  NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. Means of Support.—Occupation.—Treatment of Domestics.—Needlewomen.—Weekly Earnings.—Female Labor in France.—Competition.—Opportunity for Employment in the Country.—Effects of Female Occupations.—Temptations of Seamstresses.—Indiscriminate Employment of both Sexes in Shops.—Factory Life.—Business of the Fathers of Prostitutes.—Mothers’ Business.—Assistance to Parents.—Death of Parents.—Intoxication.—Drinking Habits of Prostitutes.—Delirium Tremens.—Liquor Sold in Houses of Prostitution.—Parental Influences.—Religion of Parents and Prostitutes.—Amiable Feelings.—Kindness and Fidelity to each other. Question. Is prostitution your only means of support?
No surprise will be excited by the fact indicated above, that seventeen of every twenty women examined in New York reply to this question in the affirmative, for it is almost impossible to conceive that any honest occupation can be associated with vice of such character. The small minority who have other means consists principally of women who work at their trades or occupations at intervals, or who receive some slight payment for assisting in the ordinary work, or for sewing, in the houses of ill fame where they reside. It is difficult to believe women working as domestics in brothels are virtuous themselves; on the contrary, it is a well-known fact that they are, in every sense of the word, prostitutes; the only difference being that they work a portion of the time, while the “boarders” do not work at all. Those who follow an employment at intervals are mostly women whose trades are uncertain, and who are liable at certain seasons of the year to be without employment. Then real necessity forces them on the town until a return of business provides them with work. They are more to be pitied than blamed. There is another class not entirely dependent on prostitution. It consists mostly of German girls, who receive from five to six dollars per month as dancers in the public ball-rooms. In the first ward of New York there are several of these establishments, and the Captain of Police in that district has attached some “These dance-houses are generally kept by Germans, who consider dancing a proper and legitimate business. They are in general very quiet. The girls employed to dance do not consider themselves prostitutes, because the proprietors will not allow them to be known as such. Each girl receives monthly from five to six dollars and her board, and almost every one of them hires a room in the neighborhood for the purpose of prostitution. I have classed them all as prostitutes, because, in addition to the previous fact, I know that the majority of them have lived as such. Very few of these girls are excessive drinkers. Although the regulations of the ball-room require them to drink after each dance with their partners, yet the proprietor has always a bottle of water slightly colored with port wine, from which they drink, and he charges the partner the same price as for liquor.” Alluding to the keeper of one of these places, the same officer says: “The proprietress of this house is a German woman over seventy years of age. She established the house over eighteen years since, to my certain knowledge. Her husband had just then arrived from Germany with their four children. They were not worth one hundred dollars at that time. The man died three years ago, and by his will directed forty thousand dollars to be divided among his children. The widow is possessed of an equal amount in her own name.” Question. What trade or calling did you follow before you became a prostitute?
Many people are prepared to frown upon any attempt to improve the social condition of dependent women. They regard it as a part of that myth which they call opposition to constituted authorities, without any reference to the consideration which should form the basis of all society, namely, ensuring the greatest amount of good to the greatest number. Others who are opposed to any amelioration sustain their views by a libel upon woman, and upon her Almighty Creator. They assert that she has not sufficient intellect for any thing beyond routine employment, or blame her because she has received only such an imperfect education as the world has thought proper to award her, and thus has not had an opportunity to cultivate her faculties. It is not necessary to point to the productions and achievements of women even in our own days, omitting all mention of what has been done heretofore, to expose the fallacy of this proposition. The facts are patent to the world. With special reference to the subject in hand it may be asserted, unhesitatingly and without fear of contradiction, that were there more avenues of employment open to females there would be a corresponding decrease in prostitution, and many of those who are now ranked with the daughters of In the list of occupations pursued by the women who are now prostitutes in New York, a most lamentable monotony is visible. Domestic service and sewing are the two principal resources. From the gross number of two thousand deduct those who lived with their parents or friends, children attending school, domestic servants, and housekeepers, amounting in the aggregate to 1322, and there is a balance of 678, nearly six hundred of whom depend upon needles and thread for an existence. In the total number reported there are only four, or exactly one in every five hundred, who relied for support upon any occupation requiring mental culture, that is, one artist and three school-teachers. This fact in itself sustains the theories that mental cultivation and sufficient employment are restrictions to the spread of prostitution. If women are compelled to undergo merely the slavery of life, no moral advancement can ever be expected from them. If every approach to remunerative employment is systematically