ABORTION AND THE ABORTIONISTS.
_The Career of Madame Restell--Rosensweig's Good Luck_.
"Such is the fate of artless maid.
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust.
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
Low in the dust."
--Burns, "To a Mountain Daisy."
Love's young dream--the dream of the ages--has sometimes a fearful
awakening. In her "guileless trust" and unsuspecting ignorance, a young
woman weaves a light web of folly and vain hopes, which one day closes
around her like a poisoned garment, instantly changing all her
fluttering raptures into a wail of the deepest human anguish. All at
once the whole force of her nature is concentrated in the effort of
concealment, and she shrinks with irresistible dread from every course
that would tend to unveil her miserable secret. Overshadowed by a
misfortune that is worse than death, in her half-benumbed mental
condition, she hears of the professional abortionist, and braces herself
for one of those convulsive actions by which a betrayed woman will
sometimes leap from a temporary sorrow into the arms of Death.
The dark crime of abortion abounds in New York, as it does in all great
cities. Yet this crime is conducted with so much care that rarely a case
comes to light. Even when one of these ghouls is arrested and put on
trial it is but seldom that conviction follows, because it is an offense
extremely difficult to bring home to the perpetrator. Many indictments,
for inexplicable causes, from time to time have been pigeon-holed; but
as the transaction is committed in private, the victim is the only
witness, and she is naturally averse to exposure.
It is only when the remains of some beautiful victim are found packed in
a box, or jammed into a barrel, that the imagination realizes the
imminent peril dishonored women incur by trusting themselves to the
mercy of those sordid butchers. The author of her wrong usually makes
the arrangement, under cover. The wily practitioner talks blandly and
soothingly. If the operation succeeds, all is well; if not, the poor
victim's body is secretly disposed of. She is chronicled among the
mysterious disappearances, because every precaution had been taken that
her friends should know nothing whatever of her condition, or of her
whereabouts.
Naturally, the practice of child-murder hardens the hearts and petrifies
the feelings of those systematically engaged in it. The tortures
inflicted on the patient are, no doubt, in many cases unavoidable if the
end is to be achieved; but many of these operators are cruelly ignorant
and unscrupulous, and barbarously brutal and reckless. The mind shrinks
from contemplating the thrilling honors of some of the scenes enacted
within those deadened walls. Despite the tears and protestations of the
suffering woman, the operation will sometimes be repeated two or even
three times. But helpless and unprotected as she is, she is compelled to
submit, because she is terrorized by her inquisitor's threats to send
her to some hospital at once, to expose her condition to the world and
to die.
When death appears only too probable, the abortionist generally has the
victim either sent to a hospital or to some regular physician's
premises, and leaving her before her condition or their connection with
the case has been discovered. If the death occurs on their own premises,
a certificate from some doctor called in at the fast moment, and
deceived as to the cause of death, may enable a quiet little funeral to
take place. And again, the fact cannot be denied that from time to time
regular, diplomated physicians have been found who would not hesitate,
for a consideration, to give "crooked" certificates. Should it be found
impracticable to dispose of the body in such a convenient and regular
way, in some cases it is shipped by rail to a distant and fictitious
address, without any clue by which it can be traced back to the
"shipper."
The pitiable case of Miss Alice Augusta Bowlsby will occur to many
readers just here. The facts in her case were simply these: One Saturday
night towards the end of August, 1871, a trunk containing the remains of
a young and beautiful female was found at the depot of the Hudson River
Railroad, checked for Chicago. The remains were subsequently recognized
as those of Miss Bowlsby of Paterson, New Jersey, and the trunk was
traced, by means of the truckman employed to carry it, back to the
residence of Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig. It was soon discovered that the death
of the unhappy girl was caused by an operation tending to produce
abortion. Rosenzweig was a burly fellow, with a forbidding aspect, and a
bold, confident look. His large, bullet eyes looked defiantly from
behind the deep-intrenched line of wrinkles that care or conscience had
gradually drawn around them. He had, in fact, a forbidding aspect, and
when he was placed on trial before Recorder Hackett, according to a
newspaper reporter present,
"one eye was devoted to watching the Grecian bend of his vulture-hooked
nose, while the other was on duty over a precocious lock of his curling
red hair, which clung to the verandah of his left ear like a Virginia
creeper."
