Fees for visitors, say one each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 70 00
Profit from sale of one basket of Champagne each day (weekly) 168 00
-------
Total $398 00
This estimate does not reach the daily average of visitors, and a more
correct statement would be:
Board for ten women, at $16 00 per week each $160 00
Fees for visitors, say two each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 140 00
Profit from sale of two baskets of Champagne each day (weekly) 336 00
-------
Total $616 00
Taking the mean of these two calculations will give receipts exceeding
twenty-six thousand dollars per year, or five hundred dollars weekly. The
cost of maintaining these luxurious establishments, in addition to the
rent, is considerable, but still there is a very large excess. This is
satisfactorily proved by the fact that the women who own the houses in
which they conduct their traffic have, almost without exception, purchased
them _since_ they commenced housekeeping, and also that many of them own
considerable personal property in addition to the real estate. One woman
is positively affirmed to be worth over one hundred thousand dollars, many
are reported as worth sums ranging from fifty thousand downward, and many
more are reputed to be rich, but no special amount mentioned.
The management of many of the houses is confided to a housekeeper, acting
for the principal, who is rarely visible unless specially called for, and
under this housekeeper are a number of servants, varying from three to
seven, according to the size of the house and the number of boarders it
accommodates. These servants are almost invariably colored women, and no
difficulty is ever experienced in obtaining a full complement. Their wages
are liberal, their perquisites considerable, and their work light. A neat
and well-arranged breakfast is prepared for the "lady boarders" about
eleven or twelve o'clock, and their dinner is served about five or six
o'clock. As a general rule these are the only meals supplied them in the
course of the day. If they require any thing more they send out for it,
or persuade their visitors to escort them to some saloon.
The proprietors of this class of houses assume to be respectable women
when they are away from the scenes of their business. An anecdote, and a
true one, has been related of one of them who, on a recent visit to
Newport, so effectually carried out her disguise as to receive the escort
of a reverend gentleman, a D.D. of this city, to the dinner-table and
elsewhere, with his family, he thinking her a most amiable and deeply
afflicted widow. Some of them have private residences up town, in the
quiet respectable streets, and come to their houses of prostitution every
forenoon, returning at night. A portion of them profess to be religious,
frequently attending some place of worship the better to preserve their
mask. Naturally benevolent, as are all women, they contribute liberally to
charitable objects, and freely relieve any indigent persons who may ask
their assistance. Even in political matters they have some weight, their
resources and connections proving valuable to some aspirant for local
distinction who has promised them that he will, if elected, use all his
influence to protect them from annoyance.
Toward the miserable women whose vice is the source of their wealth, these
proprietors act as interest dictates. A girl who has not the tact or
disposition to attract visitors is seldom treated with much consideration,
while one who is successful receives more favors, but favors, generally
speaking, of a nature to render her subservient to their wishes; such as
the loan of money to purchase new and fashionable articles of dress, a
short credit for her board, or some equivalent which will place her under
an obligation, and render it difficult for her to leave the house. They
are actuated in this by a desire to retain an attractive girl; for, in
addition to the actual cash payments she makes, she also possesses the
power of inducing her visitors to be liberal in their orders for wine, and
the profit from its sale, about two hundred per cent., is an important
source of revenue.
The excessive demands made upon the earnings of prostitutes by these women
has been productive of a serious social evil. Many unfortunate girls can
not appreciate the advantages of leading a vicious life for the benefit of
a landlady, and in self-defense have hired apartments in some private
house, so as to secure their earnings for themselves. This is generally
arranged so that two of them engage a suite of rooms, say a parlor and two
bed-rooms, representing themselves as virtuous women, governesses or
seamstresses, and frequently as the wives of sailors or of men who are in
California or some other distant land. Here they either board themselves
or resort to some saloon, and to this lodging, or to the house of
assignation, which will be noticed in due course, they introduce their
visitors. It is a fact more than suspected that many prostitutes are
living in this manner in our city. It is needless to enlarge upon the
injurious effects likely to result therefrom.
Before leaving this branch of the subject, there is another characteristic
of keepers of these houses which must be noticed, namely, an exaggerated
affection for some man to whom they are passionately attached. Some few of
them are professedly living with their husbands, but this is an exception
to the ordinary rule. Generally speaking, they are the mistresses of some
persons upon whom they lavish all their tenderness, and for whose
gratification they willingly incur any amount of expense. Some of these
individuals are men upon town, gamblers, or rowdies of the higher class,
whose noblest aspirations are satisfied by a liberal supply of money. They
will readily ignore all social virtues for the same consideration. It is
related as a fact concerning a celebrated brothel-keeper in the city, that
when she was residing in the interior of the State, some years since, she
became desperately enamored of a young man whose friends discovered the
connection. They removed him to the far West. Undaunted by the dangers and
difficulties which surrounded her, she followed him, and during her
journey through the large towns had many offers of protection from men
acquainted with her antecedents. True to her affection, she refused them
all, and traced her lover to the forests. Here she remained with him,
living in a log hut, deprived of many of the necessaries and all of the
comforts and elegances of life, for three years. At least, infidelity to
her love can not be charged against this woman, and is it not a natural
conclusion that a heart so sincere and devoted in its attachment could
have been led to a more virtuous course had a different social feeling
existed toward her and her former transgressions?
As a general rule, the keepers of these first-class houses will not permit
the boarders to have the men whom they style their "lovers" residing with
them, although they allow them to visit; a constant residence is
considered as likely to engross too much of the girl's time to the neglect
of the interest of the proprietress.
We come now to the second grade of prostitutes and houses of prostitution.
Many of the women of this rank are those who made their _début_ in
first-class houses, but left them when their charms began to fade. To some
extent, they endeavor to carry out the same rules of conduct which
governed them while there, and, generally speaking, the management of some
portion of the houses of this grade assimilates very much with the former,
the same privacy being observed, though in a less expensive manner. In
others a marked difference is perceptible, and these will now claim
attention.
A longer continuance in the habits of prostitution, and the association
with a less aristocratic class of visitors, has diminished the refinement
of the women and imparted to them coarser manners. There is not the same
desire to "assume a virtue, if they have it not," or the same ambition to
make vice seem unlike itself. Degradation has had its effect upon them,
and now that they are reduced to a humbler sphere they feel more of the
world's pressure, and become more daring and reckless in their conduct.
Many of the street-walkers and women frequenting theatres are of this
class, and any one who has ever come in contact with them would have found
no difficulty in at once assigning their true position. It is right to say
here, that many of the managers of our best theatres have abolished the
third tier, so called, and if any improper woman visits them she must do
so under the assumed garb of respectability, and conduct herself
accordingly.
Other women in this grade, or rather this section of the second grade,
commenced their life of vice in it, and as the natural tendency of
prostitution is to depress instead of elevating its followers, they have
very little chance of ever rising beyond their present rank, although such
instances do occasionally happen, the keeper of a first-class house
sometimes consenting to receive a boarder from a lower rank, if she has
only recently commenced prostitution and is sufficiently prepossessing in
manners and appearance for this exaltation. A great number of foreign-born
women are found in this class, victims of emigrant boarding-houses, or of
seduction on board ship during their passage to this country.
The houses are generally conducted in a similar manner to those of the
first class, with this distinction, that what is costly luxury in the one
is replaced by tawdry finery in the other, and for expensive mirrors and
valuable paintings they substitute cheaper ornamentation. Their
reception-rooms are of much inferior finish. They also furnish wine and
brandy to customers who wish for them. Drunkenness is more general, both
with the prostitutes and their visitors, and the most revolting scenes are
not uncommon. Profanity is indulged in to a considerable extent, and in
some places seems the vernacular language. The attempts at fascination
made by the women are more excessive, and frequently vulgar to a degree
which, while it excites a smile, also inspires disgust. The general charge
for board here will be from six to ten dollars a week, rarely reaching the
latter figure.
When evening approaches, if there is little or no company in the house,
the girls resort to the streets, dressed in their most attractive finery,
in the expectation of finding some man whom they can induce to accompany
them home. They are seldom unsuccessful in this search, and very
frequently repeat it several times in the course of the evening. Others of
them visit the third tier of such theatres as will admit them, and there
exert their charms to secure conquest. Intercourse with these women is
attended with considerable danger, professional experience having shown
many of them to be infected with syphilis, while numbers are connected
with dishonest men who would not scruple to rob a stranger, if any
opportunity offered for the purpose, such opportunity being not
unfrequently afforded by some arrangement of the woman herself.
In such places vice presents comparatively few attractions, and yet these
houses are numerously visited, principally by travelers, clerks from
stores, the higher class of mechanics, etc., some of whom will spend in an
evening the earnings of a week.
The women who preside over these brothels are usually of the
strong-minded, and frequently of the strong-handed order, the latter being
those who can by their own strength suppress any riot that may occur
without calling in aid from the police, and generally calculate to
preserve a moderate decorum in their establishments. Their profits are
very large, derived not merely from the board money and extras paid by the
women, but also from the wines and liquors they sell. They do not endeavor
to screen their own character, as do those of the upper class, but openly
acknowledge what they are, and do not hesitate to give their personal
attention to the business of the place. Anxious to accumulate money as
rapidly as possible, they are not very particular about the means they
employ, and although they would not allow any positive act of dishonesty
to be performed toward a visitor while he was in the house, on account of
the trouble to which it might subsequently expose them, yet they would
scarcely consider it their duty to warn him against the proceedings of the
men who live as "lovers" with the prostitutes under their roofs. The
virtue of these keepers is certainly not of a very rigid order, and their
favored lovers are universally selected from among men of the same
character as themselves.
The meals provided for boarders are served at about the same hours as in
the fashionable houses, but they lack that neatness and arrangement which
a good cook would give, the domestic matters being mostly confided to
inexperienced servants, and frequently to some old prostitutes who are
retained at nominal wages to do as much work as they can, and in their own
style.
It has been already stated that some of the second-class houses of
prostitution are conducted in a similar manner to those of the first, and
therefore no attempt has been made to give any detailed account of them,
which would be a mere repetition of what has been once described. The
lower class have been taken as illustrating the second grade, and
consequently the account must not be taken as a sweeping condemnation of
the whole.
The next, or third grade of prostitutes and houses of prostitution may be
found very fully developed in the first police district, among the
Germans; in the fourth district, where sailors mostly resort; and also in
the third, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth districts. A majority of the women
in these districts are of foreign birth, the largest proportion being
Irish and German. Although rated as third-class houses, some of them are
equal in all respects, and sometimes superior in many, to houses of the
second class. Most of the women are young, and many of them are very
good-looking, while the houses, particularly those kept by Germans, are in
general conducted very quietly. Even in those places resorted to by
sailors, the principal part of any noise which may occur is caused by the
boisterous mirth and practical jokes of the visitors themselves. The
houses are, in every sense of the word, "public" places of prostitution,
and neither women nor keepers seek to disguise the fact in any manner, the
general argument seeming to be, "We live by prostitution, no matter who
knows it."
There are many distinctive features in the several districts, but the
first and the fourth will be fair average types of the whole, and these we
will notice briefly, commencing with the German houses in the first
district.
Here drinking is openly carried on, although seldom to such an extent as
to cause absolute intoxication. There is a public bar-room opening
directly from the street, where can be obtained lager beer and German
wines, as well as the usual liquors sold in porter-houses. This is the
reception-room of the establishment, and a stranger in the city, who might
walk in to get a glass of lager beer, without knowing the character of the
place, or being aware of the signification of the crimson and white
curtains festooned over the windows, would find himself followed to the
bar by some German girl, who would ask him in broken English if he would
"treat her." If he feels inclined to gaze around him and study human
nature in this phase, he sees that the room is very clean; a common sofa,
one or two settees, and a number of chairs are ranged round the walls;
there is a small table with some German newspapers upon it; a piano, upon
which the proprietor or his bar-keeper at intervals performs a national
melody; and a few prints or engravings complete its furniture. Two or
three girls are in different parts of the room engaged in knitting or
sewing; for German girls, whether virtuous or prostitute, seem to have a
horror of idleness, and even in such a place as this are seldom seen
without their work. Every thing bears an unmistakable Teutonic appearance;
from the heavily-mustached proprietor, or the recently-imported
bar-keeper, to the mistress, or madame as she is generally called, and the
women themselves, all plainly tell their origin. He is surprised at the
entire absence of all those noisy elements generally considered
inseparable from a low-class house of prostitution. He can sit there and
smoke his cigar in as much peace as at any hotel in the city; and if he
once tells a woman he does not wish to have any conversation with her, he
will scarcely be annoyed again, unless he makes the first advances. If he
thinks proper to enter into conversation with the proprietor, he will be
certain of a courteous reply, and will frequently find him an intelligent
and communicative man. Finally, concluding to resist the temptations
around him, he leaves the place in the most perfect security, and without
the least fear of being insulted.
