The History of Prostitution Part 64

On these grounds a writ of _certiorari_ or _habeas corpus_ is sued out, the preliminary steps being a pet.i.tion from the prisoner or his friend, setting forth that he is illegally detained, an affidavit of verification, and a certificate of the clerk of the Court of Sessions that the commitment has not been filed in his office. Upon the presentation of these doc.u.ments, the judge to whom application is made issues the required writ, and specifies the time at which it shall be returnable. The action of the two writs is similar, excepting that a writ of _habeas corpus_ requires the production of the prisoner before the judge in addition to a return of the cause of detention, while a writ of _certiorari_ only requires a return of the cause of detention. The return is made by the person having custody of the prisoner, and consists of a copy of the commitment under which he is held; and, from the already-stated informality of these doc.u.ments, it will be apparent there can be no legal ground for his detention. The judge is strictly prohibited from entertaining any question beyond the legality of the papers; with the moral aspect of the question he can not interfere, and as the commitments are generally informal he has no alternative but to discharge the prisoner.

Application for these writs must be made in the name of an attorney, but such name is often used by an agent who transacts the business, and divides the fee with his princ.i.p.al.

From this sketch it will be evident that, if the prescribed form were observed in these commitments, frequent discharges would be avoided, or there would be so many difficulties to surmount that they would be very rarely attempted.

Does no responsibility rest upon the public, and on our law-makers, for negligence in this matter? Without conceding that a vagrancy commitment is likely to reform a prost.i.tute (in fact, the weight of evidence is against the possibility of its doing so), the case stands thus: the Legislature has provided a mode of relief which was deemed effectual at the time, but this mode is evaded, or can not be observed, by those upon whom its administration devolves. The public have long known the existence of these difficulties, but have never interfered to give us a better act. By their refusal to interfere they stand in the position of aiders and abettors in this neglect, or, worse than neglect, the actual propagation of a dreadful disease. Had public opinion been concentrated upon this matter, an inquiry would long ago have shown the fallacy of our present system, and suggested the required amendments. This has not been done; but public remissness in no way diminishes public responsibility.

This doctrine of public accountability may be profitably examined for a few moments in connection with the general aspect of prost.i.tution. Few will deny that the ma.s.s of the people are answerable for many of its evils. They are cognizant of the existence of vice in the aggregate, if not in detail; they can understand its effects, and are not ignorant of the princ.i.p.al causes which lead to it; yet they make no effort to remove existing causes or to prevent future evils. They practically treat women as an inferior race of beings, and can not even give a poor seamstress employment without saying, in fact if not in words, "You can not be trusted to make this unless a man examines every b.u.t.ton hole, and inspects every row of st.i.tching, to see that you are not defrauding us." The only way to secure confidence is to bestow confidence; but if a person is treated in a manner likely to destroy self-respect, the inevitable result will be a recklessness as to his or her own character. Despised without a cause; treated in mere business matters as imbeciles, or children, or thieves, it is not surprising that women become careless as to their future life, and, smarting under the injustice of their position, too frequently degenerate into the wretched beings who infest our streets and pollute the atmosphere with their deadly infection.

The public, then, are responsible for this prost.i.tution, because they have never bestowed any attention upon it. It is one of the gravest and most difficult of social problems, involving the interests of every man in the community, and yet the most stupid indifference has been shown respecting it. The subject has been canva.s.sed by medical men on account of its sad effects upon the physical organization; its extent has been known to judicial and police authorities from its social and civil results; but the great body of the public have hitherto decided that they know nothing, and want to know nothing about it. They admit its existence, being too evident to be denied; but so far they have taken no steps to ascertain its source or stay its progress, because it was a matter with which they were afraid to interfere, and now the deplorable consequences accruing from it must be laid to their charge.

