The Secrets of the Great City Part 22

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

a.s.sIGNATION HOUSES.

There are over one hundred houses of a.s.signation in New York, known to the police. Besides these, there are places, used as such, which the officials of the law do not and cannot embrace in the general term.

These are cheap hotels, where women hire rooms without meals, and receive visitors, with whom they make appointments on the streets, or in the places of amus.e.m.e.nt. Some really good houses have been ruined in this way. By tolerating one or two women of this kind, they have drawn to them others, and have finally become overrun with them to such an extent that respectable people have avoided them. Even the first-cla.s.s hotels are kept busy in purging themselves of the evil.

The best houses are located in respectable, and a few in fashionable neighborhoods. In various ways they soon acquire a notoriety amongst persons having use for them. In the majority of them, the proprietress resides alone. Her visitors are persons of all cla.s.ses in society.

Married women meet their lovers here, and young girls pa.s.s in these polluted chambers the hours their parents suppose them to be devoting to healthful and innocent amus.e.m.e.nts. Hundreds of nominally virtuous women visit these places one or more times each week. They come sometimes in the day, but generally at night. A visit to the theatre, opera, or concert, is too often followed by a visit to one of these places, to which some women of high, social position possess pa.s.s-keys.

Some visit these places because they love other men better than their husbands; others from mercenary motives. Married women, whose means are limited, too often adopt such a course to enable them to dress handsomely.

The rooms are hired from the proprietor at so much per hour, the price being generally very high. If refreshments are desired, they are furnished at an enormous rate.

In other houses, women rent rooms and take their meals outside. They bring their male friends to their rooms at any hour, as they have pa.s.s- keys to the house. These establishments pa.s.s in the neighborhood for reputable lodging-houses.

Men of "respectable" position frequently furnish houses for this purpose, and either engage women to manage them, or rent them, out at enormous sums. They live in style, and support their families on the proceeds of these dens of infamy.

The city papers are full of advertis.e.m.e.nts of these places. They are represented as "Rooms to let to quiet persons," or "Rooms in a strictly private family, where boarders are not annoyed with impertinent questions," or "A handsome room to let, with board for the lady only,"

or "Handsome apartments to gentlemen, by a widow lady living alone."

These advertis.e.m.e.nts are at once recognized by those in search of them.

Families from the country frequently stumble across these places by accident. If the female members are young and handsome, they are received, and the mistake is not found out, perhaps, until it is too late.

Respectable families are frequently victimized by having dwellings sold or rented to them which have been formerly used as houses of this kind.

A Mexican Minister to the United States was once caught in this way rather curiously. Being a stranger in the city, he saw in print the notice of a splendid house, with the furniture for sale, in West Twenty-seventh street. He went up and saw it, and was pleased with the location, the house, the furniture, and even the price. He bought it, and moved in with his family. He was not located there twenty-four hours until he found that the house he had bought had been a notorious house of a.s.signation, and that he was sandwiched in between two equally notorious houses. Many an oath came from his mouth, when a young or an old grayheaded Hotspur rang the bell; and many an old patron of the house has been astonished at being most abruptly told to go further than the next door for what he wanted. The old Mexican managed to stand it out six months, and a real estate agent, who had an eye to business, knowing that he could be tempted to sell out, advertised for a house in Twenty-seventh street, in the Spanish paper. The bait took--the diplomatist was happy to sell it for the half of what it was worth; thinking somebody would get burned, he was glad to get rid of it at any price. In a few weeks afterward, the house was re-sold for double the money paid for it, and converted back to its old purposes.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

STREET-WALKERS.

As soon as the sun sets over the Great City, Broadway, and the streets running parallel with it, become infested with numbers of young girls and women, who pa.s.s up and down the thoroughfares with a quick, mysterious air, which rarely fails to draw attention to them. These are known as street-walkers, and it would seem from outward indications that their number is steadily increasing. The best looking and the best dressed are seen on Broadway, and in parts of Fifth and Fourth Avenues.

The others correspond to the localities they frequent. They are chiefly young girls, seventeen being the average age, but you will see children of twelve and thirteen amongst them. Very few promenade Broadway below Ca.n.a.l street. The neighborhoods of the hotels and places of amus.e.m.e.nt are the most frequented. Some of the girls are pretty and modest, but the majority are ugly and brazen. New faces are constantly appearing on Broadway, to take the places of the old ones which have gone down to the depths.

The majority of the girls have some regular employment at which they work in the day. Their regular earnings are small, and they take this means of increasing them. Some, however, sleep all day, and ply their infamous trade at night. There are cases in which the girls are driven to such a life by their parents, who either wish to rid themselves of their child's support, or to profit by her earnings. We have known cases where the girls have voluntarily supported their parents by the wages of their shame. We once heard of two sisters, well known on Broadway, who devoted their earnings to paying off a heavy debt of their father, which he was unable to meet. Sometimes these girls deserve more pity than blame; but a very large proportion of them, perhaps the majority, act as decoys for garroters and thieves. Hundreds of strangers, coming to the city, follow them to their rooms only to find themselves in the power of thieves, who compel them on pain of instant death to surrender all their valuables. The room taken by the decoy is vacated immediately after the robbery, the girl and her confederate disappear, and it is impossible to find them.

The police do not allow these girls to stop and converse with men on Broadway. If a girl succeeds in finding a companion, she beckons him into one of the side streets, where the police will not interfere with her. If he is willing to go with her, she conducts him to her room which is in one of the numerous bed-houses of the city.

BED-HOUSES

These bed-houses are simply large or small dwellings containing many furnished rooms, which are let to street-walkers by the week, or which are hired to applicants of any cla.s.s by the night. They are very profitable, and are frequently owned by men of good social position, who rent them out to others, or who retain the ownership, and employ a manager. The rent, whether weekly or nightly, is invariably paid in advance, so that the landlord loses nothing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Robbed by a Friend.]

The girl leads her companion to one of these houses, and if she has a room already engaged, proceeds directly to it; if not, one is engaged from a domestic on the spot, the price is paid, and the parties are shown up stairs. The place is kept dark and quiet, in order to avoid the attention of the police. The houses are more or less comfortable and handsome, according to the cla.s.s by which they are patronized. They are sometimes preferred by guilty parties in high life, as the risk of being seen and recognized is less there than in more aristocratic houses. These houses have a constant run of visitors from, about eight o'clock until long after midnight.

TRAVELLING STREET-WALKERS.

The various night lines of steamers running from New York city, are literally overrun with abandoned women, seeking companions. The Albany and the Boston lines are made intensely disagreeable by such persons. A correspondent of one of the New Jersey papers, thus relates his experience on board of one of the magnificent vessels of a Boston line.

The grand saloon is filled with a throng of travellers listening to the sweet music discoursed by a band in the upper gallery, employed for the season by the company. One cannot but remark, with mingled pain and indignation, the large number of brazen-faced prost.i.tutes and professional gamblers who saunter up and down the saloon and galleries, seeking their prey among the unsuspecting pa.s.sengers.

If a gentleman is seated alone, along comes one of these painted wretches, boldly addressing him, and to escape her horrible proffers, he must seek some other part of the boat, or follow the example of every respectable lady, by occupying his stateroom at an early hour in the evening. It is really getting to be exceedingly unpleasant and disagreeable for a lady to travel by this line, even if accompanied by a gentleman; and let no one permit a female relative or friend to take this route alone, if they have the slightest regard for the decencies and proprieties of life. While the band was discoursing sweet strains of music, shrill screams were heard proceeding from the forward saloon.

The pa.s.sengers rushed to the scene. A young woman was being carried by main force, exerted by the servants, below. She struggled fiercely, biting, striking and cursing! What a horrible sight. One observer, at least, earnestly trusts he may never behold such an one again. She was one of the courtesans who had been parading up and down the saloons all the evening. She had inveigled an unsophisticated countryman into a stateroom and robbed him. He reported her to the captain, and threatened public exposure of the transaction before he could procure a.s.sistance! And now her screams can be plainly heard, resounding through, the gilded saloons, above the run of the machinery and strains of the musicians.

PANEL THIEVING.

This method of robbery is closely connected with street-walking. The girl in this case acts in concert with a confederate, who is generally a man. She takes her victim to her room, and directs him to deposit his clothing on a chair, which is placed but a few inches from the wall at the end of the room. This wall is false, and generally of wood. It is built some three or four feet from the real wall of the room, thus forming a closet. As the whole room is papered and but dimly lighted, a visitor cannot detect the fact that it is a sham. A panel, which slides noiselessly and rapidly, is arranged in the false wall, and the chair with the visitor's clothing upon it is placed just in front of it.

While the visitor's attention is engaged in another quarter, the girl's confederate, who is concealed in the closet, slides back the panel, and rifles the pockets of the clothes on the chair. The panel is then noiselessly closed. When the visitor is about to depart, or sometimes not until long after his departure, he discovers his loss. He is sure the girl did not rob him, and he is completely bewildered in his efforts to account for the robbery. Of course the police could tell him how his money was taken, and could recover it, too, but in nine cases out of ten the man is ashamed to seek their a.s.sistance, as he does not wish his visit to such a place to be made public.

THE "HUSBAND GAME."

The street-walkers are adepts in deceit. Their chief object is to procure money, and they do not hesitate to plunder their victims in order to obtain it. One of their favorite "dodges" is called the "husband game." This is played as follows. A man is picked up on the street, after nine o'clock, and carried to the girl's room. He is asked to pay his money in advance, which he does. The girl then turns the lights down, and seems about to prepare to retire for the night, when a loud knocking is heard. The girl, in alarm, informs him that she is a married woman, and that her husband has returned. She begs him to escape, or he will be killed. The visitor, terribly frightened, is glad to get off through a side door. His money is not returned, but the woman promises to meet him the next night, which engagement, of course, is never kept. In ten minutes more she is on Broadway in search of a fresh, victim.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

CONCERT SALOONS.

There are seventy-five concert saloons in New York, which employ seven hundred and forty-seven waiter girls. The brothels usually termed dance-halls, are included in this estimate, but, as we design referring especially to them in another chapter, we shall pa.s.s them by, for the present, and devote this chapter to the concert saloons proper.

Eight years ago, a Philadelphia manager opened a concert mall which he called the "Melodeon," at the old Chinese a.s.sembly Rooms on Broadway.

This was the first inst.i.tution of the kind ever seen in New York, and imitations of it soon became common.

We find the following faithful description of one of these saloons in one of the popular-prints of the day.

"On Broadway, near--street, we notice, just above the entrance to a cellar, a flaming transparency, with the inscription, 'Madame X--'s Arcade.' Going down a few steps, we find our view of the interior obstructed by a large screen, painted white, with the almost nude figure of a dancing Venus coa.r.s.ely painted thereon. The screen is placed across the entrance, a few feet from the door, obliging us to flank it, _a la Sherman_, and enter the hall by going around it. We find the floor handsomely covered with matting and oil cloth. On the right-hand side, nearest the door, is the bar, over which presides a genius of the male s.e.x, whose chief attractions consists of a decided red head, and an immense paste breastpin, stuck into the bosom of a ruffled shirt. The bar is well furnished, and any drink called for, from beer to champagne, can be instantly obtained. A significant feature, and one that easily arrests the attention, is a formidable Colt's revolver, a foot in length, suspended immediately over the sideboard. This weapon, it may be observed, is not placed there as an ornament; it is in itself a _monitor_, warning those inclined to be disorderly, of the danger of carrying their boisterousness or ruffianism too far. On the walls are black engravings of the French school, fit ornaments for the place. But, while we are taking this casual survey, one of the attendant nymphs, with great scantiness of clothing, affording display for bare shoulders and not unhandsome ankles, appears, and in a voice of affected sweetness wholly at variance with her brazen countenance and impertinent air, requests us to be seated, and asks what we'll have. We modestly ask for 'Two ales,'

which are soon placed before us, and paid for. While quietly sipping the beverage, we will glance at our surroundings. Back of the hall--we are sitting at a table near the centre of the apartment--on a raised platform, is an asthmatic pianoforte, upon which an individual with threadbare coat, colorless vest and faded nankeen pantaloons, is thrumming away for dear life. Out of tune himself, he tortures the poor instrument in a way that threatens its instant dissolution, rending its heartstrings, and causing it to shriek with agony, wailing out the tune that the old cow died to! This is the only piece of music the performer is acquainted with, judging from the persistent manner in which he clings to it. What he lacks in musical knowledge, however, he makes up with intention, and _thumps_ away quite manfully, only stopping, now and then to call for a drink, with which to recruit his exhausted energies.

"But we have come to behold the chief attraction of the establishment?--the 'pretty waiter girls.'"

THE WAITER GIRLS.

"Looking around, we see, perhaps, twenty females, in various styles of dress--some in Turkish costume (supposed to be _houris_ no doubt); others attired as Spanish peasants; and others still in plain evening attire. The latter are for the most part far from possessing charms, and, from their looks, have long since outlived their beauty; but what they lack in this respect they make up in others. The girl that waited upon us on our entrance, again approaches, and seeing our gla.s.ses empty, takes them away to be replenished. She soon reappears, and in response to our invitation, takes a seat beside us, while we enter into conversation with her. She is a fair sample (excuse the mercantile term) of her cla.s.s, and her history is a history of a majority of her a.s.sociates. Not unprepossessing in appearance, by any means, Ellen-- that, she tells us, is her name--is twenty-two years of age; was born in the village of Tarrytown; resided with her parents until she was eighteen, when her father died. Leaving her mother with her youngest brother, she came to New York to seek employment. On arriving in the city, she obtained a situation in a millinery store. Remained there but a short time; was out of work; had no friends, no money. Would not go back to her mother, who was poor. Saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt of Madame--for 'Pretty waiter girls.' Answered it. Was engaged in the saloon; seduced (partly by promises, and partly by threats), by one of the frequenters of the establishment--and has since led the life of a prost.i.tute! Ellen told her story without the least emotion, and when asked about her mother, carelessly replied, 'She supposed the old woman was dead by this time.'