The History of Prostitution Part 52

E. B. pays $1000 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3000.

M. M. owns house and furniture, valued at $15,000.

C. C. pays $850 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $8000.

M. M. pays $750 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $2000.

M. G. pays $625 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $1000.

V. N. pays $1300 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3000.

C. E. pays $1400 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $6000.

L. C. pays $1000 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $2000.

A. T. pays $1000 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3000.

The financial effects of the system of prost.i.tution will furnish a theme for some remarks hereafter. These facts are quoted now to explain the expenses connected with first-cla.s.s houses. Of course, where such outlays are incurred the receipts must correspond. The following statement will exhibit the _minimum_ weekly receipts in a house where ten boarders reside:

Board for ten women, at $16 00 per week each $160 00 Fees for visitors, say one each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 70 00 Profit from sale of one basket of Champagne each day (weekly) 168 00 ------- Total $398 00

This estimate does not reach the daily average of visitors, and a more correct statement would be:

Board for ten women, at $16 00 per week each $160 00 Fees for visitors, say two each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 140 00 Profit from sale of two baskets of Champagne each day (weekly) 336 00 ------- Total $616 00

Taking the mean of these two calculations will give receipts exceeding twenty-six thousand dollars per year, or five hundred dollars weekly. The cost of maintaining these luxurious establishments, in addition to the rent, is considerable, but still there is a very large excess. This is satisfactorily proved by the fact that the women who own the houses in which they conduct their traffic have, almost without exception, purchased them _since_ they commenced housekeeping, and also that many of them own considerable personal property in addition to the real estate. One woman is positively affirmed to be worth over one hundred thousand dollars, many are reported as worth sums ranging from fifty thousand downward, and many more are reputed to be rich, but no special amount mentioned.

The management of many of the houses is confided to a housekeeper, acting for the princ.i.p.al, who is rarely visible unless specially called for, and under this housekeeper are a number of servants, varying from three to seven, according to the size of the house and the number of boarders it accommodates. These servants are almost invariably colored women, and no difficulty is ever experienced in obtaining a full complement. Their wages are liberal, their perquisites considerable, and their work light. A neat and well-arranged breakfast is prepared for the "lady boarders" about eleven or twelve o'clock, and their dinner is served about five or six o'clock. As a general rule these are the only meals supplied them in the course of the day. If they require any thing more they send out for it, or persuade their visitors to escort them to some saloon.

The proprietors of this cla.s.s of houses a.s.sume to be respectable women when they are away from the scenes of their business. An anecdote, and a true one, has been related of one of them who, on a recent visit to Newport, so effectually carried out her disguise as to receive the escort of a reverend gentleman, a D.D. of this city, to the dinner-table and elsewhere, with his family, he thinking her a most amiable and deeply afflicted widow. Some of them have private residences up town, in the quiet respectable streets, and come to their houses of prost.i.tution every forenoon, returning at night. A portion of them profess to be religious, frequently attending some place of wors.h.i.+p the better to preserve their mask. Naturally benevolent, as are all women, they contribute liberally to charitable objects, and freely relieve any indigent persons who may ask their a.s.sistance. Even in political matters they have some weight, their resources and connections proving valuable to some aspirant for local distinction who has promised them that he will, if elected, use all his influence to protect them from annoyance.

Toward the miserable women whose vice is the source of their wealth, these proprietors act as interest dictates. A girl who has not the tact or disposition to attract visitors is seldom treated with much consideration, while one who is successful receives more favors, but favors, generally speaking, of a nature to render her subservient to their wishes; such as the loan of money to purchase new and fas.h.i.+onable articles of dress, a short credit for her board, or some equivalent which will place her under an obligation, and render it difficult for her to leave the house. They are actuated in this by a desire to retain an attractive girl; for, in addition to the actual cash payments she makes, she also possesses the power of inducing her visitors to be liberal in their orders for wine, and the profit from its sale, about two hundred per cent., is an important source of revenue.

