NEW YORK.—STATISTICS.

Question. For what length of time have you been a prostitute?

It has already been stated that the average duration of the life of a prostitute does not exceed four years from the commencement of her career. This is one year beyond the estimated duration as given by some English writers, but very far below the average, as ascertained in Paris, in which city, at the time M. Parent-Duchatelet instituted his elaborate system of investigation, he found in the gross number of 3517 prostitutes, two hundred and forty-two who had led that life for upward of fourteen years, and six hundred and forty-one who had continued their course upward of ten years. What a contrast to the table given above! In Paris, 6? per cent. had survived the horrors of courtesan life for fourteen years; in New York, only 2¾ per cent. have reached the same period. In Paris, 17½ per cent. existed; in New York, 3¾ per cent. exist after ten years of exposure; or, in other words, where seven exist in Paris, only three have survived in New York, or where seventeen exist in Paris, only four survive in New York. It can not be asserted that Paris is a more healthy city than New York, and this difference must arise from the fact that, while judicious arrangements are enforced in the former, a similar policy has not been recognized in the latter. If this relative mortality were the only fact known on this matter, the economy of human life would be an irresistible argument in favor of measures of supervision judiciously conceived and promptly executed.

In the city of New York, six hundred and thirty-four women, more than thirty-one per cent., have been on the town less than one year, and three hundred and twenty-five, or more than seventeen per cent., for a space of time ranging from one to two years. Here, then, is one half of the total number, the experience of the remainder extending through various periods up to thirty-five years. With reference to those who assign such an extent of duration, it may be remarked, as was done in considering the question of age, that they are, with scarcely a solitary exception, those who, having been prostitutes in their younger days, are now engaged in brothel-keeping, and are thus exempted from many dangers attending the ordinary life of a harlot. If the same rule had been observed here in their cases as was done in the inquiries at Paris, namely, to exclude them from the list of prostitutes, the relative mortality given above would have shown still more unfavorably for New York.

It may be asked, What peculiar dangers attend the life of a prostitute in this city? There is a frightful physical malady to which all are liable, and which will be alluded to under its proper head. There are other dangers to which prostitutes, in a greater or less degree, are exposed. It is not necessary to remind the reader that at intervals the public is shocked by accounts in our daily papers of cowardly and outrageous assaults upon these unfortunate women, perpetrated by ruffians of the other sex. Sometimes it is an onslaught made by a party of men, for little or no provocation, on a number of females; or it may be an attack of a paramour on his victim. To this latter description of ill-treatment common women are peculiarly liable; for, beyond their habits of promiscuous intercourse, almost every one of them, particularly those in the middle or lower classes, has attached herself to some indolent fellow who acts as her protector (“bully” or “lover” is the common designation) when she becomes involved in any difficulty with strangers, but who exercises an arbitrary and brutal control over her at other times. In many cases, singular as it may appear, an actual love is felt by the woman for “her man.” In others it is a mere arrangement for mutual convenience, the man taking her part in all quarrels, and the woman providing funds to maintain him in idleness. The intemperate habits of the prostitutes also tend materially to shorten their lives.

In addition to physical dangers must be considered the mental anguish they undergo, which inevitably preys upon the constitution. To this even the most depraved of them are at times subject. In the earlier stages of their career is an agonizing memory of the past; thoughts of home; regrets for the position they have lost. As they proceed in their course they suffer from an anticipation of the future; the grave, a nameless, pauper grave, yawns before them; thoughts of the inevitable eternity intrude; and a past of shame, a present of anguish, a future of dread, are the subjects of thought indulged by many who would never be suspected by the gay world of entertaining a serious reflection. It may be said, in the words of Byron,

“But in an instant o’er her soul
Winters of memory seem to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.”

The period for their nocturnal revelry returns, and, though with a breaking heart, they must deck themselves with tawdry finery, and forcing a smile upon their faces, resume a loathsome trade to earn their daily food. With such torments, physical and mental, can long life be expected as their lot? Can any human frame withstand these incessant attacks for a lengthened period? It would not be at all surprising if the ratio of mortality among prostitutes were greater than it is.

Question. Have you had any disease incident to prostitution? If so, what?

The nature and effects of venereal disease have been already so fully specified in notices of the various systems adopted for its prevention, given in the preceding pages of this work, that it would be a needless repetition to dwell upon them here. It is sufficient, for the present purpose, to call attention to the fact that more than two fifths of the total number of prostitutes examined during the investigation CONFESS that they have suffered from syphilis or gonorrhoea. The probability is that the real number far exceeds this average; that, alarming as is the confession, the actual facts are much worse. This opinion is based upon the results of professional experience, and a knowledge of the difficulty which exists in obtaining any voluntary reliable statement on the subject.

Even assuming that the answers obtained are correct, they indicate ample cause for the perpetuation of the disease, and its introduction into almost every branch of society. One half of the total number who confess that they have suffered or are suffering from this disease, state that they have been so afflicted once only. In other forms of sickness which admit of a perfect cure this would be no cause for alarm, but in this instance it is a mooted point among medical writers whether the syphilitic taint can ever be eradicated from the system where it has been implanted, and the arguments on each side are urged with great ability. Without presuming to pass an opinion on the question, or expressing any doubt of the correctness of those learned men who think it possible to remove the taint from the body, it is policy to urge, in this case, the views of their opponents that it can not be eradicated. Upon this ground every citizen is competent to determine for himself the amount of public mischief resulting daily from a mass of prostitutes, two out of every five of whom are confessedly diseased.

Question. What was the cause of your becoming a prostitute?

This question is probably the most important of the series, as the replies lay open to a considerable extent those hidden springs of evil which have hitherto been known only from their results. First in order stands the reply “Inclination,” which can only be understood as meaning a voluntary resort to prostitution in order to gratify the sexual passions. Five hundred and thirteen women, more than one fourth of the gross number, give this as their reason. If their representations were borne out by facts, it would make the task of grappling with the vice a most arduous one, and afford very slight grounds to hope for any amelioration; but it is imagined that the circumstances which induced the ruin of most of those who gave the answer will prove that, if a positive inclination to vice was the proximate cause of the fall, it was but the result of other and controlling influences. In itself such an answer would imply an innate depravity, a want of true womanly feeling, which is actually incredible. The force of desire can neither be denied nor disputed, but still in the bosoms of most females that force exists in a slumbering state until aroused by some outside influences. No woman can understand its power until some positive cause of excitement exists. What is sufficient to awaken the dormant passion is a question that admits innumerable answers. Acquaintance with the opposite sex, particularly if extended so far as to become a reciprocal affection, will tend to this; so will the companionship of females who have yielded to its power; and so will the excitement of intoxication. But it must be repeated, and most decidedly, that without these or some other equally stimulating cause, the full force of sexual desire is seldom known to a virtuous woman. In the male sex nature has provided a more susceptible organization than in females, apparently with the beneficent design of repressing those evils which must result from mutual appetite equally felt by both. In other words, man is the aggressive animal, so far as sexual desire is involved. Were it otherwise, and the passions in both sexes equal, illegitimacy and prostitution would be far more rife in our midst than at present.

Some few of the cases in which the reply “Inclination” was given are herewith submitted, with the explanation which accompanied each return. C. M.: while virtuous, this girl had visited dance-houses, where she became acquainted with prostitutes, who persuaded her that they led an easy, merry life; her inclination was the result of female persuasion. E. C. left her husband, and became a prostitute willingly, in order to obtain intoxicating liquors which had been refused her at home. E. R. was deserted by her husband because she drank to excess, and became a prostitute in order to obtain liquor. In this and the preceding case, inclination was the result solely of intemperance. A. J. willingly sacrificed her virtue to a man she loved. C. L.: her inclination was swayed by the advice of women already on the town. J. J. continued this course from inclination after having been seduced by her lover. S. C.: this girl’s inclination arose from a love of liquor. Enough has been quoted to prove that, in many of the cases, what is called willing prostitution is the sequel of some communication or circumstances which undermine the principles of virtue and arouse the latent passions.

Destitution is assigned as a reason in five hundred and twenty-five cases. In many of these it is unquestionably true that positive, actual want, the apparent and dreaded approach of starvation, was the real cause of degradation. The following instances of this imperative necessity will appeal to the understanding and the heart more forcibly than any arguments that could be used. As in all the selections already made, or that may be made hereafter, these cases are taken indiscriminately from the replies received, and might be indefinitely extended.During the progress of this investigation in one of the lower wards of the city, attention was drawn to a pale but interesting-looking girl, about seventeen years of age, from whose replies the following narrative is condensed, retaining her own words as nearly as possible.

