THE 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION: 
ITS EXTENT, CAUSES AND EFFECTS THROUGHOUT 
THE WORLD. 
WILLIAM W. SANGER, M. D. 
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN, BLACKWELL’S ISLAND, NEW YORK CITY ; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN 
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OP SCIENCE; LATE ONE OF THE PHYSICIANS TO 
THE MARINE HOSPITAL, QUARANTINE, NEW YORK, ETC., ETC., ETC. 
With numerous Editorial Notes and an Appendix. 
“To snch grievances as society cannot readily cure, It usually forbids utterance on pain ot its 
scorn; this scorn being only a sort of tinseled cloak to its deformed weakness.” 
—Curree Bell, Shirley, 
NEWYORK. 
THE MEDICAL PUBLISHING CO., 
17 Ann Street, 
1899. COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
THE MEDICAL PUBLISHING CO, 
BY PUBLISHER’S PREFACE. 
No author can lay claim to a higher inspiration than that 
his work was conceived in the noble purpose of benefiting his 
fellow man ; and the reader of the following pages cannot 
doubt that it was in this spirit and solely with this purpose 
that Dr. Sanger compiled and gave to the American public 
“ The History of Prostitution.” The subject may be termed 
a delicate one ; nevertheless, it is essentially a practical one, 
and as such has commanded and must continue to command 
the attention of the law-maker, the physician, and the human- 
itarian. 
A vice which has been co-existent with the human race, 
which has preyed upon the morals as well as the health of all 
peoples in all ages, which in the past has defied the edicts of 
despotism no less than at present it defies the mandates of 
repressive legislation—such a vice should not in any spirit 
of prudery be put aside as unfit for public consideration. 
Dr. Sanger, who possessed unusual facilities for studying 
both the causes and effects of prostitution, supplemented his 
investigation of the subject on this side of the water by two 
years of observation and research abroad, devoting in all about 
seven years to the preparation of these pages. The diligence 
and fidelity he gave to the undertaking are fully attested in 
the great volume of instructive data he has compiled. And 
where the author dropped the subject the editor of the present 
edition has taken it up and endeavored to bring the investiga- 
tion down to the present date. 
The Medical Publishing Co CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE JEWS. 
Prostitution coeval with Society.—Prostitutes in the Eighteenth Century B.C.— 
Tamar and Judah.—Legislation of Moses.—Syrian Women.—Rites of Moloch. 
—Groves.—Social Condition of Jewish Harlots.—Description by Solomon.—The 
Jews of Babylon Page 35 
CHAPTER 11. 
EGYPT, SYRIA, AND ASIA MINOR. 
Egyptian Courtesans.—Festival of Bubastis.—Morals in Egypt.—Religious Prosti- 
tution in Chaldaea.—Babylonian Banquets.—Compulsory Prostitution in Phoeni- 
cia.—Persian Banquets. 40 
GREECE* 
Mythology.—Solonian Legislation.—Dicteria.—Pisistratidse.—Lycurgus and Spar- 
ta.—Laws on Prostitution.—Case of Phryne.—Classes of Prostitutes.—Pornikon 
Telos.—Dress.—Hair of Prostitutes.—The Dicteriades of Athens.—Abode and 
Manners.—Appearance of Dicteria.—Laws regulating Dicteria. Schools of 
Prostitution.—Loose Prostitutes.—Old Prostitutes.—Auletrides, or Flute-players. 
Origin. How hired. Performances.—Anecdote of Arcadians. Price of 
Flute-players.—Festival of Venus Periboa.—Venus Callipyge.—Lesbian Love.— 
Lamia.—Hetairae.—Social Standing.—Venus and her Temples.—Charms of 
Hetairae. —Thargelia. —A spasia. —Hipparchia. —Bacchis.—Gu athena and Gua- 
thenion.—Lais.—Phryne.—Pythionice.—Glycera,—Leontium.—Other Hetairae. 
—Biographers of Prostitutes.—Philtres 43 
CHAPTER 111. 
CHAPTER IV. 
ROME. 
Laws governing Prostitution.—Floralian Games.—Registration of Prostitutes.— 
Purity of Morals.—Julian Law.—AMiles.—Classes of Prostitutes.—Loose Prosti- 
tutes.—Various Classes of lewd Women.—Meretrices.—Dancing Girls.—Bawds. 
—Male Prostitutes.—Houses of Prostitution.—Lupanaria.—Cells of Prostitutes. 
—Houses of Assignation. —Fornices. —Circus, —Baths. —Taverns. —-Bakers’ 
Shops.—Squares and Thoroughfares.—Habits and Manners of Prostitutes.—So- 
cial standing.—Dress.—-Rate of Hire.—Virgins in Roman Brothels.—Kept Wom- 
en.—Roman Poets.—Ovid.—Martial.—Roman Society.—Social Corruption.— 
Conversation.—Pictures and Sculptures.—Theatricals.—Baths.—Religious In- 
decencies.—Marriage Feasts.—Emperors.—Secret Diseases.—Celsus.—Roman 
Faculty.—Archiatii 64 CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER V. 
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA. 
Christian Teachers preach Chastity.—Horrible Punishment of Christian Virgins.— 
Persecution of Women.—Conversion of Prostitutes.—The Gnostics.—The Ascet- 
ics.—Conventual Life.—Opinion of the Fathers on Prostitution.—Tax on Prosti- 
tutes.—Punishment of Prostitutes under the Greek Emperors Page 86 
CHAPTER VI. 
FRANCE. HISTORY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
Morals in Gaul.—Gynecea.—Capitulary of Charlemagne.—Morals in the Middle 
Ages.—Edict of 1254.—Decree of 1358, re-establishing Prostitution.—Roi des 
Ribauds.—Ordinance of Philip abolishing Prostitution.—Sumptuary Laws.— 
Punishment of Procuresses. Templars.—The Provinces.—Prohibition in the 
North.—Licensed Brothels at Toulouse, Montpellier, and Avignon.—Penalties 
South.—Effect of Chivalry.—Literature.—Erotic Vocabulary.—lncubes and 
Succubes. Sorcery.—The Sabat.—Flagellants.—Adamites.—Jour des Inno- 
cents.—Wedding Ceremonies.—Preachers of the Day 93 
CHAPTER VII. 
PRANCE. HISTORY FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
The Court.— Louis IX. to Charles V.—Charles VI.—Agnes Sorel.—Louis Xl. 
Charles Vlll.—Louis Xll.—Francis I.—La Belle Feronniere.—Henry II.—Di- 
ana de Poictiers.—Lewd Books and Pictures.—Catharine of Medicis.—Margaret. 
—Henry IV.—Mademoiselle de Entragues.—Henry lll.—Mignons.—lnfluence 
of the Ligue.—lndecency of Dress.—Theatricals.—Ordinance of 1560.—Police 
Regulations 108 
PRANCE. HISTORY FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
Exile of Prostitutes —Measures of Louis XlV.—Laws of 1684 and 1713.—Police 
Regulations—Ordinance of 1778.—Republican Legislation.—Frightful state of 
Paris—Efforts to pass a general Law.—The Court.—Louis XIII.—The Medicis. 
—Louis XIV.—La Valliere.—Montespan.—Maintenon.—Literature of the Day. 
—Feudal Rights.—The Regency.—Duchess of Berri.—Claudine de Tencin.— 
Louis XV.—Madame de Pompadour.—Dubarry.—Parc aux Cerfs.—Louis XVI. 
—Philippe Egalite.—Subsequent Sovereigns.—Literature. Lewd Novels and 
Pictures.—Tendency of Philosophy.—The Church 120 
CHAPTER IX. 
FRANCE. SYPHILIS. 
First recorded Appearance in Europe,—Description by Fracastor.—Conduct of the 
Faculty.—First Hospitals in Paris.—Shocking Condition of the Sick.—New Syph- 
ilitic Hospital.—Plan of Treatment.—Establishment of the Salpetriere.—Bicetre. 
—Capuchins,—Hospital du Midi.—Reforms there.—Visiting Physicians.—Dis- 
pensary.—Statistics of Disease.—Progress and Condition of Disease 131 CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER X. 
PRANCE.—PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
Number of Prostitutes in Paris.—Their Nativity, Parentage, Education, Age, etc.-— 
Causes of Prostitution.—Rules concerning tolerated Houses.—Maisons de Passe. 
—Windows.—Keepers.—Formalities upon granting Licenses.—Recruits.—Pimps. 
—Profits of Prostitution.—lnscription.—lnterrogatories.—Nativity, how ascer- 
tained.—Obstacles.—Principles of Inscription.—Age at which Inscription is made. 
—Radiation.—Provisional Radiation.—Statistics of Radiation.—Classes of Pros- 
titutes.—Visit to the Dispensary.—Visiting Physicians.—Punishment.—Offenses. 
—Prison Discipline. Saint Denis. Tax on Prostitutes.—lnspectors.—Bon 
Pasteur Asylum. —(Note: Duchatelet’s Bill for the Repression of Prostitu- 
tion.) Page 139 
CHAPTER XI. 
ITALY. 
Decline of Public Morals.—Papal Court.—Nepotism.—John XXll.—Sextus IV. 
—Alexander VI.—Effect of the Reformation.—Poem of Fracastoro.—Benvenuto 
Cellini.—Beatrice Cenci.—Laws of Naples.—Pragmatic Law of 1470.—Court 
of Prostitutes.—Bull of Clement ll.—Prostitution in Lombardy and Piedmont. 
—Clerical Statute.—Modern Italy.—Laws of Rome.—Public Hospitals.—Laz- 
aroni of Naples.—ltalian Manners as depicted by Lord Byron.—Foundling Hos- 
pitals.—True Character of Italian People 154 
CHAPTER XII. 
Resemblance between Spanish and Roman Laws on Prostitution.—Code of Al- 
phonse IX.—Result of Draconian Legislation. Ruffiani.—Court Morals.— 
Brothels.—Valencia.—Laws for the Regulation of Vice.—Concubines legally 
recognized.—Syphilis. Cortejo.— Reformatory Institutions at Barcelona.— 
Prostitution in Spain at the Present Day.—Madrid Foundling Hospital 168 
SPAIN. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
PORTUGAL. 
Conventual Life in 1780.—Depravity of Women.—Laws against Adultery and 
Rape.—Venereal Disease.—lllegitimacy.—Foundling Hospitals of Lisbon and 
Oporto.—Singular Institutions for Wives 178 
CHAPTER XIV. 
ALGERIA. 
Prostitution in Algiers before the Conquest.—Mezonar.—Unnatural Vices.—Tax 
on Prostitutes.—Decree of 1837.—Corruption.—Number of Prostitutes and Pop- 
ulation.—Nationality of Prostitutes.—Causes of Prostitution.—Brothels.—Clan- 
destine Prostitution.—Baths.—Dispensary.—Syphilis.—Punishment of Prosti- 
tutes 180 
CHAPTER XV. 
Hospitals and Charitable Institutions.—Foundlings.—Estimate of the Marriage Cer- 
emony.—Regulations as to Prostitution.—Brothels.—Sanitary Ordinances.. 187 
BELGIUM. X 
CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
Ancient Legislation.—Ulm.—Legislation from 1483 to 1764.—French Revolution, 
and its effects on Morals.—Abendroth’s Ordinance in 1807.—Police Ordinance 
in 1811.—Additional Powers in 1820.—Hudtwalcker.—Present Police Regula- 
tions.—Number of Registered Women.—Tolerated Houses.—Illegitimacy.—Age 
and Nativity of Prostitutes.—The Hamburger Berg and its Women.—Physique, 
Peculiarities, and Diseases of Prostitutes.—Dress.—Food.—Intellectual Capaci- 
ty.—Religion.—Offenses.—Procuresses.—Inscription.—Locality of Brothels.— 
Brothel-keepers.—Dance-houses.—Sunday Evening Scene.—Private Prostitutes. 
—Street-walkers.—Domestic Prostitution.—Unregistered Prostitution.—Houses 
of Accommodation.—Common Sleeping Apartments.—Beer and Wine Houses. 
—Effect of Prostitution on Generative Organs.—General Maladies.—Forms of 
Syphilis. — Syphilis in Sea-ports. — Severity of Syphilis among unregistered 
Women.—The “Kurhaus” and general Infirmary.—Male Venereal Patients.— 
Sickness in the Garrison. — Treatment. — Mortal Diseases of Hamburg Prosti- 
tutes.—Hamburg Magdalen Hospital Page 189 
HAMBURG. 
CHAPTER XVII. 
Patriarchal Government.—Ecclesiastical Legislation.—Trade Guilds.—Enactments 
in 1700.—Inquiry in 1717.—Enactment in 1792.—Police Order, 1795.—Census. 
—lncrease of illicit Prostitution.—Syphilis.—Census of 1808.—Ministerial Re- 
script and Police Report, 1809.—Tolerated Brothels closed.—Re-enactment of the 
Code of 1792.—Ministerial Rescript of 1839.—Removal of Brothels.—Petitions. 
—Ministerial Reply.—Police Report, 1844.—Brothels closed by royal Command. 
—Police Embarrassment, and Correspondence with Halle and Cologne.—Local 
Opinions.—Public Life in Berlin.—Dancing Saloons.—Drinking Houses.—Im- 
morality.—lncrease of Syphilis.—Statistics.—lllegitimacy.—Royal Edict of 1851. 
—Recent Regulations 219 
PRUSSIA. 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
Population.—Registered and illicit Prostitutes.—Servants.—Kept-women.—Broth- 
els.—Nationality of Prostitutes.—Habits.—Fairs.—Visitors.—Earnings of Pros- 
titutes 252 
LEIPZIG. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
DENMARK. 
Prostitution in Copenhagen.—Police Regulations.—lllegitimacy.—Brothels. 
Syphilis.—Laws of Marriage and Divorce.—lnfanticide.—Adultery.—New Mar- 
riage Ordinances 256 
CHAPTER XX. 
Superior Morality of the Swiss.—Customs of Neufchatel.—“ Bundling.’’—lnflu- 
ence of Climate 259 
SWITZERLAND. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER XXI. 
Ancient Manners.—Peter the Great.—Eudoxia.—Empress Catharine, her disso- 
lute Conduct and Death.—Peter’s Libertinism.—Anne.—Elizabeth.—Catharine 
11., infamous Career and Death.—Paul.—Alexander I.—Countess Narishkin.— 
Nicholas.—Court Morality.—Serfage.—Prostitution in St. Petersburg.—Excess 
of Males over Females.—Marriage Customs.—Brides’ Fair.—Conjugal Relations 
among the Russian Nobility.—Foundling Hospital of St. Petersburg.—lllegiti- 
macy Page 261 
RUSSIA. 
CHAPTER XXII. 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 
Comparative Morality.—Illegitimacy.—Profligacy in Stockholm.—lnfanticide. 
Foundling Hospitals.—Stora Barnhordst.—Laws against Prostitution.—Tolera- 
tion.—Government Brothels.—Syphilis.—Marriage in Norway 277 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
Aboriginal Morals and Laws.—Anglo-Saxon Legislation.—lntroduction of Chris- 
tianity.—St. Augustine.—Prostitution in the Ninth Century.—Court Example. 
—Norman Epoch.—Feudal Laws and their Influences.—Civil and Ecclesiastical 
Courts. General Depravity. Effects of Chivalry.—Fair Rosamond.—Jane 
Shore.—Henry Ylll.—Elizabeth.—James 1 282 
GREAT BRITAIN. HISTORY TO THE TIME OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 
CHAPTER XXIY. 
GREAT BRITAIN. HISTORY FROM THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
Puritans.—Results of Asceticism.—Excesses of the Restoration.—General Licen- 
tiousness.—Art.—Literature.—The Stage.—Nell Gwynne.—Nationality in Vice. 
—Sabbath at Court.—James II.—Literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
Centuries.—Lord Chesterfield.—House of Hanover.—Royal Princes.—George 
111.—George IY.—Influence of French Literature.—Marriage Laws.—lncrease 
of Population 298 
CHAPTER XXV. 
GREAT BRITAIN.—PROSTITUTION AT THE PRESENT TIME. 
Influence of the Wealthy Classes.—Devices of Procuresses.—Scene at a Railway 
Station.—Organization for entrapping Women.—Seduction of Children.—Con- 
tinental Traffic.—Brothel-keepers.—“Fancy Men” and “Spooneys.”—Number 
of Brothels in London.—Causes of Prostitution.—Sexual Desire.—Seduction.— 
Over-crowded Dwellings.—Parental Example.—Poverty and Destitution.—Pub- 
lic Amusements.—lll-assorted Marriages.—Love of Dress.—Juvenile Prostitu- 
tion.—Factories. Obscene Publications.—Census of 1851.—Education and 
Crime.—Number of Prostitutes.—Female Population of London.—Working 
Classes.—Domestic Servants.—Needlewomen.—Ages of Prostitutes.—Average 
Life.—Condition of Women in London.—Charitable Institutions.—Mrs. Fry’s 
benevolent Labors 312 XII 
CONTENTS, 
CHEAT BRITAIN.—SYPHILITIC DISEASES. 
CHAPTER XXYL 
First Recognition in England.—Regulations of Henry Vl.—Lazar Houses.—John 
of Gaddesden.—Queen Elizabeth’s Surgeon.—Popular Opinions.—Proclamation 
of James IV. of Scotland.—Middlesex and London Hospitals.—Army.—Navy.— 
Merchant Service.—St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Estimated Extent of Syph- 
ilis Fage 354 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
Spanish Conquest.—Treatment of Female Prisoners.—Mexican Manners in 1677. 
—Priesthood.—Modern Society.—Fashionable Life.—lndifference of Husbands 
to their Wives.—General Immorality.—Offenses.—Charitable Institutions.—The 
Cuna, or Foundling Hospital 359 
MEXICO. 
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Low moral Condition.—San Salvador.—Guatemala.—Yucatan.—Costa Rica.— 
Honduras.—The Caribs.—Depravity in Peru and Chili.—“Children of the 
House.”—Intrigue in Lima.—lnfanticide.—Laxity of Morals in Brazil and Par- 
aguay.—Foundling Hospital at Rio Janeiro 364 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Decrease of the Indian Race.—Treatment of Females.—Courtship.—Stealing 
Wives.—Domestic Life among the Crow Indians.—“ Pine Leaf.”—Female Pris- 
oners. Marriage.—Conjugal Relations.—lnfidelity.—Polygamy. Divorce.— 
Female Morality.—lntrigue and Revenge.—Decency of Outward Life.—Effects 
of Contact with White Men.—Traders 372 
BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
CHAPTER XXX. 
Africa.—Australasia.—West Indies.—Java.—Sumatra.—Borneo 385 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
Persia.—Afghanistan.—Kashmir.—India.—Ceylon.—Ultra - Gangetic Nations.— 
Celebes.—China.—Japan.—Tartar Races.—Circassia.—Turkey.—Northern Af- 
rica.—Siberia.—Esquimaux.—lceland.—Greenland 415 
SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
Schedule of Questions.—Age.—Juvenile Depravity.—Premature Old Age.—Grad- 
ual Descent.—Average Duration of a Prostitute’s Life.—Nativity.—Proportion 
of Prostitutes from various States.—New York.—Effects of Immigration.—For- 
eigners.—Proportion to Population.—Proportion to Emigration.—Dangers of 
Ports of Departure, Emigrant Ships, and Boarding-houses.—Length of Resi- 
dence in the United States.—Prostitution a Burden to Tax-payers.—Length of 
Residence in New York State.—Length of Residence in New York City.—ln- 
ducements to emigrate.—Labor and Remuneration in Europe.—Assistance to 
NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. CONTENTS, 
XIII 
emigrate; its Amount, and from whom.—Education.—Neglect of Facilities in 
New York.—Social Condition.—Single Women.—Widows.—Early and Injudi- 
cious Marriages.—Husbands.—Children.—lllegitimate Children.—Mortality of 
Children.—lnfanticide.—Influences to which Children are exposed Page 450 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Continuance of Prostitution.—Average in Paris and New York.—Dangers of Pros- 
titution. —Disease.—Causes of Prostitution. —lnclination.—Destitution.—Seduc- 
tion.—Intemperance.—111-treatment.—Duties of Parents, Husbands, and Rela- 
tives.—lnfluence of Prostitutes.—lntelligence Offices.—Boarding-schools.—Ob- 
scene Literature 484 
NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. 
CHAPTER XXXIY. 
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.—lntoxication.—Drinking Habits of Prostitutes. 
—Delirium Tremens.—Liquor Sold in Houses of Prostitution.—Parental Influ- 
ences.—Religion of Parents and Prostitutes.—Amiable Feelings.—Kindness and 
Fidelity to each other 623 
NEW YORK. STATISTICS. 
NEW YORK.—PROSTITUTES AND HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
First Class, or “Parlor Houses.”—Luxury.—Semi-refinement.—Rate of Board.— 
Dress. Money.—Lavish Extravagance. Instance of Economy.—Means of 
Amusement.—House-keepers.—Rents.—Estimated Receipts.—Management of 
Houses.—Assumed Respectability.—Consequences of Exactions from Prostitutes. 
—Affection for Lovers.—Second Class Houses.—Street-walkers.—Drunkenness. 
—Syphilitic Infection.—Third Class Houses.—Germans.—Sailors.—Ball-rooms. 
—lntoxication.—Fourth Class Houses.—Repulsive Features.—Visitors.—Action 
of the Police.—First Class Houses of Assignation.—Secrecy and Exclusiveness. 
—Keepers.—Arrangements.—Visitors.—Origin of some Houses of Assignation. 
—Prevalence of Intrigue.—Foreign Manners.—Effects of Travel.—Dress.—Sec- 
ond Class Houses.—Visitors.—Prostitutes.—Arrangements.—Wine and Liquor. 
—Third Class Houses.—Kept Mistresses.—Sewing and Shop Girls.—Disease.— 
Fourth Class Houses.—“Panel Houses” 549 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
NEW YORK.—EXTENT, EFFECTS, AND COST OF PROSTITUTION. 
Number of Public Prostitutes.—Opinion of Chief of Police in 1856.—Effects on 
Prostitution of Commercial Panic of 1857.—Extravagant Surmises.—Police In- 
vestigation of May, 1858.—Private Prostitutes.—Aggregate Prostitution.—Vis- 
itors from the Suburbs of New York.—Strangers.—Proportion of Prostitutes to 
Population.—Syphilis.—Danger of Infection.—Increase of Venereal Disease.— 
Statistics of Cases treated in Island Hospital, Blackwell’s Island.—Primary 
Syphilis and its Indications.—Cases of Venereal Disease in Public Institutions. 
t»-Alms-house. Work-house. Penitentiary. Bellevue Hospital.—Nursery CONTENTS. 
Hospital, Randall’s Island.—Emigrants’ Hospital, Ward’s Island.—New York 
City Hospital.—Dispensaries.—Medical Colleges.—King’s County Hospital.— 
Brooklyn City Hospital.—Seamen’s Retreat, Staten Island.—Summary of Cases 
treated in Public Institutions.—Private Treatment.—Advertisers.—Patent Med- 
icines.—Drug-stores.—Aggregate of Venereal Disease.—Probabilities of Infec- 
tion.—Cost of Prostitution.—Capital invested in Houses of Prostitution and As- 
signation, Dancing-saloons, etc.—Income of Prostitutes.—Individual Expenses 
of Visitors.—Medical Expenses.—Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses.'—Police and 
Judiciary Expenses.—Correspondence with leading Cities of the United States. 
—Estimated Prostitution throughout the Union.—Remarks on “Tait’s Prostitu- 
tion in Edinburgh."—Unfounded Estimates.—National Statistics of Population, 
Births, Education, Occupation, Wages, Pauperism, Crime, Breweries and Distil- 
leries, and Nativities i Page 575 
NEW YORK. REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
Effects of Prohibition.—Required Change of Policy.—Governmental Obligations. 
—Prostitution augmented by Seclusion.—lmpossibility of benevolent Assistance. 
—Necessity of sanitary Regulations.—Yellow Fever.—Effect of remedial Meas- 
ures in Paris.—Syphilitic Infection not a local Question.—Present Measures to 
check Syphilis.—lsland Hospital, Blackwell’s Island.—Mode of Admission. 
—Vagrancy Commitment “on Confession,” and its Action on Blackwell’s Isl- 
and.—Pecuniary Results.—Moral Effects.—Perpetuation of Disease.—Inade- 
quacy of Present Arrangements.—Discharges.—Writs of Habeas Corpus and 
Certiorari, how obtained, and their Effects.—Public Responsibility.—Proposed 
medical and police Surveillance.—Requirements.—Hospital Arrangements to be 
entirely separated from punitive Institutions. Medical Visitation. Power to 
place diseased Women under Treatment and detain them till cured.—Refutation 
of Objections.—Quack Advertisers.—Constitution of Medical Bureau.—Duties 
of Examiners.—License System.—Probable Effects of Surveillance.—Expenses 
of the proposed Plan.—Agitation in England.—The London Times on Prostitu- 
tion.—Objections considered.—Report from Medical Board of Bellevue Hos- 
pital on Prostitution and Syphilis.—Report from Resident Physician, Ran- 
dall’s Island, on Constitutional Syphilis.—Reliability of Statistics.—Resume 
of substantiated Facts 627 
APPENDIX. 
WEW YORK TODAY. 
Estimated Number of Prostitutes.—Growth of the City Attended with Increase 
of Vice.—Official Figures and Views.—Effects of Attempted Suppression.— 
Prostitution and the Public Health.—Syphilis in the Hospitals.—The St. 
Louis Experiment.—lts Wholesome Effects.—Why the Law was Repealed.— 
Divided Public Sentiment as to Recognizing and Regulating Prostitution. INTRODUCTION. 
Arguments are unnecessary to prove the existence of prosti- 
tution. The evil is so notorious that none can possibly gainsav 
it. But when its extent, its causes, or its effects are questioned, 
a remarkable degree of ignorance or carelessness is manifested. 
Few care to know the secret springs from which prostitution 
emanates; few are anxious to know how wide the stream ex- 
tends; few have any desire to know the devastation it causes. 
Society has formally laid a prohibition on the subject, and he who 
presumes to argue that what affects one may injure all; he who 
believes that the malady in his neighbor’s family to-day may visit 
his own to-morrow; he who dares to intimate that a vice which 
has blighted the happiness of one parent, and ruined the charac- 
ter of one daughter, may produce, must inevitably produce, the 
same sad results in another circle; in short, he who dares allude 
to the subject of prostitution in any other than a ravsterious and 
whispered manner, must prepare to meet the frowns and censure 
of society. 
Keen was the knowledge of human nature, acute the perception 
of worldly sentiment in the breast of an accomplished woman 
lately deceased, when she wrote, “To such grievances as society 
can not readily cure, it usually forbids utterance on pain of its 
scorn; this scorn being only a sort of tinseled cloak to its deformed 
weakness.” How true the idea, many a man who has attempted 
to unveil a hidden crime, or probe a secret sorrow, but too well 
knows. 
Not then to prove that prostitution exists, for that is so glar- 
ingly palpable that all must perforce concede it, but to ascertain 
its origin, progress, and end, is the object of these pages. The 
finger of scorn may be pointed at the labor; the self-righteous 
world may wrap itself in a mantle of prudery, and close its ears 
against sickening details; the complacent public may demur at 
an. approach to sin and misery; the self-satisfied community may 
""Object to view wretchedness drawn from the obscurity of its hid- 18 
INTRODUCTION. 
ing-place to the full light of investigation: nevertheless, there is 
now existing a moral pestilence which creeps insidiously into the 
privacy of the domestic circle, and draws thence the myriads of 
its victims, and which saps the foundation of that holy confidence, 
the first, the most beautiful attraction of home. There is an 
ever-present physical danger, so fatally destructive that the world 
would recoil, as from the spring of a serpent, could they but ap- 
preciate its malignity; a malignity which is daily and hourly 
threatening every man, woman, and child in the community; 
which for hundreds of years has been slowly but steadily making 
its way onward, leaving a track marked with broken hopes, ruin- 
ed frames, and sad recollections of stricken friends; and which 
now, in the full force of an impetus acquired and aggravated by 
concealment, almost defies opposition. There is a social wrong 
which forces upon the community vast expenditures for an object 
of which they are ignorant; which swells the public taxes and in- 
creases individual outlay for a vice which has hitherto been studi- 
ously kept in concealment. These reasons were sufficiently pow- 
erful to induce the necessary researches for the accomplishment 
of this work, and they are considered sufficient to justify its pub- 
lication. 
An unseen evil, of which only the effects are visible, is more 
frightful than one whose dimensions are apparent. No statesman 
would grapple with a political question until he knew its “form 
and pressure;” no philanthropist can satisfactorily encounter an 
unknown misery. Both may judge, to some slight extent, of the 
evil they can not see, but the one can not venture to remove it, 
nor the other to modify its woes until its power is fully known. 
This has so far been the case with prostitution. The world has 
studiously drawn a screen before it, and when the sufferings of 
its victims became so apparent that the vice was palpable, an ad- 
ditional mystery was thrown around it, and the people of the 
nineteenth century know it but as a sin with which they can not 
interfere. It has all the imagined force of a monster, because of 
its obscurity; all the virulence of an avenging fiend, because its 
true powers are hidden; and even those who suffered from its 
poison have been led to believe that its mysteries were so inscru- 
table as to defy all approach. 
Hitherto reticence has been the policy. This position has been 
held too long, for it is false in principle and injurious in tendency. 
The day has arrived when the shroud must be removed; when INTRODUCTION. 
19 
the public safety imperiously demands an investigation into the 
matter; when those who regard it as a small wrong may have 
their attention directed to its real proportions; and when those 
who have viewed it as an unmanageable giant may be alike un- 
deceived. 
A small matter it decidedly is not: the eternal ruin of one 
misguided woman would effectually preclude such an opinion; 
the physical ruin of an impetuous man would prohibit such an 
estimate, and both these are among those daily consequences 
which call for an investigation. There is scarcely a person in the 
community who can not recall some circumstance he has known 
to support this assertion; for so wide-spread has been the bane- 
ful influence of prostitution, that there are comparatively few but 
have suffered, through friends or relatives, if not in their own 
persons. 
Nor is it unmanageable, except when concealed. Stripped of 
the veil of secrecy which has enveloped it, there appears a vice 
arising from an inextinguishable natural impulse on the part of 
one sex, fostered by confiding weakness in the other; from social 
disabilities on one side, and social oppression on the other; from 
the wiles of the deceiver working upon unsuspecting credulity; 
and, finally, from the stern necessity to live. 
It is a mere absurdity to assert that prostitution can ever be erad- 
icated. Strenuous and well-directed efforts for this purpose have 
been made at different times. The whole power of the Church, 
where it possessed not merely a spiritual, but an actual secular arm, 
has been in vain directed against it. Nature defied the mandates 
of the clergy, and the threatened punishments of an after-life were 
futile to deter men from seeking, and women from granting, sin- 
ful pleasures in this world. Monarchs victorious in the field and 
unsurpassed in the council-chamber have bent all their energies 
of will, and brought all the aids of power to crush it out, but be- 
fore these vice has not quailed. The guilty women have been ban- 
ished, scourged, branded, executed; their partners have been sub- 
jected to the same punishment; held up to public opinion as im- 
moral ; denuded of their civil rights; have seen their offenses vis- 
ited upon their families; have been led to the stake, the gibbet, and 
the block, and still prostitution exists. The teachings of morality 
and virtue have been powerless here. In some cases they restrain 
individuals; upon the aggregate they are inoperative. The re- 
searches of science have been unheeded. They have traced the 20 
INTRODUCTION. 
physical results of vice, and have foreshadowed its course. They 
have demonstrated that the suffering parents of this generation 
will bequeath to their posterity a heritage of ruined powers; that 
the malady which illicit pleasure communicates is destructive to the 
hopes of man; that the human frame is perceptibly and regularly 
depreciating by the operation of this poison, and have shown that 
even the desire for health and long life, one of the most powerful 
motives that ever influences a human being, has been of no avail 
to stem the torrent. 
But if history proves that prostitution can not be suppressed, it 
also demonstrates that it can be regulated, and directed into chan- 
nels where its most injurious results can be encountered, and its 
dangerous tendencies either entirely arrested or materially weak- 
ened. This is the policy to which civilized communities are tend- 
ing, and to aid the movement it is needful that the subject be 
examined, even at the risk of the world’s contumely. 
In some of the countries of Continental Europe the examina- 
tion has been made, and the natural consequences of a searching 
and philosophical investigation are there seen in legislation, which 
aims not to dam a wild torrent, but to lead it where its rage may 
be harmlessly spent. When a mighty river overflows its banks, 
the uncontrollable flood works wide-spread ruin and devastation 
along its course; but the same river, confined to its natural chan- 
nel, may be of immense service in carrying off a vast amount of 
filth and debris that otherwise would cause pestilence and death. 
In this Western hemisphere, and in the mother-country, Anglo- 
Saxon prudery has stood aloof from inquiring into a vice which 
every one admits to be offensive to the moral sense of the people, 
and has submitted to an accumulation of evils rather than seek to 
abate them, until the suffering and the wrong have become so 
boldly defined that they force themselves upon the public eye. 
Assuredly it is high time to inaugurate a new line of action; 
to cast aside as unworthy those puerile doubts of propriety and 
expediency which have stood in the way of an onward progress. 
The very meaning of the word “propriety” supplies an argu- 
ment in favor of the proposed course. Conventionally, it has been 
construed to mean an indefinite something which every person 
has moulded to suit his own predilections. Upon the same prin- 
ciple that a man who makes his living dishonestly would consid- 
er it a glaring impropriety to examine the laws of fraud, has the 
world decided it an outrage against propriety to inquire into a INTRODUCTION. 
21 
vice which many secretly practice, but all publicly condemn. 
Reasoning like this has been too often applied, and with too great 
an effect. Can there possibly be an impropriety in investigating 
a vice which threatens the purity and peace of the community, 
because in so doing unpleasant facts will be disclosed ? Is there 
not a far more striking inconsistency in supinely allowing the same 
vice to exist and increase, without hinderance or examination? 
Again: it must be conceded that the demands of propriety are 
universal. They are not restricted to any person or place, but 
press with equal force upon every member of the community in 
every possible situation. The common welfare is involved in 
their general application, and he well merits the good opinion of 
his fellow-men who points them to a case where propriety is out- 
raged, and asks their aid to apply the remedy. In a word, pro- 
priety demands an exposure of all acts of impropriety, and the ap- 
plication of the needful cure. 
Then the question arises, In what form shall the exposure be 
made ? Truth admits of but one reply. It must be so explicit 
as to leave no doubt of its meaning; it must be so guarded as not 
to offend in its application. If the first of these rules is not ob- 
served, any disclosure will be worthless; if the remarks are vague, 
indefinite, or generalized, no good result can accrue. Take a sim- 
ple illustration. It conveys no determinate idea to a benevolent 
man to say, “ There is distress in a certain citybut point him 
to the particular locality, and give him the precise circumstances, 
and his sympathy is at once aroused and effectively exerted. The 
same rule is equally applicable to a monster vice and to an indi- 
vidual hardship, and upon this principle have the disclosures of 
the following pages been based. The idea has been to particu- 
larize sufficiently to draw attention, but not enough to gratify a 
prurient inclination; to exhibit the evil in a truthful aspect, but 
not in a fascinating form. None can doubt the truth of Pope’s 
well-known lines: 
“ Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.” 
The endeavor should be to fulfill the imperative demands of pro- 
priety, without disturbing the conventional prejudices implied by 
the same word. 22 
INTRODUCTION. 
Then, as to expediency, or the fitness to effect some good end. 
It must be admitted that the mere fact of proving prostitution 
capable of control is a good object, and it is apparent that such 
proof can not be afforded while the vice remains a myth. Some- 
thing must be known of its haunts and its customs ere any one 
can decide in what shape a supervisory power can be best applied. 
This knowledge must be obtained in defiance of deep-rooted prej- 
udices. Commonplace objections about the danger of touching 
impure objects are best met by the remark that to the pure all 
things are pure. Though benevolence may at times lead its dev- 
otees through scenes where moral purity is shocked, and to neigh- 
borhoods where filth and obscenity vitiate the very air they 
breathe, there is no contamination to those whose motives are 
good. Inexpediency has been urged as often and as falsely as im- 
propriety. In their application to this subject, both are perverted 
from their legitimate meaning; both are made subservient to a 
false taste, or a mawkish sensibility which fears to encounter an 
imaginary danger. 
The safety of the community, so far as its sanitary condition is 
concerned, imperatively demands an inquiry like this. It is no 
longer necessary to prove that syphilitic taint is propagated by 
the direct agency of prostitution. That fact has been demon- 
strated years ago, and, reasoning from it, we rightly infer that the 
ravages of that poison can be checked by compelling abandoned 
women to certain judicious observances. One thing is absolutely 
certain, that the public health can not be endangered by the inter- 
ference, and there is a moral certainty that it may be materially 
benefited. The value of this investigation, so far as relates to 
purely physical questions, consists in not merely pointing out 
where the evil is, but in showing to what extent it exists, and then 
contrasting the state of venereal disease, its rapid increase and aug- 
menting virulence in this country, with its condition in those na- 
tions where similar investigations have resulted in practical meas- 
ures. 
Public safety imperatively demands this investigation as a 
means of tracing the habitual resorts of criminals. It is not nec- 
essary to inform any man conversant with city life that houses of 
ill fame are the common resort of the most abandoned of the male 
part of the community. There the assassin, against whose hand 
no life is secure, has a safe retreat. The burglar, who commits 
his depredations under cover of the shade of night; the swindler, INTRODUCTION. 
who defrauds the honest trader by false representations; the coun- 
terfeiter, who earns a precarious living by his unholy trade—these 
hold there high carnival. There they meet to recount their ex- 
ploits and divide the spoils; to devise new schemes of wicked- 
ness, or lay plans by which simple youths may be allured to vilest 
practices. 
There is another phase of public safety which demands this in- 
vestigation, namely, the preservation of female honor. Those who 
frequent these haunts of vice are forever employed in casting about 
snares to entrap the young, the unwary, or the friendless woman. 
They-tempt her to minister to their libidinous desires, and swell 
the already overcrowded ranks of frailty. While these resorts 
are secret, there is every facility for such infamous conduct, with 
but slight probability of its detection, and still slighter opportuni- 
ties for prevention. Thither, too, young men, and even boys, are 
inveigled by those who have grown old in vice, and there are they 
taught the horrid mysteries of unhallowed passion. Many a prom- 
ising youth has left such haunts as these not only with a ruined 
constitution, but with loss of character and honor; many whose 
names swell the criminal records of the day date their first step in 
crime from the hour they entered a common brothel. 
Again; Public safety demands this investigation because of 
the superior opportunities it will afford to reformatory measures. 
Start not at the supposition of reforming courtesans. There is 
hope even for them, for they are human beings, though depraved. 
Their hearts throb with the same sympathies that move the more 
favored of their sex. Their minds are susceptible to the same 
emotions as those of other females. Few of them become vile 
from natural instincts: poor victims of circumstances, many of 
them would gladly amend if the proper means were used at the 
proper time. 
“ There is in every human heart 
Some not entirely barren part, 
Where flowers of richest scent may blow, 
And fruit in glorious sunlight grow.” 
This consummation can be achieved only when the pseudo-virtue 
of the world shall yield to true benevolence, and charity be in 
deed what it professes in name. 
If public safety is thus urgent, private interest also has argu- 
ments in favor of investigating prostitution. No one need be 24 
INTRODUCTION. 
told that public aid is required to give medical treatment to the 
unfortunate men and women tainted bj this vice; nor need any- 
one be assured that such aid, administered with every regard to 
economy, requires yearly a large portion of the taxes paid by in- 
dividuals. It would be sheer folly to assert that any measures 
which can follow this inquiry will be efficacious in eradicating 
syphilis, but experience proves that an effective supervision would 
materially abate its influence, render it curable in a much shorter 
space of time, and reduce the expenses for each patient in a cor- 
responding ratio. 
Another large claim upon the public funds arises from the 
necessity of employing an extensive judicial and police organ- 
ization to deal with the crime and the criminals generated and 
fostered in houses of ill fame. Nests of vice as they are now in 
their darkness and seclusion, it would be impossible to suppose 
a more fitting nursery for crime, or one whence more criminals 
would emanate. As with disease, so with crime. It can not be 
suppressed by placing its retreats under public notice, but it can 
be watched, and, once brought to the light of day, half its dangers 
and difficulties become surmountable. 
Finally, private interest demands this investigation on mere 
private grounds—the individual and personal expenses caused by 
diseases contracted by debauchery. There is the money a work- 
ing man must pay for his cure: this is his share of the loss. 
There is the unproductive time, and the loss of profits upon his 
labor: this is his employer’s sacrifice. There is the deprivation 
of comforts and necessaries experienced by his family and de- 
pendents: this is their penalty. Society is thus involved in a 
general loss on account of an act of folly, or passion, or crime 
(call it which you please), committed in a concealed and secret 
haunt, and such loss could be saved by the intervention of proper 
means. 
Common sense asks for a full investigation of all the evils 
attending prostitution. In the every-day affairs of life, any man 
who feels the pressure of a particular evil looks at once for its 
cause. He may be neither a philosopher nor a logician, and may 
never have heard of or read any of the luminous treatises which 
professedly simplify science, yet he knows very well that for every 
effect there must be some adequate cause, and for this he gener- 
ally searches diligently till he can find and remove it. But here, 
in the city of New York, is a population who claim to be as INTRODUCTION. 
25 
intelligent as any on the Western continent, who have been for 
years suffering from the effects of a vice in purse and person; 
who have paid and are paying every year large sums of money 
on account of it; who witness every day some broken constitu- 
tion or ruined character resulting from it, and who yet have nev- 
er thought of seeking out the cause! Is it now too late to enlist 
your sympathies in the undertaking ? 
Hence we conclude that propriety, expediency, public safety, 
private interest, and common sense demand an investigation like 
this now submitted to the reader. And what is the argument 
brought forward to oppose it ? The world’s scorn—“ this scorn 
being only a sort of tinseled cloak to its deformed weakness.” 
But is not this scorn powerless against the array of favoring mo- 
tives? Will it stand the test of comparison with any one of them, 
much less of all ? Is not its influence lost when its real character 
is known ? The reckless carelessness which has suffered a grow- 
ing vice to increase and multiply, which has permitted a deadly 
Upas-tree to take root and blossom in the community until its 
poisonous exhalations threaten universal infection; which has, by 
its actual indifference, fostered vice, promoted seduction, perpet- 
uated disease, and entailed death; shall this deformed weakness 
now raise its trembling hands, and exhibit its tottering frame, 
and lift its puny voice to forbid an examination into the sources 
of the danger ? Has not the finger of this scorn too long forbid 
the search for truth ? Has not the hour arrived when truth will 
speak trumpet-tongued, and when her voice must be heard? 
Now the question will arise, Has the world’s indifference pro- 
duced these evils? Undoubtedly it has, and in the following 
manner: Laws have been placed upon the statute-book declaring 
prostitutes, and houses of prostitution, and all who live by such 
means, illegal and immoral. There the law yet stands. At un- 
certain intervals some poor and friendless woman is arrested as a 
vagrant, and, to appease the offended majesty of law, she is sent to 
prison, a scapegoat for five thousand of her class. It also some- 
times happens that another woman equally guilty, but with money 
or influence, is arrested at the same time and for the same offense, 
and before she reaches the prison walls a legal quibble has been 
raised and she is free. Is there no culpable indifference in this? 
Houses of prostitution are proscribed by law. How many of them 
are ever indicted, or, if indicted, how many are suppressed ? This, 
too, is owing to criminal neglect, and it is aggravated by the in- INTRODUCTION. 
26 
jurious effects arising from the mere circumstance of allowing a 
law to exist, and making no efforts to enforce it. The character 
of a people is judged, not by the laws that are made, but by the 
strictness with which those that do exist are enforced and ob- 
served. In regard to the first, there may be exhibited an acute 
perception of an existing evil, and a desire to reform it by legisla- 
tion ; but a second glance may reveal no wish to make this legis- 
lation effective. In the special matter of prostitution, the opinion 
is expressed elsewhere that prohibitory laws are worse than use- 
less, and in the experience of New York City there is nothing to 
shake that opinion, notwithstanding the fact that the efforts made 
to enforce them are so “few and far between.” Had existing 
laws been more vigorously enforced, their inefficiency would long 
since have been much better understood than it now is, and peo- 
ple would not have rested under the delusion that every thing 
necessary has been done. 
There are yet other cases of culpable indifference. These same 
proscribed houses of prostitution are suffered to exist uncontrol- 
led, and to spread disease and increase crime and vagrancy in all 
parts of the city. It has been generally conceded that they can 
not be suppressed. What effort has been made to hold in check 
their baneful influence ? None—literally none. The statesman 
has looked on appalled at an evil of whose magnitude he could 
form no correct idea; the clergyman has hesitated to encounter 
those who he judged would not respectfully receive his admoni- 
tions ; the masses of society have shrunk from considering a sub- 
ject which was repugnant and distasteful. Is there no guilty in- 
difference in this ? There can be but one answer to this query; 
but one opinion as to the share this general apathy has had in 
fostering the evil. 
To substitute for this apathy a healthy action is the object of 
this investigation. It is but the means to an end. In them- 
selves, as mere matters of information, the facts and deductions 
presented in the following pages can do nothing but demonstrate 
the necessity of exertion; but of this necessity they do afford 
overwhelming demonstration. 
Thus much for the general arguments as to the necessity of a 
work of this nature. There are other special and local causes 
which led to its accomplishment in the present form. 
“The Governors of the Alms-House of the City and County of 
New York,” or, as they are more generally known, “The Ten INTRODUCTION. 
27 
Governors,” is a body called into existence by an act of the State 
Legislature passed April 6, 1849, specially to take charge of the 
vagrant and pauper institutions of the city. The present mem- 
bers of the Board are the following well-known citizens:1 
C. Godfrey Gunther, Esq., President. 
Washington Smith, Esq.: 
Anthony Dugro, Esq.:i 
Cornelius V. Anderson, Esq. 
Isaac Townsend, Esq. 
Isaac J. Oliver, Esq., Secretary. 
Daniel F, Tiemann, Esq. 
Joseph S. Taylor, Esq. 
P. G. Moloney, Esq. 
Benjamin F. Pinckney, Esq. 
At the time these investigations commenced two other prom- 
inent men were also members of the organization, Hon. Edward 
C. West (now Surrogate of the city) and Simeon Draper, Esq. 
Both of these gentlemen had served as President of the Board 
of Governors with honor to themselves and satisfaction to their 
colleagues and the public; both took a lively interest in the pro- 
jected inquiry, and to both am I indebted for much valuable as- 
sistance. 
The act establishing the Board of Governors assigned to them, 
with their other duties, the medical care of all persons who had con- 
tracted infectious diseases in the practice of debauchery, and who re- 
quired charitable aid to restore them to health. The result was that 
a very large number of persons, both male and female, chargeable 
to the citizens of New York through the medium of the institu- 
tions on Blackwell’s Island, came under their cognizance, and they 
became convinced that some measures were necessary in connec- 
tion therewith. 
Individual members had held this opinion for some time before 
any official action was taken, and foremost among such was Gov- 
ernor Isaac Townsend. This gentleman was one of the originally 
appointed Governors, and has been connected with the Board by 
re-election ever since—a circumstance which made him perfectly 
acquainted with all the workings of the present system, and to 
him the public is indebted for the conception of this undertaking. 
For years has he labored to bring about this result, with an in- 
1 Since this introduction was written (1857) some changes have taken place in 
the constitution of the Board of Governors. The election of Mr. Tiemann to the 
Mayoralty caused a vacancy which is now filled by P. McElroy, Esq., and the res- 
ignation and subsequent death of Mr. Taylor has resulted in the election of William 
T. Pinkney, Esq. 
2 Now (1858) President of the Board. 
3 Now (1858) Secretary of the Board. 28 
INTRODUCTION. 
domitable energy and perseverance equaled only by bis known 
benevolence and honesty of purpose. He frequently made the 
practicability of suck a measure the subject of conversation with 
the gentleman who preceded me as Resident Physician of Black- 
well’s Island, and, on my appointment (1858), the subject was 
again urged by him; nor could Ibe unaware of its importance. 
No official action was taken until the commencement of the year 
1855. At that time Mr. Townsend was President of the Board, 
and one of his first acts in that capacity was to submit a list of in- 
terrogatories on the subject, which were adopted and transmitted 
to me. I transcribe them from the Minutes of the Board: 
“ At a meeting of the Board of Governors of the Alms-House, held Jan- 
uary 28,1855, the following interrogatories were presented by the Presi- 
dent : 
“ 1. What proportion of the inmates of the institutions on Blackwell’s 
Island under your medical charge are, in your opinion, directly or indirectly 
suffering from syphilis ? 
“ 2. Are, or are not, the number of such inmates steadily on the increase 1 
“ 3. Do not patients in the different institutions, particularly in the Peni- 
tentiary Hospital, often leave before the disease is cured, so that they are 
liable to infect other persons after their departure 1 
“ 4. Are not the offspring of parents affected with constitutional syphilis 
subject to many diseases of like character, which cause them to become a 
charge upon the city for long periods of time, and often for life 1 
“ 5. What are your views in reference to the best means of checking and 
decreasing this disease, and what plan, in your opinion, could be adopted to 
relieve New York City of the enormous amount of misery and expense 
caused by syphilis ? 
“6. You will reply in full to the above queries at the earliest possible date. 
“ Resolved, That a copy of the above be sent to the Resident Physician, 
Blackwell’s Island.” 
To reply to these questions, especially to the fifth, I discovered 
that it would be requisite to extend my investigations beyond the 
limits of the institutions on Blackwell’s Island. This idea was 
communicated to President Townsend, who joined me in appre- 
ciating the necessity of such a movement. He also was the means 
of interesting Mayor Wood and other officers of the city in the in- 
vestigation as subsequently carried on, while his continued exer- 
tions and earnest support aided me generally in the prosecution of 
the labor, and merit my most sincere ana grateful acknowledg 
ments. INTRODUCTION. 
29 
The steps thus taken are fully detailed in the following letter 
to the Board of Governors, that letter, or preliminary report, hav- 
ing been called for in connection with the reports from the Med- 
ical Board of Bellevue Hospital, and from the Resident Physician 
of Randall’s Island, which will be found, in extenso, in Chapter 
XXXYIL of this work d 
“Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors. 
“ Dear Sir,—In reply to your letter asking for answers to certain inter- 
rogatories on the subject of prostitution and its diseases, I have to state that 
I am not prepared to report, nor can I do so for some considerable length of 
time to come. 
“ Had I confined myself to simply answering the queries propounded as 
regards the institutions under my medical charge, simply given you the gross 
numbers, with the percentages of those who have suffered or are now suffer- 
ing from venereal disease, such reply could have been sent to you long ago. 
A report of this kind from this department would have been looked upon 
by the public at large as containing the history of nearly all the prostitu- 
tion in the city, and particularly would a majority of the public have be- 
lieved that nineteen twentieths of the disease resulting from prostitution 
found its home here. Such is not the fact. Great as is the number of 
prostitutes annually sent here, and enormous as is the number of cases of 
venereal disease yearly treated here, yet these compose but a small fraction 
of the sum total actually existing in this city. There are but few more 
prostitutes on the island than are to be found on the same number of acres 
in certain portions of the city ; and as for the venereal disease, why, gentle- 
men, the island has the advantage. It is the least dangerous locality. 
“ Believing these to be facts, I could not bring myself to think that any 
practical good would be accomplished by giving you the statistics of these 
institutions alone. It would have been merely doing what has been done 
before, and would have yielded no additional information for your guidance. 
But it appeared to me that the time had come when your attention might 
be solicited to the various facts attending the aggregate prostitution of the 
city; for, despite all our prohibitory laws, it is a fact which can not be 
questioned or denied that this vice is attaining a position and extent in 
this community which can not be viewed without alarm. It has more than 
kept pace with the growth of our city. Unlike the vice of a few years since, 
it no longer confines itself to secrecy and darkness, but boldly strides through 
our most thronged and elegant thoroughfares, and there, in the broad light 
of the sun, it jostles the pure, the virtuous, and the good. It is in your 
1 To explain the apparent solecism of addressing a letter to President Townsend, 
detailing actions in which he had taken so important a part, it may be necessary to 
say that a standing order of the Board of Governors requires all official correspond- 
ence with them to be addressed to their President. INTRODUCTION. 
gay streets, and in your quiet, home-like streets; it is in your squares, and 
in your suburban retreats and summer resorts; it is in your theatres, your 
opera, your hotels; nay, it is even intruding itself into the private circles, 
and slowly but steadily extending its poison, known but to few, and entirely 
unsuspected by the majority of our citizens. The whole machinery of the 
law has been turned against these females without success ; its only result 
having been a resolve, on their part, to confront society with the charge of 
harsh, cruel, and unjust treatment. 
“ From these considerations, I felt it my duty to obtain all the facts 
which could possibly be collected having any relation to the vice in ques- 
tion, assured that you were desirous of taking a comprehensive view of it; 
and hence the resolve, if possible, to trace to the fountain-head prostitution 
and its attendant diseases, so as to be enabled to bring the subject before 
you in a form which should exhibit it in its proper colors and dimensions. 
“The first step in this investigation was to obtain ample and reliable 
information of the extent of the vice as it exists outside of these depart- 
ments—a step which would have been beyond my power alone. From the 
bold and reformatory stand which his honor Mayor Wood had taken in 
regard to many matters connected with our city government, it was be- 
lieved that he would render his assistance if convinced of the propriety and 
prospective usefulness of the investigation, and the result of an application 
by President Isaac Townsend to his honor fully justified the correctness of 
this supposition. He was found not only willing to aid in this great work, 
but fully alive to its necessity and importance. The plan adopted to for- 
ward the inquiry was to take a census of the city, so far as regards prosti- 
tution, including the number of houses of prostitution ; the number of 
prostitutes; the causes which led them to become such ; their ages, habits, 
birth-places, early history, education, religious instruction, occupation, etc., 
and which census is now being taken by the Chief of Police, George W. 
Matsell, Esq., and the Captains of Police. 
“ Simultaneously with this, inquiries are also being prosecuted concerning 
the extent of venereal disease in New York, which will afford interesting 
information. This, of course, will be done without individual exposure, 
nor will the report, when completed, assume the form of a guide-book by 
which persons can find houses of ill fame. lam desirous of obtaining the 
aggregate facts of the vice, and shall be cautious to take no steps toward 
gratifying a prurient curiosity or lacerating a rankling wound. 
“ When these facts are before you, they will be their own argument for 
the necessity of action. 
“ I do not trouble you on this occasion with any remarks upon the deadly 
nature of the venereal poison, but when you are informed as to the facilities 
for its diffusion will be the proper time to do so. Neither would it be 
consistent with this stage of the inquiry to enter into any discussion as to INTRODUCTION. 
31 
the plans that could be adopted in mitigation of the vice; for although 
prohibitory measures have failed to suppress, or even check it, yet, until its 
full extent is known, I do not imagine that you would deem it prudent to 
attempt to grapple a monster whose strength was not fully ascertained. 
“ You perceive that to obtain all the information necessary on this mat- 
ter will be a work requiring both time and labor, and I respectfully ask 
your forbearance, with the assurance that I will lay the result of my in- 
quiries before you at the earliest possible opportunity, and with the hope 
that the magnitude and importance of the subject will be an apology for 
the time to which it is necessarily protracted. 
“William W. Sanger, Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island.” 
“ I am, sir, yours, very respectfully, 
To aid the police officers in the duty of taking the census al- 
luded to above, a schedule of questions was prepared.1 This was 
submitted to the Board of Governors by Governor Townsend, and 
a resolution was adopted at their meeting of October 23d, 1855, 
sanctioning the plan adopted, and authorizing him to have a suf- 
ficient number of copies printed. The mayor, the district attor- 
ney, the chief of police, and the captains of the several districts, 
willingly and zealously co-operated with Governor Townsend and 
myself, and every possible exertion was used to obtain accurate 
and extensive information. It became my duty to assist the offi- 
cers in the execution of their task, and I am thus enabled to speak 
with certainty as to the authenticity of the statistics, given, which 
were mainly collected under my own observation. 
I gladly avail myself of the present opportunity to record my 
obligations for services rendered by his honor Fernando Wood, 
Mayor of the city of New York; George W. Matsell, Esq., Chief 
of Police; and to the Captains of Police in the different wards of 
the city, namely, 
Capt. Michael Halpin, Ist ward. Capt. Galen T, Porter, 12th ward 
“ James Leonard, 2d “ 
“ James A. P. Hopkins, 3d “ 
“ J. Murray Ditchett, 4th “ 
“ Daniel Carpenter, sth “ 
“ Joseph Dowling, 6th “ 
“ Edward Letts, 7 th u 
“ Charles S. Turnbull, Bth “ 
“ Abraham Ackerman, 9th “ 
“ George W. Norris, 10th “ 
“ Peter Squires, 11th “ 
John E. Russell, 13th “ 
“ David Kissner, 14th “ 
“ George W. Dilks, 15th “ 
“ John D. M‘Kee, 16th “ 
“ J.W.Hartt, 17 th “ 
“ George W.Walling, 18th “ 
u Francis J. Twomey, 19th “ 
“ Thomas Hanncgan, 20th “ 
“ Francis C. Speight, 21st “ 
“ Daniel Witter, 22d “ 
See Chapter XXXII. for these questions. 32 
INTRODUCTION. 
To Captains Halpin, Hopkins, Ditchett, Carpenter, Dowling, Letts, 
Turnbull, Kissner, and Dilks, in whose wards is found the great- 
est amount of prostitution, and upon whom fell the largest share 
of labor, I am more particularly indebted. 
The necessary particulars were finally obtained, and are em- 
bodied in Chapters XXXII. to XXXVII. of this work, but there 
was still an important point to determine, namely, what had been 
done elsewhere, and what was the result of such action, to check 
prostitution and diminish the ravages of venereal disease. The 
Continent of Europe presented a field for this inquiry, and to it I 
turned for the information required, which is given in the various 
chapters devoted to the several countries in such a form as to 
show the measures which have been taken, the effect, and the 
causes which led to legislative interference, contrasted with those 
other parts of the world where, as yet, no remedial plans have 
been tried, notwithstanding the necessity which calls for them. 
The reader is now in possession of the facts which led to this 
inquiry. Is it too much to ask his attention to the analysis and 
exhibition of prostitution as it is at the present time, he being well 
assured that no assertions will be made that are not supported by 
good authority, nor any conclusions drawn from doubtful prem- 
ises? 
So far as New York alone is concerned, the evil is known to a 
large portion of her citizens, although its ramifications are but 
very imperfectly understood; and the endeavor will be to present 
all possible information on the matter, and to give a truthful, un- 
exaggerated picture of the depravity. Disagreeable as this must 
be from the nature of the task, it is hopeful from a belief that the 
result will tend to public good. 
One of the most painfully interesting branches of the inquiry is 
that relating to the ages of the unfortunate women. Their num- 
ber includes many who are but mere children; who but recently 
knelt at a mother’s side, and in infantile accents breathed a pray- 
er to the Almighty; who but recently sprang with eager, joyous 
bound to the returning footsteps of a father; who, in a happy and 
innocent home, have but recently given promise of a bright and 
virtuous life. Therein are also included many who were deprived 
by death of their natural protectors, and who, thus left unwatched 
and uncared for, have fallen before the destroyer ere yet the age 
of womanhood was reached. 
The places of their birth form an interesting subject for consid- INTRODUCTION. 
33 
eration. In this land the frigid North and sunny South, the busy 
East and fertile West have each contributed their quota, while 
foreign countries have sent large numbers to swell the mournful 
aggregate. 
The most useful portion of the subject will be found, it is imag- 
ined, in replies to the question, “ What was the cause of your be- 
coming a prostitute ?” These tend to expose the concealed vices 
of mankind, and to prove that many of the unfortunate victims 
are “ more sinned against than sinning.” Among the reasons as- 
signed for a deviation from the paths of virtue are some which 
tell of man’s deceit; others, where the machinations employed to 
effect the purpose raise a blush for humanity; others, where a 
wife was sacrificed by the man who had sworn before God and in 
the presence of men to protect her through life; others, where 
parents have urged or commanded this course, and are now liv- 
ing on the proceeds of their children’s shame, or where an abuse 
of parental authority has produced the same effect; and others 
still, where women, already depraved, have been the means of 
leading their fellow-women to disgrace. A bare allusion to these 
wrongs is sickening; but, while the gangrene of prostitution is rap- 
idly extending through society, it becomes an imperative duty to 
examine its causes completely and impartially. 
Another prolific source of female depravity will be exhibited 
by the several tables showing the description of employment pur- 
sued, and the wages received by women previous to their fall, and 
it will be a question for the political economist to decide how far 
mere business considerations should be an apology on the part of 
employers for a reduction in their rates of remuneration, and 
whether the saving of a small percentage on wages is not more 
than counterbalanced by the enormous amount of taxation en- 
forced on the public at large to defray the expenses incurred on 
account of a system of vice which is the direct result, in many 
cases, of insufficient compensation for honest labor. 
In conclusion, it must not be assumed that the information 
collected from two thousand women in New York City relates to 
all the prostitutes therein. The many difficulties surrounding the 
investigation, and especially the secrecy to which prohibitory laws 
have driven this class of persons, rendered the task impossible; 
but, from the best information that could be obtained of those 
whose knowledge of the vice was derived from actual experience, 
it is imagined that the replies represent about two fifths of the 34 
INTRODUCTION. 
total number.1 They are presented with full confidence in their 
general authenticity, and may be very reasonably concluded to 
offer a fair average of the whole. They unquestionably exhibit 
an appalling amount of depravity and consequent wretchedness, 
with but very few redeeming features, and present mournful sub- 
jects for reflection to all classes, with forcible arguments for re- 
medial measures. Without this end in prospect it would have 
been scarcely justifiable, at least in a moral point of view, to in- 
stitute this inquiry or make these disclosures; but it certainly 
may be reasonably inferred that many will feel sufficient interest 
in the advance of virtue to aid in the mitigation of this enormous 
vice which threatens all social relations; which has already in- 
troduced physical suffering into so many families; and the influ- 
ence of which, increasing in a direct ratio to its existence, will 
very probably extend its malignant poison, mental and bodily, 
into all ranks and classes of the community. The necessity for 
action is apparent, but its successful consummation must rest with 
the public at large, who have the bane exhibited before them in 
its actual power, and the necessity of an antidote demonstrated 
from positive facts, and not deduced from a mere arbitrary theory. 
If some antidote be applied, even though a partial one, it will 
be a satisfaction to reflect that the investigations have not been 
profitless, nor the labor in vain. 
1 It is quite probable that the commercial and financial panic which commenced 
about the time these pages were nearly ready for the press, and continued through- 
out the winter of 1857-8, has added to the number of prostitutes in New York City, 
very likely as many as five hundred, or perhaps a thousand, but certainly not to 
the extent generally imagined. Allusions have been made elsewhere to the exag- 
gerated estimates of the extent of this vice, and the opinions publicly expressed in 
regard to accessions to the ranks of prostitutes during the last few months gener- 
ally seem to be of a similarly vague nature. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
[lf the reader has not already perused the Introduction to this volume, he is ad- 
vised to do so at once, as therein are stated the reasons which have called it forth, 
and extended it to the present dimensions.] 
CHAPTER I. 
THE JEWS. 
Prostitution coeval with Society.—Prostitutes in the Eighteenth Century B.C.— 
Tamar and Judah.—Legislation of Moses.—Syrian Women.—Rites of Moloch. 
—Groves.—Social Condition of Jewish Harlots.—Description by Solomon.—The 
Jews of Babylon. 
Our earliest acquaintance with the human race discloses some 
sort of society established. It also reveals the existence of a mar- 
riage tie, varying in stringency and incidental effects according to 
climate, morals, religion, or accident, but every where essentially 
subversive of a system of promiscuous intercourse. Ho nation, it 
is believed, has ever been reported by a trustworthy traveler, on 
sufficient evidence, to have held its women generally in common. 
Still there appear to have been in every age men who did not 
avail themselves of the marriage covenant, or who could not be 
bound by its stipulations, and their appetites created a demand for 
illegitimate pleasures, which female weakness supplied. This may 
be assumed to be the real origin of prostitution throughout the 
world, though in particular localities this first cause has been as- 
sisted by female avarice or passion, religious superstition, or a mis- 
taken sense of hospitality. 
Accordingly, prostitution is coeval with society. It stains the 
earliest mythological records. It is constantly assumed as an ex- 
isting fact in Biblical history. We can trace it from the earliest 
twilight in which history dawns to the clear daylight of to-day, 
without a pause or a moment of obscurity. 
Our most ancient historical record is believed to be the Books 
of Moses. According to them, it must be admitted that prosti- 
tutes were common among the Jews in the eighteenth century 36 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
before Christ. When Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, de- 
sired to defeat the cruel Jewish custom, and to bear children, not- 
withstanding her widowhood, she “ put her widow’s garments off 
from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and 
sat in an open place. . . . When Judah saw her he thought her 
a harlot, for she had covered her face.”1 The Grenesiacal account 
thus shows that prostitutes, with covered faces, must have been 
common at the time. It is the more valuable, as it furnishes the 
particulars of the transaction. To keep up her disguise, Tamar 
demands a kid as her recompense. Judah agrees, and leaves his 
“ signet, and his bracelets, and his staff” as a pledge for the kid. 
It appears to have been regarded as no dishonor to have com- 
merce with a prostitute, for Judah sends his friend the Adulla- 
mite, a man of standing, to deliver the kid; but to defraud the 
unfortunate woman of her ill-gotten gain must have been consid- 
ered shameful, for, when Judah learns that she has disappeared, 
he expresses alarm “lest we be shamed” for not having paid the 
stipulated price. It may also be noticed, as an illustration of the 
connection between prostitution and pure domestic morals, that 
when Judah learns that his daughter-in-law is pregnant, he in- 
stantly orders her to be burned for having “ played the harlot.” 
Four centuries afterward it fell to the lot of Moses to legislate 
on the Jewish morals, no doubt sadly corrupted by their sojourn 
in Egypt. His command is formal and emphatic: “Ho not pros- 
titute thy daughter, lest the land fall to whoredom. . . . There 
shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel.”2 He was equally 
decided in his condemnation of worse practices, to which it would 
appear the Jews were much addicted.3 He laid penalties on un- 
cleanness of every kind, and on fornication; but it would appear 
that he rather confirmed than abrogated the customary right of a 
Jewish father to sell his daughter as a concubine.4 With the 
practical view of improving the physical condition of the race, 
Moses guarded, by elaborate laws, against improper and corrupt 
unions. Adultery and rape he punished with death. The bride 
was bound, under pain of death by stoning, to prove to the satis- 
faction not only of her husband, but of the tribe, that she had 
been chaste to the day of her marriage.6 A long list of relatives 
were specified among whom it was illegal to intermarry. Fur- 
thermore, Moses endeavored, with marked zeal, to check the prog- 
1 Gen. xxxviii. 11. = Lev. xix. 29; Deut. xxiii. 17. 
* Ex. xxii. 19; Lev. xviii. 23. 4 Ex. xxi. 17. 6 Deut. xxii. 17. THE JEWS. 
37 
ress of disease among both sexes. Whether the maladies men- 
tioned in Leviticus1 were syphilitic in their nature, it were diffi- 
cult to say. Modern medical science admits that, in hot climates, 
want of cleanliness and frequent amorous indulgence will generate 
phenomena similar to the “issue” so frequently mentioned by Moses. 
However this be, it is certain that both Jews and Jewesses were 
subject to diseases apparently similar to the common gonorrhoea; 
that these diseases were infectious; and that Moses, in reiterated 
injunctions, forbade all sexual intercourse, and almost all associa- 
tion, with persons thus afflicted. So earnest was his desire to 
eradicate the evil from the people, that he extended his prohibi- 
tion to women during the period of their menstrual visitation. 
Having done this much for the Jews, Moses appears to have 
connived at the intercourse of their young men with foreign 
prostitutes. He took an Ethiopian concubine himself. Syrian 
women, Moabites, Midianites, and other neighbors of the Jews— 
many of them, as it appears, young and lovely, but with de- 
bauched and vicious principles—established themselves as pros- 
titutes in the land of Israel. For many years, until the time of 
Solomon, they were excluded from Jerusalem and the large cities. 
Driven to the highways for refuge, they lived in booths and tents, 
where they combined the trade of a peddler with the calling of 
a harlot. Unlike Tamar, they did not veil the face. Reclining 
within the tent, with no more clothing than the heat of the climate 
suggested, these dissolute girls invited the complaisance of pas- 
sengers who stopped to refresh their thirst or replenish their 
wardrobe at their booth. So long as their practices violated no 
law of nature, the prudent legislator pursued a tolerant policy. 
Before long, however, abominable rites in honor of Moloch, Baal, 
or Belphegor, were formally established by the “ strange women” 
and their male accomplices. Moloch, whose disgusting exactions 
we find in Phoenicia, and at Carthage also, demanded male wor- 
ship. The belly of the god’s statue was a furnace, in which a 
fierce fire was kindled and fed with animal sacrifice; around it 
the priests and their proselytes danced to the sound of music, 
sang wild songs, and debased themselves by practices of a dis- 
gusting and unnatural character. Nor was the worship of Baal 
less revolting. He too had his statues, in forms eminently cal- 
culated to excite the animal passions, and surrounded by cool 
groves in which the most shameless prostitution was carried on 
1 Lev. xv. 38 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
by all who would deposit an offering on the altars of the idol. It 
would even seem, from several passages in the Bible,1 that the 
participators in these infamies were not invariably human beings. 
Against such enormities the wrath of Moses and his successors 
was aroused, on hygienic as well as moral and religious grounds. 
Participation in the rites of Moloch was punished with death.2 
Aaron’s grandson did not hesitate to commit a double homicide 
to mark the Divine abhorrence of the daughters of Midian; and 
Moses himself, warned by the frightful progress of disease among 
the male Jews, struck at its roots by exterminating every female 
Midianite among his captives, save the virgins only. 
An express command forbade the establishment of groves near 
the Jewish temples, evidently on account of the convenience such 
shady retreats afforded to prostitutes. Yet on various occasions 
in the history of Israel we find accounts of the destruction of such 
groves, and of the statues of the gods in whose honor human 
nature was defiled.3 Solomon, whose wisdom was singularly al- 
loyed with sensuality, not only set the example of inordinate lust, 
keeping, it is said, seven hundred wives and three hundred con- 
cubines, but repealed the wise restrictions of his predecessors in 
regard to prostitutes, allowing them to exercise their calling 
within the city of Jerusalem. They multiplied so fast that the 
prophets speak of them wandering on all the hills, and prosti- 
tuting themselves under every tree, and at a later date they even 
invaded the Temple, and established their hideous rites in its 
courts. That noble edifice had become, in the time of Maccabees, 
a mere brothel 'plenum scortantium cum meretricibus .4 
It is, however, apparent, notwithstanding the severe ordinances 
of the Jewish legislators, that prostitutes were a recognized class, 
laboring under no hopeless ban. Jephtha, the son of a prostitute, 
became none the less chief of Israel; and some commentators 
have contended that the retreat to which he condemned his 
daughter was simply the calling of her grandmother. Joshua’s 
spies slept openly in the house of the harlot Eahab, whose service 
to Israel was faithfully requited by the amnesty granted to her 
family, and the honorable residence allotted to her in Judaea. 
Samson chose the house of a harlot to be his residence at Gaza; 
his fatal acquaintance with another harlot, Delilah, is the leading 
trait of his story. Even Solomon did not disdain to hear the 
1 Deut. xxiii. 18, etc. * Ibid, xxiii. 18. 
s Chron. xv. xvii. etc. * Maccabees. THE JEWS. 
39 
rival wranglings of a pair of harlots, and to adjudicate between 
them. Prostitution was in fact legally domiciled in Judaea at a 
very early period, and never lost the foothold it had gained. Of 
the manner in which it was carried on, an idea may be formed 
from the very vivid picture in Proverbs :l 
“ For at the window of my house, 
I looked through my casement, 
And beheld among the simple ones, 
I discerned among the youths, 
A young man void of understanding, 
Passing through the streets near her (the strange woman’s) corner; 
And he went the way to her house, 
In the twilight, in the evening, 
In the black and dark night; 
And, behold, there met him a woman 
With the attire of a harlot, and subtile of heart. 
She is loud and stubborn; 
Her feet abide not in her house; 
Now she is without, now in the streets, 
And lieth in wait at every comer. 
So she caught him, and kissed him, 
And with an impudent face said unto him, 
I have peace-offerings with me ; 
This day have I paid my vows. 
Therefore came I forth to meet thee, 
Diligently to seek thy face, 
And I have found thee. 
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, 
With carved works, with linen of Egypt. 
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, 
Aloes, and cinnamon. 
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: 
Let us solace ourselves with loves. * * * 
With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, 
With the flattering of her lips she forced him. 
He goeth after her straightway, 
As an ox goeth to the slaughter, 
Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks.” 
That prostitution continued to be practiced generally and open- 
ly until the destruction of the old Jewish nation, the language of 
the Biblical prophets does not permit us to doubt. It may be 
1 Ch. vii. 6, etc. 40 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
questioned whether it ever assumed more revoltinglj public forms 
in any other country. The Babylonish conquest must have 
changed the parts, without altering the performance. At Baby- 
lon, the Jewish maidens, whose large, expressive eyes, voluptuous 
mouth, slender and graceful figure, with wrell-developed bust and 
limbs, were frequently the theme of ancient poets, peopled the 
houses of prostitution, and ministered to the lusts of the nobles. 
Nor even after the return to Jerusalem was the evil extirpated. 
It was to a prostitute that Christ uttered the memorable sentence, 
“ Her sins are forgiven because she loved much.” 
CHAPTER 11. 
EGYPT, SYRIA, AND ASIA MINOR. 
Egyptian Courtesans.—Festival of Bubastis.—Morals in Egypt.—Religious Prosti- 
tution in Chaldaea.—Babylonian Banquets.—Compulsory Prostitution in Phoeni- 
cia.—Persian Banquets. 
Before passing to the subject of prostitution in Greece, a glance 
at Egypt, and those nations of Asia which seem to have preceded 
Greece in civilization, may not be out of place. 
Egypt was famous for her courtesans before the time of Herod- 
otus. Egyptian blood runs warm ; girls are nubile at ten. Un- 
der the Pharaohs, if ancient writers are to be believed, there ex- 
isted a general laxity of moral principle, especially among young 
females.1 Their religion was only too suggestive. The deities 
Isis and Osiris were the types of the sexes. A statue of the lat- 
ter, a male image, made of gold, was carried by the maidens at 
festivals, and worshiped by the whole people. Nor were the rites 
of Isis more modest. “At the festival at Bubastis,” says Herodo- 
tus, “ men and women go thither in boats on the Nile, and when 
the boats approach a city they are run close to the shore. A fran- 
tic contest then begins between the women of the city and those 
in the boats, each abusing the other in the most opprobrious lan- 
guage, and the women in the boats conclude the performance by 
lascivious dances, in the most undisguised manner, in sight of the 
people, and to the sound of flutes and other musical instruments.”2 
There is little reason to doubt that the temples, like those of Baal, 
were houses of prostitution on an extensive scale. Herodotus re- 
1 Ctesias, quoted by Athenaeus, xiii. 10. 
* Herodotus, ii. 60. EGYPT, SYRIA, AND ASIA MINOR. 
41 
marks significantly that a law in Egypt forbade sexual intercourse 
within the walls of a temple, and exacted of both sexes that inter- 
course should be followed by ablution before the temple was en- 
tered.1 
Where piety required such sacrifices, it is not surprising that 
public morals were loose. It was not considered wholly shameful 
for an Egyptian to make his living by the hire of his daughters 
person, and a king is mentioned who resorted to this plan in order 
to discover a thief. Such was the astonishing appetite of the men, 
that young and beautiful women were never delivered to the em- 
balmer until they had been dead some days, a miserable wretch 
having been detected in the act of defiling a recently-deceased 
virgin !2 Of course, in such a society, there was no disgrace in be- 
ing a prostitute. The city of Naucratis owed its wealth and fame 
to the beauty of its courtesans, whose reputation spread through- 
out Europe, and was much celebrated in Greece. Rhadopis, a 
Thracian by birth, led the life of a prostitute in Egypt with such 
success, that she not only bought her own freedom from the slave- 
dealer who had taken her there on speculation, but, if the Egyp- 
tians are to be believed, built a pyramid with her savings. A 
large portion of her story is doubtless mythical, but enough re- 
mains to warrant the opinion that she was, though a prostitute, a 
wealthy and highly considered person. 
In Chaldaea, too, religion at first connived at, and then com- 
manded prostitution. Every Babylonian female was obliged by 
law to prostitute herself once in her life in the temple of the 
Chaldaean Yenus, whose name was Mylitta.3 Herodotus appears 
to have seen the park and grounds in which this singular sacri- 
fice was made. They were constantly filled with women with 
strings bound round their hair. Once inside the place, no woman 
could leave it until she had paid her debt, and had deposited on 
the altar of the goddess the fee received from her lover. Some, 
who were plain, remained there as long as three years; but, as 
the grounds were always filled with a troop of voluptuaries in 
search of pleasure, the young, the beautiful, the high-born sel- 
dom needed to remain over a few minutes. This strange cus- 
tom is mentioned by the prophet Baruch, who introduces one of 
the women reproaching her neighbor that she had not been 
deemed worthy of having her girdle of cord burst asunder by 
any man.4 Similar statements are made by Strabo and other 
1 Herodotus, ii. 64. 
3 I I. ii. 89. 
3 Id. ii. 89. 
4 Baruch, vi. 42 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ancient writers. At the time of Alexander the Great the de- 
moralization had reached a climax. Babylonian banquets were 
scenes of unheard-of infamies. When the meal began, the women 
sat modestly enough in presence of their fathers and husbands; 
but, as the wine went round, they lost all restraint, threw off one 
garment after another, and enacted scenes of glaring immodesty. 
And these were the ladies of the best families.1 
The Mylitta of Chaldeea became Astarte in Phoenicia, at Car- 
thage, and in Syria. Nothing was changed but the name; the 
voluptuous rites were identical. In addition to the forced pros- 
titution in the temples, however, the Phoenicians and most of their 
colonies maintained for many years the practice of requiring their 
maidens to bestow their favors on any strangers who visited the 
country. Commercial interest, no doubt, had some share in pro- 
moting so scandalous a custom. On the high shores of Phoenicia, 
as at Carthage and in the island of Cyprus, the traveler sailing 
past in his boat could see beautiful girls, arrayed in light gar- 
ments, stretching inviting arms to him. 
Originally the sum paid by the lover was offered to the god- 
dess, but latterly the girls kept it, and it served to enhance their 
value in the matrimonial market. In some places the girl was 
free if she chose to abandon her hair to the goddess, but Lucian 
notes that this was an uncommonly rare occurrence. 
Very similar were the customs of the Lydians and their suc- 
cessors in empire, the early Persians. Their Venus was named 
Mithra, in honor of whom festivals were given at which human 
nature was horribly outraged. Fathers and daughters, sons and 
mothers, husbands and wives sat together at the table, while 
voluptuous dances and music inflamed their senses, and when 
the wine had done its work, a promiscuous combat of sensuality 
began which lasted all night. Details of such scenes must be left 
to other works, and veiled in a learned tongue.2 
1 Quintus Curtius, v. 1. 
2 Macrobius, Sat, Conv. vii. Athenaeus, xii. passim; Plutarch, Vit. Artaxerxes. GREECE. 
43 
CHAPTBE HE. 
GREECE. 
Mythology.—Solonian Legislation.—Dicteria.—Pisistratidae.—Lycurgus and Spar- 
ta.—Laws on Prostitution.—Case of Phryne.—Classes of Prostitutes.—Pornikon 
Telos.—Dress.—Hair of Prostitutes.—The Dicteriades of Athens.—Abode and 
Manners.—Appearance of Dicteria.—Laws regulating Dicteria.—Schools of 
Prostitution.—Loose Prostitutes.—Old Prostitutes.—Auletrides, or Flute-players. 
Origin.—How hired.—Performances.—Anecdote of Arcadians.—Price of 
Flute-players.—Festival of Venus Periboa.—Venus Callipyge.—Lesbian Love.— 
Lamia.—Hetairae.—Social Standing.—Venus and her Temples.—Charms of 
Hetairae.—Thargelia.—Aspasia.—Hipparchia.—Bacchis.—Guathena and Gua- 
thenion.—Lais.—Phryne.—Pythionice.—Glycera.—Leontiura.—Other Hetairae. 
—Biographers of Prostitutes.—Philtres. 
The Greek mythology supposes obviously a relaxed state of 
public morals. What period in the history of the nation it may 
be assumed to reflect is, however, by no means certain. It is 
not reasonable to suppose that the Homeric poems were composed 
for immodest audiences, and it would perhaps be fairer to lay the 
blame of the mythological indecencies at the door of the age 
which polished and improved upon them, rather than of that 
which is entitled to the credit of their conception in the rough. 
Our first reliable information regarding the morals of the Greek 
women, passing over, for the present, the legislation ascribed to 
Lycurgus, is found in the ordinances of Solon. Draco is supposed 
to have affixed the penalty of death indiscriminately to rape, 
seduction, and adultery. It has been conjectured that the safety- 
valve used at that time, ordinary prostitution being unknown, 
was a system of religious prostitution in the temples, borrowed 
from and analogous to the plan already described. This, how- 
ever, is mere conjecture. Solon, while softening the rigors of 
the Draconian code, by law formally established houses of pros- 
titution at Athens, and filled them with female slaves. They 
were. called Dicteria, and the female tenants Dicteriades. Bought 
with the public money, and bound by law to satisfy the demands 
of all who visited them, they were in fact public servants, and 
their wretched gains were a legitimate source of revenue to the 
state. Prostitution became a state monopoly, and so profitable 44 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
that, even in Solon’s lifetime, a superb temple, dedicated to Venus 
the courtesan, was built out of the fund accruing from this 
source. The fee charged, however, appears to have been small.1 
In Solon’s time, the Dicteriades were kept widely apart from the 
Athenian women of repute. They were not allowed to mix in 
religious ceremonies or to enter the temples. When they ap- 
peared in the streets they were obliged to wear a particular 
costume as a badge of infamy. They forfeited what rights of 
citizenship they may have possessed in virtue of their birth. A 
procurer or procuress who had been instrumental in introducing 
a free-born Athenian girl to the Dicterion incurred the penalty 
of death. Nor was the law content with branding with infamy 
prostitutes and their accomplices alone. Their children were bas- 
tards ; that is to say, they could not inherit property, they could 
not associate with other youths, they could not acquire the right 
of citizenship without performing some signal act of bravery, they 
could not address the people in the public assemblies. Finally, 
to complete their ignominy, they were exempt from the sacred 
duty of maintaining their parents in old age.2 
These regulations, for which Solon obtained the praise of Athe- 
nian philosophers,3 were not long maintained in force. Tradition 
imputed to the profligacy of the Pisistratidae a relaxation of the 
laws concerning prostitutes. It was believed that the sons of Pi- 
sistratus not only gave to the Dicteriades the freedom of the city, 
but allotted to them seats at banquets beside the most respectable 
matrons, and, on certain days each year, turned them into their 
father’s beautiful gardens, and let loose upon them the whole pet- 
ulance of the Athenian youth.4 The law against procuresses was 
modified, a fine being substituted for death. “ About the same 
time,” says the scandalous Greek chronicle, “ the death-penalty for 
adultery was also commuted for scourging.” 
Still, notwithstanding this falling off, it would appear that Ath- 
ens was more moral than her neighbors, Corinth and Sparta. The 
former, then the most flourishing sea-port of Greece, was filled 
with a very low class of prostitutes. No laws regulated the sub- 
ject. Any female who chose could open house for the accommo- 
dation of travelers and seamen, and, though Corinth was yet far 
1 Nicander, quoted by Athenaeus, xiii. 25. 
2 Plutarch, Life of Solon : Lucian, Dialogues. 
3 Philemon, quoted by Athena?us, xiii. 25. 
* Idomeneus, quoted by Athenaeus, xii. 44. GREECE 
45 
from the proverbial celebrity it afterward obtained for its prosti- 
tutes, there is no doubt they bore a fearful proportion to the ag- 
gregate population of the port. At Sparta the case was different. 
In the system of legislation which bears the name of Lycurgus, 
the individual was sacrificed to the state; the female to the male. 
Women were educated for the sole purpose of bearing robust chil- 
dren. Virgins were allowed to wrestle publicly with men. Girls 
were habited in a robe open at the skirts, which only partially 
concealed the person in walking, whence the Spartan women ac- 
quired an uncomplimentary name.1 A Spartan husband was au- 
thorized to lend his wife to any handsome man for the purpose of 
begetting children. That these laws, the skillfully contrived ap- 
peals to the sensual appetites, and the constant spectacle of nude 
charms, must have led to a general profligacy among the female 
sex, is quite obvious. Aristotle affirms positively that the Spar- 
tan women openly committed the grossest acts of debauchery,2 
Hence it may be inferred that prostitutes by profession were un- 
necessary at Sparta, at all events until a late period of its history. 
After the Persian wars, the subject of Athenian prostitution is 
revealed in a clearer light. As a reaction from the looseness of 
the age of the Pisistratidse, the Solonian laws were reaffirmed and 
their severity heightened. It has been imagined, from certain ob- 
scure passages in Greek authors, that the courtesans formed sev- 
eral corporations, each of which was responsible for the acts of all 
its members. They were liable to vexatious prosecutions for such 
acts as inciting men to commit crime, ruining thoughtless youths, 
fomenting treason against the state, or committing impiety. 
Against such charges it was rarely possible to establish a sound 
defense. If the accuser was positive, the Areopagus, notoriously 
biased against courtesans, unhesitatingly condemned the culprit to 
death, or imposed on her corporation a heavy fine. In this way, 
says an old author, the state frequently contrived to get back 
from these women the money they obtained from their lovers. 
Before the famous case of Phryne, they were wholly at the mercy 
of their profligate associates. A man only needed to threaten an 
accusation of impiety or the like to obtain a receipt in full. Phry- 
ne, so long the favorite of the Athenians, was thus accused of va- 
rious vague offenses by a common informer named Euthias. Her 
friend Bacchis fortunately persuaded Hyperides, the orator, to un- 
dertake her case, and he softened the judges by exhibiting her 
1 Fainomerid.es. 
See Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus. 
2 Politics, ii. 7. 46 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
marvelous beauty in a moment of affected passion. “ Henceforth,” 
says the hetaira Bacchis to Myrrhina, “ our profits are secured by 
law.”1 
At this time, that is to say, at the height of Athenian prosperi- 
ty, there were four classes of women who led dissolute lives at 
Athens. The highest in rank and repute were the Hetairoe, or 
kept women, who lived in the best part of the city, and exercised 
no small influence over the manners and even the politics of the 
state. Next came the Auletrides, or flute-players, who were danc- 
ers as well. They were usually foreigners, bearing some resem- 
blance to the opera-dancers of the last century, and they combined 
the most unblushing debauchery with their special calling. The 
lowest class of prostitutes were the Dicteriades, already mentioned. 
They were originally bound to reside at the Piraeus, the sea-port 
of Athens, some four miles from the city, and were forbidden to 
walk out by day, or to offend the eyes of the public by open in- 
decency. Lastly came the Concubines, who were slaves owned by 
rich men with the knowledge and consent of their wives, serving 
equally the passions of their master and the caprices of their mis- 
tress. These all paid a tax to the state, called Pornikon Telos, 
which was farmed out to speculators, who levied it with proverb- 
ial harshness upon the unfortunate women. In the time of Peri- 
cles the revenue from this source was large. 
All classes, too, wore garments of many colors. The law orig- 
inally specified “ flowered robes” as the costume of courtesans; 
but this leading to difficulties, a farther enactment prohibited pros- 
titutes from wearing precious stuffs, such as scarlet or purple, or 
jewels. Thenceforth the custom, which appears to have been gen- 
eral throughout the Greek cities and colonies, prescribed cheap 
robes, with flowers or stripes of many colors embroidered or paint- 
ed on them. To this a part of the women added garlands of roses. 
It was lawful in some cities for courtesans to wear light, transpar- 
ent garments; but at Sparta, as may be imagined, the reverse was 
the rule, semi-nudity being the badge of virtuous women.2 
Perhaps the most singular of the marks by which a Greek cour- 
tesan was known was her hair. It is said that no law prescribed 
the habit; if so, it must have been a sort of esprit de corps which 
1 Athenaeus, xiii. 59; Alciphron’s Letters. 
2 Athenaeus, xiii. 20, et sed.; Suidas, Lex., Vo. Diagramma; ASschylus c. Ti- 
mareh. p. 134 ; St. Clement of Alexandria, Paedag. ii. 10; Becker, Charicles, L 
126; etc. GREECE. 
47 
led all courtesans to dye their hair of a flaxen or blonde color. 
Allusions to this custom abound in the light literature of Greece. 
Frequently a flaxen wig was substituted for the dyed locks. At 
a very late period in the history of Greece, modest women follow- 
ed the fashion of sporting golden hair. This forms one of the sub- 
jects of reprimand addressed to the women of Greece by the early 
Christian preachers.1 
THE DICTERIADES, OR COMMON PROSTITUTES OF ATHENS. 
This class approaches more nearly than any other to the prosti- 
tutes of our day, the main difference being that the former were 
bound by law to prostitute themselves when required to do so, on 
the payment of the fixed sum, and that they were not allowed to 
leave the state. Their home, as mentioned already, was properly 
at the port of Piraeus. An open square in front of the citadel was 
their usual haunt. It was surrounded with booths, where petty 
trade or gambling was carried on by day. At nightfall the pros- 
titutes swarmed into the square. Some were noisy and obscene; 
others quiet, and armed with affected modesty. When a man 
passed on his way from the port to the city, the troop assailed him. 
If he resisted, coarse abuse was lavished on him. If he yielded, 
there was the temple of Yenus the Courtesan close by, and there 
was the wall of Themistocles, under the friendly shelter of either 
of which the bargain could be consummated. Were the customer 
nice, the great dicterion was not far distant, and a score or more 
of smaller rivals were even nearer at hand, as a well-known sign 
was there to testify. 
The Dicteria were under the control of the municipal police. 
The door was open night and day, a bright curtain protecting the 
inmates from the eye of the passer-by; and in the better class of 
establishments, a fierce dog, chained in the vestibule, served as 
sentinel. At the curtain sat an old woman, often a Thessalian 
and a pretended witch, who received the money before admitting 
visitors. Originally the fee was an obolus2—about three cents; 
but this attempt to regulate the value of a variable merchandise 
was soon abandoned. Within, at night, the sounds of music, rev- 
elry, and dancing might be constantly heard. The visitor was not 
kept in suspense. The curtain passed, he was in full view of the 
dicteriades, standing, sitting, or lying about the room; some en- 
1 Pollux, Onom. ii. 30; x. 170; St. Clement of Alex. loc. cit. 
2 Philemon, quoted by Atheneeus, xiii. 25. 48 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
gaged in smoothing their blonde hair, some in conversation, some 
anointing themselves with perfumery. The legal principle with 
regard to the dicteriades appears to have been that they should 
conceal nothing; no doubt in contrast to the irregular prostitutes, 
of whom something will be said presently. There was no rule, 
however, forbidding the wearing of garments in the dicterion, but 
the common practice appears to have been to dispense with them, 
or to wear a light scarf thrown over the person. This custom 
was observed by day as well as by night, and a visitor has de- 
scribed the girls in a large dicterion as standing in a row, in broad 
daylight, without any robes or covering.l 
It seems that in later times any speculator had a right to set 
up a dicterion on paying the tax to the state. An Athenian 
forfeited his right of citizenship by so doing; but, as a popular 
establishment was very lucrative, avaricious men frequently em- 
barked in the business under an assumed name. Comic writers 
have lashed these wretches severely. On paying the tax to the 
state regularly, the pornobosceion, or master of the house, acquired 
certain rights. The dicterion was an inviolable asylum, no hus- 
band being allowed to pursue his wife, or the wife her husband, 
or the creditor his debtor, within its walls. Public decency re- 
quires, says Demosthenes, that men shall not be exposed in houses 
of prostitution.2 It was not, however, considered wholly shame- 
ful to frequent such places. 
There appear to have been attached to these dicteria schools 
of prostitution, where young women were initiated into the most 
disgusting practices by females who had themselves acquired 
them in the same manner. Alexis vigorously describes the 
frauds taught in these places,3 while there is a shocking signifi- 
cance in an expression of Atheneeus—“You will be well satisfied 
with the performance of the women in the dicteria.”4 
Besides these regular dicteriades, there were at Athens, as 
there have been in every large city, a number of women who 
exercised the calling of prostitutes, without properly belonging to 
any of the recognized classes. They were sometimes called tree 
dicteriades, sometimes she-wolves, and also cheap hetairae. Some 
were native Athenians who had been seduced and abandoned, 
1 Xenarchus and Eubulus, quoted by Athenams, xiii. 26. 
3 Demosthenes against Netera. 
3 Alexis, quoted by Athenams, xiii. 28. 
1 Athenaeus xiii. 26, GREECE. 
49 
and who, led by stings of conscience and idleness to pursue their 
career, had still an invincible repugnance to adopt the flowered 
robe and yellow hair of the regular courtesan. They roamed the 
Piraeus, and even the streets of Athens, after dark, eking out a 
miserable subsistence by the hardest of trades, and haunting the 
dark recesses of old houses or the shade of trees. Others, again, 
were old hetairae whose charms had faded, and who sought a 
scanty subsistence where they were not known, and shrank from 
encountering the eye of a lover where the friendly shade of night 
would not hide the ravages of time. Others were the servants 
of hotels and taverns, who were always expected to serve the 
caprices of visitors. 
All of these led a most miserable life. Now and then we hear 
of one or two of them meeting a rich and inexperienced traveler, 
after which the heroine of the exploit naturally ascended to the 
rank of hetaira; but, in general, their customers were the lowest 
of the port people—sailors, fishermen, farm-servants. Their price 
was a meal, a fish, a handful of fruit, or a bottle of wine. One 
poor creature, who belonged to no class in particular, but acquired 
some celebrity by being kept by the orator Ithatocles, was named 
Didrachma because she offered her favors to the public generally 
for two drachmas, about thirty-five cents.1 
Perhaps the m,ost curious fact in reference to these prostitutes 
is the singular predominance of old women among them. It ap- 
pears to have been adopted as an invariable rule for this sort 
of courtesans to paint their faces with a thick ointment, and it is 
even said that the great painters of Greece did not disdain to 
beguile their leisure hours by thus improving upon nature.2 Of 
course, under this disguise, it was impossible to distinguish a 
young face from an old one. An aged prostitute thus bedizened 
would place herself at an open window with a sprig of myrtle in 
her hand, with which she would beckon to people in the street. 
When a customer was found, a servant would open the door and 
conduct him in silence to the chamber of her mistress. Before 
entering he paid the sum demanded, when he found himself in a 
room lighted only by a feeble glimmer passing through the cur- 
tain, which now hung down over the window. In such a twilight 
the most venerable old woman could not be distinguished from a 
Venus.3 
1 See Lucian. Dialogue of Courtesans, passim. 
3 Letters of Alciphron, 46. 
3 Lucian, he. cit. 50 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
THE AULETRIDES, OR FLUTE-PLAYERS. 
Female flute-players were a common accompaniment to an 
Athenian banquet. The flute, which in modern times is played 
by men, was rarely seen in male hands in Greece. Though the 
fable ascribed its invention to the god Pan, and its development 
to the mythical king Midas, it was monopolized at a very early 
period by women, who consoled themselves for the ravages it 
wrought in their beauty by the power of fascination it imparted 
among a people intensely musical. Flute-playing soon became 
an essential rite in the service of certain deities. Ceres was in- 
variably worshiped to the sound of the flute. And when the 
Athenians had once tried the experiment of listening to flute- 
players after dinner, they never would dine in company without 
them. 
Thebes appears to have been the native city of the earliest 
famous flute-players,1 but before long the superior beauty of the 
Asiatic girls—lonians and Phrygians—drove their Theban rivals 
out of the held. Dancing was combined with flute-playing, and 
in this art the Asiatics bore the palm from the world. During 
the golden days of Greece, numbers of beautiful girls were every 
year imported into Athens from Miletus and the other lonic ports 
in Asia Minor, just as in more modern times a similar trade was 
carried on between Trebizond and Constantinople. 
An Athenian hired his flute-players as a modern European noble 
hires his band. They charged so much for their musical per- 
formances, reserving the right of accepting presents in the course 
of the evening. Some were singers as well as performers. At 
each course a new air was played, increasing in tenderness and 
expression as the wine circulated. It is stated that the sounds of 
a good flute-concert excited people to such a state of phrensy that 
they would take off their rings and jeweled ornaments to throw 
them to the performers: those who have witnessed a triumphant 
operatic soiree can readily believe the statement. But the fair 
artists did not wholly rely on their music for their success. The 
performer danced while she played, accompanying every note 
with a harmonious movement of the body. There is no doubt 
these dances were in the highest degree immoral and lascivious. 
Athenaeus tells a story of an embassy from Arcadia waiting upon 
King Antigonus, and being invited to dinner. After the hunger 
1 Anthology, ed. Jacobs, ii. 633. GREECE. 
51 
of the venerable guests was appeased, Phrygian flute-players were 
introduced. They were draped in semi-transparent veils, ar- 
ranged with much coquetry. At the given signal they began to 
play and dance, balancing themselves alternately on each foot, and 
gradually increasing the rapidity of their movements. As the 
performance went on, the dancers uncovered their heads, then 
their busts; lastly, they threw the veils aside altogether, and 
stood before the wondering embassadors with only a short tunic 
around the loins. In this state they danced so indecently that 
the aged Arcadians, excited beyond control, forgot where they 
were, and rushed upon them. The king laughed; the courtiers 
were shocked at such ill-breeding, but the dancers discharged the 
sacred duty of hospitality.1 
A flute-player who had achieved a success of this kind was en- 
abled to conclude a lucrative bargain for other performances. We 
find allusions to fees as high as two talents (say $2500) and fifty 
pieces of gold,2 though these were evidently unusual charges. 
Many of the most fashionable flute-players were slaves who had 
been brought to Greece by speculators. They were commonly 
sold by auction at the dinner-table, when their owner judged that 
the enthusiasm of the guests had attained the highest point. An 
anecdote is told of one of the most esteemed names in Greek 
philosophy in reference to this strange custom. He was dining 
with a party of young men, when a youthful flute-player was in- 
troduced. She crept to the philosopher’s feet, and seemed to shel- 
ter herself from insult under the shadow of his venerable beard; 
but he, a disciple of Zeno, spurned her, and burst forth into a 
strain of moralizing. Piqued by the affront, the girl rose, and 
played and danced with inimitable grace and pruriency. At the 
close of the performance her owner put her up to auction, and 
one of the first bidders was the philosopher. She was adjudged 
to another, however, and the white-haired sage so far forgot his 
principles as to engage in a fierce conflict with the victor for the 
possession of the prize.3 Hand to hand battles on these occasions 
were common in the best society at Athens, and a flute-player in 
fashion made a boast of the riots she had caused.4 Of the for- 
tunes realized by successful artists in this line, an idea may be 
formed from the gorgeous presents made to the Delphian oracle 
by flute-players, and from the fact that the finest houses at Al- 
1 Athenaeus, xiii. 86. 
* Athenaeus, xiii. 86. 
2 Letters of Alciphron, 34. 
* Antiphanes, quoted in Athenseus, xiii. 51. 52 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
exandria were inscribed with the names of famous Greek aule- 
trides.1 
As might be inferred from the character of their dances, the 
auletrides were capable of every infamy. Constantly breathing 
an atmosphere of debauchery, and accustomed to the daily spec- 
tacle of nudities, they naturally attained a pitch of amorous ex- 
altation of which we, at the present day, can hardly form an idea. 
They kept a cherished festival in honor of Yenus Peribasia, which 
was originally established by Cypselus of Corinth. At that cere- 
mony all the great flute-players of Greece assembled to celebrate 
their calling. Men were not usually allowed to be present, a 
regulation prompted perhaps by modesty, as the judgment of 
Paris was renewed at the festival, and prizes were awarded for 
every description of beauty. The ceremony was often mentioned 
as the Callipygian games; and a sketch of a scene which took 
place at one of these reunions, contained in a letter from a famous 
flute-player, justifies the appellation. The banquet lasted from 
dark till dawn, with wines, perfumes, delicate viands, songs, and 
music. An after-scene was a dispute between two of the guests 
as to their respective beauty. A trial was demanded by the 
company, and a long and graphic account is given of the exhibi- 
tion, but modern tastes will not allow us to transcribe the details.2 
A knowledge of these scandalous scenes, it may be briefly 
observed, would be worse than useless, were it not that they 
illustrate the life of Greek courtesans; and, being performed 
under the sanction of religion and the law, they throw no incon- 
siderable light on the real character of Greek society. Their 
value may be best apprehended by trying to realize what the 
effect would be if similar scenes occurred annually in some public 
edifice in our large cities, under the auspices of the police, with 
the approval of the clergy, and with the full knowledge of the 
best female society. 
It has been suggested that these festivals were originated by, 
or gave rise to, those enormous aberrations of the Greek female 
mind known to the ancients as Lesbian love. There is, no doubt, 
grave reason to believe something of the kind. Indeed, Lucian 
affirms that, while avarice prompted common pleasures, taste and 
feeling inclined the flute-payers toward their own sex. On so 
repulsive a theme it is unnecessary to enlarge. 
1 Theopompns, Dicaearchus, etc. quoted by Athenteus, xiii. 67. 
2 Letters of Alciphron, 44. GREECE. 
Many flute-players seem to have been susceptible of lasting 
affections. In the remains we have of the erotic works of the 
Greeks, several names are mentioned as those of successful flute- 
players whose gains were consumed by exacting lovers. It does 
not appear that they often, or ever, married. The most famous 
of all the flute-players was Lamia, who, after being the delight of 
Alexandria and of King Ptolemy for some fifteen or twenty years, 
was taken with the city by Demetrius of Macedon, and raised to 
the rank of his mistress. She was forty years of age at this time, 
yet her skill was such that she ruled despotically her dissolute 
lover, and left a memorable name in Greek history. The ancients 
asserted that she owed her name, Lamia, which means a sort of 
vampire or bloodsucker, to the most loathsome depravities. Her 
power was so great that, when Demetrius levied a tax of some 
$250,000 on the city of Athens, he gave the whole to her, to buy 
her soap, as he said. The Athenians revenged themselves by 
saying that Lamia’s person must be very dirty, since she needed 
so much soap to wash it. But they soon found it to their interest 
to build a temple in her honor, and deify her under the name of 
Yenus Lamia.1 
THE OR KEPT WOMEN. 
The Hetairae were by far the most important class of women m 
Greece. They filled so large a place in society that virtuous fe- 
males were entirely thrown into the shade, and it must have been 
quite possible for a chaste Athenian girl, endowed with ambition, 
to look up to them, and covet their splendid infamy. An Athe- 
nian matron was expected to live at home. She was not allowed 
to be present at the games or the theatres; she was bound, when 
she appeared in public, to be veiled, and to hasten whither she 
was going without delay; she received no education, and could 
not share the elevated thoughts or ideas of her husband; she had 
no right to claim any warmth of affection from him, though he 
possessed entire control over her.2 
Now, to judge of the position into which this social system 
thrust the female sex, one must glance at the mythology, or, to 
speak more correctly, at the religious faith of the Greek people. 
It has been conjectured that they* derived their idea of Venus 
from the East. However this be, Venus was certainly one of the 
1 Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 16, 19, 24-27; Athenaeus, xiii. 39. 
2 Demosthenes against Nersea, p. 1386; Becker, Charicles, ii. 215. 54 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
earliest goddesses to whom their homage was paid. Solon erect- 
ed opposite his dicterion a temple to Yenus Pandemos, or the 
public Yenus. In that temple were two statues; one of the god- 
dess, the other of a nymph, Pitho, who presided over persuasion; 
and the attitudes and execution of the statues were such that they 
explained the character without inscription. At this temple a 
festival was held on the fourth of each month, to which all the 
men of Athens were invited. But Yenus Pandemos soon made 
way for newer and more barefaced rivals. Twenty temples were 
raised in various cities of Greece to Yenus the Courtesan. In one 
author we find allusion made to Yenus Mucheia, or the Yenus of 
houses of ill-fame. Another celebrates Yenus Castnia, or the god- 
dess of indecency. Others honor Yenus Scotia, the patroness 
of darkness; and Yenus Derceto, the guardian deity of street- 
walkers. More famous still was Yenus Divaricatrix, whose sur- 
name, derived, it is said by a father of the Church, a divaricatis 
cruribus/ must be left in a learned tongue. And still more re* 
nowned was Yenus Callipyge, whose statue is at this day one of 
the choice ornaments of one of the best European collections of 
antiquities. It owed its charm to the marvelous beauty of the 
limbs, and was understood to have been designed from two Syra- 
cusan sisters, whose extraordinary symmetry in this particular 
had been noticed by a countryman who surprised them while 
bathing. All these Yenuses had temples, and sacrifices, and 
priestesses. Their worship was naturally analogous to their name, 
and consistent with their history. Their devotees were every 
man in Greece. Yet it was in this society, trained to such spec- 
tacles, and nurtured in such a creed, that matrons and maidens 
were taught to lead a life of purity, seclusion, and self-sacrifice. 
The consequence was obvious. While ignorance and forcible 
restraint prevented the women from generally breaking loose, the 
men grew more and more addicted to the society of hetairse, and 
more liable to regard their wives as mere articles of furniture. 
Nor was the anomaly without effect upon the kept women. They 
alone of their sex saw the plays of Alexander and Aristophanes; 
they alone had the entree of the studio of Phidias and Apelles; 
they alone heard Socrates reason, and discussed politics with 
Pericles; they alone shared in the intellectual movement of 
Greece. No women but betaine drove through the streets with 
uncovered face and gorgeous apparel. None but they mingled in 
1 St. Clement of Alex. ; Hortat. Address, 97. GREECE. 
55 
the assemblages of great men at the Pnyx or the Stoa. None 
but they could gather round them of an evening the choicest 
spirits of the day, and elicit, in the freedom of unrestrained inter- 
course, wit and wisdom, flashing fancy and burning eloquence. 
What wonder that the Hetairae should have filled so prominent a 
part in Greek society! And how small a compensation to virtu- 
ous women to know that their rivals could not stand by the altar 
when sacrifice was offered; could not give birth to a citizen! 
There are many reasons besides these why the contest was un- 
equal. Tradition reported several occasions on which hetairae 
had rendered signal service to the state. Leaena, for instance, the 
mistress of Harmodius, had bitten off her tongue rather than re- 
veal the names of her fellow-conspirators. Recollections like 
these more than nullified the nominal brand of the law. Again, 
O 7 
every wise legislator saw the necessity of encouraging any form 
of rational intercourse, in order to arrest the startling progress 
which the most degrading of enormities was making in Greece. 
When Alcibiades was openly courted by the first philosophers 
and statesmen, it was virtue to applaud Aspasia. And besides, it 
can not be questioned, in view of the Greek memoirs we possess, 
that many of the leading hetairae were women of remarkable 
mind, as well as unusual attractions. Indeed, the leading trait in 
their history is their intellectuality, as contrasted with other class- 
es of dissolute women in antiquity.1 That trait can be best illus- 
trated by referring to the lives of a few of the more celebrated 
hetairae. 
A Milesian prostitute, named Thargelia, accompanied Xerxes 
on his invasion of Greece. Some idea may be formed of the po- 
sition in society occupied by prostitutes from the fact that Xerxes 
employed this woman as negotiator with the court of Thessaly, 
just as in later times modern ministers have used duchesses. 
Thargelia married the King of Thessaly. 
Fired by her success, another Milesian girl, named Aspasia, es- 
tablished herself at Athens. She set up a house of prostitution, 
and peopled it with the most lovely girls of the lonic cities. But 
wherein she differed from her rivals and predecessors was the 
prominence she gave to intellect in her establishment. She lec- 
tured publicly, among her girls and their visitors, on rhetoric and 
philosophy, and with such marked ability that she counted among 
her patrons and lovers the first men of Greece, including Socrates, 
1 Grote’s History of Greece, vi. 100. 56 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Alcibiades, and Pericles. The last divorced his wife in order to 
marry her, and was accused of allowing her to govern Athens, 
then at the height of its power and prosperity. She is said to 
have incited the war against Samos; and the principal cause of 
that against Megara was believed to have been the rape, by citi- 
zens of Megara, of two of Aspasia’s girls. What a wonderful 
light these facts throw on Greek society! 
Enraged beyond control at her success, the virtuous women of 
Athens rose against her. She was publicly insulted at the thea- 
tre ; was attacked in the street; and, as a last resort, was accused 
of impiety before the Areopagus. Pericles, then in the decline of 
his power, and unable to save his friends Phidias and Anaxago- 
ras, appeared as her advocate. But on such an occasion his elo- 
quence failed him. He could only seize his beloved wife in his 
arms, press her to his breast, and burst into tears in presence of 
the court. The appeal succeeded; possibly the judges made al- 
lowance for popular prejudice; at all events, Aspasia was acquit- 
ted and restored to society. She lived to be the delight of a flour 
merchant, under whose roof her lectures on philosophy were con' 
tinned with undiminished success to the day of her death.1 
Her friend, and the inheritor of her mantle, Hipparchia, led an 
equally remarkable life. She was an Athenian by birth, and of 
good family, but, having heard the Cynic Crates speak, she de- 
clared to her parents that nothing would restrain her from yield- 
ing herself to him. She kept her word, and became the philoso- 
pher’s mistress, in spite of his dirt, his poverty, and his grossness. 
She is reported to have acquired great reputation as a practical 
professor of the cynic philosophy. Having engaged one day in a 
fierce discussion with a somewhat brutal philosopher of a rival 
sect, the latter, by way of answer to a question she put, violently 
exposed her person before the whole assembly. “ Well,” said she, 
coolly, “what does that prove?” This woman was one of the 
most voluminous and esteemed authors of her day.2 
Bacchis, the mistress of the orator Hyperides, illustrates the 
character of the Athenian kept woman from another point of view. 
She was extremely beautiful, and gifted with a sweet disposition. 
One of her early admirers had presented her with a necklace of 
enormous value. The first ladies of Athens, and even foreign 
' Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 24, 32, etc. ; Demosthenes against Nersea, p. 1360; 
Aristophanes, Acharm. 497, etc.; Athenaeus, xiii. 25-56. 
8 Diogenes Laert, vi. 96. GREECE. 
57 
women of rank, coveted the precious trinket in vain. She was in 
the height of her fame and charms when she heard the orator Hy- 
perides plead. Smitten on the spot, she became his mistress, and 
observed a fidelity toward him which was neither usual with her 
class, nor reciprocated by her lover. On one occasion, a rival an- 
nounced that the price of her complaisance would be the posses- 
sion of the necklace of Bacchis. The lover had the meanness to 
ask for it, and Bacchis gave it without a word. Again: when all 
Athens knew that she was the mistress of Hyperides, an officious 
friend came to tell her that her lover was at that moment making 
love to another woman. Bacchis received the announcement 
tranquilly. “ What do you intend to do ?” asked her visitor, with 
impetuosity. “To wait for him,” was the meek answer. She died 
very young, and her lover partially atoned for his ill treatment 
by pronouncing a splendid oration over her remains. Yery few 
passages in Greek literature are marked by such eloquent tender- 
ness and genuine feeling as this fragment of Hyperides.1 
Gnathena, and her heir and successor, Gnathenion, were famous 
in their day as wits; the biography of the first was written in 
verse by the poet Machon.2 She began life as the mistress of the 
comic poet Dyphiles, but soon abandoned him to keep a sort of 
table d’hote for the wit and fashion of Athens. The “best society” 
gathered around her board, and at the close of the meal she sold 
herself by auction. Athenaeus has chronicled a number of her 
witty and sarcastic sayings, adding that the grace of her elocution 
imparted a singular charm to every thing she said. Her pro- 
tegee, Gnathenion, grew up in time to receive the mantle which 
age was wresting from the shoulders of Gnathena. An anecdote 
is preserved which throws some light upon the profits of the 
calling of hetairae, At the temple of Yenus, Gnathena and her 
protegee met an old Persian satrap, richly clothed in purple, who 
was struck with the beauty of the latter, and demanded her price. 
Gnathena answered, a thousand drachmas (about two hundred 
dollars). The satrap exclaimed at such extortion, and offered 
five hundred, observing that he would return again. “At your 
age,” maliciously retorted Gnathena, “ once is too much,” and 
turned on her heel. In her old age it appears that Gnathena 
was reduced to the disgraceful calling which the Greeks termed 
hippopornos.3 
1 Athenaeus, xiii. 56, 66, etc.; Alciphron’s Letters, 30. 
3 Athenaeus, xiii. 39, etc. 
3 Id. xiii. 43, 47. 58 
HISTORY of prostitution. 
But the fame of these hetairse is eclipsed by that of the only 
two kept women who can rank with Aspasia—Lais and Phryne. 
Lais was a Sicilian by birth. Like the Empress Catharine of 
Russia, she was taken prisoner when her native city was captured, 
and sold as a slave. The painter Apelles saw her carrying water 
from a well, and, struck with the beauty of her figure, he bought 
her, and trained her in his own house. This, again, is a striking 
picture. Fancy a leading modern painter deliberately training a 
prostitute! It is to be presumed that Apelles gathered round 
him the best society in Greece, Lais, when her education was 
complete, was as remarkable for wit and information as for her 
matchless figure and lovely face. Her master freed her, and 
established her at Corinth, then in the height of its prosperity, 
and the largest commercial emporium of Greece. 
Corinth and the Corinthian prostitutes deserve particular notice. 
It appears that almost every house in the place was, in fact, a 
house of prostitution. There were regular schools where the art 
of debauchery was taught, and frequent importations of young 
girls from Lesbos, Phoenicia, and the Aegean Islands supplied 
them with pupils. Ancient erotic writers are full of allusions 
to the danger of visiting Corinth; the proverb, Non cuivis homini 
contingit adire Corinthum, which most moderns have erroneously 
conceived to refer to Lais alone, was, in fact, an adage justified 
by the experience of merchants and sailors. It would be incor- 
rect, however, to compare Corinth with modern sea-ports, where 
the natural demands of sailors require a cheap supply of women. 
The first-class he tame of Corinth charged as high as a talent (say 
$1000) for a single night’s company, and $2OO appears to have 
been no unusual fee. For the common sailors, the commercial 
shrewdness of the Corinthians had established a temple to Venus, 
containing a thousand young slaves, who were obliged to prosti- 
tute themselves for a single obolus (a cent).1 
It was in this metropolis of prostitution that Lais commenced 
business. She soon rose to the first rank in her trade. Her 
capriciousness gave additional value to her charms. Even money 
could not purchase her when it was her whim not to yield. She 
refused $2OOO from the orator Demosthenes, who had actually 
turned his property into money to lay it at her feet; but she 
yielded gratuitously to the muddy, ragged cynic Diogenes, and 
1 Plato, De Rep. iii. p. 404; Aristoph. Plut. 149; Muller, Dor. ii. 10, 7; Strabo, 
viiL 6, 211. • GREECE. 
59 
graciously shared the patrimony of the philosopher Aristippus. 
To the latter, who occupied no mean rank in Greek society, a 
remark was made to the effect that he ought to debar his mistress 
from promiscuous intercourse for his own sake. He replied 
phlegmatically, “Would you object to live in a house or sail in a 
ship because others had just preceded you in the one or the other?” 
Xenocrates, the disciple of Plato, resisted Lais successfully. She 
had made a wager that she would overcome his stoical coldness. 
Pushing into his house one evening in affected terror, she be- 
sought an asylum, as she said thieves had chased her. The 
philosopher sternly bade her fear nothing. She sat silent till 
Xenocrates went to bed; then, throwing off her dress, and reveal- 
ing all her wonderful beauty, she placed herself at his side. He 
gruffly submitted to this encroachment. Growing bolder, she 
threw her arms round him, caressed him, and exhausted her arts 
of fascination, but Xenocrates remained unmoved. “ I wagered,” 
she cried, “to rouse a man, not a statue;” and, springing from the 
couch, she resumed her dress and disappeared. 
The people of Corinth desired to possess her statue, and, hav- 
ing spent her money in embellishing the city, perhaps she was en- 
titled to this mark of respect. Myron, the sculptor, was deputed 
to model her charms. He was old and gray; but so fascinating 
was her beauty, that at his second visit he laid at her feet all the 
savings of his life. The haughty courtesan spurned him. He 
went away, placed himself in the hands of a skillful perfumer, had 
his hair and beard dyed, and his appearance rejuvenated. Then 
he renewed his suit. “My poor friend,” said Lais, with a bitter 
smile, “ you are asking what I refused yesterday to your father.” 
In old age Lais had leisure to repent of her caprices. She had 
spent her money as fast as she made it, and she retained her call, 
ing long after her charms had vanished. Bpicrates has drawn a 
melancholy picture of a drunken old woman wandering over the 
quay at Corinth, and seeking to sell for three cents what had once 
been considered cheap at a thousand dollars. Such was the end 
of Lais.1 
Phryne was more fortunate. She husbanded her attractions 
with judgment, and to the close of her long life retained her rank 
and her value. Her wealth was such that, when Alexander de- 
stroyed Thebes, she offered to rebuild the city at her own ex- 
1 Diogenes Laert. ii. 84; St. Clement of Alex. Strom, iii. 47 ; Pausanias, ii. 2, 
4; Ausonius, Epig. 17; Athenaens, xiii. 26, 54. ete. 60 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
pense, provided the Thebans would commemorate the fact by an 
inscription. They refused. She had counted among her lovers 
the most famous men of the day, among whom were the orator 
Hyperides, whose successful defense of his mistress has already 
been mentioned; the painter Apelles, and the sculptor Praxiteles. 
It was to her that the latter gave his crowning work—his Cupid. 
He and Apelles were both privileged to admire and reproduce 
her nude charms, a privilege rigorously denied even to the most 
opulent of her lovers. 
Phryne was a prodigious favorite with the Athenian people. 
She played a conspicuous part in the festival of Neptune and 
Yenus. At a certain point in the ceremony she appeared on the 
steps of the temple at the sea-side in her usual dress, and slowly 
disrobed herself in the presence of the crowd. She next advanced 
to the water-side, plunged into the waves, and offered sacrifice to 
Neptune. Returning like a sea-nymph, drying her hair from 
which the water dripped over her exquisite limbs, she paused for 
a moment before the crowd, which shouted in a phrensy of en- 
thusiasm as the fair priestess vanished into a cell in the temple.1 
Other famous hetairae achieved political and literary distinction. 
When Alexander the Great undertook his Asiatic expedition, his 
treasurer, Harpalus, a sort of Croesus in his way, accompanied 
him, surrounded by the most lovely women the court of Macedon 
could afford. Rewarded for his fidelity by the governorship of 
Babylon, and still farther enriched by the spoils of that lucrative 
office, Harpalus sent to Athens for the most skillful and lovely 
hetairae of the day. Pythionice was sent him. She was not in 
the bloom of youth. Some years before she had been the familiar 
of young Athenians of fashion; she was now the staid mistress 
of two brothers, sons of an opulent corn-merchant. But her tal- 
ents were undeniable. She arrived at Babylon, and was installed 
in the palace; began to rule over the province, and governed 
Harpalus, it is said, with sternness and vigor. In the midst of 
her glory she suddenly died; poisoned, no doubt, by some one of 
the hundred fair ones whom she had supplanted in the governor’s 
affections. Harpalus, inconsolable for her loss, expended a large 
portion of the contents of his treasury in burying her and com- 
memorating her fame. No queen of Babylon was ever consigned 
to the grave with the pomp, or the show, or the ostentatious afflic- 
1 JElian, Y. H. ix. 32; Alciphron’s Letters, i. 31 ; Jacobs, Alt. Mus. iii. 18, 
36, etc.; Athenseus, xiii. 59, etc. GREECE. 
61 
tion which did honor to the memory of the Athenian prostitute. 
Her tomb cost $50,000; and historians, admiring, in after ages, 
its splendor and its size, inquired, with mock wonder, whether the 
bones of a Miltiades, or a Cimon, or a Pericles lay under the pile! 
Harpalus found consolation in the arms of a Greek garland- 
weaver named Glycera, for aught we know the poisoner of Pythi- 
onice. She, too, became Queen of Babylon, issued her decrees, 
held her court, submitted to be worshiped, and saw her statue of 
bronze, as large as life, erected in the Babylonian temples. She 
was a woman of a masculine mind in a feminine body. When 
Alexander returned from the East, breathing vengeance against 
faithless servants, she compelled her lover to fly with her to At- 
tica, where she raised, by her eloquence, her money, and her ad- 
dress, an army of six thousand men to oppose the hero of Mace- 
don. It is said that she purchased, at what price we know not, 
the silence of Demosthenes; she certainly bribed the Athenian 
people with large donations of corn. But she could not bribe or 
persuade her wretched lover to be sensible; his folly soon roused 
the Athenians against him, and he was exiled with his mistress. 
In this exile, one of his attendants cut the throat of the venerable 
lover, and Glycera, left a widow, returned to Athens to pursue her 
calling as a hetaira. She was no longer young, and needed the 
aid of the dealer in cosmetics; but her prestige as the ex-mistress 
of Babylon procured her a certain celebrity, and she soon obtained 
a position in the society of Athens. Out of a crowd of admirers 
who attached themselves to her court, she chose two to be, as the 
French would say, her amounts de coeur. One was the painter Pau- 
sias; the other the comic poet Menander. The former achieved 
one of his most brilliant triumphs by painting the portrait of his 
mistress. But, whether his temper was not congenial to hers, or 
his rival inspired an exclusive affection, Glycera soon discarded 
Pausias, and became the mistress of the poet alone. Menander, 
we are led to believe, was a man of a harsh, crabbed disposition ; 
the haughty Glycera was the only one whom his boutades never 
irritated, who bore with all his ill temper. When he was success- 
ful, she heightened his joy ; when his plays were ill received, and 
he returned from the theatre in low spirits, she consoled him, and 
endured the keenest affronts without murmuring. Her amiability 
had its reward. From being one of the most dissolute men of 
Athens, Menander became solidly attached and faithful to Glycera, 
and, so soon was her Babylonish career forgotten, she descended 62 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
to posterity in the Athenian heart inseparably coupled with the 
dearest of their comic writers.1 
Another famous hetaira was Leontium, who succeeded her mis- 
tress Philenis in the affections of the philosopher Epicurus. She 
is said to have borne him a daughter, who was born in the shade 
of a grove in his garden; but, whether she put her own construc- 
tion upon the Epicurean philosophy, or did not really love the 
gray-headed teacher, she was far from practicing the fidelity which 
was due to so distinguished a lover. She figures in the letters of 
Alciphron as the tender friend of several younger fashionables; 
and she has been accused, with what truth it is hard to say, of at- 
tempting a compromise between the doctrines of Epicurus and 
those of Diogenes. However this be, Leontium was undoubtedly 
a woman of rare ability and remarkable taste. She composed sev- 
eral works; among others, one against Theophrastus, which ex- 
cited the wonder and admiration of so good a judge as Cicero. 
She survived her old protector, and died in obscurity.2 
Something more might be said of Archeanassa, to whose wrin- 
kles Plato did not disdain to compose an amorous epigram; of 
Theoris, a beautiful girl, who preferred the glorious old age of 
Sophocles to the ardent youth of Demosthenes, and whom the vin- 
dictive orator punished by having her condemned to death; of 
Archippa, the last mistress and sole heir of Sophocles; of Theo- 
dote, the disciple of Socrates, under whose counsels she carried on 
her business as a courtesan, and whose death may be ascribed, in 
some part, to the spite caused by Theodote’s rejection of Aristoph- 
anes ; and of others who figure largely in every reliable history of 
intellectual Greece. But we must stop. 
In most of the nations to which reference must be made in the 
ensuing pages of this volume, prostitutes have figured as pariahs; 
in Greece they were an aristocracy, exercising a palpable influ- 
ence over the national policy and social life, and mingling con- 
spicuously in the great march of the Greek intellect. No less than 
eleven authors of repute have employed their talents as historiog- 
raphers of courtesans at Athens. Their works have not reached 
us entire, having fallen victims to the chaste scruples of the clergy 
of the Middle Ages; but enough remains in the quotations of 
Athenaeus, Alciphron’s Letters, Lucian, Diogenes Laertius, Aris- 
tophanes, Aristaenetus, and others, to enable us to form a far more 
1 Pausanias, i. 37, 5; Athenaeus, xiii. 45, etc.; Died. xvii. 108; Arr. ap. Phot. 70. 
J Diogenes Laert. x. 4; Athenians, xiii. 29; Cicero, de Nat. Deor. i. 33. GREECE 
accurate idea of the Athenian hetairge than we can obtain of tne 
prostitutes of the last generation. 
Into the arts practiced by the graduates of the Corinthian acad- 
emies it is hardly possible to enter, at least in a modern tongue. 
Even the Greeks were obliged to invent verbs to designate the 
monstrosities practiced by the Lesbian and Phoenician women. 
Demosthenes, pleading successfully against the courtesan Nesera, 
describes her as having seven young girls in her house, whom she 
knew well how to train for their calling, as was proved by the re- 
peated sales of their virginity. One may form an idea of the 
shocking depravity of the reigning taste from the sneers which 
were lavished upon Phryne and Bacchis, who steadily adhered to 
natural pleasures. 
The use of philtres, or charms (of which more will be said in 
the ensuing chapter on Roman prostitution), was common in 
Greece. Retired courtesans often combined the manufacture of 
these supposed charms with the business of a midwife. They 
made potions which excited love and potions which destroyed it; 
charms to turn love into hate, and others to convert hate into 
love. That the efficacy of the latter must have been a matter of 
pure faith need not be demonstrated, though the belief in them 
was general and profound. The former are well known in the 
pharmacopoeia, and from the accounts given of their effects, there 
is no reason to doubt that they were successfully employed in 
Greece, as well by jealous husbands and suspicious fathers as by 
ardent lovers. A case is mentioned by no less an authority than 
Aristotle, of a woman who contrived to administer an amorous po- 
tion to her lover, who died of it. The woman was tried for mur- 
der ; but, it being satisfactorily proved that her intention was not 
to cause death, but to revive an extinct love, she was acquitted. 
Other cases are mentioned in which the philtres produced mad- 
ness instead of love. Similar accidents have attended the exhibi- 
tion of cantharides in modern times. 64 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER IY. 
ROME. 
Laws governing Prostitution.—Floralian Games.—Registration of Prostitutes.— 
Purity of Morals.—Julian Law.—iEdiles.—Classes of Prostitutes.—Loose Prosti- 
tutes.—Various Classes of lewd Women.—Meretrices.—Dancing Girls.—Bawds. 
—Male Prostitutes.—Houses of Prostitution.—Lupanaria.—Cells of Prostitutes. 
—Houses of Assignation. —Fornices. Circus. Baths. —Taverns. Bakers’ 
Shops.—Squares and Thoroughfares.—Habits and Manners of Prostitutes.—So- 
cial standing.—Dress.—Rate of Hire.—Virgins in Roman Brothels.—Kept Wom- 
en.—Roman Poets.—Ovid.—Martial.—Roman Society.—Social Corruption.— 
Conversation.—Pictures and Sculptures.—Theatricals.—Baths.—Religious In- 
decencies.—Marriage Feasts.—Emperors.—Secret Diseases.—Celsus.—Roman 
Faculty. —Archiatii. 
LAWS GOVERNING PROSTITUTION. 
Our earliest acquaintance with the Eoman laws governing pros- 
titution dates from the reign of the Emperor Augustus, but there 
is abundant evidence to show that prostitutes were common in 
the city of Rome at the time when authentic history begins. 
It does not appear that religious prostitution was ever domiciled 
in Italy, though in later times the festivals in honor of certain de- 
ities were scandalously loose, and, to judge from the Etruscan 
paintings, the morals of the indigenous Italians must have been 
disgustingly depraved. 
In the comedies of Plautus, which are among the oldest works 
of Roman literature which have reached us, the prostitute (mere- 
triec) and the bawd (lend) figure conspicuously. They were thus, 
evidently, in the third century before Christ, well-known charac- 
ters in Roman society. When the Floralian Games were insti- 
tuted we have no means of knowing (no credit whatever must be 
placed in the puerile stories of Lactantius about the courtesans 
Acca Laurentia and Flora1); but it is certain that the chief at- 
traction of these infamous celebrations was the appearance of pros- 
titutes on the stage in a state of nudity, and their lascivious dances 
in the presence of the people ;2 and there is evidence, in the story 
that the performance was suspended during the presence of the 
stern moralist Cato, that they had been long practiced before his 
time.3 Indeed, it would not be presuming too far to decide, with- 
‘ Lactant. i. 20. 3 Martial, i. 1; Seneca, Epist. 96. 3 Val. Max. ii. 10, 8. ROME 
65 
out other evidence, that prostitution must have become a fixed 
fact at Rome very shortly after the Romans began to mix freely 
with the Greek colonists at Tarentum and the other Greek cities 
in Italy, that is to say, about the beginning of the third century 
before Christ. 
We learn from Tacitus1 that from time immemorial prostitutes 
had been required to register themselves in the office of the aedile. 
The ceremony appears to have been very similar to that now im- 
posed by law on French prostitutes. The woman designing to 
become a prostitute presented herself before the sedile, gave her 
age, place of birth, and real name, with the one she assumed if 
she adopted a pseudonyme.2 The public officer, if she was young 
or apparently respectable, did his best to combat her resolution. 
Failing in this, he issued to her a license—licentva siupri, ascertain- 
ed the sum which she was to demand from her customers, and en- 
tered her name in his roll. It might be inferred from a law of 
Justinian3 that a prostitute was bound to take an oath, on obtain- 
ing her license, to discharge the duties of her calling to the end 
of her life; for the law in question very properly decided that an 
oath so obviously at war with good morals was not binding. 
However this was, the prostitute once inscribed incurred the taint 
of infamy which nothing could wipe off. Repentance was impos- 
sible, even when she married and became the mother of legitimate 
children; the fatal inscription was still there to bear witness of 
her infamy.4 In Rome, as in so many other countries, the princi- 
ple of the law was to close the door to reform, and to render vice 
hopeless. 
There is every reason to suppose that these regulations were in 
force at a very early period of the Republic. Of the further rules 
established under the imperial regime we shall speak presently. 
Meanwhile, it may be observed that there is ground for hoping 
that, at the best age of the Republic, the public morals were not 
generally corrupt. The old stories of Lucretia and Virginia would 
have had no point among a demoralized people. All who are 
familiar with Roman history will remember the fierce contest, 
waged by Cato the Censor against the jewels, fine dresses, and 
carriages of the Roman ladies,5 an indication that graver delin- 
quencies did not call for official interference. This same Cato, aft- 
er the death of his first wife, cohabited with a female slave; but, 
1 Annal. lib. ii. 85. 
* See Tabl. Heracl. i. 123. 
2 Plautus, P fen ulus. 
5 Plutarch, Vita Catonis. 
3 Nor. 5. 66 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
though concubinage was recognized by the Roman law, and 
would seem to have involved no disgrace at a later period, the 
intrigue no sooner became known than the old censor married a 
second wife to avoid scandal.1 A similar inference may be drawn 
from the strange story told by Livy of the Bacchanalian mysteries 
introduced into Rome by foreigners about the beginning of the 
second century before Christ, It is not easy, at this late day, to 
discover what is true and what false in the statement he gives; 
but there is no reasonable doubt that young persons of both sexes, 
under the impulse of sensuality, had established societies for the 
purpose, among others, of satisfying depraved instincts. To what 
extent the mania had extended it is not possible to judge;.the 
numbers given by the Latin writers are not very trustworthy. 
But we may learn how strong was the moral sentiment of the Ho- 
man people from the very stringent decree which the senate is- 
sued on motion of the Consul Postumius, and from the indiscrim- 
inate executions of parties implicated in the mysterious rites.2 
Other evidences of the purity of Roman morals might be found, 
if they were wanting, in the remarkable fidelity with which the 
Vestals observed their oaths; in the tone of the speeches of the 
statesmen of the time; in the high character sustained by such 
matrons as the mother of the Gracchi; and, finally, in the legisla- 
tion of Augustus, which professed rather to affirm and improve 
the old laws than to introduce new principles. 
As we approach the Christian era the picture gradually dark- 
ens. Civil wars are usually fatal to private virtue: it is not to 
be doubted that the age of Sylla and Clodius was by no means a 
moral one. Sylla, the dictator, openly led a life of scandalous de- 
bauchery ; Clodius, the all-powerful tribune, is accused by Cicero 
of having seduced his three sisters.3 Soldiers who had made a 
campaign in profligate Greece or voluptuous Asia naturally 
brought home with them a taste for the pleasures they had learn- 
ed to enjoy abroad. Scipio’s baths were dark: through narrow 
apertures just light enough was admitted to spare the modesty of 
the bathers; but into the baths which were erected in the later 
years of the Republic the light shone as into a chamber.4 Even 
Sylla, debauched as he was, did not think it safe to abdicate pow- 
1 Livy, xxxiv. 1, et seq. 
a Livy, xxxix. 8-19. See also St. August. De Civ. Dei, vii. 21. 
* Cicero, ad Fam. i. 9. 
4 Val. Max. ii. 1,7; Cicero, de Off. 1, 35. ROME, 
67 
er without legislative effort to purify the morals he had so large- 
ly contributed to corrupt by his example.1 
Of the Augustan age, and the two or three centuries which 
followed, we are enabled to form a close and comprehensive idea. 
Our information ceases to be meagre; on some points, indeed, it 
is only too abundant. 
The object of the Julian laws was to preserve the Roman blood 
from corruption, and still farther to degrade prostitutes. These 
aims were partially attained by prohibiting the intermarriage of 
citizens with the relatives or descendants of prostitutes; by ex- 
posing adulterers to severe penalties, and declaring the tolerant 
husband an accomplice; by laying penalties on bachelors and 
married men without children; by prohibiting the daughters of 
equestrians from becoming prostitutes.2 Tiberius, from his in- 
famous retreat at Capreae, sanctioned a decree of the senate which 
enhanced the severity of the laws against adultery. By this de- 
cree it was made a penal offense for a matron of any class to play 
the harlot, and her lover, the owner of the house where they met, 
and all persons who connived at the adultery, were declared 
equally culpable. It seems to have been not uncommon for 
certain married women to inscribe themselves on the aedile’s list 
as prostitutes, and to occupy a room at the houses of ill fame. 
This was pronounced a penal offense; and every encouragement 
was held out, both to husbands and to common informers, to 
prosecute.3 
In other respects the republican legislation is believed to have 
been unaltered by the emperors. The formality of inscription, 
its accompanying infamy, the consequences of the act remained 
the same. Prostitutes carried on their trade under the sedile’s 
eye. He patrolled the streets, and entered the houses of ill fame 
at all hours of the day and night. He saw that they were closed 
between daybreak and three in the afternoon. In case of brawls, 
he arrested and punished the disturbers of the peace. He pun- 
ished by fine and scourging the omission of a brothel-keeper to 
inscribe every female in his house. He insisted on prostitutes 
wearing the garments prescribed by law, and dyeing their hair 
blue or yellow. On the other hand, he could not break into a 
house without being habited in the insignia of his office, and being 
1 Plutarch, Yit. Syllae, 85. 
2 Lex Jul. et Pap. Popp.; Lex Jul. de Adult.; Dig. 35, tit. 1, § 63; Gaius, ii. 113. 
J See Dig. 48, tit. 5. 68 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
accompanied by his lictors. When the aedile Hostilius attempted 
to break open the door of the prostitute Mamilia, on his return 
from a gay dinner, the latter drove him off with stones, and was 
sustained by the courts.1 The sedile was bound also, on complaint 
laid by a prostitute, to sentence any customer of hers to pay the 
sum due to her according to law.2 
CLASSES OF PROSTITUTES. 
It was the duty of the sedile to arrest, punish, and drive out 
of the city all loose prostitutes who were not inscribed on his 
book. This regulation was practically a dead letter. At no time 
in the history of the empire did there cease to be a large and 
well-known class of prostitutes who were not recorded. They 
were distinguished from the registered prostitutes ([meretrices) by 
the name of prostibulce.3 They paid no tax to the state, while 
their registered rivals contributed largely to the municipal treas- 
ury; and, if they ran greater risks, and incurred more nominal 
infamy than the latter, they more frequently contrived to rise 
from their unhappy condition. 
We have no means of judging of the number of prostitutes 
exercising their calling at Rome, Capua, and the other Italian 
cities during the first years of the Christian era. During Trajan’s 
reign the police were enabled to count thirty-two thousand in 
Rome alone, but this number obviously fell short of the truth. 
One is appalled at the great variety of classes into which the 
prostibulce, or unregistered prostitutes were divided. Such were 
the Delicaf.ce, corresponding to the kept-women, or French lor dies, 
whose charms enabled them to exact large sums from their visit- 
ors ;4 the Famosce, who belonged to respectable families, and took 
to evil courses through lust or avarice ;5 the Doris, who were re- 
markable for their beauty of form, and disdained the use of cloth- 
ing ;6 the Lupce, or she-wolves, who haunted the groves and com- 
mons, and were distinguished by a particular cry in imitation of 
a wolf;7 the FElicorice, or bakers’ girls, who sold small cakes for 
sacrifice to Venus andPriapus, in the form of the male and female 
organs of generation ;8 the Bustuarice, whose home was the burial- 
ground, and who occasionally officiated as mourners at funerals;9 
1 Aulus Gell. quoting Ateius Capito. 
2 Pierrugues, Gloss. Erot. For the duties of the rediles, see Schubert, de Rom. 
JEdilibus, liv. 4. 3 See Plautus, passim. 4 Suetonius. * Cicero. 
* Ausonius. 7 Plaut. Panulus. h Cic. pro Calio. 9 Juvenal. ROME 
69 
the Gopce, servant-girls at inns and taverns, who were invariably 
prostitutes;1 the Noctiluce, or night-walkers; the Blitidce, a very 
low class of women, who derived the name from blitum, a cheap 
and unwholesome beverage drunk in the lowest holes ;2 the Diobo- 
lares, wretched outcasts, whose price was two oboli (say two cents);3 
the For (trice, country girls who lurked about country roads; the 
Gallince, who were thieves as well as prostitutes; the Quadrania- 
rice, seemingly the lowest class of all, whose fee was less than any 
copper coin now current.4 In contradistinction to these, the mere- 
trices assumed an air of respectability, and were often called bonce 
meretrices.b 
Another and a distinct class of prostitutes were the female 
dancers, who were eagerly sought after, and more numerous than 
at Athens. They were lonians, Lesbians, Syrians, Egyptians, Nu- 
bians (negresses), Indians, but the most famous were Spaniards. 
Their dances were of the same character as those of the Greek 
flute-players; the erotic poets of Rome have not shrunk from cel- 
ebrating the astonishing depravity of their performances.6 
Horace faintly deplored the progress which the lonic dances— 
lonice motus were making even among the Roman virgins.7 
These prostitutes carried on their calling in defiance of law. If 
detected, they were liable to be whipped and driven out of the 
city ;8 but as their customers belonged to the wealthier classes, 
they rarely suffered the penalty of their conduct. 
Apart, again, from all these was the large class of persons who 
traded in prostitutes. The proper name for these wretches was 
Leno (bawd), which was of both sexes, though usually represented 
on the stage as a beardless man with shaven head. Under this 
name quite a number of varieties were included, such as the Lu- 
panarii, or keepers of regular houses of ill fame; the Adductores 
and Perductores, pimps; Conciliatrices and Ancillulce, women who 
negotiated immoral transactions, and others. Then, as almost ev- 
ery baker, tavern-keeper, bath-house-keeper, barber, and perfumer 
combined the lenocinium, or trade in prostitutes, with his other call- 
ing, their various names, tonsor, unguentarius, balnearius, &c., be- 
came synonymous with leno. This miserable class was regarded 
with the greatest loathing at Rome.9 
1 Juvenal. 2 Suidas. 3 Plautus, Cistellaria. * Suetonius. 5 Martial. 
* Plaut. Panulus. Juvenal says, 
“ Ad terrain tremulo descendant dune puelke." 
7 Horace, Od. iii. 6, 21. 8 See Schubert, loc. ciU 
* Terence, Adelph. 1; Catullus, etc. 70 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
This hasty classification of the Roman prostitutes would be in- 
complete without some notice, however brief, of male prostitutes. 
Fortunately, the progress of good morals has divested this repul- 
sive theme of its importance; the object of this work can be ob- 
tained without entering into details on a branch of the subject 
which in this country is not likely to require fresh legislative no- 
tice. But the reader would form an imperfect idea of the state of 
morals at Rome were he left in ignorance of the fact that the num- 
ber of male prostitutes was probably full as large as that of fe- 
males; that, as in Greece, the degrading phenomenon involved 
very little disgrace; that all the Roman authors allude to it as a 
matter of course; that the leading men of the empire were known 
to be addicted to such habits; that the sedile abstained from in- 
terference, save where a Roman youth suffered violence; and that, 
to judge from the language of the writers of the first, second, and 
third centuries of the Christian era, the Romans, like some Asiatic 
races, appeared to give the preference to unnatural lusts.1 
HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION. 
Having examined the laws which governed prostitution at 
Rome, and the classes into which prostitutes were divided, it is 
now requisite to glance at the establishments in which prostitu- 
tion was carried on. 
M. Dufour and others have followed Publius Victor and Sextus 
Rufus in supposing that during the Augustine age there were 
forty-six first-class houses of ill fame at Rome, and a much larger 
number of establishments where prostitution was carried on with- 
out the supervision of the eedile. As it is now generally ad- 
mitted that the works bearing the name of Publius Victor and 
Sextus Rufus are forgeries of comparatively recent date, the 
statement loses all claim to credit, and we are left without sta- 
tistical information as to the number of houses of prostitution at 
Rome.2 
Registered prostitutes were to be found in the establishments 
called .Lupanaria. These differed from the Greek Dicteria in be- 
ing of various classes, from the well-provided house of the Peace 
ward to the filthy dens of the Esquiline and Suburran wards; 
and farther, in the wide range of prices exacted by the keepers of 
the various houses. It is inferred from the results of the excava- 
1 Rom. i. 26, 27, and all Latin poets, passim. 
s See Bunsen, Beschreibung der Stadt Rome, 1830, i. 17S. ROME 
71 
tions at Pompeii, and some meagre hints thrown out by Latin 
authors, that the lupanaria at Rome were small in size. The 
most prosperous were built like good Roman houses, with a 
square court-yard, sometimes with a fountain playing in the mid- 
dle. Upon this yard opened the cells of the prostitutes. In 
smaller establishments the cells opened upon a hall or porch, 
which seemingly was used as a reception-room. The cells were 
dark closets, illuminated at night by a small bronze lamp. Some- 
times they contained a bed, but as often a few cushions, or a mere 
mat, with a dirty counterpane, constituted their whole furniture. 
Over the door of each cell hung a tablet, with the name of the 
prostitute who occupied it, and the price she set on her favors; 
on the other side with the word occupata. When a prostitute re- 
ceived a visitor in her cell, she turned the tablet round to warn 
intruders that she was engaged.1 Over the door of the house a 
suggestive image was either painted, or represented in stone or 
marble: one of these signs may be seen to this day in Pompeii. 
Within, similar indecent sculptures abounded. Bronze ornaments 
of this style hung round the necks of the courtesans; the lamps 
were in the same shape, and so were a variety of other utensils. 
The walls were covered with appropriate frescoes. In the best- 
ordered establishments, it is understood that scenes from the my- 
thology were the usual subjects of these artistic decorations; but 
we have evidence enough at Pompeii to show that gross inde- 
cency, not poetical effect, was the main object sought by painters 
in these works. 
Regular houses of prostitution, lupanaria, were of two kinds: 
establishments owned and managed by a bawd, who supplied the 
cells with slaves or hired prostitutes, and establishments where 
the bawd merely let his cells to prostitutes for a given sum. In 
the former case the bawd was the principal, in the latter the 
women. There is reason to suppose that the former were the 
more respectable. Petronius alludes to a house where so much 
was paid for the use of a cell, and the sum was an as, less than 
two cents.2 Messalina evidently betook herself to one of these 
establishments, which, for clearness’ sake, we may call assignation 
houses; and as it appears she was paid in copper (cera poposcit), 
it is safe to infer that the house was of slender respectability. 
The best houses were abundantly supplied with servants and 
luxuries. A swarm of pimps and runners sought custom for them 
1 Plautus, Asinaria; Martial, Ep. passim. 
2 Petronius, Satyricon, i. 28. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
in every part of the city. Women—ancilke ornatnces—were in 
readiness to repair with skill the ravages which amorous conflicts 
caused in the toilets of the prostitutes. Boys—hacariones—at- 
tended at the door of the cell with water for ablution. Servants, 
who bore the inconsistent title of aquarii, were ready to supply 
wine and other refreshments to customers. And not a few of the 
lupinaria kept a cashier, called villicus, whose business it was to 
discuss bargains with visitors, and to receive the money before 
turning the tablet. 
Under many public and some of the best private houses at 
Rome were arches, the tops of which were only a few feet above 
the level of the street. These arches, dark and deserted, became 
a refuge for prostitutes. Their name, fornices, at last became sy- 
nonymous with lupanar, and we have borrowed from it our generic 
word fornication.1 There is reason to believe that there were sev- 
eral score of arches of this character, and used for this purpose, 
under the great circus and other theatres at Rome,2 besides those 
under dwelling-houses and stores. The want of fresh air was 
severely felt in these vile abodes. Frequent allusions to the 
stench exhaled from the mouth of a fornix are made in the Ro- 
man authors.3 
Establishments of a lower character still were the pergulce, in 
which the girls occupied a balcony above the street; the stahula, 
where no cells were used, and promiscuous intercourse took place 
openly;4 the turturilla, or pigeon-houses;s the casauria, or suburb 
houses of the very lowest stamp. 
The clearest picture of a Koman house of ill fame is that given 
in the famous passage of Juvenal, which may be allowed to re- 
main in the original. The female, it need hardly be added, was 
Messalina: 
“ Dormire virum quum senserat uxor, 
Ausa Palatine tegetem prseferre cubili, 
Sumere nocturnas meretrix Augusta cucullos, 
Linquebat comite ancilla non amplius una, 
Sed nigrum jiavo crinem abscondente galero, 
Intravit caliduni veteri centone lupanar, 
Et cellam vacuum atque suam. Tunc nuda capillis 
Constitit auratis, titulum mentita Lyciscas, 
1 Hor. Sat. i. 2, 30; Juv. Sat. iii. 156; Suet. Jul. 49. 
3 Prudentius, in Agn; Boulenger, Cirque, etc. 
* Olenti infornice, Hor. Hedoletfuliymura Jbrnids, Mart. * Plautus. 6 Id. ROME 
Ostendit que tuum, generose Britanuice, ventrem. 
Excepit blanda intrantes, atque cera poposcit, 
Et resupina jacens multorum absorbixit ictus. 
Mox lenone suas jam dimittente puellas, 
Tristris abit, et quod potuit, tamen ultima cellam 
Clausit, adhuc ardens rigidse tentigine vulvae, 
Et lassata viris necdum satiata recessit; 
Obscurrisque genis turpis fumoque lucernae 
Fceda lupanaris tulit ad pulvinar adorem.”1 
The passages in italics contain useful information; we shall allude 
to some of them hereafter. Meanwhile, it is evident from the line 
mox lenone, etc., that, at a certain hour of the night, the keepers of 
houses of ill fame were in the habit of closing their establishments 
and sending their girls home. The law required them to close at 
daybreak, but probably a much earlier hour may have suited their 
interest. 
Allusion has already been made to the fornices under the cir- 
cus. It is well understood that prostitutes were great frequenters 
of the spectacles, and that in the arched fornices underneath the 
seats and the stage they were always ready to satisfy the passions 
which the comedies and pantomimes only too frequently aroused.2 
This was one formidable rival to the regular lupinaria. 
The baths were another. In the early Roman baths, darkness, 
or, at best, a faint twilight reigned; and, besides, not only were 
the sexes separated, but old and young men were not allowed to 
bathe together.3 But after Sylla’s wars, though there were sepa- 
rate sudaria and tejpidaria for the sexes, they could meet freely in 
the corridors and chambers, and any immorality short of actual 
prostitution could take place.4 Men and women, girls and boys, 
mixed together in a state of perfect nudity, and in such close prox- 
imity that contact could hardly be avoided. Such an assemblage 
would obviously be a place of resort for dealers in prostitutes in 
search of merchandise. At a later period, cells were attached to 
the bath-houses, and young men and women kept on the premis- 
es, partly as bath attendants and partly as prostitutes. After the 
bath, the bathers, male and female, were rubbed down, kneaded, 
and anointed by these attendants. It would appear that women 
submitted to have this indecent service performed for them by 
1 Juvenal, ii. Sat. vi. 116. 
2 Cyprian, Ep. 103; Boulenger, De Circe Rom.; Arnob.; Tertullian. 
* Seneca, Ep. 86; Val. Max. ii. 1, 7. 4 Plin. H, N. 33, 54, 74 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
men, and that health was not always the object sought, even by 
the Eoman matrons.1 Several emperors endeavored to remedy 
these frightful immoralities. Hadrian forbade the intermixture 
of men and women in the public baths.2 Similar enactments were 
made by Marcus Aurelius and Alexander Severus; but Helioga- 
balus is said to have delighted in uniting the sexes, even in the 
wash-room. As earty as the Augustan era, however, the baths 
were regarded as little better than houses of prostitution under a 
respectable name.3 
Taverns or houses of entertainment were also in some measure 
brothels. The law regarded all servants waiting upon travelers 
at inns or taverns as prostitutes.4 It would appear, also, that 
butchers’, bakers’, and barbers’ shops were open to a suspicion of 
being used for purposes of prostitution. The plebeian sediles con- 
stantly made it their business to visit these in search of unregis- 
tered prostitutes, though, as might be expected from the number 
of delinquents and the very incomplete municipal police system 
of Rome, with very little success. The bakers’ establishments, 
which generally included a flour-mill, were haunted by a low class 
of prostitutes to whom allusion has already been made. In the 
cellar where the mill stood cells were often constructed, and the 
sediles knew well that all who entered there did not go to buy 
bread.5 
Finally, prostitution to a very large extent was carried on in 
the open air. The shades of certain statues and temples, such as 
those of Marsyas, Pan, Priapus, Yenus, etc., were common resorts 
for prostitutes. It is said that Julia, the daughter of the Emperor 
Augustus, prostituted herself under the shade of a statue of Mar- 
syas. Similar haunts of abandoned women were the arches of 
aqueducts, the porticoes of temples, the cavities in walls, etc. Even 
the streets in the poorer wards of the city appear to have been in- 
fested by the very lowest class of prostitutes, whose natural favors 
had long ceased to be merchantable.6 It must be borne in mind 
1 “Callidus et crista; digitos impressit aliptes.”—Juvenal, ii. Sat. vi. 
2 Spartianus, Hadrian, c. 1. 3 See Ovid, Ars Amat. 
4 Ulpian, liv. xxiii. De rit. nupt.; Jul. Paulus, Dig.; Cicero. 
5 Martial, xvi. 222. 
* Lesbia nostra, Lesbia ilia, 
Ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, 
Plus quam se atque suaa amavit omnes, 
Nunc in quadriviis et angiportis 
Glubit magnanimoa Eemi nepotes. 
Catullus, Cam. 58. ROME. 
75 
that the streets of Rome were not lighted, and that profound dark- 
ness reigned when the moon was clouded oyer. 
HABITS AND MANNERS OF PROSTITUTES, 
A grand distinction between Roman and Greek prostitution 
lies in the manner in which commerce with prostitutes was view- 
ed in the two communities. At Athens there was nothing dis- 
graceful in frequenting the dicterion or keeping an hetaira. At 
Rome, on the contrary, a married man who visited a house of ill 
fame was an adulter, and liable to the penalties of adultery. An 
habitual frequenter of such places was a mcechus or scortator, both 
of which were terms of scathing reproach. When Cicero wishes 
to overwhelm Catiline, he says his followers are scortatores? Un- 
til the lowest age of Roman degradation, moreover, no man of 
any character entered a house of ill fame without hiding his 
face with the skirt of his dress. Even Caligula and Heliogaba- 
lus concealed their faces when they visited the women of the 
town.2 
The law prescribed with care the dress of Roman prostitutes, 
on the principle that they were to be distinguished in all things 
from honest women. Thus they were not allowed to wear the 
chaste stola which concealed the form, or the vitta or fillet with 
which Roman ladies bound their hair, or to wear shoes (soccus), 
or jewels, or purple robes. These were the insignia of virtue. 
Prostitutes wore the toga like men; their hair, dyed yellow or 
red, or filled with golden spangles, was dressed in some Asiatic 
fashion. They wore sandals with gilt thongs tying over the 
instep, and their dress was directed to be of flowered material. 
In practice, however, these rules were not strictly observed. 
Courtesans wore jewels and purple robes,3 and not a few boldly 
concealed their profligacy under the stola. Others, seeking rather 
to avoid than to court misapprehension as to their calling, wore 
the green toga proudly, and over it the sort of jacket called amic- 
ulum, which, like the white sheet of baronial times, was the badge 
of adultery. Others, again, preferred the silk and gauze dresses 
of the East (sericce vestes), which, according to the expression of a 
classical writer, “seemed invented to exhibit more conspicuously 
what they were intended to hide.”4 Robes of Tyre were likewise 
1 Cicero in Cat. 2 Lampridius, Script. Hist. Aug. Elagabalus. 
3 Martial, Ep. i. 36, 8; ii. 39; vi. 64, 4. See Becker’s Gallus, L 321. 
4 See also Seneca. 76 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
in use, whose texture may be inferred from the name of “textile 
vapor” (yentus textilis) which they received. 
The law strictly prohibited the use of vehicles of any kind to 
courtesans. This also was frequently infringed. Under several 
emperors prostitutes were seen in open litters in the most public 
parts of Rome, and others in litters which closed with curtains, 
and served the purpose of a bed-chamber,1 A law of Domitian 
imposed heavy penalties on a courtesan who was seen in a litter. 
In the lupanar, of course, rules regarding costume were un- 
heeded. Prostitutes retained their hair black, but as to the rest 
of their person they were governed by their own taste. Nudity 
appears to have been quite common, if not the rule. Petronius 
describes his hero walking in the street, and seeing from thence 
naked prostitutes at the doors of the lupanaria.2 Some covered 
their busts with golden stuffs, others veiled their faces. 
It has already been mentioned that the rate of remuneration 
exacted by the prostitutes was fixed by themselves, though ap- 
parently announced to the asdile. It is impossible to form any 
idea of the average amount of this charge. The lowest classes, 
as has been mentioned, sold their miserable favors for about two 
tenths of a cent; another large class were satisfied with two cents. 
The only direct light that is thrown on this branch of the subject 
flows from an obscure passage in the strange romance entitled 
“Apollonius of T3rre,” which is supposed to have been written 
by a Christian named Symposius. In that work the capture of a 
virgin named Tarsia by a bawd is described. The bawd orders a 
sign or advertisement to be hung out, inscribed, “He who de- 
flours Tarsia shall pay half a pound, afterward she shall be at the 
public service for a gold piece.” The half pound has been as- 
sumed by commentators to mean half a Roman pound of silver, 
and to have been worth $3O; the gold piece, according to the 
best computation, was about equivalent to $4. But whether these 
figures can be regarded as an average admits of doubt, even sup- 
posing our estimate of the value of the sums mentioned in the 
ancient work to be accurate. 
The allusion to Tarsia suggests some notice of the practice of 
the Roman bawds when they had secured a virgin. It will be 
found faithfully described in that old English play, “ Pericles, 
Prince of Tyre,” which is sometimes bound up with Shakspeare’s 
1 Seneca, Ep. 80, 110; Suet. Jul. 43; Claud. 28; Domit. 8. 
2 Petron. Satyr, i. 20. ROME, 
77 
works. When a bawd had purchased a virgin as a slave, or when, 
as sometimes happened under the later emperors, a virgin was 
handed to him to be prostituted as a punishment for crime, the 
door of his house was adorned with twigs of laurel; a lamp of 
unusual size was hung out at night, and a tablet exhibited some - 
what similar to the one quoted above, stating that a virgin had 
been received, and enumerating her charms with cruel gross- 
ness.1 When a purchaser had been found and a bargain struck, 
the unfortunate girl, often a mere child, was surrendered to 
his brutality, and the wretch issued from the cell afterward, 
to be himself crowned with laurel by the slaves of the establish- 
ment. 
Thus far of common prostitutes. Though the Romans had no 
loose women who could compare in point of standing, influence, 
or intellect with the Greek hetairas, their highest class of prosti- 
tutes, the famosce or delicate, were very far above the unfortunate 
creatures just described. They were not inscribed in the aedile’s 
rolls; they haunted no lupanar, or tavern, or baker’s stall; they 
were not seen lurking about shady spots at night; they wore no 
distinguishing costume. It was in broad daylight, at the theatre, 
in the streets, in the Yia Sacra, which was the favorite resort of 
fashionable Rome, that they were to be found, and there they were 
only to be distinguished from virtuous matrons by the superior 
elegance of their dress, and the swarm of admirers by whom they 
were surrounded. Indeed, under the later emperors, the distinc- 
tion, outward or inward, between these prostitutes and the Roman 
matrons appears to have been very slight indeed.2 They were 
surrounded or followed by slaves of either sex, a favorite waiting- 
maid being the most usual attendant.3 Their meaning glances are 
frequently the subject of caustic allusions in the Roman poets.4 
Many of them were foreigners, and expressed themselves by signs 
from ignorance of the Latin tongue. 
These women were usually the mistresses of rich men, though 
not necessarily faithful to their lovers. We possess no such bi- 
ographies of them as we have of the Greek hetairas, nor is there 
any reason to suppose that their lives ever formed the theme of 
serious works, though the Roman erotic library was rich. What 
little we know of them we glean mostly from the verses of Horace, 
Tibullus, Ovid, Propertius, Catullus, Martial, and from such works 
1 Juvenal, Sat. vi.; Tertullian, De exhort, cast. 45. 2 Juvenal, Sat. vi. 
• Petronius, ii. 352. * Plautus, Miles; Apuleius, ii. 27. 78 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
as the Satyricon of Petronius, and the novel of Apuleius, and that 
little is hardly worth the knowing. 
The first five poets mentioned—Catullus, Horace, Propertius, 
Ovid, and Tibullus—devoted no small portion of their time and 
talent to the celebration of their mistresses. But beyond their 
names, Lydia, Chloe, Lalage, Lesbia, Cynthia, Delia, Neasra, Corin- 
na, &c., we are taught nothing about them but what might have 
been taken for granted, that they were occasionally beautiful, las- 
civious, extravagant, often faithless and heartless. From passages 
in Ovid, and also in one or two of the others, it may be inferred 
that it was not uncommon for these great prostitutes to have a 
nominal husband, who undertook the duty of negotiating their 
immoral bargains (leno mariius). 
The only really useful information we derive from these erotic 
effusions relates to the poets themselves. All the five we have 
mentioned moved in the best society at Rome. Some of them, 
like Horace, saw their fame culminate during their lifetime; oth- 
ers filled important stations under government. Ovid was inti- 
mate with the Emperor Augustus, and his exile is supposed to 
have been caused by some improper discoveries he made with re- 
gard to the emperor’s relations with his daughter. Yet it is quite 
evident that all these persons habitually lived with prostitutes, 
felt no shame on that account, and recorded unblushingly the 
charms and exploits of their mistresses in verses intended to be 
read indiscriminately by the Roman youths. 
