CHAPTER XXXVII.

NEW YORK.--REMEDIAL MEASURES.

Effects of Prohibition.--Required Change of Policy.--Governmental Obligations.--Prostitution augmented by Seclusion.--Impossibility of benevolent Assistance.--Necessity of sanitary Regulations.--Yellow Fever.--Effect of remedial Measures in Paris.--Syphilitic Infection not a local Question.--Present Measures to check Syphilis.--ISLAND HOSPITAL, BLACKWELL'S ISLAND.--Mode of Admission.--Vagrancy Commitment "on Confession," and its Action on Blackwell's Island.--Pecuniary Results.--Moral Effects.--Perpetuation of Disease.--Inadequacy of Present Arrangements.--Discharges.--Writs of _Habeas Corpus_ and _Certiorari_, how obtained, and their Effects.--Public Responsibility.--Proposed medical and police Surveillance.-- Requirements.--_Hospital Arrangements to be entirely separated from punitive Institutions._--Medical Visitation.--Power to place diseased Women under Treatment and _detain them till cured_.--Refutation of Objections.--Quack Advertisers.--Constitution of Medical Bureau.-- Duties of Examiners.--License System.--Probable Effects of Surveillance.--Expenses of the proposed Plan.--Agitation in England.-- The London _Times_ on Prostitution.--Objections considered.--Report from MEDICAL BOARD OF BELLEVUE HOSPITAL on Prostitution and Syphilis.--Report from RESIDENT PHYSICIAN, RANDALL'S ISLAND, on Constitutional Syphilis.--Reliability of Statistics.--Resumé of substantiated Facts.

Having traced the causes and delineated the extent and effects of the evil of prostitution as it exists in New York at the present time, an evident duty is to inquire what measures can be devised to stay the march of this desolating plague in its ravages on the health and morals of the public. This is a problem the solution of which has for centuries interested philanthropists and statesmen in different countries. They commenced with the theory that vice could be suppressed by statutory enactments, and the crushing-out process was vigorously tried under various auspices, until experience demonstrated that it virtually increased and aggravated the evil it was intended to suppress. At subsequent periods, however, different measures have been adopted with different results.

It will be necessary, in the first place, to consider the effect of stringent prohibitory measures. The records given in the previous chapters of this work show what these have attempted, and they also show at the same time the uselessness of endeavoring to eradicate prostitution by compulsory legislation. The lash, the dungeon, the rack, and the stake have each been tried, and all have proved equally powerless to accomplish the object. Admitting that, in religion, morals, or politics, it is impossible to force concurrence in any particular sentiment, while a kindly persuasive plan may lead to its adoption; admitting that all attempts to compel prostitutes to be virtuous have notoriously failed; has not the time arrived for a change of policy? If, in direct ratio to the stringency of prohibitory measures, the vice sought to be exterminated has steadily increased, does not reason suggest the expediency of resorting to other measures for its suppression?

It has been said that "History is philosophy teaching by example," and, if such instruction is well considered, none can fail to see therein an unanswerable argument against excessive severity in this matter. The several statutes proscribing prostitution have been detailed, and their specific results given, as gathered from the experience of various countries. At the time these laws were in force, it is hardly probable that their authors regarded them as unsusceptible of improvement; and the question now arises for decision, in this age of general progress, is it not our duty to try the effect of some other line of action in this country?

In common with other nations, we have passed laws intended to crush out prostitution; have made vigorous protests (on paper) against its existence; and there our labors have ended. The experience acquired in this course of legislation only demonstrates that such laws can not be enforced so as to produce the desired effect. But why are they still retained on the statute books? Is it not an opprobrium upon our national character to allow them to exist, if they are never to be enforced? If they are powerless for good, effective only to increase the plague they were designed to check, why not expunge them at once, and substitute others more practicable and more useful in their stead? A candid acknowledgment of error, whether by an individual or a community, is always a creditable and graceful act. It shows that experience has dictated a wiser course; that reflection and experiment have condemned the former plan.

It is not to be supposed that any system of laws will entirely eradicate prostitution; history, social arrangements, and physiology alike forbid any such utopian idea. But will not a more enlightened policy do much toward diminishing it? Many of the present generation can recollect the time when it was considered right and proper to imprison an insolvent debtor; but this idea is now wisely repudiated by society, and no one will assert that the effect of the change has been to place any additional difficulties in the way of collecting legal claims. Capital punishment has been abolished in many cases, and yet it is a well-known fact that crime has diminished where this experiment has been tried. This is more particularly the case in England, where forgery, which was punished with death, is comparatively rare since the amelioration of the law. A general conviction is becoming prevalent that the most effectual way to deal with criminals is to attempt to raise them above what they were, in contradistinction to the old plan of sinking them lower.[426] It is now freely acknowledged that the elevating, instead of the depressing process, is consonant both with the spirit of our republican institutions and with humanizing policy. Even if American society is not yet prepared to take a course directly the reverse of its present prohibitory practice, prudence dictates the adoption of some medium rule by which prostitution can be kept in check without being encouraged or allowed, as in the Prussian laws, which expressly declare that the vice is "tolerated but not permitted."

Government should be patriarchal in its character, and exercise an effective but parental supervision over all its subjects. This is the living principle which gives vitality and strength to any organization, and no satisfactory government can exist if it is absent. Now, in regard to prostitutes, admitting that they have erred, still, the people, who constitute the government in this country, are concerned in the matter, and their mutual obligations, their policy, and their pecuniary interests require that these wandering members of the body corporate should have a reasonable opportunity for reformation. Which will give this opportunity most effectually--to crush them under the weight of their own misdeeds, or to adopt a liberal course likely to induce them to abandon their depraved habits? One of the secrets which bound the soldiers of the empire to the standard of Napoleon through all his battles and vicissitudes was the knowledge that France regarded them as her children, and would not fail to protect and support them. The words "I am a Roman citizen" derived their magic power from the fact that the Roman Empire treated all her citizens as sons, and watched over their interests with parental care. The recent outburst of popular enthusiasm in our own country when the commander[427] of an American national vessel rescued a citizen from threatened outrage in a foreign land, was an emphatic recognition of the principle. Can we now consistently refuse to apply the rule to all who need our kindly care?[428]

It may be considered a bold assertion, that our present mode of dealing with prostitution is calculated to widely extend its prevalence, yet the historical facts already given are sufficient to prove its truth without further argument. The existing rule of treatment, instead of suppressing the vice, merely drives it into seclusion--a result far different from the design, and infinitely increasing its power. To those secret haunts of prostitution resort the lowest and most depraved of the male sex, with the full knowledge that a fundamental law of our commonwealth considers every house a castle, into which no officer can enter unless armed with a special legal authority, or called in to suppress an outrage. The result of such seclusion is to confirm the vicious habits of the prostitutes, and frequently to lead them to the commission of other and more heinous offenses.

Again: Secrecy further augments prostitution by preventing the approach of those benevolent individuals who would feel a pleasure in advising and directing the daughters of misery for their real good. Philanthropists have organized Prison Associations and Magdalen Asylums to bear upon prostitution, but they can only reach it in its lowest grades, when the females become inmates of public institutions from destitution and disease. Reformers can not come near the fountain-head, and they are consequently now as far from the consummation of their praiseworthy intentions as when they commenced their labors; because prohibitory measures force prostitutes to take shelter in seclusion, and it is only when women are consigned to our hospitals, work-houses, and penitentiaries that they become accessible. By this time they are so far sunk in depravity as to afford very slender hope of reformation. This is more especially true of Magdalen Asylums. There is indeed a "field white unto the harvest" for benevolent exertions in the most secluded haunts of prostitution, if they could only be made accessible. Sympathy is worthily bestowed upon the sick or dying women transferred from public institutions to charitable organizations. To alleviate the sorrows of their final sufferings, to soothe the agony of the hour of death, to divest of its terrors the passage from this world to the dread future, is a work in which the heart of any Christian must rejoice. But it is only a part of the duties contemplated by such asylums. While their projectors gladly administer the consolations of our holy religion to an expiring Magdalen, they also seek an opportunity to direct erring women to the paths of virtue during the life that still remains to them; to guide them to a path in which they can retrace the false steps already taken, and become useful members of society. This opportunity for exertion is denied under the system which drives vice into seclusion.

Turning now from considering the operation of repressive laws, we notice the importance of sanitary and quarantine regulations. One of the first cares of a good government is to preserve and promote the public health. An illustration of this position occurred in the summer of 1856, when fears were entertained that the city would be visited by a frightful epidemic fever. The public voice declared through the newspapers that the most rigorous and careful sanitary measures were needed, and the cleaning of streets, the removal of nuisances, the purification of tenant-houses, and many other measures of the same kind, were loudly called for, and adopted as far as possible, while the quarantine regulations of the harbor were strictly enforced. In view of this danger, so dreadful and apparently so imminent, the united voice of public opinion sanctioned the very course advocated here; namely, the adoption of remedial, or, more properly speaking, preventive measures. Venereal poison is as destructive, although not so suddenly fatal, as yellow fever, and every motive of philanthropy and economy urges the necessity of effective means for its counteraction.

Since remedial or preventive measures have been adopted in Paris the number of cases of disease and the virulence of its form have materially abated. This fact is asserted not merely on our own personal knowledge, but also from the corroborative testimony of physicians who have had recent opportunities of investigating the subject in that capital. The diminution can be easily explained by a comparison of the laws and regulations applicable to prostitution. We in New York, by our stringent prohibition, drive the vice into seclusion, and deprive ourselves of the means of watching either its progress or results; while our French contemporaries insist that it shall be at all times open to the _surveillance_ of properly appointed persons.

The extent of syphilitic infection in New York has been portrayed in the preceding chapter, but the danger of contamination must not be viewed as a merely local question. From its commercial importance, its mercantile marine, its centralization of rail-roads and canals, and its facilities for river navigation, this city is now the great point of arrival and departure of travelers and emigrants from and to all parts of the Union. Foreigners reach here in large numbers every day, intending to travel to other states. If they remain in the city a few days only, they are exposed to its temptations, and may contract disease which, by their agency, will be perpetuated in the district they have selected as their future home. Returned adventurers from the Pacific shores come here to find the readiest transit to their several destinations. They are exposed to the same temptations, with a probability of the same result. Merchants and store-keepers visit this commercial emporium to obtain supplies of goods, and they are exposed to the same fascinations and the same contingencies. The sailors in port are similarly liable. In short, it is scarcely possible to imagine the extent over which the syphilitic poison originating in the proud and wealthy city of New York may be spread, nor would it be an error to describe the Empire City as a hot-bed where, from the nature of its laws on prostitution, syphilis may be cultivated and disseminated.

Possessed, then, of indubitable proofs of the existence of syphilis, and the knowledge that its range is more widely extended every day, gathering additional malignity in its progress, the next point is to inquire what measures have been adopted to check its ravages. These have hitherto been found totally inadequate, because based upon an erroneous theory, namely, the idea of suppression. The principal public or free hospital where the venereal disease is _confessedly_ treated is the Penitentiary Hospital on Blackwell's Island, now known as the Island Hospital. To obtain the benefit of medical treatment therein, it is necessary that the patient should have been sentenced from the Court of Sessions to the Penitentiary for the commission of some crime; or committed to the Work-house by a police justice for vagrancy, drunkenness, or disorderly conduct. From this fact it will be seen that there is, strictly speaking, no "free" hospital for such diseases, as the only one intended for their treatment will or can receive none but those sentenced for an infraction of the laws.

Still the necessity for professional assistance compels many, both males and females, to submit to the degradation of a police commitment. Unfortunate women, or laboring men, find that they are suffering from infection. Possibly they have no money, or probably they have exhausted their funds in payments to charlatans, and so resort for aid and advice to some one of the public dispensaries. Unless the case is a slight one, the medical officers there advise them to resort to hospital treatment, to procure which the poor sufferers are furnished with a certificate of their state, and directed to apply to a police justice. They follow this advice, and in nine cases out of ten the magistrate's only remark is, "Do you want me to send you to the Hospital?" The answer, of course, is in the affirmative, and he forthwith signs a printed commitment to the Penitentiary or Work-house for a time named therein, and ranging from one to six months at the discretion of the magistrate. The following is a copy of one of these documents:

"_City and County of New York, ss._

"_By_ ------ ------, ESQUIRE, one of the Police Justices in and for the City and County of New York.

"To the Constables and Policemen of the said City, and every of them, and to the Warden of the Penitentiary of the City and County of New York:

"THESE ARE IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, to command you, the said Constables and Policemen, to convey to the said PENITENTIARY the body of ------ ------, who stands charged before me with being a VAGRANT, viz., being without the means of supporting ----self, and having contracted an INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN THE PRACTICE OF DEBAUCHERY, viz., the venereal disease, requiring charitable aid to restore ---- to health, whereof --he is convicted of record on confession, the record of which conviction has been made and filed in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Sessions of the City and County aforesaid, and it appearing to me that the said ------ ------ is an improper person to be sent to the Alms-house, you, the said Warden, are hereby commanded to receive into your custody, in the said PENITENTIARY, the body of the said ------ ------, and ----safely keep for the space of ------ month--, or until --he shall be thence delivered by due course of law.

"Given under my hand and seal, this ---- day of ------, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty----.

"------ ------, Police Justice."

This is technically called a commitment "on confession," and its effects are precisely the same as they would be if the individual had been convicted of any tangible act of vagrancy. He is in law and in fact a prisoner for the space of time named in the commitment; he must wear the prison garb, and submit to the prison discipline, until the expiration of his sentence. It is well known to the justices that a penal commitment like the above will immediately secure the sufferer the medical attention his case requires, but they have no power to send any one direct to the Hospital.

And here an inquiry will naturally suggest itself, What does, or what should a magistrate know about committing a sick person, and how can he decide the time such invalid shall remain under treatment? A self-evident conclusion will be that the whole process is an absurd one at the best, and its requirements a hardship on magistrates already overburdened with legitimate duties.

The reader's attention is requested to the pecuniary effects of this plan. To illustrate: Suppose the case of a man committed for six months. He is suffering from some form of venereal disease, and in this state is received at the Penitentiary or Work-house, where his clothes are taken from him, the institution costume supplied, and the particulars of his name, age, nativity, occupation, etc., are registered with an abstract of the commitment by virtue of which he is detained. He is then subjected to medical examination and transferred to the Hospital. In this institution he remains until cured, if that end is attained before the expiration of his sentence, and is then re-transferred to the Penitentiary or Work-house. The average time required for the successful treatment of the disease named, in the Blackwell's Island Hospital, will not probably exceed _two_ months, and often a much shorter period is sufficient. But the man has been committed for _six_ months, and for the unexpired _four_ months of his incarceration he has to be fed, clothed, and lodged at the expense of the Alms-house Department. The labor he can perform will never amount in value to the actual cost of his support, so that he is maintained four months _in accordance with law_ at a positive cost to the tax-payers of the city, because they have already supported him for two months in the Hospital. In the aggregate of cases during a year these costs amount to a very large sum. Need any farther argument be adduced to show the palpable absurdity of the system?

A few words upon the moral effect of this local system upon prostitution in New York, premising that being a prostitute is acknowledged by all as a degradation; while a vagrancy commitment to the Work-house or Penitentiary is a positive disgrace. The system is a portion of the crushing-out plan already mentioned, and it says, in effect, "We (the people of New York City) will give you an opportunity to be cured of your loathsome and destructive malady, but only upon the condition that you become the inmate of a penal institution. We know that you can not be cured unless you accept our terms, and we will make those terms as hard and repulsive to human nature as ingenuity can devise." It has been a medical axiom that no two poisons can exist in the system at one and the same time; but the citizens of New York have been experimenting for some years to ascertain whether two moral poisons can not be coexistent in the same person, by adding farther and unnecessary disgrace to the vice of prostitution--thus widening the gulf between the sinner and her possible return to virtue.

The impolicy of making syphilis a reason for imprisonment, except so far as curative measures actually require it, must be apparent to all, were it merely from the fact that it deters many who are suffering from embracing the opportunity of cure until they are absolutely compelled to do so. How excessively wrong is this principle in a hygienic point of view must be evident; a directly contrary course, making the hospital attractive instead of repulsive, would be the true policy, and would be the most economical in its results. Nor is it justice to the medical departments of our public institutions to clog their labors with a proviso which prevents their aid being sought until the last extremity, when it can only exert a palliative and not a curative agency. If syphilis could be reached in its primary stages, their task would be much less difficult and their services much more effectual; whereas little or nothing can be accomplished when official regulations keep away the patients until the disease becomes constitutional, and the mischief is done. As in morals, so is it in medicine. Any evil, to be treated with success, must be encountered in its first stage, and if our regulations preclude this opportunity, but slight hopes can be entertained of any good results. Under a more liberal system, the physician and the philanthropist could combine their efforts. The former would not have to encounter disease inveterately fixed on a broken-down constitution; the latter would not find his benevolent designs frustrated by a lengthened career of depravity now become habitual.

The effect of the provision which offers medical aid to prisoners only is, that every woman of the town will try all possible means to dispense with the treatment. It is only when she has actually fallen to the lowest deep of her class, when one step more will plunge her into a bottomless abyss of helpless and hopeless woe, that she will voluntarily accept the proffered aid. She will endure torture from her maladies, or rely upon the assistance of empirics, and submit to all their extortions, rather than become a prisoner. But when every resource is exhausted, and her physical torments plainly tell her that she must obtain medical relief or die, then she submits. Once in the hospital, she is relieved, after a period of protracted sickness, and leaves it to return to her old haunts, because she can go nowhere else, the law having affixed the additional disgrace of imprisonment upon her former bad character. Sociality is a characteristic of human nature, and if these women can not gain admission to any company but that of the vicious and abandoned, they prefer that to solitude. Returned once more to her former associates, the time soon comes when farther medical assistance is needed, and thus she alternates for a few months or years between prison, hospital, and brothel, till death puts an end to her sufferings, and a nameless grave in Potters' Field receives the remains of one whom charitable measures, properly applied, might possibly have made a useful member of society.

The sense of shame which follows a single deviation from the paths of virtue drives many women to prostitution. Why add to the existing sense of shame another infamy when she unfortunately contracts disease? Can we consistently blame her if she becomes callous, when every legal provision directly tends to indurate her sensibilities? The misconduct of parents toward children has been shown as one of the causes of prostitution. The father or mother drives from the paternal roof the child who has committed but a single error. Then, under the pressure of hunger, she inevitably sins more deeply, becomes diseased, applies to the public for relief, and is sentenced to imprisonment! The first mistake, that of the parents, makes her vicious: the second mistake, incarceration, confirms her in vice. We denounce such ill-treatment in the parents, while practically we ourselves, as the natural guardians of all who need assistance, are doing precisely the same thing. Where, then, is our consistency? If it is right for us, a body corporate, to practice such cruel oppression, is it not equally justifiable for each member of the body to act in the same manner in his individual capacity? Of course, what is right for the multitude must be right for the individual, and our own conduct convicts us of inconsistency. We have no warrant to condemn parents for single acts which we perform collectively; or, if we are right in censuring them, we are wrong in performing the same acts ourselves: if they are reprehensible, we also are culpable.

This system, with all its absurdity, its prejudicial effect on public health, and its obvious tendency to immorality, is not adequate to stay the destroying scourge; on the contrary, it is likely to extend its ravages. If a prostitute, arrested and committed to Blackwell's Island for drunkenness or any disorderly conduct, is found to be diseased, or if she commits herself knowing that she is infected, she is immediately placed under medical charge. She will probably remain contentedly in the hospital until the worst symptoms of the disease are subdued: by this time the discipline of the institution has become irksome to her. She communicates with the brothel-keeper with whom she formerly boarded, or with some "lover" or acquaintance, who sues out a writ of _certiorari_ or _habeas corpus_, which instantly effects her discharge. She now returns to her former haunts, half-cured, again to aid in disseminating disease, farther to undermine her own constitution, and to infect men who will in turn become a charge upon the tax-payers, or by their agency cause others to become thus liable. The instance of wholesale release mentioned in the previous chapter will recur to the mind of the reader.

The experience of almost every day confirms these statements. It is well known that there are those who hang around the various police courts expressly to attend to such business, and who make a large income from this source, exclusive of other matters pertaining to prostitution in which they occasionally exert their abilities. The vagrancy commitments by which women are "sent up" are generally insufficient, and there is no legal power to detain them, and force them to submit to the treatment they so much require. It has been asserted by legal men of high standing that nearly the whole of the commitments issued by police justices are defective, and that there exists in law no impediment to the immediate discharge of every prostitute now on Blackwell's Island. The public can readily perceive the necessary inefficiency of these institutions so far as the prevention of venereal disease is concerned.