“I have been leading this life from about the middle of last January (1856). It was absolute want that drove me to it. My sister, who was about three years older than I am, lived with me. She was deformed and a cripple from a fall she had while a child, and could not do any hard work. She could do a little sewing, and when we both were able to get work we could just make a living. When the heavy snow-storm came our work stopped, and we were in want of food and coals. One very cold morning, just after I had been to the store, the landlord’s agent called for some rent we owed, and told us that, if we could not pay it, we should have to move. The agent was a kind man, and gave us a little money to buy some coals. We did not know what we were to do, and were both crying about it, when the woman who keeps this house (where she was then living) came in and brought some sewing for us to do that day. She said that she had been recommended to us by a woman who lived in the same house, but I found out since that she had watched me, and only said this for an excuse. When the work was done I brought it home here. I had heard of such places before, but had never been inside one. I was very cold, and she made me sit down by the fire, and began to talk to me, saying how much better off I should be if I would come and live with her. I told her I could not leave my sister, who was the only relation I had, and could not help herself; but she said I should be able to help my sister, and that she would find some light sewing for her to do, so that she should not want. She talked a good deal more, and I felt inclined to do as she wanted me, but then I thought how wicked it would be, and at last I told her I would think about it. When I got home and saw my sister so sick as she was, and wanting many little things that we had no money to buy, and no friends to help us to, my heart almost broke. However, I said nothing to her then. I laid awake all night thinking, and in the morning I made up my mind to come here. I told her what I was going to do, and she begged me not, but my mind was made up. She said it would be sin, and I told her that I should have to answer for that, and that I was forced to do it because there was no other way to keep myself and help her, and I knew she could not work much for herself, and I was sure she would not live a day if we were turned into the streets. She tried all she could to persuade me not, but I was determined, and so I came here. I hated the thoughts of such a life, and my only reason for coming was that I might help her. I thought that, if I had been alone, I would sooner have starved, but I could not bear to see her suffering. She only lived a few weeks after I came here. I broke her heart. I do not like the life. I would do almost any thing to get out of it; but, now that I have once done wrong, I can not get any one to give me work, and I must stop here unless I wish to be starved to death.”

This plain and affecting narrative needs no comment. It reveals the history of many an unfortunate woman in this city, and while it must appeal to every sensitive heart, it argues most forcibly for some intervention in such cases. The following statements of other women who have suffered and fallen in a similar manner will show that the preceding is not an isolated case. M. M., a widow with one child, earned $1 50 per week as a tailoress. J. Y., a servant, was taken sick while in a situation, spent all her money, and could get no employment when she recovered. M. T. (quoting her own words) “had no work, no money, and no home.” S. F., a widow with three children, could earn two dollars weekly at cap-making, but could not obtain steady employment even at those prices. M. F. had been out of place for some time, and had no money. E. H. earned from two to three dollars per week as tailoress, but had been out of employment for some time. L. C. G.: the examining officer reports in this case, “This girl (a tailoress) is a stranger, without any relations. She received a dollar and a half a week, which would not maintain her.” M. C., a servant, was receiving five dollars a month. She sent all her earnings to her mother, and soon after lost her situation, when she had no means to support herself. M. S., also a servant, received one dollar a month wages. A. B. landed in Baltimore from Germany, and was robbed of all her money the very day she reached the shore. M. F., a shirt-maker, earned one dollar a week. E. M. G.: the captain of police in the district where this woman resides says, “This girl struggled hard with the world before she became a prostitute, sleeping in station-houses at night, and living on bread and water during the day.” He adds: “In my experience of three years, I have known over fifty cases whose history would be similar to hers, and who are now prostitutes.”

These details give some insight into the under-current of city life. The most prominent fact is that a large number of females, both operatives and domestics, earn so small wages that a temporary cessation of their business, or being a short time out of a situation, is sufficient to reduce them to absolute distress. Provident habits are useless in their cases; for, much as they may feel the necessity, they have nothing to save, and the very day that they encounter a reverse sees them penniless. The struggle a virtuous girl will wage against fate in such circumstances may be conceived: it is a literal battle for life, and in the result life is too often preserved only by the sacrifice of virtue.

“Seduced and abandoned.” Two hundred and fifty-eight women make this reply. These numbers give but a faint idea of the actual total that should be recorded under the designation, as many who are included in other classes should doubtless have been returned in this. It has already been shown that under the answer “Inclination” are comprised the responses of many who were the victims of seduction before such inclination existed, and there can be no question that among those who assign “Drink, and the desire to drink” as the cause of their becoming prostitutes, may be found many whose first departure from the rules of sobriety was actuated by a desire to drive from their memories all recollections of their seducers’ falsehoods. Of the number who were persuaded by women, themselves already fallen, to become public courtesans, it is but reasonable to conclude that many had previously yielded their honor to some lover under false protestations of attachment and fidelity.

It is needless to resort to argument to prove that seduction is a vast social wrong, involving in its consequences not only the entire loss of female character, but also totally destroying the consciousness of integrity on the part of the male sex. It matters not under what circumstances the crime may be perpetrated, none can be found that will exonerate the active offender from the imputation of fraud and treachery. A woman’s heart longs for a reciprocal affection, and, to insure this, she will occasionally yield her honor to her lover’s importunities, but only when her attachment has become so concentrated upon its object as to invest him with every attribute of perfection, to find in every word he utters and every action he performs but some token of his devotion to her. Love is then literally a passion, an idolatry, and its power is universally acknowledged.

But this passion can not be the growth of an hour. Its developments are gradual. From the first stage of mere acquaintance, it ripens progressively under the influence of tender words and solemn vows, frequently sincere, but often simulated, until the woman owns to herself and admits to her lover that she regards him with affection. Such an acknowledgment, virtually placing her future life in his custody, should inspire him with the high resolve to protect her name and fame, to justify the confidence she has reposed. But not unfrequently is it made the medium for dishonorable exactions, and for a momentary gratification, valueless to him except as a proof of her fervent adoration, and fatal in its consequences to her, he tramples on the priceless jewel of her honor, confidingly surrendered to this love and truth.

It should be remembered that, in order to accomplish this base end, he must have resorted to base means; must either have professed a love he did not feel, or have allowed his affection to cool as he approached its consummation. Pure and sincere attachment would effectually prevent the lover from performing any act which could possibly compromise the woman he adores. None but an unmitigated ruffian can calmly and deliberately wrong an unsuspecting female who has acknowledged a tender sentiment toward him, thus placing herself so entirely in his power. The crime of seduction can be viewed only as a mean and atrocious perjury, and strangely callous must he be whose conscience in after life does not pursue him with scorpion stings and fiery tortures.

But how account for the participation of the female in the crime? Simply by viewing it as an idolatry of devotion which is willing to surrender all to the demands of him she worships; to the intensity of her affections, which absorbs all other considerations; to a perfect insanity of love, excited and sustained by a supposed equal devotion to herself. As soon as this conviction of a mutual love possesses her mind, as soon as her heart responds to its magic touch, she lives in a new atmosphere; her individuality is lost; her thoughts revert only to her lover. Devoted to the promotion of his happiness, she thinks not of her own; and only when it is too late does she awake from the spell that lures her to destruction. In such a case as this, a woman does not merit the contempt with which her conduct is visited. She has sinned from weakness, not from vice; she has been made the victim of her own unbounded love, her heart’s richest and purest affections.

Moralists say that all human passions should be held in check by reason and virtue, and none can deny the truthfulness of the assertion. But while they apply the sentiment to the weaker party, who is the sufferer, would it not be advisable to recommend the same restraining influences to him who is the inflictor? No woman possessed of the smallest share of decency or the slightest appreciation of virtue would voluntarily surrender herself without some powerful motive, not pre-existent in herself, but imparted by her destroyer. Well aware of the world’s opinion, she would not recklessly defy it, and precipitate herself into an abyss of degradation and shame unless some overruling influence had urged her forward. This motive and this influence, it is believed, may be uniformly traced to her weak but truly feminine dependence upon another’s vows. Naturally unsuspicious herself, she can not believe that the being whom she has almost deified can be aught but good, and noble, and trustworthy. Sincere in her own professions, she believes there is equal sincerity in his protestations. Willing to sacrifice all to him, she feels implicitly assured that he will protect her from harm. Thus there can be little doubt that, in most cases of seduction, female virtue is trustingly surrendered to the specious arguments and false promises of dishonorable men.[389]The every-day experiences of life are amply sufficient to justify this opinion, for it is a fact that these specious arguments and false promises are continually resorted to by many men for the express purposes of seduction; and, nefarious as these cases confessedly are, still they form common incidents in the lives of some who claim to be what the world calls respectable! Men who, in the ordinary relations of life, would scruple to defraud their neighbors of a dollar, do not hesitate to rob a confiding woman of her chastity. They who, in a business point of view, would regard obtaining goods under false pretenses as an act to be visited with all the severity of the law, hesitate not to obtain by even viler fraud the surrender of woman’s virtue to their fiendish lust. Is there no inconsistency in the social laws which condemn a swindler to the state prison for his offenses, and condemn a woman to perpetual infamy for her wrongs? Undoubtedly there are cases where the woman is the seducer, but these are so rare as to be hardly worth mentioning.

