées), erroneously called clandestine prostitutes by M. Treit. They correspond