closed against them, nothing but degradation can ensue, and the moralist who shuddered with horror at the bare possibility of a woman being allowed to earn a competent living in a respectable manner will ejaculate, “What awful depravity exists in the female sex!” He and others of his class drive a woman to starvation by refusing to give her employment, and then condemn her for maintaining a wretched existence at the price of virtue. But to notice more particularly the employments which the What is the position of the needle-woman? Far worse than that of the servant. The latter has a home and food in addition to her wages; the former must lodge and keep herself out of earnings which do not much exceed in amount the servant’s pay. The labor by which this miserable pittance is earned, so truthfully depicted in the universally known “Song of the Shirt,” is distressing and enervating to a degree. Working from early dawn till late at night, with trembling fingers, aching head, and very often an empty stomach, the poor seamstress ruins her health to obtain a spare and insufficient living. There is no variety in her employment; it is the same endless round of stitches, varied only by a wearisome journey once or twice a week to the store whence she receives her work, and where the probabilities are that a portion of her scanty wages will be deducted for some alleged deficiency in the work. She has no redress, but must submit or be discharged. Nor is the position of a milliner or dress-maker much superior to this. She has a room provided for her in the employer’s establishment, and there she must remain so long as the inexorable demands of fashion, or the necessity of preparing bonnets or dresses Paper-box-makers, tobacco-packers, and book-folders are no better off. They must work in crowded shops, must inhale each other’s breath during the whole day (for such work-shops are not the best ventilated buildings in New York, generally speaking), and receive, as their remuneration, barely sufficient to find them food, clothes, and shelter. It is needless to pursue this subject. Enough has surely been advanced to demonstrate the necessity of a more extended field of female labor. Question. How long is it since you abandoned your trade as a means of living?
A very few words will suffice on this table, as the remarks which would arise from it have been already made in reference to other questions. In most instances the occupation is abandoned as soon as the first false step is taken, unless in those cases of destitution where a previous want of employment renders prostitution necessary as the only means of living. Of course, as before observed, a life of prostitution must be incompatible with any description of honest employment, and, in those cases where a woman has followed any trade or occupation after she had yielded to promiscuous intercourse, it will generally be found that her motive was to deceive the world as to her own pursuits, or else to satisfy her conscience that she was not entirely depraved.
This question is of equal importance with that referring to the number of employments available for females, and the replies quoted above will give as many reasons for prostitution as in the former case. From the work of a French author on this subject the following is condensed as indicative of the hardships and insufficient remuneration of women employed in factories in France: “Women are employed principally in the manufacture of cotton, silk, and wool. The preparation of cotton presents two dangerous features, in the ‘beating’ and ‘dressing,’ which are performed solely by women. In the manufacture of silk there are also two processes dangerous to life, and these are performed by women. The woolen manufacture has no real danger but in the ‘carding,’ and all the carders are women. Of these mortal occupations there is not one that will afford the workwoman a sufficient maintenance, the average wages being from sixteen to twenty-five sous per day, subject to the fluctuations of trade.”[391] Commenting upon these facts, the Westminster Review says, “We took some pains to ascertain the relative wages of men and women employed in the same trades (in England), and almost in every instance it appeared that for the same work, performed in the same time, they received one third less, sometimes one half less than men, without any inferiority of skill being alleged. One master gravely said that he “paid women less because they ate less.”[392] In a subsequent chapter of this volume will be found some particulars of the wages paid in manufacturing districts of the United States, and the same disparity between male and female operatives will be noticed. M. Parent-Duchatelet assigns insufficient wages as one of the principal causes of prostitution in Paris. He says, “What are the earnings of our laundresses, our seamstresses, our milliners? Compare the wages of the most skillful with those This low rate of wages is defended upon the plea of competition. A manufacturer practically says, “If one man or woman will do my work for five per cent. less than another, I must employ him or her unless I am prepared to carry on my business at a positive loss; for if I do not give them work, my neighbor will.” Valid as this reason may be in the old countries, where the supply of labor far exceeds the demand, it is invalid in America, where there is a constant demand for workers. Our cities are overcrowded; remove some of their inhabitants to the country. In our cities work can not be obtained; in the country both male and female laborers are urgently required. In cities an unemployed woman is exposed to innumerable temptations; in the country she need never be unemployed, and consequently would escape such dangers. The difference between the New and Old worlds is simply that in the former the cities are overcrowded, but