Seduction is a social wrong. Its entire consequences are not comprised in the injury inflicted on the woman, or the sense of perfidy oppressing the conscience of the man. Beyond the fact that she is, in the ordinary language of the day, ruined, the victim has endured an attack upon her principles which must materially affect her future life. The world may not know of her transgression, and, in consequence, public obloquy may not be added to her burden; but she is too painfully conscious of her fall, and every thought of her lacerated and bleeding heart is embittered with a sense of man’s wrong and outrage. Memory points to the many bright passages in their acquaintance, and says, these shone but to ensnare you; to the many tokens of endearment received from her betrayer, and says, these were but so many arguments to effect your ruin; to the many vows he breathed, and says, these were but perjury; to the many smiles with which she was greeted, and says, these were but so many hypocritical devices. She remembers the thrill of joy with which her heart so gayly bounded when he first told her she was beloved, and she contrasts her ecstasy then with her agonies now. She remembers, with detestation, the caresses he was wont to bestow. But, above all, she remembers, and her blood boils with indignation as the thought is forced upon her, that by these means he has wrought her shame. She has learned in the school of sorrow that man’s promises of fidelity are valueless; and her future life, whether spent in sorrow and repentance for the past, or in a wild, impetuous career of subsequent vice, will be indelibly marked with the remembrance of his treachery. It can not be a matter of surprise that, with this feeling of injustice and insult burning at her heart, her career should be one in which she becomes the aggressor, and man the victim; for it is a certain fact that in this desire of revenge upon the sex for the falsehood of one will be found a cause of the increase of prostitution.

The probabilities of a decrease in the crime of seduction are very slight, so long as the present public sentiment prevails; while the seducer is allowed to go unpunished, and the full measure of retribution is directed against his victim; while the offender escapes, but the offended is condemned. Unprincipled men, ready to take advantage of woman’s trustful nature, abound, and they pursue their diabolical course unmolested. Legal enactments can scarcely ever reach them, although sometimes a poor man without friends or money is indicted and convicted. The remedy must be left to the world at large. When our domestic relations are such that a man known to be guilty of this crime can obtain no admission into the family circle; when the virtuous and respectable members of the community agree that no such man shall be welcomed to their society; when worth and honor assert their supremacy over wealth and boldness, there may be hopes of a reformation, but not till then.

The following cases will exhibit some of the results of seduction: M. C., a native of Pennsylvania, seventeen years of age, was induced to run away from home with her lover, who promised to marry her as soon as they reached Philadelphia. Instead of keeping his word, he deserted her. She was afraid to go home, and had no means of living except by prostitution, which she practiced for eight months in Philadelphia, and then came to New York to reside. Her father, a physician, died when she was about ten years old, and her mother subsequently married a hotel-keeper, in whose house the girl was reared, and to the associations of which she probably, to some extent, owes her fall from virtue.In one of the most aristocratic houses of prostitution in New York was found the daughter of a merchant, a man of large property, residing in one of the Southern states. She was a beautiful girl, had received a superior education, spoke several languages fluently, and seemed keenly sensible of her degradation. Two years before this time she had been on a visit to some relations in Europe, and on her return voyage in one of her father’s vessels, she was seduced by the captain, and became pregnant. He solemnly asserted that he would marry her as soon as they reached their port, but the ship had no sooner arrived than he left her. The poor girl’s parents would not receive her back into their family, and she came to New York and prostituted herself for support.

A. B., the child of respectable parents in Germany, was seduced in her native place by a man to whom she was attached. He promised to marry her if she would accompany him to the United States. She obtained the permission and necessary funds from her parents, and two days after they landed in New York her seducer deserted her, carrying off all the money she had brought from home. H. P., a school-girl, sixteen years of age, was seduced by a married man who now visits her occasionally. C. A. was seduced in New Jersey, brought to New York, and deserted among strangers. M. R. was seduced by her employer, a married man. A. W. was seduced while at school in Troy, N. Y., and was ashamed to return to her parents. L. H. followed a lover from England who had promised to marry her. When she arrived in New York he seduced and diseased her, and then she discovered that he was a married man. There is no necessity to multiply these cases.

“Drink and the desire to drink.” We will alter an old saying, and render it, “When a woman drinks she is lost.” It will be conceded that the habit of intoxication in woman, if not an indication of the existence of actual depravity or vice, is a sure precursor of it, for drunkenness and debauchery are inseparable companions, one almost invariably following the other. In some cases a woman living in service becomes a drunkard; she forms acquaintances among the depraved of her own sex, and willingly joins their ranks. Married women acquire the habit of drinking, and forsake their husbands and families to gratify not so much their sexual appetite as their passion for liquor. Young women are often persuaded to take one or two glasses of liquor, and then their ruin may be soon expected. Others are induced to drink spirits in which a narcotic has been infused to render them insensible to their ruin. In short, it is scarcely possible to enumerate the many temptations which can be employed when intoxicating drinks are used as the agent.

“Ill-treatment of parents, husbands, or relatives” is a prolific cause of prostitution, one hundred and sixty-four women assigning it as a reason for their fall. In consideration of their important relations to society, it may be well to inquire, What are the duties of parents, husbands, and relatives?

In all countries where the obligations of the marriage contract are recognized, one of its most stringent requirements is found in the necessity to provide for the children of such union. This is acknowledged as a moral duty on account of the relationship between parents and children; it is recognized as a religious duty because specially enjoined in Holy Writ, and it is regarded as a civil duty because the future welfare of any community must depend upon the training of its future citizens.

As to the moral duty, what arguments would be effectual to prove to a hard-hearted parent the necessity of bestowing a kindly education upon his child? Surely nature itself would supply all the necessary reasons. The still, small voice of conscience will whisper to him, I have been the instrument of bringing this child into the world, and I am therefore responsible for its welfare. And even plain, old-fashioned common sense (despised as it is since a certain philosophy has come into fashion) would say, I am the father of a child, and it is my interest to do the best I can for it.

The religious duties are abundantly enforced in the Scriptures. These, while requiring in explicit terms the obedience of children to their parents, and annexing to such commandment the only promise which the Decalogue contains, are equally plain in specifying the duties of parents. These points are acknowledged by all sects and parties; and commentators or preachers, however much they may differ on questions of theology, or articles of faith, or rules of Church government, are unanimous upon the extent of parental obligation.

The civil duties are important for the reason already assigned. Children will be our successors in this arena, as we have succeeded the patriot fathers who achieved our independence, and made us the people that we are. The principles enunciated by every shot fired during the Revolutionary war have descended to us, but we are only trustees for their safe transmission to the next generation, and we shall be recreant to our duty, false to the memory of our ancestors, and traitors to our country, if we allow our children to assume the responsibilities that will naturally devolve upon them without due preparation for the sacred trust.

Having thus briefly alluded to the duties of parents, it remains to give some information as to the manner in which such obligations are performed, selected from the returns received in the progress of this investigation.

L. M., a very well educated girl: “I was seduced at eighteen years of age, and forced to leave home to hide my disgrace.” Admitting that this girl had been led into an error, the plain duty of her parents, in every point of view, was to endeavor to reform her instead of driving her from home. Human nature, in its most favorable condition, is fallible; all are liable to error; but as all hope for forgiveness, so should they forgive. This is the doctrine of the sublime prayer taught by our Savior to his apostles; this is the duty of humanity. “The bruised reed He will not break,” is a Divine promise from which poor finite man might draw a valuable lesson.

E. B.: “My parents wanted me to marry an old man, and I refused. I had a very unhappy home afterward.” This case was directly in conflict with the dictates of nature. She had formed an attachment for a man who would, in all human probability, have made her a good husband, and caused her to remain a virtuous member of society; but her parents wanted her to marry an old man, and, in consequence of refusal, treated her with unkindness. She has now, poor girl, to answer for her sin of incontinence, but who can tell what other offenses would have been laid to her charge had she married as desired by her parents? How many awful deeds recorded in the annals of criminal jurisprudence have been produced by ill-assorted marriages! How many outrages, how much bloodshed, owe their origin to such a cause! Parents who, for their own selfish purposes, would drive a daughter into a marriage repugnant to her feelings, deserve the severest condemnation. So far from performing their duty in the matter, they are acting in diametrical opposition to it.