Between Ovid and Martial the distance is immense. Half a 
century divided them in point of time ; whole ages in tone. Dur- 
ing the Augustan era, the language of poets, though much freer 
than would be tolerated to-day, was not invariably coarse. No 
gross expressions are used by the poets of that day in addressing 
their mistresses, and even common prostitutes are addressed with 
epithets which a modern lover might apply to his betrothed. 
But Martial knows no decency. It may safely be said that his 
epigrams ought never again to be translated into a modern 
tongue. Expressions designating the most loathsome depravi- 
ties, and which, happily, have no equivalent, and need none, in 
our language, abound in his pages. Pictures of the most revolt- 
ing pruriency succeed each other rapidly. In a word, such lan- 
guage is used and such scenes depicted as would involve the ex- 
pulsion of their utterer from any house of ill fame in modern 
times. Yet Martial enjoyed high favor under government. He ROME. 
79 
was enabled to procure the naturalization of many of his Spanish 
friends. He possessed a country and a town house, both probably 
gifts from the emperor. His works, even in his lifetime, were 
carefully sought after, not only in Home, but in Gaul, Spain, and 
the other provinces. Upon the character and life of courtesans in 
his day he throws but little light. The women whose hideous 
depravity he celebrates must have been well known at Rome; 
their names must have been familiar to the ears of Roman society. 
But this feature of Roman civilization, the notoriety of prostitutes 
and of their vile arts, properly belongs to another division of the 
subject. 
ROMAN SOCIETY. 
It was often said by the ancients that the more prostitutes there 
were, the safer would be virtuous women. “ Well done,” said the 
moralist to a youth entering a house of ill fame; “so shalt thou 
spare matrons and maidens.” As this idea rests upon a slender 
substratum of plausibility, it may be as well to expose its fallacy, 
which can be done very completely by a glance at Roman society 
under the emperors. 
Even allowing for poetical exaggeration, it may safely be said 
that there is no modern society, perhaps there has never existed 
any since the fall of Rome, to which Juvenal’s famous satire on 
women can be applied.1 Independently of the unnatural lusts 
which were so unblushingly avowed, the picture drawn by the 
Roman surpasses modern credibility. That it was faithful to na- 
ture and fact, there is, unhappily, too much reason to believe. 
The causes must be sought in various directions. 
Two marked distinctions between modern and ancient society 
may at once be noticed. In no modern civilized society is it al- 
lowable to present immodest images to the eye, or to utter im- 
modest words in the ear of females or youth. At Rome the con- 
trary was the rule. The walls of respectable houses were cover- 
ed with paintings, of which one hardly dares in our times to men- 
tion the subjects. Lascivious frescoes and lewd sculptures, such 
as would be seized in any modern country by the police, filled the 
halls of the most virtuous Roman citizens and nobles.2 Ingenuity 
had been taxed to the utmost to reproduce certain indecent ob- 
jects under new forms.3 Nor was common indecency adequate 
1 Juvenal, Sat. vi. 
2 Propertius, ii. 6 ; Suet. Tib. 43, and Vit. Hor.; Pliny, xxxv. 37. 
3 See the collection at the Museo Borbonice at Naples, etc. 80 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
to supply the depraved taste of the Romans. Such groups as 
satyrs and nymphs, Leda and the swan, Pasiphse and the bull, 
satyrs and she-goats, were abundant. Some of them have been 
found, and exhibit a wonderful artistic skill. All of these were 
daily exposed to the eyes of children and young girls, who, 
as Propertius says, were not allowed to remain novices in any 
infamy. 
Again, though a Horace would use polite expressions in ad- 
dressing Tyndaris or Lalage, the Latin tongue was much freer 
than any modern one. There is not a Latin author of the best 
age in whose writings the coarsest words can not be found. The 
comedies were frightfully obscene, both in ideas and expressions. 
A youth or a maiden could not begin to acquire instruction with- 
out meeting words of the grossest meaning. The convenient ad- 
age, Charta non erubescit, was invented to hide the pruriency of 
authors, and one of the worst puts in the wretched plea that, 
“ though his page is lewd, his life is pure,” It is quite certain 
that, whatever might have been the effect on the poet, his readers 
could not but be demoralized by the lewdness of his verses. 
Add to these causes of immorality the baths, and a fair case in 
support of Juvenal will be already made out. A young Roman 
girl, with warm southern blood in her veins, who could gaze on 
the unveiled pictures of the loves of Venus, read the shameful 
epigrams of Martial, or the burning love-songs of Catullus, go to 
the baths and see the nudity of scores of men and women, be 
touched herself by a hundred lewd hands, as well as those of the 
bathers who rubbed her dry and kneaded her limbs—a young 
girl who could withstand such experiences and remain virtuous 
would need, indeed, to be a miracle of principle and strength of 
mind. 
But even then religion and law remained to assail her. She 
could not walk through the streets of Rome without seeing tem- 
ples raised to the honor of Venus, that Venus who was the mother 
of Rome, as the patroness of illicit pleasures. In every field and 
in many a square, statues of Priapus, whose enormous indecency 
was his chief characteristic, presented themselves to view, often 
surrounded by pious matrons in quest of favor from the god. 
Once a year, at the Lupercalia, she saw young men running 
naked through the streets, armed with thongs with which they 
struck every woman they saw; and she noticed that matrons 
courted this flagellation as a means of becoming prolific. What ROME, 
81 
she may have known of the Dionysia or Saturnalia, the wilu 
games in honor of Bacchus, and of those other dissolute festivals 
known as the eves of Yenus, which were kept in April, it is not 
easy to say, but there is no reason to believe that these lewd 
scenes were intended only for the vicious, or that they were kept 
a secret. 
When her marriage approached the remains of her modesty 
were effectually destroyed. Before marriage she was led to the 
statue of Mutinus, a nude sitting figure, and made to sit on his 
knee,1 ut ejus pudicitiam prius deus delihasse videtur. This usage 
was so deeply rooted among the Romans that, when Augustus 
destroyed the temple of Mutinus in the Yelian ward in conse- 
quence of the immoralities to which it gave rise, a dozen others 
soon rose to take its place. On the marriage night, statuettes of 
the deities Subiqus and Prema hung over the nuptial bed—ut 
suhacta a sponso viro non se commoveat quum premitur ;2 and in 
the morning the jealous husband exacted, by measuring the neck 
of his bride, proof to his superstitious mind that she had yielded 
him her virginity.3 
In the older age of the republic it was not considered decent 
for women to recline on couches at table as men did. This, how- 
ever, soon became quite common. Men and women lay together 
on the same couch so close that hardly room for eating was left. 
And this was the custom not only with women of loose morals, 
but with the most respectable matrons. At the feast of Trimal- 
chio, which is the best recital of a Roman dinner we have, the 
wife of the host and the wife of Habinus both appeared before 
the guests. Habinus amused them by seizing his host’s wife by 
the feet and throwing her forward so that her dress flew up and 
exposed her knees, and Trimalchio himself did not blush to show 
his preference for a giton in the presence of the company, and to 
throw a cup at his wife’s head when her jealousy led her to re- 
monstrate.4 The voyage of the hero of the Satyricon furnishes 
other pictures of the intensely depraved feeling which pervaded 
Roman society. The author does not seem to admit the possibil- 
ity of virtue’s existence; all his men and women are equally 
vicious and shameless. The open spectacle of the most hideous 
1 Mutinus, cujus immanibus pudendis horrentique fascino vestras inequitare ma- 
trones Arnobius, v. 132. See also St. Augustine and Lactantius. 
‘J August. De Civ. Dei. 3 Catullus, Epithalam.; Arnobius, loc. cit, 
* Petron. Satyr, ii. 68. 82 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
debauchery only provokes a laugh. If a man declines to accede 
to the propositions which the women are the first to make, it must 
be because he is a disciple of the aversa Venus, and whole cities 
are depicted as joining in the hue and cry after the lost frater of 
a noted debauchee. 
The commessationes, which Cicero enumerates among the symp- 
toms of corruption in his time, had become of universal usage. 
It was for them that the cooks of Rome exhausted their art in 
devising the dishes which have puzzled modern gastronomists; 
for them that the rare old wines of Italy were stowed away in 
cellars; for them that Egyptian and lonian dancing-girls stripped 
themselves, or donned the nebula linea.1 No English words can 
picture the monstrosities which are calmly narrated in the pages 
of Petronius and Martial. Well might Juvenal cry, “Vice has 
culminated.”2 
It is perhaps difficult to conceive how it could have been oth- 
erwise, considering the examples set by the emperors. It requires 
no small research to discover a single character in the long list 
that was not stained by the grossest habits. Julius Csesar, “ the 
bald adulterer,” was commonly said to be “ husband of all men’s 
wives.”3 Augustus, whose youth had been so dissolute as to sug- 
gest a most contemptuous epigram, employed men in his old age 
to procure matrons and maidens, whom these purveyors of impe- 
rial lust examined as though they had been horses at a public 
sale.4 The amours of Tiberius in his retreat at Capreas can not be 
described. It will suffice to say there was no invention of infamy 
which he did not patronise; that no young person of any charms 
was safe from his lust. More than one senator felt that safety re- 
quired he should remove his handsome wife or pretty daughter 
from Rome, for Tiberius was ever ready to avenge obstacles with 
death. The sad fate of the beautiful Mallonia, who stabbed her- 
self during a lawsuit which the emperor had instituted against her 
because she refused to comply with his beastly demands, gives a 
picture of the age.5 Caligula, who made some changes in the tax 
levied on prostitutes, and established a brothel in the palace, com- 
menced life by debauching his sisters, and ended it by giving grand 
dinners, during which he would remove from the room any lady 
he pleased, and, after spending a few minutes with her in private, 
1 Petron. Satyr, ii. 70, etc. 2 Juvenal, Sat. vi. 3 Suetonius, Jul. 61. 
* Videsne ut cinaedus urbano digito tcmperat? Suet. Aug. 68, etc. 
6 Suetonius, Tiberius, 42. ROME, 
83 
return and give an account of the interview for the amusement of 
the company.1 Messalina so far eclipsed Claudius in depravity 
that the “ profuse debauches” of the former appear, by contrast, 
almost moderate and virtuous.2 
Nero surpassed his predecessors in cynic recklessness. He was 
an habitual frequenter of houses of prostitution. lie dined in pub- 
lic at the great circus among a crowd of prostitutes. He founded, 
on the shore of the Gulf of Naples, houses of prostitution, and 
filled them with females, whose dissolute habits were their recom- 
mendation to his notice. The brief sketch of his journeys given 
by Tacitus, and the allusions to his minister of pleasures, Tigel- 
linus, leave no room for doubting that he was a monster of de- 
pravity.3 
Passing over a coarse Galba, a profligate Otho, a beastly Yitel- 
lius, a mean Yespasian, and a dissolute Titus, Domitian revived 
the age of Nero. He seduced his brother’s daughter, and carried 
her away from her husband, bathed habitually in company with a 
band of prostitutes, and set an example of hideous vice while enact- 
ing severe laws against debauchery. After another interval, Corn- 
modus converted the palace into a house of prostitution. He kept 
in his pay three hundred girls of great beauty, and as many youths, 
and revived his dull senses by the sight of pleasures he could no 
longer share. Like Nero, he violated his sisters; like him, he as- 
sumed the dress and functions of a female, and gratified the court 
with the spectacle of his marriage to one of his freedmen. Final- 
ly, Blagabalus, whom the historian could only compare to a wild 
beast, surpassed even the most audacious infamies of his predeces- 
sors. It was his pride to have been able to teach even the most 
expert courtesans of Rome something more than they knew; his 
pleasure to wallow among them naked, and to pull down into 
the sink of bestiality in which he lived the first officers of the em- 
pire. 
When such was the example set by men in high places, there is 
no need of inquiring farther into the condition of the public mor- 
als. A censor like Tacitus might indignantly reprove, but a Mar- 
tial—and he was, no doubt, a better exponent of public and social 
life than the stern historian would only laugh, and copy the 
model before him. It may safely be asserted that there does not 
exist in any modern language a piece of writing which indicates 
1 Suetonius, Caligula, 24. 
3 Tacitus, Ann. xv. 37-40. 
2 Id. Claudius, 26; Juvenal, Sat. vi. 84 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
so hopelessly depraved a state of morals as Martial’s epigram on 
his wife. 
At what period, and where, venereal diseases first made their 
appearance, is a matter of doubt. It was long the opinion of the 
faculty that they were of modern origin, and that Europe had de- 
rived them from America, where the sailors of Columbus had 
first contracted them. This opinion does not appear to rest on 
any solid basis, and is now generally rejected. The fact is, that 
the venereal disease prevailed extensively in Europe in the fif- 
teenth century; but the presumption, from an imposing mass of 
circumstantial evidence, is that it has afflicted humanity from the 
beginning of history. 
SECRET DISEASES AT ROME. 
Still, it is strange that Creek and Latin authors do not mention 
it. There is a passage in Juvenal in which allusion is made to a 
disgusting disease, which appears to bear resemblance to venereal 
disease. Epigrams of Martial hint at something of the same kind. 
Celsus describes several diseases of the generative organs, but 
none of these authors ascribe the diseases they mention to venere- 
al intercourse. 
Celsus prefaces what he says on the subject of this class of 
maladies with an apology. Nothing but a sense of duty has led 
him to allude to matters so delicate; but he feels that he ought 
not to allow his country to lose the benefit of his experience, and 
he conceives it to be “ desirable to disseminate among the people 
some medical principles with regard to a class of diseases which 
are never revealed to any one.” 
After this apology, he proceeds to speak of a disease which he 
calls inflammatio colis, which seems to have borne a striking an- 
alogy to the modern Phymosis. It has been supposed that the 
Elephantiasis, which he describes at length, was also of a syphilitic 
character; and the symptoms detailed by Aretous, who wrote in 
the latter half of the first century, certainly remind the reader of 
secondary syphilis; but the best opinion of to-day appears to be 
that the diseases are distinct and unconnected. 
Women afflicted with secret diseases were called aucunnuentce, 
which explains itself. They prayed to Juno Fluonia for relief, 
and used the aster atticus by way of medicine. The Greek term 
for this herb being Bonbornion, which the Romans converted into 
Buhonium, that word came to be applied to the disease for which ROME 
85 
it was given, whether in the case of females or males. Modern 
science has obtained thence the term Bubo. The Romans said 
of a female who communicated a disease to a man, Hone te im- 
hubinat} 
We find, moreover, in the later writers, allusions to the morbus 
campanus, the clazomence, the rubigo, etc., which were all secret dis- 
eases of a type, if not- syphilitic, strongly resembling it. It must 
be admitted, however, that no passage in the ancient writers di- 
rectly ascribes these diseases to commerce with prostitutes. 
Roman doctors declined to treat secret diseases. They were 
called by the generic term morbus indecens, and it was considered 
unbecoming to confess to them or to treat them. Rich men own- 
ed a slave doctor who was in the confidence of the family, and to 
whom such delicate secrets would naturally be confided. But the 
mass of the people were restrained by shame from communicating 
their misfortunes; as was the case among the Jews, the unhappy 
patient was driven to seclusion as the only remedy. However 
cruel and senseless this practice may have been as regarded the 
sufferer, it was of service to the people, as it prevented, in some 
degree, the spread of contagion. 
Up to the period of the civil wars, and perhaps as late as the 
Christian era, the only physicians at Rome were drug-sellers, en- 
chanters, and midwives. The standing of the former may be in- 
ferred from a passage in Horace, where he classes them with the 
lowest outcasts of Roman society.2 The enchanters {sagee) made 
philtres to produce or impede the sensual appetite. They were 
execrated, and even so amorous a poet as Ovid felt bound to warn 
young girls against the evil effects of the aphrodisiacs they con- 
cocted.3 Midwives also made philtres, and are often confounded 
with the sagee. The healing science of the three classes must have 
been small. 
About the reign of Augustus, Greek physicians began to settle 
at Rome. They possessed much theory, and some practical ex- 
perience, as the Treatise of Celsus shows, and soon became an im- 
portant class in Roman society. It was not, however, till the 
reign of Nero, that an office of public physician was created. 
Under that emperor, a Greek named Andromachus was appoint- 
ed archiater, or court physician, and archiatii populares were soon 
afterward appointed for the people. They were allowed to re- 
ceive money from the rich, but they were bound, in consideration 
1 Scaliger. 
3 Horace, Sat. i. 2, 1. 
3 Ovid, Reined. Amor. 86 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of various privileges bestowed on their office, to treat the poor 
gratuitously. They were stationed in every city in the empire. 
Rome had fourteen, besides those attached to the Vestals, the 
Gymnasia, and the court; other large cities had ten, and so on, 
down to the small towns which had one or two.1 From the du- 
ties and privileges of the archiatii, it would appear they were sub- 
ject to the aediles. 
It may seem almost superfluous to add that no careful medical 
reader of the history of Rome under the empire can doubt but 
the archiatii filled no sinecure, and that a large proportion of the 
diseases they treated were directly traceable to prostitution. 
CHAPTER V. 
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA. 
Christian Teachers preach Chastity.—Horrible Punishment of Christian Virgins.— 
Persecution of Women.—Conversion of Prostitutes.—The Gnostics.—The Ascet- 
ics.—Conventual Life.—Opinion of the Fathers on Prostitution.—Tax on Prosti- 
tutes.—Punishment of Prostitutes under the Greek Emperors. 
Perhaps the most marked originality of the Christian doctrine 
was the stress it laid on chastity. It has been well remarked 
that even the most austere of the pagan moralists recommended 
chastity on economical grounds alone. The apostles exacted it as 
a moral and religious duty. They preached against lewdness as 
fervently as against heathenism. Hot one of the epistles contain- 
ed in the Hew Testament but inveighs, in the strongest language, 
against the vices classed under the generic head of luxury. Hor 
can it be doubted that, under divine Providence, the obvious 
merit of this feature in the new religion exercised a large influ- 
ence in rallying the better class of minds to its support. 
From the first, the Christian communities made a just boast of 
the purity of their morals. Their adversaries met them on this 
ground at great disadvantage. It was notorious that the college 
of Vestals had been sustained with great difficulty. Latterly, it 
had been found necessary to supply vacancies with children, and 
even under these circumstances, the number of Vestals buried alive 
bore but a very small proportion to the number who had incur- 
red this dread penalty. Hor could it be denied that the chastity 
1 Dig. 27, 1, 6; Cod. Theodos. xiii. 3. De Medic, et profess. THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA. 
87 
of the Roman virgins was, at best, but partial, the purest among 
them being accustomed to unchaste language and unchaste sights. 
The Christian congregations, on the contrary, contained numbers 
of virgins who had devoted themselves to celibacy for the love of 
Christ. They were modest in their dress, decorous in their man- 
ners, chaste in their speech.1 They refused to attend the theatres; 
lived frugally and temperately; allowed no dancers at their ban- 
quets ; used no perfumes, and abstained generally from every 
practice which could endanger their rigorous continence.2 Mar- 
riage among the Christians was a holy institution, whose sole 
end was the procreation of children. It was not to be used, as 
was the case too often among the heathen, as a cloak for immoral- 
ities, Christ, they said, permitted marriage, but did not permit 
luxury.3 The early fathers imposed severe penitences on forni- 
cation, adultery, and other varieties of sensuality. 
Persecution aided the Church in the great work of purifying 
public morals, by forcing it to keep in view the Christian distinc- 
tion between moral and physical guilt. At what time it became 
usual to condemn Christian virgins to the brothel it is difficult to 
discover. The practice may have arisen from the hideous custom 
which enjoined the violation of Roman maidens before execution, 
if the existence of such a custom can be assumed on the authority 
of so loose a chronicler as Suetonius.4 However this be, this hor- 
rible refinement of brutality was in use in the time of Marcus Au- 
relius.5 Virgins were seized and required to sacrifice to idols. 
Refusing, they were dragged, often naked, through the streets to 
a brothel, and there abandoned to the lubricity of the populace. 
The piety of the early Christians prompted the belief that on many 
conspicuous occasions the Almighty had interfered to protect his 
chosen children in this dire calamity.6 St, Agnes, having refused 
to sacrifice to Vesta, was said to have been stripped naked by the 
order of the prefect; but, no sooner had her garments fallen, than 
her hair grew miraculously, and enveloped her as in a shroud. 
Dragged to the brothel, a wonderful light shone from her body, 
and the by-standers, appalled at the sight, instead of offering her 
violence, fell at her knees, till, at last, the prefect’s son, bolder and 
more reckless than the others, advanced to consummate her sen- 
tence, and was struck dead at her feet by a thunderbolt.7 Theo- 
1 Ambrosius, De Yirg. lib. i. Prudentius in Symmach.; Basil, Inter. 17, resp. 
2 Cyprian, De Pudici. etc. 3 Clem. Pasdag. ii. 10, * Sueton. Yit. Tiber. 
6 Tertnl. Apol. 6 Basil, De vera Virgin. 52. 7 Ambros. Epist. iv. ep. 34. 88 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Dora, a noble lady of Alexandria, was equally undaunted and 
equally faithful to her creed. The judge allowed her three days 
to deliberate, warning her of the consequences of obstinacy. She 
was firm, and was led into a house of prostitution. There, in the 
midst of debauched persons of both sexes, she prayed to God for 
help, and the sight of the half-naked virgin bent in fervent prayer 
struck awe into the minds of the people. At last a soldier de- 
clared that he would fulfill the judgment. Thrust into a cell with 
Theodora, he confessed that he was a Christian, dressed her in his 
clothes, and enabled her to escape. He was seized and executed; 
but the Christian virgin, refusing to purchase her safety at such a 
price, gave herself up, and died with him.1 Similar stones are 
contained in several of the Christian fathers.2 
There is, unhappily, no reason to doubt that in many instances 
the brutal mandate of the pagan judges was rigorously executed, 
and that the faith of many Christian virgins was assailed through 
the channel of their virtue. This appears to have been frequent- 
ly the case during the persecution of Diocletian, when we hear of 
Christian women being suspended naked by one foot, and tortured 
in other savage and infernal ways. The practice led to the cleas 
enunciation of the important doctrine of moral chastity, already 
stated by Christ himself in the Gospel. The Romans could not 
conceive a chaste soul in a body that had endured pollution, and 
hence for Lucretia there was no resource but the poniard. It was 
left for St. Augustin, St. Jerome, and the other fathers, to assert 
boldly that the crime lay in the intention and not in the act; that 
a chaste heart might inhabit a body which brutal force had soiled; 
and that the Christian virgins whom an infamous judge had sen- 
tenced to the brothel were none the less acceptable servants of God.3 
The only retaliation attempted by the early Christians was the 
conversion of prostitutes. The works of the fathers contain many 
narratives of remarkable conversions of this character, and a learn- 
ed Jesuit once compiled a voluminous work on the subject. The 
Egyptian Mary was the type of the class. She confessed to Zosi- 
mus that she had spent seventeen years in the practice of prosti- 
tution at Alexandria. Her heart being opened, she took ship for 
Jerusalem, paid her passage by exercising her calling on board, 
and expiated her sins by a life of penitence in the woods of Ju- 
1 Ambrose, Epist. iv. 34. 
2 See Ruinart, Actes ii. 196; also Palladius, Vit. Patr. cap. 148, etc. 
3 August, contr. Jul. 1, iv.; id. ep. 122, and the other fathers. THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA. 
89 
dsea. She lived, the legend said, forty-seven years in the woods, 
naked and alone, without seeing a man, A chapel was built at 
Paris during the Middle Ages in her honor. The painted win- 
dows, representing her in the exercise of her calling on shipboard, 
were in existence at a very late period.1 
In revenge for the victories of the Christians, the pagans ac- 
cused them of committing the grossest immoralities. For many 
centuries the early Christian congregations met under circum- 
stances of great difficulty, in secret hiding-places, in catacombs. 
Their religious rites were performed mysteriously. Lights were 
often extinguished to foil the object of spies and informers. These 
peculiarities served as the pretext for many obvious calumnies. 
It was commonly believed, even by men of the calibre of Tacitus, 
that the Christian rites bore strong resemblances to those rites of 
Isis which, at an early period of Roman history, had created such 
alarm and horror at Rome. Nor were these calumnies confined 
to the heathen. In the third and fourth centuries, when sectarian 
rivalries menaced the destruction of the Church, similar accusa- 
tions were freely bandied. That they were wholly unfounded in 
every case seems difficult to believe, in the face of the clear state- 
ments of such writers as Epiphanes. What the precise doctrines 
of the various sects called Adamites, Cainites, Nicolaites, and some 
subdivisions of Gnostics, may have been, it were perhaps super- 
fluous now to inquire ; but it seems not unreasonable to suppose 
that, in some instances, men of depraved instincts may have avail- 
ed themselves of the cloak of Christianity to conceal the gratifica- 
tion of sensual habits; or, on the other hand, that minds in a state 
of religious exaltation may have stumbled upon impurities in the 
search for the state of nature. In comparatively late times we 
have seen, in America as well as Savoy, a few persons of weak 
minds give way to religious enthusiasm in a manner that warred 
with public decency. Similar aberrations may have been more 
frequent during the seething era which preceded the establish- 
ment of Christianity, and prostitution, in some shape or other, may 
have again become a religious rite in certain deluded or knavish 
sects. Nor was it unnatural, unjust though it certainly was, for 
the heathen to charge Christianity at large with the vices of those 
of its followers who worshiped in a state of nudity, and accom- 
panied prayer with promiscuous intercourse.2 
1 Reynaud, Act. Sanct. 
2 Ignat. Ep. ad Trail, et ad Philad. ; Clement. Strom. 3; Epiphan. Haer. 27,* 
Theodor. Hieret. i. 5. 90 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Even in the bosom of the true Church practices would break 
out from time to time which jarred sadly with the moral theory 
of the Apostles. Many persons of both sexes, under the influence 
of religious enthusiasm, sought relief for their troubled souls in 
solitude, and unwisely attempted to mortify the flesh by practices 
which too often sharpened the appetites. One only needs to read 
the eloquent effusions of St. Jerome to become satisfied that the 
course of life adopted by many early Christian recluses, of both 
sexes, must have led unwittingly to moral aberrations. Young 
men and young women, devoting themselves to a life of seclusion 
in the woods, living like wild beasts, without clothing and with- 
out shame, would naturally revive the system of religious prosti- 
tution in a more or less modified shape. On the other hand, in 
many parts of Europe, Christian churches thought it not unsafe to 
accept the legacies of the heathen religions in the shapes of idols, 
forms, and ceremonies. Saints succeeded to the honors of gods; 
dances in honor of "Venus became dances in honor of the Virgin; 
statues which were originally intended to represent heathen dei- 
ties were saved from destruction by being adopted as fair repre- 
sentations of Christian saints. Until very recent times there ex- 
isted, in various parts of Europe, statues of Priapus, under the 
name of some saint, retaining the indecency of the idol, and asso- 
ciated with the belief of some simple women that the image pos- 
sessed the power assigned it in mythology. In processions, dur- 
ing the third and fourth centuries, sacred virgins were seen to 
wear round their necks the obscene symbol of the old worship, 
and in places the holy bread retained the shape of the Roman co- 
liphia and siligines. St. John Chrysostom complains that in places 
he designates, women were baptized in a state of nature, without 
even being permitted to veil their sex.1 A majority of Christian 
teachers, unwilling to deprive the masses of a superstitious con- 
venience afforded them by paganism, allowed them to pray to cer- 
tain saints not only for fertility, but for the removal of impotence 
from husbands and lovers.2 
To these immoral features must be added occasional instances 
of looseness in conventual life. The preamble of various edicts in 
France and elsewhere leaves no room to doubt that, in several 
instances, immoral persons had assumed the religious garb, and 
collected themselves together in religious communities for the 
purpose of gratifying sensuality. 
1 Letter to Innocent I. 
2 Calvin, Tr. Relig. THE EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA. 
91 
These were the aids Christianity afforded to prostitution in its 
various forms. They are a mere trifle in comparison with the 
obstacles it threw in its way. Independently of the effect pro- 
duced by the moral teaching of St. Paul and the Apostles, the 
rising power of the Church was vigorously exerted to modify the 
legislation both of the Eastern and Western empires on the sub- 
ject of sexual depravities. 
The fathers did not uniformly proscribe prostitution. Saint 
Augustin said, “ Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will 
overthrow society.”1 Jerome recognized prostitution, and argued 
that, as Mary Magdalene had been saved, so might any prostitute 
who repented.2 The canons of the apostles excluded from the 
ministry all persons who were convicted of having commerce 
with prostitutes, and excommunicated those who were guilty of 
rape, but they passed no general sentence on prostitutes.3 But 
the apostolic constitution branded as sinful any sexual intercourse 
quce non adhibetur ad generationem filiorum sed tota ad voluptatem 
special.4 The same principle is asserted in various passages of 
the work; wine being denounced as a provocation to impurity, 
and the faithful are warned against the society of lewd persons 
(scortaiores). The Council of Elvira pronounced the penalty of 
excommunication against bawds and prostitutes, but it expressly 
commanded priests to receive at the communion-table prostitutes 
who had married Christians.5 St. Augustin conceived that no 
church should admit prostitutes to the altar till they had aban- 
doned the calling.6 A similar doctrine was expressed by the 
Council of Toledo, At a later period, as we advance in mediaeval 
history, we find the councils recognizing prostitution, and prosti- 
tutes as a class. In 1431, at the Council of Basle, a holy father 
presented a paper on the subject of prostitution, in which it was 
implied to be the only safeguard of good morals. A century 
later, the Council of Milan took especial pains to identify prosti- 
tutes as a class. They were to wear a distinctive dress, with no 
ornaments of gold, silver, or silk; to reside in places expressly 
designated by the bishops, at a distance from cathedrals; to avoid 
taverns and hostelries. The execution of the decree was intrust- 
ed to the bishops and the civil magistrates.7 
1 Tr. Ord. lib. ii. c. 12. 
2 Ep. ad Furiam, ad Fabiolam. See also Lactantius, lib. vi. cap. 23. 
3 Can. 61, 77. * Constit. lib. viii. c. 7. 5 Canons 12, 44. 
6 Lib. de fid. et oper. c. xi. 7 Const. Milan, tit. 65, de meret. et lenon. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The vectigal or tax paid by all persons subsisting by prostitution 
was exacted by the emperors, from Caligula to Theodosius, it 
was usually collected every five years. Zosimus accuses Con- 
stantine of having enlarged and remodeled the tax, but apparent- 
ly without foundation. The early Christians made it a subject 
of reproach to the emperors.1 In consequence of their assaults, 
Theodosius abandoned that portion of the law which laid a tax on 
bawds, leaving the tax on prostitutes. The latter was levied as 
rigorously as ever. A contemporary writer describes the imperial 
agents hunting for prostitutes in taverns and houses of prostitu- 
tion, and forcing them to purchase, by payment of the tax, the 
right of pursuing their calling.2 At length, in the fifth century, 
prostitution and the tax on prostitutes, or chrysarguron, were for- 
mally abolished by the Emperor Anastasius L, and the records 
and rolls of the collectors burned. It is said that some time aft- 
erward, the emperor gave out that he had repented of what he 
had done, and desired to see the chrysarguron re-established. The 
announcement gave great joy to the debauchees, and numbers of 
persons prepared to avail themselves of the re-enactment of the 
law. The emperor let it be known that he desired to have mat- 
ters placed, so far as could be, on their old footing, and would 
therefore desire to collect as many as possible of the old rolls and 
records. They were gathered together at all parts, and laid at 
the imperial feet. Notice was then given to the people to meet 
at the circus on a given day; when they were all assembled, the 
whole collection of documents was burned, amid the frantic ap- 
plause of the populace.3 
It has been asserted, however, that the chrysarguron was revived 
subsequently, and was levied under Justinian. That legislator al- 
tered the old Roman laws regarding prostitution, and relieved 
prostitutes from the ineffaceable ban of infamy which the repub- 
lican jurisprudence had laid on them. He permitted the marriage 
of citizens with prostitutes, and encouraged it by his example. 
His own wife, the Empress Theodora, had been a ballet-dancer 
and a prostitute. _ When she attained the imperial dignity, her 
first thought was of her old companions. She built a magnificent 
nalace-prison on the south shore of the Bosphorus, and in one 
night caused five hundred prostitutes in Constantinople to be seized 
and conveyed thither. They were kindly treated; their every 
wish was gratified; but no man entered their asylum. The ex- 
1 Justin, Apol. pro Christ. 
3 Evagrius, Hist. Eccl. liv. 3, c. 39. 3 Id. ib. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
periment was a complete failure. Most of the girls committed sui- 
cide in their despair, and the remainder soon died of ennui and 
vexation. 
Theodosius had laid heavy penalties on brothel-keepers ;l Jus- 
tinian reiterated them, and increased their weight. The seizure 
and prostitution of a girl he punished with death. He who con- 
nived at the prostitution of females was to be expelled from the 
city where he lived, and any person harboring him was to be fined 
one hundred gold pieces. Whatever legislation could effect to 
uproot the system of procurers and public prostitution, Justinian 
did ;2 but his laws contain no trace of any harsh policy toward 
prostitutes. Those unfortunate creatures he regarded with an in- 
dulgent humanity, which, for the sake of human nature, one may 
perhaps ascribe to the kindly sympathy of the empress. 
CHAPTER YI. 
FRANCE.—HISTORY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
Morals in Gaul.—Gynecea.—Capitulary of Charlemagne.—Morals in the Middle 
Ages.—Edict of 1254.—Decree of 1358, re-establishing Prostitution.—Roi des 
Ribands.—Ordinance of Philip abolishing Prostitution.—Sumptuary Laws.—* 
Punishment of Procuresses.—Templars.—The Provinces.—Prohibition in thb 
North.—Licensed Brothels at Toulouse, Montpellier, and Avignon.—Penalties 
South.—Effect of Chivalry.—Literature.—Erotic Vocabulary.— Incubes and 
Succubes.—Sorcery.—The Sabat.—Flagellants.—Adamites.—Jour des Inno- 
cents.—Wedding Ceremonies.—Preachers of the Day. 
The Roman accounts of the Gauls represent them as leading 
virtuous lives. Severn matrimonia is the expression of the histo- 
rian. This would appear to apply more particularly to the wom- 
en than the men. As is usually the case among semi-civilized 
nations, the Gauls, Germans, Franks, and most of the aboriginal 
nations of Northern Europe imposed upon the women obligations 
of chastity which they did not always accept for themselves. 
Adultery, and, in certain cases, fornication, they punished capital- 
ly ; but, if the early ecclesiastical writers are to be believed, these 
rude warriors were addicted to coarse debaucheries, in which in- 
toxicating liquors and promiscuous intercourse with females play- 
ed a prominent part. The feasts which followed victories in the 
field, or commemorated national anniversaries, bore some resem- 
blance to the Roman commessationes, though, of course, they lacked 
Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 8, De lenon. 2 Novel. 14, col. 1, tit. 1, De lenon. 94 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the refinement and the wit which occasionally strove to redeem 
those disgraceful banquets. So far as the females were concern- 
ed, there is no doubt the Roman writers judged correctly. Wheth- 
er the severity of the climate tempered the ardor of northern sen- 
suality, or the harshness of the law kept the passions in check, the 
female population of Haul, from the time of the Roman conquest 
for at least two or three centuries, was undoubtedly virtuous. 
Prostitution was comparatively unknown. An old law or usage 
directed that prostitutes should be stoned, but we do not hear of 
this law being carried into effect. 
Simultaneously with the consolidation of the kingdom of the 
Franks, we note that concubinage was an established institution, 
recognized by the law and sanctioned by the Church. All the 
Frank chiefs who could afford the luxury kept harems, or, as they 
were called in that day, gynecea, peopled by young girls who min- 
istered to their pleasures. The plan, as it appears, bore some re- 
semblance to that which is at present in use in Turkey and some 
other Mohammedan countries. The chief had one lawful and 
proper wife, a sort of sultana valide, and other wives whose mat- 
rimonial rights were less clearly defined, but still whose condition 
was not necessarily disreputable. How the people lived we are 
not so well qualified to say, but no doubt prostitution prevailed 
to some extent among them, though in all probability the public 
morals were purer than they became toward the tenth and elev- 
enth centuries. 
Perhaps the first authentic legislative notice of prostitution in 
France is to be found in the Capitularies of Charlemagne. That 
monarch, who seems to have seen no mischief in the system of 
gynecea, was severe upon common prostitution. He directed vul- 
gar prostitutes to be scourged, and a like penalty to be inflicted 
on all who harbored them, kept houses of debauch, or lent their 
assistance to prostitutes or debauchees. In other words, Charle- 
magne treated the same act as a crime among the poor, and as 
an excusable habit among the rich. 
Our information regarding society in the Middle Ages is neces- 
sarily obscure and scanty, but we have enough to learn that im- 
morality prevailed to an alarming degree during the tenth, elev- 
enth, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Probably the rich men 
who had their gynecea were the most virtuous class in the nation. 
Most of the kings set an example of loose intercourse with the 
ladies of the court. The armies of the time were noted for the FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
95 
ravages they committed among tlie female population of the coun- 
tries where they were quartered. Both of these classes seem to 
have yielded the palm of debauchery to the clergy. It is a fact 
well known to antiquaries, though visual evidence of it is becoming 
scarce, that most of the great works of Gothic architecture which 
date from this period were profusely adorned with lewd sculp- 
tures whose subjects were taken from the religious orders. In 
one place a monk was represented in carnal connection with a 
female devotee. In others were seen an abbot engaged with 
nuns, a naked nun worried by monkeys, youthful penitents un- 
dergoing flagellation at the hands of their confessor, lady abbesses 
offering hospitality to well-proportioned strangers, etc,, etc. These 
obscene works of art formerly encumbered the doors, windows, 
arches, and niches of many of the finest Gothic cathedrals in 
France. Modesty has lately insisted on their removal, but many 
of the works themselves have been rescued from destruction by 
the zeal of antiquaries, and it is believed some have still escaped 
the iconoclastic hand of the modern Church. When such was 
the condition of the clergy, and such the notoriety of that condi- 
tion, it would be unjustifiable to expect purity of morals among 
the people. 
Louis YIIL made an effort to regulate prostitution. It proved 
fruitless, and it was left to the next king of the same name, Louis 
IX., to make the first serious endeavor to check the progress of 
the evil in France. His edict, which dates from 1254, directed 
that all prostitutes, and persons making a living indirectly out 
of prostitution, such as brothel-keepers and procurers, should be 
forthwith exiled from the kingdom. It was partially put in force. 
A large number of unfortunate females were seized, and impris- 
oned or sent across the frontier. Severe punishments were in- 
flicted on those who returned to the city of Paris after their ex- 
pulsion. A panic seized the customers of brothels, and for a few 
months public decency was restored. But the inevitable conse- 
quences of the arbitrary decree of the king soon began to be felt. 
Though the officers of justice had forcibly confined in establish- 
ments resembling Magdalen hospitals a large proportion of the 
most notorious prostitutes, and exiled many more, others arose to 
take their places. A clandestine traffic succeeded to the former open 
debauchery, and in the dark the evils of the disease were necessa- 
rily aggravated. More than that, as has usually been the case 
when prostitution has been violently and suddenly suppressed, 96 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the number of virtuous women became less, and corruption in- 
vaded the family circle. Tradesmen complained that since the 
passage of the ordinance they found it impossible to guard the 
virtue of their wives and daughters against the enterprises of the 
military and the students. 
At last, complaints of the evil effects of the ordinance became 
so general and so pressing that, after a lapse of two years, it was 
repealed. A new royal decree re-established prostitution under 
rules which, though not particularly enlightened or humane, still 
placed it on a sounder footing than it had occupied before the 
royal attention had been directed to the subject. Prostitutes 
were forbidden to live in certain parts of the city of Paris, were 
not allowed to wear jewelry or fine stuffs, and were placed under 
the direct supervision of a police magistrate, whose official or 
popular title was Le roi des ribands (the king of ribaldry). The 
duties of this officer appear to have been analogous to those of 
the Roman sediles who had charge of prostitution. He was em- 
powered to arrest and confine females who infringed the law, 
either in their dress, their domicil, or their behavior. It was aft- 
erward urged against the maintenance of the .office of Roi des 
ribands that it was usually filled by reckless, depraved men, who 
discharged its duties more in view of their private interests and 
the gratification of their sensuality than from regard to the public 
morals. Instances of gross tyranny were proved against them, 
and, in the absence of evidence to show that their appointment 
had been beneficial to the public, but little regret was felt when 
the office was abolished by Francis I. 
To return to Louis IX. In his old age he repented of what he 
had done, and returned to the spirit of his early ordinance. In 
his instructions to his son and successor, he adjured him to remove 
from his country the shameful stain of prostitution, and indicated 
plainly enough that the best mode of attaining that end would be 
by re-enacting the ordinance of 1254. Philip dutifully fulfilled 
his father’s request. Prostitution was again declared a legal mis- 
demeanor, and a formidable array of penalties was again brought 
to bear against offending females and their accomplices. But, like 
many a legislative act in more modern times, Philip’s ordinance 
was too obviously at variance with public policy and popular sen- 
timent to be carried into effect. It was quietly allowed to remain 
a dead letter, and, with probably few exceptions, the prostitutes 
of Paris pursued their calling unmolested. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
A few years afterward, its nullification was authoritatively sanc- 
tioned by fresh sumptuary laws. A royal edict directed courte- 
sans to wear a shoulder-knot of a particular color as a badge of 
their calling. The whole force of the government was rallied to 
enforce this rule, and also those which had been enacted by Louis 
IX. The records of the court contain innumerable reports of the 
arrests of prostitutes for violating these enactments. When they 
had taken up their abode in a prohibited street, they were im- 
prisoned and dislodged; when their offense was wearing unlaw- 
ful garments or jewelry, the forbidden objects were seized and 
sold, the constable apparently sharing the proceeds of the sale. 
Pimps and procurers were dealt with more severely. As usual, 
the statute-book contained a variety of conflicting enactments on 
this subject, and menaced them with all kinds of penalties, from 
burning alive to fine and imprisonment. It appears beyond a 
doubt that, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, several 
notorious procuresses were burned alive at Paris. Others were 
put in the pillory; were scourged, and :had their ears cropped; 
while many of the richer class escaped with a fine. There are 
records of cases in which the procuress was exposed naked to the 
insults of the mob for a whole day, and toward evening the hair 
on her body was burned off with a flaming torch. Others again 
were chased through the city in a state of nudity, and pelted with 
stones. These barbarous penalties appear to have been very much 
to the taste of the people. Procuresses have always been an odi- 
ous class, and it is not surprising to find that the punishment of a 
notorious wretch of the class was observed as a joyous holiday by 
the populace of the French capital. On the other hand, the pros- 
titutes themselves were often subjects of public sympathy. 
97 
Peculiar reasons operated at this period to produce a favorable 
sentiment with regard to prostitutes. The horrible depravities of 
the Templars were becoming known. Society was horror-struck 
at the symptom of a revival of the worst vice of the ancients. 
There have been, as is known, ingenious and eloquent efforts 
made, in comparatively recent times, to throw a veil over the cor- 
ruptions of the Templars, and to prove that they fell victims to 
royal jealousy, but the argument is not sustained by the facts. 
Documents on whose authenticity and credibility no possible sus- 
picion can be cast, establish incontrovertibly that the sect of the 
Templars was tainted with unnatural vices, and that one of the 
chief secrets of its maintenance was the facility it afforded to de- 98 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
based men for the gratification of monstrous propensities. That 
this was the opinion which prevailed in Paris at the time of 
the outburst which finally led to the suppression of the order, 
there is no room to question. It is easy to understand how 
the horror such discoveries must have awakened would lead 
men to entertain more lenient views with regard to a vice which 
had at least the merit of being in conformity with natural in- 
stinct. 
Thus far of Paris only. During the Middle Ages, as is well 
known, most of the provinces of France were self-governing com- 
munities, which administered their own affairs, and received no 
police regulations from the crown. A complete examination of 
the subject throughout France would therefore involve as many 
histories as there were provinces. Our space, of course, forbids 
any thing of the kind, and we can only glance at leading divis- 
ions. 
Most of the northern people had adopted, partly from the old 
Germanic constitutions and partly from the Eoman law, severe 
provisions against prostitution, but they were nowhere, appar- 
ently, put in force. Occasionally a notorious brothel-keeper or 
professional procuress was severely punished, but prostitutes were 
rarely molested. In the north and west of France, indeed, toler- 
ation was obviously the natural policy, for we are not led to be- 
lieve that in that section of country the evil was ever carried to 
great excess. In Normandy, Brittany, Picardy, and the great 
northern and western provinces, a virtuous simplicity was the rule 
of life among the peasants, and even the cities did not present any 
striking contrast. In many provinces, usage, not fortified by the 
text of any custom, allowed the seigneur to levy toll upon prosti- 
tutes exercising their calling within the limits of his jurisdiction. 
Some old titles and records refer to this practice. One sets down 
the tax paid by each prostitute at four dealers to the seigneur. 
Others intimate that the tax may be paid in money or in kind, at 
the option of the seigneur. In many seigniories this singular tax 
was regarded with the contempt it deserved. 
In the south of France we meet with a different spectacle. 
There prostitution had long been a deeply-seated feature of so- 
ciety. The warm passions of the southerners required a vent, 
and, in the absence of some safety-valve, it was obvious to all that 
the ungovernable lusts of the men would soon kindle the inflam- 
mable passions of the dark southern women. Public houses of FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
99 
prostitution were therefore established in three of the largest cities 
of the south—Toulouse, Avignon, and Montpellier. 
That of Toulouse was established by royal charter, which de- 
clared that the profits of the enterprise should be shared equally 
by the city and the University. The building appropriated for 
the purpose was large and commodious, bearing the name of the 
Grand Ahbaye. In it were lodged not only the resident prosti- 
tutes of the city, but any loose women who traveled that way, 
and desired to exercise their impure calling. It would appear 
that they received a salary from the city, and that the fees exact- 
ed from the customers were divided between the two public bodies 
to which the enterprise was granted. They were obliged to wear 
white scarfs and white ribbons or cords on one of their arms, as a 
badge of their calling. 
When the unfortunate monarch Charles VI. visited Toulouse, 
the prostitutes of the Abbaye met him in a body, and presented 
an address. The king received them graciously, and promised to 
grant them whatever largess they should request. They begged 
to be released from the duty of wearing the white badges, and the 
king, faithful to his promise, granted the boon. A royal declara- 
tion specially exempted them from the old rule.1 But the people 
of Toulouse, no doubt irritated by the want of some distinguishing 
mark between their wives and daughters and the “ foolish wom- 
en,” by common consent mobbed the prostitutes who availed 
themselves of the king’s ordinance. None of them could venture 
to appear in public without being liable to insult, and even bodily 
injury. Eesolutely bent on carrying their point, the women shut 
themselves up in the Abbaye, and did their best to keep custom- 
ers at a distance. Their calculation was just; the city and the 
University soon felt the effects of the diminution of visitors at the 
Abbaye. The corporation appealed to the king; and when, dur- 
ing the disorders which distracted France at that time, Charles 
VII. visited Toulouse, a formal petition was presented to him by 
the capitones, praying that he would take such steps as his wisdom 
might seem fit to mediate between the prostitutes and the people, 
and restore to the Abbaye its former prosperity. The king acted 
with energy. He denounced the assailants of the prostitutes in 
the severest language, and planted his own royal fleurs de Its over 
the door of the Abbaye as a protection to the occupants.2 But 
the people did not respect the royal arms any more than they did 
1 Ordonn. des Rois de France, vii. 327. 
2 Ibid. xiii. 75. 100 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the “ foolish women.” On the contrary, assaults on the Abbaye 
became more numerous than ever. The prostitutes complained 
incessantly of having suffered violence at the hands of wild youths 
who refused to pay for their pleasures; and the civic authorities 
proving incompetent to check the disorder, the prostitutes found 
themselves compelled to seek refuge in a new part of the city, 
where, it is to be presumed, they enlisted adequate support among 
their own individual acquaintances. For a hundred jmars they 
inhabited their new domicil in peace and quiet. The University 
then dislodging them in order to occupy the spot, the city built 
them a new abbaye beyond the precincts of the respectable wards. 
It was called the Chateau vert, and its fame and profits equaled 
that of the old abbaye. 
About the middle of the sixteenth century the city yielded to 
the scruples of some moralists of the day, and ceded the revenues 
of the Chateau vert to the hospitals; but the grant being made 
on condition that the hospitals should receive and cure all females 
attacked by venereal disease, it was found, after six years’ trial, 
that it cost more than it yielded. The hospitals surrendered the 
chateau to the city. It happened, just at this time, that many 
eminent philosophers and economists were advocating a return to 
the old ecclesiastical policy of suppressing prostitution altogether. 
After a discussion which lasted several years, the city of Toulouse 
adopted these views, and closed the Chateau vert. A magistrate, 
high in authority, left on record his protest against this course, 
founded on the scenes of immorality he had himself witnessed in 
the suburbs, and the country in the neighborhood of Toulouse; 
but the city authorities adhered to their opinion, and contented 
themselves with arresting some of the most shameless of the free 
prostitutes.1 From that time forth, prostitution at Toulouse was 
subject to the same rules as in the rest of France. 
The history of prostitution at Montpellier was analogous. At 
an early period, the monopoly which the crown had granted to 
the city being farmed out to individuals, fell into the hands of 
two bankers, in whose family it remained for several generations. 
During their tenure, a brothel was established in the city by a 
speculator of the day, but the holders of the monopoly prosecuted 
him, and obtained a perpetual injunction restraining him from 
lodging or harboring prostitutes. 
At Avignon prostitution was legalized by Jane of Naples just 
Ami. de la Yille de Toulouse, par Lafaille, ii. 189, 199, 280. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
101 
before the cession, of the city to the Pope. The ordinance estab- 
lishing a public brothel seems to have been drawn with care, and, 
though doubts have lately been thrown on its authenticity, they 
are not so well founded as to justify its rejection. Prostitutes 
were ordered to live in the brothel. They were bound to wear a 
red shoulder-knot as a badge of their calling. The brothel was 
to be visited weekly by the bailli and a “ barber,” the latter of 
whom was to examine the girls, and confine separately all who 
seemed infected. No Jew was allowed to enter the brothel on 
any pretext. Its doors were to be closed on saints’ days, and 
special regulations guarded against the prevalence of scenes of 
riot and disorder.1 
This ordinance seems to have remained in force during the 
whole occupation of Avignon by the Popes, and its penalties 
were occasionally inflicted on offenders. But if Petrarch and 
other contemporary writers are to be believed, the city was none 
the less a refuge for debauchees, and a scandal to Christendom. 
Petrarch complains that it was far more depraved than old Rome, 
and a popular proverb confirms, at least in part, his opinion.2 
There were, however, in some southern provinces, severe laws 
against prostitution, although some of the penalties seem to have 
been framed as much with the view of stimulating as of repress- 
ing the passions. In one or two cities we find accounts of prosti- 
tutes and their customers being forced to walk naked through the 
streets by way of expiation. In others, the punishment of the 
iron cage was inflicted on pimps and procuresses. When a pro- 
curess had rendered herself particularly obnoxious, she was seized, 
stripped naked, and dragged in the midst of a great crowd to the 
water’s side. There she was thrust into an iron cage, in which 
she was forced to kneel. When the cage door was closed, she was 
thrown into the river, and allowed to remain under water long 
enough to produce temporary suffocation. This shocking punish- 
ment was repeated several times. 
A potent influence over the morals of the southern people, the 
higher classes at least, was exercised by the institution of chivalry. 
It was of the essence of that institution to promote spiritual at the 
expense of sensual gratification. The chevalier adored his mis- 
1 Astruc, De morb. verier. 
“ Sur le pent d’ Avignon 
Tout le monde y passe.” 
The bridge was a haunt of prr.-titutes. 102 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tress in secret for years, without even venturing to breathe her 
name. For years he carried a scarf or a ribbon in her honor 
through battle-scenes and dangers of every kind, happy when, 
after a lustrum spent in sighs and hopes, the charmer condescend- 
ed to reward his fidelity with a gracious smile. It is evident that 
sexual intercourse must have been rare among people who set so 
high a value on the merest compliments and slightest tokens of 
affection; nor can there be any question but the effect of chivalry 
was to impart a high tone to the feelings and language of society, 
and to soften the manners of all who came within its influence. 
If, on the other hand, we glance at the literature which flour- 
ished in France during the period of the revival of learning, we 
can not but infer that the morals of the people at large were not 
pure. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, 
the standard reading of the educated classes among the French 
was the celebrated Roman de la Rose, a work of remarkable talent, 
but, at the same time, distinguished by a cynic vein of philosophy 
and a singular obscenity of language. ISTo portion of that work 
was wholly free from lewd expressions, and it would be impossi- 
ble to quote fifty lines of it to-day in a modern language. The 
doctrine of the author with regard to women was insulting and 
cynical.1 They were uniformly depicted as being restrained only 
by legal difficulties from giving way to the loosest passions; and 
all men, in like manner, were painted as seducers, adulterers, and 
violators of young girls. Such was the reading of the best soci- 
ety in France. The Roman de la Rose was to them what Shaks- 
peare is to us. 
Nor was it alone of its kind. Of the works which that age has 
bequeathed to us, nearly all are tainted with the same grossness 
of language and pruriency of idea. All, or nearly all, breathe the 
air of the brothel. It was rather a matter of boasting than of 
shame with the authors, Yillon and Regnier seem to plume 
themselves on their familiarity with scenes of debauch, and their 
extensive acquaintance among the prostitute class. The best of 
their works are descriptions of episodes of dissipation; their most 
lively sketches have prostitutes, or their fortunes, or their dis- 
eases, for the themes. They seemed to fancy they were imitating 
Horace when they borrowed his most odious blemishes. Some of 
them were actors as well as poets, and used the machinery of the 
“ Touteß estes, serez, ou fates, 
De faict ou de volont ', putes."—Roman de la Rose. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
stage to disseminate their lewd compositions. Though it was still 
unusual, or even unlawful, for women to appear on the stage in 
their time, the boys who played female parts were well drilled to 
the business, and the performances which delighted the towns and 
villages of France fell but little short, in point of grossness, of the 
theatrical enormities of the imperial era at Rome. 
One may form some idea of the popularity of erotic literature 
at this period in France from the amazing vocabulary of erotic 
terms which is gathered from the works of Rabelais, Beroald de 
Yerville, Regnier, Brantome, and their contemporaries. There 
was not a form of lewdness for which an appropriate name had 
not been invented; and as to the ordinary acts and instruments of 
prostitution, a dictionary of synonyms might have been compiled 
without embracing all of them. Monsieur Dufour, in his consci- 
entious work, fills a couple of pages with the mere words that 
were employed to express the act of fornication. 
Many events likewise indicate a loose state of morals. The 
history of the incubes and succuhes, filling some space in every 
treatise on demonology, is a most curious feature of the morals 
of the day. The existence of demons who made a practice of 
assailing the virtue of girls and boys was admitted by some of the 
fathers of the Church,1 who quoted the words of Genesis in sup- 
port of the singular doctrine. They were of two kinds: incuhi, 
from the Latin incubare, male demons who assailed the chastity 
of girls; and succubce1 female demons who robbed boys of their 
innocence. The old chronicles are full of accounts of the mis- 
chievous deeds of these evil spirits. As might be expected, the 
incuhi were more numerous and more enterprising than the sue- 
cubce. For one boy who confessed that a female demon had at- 
tacked him in his sleep, and compelled him to minister to her 
sensuality, there were a score of girls who furnished very tolerable 
evidence of having yielded their virginity to creatures of the male 
gender, who, they were satisfied, could be none other than devils. 
The ecclesiastical writers of the period have preserved a number 
of scandalous stories of the kind, which were so well credited that 
Pope Innocent VIII. felt impelled to issue a bull on the subject, 
and provide the faithful with an efficacious formula of exorcism. 
Females, most of whom appeared to be nuns, confessed that 
they had been subject to the scandalous visits of the demons for 
long periods of time, and that neither fasting, nor prayer, nor 
1 St. August, per cont.; St. John Chrysost. Horn. 22, sup. Gene. 104 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
spiritual exercise could release them from the hated plague. 
Some girls were brought to admit a similar intercourse, and were 
burnt at the stake as partakers of the nature of sorceresses.1 
Married women made similar confessions. They stated that they 
were able to affirm that intercourse with demons was extremely 
painful; that their frigid nature, combined with their monstrous 
proportions, rendered their society a severe affliction, independ- 
ently of the sin. It was noticed that the women, married or 
single, who applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for relief from 
this curious form of torment were almost invariably young and 
pretty. 
In the year 1637 a public discussion took place at Paris on the 
question, Whether there exist succubce and incubi, and whether 
they can procreate their species? The discussion was long and 
elaborate. It was conducted by a body of learned doctors, in 
presence of a large audience, composed partly of ladies; and 
while the judgment of the tribunal appeared to be in the nega- 
tive, it was not so emphatic as to settle the question.2 Even a 
century later, when one of the royal physicians undertook to 
explode the theory of lewd demons, and to prove that girls had 
endeavored to conceal their intercourse with lovers by attributing 
to them a devilish character, the public was not convinced, and 
the incubi were not left without believers. The laws still pro- 
nounced the penalty of death against all persons, male or female, 
who had commerce with demons. 
Another practice which was brought to a close about the same 
time was entitled uLe sabat des sorciers,” the witches’ vigil. It 
appears that, at the earliest times of which we have any record, 
the inhabitants of France and Germany were in the habit of fre- 
quenting nocturnal assemblies in which witchcraft was believed 
or pretended to occupy a prominent place. In the thirteenth 
century they were denounced by Pope Gregory IX.,3 who was 
satisfied that the devil had to do with them, and that their prime 
object was the gratification of sensuality. His bull did not attain 
its object. The witches’ meetings were still held, or believed to 
have been held throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth, and part of 
the sixteenth centuries. The popular belief was that the persons 
in league with witches anointed their bodies with magical oint- 
1 Bodin, Demonomanie. 
5 Recueil general des questions traictees es Conferences du Bureau d’Adresse. 
Paris, 1656. 3 Hist. Kcclesiast. Henry XVII. 53. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
105 
ment, bestrode a broom, and were forthwith carried through the 
air to the place of meeting; that Satan was present at the cere- 
mony in the form of a huge he-goat, and received the homage of 
the witches and their proselytes; that songs and dances followed 
next in order, and that the whole performance was closed with a 
scene of promiscuous debauchery.1 The Inquisition took the 
matter in hand, and obtained affidavits from several females 
averring that they had had commerce with demons on these occa- 
sions, and relating with singular crudity the peculiar sensations 
they experienced.2 On the strength of this evidence prosecutions 
were instituted, and many persons were condemned and exe- 
cuted. 
It has been usual in modern times to regard the persecution of 
the witches as a proof of the barbarous intolerance of the ancient 
Church ; but, in truth, a careful examination of the evidence leaves 
no room for doubting that witchcraft was only the cloak of real 
vices. Most of the persons who were burned in France as sorcer- 
ers had really used the popular belief in magic to hide their own 
debaucheries, and had succeeded in depraving large numbers of 
youth of both sexes. It was stated by a theological writer of the 
time of Francis L, that in his day there were one hundred thou- 
sand persons sold to Satan in France.3 Allowing for some exag- 
geration, it must still be inferred from this statement that this form 
of prostitution had assumed alarming proportions. Nor is there 
any good reason for doubting but priests and other persons of lewd 
propensities turned the simplicity of the village girls to account 
in very many instances, and richly earned the severe penalty that 
was inflicted upon them by the arm of the Church. The vigil, or 
sabat, disappears from history during the sixteenth century. That 
it had been for some time before its extinction a haunt of debau- 
chees and a fertile source of prostitution, the writers on demon- 
ology and the old chroniclers establish incontrovertibly. 
Other aids to prostitution were obtained from the very ranks 
of the Church. During the Middle Ages numbers of strange sects 
appeared, many of which relied for success on the favor they al- 
lowed to sensuality. At the present day it is not easy to determ- 
ine what proportion of the stories that are in print respecting many 
of these sects were the fruit of sectarian jealousy on the part of 
their rivals; some of them were doubtless calumniated, but there 
1 Bodin, Demonomanie. 
3 Pere Crespet, De la Hair ' P 
3 Nicolas Penny. 106 
THE HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
are others about whose character and practices there is no room 
for controversy. The Flagellants, for instance, who counted eight 
hundred thousand proselytes in France in the fourteenth century, 
were unquestionably depraved. They marched in procession, men 
and women together, through the cities of France, each member 
of the society using the whip freely on the bare back of the per- 
son before him; and at night they assembled in country places, 
and proceeded to more serious flagellations. The opinion of 
learned persons ascribed erotic effects to these flagellations, it be- 
ing said, apparently with truth, that when the flagellants had ex- 
cited their senses by their discipline, they gave way to frantic de- 
bauchery. However this be, it is plain that the spectacle of naked 
men and women marching in procession and scourging one an- 
other can not but have been provocative of prostitution.1 
Another similar sect was the Adamites, who argued that nudity 
was the law of nature, and that clothes were an abomination in the 
sight of God, It is said that, at first, the Adamites insisted on 
nudity only during their religious exercises, and that their prose- 
lytes stripped themselves within the place of worship; but one, 
Picard, who became a leading authority in the sect, took the 
ground that their principles should be carried out boldly in the 
face of the world. He and his followers, male and female, accord- 
ingly appeared in the streets in the costume in which they were 
born. The Inquisition very properly laid hands on them, pun- 
ished some, and exiled the others.2 
Again: if we pass from individual accidents to the state of so- 
ciety at large, we shall find many features that can not have been 
aids to virtue. Allusion has already been made to the obscene 
character of much of the early poetry of France, and to the ex- 
cessive grossness of those works especially which obtained, and 
perhaps deserved, the widest popularity. Many of the customs 
of the day were equally adverse to sound morals. To cite one 
by way of example: On the Jour des Innocents, which fell on the 
28th of December, men were allowed to invade the bed-chambers 
of girls, and, if they could find them in bed, to administer the 
chastisement which used to be common in schools. Hence arose 
the proverbial expression, Donner les innocents d quelqu1 un, which 
meant to birch a person on the bare skin. Ho doubt the old 
chroniclers were justified in saying that when the girl was worth 
1 Boileau, Hist, des Flagellants; Pic de la Mirandole, Tr. centre les Astrolopies, 
liy. iii. ch. 27. 2 Bavle’s Dictionary, Ye. Picard. FRANCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 
107 
the trouble, the invader of the chamber was not satisfied with in- 
flicting a chastisement.1 
Marriages were attended with ceremonies far grosser than any 
that were practiced in Rome. It was not only decorous, it was 
fashionable, both for men and women, to spy out the bed-chamber 
of the newly-wedded couple, and the fortunate man or girl who 
had contrived to see the interior of the room through a chink in 
the wall or a hole in the door was loudly applauded when the re- 
sult of his or her discoveries was made known.2 The invention 
of bridal chambers is therefore not original in America, as some 
have supposed. 
Strange to say, neither the lewdness of the poets nor the gross- 
ness of the social habits of the times strikes one as more singular 
than the tone of the sermons which were delivered in Paris at the 
same period. One of the most famous preachers of the day was 
Maillard, who rose to eminence under Louis XI. His sermons on 
the luxury and corruptions of the times were very popular. We 
find him cursing the “burgesses” who, for the sake of gain, let 
their houses to prostitutes: “ Vullis vivere de posterioribus meretri- 
cum,” he cries, indignantly. He denounces with extraordinary 
virulence the “ crimes of impudicity which are committed in 
churches,” and which “the pillars and nave would denounce, if 
they had eyes and a voice.” He did not spare his congregation. 
Turning fiercely to the women who sat before him, he apostro- 
phized them: “Hicatis, vos, mulieres, posuistis, posuistis Alias ad 
peccandum ? vos, mulieres, per vestros traitus impudiae, provocas- 
tis alios ad peccandum ? Et vos, maquerellse, quid dicitisHe 
thunders against this latter class, the procuresses, who ought, he 
says, to be burned at the stake, especially when, as is often the 
case, they are both the mothers and the venders of their daugh- 
ters. Words fail him to denounce the intercourse of abandoned 
women with ecclesiastics; he invokes the divine wrath upon those 
of his congregation quce dant corpus curialibus, monachis, presbyte- 
ris. Both he and other famous preachers of the day pronounced 
maledictions upon lewd convents, which some of them say are 
mere seraglios for the bishops and monks, where every abomina- 
tion is practiced. 
It was estimated that at this time, say the fifteenth century, 
1 Lenglet, Dufresnoy sur Marot, iii. 97; Richelet’s Diet. 
2 Brantome, in his Dames Galantes, describing a marriage, says, “ Chacun estoit 
a Vescontes, a taccoustmnee. ” 108 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
when Paris was comparatively a small city, it contained five to 
six thousand prostitutes, who were said by an Italian to be far 
more beautiful and attractive than any prostitutes he had seen 
elsewhere. 
CHAPTER YII. 
FRANCE.—HISTORY FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
The Court.—Louis IX. to Charles V.—Charles Vl.—Agnes Sorel.—Louis Xl. 
Charles Vlll.—Louis XII.—Francis I.—La Belle Feronniere.—Henry ll.—Di- 
ana de Poictiers.—Lewd Books and Pictures.—Catharine of Medicis.—Margaret. 
—Henry IV.—Mademoiselle de Entragues.—Henry lll.—Mignons.—Influence 
of the Ligue.—lndecency of Dress.—Theatricals.—Ordinance of 1560.—Police 
Regulations. 
The memoranda we have already given will enable the reader 
to form an idea of the state of society at large. It remains to say 
something of the court, which, in some respects, was France. 
From Louis IX. to Charles Y. inclusive, it is said that the kings 
of France set no example of debauchery, and that the court rath- 
er encouraged virtue than vice. When the sisters-in-law of Philip 
the Handsome scandalized Paris by their loose life in the Tour de 
Neslc, into which they were said to make a practice of inveigling 
students, whom they assassinated when their lubricity was sati- 
ated, the king had them brought to punishment and dealt with as 
though the popular scandal was well founded in fact. When 
Charles YI. ascended the throne the scene changed. This unfor- 
tunate monarch was not only himself weak and depraved, but his 
wife, Isabel of Bavaria, was more vicious still. The pair encour- 
aged every practice that could shock modesty or outrage decency. 
The queen lived almost openly with her lover, the Duke of Or- 
leans. The king, so long as he retained his reason, was a leading 
actor in the scandalous masquerades of the court, and narrowly es- 
caped losing his life on one occasion when he disguised himself 
as a devil, and danced immodestly before the ladies of the court. 
Round his loins, as round those of his fellow-demons, a sort of 
girdle of tow had been fastened, and all the masqueraders were 
chained together. In the midst of their dances, some foolish per- 
son threw a lighted torch at them. Their girdles took fire, and 
all were burned to death except the king, whom the Duchess of 
Berri saved by courageously raising her skirts and throwing them 
over the burning monarch. FKANCE FK.OM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
109 
Charles had had many mistresses in his yonth. When he went 
mad, the physicians directed the queen to refuse to discharge her 
conj agal duty. Charles had enough of his former nature left to 
resent this privation. He even employed force, and succeeded at 
last in compelling his wife to resume her place in the royal couch. 
She contrived, however, to defraud him by hiring a pretty girl to 
take her place. It is said Charles never detected the fraud. His 
wife, meanwhile, gave the reins to her loose passions, and was 
known to have had at least a score of lovers. 
A very striking picture of the manners of the time is afforded 
by the story of Agnes Sorel. She was, as is known, the mistress 
of Charles YIL, a lady of good family, and, otherwise than as the 
king’s mistress, of spotless reputation. Her influence ovei the 
king she used for the best of purposes. It was she who roused 
him to make the efforts which eventually expelled the foreigner 
from France. Her private character was laudable : she was ami- 
able, generous, kind, and true; yet when she visited Paris in com- 
pany with the king, the crowd followed her whenever she appear- 
ed in the streets, insulting her, and calling her a prostitute in the 
grossest terras. The king lived with her eighteen years, but nev- 
er ventured to acknowledge her publicly as his mistress. Of the 
four daughters she bore him, three only were legitimated by his 
successor. 
Louis XI. had a seraglio and a colony of bastards before he be- 
came king, nor did he alter his mode of life when he assumed con- 
trol of the kingdom. His favorites were usually chosen from the 
lowest class of his subjects, many of whom had gone through an 
apprenticeship for the king’s service in the houses of prostitution 
of the capital. Louis never pretended to bear them any affection; 
he used them as he used the men of letters who composed for his 
diversion the lewd tales which have reached us. 
Charles YIII. appears to have been more virtuous than his pred- 
ecessors, though, of course, he did not pique himself upon any con- 
jugal fidelity. A story is told which reflects credit upon his 
character. It is said that during his campaign in Italy, when he 
retired to his chamber one evening, he found there a young girl 
of marvelous beauty in a state of complete deshabille. She was 
kneeling and in tears when the king entered. On Charles inquir- 
ing the cause of her sorrow, she confessed that her parents had 
sold her to the king’s valet for the use of his majesty, and con- 
jured Charles to spare her. The king was touched by her dis- 110 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tress. He inquired into the facts, and, finding that they were as 
she stated, and, farther, that she was betrothed to a youth of the 
neighborhood, he sent for him and married the young couple 
forthwith. 
It appears certain that Charles’s death was caused by his indis- 
creet commerce with the sex. All the chroniclers state that he 
fell a victim to the indulgence of his passions, being frail of body 
and of feeble constitution. 
The court of Louis XII. was purer than that of his predecessors, 
owing to the austere virtue of the queen. Louis himself had shared 
the profligacies of his family in his youth, but, on becoming king, 
he allowed his wife to regulate his household according to her 
principles. For the first time for many years, say the old chron- 
iclers, prostitution was banished from court. 
We shall have something to say of Francis Lin connection with 
syphilis, of which he was a conspicuous and an early victim. At 
the age of eighteen his mother stated that he had been punished 
where he sinned. The misfortune did not operate as a warning. 
His life was notoriously dissolute at a time when profligacy was 
so much the rule that it was hardly likely to be noticed. Bran- 
tome asserts positively1 that his expedition to Italy was prompted 
by the desire to make acquaintance with a courtesan of Milan 
whose charms Admiral Bonnivet had extolled. Previous to his 
time, it seems, there had always been attached to the court a body 
of prostitutes for the use of the courtiers. Francis suppressed this 
body, and actually invited the ladies of the court to take their 
place. Brantome reviews this policy, and while he praises it in 
view of the “joyous pastimes” to which it led, he is bound to ac- 
knowledge that it produced the greatest immorality ever known 
in France. The ladies of the town followed the example of those 
of the court, and but little was wanting but that every woman in 
France became a prostitute. 
It was the custom during this reign for the king to invite all 
his courtiers and their wives and daughters to lodge at the royal 
palaces from time to time. The ladies had apartments by them- 
selves, and to each room the king had a key. We are assured 
that the husbands, fathers, and brothers of ladies who refused to 
submit to the royal demands had but little chance of retaining 
their offices. If they had been guilty of maladministration or 
peculation, as was the case with most of them, they could hope 
Vies dos Homines Tllust.: Bonnivet. FRANCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
Ill 
for pardon only through the complaisance of their female relatives. 
The story of M. de St. Yallier, who was reprieved on the scaffold 
in payment for the favors which his daughter, the beautiful Diana 
of Poictiers, had granted to the king, is too well known to need 
repetition here. 
It was the boast of Francis that he had always respected the 
honor of the ladies of the court, and the boast was just, from his 
point of view. His visits to his mistresses were always made in 
a mysterious manner, and at night. Even to the Duchess of 
Etampes, who was his acknowledged mistress and procuress for 
a period of nearly twenty years, he never behaved in public in a 
manner to compromise her reputation. In private he was not so 
scrupulous. When this lady’s husband disturbed the king one 
evening, Francis drew his sword on him, and threatened to kill 
him instantly if he dared to reveal what every one knew, or to 
punish the wife at whose adultery he had connived for years. 
His idea seems to have been that words alone constituted the sin 
of debauchery. On one occasion he took all the ladies of the 
court to see the royal deer in the rutting season; but when a gen- 
tleman ventured a very obvious pleasantry on the scene, he exiled 
him from court for life. 
His death has been frequently described. Some writers imply, 
by their silence, doubts of the authenticity of the story of La Belle 
Ferronniere; but it rests on very tolerable evidence. This lady, who 
was uncommonly beautiful, was the wife of a lawyer or a mer- 
chant (the authorities do not agree on the point). The king so- 
licited her favors, but, strange to say, was met with a positive re- 
fusal. On consultation with the court lawyers, however, Francis 
was informed that he could, by the exercise of his royal preroga- 
tive, enjoy the company of any woman he pleased, and the Ferron- 
niere was accordingly notified that the king commanded her to 
yield to his desires. She confided the order to her husband, who, 
on reflection, counseled her to submit. Meanwhile Ferronniere 
himself used his best endeavors to catch a syphilitic disease, which 
he communicated to his wife. She gave it to the king, who died 
of it after much suffering. 
Henry 11. had the merit of fidelity, not to his wife, but to his 
mistress. The latter was the famous Diana de Poictiers, whose 
successful intercession with Francis I. on her father’s behalf has 
been already noticed. Brantome asserts that she did not emulate 
the constancy of her royal lover, saying that in her youth she had 112 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“ obliged many persons.” He tells a story which, if true, reflects 
credit on the temper of the king. Visiting his mistress one day, 
he surprised her in the company of a courtier named Brissac, who 
had only time to hide himself under the bed. After spending 
some moments with Diana, the king asked for some refreshments. 
Some boxes of confectionery were brought him, and in the midst of 
his meal he took a box and threw it under the bed, saying, “ Hal- 
loo, Brissac, every body must live I” Diana lost no portion of 
her lover’s heart in consequence of her infidelities. This she owed 
in some degree to her extraordinary beauty, which she preserved 
so late in life that it was commonly reported she was in the habit 
of using soap made of liquid gold. Henry was proud of his mis- 
tress, and never concealed their liaison. He had his arms inter- 
woven with hers on many public buildings and pieces of plate. 
He used constantly to ride through the streets with the beautiful 
Diana on his crupper; and he showed her so marked a preference 
over his wife that judicious courtiers never made the mistake of 
courting the latter. 
But the orderly life of the king was not imitated by the court. 
According to Brantome and Sauval, the excesses of the age of 
Francis were aggravated under Henry. It was rare, says the for- 
mer, that ladies presented their virginity to their husbands; and 
husbands who objected to the intimacy of their wives with “kings, 
princes, noblemen, and others of the court,” were eschewed from 
society. ,A woman was held to be virtuous because she begged 
her lover to wait till she was married to gratify his desires; mar- 
ried women who retained their love for the same galant for sev- 
eral years were considered models of purity. Brantome intimates 
distinctly that ordinary debauchery fell short of the desires of the 
courtiers; incest, sodomy, and similar enormities could alone sa- 
tiate the passions of the old debauchees of the day. 
The same writer partially explains the spread of vice by say- 
ing that within the last half century the ladies of France had ac- 
quired the arts of Italy ; nor is it doubtful that with the Medicis 
many of the monstrous vices which have been peculiar to Italy 
ever since the age of Imperial Rome were imported into France. 
We hear of all kinds of instruments of debauchery ; of lewd books 
and lewd pictures; of indecent sculptures and bronzes being sold 
without let or hinderance in the stores of Paris. It was the age of 
Aretino.; and besides that famous or infamous writer, a number 
of other Italians had competed for the prize of lewdness in com- FRANCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
H3 
position. Poets, painters, sculptors, seemed to try how far art 
could be prostituted. Cellini, Leonardo da Yinci, Giulio Romano, 
Nicollo dell’ Abate, and, indeed, almost all their contemporaries, 
debased their genius by the execution of indecent works. Many 
of these found their way to Paris. When Pope Clement YII. un- 
dertook to prosecute the authors of indecent works, whether in 
letters or art, most of the compositions that were endangered by 
his bull were transported to France. Brantome alludes to many 
of them as being quite common in his time. He describes, for in- 
stance, a silver goblet on which the most indecent scenes were 
graven, and which a nobleman of the court always obliged the 
ladies who visited him to use at table. Other noblemen had their 
rooms painted in fresco in similar taste. It is stated that Anne 
of Austria caused three hundred thousand ecus worth of frescoes 
of this kind to be removed from the ceilings of the palace at Fon- 
tainebleau.1 But in the reign of Henry 11. it does not appear that 
any one was ever prosecuted for dealing in this kind of merchan- 
dise. 
During the three following reigns, it was Catharine of Medicis 
who gave the tone to the court, and really ruled the kingdom. 
All historians concur in stating that she used prostitution as the 
mainspring of her policy. She had a court of sometimes two to 
three hundred ladies of honor, whom she employed to worm out 
the secrets of the politicians of the day. They were known as 
the Queen’s Flying Squadron, and it appears they performed their 
duties successfully; of course, at the cost of whatever virtue or 
decency the court still retained. Brantome is still our authority 
for asserting that they introduced a new feature of debauchery; 
they took the initiative in affairs of this kind, and instead of yield- 
ing to the entreaties of lovers, it was they who pressed their lovers 
to meet them half way. He likewise informs us that they aided 
the establishment in France of other vices which had hitherto 
been peculiar to Southern and Eastern climates, by the revival of 
practices which had been common among the hetairce of Athens. 
It has been asserted that Catharine willfully tutored her children 
in habits of debauchery, in order to divert their minds from poli- 
tics, and retain control over the kingdom, but this scandal does 
not appear to rest on authentic evidence. It is unquestionable, 
however, that Charles IX., the author of the massacre of St. Bar- 
1 Sauval, Amours des rois de France; from which work many of the facts in the 
text throughout this chapter are drawn. 114 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tholomew, lived in incestuous intercourse with his sister Margaret, 
and there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the story that 
Catharine more than once entertained the king and court at a 
banquet at which nude females served as waiters. 
Perhaps the best idea of the morals of the time can be obtained 
from the adventures of the Margaret just mentioned, who married 
Henry IV., King of Navarre, and afterward King of France. It 
is said that at the age of eleven she had two lovers, both of whom 
claimed to have robbed her of her virtue. Marrying the King of 
Navarre, she found means to leave her husband and reside at 
Paris, whose air suited her better than the country. Here her 
debaucheries were a common theme of scandal, her lovers being 
counted by the score. Happening at last to give birth to a child 
which mysteriously disappeared, her brother Henry 111. sent her 
to her husband in a quasi-disgrace. Henry of Navarre refused to 
cohabit with her. The king vainly endeavored to reconcile the 
couple. With more zeal than tact, he used as an argument with 
his cousin that the mother of the King of Navarre had not her- 
self led an irreproachable life. At this Henry burst into a laugh, 
and remarked to the envoy that the king was very compliment- 
ary in his letters, his majesty having in the first described the 
vices of the wife, and in the second alluded to the frailties of the 
mother. 
He persisted in refusing to receive Margaret, and she took ref- 
uge in the little town of Agen, but no sooner began to lead her 
usual life there than the people rose and expelled her. She found 
a second refuge in the fortress of Usson, and there she lived 
twenty years in a sort of prison which she converted into a 
brothel. She was debarred from the society of men of fashion 
and courtiers, but for her purposes, servants, secretaries, musicians, 
and even the peasants of the neighborhood answered as well, and 
of these there was. no lack. Eeturning to Paris in her old age, 
she did not alter her course of life. She became outwardly de- 
vout, and established a nunnery and monastery near her hotel; 
the latter, the people said, in order to have monks always at hand; 
but the list of her lovers remained undiminished to the very verge 
of her death.1 
Nor did her husband present any striking contrast to his wife, 
though he reflected so severely upon her in the work published 
under the title Le divorce Satirique. Bayle remarks that, had he 
1 Le divorce Satirique. FRANCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
H5 
not expended so large a portion of his energy in the pursuit of 
sensual pleasures, he would have been one of the greatest heroes 
of history.1 He was profuse and indiscriminate in his attach- 
ments ; duchess or farmer’s daughter, it was all the same to him. 
He changed his mistress once a month at least. As an exception 
to this rule, his affection for Gabrielle a very lovely 
creature, whom he shared with the Marquis of Bellegarde, and 
who bore him, or them, three children, lasted several years. He 
was not faithful to her, and made no secret of his infidelities, but 
he loved her passionately. On one occasion he left his army in 
the midst of a campaign, disguised himself as a peasant, and trav- 
eled through the enemy’s country to meet her. He once went to 
see her, but was stopped at the door with the announcement that 
Bellegarde was with her. His first impulse was one of rage. 
Drawing his sword, he rushed toward the door, but stopped half 
way, and saying, “No, it would make her angry,” he returned 
home. Gabrielle was a very beautiful and charming person. 
She was in the habit of having herself painted in a state of per- 
fect nudity, with her children playing around her. 
When she died, Henry proposed to replace her by Mademoiselle 
D’Entragues, whose beauty had made some sensation at court. 
Negotiations were opened with the lady, who dutifully placed 
the matter in the hands of her family, and father, mother, and 
brothers began to treat with the king for the prostitution of their 
daughter and sister. They asked a hundred thousand crowns. 
The king thought the sum large, and offered fifty thousand, but 
the family refusing to give way, he acceded to their demands. 
They then added that they would like to have a promise of mar- 
riage, conditioned upon the lady’s bearing a male child within 
a year. To this likewise Henry agreed, in spite of Sully’s re- 
monstrances ; and Mdlle. D’Entragues became the acknowledged 
mistress of the king. It need not be added that the promise of 
marriage was never fulfilled. 
Some time afterward Henry fell in love with a young lady who 
was betrothed to Marshal Bassompierre. As ardent as ever, he 
sent for the marshal, explained his feelings, and ordered Bassom- 
pierre to renounce his claims. The marshal obeyed, and Henry 
married the lady (who was a Montmorency) to the Prince of 
Conde. The marriage was hardly over before the king opened 
negotiations with the bride. It will be scarcely credited that the 
1 Bayle’s Dictionary, Yo. Henry IV. 116 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
emissary he employed was the mother of the Prince of Cond6, 
who left no means untried to effect the dishonor of her son. The 
prince, of less complacent temper than most other courtiers, re- 
fused to allow his wife to become the king’s mistress. He re- 
moved her from France, and, just as Henry was about to send 
after her, the assassin Ravaillac freed Conde from the danger. 
The disorders of Henry 111., the predecessor of the King of 
Navarre, are shamefully notorious. There was a time during his 
reign when, for the same reason which induced the establishment 
of Dicteria at Athens, prostitution almost seemed a desirable in- 
stitution at Paris. In his youth he had been a famous seducer of 
the ladies of honor. An anecdote of his life at this period not 
only reveals the tone of the court, but happily shows that de- 
pravity was not so universal as might be imagined. When Hen- 
ry was chosen King of Poland, he was anxious to settle his mis- 
tress, Mdlle. de Chateauneuf, by finding her a husband. He ap- 
plied to a courtier, the Provost of Paris, M. de Nantonillet, but 
received the scathing reply that “M. de Nantonillet would not 
marry a prostitute till the king had established brothels in the 
Louvre.” 
It is best, perhaps, to throw a veil over the later stories of Hen- 
ry 111., his mignons, and the frightful infamies that were practiced 
in Paris in his time. They may be divined from the fact that 
Brantome mentions some orgies in which the king and a party of 
friends, male and female, stripped themselves naked, and tried to 
place themselves on a level with the brute creation, as rather re- 
deeming instances of his sensuality. 
We shall take occasion hereafter to follow the history of the 
court from Louis XIII. to modern times. Meanwhile, some feat- 
ures of society bearing on prostitution in the age we have sketch- 
ed must be briefly noted. 
It is asserted by all the chroniclers that the influence of the 
League (Ligue) was most pernicious. A sort of religious enthusi- 
asm seems to have been kindled by the sectarian strife of the pe- 
riod, and practices which purported to be religious, but were onty 
immoral, were encouraged by the highest authorities. Religious 
fanaticism ruled throughout France. Men and women walked 
naked in processions which were led by the curates. As was 
natural at an age of civil war, violence was freely used toward fe- 
males by both of the contending armies. At every city that was 
taken, either by the Leaguers or the Huguenots, all the women, FRANCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
117 
married and single, were violated by the soldiery; such, at least, 
is the statement of a contemporary historian. Moreover, in the 
general confusion, no proper police was enforced either at Paris or 
elsewhere, and the windows of print-shops teemed with lewd pic- 
tures, which no one, says the historian, thought of having seized. 
It was, in fact, a period of anarchy. The Mayen de parvenu, by 
Beroalde de Yenille, which has reached us, affords some criterion 
of the popular literature of the day. Aretino, text and plates, 
was much in vogue; and Sanchez and Benedict! left their lay ri- 
vals far behind in the composition of works which may contend 
for the palm of lewdness with Martial or Petronius.1 
Throughout the Middle Ages, and, indeed, up to the middle of 
the seventeenth century, great complaint was made by the clergy 
of the indecency of the dress of the people of France. About the 
thirteenth century it became fashionable to adorn the toe of the 
shoe or boot with an ornament in metal; either a lion’s claw, or 
an eagle’s beak, or something of that kind.. Some immodest per- 
son ventured to substitute a sexual image in bronze for the usual 
appendage, and the fashion soon became general. Women even 
adopted it, and all the best society of Paris soon exhibited the in- 
decency on their feet. The king forbade their use by royal edicts,2 
and a special bull was fulminated against them by Pope Urban Y.,3 
but the monstrous shoes held their ground against both, and were 
only disused when fashion set in a different direction. The Bra- 
guette was another enormity of the same character. Originally, it 
is said, the working-classes invented the idea of a small bag hang- 
ing between the knees in which a knife or other utensil could be 
carried. The fashion was adopted about the beginning of the fif- 
teenth century by men of rank, and became immediately of an 
immodest nature. All the arts of fashion were called into requisi- 
tion to give the hraguettes the most novel and remarkable appear- 
ance, and every possible means was used to render them at once 
disgustingly indecent and extravagantly rich. They were attach- 
ed to the dress with gay-colored ribbons, and, when the wearer 
was a rich man, were adorned with jewels and lace. At the time 
Montaigne wrote, hraguettes had almost gone out of vogue: they 
were worn only by old men, who, in the language of the essayist, 
“ make public parade of what can not decently be mentioned.” 
Women, on their side, invented hoops, bustles, and low-necked 
’ , De Matrimonio, Le Somme des Peches. 2 Charles V. 17th Octob. 1367. 
* A.D. 1365. 118 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
dresses. The libraries contain a large collection of works written 
by moralists and preachers of the time against these “ indecent 
abuses” of the ladies. As they are all in use at the present time, 
we may perhaps conclude that the old French moralists were un- 
necessarily alarmed; but it is likely that the form of the bustle 
was by no means as modest as that of modern crinoline skirts, and 
that the fashion of ladies’ drawers had not yet come in. Such, at 
least, is the inference from some of the criticisms they provoked. 
The exposure of the breasts was checked for a time under Louis 
XIV., but the reform was evanescent, and the custom against which 
churchmen thundered in the sixteenth century survives to-day. 
Some allusion has already been made to the theatre. Theatri- 
cals were forbidden by the early French kings, at the instigation 
of the Church, but the prohibition was evaded by the performance 
of scenes from the Gospel dramatized. From the remains of these 
Moralities it would appear that they were always coarse and often 
immoral. The devil always played a prominent part, and would 
have been inconsistent had he not outraged decency. Under 
Henry 111. women began to appear on the stage, and farces very 
broad in ideas and language began to be played instead of the 
old Moralities. We are led to believe that nothing was too scan- 
dalous to be represented on the stage; in fact, the idea seems to 
have been to crowd as much sensuality and vice into the farces as 
possible. Scarcely any incident of life was too indecent to be either 
portrayed or described, and if the latter, the description was given 
in the most undisguised language. It is altogether impossible to 
transcribe scenes of this nature. Enough to say that women were 
made to go through the pains of childbirth on the stage; husband 
and wife went to bed in presence of the public; and when modesty 
prompted the retirement of actors for causes still more indecent, a 
colleague rarely failed to explain why they had retired and what 
they were doing behind the curtain. Many of La Fontaine’s most 
grivois stories were taken from farces which were once acted with 
copious pantomime before the ladies of Paris. Even as late as the 
reign of Henry IV., plays of this character were commonly acted 
at Paris at the Hotel de Bourgogne. It was usual for the star 
actor to speak a prologue or an interlude, which was invariably 
recommended by its indecency. We have some of the titles of 
these prologues, and they were generally of the same character as 
the one on the question, Uter vir an mulier se magis delectet in 
copulatione. FRANCE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO LOUIS XIII. 
H9 
Of the number of regular prostitutes exercising their calling in 
France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries no correct 
estimate can be made. It was undoubtedly large. During the 
religious wars, a writer on the side of Protestantism undertook to 
draw up a statement of the number of prostitutes and lewd women 
whose vices were chargeable to the clergy. His estimate is, of 
course, open to suspicion, as being a sectarian performance; but, 
allowing for great exaggeration, it will still appear alarming. He 
calculates that there were at that time one million of women, more 
or less, who led habitually lewd lives, and ministered to the pas- 
sions of the clergy. These were independent of the married women 
who were led into adultery, and of the pimps and procuresses who 
were in clerical pay.1 
To return to the laws regulating prostitution, it appears that a 
serious effort was made to put it down under the sovereignty of 
Catharine of Medicis, An ordinance of Charles IX., dated 1560, 
prohibited the opening or keeping of any brothel or house of re- 
ception for prostitutes in Paris. For a short period it seems that 
the practice was actually suppressed, and the consequence is said 
to have been a large increase of secret debauchery. A few years 
after the passage of the ordinance, a Huguenot clergyman named 
Cayet proposed to re-establish public brothels in the interest of 
the public morals, but the authorities of his Church assailed him 
so vehemently that his scheme fell to the ground without having 
had the benefit of a public discussion, and he was himself driven 
to join the Eomanists. In 1588 an ordinance of Henry 111. reaf- 
firmed the ordinance of 1560, and alleged that the magistrates of 
the city had connived at the establishment of brothels. Ordi- 
nances of the provost followed in the same strain, and all prosti- 
tutes were required to leave Paris within twenty-four hours. An 
ordinance dated 1685 was still more rigorous. It condemned all 
men concerned in the “ traffic of prostitution” to the galleys for 
life, and all women and girls to be “whipped, shaved, and ban- 
ished for life, without any formal trial.” As might be imagined, 
this ordinance was alternately disregarded and made to serve the 
purposes of private malice. Men who wished to revenge them- 
selves on their mistresses accused them of being prostitutes; but 
it does not appear that the actual supply was ever seriously diminished. 
1 Cabinet du Roi de France, Paris, 1581, 120 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER YIIL 
FRANCE.—HISTORY FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
Exile of Prostitutes.—Measures of Louis XIV.—Laws of 1684 and 1713.—Police 
Regulations.—Ordinance of 1778.—Republican Legislation.—Frightful state of 
Paris.—Efforts to pass a general Law.—The Court.—Louis XIII.—The Medicis. 
—Louis XIV.—La Valliere.—Montespan.—Maintenon.—Literature of the Day. 
—Feudal Rights.—The Regency.—Duchess of Berri.—Claudine du Tencin.— 
Louis XV.—Madame de Pompadour.—Dubarry.—Parc aux Cerfs.—Louis XVI. 
—Philippe Egalite.—Subsequent Sovereigns.—Literature.—Lewd Novels and 
Pictures.—Tendency of Philosophy.—The Church. 
We have thus sketched the history of prostitution in France 
from the commencement of the French nation to the reign of Louis 
XIII. This chapter will complete the subject to the present day. 
The ordinance of 1560, prohibiting prostitution in any shape, 
and granting twenty-four hours only to prostitutes and their ac- 
complices to evacuate Paris, remained in force till late in the eight- 
eenth century. Though, so far as the general traffic went, it was 
a dead letter, it enabled the police authorities to imprison or exile 
unruly prostitutes from time to time, and was the basis of the 
high-handed measure by which the colonists of Canada were first 
supplied with wives direct from the Paris stews. It also enabled 
noblemen and officials connected with government to avenge 
themselves upon unfaithful mistresses, and to exercise a conven- 
ient sort of tyranny over the pretty linghres and sewing-girls of 
the metropolis. 
In 1684 Louis XIV. made some alteration in the laws govern- 
ing prostitution. He provided prisons for the detention of pros- 
titutes, and armed the lieutenant of police with authority to cor- 
rect them; and he drew a broad line of distinction between disso- 
lute women who were not actually upon the town and the class 
of prostitutes proper. 
A farther police regulation on the subject was made in 1718. 
By that measure a sort of regularity was introduced into the pro- 
cedure against courtesans and lewd women. They were definitely 
divided into two classes: women who led dissolute lives without 
being precisely prostitutes, and prostitutes proper. The police 
were authorized to interfere against both on complaint of any per- FRANCE FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
121 
son who charged them with outraging public decency. In the 
case of prostitutes the proceeding was summary. The culprit was 
summoned, condemned on slight evidence, and sentenced either to 
exile, imprisonment, or, more rarely, to a whipping or the loss of 
her hair. With regard to dissolute women who were not regular 
prostitutes, the authorities proceeded more cautiously. They were 
entitled to all the privileges of other accused persons, sentences 
rendered against them being subject to appeal; and, when found 
guilty, the penalty inflicted was usually a fine. Occasionally, the 
houses where they had carried on their calling were closed, the 
furniture was thrown out of the window, and a crier proclaimed 
their disgrace throughout the city. 
Monsieur Parent-Duchatelet, who had the patience to read all 
the records of proceedings against prostitutes in the city of Paris 
from 1724 to 1788, infers the law from these instances of its appli- 
cation, and concludes: (1.) That, notwithstanding the ordinance of 
1560, brothels were licensed by the police. (2.) That prostitutes 
were never troubled except on complaint of a responsible person. 
(8.) That brothels were disorderly; that riots, rows, and murders 
not unfrequently occurred within their walls or in their neigh- 
borhood. (4.) That the punishment was left to the discretion of 
the magistrate. (5.) That the penalties inflicted were lighter to- 
ward the close of the period examined. (6.) That certain streets 
in Paris were wholly occupied by prostitutes.1 
Probably with a view to enlarge the discretion of the magis- 
trates, a new ordinance was passed in 1778, renewing, in peremp- 
tory language, the prohibitive provisions of the enactment of 
1560. This ordinance, which bears the name, and probably em- 
anated from the office of Lenoir, the police magistrate, declares 
that no public woman shall hereafter try to catch (raccrocher) men 
on the wharves or boulevards, or in the streets or squares of 
Paris, under penalty of being shaved, whipped, and imprisoned; 
that no householder shall let his house, or any part thereof, to 
prostitutes, under penalty of five hundred francs fine, and that 
boarding-house keepers shall allow no men and women to sleep 
together without seeing their marriage contract. 
The most curious feature in connection with this ordinance was 
the fact that it was not intended or held to interfere with estab- 
lished brothels, which the government continued to license as be- 
fore. It was intended to affect private prostitutes only. We 
1 Parent-Duchatelet, De la Prostitution dans la Yille de Paris, ii. 473, 122 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
may judge of its success from the general statement that, soon 
after its passage, the streets and squares were thronged with pros- 
titutes. No woman or modest person could walk the garden of 
the Tuileries at night. Lewd women showed themselves at their 
windows in a state of nudity, and shocked public decency still 
more glaringly by their postures in the streets. It was, in fact, 
so complete a failure, that two years after its establishment it was 
practically repealed by a new police regulation. 
In 1791, the whole body of the legislation of the monarchy was 
abolished, and in its stead the republican Legislature enacted a 
code which was the only law in force in France. That code mak- 
ing no reference to prostitution, it was inferred by lawyers that 
women had a natural right to prostitute their bodies if they chose, 
and accordingly the traffic became open and free. The conse- 
quence of this was a tremendous development of the vice. Pros- 
titutes established themselves in every street, and monopolized 
every public place. Paris became scarcely habitable for modest 
women. An outcry against this monstrous state of things reach- 
ed the Executive Directory in 1796, and that body sent a message 
to the Council of Five Hundred, begging them to legislate on the 
subject. The message was clear and able, calling upon the coun- 
cil to define “ prostitute,” and suggesting that “ reiterated offenses 
legally proved, public notoriety, or arrest in the act,” appeared to 
constitute proof of prostitution. It seemed to call for penalties, 
in the shape of imprisonment, on women exercising this calling. 
But neither this suggestion, nor a subsequent project of the same 
character was ever carried into effect. Napoleon swept the Palais 
Royal of the prostitutes who had made it their head-quarters, and 
broke up some of the greatest brothels by harassing their inmates 
in various ways, but he made no law on the subject. 
In 1811, M. Pasquier, Prefect of Police, drafted a bill for the 
regulation of prostitutes, but it never went into effect, and the im- 
perial ordinance drawn by the prefect has been lost. Five years 
later, M. Anglis, Prefect of Police under Louis XVIII., attempted 
the same thing with no better success, the law officers of the 
crown seeming to have supposed that the general provisions of 
the articles of the code on public decency and “outrages upon 
public morality” covered the particular case of prostitution. The 
last efforts that were made in France to obtain a law for the regu- 
lation of prostitution were in 1819 and 1822, when the ministry 
seriously thought of settling the whole matter by a royal declara- FRANCE FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
123 
tion. These endeavors had the same fate as the former ones, lead- 
ing to no result. 
A general impression has prevailed of late years that the moral 
sense of the public would be shocked by any legislative act li- 
censing so great a sin as prostitution; and as the government has 
assumed, without constitutional warrant, the control and regula- 
tion of prostitutes, and has exercised as full authority as it could 
have done had there been a law on the subject, the deficiency has 
hardly been felt. A conscientious official has occasionally expe- 
rienced qualms of conscience at acting without legal warrant; the 
government has sometimes been frightened by a menace of resist- 
ance from some bold lawyer, but no trouble has ever actually 
arisen, and custom now gives to the police regulations the force 
of law. 
We shall review these regulations in another place ; meanwhile 
a glance must be cast upon the progress of morality in France 
during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 
The gallantry which distinguished the court of Henry IY. be- 
came more refined, though not less criminal, under Louis XIII. 
Adultery and seduction were every-day matters in the circles 
which educated Mary, Queen of Scots, and developed the wit of 
the author of Grammont’s Memoirs. Every lady was presumed 
to have a lover; every man of fashion more than one mistress. 
Eichelieu boasted that no lady could reject him when he chose to 
throw the handkerchief, and Mazarin was accused of intrigues 
with the queen herself. Louis did not blush to visit his mistresses 
at the head of his guards, and in all the pomp of royalty; and, 
as an instance of their influence over him, it has been stated 
that it was at the request of Mademoiselle de la Fayette that he 
consented to visit his wife nine months before the birth of Louis 
XIY. 
A race of women had sprung up, under the teaching of the Med- 
icis, who combined political skill with licentious propensities, and 
conducted state and amorous intrigues with equal ardor and suc- 
cess. The ladies who surrounded Anne of Austria and Mary of 
Medicis, and that brilliant circle which has been described in the 
Memoirs of Madame de Longueville and Madame de Sable, were 
undoubtedly as dissipated as they were refined; their virtues were 
in inverse proportion to their wit. Paris no longer witnessed the 
Louvre converted into a royal preserve, or detestable debauchees 
haunting its dark passng >s; but there reigned throughout the 124 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
court an air of polished sensuality, which, in point of fact, must 
have been at least equally prejudicial to good morals. 
Louis XIV. imbibed the spirit of the age during his minority. 
Royal mistresses had become a recognized institution, fathers and 
husbands rather courting than dreading dishonor at the hands of 
the king. After having dispensed his favors with some impar- 
tiality among the ladies of the court, he discovered, apparently to 
his surprise, that one of them, a charming girl, named Louise de la 
Vallihre, really loved him. The only person who showed much 
annoyance at the warmth with which the king entered upon this 
new liaison was the Duchess of Orleans, Henrietta of England, 
the king’s sister-in-law, who seems to have expected that she 
would be the fortunate recipient of whatever crumbs might fall 
from the royal table. She was unable, however, to divert Louis 
from his purpose ; LaVallihre became his mistress, and bore him 
two children. When he grew tired of her, as he did soon after 
the birth of her second child, she retired into a convent, and ex- 
piated her fault by thirty years’ austere penitence. 
The king then turned his attention to a lady of noble rank, the 
wife of the Marquis of Montespan, and in a business manner ex- 
iled the marquis to his estate, and lived with his wife. A woman 
otherwise virtuous, proud, and queenly, she lived with the king 
for fourteen years, and bore him eight children. These children 
were openly legitimated by Louis, and were married by him to 
members of the royal family. He even contemplated securing the 
throne to them, though they were thus doubly adulterine. 
The last mistress of Louis XIV. was the famous Madame de 
Maintenon, the widow of the poet Scarron; a person of remark- 
able abilities, and old enough to have recovered from the passions 
which were said to have disturbed her youth. She was intro- 
duced to the king as the governess of his illegitimate children, and 
by her arts contrived not only to wean the king’s heart from his 
mistress, but even to alienate the children from their mother. 
For thirty-five years she wielded supreme control over Louis’s 
mind; and whatever may be said of her early life, and however 
harsh a judgment must be formed of her political measures, it 
must be allowed that, in general, her influence was exercised for 
the good of religion and morality. Under her direction the court 
became positively devout. Intrigues were concealed, not ostenta- 
tiously paraded before the public eye; and the ladies by whom 
she was surrounded were obliged to lead at least outwardly deco- FRANCE FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
125 
rous lives. She might not be able to check the monstrous prac- 
tices of the Duke of Orleans; but much of the looseness of the 
court she could, and really did bring to an end. Her royal lover, 
who at first piqued himself upon rising as far above obligations 
of fidelity to his mistresses as he considered himself superior to 
political obligations to his people, resigned himself to the spiritual 
direction of the marquise, and allowed old age to assert its rights 
in condemning him to virtue. All things considered, the last 
twenty years of Louis XlY.’s reign was perhaps the most moral 
in the whole history of the monarchy. 
This is well illustrated in the history of the literature of the 
day. The leading philosophers, writers, and poets of the age of 
Louis XIY. forbore to shock decency, and may be read to-day as 
safely as any modern work. Preachers—Bossuet, Massillon, Bour- 
daloue—exercised a potent influence over the tone of letters and 
society. Corneille, Racine, and their contemporaries provided the 
stage with a repertory that could never bring a blush to the cheek. 
Even Moliere, who did occasionally let slip a joke of questionable 
propriety, for the pit’s sake, seems a daring innovator when he is 
contrasted with his predecessors. Decency is, in fact, one of the 
most striking characteristics of the literature of the age. 
We may also date from the reign of Louis XIY. the final ex- 
tinction of many of the old feudal rights which were at war with 
morality. Horrible as it may seem, there were parts of France 
where the custom allowed the seigneur to debauch the daughter 
of his vassal without obstacle or penalty. In some provinces it is 
said to have been customary for the seigneur to enjoy the first 
night of every girl married within his manor. In others, the pe- 
culiar authority of the seigneur over the serfs who were attached 
to the glebe was held to endow him with the right of using the 
bodies of their wives and daughters as he saw fit. No written 
custom justified these monstrous privileges, but frequent allusions 
to them in the old French writers show that in certain parts they 
were sanctioned by usage. Louis XIV. made it his especial busi- 
ness to break down the privileges of the nobility, and it was no 
doubt to the general police regulations he made for the govern- 
ment of the kingdom at large that the extinction of these rights 
was mainly due. 
With the Regency the scene changes. The Duke of Orleans 
had long been one of the most depraved men in France. So long 
as Louis XIY. lived he had perforce observed a certain outward 126 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
decorum; but the death of the monarch, and the duke’s high- 
handed seizure of the regency, enabled him to give free scope to 
his propensities. He resided in the Palais Royal, and gave sup- 
pers there almost every evening to a select circle of and fast 
women, among whom Madame de Parab&re long held the place of 
honor. The company not unfrequently varied the entertainment 
by the performance of charades and tableaux, among which the 
judgment of Paris was a favorite of the regent. The conversa- 
tion of the guests was so gross as to shock all but the initiated, 
and when they separated they were generally all intoxicated.1 
The most startling and horrible feature of these entertainments 
was the fact that the regent’s daughter, the Duchess of Berri, was 
almost always present. Her life was a romance. Married while 
a child to the Due de Berri, by her passionate temper and her lev- 
ities she was the bane of her husband’s life. She embraced the 
infidel and licentious doctrines of the age in company with her fa- 
ther, and the pair were so fond of each other that the most horri- 
ble suspicions began to gain ground. They were dispelled for a 
time by the discovery of an intrigue between the duchess and her 
chamberlain, which so provoked the duke that he seized his wife 
by the hair and beat her. On his death, which occurred soon aft- 
erward, she gave the reins to her passion, and set an example of 
scandal. At the Luxembourg, where she had apartments, she ex- 
hibited the state of a queen, and lover succeeded lover with start- 
ling rapidity. At last she seems to have fallen in love with an 
officer of her guards, named Riom, whose only merit was youth. 
He subdued her. She became as docile and submissive to him as 
she had been intractable and haughty with her former lovers, and 
all Paris was talking of the transformation. After about a year 
of this liaison, she gave birth to a child. During the pains of 
childbirth she was not expected to live, and the curate of St. Sul- 
pice was sent for in all haste to administer the extreme unction. 
The ecclesiastic happened to be a rigid champion of morality, and 
he refused to administer the rite till Riom had been dismissed 
from the Luxembourg. The duchess would not consent to part 
with her lover, and for many hours this strange conflict went on 
by the bedside of the failing woman. The curate was obstinate, 
however, and no sacrament was administered; but the duchess 
recovering, the regent used his authority, and sent Riom to join 
1 See Taylor’s House of Orleans, vol. i. and Memoires de la Duchesse d’Orleans, 
passim. FRANCE FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
127 
his regiment. It killed his daughter. She invited her father to 
sup with her, and used all her eloquence to persuade him to let 
her marry Riom; but the regent remaining firm, she withdrew to 
her chamber, took to her bed, and died two days afterward. 
In alluding to the regent’s mistresses, a word should be said of 
the famous Claudine du Tencin, whose adventures shed a flood 
of light on the morals of the day. She was a pretty girl, of re- 
spectable, if not noble family, living in a distant province. To 
escape from a marriage that was forced on her, she took refuge in 
a convent. Instead, however, of suiting her habits to her place 
of residence, she contrived to alter the mode of life at the convent 
so as to meet her desires, and it became famous for the gayety of 
its social entertainments and the liveliness of its inmates. One 
of the gentlemen who were allowed to share its hospitality was the 
poet Destouches. He was smitten with the pretty Claudine, who 
acknowledged the charm of his accomplishments, and, after a few 
months’ intimacy, gave birth to a male child, who became the 
mathematician and philosopher D’Alembert. 
Claudine had a brother, an abbe, a man of considerable cunning, 
and no principle whatever. He persuaded his sister to go to Paris 
and seek her fortune. He obtained an introduction for her to the 
regent, and Claudine contrived to produce such an impression that 
she was soon installed as titular mistress. This did not last long, 
however. One day, venturing to remonstrate with the regent on 
his loose mode of life, his habitual drunkenness, etc., her lover lost 
patience with her, and suddenly summoned a crowd of his court- 
iers from the ante-chamber to witness the deshabille and listen to 
the sermons of madame. In revenge, Claudine rushed out and 
became the mistress of the prime minister, Cardinal Dubois. Her 
brother, the abbe, got a bishopric for his share in the transaction. 
At the death of Dubois, Madame du Tencin gave him as suc- 
cessor the Duke of Richelieu, the most famous lady-killer of the 
court. But she was growing old, and ambition had more attrac- 
tions for her than love. She became an authoress, wrote religious 
works and novels, patronized letters, and brought out Montes- 
quieu’s Spirit of Laws. Her salons became the most fashionable 
in Paris. It was not a little singular that she should have been 
the head of one literary clique, and her son, D’Alembert, the chief 
of another—neither positively jealous of the other, yet living on 
terms of cold reserve. 
Louis XY. trod in the steps of his great-grandfather and the 128 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
regent. His amours attracted no attention, being evanescent and 
trifling, till be quarreled with the queen, and bestowed the title 
of mistress on the Countess of Madly. This lady had four sisters, 
three of whom had reached womanhood. They were jealous of 
their sister’s success, and solicited a share of the royal favor. The 
monarch graciously granted their prayer, and admitted all four 
into an associate liaison. He was much hurt when the fifth, at the 
age of sixteen, declined an interest in this delectable partnership. 
Falling ill soon afterward, he allowed his confessor to frighten 
him into parting with the sisters, and when he got well replaced 
them by the wife of the subfarmer of the finances, Madame le 
Normand d’Etoiles. He created her Marquise de Pompadour, and 
compelled the court to recognize her. Happily for him, she was 
a person of moderate taste and habits. She patronized letters, was 
the friend of Voltaire, and seems to have employed her influence 
over the king for his advantage and that of the public. It is re- 
corded, as an instance of the heartlessness of the king, that when 
she died he stood at a window to watch her funeral pass, and no- 
ticing that it was a rainy day, observed, with a smile, “ that the 
marquise had bad weather for her long journey.” 
Her successor was Madame Dubarry, a common prostitute, fish- 
ed out of the Paris stews in consequence of her skill in debauch- 
ery. Her real name wasVanbernier; but, in order to present her 
at court, a nobleman of the name of Dubarry was persuaded to 
marry her. It was under her reign that the Parc aux Gerfs (in 
which Madame de Pompadour was said to have had a hand), reach- 
ed its highest point of celebrity and eclat. This was a royal se- 
raglio filled with the most beautiful girls that could be bought or 
stolen. The monstrous old debauchee who filled the throne of 
France had a weakness for very young girls, fifteen being the age 
at which he preferred his mistresses. Under the skillful directions 
of Dubarry, a host of pimps and purveyors searched France for 
young girls to suit the king’s fancy. Where negotiations could 
not be effected, the prerogative was stretched, and the police au- 
thorities judiciously blinded; but we are led to believe that it 
was seldom necessary to resort to these violent measures, and 
that French fathers of that day seldom made difficulties except 
about the sum to be paid. That the king was liberal may be in- 
ferred from the sum which this seraglio cost him—not less than 
one hundred millions of francs. It was a large, handsomely fur- 
nished building at Versailles, giving every woman her separate FRANCE FROM LOUIS XIII. TO THE PRESENT DAY. 
129 
apartments. The king rarely visited each one more than three or 
four times; but, on the occasion of his first visit, he prided himself 
on observing the etiquette of a husband. He insisted on the poor 
child whom he was about to ruin kneeling down by the bedside, 
and saying her prayers in his presence. It need hardly be ob- 
served that the Parc aux Cerfs was the great reservoir from whence 
the brothels of the time derived their supply of recruits. After a 
residence of a few weeks or months, in case they became pregnant, 
the poor children were thrown out upon the world, and ruin was 
a necessity. 
The last monarch of the old French line, the unfortunate Louis 
XYL, forms a bright contrast to his predecessors. His education 
had been severe, his principles were naturally strict. Placed upon 
the throne after the Revolution had become inevitable, his whole 
attention was devoted to the business of reigning, and attempting 
reforms which came quite too late. Neither he nor his wife ever 
gave rise to merited scandal. 
The profligate character of the court was, however, sustained by 
the Orleans family and their connections. Philippe Egalitd was 
a true descendant of the regent. On the very eve of the Revolu- 
tion he indulged in orgies that were closely imitated from those 
of the Palais Royal. 
Our sketch of the immoralities of the French court naturally 
ends here. Though the period of the Directory was marked by a 
general looseness in the best French society, and both Napoleon 
and Louis XYIII. set no example of conjugal fidelity to their sub- 
jects, yet vice was not exhibited so openly under them as it had 
been under former kings, and the laws of decency were not actu- 
ally set at defiance. Their frailties were private matters, into 
which it is scarcely the duty of the historian to intrude. The 
same may be said of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. The former 
had, in his youth, been a sharer of many of the excesses of the 
Orleans family, but at the time he became king he was an old 
man, and could afford to lead a decent life. Louis Philippe had 
never afforded a theme for scandal, and as king he set an example 
of rigorous morality. 
If we turn back now to the period of the Regency, we shall find 
letters sympathizing in the most marked manner with the court. 
Under the regime of severe etiquette and decency established by 
Louis XIV., authors respected the ear of innocence; under the 
brutal sway of the regent, and the lewd influence of the satyr Louis 130 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
XV., the old prostitution of literature was revived. Thus we find 
that the most successful authors of the day, such as Voltaire, hand- 
led themes grossly immoral in themselves, and rendered still more 
offensive by their mode of treatment. The most popular novel of 
the eighteenth century—Manon Lescant—the work, by the way, 
of an abbe, is the narrative of the adventures of a prostitute. Of 
all the romance writers of that age, no one was more widely pop- 
ular or more generally read than Crebillon fils, whose works 
would almost fall into the hands of the police at the present time. 
Diderot, Mirabeau, Montesquieu, and, with few exceptions, all the 
most eminent men of France, prostituted their genius to the com- 
position of erotic works which were widely read by women as 
well as men. Of the light poetry of the eighteenth century very 
little is fit for modern reading, the poets being, as a general rule, 
either dull or depraved. Nor were the arts behindhand. Frescoes 
differing but little from those which had adorned Fontainebleau 
under Francis I. again covered the walls of rich men’s houses; 
and the most fortunate painters of the day were those who could 
best outrage decency without positively suggesting the brothel. 
Lewd books and pictures were freely sold in Paris during the 
Regency, the reign of Louis XV., and the Revolutionary period. 
Napoleon burned all he could find, but there still remained enough 
to supply the demand almost ever since. 
It should be noticed in connection with the state of morals in 
France during the second half of the eighteenth century, that the 
tendency of the philosophical doctrines which were then current 
was to undermine the respect paid to marriage and chastity. The 
former, being a sacrament, was assailed as part of the ecclesi- 
astical system; the latter was conceived to be at war with the 
natural, and, therefore, the proper passions of mankind. Sev- 
eral of the philosophers left it to be inferred from their writings, 
or stated broadly, that promiscuous intercourse, or, at all events, 
unlimited facilities of divorce, were the natural destiny of the hu- 
man race, and that the restrictions which have been imposed on 
sensual gratification had no warrant in reason or sound ethics. 
These foolish notions brought forth fruits after their kind. Under 
the Directory, prostitutes were received into certain societies, and 
ladies of fashion became prostitutes. Even under the Empire it 
was not unusual for a lady to request her husband to pay her a 
visit, as it was well, perhaps, to avoid questions of legitimacy aris- 
ing at any future period. SYPHILIS. 
131 
There was one branch of society in which morality had made 
great progress during the century : that was the Church. It still 
contained cardinals like Dubois, and bishops and abbes like Du 
Tencin, but the vast body of the country clergy led pure moral 
lives. This point is placed beyond a doubt by the silence of the 
parties opposed to the hierarchy when the Revolution broke out, 
and they were so disposed to assail the priesthood on every vul- 
nerable point. It may be broadly stated that the vices which had 
infected the whole body of the clergy during the sixteenth cen- 
tury had disappeared by the eighteenth; despite the law of celi- 
bacy, the country curates were, as a rule, moral, austere, virtu- 
ous men. 
CHAPTER IX. 
FRANC E.—S YPHILIS. 
First recorded Appearance in Europe.—Description by Fracastor.—Conduct of the 
Faculty.—First Hospitals in Paris.—Shocking Condition of the Sick.—New Syph- 
ilitic Hospital.—Plan of Treatment.—Establishment of the Salpetriere.—Bicetre. 
—Capuchins.—Hospital du Midi.—Reforms there.—Visiting Physicians.—Dis- 
pensary.—Statistics of Disease.—Progress and Condition of Disease. 
It properly belongs to this chapter to allude to the rise and 
progress of the diseases termed syphilitic. 
Whether they were of ancient date—whether the “shameful 
diseases” which have been mentioned in the chapter devoted to 
prostitution at Rome were the same as the modern syphilis—may 
be decided by the reader. It will suffice here to say that, through- 
out the Middle Ages, a species of disease, termed sometimes lep- 
rosy, sometimes pudendagra, appears to have prevailed in France 
as in other European countries, and to have chosen for its chief 
seat the organs of generation. It was not, however, till the close 
of the fifteenth century that public attention began to be general- 
ly directed to the subject of sexual disease. 
We shall briefly enumerate the earliest notices of its appear- 
ance. When Charles VIII. entered Naples in 1495, he found 
the city suffering from a plague (syphilis) to which the prejudice 
of the natives gave the name of “ French malady.” Italy, said 
the writers of the day, was attacked simultaneously by the French 
army and this new disease.1 Most of the Italian writers accuse 
1 Nicolas Leoniceno, De Morbo Gallico, and others. 132 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the French of its introduction. Benevenis, however, says they 
got it from the Spaniards, and Guicciardini candidly admits that 
his countrymen were the real propagators of the malady. Ger- 
man physicians likewise traced its origin to Naples, and placed it 
about the year 1493,1 ascribing it to an untoward planetary con- 
junction. The disease appeared at Barcelona in 1493, and in 
other parts of Spain in the following year.2 But sixty years be- 
fore, in 1430, public regulations had been made in London to pre- 
vent the admission of persons attacked with a disease very similar 
to syphilis into houses of prostitution, and requiring the police to 
keep constant watch over such as should show symptoms of this 
infirmitas nefanda3 The first authentic allusion to the disease in 
France is the ordinance of the Parliament of Paris, dated 1497, 
ordering all persons attacked by the “large pox” to vacate the 
city within twenty-four hours, and not to return till they were 
cured; providing a sort of hospital for those who can not move; 
and appointing agents to bestow four sols parisis on the exiles to 
pay for their journey.4 This ordinance alludes to the disease 
having been prevalent for two years. 
It may therefore be taken for granted that, whether syphilitic 
diseases had existed before or not, they prevailed to a very alarm- 
ing extent throughout Europe at the close of the fifteenth century. 
To prevent misconception, it may be as well to give the diag- 
nostic signs of the “French malady” as furnished by Fracastor: 
“ The patients were in low spirits, and broken down; their faces 
were pale. Most of them had chancres upon the organs of gener- 
ation. These chancres were obstinate; when cured in one place 
they reappeared in another, and the work was never ended. Pus- 
tules with a hard surface appeared upon the skin, generally on the 
head first. On first appearing they were small, but gradually in- 
creased to the size of an acorn, which they resembled in shape. 
In some cases they were dry, in others humid; some were livid, 
others white and pale, others again hard and reddish. They burst 
after a few days, and discharged an incredible quantity of vile 
fetid humor. When they began to suppurate they became true 
phagedaenic ulcers, consuming both flesh and bone. When they 
attacked the upper part of the body they gave rise to malign 
fluxions, which gnawed away the palate, or the windpipe, or the 
1 Ulrich de Hutton, De Morbi Gallici curatione. 
3 Roderic Dias, Contra las Bubas. 3 W. Beckett, Phil. Trans, vol. xxx. 
4 Registres du Parlement de Paris, 1497. SYPHILIS 
133 
throat, or the tonsils. Some patients lost their lips, others the 
nose, others the eyes, others the whole organs of generation. 
Many were troubled with moist tumors on the limbs, which grew 
as large as eggs or small loaves. When they burst, a white and 
mucilaginous liquor exuded from them. They were usually found 
on the legs and arms. Some were ulcerated, others again remain- 
ed callous to the last. And, as if this was not enough, the patients 
suffered terrible pains, especially at night, not only in the articu- 
lations, but in the limbs and nerves. Some sufferers, however, 
had pustules without pains, others pains without pustules; but, 
in most cases, both occurred together. The patients were languid, 
had no appetite, desired to remain constantly in bed. The face 
and legs swelled. Some had a slight fever, but this was rare; 
others had severe headaches for which no remedy could be found.”1 
At first, it seems, the faculty, strangely misapprehending its 
duties, refused to treat patients assailed by this new plague. As 
at Rome, they were left to the tender mercies of quacks, barbers, 
and old women. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
however, the extent of the mischief provoked sympathy from the 
physicians, and one or two treatises appeared on the subject, Su- 
dorifics seem to have been the chief agent employed. Large use 
was made of holy wood (the wood of the lignum-vitae-tree), which 
was imported from America for the purpose. It was doses of 
holy wood, in decoction, which are said to have saved the life of 
the great Erasmus. 
After the passage of the law of 1497, a house in the Faubourg St. 
Grermain was appropriated to the reception of the victims of syph- 
ilis ; but there is no reason to believe that any attempt was made 
to treat them there. They were left to die, or to quack themselves. 
Eighteen years after, in 1505, the house in question being too 
small for the numbers of the sick, and it being clearly shown that 
syphilis was not contagious except by sexual intercourse or posi- 
tive peculiar contact with the person afflicted, a new decree of Par- 
liament appropriated funds for the construction of “ a hospital for 
persons attacked by the large pox (les grands veroles),” and direct- 
ed that they should be properly cared for.2 This decree was never 
carried into effect. Thirty years afterward the condition of the 
sick was far worse than it had ever been, they being left to die in 
the streets. A new decree, in 1535, appointed commissioners to 
choose a locality for a hospital; and, notwithstanding some oppo- 
-1 Jerome Fracastor, De Morb. Contag. 2 Registres du Parlement de Paris, 1505. 134 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
sition from the religions authorities, they performed their task. 
A small hospital was appropriated to syphilitic patients, and per- 
sons suffering from itch, epilepsy, and St. Vitus’s dance. It was 
soon filled, and several patients were thrust into the same bed. 
Owing to mismanagement on the part of the directors, it was short 
of linen, lint, and medicine. The Parliament interfered, but with- 
out success; and, in despair, the unfortunate sufferers contrived to 
effect an entrance into the hospital general, the Hotel Dieu. They 
were soon admitted on the same terms as other sufferers; but, as 
the establishment was far too small to accommodate all who sought 
refuge there, they were thrust four and five together into the same 
bed, and persons with syphilitic diseases lay by the side of men in 
contagious fevers, and others with broken legs and arms. 
The Parliament interfered a second time. The municipal offi- 
cers of Paris were assembled, and called upon to provide a hospi- 
tal for venereal cases; but for many years the strenuous opposi- 
tion of the Hotel Dieu neutralized all the efforts that were made. 
It was not till 1614 that the project of the Parliament was real- 
ized, and a syphilitic hospital actually opened. 
Up to this time, that is to say, for a period of a century and a 
quarter, persons attacked by venereal disease were left to the care 
of Providence. Males could, with some exertion, occasionally ob- 
tain admission to the Hotel I)ieu, where they often contracted new 
diseases without getting rid of the old ; but of females, not a word 
had yet been spoken. No one in that hundred and twenty-five 
years had ever raised a voice to plead on behalf of the prostitutes; 
it never seems to have occurred, even to the Parliament which had 
so much sympathy for the pauvres veroles, that the women like- 
wise deserved pity and attention. 
We possess no information with, regard to the treatment used 
in this new hospital. It is certain, however, that, in obedience to 
the law of its foundation, patients were soundly whipped when 
they entered and when they left it, by way of punishing them for 
having contracted the disease. In 1675 the managers of the hos- 
pital declared that this practice deterred many sick persons from 
coming forward and confessing their condition; but it prevailed, 
apparently, for a quarter of a century afterward. 
About the middle of the seventeenth century, under the reign 
of Louis XTY., a hospital prison, named the Salpetrisre, was es- 
tablished for the reception of prostitutes; but, by a strange incon- 
sistency, in 1658 it was closed to women suffering from syphilis SYPHILIS. 
{femmes yatees), and physicians were directed to examine all wom- 
en “ who showed symptoms of syphilis on the face.” A few years’ 
experience showed the fallacy of this system. Diseased women 
were confined in the place; should they not be treated there? 
The physicians thought they should, and accordingly, though in 
violation of the rules of the establishment, a small room was ap- 
propriated to this class of patients. It appears that at this time a 
prostitute found some difficulty in obtaining admission to the Sal- 
pet rie re ; it being not unusual for unfortunate creatures to have 
themselves arrested for vagabondage, and to submit voluntarily 
to the whipping which the ethics of the day required in the case 
of females as well as males, in order to obtain medical treatment. 
It will be seen that our New York system can not claim the merit 
of originality. Prostitutes, in fact, flocked to the Salpetrisre in 
such numbers that the room furnished by the connivance of the 
authorities was soon far too small to accommodate them. The 
hospital managers declared to the royal government that medical 
treatment was out of the question in so crowded an apartment, 
and that a putrid fever might be expected if better accommoda- 
tions were not provided. In reply, the government placed at 
their disposal a ward in the hospital of Bicetre. 
This was in 1691. For nearly a hundred years afterward the 
severe cases of venereal disease were sent to Bicetre, the milder 
ones kept at Salpetrisre. Both establishments were a disgrace to 
humanity. The patients were cheated of the food allowed them, 
and supplied with cheap broth and cheese in its stead. No baths, 
and but few medicines were at their command. Their ward was 
filthy, close, and in ruin. Patients were often obliged to wait so 
long for medical attendance that their maladies became incurable. 
The air in which they lived was pestiferous, and no one could 
visit the hospital without being shocked at its aspect.1 Medical 
men who saw the place expressed amazement that so many per- 
sons should exist in so small a room. Eight women slept in a 
bed, and in the room appropriated to those whose turn for treat- 
ment had not come, the patients slept by gangs, one half sleeping 
from 8 P.M. to 1 A.M., and the remainder from 1 A.M. to 7 A.M. 
The floor was covered with dirt and filth, and the windows were 
nailed down, for fear of their being broken if opened. There was 
but little linen, and that was in rags, and abominably dirty. One 
1 Cullerier: Report of Chirurgien Mareschal; Report of M. de Breteuil to the 
Government; Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 180. 136 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
hundred persons only were treated at a time, fifty men and fifty 
women. A new batch was admitted to treatment every two 
months, and, as the hospital always contained from three to four 
hundred sufferers, some cases remained six or eight months with- 
out any treatment whatever. Many died before they reached the 
hands of the doctors. The diet was the same for all. Those who 
had not been admitted to treatment were supplied with coarse 
bread, cheese, rancid butter, and (very seldom) a little meat. The 
surgeons of Bicetre usually made fortunes in a short time.1 
If any thing farther were needed to characterize the hospital 
of Bicetre in the eighteenth century, it would be the rules in virtue 
of which no diseased person could claim admission until a com- 
plete year had elapsed from the time of their first application, and 
every diseased person was turned out, whether ill or well, after 
six weeks’ treatment. It was stated to M. Parent-Duchatelet that 
the average mortality was one hundred women and sixty men per 
annum.2 
In 1787, Dr. Cullerier was appointed surgeon in charge of syph- 
ilitic cases at Bicetre. He commenced his administration by de- 
nouncing the state of things he found there, and it is mainly from 
the memoires he addressed to the government that the preceding 
facts have been obtained. His representations seem to have met 
with but little success. In 1789, however, the bulk of the pris- 
oners at Bicetre were set free, and he immediately availed him- 
self of the increased room to accommodate his patients. 
The reform was so slight, or rather so vast a reform was needed, 
that the moment the attention of the republican government was 
drawn to the subject, it removed the syphilitic cases from the hos- 
pital of Bicetre to the hospital of the Capuchins. That establish- 
ment was enlarged, and named the Hospital of the South (l’H6- 
pital du Midi). Gardens and baths were provided; ample wards 
permitted the classification of diseases; the food was of the best 
kind, and sufficient in quantity. This immense step was the work 
of the republican authorities. 
It was, however, only the first of a series of reforms. Original- 
ly, men and women of all grades were admitted promiscuously. 
This led to grave inconveniences. The decorum of the hospital 
was frequently disturbed by the conduct of some of the men with 
regard to the prostitutes in the adjoining wards. To obviate this, 
a new hospital was set apart, under the reign of Charles X., for 
1 Cullerier ; Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 184. 
3 Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 186. the reception of male patients only. It is the Hospital de Lour- 
cine. 
SYPHILIS. 
137 
A still more serious trouble arose from the mixture of prosti- 
tutes with other women who, from the infidelity of their hus- 
bands, hereditary disease, or other causes, found themselves in- 
fected with syphilis. For some time complaints had been made 
on this head, but an accident, which occurred in 1828, compelled 
the authorities to act. The daughter of a professional nurse, re- 
siding in the vicinity of Paris, caught syphilis from a child her 
mother was nursing, who had inherited the disease. It took the 
shape of a virulent chancre on the palate, and the girl was sent to 
the Hospital du Midi for treatment. She found herself thrust 
among the vilest prostitutes, whose language and sentiments shock- 
ed her so terribly that she insisted on leaving the hospital at once. 
The physician on duty declined to grant her request, whereupon 
the poor girl contrived to get into the yard, and threw herself into 
a well. She was drowned, and on an autopsy of her corpse it ap- 
peared that she was a virgin. This dreadful incident aroused the 
public mind. Hitherto the disposal of the prostitutes had been a 
subject of dispute between the administration of the hospital and 
that of the city, each wishing to thrust them upon the other. The 
government now interfered, and special accommodation was pro- 
vided for prostitutes at the prison of Saint Lazare. The Hospital 
du Midi was devoted exclusively to such women as were not in- 
scribed on the rolls of the police. 
Before these distributions took place, when men and women 
were indiscriminately received at the Hospital du Midi, the aver- 
age annual admissions, from 1804 to 1814, were 2700; from 1822 
to 1828 it exceeded an average of 8100. Twenty years ago the 
mortality was said to be less than two per cent.; it was ten per 
cent, at Bicetre. 
At the Hospital du Midi, diseased persons who do not desire 
admission to the hospital are treated outside, all the medicines 
they require being furnished them free of charge. 
It would appear, from stray allusions in various old ordinances, 
that some sort of medical office had been established in the eight- 
eenth century by the government, for the purpose of affording 
gratuitous advice to prostitutes, and denouncing those who were 
diseased ; but there exists no positive evidence of any such estab- 
lishment or office. It was not till 1808 that a regulation was 
made by the prefect of police, requiring all public women to sub- 138 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Mit to be visited by a physician appointed by him. The plan 
was a bad one, as the physician was paid by fees which he was 
authorized to exact; and it was rendered worse in practice by the 
dishonesty of the man chosen for the office, one Coulon. This 
individual made money and neglected his duties. The system 
was altered in 1810, and a dispensary established, with a strong 
medical staff, who were directed to visit all the prostitutes in 
Paris. This institution is still in existence; it will be further no- 
ticed in the next chapter. 
When the dispensary was established, its medical officers were 
directed to offer to prostitutes the choice of being treated at home1 
or going to the hospital. Almost all chose the former. The phy- 
sicians then undertook to decide themselves which should go to the 
hospital and which remain in their houses. The results of their ex- 
perience, and the policy it compelled them to adopt, are shown in 
the following table, which was compiled by Parent-Duchatelet: 
Year. Tfrfted 
at home. 
1812 276 
1813 300 
1814 296 
1815 No report. 
1816 
Y Treated 
1 ea ’ at home. 
1817 123 
1818 No report. 
1819 25 
1820 19 
,r Treated 
Year- at home. 
1821 27 
1824 27 
1825 7 
1826 4 
The system of treating prostitutes at home was, in fact, given up. 
It was found they could not be compelled to take the medicines 
given them; and that, though laboring under the most severe dis- 
ease, they would not abstain from the exercise of their calling. 
The tables prepared by the sanitary office, or dispensary, at 
Paris, afford a clear view of the extent and progress of disease in 
that city. Of those which are furnished by M. Parent-Duchatelet, 
we shall take a few of the most striking. The following gives the 
aggregate disease for a period of twenty years: 
Years Average Total. 
Patients. Patients. 
1812 51 612 
1813 79 948 
1814 102 1224 
1815 Report missing. 
1816 88 1056 
1817 76 912 
1818 68 816 
1819 58 696 
1820 62 744 
1821 55 660 
1822 Report missing. 
1823 69 828 
1824 84 1008 
1825 81 972 
Years Average Total. 
Patients. Patients. 
1826 93 1116 
1827 Report missing. 
1828 104 1248 
1829 99 1188 
1830 91 1092 
1831 110 1320 
1832 - 78 936 
17376 
Add approximate estimate } gggg 
for three years wanting | 
Total diseased in twenty) 20626* 
years ) 
17376 
1 Farent-Duchatelct, ii. 124. PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
139 
Other tables, apparently drawn with care, show that the pro- 
portion of disease to prostitutes varies widely in different years. 
In 1828 it was six per cent., that is to say, six out of every 
hundred prostitutes were diseased; but in 1832 it was barely 
three per cent. Four or five per cent, would seem a tolerably 
fair average.1 
From another table compiled by the same author we gather 
that, during a period of eighteen years, January was found the 
most fatal month for prostitutes; next came August and Septem- 
ber; while February, April, May, and July seemed seasons less fa- 
vorable to disease. M. Duchatelet, however, candidly admits that 
he can trace the operation of no law here, and inclines to the be- 
lief that the variation is wholly due to chance.2 
CHAPTER X. 
FRANCE.—PRESENT REGULATION’S. 
Number of Prostitutes in Paris.—Their Nativity, Parentage, Education, Age, etc.— 
Causes of Prostitution.—Rules concerning tolerated Houses.—Maisons de Passe. 
—Windows.—Keepers.—Formalities upon granting Licenses.—Recruits.—Pimps. 
—Profits of Prostitution.—lnscription.—lnterrogatories.—Nativity, how ascer- 
tained.—Obstacles.—Principles of Inscription.—Age at which Inscription is made. 
—Radiation.—Provisional Radiation.—Statistics of Radiation.—Classes of Pros- 
titutes.—Visit to the Dispensary.—Visiting Physicians.—Punishment.—Offenses. 
—Prison Discipline.—Saint Denis.—Tax on Prostitutes.—lnspectors.—Bon Pas- 
teur Asylum.—(Note : Duchatelet’s Bill for the Repression of Prostitution.) 
It remains to describe the state and system of prostitution at 
Paris at the present day. The vast importance of the subject will 
doubtless justify the length at which it must be treated. 
It was usual, during the last century, to estimate the number of 
prostitutes in Paris at twenty-five or thirty thousand. Even as 
late as 1810, the number was said by good authority to be not less 
than eighteen thousand.3 The police rolls show that these calcu- 
lations were wide of the mark. According to them, the average 
number of prostitutes inscribed had risen, from about 1900 in 1814, 
to 8558 in 1832, the last year of which we have any record. As- 
suming that the number at present is 4500, or thereabouts, which 
would suppose an increase equal to that noted before 1832, the 
1 Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 130. 2 Id. ii. 138. 
3 MSS. Reports quoted by Parent-Duchatelet, i. 30; Restif de la Bretonne; Por- 
nographe. 140 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
prostitutes are one to every two hundred and fifty of the total pop- 
ulation. Of these the city of Paris furnishes rather more than one 
third. The remainder come from the departments; those border- 
ing on Paris being the most fruitful of prostitutes, and the north 
being largely in excess of production over the south. 
The vast majority of these prostitutes are the children of oper- 
atives and mechanics. Of 828 fathers, there were 
Weavers 19 
Peddlers 12 
Masons and Tilers 28 
Water-carriers 11 
Stage and Carriage Drivers 35 
Shoemakers 50 
Farmers and Gardeners 31 
Servants 23 
Individuals employed in Foun- 
dries, etc 18 
Day-laborers 113 
Carpenters.... 31 
Liquor-sellers 22 
Smiths 23 
Grocers and Fruit-sellers 18 
Soldiers, on pensions 30 
Clock-makers and Jewelers 16 
Barbers and Hair-dressers 16 
Persons without trade or calling.. 64 
Tailors 22 
Plasterers, Pavers, etc 21 
Coopers 11 
Painters, Glaziers, and Printers.. 25 
Whereas there were only 
Surgeons, Physicians, and Lawyers 4 
Teachers 3 
Musicians 9 
The inference drawn by M. Parent-Duchatelet from this is, that 
brothels are supplied from the classes of domestics and factory- 
girls ; and that girls not bred to work rarely find their way into 
them. Rather more than one third of the fathers of these prosti- 
tutes were unable to sign their names. 
Of the prostitutes born at Paris, about one fourth were illegiti- 
mate ; of those born in the departments, one eighth were illegiti- 
mate. 
Rather more than half the Paris prostitutes could not write their 
names; a degree of ignorance which argues very remarkable neg- 
lect on the part of parents, for at Paris every one may learn to 
write gratuitously, and a person who can not write will always 
experience in obtaining employment. 
Nearly half the prostitutes were between the ages of twenty and 
twenty-six inclusive. One declared herself, or was proved to be, 
only twelve years old; thirty-four were over fifty; two were over 
sixty. On reference to the rolls of inscription, it appeared that 
the bulk of the prostitutes registered themselves between the ages 
of eighteen and twenty-two; but thirty-four were inscribed before 
the age of fourteen, which may be assumed to be the period of 
puberty in France, and a few after passing fifty. PEE SENT REGULATIONS 
141 
The following table shows the number of years during which 
the Paris prostitutes had exercised their calling at the time the 
inquiry was made: 
Time Number of 
llme Prostitutes. 
1 year and under 439 
From Ito 2 years 590 
“ 2to 3 “ 440 
“ 3to 4 “ 485 
“ 4to 6 “ 294 
“ sto 6 “ 139 
“ 6to 7 “ 150 
“ 7to 8 “ 143 
“ Bto 9 “ 96 
“ 9to 10 “ 100 
“ 10 to 11 “ 109 
“ 11 to 12 “ 93 
,r- „ Number of 
1 me- 1 “restitutes. 
From 12 to 13 years 99 
“ 13 to 14 “ 98 
“ 14 to 15 “ 107 
“ 15 to 16 “ 80 
“ 16 to 17 “ 19 
“ 17 to 18 “ 14 
“ 18 to 19 “ 17 
“ 19 to 20 “ 4 
“ 20 to 21 “ 
“ 21 to 22 “ 1 
“ 22 to 23 “ 
M. Duchatelet made careful inquiries into the causes of prosti- 
tution. He admits that, the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy 
information on this head being very great, many errors may have 
found their way into his calculations. He gives them, however, 
for what they may be worth. 
Want 1441 
Expulsion from home, or desertion of parents 1255 
Desire to support old and infirm parents 37 
“ “ “ younger brothers and sisters, or nephews and nieces 29 
Widows with families to support 23 
Girls from the country, to support themselves 280 
“ “ “ “ brought to Paris by soldiers, clerks, stu- 
dents, etc 404 
Servants seduced by masters and abandoned 289 
Concubines abandoned by their lovers 1425 
Total 5183 
It appears that there were in Paris, in 1832, two hundred and 
twenty “ tolerated houses”—that is to say, brothels. The rules 
regarding these are numerous. They can not be established in 
certain localities, such as the Boulevards, or other great thorough- 
fares. They must not be within one hundred yards of a church, 
or within fifty or sixty yards of a school, whether for boys or 
girls; of a palace or other public building, or of a large boarding- 
house. The proprietor of the house must have given his consent 
before the house can be used as a brothel. Two houses can not 
be established side by side, much less can they have the same 
entry. As a general rule, a preference is given to small, narrow 
streets, especially cuts de sac, and to places where brothels have 
been established before. 
With regard to the interior of these houses, they must contain 
a room for each girl; on no account are two prostitutes allowed 142 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
to occupy the same room, much less the same bed. Each room 
must, moreover, be amply provided with utensils, soap, and water, 
for ablution. No house of prostitution can have back or side 
doors, or in any way communicate with the adjoining buildings. 
No house can contain dark closets, or dark passages, or concealed 
hiding-places. In none of them can any trade or traffic be car- 
ried on. 
With regard to the class of houses called maisons de passe (as- 
signation houses), the police authorities require that in every such 
house two regular prostitutes, inscribed on the police rolls, shall 
live permanently. The object of this rule is to obtain a control 
and supervision over these houses. Before it was adopted the 
police was often embarrassed by denials of its authority to invade 
them. It is found that the prostitutes, being naturally hostile to 
the mistresses of the houses, will act as agents of the police in the 
event of any scandalous proceedings. 
The windows of houses of prostitution must be roughed, as 
also must those of rooms where individual prostitutes live. The}' 
can only be partially opened. These regulations were made in 
consequence of the shocking scenes that were witnessed at the 
windows of brothels after the devolution, naked women being the 
least of the scandals that used to be exposed. 
No one can keep a house of prostitution in Paris without an au- 
thorization from the police. Men are never permitted to keep 
establishments of the kind. A woman who desires to open a 
house must apply in writing to the Prefect of Police. On receipt 
of her application, reference is made to the Commissary of Police 
of the ward to ascertain her character. If she has been condemn- 
ed for crime or misdemeanor, her request is rarely granted. If 
she stands in the police books as a woman requiring supervision, 
she can not succeed. Nor can she obtain a license, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, unless she has been a prostitute herself. The 
reason of this regulation is obvious; no one but a prostitute un- 
derstands the business thoroughly; and as the position of brothel- 
keeper is found to be the most demoralizing station in the world, 
it has been the policy of the Paris police to throw impediments in 
the way of persons not wholly depraved devoting themselves to 
so dangerous a calling. Furthermore, the applicant must have 
reached a certain age. She must also be of sober habits, and ap- 
parently possessed of sufficient force of character to be able to 
command a house full of prostitutes. She must possess a sum of PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
143 
money sufficient to guarantee her against immediate failure, and 
she must own the furniture in the house she wishes to keep. 
When all these conditions are fulfilled, the applicant receives a 
pass-book, in which the number of girls she is allowed to keep is 
specified. In this book she is bound to enter the name of every 
prostitute she receives, whether as a boarder or a transient lodger; 
her age, the date of her entry into her house, the date of her in- 
spection by a physician, and the date of her departure from the 
house. A printed form in the beginning of the pass-book reminds 
the mistress of the house that she is bound, under heavy penal- 
ties, to inscribe on the police rolls every girl she receives within 
twenty-four hours of her arrival. 
In the event of the neglect of these rules by the keepers of 
houses of prostitution, the license is revoked. It is understood 
that the police enforce this regulation with due rigor. 
Much has been said and written about the manner in which the 
keepers of houses of prostitution obtain recruits. M. Parent-Du- 
chatelet, whose sources of information were the best, gives it as his 
opinion that most of the prostitutes are obtained from the hospi- 
tals, especially the Hospital du Midi, where female venereal dis- 
eases are treated. It appears that this hospital and others are 
haunted by old women who have been prostitutes, and who, in 
their old age, eke out a livelihood by enticing others into the 
same calling. They soon discover the antecedents and disposition 
of every young girl they find in hospitals; and if she be pretty or 
engaging, she must either have much principle or careful friends 
to rescue her from the clutches of the old hags. While she lies ill 
on a bed of pain, the latter are constantly with her, and gain her 
friendship. They know the devices that are needed to impose on 
her simplicity, and not unfrequently are enabled to strengthen 
their promises by small donations in money, or a weekly stipend 
during her convalescence. For a pretty girl as much as fifty 
francs will be paid by a brothel-keeper. As the girls in France, 
with few exceptions, come to Paris to be cured when they have 
contracted disease from association with lovers, it seems quite 
likely that, as M. Parent-Duchatelet supposes, these hospitals are 
a fruitful source of prostitutes. 
Other brothel-keepers have female agents in the country towns, 
who send them girls. One well-known woman, who kept for 
many years one of the largest establishments in France, employed 
a traveling clerk with a large salary. Some obtain boarders from 144 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
their own province or native city; others, who have followed a 
trade, get recruits from the acquaintances they made at the work- 
shop. Latterly, it would seem, pimps have carried on their trade 
with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was no- 
ticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from 
Rheims. They all came provided with the name and address of 
the houses to which they were destined, and drove there from the 
stage-office. Information was sent to the police authorities of 
Eheims, and on their arrival the girls were sent back again. The 
design of the authorities was baffled for a while by the cunning 
of the pimps, who sent their recruits round by other roads; but 
the police finally triumphed by refusing, for a year or two, to in- 
scribe any prostitutes from Rheims. 
It is notorious, however, that the same traffic is carried on at the 
present day to an alarming extent between London and Paris, 
London and Brussels, and other large cities in the neighborhood. 
Several societies have been formed, and the police have made 
great exertions to suppress the trade, but without any particular 
success. 
It is understood that the prostitutes of Paris receive nothing for 
their “ labors” but their board, lodging, and dress. The latter is 
often expensive. In first-class houses it will exceed five hundred 
francs, which in female attire will go as far at Paris as five hund- 
red dollars will in New York. The whole of the fees exacted from 
visitors goes to the mistress, and the girls are reluctantly permit- 
ted to retain the presents they sometimes receive from their lov- 
ers. They are usually in debt to the mistress, who, having no 
other means of retaining them under her control, hastens to ad- 
vance them money for jewelry, carriages, fine eating, and expen- 
sive wines. No written contract binds them to remain where they 
are; they may leave when they please, if they can pay their debts; 
and the obligation they incur for the latter is one of honor only, 
and can not be enforced in the courts. 
Houses of prostitution, when well conducted, are very profita- 
ble in Paris. It is estimated that the net profits accruing from 
each girl ought to be ten francs or more per day. Many keepers 
of houses have retired with from ten to twenty-five thousand francs 
a year, and have married their daughters well. The good-will of 
a popular house has been sold for sixty thousand francs (twelve 
thousand dollars). 
We now come to the great feature of the Paris system: the in- PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
145 
scription of prostitutes in a department of the Prefecture of Police, 
called the Bureau des Mceurs. It seems that some sort of inscrip- 
tion was in use before the Eevolution, but no law referring to it, 
or records of the rolls, can be found. Various systems were em- 
ployed during the Eepublic and the Empire. The one now in use 
was adopted in 1816, and amended by a police regulation of 1828. 
Prostitutes are inscribed either 
1. On their own request; 
2. On the requisition of the mistress of a house; or, 
3. On the report of the inspector of prostitutes. 
When a girl appears before the bureau under any of these cir- 
cumstances, she is asked the following questions, the answers be- 
ing taken down in writing: 
1. Her name, age, birth-place, trade, and residence? 
2. Whether she is a widow, wife, or spinster? 
3. Whether her father and mother are living, and what their calling 
was or is ? 
4. Whether she lives with them, and if not, when and how she left 
them ? 
5. Whether she has had children, and where they are ? 
6. How long she has been at Paris ? 
7. Whether any one has a right to claim her? 
8. Whether she has ever been arrested, and if yes, how often, and for 
what offenses ? 
9. Whether she has ever been a prostitute before, and for what period 
of time? 
10. Whether she has, or has had, venereal disease ? 
11. Whether she has received any education? 
12. What her motive is in inscribing herself? 
The answers to these inquiries suggest others, which are put at 
the discretion of the officials. Their practice is so great that they 
are rarely deceived by the women; M. Parent-Duchatelet affirms 
that they could tell an old prostitute merely by the way she sat 
down. 
The interrogatory over, the girl is taken by an inspector to the 
Dispensary and examined, and the physician on duty reports the 
result, which is added to the inquiry. Meanwhile, the police reg- 
isters have been consulted, and if the girl has been an old offend- 
er, or is known to the police, she is now identified. 
If the girl has her baptismal certificate {extrait de naissance) with. 146 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
her, she is forthwith inscribed, and registered among the public 
women of Paris. As prostitutes rarely possess this document, 
however, a provisional inscription is usually effected, and a direct 
application is made to the mayor of the city or commune where 
she was born for the certificate. This application varies accord- 
ing to the age of the girl. If she is of age it is simply a demand 
for the “ extrait de naissance of , who says she is a 
native of your city or commune.'I'' If, on the contrary, she is a 
minor, the application states that “ a girl who calls herself 
, and says she was born at , has applied for inscrip- 
tion in this office. I desire you to ascertain the position of her 
family, and what means they propose to take in case they desire 
to secure the return of this young girl.” 
It often happens that the family implore the intervention of the 
police; in that case the girl is sent back to the place whence she 
came. In many cases the family decline to interfere, and then 
the girl is duly inscribed on the register. She signs a document, 
in which she states that, u being duly acquainted with the sanitary 
regulations established by the Prefecture for Public Women, she 
declares that she will submit to them, will allow herself to be vis- 
ited periodically by the physicians of the Dispensary, and will con- 
form in all respects to the rules in force.” 
Of course this procedure is occasionally delayed by falsehoods 
uttered by the women. It often used to happen that the mayors 
would report that no person of the name given had been born at 
the time fixed in their city or commune. In that case the girl 
was recalled, and made to understand that truth was better policy 
than falsehood. Girls rarely held out longer than a fortnight or 
so, and, at the present time, the number of false declarations is 
very small indeed. They seem satisfied that the police are an 
omniscient machine which can not be deceived. 
When the girl is brought to the office either by a brothel- 
keeper or an inspector, the proceeding is slightly varied. In the 
latter case she has been arrested for indulging in clandestine pros- 
titution, but she almost invariably denies the fact, and pleads her 
innocence. The rule, in this case, is to admonish her and let her 
go. It is not till the third or fourth offense has been committed 
that she is inscribed. When the mistress of a house brings a girl 
to the office, interrogatories similar to the above are put to her. 
If she has relations or friends at Paris, they are sent for and con- 
sulted. When the girl appears evidently lost, she is duly in- PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
147 
scribed; but if she shows any signs of shame or contrition, she is 
often sent home by the office at the public expense. It need 
hardly be said that when a girl is found diseased she is sent to 
hospital and her inscription held over. It occasionally happens 
that virgins present themselves at the office and desire to be in- 
scribed ; in their case the officials use compulsion to rescue them 
from infamy. 
In a word, the Paris system with regard to inscriptions is to in- 
scribe no girl with regard to whom it is not manifest that she will 
carry on the calling of a prostitute whether she be inscribed or not. 
From the following table, prepared b}r M. Parent-Duchatelet 
from the records of a series of years, it appears that the mistresses 
of houses inscribe over one third of the total prostitutes; 
Girls inscribed at their own request 7388 
“ “ by mistresses of houses 4436 
“ “ by inspectors 720 
Total 12544 
The age at which girls can be inscribed has varied under differ- 
ent administrators. Under one it was seventeen, under his suc- 
cessor eighteen, under the next twenty-one years; but now the 
general rule is that no girl should be inscribed under the age of 
sixteen. Exceptions to this rule are made in the case of younger 
girls—of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, who lead a life of prostitu- 
tion, and are frequently attacked by disease. From a regard to 
public health, they are inscribed notwithstanding their age. 
Only second in importance to the subject of inscription is that 
of “ radiation,” the obliteration of an inscription. This is the proc- 
ess by which a prostitute takes leave of her calling, throws off 
the control of the police, and regains her civil rights. At Rome, 
as has been shown already, no such formality as radiation was 
known to the law; once a prostitute, always a prostitute, was the 
Roman rule. This system did not long sustain the test of a Chris- 
tian examination. 
The policy of the French Bureau des Moeurs on this head is gov- 
erned by two very simple maxims: Ist. The amendment of pros- 
titutes ought to be encouraged as much as possible; 2d. But no 
prostitute should be released from the supervision of the police 
and the visits of the Dispensary physicians until there is reason- 
able ground for believing that her repentance and alteration of 
life are sincere and likely to be permanent. 
A person desiring to have her name struck from the rolls of 148 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
public women must make a written application, specifying her 
reasons for desiring to change her mode of life, and indicating the 
means of support on which she is henceforth to rely. In three 
cases the demand is granted forthwith : Ist. When the girl 'proves 
that she is about to marry; 2d. When she produces the certificate 
of a physician that she is attacked by an organic disease which 
renders it impossible for her to continue the calling of a prosti- 
tute ; and, 3d. When she has gone to live with her relations, and 
produces evidence of her late good behavior. 
In all other cases the office awards a “ provisional radiation.” 
For a period of time, which varies, according to circumstances, 
from three months to a year, the girl is still under the supervision 
of the police, such supervision being obviously secret and discreet. 
When the girl passes triumphantly through this period of proba- 
tion, her name is definitely struck from the roll of prostitutes. 
When a girl, after having her name thus struck out, desires to 
be inscribed afresh, her request is granted without delay or in- 
quiry, it being wisely supposed that she has repented of her decis- 
ion. A re-inscription also takes place when a girl, after radiation, 
is found in a house of prostitution even as a servant. 
A prostitute is struck from the rolls by authority of the office 
when she has disappeared, and no trace of her has been found for 
three months. 
M. Parent-Duchatelet gives the following table of radiations, 
which, taken in connection with the table already given of the 
number of prostitutes registered, shows the movement of reform: 
Years. 
Women struck off the Rolls of 
Prostitutes 
Years. 
Women struck off the Rolls of 
Prostitutes 
At their 
own re- 
quest. 
In conse- 
quence of 
absence. 
Total. 
At their 
own re- 
quest. 
In conse- 
quence of 
absence. 
Total. 
1817 
485 
575 
1060 
Bt. forw’d 
4096 
5650 
9746 
1818 
477 
582 
1059 
1826 
486 
554 
1040 
1819 
469 
571 
1040 
1827 
490 
542 
1032 
1820 
415 
716 
1131 
1828 
572 
415 
987 
1821 
433 
733 
1166 
1829 
298 
536 
834 
1822 
417 
739 
1156 
1830 
334 
502 
836 
1823 
502 
605 
1107 
1831 
284 
452 
736 
1824 
442 
602 
1044 
1832 
449 
718 
1167 
1825 
456 
527 
983 
7009 
9369 
16378 
4096 
5650 
9746 
Once inscribed, prostitutes are divided into three classes: 
Ist, Those who live in a licensed or “ tolerated” brothel. 
2d, Those who live alone in furnished rooms. 
3d. Those who liv~ in rooms which they furnish, and outward- 
ly bear no mark of infamy. PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
149 
In the eye of the law there is no difference between the three 
classes; all are equally subject to police and medical supervision. 
Every girl that is inscribed receives a card bearing her name, and 
the number of her page in the register; a blank column of this 
card is left to be filled by a memorandum of the date of each visit 
by the physicians of the Dispensary. 
But the three classes differ in respect of the place where they 
are visited. The Dispensary physicians visit the inmates of broth- 
els in the houses where they live; all other prostitutes visit them 
at the Dispensary. Yet another visit is made by the Dispensary 
physicians to the Depot, or Lock-up, at the Prefecture of Police; 
as there are always a certain number of prostitutes arrested for 
drunkenness or disorderly conduct every night, it was thought 
well to seize the opportunity of their confinement to inquire into 
the state of their health. 
All houses of prostitution are visited by the Dispensary physi- 
cians once a week; the hour of the visit is known beforehand, and 
every girl must be present and pass inspection. The examination 
is private; the result is noted in a “folio” kept by the physician, 
and a corresponding memorandum is made in the pass-book of the 
house and on the card of the prostitute. When disease is detect- 
ed, the mistress of the house is notified, and cautioned not to allow 
the girl diseased to receive any visitors. That afternoon, or the 
next morning, she comes or is brought to the Dispensary, where 
she undergoes a second examination, and, if the result is the same 
as at the first, she is forthwith sent to Saint Lazare for treatment. 
Free prostitutes, that is to say, those who live in lodgings or 
rooms furnished by themselves, are bound to visit the Dispensary, 
and submit to examination once a fortnight. They choose the 
time and day themselves, but more than a fortnight must not 
elapse between the visits. 
It appears, from tables published by M. Parent-Duchatelet, that 
these rules are strictly enforced. Free prostitutes are visited 
nearly thirty times a year, and prostitutes in tolerated houses more 
than fifty times. We have alluded elsewhere to the results of 
the visits. 
Experience has proved that the only safe method of punishment 
for prostitutes is imprisonment. Formerly they were whipped, 
and at a later date their hair was cut off; but the humane spirit 
of modern legislation has rejected both these punishments as un- 
duly cruel. At the present day, offenses against the rules con- 150 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
cerning prostitution (delits de prostitution) arc punished by impris- 
onment; misdemeanors and crimes provided against by the code 
being within the cognizance of the ordinary courts in the case of 
prostitutes as well as other persons. 
Delits de prostitution have been divided by thq Bureau desMoeurs 
into two classes, slight offenses and grave offenses; slight offenses 
are: 
1. To appear in forbidden places. 
2. To appear at forbidden hours. 
3. To get drunk, and lie down in doorways, streets, or other thorough- 
fares. 
4. To demand admittance to guard-houses. 
5. To walk through the streets in daylight in such a way as to attract 
the notice of people passing. 
6. To rap on the windows of their rooms. 
I. To absent themselves from the medical inspection. 
8. To beg. 
9. To remain more than twenty-four hours in their house, after having 
been pronounced diseased by the physician. 
10. To escape from the Hospital or Dispensary. 
11. To go out of doors with bare head or neck. 
12, To remain in Paris after having been ordered to leave, and present- 
ed with a passport. 
This class of offenses is punished by imprisonment for not less 
than a fortnight or more than three months. One month is the 
usual term. 
A prostitute is held to be guilty of grave offenses when she 
1. Insults outrageously the visiting physician. 
2. Fails to visit the Dispensary. 
3. Continues to prostitute herself after being pronounced diseased. 
4. Uses obscene language in public. 
5. Appears naked at her window. 
6. Assails men with violence, and endeavors to drag them to her home. 
These offenses are punished by imprisonment for not less than 
three months, and not more than a year, rarely more than six 
months. The time is fixed in these cases with reference to the 
former character of the prostitute. 
When a prostitute is arrested she is taken to the Prefecture of 
Police, where there is a room specially appropriated to her class. 
She is tried within forty-eight, usually within twenty-four hours PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
151 
of her arrival. When condemned, she is conveyed in a close car- 
riage or van to the prison. 
The prison at Paris usually contains from four hundred and fifty 
to six hundred, inmates. They are all obliged to work. A few 
are generally found incapable, either from idiocy, blindness, or in- 
corrigible obstinacy, of performing even the simplest work. These 
are lodged in a department called “the ward of the imbeciles.” 
The others are allowed to choose their work; the bulk naturally 
take to sewing. They are paid a small sum for what they do, 
partly as they proceed with the work, and the balance when they 
leave the prison. Industrious girls receive, from the money com- 
ing to them, from five to eight sous daily. That this, added to 
the ample food supplied by the prison, suffices for their wants, is 
proved by the frequent purchases they make of flowers and other 
superfluities. Formerly, prostitutes in prison were not expected 
to work, and at this period fights and disturbances were of con- 
stant occurrence. Now the discipline is excellent and the prison- 
ers orderly. The only penalty for disobedience of rules or mis- 
conduct is close confinement in the cachot. 
M. Parent-Duchatelet admits that the prison discipline is so gen- 
tle that the punishment has no terrors for prostitutes. It is quite 
common to find girls who have been thirty times condemned to 
imprisonment. He recommends the use of the tread-mill as a cor- 
rective. 
His experience led him to question the utility of nuns and 
priests in the prostitutes’ prison. He does not think they do any 
good, and inclines to the belief that the counsels and visits of mar- 
ried women, who look rather to the moral than religious reform 
of the women, would be productive of more benefit. 
The old practice in France was to admit visitors to the prosti- 
tutes’ prison at certain hours and in a certain room, but this was 
found to be productive of great evils. The scenes in the visitors’ 
room were outrageous, and a new system was accordingly adopt- 
ed. No one was allowed to visit a prostitute but a hona fide rela- 
tion, and even such a one was required to obtain a written permit 
from the Prefecture of Police. 
A certain number of prostitutes are sent every year to the pris- 
on of St. Denis. These are those who, from physical or mental in- 
firmities, such as recto-vaginal fistula, cancer, incurable organic 
disease, idiocy, etc., are incapacitated from pursuing their calling, 
and run risk of starvation. Not more than eight or ten of these 152 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
are sent to St. Denis in the course of the year. The mortality 
among them there is not less than twenty-five per cent, per annum.1 
Until a few years ago, a tax was levied on the Paris prostitutes 
for the support of the Dispensary. Each mistress of a house paid 
twelve francs per month; each girl living alone, three francs per 
month. A fine of two francs was also laid on all prostitutes who 
were behind their time in visiting the Dispensary. The product 
of these various taxes amounted to from seventy-five to ninety 
thousand francs per annum. The system was abolished on the 
ground of its immorality. A popular notion is said to have pre- 
vailed that the police received half a million or more from the tax 
on prostitution, and attacks on the administration in consequence 
were incessant. The police authorities gave way at last, and the 
municipal council of the city undertook to defray the cost of the 
Dispensary for the future. Similar taxes appear to have existed 
at Lyons, Strasbourg, and other cities.2 
Allusion has been made to inspectors. At the time M. Parent- 
Duchatelet wrote there were ten inspectors, who had each charge 
of one tenth of the city. Their business was to see that the reg- 
ulations governing prostitutes were carried out. They arrested 
offending women, and transferred them to the Prefecture of Police. 