The facility with which prostitutes committed to Blackwell's Island can obtain their discharge may be attributed to want of care in making out the commitments. A recent statute (1854) prescribes the form in which these should be made, requiring the recital of admitted or substantiated facts, and the filing of a copy of the original in the office of the clerk of the Court of Sessions. These requirements are not observed, and the reason assigned by magistrates is, that their own time, and the time of their clerks, is so fully occupied by the press of business before them that they can not proceed as minutely as the act directs. This confirms the view already expressed of the impolicy and impropriety of placing such onerous and extra-judicial duties upon the justices. But as they would be liable to be sued for false imprisonment if they committed under this act without observing all its requirements, they issue their commitments in the old form required by the Revised Statutes, and are sheltered thereby from ulterior consequences. These commitments direct the persons to be confined in the Penitentiary, but the local arrangements of Blackwell's Island require them to be sent to the Work-house, and unless this transfer is actually made in each case by the Governors of the Alms-house--for they can not deputize their power--it is a _waiver_ of the right of custody, and consequently entitles the prisoner so transferred to a discharge. It has been claimed that the Work-house is a part of the Penitentiary, but this point has been overruled, because the statute establishing the Work-house plainly shows a contrary intent.

A prisoner is entitled to a discharge on another ground, namely, because the commitment has not been filed as directed; or, on another ground, that the commitment does not recite the evidence by which the fact of vagrancy was proved. A final ground of discharge, which is never pressed till all the minor technicalities have failed, is that the whole proceeding is illegal because the statute of 1854 has not been complied with.

On these grounds a writ of _certiorari_ or _habeas corpus_ is sued out, the preliminary steps being a petition from the prisoner or his friend, setting forth that he is illegally detained, an affidavit of verification, and a certificate of the clerk of the Court of Sessions that the commitment has not been filed in his office. Upon the presentation of these documents, the judge to whom application is made issues the required writ, and specifies the time at which it shall be returnable. The action of the two writs is similar, excepting that a writ of _habeas corpus_ requires the production of the prisoner before the judge in addition to a return of the cause of detention, while a writ of _certiorari_ only requires a return of the cause of detention. The return is made by the person having custody of the prisoner, and consists of a copy of the commitment under which he is held; and, from the already-stated informality of these documents, it will be apparent there can be no legal ground for his detention. The judge is strictly prohibited from entertaining any question beyond the legality of the papers; with the moral aspect of the question he can not interfere, and as the commitments are generally informal he has no alternative but to discharge the prisoner.

Application for these writs must be made in the name of an attorney, but such name is often used by an agent who transacts the business, and divides the fee with his principal.

From this sketch it will be evident that, if the prescribed form were observed in these commitments, frequent discharges would be avoided, or there would be so many difficulties to surmount that they would be very rarely attempted.

Does no responsibility rest upon the public, and on our law-makers, for negligence in this matter? Without conceding that a vagrancy commitment is likely to reform a prostitute (in fact, the weight of evidence is against the possibility of its doing so), the case stands thus: the Legislature has provided a mode of relief which was deemed effectual at the time, but this mode is evaded, or can not be observed, by those upon whom its administration devolves. The public have long known the existence of these difficulties, but have never interfered to give us a better act. By their refusal to interfere they stand in the position of aiders and abettors in this neglect, or, worse than neglect, the actual propagation of a dreadful disease. Had public opinion been concentrated upon this matter, an inquiry would long ago have shown the fallacy of our present system, and suggested the required amendments. This has not been done; but public remissness in no way diminishes public responsibility.

This doctrine of public accountability may be profitably examined for a few moments in connection with the general aspect of prostitution. Few will deny that the mass of the people are answerable for many of its evils. They are cognizant of the existence of vice in the aggregate, if not in detail; they can understand its effects, and are not ignorant of the principal causes which lead to it; yet they make no effort to remove existing causes or to prevent future evils. They practically treat women as an inferior race of beings, and can not even give a poor seamstress employment without saying, in fact if not in words, "You can not be trusted to make this unless a man examines every button hole, and inspects every row of stitching, to see that you are not defrauding us." The only way to secure confidence is to bestow confidence; but if a person is treated in a manner likely to destroy self-respect, the inevitable result will be a recklessness as to his or her own character. Despised without a cause; treated in mere business matters as imbeciles, or children, or thieves, it is not surprising that women become careless as to their future life, and, smarting under the injustice of their position, too frequently degenerate into the wretched beings who infest our streets and pollute the atmosphere with their deadly infection.

The public, then, are responsible for this prostitution, because they have never bestowed any attention upon it. It is one of the gravest and most difficult of social problems, involving the interests of every man in the community, and yet the most stupid indifference has been shown respecting it. The subject has been canvassed by medical men on account of its sad effects upon the physical organization; its extent has been known to judicial and police authorities from its social and civil results; but the great body of the public have hitherto decided that they know nothing, and want to know nothing about it. They admit its existence, being too evident to be denied; but so far they have taken no steps to ascertain its source or stay its progress, because it was a matter with which they were afraid to interfere, and now the deplorable consequences accruing from it must be laid to their charge.

It can not be denied that there are many difficulties attending any investigation of this vice; that many well-meaning but timid people entertain the opinion that it is one of those gangrenous ulcers upon society which can not be alluded to except in whispers; that more harm would result from instituting inquiries than if it were allowed to exist and fester on unnoticed.[429] This apathy, which has heretofore been the policy, has made prostitution the monster evil which it now is, and upon those who have advocated, or may advocate, a continuance of the same course of silence and inaction the sufferers from the vice may justly charge their destruction. The "masterly inactivity" of the statesman is unquestionably justifiable in any case where passive resistance will overcome an evil, but in dealing with prostitution a diametrically opposite method must be pursued. It requires an active aggression upon all old prejudices; an explosion of still older theories; a vigorous commencement of a new course.

It has been shown elsewhere that the public are responsible for prostitution, because they persist in excluding women from many kinds of employment for which they are fitted; while for work in those occupations which are open to them they receive an entirely inadequate remuneration. It has also been shown that the community are equally responsible on account of their non-interference with known and acknowledged evils. Another reason why accountability can not be evaded may be designated; namely, the carelessness, or, more properly, heartlessness, with which the character of woman is treated. Let there be but a breath of suspicion against her fair fame, no matter from what vile source it may emanate, and the energies of man seem directed toward her destruction. "She is down, keep her down!" is the almost universal cry, and this malignant process is continued until the victim is positively forced into a life of undisguised immorality. The sacred decision, "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone," is entirely forgotten, and the most violent in their denunciations are frequently those who are the most blameworthy themselves.

The whole force of the world's opinion has been directed, not to the censure of actually guilty parties who induced the crime, but to the poor wronged sufferer. She, who is too frequently the victim of falsehood and deceit, or the slave of an absolute necessity, must expiate her fault by submitting to a constant succession of indignities and annoyances. He, whose conduct has made her what she is, escapes all censure. But some moralist will ask, "How would you have us treat such women?" Treat them, sir, as human beings, actuated by the same passions as yourself; as susceptible beings, keenly sensitive of reproach; as injured beings, who have a claim upon your kindness; as outraged beings, who have a demand upon your justice. Lead them into a path by which they can escape from danger; protect the innocent from the snares which environ them on every side. And when this is done, pour the vials of your hottest wrath on those of your own sex whose machinations have blighted some of God's fairest created beings.

Public responsibility must be understood in its broadest and most literal sense, as meaning the individual accountability of every member of the community. The time has not yet arrived, unfortunately, when this matter can be left in the hands of corporations or legislatures. Their constituents must be aroused to consideration of its importance before any satisfactory action can or will be taken by them; and it is to the thinking men of the age that these pages are addressed, in the full confidence that so soon as their sympathies are enlisted public action will follow.

To this end an endeavor has been made to show the injurious effects of prohibition, disappointing expectation as a means of decreasing syphilis, or of curtailing the limits of prostitution; the necessity which exists for effectual preventive measures; and the inefficient, or worse than inefficient, nature of the local arrangements of New York to accomplish this desideratum. Thus the way for a consideration of the remedial process has been opened, and now with such evidence as he has before him the reader may be asked, in all sincerity, if he does not seriously believe that _it would be a prudent step, instead of trying to extirpate the evil, to place prostitutes and prostitution under the surveillance of a medical bureau in the Police Department_? Extirpation never has been, never can be accomplished in any community; repression and restriction, as proposed, have been tried and have proved successful.

Assuming an affirmative answer to this question, and it is difficult to imagine it otherwise if the facts are dispassionately considered, attention is respectfully requested to the manner in which the change could be effected.

To meet the exigencies of the case there are required

(1.) A suitable hospital for the treatment of venereal disease;

(2.) A legally authorized medical visitation of all known houses of prostitution, with full power to order the immediate removal of any woman found to be infected to the designated hospital;

(3.) The power to detain infected persons under treatment until they are cured, a term of time which none but medical men can decide.

By a suitable hospital is meant an institution devoted to the treatment of such diseases, like the special hospitals of Paris and other Continental cities, and entirely removed from all connection with any punitive establishment. The rules proposed for the government of the Island Hospital, when its name was changed from Penitentiary Hospital, do not, by any means, meet the urgent requirements of the case. The Penitentiary, its officers and inmates, must be entirely shut out from the desired hospital, and no prison-warden or keeper of criminals must have any jurisdiction within its walls or over its grounds. Inmates of hospitals have too long endured the stupid interference of non-medical men, and it is time that medical law exclusively was considered in the direction and management of buildings devoted to medical purposes. This is especially necessary in a syphilitic hospital, on account of the character of its patients. _No amount of imprisonment as a punishment ever yet reformed a prostitute, and it never will; all intercourse with prisoners, be it ever so transient, has but confirmed women in vice._

The tendency of imprisonment is directly contrary to any reformation, confirming previous habits instead of rooting them out. The instinctive dread of incarceration has prevented many from availing themselves of the medical advantages offered them, particularly among the better and higher grades of frail women. We want a hospital exclusively for the treatment of syphilis, with the power to place and keep there all women so diseased until cured. Matters of detail can be arranged in such a manner as to admit of a proper classification, based upon the degree of moral turpitude belonging to each. Payment could and should be required from all who possess the means, for expenses actually incurred, and this would contribute a considerable sum to meet the expenditures of the institution. Among these women, as a body, there exists an excessive amount of pride. Those of the upper class will not associate with any of a lower rank, and, in fact, look upon them in very much the same manner that moralists regard the whole body. To be enabled to reach them at all, a liberal management must be adopted. But will not this be deferring to vice because it is dressed in silks or satins? asks some one. Most decidedly not. Let the arrangements be what they might, such a hospital as described would afford no encouragement to vice, for in it all must submit to the same course of treatment, varied only in the minor accessories which surround it.

Even if the arrangements were exposed to an objection like the above, the end would justify the means. The city of New York contains, at this day, venereal infection sufficient to contaminate all the male population of the United States in a very short space of time. It has been proved from official and medical statistics that this malady is rapidly on the increase, and a paramount question is, how to be relieved of the incubus. Rigorous prohibitory measures will not effect this; they only make the matter worse. Punitive hospitals will not effect this; they have been tried and found wanting. Free institutions would, in all probability, succeed in accomplishing far more than any other measure our citizens have ever tried. The question is one, if not absolutely of life, certainly of healthy existence, and its inestimable importance must over-ride all doubts and difficulties. In view of the dangers surrounding our rising generation, even supposing the men and women of the present day exempt from them, it would be perfectly inexcusable to refuse any available plan because some one of its features might not please all tastes. Adopt an arrangement similar to that suggested, and if any crudities are discovered they can be readily cured as experience points them out. The plan is not presented as a perfect one, but merely as an outline sketch of what is necessary.

A regular medical visitation of all prostitutes is an essential part of the scheme, and its organization should be a matter of serious consideration. The Parisian plan already submitted might form a very good basis; and an arrangement which throws the whole system of prostitution open to an effective police supervision, and the establishment of a medical bureau in connection therewith for professional purposes, is suggested as most desirable. This medical visitation, conducted by physicians to be connected with the Police Department, and sustained by the power of that body, should be confided to men of recognized skill and known integrity. To insure public confidence, so essentially necessary in the inception of any social innovation, it would be necessary that the agents upon whom its execution devolved should be men of tried probity and acknowledged reputation, both professional and personal. The slightest symptom of disease should be sufficient evidence to warrant the immediate removal of any woman to the syphilitic hospital. The residence of any woman, be it temporary or permanent, in a known house of prostitution must subject her to a medical examination, as it would afford a very strong presumption that she was there for immoral purposes.

The propriety of a medical examination of prostitutes at certain intervals can not be doubted, and, in fact, it is practically admitted at the present time by some few of the brothel-keepers in the city. These pay a physician a liberal salary to visit their boarders every few days for the express purpose of carrying out the plan suggested now; resorting to treatment whenever he finds it necessary. Some of the most aristocratic houses of prostitution are thus attended, but the system is in use more especially among those natives of Continental Europe who are now keeping houses of ill fame in New York, and who, in bringing to the New World many of the customs of the old, have thus testified to the benefit of the regulations enforced there.

But although such visiting physician may pronounce a girl infected, the world has no security that she will not continue her avocation; and in order to remove all doubt upon this question she should be instantly removed to an institution where she can not possibly propagate the malady. This must be done under conjoint medical and police authority. Among prostitutes of the lower grades systematic visitation is more imperatively necessary. They will not place themselves under medical treatment unless they are compelled, but until their disease assumes a character that prevents the possibility of farther concealment from their visitors, they continue to ply their loathsome and destructive trade. The summit of ambition with them is to keep their liberty; so long as they can earn enough to provide themselves a shelter, and feed their ravenous appetite for intoxicating liquor, they are content to submit to the pains and ravages of syphilis, alike heedless of their own sufferings and the injuries they inflict on others. We have had cases under our own professional treatment where women have actually persevered in this course for many weeks after they had become aware they were diseased, solely for the reasons indicated.

It may be objected that such a plan would offer a premium to lewdness by circumscribing the dangers of infection; but this argument can have little weight, as it is scarcely possible that promiscuous sexual intercourse can be carried on much more extensively than it is at present. The vice seems to have reached its culminating point. Experience proves that in all ages of the world there have been many men whose passions were so violent and so ill regulated that they would attain their gratification at any risk, even though that risk included the probability of venereal infection. As in games of hazard every player hopes to be a winner, so in carnal indulgences every man flatters himself that, because some gratify their lusts unscathed for a long series of years, so may he; that as hitherto he has escaped disease in his unhallowed amours, he may continue equally fortunate to the end of his career. This is confessedly a poor dependence, but it is the reliance of hundreds and thousands of the followers of her whose "house is the way to hell."

Diseases of a syphilitic nature are viewed by some persons as special punishments for special sins, and hence they argue that it would be an interference with the order of Providence to attempt to eradicate them. The discussion of a theological question would be altogether out of place in these pages, but the supposition may be met by a parallel case. Delirium tremens is the result of an excessive use of intoxicating liquors, and may justly be considered a special punishment for that offense; but did any body ever know a case in which those who object to the treatment of syphilis extended a single obstacle to the case of a drunkard? If it is right to adopt curative measures in one case, why exclude them in the other? But even supposing that the treatment of syphilis is open to this objection so far as the guilty parties are concerned, shall their descendants be involved in suffering because the parents sinned? If a rigorous medical examination offers additional inducements to prostitution by reducing the probabilities of disease, it also guarantees that helpless wives and unborn children shall not be included in its list of victims. Go to the thousands of married women now childless or suffering from abortion; ask their opinion. Go to the thousands of disappointed husbands whose hopes of offspring have been blighted in consequence of their own youthful dissipation; ask their opinion, and see what the answers would be. Go and ask the diseased children on Randall's Island, and in their emaciated frames read their testimony. The evidence thus obtained would prove unanswerable arguments in favor of the plan proposed.

It can not be imagined that forcing diseased women to submit to a specific routine of treatment in a special hospital involves any undue interference with their personal liberty. The right to commit a wrong, be it social, moral, or physical, never can exist; the slightest reflection upon such a proposition will at once prove it untenable. The spread of venereal disease is a positive wrong, and, therefore, a woman who is suffering from it, and is certain or likely to propagate it, is as legitimate an object for compulsory treatment as would be a maniac whom we should find roaming through the streets of the city, or a person afflicted with small-pox, yellow fever, or any other contagious or infectious malady. If either of these cases were to come before any member of the community, he would not for one moment regard it an infringement of personal liberty to place the subject under proper care and restraint. On the contrary, he would think of the danger to which he and his family were exposed, and, flinging theory to the winds, would immediately urge prompt and practical measures. This is all that is asked respecting prostitution. Let the public be once thoroughly convinced of the extent and danger of syphilitic infection, and there would be but few objectors to these suggestions. Among that few, the principal portion doubtless would be the advertising empirics whose disgusting announcements occupy so much space in the columns of our daily journals. That they derive a large income from this source is indisputable, and it is equally certain that if the recommendations now made were adopted they would find their "occupation gone." Speaking in all candor, the health, decency, and good morals of the city would be better cared for in their absence than it now is, with all the combinations of their "extraordinary success," "unequaled experience," and "unparalleled facilities." In a financial view, the money they extort (we refrain from using a harsher term) from their credulous patients could be far better applied than in contributing to their wealth.

Farther: Such an institution and organization as has been described would be useless did it not possess the absolute power to retain every patient under treatment until cured. Whatever modification of principle or mode of action may be ultimately adopted (and, sooner or later, _something must be done_), this is an indispensable requisite. One half the danger of venereal infection arises from imperfectly cured cases. Under the existing system, as already explained, writs can be issued at an almost nominal cost to remove any, or all of the prostitutes now under medical treatment on Blackwell's Island; and such an abuse of a valuable privilege on account of mere technical errors must be fatal to the success of any remedial project. It would be as reasonable for a lawyer to petition the courts to order a vessel detained in Quarantine by the Board of Health because she was infected with yellow fever to be brought to her wharf in this city, and there to have permission to disseminate the disease on board, as it is for the same individual to apply for a writ of _certiorari_, the effect of which is to take an abandoned woman reeking with disease from an institution where she is under treatment, and allow her to extend the venereal poison to every one who may have intercourse with her. This must not be understood as indicating a wish to curtail the constitutional privileges attached to writs of _habeas corpus_ or _certiorari_, but merely their applicability to cases like the supposed one. How can the evil be prevented? Simply by making any legislative enactment on the subject so plain that it can not be misunderstood or evaded. No lawyer would find any difficulty in drafting a short act giving the Police Department the power, based upon an affidavit made by a member of their own medical bureau, to remove any diseased woman to a proper hospital, and _retain her there until cured_.

It may appear to a casual observer that this detention would be of the same nature as the imprisonment required by the existing mode, but a little thought will point out a wide difference. Now, we force a woman to become an inmate of a penitentiary, and add disgrace to her disease by assuming her to have been guilty of crime. Then, we should require her to become an inmate of the Hospital, with no additional disgrace but that arising from the fact that she had contracted syphilis by vicious habits. In the one case, we make her the companion of some of the vilest wretches on the face of the earth; in the other, she would have no associates but those of her own class.

The Medical Bureau to whom these reforms should be intrusted, although connected with the Police Department, would require to be an independent body so far as professional duties are concerned. Its connection would be necessary, because there would be many cases requiring the intervention of the civil power; and its isolation would be equally important, because much would depend on the discretion of the examiners, and many contingencies might arise where a strict line of routine duty would defeat the object in view. They would be literally a "detective corps," and with a known amount of duty before them must be left to choose their own method of performing it. Any definite arrangements or positive orders from a non-medical board would only embarrass their action, for medical and non-medical executives always clash when they aim at one common object.

Of course a leading requirement in their instructions must be that their examinations be rigid and thorough. No half-way measures in this respect could meet the absolute demands of the case, or satisfy the expectations of the community. It must be plainly understood by the world that the Medical Bureau was required to perform its whole duty, uncompromisingly and fearlessly; and that its members were men who would not evade the responsibility. In their investigations many cases would occur where their services would be valuable to society, beyond the pale of professional duty. It is not to be expected that they would become evangelists, but they could be the willing and efficient coadjutors of those who delight to bear the Gospel to these poor degraded beings; and even while listening to a recital of bodily sufferings, instances would arise where the acts of the good Samaritan would be required at their hands. They would be the depositaries of many a narrative of wrong and outrage, of sorrow and suffering, and it is not unreasonable to believe that of the histories poured into their ears some would indicate a channel by which the lost one might be restored to home and friends and virtue, or point to some chord in the mind which would give a responsive sound when touched by the hand of pity.[430]

The adoption of these suggestions would be, at least, a step in the right direction, and lay the foundation of a system which can be gradually enlarged until it embraces regulations as to registry, management of houses of ill fame, etc., to the same extent as is now done in Europe.

And here a few words relative to the licensing system may not be inappropriate. The propriety of granting licenses, and thus making vice a sort of revenue, is open to grave objections, but on the other hand acknowledged social evils have, ere this, been made to contribute to the public funds. Witness the dealing in ardent spirits. The city does now, and has for years derived a considerable income from licenses to sell liquors. A great number of wise and good men contend that the sale or use of intoxicating beverages is not only an unmitigated evil, but even criminal; they have entertained and publicly declared these sentiments for years, but still the license system is continued. It may be a question for decision whether prostitution is not as liable for taxation as drunkenness, and if both were equally taxed whether, as a body, we should be more responsible for the results of one or the other. _En passant_, it may be noticed that an annual tax of one per cent. upon the property engaged in the business of prostitution, and a similar assessment upon the revenue of houses of ill fame, would amount to over one hundred thousand dollars.