the country is free; in the latter, both cities and country are full to repletion. In the city of New York one fourth part of the domestic servants are constantly out of employment; remove them, and, while the wants of the community will be amply supplied, the market value of a faithful servant would increase to a living rate. Send away a number of needle-women, reducing the supply of labor to meet the actual demand; tailors, shirt-makers, and dress-makers must employ seamstresses, and in such cases they could not obtain them without paying remunerative wages. The prices of our wearing apparel would probably be advanced five per cent., with a saving of fifteen per cent. taxation in the reduced expenses of police, judiciary, prisons, hospitals, and charitable institutions. The experience of the winter of 1857-8 has proved that but very slight difficulties attend this plan when efficiently carried out, and to the “Children’s Aid Society” and the other benevolent organizations, which have shown not only the possibility, but the success of the system, all praise is due. No man entering upon a farm in the West requires any argument to convince him that his Similar plans with respect to destitute children have been practiced in New York for several years, and their subsequent extension to meet the wants of adult females has been limited only by the means of the projectors. If the necessity and prospective benefit of this emigration were known and appreciated, the required funds could be raised without any difficulty. The citizens of New York are never dilatory in responding to calls upon their benevolence in aid of any practicable and judicious scheme of philanthropy, and, under the management of an energetic business committee, arrangements could be made which would render the movement self-supporting within a few years. The competition which keeps wages at starvation point is aggravated by a notion entertained by many native women, and by some foreigners who have been long in the country, that domestic service is ungenteel. This idea drives them to needlework to maintain their respectability, and thus, while service is abandoned, the ranks of seamstresses are augmented. By decreasing the number to be employed, and consequently advancing their wages and insuring better treatment from their employers, the servant’s life would be divested of many of its objections, and old-fashioned house-work would once more be deemed respectable. This consummation rests more with mistresses than servants. It can not be expected that this vice will decrease in New York when five hundred and thirty-four, out of a total of two thousand, earn only one dollar weekly. No economist, however closely he may calculate, will pretend that fourteen cents a day will supply any woman with lodging, food, and clothes. She who should attempt to exist on such a sum would starve to death in less than a month, and yet it is a notorious fact that many are expected to support themselves upon it. How such expectations are realized, and the sad manner in which the deficiency is made up, are amply shown by the result of this and similar investigations, here and elsewhere. Thus far manufacturers have been blamed for the depression of wages, but is not the consumer equally open to censure? He purchases an article of dress from A, because it is a trifle cheaper than in B’s store. The cost of the raw material is the same to each, and each uses the same quantity in every article; but if A can find customers for three times the amount of goods which B can sell, on account of the saving he effects through paying lower wages, it is scarcely in human nature, decidedly not in commercial nature, to be expected that he will refuse the opportunity. He flatters himself that competition forces him to make the reduction, and as the public do not denounce his action, but flock to his store so long as his price continues lower than his neighbor’s, he concludes that his customers should bear the blame. Nor are his conclusions false. The public sanction a system which enforces starvation or crime, and, for the sake of saving a few cents, add their influence to swell the ranks of prostitutes, and condemn many a poor woman to eternal ruin.[395] It is reasonable to conclude that hardly any thing short of positive want can force a girl to undertake this labor at its present price, and it is reasonable to imagine that her necessities will force her to use every means to accomplish her task in a satisfactory manner. If she finds that a smile bestowed upon her employer or his clerk will aid her in the struggle for bread, she will not present herself with a scowling face; or if a kind entreaty will be the means of procuring her a dinner as a favor, she will not expose herself to hunger by demanding it as a right. In this there is no moral or actual wrong, but there are instances where lubricity has exacted farther concessions, and the sacrifice of a woman’s virtue been required as an equivalent for the privilege of sewing at almost nominal prices. If this is conceded, the victim may be assured of the best work and the most favors until her seducer becomes satiated with possession, when means will easily be found to displace her for some new favorite. If the outrageous request The employment of females in various trades in this city, in the pursuit of which they are forced into constant communication with male operatives has a disastrous effect upon their characters. The daily routine goes very far toward weakening that modesty and reserve which are the best protectives against the seducer, and renders them liable to temptation in many shapes. A girl frequently forms an attachment to a man working in the same shop, believing it to be a mutual one, and only finds out her mistake when she has yielded to his persuasions and is deserted. Or women contract acquaintance