It can not be denied that there are many difficulties attending any investigation of this vice; that many well-meaning but timid people entertain the opinion that it is one of those gangrenous ulcers upon society which can not be alluded to except in whispers; that more harm would result from inst.i.tuting inquiries than if it were allowed to exist and fester on unnoticed.[429] This apathy, which has heretofore been the policy, has made prost.i.tution the monster evil which it now is, and upon those who have advocated, or may advocate, a continuance of the same course of silence and inaction the sufferers from the vice may justly charge their destruction. The "masterly inactivity" of the statesman is unquestionably justifiable in any case where pa.s.sive resistance will overcome an evil, but in dealing with prost.i.tution a diametrically opposite method must be pursued. It requires an active aggression upon all old prejudices; an explosion of still older theories; a vigorous commencement of a new course.

It has been shown elsewhere that the public are responsible for prost.i.tution, because they persist in excluding women from many kinds of employment for which they are fitted; while for work in those occupations which are open to them they receive an entirely inadequate remuneration.

It has also been shown that the community are equally responsible on account of their non-interference with known and acknowledged evils.

Another reason why accountability can not be evaded may be designated; namely, the carelessness, or, more properly, heartlessness, with which the character of woman is treated. Let there be but a breath of suspicion against her fair fame, no matter from what vile source it may emanate, and the energies of man seem directed toward her destruction. "She is down, keep her down!" is the almost universal cry, and this malignant process is continued until the victim is positively forced into a life of undisguised immorality. The sacred decision, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone," is entirely forgotten, and the most violent in their denunciations are frequently those who are the most blameworthy themselves.

The whole force of the world's opinion has been directed, not to the censure of actually guilty parties who induced the crime, but to the poor wronged sufferer. She, who is too frequently the victim of falsehood and deceit, or the slave of an absolute necessity, must expiate her fault by submitting to a constant succession of indignities and annoyances. He, whose conduct has made her what she is, escapes all censure. But some moralist will ask, "How would you have us treat such women?" Treat them, sir, as human beings, actuated by the same pa.s.sions as yourself; as susceptible beings, keenly sensitive of reproach; as injured beings, who have a claim upon your kindness; as outraged beings, who have a demand upon your justice. Lead them into a path by which they can escape from danger; protect the innocent from the snares which environ them on every side. And when this is done, pour the vials of your hottest wrath on those of your own s.e.x whose machinations have blighted some of G.o.d's fairest created beings.

Public responsibility must be understood in its broadest and most literal sense, as meaning the individual accountability of every member of the community. The time has not yet arrived, unfortunately, when this matter can be left in the hands of corporations or legislatures. Their const.i.tuents must be aroused to consideration of its importance before any satisfactory action can or will be taken by them; and it is to the thinking men of the age that these pages are addressed, in the full confidence that so soon as their sympathies are enlisted public action will follow.

To this end an endeavor has been made to show the injurious effects of prohibition, disappointing expectation as a means of decreasing syphilis, or of curtailing the limits of prost.i.tution; the necessity which exists for effectual preventive measures; and the inefficient, or worse than inefficient, nature of the local arrangements of New York to accomplish this desideratum. Thus the way for a consideration of the remedial process has been opened, and now with such evidence as he has before him the reader may be asked, in all sincerity, if he does not seriously believe that _it would be a prudent step, instead of trying to extirpate the evil, to place prost.i.tutes and prost.i.tution under the surveillance of a medical bureau in the Police Department_? Extirpation never has been, never can be accomplished in any community; repression and restriction, as proposed, have been tried and have proved successful.

a.s.suming an affirmative answer to this question, and it is difficult to imagine it otherwise if the facts are dispa.s.sionately considered, attention is respectfully requested to the manner in which the change could be effected.

To meet the exigencies of the case there are required

(1.) A suitable hospital for the treatment of venereal disease;

(2.) A legally authorized medical visitation of all known houses of prost.i.tution, with full power to order the immediate removal of any woman found to be infected to the designated hospital;

(3.) The power to detain infected persons under treatment until they are cured, a term of time which none but medical men can decide.

