The History of Prostitution Part 43

15 years 2 16 " 17 17 " 62 18 " 143 19 " 258 20 " 268 21 " 206 22 " 176 23 " 153 24 " 96 25 " 97 26 " 75 27 " 53 28 " 58 29 " 49 30 " 44 31 " 18 32 " 16 33 " 29 34 " 15 35 " 19 36 " 23 37 " 11 38 " 9 39 " 7 40 " 25 41 " 7 42 " 6 43 " 6 44 " 3 45 " 6 46 " 2 47 " 2 48 " 5 49 " 3 50 " 4 51 " 1 52 " 3 53 " 3 55 " 5 57 " 3 58 " 2 59 " 2 60 " 2 62 " 1 63 " 1 66 " 2 71 " 1 77 " 1 ---- Total 2000

The facts exhibited by this table are sufficiently palpable to render remarks almost unnecessary, but the existence of juvenile degradation is so clearly proven as to call for a few observations.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty years are found about three eighths of the whole number embraced in this return. Between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five years nearly three eighths more of the whole number are included, giving in the first ten years of the table three quarters of the aggregate prost.i.tution, while the next period of five years, or from twenty-six to thirty, contains one eighth more. It is thus upon record that seven out of every eight women who came under this investigation had not yet reached thirty years of age. Beyond this standard each year shows but a few, and of these veterans the majority are those who are now keeping houses of ill fame.

Comparing this with the ages of residents in New York as given in the Census Reports, it will appear that prost.i.tutes under twenty years of age are in excess about twenty-five per cent.; as this inquiry shows that _for every four abandoned women between the ages of twenty and thirty there are three between fifteen and twenty_, but the official cla.s.sification proves that for every four women in the state between twenty and thirty years old, there are _only two_ between fifteen and twenty.

While juvenile degradation is an inseparable adjunct of prost.i.tution, premature old age is its invariable result. Take, for example, the career of a female who enters a house of prost.i.tution at sixteen years of age.

Her step is elastic, her eye bright, she is the "observed of all observers." The _habitues_ of the place flock around her, gloat over her ruin while they praise her beauty, and try to drag her down to their own level of depravity while flattering her vanity. As the last spark of inherent virtue flickers and dies in her bosom, and she becomes sensible that she is indeed lost, that her antic.i.p.ated happiness proves but splendid misery, she also becomes conscious that the door of reformation is practically closed against her. But this life of gay depravity can not last; her mind becomes tainted with the moral miasma in which she lives; her physical powers wane under the trials imposed upon them, and her career in a fas.h.i.+onable house of prost.i.tution comes to an end; she must descend in the ladder of vice. Follow her from one step to another in her downward career. To-day you may find her in our aristocratic promenades; to-morrow she will be forced to walk in more secluded streets. To-night you may see her glittering at one of the fas.h.i.+onable theatres; to-morrow she will be found in some one of the infamous resorts which abound in the lower part of the city. To-day she may a.s.sociate with the wealthy of the land; to-morrow none will be too low for her company. To-day she has servants to do her bidding; to-morrow she may be buried in a pauper's coffin and a nameless grave. This is no fancy sketch, but an outline of the course of many women now living as prost.i.tutes of the lowest cla.s.s in the city of New York.

Any one conversant with the subject knows that there is a well understood gradation in this life, and as soon as a woman ceases to be attractive in the higher walks, as soon as her youth and beauty fade, she must either descend in the scale _or starve_. Nor will any deny that of those who commence a life of shame in their youth under the most specious and flattering delusions, the majority are found, in a short time, plunged into the deepest misery and degradation.

Here is seen, at a glance, a reason for the large number of juvenile prost.i.tutes. Youth is a marketable commodity, and when its charms are lost, they must be replaced. The following cases, from life, will substantiate this view. For obvious reasons, the names are suppressed.

C. B. is a native of New York, and now resides in the Eighth Police District of the city. She is twenty years old, and became a prost.i.tute at the age of _sixteen_, through the harshness and unkind treatment of a stepmother, her own mother having died when she was an infant. Take another case from the same neighborhood. L. B. was born in Vermont; her father died while she was a child. At the age of _fifteen_ she was enticed to the city, and became an inmate of a house of prost.i.tution. She is described as an intelligent, well-educated girl, of temperate habits. One more instance from the same locality. F. W. is a native of New York City; is the child of honest, hard-working parents; has received a medium education; at _seventeen_ years old was seduced under a promise of marriage, and deserted. She then embraced a life of prost.i.tution, influenced mainly by shame, and the idea that she had no other means of subsistence.

These women are residing in that part of the city which contains the majority of the first-cla.s.s houses of prost.i.tution; they have not yet descended in the scale. The ensuing selection, taken from the Fourth Police District, the antipodes of the former locality, will forcibly exhibit the operation of this gradual deterioration.

E. S. was seduced in Rochester, N. Y., at the age of _sixteen_. She accompanied her seducer to this city, and for a season lived here in luxury. She was finally deserted, and now drags out a wretched existence in Water Street. E. C., residing in the same neighborhood, is now nineteen years of age. She was married when but a child, and, five years since, or when she was only _fourteen_ years old, was driven on the town through the brutal conduct of her husband. Pa.s.sing through the various gradations of the scale, she has now become a confirmed drunkard; has endured much physical suffering; and, lost to all sense of shame, will doubtless continue in her wretched career till death puts an end to her misery.

To continue this chain of evidence, the following cases have been selected from the registers of the Penitentiary Hospital (now remodeled, and called the Island Hospital), Blackwell's Island. S. A., of New Jersey, was admitted as a patient when only _fifteen_ years of age, suffering from disease caused by leading a depraved life, and within six months was received and treated therein no less than four times. A. B., born in Scotland, was admitted and treated for venereal disease at _fourteen_ years of age. L. A. D., born in England, was admitted at _sixteen_ years of age, two years since, with similar disease, and, with only short intervals, has been an inmate of the hospital continuously from that time.

M. H. was admitted at _seventeen_ years of age, and endured a long and painful illness. M. J. D., after following a course of depravity for a year, was admitted at _eighteen_ years of age, lingered in agony for twenty-five days, and then died, solely from the effects of a life of prost.i.tution.

It is not necessary to pursue this subject farther, as sufficient facts have been adduced to support the a.s.sertion that youth is the grand desideratum in the inmates of houses of ill fame. Young women have been traced from the proudest resorts to the lowest haunts, and have been shown as suffering pain and sickness in a public inst.i.tution, or dying there in torture. But no attempt has been made to calculate the misery produced in the respective families they had abandoned. The excruciating parental agony caused by the departure of a daughter from the paths of virtue seems more a matter for private contemplation by each reader than for any delineation here. We have witnessed the meetings of parents with their lost children; have stood beside the bed where a frail, suffering woman was yielding her last breath, and have shuddered at the awful mental agony overpowering her physical suffering. No doubt can exist that, were it possible to introduce the reader of these pages to such scenes, or even could they be adequately described in all their acc.u.mulated horrors, the cordial co-operation of all the friends of virtue and humanity would be secured in furtherance of any plan which would check this mighty torrent of vice and woe.

From the fact that youth is the grand desideratum, it is evident that a constant succession of young people will be driven into this arena, either by force or treachery. _The average duration of life among these women does not exceed four years from the beginning of their career!_ There are, as in all cases, exceptions to this rule, but it is a tolerably well established fact that one fourth of the total number of abandoned women in this city die every year. Thus, by estimating the prost.i.tutes in New York at six thousand (and this is not an exaggerated calculation, as will be proved hereafter), the appalling number of one thousand five hundred erring women are hurried to their last, long homes each year of our existence. Neglected and contemned while living, they pa.s.s from this world unnoticed and unwept. But their deaths leave vacancies which must be supplied: the inexorable demands of vice and dissipation must be gratified, and who can tell what innocent and happy family circle may next have to mourn the ruin and disgrace of one of its members? In a subsequent portion of this work it will be necessary to notice the means employed for ensnaring the innocent and unsuspecting, and to show that this is a danger which threatens all cla.s.ses of the community.

