CHAPTER X

“What though the cast-out spirit tear The Nation in his going, We who have shared the guilt must share The pang of his o’erthrowing; Whate’er the loss, Whate’er the cross, Shall they complain of present pain Who trust in God’s hereafter?”

It was in the year 1880 that we first began to see that we were approaching a turning in the long road which we had traversed for ten years, and were facing towards victory, the victory which we had always, even in the darkest hours, believed we should one day see. I have described in a former chapter the chill which fell upon our hopes for a time in the year 1874, when the General Election of that year resulted in the return of a reactionary or indifferent Parliament from which we had little to hope for our cause. The seven years’ existence of that Parliament having expired, and our principles having meanwhile gained ground, through our unceasing efforts, in the public mind, the new Parliament of 1880 was hailed by the Abolitionists with a hope which was not destined to be deceived, although there were yet five years more to run before we saw the virtual demolition of the hated tyranny against which we had so long made war, and six years before the seal was put upon its legal abolition by Queen Victoria’s signature to its death warrant, given on the 13th of April, 1886.

Younger workers in other parts of the world may, we hope, be encouraged and fortified in present or future conflicts against injustice, by a knowledge of our seventeen years of labour, crowned at last by complete success. A first or a second defeat sometimes causes a sense of dismay in the minds of those who have had as yet a limited experience in such warfare. Such may perhaps take courage by looking into the deeper meaning of our long struggle. Had our victory been more quickly or more easily won, it would not have been a solid or durable victory. An early success based on a partial awakening of the public conscience would have left us an easy prey to renewed designs for the reestablishment of the evil system, based on the old corrupt traditions. God, in His providence, had a far deeper and wider work in view than we had any conception of when we first arose at His call to oppose an unjust Act of Parliament. His purpose embraced also our own education, the education of those who were called to the front, and for whom a prolonged and stern training was needful to enable them to “endure hardness,” and to become worthy representatives of the truth which was to be handed on by them to the people of other lands and to their own descendants. He brought them through all the trials and vicissitudes which were needful for the strengthening of their faith, the maturing of their judgment and the perfecting of their patience.

A Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry on the subject of the vice-regulating Acts have been appointed by the late Government. Its proceedings were necessarily closed by the dissolution of the Parliament which had appointed it. Its Report was printed, which contained a recommendation of the appointment of another and similar Committee by the New Parliament, with the same objects in view, _i.e._, to take evidence on the subject from all sides. This new Committee was appointed, and some of our best friends and leaders were elected members of it. The scope of the inquiries and examinations made by it was of a much wider and more comprehensive character than that of any former parliamentary inquiry on this subject.

It was in January of this year, 1880, that a deep impression began to be made on our English public by the revelations coming to us from time to time of the extent and cruelty of the white slave traffic between our own country and several Continental cities, more especially Brussels, Antwerp, and other towns of Northern Europe.

I cannot and need not here undertake to give at length the story of the noble and self-denying enterprise of Alfred Dyer and his friend George Gillett. Their work has already been described in a brochure[15] published by the Abolitionist Committee of the City of London, under the auspices of the late Chamberlain, Mr. Benjamin Scott. The two men who undertook this difficult and heroic research were members of the Society of Friends, men of the highest character; and it may be imagined what such men had to suffer for their boldness in entering personally the Belgian prison houses of cruelty and shame, with the design of rescuing young English girls who had been betrayed by the merchants of vice, and sold to these institutions. They not only risked their lives through the violence and rage of the keepers of these slave dens, but bore to be ridiculed, traduced and slandered on account of their action, by persons in high position whose own lives and theories of life were a constant denial of the possibility of virtue in man. I realised some of the outward and tangible results of this courageous action (considered independently of its far deeper moral effects) eleven months later, when I received, at midnight, on the 15th of December, the following telegraphic message from Mr. Alexis Splingard, an advocate of Brussels, written on leaving the Court in that City, where a number of the _Tenanciers_ and Slave-traders of Brussels had been tried. “All condemned, Regnier to three years of prison, Roger two, Parent twenty-two months, Landre eighteen months, Perpéte eighteen, Andronnet eighteen, Mayer ten; five others to different terms of penal servitude.” I sent this telegram the next morning to my sister in Naples, accompanied by the following words, in a letter which she returned with others to me: “This news will strike incredulous people perhaps a little as corroborative of our statements concerning the cruelty and guilt of these men, statements which, in my own case, my friends sometimes think to be coloured by my sympathy for the victims. We are thankful to know that some of these prison doors are now opened, and some of the slaves set free; but alas! for the thousands who are gone, dead, murdered, who found no deliverer!”

“Sometimes I feel like Dante, who fell prone ‘as one dead’ on witnessing inexpressible human woe. I do not find in ordinary evangelic teaching anything which meets this mystery of wrong and pain, this woe of the murdered innocents, (for indeed many are innocent, mere children, having no choice, but thrust violently into hell). But God is above all human teachings. If _He_ would reveal Himself more clearly to me, I feel sure I should be stronger to act. Religious teachers never lead us to hope that God makes up hereafter to these outraged creatures of His for all they have endured, _unless_ they have gone through a proper repentance here below. Some day I believe He will tell me Himself what He has done, and is doing for them. The winter is long and dark; but summer will come, and will bring more light.”

One of the most important meetings which had been held upon our subject in France was held in the Salle Lévis, Paris, in April of this year. The room was crowded to excess. The following report was written by one of the principal assistants:—“The chair was taken by Dr. Thulié, a former president of the Municipal Council, who, in an extremely eloquent address, explained the aim and action of the Federation, of which the existing French Association regarded itself as a section, and showed the immorality and utter uselessness of the Police des Mœurs.

“‘These English women,’ he said, ‘are the apostles of this great cause; they have the virtue, the self-abnegation, and the daring of apostles. Now, for the first time, woman comes forward to plead her own cause, instead of awaiting the _bon plaisir_ of man. She has a right to life; she has therefore a right to liberty. If it should be attempted ever to apply to men the cruel and exceptional measures that are applied to women, all the world would cry out. For one act of self-abandonment to evil, you impose upon a woman a whole existence of torture, while you leave man irresponsible for his libertinage. We must begin by replacing woman under the protection of the Common Law, and thus restoring her to her true dignity.’

“Professor Stuart spoke shortly and ironically against the Police des Mœurs, and the stupidity, uselessness, and false pretences of those who were always ‘going to stamp out the disease,’ but who, during the hundred years that they had been going to do so, had never yet so much as begun to succeed.

“Mr. Benjamin Scott said that he had been commissioned by the City Committee to congratulate them on their having obtained the right of public meeting; but he regretted to find the congratulation was somewhat premature, the admission to the present meeting having been, he found, limited to those bearing tickets. He hoped, however, that this great right would soon be theirs; liberty of the press and liberty of speech were as the air we breathe; without it we die.

“Mrs. Butler followed. Her speech was thus described in _La France_: ‘_It was a prayer_, an urgent appeal, to this popular audience so accessible to generous emotion.’ ‘M. Lecour argued with me,’ said she, ‘that as the regulation of vice was established by law in England, and we English have so much respect for the law, we were bound to respect this law. M. Lecour spoke in profound ignorance. It is because we respect the law that we desire to have our laws worthy of respect. This law is not worthy of respect—it will be abolished.’

“M. Yves Guyot followed. He concluded by moving the following resolution based on the principles of the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man.’ It was carried by acclamation, the audience rising to their feet.