By a suitable hospital is meant an inst.i.tution devoted to the treatment of such diseases, like the special hospitals of Paris and other Continental cities, and entirely removed from all connection with any punitive establishment. The rules proposed for the government of the Island Hospital, when its name was changed from Penitentiary Hospital, do not, by any means, meet the urgent requirements of the case. The Penitentiary, its officers and inmates, must be entirely shut out from the desired hospital, and no prison-warden or keeper of criminals must have any jurisdiction within its walls or over its grounds. Inmates of hospitals have too long endured the stupid interference of non-medical men, and it is time that medical law exclusively was considered in the direction and management of buildings devoted to medical purposes. This is especially necessary in a syphilitic hospital, on account of the character of its patients. _No amount of imprisonment as a punishment ever yet reformed a prost.i.tute, and it never will; all intercourse with prisoners, be it ever so transient, has but confirmed women in vice._

The tendency of imprisonment is directly contrary to any reformation, confirming previous habits instead of rooting them out. The instinctive dread of incarceration has prevented many from availing themselves of the medical advantages offered them, particularly among the better and higher grades of frail women. We want a hospital exclusively for the treatment of syphilis, with the power to place and keep there all women so diseased until cured. Matters of detail can be arranged in such a manner as to admit of a proper cla.s.sification, based upon the degree of moral turpitude belonging to each. Payment could and should be required from all who possess the means, for expenses actually incurred, and this would contribute a considerable sum to meet the expenditures of the inst.i.tution.

Among these women, as a body, there exists an excessive amount of pride.

Those of the upper cla.s.s will not a.s.sociate with any of a lower rank, and, in fact, look upon them in very much the same manner that moralists regard the whole body. To be enabled to reach them at all, a liberal management must be adopted. But will not this be deferring to vice because it is dressed in silks or satins? asks some one. Most decidedly not. Let the arrangements be what they might, such a hospital as described would afford no encouragement to vice, for in it all must submit to the same course of treatment, varied only in the minor accessories which surround it.

Even if the arrangements were exposed to an objection like the above, the end would justify the means. The city of New York contains, at this day, venereal infection sufficient to contaminate all the male population of the United States in a very short s.p.a.ce of time. It has been proved from official and medical statistics that this malady is rapidly on the increase, and a paramount question is, how to be relieved of the incubus.

Rigorous prohibitory measures will not effect this; they only make the matter worse. Punitive hospitals will not effect this; they have been tried and found wanting. Free inst.i.tutions would, in all probability, succeed in accomplishing far more than any other measure our citizens have ever tried. The question is one, if not absolutely of life, certainly of healthy existence, and its inestimable importance must over-ride all doubts and difficulties. In view of the dangers surrounding our rising generation, even supposing the men and women of the present day exempt from them, it would be perfectly inexcusable to refuse any available plan because some one of its features might not please all tastes. Adopt an arrangement similar to that suggested, and if any crudities are discovered they can be readily cured as experience points them out. The plan is not presented as a perfect one, but merely as an outline sketch of what is necessary.

A regular medical visitation of all prost.i.tutes is an essential part of the scheme, and its organization should be a matter of serious consideration. The Parisian plan already submitted might form a very good basis; and an arrangement which throws the whole system of prost.i.tution open to an effective police supervision, and the establishment of a medical bureau in connection therewith for professional purposes, is suggested as most desirable. This medical visitation, conducted by physicians to be connected with the Police Department, and sustained by the power of that body, should be confided to men of recognized skill and known integrity. To insure public confidence, so essentially necessary in the inception of any social innovation, it would be necessary that the agents upon whom its execution devolved should be men of tried probity and acknowledged reputation, both professional and personal. The slightest symptom of disease should be sufficient evidence to warrant the immediate removal of any woman to the syphilitic hospital. The residence of any woman, be it temporary or permanent, in a known house of prost.i.tution must subject her to a medical examination, as it would afford a very strong presumption that she was there for immoral purposes.

The propriety of a medical examination of prost.i.tutes at certain intervals can not be doubted, and, in fact, it is practically admitted at the present time by some few of the brothel-keepers in the city. These pay a physician a liberal salary to visit their boarders every few days for the express purpose of carrying out the plan suggested now; resorting to treatment whenever he finds it necessary. Some of the most aristocratic houses of prost.i.tution are thus attended, but the system is in use more especially among those natives of Continental Europe who are now keeping houses of ill fame in New York, and who, in bringing to the New World many of the customs of the old, have thus testified to the benefit of the regulations enforced there.