The plan here shadowed forth would not be likely to extend prostitution, but on the contrary there is very little doubt but it would check it. Even if it did not, the community would reap an advantage in the sanitary reform it would enforce. In low neighborhoods many of the brothels are as dangerous to public health on account of their crowded and excessively filthy state, as are the syphilized inmates themselves. Such places would legitimately come within the province of the medical inspectors, and their reports thereon to the police executive would insure immediate attention.

Public morals would be advanced by such visitations. These houses, or a great number of them, are the resort of all species of dishonest characters who would unquestionably abandon them, at least as places of residence, if they knew they were at any moment liable to a domiciliary visit. Again, almost every person has in his remembrance some female who left home and could not be found, because securely secreted in some one of these houses of prostitution; at least it is not uncommon to read of such cases in the daily papers, accompanied with an account of the unsuccessful search of her friends and the police. Occurrences like this could not take place if all known houses of bad repute were under the _surveillance_ of the Medical Police Department.

Nor is it unreasonable to hope that prostitution would be diminished. It has flourished of late years in seclusion, but our plan would render privacy impossible. Seclusion has attracted many unfortunate women, whom shame, or a dread of exposure, would have deterred, had they known that houses of ill fame were always open to the visits of the police, or that every few days a physician would make a tour of inspection, and a personal examination, to which they must submit. Generally speaking, these women have a dread of falling into the hands of a doctor, and in present circumstances they know that a medical examination is optional with themselves, until they become so sick as to render it unavoidable. But if their miserable life were burdened with the additional annoyance of a compulsory medical treatment it is probable that a considerable check might be imposed thereon.

Public decency would be advanced by such visitations. To effectually perform their duties the Medical Bureau and the General Police Department would find it necessary to make themselves personally acquainted with these women, and to keep a register of all houses where prostitution was carried on. Now, the prohibition which has driven it into secrecy has also rendered it difficult to determine who are frail. Prostitutes are found in hotels, fashionable restaurants, steam-boat excursions, watering-places, and suburban retreats. They visit balls and other public entertainments; sometimes by sufferance, but more frequently because they are not known. It is needless to say how virtuous women can be annoyed and insulted by such companionship, or to what extent prostitutes can use their influence in miscellaneous society. If the police were personally acquainted with these women, they could act in the same manner as on the Continent of Europe, namely, touch them upon the shoulder and quietly give them a hint to leave. Or another reform could easily be introduced--the confinement of all prostitutes to particular localities in the city, so as to limit their influence. This would be tantamount to the ancient regulations prescribing their dress or some distinctive mark; and to the present arrangements in Europe, where the houses are distinguished by some specified peculiarity. It would also prevent the depreciation of property which takes place in any neighborhood where a brothel is established.

Public decency would be served in another manner. It is a most humiliating admission, that New York is fast approaching to the condition of certain foreign cities, where unnatural practices first led to the contemplation and adoption of these or similar remedial measures. In our case, _they are known to the authorities_, but are so revolting that they never have been, and never can be, made public. Of course, such an organization would take special cognizance of these detestable abominations.

Objections to the expense of the plan may be raised, and it can not be denied that it will be large, yet it will be a matter of economy to incur it, even at the risk of increasing taxation, which _it will not do_. Recollect that every year, as the virulence of syphilis was abated, the cause of the expense would diminish, and that in a direct ratio to the energy displayed in the examination would be the progressive reduction of expenditure. It has already been indicated how some of the inmates of a syphilitic hospital, from whom hitherto nothing has been received, could be made to contribute their quota of the cost. Now, the public bear all the expenses, either as assessments or as private payments in individual attacks. The magnitude of the latter item has been already estimated, and were it possible to calculate in addition the value of lost time, the injury to business, and the deterioration of the constitution, the total in one year would be far more than sufficient to carry out the whole of this plan for double the time.

It would also be economy to incur the outlay on account of the benefits to succeeding generations. Syphilis is not confined in its effects to the life-time of the men or women who contract it, but is entailed on their descendants. These, provided they survive its baneful effects during infancy, are mentally and physically unfitted for business or the active pursuits of life, and, consequently, are frequently indebted for the means of sustenance to their friends or to public institutions. If the liability to that disease among parents can be removed, no fears need be entertained about their children.

We are not so sanguine as to imagine that all the good effects above enumerated could be accomplished _instanter_. It would be a work of time, but the sooner it is commenced the better for all the interests involved. Many persons will say, "Oh! these evils do not concern us; these diseases will never injure us or ours; why should we trouble ourselves, and give our money, time, and attention to such matters?" Stop, reader! _While human passion exists, and while the means of gratifying it can be obtained, you and yours can and will, nay, do now suffer from it, directly or indirectly._ The first question for any citizen to ask himself is, Can prostitution be abolished; can it be crushed out? If this be answered in the negative, as it must be, then the next question brings him to the point sought to be attained in these pages, namely, the means that shall be taken to circumscribe and diminish its consequent diseases and evils.

This question has latterly been attracting some attention in England, and plans to mitigate the evil have been publicly discussed. The chief grounds of complaint, or at least those brought most prominently forward, were the assembling of prostitutes in the streets, the annoyance they caused to passengers, and the disorderly character of "night-houses." This term is applied in London to those public houses, supper-rooms, wine and cigar saloons, etc., which are situated near the theatres and places of public entertainment, and, being permitted to remain open all night, become resorts for prostitutes. A public meeting for consultation upon these evils was held in London in January last (1858), and the remarks made by some of the speakers are so much in accordance with the general tenor of this work as to be worth extracting. In justice to the writer it must be premised that the preceding part of this chapter was penned twelve months before the report of this meeting was made public.

The chairman observed "that he was glad to see so general an interest elicited on this subject, and that he hoped it would lead to some practical result. It would, in fact, be impossible to aggravate the evil, for neither in Paris, Berlin, New York, nor even in the cities of Asia, was there such a public exhibition of profligacy."

The following resolutions were submitted and adopted:

"_Resolved_, That a deputation do wait as early as possible upon Sir George Grey, for the purpose of most respectfully but earnestly representing to her majesty's government the necessity of effectual measures being taken to put down the open exhibition of street prostitution, which in various parts of the metropolis, particularly in the important thoroughfares of the Haymarket, Coventry Street, Regent Street, Portland Place, and other adjacent localities, is carried on with a disregard of public decency and to an extent tolerated in no other capital or city of the civilized world.

"That such deputation be instructed to urge upon her majesty's government the following measures, whereby it is believed that the evil complained of may be effectually controlled:

"Firstly, the enforcement, upon a systematic plan and by means of a department of the police specially appointed and instructed for that purpose, of the provisions of the 2d and 3d of Victoria, cap. 47, in reference to street prostitution, which provisions have in certain localities been heretofore carried out with the best effect, and in others have been ineffectual only because acted upon partially, and not upon any uniform system.

"And, secondly, the passing an act for licensing and placing under proper regulations, as to supervision and hours of closing, all houses of entertainment, or for the supply of refreshments, intended to be opened to the public after a certain fixed hour, it being matter of public notoriety that the houses of this description popularly known as night-houses have, by becoming the places of resort of crowds of prostitutes and other idle and disorderly persons at all hours of the night, greatly contributed to the present disgraceful exhibition of street prostitution.

"That the attention of the government be also directed to the number of foreign prostitutes systematically imported into this country, and to the means of controlling this evil."

The substance of one of the addresses made on the subject was as follows:

The speaker "begged to remind the meeting that a change had already been effected through the action of the police in the aspect of the Haymarket and Regent Street, heretofore so much complained of. The sense that the public eye was upon their class had caused a corresponding amendment in the dress and demeanor of the females frequenting those streets; and the objects of this association were, so far, in good train. Strongly oppressive, or, as some delicately said, repressive measures could only be carried out by an extent of police interference inconsistent with the prejudices of English people, who were indisposed to deny a large extent of personal freedom to persons of even the most disorderly classes who had not absolutely forfeited their civil rights. If the association went the length of advocating that the act of prostitution should involve such forfeiture, and the entire riddance of London streets from the presence of prostitutes, they would soon find their hands over full. Unless they thought it possible to exterminate the vice altogether, they would find that its wholesale clearance from the streets would necessitate registration, licensing, and confinement in certain authorized quarters or streets, as prevailed abroad; but such restrictions would entail a more ample recognition and legalization than had hitherto obtained, and so ample, indeed, as to be very distasteful to what was called the religious public. It would be obviously unjust to exempt from pressure the lady-like prosperous harlot, while a miserable, vulgar, painted outcast was consignable, because she stood out from the picture somewhat broadly, to the police cell and the bridewell. The meeting must be aware that there was already abroad among the lower half million of Londoners an impression that the police was already strict enough--and that this opinion was shared by numbers of intelligent men, neither paupers nor criminals. They must remember that many a gentleman of character had passed a night in a police cell for interfering in the defense of prostitutes against the police. And this sentiment would deepen very dangerously if the police pressure were put on double, or, as some would have it, tenfold. The very policemen, too--men sprung from the same class of society as those female offenders--were as likely as any one else to be fainthearted in the work of relieving the eyes and ears of gentility from the presence of those whose situation they were not slow to trace to the schemes and desires of the genteel class. He did not think that the power of discrimination could be safely intrusted to the ill-paid constables of the Metropolitan Police, and the association of certain rate-payers with the police as witnesses, as hinted at by one of the delegates, would soon, if established, fall into desuetude. With the view of checking the evil in a satisfactory manner, he would recommend the institution of a special service of street orderlies or regulators in uniform, a well-paid, superior, temperate, and discreet class of men, if possible, whose functions should be to observe, not to spy upon all prostitutes, especially those of the street-walking order, and whose circulation, as opposed to loitering and haunting particular spots, they should insist upon. They should work, not by threats, but by entreaty, advice, suggestion; but in case of contumacy, should have the right to call in the regular force. He believed that the right of entry and inspection of all places of ill fame should be vested in the Home Secretary and his delegates, and this would be attained least oppressively by a proper system of licensing. Forced concentration would not be tolerated here; but concentration was valuable, as bringing immorality more under control. Parochial crusades, though _prima facie_ a public blessing, had often the effect of spreading corruption. It was recollected at Cambridge that when a certain proctor made very frequent descents upon the hamlet of Barnwall, where much of the parasitical vices of that University had taken root, the people in question, far from cure or conversion, merely extended their radius into more rural villages. These were so soon corrupted that representations were addressed to the University by the parochial clergy, praying that the plague of Barnwall should be confined to its old bounds, and not let loose upon their simpler parishes. It was notorious that the same kind of thing followed on a very large scale the expulsion of prostitutes from Brussels, and it could not be supposed that the attempt to strangle the growth of immorality by broadcasting its seeds, which was found impracticable under the powerful discipline of the English University and the Belgian capital, could answer among this enormous, and when roused, unmanageable population. The evicted of Norton Street, in the parish of All Souls, had settled quietly down in the next parish. Incompressible as water, the vice had but shifted its ground, and from a really moral point of view, more harm than good had accrued from the change."

These remarks do not call for any amplification. A few days after the meeting a leading article appeared in the London _Times_. It must be remembered that for many years the settled policy of the conductors of that journal has been to make it rather the exponent than the leader of public opinion, and the importance generally attached to it arises from a knowledge of this fact. We give the article almost entire.

"There is a very disagreeable subject which we are compelled to bring, although most reluctantly, before the notice of the public, because it has become necessary to bring public opinion to bear upon it. Many clergymen and gentlemen are now associating themselves together for the purpose of dealing in some degree with the notorious evil of street prostitution. It is our earnest desire to give them all the support in our power, so long as they confine themselves to reasonable measures of discouragement and repression. Let us not nourish any visionary expectations; it would be simply idle to suppose that the evil against which we are now directing our efforts, can be put down by the strong hand of power. It is with moral as with physical disease--there is no use in looking for an entirely satisfactory result from the treatment of symptoms; there may be alleviation, there may be diminution of the disorder, but there will be no perfect cure. _Whatever tends to raise the standard of public morality will also tend to diminish prostitution._ In such a case we are dealing with two parties: the tempter, let us say, and the tempted; with the man and with the woman. It is probably with the first of the two that we should principally concern ourselves if we would bring about any serious result. It is on the sacred action of family life, with the thousand influences it brings to bear upon the minds and conduct of men, that we must chiefly depend if we would see any notable diminution in the numbers of those unfortunate creatures who now parade our streets. Let it be once understood that even among a man's fellows and associates immorality is a thing to be ashamed of, and at least we should get rid of the contagion of vice. Time was, and the time is not a very remote one, when a British gentleman--we speak of all three home divisions of the empire--would nightly stagger or be carried up to his bed fuddled, if not absolutely drunk. A man who should thus expose himself in our own days would be set down as a beast, and his society would be avoided by all who set store on their own good name. In this respect there has been a palpable improvement in the manners of the age. Surely public opinion can be brought to bear against one vice as well as another. The time may come when a man may shrink from presenting himself in the sacred circle of his mother, his sisters, and his other female relatives, reeking from secret immorality. Conscience can turn on a bull's eye as well as a policeman, and the culprit may stand self-convicted, although no one has been there to convict him save himself.

"The influences, however, of which we speak are of slow growth, and can not be much quickened by the hand of power. It has become necessary to deal at once with certain results. Now we say it with much shame, that in no capital city of Europe is there daily and nightly such a shameless display of prostitution as in London. At Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin, as every one knows, there is plenty of vice; but, at least, it is not allowed to parade the streets, to tempt the weak, to offend and disgust all rightly-thinking persons. If any one would see the evil of which we speak in its full development, let him pass along the Haymarket and its neighborhood at night, when the night-houses and the oyster-shops are open. It is not an easy matter to make your way along without molestation. In Regent Street, in the Strand, in Fleet Street, the same nuisance, but in a less degree, prevails. Now we are well aware that, if all the unfortunate creatures who parade these localities were swept away to-morrow, if the night-houses and oyster-shops were closed by the police, we should not have really suppressed immorality. We should, however, have removed the evil from the sight of those who are disgusted and annoyed by its display; and, still more, we should have removed it from the sight of those who, probably, had they not been tempted by the sight of these opportunities, would not have fallen.

"Now, as one practical measure for the discouragement of prostitution, all these night-houses and others might be placed under the surveillance of the police. Licenses for opening them and keeping them open might be given only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees of their respectability. They might be compelled to close at certain hours; in point of fact, the community could tolerate well-nigh any degree of inconvenience inflicted upon their frequenters. In two other analogous cases similar evils have been dealt with in this way, and with the happiest results: we speak of gaming-houses and betting-offices. It is quite certain that persons who are firmly resolved to play and to bet will effect their purpose even now, but at least the sum of the evils resulting from these two vices has been greatly diminished since the community has resolved to withdraw from them its recognition. England should not grant her _exequatur_ to prostitution. This is one thing which might be tried; another would be to give increased force to clauses which, as we believe, already exist in police acts, by which the police are empowered to stop the solicitation and gathering together of prostitutes in the public streets. In such a case we must trample down definitions and exceptional cases with an elephant's foot, and go straight for results. The rule in all such cases is to give the power, and to leave it in the discretion of the authorities only to employ it on proper occasions. We have ample guarantees nowadays that such discretion can not be abused.

"Here, then, are two things which may be done without opening any visionary trenches. The police may be directed to deal with prostitutes as they do with mendicants, and the centres of pollution may be brought under proper regulation.

"We know well enough that in such a capital as London it is hopeless to expect that vice of this description can be expunged altogether from the catalogue of our national sins, but at least let as many difficulties as possible be thrown in its way. Again: the benevolent persons who have taken it in hand to deal with this monstrous evil assert that the introduction of foreign prostitutes, or, what is still worse, of girls yet uncontaminated, for the purposes of prostitution, might be discouraged much more than it is, perhaps well-nigh totally prevented. Undoubtedly England does not desire free trade in prostitution. Preventive measures upon this subject are surrounded with difficulties; but that is no reason for despair, but one for additional exertion. Very numerous and influential meetings have been held upon this subject, and we augur well of their success. There was no display of ultra-Puritanic rigor, no attempt to deal with impossibilities. The speakers in the main contended that the public exhibition of prostitution might be successfully dealt with, even if the vice were beyond their reach. Our streets, at least, can be purged of the public scandal, the disgraceful night-houses may be deprived of their powers of corruption, the keepers of brothels may be brought under the lash of the law, and the importation of foreign prostitutes may be diminished, if not put down altogether, if the public will take the subject up in earnest. Such were the principal points on which the speakers insisted; at least their views deserve a trial."

This plan is calculated to restrict prostitution by placing it under _surveillance_. It requires no additional licensing system, as every public house, wine-shop, or cigar-shop in London, whether kept open at day or night, whether of a respectable or immoral class, requires a license under the excise laws. The proposals just quoted urge that the permission to keep these places of entertainment should be limited, and "given only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees of their respectability." It will be necessary for the reader to bear in mind that "night-houses" are not houses of prostitution, but merely resorts for prostitutes, as already mentioned, as, in default of this, a natural construction would be that the _Times_ proposed to license brothels. The two are as distinct as possible, and it would be as consistent to style some of the fashionable oyster-saloons and restaurants of New York houses of ill fame because abandoned women resort to them, as to class the "night-houses" of London in that catalogue. They are simply places for public refreshment in the neighborhoods of theatres, markets, etc., which are permitted to continue open all night in deference to a supposed public requirement, and though, from the character of their visitants, they can not be considered schools of morality or decency, yet no prostitution takes place in them. The interests of the proprietors guard against this, as it would immediately cause the licenses to be revoked, and consequently close the place entirely.

By placing the resorts of London prostitutes under this restriction much would be gained, so far as the public decency of the streets and the transit of passengers are concerned, but no possible check would be imposed on the ravages of disease. The proposition at the meeting to license the brothels would do this, but, as was anticipated by the speaker, "it would be very distasteful to the religious public," and the act of recognition would be immediately construed as an act of approval, or at least of sanction. That it would not merit this censure must be evident. The only approval or sanction given to the vice would, in fact, consist in saying to the keepers of houses of ill fame: We shall not attempt to close your doors, for we know that would be impossible, but we shall claim the right of entry at any moment to watch your proceedings.

It has ever been an unquestioned policy to choose the least of two evils when you must take one, and if the British government should ever license brothels, they will certainly adopt the theory. To the population of London less danger would inure from this toleration than from the unknown, unwatched courtesans who haunt their streets. Many an apparently respectable man will follow a woman into a house of prostitution when it is conducted quietly and furtively, who would hesitate before he accompanied her into a known and licensed brothel, while many a stranger who may date his physical ruin, and possibly the loss of character and honor, from the hour when he entered a private house of prostitution, would be saved many a bitter memory had an official recognition of its true character met him on its threshold, and intimated that it was the resort of the abandoned and vicious. In London, as in New York, we do not believe that illicit sexual intercourse can be carried to any greater extent than it is now; so no danger of an increase of vice need be apprehended there from any measures calculated to remove some of the ulterior and fatal effects of dissipation.

In contrast to the public display of immorality in the streets of London, is the following description of prostitution in Paris. It is extracted from the foreign correspondence of a New York journal:

"Paris, Thursday, May 27, 1858.

"In a late letter on the subject of the 'turning-boxes' of the Foundling Hospitals I spoke of the repugnance of Protestant communities to any official compromise with one sin in order even to destroy a greater; for, that the secret reception of illegitimate children by the state does contribute enormously to the extinction of the crime of infanticide, while it does not generally increase the number of these unfortunate children, is too well shown by statistics to remain longer a question for discussion. But we have another and a more striking example of this repugnance to a collusion with one evil in order to smother out another and a greater in the want of legislation in Protestant countries on the subject of prostitution.

"For many months, as you know, the municipality officers, the church-wardens, and the journals of London have been excited over this very question of prostitution; and no wonder. One need but to leave Paris and fall suddenly in the streets of London at an advanced hour of the evening to comprehend the excitement of its citizens on this subject. To the Frenchman, crossing the Channel is like crossing the River Styx; he falls suddenly into a pandemonium of street disorder and drunken licentiousness for which he is not prepared. He recalls Mery's terrible picture in 'Nezim,' and does not find it overdrawn. He sees nothing like this in his own city, and he is surprised beyond measure, for he has been taught to believe in the Puritanism of Protestant countries.

"When an American or an Englishman, habituated to the revolting night-scenes of New York or London, first arrives in Paris, he is astonished at the absolute absence of similar scenes in our streets. He has, perhaps, arrived here with the impression--most foreigners do--that prostitution, and revelry, and drunken debauchery stalk forth in the day and render hideous the night. But he forgets that he has arrived in a city where there are laws and a police to execute them--in a city where refinement and the proprieties of life are carried to their extreme perfection, and where such license and debauchery as prevails in English and American cities would be an absolute contradiction to the spirit and habits of the people. The reader will please observe that I do not speak of the morals of the people, but of their ideas of decorum and of the proprieties of life; of what is due to decency and an ordinary respect for appearances.