The majority of the girls here have recently arrived in the United States.
Some have embraced this course of life from absolute poverty and
friendlessness; some have followed it in their own country; others have
been the victims of seduction; and with some the ruling motive seems to
have been a desire to speak and be spoken to in their native tongue. Their
pecuniary arrangement with the proprietor, for there is almost invariably
a man at the head of each establishment, is that they shall give him one
half of all the money they receive, for which he provides them with board
and lodging. They are not generally intemperate women, the light German
wines being their principal beverage, and although they frequently indulge
in profanity, yet, as it is in their national language, it is
unintelligible to those who understand only English, and the annoyance is
consequently restricted. They are generally honest; in fact, it is the
testimony of those best qualified to judge, that there is very seldom much
disturbance, and very rarely any dishonesty practiced in this class of
brothels. It can not be said that literally there is not much noise, for
any one who has been in a room where two or three Germans of each sex were
talking and gesticulating with their characteristic earnestness will be of
opinion that they talked quite loud enough; but by _disturbance_ is to be
understood quarreling or fighting, which sometimes occurs, but not very
frequently.
As before remarked, a man and his wife are mostly the keepers of such
houses. The man, sometimes with a lad for his assistant, attends to the
bar-room, and takes charge of the money, the wife does the cooking and
general house-work, and the girls attend to their own rooms. By this
division of labor the work is generally done to the satisfaction of all
parties, and, the expenses being light, a considerable profit is made.
There are mostly three or four girls in each house, seldom exceeding that
number, and the rule among house-keepers is to consider any girl an
unprofitable acquisition who does not pay them about ten dollars a week.
Their rents are low, because they have but little room. The basement of an
ordinary-sized house is generally the extent of their accommodation; the
front part of this forms the bar-room, and the remainder is partitioned
into very small bed-rooms.
There is another feature connected with German prostitution, and exhibited
in the same neighborhood, which has already received a cursory notice on a
former page, namely, their dancing-saloons. Saltatory amusements are
carried on, more or less, in all their houses of prostitution, but in
these saloons it is considered a respectable business enterprise, although
the morality of the establishments is, at least, questionable. The
ball-room is a large, open apartment devoid of all furniture excepting
chairs or benches round the walls; the musical arrangements generally
comprise a piano and violin, and the dances are national waltzes and
polkas. No charge is made for admission, and the bar is the only source of
revenue. The "orchestra" occasionally appeal to the charitable for
assistance, and the call is mostly responded to in a liberal manner. The
business commences in the evening, and is invariably discontinued at
midnight. The places are frequented by very few but Germans, and order is
well maintained.
Leaving the Germans of the first district, the reader's attention will now
be asked to the brothels of the fourth police district. Here the principal
part of the women are of Irish parentage; some few are natives of the
United States. The greater part of the visitors are sailors. When a
succession of storms which have driven homeward-bound vessels off the
coast is followed by a fair wind, so as to allow them to enter the harbor
in large numbers, these houses are crowded, and for a few days, or while
the sailors' wages last, a very extensive business is carried on. The
bar-room, as in the case of the German houses, is the reception-room, and
here may be seen at almost any hour of the day a number of weather-beaten
sailors, verifying the truth of the old proverb, which says they resemble
two distinct animals in earning and spending their money. It matters not
who it may be, but any one who enters the room is almost sure to be asked
to take a drink immediately, and if he remains, in less than five minutes
somebody else will ask him to take another. A sailor with cash in his
pocket has a decided antipathy to drinking alone, and generally invites
every one in the room, male and female, to partake with him. By such a
course he very soon gets intoxicated, when the girl whom he has honored
with his special attention convoys him to bed, and leaves him there to
sleep himself sober.
In these houses less neatness is observable than in those just noticed,
but they have entirely a different class of customers. A German, in the
midst of his pleasures, likes to see every thing neat and orderly about
him; a sailor is not particular, so that his pleasures are unobstructed. A
curious observer, also, does not meet with the same civility: if he comes
to spend money he is welcome; if not, the landlord does not care about his
company. Considerable card-playing is practiced; not what may be termed
gambling, but for amusement, the stakes being seldom more than
intoxicating drinks for the players. There is less noisy rowdyism than
might be expected, since the men who generally cause such disturbances
lack the courage to impose upon a crowd of hard-fisted sailors, who are
always able and willing to take their own part, and resent any
interference. Still, occasional quarrels occur among the visitors
themselves, frequently resulting in a pitched battle. The landlord is then
called for, and his knowledge of his customers enables him speedily to
discover the aggressor, who always happens to be the man that has the
least money, and he is forthwith pushed into the street without any
ceremony, as a kind of peace-offering to the rest of the company.
The landlord is a character in his way. He is a man who has been to sea
himself, for no one else would be deemed fit to keep a house where sailors
resort, and is usually a large, powerful man. By the freemasonry of the
craft, and by freely joining his visitors whenever they ask him to drink,
and occasionally treating them in return, he is sure of their custom until
their wages are all spent and they are obliged to go to sea again.
The women in these houses use liquor very freely, but they are not
permitted to get drunk in the daytime. If the landlord observes any
symptom of intoxication he gives them water, instead of gin, the next time
they are asked to drink, as he knows very well his prospects for business
would be injured unless the girls were kept sufficiently sober to be on
the watch for contingencies, or, as he phrases it, "to look out for
chances."
In some of these houses it is the rule that all the money received by the
girls is to be given to the landlord, who provides them with clothing and
necessaries, but in others a fixed rate of board--six or eight dollars a
week--is paid, and the women retain the surplus. In either case it is a
very profitable business, particularly where many girls are kept. In one
house that we visited, in the fourth district, the keeper informed us that
his expenses amounted to about one hundred and fifty dollars weekly, and
of course some estimate can be made from this as to the amount of business
he transacted.
The dancing-saloons in this neighborhood are not conducted on the platonic
principles of the Germans. They are, in fact, so many accessories to
prostitution, and many scenes there witnessed will not permit description.
The women residing in the house are there, dressed in the most tawdry
finery they can command, many of them assuming the bloomer costume. The
band consists of a violin, a banjo, and a tambourine, and whatever is
wanting in musical ability is adequately supplied by vigorous execution.
The bar is very liberally patronized, and before midnight drunkenness is
the rule and sobriety the exception.
Passing now to the fourth grade of this vice, we find prostitution in a
most repulsive form; the women themselves diseased and dirty, the houses
redolent of bad rum. The prostitutes are the refuse of the other classes
who have fallen through the successive gradations on account of disease
and drunkenness, or they are some of those children of iniquity who, born
in scenes of vice and squalid misery, know nothing of a virtuous or happy
course of life. Destiny seems from their birth to have intended them for
vagrants, and has planted them so low in the moral scale that they can
scarcely hope to rise.
It would be useless to attempt a specification of the localities of these
houses; any one who has been through the purlieus of New York City must
have observed some of them, and it will be quite sufficient to glance at a
few of their peculiarities. They are generally kept by an old prostitute,
who gathers around her some of the most debased of her class, takes a
cheap basement wherever she can obtain possession of one suited to her
purpose, erects a small bar furnished with three or four bottles of the
commonest liquor she can procure, partitions off one or two small hovels
of bed-rooms, and forthwith begins housekeeping. Her arrangements are
about as extensive as her preparations. She seldom professes to board the
girls, generally making a charge for every visitor they entertain, and
giving them the privilege of cooking any thing they want. These dens are
largely patronized by the vilest of the male sex; the petty thieves who
hang around the public markets, stealing from the wagons, or who haunt the
doors of grocery stores and abstract whatever they can reach; as they find
them convenient places of concealment, and can frequently dispose of their
booty by means of the women. Another class of visitors consists of the
lowest order of rowdies, who assume a free license to perpetrate any
mischief they please, because there is no one to interfere with them. A
fatal case of this nature, which occurred but a few months since, will be
fresh in the recollection of all citizens.
It is dangerous for a stranger to enter a place of this description, for
if he does not get his pocket picked by the one, he will most probably be
assaulted by the other class of visitors. Upon such establishments the
police are compelled to keep a watchful eye, and although they have no
power to enter them except some actual necessity calls for their services,
yet they frequently induce a neighbor to make a complaint against the
keepers for maintaining a disorderly house, and then, duly armed with a
warrant, they enter, and arrest every one found on the premises. The
_finale_ of such an experiment at housekeeping as this is very frequently
a commitment for vagrancy to Blackwell's Island. The character of the
place will be a sufficient proof that syphilis abounds there, and its
dangers must be added to those already enumerated.
The divisions thus made are presumed to be accurate as far as the
distinctive characters of the various grades are concerned, but the lines
of demarkation are of course arbitrary. Any attempt to classify so large a
social evil must, from its very nature, be incomplete, and in this case
farther experience or a more extended inquiry would very probably warrant
an alteration in the arrangement. But there is another class of whom a few
words must be said, namely, those truly wretched beings, the outcasts of
the outcasts. In many cases destitute of home or shelter, diseased,
starving, and afflicted with an insatiable thirst for ardent spirits, they
present most ghastly and heart-rending spectacles, retaining scarcely any
vestiges of humanity. These wretched beings can be found clustered round
the bars of liquor-stores in low neighborhoods, begging for the price of a
glass of gin. Much of their time is spent in the prisons on Blackwell's
Island, from which they are no sooner released than they return to their
old haunts and habits. They can scarcely be called prostitutes, for their
aspect is so disgustingly hideous that all feminine characteristics are
blotted out, and thoroughly sensual and animalized must he be who could
accept their favors. They are, in every sense of the word, outcasts;
compelled, for the short time they may be in the city--and this is seldom
more than a few days at once--to eke out a wretched existence by stealing
or begging; frequently so miserable that they gladly hail the day on which
they are returned to prison. They present subjects for mournful
consideration, and the reflection that they are experiencing the
degradation to which every prostitute in the city is rapidly tending,
should be a powerful argument in favor of any remedial measures which can
be devised to ameliorate the condition of the frail women of New York, and
prevent them from falling so far below humanity.
HOUSES OF ASSIGNATION.
Every resident of New York is aware of the existence of houses used
especially as places for the meeting of the sexes with a view to illicit
intercourse; but so carefully have all particulars respecting them been
concealed from the public gaze, that very little more than this mere fact
is generally known, particularly with reference to those of a higher
grade. Secrecy is necessary to their continuance, and essential for the
maintenance of the social position of their patrons.
The most exclusive are generally situated in the quietest and most
respectable portion of the city. They are fitted up neatly, and even
luxuriously, but without any extravagant or gaudy display. Their
arrangements, of course, do not require reception or sitting rooms, and
the whole care bestowed upon them is lavished on the bed-chambers, the
appointments of which contain every possible comfort and convenience.
The keepers of this class of houses are generally very shrewd, quiet,
cautious women, who never seek to penetrate into any engagements made by
their visitors, who never know any person that enters their house, and
from whom it is impossible to obtain information by any means. In fact, it
has been said that the keepers and servants around these places have
neither eyes, ears, nor tongues. Money is confessedly their object, and,
as they receive liberal pay, self-interest dictates quietness, because if
they adopted any other course, their houses would inevitably become known
to the public, which would be an effectual barrier against visitors, and
result in an entire loss of their customers. Consequently, if a liberal
bribe could ever induce treachery, their shrewdness enables them to
discern that such an act would at once and forever close their
establishments.
It will be readily understood that, as the intrinsic value of these houses
as places for meeting depends upon the secrecy and selectness with which
they are operated, in order to carry out this principle fully,
arrangements are made with much precision. Two parties are not allowed to
meet casually in the halls or staircases. The keeper maintains a strict
watch, in order that ingress and egress may be free and uninterrupted, and
there can be little doubt that the desire to make money on her side, and
the fascination of illicit passion on the part of her visitors, conjointly
tend to insure more actual secrecy than could be obtained by any system
of oaths or discipline. In some of the most exclusive, the system is
carried to such an extreme that no accommodation will be afforded to
parties unless the gentleman has been previously introduced to the
proprietress, and his character for secrecy and integrity vouched for by
some person with whom she is acquainted. This rule is adopted to prevent
the possibility of the house becoming known as a place of assignation to
any one who might use his knowledge to the prejudice of the keeper or her
visitors.