The excessive demands made upon the earnings of prost.i.tutes by these women has been productive of a serious social evil. Many unfortunate girls can not appreciate the advantages of leading a vicious life for the benefit of a landlady, and in self-defense have hired apartments in some private house, so as to secure their earnings for themselves. This is generally arranged so that two of them engage a suite of rooms, say a parlor and two bed-rooms, representing themselves as virtuous women, governesses or seamstresses, and frequently as the wives of sailors or of men who are in California or some other distant land. Here they either board themselves or resort to some saloon, and to this lodging, or to the house of a.s.signation, which will be noticed in due course, they introduce their visitors. It is a fact more than suspected that many prost.i.tutes are living in this manner in our city. It is needless to enlarge upon the injurious effects likely to result therefrom.

Before leaving this branch of the subject, there is another characteristic of keepers of these houses which must be noticed, namely, an exaggerated affection for some man to whom they are pa.s.sionately attached. Some few of them are professedly living with their husbands, but this is an exception to the ordinary rule. Generally speaking, they are the mistresses of some persons upon whom they lavish all their tenderness, and for whose gratification they willingly incur any amount of expense. Some of these individuals are men upon town, gamblers, or rowdies of the higher cla.s.s, whose n.o.blest aspirations are satisfied by a liberal supply of money. They will readily ignore all social virtues for the same consideration. It is related as a fact concerning a celebrated brothel-keeper in the city, that when she was residing in the interior of the State, some years since, she became desperately enamored of a young man whose friends discovered the connection. They removed him to the far West. Undaunted by the dangers and difficulties which surrounded her, she followed him, and during her journey through the large towns had many offers of protection from men acquainted with her antecedents. True to her affection, she refused them all, and traced her lover to the forests. Here she remained with him, living in a log hut, deprived of many of the necessaries and all of the comforts and elegances of life, for three years. At least, infidelity to her love can not be charged against this woman, and is it not a natural conclusion that a heart so sincere and devoted in its attachment could have been led to a more virtuous course had a different social feeling existed toward her and her former transgressions?

As a general rule, the keepers of these first-cla.s.s houses will not permit the boarders to have the men whom they style their "lovers" residing with them, although they allow them to visit; a constant residence is considered as likely to engross too much of the girl's time to the neglect of the interest of the proprietress.

We come now to the second grade of prost.i.tutes and houses of prost.i.tution.

Many of the women of this rank are those who made their _debut_ in first-cla.s.s houses, but left them when their charms began to fade. To some extent, they endeavor to carry out the same rules of conduct which governed them while there, and, generally speaking, the management of some portion of the houses of this grade a.s.similates very much with the former, the same privacy being observed, though in a less expensive manner. In others a marked difference is perceptible, and these will now claim attention.

A longer continuance in the habits of prost.i.tution, and the a.s.sociation with a less aristocratic cla.s.s of visitors, has diminished the refinement of the women and imparted to them coa.r.s.er manners. There is not the same desire to "a.s.sume a virtue, if they have it not," or the same ambition to make vice seem unlike itself. Degradation has had its effect upon them, and now that they are reduced to a humbler sphere they feel more of the world's pressure, and become more daring and reckless in their conduct.

Many of the street-walkers and women frequenting theatres are of this cla.s.s, and any one who has ever come in contact with them would have found no difficulty in at once a.s.signing their true position. It is right to say here, that many of the managers of our best theatres have abolished the third tier, so called, and if any improper woman visits them she must do so under the a.s.sumed garb of respectability, and conduct herself accordingly.

Other women in this grade, or rather this section of the second grade, commenced their life of vice in it, and as the natural tendency of prost.i.tution is to depress instead of elevating its followers, they have very little chance of ever rising beyond their present rank, although such instances do occasionally happen, the keeper of a first-cla.s.s house sometimes consenting to receive a boarder from a lower rank, if she has only recently commenced prost.i.tution and is sufficiently prepossessing in manners and appearance for this exaltation. A great number of foreign-born women are found in this cla.s.s, victims of emigrant boarding-houses, or of seduction on board s.h.i.+p during their pa.s.sage to this country.