“‘Considering that the principles of 1779 form the basis of our Common Law:

“‘That the proclamation of the rights of man applies equally to the rights of woman:

“‘That article 1 of that proclamation declares all citizens equal before the law:

“‘That article 5 declares that no action that is not forbidden by the law shall be interfered with officially:

“‘That article 7 declares that the law shall be equal for all, whether it protect or punish:

“‘That the same article 7 declares that no one shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned, save in such cases as are specified by the law, and according to the forms prescribed by the law:

“‘That those who solicit, facilitate, execute, or cause to be executed any arbitrary act, are liable to punishment:

“‘That the creation of all or any exceptional laws being contrary to the principles of the Common Law, it is _a fortiori_ impossible to tolerate those police regulations which are in flagrant violation thereof:

“‘That the Common Law is sufficient to repress all violations of public morality or order:

“‘This meeting, approving the objects of the Association for the Abolition of Regulated Prostitution, requests the representatives of the people, Municipal Councillors, Deputies, and Senators, to put an end as speedily as possible to the system known as the Police des Mœurs, a system illegal in its origin, arbitrary in its application, and immoral in its effects.’”

“This resolution was voted with an enthusiasm, which sufficiently proves that the abolition of the Police des Mœurs interests a large portion of the honest and industrial population of Paris.

“The Prefecture of Police comprehends this, and attaches the greatest importance to the meeting of yesterday, they having sent to it a considerable number of their agents. Lurking behind a pillar was the _sous-chef_ of the Police des Mœurs, Remise, taking notes and listening with an impatience he could not dissemble. A certain number of his agents were in attendance.

“The Chief of the first brigade of the detectives had sent the Inspector Guyot de Lencleuse, who M. Brissaud had formerly charged with the surveillance of the _Lanterne_. The second brigade of detectives was represented by the Seigneur Antonny, who took more than twenty pages of notes. There were other police officers of lower grade scattered over the room. If M. Andrieux did not obtain the most completely detailed and faithful accounts of the meeting, he had, nevertheless, taken all the precautions for that purpose.”

The distinguishing event of this year was our second great International Congress, which was held in Genoa at the end of September. In August the Hon. Depretis, Italian Minister of the Interior, issued from Rome a Circular to all the Prefects of the Kingdom, requiring them promptly to “send in their observations as to the results of the provisional regulations now in operation, in order that they may be considered in the compilation of the permanent regulations.” So, “a month before representatives of the civilized world,” said one of the Journals of Rome, are to assemble in Congress to prove by facts that every form of Governmental regulation of vice is noxious, the Hon. Depretis proposes suddenly to enforce a new regulation in Italy by a simple royal decree.

The _Dovere_ of Rome published the following eloquent defiance addressed to the Minister:—“From the 27th of September to the 4th of October next a Congress will be held at Genoa to discuss the principles of the Federation. You, sir, hold in your hands and at your orders the countless phalanx of those interested in the revolting system of officially regulated and patented vice. Despatch all those persons to Genoa at that epoch, bid them take part in the Congress, and bid them defend the system which you are still striving to uphold. Let them advocate your cause, and to them will make answer those men and women of conscience and of science who have sacrificed time, thought and labour to this great question. The conscience of the people will decide between the two, and, be assured, that to the decisions of that conscience you, whether you will or no, will have to bow down sooner or later.”

The _Liberta_ of Genoa and the _Nazione_ of Florence had articles or addresses to the Minister in the same spirit.

A delegate to that Congress wrote to friends in England as follows:—

“It would be impossible to give you within the scanty limits of a letter any adequate idea of the really imposing character and the splendid success of the second Congress of the Federation. Full details will be furnished later, which will afford you the means of publishing matter of deep interest to our friends in England. There can be no doubt that a great step in advance has been made, and that a real international progress must have taken place in public opinion before so unanimous a declaration of principles could be formulated—one might almost say without discussion—inasmuch as the complete accordance of principles which existed among the delegates from Associations and Committees of so many distinct nationalities was evident at the first great public meeting—and not merely in the Executive Committee and the Conseil Général. The formal public declaration of those principles at the popular meeting in the vast Hall of the Carlo Felice Theatre, was voted over again by acclamation by the people. The Federation found itself in a city of friends and believers in their principles. It was unnecessary to argue those principles out in detail. The various orators who ascended the tribune in turn were greeted by the Genoese as old and tried friends, whose services they were met together, not to discuss, but to approve. It was almost confusing to those who had gone to the meeting prepared to prove their case to find it already understood and judged by a public as intelligent as it was enthusiastic.

“You are probably aware that the Syndic and Municipality of Genoa had already freely granted the use of the huge Opera House to the Italian Committee of reception, and that the Syndic himself was among the first to inscribe his name among the Genoese adherents to our principles.

“The various _ordres du jour_ will give you a general idea of the course of the proceedings on each day, but I have only time to tell you now of the winding-up. The Government appears to have become alarmed at the vast concourse of people from all parts of Italy that had signified their intention of thronging the theatre on the last morning. Delegates from the Working Men’s Associations of all the towns of Italy were to arrive and join the Working Class Associations of Genoa in procession with their various flags and bands of music, and the Prefect at the last moment forbade the opening of the vast theatre of the Opera House to the public. It soon appeared that this was an injudicious act on the part of the Prefect; for the demonstration was far grander in consequence. The Hall of the Carlo Felice Theatre opens upon an enormous stone balcony, the whole length of the building, which looks upon the largest square in Genoa. To that square the crowd proceeded, in perfect order, each Association arriving in turn, with flags flying and trumpets sounding, and ranged themselves in a compact mass underneath, awaiting the public announcement of the final Resolutions of the Congress. All the members of the Federation went out in a body on to the long stone balcony; a platform was hastily improvised for Professor Bovio, Deputy of the Italian Parliament, whose magnificent voice could be heard from one end to the other of the immense piazza, and absolute silence was maintained while he read, one by one, to the people, the Resolutions which had just been voted in the Hall within. Each Resolution in turn was voted by acclamation by the multitude with deafening cheers, which ceased as if by magic when he again held up the paper in his hand as a sign that he was about to read again.

“He then addressed a few stirring words to the people, and on his retiring, Signor Brusco Onnis—the oldest living friend of Mazzini—was called for. He is a great favourite with the people, whom he has done much to educate in the principles of true equality and morality. Mr. and Mrs. Butler took the opportunity of going down among the people during Signor Brusco’s speech, and on their return reported that so perfect was the silence and order maintained that every word he uttered was distinctly audible to the furthest extremity of the immense square. A business meeting of Delegates was held on the morning of the 4th, and a friendly banquet of the Foreign Delegates, the Commissariat and the Members of the Italian Committee took place on the evening of that day in the Restaurant of the Café Roma, a pleasant conclusion to a week’s work which will not soon be forgotten by those who had the privilege of sharing in it.”

Our President at this Congress was Signor Aurelio Saffi, who had been associated with Mazzini and Armellini, the Triumvirate who governed in Rome for a short time after the Revolution.

His presidential address was very eloquent, philosophical, and closely argued, its colouring here and there heightened by flashes of personal recollections of the years of exile he had spent in England, and by touches of deep emotion. Among his closing words were the following: “Let us arise, let us arise, with the courage that wins every battle against this doctrine (of the necessity of vice), the accomplice of tyranny, and against the guilty policy of those Governments who have made use of it to legalise their false authority. Let us arise, in the name of humanity, to protest against such abominations as those which we have recently seen to be sanctioned by the vice-protecting laws of Belgium, which permit base wretches to corrupt innocent, betrayed children. Let us not permit the power of truth and the sense of right, the fire of Prometheus, to be extinguished in the soul at the bidding of the high priests of vice and the pontiffs of tyranny. Let us fight against them to the death. The protest of a single victim of the guilt and selfishness of the whole world has, in the end, more influence on the course of human affairs than all the crimes—armed and decorated though they be—which outrage and crush all that is immortal and sacred in the human being.”

