In January, 1866, Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at a
public meeting at the Cooper Institute, made the astounding declaration
that there were as many prostitutes in the city of New York as there were
members of the Methodist Church, the membership of which at that time was
estimated at between eleven and twelve thousand. In the spring of 1871,
the Rev. Dr. Bellows estimated the number of these women at 20,000.
These declarations were repeated all over the country by the press, and
New York was held up to public rebuke as a second Sodom. The estimate of
Dr. Bellows would brand one female in every twenty-four, of all ages, as
notoriously impure, and taking away from the actual population those too
old and too young to be included in this class, the per centage would be,
according to that gentleman, very much larger--something like one in
every eighteen or twenty. New York is bad enough in this respect, but
not so bad as the gentlemen we have named suppose. The real facts are
somewhat difficult to ascertain. The police authorities boast that they
have full information as to the inmates of every house of ill-fame in the
city, but their published statistics are notoriously inaccurate. As near
as can be ascertained, there are about 600 houses of ill-fame in the
city. The number of women living in them, and those frequenting the
bed-houses and lower class assignation houses, is about 5000. In this
estimate is included about 700 waiter-girls in the concert saloons.
This is the number of professional women of the town, but it does not
include these who, while nominally virtuous, really live upon the wages
of their shame, or the nominally respectable married and single women who
occasionally visit assignation houses. It is impossible to estimate
these, but it is believed that the number is proportionately small.
Their sin is known only to themselves and their lovers, and they do not
figure in the police records as abandoned women.
The fallen women of New York include every grade of their class, from
those who are living in luxury, to the poor wretches who are dying by
inches in the slums. Every stage of the road to ruin is represented.
There are not many first-class houses of ill-fame in the city--probably
not over fifty in all--but they are located in the best neighborhoods,
and it is said that Fifth avenue itself is not free from the taint of
their presence. As a rule, they are hired fully furnished, the owners
being respectable and often wealthy people. The finest of these houses
command from ten to twelve thousand dollars rent. The neighbors do not
suspect the true character of the place, unless some of them happen to be
among its visitors. The police soon discover the truth, however. The
establishment is palatial in its character, and is conducted with the
most rigid outward propriety.
The proprietress is generally a middle-aged woman, of fine personal
appearance. She has a man living with her, who passes as her husband, in
order that she may be able to show a legal protector in case of trouble
with the authorities. This couple usually assume some foreign name, and
pass themselves off upon the unsuspecting as persons of the highest
respectability.
The inmates are usually young women, or women in the prime of life. They
are carefully chosen for their beauty and charms, and are frequently
persons of education and refinement. They are required to observe the
utmost decorum in the parlors of the house, and their toilettes are
exquisite and modest. They never make acquaintances on the street, and,
indeed, have no need to do so. The women who fill these houses are
generally of respectable origin. They are the daughters, often the wives
or widows, of persons of the best social position. Some have been drawn
astray by villains; some have been drugged and ruined, and have fled to
these places to hide their shame from their friends; some have adopted
the life in order to avoid poverty, their means having been suddenly
swept away; some have entered upon it from motives of extravagance and
vanity; some are married women, who have been unfaithful to their
husbands, and who have been deserted in consequence; some have been
ruined by the cruelty and neglect of their husbands; some, horrible as it
may seem, have been forced into such a life by their parents; and others
have adopted the life from motives of pure licentiousness. The
proprietress takes care to keep her house full, and has agents whose
business it is to provide her with fresh women as fast as they are
needed. Whatever may be the cause of their fall, these houses are always
full of women competent to grace the best circles of social life.
The visitors to these establishments are men of means. No one can afford
to visit them who has not money to spend on them. Besides the money paid
to the inmates, the visitors expend large sums for wines. The liquors
furnished are of an inferior quality, and the price is nearly double that
of the best retail houses in the city. It is not pleasant to
contemplate, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the visitors include
some of the leading men of the country, men high in public life, and
eminent for their professional abilities. Even ministers of the gospel
visiting the city have been seen at these houses. The proportion of
married men is frightfully large. There is scarcely a night that does
not witness the visits of numbers of husbands and fathers to these
infamous palaces of sin. These same men would be merciless in their
resentment of any lapse of virtue on the part of their wives. New York
is not alone to blame for this. The city is full of strangers, and they
contribute largely to the support of these places, and the city is called
upon to bear the odium of their conduct. Men coming to New York from
other parts of the country seem to think themselves freed from all the
restraints of morality and religion, and while here commit acts of
dissipation and sin, such as they would not dream of indulging in in
their own communities, and they go home and denounce New York as the
worst place in the world.
