Ste,-1 am afraid Mrs. Ncilan begs the question when she says that if a woman is soliciting a soldier he should repel all her
advances and tell her to clear out. By reason of an innate quality (sometimes called chivalry), it is extremely difficult for a man to repel any woman's advances, honourable or otherwise. One of the most obvious truths of human nature is that man is the wooer, woman the woo'd, even though there be far more desire on the woman's part to be woo'd than on the man's part to woo, and that is true of all relationships, moral or immoral. The technique of solicitation is not so very different from the innocent technique of a modest girl who is attracted to an honest man. A forgery is not so mischievous if it does not resemble the original.
It is comparatively easy for an unwilling woman to resist any man's advances, honourable or otherwise; it is very difficult for any man to resist any woman's veiled advances, honourable or otherwise. A bad man rarely succeeds in seducing an unwilling girl; a bad woman leaves behind her a trail of ruined men. This is fact, not theory; it is the very pattern of our lives.
Police action is necessary, therefore, against bad women rather than against equally bad men. But by far the greater need for men is loud preaching of the truth that, outside proper marriage, continence is not only practicable but wholesome and delightful, and this is apparently Mrs. Neilan's real argument.
C. W. Esulsom. 23, Chatsworth Avenue, Blackpool.