Several recollections of those bright days in Genoa stand out in my memory with a vividness of which, perhaps, they may not seem quite worthy, when compared with the great and serious work done at that Congress. The weather was brilliant; the beautiful city was bathed in unbroken sunshine; and the hearty welcome given to us by our Italian friends was cheering and grateful beyond words. Numbers of the poor industrious Ligurian working people, as well as some of the sunburnt seamen and captains of merchant ships lying in the harbour, managed to find time now and again to attend our meetings, following with intelligent interest all that was said.

I recall the devotional meetings, morning after morning, in the Church of the Scottish Minister, a warm friend, and the words of encouragement and inspiration spoken there by my husband and M. George Appia, of Paris.

The brilliant appearance of the city was enhanced by the enthusiasm aroused by the fact that Garibaldi was then staying at his daughter’s house in Genoa. He invited the leading members of the Congress to pay him a visit there, as he was then failing very much in health, and unable to move without the help of his faithful servant, a tall, dark Nubian. He received us in his room, with some of his children around him, and spoke to us cheering words concerning the ultimate triumph of our cause, which was the cause of truth and justice. It was his habit to take a daily drive, reclining in a large easy carriage. One day he passed thus along the Acqua Sola, and down the Via Nuova. The streets were a living mass of human beings, every window filled, and even the housetops covered with people, eager to see and greet the old hero. On this occasion his carriage stopped for a moment in front of the Hotel Isotta, where some of the English members of the Federation were staying. One of my sons, who was at the window of our salon, said to me, “I think he is asking for you, mother.” I went to the window, and Garibaldi, looking up and smiling, raised his poor crippled right hand with a movement of salutation. He was disabled in almost every limb by rheumatism.

On returning one evening from one of our sessions, we found around the door of the Hotel Isotta a group of women of humble rank, some with babies in their arms. The Master of the Hotel said that this was a deputation, which had waited for more than an hour to see me. He bade them enter the hall, where these poor women presented to me a formal and neatly written petition, evidently prepared with extreme care, and slightly ornamented. This was a respectfully worded request that I would, before leaving Genoa, come and address them in their own “People’s Hall.”

Wishing to know more particularly the object of the request, I asked them if they desired that I should speak to them on the subjects which were before the Congress. [Some of them had been at our meetings, and had caught some words of sympathy concerning the wrongs of the daughters of the poor.] One of them came forward, and speaking for the deputation, replied: “We beg, Signora, that you will come and speak to us of the _Man of Nazareth_.” “Of Christ our Saviour?” I asked. “The same,” they said, bowing their heads. There was a patient, grave self-restraint, and a look of trouble in those poor faces which went to my heart. It was not in me to resist such an appeal, and I said I would come. Some evenings later two workmen came to conduct me, the Countess de Precorbin and Signora Schiff, of Milan, to their Hall. I find a letter, in which I wrote of that meeting as follows:—“It was an excellent meeting, and in a certain sense more practical than any of the others. Though I had been invited to address women, when we arrived we found a number of men also gathered round the door. One of the women said, ‘Many of our brothers, husbands, and sons are waiting outside, and are very desirous to be allowed to enter with us to hear your words.’ Too gladly did we welcome them; I always prefer mixed meetings; and among the working people, separate meetings are never asked for, nor desired. The audience understood perfectly the question dealt with by the Federation. There was no need for us to point out to them the cruel injustice and shame of the vice regulations. They knew all that only too well; and in a conversation with a group of them afterwards, we felt that many a story of wrong and woe lay behind the quiet tears that were shed. I did not forget their special request, and took as the basis of my address several incidents in the life of Jesus, in which he especially showed himself as the great Emancipator, the friend of womanhood, and of the poor and the weak; the only absolutely Just One, the Saviour of all. The faces of the poor women evidenced deep but quiet emotion. At the close they all, men and women, crowded up to the platform to pour out their pennies on the table. There was quite a little mountain of pennies, and of little soiled papers of _Una Lira_. This was a contribution towards our Federation work. I often observe how much more readily in general a poor audience offers a contribution than a richer or higher class audience. I was much touched by it. They then wrote out and passed unanimously a resolution of adhesion to the principles of the Federation, which was signed, later, by the whole assembly.”

I must not omit to record that the whole of the Catholic Press of Rome, and almost of Italy, wrote that week in support of our cause.

The imposing and affecting demonstration of sympathy given by the concourse of representatives of Operative Societies from every part of Italy was one of the most striking features of the Genoa Congress. This result was mainly due to the missionary efforts of Giuseppe Nathan, and to the confidence in and love for him which prevailed among the people of his country. He wore himself out in the cause; his whole heart and soul were in it. He died only a few months after the Congress of Genoa. He had been already suffering and weak before the Congress. We had written from England to his mother, Signora Sarina Nathan of Rome, to ask her to use her influence with him to persuade him to take greater care of himself. Her reply was worthy of a true Roman matron of the old times: “The cause comes first,” she said, “my son’s life second.” She did not long survive that beloved and revered son.

And now we are still waiting to see this yoke of legalized vice removed from the necks of the people of that beautiful country. They have been deceived again and again by promised or partial reforms. In some parts of their country the system is falling to pieces through its own corruption. But the victory is not yet. Revived energies and a leader are wanted. Poor Italy! when troubled about her I recall the words of Dr. Commandi of Florence, who, after speaking of her poverty, her weakness and her many difficulties, said, “But we know that our God will have the last word, and that word will be _Salvation_.”

I must turn to a darker page in my memory of this year’s events.

On the 1st May, 1880, I published in England a statement which was afterwards reproduced in French, Belgian, and Italian Journals, in which occurred the following words:—“In certain of the infamous houses in Brussels there are immured little children, English girls of from ten to fourteen years of age, who have been stolen, kidnapped, betrayed, carried off from English country villages by every artifice, and sold to these human shambles. The presence of these children is unknown to the ordinary visitors; it is secretly known only to the wealthy men who are able to pay large sums of money for the sacrifice of these innocents.” There followed a recital of incidents which had been sworn to by witnesses, but which I need not repeat. I concluded with the words: “A malediction rests on those cities where such crimes are known and not avenged.”

Much indignation was felt by certain persons, and especially by some of the chiefs of the police in London and Belgium, at the audacity of these assertions. Many of my friends cautioned me not to publish such statements, declaring that all sensible persons would say that the writer of them was mad. I persisted, however, in giving them publicity.