C. B.: “My stepmother ill-used me.” The stepmother in this case stands in the place of the natural parent. In assuming the duties, she assumes all the responsibilities of the relation, and is equally guilty as if this girl were her own child. Women’s feelings, in a normal state, are generally kind, gentle, and forgiving; but when they are perverted, she becomes more inveterate than man. So it was in this instance.

E. G.: “My mother ill-treated me and drove me from home. My father was very kind, but he died when I was seven years old.” A similar case to the preceding in the perversion of feminine feelings, coupled with the melancholy fact that the girl’s father, who had always used her kindly, died when she was a child. It would be natural to conclude that all the affections of a widow would concentrate upon her children, but the reverse of this is too frequently found to be true, and as soon as the husband to whom her vows were pledged is laid in the grave, and the children are deprived of his protecting hand, her love is alienated from them. A mother’s duties to her offspring are increased by her husband’s death, but she neglects them, and does violence to the maternal instinct.

M. B.: “I support my mother.” It may possibly be objected that this case does not come within the scope of this section, as showing no positive neglect of parental duty, but, by implication, it is decidedly entitled to a place in the catalogue. It is, unfortunately for the sake of morality, but one of many similar instances which have been encountered, and some of which will be noticed in due course. The self-evident conclusion is, that if this mother had properly trained her daughter in early life, she would not now have to endure the agony arising from the knowledge that every morsel of food she eats, every article of clothing she wears, is purchased with the proceeds of her child’s shame. It is difficult to imagine any position more disgusting than this—any circumstance more horrible than that of a mother quietly depending for existence upon the prostitution of a daughter, with the certainty that the inevitable result of such a vicious course of life will drive the child of her affection to a premature grave and a dreadful eternity.

J. C.: “My father accused me of being a prostitute when I was innocent. He would give me no clothes to wear. My mother was a confirmed drunkard, and used to be away from home most of the time.” Here we have a combination of horrors scarcely equaled in the field of romance. The unjust accusations of the father, and his conduct in not supplying his child with the actual necessaries of life, joined with the drunkenness of the mother, present such an accumulation of cruelty and vice that it would have been a miracle had the girl remained virtuous. It is to be presumed that no one will claim for this couple the performance of any one of the duties enjoined by their position.

S. S.: “I had no work, and went home. My father was a drunkard, and ill-treated me and the rest of the family.” Here is a specimen of a father’s cruelty. His daughter is out of employment, and has no home but with her parents, and he, maddened with liquor, abuses her for flying to her natural protectors. Where was she to expect aid and comfort but from the authors of her being, and how was such expectation realized? She was forced to resort to prostitution as a means of living.

C. R.: “My parents are rich. They would not let me live at home, because I had been seduced.” In this case there was no excuse for parental unkindness. Blessed with an ample supply of this world’s treasures, they could calmly see their daughter exposed to want and penury. Living in the enjoyment of opulence themselves, they could doom her to earn a miserable subsistence by a life of shame. Satisfied with their own lot, and complacently surveying the comforts which surrounded them, they condemned her to a course of infamy in which no enjoyment could be found to cheer her path; where every day must add fresh tortures to her lot, every hour sink her yet lower in the social scale. Why? Because an indiscretion or a crime—call it which you please—had made her a fitting object for their kindness; because her own act had placed her in a position where she felt her disgrace, and asked their sympathy and aid to retrace her steps. Can there be a more pitiable object than a woman who has sacrificed her virtue to the importunity, the entreaties, or the vows of her lover, when she reflects upon her conduct? The delirium of love is past, but the overwhelming sense of shame is left; she feels that a momentary act has blasted her future life; she knows that the world will condemn her, and the only resource she has is an appeal to her parents. If they kindly take her by the hand, in all probability the evil will extend no farther, and she may regain her position in life. If they refuse their sympathy, they practically drive her to a course of vice, for there is no other road open to her. Who, then, is responsible for her after-career but those who have the power to preserve her from farther guilt and shame?

J. A.: “I am the eldest of a large family. My father is a drunkard, and would not support his children. I have supported my parents, brothers, and sisters for the last five years.” This is an example of an outrageous social crime which can not be contemplated without horror; the parents of a family, with their remaining children, relying for subsistence upon the aid furnished from the sinful earnings of the first-born! In this instance the economy of nature is reversed. The filial affection which leads a child to support her aged and infirm parents can be understood and appreciated, but it is impossible to reprobate too severely the conduct of a man whose own actions have reduced him to poverty, and who then encourages his daughter to lead a life of prostitution that he may revel on money produced by a course of debauchery which he was mainly instrumental in producing.

A. B.: “My lover seduced and diseased me while I was working in a factory. I went home, and my parents turned me out.” Neither loss of character nor physical suffering were sufficient punishment for this poor girl, only eighteen years of age; nor could the probability of a future moral life induce her parents to pardon the first offense. They had sent her to work amid associations which were almost certain to cause her ruin. This, of itself, is a sufficient ground for their condemnation, for they were in comfortable circumstances, and could not plead poverty as an excuse; and when this ruin was accomplished, they added to their former crime by refusing a shelter to the sufferer.

These cases are taken from actual facts. The words included in inverted commas are, as nearly as possible, those used by the women when being questioned. As to the truth of the statements, we hesitate not to believe them all to be substantially correct. They are not a fiftieth part of the instances in which similar disclosures have been made, but they are sufficient for the purpose of argument, and to prove that the assertions made in other places rest upon a solid foundation, and are not mere fancies of the brain. It would certainly be much more to the credit of society if their authenticity were not so indisputable.

The foregoing examples strongly suggest and justify a farther consideration of the duties of parents. While these include the obligation to furnish a child with food and clothing, they do not stop at that point. It would be erroneous, indeed, for any father to imagine he had fulfilled all the requirements of his position when he gave a child enough to eat and to wear. He would attend to the wants of his cattle in the same way, but there is something more to be done in the case of his children. He must so treat them as to induce, on their part, a sentiment of gratitude. Children are proverbially keen-sighted, and they seem to have a natural faculty for logic, so far as they themselves are concerned. They can very soon discriminate whether a parent is doing barely just as much as the laws of the country and the voice of public opinion require, or whether he is acting toward them with true paternal affection. In the former case they become selfish, and practice all their little arts to obtain as many advantages that the law allows them as possible, without entertaining any feelings of respect or affection toward their parents, because they know that such obligations can not be evaded without censure. In the latter case their gratitude and affection forms a return for the kindness bestowed. They immediately perceive that they are loved, and, as a natural consequence, endeavor to manifest love in return, by acting in a manner most pleasing to their parents. By simply encouraging this sentiment, children can be moulded much as the father wishes, whereas, by destroying it, he loses one of the most effective aids to his government. There are so many different ways by which this affection for children can be manifested, and they are all so simple and so certainly effective, that it is scarcely possible to conceive how any man or woman of the most ordinary intelligence can overlook them.

In addition to providing for the personal wants of his family, their education claims a large portion of the parents’ care. Not only the mere tuition imparted in schools, but a careful training at home, as preliminary to their conflict with the world, is required. It is the instruction and advice given in the quiet of the domestic circle that exercises the most powerful influence, most effectually shapes the destiny of the future man or woman. No person is justified in delaying the performance of this duty. So soon as a child can talk and walk, so soon is this guidance necessary. It would be an interesting and important matter of investigation to ascertain, if possible, the time of life at which children become influenced by the temptations which surround them. The result would show a much earlier age than is generally supposed. A boy, when playing with his companions, overhears an improper expression from one of them. His mind retains it, and it may prove the germ from which habits of profanity subsequently spring. A girl may notice an improper action, which will rest upon her memory, and produce sad fruit hereafter. Thus the education of children for the ordinary duties of life can not be commenced too soon. If delayed, the probabilities are that, when you attempt to cultivate the soil in after years, you will find it already choked with weeds, which require more time and trouble to eradicate than would the inculcation of proper principles in early life. A lady remarked upon one occasion, in presence of an eminent preacher, that she thought children should not be trained to any religious exercises until they had arrived at an age when they could fully understand such subjects. The reply of the aged minister is appropriate to the present subject. He said, “Madam, if you do not implant good doctrines in your children’s minds before that time, the devil will fill them with mischievous ones.”

