INTRODUCTION.

PUBLIC attention having about the year 1881 been called to a systematic traffic in English girls, which it was alleged was carried on for the purpose of prostitution in foreign countries, a Select Committee of the House of Lords was appointed to enquire as to the truth of this allegation, and into the question of juvenile prostitution generally. After a quantity of evidence had been taken by the Committee both during the years 1881 and 1882, a report was presented on the 9th August, 1882.

With reference to the first branch of the subject, the Committee found that the alleged system existed, the amount of from 81. to 127. being paid to the agent for the introduction; that with one or two exceptions the girls affected had led antecedent immoral lives; but that on account of their ignorance of a foreign language and institutions, they were practically imprisoned in the brothels to which they had been taken. The Belgian law which forbids the use of brothels by women under the age of 21, was evaded by the production of false certificates of birth, the certificate of an elder sister often being substituted for that of the girl who had been sent abroad. Owing to the zeal of the Belgian authorities there seemed to be no case of a girl so confined at the time of the report. The Committee reported with regard to the other branches of the subject as follows:

As to the amount of protection at present given by the law to young girls in England

Paragraph 8. In other countries female chastity is more or less protected by law up to the age of 21. No such protection is given in England to girls under the age of 13.

9. The evidence before the Committee proves beyond doubt that juvenile prostitution, from an almost incredibly early age, is increasing to an appalling extent in England, and especially in London.

10. Various causes are assigned for this—a vicious demand for young girls; overcrowding in dwellings, and immorality arising therefrom; want of parental control, and in many cases parental example, profligacy, and immoral treatment; residence, in some cases, in brothels; the example and encouragement of other girls slightly older, and the sight of the dress and money which their immoral habits have enabled them to obtain; the state of the streets in which little girls are allowed to run about, and become accustomed to the sight of open profligacy; and sometimes the contamination with vicious girls in schools.

11. The Committee think it better to refer at length to the evidence which has been given before them on this painful subject, without attempting to abbreviate it. They are unable adequately to express their sense of the magnitude, both in a moral and physical point of view, of the evil thus brought to light, and of the necessity for taking vigorous measures to cope with it. They will, therefore, at once state the recommendations which they are prepared to make as to all the matters to which they have referred.

Upon these conclusions the Committee based the following recommendations:

1. That it be made a serious misdemeanor for any person to solicit or endeavour to procure any woman to leave the United Kingdom, or to leave her usual place of abode in the

United Kingdom, for the purpose of entering a brothel, or prostituting herself, in parts beyond the sea, whether he shall or shall not inform the woman of such purpose.

2. That upon every birth certificate issued at Somerset House of the birth of a woman who would at the time of issue be between 20 and 30, there shall be stamped in red a conspicuous notice in French to the effect that these certificates having sometimes got into improper hands and been used abroad for fraudulent purposes, foreigners are warned to require evidence that the person producing a certificate is really the person named in the certificate.

3. That the age up to which it shall be an offence to have or attempt to have carnal knowledge of, or to indecently assault a girl, be raised from 13 to 16.

4. That the age of unlawful abduction (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 55), with intent to have carnal knowledge unlawfully, be raised from 16 to 21.

5. That it shall be a misdemeanor for any person to receive into any house or into or on to any premises occupied or possessed by him, or of which he has the management or control, any girl under the age of 16 years for the purpose of her having unlawful sexual intercourse with any person, whether such intercourse is intended with any particular man, or generally.

6. That a police magistrate shall have power, on application of a police inspector, and on his affidavit that he has reason to believe that some girl has been so received and is then in such house or premises, to grant a warrant to such inspector to search the house or premises, and to bring before him any person offending as aforesaid, and also the girl, and if the magistrate shall commit any person for trial for such offence, he may also bind over the girl to appear as a witness on such trial.

7. That the soliciting of prostitution in the public streets

be made an offence, and the police authorized to act accordingly, without proof that it is done "to the annoyance of inhabitants or passengers."

8. That the police be authorized to make applications under the Industrial Schools Amendment Act, 1880, as to the children therein mentioned, and that any magistrate before whom a girl under the age of 16 is convicted of soliciting prostitution, may, if it shall appear that she has no friends able to provide a suitable home for her, remit her to a refuge or industrial home until she attains the age of 16.

9. That the court or magistrate may direct any charge, trial, or application, under Nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8, to be heard in private.

In the years 1883 and 1884 bills were carried in the House of Lords, but in neither year did the Lower House find an opportunity of dealing with the subject. In this year, however, the advocates of the measure have been more successful, and the Act which we are considering is the fruit of their continued efforts.

The Act is well arranged and clearly expressed; and but few points are overlooked when it is considered with what haste the bill was passed through, and the exceptional circumstances under which it was passed.

As all points for remark, which have occurred to the Editors, have been dealt with in the notes to the sections, it is sufficient now but to make a few general observations on the scope of the Act.

Section 2 was designed to deal with the first recommendation of the Committee, i.e., to suppress the Continental traffic, and it also constitutes it a criminal offence to procure a girl under 21 to commit an immoral act, to become a common prostitute or an inmate of a brothel for the purposes of prostitution. As is pointed out in the notes to this section, if two or more persons combined to do that act which is now

of itself an offence, they would have been liable to a charge of conspiracy. For the purposes of decoying a girl to the Continent in order that she may become a prostitute, it is almost essential that more than one person should be implicated. The fact therefore that there have been, since public attention was called to the matter, no prosecutions at common law for conspiracy, rather tends to support the conclusion on the part of the Lords, that, owing to the activity of the Belgian police, there has been a cessation, of the worst features at any rate, of the abuse which formerly existed.

The remainder of the section dealing with other acts of procuring is a salutary provision, and one which will, it is hoped, check those offences of procuring which are no doubt committed on the part of individuals not in complicity with others.

Section 3 deals with the case of a man procuring connexion with a woman by intimidation, deceit, or drugging. As the clause was passed by the House of Lords, it contained the proviso that the sub-section should not apply where such woman or girl knew the connexion to be unlawful. This was no doubt designed to meet the case of a common prostitute having connexion under such circumstances, that even if the false representations were true, the act would be unlawful. It was desired, no doubt, to avoid the scandal of the criminal law being put in motion by such a person to enforce her illicit bargains. The proviso was expunged in the House of Commons, but the introduction into the Act of the words, "not being a common prostitute or of known immoral character" was evidently intended to obviate the difficulty which was apprehended.

With regard to section 4, which deals with the defilement of a girl under 13, the only matter, in addition to the notes in the text, to which it is necessary to call attention, is the proviso which renders a witness, too young to be sworn, liable to an indictment for perjury. In 1860 a girl of 11