In case of resistance, they summoned the aid of the ordinary po- 
lice of the ward. They were not allowed themselves to use vio- 
lence either to arrest or drag a girl to prison. They were usually 
picked men of good character. Their salary was twelve hund- 
red francs a year, besides handsome presents.3 
In conclusion, a word must be said of the establishment called 
the Bon Pasteur. It is a Magdalen Asylum established many years 
ago by some benevolent ladies, and now mainly supported by an 
annual vote from the city of Paris, and an allowance from the 
hospitals. It receives prostitutes who desire to reform; feeds, 
clothes, and instructs them ; provides them with places when they 
desire to leave, or with work when they wish to remain in the es- 
tablishment. The rule is that no prostitute can be received under 
eighteen or over twenty-five years of age. Beyond these limits 
it has been found that the humane efforts of the directresses of 
the establishment have rarely led to any result. No compulsion 
is used in any case by the managers. Girls are free to leave as 
they are free to come. So long as they remain, however, they 
must conform to the rules of the establishment, which are strict 
1 Parent-Duchatelet, ii. 273. 
2 Id. ii. 308. 
3 Id. ii. 403. PRESENT REGULATIONS. 
153 
without being monastic. The average admissions to the asylum 
for the first twelve years of its existence were twenty per annum. 
The mortality among the residents was very large, being equal to 
twenty per cent, on the Vital number during the twelve years. 
Of the whole number (two hundred and forty-five), forty were dis- 
missed for insubordination twenty-seven left of their own accord, 
and probably returned to heir old courses, and fifteen were re- 
turned to the police. The remainder were either restored to their 
families, or placed in situations in the hospitals or elsewhere. 
Small as these numbers appear in comparison with the large 
army of prostitutes exercising their calling at Paris, it is not at 
all doubtful but the establishment is a useful one. No one can 
help but concur with M, Parent-Duchatelet when he observes 
that, “ did it not exist, it would be necessary to create it.” 
Note.—As M. Parent-Duchatelet has written the best, we might almost 
say the only philosophical work on prostitution extant, it may be useful to 
subjoin the text of the statute which he proposed to regulate the subject of 
prostitution. 
LAW RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF PROSTITUTION. 
Art. 1. The duty of repressing prostitution, whether with provocation on 
the public highway or otherwise, is intrusted at Paris to the Prefect of Po- 
lice, and in all the other communes of France to the mayors respectively. 
Art. 2. A discretionary authority over all persons engaged in public 
prostitution is vested in these functionaries, within the scope of their 
powers. 
Art. 3. Shall constitute evidence of public prostitution either, Ist, direct 
provocation thereto on the public highway; 2d, public notoriety; or, 3d, 
legal proof adduced after accusation and trial. 
Art. 4. The Prefect of Police at Paris, and the mayors in the other com- 
munes, shall make any and all regulations which they may deem suitable 
for the repression of prostitution, and such regulations shall bear upon all 
those who encourage prostitution as a trade—lodgers, inn-keepers and tav- 
ern-keepers, landlords and tenants. 
Art. 5. The Dispensary at Paris for the superintendence of women of the 
town is placed on the same footing as the public health establishments. 
Other similar dispensaries may be established wherever they are needed. 
Art. 6. A full report of the proceedings of these dispensaries shall be for- 
warded annually to the Minister of the Interior. 
M. Duchatelet conceived this short law to be adequate for the purpose. 
It may be presumed that he took for granted that the mayors of the com- 154 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
munes would never attempt to carry out original views of their own on the 
subject; he doubtless gave them credit for sufficient sclf-abnegnation to 
adopt, without question, the elaborate and sensible plan which experience 
has taught the authorities of Paris, How far this assumption was justifi- 
able appears uncertain, in view of the fact that at Lyons and Strasbourg, 
the prostitutional system has always differed from that of the capital. In 
both those cities a tax has been levied on prostitutes till a very late period ; 
at Lyons it was exacted, it is believed, in 1842. 
CHAPTER XL 
ITALY. 
Decline of Public Morals.—Papal Court.—Nepotism.—John XXll.—Sextus IV. 
—Alexander Vl.—Effect of the Reformation.—Poem of Fracastoro.—Benvenuto 
Cellini.—Beatrice Cenci.—Laws of Naples.—Pragmatic Law of 1470.—Court 
of Prostitutes.—Bull of Clement II.—Prostitution in Lombardy and Piedmont. 
—Clerical Statute.—Modern Italy.—Laws of Rome.—Public Hospitals.—Laz- 
aroni of Naples.—ltalian Manners as depicted by Lord Byron.—Foundling Hos- 
pitals.—True Character of Italian People. 
Birth-place of modern art and literature, dowered with, the 
fatal heritage of beauty, Italy, in the varied passages of her career 
among the nations, has been as remarkable for the vice and sen- 
suality of her children as she has been eminent for their talents 
and acquirements. 
Tlie heart of the historical student thrills with respectful sym- 
pathy over the sorrows and ennobling virtues of her patriots in 
all ages, or his intellect is captivated with enthusiastic admira- 
tion and reverence in considering the monuments of resplendent 
genius given to mankind by her sons. Let him turn the page, 
and his soul recoils in disgust and deepest horror from the narra- 
tive of corruption the most abandoned, ambition the most unscru- 
pulous, lust the most abominable, crime the most tremendous, to 
which the history of the world scarcely offers a parallel, and 
which brands the perpetrators with the execration of all succeed- 
ing generations. 
The most glorious era of the Italian republics immediately pre- 
ceded their downfall. Like shining lights, they perished by their 
own effulgence. The mutual jealousies of Florence, Pisa, Genoa, 
Lucca, and the numerous independent cities and states, stirred up 
in them a “noble and emulous rage” to excel each other in the ITALY, 
155 
encouragement they gave to art and letters, and the mighty works 
produced by their respective citizens. But the same sentiment 
also roused them to deadlier feuds, and the common field of nation- 
al patriotism being shut up, they exhausted themselves and each 
other by desperately-protracted struggles and incredible sacrifices 
of blood and treasure. Thus they paved the way to the introduc- 
tion of the foreigner and the mercenary, who completed their 
ruin; until, in place of the small but illustrious republics which 
formed a diadem of brightest gems, arose a system of petty tyrants, 
who plunged the country into misery and degradation. These, in 
turn, were swept away by the strong arm of a despotism which 
has never since relaxed its grasp of this loveliest country of the 
earth. 
No influence played a more important part in bringing about 
this catastrophe than that of the court of Rome. By the in- 
trigues of the Roman pontiffs the mutual jealousies of the states 
were exacerbated and their quarrels fomented. While these re- 
sults were caused by the political actions of the popes and their 
advisers, the worst effects were produced upon public manners 
and morals by their example. The abuses which had established 
themselves among the Roman hierarchy were the natural conse- 
quences of long and undisturbed enjoyment by the clergy of their 
vast immunities and privileges. The demoralization and disso- 
luteness which thus existed, and which spread its poison through- 
out the civilized world, but especially throughout Italy, are at- 
tested to posterity by all contemporary writers. 
The enormous iniquity which distinguished such men as John 
XXII., Sextus IV., or Alexander VI., is notorious to all. Al- 
though the character of communities is not to be inferred from 
the actions of exceptional prodigies, either of virtue or vice, it is 
evident that the system which could place monsters like these in 
the august positions they filled must have been rotten to the core. 
The worth of a Leo X. or a Clement YII. consisted in the absence 
of the grosser vices rather than in any positive excellence, and the 
encouragement given by such men to objectionable practices did 
more to confirm a laxity of morals than the odious and unpardon- 
able offenses of their predecessors. 
Some of the political profligacy of the court of Rome, and, 
through its example, of the other Italian courts, was owing to the 
system which had sprung up of each pope providing for his fam- 
ily. The term nepote (nephew) was in common use as expressing 156 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the relationship which existed between the pope and the individ- 
uals selected for advancement. The priests of all denominations 
had nephews and nieces to provide for, and the abuses covered by 
the term were objects of the keenest satire. In fact, Innocent 
YIII. thus provided for eight openly avowed sons and daughters.1 
The pseudo-avuncular obligations of Sextus IV. were also well 
known. Other popes, whose sins were not in this particular di- 
rection, having no sons, adopted a bona fide nephew, and one or 
two, feeling the want of ties of kindred or family relationship, ac- 
tually adopted strangers. In one instance, the Donna Olimpia, a 
niece by marriage, and “a lady of ability and a manly spirit,” 
took the place of a nephew in the court of Innocent X., without 
any imputation on the character of either pope or niece.2 
The effect produced by this example in high places, particular- 
ly upon the clergy, and through them on the community, can be 
imagined. By a decree of the Church in the eleventh session of 
the Lateran Council it appears that the clergy were accustomed to 
live in a state of public concubinage, nay, more, to allow others 
to do so for money paid to them by permission. Dante, in one 
of his daring flights, compares the papal court to Babylon, and 
declares it a place deprived of virtue and shame. In the nine- 
teenth canto of the Inferno, Dante, visiting hell, finds Nicholas 
111. there waiting the arrival of Boniface, who again is to be suc- 
ceeded by Clement. 
The Reformation compelled some attention to morals among 
the clergy, and for a time an earnest endeavor was made at a pu- 
rification of the Church. This was one of the chief labors of the 
famous Council of Trent. That council certainly did repress the 
abuses among the general clergy, but the law-makers were law- 
breakers. They could not touch the cardinals, archbishops, or 
the Pope himself, and thus little radical change was effected among 
the chief dignitaries.3 
There are not wanting writers who acquit the Italian national 
character of blame in the matter, attributing the general corrup- 
tion partly to the frightful example of foreign invaders. The in- 
1 Dennistoun’s Dukes of Urbino; Ranke’s History of the Popes; Gibbon’s Rome. 
3 Ranke, ii. Appendix. 
3 In 1849, when the Roman people opened the palace of the Inquisition, there 
was found in the library a department styled “Summary of Solicitations,” being a 
record of cases in which women had been solicited to acts of criminality by then 
confessors in the pontifical state, and the summary is not brief.—Dwight’s “Ro- 
man Republic in 1849,” p. 115. ITALY. 
157 
vasion of Charles YIIL, himself a dissolute monarch, with the 
universal licentiousness of the .French troops, did undoubtedly 
contribute largely to ruin the morals of the people at large, but, 
to use the words of Machiavelli, “ If the papal court were removed 
to Switzerland, the simplest and most religious people of Europe 
would, in an incredibly short time, have become utterly depraved 
by the vicious example of the Italian priesthood,”1 
The ecclesiastics did not confine themselves to licentiousness 
of conduct. The clerical writers are charged with a taste for that 
lowest practice of debased minds, obscenity, in which, particular 
they exceed the lay writers. Eoscoe, an accomplished Italian 
scholar and a man not given to railing, maintains this allegation.2 
This reminds us of Pope’s lines: 
“ Immodest words admit of no defense, 
For want of decency is want of sense.” 
For the limited range of our present subject, history, so profuse 
of illustration of war, bloodshed, and the personal adventures of 
men notewortny by their position or character, is exceedingly 
chary of materials. In the case of Italy the testimony as to the 
morals of men in high places is superabundant, and these and the 
legislative enactments of the period will furnish some of the in- 
formation of which we are in search. 
In the fifteenth century, Charles YIIL, in his wars to gain Na- 
ples from the Spaniards, drew down unspeakable miseries upon 
the wretched Italians, His armies are reputed to have indulged 
in every excess of unbridled license and rapine; and it was during 
the siege of Naples that the venereal disease is said to have first 
made its appearance, although the particulars given of this malady 
in Chapter IX., under the head of France, show that syphilis ex- 
isted in Naples two or three years before the siege. As generally 
happens with new diseases, whether from fear or ignorance of the 
means to control them, it was represented that the affliction was 
of a malignity never since known. Its frightful ravages and dis- 
gusting character impressed the minds of men with a belief that 
it was a new scourge, sent specially as a punishment for the de- 
bauchery and prostitution of the period, each party retorting on 
the other the charge of having introduced it, and styling it Morbo- 
Oallico or Mai de Naples, according to the nation to which they 
belonged. No class seems to have been exempt from it. Sextus 
Liscorsi, i. 12. 
2 Life of Leo X. Appendix. 158 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
della Rovere, nephew of Sextus IY., one of the wealthiest and 
most dissolute ecclesiastics of the age, was “ rotten from his mid- 
dle to the soles of his feet.”1 Even the haughty and majestic Ju- 
lius 11. would not expose his feet to the obeisance of the faithful, 
because they were discolored by the Morbus Gallicus :2 Leo, his 
accomplished and munificent successor, was said to have owed his 
elevation to the fact that he was in such a depraved state of body 
as to render necessary a surgical operation in the Consistorium 
while the election was proceeding, the cardinals selecting the most 
sickly candidate for the papal tiara.3 An unequivocal allusion to 
the pontiff’s pursuits is found in an honorary inscription to Leo 
X. on his entrance into Florence, of which he was a native. 
Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora : tempora Mavos 
Olim habuit; nunc sua tempora Pallas habet: 
Mars fuit; est Pallas ; Cypra semper erit. 
Formerly Venus reigned supreme, then Mars, now Pallas: 
Mars was, Pallas now is, Venus shall always be. 
Cardinals were not ashamed to contend openly for the favors 
of celebrated courtesans, and Charles VIII., when on his march 
to Naples, was provided by Ludovico Sforza and his wife Beatrice, 
his liberal entertainers, with the most beautiful women that could 
be procured.4 Charles, indeed, is by some authors asserted to 
have been actually the first who introduced the venereal disease 
into Italy. 
An eccentric trophy of public license is to be found in the poem 
of Fracastoro, a physician and accomplished writer—a really ele- 
gant production under the title of Syphilis. The argument of it 
is drawn from the sufferings of Syphilus, a shepherd who has been 
punished by Apollo with a malignant disease for impiety. In this 
work the author introduces the reader to the inner regions of the 
earth; to the mines, minerals, and attendant sprites, and explains 
the discovery of mercury, and its beneficent and healing influences 
on the invalid, who, once cured, is enjoined to pay his vows to 
Diana. 
In 1520, that turbulent and reprobate artist Benvenuto Cellini, 
in his autobiography (one of the most spirited representations of 
national manners extant) gives an account of a syphilitic disease 
which he contracted from a courtesan. He says little of the mode 
1 Fabronius, Leo X. p. 287. 
2 Paris de Grassine, Memoirs of the Court of Julius 11. p. 579. 
2 Jovius, lib. Hi. p. 56. 4 De Commines, v. ii. c. 6. ITALY 
159 
of cure, but it is evident from the above that the use of mercury 
was known at a very early period after public attention was gen- 
erally directed to the disorder. 
The excesses of this iron age were not limited to ordinary li- 
centiousness ; crimes against nature seem to have been prevalent, 
and are even alleged to have been a source of revenue. In a col- 
lection of papal lives which has fallen under our notice, but which 
is not very particular in giving its authorities,1 we find it stated 
that a memorial was presented to Sextus IY. by certain individu- 
als of the family of the Cardinal of St. Lucia for an indulgence to 
commit sodomy, and that the Pope wrote at the bottom of it the 
usual “Fiat” 
The case of Beatrice Cenci is better attested. Every one recol- 
lects the accumulated horrors of the story. The father, hating his 
children, his wife, all mankind, introduces prostitutes to his house, 
and debauches his daughter Beatrice by force. Through the in- 
strumentality of a bishop she procures him to be murdered, and, 
with her step-mother, was executed for the crime, the Pope refus- 
ing to show any mercy. The Count Cenci had been addicted to 
unnatural offenses, and had thrice compounded with the papal 
government for his crimes by paying an enormous sum of money, 
and the narrator says that the acrimony of the Pope toward the 
wretched daughter was for having cut off* a profitable source of 
revenue. 
In Naples, the laws on the subject of prostitution were extreme- 
ly severe. Previous to the thirteenth century, every procuress 
endeavoring to corrupt innocent females was punished, like an 
adulteress, by mutilation of her nose. The mother who prosti- 
tuted her daughter suffered this punishment until King Frederick 
absolved such women as trafficked with their children from the 
pressure of want. The same prince, however, decreed against all 
who were found guilty of preparing drugs or inflammatory liquors 
to aid in their designs upon virtuous females, death in case of in- 
juries resulting from their acts, and imprisonment when no seri- 
ous harm was effected. These laws proved insufficient for their 
purpose, and toward the end of the fifteenth century profligacy 
ran riot in Naples. Ruffiani multiplied in its streets, procuring 
by force or corruption multitudes of victims to fill the taverns 
and brothels of the city. Penalties of extreme severity were pro- 
claimed against them. The Ruffiani were ordered to quit the 
1 The Eoman Pontiffs, New York, 1845. 160 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
kingdom, and prostitutes were prohibited from harboring such 
persons among them. Any woman who disobeyed was condemn- 
ed to be burned in the forehead with an iron, whipped in the 
most humiliating manner, a] d exiled. 
Under King Roger a cha ge of seduction was never taken, but 
William, the successor of 1 rat prince, punished with death the 
crime of rape. The victim, however, was required to prove that 
she had shrieked aloud, and that she had preferred her complaint 
within eight days, or that she had been detained by force. When 
once a woman had prostituted herself, she had no right to refuse 
to yield her person to any one. 
In Naples, prostitutes, in spite of the law passed to confine 
brothels to particular quarters, established themselves in the most 
beautiful streets of the city in palatial buildings, and there, with 
incessant clamor, congregated a horde of thieves, profligates, and 
vagabonds of every kind, until the chief quarter became uninhab- 
itable. In 1577 they were ordered to quit the street of Catalana 
within eight days, under pain of the scourge for the women, the 
galleys for such of the proprietors as were commoners, while 
simple banishment was declared against the nobles. 
One example of good legislation was the pragmatic law of 
1470, to protect unfortunate women against the cupidity, the ex- 
tortions, and the frauds of tavern-keepers and others. Men were 
in the habit of going into places of amusement with single girls, 
contracting a heavy debt, and then leaving their victims to pay. 
These were then given the choice of a disgraceful whipping or an 
engagement in the house. They often consented, and spent the 
remainder of their days in dependence on their creditors, without 
ability to liberate themselves. By the new law, masters of taverns 
were forbidden to give credit to prostitutes for more than a cer- 
tain sum, and this only to supply them with food and clothing 
absolutely necessary. If they exceeded this amount they had no 
means of legal recovery. 
The most remarkable feature in Neapolitan legislation on this 
subject was the establishment at an unknown, but early date, of 
the Court of Prostitutes. This tribunal, which sat at Naples, had 
its peculiar constitution, and had jurisdiction over all cases con- 
nected with prostitution, blasphemy, and some other infamous of- 
fenses. Toward the end of the sixteenth century it had risen to 
extraordinary power, and was prolific of abuses. It practiced all 
kinds of exaction and violence, every species of mrtiality and in- ITALY. 
161 
justice, and even presumed to promulgate edicts of its own. The 
judges flung into prison numbers of young girls, whom they com- 
pelled to buy their liberty with money, and sometimes even dared 
to seize women who, though of lax conduct, could not be included 
in the professional class. This was discovered, and led to a re- 
form of the court in 1589. Its powers were strictly defined, and 
its form of procedure placed under regulation, while the avenues 
to corruption were narrowed. The institution existed for nearly 
a hundred years after this. 
In Rome, in the eleventh century, a brothel and a church stood 
side by side, and five hundred years after, under the pontificate of 
Paul 11., prostitutes were numerous. Statutes were enacted, and 
many precautions taken, which prove the grossness of manners at 
that epoch. One convicted of selling a girl to infamy was heav- 
ily fined, and if he did not pay within ten days had one foot cut 
off The nobility and common people alike indulged habitually 
in all kinds of excess. Tortures, floggings, brandings, banishment, 
were inflicted on some to terrify others, but with very incomplete 
success. To carry off and detain a prostitute against her will was 
punished by amputation of the right hand, imprisonment, flogging, 
or exile. The rich, however, invariably bought immunity for 
themselves. 
Among the most extraordinary acts of legislation on this sub- 
ject was the bull of Clement 11., who desired to endow the Church 
with the surplus gains of the brothel. Every person guilty of 
prostitution was forced, when disposing of her property, either at 
death or during life, to assign half of it to a convent. This regu- 
lation was easily eluded, and proved utterly inefficacious. A tri- 
bunal was also established having jurisdiction over brothels, upon 
which a tax was laid, continuing in existence until the middle of 
the sixteenth century. Efforts were made to confine this class 
of dwellings to a particular quarter, but without success. 
In some of the Italian states, as in Lombardy, men were forbid- 
den to give prostitutes an asylum. They were prohibited from 
appearing among honest citizens, and were prevented from pur- 
chasing clothes or food, and from borrowing money by the hire 
of their persons. 
After a time, however, a system of licensed brothels, in imita- 
tion of the institutions founded at Toulouse and Montpellier, was 
introduced into parts of Italy, and the brothels became very nu- 
merous. There was one at Mantua, and Venice was a very sink 162 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of prostitution. In 1421, the government enlisted women in this 
service to guard the virtue of the other classes. A matron was 
placed over them, who governed them, received their gains, and 
made a monthly division of profit. The names of several wom- 
en, the most notorious and beautiful of the Yenetian courtesans, 
are preserved by Nicole Daglioni. A very small sum was paid 
them by their patrons. 
The laws regulating prostitution and prostitutes seem to have 
had a wonderful similarity throughout Europe. Among other 
enactments were those regulating clothing, which were at one time 
promulgated in every state. Some of these were sumptuary, and 
merely prohibited the wearing of fashionable attire. Others di- 
rected particular costumes as a badge of the prostitute’s calling, 
and to distinguish them in public from well-conducted women. 
At Mantua, prostitutes, when they appeared in the streets, were 
ordered to cover the rest of their clothes with a short white cloak, 
and wear a badge on their breast. At Bergamo the cloak was 
yellow ; in Parma, white; in Milan, at first black woolen cloth, 
and then black silk. If disobedient, they might be fined; and in 
case of a second offense, whipped; and any one might strip off the 
garment of a girl illegally attired. 
In the Duchy of Asola, in Piedmont, a regulation was establish- 
ed that a mother could disinherit her daughter for leading a vi- 
cious life, but she lost this privilege if it was proved that she had 
connived at her immorality. The father had equal authority, but 
with one curious limitation. When, says the law, a father has 
sought to marry his daughter, and has endowed her sufficiently, 
if she refuses to marry and becomes a prostitute, he may cut her 
off; but if he have opposed her marriage until she has reached 
the age of twenty-five, and she then become a libertine, he can not 
refuse to bequeath her his property; and the woman, on every op- 
portunity to marry, is bound to present herself before her father 
and demand his consent. If he refused it, he was not allowed to 
punish her in cases where, at the age of thirty, she became a harlot. 
The efforts to root out prostitution from houses and neighbor- 
hoods in Italy had, as elsewhere, the result of driving loose women 
to places of public resort. The baths were regularly frequented 
in every city in the Peninsula (hence the use of the word hagnio, 
as expressive of a disreputable place), so that there was scarcely a 
bath-keeper who was not also a brothel-keeper. 
In Avignon, which, in consequence of the schism of the popes, ITALY. 
163 
may be considered a second Rome, a statute of the Church, in 
1441, interdicted to the priests and clergy the use of certain baths, 
notorious as brothels. The license of prostitution was soon taken 
away in Avignon. The residence of the popes in that city had 
attracted a concourse of strangers from all parts of the globe, and 
brothels sprung up at the doors of the churches, and close to the 
papal residence and bishops’ palaces. They brought so much 
scandal on the community that an edict was passed driving pros- 
titutes out of the city. 
In endeavoring to investigate the condition of prostitution in 
modern Italy, our inquiries and researches have been almost 
profitless, from the dearth of reliable statistical information as to 
any part of that most interesting country. In the fine arts, and 
in certain departments of abstract science, the republic of letters 
can show numerous records of Italy’s state and progress. In all 
that tells of the people, their condition, their relations to each 
other, and their rulers, the statements of writers, both native and 
foreign, are so contradictory, so imbued with party passions and 
prejudices, or so flippantly careless and inaccurate, that we must 
peruse them with constant suspicion. At the same time, official 
documents are so sparingly given to the world that it is hopeless 
to fall back upon them.1 
It is customary to think and speak of Italy, like Germany, as a 
whole. In reality, however, a wide difference prevails among 
the inhabitants of Piedmont, Tuscany, and Austrian Italy, the 
Papal States, and Naples. Rome, though not the political cap- 
ital of Italy, must be considered the capital, in virtue of her 
papal court, her past traditions, and her large concourse of for- 
eigners. But even her manners scarcely give the tone to the re- 
mainder of the country. 
In Rome, prostitution is tolerated, though not legally permit- 
ted. There are no statistics from which the number of prostitutes 
can be calculated. At one time there were said to be five thou- 
sand of these unfortunates in the city; but this estimate is only 
another sample of the carelessness which is to be observed in 
writers on this subject. Under Paul IY. there were only fifty 
thousand inhabitants; forty years after they had increased to one 
hundred thousand. Public prostitutes are now as rarely seen in 
1 After the occupation by the French in 1809, a collection of facts was made by 
the French authorities, with a view to a census, but this we have been unable to 
obtain. 164 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the streets of Rome as in those of other Italian cities. It is said, 
also, that there are scarcely any public brothels.1 There is a law 
that a woman guilty of adultery shall be imprisoned for three 
months, but Italian usages are averse to legal proceedings; the 
scandal is offensive to society; besides, the courts require posi- 
tive proof of the offense. With regard to seduction, the laws are 
equally stringent; but such cases, when brought to notice, are 
usually compromised by permission of the authorities, either by 
payment of a sum of money, or by marriage. Syphilis is always 
of considerable extent in Rome, and the venereal ward in San 
Jacomo is always full.2 After the siege of Rome by the French 
in 1849, the disease was frightfully prevalent. 
In 1798. there were thirty thousand poor, or about one fifth of 
the population of Rome, upon the lists of the curates of the sev- 
eral parishes. Under the administration of the French, up to 
1814, the proportion had been diminished to one ninth. Since 
that period it has been on the increase. 
There are in Rome nineteen hospitals for the treatment of the 
sick. In eight public hospitals the average number of patients 
daily is about fourteen hundred, who cost nineteen cents each per 
day. There are fourteen semi-convents where young girls are 
gratuitously received and educated, receiving a small dowry when 
they leave to marry or become nuns. The Hospital of St. Roch is 
for pregnant women.3 
The Albergo dei Poveri at Naples is the finest poor-house in 
Italy. It accommodates upward of three thousand paupers of 
both sexes, and is provided with workshops and schools, so as to 
afford suitable employment and instruction. Notwithstanding 
this model establishment, and numerous others, whose annual rev- 
enues amount to nearly two millions and a half of dollars, Naples 
is infested with a large mendicant population in addition to the 
numbers accommodated in the poor-houses. The Lazaroni are a 
class peculiar to the place. Many of them utterly refuse to work, 
and prefer to subsist on the smallest coin of the kingdom which 
they can gain by begging. They bask in the sun all day, sleep 
on the ground or on the steps at night, and starve with the ut- 
most complacency. An Epicurean might find in this abnegation 
of the cares of life a sound practical philosophy. That such a 
class is. in the highest degree obnoxious to society must be ap- 
1 Medical and Chirurgical Review, April, 1854. 2 Ibid. 
3 Harper’s Magazine, February, 1855, p. 326.; Italian Life and Morals. ITALY. 
165 
parent to every one. In the famous rising of Cardinal Buffo, at 
the time of the French occupation in 1805, the Lazaroni perpe- 
trated the most frightful excesses, and are said to have been relied 
on by the imbecile Bourbon government as their chief friends and 
supporters against the dangers of French Eepublicanism. Modern 
progress has drawn even Naples and the Lazaroni within its magic 
circle, and an accomplished traveler expresses doubts of their al- 
leged unconquerable laziness, for he has seen them work, wear 
clothes, sleep at home, earn money when they had a chance, and 
conduct themselves very much like other people.1 Perhaps, as 
with the Irish, a want of fair remuneration may be at the root of 
their idleness. 
A singular institution of Italian society is the Cicisbeo, or Cava- 
liere Servente. This is a distant male relative, or friend, who in- 
variably attends a married lady on all occasions of her appearance 
in public. He pays her all conceivable attentions, and performs 
even the most servile offices; carries her fan, her parasol, or her 
lapdog. We are not aware that any foreigner has been able to 
settle this anomaly of social life to his satisfaction. The Italians 
themselves sometimes maintain that there is no immorality or im- 
propriety in the arrangement—that it is a matter of etiquette, in 
which the heart is in no way concerned. The husband is perfect- 
ly cognizant of it, and the appearance of the cicisbeo with the lady 
is more de regie than that of her husband. Originally, there can 
be very little question that the institution was of an amorous char- 
acter, and the parties met privately at the Casini, where certain 
apartments were specially dedicated to the use of the ladies and 
their cavalieri.2 With the French occupation of 1800 the custom 
became the subject of immoderate raillery and satire, and there is 
reason to believe it has been but partially revived. 
In place, however, of the cicisbeo or cavaliere servente, whose 
services and attentions were a form of society, it is, we fear, unde- 
niable that more intimate though less avowed relations exist be- 
tween many Italian ladies and other men than their husbands. 
That there are numerous and admirable exceptions to the rule, if 
it be a rule, we freely admit; but, unless the concurrent testimo- 
ny of all writers and travelers in Italy be absolutely false, and 
either basely slanderous or culpably careless, the marriage vow 
can only be regarded as a cloak for a license that is inadmissible 
to the unmarried woman. 
1 Rome, by a New Yorker, 1845. 
2 Sharpe’s Letters from Italy, 1706. 166 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The testimony of a profligate man is rarely to be taken against 
women; and though the witness be a lord and a poet, we do not 
know that this should make a difference were the case one of 
mere abuse. Coupled, however, as the inculpation is with exten- 
uatory remarks, we think Lord Byron’s observations valuable. In 
a letter to Mr. Murray, the celebrated London publisher (February 
21, 1820), he says: 
“ You ask me for a volume of manners in Italy. Perhaps lam in the 
case to know more of them than most Englishmen, ***** I 
have lived in their houses, and in the heart of their families, sometimes 
merely as Amico di Casa, and sometimes as Amico di Cuore of the Dama, 
and in neither case do I feel justified in making a book of them. Their 
moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not under- 
stand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all 
understand. *****! know not how to make you comprehend 
a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters 
and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions which 
are at once sudden and durable. ***** I should know some- 
thing of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their 
women, from the fisherman’s wife up to the Nobil Dama whom I serve. * 
* * * * They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not 
permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them 
always to them in public as in private. ***** The reason is, 
that they marry for their parents and love for themselves. They exact 
fidelity from a lover as a debt of honor, while they pay the husband as a 
tradesman. You hear a person’s character, male or female, canvassed, not 
as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mis- 
tress or lover. If I wrote a quarto I don’t know that I could do more than 
amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed, that while they do 
all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only 
by the ladies, but by their serventi, particularly if the husband serve no one 
himself (which is not often the case, however), so that you would often sup- 
pose them relations, the servente making the figure of one adopted in the 
family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive, and elope, or divide, or 
make a scene, but this is at the starting, generally when they know no bet- 
ter, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly, and 
is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant.” 
As a counterpoise to these opinions of Lord Byron, it is but fair 
to give that of M.Yalery, a traveler whose personal opportunities 
may have been less than in the case of the noble poet: “ The mor- 
als of the Italian cities, which we still judge of from the common- 
place reports of travelers of the last century, are now neither bet- ITALY. 
167 
ter nor worse than those of other capitals; perhaps at Naples they 
are even better.” 
The Countess Pepoli, a lady of patriotic and literary family, has 
written an able educational manual, in which she claims consider- 
ation for the number of “ good and virtuous women” in Italy, 
whose existence is ignored by the prejudiced writers of extrava- 
gant diatribes. But we are afraid that the very exception, and the 
pains she takes to prove the temptations to which the married 
woman is exposed, only affirm the truth of the general charge. 
Whatever allegations of veracious or exaggerated unchastity or 
immorality may be made against the Italians, they are generally 
to be laid at the door of the aristocracy and upper classes. Among 
the humbler Italians, the peasantry and the country poor, there is 
no ground for ascribing to them either greater idleness or worse 
morals than are to be found in other parts of Europe. 
Foundling hospitals are to be met with in most great cities of 
Continental Europe. Among Protestants, a strong prejudice ex- 
ists against these institutions. That they prevent infanticide is 
self-evident. Their operation as an encouragement of illicit inter- 
course can not be estimated without some minute inquiries into 
the illegitimacy of places which encourage them, and of others 
which are without them. 
The proportion of children in the foundling hospitals of Italy is 
certainly large, but it is believed, on good grounds, that a consid- 
erable number of them are legitimate, and are abandoned by their 
parents on account of their poverty. Of the really illegitimate, 
there are no means of saying with accuracy (nor, as far as we 
know, have any attempts been made to do so) to what class of so- 
ciety the infants belong. Meanwhile, although there is no ground 
for assuming a larger proportion of illegitimate children than in 
northern climates, on the other hand, the publicly displayed pros- 
titution of Italy is infinitely less. 
Naples has a population of about four hundred thousand. Of 
fifteen thousand births there are two thousand foundlings; we can 
not say illegitimates, for, owing to the reasons already specified, 
there are no means of ascertaining the facts. 
In Tuscany, in 1834, there were twelve thousand foundlings re- 
ceived into the various hospitals. 
The Hospital of the Santo Spirito at Rome is a foundling asy- 
lum with a revenue of about fifty thousand dollars per annum. 
About one in sixteen of these children is claimed by its parents; 168 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
the majority are cared for,during infancy and childhood, either in 
the hospitals or with the neighboringpeasantry, with whom they 
are boarded at a small stipend. When of sufficient age they are 
dismissed to work for themselves; but in many of the hospitals 
they have some claim in after-life on occasions of distress. 
We have already alluded to the wide differences of national 
character in the various political divisions of Italy. The vices of 
laziness, mendicancy, and their kindred failings of licentiousness 
and unchastity are chiefly confined to the towns,large and small.1 
The peasantry of Naples and of the Papal States are industrious, 
temperate; and the peasant women, even those who, from the vi- 
cinity of Rome, frequent the studios of the artists as models, are 
generally of unexceptionable character.2 The mountaineers of 
the Abruzzi, long infamous as banditti (a stigma affixed by the 
French or other dominant powers on those who resisted their 
rule), in harvest-time brave the deadly malaria of the Campagna 
to earn afewliri honestly for their starving children, although in 
so doing the many that never return to their mountain homes 
show the risks that all have run. The corn, Avine, and oil raised 
in Italy, the well-supplied markets of Rome and other cities, are 
evidence that the peasantry do not all eat the bread of idleness. 
The Papal States contain some of the finest, richest, and best 
cultivated provinces in Italy.3 It is in the towns we must look 
for the worst results of misgovernment and bad example. 
CHAPTER XII. 
Resemblance between Spanish and Roman Laws on Prostitution.—Code of Al- 
phonse IX.—Result of Draconian Legislation.—Ruffiani.—Court Morals.— 
Brothels.—Valencia.—Laws for the Regulation of Vice.—Concubines legally 
recognized. —Syphilis.—Cortejo.—Reformatory Institutions at Barcelona.— 
Prostitution in Spain at the Present day.—Madrid Foundling Hospital. 
SPAIN. 
Between the ancient Spaniards and the Romans a most inti- 
mate connection subsisted from an early period of the Roman re- 
public, and the laws and customs of the former bore the closest re- 
semblance to those of the latter. This affinity continued so long 
1 History of Italy: Family Library, vol. iii. 
s Roman Republic, 1849 ; Rome, by a New Yorker. 
•Valery. SPAIN, 
169 
as the Roman empire had a name, and after the establishment 
of Christianity as the state religion, the ties of kindred and 
dependence were drawn still closer, for the Spanish kingdom 
has ever been the favored heritage, and its rulers the most 
obedient sons of Rome. Thus the maxims of the Roman civil 
law were early incorporated into the political system, and they 
still remain the chief pillars of Spanish jurisprudence. Accord- 
ingly, we find, in their legislation on prostitution, that the 
Spaniards, together with the general theories, adopted the 
specific enactments of other Latin nations. 
By the code of Alphonse IX., in the twelfth century, pro- 
curers were to be condemned to “ civil death.” Such offenders 
were thus classified: 
1. Men who trafficked in debauchery ; these were to be banished. 
2. Keepers of houses of accommodation, who were to be fined, and their 
houses confiscated. 
8. Brothel-keepers who hired out prostitutes, which prostitutes, if slaves, 
were to be manumitted ; if free, were to be downed at the cost of the of- 
fenders, so that they might have a chance of marriage. 
4. Husbands conniving at the prostitution or dishonor of their wives ; 
these were liable to capital punishment. 
5. A class of persons styled Ruffiani (whence the modern word ruffian). 
These latter were analogous to the pimp and bully of the 
present day, and, from the repeated and very severe laws 
against them, seem to have given great trouble to the authori- 
ties. They were banished, flogged, imprisoned; in short, got 
rid of on any terms. Girls who supported them were publicly 
whipped, and the general laws upon the matter were similar to 
those noted in the previous chapter on Italy. 
In Spain, the profligacy of public morals attained a pitch be- 
yond all precedent, possibly owing, in some measure, to Draconian 
legislation. Further laws were, from time to time, passed against 
the Ruffiani, as preceding edicts had fallen into desuetude, and 
their presence and traffic was encouraged by the prostitutes. 
These latter were forbidden to harbor the men, and on breach of 
this prohibition were to be branded, publicly whipped, and banish- 
ed the kingdom. Procurers, procuresses, adulteresses, and moth- 
ers who trafficked in their children’s virtue, except under pressure 
of extreme want, were punished by mutilation of the nose. 
In 1552 and 1566, edicts were again passed against the Ruffiani. 170 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
They were styled a highly objectionable class, dangerous to pub- 
lic order. On the first conviction as a ruffiano, the offender was 
sentenced to ten years at the galleys; for a second conviction, he 
received two hundred blows, and sent to the galleys for life. 
Up to this time the court of Spain seems to have been almost 
as strongly tinctured with licentiousness as those of other nations. 
About the middle of the fifteenth century, Henry IY. divorced his 
wife, Blanche of Aragon, after a union of twelve years, the mar- 
riage beingpublicly declared void by the Bishop of Segovia, whose 
sentence was confirmed by the Archbishop of Toledo, “por impo- 
tencia respectiva,o\\\r\g to some malign influence.” Henry subse- 
quently espoused Joanna, sister of Alphonse Y., King of Portugal. 
The bride was accompanied by a brilliant train of maidens, and 
her entrance into Castile was greeted by the festivities and mili- 
tary pageants which belonged to the age of chivalry. In her own 
country Joanna had been ardently beloved ; in the land of her 
adoption her light and lively manners gave occasion to the 
grossest suspicions. Scandal named the Cavalier Beltran de la 
Cueva as her most favored lover. He was one of the hand- 
somest men in the kingdom. At a tournament near Madrid 
he maintained the superior beauty of his mistress against all 
comers, and displayed so much prowess in the presence of the 
king as induced Henry to commemorate the event by the erec- 
tion of a monastery dedicated to St. John.1 It does not appear, 
however, whom Beltran de la Cueva indicated as the lady of 
his love on this occasion. 
Two anecdotes may be mentioned as characteristic of the 
gallantry of the times. The Archbishop of Seville concluded a 
superby<?te, given in honor of the royal nuptials, by introducing 
on the table two vases filled with rings garnished with precious 
stones, to be distributed among his female guests. At a ball 
given on another occasion, the young queen having conde- 
scended to dance with the French embassador, the latter made 
a solemn vow never to dance with any other woman. 
While the queen’s levity laid her open to suspicion, the licen- 
tiousness of her husband was undisguised. One of Joanna’s maids 
of honor acquired an ascendency over Henry which he did not 
attempt to conceal, and after the exhibition of some disgraceful 
scenes, the palace became divided by the factions of the hostile 
1 Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 66. SPAIN. 
171 
fair ones. The Archbishop of Seville did not blush to espouse the 
cause of the paramour, who maintained a magnificence of state 
which rivaled royalty itself. The public were still more scandal- 
ized by Henry’s sacrilegious intrusion of another of his mistresses 
into the post of abbess of a convent in Toledo, after the expulsion 
of her predecessor, a lady of irreproachable character. 
These examples of corruption influenced alike the people and 
the clergy. The middle class imitated their superiors, and 
indulged in an excess of luxury equally demoralizing and ruin- 
ous. The Archbishop of St. James was hunted from his see by 
the indignant populace in consequence of an outrage attempted 
on a youthful bride as she was returning from church after the 
performance of the nuptial ceremony.1 
Under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella a total change 
was effected. “ They both exhibited a practical wisdom in 
their own personal relations which always commands respect, 
and which, however it may have savored of worldly policy in 
Ferdinand, was, in his consort, founded on the purest and most 
exalted principles. Under such a sovereign, the court, which 
had been little better than a brothel in the preceding reign, 
became the nursery of virtue and generous ambition. Isabella 
watched assiduously over the nurture of the high-born damsels 
of the court, whom she received into the royal palace, causing 
them to be educated under her own eye, and endowing them 
with liberal portions on their marriage.”2 
Joanna, the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was 
unfortunate in her marriage to Philip, son of the Archduke Maxi- 
milian, and sovereign—in right of his mother—of the Low Coun- 
tries. The couple embarked for Flanders in the year 1504, and 
soon after their arrival the inconstancy of the husband and the 
ungovernable sensibility of the wife occasioned some scandalous 
scenes. Philip was openly enamored of one of the ladies in her 
suite, and his injured wife, in a paroxysm of jealousy, personally 
assaulted her rival, and caused the beautiful locks which had 
excited the admiration of her fickle husband to be shorn from her 
head. This outrage so affected Philip that he vented his indig- 
nation against Joanna in the coarsest and most unmanly terms, 
and finally refused to have any farther intercourse with her.3 
Public brothels were established in Spain, as in other countries 
1 Prescott, i. 66, d seq. 
2 Id. i. 327. 
* Id, iii. 171. 172 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of Europe, one of great extent being in existence in Valencia in 
the fifteenth century. It constituted a complete suburb in itself, 
similar to the Ghetto, or Jews’ suburb of most capital cities. In- 
deed, from its description, it is doubtful if it was not a rogue’s 
sanctuary, similar to the well known Alsatia in London. It was 
surrounded by a wall with one gate only, at which a warder was 
stationed. He was a public city officer, and one of his duties was 
to warn all comers of the risk their property ran in visiting such 
a place. If they wished to leave valuables in his care they could 
do so, and receive them on their exit. There were some hundreds 
of girls resident in this vast den of iniquity. To add to the dis- 
grace of the locality, the place of public execution was at its gate. 
In 1486, the rents, profits and emoluments of the public broth- 
els of Seville were assigned to Alonzo Fajardo, the master of the 
royal table. 
In 1559, there is an enactment in Granada fixing the rents to be 
paid by the women for their rooms and accommodation in public 
brothels, and also detailing the furniture and food with which they 
were to be provided in return. This is similar to the minute leg- 
islation of the German cities. This public provision having been 
made, no person was allowed to lend these women bed-linen. 
The authorities of various cities might not permit a prostitute 
to reside in the town without previous examination by a duly li- 
censed physician, who was to declare, upon oath, whether the 
woman then was or had recently been diseased. 
By some of the Spanish laws, varraganas (kept mistresses or 
concubines) seem to have been a legal institution, for men of rank 
were forbidden to take slave-dancers, tavern-servants, procuresses, 
or prostitutes as concubines. This breach of the ordinary insti- 
tutions of Christianity may probably have been a compromise of 
Moorish and Christian usages and morals. Before the final dead- 
ly struggle which ended in the expulsion of the Moors, intermar- 
riages were not uncommon among the two peoples. Interchange 
of friendship and close intimacy existed between the races, and a 
mutual tolerance of each other’s laws and customs was maintain- 
ed, except by the enthusiasts of either religion. 
The Spanish jurists distinctly recognized the woman’s right to 
recover the wages of her infafny. The scholiasts struck out vari- 
ous fine distinctions, for which the monkish dialecticians were so 
deservedly ridiculed by the free-thinkers of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and these were debated and discussed with the utmost eager- SPAIN. 
173 
ness.1 One question was whether, if the man paid beforehand, 
and the woman refused to complete the contract, he could compel 
her? The weight of opinion seemed to be that, as he contem- 
plated an immorality, he could neither recover the money nor en- 
force the agreement. Another equally important point was the 
use to which the gains of prostitution might be lawfully applied. 
The legality of their gains would seem to have overridden the 
mode of their expenditure, but casuists thought otherwise, and, 
by a royal edict of Alphonse IX., it was decided that priests could 
not receive funds obtained from such impure sources. 
By the old Spanish law prostitutes were subjected to various 
disabilities in matters of inheritance or testamentary disposition. 
As mentioned in the review of the old German customs, the 
Church considered it a meritorious act to marry a harlot, on the 
assumption that thereby a brand was saved from the burning.3 
It is related of a young man that, while being led to the scaffold, 
a courtesan, struck by his manly beauty and bearing, offered to 
marry him, whereby, in virtue of a law or usage, his life would be 
saved. He rejected her proposition, as existence was not worth 
redemption at such a price. It is added that his life was never- 
theless spared, in consideration of his spirit and courage. 
In 1570, by order of Philip 11., the regulations in force in the 
principal towns of Andalusia were extended to those of Castile. 
By these it was enacted that a woman became a prostitute of her 
own free will, and that no one could compel her to continue such, 
even though she had incurred debts. A surgeon was directed to 
pay her a weekly visit at her house, and report to the deputies of 
the Consistory those who were diseased, in order that they might 
be removed to hospital. The keeper of a brothel could not re- 
ceive into his house any one who had not been previously exam ■ 
ined, nor allow any one who was diseased to remain there, under 
a fine of a thousand maravedis, with thirty days’ imprisonment. 
Each room was to contain certain furniture, and the house was to 
be closed on holidays, during Lent, Ember Week, and on all fast 
days, under a punishment of a hundred stripes to each woman 
1 Voltaire says that these prurient questions were debated with a gusto and a 
minuteness of detail not found elsewhere. He instances a variety of these absurd 
theorems. 
2 It may be imagined, as was the case in Berlin, that this behest flowed from the 
irregular manner and conduct of the clergy; but some of the fathers of the Church 
entertained and avowed this opinion at a time when the morals of the clergy were 
not open to impeachment. 174 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
who received visitors, as well as to the keeper of the house. 
These and other orders were to be hung upon different parts of 
the house, under a fine (about six dollars) and eight days’ im- 
prisonment. 
The subject of venereal disease in Spain has acquired some in- 
terest from a generally received opinion that its appearance was 
made in that country, whence it was disseminated throughout Eu- 
rope. Columbus and his crew were reported to have introduced 
it from America, but later investigations have proved that syph- 
ilis was not known on this side of the Atlantic until imported by 
Europeans. Facts have been advanced in preceding pages show- 
ing its almost simultaneous appearance in Italy and Spain, and 
we recur to the subject now merely with reference to the theory 
of its American origin. A late work, Lettere sulla Storia de Mali 
Venerei, di Domenice Thiene, Venezia, 1823, enumerates some 
proofs on the question. The main points are: 1. That neither 
Columbus nor his son allude, in any way, to such a disease in the 
New World. 2. Among frequent notices of the disease in the 
twenty-five years following the discovery of America, there is no 
mention of its originating there, but, on the contrary, a uniform 
derivation of it from some other source is assigned. 3. That the 
disorder was known and described before the siege of Naples, and 
therefore could not be introduced by the Spaniards at that time. 
4. That it was known in a variety of countries in 1493 and the 
early part of 1494; a rapidity of diffusion irreconcilable with its 
importation by Columbus in 1493. 5. That the first work pro- 
fessing to trace its origin in America was not published till 1517, 
and was the production, not of a Spaniard, but a foreigner. The 
question of its origin is more definitely settled by a letter of Peter 
Martyr, noticing the symptoms in the most unequivocal manner, 
and dated April 5,1488. Some doubts have been thrown upon 
the accuracy of this letter, but they do not invalidate it.1 
In Madrid, in 1522, a special hospital for venereal patients was 
founded by Antoine Martin, of the order of St. Jean de Dieu. 
In 1575 the Spaniards passed an ordinance that no female do- 
mestics under forty years of age should be taken to service by 
unmarried men. The tenor of this law bespeaks the evil in- 
tended to be remedied. 
1 Prescott’s History of Ferdinand and Isabella, ii. 502 (note). The learned 
historian argues the subject at some length. SPAIN 
175 
In the present day, little is done in Spain in reference to pros- 
titution by legislation on the subject. In his memoir on the sub- 
ject to the Brussels Congress, Kamon de la Segra tells us that the 
old edicts have gradually become obsolete, and that neither the 
municipal authorities or general government take any farther in- 
terest in the question. It is said that in Seville first-class houses 
of prostitution have a custom of retaining the services of a physi- 
cian at their own expense, whose office is to attend and make ex- 
aminations of the women. Cadiz is notorious for its attractive 
climate and its dissipations.1 
In the last century a tone of manners prevailed in the Spanish 
peninsula which was materially changed by the French occupa- 
tion sweeping away many of the laxities of the age. In 1780 the 
Italian system of an attendant upon married ladies was adopted 
in Spain. These were termed Cortejos, and it is stated that in 
the cities they were principally military men, but in the country 
the monks performed the duty. The fidelity and affection of 
the women were directed to their gallants, and it even was 
thought discreditable, without very sufficient reason, to be guilty 
of fickleness in this particular. Married men were even the cor- 
tejos of other men’s wives, neglecting their own, or leaving them 
to follow the bent of their private inclinations. No husband 
was jealous, but it was etiquette for Spanish ladies to keep up an 
external decorum, and to abstain from marked attentions to a 
cortejo in the husband’s presence, although he might be perfectly 
aware of his wife’s infidelity, and of her lover’s presence in the 
house.2 A curious illustration of this extraordinary state of pub- 
lic manners is given in an incident that occurred in Carthagena. 
A gentleman one morning remarked to a friend, “ Before I go 
to rest this night the whole city will be thrown into confusion.” 
He occasioned this public disorder by going home an hour 
sooner than his usual time, whereby his wife’s cortejo was com- 
pelled to beat a precipitate retreat. The cortejo’s arrival at his 
own house produced a similar effect, which was multiplied 
through polite society all round the town. 
1 Byron commemorates the beauty of the women of Cadiz, and, in his 
description of the shipwreck, saves the mate from being eaten by his starved 
companions on account of 
“ A small present made to him at Cadiz, 
By general subscription of the ladles.” 
* Townsend : Travels in Spain in 1786 and 1787. 176 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
By the Spanish laws, which were in many provinces especially 
favorable to women, they could make ex parte cases against their 
husbands of ill treatment, and if they had beaten them the punish- 
ment might be made very severe. These laws were, as may be 
supposed, the frequent means of flagrant injustice. 
In Barcelona there was a Magdalen institution, having the 
double object of reforming prostitutes and of correcting women 
who failed in the marriage vow, or who neglected or disgraced 
their families. The former department was called the Casa de 
Galera; the latter, the Casa de Correccion. The prostitutes were 
partially supported at the public cost, their extra food, beyond 
bread and meat, being provided by their own labor, to which they 
were obliged to devote themselves all day. The lady culprits 
were supported by their relations. They were imprisoned by the 
sentence of a particular court, on the complaint of a member of 
their family, and they, as well as the prostitutes, were required 
to work. When deemed necessary, these offenders received per- 
sonal correction. Drunkenness was one of the grounds of incarcera- 
tion. The precise offenses are not mentioned by our author,1 but 
the fashions and customs of nations are so distinct, that indiscre- 
tion, or even familiarity in one, might be immorality in another. 
A leading principle in Spanish manners is not to give offense. 
People may be as vicious as they please; it may be even notori- 
ous that they are so, but their manners must be outwardly correct. 
There is little doubt the violation of this maxim was the principal 
cause of imprisonment. 
In Barcelona there was also, in 1780, a foundling hospital lib- 
erally supported. A curious custom was observed in reference 
to the girls. They were led in procession when of marriageable 
age, and any one who took a fancy to a young woman might ask 
her hand, indicating his choice by throwing a handkerchief on 
her in public. 
In the Asturias certain forms of disease appeared with excessive 
virulence, and were very common. Syphilis was prevalent. 
There was a hospital at Oviedo for its cure, but patients had con- 
siderable reluctance to apply to it. Whether incident to this prev- 
alence of syphilis or not, we have no means of ascertaining, but 
leprosy was very general, and there were twenty or more large 
houses for its cure in the Asturias. The common itch in a high- 
ly aggravated form was also general, and often productive of par- 
asitical vermin. 
1 Townsend. SPAIN. 
177 
The present state of Spanish society is the subject of the usual 
discrepancies between travelers, owing to their different preju- 
dices, means of information, or opportunities of making observa- 
tions. No country of Europe retains more of its original peculi- 
arities and national habits than Spain. Under the fervid sun of 
Andalusia, the same rigorous observance of proprieties is hardly 
to be found as in the northern climate of Biscay, whose hardy 
sons have ever been the defenders of their rights and political 
privileges. Madrid, as the capital, might be thought a fair illus- 
tration of the habits and manners of the great bulk of the city 
populations, whose peculiarities of race have not been smoothed 
away by intercommunication, the traveling facilities of Spain be- 
ing yet among the worst in Europe. The descendants of the Goth 
and the Moor are still distinct in character. A general prejudice 
exists as to the morality of Southern nations in Europe, and the 
Spanish women are by no means exempt from a full share of this 
unfortunate opinion. Nevertheless, a recent writer says: 
“ I speak my sincere opinion when I say that, with the exception of a 
few fashionable persons, whose lives do indeed seem to pass in one constant 
round of dissipations, whose time is spent in driving on the Prado, attending 
the theatre, the opera, or the hall-room, precisely as their compeers do in 
every other great city, the Spanish women are the most domestic in the 
world, the most devoted to the care of their children, the most truly pious, 
and the best menageres. This latter circumstance may arise from the fact 
that their fortunes are rarely equal to their rank, and that a lavish expend- 
iture would soon bring ruin upon the possessors of the most ancient names 
and most splendid palaces in Madrid.”1 
This opinion is confined solely to the higher classes of the city 
of Madrid. It expresses nothing as to the great bulk of the pop- 
ulation, and, however gratifying the record of worth may be, we 
fear the eulogy must be taken cum grano salts. 
Of the education of Spanish women, Mrs. Donn Piatt states that, 
by reason of the small fortunes of the nobility, the daughters of 
an ancient house must be made useful before they are accomplish- 
ed ; that the first consideration, however, is their religious educa- 
tion, to which, and to the preparation for confirmation—the great 
juvenile rite of Catholic countries—the utmost care and attention 
are devoted. Next after their religious tuition, the greatest pains 
are taken to make them accomplished housekeepers. They are 
taught to make their own clothes, to keep accounts, to regulate 
1 Attache in Madrid : Appleton, 1856, p. 64. 178 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
their expenditure, and to attend to the most minute details of the 
family economy. The advantages of a good solid education are 
not neglected; their natural capacity and innate taste for the arts, 
especially as musicians and painters, rapidly develop themselves, 
under very moderate tuition, to acquirements of a superior charac- 
ter, and the productions of young women of high station are 
spoken of with much admiration. One trait of Spanish character 
that speaks loudly in favor of the women is the devotion, respect, 
and obedience paid by sons to their mothers long after age has 
relieved them from maternal tutelage. 
In Madrid there is a hospital for foundlings, which are said to 
amount to about four thousand annually. These are actual found- 
lings, exposed publicly to the compassion of the charitable. It is 
principally served by the Sisters of Charity. The infants are in- 
trusted to nurses, and at the age of seven they are transferred to 
the Desamparados (unprotected) college, where they receive in- 
struction in the simpler rudiments of education, and their religious 
and moral training is cared for. There is also an asylum to which 
others are drafted to learn some practical handicraft, such as glove- 
making, straw-hat making, embroidery, etc., and which seems, in a 
great measure, a self-supporting institution. 
There are three Magdalen Hospitals; St. Nicholas de Barr, 
founded in 1691 for women of the better class, who are banished 
for misconduct from the homes of their husbands and fathers; that 
of the Arrepentidos, for penitents; and that of the Recogidos, found- 
ed in 1687, for the correction of women sent there by their fami- 
lies, in order that they may be induced to return to the paths of 
virtue. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
PORTUGAL. 
Conventual Life in 1780.—Depravity of Women.—Laws against Adultery and 
Rape.—Venereal Disease.—lllegitimacy.—Foundling Hospitals of Lisbon and 
Oporto.—Singular Institutions for Wives. 
A writer on Portugal, in the year 1780, complains of the 
scandalous licentiousness of the monks and nuns, of whom there 
were no less than two hundred and fifty thousand in a population 
of two millions. It is said that the convent Odivelas, the harem 
of the monarch John V., contained three hundred women, account- PORTUGAL. 
179 
Ed the most beautiful and accomplished courtesans in the king- 
dom. The great Marquis de Pombal suppressed many of these 
convents, and was the general reformer of the religious orders. 
Of the effect of such an example from such quarters on the pop- 
ulation at that time, sunk, as they were, in the most imbecile ig- 
norance, little need be said. The women of Portugal were reputed 
to surpass all European females in gallantry, and their attractions 
were such that only one interview was necessary to complete the 
conquest. To this condition of common immorality, the rigor of 
their husbands and male relations may have contributed not a 
little. They are said to have been outrageously jealous, and to 
have made no scruple of murdering any stranger who gave them 
even the weakest grounds of suspicion. 
In the fundamental laws of Portugal, promulgated in 1148, it is 
enacted that, “ if a married woman commit adultery, and the hus- 
band complain to the judge, and the judge is the king, the adul- 
terer and adulteress shall be condemned to the flames; but if the 
husband retain the wife, neither party shall be punished.” 
In the case of a rape perpetrated on the person of a lady of 
rank, all the property of the ravisher went to the lady; and in 
case the female were not noble, the man, without regard to his 
rank, was obliged to marry her. 
The writer whom we have already quoted1 speaks of the vene- 
real disease as being, at the time he wrote (1770-1780), habitual 
in Portugal, and that the Portuguese not knowing how to cure it, 
its malignity had become so intensified that, in some cases, individ- 
uals who had contracted a peculiar form of the malady had died 
in a few hours, as though struck down by an active and deadly 
poison. This is most probably the exaggeration of popular opin- 
ion on the subject. More recent writers are chary of information, 
and avoid the mention of matters so offensive to ears polite. 
The manners and morals of the higher ranks of society must 
have undergone a material change for the better in the present 
century, for an English nobleman (Lord Porchester, since Earl of 
Caernarvon) speaks in very favorable terms of the propriety, ami- 
ability, and excellence of the Portuguese ladies, which, excepting 
in the matter of intellectual education, left them in no wise behind 
the worthy of their sex in other countries of Europe. 
Among the lower classes, however, it would not seem that the 
tone of morals had been very much amended, whether we con- 
1 Due de Chatelet’s Travels in Portugal. 180 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
sider their regard for female virtue, or their cultivation of the ma- 
ternal tenderness and solicitude natural to all created beings. 
In the neighborhood of Oporto, country women may be met 
conveying little babies to the Foundling Hospital, four or five to- 
gether, in a basket. These helpless creatures are the illegitimate 
children of peasant girls, openly deserted in the villages, and thus 
forwarded by the authorities to the care of those pious strangers 
who undertake their nurture and preservation.1 
In these cases, says Mr. Kingston, the females are not treated 
by their parents with an}r harshness or rigor. They are rather 
compassionated for their misfortune, and are only sent away from 
home when found obstinately persistent in a course of evil. 
As may be supposed, the foundling hospitals have abundant 
claims on their funds. The Real Casapia, at Belem, near Lisbon, 
and another hospital in Lisbon attached to the Casa de Misericor- 
dia, receive together nearly three thousand children, who are 
brought up to different callings, and otherwise prepared for active 
life, as is usual in such institutions. There is a similar asylum, 
equally frequented, in Oporto. In this city there is also an asylum 
in which husbands may place their wives during their own ab- 
sence from home. It often happens that ladies, on such occa- 
sions, enter the asylum of their own accord. 
There is also in Oporto an establishment in the nature of a Pen- 
itentiary, in which husbands may immure their faithless wives, or 
even those who give grounds of suspicion. It is presumed that 
in the nineteenth century, even in Portugal, this must be done 
under color of some legal authority. 
CHAPTER XIY. 
ALGERIA. 
Prostitution in Algiers before the Conquest.—Mezonar.—Unnatural Vices.—Tax 
on Prostitutes.—Decree of 1837.—Corruption.—Number of Prostitutes and Pop- 
ulation.—Nationality of Prostitutes.—Causes of Prostitution.—Brothels.—Clan- 
destine Prostitution.—Baths.—Dispensary.—Syphilis.—Punishment of Prosti- 
tutes. 
A pamphlet has lately appeared in France on the subject of 
Prostitution in Algiers. Its author, Dr. E. A. Duchesne, has ren- 
1 Kingston, Sketches in Lusitania, 1845. ALGERIA. 
181 
dered service by collecting a large number of important facts and 
statistical data.1 
When the French conquered Algiers in 1830, they found pros- 
titution established there, and prevailing to a large extent. So 
far as we are able to ascertain, it had always been a leading feat- 
ure of Algerian society; travelers had noticed it in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1830 it was estimated that, 
with a population of thirty thousand, Algiers contained three 
thousand prostitutes. We have already had occasion to notice 
the unreliable character of similar estimates in general, but there 
is no doubt that the number of lewd women at Algiers under 
Arab rule was inordinately large. They were mainly Moors, 
Arabs, and negresses. All were under the control of the chief 
of the native police—the Mezonar. He kept a list of them, and 
laid a tax amounting to about two dollars per month on each. 
As he paid a fixed sum to the government for the privilege of 
collecting this tax, it was to his interest to increase the number of 
prostitutes as much as possible, and he appears to have done so. 
He kept in his employ a number of spies, who watched women 
suspected of immoral habits, and denounced them whenever they 
were detected, in which event they were inscribed on the Mezo- 
nar’s list, and became prostitutes for life. He was empowered to 
compel every prostitute to discharge the duties of her calling, and 
was frequently applied to by strangers to supply them with wom- 
en. He was not allowed, however, to lease women to Christians 
or Jews. Twice a year the Mezonar gave a public fete, to which 
all the male inhabitants of Algiers were invited; the prostitutes 
formed the female portion of the assemblage, and the public of- 
ficer profited by the increased patronage they obtained during the 
festivities, as well as by the sale of tickets for the entertainment.2 
It is right also to add that the French found that other feature 
of Oriental manners, unnatural habits, largely developed at Al- 
giers. The cafes, the streets, the baths, the public places were full 
of boys of remarkable beauty, who more than shared with the 
women the favor of the wealthier natives. Owing to a criminal 
negligence on the part of the French authorities, no systematic 
endeavor has ever been made to eradicate this shameful vice, 
which appears still to prevail to an alarming extent. 
The influx of population, mainly soldiery, into a city thus 
1 De la Prostitution dans la Yille d’Alger depuis la conquete, par E. A. Duchesne. 
Paris, Bailliere, 1853. 2 lb. p. 64, et seq. 182 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
steeped in immorality, produced natural results. A few weeks 
after the invasion, the French general was compelled to establish 
a Dispensary, and to decree that all dissolute women must under- 
go an examination there once a week. A tax of five francs per 
month was laid upon prostitutes to defray the expenses of the 
establishment. Within less than a year, such grave abuses had 
crept into the collection of this tax that it was resolved to farm it 
out, and it was adjudged at auction to a man who agreed to pay 
1860 francs per month for its proceeds. In 1832 the monthly tax 
was raised successively to seven t4At, and nine francs per girl, and 
on these rates it was farmed to one Balre, who paid for 
the privilege of collecting it. He was also entitled to levy and re- 
tain the amount of all fines imposed by the police on prostitutes, 
and to charge women ten francs each time they went to a fete out- 
side the city, and five francs if the fete were within the limits. 
The profits of the farm were so great that in 1835 Balre was able 
to pay the government 2250 francs (four hundred and fifty dol- 
lars) per month.1 
Under this system the gravest inconveniences occurred, and 
became so troublesome that in November, 1835, the governor 
promulgated a decree remodeling the regulations in force on the 
subject. It appears the farm system was then abandoned, and 
the government agents who were intrusted with the collection of 
the tax robbed both the prostitutes and the state shamefully. 
Hence, in December, 1837, a new decree was issued by the gov- 
ernor, repealing all former laws and regulations, and placing the 
whole subject under the control of the Commissary of Police. The 
leading provisions of that decree were as follows; 
“ Every public woman who desires to prostitute herself must declare her 
intention beforehand to the Comptroller of Public Women, who shall enter 
her name in his register, and present her with a pass-book which he shall 
sign.” 
“ Every girl inscribed on the register shall place in the hands of the 
treasurer of the Dispensary, monthly, a sum of twenty francs if she be a 
kept woman, and ten francs if she be not kept. The treasurer shall give 
her a receipt for the same, and record it in his account-hook.” 
“ The mayor shall he authorized to remit this monthly due, as well as any 
fines that may have been incurred, when the girl owing the same can prove 
by a certificate from the comptroller, the treasurer, and the physician that 
she is indigent.” 
1 Duchesne, p. 22, 171. ALGERIA. 
183 
u Every girl who shall not have paid her monthly due, as well as her 
fines, within ten days after the visit to the Dispensary, shall undergo an im- 
prisonment of not less than five days and not more than three months, un- 
less she establish her indigence as aforesaid.” 
“ Girls detained in prison shall, on the first symptoms of syphilis, be trans- 
ferred to the Dispensary for treatment, after which they shall be remanded 
to prison to serve the remainder of the time.” 
“ The physician of the Dispensary shall not only treat patients in that 
establishment, but shall pay periodical, accidental, and all necessary visits to 
the prostitutes, who are hereby subjected to such visits. He shall visit the 
Dispensary twice a day, from 7to i) A.M. and from 3to 4 P.M. He shall 
enter upon his memorandum-book, and upon the pass-book of the girl, the 
result of all accidental or necessary visits. He shall receive a salary of two 
thousand francs.”1 
This law is in force at the present time, and is said to have led 
to great inconvenience. Police agents are accused of levying black 
mail on the prostitutes to an enormous extent, in the shape of 
fines, dues for going to balls, hush-money for escaping the visit to 
the Dispensary, presents to the policeman on the birth of his chil- 
dren, etc. The product of the tax is inordinately large, amount- 
ing, independently of fines, to one hundred and twenty francs, oi 
twenty-four dollars per annum for each girl. Several administra- 
tors have recommended its diminution or total suppression, but it 
is still retained.2 
In the year 1838, when the present law was passed, the number 
of women inscribed on the police register was 320, the total pop- 
ulation of Algiers being 34,882, of whom two thirds were Afri- 
cans and one third Europeans; but the mayor of the city gave it 
as his opinion that this figure (320) was in reality far below the 
truth. In 1846 measures .were taken for enforcing the police reg- 
ulations more strictly than before, and some care was used to pro- 
cure correct statistics of population and prostitution.3 We com- 
pile the following table from several given by Dr. Duchesne: 
Year. 
Registered 
Prostitutes 
(average). 
POPULATION. 
African 
(estimated). 
European. 
Total. 
1847 
442 
25,000 
42,113 
67,113 
1848 
387 
25,000 
37,572 
62,572 
1849 
395 
25,000 
37,572 
63,072 
1850 
479 
26,000 
29,392 
55,392 
1851 
342 
55,392 
To these figures, some of which are only approximative, must 
1 Duchesne, p. 31. 2 Id. p- 172. 3 Id. p. 54, 56. 184 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
be added the number of French soldiers in the garrison at Algiers. 
At times the effective force has been as large as twelve or fifteen 
thousand men. 
Another point of interest is the nationality of the prostitutes of 
Algiers. It is known that the native women are loose in their 
morals. In many parts of the interior it is common for fathers or 
brothers to let out their daughters or sisters by the night or the 
week to strangers, and the young women themselves are only too 
willing to ratify a bargain which promises to gratify their un- 
bounded sensuality. The following table gives the nationality of 
the registered prostitutes during the period 1846-1851.1 
Years. 
EUROPEANS. 
AFRICANS. 
France. 
Mahon. 
Italy. 
Ger- 
many. 
Great 
Britain. 
Spain. 
Hol- 
land. 
Arabs 
and 
Moors. 
Jew- 
esses. 
JS aQ 
'p o 
CU . 
fe s 
V 
Total 
1847 
107 
14 
6 
ii 
4 
58 
2 
203 
26 
6 
16 
451 
1848 
78 
10 
5 
10 
3 
49 
181 
28 
7 
16 
387 
1849 
82 
8 
2 
17 
3 
60 
183 
22 
7 
17 
401 
1850 
113 
8 
2 
20 
2 
57 
248 
19 
7 
17 
493 
1851 
81 
4 
5 
9 
2 
37 
170 
12 
3 
13 
336 
On inquiring for the causes of prostitution at Algiers, Dr. Du- 
chesne found that they might be summed up under three heads: 
Ist. Poverty, mainly due to the French conquest and the wars 
which followed. To the present day it appears that it is not un- 
usual for an Arab chief to relieve his wants by sending his pret- 
tiest daughter to Algiers to perform a campaign as a prostitute. 
2d. The idleness in which all Arab and Moorish women are train- 
ed. It was proved that, while all the European women were ca- 
pable of working at some calling or other, and did work during 
their stay in the hospital, not one of the native women had any 
idea of manual employment. A few could sing, and had at one 
time gained a livelihood as street-singers, but the immense major- 
ity were absolutely incapable of doing any thing for a livelihood. 
Bd. The Oriental idea that the woman is a chattel, to be sold or 
hired out by her legitimate owner, father, brother, or husband. 
This idea, which prevails in many savage nations, among others, 
many of our own Indian tribes, is, of course, the best of all enter- 
ing wedges for prostitution.2 
There are fourteen houses of prostitution at Algiers, all kept, it 
seems, by Europeans, and the greater part by retired prostitutes. 
The natives object to living under the control of a brothel-keeper. 
They live alone in their own rooms. Sometimes three or four of 
1 Duchesne, p. 58. 
2 Id. p. 70, et seq. ALGERIA. 
185 
them club together and form a partnership. Their rooms are gen- 
erally shabby and ill furnished.1 
Arab prostitutes seldom appear in the streets, and when they 
do, they are veiled and dressed like modest women. They may 
be seen at their windows of an evening, peeping through small 
holes contrived for the purpose, and smoking cigarettes. Their 
customers are procured by means of runners, who are mostly small 
boys. 
As may be inferred from the amount of the tax on prostitutes, 
clandestine prostitution is very extensively practiced at Algiers. 
We have no details or even approximate estimates of the number 
of clandestine prostitutes, but it doubtless exceeds that of the reg- 
istered women. Many of them are attached to the garrison, and 
are handed from regiment to regiment, shielded from the police 
by being claimed as wives by some of the soldiers. Others in 
like manner prevail upon some colonist to afford them a tempo- 
rary home, and so elude the visit of the physician. Dr. Duchesne 
had reason to believe that syphilis prevailed to an alarming ex- 
tent among the secret prostitutes, and that, until the tax was re- 
moved, and they were encouraged to register themselves on the 
police roll, it would continue to be general and virulent.2 
Formerly the baths were the great haunts of clandestine pros- 
titutes. It is known that in most eastern countries the bath is 
not only a sanitary necessity, but a common ally of sensuality. 
At Algiers, before the conquest, men and women are said to have 
bathed promiscuously, and frightful scenes of debauchery occurred 
daily. Under French rule this has been reformed. Men may 
not bathe from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.; but Dr. Duchesne was led to 
believe that it was quite common for men to introduce women 
into the baths at night, with the connivance of the bath officials. 
Indeed, some of the latter appear to fill the same office to the Al- 
gerine bathers as the Homan bath servants did to the dissolute 
men of that day.” 
It now remains to speak of the Dispensary at Algiers. It was 
established, as has been stated, within a few days after the capture 
of the place. For nearly ten years it was a scandal to the faculty 
and the authorities. The wards were too small; there were not 
beds enough for the women; every thing was either deficient in 
quantity or objectionable in quality. In 1889, orders were given 
for the establishment of a proper and commodious Dispensary. 
1 Duchesne, p. 132. 2 Id. p. 144. 3 Id. p, 148. 186 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Three old Moorish houses were hired and divided into wards. 
They contain at present thirteen wards, with beds for seventy- 
seven patients; a bath-room, containing six baths; a hall for the 
visits of prostitutes; and the necessary offices, etc. The staff of 
the Dispensary consists of a director, treasurer (econome), physician, 
apothecary, clerk, cook, assistant apothecary, porter, five laborers, 
and four police agents. All the washing is done in the establish- 
ment. The commissariat is on the amplest scale; meat, soup, 
vegetables of all kinds, rice, eggs, fruit, etc., being supplied in 
abundance to the patients.1 
Every morning at seven o’clock the women are visited by the 
physician, assisted by the apothecary. Those who are able to 
walk are examined in the salle de visite, the others in their beds. 
The average number of patients during the year appears to be 
from five hundred and fifty to six hundred. The average dura- 
tion of the treatment is from twenty-four to thirty-four days. The 
cost to the Dispensary averages from one and a half to one and 
three quarters franc per day for each girl (about thirty or thirty- 
five cents).2 
The Dispensary physician reported to Dr. Duchesne that, so far 
as his observation went, syphilis was more severe on the sea-coast 
than in the interior; and in the months of September, October, 
November, and December, than at any other period of the year.3 
Prostitutes are punished for being more than twenty-four hours 
behind time in visiting the Dispensary; for leaving it during 
treatment; for insulting the physician or other authorities; for 
continuing to exercise their calling after being attacked by dis- 
ease. The penalty is imprisonment, either in the ordinary prison 
or in the solitary cell. Formerly, the tread-mill was used, and in 
bad cases a girl’s hair was cut off, and her nose slit; but these 
savage relics of Moorish legislation were long since abandoned. 
Solitary confinement is found to answer every useful purpose.4 
Duchesne, p. 152, et seq. 2 Id. p. 176. 3 Id. p. 192. 4 Id. p. 198. BELGIUM. 
187 
CHAPTER XY. 
BELGIUM. 
Hospitals and Charitable Institutions.—Foundlings.—Estimate of the Marriage 
Ceremony.—Eegulations as to Prostitution.—Brothels.—Sanitary Ordinances. 
Belgium takes a more prominent position in Europe than its 
mere extent would warrant. This influence is derived from the 
vigorous and effective stand made in behalf of rational freedom, 
and from the manner in which free institutions have been origi- 
nated and maintained. 
The hospitals and other eleemosynary institutions of Belgium 
are of a magnificent character, supported at an annual expenditure 
of nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Almost every town, and 
many of the larger villages, have hospitals for the sick, sometimes 
maintained at corporation expense, sometimes by private endow- 
ments, In 818 hospitals, during the four years from 1831 to 1834 
(inclusive), no less than 22,180 persons were treated.1 
Foundling hospitals are a marked feature of these charitable es- 
tablishments. The turning table, which was formerly in use in 
all such institutions, has lately been abandoned in most of them, 
but still remains in use at those of Brussels and Antwerp. The 
total number of children annually abandoned in Belgium is esti- 
mated to exceed eight thousand out of one hundred and forty-four 
thousand births, a ratio of about one in eighteen. The average 
expense attendant upon the maintenance of each infant is about 
seventy-two francs. 
Marriage in Belgium is, by law, simply a civil contract, requiring 
fifteen days’ notice posted in front of the Hotel de Yille. Not- 
withstanding the simplicity of this ceremonial, it is affirmed that 
an enormous extent of immorality and illegitimacy is to be met 
with, and that a virtuous servant-girl is altogether exceptional, 
there being scarcely one of them who has not an illegitimate child, 
while they maintain with the most unyielding confidence that, so 
long as the father is a bon ami (sweetheart), there is no moral tur- 
pitude in the case. 
IW. Trollope’s Belgium. Scarcely a more liberal work toward the Belgians 
than Mrs. Trollope’s toward ourselves. 188 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Belgium is remarkable for its regulations with respect to prosti- 
tution and the spread of venereal disease. The perfections of the 
latter arrangements are shown in the fact that, out of an army of 
thirty thousand men, there were less than two hundred cases of 
syphilis in the year 1855. 
The brothels of Brussels are of two kinds: les maisons de de- 
bauche and les maisons de passe; these are visited by les files epar- 
s6s, who keep their appointments there. The two classes of houses 
are distinguished by different-colored lanterns hung over the doors. 
All classes of prostitutes are required to be examined twice a 
week; those who live in brothels of the first and second class are 
visited by the physicians, while the very poor women of the third 
class, and all those who do not reside in brothels, are obliged to 
attend at the Dispensary. If they are punctual in their visits for 
four weeks in succession they are exempt from all tax; but if, on 
the contrary, their attendance is irregular, they can be imprisoned 
from one to five days. Any woman who does not live in a broth- 
el can be examined at her own residence, provided that she pays 
at the Dispensary a sum amounting to about eighty-five cents. For 
this she receives four visits, and the physicians will continue to 
call upon her as long as the payments are made in advance. Thus 
the denizens of the aristocratic brothels are saved the inconven- 
ience of attending at the Dispensary, as also that portion living in 
private lodgings who can afford to pay the fee to release them- 
selves from going to the office as common prostitutes, while the 
half-starved, ill-dressed pauper of the third class must wait at the 
Dispensary until examined, and then return to her squalid home, 
where none but her companions and the police-officers are ever 
seen. 
The medical staff of the Dispensary is composed of a superin- 
tending inspector, whose duty is to be present in the Dispensary 
when examinations are being made, and to visit the houses once 
a fortnight at least; of two medical inspectors, who, during alter- 
nate months, examine, one the women in the brothels, the other 
those who attend at the Dispensary. The date and result of every 
examination are marked on a card belonging to each woman, in 
the registers kept at the brothels, and in the records of the Dispen- 
sary. If a woman be found affected with syphilis or any other in- 
fectious disease, the owner of the brothel must send her immediate- 
ly, in a car, to the hospital, and as soon as her cure is complete her 
card is handed to her, and she is at liberty to resume her calling. HAMBURG. 
189 
CHAPTER XYI. 
HAMBURG. 
Ancient Legislation.—Ulm.—Legislation from 1483 to 1764.—French Revolution, 
and its effects on Morals.—Abendroth’s Ordinance in 1807.—Police Ordinance 
in 1811.—Additional Powers in 1820.—Hudtwalcker.—Present Police Regula- 
tions.—Number of Registered Women.—Tolerated Houses.—Illegitimacy.—Age 
and Nativity of Prostitutes.—The Hamburger Berg and its Women.—Physique, 
Peculiarities, and Diseases of Prostitutes.—Dress.—Food.—lntellectual Capaci- 
ty.—Religion.—Offenses.—Procuresses.—lnscription.—Locality of Brothels.— 
Brothel-keepers.—Dance-houses.—Sunday Evening Scene.—Private Prostitutes. 
—Street-walkers.—Domestic Prostitution.—Unregistered Prostitution.—Houses 
of Accommodation.—Common Sleeping Apartments.—Beer and Wine Houses. 
—Effect of Prostitution on Generative Organs.—General Maladies.—Forms of 
Syphilis. Syphilis in Sea-ports. Severity of Syphilis among unregistered 
Women.—The “ Kurhaus” and general Infirmary.—Male Venereal Patients.— 
Sickness in the Garrison. Treatment. Mortal Diseases of Hamburg Prosti- 
tutes.—Hamburg Magdalen Hospital. 
The ancient legislative enactments respecting prostitution in 
Hamburg seem to have been of the same character, and based 
upon the same as in other Continental cities, namely, a 
partial toleration of a necessary evil for the sake of preventing in- 
jurious excesses. This may be traced in the oldest extant law on 
the subject, dated in 1292. In the public account-books for 1350 
are entries of charges which imply that public brothels were built 
by the corporation, though we find no satisfactory information as 
to whether they were managed by an appointed official as in Co- 
logne, Strasbourg, or Avignon, or were leased by the city to an in- 
dividual as in Ulm. It will be interesting to give a sketch of the 
regulations of prostitution in the latter city before proceeding with 
the investigation concerning Hamburg. 
The laws of the city of Ulm in 1430, or at least that portion of 
them called “woman house” laws, provided that the houses should 
be leased, and the lessee, on becoming tenant, swore to serve the 
city faithfully; to prevent all foul play or concealment of suspi- 
cious goods in his house; to provide clean, healthy women, and 
never to keep less than fourteen. He was bound to observe a 
fixed dietary scale; the daily meals were be “of the value of 
sixpenceon meat days every woman was to have two dishes, 
soup with meat and vegetables, and a roast or boiled joint, ns most 190 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION, 
convenient. On fast-days and in Lent they were to have the 
same number of dishes, which (out of Lent) might consist of eggs 
and baked meat. As a change to this, they might have herrings 
and eggs; or fishes (probably fresh-water fish), which they could 
cook for themselves, and to which the keeper must add white 
bread. If a woman refused the food provided, he was bound to 
give her something of the value of sixpence; he was also to sell 
them wine “when they required it.” If a woman was pregnant, 
he was to put her out of the house. In the “woman’s house” 
there was a chest for general purposes, and a money-box for the 
accounts between the host and the women. Every woman who 
kept company with a man at night must pay the keeper a kreut- 
zer, the remainder of the fee being her own property. All money 
the women obtained in the day was to be put into the general 
chest; the third of this belonged to the host; the balance was paid 
to the women at the end of the week, less any debts they had con- 
tracted in the mean time. A woman resided in every house who 
made financial arrangements between inmates and visitors. If a 
woman received a present in addition to the stipulated fee, she 
was at liberty to spend it on clothes, shoes, or personal matters to 
which nobody could lay claim. The keeper could not supply the 
women with clothes, etc., without the knowledge and consent of 
the Master of the Beggars (a local functionary who seems to have 
combined the supervision of brothels, and of known vagrants and 
beggars). The host was required to provide, at his own cost, a 
cook and a cook’s maid. Girls or women could, with their own 
consent, be apprenticed to the “women keeper” by their parents 
or husbands; but if one was apprenticed against her will, and she, 
or her friends, wished to cancel the agreement, the keeper was 
bound to release her without requiring the repayment of any 
money he might have disbursed for her. If a woman who had 
accumulated a guilder of her own wished to quit her sinful life, 
she was allowed to tender it to the keeper in discharge of all her 
liabilities, and must then be permitted to leave the house, wearing 
the clothes she wore when she entered it, or, if they were worn 
out, in her common “Monday clothes,” A woman who desired 
might leave without this payment if she had nothing to give, but 
if subsequently detected in any other house the keeper could en- 
force his demands against her, the discharge not affecting his claim 
under such circumstances. Every Monday each woman had to 
contribute one penny, and the host twopence, to the money-box HAMBURG, 
191 
to purchase tapers for the Virgin and the saints, to be offered in 
the Cathedral on Sunday nights. If any of the women were sick 
or could not support themselves, they were to be provided with 
necessaries from the money-box, to which (for greater security) 
there were two keys, one kept by the host and the other by the 
Master of the Beggars. Each woman had to spin daily for the 
keeper two hanks of yarn, or, in default, to pay three hellers for 
each hank. On Sunday, Lady-day, and Twelfth-day, after ves- 
pers, and in Passion Week, the house was not to be opened. If 
the keeper broke any of these regulations the council could dis- 
miss him. The oath taken by the Master of the Beggars required 
him to visit the women-houses every quarter day; to read the 
laws to the women; and to report to the council any offenses he 
found existing.1 
In Hamburg, in 1183, the calling of brothel-keeper was limited 
to certain streets, apart from the ordinarily frequented thorough- 
fares—a rule which would imply that the authorities had discon- 
tinued building public brothels, and relinquished the business to 
individuals. 
In the seventeenth century a different course of action was 
adopted, and, in place of toleration and limitation of brothels, 
strict laws were made in reference to visiting suspected places, 
and the custody of persons of bad character. The women-houses 
were pulled down and the women expelled; the criminal records 
contain frequent instances where the pillory or exile was inflicted 
for the crime of prostitution. 
In 1764, and again in 1767, the Hamburgers enacted very se- 
vere laws against offenders, under the title of “ delicta carnis,” by 
which both sexes were subject to pains and penalties, but men 
seem to have been allowed to clear themselves on oath. The offi- 
cers of justice were directed to make domiciliary visits in search 
of offenders, and the pillory, bread and water, the House of Cor- 
rection, or banishment, are the penalties threatened on habitual 
evil-doers. 
In Germany, prostitution received a terrible impulse from the 
French Revolution, when the general disruption of public obliga- 
tions paved the way to unbounded private license. Probably the 
licentiousness of Europe at the end of the last and commence- 
ment of the present century was more extravagant than at any 
other time. The irruption of immigrants at the fall of the French 
1 Jager’s “ Schwabischen Stiidtwesen des Mittelalters. ” 192 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
monarchy flooded Hamburg with Parisian morals and 
Places of entertainment and sensual gratification arose in all di- 
rections, the homely, simple manners of the Vaterland were sub- 
verted, and a less rigid line of conduct took their place. In the 
words of a writer of the day: “Our eating-houses were meta- 
morphosed into restaurants; our dancing-rooms into saloons; our 
drinking-shops into pavilions; our cellars into halls; our girls 
into demoiselles; in short, we were thoroughly polished up by 
the immoral shoal of immigrants. Quick and unrestrained strode 
the crowd over our pleasant streets, and modesty and respectabil- 
ity fled with averted faces, to the sorrow of the few good men.” 
The name demoiselle was granted to many of the common wom- 
en, their places of resort being called “ Ma’amselle houses.” In 
those days the Hamburgers saw, with astonishment, houses fitted 
up and furnished in the style of mansions, with costly upholstery 
and cabinet-work.1 Among the women were the femmes entre- 
tenness, who received their friends at certain hours, and whose 
favors were dispensed for a Louis d’or or a ducat. They fre- 
quented the first and second boxes of the German and French 
theatres, and drove through the public streets in handsome car- 
riages. Some of the keepers of this class of houses had physicians 
in their pay, whose services were always available by the inmates. 
Petits soupers were given here, and sometimes a ball took place. 
These were literally the aristocracy of prostitution. The sec- 
ond, third, and fourth grades resided in inferior streets or in the 
suburbs, differing in their attractions according to the rank which 
they assumed, but all equally shameless and unequivocal in their 
conduct and appearance. 
Notwithstanding this rapid spread of prostitution, the police of 
the city can not justly be charged with neglect of duty, any pub- 
lic outrage being followed by condign punishment. At one time 
a whole ship-load of nymphs of the pave was dispatched to the 
colonies; at another a raid was made on the most conspicuous 
houses, some of the inmates alarmed into decency of conduct, and 
the incorrigible publicly exhibited in the streets, decorated with 
inscriptions signifying their offenses. The voice of the few was 
powerless against the corruptions of the many. The pamphlets 
and papers of the time teem with the proffered services of go-be- 
tweens, and even the Hamburg ladies themselves were far from 
perfection, if we may credit the evidence of a fictitious petition, 
1 Hamburg and Altona Journal, 1805, iii. 50. HAMBURG. 
193 
praying, among other things, that the ladies restrict the indecency 
of their costume, and not make such a liberal display of their charms. 
It was impossible such an extravagant state of society should 
long exist; a reaction was inevitable; and we find, accordingly, 
an ordinance enacted in 1807 by the Praetor Abendroth in refer- 
ence to the matter. It recognized brothel-keeping and prostitu- 
tion as a calling, and permitted it under certain restrictions. A 
tax on the class was imposed, and means were prescribed by which 
a register of all persons engaged therein was to be kept, and their 
health and general good conduct maintained and enforced. The 
official justification of the tax is found in the order itself, which 
declares that, “for the purposes aforesaid” (police register and 
supervision, medical examination, maintenance in sickness, pov- 
erty, etc.), “ and in order that the public shall be at no charges, 
each housekeeper shall, for every woman residing with him, pay 
two marks to the Praetor’s treasury. The surplus of this treasury 
shall go to the Hospital.” 
During the French occupation in 1811, the police renewed and 
enforced the stringent regulations on the subject of common houses 
and women. The preamble of their “Instructions” (April, 1811) 
is worthy of notice : 
“ Public and personal safety require a constant inspection, as well of the 
public houses dedicated to debauchery, as of the women and girls who fre- 
quent the same, live therein, or dwell there from time to time. This in- 
spection must also be extended to those places which are not expressly ap- 
pointed for dwelling-houses, but which, nevertheless, must be included among 
the public houses, inasmuch as they serve for refuge to the women and girls 
who wander about the streets.” 
“ The grounds of this inspection are two-fold. In one respect they belong 
to the maintenance of public order: it is needful that no one be withdrawn 
from the eye of the police, nor find an asylum in such houses. It is like- 
wise expedient that the magistracy take notice of disgraceful and disorderly 
proceedings, or prevent those which take place too often in the town. The 
other grounds respect the public health. The habits of debauchery have be- 
come so general, and inspection has, for some years, become so difficult, that 
the most dangerous maladies have increased to an unprecedented extent. 
All classes of society complain, and call loudly for regulations to restrain 
these evils. These considerations have moved the General Police Commis- 
sary to renew, in full force, the before-enacted laws and regulations, and to 
order them to be enforced with rigor in the present state of affairs.” 
After the withdrawal of the French, the vigilance of the police 
authorities seems to have relaxed, if we are to judge by com- 194 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
plaints published at the time, in which they are accused of com- 
plicity with the unfortunates who infested the streets of Hamburg, 
and are said, “by the agency of a trifling bribe, to be able to ply 
their hideous trade unobstructed, and to the great annoyance of 
the virtuously disposed, who, after certain hours of the evening, 
are unable to pass along the streets.” 
In 1820, “the previously existing police regulations against 
prostitutes being proved very ineffectual, insomuch that they in- 
fest the public streets and ways, not only to the offense of decency 
and propriety, but to the endangerment of public order and safe- 
ty,” it was ordered that the regulations should be renewed, and 
additional powers were given to the police to enforce the registry 
of individuals coming within the scope of the law. 
At this time we find some information as to the number of 
prostitutes, who are stated to be about five hundred, chiefly for- 
eigners, and their receipts from their patrons, but we have no 
guide to the number of women who pursued their calling private- 
ly, which must have been large. 
The civic administration of the Senator Hudtwalcker is marked 
by earnest endeavors to control prostitution and restrict it within 
known bounds. Some of his views on the subject met much op- 
position. He wished to close up one end of a notorious street, 
and to wall up the back windows, stationing a watchman con- 
stantly at the end left open. After great personal attention to 
the subject, he published the result of his experience.1 His prin- 
ciples are those upon which the present police regulations of Ham- 
burg are based. He says: 
“All brothel-keepers and girls should be distinctly made to understand 
that their infamous and ruinous calling is only tolerated, not permitted, or 
authorized, or even well wished. Still less can they feel that they have 
any right to compare themselves with worthy citizens as though their 
calling, because an impost is levied on them, can be put on a level with 
other permitted callings. They must remember that this impost is raised 
solely to defray the necessary cost of police supervision, and of the cure of 
maladies brought on the common women by their own profligate course of 
life.” 
“2. Public or private brothel-keeping to be notified to the police; the 
regulations to be read over and subscribed; offenders to be punished by 
bread and water, and the House of Correction. If an uninscribed woman 
have the venereal disease, the fact is prima facie evidence of prostitution.” 
1 Vorschriften die Bordello nnd offentlichen. Madchen betroffend: Hamburg, 1834. HAMBURG. 
195 
“3. Change of residence to be notified, under penalty.” 
“ 4. The concession may be withdrawn by the authorities at their pleas- 
ure.” 
“ 5. Houses of accommodation will only be tolerated, 
(a.) where the landlord is inscribed; 
(6.) where a resident girl is inscribed; 
(c.) where an inscribed girl is the party using it.” 
“ 6. Women from abroad, kept by single men, must obtain the police 
residence permission, and should pay the tax for the first class, without, 
however, being subject to medical visits. They have the right of the free 
use of the General Infirmary. Should such a girl be proved to have inter- 
course with several men, or, being venereal, to have infected others, she 
should be treated as a public woman.” 
7, 8, 9. Prescribe the identification of individuals subscribing, 
the details of their place of birth; the consent of parents when 
living; also, “That any brothel-keeper detaining an innocent girl 
on false pretenses shall be punished with fine and imprisonment, 
and the concession be withdrawn.” 
“ 10. Female servants or relatives of brothel-keepers residing with them 
to be over twenty-five years of age.” 
“ 11. No prostitute is suffered to keep children of either sex over ten 
years of age; even her own must be brought up elsewhere if she continues 
her calling.” 
12. Prohibits solicitation of passengers. 
“ 13. No common woman to be in the streets after eleven at night with- 
out a male companion.” 
14. Limits the places to which prostitutes may resort. 
“ 16. No music or gaming in brothels, nor liquor-selling, except by spe- 
cial permission.” 
“15. Young people, under twenty years, not to enter a brothel.” 
“11. Noise and uproar in brothels punishable.” 
“ 18. No brothel-keeper or inscribed woman to permit extortion or vio- 
lence to a customer, but they may detain persons who have not paid. 
Thefts or foul dealing prohibited ; the landlord prima facie responsible.” 
“19. No compulsion or violence of the women by the keeper, nor by 
guests with his cognizance.” 
“ 20. A woman wishing to return to a virtuous life at liberty to do so, 
notwithstanding any keeper’s claims. If they disagree as to such claims, 
the police to settle them, but in no case has the keeper any lien on her. 
Nevertheless, this privilege not to be abused. If a woman returns to her 
evil courses, the keeper’s claims on her revive, and she may even be pun- 
ished. Limitation, according to the class of a woman, of the right of bor- 
rowing money.” 196 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“21. If parents or relatives will undertake the reclamation of a prosti- 
tute, the police will compel restitution of her person, irrespective of the 
keeper’s claims, or even of the woman’s own refusal.” 
“ 22. A woman changing her residence, and disputing any settlement 
with the keeper, can have the same rectified by the police.” 
“ 23. The women to he subjected every week to medical visitation. No 
woman, during menstruation, or with any malady in the sexual organs, to 
receive visits from a man. No woman to be approached by a man diseased, 
or reasonably suspected of disease. To this end, a statement of the signs of 
venereal disease to be furnished.” 
“ 24. The orders of the public physician are imperative, and must be 
strictly observed. Want of personal cleanliness increasing the virulence of 
syphilis, the directions of the physician on this matter to be imperatively 
followed.” 
“ 25. The medical officer to report the result of examination to the po- 
lice, and to enter the same in a book to be kept by each woman, to be pro- 
duced on demand.” 
“ 26. A woman finding herself to be venereally infected to report either 
to the keeper or the police ; in other illness to report to the medical officer, 
who will direct her course of treatment at home, or, in venereal and infec- 
tious cases, at the hospital. In cases of pregnancy she is to report herself 
to the medical officer.” 
“27. A keeper punishable for the disease of a man in his house, and lia- 
ble for the charges of cure.” 
The remaining sections relate to the collection of the tax; the 
penalties for violation are fine and imprisonment. 
Having thus briefly sketched the progress of legislation on pros- 
titution in Hamburg, based upon the principle that “ prostitution 
is a necessary evil, and, as such, must be endured under strict su- 
pervision of the authorities,” it seems an appropriate place to copy 
the following remarks of an eminent local writer: 
. “ That brothels are an evil no one can deny; still, the arguments against 
the sufferance of brothels are, except as to that incontestable truth, no an- 
swer to the ‘ necessity,’ which is the very gist of the thing, and which ne- 
cessity is based on the uncontrollable nature of sexual intercourse, and on 
the circumstances of our social conditiom” 
“ The sufferance of brothels is necessary, 
“ 1. For the repression of profligacy, of private prostitution as well as of 
its kindred crimes, adultery, rape, abortion, infanticide, and all kinds of il- 
licit gratification of sexual passion. The latter cases occur very rarely with 
us. Of Paederasty or Sodomy we find but few instances; and of that un- 
natural intercourse of women with each other, referred to by Parent-Duchat- 
elet as common among the Parisian girls, we find no trace.” HAMBURG, 
197 
“ The sufferance of brothels operates to the suppression of private prosti- 
tution, in so far as brothel-keepers and the ‘ inscribed’ women are, for their 
own interest, opposed to it, and are serviceable to the police in its detection. 
Unquestionably, private prostitution is an incalculably greater evil than 
public vice.” 
“2. On grounds of public policy in regard to health. It is quite errone- 
ous to suppose that these legalized brothels contribute to the spread of 
syphilitic maladies. This should rather be imputed to the private prosti- 
tution which would ensue on the breaking up of the brothels, and from 
which that medical police supervision that now limits the spread of infec- 
tion would, of course, be withdrawn. The experience of all time proves that, 
by means of secret prostitution, the intensity and virulence of venereal dis- 
orders have been aggravated, to the multiplication of those appalling ex- 
amples familiar to every medical reader, and which cause one to shudder 
with horror; while numerically, disease and its consequences have been car- 
ried into every class of society. It is precisely our knowledge of these very 
facts which has induced the sufferance, or, rather, the regulation of these 
brothels.” 
“3. Suppression is absolutely impracticable, inasmuch as the evil is 
rooted in an unconquerable physical requirement. It would seem as if the 
zeal against public brothels implied that by their extinction a limitation of 
sexual intercourse, except in marriage, would be effected. This is erroneous, 
for reliable details prove that for every hundred brothel women there would 
be two hundred private prostitutes, and no human power could prevent this. 
In a great city and frequented sea-port like Hamburg, the hope of amend- 
ing this would be purely chimerical.” 
Thus much for Hamburg legislation, and the sound arguments 
in its favor. We will now give some facts illustrative of the vice 
as it exists at the present time, using a pamphlet by Dr. Lippert, 
entitled “ Prostitution in Hamburg. 1848.” 
It must be premised that, for the purpose, Hamburg is divided 
into two parts: the city proper, and the suburb of St. Paul. The 
latter is under a distinct municipal authority, and is the ordinary 
residence of seamen and those depending on a seafaring life. 
For many years the police returns of the city proper would 
show about five hundred of the registered “common women” 
{eingeschrieben Dimen), and one hundred registered brothels. The 
police regulations requiring monthly payment of the personal and 
house tax, and also a renewal of the permission to keep brothels 
at the same time, is a very convenient method of obtaining a census 
of the class. The following is a statement of the largest and small- 
est monthly number of registered women for several years: 198 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Year 1833 . . . Largest number, 550 . , . Smallest number, 456 
“ 1834 ... “ « 550 .. . “ « 450 
“ 1835 ... “ « 481 .. . « « 441 
“ 1836 ... “ “ 546 .. . « “ 473 
“ 1837 ... “ « 514 .. . « « 484 
“ 1844 ... « « 502 >,, 
“ 1846 ... “ “ 512 f rePor^s- 
These monthly reports do not show any marked variation at 
any particular period, the rise and fall being arbitrary. The fluc- 
tuation is not very great in the aggregate, although from Novem- 
ber, 1834, to January, 1835, there was a decrease of 86 (or nearly 
one fifth), while between November, 1835, and January, 1836, 
there was a corresponding increase. Since that time the numbers 
have remained steadily at about one point. 
The housekeepers’ (bordehvirth) return does not vary to the same ex- 
tent. The average is 105 
But it decreased in 1844 to 90 
“ « “ 1845 « 93 
“ « « 1846 « 96 
Of these housekeepers in the last-named year (1846) there were 
Males 60 
Females 36—96 
In December, 1844, there were 
Registered women 502 
who were subdivided into those 
Living in registered houses . . 294 
Living privately 208—502 
In May, 1845, there were 
Registered women 505 
who were subdivided into those 
Living in registered houses 326 
Living privately 179—505 
(At this period there were four registered houses without any women in 
them.) 
In August, 1846, there were 
Registered women 512 
who were subdivided into those 
Living in registered houses 334 
Living privately 178—512 
These figures show that the number of those living privately is 
gradually diminishing, more of them being concentrated in the reg- 
istered houses. 
Dr. Lippert is of opinion that prostitution decreases in the sum- 
mer and increases in the winter months. The statistics will cer- 
tainly support this theory, but the difference is so small as scarcely 
to warrant its reception as a rule. HAMBURG. 
199 
Thus the months of May and July, for five years, give a monthly 
average of 499^ 
and the months of November and January for the same time give 
a monthly average of 501-rV 
showing an average increase in the winter months of ... 
or about one third of one per cent, on the average number of prostitutes. 
In reference to the classes from which the ranks of the common 
women in Hamburg are recruited, Dr. Lippert states that four 
fifths are from the agricultural districts of the vicinity; that they 
live as house-servants, tavern-waiters, or in other callings for a 
time, and then become prostitutes “as a matter of business.” 
Without any desire to controvert his opinion on local questions, 
it may be doubted whether bad example, vicious education, igno- 
rance of moral or religious obligations, or temptation, are not suffi- 
cient to account for their fall, aside from this sweeping denuncia- 
tion, this commercial view of the question, opposed as it is to all 
experience in every civilized country where any inquiries on the 
subject have been made. 
The private prostitutes, whether registered or unregistered, are 
mainly seamstresses or others dependent upon daily labor. These 
women seem to retain some natural sense of the disgrace attached 
to open and avowed courtesans, and in their secrecy and quiet re- 
tain a few feminine characteristics of which the common brothel 
woman is destitute. 
We have no reliable detail of private unregistered prostitution, 
or of mere houses of accommodation in Hamburg; but an impor- 
tant fact is to be found in the number of illegitimate children, and 
the decrease, in proportion to the population, of the number of 
marriages. The following results are taken from Neddermeyer’s 
“ Statistics and Topography of Hamburg.” 
In 1*799, the marriages were about 1 in 45; 
From 1826 to 1835, “ “ « « 1 « 9*7; 
In 1840, “ « “ « 1 « 100. 
The proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children is about 1 
to 5, the actual number of illegitimate births being as follows: 
1826 649 
1827 606 
1828 723 
1829 801 
1830 786 
1831 805 
1832 926 
Years Illegitimate 
xeara. Births. 
1833 867 
1834 846 
1835 730 
1836 807 
1837 771 
1838 762 
1839 765 
VPftrs Illegitimate 
Years. Births. 
1840 754 
1841 749 
1842 702 
1848 655 
1844 797 
1845 778 
1846 779 200 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The population of Hamburg was in 1826 . . 100,902 
“ “ “ « 1840 . . 124,961 
“ u “ “ 1846 . . 130,000 or upward was as- 
sumed as the number. 
We have now to examine the physiological and pathological 
peculiarities of the Hamburg prostitutes. 
The police regulations require that no registered woman shall 
be under twenty years of age; but in this they have a discretion- 
ary power, so as to keep under inspection and supervision some 
younger girls whom neither the work-house nor prison can re- 
claim, the experience of the Hamburg authorities having con- 
vinced them that such 'punitive institutions are seldom successful in 
the work of reformation ; a truth which will, ere long, be more gen- 
erally acknowledged, especially in reference to abandoned women, 
than it is at the present day. 
The official list for 1844 shows that of the registered prostitutes 
there were 
Under 20 years of age 16 
From 20 “ to 30 years 401 
“ 30 “ “40 “ 14 
« 40 “ “ 50 “ 11 
Total 502 
In 1846, of women living in registered houses, there were 
From 20 years to 30 years of age 199 
“ 30 « £< 40 « « .... 50 
« 40 « “50 «• “ _8 
Total '251 
The birth-places of the 502 women reported in 1844 included 
most of the countries in Germany. There were from 
Hamburg 108 
Hanover 101 
Prussia 81 
Holstein 18 
Other parts of Germany 129 
Holland ..... 2 
Russia 2 
France 1 
Total . . 602 
The nativity returns for 512 women, in 1846, do not vary ma- 
terially from the above, the difference in the foreign-born being 
that there were four, instead of five, born out of Germany. These 
tables show that about one in five are natives of Hamburg city 
and territory. Dr. Lippert notices this fact as a small proportion, 
and accounts for it by enumerating the difficulties of local rela- 
tionship, parentage, etc., which would be opposed to the registra- HAMBURG. 
201 
tion of native women. These circumstances favor the presump- 
tion that many of the unregistered women are city born. 
The Hamburger Berg, or St. Paul’s Suburb, is on the west side 
of Hamburg, and has already been mentioned as the abode of sea- 
men and their dependents. Brothels were tolerated here, in def- 
erence to the wants of the inhabitants, at a time when they were 
strictly excluded from the city proper. The women and the 
houses are of a different type from those of other parts of Ham- 
burg. All the prostitutes live in registered houses, unregistered 
or private traffic in this quarter being rigorously opposed by the 
authorities. The brothels and their inmates are in the most flour- 
ishing condition at the end of autumn, when the home voyages 
are completed and the sailors paid off. For a time mirth and ex- 
citement bear the sway; when the wages are all spent, things re- 
lapse into their old condition, and sometimes the keepers dismiss 
some of their women, the supply being in excess of the demand. 
Daring the year 1846 the number of registered women in this 
district was 
January 186 
May 189 
August 181 
December 169 
The 169 women registered in December were distributed among 
nineteen tolerated houses. In seven of these music and dancing 
were permitted, and they contained respectively 21, 18, 11, 19, 20, 
18, 29 women, leaving only 26 women to inhabit the remaining 
twelve houses. 
The ages of these women were 
Under 20 years 27 
From 20 “ to 30 years 129 
“ 30 “ “40 « 13 
Total 169 
The places of birth do not vary materially from the proportions 
given already. Other matters relating to this particular class will 
be found hereafter. 
In their physique the great majority of the registered women 
present no pleasing aspect. Generally taken from the rudest 
classes, they are coarse and unattractive in their appearance, and 
from the consequences of irregular indulgence and continual ex- 
posure, they soon lose the womanly characteristics they once pos- 
sessed. But this is not a portrait of the whole. Among the un- 
registered private women may be found some of considerable 
beauty. The registered women who reside in private, or in first- 202 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
class brothels, have some prepossessing members of their ranks, 
while the St. Paul suburb has few but of the roughest kind. Phys- 
ical strength seems more in demand among the habitues of that 
section than a graceful form or a pretty face. 
In their bodily peculiarities and diseases there is no difference 
between the public women of Hamburg and those of other cities. 
At the commencement of their career they frequently become 
thin and emaciated, but after a time, probably owing to their idle 
life and good food, regain their substance. In their phrenological 
development we find a marked preponderance of the animal in- 
stincts over the intellectual faculties. The effect of their mode of 
life will depend somewhat upon individual constitution. The 
teeth of women of the town are generally bad, but in Hamburg 
they are in excellent order—much better than the majority of the 
general population. Their complexion is pale, and they endeavor 
to remedy this by the constant use of coarse cloths, applications 
of eau de Cologne, and other stimulants, but very rarely by paint- 
ing, except among the lowest classes. They soon lose their hair 
from dissipation, the use of pomatum, curling irons, etc. It is, 
however, in the rough, harsh voice that the most conspicuous re- 
sult of their calling is shown. 
We will leave, for the present, the medical portion of this in- 
quiry, and give a sketch of their domestic or every-day life. It 
must be borne in mind that the police divisions are into “ register- 
ed” or “unregistered,” and “public” or “private” women. 
The public women (bffentlichen dirnen) are under the special 
control and supervision of a police authority charged with this 
duty. Without his express cognizance and permission they can 
not be registered, or “written in” (eingeschriehen), nor can they 
have liberty to change their residence, or to be “written out” 
{ausgeschrieben). This officer is the collector of the impost upon 
them and upon the brothel-keeper (bordelwirih), which is paid 
over to the fund (-meretricen kasse). We can not give the detailed 
application of this money, but, in general terms, it does not swell 
the revenues of the city, and, to avoid public scandal, is applied 
exclusively to the police and medical services required by the class. 
The keepers and women are of three grades. It does not clear- 
ly appear whether a woman can select the class with whom she 
will associate. We are inclined to think the magistrates decide 
this point, and allot her to the one for which she seems best 
adapted. HAMBURG 
203 
In their apparel and food there exists the usual difference that 
may be found in all places and ranks of life. The police regula- 
tions, and the generally sober style of dress among the Hamburg- 
ers, restrict any immodest display of the person or extravagance 
of attire. The first-class women are generally costumed with taste 
and elegance, while among the lower ranks plain and serviceable 
garments are in demand. In most cases of the registered women 
residing in brothels, the keeper supplies the clothes, and very 
often charges extravagant prices for them. Extortionate demands 
in this respect are a fruitful source of complaints to the police, who 
moderate the bills with no very tender sympathy for the creditor. 
The clothes and jewelry of some of the first-class women are hired 
from some clothes-lender (vermieth einnen), but others seldom resort 
to this expedient, excepting for trinkets. 
The food of the house-women is good and plentiful, varying ac- 
cording to the rate of the brothel in which they live. The old 
sumptuary laws are not in force, but the interest of the keeper in- 
duces him to desire a prudent popularity among his women, and 
to maintain the character of his house by the liberality of his en- 
tertainment both in quantity and quality. A considerable portion 
of their liquids is coffee, of which they are very fond. Wines and 
liquors are supplied by the house only on holidays, but visitors 
can purchase them at any time they wish. Drunkenness is com- 
paratively rare among the better class, partly owing to the care 
of the keeper, but more from dread of the police supervision and 
consequent punishment. 
In their intellectual capacity there is nothing to distinguish the 
prostitutes in Hamburg. Few can read, and fewer still can write. 
Those who can read seek their amusement in the old romances of 
the circulating libraries, seldom perusing that libidinous style of 
publications known among us as “ yellow-covered literature,” En 
passant, this seems the universal practice of the class, wherever 
any inquiries have been made. Like other ignorant persons, they 
are superstitious. Lippert mentions one particular omen connect- 
ed with their calling; she who picks up any article which has 
been thrown away is sure to receive a visit from a man soon after. 
He does not say whether this has been verified by experience. 
Their ordinary routine of life is one of useless idleness. They 
rise about ten and take breakfast, of which coffee is the staple. 
The morning is loitered away in dressing, reading novels, playing 
cards or dominoes, and kindred occupations. In some of the low- 204 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
er-class houses they dispel their ennui by assisting in domestic 
work, but this is a matter of favor which they are careful shall not 
become an obligation. By the middle of the day they are ready 
for dinner. In the afternoon they add the finishing touches to 
their dress, and wait the arrival of visitors. Some resort to the 
public lounges or dancing saloons to form or cultivate acquaint- 
ances, but the aristocracy of the order hold it more becoming to 
their dignity to stay at home and wait for their “ friends,” 
In that fine and peculiar quality of modesty, which adds the 
crowning grace to woman’s charms, even the prostitute is not 
wholly deficient. Some trace of the angel attribute is visible, but 
mostly in the private women, where a regard for the decent pro- 
prieties of life yet lingers amid the wreck of character, and to such 
it frequently forms the chief attraction. 
Eeligion has an influence over some, strangely at variance with 
its dictates as are their lives, but a large majority are entirely des- 
titute of any such sentiment. Occasionally, Biblical pictures may 
be seen in the rooms of brothels, but merely as ornaments, for they 
are neutralized by the contiguity of others more consonant with 
the place. 
In their relations to the male sex there are differences between 
women residing in public brothels and those living privately, 
whether registered or unregistered. Partly from inclination, but 
mainly from policy on the part of the keeper, the former seldom 
own allegiance to any particular lover. It is true that any one 
who is able and willing to pay liberally can come and go as he 
pleases, provided he does not interfere with the girl’s “business” 
in other profitable quarters. Not so with the private women, who 
frequently have particular “ lovers” to whom they show much 
kindness, although from them they often receive but little sympa- 
thy or protection, many of these men not scrupling to exist en- 
tirely upon the earnings of a woman whom they would publicly 
insult if they met her away from home. 
In their personal conduct toward each other the women resid- 
ing in one house are constrained and envious. In the first class 
there is a ceremonious retention of the forms of politeness, but 
they are too frequently brought into personal rivalry to entertain 
much good feeling. In the lower classes jealousy often finds vent 
in reproaches or blows, and frequently a conflict ensues requiring 
the interposition of the host or of a neighboring police officer. 
Among those who live alone warm friendships are not uncommon; HAMBURG, 
205 
much timely assistance is afforded in times of sickness or want; 
good offices are reciprocated; and it sometimes happens, in the 
delicate matter of their visitors, that a man who has been in the 
habit of favoring one woman will not find his attentions welcomed 
by others. 
Their crimes and offenses include the ordinary category, but it 
is asserted that theft is less common in Hamburg than elsewhere, 
and, when it does take place, it is more frequently committed by 
the irregular' members of the body than by the duly registered 
women. It will be perceived that the system of registration of- 
fers too many facilities for detection, a fact to which the unusual 
honesty must doubtless be ascribed. Personal quarrels and as- 
saults, or drunkenness among the older members, consign them to 
the House of Detention or House of Correction. Those imprison- 
ed from various causes generally amount to one hundred or one 
hundred and twenty. 
The licensed brothels are supplied with inmates by females 
(kupplerinnen) whose services are recognized by the authorities. 
In case of any emergency, the keeper applies to one of the procu- 
resses, and if the girl she offers suits him, the candidate is first sub- 
jected to a medical examination. Passed safely through this or- 
deal, she is taken to the police office and “ written in” to her new 
keeper, who is bound to discharge certain of her debts, as the 
amount due his predecessor, for instance. If the medical officers 
report her sick, she is sent to the infirmary if she belong to Ham- 
burg, but if a foreigner is dispatched out of the city forthwith. 
In cases where a woman thus applying to the authorities has not 
previously lived as a prostitute, she is usually exhorted by the 
magistrate to abandon her intention and return to the paths of 
virtue, a routine piece of benevolence which is usually fruitless. 
The ordinary police fee for registration is two marks, the phy- 
sician’s fee is one mark, and the agent’s usual remuneration four 
marks. 
The registered women are thus kept strictly under the eye of 
the police, and, whenever they are disposed to quit their wretched 
life, have the special protection of that body. The keepers natu- 
rally throw all possible obstacles in the way of such a determina- 
tion, especially if a girl is much in debt; but, by some means, 
whenever a woman is under any restraint, and is consequently 
unable to apply personally to the police, an anonymous note finds 
its way to the office, and speedily effects the desired object. The 206 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
authorities do not sympathize in any way with the brothel-keep- 
ers, but use all their energies to serve the women whenever any 
occasion offers. 
The registered women are designated as “ Brothel women” 
[Bordell dirnen), who live in licensed houses; as “ Private worn- 
en” {fur sich wohnende dirnen) when they live by themselves, in 
which case their landlords are mostly mechanics, hucksters, or 
laundresses; and the common “ Street-walkers” {Strassen dirnen), 
who ply their trade in the streets, and find shelter in the abodes 
of indigence and misery. These last are the lowest grade of the 
registered women. 
Most of the brothels (bordelle) are in the oldest parts of the 
city, to which they were originally limited, but the leading houses 
may be found in the Schwieger strasse, a street of moderate traffic 
in a good neighborhood. Here the women are seated at the win- 
dows, conspicuously dressed up and prepared for the public eye, 
making themselves known to passengers by their gestures and 
salutations. Some of these houses accommodate as many as four- 
teen inmates. They are well supplied with good mahogany fur- 
niture and fine draperies, and are neat and elegant throughout. 
The women are generally from twenty to twenty-five years old, 
and are attractively dressed and decorated. The venereal disease 
is very rare among this class, great attention being paid to per- 
sonal cleanliness, and the bath very frequently used. The men 
who visit this neighborhood consist of merchants, the richer pub- 
lic and business employes, officers, and especially the numer- 
ous commercial men who resort to Hamburg at all seasons of the 
vear. 
The denizens of the Dammthorwall, the Drehbahm, and Ul- 
ricas strasse lead but a dull life, as it is the custom in those locali- 
ties for the women to sit at the windows all day. Their great di- 
urnal event is the visit of the hair-dresser (friseurian), who, while 
contributing to the adornment of the person, a very serious af- 
fair, owing to the quantity of false hair required, and the neces- 
sity of making to-day’s effect vary from yesterday’s, also retails 
the latest items of interesting news or scandal. Whenever any 
of these women go out to walk, it is customary for the keeper to 
send together two who are at variance with each other, so as to 
establish a mutual check. The hair-dressing and walk over, the 
next important occurrence is dinner, after which they spend their 
time solely at the doors or windows. HAMBURG. 
207 
The hours of closing in these first and second rate brothels are 
not so strictly enforced by the police as in the lower parts. Oc- 
casionally the women are allowed to visit the balls at the cele- 
brated Hall of Mirrors, or other well-known dancing saloons in 
the vicinity. 
In first-rate houses the accounts between the keeper and the 
women are but little understood. As already observed, some of 
them hire their clothes; others purchase from the landlord on 
credit, and he charges accordingly; but these matters trouble the 
women very slightly. If they leave one house to reside in anoth- 
er, the new keeper pays the old one’s bill; if a woman abandons 
prostitution entirely, the host’s demand is totally irrecoverable. 
In the second and third rate houses the charges for board and 
lodging are better understood. It will average about twenty 
marks (five dollars) a week, washing, fire, and light being extra 
charges. The keeper will supply fortunate or attractive women 
with articles of dress to any reasonable amount, but his liberality 
is restricted toward those who have fewer visitors. His endeavor 
is to keep all in debt, and in this he is usually successful. Their 
ornaments are usually the property of the landlord, and form a 
common stock distributed among his boarders in the manner best 
calculated to increase or display their powers of fascination, and 
resumed by him at discretion. 
Passing over some intermediate classes of brothels, which pre- 
sent no remarkable characteristics, to those in the Gangen, we find 
the lowest grade of registered houses and registered women. Most 
of these are drinking-shops, and the police exercise the right of 
determining the prices to be charged for liquors. Here may fre- 
quently be seen host, guests, and girls, drinking and frolicking to- 
gether in a small back room, where scenes of gross indelicacy (to 
use a mild term) frequently take place. The women in this district 
have literally to work hard, and are generally required to perform 
all the domestic labor of the establishment. In winter it is a com- 
mon occurrence for them to take a shovel and clear the snow and 
ice from the pavement in front of their domicile. Like others of 
their calling, they are seldom out of the landlord’s debt, their 
board costing them from ten to fourteen marks weekly (say three 
to four dollars). Washing, fire, and light cost a dollar more, and 
the hair-dresser’s charge is about fifty cents. In addition to this, 
they must pay the weekly medical and monthly police tax. They 
spend a miserably monotonous existence, seldom leaving the house 208 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
for weeks or even months, except when they are required to visit 
the doctors or the police. Their visitors are from the roughest 
and most animalized of the population, and the treatment they re- 
ceive is merely that of purchasable commodities, intended to 
supply the grosser wants of men whose lives are centred in sen- 
suality. Like their compeers of the St. Paul Suburb, they are 
usually women of great strength and endurance, but soon degen- 
erate into mere passive, passionless tools. Could it be imagined 
that they were of reflective habits, it would be impossible to con- 
ceive a more severe punishment than their own sense of the deg- 
radation, the total loss of all womanly feelings, exhibited in their 
daily existence. 
The brothel - keepers, among whom are some Jews, have no 
striking peculiarities as a class. It has been already shown that 
both sexes are engaged in the hideous trade, and, despite the police 
regulations and restrictions, the obligations and disabilities under 
which they are placed, it is undoubtedly a most lucrative occupa- 
tion. The rental of a registered house is usually double the or- 
dinary charge for similar tenements. There are some keepers 
who own the houses in which they live. In their liabilities must 
be included the regulation which makes them responsible for 
thefts committed in their houses, and for any violence or disorder 
which may take place there, the penalties for which are fine, im- 
prisonment, and loss of license. They also sustain considerable 
losses from the repentance of some of their inmates; but, in spite 
of all untoward circumstances, they contrive to make money rap- 
idly. 
The period during which they continue in business is uncertain, 
many of them continuing their houses from inclination long after 
they have accumulated sufficient property to retire. Of the fe- 
male keepers some are young and handsome, but these do not find 
much favor with their women, who dread the effects of an opposi- 
tion. They are rarely married, but cohabit with some man for 
the sake of his protection. Among these pro tempore husbands 
are some whose qualifications and previous positions render it sur- 
prising that they should consent to purchase existence from so 
polluted a source. 
The housekeepers of the Hamburger Berg are not only under a 
separate municipal jurisdiction, but are in themselves a different 
class of people. They are mostly men, their dealings being prin- 
cipally with sailors, and their visitors sometimes demanding more HAMBURG. 
209 
physical strength than a woman could command to restrain them 
within the prescribed limits. Their houses are but indifferently 
furnished, and the whole arrangements are very humble and un- 
pretending in character. A few years ago fatal quarrels were not 
uncommon among their customers, but this pugnacious tendency 
has been materially checked by a stricter and more constant police 
visitation. Even now, jealousy will sometimes cause a furious 
contest between two of the hardy sons of Neptune. The singular 
fidelity of some sailors to particular women will account for this. 
When a man returns from a long voyage, he is desirous of paying 
his attentions to the female who has before shared his affections 
and his wages, and if he finds her under the protection of another 
man, the natural result is a trial of strength as to who shall be the 
possessor of the beauty in dispute. These tournaments, or the 
general fray which sometimes arises at the close of the Sunday 
evening dance, require to be subdued by no gentle means; hearty 
blows are far more effectual peace-makers than words or threats. 
Some of these registered hosts have followed their calling for 
many years. One noble incident in connection with them must 
not be omitted. In the severe winter of 1846, the landlord of the 
“Four Lions,” a brothel-keeper of twenty-four years’ standing, 
maintained at his own cost, for some months, nearly one hundred 
poor families, many of them with three or four children each. 
In the dance-houses there is music every evening except Sat- 
urday; on week-days from six to eleven, and on Sundays from 
four to eleven. At eleven the music is stopped, and at twelve 
the house is peremptorily closed. The evenings during the week 
are comparatively dull affairs, and male visitors are sometimes so 
scarce that the women are compelled to dance with each other, or 
sit in inglorious idleness. A scene of the wildest uproar and most 
uncontrolled mirth is exhibited on Sunday evenings. Every va- 
riety of national dance may then be seen—cachucha, reel, jig, 
contre-dance, waltz, and hornpipe have each their several admir- 
ers. Songs and shouts are heard in every conceivable dialect, 
and the room becomes literally “confusion worse confounded” 
until the hour arrives for closing. 
Of the registered women living by themselves there is little to 
note. They are more industrious than those in brothels. Many 
of them have a fixed occupation, but resort to prostitution to in- 
crease their income. Money earned in this way is occasionally 
required for the common necessaries of life, but is more frequent- 210 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ly spent in personal gratification, in the way of fine dresses, orna- 
ments, etc., or is appropriated to support the extravagance of 
some lover, who repays the generosity by a little flattering atten- 
tion, or an occasional escort to some dancing saloon in the sub- 
urbs. The visitors to these women are more select than those to 
the courtesans hitherto described. 
In the lowest ranks of prostitution, the common “ street-walk- 
ers,” to be met at all times and places, under all circumstances 
and of all ages, we find the most prolific sources of infection. A 
certain, though very small remnant of decency, seconded by the 
invaluable watchfulness of the police, secures the visitor from dis- 
ease among the inmates of registered houses, but the street-walk- 
er is under no such control. Young girls scarcely more than chil- 
dren, old women almost grandmothers, ply their frightful trade on 
the “ walls” around the city, and in other obscure places, where a 
trifling present will purchase their caresses. Their principal cus- 
tomers are young boys and very old men, their practices being 
continued under the shades of evening until the arrival of the 
night-watch drives them to their wretched dens. 
The Hamburg police are perfectly cognizant of these proceed- 
ings, and wage perpetual war against individuals, but find it alto- 
gether impossible to suppress the class, among whom are the ha- 
bitual tenants of the jail and the House of Correction. No one 
can differ in opinion from Hr. Lippert, who says, “ In this class of 
women the most pernicious results of prostitution are to be found.” 
Private or domestic prostitution, so widely extended in every 
great town, exists in less proportion in Hamburg than in other 
capital cities of the same extent. That disgraceful union in evil 
occasionally met with on the Continent, in which husband and 
wife mutually agree to follow their inclinations or lusts untram- 
meled by each other, is scarcely known. The kept woman is 
comparatively rare. The expense attendant upon such an ap- 
pendage of luxury is a serious consideration, and none but the 
wealthy patrician or successful business man venture on the step. 
It is assumed, on very good authority, that there are not fifty 
“mistresses” in Hamburg. Those residing there are under no 
police control, as in a public point of view they commit no breach 
of law. 
Under the second head of private prostitution we find those 
who, having legitimate employment, increase their earnings in 
this manner. We have alluded already to the same class of reg- HAMBURG, 
211 
istered women, but the greater portion keep themselves aloof from 
police observation as long as possible. They are composed of 
needle-women, laundresses, hair-dressers, shop-girls, and others, 
but it must not be supposed that they represent the majority of 
women dependent upon those occupations. The contrary is the 
fact; for in Hamburg, as every where else, are to be found many 
bright examples of chastity in the midst of poverty; of patient, 
persevering industry and integrity in unfavorable circumstances. 
Those working women who are willing to accept the price of sin 
are known in the streets by a peculiar gait, by their searching and 
inviting glances, or their treacherous but winning smile, and also 
by frequently walking in the same neighborhood. They are 
seldom seen abroad during the day, but in the afternoon, about 
“ ’change hours,” they begin to resort to the streets near the 
Bourse, encountering the men as they hurry to and from the centre 
of business. In the evening they promenade in the vicinity of 
the hotels and theatres, on the Jungfernstig, the new walls, etc., 
when night helps their incognito, and shrouds them in a little more 
mystery. They are fond of attending the theatres and dancing 
saloons on Sundays and holidays, like the Parisian grisette, in com- 
pany with a lover, but the sum of their enjoyment is complete if 
they can participate in the annual Shrove Tuesday ball and mas- 
querade at the Apollo Saal, the Elb Pavilion, or the theatre,. 
Another class of private prostitutes is known to the police by 
the term “ Winklehuren” (hedge w ). These are of the lower 
class of female operatives. Servant-girls, from their proximity to 
the junior members of families, often spread disease in the house- 
hold of their employers. Dr. Lippert records as a medical fact 
that examinations have frequently shown the domestics in the 
highest families to be literally saturated with venereal disease, 
and he states his opinion that six out of every ten servant-girls 
who are found in the streets at night are accessible to pecuniary 
temptation. This ratio is very large, but as it is a local matter 
with which he is presumed to be well acquainted, it would be out 
of place to attempt either to sustain or controvert it. 
All these private prostitutes resort to the houses of accommo- 
dation (.Absteigequartiere), which exist in spite of the constant 
watchfulness of the police. When they are hunted up and rooted 
out of one place, they reappear under another guise elsewhere; 
a removal being facilitated by the slender nature of their equip- 
ment, which seldom consists of more than furniture for one room. 212 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
For “ genteel” delinquents, they are placed where the accommo- 
dation is veiled under the French disguise of petits soupers, or 
some such flimsy artifice. 
To the question, “What becomes of the prostitutes?” Ham- 
burg offers no special reply. Under favorable circumstances, 
they abandon their calling, and become the wives of mechanics or 
small tradesmen; or they carry on some business for themselves, 
and strive to become reputable members of society; or they be- 
come companion to some man, and follow his fortunes, usually re- 
verting to common prostitution. When their charms are entirely 
lost, and no hope remains of earning a living from their sale, they 
sometimes, but very rarely, become brothel-keepers; sometimes 
procuresses; and, more frequently, servants in the registered 
houses. 
Some of the dancing saloons already mentioned have attained 
European celebrity. They stand in the same relation to common 
women as the exchange does to the mercantile community. Their 
female visitors are mostly prostitutes, a fact which deprives the 
scene of many fascinations existing in other cities. In the end 
of the last century there was no public place expressly designed 
for dancing, until, with the many equivocal blessings disseminated 
by the French Revolution, they also became an institution. The 
Hamburg saloons are conducted with order and quiet, and are 
generally closed about one o’clock in the morning. One of the 
most important, the Bacchus Hall, was burned down some few 
years since, and the authorities have, as yet, refused to grant a 
license for its re-erection. 
As public places which in some degree facilitate prostitution, 
mention must be made of the common sleeping apartments 
locally called “deep cellars” {tiefen kellar), These are roomy 
vaults, many feet under ground, in which the poor find nightly 
shelter at very low prices. They are provided with beds and 
bedding. In the depth of poverty to which some of their cus- 
tomers have fallen, they can not afford to pay two schellings 
(about four cents) for the luxury of a bed, and these repose their 
weary limbs on some foul straw, or on the ground, at the charge 
of half a schelling. Some of these cellars are fifteen or twenty 
feet below the surface of the street, and it will not require a very 
vivid imagination to portray their horrors. 
The beer and wine houses of Hamburg are tolerably free from 
prostitution; but a new class has lately sprung up, called “ cellar- HAMBURG. 
keeping” (kellerwirthschaff), and in these the guests are served by 
females in fancy costume, Swiss, Polish, or Circassian, as the case 
may be. Many of these contain private rooms for prostitution, 
and, although they are closely watched by the police, who some- 
times ungallantly expel the fair foreigners and close the estab- 
lishments, they still flourish, others being speedily opened else- 
where to fill up the gap. 
From this general description of prostitutes, their habitations, 
and customs, we will proceed to a consideration of their condition 
as to health, and the extent and virulence of syphilis among them, 
still taking the pamphlet of Dr. Lippert for our guide. 
It is generally imagined that the excessive action of the gener- 
ative organs interferes with the power of procreation in common 
women. Dr. Lippert undertakes to controvert this opinion, with 
what success medical men whose professional experience has been 
among this class will be able to judge. He supports his views by 
general assertions rather than by specific facts, but refers, in cor- 
roboration, to well-known instances in which children have been 
born while the mothers were living in a state of open prostitu- 
tion, as also to those cases where women who have abandoned 
the habit of promiscuous intercourse confine themselves to one 
man by marriage or cohabitation, and then become mothers. He 
attributes their sterility during prostitution to their wild and ir- 
regular life, their constant exposure to weather, etc., and argues 
that the powers of conception are suspended, but not destroyed 
thereby. He also introduces the fact that abortions are frequent- 
ly produced in Hamburg by the common women themselves, or 
by some old crones who preside over their orgies, and are stated 
to have a long list of drugs applicable to this purpose, which they 
use in a reckless manner. The medical police are not unaware 
of these proceedings, but find them difficult to detect, as a woman 
will endeavor to avoid the stated examination by pleading excess- 
ive menstruation, or inventing some story she thinks likely to 
deceive, until all traces of the abortion are removed. The remarks 
of Dr. Lippert would lead to the belief that the excessive use of the 
female organs was more favorable to health than the disuse would 
be, a conclusion which most physicians will not be willing to ad- 
mit. He adds, “ Cancer of the womb occurred but once in my ex- 
perience of eleven years at the General Infirmary, and cases of 
prolapsus uteri are very rare.” 
A disease incident to common women, Colica scortorum (W ’a 214 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Colic), happens in Hamburg as elsewhere, but is attributed to ex- 
posure to the weather more than any other cause. It consists of 
pain in the womb, extending across the abdomen round to the 
loins, and sometimes including the whole region of the stomach. 
It is frequently accompanied with gastric derangement, sickness, 
or diarrhoea. 
The enlargement of the clitoris, so much insisted on by some 
writers, Lippert altogether doubts, except as a very exceptional 
case; nor does he admit any effect of prostitution on the rectum 
unless induced by unnatural intercourse. As a general result of 
his observations, he concludes that, “ apart from syphilitic affec- 
tions, the generative organs of a prostitute do not usually differ 
from those of a virtuous woman.” 
We find some returns of diseases not directly connected with 
prostitution; thus, cases of itch, which is now becoming rare, 
were in 
1836 62 
1837 76 
1838 87 
1839 98 
1844 38 
1845 22 
1846 36 
Of other general maladies, including fevers, inflammation of the 
lungs, liver, womb, etc., rheumatism, small-pox, piles, jaundice, 
gout, dropsy, and diarrhoea, the following are reported: 
1837 62 
1838 90 
1839 100 
1844 85 
1845 76 
1846 77 
Convulsions are more rare than in the female sex in general; 
of hysteria there is scarcely a trace, and a few cases of epilepsy 
are ascribed to the use of ardent spirits. 
Delirium tremens seldom occurs. The vigilance of the police, 
and the prompt committal to prison of every prostitute found 
drunk and disorderly, may account for this. The proportion of 
cases of delirium tremens was only about one in one thousand. 
Mania sometimes shows itself. Remorse may produce this, as 
may a violent affection for some particular man. 
Of the actual extent of venereal disease in Hamburg, or any 
other city, it is impossible to speak with certainty, but the fact 
that in the general hospital there it is of a very mild type is an 
argument in favor of medical inspection. Dr. Lippert says: 
“ The usual form is gonorrhoea, with its complications, bubo, inflammation 
of the scrotum, phymosis, paraphymosis, etc. Inflammation of the prostate HAMBURG 
215 
gland, and stricture, are comparatively rare. Disease of the rectum is very 
rare, but there are examples.” 
“We have excoriations and irritations of the sexual organs. The sim- 
ple chancre is common ; the indurated chancre not unfrequent; the phage- 
daenic chancre is seldom met with. In general, the sores have a mild char- 
acter, and heal easily with simple treatment and regular topical applications. 
Herpes preputialis is extremely general. This is a group of small pustules, 
quickly healing up, but as quickly breaking out again, often in regular pe- 
riodical recurrence. It is found especially on men who have suffered from 
gonorrhoea or chancre.” 
“ Secondary syphilis, ulcers of the neck, eruptions, syphilitic inflamma- 
tion of the eyes, tumors, etc. These prevail more at some times than at 
others; how far the genus epidemicum, the weather and season, the idiosyn- 
crasy of the person, or the intensity of the infection operate, we have yet to 
learn.” 
“ Tertiary syphilis is rare.” 
“In sea-ports it is often observable that the disease takes peculiar as- 
pects, and what may be called exotic forms are occasionally encountered. 
With sailors, syphilis is frequently latent or only partially cured, and is in- 
tensified by their habits and diet. Sexual intercourse with them will pro- 
duce it in an exaggerated character. This is not so much the case in Ham- 
burg, owing to the constant and prompt medical attention ; still, some dis- 
tinction is observable between the venereal maladies of the city women and 
those of the St. Paul Suburb. Among the latter the cases of a malignant 
type generally occur.” 
The negro sailor is held in very bad repute by these women, 
and some keepers will not allow him to enter their houses, believ- 
ing that infection from a colored man is of the worst kind, and al- 
most incurable. 
The medical returns for the year 1846 give the following tables 
relating to the women in the St.Paul Suburb: 
“In January there were 186 women, of whom 15 were sick; the dis- 
eases were 
Venereal disease .... 9 
Itch 1 
Colic 1 
Gastric fever 1 
Rheumatic fever .... 1 
Catarrh of lungs ... 1 
Calculus 1 
Total 15 
“ In May, of 189 women, 21 were sick : 
Venereal disease .... 9 
Itch 8 
Gastric fever 2 
Inflammation of lungs . . 1 
Spitting of blood .... 1 
Total 21 
“In August, of 181 women, It were sick 216 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Venereal disease . . . .13 | Itch. 1 
Colic 2 Rheumatism 1 
Total It 
“In December, of 161 women, 18 were sick; 
Venereal disease .... 6 Gastric fever 2 
Itch 6 Disorder of digestive organs 1 
Sprain 1 Cold on the chest.... 1 
Colic 1 Total 18 
This would give an average of about ten per cent, of the women of the sub- 
urb sick.” 
From the facts we have quoted, it is evident that the virulence 
of syphilitic affections among the registered women is unquestion- 
ably mitigated. “ Tertiary syphilis is rare;'1'1 secondary syphilis 
but occasional, while primary forms have lost their malignity. 
“There is a marked aggravation of the disease during the sum- 
mer months, when a considerable influx of strangers takes place. 
This was particularly observable after the great fire in 1842.” 
The mildness of the disease, and its easy control, can he ascribed to 
nothing but the weekly medical supervision. The women are visited 
at their own houses, and any reluctance or refusal renders them liable 
to punishment. 
Contrasted with this state of affairs, we have the severity of 
syphilis among unregistered women, who conceal their disease as 
long as they can. Of those arrested, many are found to be dis- 
eased in an aggravated form. In the year 1845, of 138 unregis- 
tered women sent to prison, 43 had syphilis, or nearly one third 
of the whole. Parent-Duchatelet says this proportion is exceeded 
by the same class in Paris, where the infected amount to one half 
the illicit prostitutes. 
The “Kurhaus” is a medical institution especially designed for 
bad characters who are arrested by the police, be they registered 
or unregistered. The General Infirmary has also a venereal ward. 
The police authorities contribute annually, from the amount raised 
by the impost on brothels and prostitutes, 5000 marks ($1500) to 
the funds of this infirmary. From the following facts this would 
seem an inadequate amount. In 1844 there were received and 
treated 580 females with syphilis; the total residence amounting 
to 30.387 days, or a pro rata average of 53|- days each, the stipend 
allowed for which service would be about four and a half cents per 
day. _ HAMBURG 
217 
The number of female cases of syphilis received into the same 
institution in 1843 was, 
Registered women 480 
Unregistered women 74 
Total 554 
and in 1845, 
Registered women 521 
Unregistered women 71 
Total 592 
The state of the male venereal patients proves the same general 
amelioration in the character of the disease. The cases, however, 
are worse than among the registered women, which must be as- 
cribed to the dislike of men to enter the hospital until such a 
course becomes unavoidable. The numbers received were, in 
1843 355 
1844 335 
1845 316 
Some returns are given by Dr. Lippert of the amount of sick- 
ness in the garrison; but he has not stated the number of sol- 
diers, so no comparison can be drawn from his information. The 
figures are as follows: 
1843, Gonorrhoea 90 
Chancre 67 
Secondary syphilis . 13—170 
1844, Gonorrhoea 58 
Ulcers 63—121 
1845, Gonorrhoea 89 
Ulcers 79—168 
The treatment of syphilis adopted in the Hamburg hospital 
was introduced by Dr, Fricke, one of the first to apply the non- 
mercurial system. Eicord’s practice is also followed, and Hy- 
dropathy has been tried. It would be out of place to enter into 
any arguments here as to the relative merits of these systems. 
The mortal diseases of the Hamburg prostitutes are incidental 
to their course of life. Exposure to the weather, alternate ex- 
tremes of want and luxury, night-watching and constant excite- 
ment, induce consumption, inflammation of the lungs, dropsy, in- 
ternal and abdominal complaints; gastric, rheumatic, or nervous 
fevers; and these, or chronic diseases resulting from renewed 
venereal infection, lead to the 218 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
That ends this strange, eventful history.” 
“ Last scene of all, 
Before dismissing this subject, we will give a sketch of the 
HAMBURG MAGDALEN HOSPITAL, 
This institution was founded in 1821 through the exertions of 
the Burgomaster Abendroth and others, and was constructed on 
the model of a similar asylum in London. The object is to re- 
claim women from vice by means that can be applied only in a 
place expressly dedicated to the purpose. 
The number of inmates is small; only twelve can be received. 
The business of the asylum is conducted by a committee, includ- 
ing two ministers, a physician, three female overseers, and a ma- 
tron, The overseers are respectable married women or widows, 
who voluntarily undertake the duties of a sub-committee. They 
assume the direction of the household affairs alternately for a 
month each. They meet frequently at the house, assist in Divine 
service, and take care of the girls who are discharged. These are 
provided with situations or placed in business, and require to be 
upheld and maintained in their new character. 
The chaplain assists the ladies’ committee in their duties, but 
directs his energies particularly to the religious instruction of the 
inmates. Frequent meetings for prayer are held, and every half 
year the sacrament is administered to such as he deems duly pre- 
pared to receive it, and who have a competent knowledge of its 
importance and efficacy. 
To be qualified for admission, the applicant must be young, and 
must have a desire to amend. The limited room will not allow 
the reception of old or worn-out women, who would flock there in 
crowds to obtain a shelter under which they could die in peace. 
When a woman’s application is granted, she must go through a 
novitiate of four or eight weeks. During this time she works 
and eats with the other inmates, but sleeps alone, and is closely 
watched by a member of the committee. When her novitiate ex- 
pires and she is fully received, she is requested to give an explicit 
account of her life, ever}" particular of which is recorded. Her 
name is not disclosed to her companions, but she, as are all the 
others, is known only by a Christian name. 
The women are employed in all kinds of housework, needle- 
work, or, when practicable, in any manner which will accustom PRUSSIA. 
219 
them to continued physical exertion. Their previous life having 
made indolence almost “ second nature,” this course is adopted to 
inculcate the necessity of industry. A strict account of the prod- 
uce of their labor is kept, and a portion is set apart as a fund for 
their benefit. 
The time of their stay is usually about two years. When they 
leave they give the chaplain a written promise of good conduct, 
and receive from him a Bible and a Prayer-book, and the sum of 
money accumulated for them. The results of this benevolent at- 
tempt are sufficient to encourage the laborers in the good work, 
and we can not but think that their endeavors must be productive 
of great good, based as they are upon the sound principle of re- 
ceiving but a few women, and treating them as members of one 
family, in opposition to the general theory of such institutions, 
whose managers attempt to crowd in as large a number as a large 
building will contain, and, in the endeavor to generalize rules for 
reformation, lose the valuable opportunities for noticing and acting 
upon individual traits of character. 
The particulars of the subsequent life of twenty women are 
given as follows: 
Continued faithful to their promises 6 
Removed from where they were placed 10 
Relapsed into vice, only 1 
Died 1 
Unknown . 2 
Total 20 
CHAPTER XYII. 
PRUSSIA. 
Patriarchal Government.—Ecclesiastical Legislation.—Trade Guilds.—Enactments 
in 1700.—Inquiry in 1717.—Enactment in 1792.—Police Order, 1795.—Census. 
—lncrease of illicit Prostitution.—Syphilis.—Census of 1808.—Ministerial Re- 
script and Police Report, 1809.—Tolerated Brothels closed.—Re-enactmcnt of the 
Code of 1792.—Ministerial Rescript of 1839.—Removal of Brothels.—Petitions. 
—Ministerial Reply.—Police Report, 1844.—Brothels closed by royal Command. 
—Police Embarrassment, and Correspondence with Halle and Cologne.—Local 
Opinions.—Public Life in Berlin.—Dancing Saloons.—Drinking Houses.—Im- 
morality.—lncrease of Syphilis.—Statistics.—lllegitimacy.—Royal Edict of 1851. 
—Recent Regulations. 
Among- the warlike Germans in the days of Herminius, sexual 
intercourse was looked upon as enervating to youth, and discred- 220 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
itable or even disgraceful to men until their valor had been proved 
by deeds of arms, and their experience authorized them to assume 
the duties of husbands and fathers. 
In the Middle Ages, when the legislative and executive func- 
tions were vested in one individual, and the rights and obligations 
of the governing power were of a paternal or patriarchal charac- 
ter, we find much of their law-giving directed to the preservation 
of morality, the repression of extravagance, and the minute regu- 
lation of public economy. In their edicts against prostitution 
this paternal spirit was visible, in conjunction with what may be 
considered a due regard to the rights and interests of the law-giv- 
ers, the punishments being professedly directed against a breach 
of morality or a public scandal, because it was a disgrace to fami- 
lies, and a peril to husbands and fathers, rather than a vice in it- 
self. The provisions tacitly sanctioned its existence; and while 
they severely punished any invasion of domestic peace or infrac- 
tion of marital rights, it seems to be conceded that, when no such 
relationships were involved, illicit intercourse was regarded as an 
allowable solace or an actual necessity for the physical require- 
ments of unmarried men. 
We learn from the German historian Fiducin (“Diplomatischen 
Beitrage zur Geschichie der Stadt Berlin”), that the German laws 
rendered it obligatory on every honorable man to espouse a vir- 
tuous maiden, and the term “ hurenhind” (illegitimate child) was 
the bitterest form of reproach. The early statutes were very se- 
vere in the punishment of immodest females, and some carried 
this principle so far as to require that a woman who led an un- 
chaste life in her father’s house should be burned at the stake. 
The ecclesiastical legislation moderated this severity, and crimes 
against morality became sins which were expiated by public pen- 
ance. The citizens of Berlin became convinced that the penances 
of the Church were not sufficiently potent to counteract the evil, 
the morals of the clergy themselves being frequently impeached, 
and secular government was suggested in place of ecclesiastical. 
This seemed especially necessary, because the canon law, which 
ordained the celibacy of the priesthood, pronounced it to be a 
work of mercy to marry an erring woman, in opposition to the 
Berlin sheriff law {schoffen rechi) declaring the children of such 
marriages illegitimate; and persons were not wanting who held 
the opinion that the work of mercy recommended by the Church 
was at times advocated by the clergy as a means of covering their 
own frailties. PRUSSIA. 
221 
The same writer records instances as late as the close of the six- 
teenth century in which adultery was punished by death, the of- 
fenders in each case being married persons. He also cites the 
records of the fourteenth century to show that the same punish- 
ment was inflicted on those who acted as procurers or procuresses, 
wherever family honor was encroached on. 
In the sixteenth century the law required that an immodest 
woman belonging to any reputable family should be publicly shorn 
of her hair, and condemned to wear a linen veil; nor was any dis- 
tinction made between unmarried women and widows against 
whom the offense was proved. 
About the same period the trade guilds enacted stringent laws 
prohibiting the admission of improper characters to their public 
festivals, and restraining their members from marrying women of 
that class. To attain this end, any master tradesman who design- 
ed to marry was compelled to introduce his intended bride at a 
meeting of the company, that all might be convinced of her dis- 
creet character and conduct, and any who married without ob- 
serving this requirement were expelled the association. The 
guilds inflicted the same penalties on any of their members who 
had intercourse with improper characters, or who seduced a vir- 
tuous woman and subsequently married her. 
A certain recognition of the existence of public women may be 
traced throughout these regulations, which appear to have admit- 
ted the necessity from regard to the rigorously enforced sanctity 
of the domestic circle, but, at the same time, endeavored to pre- 
vent the increase of immorality by attaching odium to its fol- 
lowers. 
Again, turning to the pages of Fiducin, we find that, “in all the 
great towns of the German Empire, the public protection of wom- 
en of pleasure {hist dirneri) seems to have been a regular thing,” 
in proof of which he says, “ Did a creditor, in taking proceedings 
against his debtor, find it necessary to put up at an inn, one of the 
allowed items of his expenditure was a reasonable sura for the 
company of a woman during his stay [frauen geld).1' This was a 
question of state etiquette in Berlin in 1410, a sum having been 
officially expended in that year to retain some handsome women 
to grace a public festival and banquet given to a distinguished 
guest, Diedrich Y. Quitzow, whose good-will the citizens desired 
to cultivate. 
During this period of toleration the expediency of controlling 222 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
public women was unquestioned; but the first Berlin enactment 
of material importance to this investigation bears date in 1700, 
and is remarkable as clearly enunciating the principles which have 
been adhered to, with only a short interval, ever since. The first 
section declares, “By law this traffic is decidedly not permitted 
(<erlaubt), but simply tolerated [geduldet) as a necessary evil.” 
Sections 2, 3, and 4 require the keeper of any house of prosti- 
tution to give notice to the commissary of the quarter when any 
of his women leave him, or when he receives a new one, and re- 
strain him from keeping more women than are specified in his 
contract. 
Sections 5 to 9 provide that a surgeon shall visit every woman 
once a fortnight, “ for the purpose of protecting the health of rev- 
elers (schwarmer), as well as that of the women themselvesthat 
every woman shall pay him two groschen for each visit; and that, 
upon observing the slightest signs of disease, the surgeon shall re- 
quire the housekeeper to detain the woman in her room. If the 
keeper neglect this order, he is made responsible for the entire 
costs of the illness which any visitor could prove was contracted 
from one of his women. If the surgeon finds the woman already 
so far infected that she can not be cured by cleanliness and retire- 
ment alone, he is authorized to order her removal to the Charity, 
“ where she will be taken care of in the pavilion free of charge.” 
Sections 10 and 11 provide that the debts of a woman must be 
paid before she can remove from one house of prostitution to an- 
other, or before she can leave one house to commence another on 
her own account. 
Section 12 enjoins that any woman who desires to quit her mode 
of life altogether shall be entirely discharged from any debts to 
the housekeeper. 
The last section requires every housekeeper who has music to 
pay six groschen a year for the permit to his musicians, the money 
to be applied to the benefit of the poor-house. 
The “ toleration but not authorization” clause is the noticeable 
feature in these regulations, and indicates the policy which was 
then generally adopted throughout the kingdom. 
In reference to the period succeeding the issue of these rules, 
which continued in force till 1792, we find some information in 
the pages of Fiducin. Thus, in 1717, an inquiry proved that the 
inmates of brothels, and also the secret prostitutes, were mostly 
the children of soldiers, who “had been brought to vice as a trade, PRUSSIA. 
223 
either from the want of a proper bringing up or of a skillful handi- 
craft.” . ... All measures for the extermination of the evil having 
been found ineffectual, “ they were obliged to adopt the system of 
a larger toleration of common brothels, to be strictly watched over 
by the police, as a necessary outlet for the tendency to immoral- 
ity.” The number of houses of ill fame increased in proportion 
to the population, the influx of strangers, and the additions to the 
garrison made under Frederick II.; and still more so after the close 
of the seven years’ war. In the year 1780, there were one hund- 
red such houses in Berlin, each containing eight or nine women. 
They were divided into three classes; the lowest were those in 
which the women dressed in plain clothes, and were frequented 
mostly by Hamburg or Amsterdam mariners; the second class of 
women paraded themselves with painted faces, haunted the more 
retired corners of the town, had little attractive about their per- 
sons or dress, and were principally visited by mechanics and la- 
borers ; the third, and apparently the most select of the kind, was 
a description of coffee-house, frequented by females, who were des- 
ignated “ Mamsellesthese did not live in the houses, but used 
them merely as a convenient rendezvous. 
In 1792 a new code of regulations appeared, the bulk of which 
continued in force in Berlin and other towns for many years. 
The rules of 1700 were too vague, made no provision for a variety 
of cases likely to arise, and were silent as to the question of pri- 
vate prostitution. Many inconveniences had arisen from these 
omissions, and, in consequence, a memorial was addressed to the 
government by the police director, Von Eisenhardt, containing 
suggestions for amendments to the law. 
The preamble of the royal reply to this application acknowl- 
edges the attention of the police to the matter with much satisfac- 
tion ; admits prostitution (hurenanstalten) to be “ a necessary evil 
in a great city where many men are not in a position to marry, 
although of an age when the sexual instincts are at the highest, 
in order thereby to avoid greater disorders which are not to be 
restrained by any law or authority, and which take their rise from 
an inextinguishable natural impulse;” but expressly reiterates 
that it is “ only to be tolerated izu dulderi);” and that it can not, 
“ without impropriety and consequences injurious to morality, be 
established by the public laws, which do not contain any sanction 
whatever to common prostitution.” 
The sections following this preamble provide that any one who 224 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
seduces a woman, or induces her to cany on a venal traffic with 
her person, shall be liable to one year’s imprisonment in the House 
of Correction, and on repetition of the offense, besides doubling 
the punishment, shall be whipped and driven from the country; 
declare any man or woman who communicates the venereal dis- 
ease liable for the expenses of the cure and incidental damages 
(sonstigen interesse), together with imprisonment for three months, 
commutable by paying a fine of one hundred dollars; prohibit 
taking young women from the country into houses of prostitution 
by any device against their will, and authorize the punishment of 
any man who willfully infects a common woman. 
In reference to the special directions touching brothels and 
prostitutes, the document provides, “as a leading point, that 
every thing which exceeds the mere gratification of the natural 
passions, and tends to the advancement of debauchery, or the 
misuse of our toleration of a necessary evil, must be prevented 
and accordingly the women are prohibited from increasing their 
attractions “by painting or distinguishing attire,” and also from 
soliciting passengers in the public streets, or at the doors or win- 
dows of their houses, “ as this is not only in contravention to pub- 
lic morals, but especially perilous to male youth; and such means 
of increasing the gains of people seeking their livelihood in this 
manner is not to be tolerated.” For similar reasons, the keepers 
of houses were restrained from offering wines or other strong 
drinks to their visitors, although it is admitted “they can not 
be prevented from providing refreshments,” yet stimulants are 
forbidden, “because they are great inducements to debauchery, 
whereby other excesses may be caused.” 
The orders farther provide that no woman shall become a resi- 
dent in a house of prostitution without previously appearing before 
the police, and obtaining permission from them; and the police 
are directed not to allow this permission to any female under age, 
unless they are satisfied that she has previously made a trade of 
prostitution. The section containing this stipulation is prefaced 
by a statement that “ keepers of these houses seek especially to 
obtain blooming young girls, who can not be procured without 
infamous seduction, calculated to lead to debauchery.” 
In reference to precautions against infection, it provides that 
the prostitutes and keepers of houses shall be instructed by some 
competent surgeon in the signs of venereal diseases, so that they 
may detect it in their visitors or themselves; also that any man PRUSSIA. 
225 
communicating infection to a prostitute may be sentenced to make 
ample compensation if the woman can identify him; and farther, 
that the punishment inflicted upon girls infecting their visitors 
shall also be inflicted on the housekeepers, “ as, although they may 
be innocent, their being included in the punishment for an inci- 
dent of their trade is for the general weal.” All fines received 
were to accrue to the medical institutions provided for the cure of 
syphilis. 
Again, it was deemed that “the venereal disease was much ex- 
tended by common street-walkers,” and no women but such as 
resided in the known houses, where medical visits of inspection 
were constantly paid, were to be tolerated, and the night-watch 
were instructed to arrest those common women who were in the 
habit of plying their trade in the streets after dark—a portion of 
the penalty exacted being awarded to the officers who made such 
arrests, “to encourage their zeal.” But they were strictly cau- 
tioned against annoying innocent persons, “ inasmuch as blunders 
in such matters create ill impressions against the authorities, and 
because the honor and happiness of the person might be irretriev- 
ably injured, so that it would be better to pass over a guilty per- 
son here and there, than to inculpate a single innocent one.” 
The royal rescript concludes by directing that a strict surveillance 
be kept over the females of the garrison, many of whom are stated, 
in very plain language, to be of improper character. 
These directions were subsequently embodied in the general 
statute, or law of the land (landrecht), and upon that the police 
regulations which we quote hereafter were based. 
The statute formally declares procurers and procuresses liable 
to imprisonment for from six months to three years in the House 
of Correction, with “ a welcome and farewell;” Anglice, a sound 
whipping when admitted, and another when discharged. In the 
cases of parents or guardians who may aid in or connive at the 
prostitution of their children or wards, the term of imprisonment 
is doubled, and made more severe. It requires all common women 
to reside in the tolerated houses “ under the eye of the state,” which 
houses are only to be permitted in populous cities, and “ not else- 
where than in retired and back streets therein, the consent of the 
police authorities having been first obtained.” And in any case 
where a house of prostitution was established without this consent, 
or in defiance of the public orders, the keeper was to be liable to 
one or two years’ imprisonment. The police are strictly command- 226 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Ed to keep all tolerated houses under strict and constant surveil- 
lance ; to make frequent visits in company with medical men, so 
as to check the progress of venereal disease; to prevent the sale 
of intoxicating liquors therein; to see that no woman was intro- 
duced without the knowledge and permission of the authorities, 
under a fine of fifty thalers, for each offense ; and, more especially,' 
that no innocent female was, by force or deceit, compelled or in- 
duced to live therein ; which latter offense imposes “ a public ex- 
hibition,” in the stocks or pillory, we presume, and from six to 
ten years’ imprisonment, with “ welcome and farewell,” on the 
keeper, who was not to be allowed to keep such a house again 
under any circumstances. 
The police are farther enjoined to see that the mistress of the 
house informs the authorities of the pregnancy of any woman re- 
siding in the house as soon as she is aware of it herself, but if it 
is concealed she (the mistress) is liable to imprisonment, especially 
if a secret birth takes place. The mistress is required to take 
charge of any woman who becomes pregnant, if there is no public 
institution to which she can be removed, and is at liberty to seek 
compensation from the father of the child, or, if he can not be 
found, she has a claim upon the mother. The child must be re- 
moved from the house as soon as it is weaned, and is to be cared 
for at the public cost if the parents have not means to do so. 
If the keeper of the house, or the inmates themselves, conceal 
any venereal infection from the knowledge of the police, they ren- 
der themselves liable to imprisonment from three months to a 
year, with “ welcome and farewell.” 
If thefts, assaults, or other offenses occur in such houses, the 
keeper is, in all cases, liable to the injured party, who can not in 
any other way obtain his indemnity, and is also suspected of 
complicity in the offense so long as the contrary can not be sub- 
stantiated ; and if it is proved that he did not exert all his power 
to prevent such occurrences, his neglect is to be punished by fine 
or imprisonment. 
No woman desirous of leaving a tolerated house to change her 
mode of life, and support herself honestly, can be retained against 
her inclination, and no difficulties may be thrown in the way of 
her doing so; nor will the master be allowed to force her to re- 
main, even though she may be in his debt, under the penalty of 
the loss of his permission from the police. 
Prostitutes who do not conform to the regulations and place PRUSSIA. 
227 
themselves under supervision, are to be arrested and imprisoned 
for three months, and, when their term of imprisonment has ex- 
pired, are to be sent to*the “work-houses,” and detained there un- 
til they have inclination and opportunity for honorable employ- 
ment. Any females, not being inmates of the tolerated houses, 
who had intercourse while suffering from disease, and thereby in- 
fected men, are declared liable to an imprisonment for three 
months. 
This comprehensive legal enactment left many matters of detail 
to the discretion of the police, and accordingly they issued their 
rules. The opposition these subsequently encountered makes 
them important in the history of Prostitution in Berlin, and al- 
though they are in many points a mere repetition of the terms of 
the statute, we give them in extenso. They are entitled, 
“provisions against the misleading of young women into brothels, 
AND FOR PREVENTION OF THE SPREAD OF VENEREAL DISEASE. 
“ Preamble. It has been brought to notice that simple young girls, 
especially from the smaller towns, under the craftiest pretensions to place 
them in good situations, have been brought to Berlin, and, without their 
knowledge of the fact, taken to brothels, and therein, against their will, led 
astray to their ruin, and to the life of a common prostitute. 
“ At the same time, it is matter of remark that common prostitutes, after 
they have been diseased, continue their practices as long as the state of 
their sickness permits, and thereby farther infection is extraordinarily in- 
creased and extended. 
“ With the express view of meeting such infamous seductions, and the 
highly injurious results of the before-mentioned communication of venereal 
disease, the following directions are brought to the cognizance and perfect 
information of the keepers of houses of prostitution, and of the females who 
make a trade of their persons. 
“1. No one can set on foot a brothel, or keep women for the purposes of 
prostitution, without having communicated previously with the Police Di- 
rectory on the subject, and obtained their permission in writing. Whoso 
acts contrary to this shall, together with absolute withdrawal of his license, 
be liable to one or two years in the House of Correction. 