But although such visiting physician may p.r.o.nounce a girl infected, the world has no security that she will not continue her avocation; and in order to remove all doubt upon this question she should be instantly removed to an inst.i.tution where she can not possibly propagate the malady.

This must be done under conjoint medical and police authority. Among prost.i.tutes of the lower grades systematic visitation is more imperatively necessary. They will not place themselves under medical treatment unless they are compelled, but until their disease a.s.sumes a character that prevents the possibility of farther concealment from their visitors, they continue to ply their loathsome and destructive trade. The summit of ambition with them is to keep their liberty; so long as they can earn enough to provide themselves a shelter, and feed their ravenous appet.i.te for intoxicating liquor, they are content to submit to the pains and ravages of syphilis, alike heedless of their own sufferings and the injuries they inflict on others. We have had cases under our own professional treatment where women have actually persevered in this course for many weeks after they had become aware they were diseased, solely for the reasons indicated.

It may be objected that such a plan would offer a premium to lewdness by circ.u.mscribing the dangers of infection; but this argument can have little weight, as it is scarcely possible that promiscuous s.e.xual intercourse can be carried on much more extensively than it is at present. The vice seems to have reached its culminating point. Experience proves that in all ages of the world there have been many men whose pa.s.sions were so violent and so ill regulated that they would attain their gratification at any risk, even though that risk included the probability of venereal infection. As in games of hazard every player hopes to be a winner, so in carnal indulgences every man flatters himself that, because some gratify their l.u.s.ts unscathed for a long series of years, so may he; that as. .h.i.therto he has escaped disease in his unhallowed amours, he may continue equally fortunate to the end of his career. This is confessedly a poor dependence, but it is the reliance of hundreds and thousands of the followers of her whose "house is the way to h.e.l.l."

Diseases of a syphilitic nature are viewed by some persons as special punishments for special sins, and hence they argue that it would be an interference with the order of Providence to attempt to eradicate them.

The discussion of a theological question would be altogether out of place in these pages, but the supposition may be met by a parallel case.

Delirium tremens is the result of an excessive use of intoxicating liquors, and may justly be considered a special punishment for that offense; but did any body ever know a case in which those who object to the treatment of syphilis extended a single obstacle to the case of a drunkard? If it is right to adopt curative measures in one case, why exclude them in the other? But even supposing that the treatment of syphilis is open to this objection so far as the guilty parties are concerned, shall their descendants be involved in suffering because the parents sinned? If a rigorous medical examination offers additional inducements to prost.i.tution by reducing the probabilities of disease, it also guarantees that helpless wives and unborn children shall not be included in its list of victims. Go to the thousands of married women now childless or suffering from abortion; ask their opinion. Go to the thousands of disappointed husbands whose hopes of offspring have been blighted in consequence of their own youthful dissipation; ask their opinion, and see what the answers would be. Go and ask the diseased children on Randall's Island, and in their emaciated frames read their testimony. The evidence thus obtained would prove unanswerable arguments in favor of the plan proposed.

It can not be imagined that forcing diseased women to submit to a specific routine of treatment in a special hospital involves any undue interference with their personal liberty. The right to commit a wrong, be it social, moral, or physical, never can exist; the slightest reflection upon such a proposition will at once prove it untenable. The spread of venereal disease is a positive wrong, and, therefore, a woman who is suffering from it, and is certain or likely to propagate it, is as legitimate an object for compulsory treatment as would be a maniac whom we should find roaming through the streets of the city, or a person afflicted with small-pox, yellow fever, or any other contagious or infectious malady. If either of these cases were to come before any member of the community, he would not for one moment regard it an infringement of personal liberty to place the subject under proper care and restraint. On the contrary, he would think of the danger to which he and his family were exposed, and, flinging theory to the winds, would immediately urge prompt and practical measures. This is all that is asked respecting prost.i.tution.

Let the public be once thoroughly convinced of the extent and danger of syphilitic infection, and there would be but few objectors to these suggestions. Among that few, the princ.i.p.al portion doubtless would be the advertising empirics whose disgusting announcements occupy so much s.p.a.ce in the columns of our daily journals. That they derive a large income from this source is indisputable, and it is equally certain that if the recommendations now made were adopted they would find their "occupation gone." Speaking in all candor, the health, decency, and good morals of the city would be better cared for in their absence than it now is, with all the combinations of their "extraordinary success," "unequaled experience,"

and "unparalleled facilities." In a financial view, the money they extort (we refrain from using a harsher term) from their credulous patients could be far better applied than in contributing to their wealth.

Farther: Such an inst.i.tution and organization as has been described would be useless did it not possess the absolute power to retain every patient under treatment until cured. Whatever modification of principle or mode of action may be ultimately adopted (and, sooner or later, _something must be done_), this is an indispensable requisite. One half the danger of venereal infection arises from imperfectly cured cases. Under the existing system, as already explained, writs can be issued at an almost nominal cost to remove any, or all of the prost.i.tutes now under medical treatment on Blackwell's Island; and such an abuse of a valuable privilege on account of mere technical errors must be fatal to the success of any remedial project. It would be as reasonable for a lawyer to pet.i.tion the courts to order a vessel detained in Quarantine by the Board of Health because she was infected with yellow fever to be brought to her wharf in this city, and there to have permission to disseminate the disease on board, as it is for the same individual to apply for a writ of _certiorari_, the effect of which is to take an abandoned woman reeking with disease from an inst.i.tution where she is under treatment, and allow her to extend the venereal poison to every one who may have intercourse with her. This must not be understood as indicating a wish to curtail the const.i.tutional privileges attached to writs of _habeas corpus_ or _certiorari_, but merely their applicability to cases like the supposed one. How can the evil be prevented? Simply by making any legislative enactment on the subject so plain that it can not be misunderstood or evaded. No lawyer would find any difficulty in drafting a short act giving the Police Department the power, based upon an affidavit made by a member of their own medical bureau, to remove any diseased woman to a proper hospital, and _retain her there until cured_.

It may appear to a casual observer that this detention would be of the same nature as the imprisonment required by the existing mode, but a little thought will point out a wide difference. Now, we force a woman to become an inmate of a penitentiary, and add disgrace to her disease by a.s.suming her to have been guilty of crime. Then, we should require her to become an inmate of the Hospital, with no additional disgrace but that arising from the fact that she had contracted syphilis by vicious habits.

In the one case, we make her the companion of some of the vilest wretches on the face of the earth; in the other, she would have no a.s.sociates but those of her own cla.s.s.

The Medical Bureau to whom these reforms should be intrusted, although connected with the Police Department, would require to be an independent body so far as professional duties are concerned. Its connection would be necessary, because there would be many cases requiring the intervention of the civil power; and its isolation would be equally important, because much would depend on the discretion of the examiners, and many contingencies might arise where a strict line of routine duty would defeat the object in view. They would be literally a "detective corps," and with a known amount of duty before them must be left to choose their own method of performing it. Any definite arrangements or positive orders from a non-medical board would only embarra.s.s their action, for medical and non-medical executives always clash when they aim at one common object.

Of course a leading requirement in their instructions must be that their examinations be rigid and thorough. No half-way measures in this respect could meet the absolute demands of the case, or satisfy the expectations of the community. It must be plainly understood by the world that the Medical Bureau was required to perform its whole duty, uncompromisingly and fearlessly; and that its members were men who would not evade the responsibility. In their investigations many cases would occur where their services would be valuable to society, beyond the pale of professional duty. It is not to be expected that they would become evangelists, but they could be the willing and efficient coadjutors of those who delight to bear the Gospel to these poor degraded beings; and even while listening to a recital of bodily sufferings, instances would arise where the acts of the good Samaritan would be required at their hands. They would be the depositaries of many a narrative of wrong and outrage, of sorrow and suffering, and it is not unreasonable to believe that of the histories poured into their ears some would indicate a channel by which the lost one might be restored to home and friends and virtue, or point to some chord in the mind which would give a responsive sound when touched by the hand of pity.[430]

The adoption of these suggestions would be, at least, a step in the right direction, and lay the foundation of a system which can be gradually enlarged until it embraces regulations as to registry, management of houses of ill fame, etc., to the same extent as is now done in Europe.