A somewhat prevalent error in the training of children must not be passed unnoticed, namely, excessive rigidity. This practice is common in many well-meaning but unthinking families professing Christianity. Every thing is conducted with as much mathematical precision as if they were demonstrating a problem in Euclid. Such a system is open to very grave objections, from the numerous cases in which it has proved prejudicial to the child’s best interests. It acts precisely like the spring of a watch, which you can retain in a fixed position by a mechanical contrivance, but which resumes its elasticity and power the moment the pressure is removed. Children’s minds are elastic also; you can confine them within any circle you please by the exercise of parental authority, but in a large proportion of cases the end sought to be attained is surely defeated. Many justly blame this cause for the mishaps of their future lives. It presents virtue and religion in a repulsive aspect, picturing them only as connected with asceticism, not recognizing the beauty and happiness which are their chief attractions. Thus is engendered in the minds of children an intuitive dislike for what they are taught to consider as a bondage. It is not uncommon to hear men describe the way in which their youthful Sabbaths were spent, and attribute to the irksome monotony of that day’s discipline their subsequent distaste for even a few hours’ confinement in church. This strictness, like ambition, “overleaps itself,” and extinguishes the spirit it is designed to foster. The proper way to educate children for lives of usefulness, honor, and happiness, the most effective plan to reach the desired end, is to cultivate their affections and reason, instead of repressing the one and fettering the other by stringent applications of arbitrary rule.But no man or woman can educate children properly unless their precepts are confirmed by example. Talk to your son as long as you please upon the advantages of temperance, and then let him see you in a state of intoxication the next day, and all your labor will be fruitless. Enlarge, in the presence of your daughter, upon the value of integrity, and then allow her to hear you utter a falsehood, and she will contrast the theory and practice, and conclude that the former is worthless. Parents must educate themselves before they can hope to instruct their children, and must lead a life in conformity with the principles they teach, if they expect any beneficial results from their endeavors.

Before leaving this part of the subject another matter may be mentioned, namely, the necessity of winning the confidence of children. Their hearts pine for sympathy. If they are in trouble, encourage them to reveal their perplexities to you; sigh with them when they are sad, and rejoice with them when they are happy. A girl who has been in the habit of imparting all her childish sorrows to her mother, and has there found a heart which would beat in unison with her own, will not withhold her confidence as she grows in years. Remember that children, while a blessing to their parents, are also a responsibility. You have the power to train them for good or evil; you can win their trust, or inspire them with distrust; you can make them useful members of society, or render them nuisances to the community; to you their destiny is confided to a great extent, and from you will be required an account of the stewardship.

The length to which these observations have been extended can be justified by the importance of the subject, and the conviction that a more careful fulfillment of parental duties would go very far toward diminishing prostitution. Every man must admit it to be his duty to aid in effecting this desirable consummation; and while it would be Utopian to imagine that the vice can be eradicated by family influences, it is reasonable to conclude that its extent may be materially curtailed.

Great as are the duties and responsibilities of a father, they are equaled by those devolving upon a husband. He has to provide for the welfare of his wife besides caring for the interests of his children. When he marries he vows to remain faithful to the woman of his choice, to “love, honor, and cherish her” so long as they both shall live. This is an implied oath, if not audibly expressed in all circumstances, and any violation of it is neither more nor less than perjury. Of course, the obligation is a mutual one; the wife is bound by the same ties, and in as stringent a form as the husband. It can not be said that every case of prostitution in a married woman is the result of her husband’s misconduct, but it is notorious that many women are induced or compelled by such misconduct to abandon a life of virtue. All married prostitutes can not be exonerated from the charge of guilt, yet the facts which will be hereafter quoted prove that many were driven to a life of shame by those who had solemnly sworn to protect and cherish them.

The violation of any known duty is a positive crime against society, but it becomes increased in magnitude when it involves more than one person in the offense. It is then the cause of a second transgression, and sophistry would vainly attempt to prove that the man who committed the first and caused the commission of the second offense was not morally responsible for both. Descending from generalities, it may be truly asserted that the man whose conduct to his wife is such as to lead her to vicious practices is guilty in both respects. Here are some few cases in point.

C. C.: “My husband deserted me and four children. I had no means to live.” In this case the husband violated the law of God in forcibly rending the matrimonial bond, and violated the laws of his country by leaving his wife and children as burdens on society. For the former of these offenses he must answer at the bar of Infinite Justice; for the latter he is liable to punishment in this world. “Then why not punish him?” asks some one. For the very simple reason that he could not be found. In this day the law does not assume the latitude claimed by the Spanish Inquisition, and sentence a man to punishment without giving him an opportunity to plead his cause. A woman in a state of destitution, with four hungry children looking to her for bread, has neither time nor means to pursue a delinquent husband. Her present necessities require her immediate attention, and so he escapes the penalty the laws have awarded, and can live (although it may be with an uneasy conscience) in some other place, and probably repeat there the iniquities he has practiced here. The custom of deserting wives and children would receive a severe check were it possible in every instance to enforce the legal provisions respecting abandonment.

J. S.: “My husband committed adultery. I caught him with another woman, and then he left me.” This individual’s turpitude was enhanced by his boldness. He seems to have recklessly defied all consequences, to have been entirely callous to any sense of shame, and, when detected in his adulterous intercourse, he adds desertion to his offense. He regarded not the feelings of her whom in early life he had won to his side by vows of affection; he outraged the laws of decency, and trampled upon the statutes of his country. His wife’s agony may be conceived, although words would be faint to express it, and the mental sufferings she must have endured before she abandoned herself to indiscriminate prostitution as a means of living will not aggravate her offense.

A. G.: “My husband eloped with another woman. I support the child.” Here the husband was morally as guilty as in the previous case, but without the disgusting bravado which characterized that. He had, however, another claim which should have secured his fidelity, namely, an infant child; but this tie was powerless to restrain him. Fascinated by the charms of another, forgetting all the rights of his wife, all the obligations of paternity, and all the requirements of morality, he basely abandoned those dependent on him, and forced the wife, whose virtue he was bound to protect, into a career of vice to support his child.

A. B.: “My husband accused me of infidelity, which was not true. I only lived with him five months. I was pregnant by him, and after my child was born I went on the town to support it.” The first idea derived from this statement would be that five months of matrimonial life had been sufficient to change this husband from a devoted lover to a revengeful tyrant, who would not scruple to resort to a groundless accusation to effect his purpose. In this short space of time he conveniently forgot the promises he had made, repudiated the bonds in which his own act had placed him, and, to accomplish a separation from his wife, did not hesitate to bear false witness against her, placing her in a position from which she could extricate herself only by performing a logical impossibility, namely, by proving a negative. Nor could the probable destiny of his unborn child influence his determination. It mattered not to him whether the infant first saw the light in a den of infamy, nor whether his unkindness killed it before it was born, so that he could desert his wife. Neither did it make any difference to him whether she starved to death or maintained her existence by the most loathsome means. He was satiated with possession, and neither the voice of nature nor the dictates of conscience could arrest his purpose. The result was precisely what might have been expected: she became a prostitute rather than starve and let her child starve.

R. B.: “My husband brought me here (a house of ill fame). I did not know what kind of a place it was. He lives with me, and I follow prostitution.” Another variety of unnatural conduct. The wife in this case was a very good-looking young woman, not exceeding eighteen years of age; the husband held a respectable and well-paid employment, and was in possession of ample means to support her. By false representations he induced her, within three months after marriage, to board in a fashionable house of prostitution. She soon discovered its character, but eventually succumbed to his orders, and became guilty. He resides with her, and is supported by her. What language can be used adequately to denounce such a cold-blooded piece of treachery on the part of a wretch claiming to be human?

L. W.: “I came to this city, from Illinois, with my husband. When we got here he deserted me. I have two children dependent on me.” This man brought his wife from a distant state to a strange city, where she had no friends nor relatives to advise and assist her, and there abandoned her, with two helpless children, to the mercy of the world. Had he left her where she had been living previously, it is possible she might have found sufficient friends to assist her until she was able to support herself; but with a refinement of cruelty he transferred her to a place where she was unknown, and then effected his escape. The entire circumstances favor the supposed existence of a determination to abandon her as soon as they arrived in New York, where he could act thus with more safety than in her native place.

C. H.: “I was married when I was seventeen years old, and have had three children. The two boys are living now; the girl is dead. My oldest boy is nearly five years old, and the other one is eighteen months. My husband is a sailor. We lived very comfortably till my last child was born, and then he began to drink very hard, and did not support me, and I have not seen him or heard any thing about him for six months. After he left me I tried to keep my children by washing or going out to day’s work, but I could not earn enough. I never could earn more than two or three dollars a week when I had work, which was not always. My father and mother died when I was a child. I had nobody to help me, and could not support my children, so I came to this place. My boys are now living in the city, and I support them with what I earn by prostitution. It was only to keep them that I came here.” These were the words used by an honest, sorrowful looking woman encountered, in the course of this investigation, in the fourth police district of the city. No reasonable doubt can be entertained of the truth of the story; the manner in which she told it plainly indicated that she was narrating facts. Some inquiries were made respecting her of the keeper of the house, and he (for it was a man) stated that he knew her story to be correct. He had at first employed her as a servant because he wished to help her, but the wages he could pay were insufficient to support her children, and she eventually prostituted herself because she could earn more at this horrible calling, and was thus enabled to discharge her maternal duty. But at what a sacrifice was this obtained! In order to feed her helpless offspring she was forced to yield her honor; to prevent them suffering from the pains of hunger, she voluntarily chose to endure the pangs of a guilty conscience; to prolong their lives she periled her own. And at the time when this alternative was forced upon her, the husband was lavishing his money for intoxicating liquor. If she sinned—and this fact can not be denied, however charity may view it—it was the non-performance of his duty that urged, nay, positively forced her to sin. She must endure the punishment of her offenses, but, after reading her simple, heart-rending statement, let casuists decide what amount of condemnation will rest upon the man whose desertion compelled her to violate the law of chastity in order to support his children.

