Contagious Diseases Acts (1866-1869) Repeal : summary of the debate on Mr. W. Fowler's motion, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts (1866-1869)", Tuesday, May 24, 1870.

Date:
1870
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contagious Diseases Acts (1866-1869) Repeal : summary of the debate on Mr. W. Fowler's motion, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts (1866-1869)", Tuesday, May 24, 1870. 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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    There are many other cases where the same sort of injustice is alleged to have taken place. I repeat that if there were not one, my objection to the law would be just the same. It is an oppressive law, and therefore a bad law. And now, Sir, I will ask the House to observe how the evidence is got up in these cases. The police must have evidence. Mr. Mallallieu tells us where they get it. (Lords, 1868. Q. 147.)— Our sources of information are these—we have the military and naval hospitals, and our men visit them, and ascertain from the patients themselves from whom they conti-ncted the dis- ease. ... We get information from the men themselves, and frequently from private sources. Gentlemen, for instance, or persons of a superior class, who have been so unfortunate as to become tainted, will denounce the women in writing, and send their address, and the police look out for them. . . . The brothel-keepers, who are subject to penal consequences if they harbour diseased women, are also very valuable sources of information to us. It is becoming well known that a woman in a state of disease is not to be tolerated even by the person who keeps the house, and they give information to the police. So we see the police are put en rapport with the keepers of houses which ought to be suppressed by them. These men are the agents of the police. They give valuable information. And what shall ve say of the generosity of the man in a higher rank who reports his partner in sin to the police ? What an exhibition of chivalrous feeling! I must here refer to one other part of the Act. By a section introduced last year the surgeon can detain any woman who is brought to him and cannot be examined owing to natural causes for five days. So the poor creature is in fact imprisoned, although it is quite impossible for any- one to say that she is suffering in any way. Such a clause involves a most gross violation of liberty. But this is not all. I say that the system I have described must lead to a most hateful espionage which is most obnoxious to our feelings as Englishmen. No woman will be able to walk out alone under such police regulations. Such is the case now in Paris. [ Oh! oh !] The hon. Member dissents, but I will read what Mdlle. Daubie says on this matter— We have beon enabled to see what a mistake it Is to pretend that our Government toleration is necessary for the protection of modest women. If that were the case, wo may bo sure they would reject this annihilation of their sisters for their benefit; but it is proved, on tho contrary, that the insecurity of every woman results from the prerogatives granted to vice in France. Aro wo not aware that nations, which have not our mon- strous measures of preservation, permit the girl to go out, to travel, and live by herself, for tho purpose of either the secondary or the higher course of instruction ; whilst in Paris more than 100,000 regulars and soldiers of the National Guard, and a numerous body of police, fail to in- spire the young woman of the middle class with sufficient confidence to allow her to venture a single step without a protector, or the lower-class young woman with a security sufficient to keep her from being made a merchantable article. I do not want to see any such state of things here, and I would observe that its existence would be especially hard on the wives and daughters of working men. They are often compelled to be out late, and are they to be dogged and watched by police and to be suspected ? More- over, I say that such a system causes the whole atmosphere to be tainted. A mother has very early to warn her daughters about things respecting which the longer she is ignorant, the better,— and this is no fancy of mine, I will call in Mr. Parsons again as witness. He says— It must be borne in mind that the practical execution of the Act is confined to a class of men who probably are not the best versed in using judgment as to their selection : they see a woman out late of an evening, and they are very liable to jump at the conclusion that she is a prostitute. The policeman jumps at the conclu- sion. That is the very thing I object to. I will only add on this head that I understand the French system is much more careful than ours in protecting women from false accusations. A police- man who reports falsely is severely punished ; whereas, here, a poor woman who is so injured has to bring an action against the policeman who is backed by the Government. She gets no costs if she succeeds, unless the Judge certifies, but pays them if she fails, under this merciful Act. What a mockery of a remedy for a poor woman ! And now I come to the third head—the moral argu- ment. I assert, Sir, that these Acts are based on the theory that prostitution is a necessity. It is impossible to un- derstand them on any other theory. I deny that this assumption is true. With my whole soul I deny it. But it is said it is an evil that has always existed and we must recognize it. Well, stealing is an evil which has always existed ; but we do not recognize it with a view to regu- late it. We seek to get rid of it. We punish it. The law tries to put it down.