Part 47 (1/2)

She said it would be sin, and I told her that I should have to answer for that, and that I was forced to do it because there was no other way to keep myself and help her, and I knew she could not work much for herself, and I was sure she would not live a day if we were turned into the streets. She tried all she could to persuade me not, but I was determined, and so I came here. I hated the thoughts of such a life, and my only reason for coming was that I might help her. I thought that, if I had been alone, I would sooner have starved, but I could not bear to see her suffering. She only lived a few weeks after I came here. I broke her heart. I do not like the life. I would do almost any thing to get out of it; but, now that I have _once done wrong_, I can not get any one to give me work, and I must stop here unless I wish to be starved to death.”

This plain and affecting narrative needs no comment. It reveals the history of many an unfortunate woman in this city, and while it must appeal to every sensitive heart, it argues most forcibly for some intervention in such cases. The following statements of other women who have suffered and fallen in a similar manner will show that the preceding is not an isolated case. M. M., a widow with one child, earned $1 50 per week as a tailoress. J. Y., a servant, was taken sick while in a situation, spent all her money, and could get no employment when she recovered. M. T. (quoting her own words) ”had no work, no money, and no home.” S. F., a widow with three children, could earn two dollars weekly at cap-making, but could not obtain steady employment even at those prices. M. F. had been out of place for some time, and had no money. E. H.

earned from two to three dollars per week as tailoress, but had been out of employment for some time. L. C. G.: the examining officer reports in this case, ”This girl (a tailoress) is a stranger, without any relations.

She received a dollar and a half a week, which would not maintain her.” M.

C., a servant, was receiving five dollars a month. She sent all her earnings to her mother, and soon after lost her situation, when she had no means to support herself. M. S., also a servant, received _one dollar a month wages_. A. B. landed in Baltimore from Germany, and was robbed of all her money the very day she reached the sh.o.r.e. M. F., a s.h.i.+rt-maker, earned one dollar a week. E. M. G.: the captain of police in the district where this woman resides says, ”This girl struggled hard with the world before she became a prost.i.tute, sleeping in station-houses at night, and living on bread and water during the day.” He adds: ”In my experience of three years, I have known _over fifty cases_ whose history would be similar to hers, and who are now prost.i.tutes.”

These details give some insight into the under-current of city life. The most prominent fact is that a large number of females, both operatives and domestics, earn so small wages that a temporary cessation of their business, or being a short time out of a situation, is sufficient to reduce them to absolute distress. Provident habits are useless in their cases; for, much as they may feel the necessity, _they have nothing to save_, and the very day that they encounter a reverse sees them penniless.

The struggle a virtuous girl will wage against fate in such circ.u.mstances may be conceived: it is a literal battle for life, and in the result life is too often preserved only by the sacrifice of virtue.

”Seduced and abandoned.” Two hundred and fifty-eight women make this reply. These numbers give but a faint idea of the actual total that should be recorded under the designation, as many who are included in other cla.s.ses should doubtless have been returned in this. It has already been shown that under the answer ”Inclination” are comprised the responses of many who were the victims of seduction before such inclination existed, and there can be no question that among those who a.s.sign ”Drink, and the desire to drink” as the cause of their becoming prost.i.tutes, may be found many whose first departure from the rules of sobriety was actuated by a desire to drive from their memories all recollections of their seducers'

falsehoods. Of the number who were persuaded by women, themselves already fallen, to become public courtesans, it is but reasonable to conclude that many had previously yielded their honor to some lover under false protestations of attachment and fidelity.

It is needless to resort to argument to prove that seduction is a vast social wrong, involving in its consequences not only the entire loss of female character, but also totally destroying the consciousness of integrity on the part of the male s.e.x. It matters not under what circ.u.mstances the crime may be perpetrated, none can be found that will exonerate the active offender from the imputation of fraud and treachery.

A woman's heart longs for a reciprocal affection, and, to insure this, she will occasionally yield her honor to her lover's importunities, but only when her attachment has become so concentrated upon its object as to invest him with every attribute of perfection, to find in every word he utters and every action he performs but some token of his devotion to her.

Love is then literally a pa.s.sion, an idolatry, and its power is universally acknowledged.

But this pa.s.sion can not be the growth of an hour. Its developments are gradual. From the first stage of mere acquaintance, it ripens progressively under the influence of tender words and solemn vows, frequently sincere, but often simulated, until the woman owns to herself and admits to her lover that she regards him with affection. Such an acknowledgment, virtually placing her future life in his custody, should inspire him with the high resolve to protect her name and fame, to justify the confidence she has reposed. But not unfrequently is it made the medium for dishonorable exactions, and for a momentary gratification, valueless to him except as a proof of her fervent adoration, and fatal in its consequences to her, he tramples on the priceless jewel of her honor, confidingly surrendered to this love and truth.

It should be remembered that, in order to accomplish this base end, he must have resorted to base means; must either have professed a love he did not feel, or have allowed his affection to cool as he approached its consummation. Pure and sincere attachment would effectually prevent the lover from performing any act which could possibly compromise the woman he adores. None but an unmitigated ruffian can calmly and deliberately wrong an unsuspecting female who has acknowledged a tender sentiment toward him, thus placing herself so entirely in his power. The crime of seduction can be viewed only as a mean and atrocious perjury, and strangely callous must he be whose conscience in after life does not pursue him with scorpion stings and fiery tortures.

But how account for the partic.i.p.ation of the female in the crime? Simply by viewing it as an idolatry of devotion which is willing to surrender all to the demands of him she wors.h.i.+ps; to the intensity of her affections, which absorbs all other considerations; to a perfect insanity of love, excited and sustained by a supposed equal devotion to herself. As soon as this conviction of a mutual love possesses her mind, as soon as her heart responds to its magic touch, she lives in a new atmosphere; her individuality is lost; her thoughts revert only to her lover. Devoted to the promotion of his happiness, she thinks not of her own; and only when it is too late does she awake from the spell that lures her to destruction. In such a case as this, a woman does not merit the contempt with which her conduct is visited. She has sinned from weakness, not from vice; she has been made the victim of her own unbounded love, her heart's richest and purest affections.

Moralists say that all human pa.s.sions should be held in check by reason and virtue, and none can deny the truthfulness of the a.s.sertion. But while they apply the sentiment to the weaker party, who is the sufferer, would it not be advisable to recommend the same restraining influences to him who is the inflictor? No woman possessed of the smallest share of decency or the slightest appreciation of virtue would voluntarily surrender herself without some powerful motive, not pre-existent in herself, but imparted by her destroyer. Well aware of the world's opinion, she would not recklessly defy it, and precipitate herself into an abyss of degradation and shame unless some overruling influence had urged her forward. This motive and this influence, it is believed, may be uniformly traced to her weak but truly feminine dependence upon another's vows.

Naturally unsuspicious herself, she can not believe that the being whom she has almost deified can be aught but good, and n.o.ble, and trustworthy.

Sincere in her own professions, she believes there is equal sincerity in his protestations. Willing to sacrifice all to him, she feels implicitly a.s.sured that he will protect her from harm. Thus there can be little doubt that, in most cases of seduction, female virtue is trustingly surrendered to the specious arguments and false promises of dishonorable men.[389]

The every-day experiences of life are amply sufficient to justify this opinion, for it is a fact that these specious arguments and false promises are continually resorted to by many men for the express purposes of seduction; and, nefarious as these cases confessedly are, still they form common incidents in the lives of some who claim to be what the world calls respectable! Men who, in the ordinary relations of life, would scruple to defraud their neighbors of a dollar, do not hesitate to rob a confiding woman of her chast.i.ty. They who, in a business point of view, would regard obtaining goods under false pretenses as an act to be visited with all the severity of the law, hesitate not to obtain by even viler fraud the surrender of woman's virtue to their fiendish l.u.s.t. Is there no inconsistency in the social laws which condemn a swindler to the state prison _for his offenses_, and condemn a woman to perpetual infamy _for her wrongs_? Undoubtedly there are cases where the woman is the seducer, but these are so rare as to be hardly worth mentioning.

Seduction is a social wrong. Its entire consequences are not comprised in the injury inflicted on the woman, or the sense of perfidy oppressing the conscience of the man. Beyond the fact that she is, in the ordinary language of the day, ruined, the victim has endured an attack upon her principles which must materially affect her future life. The world may not know of her transgression, and, in consequence, public obloquy may not be added to her burden; but she is too painfully conscious of her fall, and every thought of her lacerated and bleeding heart is embittered with a sense of man's wrong and outrage. Memory points to the many bright pa.s.sages in their acquaintance, and says, these shone but to ensnare you; to the many tokens of endearment received from her betrayer, and says, these were but so many arguments to effect your ruin; to the many vows he breathed, and says, these were but perjury; to the many smiles with which she was greeted, and says, these were but so many hypocritical devices.

She remembers the thrill of joy with which her heart so gayly bounded when he first told her she was beloved, and she contrasts her ecstasy then with her agonies now. She remembers, with detestation, the caresses he was wont to bestow. But, above all, she remembers, and her blood boils with indignation as the thought is forced upon her, that by these means he has wrought her shame. She has learned in the school of sorrow that man's promises of fidelity are valueless; and her future life, whether spent in sorrow and repentance for the past, or in a wild, impetuous career of subsequent vice, will be indelibly marked with the remembrance of his treachery. It can not be a matter of surprise that, with this feeling of injustice and insult burning at her heart, her career should be one in which she becomes the aggressor, and man the victim; for it is a certain fact that in this desire of revenge upon the s.e.x for the falsehood of one will be found a cause of the increase of prost.i.tution.

The probabilities of a decrease in the crime of seduction are very slight, so long as the present public sentiment prevails; while the seducer is allowed to go unpunished, and the full measure of retribution is directed against his victim; while the offender escapes, but the offended is condemned. Unprincipled men, ready to take advantage of woman's trustful nature, abound, and they pursue their diabolical course unmolested. Legal enactments can scarcely ever reach them, although sometimes a poor man without friends or money is indicted and convicted. The remedy must be left to the world at large. When our domestic relations are such that a man known to be guilty of this crime can obtain no admission into the family circle; when the virtuous and respectable members of the community agree that no such man shall be welcomed to their society; when worth and honor a.s.sert their supremacy over wealth and boldness, there may be hopes of a reformation, but not till then.

The following cases will exhibit some of the results of seduction: M. C., a native of Pennsylvania, seventeen years of age, was induced to run away from home with her lover, who promised to marry her as soon as they reached Philadelphia. Instead of keeping his word, he deserted her. She was afraid to go home, and had no means of living except by prost.i.tution, which she practiced for eight months in Philadelphia, and then came to New York to reside. Her father, a physician, died when she was about ten years old, and her mother subsequently married a hotel-keeper, in whose house the girl was reared, and to the a.s.sociations of which she probably, to some extent, owes her fall from virtue.

In one of the most aristocratic houses of prost.i.tution in New York was found the daughter of a merchant, a man of large property, residing in one of the Southern states. She was a beautiful girl, had received a superior education, spoke several languages fluently, and seemed keenly sensible of her degradation. Two years before this time she had been on a visit to some relations in Europe, and on her return voyage in one of her father's vessels, she was seduced by the captain, and became pregnant. He solemnly a.s.serted that he would marry her as soon as they reached their port, but the s.h.i.+p had no sooner arrived than he left her. The poor girl's parents would not receive her back into their family, and she came to New York and prost.i.tuted herself for support.

A. B., the child of respectable parents in Germany, was seduced in her native place by a man to whom she was attached. He promised to marry her if she would accompany him to the United States. She obtained the permission and necessary funds from her parents, and two days after they landed in New York her seducer deserted her, carrying off all the money she had brought from home. H. P., a school-girl, sixteen years of age, was seduced by a married man who now visits her occasionally. C. A. was seduced in New Jersey, brought to New York, and deserted among strangers.

M. R. was seduced by her employer, a married man. A. W. was seduced while at school in Troy, N. Y., and was ashamed to return to her parents. L. H.

followed a lover from England who had promised to marry her. When she arrived in New York he seduced and diseased her, and then she discovered that he was a married man. There is no necessity to multiply these cases.

”Drink and the desire to drink.” We will alter an old saying, and render it, ”When a woman _drinks_ she is lost.” It will be conceded that the habit of intoxication in woman, if not an indication of the existence of actual depravity or vice, is a sure precursor of it, for drunkenness and debauchery are inseparable companions, one almost invariably following the other. In some cases a woman living in service becomes a drunkard; she forms acquaintances among the depraved of her own s.e.x, and willingly joins their ranks. Married women acquire the habit of drinking, and forsake their husbands and families to gratify not so much their s.e.xual appet.i.te as their pa.s.sion for liquor. Young women are often persuaded to take one or two gla.s.ses of liquor, and then their ruin may be soon expected.

Others are induced to drink spirits in which a narcotic has been infused to render them insensible to their ruin. In short, it is scarcely possible to enumerate the many temptations which can be employed when intoxicating drinks are used as the agent.

”Ill-treatment of parents, husbands, or relatives” is a prolific cause of prost.i.tution, one hundred and sixty-four women a.s.signing it as a reason for their fall. In consideration of their important relations to society, it may be well to inquire, What are the duties of parents, husbands, and relatives?

In all countries where the obligations of the marriage contract are recognized, one of its most stringent requirements is found in the necessity to provide for the children of such union. This is acknowledged as a moral duty on account of the relations.h.i.+p between parents and children; it is recognized as a religious duty because specially enjoined in Holy Writ, and it is regarded as a civil duty because the future welfare of any community must depend upon the training of its future citizens.