Part 50 (1/2)
Similar plans with respect to dest.i.tute children have been practiced in New York for several years, and their subsequent extension to meet the wants of adult females has been limited only by the means of the projectors. If the necessity and prospective benefit of this emigration were known and appreciated, the required funds could be raised without any difficulty. The citizens of New York are never dilatory in responding to calls upon their benevolence in aid of any practicable and judicious scheme of philanthropy, and, under the management of an energetic business committee, arrangements could be made which would render the movement self-supporting within a few years.
The compet.i.tion which keeps wages at starvation point is aggravated by a notion entertained by many native women, and by some foreigners who have been long in the country, that domestic service is ungenteel. This idea drives them to needlework to maintain their respectability, and thus, while service is abandoned, the ranks of seamstresses are augmented. By decreasing the number to be employed, and consequently advancing their wages and insuring better treatment from their employers, the servant's life would be divested of many of its objections, and old-fas.h.i.+oned house-work would once more be deemed respectable. This consummation rests more with mistresses than servants. The former give tone to the manners of the latter. It can not be denied that many young women date their ruin from unkind or unwomanly treatment by their mistresses, who have given a free rein to their caprices, confident that if a girl left them they could soon supply her place. This confidence would be shaken if a housekeeper knew that servants were less plentiful, and her own interest would induce her to use well those who suited her. Such a conclusion would be an important step toward reducing prost.i.tution, and elevating the character of the ma.s.ses.[394]
It can not be expected that this vice will decrease in New York when five hundred and thirty-four, out of a total of two thousand, earn only one dollar weekly. No economist, however closely he may calculate, will pretend that fourteen cents a day will supply any woman with lodging, food, and clothes. She who should attempt to exist on such a sum would starve to death in less than a month, and yet it is a notorious fact that many are expected to support themselves upon it. How such expectations are realized, and the sad manner in which the deficiency is made up, are amply shown by the result of this and similar investigations, here and elsewhere.
Thus far manufacturers have been blamed for the depression of wages, but is not the consumer equally open to censure? He purchases an article of dress from A, because it is a trifle cheaper than in B's store. The cost of the raw material is the same to each, and each uses the same quant.i.ty in every article; but if A can find customers for three times the amount of goods which B can sell, on account of the saving he effects through paying lower wages, it is scarcely in human nature, decidedly not in commercial nature, to be expected that he will refuse the opportunity. He flatters himself that compet.i.tion forces him to make the reduction, and as the public do not denounce his action, but flock to his store so long as his price continues lower than his neighbor's, he concludes that his customers should bear the blame. Nor are his conclusions false. The public sanction a system which enforces starvation or crime, and, for the sake of saving a few cents, add their influence to swell the ranks of prost.i.tutes, and condemn many a poor woman to eternal ruin.[395]
Before leaving the question of employment, the effects of different branches of female occupation, as inducing or favoring immorality, must be noticed. Apart from the low rate of wages paid to women, thus causing dest.i.tution which forces them to vice, the a.s.sociations of most of the few trades they are in the habit of pursuing are prejudicial to virtue. The trade of tailoress or seamstress may be cited as a case in point. One mode in which this business is conducted between employer and employed is as follows: The woman leaves either a cash deposit or the guarantee of some responsible person at the store, and receives a certain amount of materials to be made up by a specified time: when she returns the manufactured goods she is paid, and has more work given her to make up.
This may seem a very simple course, and so it is, but one feature in it gives rather a sinister aspect. The person who delivers the materials, receives the work, and p.r.o.nounces on its execution, is almost invariably a man, and upon his decision rests the question whether the operative shall be paid her full wages, or whether any portion of her miserable earnings shall be deducted because the work is not done to his satisfaction. In many cases he wields a power the determinations of which amount to this: ”Shall I have any food to-day, or shall I starve?”
It is reasonable to conclude that hardly any thing short of positive want can force a girl to undertake this labor at its present price, and it is reasonable to imagine that her necessities will force her to use every means to accomplish her task in a satisfactory manner. If she finds that a smile bestowed upon her employer or his clerk will aid her in the struggle for bread, she will not present herself with a scowling face; or if a kind entreaty will be the means of procuring her a dinner as a favor, she will not expose herself to hunger by demanding it as a right. In this there is no moral or actual wrong, but there are instances where lubricity has exacted farther concessions, and the sacrifice of a woman's virtue been required as an equivalent for the privilege of sewing at almost nominal prices. If this is conceded, the victim may be a.s.sured of the best work and the most favors until her seducer becomes satiated with possession, when means will easily be found to displace her for some new favorite. If the outrageous request is denied, she will get no more work from that shop, and may seek other employment with almost a certainty of meeting the same indignity elsewhere. That this is a frequent occurrence, unfortunately, can not be denied: that it exercises much influence on public prost.i.tution can not be doubted.