No public women reside in these houses, nor would they be admitted under
any pretext, as such a course would attract attention and defeat the
purposes contemplated. Many of them are open for months without the
knowledge of the neighbors or of the police of the district, as visitors
very rarely enter or leave together, and to prevent any delay the outer
door is generally kept unlocked, so that persons pass immediately into the
hall, where a second door, with a bell attached, is generally found.
The business of these houses is done mainly during the promenade hours of
Broadway, say from eleven or twelve to four or five o'clock. The visitors
are confined to the upper walks of life, the men being of all sorts of
business, and the women exclusively from our fashionable society. If the
mysterious "personal" advertisements in the daily papers could be
understood by the outside world, it would be seen that appointments are
not unfrequently made through their agency. Arrangements for a meeting are
generally made with the keepers in advance, and at the designated time the
parties arrive from different directions and proceed direct to the room
which has been already selected. If they wish it they can obtain wine or
refreshments by ringing a bell in their apartment.
A majority of the females who visit these places can scarcely be called
prostitutes, notwithstanding their undeniable fall from virtue. They sin
but with one individual, and that, in many cases, from positive affection,
and in others from the desire of sexual gratification. Whatever may be the
motive, it does not concern the keeper of the house, whose only business
is to receive the rent of her room, which ranges from two or three dollars
upward to any amount that policy or the desire to insure secrecy may
dictate. Doubtless very few of the visitors regard money in their
negotiations. Females are very frequently closely veiled when they enter
the house, so that their features can not be recognized, as has been
illustrated in trials for divorce in this city, especially if the prior
arrangements for the meeting have been made by the gentlemen. If, on the
other hand, the lady takes the preliminary steps, she can scarcely be
unknown to the proprietress, in whose keeping she consequently places her
character.
The unsuspecting moral men of New York will scarcely credit these facts,
but men of the world know that such meetings and places for meeting are
not uncommon. It may be objected that the exposure of these mysteries
imparts information which may lead the uninitiated into similar practices.
It is believed that the information here given is not sufficiently
definite for this end, and, certainly, nothing could be farther from the
design of this work than to aid an immoral purpose. But it is a duty to
record the general facts, in order that our citizens may be aware of the
dangers that abound on every side; and particularly is it necessary
because many of the female visitors are married women, who take advantage
of the absence of their husbands at business.
A question will arise: "Who are the women that keep these houses?" That
they can not have lived as common prostitutes, or been the keepers of
houses of prostitution, is evident. In the first place, the acquaintances
they would have made in either of those avocations would preclude the
possibility of their maintaining the inviolable secrecy necessary in a
house of assignation; and, again, no female would enter a place of this
description, the keeper of which would be likely to betray her. It is
apprehended that some of these houses originate in the following manner;
in fact, we know of more than one that did commence so:
A female engaged in an intrigue which she can not carry out at her own
residence, and desiring a place of security for her meetings, has an
acquaintance with some shrewd woman, possibly one who works for her as
seamstress, or in some other capacity, whom she makes partially a
confidant. She tells her that she is desirous of seeing a gentleman, whom,
for some particular reason, she can not invite to her house, and asks if
she will accommodate her with a room in which the interview can take
place. It is not likely that a person who felt under any obligation to her
employer would refuse such a request, especially for so simple a purpose
as a short conversation. The meeting accordingly takes place, and a
handsome present is made her. It is frequently repeated, until she becomes
suspicious, and finally satisfied that these interviews are for the
purpose of sexual intercourse. By this time it has become a question of
_policy_ with her. She argues that if she refuses to extend any future
accommodation she will lose not only a considerable income from the
presents, but also all employment from the lady. She knows that by
allowing such meetings she realizes considerably more than she can procure
by her daily labor, and self-interest is generally strong enough to
overcome her scruples. She goes on extending her accommodations, and
enlarging the circle of her visitors, until she becomes mistress of a
select house of assignation, which will be always liberally patronized so
long as her power of maintaining the requisite secrecy remains
unimpeached. Some of these women are from distant cities; entire strangers
in New York, except to their immediate customers. If they are widows who
have children, these are invariably educated away from home. From the
privacy observed it is very difficult to estimate their receipts, which
must be large. They sometimes degenerate into keepers of houses of public
prostitution, and then become dangerous members of society, on account of
the secrets which have been intrusted to them.
Probably some of our ultra-fashionable citizens might be enabled to give
more particulars of these houses than are here collected. What has been
stated is gathered from authentic sources, and may command implicit
belief. Indeed, so trustworthy is the authority that it may be confidently
asserted that even Fifth Avenue and Union Square are not exempt from these
resorts.
Such houses must be regarded as the connecting link between the licentious
excesses of the capitals of Europe and this city of the New World. They
are dangerous from their secrecy and exclusiveness. As yet they are rare;
and it speaks well for the morals of our upper classes that they are so.
It shows that the majority of people in the higher walks of life are
untainted. But the course of deterioration has commenced. Will not
American good sense and American morality check this base imitation of a
foreign custom?
The recently avowed sentiments, or rather the resuscitation of sentiments
which were proclaimed years ago respecting the obligations of marriage and
the theory of "free love," have doubtless increased the patrons of houses
of assignation among our fashionable novel-reading people, or weak
romantic heads made giddy by the sudden acquisition of wealth. For the
last fifteen years a loose code of morals has been promulgated among us,
the foreign apostles of which--many of them pretending to nobility, but
being in truth mere adventurers--have visited us, and by them and through
their influence many intrigues have originated. A spice of romance in the
American character has induced many to join this movement in search of
adventure, while a portion of our female society are ardent admirers of
every thing foreign, be it a lord or a lace veil, and these delight in an
intrigue because it is an exotic.
The facilities of communication with Europe are now so great that American
travel on that continent is largely on the increase, and perhaps there are
at this time in the cities of continental Europe more representatives of
our society than of any other nation. Many of our people go there with the
laudable desire to improve their minds by general culture, or for the
study of particular branches of science or art, but it is to be regretted
that some come back to our shores with ideas calculated to be any thing
but beneficial to their native country in a social or moral point of view.
The sons of our staid and "solid men" go to the capital of the French
empire to study medicine. Apart from the impropriety of this course when
there are the same facilities for study here, where a few seconds of
lightning intercourse will place them in immediate communication with
their friends, instead of their being separated four thousand miles from
parents and guardians, does the end justify the means? What course do
these young men frequently pursue? Unable to speak the language
intelligibly, they resort to the acquaintance of a _grisette_, in order to
study in her company. The language they acquire by this means is, at best,
a vulgar _patois_; but they also obtain a knowledge of intrigue entirely
incompatible with the simplicity and purity of our republican
institutions--a species of male and female diplomacy foreign to the
character of our people.
Young ladies, too, when they return from a foreign tour, are more
fascinated with the charms and successes of the favored mistress of some
European prince or potentate than benefited by the useful solid lessons of
travel. With them, as with the others, it is all superficiality.
Superficial when they started, superficial while traveling, they are still
more superficial when they return. There are always weak-minded people in
this country who will ape foreign manners, and to this cause must be
assigned the gradual approximation of our fashionable society to the vices
of the European capitals, their ladylike and gentlemanlike frailties,
their genteel peccadilloes and affectations. The effects of foreign travel
upon such persons can not but be injurious. It demands a clear head and a
sound heart to decide between the vicious frivolities and the positive
good submitted to their notice, and with the class mentioned it requires
but little judgment to know which will first attract them. They must see
Lord A---- or Count B----, no matter what valuable opportunities for
instruction they miss. They must become _au fait_ in the observances of
courts and the manners of courtiers, no matter what else they leave
undone.
As remedial measures for another evil are elsewhere spoken of, this may be
an appropriate place to suggest for profound consideration whether it
would not be a wise policy to adopt some preventive system for this evil.
We might establish a phrenological and psychological bureau, armed with
full powers to examine all persons desiring to travel, so as to ascertain
whether they may safely make the grand tour, and have sufficient strength
of intellect and firmness of principle to resist the vitiating influences
and examples which will surround them there, so that they may return only
with a knowledge of the good and valuable lessons taught!
But the evils of foreign manners and customs are not imported solely by
the traveling class of our own community. The political turmoils of
Europe, in the last eight or ten years, have thrown among us numerous
_refugees_ who have been reared in the hot-beds of intrigue, and who,
styling themselves _artistes_, depend upon our unexampled prosperity, the
increase of our wealth, the improvement of our country, and our known
predilections for foreigners, to enable them to make a living, and also to
establish the same state of morals and manners existing in the cities
whence they came. The United States are now the great harvest-field for
art, which, with science, music, and poetry, aids to improve the mind. At
the same time these bring with them an excessive devotion to fashion, both
in dress and manners, as the low-necked dress and the lascivious waltz,
which are so decidedly positive degenerations from our normal state that
none but the most superficial will ever copy.
That we are rapidly introducing many of the most absurd follies and worst
vices of Europe is a patent fact. Almost every one can specify acts now
tolerated in respectable families which, so far from being permitted
fifteen years ago, would have been thought by our plain common-sense
parents amply sufficient to warrant the exclusion of the offender from the
domestic circle; and it is an equally conspicuous fact that our social
morality is deteriorating in a direct ratio to the introduction of these
habits. Every day makes the system of New York more like that of the most
depraved capitals of continental Europe, and it remains for the good
innate sense of the bulk of the American people to say how much farther we
shall proceed in this frivolous, intriguing, and despicable manner of
living; or whether they will not strive to perpetuate the stern morality
of the Puritan fathers, our great moral safeguard so far, and thus put an
effectual barrier against the inroads of a torrent which must undermine
our whole social fabric, and finally crush us beneath the ruins.
The second class of assignation-houses are, to a great extent, private,
but not so rigidly exclusive as the others. Their furniture is of the same
luxurious style, but of a more gaudy character. Generally the same routine
is observed in regard to entrance as in those of the first class. The
principal portion of the females who resort to them are married women,
most of whom are from the upper classes, whose sexual passions are not
gratified elsewhere, or who resort to this means to obtain more money to
expend in dress; kept mistresses, residing with their lovers as husband
and wife in hotels or boarding-houses, whose attachment is not strong
enough to keep them faithful to one man; occasionally the best class of
serving-women, or shop-women, or females whose occupations, such as
milliners, artificial florists, etc., lead them into contact with the
fashionable classes. It is told on good authority that there are husbands
cognizant of the fact that their wives visit such places, and who live
wholly or in part upon money earned in this way. These cases are not
supposed to be numerous, but it is to be hoped, for the credit of our
national character, that the number will become still smaller. A few
prostitutes of the upper grades sometimes visit this class of houses; they
are known to the keeper, and she encourages them for the following reason:
An habitué of the place will make an appointment to visit it at a
specified time, and he tells the keeper he would wish to meet a female
there. At the appointed day his wishes are gratified, the keeper having
acted as negotiator with one of the girls mentioned. More wine is consumed
in these houses than in the strictly select ones, probably from the
different class who frequent them.
The third-class houses of assignation are not situated in such select
parts of the city as are the other two classes. Some of them are managed
with much privacy and seclusion, while others are simply houses of public
prostitution on a large scale. Their principal female patrons are those
prostitutes who have rebelled against the exorbitant charges made by
keepers of fashionable houses, and shop-girls who resort to prostitution
to augment their income. Many of these live some distance up town, and any
one who is journeying downward in the after part of the day may see
numbers of them going to these places in the cars and stages. This is
another imitation of the French and English systems. Very little disguise
is attempted about these third-class houses. Each has a parlor or
reception-room, where a man can have a bottle of wine, and one or two of
the girls named will join him. Of course many couples visit there, but a
large number of men go alone, knowing that there are always women in the
house. Fast young men about town are in the habit of keeping their
mistresses at these houses, as more economical than boarding with them at
hotels. Considerable disease is propagated in such places, a contingency
from which the first and second classes are almost entirely exempt.
Business is generally over here in three or four hours, commencing in the
dusk of the evening; but it is unquestionably a source of considerable
revenue to the keeper, particularly in those cases where she acts as
procuress, since, in addition to the rent of the room which the man pays,
she always receives a _present_ from the woman.