The proprietress takes care that the visitors shall enjoy all the privacy
they desire. If one wishes to avoid the other visitors, he is shown into
a private room. Should the visitor desire an interview with any
particular person he is quickly admitted to her presence. If his visit
is "general," he awaits in the parlor the entrance of the inmates of the
house, who drop in at intervals.
The earnings of the inmates of these houses are very large, but their
expenses are in proportion. They are charged the most exorbitant board
by the proprietress, whose only object is to get all the money out of
them she can. They are obliged to dress handsomely, and their wants are
numerous, so that they save nothing. The proprietress cares for them
faithfully as long as they are of use to her, but she is not
disinterested, as a rule, and turns them out of doors without mercy in
case of sickness or loss of beauty.
The inmates of these first-class houses remain in them about one year.
Many go from them sooner. In entering upon their sin, and tasting the
sweets of wealth and luxury, they form false estimates of the life that
lies before them, and imagine that though others have failed, they will
always be able to retain their places in the aristocracy of shame. They
are mistaken. The exceptions to the rule are very rare, so that we are
warranted in asserting that these first-class houses change their inmates
every year. A life of shame soon makes havoc with a woman's freshness,
if not with her beauty, and the proprietress has no use for faded women.
She knows the attraction of "strange women," and she makes frequent
changes as a matter of policy. Furthermore, the privacy of these places
demands that the women shall be as little known to the general public as
possible.
Whatever may be the reason, the change is inevitable. One year of luxury
and pleasure, and then the woman begins her downward course. The next
step is to a second-class house, where the proprietress is more cruel and
exacting, and where the visitors are rougher and ruder than those who
frequented the place in which the lost one began her career. Two or
three years in these houses is the average, and by this time the woman
has become a thorough prostitute. She has lost her refinement, and, it
may be, has added drunkenness to her other sin, and has become
full-mouthed and reckless. She has sunk too low to be fit for even such
a place as this, and she is turned out without pity to take the next step
in her ruin. Greene street, with its horrible bagnios, claims her next.
She becomes the companion of thieves--perhaps a thief herself--and passes
her days in misery. She is a slave to her employer, and is robbed of her
wretched earnings. Disease and sickness are her lot, and from them she
cannot escape. She is never by any chance the companion of a
"respectable" man, but her associates are as degraded as herself. She
may fall into the hands of the police, and be sent to the Island, where
the seal is set to her damnation. A year or two in a Greene street house
is all that a human being can stand. The next descent is to Water street
or some kindred thoroughfare. Almost immediately she falls a victim to
the terrible scourge of these places. Disease of the most loathsome kind
fastens itself upon her, and she literally rots to death. Such faces as
look out upon you from those Water street dens! Foul, bloated with gin
and disease, distorted with suffering and despair, the poor creatures do
what they can to hasten their sure doom. It all happens in a few years,
seven or eight at the longest. Ninety-nine women out of every hundred go
down the fearful road I have marked out. I care not how beautiful, how
attractive, how sanguine may be the woman who is to-day the acknowledged
belle of a fashionable house of ill-fame, her doom is sure. Would you
see her seven years hence, should she live that long, you must seek her
among the living corpses of the Water street dens.
"The wages of sin is death!" Never were truer words written. Ask any
one whose duties have called him into constant contact with the shadowy
side of city life, and he will tell you that there is no escape from the
doom of the fallen women. Let no woman deceive herself. Once entered
upon a life of shame, however brilliant the opening may be, the end is
certain, unless she anticipates it by suicide. The longer her life, the
greater her suffering. It is very hard for a woman to reform from such a
life. Not one in a hundred feels the desire to reform. Everything is
against her. Her mode of life is utterly destructive of her better
nature, her higher impulses. There is but one means of safety. Avoid
the first step. There is no turning back, when once a woman enters upon
the downward path. "The wages of sin is death!"--death in its most awful
form.