The houses are generally conducted in a similar manner to those of the first cla.s.s, with this distinction, that what is costly luxury in the one is replaced by tawdry finery in the other, and for expensive mirrors and valuable paintings they subst.i.tute cheaper ornamentation. Their reception-rooms are of much inferior finish. They also furnish wine and brandy to customers who wish for them. Drunkenness is more general, both with the prost.i.tutes and their visitors, and the most revolting scenes are not uncommon. Profanity is indulged in to a considerable extent, and in some places seems the vernacular language. The attempts at fascination made by the women are more excessive, and frequently vulgar to a degree which, while it excites a smile, also inspires disgust. The general charge for board here will be from six to ten dollars a week, rarely reaching the latter figure.

When evening approaches, if there is little or no company in the house, the girls resort to the streets, dressed in their most attractive finery, in the expectation of finding some man whom they can induce to accompany them home. They are seldom unsuccessful in this search, and very frequently repeat it several times in the course of the evening. Others of them visit the third tier of such theatres as will admit them, and there exert their charms to secure conquest. Intercourse with these women is attended with considerable danger, professional experience having shown many of them to be infected with syphilis, while numbers are connected with dishonest men who would not scruple to rob a stranger, if any opportunity offered for the purpose, such opportunity being not unfrequently afforded by some arrangement of the woman herself.

In such places vice presents comparatively few attractions, and yet these houses are numerously visited, princ.i.p.ally by travelers, clerks from stores, the higher cla.s.s of mechanics, etc., some of whom will spend in an evening the earnings of a week.

The women who preside over these brothels are usually of the strong-minded, and frequently of the strong-handed order, the latter being those who can by their own strength suppress any riot that may occur without calling in aid from the police, and generally calculate to preserve a moderate decorum in their establishments. Their profits are very large, derived not merely from the board money and extras paid by the women, but also from the wines and liquors they sell. They do not endeavor to screen their own character, as do those of the upper cla.s.s, but openly acknowledge what they are, and do not hesitate to give their personal attention to the business of the place. Anxious to acc.u.mulate money as rapidly as possible, they are not very particular about the means they employ, and although they would not allow any positive act of dishonesty to be performed toward a visitor while he was in the house, on account of the trouble to which it might subsequently expose them, yet they would scarcely consider it their duty to warn him against the proceedings of the men who live as "lovers" with the prost.i.tutes under their roofs. The virtue of these keepers is certainly not of a very rigid order, and their favored lovers are universally selected from among men of the same character as themselves.

The meals provided for boarders are served at about the same hours as in the fas.h.i.+onable houses, but they lack that neatness and arrangement which a good cook would give, the domestic matters being mostly confided to inexperienced servants, and frequently to some old prost.i.tutes who are retained at nominal wages to do as much work as they can, and in their own style.

It has been already stated that some of the second-cla.s.s houses of prost.i.tution are conducted in a similar manner to those of the first, and therefore no attempt has been made to give any detailed account of them, which would be a mere repet.i.tion of what has been once described. The lower cla.s.s have been taken as ill.u.s.trating the second grade, and consequently the account must not be taken as a sweeping condemnation of the whole.

The next, or third grade of prost.i.tutes and houses of prost.i.tution may be found very fully developed in the first police district, among the Germans; in the fourth district, where sailors mostly resort; and also in the third, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth districts. A majority of the women in these districts are of foreign birth, the largest proportion being Irish and German. Although rated as third-cla.s.s houses, some of them are equal in all respects, and sometimes superior in many, to houses of the second cla.s.s. Most of the women are young, and many of them are very good-looking, while the houses, particularly those kept by Germans, are in general conducted very quietly. Even in those places resorted to by sailors, the princ.i.p.al part of any noise which may occur is caused by the boisterous mirth and practical jokes of the visitors themselves. The houses are, in every sense of the word, "public" places of prost.i.tution, and neither women nor keepers seek to disguise the fact in any manner, the general argument seeming to be, "We live by prost.i.tution, no matter who knows it."