In the autumn after the appearance of these statements, M. Levy, a “Juge d’instruction” of Brussels, instigated probably by the police of that city, challenged me to prove a single case in Brussels of outraged childhood in any house of the kind referred to. This challenge was sent through the “Procureur-Général” to our Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, and took the form of a demand that I should be required, under the Extradition Act, to make a “deposition on oath” before a magistrate. There was considerable hesitation amongst my friends as to whether I ought to accept this challenge or not, as the legality of the demand made by the Belgian authorities was questionable. I quote the following from a letter written to my sister in Naples: “We are still in suspense about this affair. There is a doubt as to whether I should submit to the Home Secretary’s demand, and answer all the questions, or whether I should refuse to answer, and so incur the full legal penalty. On Saturday last my husband, travelling to Oxford, met in the train Mr. Stamford Raffles, the stipendiary magistrate before whom I should have to make my affidavit. Mr. Raffles appeared very nervous about having to take my statement. I was not well that evening, and retired to rest early; but I was not allowed to be quiet very long, for before 5 o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a loud knocking at our front door. It was a confidential messenger from the Chamberlain of London. He said he had travelled down from London through the night with a sealed packet, containing a message for me, which it was not desirable to trust to the post, and which was to be delivered as quickly as possible. It was quite dark. I lighted my candle to see to read the letter, and Jane made a fire downstairs and prepared some tea, etc., for the messenger, who was shivering with cold. He was to return to London again by the first train. I felt a little confused in the cold and dark morning, reading a mysterious letter from the Guildhall, which contained also a telegram in cypher from Brussels, warning me that there was some trap being laid for us, and probably some collusion between the police of London and that of Belgium. I do not think that this latter is the fact, but I suspect that certain enraged Belgian authorities have prompted this arbitrary act on the part of the Home Office with a malicious purpose, and also, no doubt, in the desire to clear themselves from the charges of the crimes which we have imputed to them, and with which I mean to continue to charge them. I am sure that neither at our Home Office nor at Scotland Yard, shall I or our cause meet with sympathy. This early-morning letter, which enclosed several communications from friends in Brussels, implored me to refuse to give evidence, adding, ‘it would, if you declined, be worth everything to the cause for you to suffer the full legal penalty of refusing to answer. This would arouse the public as nothing else could.’ I appreciate this point of view, but on the other hand, if I refuse, the Belgians and our opponents elsewhere would naturally say it was because I had no positive charges to make against them. Moreover, I am longing to make known in the most public way, those terrible cases. We wish these iniquities to be known. It has been said to me several times, ‘You may be prosecuted for libel,’ but my Counsel says, ‘Who are the persons who would prosecute? Not the keepers of these houses or their clients. Perhaps the Procureur du Roi on their behalf, but would he dare to do it? I scarcely think he would.’

“Such days as these must come, we know, sooner or later, for us or our successors, and it is not for us to draw back. M. Humbert writes to me beautifully as follows:—‘The father of lies will employ all his strategy in order to parry the blows of your denunciation. I am persuaded that at Brussels the police have strict orders to cause all the proofs (including persons) to disappear which could afford justification of your statements, and those of Mr. Dyer. In the face of all, advance courageously, even into the jaws of the dragon if need be, and even if the monster is concealing himself in the sacred precincts of the Hotel de Ville or the Palais de Justice. It was inevitable that this phase in our history should arrive. Primitive Christianity itself needed, in order to become known, that its adherents should be dragged into the Judgment Hall and before the Tribunals.’

“Mr. Scott had received a carefully sealed letter from a friend in Brussels; who wrote, ‘Do you know that you are walking into the jaws of hell?’ Mr. Scott answered, ‘I know it. How is it possible but that hell should be moved to its depths, now that its right to swallow up its thousands of yearly victims is questioned?’

“M. Bosch, a good man and honourable magistrate in Brussels, said to our colleague, Pasteur Anet, ‘Oh, take care what you do, especially in the matter of the children found in these houses. You know not the depths and bitterness of the infernal hatred you are rousing against yourselves.’ This is true, but then the cry of the children is sounding in our ears, and also those words, ‘Take heed that ye offend not one of these little ones.’

“The words of the 94th Psalm come often to my mind:—‘They slay the widow and the stranger; they murder the fatherless; yet they say, the Lord shall not see it.’ And also the tenth chapter of Isaiah:—‘Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless.’ When half awake at night, I feel anxious and sad; and sometimes I am impelled to get up, in spite of the cold, to arouse myself, and kneel and pray; and then sometimes a great calm takes the place of the waves of troubled thought, for I see clearly that God is working, and that we are only like little flies, so very small, though His instruments, in the midst of the great events which may be about to be evolved.

“I am writing to try and encourage Mme. Splingard; her son Alexis has been with us, and has returned to Brussels. His life has been threatened, and he might one day be a victim to malice.”

I made my deposition in the month of November, in the Room of the Chief Magistrate. There were present, besides my husband, half a dozen of the most solid and honourable citizens of Liverpool, who were deeply interested in the whole matter, my Counsel, Dr. Commins, and a reporter. My deposition was forwarded to Sir William Harcourt, and by him to the Procureur du Roi, at Brussels. _From that time forward there were no more attempts to deny the charges I had made._ The proofs of everything I had said were too strong to be set aside, while Mr. Dyer’s action, and the facts cited in my deposition, produced results in Belgium for which all the friends of Justice were thankful.

Besides the facts which I stated on oath, others had been published in Belgium, in spite of efforts to hush them up; among them was the following:—

“On the 19th January last, two persons, Constance Delvaux and Catherine Reniers, were brought before the Correctional Tribunal of Brussels, charged with the offences indicated in the following narrative:—Madame P——, of an honourable family of Brussels, had placed her little daughter at a school in that city. She was accustomed to call for her child at the end of the week, and to take her home to spend the Sunday with her. On a certain Saturday she called as usual, and on asking if her daughter was ready, she was met by a look of astonishment from the ladies at the head of the establishment, who replied, ‘But, madam, you sent for your daughter some days ago, and she went to you, accompanied by your messenger.’ It transpired that a woman had called, bearing a letter, apparently signed by Madame P——, saying that owing to special circumstances she wished to have her daughter at home that week, and had, therefore, sent a servant to bring her. This letter was a forgery. It was proved in the trial that the Baron de Mesnil Herman, of the rue des Arts, No. 17 (why should I spare him the publicity he deserves, and had attained?), of forty-three years of age, had somewhere set his adulterous eyes upon this child, and that he had engaged the women above named to bring her to him. The child was taken to the notorious Café Riche, a place of assignation much resorted to by gentlemen of high society, councillors, diplomatists, military officers, etc. Therèse Daubremist, called as witness, said that Constance Delvaux had asked her to write the fraudulent letter; ‘I thought she was the child’s mother; I wrote the letter.’ Constance Delvaux replied, ‘I caused the letter to be written in order to oblige the Baron de Mesnil.’ Catherine Reniers stated, ‘I had gone previously to the school to ask for the young girl, but the directress required that a letter should be brought to her from Madame P——. It is so natural that we should wish to oblige Monsieur le Baron de Mesnil.’ The Public Prosecutor commented on the depth of immorality revealed by the conduct of the two women, and demanded a severe application of the law. The two women were condemned to seven months of prison. _The Baron de Mesnil was not even summoned as a witness at the trial?_ The poor child, after having been introduced to ‘indescribable scenes’ at the Café Riche, was sent with one of the women above named to Aix-la-Chapelle. Her mother went immediately in pursuit of her (this lady is a widow), but her child had been hastily removed thence to some other city, and no trace of her could be discovered. Silence on the subject was for a long time maintained by the press, on account of the high position of the Baron de Mesnil. Then there came a rumour of the young girl having been found in Paris, whence, it was said, ‘the police will return her to her native land.’” Return her! but in what condition? I republished this story in an appeal to the mothers of England, in which I said :—“Reflect what it would be to you, to have one of your pure and tenderly cherished darlings returned to you, after having been forced to witness and take part in such unspeakable horrors—ruined in body and mind, the poor young brain never more able to get rid of the spot blacker than death, which no tears from the heart, nor even a mother’s love, can efface! Reading these things, you will not be among those who blame me for ‘wounding the susceptibilities’ of persons in high office, perverted judges, luxurious livers, who condone and even take part in such horrors. If we mothers were to hold our peace the very stones would cry out.”

Similar revelations of this kind began to come to us from France and other countries. I wrote to my sister:—“The present time resembles an era of incendiarism, in which fires are breaking out with lurid light on all sides, north and south, east and west. We have scarcely taken breath after hearing of one tragedy before the post brings us tidings of another. It is well it is so. For long years past the slaughter of the innocents has been going on. We knew it not, or only had a partial knowledge of it. Now we know, and before God we are responsible for that terrible knowledge.”

