The influence of legislation on public morals / Friends' Association for Abolishing the State Regulation of Vice.

Date:
[1873?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of legislation on public morals / Friends' Association for Abolishing the State Regulation of Vice. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    thing that is done, should be quite gradual! and that if the Act were really resisted by any popular force, it would he quite impossible to enforce it. In question 685, it is suggested to be very essential not to shock public opinion, &c. Consistently with this dread of publicity, the 'principal Act [186G] was introduced at the end of a session, under a mis- leading title, passed as quietly as possible, and with most indecent haste. It was to be worked without exciting public notice, and in fact, by the ingenuity of its provisions, it attracted little attention for a long time. [See Report of Lords'Committee, questions 27, 102, 193.] Extreme caution was obviously needful; for this Act was sometbing entirely new in British legislation. All previous laws had been based on the principle of repressing or dis- couraging that which was wrong. Evil had been denounced, and evil doers were to be punished. But now, evil in one of its worst forms was to be secured from inconvenience; sinful indulgence was to be recognised as a necessity, and its path made safe. [See official document presented to Lords' Com- mittee, 1868, p. 132.] This fatal dogma, as truly observ^ed by the Dean of Carlisle, underlies this whole system of legislation. If the state of the case is really so simple and so little to be disputed as tbis, how,it may be asked, is the fact to be explained, that so many excellent men have been so slow to perceive it? Nay, further, how is it that so many have rather been lulled into indifference or to an acquiescence in what they have been instructed to regard as a military or a medical requirement ? The answer to this question must be sought in the opera- tions and in the tactics of that class of reformers, whose basis of action is Expediency, in opposition to that oi Jicced moral lyrinciples. ■ When the first combined effort was made to bring this religion of Materialism to bear on legislation, is not very .clear ; but in 1868 we find the existence of an Association