Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations Part 11

room. By the recent and entirely wholesome amendment of the law, however, those beguiling doc.u.ments are no longer available. It is now imperative that the certificate of every physician must be filed with the County Clerk. Until this provision is observed, no doctor--no matter how eminent or well-qualified--can practice in New York. Many a quack, flouris.h.i.+ng like a green bay-tree, was summarily brought to the "end of his tether," by this most wise legislative enactment.

We would be derelict to the duty we owe to the public did we not here, and in this connection, state our emphatic opinion that the editors and proprietors of newspapers, as a rule, have hitherto looked too leniently on this subject of quackery and its baleful announcements. Happily some of our journals will not publish such advertis.e.m.e.nts, and no editor can excuse himself by saying that he is ignorant of the character of such announcements. It must be known to every man of experience that such advertis.e.m.e.nts are unfit for the perusal of young men or women, and it is surprising that the heads of families should permit newspapers containing those advertis.e.m.e.nts to enter their houses. As a well-known English author some-time since wrote:

"It is pregnant with matter for grave reflection, and this not only in reference to patients themselves, but also in regard to the reprehensible conduct of parents who so recklessly admit into their family circle newspapers which insert the obscene advertis.e.m.e.nts of the quacks. As I have said before, these advertis.e.m.e.nts are traps for their sons and an offense to the modesty of their daughters. Well a.s.sured am I that many cases of unaccountable suicide in youths and young men, which cause so much surprise and misery in families, are due to these unfortunates having become the dupes of quacks."

This is a very terrible picture of the evil wrought through the abuse of the advertising columns of the press, but experience has shown us that it is not by any means overdrawn. The responsibility of the health and comfort--even of the lives--of many of the rising generation thus rests with the newspapers. How careful, then, ought publishers to be that the columns of their journals should in nowise a.s.sist in disseminating that which pollutes the minds of the young, renders them unfit to fulfill the duties of society, or to enjoy its pleasures, and, in short, makes their whole life a burden and a misery.

CHAPTER XVI.

ABORTION AND THE ABORTIONISTS.

_The Career of Madame Restell--Rosensweig's Good Luck_.

"Such is the fate of artless maid.

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betrayed, And guileless trust.

Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Low in the dust."

--Burns, "To a Mountain Daisy."

Love's young dream--the dream of the ages--has sometimes a fearful awakening. In her "guileless trust" and unsuspecting ignorance, a young woman weaves a light web of folly and vain hopes, which one day closes around her like a poisoned garment, instantly changing all her fluttering raptures into a wail of the deepest human anguish. All at once the whole force of her nature is concentrated in the effort of concealment, and she shrinks with irresistible dread from every course that would tend to unveil her miserable secret. Overshadowed by a misfortune that is worse than death, in her half-benumbed mental condition, she hears of the professional abortionist, and braces herself for one of those convulsive actions by which a betrayed woman will sometimes leap from a temporary sorrow into the arms of Death.

The dark crime of abortion abounds in New York, as it does in all great cities. Yet this crime is conducted with so much care that rarely a case comes to light. Even when one of these ghouls is arrested and put on trial it is but seldom that conviction follows, because it is an offense extremely difficult to bring home to the perpetrator. Many indictments, for inexplicable causes, from time to time have been pigeon-holed; but as the transaction is committed in private, the victim is the only witness, and she is naturally averse to exposure.

It is only when the remains of some beautiful victim are found packed in a box, or jammed into a barrel, that the imagination realizes the imminent peril dishonored women incur by trusting themselves to the mercy of those sordid butchers. The author of her wrong usually makes the arrangement, under cover. The wily pract.i.tioner talks blandly and soothingly. If the operation succeeds, all is well; if not, the poor victim's body is secretly disposed of. She is chronicled among the mysterious disappearances, because every precaution had been taken that her friends should know nothing whatever of her condition, or of her whereabouts.

Naturally, the practice of child-murder hardens the hearts and petrifies the feelings of those systematically engaged in it. The tortures inflicted on the patient are, no doubt, in many cases unavoidable if the end is to be achieved; but many of these operators are cruelly ignorant and unscrupulous, and barbarously brutal and reckless. The mind shrinks from contemplating the thrilling honors of some of the scenes enacted within those deadened walls. Despite the tears and protestations of the suffering woman, the operation will sometimes be repeated two or even three times. But helpless and unprotected as she is, she is compelled to submit, because she is terrorized by her inquisitor's threats to send her to some hospital at once, to expose her condition to the world and to die.