There are many distinctive features in the several districts, but the first and the fourth will be fair average types of the whole, and these we will notice briefly, commencing with the German houses in the first district.

Here drinking is openly carried on, although seldom to such an extent as to cause absolute intoxication. There is a public bar-room opening directly from the street, where can be obtained lager beer and German wines, as well as the usual liquors sold in porter-houses. This is the reception-room of the establishment, and a stranger in the city, who might walk in to get a gla.s.s of lager beer, without knowing the character of the place, or being aware of the signification of the crimson and white curtains festooned over the windows, would find himself followed to the bar by some German girl, who would ask him in broken English if he would "treat her." If he feels inclined to gaze around him and study human nature in this phase, he sees that the room is very clean; a common sofa, one or two settees, and a number of chairs are ranged round the walls; there is a small table with some German newspapers upon it; a piano, upon which the proprietor or his bar-keeper at intervals performs a national melody; and a few prints or engravings complete its furniture. Two or three girls are in different parts of the room engaged in knitting or sewing; for German girls, whether virtuous or prost.i.tute, seem to have a horror of idleness, and even in such a place as this are seldom seen without their work. Every thing bears an unmistakable Teutonic appearance; from the heavily-mustached proprietor, or the recently-imported bar-keeper, to the mistress, or madame as she is generally called, and the women themselves, all plainly tell their origin. He is surprised at the entire absence of all those noisy elements generally considered inseparable from a low-cla.s.s house of prost.i.tution. He can sit there and smoke his cigar in as much peace as at any hotel in the city; and if he once tells a woman he does not wish to have any conversation with her, he will scarcely be annoyed again, unless he makes the first advances. If he thinks proper to enter into conversation with the proprietor, he will be certain of a courteous reply, and will frequently find him an intelligent and communicative man. Finally, concluding to resist the temptations around him, he leaves the place in the most perfect security, and without the least fear of being insulted.

The majority of the girls here have recently arrived in the United States.

Some have embraced this course of life from absolute poverty and friendlessness; some have followed it in their own country; others have been the victims of seduction; and with some the ruling motive seems to have been a desire to speak and be spoken to in their native tongue. Their pecuniary arrangement with the proprietor, for there is almost invariably a man at the head of each establishment, is that they shall give him one half of all the money they receive, for which he provides them with board and lodging. They are not generally intemperate women, the light German wines being their princ.i.p.al beverage, and although they frequently indulge in profanity, yet, as it is in their national language, it is unintelligible to those who understand only English, and the annoyance is consequently restricted. They are generally honest; in fact, it is the testimony of those best qualified to judge, that there is very seldom much disturbance, and very rarely any dishonesty practiced in this cla.s.s of brothels. It can not be said that literally there is not much noise, for any one who has been in a room where two or three Germans of each s.e.x were talking and gesticulating with their characteristic earnestness will be of opinion that they talked quite loud enough; but by _disturbance_ is to be understood quarreling or fighting, which sometimes occurs, but not very frequently.

As before remarked, a man and his wife are mostly the keepers of such houses. The man, sometimes with a lad for his a.s.sistant, attends to the bar-room, and takes charge of the money, the wife does the cooking and general house-work, and the girls attend to their own rooms. By this division of labor the work is generally done to the satisfaction of all parties, and, the expenses being light, a considerable profit is made.

There are mostly three or four girls in each house, seldom exceeding that number, and the rule among house-keepers is to consider any girl an unprofitable acquisition who does not pay them about ten dollars a week.

Their rents are low, because they have but little room. The bas.e.m.e.nt of an ordinary-sized house is generally the extent of their accommodation; the front part of this forms the bar-room, and the remainder is part.i.tioned into very small bed-rooms.