“ 2. Every brothel-keeper must, before taking a girl into his service, 
produce her before the Police Directory, and must not conclude any con- 
tract with her until the Police Director has given him written leave to do 
so; whereupon, forthwith the conditions upon which the keeper and said 
woman have agreed are to be registered with the police, and an abstract 
thereof shall be given to each party, for which eight groschen are to be paid 228 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
as fees. The before-mentioned brothel-keepers, to whom the Police Direct- 
or’s toleration is extended, must, at his order, produce the common prosti- 
tutes, and submit the same to a similar license, and the conditions must be 
drawn up for them in the before-mentioned manner. If a keeper omits the 
same, and is accused of having any woman for common use in his house for 
forty-eight hours without such notice, he shall pay a fine of fifty thalers, and, 
upon the third offense, in addition to the said fine, his trade shall be stopped, 
and he shall not carry on the same any more. Further, it shall be no ex- 
cuse that the person in question was not there for the purpose of prostitution, 
inasmuch as he is enjoined to point out every female whom he receives into 
his house, without exception, and neglect of this shall be taken as a proof 
of contravention. Under penalty of the same punishment, he must give a 
similar notice if a common woman comes to him from another house. 
“3. Females under age, who have not, before the publication of these 
ordinances, notoriously abandoned themselves to common prostitution, are 
not to be received by any brothel-keeper, and when he produces such per- 
sons before the Police Directory the permit shall not be allowed. If he 
acts contrary to this prohibition, he shall be punished with two years’ labor 
in jail. 
“4. The departure from a brothel of any woman who desires to change 
her mode of life, and to subsist in a respectable manner, is not to be check- 
ed or prevented. Even on account of sureties entered into or debts incur- 
red, the keeper is not to retain any such against her will, at the risk of los- 
ing his permit, and the police are charged to give every assistance. If, 
however, any such person desire only to remove to another house of prosti- 
tution, this can not be done without the consent of her former keeper, until 
after three months’ notice given, when it will be permitted upon proof of 
brutal treatment by the keeper, or other good and reasonable grounds shown 
to the police. No woman who seeks to quit a brothel for the purpose of 
carrying on prostitution for pay on her own account will be permitted to do 
so ; and if any person, having, on pretense of an honest calling, quitted a 
house of prostitution, shall be adjudged guilty of prostitution on her own 
account, she shall have four weeks at the House of Correction, with a wel- 
come and farewell. And whereas it is known that many brothel-keepers, 
who treat their girls with an unbearable harshness, keep so strict a watch 
upon them that they can not succeed in bringing their complaints before 
the authorities, information shall from time to time, ex-officio, and without 
the presence of the keeper, be taken, whether the girls have any well-found- 
ed complaints to bring forward against the said keeper. 
“ 5. The common prostitutes in the brothels are strictly prohibited from 
enticing or inviting passengers in the streets, with looks or signs from the 
houses or windows, and the keepers are on no account to permit the same. 
Diligent regard to this is to be had by the police, and those who act con- PRUSSIA. 
229 
trary will be punished, the first time with three days, and, on a repetition 
of the offense, with a week’s solitary confinement, one half of the time on 
bread and water. The keeper who is shown to have been party to the 
same will suffer double punishment. 
“ 6. In these houses the keepers shall not supply visitors with wine, 
brandy, liquor, punch, or other strong drinks, or with food, but only with 
tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, or similar beverages ; further, it is not permitted 
for the visitors to bring in drink or food. For every case of contravention 
the keeper shall pay five thalers, or a week’s detention; on repetition, he 
shall be punished more severely; if this will not suffice, the permit shall 
be withdrawn from the house. No brothel-keeper shall allow any guest to 
remain after twelve o’clock at night, nor allow any one to enter after that 
hour. Whoso acts contrary shall, for the first offense, pay ten thalers ;on 
repetition, the fine is doubled; for the third time, the keeper shall lose his 
permit. 
“ T. Should thefts, assaults, or other offenses take place in such houses, 
the keeper is in all cases liable to the injured party if he can not get his 
redress elsewhere. Further, the said keeper is suspected of complicity in 
the offense so long as the contrary is not proved, and if it appear that he 
did not use all possible means for the prevention of such offense, he shall be 
punished by fine or in person. 
“8. In case any innocent female shall, by fraud or violence, be brought 
into any brothel, the keeper and those who are accomplices in such infamous 
offense shall undergo public exhibition, and four to ten years’ House of Cor- 
rection, with welcome and farewell. Besides this, the permit will be with- 
drawn. It shall be no excuse for him to allege that he neither knew nor 
assisted the said seduction, inasmuch as he had no right to receive any fe- 
male into his house without first giving notice thereof to the Police Direc- 
tory, and receiving from them, after inquiry into the circumstances, per- 
mission to do so. 
“ 9. In like manner, a brothel-keeper may not, under penalty of twelve 
months’ imprisonment, give any one (whatever his rank may be) facility to 
carry on criminal intercourse with any woman who has been brought into 
his house ; and it is absolutely forbidden for any person to bring a female to 
such house, and there to have any private communication with her, which 
shall be only with the regular women of the place, inasmuch as by section 2 
no keeper is permitted to receive any woman as servant-maid, or under any 
pretense whatever, among his inmates, without previous notice to the police, 
and their assent to the same. 
“10. In order to combat the frequent infection of common prostitutes, 
and, if possible, prevent them from severe attacks of venereal disease, or its 
farther extension, and at the same time not only to restrain the rapid prog- 
ress of this highly pernicious malady, but, so far as possible, entirely to 230 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
root it out, the brothel-keepers and the women kept by them are bound to 
give their most observant attention thereto, both for their own advantage, 
and also for the diminution of their own misfortunes and severe punishment. 
To this end, the brothel-keepers are not to oppose the appointed surgeons 
in each quarter, so often as the same make their visits to the women at their 
houses; and every woman shall be subject to these visits. For the informa- 
tion of every brothel-keeper, and of the prostitutes kept by him, a copy of 
printed directions, prepared by competent authority, shall be given to the 
brothel-keeper, whereby the signs of actual infection and of the commence- 
ment of venereal disease may be known, and they shall be clearly instructed 
by the duly appointed surgeon how to form an opinion upon their own state 
of health, and be able to explain the same on his visits, so that thereby the 
detection of venereal disease at any time may be facilitated. Furthermore, 
upon perceiving the symptoms whereby venereal disease is known in a man, 
they should abstain from carnal intercourse with him. 
“11. Should a woman suspect that she is infected, she must permit no 
one to have connection with her, but shall mention the same as well to her 
keeper as to the surgeon of the district, upon which steps shall forthwith be 
taken for her cure. If she neglect this she shall be punished with detention, 
three months for the first time, on repetition of the offense with six months 
in the House of Correction, with welcome and farewell. If the said woman, 
through concealment of her venereal malady, has given occasion to a wider 
spread thereof, she shall the first time be liable to twelve months in the 
House of Correction, with welcome and farewell. In case the brothel-keeper 
shall know of the diseased condition of such woman, and shall not hinder her 
from the exercise of her trade, or shall keep her therein, he shall be liable to 
the same punishment, and, moreover, shall be liable to the costs and charges 
of cure and attendance of the man so infected by such woman, if he requires 
it, or if he can not pay such expenses. For this reimbursement a brothel- 
keeper shall be held liable even if he did not know the diseased condition of 
a woman kept in his house, inasmuch as such obligation shall, for the public 
weal, be taken to be a risk and burden incident to the trade permitted to be 
carried on by him. 
“ 12. On the other hand, a prostitute can prosecute any one for having 
infected her by means of connection, and such person shall, upon the com- 
plaint and showing of her and the brothel-keeper, bear the expense of cure 
and maintenance for so a long time as, pursuant to the orders of the author- 
ities of the Charite', the woman may have to remain in the Charite; and 
further, shall be liable to a fine of fifty thalers, or three months’ imprison- 
ment in the House of Correction.” 
“ 13. If any woman, before declaring her venereal disease, shall have 
concealed it so long that, by opinion of competent persons, she must have 
known the same for a considerable length of time, she shall, whether she PRUSSIA. 
shall or shall not have infected other persons, be liable to the same punish- 
ment as if she had infected others. 
“14. Whereas, it has been the practice for the women to conceal their 
venereal diseases ; and whereas, they have intrusted themselves to incom- 
p'etent persons for cure ; and whereas, the brothel-keepers are bound to 
refund to the Charitg the expenses of the cure and attendance, which 
sometimes fall ruinously heavy upon them : it is hereby directed, for the 
removal of this difficulty, that a healing fund (heilings casse) shall be estab- 
lished, by means whereof the keepers and their women, on the occur- 
rence of disease, may be relieved of the heavy expenses to which they 
are put, and may be assured against the destruction of their bodies and 
health, which ensue from the growth of this terrible disease. To this 
fund every brothel-keeper shall contribute a monthly sum of six groschen 
(twelve cents) for each woman that he keeps, and shall give in a statement 
of the name and place of birth of such woman ; for which, at the com- 
mencement of the following month, he shall receive an acknowledgment, 
and he shall recover such sum from every woman on whose account he 
shall have paid the same. Nevertheless, any brothel-keeper who shall 
have allowed more than one of these monthly payments to run into arrear 
with the women, shall not, on that account, be able to prevent her leav- 
ing him, if, as before ordered, she desires to change her way of life. If 
a woman goes from one brothel to another without the six groschen having 
been paid for her, the brothel-keeper to whom she goes must pay this 
amount in due time for her. This shall happen notwithstanding that she 
is bound to give notice of her removal to the police commissary of the 
quarter. The monthly payment of this tax is to be made to the duly ap- 
pointed medical officer of the quarter, who shall pay over the whole 
amount of the same to the collector of the healing fund, who shall give 
him for the same a receipt under his own hand ; whereupon the comp- 
troller shall compare the list of the same with the list of the brothel- 
keepers and women in the several districts, and shall compel defaulters 
to pay the outstanding tax. 
“ 15. A perfect account is to be kept of this healing fund, and out 
of the same every diseased woman shall be taken to the Charity, and, 
without farther charges to herself or keeper, shall be maintained and 
thoroughly cured without being sent, as formerly directed, to the work- 
house. Farther, the woman shall not intrust herself either to the visiting 
surgeon or to any other person for cure, but such shall take place only in 
the Charitg. 
“16. No brothel shall be tolerated in the respectably inhabited and fre- 
quented streets and squares of the city, but they shall be established at a 
moderate distance from the same, so that the police can watch them and 
speedily correct any disorder ; otherwise only in the smaller streets and 
thoroughfares. 
“ 17, The matters that are ordered and prescribed in the foregoing arti- 232 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
cles to the brothel-keepers, are also to be observed by female brothel-keep- 
ers under like penalties. 
“18. Single women living by themselves for purposes of prostitution 
must give in their notices to the Police Directory in the same manner as the 
women in the brothels; must also undergo examination by the medical offi- 
cers of the quarter in which they reside; must pay their six groschen a 
month to the healing fund, and be subject to all the directions applicable to 
brothel-keepers and their hired women, and to the like punishments in case 
of offending against the directions. 
“19. Procurers and procuresses, who make it their business to provide 
opportunities in their houses for criminal intercourse of men and women 
(whatever their condition), shall be strictly watched, and, upon conviction, 
shall be liable to three months’ detention in the House of Correction. 
“ 20. The street-walkers roaming the streets after dark are not to be 
tolerated, but where they can be met with are to be taken into custody, 
and after being cured, if they are affected with venereal disease, shall be 
sent from six to twelve months to the House of Correction. 
“21. Whoever can not pay the fines shall receive a corresponding cor- 
poral {am leibe) punishment. 
“ 22. Informers shall receive half the fines paid in, and the remaining 
fines shall be collected and distributed as the reward of those who make dis- 
covery and information of any contraventions of these regulations. 
“ 23. In those cases mentioned in section 3, wherein, together with a 
breach of these regulations, a crime against the laws of the state is com- 
mitted, the criminal department of the High Court will take cognizance of 
it, and the remedies proceed from them to the criminal deputation of the 
Chamber of Justice. 
“ 24. In order that no one who, whether as keeper or girl, makes a trade 
of prostitution, shall be in a position to excuse themselves on account of their 
ignorance of this code of regulations, a copy of them shall be given to every 
person at the time of registration, for which six groschen shall be paid, and 
carried to the reward fund for informers.” 
The royal rescript, the statute, and the police ordinance of 
1792 are founded upon the principle that prostitution is a neces- 
sary evil, which, if unregulated, tends to demoralize all society, 
and inflict physical suffering on its votaries; but, as it can never 
be suppressed, it is tolerated in order that those who practice it 
may be brought under supervision and control. In furtherance 
of this idea, another police order was promulgated in 1795, pro- 
hibiting music and dancing at the tolerated houses, and limiting 
the resort of prostitutes to public places of amusement. The im- 
mediate effect of this measure was to close several coffee-houses PRUSSIA. 
233 
served by women {madchen tahagieeri). At the same time, the 
women were classified into first, second, and third classes, and 
the monthly tax graduated to one thaler (sixty-eight cents), two 
thirds of a thaler, and one third of a thaler, which was appro- 
priated to the healing fund, as directed by the regulations of 1792. 
This impost was doubled at a subsequent period in consequence 
of public calamities. 
To enforce the police directions and collect the tax, a census of 
the public prostitutes in Berlin was taken in June, 1792, when 
they amounted to 311. The toleration was withdrawn from some 
of these for various reasons, and the numbers were, in 
July 269 
August 268 
September 249 
October (a period of fairs and other assemblages) . . 258 
And the average finally settled at about . . . . 260 
in a population of 150,000. 
In the exercise of the discretionary power vested in the police 
of Berlin, as in most other cities of Continental Europe, they found 
it necessary to extend their toleration so as to include in their su- 
pervision those private prostitutes who could not be permitted to 
reside in the tolerated houses because they had not reached the 
age prescribed by law, which in Prussia fixes majority at twenty- 
four years; and also another class who were secretly visited at 
private lodgings by those wealthy libertines whose pride would 
not allow them to enter a common brothel, and whose amours 
consequently exposed them to liabilities which the spirit of the 
law justified the police in encountering. The persons (mostly 
widows) with whom the private prostitutes resided were made 
answerable to the police, and subjected to the same rules as the 
tolerated houses. 
Under the new scale of impost there were, in 1796, 
6 brothels of the Ist class, with inmates .... 16 
8 “ “ 2d “ “ .... 33 
40 “ « 3d « « .... 141 
l9O 
Private prostitutes of the Ist class 39 
“ « « 2d “ 28 
67 
Total 257 
About this period, an epoch of general political movement, men 
of the highest rank in Prussia began to doubt the propriety of tol- 234 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
crating prostitution, and orders were given, in opposition to the re- 
monstrances of the police, to take measures which would effectually 
compel brothel-keepers to close their houses. This appears to have 
been the first positive attempt at absolute repression, and the po- 
lice intimated that illicit prostitution would be its inevitable result. 
In reply, they were directed that, if their prediction should be veri- 
fied, they must pursue the vice more closely. In 1800 the number 
of registered women had decreased to 246, hut it was notorious that 
illicit prostitution had increased largely. This fact was not denied by 
the police. They ascribed it, very justly, to the restrictions im- 
posed on the tolerated houses, which were now actually less than 
ever, at a time when the resident population of Berlin was twenty 
thousand more than at the last computation, exclusive of a large 
influx of troops and foreigners. They were not supported in their 
views, but were ordered, on the ground of extensive disease among 
the soldiery, to “ crush out” the illicit prostitution, and this order 
they vainly endeavored to accomplish. An inquiry into the com- 
parative state of the venereal disease was directed at the same 
time, and the state physician reported that there was less disease 
among registered than illicit prostitutes, and inferred that a diminution 
of tolerated, hut strictly guarded regular brothels, was not for the pub- 
lic benefit. 
The year 1808, when the French army overran Europe, was a 
period of general war and trouble; the police regulations fell into 
abeyance, and prostitution became comparatively free and uncon- 
trolled. The French military commanders in Berlin made com- 
plaints to the police of the lawless state of the town, particularly 
specifying some of the brothels, which had become nests of gam- 
blers, wherein robbery, duels, suicides, and other offenses were of 
frequent occurrence. The results of an inspection were as follows: 
50 brothels containing women 280 
Private prostitutes 203—433 
In addition to this, there were of notorious illicit prostitutes known 
to the police (60 of whom were stated to have disease in its worst 
forms) 
400 
And also reasonably suspected of prostitution 61 
Making an aggregate known to the authorities of ... . 900 
There were also seventy dance-houses, which were known as 
places of accommodation. The population at this time was about 
150,000. The figures thus given, from an official enumeration, 
are the best practical commentary upon the effects of the aban- 
donment of a tried system of surveillance. PRUSSIA. 
235 
The state of affairs disclosed by this inquiry called forth a min- 
isterial rescript, dated May 8, 1809, which we copy : 
“ The brothel-houses are, by reason of the great influence they have on 
morality and health, a very important branch of police administration. 
We should desire to be satisfied tchether it is more desirable to suppress or 
tolerate them. In any case, it is, however, improper and injurious to license 
them, and thus to give them a certain sanction ; still less can they be toler- 
ated in public neighborhoods of a city. It is rather to be desired that, upon 
every convenient and properly occurring opportunity, they should be stamp- 
ed with the well-merited brand of the deepest depravity and infamy. We 
have therefore commanded the Police Directory to effect the removal of all 
such houses into quiet, retired streets of the suburbs and liberties, and we 
direct you to take into consideration whether a like regulation can not be 
accomplished here in the city of Berlin ; whereupon you will make to us 
a well-considered report. You are also to take into consideration what can 
be done to brand such places with the deepest depravity and infamy.” 
In obedience to this order, which had doubtless emanated direct 
from royalty itself, Herr Yon Gruner, the head of the Berlin po- 
lice, communicated a report containing his conclusions, as follows: 
“1. That closing, or even limiting the brothels, would lead to very gen- 
eral ill health.” 
“ 2. That, in consequence of the exertions of the police, illicit prostitu- 
tion had been diminished very much, and even the number of the registered 
women had decreased.” 
“ 3. That in 1809 there were in Berlin 
1 first class brothel containing women 6 
20 second “ “ “ “ 75 
22 third “ “ « « 117—198 
Private prostitutes 113 
Total registered 311 
That this number might seem larger than before, but the passage of troops 
and the large garrison of Berlin had led to the increase, and evidently a 
great increase of secret prostitution and its results would have been experi- 
enced in place of the registered prostitution, had not an extension of this 
same registered prostitution been tolerated.” 
“4. That particular streets in which brothels were to be found were cer- 
tainly no longer suitable places on account of the greater traffic which they 
had gained, and these houses might, on that account, be removed to back 
streets, including the Konigsmauer, etc.” 
“ 5. That he did not know in what manner ‘ the brand of depravity and 236 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
infamy’ could be impressed on the trade of prostitution, except by directing 
a particular costume, differing from the clothing of respectable women,” 
In continuation of this report, the commissary states his opinion “ that 
it would be dangerous to public order to keep the common houses in narrow 
limits, as it would bring together all the idle people, which might lead to a 
disturbance; that a special costume for the women would be of no use at 
home, and out of doors it would only give occasion for a public scandal 
without effecting the purpose of their reform ; that, lastly, he objects to the 
toleration of private prostitutes, as there is no good result from their regis- 
tration except their health, and the general regulation in that and other 
matters is much better secured in the brothels.” 
Among the official correspondence on this matter we find another 
document worthy of notice. It is a report by a sub-inspector to the 
superior police authorities, dated January 16, 1810. 
“ There are forty-four such houses of prostitution, and, compared with the 
population of Berlin, 180,000, that is not many. They are divided into 
three classes, and, together with the prostitutes living on their own account, 
are controlled in conformity with the regulations of February 2d, 1792. In 
compliance with such rules, they pay the taxes to the healing fund. 
“ Past negligent mismanagement has unfortunately permitted several 
brothels in much-frequented streets. Their removal to more retired places 
I find highly desirable. It is urgent that no more private women of the 
town should be tolerated, but rather that they should, if they can not return 
to good conduct, be sent into the brothel-houses, or, where they are not na- 
tives of Berlin, be sent out of the city forthwith, or otherwise be sent to the 
House of Industry. These women, living alone, are very perilous to morality 
and health, inasmuch as they can not be so perfectly controlled as in the 
brothels in modesty of deportment, cleanliness, and retirement; also because 
they are able tc withhold themselves from medical inspection, and to carry 
on their trade when they know themselves to be suffering from venereal 
diseases. The lists of the prostitutes under treatment at the Charite demon- 
strate this. The opinion that this living alone favors a return to virtue is 
not supported by experience; were it even so, the disadvantages enumerated 
are more important than so rare and problematical a benefit. 
“ The question, ‘ whether the toleration of brothels in large cities, and 
their regulation by the police, so that infected females should not be permit- 
ted therein, is advisable, in order to counteract the seduction of respectable 
females? can not be categorically answered in the affirmative. Still, in 
Berlin, it seems that brothels, if not a necessary evil, can not be momentarily 
abolished, but such steps must be devised as will gradually remove the evil, 
and make the disgrace generally noticeable. To this end, the above proposi- 
tions, touching private prostitutes and removal of brothels from public streets, 
will be carried into effect. Express limitations of the brothels to two or PRUSSIA. 
three streets would give occasion to gatherings on holidays that might lead 
to riots and other excesses. 
“ A special external designation of prostitutes would only lead to uproar, 
without causing the women to feel the odium of their calling more than at 
present.” 
The remainder of this report is unimportant. In October, 1810, 
a public order was made for effectuating its recommendations. 
After this event the king became impressed with an idea of the 
impolicy and impropriety of the “toleration” system, and a lengthy 
correspondence ensued between the various departments and state 
officials on the subject; the royal rescripts enunciating the oft-re- 
peated opinions on the subject in general, objecting to the details 
of the police management, or directing reports on some particular 
incident of the system; the police authorities, fortified by experi- 
ence as opposed to theory, adhering to the toleration practice, and 
demanding increased powers to restrain private prostitution, and 
compel all such persons to enter the public houses. The matter 
was brought to a close in 1814 by an order from the crown for a 
total closing of the tolerated brothels. The police president, Lecoq, 
thought it advisable to communicate with the authorities of the 
town of Breslau before he complied with this order, requesting 
some information as to the state of public morals there, it being 
stated that there was not a single brothel or registered prostitute 
to be found within its limits. 
The reply from the Breslau officials was in the affirmative as to 
the fact. As to the results, they had consulted with the state 
physician and the hospital physician, and their opinion was that 
closing the brothels and withdrawal of toleration had not been 
advantageous, as, in spite of the police vigilance, illicit prostitu- 
tion had increased since, and procuresses carried on their arts more 
extensively, their operations being altogether secret, and under no 
police control; that the venereal disease had not decreased; that noth- 
ing counteracted it so effectually as the medical inspection of known 
brothels; and that its secret spread had been so great as to extend its 
ravages, through the instrumentality of female servants, into respectable 
families; that the hospital returns proved but little, because the 
cases were suffered to run on or were privately cured, but these 
returns were given as follows: 238 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION, 
Y . Venereal cases in Illegitimate births 
*ca 1 Breslau Hospital. in Breslau. 
1805 155 
1806 202 
1807 323 
1808 233 
1809 150 
v Venereal caaea in Illegitimate births 
‘ I roalau Hoapital. in Breslau. 
1810 118 382 
1811 98 316 
1812 139 282 
1813 159 222 
The years 1806 and 1807 were those of the French invasion. In 
1812 the brothels in Breslau were closed. 
The general peace of 1814 diverted the energies of crowned 
heads and leading statesmen from matters of internal policy, and 
the police of Berlin were left at liberty to pursue their old plans. 
Then the inhabitants began to object to brothels, and to petition 
against those in their immediate neighborhood. This drew from 
the police an argumentative document, in which they fully re- 
viewed the question, but refused the prayer of the petition. 
The change of localities, alterations in the law, and other cir- 
cumstances, made a re-enactment of the code of 1792 desirable, 
and this took place in 1829. The alterations are chiefly in minor 
details of no general interest, but the law against frequenting 
places of public amusement was made part of this police order, 
which declared that the presence of prostitutes at houses of public 
entertainment was strictly forbidden. The most material change 
consisted in some very minute directions for guarding against 
venereal disease. To this end, every brothel-keeper was required 
to furnish each woman in his house with a proper syringe, which 
she was directed to use frequently, under the orders of the medical 
visitors. The private prostitutes were directed to observe similar 
precautions, and in place of a fixed weekly inspection by a med- 
ical officer, he was ordered to make his visits at uncertain intervals. 
At this time there were thirty-three brothels in Berlin. Some 
of the citizens renewed their petitions for a removal of a portion 
of them, but with no better success than before. 
In 1839, the morality of the system of toleration was again 
questioned by those in authority, and the Minister of the Interior, 
in a rescript to the authorities of the Rhine provinces, alluded 
to the matter of prostitution, and expressed himself as strongly 
opposed to any system of toleration. We quote a portion of his 
remarks: 
“ As for the granting of licenses to brothels, I can not accede to it, in- 
asmuch as the advantages to be gained are, in my opinion, illusory, and in 
no degree countervail the inconvenience of the state sanction thus afforded 
to discreditable institutions. All attempts by the police to introduce de- PRUSSIA. 
239 
cency and propriety by means of brothel regulations are idle. * * * * 
Brothels are not an invention of necessity, but are simply an offshoot of 
immoral luxury. (?)**** No one has a right to expect himself 
to be protected from injury and disease while seeking the gratification of 
unreasonable sexual enjoyments. * * * * The opinion that broth- 
els are outlets for dangerous arts of seduction has never been substantiated. 
* * * * Had the police ever realized the suppression of illicit prosti- 
tution by means of tolerated brothels, then, indeed, a decided opinion might 
be formed as to the utility, in a sanitary point of view, of brothels.” 
Opinions of this nature from such a quarter, notwithstanding 
their absurdity in many respects, could not be without their effect, 
and induced the citizens to renew their petitions for the suppres- 
sion or removal of some of the tolerated houses of prostitution. 
In 1840, a ministerial order enjoined such removal. It was 
promptly obeyed: some brothels were at once suppressed, and 
others were removed and concentrated in a notorious spot called 
the Kdnigsmauer. The relative number of brothels and prosti- 
tutes in the years 1836 and 1844 was as follows: 
1836, brothels .... 33 Prostitutes .... 200 
1844, “ .... 24 « .... 240 
Decrease of brothels in 1844 . 9 
Increase of prostitutes in 1844 40 
Forty more women crowded into a less number of houses; an 
average of ten prostitutes to each brothel, instead of six as before, 
is but a poor commentary on enforced suppression. 
The known inclination of the highest persons in the kingdom 
to put down brothels speedily induced a renewal of the agitation 
against them. So far as locality was in question, it was admitted 
that no more suitable place could have been found. The Konigs- 
mauer was a spot shunned by decent people from old times; out 
of the way, and with few inhabitants but those interested in the 
traffic, there was nobody to suffer, and the whole argument virtu- 
ally turned upon the moral consequences of the government reg- 
ulations and their utility to the public. 
Among the petitions of 1840, one had been presented “ from a 
number of Berlin citizens” to Prince William, the uncle of the 
king, stating that these brothels were an abomination; that many 
of them were splendidly fitted up, in which all means of excite- 
ment were used; that the women appeared at the windows ex- 
posed and bare-necked; in short, the memorialists said all that is 
customarily said on such occasions, But they seem to have for- 240 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
gotten that the police possessed both power and inclination to sup- 
press such grievances, or else it never occurred to these “Berlin 
citizens” that their assistance given to the police would have 
speedily checked the evils. The memorial was handed to the 
king himself, and he required a report upon the matter from the 
Director of Police. This was duly furnished, and represented, 
« I. That the corruption of manners in Berlin, and in the parts of Ber- 
lin complained of, was not more extreme than in other great cities of Ger- 
many, and in like places. 
« 2. That in the limitation of the ineradicable vice of prostitution by 
her police regulations, Berlin had greatly the advantage of Vienna ; for in 
1840, Berlin (including the garrison) had a population of 350,000 souls, 
among whom there was, of course, a very large number of unmarried men. 
That the syphilitic cases in the Charite had been in 
1888, men . . . 569 Women . . . 634 Total. . . 1209 
1839, «... 695 « ... 738 «... 1433 
1840, «... 704 « ... 757 «... 1461 
Assuming that one third of the venereal cases in Berlin were treated pri- 
vately, this gives an average of 1 in 450, or in every four hundred and 
fifty men there is one syphilitic subject, whereas M. Parent-Duchatelet’s 
calculation for Vienna is 1 in every 250.”1 
The same report continues: 
« Every official will bear out my assertion that the number of brothels is 
in inverse proportion to illicit prostitution; that is, the fewer of the for- 
mer, the more of the latter, and the greater the difficulty of dealing with 
them, and preventing syphilis.” 
In 1841 another memorial was presented, with further com- 
plaints against the same houses in the Kdnigsmauer. This was 
referred to the police authorities with the brief injunction, 
“ Make an end of the nuisances about which there are so many 
complaints.” 
The Schulkollegium of the province of Brandenburg now joined 
their influence to swell the public outcry that the few houses of 
prostitution on the Kdnigsmauer were hurtful to public morals, 
and a bad example to youth, and, on the ground of interest in 
1 This calculation is not very explicitly stated. It is intended to show that 
syphilis is not dangerously prevalent among the general population. The police 
arrive at this conclusion by deducting the cases treated in the Charite (which they 
estimate at two thirds) from the total population, and then divide the remaining 
cases among the bulk of the people, to prove that, only a very small proportion are 
exposed to venereal influence. We transcribe the statement literally, but do not 
consider it of much value. PRUSSIA. 
241 
their students and pupils, demanded that they be closed. The 
police, who had previously taken every precaution against a vio- 
lation of public decency, now deputed a special inspector to give 
his personal attention to the locality. He reported there was no 
valid ground of complaint as to the outward conduct of the in- 
habitants, or the internal management of the houses. Thus satis- 
fied as to the nature of the opposition, the police treated the col- 
lege officials somewhat cavalierly, and recommended them to pro- 
hibit their students visiting such an out-of-the-way place: a very 
sensible piece of advice, and the best that could have been given 
under the circumstances. 
According to Dr. Behrend (who has written on Prostitution in 
Berlin), the leading spirits of this agitation were a clergyman, and 
a distiller who had a brewery and spirit-store in the vicinity of 
the Kdnigsmauer. The clergyman proceeded upon moral and re- 
ligious grounds, and led the crusade against brothels as a public 
disgrace, unworthy a Christian nation. We do not learn what 
line of argument the distiller adopted, or whether the prohibition 
of liquor in houses of prostitution influenced his zeal. These agi- 
tators applied to the police with a succession of general complaints 
as to the luxury of the houses, the gains of the women, the bad 
example to the young, and other topics of a similar nature. They 
met with but scant favor; however, they were assured that every 
possible means should be used to keep the offenders within the 
bounds of existing rules. 
The memorialists then carried their grievances to various influ- 
ential people, and at length to Count Arnim, the Minister of the 
Interior, to whom a petition was presented, praying the entire 
suppression of all tolerated brothels. This petition contained all 
the allegations and arguments which could possibly be advanced 
against the places in question, augmented by much rhetorical 
flourish about the degradation of royal officers; the desecration 
of the baptismal register produced by prostitutes at the time of in- 
scription ; the insult to majesty in allowing brothels to exist in a 
street called Kdnigsmauer, and many similarly weighty points. 
The practical knowledge of the police as to the effect of registra- 
tion in checking more baneful excesses was theoretically disputed; 
the propositions on which the toleration system was based were 
denied; the defense of the plan by those cognizant of its work- 
ing was entirely ruled out; so that, to a person unacquainted with 
both sides of the question, a sufficient ex parte case was presented. 242 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The ministerial reply was favorable, but not conclusive; it 
was to the effect that, 
“ 1. The number of brothels is to be reduced one half, which are to be 
removed beyond the city walls to the most retired position possible, where 
annoyance to the neighbors is not to be feared. 
112. For the control of those remaining, patrols of gens d’armes are to 
be kept afoot, and relieved six times a day. 
“3. Every third breach of the regulations, whether in small or great 
matters, will be followed by the closing of the house. 
“ Should these orders not be sufficient, the police are empowered to close 
all the houses, for it must be understood that brothels are not licensed, but 
only tolerated as necessity requires, and care for public decency permits.” 
The police authorities foresaw difficulties in the details of these 
proceedings, and asked for more explicit instructions, which were 
supplied. In the second communication was this remarkable 
passage: 
“ Should a diminution in the number of brothels take place, and thereby 
the number of common prostitutes be affected, we shall then learn by 
experience whether consequences injurious to public morality and order 
ensue, and the decision of the main question can then be made with cer- 
tainty, whether we can not advance to the entire abolition of brothels.” 
In following the prescribed course, and overthrowing an 
established system in order to furnish ministerial “experience” 
of the trouble it would cause, the police instituted a series of 
inquiries, and embodied the result in a report to the Minister of 
the Interior, dated July, 1844, which shows that there were 
26 brothels, containing women 287 
Registered private prostitutes 18 
Total 305 
The amount received and disbursed on account of the healing 
fund was also reported in thalers, thus: 
1841. Received . . 3384 
1842. “ . . 3393 
1843. “ . . 3365 
Disbursed .... 1027 
“ .... 861 
“ .... 689 
It concludes with the opinion entertained by the police : 
“As for the influence which the extinction of brothels may have upon 
the morals, safety, and health of society, the police authorities think them- 
selves obliged, as before, to declare against the expediency of the proceeding. 
What should be done in case this course should be adopted is a question 
that requires much consideration. Meanwhile, the police are of opinion it PRUSSIA. 
would be highly objectionable to close the brothels before other measures 
are prepared in reference to prostitution.” 
No such measures were prepared. The king would hear no 
farther argument upon the matter; and, by positive “ royal com- 
mand,” the brothels were closed and registered prostitution stop- 
ped, December 31, 1845. Berlin became (nominally) as virtuous 
as an edict from the throne could make it. The majority of the 
prostitutes were either sent to their former homes or supplied with 
passports for places out of the kingdom. A few were left house- 
less, friendless, and destitute. History does not say whether the 
friends of enforced continence provided for these sufferers. 
This summary edict seriously embarrassed the police, especially 
as the state laws tolerating prostitution were unrepealed. They 
applied to the authorities of Halle and Cologne, where a similar 
measure had been enforced, and the substance of the replies re- 
ceived was as follows. 
From Halle: 
“ Since the French occupation, the brothels had been put down. There 
had been a few persons charged with prostitution, whom the police caught 
noiv and then, and sent to jail, where they were cured. There were, how- 
ever, very few vicious persons in Halle, and there had been no need of 
special provision. It was not difficult to find honest livelihood for the 
common women. As to syphilis, there had been no increase of cases since 
the last of the brothels.” 
The authorities of Cologne had no such pleasing tale to tell. 
They say, 
“ At the end of the French occupation, the authorities had put down all 
the licensed brothels, and, at the same time, made vigilant searcli for private 
prostitutes. Legal difficulties had for many years been in the way, as the 
laws made no provision against private prostitution, when not carried on as 
a trade for gain, and the technical proof was difficult. Against procurers 
and procuresses the law was ineffective, except in cases where the seduced 
female was under age. When the amendments in the law had taken place, 
the police had worked vigorously, and in the years 1843 and 1844, a time 
when illicit prostitution had enormously increased, they had presented three 
hundred cases of that offense. 
“ As regarded syphilis, the city physician was of opinion that, in late 
years, the disease had increased among all classes, and had appeared in a 
much worse type. 
“ In consequence, however, of the increased energy of the police, affairs 
had become under better control, and the number of private brothels had 244 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
materially diminished, so that there are now but about fifteen in the city. 
The secret prostitution was not, however, under any control. The police 
found it impracticable to keep vicious persons in check, who (in default of 
other accommodation) committed the most depraved acts in stray vehicles 
or any suitable hiding-place.” 
The writer of this official communication added his private opin- 
ion, based upon the experience of some years, that “ no effective 
steps could be devised to suppress prostitution: all that could be 
done would be to palliate it, and keep it under surveillance.'1'1 
These statements were not calculated to relieve the anxiety of 
the Berlin officials, who were pressed by the ministers to devise 
plans for executing the royal orders. They accordingly met, in 
much embarrassment, and prepared a scheme which was not ac- 
ceptable to the superior powers. It was ordered, eventually, “ that 
the women suspected of prostitution, being about 1000 or 1200 in 
Berlin, should be warned by the police to discontinue their prac- 
tices. If found out, they were to be punished, and, after punish- 
ment, to be continued under surveillance until good behavior. Dur- 
ing such period they were to be periodically examined for disease, 
at the police office, by medical men; the punishment to be made 
more severe on the repetition of the offense.” 
These orders, following immediately the suppression mandate, 
will strike every one as reaffirming the principles of the toleration 
system in the most important particular—the regard for public 
health. The police used all their energy to enforce them, but at the 
same time represented their fears of the consequences, namely, the 
spread of prostitution, the increase of disease, and a general licen- 
tiousness of habits. 
It now remains to trace the effects of the suppression of regis- 
tered brothels, and local authorities afford abundant and satisfactory 
proof that the fears of the police were realized. 
The Vossicher Zeitung (July, 1847), says: 
“ Well meant but altogether erroneous is the proposition that brothels 
can be dispensed with in times of general intelligence and education, and 
that now this relic of barbarism can be done away with. Already, only 
two years after the closing of the brothels, this deception has been exploded, 
and we have bought experience at the public cost. The illicit prostitutes, 
who well know how to escape the hands of the police, have spread their nets 
of demoralization over the whole city ; and against them, the old prostitu- 
tion houses, which were under a purifying police control in sanitary and 
general matters, afforded safety and protection,” PEUSSIA. 
245 
In another local paper we find: 
44 Prostitution, which had previously kept out of sight in dark and retired 
corners, now came forward boldly and openly; for it found protection and 
countenance in the large number of its supporters, and no police care could 
restrain it. The prostitutes did not merely traverse the streets and frequent 
the public thoroughfares to hunt their prey, thereby insulting virtuous 
women and putting them to the blush, they crowded the fashionable prom- 
enades, the concerts, the theatres, and other places of amusement, where 
they claimed the foremost places, and set the fashion of the hour. They 
were conspicuous for their brilliant toilettes, and their example was pre- 
eminently captivating and pernicious to the youth of both sexes.” 
From a work called “Berlin,” by Sass, we obtain the annexed 
view of 
44 No city in Germany can boast of the splendid ball-rooms of Berlin. 
One in particular, near the Brandenburg gate and the Parade-ground, is 
remarkable for its size, and presents a magnificent exterior, especially in the 
evening, when hundreds of lamps stream through the windows and light up 
the park in front. The interior is of corresponding splendor, and when the 
vast hall resounds with the music of the grand orchestra, and is filled with 
a gay crowd rustling in silks or satins, or lounging in the hall, or whirling 
in the giddy waltz, it is certainly a scene to intoxicate the youth who fre- 
quent it in search of adventure, or to drink in the poison of seductive and 
deceiving, although bright and fascinating eyes. Should the foreigner visit 
this scene on one of its gay nights, he may get a glimpse of the depths of 
Berlin life. Many a veil is lifted here. This splendid scene has its dark 
side. This is not respectable Berlin. This whirling, laughing crowd is 
frivolous Berlin, whether of wealth, extravagance, and folly, or of poverty, 
vice, and necessity. The prostitute and the swindler are on every side. 
Formerly the female visitors were of good repute, but gradually courtesans 
and women of light character slipped in, until at length no lady could be 
seen there. And the aforesaid foreigner, who lounges through the rooms, 
admiring the elegant and lovely women who surround him in charge of 
some highly respectable elderly person, an 4 aunt,’ or a 4 chaperone,’ or pos- 
sibly in company with her 4 newly-married husband,’ seeks to know the 
names and position of such evident celebrity and fashion. 480 not you 
know her ? Any police officer can tell you her history,’ are the replies he 
receives. There is a class of men at this place who perform a function sin- 
gular to the uninitiated. These worthies are the 4 husbands’ of the before- 
mentioned ladies. They play the careless or the strict cavalier; are Blue- 
beards on occasion; appear or keep out of sight, according to the proprie- 
ties of the moment.” 
PUBLIC LIFE IN BERLIN. 246 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
From the same writer we extract the following sketch of a 
“ The price of admission is ten groschen (about twenty cents), which in- 
sures a company who can pay. The male public are of all conditions, and 
include students, clerks, and artists, with, of course, a fair share of rogues 
and pickpockets. The majority of the women are prostitutes; there may 
be found girls of rare beauty, steeped to the lips in all the arts of iniquity. 
The philosopher may see life essentially in the same grade as in the last de- 
scription, but in a somewhat less artificial condition. Scenes of bacchant 
excitement and of wildest abandonment may be witnessed here. The out- 
ward show is all mirth and happiness ; pleasure unrestrained seems the busi- 
ness of the place. Turn the picture. The most showy of the costumes 
are hired; the gayety is for a living ; the liberty is licentiousness. These 
creatures, who, all blithesome as they seem, the victims of others who fleece 
them of every thing they can earn, are now engaged in securing victims from 
whom they may wring the gains which are to pay the hire of their elegant 
dresses, or furnish means for further excesses, or perhaps to pay for their 
supper that evening. It is the fashion of the place for each gentleman to 
invite a lady to supper, where the quantity of wine drunk is incredible. 
How many a young man has to trace not merely loss of cash and health to 
such a place, but also loss of honor! The ladies who have no such agree- 
able partners sit apart, sullen and discontented; oftentimes they have no 
money to pay for their own refreshments. Pair by pair the crowd dimin- 
ishes, until toward three or four o’clock, when the place is closed.” 
DANCING SALOON. 
The lowest dancing-houses are the Tam wirthschaften, inferior 
to the saloons, where (again quoting) 
“ The dance is carried to its wildest excess, to ear-splitting music in a 
pestilential atmosphere. The poor are extravagant; drunkenness and prof- 
ligacy abound. Servants of both sexes, soldiers and journeymen, workwom- 
en and prostitutes, make up the public. Here, on the most frivolous pre- 
tenses, concubinage and marriage are arranged, and from this scene of folly 
and vice the family is ushered to the world. The wet-nurse is met here, 
“ the type of country simplicity,” who, after a night of tumult and uproar 
with her lover, will go in the morning to nurse the child whose mother neg- 
lects her parental duties at the dictates of fashion. The working classes 
have their representatives, who drown their cares in drink, while boys and 
girls make up the motley party. In these assemblies there is a difference. 
Some are attended by citizens of the humbler classes, by working men and 
women; others by criminals and their paramours. In these latter resorts 
the excesses are of a more frightful character than in those where a show of 
decency restrains the grosser exhibitions ; youth of both sexes are among the PRUSSIA. 
247 
well-known criminals, who are habituated to smoking, drinking, and the 
wildest orgies, long before their frames have attained a proper development. 
Physiognomies which might have sprung from the most hideous fancy of 
poet or painter may be met with.” 
In an anonymous pamphlet, entitled “Prostitution in Berlin,'’ 
is another hideous picture : 
“ In the Kunigstadt there is a drinking saloon where, besides the wife of 
the host, there are two young girls who exceed all compeers in shameless- 
ness and depravity. The elder betrays secondary syphilis in her voice ; the 
younger has such noble features, is of such beauty, and is altogether of such 
prepossessing appearance, that the infamy of her conduct is incredible. In 
the evening these girls and the host are generally drunk. At one or two in 
the morning the place is a perfect hell, the whole company, guests, host, and 
girls, being mad with liquor. Some are dancing with the girls to the tinkle 
of a guitar, the player of which acted her part in one of the abolished broth- 
els ; others are roaring obscene songs. If the guitar-player has brought her 
daughter, then the tumult of the den is complete. It is never closed before 
four o’clock in the morning, when the girls retire to their dwellings in com- 
pany with one or the other of their guests,” 
In reading these descriptions, it must be remembered that, un- 
der the toleration system, the police would not permit prostitutes 
to visit places of public amusement, nor would they allow music 
and dancing in the brothels. 
Another part of Dr. Sass’s work contains a truly horrid picture 
of the immorality of the city. We transcribe it, in conclusion of 
this branch of the subject; 
PRIVATE LIFE IN BERLIN. 
"... Let us enter the house. The first floor is inhabited by a fam- 
ily of distinction ; husband and wife have been separated for years ; he lives 
on one side, she on the other; both go out in public together; the propri- 
eties are kept in view, but servants will chatter. On the second floor lives 
an assessor with his kept woman. When he is out of town, as the house is 
well aware, a doctor pays her a visit. On the other side the staircase lives 
a carrier, with his wife and child. The wife had not mentioned that this 
child was born before marriage ; he found it out; of course they quarreled, 
and he now takes his revenge in drunkenness, blows, and abuse. We as- 
cend to the third floor. On the right of the stairs is a teacher who has 
had a child by his wife’s sister; the wife grieves sorely over the same. 
With him lodges a house-painter who ran away from his wife and three 
children, and now lives, with his concubine and one child, in a wretched 
little cupboard. On the left is a letter-carrier’s family. His pay is fifteen 248 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
thalers (twelve dollars) a month, but the people seem very comfortable. 
Their daughter has a very nice front room, well furnished, and is kept by a 
very wealthy merchant, a married man. Exactly opposite there is a house 
of accommodation, and close by there is a midwife, whose sign-board an- 
nounces £ An institute for ladies of condition, where they can go through 
their confinement in retirement.’ I can assure the reader that in this 
eketch of sexual and family life in Berlin I have ‘ nothing extenuated, nor 
set down aught in malice.’ ” 
In estimating the effects of the suppression of brothels, it will 
be necessary to take medical testimony. In Dr, Loewe’s pam- 
phlet, “ Prostitution with reference to Berlin, 1852,” we find: 
“ In vain the Charite, after the ordinary wards were full of venereal pa- 
tients, set aside other parts of the building. The patients were still poured 
in from the houses of detention, until, at length, the directors of the Charite 
refused farther admission, the consequence of which was a long and angry 
correspondence between them and the police. The Minister of the Interior 
interfered, and ordered more accommodation for the Charite. This was 
done, but the new wards were soon filled with venereal females; the pa- 
tients exceeded the accommodations, and at last it was found necessary to 
take the Cholera Lazaret for syphilitic cases. Against this arrangement 
the magistracy of Berlin remonstrated that the present influx of venereal 
patients must be regarded as the inevitable, natural consequence of the abo- 
lition of the brothels; that this abolition had not originated with them, 
therefore they were not bound to provide for it.” 
Dr. Belirend, to whose work we have already alluded, gives 
much statistical information, from original documents, showing the 
results of suppression. He says: 
“In 1839, out of 1200 women brought to punishment for begging and 
similar offenses, there were about GOO common unregistered prostitutes. 
In 1840, the period of reducing the number of brothels, there were 900 
such women. In 1847, a year after their suppression, there were 1250 no- 
torious prostitutes. Those, in the opinion of the police, constituted but a 
portion of those who practiced prostitution, but yet had an apparent means 
of living. Behind the Konigsmauer the traffic is carried on worse than for- 
merly, while the place itself is the scene of disorder and irregularity, which 
used not to be under the former system. These offenses can not be pun- 
ished, owing to the difficulties of technical proof which must always exist. 
The police have done what is possible by continually patrolling the streets, 
and arresting openly objectionable characters, and even those who are in- 
formed against as being diseased, but they can do no more. The prostitu- 
tion which was formerly confined within a limited district is now spread 
over the whole town.” PRUSSIA. 
249 
Respecting the influence of the withdrawal of toleration upon 
the public health, Behrend concludes there is a greater amount of 
syphilis. He gives the following list of cases in the Charity: 
Year 1840 . . . Females, 157 . . . Males, 
“ 1841 ... “ 143 ... “ 
“ 1842 ... « 616 .. . « 
“ 1843 ... “ 669 .. . « 
« 1844 ... “ 651 ... « 141 
“ 1845 ... “ 514 ... « 111 
“ 1846 ... « 621 ... “ 813 
« 1841 ... « 161 ... “ 894 
« 1848 ... « 835 ... “ 919 
He also investigated the average time each patient was under 
treatment, as tending to show the malignity of the disease, and re- 
ports : 
Year 1844, men, 2lf days; women, 31f days; both sexes, 26i days. 
“ 1845, “ 26f “ “ 42f “ “ “ 34f “ 
“ 1846, “ 30i “ “ 5U “ “ “ “ 
“ 1847, “ “ “ 43f “ “ “ 38f “ 
“ 1848, “ « “ 53i “ “ “ “ 
These facts are corroborated by the registers of the Military 
Lazaret. From returns made to the police department by Herr 
Lohmeyer, General Staff Physician, it appears there were in the 
garrison 
In 1844 and 1845, 135 syphilitic cases. Of these, 
633 cases of primary syphilis required 11,916 days of attendance; 
102 “ “ secondary “ “ 4,941 (t “ 
135 “ “ “ “ « 
In 1846, and the first six months of 1841, there were 618 cases: 
501 cases of primary syphilis required 11,188 days of attendance; 
111 “ “ secondary “ “ 5,213 “ “ 
618 “ “ “ “ « « 
Dr. Behrend states, as the results of conversations and commu- 
nications with many of the medical profession, and of his own ex- 
perience : 
perience : 
“ 1. That in the last four years there are more cases of syphilis. 
“ 2. That, in consequence of the increased facilities for communication, 
the disease has spread to the small towns and villages. 
“ 3. That it has been introduced more frequently into private families. 
“4. That the character of the disease is more obstinate, thereby oper- 
ating severely on the constitution and on future generations. 
“5. That, since the abolition of the toleration system, unnatural crimes 
have been much more frequently met with.” 250 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
As to the influence on public morals, he contends that the abo- 
lition has produced the most injurious consequences, particularly 
alluding to the desecration of matrimony. He says: 
“It is common for persons of vicious habits to arrange a marriage, for 
the purpose of enabling them to avoid the police interference. This mar- 
riage bond is broken when convenient, and other marriages are formed: 
sometimes two couples will mutually exchange, and go through the cere- 
mony.” 
He also made inquiries as to illegitimacy, and publishes some 
voluminous tables on the subject. From them we condense a 
Comparative Statement of the legitimate and illegitimate Births in 
Berlin from January 1, 1838, to March 31, 1849. 
Years. 
Births. 
Katio of illegitimate 
to legitimate Births. 
Legitimate. 
Illegitimate. 
Total. 
1838 
8,587 
1196 
9,783 
1 in 7-2 
1839 
7,820 
1412 
9,232 
1 in 5-5 
1840 
9,019 
1487 
10,506 
1 in 6- 
1841 
9,024 
1557 
10,581 
. 1 in 5-7 
1842 
10,269 
1928 
12,177 
1 in 5-3 
1843 
10,370 
1969 
12,339 
1 in 5-2 
1844 
10,958 
2000 
12,958 
1 in 5-4 
1845 
11,402 
2138 
13,540 
1 in 5-3 
1846 
11,717 
2140 
13,857 
1 in 5’4 
1847 
11,294 
2204 
13,498 
1 in 5-l 
1848 
12,113 
2303 
14,416 
1 in 5-2 
3 mos. of 1849 
3,278 
646 
3,921 
1 in 51 
Having rapidly traced the Berlin experience of the various 
methods of controlling prostitution for nearly three fourths of a 
century, it only remains to say that the increased evils of illicit 
prostitution, and the total inability of the police to counteract them; 
the spread of the venereal disease, and its augmented virulence; the 
palpable and growing licentiousness of the city; the complaints 
of public journals; the investigations of scientific men ; and the 
memorials of the citizens generally, reached the royal ear, and 
induced an ordinance in 1851, restoring the toleration system, and 
entirely repealing the edict of 1845, which had produced such dis- 
astrous results. 
The experiment of “ crushing out” had been fairly tried. The 
king and his ministers lent all their energy and inclination to the 
task, and, after six years’ attempt, it was admitted to be a futile 
labor, and entirely abandoned. Berlin will have to suffer for years 
from the consequences of this misdirected step, for it is an easy 
matter to abandon all control, but an exceedingly difficult one to 
regain it. Now that the police are reinvested with their former 
authority, they strive, by every possible means, to repair the evils PRUSSIA. 
251 
of the interregnum. Their most recent regulations are embod- 
ied in the following 
DIRECTIONS FOR KEEPERS PERMITTED TO RECEIVE FEMALES ABANDONED 
TO PROSTITUTION INTO THEIR HOUSES. 
“ 1. The duties hereby imposed upon the keeper are not to be taken to 
relieve him from the ordinary notices to the police respecting persons 
taken into his house or employment. 
“3. The keeper must live on the ground floor of his house, near the 
outer door, in order to watch all entrance into his house, and to be ready 
to interfere in case of tumult or uproar therein. 
“ 3. The keeper has the right to refuse any person admittance into the 
house. For preservation of order and quiet in, and in front of his house, 
the keeper will have the requisite assistance from the police. 
“4. Dancing and music in the house are strictly forbidden ; billiards, 
cards, and other games are also forbidden, whereof the keeper is to be 
particularly watchful. 
“5. In order to avoid quarrels with the visitors, the keeper must afiix, 
in each of his rooms, a list of prices of refreshment, to be previously sub- 
mitted to the undersigned commission for approval. 
“ 6. The agreement which the keeper enters into with the females living 
in his house must be also communicated to the undersigned commission. 
In case of dispute as to this agreement between the keepers and the females, 
both are to address themselves to this commission. 
“ 7. Each of the females receives a printed list of directions, which she 
is strictly to follow. It is the duty of the keeper to make himself well 
acquainted with these directions, and to see that they be followed. 
“8. It is for his own interest that the keeper should keep his house in 
order and quiet, and should also give attention to the cleanliness and 
health of the female inmates. Each of these is ordered to obey him in 
everything relating thereto, and should any of them be contumacious, the 
keeper is to appeal to the police commissary, or to the undersigned com- 
mission, but he cannot himself chastise or use force with any female. 
“9. If the keeper know or suspect any female to be sick with venereal 
disease or itch, he must give notice to the visiting medical officer, or to 
the undersigned, and the person is to be kept apart until she has been 
examined. In default of this notice, or even of the privacy required, the 
keeper is liable to the same punishment as the law inflicts for being know- 
ingly accessory to illness of other people. 
“10. If the keeper knows or suspects that any of the females are preg- 
nant, he must give notice thereof to the visiting medical officer. Neglect 
of this involves the punishment of concealing pregnancy. 
“ 11. Every person is to be visited thrice a week by a medical officer, 
on appointed days and hours ; and, besides, according to the order of the 252 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
commission, at hours not appointed. These visits the keeper is to facilitate 
in every way. 
“ 12. For these visits, indispensably requisite for the health of the female 
inmates, the keeper is to provide beforehand, 
“ (a.) An examination chair, of an approved pattern. 
“ (6.) Two or three specula. 
“ (c.) Several pounds of chloride of lime. 
“ (d.) For every female, besides necessary linen, her own washing appa- 
ratus, her own syringe, and two or three sponges. 
“ 13. The keeper is strictly charged that he cause the women to observe 
decency and propriety whenever it is allowed them to walk abroad in the 
streets, or to take exercise in the open air for the sake of their health. If 
any of these persons require to take any such necessary walk, the keeper 
can not refuse her, but must provide a suitable male companion, who is to 
take charge of her. She is to be respectably and decently clad, is not to 
stand still on the streets, nor to remain out longer than is requisite for com- 
pleting her business or for proper exercise. 
“ 14. In case any woman manifests a flxed desire to give up her profligate 
mode of life, the keeper shall make no attempt to turn her from it, and can 
not, even on account of sureties he may be under, hinder her from carrying 
out her determination. Moreover, the keeper must present the woman with 
apparel suitable to a woman of the serving class, in case she should be desti- 
tute of the same.” 
15. Provides for change of keepers. 
“ 16. The keeper is expected to give all assistance to the commission in 
their efforts to lead such persons back to an honest livelihood; especially so 
in their endeavors to suppress illicit prostitution, and to detect the sources 
of venereal infection.” 
CHAPTER XVIH. 
Population.—Registered and illicit Prostitutes.—Servants.—Kept-women.—Broth- 
els.—Nationality of Prostitutes.—Habits.—Fairs.—Visitors.—Earnings of Pros- 
titutes. 
LEIPZIG. 
But very few remarks are necessary concerning prostitution in 
Leipzig, where no striking peculiarity marks the common women 
as a class, and the legislation is based on the ordinary German 
principle of toleration. 
If we reckon its garrison as a part of the population of the LEIPZIG. 
253 
town, the number of inhabitants will amount to about one hund- 
red thousand, nearly one third of whom are soldiers or transient 
residents. It is subject to many fluctuations at various times, but 
the general average may be assumed at the number stated. Of 
the permanent residents there are about six hundred well known 
and professed male rogues and blacklegs; these are under the con- 
stant and vigilant surveillance of the police. They unquestionably 
exert a considerable influence on the female morality of the place, 
not only from their own amours, for which men of this character 
are notorious wherever located, but by the agency they frequently 
assume to arrange the “pleasures” of their victims and acquaint- 
ances. 
It need, therefore, occasion no surprise to ascertain that, in addi- 
tion to about three hundred registered prostitutes who are subject 
to medical and police supervision, there are about twelve hundred 
women who notoriously frequent the city, from the neighboring 
towns and villages, for purposes of prostitution, whenever a large 
influx of visitors makes it probable that Leipzig will be a lucra- 
tive market for them. These are not directly under any police 
control. To this number of fifteen hundred avowed and known 
prostitutes, who are to be found in the city during busy seasons of 
the year, must be added the class of irregular or private courte- 
sans, mostly composed of domestics. It is estimated there are three 
thousand servant-girls in the city, and the habits of a large num- 
ber of them leave no doubt as to the propriety of including them 
in this enumeration; indeed, those who have had the best oppor- 
tunities for observation do not hesitate to assert that at least one 
third are vicious. Assuming this to be an accurate calculation, we 
have 2500 prostitutes, or one in every forty of the gross popula- 
tion, exclusive of kept mistresses, or those frail women in the more 
aristocratic circles of society who should properly be classed with 
them. In this respect we have no reason to conclude that Leipzig 
is either better or worse than other large cities of the present day. 
There are about sixty-six common brothels in Leipzig, the ma- 
jority of which are registered and closely watched by the police. 
They are situated in the lowest and least frequented parts of the 
city, and many of them present, in excess, some of the worst feat- 
ures of such places. To escape their annoyances as far as pos- 
sible, and retain that outward show of respectability most accept- 
able to their visitors, many of the prostitutes have private lodgings 
in various parts of the town, resorting to every conceivable dis- 254 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
guise to conceal or modify their real character. Yery many of 
them are said to be married women, whose husbands not merely 
connive at, but frequently compel this loathsome trade for the sake 
of its emoluments. 
The proprietors of the tolerated brothels “assume a virtue if 
they have it not,” and seek to disguise their houses under the 
names of coffee-houses or restaurants; a course recognized by the 
authorities, who do not insist upon calling such places by the ver- 
nacular designation, as is done in Hamburg or Berlin. 
The women inhabiting these houses are principally natives of 
Altenburg, Berlin, Dresden, or Brunswick; those from the latter 
district are noted by travelers for their personal beauty. Yery 
few Polish women are found here. The requisite supply of women 
is kept up through the agency of procuresses, as in Hamburg, who 
are remunerated by the brothel-keepers in proportion to the dis- 
tance they have traveled to secure recruits, or according to the 
attractions of the girl, or her probable success in the establishment. 
In regard to dress, manners, conduct, and the other incidents of 
their calling, there is little distinction between the prostitutes of 
Leipzig and those of other European cities. A late anonymous 
writer gives them credit as a class for a studious, literary habit, 
and names a somewhat intelligent selection of light works as those 
they prefer to read, such as the writings of Fredrika Bremer, Bul- 
wer, Walter Scott, Caroline Pichler, Schiller, and others. If this 
statement be correct, it may be accounted for by the great local 
demand for literature, books and furs being universally known as 
the great staples of Leipzig, and the fact can scarcely be assumed as 
indicative of any especial inclination for belles-lettres. Prostitution 
and studious habits or reflective minds are very seldom associated. 
The majority of the brothel-keepers are stated to be anti-literary 
in their tastes. They keep the women plentifully supplied with 
cards and dominoes, which they use more for the purpose of pre- 
dicting good fortunes to their visitors and themselves than for 
gambling. We have never heard that any of their liberal prog- 
nostications have been verified. Apparently the same usages and 
habits of life prevail among the common women of Leipzig as 
among those of Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, London, or elsewhere. 
Indolent from the nature of their position, envious from their re- 
lationship to their compeers, their life would seem to pass in a 
routine of doing nothing with considerable zest, or of quarreling 
among each other with noteworthy animation. LEIPZIG. 
255 
No material variation from the ordinary routine of sickness 
caused by prostitution has been discovered in Leipzig. Syphilis 
has its average number of victims, the intensity of the malady 
being diminished or aggravated as a less or greater number of 
strangers may happen to be in the city. 
The medical and police surveillance of prostitutes in European 
countries being modeled almost literally from one system, as is 
also the strictness with- which it is now enforced, it is unnecessary 
to say any thing of its workings in Leipzig farther than the fact 
that the variable and floating nature of the population, at times,' 
makes its application a difficult task. A description of it would 
be only a repetition of what has already been said of Paris, Ham- 
burg, or Berlin. 
The great fairs draw a large concourse of strangers from all 
parts of the world to Leipzig, and its geographical position beyond 
the centre of Europe brings it so close to the frontiers of Turkey, 
Poland, the Danubian provinces, and Russia, that the scene at these 
meetings is perhaps more motley and curious in race, costume, and 
characteristics than in any other city in the world. Among so 
heterogeneous a mass there exist many standards of morality. The 
semi-barbarous habits of some of the visitors entail a large share of 
sorrows on the prostitutes; more, in fact, than are generally ex- 
perienced by any but the very lowest grade of women in other 
places. When in the tolerated houses, these rude hordes abandon 
themselves to the grossest licentiousness, use expressions compared 
with which the ordinary conversation of brothels is chaste and re- 
fined, and seek to extinguish every vestige of shame or womanly 
feeling in their companions. If a woman ventures to remonstrate 
at such extravagant lewdness, the reply is, “Well, now, be silent. 
I have paid you, and you are mine as long as I have you.” It 
may therefore be easily credited that during such periods no shadow 
of decency can be found in the common houses. Any which ex- 
ists (and truth compels the admission that it is very rare during 
the crowded season) can only be traced among those women who 
have private lodgings. 
The only compensation for such depravity is found in the large 
sums obtained by the women from their lovers, in some cases 
amounting to forty thalers (about thirty dollars) per week. Of 
this, one half always goes to the brothel-keeper as his share, and, 
calculating his expenses to be five thalers per week for the board 
and lodging of each woman, it will be seen that his profits are not 256 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
inconsiderable. The sum retained by the women is spent for ar- 
ticles of dress, pleasure, etc. This calculation is for a time when 
the town is in the full tide of commercial prosperity; but if we as- 
sume the average receipts at ordinary times to be one half only, 
we shall be able to form a tolerably good idea of the financial re- 
sult of prostitution in Leipzig. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
DENMARK. 
Prostitution in Copenhagen.—Police Regulations.—lllegitimacy.—Brothels. 
Syphilis.—Laws of Marriage and Divorce.—Infanticide.—Adultery.—New Mar- 
riage Ordinances. 
Prostitutes are very numerous in Copenhagen. This might 
be expected from the mixed character of the city, at once a capi- 
tal, military station, and sea-port. It has been remarked by a 
traveler of great experiencel that it is very rare to see a drunken 
man or a street-walker in Copenhagen; all seem to have a home 
or a place to go to, and the general character of the Danes is that 
of an orderly, educated, well-conducted people. 
Some of the prostitutes of Copenhagen live in a kind of hotel, 
where they hold public entertainments; others live in brothels; 
and others still have private lodgings. There is nothing remark- 
able enough about them to call for any particular description. 
They are under police regulation to some extent, and receive a 
sort of half permission, which is not withdrawn during good con- 
duct. A regulation is extant which professes to limit the num- 
ber of children they are allowed to bear, without becoming amen- 
able to the law as criminals. It requires that the mother of more 
than two illegitimate children be fined and imprisoned. As may 
be readily imagined, the law is very rarely enforced, its impolicy, 
if rigorously applied, being self-evident, since it would operate as 
a direct premium for abortion. 
“Formal concessions are not granted either to public prosti- 
tutes or those with whom they lodge; neither are there in Den- 
mark brothels, in the ordinary sense of the term, as they are found 
in other countries.”2 So writes a Danish official. His distinction 
1 Laing’s Denmark in 1851. 
2 Braestrup, Director of Police at Copenhagen, on Prostitution and public Health. DENMARK. 
257 
is too nice to be appreciated. The Copenhagen police know of 
the existence of such women, and put them under strict regula- 
tions, not altogether prohibitory. They control and interfere with 
prostitutes; they do not tolerate them—that is to say, they do not 
issue a regular license to them or to the brothel-keepers. Conse- 
quently, there are no recognized brothels. The house in which 
courtesans live is a private dwelling, so far as the police are con- 
cerned, and is only interfered with when it becomes disorderly, 
the keeper not being accountable for the women or their conduct. 
Nevertheless, the police regulations prescribe the number of 
women recognized as prostitutes who may live in any house, 
and from their official reports, it seems that there were in Copen- 
hagen in 
1850 201 prostitutes. 
1852 198 “ 
In the latter year there were sixty-eight persons who were author- 
ized to lodge from one to four women each, the total of the wom- 
en permitted to live in these houses being 189, and the remaining 
59 being allowed to reside in private apartments. “ Care is taken 
that they are all treated in the general hospital, and that they 
shall not be treated elsewhere, unless they give a sufficient guar- 
antee not to propagate disease, or their personal position requires 
certain consideration, a thing which can seldom apply to the gen- 
erality of prostitutes.” The meaning of this regulation is not 
very clear, nor is “certain consideration” an intelligible phrase; 
it may imply pregnancy, or it may mean influential friends. The 
medical officer visits all cases which the police refer to him, and 
makes the necessary examinations, receiving his fees from the 
police. 
The rules for detection and suppression of syphilis in Copen- 
hagen are very stringent. All persons under arrest are required 
to declare if they are then, or have been lately diseased, and are 
liable to punishment if they conceal or misstate the facts. A visit 
of inspection is made when a ship is about to go to sea. All non- 
commissioned officers, musicians, and soldiers are examined on en- 
tering and leaving the service, and also regularly every month 
during their stay in it. 
To check the propagation of venereal disease, every soldier who 
is attacked is obliged to state the source of his infection, where- 
upon information of the individual is given to the police. Those 
who do not give early intimation of their disease are liable to 258 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
bread and water diet for a certain time after their cure. In 1797, 
all the inhabitants of several districts were obliged to submit to 
an examination, ordered by the chancellor, on account of the fre- 
quency of syphilitic cases therein. 
The following table, taken from Berhand’s minute on Copen- 
hagen, shows the working of the system there for seven years. 
The most remarkable feature is- the large number who married or 
went to service, which would seem to indicate a more charitable 
feeling on the part of the Danes than is usually evinced toward 
these unfortunates: 
00 00 GO 00 OO GO GO 
Ot 4-* 4“ 4-* +- 4»- 
O O GO H 05 4^ 
Years. 
. 
— to — to to to to 
ZD O — 4- 0'< GC CO 
C5 GO 05 — C5 
At commencement 
of the Y ear. 
| Prostitutes registered. 
lO — tO tO 00 
00 CO bO 00 00 4*> 
During the A'ear. 
to to •—* to to oo oo 
— to CO to 00 
CO 00 00 4s* *<t ►—* 
Total. 
—‘ —1 *-* to »-* >-* to 
00 -<t C7t O Ox 4** o 
Went to Service. 
Prostitutes abandoned their calling. 
S O C5 S G5 00 
Transferred to the 
commission for 
the Poor. 
-HHMtO | P-* 
Sent to Prison. 
'—1 "—1 '—. to >—1 
*-• to CO 00 C5 
Married. 
1 1 to to to 
Left the Country. 
1 C5 4* tO 00 
Died. 
1 H* 1 H-* 1 1 
Committed Sui- 
cide. 
to 4** Ot 05 s O 
S H W CO<t 00 
Total. 
By a code of 1734, promises of marriage might be either verbal 
in the presence of witnesses, or written and certified by two wit- 
nesses. Widows acting against the consent of their guardians, 
and women of bad repute, were excluded from the benefit of this 
code. A servant pregnant by her master, her master’s son, or 
any one domiciled in her master’s house, could not plead a prom- 
ise of marriage. Corroborative testimony was sometimes required 
in affiliation cases, where the putative father denied his liability 
on oath. 
Divorce was allowed on simple abandonment for seven years; 
desertion for three years; in case of sentence of perpetual im- 
prisonment ; of ante-nuptial impotence ; of ante-nuptial venereal 
disease; of insanity; and of adultery. Divorce by mutual con- 
sent might also take place, but three years’ separation from bed 
and board was requisite as a preliminary. The king had a pre- 
rogative of divorce, without cause shown. 
Illegitimate children were to be supported by their father until 
two years old, according to his rank in life. They could not in- 
herit the paternal property, but might take the mother's. They 
could be legitimatized by subsequent marriage or adoption. SWITZERLAND. 
259 
Infanticide was punished by beheading, and exhibiting the head 
of the criminal on a spike. 
Adultery is punished by law in both husband and wife. Prac- 
tically it is seldom noticed. 
In 1884 a new ordinance was proclaimed fixing all the minu- 
tiae of marriage contracts, parental obligations, and the general 
laws of sexual intercourse. A man is a minor until eighteen, and 
under some degree of parental authority to twenty-five, at which 
age he becomes a citizen. The woman is under tutelage all her 
life. Guardians are assigned to widows, who control their legal 
powers, but a widow may choose her own guardian. The laws 
of divorce are similar to those of France. The practice of formal 
betrothal is as common in Denmark as in Northern Germany, 
and implies a real and binding engagement, not to be broken 
without cause shown, or without discredit to one or both parties. 
Whether this custom favors illegitimacy is still a disputed point 
in Denmark, 
CHAPTER XX. 
SWITZERLAND, 
Superior Morality of the Swiss.—Customs of Neufchatel.—“Bundling.”—lnflu- 
ence of Climate. 
This country, from her republican form of government, and her 
comparative isolation from the rest of the world, presents matter 
of peculiar interest to the inquirer into the nature and working 
of social institutions. Protected, as are the Swiss, from violent 
contrasts of excessive wealth and extreme indigence, the moral 
condition of their people will compare favorably with that of most 
nations. The simplicity of patriarchal relations is maintained both 
in their national and municipal governments; and although many 
customs are retained which smack strongly of the despotism of 
the Middle Ages, they can not be said to materially check the wel- 
fare of the people. In the absence of the emulation encouraged 
by the constant contemplation of luxury and wealth, the wants of 
the population are few and easily satisfied. Their virtues, how- 
ever, partake of the bold and rugged nature of their country; and 
while there may be little of that practical vice and immorality 
which are the usual accompaniments of society in most kingdoms 
and states, we are not prepared to assert their superiority over the 260 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
rest of mankind in innate virtue. Hardness of heart and selfish- 
ness of disposition will be found as rife in Switzerland as else- 
where ; it is the manifestation only that differs. 
Authors are so universally deficient of remark on the subject 
of prostitution, or even of immorality in Switzerland, that, if we 
may judge from their silence, nothing of the kind exists there. 
“ The Swiss population is generally moral and well-behaved. A 
drunkard is seldom seen, and illegitimate children are rare,” says 
Bowring.1 
In Neufchatel, which, except politically, can hardly be consid- 
ered part of Switzerland, a custom exists strongly similar to one 
in Norway, and a general usage among Lutherans, namely, that 
of associating before marriage. This, as Washington Irving says 
of the “ delightful practice of bundling,” is sometimes productive 
of unfortunate results. A lady writer says that public opinion 
upholds the respectability of the females if they are married time 
enough to legitimatize their offspring. Instances have occurred 
of two couples quarreling, and a mutual interchange of lovers and 
sweethearts taking place, the nominal fathers adopting the early- 
born children.2 
The frugal thrift of the great bulk of the Swiss population, their 
distribution over the country in small numbers, the absence of 
large masses of human beings pent up in the reeking atmosphere 
of cities, their constant and intimate association with their pastors, 
and the hope which every individual cherishes of purchasing with 
his savings a small patch of his beloved native soil as a patrimony, 
seem to discourage prostitution as a trade. The influence of cli- 
mate, also, must not be forgotten; and Mr. Chambers, in account- 
ing for the general good conduct of the Swiss peasantry, lays much 
stress on their temperate habits, the use of intoxicating liquor 
among them being very rare indeed. 
1 Report on Switzerland to the British Parliament, 1836, by Dr. (now Sir John) 
Bowring. He was sent on a Continental tour of inquiry into the condition of the 
working classes, in reference to the English Poor-laws. 
a Mrs. Strutt’s Switzerland, ii, 231. RUSSIA 
261 
CHAPTER XXI. 
RUSSIA. 
Ancient Manners.—Peter the Great.—Eudoxia.—Empress Catharine, her disso- 
lute Conduct and Death.—Peter’s Libertinism.—Anne.—Elizabeth.—Catharine 
11., infamous Career and Death.—Paul.—Alexander I.—Countess Narishkin.— 
Nichohis.—Court Morality.—Serfage.—Prostitution in St. Petersburg.—Excess 
of Males over Females.—Marriage Customs.—Brides’ Fair.—Conjugal Relations 
among the Russian Nobility.—Foundling Hospital of St. Petersburg.—lllegiti- 
macy. 
The brutality, drunkenness, and debauchery which accompany 
semi-barbarism, and of which the old Russian manners had more 
than a due proportion, continued to be characteristic of the people 
of that country until a very recent period; while their amiability, 
their plastic disposition, their highly imitative faculty in the arts, 
and their capabilities of improvement, are noted by many writers. 
Just emerged from savage life as a nation, they have been mould- 
ed and welded as one mass by the steady and undeviating policy 
of their sovereigns, among whom we have examples of vast men- 
tal powers and towering ambition, combined with the lowest de- 
pravity and the most shameless profligacy, exemplifying in the 
same individual the extremes of human nature. 
Previous to Peter the Great, Russia was comparatively un- 
known, and in the Elizabethan age of England the Czar of Mus- 
covy was considered only as a barbarian, whose subjects were far 
inferior in civilization to the Tartars of the Crimea. Indeed, it 
was not till the eighteenth century that the Russians were admitted 
within the pale of European politics, or their power reckoned as 
an element in the calculations of statesmen. 
The most important, we might almost say the only lawgiver 
previous to Peter the Great, was Ivan 111., who reigned in the 
early part of the sixteenth century. Among the laws of that pe- 
riod, which were all sanguinary, was one fixing the value of a fe- 
male life, in case of death by misadventure, at half the life of a 
man. Slavery was the institution of the state, each child being 
the absolute property of its parent/ The women were more en- 
slaved than among the Asiatics, no law protecting them against 
their husband’s violence. A wife who killed her husband was to 262 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
be buried alive up to the neck, and a guard was set around her to 
see that no one supplied her with food or the means of ending 
her sufferings.1 Females lived in the strictest seclusion, and had 
no weight nor authority in the household. Their duties were to 
spin, to sew, and to do menial work. 
Peter I. came to the throne, as most Russian sovereigns have 
done, either through intrigue or usurpation. Both before and 
after Peter, the will and caprice of the ruling power was para- 
mount. He might appoint his successor, either during life or by 
will, and such appointment was often set aside by a more power- 
ful competitor. In Peter’s public life, in his aspirations for the 
general welfare, in his self-devotion, in his conceptions of all that 
was wanting to his country’s elevation and greatness, and in his 
iron will and supernatural energy, he was a hero; in his private 
life, in his passions, his tastes and habits, he was on a level with 
the lowest of mankind. 
Our object is the delineation of national characteristics, and in- 
dividual propensities or delinquencies are unimportant except so 
far as they illustrate national character. It has been well ob- 
served that a people’s virtue or vice does not consist in the arith- 
metical increase or decrease of immoral actions, but in the prevail- 
ing sentiment of an age or people, which condemns or approves 
them. It is in this respect that the conduct of monarchs and 
courtiers becomes of importance in the estimate of national man- 
ners, especially in a despotism. The Czar of Russia is at once the 
religious and political leader of his people, and his personal con- 
duct becomes the standard of their moral relations, offering en- 
couragement and support to the good, or sanction and justifica- 
tion to the depraved. 
Peter’s first wife, Eudoxia, was a woman of virtue and merit. 
Neither her youth nor beauty secured the affections of her hus- 
band. She did not escape the voice of slander. Gleboff, her al- 
leged lover, was impaled by Peter, who went to see him writhing 
in his death agonies, when the wretched man avenged himself in 
the only way left him: he spat in the Czar’s face. Eudoxia was 
subsequently sent to a nunnery at Moscow by Peter’s orders, and 
at last took the veil under the name of Helena. 
Scarcely had Peter attained the crown when he formed a con- 
nection with Catharine. The romantic history of her origin and 
elevation is too well known to repeat here. Her husband, a 
1 Karamsin. RUSSIA. 
Swedish dragoon, was living; and she was the mistress first of 
Marshal Sheremeloff, then of Mentchikoff, in whose house Peter 
saw her, and whence he took her. She acquired great influence 
over the Czar’s untamed ferocity, and, to her infinite credit, this 
influence was always used to mitigate the fearful rigor of his pun- 
ishments, and to soothe his otherwise implacably revengeful spirit. 
During the lifetime of her husband and of his first wife, Peter 
married her. 
The pleasing traits of Catharine’s character were obscured by 
the irregularity of her life. Raised, by the affection of Peter, to 
the imperial throne, she set an example of dissoluteness to her 
subjects. There is ample reason for believing that she had several 
intrigues during Peter’s lifetime, but the case of Moens de la Croix 
is beyond question, and the discovery of her infidelity in this in- 
stance led to her separation from Peter and the death of her lover. 
In 1724, after the campaign against the Turks, in which Catha- 
rine had accompanied the Czar, and had, by her spirit and exam- 
ple, kept up the courage of the army amid great difficulties and 
reverses, Peter determined on publicly crowning her; a ceremony 
very unusual in Russia, and almost tantamount to declaring her 
his successor. 
Moens de la Croix was the young brother of Anne de la Croix, 
one of Peter’s early mistresses. He was Catharine’s chamberlain. 
His office brought him in close attendance on the empress, and an 
intimacy was established. This was for a time notorious to every 
one except Peter himself. At length, however, his suspicions 
were aroused, and, by setting spies on Catharine, he became a per- 
sonal witness to her infidelity. The first explosion of his resent- 
ment was terrific, and he was on the point of executing both the 
empress and her paramour, but by the temperate advice of some 
of his friends, who counseled him to avoid a scandal, it was de- 
termined to arrest Moens on a false charge of conspiracy. 
Moens and his sister were accordingly seized and confined in an 
apartment in the winter palace. Peter permitted nobody to ap- 
proach them, and took them their food with his own hands. 
When they were examined as to the conspiracy, Moens, to save 
the empress with the public, confessed to every thing. He was 
accordingly condemned and beheaded. His sister was knouted 
and sent to Siberia. 
Catharine had presented her lover with her miniature on a brace- 
let, which he always wore. As he walked to his death, he managed 264 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
to deliver it, unperceived, to the Lutheran minister who accom- 
panied him, with instructions to convey it back to the empress 
privately, which was accomplished. The Czar was a spectator of 
the execution, after which the head of the culprit was fixed on a 
stake, according to custom. To terrify Catharine the more effect- 
ually, Peter drove her round the head of her lover. Happily for 
her, she managed to preserve self-control during the torture of this 
horrid spectacle. After this the Czar only spoke to her in public. 
At Peter’s death, Catharine ascended the throne of Russia by 
virtue of a pretended dying declaration of her husband. She went 
through a pantomime of sorrows and tears over his body, but, as 
soon as she was firmly seated, she abandoned herself to pleasure 
and voluptuousness, and had two lovers, Prince Sapicha and 
Loewenwolden, at the same time. “ These two rivals equally 
strove to please her, and alternately received proofs of her tender- 
ness, without suffering their happiness to be marred by jealousy.” 
The irregularity of the empress’s fife, and her intemperate use of 
ardent liquors, hastened her death, which took place in her thirty- 
ninth year. 
Peter himself was a wretched example of conjugal infidelity and 
low debauchery. His associates were often of the very lowest of 
the populace. It is true that in his time the highest were not 
much removed from their inferiors in decency of manners; while 
the inferiors often had the advantage, if not of intellectual cultiva- 
tion, at least of practical intelligence, in which Peter took delight. 
He spent many of his hours drinking brandy and other liquors 
with sailors, carpenters, and artisans, irrespective of his temporary 
assumption of the working man’s pursuits. He consorted indis- 
criminately with women of all sorts and conditions. Eventually 
he contracted the venereal disease. From neglect, and the general 
depravity of his life, the disease became so aggravated that at last 
it proved the indirect cause of his death. He himself used to say 
that he had taken it from Madame Tchnertichoff, wife of the 
general and diplomatist of that name. Upon the fact being men- 
tioned to her, whether casually or with malice 'prepense does not 
appear, she is reported to have replied very naively that she had 
not given it to him, but that he, on the contrary, had such loose 
habits and low associates that he had given it to her.1 
It was in 1722 that Peter was attacked with this malady, and 
while suffering from it he marched into Persia, and shared the 
1 Villebois. RUSSIA 
265 
tatigues of the meanest soldier throughout the campaign. The 
heat, drought, and constant dust increased the disease frightfully, 
and the pains became so excruciating that he could not conceal 
them from his immediate attendants. Still, however, he would 
not consult the court physician, but directed his servant to get ad- 
vice as if for some one else. He then went to the hot baths of 
Plonetz, and apparently recovered. But it seems the disease was 
not cured; it was merely palliated by this treatment, and he was 
obliged, on a relapse, to have recourse to the regular physicians, 
and for three months his life was despaired of. At last he recov- 
ered ; but now, in spite of all warnings, he resumed his usual habits 
of life, renewed his long and severe journeys, his public works, 
and his general activity of mind and body, while he in nowise 
amended other and more injurious pursuits and practices. 
On November 6, 1724, while on a journey to Finland, he stop- 
ped at the port of Lachta. There, from the shore, he saw a small 
vessel full of soldiers and sailors which had struck upon a shoal. 
Perceiving their imminent danger, he shouted to them, but the 
boisterous wind drowned his voice. He sprang into a skiff, pull- 
ed out to the shoal, and, having reached the vessel, jumped into 
the water, got her off, and landed the passengers all safe. He neg- 
lected all the precautions necessary in the then state of his health, 
and was seized with violent fever, and at the same time his former 
pangs came on with all their old force. He was taken back to 
St. Petersburg, where he obtained partial relief from his suffer- 
ings. He employed one of his intervals of ease in celebrating the 
great festival of blessing the waters of the Neva, and by his in- 
temperance in the festivities renewed his attack, and after a period 
of protracted agony, died on the 28th of January, 1725. 
Peter is described as having been excessively libidinous in 
temperament, and his coarse promiscuous amours were made the 
common subject of his jocularity, even in the presence of Catha- 
rine. He was even addicted to abominable depravities, which are 
stated by contemporary writers to have been the common practice 
of the Russians at that time.1 Peter at times gave way to fits of 
lust, in which, like a furious beast, he regarded neither age nor 
sex. Unnatural vices were punished in the Russian army at this 
time by an express military regulation, and the crime was a stand- 
ing reproach with the people, who were said to have acquired it 
from the Greeks of the lower empire.2 
1 Memoires Secrets de la Cour de Russia. Yillebois. 3 Karamsin. 266 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Anne, the successor of Peter and Catharine, had two publicly 
avowed lovers—Dolgorouki and Ernest John Biren. The latter 
was the better known, as his influence and importance during 
Anne’s reign were very great. Dolgorouki had become one of 
the deputies to announce to Anne her succession to the throne, 
which office he accepted, with the hope of being able to resume 
his former intimate relations with his future sovereign. When 
he entered the apartments, he found a man in mean apparel seat- 
ed by the side of the princess. He ordered him to withdraw, and, 
upon his inattention to the order, took him by the arm to turn 
him out, when the empress stopped him. This unknown person 
was Biren, who became regent of the empire.l 
Anne was not sunk in the same abyss of profligacy as her suc- 
cessor Elizabeth, nor in brutality as her ancestor Peter. She had 
been brought up in Courland, and had acquired some little refine- 
ment of ideas and manners. Gluttony and drunkenness were 
somewhat less in vogue at her court, but dissipation, ruinous 
gambling, and boundless extravagance were in full fashion. The 
whole court became a body of buffoons and jokers, and the most 
absurd and preposterous fashions of dress, the rudest and most 
boisterous romps and gambols were generally practiced. As a 
specimen of court manners, the practical joke played on Prince 
Galitzin, in which there was as much malice as fun, may be re- 
membered. 
Having given offense by changing his religion, the prince was 
compulsorily married to a girl of the lowest birth. A palace 
was built in his honor, but the material was ice, and all the furni- 
ture was composed of the same. The wedding procession, con- 
sisting of more than three hundred persons in their national cos- 
tumes, who had been collected from all the provinces of Russia, 
passed along the streets. The newly-married couple were mount- 
ed in a pagoda on the back of an elephant. When the ball was 
over, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to their nuptial 
chamber, like the rest of the house, all of ice, and were there in- 
stalled in an ice bedstead, and guards were posted at the door to 
prevent them escaping from the room before morning. 
Anne died in 1740, and, after a short interregnum, Elizabeth, 
daughter of Peter L, came to the throne. She inherited all her 
father’s vices and sensuality, but none of his great qualities. Be- 
fore she became empress, Elizabeth had outraged all propriety; 
Karamsin, p. ' RUSSIA. 
267 
had openly carried on an improper intercourse with the sub-offi- 
cers and soldiers of the guards who had been quartered near her 
dwelling. The lust and drunkenness in which she wallowed in- 
disposed her from all longings after greatness. But there were 
others who needed her name, and a conspiracy being formed, she 
became empress in spite of herself. Her chief paramour at the 
time was Grunstein, sergeant in the guards, who was elevated to 
the rank of major-general. The other soldiers and non-commis- 
sioned officers who had been the ministers of her lewdness were 
made officers. These individuals frequented the common public 
houses, got drunk, made their way into the houses of persons of 
condition, and committed all sorts of depredations with impunity. 
When the men who could boast of the empress’s favors became 
intolerable, they were drafted off to the army, as officers in regi- 
ments on service. 
Elizabeth is said to have been privately married to Razamoffsky, 
as also to the well-known Chevalier d’Eon, who visited the court 
of Russia in the disguise of a woman, and undoubtedly enjoyed 
Elizabeth’s favors, whatever may be the truth about her marriage 
to him. Elizabeth withdrew herself for whole months from busi- 
ness, and was drunk for days or even weeks consecutively. She 
had a reputation for humanity; but, although she sentenced no 
one to death, not less than eighty thousand of her subjects were 
tortured or sent to Siberia during her reign. Her extravagance 
was such that when she died there were in her wardrobe some 
fifteen thousand dresses, thousands of pairs of sleeves, and several 
hundred pieces of French and other silks. 
Catharine 11. of Russia was, like Peter, a compound of the no- 
blest intellectual endowments, with a moral organization of un- 
surpassed depravity. She has usually been considered a monster 
of lust; but she was no less infamous for her cruelty, and for the 
total absence of all those qualities and feelings which form the 
chief grace and beauty of woman’s inner life. Her favorite din- 
ing-room in the Tauric palace was adorned with pictures repre- 
senting the sacking of Ohkzakoff and Ismail, in which the painter 
had surpassed the gloomy vision of a Carravaggio, and had de- 
picted the assault, the carnage, the mutilation, and all the hideous 
details of such scenes. In these Catharine is said to have taken 
great delight. She hated music, and never could permit other 
sounds than those of drums, trumpets, and similar barbaric instru- 
ments within her hearing; and yet it is said that, in her outset in 268 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
life as Princess of Anhalt Zerbst, she had a womanly heart, deli- 
cacy of taste, and refinement of intellect j1 that it was not till long 
after her husband, Peter 111., had insulted her by open neglect of 
her very winning person .and youthful graces, and had abandoned 
her for the vulgar and ugly Princess Woronzoff, that she commit- 
ted herself to the terrible career which she afterward pursued so 
steadily. 
The Duchesse d’Abrantes, in her memoir of Catharine, tells us 
that her first lover, Soltikoff, was forced upon her as a matter of 
public policy by the crafty and unscrupulous Bestujeff, the able 
minister of Elizabeth, for the sake of procuring an heir to the 
Grand Duke Peter. Catharine remonstrated, and threatened to 
complain, “To whom will you complain ?” asked the minister, 
coldly. Catharine submitted, and accepted the lover thus imposed 
upon her. At the time of this adultery for expediency sake, 
Catharine was deeply intent upon study, with a view to qualify 
herself worthily for her future destiny, disgusted as she was with 
the indecencies of the Russian court! 
Subsequently, it was considered expedient to remove Soltikoff. 
Catharine had given birth to a child, and was not pleased with 
this dismissal; but the impassible Bestujeff only sneered at her re- 
monstrances and professions of affection for the dismissed lover, 
and recommended her to choose another. This was a lesson she 
was not slow to carry out. The list of her paramours was little 
less numerous than that of Elizabeth. 
After Catharine had caused Peter 111. to be murdered, and had 
ascended the throne as empress in her own right, she abandoned 
herself to the fullest gratification of her passions, both royal and 
personal. Besides the vulgar crowd whom she selected as the re- 
cipients of her filthy favors, the world knew, as the public and 
recognized paramours, the names of Orloff, by whom she had a 
son called Count Bobruski, Wassilitchikoff, Potemkin, Louskoi, 
Mornonoff, and Zuboff. 
These were appointed in a manner that was reduced to a sys- 
tem, and an etiquette was established as precise as that of naming 
a state minister. When Catharine was tired of her present fa- 
vorite, one of her intimate friends was commissioned to look out 
for another. At other times, her notice having fallen on some 
young man who pleased her fancy, she signified her wishes to some 
female friend, and thereupon an entertainment was arranged at 
Duchesse d’Abrantes, p. 34. RUSSIA 
269 
the lady’s house, which the empress honored with her presence, 
and thereby gained an opportunity of closer acquaintanceship with 
the chosen individual. He then received orders to attend at the 
palace, where he was introduced to the court physician, and exam- 
ined as to his general health and physical condition. After this 
he was placed under the charge of a certain Mademoiselle Pro- 
tasoff.1 The various examinations having been successfully pass- 
ed, the favorite was installed into the regular apartments of office, 
which were immediately contiguous to those of the empress. On 
the first day of his installation he received one hundred thousand 
rubles (about twenty-five thousand dollars) for linen, and an al- 
lowance of twelve thousand rubles per month; besides which, all 
his household expenses were defrayed. He was required to at- 
tend the empress wherever she went, and was not permitted to 
leave the palace without her permission. He might not converse 
familiarly with other women, and if he dined with his friends, it 
was imperative that the mistress of the house should be absent. 
When a favorite had completed his term of service he received 
orders to travel, and from that moment all access to her majesty 
was denied. The favorites rarely rebelled against their destiny in 
this particular; but Potemkin and Orloff, who had far other views 
than those of dalliance, had the temerity to disobey the order, and 
succeeded in retaining power and the friendship of the empress 
long after their personal claims on her tenderness were at an end. 
On terminating the intimacy, the favorite usually received mag- 
nificent gifts. Potemkin, after he had ceased his functions as fa- 
vorite, became pander to his royal mistress, thereby securing the 
double advantage of the favor of the empress and the patronage 
of the favorite, from whom he levied a handsome fee for the intro- 
duction. Potemkin and Orloff were at one period rivals, in which 
contest Orloff was at last defeated; but when Potemkin reached 
his pride of place, he became so necessary to Catharine in his high- 
er capacity that he set up and pulled down the favorite of the hour 
as he pleased, and even ventured upon the most extravagant flights 
of insolence and personal disrespect to the empress. Orloff had 
been also the rival of Poniatowski, but his superior capacity and 
“ Miss Pratasoff then there 
Named from her mystic office I’Eprouveuse, 
A term inexplicable to the muse, 
With her then, as in humble duty bound, 
Juan retired.”—Byron. 270 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
brutal energy of will made him respected and feared by Catharine 
long after she had ceased to like him. 
The pecuniary results to the state, enormous as was the plun- 
der, was perhaps the least of the evils sustained through this sys- 
tem of iniquity. The registered gifts to the twelve favorites 
amounted to upward of one hundred million dollars.1 Lanskoi, 
who had held no political offices, and the whole of whose fortune 
was drawn from the flagitious profits of his post of dishonor, died, 
after less than four years of office, worth, in cash only, and exclu- 
sive of valuables, seven millions of rubles. Potemkin’s wealth, 
which was accumulated from all sources of public robbery and 
private extortion, was fabulous. At his death he owned two hund- 
red thousand serfs; he had whole cupboards filled with gold coin, 
jewels, and bank-bills; he held thirty-two orders, and his fortune 
was estimated at sixty million dollars.2 
In the closing days of Catharine’s reign she found a lower deep 
into which to plunge. When upward of sixty, she took into office, 
as her favorite, Zuboff, who was not quite twenty-five. She now 
formed the Society of the Little Hermitage. This was a picked 
company of wits and libertines, of both sexes, over whose scenes 
of debauchery and revelry the empress presided. An inner pen- 
etralia even of these orgies was established, and called the Little 
Society. 
The pernicious influence of such an example, set for so long a 
period of time by a sovereign distinguished for ability, and whose 
reign had been rendered famous by its successful foreign enter- 
prises, was the almost universal corruption of the Russian court 
and aristocracy of both sexes. The women, in imitation of her 
majesty, kept men, with the title and office of favorites. This was 
as customary as any other piece of fashion, and was recognized by 
husbands. Tender intrigues were unknown; strong passion was 
still more rare j marriage was merely an association. There was 
a club, called the club of natural philosophers, which was a society 
of men and women of the highest classes, the object of whose meet- 
ings was indiscriminate sexual intercourse. The members met to 
feast, and after the banquet they retired in pairs chosen by lot. 
This club was afterward put down by the Russian police, in com- 
mon with all other secret societies. A hospital was founded by 
Catharine for fifty ladies affected with venereal disease. These 
were all to be taken care of; no question was permitted as to name 
1 D’Abrautes, p. 294. J Id. p. 297. RUSSIA. 
271 
or quality, and the linen of the establishment was marked with 
the significant word “discretion.” 
Catharine’s end was sudden and frightful. She had grown cor- 
pulent, and her legs and body had swollen and burst. She moved 
about with considerable difficulty, although her imperious will 
would not allow her to give way in her career either of ambition 
or profligacy. She was at the Little Hermitage November 4, 1796, 
in remarkably high spirits, and even joked her buffoon, Leof Naus- 
kin, among other things, as to his death and his fears thereupon. 
The next morning the dread messenger, of whose advent she had 
made sport, brought his orders for her. She fell into an apoplec- 
tic fit, and, after thirty-seven hours of insensibility, died unbless- 
ing and unblessed, to be succeeded by Paul, her detested son by 
her first lover Soltikoff. 
The emperor, or as he was better known by Napoleon’s sobri- 
quet, the mad Emperor Paul, was too remarkable for his eccen- 
tricities to make himself conspicuous for his gallantries. Even in 
this particular he preserved his eccentricity. He neglected his 
wife, an amiable and handsome woman, the mother of Alexander 
and Nicholas, for an ugly mistress, Mademoiselle Nelidoff, and for 
another, Mademoiselle Lapukhin, who would not accept his ad- 
dresses, but to whom he nevertheless professed the patient devo- 
tion of Don Quixote. The most noteworthy circumstance, in this 
connection, of Paul’s life was the indirect effect of female frailty in 
procuring his murder. The enemies who subsequently plotted his 
downfall and destruction procured their return from banishment 
through the offices of a certain Mademoiselle Chevalier, a French 
actress who ruled Kutaisoff, who on his part ruled the Czar. 
As we approach our own times, the description of historical 
characters becomes liable to the tinge of prejudice or partiality. 
Alexander, the son and successor of Paul, was distinguished by 
the amenity of his disposition and the philosophical tone of his 
political theories. He was married at an early age by order of 
his grandmother Catharine, who in his case insisted on making 
him a good husband, and took numerous precautions for that 
purpose, all of which her example neutralized or belied. The 
selection made for him might, under the conditions of humble life 
or a free choice, have turned out happily. As it was, he pre- 
ferred the society of the ladies of his court, and in particular of 
the Countess Narishkin, by whom he had three children. The 
countess proved inconstant, and all his children by her died, to 
Alexander’s deep grief. 272 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
After the loss of these illegitimate children, the affections of 
Alexander were turned toward the empress, whose true worth he 
recognized when it was too late. She was struck with disease, 
and he was on a journey to Southern Russia to select a suitable 
spot for a residence for her, when he was seized with the fever of 
which he died. 
If Alexander’s mild character had but little influence on his 
subjects, the name of his successor, Nicholas, has been identified 
with the very existence of the Russian people, as much as any 
sovereign since Peter the Great. His example and expressed will 
have had immense effect, both for good and evil. It is almost 
impossible to arrive at the true character of Nicholas at the pres- 
ent time, for the reasons just mentioned. In his private life as 
husband and father, and in his public life as ruler and politician, 
writers are diametrically opposed to each other. Party prejudice 
denies him all worth, or makes him a very Socrates. Golovin 
and authors of the democratic school affirm, in addition to his 
other offenses, that Nicholas had several illegitimate children, and 
also “that no woman could feel herself secure from Nicholas’s 
importunities;” while writers like Yon Tietz, Jermann, and other 
panegyrists of the Russian court, describe Nicholas as an exem- 
plary husband and father, a model to his subjects in his domestic 
relations. They allege farther, that the gross immorality which 
has been the chief feature of Russian society was very much dis- 
couraged, and rendered altogether unfashionable by the estima- 
ble manners of the imperial family. 
Truth is rarely found in extremes. The prevalent usage among 
sovereigns in this century has been “to assume a virtue if they 
have it not,” and to maintain a respectable exterior for the sake 
of public opinion. So politic a ruler as Nicholas was not likely 
to reject this. He did all that could be done to bring virtue into 
good repute at court. But too many little incidents are told of 
him to justify a belief in his perfect spotlessness. The characters 
of individuals, even as rulers, would be unimportant to us were it 
not that in Russia society is in a transition state, and shows itself 
plastic in the hands of an energetic emperor. “ The state! lam 
the state I” was perfectly true in the mouth of Nicholas. By his 
subjects he was held in an esteem little short of idolatry, and he 
was, in every sense of the word, the most remarkable man in his 
vast dominions. 
Thompson, an English traveler, who has spoken very favorably EUSSIA 
273 
of the personal worth of the Emperor Nicholas, says of the moral- 
ity of the upper classes among the Russians, “ Denied the advant- 
ages of rational amusement and innocent social enjoyments, de- 
prived of those resources which, while they dispel ennui, elevate 
the feelings, the mind resorts to sensual indulgences and to the 
gratification of the passions for the purpose of finding recreation 
and relief from the deadening pressure of despotism. Immorality 
and intrigue are of universal prevalence, and (in a social sense) 
are hardly looked upon as criminal acts, while gambling and 
debauchery are the natural consequences of the tedious monotony 
from which all seek to escape by indulging in gross and vicious 
excitement.” 
Under the system of serfage, now approaching its end, it was 
almost impossible that there should be such a thing as public mo- 
rality in the lower classes. The Russians, both noble and serf, 
are false and dishonest to a proverb. Prostitution in such cases 
is a superfluous term: a woman had no right or opportunity to 
be virtuous. 
The morality of St. Petersburg is undoubtedly of the lowest, 
and yet we have not met with any accounts of local prostitution 
there. It is a city of men, containing one hundred thousand more 
males than females.1 Kelly says the women form only two sev- 
enths (f) of the entire population, and calls it “an alarming fact.” 
The climate is unfavorable to female beauty, and it is generally 
conceded that the men are handsomer than the women. The 
German girls have an almost exclusive, reputation for good looks 
in St, Petersburg. By reason of the disproportion of the sexes, it 
is said that ladies can not venture out unattended. This is eti- 
quette among the higher classes of all Continental Europe, and 
the simple fact, without the reason, would not be surprising. 
The attention to minutiae which distinguishes a despotism, and 
which is so remarkable a feature of Russian state craft, does not 
allow us to suppose there are no statistical papers on the subject 
of prostitution; on the contrary, it is perfectly well known that 
such are in existence. The secrecy which is scrupulously main- 
tained in all public matters, and the watchful vigilance of the police 
over strangers, prevents them obtaining any information except 
on the most patent and notorious subjects. The remarks of trav- 
elers on Russian society are very vague and general, and unsup- 
ported by any of those details which could alone authenticate them. 
1 Kohl. 274 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
We have already alluded to the ancient Oriental seclusion of 
women among the Russians. This was so strict that a suitor 
never saw, or at least was presumed never to have seen, the face 
of his bride before marriage. In 1498, Ivan the Great told a Ger- 
man embassador who demanded his daughter in marriage for the 
Margrave of Baden, that Russians never showed their daughters 
to any one before the match was decided. Peter the Great abol- 
ished this lottery, and directed that the parties might see each 
other, but he still found it necessary to promulgate a strong ukase 
against parents compelling children to marry against their wishes. 
The compromise of the ancient custom which has been brought 
about by this law is that the elders of the family usually pre- 
contract for the juniors: then succeeds the bridal promenade, at 
which the young people, if unknown to each other, are led acci- 
dentally to meet in the same walk. Having thus managed an in- 
terview, the father of the young man, if all the preliminaries have 
been satisfactory so far, sends to the bride’s father, and a general 
family meeting takes place, at which the arrangements are com- 
pleted, the dowry determined, and then follows the betrothal. 
The elect pair kneel down on a fur mat and exchange rings. The 
preparations for the marriage are commenced, during which time 
the lovers have frequent opportunities of meeting and becoming 
better known to each other; this is a general period of visiting 
and parties. On the wedding-day the bride-maids unbraid the 
lady’s hair, and she receives her husband with flowing locks. 
This is a remnant of ancient Russian usage, when the greatest 
outrage that could be committed on a woman was to unbraid her 
hair. It is generally believed that among the lower orders the 
wife is bound to draw off her husband’s boots on the wedding- 
day, and also that the Russian peasant beats his wife at the com- 
mencement of her married life, so as to indicate supremacy. As 
to the substantial observance of the latter practice modern travel- 
ers differ, although it would seem that symbolically it is still main- 
tained.1 
A curious exhibition takes place on Whitsunday in the Peters- 
burg summer garden, called “The Bride’s Fair.” All the mar- 
riageable daughters of the Russian tradesmen turn out on that 
day for a promenade. The young men, in their best attire, come 
forth to view them. The brides expectant do not limit their dis- 
’ Golovin states that the whip is an article in frequent requisition in the conju- 
gal state. RUSSIA. 
275 
play to their charms, but second them by attractions of a more 
substantial character, adorning themselves with trinkets, jewels, 
or even now and then with silver tea-spoons, plate, and other 
valuables useful in housekeeping. This has been inveighed 
against as indicative of the prevalent indelicacy of the Russians, 
a sort of bride-market. Is it more reprehensible than many cus- 
toms nearer home? It is now, however, falling into disuse. 
The conjugal relations of the Russian nobility were extremely 
loose and indefensible during the time when vice was fashion, and 
virtue in a courtier would have been deemed condemnation of the 
higher powers. Then, and even down to the reign of the Em- 
peror Nicholas, marriage was simply an affair of convenience—the 
husband living at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the wife in Paris or 
Italy ; such separations frequently lasting for years.1 
The Foundling Hospital at St. Petersburg, the Wospitaielnoi 
Dora, is the most magnificent foundation of the kind in Europe, 
and it pleases the authorities to give information upon its feat- 
ures. The endowments are enormous, owing to the munificence 
of successive sovereigns, who have made it a kind of state caprice. 
The annual expenditure exceeds five millions two hundred thou- 
sand rubles.2 The number of children in this institution is com- 
mensurate with its wealth. Upward of twenty-five thousand are 
constantly enrolled on its books. 
The lodge is open day and night for the reception of infants. 
The daily average of children brought is about twenty. The only 
question asked is if the child has been baptized, and by what name. 
If not baptized, the ceremony is performed by a priest of the Greek 
Church. At the time of leaving, the mother receives a ticket, the 
duplicate of which is placed around the child’s neck. The mortal- 
ity which takes place among these helpless victims of sin and mis- 
'fortune is enormous. Some die in the lodge when just received; 
more perish during the tedious ceremonies of their baptism, which 
last several hours. The total number of deaths among children 
in the asylum and those out at nurse is probably three thousand 
per annum, or about one in four of the whole number committed 
to its charge.3 
1 Von Tietz, p. 73. 
2 Kohl. There is some difficulty in estimating the ruble from the difference in 
the currency of Russian silver coin. We believe this sum would be upward of a 
million dollars. 
:i Von Tietz says that, as regards morality, the institution does not work badly, 276 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The children are given in care of wet nurses for about six weeks, 
when they are sent into the country until six years old. They 
are then brought back to the institution and educated in a superior 
manner; the girls being qualified as governesses in Russian fami- 
lies, and the boys as artisans in the imperial manufactories. In 
cases of special capacity, they receive a scientific or musical edu- 
cation. 
An incident which is said to have occurred at this institution 
has gone the rounds of the press. The story is, that one of the 
young women having given birth to an infant, and the delinquent 
not being discovered, the Emperor Nicholas heard of the occur- 
rence, and made a visit of inspection. Having summoned the 
pupils before him, he demanded to know the guilty one, add- 
ing that, if she came forward, she should be pardoned. No one 
obeyed the invitation, and he was going away, with threats of 
disgracing the whole body, when one girl, to save her compan- 
ions, came forward, threw herself at his feet, and confessed her 
fault. Nicholas kicked her out of the way, exclaiming that it 
was too late.1 
A Lying-in Hospital is one of the appendages of this establish- 
ment. Pregnant women may enter there four weeks before their 
confinement, and the strictest secrecy is maintained as to their 
name and character. Even the omnipotent Czar respects the priv- 
ileges of the place. 
The institution at Moscow is on a similarly gigantic scale, and 
is managed after the same fashion. 
The empress is the mother of the foundlings, which, be it ob- 
served, are mostly the children of such as can not or do not desire 
to keep their offspring. Free access, on appointed days, is permit- 
ted to the parents of the children; and, under special circum- 
stances, the empress will permit a child to be removed from the 
institution, if the parents prove their means and disposition to 
support it properly. 
Kohl, who gives us particular, and even minute accounts of 
the management and arrangement of the public hospitals, makes 
no mention whatever of the syphilitic wards. The high system of 
efficiency in which the military infirmaries are maintained might 
have encouraged a hope for more detailed information on this 
subject. 
for there are comparatively less illegitimate births at St. Petersburgh than in most 
other cities, but he gives no figures to support this assertion. 1 Golovin. SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 
277 
CHAPTER XXH. 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 
Comparative Morality.—lllegitimacy.—Profligacy in Stockholm.—lnfanticide. 
Foundling Hospitals.—Stora Barnhordst.—Laws against Prostitution.—Tolera- 
tion.—Government Brothels.—Syphilis.—Marriage in Norway. 
The ancient Scandinavian peninsula, land of the Scald and the 
Rune, with its Yikings and Beisckers, has sent down to us many 
a legend of war and conquest, but few of social manners or moral 
relations. The high esteem in which the ancient Germans held 
their women, and the affinity of laws and customs between the 
Norsemen and the Teutons, justify us in believing that the blue- 
eyed maids of the Scandinavian heroes were as much respected for 
virtue as beloved for beauty. The eternal virgins in the Walhalla 
of Western mythology were not associated with the grosser pleas- 
ures with which the impure fancy of the Koran invested the houris 
of the Mohammedan Paradise; and the Norsemen, through their 
posterity, the Normans, introduced, among the other amenities of 
chivalry, that prominent obligation of true knighthood, “ devoir 
aux dames" perhaps not the least humanizing incident of the in- 
stitution. 
Passing, by a long stride, at once to modern times, we find in 
the joint kingdom of Sweden and Norway two territories as dis- 
tinct in their social condition as they are in their geographical 
divisions. Norway has always been remarkable for a simple and 
hardy population of fishermen and small farmers, elements in the 
highest degree favorable to virtue and independence, and their 
poverty and isolation from the continental interests of Europe have 
exempted them from politics and war. Sweden, on the other 
hand, though not much wealthier as a nation, has had an heredit- 
ary nobility, and the ambition and ability of some of her monarchs, 
especially of the great Gustavus, caused her to play a part in his- 
tory wholly disproportionate to her territorial importance. If, 
however, the historical significance of Sweden be somewhat great- 
er than that of the less pretentious sister kingdom, statistics do not 
accord to the former the same estimation, in point of morals, as 
they concede to the latter. 278 
HISTORY OF FROSTITUTION. 
The average of illegitimate births, though not infallible, is gen- 
erally accepted as a fair test of the immorality of a people. Taken 
by this standard, Sweden ranks lower than almost any country of 
Europe. But if the character of the general population be indif- 
ferent, that of Stockholm “ out-Herods Herod.” 
In Stockholm, in 1838, there were 1137 illegitimate to 1577 le- 
gitimate; in 1839 there were 1074 illegitimate to 1492 legitimate 
births. 
The average of illegitimate to other births in the capital and 
throughout the country was as follows:1 
1835. 
1838. 
1839. 
1 in 2-44 
1 in 6-18 
1 in 20-41 
1 in 15-20 
1 in 2-47 
1 in 6-18 
1 in 20-01 
1 in 14-69 
1 in 2-38 
1 in 6-40 
1 in 20-01 
1 in 14-94 
Throughout the kingdom.. 
As regards the average of the whole kingdom, the proportion 
is much the same as that of England and France. What, then, 
must be the condition of the towns, and, in particular, of the cap- 
ital V- The figures are such as to justify the allegation against 
Stockholm of being the most immoral capital in Europe, and also 
the presumption that the late decrease in its population, from 
which it is but recently recovering, is a direct consequence of 
the vice that stains it. 
With so large an amount of illegitimacy, it is not surprising that 
infanticide should be of common occurrence. The penalty of this 
crime is death, although, from a growing aversion to capital pun- 
ishment, it is generally commuted. 
There are numerous foundling hospitals throughout the king- 
dom of Sweden; one in particular, the 'Stora Bamhorst in Stock- 
holm, established by Gustavus Adolphus, originally intended for 
the children of military men of broken health and fortunes. It 
has been perverted from the simplicity of its original foundation, 
and now receives children of all comers, who pay an entrance fee 
of about thirty-five dollars. No questions are asked on the pre- 
sentation of an infant to the asylum, and, excepting the fee, it is in 
no respect different from the ordinary foundling hospitals. This 
very fee, however, it is considered by some writers, makes all the 
difference, as it in some measure justifies those parents who, hav- 
ing adequate means, choose to release themselves of the care and 
1 Swedish Registrar-General’s Reports, 1888, 1839. 
Sweden ; Baron Yon Strombcck Durstellungcr, 1840. 
2 Baron Gall’s Reiser durch Schweden, Bremen, 1838; Laing’s Tour through SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 
279 
expense of their offspring, and who use this payment as a salve to 
their consciences, considering that they have to that extent done 
their duty. The Stora Barnhorst is wealthy, having an income 
of above one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum. 
In 1836, prostitution was forbidden, by express enactment, 
throughout all Sweden, and women who had not a legally recog- 
nized occupation were liable to imprisonment as disorderly char- 
acters. The prostitute, of course, came within the category. It 
was asserted at the time that there was no common prostitution, 
but a counter statement was made by the jurist Angelot, who af- 
firmed that every house of entertainment was a brothel, and every 
servant a loose woman. 
This prohibitory system did not work so well as had been an- 
ticipated, and in 1887 a change was effected. A large hotel was 
taken by the corporation, and, after the plan of various cities in 
the Middle Ages, was managed by public officers. Thus a gov- 
ernment brothel was established. Nor did this lewdness by au- 
thority have the desired effect. The brothel was filled with women, 
but no customers appeared. Private brothels were resorted to for 
a time, and were opened under regular licenses. They have now 
disappeared, and as the inefficient police management never suc- 
ceeded in repressing illicit prostitution, even while tolerated broth- 
els were in existence, it will surprise no one to learn that Stock- 
holm is now one vast, seething hot-bed of private harlotry. 
There are Lock Hospitals throughout Sweden, established by 
public funds, and kept up by direct taxation as a charge upon the 
municipal rates. The Stockholm Hospital for syphilis in 1832 
received seven hundred and one patients, of whom one hundred 
and forty-eight were from the country, and the remainder from 
the city. The capital contained in that year 33,581 persons of 
both sexes above the age of fifteen, consequently one person in 
every sixty-one was affected with syphilis. 
The superficial aspect of society in Sweden is certainly not 
such as here described. The upper classes are cultivated, polite, 
and observant of all the usual refinements of modern society, 
while to the humbler classes, excepting that intercourse is free 
and unrestrained among them, there is no ground for attributing 
any unusual departure from modesty and propriety. Neither are 
the laws remarkably stringent: although difficulties are thrown 
in the way of affiliation, they are the same in principle as those 
which have been adopted by the modern statute law of England, 280 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Still, that there is such an excess of immorality can not be doubted. 
The official statistics of the country prove it, were any possible 
doubt thrown upon the statements of the many travelers, of the 
highest repute for correctness and reliability, who have noticed it. 
The latest publication upon the matter is from Bayard Taylor, 
who, writing from Stockholm under date May 1, 1857, says, 
“ I must not close this letter without saying a word about its (Stockholm’s) 
morals. It has been called the most licentious city in Europe, and I have 
no doubt with the most perfect justice. Vienna may surpass it in the 
amount of conjugal infidelity, but certainly not in general incontinence. 
Very nearly half the registered births are illegitimate, to say nothing of the 
illegitimate children born in wedlock. Of the servant-girls, shop-girls, and 
seamstresses in the city, it is very safe to say that scarcely one out of a 
hundred is chaste, while, as rakish young Swedes have coolly informed me, 
a large proportion of girls of respectable parentage are no better. The men, 
of course, are much worse than the women, and even in Paris one sees fewer 
physical signs of excessive debauchery. Here the number of broken-down 
young men and blear-eyed, hoary sinners is astonishing. I have never been 
in any place where licentiousness was so open and avowed, and yet where 
the slang of a sham morality was so prevalent. There are no houses of 
prostitution in Stockholm, and the city would be scandalized at the idea of 
allowing such a thing. A few years ago two were established, and the fact 
was no sooner known than a virtuous mob arose and violently pulled them 
down. At the restaurants young blades order their dinners of the female 
waiters with an arm around their waists, while the old men place their hands 
unblushingly upon their bosoms. All the baths in Stockholm are attended 
by women (generally middle-aged and hideous, I must confess), who per- 
form the usual scrubbing and shampooing with the greatest nonchalance. 
One does not wonder when he is told of young men who have passed safely 
through the ordeals of Berlin and Paris, and have come at last to Stockholm 
to be ruined. *■ * * * Which is best, a city like Stockholm, where 
prostitution is prohibited, or New York, where it is tacitly allowed, or Ham- 
burg, where it is legalized V’ 
We have spoken of the difference between Sweden and Nor- 
way in their moral relations. At first this is not apparent, for 
illegitimacy is as frequent in one as the other; but there are at- 
tendant qualifying circumstances, which go to constitute a materi- 
al variation in the conclusion to be drawn from the unexplained 
fact. We may remark that street-walking and open prostitution 
are rare. Illegitimacy is of considerable extent, averaging one in 
five, or, in some parts, one in three of the total births. 
The people are betrothed by the practice of the Lutheran SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 
281 
Church a long time before the actual marriage. This is consid- 
ered as nothing more than a wholesome check upon hasty unions 
in a general point of view. In Norway, however, this probation- 
ary period is extended to a limit beyond the endurance of flesh 
and blood. The wedding is a prodigious merry-making, and it 
is absolutely indispensable that the means for an extravagant hos- 
pitality should have been accumulated before the parties dare at- 
tempt the public ceremony. The profusion is so great as some- 
times to dissipate a whole year’s earnings. The obligation to this 
expense increases the delay required by the Church, and it fre- 
quently happens that the affianced cohabit before the nuptial 
benediction is pronounced. As the betrothal is a half-marriage, 
the arrangement loses part of its offensive character in the eyes 
of the parties themselves, and also of their neighbors. The chil- 
dren are legitimatized by the subsequent marriage, which takes 
place in by far the largest number of cases. In those occasional 
instances where the wedding ceremony is not duly completed, 
there is a particular legal act by which a child can be acknowl- 
edged. Failure of marriage under such circumstances, or failure 
of natural duty to offspring, is against the sentiment of the people. 
While these facts do not alter the actual concubinage or illegiti- 
macy, it is easy to understand that a considerable difference exists 
between such conduct, however reprehensible, and those habits 
which may be fairly characterized as licentiousness or profligacy. 
Norway is very far from being free of syphilis. Bayard Taylor 
says, “Bergen is, as I am informed, terribly scourged by venereal 
diseases. Certainly Ido not remember a place where there are 
so few men, tall, strong, and well made as the people generally 
are, without some visible mark of disease or deformity. A phy- 
sician of the city has recently endeavored to cure syphilis in its 
secondary stage by means of inoculation, having first tried the 
experiment upon himself, and there is now a hospital where this 
form of treatment is practiced upon two or three hundred patients, 
with the greatest success, another physician informed me. I in- 
tended to have visited it, but the sight of a few cases around the 
door so sickened me that I had no courage to undertake the task.” 
We have no means of ascertaining whether the malady exists 
with the same virulence in the interior as on the coast. The habits 
of the people would seem adverse to the supposition that it does. 282 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
GREAT BRITAIN.—HISTORY TO THE TIME OF THE COMMON- 
WEALTH. 
Aboriginal Morals and Laws.—Anglo-Saxon Legislation.—lntroduction of Chris- 
tianity.—St. Augustine.—Prostitution in the Ninth Century.—Court Example. 
—Norman Epoch.—Feudal Laws and their Influences.—Civil and Ecclesiastical 
Courts. General Depravity. Effects of Chivalry. Fair Rosamond.—Jane 
Shore.—Henry VIII.—Elizabeth.—James I. 
The first references to prostitution which we find in the works 
of the early British annalists are so vague that it is difficult to 
derive from them any very definite idea as to its extent and char- 
acter. Among the crude efforts at legislation there are laws to 
enforce chastity among women, but whether the necessity for 
these enactments was owing to general licentiousness or to the 
existence of a regular class of prostitutes does not appear. 
At the period of the Roman invasion, the morals of the Britons 
were as low as might be expected from their nomadic habits. 
The population was divided into small communities of men and 
women, who appear to have lived promiscuously, no woman being 
attached to any particular man, but all cohabiting accoi’ding to in- 
clination, the carnal instinct being the feeling which regulated 
sexual intercourse. A sort of marriage was instituted, but with 
no idea that either of the parties to it should be restricted by its 
obligations. Its only object seemed to be to provide means for 
rearing the children, and to fix somewhere the responsibility of 
their nurture and support. A society constituted as this was can, 
of course, be considered scarcely a step removed from barbarism. 
The regulation to provide for the children was necessary to pre- 
vent depopulation; its tendency was to remove from the woman’s 
path every obstacle to lust; over-the man it exercised but very 
slight control. 
A still farther proof of the demoralized condition of the people 
is found in the gross ceremonies attending these marriages. The 
man appeared on his wedding day dressed in all the rude trap- 
pings of the time; the woman was entirely naked. A repulsive 
coarseness marked their licentiousness, and the rudeness of man- GREAT BRITAIN. 
ners was nowhere more conspicuous than in the relations existing 
between the sexes. 
It is to be presumed that the Anglo-Saxons imported into En- 
gland the laws and customs prevailing in their own country. The 
rules they made against adultery were frightfully severe. When a 
couple were detected in the commission of the offense, the woman 
was compelled to commit suicide, to avoid the greater tortures 
awaiting her if she refused. Her body was then placed on a pile 
of brushwood and consumed. Nor did her partner in guilt escape 
punishment; he was usually put to death on the spot where her ash- 
es lay collected. These penalties would appear to be sufficiently se- 
vere, but in some instances worse were inflicted. Where the case 
was one of peculiar aggravation, the adulteress was hunted down 
by a number of infuriate demireps of her own sex, each armed 
with a club, a knife, or some other formidable weapon, and stab- 
bed or beaten to death. If one party of her pursuers became 
weary of the sport, another took their places until the victim ex- 
pired beneath the blows. 
These extremely rigid ideas of the Anglo-Saxons do not seem 
to have been consistent, for while adultery was punished in the 
severe manner described, incest was not only permitted, but com- 
monly practiced; and it was even the custom for relations to mar- 
ry within the closest degrees of consanguinity. 
But they were not long located in England before the more sav- 
age traits of their character were softened down, and the women 
soon found amusement more suitable to their sex than that of 
chasing their erring sisters as quarry. The marriage ceremonies 
also assumed a more refined and decent character, although the 
wife continued to be regularly purchased by her husband, and the 
contract was still considered a mere matter of bargain and sale. 
By the laws of Ethelbert marriageable women were made com- 
modities of barter, and enactments of this character are to be found 
in existence long subsequent to his reign. 
As the Anglo-Saxons were a hardy, vigorous race, and existed 
chiefly by hunting, fishing; and a rude and imperfect system of 
agriculture, it is not probable that prostitution existed among them 
to any great extent. The fatigues of the chase and field exhausted 
the energy of the and diminished the desire and capacity 
for sexual indulgence, and, living in small detached communities 
as they did, they knew nothing of the stimulating incentives of 
city life. 284 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Yet that prostitutes existed, and lived by the wages of their 
profession, is proved by the fact that women (who were entitled 
by law to hold and dispose of property) bequeathed their wealth 
to their daughters, with the occasional stipulation that they should 
live chaste lives in the event of their remaining single, and not 
earn money by prostituting their persons. 
In the reign of Canute a law was enacted by which any one 
found guilty of adultery was to be punished by the loss of the 
nose and the ears.1 In the course of time the crime came to be 
punished by a fine paid to the husband of the woman. This pen- 
alty soon fell into disrepute, as it was found that some husbands 
and wives took advantage of it to extort fines from persons pos- 
sessing more money than prudence. By a subsequent enactment 
the male adulterer became the property of the king, who might 
send him to the wars, or employ him at hard labor as he pleased. 
By a law of Edgar’s time the adulterer of either sex was compel- 
led to live, for three days in each week, on bread and water for 
seven years. This was treating the evil on physiological princi- 
ples. 
We can not infer any very strict condition of morals as the re- 
sult of this harsh legislation. When punishment is carried to an 
extreme entirely disproportioned to the offense, it is as likely to 
fail in its object as mistaken lenity. Forgery and arson were more 
frequent in England when punished with death than they are at 
present; and although we have no statistics of the time from which 
we can deduce any positive conclusions, we may reasonably im- 
agine that neither the death penalty, nor the other barbarous pun- 
ishments substituted for it, exercised any very powerful influence 
in the diminution of the crime among our hardy progenitors. It 
may have taught them greater caution and dissimulation in the 
prosecution of their evil purposes, but it did not render them the 
less eager to profit by the opportunities thrown in their way. 
It has been already shown that the founders of Christianity 
treated illicit sexual indulgence as a sin, and resorted to extreme 
measures for its suppression, but yet, to some extent, tolerated 
prostitution. Shortly after he had established himself in Britain, 
Augustine put some curious queries to the Pope touching the 
manner in which chastity among converts to the new faith should 
be enforced. The nature of these interrogatories and replies for- 
bids their appearance here.2 
1 Spelman. 
s Bede, lib. i. cap. 27. GREAT BRITAIN. 
285 
That Augustine required to be instructed on such prurient de- 
tails proves that he was a believer in the Jewish observances of 
physical ablutions and cleansing of the person being necessary to 
the removal of moral impurities, and that he carried his scrutiny 
into the morals of his flock much farther than was consistent with 
modesty and good sense. However much his religious teachings 
might have improved the maimers of the people, the regulations 
alluded to would have exercised no very salutary or efficacious 
influence over them. 
The lives of the early kings and rulers of Britain serve to illus- 
trate the morals of the nation during their respective reigns, not 
only by exhibiting individual examples where the condition of 
the masses is hidden from view, but by affording us an index to 
that condition when it is considered that the manners of the court 
have, in all ages and all countries, exercised an important influ- 
ence on those of the people. 
Augustine converted Ethelbert, but his son Endbald deserted 
the Christian Church because it refused its sanction to his mother- 
in-law becoming his wife. It is true that he afterward divorced 
her, and returned to Christianity, but in this he was influenced 
rather by satiety than by the promptings of a reviving faith. 
Many of the other kings of the Heptarchy were as remarkable for 
the headstrong ardor of their passion as Endbald. Canulph of 
Wessex had, in the year 784, an intrigue with one of his female 
subjects, and frequently quitted his court to enjoy her society in 
the country. During one of these clandestine excursions he was 
surprised and surrounded in the night by the followers of Kynch- 
ard, a rival pretender to the throne, and murdered in the arms of 
his mistress. 
In the ninth century prostitution seems to have been a prevail- 
ing vice throughout the country, and frequent references are made 
to it in the discussions of the period. In the arguments used in 
favor of tithes, in the time of Athelstan, it was held by some 
canonists that the clergy had a right to demand one tenth of the 
profits earned by prostitutes in the exercise of their calling. It is 
but right to add that the Church did not persist in enforcing this 
extraordinary claim.1 
Edwy, who ascended the throne at the early age of seventeen, 
became involved in a controversy with the monks on the question, 
then first started, of the celibacy of the clergy. The celebrated 
Padre Paolo. 286 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Dunstan favored the new doctrine, but Edwj opposed it. The 
youthful and inexperienced prince was no match for his sagacious 
antagonist, as he soon after discovered. On the day of his coro- 
nation, which took place soon after his marriage with his cousin 
Elgiva, whom he loved and resolved to wed, though she was with- 
in the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the Church, his no- 
bles were indulging in the pleasures of the banquet, when it was 
discovered that Edwy had stolen away. Dunstan and Odo, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, conjecturing the cause of his absence, pro- 
ceeded to the private apartments of the queen, and found him in 
her company. They tore him from her, and dragged him back to 
the party. Elgiva’s face was seared with a red-hot iron to destroy 
her beauty, and she was transported to Ireland. Her wounds 
being soon healed, and all trace of the injuries removed, she re- 
turned to her own country, but was met by a party the archbishop 
had sent to intercept her, and put to death. Thus, professedly to 
preserve the morals of the king, these high ecclesiastics committed 
crimes of far greater gravity than a marriage even between persons 
more nearly related than Edwy and Elgiva. 
Edgar, who succeeded Edwy, was of a still more passionate and 
licentious disposition. He broke into a convent, and carried off 
one of the nuns, named Editha, who was remarkable for her beau- 
ty, In the heat of passion, he violated her person; and for the 
double offense of abduction and rape, the Church, according to the 
peculiar morality of the times, punished him by compelling him 
to resign his crown for the period of seven years. By a curious 
inconsistency, he was permitted to retain possession of Editha, who 
lived with him as a concubine. 
Another of his mistresses he obtained by a less violent process. 
In passing through Andover, he accidentally met the daughter 
of a neighboring noble, who fascinated him b}7 her remarkable 
beauty. Listening only to the suggestion of his passion, he pro- 
ceeded immediately to the residence of the maiden’s mother, and, 
informing her of the violent love with which she had inspired 
him, demanded that she should be permitted to share his bed that 
night. The mother, fearing to excite the king’s anger by a re- 
fusal, resorted to a stratagem, by which she hoped to evade his 
wrath, and, at the same time, preserve the chastity of her daugh- 
ter. She directed a handsome waiting-maid to introduce herself 
into the young lady’s chamber, and the king was admitted after 
dark. When Edgar discovered the trick which had been played GREAT BRITAIN. 
287 
on him, he manifested no resentment, and the accidental partner 
of his bed became afterward his favorite mistress. 
These were not his only amours. Elfrida, daughter of the Earl 
of Devonshire, was distinguished by extraordinary beauty, and 
the fame of her charms reached the court, although she resided in 
the country in strict retirement, and had never been a mile from 
home. Edgar, hearing of her beauty, and doubting whether her 
appearance justified the extravagant praise lavished on it, sent one 
of his trusted favorites, Earl Athelwold, to her father’s residence 
to make a report to him on the subject. Athelwold himself, like 
many a similar envoy, fell in love with the young lady, and in- 
formed the king that rumor had greatly exaggerated her merits, 
and that she was positively ungainly. This was sufficient to allay 
the king’s curiosity, and Athelwold shortly afterward secured the 
young lady’s hand in marriage. He explained the matter to Ed- 
gar by remarking that it was her fortune which induced him to 
overlook her homely features. The king desired him to intro- 
duce her at court, and Athelwold persistently refusing, the king 
suspected the true state of the case. He intimated to the earl 
that he had determined to visit the castle where she resided, and 
the husband, dreading the consequences, implored his wife to con- 
ceal her beauty as much as possible. Elfrida, woman-like, did 
precisely the contrary, and set off her charms by the richest and 
most becoming toilette in her wardrobe. Edgar was so enraged 
at the deception practiced on him that he put the unfortunate earl 
to death, and married the widow. 
The infusion of Danish blood does not seem to have exercised 
an improving influence on Anglo-Saxon manners. Judging from 
the following, the contrary may be inferred. 
Ethelred kept a number of Danish troops in his pay, who were 
stationed in different parts of the country. A complaint was made 
to the king that the Danes had attained such a pitch of refinement, 
and made such an advance in luxury, that they combed their hair 
daily, and were guilty of other acts of personal embellishment 
equally reprehensible. Worse still, it was averred that the wom- 
en looked with favor on these practices of the Danes, and that the 
latter debauched the wives and daughters of the English, and dis- 
graced the nation.1 It is evident that women who could thus 
easily be led away were only virtuous from the want of oppor- 
tunity. 
1 Wallingford. 288 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION, 
The legislation of this period shows that prostitution was not 
only tolerated, but indirectly encouraged. 
If a man seduced the wife of another, he was compelled, by an 
early Saxon law, to pay a fine to the husband, and to procure for 
him another woman, whom he was to remunerate for admitting 
him to her bed.1 This was not only offering a direct premium to 
prostitution by providing for the debauching of a woman every 
time another chose to be seduced, but it shows that females were 
in the habit of cohabiting with men for hire. The fines for adul- 
tery were graduated according to the rank of the woman. If she 
happened to be the wife of a nobleman, her chastity was valued 
at the moderate sum of six pounds sterling (about thirty dollars); 
while the wife of a churl brought to her husband as a salve for 
his injured honor about a dollar and a half. The effect of these 
enactments could not but exercise a demoralizing and injurious 
influence on the manners of the people. They reduced the esti- 
mate of female chastity to that of a cheap marketable commodity, 
whose loss could be repaid by a small money compensation. 
By the laws of Ethelbert a man was permitted to buy a wife, 
provided the purchase was made openly, and many such transac- 
tions are recorded, the price being sometimes paid down in money, 
and sometimes in palfreys and other kinds of property. The prac- 
tice, however, was soon modified, and it became necessary to ob- 
tain the consent of the bride. The husband was compelled to 
support and protect her, and to treat her with respect. A couple 
desirous of contracting marriage were formally betrothed in pres- 
ence of the priest, and this practice, having something of an eccle- 
siastical obligation without any of its legal force, was frequently 
productive of the same evil consequences as in Norway at the 
present day. This custom of betrothal prevailed down to the 
time of Elizabeth. 
The Normans introduced into England, if not a higher stand- 
ard of morals, at least a greater refinement in vice. Their laws 
were moulded by the spirit of the feudal system which they im- 
ported with them. Under their sway society was divided into 
two classes—feudal lords and their vassals. The lord could dis- 
pose of the person and property of the vassal, limited, indeed, by 
certain restrictions, but still leaving so much power in his hands 
as to render the latter a virtual slave. 
Thus, by the laws of the time, a vassal who seduced or debauch- 
1 Leges Saxonicae. GREAT BRITAIN. 
289 
Ed his lord’s wife or near relative, or who even took improper 
liberties with them, might be punished by the forfeiture of his 
land. When a baron died, the estate escheated to the king, who 
took immediate possession, and kept it until the heir applied to 
do homage for it, and pay such a fee as the king might demand. 
If the heir happened to be a minor, the king retained possession 
of the estate until he reached his majority; and when the inherit- 
ance devolved on a female, the king might give her any husband 
he thought proper. He often turned this privilege to account by 
selling the right to the hand and fortune of an heiress. Geoffrey 
de Mandeville paid Henry 111. a sum equal to about twenty thou- 
sand dollars for permission to wed Isabel, countess of Gloucester, 
with the right to all her lands and revenues. Even a male heir 
could not select his own bride except by purchasing permission 
from the king, otherwise he had to accept his majesty’s choice. 
We have no means of estimating the amount of licentiousness 
arising from these arbitrary regulations, but we only require a 
little acquaintance with human nature to arrive at the conclusion 
that they must have been a prolific source of vice. The husband 
being selected by the king from purely mercenary or interested 
motives, no attention was, of course, paid to disparity of ages, or 
other circumstances on which the purity of the marriage-bed de- 
pends. When the inclinations are forced in this way, women, as 
well as men, are apt to revenge themselves on their partners by 
seeking illicit enjoyments. Mercenary marriages, when projected, 
as they are even in our day, from sordid motives on the part of 
parents or guardians, almost invariably lead to infidelity, and 
many an old dotard, who forces himself upon a girl under age, 
merely serves as a screen for her clandestine amours. 
In the reign of Henry 111., grave disputes occurred between the 
civil and ecclesiastical courts on the subject of bastardy. The 
common law deemed all children to be illegitimate who had been 
born before marriage. By the canon law they were held to be 
legitimate if the parents married subsequent to their birth. 
When a dispute of inheritance arose, it was customary for the 
civil to issue writs to the spiritual courts, directing an inquiry to 
be instituted into the legitimacy of the claimants; and as the 
bishops always returned answers in accordance with the canon 
law, all persons whose parents had married at any period were 
legitimate. When it is considered how strongly most parents feel 
for the honor of their offspring, the tendency of such decisions to 290 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
increase prostitution becomes apparent. It may be considered un- 
just to inflict disabilities on the child for the sins of the parent, 
but such penalties undoubtedly have the effect of imposing a check 
upon concubinage. 
We have stated that the king claimed the disposal of the hands 
and fortunes of heiresses: the barons claimed a still greater privi- 
lege from their tenants. In some localities the feudal lord insisted 
upon enjoying the person of one of the daughters of each tenant 
who happened to be blessed with a plurality of them. He return- 
ed her to her parents within a given time. 
Every extreme is followed by a reaction in the opposite direc- 
tion. The abject condition of women, as indicated by the fore- 
going facts, led to the institution of chivalry, which elevated her 
from the position of a slave, and the mere instrument of sensual 
gratification, to that almost of a deity, thus assigning her a rank 
as much above her real sphere as her former one had been be- 
neath it. 
Previous to the advent of this system, women could not appear 
at any public exhibition or place of amusement unless accompa- 
nied by a band of armed retainers. Any female encountered alone 
and unprotected was liable to insult. 
Chivalry, if it did not put an end to, greatly modified this state 
of things. By its rules each of its members was constituted a 
champion of female virtue and honor. No man was admitted into 
the order whose valor was not above suspicion, and a word utter- 
ed by him derogatory to the beau sexe excluded him from its ranks. 
No woman, however, was deemed worthy of knightly protection 
who had not preserved her honor, it being to that quality alone 
that knighthood volunteered its safeguard. At public ceremonies, 
if a woman of easy virtue ventured to take precedence of a woman 
of honorable fame, she was immediately reminded of the impro- 
priety of her conduct by some member of the order, and compelled 
to retire to the rear. 
This recognition of virtue had a strong tendency to promote 
female chastity. It could not put a stop to voluntary prostitution, 
but it at least prevented virtuous women being necessitated to 
yield their honor to force. It held out, moreover, an attractive 
premium to correct conduct among the sex by making it the ob- 
ject of heroic exploits, celebrated in the romantic lays of minstrels 
and troubadours. Its observances have a fantastic aspect in the 
light of modern civilization, but they unquestionably exercised a GREAT BRITAIN. 
291 
powerful corrective influence over the female character, so de- 
graded at its commencement, while, at the same time, they eleva- 
ted that of the male sex by teaching them to respect themselves. 
In the wars of the period, it was against the rules of chivalry to 
take women prisoners. When a town was captured and entered 
by victorious troops, the first step taken was to make proclamation 
that no violence should be offered to any female. This conduct 
was so much at variance with the notions and habits of soldiery, 
that the feelings which sustained chivalry must have taken deep 
root in the minds of all classes to restrain the passions of the mili- 
tary, strengthened as they were by dissolute habits, and the absence 
of opportunity for their gratification during service in the field. 
To such an extreme was this feeling of deferential courtesy to 
the sex carried, that the Normans were severely censured for their 
conduct at the capture of the castle of Du Guesclin, it being alleged 
that they disturbed the repose of the ladies. But as the tendency 
of every human institution is to degenerate from its original pur- 
pose, the rigid purism which marked the foundation of chivalry soon 
began to relax, and disorders crept in and sapped the basis of a 
system which was- too theoretically perfect to have any extended 
duration. 
It is difficult to ascertain the precise character of the relations 
which existed between the Troubadours and the mistresses to whose 
service they devoted themselves, and who were frequently mar- 
ried women. The knight Bertram happened to lose the favor of 
his mistress, the wife of Talleyrand de Perigord, in consequence 
of stories which had been related to her implicating his fidelity, 
and charging him with dividing his knightly attentions. He pro- 
tests his innocence of these accusations in a lay as impassioned as 
that of a lover to the object of his adoration, and invokes a num- 
ber of knightly calamities upon himself if his devotion to her be 
not above suspicion. 
It is hardly credible that the loves of such ardent admirers was 
immaculate Platonism. On the other hand, the fact that husbands 
were rarely or never jealous of them, goes some way to refute the 
idea that they had a more serious character. The lords of those 
times were proud of the protestations of regard offered to their 
ladies, and rewarded the Troubadours with rich and valuable pres- 
ents. The lords of our day, grown wise by experience, make a 
point of keeping all such interlopers at a distance. 
While chivalry poised its lance in defense of the Lucre tias, and 292 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
then of the Dulcineas of the day, the religions view of the com- 
merce of the sexes was particularly ascetic. 
Although the most profound devotion was paid to woman in 
the abstract by the order, the Church sought to encourage perpet- 
ual celibacy, the seclusion of women, and the separation of the 
sexes. The clergy were forbidden to marry, and the idea seemed 
to prevail that it was impossible for men and women to mingle 
without being under the influence of lascivious ideas, and ready 
to carry them into practice as soon as opportunity offered. The 
attempt to organize society on such a basis had an inevitable tend- 
ency to produce demoralization. Its obvious result, instead of 
promoting chastity was to increase secret licentiousness and en- 
courage prostitution. 
Even the voluntary vows of knights and troubadours were, in 
the end, as little observed as these ecclesiastical precepts. The 
profligacy of the Troubadours became open and undisguised, and 
the virtue of their mistresses naturally kept pace with their exam- 
ple. The knights who enlisted in the Crusades, with a large amount 
of zeal and but a small share of wealth, supported their retainers 
by robberies on the way, and the females who accompanied them 
acted as camp followers usually do. No institution which deals 
merely in external observances can restrain immorality in circum- 
stances favorable to its development, and hence chivalry was 
forced to yield before more powerful influences. That it served 
its purpose in elevating the condition of woman, and in giving a 
better tone to society at large, it would be unjust to deny. 
Even when chivalry declined and ceased to inspire feats of 
knight-errantry, we find women, instead of falling back into the 
degrading position they had formerly occupied, employing them- 
selves in intellectual pursuits, publishing books, mixing in public 
controversies, distinguishing themselves in the acquisition of lan- 
guages, and even taking a leading part in the political affairs of 
the times. 
Among the women who acquired a historical notoriety by their 
position as royal mistresses, during the epoch comprised between 
the Norman conquest and the reign of Henry VIII., were the Fair 
Rosamond, concubine of Henry 11., and Jane Shore, the mistress 
of Edward IV. The misfortunes, as well as the generous qualities 
of these fair sinners have thrown a sort of halo around them. 
Rosamond, surnamed the Fair on account of her exquisite 
beauty, was the daughter of Walter. Lord Clifford, and was edu- GREAT BRITAIN. 
293 
cated in the nunnery of Godstow. The popular tradition concern- 
ing her is that Henry, hearing of her charms, paid her a visit, but, 
finding her virtue inflexible, had to exercise his authority as sover- 
eign to compel her to yield to his wishes. He placed her in a 
building erected in the midst of a labyrinth at Woodstock, access 
to which could only be obtained by a clew of thread. Henry lo- 
cated her here to protect her from the jealousy of his queen Elea- 
nor. She bore the king two sons, William Longs word, Earl of 
Salisbury, and Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln. During the king’s 
absence in France he intrusted the keeping of Woodstock and the 
care of the Fair Eosamond to one Lord Thomas, who endeavored 
to seduce her. In revenge for the rejection of his overtures, the 
faithless warden conducted Queen Eleanor to her retreat, and the 
latter is said to have mixed a cup of poison, which her minions 
compelled the unfortunate Eosamond to drink. It is also alleged 
that the queen struck the poor girl on her lip with her clenched 
hand.1 Some assert that Eosamond died a natural death in a con- 
vent at Oxford, and attribute the origin of the story of poisoning 
to the figure of a cup which was sculptured on her tomb. It is 
more probable that this effigy was placed there to commemorate 
the actual event. Eosamond was buried in the church of Godstow, 
opposite the high altar, where her remains lay undisturbed until 
they were ordered to be removed, with every mark of indignity, 
by Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, in the year 1191. She was regarded 
by the people as a saint, if not a martyr, and wonderful legends 
were related concerning her. 
Jane Shore, the celebrated concubine of Edward IY., was the 
wife of Matthew Shore, a goldsmith in Lombard Street, London. 
Edward possessed a good figure and pleasing address, and was fond 
of athletic sports and exercises, which he enjoyed in company with 
the citizens, among whom he became exceedingly popular. His 
popularity extended to many of the citizens’ wives, and it was not 
considered out of the natural course of things that Mrs. Shore should 
be removed from Lombard Street to shine at court as the royal 
favorite. Historians represent her as extremely beautiful, remark- 
ably gay in temperament, and of uncommon generosity. The 
king, it is said, was no less charmed with her temper and disposi- 
1 A popular ballad which narrates the particulars describes the blow aa having 
dyed Fair Rosamond’s lips 
“ A coral red; 
Hard was the heart that gave the blow, 
Soft were the lips that bled.” 294 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tion than with her person. She never made use of her influence 
over him to the prejudice of any one, and if she ever importuned 
him it was in favor of the unfortunate. 
After the death of Edward she attached herself to Lord Hast- 
ings, and when Richard 111. cut off that nobleman as an obstacle 
to his schemes, she was arrested as an accomplice on the ridiculous 
charge of witchcraft. This accusation, however, terminated in a 
public penance, with the loss of whatever little property she pos- 
sessed. Notwithstanding the severities exercised against her, it is 
certain that she was alive in the reign of Henry YIIL, when Sir 
Thomas More mentions having seen her, poor and shriveled, 
without the least trace of her former beauty. Mr. Rowe, in his 
tragedy of “ Jane Shore,” has adopted the popular story related in 
the old ballad, of her perishing from hunger in a ditch where 
Shoreditch now stands, but Stow assures us that that street was 
thus named previous to the time of Jane Shore. 
The example of none of the English kings had a greater influence 
in bringing the marriage tie into disrepute than that of Henry 
VIII. An effort has been made by Mr. Fronde, in his new his- 
tory of England, to redeem the character of this monarch from 
some portion of the obloquy with which it is covered, but there is 
no doubt that he was an unmitigated monster. Curious to say, 
during his youth and early manhood he betrayed no evidence of 
the brutal passions which afterward moved him. He was the hus- 
band of Catharine for seventeen years before his domestic conduct 
i ncurred reproach. At that late period of his career he conceived 
a violent passion for Anne B( >leyn, and, in order to get her to share 
his bed, sought to divorce his wife. From this period he seemed 
to become the prey of a restless concupiscence, which sought grat- 
ification in new objects of indulgence, and his passion for the wom- 
en he married and beheaded was as short-lived as it was violent. 
There is reason to believe that his marriage with Anne Boleyn 
was more than adulterous. It is said Anne’s mother had been 
more complaisant to Henry than her duty to her husband or the 
laws of morality would have sanctioned, and we have the authority 
of Bishop Fisher for concluding that Anne was the result of this 
illicit connection, and that, when the king expressed an intention 
of marrying her, Lady Boleyn exhorted him to abandon his de- 
sign, as Anne was his own daughter. Henry was not to be deterred 
by an obstacle of this sort. He had great difficulty in procuring a 
divorce, and in the mean while he and Anne had become so inti- GREAT BRITAIN. 
295 
mate that she began to exhibit proofs of the connection which 
could not be concealed. A private marriage was resorted to, con- 
siderations of state rendering it prudent to keep the union secret. 
Catharine was divorced through the intrumentality of Cranmer, 
but Henry did not long continue to repose confidence in his new 
bride. Soon after the marriage was made public, and she had 
been formally inaugurated as queen, she attended a tilting-match 
at Greenwich, accompanied by the king and a large concourse of 
spectators. The king observed her exchange amorous signals 
with one of the combatants, who was also one of her paramours. 
Henry had entertained suspicions of her connection with this man, 
and this proof, as he regarded it, of her infidelity aroused his jeal- 
ousy. He left the scene on the instant and returned to Westmin- 
ster, where he issued orders to have her immediately arrested. 
She was thrown into prison, and tried on the joint charges of 
adultery and incest. She was accused of having committed adul- 
tery with four separate members of the king’s household, and of 
having had incestuous intercourse with her own brother, Lord 
Rochford. She was tried, found guilty, and executed. 
Whether she committed the entire criminality laid to her charge 
it is impossible to say, but that the incidents of the career just de- 
scribed were in perfect unison with the doings of Henry and his 
court there is no doubt. Of the influence of such examples on 
the morals of the people at large, there is, unfortunately, as little 
question. If court manners and court styles are zealously fol- 
lowed, the vices that spring from them are not less assiduously 
improved upon. 
Henry’s strong sexual passions, as well as his arbitrary disposi- 
tion, were bequeathed to his daughter Elizabeth. However his- 
torians may differ as to the degree of her depravity, they all agree 
that her right to the title of “Virgin Queen” was exceedingly ill 
founded. Many of her delinquencies with persons of the opposite 
sex were notorious, although perhaps difficult of proof. While 
she had not the slightest claim to beauty, she delighted in flattery, 
and could swallow any amount of gross and fulsome adulation. 
Her vanity so blinded her that she never perceived that the ex- 
travagant praises lavished on her personal attractions were mere- 
ly covert satire. 
It is said that Elizabeth indulged in almost indiscriminate lewd- 
ness, and that Leicester, Hatton, Essex, Mountjoy, and numerous 
others shared her favors. In one of the notes appended to Hume’s 296 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
fourth volume, the nature of Elizabeth’s dealings with a large 
number of her favorites is set forth, the author of the statement 
being the Countess of Shrewsbury. 
Mary, Queen of Scots, at a time when friendly relations existed 
between her and Elizabeth, wrote to the latter that the countess 
had reported that Elizabeth had given a promise of marriage to a 
certain courtier, but, finding the marriage inexpedient, had dis- 
pensed with the ceremony and admitted him to her bed. The 
countess also stated that she had been equally indulgent to Simier, 
the French agent, and that Hatton, another of her paramours, had 
spread many reports indicative of her extreme sexual passion. 
The immediate successors of Elizabeth were of a different per- 
sonal temperament, and did not abandon themselves to such scan- 
dalous excesses. James I. had no mistresses, and was not of a 
character to seek pleasure in extravagant licentiousness, but his 
court was not free from the scenes which had disgraced those of 
Henry and Elizabeth. James, being desirous of uniting the Earl 
of Essex with the Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of 
Suffolk, had the young couple betrothed, although they had not 
attained the age of puberty. The earl was only fourteen years of 
age, while Lady Frances was but thirteen, and it was deemed 
proper for the youth to travel until both should have arrived at 
the maturity necessary for the consummation of the marriage re- 
lation, After four years spent on the Continent, the earl returned 
to England, and found his affianced bride in the full lustre of ex- 
traordinary beauty, and of the fame which great personal charms 
excite. He had also the mortification to find himself repulsed 
when he approached her as a husband, and was met by every 
manifestation of dislike and contempt. He complained to her par- 
ents on the subject, and they compelled her to accompany him to 
the country. 
Although the young countess obeyed this mandate literally, 
the feud between her and Essex was far from terminated: she 
recognized him as her husband in name only, and sedulously kept 
herself aloof from his society, nor could any of his endeavors 
overcome her repugnance. The lady persisted in her obstinacy; 
the husband redoubled his attentions and importunities, but, find- 
ing that she was invincible, he finally abandoned the pursuit, and 
separated from her. 
The cause of this strange conduct on the part of the countess 
was the passion which she entertained for a Scotch adventurer GREAT BRITAIN. 
297 
named Robert Carr, who had found a favorable reception from the 
king, by whom he was created Viscount Rochester. She believed 
that by refusing to consummate her marriage with Essex she 
would not be considered by the world in the light of his wife, and 
she hoped to procure a divorce, which would enable her to marry 
Rochester.1 As their mutual attachment was ardent, and their 
opportunities for being together frequent, they anticipated the 
probability of a marriage, and indulged their passions without 
waiting for the ceremony. They did not find as much trouble in 
procuring a divorce as they had anticipated. 
The king, who had a strong partiality for Rochester, favored 
their views, and Essex, finding that his suit was hopeless with his 
wife, opposed no obstacle to the nullification of his marriage. The 
grounds on which the countess sued out the divorce were of rath- 
er a curious character. The chief allegation against Essex was 
impotency. At that time a firm faith existed in the absurd no- 
tions that there were people who possessed the power of witch- 
craft, enabling them, among other things, to deprive a man of his 
virility. It was asserted and maintained that Essex had been 
subjected to this influence, and was therefore incompetent to oc- 
cupy the position of a married man. The divorce was secured, 
and Rochester and the countess experienced no farther obstacle to 
the gratification of their desires. 
Rochester had previously consulted Overbury on the difficulties 
of his position, and the latter strongly advised him not to marry 
the countess. These facts coming to the ears of Lady Frances, 
she induced Rochester to have Overbury poisoned. On the dis- 
covery of the murder, Rochester and his wife were brought to 
trial and convicted, but the mistaken clemency of the king inter- 
posed between them and the doom they so richly merited. They 
passed the remainder of their days in obscurity, but as bitter ene- 
mies, and although they resided in the same house for many years, 
no word or message was ever exchanged between them. 
1 State Trials, i. 228. 298 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
GREAT BRITAIN.—HISTORY FROM THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE 
PRESENT DAY. 
Puritans.—Results of Asceticism.—Excesses of the Restoration.—General Licen- 
tiousness.—Art.—Literature.—The Stage.—Nell Gwynne.—Nationality in Vice. 
—Sabbath at Court.—James ll.—Literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
Centuries.—Lord Chesterfield.—House of Hanover.—Royal Princes.—George 
lll.—George IV.—Influence of French Literature.—Marriage Laws.—Increase 
of Population. 
On gaining the ascendant, the Puritans endeavored to reform 
the general corruption of society by cutting to the root of the 
disorders that afflicted it. Instead, however, of applying the 
knife judiciously, they excised the sound as well as the unhealthy 
parts. Their measures went to the extreme of killing all the af- 
fections and impulses natural to the human breast, in order to re- 
press the excesses arising from too free an abandonment to them. 
Some fanatics, for instance, gravely suggested that, in order to put 
an end to fornication and adultery, all intercourse should be pro- 
hibited between the sexes. 
In our days it is found that innocent amusements are the best 
safeguard against criminal indulgence, but the Puritans thought 
otherwise, and looked upon joyous exhilaration of any kind as 
almost sinful. They enforced their gloomy doctrines with a tyr- 
anny as unbending as their tenets themselves were harsh and un- 
natural. Theatrical entertainments, dancing, etc., were sternly 
placed under ban, and Puritanism presented merely a heavy and 
murky atmosphere, with scarcely a social star to enliven its gloomy 
aspect. 
When the Restoration removed the oppressive weight of fanat- 
icism from the public spirit, it rebounded as far above a healthy 
pitch as it had been formerly depressed below it. An immediate 
revolution took place in the manners and habits of the people. 
The theatres, which had been closed by the Puritans, were at 
once reopened, and the populace abandoned themselves to pleas- 
urable excesses with an eagerness proportionate to the restraint 
which had been imposed on them. This license would, in time, GREAT BRITAIN. 
299 
have been checked by reflection, had not the impulse been sup- 
plied from the quarter where a repressive influence should have 
been exercised. The Merry Monarch and his court led the race 
in this national carnival, and the examples which they set only 
served to stimulate the public appetite for debauchery. Indeed, 
the court of Charles was little better than a public brothel, and 
the wit with which its orgies were embellished only served to in- 
crease the dangers arising from its conspicuous position, and its 
power over men’s minds as the centre from which all rank and 
consideration flowed. The conduct of the courtiers was strictly 
modeled on that of their royal master, and their social accomplish- 
ments only imperfectly varnished over the gross features of a 
coarse sensuality. Women were flattered and caressed, but not 
respected, and the homage paid them was such as no decent wom- 
an in our time would consent to receive. 
The most faithful portraiture of the manners of this epoch is 
to be found in its dramatic literature. The staple incidents of the 
pieces represented at the theatres consisted of love intrigues, se- 
ductions, and rapes. The fop of the play never elicited such hearty 
applause as when he recounted his exploits in the ruin of female 
virtue among the citizens’ wives. 
The theatre not only fostered lewdness by depicting it in glow- 
ing and attractive colors, but its actors spread abroad the corrup- 
tion which it was their business to delineate. Their personal char- 
acter corresponded, in too many instances, with the parts which 
they performed, and they re-enacted in private the debaucheries 
which they presented on the stage. 
The theatre itself became a central rendezvous for immoral 
characters, and the place where assignations were most conven- 
iently fixed. Lively wenches, under the pretense of selling oranges 
to the spectators, frequented the pit, and took their places in the 
front row, with their backs to the stage. It was well understood 
that they were as ready to sell favors as fruit, and, in fact, that they 
had come from the neighboring brothels for that express purpose. 
Deep drinking was another characteristic feature of the times, 
and bacchanalian orgies were freely indulged in by all classes, 
from the king to the beggar, differing little in the extremes to 
which they were pushed. Conversation, even in what was called 
the best society, was disfigured by the grossest obscenity and blas- 
phemy, and hon ion consisted in the extravagance to which this 
vicious conduct was extended. 300 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Even the peasantry endeavored to imitate the costumes and car- 
riage of the courtiers, and country women were to be seen in flaunt- 
ing dresses cut so as to expose as much as possible of the person. 
Up to this period no female had ever appeared upon the English 
stage; where women were introduced, their parts had been filled 
by boys. Neither was it customary for a monarch to show him- 
self at a public representation of a play; but, when they were en- 
acted for his amusement, the performance took place in some apart- 
ment of the royal palace. In Charles’s reign, women for the first 
time appeared on the stage, and performed the parts allotted to 
the heroines of the drama. 
The king and queen became regular frequenters of the theatre, 
and encouraged by their presence the double entendre and broad 
indecencies of the pieces in vogue. We may remark, parenthet- 
ically, that unmarried actresses usually adopted the title Mistress 
before their names, the word Miss, as then applied, signifying 
that she who bore it was a concubine. In modern days it is the 
habit to reverse this practice, as the marriage state is considered 
to divest the actress of half her attractions. 
There were but two theatres in London at this period: the 
King’s Theatre, where the celebrated Nell Gr wynne and Mrs. Re- 
becca Marshall were the chief actresses, and the Duke’s, where 
another company performed. One day the reigning favorites at 
the King’s Theatre had a violent quarrel, and Mrs. Marshall called 
Nell “Lord Buckhurst’s mistress.” Nell contented herself with 
rejoining that she was but one man’s mistress, though brought up 
in a brothel, while Mrs. Marshall bore the same relation to three 
or four, notwithstanding she was the daughter of a Presbyterian. 
Their own accounts of each other leave no doubt as to their mo- 
rality. 
The pieces represented in the London theatres in the time of 
Charles 11. were, as we have before stated, filled with indecent al- 
lusions, and their interest with the public turned on the number 
and intensity of these prurient passages. The ladies never at- 
tended the first representation of a comedy except in masks; and 
when the dames of the court, with their established reputations 
for gallantry, were apprehensive of being seen at them, some idea 
may be formed of the licentious character of the pieces most in 
favor. 
But many of these plays are still in evidence to speak for them- 
selves. It will be seen that in the majority the plot is so framed GREAT BRITAIN. 
as to admit tlie greatest license in libidinous allusions. The dis- 
tinguishing feature of them is that the most immodest passages 
are put into the mouths of women, and, indeed, we know that that 
actress was the most successful who took the greatest liberties 
with the text, and most improved upon its lewdness of expression. 
As a specimen of the general character of these plays, we may 
name “ All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple,” quite a favorite with 
the public in its day. The hero is importuned by six clamorous 
unfortunates whose ruin he has effected, and dunned in addition 
by the nurses of their illegitimate offspring for wages owing to 
them. The delectable superstructure of obscene dialogue which is 
raised on this foundation may be better imagined than described. 
The usual hour at which the theatres opened their doors was 
four in the afternoon, and after the close of the performances the 
audience generally repaired to some garden or other place of pub- 
lic amusement. Here scenes were enacted which proved a fit se- 
quel to those witnessed on the stage. 
The orange-girls had a superior known as “ Orange Moll,” who 
occupied a position somewhat analogous to that of the modern 
brothel-keeper. She attended the girls to the theatre, and super- 
intended and directed their operations there. During the entre- 
aties lewd conversations were carried on between the orange-girls 
and the gallants, which were interspersed with obscene jokes, and 
highly relished by the audience. The custom of interpellating 
the gay women who frequented the theatre was continued to a 
period comparatively recent. Every one has heard the story of 
Peg Plunket and the Duke of Rutland, in the days when the gods 
of the Dublin theatre were esteemed the most discriminating, 
though boisterous and rollicking audience of the three kingdoms. 
Charles selected several of his mistresses from the stage, for 
which he had a passionate fondness. Miss Davis literally sang 
and danced her way into his affections. Her conquest of the king 
was consummated by the manner in which she sang the popular 
ballad “My lodging is on the cold ground.” Charles thought she 
was deserving of warmer quarters, and raised her to his own bed. 
He established her in a splendid residence, and lavished on her 
the most extravagant gifts. 
The queen at first resented the open and undisguised infidelities 
of the king, and publicly manifested her sense of them on one oc- 
casion by quitting the theatre when Miss Davis made her appear- 
ance on the stage; but, finding it impossible to reclaim him from 302 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ids vicious propensities, she abandoned all hopes of restricting his 
libertinism, or even of keeping him within the bounds of conven- 
tional decency. 
The Countess of Castlemaine (afterward created Duchess of 
Cleveland) was of a more jealous temperament than the queen, 
and took a more characteristic revenge on Charles for his frailties. 
She took another lover, and went to reside at his house, very much 
to the comfort of her royal patron, who had a kingly dislike of 
trouble. 
After quarreling with Lord Buckhurst, Nell Gwynne returned 
to the stage, but had not long resumed her profession when it was 
rumored that she had made a conquest of the king. These reports 
were apparently contradicted by her continued appearance at the 
theatre, and the progress she made in her art, which could only be 
the result of careful study. A tragedy by Dryden was advertised, 
the principal character to be performed by Nell; but, before the 
night of its first representation arrived, it was found necessary to 
postpone the performance, owing to Nell’s not being in a condi- 
tion to appear. From this time her connection with Charles no 
longer remained a secret. 
