Report From the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and Appendix [Command 351]

House of Commons

Edité par House of Commons, by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1881

A propos de cet article

An uncommonly handsome exemplar of a scarce item, a comprehensive addition to the suite of volumes published for the Queen about the enactment and enforcement of the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869. This tall, heavy volume comprises the 1881 report, and measures 13" x 8 1/2" tall and wide, respectively. Overall Very Good copy; deaccessioned from the Public Record Office but with few signs thereof (its armorial bookplate inside front flap, an accession number stamped at spine bottom, ink-stamp at p. ii recto first page of report, blank check-out form pasted inside rear flap). Embossed stamp of the Leeds Public Libraries beginning on title page, dissipating at p. 3). Dealer ink-stamp inside rear flap at bottom from an English bookshop in 1940. Bound in brown cloth over boards, decorated, new endpapers, with gilt top-stained rubbed to brown, then fore-edge and bottom-edge stained in red. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, London, printed for them probably by Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1881. On the 28th day of July the House of Lords held a meeting and present were The Right Hon. William Nathaniel Massey in the Chair and then The Right Hon. Viscount Crichtone, Colonel Alexander, Mr. Cobbold, Mr. Henry Drummond Wolff, William Fowler, Mr. Osborne Morgan, Mr. Stansfield and Colonel Digby. Each month thereafter the committee sat again and with a rotating, revolving make-up. The term "contagious disease" was a Victorian euphemism for sexually transmitted diseases for which contemporary society held female prostitutes and their evil ways solely responsible. These Reports examine many aspects of the Victorian underworld, revealing hypocritical attitudes towards women and their exploitation in the sex industry of the time. The Acts were introduced in England to attempt to regulate "common prostitutes," in order allegedly to reduce the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases within the British army and navy and close kindred. Their inspiration followed long and faulty and misogynist associations of sex and sin and disease and regulation with women and girls, stretching from ancient Hebrews and Grecians and Romans and thenceforward. Applied also to military encampments and to garrison towns and ports, expanding eventually throughout the Commonwealth, India to Australia and to all manner of public spaces. The provisions of the Acts made unlawful, women who were suspected of engaging in prostitution and who failed to register as such with the police in any given locale. They were made to submit to an invasive medical examination allegedly to clear her of infection with an STD. The Act empowered police and ministers, businessmen and tavern-owners, eventually, the right to define who was and who was not a prostitute. If the woman was found to be suffering from a venereal disease, typically either syphilis or gonorrhoea, she would be confined to a "lock hospital" until pronounced "clean," that is, putatively uninfected. The only alternative for such a woman hemmed in so was to agree to three months' imprisonment (extended to six months in the 1869 Act) or ditto, at hard labor. The Acts did not enforce the examination of men, nor were men ever considered vectors of infection as such. The unjust nature of the Act and its unequal application evoked outrage among the British public and Christian societies. It was eventually repealed through the efforts of Josephine Butler and others, she having founded the Ladies' National Association (L.N.A.) to campaign against the implementation of the Act. This volume (Minutes of Evidence), with City of Leeds Library bookplate pasted over the older bookplate and with new endpapers (decorated) and library reinforcing tape. [i], ii-xiv of prelims, then 1-583 pp. then, bound in are two additional reports, one having to do with property of the House of Lords (another embossed stamp there; [i], ii-vi [i] pp.); the other, with coroners in Ireland ([i], ii-v pp.Member, I.O.

N° de réf. du vendeur 353150

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Report From the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and Appendix [Command 351]
• Éditeur: House of Commons, by Her Majesty's Stationery Office
• Date de parution: 1881
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: First Edition.
• État de l'article: Very Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • England