Part 30 (1/2)
The number of brothels in London has been variously estimated. The whole number of houses at the last census was three hundred thousand and upward.
Among them it was calculated, and probably correctly, that there were five thousand brothels, including houses of a.s.signation. The rents of these establishments vary as much as the houses and situations (from fifteen hundred down to one hundred dollars a year). In good neighborhoods we should be slow to believe that landlords had any previous knowledge of the purposes to which their houses are to be applied. Independent of moral objection, such a house deteriorates the character of the property.
Indeed, the clauses in leases of the great London properties are very strict, and include all objectionable trades as causes of forfeiture.
The owners of the houses are of all cla.s.ses. The Almonry of Westminster, once the abode of Caxton, which within these six or eight years has been pulled down, was one of the vilest aggregations of vice and crime in existence. This was the property of the dean and chapter of Westminster Abbey. The common law of England, as already mentioned in the matter of dress, prohibits the recovery of the rents of houses let for immoral purposes. Many of the brothel-keepers themselves hire houses, furnish them, and sublet them. It has been made a matter of reproach that landlords should, even indirectly, derive income from such sources. But poverty and vice are closely allied; where poverty exists, vice will come.
It is impossible for a landlord to exclude any cla.s.s of tenants in a particular neighborhood suited to them, and those who know aught about the improvement and ventilation of large cities, and the breaking up of bad neighborhoods, are well aware that they are accompanied with a fearful amount of extra misery to the very poor.
In a subsequent portion of this work we have endeavored to a.n.a.lyze the causes of prost.i.tution as it exists in the city of New York. It may be reasonably supposed that the same reasons would be applicable to the kindred people of Great Britain. We give the following, mainly deduced from English writers, as indicating the sentiments of the best-informed in that kingdom as to the sources of so deep-rooted an evil, which must be sought in a variety of circ.u.mstances, national as well as personal.
A professional man, Mr. Tait, to whose pages we have turned for information as to prost.i.tution in Great Britain, cla.s.sifies the causes as natural and accidental. The natural he subdivides into licentiousness of disposition, irritability of temper, pride and love of dress, dishonesty and love of property, and indolence. The accidental include seduction, ill-a.s.sorted marriages, low wages, want of employment, intemperance, poverty, defective education, bad example of parents, obscene publications, and a number of minor causes. Without a.s.senting to the cla.s.sification, we will accept the enumeration.
The operation of s.e.xual desire on the female s.e.x is a mooted question among English writers on prost.i.tution. Whether it is latent, and never powerful enough to provoke evil courses until it is itself stimulated and roused into energy by external circ.u.mstances, or whether it be an active principle impelling the ill-regulated female mind to sacrifice self-respect and reputation in the gratification of dominant impulses, has been frequently discussed. Many consider that its influence on the inducement of prost.i.tution is no less unsatisfactory of solution than the physiological problem, alleging that those who have followed the bent of their natural appet.i.tes would undoubtedly prefer to ascribe their lapse to other circ.u.mstances. This subject is treated more fully elsewhere, and it is needless to repeat here the views there expressed.
That s.e.xual desire, _once aroused_, does exercise a potent influence on the female organization, can not be questioned. Self-abuse, which is a perverted indulgence of the natural instinct, is well known to English physicians as being practiced among young women to a great extent, though in a far less degree than among young men. Its frightful influences upon the latter have been the subject of the liveliest anxiety to those who have made the care of youth their profession, and this source of trouble is shared to some degree by female teachers. Such subjects seem by common consent to be banished from rational investigation by the majority of people, as if shutting one's eyes to the fact would prove its non-existence. This false delicacy is more injurious than is commonly supposed; for the unchecked indulgence in such habits is not only destructive of health, but in the highest degree inimical to the moral feeling, and directly subversive of all self-respect, leaving but one step to complete the final descent.
SEDUCTION.--The effect of undue familiarity, and too unrestrained an intercourse between the s.e.xes, can not be exaggerated as paving the way for the last lapse from virtue. It is precisely these familiarities which, in ill-regulated minds, excite the first impulses of desire; and even where such a result does not immediately flow from too free an intercourse, it breaks down that modesty and reserve which so much enhance the beauty of woman, and const.i.tute her best safeguard. The inclined plane by which the female who permits the first freedom glides unchecked to final ruin, though gradual, is very difficult to retrace. The unrestricted intercourse permitted, or rather encouraged between the s.e.xes at places of public amus.e.m.e.nt much facilitates the opportunities of seduction.
Prost.i.tutes frequently, and we believe with truth, allege seduction as the first step toward their abandoned course of life, and the allegation itself should induce a sympathy for the misfortune of their present existence. Although in some cases the story can not be implicitly believed, at the same time there is no doubt that a heartless seduction is but too frequent a circ.u.mstance in such cases, and contributes its sad quota of heavy account to prost.i.tution.
It is a general opinion that cases of (so called) seduction in England occur between employers and female servants, and that of these are vast numbers. By seduction in such circ.u.mstances is meant the inducement to do wrong by promises or other suasives, in opposition to the commonly received idea, which makes the fall the result of strong personal attachment. In a work like this we must notice the largest definitions, and can not consistently limit ourselves to the inducement customarily brought forward in law proceedings, namely, ”a promise of marriage.” In this sense, illegitimate children may be said to be the consequence of seduction. Certainly not all of them, however, because many persons, voluntarily and with their eyes open, enter upon cohabitation arrangements; but doubtless many are. Once seduced, of course the female becomes herself the seducer of the inexperienced.
The policy of English law, of late years, has been to compel the woman to protect herself--in the main, a wise policy. But the balance of human justice is very unevenly maintained. The male, the real delinquent, incurs no legal punishment, and but little social reprobation. Actions for seduction are very unpopular, and those brought bear but an infinitesimal proportion to the occurrence of the crime. The _onus_ of proof in b.a.s.t.a.r.dy affiliations of course rests upon the woman. Of late years the alterations in the law have thrown great difficulties in her way by what is called the necessity of corroborative evidence, namely, some kind of admission, direct or indirect, or some overt act which will furnish oral or doc.u.mentary testimony other than the woman's unsupported statement. This may be strictly expedient, but it renders the man almost irresponsible if he only play his part with knavish prudence. Lastly, popular feeling is against charges of rape: acquittal is very frequent, and the usual reb.u.t.tal is to impeach the character of the prosecutrix. The opinion of one of England's greatest judges has pa.s.sed into a proverb: ”No charge so easy to make, none so difficult to disprove.” Queen Elizabeth's mode of proving her disbelief of rape is also expressive of public opinion.
From the combination of these circ.u.mstances, it would seem that seduction must, almost as a matter of course, lead to prost.i.tution, inasmuch as, in ordinary English parlance, the mother of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and a prost.i.tute are almost synonymous.
OVERCROWDED DWELLINGS.--The natural impulses of animal instinct in both s.e.xes seem to be implicated in the effect of crowded sleeping apartments, as met with in the habitations of the poor both in town and country. In the latter we have the show, and sometimes the reality, of family life and virtuous poverty. In the towns we find abodes of poverty sometimes honest, sometimes in closest propinquity or intimacy with vice, and there too we have the dwelling-places of the lowest depravity and vagabondism.
Those who have not given their attention to the condition of the poor, and the relation which their lives hold to the ordinary habits of decency and morality, have much difficulty in comprehending, or even believing, statements which embody the plainest every-day truths. It is hard to realize things as they are, if the mind has been full of ideal pictures of things as they should be. The Dives of society has been often reproached with his ignorance of Lazarus. The sin lies exactly in that ignorance. As Carlyle finely says, ”The duty of Christian society is to find its work, and to do it.” Negative virtue is of no practical use to the community.
But yet the ignorance is natural enough, and no easier of removal than other ignorance. It has been generally attributed to the wealthy and upper cla.s.ses of society, but it exists just the same, differing only a little in degree, in the middle cla.s.s and moderately rich members of the English social system.
The misery and inconvenience which the poor suffer from the straitness of their domestic arrangements are beyond belief. Grown-up girls and boys sleep in the same bed; brothers and sisters, to say nothing of less intimate relations, are in the closest contiguity; and even strangers, who are admitted into the little home to help in eking out the rent, are placed on the same family footing. This momentous question to the moral well-being of the poor has excited very lively interest in England, and has called into active operation several philanthropic a.s.sociations, which have in view the employment of capital in improving and cheapening the dwellings of the working cla.s.ses.[302]
In London this system of close lodging was carried to a fearful pitch. In some places from five to thirteen persons slept in a single bed, while in the country the evil was nearly as bad, although, from the slight restraint imposed by family ties, the actual evil is positively less; though the moral contamination is of nearly the same extent, and paves the way for other relations out of doors. The facts which justify these conclusions are to be found in a variety of shapes--parliamentary reports, statistical tables, appeals from clergymen, addresses from philanthropic a.s.sociations, etc., etc.[303]
The Honorable and Reverend S. O. Osborne, a clergyman well known for his philanthropic exertions in behalf of the poor, says of country life in England:
”From infancy to p.u.b.erty the laborer's children sleep in the same room with his wife and himself; and whatever attempts at decency may be made, and I have seen many ingenious and most praiseworthy attempts, still there is the fact of the old and the young, married and unmarried, of both s.e.xes, all herded together in one and the same sleeping apartment. * * * * I do not choose to put on paper the disgusting scenes that I have known to occur from the promiscuous crowding of the s.e.xes together. _Seeing, however, to what the mind of the young female is exposed from her very childhood, I have long ceased to wonder at the otherwise seeming precocious licentiousness of conversation which may be heard in every field where many of the young are at work together._”
Mr. A. Austin, a.s.sistant Poor-Law Commissioner, says:
”The sleeping of boys and girls, young men and young women, in beds almost touching one another, must have the effect of breaking down the great barriers between the s.e.xes. The accommodation for sleeping is such as necessarily to create early and illicit familiarity between the s.e.xes.”
Without entering into disgusting details, the pain of perusing which could add nothing to the value of the statements, the conclusion is indisputable that much of prost.i.tution, if not of prost.i.tution for hire, certainly of prost.i.tution from corrupt and profligate motives, is engendered by the vicious habits induced by habitual proximity of the s.e.xes in early life.
The prost.i.tutes themselves frequently a.s.sign these habits as the commencement of their career of vice, and some even admit the breach of the closest natural ties during early youth, by reason of the too great facilities thus offered.[304] The great importance of this want of decency and propriety in family life can not be overrated. The contagious nature of vice is proverbial; and it is almost impossible to imagine the power attained by ill-conditioned children, and the fatal readiness with which their sinful words and practices are propagated.
The cheap lodging-houses are a pendant to the close-packed dwellings of the poor, although they do not produce the same early pernicious results as indecency and immorality in family life. The latter prepare the way to the scenes of the common lodging-house, in which the lowest depth of vice is speedily reached. Here prost.i.tution is habitual--a regular inst.i.tution of the place. The smallest imaginable quant.i.ties of food can be purchased; adults, youths, and children of both s.e.xes are received, and herd promiscuously together; the prices of beds are of the lowest (from three to six cents); no questions are asked, and the place is free to all. A new-comer is soon initiated, or rather forced into all the mysteries of iniquity. Obscenity and blasphemy are the staple conversation of the inmates; every indecency is openly performed; the girls recite aloud their experiences of life; ten or a dozen sleep in one bed, many in a state of nudity. Indeed, the details of these places are horrible beyond description. Unmitigated vice and l.u.s.tful orgies reign, unchecked by precept or example, and the point of rivalry is as to who shall excel in filth and abomination.
EXAMPLE is the next immediate cause in what may be considered the natural series. There are a few prost.i.tutes who have children. That these latter should follow the same course is quite in the common course of events, although considerable anxiety is occasionally evinced by such women to have their children brought up to better courses. Such redemption is all but impossible. In ordinary life, however, the mind of youth is often perverted by direct evil example in the elders; and, as we have already remarked, the corruption of the human affections in their fountain-head--family life--where they ought to be sweetest and purest, is more fatally demoralizing, and more certain to insure eventual ruin than almost any other. Fathers and mothers are both wanting often enough in their duty, although it is a matter of universal faith that the influence and example of the father are of less importance than that of the mother.
A bad man may have virtuous children, a bad woman hardly ever. There are cases where the mother and daughter sleep in the same bed, each with a male partner. In the city of Edinburgh there are two mothers, prost.i.tutes, each with four daughters, prost.i.tutes; five prost.i.tute mothers each with three prost.i.tute daughters, ten such with two daughters each, and twenty-four such with one daughter each, all following the practices of the mothers.[305]