There is another or fourth class of assignation-houses to which the
commonest portion of street-walkers take their company, and these may be
emphatically described by an old saying, "Cheap and nasty." Dirty and
insufficient accommodations are the equivalents for low prices, and such
places are, in the general estimation of connoiseurs, very _low_ and
despicable. Notwithstanding this they thrive and multiply, from which it
may safely be inferred that they are profitable in a business point of
view, repulsive as they may be in their features and arrangements. Some of
them are ingeniously arranged with a view to robbery, and are called
"panel-houses." The plan adopted is somewhat as follows: Some man,
generally a countryman not very well informed in the tricks of the
metropolis, meets with a prostitute, and agrees to ac-company her to an
assignation-house. She is in league with the "panel thieves," and
therefore introduces her victim to one of their rooms. The apartment
seldom contains more furniture than a bed and a chair or lounge, with the
floor covered with a thick carpet. To make "assurance doubly sure," the
man himself locks the door by which he enters, and, when undressing,
naturally throws his clothes upon the chair or lounge. The bedstead is
placed so that the feet come toward the only _apparent_ door in the room,
with one side against the wall, and the head and other side hung with
curtains, which the woman carefully draws as soon as the man lies down by
her side. At the head of the bed, and of course concealed by the drapery
from any one occupying it, is another door, which forms the secret
entrance. It is so adroitly arranged, and so neatly covered with paper the
same as the walls, that no one would suspect its existence. The hinges and
fastening on the outside are oiled, so that no noise can be perceived when
it is opened, and the operator steals with cat-like step over the carpet,
and quietly examines the clothes without alarming the unsuspecting
stranger. The thief completes his inspection, appropriates as much as he
thinks proper, and the temporary occupant of the apartment resumes his
clothes and prepares to leave. If his suspicions are excited by the
circumstance that his wallet looks less plethoric than it did, and an
examination reveals that some of its contents are missing, he knows not
how to account for it. He is perfectly certain that no one has entered
that room while he was there, and if he has "visited" much before meeting
the girl, he concludes that he must have lost some of his money in his
career, and that the only way is to take the loss contentedly, and avoid
New York fascinations in future. Sometimes the loser has not enough
philosophy for this, and if he can be certain that his money was right
when he entered the room, will call in the police, and thus expose the
secret arrangements of the establishment. This is comparatively a rare
case, as most men would rather submit to a pecuniary loss than encounter
the trouble and exposure attending a criminal prosecution, and the
knowledge of this reluctance enables the "panel thieves" to pursue their
operations almost with impunity.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
NEW YORK.--EXTENT, EFFECTS, AND COST OF PROSTITUTION.
Number of Public Prostitutes.--Opinion of Chief of Police in 1856.--
Effects on Prostitution of Commercial Panic of 1857.--Extravagant
Surmises.--Police Investigation of May, 1858.--Private Prostitutes.--
Aggregate Prostitution.--Visitors from the Suburbs of New York.--
Strangers.--Proportion of Prostitutes to Population.--Syphilis.--
Danger of Infection.--Increase of Venereal Disease.--Statistics of
Cases treated in ISLAND HOSPITAL, BLACKWELL'S ISLAND.--Primary
Syphilis and its Indications.--Cases of Venereal Disease in Public
Institutions.--Alms-house.--Work-house.--Penitentiary.--Bellevue
Hospital.--Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island.--Emigrants' Hospital,
Ward's Island.--New York City Hospital.--Dispensaries.--Medical
Colleges.--King's County Hospital.--Brooklyn City Hospital.--Seamen's
Retreat, Staten Island.--Summary of Cases treated in Public
Institutions.--Private Treatment.--Advertisers.--Patent Medicines.--
Drug-stores.--Aggregate of Venereal Disease.--Probabilities of
Infection.--Cost of Prostitution.--Capital invested in Houses of
Prostitution and Assignation, Dancing-saloons, etc.--Income of
Prostitutes.--Individual Expenses of Visitors.--Medical Expenses.--
Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses.--Police and Judiciary Expenses.--
Correspondence with leading Cities of the United States.--Estimated
Prostitution throughout the Union.--Remarks on "Tait's _Prostitution
in Edinburgh_."--Unfounded Estimates.--National Statistics of
Population, Births, Education, Occupation, Wages, Pauperism, Crime,
Breweries and Distilleries, and Nativities.
The preceding chapters have given a statistical and descriptive account of
prostitution in New York. Before considering what measures can be best
applied for the amelioration of its accompanying evils, it will be
necessary to ascertain the extent of the system, and this inquiry must
include the number of abandoned women in the city, and the amount of
venereal infection propagated through their agency.
It has been assumed in these pages that the two thousand women whose
replies form the basis of the statistical tables, represent about one
third of the aggregate prostitution of New York. This is allowing an
increase of twenty per cent. during the winter of 1857-8, in consequence
of the commercial panic of last autumn, and the resulting paralysis of
trade, and suffering of the laboring community.
In the progress of this investigation it was deemed advisable to consult
those whose acquaintance with the details of city life would entitle their
opinions to confidence, as to the actual number of prostitutes within our
limits; and in addition to much information obtained privately, the
following correspondence took place with the then Chief of Police:
(Copy.)
"Resident Physician's Office, Blackwell's Island,
"New York, September 1, 1856.
"GEORGE W. MATSELL, Esq., Chief of Police:
"DEAR SIR,--During the last twenty years various estimates have been
made by different persons, foreigners and natives, interested and not
interested, as to the number of prostitutes in the city of New York.
It is generally supposed that they reach the large number of
twenty-five or thirty thousand. You, sir, have been at the head of the
police department of the city for the past fifteen years, while
previous to that time you acted, if I mistake not, as one of the
police justices of the city. I presume, therefore, that you have a
considerable knowledge of prostitution as it exists here, and
consequently can give a very correct opinion as to the number of
prostitutes in New York City.
"You will greatly oblige me if, at your earliest leisure, and in any
form most convenient to yourself, you will state what you believe to
be the total number of prostitutes now in the city.
"It is proper to add that, with your permission, I intend to publish
this letter, with your answer, in the report on Prostitution which I
am preparing, and shall soon have the honor to lay before the public.
"Yours respectfully,
"WILLIAM W. SANGER,
"Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island."
(Reply.)
"Office of the Chief of Police, New York, Dec. 12, 1856.
"Doctor WILLIAM W. SANGER:
"DEAR SIR,--I received your letter asking me to express in writing my
estimate of the whole number of known public prostitutes in the city
of New York. In the absence of any law compelling the registering of
public prostitutes, it would be very difficult to testify with
accuracy to the exact number of such persons in the city. I have no
hesitancy in stating that, in my opinion, they do not number over five
thousand persons, if indeed they reach so high a figure. Having been
engaged in public life for many years, my opinion is based on the
observations made by me from time to time, and from various official
reports made to me.
"You are at liberty to make such use of this answer to your
interrogatory as you may deem proper.
"Very respectfully yours,
"GEO. W. MATSELL, Chief of Police."
This communication, in addition to the facts gleaned from other sources,
was amply sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the known public
prostitutes in New York did not exceed five thousand in number at the
close of the year 1856. Then ensued the summer, with its artificial
inflation--that false prosperity which excites unbounded hopes and
stimulates to measureless extravagance, followed by the revulsion and
panic of the fall and winter. Trade was literally dead: operatives, never
too well paid, were threatened with starvation; females, particularly,
felt the rigid pressure of the times. In many families the embarrassments
of the fathers compelled a reduction of the servants employed, and a large
number of domestics were added to the aggregate of that class already out
of situations. The occupations of the army of seamstresses, dress-makers,
milliners, and tailoresses were suspended, and their struggles for bread
were merged in the general cry for labor. It was, in short, a trying time
alike for the sufferers and the observers. But one resort seemed
available; the poor workless, houseless, foodless woman must have recourse
to prostitution as a means of preserving life.
As usual in any time of great excitement, surmise ran actually wild as to
the extent of the consequences, and extravagant theories abounded; one
gentleman actually stating in a public meeting that a thousand virtuous
girls were becoming prostitutes every week through sheer starvation! An
assertion so appalling as this is its own refutation. It assumes that one
woman in every hundred of the female population of New York City, between
the ages of fifteen and thirty years, became a prostitute every week; and
therefore, during the six months of fall and winter, twenty-six thousand
women, one fourth of the inhabitants of the ages named, one in every four
of all the women under middle age, would have been forced into vice! The
practice of "jumping at conclusions" upon serious matters like this is
much to be reprehended. An exaggerated statement made in the fervor of
enthusiasm, while advocating a benevolent object, must always recoil to
the injury of the cause it is intended to promote. It will be necessary
only to consider for a moment the financial condition of New York to be
convinced that such an increase of prostitution was impossible. It can not
be denied that the number of abandoned women is regulated by the demand;
or that the only inducement which could lead virtuous girls to the course
alleged must have been the necessity to earn money for subsistence. But
this necessity to earn money was felt as strongly by men as by women. The
revulsion for a time left a large portion of the community without
resources. Merchants, manufacturers, and store-keepers found their
receipts inadequate to meet their expenditures. Commercial _employés_,
book-keepers, clerks, salesmen, and agents were discharged. Mechanics in
every branch were without work, and consequently without wages. Merchants
from other parts of the country had no money to meet their liabilities or
make fresh purchases, and therefore did not visit the city as usual. These
causes combined to reduce the business of houses of prostitution, and
instead of large accessions to the ranks of courtesans, many of this very
class were forced to seek a refuge in the public charitable institutions.
Hence arose the increase in the denizens of Blackwell's Island, where
hospital, alms-house, work-house, and penitentiary were alike
over-crowded. Some of the places vacated by these recipients of
eleemosynary aid were doubtless filled by new recruits; but the
supposition that a thousand were added every week would imply a change in
the whole _corps_ every six weeks, or a change nearly five times completed
during the fall and winter.
That female virtue was yielded in many instances can not, unfortunately,
be doubted, but the sufferers did not become public prostitutes. Poor
creatures! they surrendered themselves unwillingly to some temporary
acquaintance, probably in gratitude for assistance already rendered, or
anticipating aid to be afforded. There is something truly melancholy in
the consideration that bread had to be purchased at such a price; that the
only alternative lay between voluntary dishonor and killing indigence. It
is but charity to conclude that the woman who thus acted, if her
subsequent course was not a continuous life of abandonment, was impelled
by the stern necessity of the times rather than induced by a laxity of
moral feeling. Unchaste as she must be admitted, she can scarcely be
deemed a prostitute in the ordinary acceptation of the word.
It would be foolish to deny all increase of prostitution since the date of
the correspondence just transcribed. The population of New York is now
some thirty or forty thousand more than at that time, and female
degradation has extended as a natural consequence. Relying upon the
estimate of five thousand as correct at the time made, the subsequent
augmentation of inhabitants would suppose an addition of about three
hundred prostitutes, but to take the widest scope, and assume that the
debasement required by hunger degenerated into a habit of confirmed vice,
it may be admitted that the number of abandoned women in New York has
increased from five thousand in 1856 to six thousand in 1858. This is a
very liberal estimate, and the total assigned is certainly not too small.
How much it may be in excess can not be said with precision, but in an
argument of this nature it is safer to err in the direction of overstating
an evil than to be lulled into false security by too flattering a
representation.
The known public prostitutes of New York are thus presumed to amount to
six thousand at the present day. But to this number exceptions might be
taken. To secure farther accuracy, additional evidence was sought. In the
month of May, 1858, the assistance of the Board of Metropolitan Police
Commissioners was requested, and, under the direction of its president
(General JAMES W. NYE), to whom our acknowledgments are respectfully
tendered for his courtesy and aid, a list of queries was submitted to the
Inspector of each Police precinct. Below is a copy of the circular, with a
synopsis of the replies.
(Copy.)
"Office of the Metropolitan Police Commissioners,
"New York, May 1, 1858.
"Inspector ------ ------: -- Police Precinct.
"SIR, You will please report to this office as early as possible on
the questions given below. Let your answers be full and explicit, to
the best of your knowledge and belief. Space is left below each query
for the insertion of your replies, and you will therefore write them
on this sheet, and return it without delay.
"1. How many houses of prostitution, from the most public to the most
private, are there in your police district?
