Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/72

62 The necessity of bringing in new and efficient force to compel wise legislation on this weighty subject will be evident from the following facts:

In 1875, a bill was introduced into Parliament to secure legal protection to girls up to the age of fourteen. This bill was cut down in Committee to the age of thirteen, and thus mutilated, was accepted by Parliament. It will be observed that a law which protects up to the age of thirteen, only guards children of twelve years of age. Children thirteen years old are therefore capable of giving legal consent to corruption.

The same mutilation of a Bill called "Assaults on Young Persons Bill," occurred again in 1880, a measure then introduced to protect children until the age of fourteen, being again cut down in Committee to the age of thirteen.

It is of the highest importance, therefore, at the present time, in relation to future action, to understand two points: first, what arguments were used by the representatives—English Members of Parliament—to refuse protection to children up to the age of fourteen, when the Common Law of Continental nations nominally protects them to the age of twenty-one; secondly, in what way was this mutilation of the bill originally introduced, accomplished?

The following record of facts and arguments, as seen in Hansard, will show that the thought and active