Rosenzweig was convicted of manslaughter while treating a woman for
abortion, and was sentenced to state prison for seven years--a sentence
so obviously out of proportion to the enormity of the crime that a howl
of public indignation went up to the skies. However, Recorder Hackett
had awarded the utmost penalty of the then existing law, and Rosenzweig
was sent to Sing Sing. Soon after, a law was enacted by the state
legislature, making the penalty of crimes like Rosenzweig's twenty years
in the state prison, with hard labor. After this law was passed, and
when the abortionist had served about a year of his sentence, another
charge of abortion was found against him, and he was brought down the
river, again put on trial and sentenced. Mr. Howe, for his defense, in
appeal, raised the natural objection that it was unfair and improper to
try Rosenzweig in two cases at once. Consequently, he got a new trial,
in which he was acquitted, because the old law under which he had been
previously convicted had been repealed. Here was a manifest miscarriage
of justice effected by a wise change in the laws. This prisoner escaped,
but such a result could hardly, within the range of possibility, occur
under the same law again.
In the majority of cases, the victims of abortion are gotten rid of by
the practitioner before they die. The operation once over, they are
hurried from the premises with all possible dispatch, even though the
fatigue and exposure may imperil their lives. Many die a few days after
reaching home, in which case the name of the abortionist is never known,
and many more linger for a few months or years, mere physical wrecks of
their former selves, till merciful Death folds them in his leaden arms.
Before the recent laws were passed, making it a punishable offense to
offer to produce abortions, either by medicine or instruments, there
were many nostrums, in the form of pills and powders, covertly
advertised for the alleged purpose of producing miscarriages. When a
person called on one of those quacks and explained the purpose for which
the medicine was needed, he was told that it was very dear--from five,
ten, to fifteen dollars a box. At the same time he would be assured that
his lady friend was merely suffering from "an obstruction arising from
cold." If he insisted on explaining, the hard face of the quack would
grow darker and harder, and a mysterious gleam of intelligence would
shoot from the speculative eye as he was told:
"I will not sell medicine for anything else but a cold; nor will I treat
any lady for anything else. Your young friend has only taken cold, and
if she is not relieved by these pills she had better come and see me
herself."
No doubt most of those medicines were deceptive, fraudulent and futile.
But they had the intended effect of advertising the person who sold
them, whose "professional" services were generally brought into request
when the pills proved inoperative. This was the secret of Madame
Restell's reputation and immense accumulated fortune. Her occupation was
that of a midwife, and in that assumed capacity she advertised her
"Female Pills." As all the world knows now, her real vocation was the
ante-natal destruction of unwelcome babies. To her gorgeous palace at
the corner of Fifth avenue and Fifty-second street went for years some
of the most wealthy and fashionable women of this metropolis. It is a
dreadful admission, and a sad commentary on our boasted civilization,
but the truth must be told. Some of her patrons were married ladies who,
finding themselves likely to become mothers, and being too heartless and
frivolous to desire the pains and cares of maternity, sought this
woman's aid and, in some instances, paid her fabulous sums to have their
innocent offspring destroyed before they saw the light. Others who
sought her services were unmarried girls, who, having sacrificed their
honor were prepared to pay any price to conceal their shame, by the
destruction of the little life which would blazon it to the world.
Madame Restell's clients were all, or nearly all women of the higher
orders of society, and of liberal means. Of this disgraceful fact there
can be no manner of doubt. Her scale of charges was so extravagant as to
positively prohibit her employment by any one unable to pay a handsome
fee for the gratification of their murderous project. Sometimes a poor
girl, ruined by some wealthy libertine, would be supplied by him with
funds to pay for the terrible operation which would conceal her folly;
but in the great majority of cases they were ladies of wealth and social
standing who went dressed in elegant apparel, loaded with jewelry, and
double veiled, to her palatial mansion to obtain her aid.