When death appears only too probable, the abortionist generally has the victim either sent to a hospital or to some regular physician's premises, and leaving her before her condition or their connection with the case has been discovered. If the death occurs on their own premises, a certificate from some doctor called in at the fast moment, and deceived as to the cause of death, may enable a quiet little funeral to take place. And again, the fact cannot be denied that from time to time regular, diplomated physicians have been found who would not hesitate, for a consideration, to give "crooked" certificates. Should it be found impracticable to dispose of the body in such a convenient and regular way, in some cases it is s.h.i.+pped by rail to a distant and fict.i.tious address, without any clue by which it can be traced back to the "s.h.i.+pper."

The pitiable case of Miss Alice Augusta Bowlsby will occur to many readers just here. The facts in her case were simply these: One Sat.u.r.day night towards the end of August, 1871, a trunk containing the remains of a young and beautiful female was found at the depot of the Hudson River Railroad, checked for Chicago. The remains were subsequently recognized as those of Miss Bowlsby of Paterson, New Jersey, and the trunk was traced, by means of the truckman employed to carry it, back to the residence of Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig. It was soon discovered that the death of the unhappy girl was caused by an operation tending to produce abortion. Rosenzweig was a burly fellow, with a forbidding aspect, and a bold, confident look. His large, bullet eyes looked defiantly from behind the deep-intrenched line of wrinkles that care or conscience had gradually drawn around them. He had, in fact, a forbidding aspect, and when he was placed on trial before Recorder Hackett, according to a newspaper reporter present,

"one eye was devoted to watching the Grecian bend of his vulture-hooked nose, while the other was on duty over a precocious lock of his curling red hair, which clung to the verandah of his left ear like a Virginia creeper."

Rosenzweig was convicted of manslaughter while treating a woman for abortion, and was sentenced to state prison for seven years--a sentence so obviously out of proportion to the enormity of the crime that a howl of public indignation went up to the skies. However, Recorder Hackett had awarded the utmost penalty of the then existing law, and Rosenzweig was sent to Sing Sing. Soon after, a law was enacted by the state legislature, making the penalty of crimes like Rosenzweig's twenty years in the state prison, with hard labor. After this law was pa.s.sed, and when the abortionist had served about a year of his sentence, another charge of abortion was found against him, and he was brought down the river, again put on trial and sentenced. Mr. Howe, for his defense, in appeal, raised the natural objection that it was unfair and improper to try Rosenzweig in two cases at once. Consequently, he got a new trial, in which he was acquitted, because the old law under which he had been previously convicted had been repealed. Here was a manifest miscarriage of justice effected by a wise change in the laws. This prisoner escaped, but such a result could hardly, within the range of possibility, occur under the same law again.

In the majority of cases, the victims of abortion are gotten rid of by the pract.i.tioner before they die. The operation once over, they are hurried from the premises with all possible dispatch, even though the fatigue and exposure may imperil their lives. Many die a few days after reaching home, in which case the name of the abortionist is never known, and many more linger for a few months or years, mere physical wrecks of their former selves, till merciful Death folds them in his leaden arms.

Before the recent laws were pa.s.sed, making it a punishable offense to offer to produce abortions, either by medicine or instruments, there were many nostrums, in the form of pills and powders, covertly advertised for the alleged purpose of producing miscarriages. When a person called on one of those quacks and explained the purpose for which the medicine was needed, he was told that it was very dear--from five, ten, to fifteen dollars a box. At the same time he would be a.s.sured that his lady friend was merely suffering from "an obstruction arising from cold." If he insisted on explaining, the hard face of the quack would grow darker and harder, and a mysterious gleam of intelligence would shoot from the speculative eye as he was told:

"I will not sell medicine for anything else but a cold; nor will I treat any lady for anything else. Your young friend has only taken cold, and if she is not relieved by these pills she had better come and see me herself."

No doubt most of those medicines were deceptive, fraudulent and futile.

But they had the intended effect of advertising the person who sold them, whose "professional" services were generally brought into request when the pills proved inoperative. This was the secret of Madame Restell's reputation and immense acc.u.mulated fortune. Her occupation was that of a midwife, and in that a.s.sumed capacity she advertised her "Female Pills." As all the world knows now, her real vocation was the ante-natal destruction of unwelcome babies. To her gorgeous palace at the corner of Fifth avenue and Fifty-second street went for years some of the most wealthy and fas.h.i.+onable women of this metropolis. It is a dreadful admission, and a sad commentary on our boasted civilization, but the truth must be told. Some of her patrons were married ladies who, finding themselves likely to become mothers, and being too heartless and frivolous to desire the pains and cares of maternity, sought this woman's aid and, in some instances, paid her fabulous sums to have their innocent offspring destroyed before they saw the light. Others who sought her services were unmarried girls, who, having sacrificed their honor were prepared to pay any price to conceal their shame, by the destruction of the little life which would blazon it to the world.