E. W.: “My husband had another wife when I married him. I left him when I found this out. I was pregnant by him, and had no other way to live than by prostitution.” In point of law, this is not a married woman, the existence of the former wife rendering the second union invalid; but this is no excuse for the man’s conduct; in fact, it materially aggravates his guilt. In the first place, he deserts a woman whom he was legally bound to support, leaving her to battle her way through life, to resist the temptations which would be sure to assail her, careless whether she lived or died, and heedless whether she retained her character or sank into vice; and then, with the greatest nonchalance, goes through the ceremony of marriage with another woman. It is easy to imagine the feelings of the latter when she discovered the fraud which had been practiced to secure her hand, and the indignation which caused her to leave him immediately, notwithstanding her condition; nor will it require much stretch of fancy to picture the mental suffering she endured, her agony during the hour of nature’s trial, before she consented to earn a precarious living as a prostitute. Such cases are of frequent occurrence, and even the probability of a criminal indictment is insufficient to deter some men. No punishment could be too severe for such offenses, even considering them without any reference to this particular instance, because they pervert one of our most solemn contracts, and destroy all confidence in the security of the marriage tie.

C. H.: “My husband was a drunkard, and beat me.” How much of misery and crime is contained in these few words! Either of the vices practiced by this fellow is enough to make a woman wretched; the combination is sufficient to drive her mad. She would doubtless sit and ponder during the long and weary night hours when he was carousing with his drunken companions, and would contrast her present wretched state with the happiness of early days. Her thoughts would revert to the time he won her love, to the day on which he brought her to his home a bride, and then she would cast her eyes around the room, now robbed of almost every thing portable to supply his insane appetite for liquor, and a heavy sigh would burst from her heart. But still she would continue her sad reminiscences, and think of the kindness he displayed then, and of his brutal ferocity now—would remember his considerate tenderness and compare it with his maniac fury. And then something would whisper to her, “Why do you endure it?” and her woman’s nature would be aroused, resistance would take the place of submission, and she would leave her home and him who had desecrated it, and immolate herself upon the altar of vice, a victim to her husband’s drunkenness and cruelty.

C. N.: “My husband left me because I was sickly and could not do hard work.” This woman’s husband may be pictured as a lazy, worthless fellow; probably one who married not to secure a helpmate and a partner, but to obtain a slave. Her health would not allow her to perform as much drudgery as he expected; the speculation did not turn out as well as he had anticipated, and he left her destitute, to starve or sin, as she thought fit.

P. T.: “My husband was intemperate, and turned out to be a thief. He was sent to prison.” Still another victim of a drunken husband, but he carried his vicious habits to a point where the laws of his country would reach him. Had he merely deserted his wife, nobody would have thought it his business to arrest him, but he stole some person’s property, and all the enginery of the law was forthwith arrayed against him. In the one instance, his conduct condemns his wife to shame in this world and perhaps perdition in the next, and the good-tempered public looks quietly on and says nothing. In the other case, he defrauds his neighbor of some dollars and cents, and the indignant community demands his condign punishment! What conclusion can be drawn from these facts? Honor, character, and life are ruined, and the offender escapes: money is stolen, and he is punished! Is money more valuable than the character and life of woman?

It requires no argument to prove that when the care of a child is assumed by its relatives, the parental obligations also devolve upon them; nor can there be any difference of opinion as to the duty of relations to assist, to the utmost of their power, any children whom death or other circumstances may have deprived of their natural protectors. Were not these principles generally recognized, all large cities would be crowded with destitute orphans. The beneficial results often arising from such guardianships argue very strongly in their favor; but still the imperative duty is frequently evaded, or acknowledged and made the opportunity for an exhibition of tyranny which naturally tends to the encouragement of vice. Take the following cases in illustration:

J. F.: “I support my aunt.” In this case the duties of the aunt were not merely evaded, but she adds to her neglect a positive approval of the girl’s abandoned life, by voluntarily receiving a portion of her earnings. What species of education she bestowed upon her niece may be inferred from its results. Such disclosures are almost too disgusting to be criticised.

S. B.: “My parents were dead. I came to this country with an uncle and aunt, who ill-used me from the time I landed till I ran away.” The death of her parents should have been a passport to the affection of the relatives to whose charge she was intrusted, but, instead of producing such an effect, they brought her to a strange land, and practiced a succession of cruelties, until she could endure them no longer. It is more than probable that this was a plan intended to drive her from their home. They neither acknowledged their duty to supply the places of the father and mother she had lost, nor did they recognize the force of relationship, which, at least, should have protected her from positive unkindness. Nor did they possess any of those feelings of sympathy which every well-disposed person must entertain toward an orphan. They could not have been unaware of the probability of her falling into bad company and vicious habits if she left their care, but no regard for her happiness or character seems to have entered into their calculations, which may have been somewhat in this form: She is an expense to us, so we will contrive to drive her away; if she can make her living honestly, so much the better; if she turns out a prostitute, that is her own concern. It was not solely “her own concern,” but it involved them also in its consequences, through their agency in its accomplishment, and, morally speaking, they are as liable for her ruin as if they had actually, and not indirectly, caused it.

The following cases closely resemble each other, and are presented in conjunction:

A. D.: “My parents were dead. I lived with my uncle, who treated me very unkindly.”

L. S.: “My parents died when I was young. I lived with an uncle and aunt, who used me ill.” The deprivation of each of these unfortunate women in the death of their parents, a loss almost incalculable in its results, placed them under the guardianship of those who alike neglected their duties and rendered the trust a medium for unkindness to the orphans. It seems surprising that the memory of a deceased brother or sister can not secure even ordinary care for their children. It can not be expected that the surviving relatives would exhibit the same amount of affection as would have been shown by the parents, but disappointment must be experienced if they make no pretensions to kindness. The dictates of nature are violated when harshness takes the place of sympathy, and destitution is considered a sufficient warrant for deliberate and continuous ill-treatment. Such conduct renders a girl reckless and misanthropic, and will drive her to seek, in unhallowed love, the affection her guardians have refused.

L. M.: “I was taken by my sister-in-law to a house of prostitution, and there violated.” It is not often such a case of barbarity is found in civilized life, nor indeed in less polished communities, as this forcible violation of a young girl through the aid and connivance of her sister-in-law. The mind recoils, with disgust, from the instances of rape so frequently occurring, but this case is so peculiarly aggravated that it can not be contemplated without a feeling of shame for the depravity of human nature. In the one case, the brutal passions of a man are displayed in a brutal manner; in the other, the same cause exists to a similar extent, coupled with the blackest perfidy of a female relative. To such a shameless violation of the laws of consanguinity, such an outrageous conspiracy between a vile man and a monster of a woman, the sister must have been induced to lend her aid by some means best known to herself. It is quite impossible to imagine she possessed a single spark of virtue; on the contrary, she must have sunk, long before this occurrence, to the lowest depths of vice, or she never would have been an instrument in such an infernal scheme. The consideration she received is, of course, known only to the parties themselves, but it would give a farther insight to her character if the reader could be informed of the estimate set by a sister-in-law upon an orphan’s virtue. The result of the outrage is, no doubt, exactly what the criminals anticipated. The victim knew that her character was ruined, that she had no alternative but prostitution, and, while the guilty pair who literally forced her to sin can congratulate each other on the success of their machinations, she must endure the penalty in a life of crime and misery.

G. H.: “I was detected and exposed by my brother.” This girl, who had yielded to the entreaties of a man whom “she loved, not wisely, but too well,” may assign her subsequent career of vice to the conduct of her brother. He must have been sadly deficient in all kindly feeling thus to parade his sister’s dishonor, and also possessed of a very limited knowledge of human nature, or a large amount of malevolence. It can scarcely be imagined that he acted from ignorance, as he must have been certain that such an exposure would most probably induce his sister to continue an intercourse which was publicly known, and therefore could not augment her disgrace; nor can it be conceived that a malicious desire to blast her character governed his conduct. But, whatever his motive, the result was the same. She was forced to a life of prostitution, from which she might have been rescued had kind and affectionate means been employed, instead of the cruel and heedless course which was adopted.