Nell, like her predecessors, was not long suffered to maintain 
uncontested her supremacy over the king’s affections. When the 
Duchesse d’Orleans, the sister of Charles, paid a visit to the En- 
glish court in 1670, she had in her train a handsome maid, who 
was admired for her simple and childish style of beauty. Wheth- 
er instigated by the courtiers who accompanied her mistress, 
whose visit was a political one, or prompted by her own sagacity, 
she made her acquiescence in the king’s desires conditional upon 
his executing the shameful treaty which gave France such impor- 
tant advantages, and rendered Charles a mere tributary to the 
French king. This girl, Louise de Querouaille, became the rival 
of Nell Gwynne, and had a child by Charles, who was created 
Duke of Richmond. 
So scandalously public had the relations of Charles with the 
loose women who surrounded him become, and so flagrant and 
unblushing was the conduct of the latter, that the queen could no 
longer reside in the palace of Whitehall, and accordingly removed 
to Somerset House in the Strand. This feeling of indignation on 
the part of her majesty soon extended to the virtuously disposed 
part of the public. Efforts were made to apply a remedy to the 
disorder which threatened to corrupt the whole framework of En- GREAT BRITAIN. 
glish society. In Parliament it was proposed to levy a tax on tlie 
play-houses, which had become undisguised nests of prostitution. 
The debate which ensued elicited a witticism which led to serious 
consequences to the gentleman who uttered it. On Sir John Birk- 
enhead’s remarking that “the players were the king’s servants 
and part of his pleasures,” Sir John Coventry was imprudent 
enough to inquire “ whether the king’s pleasures lay among the 
men that acted or the women.” For this offense to Charles he 
was waylaid by some of the courtiers, who slit his nose, and other- 
wise maltreated him. 
It is impossible, however, to deny that this very license of man- 
ners rendered the king popular with a certain class of his subjects. 
The only exception taken by them to his conduct was the selec- 
tion of a foreigner as one of his mistresses, and even this would 
have passed without comment but for the political consequences 
of the connection. It was generally understood among the people 
that Mademoiselle de Querouaille, or Mrs. Carwell, as she was 
commonly called, was an agent used for the purpose of securing 
the ascendency of French interests. This brought upon her the 
hostility of the populace, who availed themselves of every oppor- 
tunity of manifesting their dislike to her. 
Nell Gwynne was an English woman, a Protestant, and the idol 
of the town. She was known by the title of the Protestant mis- 
tress, while Mrs. Carwell went by that of the king’s Popish con- 
cubine. Nell was one day insulted in her carriage at Oxford, and 
came very near being mobbed by the populace in mistake for 
Mrs. Carwell. With her usual wit and presence of mind, she put 
her head out of the window, and quieted the rioters by telling 
them that she was “the Protestant w—e.” 
As the literature of the times reflected the general licentious- 
ness of manners, it was not to be expected that the arts would es- 
cape their demoralizing influence. Most of the paintings then ex- 
ecuted were characterized by the same freedom of expression 
which was used on the stage. There is an old print extant of the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, reclining on a bank of violets, wearing no 
other covering than a lace robe; and in another Nell Gwynne is 
represented in the same semi-nude condition. It is said that this 
dress had belonged to the duchess, and had been much admired 
by the king, but that, with her usual love of mischief, Nell had 
purloined it, greatly to the amusement of her royal lover, and very 
much to the chagrin and mortification of the duchess. 304 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The king had his own peculiar way of celebrating the Sabbath. 
On that day he usually collected his mistresses around him, and 
amused himself by toying with them and humoring their caprices. 
We have a picture by a contemporaneous writer of one of his Sun- 
day evenings at Whitehall, where the court resided. It was short- 
ly before his death. Charles sat in the centre of a group of these 
women, indulging in the most frivolous amusements, and appar- 
ently in high humor. At a little distance stood a page singing 
love-songs for the delectation of the king’s mistresses, while round 
a gambling-table were seated a number of his courtiers, playing for 
stakes which sometimes ran as high as ten thousand dollars of our 
money.1 The orgies of the night were kept up until daylight broke 
in upon the revelers. At eight o’clock the same morning the king 
was seized with a fit of apoplexy, and died within a week. 
James 11., though of a grave and stern character, was scarcely 
less amorous in his temperament than Charles. They differed, 
however, in their tastes, Charles required beauty in his mistress- 
es ; and N ell GWynne and some of his other concubines were not 
only beautiful in person but possessed of intellectual graces which 
gilded their gross sensuality. James cared but little for personal 
attractions, and lavished his favors on coarse-featured and coarse- 
minded women. His wife was below him in rank, and he did not 
stoop to her for her beauty, for she was plain, if not downright 
ugly in her features. He soon transferred his affections to a still 
plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His strongest attachment 
was, however, that which he entertained for Catharine Sedley, who 
possessed a powerful influence over him. She was the daughter 
of Sir Charles Sedley, and seems to have inherited from him the 
strong passions and reckless disregard of public opinion by which 
he was distinguished. Sedley’s writings were more licentious than 
those of any of his contemporaries. His literary talents were not 
of a high order, but he possessed fair conversational abilities, which 
made his society attractive. The extreme dissoluteness of his life 
and disregard of all decency provoked censure even in that age 
of loose morals. On one occasion, after a drunken revel with some 
of his profligate companions, he presented himself on the balcony 
of a tavern near Covent Garden in a state of complete nudity, and 
commenced a harangue so full of lewdness and obscenity that the 
crowd pelted him with stones and other missiles, and compelled 
him to withdraw into the house. A daughter inheriting these 
1 Evelyn. 4th February, 1684-5. GREAT BRITAIN. 
305 
propensities, and brought up under the influence of this example, 
could not fail to become conspicuous for similar traits of character. 
Her person possessed none of the attributes which render women 
attractive. A lank, spare figure, a hollow cheek, sallow face, and 
an eye of glaring brightness comprised the sum total of her charms. 
Charles, whose taste was more cultivated, remarked that his con- 
fessor must have recommended Catharine to his brother as a pen- 
ance for his sins. She herself had the discrimination not to be in- 
sensible to the truth of this remark, and was even in the habit of 
boasting of her own plain looks. Her taste for finery was as great 
as if she possessed attractions worth setting off by its aid. James, 
when he formed this connection, had advanced to middle age, and 
it is difficult to account for the influence which she contrived to 
exercise over him. On his accession to the throne he promised 
the queen to abandon her, but his good resolutions soon gave way. 
Whenever the absence of his wife afforded the opportunity, Chif- 
finch might be seen conducting Catharine through the private pas- 
sage leading to his chamber. Notwithstanding all the affected 
austerity of his manners, James was, in reality, but little better 
than his volatile brother. 
At no period in lAie history of England, as we have just shown, 
had the licentiousness of the court been greater than it was during 
the reigns of Charles 11. and James II.; only to be exceeded, per- 
haps, by the fearful abyss of debauchery and atheism which a few 
years later was beheld in the courts of Louis XV. and the Eegent 
of France. The vigor and intellect of the early part of the reign of 
Louis XIV., the magnificence of his tastes, and the glory of his en- 
terprises, stand out in powerful contrast to the doings of the imbe- 
cile, corrupt, and utterly profligate and debased court of England. 
The influence of this most pernicious example it is somewhat dif- 
ficult to arrive at. The great body of the people, especially in 
the country, in those times of difficult communication, were prob- 
ably but little affected by the extravagance of the restored Cava- 
liers, added to which there was a powerful leaven of religious 
feeling working through the country, which did not for some time 
settle down into the apathy that called for a new manifestation of 
Puritan feeling in the establishment of Wesleyan Methodism. In 
the upper classes of society, however, the core-rottenness of the 
courts of Charles and James was yet felt, throughout the reigns of 
the succeeding sovereigns, even down to the time of George 111. 
The writings of contemporary authors, especially of the comic dra- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
matists, “ the abstract and brief chronicles of the times,” are a fair 
type of the public morals and intelligence in all ages. At this 
epoch we have from these sources overwhelming evidence of the 
reaction which had taken place. 
After the removal of the compulsory restraint of Puritan con- 
trol, the nation seemed at once to have lost its reason: modesty and 
decency were badges of Puritan Republicanism, and therefore un- 
suited to loyal men, who showed their attachment to the monarchy 
by their abandonment of decorum and violation of every moral 
virtue. The productions of the favorite authors teem with coarse 
images, unequivocal allusions, and gross facts. Wit degenerated 
into blasphemy, liveliness into obscenity, metaphors into lasciv- 
iousness. The scenes that took place in the court, and which con- 
stituted its daily amusements, were disgusting to the last degree. 
The mere commerce of the sexes, and the libertinism of the pe- 
riod in that respect, were the smallest vices, and might almost be 
considered merely follies, but the venality and corruption were 
open and shameless. The courtiers cast aside the last rag of patri- 
otic propriety, and avarice, cruelty, lust, and perjury tilled the 
measure of wickedness. On one occasion, it is said, an infant was 
prematurely born in one of the rooms of the* palace, and Charles, 
with many jocular remarks, had the body conveyed to his own 
closet for dissection by his own hand! An incident of such brutal- 
ity, which might be frequently paralleled by others equally bad in 
degree, though different in fact, shows the hideous destitution of 
all decency with which the court must have been cursed. The 
pages of Rochester, Etherege, Buckingham, Congreve, Yanburgh, 
and Fletcher, in the close of the seventeenth, and Prior, Gray, 
Swift, and scores of inferior writers in the commencement of the 
eighteenth century, all exhibit this state of affairs, while the no- 
ble Muse even of a Dryden could stoop to earn base applause by 
lending her powers to the decoration of vice, and voluntarily 
quitting her native regions to wallow in the mire. 
The vices of this period must have left an ineradicable taint be- 
hind them, when, after the full tide of iniquity had swept on, and 
purer waters were succeeding, we find Lord Chesterfield, a British 
statesman of distinguished ability and high position, thus advis- 
ing his own son ; “ Let the great book of the world be your prin- 
cipal study. Nocturna versate manu versate diurna, which may be 
rendered thus: Turn over men by day and women by night; I 
mean only the best editions.” GREAT BRITAIN. 
307 
While, as we have already observed, there was probably a 
wholesome religious element in a portion of the population, which 
operated as an antiseptic against the rottenness of the court, it is 
impossible but that the capital must have been imbued with the 
reckless iniquity, outrageous dissoluteness, and general immoral- 
ity of the higher classes. The poets, playwrights, essayists, and 
biographers of the age all bear traces of the effects of bad exam- 
ple in high places on public manners. A critic of those days says, 
“ The accomplished gentleman of the English stage is a person 
that is familiar with other men’s wives and indifferent to his own, 
and the fine lady is generally a composition of sprightliness and 
falsehood.” A thorough disrespect for female virtue, or rather 
the admiration of libertinism, tainted the life’s blood of the capi- 
tal. And when, passing over the coarse wit of Prior, or the per- 
verted genius of Dryden, we come to the sober and moderate 
writings of essayists and satirists, we find material which gives us 
some little insight into the lower London life of the period, and 
that which has more immediate interest for us in this inquiry. 
In the delightful and ever youthful pages of the Spectator, there 
are some incidents of great pathos touching the state of those un- 
fortunates whose condition was then, as now, one of the disgraces 
of civilization. One paper contains a singularly apposite remark. 
“ I was told,” says the writer (a woman of the town), “ by a Roman 
Catholic gentleman last week, who I hope is absolved for what 
then passed between us, that in countries where Popery prevails, 
besides the advantages of licensed stews, there are larger endow- 
ments given for the Tncurabili, I think he called them. This man- 
ner of treating poor sinners has, we think, great humanity in it; 
and as you, Mr. Spectator, are a person who pretends to carry your 
reflections upon all subjects which occur to you, I beg therefore 
of you to lay before the world the condition of us poor vagrants, 
who are really in a way of labor instead of idleness.” 
At another time the Spectator himself meets “a slim young girl 
of about seventeen, who, with a pert air, asked me if I was for a 
pint of wine. I could observe as exact features as ever I had seen; 
the whole person, in a word, of a woman exquisitely beautiful. 
She affected to allure me with a forced wantonness in her look 
and air, but I saw it checked with hunger and cold. Her eyes 
were wan and eager; her dress thin and tawdry; her mien gen- 
teel and childish. This strange figure gave me much anguish of 
heart, and, to avoid being seen with her, I went away, but could 308 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
not avoid giving her a crown. The poor thing sighed, courtesied, 
and with a blessing, expressed with the utmost vehemence, turned 
from me. This creature is what they call newly come upon the 
town.^ 
The arts of the procuresses; their experiments on inexperienced 
country girls; their attendance at coach-offices and public places 
to hunt for and entrap the unwary; the regular customers they 
have for new wares; the mode, first of offering them to private 
sale, and, when the first gloss is worn off, casting them on the 
public market, are all as true of 1858 as of the day for which it 
was written. In one case, the Spectator, being at a coach-office, 
overhears a lady inquiring of a young girl her parentage and 
character, and especially if she has been properly brought up, and 
has been taught her Catechism. Desirous of seeing a lady who 
had so proper an idea of her duties to servants, he peeps through 
and sees the face of a well-known bawd, thus decoying a young 
girl just arrived in London. One amusing cheat in the business 
of these go-betweens is complained of by a lady correspondent: 
for a consideration, they profess to introduce some ambitious for- 
eigner or country gentleman to the favors of ladies of high degree, 
ruling toasts, leading belles, etc. Some lady, Wilhelmina Amelia 
Skeggs, is foisted upon the deluded customer, who must, of course, 
be ignorant of the person of his inamorata, and he walks off boast- 
ing, in great self-gratulation, of his good fortune, to the great in- 
jury of an irreproachable woman’s fame.1 
It was reserved for the reign of George 111. to give a favorable 
turn to court morals and to make virtue respectable. The Georges 
I. and 11. had exercised but a negative influence on their sub- 
jects. They were merely viewed as political necessities, and held 
in little or no personal esteem. Their uncouth manners, foreign 
mistresses, and decidedly heavy liaisons had no charm for either 
eye or fancy. With George 111. and his queen, virtue in courts 
became in some degree fashionable; the slough of libertinism in 
which Louis XY. and the Regent Orleans had plunged themselves 
seemed in France to have created some reaction. Louis XYI. in 
Paris, and George 111. in London, presented the rare spectacle to 
their respective subjects of two well-conducted men, whose do- 
mestic life and character were unimpeachable. But as the sons of 
’ For the prose writers of those (lays who give lively pictures of manners and 
morals, the reader is referred to the pages of Fielding, Smollett, and especially De 
Foe, who wrote much upon low life. GREAT BRITAIN. 
309 
George 111., especially the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, 
attained their majority, they were surrounded by bands of flatter- 
ers and parasites, who stimulated and encouraged the natural 
proneness of youth to pleasure and dissipation. The libertinism 
and excesses of the Stuarts again became hon-ton, devoid, it is true, 
of political debasement and national dishonor; checked also by 
parental disapprobation, and by the influence of public opinion. 
This, though very weak, was not quite powerless; and, though 
lenient to the errors of youth, it drew an unfavorable comparison 
between the reckless extravagance and dissolute tastes of the 
princes, and the moderate and personally estimable conduct of the 
king and queen.1 
The masses of the English people were distinguished for plain 
good sense, and attachment to the cause of religion and morality; 
and although drinking, gambling, boxing, and racing were, in 
honor of the royal princes, fashionable amusements, and their at- 
tainment coveted and emulated by many of the rising generation, 
still the general sentiment of the nation at this period was con- 
demnatory of these vices. Those inclined to charitable views of 
human nature found excuses in the temptations of youth, a fine 
person, a commanding position, and, lastly, in the infamous coun- 
sels of those who found political capital in the encouragement of 
these excesses, thereby promoting a division between the heir to 
the throne and his sovereign parent. Others there were who be- 
held in George IY., whether as prince or monarch, a modern Ti- 
berius, a man of ungovernable lusts; a ruthless libertine and a 
debased sensualist, without any redeeming qualities. As a fact, 
apart from causes and political prejudices, George IY. was un- 
doubtedly a debauchee and a man of dissolute habits ;2 but he 
1 “Pure, and above all reproach in her own domestic life, the queen knew how 
to enforce at her court the virtues, or, at the very least, the semblance of the vir- 
tues which she practiced. To no other woman, probably, had the cause of good 
morals in England ever owed so deep an obligation.”—Lord Mahon’s History of 
England, 1713-1782, vol. iv., p. 221, 222. 
5 It was asserted some years ago, and by many believed, that after his death a 
large number of prurient French prints, which were in the Custom-house of Lon- 
don, and designed for the private amusement of the king, were burned. The story 
of the prints and their deflagration may be true, but it is very questionable if they 
were for royal use. A number of low class London papers always attacked George 
IV. personally, among which the Weekly Dispatch (the “ Sunday Flash” of War- 
ren’s novel of “ Ten Thousand a Year”) took a prominent position from the coarse- 
ness of its language and the acerbity of its animosity, assumed at a time when 
party feeling ran high, as an attractive bait to its readers. 310 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
was a man of liberal education, of cultivated taste, of distinguished 
appearance, and elegant manners. He and the Count D’Artois, 
brother of Louis XVI., were considered the most finished gen- 
tlemen in Europe, so far as mannerism went. These externals 
glossed over, and even lent a charm to, the vices of his youth; and 
the mysterious orgies of Carlton House were associated in the pub- 
lic mind with the brilliant wit of Sheridan, the manly grace of 
Wyndham (that beau ideal of an English gentleman), the vast tal- 
ent of Fox, and the enchanting grace of Gieorgiana, Duchess of 
Devonshire, the bright particular star amid a galaxy of minor 
luminaries. The respectability belonged to the court party; the 
genius and fascination were ranged on the side of the Prince of 
Wales. 
It is difficult, even at this brief lapse of time, and when so many 
eye-witnesses are yet surviving, to speak with any degree of con- 
fidence of the state of general public morals in England as affect- 
ed by the French Revolution, and the violent Tory and Whig 
contests of the period. The literature which preceded and ac- 
companied the French Revolution went the whole length of un- 
dermining and unsettling every established institution, both of 
politics and religion, without building up an effective substitute 
in place of the structure destroyed. The doctrines of moral obli- 
gation and the balance of general convenience, which, according 
to the Yolney, Voltaire, and Rousseau school, were to supersede 
the effete and worn-out dogmas of the Gospel, were little known 
and less liked in England. At the outset of the French move- 
ments, the cause had the sympathy of the English Liberals; but 
afterward, when the social and political excesses of the time dis- 
gusted even its moderate British supporters, and when the deep- 
rooted and apparently innate antagonism of the two nations was 
revived by the war, the hatred and contempt of the English peo- 
ple for French manners, French literature, French men, French 
every thing, knew no bounds. Thus, while the leaven of Parisian 
philosophy was fermenting in the breasts of all Continental Eu- 
rope, it is our opinion that its influence in England was purely of 
a reactionary character; and as under the last Stuarts patriotism 
and libertinism went hand in hand, so, in the end of the eighteenth 
and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries, an English- 
man’s love of his own country and his hatred of France were asso- 
ciated with a detestation of the heresies of French philosophers and 
patriarchs. GREAT BRITAIN. 
311 
Of the effect produced on the morals of the people by the loose 
manner in which, previous to 1753, the marriage ceremony was 
performed, we have the evidence brought forward in the debates 
on Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Bill. Anterior to that time, a boy 
of fourteen and a girl of twelve years of age might marry against 
the will of their parents or guardians, without any possibility of 
dissolving such marriage. The law, indeed, required the publica- 
tion of banns, but custom and the dispensing power had render- 
ed them nugatory. A dispensation could be purchased for a 
couple of crowns, and the marriage could take place in a closet or 
a tavern, before two friends who acted as witnesses. But dispen- 
sations were not always necessary. There were privileged places, 
such as May Fair and the Fleet, where the marriage ceremony 
could be performed at a moment’s notice, and without any incon- 
venient questions being asked. 
Gretna Green, on the borders of Scotland, was long a famous 
place for runaway matches. It has been questioned how far the 
Scotch law of marriage was conducive to morality; but,judging 
from its effects upon the people themselves, it can scarcely be con- 
sidered an ally of vice. This law, which has only been repealed with- 
in a few years, treated marriage as a civil contract, valid if contract- 
ed before witnesses, and required no ceremony or preparatory no- 
tice. That unions so formed were binding, admits of no possible 
dispute: the question has been tried in the British courts of law 
on every conceivable ground, and their legality has been always 
affirmed, but in the case of marriages at May Fair or the Fleet 
the same certainty did not exist. Gretna Green is the first village 
after passing the dividing line between England and Scotland, and 
owes its fame to its locality. It has doubtless been the scene of 
many heartless adventures, for which the actual law of the land 
must be held accountable. 
The marriage act which came into operation in 1754, had for its 
object the prevention of clandestine marriages in England, but did 
not interfere with the law of Scotland. It sought to effect this 
reform by making it necessary to the validity of a marriage with- 
out license, that it should take place after the proclamation of 
banns on three Sundays in the parish church, before a person in 
orders, between single persons consenting, of sound mind, and of 
the age of twenty-one years, or of the age of fourteen in males 
and twelve in females, with the consent of parents and guardians, 
or without their consent in cases of widowhood. The new mar- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
riage act of 1887 allows marriage, after notice to the superintend- 
ent registrars in every district, either in the public register offices 
in the presence of the superintendent registrar and the registrar 
of marriages, or in duly registered places of worship. 
We have no statement as to the number of marriages previous 
to the year 1758. All we know is, that from 1651 to 1751 the 
population only increased sixteen per cent., the increase being 
only one million and fourteen thousand in one hundred years. 
Since the act of 1753 came into operation, the registers of mar- 
riages have been preserved in England, and show an increase of 
marriages from 50,972 in the year 1756, to 68,310 in 1764. “ The 
rage of marrying is very prevalent,” writes Lord Chesterfield in 
the latter year; and again in 1767, “In short, the matrimonial 
phrensy seems to rage at present, and is epidemical.” After many 
fluctuations, the marriages rose to seventy, eighty, ninety, and one 
hundred thousand annually, and in 1851 to one hundred and fifty - 
four thousand two hundred and six. Fourteen millions were add- 
ed to the population, an increase of 187 per cent., or at the rate 
of one per cent, annually.1 
CHAPTER XXY. 
GREAT BRITAIN.—PROSTITUTION AT THE PRESENT TIME. 
Influence of the Wealthy Classes.—Devices of Procuresses.—Scene at a Railway 
Station.—Organization for entrapping Women.—Seduction of Children.—Con- 
tinental Traflic.—Brothel-keepers.—“Fancy Men” and “ Spooneys.”—Number 
of Brothels in London.—Causes of Prostitution.—Sexual Desire.—Seduction.— 
Over-crowded Dwellings.—Parental Example.—Poverty and Destitution.—Pub- 
lic Amusements.—111-assorted Marriages.—Love of Dress.—Juvenile Prostitu- 
tion.— Factories. Obscene Publications.'—Census of 1851.—Education and 
Crime.—Number of Prostitutes.—Female Population of London.—Working 
Classes.—Domestic Servants.—Needlewomen.—Ages of Prostitutes.—Average 
Life.—Condition of Women in London.—Charitable Institutions.—Mrs. Fry’s 
benevolent Labors. 
The corruption of court morals alone, and without circum- 
stances of national weight and moment, has seldom, we take it, 
affected the bulk of the population. It is nevertheless undeniable 
that a lax morality, and, d fortiori, a system of absolute profligacy 
among the wealthy classes of society, will contribute in a signifi- 
cant degree toward the increase of prostitution in metropolitan 
1 Census of Great Britain, 1851. GREAT BRITAIN. 
313 
cities. It is in the service of her wealthy customers and patrons 
that the professional procuress is chiefly employed, and, stimulated 
by high gains, she plies her vile calling, and exerts all her hellish 
ingenuity to discover new sources of amusement and gratification 
for them. 
In Fletcher’s “ Humorous Lieutenant,” written in 1690, a court 
bawd is introduced reading her minute-book, and calling over the 
register of the females at her command. “ Chloe, well—Chloe 
should fetch three hundred and fifty crowns; fifteen; good figure; 
daughter of a country gentleman; her virtue will bring me that 
sum, and then a riding-horse for her father out of it; well. The 
merchant’s wife, she don’t want money, I must find a spark of 
quality for her.” The representation of such character is out of 
vogue in these days on the English stage ; but, while the proprie- 
ties are observed, the omission is but a veiling of the subject. 
The reality exists, though unseen. 
In the London Times of July, 1855, an incident is thus related 
by a correspondent: “I was standing on a railway platform at 
, with a friend waiting for a train, when two ladies came into 
the station. I was acquainted with one of them, the younger, 
well. She told me she was going to London, having been fortu- 
nate enough to get a liberal engagement as governess in the family 
of the lady under whose charge she then was, and who had even 
taken the trouble to come into the country to see her and her 
friends, to ascertain that she was likely in all respects to suit. The 
train coming in sight, the fares were paid, the elder lady paying 
both. I saw them into the carriage, and the door being closed, I 
bowed to them and rejoined my friend, who happened to be a 
London,man about town. ‘Well, I will say,’ said he, with a 
laugh, ‘ you country gentlemen are pretty independent of public 
opinion. You are not ashamed of your little transactions being 
known!’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Why, I mean your 
talking to that girl and her duenna on an open platform.’ ‘ Why, 
that is Miss ,an intimate friend of ours.’ ‘ Well, then, I can 
tell you,’ said the Londoner to me, coolly, ‘ her friend is Madam 
got hold of a new victim, if she is a victim, and no mistake.’ I 
saw there was not a minute to lose; I rushed to the guard of the 
train, and got him to wait a moment. I then hurried to the car- 
riage-door where the ladies were. ‘ Miss , you must get out; 
that person is an unfit companion for you. Madam ,we 314 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
know who you are.’ That was one victim rescued, but howr many 
are lost?” 
In another case, the practices of a scoundrel named Phinn were 
made the subject of a public warning by the Lord Mayor of Lon- 
don from his judicial chair. This fellow’s plan was to advertise 
from abroad for ladies to go to Cologne, or other places on the 
Ehine, to become governesses in his family, which was traveling, 
and whose governess had unexpectedly left them, or been taken 
ill, or was otherwise got rid of. The candidates were to pay their 
own passage to the place of rendezvous, when the appointments 
of the situation were to commence. In some cases in which the 
practices of this rascal had failed of their full effect, he had suc- 
ceeded in defrauding poor women of their funds, and they had 
found the utmost difficulty in making their way home again. 
While it is impossible to have any precognizance of the persons 
and circumstances among which these wretches find their prey, 
some cases are peculiarly within the scope of their operations. 
Young females who have lost their natural protectors, and are 
brought into contact with the world under their own guidance, 
are easily imposed upon by the pretended friendship of these per- 
sons, and being under a pretense of employment inveigled into 
their houses, are there kept until their fall is accomplished by per- 
suasion or force. It is said that women even attend regularly at 
churches and Sunday-schools for the purpose of decoying female 
children. They first accost them, and interest them, without mak- 
ing any direct advances. The next time they proceed a little far- 
ther, and soon invite them to accompany them a little distance, 
when they lead them to a brothel. They have been known to take 
the children away in the presence of the teacher, who, seeing them 
act as acquaintances, had no suspicion of the real nature of their 
associations.1 
The London Society for the Protection of Young Females have 
recorded instances of children of eleven years of age being en 
trapped by procuresses into houses of prostitution. Those who 
are thus decoyed are not permitted to escape, nor to go into the 
streets for two or three months. By that time they are supposed 
to be incapable of retracing their steps, or to have become recon- 
ciled to their mode of life, and are permitted to go or remain. 
Occasionally they are turned adrift to seek new lodgings, their 
places being supplied by fresh arrivals. Some of these children 
Dr. Ryan. GREAT BRITAIN. 
find their way home again, but the majority of them are of course 
irretrievably lost, and continue in the course into which they have 
been thus indoctrinated. 
The procuresses have agents in different parts of London, whose 
business it is to discover young persons, servant-girls and others, 
who are dissatisfied with their earnings and condition in life, and 
who may be considered suitable subjects. The number of serv- 
ants out of place, in London alone, is enormous—many thousands 
in number; and as “ service is no inheritance,” such a body con- 
stitutes a very favorable field of operations. The intermediate 
agents in these cases are small shop-keepers, laundresses, char- 
women, and such others as from their avocations have the oppor- 
tunity of becoming acquainted with young women in service. 
Common lodging-house-keepers too, residing in the suburbs of 
London, contribute their quota of assistance. Young women com- 
ing fresh from the country, and sleeping in such places for a night, 
receive recommendations to procuresses and brothel-keepers as 
servants. Intelligence-offices for hiring servants, which in London 
are called “ Servants’ Bazars,” and are not under any license, are 
visited by these people in search of new faces. 
In some cases procuresses are found to act on behalf of partic- 
ular individuals only. In one case, such a woman kept a small 
shop, to which she invited servant-girls in the neighborhood after 
a little acquaintance. By her assistance, aided by liberal enter- 
tainment with wines and spirits, her employers (two men of prop- 
erty) were enabled to corrupt eight servant-girls in a short space 
of time. 
A constant trade in prostitution is carried on between London 
and Hamburg, London and Paris, and London and the country. 
Three or four years ago a trial took place at the Central Criminal 
Court (London) of a man and woman who were engaged in the 
importation of females for purposes of prostitution. The prison- 
ers were convicted. The details of the trial show that a regular 
organization existed. In some cases, Parisian prostitutes were 
hired in Paris for the London market by the ordinary agents in 
ouch contracts; in other cases, the parties in both capitals decoyed 
young women into their service on pretense of reputable engage- 
ments, and shipped them over to their consignees. Of course, 
every care is taken in these matters to keep the transaction confi- 
dential ; for, although the English laws are practically most de- 
fective, still, in cases exciting any degree of notoriety, and in which 316 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the offense can be satisfactorily established by legal proof, prose- 
cutions do take place. 
We can not close this branch of our subject better than by once 
again quoting from the Spectator, and giving a genuine letter, 
which, although written a century and a half ago, is just such a 
one as might, for a similar purpose, be penned at the present 
day. It as accurately describes the mode in which “ articles of 
trade” in the procuress line are disposed of now as then. 
“My Lord,—I having a great esteem for your honor, and a better opin- 
ion of you than of any of the quality, makes me acquaint you of an affair 
that I hope will oblige you to know. I have a niece that came to town 
about a fortnight ago. Her parents being lately dead, she came to me, ex- 
pecting to have found me in so good a condition as to set her up in a milli- 
ner’s shop. Her father gave fourscore pounds with her for five years. Her 
time is out, and she is not sixteen: as pretty a gentlewoman as ever you 
saw; a little woman, which I know your lordship likes; well-shaped, and as 
fair a complexion for red and white as ever I saw. I doubt not hut your 
lordship will be of the same opinion. She designs to go down about a month 
hence except I can provide for her, which I can not at present. Her father 
was one with whom all he had died with him, so there is four children left 
destitute; so, if your lordship thinks fit to make an appointment, where I 
shall wait on you with my niece, by a line or two, I stay for your answer, 
for I have no place fitted up, since I left my house, fit to entertain your 
honor. I told her she should go with me to see a gentleman, a very good 
friend of mine; so I desire you to take no notice of my letter by reason she 
is ignorant of the ways of the town. My lord, I desire, if you meet us, to 
come alone, for, upon my word and honor, you are the first that I ever men- 
tioned her to.” 
Next to procuresses in this gradation of iniquity are the brothel- 
keepers, who, although often procuresses, are not necessarily so. 
Shakspeare, who included all human existence in the sphere of 
his observation, says of them, 
“ A bawd ! a wicked bawd! 
The evil that thou causest to be done, 
That is thy means to live: do thou but think 
What ’tis to cram a maw or clothe a back 
From such a filthy vice; say to thyself, 
From their abominable and beastly touches 
I drink, 1 eat, array myself, and live. 
Canst thou believe thy living is a life ? 
So stinkingly depending.” GREAT BRITAIN. 
317 
Many of these persons have been prostitutes themselves, and 
when past service in the one branch of business have naturally 
fallen into the other. Others, without having been such, adopt 
the trade from inclination or circumstances. The condition of 
these people and the interior of their houses are as various as the 
people themselves. At the west end of London there is a consid- 
erable degree of style; in the lower parts of the town they are 
sordid and filthy habitations, fit only for deeds of darkness. They 
are confined to private streets, alleys, and lanes out of the great 
thoroughfares. The law is usually put in operation in England 
against the brothel-keepers as the representatives of the whole 
class. As they get the chief profits of the trade, so they run all 
the legal risks. The indictments against them, however, are com- 
paratively few. There is no public prosecutor in England, as with 
us. The police administration of the metropolis, perhaps the best 
organized, the most efficient and cheapest department of the pub- 
lic service, does not include the prevention of brothels within its 
duties, which are confined to the preservation of life and property. 
The prosecution of brothel-keepers and abolition of their estab- 
lishments are usually undertaken by the parish authorities when 
the places are so conducted as to become a nuisance to the neigh- 
borhood ; and police officers merely interfere to prevent the as- 
semblage of prostitutes in the public streets, or the solicitation of 
passengers by them. Virtually this provision is little better than 
a dead letter, and the women evade it by walking when an officer 
is in sight, and thus deprive him of the only proof which would 
enable him to make an arrest.1 
Some of the girls who pay exorbitant board also stipulate to 
give their mistresses one half of their cash receipts, which are fre- 
quently very large in the case of attractive women, amounting 
sometimes to one or two hundred dollars a week. The mistress 
is treasurer, and the prostitutes rarely succeed in receiving back 
what ostensibly belongs to them. The very prosecution before 
mentioned originated in a French girl’s being cheated by the 
brothel-keeper. The clothing is furnished by the mistress, and 
for this she charges prices which absorb the entire earnings of the 
1 The ineffectual provisions of the law have recently engaged the attention of 
the inhabitants of London, and a meeting was held in January of the present year 
0858) to consider the evil, and decide what steps should be taken in the premises. 
We shall notice in another part of this work some of the suggestions made on that 
occasion. 318 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
girls. She even contrives to furnish them with such a number 
of showy and useless garments that she keeps them always in her 
debt, and so has a lien on each to prevent her leaving as long as 
she is a profitable member of the establishment. Some girls who 
have been seduced have, when entering on a life of prostitution, 
extensive and valuable wardrobes. The mistress runs them into 
debts of her own contracting, and if they become dissatisfied with 
their treatment and desire to leave, they are held for the debt. 
By the common law of England, all debts incurred for an immoral 
purpose are void, but this law is of little value to those who are 
ignorant of its existence; besides which, the brothel-keepers have 
possession of the booty, and thus effectually drive the debtor to 
an adjustment of the matters in dispute. 
Such of the brothel-keepers as have no lawful husbands form 
intimacies with some man whom they support. In slang dialect, 
there is a class of men called “ spooneys,” who support the wom- 
en, or furnish them with funds when necessary. They set them 
up in business, become responsible for their debts, and assist them 
in all their difficulties. The “fancy men” are those who do noth- 
ing for them, but live at their expense. The lower class of broth- 
el-keepers have no “spooneys,” but they invariably have “fancy 
men,” who act as bullies, and settle by physical force any disputes 
that may arise between the inmates and their visitors. These 
men spend the day in taverns, and the night in the particular 
brothels to which they are attached, and are frequently felons of 
the deepest dye. 
Some of the brothel-keepers are married women, and even moth- 
ers of families. The husbands are lazy, worthless wretches, ad- 
dicted to gambling and drinking, and brutally indifferent to the 
sources from which their luxuries are supplied. In some cases 
the wealthier individuals have been known to send their children 
to good schools away from home, and to have kept them in igno- 
rance of their own wretched vocation. Thus sin entails its own 
punishment. 
The number of brothels in London has been variously esti- 
mated. The whole number of houses at the last census was three 
hundred thousand and upward. Among them it was calculated, 
and probably correctly, that there were five thousand brothels, in- 
cluding houses of assignation. The rents of these establishments 
vary as much as the houses and situations (from fifteen hundred 
down to one hundred dollars a year). In good neighborhoods we GREAT BRITAIN. 
should be slow to believe that landlords had any previous knowl- 
edge of the purposes to which their houses are to be applied. In- 
dependent of moral objection, such a house deteriorates the char- 
acter of the property. Indeed, the clauses in leases of the great 
London properties are very strict, and include all objectionable 
trades as causes of forfeiture. 
The owners of the houses are of all classes. The Almonry of 
Westminster, once the abode of Caxton, which within these six or 
eight years has been pulled down, was one of the vilest aggrega- 
tions of vice and crime in existence. This was the property of 
the dean and chapter of Westminster Abbey. The common law 
of England, as already mentioned in the matter of dress, prohibits 
the recovery of the rents of houses let for immoral purposes. 
Many of the brothel-keepers themselves hire houses, furnish them, 
and sublet them. It has been made a matter of reproach that 
landlords should, even indirectly, derive income from such sources. 
But poverty and vice are closely allied; where poverty exists, 
vice will come. It is impossible for a landlord to exclude any 
class of tenants in a particular neighborhood suited to them, and 
those who know aught about the improvement and ventilation of 
large cities, and the breaking up of bad neighborhoods, are well 
aware that they are accompanied with a fearful amount of extra 
misery to the very poor. 
In a subsequent portion of this work we have endeavored to 
analyze the causes of prostitution as it exists in the city of New 
York. It may be reasonably supposed that the same reasons 
would be applicable to the kindred people of Great Britain. We 
give the following, mainly deduced from English writers, as indi- 
cating the sentiments of the best-informed in that kingdom as to 
the sources of so deep-rooted an evil, which must be sought in a 
variety of circumstances, national as well as personal. 
A professional man, Mr. Tait, to whose pages we have turned 
for information as to prostitution in Great Britain, classifies the 
causes as natural and accidental. The natural he subdivides 
into licentiousness of disposition, irritability of temper, pride and 
love of dress, dishonesty and love of property, and indolence. 
The accidental include seduction, ill-assorted marriages, low wa- 
ges, want of employment, intemperance, poverty, defective educa- 
tion, bad example of parents, obscene publications, and a number 
of minor causes. Without assenting to the classification, we will 
accept the enumeration. 320 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The operation of sexual desire on the female sex is a mooted 
question among English writers on prostitution. Whether it is la- 
tent, and never powerful enough to provoke evil courses until it is 
itself stimulated and roused into energy by external circumstances, 
or whether it be an active principle impelling the ill-regulated fe- 
male mind to sacrifice self-respect and reputation in the gratification 
of dominant impulses, has been frequently discussed. Many con- 
sider that its influence on the inducement of prostitution is no less 
unsatisfactory of solution than the physiological problem, alleg- 
ing that those who have followed the bent of their natural appe- 
tites would undoubtedly prefer to ascribe their lapse to other cir- 
cumstances. This subject is treated more fully elsewhere, and it 
is needless to repeat here the views there expressed. 
That sexual desire, once aroused, does exercise a potent influ- 
ence on the female organization, can not be questioned. Self- 
abuse, which is a perverted indulgence of the natural instinct, 
is well known to English physicians as being practiced among 
young women to a great extent, though in a far less degree than 
among young men. Its frightful influences upon the latter have 
been the subject of the liveliest anxiety to those who have made 
the care of youth their profession, and this source of trouble is 
shared to some degree by female teachers.. Such subjects seem 
by common consent to be banished from rational investigation by 
the majority of people, as if shutting one’s eyes to the fact would 
prove its non-existence. This false delicacy is more injurious 
than is commonly supposed; for the unchecked indulgence in 
such habits is not only destructive of health, but in the highest 
degree inimical to the moral feeling, and directly subversive of 
all self-respect, leaving but one step to complete the final descent. 
Seduction.—The effect of undue familiarity, and too unre- 
strained an intercourse between the sexes, can not be exaggerated 
as paving the way for the last lapse from virtue. It is precisely 
these familiarities which, in ill-regulated minds, excite the first 
impulses of desire; and even where such a result does not imme- 
diately flow from too free an intercourse, it breaks down that mod- 
esty and reserve which so much enhance the beauty of woman, 
and constitute her best safeguard. The inclined plane by which 
the female who permits the first freedom glides unchecked to final 
ruin, though gradual, is very difficult to retrace. The unrestrict- 
ed intercourse permitted, or rather encouraged between the sexes GREAT BRITAIN. 
321 
at places of public amusement much facilitates the opportunities 
of seduction. Prostitutes frequently, and we believe with truth, 
allege seduction as the first step toward their abandoned course 
of life, and the allegation itself should induce a sympathy for the 
misfortune of their present existence. Although in some cases 
the story can not be implicitly believed, at the same time there 
is no doubt that a heartless seduction is but too frequent a circum- 
stance in such cases, and contributes its sad quota of heavy ac- 
count to prostitution. 
It is a general opinion that cases of (so called) seduction in En- 
gland occur between employers and female servants, and that of 
these are vast numbers. By seduction in such circumstances is 
meant the inducement to do wrong by promises or other sua- 
sives, in opposition to the commonly received idea, which makes 
the fall the result of strong personal attachment. In a work like 
this we must notice the largest definitions, and can not consist- 
ently limit ourselves to the inducement customarily brought for- 
ward in law proceedings, namely, “ a promise of marriage.” In 
this sense, illegitimate children may be said to be the consequence 
of seduction. Certainly not all of them, however, because many 
persons, voluntarily and with their eyes open, enter upon cohab- 
itation arrangements; but doubtless many are. Once seduced, 
of course the female becomes herself the seducer of the inexperi- 
enced. 
The policy of English law, of late years, has been to compel the 
woman to protect herself—in the main, a wise policy. But the 
balance of human justice is very unevenly maintained. The male, 
the real delinquent, incurs no legal punishment, and but little so- 
cial reprobation. Actions for seduction are very unpopular, and 
those brought bear but an infinitesimal proportion to the occur- 
rence of the crime. The onus of proof in bastardy affiliations of 
course rests upon the woman. Of late years the alterations in 
the law have thrown great difficulties in her-way by what is 
called the necessity of corroborative evidence, namely, some kind 
of admission, direct or indirect, or some overt act which will fur- 
nish oral or documentary testimony other than the woman’s un- 
supported statement. This may be strictly expedient, but it ren- 
ders the man almost irresponsible if he only play his part with 
knavish prudence. Lastly, popular feeling is against charges of 
rape: acquittal is very frequent, and the usual rebuttal is to ini' 322 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
peach the character of the prosecutrix. The opinion of one of 
England’s greatest judges has passed into a proverb: “No charge 
so easy to make, none so difficult to disprove.” Queen Eliza- 
beth’s mode of proving her disbelief of rape is also expressive of 
public opinion. 
From the combination of these circumstances, it would seem 
that seduction must, almost as a matter of course, lead to prostitu- 
tion, inasmuch as, in ordinary English parlance, the mother of a 
bastard and a prostitute are almost synonymous. 
Overcrowded Dwellings.—The natural impulses of animal 
instinct in both sexes seem to be implicated in the effect of crowd- 
ed sleeping apartments, as met with in the habitations of the poor 
both in town and country. In the latter we have the show, and 
sometimes the reality, of family life and virtuous poverty. In the 
towns we find abodes of poverty sometimes honest, sometimes in 
closest propinquity or intimacy with vice, and there too we have 
the dwelling-places of the lowest depravity and vagabondism. 
Those who have not given their attention to the condition of 
the poor, and the relation which their lives hold to the ordinary 
habits of decency and morality, have much difficulty in compre- 
hending, or even believing, statements which embody the plainest 
every-day truths. It is hard to realize things as they are, if the 
mind has been full of ideal pictures of things as they should be. 
The Dives of society has been often reproached with his ignorance 
of Lazarus, The sin lies exactly in that ignorance. As Carlyle 
finely says, “ The duty of Christian society is to find its work, and 
to do it.” Negative virtue is of no practical use to the communi- 
ty. But yet the ignorance is natural enough, and no easier of re- 
moval than other ignorance. It has been generally attributed to 
the wealthy and upper classes of society, but it exists just the 
same, differing only a little in degree, in the middle class and mod- 
erately rich members of the English social system. 
The misery and inconvenience which the poor suffer from the 
straitness of their domestic arrangements are beyond belief. 
Grown-up girls and boys sleep in the same bed; brothers and sis- 
ters, to say nothing of less intimate relations, are in the closest 
contiguity; and even strangers, who are admitted into the little 
home to help in eking out the rent, are placed on the same family 
footing. This momentous question to the moral well-being of the 
poor has excited very lively interest in England, and has called GREAT BRITAIN. 
into active operation several philanthropic associations, which 
have in view the employment of capital in improving and cheap- 
ening the dwellings of the working classes,1 
In London this system of close lodging was carried to a fearful 
pitch. In some places from five to thirteen persons slept in a 
single bed, while in the country the evil was nearly as bad, al- 
though, from the slight restraint imposed by family ties, the actual 
evil is positively less; though the moral contamination is of nearly 
the same extent, and paves the way for other relations out of doors. 
The facts which justify these conclusions are to be found in a va- 
riety of shapes—parliamentary reports, statistical tables, appeals 
from clergymen, addresses from philanthropic associations, etc., etc.2 
The Honorable and Reverend S. O. Osborne, a clergyman well 
known for his philanthropic exertions in behalf of the poor, says 
of country life in England: 
<c From infancy to puberty the laborer’s children sleep in the same room 
with his wife and himself; and whatever attempts at decency may be made, 
and I have seen many ingenious and most praiseworthy attempts, still there 
is the fact of the old and the young, married and unmarried, of both sexes, 
all herded together in one and the same sleeping apartment. * * * * Ido 
1 General secondary questions do not come within the scope of this work, but 
the labors of these dwelling improvement associations are intimately connected with 
the subject we have now under investigation. In London, model lodging-houses 
for single men, single women, and married couples with their children, have been 
tried and found eminently successful, both as a moderate interest-paying investment, 
and as a very admirable arrangement for promoting the comfort and health of the 
working classes. The details given some two years ago, through the daily papers, 
on the lodgings of the poor and the very poor of New York, were frightful enough 
to excite the active sympathy of the benevolent capitalists of this great city. The 
very best philanthropy is that which teaches and enables the poor man to benefit 
his own condition. This principle is practically in operation all over the United 
States: but in great cities, the freedom of action, and the directly beneficial results 
of frugality and industry, are not so immediate as in country places. The attempt 
by the poor to improve their own dwellings in these large cities is almost hopeless, 
because it does not depend upon individual exertions, but on combination both of 
money and knowledge. The “how, when, and where” have to be found out and 
carried through : very small difficulties these, and easily overcome, if those who have 
the requisite means to carry out such a reform, and thus lend their aid to the solu- 
tion of an important social problem, have an inclination commensurate with their 
resources. 
2 See, in particular, as regards London, Statistical Society’s Reports, vol. xiii.; 
Reports of Metropolitan Association for improving the Habitations of the Poor; 
Board of Health Papers. And for the country districts, Health of Towns Reports ; 
Report on the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 1843. 324 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
not choose to put on paper the disgusting scenes that I have known to occur 
from the promiscuous crowding of the sexes together. Seeing, however, to 
what the mind of the young female is exposed from her very childhood, 1 
have long ceased to wonder at the otherwise seeming precocious licentiousness 
of conversation which may be heard in every field where many of the young 
are at ivork together.” 
“ The sleeping of boys and girls, young men and young women, in beds 
almost touching one another, must have the effect of breaking down the 
great barriers between the sexes. The accommodation for sleeping is such 
as necessarily to create early and illicit familiarity between the sexes.” 
Mr. A. Austin, Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, says: 
Without entering into disgusting details, the pain of perusing 
which could add nothing to the value of the statements, the con- 
clusion is indisputable that much of prostitution, if not of prostitu- 
tion for hire, certainly of prostitution from corrupt and profligate 
motives, is engendered by the vicious habits induced by habitual 
proximity of the sexes in early life. The prostitutes themselves 
frequently assign these habits as the commencement of their career 
of vice, and some even admit the breach of the closest natural ties 
during early youth, by reason of the too great facilities thus of- 
fered.1 The great importance of this want of decency and propri - 
ety in family life can not be overrated. The contagious nature of 
vice is proverbial; and it is almost impossible to imagine the power 
attained by ill-condikoned children, and the fatal readiness with 
which their sinful words and practices are propagated. 
The cheap lodging-houses are a pendant to the close-packed 
dwellings of the poor, although they do not produce the same 
early pernicious results as indecency and immorality in family life. 
The latter prepare the way to the scenes of the common lodging- 
house, in which the lowest depth of vice is speedily reached. Here 
prostitution is habitual—a regular institution of the place. The 
smallest imaginable quantities of food can be purchased; adults, 
youths, and children of both sexes are received, and herd promis- 
cuously together; the prices of beds are of the lowest (from three 
to six cents); no questions are asked, and the place is free to all. 
A new-comer is soon initiated, or rather forced into all the myste- 
ries of iniquity. Obscenity and blasphemy are the staple conver- 
sation of the inmates; everjr indecency is openly performed; the 
1 Mayhew’s Letters to the (London) Morning Chronicle; Mayhew’s London La- 
bor and the London Poor. girls recite aloud their experiences of life; ten or a dozen sleep in 
one bed, many in a state of nudity. Indeed, the details of these 
places are horrible beyond description. Unmitigated vice and 
lustful orgies reign, unchecked by precept or example, and the 
point of rivalry is as to who shall excel in filth and abomination. 
GREAT BRITAIN. 
Example is the next immediate cause in what may be consid- 
ered the natural series. There are a few prostitutes who have 
children. That these latter should follow the same course is quite 
in the common course of events, although considerable anxiety is 
occasionally evinced by such women to have their children brought 
up to better courses. Such redemption is all but impossible. In 
ordinary life, however, the mind of youth is often perverted by 
direct evil example in the elders; and, as we have already re- 
marked, the corruption of the human affections in their fountain- 
head—family life—where they ought to be sweetest and purest, is 
more fatally demoralizing, and more certain to insure eventual ruin 
than almost any other. Fathers and mothers are both wanting 
often enough in their duty, although it is a matter of universal 
faith that the influence and example of the father are of less im- 
portance than that of the mother. A bad man may have virtuous 
children, a bad woman hardly ever. There are cases where the 
mother and daughter sleep in the same bed, each with a male 
partner. In the city of Edinburgh there are two mothers, prosti- 
tutes, each with four daughters, prostitutes; five prostitute moth- 
ers each with three prostitute daughters, ten such with two daugh- 
ters each, and twenty-four such with one daughter each, all follow- 
ing the practices of the mothers.1 
Such influences brought to bear on the young are irresistible. 
This may perhaps account for the number of sisters who carry on 
prostitution. The effect of mere sisterly example would be suf- 
ficient to account for the circumstance, but the parental becomes 
almost a compulsion, inasmuch as the parent (in such circum- 
stances, the mother) will not only connive at, but be the main 
cause of her child’s ruin for her own direct profit and advantage. 
This, indeed, seems more accordant with our ideas of the natural 
tendencies of prostitutes and procuresses, than that such persons 
should be excessively anxious for their children’s purity and mor- 
al welfare. 
Poverty is an integral part of nearly all the conditions of life 
1 Tail’s Prostitution in Edinburgh. 326 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
which we have to consider as incentives to prostitution. In some 
instances, more, perhaps, than may he generally credited, poverty is a 
direct and proximate cause of this vice. In other words, “ women 
previously and otherwise virtuous do prostitute their bodies for bread.'" 
In most of the cases enumerated except that purely natural, but 
rare one, innate sexual desire, poverty is a remote cause. From 
the number of the human race who are under its griping, chilling 
pressure, poverty may be set down as a fruitful source of pros- 
titution. 
The connection of political circumstances with the phases of 
public morals is more intimate than the consideration of the su- 
perficial differences of the two matters would at first sight imply. 
But an attentive comparison of the state of public prosperity with 
the state of public crime will show that crime is somewhat de- 
pendent on food: the man with a well-filled stomach is no foe to 
order. Prostitution, as a means of supplying the cravings of 
hunger, is part of the same connection. It is true that in En- 
gland there are poor-laws and work-houses, from and in which ev- 
ery destitute person, without reference to character, has a right to 
food and shelter. In the first place, however, the work-houses are 
objects of unmitigated aversion to the poorer classes. Various 
rules, in themselves hard, but rendered necessary by consideration 
for the rate-payers as well as for the beneficiaries, such as separa- 
tion of husband and wife while receiving relief, separation of 
child and parent, etc,, make the work-house system odious to the 
worthy and honest poor; while the strict rules, and the restraint 
and discipline enforced within the walls, make it still more odious 
to those who place their happiness in license and irregularity; 
added to this, in populous and poor districts, the claims upon the 
work-house in seasons of distress are too numerous for its capa- 
bilities. It is an awful truth that, notwithstanding the enormous 
revenues, nearly fifty millions of dollars per annum, collected for 
poor relief, and the immense establishments instituted throughout 
the country for the support and shelter of the distressed, some- 
times the number of applicants is-so great that their demands can 
not be met. Possibly, if these unfortunates could be distributed 
throughout the kingdom, so that the poverty of one spot could be 
balanced by the comparative prosperity of another, the fearful 
starvation in the midst of plenty, which is occasionally witnessed, 
need not occur. But in the mean while, and until the time when GREAT BRITAIN. 
all the schemes and devices of modern improvement and advance- 
ment shall be finally perfected, and universal happiness attained, 
there is a mass of inconceivable wretchedness to be dealt with. 
In “ Household Words” for November, 1855, Mr. Dickens gives a 
harrowing picture of London distress, of which he was himself an 
eye-witness. 
It was a dark, rainy evening, and close against the wall of 
Whitechapel Work-house lay five bundles of rags. Mr. Dickens 
and his friend looked at them, and attempted to rouse them in 
vain. They knocked at the door, were admitted, saw the master 
of the work-house, and asked him if he knew there were five hu- 
man beings—females—lying on the ground outside, cold and 
hungry. He did—at first he was annoyed—such applications were 
frequent—how could he meet them?—the house was full—the cas- 
ual ward was full—what could he do more? When he found 
that Mr. Dickens’s aim was inquiry, not fault-finding, he was soften- 
ed. The case was certainly shocking: how was it to be met? 
Mr. Dickens said he had heard outside that these wretched beings 
had been there two nights already. It was very possible. He 
could not deny or affirm it. There were often more in the same 
plight—sometimes twenty or thirty. He (the master) was obliged 
to give preference to women with children. The place was full. 
Unable to do more, Mr. Dickens left. On getting outside, he 
roused one of these poor wretches. She looked up, but said noth- 
ing. He asked her if she was hungry; she merely looked an af- 
firmative. Would she know where to get something to eat? 
she again assented in the same way. “ Then take this, and for 
God’s sake go and get something.” She took it, made no sign of 
thanks—“gathered herself up and slunk away—wilted into dark- 
ness, silent and heedless of all things.” 
To what will not such misery as this compel suffering human 
nature ? In times of commercial depression the police of London 
note an increase of street prostitution. It is said in the cities of 
England that the permanent prostitution of each place has a nu- 
merical relation to the means of occupation. In Edinburgh there 
are but few chances of employing female labor, Glasgow, Dun- 
dee, and Paisley are the seats of manufactures, and employ female 
labor extensively. According to Tait, the prostitution of Edin- 
burgh far exceeds its proportion of prostitution to population as 
compared with the manufacturing towns.1 
These conclusions are not always reliable. Other causes may operate. If we HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
It seems unnecessary to multiply instances of poverty and in- 
digence, inasmuch as the fact is most miserably indisputable: 
shirt-making at three cents, pantaloon-making at five or six cents— 
unceasing labor of fourteen hours a day bringing in only sixty or 
eighty cents a week, and competition even to obtain this. As the 
London Times once said, “The needle is the normal employment 
of every English woman; what, then, must be the condition of 
those tens of thousands who have nothing but that to depend 
upon ?” Of late years, too, a still farther competition has been in- 
troduced in that ingenious invention of our country, the sewing 
machine. 
In order to show the relation between unpaid and excessive la- 
bor and prostitution, we will instance a few cases. 
One young woman said she made moleskin pantaloons (a very 
strong, stiff fabric) at the rate of fifteen cents per pair. She could 
manage twelve pairs per week when there was full employ- 
ment ; sometimes she could not get work. She worked from six 
in the morning until ten at night. With full work she could make 
two dollars a week, out of which she had to expend thirty-eight 
cents for thread and candle. On an average, in consequence of 
short work, she could not make more than seventy-five cents a 
week. Her father was dead, and she had to support her mother, 
who was sixty years of age. This girl endured her mode of ex- 
istence for three years, till at length she agreed to live with a 
young man. When she made this statement she was within three 
months of her confinement. She felt the disgrace of her condition, 
to relieve her from which she said she prayed for death, and 
would not have gone wrong if she could have helped it,1 
Such a case as this scarcely comes within the term prostitution, 
but she stated that many girls at the shop advised prostitution as 
a resource, and that others should do as they did, as by that means 
they had procured plenty to eat and clothes to wear. She gave 
it as her opinion that none of the thousands of girls who work at 
the same business earn a livelihood by their needle, but that all 
must and do prostitute themselves to eke out a subsistence. 
Another woman, a case more directly in point, also said she 
could not earn more than seventy-five cents. She was a widow, 
recollect rightly, Edinburgh is a garrison town. In factory towns, moreover, we 
should always expect to find a very large amount of immorality, which would some- 
what displace open and avowed prostitution for hire. 
1 Mayhew’s Letters to the Loudon Morning Chronicle. GREAT BRITAIN. 
and had three children when her husband died. Herself and her 
children had to live on these seventj-fiye cents. She might have 
gone into the work-house, and been there better supported than by 
her labor. Had she done so, the laws of the work-house are inex- 
orable, she would have been separated from her children. Al- 
though one child died, she was now so reduced that she could 
not procure food. She took to the streets for a living, and she 
declared that hundreds of married and single women were doing 
the same thing for the same reasons. 
A widow who had buried all her children could not support 
herself. From sheer inability to do so she took to prostitu- 
tion. 
A remarkably fine-looking young woman, whose character for 
sobriety, honesty, and industry was vouched by a number of wit- 
nesses as unimpeachable, had been compelled to work at fine shirts, 
by which she could not earn more, on an average, than thirty-five 
cents a week. She had a child, and, being unwilling to go to the 
work-house, she was driven by indigence to the streets. Struck 
with remorse and shame, and for the sake of her child determined 
to abandon prostitution, she fasted whole days, sleeping in win- 
ter-time in sheds. Once her child’s legs froze to her side, and ne- 
cessity again compelled her to take to her former course. Her 
father had been an Independent preacher. 
These circumstances, and innumerable others, will establish in- 
contestably the intimate relation which poverty bears to prostitu- 
tion. A consideration of such circumstances as the foregoing, and 
the every-day observation of hosts of others of a similar character 
which will come within the cognizance of any one who searches 
into human motives, must incline all but the most outrageously 
virtuous to judge more tenderly of the failings and errors of their 
fellow-creatures. 
All young females engaged in sewing are liable to the same dis- 
tress, and the same resource against it is, of course, open to all. 
The hard labor and long hours are the least part of the evil, al- 
though in that light even there would be ground for commisera- 
tion.1 The real grievance is that the most patient and industri- 
1 When Mrs. Sydney Herbert instituted her Distressed Needlewoman’s Society, 
a great deal was thought to have been accomplished in one particular branch of 
female labor—the millinery and dress-making business—when the leading employ- 
ers had been induced to promise that the working-day should be restricted to 
twelve hours.—Needlewoman's Society Report, 1848. 330 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ous can not, by any hours of labor, earn a sufficiency to support 
themselves. It is true that the work-house is the legal refuge of 
the poor; but the tender mercies of the work-house have passed 
into a proverb. The policy of the poor-laws as administered is to 
deter the needy from applying for relief except in very extreme 
cases. Hence many rules are made, and much formality is inter- 
posed, which render the legal provisions so irksome and unbear- 
able that many fly to the nearest means of satisfying their wants 
rather than demand their legal rights. 
Domestic Servants are, in respect of their removal from ab- 
solute want while in service, more happily situated than those who 
are thus dependent upon the needle. But they are open to influ- 
ences of another kind—we mean seduction by masters and male 
members of the household. Where this evil begins is an exceed- 
ingly difficult question to determine. When corrupted, they be- 
come themselves, by the very opportunities they possess, ready 
and dangerous instruments of corruption, and contribute to dis- 
seminate the poisons of immorality and of bodily disease. We 
have already incidentally mentioned that this class is at times 
open to a great deal of poverty and distress, namely, when out of 
service, and at such times they are peculiarly the mark for the 
lures of persons who make seduction their business and profitable 
occupation. 
adult laborers of Great Britain, except the factory girls. In 1851 
The domestic servants and the sewing-women are the principal 
there were, 
Female domestic servants, 905,165 I Seamstresses .... 12,940 
Dress-makers . . . 210,000 | Stay-makers .... 12,969 
and of these one third were under twenty years of age. 
Places of Public Amusement in England are few when com- 
pared with those of the Continent, and their influence must be pro- 
portionately less. On the Continent dancing saloons are a prom- 
inent feature; in England this character of entertainment is al- 
most unknown. In London there are a few places of this sort, 
such, for example, as Cremorne Gardens. Mr. Tait lays some 
stress on the evil effects of dancing-houses in Edinburgh. We 
should be inclined to think the cases of misconduct traceable to 
these places actually few in number, though not unworthy of no- 
tice. The single females who frequent dancing-rooms, theatres, 
and other similar places in England, without friends or family es- 
cort, have very little virtue to risk. The country fairs are far GREAT BRITAIN. 
more injurious; they are indiscriminately attended by all ages 
and sexes, and their effects upon the female agricultural popula- 
tion are often very pernicious. Greenwich Fair, a three days’ 
scene of rollicking and junketing, was held at Easter and Whit- 
suntide, in the outskirts of London, but is now abolished. It had 
its uses a century or two ago, but recently had been attended by 
all the idlers of London, of both sexes, and was justly dreaded by 
the friends of youth. It is proverbial that more young women 
were debauched at Greenwich Fair (allowing for its duration) than 
at any other place in England. 
111-assorted Marriages are decidedly a cause of prostitution. 
Certainly breach of the marriage vow is one thing, prostitution for 
hire another. In estimating the number of prostitutes in Edin- 
burgh at eight hundred, Mr. Tait adds two hundred to them under 
the head of married women, which he considers accrue from ill- 
assorted marriages. That the marriage was ill-assorted is plainly 
shown by its result, and that want of congeniality and tempera- 
ment is the cause of prostitution to the extent thus named we 
have no ground to question. He speaks of such women sell- 
ing their favors generally to one lover only, occasionally to any 
one who will pay; although the latter forms what is commonly 
known as prostitution, no other construction can be put upon the 
former. 
Love of Dress is another incident which many writers, and Mr. 
Tait among them, have introduced into the direct causes of prosti- 
tution. We should consider it doubtful if any woman ever posi- 
tively sold her virtue for a new gown or a knot of ribbons. Of 
course, after the Rubicon is crossed, all subsequent steps are 
easy, and may be taken from any motive. The love of admi- 
ration, which, under regulation, is sometimes a commendable in- 
stinct, when uncontrolled, becomes a snare. The love of dress 
is a modification of this sentiment, and may help to work out 
the effect when other causes have overthrown the balance of the 
mind. 
Juvenile Prostitution.—We have now arrived, in the con- 
sideration of the causes of prostitution in England, at decidedly the 
most painful of all the phenomena connected with this condition 
of human life, namely, the immense extent of juvenile depravity. 
We have already sketched the evils of insufficient house accom- 
modation and its noxious effects upon the morals of the rising 
generation. In this connection, also, bad example is particularly HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
prominent; perhaps, indeed, with respect to the young, evil com- 
munications are the greatest dangers. 
The work-house was formerly one great hot-bed of vice, and the 
greatest license and irregularity prevailed in every department. 
That children bom or brought up in such a place should grow up 
debased was perfectly in the expected course of things. Now, 
however, under the new Poor-Laws Commission, the scene is 
stripped of its more revolting accessories. The sexes do not min- 
gle, children do not associate with adults: some modicum of edu- 
cation is given. The sweetest and holiest of all ties, that of family, 
is yet wanting, and self-respect is totally deficient. In the absence 
of these protective influences, the wonder is, not that so many 
children should turn out ill, but that so many girls should turn 
out well. Formerly, also, there was a system of compulsory pau- 
per apprenticeship, and the interests of the parish apprentice out 
of doors were very little looked after. This, again, has been alter- 
ed, both in town and country, and the improvement is marked. 
Even with all this, it is recorded in the London Times (June, 
1848) that a correspondent, visiting one of the metropolitan work- 
houses, was struck by the happy and healthy appearance of the 
female children, and inquired of the master of the work-house 
what became of all of them. He was informed, that they were 
sent out, at the age of fourteen, as servants or in other capacities, 
and that nine tenths of them, after coming backward and forward 
from their places to the work-house, eventually got corrupted and 
took to the streets. 
Factories are made accountable by many writers for much ju- 
venile immorality and prostitution. Factories in England are, as 
most of our readers are aware, institutions materially differing in 
some respects from those of our own country. In no feature is there 
so wide a dissimilarity as in the character of the work-people. 
The factory children of England are the offspring of the poorest 
of the community, whose only heritage is pauperism, with wages 
at no time too good, and often at starvation point. The miserable 
earnings of the factory operatives are still farther reduced by con- 
stant strikes and contests with their employers, in which it is a 
foregone conclusion that the workmen must yield. Macaulay tells 
us that, two centuries ago, the employment of children in factories, 
and the dependence of the parent’s bread upon the children’s earn- 
ings, was a notorious fact, much condemned by philanthropists. 
The introduction of machinery and the value of child-labor grad- GREAT BRITAIN. 
333 
ually aggravated all the horrors of the factory system, the enormity 
of which called down the indignation of the non-manufacturing 
community, and compelled the protective interference of Parlia- 
ment. The Ten Hours’ Bill, the Factory Childrens’ Education 
regulations, appointment by government of factory commissioners 
and inspectors, have all contributed to ameliorate the hard lot of 
the factory child. The employment of very young children in 
factories is still to be regretted, or rather its necessity, for probably 
it is better they should be employed in a not very laborious occu- 
pation than left to roam the streets. 
The direct influence of factory work on juvenile prostitution is 
insisted on by many writers; by others, some reservations have 
been introduced, such as, The young associate only during hours 
of recreation. In business hours they are generally employed in 
different parts of the building. They have a certain amount of 
education. Their parents are generally, or very often, employed 
in the same establishment. Assume that these children were not 
in the factory, where would they be, and what could they do ? 
Are evil influences rife only in the factory ? The overcrowding 
at home; the frequent drunkenness and debauchery of their par- 
ents and associates; the endless indigence; the frequent visits to 
the work-houses, are all circumstances which have been considered 
and argued in the case. But of the fact of juvenile prostitution 
and depravity in factory populations none can doubt; of its being 
exclusively or chiefly attributable to factory life, others are not 
certain. 
That children who labor in factories, and thereby contribute to 
the family earnings and their own support, could do better in the 
present condition of English society, is doubtful. Mill-owners are 
required to devote a portion of their time to education. Sunday- 
schools are established; personal attention is paid by leading mill- 
owners to the improvement of the poor; many build good cot- 
tages (for which, by the way, they receive a good interest in the 
way of rent) ; many inspect the schools; some build school-houses 
and pay the teachers. The good example of benevolent mill- 
owners in a measure compels others, whose moral perceptions are 
less keen, to follow them. 
We would not be supposed to argue that English cotton fac- 
tories are types of the Millennium, any more than are similar in- 
stitutions on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, we have a very 
decided opinion on the matter, but common honesty requires that HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION 
the opinion of all who have investigated the subject should be fair- 
ly recorded. In submitting the various arguments adduced in 
favor of factory labor and its bearing on immorality, we present 
merely subjects for consideration. 
Disease in Children.—A fact of importance to public health 
is the disease acquired by children. In the first address issued by 
the London Society for the Protection of young Females, it is 
stated that in three of the London hospitals during the preceding 
eight years there had been no less than two thousand seven hund- 
red cases of venereal disease in children between eleven and six- 
teen years of age. 
Dr. Ryan, on the same subject, speaking from his professional 
experience as medical officer of several charities, mentions the 
shock he felt on seeing numerous cases of venereal disease in 
children. 
Mr. Miller, of Glasgow, testifies to the same fact. 
The very imperfect data which exist on this important branch 
of our subject will not enable one to form any sound opinion on 
the spread of disease from these juvenile sources. It is, however, 
reasonable to conclude, from the few facts, and from the very fa- 
cilities afforded at their age for intercommunication between chil- 
dren, that the spread of disease from direct contamination, and the 
deterioration of health and constitution from unknown excesses, 
must be very great. 
the extent of juvenile contamination from this source must be 
very great. The Society for the Suppression of Vice, in London, 
reports having seized, at different periods, thousands of obscene 
books, copper-plates, and prints, all of which they caused to be 
destroyed. Within a period of three years they procured the de- 
Obscene Publications.—Of these there are vast numbers, and 
struction of 
Blasphemous and impure books . 279 Obscene songs (on sheets). 1,495 
Obscene publications . . . .1,162 Obscene prints .... 10,493 
and even this was but an item in the calculation. 
The police of London take but little interest in this matter. 
The above-mentioned society is the principal agent in the repres- 
sion of this infamous species of depravity. There are certain 
places in London in which the trade still lives and flourishes, not- 
withstanding the attacks made upon it. Holywell Street, in the 
Strand, and the vicinity of Leicester Square, are places of dis- 
graceful notoriety in this respect. The secret is, that wherevei GREAT BRITAIN. 
335 
there is a public demand, no repressive laws will ever prevent 
trade. The attempt at repression but makes it more profitable. 
To the corruption of the youthful mind and the preparatives 
for prostitution these publications must contribute. It is matter 
of question what number of prostitutes have become such directly 
from this cause. The results of visitorial inspection do not show 
among London prostitutes, any more than elsewhere, a taste for 
books and prints of an obscene tendency. Their taste in litera- 
ture is that which would prevail among persons of low intellect- 
ual calibre. Startling tales, romances with a plentiful spice of 
horrors, thrilling love-stories, highly wrought and exaggerated 
narratives, are their taste. In the practice of prostitution, the use 
of indecent or prurient prints is chiefly for the adornment of visit- 
ors’ rooms in brothels. 
Education.—ln the relations between education and crime are 
found no distinctive marks whereby prostitution may be separated 
from any other development of vice or immorality. It is to be 
presumed that the same general laws which apply to the unregu- 
lated manifestation of the passions apply to those with which pros- 
titution is chiefly implicated. 
In the present generation it is generally assumed that crime is 
ttie offspring of ignorance, therefore Education! is the cry. Edu- 
cation has become a party watchword in England. The neces- 
sity of education, the quality and the quantity, with all the minor 
propositions that branch off from the main question, are, and have 
been for years, the subject of the hottest polemics. But recent re- 
sults, evolved from statistical inquiries, would seem to call up the 
previous question as to the value of education at all. The pres- 
ent work is not the place in which to discuss the fact, or to point 
out a remedy, or indicate the deficiencies of a system which can 
suffer such a question to arise. We give the facts. From the 
Parliamentary reports of 1846-1848, it appears that the number 
of educated criminals in England was at that time more than 
twice, and in Scotland more than three and a half that of the un- 
educated : 
Years. 
England. 
Scotland. 
Educated. 
Uneducated. 
Educated. 
Uneducated. 
1846 
16,063 
7698 
3155 
903 
1847 
19,307 
9050 
3562 
1048 
1848 
20,176 
9671 
3985 
911 
In calculating a percentage on certain criminal returns during 
the undermentioned years, the results were: 336 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
183!). | 1840. 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
33-53 
53-4-8 
10-07 
0-32 
2-60 
33-32 
55*57 
8-29 
0-37 
2-45 
33-21 
56-67 
7-40 
0-45 
2*27 
32-35 
58-32 
6-77 
0-22 
2-34 
31-00 
57-60 
8-02 
0-47 
2-91 
29-77 
59-28 
8-12 
0-42 
2-41 
30-61 
58-34 
8-38 
0-37 
2-30 
30-66 
59-51 
7-71 
0- 
1- 
Imperfectly educated.. 
Superior education .... 
100- 
too- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
This table, which on its face conclusively establishes an increase 
in criminals imperfectly educated, and a decrease both in those 
who could read and write well, and those who could not read or 
write at all, may be, and has been made, the subject of much 
pseudo-philosophical remark, as proving the injury of education. 
In the first place, it only shows the effects of partial education, if 
it shows any thing. But the misfortune of statistical results is 
that they are relied on too implicitly, with a narrow-minded sub- 
servience to figures and facts, whereas they require to be accom- 
panied with explanatory circumstances, which may either enhance 
their value up to the point of mathematical demonstration, or may 
so pare them away as to render them perfectly worthless. In the 
consideration of the above figures, all that would seem to appear is 
that there was an increase of education keeping pace with the in- 
crease of population, and that in the statistics of crime the increase 
of imperfectly educated people would be as perceptible as else- 
where. Mere reading and writing, unaccompanied by moral ele- 
vation, will not reform mankind. Alone, they will not prevent a 
hungry man from satisfying his'hunger. The words of Caesar 
apply to criminals equally as to conspirators: 
“ Let me have men about me that are fat, 
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’nights: 
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.” 
Pursuing this question, and turning to the population tables 
of 1851, the period of the last census, we find that Middlesex was 
the most generally educated county, taking the signature of the 
marriage register as the test of education. Eighty-two per cent, 
signed the marriage register, yet in the list of criminality Middle- 
sex stood third of all the counties of England. Gloucester, which 
was first in crime, was far from being the most ignorant. There 
sixty-five per cent, signed the register. The general average of 
the whole population by the same list is forty per cent. Here 
again is a qualifying circumstance. London is included in Mid- 
dlesex, with its vast seething mass of human misery and corrup- GREAT BRITAIN. 
337 
tion to swell the record of crime, while its general population 
is, of course, about the most intelligent of the British empire, 
so that in the same spot is found at once the greatest intelli- 
gence and the greatest misery. We are not aware of such 
qualifying circumstances in Gloucestershire. 
Dr. Eyan, writing on this point, refers to the Metropolitan 
Police Report for 1837, by which it appears that of prostitutes 
arrested in that year there 
Could not read or write 1778 
“ read and write imperfectly 1337 
“ “ “ “ well 89 
Had received a good education 4 
Total 3108 
This is a tolerably fair criterion ; for although, as before said, 
the police only interfere with peace-breakers, and all these came 
under the technical term of “ drunk and disorderly,” still we 
believe the state of prostitution in London to be such that an 
average proportion of all classes of courtesans pass through the 
hands of the police during the year. 
Mr. Tait, speaking of Edinburgh, confirms the view put forward 
as to educational influences. A large proportion of the Edin- 
burgh prostitutes (eighty-seven per cent.) read and write. The 
Scottish peasantry are perhaps the best-educated in Europe, and 
those girls who come to Edinburgh from the country are no excep- 
tion to the rule. The uneducated, Mr. Tait thinks, are city girls. 
As to the religious denomination of prostitutes, for that a pros- 
titute may have a religion we may say, in the kindly spirit of 
Corporal Trim, but doubtingly, “A negro has a soul, your 
honor.” In Edinburgh they include all sects except Independ- 
ents, Baptists, and Quakers. There may be those who smile at 
the idea of a prostitute having any belief. Of London we have 
no data on this point. 
Illegitimate Births seem, by common consent of most writ- 
ers, to be classed with details of prostitution. In France, it is 
said by those who profess intimate local knowledge, there is al- 
most a prejudice against marriage, although it can be performed 
as a legal ceremony. We think Bayle St. John states this fact. 
In the poorer districts of London, the east end, for example, it is 
notorious that numbers live in a state of concubinage. Again : in 
the country, and away from the dense population of towns, a 338 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
woman of immoral habits may often be found who has had two 
or three illegitimate children by different men with whom she 
has cohabited. Such a woman would most probably have been 
a prostitute in a town; as it is, she is no better; still, she is not 
a prostitute for hire. But to proceed to details. 
The number of illegitimate births in every thousand births in 
the various counties is as follows: 
Cumberland . . 108 
Norfolk . . . 105 
Hereford . . . 100 
Salop .... 99 
Nottingham . . 91 
Cheshire ... 89 
Westmoreland . 87 
Suffolk 81 
Derby 81 
Berks 79 
Leicester ... 79 
North Wales . .78 
South Wales . . 73 
York 71 
Stafford .... 69 
Sussex 68 
Cambridge . . 66 
Lincoln .... 64 
Middlesex ... 40 
Cumberland is a pastoral and mountainous county, with a thin- 
ly-settled population. Norfolk is an agricultural and grazing 
county, broken up into large farms. Neither county has many 
large towns. Stafford is a manufacturing county, with a long list 
of thickly-populated small towns, in which as great indigence and 
misery can be found as in any part of England. Middlesex con- 
tains London. Here, then, we see that illegitimacy and prosti- 
tution are not the same thing. Where there are no prostitutes 
there are bastards, but the women in the country are mostly em- 
ployed ; they are obliged to work in the fields, or in some domes- 
tic manufacture such as button-making, stocking-making, etc. 
An apparent paradox may be here mentioned, although not in- 
timately affectingthese investigations. The preponderance of bas- 
tards is accompanied by a preponderance of early marriages. This 
has been accounted for by the theory that both are dependent 
on sexual instincts precociously or excessively stimulated, which 
seek marriage when practicable, or illicit intercourse where not.1 
Illegitimacy is somewhat regulated by the disproportionate 
number of the sexes. In an excess of females there are few bas- 
tards ;in an excess of males there are many. Upon this fact, un- 
attended byqualifyingcircumstances,might be based an argument 
1 It would be interesting to know whether this illicit intercourse is byway of 
cohabitation or merely temporary. Instances are not rare of people cohabiting 
who allege themselves too poor to pay the marriage fees. In order to obviate 
this, it is customary for ministers in poor and populous parishes in England, 
where the circumstances of individual parishioners are not known to them, to 
invite all parties who are living in concubinage to come and be married free 
of expense. Many avail themselves of this offer. GREAT BRITAIN. 
339 
as to the innate sexual instinct in females. It might have been 
expected the relations would be somewhat different, namely, 
an increase of prostitution with an excess of men, but an in- 
crease of bastards with an excess of women. 
The number of rapes in England seems to be governed by 
the excess of men over women. Where the number of illegiti- 
mate children exceeds the average, rape is less frequent. 
The cases of abuse of children between the ages of ten and 
twelve are three in every ten million of the whole population. 
There is some difficulty in this matter, arising from a legal 
technicality on the subject of age. In any case, neither of the 
last items of criminality is of any value, inasmuch as they 
include only those cases judicially investigated. Many are 
guilty, yet acquitted ; and many more are never charged with 
the offense. Shame prevents parties prosecuting ; or, in the case 
of children, the fact does not transpire, or else it is compromised. 
Keeping a brothel is, as we have said, an offense at common 
law. We have a computation of the number of offenses of this 
kind based upon every ten million of the population. In Middle- 
sex it was two hundred and ninety-six, in Lancashire one hundred 
and eighty-three. Both counties include the most populous towns 
in England. Lancashire contains Manchester and Liverpool. 
This fact also is of little value, owing to the peculiar administra- 
tion of the law on the subject. Remote or indirect injuries to the 
public safety are not noticed in England. The-police may be 
well aware of crime meditated and planned, and of the haunts of 
crime, but the theory of public justice is cure, not prevention. 
Concealment of birth is an offense which, as it emanates from 
undue sexual intercourse, is generally associated with prostitu- 
tion. In Hereford and other counties, the proportion of ille- 
gitimate births is eighty-eight out of every thousand born, and 
there were twenty-two concealments to every thousand bastards. 
Infourcountiestheillegitimatebirthswere fifty-eight in a thou- 
sand, and the concealments thirteen in a thousand illegitimates. 
In fifteen counties there were fifty-three illegitimates in every 
thousand births, and twenty-seven concealments to every thou- 
sand illegitimates. 
With the largest proportion of illegitimates there are the 
fewest concealments; namely, with seventy-nine illegitimates 
out of a thousand births, there were only twelve concealments 
to a thousand illegitimates. 340 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
It is absolutely impossible to ascertain the number of prostitutes 
in London with any degree of certainty, and even a satisfactory 
approximation is exceedingly difficult; nevertheless, it is most 
important to attain as nearly as possible to the actual facts, be- 
cause without this knowledge no adequate idea can be formed of 
the vast seed-bed of disease and corruption in constant action in 
a great capital city shedding forth and disseminating its pernicious 
growth on every side,through channels unknown and unsuspected. 
Mr. Colquhoun, a magistrate of the British metropolis toward 
the close of the last century (1796), made an arbitrary enumer- 
ation, fixing the number of prostitutes in London at fifty thou- 
sand. Drs. Kyan, Campbell, Mr. Talbot, and others, carry 
their estimate in 1840 to eighty thousand ! 
Mr. Mayne (now Sir Eichard Mayne), chief commissioner of 
the Metropolitan Police in 1840, made an estimate of the num- 
ber of regular London prostitutes, which he considers were 
then eight thousand and upward. The seemingly irreconcilable 
discrepancy of these numbers is, no doubt, to be found in the 
loose terminology of the one party and the technicality of the 
other. The term “ prostitute ” would seem to be best applied 
to those unhappy females who make prostitution their sole call- 
ing, and may therefore be styled “regular” prostitutes, while 
the larger estimate includes all shades, both “ regular ” and “ oc- 
casional” or “ irregular,” by which is understood those females 
with whom prostitution is auxiliary to some reputable calling. 
We can not find that any reliable returns have been made on 
this branch of public life by the London police, although they 
must possess peculiar and exclusive powers of preparing them. 
As long back as 1837 the following rough calculation was made ; 
1st Class. 
2d Class. 
3d Class. 
Total. 
Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels.... 
813 
62 
20 
895 
Well-dressed prostitutes walking the [ 
streets f 
1460 
79 
73 
1612 
Prostitutes infesting low neighborhoods 
3533 
147 
184 
3864 
5806 
288 
277 
6371 
On this return Mr. Mavne very probably based his estimate 
of 1840.1 
1 While this work was passing through the press, we met with a recent pub- 
lication by Wm. Acton, Esq., M.R.C.S. of London, entitled “ Prostitution 
considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects,” which gives later infor- 
mation on this point. The Metropolitan Police estimated the number of 
prostitutes in London in 1841, and again in 1857, with the following results : GREAT BRITAIN. 
341 
Mr Talbot, the secretary of the Society for the Protection of 
Young Females, made the subject one of special inquiry, both 
personally and with the aid of the local police of the different 
cities; and although his details are very meagre, he professes 
to have satisfied himself of the general accuracy of the follow- 
ing figures, showing the regular prostitutes in various cities. 
Edinburgh 800 
Glasgow 1800 
Liverpool . . . - . 2900 
Leeds 700 
Manchester .... 700 
All parties are, however, agreed in representing that it is imprac- 
ticable to form anything like a correct estimate of “ the number 
of female servants, milliners, and women in the upper and middle 
classes of society who might properly be classed with prostitutes, 
or of the women who frequent theatres, barracks, ships, etc.” 
In 1851, the police of Dublin published in their statistical 
returns the number of prostitutes in that city, which is the only 
public or official paper on the point having any appearance of 
system or accuracy. It is as follows: 
1848 .... Brothels 885 Prostitutes 1348 
1849 .... “ 330 “ 1344 
1850 .... “ 272 “ 1215 
1851 .... “ 297 “ 1170 
This table shows a steady decrease in the number of these 
women. We are uninformed as to any local cause for this, nor 
do we know whether it has been balanced by an increase of 
“ sly ” or occasional prostitution. 
From the preceding figures a calculation has been made of the 
regular prostitutes relatively tothepopulationintheseveraltowns. 
It appears to have been based on the number of inhabitants at 
the date of the various estimates. That of Dublin is according 
to the census of 1851, the remainder according to that of 1841. 
1841 
1857 
Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels 
2071 
921 
Well-dressed prostitutes walking the streets. 
1994 
2616 
Prostitutes infesting low neighborhoods 
5344 
5068 
Total 
9409 
8600 
Mr. Acton says, “ The return gives, after all, but a faint idea of the grand 
total of prostitution. * * * * yv ere there any possibility of reckoning all 
those in London who would come within the definition of prostitutes, I am 
inclined to think that the estimates of the boldest who have preceded me 
would be thrown into the shade.”—P. 16-18. 342 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Proportion of Prostitutes to Population. 
Number of 
Prostitutes. 
Prop 
To Males. 
ortiou to Popula 
To Females. 
tion. 
To total 
Population. 
Liverpool. ... 
2900 
1 to 43 
1 to 45 
1 to 88 
Manchester ... 
700 
1 to 156 
1 to 169 
1 to 325 
Leeds 
700 
1 to 70 
1 to 75 
1 to 145 
.Edinburgh.... 
800 
1 to 106 
1 to 130 
1 to 236 
Glasgow 
1800 
1 to 87 
1 to 97 
1 to 184 
Dublin 
1170 
1 to 101 
1 to 119 
1 to 220 
Cork 1 
350 
1 to 113 
1 to 134 
1 to 247 
The mean of the above may be taken as a fair representation of 
the general state of the kingdom. The qualifying circumstances 
to which we have already made allusion as peculiar to each city 
or district are, of course, neutralized by the aggregate. 
For example, Liverpool is a great sea-port town, and a large 
number of regular prostitutes would be inevitable there. In Man- 
chester, a large manufacturing city, with an immense pauper and 
factory operative population, the trade of prostitution would meet 
with less profitable custom; we find the proportion much smaller. 
Glasgow is both manufacturing and commercial; there, again, the 
proportion is larger. Dublin has but little commerce, but is a 
capital city, has a court and a large garrison. The combination 
of all these circumstances is found in London, and a fair estimate 
would be obtained by adding all the preceding proportions to- 
gether, which would give a mean of about 1 in 232, and this upon 
the population (2,362,000) is within a fraction of ten thousand. 
We have seen that Mr. Mayne in 1840 stated his opinion to be 
that there were about eight thousand regular prostitutes in Lon- 
don, qualifying that statement by a profession of total ignorance 
as to the irregulars who did not make prostitution their only 
means of living. Mr. Mayne had peculiar sources of information 
open to him, and it is more than probable that his opinion was 
well founded. From the above calculation, from the best sources 
available to us on this very obscure question, we are satisfied to 
assume ten thousand as at least a probable approximation to the 
number of regular prostitutes in London. 
Mr. Mayne, in his statement on this subject, mentioned that 
1 An estimate of Cork was made in 1847 for the Medico-Chirurgical Review, 
which gave two hundred and fifty prostitutes living in eighty brothels, besides 
one hundred clandestine prostitutes. Their ages were stated as between sixteen 
and twenty years. GREAT BRITAIN. 
343 
there were 3335 brothels. Some authors have attempted to make 
a calculation of the number of prostitutes on the basis of this num- 
ber of houses; one has assumed three, another ten. Dr. Wardlaw 
has fixed upon five women per house, without, as it appears to 
us, any precise reason for preferring that figure. These differ- 
ent opinions may be thus worked out: 
5 women in each house would give 16,675 prostitutes. 
4 “ “ “ (as in Dublin) would give 18,340 “ 
3 “ “ “ (as in Cork) “ “ 10,005 “ 
We have not been able to obtain Mr. May ne’s statement ipsissi?nis 
verbis, and failing that we may be in error, but we should be in- 
clined to think that, in his official capacity as a magistrate, and in 
his personal character as a lawyer, Mr, Mayne would be apt to 
assign the term “brothel” indiscriminately to all houses trad- 
ing in prostitution, whether houses of assignation or houses in 
which prostitutes habitually reside. If our reading of the word 
“ brothels ” in this sense be correct, it is clear that any attempt 
to enumerate on the basis of the women attached to each house 
would be fallacious. The expression used by the Dublin police 
is “ houses frequented or occupied,” and its ambiguity shows that 
the authorities there considered the word “ brothel ” in the sense 
given to it by English jurists. 
How does this number of ten thousand regular prostitutes 
bear on the population ? 
In London there are, above twenty years of age, 
Bachelors 196,857 
Spinsters 246,124 
Husbands 398,624 
Wives 406,266 
Widowers 37,064 
Widows 110,028 
Male. 
Female. 
Totals .... 632,545 762,418 
Omitting fractions, the proportions would be, 
On bachelors and widowers 1 in 28 
“ total male population 1 “ 63 
“ “ female “ 1 “ 76 
“ aggregate population above twenty years of age 1 “139 
This would establish ten thousand as the nucleus of the pros- 
titution system of London. Those females who come within the 
designation of “ irregular prostitutes ” are in no respect less preju- 
dicial to the community than the “ regulars.” The difference is 344 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
that they have some other real or nominal occupation, which they 
follow according to circumstances. An even moderately correct 
estimate of their number is little better than guess-work, and we 
therefore think it expedient to put our readers in possession of 
our own limited means of information, and take them on to a 
conclusion. There are so many elements to be taken into the 
account, and the data are so scant}7, that we only consider our- 
selves justified in intimating an opinion rather than announcing 
a satisfactory conclusion. 
To show the extremes to which the doctrine of possibilities 
may lead in this development of misery and vice, we will recur 
to the statement of some of the London prostitute needle- 
women themselves. We quote from Mayhew’s letters to the 
Morning Chronicle: 
“I now come to the second test that was adopted in order to verify my 
conclusions. This was the convening of such a number of needle-women and 
slop-workers as would enable me to arrive at a correct average as to the 
earnings of the class. I was particularly anxious to do this, not only with 
regard to the more respectable portions of the operatives, but also with ref- 
erence to those who, I had been given to understand, resorted to prostitution 
in order to eke out their subsistence. I consulted a friend, who is well ac- 
quainted with the habits and feelings of slop-workers, as to the possibility 
of gathering together anumber of women who would be willing to state that 
they had been forced to take to the streets on account of the lowpricesfor their 
work.1 He told me he was afraid, from the shame of their mode of life be- 
coming known, it would be almost impossible to collect together a number 
of females who would be ready to say as much publicly. However, it was 
decided that at least the experiment should be made, and that every thing 
should be done to assure the parties of the strict privacy of the assemblage. 
It was arranged that this' gentleman and myself should be the only male 
persons visible on the occasion, and that the place of meeting should be as 
dimly lighted as possible, so they could scarcely see or be seen by one another 
or by us. Cards of admission were issued privately, and, to my friend’s as- 
tonishment, as many as twenty-five came on the evening named to the ap- 
pointed place, intent upon making known the sorrows and sufferings that had 
driven them to fly to the streets, in order to get the bread which the wretch- 
ed prices paid for their labor would not permit them to obtain. 
“ Never in all history was such a sight seen or such tales heard. There, 
in the dim haze of the large bare room in which they met, sat women and 
girls, some with babies sucking at their breasts, others in rags, and even 
those borrowed in order that they might come and tell their misery to the 
1 This may be deemed a foregone conclusion, but it was based upon previous 
inquiries in individual cases. GREAT BRITAIN. 
345 
world. I have witnessed many a scene of sorrow lately ; I have heard sto- 
ries that have unmanned me; but never, till last Wednesday, had I heard 
or seen any thing so solemn, so terrible as this. If ever eloquence was lis- 
tened to, it was in the outpourings of these poor, lorn mothers’ hearts for 
their base-born little ones, as each told her woes and struggles, and pub. 
lished her shame amid the convulsive sobs of others—nay, of all present. 
Behind a screen, removed from sight, so as not to wound the modesty of 
the women, who were nevertheless aware of their presence, sat two re- 
porters from this journal, to take down verbatim the confessions and decla- 
rations of those assembled, and to them I am indebted for the following 
report of the statements made at the meeting.” 
Then follow a series of most heart-rending statements, all 
bearing all the internal evidence of truth. The letter concludes 
with the following sentence: 
“ They were unanimous in declaring that a large number of the trade— 
probably one fourth of the whole, or one half of those who had no husbands 
or parents to support them—resorted to the streets to eke out a living. 
Accordingly, assuming the government returns to be correct, and that 
there are upward of eleven thousand females under twenty living by needle 
and slop work,1 the numerical amount of prostitution becomes awful to 
contemplate.” 
Thus, then, we have it in evidence that “ probably ” one 
fourth of all women engaged in sewing occupations for a liveli- 
hood are compelled to have occasional recourse to prostitution 
as their only and compulsory refuge from starvation. 
The number of women engaged in these sewing occupations is 
enormous. According to the census of 1851, they constitute, in- 
deed, the main support of the female working population through- 
out Great Britain, exclusive of domestic servants, laundresses, and 
persons employed in agricultural pursuits, and in the cotton and 
linen factories. The figures for the three kingdoms are as follows: 
Hatters 8,500 
Straw-liat-makers , . 20,500 
Bonnet-makers . . 7,600 
Cap-makers .... 4,700 
Furriers 1,900 
Tailors 17,600 
Shawl-makers . . . 3,200 
Milliners 267,400 
Seamstresses . . . 72,900 
Stay-makers . . , 12,700 
Stocking-makers . . 80,700 
Glovers 25,300 
Case-makers.... 31,400 
IWe do not understand this figure. The sum of the sewing trades of London is 
nearly twenty times this number. Perhaps Mr.Mayhew refers only to slop-work, 
including the very commonest garments, both woolen and cotton, or even to that 
portion of the trade that have their principal abode in the particular localities 
visited. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
In all Great Britain this class numbers 1,787,600 
Of whom there are under twenty years of age . . . 458,168 
We have not the details of the occupations of London, but the 
proportion which the population of the metropolis bears to that 
of Great Britain is about one ninth. One ninth of the above 
aggregate would give for London about 196,500 women engaged 
in the sewing trades, all of whom, it may be assumed, are over 
fifteen. We omit from the consideration of female trades those 
engaged in agricultural pursuits and factories, such occupations 
havingcornparatively few representatives in the metropolitan dis- 
tricts, although there are more of them than would be supposed. 
Laundresses are also omitted, as a very large proportion of them 
in and about London are, as is well known, married and middle- 
aged women. But another class to which all writers assign a 
large amount of prostitution are domestic servants, a body most 
numerously represented in London. There are in the metropolis 
165,100 domestic servants, the peculiarly unprotected character 
of whom, as a class, may be inferred from the singular fact that 
to the work-house, the hospital, and the Lunatic Asylum they 
supply a number of inmates exceeding that of any other class. 
Thus, then, are shown two very large figures, amounting to- 
gether to 361,000, as the stock from which prostitutes to any 
extent may be procured. Some consideration, perhaps, of the 
ages of prostitutes, and of other circumstances in the condition of 
the female population, may enable us to appreciate the state of 
the case without being driven to the necessity of looking on 
these enormous totals as incapable of reduction. 
Nature would indicate the period between 15 and 45 as the 
age during which the trade of prostitution must be carried on. 
Much has been said as to the means used for decoying young 
children for purposes of prostitution. Of the fact we are per- 
fectly convinced, but should think it of little numerical impor- 
tance in the afferreffate body. The influence of evil communica- 
GO O J 
tion on the young is of infinitely greater mischief, and the extent 
of youthful depravity from this cause is very great among the 
poorer classes, and would oblige us to date the commencing age 
of prostitution back to twelve years. 
As to the period of life at which the prostitute’s career is termi- 
nated. it is contended by some of the English writers that only an 
infinitesimal proportion reach the age of forty-fivein the exercise GREAT BRITAIN. 
of their soul and health destroying trade. Mr. Tait says, “In less 
than one year from the commencement of their wicked career these 
females bear evident marks of their approaching decay, and in the 
course of three years very few can be recognized by their old ac- 
quaintance, if they are so fortunate as to survive that period. 
These remarks apply more especially to those who are above 
twenty years of age when they join the ranks of the victims.” 
From the average of Edinburgh, Mr, Tait goes on to assume that 
“ not above one in eleven survives twenty-five years of age; and 
taking together those who persist in vice, and those who, after hav- 
ingabandoned it, die of diseases which originated from theexcesses 
they were addicted toduringitscontinuance, perhaps not less than 
a fifth or sixth of all who have embraced this course of sin die an- 
nually.” Dr. Ryan seems to adopt an opinion that the average 
duration of life after commencing prostitution is four years.1 Cap- 
tain Miller, of Glasgow, thinks that “ the average age at which 
women become abandoned is from fifteen to twenty, and the av- 
erage duration of women continuing this vice is about five years.” 
The ages of patients admitted into the Lock Hospital at 
Edinburgh were as follows : 
Under 15 years 42 
From 15 years to 20 years 662 
“ 20 “ “ 25 “ 199 
“ 25 “ “30 “ 69 
Total 
From 80 years to 35 years 16 
“ 35 “ “ 40 “ 6 
Over 40 years 6 
lOOO 
These figures alone would go to make out the presumption that 
the ages of prostitutes are between twelve and th irty, and that TWir 
are between fifteen and twenty-five. According to the above table, 
nine tenths of the number at twenty have disappeared at thirty, 
and as cases of reform and abandonment of their life are very 
rare, the conclusion would be that their career ends in death.2 
1 The reader will notice that neither Dr. Ryan, Mr. Tait, nor the views as to 
the duration of life expressed in the portion of this work devoted to New York, 
agree with those German authors who have asserted the healthfulness of pros- 
titution. See Chapter XYI, Hamburg. 
2 At the meeting in London to which allusion has been made, Mr. Acton (late 
Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary and Fellow of the Royal Medical Society) said 
that, “in his opinion, the subject under discussion was one worth legislating for. 
As a surgeon, he had investigated thesubject not onlyin London,but in Parisand 
other Continental capitals, and he could speak with some authority as to the statis- 
tics of prostitution, and the manner in which the women became, as it were, ab- 
sorbed in the population by whom they were surrounded. Fromcalculationshased 
uponthecensustahles, it had come out that of all theunmarried womenof fullagein 348 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The duration of prostitution being ascertained, we would find 
the number of women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. 
In the whole female population this is one fifth, but the very aged 
or the very youthful are necessarily excluded from the classes of 
work-women and servants; of servants, indeed, there are five and 
upward under twenty to three above twenty years of age. This, 
therefore, would indicate very little reduction of the numbers. 
It is reasonable to suppose that some portion of the above 
are married women having husbands living, and if so, it is not 
an unreasonable supposition that their wives are not obliged to 
have recourse to prostitution ; in fact, the poor creatures them- 
selves seem to imply that immunity. The number of wives is 
about one third of the whole female population ; of these wives 
about one fourth are employed in trades apart from those of 
their husbands. If we deduct only such a proportion from the 
sewing-women, it makes something when we have to deal with 
such enormous masses; we should strike off nearly 50,000, 
leaving only 150,000 sewing-women. 
There is comfort, however, in the fact that, of these sewing- 
the country one in every 13 or 14 were immoral. This might appear a startling an- 
nouncement, but the calculation had been made upon returns, the truth of which 
had not been questioned. It was a popular error to suppose that these women died 
young, and made their exits from life in hospitals and work-houses. The fact was 
not so. Women of that class were all picked lives, and dissipation did not usually 
kill them. They led a life of prostitution for two, three, or four years, and then 
either married or got into some service or employment, and gradually became 
amalgamated with society. It was estimated that in this manner about 25 per 
cent, of the whole number amalgamated each year with the population.” 
From these remarks we may deduce the same continuance of a life of prosti- 
tution as given in the text, namely, an average of four years ; but they advance 
another theory as to its termination, substituting reformation for death. That 
eases of reformation do take place, and probably to a greater extent than is gen- 
erally imagined, can not be denied; but that one fourth of the total number of 
prostitutes abandon their sinful life every year, and become virtuous members of 
society, is a conclusion that American experience will not support. In England 
and on the European continent there may be a class of men in the lower ranks 
of life who do not regard virtue as a sine qua non in the choice of a wife; indeed, 
the notorious facility with which the cast-off mistresses of noblemen or gentlemen 
can be married to a dependent sufficiently proves this; but in this country pub- 
lic opinion sets strongly in the opposite direction. Here, if a woman once errs, 
or is even suspected of error, she is rigorously excluded from virtuous society, 
and, although her subsequent life may be irreproachable, the lapse is seldom 
forgiven. The old Roman law, “Once a prostitute, always a prostitute,” is 
too sternly enforced on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Acton’s speech is the 
first intimation we have met of so very liberal a benevolence in England. GREAT BRITAIN. 
women, three fourths are known to be over twenty years of age; 
and if we assume one half instead of three fourths, allowing the 
other fourth for the difference between twenty and twenty-five 
years of age, it brings our figure to seventy-five thousand. 
All these deductions are, we fear, in excess ; and it must be rec- 
ollected, moreover, that the above large suras by no means include 
all the female occupations of London,1 but merely those classes 
which, either from the temptation incident to their position, or 
from the imperative demands of want and necessity, are, by com- 
petent authority, supposed to be peculiarly obnoxious to the risk 
of prostitution. If to this large number of women, which we 
can not assume at less than 273,000 between the ages of twelve 
and twenty-five, be added all the other denizens of a great city 
unexampled in its magnitude, embracing in itself all the peculi- 
arities of all other cities, at once a manufacturing, a commercial, 
a garrison, and a capital city, and, finally, containing the largest 
population in the world, one such item being nearly four hundred 
thousand single females over twelve years of age, then, indeed, 
the mass of misery, wretchedness, vice, and crime there accumu- 
lated appals the mind seeking to grapple with it, and oppresses 
us with the apprehension that even eighty thousand, the highest 
estimate which has been made, is, when understood to include 
all contingencies, not an incredible figure.2 
Englishmen pride themselves, and, it must be admitted, not 
without reason,on their numerous and admirable public charities. 
In this particular direction it would seem that public munificence 
has not been so liberally displayed as in some others. “Joy shall 
be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over 
ninety and nine just persons,” does not, we fear, apply to minds 
and hearts of earthly mould. People, in charitable as in other 
institutions, like to see a return for their investment; and, not- 
1 We have calculated that there are upward of six hundred thousand women 
in London between fifteen and forty-five years old. The proportion of married 
women among these would be 370,000 and upward ; unmarried women over 
twenty years, and widows, about 314,000. 
2 A very singular fact in connection with the census is that there is not a sin- 
gle individual returned as a prostitute. This is not that the authorities do not 
take cognizance of crime, for there are 22,451 female prisoners in Great Brit- 
ain, all of whom, however, except 1274, are returned as having some legal oc- 
cupation. There are 7600 female vagrants, sleeping in barns, tents, etc., of 
whom 2600 are under twenty years of age. 350 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION". 
withstanding the immense field for benevolent labor in prostitu- 
tion, there is a general impression among both the public and of- 
ficials that it is an irretrievably barren waste, and that it is worse 
than profitless to squander money and time upon it. The results 
which have been achieved would, however, show that the exer- 
tions of philanthropy, although not producing so much fruit as 
in some other quarters, have not been entirely vain. In refer- 
ence to these results, too, it must be borne in mind that the dis- 
cipline of the various institutions is severe, and even repellent, 
a policy ill adapted to insure a large amount of success. 
The Lock Hospital is the oldest institution in London for the 
benefit of lost females, and is devoted entirely to the cure of 
venereal disease. It was founded in the year 1747, and in a 
century had cured 45,448 cases. 
The Magdalen Hospital of London,founded in 1758, up to Jan- 
uary?, 1844, had received 6968 females. The results were these: 
Reconciled to their friends, or placed in service or other 
reputable employment 4752 
Discharged at their own request 1183 
“ for improper conduct . . . . ' 720 
Died 109 
Sent to other institutions (being insane or afflicted with in- 
curable diseases) 107 
Eloped 2 
Remaining in the hospital 96 
Total 6968 
A considerable number of the women, when discharged from 
the institution, are under twenty years of age; and it is an in- 
variable rule not to dismiss any one (unless at her own desire, 
or for misconduct) without some means being provided by which 
she may obtain a livelihood in an honest manner. 
The Lock Asylum was founded in 1787, for the reception of 
penitent female patients when discharged from the Lock Hospi- 
tal ; and up to March, 1837, the number of women received was 
984. The results were : 
Reconciled to their friends 170 
Placed in service or employment 281 
Died 22 
Remaining in Asylum 18 
Total 491 
Of the remaining number, many had been sent to their parishes; GREAT BRITAIN. 
some had eloped, and some had been expelled for improper con- 
duct, but of several of even of these favorable accounts had been 
afterward received : some of them were known to be married, 
and living creditably, and others were earning a living honestly. 
We have been unable to obtain any account of the operations 
of this institution since the year 1837. 
The London Female Penitentiary was instituted in 1807. 
Of 6939 applicants, 2717 were admitted into the house. The 
results were: 
Reconciled and restored to friends, placed in service, or 
otherwise provided for 1543 
Discharged from various causes 631 
“ at their own request 350 
Emigrated 47 
Sent to their parishes 23 
Died 38 
Remaining in Penitentiary 95 
Total 3717 
The Guardian Society was established in 1812, and from 
that period up to 1843 had admitted 1932 wretched outcasts to 
partake of the advantages it offered. The results were: 
Restored to their friends 533 
Placed in service, or satisfactorily provided for .... 455 
Discharged or withdrawn 843 
Sent to their parishes 53 
Died 17 
Remaining in institution 31 
Total 1933 
Besides these institutions, others have been established with 
similar objects, namel}7, The British Penitent Female Refuge, 
The Female Mission, The South London Penitentiary, and one 
or two others. As compared with the great number of unfor- 
tunate women in London, these institutions have effected but a 
very small amount of good. During seventy-seven years, end- 
ing 1835, ten thousand and five females were received within 
the walls of four of the London asylums, of which number six 
thousand two hundred and sixty-two (more than three fifths) 
were satisfactorily provided for, and two thousand nine hun- 
dred and eighty were discharged for misconduct. Taking the 
whole of the institutions in London up to that time, it may be 
fairly estimated that fourteen or fifteen thousand prostitutes 
have had the opportunity of returning to a virtuous life. 
Those who, like the Pharisee, content themselves with thanking 352 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION-. 
God that they are not as other men, and even as these unfortu- 
nates, are a very impracticable set to deal with, and if such there 
be who read these pages, we pass them by, and pray for the better 
health of their souls. The gentle spirits who, imitating a blessed 
example, think it not pollution to extend their sympathy and 
saving help to publicans and harlots, may, in the following lines, 
written by a prostitute and found in her death-bed, see matter 
for meditation, and ground for the belief that all efforts in the 
cause of the sinner will not be unsuccessful. They were headed 
“VEKSES FOB, MY TOMB-STONE, IF EYEK I SHOULD HATE ONE. 
“ The wretched victim of a quick decay, 
Relieved from life, on humble bed of clay, 
The last and only refuge for my woes, 
A love-lost, ruined female, I repose. 
From the sad hour I listened to his charms, 
And fell, half forced, in the deceivei‘’s arms, 
To that whose awful veil hides every fault, 
Sheltering my sufferings in this welcome vault, 
When pampered, starved, abandoned, or in drink. 
My thoughts were racked in striving not to think ! 
Nor could rejected conscience claim the power 
To improve the respite of one serious hour. 
I durst not look to what I was before ; 
My soul shrank back, and wished to be no more. 
Of eye undaunted, and of touch impure, 
Old ere of age, worn out when scarce mature ; 
Daily debased to stifle my disgust 
Of forced enjoyment in affected lust ; 
Covered with guilt, infection, debt, and want, 
My home a brothel, and the streets my haunt, 
For seven long years of infamy I’ve pined, 
And fondled, loathed, and preyed upon mankind, 
Till, the full course of sin and vice gone through, 
My shattered fabric failed at twenty-two.” 
The enormous extent of this evil, its deep-rooted causes, thediffi 
culty of combating it, either by religious arguments, legislative 
provisions, or appeals to common sense and physical welfare, may 
well deter the philanthropist from the attempt to purify the sta- 
ble of Augeas; but benevolence has accomplished tasks as ardu- 
ous, and we can not conclude this chapter better than by a short 
description of thediscouragements which attended the first efforts GREAT BRITAIN. 
of Mrs. Fry in the reformation of the prostitute felons in Newgate, 
and of the blessed results of her indomitable perseverance and 
immovable faith.1 
353 
This admirable woman, on her first visit to Newgate, found the 
female side of the jail in a condition which no language can de- 
scribe : “ Nearly three hundred women, sent there for every gra- 
dation of crime, and some under sentence of death, were crowded 
together in two small wards and two cells. They all slept, as 
well as a crowd of children, on the floor, at times one hundred 
and twenty in a ward, without even a mat for bedding. Many 
of them were nearly naked. They were all drunk, and her ears 
were offended by the most terrible imprecations.” The authori- 
ties of the prison, of course, advised her against going among 
them: they were sure that nothing could he effected! She, however, 
determined to make the trial; she went alone into what she felt 
was like a den of wild beasts. In vain the governor reasoned 
with her: “ She had put her hand to the plow and was not to be 
turned back.” In one short month, such was the effect of her 
merely moral agency and religious instruction, that she felt her- 
self justified in inviting the lord-mayor, the sheriffs, and several 
of the aldermen to satisfy themselves, by personal investigation, 
of the result of the exertions which she herself and some few lady 
members of the Society of Friends, who had joined her in the 
good work, nad effected. 
Thus was conviction forced upon the obtuse intellects of corpo- 
rate authorities, and hence was dated the era of Prison Reform in 
England. 
In our own country, where the means of diffusing intelligence 
are unbounded, and whose reformatory system for criminals has 
already claimed the attention of European statesmen and philan- 
thropists, there can be no insuperable barrier even in so difficult 
an undertaking as that to which our labors are directed. Para- 
phrasing the opinion of one of the most distinguished essayists of 
this century,2 we venture to assert that “it is impossible that so- 
cial abuses should be suffered to exist in this country and in this 
stage of society for many years after their mischief and iniquity 
have been made manifest to the sense of the country at large.” 
1 Thomas Fowell Ruxton, on Prison Discipline. 
2 Lord Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review. 354 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
GREAT BRITAIN.—SYPHILITIC DISEASES. 
First Recognition in England.—Regulations of Henry VI.—Lazar Houses.—John 
of Gaddesden.—Queen Elizabeth’s Surgeon.—Popular Opinions.—Proclamation 
of James IV. of Scotland.—Middlesex and London Hospitals.—Army.—Navy.— 
Merchant Service.—St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Estimated Extent of Syphilis. 
The best English and French writers are of opinion that syph- 
ilis, as it exists at present, has, in some shape or another, always 
existed among mankind, although it was not known to science 
or history, in a distinct manner, until the middle of the fifteenth 
century. 
The period at which syphilis first made its appearance in En- 
gland is involved in obscurity, but we know that it began to at- 
tract attention early in the fifteenth century. The first official 
recognition of it found on record is a police regulation of the 
year 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., excluding venereal pa- 
tients from the London hospitals, and requiring them to be strict- 
ly guarded at night. In the time of Henry VIII. there were 
six lazar houses in London for the reception of venereal patients, 
namely, at Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, 
St. George’s Gate, and Mile-End. These localities were doubtless 
fixed upon as being some distance from the city. 
That the disease, however, must have been known long before 
the period above specified is certain, from passages which are 
to be found in the writings of the previous century. John of 
Gaddesden, who wrote in 1305, and who was a Fellow of Merton 
College, Oxford, thus speaks of the possibility of contracting the 
disease from leprous women: “ Ille qui concubuit cum muliere 
cum qua coivit leprosas puncturas intra carnem et corium sentil 
et aliquando calefactiones in toto corpore.”1 Mr. Wm. Acton, upon 
whose pages as an English standard writer on this subject we 
draw largely, is of opinion that which was formerly so 
common in Europe, consisted merely of what we now call sec- 
ondary syphilis. Some of the Jewish observances were no doubt 
dictated by a scientific appreciation of the influences which pre- 
disposed the body to the effects of syphilitic virus. The practice 
Rosa Anglica, Pavia, 1492. GREAT BRITAIN. 
355 
of circumcision seems instituted with a direct view to the preser- 
vation of the chosen people from venereal contagion, to which, in 
a hot climate, and with the extreme deficiency of means for gen- 
eral cleanliness, they would be liable. 
As to the type of the disease in former times, there seems no 
ground for believing that it was more severe than at present, while 
its numerical importance must have been much smaller. The fol- 
lowing extract is from a treatise by Queen Elizabeth’s surgeon: 
“If I be not deceived in my opinion, I suppose the disease itself was 
never more rife in Naples, Italic, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in 
the realme of England. I may speak boldly because I speak truly ; and 
yet I speake it with grief of minde, that in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, 
in London, there hath been cured of this disease by me and three others, 
within five years, to the number of one thousand and more. I speak noth- 
ing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and other houses about the citie, wherein an 
infinite number are daily cured. It happened very seldom in the Hospital 
of St. Bartholomew while I staid there, among every twenty diseased that 
were taken into the said house, which was most commonly on the Monday, 
ten of them were infected with the lues venerea.”1 
It was supposed, in former ages, that syphilis was transmissible 
by personal communication, touching the clothes, drinking out of 
the same vessels, or even breathing the same air with infected 
persons, and accordingly we find the lower orders of people driven 
out into the fields to die, and physicians refusing to attend the 
sick for fear of infection. 
Some writers, indeed, doubted this kind of contagious influence, 
and held that it required intercourse, or at least contact. But 
nobles, and especially the clergy, preferred to ascribe their mala- 
dies to misfortune rather than to licentiousness, and sought to 
“put down” such innovating doctrines. The consequence was 
that patients were shunned universally, and left to die or get well 
without assistance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in 
numerous instances the disease should assume its most inveterate 
aspect, and hence the notices found among many old writers as 
to the supposed malignancy and incurability of what they were 
disposed to consider a newly-imported malady. That the disease, 
in reality, differed little from that which exists in our day, is 
proved by the fact that cases of the once formidable Black Lion 
are occasionally to be met with in the London hospitals. 
1 A brief treatise touching the cure of the disease now usually called Lues Ve- 
nerea. By W. Clowes, one of her Majesty’s Chirurgeons. 1569: p. H9. 356 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Cardinal Wolsey, among other charges made against him by 
his enemies, was accused of whispering to the king, Henry YIIL, 
and thereby casting his poisonous breath upon his royal grace, he 
(Wolsey) having at the time “the foul contagious disease” upon 
him. The belief as to contagion by this means is not entirely ex- 
tinct, but is cherished by the laboring classes of England, many 
of whom entertain great prejudices on the score of health against 
drinking from the same vessel out of which an infected person has 
partaken. 
In 1497, James IY. of Scotland, in consequence of the frightful 
prevalence of venereal disease in his kingdom, issued a proclama- 
tion banishing the infected from Edinburgh. His majesty “charges 
straitly all manner of persons being within the freedom of this 
hurt, quilks are infectit, or has been infectit, uncurit with this said 
contagious plague, callit the grandgor devoyd, red and pass furt 
of this town, and compeir upon the sandis of Leith at ten hours 
before none; and thair sail thai have and find boatis reddie in the 
havin ordainit to them by the officers of this hurt, reddy furneist 
with victuals, to have them to the Inche (Inchkeith), and thair to 
remain quhill God provyd for thair health.” Those evading this 
ordinance “salle be byrnt on the cheik with the marking irne, that 
thai may be kennit in tym to cum.” 
A remnant of this barbarous system was retained in the regu- 
lations of Middlesex Hospital, London, by which an admission fee 
of forty shillings sterling (ten dollars) was directed to be paid by 
venereal patients. The reason assigned for it was, that a hospital 
intended for the virtuous might not be made subsidiary to pur- 
poses of vice. The regulation, however, became a nullity, and 
was repealed, owing principally to the fact that the work-house 
guardians were in the habit of paying the forty shillings and send- 
ing in pauper patients, well knowing that the cost of cure in the 
work-house would far exceed the admission fees. 
In the London Hospital a similar regulation exists even now, 
but is openly evaded, however, by the house surgeon describing 
the disease as a cutaneous one. 
The extent of this disease in Great Britain is matter of opinion 
alone. There are no positive data whatever upon which to form 
any conclusion with respect to the general population, while the 
hospital lists are very imperfectly kept, and it is only in the army 
and navy returns that we can find any real assistance. GREAT BRITAIN. 
357 
BRITISH ARMY. 
The army reports quoted extend over a period of seven years 
and a quarter, and enter into the details of the various venereal 
affections of the soldiers, amounting to the aggregate strength of 
44,611 quartered in the United Kingdom. The cases admitted 
into hospitals were: 
Syphilis Primary . . . .1415 
“ Consecutive . . • . 335 
Ulcer Penis non Syphiliticum 2144 
Bubo Simplex 844 
Cachexia Syphilitica ... 44 
Gonorrhoea 2449 
Hernia Humoralis . . . . 114 
Stricture Urethra . . . . 100 
Phymosis and Paraphymosis . 21 
Total ”8012 
Ratio: 181 per 1000 men, or nearly one in five in the whole num- 
ber. 
These returns show that the venereal disease is of much more 
frequent occurrence in the British than in the Belgian army. 
BRITISH NAVY. 
The navy reports extend over a period of seven years, and in- 
clude 21,493 men, employed on home service; that is to say, on 
the coasts or in the ports of Great Britain. Of this number, 2880 
were attacked with venereal disease. Ratio : one in seven. 
BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE. 
The returns of the “Dreadnought,” hospital ship for seamen of 
all nations, extend over a period of five years, during which 18,081 
patients, laboring under surgical and medical diseases, were ad- 
mitted. Out of these, 3703 came under treatment for venereal af- 
fections, showing a ratio of two in seven. 
As a mode of testing these returns, we turn to the analysis of 
the surgical out-patients of Messrs. Lloyd and Wormald, assistant 
surgeons of Saint Bartholomew’s, the largest of the London hos- 
pitals. These out-patients are attended gratuitously by the hos- 
pital officers: 
Attended by 
Venereal Cases. 
Men. 
Women and Children. 
Total. 
Mr. Lloyd 
1009 
245 
1254 
Mr. Wormald 
986 
273 
1259 
Total 
1995 
518 
2513 
These cases were part of a total of 5327 general patients. 
This last item alone would not enable one to form any idea of 
the number of sufferers from this terrible scourge. There are in 358 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
London nine great hospitals, besides smaller ones, and dispen- 
saries in every parish, or division of a large parish, and other 
means of gratuitous medical assistance. Suppose the smaller med- 
ical foundations put aside, and their patients thrown into the ag- 
gregate of the great hospitals, we should have 22,617 venereal pa- 
tients. Suppose the private practice of the London army of med- 
ical men to yield only half as many more, we have 35,000 vene- 
real patients in London only. Without reckoning the Lock Hos- 
pital, parish doctors, barracks, and all the other institutions, one 
would very readily imagine that London alone furnished 50,000 
venereal patients per annum. 
Again, on the number of single men and widowers in London 
above twenty years of age (upward of a quarter of a million), the 
venereal cases, if in the same proportion as among soldiers and 
sailors, would in the same period amount to 30,000 and upward. 
There is, however, another way of conjecturing the amount of 
disease introduced into the community by prostitution, which En- 
glish writers have adopted. The Medico-Chirurgical Review, a 
periodical of high standing, speaking of the extent of venereal dis- 
ease and its effects on the population, says: 
“ There is every reason to believe that, to represent the public prostitutes 
of England, Wales, and Scotland, fifty thousand is an estimate too low. We 
presume there will be no objection made to the assumption that, unless each 
of these fifty thousand prostitutes submitted to at least one act of inter- 
course during every twenty-four hours, she could not obtain means sufficient 
to support life. The result of the evidence contained in the first report of 
the Constabulary force of England was that about two per cent, of the pros- 
titutes of London were suffering under, some form of venereal disease. But 
yet we will descend even lower, and presume that of one hundred healthy 
prostitutes, if each submits to one indiscriminate sexual act in twenty- 
four hours, not more than one would become infected with syphilis; an es- 
timate which is, without doubt, far too low, yet, if admitted to be correct, 
the necessary consequence will be, that of the fifty thousand prostitutes, five 
hundred are diseased within the aforesaid twenty-four hours. 
“ If we next admit that a fifth of these five hundred diseased women are 
admitted to hospitals on the day on which disease appears, it follows there 
are every day on the streets four hundred diseased women. Let it be sup- 
posed that the power of these four hundred to infect be limited to twelve 
days, and that of every six persons who, at the rate of one each night, 
have connection with these women, five become infected, it will follow that 
there will be four thousand men injected every night, and, consequently, one 
million four hundred and sixty thousand i.i the year. Farther, as there MEXICO. 
359 
are every night four hundred women diseased by these men, one hundred 
and eighty-two thousand five hundred public prostitutes will be syphilized 
during the year, and hence one million, six hundred and fifty-hvo thousand. 
Jive hundred cases of syphilis in both sexes occur every twelve months. If, 
then, the entire population had intercourse with prostitutes in an equal ra- 
tio, the gross population of Great Britain, of all ages and sexes, would, dur- 
ing eighteen years, have been affected with primary syphilis. Be it remem- 
bered, we do not assert that more than a million and a half of persons are 
attacked every year, but that that number of cases occur annually in En- 
gland, Wales, and Scotland, though the same individual may be attacked 
more than once. Although it is evident that all the estimates used for 
these calculations are (we know no other word that expresses it) ridiculously 
low, yet we find that more than a million and a half cases of syphilis occur 
every year, an amount which is probably not half the actual number. How 
enormous, then, must be the number of children born with secondary syph- 
ilis ! how immense the mortality among them ! how vast an amount of pub- 
lic and private money expended in the cure of this disease!” 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
MEXICO. 
Spanish Conquest.—Treatment of Female Prisoners.—Mexican Manners in 1677. 
—Priesthood.—Modern Society.—Fashionable Life.—lndifference of Husbands 
to their Wives.—General Immorality.—Offenses.—Charitable Institutions.—The 
Cuna, or Foundling Hospital. 
The social condition of Mexico is of importance, as it was for- 
merly the chief seat of Spanish. domination in America, and its 
manners and government gave the key to all the other colonies 
and viceroyalties which owed allegiance to the crown of Spain. 
Whatever the state of the native population may have been when 
Spanish leaders and their myrmidons burst upon them, and broke 
up the kingdom of the Mexican emperors, they rapidly succumb- 
ed beneath the lust, avarice, and cruelty which were ever the dis- 
tinctive features of Spanish warfare and conquest in every clime 
and against every people. Of the enormities perpetrated by these 
soldiers, the history of the Mexican conquest gives us innumer- 
able instances; but one solitary example, from Bernal de Diaz, 
will be enough. He tells us that when they took women prison- 
ers, they made a division of them at night for the sake of greater 
peace and quietness, and that they branded them with the marks 360 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of their owners. They were thus at liberty to choose the hand- 
somest of the Indian women, and reserve them for their own uses. 
What these uses were can be easily supposed. The fate of less fa- 
vored female prisoners is left in doubt; they were turned over to 
their savage allies, to be butchered in cold blood, or otherwise dis- 
posed of as most convenient. 
From Mexico the flood of Spanish cruelty and immorality spread 
itself like a stream of lava over the whole of South America. The 
chivalry of the soldiery soon degenerated, and the self-denial and 
lofty motives, darkened though they were by bigotry and cruelty 
in some cases, which had distinguished the priests, were lost. In- 
glorious ease and luxurious indolence now superseded that love 
of adventure and unconquerable daring which distinguished Cor- 
tez and Pizarro, and their comrades: no trace of the old heroic 
character remained save the grinding oppression and reckless sel- 
fishness which usually accompany ambition. 
An illustration of the loose manners which prevailed in Mexico 
among the clergy is to be found in the voyages of Thomas Page, 
a Dominican monk, who visited Mexico with some of his order 
on their road to the western coast of America and to Asia as mis- 
sionaries. 
From this work, published in 1677, we learn that the writer 
and his companions visited the prior of Yera Cruz on their jour- 
ney, and, after a sumptuous dinner, adjourned, by invitation, to his 
cell. They found it richly tapestried and adorned with feathers 
of the birds of Michoacou; the walls were hung with various pic- 
tures of merit; rich rugs of silk covered the tables ; porcelain of 
China filled the cupboards and sideboards, and there were vases 
and bowls containing preserved fruits and sweetmeats. “My 
companions,” says he, “ were scandalized by such an exhibition. 
The holy friar talked to us of his ancestry, of his good parts, of 
the influence he had with the Father Provincial, of the love the 
principal ladies of the place bore him, of his beautiful voice and 
skill in music. He took his guitar and sang us a sonnet in praise 
of a certain lady.” Afterward, speaking of the Franciscans of 
Jalapa, Thomas Page says: “ Their lives are so free and immodest 
that it might be suspected with reason that they had renounced 
only that which they could not obtain.” After witnessing a gam- 
bling scene in a convent, he concludes that “ the cause of so many 
Friars and Jesuits passing from Spain to regions so distant was 
libertinage rather than love of preaching the Gospel.” MEXICO. 
361 
The same writer subsequently passes from portraiture to more 
general delineation, and thus depicts the body of the clergy ; “It 
seems that all wickedness is allowable, so that the churches and 
clergy flourish. Nay, while the purse is open to lasciviousness, 
if it be also open to enrich the temple walls and roof, it is better 
than any holy water In their lifetime the Mexicans 
strive to excel one another in their gifts to the cloisters of nuns 
and friars.” 
“ Among the benefactors was one, Alonzo Cuellar, so rich that he was 
reported to have a closet in his house laid with bars of gold instead of 
bricks. This man built a nunnery for Franciscan nuns, which cost him 
thirty thousand ducats, and left to it two thousand dollars yearly. And yet 
his life was so scandalous that commonly in the night, with two servants, 
he would go round the city visiting scandalous persons, and at every house 
letting fall a head and tying a knot, that when he came home in the morn- 
ing, he might number, by his beads, the uncivil stations he had visited that 
night. 
“ Great alms and liberality toward religious houses are coupled with great 
and scandalous wickedness. They wallow in the bed of riches and wealth, 
and make their alms the coverlet to conceal their loose and lascivious 
lives 
“ I will not speak much of the lives of the friars and nuns of this city, 
but only that they enjoy there more liberty than in Europe, where they 
have too much* and that surely the scandals committed by them do cry up 
to heaven for vengeance, judgment, and destruction. 
“ It is ordinary for the friars to visit their devoted nuns, and to spend 
whole days with them, hearing their music and feeding on their sweetmeats. 
For this purpose they have many chambers, which they call loquatories, to 
talk in, with wooden bars between the nuns and them, and in these cham- 
bers are tables for the friars to dine at, and while they dine the nuns recre- 
ate them with their voices.” 
We need no addition to these deep shadows from the dark pen- 
cil of so vigorous a limner as worthy Thomas Page, to delineate 
character nearly two hundred years ago, but we can scarcely be- 
lieve it equally applicable to the present day. The reign of op- 
pression in Mexico, it is to be hoped, is approaching its end, and 
recent events have shown that the population is alive to some of 
those truths which were long ago patent to all the world except 
those most intimately concerned. 
Of modern Mexican society, an accomplished female writer, who 
had the best opportunities of judging, says: 
“It is long before a stranger oven suspects the state of morals in this HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
country, for, whatever be the private conduct of individuals, the most per- 
fect decorum prevails in outward behavior. But indolence is the mother of 
vice. They rarely gossip to strangers about their neighbors’ faults. Habit 
has rendered them tolerably indifferent as to the liaisons subsisting among 
particular friends, and as long as a woman attends church regularly, is a 
patroness of charitable institutions, and gives no scandal by her outward be- 
havior, she may do pretty much as she pleases. As for flirtations in public, 
they are unknown.”1 
The present amiability of the Mexican ladies is admitted on all 
hands, as is the genial warmth of their manner. Some travelers, 
indeed, and among them Mr. Waddy Thompson, are of opinion 
that this is attributed to them as a fault, and that the reproach of 
unchastity is unjustly urged against them, as there is no city in 
Europe where there is less immorality. The constant presence of 
a duenna, and the house-porter, who is an appurtenance of every 
household of respectability, are excellent checks on immorality. 
But this would rather argue the necessity of a safeguard not found 
in the female virtue of Mexico. Besides, these appendages of rank 
have lost their real meaning, and the duenna may be converted 
into the convenient cloak or abettor of an intrigue, the more safe 
as she is the supposed protectress of the husband’s honor. A na- 
tive writer, in summing up the character of his countrymen, says 
that “they are moderate in eating, but their passion for liquor is 
carried to the greatest excess. The affection which husbands 
bear their wives is certainly much less than that borne by wives 
to their husbands, and it is very common for the men to love their 
neighbors’ wives better than their own,”2 This one-sided censure 
presupposes, as a necessary consequence, that the neighbors’ wives 
must show some reciprocity. 
The general immorality of the lower classes in Mexico would 
almost exclude the expectation of a system of prostitution, as we 
usually understand the term. Puebla, a manufacturing town near 
Mexico, is summarily described as having a most devout female 
population, and a most abandoned one; but this is matter of con- 
duct rather than of calling. The enumeration of offenses in the 
justice list of Mexico does not tell of one prostitute, although it 
contains a large number of persons guilty of “ incontinence.” The 
exact meaning of this offense, in its legal and technical sense, is 
not given us, but we presume it relates to improper and disgust- 
ing practices. The charge of “violation of public decency,” al- 
Madame Calderon de la Barca. 
5 Clavijero. MEXICO 
363 
though it may relate to mutual familiarities, will probably include 
both indecency and immorality. 
The following table gives the number of persons arrested in the 
city of Mexico in 1851. 
Offenses. 
Males. 
Females. 
Total. 
Drunkenness 
1256 
1944 
3200 
Affrays and wounds 
728 
246 
974 
Incontinence 
351 
403 
757 
Violations of public decency 
311 
318 
629 
Robbery 
384 
120 
504 
Suspicion of robbery 
180 
84 
264 
Carrying weapons 
209 
85 
294 
Picking pockets 
120 
25 
145 
False pretenses 
39 
17 
56 
Breaking prison 
36 
36 
Murder 
15 
3 
18 
Total 
3632 
3245 
6877 
Among a population of inferior intellect, and with the excess of 
women always to be found in tropical countries, the character of 
the priesthood becomes of primary importance. On this particu- 
lar, some writers are of opinion that what was written in 1677 will 
apply with almost equal force in the present day; a position cer- 
tainly open to doubt.1 
The lower orders of the priests and friars in Mexico are gener- 
ally uneducated and frequently licentious. The most revolting 
spectacles of vice and immorality are exhibited by some of them. 
They are remarkable for the roue appearance they present, but 
they can not be considered types of the class, for the higher orders 
and respectable members of the priesthood are exempt from the 
imputation of such flagrant immorality. Even these are not 
blameless members of the Church. Many of them have nephews 
and nieces in their houses, or at least those who call them uncle, 
but to whom scandal ascribes a closer relationship. 
Among the charitable institutions in Mexico, perhaps the most 
important is the Ouna, or Foundling Hospital. It is supported by 
private individuals, and the members of the society consist of the 
first persons in the capital, male and female. The men furnish 
the money; the women give their time and attention. When a 
child has been about a month in the hospital, it is sent with an 
Indian nurse to one of the adjacent villages; but if sick or feeble, 
it remains in the institution, under the immediate inspection of 
the society. These nurses are subject to a responsible person, who 
lives in the village and answers for their good conduct. The child 
1 Waddy Thompson, Mexico in '846, p. 115. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
is brought back to the hospital when weaned, and remains in its 
charge for life. Few, however, are left to grow up in the asylum; 
they are adopted by respectable persons, who bring them up either 
as servants or as their own children. In this, as in other institu- 
tions of the same character, the mothers of the children often get 
themselves hired as nurses. There are usually five or six hund- 
red children in this asylum.1 
CHAPTER XXYIII. 
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
Low moral Condition.—San Salvador.—Guatemala.—Yucatan.—Costa Rica.— 
Honduras.—The Caribs.—Depravity in Peru and Chili.—“Children of the 
House.”—lntrigue in Lima.—Infanticide.—Laxity of Morals in Brazil and Par- 
aguay.—Foundling Hospital at Rio Janeiro. 
The whole peninsula of South America, and the states com- 
prised in Central America, are involved in the same social system 
with Mexico, derived as they are by common origin from pure or 
mixed Spanish blood. The same political circumstances and or- 
ganization have always affected the various territorial divisions, 
and whether we consider the semi-civilized nations of ancient 
Peru and its dependencies, or the savage tribes in the valleys of 
the Amazon and the La Plata, we find them, after the first irrup- 
tion of Spanish conquerors, victims of indiscriminate oppression, 
insatiable avarice, and unsparing lust. South America was long 
considered a mere treasure-field of the Spanish monarchy, to be 
worked without liability to account by every adventurer who 
chose to encounter the hardships of foreign travel, or the perils 
of residence in a tropical climate and amid hostile savages. 
The natives far outnumbered their masters, and the same ruth- 
less system of depression was extended to them as to Mexico. 
The consequence was, that before the lapse of many generations 
from the Conquest, there were but two classes throughout the 
vast Spanish territories—masters and slaves. The natural and in- 
evitable result of servile institutions could not long be postponed. 
The descendants of the conquerors rapidly degenerated, and im- 
becility and incapacity took the places of heroism and ability. 
The original hardihood and daring, which had vanquished un- 
counted enemies, had traversed unknown wilds, had defied every 
Madame Calderon de la Barca, p. 259. CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
365 
danger, were lost in voluptuousness and self-indulgence. The 
posterity of those men wno had discovered a new wo Id, and 
swayed the destinies of the old by - nod or the stroke of a pen, 
were unable to protect themseives against the weak ministers of a 
worn-out despotism, or against any unscrupulous demagogue who 
could rally a band. c_ roving Indians around him, and maraud the 
peaceable and well-disposed. A state of political degradation 
reigned supreme over the whole of South America, only to be 
paralleled by the debasement of its social condition. 
In Central America, including San Salvador, Guatemala, Yuca- 
tan, Costa Eica, and Honduras, the condition of the women is very 
much the same as in Mexico. The statements of travelers in those 
little-frequented regions are very vague in reference to the subject 
of public morality, and give us no reliable or detailed information 
on the specialities which would be of service in this inquiry. In 
Yucatan, the ladies are said to be somewhat more domesticated 
than their Mexican neighbors, and to interest themselves in the 
management of their households and the education of their chil- 
dren ; but still the standard of morality is not very high, if meas- 
ured by United States habits and ideas.1 In the neighboring re- 
public of Guatemala, the free manners prevalent in the country 
districts of the kindred territories are usually met with ;2 but these 
would rather indicate low ideas of decency than any actual immo- 
rality. Difference of climate and of race would make many things 
tolerable, or even reputable, which our colder skies and more rigid 
notions would totally exclude from the observances of civilized 
society. 
The Indian populations of South America have become so com- 
pletely slaves during long years of bondage that they have lost 
their prominent characteristics,3 and are but a reflex of their mas- 
1 Norman, Yucatan. 
3 Among the Napuals, a remnant of the ancient Aztec inhabitants, marriage 
seems to have been under the direction of the chiefs, and consisted in first submit- 
ting the parties to lustrations, such as washing them in a river, and afterward tying 
them together in the bride’s house, whither the relations brought presents to the 
new couple. 
2 Stevens, Travels in Central America. 
It was customary for only the kindred to lament the death of ordinary persons, 
but the decease of a cazique or war-chief was signalized by a general mourning for 
four days. Rape was punished with death, adultery by making the offender the 
slave of the injured husband, “unless pardoned by the high-priest on account of 
past services in war.” There were certain degrees of relationship within which it 
was unlawful to marry, and sexual intercourse in such limits was punished with 
death. Upon matters of this kind there existed the greatest rigor, for, says Her- 366 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ters in the lowest state of ignorance. The women may be gener- 
ally described as of very loose morals, yet kind and gentle unless 
roused by jealousy, in which case they can use the knife as prompt- 
ly as their male friends. It is said they make very affectionate 
mothers. 
There are a few tribes who have preserved some semblance of 
nationality. The Caribs of Honduras are a hardy and athletic 
race. Polygamy is general among them, three or four wives be- 
ing a not uncommon number. The husband is compelled to have 
a separate house and plantation for each, and, if he make one a 
present, he must give the others something of equal value. He 
must also divide his time among them, giving a week to each in 
succession. When a Carib takes a wife, he fells a plantation and 
builds a house; the wife then takes the management, and he be- 
comes a gentleman. The women attend their plantations with 
great care, and, in the course of twelve or fifteen months, have ev- 
ery description of breadstuff under cultivation. About Christmas 
they engage several creers, and freight them with produce for 
Truxillo and Belize, hiring their husbands and others as sailors. 
It is also the custom, when a woman can not do all the work re- 
quired on her plantation, for her to engage her husband as a la- 
borer, and pay him two dollars per week. Industry and fore- 
thought are peculiar traits of the Carib women, consequently they 
easily surround themselves with necessaries and comforts. 
The data bearing on the proportion of the sexes in the aggre- 
gate population, although too imperfect to be worth presenting, 
yet go to show that, as in Mexico, there is a considerable prepon- 
derance of females.1 The disproportion in births is not so great 
as in deaths; for, while the number of males and females born is 
nearly equal, more of the former than the latter die annually. 
There are more old women than old men, ascribable, no doubt, to 
the greater sobriety of the women, drunkenness being a vice 
which, under the tropics, is rapid in its consequences. In Nica- 
ragua the women number two to one of the male population. 
The Department of Cuscatlan in San Salvador has an excess of 
1838 women over men, and of 1709 boys over girls. 
Peru and Chili, though neighboring countries, and both in the 
strip of western coast between the Andes and the sea, present con- 
rera, “he who courted or made signs to a married woman was banished.” Forni- 
cation was punished by whipping.—Squier's Notes on Central America, p. 346. 
Squier, p. 50. CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
siderable difference of condition. Chili is rapidly rising in politi- 
cal importance by means of the internal energy of the people, and 
the development of natural resources by native and foreign enter- 
prise and capital. 
It has been asserted by resident eye-witnesses that female vir- 
tue was at so low an ebb in Chili within a few years, that in most 
families, even of good standing, there were one or more children 
who were called “children of the house,” and whose parentage was 
distributed generally among the ladies of the family. Nay, we 
have heard that the rites of hospitality sometimes included civili- 
ties in respect to the females which are usually considered as pe- 
culiar to certain Oriental nations, A rapid change for the better 
is, however, taking place in these usages, and even the sea-port of 
Valparaiso is described by Wilkes as being greatly improved from 
the period of his first visit, when few sailors left it without having 
lost both their money and health among its women. 
Peru has made but little advance in its recent political changes. 
The government is in a state of continual anarchy, A new mine 
of wealth has been discovered in the guano deposits of the Chin- 
cha Islands, which has attracted great numbers of foreign vessels 
to its shores. But the wealth acquired from this source has done 
little for the people. Lima, the capital, has long been remarkable 
for the levity and dissipation of its inhabitants. The very dress 
of the ladies, which may have been originally intended to insure 
seclusion and privacy, has become an emblem of intrigue. It con- 
sists of a peculiar hood and petticoat, covering the wearer en- 
tirely, who, when thus in domino, is styled tapada, and is, by com- 
mon usage, held to be secure from all impertinent interference or 
insult. The same term is applied to a shawl worn over the head, 
so as to cover the mouth and forehead. Under this concealment 
the wearer is known only to the most intimate friends, and ladies 
thus attired frequent the theatres. It is favorable to intrigue, 
and so perfect is the security that any place of amusement may 
be visited with impunity, and, even if suspected by the husband 
or relative, she is protected from discovery by the respect attach- 
ed to the custom. 
Dr. Tschudi draws a very cheerless picture of the state and 
prospects of Peru.1 Its moral degradation is significantly typified 
in the decline of its population, which has been continually dimin- 
1 Peru; Reiseskizzen in deji Jahren 1838-1842, (Peru, Sketches of Travel.) 
By J. J. Von Tschudi. 2 vols, §t. Gallen, 1846, HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ishing since the establishment of its independence. That noble 
land, which contained an enormous population at the time of the 
Conquest, numbered in 1886 less than 1,400,000 inhabitants; not 
so many as were formerly found in the department of Cusco alone. 
The deaths in Lima vary annually from 2500 to 2800 out of a 
population of 53,000; in the ten months from January Ist to Oc- 
tober 31st, 1841, they were 2244, the births in that period being 
1682, of which 860 were illegitimate. 
“ Not less remarkable than the number of illegitimate children is that of 
the new-born infants exposed and found dead (495). These afford the most 
striking proofs of the immorality which prevails in Lima, especially among 
the colored people. To them belong nearly two thirds of the illegitimate 
births, and fully four fifths of the children cast out to die. There is reason 
to suspect, though it can not he positively proved, that no small portion of 
the latter suffer a violent death by the hands of their mothers. When a 
dead child is picked up before the church of San Lazaro, or in the street, it is 
carried, without a word of inquiry, to the Pantheon ; frequently it is not 
even thought worth while to bury it. I have seen the vultures dragging 
about the sweltering carcasses of infants, and devouring them in populous 
streets. ** * * On comparing the lists of births and deaths from 1826 to 
1842,1 satisfied myself that the annual excess of the latter over the former 
averages 550. 
“ The women of Lima are far superior to the men, both corporeally and 
intellectually, though their conduct in many respects is any thing hut ex- 
emplary. They cling with invincible tenacity to the use of their national 
walking garb, the saya y manto, in which they take their pleasure in the 
streets, making keen play with the one eye they leave uncovered, and quite 
secure in that disguise from detection, even by the most jealous scrutiny. 
The veil is inviolable ; any man who should attempt to pluck off’ a woman’s 
manto would be very severely handled by the populace. The history of 
their lives comprises two phases: in the full bloom of their fascinating 
beauty their time is divided between doing naught and naughty doings; 
when their charms are on the wane, they take to devotion and scandal. A 
young lady of Lima rises late, dresses her hair with orange or jasmine flow- 
ers, and waits for breakfast, after which she receives or pays visits. During 
the heat of the day she swings in a hammock or reclines on a sofa, smoking 
a cigar. After dinner she again pays visits, and finishes the evening either 
in the theatre, or the Plaza, or on the bridge. .Pew ladies occupy themselves 
with needlework or netting, though some of them possess great skill in those 
arts. 
“ The pride which the fair Lime'as take in their dainty little feet knows 
no bounds. Walking, sitting, or standing, swinging in the hammock or ly- CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
369 
ing on the sofa, they are ever watchful to let their tiny feet be seen. Praise 
of their virtue, their intelligence, or their beauty, sounds not half so sweetly 
in their ears as encomiums bestowed on their pretty feet. They take the 
most scrupulous care of them, and avoid every thing that might favor their 
enlargement. A large foot (pataza Inglesa—an English foot, as they say) is 
an abomination to them. I once heard a beautiful European lady deserv- 
edly extolled by some fair dames of Lima, but they wound up their eulogy 
with these words ; ‘ ‘ Pero que pie ! valgame Dio, sparece una lancha! ” (but 
what a foot! Good heavens, it is like a great boat!) and yet the foot in ques- 
tion would by no means have been thought large in Europe. 
“The Limenas possess, in an extraordinary degree, talents which unhap- 
pily are seldom cultivated as they should be. They have great penetration, 
sound judgment, and very correct views respecting- the most diversified af- 
fairs of life. Like the women of Seville, they are remarkable for their quick 
and pointed repartees, and a Limena is sure never to come off second best in 
a war of woi'ds. They possess a rare firmness of character, and a courage not 
generally given to their sex. In these respects they are far superior to the 
dastardly, vacillating men, and they have played as important a part as the 
latter (often one much more so) in all the political troubles of their country. 
Ambitious and aspiring, accustomed to conduct with ease the maziest in- 
trigues with a presence of mind that never fails them at critical moments, 
passionate and bold, they mingle in the great game of politics with moment - 
ous effect, and usually turn it to their own advantage, seldom to that of the 
state.” 
Add to this picture that, though delicate, modest women are 
rare, actual adultery is not often committed by the sex, but that 
concubinage is more common, or rather, perhaps, more public 
than in Europe, the father being usually very fond and careful 
of his natural children, and a fair view is obtained of female 
character in Lima. The white Creoles are noted for sensuality, 
and some of the dances in which they indulge are of indescrib- 
able obscenity.1 
The influx of foreign ships and seamen into Callao, the port of 
Lima, has brought in its train the usual accompaniments, drunk- 
enness and debauchery. A few years ago it was almost in decay 
and ruin ; now it swarms with drinking-shops (pulperias) and 
prostitutes, and is probably as profligate a place as any in the 
western hemisphere. 
Passing to the Atlantic coast of South America, we find Rob- 
ertson, the author of ‘‘Letters from Paraguay,’’ writing of 
female Spanish society at the city of Santa Fe: 
1 Horace St. John. 370 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION’. 
“I was particularly struck by the extremely free nature (to use the very 
gentlest expression) of the conversation which was adopted with the ladies, 
young and old. It was such as to make me blush at every turn, although 
such modesty, whenever it was observed, caused a hearty laugh.” 
The same author, speaking of female society in Rio, says: 
“There is no society at Rio, for I can not call that society from which 
females are excluded. Generally speaking, the husband of a Brazilian wife 
is not so much her companion as her keeper. His house is the abode of 
jealousy and distrust, for he can not always stretch his confidence to the 
point of imagining fidelity in the wife of his bosom, any more than he can 
rely on the virtuous forbearance of the friend of his heart. His daughters 
are brought up in Moorish seclusion, and his wife is delivered over to the 
keeping of a train of sombre slaves and domestics.” 
It may be thought that some of these remarks are applicable 
to periods of time and conditions of society now happily passed 
away. But the poison of moral depravity, when once taken up, 
is not to be speedily eliminated from the system of nations more 
than of individuals. A very recent traveler, Mr. Stewart, testi- 
fies to the demoralization of female society in all classes.1 
With such uniform representations of the general immorality, 
and of the low estimate in which female virtue is held in South 
America, it is not to be expected that there are an}7 special details 
on the subject of our investigation. Prostitution is in some degree 
attendant upon a state of public feeling in which the purity of 
wives and daughters is held in respect—not viewed with jealousy, 
but with reverence. In South America, even in the present time, 
females mix but little in society. Their education is very limited, 
terminates early, and they are always under some kind of guard- 
ianship or chaperonage in public. This does not elevate the 
female character. Freedom and self-respect are the best protec- 
tives to virtue and honor, and the seclusion of women from general 
society only serves to invest them with the attraction of mystery 
to the libertine, while it takes away from themselves the experi- 
ence and self-reliance in which they find a safeguard. 
In South America generally, the character of the priesthood is 
unfortunately open to reprobation. In Brazil, the priests are re- 
puted to be free livers. Nearly all of them have families, and 
when seen leaving the dwellings of their wives, or of the females 
they visit, they speak of them as their nieces or sisters. Some 
1 Stewart's Brazil and La Plata : New York, 1856. CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA. 
371 
unequivocally admit the relationship existing, and acknowledge 
their children.1 The value of the priestly character, in estimating 
the standard of morality among a population is unquestionably 
great. 
An enlightened native said to Mr. Ewbank, “ The priesthood 
of this country is superlatively corrupt. It is impossible for men 
to be worse, or to imagine them worse. In the churches they ap- 
pear respectable and devout, but their secret crimes have made 
this city a Sodom. There are, of course, honorable exceptions.”2 
Another, a man of unquestionable authority, said, “ They are 
assuredly the most licentious and profligate part of the commu- 
nity. The exceptions are rare. being one of their dog- 
mas, you will find nearly the whole with families.” 
At Rio Janeiro there is a Foundling Hospital, established in 
1582, which is a noble institution. The boys are provided for at 
Botofoga, and are in due time apprenticed to trades. The girls re- 
side in the city establishment, and are taught to read, write, sew, 
etc. At each anniversary, bachelors in want of wives attend at 
the festival, and if they see girls to their liking, make themselves 
known. If a girl accepts such a lover, he makes his application 
to the managers, who inquire into his character, and, if satisfac- 
tory, the marriage takes place, and a small dowry is given from 
the funds of the society. In the management of the institution 
or the reception of infants, there is nothing peculiarly worthy 
notice. But if those who are averse to such institutions con- 
trast the blessed results of saving these helpless infants from 
misery, and the horror of beholding their dead bodies cast on 
dunghills, to be devoured as carrion by obscene animals and 
birds of prey, as has been mentioned in the notice of Lima, they 
would, on such grounds, even if there were no better to be urged, 
suspend a hasty judgment on Foundling Hospitals. 
1 Ewbank’s Brazil, p. 135. 
s lb. p. 141. 372 
•HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Decrease of the Indian Race.—Treatment of Females.—Courtship.—Stealing 
Wives.—Domestic Life among the Crow Indians.—“ Pine Leaf.”—Female 
Prisoners.—Marriage.—Conjugal Relations.—lnfidelity.—Polygamy.—Di- 
vorce.—Female Morality.—Intrigue and Revenge.—Decency of Outward 
Life.—Effects of Contact with White Men.—Traders. 
The aboriginal inhabitants of the vast continent of America 
have been variously described by different writers, one man laud- 
ing them as models of chivalry and virtue, another decrying them 
as the personification of meanness and vice. Hence it is only at 
a recent period, comparatively speaking, that any reliable infor- 
mation has been obtainable on the subject. In the limited space 
that can be given to a consideration of the Indian and his social 
habits, we shall endeavor to reject both romance and vitupera- 
tion. We do not believe him so stoically virtuous as the former 
class of writers depict, nor do we think that all of the race are 
so deeply sunk in depravity as the latter represent. 
In addition to the authorities quoted in the progress of the 
chapter, we are under obligations to Mr. Horace St. John’s 
article on Prostitution, incorporated by Mr. Mayhew in his 
tracts on “ London Labor and the London Poor.” 
At the time of the settlement of Jamestown and Plymouth, it 
was estimated that there were about two millions of Indians scat- 
tered over this continent. They were then a brave and hardy 
people who lived on the produce of the chase, varying their loca- 
tions as the facilities for hunting required. When the last census 
of the United States was taken, their numbers were about four 
hundred thousand, exclusive of fifteen thousand in Canada and 
the British possessions. This decrease has been ascribed to the 
occupation of their hunting-grounds by white men, and the con- 
sequent extermination of the game upon which they depended for 
subsistence ; the free use of intoxicating liquors, and the introduc- 
tion of small-pox and other fatal diseases. These causes will, in 
all probability, result in the entire extinction of the race. In the NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
373 
small number mentioned are many half-breeds, children of 
white fathers and Indian mothers. 
It might naturally be supposed that in the several tribes com- 
posing this people there would exist great diversity of manners, 
but these are found only in minor particulars. The social in- 
stitutions of the North American Indians are so generally uni- 
form as to render it possible to sketch the whole at one view. 
Their occupations are still confined to the chase and the war- 
path. To perform a round of daily labor, even though it insured 
the most ample provision for his wants, would be contrary alike 
to the inclination and the supposed dignity of the Red Man, who 
will scarcely deign to follow any pursuit which does not combine 
enterprise and excitement. Woman, therefore, becomes the 
drudge and slave ; upon her devolves the duty of cultivating the 
ground, whenever any attempt is made to assist the spontaneous 
efforts of Nature; she it iswho must bear the load of game which 
her husband has killed; must carry wood and water, build huts, 
and make canoes. In fishing, and in reaping their scanty har- 
vest, the man will, at times, condescend to assist her, but other- 
wise all the labor falls to her share. In those tribes visited by 
traders, her duties are still heavier; she must join in the hunt,and 
afterward dress and prepare the skins and furs which are to be 
bartered for whisky and other luxuries. To this degraded con- 
dition the women seem perfectly reconciled, and expertness at 
the assigned employment is a source of pride to them. 
The treatment of the female sex is generally admitted to be a 
standard by which man’s moral qualities can be estimated. It 
may be doubted if this rule would apply to the Indian tribes,for 
those who treat their females most mildly are by no means the 
most virtuous, nor is their deference attended by any increase of 
attachment. Where they aid in procuring food or luxuries for 
the tribe, they are held in more esteem ; while in places where 
the chief burden of providing rests upon the men, they are 
treated with severity.1 
Even when oppressed with these laborious occupations, the 
women have as much native vanity in respect to decoration as 
the sex in any part of the world ; and an accurate observer re- 
marks that, “ Judging from the time a squaw often occupies in 
arranging her hair, or disposing her scanty dress, or painting her 
1 Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition across the Rocky Mountains, vol. ii. p. 144. 374 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
round cheeks with glaring circles of vermilion, it is evident 
that personal ornament occupies as much of her thoughts as 
among fashionable women in civilized society.”1 
Courtshipand marriage are differently arranged amongvarious 
tribes. The predominant custom is for a man to procure a wife by 
purchase from her father, thus acquiring a property over which 
he has absolute control, and which he can baiter away or dispose 
of in any manner he pleases. Theexample of Powhatan, who was 
chief ruler over thirty tribes inYirginia at thetirae of the English 
colonization, is a case in point. It is said that he always had a 
multitude of wives about him, and when he wearied of any would 
distribute them as presents among his principal warriors. In most 
cases the woman is not consulted at all. the whole transaction 
being a mercantile one; in others an infant female is betrothed 
by her father (for a consideration) to some man who requires a 
wife either for himself or for his son. The girl remains with her 
parents until the age of puberty, when the contract is completed, 
at which time the father often makes a present to the husband 
equal in value to the price originally paid for his daughter.2 
Another mode of obtaining a wife is to steal a girl from some 
neighboring tribe. Captain Clarke,who crossed the Rocky Moun- 
tainsinthe years 1804-1806, as one of the leaders of an expedition 
ordered by the executive of the United States, records instances 
of this kind. He says, “ One of the Ahnahaways had stolen a 
Minnetaree girl. The whole nation immediately espoused the 
quarrel, and one hundred and fifty of the warriors were march- 
ing down to avenge the insult. The chief took possession of the 
girl, and sent her by messengers to the hands of her country- 
men in time to avert the threatened calamity.”3 “ A young Min- 
netaree had carried off the daughter of a chief of the Mandans. 
The father went to the village and found his daughter, whom he 
brought home, and at the same time took possession of a horse 
belonging to the offender. This reprisal satisfied his vengeance.”4 
A more peaceable kind of preliminary to matrimony is for a 
man desiring a wife to offer a small present to the woman : if she 
accepts it and offers him one in return, the match is complete; 
or he may tell her his wishes without any introductory gift, and, 
if agreeable, she will reply accordingly. Others will not venture 
1 Thatcher’s Indian Traits, vol. i. p. 51. 
8 Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition, i. 858. 
3lb. i. 166. 
4 Id. ib. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
375 
to express their thoughts, but will sit quietly by a girl’s side, and, 
if she does not remove from her seat, her assent is understood to 
be given.l Still another custom is for the lover to enter the 
woman’s tent at night, bearing; a lighted torch. If she allows 
o " o O 
it to burn, it is a sign that his attentions are not desired ; but if 
she extinguishes it, she thus intimates that he is accepted. It 
will not require much knowledge of human nature to imagine 
the consequences of these nocturnal visits. 
A recently published work, “ Life and Adventures of James P. 
Beckwourth, New York, 1856,'’ professes to give an accurate ac- 
count of the domestic life of the Crow Indians, among whom he 
lived for some years, and became a chief of the tribe, who believed 
that he was one of themselves, and had been stolen from them in 
infancy. It may be necessary to say that we only quote him on 
points where corroborative evidence can be obtained from other 
sources. His character for veracity is questionable, and among the 
miners of California, where he is known, any extravagant tale is 
proverbially called “ one of Jem Beckwourth’s lies.” His first ex- 
perienceof matrimony,showing that the woman’s consent wasnot 
asked, but that the arrangements were made by the parents, is 
thus stated ; “ While conversing with my father, he suddenly de- 
manded if I wanted a wife. I assented. ‘Very well,’ said he, 
‘you shall have a pretty wife and a good one.’ Awray bestrode 
to the lodge of one of the greatest braves, and asked one of his 
daughters of him. The consent of the parent was given. He had 
three very pretty daughters, and the ensuing day they were 
brought to my father’s lodge, and I was requested to take my 
choice. The eldest was named ‘Still Water,’ and I chose her. 
The acceptance of my wife was the completion of the ceremony, 
and I was a married man, as sacredly in their eyes as if the Holy 
Christian Church had fastened the irrevocable knot upon us.”2 
Cases are also recorded by Indian travelers wherein a custom 
more assimilating to civilized notions is adopted. A young man 
will court a girl for a length of time, using all his endeavors to 
o o ■ o 
cultivate her affections, and the woman, upon her part, will en- 
tertain an equal tenderness for him. Again turning to the pages 
of Beckwourth, we find an instance of this in the case of a woman 
who attracted his attention. It must not be considered that he 
1 Indian Traits, i. 104. 
2 Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, p. 148. HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
was a victim of the romantic affliction called “ first love,” for 
he had some six or eight wives in the tribe at the time. Ilis 
description is as follows: 
“In connection with my Indian experience, I conceive it to be my duty 
to devote a few lines to one of the bravest women that ever lived, namely, 
‘Pine Leaf’—in Indian, BarcTieeampe, She possessed great intellectual 
powers ; her features were pleasing, and her form symmetrical. She had 
lost a twin brother in an attack on the village, and was left to avenge his 
death. She was at that time twelve years of age, and solemnly vowed that 
she would never marry until she had killed a hundred of the enemy with 
her own hand. Whenever a war-party started, Pine Leaf was the first to 
volunteer to accompany them She had chosen my party to serve 
in I began to feel more than a common attachment toward her. 
One day, while riding leisurely along, I asked her to marry me, provided 
we both returned safe. She laughed and said, ‘ Well, I will marry you.’ 
‘ When we return ? ’ ‘No, but when the pine leaves turn yellow.’ I re- 
flected that it would soon be winter, and regarded her promise as valid. A 
few days afterward it occurred to me that pine leaves do not turn yellow, 
and I saw I had been practiced upon. When I again spoke to her on the 
subject, I said, ‘Pine Leaf, you promised to marry me when the pine leaves 
turn yellow ; it has occurred to me that they never turn yellow. Am Ito 
understand that you never intend to marry me ?’ ‘Yes, I will marry you,’ 
she said, with a coquettish smile. ‘But when ?’ 1 When you shall find a 
red-headed Indian.’ I saw I advanced nothing by importuning her, and I 
let the matter rest.”1 
It would occupy too much space to recite all the details of a 
long courtship, including scenes in war and chase, at the camp, 
or on horse-stealing excursions ; suffice it to say that the heroine 
accomplished her vow, and seemed convinced of the sincerity of 
her lover. She concluded the courtship thus : 
“She then approached me, every eye being intently fixed upon her. 
‘ Look at me,’ she said. ‘ I know that your heart is crying for the follies 
of the people; but let it cry no more. lam yours, after you have so long 
been seeking me. I believe you love me. Our lodge shall be a happy one, 
and, when you depart to the happy hunting-ground, I will be already there 
to welcome you. This day I become your wife.’”2 
Women will sometimes voluntarily ask men to marry them, 
promising to be faithful, good-tempered, and obedient. This re- 
quest is seldom refused, as the marriage tie is easily dissolved if 
the union proves unpleasant. Tanner, who was taken prisoner by 
a war-party, and lived among various tribes in the northwest for 
1 Beckwourth, p. 201. 
* Id. p. 401. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
377 
nearly thirty years, relates a case in point. The woman’s en- 
deavors to secure him as her husband commenced with an invi- 
tation to smoke with her. He acceded; but either his blood was 
not so warm as that coursing through Indian veins, or from 
some other cause, it was long before he consented to the proposed 
companionship, which a Red Man would have accepted on the 
spot. The girl pursued him, and at last, with the consent of her 
father, took possession of his hut while he was absent. When he 
returned, “ he could not put the young woman to shame ” by 
sending her back to her friends, and they became man and wife.1 
Beckwourth also had some experience of this custom. “ A little 
girl, who had often asked me to marry her, came to me one 
day, and with every importunity insisted on my accepting her 
as my wife. I said, ‘ When you are older I will talk to you 
about it;’ but she would not be put off. ‘You are a great 
brave,’ she said ; ‘ and, if I am your wife, you will paint my 
face when you return from the war, and I shall be proud.’ 
