The History of Prostitution Part 53

Every resident of New York is aware of the existence of houses used especially as places for the meeting of the s.e.xes 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.signation 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 pa.s.s 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" advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 prost.i.tutes, 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 s.e.xual 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 prost.i.tutes, or been the keepers of houses of prost.i.tution, 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 a.s.signation; 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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.signation, 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 prost.i.tution, 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 a.s.serted 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.signation 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 n.o.bility, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 inst.i.tutions--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 a.s.signed 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s of a.s.signation-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 cla.s.s. The princ.i.p.al portion of the females who resort to them are married women, most of whom are from the upper cla.s.ses, whose s.e.xual pa.s.sions 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 cla.s.s of serving-women, or shop-women, or females whose occupations, such as milliners, artificial florists, etc., lead them into contact with the fashionable cla.s.ses. 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 prost.i.tutes of the upper grades sometimes visit this cla.s.s of houses; they are known to the keeper, and she encourages them for the following reason: An habitue 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 cla.s.s who frequent them.

The third-cla.s.s houses of a.s.signation are not situated in such select parts of the city as are the other two cla.s.ses. Some of them are managed with much privacy and seclusion, while others are simply houses of public prost.i.tution on a large scale. Their princ.i.p.al female patrons are those prost.i.tutes who have rebelled against the exorbitant charges made by keepers of fashionable houses, and shop-girls who resort to prost.i.tution 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-cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s of a.s.signation-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 prost.i.tute, and agrees to ac-company her to an a.s.signation-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 "a.s.surance 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 circ.u.mstance 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 x.x.xVI.

NEW YORK.--EXTENT, EFFECTS, AND COST OF PROSt.i.tUTION.

Number of Public Prost.i.tutes.--Opinion of Chief of Police in 1856.-- Effects on Prost.i.tution of Commercial Panic of 1857.--Extravagant Surmises.--Police Investigation of May, 1858.--Private Prost.i.tutes.-- Aggregate Prost.i.tution.--Visitors from the Suburbs of New York.-- Strangers.--Proportion of Prost.i.tutes 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 Inst.i.tutions.--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 Inst.i.tutions.--Private Treatment.--Advertisers.--Patent Medicines.-- Drug-stores.--Aggregate of Venereal Disease.--Probabilities of Infection.--Cost of Prost.i.tution.--Capital invested in Houses of Prost.i.tution and a.s.signation, Dancing-saloons, etc.--Income of Prost.i.tutes.--Individual Expenses of Visitors.--Medical Expenses.-- Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses.--Police and Judiciary Expenses.-- Correspondence with leading Cities of the United States.--Estimated Prost.i.tution throughout the Union.--Remarks on "Tait's _Prost.i.tution 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 prost.i.tution 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 a.s.sumed in these pages that the two thousand women whose replies form the basis of the statistical tables, represent about one third of the aggregate prost.i.tution 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 ent.i.tle their opinions to confidence, as to the actual number of prost.i.tutes 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 prost.i.tutes 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 prost.i.tution as it exists here, and consequently can give a very correct opinion as to the number of prost.i.tutes 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 prost.i.tutes 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 Prost.i.tution 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 prost.i.tutes in the city of New York. In the absence of any law compelling the registering of public prost.i.tutes, 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 prost.i.tutes 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 embarra.s.sments of the fathers compelled a reduction of the servants employed, and a large number of domestics were added to the aggregate of that cla.s.s 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 prost.i.tution 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 prost.i.tutes every week through sheer starvation! An a.s.sertion so appalling as this is its own refutation. It a.s.sumes that one woman in every hundred of the female population of New York City, between the ages of fifteen and thirty years, became a prost.i.tute 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 prost.i.tution 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 _employes_, 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 prost.i.tution, and instead of large accessions to the ranks of courtesans, many of this very cla.s.s were forced to seek a refuge in the public charitable inst.i.tutions.

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 prost.i.tutes. Poor creatures! they surrendered themselves unwillingly to some temporary acquaintance, probably in grat.i.tude for a.s.sistance already rendered, or antic.i.p.ating 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 prost.i.tute in the ordinary acceptation of the word.