THE SOCIAL EVIL.

NZ Truth, Issue 274, 1 October 1910, Page 6

THE SOCIAL EVIL.

Wowser Astonishment.

Remarks the No-license "Vanguard," published m Christchurch :— '"We have just learnt, upon authority which we deem reliable, that the doctors of two of our largest New Zealand hospitals declare— one, that from thirty to forty per cent. o[ the operations he performs upon womisr are rendered necessary by the profligacy of men ; the other, that nearly fifty per cent, of the cases that come into his hands are due to the same cause. This has come to us as a shock and a. surprise." The wowser is usually shocked and surprised when confronted with the deplorable manifestations of his own work. The above figures, coming from an hysterical source, are probably exaggerated, but it merely requires occasional attendance at our courts to realise how widespread the evil is. Unfortunately, the insane mid puritanical policy of suppression and concealment which obtains m this wowser-ridden Dominion has prevented inspection by the public of the ravages due to the evil, which has grown apace, and tbirived Mke a house on fire. A filthy ulcer has been eating into the moral body, and instead of exposing rt to the light of day and using the knife freely, the prudish pietiests have carefully covered it over so that the public magfaft not be reminded of its prevalence, and have permitted it to. eat its way into the very vitals of the community. It is the pious nlthy-mindedness. which suggests that the swimmers should wear divers' helmets and costumes, and that the legs of horses should be covered with trousers within the boundaries of the saintly New Brighton borough ; the degeneracy of mind that finds immorality m an exhibition of the miserable Jefi-Jacko fight pictures. The social evil would have been tackled many, years ago were it not for the wowseristic yells of the "Vanguard" push, who are now appalled by the effects of their own campaign of concealment. The evil Jras spread very widely, and it is a mournful fact that the innocent suffer because they least suspect the existence of the horror. In one affiliation case heard m Christchurch recently, Magistrate Bishop stated that it was the most dreadful within his 'long experience as a magistrate, a young girl having been the means of "contaminating half the country-side of Ashburfcon," and there are many such. In murder trials, or cases ' of crimes against property, the widest publicity is given to the proceedings, so that the ends of justice may Be served, and the public may profit by such publicity, which is largely a protection against the commission of similar cases m the future ; but as soon as sex enters into a case there is a disposition to hush up everything, and not only does it. open the door for possible judicial abuses, but .the unsuspecting public is left m. entire ignorance of the proceedings and becomes a ready victim m the future to the deplorable consequences of this, hole-and-corner business.