The employment of females in various trades in this city, in the pursuit of which they are forced into constant communication with male operatives has a disastrous effect upon their characters. The daily routine goes very far toward weakening that modesty and reserve which are the best protectives against the seducer, and renders them liable to temptation in many shapes. A girl frequently forms an attachment to a man working in the same shop, believing it to be a mutual one, and only finds out her mistake when she has yielded to his persuasions and is deserted. Or women contract acquaintance for the sake of having an escort on their holiday recreations, or because some other woman has done so, or as the mere gratification of an idle fancy; but all tend in the same direction, and aid to undermine principles and jeopardize character.
In this connection only city employments have been mentioned, but the same reasoning may be applied with greater force to factory life in any of our manufacturing districts. There the operatives of both s.e.xes in one mill may sometimes be counted by hundreds, and their large numbers cause a more frequent and constant communication than in smaller workshops. It has been urged in support of the superior morality of such places, that the very nature of the employment requires the most constant attention to be paid to it, and precludes the possibility of any idle time. We freely concede to the apologists all the advantages they claim, and admit that during the time--say ten hours daily--when the machinery is running, neither males nor females can abandon their respective positions; but, unfortunately for the force of the argument, the motion is not a perpetual one. A steam-engine or a water-wheel can run for a week or a month without complaining of fatigue, but human machines become exhausted after a few hours' consecutive labor. Machinery can receive the necessary attention and supplies without arresting its progress, but men and women must sometimes cease work in order to eat and drink.
Granting, then, that during actual working hours a young woman can not leave her post, yet the mind is free, and the range of thought, when locomotion is denied her, will often turn to the hards.h.i.+ps of her position. Busy as may be her hands, her brain is disengaged, and while her mechanical duties are adroitly performed, the mental faculties will be in full exercise, and for these she has ample scope. Dissatisfied with her close confinement in the factory, weary of the dreadful monotony which makes to-day but a repet.i.tion of yesterday and a sure type of to-morrow, she is happy, when the bell rings the signal to leave work, to escape from the building, and renew outside its walls an acquaintance she has formed before; and too frequently the persuasions and promises of her lover will induce her to seek, in some less guarded position, the independence for which she longs. It may be taken as a general rule that any confinement or restraint which is irksome to human nature must result injuriously.
Domestic servants are not exempt from temptation when employed in large establishments where both s.e.xes are engaged, and many a poor girl ascribes her ruin to the a.s.sociations formed in places of this description.
Thus far it has been supposed that man is the chief agent in the propagation of vice, nor is there any apparent reason to recede from that position. The numerous cases of seduction under false promises and subsequent desertion; of seduction by married men; of violations of helpless and unprotected females, are abundantly sufficient to prove this, much as it may be regretted for the credit of the stronger s.e.x, and also to vindicate the opinion that employing males and females under one roof, in different branches of the same business, has a strong tendency to promote prost.i.tution. Sometimes, however, it is true that woman, lost and abandoned herself, lends her aid to drag her fellow-women down to perdition. In many of the stores and workshops in our city, in every factory throughout the country, such are to be found, and their insidious influence is quickly felt. By false representations and elaborate coloring, they work upon the minds of the simple, or inflame the pa.s.sions of the ambitious, but in either case their object is the same, and in it they frequently succeed.
_Question._ WHAT BUSINESS DID YOUR FATHER FOLLOW?
Fathers' business. Numbers.
Architects 4 Auctioneer 1 Agents 5 Butchers 47 Blacksmiths 63 Barbers 2 Bakers 21 Builders 11 Book-keepers 3 Boatmen 7 Brothel-keeper 1 Bankers 2 Carpenters 139 Carmen 26 Coopers 19 Clerks 32 Coachmen 10 Clergymen 6 Coach-makers 9 Cabinet-makers 16 Diver 1 Drover 1 Dyers 3 Engineers 18 Engraver 1 Farmers 440 Fishermen 6 Grocers 14 Gilders 2 Gardeners 10 Gla.s.s-blowers 2 Hotel and Tavern keepers 36 Hatters 13 Jewelers 10 Laborers 259 Liquor-dealers 22 Lawyers 13 Lumber-merchants 7 Livery-stable-keepers 5 Millers 20 Masons 82 Merchants 37 Moulders 3 Manufacturers 24 Musicians 8 Men of Property 5 Naval Officers 31 Overseers 5 Peddlers 5 Policemen 15 Painters 16 Printers 3 Planters 5 Pavers 4 Physicians and Surgeons 19 Plumbers 2 p.a.w.nbrokers 2 s.h.i.+p-carpenters 23 Sailors 35 Shoe-makers 48 Stage-drivers 4 Store-keepers 37 Stone-cutters 20 School-teachers 14 Silversmiths 3 Soldiers 38 Sail-makers 4 Saddlers 14 Servants 4 Surveyor 1 Tailors 35 Traders 11 Tanners and Curriers 7 Tinsmiths 2 Weavers 20 Wheelwright 1 Unascertained 106 ---- Total 2000
This table shows that almost all cla.s.ses of society are exposed to the influences which result in prost.i.tution, from the children of men of property, bankers, merchants, and professional men, down to the families of mechanics and laborers. The numerous and varied occupations of the fathers of those women who answered the question renders any cla.s.sification of them almost impossible. A majority of the parents were either mechanics or laborers, men who earned the daily food for themselves and families by manual labor, and whose resources would be governed by the ordinary fluctuations of trade.