The little innocent used such powerful appeals that I told her 
she might be my wife.”2 He lived with her until he left the 
Indians, and her son is now (1855) chief of the tribe. 
The women taken prisoners in Avar are frequently married 
into the tribe that captured them, but never to the captors, who 
stand in the relation of brothers to them, and by whom they 
are protected from insult. A warrior Avho has taken a female 
prisoner usually makes an exchange Avith another Avho has had 
the same fortune, each being thus accommodated Avithout infring- 
ing upon custom. If a man has seized more than he can dispose 
of in that way, he generally gi\7es them to any man Avho will ac- 
cept them.3 In the same manner, a Avoman Avhose husband has 
been killed in battle will ask a warrior for a male prisoner, Avho 
accordingly becomes the successor of one Avhom he has probably 
slain. In these cases the man is adopted as one of the tribe, is 
kindly treated, and entitled to his share of all their advantages.4 
The marriages are without ceremony of any kind ; the parties 
agree to live with each other as long as they can do so with 
mutual satisfaction, and the man conducts his bride to his hut 
at once, or resides Avith her at her father’s cabin. It must not 
be supposed that the ordinary requirements of a married life 
1 Indian Traits, i. p. 114. ‘■‘Beckwourth, p. 169. 
3 Beckwourth, p. 313. 4 Murray’s British North America, vol. i. p. 115. 378 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
are unheeded, for, as a general rule, the squaws 
are faithful to their husbands, who, upon their part, rigidly 
exact this fidelity, even if they do not practice it themselves. 
Thegeneral description of the position of Indian women already 
given applies equally to their state after marriage. They con- 
tinue sometimes the abject slaves, otherwise the patient servants 
of their husbands. While he eats the food she has cooked, and 
probably caught herself, she must wait in submissive silence. 
At all times she approaches him with the deference due to a 
superior being. An Indian will never evince the slightest 
symptom of tenderness toward his wife; this would be opposed 
to his idea of manly dignity; but the eagerness with which he 
will revenge her wrongs proves that his apparent apathy springs 
only from pride, or a fancied sense of decorum.1 When Gatlin 
proposed to paint the portrait of the wife of a Sioux chief, his 
offer was rid iculed, and it was considered marvelous that he should 
honor a woman in the same manner he had honored the war- 
riors, as the former had never taken any scalps, never done any 
thing but make fires, dress skins, and other servile employments. 
To infer from these facts that there is no conjugal affection 
among this people would be erroneous. Notwithstanding their 
assumed indifference, instances are not rare of strong mutual 
attachment. To an Indian there is nothing inconsistent with 
affection in his indolently walking through the forests, while 
his wife follows him bearing the heavy wigwam poles. Many 
pictures of domestic happiness are exhibited among the Indians, 
and the Blackfeet, Sanee, and Blood tribes strongly desire that 
their wives may live long and look young. Heckewelder re- 
lates a singular instance of indulgence. In 1762 there wTas a 
scarcity of food among many tribes, and during the prevalence 
of this famine a sick woman wished for a mess of Indian corn. 
Her husband rode about a hundred miles to obtain it, gave his 
/ O 
horse in exchange for a hatful, and returned home on foot with 
the coveted dainty.2 
These“lordsof creation” attempt toenforcetheir marital rights 
with much severity, and, if their suspicions are excited against 
their wives, become very indignant, and punish them by beating, 
biting off the nose, dismissing them in disgrace, or even killing 
them. The wife of a Ma.ndan Indian ran away from him in con- 
1 Murray’s British North America, vol. i. p. 94. 2 Indian Traits, i. p. 136. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
sequence of a quarrel. By so doing she forfeited her life, which 
custom would have justified the husband in taking, and he would 
have murdered her but for the interposition of the travelers, who 
“ gave him a few presents, and persuaded him to take his wife 
home; they went off together, but by no means in a state of much 
apparent love.” This trouble arose from jealousy.1 In another 
case, a Minnetaree had much abused his wife for the same reason, 
and she sought refuge in the camp. Her husband followed and 
demanded her, and she “ returned with him, as we had no author- 
ity to separate those whom even Indian rites had united.” 2 
Since an Indian considers his wife as so much property, equally 
valuable as his horse, and for the same reason—for the labor she 
can perform—we can easily understand that polygamy is univer- 
sally allowed, though it is not generally practiced, being confined 
to great chiefs and medicine-men, as the rank and file are often 
too poor to buy a second wife. Many follow the custom for the 
mere purpose of amassing wealth, but others of the stoic warriors 
delight in the harem for the same sensual motives as a Turk or 
Hindu. Among the communities that Gatlin had an opportunity 
of visiting, it was no uncommon thing to find from six to fourteen 
wives in the same lodge. He mentions an instance in which a 
young chief of the Mandans took four wives in one day, paying a 
horse or two for each. These brides were from twelve to fourteen 
years of age. An Indian marriage at this age is far from uncom- 
mon, and, indeed, it appears that celibacy beyond the age of pu- 
berty is very rare. Some of the females are mothers before they 
are twelve. It is not universal for the wives to live all in one hut, 
some tribes requiring separate lodgings for each. This custom 
is in force among the Crows, and Beckwourth relates that, on 
returning from one of his excursions, he made a round of visits to 
his wives, some of whom he had not seen for months.3 
It is not uncommon for a man to marry his wife’s sister, and, 
indeed, the whole family of girls, on the supposition that his 
household will thus be rendered more harmonious.4 For the same 
reason, a Cherokee will marry a mother and her daughter at one 
time, though he will not, upon any account, take a wife from his 
own kindred. Among the Oregon tribes it is strictly required 
that each wife should be purchased from a different family. 
1 Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition, i. p. 135. 2lb. i. p. 151. 
3 Beckwourth, p. 179. 4 Murray’s British America, i. p. 94. 380 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
So well established among Indians is the custom of polygamy, 
that civilization meets the greatest difficulty in opposing it, and, 
if ever abolished, it will overthrow their whole social system. Sir 
George Simpson relates an amusing anecdote of an Indian who 
came into the settled districts of British North America, learned 
to read and write, and adopted the principle of monogamy. Re- 
turning to his tribe, he endeavored to persuade them to the same 
course. Long and earnest were the debates on the question, and 
th & finale was, instead of converting them, they reconverted him. 
He took a great number of wives, foreswore books, and never 
again appeared in the character of a social reformer. Another 
chief offered to renounce polygamy, he having five wives, and 
a large fortune in horses and cattle. Falling in love with the 
daughter of a gentleman in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany, he dismissed his harem, and presented himself, with great 
parade and confidence, to make his matrimonial proposal to the 
lady’s family. To his extreme disgust and mortification, they re- 
jected the honor of his distinguished alliance. He revenged him- 
self by refilling his hut with women as quickly as possible. 
If the obligation of marriage is easily contracted, divorce is ef- 
fected with as little trouble. It is not often that a separation takes 
place, for it is held dishonorable to forsake a wife for a trifling 
cause, particularly if she has borne children. When it does occur, 
the offspring are usually permitted to decide which of the parents 
they will accompany, although usage gives the mother the right 
to take charge of them. In some instances the form of divorce is 
simply for the husband to bid his wife go; in others he will not 
take the trouble to give her notice of his discontent, but will 
quietly put his gun on his shoulder and move off himself.1 There 
are a few instances of this being done for very slight reasons; but, 
in addition to the restraint of custom just mentioned, the actual 
value of the wife is a subject of consideration. Where a separa- 
tion does take place, the man will often endeavor to renew the 
connection. A missionary mentions a woman who contracted 
a new marriage after her husband left her. He returned and 
claimed her. The dispute was referred to a chief, and he, either 
wanting a precedent or distrusting his judicial capacity, could 
think of no better expedient than placing the woman at an equal 
distance from each claimant, and then ordering the men to run, 
1 Indian Traits, i. p. 138. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
promising that the one who first reached her should retain pos- 
session of the prize.1 In some tribes divorce renders it impos- 
sible for a woman to marry again, but in others she can make 
a new alliance as soon as free from the old one. 
It is difficult to form any opinion as to the morality of females 
among a people where marriages are contracted and dissolved so 
easily. We may safely say that they have very little idea of 
chastity, notwithstanding their general, although not invariable 
fidelity when married, which may probably be induced more by 
fear of consequences than sense of duty. Of prostitution for a 
price, as known in civilized communities, we find no trace in the 
Indian nations while in a normal condition; but if we assume 
Webster’s definition, “the act of offering the body to an indis- 
criminate intercourse with men,” it can scarcely be claimed that 
they are free. The predominant motive seems to be an inordinate 
sexual appetite, which must be gratified, if not in legitimate mar- 
riage, then by illicit intercourse. We are told that in most large 
assemblies of Indians there are to be seen voluptuous looking 
females, whose passions urge them to this; and Carver, in his 
“ Travels in North America,” says that among the Manedowessis 
it was a custom, when a young woman could not get a husband, for 
her to assemble all the leading warriors of the tribe at a feast; and, 
when their hungerwas appeased,to retire behind a screen, and sub- 
mit to the embraces of each in succession. This gained her great 
O O 
applause, and always insured her a husband. Though the custom 
is now almost obsolete, the principle still exists, and prostitution 
is regarded by many as the shortest road to marriage. 
The birth of a bastard child entails little shame upon a girl, and 
that such children are not more frequent is due less to their chasti- 
ty than to the means they employ to procure abortion. One of the 
reasons advanced for their early marriages is that the impetuosity 
of the girls would render it difficult to obtain a virtuous wife if 
the union was delayed. The confessions upon starting for war, or 
what is called the “ war-path secret,” would also favor the opinion 
that abstract virtue is at a low ebb. At these times every war- 
rior is required to relate to his companions each act of illicit inter- 
course he has committed since the last excursion, naming his part- 
ner, and enumerating the facts attending the frailty. Thisobliga- 
tion is enforced by the most rigid oaths known to Indian customs.2 
1 Murray’s British America, i. 94. 
* Beckwourth, p. 157. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
This immorality is not confined to the single women, for the 
squaws are, at times, as ready to take part in an intrigue. Beck- 
wourth, whose experience of Indian manners seems to have em- 
braced every phase of life, relates his adventures in this way : 
“A brave named ‘ Big Rain’ was elected chief of the village. 
o o 
He possessed a most beautiful squaw, who was the admiration of 
the young men, and all were plotting to win her from her lord. 
I determined to steal her, be the consequences what they might.” 
Having enticed the husband to a smoking-party, he says, “ I went 
to Bigßain’s lodge,dressed and painted in theextreme of fashion, 
and saw the lady reclining upon her couch. She started up, say- 
ing, ‘ Who is here ? ’ ‘ Hush !it is I.’ ‘ What do you want here ? ’ 
‘ I have come to see you, because I love you.’ 4 Don’t you know 
that lam the chiefs wife V 4 Yes, I know it, but he does not love 
you as I do. I can paint your face and bring you fine horses, but 
as long as you are the wife of Big Rain he will never paint your 
face. With you by my side I could bring home many scalps, 
Then we could often dance, and our hearts would be merry,’ 
*** * 4 Go, now,’she pleaded, ‘for if ray husband should return 
I fear he would kill you. Go, for your own sake and for mine.’ 
‘Ho, I will not go till you give me a pledge that you will be 
mine.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped a ring from 
her finger and placed it on mine. All I had to do now was to 
watch for a favorable chance to take her away. * * * * The ap- 
pointed time had arrived,and on going to the placeof assignation, 
I found the lady true to her word—in fact, she was there first. 
We joined the party, and were absent about a week. We suc- 
ceeded incapturing (stealing ?) one hundred and seventeen horses, 
and arrived safe with them in the camp. Meanwhile Big Rain 
discovered the loss of his wife. When we rode in, he took no part 
in the rejoicing, but ordered his wife and me to be surrounded, 
and, with half a dozen of his sisters, all armed with scourges, ad- 
ministered a most unmerciful whipping. I received it with Indian 
fortitude. If I had resisted, they would have been justified in 
killing me; also, if they had drawn one drop of blood, I should 
have been justified in taking their lives.” 
Without wishing to delay the progress of the narrative, we can 
not resist the impulse to express admiration of the Indian punish- 
ment for a seducer of married women. Could the same unro- 
mantic penalty be duly and zealously inflicted for similar trans- NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
383 
gressions, in places of more pretensions, some of the scandals of 
civilized life would be curtailed. To resume : 
“ I sent word to the wife of Big Rain that I should go out again 
the next night, and should expect her company. She returned a 
favorable answer, and was faithful to her promise. On my return 
I received another such flogging as the first. Two nights after- 
ward I started on a third expedition, my new wife accompanying 
me, and received a third sound thrashing from her husband. Fi- 
nally, he grew furious ; but my soldiers said to him, ‘ You have 
whipped him three times, and shall whip him no more; we will 
buy your claim.’ He acceded to the offer, and consented to re- 
sign all interest and title in Mrs. Big Rain for the consideration 
of one war-horse, ten guns, ten chiefs coats of scarlet cloth, ten 
pairs of new leggins, and the same number of moccasins.”1 
In another case an intrigue resulted tragically. One of the 
wives of a Minnetaree chief eloped with a man who had formerly 
been her lover. He deserted her in a short time. She returned 
to her father’s hut, whither her husband traced her. He walked 
deliberately into the hut, smoked quietly for a time, and then 
took her by the hair, led her to the door, and killed her with a 
single blow of his tomahawk.2 The caprice or generosity of the 
same chief gave a very different conclusion to a similar incident 
which occurred some time afterward. Another of his wives 
eloped with a young man who was not able to support her as she 
wished, and both returned to the village. She presented herself 
before her husband and asked his pardon. He sent for the man, 
inquired if they still loved each other, and on their acknowledg- 
ment gave up his wife to her lover, made them a present of three 
horses, and restored them both to his favor.3 
With the exception of some national customs, the outward life 
of the Indian is generally decent. A temporary interval of wild 
license,corresponding to the Saturnalia of the ancients, and called 
the festival of dreams, is common among the Canadian tribes. 
This carnival lasts fifteen days, and, laying aside all their usual 
gravity, they then commit every imaginable extravagance.4 Our 
authority does not say whether immorality forms aportion of this 
relaxation, but from the custom of other bands it is not improba- 
ble. Lewis and Clarke mention several instances in which they 
1 Beckwourth, p. 238. 
3 Id. ib. 
2 Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition, i. 166. 
4 Murray’s British America, i. 125. 384 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
were present at dancing and similar festivals, and witnessed ex- 
hibitions of the most foul and revolting indecenc}^ 
Mr. Catlin records his opinion that the Old World has very lit- 
tle of superior morality or virtue to hold as an example to the 
North American Indians. The manners of each have been de- 
scribed; and while it would be unjust to expect the untutored 
son of the forest to display as much delicacy as his more culti- 
vated fellow-men, it would be equally ungenerous to assert that 
the white female population, as an aggregate, are governed by 
the impulses which apparently sway the Indian woman. 
But whatever doubts there may exist as to the immorality of 
the Indian women in their natural state, all are entirely removed 
as soon as they come in contact with the white race. Those in 
the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada have 
rapidly learned the worst of vices. They are drunken, sensual, 
and depraved. The venereal disease commits frightful ravages 
among them ; in fact, most of their sickness arises from excess of 
one kind or another. Maclean, in his “Twenty-five years’ Serv- 
ice in Hudson’s Bay,” says that the men employed by the com- 
pany are reconciled to their hard employment and poor remuner- 
ation by the immorality of the women, of whom numbers are 
prostitutes, selling themselves for the smallest remuneration. On 
the Northwest Coast chastity is scarcely even a name. The sea 
tribes are the most licentious, and at some places, where ships 
touch for supplies, hundreds of women come down to the beach, 
and by indecent exposures of their persons endeavor to obtain 
permission to come on board. Sir George Simpson received a 
visit from a chief who wanted to negotiate the loan of Lady 
Simpson, and offered his squaw in temporary exchange. 
Many of the traders on the Upper Missouri, from motives of 
policy, connect themselves with women of the tribes. The most 
beautiful girls aspire to this station, which elevates them above 
their ordinary servile occupations. These engagements are not 
marriages in our sense of the word ; a price is paid for the girl, 
and she is transferred at once to the trader’s house. With equal 
facility he can annul the contract, for which her father is not 
sorry, as he is thus enabled to sell her over again. The tariff of 
prices will range from two horses to a handful of awls: such is the 
remuneration for which an Indian chief will prostitute his daugh- 
ter. It must be added that occasionally the couple live perma- BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
nently together as man and wife, the possibility of their doing so 
being always supposed in the first instance. 
CHAPTER XXX. 
BARBAROUS NATIONS.1 
Africa.—Australasia.—West Indies.—Java.—Sumatra.—Borneo. 
The relations of the sexes among uneducated races are modified 
by every circumstance of their position, but the natural ascend- 
ency of the strong over the weak is universally displayed, and 
wherever woman is allowed a social rank approaching that of 
man, it will be found that a degree of civilization has been attain- 
ed. Many branches of the human family have advanced, more or 
less, beyond the utterly savage state, the love of ornament and the 
practice of exchange having raised them one step in the scale, 
while they vary as much in the characteristics of their barbarism 
as civilized nations do in their refinement. Waiving generalities, 
a better idea of their respective customs will be obtained by no- 
ticing the position of females among the different nations. 
AFRICA. 
Some of the most wild and savage tribes of the human family 
are to be found in the immense peninsula of Africa. Observation 
has proved that a medium state of refinement is accompanied with 
the least immorality, and that it is among the merest savages and 
the most highly-polished communities that the greatest profligacy 
exists. In order to present the subject clearly, we will make a 
geographical arrangement, and, commencing from the south, pass 
over the continent, till we reach the valley of the Lower Nile. 
The Hottentots are a dissolute, profligate race, and have borne 
that character from the earliest period. It was remarked by Yan 
Riebeck in 1655, and confirmed by Colonel Napier in 1840, the 
latter describing them as “ proverbially unchaste.” Indecency and 
lewdness are their characteristics; and even now, though accus- 
tomed to clothing, it is not uncommon for them to strip them- 
selves, and dance in a lascivious manner at their festivals. The 
1 The principal facts in this and the following chapter are taken from Mr. Hor- 
ace St. John’s article on Prostitution, in Mayhew’s “London Labor and the Lon- 
don Poor,” 386 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
females prostitute themselves readily to strangers, some from in- 
clination, others for money or a gift of finery; but we have no 
means of estimating the numbers of this disreputable class. A few 
of superior order are scattered among these degraded creatures, 
and intelligent and well-conducted women have attracted the no- 
tice of travelers. 
The pastoral Kaffirs are more moral, though more ferocious 
than the Hottentots, being more addicted to arms, and less to de- 
bauch. They practice polygamy, buying their wives for so many 
head of cattle. The girls undergo a probation before marriage, 
during which they are kept in seclusion. As the tribe wander 
from place to place, they carry their women with them, and upon 
them all the domestic labor falls, even the chief’s wives assisting 
in grinding corn and similar work. Divorce is easy on very slight 
grounds. We occasionally hear of women committing fornication, 
but no professed class of prostitutes has been described. Marriage 
is not held as a sacred tie, but adultery by a wife is severely pun- 
ished. Natural affections appear extremely weak among the Kaf- 
firs, and mothers have but little attachment to their children, the 
sickly and feeble being sometimes abandoned to avoid the trouble 
of rearing them, Mrs. Ward knew of a woman who buried alive 
a sickly daughter. The little creature was but imperfectly inter- 
red; it burst from the grave and ran home. A second time it 
was subjected to the same torture, and again escaped. A third 
attempt was made with a similar result, when its mother received 
it, and it ultimately recovered. Such instances of inhumanity are 
not rare. Husbands frequently drag their sick wives into a 
thicket, and leave them to die. It is important to mention that, 
where these people have embraced Christianity, their manners 
have totally changed; polygamy has been renounced, and they 
manifest an inclination to conform to the morals taught them. 
Between the tropics the people are notorious for licentiousness. 
Morality is a strange idea to them, nor is a man restrained by any 
social law from intercourse with as many females as he pleases. 
The result is, that women are regarded strictly as marketable com- 
modities, and the commonest feelings of humanity are unknown. 
On the Gold Coast husbands openly prostitute their wives for 
money. In other places an adulterer pays a fine to the husband, 
and many urge their wives to commit the crime for the sake of 
the penalty. When Laird visited the Niger in 1832, he found 
the condition of the females upon its borders most humiliating. 387 
BARBA 110 US NATIONS. 
Polygamy was universal, and wives were reduced to slavery in 
their own houses. In short, the race may be described as the most 
idle, ignorant, and profligate in Africa. The king possessed one 
hundred and forty wives, one of whom was under thirteen years 
of age, and all had been purchased for a few muskets or a piece 
of cloth. Half a dozen of the fattest were known as his favorites, 
and one of them was said to weigh over three hundred and fifty 
pounds. The mother of this prince lived in his palace, and amused 
the court with obscene dances. Adultery by any inmate of the 
harem was punished with death. When a man died, one at least 
of his wives was expected to attend him; she was bound and 
thrown into the river. In another place the woman was buried 
alive; and in the kingdom of Fundal, when a chief died leaving 
fifteen wives, the king selected the ugliest to be hanged over the 
grave, and transferred the remaining fourteen to his own quarters. 
The native of Western Africa looks upon his wife as a source 
of pleasure and gain, reckoning her as property to the amount she 
can earn. With a strange inconsistency, some of these barbarians 
profess a sentiment of attachment. The King of Atta toll Lander 
that he loved him as he loved his wife. As he was a polygamist, 
it is to be assumed the traveler thought it a divided affection. 
Marriage is held as one of the common occurrences of life. When 
a man is old enough, he takes a wife, and goes on adding to his 
property until he probably owns a hundred, if he has means 
enough to buy them. Even under this system many women can 
not obtain stated husbands, as some men will not take permanent 
wives; but it is safe to assert that no single man lives without fe- 
male intercourse, and no single woman remains chaste. A wife 
suspected of adultery is forced to drink a poisonous decoction, but 
she sometimes bribes the priest to render it harmless. Widows 
who have lived on bad terras with their husbands have to undergo 
the same ordeal. An illicit connection with the king’s wife results 
in death to both parties, but for the wife of a chief the gift of a 
slave is an expiation. The price of a handsome wife is from 
eighteen to thirty-six dollars; a plain-looking one is worth about 
seven dollars. As a man’s inclination varies, he often sells one 
wife, and buys another with the proceeds of the transaction. 
In the kingdom of Dahomey, once the centre of the slave-trade, 
a most profligate population is found, and the traveler entering its 
sea-port is immediately struck with the immodesty of the women. 
Throughout the country the same characteristic is observable; 388 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
they are profligates from the highest to the lowest. The king is 
superior in brutality and filthiness (traits which seem hereditary 
to the throne of Dahomey) to any of his subjects. He has thou- 
sands of wives, his chiefs have hundreds, his subjects tens. The 
royal favorites are too sacred for the gaze of common people, who 
must turn aside or hide their faces if any of them are passing. 
Strangers are excluded from the harem, but the privileged nobil- 
ity attend the king’s feasts, at which his wives take a leading part 
in drinking rum and conducting the debauch. When the king 
desires to confer honor on any favorite, he chooses a wife for him, 
and presents her publicly. She hands her husband a cup of rum, 
which is a sign of union. 
The King of Dahomey supports an army of several thousand 
amazons, who dress in male attire, do not marry, and are supposed 
not to have intercourse with men. These troops were long con- 
sidered invincible, but a few years ago they encountered a defeat 
on one of their marauding expeditions, and a thousand or more 
were killed on the field. 
As the king and his wealthy subjects have so many wives, poor 
people are obliged to content themselves with the company of 
prostitutes, who are a licensed and taxed class in Dahomey. There 
appears to be a band of these in every village, but their profits 
are often insufficient for support, and they resort to industrial oc- 
cupation, hiring themselves to carry heavy burdens, etc. One 
traveler saw two hundred and fifty collected in a troop, and an- 
other was assailed by a crowd of women who offered to “ be his 
wives” for a drop of rum. Many of the poorest class stroll about 
naked, and a gratuity, however small, will purchase their favors. 
The dirty, lazy, dull people of the Fantee Coast have the same 
moral aspect as the subjects of Dahomey. Parents sell their chil- 
dren, husbands sell their wives, women sell themselves, for a tri- 
fling sum. One woman was so anxious to make a bargain of this 
kind that she took possession of a traveler’s bed, and force was 
necessary to expel her. Marriage is a mere purchase, a wife cost- 
ing about sixteen dollars. Women are unsalable when more than 
fifteen or sixteen years old. Any man committing adultery is 
forced to buy his paramour at her cost price. 
Along the coast of Benin similar customs prevail. Public 
dancers act as prostitutes, and offer themselves at a small price. 
Every woman considers it an honor to be the king’s companion, 
even for one night. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
389 
In Ashantee, where also polygamy prevails, adultery is com- 
mon, especially among the king’s wives, who are hewn to pieces 
if discovered. The people are profligate beyond any thing which 
can be conceived. A practice of unusual depravity prevails 
among the Kroomen, a son who inherits his father’s property tak- 
ing his wives also, and thus his own mother becomes his slave. 
The Edeeyahs of Fernando Po offer a strong contrast to the 
above, treating their women with consideration, and assigning 
them far less than the usual amount of work. Polygamy is al- 
lowed. The first wife taken by a man must be betrothed to him 
at least two years before marriage, and during that time he is in 
a state of servitude like that of Jacob for Rachel, the girl being 
kept in seclusion. When she appears as a married woman, all 
the virgins of the tribe salute and dance round her. This cus- 
tom is only observed with the first wife, the others being con- 
cubines who are governed by her. Adultery is severely pun- 
ished : for the first offense both parties lose one hand; for the 
second, the man and his relatives are heavily fined and chastised, 
the woman loses the other hand, and is driven from the settlement 
into the woods—an exile more terrible than mutilation. 
It would be but a needless repetition to pass in review all the 
various groups of African states. We have seen that in the west 
profligacy is a universal feature, and it is scarcely less so in the 
east. In Zulu, for example, the king has a seraglio of fifteen hund- 
red women. The manners of the communities in the Sahara are 
imperfectly known, but appear to be above those in other parts 
of Africa, though many customs prevail which shock our ideas of 
decency. A chief offered Richardson his two daughters as wives. 
Immorality is usually a secret crime, and their general customs 
with regard to sexual intercourse are outwardly decent. Still 
the condition of the female sex is degraded, for they are regard- 
ed as materials of a man’s household, and ministers to his sen- 
suality. 
Abyssinia presents various characteristics of manners. In Taju- 
ra men live with their wives for a short time, and then sell them. 
Parents are known to hire their daughters out as prostitutes. One 
chief offered his daughter as a temporary or permanent compan- 
ion to a traveler, and a woman presented herself as a candidate 
for a similar appointment, saying, by way of recommendation, that 
she had already lived with five men. One strong evidence of the 
immorality of Tajura is the fact that syphilis affects nearly the 390 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
whole population, man and woman, sultan and beggar, priests and 
their wives inclusive. 
In Shoa the king has one wife and five hundred concubines, 
the latter scattered in various parts of his dominions. He makes 
a present to the parents of any girl he may desire, and is usually 
well paid in return for the honor. The governors of provinces 
and cities follow his example. There are two kinds of marriage 
in Shoa: one a mere arrangement to cohabit, the other a holy 
ceremony. The former is almost invariably used, the man and 
woman declaring before witnesses that they mean to live together. 
Divorces are as easily obtained, only mutual consent being neces- 
sary. A wife is valued according to the amount of her property, 
and the owner of a hut, a field, and a bedstead is sure to get a 
husband. When they quarrel and part, a division of property 
takes place. Concubines are procured as well from the Christians 
as from Mohammedans and pagans, but the latter are forced to 
declare themselves converted, for Shoa is professedly a Christian 
kingdom. A favorite concubine holds the same position as a 
married woman, and no distinction is made between legitimate 
and illegitimate children. The court overflows with licentious- 
ness, numerous adulteries take place, and the example is followed 
by the people, among whom a chaste married couple is rare. The 
sacerdotal class of Shoa is notoriously drunken and profligate; in 
a word, the morals of the country are of the lowest description. 
In the Mohammedan states of the neighborhood the condition of 
the female sex is also degraded, and if there is less general prosti- 
tution, it is because every woman is the slave of some man’s lust, 
and is closely watched by him. 
In the provinces of Kordofan, south of the Nubian mountains, 
the sentiment of love is not altogether unknown, and men fight 
duels with whips of hippopotamus hide on account of a disputed 
mistress. The wife is, however, a virtual slave, and is still more 
degraded if she prove barren, the husband then solacing himself 
with a concubine, who is raised to the rank of a wife if she bear a 
child. The general demeanor of the girls of Kordofan is modest, 
and their lives are chaste, while the married women are addicted 
to intrigue, especially if neglected by their husbands. In some 
parts of the country men consider it an honor for their wives to 
have intercourse with strangers, and often assist the woman to this 
end. There is a class of pretty dancers who are usuallv prosti- 
tutes, and are celebrated for their successes in the latter vocation. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
391 
Marriage is arranged without the woman’s consent; the man bar- 
gains for her, pays the price, and takes her home. A feast and 
dance sometimes celebrate the event. When a wife is ill treated 
she demands a divorce, and returns home, taking her female chil- 
dren with her. Trifles often produce these separations, an insuf- 
ficient allowance of pomatum to grease her skin being a valid 
complaint. These remarks apply to the fixed population; the 
wandering tribes of Kordofan are a moral, modest race, naked, but 
not indecent. 
A chief of the Berbers offered a late traveler his choice of two 
daughters for a temporary companion, both being already married. 
Many women there are ready to prostitute themselves for a present. 
A virgin may be purchased, either as a wife or a concubine, for a 
horse. A young Berber, who was asked why he did not marry, 
pointed to a colt and said, “ When that is a horse I shall marry.” 
The condition of women in Khartum, on the upper borders of 
the Nile, as described in Ferdinand Werne’s account of his voyage 
to discover the sources of the White Stream, is so degraded that 
it may be said with truth the female monkeys of the neighboring 
woods occupy a far nobler and more natural position. Farther 
up the river the morals are purer. The Keks are described as 
leading a blameless life. Marriageable girls and children are kept 
in seclusion, and during a considerable part of the year the wom- 
en live in villages apart from the men, who possess only tempo- 
rary huts, the substantial habitations of their wives being accessi- 
ble to them during the rainy season. A man dare not approach 
the “ harem village” at any other time, but some of the women oc- 
casionally creep into their husbands’ huts. Polygamy is allowed, 
but is too costly for any but the chiefs. 
Among some of the tribes on the banks of the White Nile, 
women sell their children, if they can do so with profit. The 
maidens appear naked, but married women wear an apron. All 
experience shame at appearing unclothed before travelers. Be- 
yond the Mountains of the Moon Werne found a people whom 
he describes as chaste and decent, where unmarried men and 
women were kept separate. 
Our information is so limited that any inquiry into the morals 
of Africa must be incomplete, but enough has been stated to give 
a fair idea of the average morality. Statistics are of course im- 
possible, but from a description in general terms we can not hesi- 
tate to form an opinion. 392 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
AUSTRALASIA. 
In this division of the earth’s surface are generally included the 
great island of Australia, Papua or New Cxuinea, and some ad- 
jacent islands, comprising New Caledonia and Van Diemen’s 
Land. Politically and geographically the islands of New Zealand 
are also in this division, but there is some question as to the pro- 
priety of this distribution for ethnographical purposes. Opinions 
vary as to the state of the New Zealanders. There is much simi- 
larity between them and the inhabitants of some of the Polyne- 
sian Islands, while there are equally strong points of resemblance 
between them and the Australian aborigines. The New Zealand- 
er, when discovered by Cook, was far superior to the Australian 
in intelligence and in the arts of life. He inhabited a decent hut, 
could build a stockade fort, and lived upon cooked food. The 
Australian lived in a hollow tree, could put together a temporary 
hut made of bark and brush, and fed upon grubs, roots, and raw 
flesh. Among such a race as the Australian blacks it is needless 
to say that the position occupied by women was of the most de- 
grading and brutal character. 
The Australian savage does not even pay his future spouse the 
compliment of wooing her. Might makes right in their case. The 
woman is often betrothed by her parent or kinsman, and becomes 
her husband’s property by sale and bargain. If this has not been 
effected in the usual way, he acquires his marital privileges by an 
inroad on the grounds of another tribe, and then meeting a wom- 
an, he knocks her down with his waddy (a heavy club), and carries 
her to a place of security, where he makes himself master of her 
person by force. This, indeed, is so usual a course of procedure, 
that it has given rise to a belief that the Australian rival bache- 
lors compete for a wife by knocking her on the head, and whoever 
fells her bears away the belle. 
The habits of the native Australians are not so observable now 
as they were at the commencement of the system of colonization. 
At first a continual intercourse was kept up between them and 
the settlers. The reciprocal injuries inflicted upon each other, in 
which the whites were more to blame than the natives, brought 
about an exterminating warfare. The black race has gradually 
wasted away from the settled, or rather partially settled country, 
while the much-diminished interior tribes have retreated, in South 
Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria, far into the wilderness, 
beyond ordinary communication with the white man. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
393 
In Van Diemen’s Land the natives were almost extirpated by 
the constant warfare carried on between them and the settlers, 
convict as well as free, and the government was obliged to take 
the few survivors under its protection, and to establish a place of 
refuge for them. They were accordingly collected, and deported 
to an island in Bass Straits, under the charge of a special commis- 
sioner. But, notwithstanding the increased comforts of their con- 
dition, and their immunity from the murderous hostility of their 
white foes, they have languished, and, instead of the population 
increasing, it has gradually decreased, until, at the present time, it 
is believed that the numbers are under one hundred. In Central 
Australia, north of the Murray, the tribes are still comparatively 
numerous, and in some cases warlike and hostile to settlers. 
The married women among the aborigines are called “gins,” 
and the single girls “ lubbras.” The women follow their lords on 
their migrations and excursions, carry the loads, and do all the 
work. They bear patiently and submissively the blows and ill- 
usage to which they are subject. Polygamy is practiced by the 
more powerful men of the tribes, who appropriate to themselves 
such women as they choose, and cast them off at pleasure. Now 
and then they sell or present a “ gin” to a friend in want of such 
a commodity. There is considerable disproportion between the 
sexes, attributable partly to continual ill-usage, partly to the habit 
prevalent among savage nations of destroying female infants. 
At one time in the history of these colonies, the outlying stock- 
men and shepherds occasionally endeavored to solace their loneli- 
ness with a “ lubbra” whom they had managed to decoy from her 
lawful owner, but the half-breeds from such unions are very rare. 
The natives, notwithstanding the low estimate they have of their 
women, are exceedingly jealous of them as property, and keep 
them away as much as possible from the stations. 
Chastity is at all times of little account among savages, always 
excepting the old Celts and Teutons, who held continence in high 
esteem, and whose women were objects of general respect. From 
the peculiar habits of the Australian aborigines themselves, it can 
scarcely be said that prostitution exists as an institution. The 
woman has no choice in the matter. As between the “ gins” and 
“ lubbras” and the white settlers, there is scarcely any chance for 
prostitution. A woman now and then visits the towns or settle- 
ments, but always in company with her male friends. When 
quite young, the girls are not more disagreeable than others of HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
394 
their complexion. When more advanced in years they are abso- 
lutely repulsive, and are rendered hideous by scars and other evi- 
dences of brutality. At all times both sexes are loathsome in 
their persons, and are clad in filthy blankets or sheep-skins, unless 
when they can pick up tattered remnants of European clothing. 
Among the New Zealanders the state of the women was a little 
better than among the Australians. The amelioration was rather 
in degree than principle. They were subject to the same control 
by parents and kinsmen. They were disposed of in marriage as 
matter of right, and were often betrothed from infancy, in which 
case they were tapu or taboo to other persons than the young chief 
or warrior who had purchased the reversion. Cruel punishments 
of the women for infidelity were general, and even for minor of- 
fenses they were subject to very severe chastisement. In one 
case, even recently, a New Zealand woman was suspended by the 
heels naked, and in that position unmercifully whipped. Her 
sense of the outrage was so keen that she committed suicide. Li- 
centiousness among the women was probably more rare formerly 
than now. Adultery was punished in both parties by death, and 
the family of the male offender were often involved in the pun- 
ishment. Now, however, the constant visits of whalers and sea- 
faring men, the gradual settlement of whites in the islands, and, 
above all, the profits and advantages derivable from illicit inter- 
course, cause the women to be free of their persons. Parents and 
even husbands are oftentimes the principal gainers by the trans- 
action, and even negotiate the profit to be made. The marriage 
ceremony, too, was formerly of so easy a character that, whatever 
the New Zealand woman might have thought of it, no settler,, and 
especially no seaman, would feel himself bound by the tie, and, 
although associations based on this weak bond were not wrong in 
the woman, they paved the way for less excusable relations. 
The influence of civilized institutions and the presence of a reg- 
ular clergy and missionaries is effecting some improvement in 
native morals, and many lawful marriages have taken place be- 
tween the whites and the native women, the offspring of which— 
a fine race of half-breeds—may be met with throughout the Aus- 
tralian colonies. The example of the consideration in which the 
native women thus married are held, and the rights and social po- 
sition that they acquire, is not without influence on others, and 
predisposes them to the same course. Among the tribes removed 
from the coast and withdrawn from civilized control, the ancient BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
customs are still kept up in their integrity, and the chiefs and na- 
tives jealously resist all encroachments on their independence. 
Among those chiefs, even, who have been converted to a nominal 
Christianity, Rauperaha for instance, heathen institutions of re- 
venge for injury, polygamy, power of life and death over their 
wives and followers are maintained, and the humanizing lessons 
of the Gospel have made but little way toward an amendment of 
their barbarous lives. In New Zealand it is asserted that the ve- 
nereal disease is very prevalent among the natives, and from their 
diet and licentious habits is often fatal. 
In colonial white society there are no particular incidents to 
characterize prostitution. At all times during the continuance of 
transportation, female immorality has been very prevalent. The 
general law so often observed as attendant upon irregularity of 
the sexes has been powerfully operative; besides, there have been 
local influences at work to deteriorate female manners. The large 
importations of convict women, who were always the most unruly 
and vicious of the felon population, and who notoriously gave 
more trouble and vexation to the authorities than any one else, 
was prejudicial to public virtue. Just, however, as, on account of 
these faults, women of indifferent character were lightly esteemed, 
so did the respectable females gain in public opinion, however 
poor their worldly condition. There was not much regular pros- 
titution, although incontinence prevailed. There was a continual 
system of marriage going on among the convicts. When a man 
chose to marry, he brushed himself up, put on a clean shirt, and 
went to the nearest superintendent, to whom he intimated his de- 
sire for matrimony. Permission was always given. The eligibles 
at the station were forwarded for his inspection, and the selected 
one rarely refused, inasmuch as her connubial bonds relieved her, 
during good behavior, from the more galling bondage of the law. 
Some of these unions turned out more satisfactorily than might have 
been expected from the character of the parties, especially of the 
women. 
South Australia and the gold colony of Victoria never were pe- 
nal settlements. The deficiency of respectable young women was 
very much felt by the colonists, and the home government made 
many well-intentioned efforts to supply the want. A large num- 
ber of young women went out from Great Britain, under the 
charge of matrons and medical officers, and, in the majority of 
cases, their arrival was hailed with great satisfaction. It was no 396 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
unusual thing for a young man, a settler far away up the country, 
to come down to the government depots at Adelaide or Melbourne 
on the arrival of a female emigrant ship, and then and there to 
pick out his partner for life. Of course, the greater number were 
hired out to service by the colonists, and, in the order of events, 
passed from service to independence. Parental care and precau- 
tion were exercised by the authorities over the young women thus 
sent abroad. They were not allowed to hire into dram-shops or 
lodging-houses: the parties who hired them required to be known; 
they had liberty to remain at the depot for some months if not 
suited, and for any length of time in case of sickness on arrival; 
and afterward, during good conduct, the depot was an asylum for 
an indefinite length of time. Notwithstanding all these safeguards, 
there was a constant supply of prostitution. The good intentions 
of the emigration commissioners in London were too frequently 
neutralized by the depraved character of officers of the vessels in 
which females were sent, or by the interested conduct of the local 
authorities in England. A good reputation was essential to the 
intending emigrant, but frequently masters of work-houses and 
parish officers shipped off unworthy or troublesome characters, 
who were better got rid of at any price. 
During the gold mania, prostitution in Australia was rampant. 
The enormous gains and flaunting extravagance were a great 
temptation to young women who could not readily suit themselves 
with situations, and who disliked the moderate restraints of the 
depot. The persuasive arts of the procuress and brothel-keeper 
were not wanting. It was a singular fact that at one time all the 
public vehicles were owned by brothel-keepers. The profits of 
these joint callings were perfectly fabulous. It was an every-day 
sight to see a party of prostitutes in the most gaudy costumes 
parading the streets in open carriages. Indeed, it was generally 
understood to be part of their contract that they should have un- 
limited clothing, of the most garish colors and style, and expensive 
material, and also Sunday rides in open carriages. The police au- 
thorities did what they could to check this shameful display, but 
they were powerless before the reckless extravagance of the min- 
ers and the influx of women. It is believed that this excess has 
now toned down, and miners having taken to buying land and to 
marriage, order is once more resuming sway, and prostitution in 
the gold colonies, though not at an end, is much shorn of its pub- 
lic show and display. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
POLYNESIA. 
The principal groups of the Polynesian Islands are the Society, 
Friendly, Samoan, Sandwich, and Marquesas. These last have 
been rendered famous of late years by Mr. Hermann Melville’s 
Typee and Omoo. 
The South Sea Islands were usually depicted in the most glow- 
ing colors by early navigators. The lands were the fairest on 
earth’s surface; the climate was unsurpassed, combining the genial 
warmth of the tropics with the fresh breezes of ocean; the soil 
spontaneously bringing forth in luxuriant abundance the loveliest 
and most valuable vegetable productions; and, finally, the inhabit- 
ants were fitted both in person and disposition to tenant such an 
Eden. 
It is easy to comprehend the frame of mind which led to these 
descriptions. The seaman, after wandering over the pathless 
ocean, with only the dark waste of waters in view, might well 
recognize a paradise in the green hills and shady groves of the 
islands of the Pacific, and angels in their dusky denizens. But 
these pictures were eminently fallacious: the virtues of savage 
life disappear on close acquaintanceship. Implacable ferocity 
among themselves; sanguinary and exterminating warfare; can- 
nibalism; unbounded licentiousness and its concomitants of un- 
natural lust and lasciviousness ; debasing and horrid idolatry; in- 
fanticide ; the most grinding tyranny of the strong over the weak, 
and of the man over the woman, who is not permitted to live in 
the same dwelling, eat the same food, cook at the same fire, or 
even use the same dish as her lord and master: these enormities 
are the ordinary conditions of savage life. Some local modifica- 
tions may be found, but such were the main incidents in Polyne- 
sian life and character. 
It is true that in the first instance the natives received the whites 
with all friendship, and evinced toward their visitors much hos- 
pitality and gentleness of demeanor. This is to be attributed to 
the wonder and reverence with which they regarded foreigners, 
looking on them as superior beings of another sphere, and awe- 
struck at their wonderful powers, at the astonishing engines they 
wielded and managed, and at their unknown attributes. But 
familiarity lessened respect; some ill-advised and unjustifiable 
tyranny brought out the offensive points of savage character, and 
theft, treachery, and murder were soon practiced as freely against HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the whites as against each other whenever fear of consequences 
did not restrain them. The murder of Captain Cook and the at- 
tack on La Perouse were remarkable cases on account of the bold- 
ness of the savages, and the public loss in the death of the great 
navigator, but they were not isolated outrages. Many a small and 
feebly-manned vessel perished among the islands, and, on repeated 
occasions, when landings were effected, the mariners ran great risks 
from the uncertain despotism of the natives. 
Whatever may have been their other qualities, either among 
themselves or in their intercourse with foreigners, licentious- 
ness was the universal characteristic of the South Sea Islanders. 
It was not merely polygamy or excess among a few of the more 
powerful members of the community, but the ordinary habit 
among all classes. Chastity, whenever met with, was not a cus- 
tomary part of woman’s life, but only an incident dependent on 
particular circumstances; in fact, an abnormal condition. It was 
associated with either marriage or betrothal. A peculiar institu- 
tion of all these islanders was the tapu or taboo, a semi-religious 
ceremony performable either by priest or chief, whereby places, 
persons, or property could be rendered unapproachable by other 
than the lawful owner. The breach of this law has always been 
the greatest violation of propriety and public feeling of which a 
native or foreigner could be guilty. When young girls were be- 
trothed at an early age, either to boys of corresponding years or 
to older persons, such females were tabooed. This insured chas- 
tity until they had reached a marriageable age. As this betroth- 
al system was almost exclusively confined to chiefs, it follows 
that the obligation to chastity was very limited. The farther in- 
ference would be, that chastity was associated rather with prop- 
erty in the female than propriety in the woman. 
Another institution of the South Sea Islanders was that of the 
Areoi. These were a bod}7 of men and women banded together 
for certain purposes, which had originally been of a religious 
character. They had probably been once Obi men, medicine- 
men, or wizards, as among the negroes and Indians. The cus- 
tom, so often observable among heathen nations, of incorporating 
amusements and festivities into religious rites, had been taken up 
by these Areoi, and in process of time they degenerated into mere 
mimes or buffoons, and yet preserved to themselves by prescrip- 
tive right all the immunities and privileges otherwise accorded to 
priests. They traveled about from place to place, and sometimes BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
399 
from island to island. Their observances yet retained a trace of 
their religious origin, inasmuch as they commenced with a sacri- 
fice to the gods, after which they entertained the people with 
theatrical performances, in which obscene songs and lascivious 
dances formed the chief features. They gave dialogues and reci- 
tations, in which they freely satirized all classes, not excepting 
the priests. They were every where gladly received, and had a 
right to free quarters wherever they stopped. It is said the mem- 
bers were usually the handsomest of both sexes, the women being 
the most profligate among the inhabitants. Tradition maintained 
that these persons had been originally incorporated by the gods, 
and that one of their rules was perpetual celibacy, and that they 
should have no descendants. This, though it might perhaps in 
the outset have been a prohibition intended for pure purposes, 
has ended in the perversion of such an intention. In their pres- 
ent condition, whether degenerate or not, the inhibition is not 
taken to exclude them from sexual intercourse and enjoyment, 
but from its natural consequences. Their lives were accordingly 
most abandoned, and abortion and infanticide were invariably 
practiced. Nor were their enormities confined to their own body: 
after their representations the wildest excesses were perpetrated 
in all quarters. Resistance or retaliation was impossible by the 
sufferer, on account of the fear these wretches excited by the 
mysterious powers with which they were accredited, and which 
were, in reality, the secret affiliations of all the bands.1 
When performing, the Areoi painted their bodies black and 
their faces scarlet; they wore dresses of bright-colored plants and 
flowers. They were divided into several classes, named after 
some particular ornament; and, taking into account the subordi- 
nate members of the troops and the attendants who performed 
the menial offices, they must have been exceedingly numerous. 
Places were specially built for their reception, and for the greater 
convenience of their representations.2 
Candidates for admission into their number were received by 
secret ceremonies akin to the mysteries of paganism. Solemnities 
intended to awe the vulgar were performed, and the idea of special 
reservation of the blessings of a future elysium to these deceivers 
was promulgated and believed. 
Russell’s History of Polynesia, p. 75. 
2 Their institution is ascribed to Oro, the god of war. The resemblance between 
Areoi and Aer/c, the Greek god of war, is a coincidence. 400 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The existence of such organized societies could not but be in 
the highest degree subversive to all order and decency. Accord- 
ingly, when the missionaries first arrived, they found the general 
depravity of morals the greatest difficulty they had to encounter. 
Obscenity, libidinousness, and incontinence were so ingrafted into 
the very nature of the people that they seemed almost ineradica- 
ble. Accordingly, we find it narrated of an intelligent convert 
that he expressed his conviction that “ the people ought to be in- 
duced to discontinue infanticide, human sacrifice, and demon wor- 
ship, but that preservation of female virtue and Christian marriage 
would never be obtained.”1 
The Society Islands are said to have been formerly proverbial, 
even in Polynesia, for the licentiousness which is still remarkably 
prevalent among them. The missionary regulations have appar- 
ently mitigated the evils, and they have succeeded in establishing 
laws on the subject, which are not, however, binding upon stran- 
gers. The foreigners who come to these islands, while denounc- 
ing the conduct of the inhabitants, are too often the chief instiga- 
tors to vice, and, finding themselves checked in their misconduct, 
they vent their disappointment on the missionaries. 
The foreign influences at work in these islands are of a two-fold 
nature; one striving for the improvement of the natives, and the 
inculcation of virtuous principles, and the encouragement or en- 
forcement of virtuous practices; the other including all the base 
and sordid passions and motives of seamen and whalers bent on 
the reckless enjoyment of the passing hour; of traders and ad- 
venturers eager in quest of gain; and among the worst specimens 
of runaway seamen, and even convicts from the Australian settle- 
ments. All these influences combine to check the advancement 
of the natives. 
The beauty of the women in these islands has been much ex- 
aggerated. Commodore Wilkes says,2 “I did not see among 
them a single woman whom I could call handsome. They have, 
indeed, a certain sleepiness about the eyes which may be fasci- 
nating to some, but I should rather ascribe the celebrity which 
their charms have acquired among navigators to their cheerful- 
ness and gayety.” Others, who visit them with equally cool judg- 
ment, tell us that they were disappointed in their appearance, 
for “ there were few who could be called handsome; nevertheless, 
they had eminent feminine graces, their manners being affable 
South Sea Missions, p. 88. 2 U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 22. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
401 
and engaging, their step easy and graceful, their behavior free 
and unguarded, their temper mild, gentle, and unaffected, slow to 
take offense, easily pacified, seldom retaining resentment or re- 
venge, whatever the provocation.”1 
There can be no doubt that their demeanor was winning and 
affable, and their conduct sportive and playful. Their industry 
was not very great, the few wants of the islanders being amply 
supplied by nature. The women prepared the poe from the bread- 
fruit and the ava, and, till Europeans introduced the hog, this was 
their usual diet, if we except the cannibal feasts of the warriors, 
in which the women took no part. The female occupations were 
weaving flowers and grasses into garlands and mats. Their chief 
amusement was paddling the canoe or sporting in the surf, for all 
the islanders took to the water, and the women were, perhaps, from 
the greater buoyancy of their persons, better swimmers than the 
men. Before the arrival of the missionaries, it was customary for 
the women to swim out to a ship and swarm on board, where scenes 
of debauchery and indecency commenced, lasting as long as the 
vessel lay in the harbor, and the fascination of which worked so 
powerfully on the excited passions of the seamen that desertions 
and mutiny were continually occurring. 
The earliest intercourse of whites has never yet been beneficial 
to the untutored savage, and, had these occurrences only taken 
place on board the ships of foreigners, it might have been laid to 
the account of foreign corruption. But this was not the case. 
The gains derivable from the white men’s visits might give prof- 
ligacy a greater zest for both sexes of the natives, for indiscrimi- 
nate intercourse was a time-worn institution ere yet the European 
came. 
The South Sea Islanders are no exception to the general rule 
of keeping their women in a subordinate and inferior condition. 
A chief is sometimes taboo, and his women may not approach him; 
he may see them when he pleases; at all times the woman is in 
bondage. Those of the chief live in separate apartments from 
their master, and are not permitted to associate with him on equal 
terms excepting when the female is of high blood. In this case 
she is perfectly independent, can exercise the same powers as her 
husband, and in some particulars can even throw off her allegiance 
to him. 
Polygamy was, and still is, practiced among the chiefs. Even 
Missionary Voyage of Ship Duff, 1796, p. 336. 402 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
where missionary influences have been successful, the chiefs look 
upon the abolition of polygamy as a most objectionable innova- 
tion. They look back to their past liberty with regret, and can 
not understand why they are restricted to one wife. Polygamy 
could, of course, only be practiced by the powerful at the expense 
of the weak. Already, from various causes operating among sav- 
ages there was a preponderance of males over females, rendered 
still more great by polygamy. This again depreciated female vir- 
tue, justifying illicit intercourse to those who lived in forced celi- 
bacy, and in its consequences came concealment and infanticide. 
To such an extent was illicit intercourse carried, that some writers 
assert that no girl ever reached the age of puberty a virgin. The 
nature of the marriage bond is very uncertain. The husband 
could get rid of the wife at pleasure. There seems to have been 
a slight distinction between marriage and concubinage. Most of 
these social institutions are extended over all the islands alike, with 
very few local differences. Infanticide, for example, has been 
practiced in most of the islands, but not invariably so. At Tutui- 
la,1 one of the Samoan group, it had never obtained. Circumcis- 
ion was common among most of the natives. 
Among the Samoans the women are treated with considera- 
tion,2 The men do all the hard work, even to cooking, while the 
women perform only in-door labor, attend to the children, and pre- 
pare the food for the fire. In the Sandwich Islands there is no 
such chivalrous sentiment. At the arrival „of the missionaries 
there were no marriage institutions among them. The only laws 
were such as to regulate somewhat their licentiousness. There 
were traditions to show that at some past time, before the discov- 
ery of the island, the marriage tie had been held in respect by the 
natives, and that the marriage ceremony had been an important 
one. At present, personal chastisement of the wife by her hus- 
band is not infrequent, and it is spoken of by them as a matter of 
course. 
The relations of parents to children differed much at different 
periods. The Samoans seem to have been the most observant of 
moral obligations and natural ties. Among them it was the usage 
of the mothers to suckle the children for several years, and to 
bring them up with great care and attention, so much so that a 
crippled child was sometimes discreditable as evincing a degree 
of culpable carelessness in the mother. 
U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 80. 2 lb. 148. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
403 
The Society and Sandwich Islanders, whose lives were habitu- 
ally dissolute, shunned all trouble which interfered with their 
freedom of intercourse, and children were considered especially 
burdensome. Infanticide prevailed to a frightful extent among 
them, and, as if the ordinary dissoluteness of the people had not 
been ample inducement to this most flagitious crime, the tyranny 
of the rulers invented a poll-tax, in whose operation children over 
ten were included. The poorer inhabitants of these blissful re- 
gions, who already felt the rod of oppression too severely, found 
in this an additional motive to child-murder. But in its operation 
it was even more cruel than infanticide, for many children who 
had been suffered to live were put to death as they approached 
the period when they would be liable to taxation. The murder 
was consummated sometimes by the parents, at times mercifully, 
and at times horribly. There were a class of persons who prac- 
ticed child-murder professionally. 
In the Samoan group the girls are often early betrothed, with- 
out reference to years, the girl being taboo until of marriageable 
age. During the intervening period the bridegroom accumulates 
property. The marriage festival is held with all circumstances of 
uproar and debauchery, and the guests stay as long as there is any 
thing to eat. The consummation of the marriage and the virgin- 
ity of the bride are published by the proofs required in the Jew- 
ish law. 
When a man in this group wishes to take a wife, he must ask 
the chief’s consent. This obtained, he presents to the girl of his 
choice a basket of bread-fruit, by accepting which she accepts the 
donor. The husband then pays the parents a sum of money for 
her, according to her rank and estimation; sometimes the court- 
ship is to the family, without consulting the girl, who is expected 
to conform to her parents’ will in the matter. 
A Samoan may repudiate his wife and marry again on certain 
conditions, but the woman may not leave her husband without 
his consent. 
Adultery among the Samoans was formerly punished by death, 
and the marriage vow is strictly observed by them. It is consid- 
ered highly discreditable for a young woman to form a connection 
with a native before marriage, although temporary intercourse 
with a foreigner is not considered objectionable. It may be that 
such a distinction is in compliment to the conceded superiority of 
the white; but the explanation of a chief would rather put the 404 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
question on convenience than morality, for he objected to native 
young men as always hanging about the premises, and attaching 
themselves to the young woman, whereas the foreigner gave his 
presents and sailed away when the period of his stay was ended, 
leaving the object of his choice free again. 
The Marquesas Islands have a singular institution, similar to 
one prevalent among the ancient Lacedaemonians. A woman has 
more than one husband. This has been called polyandrism, but 
it does not seem precisely such. A wife of a young warrior un- 
known to fame is honored by the advances of a more distinguish- 
ed individual, by whom children may be begotten. The superior 
chief takes the wife and her lawful husband under his protection 
and into his hut. 
The population of some of the districts in the Sandwich Islands 
is rapidly decreasing. By a register kept in Hawaii, it appears 
there are three deaths to one birth. This disproportion is attrib- 
uted to low habit of body, the consequence of venereal disease. 
Syphilis was introduced into these islands by Cook’s expedition, 
and the whole of the natives in some districts are now said to be 
reduced to a morbid, sickly state, many of the women being in- 
capable of child-bearing, and but few of the children attaining 
maturity. 
There are other concurrent causes to contribute toward this de- 
cay, among which the difference of food, and the introduction of 
clothing, and consequent diminution of ablution among a people 
who spent half their lives in the water, are not unimportant; but 
the district of Hanapepe, where the decrease was most rapid, was 
that in which the virus was first introduced, and here it is still 
most virulent in its action and effects. 
Whatever the causes, the same effect is in powerful operation, 
though not to the same depopulating extent, in other places. At 
Waialua, in 1832, the population was 2640; in 1835 it had fallen 
to 2415. There had been no war nor epidemic. It was the or- 
dinary condition of the people. Sterility and abortion are con- 
sidered the most potent causes. Abortion is very common, and 
there are cases in which women have had six or seven, and some- 
times ten in as many years, and no children.1 
Personal and mutual abuse had been much practiced in early 
life among the settlers, and is a cause of sterility. 
Previous to 1840, infanticide was, as we have shown, common. 
1 Wilkes, vol. iv. p. 77. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
405 
But here, as elsewhere, the marriage regulations which have been 
enforced by the missionaries and adopted by the converted na- 
tives are already operating in a reactionary manner against the 
decrease of population, and infanticide is almost unknown. The 
poll-tax for children over ten years of age has been repealed, and 
in its stead premiums are given for rearing large families of legit- 
imate children. 
It is admitted by all that licentiousness prevails extensively 
among the people even at present, but to a far less degree than 
formerly, when promiscuous intercourse was universal. Men 
were living with several wives, and vice versa. All improvement 
in this respect is to be ascribed to the labors of Christian mission- 
aries. To them the Sandwich Islanders owe their moral code, 
and the enactment of laws respecting marriage, as well as their 
political institutions. 
The observance of outward morality and decency of behavior 
has, as we have mentioned, been made compulsory in those isl- 
ands in which the missionaries have permanently fixed themselves, 
and acquired sufficient power to make their regulations respected. 
They have interdicted public gatherings for the purpose of amuse- 
ment, and even suppressed private games and diversions. This 
has been objected to as an interference with innocent recreation 
and pastime, and as encouraging formalism. 
But the missionaries had no choice in the matter. Paganism 
was deeply rooted in the daily life and habits of the people. In 
all religious festivals, feasting, dancing, and diversion formed so 
prominent a part, that the only method of eradicating the attach- 
ment of the people to their heathen practices was to abolish the 
usages which made the worship attractive. The dances are al- 
ways immodest, often lascivious and grossly indecent. They con- 
sist of little more than contortions and twistings of the limbs and 
body, and of throwing themselves into postures which, as they 
are mostly performed by females, are highly conducive to im- 
morality. 
Even among the Samoans, the dances, as performed by the 
women, are of the same libidinous character with the others, 
though the dances of the men are not indecorous. 
The diseases generally prevalent are skin affections. From the 
delightful climate and simple diet of the people, these are not of a 
very severe character. The islanders have been no gainers in 
this respect by their intercourse with Europeans. The venereal 406 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
disease has been introduced, and, from the deficiency of medical 
treatment, makes great ravages. Secondary syphilis is sometimes 
severe. At Tutuila, one of the Samoan group, it is said that ve- 
nereal disease is entirely unknown, while in the other islands of 
the group it is very rare. 
Political circumstances; the introduction of new elements into 
Polynesian life; the daily increasing intercourse between the isl- 
anders and foreigners, all contribute to make the alterations in the 
social aspects of the South Sea Islands very rapid, so that every 
year may work new changes. Some recent writers affect to doubt 
the benefits of missionary labors among the islanders, who, as they 
say, have been thereby diverted from their innocent and simple 
habits of life; in place of which, it is alleged, a harsh and hypo- 
critical austerity has been adopted; the purity of their morals and 
the vigor of their constitutions have been sapped and destroyed 
by the contact with Europeans and Americans, and the whole re- 
sult of foreign intercourse has been unmixed evil. We reject 
these conclusions, as savoring too strongly of party prejudice and 
class antipathies. The tendency of the Gospel always is to purify 
and elevate savage tribes. The missionaries have, perhaps, over- 
estimated and overstated the extent of benefit accomplished by 
them, and the gayety and cheerfulness, so pleasing in appearance 
to the casual visitor, yet so deceptive in reality, may have been 
diminished. But the purity of savage life is a delusion, and some- 
thing has been achieved if only an outward conformity to the 
laws and dictates of Christianity has been produced. 
A very slight notice of the West Indies will suffice, for of the 
savage races scarcely a vestige remains; of the negro population 
a general view is all that is required, and the civilized colonists 
retain so much of the impress of the countries whence they came 
as to require no special remarks. When Columbus first visited 
these beautiful islands, he found them inhabited by two classes of 
men—the savage Caribs, who delighted in war and preyed upon 
the weaker tribes; and the simple communities, whose pacific 
habits made them victims of their violent neighbors. The people 
were alike distinct in the treatment of women. The peaceful isl- 
anders admitted females to a participation in all the delights of 
their rural life, allowing them to mingle in the dance, to inherit 
power, and to share all their pleasures. Among the cannibal 
WEST INDIES. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
407 
Caribs a different fashion prevailed. The handsomest of their 
war-prisoners were retained as slaves, the rest were drowned. 
The lot of these exiles, as of the Carib women themselves, was 
hard enough. The nation was low and barbarous, and its women 
were treated accordingly, the men regarding them as an inferior 
race, whose degradation was only natural. A wife was her hus- 
band’s slave, and all the drudgery of life fell upon her. She ap- 
proached him with abject humility, and, if she ever complained of 
ill-usage, it was at the risk of her life; her children, however, 
were loved and watched with tender care. 
The original inhabitants of the West Indian islands have dis- 
appeared, and are succeeded by a mixture of races, of whom the 
negroes claim our attention now. Among the blacks of Antigua, 
as an example, immorality is characteristic. Infanticide is fre- 
quently practiced, even since the Emancipation Bill was passed. 
The reason for this is clear. Under slavery, negroes could not 
contract a legal marriage; they therefore cohabited, and the union 
lasted as long as their affection or appetite existed. No disgrace 
attached to a woman who had borne children to several men. 
Now an idea of female virtue has been awakened, and they seek 
to escape the consequences of an illicit amour by destroying its 
offspring, upon the principle that where no tangible evidence of 
a crime exists, no crime has been committed. 
During slavery, concubinage was general; and although many 
masters offered rewards to such as lived faithfully with one part- 
ner, the vice was all but universal, and a permanent engagement 
between a man and woman was seldom formed. Two females 
frequently lived with one man, one being considered his wife, and 
the other his mistress. When the negroes were emancipated in 
1834, many were anxious to be legally married, and others put 
away the partners of their compulsory servitude and took new 
companions. Bigamy was not uncommon then, nor is it rare now, 
many devices being adopted to elude the stringent laws on this 
matter. Concubinage is less general than formerly, but the mar- 
riage covenant is by no means respected, nor is chastity much es- 
teemed. 
In St. Lucia sexual intercourse was unrestrained and almost 
promiscuous, and the negroes of the island are, even to this day, 
averse to matrimony and inclined to concubinage. In either re- 
lation they are equally faithless, the only redeeming feature being 
love of their children. 408 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The same low state of morals is observable in Santa Cruz, but 
in Jamaica the negroes are mostly married and faithful to their 
engagements. Formerly the intercourse of the sexes was loose, 
profligate, and lewd. When the missionaries attempted to reform 
this, any who submitted to their teachings were ridiculed by the 
demoralized of their comrades. It must be admitted that Euro- 
peans have not shown any good example to the negroes, but, on 
the contrary, have encouraged their vices. 
A curious system of manners now prevails in Java. Hindoos 
have been succeeded by Mohammedans, and they, in turn, have 
given place to Dutch, each having impressed some characteristic 
on the people. As elsewhere, the condition of the female sex will 
indicate the general character. The institution of marriage is uni- 
versally known, if not practiced or respected, and the lot of women 
may be considered fortunate. They are not ill-used in any man- 
ner, and the seclusion imposed upon the more opulent is rather a 
withdrawal from the indiscriminate gaze of the people than that 
lonely secrecy exacted by jealousy in some parts of the East. The 
condition of the sex in Java is an exception to the habits of Asi- 
atics. They associate with the men in all the pleasures and offi- 
ces of life, eat with them, and live on terms of mutual equality. 
They are sometimes permitted to ascend the throne, and, in short, 
nowhere throughout the island are they treated with coarseness, 
violence, or neglect. They are willing and industrious, and are 
admitted to many honorable employments. Men sometimes act 
tyrannically in their households, but this only shows the fault of 
an individual, not of a class. 
JAVA. 
Polygamy and concubinage are practiced by the nobility with- 
out reference to public opinion, but are not generally adopted, 
being regarded as vicious luxuries. The first wife is always mis- 
tress of the household; the others are her servants, who may min- 
ister to her husband’s pleasures, but do not share his rank or 
wealth. No man will give his daughter as second or third wife, 
unless to some one far superior in rank to himself; and a woman 
considers it dishonorable, not, in the abstract, to prostitute herself, 
but to form a connection with any man of humbler birth than her- 
self. 
But, though polygamy and concubinage are seldom known in 
Java, their absence must not be considered as implying superior BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
409 
morality. On the contrary, it is the most immoral country in 
Asia. A woman who would not condescend to be the second 
wife of a chief would not scruple to commit adultery with him. 
In general terms, both sexes are profligate and depraved, although 
the islanders boast the chastity of their women as a distinguishing 
ornament, because a married woman would shriek if a stranger 
attempted to kiss her before her attendants. 
Divorce can be procured in Java with the utmost freedom, and 
is a privilege in which the women indulge themselves to a wanton 
degree. If a wife pays her husband a sum of money, he must 
leave her. He is not legally bound to accept her offer, but public 
opinion considers it disreputable to live with a woman who has 
thus signified her wishes for a separation, and he yields to general 
sentiment what is not exacted by law. The husband is often 
changed three or four times before the woman is thirty years old, 
and some boast the exercise of this privilege twelve times. As 
the means of subsistence abound, and are procured as easily by 
women as by men, the former are independent of the latter, and 
find no difficulty in living without husbands. Unfortunately for 
the theories of some female reformers of the present day, who im- 
agine that such independence foreshadows the millennium of wom- 
an’s rights, it must be admitted that, where the experiment has 
been tried, the sex are proverbially dissolute. 
Among the wealthier classes the utmost immorality prevails, 
and in the great towns the population is debauched to the last 
degree. Intrigues with married women continually occur, and 
are prosecuted almost before the face of the husbands, who are 
often so tame and servile that they dare not assert their conjugal 
rights. Travelers have noticed flagrant instances of the looseness 
of Japanese manners, but one case will suffice. One of the princes, 
who had seduced a married woman, and was in the habit of visit- 
ing her at times when her husband, an officer in the public guard, 
was on duty, was surprised in her company on one occasion, the 
chief having returned home earlier than was expected. He knew 
the rank of his visitor, and discreetly coughed, so that the prince 
had time to escape. He then went to the chamber and flogged 
his wife. She complained to the prince, who was particularly de- 
sirous, at that time, to conciliate his subjects. He sent for the 
husband, made him many rich presents, and allowed him to select 
the handsomest woman in the royal household in place of the frail 
one who had betrayed him. The husband accepted the peace-of- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ferings, allowed his wife to return home with him, and all the par- 
ties were satisfied. 
In Java women are usually married very young, as their chas- 
tity is in danger as soon as they reach maturity. At eighteen or 
twenty a girl is considered to be getting old, and scarcely any are 
unmarried after twenty-two. Yet age does not exclude a woman 
from the probabilities of matrimony, for widows often procure 
husbands at fifty. The preliminary arrangements are made by 
the parents, as scandal would not allow the young people to take 
any part in a transaction in which they are looked upon, as the na- 
tives express it, as mere puppets. The father of the youth, having 
made a suitable choice, proposes to the parents of the girl. If they 
are willing, the betrothal is ratified by some trifling present, and 
visits are made, that the intended nuptials may be publicly known. 
Subsequently the price of the lady is arranged, varying according 
to the rank and circumstances of the family. Sometimes this is 
plainly called the “ purchase-money,” and sometimes by a more 
delicate term, the “ deposit.” It is considered as a settlement for 
the bride. The only religious feature in the marriage ceremony 
is an exchange of vows in the mosque. This is followed by many 
observances of etiquette and parade. Finally, the married couple 
eat from the same vessel, to testify their common fortune, or the 
bride washes her husband’s feet in token of subjection. 
The Javanese support a large class of women as public dancers. 
The inhabitants are passionately fond of this amusement, but no 
respectable woman will join in it, and all its female partisans are 
prostitutes; in fact, the words dancer and prostitute are synony- 
mous in their language. A chief of high rank is not ashamed to 
be seen with one of these women, who figure at most large enter- 
tainments, and frequently amass enough money to induce some 
petty chief to marry them. So strong, however, is their ruling 
passion, they soon ascertain that domesticity is not their sphere, 
and become tired of their husbands, whom they divorce without 
ceremony, and coolly return to their public life. The dress in 
which they perform is very immodest, but they seldom descend to 
such obscene and degrading postures as may be witnessed in oth- 
er Eastern countries. 
European example has not done much for Java. The Dutch 
merchant has usually a native female called his housekeeper. 
In every city public prostitutes abound, while about the roads in 
the vicinity may be found others ready for hire. Their disguise 
as dancers is thought to conceal their profligacy. BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
SUMATRA. 
The population of this island is divided into several tribes, 
slightly differing in their manners. The Rejangs, who may be 
supposed to represent its original inhabitants, are rude barbarians, 
scrupulously attentive to the show, but wanting the spirit of deli- 
cacy. They drape their women from head to foot, dread lest a 
virgin should expose any part of her person, and yet modesty is 
not a characteristic of the people in towns and villages. Those 
in rural districts who are not so rigid as to costume are more dis- 
tinguished by decency. 
The customs of Sumatra are of a peculiar character, great im- 
portance being attached to required formulas; and the ritual is 
more essential than the principle. It is curious to examine the 
intricate details of a Sumatran marriage contract, which appears 
to be so little understood even by the people themselves that, we 
are informed, one of these documents is sufficient to originate an 
almost endless litigation. 
There are several modes of forming a marriage contract. The 
first is when one man agrees to pay another a certain sum in ex- 
change for his daughter. A portion of the amount, say about 
five dollars, is generally held back, to keep the transaction open, 
and.allow the girl’s parents a chance to complain if she is ill used. 
If the husband wound hei, he is liable to a fine, and in many 
ways his authority is controlled. But if he insists on paying the 
balance of the purchase-money, her parents must accept it, and 
then their right of interference ceases. If a father desires to get 
rid of a girl suffering from any infirmity, he sells her without this 
reservation, and she has fewer privileges in consequence. 
In other cases marriage is an affair of barter, one virgin being 
given for another. A man having a son and a daughter will give 
the latter in exchange for a wife for the former; or a brother will 
dispose of his sister in the same way. Sometimes a girl evades 
these customs by eloping with a lover of her own choice. If the 
fugitives are overtaken on the road, they can be separated; but 
if they have taken refuge in any house, and the man declares his 
willingness to obey existing rules, his wife is secured to him. 
The Jewish custom of a man marrying his brother’s widow is in 
force among the Sumatrans, and if there be no brother, she must 
be taken by the nearest male relative, the father excepted, who is 
made responsible for any balance of her purchase-money which 
may be due. 412 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Adultery is not frequently committed under this system, but 
when it is, the husband chastises his wife himself, or else forgives 
the offense. If he desire to divorce her, he may claim back the 
purchase-money, less twenty-five dollars, which is allowed her par- 
ents for depreciation in the woman’s value. If a man who has 
taken a wife is unable to pay the whole price, her friends may 
sue for a divorce, but then they must return all they have re- 
ceived from him. The ceremony of divorce consists in cutting a 
ratan in two in presence of the parties and their witnesses. 
Another kind of marriage is when a girl’s father selects some 
man whom he adopts into his family, receiving a premium of 
about twenty dollars. The father-in-law’s family thus acquire a 
property in the young husband; they are answerable for his 
debts, claim all he earns, and have the privilege of turning him 
out of doors when they are tired of him. 
The Malays of Sumalda have generally adopted a third kind of 
marriage, which they call the free. In this the families approach 
each other on an equal level. A small sum, about twelve dollars, 
is paid to the girl’s parents, and an agreement is made that all 
property shall be common between husband and wife, and if a 
divorce takes place it shall be fairly divided. The actual cere- 
mony of marriage is simple: a feast is given, the couple join their 
hands, and some one pronounces them man and wife. 
Where the female is an article of sale, little of what we call 
courtship can be expected. It is opposed to the manners of the 
country, which impose strict separation of the sexes in youth; 
and, besides, when a man pays the price of his wife, he considers 
he is entitled to possession, without any question as to her predi- 
lections. But traces of courtship may be met with. On the very 
few occasions when young people are allowed to meet, such as 
public festivals, a degree of respect is shown to women contrast- 
ing very favorably with the observances of more civilized com- 
munities, and mutual attachments sometimes spring from these 
associations. The festivals are enlivened by dances and songs. 
The former have been described as licentious, but an English 
traveler says he has often seen more immodest displays in a ball- 
room in his native country. The songs are extempore, and love 
is the constant theme. 
Polygamy is permitted, but only a few chiefs have more than 
one wife. To be a second one is considered far below the dignity 
of a respectable woman, and a man would demand a divorce for BARBAROUS NATIONS. 
413 
his daughter if her husband was about to take an additional com- 
panion. 
Marsden, the traveler already mentioned, says that in the coun- 
try parts of Sumatra chastity is general; but the merit is lost when 
he adds that interest causes the parents to be watchful of their 
daughters, because the selling price of a virgin is far above that 
of a woman who has been defiled. If a case of seduction occurs, 
the seducer can be forced to marry the girl and pay her original 
price, or else give her parents the sum which they would lose by 
her error. 
Eegular prostitution is rare. In the bazars of the towns some 
women of this class may be found, and in the sea-ports profligacy 
abounds, troops of professional courtesans parading the streets. 
No one would estimate the morality of a country from the spec- 
tacles exhibited in maritime cities. As a general rule, the Suma- 
tran is content to marry, and is faithful to his wife. This may 
proceed from temperament rather than morality, as their ideas on 
the latter are not very rigid. This is shown by their opinion of 
incest, which they regard as an infraction of conventional law, 
sometimes punishing it by a fine, and at other times confirming 
the marriage, unless it occurs within the first degree of relation- 
ship. 
Notwithstanding the attention which has been drawn to the 
island of Borneo within the last few years, it is yet but little 
known to the general reader. The investigations of Sir James 
Brooke and others have enabled us to discern many of its social 
features. Most of the inhabitants of Borneo are in a state of bar- 
barism. Some wander naked in the forest, and subsist on the 
spontaneous productions of the earth; others cultivate the soil, 
dwell in villages, and trade with their neighbors. The river com- 
munities are more advanced than those who live inland, and the 
inhabitants of sea-ports are more educated and more profligate 
than any. These have been farther debased by the abominable 
system of piracy, which, until recently, was their occupation. 
BORNEO. 
Among the Sea Dyaks, or dwellers on the coast, there is no so- 
cial law to govern sexual intercourse before marriage, nor is the 
authority of parents recognized in the matter. The Dyak girl se- 
lects a husband for herself, and, while she remains single, incurs 
no disgrace by cohabiting with as many as she pleases. After 414 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
marriage she is subject to more stringent rules, for, as a man is 
allowed only one wife, he requires her to be faithful, or in default 
punishes her with a severe whipping. If he is incontinent he in- 
curs a similar penalty. Cases of adultery are not frequent, though 
they sometimes occur in time of war. 
The ceremony of marriage is as simple as possible. The con- 
sent of the woman is first obtained, then the bride and bridegroom 
meet and give a feast, which completes the contract. 
If a girl becomes pregnant, the father of the child must marry 
her, and this is a common way of securing a husband. A man 
and woman live together for a time, and separate if there is no 
prospect of a family. During this probation constancy is not con- 
sidered indispensable. The fear of not becoming the father of a 
family, a misfortune greatly dreaded by the Dyaks, favors the 
loose intercourse of unmarried people. In some tribes the duties 
of hospitality require that if a chief is traveling he shall be fur- 
nished with a pro tempore female companion at every place where 
he sleeps. 
Among the Dyaks dwelling on the hills morality is of a higher 
standard. Single men are obliged to sleep in a separate building 
and the girls are not allowed to approach them. Marriage is con- 
tracted at a very early age, and adultery is almost unknown. 
Polygamy is not allowed, but some of the chiefs indulge in a con- 
cubine, for which they are generally blamed. There are certain 
degrees of consanguinity within which marriage is unlawful. One 
man shocked public feeling by marrying his granddaughter, and 
the people affirm that ruin and darkness have covered the face of 
the sun ever since that act of incest. As they many constantly 
within their own tribe, the whole commonwealth is in time united 
by ties of blood, and to this is ascribed the insanity common 
among them, a conclusion warranted to some extent by the im- 
becile state of well-known royal families condemned to perpetual 
intermarriages. 
It is said that many prostitutes may be found among the people 
of the South, but this rests on doubtful testimony, and in the 
Dyak language there is no word to express the vice. 
The Sibnouan females arc neither concealed from strangers nor 
shy before them. They will bathe naked in the presence of men. 
The unmarried people sleep promiscuously in a common room, 
but married couples have separate apartments. The labor of the 
household is allotted to females, who grind rice, carry burdens, SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
415 
fetch water, catch fish, and till the ground. They are not so de- 
graded as in other barbarous nations. They eat with the men, 
and take part in their festivals as well as their labor. 
Among the Mohammedan Malays there is more civilization and 
more corruption. They are polygamists, indulge in concubinage, 
encourage prostitutes, and ill use their wives. An English phy- 
sician lately received a message from the wife of a chief appoint- 
ing a secret meeting. He was punctual to the assignation, and 
met the lady, who asked him for a dose of arsenic to poison her 
husband, as he ill-treated her. Report says that the Englishman 
was disappointed in the nature of the interview, but firmly refused 
to grant her request. 
The rich Malays allow their wives to keep female slaves, and 
the jealousy of the mistress renders their situation any thing but 
pleasant. They sometimes serve as concubines, in which case the 
law renders them free, but many refuse to avail themselves of this 
advantage. 
We have no definite account of prostitutes in sea-port towns, 
but they appear to be of several classes: those who cohabit tem- 
porarily with the Malays, those who prostitute themselves indis- 
criminately to all comers, and those who are supported by sailors 
and profligate Chinese, who invariably create such a class wher- 
ever they settle. It is certain that women of this class exist in 
considerable numbers in Borneo. 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
Persia.—Afghanistan.—Kashmir.—India.—Ceylon.—Ultra - Gangetic Nations.— 
Celebes.—China.—Japan.—Tartar Races.—Circassia.—Turkey.—Northern Af- 
rica.—Siberia.—Esquimaux.—lceland.—Greenland. 
PERSIA. 
Women occupy an inferior position in Persia, where they are 
literally the property of men. The lower classes consider them 
valuable for their labor, the rich regard them as instruments of 
pleasure. While Persian poetry and romance are devoted to the 
praise of female charms, the realities of every-day life prove that 
the sex is held in slight esteem. The wives of the Shah vegetate 
within the walls of a luxurious prison; and if one is ever permit- 416 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ted to breathe the air outside, she is paraded in solemn procession, 
guarded by a troup of eunuchs armed with loaded muskets, in 
order to drive off any curious wayfarer who might be tempted to 
gaze on the charms of a royal mistress. Nor is this isolation pe- 
culiar to them; it pervades all the upper classes, and brothers are 
not allowed to see their sisters after a certain age. 
This jealousy is not decreased by the polygamy which is com- 
mon in the country. The religious laws limit a Persian to four 
wives, but allow him to keep as many concubines as he can af- 
ford ; and, in pursuance of this privilege, the harem of the palace 
is said to contain at times more than a thousand women, who need 
a stringent discipline to keep them in order. They are arranged 
with a strict regard to precedence. The chief favorite lives in 
splendor, her attire is covered with costly jewels, and she has the 
privilege of sitting in the royal presence. Her inferiors are sub- 
ject to much rigor, and the eunuchs preserve decorum by admin- 
istering personal chastisement with the heel of a slipper on the 
face of a refractory woman. They seem insensible to any degra- 
dation. Many of them lead a pleasant, idle life, lounging for hours 
in the warm bath, and emerging with enervated frames to deck 
their pretty persons in order to render themselves attractive to 
the Shah. They court his favor as much as they fear his frown, 
and with good reason. The former can raise them to the summit 
of their ambition; the latter can condemn them to be fastened in 
a sack and thrown from a lofty tower. 
Common usage permits a Persian to take a woman in three dif- 
ferent ways: he may marry, purchase, or hire her. In the first 
case, betrothal sometimes takes place in infancy, but it 'must be 
subsequently confirmed by the parties. In this they seldom fail; 
for if a girl shows any repugnance to ratify her father’s contract, 
he whips her until she consents, and she requires little of this 
kind of argument to induce compliance. The nuptial ceremony 
must be witnessed by two persons, one of whom is a legal officer 
to attest the contract. This is delivered to the bride, and by her 
carefully preserved, as it proves her title to provision in the event 
of widowhood or divorce. Though a man has the right to put 
away his wife when he pleases, the attendant expense and scandal 
render it a rare proceeding. Mohammedan jealousy farther pro- 
tects the woman, as no one will willingly allow a female with 
whom he has lived to fall into the hands of another. In addition 
to this, interest restrains a husband from using his privileges in a SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
417 
direct manner, as when he takes the initiative he must pay back 
the dowry he received with his wife. If she applies for divorce, 
he is free from this obligation. The advantage being thus on the 
man’s side, a species of tyranny is frequently practiced until the 
woman is forced to open the suit, when he gets rid of her, but re- 
tains her property. 
A Persian may purchase as many female slaves as he desires. 
These acquire no advantage of position by being his concubines; 
he may sell or otherwise dispose of them at any moment he thinks 
proper. 
The custom of hiring wives still prevails in Persia, though strict 
Mohammedans abhor and condemn the practice, which was pro- 
hibited by Omar, the successor of Mohammed. In operation, it is 
an agreement made by a man and woman to cohabit a specified 
time for an agreed sum of money. The children springing from 
this union must be supported by the father. If the man terminate 
the connection prematurely, he must still pay the whole stipulated 
amount, and the woman is restrained from accepting any other 
protector until a sufficient time has elapsed to prove whether she 
is pregnant by the former. Although these contracts are ranked 
as marriages, few readers will be inclined to think them any thing 
but systematic prostitution. 
Formerly there were numerous open and avowed prostitutes in 
Persia, among whom the dancing girls were conspicuous for the 
beauty of their persons and the melody of their voices. They had 
considerable sway until the time of Futteh Ali Khan, who crowd- 
ed his palace with concubines, and from among them issued edicts 
to suppress immorality, prohibiting the dancing girls from ap- 
proaching the court, and exiling them to the distant provinces. 
Social life was most depraved under the Sefi dynasty. Public 
brothels were very numerous, and largely contributed to the na- 
tional revenue, no less than thirty thousand prostitutes paying an 
annual tax in Ispahan alone. The governors of provinces allowed 
similar privileges for money, and there was scarcely a town which 
had not one licensed brothel at least, whose inmates (also licensed 
and taxed) were known as Cahbeha, or the worthless. As soon as 
the shops were closed these houses were opened, and the women 
repaired to particular localities, where they sat in rows, closely 
veiled. With each company was an old harridan, whose business 
was to show the faces of her troop to any man desiring a compan- 
ion, and to receive his payment when the selection was made. Un- 418 
HISTORY OR PROSTITUTION. 
der the reigning family this system has been checked; no licenses 
are now given, and prostitution has retired to secrecy. But the 
vice has in no way decreased, and public brothels abound in all 
the cities of Persia. 
AFGHANISTAN. 
Marriage in Afghanistan is a commercial transaction, the wom- 
en being sold for prices varying according to circumstances. This 
system is carried to such an extent that if a widow marries, the 
friends of her first husband can recover from his successor the 
amount originally paid for her. The necessity of purchasing a 
wife renders many of the poorer classes unable to marry until 
well advanced in years, in opposition to the custom of their 
wealthy neighbors, among whom bridegrooms of fifteen and brides 
of twelve years old are common. 
The prior intercourse of the sexes is regulated by various cir- 
cumstances. In crowded towns men have little opportunity of 
associating with women, and there professional match-makers ex- 
ist. Their functions are, in the first place, to see and report upon 
any girl whom a man may wish to marry; then to ascertain if 
her family would agree to the match, and, finally, to make ar- 
rangements for a public proposal. This is made by the suitor’s 
father, in company with a number of male friends, to the father 
of the girl, while a similar deputation of females waits upon the 
mother. Presents are made, the selling price determined, and the 
couple are betrothed. Soon after, the parties sign a mutual con- 
tract ; stipulation is made for provision for the woman if divorced; 
a festival is given; the bridegroom pays for his wife, and she is 
delivered at the dwelling of her future master. Similar formali- 
ties take place in the country, but, as the social intercourse is less 
restricted there, marriages frequently spring from attachment, and 
the negotiations are mere matters of etiquette. 
A romantic lover may obtain his mistress without the consent 
of her parents by tearing away her veil, cutting off a lock of her 
hair, or throwing a large white cloth over her, and declaring her 
his affianced bride. These proceedings do not release him from 
the obligation to pay for her, which is only evaded by an elope- 
ment, a serious step, considered by the girl’s family as equivalent 
to murder, and revenged accordingly, unless the couple secure 
shelter and protection from some neighboring tribe. Sometimes 
a man never sees his bride until the marriage is completed. In SEMI-CIVILIZED xVATIONS. 
419 
certain districts where this rule nominally exists it is practically 
violated, secret interviews between the bride and bridegroom be- 
ing tolerated, and called “ the sport of the betrothed.” The young 
man steals after dark to the house of his charmer, affecting to 
conceal his presence from the men, and is introduced by the moth- 
er to her daughter’s room, where the couple are left till the morn- 
ing undisturbed. The ordinary result of this is the anticipation 
of nuptial privileges, and cases have been known where the bride 
has borne several children before she has been formally delivered 
to her husband. 
Polygamy is allowed, but is too expensive to be practiced by 
the majority of the people, although some rich men maintain a 
large number of concubines in addition to the four legal wives. 
The social condition of females is low in Afghanistan. Among 
the more barbarous tribes they labor in the fields. With the poor 
all the drudgery of the house falls upon them, while the rich keep 
them secluded in the harems. The law allows a man the privi- 
lege of beating his wife, but custom is more chivalrous than the 
code, and considers such an act disgraceful. 
Of avowed prostitutes in this region we know but little beyond 
the bare fact that such a class exists, and that their profligacy is 
materially aided by the ignorance and insipidity of the wives and 
concubines, when contrasted with the knowledge of the world and 
comparatively polished manners exhibited by courtesans, whose 
society is frequently sought as a relief from the monotony of 
home. 
Unoppressed by any rigid code of etiquette, and naturally ad- 
dicted to pleasure, the people of Kashmir find much of their en- 
joyment in female society, and from the earliest times have been 
noted for their love of singers and dancers. In former days the 
capital city was the scene of constant revels, in which morality 
was but a secondary consideration, and now the inhabitants re- 
lieve the continual struggle against misfortune and despotism by 
indulging in gross vices, and drown the sense of hopeless poverty 
in the gratification of animal passions. The women of this de- 
lightful valley have long been celebrated for their beauty, and are 
still called the flower of the Oriental race. The face is of a dark 
complexion, richly flushed with pink; the eyes large, almond- 
shaped, and overflowing with a peculiar liquid brilliance; the 
KASHMIR. 420 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
features regular, harmonious, and fine; the limbs and bodies are 
models of grace. But all writers agree that art does nothing to 
aid nature, and it is not unusual to see eyes unsurpassed for bright- 
ness and expression flashing from a very dirty face. Among the 
poorer classes filth and degradation render many women actually 
repulsive, notwithstanding their resplendent beauty. 
Travelers always remark the dancing girls who have acquired 
so much renown in Kashmir. The village of Changus was at 
one time celebrated for a colony of these women, who excelled all 
others in the valley; but now its famous beauties have disap- 
peared, and live only in the traditions of the place. The dancing 
girls may be divided into several classes. Among the higher 
may be found those who are virtuous and modest, probably to 
about the same extent as among actresses, opera singers, and bal- 
let girls in civilized communities. Others frequent entertain- 
ments at the houses of rich men, or public festivals, and estimate 
their favors at a very high price, while the remainder are avowed 
harlots, prostituting themselves indiscriminately to any who desire 
their company. Many of these are devoted to the service of some 
god, whose temple is enriched from the gains of their calling. 
The Watul, or Gipsy tribe of Kashmir is remarkable for many 
lovely women, who are taught to please the taste of the voluptu- 
ary. They sing licentious songs in an amorous tone, dance in a 
lascivious measure, dress in a peculiarly fascinating manner, and 
seduce by the very expression of their countenances. When they 
join a company of dancing girls, they are uniformly successful in 
their vocation, and have been known to amass large sums of 
money. Now that the valley is in its decadence, their charms 
find a more profitable market in other places. The bands of 
dancing girls are usually accompanied by sundry hideous duen- 
nas, whose conspicuous ugliness forms a striking contrast to their 
charge. 
The Nach girls are under the surveillance of the government, 
which licenses their prostitution. They are actual slaves, and can 
not sing or dance without permission from their overseer, to whom 
they must resign a large portion of their earnings. 
In addition to these, who may be styled poetical courtesans, 
there exists a swarm of prostitutes frequenting low houses in the 
cities or boats on the lake; but of them we have no distinct ac- 
count. It is certain that they are largely visited by the more im- 
moral of the population, and an accurate idea of their status may SEMI-CIYILIZED NATIONS. 
421 
be formed from a knowledge of the fact that the traveler Moor- 
craft, who gave gratuitous medical advice to the poor of Serina- 
ghur, had at one time nearly seven thousand patients on his lists, 
a very large number of whom were suffering from loathsome dis- 
eases induced by the grossest and most persevering profligacy. 
In short, there can be but little doubt that the manners of the in- 
habitants of this interesting and beautiful valley are corrupt to 
the last degree. 
INDIA. 
India exhibits, in its different communities, many aspects of 
social life, but it may be said, in general terms, that the state of 
woman is degraded, as she is absolutely dependent upon man, and 
can do nothing of her own will. She must approach her lord 
with reverence; is bound to him so long as he desires it, what- 
ever his conduct may be; and if she rebel, is liable to be chas- 
tised with a rope or a cane in a cruel manner. Debarred the 
advantages of education, not allowed to eat with their husbands 
or to mix in society, women are yet not treated as abject slaves; 
and from the few revelations of the zenana which have been made, 
it may be inferred that its inmates receive considerable deference 
and attention. 
Polygamy is permitted in India, but not encouraged by the 
religious law, and only sanctioned in certain cases, such as barren- 
ness, inconstancy, or some similar cause, and then the wife’s con- 
sent must be obtained before a second and subordinate wife can 
be added to the household. 
Marriage is viewed as a religious duty by the Hindoos, only a 
few being exempt from the obligation. It is forbidden to purchase 
a wife for money; but the girls have little choice as to their des- 
tiny, being usually betrothed while young. A father has the 
right to dispose of his daughter until three years after the age of 
puberty, when she may choose a husband for herself: not many 
remain single till that time, as celibacy would be accounted dis- 
graceful, and few men would marry a maiden so old. In Bengal, 
betrothal takes place with many rites and much ostentation. The 
girl-bride is taken to her future husband’s house, and remains 
there a short time, when she returns to her parents until mature. 
The anxiety to dispose of a daughter as young as possible arises 
from the fact that her birth is regarded as inauspicious, and even 
as a domestic calamity, from which her parents are glad to escape. 422 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Hence the character of the bridegroom is a secondary considera- 
tion, and marriage often results unhappily. In fact, little else 
can be expected where the parties are absolutely strangers to each 
other until the union is effected. The uneducated wife, without 
a gleam of knowledge, amuses herself by a thousand trivial de- 
vices, such as adorning her person, curling her hair, or listening 
to the gossip of her slaves. It is, nevertheless, generally admitted 
that the majority of Hindoo women are faithful to their marital 
vows. The severe laws against unchastity are framed more for 
preserving caste than morals, and severely punish any woman de- 
tected in an intrigue with a man of different grade to herself. 
Divorce may be easily effected by the husband, but the wife 
has no corresponding power. A man who calls his wife “ moth- 
er,” renounces her by that act. A barren wife may be superseded 
in the eighth year: she who bears only daughters, or whose chil- 
dren die in the birth, in the eleventh year; and one of an unkind 
disposition may be divorced without any delay. 
The customs that prevail in different provinces respecting wives 
and their treatment may be described in a few words. In Arra- 
can, when a man wants money, he pawns his wife for a certain 
sum, or else sells her altogether. In the southern parts of the 
peninsula polygamy is largely practiced. The Shaynagas of Ca- 
nara are not allowed to take a second wife unless the first be child- 
less. The Corannas, the Panchalura, and other tribes, permitted 
polygamy and the purchase of wives. Among the Woddas every 
man had as many wives as he pleased; all worked for him, and a 
lazy one was divorced sans ceremonie. The Carruburru took no 
notice of an act of adultery if the wife was a hard-working wom- 
an ; otherwise she might live with any man who chose to keep 
her. In Rajpootana woman holds a higher position, and exercises 
considerable influence on the actions and tastes of men, for a Raj- 
poot consults his wife on every important occasion. The estima- 
tion in which they are held is indicated by a national proverb, 
which says, “When wives are honored the gods are pleased; 
when they are dishonored the gods are offended.” This district 
exhibits the Hindoo women in the most favorable circumstances, 
and even here they hold but a subordinate place, as must always 
be the case where polygamy is tolerated. It is scarcely necessary 
to review all the local peculiarities of so extended a people: 
enough has been said to show the social condition of married 
women. It remains to give some account of prostitution. SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
423 
Some of the dancing women and musicians of Southern India 
were attached to every temple; a portion were reserved by the 
sensual Brahmins for their exclusive pleasures, and the rest hired 
themselves out indiscriminately. Each troop was under a chief, 
who regulated their performances and prices. In the temple of 
Tulava, near Mangalore, a curious custom existed. Any woman 
could dedicate herself to prostitution by eating some of the rice 
which had been offered to the idol, and was allowed her choice to 
live within or without its precincts. In the former case, she re- 
ceived a daily allowance of food, and her prostitution was limited 
to the priests; in the latter, her amours were unrestricted, but a 
stipulated portion of her profits must be given to the temple. In 
Sindh every town has a troop of dancing girls, many of whom are 
very handsome. Before the British conquest the vice was largely 
encouraged; numbers of the women acquired considerable fortunes, 
and their political influence was potent in the durbars of the de- 
bauched Amirs. An evident reform has taken place of late 
years. 
The lascivious scenes of the southern country are not enacted, 
at least to the same extent, in Hindostan proper, where the inter- 
est of the English government has been directed against immoral- 
ity. Toward the close of the last century an official report was 
made on the morals of British India. It was bad enough; much 
laxity prevailed in private life; receptacles for women of bad 
character abounded; prostitutes had a place in society, made an 
important figure at great entertainments, and were admitted to the 
zenanas to exhibit their voluptuous dances. Contrasted with for- 
mer years, a great improvement is now perceptible, and the profli- 
gacy of large cities scarcely exceeds the vices of European com- 
munities. Thus Benares, with a population of 180,000, had 1764 
prostitutes; and Decca, with nearly 67,000 inhabitants, had 770 
prostitutes. 
Apart from governmental influences, it can scarcely be denied 
that Europeans have contributed to the advance of vice by taking 
temporary companions. These liaisons were scarcely considered 
improper. The custom was to purchase girls from their mothers. 
Many of them were faithful and attached to their protectors, but 
their extravagance and propensity for gambling made them very 
costly adjuncts. 
The religious ceremonies originated by the Brahmins were often 
but scenes of the wildest debauchery, rivaling the ancient Egyp- 424 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tian festival of Bubastis, and no good would result from an ex- 
tended description of dances performed by nude or semi-nude 
women, of the desecration of wives by a licentious priesthood, or 
of the disgusting polygamy of the Brahmins. Suffice it to say 
that such customs existed, but are now yielding to more refined 
observances. 
The general profligacy of the country has introduced syphilis 
in most parts of Hindostan. Some assert that it was carried there 
after the discovery of America, but neither history nor tradition 
warrants this opinion. It may be noticed that it is not called by 
any Sanscrit word, but is known by a Persian appellation. 
Our notice of India would be incomplete without an allusion to 
the suttee, or burning of widows, and to infanticide. The Shas- 
tres are full of recommendations to perform the first of these 
shocking observances, and promise ineffable bliss to the voluntary 
victim. It was carried to such an extent that fifteen thousand 
women are reported to have perished in one year in Bengal. This 
is doubtless an exaggeration, although the number was confessed- 
ly very large. Among the horrible details of the practice we find 
that betrothed children of eight or ten years old, and women of 
eighty-five, have alike been thrown into the burning pile. Fear- 
ful scenes have been witnessed on these occasions. A miserable 
wretch has twice escaped from the fire and clung to the feet of a 
traveler, vainly imploring him to save her; and then, naked, and 
with the flesh already burned from parts of her body, has been 
bound and thrown into the flames by the frantic relatives. Let 
British rule in India be what it may, no man, no “Aborigines 
Protection Society,” can regret its spread, in conjunction with the 
services rendered to our common humanity by the abolition of 
the suttee. 
Infanticide formerly prevailed to a great extent, but is now al- 
most extirpated from British India. The crime was sanctioned 
by custom, but not by religion or tradition. Its victims were 
chiefly females, and their murder was in consequence of the diffi- 
culty of marrying them within the required bounds of caste, or of 
the ruinous expenses which fashion required should be incurred 
at the wedding ceremonies, rather than from any other cause. It 
appears to have been the custom among the ancient dwellers on 
the banks of the Indus for the father of a female child to carry it 
to the market-place, and publicly demand if any one wanted a 
wife. If the reply was in the affirmative, it was betrothed at once, SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
425 
and carefully reared, but otherwise it was immediately killed. 
Wilkinson asserted twenty-five years ago that twenty thousand 
children were annually murdered in Malwa and Rajpootana, but 
by the system of rewarding parents who reared their offspring, 
and the gradual introduction of salutary laws, a mighty reform 
has been effected. 
CEYLON. 
Under the original institutions of the Singhalese, they never li- 
censed public prostitution, nor made brothels of the temples, as in 
India. Whatever effect the Buddhist religion produced was in 
favor of virtue, but the character of the people is naturally sen- 
sual ; profligacy among men and want of chastity among women 
are general characteristics, and even those who profess Christian- 
ity and acknowledge the moral law of England are not free from 
this stain. 
In Ceylon, as, indeed, in most parts of Asia, marriage is con- 
tracted at an early age. A man “ attains his majority” at sixteen, 
and a girl as soon as marriageable by nature is marriageable by 
law, at which time her parents or relatives give a feast, inviting a 
number of single men. Soon after, a man who may desire to 
marry her sends one of his friends to her parents to mention, in 
apparently a casual manner, that a rumor of the intended mar- 
riage of his friend and their daughter is in circulation. If this an- 
nouncement meets a favorable reception, the father of the bride- 
groom calls, inquires the amount of the dowry, and carries the 
negotiation a few steps farther. Mutual visits are then exchanged, 
preliminaries settled, and an auspicious day fixed for the wedding, 
which takes place with much ceremony. The stars are consulted 
in every step, and should the bridegroom’s horoscope differ from 
the bride’s, his younger brother may act as his proxy at the cer- 
emony. The whole Buddhaical ritual is a tedious succession of 
formalities, entails enormous expenses, and can not be followed 
by the poor. To those of low caste it is positively forbidden, 
even if they are rich enough to meet the outlay, and with these 
marriage is limited to a simple agreement between the parents of 
the young couple. 
Among the Kandians polyandrism prevails to a great extent, a 
matron of high caste being sometimes the wife of eight brothers. 
The people justify this custom upon several grounds: among the 
rich, because it pr< vc ts liberation, saves property from minute 426 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
subdivision, and concentrates family influence; with the poor, be- 
cause it reduces expenses, and frequently where one brother could 
not alone maintain a wife and family, the association of several 
can command the means. This plurality of husbands is not neces- 
sarily confined to brothers, for a man may, with his wife’s con- 
sent, introduce a stranger, who is called an “ associated husband,” 
and is entitled to all marital rights. This practice does not ex- 
tend beyond the province of Kandy, although it was formerly 
prevalent throughout the maritime districts of the island. 
Another Kandian peculiarity was a kind of marriage called 
“ Bema,” in which the husband lived at his wife’s house. He re- 
ceived but little respect from his relations, and could be ejected at 
once if unpopular. There is an ancient proverb in reference to 
this dubious arrangement, which says that a man married accord- 
ing to the Bema process should only take to Ins bride’s house a 
pair of sandals to protect his feet, a palm leaf to shield his head, a 
staff to support him if sick, and a lantern in case he should be ex- 
pelled in the dark, so that he may be prepared to depart at any 
hour of the day or night. 
In Ceylon, women frequently seek for divorces for the most triv- 
ial causes, and as separation can be attained by a mere return of 
the marriage gifts, it often takes place. If a child is born within 
nine months from this separation, the husband is required to sup- 
port it for three years. If a married woman commits adultery, 
and the husband is a witness, he may kill her lover. When a 
man puts away his wife on account of an intrigue, he may disin- 
herit her and the whole of her offspring, even if the latter were 
born before any crime had been committed by their mother. If he 
seeks a divorce from caprice, he must relinquish all his wife’s 
property, and share with her whatever may have accumulated 
during their cohabitation. The Singhalese do not always exercise 
their privileges, but are frequently indulgent husbands, and forgive 
offenses which most people hold unpardonable. In proof of this, 
a Kandian asked the British authorities to compel the return of 
an unfaithful wife, pleading his love for her, and promising to for- 
get her frailty. English jurisdiction did not extend so far as this, 
and the woman coolly turned her back upon her husband and ac- 
companied her paramour, whom she soon after deserted for a third 
partner. Many instances of this kind have induced the native 
poets to produce a number of satirical effusions upon woman’s in- 
constancy, and a traveler translates the following specimen : SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
427 
“‘l’ve seen the adumbra-tree in flower, white plumage on the crow, 
And fishes’ footsteps on the deep have traced through ebb and flow;’ 
If man it is who thus asserts, his words you may believe, 
But all that woman says, distrust; she speaks but to deceive,” 
To understand the first clause, it will be necessary to remember 
that the adumbra is a kind of fig-tree, and the natives assert that 
no mortal has ever seen it in bloom. 
Infanticide was at one time common in Ceylon, and all female 
children, except the first-born, were liable to be sacrificed, espe- 
cially if born under a malignant planet; but latterly the British 
government have denounced the crime as murder, and punished 
it accordingly. This has had the effect of gradually abolishing it, 
and the population has increased in consequence. 
The social condition of the Singhalese women is not so degraded 
as in other parts of the East, but their moral character does not 
correspond. Profligacy is prevalent. Open and acknowledged 
prostitution is rare, excepting in the sea-port towns, and of its ex- 
tent there we have no reliable particulars. Under the Kandian 
dynasty a common harlot had her hair and ears cut off, and was 
publicly whipped in a state of nudity. 
ULTRA GANGETIC NATIONS. 
In this division we include the immense tract lying between 
Hindostan and China. Although these countries present some 
variety of customs and degrees of progress, yet, generally speak- 
ing, their manners are uniform. In all, the condition of women is 
extremely low. They are held in contempt, are taught to abase 
themselves in their own minds, and employ their license by de- 
grading themselves still farther. The effect of Asiatic despotism 
is plainly visible: every man is the king’s serf, and the support 
of the community devolves upon the women, who, in Cochin Chi- 
na especially, plow, sow, reap, fell trees, build, and perform all the 
other offices civilization assigns to the stronger sex. 
The marriage contract is a mere bargain. A man buys his 
wife, and may extend his purchases as far as he pleases, the first 
bought being usually the chief. A simple agreement before wit- 
nesses seals the union, which can be dissolved with equal facility, 
the only requisite in Cochin China being to break a chopstick or 
porcupine quill in presence of a third person. A man has also 
the privilege of selling his inferior wives. 
The unmarried women are almost universally unchaste, and do 428 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
not incur infamy or lose the chance of marriage by prostituting 
themselves. Custom allows a father to yield his daughter to any 
visitor he may wish to honor, or to hire her for a stipulated price 
to any one desirous of her company, and she has no power to re- 
sist the arrangement, although she can not be married against her 
will. 
A wife is considered sacred, more as the property of her hus- 
band than from respect to her chastity. The theory of the law 
is, that a man’s harem can not be invaded, even by the king him- 
self; but Asiatic absolutism was never famed for its adherence to 
law when personal interest was in the other scale, and there is but 
little exception in this case. 
Adultery is punished in Siam by fine, and in Cochin China by 
death. In Burmah executions of females are very rare, but they 
are disciplined with the aid of the bamboo, husbands sometimes 
flogging their wives in the open streets. 
Although professed prostitutes exist in large numbers through- 
out the region, still there arc not so many as might be expected, 
because no single woman is required to be chaste. Little is known 
of their habits, peculiarities, or position, except that in Siam they 
are incapacitated from giving evidence before a justice. This re- 
striction does not seem to arise from a consideration of their im- 
morality, but from local prejudices, and the disability under which 
they labor is also extended to braziers and blacksmiths. 
CELEBES. 
Leaving the Asiatic Continent for a short time, we will now ex- 
amine the condition of the inhabitants of Celebes. This island is 
noticed here rather than with Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, which 
are included in the list of barbarous nations, because it enjoys a 
considerable degree of civilization, and in its political and social 
state is far in advance of other countries of the Indian Archipela- 
go. The idea of freedom is recognized in its public system, and 
its institutions have assumed a republican form. 
Women are not excluded from their share in public business; 
and though their influence is usually indirect, their counsel is 
sought by the men on all important occasions. In Wajo, they are 
not only elected to the throne, or, rather, the presidential chair, but 
also often fill the great offices of state. Four out of the six coun- 
cilors are frequently females. 
Their domestic condition, to some extent, corresponds with their SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
429 
political privileges. The wife has the uncontrolled management 
of her household, eating with her husband, and mingling freely 
with the other sex on public or festival occasions. The women 
ride about, transact business, and even visit foreigners as they 
please, and their chastity is better guarded by the sense of honor 
and the pride of virtue, than by the jealousy of husbands or the 
surveillance of parents. 
This is the bright side of the picture. For the reverse, we find 
the barbarian practice of polygamy, which is universally permitted, 
under certain restrictions. The most important of these is that 
two wives seldom inhabit the same house; each has usually a 
separate dwelling. The men can easily procure a divorce, and, if 
the wish to separate is mutual, nothing remains but to do so as 
quickly as possible. If the woman alone desires to be released 
from the matrimonial bond, she must produce a reasonable ground 
of complaint. Concubinage is rarely practiced, although some 
man may take a woman of inferior rank as a companion until he 
can marry a girl whose birth equals his own. 
The morals of both men and women are superior to those of 
any other race in eastern or western Asia. Prostitution is all but 
unknown. The dancing girls are generally admitted to be of easy 
virtue, but even they preserve decorum in their manners, and 
dress with great decency, although their public performances are 
of a lascivious nature. 
CHINA. 
In the immense empire of China a general uniformity of man- 
ners is observable, for its civilization has been cast in a mould 
fashioned by despotism, and the iron discipline of its government 
forces all to yield. There is great reason to believe that prosti- 
tution forms no exception to the rule. We know that a remark- 
able system exists, that frail women abound in the Celestial Em- 
pire, and form a distinct class. We know something of the man- 
ner in which they live, and how or by whom they are encour- 
aged, but no traveler has as yet given any lucid account of the 
vice and its connections, and our comparatively meagre knowl- 
edge is drawn from a multiplicity of sources. 
The general condition of the female sex in China is inferior to 
the male, and the precepts and examples of Confucius have taught 
the people that the former were created for the convenience of the 
latter. Feminine virtue is severely guarded by the law; not for 430 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the sake of virtue, but for the well-being of the state and the in- 
terest of the men. But national morality, inculcated by codes, es- 
says, and poems, is, in fact, a dead letter, for the Chinese rank 
among the most immoral people on the earth. The inferiority of 
women is recognized in their politics, which embrace the spirit of 
the Salic law. The throne can be occupied only by a man, and 
an illegitimate son is more respected than a legitimate daughter. 
The paternal government of China has not failed to legislate on 
the subject of marriage. In this contract the inclinations of the 
parties themselves are practically ignored; parental authority is 
supreme, and it is not unusual for weddings to take place between 
persons who have never seen each other before the union. Match- 
making is followed as a profession by some old women, who are 
remunerated when they succeed. When two families commence 
a negotiation of this kind, all particulars are required to be fully 
explained on both sides, so that no deceit can be practiced. The 
engagement is then drawn, and the amount of presents agreed on. 
This contract is irrevocable. If the friends of the girl desire to 
break off the match, the one who had authority to dispose of her 
receives fifty strokes of the bamboo, and the marriage proceeds. 
If the bridegroom, or the friend who controls him is dissatisfied, 
he receives the same punishment, and must fulfill his engagement. 
If either of the parties is incontinent after betrothal, the crime is 
punished as adultery. If any deceit has been practiced, and either 
person has falsely represented the party about to be married, the 
offender is severely punished, and the marriage is void, even if 
completed. In spite of all precautions, such instances sometimes 
occur. It must be noticed that, though betrothal binds a woman 
positively to her future husband, yet he can not force her from 
her friends before the stipulated time has expired, nor can they 
retain her beyond the assigned day. 
Polygamy is allowed under certain restrictions. The first wife 
is usually chosen from a family equal in station to that of the hus- 
band, and acquires all the rights and privileges which belong to a 
chief wife in any Asiatic country. The man may then take as 
many more women as he can afford to keep, but these are inferior 
in rank to the first married, although the children have a contin- 
gent claim to the inheritance. This position, if it brings no posi- 
tive honor, brings little shame. It is sanctioned by usage, but 
was. originally condemned by strict moralists, who designated the 
arrangement by a word compounded of crime and woman,. Ii is SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
431 
a position which only a poor or humble woman will consent to 
occupy. A national proverb says, “It is more honorable to be the 
wife of a poor man than the concubine of an emperor.” The so- 
cial rule which makes all subsequent wives subordinate to the 
one first married may probably have had some effect in forming 
this opinion. 
The Chinese system is rigid as to the degrees of consanguinity 
between which marriage may be contracted. In ancient times the 
reverse of this seems to have been the rule, and tradition says that 
much immorality was the result. The law now prohibits all un- 
ions between persons of the same family name, and is attended 
with some inconvenience, because the number of proper names is 
small. If such a marriage is contracted, it is declared void, and 
the parties are punished by blows and a fine. If the couple are 
previously related by marriage within four degrees, the union is 
declared incestuous, and the offenders are punished with the bam- 
boo, or, in extreme cases, by strangling or decapitation. 
Not only are the degrees of relationship definitely specified, but 
the union of classes is under restriction. An officer of govern- 
ment must not marry into a family under his jurisdiction, or, if he 
does, is subject to a heavy punishment; the same being accorded 
to the girl’s relations if they have voluntarily aided him, but they 
are exempt if their submission was the result of his authority. 
To marry a woman absconding from justice is prohibited. To 
forcibly wed a freeman’s daughter subjects the offender to stran- 
gulation. An officer of government, or any hereditary functionary, 
who marries a woman of a disreputable class, receives sixty strokes 
of the bamboo, and the same modicum awaits any priest who mar- 
ries at all, he being also expelled from his order. Slaves and free 
persons are forbidden to intermarry. Those who connive at an 
illegal union are considered criminals, and punished accordingly. 
According to Chinese law, any one of seven specified causes are 
allowed to justify divorce, namely, barrenness, lasciviousness, dis- 
regard of the husband’s parents, talkativeness (!), thievish propen- 
sities, an envious, suspicious temper, or inveterate infirmity. 
Against these the woman has three pleas, any one of which, if 
substantiated, will annul the husband’s application. They are, 
that she has mourned three years for her husband’s family; that 
the family has become rich, having been poor at the time of mar- 
riage; or, that she has no father or mother living to receive her. 
These are useless when she has committed adultery, in which case 432 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
her husband is positively forbidden to retain her, but under other 
circumstances they present a check to his caprice. In cases of 
adultery, a man may kill both his wife and her paramour if he de- 
tect them and execute his vengeance forthwith, but he must not 
put her to death for any other crime. In the same connection 
may be mentioned a law denouncing severe penalties on any man 
who lends his wife or daughter. This is not an obsolete enact- 
ment against an unknown offense, for instances do sometimes oc- 
cur of poor men selling their wives as concubines to their richer 
neighbors, while others prostitute them for gain. 
From this view of the social condition of women and the laws 
of marriage, it is necessary to pass to a subject which has given 
China an unenviable notoriety, namely, the custom of infanti- 
cide. Two causes appear to have encouraged this practice: the 
poverty of the lower classes, and the severity of the laws respect- 
ing illicit sexual intercourse. The former is the principal cause. 
When the parents are so indigent as to have no hope of main- 
taining their children, the daughters are murdered, for a son can 
earn his living in a few years, and assist his parents in addition. 
Among this class the birth of a female is viewed as a calamity. 
Several methods are adopted to destroy the child. It may be 
drowned in warm water, its throat may be pinched, a wet cloth 
may be pressed over its mouth, it may be choked with rice, or it 
may be buried alive. 
When Mr. Smith, a missionary, was in the suburbs of Canton 
in 1844, he made many inquiries as to the extent of infanticide. 
A native assured him that, within a circle of ten miles’ radius, the 
children killed each year would not exceed jive hundred. In Fokien 
province the crime was more general, and at a place called Kea 
King Chow there were computed to be from five to six hundred 
cases every month. A foundling hospital at Canton was named 
as preventing much of the crime, but it seems to have received 
only five hundred infants yearly; but a very small proportion of 
the births. The Chinese generally confess that infanticide is prac- 
ticed throughout the empire, and is regarded as an innocent and 
proper expedient for lightening the pressure of poverty. It is not 
wholly confined to the poor; the rich resort to it to conceal their 
amours. The laws punish illicit intercourse with from seventy to 
one hundred strokes of the bamboo. If a child is born, its sup- 
port devolves upon the father; but in cases where the connection 
has been concealed, this evidence is usually destroyed. SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
Prostitution prevails to a prodigious extent. “ Seduction and 
adultery,” says Williams, in his Survey of the Chinese Empire, 
“ are comparatively infrequent, but brothels and their inmates 
are found every where, on land and water. One danger attend- 
ing young girls walking alone is that they will be stolen for in- 
carceration in these gates of hell.” This allusion may be explained 
by the fact that in 1882 there were from eight to ten thousand 
prostitutes in and near Canton, of whom the greater portion had 
been stolen while children, and regularly trained for this life. 
Many kidnappers gained a living by stealing young girls and 
selling them to the brothels, and in times of want parents have 
been known to lead their daughters through the streets and offer 
them for sale. A recent visitor to Canton describes the sale of 
children as an every-day affair, which is looked upon as a simple 
mercantile transaction. Some are disposed of for concubines, but 
others are deliberately bartered to be brought up as prostitutes, 
anil are transferred at once to the brothels. 
Of Chinese houses of prostitution we have no particular de- 
scription, but one singular feature is the brothel junks, which are 
moored in conspicuous stations on the Pearl River, and are distin- 
guished by their superior decorations. Many of them are called 
“ Flower Boats,” and form whole avenues in the floating suburbs 
of Canton, The women lead a life of reckless extravagance, 
plunging into all the excitements which are offered by their mode 
of life to release themselves from ennui or reflection. Diseases 
are very prevalent among them, and visitors suffer severely for 
their temporary pleasures. They are usually congregated in 
troops, under the government of a man who is answerable for 
their conduct, or for any violation of public peace or decency. 
The last can scarcely be considered an offense, for the Chinese 
make a display of their visits to brothels. Persons pass to and 
from the Flower Boats without any attempt at concealment, and 
rich men sometimes make up a party, send to one of the junks, 
retain as many women as they wish, and collectively pass the 
time in debauch and licentiousness. 
This is not the only form prostitution assumes in China. Wom- 
en of the poorer classes, whose friends are not able to provide for 
them, are lodged in prison under the care of female warders, and 
these employ their prisoners in prostitution for their benefit. An 
incident which occurred at Shenshee a few years since reveals an- 
other phase. A young widow resided there with her mother-in- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
law, both being supported by the prostitution of the former. Her 
charms failed, she was deserted by her visitors, and starvation 
seemed inevitable. The old woman would not recognize her 
daughter’s inability to support her, and flogged her. The prosti- 
tute, in attempting self-defense, killed her mother. She was con- 
victed of the crime, but, as the victim had acted illegally in endeav- 
oring to force her to prostitution, the sentence of the court, which 
had ordered her to be hewn to pieces, was commuted into decap- 
itation. 
As before remarked, it is much to be regretted that we have 
not more reliable information of the vice, which is acknowledged 
to be all but universal in China.1 
1 Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the operations of the Allied 
Powers against China, and the capture of Canton, have given some farther insight 
into the domestic economy of this people. The special correspondent of the London 
Times, writing from Hong Kong, February 22,1858, thus describes Chinese holidays: 
“ During the entree acte all China has been exploding crackers, and Hong Kong 
has been celebrating its ‘lsthmian games.’ Toward the close of the three days of 
festivity the Chinese holiday became almost exciting. If they had kept up half as 
sharp a fire at Canton on the 29th of December as they did on the 14th of Febru- 
ary, we should never have got over the walls with a less loss than 500 men. The 
streets both of Canton and Hong Kong were piled with myriads of exploded cracker 
carcasses. In Hong Kong, where I passed the last day of these festivities, grave 
men and sedate children were from morning till midnight hanging strings of these 
noisy things from their balconies, and perpetually renewing them as they exploded. 
The sing-song women, in their rich, handsome dresses, were screeching their shrill 
songs, and twanging their two-stringed lutes on every veranda in the Chinese 
quarter, while the lords of creation, assembled at a round table, were cramming 
the day-long repast. The women—hired singing women of not doubtful reputa- 
tion—in the intervals of their music, take their seats at the table opposite the men. 
They do not eat, but their business being to promote the conviviality of the feast, 
they challenge the men to the samshu cup, and drink with them. It is astonishing 
to see what a quantity of diluted samshu these painted and brocaded she-Celestials 
can drink without any apparent effect. Ever and anon one of the company retires 
to a couch and takes an opium pipe, and then returns and recommences his meal. 
I was invited to one of these feasts; the dishes were excellent, hut it lasted till I 
loathed the sight of food. I believe the Chinese spend fabulous sums in these en- 
tertainments ; the sing-song women are often brought from distances, and are cer- 
tainly chosen with some discrimination. They are an imitation of the Chinese 
lady, and, as the Chinese lady has no education and no duties, the difference be- 
tween the poor sing-song girl and the poor abject wife is probably not observable in 
appearance or manner. The dress is particularly modest and becoming. They all 
have great quantities of black hair. If they would let it fall disheveled down their 
backs as the Manilla women do, they would be more picturesque, hut not formal 
and decent, as China is, even in its wantonness. The Chinawoman’s hair is gummed 
and built up into a structure rather resembling a huge flat-iron, and the edifice is 
adorned with combs, and jewels, and flowers, arranged with a certain taste. An 
embroidered blue silk tunic reaches from her chin nearly to her ankles. Below the SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
435 
JAPAN. 
The recent connection established by American enterprise with 
the semi-fabulous empire of Japan (the Zipangi of Columbus) 
makes the institutions of that country more than usually interest- 
ing. From the earliest accounts of the Dutch and Jesuit writers 
to the present time, we know that the Japanese, like the Chinese, 
have attained a high degree of civilization, and among both, the 
vices which, in the present experience of mankind, seem the ac- 
companiments of that improvement, have been developed in a 
remarkable degree. 
Among savage tribes female honor is held in very little esteem; 
the woman is merely property. As we advance in the scale of 
intelligence they take higher grade, and virtue and modesty are 
more cherished. Our information concerning Japan is, even yet, 
comparatively limited, but no circumstance of its ordinary life 
seems more clear than that female virtue among the higher classes 
is much valued, and that, at the same time, there is an enormous 
extent of public prostitution, in winch men of all ranks indulge. ' 
The Jesuit Charleroix, Kcempfer, Adams, and some Dutch 
writers, have given accounts of Japan from the sixteenth century 
to the present time. Like most Oriental nations, the manners 
and habits of the Japanese have undergone so little change, that 
the practices of a century ago are the fashions of to-day. The 
most recent traveler (for those who composed Commodore Perry’s 
expedition can hardly be said to come under that denomination) 
is Captain Golownin, and he had opportunities for close observa- 
tion not equaled since the times of the early writers. He was 
commander of the Russian sloop-of-war Diana, and visited the 
Japanese empire in 1811. Having paid a visit of ceremony 
ashore, he was induced, by the duplicity of the Japanese, who are 
tunic appear the gay trowsers, wrought with gold or silver thread ; the instep glanc- 
ing through the thin, white silk stockings, and a very small foot (when left to na- 
ture the Chinese have beautiful feet and hands) in a rich slipper, with a tremen- 
dous white sole in form of an inverted pyramid. In these sing-song girls you see 
the originals of the Chinese pictures—the painted faces, the high-arched, penciled 
eyebrows, the small, round mouth, the rather full and slightly sensual lip, naturally 
or artificially of a deep vermilion, the long, slit-shaped, half closed eyes, suggestive 
of indolence and slyness. What the voluble and jocose conversation addressed to 
them by the men may mean I can not tell, but their manners are quite decent, 
their replies are short and reserved, and every gesture, or song, or cup of samslm 
seems to be regulated by a known ceremonial.” HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
436 
adepts in all the political arts of lying and hypocrisy, to trust him- 
self in their hands a second time without arms or escort. The 
Japanese had an old grudge to settle with the Russians on ac- 
count of injuries done them by certain individuals of that nation, 
and took the opportunity of rendering a quid pro qiu) by entrap- 
ping the unlucky Golownin, who was thus made prisoner. He 
was treated at first with much indignity and severity; afterward 
with more indulgence, but did not regain his liberty for upward 
of two years. 
The Japanese can marry only one wife, but have as many con- 
cubines as they please. The precise value of the distinction is 
not readily appreciated, as the concubine does not lose caste by 
her position. There are great facilities of divorce, and without 
cause shown; but a gentleman who exercises this privilege loses 
his character as a husband, and can only procure another wife or 
additional concubines by paying a large price to his father-in-law. 
Adultery is punished with death, either by law or at the hands 
of the husband. Japanese husbands are represented as jealous, 
and as keeping their wives and women in strict seclusion. This 
strictness is relaxed in the cases of the middle and poorer classes, 
the necessities of the household removing those artificial obliga- 
tions imposed on the higher ranks by pride or fashion. But even 
the women of the humbler ranks do not converse with, or even 
speak to strangers, unless in the presence of their husbands. 
An anecdote is told in Adams’s narrative which somewhat re- 
sembles that of Lucretia in Roman history, and which would im- 
ply great self-respect among the high caste of Japanese ladies. 
A nobleman made dishonorable advances toward a lady of rank 
during her husband’s absence on a journey, and, notwithstanding 
a repulse from her, seized an opportunity to gratify his passion by 
violence. On the husband’s return the wife treated him with re- 
serve, and declined any explanation of her singular conduct, which, 
however, she promised to afford at a banquet to be given the fol- 
lowing day. Accordingly, during the feast, at which the author 
of the outrage was present, when the guests had satisfied their ap- 
petites, the lady made her appearance. She told her husband and 
his friends what had happened, denounced herself as unworthy to 
live, received the caresses of her husband and relations, by whom, 
however, she refused to be comforted, and then leaped from the 
parapet of the house, and so killed herself. Meanwhile the crim- 
inal had escaped; but when the horror-stricken guests rushed out SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
437 
to pick up the devoted wife, they found the nobleman weltering 
in his own blood at her side. He had ripped himself up, the or- 
dinary way of committing suicide in Japan. 
The Japanese brothels are of great splendor, and very numerous- 
ly frequented, containing thirty, forty, fifty, or even a larger number 
of women. Every place of public entertainment or refreshment 
maintains prostitutes as a part of the establishment. On stopping 
at a tavern, it is customary for the courtesans of the house to come 
out, painted and bedizened, and set forth the claims of their house to 
the traveler’s patronage, exhibiting themselves as one of the items 
of the bill of fare. No village, however insignificant, is without one 
or more houses of ill fame, and there are villages on much-frequent- 
ed roads, in popular districts, the whole of whose female inhabit- 
ants are prostitutes. Two in particular, Agasaki and Goy, are 
thus described by Koempfer. The females are designated Keise, 
which literally signifies a castle turned upside down. It is uncer- 
tain whether the government licenses these places, or merely tol- 
erates them. The former is the more probable, when it is consid- 
ered that in their mythology they have a goddess analogous to 
the Corinthian Venus, in whose worship prostitution is a recog- 
nized part of the ceremony. Attached to the temple of this im- 
pure deity are a large number of priestesses, six hundred or up- 
ward, who all prostitute themselves to the worshipers. Notwith- 
standing this large force, there are constant offers to recruit the 
ranks by young girls. 
The extent of this vice, which is universal throughout the em- 
pire, would cause it to be taken as a- regular institution of Japan. 
Nothing is done sub rosa. Courtesans form part of a pleasure par- 
ty; parents sell their children to brothel-keepers, or apprentice 
them for a time to such places, and at the expiration of their term 
they resume (it is said, but this is doubtful) their places in society 
without any stain on their reputations. Husbands make bargains 
for the transfer of their wives’ charms, which is a legitimate charge 
over and above the gratuity to be accorded to the lady. Koemp- 
fer, in describing the prostitute quarter of Nagasaki, says it con- 
sists of very handsome houses. The poor people sell their pret- 
tiest daughters to the brothel-keepers, who bring the girls up with 
various accomplishments. The price of these women is regulated 
by law, and many of the prostitutes are enabled to abandon their 
calling, for their good education and agreeable manners procure 
them husbands, and in their married condition they are fully aa 
good as others. 438 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
In his lifetime the brothel-keeper is said by some writers to 
rank with the skinner or tanner, an opprobrious calling, while oth- 
ers say he ranks with merchants, and his company is not deemed 
objectionable. This latter statement, if true, may be owing to the 
circumstance that he holds a government license. In Japan, as in 
China, the crown is the fountain of all distinction, and every gov- 
ernment official has peculiar privileges and a distinct position in 
the social scale. After his death, however, the brothel-keeper is 
held in great disesteem. The sanctity of the burial-place, to which 
particular reverence attaches, would be polluted by his unholy 
presence, and his odious remains are denied the rite of sepulture, 
and are dragged in the clothes in which he died to a dunghill, 
there to be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey. 
Prostitution as a public institution is said to have been intro- 
duced into Japan by a certain warlike emperor or usurper, who, 
leading his troops from one place to another in the empire, feared 
lest, from want of home comforts and domestic ties, they might be- 
come disgusted and abandon his service. Accordingly, as a sub- 
stitute for lawful enjoyments, he had stations for bands of prosti- 
tutes at various points, to the nearest of which he led his fatigued 
soldiers after his engagements. 
Another statement as to the origin of this system is that, on one 
occasion during a revolution, the spiritual emperor having fled, 
attended by his foster-mother and a numerous band of female at- 
tendants, temporary nuns, the emperor and his foster-mother 
drowned themselves in fear of capture by the enemies; where- 
upon the attendant nuns, cut off from all other resource, adopted 
libertinism as a means of livelihood, and this gave the first public 
example and sanction to a reprobate state of life. 
There are in Japan various religious institutions of a character 
similar to convents and monasteries. The vow of celibacy and 
chastity is one of the requisites of this state, yet, notwithstanding 
this vow, the monks are described as living very intemperately, 
seducing both women and girls, and committing other shameful 
enormities.1 
Among the mendicant religious orders to which both sexes be- 
long, the nuns are numerous. They are described as being very 
fine-looking women. They are generally the children of indigent 
parents, and good looks are essential to success in their calling, 
between which and prostitution there seems no difference save in 
' Golownin, vol, iii. p. 62. SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
439 
name. Indeed, many of these mendicant nuns go direct from the 
brothel to their new employment, which, combining various quali- 
fications, is probably more lucrative. 
We have been unable to find any information as to the nature 
or extent of venereal diseases, if any, in Japan. Of infanticide 
also we have no account. 
Commodore Perry, in the Narrative of his Expedition, confirms 
the facts above stated so far as his opportunities for observation 
extended. Difficulties were at first thrown in the way of his see- 
ing the Japanese women, and when he walked about the inter- 
preters preceded him, and, under a show of doing him honor, or- 
dered all the women into their houses. Afterward, on the com- 
modore’s remonstrance, the women were allowed to make their 
appearance, and their manners and looks were not by any means 
unpleasing. When the officers of the expedition were entertained, 
they sometimes waited on the party with tea, coffee, and other re- 
freshments. Their manners were mild, their countenances were 
soft and pleasing, the only objectionable point about them being 
the abominable habit of blackening their teeth with a highly cor- 
rosive pigment partly composed of iron filings and a fermented 
liquor called saki, which affected the gums very offensively, and 
caused an appearance and odor decidedly unpleasing to the tastes 
of Western travelers. 
The women of the working classes were engaged in hard field 
and out-door labor, but not to a greater extent than in densely 
populated countries in most parts of the world. Commodore Per- 
ry assumes that licentiousness must be prevalent in large cities, 
but he bears his testimony to the good conduct of the women 
whom the people of the expedition met while on shore.1 
The opportunities of information and particular inquiry were, 
however, not very great, owing to the more important political 
objects of the visit, and the not very protracted stay of the squad- 
ron in Japan. 
Not content with the excess of incontinence in which the Jap- 
anese as a nation indulge, they largely practice unnatural vices, 
and the youth of the province of Kioto, which is the peculiar ap- 
panage of the spiritual emperor, are celebrated on account of their 
beauty, and command a high price in this horrid traffic. 
Perry’s Expedition, p. 462. 440 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
TARTAR RACES. 
Central Asia is but little known and seldom visited. Among 
tbe most remarkable of its people are the Kirghiz Kazaks, who 
form a nation of shepherds. They dwell in huts, or temporary 
habitations of wicker-work covered with fleeces, and are a robust, 
hardy race, addicted to sensual enjoyments. Their manners as to 
the treatment of the female sex are coarse, but it is curious to re- 
mark that, while the men are indolent and licentious, the women 
are fond of exertion, for which their only recompense is to be 
treated as slaves. 
The Kirghiz, when rich enough, eagerly avail themselves of the 
privilege of polygamy; indeed, this part of the Mohammedan 
creed is the one they have embraced with most ardor, yet few 
possess sufficient wealth to marry more than one wife. The price 
paid for a woman will range from five or six sheep among the 
poorer classes, to two hundred, five hundred, or even a thousand 
horses among the rich, to which are added different household ef- 
fects, and occasionally a few male or female slaves. A consider- 
able share of these payments is absorbed by the Mohammedan 
moolahs, who find a profitable source of revenue in marrying 
these people. They consecrate the union as soon as projected, 
and immediately the amount of the kalym, or price, has been ar- 
ranged between the parties, the moolah solemnly asks the parents 
of the bride and bridegroom, “Do you consent to the union of the 
children?” repeating the question three times to each, and then 
reading prayers for the happiness of the couple to be married. No 
marriage is complete till the whole of the stipulated amount is paid, 
but neither party can honorably retract after the first installment 
has been offered and accepted. From that time the bridegroom has 
leave to visit his bride, if he engages not to take away her chasti- 
ty. In cases where this liberty leads to an anticipation of the final 
ceremony, the unpaid portion of the kalym is not allowed to pro- 
tract the union, which is hastened as much as possible. If a man 
find his wife to have been incontinent before he married her, he 
may return her to her parents, and demand the restitution of her 
price, or the substitution of one of her sisters. If he actually de- 
tects her in the commission of adultery, he may kill her, otherwise 
the adulterer is fined, and the wife may be divorced or chastised. 
The morals of the Kirghiz are good. Chastity in the woman 
is highly prized, and the sensuality < n ' men is served by pros- SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
441 
titutes, who live in each camp, either in companies or in separate 
tents. Numbers of these women appear wherever the Russians 
have encampments, and virulent disease among them has tended 
rapidly to thin the people. The prostitutes are composed of two 
classes—widows and divorced women, who have no other means 
of subsistence, and linger out a miserable life in dirt, rags, and 
contempt; and a few who addict themselves to prostitution from 
mere licentiousness. 
CIRCASSIA. 
The race known as Abassians, considered the aborigines of the 
Caucasus, were described by Strabo as a predatory people—pirates 
at sea, and robbers on land. These characteristics they preserve 
to the present day, but otherwise they are a virtuous nation, 
strange to the worst vices of civilized life, and humble in their de- 
sires. Their religion permits polygamy, but as wives are costly, 
they are usually contented with one, who is the companion rather 
than the menial of her husband. The women are industrious, are 
allowed full liberty, and are free in their social intercourse, the 
veil being worn only to screen their complexions, and not for se- 
clusion. 
Their laws against immorality are stringent. An act of illicit 
intercourse is punished by fine or banishment. A dishonest wife 
is returned to her parents, and by them sold as a slave, as is also 
a wanton girl. Illegitimate children can not claim any relation- 
ship, and if sold as slaves or assassinated, no one is expected to 
redeem them in the one case, or avenge them in the other. When 
a man desires to divorce his wife, he must give his reasons before 
a council of elders, and if they are not satisfied, he must pay her 
parents a stated amount to recompense them for the burden thus 
thrown upon them. Should the woman marry again within two 
years, this sum is returned. 
Among the Circassians themselves women are not secluded. A 
man will often introduce his wife and daughters to a traveler, and 
unmarried women are frequently seen at public assemblies. They 
observe one singular custom: a husband never appears abroad 
with his wife, and scarcely ever sees her during the day. This is 
in accordance with ancient habits, and is a prolongation of the 
marriage etiquette, which requires a man, after he has removed 
his bride’s corset of leather, worn by all virgins, for some time to 
refrain from openly living with her. 442 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Throughout the Caucasus a high state of morality is found. 
Open prostitution is unknown, and any girl leading a notoriously 
immoral life would be compelled to fly beyond the bounds of the 
territory, if she escaped being sold as a slave or put to death by 
her indignant friends. There is a general opinion that Circassians 
will sell their daughters to any Turk or Persian who wishes to 
buy them, but this is not the fact. They are particularly careful 
as to the position of any one who wishes to intermarry with them. 
Great precautions are taken to insure the happiness of the girls, 
and long-continued negotiations frequently lead to no result. The 
majority of females sold as Circassians are either children stolen 
from the neighboring Cossacks, or slaves procured from those Cir- 
cassian traders who own allegiance to Russia. 
Proud, sensual, and depraved in his tastes, the Turk is too in- 
dolent to acquire even the means of gratifying his most powerful 
cravings. Satisfying his pride with the memory of former glories, 
his lust looks forward to the enjoyment of a paradise crowded 
with beautiful ministers of pleasure, and he passes his time in an 
atmosphere of Epicurean speculation, lounging on cushions and 
sipping colfee with a dreamy indifference to all external objects. 
Even the poor indulge in this idleness. They measure the amount 
of labor necessary to keep them from positive want, and spend 
the rest of their time waiting the sensual heaven promised by their 
prophet. In such a lethargy the most violent passions are foster- 
ed, and when these become excited the Turk can not be surpassed 
in brutal fury. All his fancies are gross; moral power is an in- 
comprehensible idea, and he can conceive no authority not en- 
forced by whip or sword. 
TURKEY. 
The Turkish character thus exhibited corresponds with their 
estimate of the female sex. The person alone is loved; intellect 
in a Turkish woman is rarely developed and never prized. She 
finds her chief employment in decorating her person, her sole en- 
joyment in lounging on a pile of cushions, and admiring the ele- 
gance of her costume. Turkey is literally the empire of the senses. 
Polygamy is now growing into disrepute there. Recent laws 
have conferred many privileges upon women in matters of prop- 
erty, and their comparative independence has rendered them 
averse to a position in which they only acquire secondary rank. 
Men who marry wives of equal rank to themselves frequently en- SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
443 
gage in their marriage contracts not to form a second alliance, and 
this stipulation is very seldom violated. 
The customs of the country do not permit a man to see his wife 
before marriage. She may gratify her curiosity by a stealthy 
glance at him, but this privilege is seldom used. In consequence 
of the separation of the sexes, a race of professional match-makers 
has arisen, as in China, who realize considerable profits from their 
calling. Children of three or four years old are sometimes be- 
trothed, marriage taking place about fourteen. When a wedding 
is contemplated, each family deputes an agent to arrange prelimi- 
naries, the terms of the contract are embodied in a legal document, 
and the woman is then called “ a wife by writing.” This is con- 
cluded some days before the actual wedding, but the interval is 
occupied with rejoicings and hospitality, on which the bridegroom 
generally expends a year’s income. The union is a mere civil 
contract blessed by religious rites. All concubines are slaves, 
even in the harem of the sultan, since no free Turkish woman can 
occupy that position. 
The morals of Turkish women are generally described as very 
loose. Their veils favor an intrigue, the most jealous husband 
passing his wife in the street without knowing her. The places 
of assignation are usually the Jews’ shops, where they meet their 
lovers, but preserve their incognito even to them. Lady Mary 
Wortley Montague imagined “ the number of faithful wives to be 
very small in a country where they have nothing to fear from a 
lover’s indiscretion.” 
The dancing girls of Turkey are prostitutes by profession. 
Their performances are much enjoyed by all classes, and they 
dance as lasciviously in the harem, where they are often invited 
to amuse the wives and concubines, as before a party of conviv- 
ialists in the kiosks. Their costume is exceedingly rich, both in 
color and material. During the day they resort to coffee-houses, 
where they attach themselves to companions whom they entertain 
with songs, tales, or caresses until night, when their orgies are 
transferred to houses belonging to their chiefs. Many of these 
habitations are furnished with every possible luxury. 
Another form of prostitution is temporary marriage. For in- 
stance, a man on a journey will arrive in a strange city, where he 
desires to remain some time. He immediately bargains for a fe- 
male companion, a regular agreement is drawn up, and he sup- 
ports her and remunerates her friends while he remains. When 444 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
he is tired of her, or wishes to leave the place, she returns to her 
friends, and patiently waits for another engagement of the same 
kind. 
NORTHERN AFRICA. 
A very brief notice only is required of the semi-barbarous 
states of Northern Africa, particularly as an account of Algeria 
under the French has already been given. The mass of the pop- 
ulation are Moors, and therefore our remarks will mainly apply 
to them. Like the Turks, they are proud, ignorant, sensual, and 
depraved, and their treatment of women exactly accords with 
this character. They regard the female sex but as material in- 
struments of man’s gratification; and this idea is become so gen- 
erally received, that the sole education of a girl is such as will 
render her acceptable to some gross sensualist. Intellect and sen- 
timent are not the possessions which will recommend her: to be 
attractive, she must he fat. A girl of such bulk as to be a good 
load for a camel is considered a perfect beauty, and, accordingly, 
the mother does not train her daughter in seductive arts, but 
feeds her into a seductive appearance, as pigeons are fed in some 
parts of Italy. She is made to swallow every day a certain num- 
ber of balls of paste saturated with oil, and the rod overcomes any 
reluctance she may have to the diet. 
The Moors are extremely jealous of their enormous wives. 
Some have been known to kill their women before proceeding on 
a journey; others have forbidden them to name an animal of the 
masculine gender. They are entirely shut up within the walls of 
the harem, where they pass their time perfuming and decorating 
their persons, to attract the favor of their lords. 
The general marriage laws of Mohammedan countries prevail 
in the Barbary States. Four wives and as many concubines as 
he pleases are the limits within which a man is confined, but few 
men marry more than one woman. 
An extensive system of prostitution prevails in all the cities. 
The low drinking-shops are crowded with women. The public 
dancers, who all belong to the sisterhood, exist in large numbers, 
and are very much encouraged. Their society is a favorite recre- 
ation with Moors of all classes. A man entertaining a party of 
friends will send for a company of dancers to amuse them. There, 
amid the fumes of tobacco, and sometimes of liquor (for the pre- 
cepts of the Koran are disregarded on such occasions), the women SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
445 
practice the most degrading obscenities, and the orgies become 
such as no pen can describe. These prostitutes are of various 
classes, from the low, vulgar wretches who exist in misery, filth, 
and disease, to the wealthy courtesans who live in luxury and 
splendor. 
A late traveler was introduced by a friend to a “ Moorish lady.” 
He was ushered into a spacious apartment hung with rich-colored 
silks. Reclining on a splendid divan, with every appliance of 
wealth around her, was a woman of extreme loveliness. Elegant 
in her manners and address, she seemed a model of feminine 
grace, nor did the visitor discover until after he had left her that 
he had been conversing with a Moorish prostitute. 
SIBERIA. 
The state of manners to which the population of these snowy 
tracts has arrived is very low. They are rude, ignorant, and 
gross. The condition and character of the female sex correspond 
with that of the male. In the perpetual migration of tribes they 
bear the heaviest burdens, and in their habitations the man re- 
gards his wife as a mere domestic slave, to whom it is unnecessary 
even to speak a kind word. There are some exceptions to this 
rule, especially toward the centre of the district, removed from 
Russia on the one hand and the sea on the other, where more 
equality of the sexes is observable. 
A wife is generally obtained by purchase, and if a man is not 
rich enough to pay the sum demanded by the parents of a girl 
for the privilege of marrying her, he hires himself to them for a 
term ranging from three to ten years, according to an agreement, 
and his services in that time are considered equivalent to the 
value of his bride. These contracts are faithfully observed, the 
woman is invariably given up at the specified time, and the man 
released from his servile condition, and admitted to all the digni- 
ties and rights of a son-in-law. Where the bridegroom is in a con- 
dition to pay for his bride, the preliminary negotiations are man- 
aged by his friends and her parents; they are very quietly ar- 
ranged, but the spirit of bargaining is strong on both sides. The 
stipulated amount must be paid before the marriage is completed; 
and if a man steals away his bride before he has paid the full cost, 
the father watches an opportunity and recaptures her, retaining 
her in pledge until the balance is forthcoming. 
The marriage ceremonies vary in different tribes. With some 446 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
there is no feast or form of any kind; with others every marriage 
must take place in a newly-built hut, where no impure things can 
have been. The most detailed account of marriage ceremonies we 
can find is among the Tschuwasses. They offer a sacrifice of 
bread and honey to the sun on the betrothal, that he may look 
down with favor on the union. When the wedding-day arrives, 
the bride hides herself behind a screen while the guests are assem- 
bling. When the party is complete, she walks three times round 
the room, followed by a train of virgins bearing bread and honey. 
Then the bridegroom enters, removes her veil, kisses her, and they 
exchange rings. She is now saluted as the “ betrothed girl,” and 
is again led behind the screen, whence she emerges wearing a ma- 
tron’s cap. The concluding rite is for her to pull off her new hus- 
band’s boots, thus promising obedience to him. In this tribe the 
husband can divorce his wife by merely taking her cap from her 
head. 
Polygamy is practiced by many, though some prefer to take 
one wife for another as often as inclination prompts them, rather 
than take charge of several at the same time. 
Jealousy is little known among any of the races of Siberia. 
Modesty is not a female characteristic, nor is chastity very highly 
prized. If a wife commit adultery, the husband usually exacts a 
fine from the paramour for invading his rights “ without permis- 
sion,” Their barbarous manners would not induce us to expect 
any refined modesty, A traveler was introduced to the family of 
a rich man, the head of a tribe, and upon entering his low-roofed 
but spacious habitation, found himself in company with five or 
six women, wives and daughters, all entirely naked, who appear- 
ed excessively diverted at being discovered in such a state. The 
dancing women are as lewd as can possibly be conceived; indeed, 
obscene postures are the principal features of their entertain- 
ments. 
A licentious intercourse between unmarried persons is almost 
universal. With some, religious dissensions are extremely bitter; 
but profligacy is more powerful, and a woman who would rigidly 
refuse to eat or drink with a man of some other creed, will pros- 
titute herself to him from sheer lust. Abandoned women reside 
in all the towns in large numbers, and are scarcely reprobated by 
other classes. The education of a Siberian girl appears to be sim- 
ply telling her that marriage is her destiny, and that her husband 
will require her to be faithful. With this view sinl forms ac- SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
quaintances, is seduced by one and yields to another, until her 
profligacy becomes so notorious that no one will purchase her as a 
wife, and she follows, as a means of living, the habits she had re- 
sorted to for the indulgence of her vicious appetite. It is said that 
many prostitutes become so from this cause. 
ESQUIMAUX. 
The Esquimaux require but a very short notice. As a race, 
they are dirty, poor, and immoral. Dishonesty is a prominent 
characteristic, especially manifested toward any strangers coming 
within their reach. The lamented Kane, in his “ Arctic Explora- 
tions,” mentions the trouble to which he was exposed in guarding 
his stores from their pilfering propensities; but, after he had ad- 
ministered one or two lessons of chastisement, they abandoned 
this habit, and became of great assistance to him. He says, 
“ There is a frankness and cordiality in their way of receiving 
their guests, whatever may be the infirmities of their notions of 
honesty ;’n and when he parted from them on his perilous journey 
south, he remarks, “ When trouble came to us and them, and we 
bent ourselves to their habits; when we looked to them to procure 
us fresh meat, and they found at our brig shelter during their wild 
bear-hunts, never were friends more true. Although numberless 
articles of inestimable value to them have been scattered upon the 
ice unwatched, they have not stolen a nail.”2 
The Esquimaux women are not absolute slaves; their duties 
are almost entirely domestic, and during the winter especially their 
life is one of ease and pleasure, so far as their notions can compre- 
hend such advantages. Crowded inside a low hut, two or three 
families together, they spend their time in eating and sleeping al- 
ternately, both sexes being perfectly naked, except a small apron 
worn by the women as a badge of their sex. This nudity arises 
from the excessive heat of their cabins, which are rendered im- 
pervious to the cold outside. Dr. Kane mentions one occasion on 
which he was a visitor when the thermometer outside stood at 60° 
below zero, and inside the temperature mounted to 90°, and says, 
“ Bursting into a profuse perspiration, I stripped like the rest, and 
thus, an honored guest, and in the place of honor, I fell asleep.”3 
Respecting the morality of the men or the virtue of the women 
little is known. Parry says that husbands frequently offer their 
wives to strangers for a very small sum, and also that it is not un 
Arctic Explorations, vol. i p. 373. 2 Ibid. ii. 250. 3 Ibid. ii. 115. 448 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION, 
common for a change of wives to be made for a short time. He 
adds that in no country is prostitution carried to a greater extent, 
the departure of the men on an expedition being a signal to their 
wives to abandon all restraint. Lust rules paramount, and the 
children are taught to watch outside the hut, lest the husband 
should return unexpectedly, and find his habitation occupied by a 
stranger. Their marriage contract is a mere social arrangement, 
easily dissolved, but this is rarely done, the general custom being 
for a man to chastise his wife when she displeases him. The 
usual form of matrimonial discipline consists in forcing her to lead 
the reindeer while he rides at ease in the sledge. Their laws per- 
mit any man to have two wives, and a regal perquisite of the 
great chief was the privilege of having as many as he could sup- 
port.1 These brides were not uncommonly carried off from their 
parents by force, the ceremonial rite following at the convenience 
of the parties. Such attempts are sometimes resisted. An as- 
pirant for the favors of the daughter of a chief succeeded in con- 
veying her to his sledge, but the father pursued with such alacri- 
ty that the adventurous lover had to abandon the fair one, and 
made his escape with some difficulty, leaving the equipage as 
spoils to the victor.2 
Dr. Kane is of opinion that the services of the Lutheran and 
Moravian missionaries have produced a beneficial influence on the 
morals of the people. What may be called their normal religious 
notions extended only to the recognition of supernatural agencies, 
and to certain usages by which these could be conciliated. Mur- 
der, incest, burial of the living, and infanticide, were not consider- 
ed crimes, and these have aided exposure and disease (the small- 
pox has made fearful ravages among them) to thin their numbers, 
and impress them with the idea that they are so rapidly dying 
out as to be able to mark their progress toward extinction within 
one generation.3 This is more applicable to the northern tribes, 
removed from the effects of civilization, among whom murder and 
infanticide still exist, though not to so great an extent as former- 
ly, while in the southern latitudes, where it was formerly unsafe 
for vessels to touch upon the coast, hospitality is now the univer- 
sal characteristic; and truth, self-reliance, and manly honest bear- 
ing have been inculcated with considerable success, though not 
enough to render their notions of property accordant with those 
of civilized nations.4 
1 Arctic Explorations, ii. 123. 2 Ibid, ii. 125. 3 Ibid. ii. 109. 4 Ibid. ii. 12L SEMI-CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
ICELAND, 
This country is inhabited by a serious, humble, and quiet peo 
pie. Isolated from the rest of the world, they remain to this day 
in an almost primitive condition, and nine centuries have pro- 
duced little change in their manners, language, or costume. The 
condition of the sexes is somewhat equal; the men divide their 
labors with the women, but do not oppress them. Both are alike 
filthy and coarse in their habits. Their hospitality assumes some 
singular forms. Women salute a stranger with a cordial embrace, 
but their dirty habits generally render him anxious to escape 
from their arms as quickly as possible. A missionary was upon 
one occasion especially scandalized. He was visiting at the house 
of a rich man, who treated him liberally, and upon retiring to his 
room at night was followed by his host’s eldest daughter, who in- 
sisted upon helping him to undress and prepare for bed, declaring 
that it was the invariable custom of the country. 
Few absolute laws regulate the intercourse of the sexes. Chris- 
tianity has abolished polygamy, and public opinion holds a strong 
check upon illicit intercourse. With the exception of their sea- 
ports, the people may be called a moral race. The proportion of 
illegitimate to legitimate children is about one in every seven. 
Lord Karnes relates an anecdote which would stamp the Iceland- 
ers of one hundred and fifty years ago as any thing but moral. 
He says that in 1707 a contagious distemper had cut off nearly all 
the people, and, in order to repopulate the country, the King of 
Denmark issued a proclamation authorizing every single woman 
to bear six illegitimate children without losing her reputation. 
Report says the girls were so zealous in this patriotic work that 
it soon became necessary to abrogate the law. 
GREENLAND. 
The population of Greenland is partly composed of European 
colonists and partly of Esquimaux, They are a vain and indolent 
people, whose virtues consist in the negation of active vice. Their 
women occupy an inferior position. Marriage is essentially a con- 
tract for mutual convenience, dissolved when it ceases to be agree- 
able. It is considered etiquette for a girl, when any man demands 
her in marriage, to fly to the hills and hide herself, in order to be 
dragged home with a great show of violence by her suitor. If 
courted by a man she dislikes, she cuts off her hair, which is a 
sign of great horror, and usually rids her of her lover. 450 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION 
The Greenlanders consider themselves the only civilized people 
in the world, and consequently pride themselves on decorum. 
They do not allow marriages within three degrees of affinity, and 
consider it disreputable for persons who have been educated in 
the same house to marry, even if no relationship exists between 
them. Prostitution prevails to a considerable extent, widows and 
divorced women almost invariably adopting it as a means of liv- 
ing, There are numerous habitations in the large communities 
which can only be considered as brothels, but the life of an aban- 
doned woman is generally reprobated, and those following it in- 
cur the most undisguised odium of the people at large. 
CHAPTER XXXIL 
NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. 
Schedule of Questions.—Age.—Juvenile Depravity.—Premature Old Age.—Grad- 
ual Descent.—Average Duration of a Prostitute’s Life.—Nativity.—Proportion 
of Prostitutes from various States.—New York.—Effects of Immigration.—For- 
eigners.—Proportion to Population.—Proportion to Emigration.—Dangers of 
Ports of Departure, Emigrant Ships, and Boarding-houses.—Length of Resi- 
dence in the United States.—Prostitution a Burden to Tax-payers.—Length of 
Residence in New York State.—Length of Residence in New York City.—ln- 
ducements to emigrate.—Labor and Remuneration in Europe.—Assistance to 
emigrate; its Amount, and from whom.—Education.—Neglect of Facilities in 
New York.—Social Condition.—Single Women.—Widows.—Early and Injudi- 
cious Marriages.—Husbands.—Children.—lllegitimate Children.—Mortality of 
Children.—lnfanticide.—lnfluences to which Children are exposed. 
It is to be hoped the reader has already perused the introduc- 
tion to this volume, containing a description of the modus operan 
dl adopted to obtain the necessary information from the prosti- 
tutes of blew York City. The following schedule of questions 
was prepared for this purpose, and the ensuing pages present in 
tabular form the answers received thereto. 
“ How old will you be next birth-day ? 
“ Were you born in America ? and, if so, in what state ? 
“ How long have you resided in New York City ? 
“ If born abroad, in what country ? 
“ How long have you resided in the United States ? 
“How long have you resided in the State of New York? 
“ What induced you to emigrate to the United States? 
“Did you receive any assistance, and, if so, from whom, and to what 
amount, to enable you to emigrate to the United States ? NEW YORK. 
451 
“ Can you read and write ? 
“ If married, is your husband living with you, or what caused the separa- 
tion ? 
“ Are you single, married, or widowed ? 
“ If widowed, how long has your husband been dead ? 
“ Have you had any children ? 
“How many? —Boys —Girls 
“ Were these children born in wedlock? 
“ Are they living or dead ? 
“ If living, are they with you now, or where are they? 
“ For what length of time have you been a prostitute ? 
“ Have you had any disease incident to prostitution ? If so, what ? 
“ What was the cause of your becoming a prostitute ? 
“ Is prostitution your only means of support ? 
“ If not, what other means have you ? 
“ What trade or calling did you follow before you became a prostitute ? 
“ How long is it since you abandoned your trade as a means of living ? 
“ What were your average weekly earnings at your trade ? 
“ What business did your father follow ? 
“ If your mother had any business independent of your father, what was it. 
“ Bid you assist either your mother or your father in their business ? If 
bo, which of them ? 
“Is your father living ? or how old were you when he died ? 
“Is your mother living ? or how old were you when she died ? 
“Bo you drink intoxicating liquors? If so, to what extent? 
“Bid your father drink intoxicating liquors? If so, to what extent? 
“ Bid your mother drink intoxicating liquors ? If so, to what extent ? 
“ Were your parents “ Protestants,” “ Catholics,” or “ non-professors ?” 
“ Were you trained to any religion ? If so, was it Protestant or Catholic? 
“ Bo you profess the same religion now ? 
“ How long since you observed any of its requirements ?” 
In addition to this comprehensive series, space was left for any 
remarks the examiner might wish to make upon other points. 
The queries were printed on a large sheet of paper, with suffi- 
cient blanks for the answers, and the officer was desired, as soon 
as he had obtained all the information required, to fold the sheet, 
and sign his name on a line left for that purpose, with the date 
the inquiries were made, the locality of the house in which the 
woman resided, and the police district in which it was comprised. 
It is a matter of much regret that in the burning of the Island 
Hospital, Blackwell’s Island, on February 18th, 1858, all the sched- 
ules were destroyed. They contained many facts which, from 452 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
want of space, are but slightly alluded to in the following pages, 
and would have been of material service in any measures hereafter 
taken to mitigate the sorrows or prevent the excesses of the aban- 
doned women of New York. 
Farther prelude is unnecessary. It only remains to give the 
answers as received, with such deductions as may arise from them. 
Question. How old will you be next birth-day ? 
Age. 
15 years 
Number. 
. 2 
Sge. 
40 years . 
# 
9 m 
Number. 
. 25 
16 “ 
• 
It 
41 
tt 
t 
It ££ 
• 
. 62 
42 
u 
18 « 
• 
143 
43 
u 
6 
19 “ 
• 
. 258 
44 
a 
20 <e 
• 
268 
45 
tt 
• 
• • 
6 
21 “ 
• 
. 206 
46 
tt 
. 2 
22 “ 
• 
116 
4t 
a 
• • 
2 
23 ££ 
. 153 
48 
a 
. 5 
24 ££ 
• 
96 
49 
tt 
• 
• • 
3 
25 ££ 
. 9t 
50 
a 
. 4 
26 ££ 
t5 
51 
tt 
• • 
1 
2t ££ 
• 
. 53 
52 
tt 
. 3 
28, ££ 
• 
58 
53 
tt 
• • 
3 
29 ££ 
• 
. 49 
55 
« 
. 5 
30 ££ 
• 
44 
5t 
tt 
• • 
3 
31 ££ 
• 
. 18 
58 
32 ££ 
• 
16 
59 
tt 
• • 
2 
33 ££ 
• 
. 29 
60 
tt 
• 
• • 
• 
. 2 
34 ££ 
• 
15 
62 
tt 
• 
• • 
1 
35 ££ 
• 
. 19 
63 
a 
36 « 
• 
23 
66 
a 
• 
2 
3t ££ 
• 
. 11 
tl 
tt 
. 1 
38 ££ 
• 
9 
tt 
tt 
• 
• • 
• 
1 
39 ££ 
• 
. t 
Total . 
# 
2000 
The facts exhibited by this table are sufficiently palpable to 
render remarks almost unnecessary, but the existence of juvenile 
degradation is so clearly proven as to call for a few observa- 
tions. 
Between the ages of fifteen and twenty years are found about 
three eighths of the whole number embraced in this return. Be- 
tween the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five years nearly three 
eighths more of the whole number are included, giving in the 
first ten years of the table three quarters of the aggregate prosti- 
tution, while the next period of five years, or from twenty-six to 
thirty, contains one eighth more. It is thus upon record that 
seven out of every eight women who came under this investiga- 
tion had not yet reached thirty years of age. Beyond this NEW YORK. 
standard each year shows but a few, and of these veterans the 
majority are those who are now keeping houses of ill fame. 
Comparing this with the ages of residents in New York as given 
in the Census Reports, it will appear that prostitutes under twenty 
years of age are in excess about twent}T-five per cent.; as this in- 
quiry shows that for every four abandoned women between the ages 
of twenty and thirty there are three between fifteen and twenty, but the 
official classification proves that for every four women in the state 
between twenty and thirty years old, there are only two between 
fifteen and twenty. 
While juvenile degradation is an inseparable adjunct of prostitu- 
tion, premature old age is its invariable result. Take, for exam- 
ple, the career of a female who enters a house of prostitution at six- 
teen years of age. Her step is elastic, her eye bright, she is the 
“observed of all observers.” The habitues of the place flock 
around her, gloat over her ruin while they praise her beauty, and 
try to drag her down to their own level of depravity while flatter- 
ing her vanity. As the last spark of inherent virtue flickers and 
dies in her bosom, and she becomes sensible that she is indeed lost, 
that her anticipated happiness proves but splendid misery, she also 
becomes conscious that the door of reformation is practically closed 
against her. But this life of gay depravity can not last; her mind 
becomes tainted with the moral miasma in which she lives; her 
physical powers wane under the trials imposed upon them, and her 
career in a fashionable house of prostitution comes to an end; she 
must descend in the ladder of vice. Follow her from one step to 
another in her downward career. To-day you may find her in 
our aristocratic promenades; to-morrow she will be forced to walk 
in more secluded streets. To-night you may see her glittering at 
one of the fashionable theatres; to-morrow she will be found in 
some one of the infamous resorts which abound in the lower part 
of the city. To-day she may associate with the wealthy of the 
land; to-morrow none will be too low for her company. To-day 
she has servants to do her bidding; to-morrow she may be buried 
in a pauper’s coffin and a nameless grave. This is no fancy sketch, 
but an outline of the course of many women now living as prosti- 
tutes of the lowest class in the city of New York. 