"This extreme attention to appearances is, in fact, one of the principal attractions of a residence in Paris. The city is not only maintained free of inanimate filth, but of animate filth as well; at least, you are not forced to see it if you do not wish to. In London no lady dare walk out unattended after 8 o'clock in the evening, and after 11 o'clock she will have her eyes and ears insulted, no matter how well attended, while in Paris she may remain in the streets to any hour of the night, and neither have her eyes offended nor her ears insulted.

"How is this happy result accomplished? In 1851 the official register of the police of Paris showed 4300 public girls on its books; the number now may be stated at 5000. These girls and the houses in which they live are subjected to a series of stringent laws which renders them innoxious and inoffensive to the community, the police adopting the principle that since it is impossible to suppress the evil, it should be rendered as inoffensive to the public eye and to the public salubrity as possible. All these houses are obliged to be closed at 11 o'clock precisely. The girls are obliged to remain in the house, and the windows are always covered with blinds, night and day. A few girls are permitted, here and there, to walk up and down, in front of their door, from 7 to 11 o'clock precisely, but it is against the law to accost the passers-by. The houses are visited once a week by a medical and an ordinary inspector--real inspectors, appointed by government, and not humbugging ward politicians.

"Another class of girls, and much the larger class, are those who frequent the public balls, concerts, and theatres--girls who live alone in public lodging-houses, and who, for the most part, are not enrolled on the police-books nor submitted to the ordinary sanitary regulations. But this class are no more permitted than the rest, either in the street or at their favorite evening resorts, to accost people for purposes of commerce. The streets and the public balls are full of policemen in citizen's dress, whose business it is to detect such girls as violate the law in regard to addressing people, and to put their names on the police-books, thus requiring them to take out a license, and to submit to all the police regulations on the new class to which they have entered. As a girl regards herself as forever lost when her name is once placed on the police-book, and as she never knows when an officer's eye may be upon her, she takes good care to violate as rarely as possible this law prohibiting solicitations in public. This class are always elegantly dressed; it is notorious even that they are the first to initiate and to propagate those very fashions which make the tour of the world as the latest Paris modes. Many of them are reserved and elegant in their manners, and require a punctiliousness of etiquette which would not be out of place in the most aristocratic saloon. But one of the great aids to the Paris police in the maintenance of public decency in this class, is the fact that they do not use strong drinks; a drunken public woman is never seen. As liquor is the greatest debaser of mankind, this one fact strikes out a marked line of distinction between this class here and in England and the United States. The great majority do not lose their self-respect, and they take good care of their health, hoping later on to reform and get married. This is here the rule, whereas in England and the United States they throw themselves away as rapidly as possible.

"It is thus that the fashionable promenades of Paris, the public balls, and the gardens even, may be frequented by ladies and children at all hours of the evening and night without once seeing any of those offensive movements of public women so common in the streets of English and American cities. Contrast this state of things with that of London. Let the reader, if he has ever lived there, recall to mind the Strand, the Haymarket, Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Regent Street--the fashionable business quarters of the city. One hesitates to enter upon a description of such a scene. It refreshes his historical recollections of the decadence of Rome; his name should be Plato to look upon such sights. The streets swarm with drunken and foul-spoken young girls--often mere children; and when I say swarm, I mean that you have to push your way to get through them. Is it then strange that the citizens of London should feel scandalized at this state of things, or that its journals or its church-wardens should seek to find a remedy for the nuisance? They will think of every thing else before they arrive at the simple, _effective_, and beautifully working Paris system, because they are a Protestant people and must not compromise with a sin. It must be left to find its own level. Honorable citizens must consent to allow their sons, often their families, to come in contact with these demoralizing, stony-hearted horrors of the streets; they must suffer individually and as a community from the vile tendencies of street prostitution, because they hesitate to legalize it and to give it over to the care of the police. To see the finest evening promenades of a Protestant and Christian city given up exclusively to the unutterable shames and horrors of street-prostitution is a problem in the catalogue of inconsistencies which Catholic and infidel France can not fathom. In France the law acts on the principle that for a public woman to be seen in the street is an insult to public taste, and hence, when it is necessary for these girls to be conveyed to prison, to the Hospital, or to the dispensary of the Prefecture of Police, they are mounted in close carriages constructed for the purpose; or when by hazard they are obliged to take a public _fiacre_ they are required to keep the blinds down. You may say what you please about the surface-morality of the French, but their respect for the public eye does honor to their civilization, and their law on this evil would be well adopted elsewhere. There is no truer principle in civil government than that the moral sores of society should be hidden as much as possible from the public view, for it is now too late in the day to combat the maxim long ago put in print by Pope, that vice is propagated by a familiarity with it. The French law may be culpable in permitting masked balls and the keeping of concubines, but these are affairs that belong to the interior, which the public need not see if they do not wish to; the important distinction is, that the French law does not compel an honest father of a family, in returning from church or theatre, to push his way through mobs of drunken lewd women, who salute his children's ears with language they ought never to hear.

"In one of its last articles on the general subject of prostitution, the London _Times_ makes some judicious remarks which are completely verified in the same class in Paris. Thus the _Times_ declares that the proper method of diminishing the number of these unfortunates (for to think of eradicating the evil is an illusion) is not by missionary efforts directed to them, but rather to their poor parents; for these poor girls were raised in sin, and _never made a fall_. The same thing holds good here. Ninety-five hundredths of all the public women of Paris are born and raised in filthiness of mind and body; at the age of ten, twelve, and fourteen years they are already prostitutes and thieves, and when they get their first silk dress, their first fine toilet, earned in their shameful profession, they take a step higher in the scale of morality; for then they cease to steal, they acquire a certain degree of pride in their conduct, they are more respectful and decently behaved. So that, paradoxical as it may seem, the immense majority of the public women of Paris, instead of making a fall, have actually been promoted in the scale of morality. But all these women know nothing else than the life in which they have been raised; they are fit for nothing else, they are incorrigibly averse to all the moral suasion that can be addressed to them, and the real remedy is an enlightenment of the parents of such children, a general improvement in the moral tone of the lowest classes. In fine, if it is an evil which can not be eradicated, if the children of beggars, and rag-pickers, and _concièrges_ will fall into evil-doing, it is right to protect society at least from the public demonstration of their vile occupation by the passage of effective police laws."

As an indication that the sentiments advanced in this chapter are entertained by others of the medical profession, and as endorsing our views to a considerable extent, the reader's attention is requested to the annexed report adopted at a special meeting of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, New York, in reply to interrogatories addressed to them by Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house (by whose direction they are embodied in this work); and also to a report from H. N. Whittelsey, M.D., Resident Physician of the Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island, on the same subject.

(Copy.)

"_Report of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital in reply to Interrogatories of_ ISAAC TOWNSEND, _Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis._

"Office of the Governors of the Alms-house, Rotunda, Park, "New York, August 24, 1855.

"TO THE MEDICAL BOARD, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL:

"GENTLEMEN,--I am led to believe that a large number of the inmates of Bellevue Hospital are affected with syphilis in some of its many forms, and believing that the Governors of the Alms-house are called upon to take measures to remove, as far as possible, the cause of this great malady, to dry up the sources of an evil which prevails so extensively, saps the health and taxes the wealth of the city, etc., largely; and believing farther that, if the vice can not be stayed, humanity as well as policy would suggest that the dangers which surround it can be lessened, I propose a few interrogatories tending toward the accomplishment of this great object, desiring your views upon them in reply as early as 1st of October.

"1. What percentage of the total number of patients admitted to Bellevue Hospital suffer directly or indirectly from syphilis?

"2. Are there not patients admitted to Bellevue Hospital whose diseases are attributable to the taint of syphilis; and have not many of the inmates been forced to place themselves under treatment therein, and thus become dependent on the city, from being unfitted in body and mind for the ordinary duties of life in consequence of syphilitic diseases?

"3. Are not the children of parents thus affected unhealthy?

"4. What means, in your opinion, could be adopted to eradicate or lessen the disease in the city?

"By giving the above queries your earliest attention, you will greatly oblige your very obedient servant,

"ISAAC TOWNSEND, President."

"At a special meeting of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, held December 18, 1855, the following report, in answer to a letter from Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house, dated August 24, 1855, touching the subjects of syphilis and prostitution, was read by Doctor Alonzo Clark, Chairman of the Committee appointed by the Medical Board to consider and reply to said letter.

"On motion, the report was accepted, and ordered for transmission to the President of the Board of Governors, after having received the signatures of the President and Secretary.

"JOHN T. METCALFE, M.D., "Secretary _pro tem._ to the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital.

"New York, December, 1855."

"REPORT ON PROSTITUTION AND SYPHILIS.

"To ISAAC TOWNSEND, Esq., "President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house.

"In answer to your inquiries, the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital respectfully reply,

"That they caused a census of the Hospital to be taken on the 24th October last, for the purpose of ascertaining what proportion of the patients had suffered from venereal diseases. From that enumeration they learn that out of 477 persons then under medical and surgical treatment, 142, or about one third, had been so affected. In the several divisions of the house the numbers are as follows, viz.:

"Of 72 females on the surgical side, 17, or 1 in 4·24.

"Of 130 females on the medical side, 17, or 1 in 8 nearly.

"Of 118 males on the medical side, 45, or 1 in 2·6.

"Of 127 males on the surgical side, 63, or 1 in 2.

So that out of 245 males then under treatment, 108, or 1 in 2·27, had had some form of venereal disease; and among 202 females, 34, or 1 in 6, had been similarly affected.

"Of the whole number who confessed that they had had affections of this class, 106 had had syphilis, and 36 had had gonorrhoea.

"Of the 106 who had had syphilis, 53, or just one half, were still laboring under the influence of the poison with which they had been inoculated, in many instances, years before.

"As almost all these patients were admitted for other diseases, or with affections which the physician alone would recognize as the remote effects of syphilis, it is perhaps fair to assume that they represent, with some exaggeration, the class of society from which they come.

"The Board has been favored with the census of the New York Hospital (Broadway), taken for the purpose of ascertaining the proportion of syphilitic cases among the patients of that institution; from which it appears that the whole number of patients on the 8th of December was 233, and that 99 of that number had had venereal disease, and 37 were then under treatment for the same affections recently contracted. Counting the old cases alone, most of which were admitted, probably, for other diseases, this proportion considerably exceeds that above recorded for Bellevue Hospital, it being as high as 1 in 2·35. It is proper, however, in this connection to state that the returns for Bellevue Hospital are believed to be incomplete. They are based in a considerable degree on the confessions of the patients; and it is known that many, especially among the women, have denied any contamination, when facts, subsequently developed, have shown that their statements were not true.

"Is it to be believed, then, that one in three, or even one in four, of that large class of our population whose circumstances compel them to seek the occasional aid of medical charities, are tainted with venereal poison? This the Medical Board do not think they are authorized to state. But the facts here cited, and others within their reach, justify them in saying that venereal diseases prevail to an alarming extent among the poor of the city. The large number of women sent by the police courts to be treated for these diseases at the Penitentiary Hospital would alone be sufficient evidence of this. Yet such persons constitute but a small proportion of those who, even among the poor, suffer from these disorders. Dispensary physicians, and those in private practice, can show a much longer list of the victims of impure intercourse.

"But the disease is not confined to this class. The advertisements which crowd the newspapers, introduced by men who 'confine their practice to one class of disease, in which' they 'have treated twenty thousand cases,' more or less, demonstrate how large is the company of irregulars who live and grow rich on the harvest of these grapes of Sodom. And yet their long list of 'unfortunates' would disclose but a fraction of the evil among those who are able to pay for medical services. The Medical Board are unable to state what proportion of the income of regular and qualified physicians in this city is derived from the treatment of venereal diseases, but they know it is large, and that many who never advertise their skill receive more from this source than from all other sources together. They believe that there is no one among the unavoidable diseases, however prevalent, for the treatment of which the well-to-do citizens of New York pay one half so much as they pay to be relieved from the consequences of their illicit pleasures.

"The city bills of mortality give little information regarding the frequency of venereal affections. _Lues Venerea_ keeps its place in the tables, and counts its score or two of deaths annually. Although this class of disorders is not frequently fatal, except among children, it is credited with only a fraction of the work it actually performs. The physician does not feel called upon, in his return of the causes of death, to brand his patient's memory with disgrace, or to record an accusation against near relatives. During infancy the real disease is buried under such terms as Marasmus, Atrophia, Infantile Debility, or Inflammation, while in adults, Inflammation of the Throat, Phagedæna, Ulceration, Scrofula, and the like, take the responsibility of the death.

"These affections are strictly what the advertisers denominate them, 'private diseases'--a leprosy which the 'unfortunate' always strives to conceal, and, so long as it spares his speech and countenance, usually succeeds in concealing. The physician is his only confidant, and the physician refers all to the class of 'innocent secrets,' which are not to be revealed. The public, therefore, know little of the prevalence of such diseases, and still less of the fearful ravages they are capable of making.

"Still, as has been just said, syphilis is not often the immediate cause of death in adults. After its first local effects are over--and these, though generally mild, are sometimes frightful--the poison lingers in the system ready to break out on any provocation in some one of its many disgusting manifestations, often deforming and branding its victim, threatening life and making it a burden, and yet refusing the poor consolation of a grave. Like the vulture which fed on the entrails of the too amorous Tityus, it tortures and consumes, but is slow to destroy, and often its visible brand, like the scarlet badge once worn by the adulteress, proclaims a lasting disgrace. The protracted suffering of mind and body produced by this class of distempers, the ever-changing and often loathsome form of their secondary accidents, and the almost irradicable character of the poison, seem almost to justify an old opinion, sanctioned by a papal bull as late as 1826, that these diseases are an avenging plague, appointed by Heaven as a special punishment for a special sin.

"The relentless character of syphilitic diseases stands out in painful relief in its transmission from parent to offspring. Here it is, indeed, that the children's teeth are set on edge, because the fathers have eaten sour grapes. The contaminated husband or wife is left through years of childlessness or of successive bereavements to mourn over early follies, and to repent when repentance is fruitless. The syphilitic man or woman can hardly become the parent of a healthy child.

"A young man has imbibed the contagion; it has become constitutional. After a few weeks, or months perhaps, of treatment, the visible signs of the disease no longer torment him. He has contracted a matrimonial alliance, and soon marries a healthy and virtuous woman. He flatters himself that he is cured. A few months suffice to give him painful proof of his error, for then his growing hopes of paternity are suddenly blasted. Instead of the child of his hopes he sees a shriveled and leprous corpse. This is but the first in a series of similar misfortunes. He has poisoned the fruit of his loins, and again and again, and still again, it falls withered and dead. At length nature seems to have triumphed over this foe to domestic happiness, and the parents' hearts are gladdened by the sight of a living child. Their joy is short-lived. The child is feeble and sickly, and in a few days or weeks another death is added to the penance list of the humbled and grieving father.

"This mournful story will need no essential changes in the narration, should the poison of impure intercourse, legitimate or illicit, linger in the veins of the mother.

"A child of such a connection may be born in apparent health, but before six months have passed, some one of the numerous forms of infantile syphilis will be likely to appear and threaten its life. In the contest which follows between disease and the treatment, the physician is commonly victorious, but the contest is in many cases protracted, and often it is to be renewed again and again. And after all, it is not believed that children thus tainted at their birth often grow up and acquire that degree of health and vigor which is popularly ascribed to a _good constitution_.

"These are facts familiar to physicians practicing in large towns. But the history of inherited syphilis is not complete. If, in the case just recited, the wife escape contamination from her husband and her unborn child, yet the sad consequences of that husband's folly are not yet exhausted. That tainted child, now a sickly nursling at her breast, has a venom in its ulcerated lips which can inoculate the mother with its own loathsome poison, while it draws its sustenance from the sacred fountain of infantile life. But this is not all. These little innocents sometimes spread their disease through the whole circle of those who bestow on them their care and kindness. The contagion spreads through the use of the same spoon, the same linen, and even by that highest token of affection, a kiss. It has been known that a single diseased child has contaminated its mother, a hired nurse, and, through that nurse, the nurse's child, and, in addition to these, the husband's mother and the mother's sister. Such are sometimes the weighty consequences of a single error.

"PREVENTION.

"That the great source of the venereal poison is prostitution, requires no argument. The first question, then, to be answered, is, Can prostitution be prevented? In answering this question, it is necessary to remember that the history of the world demonstrates the existence of this vice in all ages, and among all nations, since the day its first pages were written. The appetite which incites it has always been stronger than moral restraints--stronger than the law. No rigor of punishment, no violence of public denunciation; neither exile, nor the dungeon, nor yet the disgusting malady with which nature punishes the practice has ever effected its extermination, even for a single year. Great as this evil has always been, it can not be denied that in our own time some of the accidents of what is called _the progress of society_ tend, at least in large towns, greatly to increase it. The expenses of living are every where the great obstacle to early marriages, whether such expenses be positively necessary or be demanded by the social position of the individual, the fashion of his class, and therefore become relatively necessary. Wherever these expenses increase more rapidly than the rewards of labor, marriage becomes impossible for a constantly increasing number, or can only be purchased at the price of social position. But abstinence from marriage does not abolish or moderate the natural appetites. The great law of nature on which the existence of the race depends is not abrogated by any artificial state of society. Moral or religious principles will restrain its operations in some; human laws in some; the fear of consequences in some; yet there always have been, and probably always will be, many of both sexes who are not restrained by any of these considerations. These have sustained, and probably will continue to sustain, not only prostitution but houses of prostitution, in the face of every human law. Suppressed in one form, it immediately assumes another. Again pursued, it retreats to hiding-places where darkness and secrecy protect it from the pursuer.

"Severe penalties have heretofore only increased the evils of prostitution. If a hundred women are consigned to prison for this vice to-day, before a month has elapsed a hundred more have taken their places, and the hundred, though punished, are not reformed. Impelled by a love of their profession, or some by the passion to emulate the more fortunate of their sex in the finery of dress (a passion which first occasioned their fall), many by want, and all by a sense that they are outcasts, they are no sooner liberated than they return with new zeal to the life from which they have been detained only by force. Severe laws compel secrecy; they can do no more. When prostitution is criminal, disease, if known to others, is a practical conviction. Under such circumstances the contaminated will be slow to confess disease, and so subject themselves to punishment. Yet their passions and their necessities alike forbid even temporary abstinence. They spread disease without limit.

"Under this fact lies an important thought. Were it no more disgraceful to contract syphilis than it is to have fever and ague, the diseased would seek early relief, which is nearly equivalent to certain relief, and the disorder would soon be confined to the pitiable few who have lost in drunkenness and misery the instinctive dread of all that is foul and disgusting in personal disease. Prostitution, it is true, would then be restored to its old Roman dignity, yet _venereal disease could then be reached, and all but eradicated_. But a respectable syphilis does not belong to our age and nation. It lost caste in the beginning, and its exploits in modern times have not been of a character to win it friends. The supposition aims only to show, by contrast, the evils of well-intended, but probably injudicious legislation. Regarding pains and penalties: if the whip, confiscation, and banishment, in the hands of Charlemagne and St. Louis, aided by a right good will and all the powers of a military despotism, could not suppress prostitution, or even prevent the opening of houses of prostitution; if penal laws in Europe, from the days of these earnest princes until now, have utterly failed of their object, as they notoriously have, it is fair to ask how much more can prohibitory laws accomplish in a country where the right of private judgment and personal liberty in speech and action are the very foundation of the body politic? They have hitherto been ineffectual. In spite of such laws, the vice is increasing. _In consequence of such laws, its most enormous physical evil is extending its baleful influence through every rank and circle of society._ It is still emphatically the plague of the poor; it still brings sorrow and misery to the firesides of the affluent and titled.

"A utopian view of the perfectibility of man might look for the remedy to this evil in universal early marriages, in domestic happiness, and in a universal moral sense which will compel men and women to keep their marriage vows. But, taking man as he is, we find the tides of society set with constantly increasing strength against early marriages; that domestic happiness is not synonymous with marriage, whether early or late; and that the moral sense which should teach all men to observe even their solemn promises would be miraculous. For these things the law has done all that has been thought wise to attempt, probably all that it can do.

"But it may be asked, If government has the power to relieve society of the vice of drunkenness, why despair of its power regarding prostitution? In reply it may be asked if the drunkard himself is ever cured of his vicious appetite by penalties? The statute despairs of this. It even recognizes its inability to prevent the sale of intoxicating drinks while they exist; it therefore claims the right to seize and destroy them. Can it seize on and destroy the inborn passion which fills and supports houses of prostitution? Then it can not do for the one what it hopes to do for the other.

"Again: the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade have been cited in this connection as illustrating the power of law. In trespass, theft, violence, or fraud, some one is wronged; and those who have been injured seek to bring the offender to justice. Here there is no aggrieved person. All who are in interest are so in interest that they deprecate the interference of all law, except what they claim to believe is the law of Nature.