_Question._ WERE YOU BORN IN AMERICA? IF SO, IN WHAT STATE?

State. Number.

Alabama 1 Carolina, North 2 " South 4 Columbia, District of 1 Connecticut 42 Delaware 1 Georgia 1 Illinois 1 Kentucky 2 Louisiana 4 Maine 24 Maryland 15 Ma.s.sachusetts 71 Missouri 1 New Hamps.h.i.+re 7 New Jersey 69 New York 394 Ohio 8 Pennsylvania 77 Rhode Island 18 Vermont 10 Virginia 9 --- Total born in United States 762

The number of prost.i.tutes in New York who were born within the limits of the United States slightly exceeds three eighths of the aggregate from whom replies to these queries were obtained. They are natives of twenty-one states and one district, and may be subdivided in geographical order as follows:

1. The Eastern District, containing Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Vermont, Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, contributes one hundred and seventy-two women to the prost.i.tutes of New York City.

2. The Middle States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, contribute five hundred and sixty-six women.

3. The Southern States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, contribute twelve women.

4. The Western States, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, contribute also twelve women.

On what hypothesis can these proportions be explained? Maine, on the extreme northeast, with a rocky, surge-beaten coast fronting on the wild Atlantic, with a harsh, cold climate, sends twenty-four women from her population of 580,000, while Virginia, with 1,421,000 inhabitants, contributes but nine! This difference in favor of the southern state can not be explained on the ground of distance, for the boundaries of each state are nearly equidistant from New York; nor can it be sustained by the idea that Maine has more sea-coast, as the maritime coast of the southern state is at least equal to that of the northern one, and the ordinary tendencies to immorality in sea-port towns would be equally felt in each.

The case is still farther involved by the fact that in all southern cities the majority of prost.i.tutes are from the north; and it is a well-known circ.u.mstance, that at certain periods large numbers of courtesans from New York, Boston, and other cities emigrate southward. Were the generally received opinion of the effects of a warm climate upon female organization to be adopted in this connection, not only would there be no necessity for this exodus, but the number of prost.i.tutes received from Virginia should largely exceed those from Maine. This fact is sufficient to confirm the idea already expressed, that fraud or force is used to entrap these females. The natives of a bleak northern state are far more likely to be deceived by the artful misrepresentations of emissaries from New York than the denizens of the southern portion of our Union. The former lead a life of comparative hards.h.i.+p, the latter one of comparative ease. In Maine, over six thousand women, or one in every forty-six of the female population, are immured for six days in every week in a crowded factory; in Virginia, over three thousand women, or one in every one hundred and thirty-four of the female population, are similarly employed.[380] This mode of life will form a matter for subsequent consideration, so far as its tendencies to immorality are concerned.

Again: Place in contrast Rhode Island with eighteen women living by prost.i.tution in New York, and a population of only 140,000, and Maryland with fifteen prost.i.tutes in New York, and a population of 418,000, and a more palpable difference in favor of the southern state is apparent. The former sends one prost.i.tute out of every eight thousand of her inhabitants; the latter, one out of every twenty-eight thousand.

Calculating on the basis of the respective populations, Vermont and New Hamps.h.i.+re have nearly the same proportion as Maine; Ma.s.sachusetts exceeds the average; and Connecticut (_par excellence_, "the land of steady habits") has a still larger excess. New Jersey has the largest proportion of any state in the union, and Pennsylvania shows about the average of Maine. The Southern and Western States have but few representatives. New York, the home state, will be noticed in due course. The preceding facts will supply materials for reflection, in conjunction with the question, "On what hypothesis can these proportions be explained?"

