NEW YORK.—REMEDIAL MEASURES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is technically called a commitment “on confession,” and its effects are precisely the same as they would be if the individual had been convicted of any tangible act of vagrancy. He is in law and in fact a prisoner for the space of time named in the commitment; he must wear the prison garb, and submit to the prison discipline, until the expiration of his sentence. It is well known to the justices that a penal commitment like the above will immediately secure the sufferer the medical attention his case requires, but they have no power to send any one direct to the Hospital.And here an inquiry will naturally suggest itself, What does, or what should a magistrate know about committing a sick person, and how can he decide the time such invalid shall remain under treatment? A self-evident conclusion will be that the whole process is an absurd one at the best, and its requirements a hardship on magistrates already overburdened with legitimate duties.

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

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

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

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

The sense of shame which follows a single deviation from the paths of virtue drives many women to prostitution. Why add to the existing sense of shame another infamy when she unfortunately contracts disease? Can we consistently blame her if she becomes callous, when every legal provision directly tends to indurate her sensibilities? The misconduct of parents toward children has been shown as one of the causes of prostitution. The father or mother drives from the paternal roof the child who has committed but a single error. Then, under the pressure of hunger, she inevitably sins more deeply, becomes diseased, applies to the public for relief, and is sentenced to imprisonment! The first mistake, that of the parents, makes her vicious: the second mistake, incarceration, confirms her in vice. We denounce such ill-treatment in the parents, while practically we ourselves, as the natural guardians of all who need assistance, are doing precisely the same thing. Where, then, is our consistency? If it is right for us, a body corporate, to practice such cruel oppression, is it not equally justifiable for each member of the body to act in the same manner in his individual capacity? Of course, what is right for the multitude must be right for the individual, and our own conduct convicts us of inconsistency. We have no warrant to condemn parents for single acts which we perform collectively; or, if we are right in censuring them, we are wrong in performing the same acts ourselves: if they are reprehensible, we also are culpable.This system, with all its absurdity, its prejudicial effect on public health, and its obvious tendency to immorality, is not adequate to stay the destroying scourge; on the contrary, it is likely to extend its ravages. If a prostitute, arrested and committed to Blackwell’s Island for drunkenness or any disorderly conduct, is found to be diseased, or if she commits herself knowing that she is infected, she is immediately placed under medical charge. She will probably remain contentedly in the hospital until the worst symptoms of the disease are subdued: by this time the discipline of the institution has become irksome to her. She communicates with the brothel-keeper with whom she formerly boarded, or with some “lover” or acquaintance, who sues out a writ of certiorari or habeas corpus, which instantly effects her discharge. She now returns to her former haunts, half-cured, again to aid in disseminating disease, farther to undermine her own constitution, and to infect men who will in turn become a charge upon the tax-payers, or by their agency cause others to become thus liable. The instance of wholesale release mentioned in the previous chapter will recur to the mind of the reader.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To meet the exigencies of the case there are required

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following resolutions were submitted and adopted:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital, New York:

(Copy.)

“Report of Doctor H. N. Whittelsey, Resident Physician of Randall’s Island, in answer to certain queries of Isaac Townsend, Esq., Governor of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis:

“New York, November 28, 1855.

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

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

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

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

“Very respectfully,
“Isaac Townsend, Governor A. H.

“Doctor H. N. Whittelsey, Resident Physician, R. I.”