Madame Restell, whose name was a scandal and her Fifth-avenue house an
outrage upon New York for years, was a native of Painswick,
Gloucestershire. She was the daughter of a humble laborer named Trow,
and first saw the light in 1813. Her educational facilities--as indeed
were all those similarly or even better circumstanced in England seventy
years ago--were of the humblest kind. But she was made to work, taught
to use her needle, and "sent out to service" in her early teens. And so
it came to pass that, at the age of sixteeen, she was "maid of all work"
for a butcher in her native town. She was quite good-looking, with
piercing black eyes and thick, luxuriant black hair, and shapely form.
She had many candidates for her young affections among the young weavers
of the place, but a journeyman tailor named Henry Somers was the
successful wooer. A year or two after the wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Somers
emigrated and came to the city of New York, settling over on the east
side, about Oliver street. Somers was lazy, improvident and a tippler,
and after a short sojourn in America Mrs. Somers found herself a young
and blooming widow, with one child, a girl, to provide for. She had all
along industriously supplemented her husband's earnings by her needle.
She was now wholly dependent upon it for the subsistence of herself and
child.
It was while in these pinched circumstances that she made the
acquaintance of Charles R. Lohman, a printer poor as herself, and became
his wife. There was no immediate improvement in their condition. Both
were impatient of the pinchings of poverty. Neither was constitutionally
disposed to work hard and patiently for an honest competence. The
celebrated "Female Pills" formed the philosopher's stone which released
them from this condition of chafing discontent and brooding unrest. From
what source a knowledge of the ingredients requisite for the composition
of a pill for such a diabolical purpose was derived, or whether, indeed,
the pill was effective or diabolical at all, remains a mystery, inasmuch
as none of her medicine seems to have been subjected to chemical
analysis. Suffice to say that the couple rented a small room, and the
first advertisement of the female physician was printed in the old
_Sun_, and paid for with borrowed money.
Under such auspices the abortion business dawned upon this city, and in
more than one of the daily newspapers, between the years 1836 and 1840,
appeared glowing puffs of "the beautiful young female physician," as she
was termed, accompanied by elaborate advertisements setting forth her
specialty. No wonder this Upas tree flourished by the river of crime on
whose banks it was fed. No wonder that her brother Joseph, who had been
imported from madame's native English town, was kept busy in putting up
medicines and compounds for the ladies of New York. No wonder that the
Lohmans, _alias_ the Restells, waxed fat and insolent, or that, with
only thirty years actual existence, madame informed the public that she
had been for "thirty years physician in European hospitals"!
By and by her boldness attracted the attention of the Albany Solons, and
in 1846 a law was enacted which was intended to prevent the dark crime
which Madame Restell had helped to make so fashionable. In September,
1847, a minion of justice invaded her Gehenna, then at No. 146 Greenwich
street, and, upon an affidavit, she was arrested and put in prison. On
the tenth of that month she was arraigned and, pleading "Not guilty,"
was sent back to jail to await her trial. At this preliminary proceeding
it appeared that Dr. Samuel C. Smith had been called upon to attend
professionally a young woman of Orange County, by the name of Mary
Bodine, and, upon discovering evidences of foul play, communicated with
the Mayor of New York, and Madame Restell's arrest followed. Public
excitement rose to an intense pitch. A spasm of morality shook the city
to its foundations. Nothing was talked of but the hideous crimes of the
woman abortionist. People lost sight of the war, then raging in Mexico,
while listening to the stories of imaginative people about heaps of
babies' skulls supposed to be mouldering beneath the floors of the
Greenwich-street Golgotha. There were threats of mob violence, and of
incendiary proceedings. It was necessary to guard the premises, and
Lohman kept himself religiously secluded from public observation.