And here a few words relative to the licensing system may not be inappropriate. The propriety of granting licenses, and thus making vice a sort of revenue, is open to grave objections, but on the other hand acknowledged social evils have, ere this, been made to contribute to the public funds. Witness the dealing in ardent spirits. The city does now, and has for years derived a considerable income from licenses to sell liquors. A great number of wise and good men contend that the sale or use of intoxicating beverages is not only an unmitigated evil, but even criminal; they have entertained and publicly declared these sentiments for years, but still the license system is continued. It may be a question for decision whether prost.i.tution is not as liable for taxation as drunkenness, and if both were equally taxed whether, as a body, we should be more responsible for the results of one or the other. _En pa.s.sant_, it may be noticed that an annual tax of one per cent. upon the property engaged in the business of prost.i.tution, and a similar a.s.sessment upon the revenue of houses of ill fame, would amount to over one hundred thousand dollars.

The plan here shadowed forth would not be likely to extend prost.i.tution, but on the contrary there is very little doubt but it would check it. Even if it did not, the community would reap an advantage in the sanitary reform it would enforce. In low neighborhoods many of the brothels are as dangerous to public health on account of their crowded and excessively filthy state, as are the syphilized inmates themselves. Such places would legitimately come within the province of the medical inspectors, and their reports thereon to the police executive would insure immediate attention.

Public morals would be advanced by such visitations. These houses, or a great number of them, are the resort of all species of dishonest characters who would unquestionably abandon them, at least as places of residence, if they knew they were at any moment liable to a domiciliary visit. Again, almost every person has in his remembrance some female who left home and could not be found, because securely secreted in some one of these houses of prost.i.tution; at least it is not uncommon to read of such cases in the daily papers, accompanied with an account of the unsuccessful search of her friends and the police. Occurrences like this could not take place if all known houses of bad repute were under the _surveillance_ of the Medical Police Department.

Nor is it unreasonable to hope that prost.i.tution would be diminished. It has flourished of late years in seclusion, but our plan would render privacy impossible. Seclusion has attracted many unfortunate women, whom shame, or a dread of exposure, would have deterred, had they known that houses of ill fame were always open to the visits of the police, or that every few days a physician would make a tour of inspection, and a personal examination, to which they must submit. Generally speaking, these women have a dread of falling into the hands of a doctor, and in present circ.u.mstances they know that a medical examination is optional with themselves, until they become so sick as to render it unavoidable. But if their miserable life were burdened with the additional annoyance of a compulsory medical treatment it is probable that a considerable check might be imposed thereon.

Public decency would be advanced by such visitations. To effectually perform their duties the Medical Bureau and the General Police Department would find it necessary to make themselves personally acquainted with these women, and to keep a register of all houses where prost.i.tution was carried on. Now, the prohibition which has driven it into secrecy has also rendered it difficult to determine who are frail. Prost.i.tutes are found in hotels, fashionable restaurants, steam-boat excursions, watering-places, and suburban retreats. They visit b.a.l.l.s and other public entertainments; sometimes by sufferance, but more frequently because they are not known.

It is needless to say how virtuous women can be annoyed and insulted by such companionship, or to what extent prost.i.tutes can use their influence in miscellaneous society. If the police were personally acquainted with these women, they could act in the same manner as on the Continent of Europe, namely, touch them upon the shoulder and quietly give them a hint to leave. Or another reform could easily be introduced--the confinement of all prost.i.tutes to particular localities in the city, so as to limit their influence. This would be tantamount to the ancient regulations prescribing their dress or some distinctive mark; and to the present arrangements in Europe, where the houses are distinguished by some specified peculiarity. It would also prevent the depreciation of property which takes place in any neighborhood where a brothel is established.

