ening us into some sincerity. The Physician and Man of Science are now the shockers:—the Muckrakers in this new field. They are compelling us to look at some of the physical horrors which this evil inflicts by its cancerous reaction on the race.
As for its social origins and all its darker implications of social guilt and complicity, no one has ever put more needed truth than Bernard Shaw into a passage that most folk who think well of themselves should learn by heart. It concerns the recent attempt in England to pass a law for the flogging of certain persons engaged in this loathsome traffic. In the new organ, The Awakener, published by English women V to deal with this evil (as we have started Vigilance) Mr. Shaw writes:
"And you, humble reader, who are neither a shareholder nor a landlord, do you thank God that you are guiltless in this matter? Take care! The first man flogged under the Act may turn on you and say, 'God shall smite thee, thou whited wall.' The wages of prostitution are stitched into your button-holes and into your blouse, pasted into your match-boxes and your boxes of pins, stuffed into your mattress, mixed with the paint on your walls, and stuck between the joints of your water-pipes. The very glaze on your basin and teacup has in it the lead poison that you offer to the decent woman as the reward of honest labor, whilst the procuress is offering chicken and champagne. Flog other people until you are black in the face and they are red in the back: You will not cheat the Recording Angel into putting down your debts to the wrong account."