Any one conversant with the subject knows that there is a well 
understood gradation in this life, and as soon as a woman ceases 
to be attractive in the higher walks, as soon as her youth and 
beauty fade, she must either descend in the scale or starve. Nor 454 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
will any deny that of those who commence a life of shame in their 
youth under the most specious and flattering delusions, the major- 
ity are found, in a short time, plunged into the deepest misery and 
degradation. 
Here is seen, at a glance, a reason for the large number of ju- 
venile prostitutes. Youth is a marketable commodity, and when 
its charms are lost, they must be replaced. The following cases, 
from life, will substantiate this view. For obvious reasons, the 
names are suppressed. 
C. B. is a native of New York, and now resides in the Eighth 
Police District of the city. She is twenty years old, and became a 
prostitute at the age of sixteen, through the harshness and unkind 
treatment of a stepmother, her own mother having died when she 
was an infant. Take another case from the same neighborhood. 
L. B. was born in Vermont; her father died while she was a child. 
At the age of fifteen she was enticed to the city, and became an in- 
mate of a house of prostitution. She is described as an intelligent, 
well-educated girl, of temperate habits. One more instance from 
the same locality. F. W. is a native of New York City; is the 
child of honest, hard-working parents; has received a medium 
education; at seventeen years old was seduced under a promise of 
marriage, and deserted. She then embraced a life of prostitution, 
influenced mainly by shame, and the idea that she had no other 
means of subsistence. 
These women are residing in that part of the city which contains 
the majority of the first-class houses of prostitution; they have 
not yet descended in the scale. The ensuing selection, taken from 
the Fourth Police District, the antipodes of the former locality, 
will forcibly exhibit the operation of this gradual deterioration. 
E. S. was seduced in Rochester, N. Y., at the age of sixteen. 
She accompanied her seducer to this city, and for a season lived 
here in luxury. She was finally deserted, and now drags out a 
wretched existence in Water Street. E. C., residing in the same 
neighborhood, is now nineteen years of age. She was married 
when but a child, and, five years since, or when she was only four- 
teen years old, was driven on the town through the brutal conduct 
of her husband. Passing through the various gradations of the 
scale, she has now become a confirmed drunkard; has endured 
much physical suffering; and, lost to all sense of shame, will 
doubtless continue in her wretched career till death puts an end 
to her misery. NEW YORK. 
455 
To continue this chain of evidence, the following cases have 
been selected from the registers of the Penitentiary Hospital (now 
remodeled, and called the Island Hospital), Blackwell’s Island. 
S. A., of New Jersey, was admitted as a patient when only fifteen 
years of age, suffering from disease caused by leading a depraved 
life, and within six months was received and treated therein no 
less than four times. A. 8., born in Scotland, was admitted and 
treated for venereal disease at fourteen years of age, L. A. D., 
born in England, was admitted at sixteen years of age, two years 
since, with similar disease, and, with only short intervals, has been 
an inmate of the hospital continuously from that time. M. H. 
was admitted at seventeen years of age, and endured a long and 
painful illness. M. J. D., after following a course of depravity for 
a year, was admitted at eighteen years of age, lingered in agony for 
twenty-five days, and then died, solely from the effects of a life of 
prostitution. 
It is not necessary to pursue this subject farther, as sufficient 
facts have been adduced to support the assertion that youth is the 
grand desideratum in the inmates of houses of ill fame. Young 
women have been traced from the proudest resorts to the lowest 
haunts, and have been shown as suffering pain and sickness in a 
public institution, or dying there in torture. But no attempt has 
been made to calculate the misery produced in the respective 
families they had abandoned. The excruciating parental agony 
caused by the departure of a daughter from the paths of virtue 
seems more a matter for private contemplation by each reader 
than for any delineation here. We have witnessed the meetings 
of parents with their lost children; have stood beside the bed 
where a frail, suffering woman was yielding her last breath, and 
have shuddered at the awful mental agony overpowering her 
physical suffering. No doubt can exist that, were it possible to 
introduce the reader of these pages to such scenes, or even could 
they be adequately described in all their accumulated horrors, the 
cordial co-operation of all the friends of virtue and humanity 
would be secured in furtherance of any plan which would check 
this mighty torrent of vice and woe. 
From the fact that youth is the grand desideratum, it is evident 
that a constant succession of young people will be driven into this 
arena, either by force or treachery. The average duration of life 
among these women does not exceed four years from the beginning of 
their career! There are, as in all cases, exceptions to this rule, 456 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
but it is a tolerably well established fact that one fourth of the 
total number of abandoned women in this city die every year. 
Thus, by estimating the prostitutes in New York at six thou- 
sand (and this is not an exaggerated calculation, as will be 
proved hereafter), the appalling number of one thousand five 
hundred erring women are hurried to their last, long homes each 
year of our existence. Neglected and contemned while living, 
they pass from this world unnoticed and unwept. But their 
deaths leave vacancies which must be supplied; the inexorable 
demands of vice and dissipation must be gratified, and who can 
tell what innocent and happy family circle may next have to 
mourn the ruin and disgrace of one of its members ? In a sub 
sequent portion of this work it will be necessary to notice the 
means employed for ensnaring the innocent and unsuspecting, 
and to show that this is a danger which threatens all classes of 
the community. 
Question. Were you born in America? If so, in what 
state ? 
State. 
Alabama .... 
Number. 
. 1 
State, 
Massachusetts . . . 
Number, 
. 71 
Carolina, North 
. 2 
Missouri .... 
. 1 
“ South . . 
. 4 
New Hampshire . . 
. 7 
Columbia, District of. 
. 1 
New Jersey .... 
. 69 
Connecticut.... 
. 42 
New York .... 
. 394 
Delaware .... 
. 1 
Ohio 
. 8 
Georgia 
Pennsylvania . . . 
. 77 
Illinois 
. 1 
Rhode Island . . . 
. 18 
Kentucky .... 
. 2 
Vermont .... 
. 10 
Louisiana .... 
. 4 
Virginia 
. 9 
Maine 
Total horn in United 
| 762 
Maryland .... 
. 15 
States . . . 
The number of prostitutes in New York who were born within 
the limits of the United States slightly exceeds three eighths of 
the aggregate from whom replies to these queries were obtained. 
They are natives of twenty-one states and one district, and may 
be subdivided in geographical order as follows: 
1. The Eastern District, containing Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- 
mont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Ehode Island, contributes 
one hundred and seventy-two women to the prostitutes of New 
York City. 
2. The Middle States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, contrift 
ute five hundred and sixty-six women. NEW YORK. 
457 
3, The Southern States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Geor- 
gia, Alabama, and Louisiana, contribute twelve women. 
4. The Western States, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, 
contribute also twelve women. 
On what hypothesis can these proportions be explained ? Maine, 
on the extreme northeast, with a rocky, surge-beaten coast front- 
ing on the wild Atlantic, with a harsh, cold climate, sends twenty- 
four women from her population of 580,000, while Virginia, with 
1,421,000 inhabitants, contributes but nine! This difference in 
favor of the southern state can not be explained on the ground 
of distance, for the boundaries of each state are nearly equidistant 
from New York; nor can it be sustained by the idea that Maine 
has more sea-coast, as the maritime coast of the southern state is 
at least equal to that of the northern one, and the ordinary tend- 
encies to immorality in sea-port towns would be equally felt in 
each. The case is still farther involved by the fact that in all 
southern cities the majority of prostitutes are from the north; and 
it is a well-known circumstance, that at certain periods large num- 
bers of courtesans from New York, Boston, and other cities emi- 
grate southward. Were the generally received opinion of the ef- 
fects of a warm climate upon female organization to be adopted in 
this connection, not only would there be no necessity for this ex- 
odus, but the number of prostitutes received from Virginia should 
largely exceed those from Maine. This fact is sufficient to con- 
firm the idea already expressed, that fraud or force is used to en- 
trap these females. The natives of a bleak northern state are far 
more likely to be deceived by the artful misrepresentations of 
emissaries from New York than the denizens of the southern por- 
tion of our Union. The former lead a life of comparative hard- 
ship, the latter one of comparative ease. In Maine, over six thou- 
sand women, or one in every forty-six of the female population, 
are immured for six in every week in a crowded factory; in 
Virginia, over three thousand women, or one in every one hund- 
red and thirty-four of the female population, are similarly employ- 
ed.1 This mode of life will form a matter for subsequent consid- 
eration, so far as its tendencies to immorality are concerned. 
Again: Place in contrast Ehode Island with eighteen women 
living by prostitution in New York, and a population of only 
140,000, and Maryland with fifteen prostitutes in New York, and 
a population of 418,000, and a more palpable difference in favor 
U. S. Census, 1850. 458 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of the southern state is apparent. The former sends one prosti- 
tute out of every eight thousand of her inhabitants; the latter, one 
out of every twenty-eight thousand. 
Calculating on the basis of the respective populations, Vermont 
and New Hampshire have nearly the same proportion as Maine; 
Massachusetts exceeds the average; and Connecticut {par excel- 
lence., “ the land of steady habits”) has a still larger excess. New 
Jersey has the largest proportion of any state in the union, and 
Pennsylvania shows about the average of Maine. The Southern 
and Western States have but few representatives. New York, the 
home state, will be noticed in due course. The preceding facts 
will supply materials for reflection, in conjunction with the ques- 
tion, “On what hypothesis can these proportions be explained?” 
The self-evident answer to this query would seem to be that the 
excess from the Eastern and Middle States arises from the employ- 
ment of a much larger proportion of females in manufacturing and 
sedentary occupations. A young woman of ardent temperament 
can not but feel the hardship of this position in life as compared 
with her more favored sisters in other states, and when such an 
idea has once obtained possession of her mind, it forms a subject 
for constant thought. Thus, when already predisposed in favor 
of any change, she falls into the hands of the tempter a pliant vic- 
tim. Beyond the hardship attendant on her daily labor, the as- 
sociations which are formed in factories or workshops where both 
sexes are employed very frequently result disastrously for the fe- 
male. Notwithstanding all the care which may be taken on the 
part of employers—and it is a subject for national pride that Amer- 
ican manufacturers are doing far more to elevate the moral char- 
acter of their employes than the same class of men in other lands— 
it is morally impossible that these intimacies can be entirely sup- 
pressed, nor can their ruinous effects be prevented. Study the 
moral statistics of any of the manufacturing towns in Great Britain 
or on the Continent of Europe, and the same results are presented, 
but in a more alarming degree, because there the supervision is 
not only weak in itself, but is frequently intrusted to improper 
persons, whose interest is often in direct opposition to their duty. 
A few words in respect to the State of New York. The num- 
ber of prostitutes in proportion to the population far exceeds the 
ratio from any other state except New Jersey. Beyond the effect 
of manufactures, which operate here to a corresponding extent as 
in other states, the immense maritime business of New York City, NEW YORK. 
459 
and the constant flood of immigrants and strangers passing through 
it, must be taken into consideration. This constantly fills some 
localities with sailors, men proverbial for having “ in every port a 
wife,” and many of whom are notorious frequenters of houses of 
prostitution. This circumstance proves that this infernal traffic 
is governed by the same rules which regulate commercial transac- 
tions, namely, that the supply is in proportion to the demand. If, 
by any miracle, all the seamen and strangers visiting New York 
could be transformed into moral men, at least from one half to two 
thirds of the houses of ill fame would be absolutely bankrupt. 
The constant flood of immigration leaves a mass of debris behind 
it, consisting, in the first place, of men idle and vicious in their own 
lands, who transfer their vices to the country of their adoption, 
and for a time after arrival here devote what means they possess 
to the pursuit of debauchery, and materially help to swell the tor- 
rent of immorality. Another class of immigrants are women, 
many of whom are sent here by charitable (?) associations or pub- 
lic bodies in foreign lands, as the most economical way to get rid 
of them. Many of these females become mothers almost as soon as 
they land on these shores; in fact, the probability of such an event 
sometimes hastens their departure. They exist here in the most 
squalid misery in some tenement house or hovel. Their children 
receive none of the advantages of education; for, as soon as they 
can beg, they are compelled to aid in the struggle for bread, and 
the most frequent result is that the boys are arrested for some pet- 
ty theft, and the girls become prostitutes, thus contributing to meet 
the demand caused by the classes already mentioned. 
But, in addition to these foreign children born by accident in 
our state, the proportion of prostitutes from New York is increased 
by the facility offered for transit from the interior to the city. 
Doubtless there are many courtesans from the eastern and south- 
ern districts who find their way to some of the large cities in their 
own part of the country, and so, on the same principle, when a 
woman in this state has fallen into vicious habits her natural resort 
is to this metropolis. In addition to the more extended market it 
offers for her charms, its advantages as a great central rendezvous 
for the nation must not be overlooked. Here a prostitute can live 
until her attractions wane, and hence she can easily reach any 
southern or other point where abandoned women are in demand. 
Despite of the large number of prostitutes ascertained to have been 
born within the bounds of New York State, it can not be conceded 460 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
that we are any less moral than our neighbors in other parts of 
the confederation. 
It is a matter for the most serious consideration, to be followed 
by sound and judicious action, either legislative or personal, that 
so large a number of American girls fall victims to this fell de- 
stroyer in a land where a good education is within the reach of 
every one; where industry, if properly applied in the right chan- 
nels, will afford a comfortable maintenance for all; where the nat- 
ural resources are sufficient to support nearly half the inhabitants 
of the world. 
Question. Were you born abroad? If so, in what coun- 
try? 
Countries. 
Numbers. 
Countries. 
Numbers. 
Austria 
2 
Poland 
3 
Belgium 
1 
Prussia 
6 
British North America 
. 63 
Saxony 
2 
Denmark .... 
1 
Scotland 
52 
England 
. 104 
Switzerland 
17 
France 
. 13 
Wales 
1 
Germany .... 
. 249 
West Indies .... 
4 
Ireland 
. 706 
At Sea 
13 
Italy 
1 
Total born abroad . 
1238 
It has been frequently remarked, and as generally believed, in 
the absence of any satisfactory information on the subject, that a 
very large majority of the prostitutes in New York are of foreign 
birth; but the facts already developed, with the few remarks which 
will be made upon the above table of nativities, go far toward 
falsifying that opinion. The enumeration shows that five eighths 
only were born abroad, the dominions of Great Britain furnishing 
the largest proportion. The ratio in which the several parts of 
that kingdom supply the New World with courtesans may be stated 
in round numbers as follows: Ireland contributes one prostitute to 
every four thousand of her population; British North America, 
one prostitute to every seven thousand of population; Scotland, 
one prostitute to every sixteen thousand of population; England 
and Wales, one prostitute to every fifty thousand of population. 
Of course, this will be understood as referring to all prostitutes 
now living in this city, assuming the average nativities of all to be 
fairly represented in the replies obtained from a portion. 
But these numbers, being based upon the population of the sev- 
eral countries, give but a very imperfect idea of the extent of vice 
among that portion of their people who have settled in America, 
and a more satisfactory comparison can be drawn from the records NEW YORK. 
of emigration. Upon an examination of the arrivals in each year 
from the time the existing Board of Commissioners of Emigration 
was organized to the end of 1857 (a period of ten years), it is 
found that the numbers average two hundred and thirty thou- 
sand per annum, which gives a proportion of one prostitute to ev- 
ery two hundred and fifty emigrants. This is based upon the 
theory that one fourth of the abandoned women die or are other- 
wise removed from the city every year. To repeat this fact in 
plainer words: of every two hundred and fifty emigrants—men, 
women, and children, who land at our docks, at least one woman 
eventually becomes known as a prostitute. 
This demoralization may be accounted for in several ways. 
There is frequently a protracted interval between the time when 
families arrive at the intended port of departure and the day on 
which they sail; and during this space they are exposed to all 
the malign influences invariably existing in large sea-port towns, 
which must impart vicious ideas to young people who have re- 
cently left some secluded part of the country. Take Liverpool, 
for instance, the port whence the largest number of emigrants 
come to us, and which contains one prostitute for every eighty- 
eight inhabitants, and the wonder will be, not that so many are 
contaminated, but that so many escape. When the dangers of 
the town are surmounted, another source of immorality is found 
in the steerage passage across the Atlantic. This occupies from 
one to three months, during which time the females are necessari- 
ly in constant communication with the other sex, and frequently 
exposed to scenes of indelicacy too glaring to be described here ; 
and this in addition to the constant machinations of the aban- 
doned and unprincipled men who are to be found, in greater or 
less numbers, in every ship’s complement of crew and passengers. 
Under such circumstances, the germ implanted in the sea-port 
town often develops into its legitimate fruit. But when the ship 
has reached her haven, and the perils of the sea are passed, 
there are dangers to be encountered on land. The present ar- 
rangements for disembarking emigrants at Castle Garden have re- 
moved many of the most objectionable features formerly incident 
to their entry into the land of their adoption, yet there are many 
still remaining. If a family desire to travel to the interior of 
the country, they can do so at once; but should they remain in 
the city, they are exposed to the tender mercies of the emigrant 
boarding-house keepers, generally themselves natives of the “old 462 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
country,” who, having been swindled on their arrival, are both 
competent and willing to practice the same impositions on others. 
It must not be concluded that all who follow the business are 
worthy of this sweeping condemnation; many of them are un- 
doubtedly honest, yet it can not be denied that others do pursue 
this nefarious course; and when they have drained all the re- 
sources of their customers, they turn them adrift to beg, or starve, 
or sin for a subsistence. 
To one or the other of these causes many girls owe their ruin. 
Indeed, there can be no reasonable doubt that a majority of the 
prostitutes of foreign birth are more or less influenced thereby. 
In addition to these, there are other snares constantly set for 
strangers, to which we shall hereafter allude. 
It is scarcely within the province of this section to notice meas- 
ures calculated to remove the evils named. With the first, the 
American people have no possible means of interfering. With 
regard to the second, many difficulties must be encountered and 
overcome. The Commissioners of Emigration have taken steps to 
avert some of the evils, and, in consequence of their application to 
the present Congress, a bill has been introduced making it a penal 
offense for any officer or sailor on emigrant ships to have carnal 
intercourse with any passenger, whether with or without her 
consent. 
The third evil named is a local question peculiarly and entirely 
under our own control, and, at the risk of anticipating the subject, 
it may be suggested that the most effectual way of obviating it 
would be the organization of a plan offering inducements and fa- 
cilities for young women to leave the city, thus removing them 
from its baneful influences to a part of the country where their 
own labor would give them the means of a comfortable subsist- 
ence and a virtuous life. It is but poor policy to retain in New 
York numbers of persons who can by no possibility procure em- 
ployment in an already overcrowded field of labor, and who must 
eventually consent to earn a precarious living by the sacrifice of 
virtue. It matters not through what agency their ruin is effect- 
ed, whether by the oppression of a boarding-house keeper, the in- 
trigues of an intelligence-office, or the wiles of abandoned ones of 
their own sex. The degradation is an indisputable fact, and the 
expenses to every citizen from the extra cost of police supervi- 
sion, courts of justice, hospitals, and penitentiaries, would proba- 
bly be enough to remove many from the city who are debauched NEW YORK. 
463 
for the want of opportunity to leave. It would be far better to 
try the system of prevention in the first instance, and this would 
probably be successful in many cases; whereas any reformatory 
plan is almost useless where the Rubicon has been passed. 
Question. How long have you resided in the United 
States ? 
Length of Residence. 
Numbers, i Length of R. sidence. 
Numbers 
Under 2 months . . 
9 Under 5 years . . 
, 106 
“3 «... 
.11 “ 10 “ . . . 
. 352 
“6 “ ... 
. 21 10 years and upward 
, 292 
“ 1 year . . . 
. 75 From Birth . . , 
. 762 
“ 2 years . . . 
.159 Unascertained . . 
. 31 
« 3 “ ... 
• 99 Total . . . 
2000 
« 4 « 
. 83 
In intimate connection with the subject of the nativities of pros 
titutes now in New York are the answers to the above inquiry. 
Deducting the number of native-born women, it will be found that 
five hundred and sixty-three, or more than forty-five per cent, of 
the foreigners, have resided in the United States less than five 
years; and of this number, one hundred and fifteen, or nearly 
twenty-one per cent., have resided here less than one year. These 
averages support, to some extent, the opinion already advanced, 
that a large proportion of the prostitutes in New York City were 
either seduced previous to leaving their port of departure, or on 
their passage, or very soon after their arrival here, when they com- 
menced forthwith a practice which forces them eventually to be- 
come a burden upon the tax-paying community. In a majority 
of cases, this must be the result of their career; the successive fall 
from one gradation of their wretched life to a lower finally land- 
ing them in the prisons or hospitals of a city toward whose ex- 
penses neither their pecuniary ability nor their labor have ever 
contributed a farthing. Their support thus falls upon the work- 
ing population, an argument of dollars and cents which will not 
be without its influence in a consideration of the numerous evils 
of prostitution. 
The remaining fifty-five per cent., having been in the United 
States more than five years, are by law entitled to receive any as- 
sistance which their necessities may demand from local funds, but 
of this number there are some who have doubtless been chargea- 
ble to public institutions before they had completed the required 
term of residence, as there are unquestionably many who, in order 
to procure relief, make false representations as to the time of their 464 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
arrival Reasoning from well-ascertained facts, there can be little 
exaggeration in the estimate that from eighty to one hundred thou- 
sand dollars per annum is the amount which the citizens of New 
York contribute to the support of foreigners who have been less 
than five years in the United States. Nor can this be prevented 
unless the claims of suffering humanity are entirely ignored. Of 
course, the idea that a sick or disabled man or woman is to be left 
to perish can not be entertained for one moment. If they are in 
want or in pain, every dictate of our common nature demands 
that they shall be relieved. But it may be suggested to those in- 
terested in the question of local taxation to give their prompt 
assistance to any practicable scheme which will diminish the 
amount of vice, and consequently reduce the expenses resulting 
therefrom, such as a carefully-devised plan for shielding emi- 
grants from corrupting influences, and forwarding the destitute 
to sections where labor may be obtained. Upon the moral ef- 
fects of such an arrangement it is unnecessary to remark, as they 
are self-evident; of its successful working and eventual economy 
but little doubt can be entertained. 
Question. How long have you resided in New York 
State ? 
Length of 1'esidence. 
Numbers, i 
I ength of Residence. 
Numbers. 
Under 2 months . . 
. 35 1 
Under 5 years . . 
. 127 
“3 «... 
. 20 | 
“ 10 “ . . . 
. 374 
“6 «... 
. 43 
10 years and upward 
. 433 
“ 1 year . . . 
. 132 
From Birth . . . 
. 353 
“ 2 years . . . 
. 186 
Unascertained . . 
. 85 
« 3 « ... 
. 152 i 
Total . . . 
2000 
« 4 « 
. 110 
Question. How long have you resided in New York 
City? 
length of Residence. 
Numbers. 
T ength of Residence. 
Numbers. 
Under 2 months 
... 46 
Under 5 years . . 
. 135 
“ 3 “ . 
... 30 
“ 10 ‘ “ . . . 
. 388 
“ 6 “ . 
... 56 
10 years and upward 
. 421 
“ 1 year 
. . .140 
From Birth . . . 
. 185 
“ 2 years 
. . .236 
Unascertained . . 
. 40 
« 3 « . . 
. . .189 
Total . . . 
2000 
(t 4 « 
. . .128 
These tables require no comment. The attention of the reader 
may merely be called to the fact that three hundred and ninety- 
four women have been already reported as born in the State of 
New York, of which number three hundred and fifty-three have 
resided within its limits continuously from the time of their birth, NEW YORK. 
465 
and that one hundred and eighty-five, or nearly one half, were na- 
tives of New York City, and have resided therein from the day 
they were born. This fact alone demonstrates that the influences 
of metropolitan life are not very favorable to the advance of fe- 
male morality. 
Question. What induced you to emigrate to the United 
States ? 
Reasons. 
Came as stewardesses . 
Numbers. 
. 2 
Reasons. Numbers. 
Sent out by parents or friends 81 
Ran away from home . 
. 18 
Came with relatives or to 
Ill usage of parents . . 
. 34 
join relatives already in 
Came with their seducers 
. 39 
the United States . .619 
Came to improve their con- 
No special cause assigned 34 
dition 
. 411 
Total of foreigners 1238 
This table shows that a majority of the prostitutes of foreigi 
birth were induced to emigrate to the United States either by 
considerations of policy—four hundred and eleven assigning as 
their reason a desire to improve their condition in life—or from 
family connections, six hundred and nineteen having arrived with 
relatives and friends, or with the purpose of joining relatives and 
friends already in this country. 
It will not be denied by any one familiar with the subject that 
one main reason for emigration is always found in the compara- 
tive difficulty of earning a livelihood in the place of the emigrant’s 
nativity, and the expectation of doing better in a strange land; a 
conclusion sustained by the fact that a prosperous year in Europe 
serves to check the arrivals here, and vice versa. With the diffi- 
cult problem of labor and remuneration in the Old World it 
would be out of place to interfere; but it may be remarked that, 
badly as many branches of female employment are paid for with 
us, they are still worse paid for in England. Reference to a pre- 
vious chapter, treating of the causes of prostitution in that coun- 
try, will at once establish this point, and the instances therein 
quoted of the wages paid in London will remove all surprise that 
this country should be a receptacle for underpaid operatives, or 
that the hope of realizing better wages should be sufficiently pow- 
erful to sever all ties of birth-place and home. But many of these 
impoverished women were actually dependent upon friends for the 
payment of their passage-money, and consequently arrived here 
almost literally penniless, with very slight prospects of obtaining 
work, and frequently with but one alternative, and the only one 
they had before coming here, which they must embrace or starve. 466 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Another class assign as a reason for expatriation the ill usage 
of parents, in itself a prolific cause of prostitution under any cir- 
cumstances, but more especially when its effects have been to drive 
the girl a distance of four thousand miles from home. 
From an examination of these causes alone, it is apparent that, 
however well qualified, physically and morally, to add their quota 
to the prosperity of the United States, had their exertions been 
properly directed, yet the circumstances under which these women 
emigrated were so embarrassing as to render them easy victims to 
those whose special business seems to be to ensnare the friendless 
and unfortunate. 
This branch of inquiry may be continued by a reference to the 
following table, giving a summary of answers to the 
Question, Did you receive any assistance, and if so, to 
WHAT AMOUNT, TO ENABLE YOU TO EMIGRATE TO THE UNITED 
States ? 
A 
mount of Assistance. 
Number*. 
Amount of Assistance. 
Numbers. 
Paid their own expenses . 
Rec’d assistance, amount ) 
262 
618 
Received as- ) 
sistance . (' 
$110 each, 
1 
not specified 
. . 
• ♦ 
u 
66 
120 
66 
3 
Rec’d assistance, $20 
each, 
89 
u 
66 
140 
66 
2 
66 
66 
25 
66 
94 
u 
66 
150 
66 
3 
66 
66 
30 
66 
43 
a 
66 
175 
66 
1 
66 
66 
35 
66 
15 
<( 
66 
180 
66 
2 
66 
66 
40 
66 
24 
(( 
66 
200 
66 
5 
u 
66 
45 
66 
6 
u 
66 
220 
66 
1 
u 
66 
50 
66 
28 
u 
66 
250 
66 
2 
u 
66 
55 
66 
3 
a 
66 
300 
66 
4 
66 
66 
60 
66 
12 
a 
66 
400 
66 
1 
u 
66 
65 
66 
2 
u 
66 
600 
66 
1 
66 
66 
70 
66 
2 
Totals . 
976 262 
u 
66 
75 
66 
2 
-- 976 
66 
66 
100 
66 
12 
Total of foreign 
-bom prostitutes 1238 
It appears that only two hundred and sixty-two, or about one 
fifth of the total number, paid their own passage-money, the re- 
mainder having received pecuniary assistance toward that object 
ranging from an unspecified amount, which, in all probability, was 
not more than the positive expenses of the voyage, to six hundred 
dollars. It will be observed that the majority did not receive 
more than forty dollars each, eight hundred and eighty-three of 
those assisted stating that such help did not exceed that sum. 
This certainly was but a very inadequate amount to pay the ex- 
penses of an outfit and a voyage across the Atlantic, and then to 
support a person in a strange land until employment could be se- NEW YORK. 
467 
cured ; particularly if she was but one of a family each member 
oi which had the same imperative necessity for work as herself. 
These remarks may be thought inconsistent with the statements 
published in 1856 of the amount of money brought to this coun- 
try by immigrants; but it may be suggested that, although these 
reports gave a correct statement of the sum in the possession of 
all the passengers by a certain vessel, they are altogether silent as 
to the numbers who were destitute. They merely proved what 
has been universally conceded within the last three or four years, 
namely, that among the immigrants arriving are many with con- 
siderable cash means. But it does not require much reflection to 
convince any one that when a family bring available funds with 
them, they will leave New York as quickly as possible in search 
of some locality wnere their money may be advantageously em- 
ployed, This is still more likely, as the fact of their being pos- 
sessed of capital proves them to have practiced habits of industry 
and economy at home, which would scarcely abandon them when 
they reached the New World. The aggregated facts as to prop- 
erty do not touch isolated cases of poverty, the most dangerous to 
this community, because individuals who are forced to remain in 
the city from want of means to leave it not only swell its long list 
of paupers, but are in circumstances which may materially influ- 
ence them to become prostitutes, and have the spur of necessity to 
urge them forward in this or any other course which may offer a 
respite from starvation. 
The following table corroborates this theory; it consists of re- 
plies to the other part of the same 
Question. Did you receive any assistance, and if so, from 
WHOM, TO ENABLE YOU TO EMIGRATE TO THE UNITED STATES ? 
By whom assisted. Numbers 
Paid their own expenses 262 
By relatives or friends 805 
By money remitted by relatives or friends in the U. S. . 100 
Stole money from their friends 34 
By seducers 28 
By public authorities 9 
Totals 976 262 
976 
Total of foreign-born prostitutes .... 1238 
As a general rule, the parties by whom assistance was rendered 
were not likely to advance any amount beyond what was abso- 
lutely required. Even this amount would perhaps be reduced 468 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
before the termination of the voyage, if it should prove a pro* 
tracted one, and the provisions of the passengers be exhausted, as 
there are on board every ship persons who are willing to sell arti- 
cles of food at prices ranging from three to six times their value, 
and who are equally ready to supply demands for brandy or to- 
bacco also. On a review of the responses given to the three ques- 
tions which have been under consideration in this section, it ap- 
pears that the opinions expressed are legitimate deductions from 
the premises. They may be thus recapitulated: The majority of 
those immigrants who subsequently become prostitutes in New 
York were almost destitute in their own country; they arrive here 
with little or no means of support; their poverty renders them pe- 
culiarly liable to yield to temptation, if, indeed, many of them have 
not previously fallen. Thus, if we do not receive them as prosti- 
tutes when they reach our shores, we receive them in a condition 
immediately to become such for the sake of subsistence. 
Question. Can you read and write? 
Degree of Education. Numbers. 
Can read and write well 714 
Can read and write imperfectly 546 
Can read only 219 
Uneducated 521 
Total 2000 
Seven hundred and fourteen of the women who were examined 
in New York City say that they can read and write well. This 
must not be regarded as proof that they have received a superior, 
or even a medium education, but is a phrase which may be inter- 
preted to mean that they can read a page of printed matter with- 
out much trouble, and can sign their names, although truth com- 
pels the admission that their writing is very often a species of pen- 
manship extremely difficult to decipher. Beyond such acquire- 
ments as these, very few, scarcely one in each five hundred, have 
progressed. Five hundred and forty-six can read and write im- 
perfectly, a grade of education which may be defined as midway 
between the amount of knowledge already described and a state 
of total ignorance; enough, in fact, to relieve them from the sus- 
picion of being altogether illiterate, which is the sole advantage 
they can claim over the two hundred and nineteen who can read 
only, or the five hundred and twenty-one who confess that they 
can neither read nor write. As a whole, there is little doubt that 
the prostitutes in New York believe, “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” These remarks are made from observations 
upon this class during a long hospital experience. 
But, seriously, such a state of ignorance is most deplorable. 
To give an idea of the facilities for acquiring education in the va- 
rious countries from which these prostitutes reach us, the follow- 
ing statement from the United States Census for 18501 is submited: 
The ratio of persons receiving education is as follows: 
NEW YORK. 
United States, 1 to every 5 of total population. 
Denmark, Ic< “5 “ “ “ 
Sweden, 1 “ “6 “ “ “ 
Prussia, 1 “ « 6 « “ « 
Norway, 1 “ “7 “ “ ** 
Great Britain, 1“ <{ 8 “ “ a 
France, 1 “ “10 “ « « 
Austria, 1« « 13 “ « « 
Holland, 1« « 14 “ « “ 
Ireland, 1« « 14 « « « 
The following is a fair average estimate of the acquirements of 
native and foreign-bom prostitutes: 
Degree of Education. Natives. Foreigners. 
Can read and write well ... 25 per cent. 10 per cent. 
“ “ “ “ imperfectly . 50 “ “ 50 “ “ 
Uneducated 25 “ “ 40 u “ 
ioo Too 
The average of educational facilities in the United States is as 
one to five; in European countries it is one to ten. In other 
words, every one in this country has twice the opportunities for 
education compared with those born in the Old World: oppor- 
tunities which, in the cases of these women at least, have not been 
improved to their full extent. Of those who claim to be well 
educated, the United States show more than the average. In the 
class imperfectly educated, foreigners show one half of their num- 
ber, and the superior advantages in this country only produce ex- 
actly the same proportion. The proportion of those uneducated 
is not much more favorable in natives than in foreigners. Some 
allowances must be made, however, in this calculation, for the fact 
that many children of foreign birth arrive here at an early age, 
and gain such education as they possess in American institutions; 
but even this will but slightly affect the disproportion alluded to. 
But no possible modification of the facts can be conceived suffi- 
cient to excuse the negligence of the parents or friends of one 
fourth of the native-born prostitutes in this city at the present 
1 Compendium of U. S. Census, 1850, p. 148. 470 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
day, when education may be obtained literally “ without money 
and without price.” 
Sectarian bigotry must be held responsible for much of this of- 
fense. “If our children can not be educated as we please, they 
shall not be educated at all. If they must not read the books 
we wish, they shall never learn the alphabet,” is, in effect, if not in 
words, the language of thousands in this country to-day. What 
are the results of this cruel policy? The children go forth into 
the world : the boys, to earn a precarious living by the sweat of 
their brow ; the girls, condemned to the most servile work in any 
family where their stupidity may find a shelter, until they meet 
with some man of their own mental calibre, whom they marry, 
and forthwith bring up their unfortunate children in the same 
manner in which they themselves were reared. This is the bright- 
est view of the future of ignorant children; the darker shades are 
depicted in the annals of vice and crime—may be seen daily in 
our prisons, hospitals, poor-houses, and pauper burying-grounds. 
The picture is not overdrawn; nor will the reply so common in 
this generation, “ These are the children of foreigners,” serve to 
exonerate the parents; for even if all the uneducated native wom- 
en who have answered these questions were born of foreign par- 
entage, a fact which must be proved before it is admitted, but 
which we are not inclined to concede, yet they were born on our 
soil, where public schools were open to receive them, and their in- 
telligence would enhance the credit of the land in the same pro- 
portion that their ignorance diminishes it. A love of their adopt- 
ed country, its institutions and its fame, is not too much to ask of 
parents who derive their maintenance from its resources. It is a 
libel upon the parental instinct (it can not be called feeling) to al- 
low any child in the United States to arrive at years of maturity 
without acquiring a good plain, solid education. Fathers or 
mothers who pursue such a course as this would consider them- 
selves unjustly accused if told they were training their daughters 
to become prostitutes, but such is the fact. It is scarcely possible 
to imagine any thing so likely to lead a woman from the paths 
of rectitude as ignorance, coupled with the conviction that such 
ignorance is an insurmountable barrier to her progress in life; it 
drives her to intoxication to drown her reflections, and from in- 
toxication to prostitution the transition is easy and almost certain. 
Here, then, are a number of young women thrown into society 
every year without the least education; untrained for good, and NEW YORK. 
471 
only fit for evil. Ignorant of their duties to themselves or to the 
world; with sensibilities callous because they have never been 
cultivated; with faculties on a level with the inferior animals 
from the same cause, they are expected to succeed in life! It 
would be as consistent to take a man who had never seen a steam- 
engine, and give him the control of a locomotive and a train of 
cars without anticipating an accident, as it is to presume in this 
day of knowledge that an uneducated man or woman can ever 
become a respectable and useful member of society. 
Could our liberal facilities for education be duly improved, 
much would be done to prevent the vice of prostitution. No 
classical or extraordinary tuition is required to accomplish this 
end; merely common sense rightly cultivated, and conscience en- 
lightened and developed, so as to appreciate the difference be- 
tween right and wrong, will do much to aid a woman to pass un- 
scathed through trials which constantly ruin the ignorant. 
The question has sometimes arisen whether it should not be 
made compulsory on parents to educate their children. The pres- 
ent is not the place to discuss that subject, but the following sta- 
tistics will show to what extent the duty is neglected. 
The United States Census for 1850 reports: 
Population of New York City 515,547 
Proportion of population between the ages of five and 
fifteen years 101,006 
Children attending school 76,685 
Percentage of children attending school .... 7 sfh 
The Now York State Census for 1855 reports : 
Population of New York City 629,904 
Proportion of population between the ages of five and fif- 
teen years 116,627 
No returns are made of the numbers attending schools, and 
these must be sought from other sources. The report of the Board 
of Education for 1856 states the average daily attendance at the 
ward or public schools to be 44,598. The same document gives 
data from which the attendance at religious, corporate, or other 
public schools can be calculated, but says nothing of private 
schools. An approximate estimate of the latter can, however, be 
made with the help of the United States Census. In 1850, the 
proportions were about one private to every twelve public schol- 
ars, and since that period there has probably been but little 
change in the ratio. 472 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
From these facts the subjoined may be assumed a reasonably 
correct statement: 
Average attendance at public schools 44,598 
Allowance of twenty per cent, for absentees, whose names 
are on the school registers, but who attend irregularly . 8,920 
Corporate schools receiving state assistance . . . . 7,517 
“ v< without “ “ . (estimated) 10,000 
Private schools “ 6,000 
Total children attending school 77,035 
This would give a school attendance of sixty-six per cent, of the 
population between the ages of five and fifteen years, or ten per 
cent, less than in 1850. 
That the proportionate numbers receiving education are dimin- 
ishing is susceptible of proof from one fact. In 1856, the pupils 
in the public schools were 347 more than in 1855. During the 
last fifteen years the population of the city has increased more 
than twenty thousand per annum, and of this increase about one 
fifth (or four thousand) are between the ages of five and fifteen. 
It follows that in 1856 there were four thousand additional chil- 
dren in New York as compared with 1855, but there were only 
347 additional attendants at the public schools. Admitting that 
other schools received the same increase of pupils—an admission 
more liberal than facts would warrant—the education of seven 
hundred only would be provided for, leaving three thousand three 
hundred destitute of instruction. 
In the course of the year 1856, the attention of the Board of 
Education was directed to the large number of children not at- 
tending any school, and upon the basis of a partial census of the 
city they were assumed to amount to sixty thousand. This was 
conceded to be an over-estimate. The figures given above would 
make the number 89,594, which may very likely be nearer the 
truth; but even this may be in excess, and, to allow for all possi- 
ble contingencies, we will place it at thirty thousand. Even this 
is an alarming statement: the suggestion that of all the children 
in our city nearly twenty-seven per cent, are growing up in a 
state of perfect ignorance, presents so many frightful considera- 
tions that the mind revolts at the bare possibility. But the facts 
will not permit any other construction. If this criminal neglect 
be continued, it must produce fatal consequences to society, and 
the view of impending results would almost sanction a compul- 
sory education.1 
1 Compendium of United States Census, 1850, p. 142, etc. ; Census of the State NEW YORK. 
473 
Question. Are YOU SINGLE, MARRIED, OR WIDOWED? 
Condition. Number 
Single 1216 
Married 490 
Widowed 294 
Total 2000 
The civil condition of the prostitutes in New York City fur- 
nishes matter of serious consideration in view -of the slight re- 
straints which the ordinarily received rules of society place upon 
the passions, and the utter inefficiency of such regulations to 
counteract the influences tending to female degradation; influ- 
ences, in fact, which they very frequently augment rather than 
check. In the cases of many females now under notice, marriage 
was invested not only with the sanctions of a civil contract be- 
tween the parties, as recognized by our state laws, but, according 
to the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, was regarded as one 
of the seven holy sacraments which it is deemed an act of sacri- 
lege to violate. Yet, in the face of these ordinances, the civil con- 
tract is broken, the sacrament is profaned in one fourth of the 
total number of cases, or four hundred and ninety out of two 
thousand which are now under notice. It would be out of place 
to enter here on any disquisition respecting the duties of the mar- 
ried state; regarded in its abuses as provocative of prostitution it 
is noticed hereafter. Enjoined by the precepts of Holy Writ, 
supported by the sentiment of the world, and respected by all 
virtuous men, marriage is an institution which needs no argument 
to enforce its claims to the most rigid observance. 
That this sacred compact is too frequently violated by one or 
other of the contracting parties is proved by almost daily experi- 
ence either in courts of law or by intercourse with the world. 
Conflicting testimony sometimes renders it doubtful to whom the 
blame ought to be imputed, but there can be no uncertainty what- 
ever as to the opinions entertained by society at large in such cases. 
If the husband has been guilty of a breach of his conjugal duties, 
he reads the whole of the evidence, graphically reported, with oc- 
casional embellishments, in the columns of the daily papers, flat- 
ters himself that he is acquiring notoriety, is congratulated by 
friends of his own predilections on his success, and in a short 
time is fully reinstated in his former social position. On the con- 
of New York, 1855, p. 16; Report of the Board of Education of New York City, 
1857, p. 13, 18, 22, etc. 474 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
trary, if the weight of evidence is against the wife, the whole 
artillery of the world’s scorn is leveled at her head. She is 
driven from society, crushed by the proudly virtuous frowns of 
her own sex and the contemptuous sneers of the other. Dishon- 
ored and despised, she is too often left with no means of existence 
but indiscriminate prostitution, the temptation to such degrada- 
tion being aggravated by the consciousness of her previous infi 
delity and its results. There is no possibility of salvation for her 
The moral world has resolved she shall not repent, and the least 
attempt on her part to atone for an error over which she mourns 
with all the intensity of her nature is sternly resisted by the vir- 
tuous indignation of society, which erects an impassable barrier 
between herself and her hopes of reformation. 
Of the prostitutes in New York, one thousand two hundred 
and sixteen have never been married. Their sin is the less be- 
cause they have not to answer for broken vows, nor have they 
any outraged confidence on which to brood, but to endure only 
the sin and odium attached to their present condition. Two 
hundred and ninety-five prostitutes are widowed. In their cases 
death has put an end to the marital contract, and, thus left free 
to act for themselves, they stand in nearly the same condition as 
single women. 
An investigation of the nativities of these women shows that 
about one third each of the single and married prostitutes are na- 
tives of the United States, and of widows about one half were 
born in this country. 
The question may arise as to the causes to be assigned for the 
depravity of married women, and for the large proportion of wid- 
ows in the ranks of the abandoned. It would certainly appear 
that one of the principal, if not the principal cause which can be 
specified is the very early age at which such marriages are con- 
tracted. Young people }deld to the impulse of a moment, ac- 
knowledge the charms of a person they meet in a ball-room or 
public assembly, and are married with a very imperfect knowl- 
edge of each other’s character, with but little reflection on the 
probable result of the alliance, and with but a slight appreciation 
of the obligations they are contracting. It was a wise regulation, 
whether regarded physically or morally, which fixed the earliest 
period of marriage in ancient Germany at twenty-five years, and 
declared the union invalid if the parties had not reached that 
time of life; nor would the morality of New York suffer if a sim- NEW YORK. 
475 
ilar restriction was the rule instead of the exception here. The 
annexed cases, selected at random from the replies received, are 
submitted in support of this opinion. 
E. C., now nineteen years of age, is a married woman, who has 
been separated from her husband five years, and must therefore 
have been married when less than fourteen years old. C. W., 
now twenty-one years of age, has been a widow for five years, 
and was married at fifteen. A. S. was married at sixteen, and 
E. R. at fifteen. C. C., now twenty-eight years old, has been a 
widow more than twelve years. C. G., aged twenty-four, has 
been a widow seven years. Both these women were under six- 
teen when married. The list might be extended almost indefi- 
nitely. 
The following inquiry, as a continuation of the same branch of 
the subject, is embodied in this section. 
Question. If married, is your husband living with you, 
OR WHAT CAUSED THE SEPARATION ? 
Causes. Numbers. 
Living together 11 
111-usage of husbands 103 
Desertion of “ 60 
“ “ “ to live with other women ... 43 
Intemperance 45 
Husbands went to sea 39 
“ refused to support them 29 
Infidelity 25 
No cause assigned 15 
Totals 419 Y! 
419 
Aggregate of married women 490 
The most striking and painful fact in these answers is revealed 
in the first line of the table, which contains an announcement so 
disgraceful to humanity that, but for the positive evidence ad- 
duced by the figures, it would be scarcely credited, namely, that 
of four hundred and ninety married women now living as prosti- 
tutes, seventy-one (more than one seventh) are cohabiting with 
their husbands. It can not be controverted that such cohabita- 
tion necessarily implies a knowledge of the wife’s degradation, and 
a participation in the wages of her shame. Nor will any argu- 
ment, however plausible, succeed in removing from the public 
mind the conviction that the man is far the more guilty party of 
the two, and he can not escape the suspicion that he was the pri- 
mary agent in leading his wife to prostitution, or, in legal parlance, 476 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
he was “an accessory before the fact.” While such a considera- 
tion will not exonerate the woman from her offenses, it may be 
justly pleaded in extenuation; although it will not prove her 
guiltless, it will sink him to the lowest depths of disgrace. 
The conduct of husbands is alleged in a majority of the cases 
as the cause of separation; two hundred and thirty-five out of 
four hundred and nineteen women give the following causes: 
Husbands refused to support their wives 29 
“ deserted their wives 60 
“ “ “ “ to live with other women 43 
111-usage of husbands 103 
Total 235 
The cases wherein “intemperance,” “infidelity,” or “no cause 
assigned” were replied, are vague, and may be construed to attach 
blame to either, or both. 
Sufficient has been proved to show that in many cases prostitu- 
tion among married women is the result of circumstances which 
must have exercised a very powerful influence over them. The 
refusal of a husband to support his wife, his desertion of her, or an 
act of adultery with another woman, are each occurrences which 
must operate injuriously upon the mind of any female, and, by 
the keen torture such outrages inflict on the sensitiveness of her 
nature, must drive her into a course of dissipation. Many wom- 
en thus circumstanced have actually confessed that they made 
the first false step while smarting from injuries inflicted by their 
natural protectors, with the idea of being revenged upon their 
brutal or faithless companions for their unkindness. Morality 
will argue, and very truly, that this is no excuse for crime; but 
much allowance must be made for the extreme nature of the 
provocation, and the fact that most of these women are unedu- 
cated, and have not sufficient mental or moral illumination to rea- 
son correctly upon the nature and consequences of their volun- 
tary debauchery, or even to curb the violence of their passions. 
“ 111-usage of husbands,” a crime particularly rife in England, 
and apparently fast becoming naturalized here, also stands as a 
prominent cause of vice, and is one which can not be too pointed- 
ly condemned. It strikes at the root of the social fabric, and must 
invariably be denounced both on account of its enormity as an of- 
fense, and of its almost inevitable consequences to the woman, a 
sense of degradation, too often followed by the sacrifice of recti- 
tude as the only means to escape such brutal tyranny. Without NEW YORK. 
477 
advocating capital punishment, it may be allowable to suggest the 
query whether our city would not be benefited if all such unman- 
ly offenders against propriety were to be tried by a jury of mar- 
ried women, and hanged without benefit of clergy. 
The following table will conclude this section: 
Question. If widowed, how long has your husband been 
DEAD ? 
Length of Time. Numbers. 
Under 6 weeks .... 2 
“ 3 months ... 6 
“6 “ . . . . 8 
“7 “ . . . . 1 
“8 “ . . . . 2 
“ 1 year .... 22 
“ 2 years .... 30 
“ 3 “ .... 38 
« 4 « .... 33 
Length of Time. Numbers. 
Under 5 years .... 24 
“ 6 “ .... 21 
“ 7 “ . ... 17 
“ 8 “ .... 18 
“ 9 “ .... 16 
10 “ .... 13 
10 years and upward . . 32 
Time not specified ... 11 
Total 294 
It will be perceived that nineteen prostitutes have been widows 
less than one year, twenty-two for one year, thirty for two years, 
and so throughout the scale. The table presents but little neces- 
sity for observation, the principal conclusion to be drawn from it 
being that the majority of this class are driven to a course of vice 
from the destitution ensuing on the husband’s death. It has been 
shown that a large number of them are very young, and it can be 
scarcely necessary to repeat that any young woman in a state of 
poverty will be surrounded with temptations she can with diffi- 
culty resist. Much as this state of society may be deplored, its 
existence can not be denied. 
Question. Have you had any children? 
Condition of Replies. Total of 
Women. Yes. No. Women. 
Single ...;.. 357 859 .... 1216 
Married 357 133 .... 490 
Widowed 233 61 .... 294 
Totals .... 94T 1053 .... 2000 
The women who reply to this question in the affirmative are 
Single women 357, or 30 per cent. 
Married “ 357, “73 “ 
Widows “ 233, “79 “ 
In continuation of this subject is the 
Question, If you have had children, how many? 478 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Number of .... Number of 
Women. Condition of V\ omen. Children Horn. 
851 Single women 490 
357 Married women 791 
233 Widows 636 
947 .... Women were mothers of ... . 1917 
The replies give the total number of children borne by each 
class: thus the single women have given birth to four hundred and 
ninety-one children, the married women to seven hundred and 
ninety-one children, and the widows to six hundred and thirty- 
six children. The following tables exhibit the same facts in a 
more extended form, showing the number of children which each 
woman has borne, and specifying the sex. 
Question. If you have had children, how many? 
REPLIES OF SINGLE WOMEN. 
Number of 
Women. 
Borne by each. 
Totals. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Aggregate. 
1 
Mother. 
8 
2 
8 
2 
10 
2 
Mothers. 
3 
3 
6 
6 
12 
2 
U 
2 
3 
4 
6 
10 
1 
Mother. 
1 
4 
1 
4 
5 
1 
(( 
3 
2 
3 
2 
5 
1 
U 
1 
3 
1 
3 
4 
1 
U 
4 
4 
4 
1 
u 
3 
1 
3 
1 
4 
5 
Mothers. 
2 
1 
10 
5 
15 
6 
U 
1 
2 
6 
12 
18 
3 
U 
3 
9 
9 
2 
u 
3 
6 
6 
33 
u 
1 
1 
33 
33 
66 
4 
u 
2 
8 
8 
17 
u 
2 
34 
34 
150 
u 
1 
150 
150 
99 
u 
1 
99 
99 
27 
u 
1 
27 
27 
1 
Mother. 
4 
4 
4 
357 
272 
187 
31 
490 
Number of 
Women. 
Borne by each. 
Totals. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Aggregate. 
1 
Mother. 
7 
8 
7 
8 
15 
2 
Mothers. 
7 
7 
14 
14 
28 
1 
Mother. 
7 
6 
7 
6 
13 
1 
U 
8 
4 
8 
4 
12 
1 
(( 
6 
6 
6 
6 
12 
1 
u 
4 
6 
4 
6 
10 
1 
u 
6 
4 
5 
4 
9 
2 
Mothers. 
4 
4 
8 
8 
16 
2 
U 
3 
4 
6 
8 
14 
1 
Mother. 
7 
7 
7 
1 
(( 
2 
4 
2 
4 
6 
6 
Mothers. 
4 
2 
24 
12 
36 
REPLIES OF MARRIED WOMEN. NEW YORK. 
479 
Number of 
Women. 
Borne by each. 
Totals. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Aggregate. 
3 
Mothers. 
2 
3 
6 
9 
15 
7 
U 
3 
2 
21 
14 
35 
5 
u 
4 
1 
20 
5 
25 
3 
u 
4 
12 
12 
8 
44 
2 
2 
16 
16 
32 
7 
u 
3 
1 
21 
7 
28 
5 
a 
3 
15 
15 
11 
u 
3 
33 
33 
11 
u 
1 
2 
11 
22 
33 
23 
44 
2 
1 
46 
23 
69 
4 
u 
1 
1 
4 
4 
8 
28 
44 
2 
56 
56 
28 
44 
2 
56 
56 
74 
44 
1 
74 
74 
115 
cc 
1 
115 
115 
4 
44 
1 
4 
4 
I 
Mother. 
3 
3 
3 
357 
459 
325 
7 
791 
EEPLIES OF WIDOWS. 
Number of 
Women. 
Borne by each. 
Totals. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Boys. 
Girls. 
Abortions. 
Aggregate. 
1 
Mother. 
6 
4 
6 
4 
10 
3 
Mothers. 
5 
4 
15 
12 
27 
2 
tt 
6 
3 
12 
6 
18 
1 
Mother. 
6 
2 
6 
2 
8 
6 
Mothers. 
3 
4 
18 
24 
42 
1 
Mother. 
5 
3 
5 
3 
8 
4 
Mothers. 
3 
3 
12 
12 
24 
1 
Mother. 
5 
1 
5 
1 
6 
1 
U 
2 
4 
2 
4 
6 
1 
U 
4 
2 
4 
2 
6 
9 
Mothers. 
3 
2 
27 
18 
45 
5 
U 
2 
3 
10 
15 
25 
2 
U 
4 
1 
8 
2 
10 
1 
Mother. 
1 
4 
1 
4 
5 
1 
U 
6 
5 
5 
3 
Mothers. 
4 
12 
12 
9 
(( 
2 
2 
18 
18 
36 
4 
U 
1 
3 
4 
12 
16 
1 
Mother. 
3 
I 
3 
1 
4 
4 
Mothers. 
3 
12 
12 
10 
(( 
3 
30 
30 
14 
U 
2 
1 
28 
14 
42 
11 
H 
1 
2 
11 
22 
33 
20 
u 
2 
40 
40 
47 
u 
1 
1 
47 
47 
94 
30 
u 
1 
30 
30 
40 
u 
1 
40 
40 
] 
Mother. 
2 
2 
2 
233 
369 
265 
2 
636 
Commencing with the offspring of single women, it will be 
seen that one was the mother of ten children, eight boys and two 
girls. Two women gave birth to six children each. Four gave 
birth to five children each. Three gave birth to four children 480 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
each. Sixteen gave birth to three children each. Fifty-four gave 
birth to two children each. Two hundred and forty-nine gave 
birth to one child each. Twenty-seven have suffered abortion 
once, and one has suffered in the same manner four times. The 
corresponding tables for married women and widows express sim- 
ilar facts in the same form. It is not necessary to quote them, as 
the figures give all the required information. The results may be 
recanitulated thus: 
Boys. Girls. Abortions. Totals. 
357 single women bore .... 272 187 31 490 
357 married « “ 459 325 7 791 
233 widows bore 369 265 2 636 
947 nob 777 40 1917 
Excess of male over female births, 223. 
Eatio of excess upon the total number born, per cent. 
The next point claiming attention is the number of illegitimate 
children resulting from prostitution, based upon answers to the 
Question, Were these children born in wedlock? 
Legitimate children of married women 469 
“ “ “ widows 358 
Total legitimate 821 
Illegitimate children of single women 490 
“ “ “ married “ 322 
“ “ “ widows 2*19 
Total illegitimate . . 1090 
Aggregate 1917 
The whole of the children borne by single women are, of 
course, illegitimate. Of the children of married women over 
forty per cent, and of the children of widows forty-four per cent, 
are illegitimate. Taking the total number of children of the 
three classes, and calculating upon this broad basis, it will appear 
that 1090 illegitimate children were born, giving an average of 
fifty-seven per cent.; or, to speak in plain terms, of every hund- 
red children borne by women who are now prostitutes, forty-three 
were born before the mothers (married women or widows) had 
embraced this course of life, and the remaining fifty-seven were 
the fruit of promiscuous intercourse, liable physically to inherit 
the diseases of the mother, morally to endure the disgrace attached 
to their birth, and very probably to be reared in the midst of 
blasphemy, obscenity, and vice, to follow in the footsteps of their 
parents, and perpetuate the sin to which they owe their origin. 
The excessive mortality among this class of children is devel- 
oped in the following replies to the NEW YORK. 
481 
Question, Are these children living or dead? 
Living children of single women 133 
“ “ “ married “ 334 
“ “ “ widows 265 
Total living 732 
Dead children of single women 357 
ii “ “ married “ 457 
“ u “ widows 371 
Total dead 1185 
Aggregate 1917 
The ratio of mortality will be as follows: 
Children of single women 73 per cent. 
“ “ married “ 58 “ “ 
“ “ widows 59 “ “ 
Average on the total number .... 62 “ “ 
or more than six deaths for every ten children born. The aver- 
age infantile mortality of New York City for three years is, 
Under 1 year of age 8499 
From 1 “ to 2 years 3259 
“ 2 “ to 5 “ 2578 
Total 14,336' 
The population between those ages in 1855 was 77,568.2 This 
would give a mortality of 18-| per cent., or about If to every ten 
children under five years of age. It is not exceeding the bounds 
of probability to assume that the greater part of the children of 
prostitutes die before they reach the age of five years, which will 
give a pro rata mortality among that class of nearly four times the 
average ratio of New York City. This calculation must be taken 
in connection with the cases of abortion produced by extraneous 
means, not admitted in the replies to the interrogatories, and 
which will probably never be known. It is impossible to doubt 
that these are far more frequent than recorded in the tables. 
Under the heads of “ Premature Births’’ and “ Still-bom” the 
following numbers are reported.3 
Years. Premature Births. Still-born. Total. 
1854 . . 435 . . 1615 . . 2050 
1855 . . 374 . . 1564 . . 1938 
1856 . . 387 . . 1556 . . 1943 
1196 4735 5931 
The births during the same period were: 
1 New York City Inspector’s Reports, 1854, 1855, 1856. 
3 New York State Census, 1855, p. 38. 
3 New York City Inspector’s Reports, 1854, 1855, 1866. 482 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
1854 17,979 
1855 .7 14,145 
1856 16,199 
Total 48,323 
This would show a proportion of 12|- per cent., or one to every 
eight of all the children born in New York City. It is not to be 
taken for granted that all these are the result of improper conduct, 
although unquestionably many are so. Applying the same ratio 
to the children of prostitutes, and calculating the 1917 births in 
these tables as extending over a period of five years, would give 
forty-eight cases each year; but multiplying the average by four 
(the proportion of deaths from natural causes), we shall find the 
appalling number of one hundred and ninety-two cases each year 
—an array of infantile mortality presenting features which place 
it almost on a level with the infanticide of some Eastern nations. 
Were it possible to form any definite idea of the abortions actu- 
ally procured, and which are suspected, on reasonable grounds, to 
amount to a very considerable number, the amount would be 
startling. The sacrifice of infant life, attribute it to what cause 
you may, is one of the most deplorable results of prostitution, and 
urgently demands active interference. 
The attention of the American Medical Association has been 
drawn to this subject, and from a “ Report on Infant Mortality 
in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., etc.,” published 
in their Transactions, we extract: “ The causes of mortality among 
children of tender age are, in a multitude of cases, to be found 
only by extending our inquiries to their intra-uterine life, and the 
physiological state of the parents, but especially the sanitary con- 
dition of the mothers, their hygienic and moral habits and cir- 
cumstances.1 * * * Celibacy should be required of all syphi- 
litic persons of either sex.”2 It will at once occur to the mind of 
the reader that enforced celibacy would not affect the maternity 
of prostitutes. They are liable to give birth to children, and, as 
their physiological condition is such as to preclude the possibility 
of their children being healthy, the only way to check infant 
mortality in this class is to deal with the mothers, and adopt 
means, if not to prevent their infection, at least to limit the rav- 
ages of disease as much as possible. This point is discussed more 
fully in the chapter on Remedial Measures. To men tainted with 
1 Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D.,LL.D., 
p. 8, - lb. p. 13, NEW YORK. 
483 
syphilis the same course of reasoning would apply. If debarred 
from marriage, the sexual appetite would drive them to commerce 
with prostitutes, and their illegitimate children swell the total of 
mortality. The health of parents must be protected before we 
can hope for healthy children. 
Dr. Reese’s very able pamphlet contains some remarks upon 
abortionism, and its extent, thus: “ The ghastly crime of abortion- 
ism has become a murderous trade in many of our large cities, 
tolerated, connived at, and even protected by corrupt civil author- 
ities. These murderers—for such they are—are well known to 
the police authorities: their names, residence, and even their 
guilty customers are no secret. Would that it were only the 
profligate, or even the unfortunate of their sex, whose guilty fear 
or shame thus seeks to hide the evidence of illicit amours.”1 That 
prostitution largely contributes to this crime can not be doubted, 
but to what extent must remain unknown, from the secrecy which 
surrounds it. The revolting cases which appear at intervals in 
the daily papers are but a mere fraction of the total. 
Question. Are these children living with you, or 
WHERE ARE THEY? 
Numbers. 
Children living with the mothers 73 
“ boarding at the expense of mothers . . 247 
“ “ with mothers’ relatives . . . 140 
“ supporting themselves 129 
t( living with the fathers 59 
“ in public or charitable institutions ... 36 
“ adopted by families 20 
“ unascertained 28 
Totals 659 73 
73 
Aggregate of children . . 732 
This table shows the social influences to which the survivors 
of this ill-fated band of children are exposed. There are seventy- 
three stated to be living with their mothers, and, so far as they 
are concerned, no reasonable person can entertain any hopes as 
to their future morality. Born in the abodes of vice, their dwell- 
ing is in an atmosphere of squalid misery or sordid guilt; they 
never have a glimpse of a better life; they are marked from their 
cradles for a career of degradation; they can fall no lower, for 
they stand already on the lowest level. Such as these are de- 
1 Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D.,LL.D., 
p. 9. 484 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
nominated “dangerous classes” by the French authorities, and 
from their ranks are obtained many of the inmates of prisons and 
brothels. The children stated to be with their fathers, fifty-nine 
in number, it may be concluded were born before the mother’s 
fall from virtue, and are decidedly the most fortunate of any com- 
ing under notice, while those living with the parents or relatives 
of the mother, amounting to one hundred and forty, or boarding 
at the mother’s expense, of whom there are two hundred and 
forty-seven, stand less chance of contamination than if actually 
residing within the domains of vice. Those living in public or 
charitable institutions exhibit one cause of taxation upon the gen- 
eral body of the citizens, and show that, indirectly, every man in 
New York is compelled to contribute toward the maintenance 
of vice or its offspring. A visit to the public institutions on 
Blackwell’s and Randall’s Islands will prove that this is but one 
item of the expenses which prostitution inflicts upon the commu- 
nity. 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. 
Continuance of Prostitution.—Average in Paris and New York.—Dangers of Pros- 
titution.—Disease.—Causes of Prostitution.—Inclination.—Destitution.—Seduc- 
tion.—lntemperance.—lll-treatment.—Duties of Parents, Husbands, and Rela- 
tives.—lnfluence of Prostitutes.—Intelligence Offices.—Boarding-schools.—Ob- 
scene Literature. 
Question. For what length of time have you been a pros- 
titute ? 
Time. 
Numbers. 
Time. 
Numbers. 
rrime. 
Numbers. 
1 month 
. 11 
6 
years 
81 
20 
years . . 
. 4 
2 months 
. 49 
1 
a 
56 
21 
u 
. 2 
3 
u 
. 16 
8 
a 
69 
22 
u 
. 1 
4 
u 
. 62 
9 
a 
32 
23 
u 
. 2 
5 
u 
. 51 
10 
a 
26 
24 
a 
. 2 
6 
u 
. 126 
11 
a 
8 
25 
u 
1 
7 
a 
. 129 
12 
c. 
14 
21 
u 
] 
8 
a 
. 11 
13 
a 
6 
29 
a 
. 1 
9 
(6 
. 21 
14 
u 
1 
30 
u 
1 
10 
a 
. 32 
15 
u 
9 
32 
u 
1 
1 
year. 
. 325 
16 
a 
13 
34 
a 
] 
2 
years 
. 55 
11 
a 
3 
35 
a 
1 
3 
u 
. 245 
18 
a 
4 
Unascertained 
. 53 
4 
a 
. 203 
19 
a 
8 
Total 
2000 
5 
a 
. 125 NEW YORK. 
485 
It lias already been stated that the average duration of the life 
of a prostitute does not exceed four years from the commencement 
of her career. This is one year beyond the estimated duration as 
given by some English writers, but very far below the average, as 
ascertained in Paris, in which city, at the time M. Parent-Duchat- 
elet instituted his elaborate system of investigation, he found in 
the gross number of 3517 prostitutes, two hundred and forty-two 
who had led that life for upward of fourteen years, and six hund- 
red and forty-one who had continued their course upward of ten 
years. What a contrast to the table given above! In Paris, 6$ 
per cent, had survived the horrors of courtesan life for fourteen 
years; in New York, only 2f per cent, have reached the same pe- 
riod. In Paris, 17£ per cent, existed; in New York, 8f per cent, 
exist after ten years of exposure; or, in other words, where seven 
exist in Paris, only three have survived in New York, or where 
seventeen exist in Paris, only four survive in New York. It can 
not be asserted that Paris is a more healthy city than New York, 
and this difference must arise from the fact that, while judicious 
arrangements are enforced in the former, a similar policy has not 
been recognized in the latter. If this relative mortality were the 
only fact known on this matter, the economy of human life would 
be an irresistible argument in favor of measures of supervision ju- 
diciously conceived and promptly executed. 
In the city of New York, six hundred and thirty-four women, 
more than thirty-one per cent., have been on the town less than 
one }7ear, and three hundred and twenty-five, or more than seven- 
teen per cent., for a space of time ranging from one to two years. 
Here, then, is one half of the total number, the experience of the 
remainder extending through various periods up to thirty-five 
years. With reference to those who assign such an extent of 
duration, it may be remarked, as was done in considering the 
question of age, that they are, with scarcely a solitary exception, 
those who, having been prostitutes in their younger days, are 
now engaged in brothel-keeping, and are thus exempted from 
many dangers attending the ordinary life of a harlot. If the same 
rule had been observed here in their cases as was done in the in- 
quiries at Paris, namely, to exclude them from the list of prosti- 
tutes, the relative mortality given above would have shown still 
more unfavorably for New York. 
It may be asked, What peculiar dangers attend the life of a 
prostitute in this city ? There is a frightful physical malady to 486 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
which all are liable, and which will be alluded to under its proper 
head. There are other dangers to which prostitutes, in a greater 
or less degree, are exposed. It is not necessary to remind the 
reader that at intervals the public is shocked by accounts in our 
daily papers of cowardly and outrageous assaults upon these un- 
fortunate women, perpetrated by ruffians of the other sex. Some- 
times it is an onslaught made by a party of men, for little or no 
provocation, on a number of females; or it may be an attack of a 
paramour on his victim. To this latter description of ill-treat- 
ment common women are peculiarly liable; for, beyond their habits 
of promiscuous intercourse, almost every one of them, particularly 
those in the middle or lower classes, has attached herself to some 
indolent fellow who acts as her protector (“ bully” or “ lover” is 
the common designation) when she becomes involved in any diffi- 
culty with strangers, but who exercises an arbitrary and brutal 
control over her at other times. In many cases, singular as it 
may appear, an actual love is felt by the woman for “ her man.” 
In others it is a mere arrangement for mutual convenience, the 
man taking her part in all quarrels, and the woman providing 
funds to maintain him in idleness. The intemperate habits of the 
prostitutes also tend materially to shorten their lives. 
In addition to physical dangers must be considered the mental 
anguish they undergo, which inevitably preys upon the consti- 
tution. To this even the most depraved of them are at times sub- 
ject. In the earlier stages of their career is an agonizing memory 
of the past; thoughts of home; regrets for the position they have 
lost. As they proceed in their course they suffer from an antici- 
pation of the future; the grave, a nameless, pauper grave, yawns 
before them; thoughts of the inevitable eternity intrude; and a 
past of shame, a present of anguish, a future of dread, are the sub- 
jects of thought indulged by many who would never be suspect- 
ed by the gay world of entertaining a serious reflection. It may 
be said, in the words of Byron, 
“ But in an instant o’er her soul 
Winters of memory seem to roll, 
And gather in that drop of time 
A life of pain, an age of crime.” 
The period for their nocturnal revelry returns, and, though with 
a breaking heart, they must deck themselves with tawdry finery, 
and forcing a smile upon their faces, resume a loathsome trade to 
earn their daily food. With such torments, physical and mental, NEW YORK. 
487 
can long life be expected as their lot? Can any human frame 
withstand these incessant attacks for a lengthened period? It 
would not be at all surprising if the ratio of mortality among 
prostitutes were greater than it is. 
Question. Have you had any disease incident to prostitu- 
tion ? If so, what ? 
Disease. .Attacks. Numbers. 
Gonorrhoea 1 Attack 153 
“ 2 Attacks 53 
“ 3 « 44 
Gonorrhoea and syphilis 36 
Syphilis 1 Attack 395 
“ 2 Attacks 81 
“ 3 “ 38 
« 4 “ 12 
« 5 “ 4 
“ 6 “ 4 
« 8 “ 1 
Total attacked 821 
The nature and effects of venereal disease have been already so 
fully specified in notices of the various systems adopted for its 
prevention, given in the preceding pages of this work, that it 
would be a needless repetition to dwell upon them here. It is 
sufficient, for the present purpose, to call attention to the fact that 
more than two fifths of the total number of prostitutes examined 
during the investigation confess that they have suffered from 
syphilis or gonorrhoea. The probability is that the real number 
far exceeds this average; that, alarming as is the confession, the 
actual facts are much worse. This opinion is based upon the re- 
sults of professional experience, and a knowledge of the difficulty 
which exists in obtaining any voluntary reliable statement on the 
subject. 
Even assuming that the answers obtained are correct, they in- 
dicate ample cause for the perpetuation of the disease, and its in- 
troduction into almost every branch of society. One half of the 
total number who confess that they have suffered or are suffering 
from this disease, state that they have been so afflicted once only. 
In other forms of sickness which admit of a perfect cure this 
would be no cause for alarm, but in this instance it is a mooted 
point among medical writers whether the syphilitic taint can ever 
be eradicated from the system where it has been implanted, and 
the arguments on each side are urged with great ability. With- 
out presuming to pass an opinion on the question, or expressing 488 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
any doubt of the correctness of those learned men who think it 
possible to remove the taint from the body, it is policy to urge, in 
this case, the views of their opponents that it can not be eradi- 
cated. Upon this ground every citizen is competent to determine 
for himself the amount of public mischief resulting daily from a 
mass of prostitutes, two out of every five of whom are confessedly 
diseased. 
Question. What was the cause of your becoming a pros- 
titute ? 
Causes. Numbers. 
Inclination 613 
Destitution 525 
Seduced and abandoned 258 
Drink, and the desire to drink 181 
El-treatment of parents, relatives, or husbands . . .164 
As an easy life 124 
Bad company 84 
Persuaded by prostitutes 'll 
Too idle to work 29 
Violated 21 
Seduced on board emigrant ships 16 
in emigrant boarding houses 8 
Total '2OOO 
This question is probably the most important of the series, as 
the replies lay open to a considerable extent those hidden springs 
of evil which have hitherto been known only from their results. 
First in order stands the reply “ Inclination,” which can only be 
understood as meaning a voluntary resort to prostitution in order 
to gratify the sexual passions. Five hundred and thirteen wom- 
en, more than one fourth of the gross number, give this as their 
reason. If their representations were borne out by facts, it would 
make the task of grappling with the vice a most arduous one, and 
afford very slight grounds to hope for any amelioration; but it is 
imagined that the circumstances which induced the ruin of most 
of those who gave the answer will prove that, if a positive incli- 
nation to vice was the proximate cause of the fall, it was but the 
result of other and controlling influences. In itself such an an- 
swer would imply an innate depravity, a want of true woman- 
ly feeling, which is actually incredible. The force of desire can 
neither be denied nor disputed, but still in the bosoms of most fe- 
males that force exists in a slumbering state until aroused by 
some outside influences. No woman can understand its power 
until some positive cause of excitement exists. What is sufficient 
to awaken the dormant passion is a question that admits innu- NEW YORK. 
489 
merable answers. Acquaintance with the opposite sex, particu- 
larly if extended so far as to become a reciprocal affection, will 
tend to this; so will the companionship of females who have 
yielded to its power; and so will the excitement of intoxication. 
But it must be repeated, and most decidedly, that without these 
or some other equally stimulating cause, the full force of sexual 
desise is seldom known to a virtuous woman. In the male sex 
nature has provided a more susceptible organization than in fe- 
males, apparently with the beneficent design of repressing those 
evils which must result from mutual appetite equally felt by both. 
In other words, man is the aggressive animal, so far as sexual de- 
sire is involved. Were it otherwise, and the passions in both sexes 
equal, illegitimacy and prostitution would be far more rife in our 
midst than at present. 
Some few of the cases in which the reply “ Inclination” was 
given are herewith submitted, with the explanation which ac- 
companied each return. C. M.: while virtuous, this girl had vis- 
ited dance-houses, where she became acquainted with prostitutes, 
who persuaded her that they led an easy, merry life; her inclina- 
tion was the result of female persuasion. E. C. left her husband, 
and became a prostitute willingly, in order to obtain intoxicating 
liquors which had been refused her at home. E. R. was deserted 
by her husband because she drank to excess, and became a pros- 
titute in order to obtain liquor. In this and the preceding case, 
inclination was the result solely of intemperance. A. J. willing- 
ly sacrificed her virtue to a man she loved. C. L.: her inclination 
was swayed by the advice of women already on the town. J. J. 
continued this course from inclination after having been seduced 
by her lover. S. C.: this girl’s inclination arose from a love of 
liquor. Enough has been quoted to prove that, in many of the 
cases, what is called willing prostitution is the sequel of some 
communication or circumstances which undermine the principles 
of virtue and arouse the latent passions. 
Destitution is assigned as a reason in five hundred and twenty- 
five cases. In many of these it is unquestionably true that posi- 
tive, actual want, the apparent and dreaded approach of starva- 
tion, was the real cause of degradation. The following instances 
of this imperative necessity will appeal to the understanding and 
the heart more forcibly than any arguments that could be used. 
As in all the selections already made, or that may be made here- 
after, these cases are taken indiscriminately from the replies re- 
ceived, and might be indefinitely extended. 490 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
During the progress of this investigation in one of the lower 
wards of the city, attention was drawn to a pale but interesting- 
looking girl, about seventeen years of age, from whose replies the 
following narrative is condensed, retaining her own words as near- 
ly as possible. 
“ I have been leading this life from about the middle of last 
January (1856). It was absolute want that drove me to it. My 
sister, who was about three years older than I am, lived with me. 
She was deformed and a cripple from a fall she had while a child, 
and could not do any hard work. She could do a little sewing, 
and when we both were able to get work we could just make a 
living. When the heavy snow-storm came our work stopped, 
and we were in want of food and coals. One very cold morning, 
just after I had been to the store, the landlord’s agent called for 
some rent we owed, and told us that, if we could not pay it, we 
should have to move. The agent was a kind man, and gave us a 
little money to buy some coals. We did not know what we were 
to do, and were both crying about it, when the woman who keeps 
this house (where she was then living) came in and brought some 
sewing for us to do that day. She said that she had been recom- 
mended to us by a woman who lived in the same house, but I 
found out since that she had watched me, and only said this for an 
excuse. When the work was done I brought it home here. I 
had heard of such places before, but had never been inside one. 
I was very cold, and she made me sit down by the fire, and began 
to talk to me, saying how much better off I should be if I would 
come and live with her. I told her I could not leave my sister, 
who was the only relation I had, and could not help herself; but 
she said I should be able to help my sister, and that she would 
find some light sewing for her to do, so that she should not want. 
She talked a good deal more, and I felt inclined to do as she 
wanted me, but then I thought how wicked it would be, and at 
last I told her I would think about it. When I got home and 
saw my sister so sick as she was, and wanting many little things 
that we had no money to buy, and no friends to help us to, my 
heart almost broke. However, I said nothing to her then. I laid 
awake all night thinking, and in the morning I made up my mind 
to come here. I told her what I was going to do, and she begged 
me not, but my mind was made up. She said it would be sin, 
and I told her that I should have to answer for that, and that I 
was forced to do it because there was no other way to keep my- 
self and help her, and I knew she could not work much for her- NEW YORK. 
491 
self, and I was sure she would not live a day if we were turned 
into the streets. She tried all she could to persuade me not, but 
I was determined, and so I came here, I hated the thoughts of 
such a life, and my only reason for coming was that I might help 
her. I thought that, if I had been alone, I would sooner have 
starved, but I could not bear to see her suffering. She only lived 
a few weeks after I came here. I broke her heart. Ido not like 
the life. I would do almost any thing to get out of it; but, now 
that I have once done wrong, I can not get any one to give me 
work, and I must stop here unless I wish to be starved to death.” 
This plain and affecting narrative needs no comment. It re- 
veals the history of .many an unfortunate woman in this city, and 
while it must appeal to every sensitive heart, it argues most forc- 
ibly for some intervention in such cases. The following state- 
ments of other women who have suffered and fallen in a similar 
manner will show that the preceding is not an isolated case. M. 
M., a widow with one child, earned $1 50 per week as a tailoress. 
J, Y., a servant, was taken sick while in a situation, spent all her 
money, and could get no employment when she recovered. M. 
T. (quoting her own words) “ had no work, no money, and no 
home.” S. F., a widow with three children, could earn two dollars 
weekly at cap-making, but could not obtain steady employment 
even at those prices. M. F. had been out of place for some time, 
and had no money. E. H. earned from two to three dollars per 
week as tailoress, but had been out of employment for some time. 
L. C. Gf.: the examining officer reports in this case, “ This girl (a 
tailoress) is a stranger, without any relations. She received a dol- 
lar and a half a week, which would not maintain her.” M. C., 
a servant, was receiving five dollars a month. She sent all her 
earnings to her mother, and soon after lost her situation, when she 
had no means to support herself. M. S., also a servant, received 
one dollar a month wages. A. B. landed in Baltimore from Ger- 
many, and was robbed of all her money the very day she reached 
the shore, M, F., a shirt-maker, earned one dollar a week. E. 
M. G.: the captain of police in the district where this woman re- 
sides says, “ This girl struggled hard with the world before she 
became a prostitute, sleeping in station-houses at night, and living 
on bread and water during the day.” He adds: “In my experi- 
ence of three years, I have known over fifty cases whose history 
would be similar to hers, and who are now prostitutes.” 
These details give some insight into the under-current of city 
life. The most prominent fact is that a large number of females, 492 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
both operatives and domestics, earn so small wages that a tempo- 
rary cessation of their business, or being a short time out of a sit- 
uation, is sufficient to reduce them to absolute distress. Provi- 
dent habits are useless in their cases; for, much as they may feel 
the necessity, they have nothing to save, and the very day that they 
encounter a reverse sees them penniless. The struggle a virtu- 
ous girl will wage against fate in such circumstances may be con- 
ceived : it is a literal battle for life, and in the result life is too oft- 
en preserved only by the sacrifice of virtue. 
“ Seduced and abandoned.” Two hundred and fifty-eight wom- 
en make this'reply. These numbers give but a faint idea of the 
actual total that should be recorded under the designation, as 
many who are included in other classes should doubtless have 
been returned in this. It has already been shown that under the 
answer “ Inclination” are comprised the responses of many who 
were the victims of seduction before such inclination existed, and 
there can be no question that among those who assign “ Drink, 
and the desire to drink” as the cause of their becoming prosti- 
tutes, may be found many whose first departure from the rules 
of sobriety was actuated by a desire to drive from their mem- 
ories all recollections of their seducers’ falsehoods. Of the num- 
ber who were persuaded by women, themselves already fallen, to 
become public courtesans, it is but reasonable to conclude that 
many had previously yielded their honor to some lover under 
false protestations of attachment and fidelity. 
It is needless to resort to argument to prove that seduction is a 
vast social wrong, involving in its consequences not only the en- 
tire loss of female character, but also totally destroying the con- 
sciousness of integrity on the part of the male sex. It matters not 
under what circumstances the crime may be perpetrated, none can 
be found that will exonerate the active offender from the imputa- 
tion of fraud and treachery. A woman’s heart longs for a recip- 
rocal affection, and, to insure this, she will occasionally yield her 
honor to her lover’s importunities, but only when her attachment 
has become so concentrated upon its object as to invest him with 
every attribute of perfection, to find in every word he utters and 
every action he performs but some token of his devotion to her. 
Love is then literally a passion, an and its power is uni- 
versally acknowledged. 
But this passion can not be the growth of an hour. Its devel- 
opments are gradual. From the first stage of mere acquaintance, NEW YORK. 
493 
it ripens progressively under the influence of tender words and 
solemn vows, frequently sincere, but often simulated, until the 
woman owns to herself and admits to her lover that she regards 
him with affection. Such an acknowledgment, virtually placing 
her future life in his custody, should inspire him with the high 
resolve to protect her name and fame, to justify the confidence 
she has reposed. But not unfrequently is it made the medium 
for dishonorable exactions, and for a momentary gratification, 
valueless to him except as a proof of her fervent adoration, and 
fatal in its consequences to her, he tramples on the priceless jewel 
of her honor, confidingly surrendered to this love and truth. 
It should be remembered that, in order to accomplish this base 
end, he must have resorted to base means; must either have pro- 
fessed a love he did not feel, or have allowed his affection to cool 
as he approached its consummation. Pure and sincere attach- 
ment would effectually prevent the lover from performing any 
act which could possibly compromise the woman he adores. None 
but an unmitigated ruffian can calmly and deliberately wrong an 
unsuspecting female who has acknowledged a tender sentiment 
toward him, thus placing herself so entirely in his power. The 
crime of seduction can be viewed only as a mean and atrocious 
perjury, and strangely callous must he be whose conscience in 
after life does not pursue him with scorpion stings and fiery tor- 
tures. 
But how account for the participation of the female in the 
crime? Simply by viewing it as an idolatry of devotion which 
is willing to surrender all to the demands of him she worships; 
to the intensity of her affections, which absorbs all other consid- 
erations ; to a perfect insanity of love, excited and sustained by a 
supposed equal devotion to herself. As soon as this conviction 
of a mutual love possesses her mind, as soon as her heart responds 
to its magic touch, she lives in a new atmosphere; her individu- 
ality is lost; her thoughts revert only to her lover. Devoted to 
the promotion of his happiness, she thinks not of her own; and 
only when it is too late does she awake from the spell that lures 
her to destruction. In such a case as this, a woman does not merit 
the contempt with which her conduct is visited. She has sinned 
from weakness, not from vice; she has been made the victim of 
her own unbounded love, her heart’s richest and purest affections. 
Moralists say that all human passions should be held in check 
by reason and virtue, and none can deny the truthfulness of the 494 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
assertion. But while they apply the sentiment to the weaker 
party, who is the sufferer, would it not be advisable to recom- 
mend the same restraining influences to him who is the inflictor? 
No woman possessed of the smallest share of decency or the 
slightest appreciation of virtue would voluntarily surrender her- 
self without some powerful motive, not pre-existent in herself, but 
imparted by her destroyer. Well aware of the world’s opinion, 
she would not recklessly defy it, and precipitate herself into an 
abyss of degradation and shame unless some overruling influence 
had urged her forward. This motive and this influence, it is be- 
lieved, may be uniformly traced to her weak but truly feminine 
dependence upon another’s vows. Naturally unsuspicious her- 
self, she can not believe that the being whom she has almost de- 
ified can be aught but good, and noble, and trustworthy. Sincere 
in her own professions, she believes there is equal sincerity in his 
protestations. Willing to sacrifice all to him, she feels implicitly 
assured that he will protect her from harm. Thus there can be 
little doubt that, in most cases of seduction, female virtue is trust- 
ingly surrendered to the specious arguments and false promises 
of dishonorable men.1 
1 Since these pages were prepared for the press, a work has been reprinted in 
New York, called “A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women, by the Author of ‘John 
Halifax, Gentleman,” which contains many passages pertinent to this inquiry. 
The high reputation of its author (Miss Mulock), not only for literary ability, hut for 
practical benevolence and womanly charity, will be sufficient apology for submit- 
ting some of her remarks to the reader in the shape of notes. It is satisfactory to 
know that man}r sentiments advanced herein are such as Miss Mulock has advo- 
cated on the other side of the Atlantic. On the subject of seduction, she remarks: 
“I think it can not be doubted that even the loss of personal chastity does not 
indicate total corruption, or entail permanent degradation; that after it, and in 
spite of it, many estimable and womanly qualities may be found existing, not only 
in our picturesque Nell GWynnes and Peg Woffingtons, but our poor every-day sin- 
ners: the servant obliged to be dismissed without a character and with a baby; 
the seamstress quitting starvation for elegant infamy; the illiterate village lass, who 
thinks it so grand to be made a lady of—so much better to be a rich man’s mistress 
than a working man’s ill-used wife, or, rather, slave. 
“Till we allow that no one sin, not even this sin, necessarily corrupts the entire 
character, we shall scarcely be able to judge it with that fairness which gives hopes 
of our remedying it, or trying to lessen, in ever so minute a degree, by our indi- 
vidual dealing with any individual case that comes in our way, the enormous 
aggregate of misery that it entails. This it behooves us to do, even on selfish 
grounds, for it touches us closer than many of us are aware—ay, in our own hearths 
and homes; in the sons and brothers that we have to send out to struggle in a 
world of which we at the fireside know absolutely nothing: if we marry, in the fa- 
thers we give to our innocent children, the servants we trust their infancy to, and 
the influences to which we are obliged to expose them daily and hourly, unless we NEW YORK. 
495 
The every-day experiences of life are amply sufficient to justify 
this opinion, for it is a fact that these specious arguments and false 
promises are continually resorted to by many men for the express 
purposes of seduction; and, nefarious as these cases confessedly 
are, still they form common incidents in the lives of some who 
claim to be what the world calls respectable! Men who, in the 
ordinary relations of life, would scruple to defraud their neighbors 
of a dollar, do not hesitate to rob a confiding woman of her chas- 
tity. They who, in a business point of view, would regard ob- 
taining goods under false pretenses as an act to bo visited with 
all the severity of the law, hesitate not to obtain by even viler 
fraud the surrender of woman’s virtue to their fiendish lust. Is 
there no inconsistency in the social laws which condemn a swin- 
dler to the state prison for his offenses, and condemn a woman to 
perpetual infamy for her wrongs ? Undoubtedly there are cases 
where the woman is the seducer, but these are so rare as to be 
hardly worth mentioning. 
Seduction is a social wrong. Its entire consequences are not 
comprised in the injury inflicted on the woman, or the sense of 
perfidy oppressing the conscience of the man. Beyond the fact 
that she is, in the ordinary language of the day, ruined, the vic- 
tim has endured an attack upon her principles which must mate- 
rially affect her future life. The world may not know of her trans- 
gression, and, in consequence, public obloquy may not be added to 
her burden; but she is too painfully conscious of her fall, and ev- 
ery thought of her lacerated and bleeding heart is embittered 
with a sense of man’s wrong and outrage. Memory points to the 
many bright passages in their acquaintance, and says, these shone 
but to ensnare you; to the many tokens of endearment received 
from her betrayer, and says, these were but so many arguments to 
effect your ruin; to the many vows he breathed, and says, these 
were but perjury; to the many smiles with which she was greet- 
ed, and says, these were but so many hypocritical devices. She 
remembers the thrill of joy with which her heart so gayly bound- 
ed when he first told her she was beloved, and she contrasts her 
were to bring them up in a sort of domestic Happy Valley, which their first effort 
would be to get out of as fast as ever they could. And supposing we are saved from 
all this; that our position is one peculiarly exempt from evil; that if pollution in any 
form comes nigh us, we sweep it hastily and noiselessly away from our doors, and 
think we are right and safe—alas! we forget that a refuse-heap outside her gate 
may breed a plague even in a queen’s palace.”—A Woman's Thoughts upon Wom- 
en (New York ed.), p. 261, 496 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ecstasy then with her agonies now. She remembers, with de- 
testation, the caresses he was wont to bestow. But, above all, she 
remembers, and her blood boils with indignation as the thought is 
forced upon her, that by these means he has wrought her shame. 
She has learned in the school of sorrow that man’s promises of 
fidelity are valueless; and her future life, whether spent in sor- 
row and repentance for the past, or in a wild, impetuous career of 
subsequent vice, will be indelibly marked with the remembrance 
of his treachery. It can not be a matter of surprise that, with this 
feeling of injustice and insult burning at her heart, her career 
should be one in which she becomes the aggressor, and man the 
victim; for it is a certain fact that in this desire of revenge upon 
the sex for the falsehood of one will be found a cause of the in- 
crease of prostitution. 
The probabilities of a decrease in the crime of seduction are 
very slight, so long as the present public sentiment prevails; 
while the seducer is allowed to go unpunished, and the full meas- 
ure of retribution is directed against his victim; while the offend- 
er escapes, but the offended is condemned. Unprincipled men, 
ready to take advantage of woman’s trustful nature, abound, and 
they pursue their diabolical course unmolested. Legal enactments 
can scarcely ever reach them, although sometimes a poor man 
without friends or money is indicted and convicted. The remedy 
must be left to the world at large. When our domestic relations 
are such that a man known to be guilty of this crime can obtain 
no admission into the family circle; when the virtuous and re- 
spectable members of the community agree that no such man 
shall be welcomed to their society; when worth and honor assert 
their supremacy over wealth and boldness, there may be hopes of 
a reformation, but not till then. 
The following cases will exhibit some of the results of seduc- 
tion: M. C., a native of Pennsylvania, seventeen years of age, was 
induced to run away from home with her lover, who promised to 
marry her as soon as they reached Philadelphia. Instead of keep- 
ing his word, he deserted her. She was afraid to go home, and had 
no means of living except by prostitution, which she practiced for 
eight months in Philadelphia, and then came to New York to re- 
side. Her father, a physician, died when she was about ten years 
old, and her mother subsequently married a hotel-keeper, in whose 
house the girl was reared, and to the associations of which she 
probably, to some extent, owes her fall from virtue. NEW YORK. 
497 
In one of the most aristocratic houses of prostitution in New 
York was found the daughter of a merchant, a man of large prop- 
erty, residing in one of the Southern states. She was a beautiful 
girl, had received a superior education, spoke several languages 
fluently, and seemed keenly sensible of her degradation. Two 
years before this time she had been on a visit to some relations in 
Europe, and on her return voyage in one of her father’s vessels, 
she was seduced by the captain, and became pregnant. He sol- 
emnly asserted that he would marry her as soon as they reached 
their port, but the ship had no sooner arrived than he left her. 
The poor girl’s parents would not receive her back into their 
family, and she came to New York and prostituted herself for 
support. 
A. 8., the child of respectable parents in Germany, was seduced 
in her native place by a man to whom she was attached. He 
promised to marry her if she would accompany him to the United 
States. She obtained the permission and necessary funds from 
her parents, and two days after they landed in New York her se- 
ducer deserted her, carrying off all the money she had brought 
from home. H. P., a school-girl, sixteen years of age, was seduced 
by a married man who now visits her occasionally. C. A. was se- 
duced in New Jersey, brought to New York, and deserted among 
strangers. M. R. was seduced by her employer, a married man. 
A. W. was seduced while at school in Troy, N. Y., and was 
ashamed to return to her parents. L. H. followed a lover from 
England who had promised to marry her. When she arrived in 
New York he seduced and diseased her, and then she discovered 
that he was a married man. There is no necessity to multiply 
these cases. 
“ Drink and the desire to drink.” We will alter an old saying, 
and render it, “When a woman drinks she is lost.” It will be 
conceded that the habit of intoxication in woman, if not an indi- 
cation of the existence of actual depravity or vice, is a sure pre- 
cursor of it, for drunkenness and debauchery are inseparable com- 
panions, one almost invariably following the other. In some cases 
a woman living in service becomes a drunkard; she forms ac- 
quaintances among the depraved of her own sex, and willingly 
joins their ranks. Married women acquire the habit of drinking, 
and forsake their husbands and families to gratify not so much 
their sexual appetite as their passion for liquor. Young women 
are often persuaded to take one or two glasses of liquor, and then 498 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
their ruin may be soon expected. Others are induced to drink 
spirits in which a narcotic has been infused to render them insen- 
sible to their ruin. In short, it is scarcely possible to enumerate 
the many temptations which can be employed when intoxicating 
drinks are used as the agent. 
“ 111-treatment of parents, husbands, or relatives” is a prolific 
cause of prostitution, one hundred and sixty-four women assign- 
ing it as a reason for their fall. In consideration of their import- 
ant relations to society, it may be well to inquire, What are the 
duties of parents, husbands, and relatives ? 
In all countries where the obligations of the marriage contract 
are recognized, one of its most stringent requirements is found in 
the necessity to provide for the children of such union. This is 
acknowledged as a moral duty on account of the relationship be- 
tween parents and children; it is recognized as a religious duty 
because specially enjoined in Holy Writ, and it is regarded as a 
civil duty because the future welfare of any community must de- 
pend upon the training of its future citizens. 
As to the moral duty, what arguments would be effectual to 
prove to a hard-hearted parent the necessity of bestowing a kindly 
education upon his child? Surely nature itself would supply all 
the necessary reasons. The still, small voice of conscience will 
whisper to him, I have been the instrument of bringing this 
child into the world, and I am therefore responsible for its wel- 
fare. And even plain, old-fashioned common sense (despised as it 
is since a certain philosophy has come into fashion) would say, I 
am the father of a child, and it is my interest to do the best I can 
for it. 
The religious duties are abundantly enforced in the Scriptures. 
These, while requiring in explicit terms the obedience of children 
to their parents, and annexing to such commandment the onlv 
promise which the Decalogue contains, are equally plain in speci- 
fying the duties of parents. These points are acknowledged by 
all sects and parties; and commentators or preachers, however 
much they may differ on questions of theology, or articles of faith, 
or rules of Church government, are unanimous upon the extent 
of parental obligation. 
The civil duties are important for the reason already assigned. 
Children will be our successors in this arena, as we have succeed- 
ed the patriot fathers who achieved our independence, and made 
us the people that we are. The principles enunciated by every NEW YORK. 
499 
shot fired during the Revolutionary war have descended to us, 
but we are only trustees for their safe transmission to the next 
generation, and we shall be recreant to our duty, false to the 
memory of our ancestors, and traitors to our country, if we allow 
our children to assume the responsibilities that will naturally de- 
volve upon them without due preparation for the sacred trust. 
Having thus briefly alluded to the duties of parents, it remains 
to give some information as to the manner in which such obliga- 
tions are performed, selected from the returns received in the 
progress of this investigation. 
L. M., a very well educated girl: “ I was seduced at eighteen 
years of age, and forced to leave home to hide my disgrace.” Ad- 
mitting that this girl had been led into an error, the plain duty 
of her parents, in every point of view, was to endeavor to reform 
her instead of driving her from home. Human nature, in its most 
favorable condition, is fallible; all are liable to error; but as all 
hope for forgiveness, so should they forgive. This is the doctrine 
of the sublime prayer taught by our Savior to his apostles; this 
is the duty of humanity. “ The bruised reed He will not break,” 
is a Divine promise from which poor finite man might draw a 
valuable lesson. 
E. B.: “My parents wanted me to marry an old man, and I re- 
fused. I had a very unhappy home afterward.” This case was 
directly in conflict with the dictates of nature. She had formed 
an attachment for a man who would, in all human probability, 
have made her a good husband, and caused her to remain a vir- 
tuous member of society; but her parents wanted her to marry an 
old man, and, in consequence of refusal, treated her with unkind- 
ness. She has now, poor girl, to answer for her sin of inconti- 
nence, but who can tell what other offenses would have been laid 
to her charge had she married as desired by her parents ? How 
many awful deeds recorded in the annals of criminal jurispru- 
dence have been produced by ill-assorted marriages! How many 
outrages, how much bloodshed, owe their origin to such a cause! 
Parents who, for their own selfish purposes, would drive a daugh- 
ter into a marriage repugnant to her feelings, deserve the severest 
condemnation. So far from performing their duty in the matter, 
they are acting in diametrical opposition to it. 
C. B.: “My stepmother ill-used me.” The stepmother in this 
case stands in the place of the natural parent. In assuming the 
duties, she assumes all the responsibilities of the relation, and is 500 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
equally guilty as if this girl were her own child. Women’s feel- 
ings, in a normal state, are generally kind, gentle, and forgiving; 
but when they are perverted, she becomes more inveterate than 
man. So it was in this instance. 
E. G.: “My mother ill-treated me and drove me from home. 
My father was very kind, but he died when I was seven years 
old.” A similar case to the preceding in the perversion of femi- 
nine feelings, coupled with the melancholy fact that the girl’s fa- 
ther, who had always used her kindly, died when she was a child. 
It would be natural to conclude that all the affections of a widow 
would concentrate upon her children, but the reverse of this is too 
frequently found to be true, and as soon as the husband to whom 
her vows were pledged is laid in the grave, and the children are 
deprived of his protecting hand, her love is alienated from them. 
A mother’s duties to her offspring are increased by her husband’s 
death, but she neglects them, and does violence to the maternal 
instinct. 
M. B.: “I support my mother.” It may possibly be objected 
that this case does not come within the scope of this section, as 
showing no positive neglect of parental duty, but, by implication, 
it is decidedly entitled to a place in the catalogue. It is, unfortu- 
nately for the sake of morality, but one of many similar instances 
which have been encountered, and some of which will be noticed 
in due course. The self-evident conclusion is, that if this mother 
had properly trained her daughter in early life, she would not 
now have to endure the agony arising from the knowledge that 
every morsel of food she eats, every article of clothing she wears, 
is purchased with the proceeds of her child’s shame. It is diffi- 
cult to imagine any position more disgusting than this—any cir- 
cumstance more horrible than that of a mother quietly depending 
for existence upon the prostitution of a daughter, with the cer- 
tainty that the inevitable result of such a vicious cpurse of life 
will drive the child of her affection to a premature grave and a 
dreadful eternity. 
J. C.: “My father accused me of being a prostitute when I was 
innocent. He would give me no clothes to wear. My mother 
was a confirmed drunkard, and used to be away from home most 
of the time.” Here we have a combination of horrors scarcely 
equaled in the field of romance. The unjust accusations of the 
father, and his conduct in not supplying his child with the actual 
necessaries of life, joined with the drunkenness of the mother, NEW YORK. 
present sucli an accumulation of cruelty and vice that it would 
have been a miracle had the girl remained virtuous. It is to be 
presumed that no one will claim for this couple the performance 
of any one of the duties enjoined by their position. 
S. S.: “I had no work, and went home. My father was a 
drunkard, and ill-treated me and the rest of the family.” Here 
is a specimen of a father’s cruelty. His daughter is out of em- 
ployment, and has no home but with her parents, and he, mad- 
dened with liquor, abuses her for flying to her natural protectors. 
Where was she to expect aid and comfort but from the authors 
of her being, and how was such expectation realized ? She was 
forced to resort to prostitution as a means of living. 
C. E.: “My parents are rich. They would not let me live at 
home, because I had been seduced.” In this case there was no ex- 
cuse for parental unkindness. Blessed with an ample supply of 
this world’s treasures, they could calmly see their daughter ex- 
posed to want and penury. Living in the enjoyment of opulence 
themselves, they could doom her to earn a miserable subsistence 
by a life of shame. Satisfied with their own lot, and complacent- 
ly surveying the comforts which surrounded them, they con- 
demned her to a course of infamy in which no enjoyment could 
be found to cheer her path; where every day must add fresh tor- 
tures to her lot, every hour sink her yet lower in the social scale. 
Why? Because an indiscretion or a crime—call it which you 
please—had made her a fitting object for their kindness; because 
her own act had placed her in a position where she felt her dis- 
grace, and asked their sympathy and aid to retrace her steps. 
Can there be a more pitiable object than a woman who has sacri- 
ficed her virtue to the importunity, the entreaties, or the vows of 
her lover, when she reflects upon her conduct ? The delirium of 
love is past, but the overwhelming sense of shame is left; she 
feels that a momentary act has blasted her future life; she knows 
that the world will condemn her, and the only resource she has 
is an appeal to her parents. If they kindly take her by the 
hand, in all probability the evil will extend no farther, and she 
may regain her position in life. If they refuse their sympathy, 
they practically drive her to a course of vice, for there is no other 
road open to her. Who, then, is responsible for her after-career 
but those who have the power to preserve her from farther guilt 
and shame ? 
J. A.: “I am the eldest of a large family. My father is a 502 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
drunkard, and would not support his children. I have supported 
my parents, brothers, and sisters for the last five years.” This is 
an example of an outrageous social crime which can not be con- 
templated without horror; the parents of a family, with their re- 
maining children, relying for subsistence upon the aid furnished 
from the sinful earnings of the first-born! In this instance the 
economy of nature is reversed. The filial affection which leads a 
child to support her aged and infirm parents can be understood 
and appreciated, but it is impossible to reprobate too severely the 
conduct of a man whose own actions have reduced him to pov- 
erty, and who then encourages his daughter to lead a life of pros- 
titution that he may revel on money produced by a course of 
debauchery which he was mainly instrumental in producing. 
A. B.: “My lover seduced and diseased me while I was work- 
ing in a factory. I went home, and my parents turned me out.” 
Neither loss of character nor physical suffering were sufficient 
punishment for this poor girl, only eighteen years of age; nor 
could the probability of a future moral life induce her parents to 
pardon the first offense. They had sent her to work amid associ- 
ations which were almost certain to cause her ruin. This, of it- 
self, is a sufficient ground for their condemnation, for they were in 
comfortable circumstances, and could not plead poverty as an ex- 
cuse ; and when this ruin was accomplished, they added to their 
former crime by refusing a shelter to the sufferer. 
These cases are taken from actual facts. The words included 
in inverted commas are, as nearly as possible, those used by the 
women when being questioned. As to the truth of the state- 
ments, we hesitate not to believe them all to be substantially cor- 
rect. They are not a fiftieth part of the instances in which simi- 
lar disclosures have been made, but they are sufficient for the pur- 
pose of argument, and to prove that the assertions made in other 
places rest upon a solid foundation, and are not mere fancies of the 
brain. It would certainly be much more to the credit of society 
,if their authenticity were not so indisputable. 
The foregoing examples strongly suggest and justify a farther 
consideration of the duties of parents. While these include the 
obligation to furnish a child with food and clothing, they do not 
stop at that point. It would be erroneous, indeed, for any father 
to imagine he had fulfilled all the requirements of his position 
when he gave a child enough to eat and to wear. He would at- 
tend to the wants of his cattle in the same way, but there is some- NEW YORK. 
503 
thing more to be done in the case of his children. He must so 
treat them as to induce, on their part, a sentiment of gratitude. 
Children are proverbially keen-sighted, and they seem to have a 
natural faculty for logic, so far as they themselves are concerned. 
They can very soon discriminate whether a parent is doing bare- 
ly just as much as the laws of the country and the voice of pub- 
lic opinion require, or whether he is acting toward them with 
true paternal affection. In the former case they become selfish, 
and practice all their little arts to obtain as many advantages that 
the law allows them as possible, without entertaining any feelings 
of respect or affection toward their parents, because they know 
that such obligations can not be evaded without censure. In the 
latter case their gratitude and affection forms a return for the 
kindness bestowed. They immediately perceive that they are 
loved, and, as a natural consequence, endeavor to manifest love in 
return, by acting in a manner most pleasing to their parents. By 
simply encouraging this sentiment, children can be moulded much 
as the father wishes, whereas, by destroying it, he loses one of the 
most effective aids to his government. There are so many differ- 
ent ways by which this affection for children can be manifested, 
and they are all so simple and so certainly effective, that it is 
scarcely possible to conceive how any man or woman of the most 
ordinary intelligence can overlook them. 
In addition to providing for the personal wants of his family, 
their education claims a large portion of the parents’ care. Not 
only the mere tuition imparted in schools, but a careful training 
at home, as preliminary to their conflict with the world, is re- 
quired. It is the instruction and advice given in the quiet of the 
domestic circle that exercises the most powerful influence, most 
effectually shapes the destiny of the future man or woman. No 
person is justified in delaying the performance of this duty. So 
soon as a child can talk and walk, so soon is this guidance neces- 
sary. It would be an interesting and important matter of investi- 
gation to ascertain, if possible, the time of life at which children 
become influenced by the temptations which surround them. The 
result would show a much earlier age than is generally supposed. 
A boy, when playing with his companions, overhears an improper 
expression from one of them. His mind retains it, and it may 
prove the germ from which habits of profanity subsequently 
spring. A girl may notice an improper action, which will rest 
upon her memory, and produce sad fruit hereafter. Thus the ed- 504 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ucation of children for the ordinary duties of life can not be com- 
menced too soon. If delayed, the probabilities are that, when you 
attempt to cultivate the soil in after years, you will find it already 
choked with weeds, which require more time and trouble to erad- 
icate than would the inculcation of proper principles in early life. 
A lady remarked upon one occasion, in presence of an eminent 
preacher, that she thought children should not be trained to any 
religious exercises until they had arrived at an age when they 
could fully understand such subjects. The reply of the aged min- 
ister is appropriate to the present subject. He said, “ Madam, if 
you do not implant good doctrines in your children’s minds be- 
fore that time, the devil will fill them with mischievous ones.” 
A somewhat prevalent error in the training of children must 
not be passed unnoticed, namely, excessive rigidity. This prac- 
tice is common in many well-meaning but unthinking families 
professing Christianity. Every thing is conducted with as much 
mathematical precision as if they were demonstrating a problem 
in Euclid. Such a system is open to very grave objections, from 
the numerous cases in which it has proved prejudicial to the 
child’s best interests. It acts precisely like the spring of a watch, 
which you can retain in a fixed position by a mechanical contriv- 
ance, but which resumes its elasticity and power the moment the 
pressure is removed. Children’s minds are elastic also; you can 
confine them within any circle you please by the exercise of pa- 
rental authority, but in a large proportion of cases the end sought 
to be attained is surely defeated. Many justly blame this cause 
for the mishaps of their future lives. It presents virtue and relig- 
ion in a repulsive aspect, picturing them only as connected with 
asceticism, not recognizing the beauty and happiness which are 
their chief attractions. Thus is engendered in the minds of chil- 
dren an intuitive dislike for what they are taught to consider as a 
bondage. It is not uncommon to hear men describe the way in 
which their youthful Sabbaths were spent, and attribute to the 
irksome monotony of that day’s discipline their subsequent dis- 
taste for even a few hours’ confinement in church. This strict- 
ness, like ambition, “overleaps itself,” and extinguishes the spirit 
it is designed to foster. The proper way to educate children for 
lives of usefulness, honor, and happiness, the most effective plan to 
reach the desired end, is to cultivate their affections and reason, 
instead of repressing the one and fettering the other by stringent 
applications of arbitrary rule. NEW YORK. 
505 
But no man or woman can educate children properly unless 
their precepts are confirmed by example. Talk to your son as 
long as you please upon the advantages of temperance, and then 
let him see you in a state of intoxication the next day, and all your 
labor will be fruitless. Enlarge, in the presence of your daughter, 
upon the value of integrity, and then allow her to hear you utter 
a falsehood, and she will contrast the theory and practice, and 
conclude that the former is worthless. Parents must educate 
themselves before they can hope to instruct their children, and 
must lead a life in conformity with the principles they teach, if 
they expect any beneficial results from their endeavors. 
Before leaving this part of the subject another matter may be 
mentioned, namely, the necessity of winning the confidence of 
children. Their hearts pine for sympathy. If they are in trouble, 
encourage them to reveal their perplexities to you; sigh with 
them when they are sad, and rejoice with them when they are 
happy. A girl who has been in the habit of imparting all her 
childish sorrows to her mother, and has there found a heart which 
would beat in unison with her own, will not withhold her confi- 
dence as she grows in years. Eemember that children, while a 
blessing to their parents, are also a responsibility. You have the 
power to train them for good or evil; you can win their trust, or 
inspire them with distrust; you can make them useful members 
of society, or render them nuisances to the community; to you 
their destiny is confided to a great extent, and from you will be 
required an account of the stewardship. 
The length to which these observations have been extended 
can be justified by the importance of the subject, and the convic- 
tion that a more careful fulfillment of parental duties would go 
very far toward diminishing prostitution. Every man must ad- 
mit it to be his duty to aid in effecting this desirable consumma- 
tion ; and while it would be Utopian to imagine that the vice can 
be eradicated by family influences, it is reasonable to conclude 
that its extent may be materially curtailed. 
Great as are the duties and responsibilities of a father, they are 
equaled by those devolving upon a husband. He has to provide 
for the welfare of his wife besides caring for the interests of his 
children. When he marries he vows to remain faithful to the 
woman of his choice, to “love, honor, and cherish her” so long as 
they both shall live. This is an implied oath, if not audibly ex- 
pressed in all circumstances, and any violation of it is neither 506 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
more nor less than perjury. Of course, the obligation is a mutual 
one; the wife is bound by the same ties, and in as stringent a 
form as the husband. It can not be said that every case of pros- 
titution in a married woman is the result of her husband’s mis- 
conduct, but it is notorious that many women are induced or com- 
pelled by such misconduct to abandon a life of virtue. All mar- 
ried prostitutes can not be exonerated from the charge of guilt, 
yet the facts which will be hereafter quoted prove that many were 
driven to a life of shame by those who had solemnly sworn to 
protect and cherish them. 
The violation of any known duty is a positive crime against so- 
ciety, but it becomes increased in magnitude when it involves 
more than one person in the offense. It is then the cause of a 
second transgression, and sophistry would vainly attempt to prove 
that the man who committed the first and caused the commission 
of the second offense was not morally responsible for both. De- 
scending from generalities, it may be truly asserted that the man 
whose conduct to his wife is such as to lead her to vicious prac- 
tices is guilty in both respects. Here are some few cases in point. 
C. C.: “My husband deserted me and four children. I had no 
means to live.” In this case the husband violated the law of God 
in forcibly rending the matrimonial bond, and violated the laws 
of his country by leaving his wife and children as burdens on so- 
ciety. For the former of these offenses he must answer at the bar 
of Infinite Justice; for the latter he is liable to punishment in this 
world. “Then why not punish him?” asks some one. For the 
very simple reason that he could not be found. In this day the 
law does not assume the latitude claimed by the Spanish Inqui- 
sition, and sentence a man to punishment without giving him an 
opportunity to plead his cause. A woman in a state of destitu- 
tion, with four hungry children looking to her for bread, has nei- 
ther time nor means to pursue a delinquent husband. Her pres- 
ent necessities require her immediate attention, and so he escapes 
the penalty the laws have awarded, and can live (although it may 
be with an uneasy conscience) in some other place, and probably 
repeat there the iniquities he has practiced here. The custom of 
deserting wives and children would receive a severe check were 
it possible in every instance to enforce the legal provisions re- 
specting abandonment. 
J. S.: “My husband committed adultery. I caught him with 
another woman, and then he left me.” This individual’s turpi- NEW YORK. 
507 
tude was enhanced by his boldness. Pie seems to have recklessly 
defied all consequences, to have been entirely callous to any sense 
of shame, and, when detected in his adulterous intercourse, he 
adds desertion to his offense. He regarded not the feelings of her 
whom in early life he had won to his side by vows of affection; 
he outraged the laws of decency, and trampled upon the statutes 
of his country. His wife’s agony may be conceived, although 
words would be faint to express it, and the mental sufferings she 
must have endured before she abandoned herself to indiscriminate 
prostitution as a means of living will not aggravate her offense. 
A. G.: “My husband eloped with another woman. I support 
the child.” Here the husband was morally as guilty as in the 
previous case, but without the disgusting bravado which charac- 
terized that. He had, however, another claim which should have 
secured his fidelity, namely, an infant child; but this tie was pow- 
erless to restrain him. Fascinated by the charms of another, for- 
getting all the rights of his wife, all the obligations of paternity, 
and all the requirements of morality, he basely abandoned those 
dependent on him, and forced the wife, whose virtue he was bound 
to protect, into a career of vice to support his child. 
A. B.: “My husband accused me of infidelity, which was not 
true. I only lived with him five months. 1 was pregnant by 
him, and after my child was born I went on the town to support 
it.” The first idea derived from this statement would be that five 
months of matrimonial life had been sufficient to change this hus- 
band from a devoted lover to a revengeful tyrant, who would not 
scruple to resort to a groundless accusation to effect his purpose. 
In this short space of time he conveniently forgot the promises he 
had made, repudiated the bonds in which his own act had placed 
him, and, to accomplish a separation from his wife, did not hesi- 
tate to bear false witness against her, placing her in a position 
from which she could extricate herself only by performing a log- 
ical impossibility, namely, by proving a negative. Nor could the 
probable destiny of his unborn child influence his determination. 
It mattered not to him whether the infant first saw the light in a 
den of infamy, nor whether his unkindness killed it before it was 
born, so that he could desert his wife. Neither did it make any 
difference to him whether she starved to death or maintained her 
existence by the most loathsome means. He was satiated with 
possession, and neither the voice of nature nor the dictates of con- 
science could arrest his purpose. The result was precisely what 508 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
might have been expected: she became a prostitute rather than 
starve and let her child starve. 
R. B.: “My husband brought me here (a house of ill fame). I 
did not know what kind of a place it was. He lives with me, and 
I follow prostitution.” Another variety of unnatural conduct. 
The wife in this case was a very good-looking young woman, not 
exceeding eighteen years of age; the husband held a respectable 
and well-paid employment, and was in possession of ample means 
to support her. By false representations he induced her, within 
three months after marriage, to board in a fashionable house of 
prostitution. She soon discovered its character, but eventually 
succumbed to his orders, and became guilty. He resides with her, 
and is supported by her. What language can be used adequately 
to denounce such a cold-blooded piece of treachery on the part of 
a wretch claiming to be human ? 
L. W.: “ I came to this city, from Illinois, with my husband. 
When we got here he deserted me. I have two children depen- 
dent on me.” This man brought his wife from a distant state to 
a strange city, where she had no friends nor relatives to advise and 
assist her, and there abandoned her, with two helpless children, to 
the mercy of the world. Had he left her where she had been liv- 
ing previously, it is possible she might have found sufficient 
friends to assist her until she was able to support herself; but 
with a refinement of cruelty he transferred her to a place where 
she was unknown, and then effected his escape. The entire cir- 
cumstances favor the supposed existence of a determination to 
abandon her as soon as they arrived in New York, where he could 
act thus with more safety than in her native place. 
C. H.: “I was married when I was seventeen years old, and 
have had three children. The two boys are living now; the girl 
is dead. My oldest boy is nearly five years old, and the other 
one is eighteen months. My husband is a sailor. We lived very 
comfortably till my last child was born, and then he began to 
drink very hard, and did not support me, and I have not seen him 
or heard any thing about him for six months. After he left me I 
tried to keep my children by washing or going out to day’s work, 
but I could not earn enough. I never could earn more than two 
or three dollars a week when I had work, which was not always. 
My father and mother died when I was a child. I had nobody to 
help me, and could not support my children, so I came to this 
place. My boys are now living in the city, and I support them NEW YORK. 
509 
with what I earn by prostitution. It was only to keep them that 
I came here.” These were the words used by an honest, sorrow- 
ful looking woman encountered, in the course of this investiga- 
tion, in the fourth police district of the city. No reasonable doubt 
can be entertained of the truth of the story; the manner in which 
she told it plainly indicated that she was narrating facts. Some 
inquiries were made respecting her of the keeper of the house, 
and he (for it was a man) stated that he knew her story to be cor- 
rect. He had at first employed her as a servant because he wish- 
ed to help her, but the wages he could pay were insufficient to 
support her children, and she eventually prostituted herself be- 
cause she could earn more at this horrible calling, and was thus 
enabled to discharge her maternal duty. But at what a sacrifice 
was this obtained! In order to feed her helpless offspring she 
was forced to yield her honor; to prevent them suffering from 
the pains of hunger, she voluntarily chose to endure the pangs of 
a guilty conscience; to prolong their lives she periled her own. 
And at the time when this alternative was forced upon her, the 
husband was lavishing his money for intoxicating liquor. If she 
sinned—and this fact can not be denied, however charity may 
view it—it was the non-performance of his duty that urged, nay, 
positively forced her to sin. She must endure the punishment 
of her offenses, but, after reading her simple, heart-rending state- 
ment, let casuists decide what amount of condemnation will rest 
upon the man whose desertion compelled her to violate the law 
of chastity in order to support his children. 
B. W.: “My husband had another wife when I married him. 
I left him when I found this out. I was pregnant by him, and 
had no other way to live than by prostitution.” In point of law, 
this is not a married woman, the existence of the former wife 
rendering the second union invalid; but this is no excuse for the 
man’s conduct; in fact, it materially aggravates his guilt. In the 
first place, he deserts a woman whom he was legally bound to 
support, leaving her to battle her way through life, to resist the 
temptations which would be sure to assail her, careless whether 
she lived or died, and heedless whether she retained her charac- 
ter or sank into vice; and then, with the greatest nonchalance, 
goes through the ceremony of marriage with another woman. It 
is easy to imagine the feelings of the latter when she discovered 
the fraud which had been practiced to secure her hand, and the 
indignation which caused her to leave him immediately, notwith- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
standing her condition; nor will it require much stretch of fancy 
to picture the mental suffering she endured, her agony during the 
hour of nature’s trial, before she consented to earn a precarious 
living as a prostitute. Such cases are of frequent occurrence, and 
even the probability of a criminal indictment is insufficient to de- 
ter some men. No punishment could be too severe for such of- 
fenses, even considering them without any reference to this par- 
ticular instance, because they pervert one of our most solemn 
contracts, and destroy all confidence in the security of the mar- 
riage tie. 
C. H.: “My husband was a drunkard, and beat me.” How 
much of misery and crime is contained in these few words! Ei- 
ther of the vices practiced by this fellow is enough to make a 
woman wretched; the combination is sufficient to drive her mad. 
She would doubtless sit and ponder during the long and weary 
night hours when he was carousing with his drunken compan- 
ions, and would contrast her present wretched state with the 
happiness of early days. Her thoughts would revert to the time 
he won her love, to the day on which he brought her to his home 
a bride, and then she would cast her eyes around the room, now 
robbed of almost every thing portable to supply his insane appe- 
tite for liquor, and a heavy sigh would burst from her heart. 
But still she would continue her sad reminiscences, and think of 
the kindness he displayed then, and of his brutal ferocity now— 
would remember his considerate tenderness and compare it with 
his maniac fury. And then something would whisper to her, 
“Why do you endure it?” and her woman’s nature would be 
aroused, resistance would take the place of submission, and she 
would leave her home and him who had desecrated it, and immo- 
late herself upon the altar of vice, a victim to her husband’s 
drunkenness and cruelty. 
C. N.; “My husband left me because I was sickly and could 
not do hard work.” This woman’s husband may be pictured as 
a lazy, worthless fellow; probably one who married not to secure 
a helpmate and a partner, but to obtain a slave. Her health 
would not allow her to perform as much drudgery as he expect- 
ed ; the speculation did not turn out as well as he had anticipated, 
and he left her destitute, to starve or sin, as she thought fit. 
P. T.: “My husband was intemperate, and turned out to be a 
thief. He was sent to prison.” Still another victim of a drunk- 
en husband, but he carried his vicious habits to a point where the NEW YORK. 
511 
laws of his country would reach him. Had he merely deserted 
his wife, nobody would have thought it his business to arrest him, 
but he stole some person’s property, and all the enginery of the 
law was forthwith arrayed against him. In the one instance, his 
conduct condemns his wife to shame in this world and perhaps 
perdition in the next, and the good-tempered public looks quietly 
on and says nothing. In the other case, he defrauds his neighbor 
of some dollars and cents, and the indignant community demands 
his condign punishment! What conclusion can be drawn from 
these facts? Honor, character, and life are ruined, and the of- 
fender escapes; money is stolen, and he is punished! Is money 
more valuable than the character and life of woman ? 
It requires no argument to prove that when the care of a child 
is assumed by its relatives, the parental obligations also devolve 
upon them; nor can there be any difference of opinion as to the 
duty of relations to assist, to the utmost of their power, any child- 
ren whom death or other circumstances may have deprived of 
their natural protectors. Were not these principles generally rec- 
ognized, all large cities would be crowded with destitute orphans. 
The beneficial results often arising from such guardianships argue 
very strongly in their favor; but still the imperative duty is fre- 
quently evaded, or acknowledged and made the opportunity for 
an exhibition of tyranny which naturally tends to the encourage- 
ment of vice. Take the following cases in illustration; 
J, F.: “I support my aunt.” In this case the duties of the 
aunt were not merely evaded, but she adds to her neglect a posi- 
tive approval of the girl’s abandoned life, by voluntarily receiv- 
ing a portion of her earnings. What species of education she be- 
stowed upon her niece may be inferred from its results. Such dis- 
closures are almost too disgusting to be criticised. 
S. B.: “My parents were dead. I came to this country with an 
uncle and aunt, who ill-used me from the time I landed till I ran 
away.” The death of her parents should have been a passport to 
the affection of the relatives to whose charge she was intrusted, 
but, instead of producing such an effect, they brought her to a 
strange land, and practiced a succession of cruelties, until she 
could endure them no longer. It is more than probable that this 
was a plan intended to drive her from their home. They neither 
acknowledged their duty to supply the places of the father and 
mother she had lost, nor did they recognize the force of relation- 
ship, which, at least, should have protected her from positive un- 512 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
kindness. Nor did they possess any of those feelings of sympathy 
which every well-disposed person must entertain toward an or- 
phan. They could not have been unaware of the probability of 
her falling into bad company and vicious habits if she left their 
care, but no regard for her happiness or character seems to have 
entered into their calculations, which may have been somewhat in 
this form: She is an expense to us, so we will contrive to drive 
her away; if she can make her living honestly, so much the bet- 
ter ; if she turns out a prostitute, that is her own concern. It was 
not solely “ her own concern,” but it involved them also in its con- 
sequences, through their agency in its accomplishment, and, mor- 
ally speaking, they are as liable for her ruin as if they had actu- 
ally, and not indirectly, caused it. 
The following cases closely resemble each other, and are pre- 
sented in conjunction; 
A. D.: “My parents were dead. I lived with my uncle, who 
treated me very unkindly.” 
L. S.: “My parents died when I was young. I lived with an 
uncle and aunt, who used me ill.” The deprivation of each of 
these unfortunate women in the death of their parents, a loss al- 
most incalculable in its results, placed them under the guardian- 
ship of those who alike neglected their duties and rendered the 
trust a medium for unkindness to the orphans. It seems surpris- 
ing that the memory of a deceased brother or sister can not secure 
even ordinary care for their children. It can not be expected that 
the surviving relatives would exhibit the same amount of affection 
as would have been shown by the parents, but disappointment must 
be experienced if they make no pretensions to kindness. The dic- 
tates of nature are violated when harshness takes the place of sym- 
pathy, and destitution is considered a sufficient warrant for delib- 
erate and continuous ill-treatment. Such conduct renders a girl 
reckless and misanthropic, and will drive her to seek, in unhallow- 
ed love, the affection her guardians have refused. v 
L. M.: “ I was taken by my sister-in-law to a house of prostitu- 
tion, and there violated.” It is not often such a case of barbarity 
is found in civilized life, nor indeed in less polished communities, 
as this forcible violation of a young girl through the aid and con- 
nivance of her sister-in-law. The mind recoils, with disgust, from 
the instances of rape so frequently occurring, but this case is so 
peculiarly aggravated that it can not be contemplated without a 
feeling of shame for the depravity of human nature. In the one NEW YORK. 
513 
case, the brutal passions of a man are displayed in a brutal man- 
ner ; in the other, the same cause exists to a similar extent, coupled 
with the blackest perfidy of a female relative. To such a shame- 
less violation of the laws of consanguinity, such an outrageous con- 
spiracy between a vile man and a monster of a woman, the sister 
must have been induced to lend her aid by some means best known 
to herself. It is quite impossible to imagine she possessed a single 
spark of virtue; on the contrary, she must have sunk, long before 
this occurrence, to the lowest depths* of vice, or she never would 
have been an instrument in such an infernal scheme. The con- 
sideration she received is, of course, known only to the parties 
themselves, but it would give a farther insight to her character if 
the reader could be informed of the estimate set by a sister-in-law 
upon an orphan’s virtue. The result of the outrage is, no doubt, 
exactly what the criminals anticipated. The victim knew that 
her character was ruined, that she had no alternative but prostitu- 
tion, and, while the guilty pair who literally forced her to sin can 
congratulate each other on the success of their machinations, she 
must endure the penalty in a life of crime and misery, 
G. H.: “I was detected and exposed by my brother.” This 
girl, who had yielded to the entreaties of a man whom “ she loved, 
not wisely, but too well,” may assign her subsequent career of vice 
to the conduct of her brother. He must have been sadly deficient 
in all kindly feeling thus to parade his sister’s dishonor, and also 
possessed of a very limited knowledge of human nature, or a large 
amount of malevolence. It can scarcely be imagined that he act- 
ed from ignorance, as he must have been certain that such an ex- 
posure would most probably induce his sister to continue an in- 
tercourse which was publicly known, and therefore could not aug- 
ment her disgrace; nor can it be conceived that a malicious desire 
to blast her character governed his conduct. But, whatever his 
motive, the result was the same. She was forced to a life of pros- 
titution, from which she might have been rescued had kind and af- 
fectionate means been employed, instead of the cruel and heedless 
course which was adopted. 
C. W.: “My parents died when I was young, I was brought 
up by relatives who went to California when I was sixteen years 
old, and left me destitute. I had no trade.” There is no allega- 
tion that this girl’s relatives used her unkindly during the time she 
lived with them, but they deserted her, in a helpless condition, at 
the very time when she most needed their guardianship. They 514 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
could not have been ignorant of the many temptations to which a 
young woman, without protectors or means of livelihood, is ex- 
posed in New York, and yet they removed to a distance, and left 
her to meet these trials alone. A girl whom they had reared from 
infancy, and for whom they must have entertained considerable 
affection, they tamely abandoned to an almost certain fate far 
worse than death. To say the least, it was a most inconsiderate 
step, and has resulted very disastrously. 
E. R.: “My husband deserted me to live with another woman; 
my parents were dead; I went to my brother’s house, and he 
turned me out.” Fraternal unkindness farther exemplified! An 
orphan sister, deserted by her husband, asked from her brother the 
shelter of his roof, and he drove her from the house! Such con- 
duct would have been barbarous if even a stranger had made the 
appeal; in the present instance, it exhibits a cruelty which can 
not be too severely reprobated. 
C. B.: “My parents were dead. I was out of place, I had no 
relations but an uncle, who would not give me any shelter unless 
I paid him for it. I went on the town to get money to pay for 
my lodgings.” This uncle’s name ought to be handed down to 
posterity as a synonym of hard-hearted selfishness, and as indi- 
cating another manner in which money can be made. His miser- 
ly propensities must have been very strongly developed when he 
refused a shelter to his destitute niece unless she paid for it. It 
certainly did not matter to him how or where she obtained the 
means, and doubtless his equanimity was not disturbed when he 
ascertained that the money she paid him was the price of her 
shame. The coin was as bright in his hand, as useful to him to 
hoard or to spend, as if it had been her honest earning. Probably 
he would have been excessively annoyed (it is the characteristic 
of such men) if any plain-spoken person had told him that he was 
the means of making this girl a prostitute; but can it be denied 
that such was the fact, when he received some portion of the 
money earned by his niece’s prostitution before he would allow 
her to sleep in his house ? 
L. S.: “My sister ill-treated me because I had no work.” Here 
a sister seems to have regarded money as the chief good. The 
applicant was out of employment, in itself enough to enlist one’s 
sympathies; she was in want, which should have been an ad- 
ditional reason for kindness; and yet, for these causes, a sister ill- 
treated her. NEW YORK. 
515 
In thus endeavoring to show the several duties of parents, hus- 
bands, and relatives to those dependent females who are liable to 
be exposed at any moment to temptations leading from the path 
of virtue, cases have been exhibited in which a departure from 
the universally recognized obligations of these classes has added 
recruits to the ranks of prostitution. In these remarks, the en- 
deavor has been to advance nothing resting on a theory; to ad- 
vocate nothing unless supported by facts or acknowledged by 
common sense; to exonerate no one from blame when circum- 
stances demanded a censure, and to condemn none in favor of 
whom there could be an existing doubt. 
The recorded extracts, giving an insight beyond the scene of 
public view, exhibiting the secret machinery of the family circle, 
can not be contemplated without a mingled feeling of sorrow and 
shame. Sorrow, that so many females who might have been use- 
ful members of society have been forced into the ranks of sin; 
and shame, that the instruments in these proceedings were those 
who should have exerted every power to prevent such a result. 
Cases have now been presented to the reader where a sorrow- 
ing, heart-broken girl has been denied the opportunity of repent- 
ance, and driven from a father’s home; where another has been 
expelled from the family circle because she would not consent to 
an ill-assorted marriage; where stepfathers and stepmothers have 
violated their duties, and despised the obligations they had volun- 
tarily assumed; where a mother’s ill-treatment has driven her 
daughter to ruin; where parents were living and reveling upon 
the wages of their children’s dishonor; where false accusations 
and unkind treatment were resorted to, and, from their natural 
effects, drove a girl from home and virtue; where drunkenness 
and debauchery made home a hell upon earth; where parents in 
affluent circumstances have driven a child from their home; where 
prostitution was willingly embraced as an escape from parental 
tyranny. 
Again; Instances have been cited where husbands have de- 
serted their wives and children; where the marital vow has been 
broken in the most glaring manner, and the crime followed by 
deliberate abandonment; where the wife’s affections have been 
slighted, and her love relinquished for the purchased caresses of 
another woman; where a charge of infidelity has been made 
against a wife without cause; where a husband has deliberately 
brought his wife to a house of prostitution, and is now leading an 516 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
idle, worthless life upon her earnings; where another husband 
brought his wife to a strange city in order to desert her and her 
children; where the solemn contract of marriage has been per- 
verted; where a drunken husband has raised his hand against 
the woman he had sworn to protect; where a wife’s sickness and 
incapacity for labor was made a reason for her husband’s deser- 
tion ; where a man’s insane thirst for intoxicating liquor has 
forced a woman to prostitution for a maintenance; where the 
husband has been committed to prison for theft. 
Farther: Cases have been given where an aunt lives upon the 
proceeds of a niece’s prostitution; where uncles and aunts have 
systematically ill-used their orphan relatives; where a sister-in- 
law procured and assisted at the violation of a child; where a 
brother’s unkindness forced his sister to continue a life of shame; 
where relatives to whom an orphan child was intrusted abandoned 
her when she most needed their care; where a brother refused an 
asylum to a deserted and suffering sister; where an uncle forced 
a girl to prostitute herself for money to pay him ‘for her lodgings. 
As already stated, these cases are all facts, collected in the 
course of this investigation, and are believed to be substantially 
correct. With such disclosures as these, can any one be sur- 
prised at the continued spread of prostitution? The family cir- 
cle is one of the sources whence it emanates; so is the matrimo- 
nial bond; and so are the different branches of consanguinity. 
When fathers, husbands, and relatives thus forget their duties, 
and lend their influence to swell the tide of vice, it is no matter 
of surprise that strangers should be found ready and eager to 
contribute their share to the polluted current. 
But the evil is not incurable, if public opinion can be enlisted 
on the side of public morals, and parents are satisfied, by unmis- 
takable demonstrations, that the voice of an indignant people will 
be raised against them if practices similar to those narrated con- 
tinue to occur. Husbands, too, must be convinced that any in- 
fraction of their marriage vows will expose them to popular 
odium; and if they have contracted an ill-assorted, hasty alli- 
ance, the responsibility must be borne by themselves. The con- 
tracts they voluntarily made must be fulfilled. Relatives also 
must be warned that the performance of their duties will be rig- 
idly required. There is no deficiency of legislation on this sub- 
ject; all that is wanted is determination to enforce existing laws; 
and when this is done, some of the main causes of prostitution 
will be removed. NEW YORK. 
517 
To resume tlie analysis of the table of replies; Seventy-one 
women were persuaded by prostitutes to embrace a life of de- 
pravity. One of the most common modes by which this end is 
accomplished is to inveigle a girl into some house of prostitution 
as a servant, and this is frequently done through the medium of 
an intelligence office. 
Most of the inhabitants of New York are acquainted with the 
arrangements and routine of business in those offices, but they 
may be described as a matter of information to others. Imagine 
a large room, generally a basement, in some leading thoroughfare. 
Upon entering from the street you will observe two doors, marked 
respectively “ Entrance for Employers” and “ Entrance for 
Servants.” Passing through the first, you approach a desk, 
where the proprietor or his clerk is seated with his register books 
before him. You make known your wish to engage a servant, 
specifying her duties and the wages you are willing to pay. 
This is registered with your name and address, the fee is paid, 
and you are invited to walk into the other department, and ascer- 
tain whether any of the throng who are waiting there will suit 
your purpose. If successful in the search, it is merely necessary 
to inform the book-keeper that you are suited, and to take your 
servant home with you; but if you do not succeed, a woman will 
be sent to the registered address, and the office-keeper will con- 
tinue to send until you are satisfied. 
Servants who wish to obtain situations register their wants and 
pay a fee. If there are no places likely to suit them on the list 
of employers, they have permission to remain in the waiting-room 
until an applicant appears. In these waiting-rooms may be found 
a crowd of expectants varying from twenty to one hundred, ac- 
cording to the business transacted by the office. 
In theory this arrangement is a very good one; in practice it 
is frequently abused. A respectable housekeeper who wishes to 
engage a servant will find but little trouble in doing so, and any 
person wishing to make the office a medium for securing females 
for improper purposes will seldom be disappointed. It is rarely 
that the proprietors notice the arrangements made; they merely 
act as brokers, and make known the wants of each party, and do 
not interfere with the character of either unless it is so notorious- 
ly bad as to force them to notice it for their own sake. So long 
as the employer and servant agree, the office-keeper is contented. 
The following facts illustrate the manner in which young worn- 518 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
en are sometimes entrapped. A respectably-dressed man went 
into an intelligence office, and represented himself as a storekeeper 
residing some twenty miles from New York. He wished to hire 
a girl as seamstress and chambermaid, who must go home with 
him the same afternoon. Glancing around the waiting-room, he 
soon saw one of sufficiently attractive appearance, to whom he 
made the proposition. The wages he offered were liberal, the 
work was described as light, and the woman made an arrange- 
ment to accompany him forthwith. He told her that he had a 
little business to transact before he could leave the city, but that 
she could wait for him at his sister’s until the cars were ready to 
start. She had but slight knowledge of the temptations of New 
York, and went with him to a brothel, the keeper of which he 
stated to be his sister. Here she remained for some hours waiting 
his return. The “sister” expressed her surprise at his absence, 
but concluded that his business had detained him, and, with appa- 
rently a kindly feeling, told the girl that she would be welcome 
to sleep there that night. Her suspicions were lulled by the seem- 
ing respectability of the persons, and she remained. In the course 
of the evening the character of the house became evident, and 
then the proprietress offered to engage her as a servant, solemnly 
promising that she should not be exposed to any insult. Almost 
a total stranger in the city, and destitute of money, she consented. 
A very few days in such a hot-bed of vice was sufficient to deaden 
her sense of right and wrong, and within a fortnight she was en- 
rolled as a prostitute. 
Keepers of houses sometimes visit these offices themselves, but 
generally some unknown agent is employed, or, at times, one of 
the prostitutes is plainly dressed, and sent to register her name as 
wishing a situation, so as to be able to obtain admission to the 
waiting-room. There she enters into conversation with the other 
women, whom she uses all the art she possesses to induce to visit 
her employer, and very frequently with the same result as in the 
case just narrated. 
There exists among many prostitutes a fiendish desire to reduce 
the virtuous of their own sex to a similar degradation with them- 
selves, Since they can not elevate their own characters, they 
strive to debase those of others. To accomplish this, they spare 
neither trouble nor misrepresentation. One system in which they 
are commonly employed may be noted, although the mode is sim- 
ilar to the case of the servant-girl just given. A man had re- NEW YORK. 
519 
solved to min a woman who placed implicit confidence in his sin- 
cerity, and admitted that she loved him. He found that her mod- 
esty and good sense were proof against his persuasive powers, and 
he finally resorted to stratagem, and invited her to walk with 
him to visit some relations. He took her to a brothel, introduced 
its keeper (who had already been instructed in her part) as his 
aunt, and one or two of the inmates represented her daughters. 
The deception was maintained for a time; family matters were 
discussed, and refreshments introduced. A glass of drugged wine 
was handed to the victim, and as soon as its effects were visible 
the villainous deed was effected. Such machinations as this show 
that not only are many of these prostitutes dangerous to society 
from their open and avowed life of crime, but also from the in- 
fluences they exert to deceive the honest of their own sex. 
Allusion has been already made to the numerous dangers which 
surround young women during their passage to this country on 
crowded emigrant ships, or after their arrival in the equally crowd- 
ed emigrant boarding-houses, and it is needless to repeat them in 
this section; but an incomplete statement of the causes of prosti- 
tution would be presented if the injurious effects of some of our 
fashionable boarding-schools were suffered to pass without notice. 
Startling as such an assertion may appear, it is no more strange 
than true. A system of education, the prominent design of which 
is to impart a knowledge of the (so-called) modern accomplish- 
ments to the almost total exclusion of moral training; to make 
the pupils present the most dazzling appearance in society, regard- 
less of their real interests and duties, does, in some cases, lead to 
unhappy results. Filial affection, or early training, or innate vir- 
tue, enable many to overcome these temptations, but others suc- 
cumb to them. One case, in particular, it is desirable to record, 
although several of a similar nature were met with. 
A girl, eighteen years of age, born in Louisiana, of highly re- 
spectable parents, was induced to elope from a boarding-school in 
the vicinity of New Orleans with a man who accorded with her 
romantic ideal of a lover. No marriage vows ever passed be- 
tween them; she trusted him as the heroine of a modern novel 
would have done, and he deceived her, as all modern rakes deceive 
their victims. She lived with him for a considerable time. When 
he deserted her, she was left almost destitute. She was afraid to 
return to her parents, knowing that they were acquainted with the 
life she had been leading, and she had no other means of support 520 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
than open and avowed prostitution. These features of her history 
should present a warning to both parents and daughters of the 
dangers attending a superficial and improper system of education. 
Of course it must not be inferred that all schools are open to 
such objections. In the numerous institutions of the kind scat- 
tered throughout the land, the majority are worthy of every con- 
fidence. Instances like this are probably exceptions to the rule, 
but still, what has been pernicious in one case may be in another; 
and the education of young women, forming, as it does, their char- 
acter for life, should be conducted, as far as possible, so as to se- 
cure their safety, honor, and usefulness. In a subsequent chapter, 
this superficial education will be farther noticed. 
One of the real improvements of modern times is the introduc- 
tion of physiology as a branch of education in our schools. Yet 
it is to be regretted that the knowledge communicated to youth 
upon a subject so important is still extremely limited. Indeed, 
such is the present state of public opinion, that any text-book or 
teacher that should impart thorough instruction in regard to all 
the organs and functions of the human body, would be considered 
entirely unfit for use or duty. Notwithstanding this, the young 
of both sexes do become informed upon the subjects of marriage, 
procreation, and maternity. And how ? By force of natural cu- 
riosity and injurious association. It is the imperative duty of pa- 
rents to rightly inform their children concerning the things which 
they must inevitably know. In consequence of their neglect of 
this duty, both boys and girls are left to find out all they can 
about the mysteries of their being from ignorant servants or cor- 
rupt companions. Let fathers teach their sons, and mothers their 
daughters, at the earliest practicable age, all that their future well- 
being makes it necessary for them to know. The information 
thus acquired will be invested with a sacredness and delicacy 
entirely wanting when obtained from unreliable and pernicious 
sources. 
Thus would many of the injurious influences incident to the 
present secrecy upon such subjects be avoided. Of the evil hab- 
its and practices common among youth, physicians are well cog- 
nizant, and many a parent has had to mourn their sad results in 
the premature death or dethroned reason of children who, with 
proper physical training, might have been their pride and joy. 
Next to the responsibility of parents in this matter is that of 
teachers, who, with all judiciousness and delicacy, should supply NEW YORK. 
521 
the deficiencies of ignorant or incapable parents in the physiolog- 
ical education of all committed to their care. 
And here a word in regard to the bad effects of, so called, clas- 
sical studies. Are they not oftentimes acquired at the risk of 
outraged delicacy or undermined moral principles ? Mythology, 
in particular, introduces our youth to courtesans who are described 
as goddesses, and goddesses who are but courtesans in disguise. 
Poetry and history as frequently have for their themes the ecsta- 
sies of illicit love as the innocent joys of pure affection. Shall 
these branches of study be totally ignored ? By no means; but 
let their harmless flowers and wholesome fruit alone be culled for 
youthful minds, to the utter exclusion of all poisonous ones, how- 
ever beautiful. 
This lack of information has resulted in another evil in the im- 
petus it has given to the sale of obscene books and prints. Re- 
cent legal proceedings have checked this nefarious trade, but it 
still exists. Boys and young men may be found loitering at all 
hours round hotels, steam-boat docks, rail-road depots, and other 
public places, ostensibly selling newspapers or pamphlets, but se- 
cretly offering vile, lecherous publications to those who are likely 
to be customers. They generally select young and inexperienced 
persons for two reasons. In the first place, these are the most 
probable purchasers, and will submit to the most extortion; and, 
in the second, they can be more easily imposed upon. The vend- 
ers have a trick which they frequently perform, and which can 
scarcely be regretted. In a small bound volume they insert about 
half a dozen highly-colored obscene plates, which are cut to fit 
the size of the printed page. Having fixed upon a victim, they 
cautiously draw his attention to the pictures by rapidly turning 
over the leaves, but do not allow him to take the book into his 
hands, although they give him a good opportunity to note its 
binding. He never dreams that the plates are loose, and feels 
sure that in buying the book he buys the pictures also. When 
the price is agreed upon, the salesman hints that, as he is watched, 
the customer had better turn his back for a moment while taking 
the money from his pocket-book, and in this interval he slips the 
plates from between the leaves and conceals them. The next 
moment the parties are again face to face, the price is handed 
over, and the book he had seen before is handed to the purchaser 
under a renewed caution, and is carefully pocketed. The book- 
seller leaves, and at the first opportunity the prize is covertly 522 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
drawn forth to be examined more minutely, and the unwary one 
finds that he has paid several dollars for some few printed pages, 
without pictures, which would have been dear at as many cents. 
Despite all precautions, there is every reason to believe that the 
manufacture of these obscene books is largely carried on in this 
city. It is needless to remind any resident of the large seizures 
made in New York during the last two years, or to particularize 
the stock condemned. More caution is observed now, and the 
post-office is made the vehicle for distribution. Circulars are is- 
sued which describe the publications and their prices, modes of 
transmitting money are indicated, and the advertiser plainly says 
that he will not allow any personal interviews on account of the 
dangers which surround the traffic. By using an indefinite num- 
ber of aliases, and often changing the address to which letters are 
sent, he succeeds in eluding the vigilance of the police, and secures 
many remittances. 
Not less dangerous than the directly obscene publications is a 
class of voluptuous novels which is rapidly circulating. Some are 
translations from the French; but one man, now living in En- 
gland, has written and published more disgustingly minute works, 
under the guise of honest fiction, than ever emanated from the 
Parisian presses. He writes in a strain eminently calculated to 
excite the passions, but so carefully guarded as to avoid absolute 
obscenity, and embellishes his works with wood-cuts which ap- 
proach lasciviousness as nearly as possible without being indict- 
able. It is to be regretted that publishers have been found, in 
this and other cities, who are willing to use their imprints on the 
title-pages of his trash, and sell works which can not but be pro- 
ductive of the worst consequences. Those who have seen much 
of the cheap pamphlets, or “yellow-covered” literature offered in 
New York, will have no difficulty in recalling the name of the 
author alluded to, and those who are ignorant of it would only be 
injured by its disclosure. There can be but one opinion as to the 
share obscene and voluptuous books have in ruining the character 
of the young, and they may justly be considered as causes, indi- 
rect it may be, of prostitution. 
Some of the sources of prostitution have been thus examined. 
To expose them all would require a volume; but it is hoped that 
sufficient has been developed to induce observation and inquiry, 
and prompt action in the premises. NEW YORK, 
523 
CHAPTER XXXIY. 
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.—lntoxication.—Drinking Habits of Prostitutes. 
—Delirium Tremens.—Liquor Sold in Houses of Prostitution.—Parental Influ- 
ences.—Religion of Parents and Prostitutes.—Amiable Feelings.—Kindness and 
Fidelity to each other. 
NEW YORK.—STATISTICS. 
Question. Is PROSTITUTION YOUR ONLY MEANS OF SUPPORT? 
Resources. > umbers. 
Dependent solely upon prostitution 1698 
Have other means of support 302 
Total 2000 
No surprise will be excited by tbe 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 occu- 
pations at intervals, or who receive some slight payment for as- 
sisting 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 wom- 
en whose trades are uncertain, and who are liable at certain sea- 
sons 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 in- 524 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
teresting memoranda to his returns, from which is gleaned the 
following information respecting these places and their inhabit- 
ants. It is submitted to the reader, in order that he may draw 
his own conclusions as to the virtue of the dancers. 
“ These dance-houses are generally kept by Germans, who con- 
sider dancing a proper and legitimate business. They are in gen- 
eral very quiet. The girls employed to dance do not consider 
themselves prostitutes, because the proprietors will not allow them 
to be known as such. Bach 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 regula- 
tions 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 be- 
fore YOU BECAME A PROSTITUTE? 
Occupations. Numbers. 
Occupations. 
Numbers. 
Artist 
1 
Shoe-binders . . 
. ... 16 
Nurse in Bellevue Hospital, N. Y. 
1 
Vest-makers . . 
. ... 21 
School-teachers 
3 
Cap-makers. . . 
. ... 24 
Fruit-hawkers 
4 
Book-folders . . 
. ... 27 
Paper-box-makers 
5 
Factory girls . . 
Tobacco-packers 
7 
Housekeepers . . 
. ... 39 
Attended stores or bars . . . 
8 
Milliners.... 
. ... 41 
Attended school 
8 
Seamstresses . . 
. ... 59 
Embroiderers 
8 
Tailoresses . . . 
. . . 105 
Fur-sewers 
8 
Dress-makers . 
. . . 121 
Hat-trimmers 
8 
Servants . . . 
. . . 933 
Umbrella-makers 
8 
Lived with parents or 
friends 499 
Flower-makers 
9 
Total . . 
. . . 2000 NEW YORK. 
525 
Wherever the social condition of woman has been considered, 
one fact has always been painfully apparent, namely, the difficul- 
ties which surround her in any attempt to procure employment 
beyond the beaten track of needlework or domestic service. Nu- 
merous light or sedentary employments now pursued by men 
might with much greater propriety be confided to women, but 
custom seems to have fixed an arbitrary law which can not be 
altered. If a lady enters a dry goods store, she is waited upon 
by some stalwart young man, whose energy and muscle would be 
far more useful in tilling the ground, or in some other out-door 
employment. If she wishes to make a purchase of jewelry, she 
is served by the same class of attendants. Why should not fe- 
males have this branch of employment at their command? It 
would in a majority of cases be more consonant with the feelings 
of the purchasers, and consequently more to the interest of store- 
keepers, It would open an honorable field of exertion to the 
women, and improve the condition of the men who now monop- 
olize such employments, by forcing them to obtain work suita- 
ble to their sex and strength, and driving from the crowded cities 
into the open country some whose effeminacy is fast bringing 
them to positive idleness and ruin. 
Many people are prepared to frown upon any attempt to im- 
prove 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 edu- 
cation as the world has thought proper to award her, and thus has 
not had an opportunity to cultivate her faculties. It is not nec- 
essary 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 con- 
tradiction, 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 526 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
shame would be happy and virtuous members of the commu- 
nity.1 
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 cul- 
ture, 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 be- 
ing 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 refus- 
ing to give her employment, and then condemn her for maintain- 
ing a wretched existence at the price of virtue. 
But to notice more particularly the employments which the 
1 Miss Mulock remarks on female occupations: “Equality of sexes is not in the 
nature of things. One only ‘ right’ we have to assert in common with mankind, 
and that is as much in our hands as theirs—the right of having something to do.” 
—A Woman's Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 13. 
“ The Father of all has never put one man or one woman into this world without 
giving each something to do there.”—lbid., p. 19. 
“This fact remains patent to any person of common sense and experience, that 
in the present day one half of our women are obliged to take care of themselves, 
obliged to look solely to themselves for maintenance, position, occupation, amuse- 
ment, reputation, life.”—lbid., p. 29. 
“ Is society to draw up a code of regulations as to what is proper for us to do, 
and what not ?”—Ibid., p. 31. 
“The world is slowly discovering that women are capable for far more crafts 
than was supposed, if only they are properly educated for them; that they are good 
accountants, shop-keepers, drapers’ assistants, telegraph clerks, watch-makers ; and 
doubtless would be better if the ordinary training which almost every young man 
has a chance of getting were thought equally indispensable to young women.”— 
Ibid., p. 76. NEW YORK. 
527 
courtesans of New York have followed. The domestic servants 
amount to 931. No modern fashion has yet been introduced to 
deprive females of this sphere of labor, but so progressive is the 
age that even that may be accomplished within a few years, and 
the advertising columns of the newspapers teem with announce- 
ments of some newly-invented “scrubbing-machine.” The space 
will not permit any extended remarks on this employment, but, 
while allowing that many employers treat their servants as hu- 
man beings gifted with the same sensibilities and feelings as them- 
selves, it must be regretted that there are others who use them in 
a manner which would bring a blush to the cheek of a southern 
slave-driver. With such mistresses the incapacity of servants is 
a constant theme, nor do they ever ask themselves if they have 
learned the science of governing. Assuming that they themselves 
are right, they conclude that the “ help” is, of course, wrong. Is 
it any wonder that girls are driven to intoxication and disgrace by 
this conduct ? Another reason which forces servant-girls to pros- 
titution is the excessive number who are constantly out of em- 
ployment, estimated at one fourth of those resident in the city, an 
evil which would be diminished were there more opportunities for 
female labor. 
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 truthful- 
ly depicted in the universally known “Song of the Shirt,” is dis- 
tressing 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 por- 
tion of her scanty wages will be deducted for some alleged de- 
ficiency 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 estab- 
lishment, and there she must remain so long as the inexorable de- 
mands of fashion, or the necessity of preparing bonnets or dresses 528 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
for some special occasion require. It matters not if she faint from 
exhaustion and fatigue; Mrs. wants her ball-dress to-mor- 
row, and the poor slave (we use this word advisedly) must labor 
as if her eternal salvation rested on her nimble fingers. But the 
gay robe which is to deck the form of beauty is completed; the 
hour of release has come at last; and, as at night the wearied girl 
walks feebly through the almost deserted streets, she meets some 
of the frail of her own sex, bedecked in finery, with countenances 
beaming from the effects of their potations, and the thought flash- 
es across her mind, “ They are better off than I am.” Her human 
nature can scarcely repress such an exclamation, which is too oft- 
en but the precursor of her own ruin. 
Paper-box-makers, tobacco-packers, and book-folders are no bet- 
ter 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 ? 
Length of Time 
Numbers. 
Length of Time. 
Numbers. 
3 months 
. ... 174 
5 years 
. 117 
6 “ . . 
.... 151 
10 “ 
. 90 
1 year . . 
12 “ and upward . 
. 16 
2 years . . 
.... 254 
Not abandoned . . . 
. 296 
3 “ 
.... 147 
Unascertained . . 
. 378 
4 “ 
.... 104 
Total . . . 
2000 
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 des- 
titution where a previous want of employment renders prostitu- 
tion necessary as the only means of li ving. Of course, as before 
observed, a life of prostitution must be incompatible with any de- 
scription of honest employment, and, in those cases where a wom- 
an has followed any trade or occupation after she had yielded to 
promiscuous intercourse, it will generally be found that her mo- 
tive was to deceive the world as to her own pursuits, or else to 
satisfy her conscience that she was not entirely depraved. NEW YORK. 
529 
Question. WHAT WERE YOUR AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS AT 
YOUR TRADE ? 
Average Earnings. 
Numbers. 
Average Earnings. 
Numbers 
1 dollar . . . 
. . .534 
7 dollars . . 
... 8 
2 dollars . . . 
. . .336 
8 “ 
... 5 
3 “ ... 
. . .280 
20 “ 
... 1 
4 “ ... 
50 u 
... 1 
5 “ ... 
... 68 
Unascertained . 
. . .663 
6 C( ... 
... 27 
Total. . 
. . 2000 
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 in- 
sufficient remuneration of women employed in factories in France; 
“Women are employed principally in the manufacture of cot- 
ton, silk, and wool. The preparation of cotton presents two dan- 
gerous features, in the ‘ beating’ and ‘ dressing,’ which are per- 
formed solely hy women. In the manufacture of silk there are also 
two processes dangerous to life, and these are performed hy 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.”1 
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.1'2 
In a subsequent chapter of this volume will be found some par- 
ticulars of the wages paid in manufacturing districts of the United 
States, and the same disparity between male and female opera- 
tives 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 
1 Histoire Morale des Femmes. Par M. Ernest Legouve. Paris, 1849. 
2 Westminster Review (London), July, 1850. American edition, vol. xxx. No. 2. 530 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of the more ordinary and moderately able, and we shall see if it 
be possible for these latter to procure even the strict necessaries 
of life; and if we farther compare the price of their work with 
that of their dishonor, we shall cease to be surprised that so great 
a number should fall into improprieties thus made almost inevi- 
table.”1 
This low rate of wages is defended upon the plea of competi- 
tion. A manufacturer practically says, “If one man or woman 
will do my work for five per cent, less than another, I must em- 
ploy him or her unless I am prepared to carry on my business at 
a positive loss; for if Ido not give them work, my neighbor will.” 
Valid as this reason may be in the old countries, where the sup- 
ply 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 unem- 
ployed woman is exposed to innumerable temptations; in the 
country she need never be unemployed, and consequently would 
escape such dangers. The difference between the Hew 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 serv- 
ants 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 ob- 
tain 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 
De la Prostitution dans la Yille de Paris, vol. i. p. 96. NEW YORK. 
property will increase in value as it is cultivated, and many will 
gladly advance the sum necessary to pay the expenses of a serv- 
ant’s journey out. As fast as men are sent to fell the timber or 
break the prairie, the farmer’s necessities force him to engage 
women for the increasing work of his house and dairy, and to 
supply the places of those who obtain husbands in their new 
home. When the tide of emigration to the Australian colonies 
commenced, nearly the whole of those who left England were sin- 
gle men, and in a few months the cry was ringing from one end 
af the island to the other: “ Send us female help, send us wives.” 
A benevolent woman, resident in the colony, repeated the de- 
mand, and subsequently lent the aid of her powerful talents to it. 
She made a voyage to England, and there influenced public opin- 
ion to such an extent that the British government yielded to the 
outside pressure, and many ship-loads of well - recommended, 
healthy, and virtuous women were sent out at the national ex- 
pense to supply the want. The subsequent advancement of the 
colony has proved that the measure was a judicious one, nor can 
the abuses to which it became subject detract from its merits. 
Similar plans with respect to destitute children have been prac- 
ticed in New York for several years, and their subsequent exten- 
sion 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 wore known and appreciated, the re- 
quired 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 phi- 
lanthropy, 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 ag- 
gravated 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 rhem to needlework to 
maintain their respectability, and thus, while service is aban- 
doned, 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. 532 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The former give tone to the manners of the latter. It can not 
be denied that many young women date their ruin from unkind 
or unwomanly treatment by their mistresses, who have given a 
free rein to their caprices, confident that if a girl left them they 
could soon supply her place. This confidence would be shaken 
if a housekeeper knew that servants were less plentiful, and her 
own interest would induce her to use well those who suited her. 
Such a conclusion would be an important step toward reducing 
prostitution, and elevating the character of the masses.1 
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 am- 
ply 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.2 
1 “The root of all improvement must be the mistress’s own conviction, religious 
and sincere, of the truth that she and her servants share one common womanhood, 
with aims, hopes, and interests distinctly defined, and pursued with equal eager- 
ness ; with a life here meant as a school for the next life; with an immortal soul.” 
—A Woman's Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 130. 
2 “Neither labor nor material can possibly be got ‘cheaply,’ that is, below its NEW YORK. 
533 
Before leaving the question of employment, the effects of differ- 
ent branches of female occupation, as inducing or favoring immo- 
rality, must be noticed. Apart from the low rate of wages paid 
to women, thus causing destitution which forces them to vice, the 
associations of most of the few trades they are in the habit of pur- 
suing are prejudicial to virtue. The trade of tailoress or seam- 
stress may be cited as a case in point. One mode in which this 
business is conducted between employer and employed is as fol- 
lows : The woman leaves either a cash deposit or the guarantee 
of some responsible person at the store, and receives a certain 
amount of materials to be made up by a specified time: when 
she returns the manufactured goods she is paid, and has more 
work given her to make up. This may seem a very simple 
course, and so it is, but one feature in it gives rather a sinister 
aspect. The person who delivers the materials, receives the work, 
and pronounces on its execution, is almost invariably a man, and 
upon his decision rests the question whether the operative shall 
be paid her full wages, or whether any portion of her miserable 
earnings shall be deducted because the work is not done to his 
satisfaction. In many cases he wields a power the determinations 
of which amount to this; “ Shall I have any food to-day, or shall 
I starve?” 
It is reasonable to conclude that hardly any thing short of pos- 
itive 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 ex- 
pose herself to hunger by demanding it as a right. In this there 
is no moral or actual wrong, but there are instances where lubric- 
ity 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 
average acknowledged cost, without somebody being cheated: consequently, these 
devotees to cheapness are, very frequently, little better than genteel swindlers.”— 
.4 Woman's Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.), p. 72. 534 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
is denied, she will get no more work from that shop, and may 
seek other employment with almost a certainty of meeting the 
same indignity elsewhere. That this is a frequent occurrence, 
unfortunately, can not be denied: that it exercises much influence 
on public prostitution can not be doubted. 
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 fre- 
quently 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 jeopard- 
ize character. 
In this connection only city employments have been mentioned, 
but the same reasoning may be applied with greater force to fac- 
tory life in any of our manufacturing districts. There the opera- 
tives of both sexes in one mill may sometimes be counted by 
hundreds, and their large numbers cause a more frequent and con- 
stant 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 atten- 
tion 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 argu- 
ment, 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 wom- 
an 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 NEW YORK, 
535 
hardships of her position. Busy as may be her hands, her brain 
is disengaged, and while her mechanical duties are adroitly per- 
formed, the mental faculties will be in full exercise, and for these 
she has ample scope. Dissatisfied with her close confinement in 
the factory, weary of the dreadful monotony which makes to-day 
but a repetition of yesterday and a sure type of to-morrow, she is 
happy, when the bell rings the signal to leave work, to escape 
from the building, and renew outside its walls an acquaintance 
she has formed before; and too frequently the persuasions and 
promises of her lover will induce her to seek, in some less guard- 
ed position, the independence for which she longs. It may be 
taken as a general rule that any confinement or restraint which 
is irksome to human nature must result injuriously. 