From Bordeaux, in France, there came to us a terrible story of the two little children Delemont. The scandal in this case was so great that several gentlemen of high position were arrested and tried, among them being Commandant A——, a man of advanced age, and another, a Colonel C——. The former was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment. The latter was acquitted, on the ground of his having fought bravely at Metz. The Minister for War, M. Ranc, however, did not deem it a brave action to have taken part in the destruction of a little child, and shortly afterwards expelled him from the army. The evidence given by the children was tragic and heart-rending. They identified the criminals at once when they were brought before them with a number of other men. Very awful must have been the steadily pointed finger of those innocent victims for any culprit not wholly reprobate. These men, however, were past shame. But a judgment day awaits them, when the pointed fingers of the children will be worse for them than the heaviest judgment of any earthly tribunal; for

“The child’s sob curseth deeper Than the strong man in his wrath.”

In the late autumn, the trial to which I have before alluded took place, resulting in the condemnation of large numbers of the slave-dealers and slave-owners of these modern times. The evidence brought against them was of the most awful kind, showing that the exaggeration with which we were sometimes charged had had no existence; and, in fact, no words could have been strong enough in which to describe or denounce the atrocities perpetrated in these bastilles of shameless vice. One young girl, having escaped from one of these houses in Brussels, came to us, and was a refugee in our house for some time. She was taken with another English girl to Brussels, under the kind care of Mrs. Steward, to be witnesses against their tormentors. I was not present at those trials, but was told that they gave their evidence with firmness, and sometimes with an indignant _brusquerie_ which was not unbecoming. These events certainly had a purifying effect for a time on the moral atmosphere of Brussels, and the publication of the sentences pronounced on the culprits conveyed a kind of electric shock throughout the infamous world of slave-dealers, both in Belgium and other countries, which we believe, for a time at least, to have materially lessened the evil.

The Public Prosecutor wrote kindly concerning our poor young English witnesses, saying that Pasteur Anet and Mrs. Steward would have permission to sit by their side in the Court. One of these girls, on returning to my house, told me that the brutal creature Roger, afterwards imprisoned, meeting her in a passage of the Court, fell on his knees before her to beseech her not to give evidence concerning his violent treatment of English girls, of which she had been both a witness and a victim.

Another of the poor refugees helped by Pastor Anet to escape from Brussels came to our house in Liverpool. She appeared to be in pain, and on being questioned she replied that she was suffering from unhealed stripes on her back and shoulders from the lash of this tyrant. I called in our physician, Dr. William Carter, of Rodney Street, Liverpool, to certify to the truth of her declaration; and, in very deed, we found the livid marks of the stripes of which she had spoken. We seemed to stand before a victim of some cruel overseer of slaves in the cotton plantations of one of the Southern States of America in the past times. I drew from her, when alone, the story of her martyrdom. The keeper of this house in Brussels, enraged with her because of her persistent refusal to participate in some exceptionally base proceedings among his clients, had her carried to an underground chamber whence her cries could not be heard. She was here immured and starved, and several times scourged with a thong of leather. But she did not yield. This poor delicate girl had been neglected from childhood; she was a Catholic, but had had little or no religious teaching. She told me with much simplicity, that in the midst of these tortures she was “all the time strengthened and comforted by the thought that Jesus had Himself been cruelly scourged, and that He could feel for her.” Before her capture she had one day seen in a shop window in Brussels an engraving of Christ before Pilate, bound and scourged. Some persons, no doubt, may experience a little shock of horror at the idea of any connection in the thoughts of this poor child between the supreme agony of the Son of God and her own torments in the cellar of that house of debauchery. We often sincerely mourn over these victims as “lost,” because _we_ cannot reach them with any word of love or the “glad evangel.” But _He_ “descended into hell,” into the abode of the “spirits in prison” to speak to them; and I believe, and have had many testimonies to the fact, that He visits spiritually these young souls in their earthly prison, many a time, He alone, in all His majesty of pity, without any intervention of ours.

And yet we continue to mass all these victims under one great ban of social excommunication; to treat them as a _class_, to make exceptional rules and laws for them; and in our various police codes we continue to call them all by the ugly name of _prostitute_, and to pile on fresh penal clauses in order to deal with them more and more severely, in the idea that we are “repressing vice.” The Judgment Day will reveal some astonishing things.

At the close of the year I wrote to my sister in Naples as follows:—“I received some weeks ago a letter from the Editor of the _National_, of Belgium, telling me that he was summoned to give evidence before the Commission now sitting at the Hotel de Ville on the complicity of the police in the crimes divulged in the late trials, and asking me to send him all the information I could, and especially, for his own use, my deposition made before the magistrate. I sent him this, having already sent one copy to the Bourgmestre of Brussels. I imagined he would make use of it in some way, but not exactly as he did. He took this document to the Hotel de Ville, read it all through before the Commission, and next day published it entire in his paper, with all the names. I had had it printed, you understand, simply for private or judicial use. It seems that the editor of the _National_ is an enterprising man, and no doubt he would like to gain some notoriety for his paper, as I have been told he wishes to become a _Grand Seigneur de la Presse_, but in a good cause. I dare say his motives are somewhat mixed. He gave the whole evidence, with a fine summing-up on the principle. 60,000 copies of his paper were sold before the evening; a second edition was called for, and the next day 20,000 more were sold. Of course, at once his life was threatened, pistols were levelled at him, prosecutions for libel were in preparation, of which he is the object, as the publisher in such a case is prosecuted and not the author of the accusations; his office was besieged, and is still so, by people threatening him, and by a yet greater crowd of persons pouring out their griefs and wrongs which they have suffered through the Police des Mœurs, revealing many terrible tragedies. For the moment this editor is a great man, and the agitation throughout Belgium is considerable. About two-thirds of the Press of that country, they tell me, are now warmly on our side. The _Journal de Mons_ thanks the English for this ‘chastisement.’ All honest and decent people are aroused, many are indignant, many more are incredulous. The _Courrier de Bruxelles_ speaks of ‘profound emotion,’ and of ‘the conscience of the people being aroused as by a thunderbolt.’

“You can imagine that on first hearing of this I felt a little troubled, and as if I had been ‘given away.’ Also, persons friendly to us, such as Lambillon, Hendrick and others, who had given us information from a good motive, were angry at seeing their names published as having had any knowledge whatever of these evil things; and I was pained to think of _their_ pain.

“I was pondering all this one evening, when I suddenly recollected that on New Year’s Day of this year, and many days after, I had taken upon me to make a special and definite request to God for light to fall upon these ‘dark places of the earth wherein are the habitations of cruelty.’ Some strong influence seemed to urge me to make this request. I used to kneel and pray, ‘O God, I beseech Thee, send light upon these evil deeds! whatever it may cost us and others, flash light into these abodes of darkness. O send us light! for without it there can be no destruction of the evil. We cannot make war against a hidden foe. In the darkness, these poor sisters of ours, these creatures of Thine, are daily murdered, and we do not know what to do, or where to turn, and we find no way by which to begin to act. Send us light, O our God, even though it may be terrible to bear.’ I had made a record of this petition, and then I had forgotten it. But not so our faithful God. His memory is better than mine! He did not forget, and He is now sending the answer to that prayer. Then I thought of the words;—‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe.’ Here is the very thing I had asked for, brought about in a way I had not dreamed of.

‘We cannot ask the thing that is not there,’ ‘Blaming the shallowness of our request.’

“The Journals speak of that number of the _National_ as ‘a flash of lighting,’ and use almost the language of my own soul about it, and I bow my head in thankfulness, seeing the hand of God in all.

“M. Humbert wrote to me in the early days of this year:—‘I begin this year under a sense of awe; I _can but hold my pen obedient to the dictation of incalculable events_.’ It is interesting to know that some of these slave-owners of Brussels shut up their houses and fled on reading the accusations in the _National_. ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth,’ but only the echo of a far-off woman’s voice! M. Humbert quotes a German proverb, ‘_the dead fly fast_.’ Long-lasting corruption, when ripe for dissolution, is not slow in suiciding. But alas! the poison has spread far and wide. There is an infection in the presence of deathlike corruption which even the best can scarcely escape; and we may ask, ‘Can these bones live?—Ah, Lord God, Thou knowest.’

“I have been a little troubled by an article published in a Brussels newspaper by an ardent young Belgian friend, who makes it seem that his own generous, but too violent, and even fierce expressions convey my own feelings. One cannot be too indignant or too full of scorn in such a case, but I never in my life spoke of _physical_ force! ‘Our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual, to the pulling down of strongholds.’ Nevertheless I can forgive people longing for pistols who have not experienced the superior power of moral weapons. Indeed, at some moments I do also!

“Events have followed each other rapidly. M. Lenaers, the famous Chief of the Police des Mœurs in Brussels, and his second in office, Schroeder, were both summoned to the Hotel de Ville, and at a secret sitting of the _Echevins_ Schroeder was censured. These two worthies, however, instituted a prosecution against the Editor of the _National_ for libel, on account of the statements regarding them. The Editor was jubilant. He took no advocate, but pleaded his own cause, and accepted the whole responsibility of his publication of my accusations. I asked myself, ‘Will his jubilance endure if he is condemned to imprisonment, poor man?’ We have the Catholic Press largely on our side, but our best individual champions are not Catholics. His Majesty the King looks on! Parliament has taken up the matter. Reuter’s telegram announced in our _Daily News_ that “the Minister of the Interior had been questioned on the misconduct of the Police des Mœurs.’ A short debate took place. M. Jacob, a deputy, spoke gravely and well ‘amidst a deep and significant silence.’ He solemnly called on the Minister to take a bold step and dismiss certain functionaries. The Minister replied that the accusations published in the _National_ were ‘probably a libel,’ whereupon a great hubbub arose in all the Journals of the two following days.”

“One evening, before her departure for Brussels, Mrs. Stewart was with us, and when we were gathering for family prayer she asked, ‘Shall we not pray for those wretched men now in prison? What must their thoughts be, waiting for the earthly judgment, in anticipation of the awful judgment to come?’ My husband replied, ‘Yes, we may indeed pray for mercy for them;’ but his heart bleeds, as mine does, for their victims.”

A Memorial concerning this traffic in child slaves had been drawn up at the Guildhall by the City of London Committee, addressed to Lord Granville, our Foreign Secretary at that time. The City Committee commissioned me in October to present a similar Petition to the Bourgmestre and Echevins of Brussels, enclosing also a copy of the Memorial to Lord Granville. I went with these to the Hotel de Ville, where I was courteously received. After presenting the Memorials I ventured to request the Bourgmestre to dismiss the officials and other persons in the room, which he did, looking a little troubled; for my heart urged me to speak to him face to face concerning his own reponsibility in all this matter. It proved to be rather an affecting interview—rather terrible even. I think I trembled, and the Bourgmestre covered his eyes with his hand. He treated me with courtesy and gentleness.

Some time later, two or three official personages, to whom these revelations of evil had come forcibly home, found that the state of their health required them to visit the South of France. In one case it was found necessary greatly to prolong this residence in the south, for he never returned; ‘his place knew him no more.’ MM. Lenaers and Schroeder, Chiefs of Police, were dismissed from office. But the system of Government-patented and regulated vice _continues to exist_, and the friends of Justice continue to work and to wait.

Looking back over the ten or eleven years of our crusade, and observing the admirable organisations which had arisen in that time, I felt impelled to point out a danger, which often threatens the success of vital work, though seldom recognised as a danger, namely, the tendency to lean too much on a perfected organisation, which sometimes in itself cramps the life within it. I sent out a circular to my friends on this subject, in which occurred the following, which I reproduce, because the same tendencies may arise again. “This international work of ours seems to have entered upon a phase through which all movements of the kind are liable to pass, and to point to the danger which there is even in the attainment of a high and satisfactory organisation. This high organisation is often reached at the expense of individual initiative and independent personal effort. We are now incurring the risk of substituting stereotyped office work for the vitality of missionary zeal. M. Humbert lately wrote to me that he considers our propagandist activity is at the present moment somewhat paralysed, and I think we must ourselves confess that the individual activities of the members of our League are not on the increase at present. Some of the prominent members of our Central Committee are unable to give more than a small fraction of their time to our work, being heavily charged with other business of a public or political kind, and this necessitates to a great degree their reliance on the regular machinery and steady work of a bureau.

“In the winter of 1874, taking counsel only with my own heart, I started, as you know, on a mission for our cause to the Continent. In the summer of 1876 our two able comrades, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gledstone, went forth to America, to stir up a spirit of watchfulness there. More recently, Mr. Dyer and his friend undertook a difficult and hazardous enterprise in Belgium. I cite these incidents as cases in which there was no danger of sacrificing missionary zeal to system. These missions and others of a similar nature have proved to be very fruitful, and I am deeply convinced that our cause will cease to make such rapid progress as heretofore if individual propagandism of this nature is altogether abandoned, while we, sitting at home, or largely absorbed in other business, leave the cause mainly to the working of office machinery, and expect its triumph to be achieved by agencies established in London and in Switzerland, however perfected those agencies may be, and however skilled the agents. It is not by official machinery that we shall conquer, though that is necessary _as a scaffolding of operations_, but by self-sacrifice and unwearying missionary zeal, without which no great cause was ever won. I have observed that we are sometimes even betrayed into the error (unconsciously probably) of discouraging the initiative of honest and humble persons who have been filled with the desire to do something independently for the cause. Their ardour must have been checked rather than stimulated by being directed to follow in the path of a centralised organisation, the very existence of which tends to make people think their own personal efforts are not required. We cannot, of course, dispense with our valuable organisations and bureaus, but it is quite possible at the same time to welcome the efforts of every individual, however humble, and to stimulate independent activity on all hands. We need missionaries in all countries. The discovery of these, and the impulse to be given to them, must greatly depend on the maintenance of a vigorous correspondence of an informal, personal kind, wherever there is an opportunity for it; and when such persons are found, a generous confidence as well as prudence may well be exercised in the amount of encouragement given to them to go forward, even if their plans and methods may not be wholly familiar to, or approved by us. The essential is that they should have a clear grasp of our principles.”

CONCLUSION

“Being in the line of Duty, and realising my oneness with Omnipotence, I cannot possibly fail of success; for Omnipotent Love is pledged for the accomplishment of _that for which I trust_. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform it. ‘Thou shalt decree a thing,’ He hath said, ‘and it shall be established unto thee.’ There is no room for doubt. Because of the imperativeness of duty and the faithfulness of God, I am fully equipped with power to fulfil that duty.”

In concluding this volume of personal reminiscences, I am reminded of the survey of the work of the decade which expired in 1880, which I was asked by our friends to bring before them on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the “Ladies’ National Association” of that year. The thoughts which rose to my mind then, come again vividly before me now. I may fitly close this record by some extracts from that address, as follows:—

“The fact that a Select Committee of Parliament is now sitting to inquire into the working of the system which we oppose, produces a certain lull in the more public and demonstrative action of the Abolitionist movement. Our question is again placed _sub judice_ by the House of Commons, and our Parliamentary leaders consequently have their lips closed. For five years past successively, we have had the support of the eloquent voice and powerful arguments of Sir James Stansfeld, who always on all occasions asserted that, amidst all his convictions, deep and strong on this question, he had none deeper or stronger than this—that women must continue to stand in the forefront of this battle, and that, if they should cease to do so, the battle would be lost. Mr. Stansfeld is now, however, a member of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, and cannot be with us here. Sir Harcourt Johnstone, our Parliamentary leader, is in the same position, being also a member of that Committee.

