Anti-man legislation, there were probably special psychological reasons to account for their attitude. The special features of the Bill, the Act in question, are (1) increased powers given to the police in the matter of arrest on suspicion, and (2) the flogging clauses.
Up till now the flogging of garrotters was justified against opponents, by its upholders, on the ground of the peculiarly brutal nature of the offence of highway robbery with violence. It should be noted that in the Act in question no such excuse can apply, for it is appointed to be indicted for offences which, whatever else they may be, do not in their nature involve violence, and hence which cannot be described as brutal in the ordinary sense of the term. The Anti-man nature of the whole measure, as of the agitation itself which preceded it, is conclusively evidenced by the fact that while it is well known that the number of women gaining a living by “procuration” is much greater than the number of men engaged therein, comparatively little vituperation was heard against the female delinquents in the matter, and certainly none of the vitriolic ferocity that was poured out upon the men alleged to participate in the traffic. A corresponding distinction was represented in the measure itself by the allocation of the torture of the lash to men alone. It is clear, therefore, that the zeal for the