"But is there no hope in the societies of moral reform? For the suppression, or even checking of the general vice, none whatever. The association in New York deserves much praise for its zealous benevolence. They have brought back some of these erring women to the paths of virtue, but they have done no more to stop the current of prostitution than he could do to dry up the current of the Hudson who dips water with a bucket. In truth it may be said that the paths of virtue have been found to be slippery places for some that would be thought converts. Wisdom's ways have been found too peaceful for these daughters of excitement. This is said in no spirit of disparagement to the efforts of the society. They may well be proud of what they have done. But it is said to show how little the kindest and the best can do to reclaim those who have once fallen from virtue and honor.

"Let the great fact, then, be well understood, that prohibitory measures have always failed, and, from the nature of the case, must forever fail to suppress prostitution.

"Let this additional fact, illustrated in the foregoing remark, be well considered, that penalties do not reform the offender, but that they enforce secrecy in the offense, and silence regarding its consequences, which is a chief cause of the present wide diffusion of the venereal poison.

"What, then, is the proper province of legislation in this important matter?

"The wise lawgiver does not attempt impossibilities. He knows that laws which experience has demonstrated can not be enforced, teach disrespect and disobedience to all law. He knows that human passions can not be changed by human legislation. He knows that, if he attempt the impossible greater in the control of vice, he is certain to neglect the possible and important less. He knows that the river will not cease to flow at his command. If it overflows and desolates, he raises its banks and dikes in the flood to prevent a general inundation. For hundreds of years the governments of Europe have tried in vain to dry up the sources of prostitution; with the opening of the present century they began to dike in the river and prevent avoidable mischief. For a long time we too have had laws against prostitution, which, with every proper effort on the part of those in authority, have proved as useless as those who live by this illicit traffic could desire--as mischievous in spreading disease as the quack advertiser could wish. Is it not time, then, to inquire whether we have not attempted too much; whether, if we attempt less, we shall not accomplish more? May we not be able to limit and control what we have not the power to prevent? If we can not do all that a large benevolence might wish to accomplish, in the name of humanity is it not our duty to do what is useful and practicable--all that is possible?

"While the Medical Board are persuaded that by a change of policy, such as is suggested by the facts and reasons herewith submitted, much can be done to limit and control prostitution, and much more toward the eradication of venereal diseases, they are not yet prepared to offer the details of a plan by which they hope these important ends can be attained. With the assistance of the Board of Governors, they are now in correspondence with the medical officers of many of the larger cities of Europe, where restrictive measures have replaced prohibitory. When they have obtained the information which they hope this correspondence will furnish, they will ask leave to submit a supplementary report.

"JOHN W. FRANCIS, M.D., President.

"JOHN T. METCALFE, M.D., Secretary _pro tem._

"NOTE.--It is believed that not far from ten per cent. of the inmates of Bellevue Hospital are admitted for affections which have their origin remotely in venereal disease. A certain form of rheumatism, certain inflammations of the throat, eyes, bones, and joints; stricture and cutaneous eruptions are the most common diseases of this class. What proportion, if any, of those who suffer from scrofula and scrofulous inflammations, from consumption and other chronic diseases, owe their present illness to a constitutional syphilitic vice, inherited or acquired, there are no means of determining satisfactorily."

_Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital, New York_:

JOHN W. FRANCIS, M.D., President. ISAAC WOOD, M.D. JOHN T. METCALFE, M.D. ALONZO CLARK, M.D. BENJAMIN W. M'CREADY, M.D. ISAAC B. TAYLOR, M.D. GEORGE T. ELLIOTT, M.D. B. FORDYCE BARKER, M.D. VALENTINE MOTT, M.D. ALEXANDER H. STEVENS, M.D. JAMES R. WOOD, M.D. WILLARD PARKER, M.D. CHARLES D. SMITH, M.D. LEWIS A. SAYRE, M.D. JOHN J. CRANE, M.D. JOHN A. LIDELL, M.D. STEPHEN SMITH, M.D.

(Copy.)

"_Report of Doctor_ H. N. WHITTELSEY, _Resident Physician of Randall's Island, in answer to certain queries of_ ISAAC TOWNSEND, _Esq., Governor of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis_:

"New York, November 28, 1855.

"DEAR SIR,--From repeated conversations with you, I am led to believe that many diseases incidental to the children on Randall's Island may properly be traced to parents who are affected with constitutional syphilis. Please give me your views as to the following questions as early as 10th December.

"1. Among the children under your care, to what extent does inherited syphilis exist?

"2. Under what form does constitutional syphilis present itself, and what diseases are attributable to its taint?

"3. Are not the children of parents thus affected unhealthy, scrofulous, subject to diseases of the eye, joints, etc.?

"Very respectfully, "ISAAC TOWNSEND, Governor A. H.

"Doctor H. N. WHITTELSEY, Resident Physician, R. I."

"Randall's Island, Dec. 24, 1855.

"ISAAC TOWNSEND, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house.

"DEAR SIR,--In regard to the interrogatories contained in your note of a recent date on the subject of hereditary syphilis, I have the honor to reply:

"1. Regarding its prevalence. It is a matter of record that nine tenths of all diseases treated in this hospital during the past five years have been of constitutional origin, and for the most part hereditary. These diseases assume a variety of forms, and involve nearly every structure of the body, terminating in cachexia, marasmus, phagedæna, etc., etc. The exact proportion which hereditary syphilis bears to this sum of constitutional depravity can not be stated with accuracy for the following reasons:

"Children are admitted to this institution between two and fifteen years of age, thus throwing out of the category infantile syphilis in all its forms; and except in few cases, showing none of its specific characteristics, having been modified by appropriate treatment, but manifests itself by general constitutional depravity, and determines a great variety of diseases, embracing nearly every form of skin disease, affection of the mucous membranes and their dependencies, diseases of the eye and ear, of the bones, especially of joints, etc., proving the prolific and lamentable source of many of the diseases incident to children of the class presented in this institution. Making, then, due allowance for its masked form, in which the consequences of inherited syphilis appear in this institution, together with the absence of the previous history both of patients and parents, it is believed an approximate estimate may be made of the part which this malady bears to the sum of constitutional disease. From the foregoing facts, and from careful observation during the past few years in this branch of the Alms-house Department, it appears that human degradation is the source of the stream of pollution supplying this hospital with disease; and farther, that of all the vices which make up the sum total of depravity, both moral and physical, prostitution and its consequences furnish the larger proportion.

"Here we have the sad picture presented of a large number of children doomed to an early grave, or to breathe out their miserable existence bearing a loathsome disease, carrying the penalties of vice of which they themselves are innocent, being a generation contaminated, and capable only of contaminating in turn.

"In the above sketch I have confined my statement to syphilis as manifested in the Nursery Hospital, where the average number of cases of disease treated is about two thousand. From this field is excluded every variety of the disease except the one, viz., constitutional syphilis affecting children after having been modified by treatment in the infant.

"H. N. WHITTELSEY, M.D."

It has been stated already that the information obtained in the course of this investigation is, to a very great degree, undoubtedly reliable; but a few words more in reference to the same subject will not be out of place, if we consider the importance such information assumes when it is made the basis of serious deduction. These women were examined singly and alone, and a person who has been engaged for a number of years in any particular inquiry is able, by his experience, to judge whether his informants are speaking the truth in their replies. For this, among other reasons, we are satisfied that in almost every case there was no deception practiced, but that the answers obtained were true in all essential points. Another evidence of correctness is the degree of congruity that characterized the greater part of the replies. Farther than this: a reference to the questions themselves (as reprinted in chapter XXXII.) will show that they were so arranged that falsehoods would be easily detected unless very carefully contrived before the time of examination, of which those examined had no notice, and consequently no opportunity for fraud or deception could possibly exist.

It is not denied that there were many difficulties to be encountered, although the mode of operation was simple. It may be briefly described as follows. The captain of each police district (and oftentimes the writer with him) explained his object to the keeper of the house, assuring her that there was no intention to annoy, harass, or expose her; and, particularly, that no prosecutions should be based upon any information thus collected. This latter promise was supported by a letter from a high legal functionary addressed to the Mayor and Police Department, assuring them that the particulars they collected should not be used in any manner prejudicial to the women themselves, as it was believed that a collection of the necessary information required by such a work as the present would be productive of good to the city. When satisfied upon the subject of prosecution, they were told that the real motive was to obtain correct particulars of prostitution without exposing individual cases, so as to enable the public to judge of its extent, and assist them in forming an opinion as to the necessity of arrangements which would ultimately become protective to our citizens at large, as well as to housekeepers and courtesans, and many of the housekeepers expressed a hope that the design might be accomplished. Their interests, therefore, led them to speak the truth. In short, from the precautions taken, and from the result itself, very little doubt can be entertained as to the authenticity of the principal part of the replies on all essential points; and upon this consideration these replies have been made the basis of the description and remarks upon PROSTITUTION IN NEW YORK.

The task is completed, and the reader's attention may be invited to the various facts substantiated, as embodied in the following

RECAPITULATION.

There are six thousand public prostitutes in New York.

The majority of these are from fifteen to twenty-five years old.

Three eighths of them were born in the United States.

Many of those born abroad came here poor, to improve their condition.

_Education is at a very low standard with them._

One fifth of them are married women.

One half of them have given birth to children, and more than one half of these children are illegitimate.

The ratio of mortality among children of prostitutes is four times greater than the ordinary ratio among children in New York.

Many of these children are living in the abodes of vice and obscenity.

The majority of these women have been prostitutes for less than four years.

The average duration of a prostitute's life is only four years.

Nearly one half of the prostitutes in New York admit that they are or have been sufferers from syphilis.

Seduction; destitution; ill treatment by parents, husbands, or relatives; intemperance; and bad company, are the main causes of prostitution.

Women in this city have not sufficient means of employment.

Their employment is inadequately remunerated.

The associations of many employments are prejudicial to morality.

Six sevenths of the prostitutes drink intoxicating liquors to a greater or less extent.

Parental influences induced habits of intoxication.

A professed respect for religion is common among them.

A capital of nearly _four millions of dollars_ is invested in the business of prostitution.

The annual expenditure on account of prostitution is more than _seven millions of dollars_.

Prohibitory measures have signally failed to suppress or check prostitution.

A necessity exists for some action.

Motives of policy require a change in the mode of procedure.

INDEX.

Abortion, New York, 481

Abyssinia, 389

Ædiles, Powers of, 67

Afghanistan, 418

Africa, 385

" Northern, 444

Ages of Prostitutes, Great Britain, 347

" Hamburg, 200

" New York, 452

" Paris, 140

" Rome, 49

Agnes Sorel, 109

Aid to reformatory Measures, 23

Algeria, 180

Alms-house, Blackwell's Island, 587-604

American Medical Association on Infant Mortality, 482

Anglo-Saxon Rule in England, 283

Anne Boleyn, 294

Anne, Empress of Russia, 266

Arcadians and Flute Players, 50

Archiatri, 85

Architecture, obscene, 95

_Areoi_ of the South Sea Islands, 398

Areopagus, 45

Aspasia, 55

Assignation Houses, Hamburg, 211

" New York, 566

" " Origin of, 568

Asylum of _Bon Pasteur_, Paris, 152

Athens, 44

Attempts to suppress Prostitution, 19

Augustan Age, Rome, 67

Auletrides, 46, 50

Australia, 392

" Female Emigration to, 395

Avignon, 162

" public Brothel at, 100

Baal, Worship of, 37

Babylonian Banquets, 42

Bacchis, 56

Barbarous Nations, 385

Beatrice Cenci, 159

Belgium, 187

" Immorality of, 187

" Illegitimacy in, 187

Belle Ferronnière, 111

Bellevue Hospital, New York, 589, 602

" Report of Medical Board, 665

Berlin, Dancing Saloons, 246

" Effects of French Revolution, 234

" " Suppression of Prostitution, 244

" Illegitimacy, 250

" Increase of Syphilis, 248

" Number of Prostitutes, 233

" Police Regulations, 251

" Popular Feeling against licensed Brothels, 241

" Private Life, 247

" Public Life, 245

Biblical Description of Prostitution, 39

Bicetrê, Hospital of, 135

Blackwell's Island, Commitments to, 633

" Discharges from, 638

Boarding Schools, Dangers of, 519

Board of Governors, Duties of, 27

" Interrogatories by, 28

" Members of, 27

" Preliminary Report to, 29

_Bon Pasteur_ Asylum, Paris, 152

Borneo, 413

Brahmins, religious Ceremonies of, 423

Breslau, Effects of Suppression of Brothels, 237

Brides' Fair, Russia, 274

Britain, Roman Invasion of, 282

British Army, Syphilis in, 357

" Kings, Lives of the early, 285

" Merchant Service, Syphilis in, 357

" Navy, Syphilis in, 357

" North America, 460

Britons, Marriage Ceremonies of ancient, 282

Brooklyn City Hospital, Long Island, 592, 602

Brothels in Algiers, 184

" Avignon, 100

" Belgium, 188

" Berlin, abolished by Royal Order, 243

" " public Opposition to, 241

" China, 433

" Denmark, 256

" England, 316

" Hamburg, 206

" Japan, 437

" Leipzig, 253

" Mantua, 161

" New York, Capital invested in, 599

" " Management of, 554

" " Receipts of, 554

" " Value of, 553

" " German, 560

" " Sailors', 562

" Paris, 141

" Rome, 161

" Spain, 171

" Sweden, 279

" Venice, 161

Bubastis, Festival of, 40

Buffalo, N. Y., Prostitutes in, 608

Byron (Lord) on Italian Morality, 166

Callipygian Games, 52

Canute, Laws of, 284

Capital Punishment, Effects of Abolition of, 629

Career of a Prostitute, 453

Carthage, 42

Catharine I., of Russia, 263

" II., " , 267

Causes of Prostitution, Algiers, 184

" Paris, 141

" New York, 488

Cavalière Servente, 165

Celebes, 428

Celsus on secret Diseases, 84

Central and South America, 364

Ceylon, 425

Charlemagne, Legislation of, 94

Charles II., of England, 299, 304

Charles VIII, 109

Chastity enforced by the early Christians, 86

Children's Aid Society, New York, 530

Children of Prostitutes, New York, 477

Chili, 367

China, 429

Chinese Holidays, 434

Chivalry in England, Effects on Morality of, 290

Christian Doctrine, Features of, 86

" Era, 86

" Fathers on Prostitution, 91

" Virgins, Persecution of, 87

Chrysarguron, or Tax on Prostitutes, 92

Cicisbeo, 165

Circassia, 441

Civil Condition of Prostitutes, New York, 473

Classes of Prostitutes, 148

Classical Studies, Effects of, 521

Claudine du Tencin, 127

Cologne, Effects of Suppression of Brothels in, 243

Commodus, 83

Competition a Plea for insufficient Wages, 530

Connecticut, 458

Consequences of Prostitution, 19

Continuance of Prostitution, New York, 484

Conventual Life, immoral Instances in, 90

" in Portugal, 178

Copenhagen, Number of Prostitutes in, 256

" Syphilis in, 257

Corinth, 44

Corinthian Prostitutes, 58

Cork, Number of Prostitutes in, 342

Cortejos, 175

Cost of Prostitution in New York, 599

Costume of Prostitutes, Bergamo, 162

" Greece, 46

" Mantua, 62

" Milan, 162

" Parma, 162

Council of Trent, 156

Court of Prostitutes, Naples, 160

Dahomey, 387

Dancers, Rome, 69

Dancing Saloons, Berlin, 246

" Hamburg, 212

Dangers of a Prostitute's Life, 485

Danish Rule in England, 287

De la Vallière, Mademoiselle, 124

Delirium Tremens, 542, 543

De Maintenon, Madame, 124

Demilt Dispensary, New York, 591, 602

Denmark, 256

" Brothels in, 256

" Illegitimacy in, 256

Destitution a Cause of Prostitution, 489

" Instances of, in New York, 491

Diana de Poictiers, 111

Dicteria, 43

" Inviolability of, 48

Dicteriades, 46, 47

Disease in Children, 334

Dispensary, Algiers, 182, 185

" Belgium, 188

" Paris, 138

Distinguishing Costume of Prostitutes, 44

Domestic Life of Prostitutes, Hamburg, 202

" Leipzig, 255

Domestic Servants, Belgium, 187

" England, 330

" Hamburg, 199, 211

" Leipzig, 253

" New York, 526

Draconian Laws, 43

Dress, Indecency of, 117

" of French Prostitutes, 97

Dubarry, Madame, 128

Dublin, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Duchess of Berri, 126

Duke of Orleans, 125

Duration of a Prostitute's Life, 455

Duties of Husbands, 505

" Parents, 498

" Relatives, 511

Early Christians, alleged Immorality of, 89

Eastern Dispensary, New York, 591, 602

Edinburgh, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Education, compulsory, 471

" in Great Britain, 335

" of Prostitutes, New York, 468

" " Paris, 140

" in United States, 620

Educational Facilities in Europe, 469

" in U. States, 469

" Neglect of, 469

Effects of Indifference upon Prostitution, 25

Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, 40

Egyptian Courtesans, 40

Elagabalus, 83

Elizabeth, of England, 295

Elizabeth, of Russia, 266

Emigrant Boarding-house Keepers, 461

Emigrants, Influences at Port of Departure on, 461

" Influences during Voyage on, 461

" Influences on reaching New York on, 461

" Poverty of, 465

" Hospital, Ward's Island, 590, 602

Emigrate, Assistance to, 466

" Inducements to, 465

England, 460

" Brothels, 316

" Causes of Prostitution, 319

" Continental Trade in Prostitution, 315

" Court Morals, 305

" Discussion on Prostitution, 653

" Domestic Servants, 330

" Effects of Chivalry on Morality, 290

" excessive Poverty, 327

" Feudal Lords, 288

" Lodging-houses, 324

" overcrowded Dwellings, 322

" Procuresses, 308, 313

" Profligacy of Troubadours, 292

" Prostitution at the present Time, 312

" Public Amusements, 330

" Puritan Rule, 298

" Restoration of Charles II., 298

" Work-house System, 326

Erotic Literature, 77

Esquimaux, 447

Example, its Effects on Prostitution, 325

Expediency of Investigation, 22

Extent, Effects, and Cost of Prostitution, 575

Factories, Great Britain, 332

" United States, 534

Fair Rosamond, 292

Fathers of Prostitutes, Business of, 535

Female Employment, 529

Female Occupations, Effect of, 533

" Monotony of, 526

Female Penitentiary, London, 351

Feudal Lords in England, 288

Financial Panic, Effect of, 577

Floralian Games, 64

Foreign-born Prostitutes, 460

Foreign Manners, Influence of, 570

Foreign Women, Demoralization of, 461

Foundling Hospitals, Belgium, 187

" Italy, 167

" Mexico, 363

" Portugal, 180

" Rio Janeiro, 371

" Russia, 276

" Spain, 176

" Sweden, 278

Fracastor, Diagnosis of Syphilis by, 132

France, 93

" during the Middle Ages, 93

" from the Middle Ages to Louis XIII., 108

" from Louis XIII. to present Day, 120

" Female Employment, 529

" obscene Literature, 102

" present Regulations, 139

" Provincial Legislation, 98

" Syphilis, 131

Francis I., 110

Franks, Concubinage among the, 94

Free Love, 569

French Legislation, 119

" Republican, 122

French Revolution, Effects in Berlin of, 234

" Effects in Great Britain, 310

" Effects in Hamburg, 191

" Effects in Paris, 122

Gauls, Morality of the, 93

" Roman Description of the, 93

George III., 308

" IV., 309

German Ball-rooms in New York, 523, 561

" Brothels in New York, 560

Glasgow, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Glycera, 61

Gnathena, 57

Gnathenion, 57

Governmental Duty, 629

Governors of Alms-house, 27

" Interrogatories by, 28

Gradation of Prostitution, 453

Granada, public Brothels at, 172

Great Britain, 282

" Ages of Prostitutes, 347

" Education, 335

" Factories, 332

" Illegitimacy, 337

" Juvenile Prostitution, 331

" Needle Women, 344

" Occupations of Inhabitants, 622

Great Britain, Syphilis, 354

" Work-houses, 332

Greece, 43

" erotic Literature of, 62

" Flute Players, 50

" Tax on Prostitutes, 46

Greenland, 449

Gretna Green Marriages, 311

Guardian Society, London, 351

Guatemala, 365

Gynecea, 94

Hair of Greek Courtesans, 46

Halle, Effects of Suppression of Brothels in, 243

Hamburg, 189

" Ages of Prostitutes, 200

" Assignation Houses, 211

" Brothels, 198, 206

" Classes of Prostitutes, 199

" Dancing-saloons, 212

" Illegitimacy, 199

" Kept Mistresses, 210

" Kurhaus, 216

" Laws, 191

" Magdalen Hospital, 218

" Nationality of Prostitutes, 200

" Number of Prostitutes in, 198

" Police Regulations, 193

" Prostitutes, domestic Life of, 202

" Prostitutes, Physique, 201

" private Prostitution, 210

" Recognized Procuresses, 205

" Street-walkers, 210

" Syphilis, 214

Hamburger Berg, 201

Henry II., of France, 112

" III., " , 116

" VIII., of England, 294

" of Navarre, 114

Hetairæ 46, 53

" Influence of, 62

" social Position of, 54

Hipparchia, 56

Honduras, 366

Hospital du Midi, Paris 136

" in Rome, 164

Hottentots, 385

Houses of Assignation, New York, 566

Iceland, 449

Idols retained as Christian Symbols, 90

Illegitimacy in Belgium, 187

" Berlin, 250

" Denmark, 256

" Great Britain, 337

" Lima, 368

" New York, 480

" Norway, 280

" Sweden, 278

Ill Treatment by Parents, etc., a Cause of Prostitution, 498

Immigration, its Effects on Prostitution, 459

Immorality of Belgium, 187

" Spain, 169

Inclination a Cause of Prostitution, 488

Incubes, Belief in, 103

India, 421

Infanticide in China, 432

" India, 424

" Lima, 368

Infant Mortality, New York, 481

Inscription of Prostitutes, 144

Intelligence Offices an Agency for Prostitution, 517

Intemperance of Prostitutes, 540

" Parents of Prostitutes, 544

Intoxication a Cause of Prostitution, 497

Introduction, 17

Ireland, 460

Irish Farmers, 537

Isabel of Bavaria, 108

Island Hospital, Blackwell's Island, 586, 601, 633

Italian Morality, 165

" Lord Byron on, 166

Italian Vices introduced to France, 112

Italy, 154

" Decline of public Morals, 155

" Influence of Papal Court, 155

" Syphilis, 157

" unnatural Crimes, 159

James I., of England, 296

" II., " , 304

Jane Shore, 293

Japan, 435

Java, 408

Jephthah's Daughter, 38

Jerusalem, 37

Jews, the, 35

Judah and Tamar, 36

Julian Laws, 67

Justinian, 93

Juvenal's Description of a House of Prostitution, 72

Juvenile Depravity, 32, 331, 453

Kaffirs, 386

Kashmir, 419

Kept Mistresses, 172, 210

Kings County Hospital, Long Island, 592, 602

Kordofan, 390

Kurhaus of Hamburg, 216

Lamia, 53

Lais, 58

Lateran Council, 156

Latin Authors, Pruriency of, 80

Laws on Prostitution by Moses, 36

" France, 119

" " Republican, 122

" Lycurgus, 45

" Naples, 159

" Portugal, 179

" Prussia, 219, 225

" Russia, 261

League, the Huguenot, its Influence in France, 116

Leeds, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Leipzig, 252

" Brothels, 253

" domestic Life of Prostitutes, 254

" Nationality of Prostitutes, 254

" Syphilis, 255

Lesbian Love, 52

Licensed Prostitutes in Persia, 417

License System in New York, 651

Lima, 367

" Illegitimacy and Infanticide, 368

Literature, France, 129

" Great Britain, 299

Liverpool, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Lock Hospital, London, 350