The self-evident answer to this query would seem to be that the excess from the Eastern and Middle States arises from the employment of a much larger proportion of females in manufacturing and sedentary occupations. A young woman of ardent temperament can not but feel the hards.h.i.+p of this position in life as compared with her more favored sisters in other states, and when such an idea has once obtained possession of her mind, it forms a subject for constant thought. Thus, when already predisposed in favor of any change, she falls into the hands of the tempter a pliant victim. Beyond the hards.h.i.+p attendant on her daily labor, the a.s.sociations which are formed in factories or workshops where both s.e.xes are employed very frequently result disastrously for the female. Notwithstanding all the care which may be taken on the part of employers--and it is a subject for national pride that American manufacturers are doing far more to elevate the moral character of their employes than the same cla.s.s of men in other lands--it is morally impossible that these intimacies can be entirely suppressed, nor can their ruinous effects be prevented. Study the moral statistics of any of the manufacturing towns in Great Britain or on the Continent of Europe, and the same results are presented, but in a more alarming degree, because there the supervision is not only weak in itself, but is frequently intrusted to improper persons, whose interest is often in direct opposition to their duty.

A few words in respect to the State of New York. The number of prost.i.tutes in proportion to the population far exceeds the ratio from any other state _except New Jersey_. Beyond the effect of manufactures, which operate here to a corresponding extent as in other states, the immense maritime business of New York City, and the constant flood of immigrants and strangers pa.s.sing through it, must be taken into consideration. This constantly fills some localities with sailors, men proverbial for having "in every port a wife," and many of whom are notorious frequenters of houses of prost.i.tution. This circ.u.mstance proves that this infernal traffic is governed by the same rules which regulate commercial transactions, namely, that the supply is in proportion to the demand. If, by any miracle, all the seamen and strangers visiting New York could be transformed into moral men, at least from one half to two thirds of the houses of ill fame would be absolutely bankrupt.

The constant flood of immigration leaves a ma.s.s of _debris_ behind it, consisting, in the first place, of men idle and vicious in their own lands, who transfer their vices to the country of their adoption, and for a time after arrival here devote what means they possess to the pursuit of debauchery, and materially help to swell the torrent of immorality.

Another cla.s.s of immigrants are women, many of whom are sent here by charitable (?) a.s.sociations or public bodies in foreign lands, as the most economical way to get rid of them. Many of these females become mothers almost as soon as they land on these sh.o.r.es; in fact, the probability of such an event sometimes hastens their departure. They exist here in the most squalid misery in some tenement house or hovel. Their children receive none of the advantages of education; for, as soon as they can beg, they are compelled to aid in the struggle for bread, and the most frequent result is that the boys are arrested for some petty theft, and the girls become prost.i.tutes, thus contributing to meet the demand caused by the cla.s.ses already mentioned.

But, in addition to these foreign children born by accident in our state, the proportion of prost.i.tutes from New York is increased by the facility offered for transit from the interior to the city. Doubtless there are many courtesans from the eastern and southern districts who find their way to some of the large cities in their own part of the country, and so, on the same principle, when a woman in this state has fallen into vicious habits her natural resort is to this metropolis. In addition to the more extended market it offers for her charms, its advantages as a great central rendezvous for the nation must not be overlooked. Here a prost.i.tute can live until her attractions wane, and hence she can easily reach any southern or other point where abandoned women are in demand.

Despite of the large number of prost.i.tutes ascertained to have been born within the bounds of New York State, it can not be conceded that we are any less moral than our neighbors in other parts of the confederation.

It is a matter for the most serious consideration, to be followed by sound and judicious action, either legislative or personal, that so large a number of American girls fall victims to this fell destroyer in a land where a good education is within the reach of every one; where industry, if properly applied in the right channels, will afford a comfortable maintenance for all; where the natural resources are sufficient to support nearly half the inhabitants of the world.

_Question._ WERE YOU BORN ABROAD? IF SO, IN WHAT COUNTRY?

Countries. Numbers.

Austria 2 Belgium 1 British North America 63 Denmark 1 England 104 France 13 Germany 249 Ireland 706 Italy 1 Poland 3 Prussia 6 Saxony 2 Scotland 52 Switzerland 17 Wales 1 West Indies 4 At Sea 13 ---- Total born abroad 1238

It has been frequently remarked, and as generally believed, in the absence of any satisfactory information on the subject, that a very large majority of the prost.i.tutes in New York are of foreign birth; but the facts already developed, with the few remarks which will be made upon the above table of nativities, go far toward falsifying that opinion. The enumeration shows that five eighths only were born abroad, the dominions of Great Britain furnis.h.i.+ng the largest proportion. The ratio in which the several parts of that kingdom supply the New World with courtesans may be stated in round numbers as follows: Ireland contributes one prost.i.tute to every four thousand of her population; British North America, one prost.i.tute to every seven thousand of population; Scotland, one prost.i.tute to every sixteen thousand of population; England and Wales, one prost.i.tute to every fifty thousand of population. Of course, this will be understood as referring to all prost.i.tutes now living in this city, a.s.suming the average nativities of all to be fairly represented in the replies obtained from a portion.

