RECOMMENDATIONS COMMITTEE OF THE A CAREFUL consideration of the foregoing report points unmistakably to the conclusion that the so-called system of regulation is not a radical or adequate remedy for the evils connected with prostitution, even in their merely physical aspect. For the members of this Committee, indeed, the moral grounds alone would have sufficed to stamp as intolerable the proposition that the public authorities should undertake the inspection of houses of ill-fame with a view to rendering the practice of vice innocuous to those who engage in it. We recommend to those persons who are wont to extol this system as a kind of panacea and to deplore, with something of impatience if not of contempt, the Puritanical sentiment which prevails in this country, and which renders any attempt to introduce such a system impracticable, an attentive study of the passages in the above report relating to regulation and its results. They will find, on a closer study of the results, as these appear where the system has been tried, that their vaunted panacea is no panacea at all, and that their confidence in its merits is far from being supported by the facts. But, if not regulation, what then? The city of New York is rapidly expanding into metropolitan proportions. Within another ten years its aspect will, in many ways, be transformed. It is certain to become a more commodious and beautiful city than it has ever been before. But what will this material splendour avail if the forces that tend to debase the moral life of its people -and especially of its youth-are permitted to operate unchecked? The Social Evil is assuming alarming dimensions. What is needed at this time is a definite policy with regard to it; a policy that shall not attempt the impossible, that shall not be based on the delusive hope of radically altering in a single generation the evil propensities of the human heart, or of repressing vice by mere restrictive legislation, but which, none the less, shall ever recognise as an ultimate end the moral redemption of the human race from this degrading evil, and which shall initiate no measure and advise no step not conducive to that end; a policy that shall be practical with respect to the immediate future, and shall at the same time be in harmony with the ideals which are cherished by the best men and women in this community. As an outline of such a policy we submit the following: First, strenuous efforts to prevent in the tene |