There is another feature connected with German prost.i.tution, and exhibited in the same neighborhood, which has already received a cursory notice on a former page, namely, their dancing-saloons. Saltatory amus.e.m.e.nts are carried on, more or less, in all their houses of prost.i.tution, but in these saloons it is considered a respectable business enterprise, although the morality of the establishments is, at least, questionable. The ball-room is a large, open apartment devoid of all furniture excepting chairs or benches round the walls; the musical arrangements generally comprise a piano and violin, and the dances are national waltzes and polkas. No charge is made for admission, and the bar is the only source of revenue. The "orchestra" occasionally appeal to the charitable for a.s.sistance, and the call is mostly responded to in a liberal manner. The business commences in the evening, and is invariably discontinued at midnight. The places are frequented by very few but Germans, and order is well maintained.

Leaving the Germans of the first district, the reader's attention will now be asked to the brothels of the fourth police district. Here the princ.i.p.al part of the women are of Irish parentage; some few are natives of the United States. The greater part of the visitors are sailors. When a succession of storms which have driven homeward-bound vessels off the coast is followed by a fair wind, so as to allow them to enter the harbor in large numbers, these houses are crowded, and for a few days, or while the sailors' wages last, a very extensive business is carried on. The bar-room, as in the case of the German houses, is the reception-room, and here may be seen at almost any hour of the day a number of weather-beaten sailors, verifying the truth of the old proverb, which says they resemble two distinct animals in earning and spending their money. It matters not who it may be, but any one who enters the room is almost sure to be asked to take a drink immediately, and if he remains, in less than five minutes somebody else will ask him to take another. A sailor with cash in his pocket has a decided antipathy to drinking alone, and generally invites every one in the room, male and female, to partake with him. By such a course he very soon gets intoxicated, when the girl whom he has honored with his special attention convoys him to bed, and leaves him there to sleep himself sober.

In these houses less neatness is observable than in those just noticed, but they have entirely a different cla.s.s of customers. A German, in the midst of his pleasures, likes to see every thing neat and orderly about him; a sailor is not particular, so that his pleasures are un.o.bstructed. A curious observer, also, does not meet with the same civility: if he comes to spend money he is welcome; if not, the landlord does not care about his company. Considerable card-playing is practiced; not what may be termed gambling, but for amus.e.m.e.nt, the stakes being seldom more than intoxicating drinks for the players. There is less noisy rowdyism than might be expected, since the men who generally cause such disturbances lack the courage to impose upon a crowd of hard-fisted sailors, who are always able and willing to take their own part, and resent any interference. Still, occasional quarrels occur among the visitors themselves, frequently resulting in a pitched battle. The landlord is then called for, and his knowledge of his customers enables him speedily to discover the aggressor, who always happens to be the man that has the least money, and he is forthwith pushed into the street without any ceremony, as a kind of peace-offering to the rest of the company.

The landlord is a character in his way. He is a man who has been to sea himself, for no one else would be deemed fit to keep a house where sailors resort, and is usually a large, powerful man. By the freemasonry of the craft, and by freely joining his visitors whenever they ask him to drink, and occasionally treating them in return, he is sure of their custom until their wages are all spent and they are obliged to go to sea again.

The women in these houses use liquor very freely, but they are not permitted to get drunk in the daytime. If the landlord observes any symptom of intoxication he gives them water, instead of gin, the next time they are asked to drink, as he knows very well his prospects for business would be injured unless the girls were kept sufficiently sober to be on the watch for contingencies, or, as he phrases it, "to look out for chances."

In some of these houses it is the rule that all the money received by the girls is to be given to the landlord, who provides them with clothing and necessaries, but in others a fixed rate of board--six or eight dollars a week--is paid, and the women retain the surplus. In either case it is a very profitable business, particularly where many girls are kept. In one house that we visited, in the fourth district, the keeper informed us that his expenses amounted to about one hundred and fifty dollars weekly, and of course some estimate can be made from this as to the amount of business he transacted.

The dancing-saloons in this neighborhood are not conducted on the platonic principles of the Germans. They are, in fact, so many accessories to prost.i.tution, and many scenes there witnessed will not permit description.

The women residing in the house are there, dressed in the most tawdry finery they can command, many of them a.s.suming the bloomer costume. The band consists of a violin, a banjo, and a tambourine, and whatever is wanting in musical ability is adequately supplied by vigorous execution.