Lodging Houses, England, 324

London Female Penitentiary, 351

" Guardian Society, 351

" Lock Hospital, 350

" Night Houses, 653

" Number of Prostitutes in, 340

" obscene Publications, 334

" public Meeting on Prostitution, 653

" Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, 357

_London Times_, the, on Prostitution, 657

Louisville, Ky., Prostitution in, 608

Louis IX., of France, 95

" XI., " , 109

" XII., " , 110

" XIII., " , 123

" XIV., of France, 124

" XV., " , 128

Louise de Querouaille, 302

Lupanaria, 70

Lycurgus, Laws of, 45

Magdalen Asylums, 631

" Hamburg, 218

" Paris, 152

Maine, 457

Male Prostitutes, 70

Manchester, Number of Prostitutes in, 341

Mantua, Brothels in, 161

Margaret, Queen of Navarre, 114

Marriage Ceremonies of the ancient Britons, 282

Marriage Ceremonies in France, 107

Marriage, Belgium, 187

" Norway, 280

" Rome, 81

" Effects of early, 474

" ill-assorted, 331

" Violation of, 473

Martial, 78

Maryland, 457

Massachusetts, 458

Medical Bureau, proposed, New York, 649

Medical Colleges, New York, 591

Medical Institutions, Theory of, New York, 633

Medical Visitation of Prostitutes, 645

" Paris, 149

Medicis, the, Effects upon French Morality of, 112

Messalina, 72

Mexican Clergy, Morals of, 360

" Society, 361

Mexico, 359

" Foundling Hospitals, 363

Moloch, Worship of, 37

Montpellier, public Brothel at, 100

Moral Chastity, Doctrine of, 88

Mothers of Prostitutes in New York, 538

Mrs. Fry, benevolent Exertions of, 353

Nach Girls, 420

Naples, Court of Prostitutes, 160

" Laws on Prostitution, 159

Nationality of Prostitutes, Algiers, 184

" Hamburg, 200

" Leipzig, 254

" New York, 456

Naucratis, 41

Needle-women, Great Britain, 344

" New York, 527

Nell Gwynne, 302

Nepotism, 155

Nero, 83

Newark, N. J., Prostitution in, 609

New Hampshire, 458

New Haven, Conn., Prostitution in, 609

New Jersey, 458

New York, Abortion, 481

" Age of Prostitutes, 452

" Aggregate Prostitution, 584

" Assignation Houses, 566

" Assistance to emigrate to, 466

" Average Wages of Women, 529

" Brothels, Capital invested in, 599

" " Management of, 554

" " Receipts of, 554

" " Value of, 553

" Brothel-keepers, 553

" Business of Fathers of Prostitutes, 535

" " of Mothers of Prostitutes, 538

" Career of a Prostitute, 453

" Causes of Prostitution, 488

" Census Returns, Reliability of, 674

" Children's Aid Society, 530

" Children of Prostitutes, 477

" civil Condition of Prostitutes, 473

" Continuance of Prostitution, 484

" Cost of Surveillance, 653

" Dangers of a Prostitute's Life, 485

" Dangers of Syphilitic Infection, 632

" Death of Parents of Prostitutes, 539

" Delirium Tremens, 543

" Dispensaries, 590, 602

" Duration of a Prostitute's Life, 455

" Education of Prostitutes, 468

" Effects of Destitution, 489

" " early Marriage, 474

" " female Occupation, 533

" " of Inclination, 488

" Extent, Effects, and Cost of Prostitution, 575

" German Ball-rooms, 523, 561

" " Brothels, 560

" Gradation of Prostitutes, 453

" foreign-born Prostitutes, 460

" Hospitals, 590, 602

" Illegitimacy, 480

" ill Treatment of Parents, Husbands, and Relatives, 498

" Inducements to emigrate, 465

" Infant Mortality, 481

" Influence of Suburbs on Prostitution, 585

" Instances of Destitution, 491

" Intemperance of Prostitutes, 540

" Intemperance of Parents of Prostitutes, 544

" Intelligence Offices, 517

" Intoxication a Cause of Prostitution, 497

" Juvenile Depravity, 453

" License System, 651

" Life of a Seamstress, 490

" Medical Institutions, Theory of, 633

" Metropolitan Police Estimate of Prostitutes, 579

" Nativity of Prostitutes, 456

" Necessity for a Syphilitic Hospital, 644

" Number of Prostitutes, 576

" Obscene Publications, 521

" Origin of Assignation Houses, 568

" Panel Houses, 573

" Parlor Houses, 549

" Police and Judiciary Expenses, 605

" Poverty of Emigrants, 465

" private Prostitutes, 582

" Preponderance of Prostitutes from Northern States, 457

" Proportion of Children attending School, 471

" proposed Surveillance of Prostitution, 643

" proposed medical Visitation of Prostitutes, 645

" Prostitutes and Houses of Prostitution, 549

" " compared with Population, 585

" " exaggerated Estimates of, 577

" " Income of, 600

" " Length of Residence in New York City, 464

" " Length of Residence in New York State, 464

" " Length of Residence in United Sates, 463

" Recapitulation of Facts, 675

" Religion of Prostitutes, 545

" " Parents of Prostitutes, 545

" Remedial Measures, 627

" Sailors' Ball-rooms, 563

" " Brothels, 562

" Schedule of Questions, 450

" Seduction in, 492

" Statistics of, 450

" Syphilis in, 586

" " Number of Prostitutes infected, 487

" Theory of present Medical Institutions, 633

" Widowed Prostitutes, 477

New Zealand, 394

Norfolk, Va., Prostitution in, 610

Norman Rule in England, 288

North American Indians, 372

Northern Africa, 444

Norway, 277

" Illegitimacy in, 280

" Syphilis in, 281

Number of Prostitutes in Berlin, 233

" China, 433

" Copenhagen, 256

" Cork, 342

" Dublin, 341

" Leipzig, 253

Nursery, Randall's Island, New York, 500, 602, 605

Obscene Literature, 102

" France, 117

" London, 334

" New York, 521

Offenses of Prostitutes, 150

Open-air Prostitution, 74

Overcrowded Dwellings, 322

Ovid, 78

Panel Houses, New York, 573

_Parc aux Cerfs_, 128

Parent-Duchatelet, Laws of France, 121

" " for Repression of Prostitution, 153

Paris, Ages of Prostitutes, 140

" _Bon Pasteur_ Asylum, 152

" Brothels, 141

" Causes of Prostitution, 141

" Classes of Prostitutes, 148

" Dispensary, 138

" Education of Prostitutes, 140

" Hospital de Lourcine, 137

" Inscription of Prostitutes, 144

" Medical Visitation, 149

" Number of Prostitutes, 139

" Offenses of Prostitutes, 150

" Operation of remedial Measures, 632

" Prisons for Prostitutes, 151

" Procuresses, 143

" Prostitution in 1858, 661

" Punishment of Prostitutes, 149

" Radiation of Prostitutes, 147

" Statistics of Syphilis, 138

Parlor Houses, New York, 549

Penitentiary, Blackwell's Island, 587, 604

Pennsylvania, 458

Persia, 415

Persian Banquets, 42

Peru, 367

Peter the Great, of Russia, 262

Philadelphia, Pa., Prostitution in, 611

Philanthropic Labors, and Results, 631

Philosophy in France, Tendency of, 130

Philtres, 63

Phoenician Customs, 42

Phryne, 45, 59

Physiological Education, Importance of, 520

Piedmont, Laws of, 162

Pisistratidæ, 44

Pittsburgh, Pa., Prostitution in, 611

Police Regulations, Algiers, 182

" Berlin, 251

" France, 139

" Russia, 227

Police of New York, Captains of, 31

" Inspectors of, 580

Police and Judiciary Expenses, New York, 605

Political Circumstances, their Connection with Prostitution, 326

Polynesia, 397

Portugal, 178

" Laws of, 179

Poverty in England, 327

Preponderance of Prostitutes from Northern States in New York, 457

Preservation of female Honor, 23

Prisons for Prostitutes, 151

Private Interest connected with Prostitution, 23

Private Life in Berlin, Description of, 247

Private Prostitution in Hamburg, 210

" New York, 582

Procuresses in England, 308, 313

" France, 97, 101

" Hamburg, 205

" Paris, 143

Prohibition, Effects of, 627

" " in France, 95

Propriety of Investigation, 20

Prostitutes compared with Population, 585

" Converted by the early Christians, 88

" exaggerated estimates of, 577

" in Algiers, Nationality of, 184

" " Number of, 183

" in New York, Income of, 600

" kindly Feeling toward each other, 547

" Number of in Edinburgh, 341

" " Glasgow, 341

" " Leeds, 341

" " Liverpool, 341

" " London, 340

" " Manchester, 341

" " New York, 575

" " Paris, 139

" " the United States, 615

" recognized in Judæa, 38

Prostitution a State Monopoly, 43

" aggregate Cost of, 606

" augmented by Secrecy, 631

" Biblical Description of, 39

" coeval with Society, 35

" earliest Record of, 35

" Impossibility of Suppressing, 19, 628

" increased by present Regulations, 630

" Notoriety of, 17

" proposed Surveillance of, 643

" Traders in, 69

Prussia, 219

Prussian Laws on Prostitution, 219-225

" Police Regulations, 227

" royal Rescript on Prostitution, 223

Public Amusements, 330

Public Decency advanced by Surveillance, 652

Public Life in Berlin, Description of, 245

Public Morals affected by Police Surveillance, 651

Public Responsibility, 640

Punishment of Prostitutes, 149

Puritan Rule in England, 298

Pythionice, 60

" Tomb of, 61

Radiation of Prostitutes, Paris, 147

Reese (Dr. D. M.) on Infant Mortality, 482

Registration of Prostitutes, 144

Religion of Prostitutes, 545

" Parents of Prostitutes, 545

Religious Prostitution in Chaldea, 41

" Greece, 43

Remedial Measures in Paris, Operation of, 632

" proposed, 627

Report on Infant Mortality, by Dr. Reese, 482

Report of Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital, 665

Report of Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island, 29

Report of Resident Physician, Randall's Island, 673

Repression of Prostitution, Parent-Duchatelet's Law for, 153

Republican Legislation in France, 122

Resorts of Criminals, 22

Restoration of Charles II., Effect on Morality of, 298

Rhadopis, 41

Rhode Island, 457

Rio Janeiro, Foundling Hospitals in, 371

_Roi des Ribauds_, 96

Rome, 64

" Banquets, 81

" Baths, 73

" Brothels, 161

" _Commessationes_, 82

" Costume of Prostitutes, 75

" Drug Sellers, 85

" Emperors, 82

" Houses of Prostitution, 70

" Laws governing Prostitution, 64

" Physicians, 85

" Prostitutes, Classes of, 68

" " Habits of, 75

" " Number of, 68

" " Remuneration of, 76

" Republican Legislation, 67

" secret Diseases, 84

" Society, Demoralization of, 79

" Taverns, 74

Ruffiani, 169

Russia, 261

" Brides' Fair, 274

" Foundling Hospitals, 275

" Laws of, 261

" Marriage ceremonies, 274

" Morals of the present Day, 272

" Syphilis, 276

_Sabat des Sorciers_, 104

Sailors' Ball-rooms, New York, 563

" Brothels, New York, 562

Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, London, 357

Saint Petersburg Foundling Hospital, 275

Salpétrière, Hospital of, 134

Sanitary Regulations, Importance of, 632

Savannah, Ga., Prostitution in, 612

Schedule of Questions, New York, 450

Scotland, 460

Seaman's Retreat, Staten Island, 592, 602

Seamstress, the, in New York, 490

Secret Diseases among the Jews, 36

" at Rome, 84

Sectarian Aids to Prostitution, 105

Seduction, 320

" a Cause of Prostitution, 492

" a social Wrong, 495

Semicivilized Nations, 415

Seville, public Brothels at, 172

Sexual Desire, 320

Siberia, 445

Society, Prostitution coeval with, 35

Solomon's Temple, 38

Solon, Laws of, 43

Spain, 168

" Court of, 170

" Immorality of, 169

" public Brothels in, 172

Spanish and Roman Laws, Similarity of, 168

Spanish Laws, 172

" Women, Education of, 177

Sparta, 45

Statistics of New York, 450

Stockholm, Immorality of, 280

" Illegitimacy in, 278

_Succubes_, Belief in, 103

Sumatra, 411

Suttee, 424

Sweden, 277

" Brothels in, 279

" Foundling Hospitals in, 278

" Illegitimacy in, 278

" Syphilis in, 279

Switzerland, 259

Syphilis, Algiers, 186

" Belgium, 188

" Berlin, 248

" British Army, 357

" " Merchant Service, 357

" " Navy, 357

" Copenhagen, 257

" France, 131

" Great Britain, 354

" Hamburg, 214

" India, 424

" Italy, 157

" Japan, 439

" Kashmir, 421

" Leipzig, 255

" New York, 586

" " aggregate Expenses of, 603

" " Number of Prostitutes infected by, 487

" " treated by Drug Sellers, 595

" " treated by Advertisers, 596

" " treated by patent Medicines, 595

" " treated in private Practice, 592

" New Zealand, 395

" Norway, 281

" Paris, 138

" Portugal, 179

" Rome, 164

" Russia, 276

" Sandwich Islands, 404

" Spain, 174

" Sweden, 279

Syphilitic-Hospital in New York, Necessity of, 644

Syphilitic Infection, Danger of, 632

" Patients, Neglect of, 133

Tait (of Edinburgh) on Prostitution in New York, 615

Tartar Races, 440

Tax on Prostitutes, Algiers, 182

Templars, Depravity of, 97

Thargelia, 55

Theatricals, France, 118

" Great Britain, 300

Theodora, Empress of Rome, 92

" Attempts to reclaim Prostitutes by, 92

Toulouse, public Brothel at, 99

Troubadours, Profligacy of, 292

Turkey, 442

Ulm, Laws of, 189

Ultra-Gangetic Nations, 427

Underpaid Labor, 328

United States, Ages of Inhabitants, 619

" Births in, 620

" Crime in, 625

" Education in, 620

" Intemperance in, 625

" Number of Prostitutes in, 615

" Occupations of Inhabitants, 622

" Pauperism in, 624

" Prostitutes in various Cities of, 607

" Statistics of, 618

" Wages in, 623

Unnatural Crimes, 159

Vagrancy Commitments, 633

" moral Effects of, 635

" "on Confession", 634

" pecuniary Effects of, 635

Valencia, public Brothel at, 172

Vectigal, or Tax on Prostitutes, 92

Venice, Brothels in, 161

" Prostitutes in, 162

Venus, Worship of, 53

Vermont, 458

Virginia, 457

Wages influenced by Competition, 530

Wales, 460

West Indies, 406

Widowed Prostitutes, 477

Witches, Persecution of, 105

Women, average Wages of in N. Y., 529

" Capability of, 525

" Social Condition of, 525

Work-house, Blackwell's Island, 587-603

" Great Britain, 332

Yucatan, 365

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Since this introduction was written (1857) some changes have taken place in the constitution of the Board of Governors. The election of Mr. Tiemann to the Mayoralty caused a vacancy which is now filled by P. McElroy, Esq., and the resignation and subsequent death of Mr. Taylor has resulted in the election of William T. Pinkney, Esq.

[2] Now (1858) President of the Board.

[3] Now (1858) Secretary of the Board.

[4] To explain the apparent solecism of addressing a letter to President Townsend, detailing actions in which he had taken so important a part, it may be necessary to say that a standing order of the Board of Governors requires all official correspondence with them to be addressed to their President.

[5] See Chapter XXXII. for these questions.

[6] It is quite probable that the commercial and financial panic which commenced about the time these pages were nearly ready for the press, and continued throughout the winter of 1857-8, has added to the number of prostitutes in New York City, very likely as many as five hundred, or perhaps a thousand, but certainly not to the extent generally imagined. Allusions have been made elsewhere to the exaggerated estimates of the extent of this vice, and the opinions publicly expressed in regard to accessions to the ranks of prostitutes during the last few months generally seem to be of a similarly vague nature.

[7] Gen. xxxviii. 11.

[8] Lev. xix. 29; Deut. xxiii. 17.

[9] Ex. xxii. 19; Lev. xviii. 23.

[10] Ex. xxi. 17.

[11] Deut. xxii. 17.

[12] Lev. xv.

[13] Deut. xxiii. 18, etc.

[14] Ibid. xxiii. 18.

[15] Chron. xv. xvii. etc.

[16] Maccabees.

[17] Ch. vii. 6, etc.

[18] Ctesias, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 10.

[19] Herodotus, ii. 60.

[20] Herodotus, ii. 64.

[21] Id. ii. 89.

[22] Id. ii. 89.

[23] Baruch, vi.

[24] Quintus Curtius, v. 1.

[25] Macrobius, Sat. Conv. vii. Athenæus, xii. _passim_; Plutarch, Vit. Artaxerxes.

[26] Nicander, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 25.

[27] Plutarch, Life of Solon: Lucian, Dialogues.

[28] Philemon, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 25.

[29] Idomeneus, quoted by Athenæus, xii. 44.

[30] _Fainomerides._ See Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus.

[31] Politics, ii. 7.

[32] Athenæus, xiii. 59; Alciphron's Letters.

[33] Athenæus, xiii. 20, _et sed._; Suidas, Lex., Vo. Diagramma; Æschylus c. Timarch. p. 134; St. Clement of Alexandria, Pædag. ii. 10; Becker, Charicles i. 126; etc.

[34] Pollux, Onom. ii. 30; x. 170; St. Clement of Alex. _loc. cit._

[35] Philemon, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 25.

[36] Xenarchus and Eubulus, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 25.

[37] Demosthenes against Neæra.

[38] Alexis, quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 23.

[39] Athenæus xiii. 26.

[40] See Lucian. Dialogue of Courtesans, _passim_.

[41] Letters of Alciphron, 46.

[42] Lucian, _loc. cit._

[43] Anthology, ed. Jacobs, ii. 633.