It is generally very hard to learn the true history of these
unfortunates. As a rule, they have lively imaginations, and rarely
confine themselves to facts. All wish to excite the sympathy of those to
whom they speak, and make themselves as irresponsible for their fall as
possible. It is safe to assert that the truly unfortunate are the
exceptions. Women of cultivation and refinement are exceptionally rare
in this grade of life. The majority were of humble position originally,
and either deliberately adopted or allowed themselves to be led into the
life as a means of escaping poverty and gratifying a love for fine
clothes and display. The greater part of these women begin their careers
at second and third class houses, and, as a matter of course, their
descent into the depths is all the more rapid. Very many are led astray
through their ignorance, and by the persuasions of their acquaintances
engaged in the same wretched business. The proprietors of these houses,
of every class, spare no pains to draw into their nets all the victims
that can he ensnared. They have their agents scattered all over the
country, who use every means to tempt young girls to come to the great
city to engage in this life of shame. They promise them money, fine
clothes, ease, and an elegant home. The seminaries and rural districts
of the land furnish a large proportion of this class. The hotels in this
city are closely watched by the agents of these infamous establishments,
especially hotels of the plainer and less expensive kind. These harpies
watch their chance, and when they lay siege to a blooming young girl,
surround her with every species of enticement. She is taken to church,
to places of amusement, or to the park, and, in returning, a visit is
paid to the house of a friend of the harpy. Refreshments are offered,
and a glass of drugged wine plunges the victim into a stupor, from which
she awakes a ruined woman.
A large number of the fallen women of this city are from New England.
The excess of the female population in that overcrowded section of the
country makes it impossible for all to find husbands, and throws many
upon their own resources for their support. There is not room for all at
home, and hundreds come every year to this city. They are ignorant of
the difficulty of finding employment here, but soon learn it by
experience. The runners of the houses of ill-fame are always on the
watch for them, and from various causes many of these girls fall victims
to them and join the lost sisterhood. They are generally the daughters
of farmers, or working men, and when they come are fresh in constitution
and blooming in their young beauty. God pity them! These blessings soon
vanish. They dare not escape from their slavery, for they have no means
of earning a living in the great city, and they know they would not be
received at home, were their story known. Their very mothers would turn
from them with loathing. Without hope, they cling to their shame, and
sink lower and lower, until death mercifully ends their human sufferings.
As long as they are prosperous, they represent in their letters home that
they are engaged in a steady, honest business, and the parents' fears are
lulled. After awhile these letters are rarer. Finally they cease
altogether. Would a father find his child after this, he must seek her
in the foulest hells of the city.
When other arts fail, the wretches who lie in wait for women here seek to
ruin them by foul means. They are drugged, or are forced into ruin. A
woman in New York cannot be too careful. There are many scoundrels in
the city who make it their business to annoy and insult respectable
ladies in the hope of luring them to lives of shame. Young girls have
been frequently enticed into low class brothels and forced to submit to
outrage. Very few of the perpetrators of these crimes are punished as
they deserve. Even if the victim complains to the police, it amounts to
nothing. The same species of crime is practised every year.
The police are frequently called upon by persons from other parts of the
country, for aid in seeking a lost daughter, or a sister, or some female
relative. Sometimes these searches, which are always promptly made, are
rewarded with success. Some unfortunates are, in this way, saved before
they have fallen so low as to make efforts in their behalf vain. Others,
overwhelmed with despair, will refuse to leave their shame. They cannot
bear the pity or silent scorn of their former relatives and friends, and
prefer to cling to their present homes. It is very hard for a fallen
woman to retrace her steps, even if her friends or relatives are willing
to help her do so.
Last winter an old gray-haired man came to the city from his farm in New
England, accompanied by his son, a manly youth, in search of his lost
daughter. His description enabled the police to recognize the girl as
one who had but recently appeared in the city, and they at once led the
father and brother to the house of which she was an inmate. As they
entered the parlor, the girl recognized her father, and with a cry of joy
sprang into his arms. She readily consented to go back with him, and
that night all three left the city for their distant home.
A gentleman once found his daughter in one of the first-class houses of
the city, to which she had been tracked by the police. He sought her
there, and she received him with every demonstration of joy and
affection. He urged her to return home with him, promising that all
should be forgiven, and forgotten, but she refused to do so, and was deaf
to all his entreaties. He brought her mother to see her, and though the
girl clung to her and wept bitterly in parting, she would not go home.
She felt that it was too late. She was lost.
Many of these poor creatures treasure sacredly the memories of their
childhood and home. They will speak of them with a calmness which shows
how deep and real is their despair. They would flee from their horrible
lives if they could, but they are so enslaved that they are not able to
do so. Their sin crushes them to the earth, and they cannot rise above
it.
Drunkenness is very common among women of this class. Generally the
liquors used are of an inferior quality, and do their dreadful work on
the health and beauty of their victim very quickly. The use of narcotics
is also very common. All the drug stores in the vicinity of these houses
sell large quantities of opium, chloroform, and morphia. Absinthe is a
popular drink. This liquor is a slow but deadly poison, and destroys the
nervous system and brain, and produces insanity. Suicides are frequent,
and many of the poor creatures fall victims to the brutality of the men
who seek their society.