But these numbers, being based upon the population of the several countries, give but a very imperfect idea of the extent of vice among that portion of their people who have settled in America, and a more satisfactory comparison can be drawn from the records of emigration. Upon an examination of the arrivals in each year from the time the existing Board of Commissioners of Emigration was organized to the end of 1857 (a period of ten years), it is found that the numbers average two hundred and thirty thousand per annum, which gives a proportion of one prost.i.tute to every two hundred and fifty emigrants. This is based upon the theory that one fourth of the abandoned women die or are otherwise removed from the city every year. To repeat this fact in plainer words: of every two hundred and fifty emigrants--men, women, and children, who land at our docks, at least one woman eventually becomes known as a prost.i.tute.

This demoralization may be accounted for in several ways. There is frequently a protracted interval between the time when families arrive at the intended port of departure and the day on which they sail; and during this s.p.a.ce they are exposed to all the malign influences invariably existing in large sea-port towns, which must impart vicious ideas to young people who have recently left some secluded part of the country. Take Liverpool, for instance, the port whence the largest number of emigrants come to us, and which contains one prost.i.tute for every eighty-eight inhabitants, and the wonder will be, not that so many are contaminated, but that so many escape. When the dangers of the town are surmounted, another source of immorality is found in the steerage pa.s.sage across the Atlantic. This occupies from one to three months, during which time the females are necessarily in constant communication with the other s.e.x, and frequently exposed to scenes of indelicacy too glaring to be described here; and this in addition to the constant machinations of the abandoned and unprincipled men who are to be found, in greater or less numbers, in every s.h.i.+p's complement of crew and pa.s.sengers. Under such circ.u.mstances, the germ implanted in the sea-port town often develops into its legitimate fruit. But when the s.h.i.+p has reached her haven, and the perils of the sea are pa.s.sed, there are dangers to be encountered on land. The present arrangements for disembarking emigrants at Castle Garden have removed many of the most objectionable features formerly incident to their entry into the land of their adoption, yet there are many still remaining. If a family desire to travel to the interior of the country, they can do so at once; but should they remain in the city, they are exposed to the tender mercies of the emigrant boarding-house keepers, generally themselves natives of the "old country," who, having been swindled on their arrival, are both competent and willing to practice the same impositions on others.

It must not be concluded that all who follow the business are worthy of this sweeping condemnation; many of them are undoubtedly honest, yet it can not be denied that others do pursue this nefarious course; and when they have drained all the resources of their customers, they turn them adrift to beg, or starve, or sin for a subsistence.

To one or the other of these causes many girls owe their ruin. Indeed, there can be no reasonable doubt that a majority of the prost.i.tutes of foreign birth are more or less influenced thereby. In addition to these, there are other snares constantly set for strangers, to which we shall hereafter allude.

It is scarcely within the province of this section to notice measures calculated to remove the evils named. With the first, the American people have no possible means of interfering. With regard to the second, many difficulties must be encountered and overcome. The Commissioners of Emigration have taken steps to avert some of the evils, and, in consequence of their application to the present Congress, a bill has been introduced making it a penal offense for any officer or sailor on emigrant s.h.i.+ps to have carnal intercourse with any pa.s.senger, whether with or without her consent.

The third evil named is a local question peculiarly and entirely under our own control, and, at the risk of antic.i.p.ating the subject, it may be suggested that the most effectual way of obviating it would be the organization of a plan offering inducements and facilities for young women to leave the city, thus removing them from its baneful influences to a part of the country where their own labor would give them the means of a comfortable subsistence and a virtuous life. It is but poor policy to retain in New York numbers of persons who can by no possibility procure employment in an already overcrowded field of labor, and who must eventually consent to earn a precarious living by the sacrifice of virtue.