[44] Athenæus, xiii. 86.

[45] Letters of Alciphron, 34.

[46] Athenæus, xiii. 86.

[47] Antiphanes, quoted in Athenæus, xiii. 51.

[48] Theopompus, Dicæarchus, etc. quoted by Athenæus, xiii. 67.

[49] Letters of Alciphron, 44.

[50] Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 16, 19, 24-27; Athenæus, xiii. 39.

[51] Demosthenes against Neræa, p. 1386; Becker, Charicles, ii. 215.

[52] St. Clement of Alex.; Hortat. Address, 97.

[53] Grote's History of Greece, vi. 100.

[54] Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 24, 32, etc.; Demosthenes against Neræa, p. 1350; Aristophanes, Acharm. 497, etc.; Athenæus, xiii. 25-56.

[55] Diogenes Laert. vi. 96.

[56] Athenæus, xiii. 56, 66, etc.; Alciphron's Letters, 30.

[57] Athenæus, xiii. 39, etc.

[58] Id. xiii. 43, 47.

[59] Plato, De Rep. iii. p. 404; Aristoph. Plut. 149; Müller, Dor. ii. 10, 7; Strabo, viii. 6, 211.

[60] Diogenes Laert. ii. 84; St. Clement of Alex. Strom, iii. 47; Pausanias, ii. 2, 4; Ausonius, Epig. 17; Athenæus, xiii. 26, 54, etc.

[61] Ælian, V. H. ix. 32; Alciphron's Letters, i. 31; Jacobs, Alt. Mus. iii. 18, 36, etc.; Athenæus, xiii. 59, etc.

[62] Pausanias, i. 37, 5; Athenæus, xiii. 45, etc.; Diod. xvii. 108; Arr. _ap. Phot._ 70.

[63] Diogenes Laert. x. 4; Athenæus, xiii. 29; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i. 33.

[64] Lactant. i. 20.

[65] Martial, i. 1; Seneca, Epist. 96.

[66] Val. Max. ii. 10, 8.

[67] Annal. lib. ii. 85.

[68] Plautus, Pænulus.

[69] Nov. 5.

[70] See Tabl. Heracl. i. 123.

[71] Plutarch, Vita Catonis.

[72] Livy, xxxiv. 1, et seq.

[73] Livy, xxxix. 8-19. See also St. August. De Civ. Dei, vii. 21.

[74] Cicero, ad Fam. i. 9.

[75] Val. Max. ii. 1, 7; Cicero, de Off. 1, 35.

[76] Plutarch, Vit. Syllæ, 85.

[77] Lex Jul. et Pap. Popp.; Lex Jul. de Adult.; Dig. 35, tit. 1, § 63; Gaius, ii. 113.

[78] See Dig. 48, tit. 5.

[79] Aulus Gell. quoting Ateius Capito.

[80] Pierrugues, Gloss. Erot. For the duties of the ædiles, see Schubert, de Rom. Ædilibus, liv. 4.

[81] See Plautus, _passim_.

[82] Suetonius.

[83] Cicero.

[84] Ausonius.

[85] Plaut. Panulus.

[86] Cic. pro Cælio.

[87] Juvenal.

[88] Juvenal.

[89] Suidas.

[90] Plautus, Cistellaria.

[91] Suetonius.

[92] Martial.

[93] Plaut. Panulus. Juvenal says,

"_Ad terram tremulo descendant clune puellæ._"

[94] Horace, Od. iii. 6, 21.

[95] See Schubert, _loc. cit._

[96] Terenco, Adelph. 1; Catullus, etc.

[97] Rom. i. 26, 27, and all Latin poets, _passim_.

[98] See Bunsen, Beschreibung der Stadt Rome, 1830, i. 173.

[99] Plautus, _Asinaria_; Martial, Ep. _passim_.

[100] Petronius, Satyricon, i. 28.

[101] Hor. Sat. i. 2, 30; Juv. Sat. iii. 156; Suet. Jul. 49.

[102] Prudentius, in Agn; Boulenger, Cirque, etc.

[103] _Olenti in fornice_, Hor. _Redolet fuligmura fornicis_, Mart.

[104] Plautus.

[105] Id.

[106] Juvenal, ii. Sat. vi. 116.

[107] Cyprian, Ep. 103; Boulenger, De Circe Rom.; Arnob.; Tertullian.

[108] Seneca, Ep. 86; Val. Max. ii. 1, 7.

[109] Plin. H. N. 33, 54.

[110] "Callidus et cristæ digitos impressit aliptes."--Juvenal, ii. Sat. vi.

[111] Spartianus, Hadrian, c. 1.

[112] See Ovid, Ars Amat.

[113] Ulpian, liv. xxiii. De rit. nupt.; Jul. Paulus, Dig.; Cicero.

[114] Martial, xvi. 222.

[115]

Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, Plus quam se atque suas amavit omnes, Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis Glubit magnanimos Remi nepotes. CATULLUS, _Carm._ 58.

[116] Cicero in Cat.

[117] Lampridius, Script. Hist. Aug. _Elagabalus_.

[118] Martial, Ep. i. 36, 8; ii. 39; vi. 64, 4. See Becker's Gallus, i. 321.

[119] See also Seneca.

[120] Seneca, Ep. 80, 110; Suet. Jul. 43; Claud. 28; Domit. 8.

[121] Petron. Satyr. i. 26.

[122] Juvenal, Sat. vi.; Tertullian, De exhort. cast. 45.

[123] Juvenal, Sat. vi.

[124] Petronius, ii. 352.

[125] Plautus, Miles; Apuleius, ii. 27.

[126] Juvenal, Sat. vi.

[127] Propertius, ii. 6; Suet. Tib. 43, and Vit. Hor.; Pliny, xxxv. 37.

[128] See the collection at the Museo Borbonice at Naples, etc.

[129] Mutinus, cujus immanibus pudendis horrentique fascino vestras inequitare matrones.... Arnobius, v. 132. See also St. Augustine and Lactantius.

[130] August. De Civ. Dei.

[131] Catullus, Epithalam.; Arnobius, _loc. cit._

[132] Petron. Satyr. ii. 68.

[133] Petron. Satyr, ii. 70, etc.

[134] Juvenal, Sat. vi.

[135] Suetonius, Jul. 51.

[136] Videsne ut cinædus urbano digito temperat? Suet. Aug. 68, etc.

[137] Suetonius, Tiberius, 42.

[138] Suetonius, Caligula, 24.

[139] Id. Claudius, 26; Juvenal, Sat. vi.

[140] Tacitus, Ann. xv. 37-40.

[141] Scaliger.

[142] Horace, Sat. i. 2, I.

[143] Ovid, Remed. Amor.

[144] Dig. 27, 1, 6; Cod. Theodos. xiii. 3. De Medic, et profess.

[145] Ambrosius, De Virg. lib. i. Prudentius in Symmach.; Basil, Inter. 17, resp.

[146] Cyprian, De Pudici. etc.

[147] Clem. Pædag. ii. 10.

[148] Sueton. Vit. Tiber.

[149] Tertul. Apol.

[150] Basil, De vera Virgin. 52.

[151] Ambros. Epist. iv. ep. 34.

[152] Ambrose, Epist. iv. 34.

[153] See Ruinart, Actes ii. 196; also Palladius, Vit. Patr. cap. 148, etc.

[154] August. contr. Jul. 1. iv.; id. ep. 122, and the other fathers.

[155] Reynaud, Act. Sanct.

[156] Ignat. Ep. ad Trall, et ad Philad.; Clement. Strom. 3; Epiphan. Hær. 27; Theodor. Hæret. i. 5.

[157] Letter to Innocent I.

[158] Calvin, Tr. Relig.

[159] Tr. Ord. lib. ii. c. 12.

[160] Ep. ad Furiam, ad Fabiolam. See also Lactantius, lib. vi. cap. 23.

[161] Can. 61, 77.

[162] Constit. lib. viii. c. 7.

[163] Canons 12, 44.

[164] Lib. de fid. et oper. c. xi.

[165] Const. Milan, tit. 65, de meret. et lenon.

[166] Justin, Apol. pro Christ.

[167] Evagrius, Hist. Eccl. liv. 3, c. 39.

[168] Id. ib.

[169] Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 8, De lenon.

[170] Novel. 14, col. 1. tit. 1. De lenon.

[171] Ordonn. des Rois de France, vii. 327.

[172] Ibid. xiii. 75.

[173] Ann. de la Ville de Toulouse, par Lafaille, ii. 189, 199, 280.

[174] Astruc, _De morb. vener._

[175]

"Sur le pont d'Avignon Tout le monde y passe."

The bridge was a haunt of prostitutes.

[176]

"Toutes estes, serez, ou fûtes, De faict ou de volonté, putes."--_Roman de la Rose._

[177] St. August. _per cont._; St. John Chrysost. Hom. 22, sup. Gene.

[178] Bodin, Demonomanie.

[179] Recueil general des questions traictées es Conferences du Bureau d'Adresse. Paris, 1656.

[180] Hist. Ecclesiast. Henry XVII. 53.

[181] Bodin, Demonomanie.

[182] Nicolas Renny.

[183] Pere Crespet, De la Haine de Satan.

[184] Boileau, Hist. des Flagellants; Pic de la Mirandole, Tr. contre les Astrolopies, liv. iii. ch. 27.

[185] Bayle's Dictionary, Vo. _Picard_.

[186] Lenglet, Dufresnoy sur Marot, iii. 97; Richelet's Dict.

[187] Brantome, in his Dames Galantes, describing a marriage, says, "_Chacun estoit a l'escontes, a l'accoustumée_."

[188] Vies des Hommes Illust.: Bonnivet.

[189] Sauval, Amours des rois de France; from which work many of the facts in the text throughout this chapter are drawn.

[190] Le divorce Satirique.

[191] Bayle's Dictionary, Vo. Henry IV.

[192] De Matrimonio, Le Somme des Peches.

[193] Charles V. 17th Octob. 1367.

[194] A.D. 1365.

[195] Cabinet du Roi de France, Paris, 1581.

[196] Parent-Duchatelet, De la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris, ii. 473.

[197] See Taylor's House of Orleans, vol. i. and Memoires de la Duchesse d'Orleans, _passim_.

[198] Nicolas Leoniceno, De Morbo Gallico, and others.

[199] Ulrich de Hutton, De Morbi Gallici curatione.

[200] Roderic Dias, Contra las Bubas.

[201] W. Beckett, Phil. Trans. vol. xxx.

[202] Registres du Parlement de Paris, 1497.

[203] Jerome Fracastor, De Morb. Contag.

[204] Registres du Parlement de Paris, 1505.

[205] Cullerier: Report of Chirurgien Mareschal; Report of M. de Breteuil to the Government; Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 180.

[206] Cullerier; Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 184.

[207] Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 186.

[208] Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 124.

[209] Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 130.

[210] Id. ii. 138.

[211] MSS. Reports quoted by Parent-Duchatelet, i. 30; Restif de la Bretonne; _Pornographe_.

[212] Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 273.

[213] Id. ii. 398.

[214] Id. ii. 403.

[215] Dennistoun's Dukes of Urbino; Ranke's History of the Popes; Gibbon's Rome.

[216] Ranke, ii. Appendix.

[217] In 1849, when the Roman people opened the palace of the Inquisition, there was found in the library a department styled "Summary of Solicitations," being a record of cases in which women had been solicited to acts of criminality by their confessors in the pontifical state, and the summary is not brief.--Dwight's "Roman Republic in 1849," p. 115.

[218] Discorsi, i. 12.

[219] Life of Leo X. Appendix.

[220] Fabronius, Leo X. p. 287.

[221] Paris de Grassine, Memoirs of the Court of Julius II. p. 579.

[222] Jovius, lib. iii. p. 56.

[223] De Commines, v. ii. c. 6.

[224] The Roman Pontiffs, New York, 1845.

[225] After the occupation by the French in 1809, a collection of facts was made by the French authorities, with a view to a census, but this we have been unable to obtain.

[226] Medical and Chirurgical Review, April, 1854.

[227] Ibid.

[228] Harper's Magazine, February, 1855, p. 326; Italian Life and Morals.

[229] Rome, by a New Yorker, 1845.

[230] Sharpe's Letters from Italy, 1705.

[231] History of Italy: Family Library, vol. iii.

[232] Roman Republic, 1849; Rome, by a New Yorker.

[233] Valery.

[234] Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 66.

[235] Prescott, i. 66, _et seq._

[236] Id. i. 227.

[237] Id. iii. 171.

[238] Voltaire says that these prurient questions were debated with a gusto and a minuteness of detail not found elsewhere. He instances a variety of these absurd theorems.

[239] It may be imagined, as was the case in Berlin, that this behest flowed from the irregular manner and conduct of the clergy; but some of the fathers of the Church entertained and avowed this opinion at a time when the morals of the clergy were not open to impeachment.

[240] Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, ii. 502 (note). The learned historian argues the subject at some length.

[241] Byron commemorates the beauty of the women of Cadiz, and, in his description of the shipwreck, saves the mate from being eaten by his starved companions on account of

"A small present made to him at Cadiz, By general subscription of the ladies."

[242] Townsend: Travels in Spain in 1786 and 1787.

[243] Townsend.

[244] Attaché in Madrid: Appleton, 1856, p. 64.

[245] Duc de Chatelet's Travels in Portugal.

[246] Kingston, Sketches in Lusitania, 1845.

[247] De la Prostitution dans la Ville d'Alger depuis la conquête, par E. A. Duchesne. Paris, Bailliere, 1853.

[248] Ib. p. 64, _et seq._

[249] Duchesne, p. 22, 171.

[250] Duchesne, p. 31.

[251] Id. p. 172.

[252] Id. p. 54, 56.

[253] Duchesne, p. 58.

[254] Id. p. 70, _et seq._

[255] Duchesne, p. 132.

[256] Id. p. 144.

[257] Id. p. 148.

[258] Duchesne, p. 152, _et seq._

[259] Id. p. 176.

[260] Id. p. 192.

[261] Id. p. 198.

[262] W. Trollope's Belgium. Scarcely a more liberal work toward the Belgians than Mrs. Trollope's toward ourselves.

[263] Jäger's "Schwabischen Städtwesen des Mittelalters."

[264] Hamburg and Altona Journal, 1805, iii. 50.

[265] _Vorschriften die Bordelle und öffentlichen Madchen betreffend_: Hamburg, 1834.

[266] This calculation is not very explicitly stated. It is intended to show that syphilis is not dangerously prevalent among the general population. The police arrive at this conclusion by deducting the cases treated in the Charité (which they estimate at two thirds) from the total population, and then divide the remaining cases among the bulk of the people, to prove that only a very small proportion are exposed to venereal influence. We transcribe the statement literally, but do not consider it of much value.

[267] Laing's Denmark in 1851.

[268] Braestrup, Director of Police at Copenhagen, on Prostitution and public Health.

[269] Report on Switzerland to the British Parliament, 1836, by Dr. (now Sir John) Bowring. He was sent on a Continental tour of inquiry into the condition of the working classes, in reference to the English Poor-laws.

[270] Mrs. Strutt's Switzerland, ii. 231.

[271] Karamsin.

[272] Villebois.

[273] Memoires Secrets de la Cour de Russia. Villebois.

[274] Karamsin.

[275] Karamsin, p. 424.

[276] Duchesse d'Abrantes, p. 34.

[277]

"... Miss Pratasoff then there Named from her mystic office l'Eprouveuse, A term inexplicable to the muse, With her then, as in humble duty bound, Juan retired."--_Byron._

[278] D'Abrantes, p. 294.

[279] Id. p. 297.

[280] Kohl.

[281] Golovin states that the whip is an article in frequent requisition in the conjugal state.

[282] Von Tietz, p. 73.

[283] Kohl. There is some difficulty in estimating the ruble from the difference in the currency of Russian silver coin. We believe this sum would be upward of a million dollars.

[284] Von Tietz says that, as regards morality, the institution does not work badly, for there are comparatively less illegitimate births at St. Petersburgh than in most other cities, but he gives no figures to support this assertion.

[285] Golovin.

[286] Swedish Registrar-General's Reports, 1838, 1839.

[287] Baron Gall's Reiser durch Schweden, Bremen, 1838; Laing's Tour through Sweden; Baron Von Strombeck Durstellunger, 1840.

[288] Spelman.

[289] Bede, lib. i. cap. 27.

[290] Padre Paolo.

[291] Wallingford.

[292] Leges Saxonicæ.

[293] A popular ballad which narrates the particulars describes the blow as having dyed Fair Rosamond's lips

"A coral red: Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were the lips that bled."

[294] State Trials, i. 228.

[295] Evelyn. 4th February, 1684-5.

[296] For the prose writers of those days who give lively pictures of manners and morals, the reader is referred to the pages of Fielding, Smollett, and especially De Foe, who wrote much upon low life.

[297] "Pure, and above all reproach in her own domestic life, the queen knew how to enforce at her court the virtues, or, at the very least, the semblance of the virtues which she practiced. To no other woman, probably, had the cause of good morals in England ever owed so deep an obligation."--Lord Mahon's History of England, 1713-1782, vol. iv., p. 221, 222.

[298] It was asserted some years ago, and by many believed, that after his death a large number of prurient French prints, which were in the Custom-house of London, and designed for the private amusement of the king, were burned. The story of the prints and their deflagration may be true, but it is very questionable if they were for royal use. A number of low class London papers always attacked George IV. personally, among which the Weekly Dispatch (the "Sunday Flash" of Warren's novel of "Ten Thousand a Year") took a prominent position from the coarseness of its language and the acerbity of its animosity, assumed at a time when party feeling ran high, as an attractive bait to its readers.

[299] Census of Great Britain, 1851.

[300] Dr. Ryan.

[301] The ineffectual provisions of the law have recently engaged the attention of the inhabitants of London, and a meeting was held in January of the present year (1858) to consider the evil, and decide what steps should be taken in the premises. We shall notice in another part of this work some of the suggestions made on that occasion.

[302] General secondary questions do not come within the scope of this work, but the labors of these dwelling improvement associations are intimately connected with the subject we have now under investigation. In London, model lodging-houses for single men, single women, and married couples with their children, have been tried and found eminently successful, both as a moderate interest-paying investment, and as a very admirable arrangement for promoting the comfort and health of the working classes. The details given some two years ago, through the daily papers, on the lodgings of the poor and the very poor of New York, were frightful enough to excite the active sympathy of the benevolent capitalists of this great city. The very best philanthropy is that which teaches and enables the poor man to benefit his own condition. This principle is practically in operation all over the United States: but in great cities, the freedom of action, and the directly beneficial results of frugality and industry, are not so immediate as in country places. The attempt by the poor to improve their own dwellings in these large cities is almost hopeless, because it does not depend upon individual exertions, but on combination both of money and knowledge. The "how, when, and where" have to be found out and carried through: very small difficulties these, and easily overcome, if those who have the requisite means to carry out such a reform, and thus lend their aid to the solution of an important social problem, have an inclination commensurate with their resources.

[303] See, in particular, as regards London, Statistical Society's Reports, vol. xiii.; Reports of Metropolitan Association for improving the Habitations of the Poor; Board of Health Papers. And for the country districts, Health of Towns Reports; Report on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 1843.

[304] Mayhew's Letters to the (London) Morning Chronicle; Mayhew's London Labor and the London Poor.

[305] Tait's Prostitution in Edinburgh.

[306] These conclusions are not always reliable. Other causes may operate. If we recollect rightly, Edinburgh is a garrison town. In factory towns, moreover, we should always expect to find a very large amount of immorality, which would somewhat displace open and avowed prostitution for hire.

[307] Mayhew's Letters to the London _Morning Chronicle_.

[308] When Mrs. Sydney Herbert instituted her Distressed Needlewoman's Society, a great deal was thought to have been accomplished in one particular branch of female labor--the millinery and dress-making business--when the leading employers had been induced to promise that the working-day should be restricted to twelve hours.--_Needlewoman's Society Report_, 1848.

[309] It would be interesting to know whether this illicit intercourse is by way of cohabitation or merely temporary. Instances are not rare of people cohabiting who allege themselves too poor to pay the marriage fees. In order to obviate this, it is customary for ministers in poor and populous parishes in England, where the circumstances of individual parishioners are not known to them, to invite all parties who are living in concubinage to come and be married free of expense. Many avail themselves of this offer.

[310] While this work was passing through the press, we met with a recent publication by Wm. Acton, Esq., M.R.C.S. of London, entitled "Prostitution considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects," which gives later information on this point. The Metropolitan Police estimated the number of prostitutes in London in 1841, and again in 1857, with the following results:

+-------------------------------------------------------------+ | | 1841. | 1857. | |---------------------------------------------|-------|-------| |Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels | 2071 | 921 | |Well-dressed prostitutes walking the streets | 199 | 2616 | |Prostitutes infesting low neighborhoods | 5344 | 5063 | | |-------|-------| | Total | 9409 | 8600 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+

Mr. Acton says, "The return gives, after all, but a faint idea of the grand total of prostitution. * * * * Were there any possibility of reckoning all those in London who would come within the definition of prostitutes, I am inclined to think that the estimates of the boldest who have preceded me would be thrown into the shade."--P. 16-18.