Madame Restell's clients were all, or nearly all women of the higher orders of society, and of liberal means. Of this disgraceful fact there can be no manner of doubt. Her scale of charges was so extravagant as to positively prohibit her employment by any one unable to pay a handsome fee for the gratification of their murderous project. Sometimes a poor girl, ruined by some wealthy libertine, would be supplied by him with funds to pay for the terrible operation which would conceal her folly; but in the great majority of cases they were ladies of wealth and social standing who went dressed in elegant apparel, loaded with jewelry, and double veiled, to her palatial mansion to obtain her aid.

Madame Restell, whose name was a scandal and her Fifth-avenue house an outrage upon New York for years, was a native of Painswick, Gloucesters.h.i.+re. She was the daughter of a humble laborer named Trow, and first saw the light in 1813. Her educational facilities--as indeed were all those similarly or even better circ.u.mstanced in England seventy years ago--were of the humblest kind. But she was made to work, taught to use her needle, and "sent out to service" in her early teens. And so it came to pa.s.s that, at the age of sixteeen, she was "maid of all work"

for a butcher in her native town. She was quite good-looking, with piercing black eyes and thick, luxuriant black hair, and shapely form.

She had many candidates for her young affections among the young weavers of the place, but a journeyman tailor named Henry Somers was the successful wooer. A year or two after the wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Somers emigrated and came to the city of New York, settling over on the east side, about Oliver street. Somers was lazy, improvident and a tippler, and after a short sojourn in America Mrs. Somers found herself a young and blooming widow, with one child, a girl, to provide for. She had all along industriously supplemented her husband's earnings by her needle.

She was now wholly dependent upon it for the subsistence of herself and child.

It was while in these pinched circ.u.mstances that she made the acquaintance of Charles R. Lohman, a printer poor as herself, and became his wife. There was no immediate improvement in their condition. Both were impatient of the pinchings of poverty. Neither was const.i.tutionally disposed to work hard and patiently for an honest competence. The celebrated "Female Pills" formed the philosopher's stone which released them from this condition of chafing discontent and brooding unrest. From what source a knowledge of the ingredients requisite for the composition of a pill for such a diabolical purpose was derived, or whether, indeed, the pill was effective or diabolical at all, remains a mystery, inasmuch as none of her medicine seems to have been subjected to chemical a.n.a.lysis. Suffice to say that the couple rented a small room, and the first advertis.e.m.e.nt of the female physician was printed in the old _Sun_, and paid for with borrowed money.

Under such auspices the abortion business dawned upon this city, and in more than one of the daily newspapers, between the years 1836 and 1840, appeared glowing puffs of "the beautiful young female physician," as she was termed, accompanied by elaborate advertis.e.m.e.nts setting forth her specialty. No wonder this Upas tree flourished by the river of crime on whose banks it was fed. No wonder that her brother Joseph, who had been imported from madame's native English town, was kept busy in putting up medicines and compounds for the ladies of New York. No wonder that the Lohmans, _alias_ the Restells, waxed fat and insolent, or that, with only thirty years actual existence, madame informed the public that she had been for "thirty years physician in European hospitals"!

By and by her boldness attracted the attention of the Albany Solons, and in 1846 a law was enacted which was intended to prevent the dark crime which Madame Restell had helped to make so fas.h.i.+onable. In September, 1847, a minion of justice invaded her Gehenna, then at No. 146 Greenwich street, and, upon an affidavit, she was arrested and put in prison. On the tenth of that month she was arraigned and, pleading "Not guilty,"

was sent back to jail to await her trial. At this preliminary proceeding it appeared that Dr. Samuel C. Smith had been called upon to attend professionally a young woman of Orange County, by the name of Mary Bodine, and, upon discovering evidences of foul play, communicated with the Mayor of New York, and Madame Restell's arrest followed. Public excitement rose to an intense pitch. A spasm of morality shook the city to its foundations. Nothing was talked of but the hideous crimes of the woman abortionist. People lost sight of the war, then raging in Mexico, while listening to the stories of imaginative people about heaps of babies' skulls supposed to be mouldering beneath the floors of the Greenwich-street Golgotha. There were threats of mob violence, and of incendiary proceedings. It was necessary to guard the premises, and Lohman kept himself religiously secluded from public observation.

On the twentieth of October, 1847, the abortionist was placed in the dock of the Court of General Sessions, before Recorder Scott and two aldermen. For the prosecution there appeared Ogden Hoffman, John McKeon and Jonas B. Phillips; for the defense, James T. Brady and David Graham, Jr. The prisoner was charged in the indictment with manslaughter in the second degree. Considerable difficulty was experienced in obtaining a jury. Mary Bodine, herself, was the first witness. She described her engagement as a servant with a person of the name of Cook; her seduction three days after entering upon her duties, and the consequences that followed her visit to Madame Restell's establishment; the conversation that took place; her sojourn in an apartment of the dreadful den; her diet and treatment, and all the revolting details were given with a pre-Raphaelite sharpness of outline that carried the conviction of truth. It was a long trial, and not before November 12th did the Recorder sum up, when the jury, after a brief retirement, found the prisoner "Guilty."

