Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/53

Rh kills the sense of evil in the individual conscience, and thus destroys both the will and the power of a nation to regenerate itself.

It is now necessary to consider in what rightful ways municipal regulation and national law may check disorder and disease, and repress licentiousness in men and women.

These methods will constitute the "Repressive System"—the only righteous method of dealing with vice by means of law.

In reference to municipal action, it is necessary to dwell somewhat at length upon the method employed in Glasgow, because in that city we have proof from actual experience, that all the beneficial results vainly sought for by the Female Regulation System can be obtained without the destruction of social conscience which inevitably follows that corrupt method of organizing female vice.

Glasgow has not yet solved all the problems connected with this vital subject, but it is on the right way to do so. The authorities distinctly recognize that vice in men, as well as in women, must be checked, in any radical method of improvement, and this is the essential point for our century to consider.

The Repressive System, as seen in Glasgow, is the