"About Three Minutes"

The guides of Moscow and Leningrad (all young women, Government-trained) like nothing better than to show weakly-protesting tourists through the hospitals where abortions are performed and the schools where prostitutes are reformed. At Moscow's school for ex-prostitutes last week the Soviet director declared: "Most prostitutes who come to us, and all must come voluntarily, are young peasant girls who have just arrived in Moscow from the country. They are glad to learn the trades we teach them--operating knitting machines and that sort of thing.

"Prostitutes of some education are much more difficult to deal with. They have an aversion to learning a trade. To make them come to us it is necessary to send out special brigades of agitators.

"In Moscow before the Revolution there were 20,000 registered prostitutes. In 1928 there were 3,000 known prostitutes. We know of 500 today. As our work proceeds we hope to close our institute entirely, perhaps in a year's time.

Concentration of the Russian peoples' thoughts on the Five-Year Plan is tending to make Russians less sex-conscious than other peoples."

At Moscow's chief abortion clinic the resident statistician announced last week that 60,000 births and 70,000 abortions a year is now Moscow's average. Abortions, being legal and free of charge, are performed by State physicians upon application. If the child is her first, she is advised against abortion. If she insists, "our Soviet technique is so advanced that the simple operation is now performed in about three minutes."

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