If a sporting house is regarded as a legal institution--which of course it is, in case of a license--then the law is able to take it in hand, and dictate such rules as it sees fit. This enables such places to become respectable in so far as it is possible for them to be so under any circumstances. A license necessarily carries with it certain conditions and restrictions. Let these be made so binding and severe that it will be impossible for any diseased woman to offer her body for prostitution. Let a board of examining physicians call at the houses at regular intervals, and make a thorough examination of the inmates.
Just here I fancy some over-righteous reader may be tempted to throw down this volume in disgust.
"What!" exclaims such a one, "would you make this miserable traffic more widespread than it already is?"
Common sense, and not morality, must dictate the answer. These places will exist in spite of preachers and police. The sensible, worldly plan should be to make them as productive of as little evil as possible. When a man holds illicit intercourse with a woman, it is assumed that he breaks the law of God; but, unfortunately, no means has ever yet been devised to prevent a man from sinning. He is a free moral agent, responsible for his acts, and accountable for the disposition which he makes of his days on this earth. But while the laws of society cannot prevent a man from breaking the laws of God, it can restrain him from rushing into those excesses which may injure others beside himself.
Another advantage--and this also, it is to be remembered, is of purely a worldly nature--arising from granting licenses to sporting houses would be the revenue returned to the municipal government. Here again the pious reader may take offense at the line of argument. And yet he thinks nothing of profiting by the tax which is laid upon liquor dealers. Nevertheless, rum is as certain an agent of the devil, according to the strict Puritanic view, as anything in the world. "Wine and women are equally destructive to the soul," say the preachers.
But the question cannot be argued upon the basis of morality. It must be regarded, as has already been intimated, purely from a practical point of view. It is a fact not be disputed, that if houses of this character were compelled to pay a license, the money thus received would amount to a very considerable sum, especially in the larger cities. This revenue might, if desirable, be devoted to the erection of Magdalen houses, or even to the foundation of Young Men's Christian Associations.