The bar is very liberally patronized, and before midnight drunkenness is the rule and sobriety the exception.

Pa.s.sing now to the fourth grade of this vice, we find prost.i.tution in a most repulsive form; the women themselves diseased and dirty, the houses redolent of bad rum. The prost.i.tutes are the refuse of the other cla.s.ses who have fallen through the successive gradations on account of disease and drunkenness, or they are some of those children of iniquity who, born in scenes of vice and squalid misery, know nothing of a virtuous or happy course of life. Destiny seems from their birth to have intended them for vagrants, and has planted them so low in the moral scale that they can scarcely hope to rise.

It would be useless to attempt a specification of the localities of these houses; any one who has been through the purlieus of New York City must have observed some of them, and it will be quite sufficient to glance at a few of their peculiarities. They are generally kept by an old prost.i.tute, who gathers around her some of the most debased of her cla.s.s, takes a cheap bas.e.m.e.nt wherever she can obtain possession of one suited to her purpose, erects a small bar furnished with three or four bottles of the commonest liquor she can procure, part.i.tions off one or two small hovels of bed-rooms, and forthwith begins housekeeping. Her arrangements are about as extensive as her preparations. She seldom professes to board the girls, generally making a charge for every visitor they entertain, and giving them the privilege of cooking any thing they want. These dens are largely patronized by the vilest of the male s.e.x; the petty thieves who hang around the public markets, stealing from the wagons, or who haunt the doors of grocery stores and abstract whatever they can reach; as they find them convenient places of concealment, and can frequently dispose of their booty by means of the women. Another cla.s.s of visitors consists of the lowest order of rowdies, who a.s.sume a free license to perpetrate any mischief they please, because there is no one to interfere with them. A fatal case of this nature, which occurred but a few months since, will be fresh in the recollection of all citizens.

It is dangerous for a stranger to enter a place of this description, for if he does not get his pocket picked by the one, he will most probably be a.s.saulted by the other cla.s.s of visitors. Upon such establishments the police are compelled to keep a watchful eye, and although they have no power to enter them except some actual necessity calls for their services, yet they frequently induce a neighbor to make a complaint against the keepers for maintaining a disorderly house, and then, duly armed with a warrant, they enter, and arrest every one found on the premises. The _finale_ of such an experiment at housekeeping as this is very frequently a commitment for vagrancy to Blackwell's Island. The character of the place will be a sufficient proof that syphilis abounds there, and its dangers must be added to those already enumerated.

The divisions thus made are presumed to be accurate as far as the distinctive characters of the various grades are concerned, but the lines of demarkation are of course arbitrary. Any attempt to cla.s.sify so large a social evil must, from its very nature, be incomplete, and in this case farther experience or a more extended inquiry would very probably warrant an alteration in the arrangement. But there is another cla.s.s of whom a few words must be said, namely, those truly wretched beings, the outcasts of the outcasts. In many cases dest.i.tute of home or shelter, diseased, starving, and afflicted with an insatiable thirst for ardent spirits, they present most ghastly and heart-rending spectacles, retaining scarcely any vestiges of humanity. These wretched beings can be found cl.u.s.tered round the bars of liquor-stores in low neighborhoods, begging for the price of a gla.s.s of gin. Much of their time is spent in the prisons on Blackwell's Island, from which they are no sooner released than they return to their old haunts and habits. They can scarcely be called prost.i.tutes, for their aspect is so disgustingly hideous that all feminine characteristics are blotted out, and thoroughly sensual and animalized must he be who could accept their favors. They are, in every sense of the word, outcasts; compelled, for the short time they may be in the city--and this is seldom more than a few days at once--to eke out a wretched existence by stealing or begging; frequently so miserable that they gladly hail the day on which they are returned to prison. They present subjects for mournful consideration, and the reflection that they are experiencing the degradation to which every prost.i.tute in the city is rapidly tending, should be a powerful argument in favor of any remedial measures which can be devised to ameliorate the condition of the frail women of New York, and prevent them from falling so far below humanity.

HOUSES OF a.s.sIGNATION.