C. W.: “My parents died when I was young. I was brought up by relatives who went to California when I was sixteen years old, and left me destitute. I had no trade.” There is no allegation that this girl’s relatives used her unkindly during the time she lived with them, but they deserted her, in a helpless condition, at the very time when she most needed their guardianship. They could not have been ignorant of the many temptations to which a young woman, without protectors or means of livelihood, is exposed in New York, and yet they removed to a distance, and left her to meet these trials alone. A girl whom they had reared from infancy, and for whom they must have entertained considerable affection, they tamely abandoned to an almost certain fate far worse than death. To say the least, it was a most inconsiderate step, and has resulted very disastrously.

E. R.: “My husband deserted me to live with another woman; my parents were dead; I went to my brother’s house, and he turned me out.” Fraternal unkindness farther exemplified! An orphan sister, deserted by her husband, asked from her brother the shelter of his roof, and he drove her from the house! Such conduct would have been barbarous if even a stranger had made the appeal; in the present instance, it exhibits a cruelty which can not be too severely reprobated.

C. B.: “My parents were dead. I was out of place. I had no relations but an uncle, who would not give me any shelter unless I paid him for it. I went on the town to get money to pay for my lodgings.” This uncle’s name ought to be handed down to posterity as a synonym of hard-hearted selfishness, and as indicating another manner in which money can be made. His miserly propensities must have been very strongly developed when he refused a shelter to his destitute niece unless she paid for it. It certainly did not matter to him how or where she obtained the means, and doubtless his equanimity was not disturbed when he ascertained that the money she paid him was the price of her shame. The coin was as bright in his hand, as useful to him to hoard or to spend, as if it had been her honest earning. Probably he would have been excessively annoyed (it is the characteristic of such men) if any plain-spoken person had told him that he was the means of making this girl a prostitute; but can it be denied that such was the fact, when he received some portion of the money earned by his niece’s prostitution before he would allow her to sleep in his house?

L. S.: “My sister ill-treated me because I had no work.” Here a sister seems to have regarded money as the chief good. The applicant was out of employment, in itself enough to enlist one’s sympathies; she was in want, which should have been an additional reason for kindness; and yet, for these causes, a sister ill-treated her.In thus endeavoring to show the several duties of parents, husbands, and relatives to those dependent females who are liable to be exposed at any moment to temptations leading from the path of virtue, cases have been exhibited in which a departure from the universally recognized obligations of these classes has added recruits to the ranks of prostitution. In these remarks, the endeavor has been to advance nothing resting on a theory; to advocate nothing unless supported by facts or acknowledged by common sense; to exonerate no one from blame when circumstances demanded a censure, and to condemn none in favor of whom there could be an existing doubt.

The recorded extracts, giving an insight beyond the scene of public view, exhibiting the secret machinery of the family circle, can not be contemplated without a mingled feeling of sorrow and shame. Sorrow, that so many females who might have been useful members of society have been forced into the ranks of sin; and shame, that the instruments in these proceedings were those who should have exerted every power to prevent such a result.

Cases have now been presented to the reader where a sorrowing, heart-broken girl has been denied the opportunity of repentance, and driven from a father’s home; where another has been expelled from the family circle because she would not consent to an ill-assorted marriage; where stepfathers and stepmothers have violated their duties, and despised the obligations they had voluntarily assumed; where a mother’s ill-treatment has driven her daughter to ruin; where parents were living and reveling upon the wages of their children’s dishonor; where false accusations and unkind treatment were resorted to, and, from their natural effects, drove a girl from home and virtue; where drunkenness and debauchery made home a hell upon earth; where parents in affluent circumstances have driven a child from their home; where prostitution was willingly embraced as an escape from parental tyranny.

Again: Instances have been cited where husbands have deserted their wives and children; where the marital vow has been broken in the most glaring manner, and the crime followed by deliberate abandonment; where the wife’s affections have been slighted, and her love relinquished for the purchased caresses of another woman; where a charge of infidelity has been made against a wife without cause; where a husband has deliberately brought his wife to a house of prostitution, and is now leading an idle, worthless life upon her earnings; where another husband brought his wife to a strange city in order to desert her and her children; where the solemn contract of marriage has been perverted; where a drunken husband has raised his hand against the woman he had sworn to protect; where a wife’s sickness and incapacity for labor was made a reason for her husband’s desertion; where a man’s insane thirst for intoxicating liquor has forced a woman to prostitution for a maintenance; where the husband has been committed to prison for theft.

Farther: Cases have been given where an aunt lives upon the proceeds of a niece’s prostitution; where uncles and aunts have systematically ill-used their orphan relatives; where a sister-in-law procured and assisted at the violation of a child; where a brother’s unkindness forced his sister to continue a life of shame; where relatives to whom an orphan child was intrusted abandoned her when she most needed their care; where a brother refused an asylum to a deserted and suffering sister; where an uncle forced a girl to prostitute herself for money to pay him for her lodgings.

As already stated, these cases are all facts, collected in the course of this investigation, and are believed to be substantially correct. With such disclosures as these, can any one be surprised at the continued spread of prostitution? The family circle is one of the sources whence it emanates; so is the matrimonial bond; and so are the different branches of consanguinity. When fathers, husbands, and relatives thus forget their duties, and lend their influence to swell the tide of vice, it is no matter of surprise that strangers should be found ready and eager to contribute their share to the polluted current.

But the evil is not incurable, if public opinion can be enlisted on the side of public morals, and parents are satisfied, by unmistakable demonstrations, that the voice of an indignant people will be raised against them if practices similar to those narrated continue to occur. Husbands, too, must be convinced that any infraction of their marriage vows will expose them to popular odium; and if they have contracted an ill-assorted, hasty alliance, the responsibility must be borne by themselves. The contracts they voluntarily made must be fulfilled. Relatives also must be warned that the performance of their duties will be rigidly required. There is no deficiency of legislation on this subject; all that is wanted is determination to enforce existing laws; and when this is done, some of the main causes of prostitution will be removed.To resume the analysis of the table of replies: Seventy-one women were persuaded by prostitutes to embrace a life of depravity. One of the most common modes by which this end is accomplished is to inveigle a girl into some house of prostitution as a servant, and this is frequently done through the medium of an intelligence office.

Most of the inhabitants of New York are acquainted with the arrangements and routine of business in those offices, but they may be described as a matter of information to others. Imagine a large room, generally a basement, in some leading thoroughfare. Upon entering from the street you will observe two doors, marked respectively “Entrance for Employers” and “Entrance for Servants.” Passing through the first, you approach a desk, where the proprietor or his clerk is seated with his register books before him. You make known your wish to engage a servant, specifying her duties and the wages you are willing to pay. This is registered with your name and address, the fee is paid, and you are invited to walk into the other department, and ascertain whether any of the throng who are waiting there will suit your purpose. If successful in the search, it is merely necessary to inform the book-keeper that you are suited, and to take your servant home with you; but if you do not succeed, a woman will be sent to the registered address, and the office-keeper will continue to send until you are satisfied.

Servants who wish to obtain situations register their wants and pay a fee. If there are no places likely to suit them on the list of employers, they have permission to remain in the waiting-room until an applicant appears. In these waiting-rooms may be found a crowd of expectants varying from twenty to one hundred, according to the business transacted by the office.

In theory this arrangement is a very good one; in practice it is frequently abused. A respectable housekeeper who wishes to engage a servant will find but little trouble in doing so, and any person wishing to make the office a medium for securing females for improper purposes will seldom be disappointed. It is rarely that the proprietors notice the arrangements made; they merely act as brokers, and make known the wants of each party, and do not interfere with the character of either unless it is so notoriously bad as to force them to notice it for their own sake. So long as the employer and servant agree, the office-keeper is contented.

The following facts illustrate the manner in which young women are sometimes entrapped. A respectably-dressed man went into an intelligence office, and represented himself as a storekeeper residing some twenty miles from New York. He wished to hire a girl as seamstress and chambermaid, who must go home with him the same afternoon. Glancing around the waiting-room, he soon saw one of sufficiently attractive appearance, to whom he made the proposition. The wages he offered were liberal, the work was described as light, and the woman made an arrangement to accompany him forthwith. He told her that he had a little business to transact before he could leave the city, but that she could wait for him at his sister’s until the cars were ready to start. She had but slight knowledge of the temptations of New York, and went with him to a brothel, the keeper of which he stated to be his sister. Here she remained for some hours waiting his return. The “sister” expressed her surprise at his absence, but concluded that his business had detained him, and, with apparently a kindly feeling, told the girl that she would be welcome to sleep there that night. Her suspicions were lulled by the seeming respectability of the persons, and she remained. In the course of the evening the character of the house became evident, and then the proprietress offered to engage her as a servant, solemnly promising that she should not be exposed to any insult. Almost a total stranger in the city, and destitute of money, she consented. A very few days in such a hot-bed of vice was sufficient to deaden her sense of right and wrong, and within a fortnight she was enrolled as a prostitute.