On the twentieth of October, 1847, the abortionist was placed in the
dock of the Court of General Sessions, before Recorder Scott and two
aldermen. For the prosecution there appeared Ogden Hoffman, John McKeon
and Jonas B. Phillips; for the defense, James T. Brady and David Graham,
Jr. The prisoner was charged in the indictment with manslaughter in the
second degree. Considerable difficulty was experienced in obtaining a
jury. Mary Bodine, herself, was the first witness. She described her
engagement as a servant with a person of the name of Cook; her seduction
three days after entering upon her duties, and the consequences that
followed her visit to Madame Restell's establishment; the conversation
that took place; her sojourn in an apartment of the dreadful den; her
diet and treatment, and all the revolting details were given with a
pre-Raphaelite sharpness of outline that carried the conviction of
truth. It was a long trial, and not before November 12th did the
Recorder sum up, when the jury, after a brief retirement, found the
prisoner "Guilty."
She was sent to the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, and popular
excitement was allayed, while the spasm of public morality, with a soft
sigh, fell asleep. When Madame Restell's term of imprisonment expired
she came back to the city and, purchasing a new property on Chambers
street, hung out her "Midwife" shingle, and carried on her business with
nearly as much effrontery, and with quite as much success, as before her
prosecution and sentence.
A craving for pomp and ostentation was one of the peculiar phases of
Madame Restell's character. To gratify this kind of ambition, she
purchased, through a real estate agent, ten lots on Fifth avenue,
between Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets. They cost at that time
$1,000 each--$10,000 for the ten. When it became known that this woman
was the purchaser of the ten lots, a movement was at once made by
reputable citizens interested in the respectability of New York's
leading avenue to repurchase the property. Five thousand dollars were
offered for her bargain without avail. When, many years later, the
horrified residents of the fashionable thoroughfare beheld ground broken
and the abortionist's mansion gradually raising its brazen front, their
indignation knew no bounds. Large sums of money were offered the woman
to forego her intention, but she haughtily answered that "there was not
money enough in New York" to prevent her. No expense was spared, either
in the construction or decoration of this palace of infamy. The frescoed
ceilings were works of art. Two Italians worked at them for a
twelve-month, at an expense of twenty thousand dollars. The carpets and
upholstery, ordered through the house of A. T. Stewart & Co., were
manufactured specially in Paris. The paintings were selected from the
productions of the greatest artists of the period. Her stable was
erected at a cost of twenty-eight thousand dollars. The Osborne House,
another of her investments, erected on the ground adjoining her own
residence, cost about two hundred thousand dollars.
In February, 1878, evil days again fell upon Madame Restell. On the
eleventh of that month she was arrested by Anthony Comstock, of the
Society for the Prevention of Crime, and taken to Jefferson Market
Police Court, before Justice Kilbretli. She desired her release upon
bail, pending examination. The bail was fixed at $10,000, and although
she offered to deposit with the court that amount in government bonds,
Judge Kilbreth refused. Satisfactory bail not being forthcoming, she was
committed to the Tombs, and assigned to a cell on the second tier of the
women's prison. By and by, she was released on bail and, pending her
trial, some time early on the morning of April 1, 1878, she committed
suicide, by cutting her throat from ear to ear, in her bath-tub. The
scene was described in that morning's _Herald_, as follows:
"Mme. Restell's chambermaid, Maggie McGraw, went to her mistress' room
at about eight o'clock this morning, but not finding her there she went
to the bathroom, which is on the second floor. There, hanging on the
door, she saw her mistress' clothes. Thinking that she was taking a bath
the girl went down-stairs, but soon returned and, seeing the clothes
still there, she looked in. Not seeing the madame, she became alarmed. A
peculiar smell then attracted her attention and, looking in, she saw
that the bath-tub was filled with bloody water, and at the bottom of the
tub lay the body of her mistress, with her throat cut from ear to ear.
The instrument of death, a large carving-knife, was lying at her side.
The bath-room is fitted up with Oriental splendor, being frescoed and
decorated handsomely."
The suicide was buried next day, being conveyed from the Fifth-avenue
mansion to the Grand Central Depot, and thence to Tarrytown, the place
of interment. The funeral procession consisted merely of the hearse
carrying the body and one carriage. It is a strange, revolting story,
carrying its own warning and moral, besides furnishing an admirable
instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis manifests
herself.