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THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

edge of it, it suffices to cast a suspicion upon her own morality. But whatever may be thought of me, I openly confess that I take an interest in everything human, not excepting the woman who has abandoned the path of virtue, and who is considered a worthy representative of that place of eternal torture, to which our Christian friends mercilessly condemn her."

Is it not inspiring to hear, in the midst of this babbling and howling hypocrisy, which oppresses the minds of this pious world of scoundrels like a nightmare, such noble contempt of the stupid monster, called public opinion, expressed by a "delicate" woman?

Of this dreadful pest, prostitution, which poisons, both physically and morally, millions of the coming as well as of the present generations of men, Mrs. Branch contents herself with unfolding a picture by means of statistical tables, which she has received from physicians, especially from Dr. Saenger, of Blackwell's Island. Dr. Saenger explored the city of New York under police escort and found four hundred notorious brothels with eight thousand female inhabitants. The number of the frequenters of these houses, which consume some eight million dollars, he estimates at sixty thousand a day. Of the private prostitution, which exceeds the public (New York is said to contain forty thousand prostitutes) Dr. Saenger could give no estimate; but in England they count one prostitute to every fourteen