Public decency would be served in another manner. It is a most humiliating admission, that New York is fast approaching to the condition of certain foreign cities, where unnatural practices first led to the contemplation and adoption of these or similar remedial measures. In our case, _they are known to the authorities_, but are so revolting that they never have been, and never can be, made public. Of course, such an organization would take special cognizance of these detestable abominations.

Objections to the expense of the plan may be raised, and it can not be denied that it will be large, yet it will be a matter of economy to incur it, even at the risk of increasing taxation, which _it will not do_.

Recollect that every year, as the virulence of syphilis was abated, the cause of the expense would diminish, and that in a direct ratio to the energy displayed in the examination would be the progressive reduction of expenditure. It has already been indicated how some of the inmates of a syphilitic hospital, from whom hitherto nothing has been received, could be made to contribute their quota of the cost. Now, the public bear all the expenses, either as a.s.sessments or as private payments in individual attacks. The magnitude of the latter item has been already estimated, and were it possible to calculate in addition the value of lost time, the injury to business, and the deterioration of the const.i.tution, the total in one year would be far more than sufficient to carry out the whole of this plan for double the time.

It would also be economy to incur the outlay on account of the benefits to succeeding generations. Syphilis is not confined in its effects to the life-time of the men or women who contract it, but is entailed on their descendants. These, provided they survive its baneful effects during infancy, are mentally and physically unfitted for business or the active pursuits of life, and, consequently, are frequently indebted for the means of sustenance to their friends or to public inst.i.tutions. If the liability to that disease among parents can be removed, no fears need be entertained about their children.

We are not so sanguine as to imagine that all the good effects above enumerated could be accomplished _instanter_. It would be a work of time, but the sooner it is commenced the better for all the interests involved.

Many persons will say, "Oh! these evils do not concern us; these diseases will never injure us or ours; why should we trouble ourselves, and give our money, time, and attention to such matters?" Stop, reader! _While human pa.s.sion exists, and while the means of gratifying it can be obtained, you and yours can and will, nay, do now suffer from it, directly or indirectly._ The first question for any citizen to ask himself is, Can prost.i.tution be abolished; can it be crushed out? If this be answered in the negative, as it must be, then the next question brings him to the point sought to be attained in these pages, namely, the means that shall be taken to circ.u.mscribe and diminish its consequent diseases and evils.

This question has latterly been attracting some attention in England, and plans to mitigate the evil have been publicly discussed. The chief grounds of complaint, or at least those brought most prominently forward, were the a.s.sembling of prost.i.tutes in the streets, the annoyance they caused to pa.s.sengers, and the disorderly character of "night-houses." This term is applied in London to those public houses, supper-rooms, wine and cigar saloons, etc., which are situated near the theatres and places of public entertainment, and, being permitted to remain open all night, become resorts for prost.i.tutes. A public meeting for consultation upon these evils was held in London in January last (1858), and the remarks made by some of the speakers are so much in accordance with the general tenor of this work as to be worth extracting. In justice to the writer it must be premised that the preceding part of this chapter was penned twelve months before the report of this meeting was made public.

The chairman observed "that he was glad to see so general an interest elicited on this subject, and that he hoped it would lead to some practical result. It would, in fact, be impossible to aggravate the evil, for neither in Paris, Berlin, New York, nor even in the cities of Asia, was there such a public exhibition of profligacy."

The following resolutions were submitted and adopted:

"_Resolved_, That a deputation do wait as early as possible upon Sir George Grey, for the purpose of most respectfully but earnestly representing to her majesty's government the necessity of effectual measures being taken to put down the open exhibition of street prost.i.tution, which in various parts of the metropolis, particularly in the important thoroughfares of the Haymarket, Coventry Street, Regent Street, Portland Place, and other adjacent localities, is carried on with a disregard of public decency and to an extent tolerated in no other capital or city of the civilized world.