Then there are the cases of girls who disappear from their homes
outside of New York, and descend into her brothels, where they find
rich raiment, rich food, a merry and unceasing round of gayety,
champagne and lovers, which they could never hope for where they came
from. These girls leave home very often through sensuality or
laziness,--for girls are lazy as well as boys,--and when missing, are
generally found in brothels, which, as a general thing, they will not
leave for their parents. Then there are husbands and wives who quarrel
foolishly, and separate to vex each other, and are missing for years,
to finally be forced into other illegal ties. And there is a case of a
young man, twenty, married and rich, who leaves his wife; is gone for
twelve months, and is found in New Orleans, when he tells those who
find him that he has been very sick, and was forced to leave his happy
home.
There is also, as it is well known, a great number of infamous houses
in this city where abortion is openly practised, and where whole
hecatombs of innocent children are slaughtered, to hide the shame of
their guilty mothers. How many wealthy and refined girls are to be
found in these slaughter-houses, concealed there to hide the evidences
of their indiscretion, by their parents or relatives, whose social
position would be lost did the consequences of such indiscretion show
themselves? The mothers are left to die in agony, again and again; and
there is no coroner's inquest or public burial; for are there not
scores of obliging physicians to hush the matter up?
And then, again, our private lunatic asylums. How many men and women
are spirited away to those tombs of living men, where remonstrance or
clamor is useless unless the public press tracks the injury, as in the
case of a well-known naval officer, who was most unjustly confined, as
the investigation proved, and was only released by the agitation made
by The World newspaper.
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