LEAGUE, To the Editor of the "Norra-Cama Darty News.'"?
Sm,—May I be permitted to comment on the remarks of "J" in your issue of Friday, June 30% He says that the closing down of houses of ill-fame is useless and that the thing to do is to promote a campaign against venereal disease. Now, as a matter of fact, we-agree with the latter point, but disagree with the first point for several very obvious reasons. It has been shown that there is high correlation between prostitution and venereal disease. Some authorities, indeed, state that as high as ninety per cent of cases of venereal disease are contracted in such places as are under discussion. Furthermore, it has been stated by careful authorities that at any one time an average of 60 per cent.—varying of course in different places—of the inmates of such houses are either diseased or carriers of disease. May one ask how we can secure a decrease in venereal disease if nothing is done to limit the chief source of infect tion and most prominent centre of distribution? To remove such centres and make them more difficult to find is to remove the chance of contagion. For this reason the Medical Conference of the Inter-Allied Committee of Red Cross Societies (Cannes 1919) put repression of commercialized prostitution first in the factors eliminating conditions favouring the dissemination of venereal diseases. We would remind "J" also that the Moral Welfare League definitely endorsed the proposal of the Commissioners of the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease that a venereal disease officer be appointed by the Shanghai Municipal Council. To this the ratepayers and the Council agreed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.