Part 53 (2/2)

There is another or fourth cla.s.s of a.s.signation-houses to which the commonest portion of street-walkers take their company, and these may be emphatically described by an old saying, ”Cheap and nasty.” Dirty and insufficient accommodations are the equivalents for low prices, and such places are, in the general estimation of connoiseurs, very _low_ and despicable. Notwithstanding this they thrive and multiply, from which it may safely be inferred that they are profitable in a business point of view, repulsive as they may be in their features and arrangements. Some of them are ingeniously arranged with a view to robbery, and are called ”panel-houses.” The plan adopted is somewhat as follows: Some man, generally a countryman not very well informed in the tricks of the metropolis, meets with a prost.i.tute, and agrees to ac-company her to an a.s.signation-house. She is in league with the ”panel thieves,” and therefore introduces her victim to one of their rooms. The apartment seldom contains more furniture than a bed and a chair or lounge, with the floor covered with a thick carpet. To make ”a.s.surance doubly sure,” the man himself locks the door by which he enters, and, when undressing, naturally throws his clothes upon the chair or lounge. The bedstead is placed so that the feet come toward the only _apparent_ door in the room, with one side against the wall, and the head and other side hung with curtains, which the woman carefully draws as soon as the man lies down by her side. At the head of the bed, and of course concealed by the drapery from any one occupying it, is another door, which forms the secret entrance. It is so adroitly arranged, and so neatly covered with paper the same as the walls, that no one would suspect its existence. The hinges and fastening on the outside are oiled, so that no noise can be perceived when it is opened, and the operator steals with cat-like step over the carpet, and quietly examines the clothes without alarming the unsuspecting stranger. The thief completes his inspection, appropriates as much as he thinks proper, and the temporary occupant of the apartment resumes his clothes and prepares to leave. If his suspicions are excited by the circ.u.mstance that his wallet looks less plethoric than it did, and an examination reveals that some of its contents are missing, he knows not how to account for it. He is perfectly certain that no one has entered that room while he was there, and if he has ”visited” much before meeting the girl, he concludes that he must have lost some of his money in his career, and that the only way is to take the loss contentedly, and avoid New York fascinations in future. Sometimes the loser has not enough philosophy for this, and if he can be certain that his money was right when he entered the room, will call in the police, and thus expose the secret arrangements of the establishment. This is comparatively a rare case, as most men would rather submit to a pecuniary loss than encounter the trouble and exposure attending a criminal prosecution, and the knowledge of this reluctance enables the ”panel thieves” to pursue their operations almost with impunity.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

NEW YORK.--EXTENT, EFFECTS, AND COST OF PROSt.i.tUTION.

Number of Public Prost.i.tutes.--Opinion of Chief of Police in 1856.-- Effects on Prost.i.tution of Commercial Panic of 1857.--Extravagant Surmises.--Police Investigation of May, 1858.--Private Prost.i.tutes.-- Aggregate Prost.i.tution.--Visitors from the Suburbs of New York.-- Strangers.--Proportion of Prost.i.tutes to Population.--Syphilis.-- Danger of Infection.--Increase of Venereal Disease.--Statistics of Cases treated in ISLAND HOSPITAL, BLACKWELL'S ISLAND.--Primary Syphilis and its Indications.--Cases of Venereal Disease in Public Inst.i.tutions.--Alms-house.--Work-house.--Penitentiary.--Bellevue Hospital.--Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island.--Emigrants' Hospital, Ward's Island.--New York City Hospital.--Dispensaries.--Medical Colleges.--King's County Hospital.--Brooklyn City Hospital.--Seamen's Retreat, Staten Island.--Summary of Cases treated in Public Inst.i.tutions.--Private Treatment.--Advertisers.--Patent Medicines.-- Drug-stores.--Aggregate of Venereal Disease.--Probabilities of Infection.--Cost of Prost.i.tution.--Capital invested in Houses of Prost.i.tution and a.s.signation, Dancing-saloons, etc.--Income of Prost.i.tutes.--Individual Expenses of Visitors.--Medical Expenses.-- Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses.--Police and Judiciary Expenses.-- Correspondence with leading Cities of the United States.--Estimated Prost.i.tution throughout the Union.--Remarks on ”Tait's _Prost.i.tution in Edinburgh_.”--Unfounded Estimates.--National Statistics of Population, Births, Education, Occupation, Wages, Pauperism, Crime, Breweries and Distilleries, and Nativities.

The preceding chapters have given a statistical and descriptive account of prost.i.tution in New York. Before considering what measures can be best applied for the amelioration of its accompanying evils, it will be necessary to ascertain the extent of the system, and this inquiry must include the number of abandoned women in the city, and the amount of venereal infection propagated through their agency.

It has been a.s.sumed in these pages that the two thousand women whose replies form the basis of the statistical tables, represent about one third of the aggregate prost.i.tution of New York. This is allowing an increase of twenty per cent. during the winter of 1857-8, in consequence of the commercial panic of last autumn, and the resulting paralysis of trade, and suffering of the laboring community.

In the progress of this investigation it was deemed advisable to consult those whose acquaintance with the details of city life would ent.i.tle their opinions to confidence, as to the actual number of prost.i.tutes within our limits; and in addition to much information obtained privately, the following correspondence took place with the then Chief of Police:

(Copy.)

”Resident Physician's Office, Blackwell's Island, ”New York, September 1, 1856.