for the sake of having an escort on their holiday recreations, or because some other woman has done so, or as the mere gratification of an idle fancy; but all tend in the same direction, and aid to undermine principles and jeopardize character. In this connection only city employments have been mentioned, but the same reasoning may be applied with greater force to factory life in any of our manufacturing districts. There the operatives of both sexes in one mill may sometimes be counted by hundreds, and their large numbers cause a more frequent and constant communication than in smaller workshops. It has been urged in support of the superior morality of such places, that the very nature of the employment requires the most constant attention to be paid to it, and precludes the possibility of any idle time. We freely concede to the apologists all the advantages they claim, and admit that during the time—say ten hours daily—when the machinery is running, neither males nor females can abandon their respective positions; but, unfortunately for the force of the argument, the motion is not a perpetual one. A steam-engine or a water-wheel can run for a week or a month without complaining of fatigue, but human machines become exhausted after a few hours’ consecutive labor. Machinery can receive the necessary attention and supplies without arresting its progress, but men and women must sometimes cease work in order to eat and drink. Granting, then, that during actual working hours a young woman can not leave her post, yet the mind is free, and the range of thought, when locomotion is denied her, will often turn to the Domestic servants are not exempt from temptation when employed in large establishments where both sexes are engaged, and many a poor girl ascribes her ruin to the associations formed in places of this description. Thus far it has been supposed that man is the chief agent in the propagation of vice, nor is there any apparent reason to recede from that position. The numerous cases of seduction under false promises and subsequent desertion; of seduction by married men; of violations of helpless and unprotected females, are abundantly sufficient to prove this, much as it may be regretted for the credit of the stronger sex, and also to vindicate the opinion that employing males and females under one roof, in different branches of the same business, has a strong tendency to promote prostitution. Sometimes, however, it is true that woman, lost and abandoned herself, lends her aid to drag her fellow-women down to perdition. In many of the stores and workshops in our city, in every factory throughout the country, such are to be found, and their insidious influence is quickly felt. By false representations and elaborate coloring, they work upon the minds of the simple, or inflame the passions of the ambitious, but in either case their object is the same, and in it they frequently succeed. Question. What business did your father follow?
This table shows that almost all classes of society are exposed to the influences which result in prostitution, from the children of men of property, bankers, merchants, and professional men, down to the families of mechanics and laborers. The numerous and varied occupations of the fathers of those women who answered the question renders any classification of them almost impossible. A majority of the parents were either mechanics or laborers, men who earned the daily food for themselves and families by manual labor, and whose resources would be governed by the ordinary fluctuations of trade. In following the proportion of natives and foreigners as exhibited in previous tables, it must be remembered that about five eighths of these fathers were residents of other countries than the United States when those daughters were born whose replies If the investigation is pursued into the rural districts of Great Britain, the wages of mechanics and laborers will be found lower than they are in large cities, without any material reduction in the necessary expenditure except in the item of house-rent. The pitiful amounts paid to agricultural laborers (often only twenty-five cents a day) will surprise any one who is not fully acquainted with the hardships endured by this unfortunate class, and the state of destitution in which they are compelled to exist (it can not, with any propriety, be called living), and to rear their families. More than one half of the foreigners are from Ireland, and no person acquainted with the social history of that unhappy country need be told of the want and deprivation endured by its peasantry, of their useless efforts to benefit themselves, or of the ruin, starvation, and disease with which they are so frequently afflicted. To constitute a farmer in Ireland, a man must hire an acre or two of land, for which he pays a heavy rent, as two or sometimes three “middle-men” have to obtain their profits before the landlord receives his share. In this field he plants as many potatoes as can be crowded into it; and in his hut or cabin he keeps a pig or some fowls, regularly domesticated as members of the family, and receiving more attention than the children. From the sale of the pig the rent has to be obtained, and from the proceeds of the poultry, with the potatoes, all their wants have to be supplied. Thus, with the potatoes he raises for almost his sole means of support, with peat from some bog in the neighborhood to furnish him with fuel, he lives until the impoverished soil refuses to yield its annual crop, or yields it in a diseased and poisonous state, when fever and starvation come to fill his cup of misery, and render him dependent upon charity for an existence. And this in a land peculiarly rich in all that is necessary to make its people a great and happy nation. Question. If your mother had any business independent of your father, what was it?