“We are this evening called once more, therefore, to plead publicly our own cause; and this happens to be the case just at the close of a decade of labours, as if to call us, as women, to look back and record what God has done for us, perfecting His strength in our weakness, in these past ten years.

“These circumstances seem to prompt us to an attitude of grave retrospect, and of calm and deliberate preparation for the future.

“We must remember that the principal labours of a great movement do not consist in those public demonstrations and exciting parliamentary debates in which they culminate. Thought leads, after all, and the intellectual battle must continue to be waged by solid argument, by repeated assertion of principles, and by the unwearying pursuit of the multifarious fallacies and falsehoods to which a retiring cause inevitably betakes itself. Above all, ours is a spiritual warfare, and the victory must be won by the deepening of our own convictions, by increased faith in the permanence of the eternal principles of justice, and by a more absolute trust in Him in whose cause we are engaged.

“Since our first uprising in 1869, we have been gathering around us an increasing number of adherents of the medical profession, the breadth of whose views has led them to take a foremost place, not only in our crusade, but in the ranks of scientific teachers; they have set forth, not only the true medical aspect of this question, but also its far higher scientific aspect, in its relation to ethics and jurisprudence.

“The Society of which Elizabeth Fry was a distinguished member was, as we might naturally expect, among the first to welcome the public action of women in this matter; and the earliest public meetings addressed by women on this question were held in Quaker meeting houses. I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude to those who, while most persons were scandalised by women’s action in those early days of our conflict, frankly gave me the right hand of fellowship, asking for no credentials whatsoever, except my own assertion that the cry of the oppressed and the voice of God within me were calling me to this work.

“It would be impossible for me, in this brief hour, to enumerate the succession of conferences, debates, mass meetings, and stormy election conflicts in which we have taken part during the last ten years; and my address to you this evening is not in any sense a report of work done, but only a most brief and imperfect survey of the rapid expansion of our cause....

“Let me lead you on to the spring of 1874. At that date we became aware of a vast enterprise, conceived and planned by the advocates of regulated vice,—an enterprise which involved a world-wide scheme for bringing under this degrading system all the nations of the earth. In order to meet this international action, it seemed to us that we must ourselves make an appeal to all the nations of the earth.

“A few of us—very few—met in York in June, 1874; our small number seemed utterly incommensurate with the vastness of the scheme before us. Faith enough was found, however, in that little band to welcome the suggestion of one member of it that she should go whither God would send her on the Continent of Europe.

“On the eve of her departure a company of friends assembled at Birmingham to commend to God this mighty enterprise in its small beginnings. The conference of that evening began by the reading of those prophetic words—for, in fact, they proved to be prophetic—‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust;’ ‘He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways;’ ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder’ (violence and treachery).

“The history of that winter’s journeyings and labours is known to you, as well as something of the subsequent progress of the work on the Continent. This being the anniversary of the Ladies’ National Association, I may fitly mention that women on the Continent are faithful to the call they have received. Indeed, the hearts and consciences of women, especially of women of the humbler classes, bear the same witness in every land, concerning this question. At a meeting of women lately addressed by the Baroness Stampe and the Countess Moltke in Copenhagen, the poor women crowded up to sign their names, and pay their little contributions as members of our great League. One, who was very poorly clad, said, ‘If I have to sell my shawl in order to become a member, I will do it.’ If every woman in the more favoured classes of life were willing to make a sacrifice in proportion to this which the poor Danish woman was ready to make, we should have a mighty force added to our army.

“Another important feature of our progress is that of the establishment of a branch of our work in the United States of America, to prevent the encroachments of the Regulationists there, who are making constant efforts to introduce this system. Every great cause is propagandist in its spirit. Mr. H. J. Wilson and Mr. Gledstone went over as delegates from England to America, to arouse the lovers of virtue and freedom there. The seed they sowed has been very fruitful.

“The great event of the Geneva Congress, in the autumn of 1877, is well known to you all. I may remark, however, that an important element in our success has proved to be the importation into England of Continental opinion on this subject, opinion which is the more weighty as our Continental neighbours have had a prolonged experience of the regulation system, which has been comparatively recently introduced here. We have now in our hands a powerful weapon to employ for this work; I mean the published _Actes_ of the Congress of Geneva. The conspiracy of silence of the press has done us this service—in that it has forced us to create a literature of our own.

“If we ask ourselves what are the results which we have gained, in the form of the actual abolition, in any part of the world, of the regulations against which we contend, we must confess that they are small. But the approach of victory is signalised not so much by the definite results which we are able to record in the shape of abolition as by the attitude and manœuvres of our opponents, accompanied by the progress of public opinion everywhere, on the question of morality and of the equal application of the moral law to both sexes. The Spartan general Brasidas, surveying the ranks of his enemies, said, ‘I see by the shaking of their spears that the rascals are preparing to run.’ We see as clearly by the ungraceful and eccentric dance now being performed by our opponents that they are preparing for a forced retreat from the position they have so long and so proudly maintained. The whole army of Regulationists have changed their front during these past ten years, having introduced the most extraordinary alterations in their tactics; and, as is generally the case when a bad cause begins to fall, they are introducing changes in the most opposite directions; on the one hand exaggerating all their pretensions and demands, and on the other hand making concessions, with the hope of prolonging their own existence.

“I may enumerate the concessions which have already been made to the advancing force of public opinion in the form of committees or commissions of special enquiry into this question: First, the Royal Commission appointed in 1870, the report of which was contradictory and inharmonious, resembling the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel. Secondly, the Italian Parliamentary Committee, which sat in Rome, and which, at the close of its inquiry, proposed some kind of compromise. Thirdly, the Commission of the Municipal Council of Paris, now sitting. Fourthly, the Hong Kong Commission, which reported unfavourably of the Government establishment of vice in that colony, but gave way practically to the urgency of medical men in maintaining an amended form of the system. Fifthly, the Parliamentary Committee actually in session in London.

“Through all the cycles of human history, certain crimes and cruelties have in a great measure succeeded in hiding themselves, but now the fierce light is bursting in upon them on every side. The horrors and agonies of sensual sin are appearing in view. We continually receive from all parts of Europe revelations such as men had never guessed of before. The international slave traffic in human souls (that _necessary_ adjunct of State-organised vice) has prospered in silence and secrecy; but _it_ also is now coming to the light; it has been and is carried on on a larger scale and in more horrible ways than is generally suspected or can be easily conceived.

“It is possible, even probable, that the most anxious and difficult days of our struggle are yet to come; that when the upholders of the existing regulations of vice in various lands shall see it necessary to abandon their present position, they will come to us with offered compromises; and then there will be a sifting-time; our principles will be tested, and our integrity severely tried. That such compromises, various in kind and more or less subtle in their nature, will be proposed, and that they are already being concocted, I cannot doubt. We shall require clearness of insight to discern their nature, and firmness of purpose to deal with their propositions.

“We have experience enough to demonstrate that, whenever a practical victory awaits us, we may look for a corresponding attempt on the part of the Regulationists to re-establish the evil principle in, it may be, an extremely modified form or in a misleading guise; hence the supreme importance of clearness of discernment on our part, of wisdom and penetration, of skill to separate the old leaven to its last particle from every plan for the future, and to reject, at the risk of being deemed vexatious irreconcilables, every proposal which bears within itself the theory that prostitution is a necessary evil, and the consequent admission that a certain number of God’s creatures are doomed, also by a fatal law of necessity, to be transformed into mere instruments for the basest and most unholy purpose.”