”GEORGE W. MATSELL, Esq., Chief of Police:

”DEAR SIR,--During the last twenty years various estimates have been made by different persons, foreigners and natives, interested and not interested, as to the number of prost.i.tutes in the city of New York.

It is generally supposed that they reach the large number of twenty-five or thirty thousand. You, sir, have been at the head of the police department of the city for the past fifteen years, while previous to that time you acted, if I mistake not, as one of the police justices of the city. I presume, therefore, that you have a considerable knowledge of prost.i.tution as it exists here, and consequently can give a very correct opinion as to the number of prost.i.tutes in New York City.

”You will greatly oblige me if, at your earliest leisure, and in any form most convenient to yourself, you will state what you believe to be the total number of prost.i.tutes now in the city.

”It is proper to add that, with your permission, I intend to publish this letter, with your answer, in the report on Prost.i.tution which I am preparing, and shall soon have the honor to lay before the public.

”Yours respectfully, ”WILLIAM W. SANGER, ”Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island.”

(Reply.)

”Office of the Chief of Police, New York, Dec. 12, 1856.

”Doctor WILLIAM W. SANGER:

”DEAR SIR,--I received your letter asking me to express in writing my estimate of the whole number of known public prost.i.tutes in the city of New York. In the absence of any law compelling the registering of public prost.i.tutes, it would be very difficult to testify with accuracy to the exact number of such persons in the city. I have no hesitancy in stating that, in my opinion, they do not number over five thousand persons, if indeed they reach so high a figure. Having been engaged in public life for many years, my opinion is based on the observations made by me from time to time, and from various official reports made to me.

”You are at liberty to make such use of this answer to your interrogatory as you may deem proper.

”Very respectfully yours, ”GEO. W. MATSELL, Chief of Police.”

This communication, in addition to the facts gleaned from other sources, was amply sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the known public prost.i.tutes in New York did not exceed five thousand in number at the close of the year 1856. Then ensued the summer, with its artificial inflation--that false prosperity which excites unbounded hopes and stimulates to measureless extravagance, followed by the revulsion and panic of the fall and winter. Trade was literally dead: operatives, never too well paid, were threatened with starvation; females, particularly, felt the rigid pressure of the times. In many families the embarra.s.sments of the fathers compelled a reduction of the servants employed, and a large number of domestics were added to the aggregate of that cla.s.s already out of situations. The occupations of the army of seamstresses, dress-makers, milliners, and tailoresses were suspended, and their struggles for bread were merged in the general cry for labor. It was, in short, a trying time alike for the sufferers and the observers. But one resort seemed available; the poor workless, houseless, foodless woman must have recourse to prost.i.tution as a means of preserving life.

As usual in any time of great excitement, surmise ran actually wild as to the extent of the consequences, and extravagant theories abounded; one gentleman actually stating in a public meeting that a thousand virtuous girls were becoming prost.i.tutes every week through sheer starvation! An a.s.sertion so appalling as this is its own refutation. It a.s.sumes that one woman in every hundred of the female population of New York City, between the ages of fifteen and thirty years, became a prost.i.tute every week; and therefore, during the six months of fall and winter, twenty-six thousand women, one fourth of the inhabitants of the ages named, one in every four of all the women under middle age, would have been forced into vice! The practice of ”jumping at conclusions” upon serious matters like this is much to be reprehended. An exaggerated statement made in the fervor of enthusiasm, while advocating a benevolent object, must always recoil to the injury of the cause it is intended to promote. It will be necessary only to consider for a moment the financial condition of New York to be convinced that such an increase of prost.i.tution was impossible. It can not be denied that the number of abandoned women is regulated by the demand; or that the only inducement which could lead virtuous girls to the course alleged must have been the necessity to earn money for subsistence. But this necessity to earn money was felt as strongly by men as by women. The revulsion for a time left a large portion of the community without resources. Merchants, manufacturers, and store-keepers found their receipts inadequate to meet their expenditures. Commercial _employes_, book-keepers, clerks, salesmen, and agents were discharged. Mechanics in every branch were without work, and consequently without wages. Merchants from other parts of the country had no money to meet their liabilities or make fresh purchases, and therefore did not visit the city as usual. These causes combined to reduce the business of houses of prost.i.tution, and instead of large accessions to the ranks of courtesans, many of this very cla.s.s were forced to seek a refuge in the public charitable inst.i.tutions.

Hence arose the increase in the denizens of Blackwell's Island, where hospital, alms-house, work-house, and penitentiary were alike over-crowded. Some of the places vacated by these recipients of eleemosynary aid were doubtless filled by new recruits; but the supposition that a thousand were added every week would imply a change in the whole _corps_ every six weeks, or a change nearly five times completed during the fall and winter.

That female virtue was yielded in many instances can not, unfortunately, be doubted, but the sufferers did not become public prost.i.tutes. Poor creatures! they surrendered themselves unwillingly to some temporary acquaintance, probably in grat.i.tude for a.s.sistance already rendered, or antic.i.p.ating aid to be afforded. There is something truly melancholy in the consideration that bread had to be purchased at such a price; that the only alternative lay between voluntary dishonor and killing indigence. It is but charity to conclude that the woman who thus acted, if her subsequent course was not a continuous life of abandonment, was impelled by the stern necessity of the times rather than induced by a laxity of moral feeling. Unchaste as she must be admitted, she can scarcely be deemed a prost.i.tute in the ordinary acceptation of the word.

<script>