Only one hundred and twenty of two thousand women answer that their mothers had any business independent of their fathers, and they were mostly of the same ill-paid class as those alluded to in the portion referring to the occupations of the women themselves. The exceptions were, boarding-house, store, and bakery-keepers, amounting to twenty only, the remaining one hundred being servants or needle-women. The fact that even this number found it necessary to augment the income of their families by their own exertions is another evidence of poverty. Question. Did you assist either your father or mother in their business? If so, which of them?
To this question, thirty women reply that they were in the habit of assisting their fathers, three hundred and six say they assisted their mothers, and one hundred and forty-nine assisted both parents. The two latter answers, embracing four hundred and fifty-five cases, must be construed to mean such assistance in the ordinary work of a family as usually falls to the lot of children. The residue say that they never assisted either father or mother, or, in other words, that they were brought up in habits of idleness, which can scarcely have forsaken them in after-life, and probably had some considerable agency in their fall. Question. Is your father living, or how old was you when he died?
Question. Is your mother living, or how old was you when she died?
From the preceding tables, it appears that more than half of these women are orphans, 1349 of them have lost their fathers, and 1234 were deprived of their mothers. In both cases, the ages of the children at the death of their parents are in nearly the
and the aggregate result that 1479 parents died before their daughters had reached the age at which a female most needs aid and advice. At any time and under any circumstances the thought of death is dispiriting. The idea of rending all earthly ties; of bursting asunder bonds which have formed for years a part of our very existence, of leaving the world with its joys and pleasures, its cares and griefs, for the “undiscovered bourne,” is appalling in contemplation; more appalling still when the family circle is invaded, and a father whom we have revered, or a mother whom we have loved, is taken from us. The death of a father is a sad calamity for his children; the hand that has nourished and protected them, that has toiled for their support, is cold in the grave; their earthly support is gone. But a more grievous affliction still is the death of a mother. It is she to whom the children look in all their infant sufferings; it is her ear that is ever open to their sorrows; it is her bosom on which they are pillowed in sickness; her care which guides their steps in infancy; her love which warns them of the dangers that menace them in after life. Bereft of a mother’s watchful tenderness, they are comparatively alone in the world, and many of their sorrows must be dated from that event. The answers to these questions are full of material for mournful reflection, and strongly indicate the increased responsibilities of surviving relatives toward the orphans. This point has been already so strongly insisted upon that it would be a needless reiteration to argue its necessity. Question. Do you drink intoxicating liquor? If so, to what extent?