1897.

And now, my dear Friends and Fellow-workers who have followed so far with me this record of our first ten years of conflict, my concluding words shall be addressed to you.

As I look back through our long warfare there rise before my mind not only our united band in untiring conflict with injustice, but many pleasant adventures, social gatherings, and sweet friendships, taking their rise in a common aim, cemented by fellowship in trial and in hope, and ripening, year by year, for the higher communion of the life to come. Many pleasant memories are revived, and some sorrowful ones. Ties have been riven, ties so dear and so familiar that when they vanished our weak hearts were rent. Fair households amongst us have been scattered. Some who were active in the work are now disabled by permanent physical weakness or approaching age; and we daily feel that our dearest communion fronts the hour of death. We have mourned together when some of our ablest helpers and boldest champions fell in the heat of the battle. But we have had strength given us to rise again, to put on our armour, and to turn our face to the foe.

We are of those (it has been said) who represent the imperishableness of principles, one of the many assurances of immortality. Let us be of good courage, then! He who has helped us hitherto will be with us to the end. More than twenty-seven years ago, while we were but a small, feeble company, and few cared to give ear to our appeal, much less to join in our aggressive action, we may have said in our hearts, ‘Who will rise up for me against the evil doers, or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?’ and, indeed, I may say for myself, ‘Unless the Lord had been my helper, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.’ But the heavy curtain of darkness was lifted up at last, and we now see that there were celestial warriors on our side, and more for us than against us. The event foretold by Christ is coming to pass; the secret sins of Europe are beginning to be proclaimed from the housetops; the light of truth is already falling upon the dark places of the earth, full of the hideous habitations of cruelty; the hidden things of darkness can escape the dreaded light no more.

Looking forward, as we must, to another term of conflict, and considering what may, and probably will be, the special trials which await us, I counsel you, Friends, to be strong. Cultivate a sound judgment. Take this question into the solitude of your chamber; let the light from God’s presence penetrate your inmost thoughts; see clearly and act firmly.

Let this be all our care To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds Judge us perverse.

God forbid that we should ever trifle with the righteous conditions of success, for we know that every compromise is a loss of power, and would force us to begin all our work over again! May He grant us the disciplined conscience whose unfaltering logic shall hold its own against every fallacy, and continue to pierce through an iniquity which has corrupted more or less all the Governments of Europe, and blinded even the Churches, in which there can be no real health until they have openly taken their stand on God’s side in this matter.

Our opponents continue to tell us that ‘something must be done.’ True! practical effort is wanted on every side, economical, industrial, social; legal reforms are required, as well as moral and spiritual forces. We do, in fact, already combat, from all these sides, by means of the many collateral organisations which have gathered around us, the great evil of prostitution itself. It is true we had long neglected this work; but let those who blame us look round now, and survey the array of forces and agencies which have sprung up in many countries during these last twenty-seven years, animated by our protest, and working hand in hand with us. Let them regard these efforts and their results, and say whether we have not fully recognised the fact that ‘something must be done,’ and whether we have not faithfully endeavoured to do that something. But what some men mean when they call for something to be done, is that some provision of some sort must be made, whereby impurity may be divested of its unpleasant physical consequences,—that some organisation must be planned, based on the recognition of prostitution as a necessity of our social condition. To these we have but one reply: while it is our turn to remind those persons that ‘something must be done,’ and that that ‘something’ is that men must learn to live virtuously; that is the only possible remedy for the physical plague. But there are men who do not like to hear this; they will try everything rather than this. The end, however, will be the failure of their every effort to separate the moral and the physical laws of the universe, and the confirmation of this truth—that the only cure for the evils which they so much dread is _purity of life_.

O! that men would turn from the evil of their ways, for then, though their sins should be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and they shall find themselves in the hand of a Saviour who is able to save _to the uttermost_!

Let holy charity continue, dear Friends, to be the inspiration of all our work. Pity for the suffering; justice for all; the oppressed to be delivered; the slave to be set free; the moral law to be obeyed to the last tittle; the soul of the poor to be delivered from the hands of the spoiler; and the Governments of the world to be warned of that logic of retribution whereby men and nations reap as they have sown. Such has been our programme in the past; such it will continue to be in the future.

THE END.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

Footnote 1:

The members of the Commission were: the Right Hon. William Nathaniel Massey, the Right Hon. Viscount Hardinge, the Right Rev. the Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, Bart., M.P., the Right Hon. General Peel, the Right Hon. W. F. Cowper-Temple, M.P., Sir John Salisbury Trelawney, Bart, M.P., Sir Walter Charles James, Bart., Vice-Admiral Collinson, C.B., Charles Buxton, Esq., M.P., Major O’Reilly, M.P., Peter Rylands, Esq., M.P., A. J. Mundella, Esq., M.P., Professor T. H. Huxley, the Rev. Canon Gregory, M.A., the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, the Rev. John Hannah, D.C.L., S. Wilks, Esq., M.D., John Henry Bridges, Esq., M.D., T. Holmes, Esq., F.R.C.S., George E. Paget, Esq., M.D., Holmes Coote, Esq., F.R.C.S., George Campbell, Esq., D.C.L., George Woodyatt Hastings, Esq., Mr. Robert Applegarth.

Footnote 2:

Psalm xci.

Footnote 3:

One of the utterances of the defeated candidate did, perhaps, more than anything else to turn the working men’s votes against him, viz., this: in a public document regarding his Governorship of Malta, Sir Henry Storks had stated that he much regretted his inability to bring soldier’s _wives_ under the degrading and disgusting tyranny of this legislation.

Footnote 4:

Unhappily a _Projet de loi_ which has since been proposed in Brussels as a substitute for the actual system contains all the old evil principles in a more veiled form. The sincere men who had embraced the Abolitionists’ views had more or less retired from public life, and the work of so-called reform fell under the influence of experts who are not sincere in their aim.

Footnote 5:

Dr. Schneider, Report of the Vienna Congress, p. 49.

Footnote 6:

We had gained, up to this time, the abolition of the system in the Cape Colony, and in Bombay; also in St. Louis, U.S.A., a victory had been won.

Footnote 7:

Alluding to the Bill proposed by the Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce, which would have been practically a repetition of the Regulations.

Footnote 8:

Mr. Benjamin Scott’s “A State Iniquity.”

Footnote 9:

These lines were written while our revered friend was still living and at the post of honour among us.

Footnote 10:

See the book of Lecour, “La Prostitution à Paris et à Londres.” 1782–1872.

Footnote 11:

“Recollections of George Butler.” Arrowsmith, Bristol.

Footnote 12:

_Shield_, 1877.

Footnote 13:

Owing to the great pressure of time at the close of the Congress, and to the variety in the laws in this respect in different countries, the Section was unable to give an exhaustive discussion to this question; but several members of the Congress, after the framing of this resolution, signed and handed into the Bureau at the Public Meeting the following declaration:—A Congress which has, at the outset, admitted the principle of equality of the two sexes before the law has, in virtue of that admission, affirmed the equal responsibility of the man and of the woman in respect to their illegitimate offspring. Though it may defer for the present the consideration of the possible and practicable means of establishing the right of affiliation, it has in reality already admitted this principle.

Footnote 14:

One of the largest iron foundries in Belgium.

Footnote 15:

“The European Slave-trade in English Girls. A narrative of Facts.” Dyer Brothers.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final chapter. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.