SWEEPING THE STREETS
SIR,—In an otherwise enlightened comment on the Wolfenden Report you go on to say that there is nothing hypocritical about wanting to clear prostitu- tion out of sight. Here, I profoundly disagree. There seems to me everything hypocritical about a pro- posal whose aim ends more or less with the removal of a vice from public view. What manifests itself as the main concern is not morality itself but merely the appearance of it. What lengths will we not go to that we may garb ourselves in respectability, however shoddy?
A frank acceptance of prostitution as an ineradic- able part of human conduct is realistic, but takes us nowhere when accompanied by a proposal for in- creased fines. That is merely a niggling comment directed at the small-time prostitute. What is needed surely is some practical measure of control; and that is not achieved by making soliciting a furtive business conducted in dark, unspecified corners.
Licensed houses may be undesirable, but they are expedient and practical; they are also safer, affording fuller opportunities for legislation covering standards of hygiene and routine medical inspection. That— though undesirable—is better than no control at all. —Yours faithfully, JOHN JENKINS 44 Plantagenet Street, Riverside, Cardiff
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