CONCLUSION OF M. HUMBERT'S REPORT. 185

both for a sitting of the preliminary committee and for a public meeting; then at Berne on the 16th, to hold a conference during the session of the Federal Chambers, and afterwards at Zurich, etc., etc.

"Further, there is urgent need to resume and to continue without interruption the movements already initiated at Paris, at Berlin, and at Brussels.

"And yet Mrs. Butler's pamphlet bore no false title. At its appearance there was no exaggeration in calling it on the Continent, "A Voice in the Wilderness." Never since the days of John the Baptist was an appeal to the human conscience uttered in a more profound isolation!

CONCLUSION OF REPORT.

“We are as yet but at the beginning of our labours. The day must dawn when they shall embrace the whole of Europe.

"There are in the present movement two things, connected, yet distinct; the special and the general question. "To the first category belong :—

"In England, the repeal of the Acts of 1866-69, which legalize prostitution.

"In the canton of Neuchâtel, the abolition of the arbitrary licensing system assumed by the Government, contrary to the laws.

"In the canton of Geneva, the abolition of the traditional governmental licensing system and regulations. "In the canton of Zurich, the repeal of the law which institutes municipal licensing, etc.

"But above all this rises the general, the humanitarian question, of the abolition of female slavery, and the elevation of public morality among men. This is the task that our age has to accomplish.

"All the countries of Europe and of America are interested in this struggle; in it is involved our Christian

civilization and its future throughout the whole of the world.

"And these truths must be proclaimed and made public everywhere, even in those countries where there is happily no need to change the existing legislation. "Our League must raise a universal banner. Each member must aid in our work, however little it may seem to concern his own land.

"We must create an ever wider interest in the objects and development of the Federation. That Federation being international, must have its field-days, its international contests and battles.

"Such an occasion is offered in the year 1877, and on the most central, the most favourable, the most cosmopolitan field of battle,-in the city of Calvin and of Rousseau, in the town from whence issued the international convention and ambulance corps of the “Croix Rouge," on this Helvetian soil which has just given to the light the Universal Postal Union.

"The International Congress of Medical Science, that Association which carries so much weight in the governmental decisions relative to public hygiene that, for example, all Governments eagerly gave the force of law to the measures which it recommended for repelling Asiatic cholera; that society which draws by thousands to its séances, doctors, physiologists, and naturalists from both hemispheres, will hold at Geneva, in 1877, its fourth biennial general assembly; the first of these took place at Paris, the second at Vienna, the third at Brussels, the fourth being convoked for Geneva.

"The Federation should seize this occasion to engage the Congress in the question of prostitution, and to cause it to figure officially in the programine for 1877. It must not be left to be proposed spontaneously by the committee of the Congress, for Governments would construe such an announcement into a premonitory indication that

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some reinforcement of the organization of prostitution was needed. It is most important, therefore, that the initiative be taken by the British National Medical Association, which demands the abolition of legalized prostitution, in order that Governments may know beforehand that the abolitionist tendency is strong enough to dare to affirm itself before the whole world in 1877, and to hope to close this great century by a progress that shall be a worthy crowning of the edifice.

"The step proposed being adopted, we shall follow it up by an earnest and ardent appeal to all scientific men who sympathise with our cause; we shall entreat them to prepare for the great struggle; we shall aid them to lend their presence; we shall call them together from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, of all languages and of all nations, that there may be heard in the Congress one true protest of the human family.

"In order to secure this, our Federation should hold its session at the same time and in the same place; the FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE BRITISH, CONTINENTAL, AND GENERAL FEDERATION FOR THE ABOLITION OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF PROSTITUTION should assemble at Geneva in 1877, immediately after the Medical Congress; so that if our cause gain a victory among the representatives of science, we may be there to gather together and formulate the results of our triumph; or that if a majority of the Medical Congress declare against the work of the Federation, we may be there to give a refutation to their errors on the very morrow of their proclamation, and to at once weaken their deleterious influence on public opinion. In the one case as in the other we shall have a fitting occasion for issuing a manifesto which shall definitively place our League in its true light before the entire world. Conuerors or conquered, we shall have a greater position,

and our strength will be multiplied a hundredfold for the struggles that may still await us in our respective States.

"The three principal points of my proposition may be summed up in begging the Executive Committee of the Federation to direct :

"1. That the necessary steps be taken by the British Medical Association for Repeal, with regard to the International Committee of the Congress of Medical Science at Geneva, to ensure that the question of legalized prostitution be included in the programme of the Congress of 1877.*

"2. That in the event of an affirmative response, the British Medical Association for Repeal do secure that its principles be clearly formulated and worthily represented at the said Congress.

"3. That in any case the First International Congress of the British, Continental, and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution, be held at Geneva in 1877, immediately after the said Medical Congress.

"(Signed)

AIMÉ HUMBERT."

In concluding the present chapter of the history of the movement in Switzerland, we give the following clear and beautiful statement of the aims of the Federation, issued from the office of the Continental Commissariat in November :

"The programme of the Federation may be summed up as follows:

"(a) From the Political point of view, The State may not, under any pretext, tolerate vice, much less may it compound with it, as it does in giving to prostitution any organization, whether direct or indirect. The State, as representing justice, may not itself favour

* All the steps here indicated have been taken.

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or support moral wrong. The power and rule of the State may only be exercised for true good.

(b) From the Moral point of view,

In presence of the constantly menacing scourge of prostitution in Europe, it is not sufficient to work only for the abolition of the laws, regulations, and institutions which tend to give an official organization or sanction to vice; we must further form a vast league to act by moral force on public opinion. We must strive for the elevation of the standard of morality among men; we must combat all the baneful influences at present existing in manners, in fashions, in art, and in literature, notably in some novels and in the drama; we must fight against the prejudices and conventions of the world in things which concern morality; and we must endeavour to exercise the same regenerative influence in home education and in public instruction.

"(c) From the point of view of Benevolence,

The Federation will interest itself in favour of "Refuges," generally so called, and will eagerly strive to help all institutions which exercise a preventive action, by opening and supporting asylums for young girls without situations, or work, or protection, and lodgings for workwomen without family or friends. On the same principle, the Federation will also give its earnest attention to the question of industries adapted for young girls, and to the raising of women's wages, as also to all that can contribute to the security of the family, and to the ensuring of just conditions of existence for the poorer classes, who are now deprived of them.

'The Federation is independent of any political party, any school of philosophy, any religious creed. It leaves to all of its members full liberty to express themselves according to their own convictions, and it invites all who desire to help in its work to band themselves together in