In following the proportion of natives and foreigners as exhibited in previous tables, it must be remembered that about five eighths of these fathers were residents of other countries than the United States when those daughters were born whose replies form the bases of these statistics, and it is scarcely necessary to say that labor is nowhere so well remunerated as with us. The average wages, for instance, of a first-cla.s.s mechanic in England or Ireland seldom exceed, and, indeed, rarely amount to, nine dollars per week, and an ordinary laborer is very well paid if he receives half that sum. This estimate refers to large cities, where the expenses of maintaining a family are as heavy as in New York, and it indicates poverty, which has already been proved to be one of the main causes of female depravity.
If the investigation is pursued into the rural districts of Great Britain, the wages of mechanics and laborers will be found lower than they are in large cities, without any material reduction in the necessary expenditure except in the item of house-rent. The pitiful amounts paid to agricultural laborers (often only twenty-five cents a day) will surprise any one who is not fully acquainted with the hards.h.i.+ps endured by this unfortunate cla.s.s, and the state of dest.i.tution in which they are compelled to _exist_ (it can not, with any propriety, be called _living_), and to rear their families.
More than one half of the foreigners are from Ireland, and no person acquainted with the social history of that unhappy country need be told of the want and deprivation endured by its peasantry, of their useless efforts to benefit themselves, or of the ruin, starvation, and disease with which they are so frequently afflicted. To const.i.tute a farmer in Ireland, a man must hire an acre or two of land, for which he pays a heavy rent, as two or sometimes three ”middle-men” have to obtain their profits before the landlord receives his share. In this field he plants as many potatoes as can be crowded into it; and in his hut or cabin he keeps a pig or some fowls, regularly domesticated as members of the family, and receiving more attention than the children. From the sale of the pig the rent has to be obtained, and from the proceeds of the poultry, with the potatoes, all their wants have to be supplied. Thus, with the potatoes he raises for almost his sole means of support, with peat from some bog in the neighborhood to furnish him with fuel, he lives until the impoverished soil refuses to yield its annual crop, or yields it in a diseased and poisonous state, when fever and starvation come to fill his cup of misery, and render him dependent upon charity for an existence. And this in a land peculiarly rich in all that is necessary to make its people a great and happy nation.
This has been known as the state of Ireland for many years, and in this condition it unquestionably was when the women who here are now prost.i.tutes were born there. Whether the severe lessons taught by the last famine, the more enlightened and liberal policy which has governed England, since that terrible calamity, in its legislation for the sister island, the introduction of Anglo-Saxon capital and enterprise, and the large exodus of the natives of the soil, have been of advantage to the country, it is difficult to determine in the face of the conflicting testimony furnished respectively by English and Irish partisans. It seems reasonable to conclude that an improvement must have taken place under these circ.u.mstances. But this is not the place to argue the political questions so often agitated there and elsewhere; it is enough for the purpose of this work to show the poverty of twenty years ago, and the vice resulting from it now, and to remind the reader that because of the lamentable manner in which the Irish have suffered in their own country, we must be taxed in New York for the support in hospitals, alms-houses, and prisons, of the women whose poverty compelled their crime.
_Question._ IF YOUR MOTHER HAD ANY BUSINESS INDEPENDENT OF YOUR FATHER, WHAT WAS IT?
Mothers' business. Numbers.
No independent business 1880 Dress-makers 35 Tailoresses 26 Seamstresses 12 Store-keepers 9 Boarding-house-keepers 7 Servants 6 Vest-makers 6 Laundresses 4 Bakers 4 Hat-trimmers 3 Milliners 3 Artificial Flower-maker 1 Music teacher 1 Nurse 1 Umbrella-maker 1 House-cleaner 1 ---- Total 2000
Only one hundred and twenty of two thousand women answer that their mothers had any business independent of their fathers, and they were mostly of the same ill-paid cla.s.s as those alluded to in the portion referring to the occupations of the women themselves. The exceptions were, boarding-house, store, and bakery-keepers, amounting to twenty only, the remaining one hundred being servants or needle-women. The fact that even this number found it necessary to augment the income of their families by their own exertions is another evidence of poverty.
_Question._ DID YOU a.s.sIST EITHER YOUR FATHER OR MOTHER IN THEIR BUSINESS? IF SO, WHICH OF THEM?
a.s.sisted. Numbers.
a.s.sisted neither parent 1515 ” both parents 149 ” mothers 306 ” fathers 30 --- ---- Totals 485 1515 --- 485 ---- Aggregate 2000
To this question, thirty women reply that they were in the habit of a.s.sisting their fathers, three hundred and six say they a.s.sisted their mothers, and one hundred and forty-nine a.s.sisted both parents. The two latter answers, embracing four hundred and fifty-five cases, must be construed to mean such a.s.sistance in the ordinary work of a family as usually falls to the lot of children. The residue say that they never a.s.sisted either father or mother, or, in other words, that they were brought up in habits of idleness, which can scarcely have forsaken them in after-life, and probably had some considerable agency in their fall.