Page:Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil - Elizabeth Blackwell (1883).djvu/84

 APPENDIX I.

preceding pages have been devoted solely to the consideration of civil laws and regulations. The Contagious Diseases Acts are military acts, designed exclusively for the physical benefit of soldiers and sailors. A full discussion of the conditions of a celibate army, or of the duty of the military authorities toward the women whom they consider it necessary to regulate for its service, would be out of place in the present work. Military law, however, must be sternly rejected outside the camp. Great civil populations such as Plymouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, must be freed from military subjection. Any attempt to impose military regulations upon a civil population will be resisted to the death by any country which values its civil freedom.

All that has been here shown, therefore, is the proof that the principle upon which the timid English acts are based, is the identical principle which, boldly and logically carried out, produces the Brussels system. The only check which prevents the development of the English acts into the Brussels system (a (74)