She was sent to the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, and popular excitement was allayed, while the spasm of public morality, with a soft sigh, fell asleep. When Madame Restell's term of imprisonment expired she came back to the city and, purchasing a new property on Chambers street, hung out her "Midwife" s.h.i.+ngle, and carried on her business with nearly as much effrontery, and with quite as much success, as before her prosecution and sentence.

A craving for pomp and ostentation was one of the peculiar phases of Madame Restell's character. To gratify this kind of ambition, she purchased, through a real estate agent, ten lots on Fifth avenue, between Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets. They cost at that time $1,000 each--$10,000 for the ten. When it became known that this woman was the purchaser of the ten lots, a movement was at once made by reputable citizens interested in the respectability of New York's leading avenue to repurchase the property. Five thousand dollars were offered for her bargain without avail. When, many years later, the horrified residents of the fas.h.i.+onable thoroughfare beheld ground broken and the abortionist's mansion gradually raising its brazen front, their indignation knew no bounds. Large sums of money were offered the woman to forego her intention, but she haughtily answered that "there was not money enough in New York" to prevent her. No expense was spared, either in the construction or decoration of this palace of infamy. The frescoed ceilings were works of art. Two Italians worked at them for a twelve-month, at an expense of twenty thousand dollars. The carpets and upholstery, ordered through the house of A. T. Stewart & Co., were manufactured specially in Paris. The paintings were selected from the productions of the greatest artists of the period. Her stable was erected at a cost of twenty-eight thousand dollars. The Osborne House, another of her investments, erected on the ground adjoining her own residence, cost about two hundred thousand dollars.

In February, 1878, evil days again fell upon Madame Restell. On the eleventh of that month she was arrested by Anthony Comstock, of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, and taken to Jefferson Market Police Court, before Justice Kilbretli. She desired her release upon bail, pending examination. The bail was fixed at $10,000, and although she offered to deposit with the court that amount in government bonds, Judge Kilbreth refused. Satisfactory bail not being forthcoming, she was committed to the Tombs, and a.s.signed to a cell on the second tier of the women's prison. By and by, she was released on bail and, pending her trial, some time early on the morning of April 1, 1878, she committed suicide, by cutting her throat from ear to ear, in her bath-tub. The scene was described in that morning's _Herald_, as follows:

"Mme. Restell's chambermaid, Maggie McGraw, went to her mistress' room at about eight o'clock this morning, but not finding her there she went to the bathroom, which is on the second floor. There, hanging on the door, she saw her mistress' clothes. Thinking that she was taking a bath the girl went down-stairs, but soon returned and, seeing the clothes still there, she looked in. Not seeing the madame, she became alarmed. A peculiar smell then attracted her attention and, looking in, she saw that the bath-tub was filled with b.l.o.o.d.y water, and at the bottom of the tub lay the body of her mistress, with her throat cut from ear to ear.

The instrument of death, a large carving-knife, was lying at her side.

The bath-room is fitted up with Oriental splendor, being frescoed and decorated handsomely."

The suicide was buried next day, being conveyed from the Fifth-avenue mansion to the Grand Central Depot, and thence to Tarrytown, the place of interment. The funeral procession consisted merely of the hea.r.s.e carrying the body and one carriage. It is a strange, revolting story, carrying its own warning and moral, besides furnis.h.i.+ng an admirable instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis manifests herself.

CHAPTER XVII.

DIVORCE.

_The Chicanery of Divorce Specialists--How Divorce Laws Vary in Certain States--Sweeping Amendments Necessary--Ill.u.s.trative Cases_.

A large proportion of the marital infelicity now so alarmingly prevalent in this country is no doubt caused by the mal-administration of our divorce laws, and by the demoralizing discord between the legislative statutes of the various States on the subject of divorce. While in the middle and a portion of the Eastern and Southern States, the conditions legally imposed, before a dissolution of marriage can be judicially obtained, are wholesomely exacting and in accord with the strict Scriptural standard, in certain of the Eastern, Southern and Western States the most trifling alleged causes of disagreement or "incompatibility" are sufficient to secure the law's disseverance of the marriage tie. The divorce business of certain courts in Illinois, Iowa, Utah, and some of the territories, enjoy an infamous notoriety all over the world; while even staid old Connecticut offers a positive reward to connubial infidelity by at once granting a full or absolute divorce upon comparatively slight pretexts, leaving both parties legally free to marry again as their altered fancies may elect.

He who, in New York,

"Reads the in image act with pride And fancies that the law is on his side,"