"2. How many houses of assignation are there in your district?
"3. How many dancing-saloons, liquor and lager-beer stores, are there
in your district, where prostitutes are in the habit of assembling, in
addition to the known houses of prostitution?
"4. How many prostitutes do you suppose reside in your district?"
SYNOPSIS OF REPLIES.
+--------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
| | | Houses | Houses |
|Precincts.| Reported by | of | of |
| | |Prostitution.|Assignation.|
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------|-----------------------|-------------|------------|
| 1 |Inspector James Silvey | 22 | |
| 2 | " Hart B. Weed | 1 | |
| 3 | " J. A. P. Hopkins | 9 | |
| 4 | " Morris De Camp | 35 | 13 |
| 5 | " Henry Hutchings | 63 | 7 |
| 6 |Acting Inspector Lush | 52 | 6 |
| 7 |Inspector John Cameron | 6 | |
| 8 | " C. S. Turnbull | 43 | 15 |
| 9 | " Jacob L. Sebring | | |
| 10 | " T. C. Davis | 26 | 1 |
| 11 | " Peter Squires | | |
| 12 | " Galen P. Porter | | |
| 13 | " Thomas Steers | 15 | 4 |
| 14 | " J. J. Williamson | 39 | 5 |
| 15 | " G. W. Dilks | 5 | 19 |
| 16 | " Samuel Carpenter | 6 | 4 |
| 17 | " J. W. Hart | 20 | 3 |
| 18 | " Theron R. Bennett| 1 | |
| 19 | " James Bryan | 5 | 1 |
| 20 | " F. M. Curry | 15 | 1 |
| 21 | " Francis Speight | 15 | 10 |
| 22 | " James E. Coulter | | |
| | |-------------|------------|
| | Totals | 378 | 89 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------+
Dancing-saloons,| Estimated |
Liquor or | Number |
Lager-beer | of |
Stores, where |Prostitutes.|
Prostitutes | |
assemble. | |
----------------|------------|
3 | 76 |
1 | 2 |
| 26 |
8 | 750 |
46 | 420 |
12 | 228 |
4 | 100 |
| 300 |
| 50 |
4 | 100 |
12 | 50 |
| |
8 | 150 |
| 125 |
7 | 175 |
10 | 500 |
6 | 150 |
3 | 250 |
2 | 30 |
5 | 250 |
6 | 75 |
14 | 50 |
----------------|------------|
151 | 3857 |
-----------------------------+
Upon some of the reports are notes, which may be extracted.
Inspector Silvey, 1st district, says, in answer to question 4, "There are
_to my knowledge_ seventy-six common prostitutes living in this precinct."
Inspector De Camp, 4th district, says, in answer to question 4: "350 who
reside in houses of prostitution, 150 kept mistresses, 150 who reside in
the ward, and prostitute themselves in this and other wards, and probably
100 occasional prostitutes."
Inspector Hutchings, 5th district, in answer to question 3, classifies the
resorts as
Dancing-rooms 2
Saloons and cigar-stores 31
Lager-beer-stores 13
--
46
and, in answer to question 4, subdivides the prostitutes into
Whites 360
Blacks 60
---
420
Acting Inspector Lush, 6th district, says, in answer to question 4: "One
hundred and seventy-eight known prostitutes whose names we have; supposed
to be _at least_ fifty more residing in the district."
Inspector Cameron, 7th district, in answer to question 3, classifies the
resorts into
Lager-beer-stores 3
Cigar-store 1
--
4
and, in answer to question 4, says: "Can give no reliable information;
probably one hundred."
Inspector Sebring, 9th district, says, in answer to question 1, "This
precinct does not contain any houses of prostitution that I am aware of;"
and in reply to question 4: "Scattered through the precinct there are
_probably_ fifty."
Inspector Squires, 11th district, says, in answer to question 1: "None,
properly speaking. There are many low drinking places where dissipated
persons of both sexes often meet, and where, no doubt, prostitution is
sometimes practiced, but no regular houses of that character." To question
3: "There are about a dozen lager-beer-saloons where Dutch girls of loose
character assemble and dance at night. They do not remain long in the same
place, but when driven from one place they locate in another." To question
4: "I presume there are fifty young women and married women, some of whom
pass for respectable persons, who are in the habit of going across to the
eighth, fifteenth, and other disreputable wards for purposes of
prostitution, and some of the lowest of these are even said to visit the
fifth ward, but I have never been able to ascertain this fact positively."
Inspector Porter, 12th district says, "This precinct, comprising all that
portion of the island north of 86th street, is not infested with any of
the evils enumerated in the within questions."
Inspector Williamson, 14th district, says, in answer to question 4, "I
should _suppose_ about 125."
Inspector Carpenter, 16th district, says, in answer to question 4, "It is
generally conceded by those of us who presume to know that there are in
this precinct at least five hundred prostitutes, of all ages, nations,
grades, and colors."
Inspector Hartt, 17th district, says, in answer to question 4, "This being
a hard question to answer, the answer must be taken as entirely
guess-work: supposed to be about one hundred and fifty."
Inspector Curry, 20th district, says, in answer to question 4: "Probably
two or three hundred, but this is mere guess-work. We know there are a
great many; some of them very young."
Those reports from which no extracts have been made consist simply of
figures without any remarks, and are given fully in the synopsis. It will
be observed that all the officers quoted give the number of prostitutes
more as a conjecture than a certainty; and although their avocations would
lead them to know most of the disreputable women in their several
districts, none of them assume to be so thoroughly informed as to be
enabled to answer positively. To the numbers they give must be added the
floating prostitute population of station-houses, city and district
prisons, hospitals, work-house, alms-house, and penitentiary, which varies
from one thousand to two thousand, and may be taken at an average of one
thousand five hundred. This, with those known to the police, makes a total
of 5357, and the balance of six hundred and forty-three (643), required to
raise the number to six thousand (6000), is but a moderate allowance for
those who have escaped the eyes of the officers when taking the census. As
before remarked, it is better to overestimate than underestimate the
abandoned women of the city.
But to this number are to be added those whose calling is so effectually
disguised as to prevent its being known--those who practice prostitution
in addition to some legitimate occupation, and those who resort to illicit
pleasures for the indulgence of their passions. To obtain information on
these points some supplementary questions were addressed to the captains
of police at the commencement of this investigation in 1856, and their
replies are now submitted.
The first inquiry was, "How many houses of assignation are there in your
district?" It was known when this interrogatory was propounded that the
secrecy maintained in these places would in some instances baffle the
keenness, not often at fault, of our shrewdest police officers, and no
surprise was felt when their replies indicated that only seventy-four (74)
of these houses were known to them. Reliable information from other
sources led to the conviction that this was understated. The investigation
of May, 1858, fixes the number at eighty-nine (89), which is also too low;
and we shall be perfectly justified in estimating the number of houses of
assignation in New York at one hundred (100).
The next question was, "What, to the best of your belief, are the average
number of visitors to such houses every twenty-four hours?" The replies
gave an average of six couples to each house every day, or an aggregate of
six hundred women every twenty-four hours. This was followed by the query,
"Are all the females who visit these houses of assignation known public
prostitutes? If not, of what class do you suppose or know them to be?"
From the replies it was found that about two fifths were known as
prostitutes, the remainder being sewing or shop girls, kept mistresses,
widows, and some married women.
Again: "State your opinion as to how many kept mistresses there are in
your district?" In the twenty-two districts two hundred and sixty-eight
(268) were ascertained, and the presumption was that there were more. The
number may be safely taken at four hundred. The next question was, "How
many women, to the best of your belief, and that you have not previously
examined, are there in your district that obtain a livelihood in whole or
in part by prostitution?" To this the numbers are stated (upon belief, for
the nature of the question precludes any positive information) as about
four hundred. "Can you form an opinion as to how many women in your
district, who are not impelled by necessity, prostitute themselves to
gratify their passions?" No definite answers were obtained to this, the
general suppositions ranging from one third to one fourth of those who
were not recognized as public prostitutes. "To what extent, in your
opinion, is prostitution carried on in the tenant houses in your
district?" It is generally admitted that there is some, but no calculation
can be made with any accuracy. Many of what may be called private
prostitutes live in this class of houses, but their visitors would be
taken to houses of assignation, where the numbers are included in the
estimate given. "It is believed that there are many women who follow
prostitution living in nearly all the respectable portions of the city.
They (singly or in couples) hire a suite of rooms, and under the garb of
honest labor, sewing, etc., pass as respectable among those living near
them. It is also known that such as these are the great frequenters of
houses of assignation. How many such women (to the best of your belief)
are there in your district?" The officers reply that they have ascertained
that there are about two hundred, but they believe there are many more.
Thus much for the information we have been enabled to collect. There are
six hundred women who visit these houses of assignation every day, of whom
two fifths are known as public prostitutes, and the remainder are of other
classes. It may be assumed that the known prostitutes visit such houses at
least once every twenty-four hours, which leaves over three hundred visits
daily for the others. Kept mistresses or married women who resort there
for the gratification of their passions probably amount to one hundred
per day. It can scarcely be supposed that such visit houses of assignation
more than once a week as a general rule, while the others, sewing or shop
girls, etc., who resort there to augment their income, would probably take
this step two or three times per week, which would bring their number to
about four hundred. It thus appears that a very fair estimate of the total
number of frail women who are now in New York may be stated as follows:
Known public prostitutes 6000
Women who visit houses of assignation for sexual gratification 1260
Women who visit houses of assignation to augment their income 400
One half the number of kept mistresses, assuming the other half
to be included in those who visit houses of assignation 200
Total 7860
It will be seen that, to arrive at this conclusion, all are included who
are suspected to be lost to virtue, although of the number who visit
houses of assignation for sexual gratification many are guiltless of
promiscuous intercourse.
This total number falls very far short of the estimates made at different
times by various persons, that there are from twenty to thirty thousand
prostitutes in New York City! Such rash conclusions, hastily formed in the
excitement of the moment--sometimes influenced by the fact that "the wish
is father to the thought"--must give place to the results of a careful and
searching investigation made for this special purpose. The _modus
operandi_ of examination in the city rendered it incumbent on those having
it in charge to approximate to the facts, and is itself a sufficient
guarantee of correctness.[398]
If it were possible to parade the six thousand known public prostitutes in
one procession, they would make a much larger demonstration than the mere
printed words "six thousand" suggest to the reader. It requires a man who
is in the habit of seeing large congregations of persons to comprehend at
a glance the aggregate implied in this statement. Place this number of
women in line, side by side, and if each was allowed only twenty-four
inches of room, they would extend two miles and four hundred and eighty
yards. Let them march up Broadway in single file, and allow each woman
thirty-six inches (and that is as little room as possible, considering the
required space for locomotion), and they would reach from the City Hall to
Fortieth Street. Or, let them all ride in the ordinary city stages, which
carry twelve passengers each, and it would be necessary to charter five
hundred omnibuses for their conveyance. These simple illustrations will
make the extent of the vice plain to many who could form but an inadequate
idea from the mere figures.
Yet the estimate will probably appear low to those residents of the city
who have been accustomed to believe New York reeking with prostitution in
every hole and corner, while it will seem excessively large to readers
residing in the country. For the information of the latter it may be
remarked, that vicious as Manhattan Island unquestionably is, much as
there may be in it to need reform, in this matter of prostitution it must
not bear all the blame of these six thousand women, for although they
certainly reside in it, a very large number of their visitors do not dwell
there. Brooklyn, the villages on Long Island, Fort Hamilton, New Utrecht,
Flushing, and others; Jersey City, Hoboken, Hudson, Staten Island,
Morrisania, Fordham, etc., contain numbers of people who transact their
daily business in New York, but reside in those places. In very few of
these localities are any prostitutes to be found, nor would they be
encouraged therein while New York is so close at hand and so easy of
access. Again, the strangers flocking into this city from all parts of the
world average from five to twenty thousand and upward every day, and they
must relieve it of some part of this obloquy.