[311] An estimate of Cork was made in 1847 for the _Medico-Chirurgical Review_, which gave two hundred and fifty prostitutes living in eighty brothels, besides one hundred clandestine prostitutes. Their ages were stated as between sixteen and twenty years.

[312] This may be deemed a foregone conclusion, but it was based upon previous inquiries in individual cases.

[313] We do not understand this figure. The sum of the sewing trades of London is nearly twenty times this number. Perhaps Mr. Mayhew refers only to slop-work, including the very commonest garments, both woolen and cotton, or even to that portion of the trade that have their principal abode in the particular localities visited.

[314] The reader will notice that neither Dr. Ryan, Mr. Tait, nor the views as to the duration of life expressed in the portion of this work devoted to New York, agree with those German authors who have asserted the healthfulness of prostitution. See Chapter XVI., Hamburg.

[315] At the meeting in London to which allusion has been made, Mr. Acton (late Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary and Fellow of the Royal Medical Society) said that, "in his opinion, the subject under discussion was one worth legislating for. As a surgeon, he had investigated the subject not only in London, but in Paris and other Continental capitals, and he could speak with some authority as to the statistics of prostitution, and the manner in which the women became, as it were, absorbed in the population by whom they were surrounded. _From calculations based upon the census tables, it had come out that of all the unmarried women of full age in the country one in every 13 or 14 were immoral._ This might appear a startling announcement, but the calculation had been made upon returns, the truth of which had not been questioned. It was a popular error to suppose that these women died young, and made their exits from life in hospitals and work-houses. The fact was not so. Women of that class were all picked lives, and dissipation did not usually kill them. They led a life of prostitution for two, three, or four years, and then either married or got into some service or employment, and gradually became amalgamated with society. It was estimated that in this manner about 25 per cent. of the whole number amalgamated each year with the population."

From these remarks we may deduce the same continuance of a life of prostitution as given in the text, namely, an average of four years; but they advance another theory as to its termination, substituting reformation for death. We should be slow to give an unqualified endorsement to this opinion. That cases of reformation do take place, and probably to a greater extent than is generally imagined, can not be denied; but that one fourth of the total number of prostitutes abandon their sinful life every year, and become virtuous members of society, is a conclusion that American experience will not support. In England and on the European continent there may be a class of men in the lower ranks of life who do not regard virtue as a _sine qua non_ in the choice of a wife; indeed, the notorious facility with which the cast-off mistresses of noblemen or gentlemen can be married to a dependent sufficiently proves this; but in this country public opinion sets strongly in the opposite direction. Here, if a woman once errs, or is even suspected of error, she is rigorously excluded from virtuous society, and, although her subsequent life may be irreproachable, the lapse is seldom forgiven. The old Roman law, "Once a prostitute, always a prostitute," is too sternly enforced on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Acton's speech is the first intimation we have met of so very liberal a benevolence in England.

[316] We have calculated that there are upward of six hundred thousand women in London between fifteen and forty-five years old. The proportion of married women among these would be 370,000 and upward; unmarried women over twenty years, and widows, about 314,000.

[317] A very singular fact in connection with the census is that there is not a single individual returned as a prostitute. This is not that the authorities do not take cognizance of crime, for there are 22,451 female prisoners in Great Britain, all of whom, however, except 1274, are returned as having some legal occupation. There are 7600 female vagrants, sleeping in barns, tents, etc., of whom 2600 are under twenty years of age.

[318] Thomas Fowell Ruxton, on Prison Discipline.

[319] Lord Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review.

[320] _Rosa Anglica_, Pavia, 1492.

[321] A brief treatise touching the cure of the disease now usually called Lues Venerea. By W. Clovves, one of her Majesty's Chirurgeons. 1569: p. 149.

[322] Madame Calderon de la Barca.

[323] Clavijero.

[324] Waddy Thompson, Mexico in 1846, p. 115.

[325] Madame Calderon de la Barca, p. 259.

[326] Norman, Yucatan.

[327] Stevens, Travels in Central America.

[328] Among the Napuals, a remnant of the ancient Aztec inhabitants, marriage seems to have been under the direction of the chiefs, and consisted in first submitting the parties to lustrations, such as washing them in a river, and afterward tying them together in the bride's house, whither the relations brought presents to the new couple.

It was customary for only the kindred to lament the death of ordinary persons, but the decease of a cazique or war-chief was signalized by a general mourning for four days. Rape was punished with death, adultery by making the offender the slave of the injured husband, "unless pardoned by the high-priest on account of past services in war." There were certain degrees of relationship within which it was unlawful to marry, and sexual intercourse in such limits was punished with death. Upon matters of this kind there existed the greatest rigor, for, says Herrera, "he who courted or made signs to a married woman was banished." Fornication was punished by whipping.--_Squier's Notes on Central America_, p. 346.

[329] Squier, p. 50.

[330] Peru; Reiseskizzen in den Jahren 1838-1842. (Peru, Sketches of Travel.) By J. J. Von Tschudi. 2 vols. St. Gallen, 1846.

[331] Horace St. John.

[332] Stewart's Brazil and La Plata: New York, 1856.

[333] Ewbank's Brazil, p. 135.

[334] Ib. p. 141.

[335] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition across the Rocky Mountains, vol. ii. p. 144.

[336] Thatcher's Indian Traits, vol. i. p. 51.

[337] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. 358.

[338] Ib. i. 166.

[339] Id. ib.

[340] Indian Traits, i. 104.

[341] Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, p. 148.

[342] Beckwourth, p. 201.

[343] Id. p. 401.

[344] Indian Traits, i. p. 114.

[345] Beckwourth, p. 169.

[346] Beckwourth, p. 212.

[347] Murray's British North America, vol. i. p. 115.

[348] Murray's British North America, vol. i. p. 94.

[349] Indian Traits, i. p. 136.

[350] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. p. 135.

[351] Ib. i. p. 151.

[352] Beckwourth, p. 179.

[353] Murray's British America, i. p. 94.

[354] Indian Traits, i. p. 128.

[355] Murray's British America, i. 94.

[356] Beckwourth, p. 157.

[357] Beckwourth, p. 238.

[358] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. 166.

[359] Id. ib.

[360] Murray's British America, i. 125.

[361] The principal facts in this and the following chapter are taken from Mr. Horace St. John's article on Prostitution, in Mayhew's "London Labor and the London Poor."

[362] Russell's History of Polynesia, p. 75.

[363] Their institution is ascribed to Oro, the god of war. The resemblance between Areoi and [Greek: Aeês], the Greek god of war, is a coincidence.

[364] South Sea Missions, p. 88.

[365] U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 22.

[366] Missionary Voyage of Ship Duff, 1796, p. 336.

[367] U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 80.

[368] Ib. 148.

[369] Wilkes, vol. iv. p. 77.

[370] Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the operations of the Allied Powers against China, and the capture of Canton, have given some farther insight into the domestic economy of this people. The special correspondent of the London _Times_, writing from Hong Kong, February 22, 1858, thus describes Chinese holidays:

"During the _entrée acte_ all China has been exploding crackers, and Hong Kong has been celebrating its 'Isthmian games.' Toward the close of the three days of festivity the Chinese holiday became almost exciting. If they had kept up half as sharp a fire at Canton on the 29th of December as they did on the 14th of February, we should never have got over the walls with a less loss than 500 men. The streets both of Canton and Hong Kong were piled with myriads of exploded cracker carcasses. In Hong Kong, where I passed the last day of these festivities, grave men and sedate children were from morning till midnight hanging strings of these noisy things from their balconies, and perpetually renewing them as they exploded. The sing-song women, in their rich, handsome dresses, were screeching their shrill songs, and twanging their two-stringed lutes on every veranda in the Chinese quarter, while the lords of creation, assembled at a round table, were cramming the day-long repast. The women--hired singing women of not doubtful reputation--in the intervals of their music, take their seats at the table opposite the men. They do not eat, but their business being to promote the conviviality of the feast, they challenge the men to the samshu cup, and drink with them. It is astonishing to see what a quantity of diluted samshu these painted and brocaded she-Celestials can drink without any apparent effect. Ever and anon one of the company retires to a couch and takes an opium pipe, and then returns and recommences his meal. I was invited to one of these feasts; the dishes were excellent, but it lasted till I loathed the sight of food. I believe the Chinese spend fabulous sums in these entertainments; the sing-song women are often brought from distances, and are certainly chosen with some discrimination. They are an imitation of the Chinese lady, and, as the Chinese lady has no education and no duties, the difference between the poor sing-song girl and the poor abject wife is probably not observable in appearance or manner. The dress is particularly modest and becoming. They all have great quantities of black hair. If they would let it fall disheveled down their backs as the Manilla women do, they would be more picturesque, but not formal and decent, as China is, even in its wantonness. The Chinawoman's hair is gummed and built up into a structure rather resembling a huge flat-iron, and the edifice is adorned with combs, and jewels, and flowers, arranged with a certain taste. An embroidered blue silk tunic reaches from her chin nearly to her ankles. Below the tunic appear the gay trowsers, wrought with gold or silver thread; the instep glancing through the thin, white silk stockings, and a very small foot (when left to nature the Chinese have beautiful feet and hands) in a rich slipper, with a tremendous white sole in form of an inverted pyramid. In these sing-song girls you see the originals of the Chinese pictures--the painted faces, the high-arched, penciled eyebrows, the small, round mouth, the rather full and slightly sensual lip, naturally or artificially of a deep vermilion, the long, slit-shaped, half closed eyes, suggestive of indolence and slyness. What the voluble and jocose conversation addressed to them by the men may mean I can not tell, but their manners are quite decent, their replies are short and reserved, and every gesture, or song, or cup of samshu seems to be regulated by a known ceremonial."

[371] Golownin, vol. iii. p. 52.

[372] Perry's Expedition, p. 462.

[373] Arctic Explorations, vol. i. p. 373.

[374] Ibid. ii. 250.

[375] Ibid. ii. 115.

[376] Arctic Explorations, ii. 123.

[377] Ibid. ii. 125.

[378] Ibid. ii 109.

[379] Ibid. ii. 121.

[380] U. S. Census, 1850.

[381] Compendium of U. S. Census, 1850, p. 148.

[382] Compendium of United States Census, 1850, p. 142, etc.; Census of the State of New York, 1855, p. 16; Report of the Board of Education of New York City, 1857, p. 13, 18, 22, etc.

[383] New York City Inspector's Reports, 1854, 1855, 1856.

[384] New York State Census, 1855, p. 38.

[385] New York City Inspector's Reports, 1854, 1855, 1856.

[386] Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., p. 8.

[387] Ib. p. 13.

[388] Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., p. 9.

[389] Since these pages were prepared for the press, a work has been reprinted in New York, called "A Woman's Thoughts upon Women, by the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman,'" which contains many passages pertinent to this inquiry. The high reputation of its author (Miss Mulock), not only for literary ability, but for practical benevolence and womanly charity, will be sufficient apology for submitting some of her remarks to the reader in the shape of notes. It is satisfactory to know that many sentiments advanced herein are such as Miss Mulock has advocated on the other side of the Atlantic. On the subject of seduction, she remarks:

"I think it can not be doubted that even the loss of personal chastity does not indicate total corruption, or entail permanent degradation; that after it, and in spite of it, many estimable and womanly qualities may be found existing, not only in our picturesque _Nell Gwynnes_ and _Peg Woffingtons_, but our poor every-day sinners: the servant obliged to be dismissed without a character and with a baby; the seamstress quitting starvation for elegant infamy; the illiterate village lass, who thinks it so grand to be made a lady of--so much better to be a rich man's mistress than a working man's ill-used wife, or, rather, slave.

"Till we allow that no one sin, not even this sin, necessarily corrupts the entire character, we shall scarcely be able to judge it with that fairness which gives hopes of our remedying it, or trying to lessen, in ever so minute a degree, by our individual dealing with any individual case that comes in our way, the enormous aggregate of misery that it entails. This it behooves us to do, even on selfish grounds, for it touches us closer than many of us are aware--ay, in our own hearths and homes; in the sons and brothers that we have to send out to struggle in a world of which we at the fireside know absolutely nothing: if we marry, in the fathers we give to our innocent children, the servants we trust their infancy to, and the influences to which we are obliged to expose them daily and hourly, unless we were to bring them up in a sort of domestic Happy Valley, which their first effort would be to get out of as fast as ever they could. And supposing we are saved from all this; that our position is one peculiarly exempt from evil; that if pollution in any form comes nigh us, we sweep it hastily and noiselessly away from our doors, and think we are right and safe--alas! we forget that a refuse-heap outside her gate may breed a plague even in a queen's palace."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 261.

[390] Miss Mulock remarks on female occupations: "Equality of sexes is not in the nature of things. One only 'right' we have to assert in common with mankind, and that is as much in our hands as theirs--the right of having something to do."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 13.

"The Father of all has never put one man or one woman into this world without giving each something to do there."--Ibid., p. 19.

"This fact remains patent to any person of common sense and experience, that in the present day one half of our women are obliged to take care of themselves, obliged to look solely to themselves for maintenance, position, occupation, amusement, reputation, life."--Ibid., p. 29.

"Is society to draw up a code of regulations as to what is proper for us to do, and what not?"--Ibid., p. 31.

"The world is slowly discovering that women are capable for far more crafts than was supposed, if only they are properly educated for them; that they are good accountants, shop-keepers, drapers' assistants, telegraph clerks, watch-makers; and doubtless would be better if the ordinary training which almost every young man has a chance of getting were thought equally indispensable to young women."--Ibid., p. 76.

[391] Histoire Morale des Femmes. Par M. Ernest Legouvé. Paris, 1849.

[392] Westminster Review (London), July, 1850. American edition, vol. xxx. No. 2.

[393] De la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris, vol. i. p. 96.

[394] "The root of all improvement must be the mistress's own conviction, religious and sincere, of the truth that she and her servants share one common womanhood, with aims, hopes, and interests distinctly defined, and pursued with equal eagerness; with a life here meant as a school for the next life; with an immortal soul."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 130.

[395] "Neither labor nor material can possibly be got 'cheaply,' that is, below its average acknowledged cost, without _somebody being cheated_: consequently, these devotees to cheapness are, very frequently, little better than genteel swindlers."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 72.

[396] Mary Barton, by Mrs. Gaskell, vol. i., p. 258 (London edition.)

[397] Report of the Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island, to the Governors of the Alms House, 1854, p. 26.

[398] On a former page the results of a police investigation of the number of prostitutes in London in the year 1857 is given. It will be remembered that only 8600 common women were reported, in a population of nearly 2,500,000. The inquiries in New York and London would alike lead to the opinion that the extent of the vice is generally overrated.

[399] Report of Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island, to the Governors of the Alms-house, New York, for 1856, p. 40.

[400] Ibid., 1857, p. 26.

[401] The list of questions inclosed was a printed copy of the interrogatories used in New York, and already given in these pages.

[402] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49.

[403] Ibid. p. 87.

[404] Ibid. p. 101.

[405] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49.

[406] Ibid. p. 57.

[407] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 94.

[408] Ibid. p. 69.

[409] Ibid. p. 91.

[410] Ibid. p 104.

[411] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 141, 142.

[412] Ibid. p. 145.

[413] Ibid. p. 150.

[414] Ibid. p. 152.

[415] Ibid. p. 152, 153.

[416] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 128.

[417] Ibid. p. 130.

[418] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 164.

[419] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 180-184.

[420] Ibid. p. 163.

[421] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 162 (note).

[422] Ibid. p. 166.

[423] Ibid. p. 182.

[424] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 61.

[425] Ibid. p. 79.

[426] "That for a single offense, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature's own dealings in the visible world. There her voice clearly says, 'Let all these wonderful powers of vital renewal have free play; let the foul flesh slough itself away; lop off the gangrened limb; enter into life, maimed if it must be,' but never until the last moment of total dissolution does she say, 'Thou shalt not enter into life at all.'

"Therefore, once let a woman feel that 'while there is life there is hope,' dependent on the only one condition that she shall _sin no more_, and what a future you open to her! what a weight you lift off from her poor miserable spirit, which might otherwise be crushed down to the lowest deep, to that which is far worse than any bodily pollution, ineradicable corruption of soul."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 269.

"It may often be noticed the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odor of unsanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave. I believe there are hundreds and thousands of Englishwomen who would willingly throw the shelter of their stainless repute around any poor creature who came to them and said honestly, 'I have sinned, help me that I may sin no more.' But the unfortunates will not believe this. They are like the poor Indians, who think it necessary to pacify the evil principle by a greater worship than that which they offer to the Good Spirit, because, they say, the Bad Spirit is the stronger."--Ibid. p. 272.

[427] Captain Ingraham.

[428] "Surely the consciousness of lost innocence must be the most awful punishment to any woman, and from it no kindness, no sympathy, no concealment of shame, or even restoration to good repute, can entirely free her. She must bear her burden, lighter or heavier as it may seem at different times, and she must bear it to the day of her death. I think this fact alone is enough to make a chaste woman's first feeling toward an unchaste that of unqualified, unmitigated pity.

"Allowing the pity, what is the next thing to be done? Surely there must be some light beyond that of mere compassion to guide her in her after-conduct toward them. Where shall we find this light? In the world and its ordinary code of social morality, suited to social conscience? I fear not. The general opinion, even among good men, seems to be that this great question is a very sad thing, but a sort of unconquerable necessity; there is no use in talking about it, and, indeed, the less it is talked of the better. Good women are much of the same mind. The laxer-principled of both sexes treat the matter with philosophical indifference, or with the kind of laugh that makes the blood boil in any truly virtuous heart.

"I believe there is no other light on this difficult question than that given by the New Testament. There, clear and plain, and every where repeated, shines the doctrine that for every crime, being repented of and forsaken, there is forgiveness with Heaven, and if with Heaven there ought to be with men.

"When you shut the door of hope on any human soul you may at once give up all chance of its reformation. As well bid a man eat without food, see without light, or breathe without air, as bid him mend his ways, while at the same time you tell him that, however he amends, he will be in just the same position, the same hopelessly degraded, unpardoned, miserable sinner."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 266.

[429] "We have no right, mercifully constituted with less temptation to evil than men, to shrink with sanctimonious ultra-delicacy from the barest mention of things we must know to exist. If we do not know it, our ignorance is at once both helpless and dangerous; narrows our judgment, exposes us to a thousand painful mistakes, and greatly limits our powers of usefulness."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York edition), p. 255.

"No single woman who takes any thought of what is going on around her, no mistress or mother who requires constantly servants for her house and nursemaids for her children, can or dare blind herself to the fact. Better face truth at once in all its bareness than be swaddled up forever in the folds of a silken falsehood."--Ib., p. 259.

"Many of us will not investigate this subject because they are afraid: afraid not so much of being, as being thought to be, especially by the other sex, incorrect, indelicate, unfeminine; of being supposed to know more than they ought to know, or than the present refinement of society--a good and beautiful thing when real--concludes that they do know.

"Oh! women, women! why have you not more faith in yourselves, in that strong, inner purity, which alone can make a woman brave! which, if she knows herself to be clean in heart and desire, in body and soul, loving cleanness for its own sake, and not for the credit that it brings, will give her a freedom of action, and a fearlessness of consequences, which are to her a greater safeguard than any external decorum. To be, and not to seem, is the amulet of her innocence."--Ib., p. 261.

[430] "Reformatories, Magdalene Institutions, and the like, are admirable in their way, but there are numberless cases in which individual judgment and help alone are possible. It is this, the train of thought which shall result in act, and which I desire to suggest to individual minds, in the hope of arousing that imperceptibly small influence of the many, which forms the strongest lever of universal opinion.

"All I can do--all, I fear, that any one can do by mere speech, is to impress upon every woman, and chiefly upon those who, reared innocently in safe homes, view the wicked world without somewhat like gazers at a show or spectators at a battle, shocked, wondering, perhaps pitying a little, but not understanding at all, that repentance is possible. Also, that once having returned to a chaste life, a woman's former life should never be 'cast up' against her; that she should be allowed to resume, if not her pristine position, at least one that is full of usefulness, pleasantness, and respect, a respect the amount of which must be determined by her own daily conduct. She should be judged solely by what she is now, and not by what she has been. That judgment may be, ought to be stern and fixed as justice itself with regard to her present, and even her past so far as concerns the crime committed; but it ought never to take the law into its own hands toward the criminal, who may long since have become less a criminal than a sufferer. Virtue degrades herself, and loses every vestige of her power, when her dealings with vice sink into a mere matter of individual opinion, personal dislike, or selfish fear of harm. For all offenses, punishment, retributive and inevitable, must come; but punishment is one thing, revenge is another. One only, who is Omniscient as well as Omnipotent, can declare, 'Vengeance is Mine.'"--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 275.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The original text includes Greek characters that have been replaced with transliterations in this text version.

End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Prostitution, by William W. Sanger