It may be assumed as an almost invariable rule, that courtesans in all countries are in the habit of using alcoholic stimulants to a greater or less degree, in order to maintain that artificial state of excitement which is indispensably necessary to their calling. One of the class in London said to Mr. Mayhew, when he was making the inquiries alluded to in the chapters upon English prostitution, “No girls COULD lead the life we do without gin;” and drinking is undoubtedly universal among abandoned women. Even according to the most favorable view of the replies to the query now under consideration, and admitting them to be strictly correct, it will be found that five sixths of the total number confess they are in the habit of using intoxicating liquors. But with the knowledge of facts already ascertained in other cases, the inquirer will be compelled to believe that this is not the whole truth, for it is almost certain that the three hundred and fifty-nine who claim to be total abstinents indulge themselves in occasional potations. In prosecuting investigations like the present, there are many difficulties to encounter. A woman who is found residing in a house of ill fame will scarcely attempt to deny that she is a prostitute, although even this has been done in some cases, yet she will equivocate upon other matters. The facts of her birth, family, and life will probably be given correctly, because there exists no motive for concealment; but the answers to any questions which she deems degrading, such as relate, for example, to her habits or the state of her health, must be received with some considerable allowance, and compared with well-ascertained facts. Among the more aristocratic prostitutes it is considered a disgrace to be absolutely intoxicated, and the keeper of a first-class house would scarcely retain a boarder who was addicted to habitual inebriety. Still, the most fastidious are ready and eager to sell champagne, or what passes for it, to any visitor of liberal disposition, and will generally condescend to assist him to drink it, of course inviting all the ladies to participate. In the lower grades it is not deemed disreputable to be inebriated, but the The effects of this habit are well known. In the first instance the woman drinks but little, probably just enough to cause a slight artificial excitement, and bring a color to her cheeks. After a time the proportion must be increased as the effect upon the system is diminished, until the finale is a habit of confirmed and constant drinking. As a general rule, the horrible consequences then become apparent. The whole frame is relaxed, and every movement of the limbs is a motion of uncertainty; the brain is impaired; the reasoning faculties are destroyed; the powers of the stomach and digestive organs are weakened, and an attack of delirium tremens is the ultimatum, usually cured, if cured at all, at the public expense in a hospital or prison. A work of fiction, published some ten years ago, gives the following truthful account of the effects of drunkenness on prostitutes, by one of whom the words are supposed to be used: “I must have drink. Such as live like me could not bear life without drink. It’s the only thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink we could not stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we are, for a day. If I go without food and without shelter, I must have my dram. Oh! what awful nights I have had in prison for want of it.” She glared round with terrified eyes as if dreading to see some supernatural creature near her, and then continued: “It is dreadful to see them. There Although this is an imaginary picture its counterpart can be seen at almost any time in the hospitals under the charge of the Governors of the Alms House on Blackwell’s Island, New York City, where large numbers of such cases are constantly treated. In 1854, in the Penitentiary Hospital alone, more than fourteen hundred persons received medical assistance for delirium tremens and other maladies arising from excess in drinking. This fact induced the remarks in the report for that year, that the “cases actually treated here during the last year were directly caused by the lowest and foulest kinds of dissipation and vice, a fact which speaks trumpet-tongued in favor of shutting up ‘grog shops,’ and shows the absolute necessity of adopting some plan whereby the enormous amount of prostitution now among us shall be decreased.”[397] Since then an alteration in the law has sentenced drunken persons to an incarceration in the City Prison, and the number sent to Blackwell’s Island has diminished, but not to the extent which would be supposed, as, during 1857, the hospitals thereon afforded relief to seven hundred and ninety-one inebriates. The fearful havoc upon the constitution is produced as well by the quality as the quantity of the liquors consumed. Let any man not thoroughly informed on these subjects taste a glass of the compounds retailed at these places, and he will be immediately convinced that it would be quite as judicious an act to swallow the same quantity of camphene or sulphuric acid if diluted, sweetened, and colored. The various liquors, gin, rum, brandy, whisky, or wine, having nothing in common with the genuine articles of commerce but the name, are so many varieties of the cheapest and most poisonous “raw spirits” that the markets afford, and are manufactured in this city in large quantities to meet the demands arising from such places. Instances have been known where liquors subsequently sold in houses of ill fame as pure French Question. Did your father drink intoxicating liquors? If so, to what extent?
Question. Did your mother drink intoxicating liquors? If so, to what extent?
How much of the intemperate habits of these women must be traced to the influence of the parent’s example? One thousand four hundred and fifty-two fathers; one thousand one hundred and twenty-five mothers, are represented as having been addicted to the use of liquors in various degrees, the moderate in both cases exceeding the intemperate drinkers. And yet even moderate drinking, when pursued by parents in the presence of, or to the knowledge of children, is a practice open to the gravest censure. In the mind of a child any action is deemed right if performed by a father or mother. As the children advance in years parental customs are followed, and, in such a case as this, probably the single glass of beer or wine of the father lays the foundation of intemperance in the children. Without undertaking to argue the question of the absolute necessity for a total abstinence from all liquors under all circumstances, the proposition may be seriously Instances are upon record where both fathers and mothers, in the temporary insanity of intoxication, have turned their daughters from home into the streets, and that, too, in cases where not even the remotest grounds existed for any suspicion of improper conduct on the part of these children. Occurrences like this are sufficient to enforce the necessity of temperance on the part of parents, in view of the fearful responsibility which rests upon them. Question. Were your parents Protestants, Catholics, or non-professors?