The population of New York at the last census (1855) was officially stated
to be (in round numbers) 630,000, and the proportionate increase for three
years to the present time will bring it very near 700,000. If illicit
intercourse here were carried on only by permanent residents, its
proportion of public prostitutes would be one to every one hundred and
seventeen (117) of the inhabitants; but the calculation must include the
denizens of the places already enumerated, and, adding 500,000 for them
and the number of strangers constantly visiting the city, we have a total
of 1,200,000 persons; making the proportion of prostitutes only one in
every two hundred, including men, women, and children. It is desirable,
however, to ascertain what proportion courtesans bear to the classes who
patronize them, and the census shows that males above the age of fifteen
form about thirty-two per cent. of the population. A wider range might
have been taken, as it is notorious that many boys under fifteen years
old, especially among the lower classes, practice the vice; but assuming
that to be the standard, there is one prostitute to every sixty-four adult
males, certainly not a large proportion in a commercial and maritime city.
It is impossible to form any idea of the proportion of male inhabitants
and visitors who encourage houses of prostitution. Marriage is not always
a check to indiscriminate intercourse, and professions of religion are
often violated for illicit gratification. Still there are a vast number
whom these obligations bind, and, if they could be exactly ascertained,
this would make a corresponding difference in the proportions.
As the case now is, New York City stands somewhat in the position of a
seduced woman, and has to endure all the odium attached to the number of
prostitutes residing within her limits; while her neighbors and strangers
who largely participate in the offense are like seducers, and escape all
censure, self-righteously saying, "How virtuous is our town (or village)
compared with that sink of iniquity, New York." It has been already stated
what the effect would be if all visitors to New York were moral men, and,
although the remark need not be repeated, its appositeness is apparent.
From the prostitutes within our borders emanates the plague of syphilis,
and when the number of abandoned women is considered in conjunction with
the certainty that each of them is liable at any moment to contract and
extend the malady; when the probabilities of such extension are viewed in
connection with the acknowledged fact that each prostitute in New York
receives from one to ten visitors every day (instances are known where the
maximum exceeds and sometimes doubles the highest number here given),
there can be no reasonable doubt of the danger of infection, nor any
surprise that the average life of prostitutes is only four years.
The actual extent of venereal disease must be the first point of inquiry,
and here the records of public institutions are of great service. The
hospitals on Blackwell's Island, under the charge of the Governors of the
Alms-house, present the largest array of cases, the principal part of
which were treated in the Penitentiary (now Island) Hospital. The number
of these cases was in
1854 1541
1855 1579
1856 1639
1857 2090
Upon these facts the writer of these pages remarked in his annual report
to the Board of Governors for 1856:
"The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number
of patients treated in 1854 was 37-4/10 per cent.
The ratio of the same disease in 1855 was 58-7/10 "
Showing an increase in the year 1855 of 21-3/10 "
The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number
of patients treated during 1856 was 73-1/10 "
Showing an increase in 1856, as compared with 1855, of 14-4/10 "
Or an increase, as compared with 1854, of 35-7/10 "
This steady increase, 21-3/10 per cent. in one year, and 14-4/10 per cent.
in the next, or 35-7/10 per cent. within two years, may be considered an
incontrovertible proof of the progress of this malady in the city of New
York. The fact that the people regard the Penitentiary Hospital as a
_dernier resort_, an institution to which nothing but the direst necessity
will compel them to apply, justifies the conclusion that the cases treated
are but a fraction of the disease existing, and its increase here may be
taken as a sure indication of a corresponding or larger increase among the
general population."[399]
Again, on the same subject in 1857:
"In my last report I took the opportunity to submit to your Honorable
Board facts proving the increase of venereal disease, and I then gave the
ratio of that malady on the gross number of patients treated as 73-1/10
per cent. In the year 1857 the ratio was 65-2/10 per cent.; but this
reduction of 7-9/10 per cent, must be considered in connection with the
fact that other diseases, much beyond the general average, have been
treated in the last year, so that a larger number of venereal cases will
yet show a smaller percentage. The cases of phthisis pulmonalis
(consumption), which have advanced from 58 in 1856 to 159 in 1857,
sufficiently explain that the decrease of venereal affections is apparent
and not real."[400]
An investigation beyond the statistics upon which these remarks were
based, and including the Penitentiary Hospital, Alms-house, Work-house and
Penitentiary, had shown that of the total number admitted to these several
institutions 59-1/2 per cent. had suffered or were suffering from venereal
disease at the time the inquiry was made. Of this proportion 45 per cent.
of the total were suffering _directly_ at the time of investigation, and
19 per cent. were suffering _indirectly_, or, in non-professional
language, were laboring under diseases more or less consequent on the
syphilitic taint.
The following detailed statistics of venereal disease treated in the
Penitentiary Hospital for four years ending December 31, 1857, will be
found to embrace many subjects which have been alluded to in these pages.
1854. 1855. 1856. 1857.
Total number of patients treated 4058 2657 2083 3158
Cases of primary syphilis 606 660 650 882
" of secondary and other forms of syphilis 935 919 989 1208
---- ---- ---- ----
Total of syphilitic diseases 1541 1579 1639 2090
NATIVITIES:
Natives of United States 410 489 531 673
Foreigners 1131 1090 1108 1417
---- ---- ---- ----
1541 1579 1639 2090
AGES:
Under 16 years 65 72 77 68
From 16 " to 20 years 481 457 472 593
" 21 " to 25 " 490 481 494 631
" 26 " to 30 " 314 304 311 423
" 31 " to 40 " 128 151 165 190
" 41 " to 50 " 42 99 101 157
" 51 " and upward 21 15 19 28
---- ---- ---- ----
1541 1579 1639 2090
EDUCATION:
Good 175 227 231 175
Imperfect 787 794 830 1161
Uneducated 579 558 578 754
---- ---- ---- ----
1541 1579 1639 2090
From the total number of venereal patients under
treatment 1541 1579 1639 2090
Deduct those discharged each year 1253 1316 1389 1710
---- ---- ---- ----
Leaving to add to the next year's account 288 263 250 380
Of the numbers discharged the following is the
RESULT OF TREATMENT:
Cured 874 1051 1201 1491
Relieved 370 263 183 213
Not relieved 7 1
Died 2 2 5 5
---- ---- ---- ----
1253 1316 1389 1710
DURATION OF TREATMENT:
5 days and under 13 16 17 83
6 " to 10 days 57 36 68 102
11 " to 20 " 80 59 81 131
21 " to 30 " 154 121 137 187
1 month to 2 months 293 333 453 528
2 months to 3 months 304 443 340 328
3 " to 4 " 220 245 207 260
4 " and upward 132 63 86 91
---- ---- ---- ----
1253 1316 1389 1710
Some few remarks may be made on the subject of primary syphilis. The
proportion of the cases of this malady to the gross number of patients
treated was in
1854 14-9/10 per cent.
1855 25-2/10 "
1856 31-2/10 "
1857 27-9/10 "
By the term "primary syphilis," non-professional readers will understand
the commencement of the disease, or symptoms which are the direct
consequence of an impure connection, in contradistinction to "secondary
syphilis," which is the comparatively remote result of infection; never
appearing until after the primary symptoms are well developed, and
frequently not until all traces of them are removed. He will thus see that
every case of primary syphilis is in itself a proof of recent intercourse
with a diseased person. These cases, then, have increased from 15 per
cent. in 1854 to 31-1/4 per cent. in 1856, and 28 per cent. in 1857. The
remarks recently quoted explain how 882 cases in 1857 make a smaller
percentage than 650 in 1856. The fact of this increase compels us to but
one conclusion, and that is a very important and suggestive one, namely,
that _commerce with prostitutes in 1857 was attended with nearly twice the
risk of infection incurred in 1854; and, of course, the health of
abandoned women has deteriorated in the same proportion_. This is not said
with any wish on the part of the writer to be considered an alarmist. The
facts are those which have come under his personal observation: the
inference is but a plain and natural deduction.
But the Hospital, although the chief, is not the only institution on
Blackwell's Island where patients are treated for venereal disease. The
Alms-house, Work-house, and Penitentiary have each a share of sufferers
from this malady, to what extent will be shown by the annexed table:
1854. 1855. 1856. 1857.
Alms-house 33 173 85 52
Work-house 65 31 5 56
Penitentiary 176 234 430
Bellevue Hospital, New York City, also under charge of the Governors of
the Alms-house, is not professedly available to venereal cases. By a
report from the Medical Board of that institution, which will be found in
the next chapter, it is seen that they estimate "not far from 10 per
cent. of the inmates of Bellevue Hospital are admitted for affections
which have their origin remotely in venereal disease." These data are
sufficient to fix the numbers thus treated as follows:
Year. Total number 10 per cent for
of patients. venereal cases.
1854 7033 703
1855 6697 670
1856 6392 639
1857 7676 768
In regard to the Nursery Hospital on Randall's Island, it is stated by Dr.
H. N. Whittlesey, the Resident Physician, that "nine tenths of all
diseases treated in this hospital during the past five years have been of
constitutional origin, and for the most part hereditary. The exact
proportion which hereditary syphilis bears to this sum of constitutional
depravity can not be stated with accuracy." It is an estimate far within
the bounds of probability to assume that one half of the diseases referred
to by Dr. Whittlesey are complicated with or by syphilitic taint, and the
numbers in the Nursery Hospital will therefore stand as follows:
Year. Total number 50 per cent. for
of patients. venereal cases.
1854 2199 1100
1855 2310 1155
1856 1275 638
1857 1469 734
Following the institutions in charge of the Governors of the Alms-house is
the New York State Emigrants' Hospital on Ward's Island, New York City,
under the direction of the Commissioners of Emigration, in the reports
whereof the following cases of venereal disease are noted:
1853 657
1854 732
1855 856
1856 511
1857 559
The New York Hospital, Broadway, next claims attention. The reports for
the under-mentioned years give the number of venereal cases as follows:
1852 478
1853 338
1856 372
1857 405
These embrace the principal public hospitals of New York. There are other
institutions, such as St. Luke's Hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital, the
Jews' Hospital, etc., but they are of recent origin, and their practice
will not form an element in this calculation.
The dispensaries of the city relieve yearly a large amount of sickness. In
the New York Dispensary, Centre Street, the cases of venereal disease are
reported as follows:
1855 1154
1856 1393
1857 1580
This gives an average of about three per cent. of all the patients
treated.
The Northern Dispensary, Waverley Place, does not publish any detailed
report of the diseases treated, and to make an estimate it will be
necessary to assume that the proportion is the same as in the New York
Dispensary, namely, three per cent. By this rule the following results are
obtained:
Year. Total number 3 per cent. for
of patients. ven. cases.
1850 19,615 588
1851 20,680 620
1852 21,941 658
1854 14,075 422
1855 12,378 371
1856 11,797 354
1857 10,895 327
The Eastern Dispensary, Ludlow Street, does not give any detailed report
of the diseases treated, and the same approximation will be made as
previously:
Year. Total number 3 per cent. for
of patients. ven. cases.
1855 25,612 768
1856 21,017 630
To the Demilt Dispensary, Second Avenue, the same system of approximation
will be applied:
Year. Total number 3 per cent. for
of patients. ven. cases.
1852-3 2,197 66
1853-4 9,006 270
1854-5 14,034 421
1855-6 20,004 600
1856-7 20,684 620
1857-8 26,785 803
The Northwestern Dispensary, Eighth Avenue, subjected to the same rule
gives
Year. Total number 3 per cent. for
of patients. ven. cases.
1854 9,264 277
1855 11,581 347
1856 11,477 344
Cases of venereal disease are treated in the Clinical Lectures at the
three medical colleges of New York City. From the New York University
Medical College the following report of patients has been obtained. It is
undoubtedly much too low an estimate.
1855 47
1856 53
1857 69
and assuming that the practice of the others is of the same extent, we
have as the venereal cases treated in the three colleges:
1855 141
1856 159
1857 207
As many of the patrons of New York houses of ill fame reside out of the
city, some further information must be sought beyond our own limits.
Without professing to inquire into the public health in all the suburbs
previously enumerated, it will be sufficient to take the reports of the
superintendents of the poor of King's County to ascertain what amount of
syphilitic infection has been treated at the public cost in Brooklyn and
its environs. The reports of Doctor Thomas Turner, Resident Physician of
the King's County Hospital, show the following cases:
1853 165
1855 362
1857 311
or about ten per cent. on the total number treated.
In the Brooklyn City Hospital the cases of venereal disease received and
treated were in
1854 158
1855 173
1856 160
1857 186
1858 (to May 1) 65
It has been already stated that sailors are great patrons of prostitutes,
and to obtain any true statement of venereal disease among them, some
estimate respecting this class must be made. For this purpose the reports
of Dr. T. Clarkson Moffatt, Physician-in-chief of the "Seaman's Retreat,"
Staten Island, New York, are available. The number of cases treated in the
several years is here given:
1854 657
1855 473
1856 355
1857 365
1858 (to April 1) 82
This is nearly twenty-four per cent. on the gross number treated.