It matters not through what agency their ruin is effected, whether by the oppression of a boarding-house keeper, the intrigues of an intelligence-office, or the wiles of abandoned ones of their own s.e.x. The degradation is an indisputable fact, and the expenses to every citizen from the extra cost of police supervision, courts of justice, hospitals, and penitentiaries, would probably be enough to remove many from the city who are debauched for the want of opportunity to leave. It would be far better to try the system of prevention in the first instance, and this would probably be successful in many cases; whereas any reformatory plan is almost useless where the Rubicon has been pa.s.sed.

_Question._ HOW LONG HAVE YOU RESIDED IN THE UNITED STATES?

Length of Residence. Numbers.

Under 2 months 9 " 3 " 11 " 6 " 21 " 1 year 75 " 2 years 159 " 3 " 99 " 4 " 83 " 5 " 106 " 10 " 352 10 years and upward 292 From Birth 762 Unascertained 31 ---- Total 2000

In intimate connection with the subject of the nativities of prost.i.tutes now in New York are the answers to the above inquiry. Deducting the number of native-born women, it will be found that five hundred and sixty-three, or more than forty-five per cent. of the foreigners, have resided in the United States less than five years; and of this number, one hundred and fifteen, or nearly twenty-one per cent., have resided here less than one year. These averages support, to some extent, the opinion already advanced, that a large proportion of the prost.i.tutes in New York City were either seduced previous to leaving their port of departure, or on their pa.s.sage, or very soon after their arrival here, when they commenced forthwith a practice which forces them eventually to become a burden upon the tax-paying community. In a majority of cases, this must be the result of their career; the successive fall from one gradation of their wretched life to a lower finally landing them in the prisons or hospitals of a city toward whose expenses neither their pecuniary ability nor their labor have ever contributed a farthing. Their support thus falls upon the working population, an argument of dollars and cents which will not be without its influence in a consideration of the numerous evils of prost.i.tution.

The remaining fifty-five per cent., having been in the United States more than five years, are by law ent.i.tled to receive any a.s.sistance which their necessities may demand from local funds, but of this number there are some who have doubtless been chargeable to public inst.i.tutions before they had completed the required term of residence, as there are unquestionably many who, in order to procure relief, make false representations as to the time of their arrival. Reasoning from well-ascertained facts, there can be little exaggeration in the estimate that from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars per annum is the amount which the citizens of New York contribute to the support of foreigners who have been less than five years in the United States. Nor can this be prevented unless the claims of suffering humanity are entirely ignored. Of course, the idea that a sick or disabled man or woman is to be left to perish can not be entertained for one moment. If they are in want or in pain, every dictate of our common nature demands that they shall be relieved. But it may be suggested to those interested in the question of local taxation to give their prompt a.s.sistance to any practicable scheme which will diminish the amount of vice, and consequently reduce the expenses resulting therefrom, such as a carefully-devised plan for s.h.i.+elding emigrants from corrupting influences, and forwarding the dest.i.tute to sections where labor may be obtained. Upon the moral effects of such an arrangement it is unnecessary to remark, as they are self-evident; of its successful working and eventual economy but little doubt can be entertained.

_Question._ HOW LONG HAVE YOU RESIDED IN NEW YORK STATE?

Length of Residence. Numbers.

Under 2 months 35 " 3 " 20 " 6 " 43 " 1 year 132 " 2 years 186 " 3 " 152 " 4 " 110 " 5 " 127 " 10 " 374 10 years and upward 433 From Birth 353 Unascertained 35 ---- Total 2000

_Question._ HOW LONG HAVE YOU RESIDED IN NEW YORK CITY?

Length of Residence. Numbers.

Under 2 months 46 " 3 " 30 " 6 " 56 " 1 year 140 " 2 years 236 " 3 " 189 " 4 " 128 " 5 " 135 " 10 " 388 10 years and upward 427 From Birth 185 Unascertained 40 ---- Total 2000