watching their childish dalliance with lascivious attention.”
Martial, xi, 46, makes mention of the fact that patrons of houses of ill
fame had reason to beware of needle holes in the walls, through which
their misbehaviour could be appreciatively scrutinized by outsiders; and
in the passage of our author we find yet another instance of the same
kind. One is naturally led to recall the “peep-houses” which were a
feature of city life in the nineties. There was a notorious one in
Chicago, and another in San Francisco. A beautiful girl, exquisitely
dressed, would entice the unwary stranger into her room: there the couple
would disrobe and the hero was compelled to have recourse to the “right
of capture,” before executing the purpose for which he entered the house.
The entertainment usually cost him nothing beyond a moderate fee and a
couple of bottles of beer, or wine, if he so desired. The “management”
secured its profit from a different and more prurient source. The male
actor in this drama was sublimely ignorant of the fact that the walls
were plentifully supplied with “peep-holes” through which appreciative
onlookers witnessed his Corybantics at one dollar a head. There would
sometimes be as many as twenty such witnesses at a single performance.