This concludes the published reports of charitable institutions, and the
question next arises, What amount of syphilis is treated by physicians in
private practice? It is impossible to obtain any reliable data upon this
head. The Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, composed of some of the
leading members of the profession in the city, state that they "are unable
to say what proportion of the practice among regular and qualified
physicians in this city is derived from the treatment of venereal
diseases, but they know it is large, and that many receive more from this
source than from all other sources together."
There are also a very large number of advertising pretenders who offer
their services for the treatment of secret diseases; and many drug-stores
whose main business is derived from a similar source; together with an
infinity of patent medicines announced and sold as specifics for all
venereal maladies. Upon the simple commercial principle of supply and
demand these are so many proofs of the extent of the evil they profess to
relieve. Should the number of cases of venereal disease treated in private
practice by qualified physicians and by advertisers, added to the number
of patients who supply themselves with patent or other medicines from
drug-stores, be regarded as equal to the aggregate of those treated in
public institutions, the estimate could not be deemed extravagant.
The design is now to ascertain how much venereal disease exists in New
York at the present time, and to do this it will be necessary to
recapitulate the information already given. The cases below are those
treated in 1857:
Institutions. Cases.
Penitentiary Hospital, Blackwell's Island 2090
Alms-house, Blackwell's Island 52
Work-house, Blackwell's Island 56
Penitentiary, Blackwell's Island 430
Bellevue Hospital, New York 768
Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island 734
New York State Emigrants' Hospital, Ward's Island 559
New York Hospital, Broadway 405
New York Dispensary, Centre Street 1580
Northern Dispensary, Waverley Place 327
Eastern Dispensary, Ludlow Street 630
Demilt Dispensary, Second Avenue 803
Northwestern Dispensary, Eighth Avenue 344
Medical Colleges 207
King's County Hospital, Flatbush, Long Island 311
Brooklyn City Hospital, Brooklyn, Long Island 186
Seaman's Retreat, Staten Island 365
----
Total 9847
Medical men, and those acquainted with the internal arrangements of public
institutions, need not be reminded that the general system of record in
hospitals includes only what may be called the prominent malady. Thus, if
a man were admitted with a broken limb, it would be registered as a
fracture; and if the same man were suffering indirectly from syphilis at
the same time, no entry would be made thereof, although the physician
rendered him every professional assistance toward its cure. It is
estimated that in this manner a large number of the cases of venereal
disease treated in all public institutions, except such as make a
specialty of those maladies, is never recorded elsewhere than on the
private case-books of the attending physicians. More particularly is this
the rule in institutions supported wholly or in part by voluntary
contributions. Their benevolent directors have not yet outlived the
prejudice which formerly held it almost as disgraceful to treat as to
contract syphilis. Some of the spirit which drove the unhappy men and
women so afflicted from civilized life to perish in the fields or woods,
as in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and at a later period drew from the Papal government a bull
recognizing the affliction as a direct punishment from the Almighty for
the sin of incontinence, still survives in the present generation. The
trustees of more than one of the dispensaries in New York have directed
their medical officers not to prescribe for such complaints, and a
hospital in a sister city, which receives a yearly grant from public
funds, has in its printed rules and regulations: "No person having
'Gonorrhoea' or 'Syphilis' shall be admitted as a charity patient." Some
remarks are made hereafter upon this course, and the facts are mentioned
now to explain why many cases of venereal disease never appear upon the
reports of institutions where patients are treated.
Practically such prohibitions are a dead letter. No physician of a public
institution, applied to by a poor wretch suffering from syphilis, could
pass him by without attempting to relieve, let the orders of the board of
trustees be what they may. His mission is simply to apply the aid of
science and skill to the alleviation of any ailment which may be presented
to his notice, and his appreciation of the responsibility of his office is
too keen to allow him to refuse the prayer of such an applicant. Hence
arises the circumstance that the case is treated under some other name.
If then the cases recorded are but two thirds of the aggregate, the
numbers stand thus:
Cases recorded in public institutions 9847
Cases not recorded 4923
-----
Total. 14770
cases in the year 1857 in public institutions.
The difficulty of forming an opinion as to the extent of venereal disease
treated in private practice has been already mentioned. In the absence of
all information, collateral circumstances form the only guide to a
conclusion. The amount is unquestionably very large; so large that, if its
full magnitude could be discovered and announced, every reader must be
astonished. The first consideration to support this view may be found in
the army of advertising empirics who make it a source of revenue. Each of
these men must have numerous patients; he could not keep up his business
without them. Any practical advertiser knows that to insert an
announcement of some twenty or thirty lines every day in at least two
daily papers, to repeat the same in weekly journals, and, in addition to
this, to post handbills on the corner of every street, and employ men or
boys to deliver them to passengers at steam-boat docks, ferry landings,
and rail-road depôts, can not be done without a considerable outlay,
whatever its prospective advantages may be. No one supposes these
charlatans to be actuated by pure disinterested benevolence. They crowd
the columns of our journals, and insult us with their printed
announcements in the public thoroughfares, simply because "it pays." These
means obtain them customers, and whenever this result ceases the
announcements will be discontinued. While they appear there is positive
proof that their issuers are gathering patronage.
The number of patent medicines always in the market for the cure of secret
diseases, and which the vendors announce "can be sent any distance
securely packed, and safe from observation," affords a corroboration. They
are made and sold as a business speculation. When their reputation
diminishes, and the public become doubtful if all the virtues of the
_materia medica_ are comprised in a single bottle of "Red Drop," or
"Unfortunate's Friend," the manufacture will soon stop, and the inventors
will resort to some other employment for their capital. The extent to
which advertising empirics and patent medicines are flourishing is an
undeniable proof of the prevalence of the maladies they professedly
relieve.
The legitimate business of drug-stores affords another link in the chain
of evidence. Beyond the regular nostrums, almost every druggist in the
city sells large quantities of medicine for the cure of venereal disease.
Sometimes a man will candidly tell the storekeeper that he has contracted
disease, and ask him to make up something to cure it. At other times a
prescription, which has been efficacious in a former attack, will be
presented, or the sufferer has taken counsel among his friends and
companions, and obtained some infallible recipe from one of them. In
short, there are so many different means taken by persons who have
contracted disease that it is impossible to enumerate the various methods
in which the aid of the drug-store may be invoked.
There are many traditional recipes which can be used without the necessity
of purchasing ingredients of a druggist. One favorite remedy among the
lower classes is "Pine Knot Bitters." Bottles of this preparation are kept
for sale in liquor stores, particularly in those neighborhoods where
prostitutes "most do congregate."
Another reason may be submitted why a large amount of venereal disease
must be treated privately. Many of the victims are men who move in a
respectable sphere of society, and have probably been led to the act which
resulted so disastrously in a moment of uncontrollable passion. Their
social position would be irreparably damaged should they enter a public
hospital, and the desire to retain their _status_ forces them to secrecy,
even if the natural repugnance of every man to the former course did not
exist. It is vain to deny that, while medical institutions designed for
the public good are so managed as to inflict a disgrace upon their
inmates, their benefits are circumscribed, and will never be accepted by
any but the poor unfortunates who have no other means of obtaining relief.
In the case of syphilis this is particularly to be regretted from the
nature of the disease. Every day it is neglected it becomes in a tenfold
degree more aggravated, and entails proportionate misery in after life.
If it be assumed that the private cases of venereal disease equal in
number those treated in public institutions, an aggregate is obtained of
more than 29,500 cases every year. If the former are double the number of
the latter, the sum will be over 44,000 cases per annum. Either of these
conjectures is below the truth, and we are satisfied, from professional
experience and inquiry, that there is no exaggeration in estimating the
number of patients treated privately every year for _lues venerea_ as at
least quadruple the cases receiving assistance in hospitals and charitable
establishments. _The result is the enormous sum of seventy-four thousand
cases every year!_ If each person suffered only one attack each year, this
would represent one sixth of the total population above fifteen years of
age. But many persons, especially among abandoned women and profligate
men, are infected several times in the course of twelve months, and any
attempt to say what proportion of individuals are represented in these
74,000 cases would be mere speculation without a particle of conclusive
evidence to support it.
Notwithstanding the magnitude of the result, a very brief consideration
will show that it is not extravagant. In addition to the arguments already
advanced in this chapter, the reader will recollect that in a previous
section it has been shown that two out of every five prostitutes in New
York _confessed the syphilitic taint_. Supposing a girl relinquishes her
calling as soon as she becomes aware of being diseased, several days may
have elapsed before she discovered her condition, and during that interval
she must have infected every man who had intercourse with her. To take the
most liberal view, it may be conceded that the portion who acknowledged
infection were not all suffering from the primary or communicable form;
many of them had doubtless recovered from that; but if only one half were
so suffering, and each of these infected only one man, the result would be
365,000 men diseased every year.
This is not an exaggerated estimate. As was said when alluding to the
prostitutes who admitted their contamination, there can be no possible
suspicion that they would acknowledge sickness if they could avoid doing
so, and consequently the sick are certainly not overrated. It may be
objected that the numbers who owned disease were spread over a
considerable space of time, but this can be met with the fact that the
inquiry which produced this result was in progress simultaneously in all
parts of the city. At the farthest it did not extend three months from the
time of commencement to completion, and the natural presumption would be
that, as during that time the health of the women was neither better nor
worse than in any other three months of any year, the same proportion of
diseased women could be found whenever an investigation was made; in other
words, that two out of five prostitutes in New York are diseased.
The calculation that of these diseased women one half only are affected in
a manner which renders them liable to infect their paramours is also a
liberal one. Syphilis, when manifested in its secondary stage in the shape
of sores, eruptions, and blotches upon the face or person, is so
disgusting that no prostitute thus disfigured could retain her place in
any brothel, unless it was one of the very lowest grade, because her
appearance would immediately repel all visitors. In its primary or local
form it is of course concealed from her customers, and may be so concealed
for a considerable length of time. These facts borne in mind, is it not
almost too liberal an estimate to assume that one half who admit syphilis
are suffering in the secondary or palpable form?
This line of argument, supported by the facts given, is perfectly
justifiable, view it in what light you may, and proves that the estimate
of 74,000 cases of venereal disease annually is much too small.
Another course of reasoning may be adopted. The time occupied in taking
the census is stated at three months. This included all the needful
preliminary measures, the instructions to examiners, the conferences with
police captains, etc; and the final proceedings, such as arranging and
writing out reports. Allow one third of the time for these introductory
and concluding adjuncts, and it will leave about sixty days, including
Sundays, or fifty-two working days devoted to the actual inquiry. The
inquiry resulted in the discovery of syphilis in such a proportion of
women as would amount to an aggregate of two thousand on the total number
of public prostitutes. Suppose the disease of two thousand women equally
distributed over the fifty-two days; or, in other words, that an average
number were infected and confessed it every day, and the result is
thirty-eight women diseased every twenty-four hours. We wish to make this
argument as plain as possible, and the reader will pardon what may appear
needless repetition. If this disease existed in each woman for four days
before she was conscious of it, or it became so troublesome as to force
her from her calling, and during this interval of four days each woman had
intercourse with only one man per day, over fifty thousand men would be
exposed to the risk, almost the certainty of contracting infection in the
course of the year. As the _Medico-Chirurgical Review_ said, in the course
of a similar argument upon syphilis in London, this estimate is
"ridiculously small." In the first place, a majority of the women would
not abandon their calling in four days after infection, but would continue
it as long as they could possibly submit to the suffering involved. Every
resident of New York will remember the excitement caused in the spring of
the year 1855 by the arrest of a large number of prostitutes in the public
streets, their committal to Blackwell's Island, and their subsequent
discharge on writs of _habeas corpus_, on account of informality in the
proceedings; but it is not generally known that of those arrested at that
time a very large proportion, certainly more than one half, were suffering
from syphilis in its primary form, and many of them in its most inveterate
stage. We make this assertion from our own knowledge, the result of a
professional examination, and mention the circumstance now to prove that
women will not abandon their calling when they know themselves diseased,
so long as they can possibly continue it. If the estimate had been made
that each woman continued prostitution for eight days instead of four days
after she was infected, it would have been a closer approximation to the
truth, and it would have shown over _one hundred thousand_ (100,000) men
exposed to infection every year.