Keepers of houses sometimes visit these offices themselves, but generally some unknown agent is employed, or, at times, one of the prostitutes is plainly dressed, and sent to register her name as wishing a situation, so as to be able to obtain admission to the waiting-room. There she enters into conversation with the other women, whom she uses all the art she possesses to induce to visit her employer, and very frequently with the same result as in the case just narrated.

There exists among many prostitutes a fiendish desire to reduce the virtuous of their own sex to a similar degradation with themselves. Since they can not elevate their own characters, they strive to debase those of others. To accomplish this, they spare neither trouble nor misrepresentation. One system in which they are commonly employed may be noted, although the mode is similar to the case of the servant-girl just given. A man had resolved to ruin a woman who placed implicit confidence in his sincerity, and admitted that she loved him. He found that her modesty and good sense were proof against his persuasive powers, and he finally resorted to stratagem, and invited her to walk with him to visit some relations. He took her to a brothel, introduced its keeper (who had already been instructed in her part) as his aunt, and one or two of the inmates represented her daughters. The deception was maintained for a time; family matters were discussed, and refreshments introduced. A glass of drugged wine was handed to the victim, and as soon as its effects were visible the villainous deed was effected. Such machinations as this show that not only are many of these prostitutes dangerous to society from their open and avowed life of crime, but also from the influences they exert to deceive the honest of their own sex.

Allusion has been already made to the numerous dangers which surround young women during their passage to this country on crowded emigrant ships, or after their arrival in the equally crowded emigrant boarding-houses, and it is needless to repeat them in this section; but an incomplete statement of the causes of prostitution would be presented if the injurious effects of some of our fashionable boarding-schools were suffered to pass without notice. Startling as such an assertion may appear, it is no more strange than true. A system of education, the prominent design of which is to impart a knowledge of the (so-called) modern accomplishments to the almost total exclusion of moral training; to make the pupils present the most dazzling appearance in society, regardless of their real interests and duties, does, in some cases, lead to unhappy results. Filial affection, or early training, or innate virtue, enable many to overcome these temptations, but others succumb to them. One case, in particular, it is desirable to record, although several of a similar nature were met with.

A girl, eighteen years of age, born in Louisiana, of highly respectable parents, was induced to elope from a boarding-school in the vicinity of New Orleans with a man who accorded with her romantic ideal of a lover. No marriage vows ever passed between them; she trusted him as the heroine of a modern novel would have done, and he deceived her, as all modern rakes deceive their victims. She lived with him for a considerable time. When he deserted her, she was left almost destitute. She was afraid to return to her parents, knowing that they were acquainted with the life she had been leading, and she had no other means of support than open and avowed prostitution. These features of her history should present a warning to both parents and daughters of the dangers attending a superficial and improper system of education.

Of course it must not be inferred that all schools are open to such objections. In the numerous institutions of the kind scattered throughout the land, the majority are worthy of every confidence. Instances like this are probably exceptions to the rule, but still, what has been pernicious in one case may be in another; and the education of young women, forming, as it does, their character for life, should be conducted, as far as possible, so as to secure their safety, honor, and usefulness. In a subsequent chapter, this superficial education will be farther noticed.

One of the real improvements of modern times is the introduction of physiology as a branch of education in our schools. Yet it is to be regretted that the knowledge communicated to youth upon a subject so important is still extremely limited. Indeed, such is the present state of public opinion, that any text-book or teacher that should impart thorough instruction in regard to all the organs and functions of the human body, would be considered entirely unfit for use or duty. Notwithstanding this, the young of both sexes do become informed upon the subjects of marriage, procreation, and maternity. And how? By force of natural curiosity and injurious association. It is the imperative duty of parents to rightly inform their children concerning the things which they must inevitably know. In consequence of their neglect of this duty, both boys and girls are left to find out all they can about the mysteries of their being from ignorant servants or corrupt companions. Let fathers teach their sons, and mothers their daughters, at the earliest practicable age, all that their future well-being makes it necessary for them to know. The information thus acquired will be invested with a sacredness and delicacy entirely wanting when obtained from unreliable and pernicious sources.

Thus would many of the injurious influences incident to the present secrecy upon such subjects be avoided. Of the evil habits and practices common among youth, physicians are well cognizant, and many a parent has had to mourn their sad results in the premature death or dethroned reason of children who, with proper physical training, might have been their pride and joy.

Next to the responsibility of parents in this matter is that of teachers, who, with all judiciousness and delicacy, should supply the deficiencies of ignorant or incapable parents in the physiological education of all committed to their care.

And here a word in regard to the bad effects of, so called, classical studies. Are they not oftentimes acquired at the risk of outraged delicacy or undermined moral principles? Mythology, in particular, introduces our youth to courtesans who are described as goddesses, and goddesses who are but courtesans in disguise. Poetry and history as frequently have for their themes the ecstasies of illicit love as the innocent joys of pure affection. Shall these branches of study be totally ignored? By no means; but let their harmless flowers and wholesome fruit alone be culled for youthful minds, to the utter exclusion of all poisonous ones, however beautiful.

This lack of information has resulted in another evil in the impetus it has given to the sale of obscene books and prints. Recent legal proceedings have checked this nefarious trade, but it still exists. Boys and young men may be found loitering at all hours round hotels, steam-boat docks, rail-road depÔts, and other public places, ostensibly selling newspapers or pamphlets, but secretly offering vile, lecherous publications to those who are likely to be customers. They generally select young and inexperienced persons for two reasons. In the first place, these are the most probable purchasers, and will submit to the most extortion; and, in the second, they can be more easily imposed upon. The venders have a trick which they frequently perform, and which can scarcely be regretted. In a small bound volume they insert about half a dozen highly-colored obscene plates, which are cut to fit the size of the printed page. Having fixed upon a victim, they cautiously draw his attention to the pictures by rapidly turning over the leaves, but do not allow him to take the book into his hands, although they give him a good opportunity to note its binding. He never dreams that the plates are loose, and feels sure that in buying the book he buys the pictures also. When the price is agreed upon, the salesman hints that, as he is watched, the customer had better turn his back for a moment while taking the money from his pocket-book, and in this interval he slips the plates from between the leaves and conceals them. The next moment the parties are again face to face, the price is handed over, and the book he had seen before is handed to the purchaser under a renewed caution, and is carefully pocketed. The book-seller leaves, and at the first opportunity the prize is covertly drawn forth to be examined more minutely, and the unwary one finds that he has paid several dollars for some few printed pages, without pictures, which would have been dear at as many cents.

Despite all precautions, there is every reason to believe that the manufacture of these obscene books is largely carried on in this city. It is needless to remind any resident of the large seizures made in New York during the last two years, or to particularize the stock condemned. More caution is observed now, and the post-office is made the vehicle for distribution. Circulars are issued which describe the publications and their prices, modes of transmitting money are indicated, and the advertiser plainly says that he will not allow any personal interviews on account of the dangers which surround the traffic. By using an indefinite number of aliases, and often changing the address to which letters are sent, he succeeds in eluding the vigilance of the police, and secures many remittances.

Not less dangerous than the directly obscene publications is a class of voluptuous novels which is rapidly circulating. Some are translations from the French; but one man, now living in England, has written and published more disgustingly minute works, under the guise of honest fiction, than ever emanated from the Parisian presses. He writes in a strain eminently calculated to excite the passions, but so carefully guarded as to avoid absolute obscenity, and embellishes his works with wood-cuts which approach lasciviousness as nearly as possible without being indictable. It is to be regretted that publishers have been found, in this and other cities, who are willing to use their imprints on the title-pages of his trash, and sell works which can not but be productive of the worst consequences. Those who have seen much of the cheap pamphlets, or “yellow-covered” literature offered in New York, will have no difficulty in recalling the name of the author alluded to, and those who are ignorant of it would only be injured by its disclosure. There can be but one opinion as to the share obscene and voluptuous books have in ruining the character of the young, and they may justly be considered as causes, indirect it may be, of prostitution.

Some of the sources of prostitution have been thus examined. To expose them all would require a volume; but it is hoped that sufficient has been developed to induce observation and inquiry, and prompt action in the premises.