Question. Were you trained to any religion? If so, was it Protestant or Catholic?
Question. Do you profess the same religion now?
Question. How long is it since you have observed any of its requirements?
It certainly seems a very incongruous association to connect religion and prostitution; to place in juxtaposition the most noble aspirations of which the mind is capable, and the lowest degradation If it were consistent with propriety, it would not be possible to make any comparison between the results of Protestant and Roman Catholic teachings, because of the nearly equal number in each case. In the table exhibiting the religions professed by the parents there are seventeen more Roman Catholics than Protestants; in the table of the religions professed by the prostitutes themselves there are five more Roman Catholics than Protestants. The relative value of the two creeds as rules of life can not therefore be made the subject of argument from such data. So far as our duties to the Almighty, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves—so far as the obligations to virtue and morality are concerned, the adherents of both parties are agreed, and in the investigation of the intricate social problem of female depravity it matters but little whether a majority of the pitiable subjects of the inquiry were educated in the tenets of the Church of Rome or in the doctrines of the Reformation. If the articles of faith of either Church are honestly observed by those who professedly believe in them, they will be effective in preventing immorality; but when this observance is confined to words, and not exemplified by actions, neither the simple rituals of Protestantism nor the more elaborate and artistically arranged ceremonials of Roman Catholicism can be of The facts exhibited in the tables show that 1937 women had parents who were professedly members of one or the other of these communions; that 1949 women out of 2000 were taught to believe in the necessity of some religion, and that 1909 of these women still assert their confidence in the creed in which they were educated. It can not be expected that, living in the constant practice of that which their consciences must teach them is sinful, these women would have continued to observe the outward form of religion. By comparing the table upon this point with the one framed from the replies to the question, “For what length of time have you been a prostitute?” it will be observed that 1674 admit they have been prostitutes for six years and upward, and 1710 confess they have neglected to observe the requirements of religion for the same space of time; a coincidence which leads us charitably to suppose that the crime and the omission are nearly parallel, so far as dates are concerned, and that hypocritical professions of religion do not rank among prostitutes’ offenses. But even with their neglect of the outward requirements of faith, and while in the actual commission of known and acknowledged sin, they still preserve many traits which are much to their credit. They possess one of the chief virtues belonging to the female character, which never seems to become extinct or materially impaired; namely, kindness to each other when sick or destitute, and indeed to all who are in suffering or distress. This has attracted the attention, and called forth the admiration, of every one who has been thrown into contact with them. A very touching instance of these amiable feelings occurred some years ago, and is narrated in the Westminster Review for July, 1850. A poor girl, who was rapidly sinking into a decline, after a short but impetuous course of infamy, had no means of support but from the continued exercise of her calling. With a mixture of kindness and conscientiousness which may well surprise us under the circumstances, her companions in degradation resolved among This is far from being an exceptional case. An extended hospital experience has brought under our personal observation many acts of real sympathy and kindness toward each other among the prostitute class. If one of their number is discharged, and is unprovided with suitable clothing, they will club their scanty resources to supply her needs, frequently contributing articles they really want themselves. In any case of serious sickness, where prompt attention is required, they form most reliable nurses, and will cheerfully sacrifice their own rest at any time to minister to the sufferer, performing their duties with the utmost care and tenderness. Their fidelity to each other is strongly marked. It is literally impossible, in any case where a breach of discipline has occurred, to find a woman who will bear witness against any of her companions, and neither threats nor promises are sufficiently potent to extract the desired information. These traits are not submitted with any intention of offering them as an equivalent to the morality which has been violated, but merely to prove that hearts which can conceive and execute such kindly purposes can not be entirely lost to the sense of virtue or the claims of benevolence. Truly they are but as an atom in the balance, but, like an oasis in the desert, they show that all is not arid and sterile. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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