Again: The supposition that a prostitute submits to but one act of
prostitution every day is "ridiculously small." No woman could pay her
board, dress, and live in the expensive manner common among the class upon
the money she would receive from one visitor daily; even two visitors is a
very low estimate, and four is very far from an unreasonably large one.
But suppositions might be multiplied, and the argument extended almost _ad
infinitum_. One more calculation shall be submitted, and then the reader
can form his own conclusion upon the question whether the theory of
seventy-four thousand cases of venereal disease in New York every year has
not been supported by a mass of evidence far more weighty than can
ordinarily be adduced to establish a controverted point.
It shall be assumed that the thirty-eight women infected every day
continue their calling for six days after the appearance of venereal
disease, and during such six days one half of them shall submit to one,
and the other half to two sexual acts daily. Then, in the course of a
year, one hundred and twenty-five thousand men would be exposed to
contamination. To this add the number of women infected, which, at
thirty-eight daily, would amount to nearly thirteen thousand in the year,
and a total of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand will be presented, or
nearly double the number assumed as a basis for remark. It is needless to
advance farther reasons in support of the soundness of that opinion.
Next in order will be the consideration of the amount of money
prostitution costs the public. The amount of capital invested in houses of
ill fame, and the outlay consequent thereupon presents a total which can
not but surprise all who have not deeply reflected upon the ramifications
of the evil. The police investigation of May, 1858, quoted a few pages
back, gives the total number of houses of prostitution as 378, and the
worth of property thus employed can be ascertained with a tolerable degree
of accuracy from information obtained, in many cases, by actual inquiry.
The value of real estate where it was owned by the keepers of these houses
has been already given in some instances, and in others the rent may be
assumed equivalent to ten per cent. per annum upon the cost of the
property, which is certainly not an undue valuation. Dividing the total
number of houses into four classes the estimate stands as follows:
80 houses of the first class are estimated, from
actual inquiry, to be worth, including real estate
and furniture, $13,800 each, or a total of $1,104,000
100 houses of the second class are estimated at
twenty-five per cent. less than those of the first
class, namely, $10,350 for each, or a total of 1,035,000
120 houses of the third class at $5000 each 600,000
78 houses of the fourth class at $1000 each 78,000
----------
378 houses of prostitution are estimated worth $2,817,000
Add for houses of assignation:
25 houses of the first class at $12,000 each 300,000
25 " second " 9,000 " 225,000
35 " third " 5,000 " 175,000
15 " fourth " 3,000 " 45,000
--- ----------
100 Total for houses of prostitution and assignation $3,562,000
In addition to this are 151 dancing-saloons, liquor and
lager-beer stores, mainly dependent upon the custom of
prostitutes and their companions. Any place in which it
is possible to carry on either of these businesses must
be worth $200 a year rent, which would give a value of
$2000 each, or a total of 302,000
The necessary stock, fixtures, and implements can not be
worth less, on an average, than $100 in each place:
this gives a total of 15,100
and an aggregate capital of $3,879,100
invested in the business of prostitution. That this is not an extravagant
estimate will be admitted by any real estate owner or person acquainted
with the value of property in the city; especially if he takes into
consideration the location of many of the houses, and calculates how much
more the adjacent lands and buildings would be worth if these resorts of
vice and infamy were removed.
On a scale correspondingly large is the amount of money actually spent
upon prostitutes. The weekly income of each woman can not be less than
ten dollars. Many pay much more than that sum for their board alone, and
in first-class houses it is not uncommon for a prostitute to realize as
much as thirty or fifty dollars, or upward, in a week. But if the income
is taken at the lowest point, the aggregate receipts of six thousand
courtesans amount to $60,000 per week, or $3,120,000 per year.
Every visitor to a house of prostitution expends more or less money for
wines and liquors therein. In some cases this outlay will be larger than
the cash remuneration given to the women, but other men are not so lavish
in their hospitality; and it is fair to assume that such expenditures
amount to two thirds of the previous item--a weekly total of $40,000, or
$2,080,000 spent for intoxicating drinks in houses of prostitution every
year.
In describing the customers of houses of assignation, it has already been
remarked that in the first class many of the female visitors take that
step, not for gain, but impelled by affection or sexual desire. They would
spurn the idea of being paid for their company; but the houses at which
their intrigues are consummated being luxuriously furnished, and conducted
by women of known discretion and secrecy, have a high tariff of prices as
one of their features. Visitors must pay as much there for accommodation
as the rent of a room and compensation to a female would amount to in
places of less pretension. It is assumed that 4200 visits are paid to
houses of assignation every week, and for the foregoing reason estimating
them to cost the men the same in every instance, and fixing that cost at
three dollars for each visit, this item will amount to $12,600 per week,
or $655,200 per year.
The consumption of wine and liquor is small in houses of assignation, as
compared with houses of prostitution. It may probably amount to $5000 per
week, or $260,000 per year.
The income of the dancing-saloons, liquor, and lager-beer stores,
frequented and mainly supported by prostitutes and their friends, can not
be less than $30 per week for each house, and as there are 151
establishments of that description, the aggregate of money disbursed in
them will be $4530 per week, or $235,560 per year.
These sums exhibit the outlay for the pleasures of prostitution: the
ensuing items give its penalties. Of the inmates of the Island (late the
Penitentiary) Hospital, in 1857, over 65 per cent. were afflicted with
venereal disease. The total expense of that institution for the year was
$35,000, and the _pro rata_ amount for syphilitic patients would be
$22,750 during the year, or $438 per week.
Bellevue Hospital cost to maintain it during 1857, $70,000 in round
numbers. The Medical Board say that ten per cent. of its inmates are
treated for diseases originating in the syphilitic taint, and this
proportion of the expenses being chargeable to prostitution amounts to
$7000 per year, or $135 per week.
The Nursery Hospital on Randall's Island cost the city of New York $17,000
for maintenance during 1857. One half its infant patients are treated for
diseases resulting from venereal infection, and $8,500 per year, or $163
per week, is the quota of expense caused by this vice and its sequel.
The number of cases of venereal disease treated in the New York State
Emigrants' Hospital on Ward's Island was 6-1/2 per cent. of the total
relieved on that island. The expenses for 1857 were $109,000, and the
share chargeable to prostitution will be $7075 per year, or $136 per week.
In the New York City Hospital, Broadway, 14 per cent. of the patients
during 1857 were treated for venereal disease. The cost of maintenance for
that year was $59,000, and the share caused by prostitution was $8260 per
year, or $159 per week.
The cases treated in dispensary practice have been averaged at three per
cent. throughout the city. The yearly expenses of those charities are as
follows:
New York Dispensary $9100
Northern Dispensary 3550
Eastern Dispensary 3700
Demilt Dispensary 5300
Northwestern Dispensary 2630
-------
Total $24,280
and the proportion chargeable to syphilis must be $728 per year, or $14
per week.
Very little expense is incurred by the medical colleges in the cases of
syphilis treated at their clinical lectures, as the relief is generally
confined to a prescription or a slight operation, and if medicine is
supplied in a few cases the amount is so small that in a calculation of
this sort it is not worth notice.
The expenses of the King's County Hospital, Long Island, for 1857,
amounted to $75,300. About ten per cent. of the patients treated were
venereal sufferers, and the cost for them amounts to $7530 per year, or
$145 per week.
In the Brooklyn City Hospital the proportion of venereal patients is
twenty-seven per cent. of the aggregate. The total annual expenses are
$17,200, and the amount incurred on account of this disease is therefore
$4644 per year, or $89 per week.
In the Seaman's Retreat, Staten Island, New York, twenty-four per cent.
of the inmates suffer from venereal disease. The expenses during the year
1857 were $43,500, of which $10,540 per year, or $203 per week, must be
considered the proportion rendered necessary by syphilis.
To ascertain the amount expended for private medical assistance it will be
necessary to recapitulate the outlay of the public institutions mentioned.
Institutions. Yearly Outlay. Weekly Outlay.
Island Hospital, Blackwell's Island $22750 $438
Bellevue Hospital, New York 7000 135
Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island 8500 163
Emigrants' Hospital, Ward's Island 7075 136
City Hospital, New York 8260 159
Dispensaries 728 14
King's County Hospital, Long Island 7530 145
Brooklyn City Hospital, Long Island 4644 89
Seaman's Retreat, Staten Island 10540 203
----- ----
Total 77027 1482
These totals must be multiplied by four, and the product will show the
amount paid for private medical assistance as $5928 weekly, or $308,108
yearly. This is calculated on too liberal a scale, for no one believes
that an individual requiring professional aid can obtain it so
economically in private life as in a public institution; nor would even
the fact that in the latter case the patients are boarded and supplied
with all necessaries more than counterbalance the sums which must be paid
for individual medical attendance. The desire not needlessly to exaggerate
facts which are sufficiently comprehensive without such a procedure is the
only reason that induces so low an estimate.
But there are yet other items of expenditure which must be noticed before
the long array is completed. Foremost of these is the cost for support of
abandoned women in the Work-house and Penitentiary on Blackwell's Island.
The proportion of females committed to the Work-house during 1857 was
three fifths of the total commitments. It is not asserted that all these
were prostitutes, but it is certain that the larger part were unchaste,
and for argument's sake we will take the ratio as two abandoned to one
virtuous woman, the latter representing the class whom poverty, sickness,
or friendlessness may have driven to accept a shelter in the institution.
The expenses of the Work-house for the year amounted to $76,000, and the
share of cost incurred on behalf of prostitutes would therefore be $30,400
per year, or $585 per week.
The females sentenced to the Penitentiary from courts of criminal
jurisdiction during 1857 amount to twenty-seven per cent. of the total
number incarcerated. It will violate no probability to assume that all
these women were prostitutes; there may be exceptions to the rule, but so
rare are they as not to invalidate the principle. The Penitentiary was
supported during 1857 at an outlay to the tax-payers of nearly $89,000,
and the proportion chargeable to prostitutes, at the ratio given above, is
$24,030 per year, or $462 per week.
A farther portion of the expenses of the Work-house and Penitentiary might
very plausibly be included in the list; namely, the share incurred by the
maintenance of those men who owe their imprisonment either to crimes
committed at the instigation of common women, or for the sake of
supporting them; or to a course of idleness and dissipation resulting from
the companionship of prostitutes. To pursue this subject in all its
_minutiæ_ would lead to the conclusion that nearly every male prisoner
owes his confinement, less or more remotely, to one or the other of these
causes, and hence it could be argued that all the expenses of male
imprisonment should be taken into this account. On the other hand, such a
course could be opposed with the plea that crimes which send men to
Blackwell's Island are only indirect results of the system under
discussion, and to recognize them would force the recognition of many
other indirect consequences daily occurring elsewhere. Strictly speaking,
the position is scarcely demonstrable enough to form an arithmetical
calculation, but its moral certainty is so far acknowledged as to make it
a serious matter of reflection in connection with the attendant evils of
prostitution.
To resume: About fifty-five per cent. of the population of the
Alms-houses, Blackwell's Island, are females. Some of these are old
decrepit women whom it would be impossible to consider as prostitutes;
others are virtuous women whose poverty has driven them there; but many
are broken down prostitutes who have lost whatever of attraction they once
possessed, and with ruined health and debilitated constitutions it is
impossible for them to exist even in the lowest brothels. They make the
Alms-house their last resting-place, and there await the final summons
which shall close their career of sin and misery. Yet another class in
this institution is composed of women with young children. Some claim to
be respectable married women, while others are known as disreputable
characters; but the former have little to support their pretensions except
their own assertion, and collateral testimony sometimes invalidates that.
It is not an uncharitable conclusion, that at least one half of the female
inmates of the Alms-house owe their dependence upon charity to their own
prostitution. The support of the Alms-house in 1857 cost the city of New
York $63,000, and the proportion resulting from prostitution, on the above
data, is $15,750 per year, or $303 per week.
The children on Randall's Island may be classified according to the rule
already adopted in reference to disease in the nursery hospital there;
namely, to assume that one half owe, if not their existence, certainly
their support from public funds to causes that originated in vice. The
nursery, exclusive of the hospital, cost during last year $60,000, one
half of which must, in accordance with the previous estimate, be charged
to prostitution; namely, $30,000 per year, or $577 per week.