Domestic servants are not exempt from temptation when em- 
ployed 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 re- 
cede 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 abun- 
dantly 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 representa- 
tions 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? 
Fathers’ business. 
Numbers. 
Fathers’ business. 
Numbers, 
Architects . . 
. . 4 
Bakers .... 
. . 21 
Auctioneer . . . 
. . 1 
Builders .... 
. . 11 
Agents .... 
. . 5 
Book-keepers . . . 
. . 3 
Butchers 
. . 47 
Boatmen 
. . 7 
Blacksmiths . . . 
. . 63 
Brothel-keeper . . 
. . 1 
Barbers .... 
. . 2 
Bankers .... 
. . 2 536 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION 
Fathers’ business. 
Carpenters .... 
Numbers. 
139 
Fathers’ business. 
Men of Property . . 
Numbers. 
. 5 
Carmen 
26 
Naval Officers . . . 
. 31 
Coopers 
. 19 
Overseers 
. 5 
Clerks 
32 
Peddlers 
5 
Coachmen .... 
. 10 
Policemen .... 
. 15 
Clergymen 
6 
Painters 
. 16 
Coach-makers . . . 
. 9 
Printers 
. 3 
Cabinet-makers . . . 
16 
Planters 
5 
Diver 
. 1 
Pavers 
. 4 
Drover 
1 
Physicians and Surgeons 
19 
Dyers 
. 3 
Plumbers 
. 2 
Engineers 
18 
Pawnbrokers 
2 
Engraver 
. 1 
Ship-carpenters . . . 
. 23 
Farmers 
440 
Sailors 
. 35 
Fishermen .... 
. 6 
Shoe-makers .... 
. 48 
Grocers 
14 
Stage-drivers . . . 
4 
Gilders 
. 2 
Store-keepers . . . 
. 31 
Gardeners 
10 
Stone-cutters . . . 
. 20 
Glass-blowers ... 
. 2 
School-teachers . . . 
. 14 
Hotel and Tavern keepers 
36 
Silversmiths . . . 
3 
Hatters 
. 13 
Soldiers 
. 38 
Jewelers 
10 
Sail-makers .... 
4 
Laborers 
. 259 
Saddlers 
. 14 
Liquor-dealers . . . 
22 
Servants 
4 
Lawyers 
. 13 
Surveyor 
. 1 
Lumber-merchants . . 
1 
Tailors 
. 35 
Livery-stable-keepers . 
. 5 
Traders 
. 11 
Millers 
20 
Tanners and Curriers. 
1 
Masons 
. 82 
Tinsmiths .... 
. 2 
Merchants 
31 
Weavers 
. 20 
Moulders 
. 3 
Wheelwright.... 
. 1 
Manufacturers . . . . 
24 
Unascertained . . . 
. 106 
Musicians 
. 8 
Total .... 
2000 
Tins 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 an- 
swered 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 fam- 
ilies by manual labor, and whose resources would be governed 
by the ordinary fluctuations of trade. 
In following the proportion of natives and foreigners as exhib- 
ited 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 NEW YORK. 
537 
form the bases of these statistics, and it is scarcely necessary to 
say that labor is nowhere so well remunerated as with us. The 
average wages, for instance, of a first-class mechanic in England 
or Ireland seldom exceed, and, indeed, rarely amount to, nine dol- 
lars per week, and an ordinary laborer is very well paid if he re- 
ceives half that sum. This estimate refers to large cities, where 
the expenses of maintaining a family are as heavy as in New 
York, and it indicates poverty, which has already been proved to 
be one of the main causes of female depravity. 
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 acquaint- 
ed 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 fam- 
ilies. 
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 peasant- 
ry, 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 re- 
ceives 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 sup- 
port, 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. 538 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
This has been known as the state of Ireland for many years, 
and in this condition it unquestionably was when the women who 
here are now prostitutes were born there. Whether the severe 
lessons taught by the last famine, the more enlightened and lib- 
eral policy which has governed England, since that terrible calam- 
ity, in its legislation for the sister island, the introduction of An- 
glo-Saxon capital and enterprise, and the large exodus of the na- 
tives of the soil, have been of advantage to the country, it is diffi- 
cult to determine in the face of the conflicting testimony furnished 
respectively by English and Irish partisans. It seems reasonable 
to conclude that an improvement must have taken place under 
these circumstances. But this is not the place to argue the polit- 
ical questions so often agitated there and elsewhere; it is enough 
for the purpose of this work to show the poverty of twenty years 
ago, and the vice resulting from it now, and to remind the reader 
that because of the lamentable manner in which the Irish have 
suffered in their own country, we must be taxed in New York for 
the support in hospitals, alms-houses, and prisons, of the women 
whose poverty compelled their crime. 
Question. If your mother had any business indepenD' 
ENT OF YOUR FATHER, WHAT WAS IT? 
Mothers’ business. 
Numbers. 
Mothers’ business. 
Numbers. 
No independent business 
1880 
Bakers 
4 
Dress-makers . . . 
. 35 
Hat-trimmers . . . 
3 
Tailoresses . 
26 
Milliners .... 
3 
Seamstresses 
. 12 
Artificial Flower-maker 
1 
Store-keepers .... 
9 
Music teacher . . . 
1 
Boarding-house-keepers 
7 
Nurse 
1 
Servants 
6 
Umbrella-maker . . 
1 
Vest-makers 
6 
House-cleaner . . . 
1 
Laundresses . . . 
4 
Total . . 
2000 
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 them- 
selves. 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 ? NEW YORK. 
539 
Assisted. Numbers. 
Assisted neither parent 1515 
“ both parents 149 
“ mothers 306 
“ fathers 30 
Totals 485 1515 
485 
Aggregate 2000 
To this question, thirty women reply that they were in the 
habit of assisting their fathers, three hundred and six say they as- 
sisted 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 proba- 
bly had some considerable agency in their fall. 
Question. Is your father living, or how old was you 
WHEN HE DIED ? 
Age at fathers’ death. Numbers. 
Fathers living 651 
Under 5 years 289 
From 5 “ to 10 years 208 
“ 10 “ to 15 “ 252 
« 15 “ to 20 “ 389 
Unascertained 211 
Totals 1349 651 
1349 
Aggregate 2000 
Question. Is your mother living, or how old was you 
WHEN SHE DIED? 
Mothers living 166 
Under 5 years 268 
From 5 “ to 10 years 195 
“ 10 “ to 15 “ 21T 
“ 15 “ to 20 “ 281 
Unascertained 213 
Totals . . . 1234 “U56 
1234 
Aggregate 2000 
From the preceding tables, it appears that more than half of 
these women are orphans, 1849 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 540 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
same ratio; thus, two hundred and eighty-nine fathers and two 
hundred and sixty-eight mothers died when their children were 
under five years of age; two hundred and eight fathers and one 
hundred and ninety-five mothers died when their children were 
under ten years of age; two hundred and fifty-two fathers and 
two hundred and seventy-seven mothers died when their children 
were under fifteen years of age. The average of the deaths of 
either parent will therefore be, when the children were 
Under 5 years of age 219 
From 5 “to 10 years 202 
“ 10 “to 15 “ 265 
and the aggregate result that 1479 parents died before their daugh- 
ters 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 ex- 
istence, of leaving the world with its joys and pleasures, its cares 
and griefs, for the “ undiscovered bourne,” is appalling in contem- 
plation; 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 tender- 
ness, 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 al- 
ready so strongly insisted upon that it would be a needless reiter- 
ation to argue its necessity. 
Question. Do you drink intoxicating liquor? If so, to 
WHAT EXTENT? NEW YORK. 
541 
Extent. Numbers. 
Po not drink liquor 359 
Prink moderately 647 
“ intemperately 754 
Habitual drunkards 240 
Totals 1641 359 
1641 
Aggregate 2000 
'.l'a may be assumed as an almost invariable rule, that courtesans 
in al 1 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 accord- 
ing 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 knowl- 
edge 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 diffi- 
culties 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 dis- 
grace to be absolutely intoxicated, and the keeper of a first-class 
house would scarcely retain a boarder who was addicted to habit- 
ual inebriety. Still, the most fastidious are ready and eager to 
sell champagne, or what passes for it, to any visitor of liberal dis- 
position, 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 pro- 542 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
prietors, knowing intoxication would interfere with their business, 
interdict it until late at night, when “ the mirth and fun grows fast 
and furious,” and when visitors, women, proprietors, bar-keepers, 
and servants frequently all contrive to be drunk, and close the 
night with a general saturnalia. The following morning, every 
thing is changed. The proprietor takes his stand behind the 
bar, and tenders the inmates, as they appear, their “bitters,” 
namely a bumper of raw spirits. The visitors depart about their 
business, and the women await, with all the patience they can 
command, the result of another day’s campaign, anxiously watch- 
ing for any contingency which may arise likely to bring them 
another glass of liquor. Even in this case they are narrowly 
watched, and as soon as the depression from the previous night’s 
debauch has been overcome, they must either take “temperance 
drinks,” or colored water, when any stray customer invites them 
to the bar. Our decided impression is that not one per cent, of the 
prostitutes in New York practice their calling without partaking of in- 
toxicating drinks. 
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. Af- 
ter 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 de- 
lirium 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 fol- 
lowing truthful account of the effects of drunkenness on prosti- 
tutes, 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 Igo without 
food and without shelter, I must have my dram. Oh ! what aw- 
ful 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 NEW YORK. 
543 
they go round and round my bed the whole night through. My 
mother carrying my baby, and sister Mary, and all looking at me 
with their sad stony eyes. Oh! it is terrible. They don’t turn 
back either, but pass behind the head of the bed, and I feel their 
eyes on me every where. If I creep under the clothes I still see 
them, and, what is worse, they see me. I must have drink. I can 
not pass to-night without a dram. I dare not."1 
Although this is an imaginary picture its counterpart can be seen 
at almost any time in the hospitals under the charge of the Gov- 
ernors 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 hun- 
dred 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 low- 
est 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 enor- 
mous amount of prostitution now among us shall be decreased.”2 
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 com- 
pounds retailed at these places, and he will be immediately con- 
vinced 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 com- 
merce 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 
1 Mary Barton, by Mrs. Gaskell, vol. i., p. 258 (London edition.) 
2 Report of the Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, to the Governors of the 
Alms House, 1854, p. 26. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
brandy have been furnished by wholesale dealers at prices rang- 
ing from thirty-six to fifty cents a gallon. There may be excep- 
tions; some few brothels of the higher rank may sell what is call- 
ed “good liquor,” but they are very rare indeed. Is it any 
matter of surprise that drunkenness, or, more properly speaking, 
stupefaction and insensibility are so rife; that so many constitu- 
tions are ruined and so many characters destroyed when agencies 
like these are tolerated ? 
Question. Did your father drink intoxicating liquors? 
If so, to what extent ? 
Fathers' habits. Numbers. 
Did not drink liquor 548 
Drank moderately 636 
“ intemperately 596 
Unascertained 220 
Totals 1452 "548 
1452 
Aggregate 2000 
Question. Did your mother drink intoxicating liquors? 
If so, to what extent ? 
Mothers' habits. Numbers. 
Did not drink liquor 815 
Drank moderately 514 
“ intemperately 341 
Unascertained 204 
Totals 1125 "815 
1125 
Aggregate 2000 
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 seriousl}* NEW YORK. 
545 
submitted that the effect of this personal example upon children 
is satisfactorily ascertained, from many different sources, to be prej- 
udicial to their best interests, and a natural deduction therefore is 
that it is the duty of parents to abstain. 
Instances are upon record where both fathers and mothers, in 
the temporary insanity of intoxication, have turned their daugh- 
ters 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 ? 
Religion. Numbers. 
Protestants 960 
Roman Catholics 977 
Non-professors 63 
Total 2000 
Question. Were you trained to any religion ? If so, was 
it Protestant or Catholic ? 
Religion. Numbers. 
Protestant 972 
Roman Catholic 977 
No religious training 51 
Total 2000 
Question. Do you profess the same religion now? 
Profession. X umbers. 
Profess religion as educated 1909 
Non-professors , 91 
Total 2000 
Question. How LONG IS IT SINCE YOU HAVE OBSERVED ANY 
OF ITS REQUIREMENTS? 
Time. 
Numbers. 
Time. 
Numbers. 
1 
year and under 
. . 861 
From t years to 
8 
years 
. 42 
From 1 
“ to 2 years 
. . 310 
« g « <f 
9 
a 
. 20 
a 
2 
« c( g <c 
. . 226 
« 9 « a 
10 
a 
. 36 
a 
8 
« <( 4 « 
. . 135 
“ 10 « « 
12 
a 
. 20 
a 
4 
<( « 5 t< 
. . 106 
Unascertained 
. 130 
({ 
5 
« u g a 
. . 12 
Totals . 
2000 
<e 
6 
u ee « 
. . 42 
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 degrada- 546 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tion to which the body can descend. But such a contrast is not 
without its moral. It is not too great a stretch of imagination to 
suppose that of those unfortunate women who subsequently lost 
their position in society, some had the advantages of an early 
Christian education; were taught to believe in and reverence the 
Inspired Writings; were taught that there is a God who judgeth 
the world, and that there exists for all a future state. Reflecting 
upon this, and considering how deplorably such have fallen from 
the observance of precepts inculcated in the days of childhood, all 
persons will feel the necessity of watchfulness and care that the 
same fate does not befall themselves or their connections. The 
facts may teach another lesson. It may be presumed that some 
of these women were trained in the rigid and austere manner ani- 
madverted upon in the remarks on the causes of prostitution, and 
that their present career is but the recoil from that unnatural re- 
straint. Such conclusion would afford a solemn warning to all 
who have charge of the education of children to choose the happy 
mean between the extremes of careless laxity and excessive harsh- 
ness. Either course is alike fatal to the welfare of their trust, and 
must end in disappointment and sorrow. 
If it were consistent with propriety, it would not be possible to 
make any comparison between the results ot Protestant and Ro- 
man Catholic teachings, because of the nearly equal number in each 
case. In the table exhibiting the religions professed by the par- 
ents there are seventeen more Roman Catholics than Protestants; 
in the table of the religions professed by the prostitutes them- 
selves 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 lit- 
tle 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 observ- 
ance is confined to words, and not exemplified by actions, neither 
the simple rituals of Protestantism nor the more elaborate and ar- 
tistically arranged ceremonials of Roman Catholicism can be of NEW YORK. 
547 
any avail. Neither, if our lives accord not with our profession, 
will it make an iota of difference in our future destiny whether 
we have bowed the knee in a temple devoted to Roman Catholic 
service before the image of a crucified Savior, and endeavored to 
train our thoughts to a contemplation of his mercy and benefi- 
cence, or have knelt in a Protestant Church, and there joined in 
the public confession that we are sinners. 
The facts exhibited in the tables show that 1987 women had 
parents who were professedly members of one or the other of 
these communions; that 19-19 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 wom- 
en 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 relig- 
ion 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 acknowl- 
edged 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 materi- 
ally impaired; namely, kindness to each other when sick or des- 
titute, 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 548 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
themselves that, as they said, “at least she should not be com 
polled to die in sin,” and contributed from their own sad earnings 
a sufficient sum to enable her to pass her few remaining days in 
comfort and repentance. 
This is far from being an exceptional case. An extended hos- 
pital 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 un- 
provided with suitable clothing, they will club their scanty re- 
sources 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 vir- 
tue 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. NEW YORK. 
549 
NEW YORK.—PROSTITUTES AND HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION. 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
First Class, or “Parlor Houses.”—Luxury.—Semi-refinement.—Rate of Board.— 
Dress. Money.—Lavish Extravagance. Instance of Economy.—Means of 
Amusement.—House-keepers.—Rents.—Estimated Receipts.—Management of 
Houses.—Assumed Respectability.—Consequences of Exactions from Prostitutes. 
—Affection for Lovers.—Second Class Houses.—Street-walkers.—Drunkenness. 
—Syphilitic Infection.—Third Class Houses.—Germans.—Sailors.—Ball-rooms. 
—lntoxication.—Fourth Class Houses.—Repulsive Features.—Visitors.—Action 
of the Police.—First Class Houses ot Assignation.—Secrecy and Exclusiveness. 
—Keepers.—Arrangements.—Visitors.—Origin of some Houses of Assignation. 
—Prevalence of Intrigue.—Foreign Manners.—Effects of Travel.—Dress.—Sec- 
ond Class Houses.—Visitors.—Prostitutes.—Arrangements.—Wine and Liquor. 
—Third Class Houses.—Kept Mistresses.—Sewing and Shop Girls.—Disease.— 
Fourth Class Houses.—“Panel Houses.” 
It will not be out of place here to say somewhat concerning the 
manner of life among prostitutes ; how they occupy the time, and 
what facilities they possess for mental or bodily recreation. The 
domestic life of a number of women whose every action is con- 
trary to all the rules of virtue, who are living in the constant vio- 
lation of the law, with a daily subsistence contributed by those 
whose folly or passions make them visitors to their abode, can not 
but possess considerable interest to all who have followed thus far 
in this painful task. In entering upon the subject, the endeavor 
will be to give such particulars as will enable the reader to form 
satisfactory conclusions, without recording what would merely 
minister to a prurient curiosity. The object is to give informa- 
tion as explicitly as possible without offending the most sensitive 
delicacy, wounding the most refined feelings, or unnecessarily 
parading these poor women before the public eye. The subject 
is invested with such an array of real and palpable horrors as to 
render unnecessary any endeavor to excite undue emotion by 
penetrating the mysteries of the saturnalia. 
There is a wide diversity among the various grades of prosti- 
tutes in New York. The first class are those who reside in what 
are technically called “Parlor Houses.” These very seldom leave 
their abodes, unless for the purpose of making purchases of dress, 
jewelry, or articles of toilette, or taking an afternoon promenade on 550 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the fashionable side of Broadway, excepting when they accompany 
their lovers or visitors in a ride, or to some public place of amuse- 
ment. These utterly repudiate the name of “ street-walkers,” and 
very seldom perform any act in public which would expose them 
to reprobation, or attract the attention of the police. They assume 
to be, and are, in fact, the most respectable of their class, if any 
respectability can be associated with so vicious a course. Being 
almost invariably young and handsome, and always very well 
dressed, they pass through the streets without their real character 
being suspected by the uninitiated. 
The houses in which this class of courtesans reside are furnish- 
ed with a lavish display of luxury, scarcely in accordance with 
the dictates of good taste however, and mostly exhibiting a quan- 
tity of magnificent furniture crowded together without taste or 
judgment for the sake of ostentation. The most costly cabinet 
and upholstery work is freely employed in their decoration, par- 
ticularly in the rooms used as reception parlors. Large mirrors 
adorn the walls, which are frequently handsomely frescoed and 
gilt. Paintings and engravings in rich frames, vases and statuettes, 
add their charms. Carpets of luxurious softness cover the floors, 
while sqfas, ottomans, and easy chairs abound. Music has its rep- 
resentative in a beautiful pianoforte, upon which some professed 
player is paid a liberal salary to perform. Even the bed-cham- 
bers, passages, halls, and stairways are furnished in a similar style. 
In such an abode as this probably dwell from three to ten prosti- 
tutes, each paying weekly for her board from ten to sixteen dol- 
lars, exclusive of extras, which will be noticed hereafter. Their 
active life comprises about twelve or fourteen hours daily, ranging 
from noon to midnight or early morning. Their visitors are 
mostly of what may be called the aristocratic class; young, mid- 
dle aged, and even old men of property, of all callings and pro- 
fessions ; any one who can command a liberal supply of money is 
welcome, but without this indispensable requisite his company is 
not sought or appreciated. 
None of the disgusting practices common in houses of a lower 
grade are met with here. There is no palpable obscenity, and but 
little that can outrage propriety. Of course there is a perfect 
freedom of manner between prostitutes and visitors, but so far as 
the public eye can penetrate, the requirements of common decency 
are not openly violated. Profanity, as may naturally be expect- 
ed, exists to some extent; it is an almost invariable accompani- NEW YORK. 
merit of prostitution, but even that is divested of its grossness, and 
is not of frequent occurrence. There is no bar-room or public 
drinking place in the house, but it is a general custom for each 
visitor to invite his pro tempore inamorata and her companions to 
take champagne with him, which is supplied by the keeper of the 
place at the charge of three dollars a bottle. As remarked in the 
preceding chapter, excessive drunkenness is rare, both prostitutes 
and keepers trying to suppress it, because an intoxicated man 
would be likely to give them trouble, damage their furniture, and 
injure the reputation of the house. By means of a small aperture 
in the front door, covered by a wrought-iron lattice-work, the can- 
didates for admission can be examined before entrance is given, 
and the door is kept closed against any person who is likely to 
prove an annoyance. 
As a natural consequence of their position, the women exert all 
their powers of fascination, by adopting the latest and most superb 
fashions in dress, and by a very tasteful arrangement of their hair, 
for which purpose a hair dresser visits them every day, charging 
each woman two or three dollars a week for his assistance. Be- 
sides these they practice a thousand other artifices, unknown to 
mere lookers on, in order to secure the favor of their visitors. 
About three fourths of the courtesans of this grade are natives 
of the United States, and mostly from New England or the Mid- 
dle States. Some of them are very wrell educated; accomplish- 
ed musicians and artists are sometimes found among them, while 
others aspire to literature. With the greater number much ele- 
gance and refinement of manner, or a close observance of what 
may be called the conventionalities of life, is seen. Their income 
is large, but so are their expenses. It is no exaggeration to state 
that their individual receipts very seldom fall short of fifty dol- 
lars per week. From this amount deduct the sum charged for 
their board, an additional fee which they pay the proprietress for 
every visitor they entertain, the expenses of hair-dressing, per- 
fumery, etc,, the cost of their washing, which is all done at their 
own charge, away from the house, and must be considerable, and 
the remainder will give their expenditure for dress. All are not 
equally extravagant. Some seem to consider prostitution a busi- 
ness, and act upon the idea of saving as much monejr as possible. 
In one case a woman asserted that she had seven thousand dollars 
in the bank, which she had accumulated by prostitution in a few 
years, and her statement was confirmed by the captain of police 552 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
for the district. The economical ones are generally shrewd, cal- 
culating “down-Easters,” who argue that if they can save enough 
during the zenith of their charms to support them when their at- 
tractions fail, or to help them establish a house of this description 
on their own account, they are only doing their duty. Others 
have dependent relatives whom they support, or illegitimate chil- 
dren whom they maintain and educate, frequently appropriating 
considerable sums for these purposes. In nearly all of them, 
kindness toward the unfortunate of their own sex and grade is a 
striking trait. Much as they may quarrel among each other when 
all are alike in health, let one be visited with sickness, or over- 
come by misfortune, and, as a general rule, their envy or jealousy 
is forgotten, and they freely contribute to her support. 
Their means of amusement are limited. When they have no 
visitors they generally indulge in a luxurious indolence. For 
any useful employment, such as even sewing or fancy needle- 
work, they have but little inclination, and their general refuge 
from ennui is found in reading novels. These are not, as would 
be generally supposed, works of lascivious character; to these 
they seem to have an objection, most probably because their own 
experience has proved the fallacies of the highly-colored descrip- 
tions of the delights of love which abound in such productions. 
To one source of recreation they are extremely partial, namely, 
driving in carriages some few miles out of town, and they fre- 
quently persuade their visitors to indulge them in these rural ex- 
cursions. They are well acquainted with the most pleasant drives, 
and know exactly where to find quiet and retired hotels where all 
the delicacies of the season can be served in the most approved 
style. If they can not induce their friends to gratify them in this 
manner, they will endeavor to secure an invitation to take lunch- 
eon or oysters at some fashionable saloon. Dress, gay life, and 
excitement seem necessary to their existence. 
And amid all this array of luxurious homes, of splendid dresses, 
of comparative affluence, the question arises, Are they happy? 
A moment’s consideration will prompt the answer that they can 
not be. Continued indulgence in their course of life tends to 
obliterate the sense of degradation, and makes their career almost 
second nature, but even the most confirmed must at times reflect. 
The memory of what they have been, the thought of what they 
are, the dread of what they must be, haunt their minds; con- 
science will make itself hoard. Many a poor girl dressed in silks NEW YORK. 
553 
or satins, gleaming with jewelry, and receiving with a gay smile 
the lavish compliments of her “friend,” is mentally racked with a 
keen appreciation of her true position. She knows that the world 
condemns her, and her own heart admits the justice of the ver- 
dict. She knows that he who is so ostentatiously parading his ad- 
miration regards her but as a purchased instrument to minister to 
his gratification. She feels that she is, emphatically, alone in the 
world, and her merry laugh but ill conceals a breaking heart. 
These houses are generally kept by middle-aged women who 
have themselves passed through the initiatory course of a prosti- 
tute’s life. In some cases they own the real estate and furniture. 
In others they hire or lease the house, paying an exorbitant rent 
(often to some wealthy man who considers himself a respectable 
member of society), and provide their own furniture; in other 
cases they rent both house and furniture. In one house in this city 
the enormous sum of nine thousand one hundred (9100) dollars is, or 
teas at the time of examination, paid annually for rent and use offur- 
niture, the owner being a woman who formerly kept the place, but 
who is now living in the enjoyment of a large income in one of 
the Italian cities. 
The following extracts from information obtained on this sub- 
ject will give a very good idea of the facts: 
E. M. pays $lBOO per year for rent and use of furniture, which is owned by 
a woman who formerly kept the house. 
M. S. pays $lOOO per year rent, and owns the furniture. 
M. L. owns the house and furniture, estimated to be worth $15,000. 
M. A. T. pays $7OO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $5OOO. 
J.G. pays $7OO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3OOO. 
E. T. owns the real estate and furniture, valued at $30,000, 
C. G. pays $lBOO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $6OOO. 
M. C. K. pays $3900 per year for rent and use of furniture. 
C. E. pays $l4OO per annum rent, and owns furniture valued at $6OOO. 
M. B. owns the house and furniture, valued at $15,000. 
J. B. pays $560 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $2OOO. 
E. B. pays $lOOO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3OOO. 
M. M. owns house and furniture, valued at $15,000. 
C. C. pays $B5O per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $BOOO. 
M. M. pays $750 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $2OOO. 
M. G. pays $625 per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $lOOO. 
Y. N. pays $l3OO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3OOO. 
C. E. pays $l4OO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $6OOO. 
L. C. pays $lOOO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $2OOO. 
A. T. pays $lOOO per year rent, and owns furniture valued at $3OOO. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
554 
The financial effects of the system of prostitution will furnish a 
theme for some remarks hereafter. These facts are quoted now 
to explain the expenses connected with first-class houses. Of 
course, where such outlays are incurred the receipts must corre- 
spond. The following statement will exhibit the minimum week- 
ly receipts in a house where ten boarders reside: 
Board for ten women, at $l6 00 per week each $l6O 00 
Fees for visitors, say one each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 10 00 
Profit from sale of one basket of Champagne each day (weekly) . 168 00 
Total $398 00 
This estimate does not reach the daily average of visitors, and 
a more correct statement would be: 
Board for ten women, at $l6 00 per week each $l6O 00 
Fees for visitors, say two each day to each woman ($1 00 each) 140 00 
Profit from sale of two baskets of Champagne each day (wreekly) 336 00 
Total $616 00 
Taking the mean of these two calculations will give receipts 
exceeding twenty-six thousand dollars per year, or five hundred 
dollars weekly. The cost of maintaining these luxurious estab- 
lishments, in addition to the rent, is considerable, but still there is 
a very large excess. This is satisfactorily proved by the fact that 
the women who own the houses in which they conduct their traf- 
fic have, almost without exception, purchased them since they 
commenced housekeeping, and also that many of them own con- 
siderable personal property in addition to the real estate. One 
woman is positively affirmed to be worth over one hundred thou- 
sand dollars, many are reported as worth sums ranging from fifty 
thousand downward, and many more are reputed to be rich, but 
no special amount mentioned. 
The management of many of the houses is confided to a house- 
keeper, acting for the principal, who is rarely visible unless spe- 
cially called for, and under this housekeeper are a number of 
servants, varying from three to seven, according to the size of 
the house and the number of boarders it accommodates. These 
servants are almost invariably colored women, and no difficulty 
is ever experienced in obtaining a full complement. Their wages 
are liberal, their perquisites considerable, and their work light. 
A neat and well-arranged breakfast is prepared for the “lady 
boarders” about eleven or twelve o’clock, and their dinner is 
served about five or six o’clock. As a general rule these are the 
only meals supplied them in the course of the day. If they re- TSTEW YORK 
quire any thing more they send out for it, or persuade their vis- 
itors to escort them to some saloon. 
The proprietors of this class of houses assume to be respectable 
women when they are away from the scenes of their business. 
An anecdote, and a true one, has been related of one of them 
who, on a recent visit to Newport, so effectually carried out her 
disguise as to receive the escort of a reverend gentleman, a D.D. 
of this city, to the dinner-table and elsewhere, with his family, he 
thinking her a most amiable and deeply afflicted widow. Some 
of them have private residences up town, in the quiet respectable 
streets, and come to their houses of prostitution every forenoon, 
returning at night. A portion of them profess to be religious, 
frequently attending some place of worship the better to preserve 
their mask. Naturally benevolent, as are all women, they con- 
tribute liberally to charitable objects, and freely relieve any indi- 
gent persons who may ask their assistance. Even in political 
matters they have some weight, their resources and connections 
proving valuable to some aspirant for local distinction who has 
promised them that he will, if elected, use all his influence to 
protect them from annoyance. 
Toward the miserable women whose vice is the source of their 
wealth, these proprietors act as interest dictates. A girl who has 
not the tact or disposition to attract visitors is seldom treated with 
much consideration, while one who is successful receives more 
favors, but favors, generally speaking, of a nature to render her 
subservient to their wishes; such as the loan of money to pur- 
chase new and fashionable articles of dress, a short credit for her 
board, or some equivalent which will place her under an obliga- 
tion, and render it difficult for her to leave the house. They are 
actuated in this by a desire to retain an attractive girl; for, in ad- 
dition to the actual cash payments she makes, she also possesses 
the power of inducing her visitors to be liberal in their orders for 
wine, and the profit from its sale, about two hundred per cent., is 
an important source of revenue. 
The excessive demands made upon the earnings of prostitutes 
by these women has been productive of a serious social evil. 
Many unfortunate girls can not appreciate the advantages of lead- 
ing a vicious life for the benefit of a landlady, and in self-defense 
have hired apartments in some private house, so as to secure their 
earnings for themselves. This is generally arranged so that two 
of them engage a suite of rooms, say a parlor and two bed-rooms, 556 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
representing themselves as virtuous women, governesses or seam- 
stresses, and frequently as the wives of sailors or of men who are 
in California or some other distant land. Here they either board 
themselves or resort to some saloon, and to this lodging, or to the 
house of assignation, which will be noticed in due course, they 
introduce their visitors. It is a fact more than suspected that 
many prostitutes are living in this manner in our city. It is 
needless to enlarge upon the injurious effects likely to result 
therefrom. 
Before leaving this branch of the subject, there is another char- 
acteristic of keepers of these houses which must be noticed, name- 
ly, an exaggerated affection for some man to whom they are pas- 
sionately attached. Some few of them arc professedly living with 
their husbands, but this is an exception to the ordinary rule. 
Generally speaking, they are the mistresses of some persons upon 
whom they lavish all their tenderness, and for whose gratification 
they willingly incur any amount of expense. Some of these indi- 
viduals are men upon town, gamblers, or rowdies of the higher 
class, whose noblest aspirations are satisfied by a liberal supply of 
money. They will readily ignore all social virtues for the same 
consideration. It related as a fact concerning a celebrated 
brothel-keeper in the city, that when she was residing in the inte- 
rior of the State, some years since, she became desperately enam- 
ored of a young man whose friends discovered the connection. 
They removed him to the far West. Undaunted by the dangers 
and difficulties which surrounded her, she followed him, and dur- 
ing her journey through the large towns had many offers of pro- 
tection from men acquainted with her antecedents. True to her 
affection, she refused them all, and traced her lover to the forests. 
Here she remained with him, living in a log hut, deprived of 
many of the necessaries and all of the comforts and elegances of 
life, for three years. At least, infidelity to her love can not be 
charged against this woman, and is it not a natural conclusion 
that a heart so sincere and devoted in its attachment could have 
been led to a more virtuous course had a different social feeling 
existed toward her and her former transgressions ? 
As a general rule, the keepers of these first-class houses will 
not permit the boarders to have the men whom they style their 
“lovers” residing with them, although they allow them to visit; 
a constant residence is considered as likely to engross too much 
of the girl’s time to the neglect of the interest of the proprietress. NEW YORK. 
557 
We come now to tlie second grade of prostitutes and houses of 
prostitution. Many of the women of this rank are those who 
made their debut in first-class houses, but left them when their 
charms began to fade. To some extent, they endeavor to carry 
out the same rules of conduct which governed them while there, 
and, generally speaking, the management of some portion of the 
houses of this grade assimilates very much with the former, the 
same privacy being observed, though in a less expensive manner. 
In others a marked difference is perceptible, and these will now 
claim attention. 
A longer continuance in the habits of prostitution, and the asso- 
ciation with a less aristocratic class of visitors, has diminished the 
refinement of the women and imparted to them coarser manners. 
There is not the same desire to “ assume a virtue, if they have it 
not,” or the same ambition to make vice seem unlike itself. Deg- 
radation has had its effect upon them, and now that they are re- 
duced to a humbler sphere they feel more of the world’s pressure, 
and become more daring and reckless in their conduct. Many 
of the street-walkers and women frequenting theatres are of this 
class, and any one who has ever come in contact with them would 
have found no difficulty in at once assigning their true position. 
It is right to say here, that many of the managers of our best 
theatres have abolished the third tier, so called, and if any im- 
proper woman visits them she must do so under the assumed 
garb of respectability, and conduct herself accordingly. 
Other women in this grade, or rather this section of the second 
grade, commenced their life of vice in it, and as the natural ten- 
dency of prostitution is to depress instead of elevating its follow- 
ers, they have very little chance of ever rising beyond their pres- 
ent rank, although such instances do occasionally happen, the 
keeper of a first-class house sometimes consenting to receive a 
boarder from a lower rank, if she has only recently commenced 
prostitution and is sufficiently prepossessing in manners and ap- 
pearance for this exaltation. A great number of foreign-born 
women are found in this class, victims of emigrant boarding- 
houses, or of seduction on board ship during their passage to this 
country. 
The houses are generally conducted in a similar manner to 
those of the first class, with this distinction, that what is costly 
luxury in the one is replaced by tawdry finery in the other, 
and for expensive mirrors and valuable paintings they substitute 558 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
cheaper ornamentation. Their reception-rooms are of much infe- 
rior finish. They also furnish wine and brandy to customers who 
wish for them. Drunkenness is more general, both with the pros- 
titutes and their visitors, and the most revolting scenes are not 
uncommon. Profanity is indulged in to a considerable extent, 
and in some places seems the vernacular language. The attempts 
at fascination made by the women are more excessive, and fre- 
quently vulgar to a degree which, while it excites a smile, also 
inspires disgust. The general charge for board here will be from 
six to ten dollars a week, rarely reaching the latter figure. 
When evening approaches, if there is little or no company in 
the house, the girls resort to the streets, dressed in their most at- 
tractive finery, in the expectation of finding some man whom they 
can induce to accompany them home. They are seldom unsuc- 
cessful in this search, and very frequently repeat it several times 
in the course of the evening. Others of them visit the third tier 
of such theatres as will admit them, and there exert their charms 
to secure conquest. Intercourse with these women is attended 
with considerable danger, professional experience having shown 
many of them to be infected with syphilis, while numbers are con- 
nected with dishonest men who would not scruple to rob a stran- 
ger, if any opportunity offered for the purpose, such opportunity 
being not unfrequently afforded by some arrangement of the 
woman herself. 
In such places vice presents comparatively few attractions, and 
yet these houses are numerously visited, principally by travelers, 
clerks from stores, the higher class of mechanics, etc., some of whom 
will spend in an evening the earnings of a week. 
The women who preside over these brothels are usually of the 
strong-minded, and frequently of the strong-handed order, the lat 
ter being those who can by their own strength suppress any riot 
that may occur without calling in aid from the police, and gener- 
ally calculate to preserve a moderate decorum in their establish- 
ments. Their profits are very large, derived not merely from the 
board money and extras paid by the women, but also from the 
wines and liquors they sell. They do not endeavor to screen 
their own character, as do those of the upper class, but openly 
acknowledge what they are, and do not hesitate to give their 
personal attention to the business of the place. Anxious to accu- 
mulate money as rapidly as possible, they are not very particular NEW YORK. 
559 
about the means they employ, and although they would not al- 
low any positive act of dishonesty to be performed toward a visit- 
or while he was in the house, on account of the trouble to which 
it might subsequently expose them, yet they would scarcely con- 
sider it their duty to warn him against the proceedings of the 
men who live as “lovers” with the prostitutes under their roofs. 
The virtue of these keepers is certainly not of a very rigid order, 
and their favored lovers are universally selected from among men 
of the same character as themselves. 
The meals provided for boarders are served at about the same 
hours as in the fashionable houses, but they lack that neatness 
and arrangement which a good cook would give, the domestic 
matters being mostly confided to inexperienced servants, and fre- 
quently to some old prostitutes who are retained at nominal wages 
to do as much work as they can, and in their own style. 
It has been already stated that some of the second-class houses 
of prostitution are conducted in a similar manner to those of the 
first, and therefore no attempt has been made to give any detailed 
account of them, which would be a mere repetition of what has 
been once described. The lower class have been taken as illus- 
trating the second grade, and consequently the account must not 
be taken as a sweeping condemnation of the whole. 
The next, or third grade of prostitutes and houses of prostitu- 
tion may be found very fully developed in the first police district, 
among the Germans; in the fourth district, where sailors mostly 
resort; and also in the third, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth districts, 
A majority of the women in these districts are of foreign birth, the 
largest proportion being Irish and German. Although rated as 
third-class houses, some of them are equal in all respects, and 
sometimes superior in many, to houses of the second class. Most 
of the women are young, and many of them are very good-look- 
ing, while the houses, particularly those kept by Germans, are in 
general conducted very quietly. Even in those places resorted to 
by sailors, the principal part of any noise which may occur is 
caused by the boisterous mirth and practical jokes of the visitors 
themselves. The houses are, in every sense of the word, “pub- 
lic” places of prostitution, and neither women nor keepers seek 
to disguise the fact in any manner, the general argument seeming 
to be, “We live by prostitution, no matter who knows it.” 
There are many distinctive features in the several districts, but 560 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
the first and the fourth will be fair average types of the whole, 
and these we will notice briefly, commencing with the German 
houses in the first district. 
Here drinking is openly carried on, although seldom to such an 
extent as to cause absolute intoxication. There is a public bar- 
room opening directly from the street, where can be obtained la- 
ger beer and German wines, as well as the usual liquors sold in 
porter-houses. This is the reception-room of the establishment, 
and a stranger in the city, who might walk in to get a glass of 
lager beer, without knowing the character of the place, or being 
aware of the signification of the crimson and white curtains fes- 
tooned over the windows, would find himself followed to the bar 
by some German girl, who would ask him in broken English if 
he would “ treat her.” If he feels inclined to gaze around him 
and study human nature in this phase, he sees that the room is 
very clean; a common sofa, one or two settees, and a number of 
chairs are ranged round the walls; there is a small table with 
some German newspapers upon it; a piano, upon which the pro- 
prietor or his bar-keeper at intervals performs a national melody; 
and a few prints or engravings complete its furniture. Two or 
three girls are in different parts of the room engaged in knitting 
or sewing; for German girls, whether virtuous or prostitute, seem 
to have a horror of idleness, and even in such a place as this are 
seldom seen without their work. Every thing bears an unmis- 
takable Teutonic appearance; from the heavily-mustached pro- 
prietor, or the recently-imported bar-keeper, to the mistress, or 
madame as she is generally called, and the women themselves, all 
plainly tell theit origin. He is surprised at the entire absence of 
all those noisy elements generally considered inseparable from a 
low-class house of prostitution. He can sit there and smoke his 
cigar in as much peace as at any hotel in the city; and if he once 
tells a woman he does not wish to have any conversation with her, 
he will scarcely be annoyed again, unless he makes the first ad- 
vances. If he thinks proper to enter into conversation with the 
proprietor, he will be certain of a courteous reply, and will fre- 
quently find him an intelligent and communicative man. Finally, 
concluding to resist the temptations around him, he leaves the 
place in the most perfect security, and without the least fear of 
being insulted. 
The majority of the girls here have recently arrived in the 
United States. Some have embraced this course of life from al> NEW YORK. 
561 
solute poverty and friendlessness; some have followed it in their 
own country; others have been the victims of seduction; and with 
some the ruling motive seems to have been a desire to speak and 
be spoken to in their native tongue. Their pecuniary arrange- 
ment with the proprietor, for there is almost invariably a man at 
the head of each establishment, is that they shall give him one 
half of all the money they receive, for which he provides them 
with board and lodging. They are not generally intemperate 
fromen, the light German wines being their principal beverage, 
and although they frequently indulge in profanity, yet, as it is in 
their national language, it is unintelligible to those who under- 
stand only English, and the annoyance is consequently restricted. 
They are generally honest; in fact, it is the testimony of those 
best qualified to judge, that there is very seldom much disturb- 
ance, and very rarely any dishonesty practiced in this class of 
brothels. It can not be said that literally there is not much noise, 
for any one who has been in a room where two or three Germans 
of each sex were talking and gesticulating with their characteristic 
earnestness will be of opinion that they talked quite loud enough; 
but by disturbance is to be understood quarreling or fighting, 
which sometimes occurs, but not very frequently. 
As before remarked, a man and his wife are mostly the keepers 
of such houses. The man, sometimes with a lad for his assistant, 
attends to the bar-room, and takes charge of the money, the wife 
does the cooking and general house-work, and the girls attend to 
their own rooms. By this division of labor the work is generally 
done to the satisfaction of all parties, and, the expenses being light, 
a considerable profit is made. There are mostly three or four 
girls in each house, seldom exceeding that number, and the rule 
among house-keepers is to consider any girl an unprofitable ac- 
quisition who does not pay them about ten dollars a week. Their 
rents are low, because they have but little room. The basement 
of an ordinary-sized house is generally the extent of their accom- 
modation ; the front part of this forms the bar-room, and the re- 
mainder is partitioned into very small bed-rooms. 
There is another feature connected with German prostitution, 
and exhibited in the same neighborhood, which has already re- 
ceived a cursory notice on a former page, namely, their dancing- 
saloons. Saltatory amusements are carried on, more or less, in all 
their houses of prostitution, but in these saloons it is considered 
a respectable business enterprise, although the morality of the ee- 562 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
tablishments is, at least, questionable. The ball-room is a large, 
open apartment devoid of all furniture excepting chairs or benches 
round the walls; the musical arrangements generally comprise a 
piano and violin, and the dances are national waltzes and polkas. 
No charge is made for admission, and the bar is the only source of 
revenue. The “orchestra” occasionally appeal to the charitable 
for assistance, and the call is mostly responded to in a liberal man- 
ner. The business commences in the evening, and is invariably 
discontinued at midnight. The places are frequented by very few 
but Germans, and order is "well maintained. 
Leaving the Germans of the first district, the reader’s attention 
will now be asked to the brothels of the fourth police district. 
Here the principal part of the women are of Irish parentage; some 
few are natives of the United States. The greater part of the visit- 
ors are sailors. When a succession of storms which have driven 
homeward-bound vessels off the coast is followed by a fair wind, so 
as to allow them to enter the harbor in large numbers, these houses 
are crowded, and for a few days, or while the sailors’ wages last, 
a very extensive business is carried on. The bar-room, as in the 
case of the German houses, is the reception-room, and here may 
be seen at almost any hour of the day a number of weather-beaten 
sailors, verifying the truth of the old proverb, which says they 
resemble two distinct animals in earning and spending their 
money. It matters not who it may be, but any one who enters 
the room is almost sure to be asked to take a drink immediately, 
and if he remains, in less than five minutes somebody else will 
ask him to take another. A sailor with cash in his pocket has a 
decided antipathy to drinking alone, and generally invites every 
one in the room, male and female, to partake with him. By such 
a course he very soon gets intoxicated, when the girl whom he 
has honored with his special attention convoys him to bed, and 
leaves him there to sleep himself sober. 
In these houses less neatness is observable than in those just 
noticed, but they have entirely a different class of customers. A 
German, in the midst of his pleasures, likes to see every thing 
neat and orderly about him; a sailor is not particular, so that his 
pleasures are unobstructed. A curious observer, also, does not 
meet with the same civility: if he comes to spend money he is 
welcome; if not, the landlord does not care aoout his company. 
Considerable card-playing is practiced; not what may be termed 
gambling, but for amusement, the stakes being seldom more than NEW YORK. 
intoxicating drinks for the players. There is less noisy rowdyism 
than might be expected, since the men who generally cause such 
disturbances lack the courage to impose upon a crowd of hard- 
fisted sailors, who are always able and willing to take their own 
part, and resent any interference. Still, occasional quarrels occur 
among the visitors themselves, frequently resulting in a pitched 
battle. The landlord is then called for, and his knowledge of his 
customers enables him speedily to discover the aggressor, who al- 
ways happens to be the man that has the least money, and he is 
forthwith pushed into the street without any ceremony, as a kind 
of peace-offering to the rest of the company. 
The landlord is a character in his way. He is a man who has 
been to sea himself, for no one else would be deemed fit to keep a 
house where sailors resort, and is usually a large, powerful man. 
By the freemasonry of the craft, and by freely joining his visitors 
whenever they ask him to drink, and occasionally treating them in 
return, he is sure of their custom until their wages are all spent 
and they are obliged to go to sea again. 
The women in these houses use liquor very freely, but they are 
not permitted to get drunk in the daytime. If the landlord ob- 
serves any symptom of intoxication he gives them water, instead 
of gin, the next time they are asked to drink, as he knows very 
well his prospects for business would be injured unless the girls 
were kept sufficiently sober to be on the watch for contingencies, 
or, as he phrases it, “to look out for chances.” 
In some of these houses it is the rule that all the money re- 
ceived by the girls is to be given to the landlord, who provides 
them with clothing and necessaries, but in others a fixed rate of 
board—six or eight dollars a week—is paid, and the women re- 
tain the surplus. In either case it is a very profitable business, 
particularly where many girls are kept. In one house that we 
visited, in the fourth district, the keeper informed us that his ex- 
penses amounted to about one hundred and fifty dollars weekly, 
and of course some estimate can be made from this as to the 
amount of business he transacted. 
The dancing-saloons in this neighborhood are not conducted on 
the platonic principles of the Germans. They are, in fact, so 
many accessories to prostitution, and many scenes there witnessed 
will not permit description. The women residing in the house 
are there, dressed in the most tawdry finery they can command, 
many of them assuming the bloomer costume. The band consists 564 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
of a violin, a banjo,'and a tambourine, and whatever is wanting 
in musical ability is adequately supplied by vigorous execution. 
The bar is very liberally patronized, and before midnight drunk- 
enness is the rule and sobriety the exception. 
Passing now to the fourth grade of this vice, we find prostitu- 
tion in a most repulsive form; the women themselves diseased 
and dirty, the houses redolent of bad rum. The prostitutes are 
the refuse of the other classes who have fallen through the suc- 
cessive gradations on account of disease and drunkenness, or they 
are some of those children of iniquity who, born in scenes of vice 
and squalid misery, know nothing of a virtuous or happy course 
of life. Destiny seems from their birth to have intended them for 
vagrants, and has planted them so low in the moral scale that they 
can scarcely hope to rise. 
It would be useless to attempt a specification of the localities 
of these houses; any one who has been through the purlieus of 
New York City must have observed some of them, and it will be 
quite sufficient to glance at a few of their peculiarities. They are 
generally kept by an old prostitute, who gathers around her some 
of the most debased of her class, takes a cheap basement wherever 
she can obtain possession of one suited to her purpose, erects a 
small bar furnished with three or four bottles of the commonest 
liquor she can procure, partitions off one or two small hovels of bed- 
rooms, and forthwith begins housekeeping. Her arrangements are 
about as extensive as her preparations. She seldom professes to 
board the girls, generally making a charge for every visitor they 
entertain, and giving them the privilege of cooking any thing they 
want. These dens are largely patronized by the vilest of the male 
sex; the petty thieves who hang around the public markets, steal- 
ing from the wagons, or who haunt the doors of grocery stores and 
abstract whatever they can reach; as they find them convenient 
places of concealment, and can frequently dispose of their booty 
by means of the women. Another class of visitors consists of the 
lowest order of rowdies, who assume a free license to perpetrate 
any mischief they please, because there is no one to interfere with 
them. A fatal case of this nature, which occurred but a few 
months since, will be fresh in the recollection of all citizens. 
It is dangerous for a stranger to enter a place of this descrip- 
tion, for if he does not get his pocket picked by the one, he will 
most probably be assaulted by the other class of visitors. Upon 
such establishments the police are compelled to keep a watchful NEW YORK. 
565 
eye, and although they have no power to enter them except some 
actual necessity calls for their services, yet they frequently induce 
a neighbor to make a complaint against the keepers for maintain- 
ing a disorderly house, and then, duly armed with a warrant, they 
enter, and arrest every one found on the premises. The finale of 
such an experiment at housekeeping as this is very frequently a 
commitment for vagrancy to Blackwell’s Island. The character 
of the place will be a sufficient proof that syphilis abounds there, 
and its dangers must be added to those already enumerated. 
The divisions thus made are presumed to be accurate as far as 
the distinctive characters of the various grades are concerned, but 
the lines of demarkation are of course arbitrary. Any attempt to 
classify so large a social evil must, from its very nature, be incom- 
plete, and in this case farther experience or a more extended in- 
quiry would very probably warrant an alteration in the arrange- 
ment. But there is another class of whom a few words must be 
said, namely, those truly wretched beings, the outcasts of the out- 
casts. In many cases destitute of home or shelter, diseased, starv- 
ing, and afflicted with an insatiable thirst for ardent spirits, they 
present most ghastly and heart-rending spectacles, retaining scarce- 
ly any vestiges of humanity. These wretched beings can be found 
clustered round the bars of liquor-stores in low neighborhoods, 
begging for the price of a glass of gin. Much of their time is 
spent in the prisons on Blackwell’s Island, from which they are no 
sooner released than they return to their old haunts and habits. 
They can scarcely be called prostitutes, for their aspect is so dis- 
gustingly hideous that all feminine characteristics are blotted out, 
and thoroughly sensual and animalized must he be who could ac- 
cept their favors. They are, in every sense of the word, outcasts; 
compelled, for the short time they may be in the city—and this is 
seldom more than a few days at once—to eke out a wretched ex- 
istence by stealing or begging; frequently so miserable that they 
gladly hail the day on which they are returned to prison. They 
present subjects for mournful consideration, and the reflection 
that they are experiencing the degradation to which every prosti- 
tute in the city is rapidly tending, should be a powerful argument 
in favor of any remedial measures which can be devised to amel- 
iorate the condition of the frail women of New York, and prevent 
them from falling so far below humanity. 566 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
HOUSES OF ASSIGNATION. 
Every resident of New York is aware of the existence of houses 
used especially as places for the meeting of the sexes with a view 
to illicit intercourse; but so carefully have all particulars respect- 
ing them been concealed from the public gaze, that very little 
more than this mere fact is generally known, particularly with 
reference to those of a higher grade. Secrecy is necessary to their 
continuance, and essential for the maintenance of the social posi- 
tion of their patrons. 
The most exclusive are generally situated in the quietest and 
most respectable portion of the city. They are fitted up neatly, 
and even luxuriously, but without any extravagant or gaudy dis- 
play. Their arrangements, of course, do not require reception or 
sitting rooms, and the whole care bestowed upon them is lavished 
on the bed-chambers, the appointments of which contain every 
possible comfort and convenience. 
The keepers of this class of houses are generally very shrewd, 
quiet, cautious women, who never seek to penetrate into any en- 
gagements made by their visitors, who never know any person 
that enters their house, and from whom it is impossible to obtain 
information by any means. In fact, it has been said that the 
keepers and servants around these places have neither eyes, ears, 
nor tongues. Money is confessedly their object, and, as they re- 
ceive liberal pay, self-interest dictates quietness, because if they 
adopted any other course, their houses would inevitably become 
known to the public, which would be an effectual barrier against 
visitors, and result in an entire loss of their customers. Conse- 
quently, if a liberal bribe could ever induce treachery, their 
shrewdness enables them to discern that such an act would at 
once and forever close their establishments. 
It will be readily understood that, as the intrinsic value of these 
houses as places for meeting depends upon the secrecy and select- 
ness with which they are operated, in order to carry out this prin- 
ciple fully, arrangements are made with much precision. Two 
parties are not allowed to meet casually in the halls or staircases. 
The keeper maintains a strict watch, in order that ingress and 
egress may be free and uninterrupted, and there can be little 
doubt that the desire to make money on her side, and the fascina- 
tion of illicit passion on the part of her visitors, conjointly tend to 
insure more actual secrecy than could be obtained by any system NEW YORK. 
567 
of oaths or discipline. In some of the most exclusive, the system 
is carried to such an extreme that no accommodation will be af- 
forded to parties unless the gentleman has been previously intro- 
duced to the proprietress, and his character for secrecy and integ- 
rity vouched for by some person with whom she is acquainted. 
This rule is adopted to prevent the possibility of the house be- 
coming known as a place of assignation to any one who might 
use his knowledge to the prejudice of the keeper or her visitors. 
No public women reside in these houses, nor would they be ad- 
mitted under any pretext, as such a course would attract atten- 
tion and defeat the purposes contemplated. Man}7 of them are 
open for months without the knowledge of the neighbors or of the 
police of the district, as visitors very rarely enter or leave togeth- 
er, and to prevent any delay the outer door is generally kept un- 
locked, so that persons pass immediately into the hall, where a 
second door, with a bell attached, is generally found. 
The business of these houses is done mainly during the prome- 
nade hours of Broadway, say from eleven or twelve to four or five 
o’clock. The visitors are confined to the upper walks of life, the 
men being of all sorts of business, and the women exclusively from 
our fashionable society. If the mysterious “personal” advertise- 
ments in the daily papers could be understood by the outside world, 
it would be seen that appointments are not unfrequently made 
through their agency. Arrangements for a meeting are generally 
made with the keepers in advance, and at the designated time the 
parties arrive from different directions and proceed direct to the 
room which has been already selected. If they wish it they can 
obtain wine or refreshments by ringing a bell in their apartment. 
A majority of the females who visit these places can scarcely be 
called prostitutes, notwithstanding their undeniable fall from vir- 
tue. They sin but with one individual, and that, in many cases, 
from positive affection, and in others from the desire of sexual 
gratification. Whatever may be the motive, it does not concern 
the keeper of the house, whose only business is to receive the rent 
of her room, which ranges from two or three dollars upward to 
any amount that policy or the desire to insure secrecy may dic- 
tate. Doubtless very few of the visitors regard money in their 
negotiations. Females are very frequently closely veiled wThen 
they enter the house, so that their features can not be recognized, 
as has been illustrated in trials for divorce in this city, especially 
if the prior arrangements for the meeting have been made by the HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
gentlemen. If, on tlie other hand, the lady takes the preliminary 
steps, she can scarcely be unknown to the proprietress, in whose 
keeping she consequently places her character. 
The unsuspecting moral men of New York will scarcely credit 
these facts, but men of the world know that such meetings and 
places for meeting are not uncommon. It may be objected that 
the exposure of these mysteries imparts information which may 
lead the uninitiated into similar practices. It is believed that the 
information here given is not sufficiently definite for this end, and, 
certainly, nothing could be farther from the design of this work 
than to aid an immoral purpose. But it is a duty to record the 
general facts, in order that our citizens may be aware of the dan- 
gers that abound on every side; and particularly is it necessary 
because many of the female visitors are married women, who take 
advantage of the absence of their husbands at business. 
A question will arise: “ Who are the women that keep these 
houses ?” That they can not have lived as common prostitutes, 
or been the keepers of houses of prostitution, is evident. In the 
first place, the acquaintances they would have made in either of 
those avocations would preclude the possibility of their maintain- 
ing the inviolable secrecy necessary in a house of assignation; 
and, again, no female would enter a place of this description, the 
keeper of which would be likely to betray her. It is apprehend- 
ed that some of these houses originate in the following manner; 
in fact, we know of more than one that did commence so: 
A female engaged in an intrigue which she can not carry out 
at her own residence, and desiring a place of security for her meet- 
ings, has an acquaintance with some shrewd woman, possibly one 
who works for her as seamstress, or in some other capacity, whom 
she makes partially a confidant. She tells her that she is desir- 
ous of seeing a gentleman, whom, for some particular reason, she 
can not invite to her house, and asks if she will accommodate her 
with a room in which the interview can take place. It is not 
likely that a person who felt under any obligation to her employer 
would refuse such a request, especially for so simple a purpose as 
a short conversation. The meeting accordingly takes place, and 
a handsome present is made her. It is frequently repeated, until 
she becomes suspicious, and finally satisfied that these interviews 
are for the purpose of sexual intercourse. By this time it has be- 
come a question of policy with her. She argues that if she refuses 
to extend any future accommodation she will lose not only a con- NEW YORK. 
569 
siderable income from the presents, but also all employment from 
the lady. She knows that by allowing such meetings she realizes 
considerably more than she can procure by her daily labor, and 
self-interest is generally strong enough to overcome her scruples. 
She goes on extending her accommodations, and enlarging the cir- 
cle of her visitors, until she becomes mistress of a select house of 
assignation, which will be always liberally patronized so long as 
her power of maintaining the requisite secrecy remains unim- 
peached. Some of these women are from distant cities; entire 
strangers in New York, except to their immediate customers. If 
they are widows who have children, these are invariably educated 
away from home. From the privacy observed it is very difficult 
to estimate their receipts, which must be large. They sometimes 
degenerate into keepers of houses of public prostitution, and then 
become dangerous members of society, on account of the secrets 
which have been intrusted to them. 
Probably some of our ultra-fashionable citizens might be en- 
abled to give more particulars of these houses than are here col- 
lected. What has been stated is gathered from authentic sources, 
and may command implicit belief. Indeed, so trustworthy is the 
authority that it may be confidently asserted that even Fifth Ave- 
nue and Union Square are not exempt'from these resorts. 
Such houses must be regarded as the connecting link between 
the licentious excesses of the capitals of Europe and this city of 
the New World. They are dangerous from their secrecy and ex- 
clusiveness. As yet they are rare; and it speaks well for the 
morals of our upper classes that they are so. It shows that the 
majority of people in the higher walks of life are untainted. But 
the course of deterioration has commenced. Will not American 
good sense and American morality check this base imitation of 
a foreign custom ? 
The recently avowed sentiments, or rather the resuscitation of 
sentiments which were proclaimed years ago respecting the obli- 
gations of marriage and the theory of “free love,” have doubtless 
increased the patrons of houses of assignation among our fashion- 
able novel-reading people, or weak romantic heads made giddy 
by the sudden acquisition of wealth. For the last fifteen years a 
loose code of morals has been promulgated among us, the foreign 
apostles of which—many of them pretending to nobility, but being 
in truth mere adventurers—have visited us, and by them and 
through their influence many intrigues have originated. A spice 570 
HISTORY OP PROSTITUTION. 
of romance m the American character has induced many to join 
this movement in search of adventure, while a portion of our 
female society are ardent admirers of every thing foreign, be it a 
lord or a lace veil, and these delight in an intrigue because it is 
an exotic. 
The facilities of communication with Europe are now so great 
that American travel on that continent is largely on the increase, 
and perhaps there are at this time in the cities of continental 
Europe more representatives of our society than of any other 
nation. Many of our people go there with the laudable desire to 
improve their minds by general culture, or for the study of par- 
ticular branches of science or art, but it is to be regretted that 
some come back to our shores with ideas calculated to be any 
thing but beneficial to their native country in a social or moral 
point of view. The sons of our staid and “ solid men” go to the 
capital of the French empire to study medicine. Apart from the 
impropriety of this course when there are the same facilities for 
study here, where a few seconds of lightning intercourse will place 
them in immediate communication with their friends, instead of 
their being separated four thousand miles from parents and guar- 
dians, does the end justify the means? What course do these 
young men frequently pursue? Unable to speak the language 
intelligibly, they resort to the acquaintance of a grisette, in order 
to study in her company. The language they acquire by this 
means is, at best, a vulgar patois; but they also obtain a knowl- 
edge of intrigue entirely incompatible with the simplicity and 
purity of our republican institutions—a species of male and female 
diplomacy foreign to the character of our people. 
Young ladies, too, when they return from a foreign tour, are 
more fascinated with the charms and successes of the favored mis- 
tress of some European prince or potentate than benefited by the 
useful solid lessons of travel. With them, as with the others, it 
is all superficiality. Superficial when they started, superficial 
while traveling, they are still more superficial when they return. 
There are always weak-minded people in this country who will 
ape foreign manners, and to this cause must be assigned the 
gradual approximation of our fashionable society to the vices of 
the European capitals, their ladylike and gentlemanlike frailties, 
their genteel peccadilloes and affectations. The effects of foreign 
travel upon such persons can not but be injurious. It demands a 
clear head and a sound heart to decide between the vicious fri- NEW YORK. 
571 
volities and the positive good submitted to their notice, and with 
the class mentioned it requires but little judgment to know which 
will first attract them. They must see Lord A or Count 
B ,no matter what valuable opportunities for instruction they 
miss. They must become au fait in the observances of courts and 
the manners of courtiers, no matter what else they leave undone. 
As remedial measures for another evil are elsewhere spoken of, 
this may be an appropriate place to suggest for profound consid- 
eration whether it would not be a wise policy to adopt some pre- 
ventive system for this evil. We might establish a phrenolog- 
ical and psychological bureau, armed with full powers to exam- 
ine all persons desiring to travel, so as to ascertain whether 
they may safely make the grand tour, and have sufficient strength 
of intellect and firmness of principle to resist the vitiating influ- 
ences and examples which will surround them there, so that they 
may return only with a knowledge of the good and valuable les- 
sons taught! 
But the evils of foreign manners and customs are not imported 
solely by the traveling class of our own community. The polit- 
ical turmoils of Europe, in the last eight or ten years, have thrown 
among us numerous refugees who have been reared in the hot-beds 
of intrigue, and who, styling themselves artistes, depend upon our 
unexampled prosperity, the increase of our wealth, the improve- 
ment of our country, and our known predilections for foreigners, 
to enable them to make a living, and also to establish the same 
state of morals and manners existing in the cities whence they 
came. The United States are now the great harvest-field for art, 
which, with science, music, and poetry, aids to improve the mind. 
At the same time these bring with them an excessive devotion to 
fashion, both in dress and manners, as the low-necked dress and 
the lascivious waltz, which are so decidedly positive degenerations 
from our normal state that none but the most superficial will ever 
copy. 
That we are rapidly introducing many of the most absurd fol- 
lies and worst vices of Europe is a patent fact. Almost every one 
can specify acts now tolerated in respectable families which, so 
far from being permitted fifteen years ago, would have been 
thought by our plain common-sense parents amply sufficient to 
warrant the exclusion of the offender from the domestic circle; 
and it is an equally conspicuous fact that our social morality is 
deteriorating in a direct ratio to the introduction of these habits. 572 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Every day makes the system of New York more like that oi the 
most depraved capitals of continental Europe, and it remains for 
the good innate sense of the bulk of the American people to say 
how much farther we shall proceed in this frivolous, intriguing, 
and despicable manner of living; or whether they will not strive 
to perpetuate the stern morality of the Puritan fathers, our great 
moral safeguard so far, and thus put an effectual barrier against 
the inroads of a torrent which must undermine our whole social 
fabric, and finally crush us beneath the ruins. 
The second class of assignation-houses are, to a great extent, 
private, but not so rigidly exclusive as the others. Their furni- 
ture is of the same luxurious style, but of a more gaudy character. 
Generally the same routine is observed in regard to entrance as 
in those of the first class. The principal portion of the females 
who resort to them are married women, most of whom are from 
the upper classes, whose sexual passions are not gratified else- 
where, or who resort to this means to obtain more money to ex- 
pend in dress; kept mistresses, residing with their lovers as hus- 
band and wife in hotels or boarding-houses, whose attachment is 
not strong enough to keep them faithful to one man ; occasionally 
the best class of serving-women, or shop-women, or females whose 
occupations, such as milliners, artificial florists, etc., lead them into 
contact with the fashionable classes. It is told on good authority 
that there are husbands cognizant of the fact that their wives visit 
such places, and who live wholly or in part upon money earned 
in this way. These cases are not supposed to be numerous, but 
it is to be hoped, for the credit of our national character, that the 
number will become still smaller. A few prostitutes of the upper 
grades sometimes visit this class of houses; they are known to the 
keeper, and she encourages them for the following reason: An 
habitue of the place will make an appointment to visit it at a spe- 
cified time, and he tells the keeper he would wish to meet a fe- 
male there. At the appointed day his wishes are gratified, the 
keeper having acted as negotiator with one of the girls mentioned. 
More wine is consumed in these houses than in the strictly select 
ones, probably from the different class who frequent them. 
The third-class houses of assignation are not situated in such 
select parts of the city as are the other two classes. Some of them 
are managed with much privacy and seclusion, while others are 
simply houses of public prostitution on a large scale. Their princi- 
pal female patrons are those prostitutes who have rebelled against NEW YORK. 
573 
the exorbitant charges made by keepers of fashionable houses, 
and shop-girls who resort to prostitution to augment their income. 
Many of these live some distance up town, and any one who is 
journeying downward in the after part of the day may see num- 
bers of them going to these places in the cars and stages. This is 
another imitation of the French and English systems. Very little 
disguise is attempted about these third-class houses. Each has a 
parlor or reception-room, where a man can have a bottle of wine, 
and one or two of the girls named will join him. Of course many 
couples visit there, but a large number of men go alone, knowing 
that there are always women in the house. Fast young men 
about town are in the habit of keeping their mistresses at these 
houses, as more economical than boarding with them at hotels. 
Considerable disease is propagated in such places, a contingency 
from which the first and second classes are almost entirely exempt. 
Business is generally over here in three or four hours, commenc- 
ing in the dusk of the evening; but it is unquestionably a source 
of considerable revenue to the keeper, particularly in those cases 
where she acts as procuress, since, in addition to the rent of the 
room which the man pays, she always receives a present from the 
woman. 
There is another or fourth class of assignation-houses to which 
the commonest portion of street-walkers take their company, and 
these may be emphatically described by an old saying, “ Cheap 
and nasty.” Dirty and insufficient accommodations are the equiv- 
alents for low prices, and such places are, in the general estima- 
tion of connoiseurs, very low and despicable. Notwithstanding 
this they thrive and multiply, from which it may safely be infer- 
red that they are profitable in a business point of view, repulsive 
as they may be in their features and arrangements. Some of 
them are ingeniously arranged with a view to robbery, and are 
called “panel-houses.” The plan adopted is somewhat as follows: 
Some man, generally a countryman not very well informed in the 
tricks of the metropolis, meets with a prostitute, and agrees to ac- 
company her to an assignation-house. She is in league with the 
“panel thieves,” and therefore introduces her victim to one of 
their rooms. The apartment seldom contains more furniture 
than a bed and a chair or lounge, with the floor covered with a 
thick carpet. To make “assurance doubly sure,” the man him- 
self locks the door by which he enters, and, when undressing, nat- 
urally throws his clothes upon the chair or lounge. The bed- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
stead is placed so that the feet come toward the only apparent 
door in the room, with one side against the wall, and the head and 
other side hung with curtains, which the woman carefully draws 
as soon as the man lies down by her side. At the head of the 
bed, and of course concealed by the drapery from any one occu- 
pying it, is another door, which forms the secret entrance. It is 
so adroitly arranged, and so neatly covered with paper the same 
as the walls, that no one would suspect its existence. The hinges 
and fastening on the outside are oiled, so that no noise can be per- 
ceived when it is opened, and the operator steals with cat-like 
step over the carpet, and quietly examines the clothes without 
alarming the unsuspecting stranger. The thief completes his in- 
spection, appropriates as much as he thinks proper, and the tem- 
porary occupant of the apartment resumes his clothes and pre- 
pares to leave. If his suspicions are excited by the circumstance 
that his wallet looks less plethoric than it did, and an examina- 
tion reveals that some of its contents are missing, he knows not 
how to account for it. He is perfectly certain that no one has en- 
tered that room while he was there, and if he has “ visited” much 
before meeting the girl, he concludes that he must have lost some 
of his money in his career, and that the only way is to take the 
loss contentedly, and avoid New York fascinations in future. 
Sometimes the loser has not enough philosophy for this, and if 
he can be certain that his money was right when he entered the 
room, will call in the police, and thus expose the secret arrange- 
ments of the establishment. This is comparatively a rare case, as 
most men would rather submit to a pecuniary loss than encounter 
the trouble and exposure attending a criminal prosecution, and 
the knowledge of this reluctance enables the “panel thieves” to 
pursue their operations almost with impunity. NEW YORK. 
575 
CHAPTEK XXX YI. 
NEW YORK.—EXTENT, EFFECTS, AND COST OF PROSTITUTION. 
Number of Public Prostitutes.—Opinion of Chief of Police in 1856.—Effects on 
Prostitution of Commercial Panic of 1857.—Extravagant Surmises.—Police In- 
vestigation of May, 1858.—Private Prostitutes.—Aggregate Prostitution.—Vis- 
itors from the Suburbs of New York.—Strangers.—Proportion of Prostitutes to 
Population.—Syphilis.—Danger of Infection.—lncrease of Venereal Disease.— 
Statistics of Cases treated in Island Hospital, Blackwell’s Island.—Primary 
Syphilis and its Indications.—Cases of Venereal Disease in Public Institutions. 
—Alms-house. —Work-house. Penitentiary.—Bellevue Hospital. Nursery 
Hospital, Randall’s Island.—Emigrants’ Hospital, Ward’s Island.—New York 
City Hospital.—Dispensaries.—Medical Colleges.—King’s County Hospital.— 
Brooklyn City Hospital.—Seamen’s Retreat, Staten Island.—Summary of Cases 
treated in Public Institutions.—Private Treatment.—Advertisers.—Patent Med- 
icines.—Drug-stores.—Aggregate of Venereal Disease.—Probabilities of Infec- 
tion.—Cost of Prostitution.—Capital invested in Houses of Prostitution and As- 
signation, Dancing-saloons, etc.—Income of Prostitutes.—Individual Expenses 
of Visitors.—Medical Expenses.—Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses.—Police and 
Judiciary Expenses.—Correspondence with leading Cities of the United States. 
—Estimated Prostitution throughout the Union.—Remarks on “Tail’s Prostitu- 
tion in Edinburgh."—Unfounded Estimates.—National Statistics of Population, 
Births, Education, Occupation, Wages, Pauperism, Crime, Breweries and Distil- 
leries, and Nativities. 
The preceding chapters have given a statistical and descriptive 
account of prostitution in New York. Before considering what 
measures can be best applied for the amelioration of its accom- 
panying evils, it will be necessary to ascertain the extent of the 
system, and this inquiry must include the number of abandoned 
women in the city, and the amount of Venereal infection propa- 
gated through their agency. 
It has been assumed in these pages that the two thousand wom- 
en whose replies form the basis of the statistical tables, represent 
about one third of the aggregate prostitution of New York. This 
is allowing an increase of twenty per cent, during the winter of 
1857-8, in consequence of the commercial panic of last autumn, 
and the resulting paralysis of trade, and suffering of the laboring 
community. 
In the progress of this investigation it was deemed advisable 
to consult those whose acquaintance with the details of city life 
would entitle their opinions to confidence, as to the actual num- 
ber of prostitutes within our limits; and in addition to much in- 576 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
formation obtained privately, the following correspondence took 
place with the then Chief of Police: 
“Resident Physician’s Office, Blackwell’s Island,) 
New York, September 1, 1856. ) 
(Copy.) 
“George W. Matsell, Esq., Chief of Police: 
“ Dear Sir, During the last twenty years various estimates have been 
made by different persons, foreigners and natives, interested and not inter- 
ested, as to the number of prostitutes in the city of New York. It is gen- 
erally supposed that they reach the large number of twenty-five or thirty 
thousand. You, sir, have been at the head of the police department of the 
city for the past fifteen years, while previous to that time you acted, if I 
mistake not, as one of the police justices of the city. I presume, therefore, 
that you have a considerable knowledge of prostitution as it exists here, 
and consequently can give a very correct opinion as to the number of pros- 
titutes in New York City. 
“ You will greatly oblige me if, at your earliest leisure, and in any form 
most convenient to yourself, you will state what you believe to be the total 
number of prostitutes now in the city. 
“ It is proper to add that, with your permission, I intend to publish this 
letter, with your answer, in the report on Prostitution which I am preparing, 
and shall soon have the honor to lay before the public. 
“ Yours respectfully, William W. Sanger, 
“ Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island.” 
“ Office of the Chief of Police, New York, Dec. 12, 1856. 
“Doctor William W. Sanger: 
(Reply.) 
“ Dear Sir, - I received your letter asking me to express in writing my 
estimate of the whole number of known public prostitutes in the city of 
New York. In the absence of any law compelling the registering of public 
prostitutes, it would be very difficult to testify with accuracy to the exact 
number of such persons in the city. I have no hesitancy in stating that, in 
my opinion, they do not number over five thousand persons, if indeed they 
reach so high a figure. Having been engaged in public life for many years, 
my opinion is based on the observations made by me from time to time, and 
from various official reports made to me. 
“ You are at liberty to make such use of this answer to your interrogatory 
as you may deem proper. Very respectfully yours, 
“ Geo. W. Matsell, Chief of Police.” 
This communication, in addition to the facts gleaned from other 
sources, was amply sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the 
known public prostitutes in New York did not exceed five thou- NEW YORK. 
577 
sand in number at the close of the year 1856. Then ensued the 
summer, with its artificial inflation—that false prosperity which 
excites unbounded hopes and stimulates to measureless extrava- 
gance, followed by the revulsion and panic of the fall and winter. 
Trade was literally dead: operatives, never too well paid, were 
threatened with starvation; females, particularly, felt the rigid 
pressure of the times. In many families the embarrassments of 
the fathers compelled a reduction of the servants employed, and 
a large number of domestics were added to the aggregate of that 
class already out of situations. The occupations of the army of 
seamstresses, dress-makers, milliners, and tailoresses were sus- 
pended, and their struggles for bread were merged in the general 
cry for labor. It was, in short, a trying time alike for the suffer- 
ers and the observers. But one resort seemed available; the 
poor workless, houseless, foodless woman must have recourse to 
prostitution as a means of preserving life. 
As usual in any time of great excitement, surmise ran actually 
wild as to the extent of the consequences, and extravagant theo- 
ries abounded; one gentleman actually stating in a public meet- 
ing that a thousand virtuous girls were becoming prostitutes ev- 
ery week through sheer starvation! An assertion so appalling 
as this is its own refutation. It assumes that one woman in every 
hundred of the female population of New York City, between the 
ages of fifteen and thirty years, became a prostitute every week; 
and therefore, during the six months of fall and winter, twenty- 
six thousand women, one fourth of the inhabitants of the ages 
named, one in every four of all the women under middle age, 
would have been forced into vice! The practice of “jumping at 
conclusions” upon serious matters like this is much to be repre- 
hended. An exaggerated statement made in the fervor of enthu- 
siasm, while advocating a benevolent object, must always recoil 
to the injury of the cause it is intended to promote. It will be 
necessary only to consider for a moment the financial condition 
of New York to be convinced that such an increase of prostitu- 
tion was impossible. It can not be denied that the number of 
abandoned women is regulated by the demand; or that the only 
inducement which could lead virtuous girls to the course alleged 
must have been the necessity to earn money lor subsistence. But 
this necessity to earn money was felt as strongly by men as by 
women. The revulsion for a time left a large portion of the com- 
munity without resources. Merchants, manufacturers, and store- 578 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
keepers found their receipts inadequate to meet their expendi- 
tures. Commercial employes, book-keepers, clerks, salesmen, and 
agents were discharged. Mechanics in every branch were with- 
out work, and consequently without wages. Merchants from 
other parts of the country had no money to meet their liabilities 
or make fresh purchases, and therefore did not visit the city as 
usual. These causes combined to reduce the business of houses 
of prostitution, and instead of large accessions to the ranks of 
courtesans, many of this very class were forced to seek a refuge 
in the public charitable institutions. Hence arose the increase in 
the denizens of Blackwell’s Island, where hospital, alms-house, 
work-house, and penitentiary were alike over-crowded. Some of 
the places vacated by these recipients of eleemosynary aid were 
doubtless filled by new recruits; but the supposition that a thou- 
sand were added every week would imply a change in the whole 
corps every six weeks, or a change nearly five times completed 
during the fall and winter. 
That female virtue was yielded in many instances can not, un- 
fortunately, be doubted, but the sufferers did not become public 
prostitutes. Poor creatures! they surrendered themselves unwil- 
lingly to some temporary acquaintance, probably in gratitude for 
assistance already rendered, or anticipating aid to be afforded. 
There is something truly melancholy in the consideration that 
bread had to be purchased at such a price; that the only alterna- 
tive lay between voluntary dishonor and killing indigene \lt is 
but charity to conclude that the woman who thus acted, if her sub- 
sequent course was not a continuous life of abandonment, was im- 
pelled by the stern necessity of the times rather than induced by 
a laxity of moral feeling. Unchaste as she must be admitted, she 
can scarcely be deemed a prostitute in the ordinary acceptation of 
the word. 
It would be foolish to deny all increase of prostitution since the 
date of the correspondence just transcribed. The population of 
New York is now some thirty or forty thousand more than at that 
time, and female degradation has extended as a natural conse- 
quence. Relying upon the estimate of five thousand as correct at 
the time made, the subsequent augmentation of inhabitants would 
suppose an addition of about three hundred prostitutes, but to take 
the widest scope, and assume that the debasement required by 
hunger degenerated into a habit of confirmed vice, it may be ad- 
mitted that the number of abandoned women in New York has NEW YORK. 
579 
increased from five thousand in 1856 to six thousand in 1858. 
This is a very liberal estimate, and the total assigned is certainly 
not too small. How much it may be in excess can not be said 
with precision, but in an argument of this nature it is safer to err 
in the direction of overstating an evil than to be lulled into false 
security by too flattering a representation. 
The known public prostitutes of New York are thus presumed 
to amount to six thousand at the present day. But to this num- 
ber exceptions might be taken. To secure farther accuracy, ad- 
ditional evidence was sought. In the month of May, 1858, the 
assistance of the Board of Metropolitan Police Commissioners was 
requested, and, under the direction of its president (General James 
W. Nye), to whom our acknowledgments are respectfully tender- 
ed for his courtesy and aid, a list of queries was submitted to the 
Inspector of each Police precinct. Below is a copy of the circu- 
lar, with a synopsis of the replies. 
“Office of the Metropolitan Police Commissioners,) 
New York, May 1, 1858. ) 
(Copy.) 
“ Inspector 
Police Precinct. 
“Sir,—You will please report to this office as early as possible on the 
questions given below. Let your answers be full and explicit, to the best 
of your knowledge and belief. Space is left below each query for the in- 
sertion of your replies, and you will therefore write them on this sheet, and 
return it without delay. 
“ 1. How many houses of prostitution, from the most public to the most 
private, are there in your police district 1 
“2. How many houses of assignation are there in your district ? 
“3. How many dancing-saloons, liquor and lager-beer stores, are there 
in your district, where prostitutes are in the habit of assembling, in addi- 
tion to the known houses of prostitution ? 
“4. How many prostitutes do you suppose reside in your district HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Pre- 
cincts. 
Reported by 
Houses of 
Prostitution. 
Houses of 
Assignation. 
Dancing-sa- 
loons, Liquor 
or Lager-beer 
Stores, where 
ih-ostitutes 
assemble. 
Estimated 
Number of 
Prostitutes. 
1 
Inspector James Silvey 
22 
3 
76 
2 
“ Hart B. Weed 
1 
1 
2 
3 
“ J. A. P. Hopkins.. 
9 
26 
4 
“ Morris De Camp .. 
35 
13 
8 
750 
5 
“ Henry Hutchings.. 
63 
7 
46 
420 
6 
Acting Inspector Lush 
52 
6 
12 
228 
7 
Inspector John Cameron 
6 
4 
100 
8 
“ C. S. Turnbull 
43 
15 
300 
9 
“ Jacob L. Sebring.. 
50 
10 
“ T. C. Davis 
26 
i 
4 
100 
11 
“ Peter Squires 
12 
50 
12 
“ Galen P. Porter ... 
13 
“ Thomas Steers 
15 
4 
8 
150 
14 
“ J. J. Williamson... 
39 
6 
125 
15 
“ G. W. Dilks 
5 
19 
7 
175 
16 
“ Samuel Carpenter. 
6 
4 
10 
500 
17 
“ J. W. Hartt 
20 
3 
6 
150 
18 
“ Theron R. Bennett 
1 
3 
250 
19 
“ James Bryan 
5 
1 
2 
30 
20 
“ F. M. Curry 
15 
1 
6 
250 
21 
“ Francis Speight.... 
15 
10 
6 
75 
22 
“ James E. Coulter.. 
14 
60 
Totals 
378 
89 
151 
3857 
SYNOPSIS OF REPLIES. 
Upon some of the reports are notes, which may be extracted. 
Inspector Silvey, Ist district, says, in answer to question 4, 
“ There are to my knowledge seventy-six common prostitutes living 
in this precinct.” 
Inspector De Camp, 4th district, says, in answer to question 
4: “ 350 who reside in houses of prostitution, 160 kept mis- 
tresses, 150 who reside in the ward, and prostitute themselves in 
this and other wards, and probably 100 occasional prostitutes.” 
Inspector Hutchings, sth district, in answer to question 8, classi- 
fies the resorts as 
Dancing-rooms 2 
Saloons and cigar-stores 31 
Lager-beer-stores 13 
46 
and, in answer to question 4, subdivides the prostitutes into 
Whites 860 
Blacks 60 
420 
Acting Inspector Lush, 6th district, says, in answer to question 
4: “ One hundred and seventy-eight known prostitutes whose 
names we have; supposed to be at least fifty more residing in the 
district.” NEW YORK. 
581 
Inspector Cameron, 7th district, in answer to question 3, classi- 
fies the resorts into 
Lager-beer-stores 3 
Cigar-store 1 
4 
and, in answer to question 4, says: “ Can give no reliable infor- 
mation ; probably one hundred.” 
Inspector Sebring, 9th district, says, in answer to question 1, 
“ This precinct does not contain any houses of prostitution that 
I am aware of;” and in reply to question 4: “Scattered through 
the precinct there are probably fifty.” 
Inspector Squires, 11th district, says, in answer to question 1: 
“ None, properly speaking. There are many low drinking places 
where dissipated persons of both sexes often meet, and where, no 
doubt, prostitution is sometimes practiced, but no regular houses 
of that character.” To question 3: “ There are about a dozen lager- 
beer-saloons where Dutch girls of loose character assemble and 
dance at night. They do not remain long in the same place, but 
when driven from one place they locate in another.” To question 
4: “I presume there are fifty young women and married women, 
some of whom pass for respectable persons, who are in the habit of 
going across to the eighth, fifteenth, and other disreputable wards 
for purposes of prostitution, and some of the lowest of these are 
even said to visit the fifth ward, but I have never been able to as- 
certain this fact positively.” 
Inspector Porter, 12th district says, “ This precinct, comprising 
all that portion of the island north of 86th street, is not infested 
with any of the evils enumerated in the within questions.” 
Inspector Williamson, 14th district, says, in answer to question 
4, “ I should suppose about 125.” 
Inspector Carpenter, 16th district, says, in answer to question 
4, “It is generally conceded by those of us who presume to know 
that there are in this precinct at least five hundred prostitutes, of 
all ages, nations, grades, and colors.” 
Inspector Hartt, 17th district, says, in answer to question 4, 
“ This being a hard question to answer, the answer must be taken 
as entirely guess-work: supposed to be about one hundred and 
fifty.” 
Inspector Curry, 20th district, says, in answer to question 4; 
“Probably two or three hundred, but this is mere guess-work. 
We know there are a great many; some of them very young.” 
Those reports from which.no extracts have been made consist 582 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
simply of figures without any remarks, and are given fully in the 
synopsis. It will be observed that all the officers quoted give the 
number of prostitutes more as a conjecture than a certainty; and 
although their avocations would lead them to know most of the 
disreputable women in their several districts, none of them assume 
to be so thoroughly informed as to be enabled to answer positive- 
ly. To the numbers they give must be added the floating prosti- 
tute population of station-houses, city and district prisons, hospi- 
tals, work-house, alms-house, and penitentiary, which varies from 
one thousand to two thousand, and may be taken at an average 
of one thousand five hundred. This, with those known to the 
police, makes a total of 5357, and the balance of six hundred and 
forty-three (643), required to raise the number to six thousand 
(6000), is but a moderate allowance for those who have escaped 
the eyes of the officers when taking the census. As before re- 
marked, it is better to overestimate than underestimate the aban- 
doned women of the city. 
But to this number are to be added those whose calling is so 
effectually disguised as to prevent its being known—those who 
practice prostitution in addition to some legitimate occupation, and 
those who resort to illicit pleasures for the indulgence of their 
passions. To obtain information on these points some supple- 
mentary questions were addressed to the captains of police at the 
commencement of this investigation in 1856, and their replies are 
now submitted. 
The first inquiry was, “ How many houses of assignation are 
there in your district?” It was known when this interrogatory 
was propounded that the secrecy maintained in these places would 
in some instances baffle the keenness, not often at fault, of our 
shrewdest police officers, and no surprise was felt when their re- 
plies indicated that only seventy-four (74) of these houses were 
known to them. Reliable information from other sources led to 
the conviction that this was understated. The investigation of 
May, 1858, fixes the number at eighty-nine (89), which is also too 
low ; and we shall be perfectly justified in estimating the number 
of houses of assignation in New York at one hundred (100). 
The next question was, “What, to the best of your belief, are 
the average number of visitors to such houses every twenty-four 
hours ?” The replies gave an average of six couples to each house 
every day, or an aggregate of six hundred women every twenty- 
four hours. This was followed by the query, “ Are all the fe- 
males who visit these houses of assignation known public prosti- NEW YORK. 
tutes? If not, of what class do you suppose or know them to 
be?” From the replies it was found that about two fifths were 
known as prostitutes, the remainder being sewing or shop girls, 
kept mistresses, widows, and some married women. 
Again: “ State your opinion as to how many kept mistresses 
there are in your district?” In the twenty-two districts two 
hundred and sixty-eight (268) were ascertained, and the presump- 
tion was that there were more. The number may be safely taken 
at four hundred. The next question was, “ How many women, 
to the best of your belief, and that you have not previously ex- 
amined, are there in your district that obtain a livelihood in whole 
or in part by prostitution ?” To this the numbers are stated (upon 
belief, for the nature of the question precludes any positive infor- 
mation) as about four hundred. “ Can you form an opinion as to 
how many women in your district, who are not impelled by ne- 
cessity, prostitute themselves to gratify their passions ?” No def- 
inite answers were obtained to this, the general suppositions rang- 
ing from one third to one fourth of those who were not recog- 
nized as public prostitutes. “To what extent, in your opinion, 
is prostitution carried on in the tenant houses in your district?” 
It is generally admitted that there is some, but no calculation can 
be made with any accuracy. Many of what may be called pri- 
vate prostitutes live in this class of houses, but their visitors 
would be taken to houses of assignation, where the numbers are 
included in the estimate given, “It is believed that there are 
many women who follow prostitution living in nearly all the re- 
spectable portions of the city. They (singly or in couples) hire a 
suite of rooms, and under the garb of honest labor, sewing, etc., 
pass as respectable among those living near them. It is also 
known that such as these are the great frequenters of houses of 
assignation. How many such women (to the best of your belief) 
are there in your district?” The officers reply that they have as- 
certained that there are about two hundred, but they believe there 
are many more. 
Thus much for the information we have been enabled to col- 
lect. There are six hundred women who visit these houses of 
assignation every day, of whom two fifths are known as public 
prostitutes, and the remainder are of other classes. It may be as- 
sumed that the known prostitutes visit such houses at least once 
every twenty-four hours, which leaves over three hundred visits 
daily for the others. Kept mistresses or married women who re- 
sort there for the gratification of their passions probably amount 584 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
to one hundred per day. It can scarcely be supposed that such 
visit houses of assignation more than once a week as a general 
rule, while the others, sewing or shop girls, etc., who resort there 
to augment their income, would probably take this step two or 
three times per week, which would bring their number to about 
four hundred. It thus appears that a very fair estimate of the 
total number of frail women who are now in New York may be 
stated as follows: 
Known public prostitutes 6000 
Women who visit houses of assignation for sexual gratification . .1260 
Women who visit houses of assignation to augment their income 400 
One half the number of kept mistresses, assuming the other half to 
be included in those who visit houses of assignation 200 
Total 7860 
It will be seen that, to arrive at this conclusion, all are included 
who are suspected to be lost to virtue, although of the number 
who visit houses of assignation for sexual gratification many are 
guiltless of promiscuous intercourse. 
This total number falls very far short of the estimates made at 
different times by various persons, that there are from twenty to 
thirty thousand prostitutes in New York City! Such rash con- 
clusions, hastily formed in the excitement of the moment—some- 
times influenced by the fact that “ the wish is father to the 
thought”—must give place to the results of a careful and search- 
ing investigation made for this special purpose. The modus 
operandi of examination in the city rendered it incumbent on 
those having it in charge to approximate to the facts, and is itself 
a sufficient guarantee of correctness.1 
If it were possible to parade the six thousand known public 
prostitutes in one procession, they would make a much larger dem- 
onstration than the mere printed words “six thousand” suggest 
to the reader. It requires a man who is in the habit of seeing 
large congregations of persons to comprehend at a glance the ag- 
gregate implied in this statement. Place this number of women 
in line, side by side, and if each was allowed only twenty-four 
inches of room, they would extend two miles and four hundred 
1 On a former page the results of a police investigation of the number of prosti- 
tutes in London in the year 1857 is given. It will be remembered that only 8600 
common women were reported, in a population of nearly 2,500,000. The inquiries 
in New York and London would alike lead to the opinion that the extent of the 
vice is generally ovverrated. NEW YORK. 
585 
and eighty yards. Let them march up Broadway in single file, 
and allow each woman thirty-six inches (and that is as little room 
as possible, considering the required space for locomotion), and 
they would reach from the City Hall to Fortieth Street. Or, let 
them all ride in the ordinary city stages, which carry twelve pas- 
sengers each, and it would be necessary to charter five hundred 
omnibuses for their conveyance. These simple illustrations will 
make the extent of the vice plain to many who could form but 
an inadequate idea from the mere figures. 
Yet the estimate will probably appear low to those residents of 
the city who have been accustomed to believe New York reeking 
with prostitution in every hole and corner, while it will seem ex- 
cessively large to readers residing in the country. For the in- 
formation of the latter it may be remarked, that vicious as Man- 
hattan Island unquestionably is, much as there may be in it to 
need reform, in this matter of prostitution it must not bear all the 
blame of these six thousand women, for although they certainly 
reside in it, a very large number of their visitors do not dwell 
there. Brooklyn, the villages on Long Island, Fort Hamilton, 
New Utrecht, Flushing, and others; Jersey City, Hoboken, Hud- 
son, Staten Island, Morrisania, Fordham, etc., contain numbers 
of people who transact their daily business in New York, but re- 
side in those places. In very few of these localities are any pros- 
titutes to be found, nor would they be encouraged therein while 
New York is so close at hand and so easy of access. Again, the 
strangers flocking into this city from all parts of the world aver- 
age from five to twenty thousand and upward every day, and 
they must relieve it of some part of this obloquy. 
The population of New York at the last census (1855) was 
officially stated to be (in round numbers) 680,000, and the pro- 
portionate increase for three years to the present time will bring 
it very near 700,000. If illicit intercourse here were carried on 
only by permanent residents, its proportion of public prostitutes 
would be one to every one hundred and seventeen (117) of the 
inhabitants; but the calculation must include the denizens of the 
places already enumerated, and, adding 500,000 for them and the 
number of strangers constantly visiting the city, we have a total 
of 1,200,000 persons ; making the proportion of prostitutes only 
one in every two hundred, including men, women, and children. 
It is desirable, however, to ascertain what proportion courtesans 
bear to the classes who patronize them, and the census shows 586 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
that males above the age of fifteen form about thirty-two per cent, 
of the population. A wider range might have been taken, as it 
is notorious that many boys under fifteen years old, especially 
among the lower classes, practice the vice; but assuming that to 
be the standard, there is one prostitute to every sixty-four adult 
males, certainly not a large proportion in a commercial and mari- 
time city. It is impossible to form any idea of the proportion of 
male inhabitants and visitors who encourage houses of prostitu- 
tion. Marriage is not always a check to indiscriminate inter- 
course, and professions of religion are often violated for illicit 
gratification. Still there arc a vast number whom these obliga- 
tions bind, and, if they could be exactly ascertained, this would 
make a corresponding difference in the proportions. 
As the case now is, New York City stands somewhat in the 
position of a seduced woman, and has to endure all the odium at- 
tached to the number of prostitutes residing within her limits; 
while her neighbors and strangers who largely participate in the 
offense are like seducers, and escape all censure, self-righteously 
saying, “ How virtuous is our town (or village) compared with 
that sink of iniquity, New York.” It has been already stated 
what the effect would be if all visitors to New York were moral 
men, and, although the remark need not be repeated, its apposite- 
ness is apparent. 
From the prostitutes within our borders emanates the plague 
of syphilis, and when the number of abandoned women is con- 
sidered in conjunction with the certainty that each of them is li- 
able at any moment to contract and extend the malady; when 
the probabilities of such extension are viewed in connection with 
the acknowledged fact that each prostitute in New York receives 
from one to ten visitors every day (instances are known where 
the maximum exceeds and sometimes doubles the highest num- 
ber here given), there can be no reasonable doubt of the danger 
of infection, nor any surprise that the average life of prostitutes is 
only four years. 
The actual extent of venereal disease must be the first point of 
inquiry, and here the records of public institutions are of great 
service. The hospitals on Blackwell’s Island, under the charge 
of the Governors of the Alms-house, present the largest array of 
cases, the principal part of which were treated in the Penitentiary 
(now Island) Hospital. The number of these cases was in 
1854 1541 
1855 1519 
1856 1639 
1851 2090 NEW YORK. 
587 
Upon these facts the writer of these pages remarked in his an- 
nual report to the Board of Governors for 1856 : 
“ The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number of patients treated in 
1854 was 87 Ar per cent. 
The ratio of the same disease in 1855 was 58r- “ 
Showing an increase in the year 1865 of 21TX “ 
The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number of patients 
treated during 1856 was 73T\y “ 
Showing an increase in 1856, as compared with 1855, of . 14TY “ 
Or an increase, as compared with 1854, of 35 Ar “ 
This steady increase, 21-fV per cent, in one year, and 14xx per 
cent, in the next, or 35xx per cent, within two years, may be con- 
sidered an incontrovertible proof of the progress of this malady in 
the city of New York. The fact that the people regard the Peni- 
tentiary Hospital as a dernier resort, an institution to which noth- 
ing but the direst necessity will compel them to apply, justifies 
the conclusion that the cases treated are but a fraction of the dis- 
ease existing, and its increase here may be taken as a sure indica- 
tion of a corresponding or larger increase among the general pop- 
ulation.”1 
Again, on the same subject in 1857 : 
“In my last report I took the opportunity to submit to your 
Honorable Board facts proving the increase of venereal disease, and 
I then gave the ratio of that malady on the gross number of pa- 
tients treated as 73-fV per cent. In the year 1857 the ratio was 
65Aj- per cent.; but this reduction of 7-Ar per cent, must be con- 
sidered in connection with the fact that other diseases, much be- 
yond the general average, have been treated in the last year, so 
that a larger number of venereal cases will yet show a smaller per- 
centage. The cases of phthisis pulmonalis (consumption), which 
have advanced from 58 in 1856 to 159 in 1857, sufficiently ex- 
plain that the decrease of venereal affections is apparent and not 
real.”2 
An investigation beyond the statistics upon which these re- 
marks were based, and including the Penitentiary Hospital, Alms- 
house, Work-house and Penitentiary, had shown that of the total 
number admitted to these several institutions 59£ per cent, had 
suffered or were suffering from venereal disease at the time the 
inquiry was made. Of this proportion 45 per cent, of the total 
were suffering directly at the time of investigation, and 19 per cent. 
1 Report of Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, to the Governors of the Alms- 
house, New York, for 1856, p. 40. 2 Ibid., 1857, p. 26. 588 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
were suffering indirectly, or, in non-professional language, were la- 
boring under diseases more or less consequent on the syphilitic 
taint. 
The following detailed statistics of venereal disease treated in 
the Penitentiary Hospital for four years ending December 31,1867, 
will be found to embrace many subjects which have been alluded 
to in these pages. 
1954. 1855. 1856. 185'. 
Total number of patients treated 4058 2651 2083 3158 
Cases of primary syphilis ......... 606 660 650 882 
“ of secondary and other forms of syphilis . 935 919 989 1208 
Total of syphilitic diseases 1541 1519 1639 2090 
Nativities : 
Natives of United States 410 489 531 613 
Foreigners 1131 1090 1108 1411 
1541 1519 1639 2090 
Ages : 
Under 16 years 65 12 11 68 
From 16 “ to 20 years 481 451 412 593 
“ 21 “ to 25 “ 490 481 494 631 
“ 26 “ to 30 “ 314 304 311 423 
« 31 “ to 40 “ 128 151 165 190 
“ 41 “ to 50 “ 42 99 101 151 
“ 51 “ and upward 21 15 19 28 
1541 1519 1639 2090 
Education : 
Good 115 221 231 115 
Imperfect 181 194 830 1161 
Uneducated 519 558 518 154 
1541 1519 1639 2090 
From the total number of venereal patients under 
treatment 1541 1519 1639 2090 
Deduct those discharged each year 1253 1316 1389 1110 
Leaving to add to the next year’s account . . . 288 263 250 380 
Of the numbers discharged the following is the 
Result of Treatment: 
Cured 814 1051 1201 1491 
Relieved 310 263 183 213 
Not relieved 1 1 
Died 2 2 5 5 
1253 1316 1389 1110 
Duration of Treatment: 
5 days and under 13 16 11 83 
6 “ to 10 days 51 36 68 102 
11 « to 20 “ 80 59 81 131 
21 “ to 30 “ 154 121 131 181 
1 month to 2 months 293 333 453 528 NEW YORK. 
589 
1854. 1855. 1856. 1R57. 
2 months to 3 months 304 443 340 328 
3 “ to 4 “ 220 245 207 260 
4 u and upward 132 63 86 91 
1253 1316 1389 1710 
Some few remarks may be made on the subject of primary 
syphilis. The proportion of the cases of this malady to the gross 
number of patients treated was in 
1854 . . . per cent. 
1855 . . . 25t% “ 
1856 . . , per cent. 
1857 . . . 27-!% « 
By the term “primary syphilis,” non-professional readers will 
understand the commencement of the disease, or symptoms which 
are the direct consequence of an impure connection, in contra- 
distinction to “secondary syphilis,” which is the comparatively 
remote result of infection; never appearing until after the pri- 
mary symptoms are well developed, and frequently not until all 
traces of them are removed. He will thus see that every case 
of primary syphilis is in itself a proof of recent intercourse with 
a diseased person. These cases, then, have increased from 15 per 
cent, in 1854 to 81£ per cent, in 1856, and 28 per cent, in 1857. 
The remarks recently quoted explain how 882 cases in 1857 
make a smaller percentage than 650 in 1856. The fact of this 
increase compels us to but one conclusion, and that is a very 
important and suggestive one, namely, that commerce with pros- 
titutes in 1857 was attended with nearly twice the risk of infection in- 
curred in 1854; and, of course, the health of abandoned women has 
deteriorated in the same proportion. This is not said with any wish 
on the part of the writer to be considered an alarmist. The facts 
are those which have come under his personal observation: the 
inference is but a plain and natural deduction. 
But the Hospital, although the chief, is not the only institution 
on Blackwell’s Island where patients are treated for venereal dis- 
ease. The Alms-house, Work-house, and Penitentiary have each 
a share of sufferers from this malady, to what extent will be 
shown by the annexed table: 
1854. 1856. 1856. 1&57. 
Alms-house 33 173 85 52 
Work-house 65 31 5 56 
Penitentiary 176 234 430 
Bellevue Hospital, New York City, also under charge of the 
Governors of the Alms-house, is not professedly available to ve- 
nereal cases. By a report from the Medical Board of that institu- 
tion, which will be found in the next chapter, it is seen that they 590 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
estimate “ not far from 10 per cent, of the inmates of Bellevue 
Hospital are admitted for affections which have their origin re- 
motely in venereal disease.” These data are sufficient to fix the 
numbers thus treated as follows: 
Total number 10 per cent, for 
* of patients. venereal cases. 
1854 . . 1033 103 
1855 . . 6691 610 
Year Total number 10 per cent, for 
' of patients. venereal cases. 
1856 . . 6392 ' 639 
1851 . . 1616 168 
In regard to the Nursery Hospital on Randall’s Island, it is 
stated by Dr. H. N. Whittlesey, the Resident Physician, that “ nine 
tenths of all diseases treated in this hospital during the past five 
years have been of constitutional origin, and for the most part 
hereditary. The exact proportion which hereditary syphilis bears 
to this sum of constitutional depravity can not be stated with ac- 
curacy.” It is an estimate far within the bounds of probability to 
assume that one half of the diseases referred to by Dr. Whittlesey 
are complicated with or by syphilitic taint, and the numbers in 
the Nursery Hospital will therefore stand as follows; 
, Total number 50 per cent, for 
of patients. vsn'T'-al cases. 
1854 . . 2199 1100 
1855 . . 2310 1155 
Year Total number 50 per cent, for 
of pa tients. venereal cases. 
1856 . . 1215 638 
1851 . . 1469 134 
Following the institutions in charge of the Governors of the 
Alms-house is the New York State Emigrants’ Hospital on Ward’s 
Island, New York City, under the direction of the Commissioners 
of Emigration, in the reports whereof the following cases of ve- 
nereal disease are noted: 
1858 651 
1854 132 
1855 856 
1856 511 
1851 559 
The New York Hospital, Broadway, next claims attention. 
The reports for the under-mentioned years give the number of 
venereal cases as follows; 
1852 478 
1853 338 
1856 372 
1857 405 
These embrace the principal public hospitals of New York. 
There are other institutions, such as St. Luke’s Hospital, St. Vin- 
cent’s Hospital, the Jews’ Hospital, etc., but they are of recent 
origin, and their practice will not form an element in this calcu- 
lation. 
The dispensaries of the city relieve yearly a large amount of 
sickness. In the New York Dispensary, Centre Street, the cases 
of venereal disease are reported as follows: NEW YORK. 
591 
1855 1154 
1856 1393 
1857 1580 
This gives an average of about three per cent, of all the patients 
treated. 
The Northern Dispensary, Waverley Place, does not publish 
any detailed report of the diseases treated, and to make an esti- 
mate it will be necessary to assume that the proportion is the 
same as in the New York Dispensary, namely, three per cent. 
By this rule the following results are obtained: 
Year Total number 3 per cent, for 
of pati *nts. v u. cases. 
1850 . . 19,615 588 
1851 . . 20,680 620 
1852 . . 21,941 658 
1854 . . 14,075 422 
> par Total number 3 per cent, for 
of patients. ven. cases. 
1855 . . 12.378 371 
1856 . . 11,797 354 
1857 . . 10,895 327 
The Eastern Dispensary, Ludlow Street, does not give any de- 
tailed report of the diseases treated, and the same approximation 
will be made as previously; 
year Total number 3 per cent, for 
of patients. ven. cases. 
1855 25,612 768 
1856 21,017 630 
To the Demilt Dispensary, Second Avenue, the same system of 
approximation will be applied: 
. Total number 3 per cent, for 
of patients. ven. ca-es. 
1852- . . 2,197 66 
1853- . . 9,006 270 
1854- . 14,034 421 
Year Tota 'nurat,er 3 per cent, for 
of patients. ven. cases 
1855- . . 20.004 600 
1856- . . 20,684 620 
1857- . . 26,785 803 
The Northwestern Dispensary, Eighth Avenue, subjected to the 
same rule gives 
y Total number 3 per cent, for 
ea ‘ of patients. ven. rases. 
1854 9,264 277 
1855 11,581 347 
1856 11,477 344 
Cases of venereal disease are treated in the Clinical Lectures at 
the three medical colleges of New York City. From the New 
York University Medical College the following report of patients 
has been obtained. It is undoubtedly much too low an estimate. 
1855 47 
1856 53 
1857 69 
and assuming that the practice of the others is of the same extent, 
we have as the venereal cases treated in.the three colleges: HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
1855 141 
1856 159 
1857 207 
As many of the patrons of New York houses of ill fame reside 
out of the city, some further information must be sought beyond 
our own limits. Without professing to inquire into the public 
health in all the suburbs previously enumerated, it will be suffi- 
cient to take the reports of the superintendents of the poor of 
King’s County to ascertain what amount of syphilitic infection 
has been treated at the public cost in Brooklyn and its environs. 
The reports of Doctor Thomas Turner, Resident Physician of the 
King’s County Hospital, show the following cases: 
1853 165 
1855 362 
1857 311 
or about ten per cent, on the total number treated. 
In the Brooklyn City Hospital the cases of venereal disease re- 
ceived and treated were in 
1854 158 
1855 173 
1856 160 
1857 186 
1858 (to May 1) . . 65 
It has been already stated that sailors are great patrons of pros- 
titutes, and to obtain any true statement of venereal disease among 
them, some estimate respecting this class must be made. For this 
purpose the reports of Dr, T. Clarkson Moffatt, Physician-in-chief 
of the “Seaman’s Retreat,” Staten Island, New York, are avail- 
able. The number of cases treated in the several years is here 
given: 
1854 657 
1855 473 
1856 355 
1851 365 
1858 (to April 1). * 82 
This is nearly twenty-four per cent, on the gross number treated. 
This concludes the published reports of charitable institutions, 
and the question next arises, What amount of syphilis is treated by 
physicians in private practice ? It is impossible to obtain any re- 
liable data upon this head. The Medical Board of Bellevue Hos- 
pital, composed of some of the leading members of the profession 
in the city, state that they “ are unable to say what proportion of 
the practice among regular and qualified physicians in this city is 
derived from the treatment of venereal diseases, but they know it 
is large, and that many receive more from this source than from 
all other sources together.-” NEW YORK. 
593 
There are also a very large number of advertising pretenders 
who offer their services for the treatment of secret diseases; and 
many drug-stores whose main business is derived from a similar 
source; together with an infinity of patent medicines announced 
and sold as specifics for all venereal maladies. Upon the simple 
commercial principle of supply and demand these are so many 
proofs of the extent of the evil they profess to relieve. Should 
the number of cases of venereal disease treated in private practice 
by qualified physicians and by advertisers, added to the number 
of patients who supply themselves with patent or other medicines 
from drug-stores, be regarded as equal to the aggregate of those 
treated in public institutions, the estimate could not be deemed 
extravagant. 
The design is now to ascertain how much venereal disease exists 
in New York at the present time, and to do this it will be neces- 
sary to recapitulate the information already given. The cases 
below are those treated in 1857: 
Institutions. Cases. 
Penitentiary Hospital, Blackwell’s Island 2090 
Alms-house, Blackwell’s Island 52 
Work-house, Blackwell’s Island 56 
Penitentiary, Blackwell’s Island 430 
Bellevue Hospital, New York *l6B 
Nursery Hospital, Randall’s Island 734 
New York State Emigrants’ Hospital, Ward’s Island . . 559 
New York Hospital, Broadway 405 
New York Dispensary, Centre Street 1580 
Northern Dispensary, Waverley Place 327 
Eastern Dispensary, Ludlow Street 630 
Demilt Dispensary, Second Avenue 803 
Northwestern Dispensary, Eighth Avenue 344 
Medical Colleges 207 
King’s County Hospital, Flatbush, Long Island . . . 311 
Brooklyn City Hospital, Brooklyn, Long Island . . . . 186 
Seaman’s Retreat, Staten Island 365 
Total 9847 
Medical men, and those acquainted with the internal arrange- 
ments of public institutions, need not be reminded that the gen- 
eral system of record in hospitals includes only what may be 
called the prominent malady. Thus, if a man were admitted with 
a broken limb, it would be registered as a fracture; and if the 
same man were suffering indirectly from syphilis at the same 
time, no entry would be made thereof, although the physician 
rendered him every professional assistance toward its cure. It is 594 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
estimated that in this manner a large number of the cases of ve- 
nereal disease treated in all public institutions, except such as 
make a specialty of those maladies, is never recorded elsewhere 
than on the private case-books of the attending physicians. More 
particularly is this the rule in institutions supported wholly or 
in part by voluntary contributions. Their benevolent directors 
have not yet outlived the prejudice which formerly held it almost 
as disgraceful to treat as to contract syphilis. Some of the spirit 
which drove the unhappy men and women so afflicted from civil- 
ized life to perish in the fields or woods, as in London, Edinburgh, 
and Paris, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and at a 
later period drew from the Papal government a bull recognizing 
the affliction as a direct punishment from the Almighty for the 
sin of incontinence, still survives in the present generation. The 
trustees of more than one of the dispensaries in New York have 
directed their medical officers not to prescribe for such complaints, 
and a hospital in a sister city, which receives a yearly grant from 
public funds, has in its printed rules and regulations: “No per- 
son having ‘ Gonorrhoea’ or 1 Syphilis’ shall be admitted as a char- 
ity patient.” Some remarks are made hereafter upon this course, 
and the facts are mentioned now to explain why many cases of 
venereal disease never appear upon the reports of institutions 
where patients are treated. 
Practically such prohibitions are a dead letter. No physician 
of a public institution, applied to by a poor wretch suffering from 
syphilis, could pass him by without attempting to relieve, let the 
orders of the board of trustees be what they may. His mission 
is simply to apply the aid of science and skill to the alleviation of 
any ailment which may be presented to his notice, and his appre- 
ciation of the responsibility of his office is too keen to allow him 
to refuse the prayer of such an applicant. Hence arises the cir- 
cumstance that the case is treated under some other name. 
If then the cases recorded are but two thirds of the aggregate, 
the numbers stand thus : 
Cases recorded in public institutions . . . 9841 
Cases not recorded 4928 
Total . • 14W0 
cases in the year 1857 in public institutions. 
The difficulty of forming an opinion as to the extent of vene- 
real disease treated in private practice has been already mention- 
ed. In the absence of all information, collateral circumstances NEW YORK. 
form the only guide to a conclusion. The amount is unquestion- 
ably very large; so large that, if its full magnitude could be dis- 
covered and announced, every reader must be astonished. The 
first consideration to support this view may be found in the army 
of advertising empirics who make it a source of revenue. Each 
of these men must have numerous patients; he could not keep up 
his business without them. Any practical advertiser knows that 
to insert an announcement of some twenty or thirty lines every 
day in at least two daily papers, to repeat the same in weekly 
journals, and, in addition to this, to post handbills on the corner 
of every street, and employ men or boys to deliver them to pas- 
sengers at steam-boat docks, ferry landings, and rail-road depots, 
can not be done without a considerable outlay, whatever its pro- 
spective advantages may be. No one supposes these charlatans 
to be actuated by pure disinterested benevolence. They crowd 
the columns of our journals, and insult us with their printed an- 
nouncements in the public thoroughfares, simply because “it 
pays.” These means obtain them customers, and whenever this 
result ceases the announcements will be discontinued. While 
they appear there is positive proof that their issuers are gathering 
patronage. 
The number of patent medicines always in the market for the 
cure of secret diseases, and which the vendors announce “ can be 
sent any distance securely packed, and safe from observation,” 
affords a corroboration. They are made and sold as a business 
speculation. When their reputation diminishes, and the public 
become doubtful if all the virtues of the materia medica are com- 
prised in a single bottle of “Red Drop,” or “Unfortunate’s Friend,” 
the manufacture will soon stop, and the inventors will resort to 
some other employment for their capital. The extent to which 
advertising empirics and patent medicines are flourishing is an 
undeniable proof of the prevalence of the maladies they professed- 
ly relieve. 
The legitimate business of drug-stores affords another link in 
the chain of evidence. Beyond the regular nostrums, almost 
every druggist in the city sells large quantities of medicine for 
the cure of venereal disease. Sometimes a man will candidly tell 
the storekeeper that he has contracted disease, and ask him to 
make up something to cure it. At other times a prescription, 
■which has been efficacious in a former attack, will be presented, 
or the sufferer has taken counsel among his friends and compan- HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ions, and obtained some infallible recipe from one of them. In 
short, there are so many different means taken by persons who 
have contracted disease that it is impossible to enumerate the 
various methods in which the aid of the drug-store may be in- 
voked. 
There are many traditional recipes which can be used without 
the necessity of purchasing ingredients of a druggist. One favor- 
ite remedy among the lower classes is “ Pine Knot Bitters.” Bot- 
tles of this preparation are kept for sale in liquor stores, particu- 
larly in those neighborhoods where prostitutes “most do congre- 
gate.” 
Another reason may be submitted why a large amount of vene- 
real disease must be treated privately. Many of the victims are 
men who move in a respectable sphere of society, and have prob- 
ably been led to the act which resulted so disastrously in a mo- 
ment of uncontrollable passion. Their social position would be 
irreparably damaged should they enter a public hospital, and the 
desire to retain their status forces them to secrecy, even if the nat- 
ural repugnance of every man to the former course did not exist. 
It is vain to deny that, while medical institutions designed for the 
public good are so managed as to inflict a disgrace upon their in- 
mates, their benefits are circumscribed, and will never be accepted 
by any but the poor unfortunates who have no other means of 
obtaining relief. In the case of syphilis this is particularly to be 
regretted from the nature of the disease. Every day it is neglect- 
ed it becomes in a tenfold degree more aggravated, and entails 
proportionate misery in after life. 
If it be assumed that the private cases of venereal disease equal 
in number those treated in public institutions, an aggregate is ob- 
tained of more than 29,500 cases every year. If the former are 
double the number of the latter, the sum will be over 44,000 cases 
per annum. Either of these conjectures is below the truth, and 
we are satisfied, from professional experience and inquiry, that 
there is no exaggeration in estimating the number of patients 
treated privately every year for lues venerea as at least quadruple 
the cases receiving assistance in hospitals and charitable estab- 
lishments. The result is the enormous sum of seventy-four thousand 
cases every year! If each person suffered only one attack each 
year, this would represent one sixth of the total population above 
fifteen years of age. But many persons, especially among aban- 
doned women and profligate men, are infected several times in the NEW YORK. 
597 
course of twelve months, and any attempt to say what proportion 
of individuals are represented in these 74,000 cases would be 
mere speculation without a particle of conclusive evidence to sup- 
port it. 
Notwithstanding the magnitude of the result, a very brief con- 
sideration will show that it is not extravagant. In addition to 
the arguments already advanced in this chapter, the reader will 
recollect that in a previous section it has been shown that two out 
of every five prostitutes in New York confessed the syphilitic taint. 
Supposing a girl relinquishes her calling as soon as she becomes 
aware of being diseased, several days may have elapsed before she 
discovered her condition, and during that interval she must have 
infected every man who had intercourse with her. To take the 
most liberal view, it may be conceded that the portion who ac- 
knowledged infection were not all suffering from the primary or 
communicable form; many of them had doubtless recovered from 
that; but if only one half were so suffering, and each of these in- 
fected only one man, the result would be 865,000 men diseased 
every year. 
This is not an exaggerated estimate. As was said when allud- 
ing to the prostitutes who admitted their contamination, there can 
be no possible suspicion that they would acknowledge sickness if 
they could avoid doing so, and consequently the sick are certainly 
not overrated. It may be objected that the numbers who owned 
disease were spread over a considerable space of time, but this can 
be met with the fact that the inquiry which produced this result 
was in progress simultaneously in all parts of the city. At the far- 
thest it did not extend three months from the time of commence- 
ment to completion, and the natural presumption would be that, as 
during that time the health of the women was neither better nor 
worse than in any other three months of any year, the same pro- 
portion of diseased women could be found whenever an investiga- 
tion was made; in other words, that two out of five prostitutes in 
New York are diseased. 
The calculation that of these diseased women one half only are 
affected in a manner which renders them liable to infect their par- 
amours is also a liberal one. Syphilis, when manifested in its sec- 
ondary stage in the shape of sores, eruptions, and blotches upon 
the face or person, is so disgusting that no prostitute thus disfig- 
ured could retain her place in any brothel, unless it was one of 
the very lowest grade, because her appearance would immediate- 598 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
ly repel all visitors. In its primary or local form it is of course 
concealed from her customers, and may be so concealed for a con- 
siderable length of time. These facts borne in mind, is it not al- 
most too liberal an estimate to assume that one half who admit 
syphilis are suffering in the secondary or palpable form ? 
This line of argument, supported by the facts given, is perfectly 
justifiable, view it in what light you may, and proves that the es- 
timate of 74,000 cases of venereal disease annually is much too 
small. 
Another course of reasoning may be adopted. The time occu- 
pied in taking the census is stated at three months. This in- 
cluded all the needful preliminary measures, the instructions to 
examiners, the conferences with police captains, etc; and the final 
proceedings, such as arranging and writing out reports. Allow 
one third of the time for these introductory and concluding ad- 
juncts, and it will leave about sixty days, including Sundays, or 
fifty-two working days devoted to the actual inquiry. The in- 
quiry resulted in the discovery of syphilis in such a proportion of 
women as would amount to an aggregate of two thousand on the 
total number of public prostitutes. Suppose the disease of two 
thousand women equally distributed over the fifty-two days; or, 
in other words, that an average number were infected and con- 
fessed it every day, and the result is thirty-eight women diseased 
every twenty-four hours. We wish to make this argument as 
plain as possible, and the reader will pardon what may appear 
needless repetition. If this disease existed in each woman for 
four days before she was conscious of it, or it became so trouble- 
some as to force her from her calling, and during this interval of 
four days each woman had intercourse with only one man per 
day, over fifty thousand men would be exposed to the risk, al- 
most the certainty of contracting infection in the course of the 
year. As the Medico- Chirurgical Review said, in the course of a 
similar argument upon syphilis in London, this estimate is “ ridic- 
ulously small.” In the first place, a majority of the women would 
not abandon their calling in four days after infection, but would 
continue it as long as they could possibly submit to the suffering 
involved. Every resident of New York will remember the ex- 
citement caused in the spring of the year 1855 by the arrest of a 
large number of prostitutes in the public streets, their committal 
to Blackwell’s Island, and their subsequent discharge on writs of 
habeas corpus, on account of informality in the proceedings; but NEW YORK. 
599 
it is not generally known that of those arrested at that time a 
very large proportion, certainly more than one half, were suffer- 
ing from syphilis in its primary form, and many of them in its 
most inveterate stage. We make this assertion from our own 
knowledge, the result of a professional examination, and mention 
the circumstance now to prove that women will not abandon their 
calling when they know themselves diseased, so long as they can 
possibly continue it. If the estimate had been made that each 
woman continued prostitution for eight days instead of four days 
after she was infected, it would have been a closer approximation 
to the truth, and it would have shown over one hundred thousand 
(100,000) men exposed to infection every year. 
Again : The supposition that a prostitute submits to but one 
act of prostitution every day is “ ridiculously small.” No woman 
could pay her board, dress, and live in the expensive manner com- 
mon among the class upon the money she would receive from one 
visitor daily; even two visitors is a very low estimate, and four is 
very far from an unreasonably large one. 
But suppositions might be multiplied, and the argument ex- 
tended almost ad infinitum. One more calculation shall be sub- 
mitted, and then the reader can form his own conclusion upon the 
question whether the theory of seventy-four thousand cases of 
venereal disease in New York every year has not been supported 
by a mass of evidence far more weighty than can ordinarily be 
adduced to establish a controverted point. 
It shall be assumed that the thirty-eight women infected every 
day continue their calling for six days after the appearance of 
venereal disease, and during such six days one half of them shall 
submit to one, and the other half to two sexual acts daily. Then, 
in the course of a year, one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
men would be exposed to contamination. To this add the num- 
ber of women infected, which, at thirty-eight daily, would amount 
to nearly thirteen thousand in the year, and a total of one hund- 
red and thirty-eight thousand will be presented, or nearly double 
the number assumed as a basis for remark. It is needless to ad- 
vance farther reasons in support of the soundness of that opin- 
ion. 
Next in order will be the consideration of the amount of money 
prostitution costs the public. The amount of capital invested in 
houses of ill fame, and the outlay consequent thereupon presents 
a total which can not but surprise all who have not deeply re* 600 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
fleeted upon the ramifications of the evil. The police investiga- 
tion of May, 1858, quoted a few pages back, gives the total num- 
ber of houses of prostitution as 378, and the worth of property 
thus employed can be ascertained with a tolerable degree of accu- 
racy from information obtained, in many cases, by actual inquiry. 
The value of real estate where it was owned by the keepers of 
these houses has been already given in some instances, and in 
others the rent may be assumed equivalent to ten per cent, per 
annum upon the cost of the property, which is certainly not an 
undue valuation. Dividing the total number of houses into four 
classes the estimate stands as follows: 
80 houses of the first class are estimated, from actual inquiry, 
to be worth, including real estate and furniture, $13,800 
100 houses of the second class are estimated at twenty-five per 
cent, less than those of the first class, namely, $10,350 for 
each, or a total of $1,104,000 
each, or a total of 1,035,000 
120 houses of the third class at $5OOO each 600,000 
18 houses of the fourth class at $lOOO each 78,000 
378 houses of prostitution are estimated worth $2,817,000 
Add for houses of assignation : 
25 houses of the first class at $12,000 each 300,000 
25 “ second “ 9,000 “ ...... 225 000 
35 “ third “ 5,000 “ 175,000 
15 “ fourth “ 3,000 “ ...... 45,000 
100 Total for houses of prostitution and assignation . . . $3,562,000 
In addition to this are 151 dancing-saloons, liquor and lager- 
beer stores, mainly dependent upon the custom of prosti- 
tutes and their companions. Any place in which it is pos- 
sible to carry on either of these businesses must be worth 
$2OO a year rent, which would give a value of $2OOO each, 
or a total of 302,000 
The necessary stock, fixtures, and implements can not be 
worth less, on an average, than $lOO in each place: this 
gives a total of 15,100 
and an aggregate capital of $3,879,100 
invested in the business of prostitution. That this is not an ex- 
travagant estimate will be admitted by any real estate owner or 
person acquainted with the value of property in the city; espe- 
cially if he takes into consideration the location of many of the 
houses, and calculates how much more the adjacent lands and 
buildings would be worth if these resorts of vice and infamy were 
removed. 
On a scale correspondingly large is the amount of money actu- 
ally spent upon prostitutes. The weekly income of each woman NEW YORK. 
601 
can not be less than ten dollars. Many pay mncb more than that 
sum for their board alone, and in first-class houses it is not un- 
common for a prostitute to realize as much as thirty or fifty dol- 
lars, or upward, in a week. But if the income is taken at the 
lowest point, the aggregate receipts of six thousand courtesans 
amount to $60,000 per week, or $3,120,000 per year. 
Every visitor to a house of prostitution expends more or less 
money for wines and liquors therein. In some cases this outlay 
will be larger than the cash remuneration given to the women, but 
other men are not so lavish in their hospitality; and it is fair to 
assume that such expenditures amount to two thirds of the pre- 
vious item—a weekly total of $40,000, or $2,080,000 spent for in- 
toxicating drinks in houses of prostitution every year. 
In describing the customers of houses of assignation, it has 
already been remarked that in the first class many of the female 
visitors take that step, not for gain, but impelled by affection or 
sexual desire. They would spurn the idea of being paid for their 
company; but the houses at which their intrigues are consum- 
mated being luxuriously furnished, and conducted by women of 
known discretion and secrecy, have a high tariff of prices as one 
of their features. Visitors must pay as much there for accommo- 
dation as the rent of a room and compensation to a female would 
amount to in places of less pretension. It is assumed that 4200 
visits are paid to houses of assignation every week, and for the 
foregoing reason estimating them to cost the men the same in ev* 
ery instance, and fixing that cost at three dollars for each visit, 
this item will amount to $12,600 per week, or $655,200 per year. 
The consumption of wine and liquor is small in houses of as- 
signation, as compared with houses of prostitution. It may prob- 
ably amount to $5OOO per week, or $260,000 per year. 
The income of the dancing-saloons, liquor, and lager-beer stores, 
frequented and mainly supported by prostitutes and their friends, 
can not be less than $3O per week for each house, and as there are 
151 establishments of that description, the aggregate ot money 
disbursed in them will be $4530 per week, or $235,560 per year. 
These sums exhibit the outlay for the pleasures of prostitution: 
the ensuing items give its penalties. Of the inmates of the Island 
(late the Penitentiary) Hospital, in 1857, over 65 per cent, were 
afflicted with venereal disease. The total expense of that institu- 
tion for the year was $35,000, and the pro rata amount for syphi- 
litic patients would be $22,750 during the year, or $438 per week. 602 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Bellevue Hospital cost to maintain it during 1857, $70,000 in 
round numbers. The Medical Board say that ten per cent, of its 
inmates are treated for diseases originating in the syphilitic taint, 
and this proportion of the expenses being chargeable to prostitu- 
tion amounts to $7OOO per year, or $135 per week. 
The Nursery Hospital on Randall’s Island cost the city of New 
York $17,000 for maintenance during 1857. One half its infant 
patients are treated for diseases resulting from venereal infection, 
and $8,500 per year, or $163 per week, is the quota of expense 
caused by this vice and its sequel. 
The number of cases of venereal disease treated in the New 
York State Emigrants’ Hospital on Ward’s Island was 6£ per cent, 
of the total relieved on that island. The expenses for 1857 were 
$109,000, and the share chargeable to prostitution will be $7075 
per year, or $136 per week. 
In the New York City Hospital, Broadway, 14 per cent, of the 
patients during 1857 were treated for venereal disease. The cost 
of maintenance for that year was $59,000, and the share caused 
by prostitution was $8260 per year, or $159 per week. 
The cases treated in dispensary practice have been averaged at 
three per cent, throughout the city. The yearly expenses of 
those charities are as follows : 
New York Dispensary . . $9lOO 
Northern Dispensary . . 3550 
Eastern Dispensary . . . 3100 
Deinilt Dispensary . . . $5300 
Northwestern Dispensary . 2630 
Total $24,280 
and the proportion chargeable to syphilis must be $728 per year, 
or $l4 per week. 
Very little expense is incurred by the medical colleges in the 
cases of syphilis treated at their clinical lectures, as the relief is 
generally confined to a prescription or a slight operation, and if 
medicine is supplied in a few cases the amount is so small that in 
a calculation of this sort it is not worth notice. 
The expenses of the King’s County Hospital, Long Island, for 
1857, amounted to $75,300. About ten per cent, of the patients 
treated were venereal sufferers, and the cost for them amounts to 
$7580 per year, or $145 per week. 
In the Brooklyn City Hospital the proportion of venereal pa- 
tients is twenty-seven per cent, of the aggregate. The total an- 
nual expenses are $17,200, and the amount incurred on account 
of this disease is therefore $4644 per year, or SB9 per week. 
In the Seaman’s Retreat, Staten Island, New York, twenty-four NEW YORK. 
603 
per cent, of the inmates suffer from venereal disease. The ex- 
penses during the year 1857 were $43,500, of which $10,540 per 
year, or $203 per week, must be considered the proportion ren- 
dered necessary by syphilis. 
To ascertain the amount expended for private medical assist- 
ance it will be necessary to recapitulate the outlay of the public 
institutions mentioned. 
Institutions. Yearly Outlay. Weekly Outlay. 
Island Hospital, Blackwell’s Island . . . $22750 $438 
Bellevue Hospital, New York .... 7000 135 
Nursery Hospital, Randall’s Island . . . 8500 163 
Emigrants’ Hospital, Ward’s Island . . 7075 136 
City Hospital, New York 8260 159 
Dispensaries 728 14 
King’s County Hospital, Long Island . . 7530 145 
Brooklyn City Hospital, Long Island . . 4644 89 
Seaman’s Retreat, Staten Island .... 10540 203 
Total 77027 1482 
These totals must be multiplied by four, and the product will 
show the amount paid for private medical assistance as $5928 
weekly, or $308,108 yearly. This is calculated on too liberal a 
scale, for no one believes that an individual requiring professional 
aid can obtain it so economically in private life as in a public insti- 
tution ; nor would even the fact that in the latter case the patients 
are boarded and supplied with all necessaries more than counter- 
balance the sums which must be paid for individual medical at- 
tendance. The desire not needlessly to exaggerate facts which 
are sufficiently comprehensive without such a procedure is the 
only reason that induces so low an estimate. 
But there are yet other items of expenditure which must be 
noticed before the long array is completed. Foremost of these is 
the cost for support of abandoned women in the Work-house and 
Penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island. The proportion of females 
committed to the Work-house during 1857 was three fifths of the 
total commitments. It is not asserted that all these were prosti- 
tutes, but it is certain that the larger part were unchaste, and for 
argument’s sake we will take the ratio as two abandoned to one 
virtuous woman, the latter representing the class whom poverty, 
sickness, or friendlessness may have driven to accept a shelter in 
the institution. The expenses of the Work-house for the year 
amounted to $76,000, and the share of cost incurred on behalf of 
prostitutes would therefore be $30,400 per year, or $585 per 
week. 604 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
The females sentenced to the Penitentiary from courts of crim- 
inal jurisdiction during 1857 amount to twenty-seven per cent, 
of the total number incarcerated. It will violate no probability 
to assume that all these women were prostitutes; there may be 
exceptions to the rule, but so rare are they as not to invalidate 
the principle. The Penitentiary was supported during 1857 at 
an outlay to the tax-payers of nearly $89,000, and the propor- 
tion chargeable to prostitutes, at the ratio given above, is $24,030 
per year, or $462 per week. 
A farther portion of the expenses of the Work-house and Peni- 
tentiary might very plausibly be included in the list; namely, the 
share incurred by the maintenance of those men who owe their 
imprisonment either to crimes committed at the instigation of 
common women, or for the sake of supporting them; or to a 
course of idleness and dissipation resulting from the companion- 
ship of prostitutes. To pursue this subject in all its minutioe 
would lead to the conclusion that nearly every male prisoner owes 
his confinement, less or more remotely, to one or the other of 
these causes, and hence it could be argued that all the expenses 
of male imprisonment should be taken into this account. On the 
other hand, such a course could be opposed with the plea that 
crimes which send men to Blackwell’s Island are only indirect 
results of the system under discussion, and to recognize them 
would force the recognition of many other indirect consequences 
daily occurring elsewhere. Strictly speaking, the position is scarce- 
ly demonstrable enough to form an arithmetical calculation, but 
its moral certainty is so far acknowledged as to make it a serious 
matter of reflection in connection with the attendant evils of pros- 
titution. 
To resume : About fifty-five per cent, of the population of the 
Alms-houses, Blackwell’s Island, are females. Some of these are 
old decrepit women whom it would be impossible to consider as 
prostitutes; others are virtuous women whose poverty has driven 
them there; but many are broken down prostitutes who have lost 
whatever of attraction they once possessed, and with ruined health 
and debilitated constitutions it is impossible for them to exist 
even in the lowest brothels. They make the Alms-house their 
last resting-place, and there await the final summons which shall 
close their career of sin and misery. Yet another class in this in- 
stitution is composed of women with young children. Some claim 
to be respectable married women, while others are known as dis- NEW YORK. 
605 
reputable characters; but the former have little to support their 
pretensions except their own assertion, and collateral testimony 
sometimes invalidates that. It is not an uncharitable conclusion, 
that at least one half of the female inmates of the Alms-house owe 
their dependence upon charity to their own prostitution. The 
support of the Alms-house in 1857 cost the city of New York 
$63,000, and the proportion resulting from prostitution, on the 
above data, is $15,750 per year, or $303 per week. 
The children on Randall’s Island may be classified according to 
the rule already adopted in reference to disease in the nursery 
hospital there; namely, to assume that one half owe, if not their 
existence, certainly their support from public funds to causes that 
originated in vice. The nursery, exclusive of the hospital, cost 
during last year $60,000, one half of which must, in accordance 
with the previous estimate, be charged to prostitution; namely, 
$30,000 per year, or $571 per week. 
The final charge arises from the police and judiciary expenses 
of the city of New York, of which it is believed that ten per cent, 
is caused by prostitution and its concomitant crimes and suffer- 
ings. The aggregate forms a large amount, and will be rather a 
surmise than an assertion. The maintenance of police-officers and 
station-houses, of police-justices and their court-rooms, of the city 
judge and recorder, with their respective courts, of the city and 
district prisons, and numerous contingent expenses, can not be less 
than two million dollars a year. The percentage chargeable to 
prostitution will therefore be $200,000 per year, or $4OOO per 
week. 
Thus much for preliminary explanations. It will now be pos- 
sible to present the reader with a tabular statement of the weekly 
and yearly cost of the system of prostitution existing in the me- 
tropolis of the New World. Those who have followed us through 
this argument, and noted the facts upon which every calculation 
is based, will bear witness that nothing has been exaggerated, that 
no dollar is debited to the vice without strong presumptive evi- 
dence to support such charge, and that the endeavor has been 
throughout rather to underestimate than exceed the bounds of 
strict probability. Upon this ground the attention of the public 
is earnestly requested to the first exposition ever attempted of the 
amount paid by citizens of and visitors to New York for illicit 
sexual gratification. 606 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Expenditure. *3* 
Individual Expenses; 
Paid to prostitutes $60,000 $3,120,000 
Spent for wine and liquor by visitors . , 40,000 2,080,000 
Paid by visitors to houses of assignation . 12,600 655,200 
Spent for wine and liquor by visitors to 
houses of assignation 5,000 260,000 
Spent in dancing-saloons, liquor and lager- 
beer stores frequented by prostitutes and 
their friends 4,530 235,560 
Recapitulation. 
Medical Expenses : 
Island Hospital, Blackwell’s Island . . . 438 22,150 
Bellevue “ New York 135 1,000 
Nursery “ Randall’s Island ... 163 8,500 
Emigrants’Hospital, Ward’s Island . . 136 1,015 
New York City Hospital, New York . . 159 8,260 
Dispensaries 128 
King’s County Hospital, Long Island . . 145 1,530 
Brooklyn City “ “ . 89 4,644 
Seamen’s Retreat, Staten Island . . • . 203 10,540 
Private medical assistance 5,928 308,108 
Vagrancy and Pauper Expenses: 
Work-house, Blackwell’s Island .... 585 30,400 
Penitentiary “ “ ... . 462 24,030 
Alms-house “ “ . . 303 15,150 
Nursery, Randall’s Island 511 30,000 
Police and Judiciary Expenses : 
Proportion of aggregate 4,000 200,000 
Totals $135,461 $17636^015 
The footings of the columns show the total exp .use to be 
Weekly $135,461 
Yearly $1,036,015 
over seven millions of dollars! or nearly as much as the annual 
municipal expenditure of New York City. 
Comment upon these figures would be superfluous. They pre- 
sent the monetary effects of prostitution in a convincing point of 
view, and will prepare the reader for an attentive perusal of the 
suggested remedial measures which form the subject of the next 
chapter. The American mind is said to be proverbially open to 
argument based upon dollars and cents. Without giving an un- 
qualified assent to the proposition, we may be permitted to hope 
that financial considerations, combined with the claims of benevo- 
lence and humanity, the appeals of virtue and morality, the de- 
mands of public health, and the future physical well-being of the NEW YORK. 
607 
community at large, will exercise that influence on the public mind 
which is necessary to the accomplishment of any valuable prac- 
tical result from the present investigation. 
Before leaving the subject of the extent of prostitution it may 
be appropriate to remark that it was considered advisable to as- 
certain the prevalence of the vice in some of the leading cities of 
the United States, and, in order to do this effectually, a circular 
letter was addressed to the Mayors of 
Albany, New York, 
Baltimore, Maryland, 
Boston, Massachusetts, 
Brooklyn, New York, 
Buffalo, New York, 
Charleston, South Carolina, 
Chicago, Illinois, 
Cincinnati, Ohio, 
Detroit, Michigan, 
Hartford, Connecticut, 
Louisville, Kentucky, 
Memphis, Tennessee, 
Mobile, Alabama, 
Newark, New Jersey, 
New Haven, Connecticut, 
New Orleans, Louisiana, 
Norfolk, Virginia, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 
Portland, Maine, 
Richmond, Virginia, 
Savannah, Georgia, 
St. Louis, Missouri, 
Washington, District Columbia. 
(The names printed in italics are those of cities from which re 
plies were received.) 
The circular forwarded was as follows 
(Copy.) 
“Mayor’s Office, New York City, Sept. 1, 1856. 
“ To His Honor the Mayor of the City of : 
“ Dear Sir, Below you will receive from Dr. Sanger a note containing a 
few questions concerning Prostitution and Prostitutes in your city, which I 
shall feel obliged if you will have the kindness to answer. 
“Very truly yours, Fernando Wood, Mayor New York City.” 
“ Dear Sir, During the past six months, with the aid of His Honor, 
Mayor Wood, of this city, and the police force at his command, I have been 
collecting materials for a report on Prostitution, as it exists in New York at 
the present time. I inclose you a list of questions that have been asked all 
the women examined here.1 Of course Ido not expect that you will or can 
give answers to these questions from the prostitutes in your city, but I 
would wish to have your replies to the following queries: 
“ 1. How many houses of prostitution are there in your city? 
“2. How many houses of assignation are there in your city ? 
“ 3. How many public prostitutes are there in your city? 
“4. How many private prostitutes are there in your city? 
1 The list of questions inclosed was a printed copy of the interrogatories used in 
New York, and already given in these pages. 608 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“ 5. How many kept mistresses are there in your city ? 
“6. What is the present population of your city ? 
“ Of course these questions can be answered to you, by your chief of po- 
lice and officers, only as to the best of their knowledge; but, as a general 
thing, shrewd police-officers will be able to give correct answers to them. I 
do not wish names, only the round numbers in each class. 
“ I shall do myself the honor to forward you a copy of the report when 
completed, and shall be glad to receive your replies to the above queries 
by the 30th of this month. You will please direct your answer to 
“Yours respectfully, William W. Sanger, 
“ Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, New York City.” 
The following are the replies received: 
Buffalo, N. Y. 
(Copy.) 
“ Mayor’s Office, Buffalo, October 2, 1856. 
“Dear Sir,—l received your circular of the Ist of September, asking 
that certain questions concerning houses of prostitution, prostitutes, etc., 
might be answered. 
“I immediately directed our chief to collect the necessary information 
through the police, and I have just received his report: I here inclose the 
answers. 
“To show how far the report can be relied on for accuracy, I here copy 
from his report : i The captains inform me that they experienced much dif- 
ficulty in their endeavors to make a correct report and answer to the several 
questions proposed; they, however, believe that the returns, so far at least 
as the number of houses and public prostitutes is concerned, are very near 
correct.’ 
“ Any farther information you may desire I will cheerfully give, so far 
as lam able. lam respectfully yours, RP. Stevens, Mayor.” 
(Inclosure.) 
“ Houses of Prostitution . . 87 
“ of Assignation . . 37 
Public Prostitutes 272 
Private Prostitutes 81 
Kept Mistresses 31 
Population 75,000.” 
Louisville, Ky. 
“Police Office, Louisville, Ky., December 26, 1856. 
“Hon. John Barber, Mayor: 
(Copy.) 
“ Hear Sir,—Below I give a statement of such matters as called for by 
Hr. Wm. W. Sanger, Besident Physician of Blackwell’s Island, New York 
City, which I think you will find correct, or as near as can be arrived at 
from the facilities aiforded. Hoping that it will prove satisfactory to the 
doctor, and that it will many tales unfold, I remain respectfully yours, 
“ Jas. Kirkpatrick, Chief of Police. NEW YORK. 
609 
“ Houses of Prostitution ... 19 
“ “ Assignation ... 89 
Public prostitutes 214 
Private “ ..... 98 
Kept mistresses 60 
Population of city (sup- 
posed to be) 10,000 
“ I am now preparing to take the census for 1857.” 
Newark, N. J. 
(Coiy.) 
“Newark, N. J., October 4, 1856. 
“ Dear Sir,—I can not make any excuse for not answering your letter 
of inquiry that will justify me. (Yours of September Ist was unfortunately 
mislaid.) 
“ Wm. W. Sanger, M. D.: 
“ Our population in 1855 was 55,000 by census. 
“We have no houses of ill fame in our city; none of assignation ; there 
are no public prostitutes. 
“It may appear strange to you that the above should be the case, but 
there is good reason for it. From the best information that I can get 
there are perhaps fifty private prostitutes in this city, composed of girls liv- 
ing at service or as seamstresses, but who conduct themselves so as not to 
be known. Our city is so near to New York that as soon as a girl turns 
out she makes her way to it, where associations and congenial amusements 
make it more agreeable. It is rather singular, but so soon as it becomes 
known that a girl is loose, she is marked and followed in the streets by 
half-grown boys hooting at and really forcing her to leave town. Occa- 
sionally it is made known to the police that a couple of girls staid a night 
or two at some boarding-house, when they are arrested as vagrants, or 
warned off, and they are gone. 
“ New York being so much greater field for them, they are the least of 
our troubles. Truly and respectfully yours, H. J. Poinier, Mayor.” 
New Haven, Conn. 
(Copy.) 
“New Haven, September 18, 1856. 
“ Dear Sir,—Herewith I hand you the report of our chief of police in 
answer to your inquiries relative to prostitution in this city. 
“ Dr. Wm. W. Sanger : 
“ Your obedient servant, P. S. Galpin, Mayor.” 
(Inclosure. I 
“To His Honor the Mayor of the City of New Haven: 
“ Sir,—I have had the communication addressed to you by Wm. W. San- 
ger, Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, New York, in regard to prosti- 
tutes and prostitution in the city of New Haven, under consideration, and 
beg leave to report; 610 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
44 That the answers to the questions propounded are given in a general 
manner, with near approximation to exactness without pretending to be 
minutely accurate. 
44 And to the first question, namely, 4 How many houses of prostitution 
are there in the city V I answer, That the number now known as such to 
the police is ten, and that these are only such (some of them) occasionally; 
and that none of them would be so called in New York, being inconsider- 
able, in poor, out-of-the-way houses, and conducted with great secrecy, and 
are constantly liable to the penalties of a law peculiar to Connecticut, which 
punishes reputation, rendering it impossible for them to gain strength and 
become permanent. 
44 And to the second inquiry,4 How many houses of assignation are there 
in the city V I answer, There are known to be six, and others suspected; 
but these all are not such proper, but are connected with some business, as 
eating-houses, hotels, dance-houses, etc. 
44 And to the third inquiry,4 How many public prostitutes are there in 
the city V There are known by name, ninety-three, all well known. 
44 And to the fourth inquiry,4 How many private prostitutes are there in 
the city V I answer, That there are thirty, with many married women ; and, 
indeed, this class is mostly composed of married women. 
44 And to the fifth question, 4 How many kept mistresses are there in the 
city V the answer is, That the number is not known, but is small, and no 
one instance is certainly known to us. 
44 The population of the city is thirty-two thousand. 
44 All which is respectfully submitted. John C. Hayden, 
44 Chief of Police City of New Haven. 
44 Dated at New Haven, September 16, 1856.” 
Norfolk, Ya. 
(Copy.? 
“ Mayor’s Office, Norfolk, Va., Sept. 15, 1856. 
44 Dear Sir, Yours of Ist instant was duly received, and in reply would 
state that I have endeavored to be as accurate as possible in my replies to 
your several interrogatories, namely, 
441. How many houses of prostitution in your city? 
44 Answer. About forty. 
44 Answer. None as such ; there being no places, so far as I can learn, 
used as meeting-places. 
44 2. How many houses of assignation in your city ? 
44 3. How many public prostitutes are there in your city ? 
44 Answer. About one hundred and fifty. 
44 4. How many private prostitutes are there in your city? 
44 Answer. About fifty. 
44 5. How many kept mistresses are there in your city ? NEW YORK. 
611 
44 Answer. About six or eight. 
44 6. What is the present population of your city ! 
44 Answer. About eighteen thousand. 
44 I would, in connection with the above, state that about twenty-five of 
the forty houses are used almost exclusively by sailors and seafaring men, 
and are sometimes improperly called 4 Sailor Boarding-houses,’ especially 
the most decent of them. 
44 Any other information I can give you I will most cheerfully do, should 
you desire any. 
441 am very respectfully yours, F. F. Ferguson, 
“To Dr. Wm. W. Sanger, Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island, New York.” 
44 Mayor City of Norfolk, Virginia. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
(Copy.) 
44 Dear Sir, —As near as we can arrive at the facts (of course no great 
reliance can be placed on this general answer) the following are the figures : 
“ Office of the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, Sept. 8, 1856. 
1. Houses of prostitution .130 3. Public Prostitutes . .475 
2. Houses of assignation . 50 4, Private 44 . . 105 
6. (Say) six hundred thousand population. 
“ Our city has one hundred and twenty-nine (129) square miles of police 
jurisdiction, and six hundred and fifty (650) policemen besides officers. 
You will therefore make some allowances for the want of time to enable 
me more fully to state answers to your questions. 
44 The answers given are from estimates made by the lieutenants of police 
of heir own districts. 
44 Respectfully, Richard Vaux, Mayor of Philadelphia. 
4‘To Wm. W. Sanger, M. D., Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island.” 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 
(Copy.) 
“Mayor’s Office, Pittsburgh, Sept. 18, 1856. 
44 Dear Sir,—Your favor of the Ist instant came to hand a few days ago, 
requesting answers to the following questions : 
44 Wm. W. Sanger, M. D.; 
441. How many houses of prostitution are there in our city ! 
44 Answer. Nineteen. 
44 2. How many houses of assignation! 
“Answer. Nine. 
44 3. How many public prostitutes! 
44 Answer. Seventy-seven. 
44 4. How many private prostitutes! 
44 Answer. Thirty-seven. 612 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“5. How many kept mistresses 1 
“Answer. Sixteen, 
“ 6. What is your population ? 
“Answer. Seventy-five thousand seven hundred and fifty (15,150). 
“ The above is arrived at from the personal knowledge of some of our 
police-officers; no doubt the number is much greater. 
“ At the last census our population of the city proper was over sixty thou- 
sand (60,000). The population at that time of Pittsburgh, Alleghany, 
and the suburbs of Pittsburgh, was nearly one hundred thousand. 
“ Respectfully, your obedient servant, Wm. Bingham, Mayor.” 
Savannah, Ga. 
(Copy.) 
“Mayor’s Office, City of Savannah, Ga., Sept., 18, 1856. 
wWm. W. Sanger, Resident Physician, 
Blackwell’s Island, New York City; 
“ Dear Sir, In this city there are fifteen houses of prostitution, three 
assignation-houses, ninety-three white, and one hundred and five colored 
prostitutes. In the winter season the number is greatly increased by sup- 
plies from New York City. 
“ I can not answer what number of private prostitutes or kept mistresses 
there are here. 
“ Our present population is about twenty-six thousand. 
“ Very truly yours, Edward C. Anderson, Mayor.* 
These replies may be condensed as follows: 
Cities. 
Reported by 
Houses. 
Prostitute*. 
Population. 
Houses of 
Prostitution. 
Houses of 
Assignation. 
Public Pros- 
titutes. 
! Private Pros- 
titutes. 
Kept Mis- 
tresses. 
Total of 
abandoned 
Women. 
Buffalo 
Mayor Stevens 
87 
37 
272 
81 
31 
384 
75,000 
Louisville 
“ Barber 
79 
39 
214 
93 
60 
367 
70,000 
Newark 
“ Pointer 
50 
50 
55,000 
New Haven.. 
“ Galpin 
10 
6 
93 
30 
123 
32,000 
Norfolk 
“ Ferguson .. 
40 
150 
50 
8 
208 
18,000 
Philadelphia. 
“ Vaux 
130 
50 
475 
105 
580 
600,000 
Pittsburgh.... 
“ Bingham.. 
19 
9 
77 
37 
16 
130 
75,760 
Savannah .... 
“ Anderson.. 
15 
3 
198 
198 
26,000 
It lias already been stated, on the authority of the state census 
of 1855, that the adult male population of New York City form 
nearly one third of the total inhabitants, and the same rule may 
be applied to these cities to ascertain the comparative number of 
prostitutes and their customers. The proportions stand as fol- 
lows: NEW YORK. 
New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has 
1 prostitute to every 40 men. 
but including the suburbs . . 1 “ “ “ 64 “ 
Buffalo has 1 “ “ « 65 “ 
Louisville has 1 “ “ “ 64 “ 
Newark has 1 “ <( “ 366 “ 
New Haven has 1 “ “ “ 87 “ 
Norfolk has 1 « « “ 29 “ 
Philadelphia has 1 “ « « 344 « 
Pittsburgh has . 1 “ “ “ 192 “ 
Savannah has 1 “ “ “ 44 “ 
It can scarcely be doubted that the worthy mayors of Newark, 
Philadelphia, and Pittsburg have been misinformed as to the ex- 
tent of the vice in their respective cities. Respecting Newark, for 
instance, the writer was recently informed that prostitution was 
not so rare as Mayor Poinier’s letter would imply, but that prosti- 
tutes and known, houses of prostitution were to be found scattered 
over the city, and that the fact was notorious to nearly every res- 
ident. This information was received from a gentleman himself 
an inhabitant of Newark. There is no doubt that much of the 
vice of Newark finds a home in New York, as the mayor says, 
but it is equally certain that it is not all expatriated. 
The mayor of Philadelphia is particularly wide of the mark. 
There may not be as many public prostitutes there as in New 
York, but it is proverbial, and is as widely known as is Philadel- 
phia itself, that its streets abound in houses of assignation and pri- 
vate houses of prostitution. 
Pittsburgh is situated at the head of navigation on the Ohio 
River, at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Riv- 
ers, both navigable. She has canals, rail-roads, and large manu- 
factories, and, if closely examined, would probably show a larger 
proportion of prostitutes than above reported. 
Norfolk is the largest naval depot in this country, and its popu- 
lation can not be held responsible for all the prostitution within 
its limits. In both Norfolk and Savannah we presume that the 
larger portion of the abandoned women at the time the census 
was taken were colored people, whose virtue is always at a dis- 
count under the most favorable circumstances, and to which a 
seaport is always fatal. 
But another calculation may be made upon the assumption that 
the males who have commerce with prostitutes form only one 
fourth of the population, and the proportions resulting from that 
are as follows: 614 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has 
1 prostitute to every 30 men. 
but including the suburbs . . 1 “ “ “ 50 “ 
Buffalo has 1 “ “ “ 49 “ 
Louisville has 1 “ “ “ 48 “ 
Newark has 1 “ (( “ 275 “ 
New Haven has 1 “ “ “ 65 “ 
Norfolk has 1 “ “ “ 23 “ 
Philadelphia has 1 “ an 258 “ 
Pittsburgh has 1 “ “ “ 144 “ 
Savannah has 1 “ “ “ 33 u 
To arrive at an average we will omit the calculation of the pro- 
portion of prostitutes to the population of New York City proper, 
it having been shown already that the responsibility of much of 
it must rest upon the suburbs and upon visitors, and also omit 
Newark, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg, because the reports from 
those cities are palpably underrated. This done, the mean of the 
two estimates stands thus: 
New York 1 prostitute to every 57 men. 
Buffalo 1 “ “ “ 57 “ 
Louisville 1 “ “ “ 56 “ 
New Haven 1 “ “ “ 76 “ 
Norfolk 1 « « « 26 « 
Savannah 1 “ “ “ 39 “ 
and the mean of the whole is... 1 “ « « 52 « 
This mean may be fairly assumed as the proportion existing in 
all the large cities of the Union, and the farther assumption that 
the men who visit houses of prostitution form one fourth of the 
total population will give a basis upon which the total number 
of the Prostitutes in the United States may be estimated with 
some accuracy. The calculation can not, of course, be claimed as 
absolutely correct, as that would be an impossibility, but is sub- 
mitted as a probability on which the reader can form his own 
conclusion. 
The population of the United States in 1868 was estimated by 
Professor De Bow, when preparing the compendium of the census 
of 1850, and his calculation at that time was that by the present 
year it would amount to 29,242,139 persons, which may be taken 
in round numbers 29,000,000. From this must be deducted 
8,500,000 slaves, which will leave the free inhabitants 25,500,000, 
and the proportion of adult males to this number is 6,875,000. 
It may next be assumed that one half of these men live in coun- 
try places or small cities where prostitution does not exist, the 
other moiety being inhabitants of cities with a population of twen- NEW YORK. 
615 
ty thousand or upward; and upon the basis already proved of 
one prostitute to every tifty-two men, the result would be a total 
of 61,298 prostitutes. The whole area of the United States is 
2,986,166 square miles, and if all the prostitutes therein were 
equally divided over this surface, there would be one for everv 
forty-seven square miles, or if they were walking in continuous 
line, thirty-six inches from each other, they would make a col- 
umn nearly thirty-live miles long. If the inhabitants of large 
cities were only one third, the number of prostitutes would be 
41,058. These suggestions are, of course, mere matters for con- 
sideration, and are not given as definite facts. 
Allusions have already been made to many exaggerated opin- 
ions as to the extent of prostitution in New York City, and it may 
be well to notice in this place some passages in a work entitled 
“ An inquiry into the extent, causes, and consequences of Prosti- 
tution in Edinburgh, by William Tait, Surgeon : 2d edition, 1842.” 
The author starts with the impression that the capital of Scotland 
is the most moral city on the face of the earth, and after fixing 
the number of public prostitutes in Edinburgh at eight hundred, 
or one to every eighty of the adult male population, remarks: 
“ In London there is one for every sixty, and in Paris one for 
every fifteen. Edinburgh is thus about twenty-five per cent, bet- 
ter than London, while the latter is about seventy per cent, better 
than Paris.” (Happy Edinburgh !) “ And what is to be said of 
the chief city of the United States of America, of the independent, 
liberal, religious, and enlightened inhabitants of New York? It 
will scarcely be credited that that city furnishes a prostitute for 
every six or seven of its adult male population ! Alas! for the 
religion and morality of the country that affords such a demon- 
stration of its depravity. It was not surpassed even by the me- 
tropolis of France during the heat and fervor of the Revolution, 
when libertinism reigned triumphant, and the laws of God and 
man were alike set at defiance.”—Page 6. 
This picture is any thing but flattering to our national pride; 
but it loses very much of its effect because it is contrary to the 
truth. It will, however, satisfy our readers that Mr. Tait was mis- 
informed, and they may feel a slight gratification in the conclu- 
sion that his pathetic lament for the religion and morality of their 
country was unnecessary. On page Bof the same work we find: 
“ After stating that there were upward of ten thousand aban- 
doned women in the city of New York, the Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall, 616 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
chaplain to the New York Magdalen Asylum, goes on to say: 
‘ Besides these, we have the clearest evidence that there are hund- 
reds of private harlots and kept mistresses, many of whom keep 
up a show of industry as domestics, seamstresses, nurses, etc., in 
the most respectable families, and throng the houses of assigna- 
tion every night. Although we have no means of ascertaining 
the number of these, yet enough has been learned from the facts 
already developed to convince us that the aggregate is alarmingly 
great, perhaps little behind the proportion of the city of London, 
whose police report asserts, on the authority of accurate research- 
es, that the number of private prostitutes in that city is fully equal 
to the number of public harlots.’ ” 
In this passage Mr. Tait shifts the responsibility of his figures 
to the shoulders of the Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall, who is represented as 
declaring the number of public prostitutes in New York sixteen 
years ago to be ten thousand, and assuming the private prostitutes 
to amount to the same number, making an aggregate nearly three 
times as large as an actual and searching inquiry has found at the 
present time. During the last sixteen years vice has not de- 
creased in New York, but has steadily increased, and yet the 
most diligent search can discover in 1858 only 7860 public and 
private prostitutes, instead of the twenty thousand mentioned in 
the publication under notice! We imagine it to be an imperative 
duty to be tolerably well acquainted with a social evil before at- 
tempting to write upon it, and although Mr. Tait’s book can not, 
by any possibility, injure our city, on account of the palpable mis- 
representations it contains, we allude to it to show the opinion 
entertained of New York and its vices on the other side of the 
Atlantic. Were an apology necessary for the present work, such 
statements as these would be amply sufficient. 
Mr. Tait loses no opportunity to hurl a sly dart at New York. 
Thus (on page 88), after quoting the words of the Rev. Mr. 
M‘Dowall as to the character of an abandoned woman in New 
York, he (Mr. Tait) continues: 
“He says nothing of the state of religious feeling among the 
prostitutes there; and if we are to regard his statement of the 
number of prostitutes as strictly correct, it may very well be ques- 
tioned whether any considerable number of the inhabitants of 
that city are under the influence of sincere religious feeling.” 
Some of our New York City readers may probably recollect 
that the publication of Mr. M‘Dowall’s “ Inquiry” produced very NEW YORK. 
617 
considerable excitement here at the time, and opinions were free- 
ly expressed that he was either very ignorant on matters of that 
nature, or intentionally colored his statements, and was in either 
case entirely unfitted for the task he had assumed. 
Mr. Tait assumes the population of Edinburgh at about two 
hundred thousand, the number of public prostitutes at eight hund- 
red, and of private prostitutes at nearly twelve hundred, or a total 
of two thousand abandoned women. This gives one prostitute to 
every thirty-two adult males, if we adopt his system of calcula- 
tion ; or one prostitute to every twenty-five adult males, if we 
adopt the system of calculation which has been applied to the 
United States in the present work. From his own figures, then, 
it can be seen, that although New York City is so awfully irre- 
ligious, it has less prostitution than pious Edinburgh. 
Again: on page 189, while speaking of the demoralizing effects 
of theatrical representations, Mr. Tait says; 
“ In the report of the House of Refuge in New York, it is stated 
that one hundred and fifty boys and girls, out of six hundred and 
ninety, are guilty of theft and impurity to get a seat in the thea- 
tre.” He does not mark this as a quotation, nor does he state 
the report from which it was extracted. As he has printed it, it 
must be supposed correct, although we must confess we can not 
see very clearly whaf connection exists between the New York 
House of Refuge and prostitution considering the ages of children 
generally admitted to that institution; and while we have very 
little doubt that many of the inmates thereof have committed 
theft for the reason he assigns, we are rather dubious as to the 
acts of impurity alluded to, except in a very few exceptional cases. 
Farther: on page 194, Mr. Tait quotes “The address of the 
Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall on prostitution in America” as follows: 
“ At the very hour in the morning, afternoon, and evening of 
every Lord’s day when the people of God assemble for religious 
worship, then, in a special manner, do the children of the wicked 
one meet in troops at harlots’ houses. On the Sabbath days the 
rooms are so filled with visitors that there is no place for them to 
sit down, and on that account many are refused admission at the 
doors.” These palpable exaggerations require no contradiction. 
They show, however, the extremes of misrepresentation to which 
an enthusiastic and incompetent writer may be led. 
Inclined to exaggeration as Mr. Tait has been proved to be, he 
yet protests (in page 251) against some opinions upon infanticide 618 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
by prostitutes in New York, advanced by bis informant, the Rev. 
Mr. M‘Dowall, and quotes the opinion of Parent-Duchatelet to 
prove that mothers are generally very fond of their children. 
This fact warrants the conclusion that his other opinions upon so- 
cial morals in New York are entirely derived from Mr. MODowall, 
who is shown to be any thing but a credible witness. His reli- 
ance upon such a source is much to be regretted as materially im- 
pairing the value and truthfulness of his otherwise interesting and 
useful volume. 
The following extracts from the “ Compendium of the Seventh 
Census of the United States, 1850,” will be interesting, from their 
relation to various points which have been discussed in the prog- 
ress of this work. They have all a more or less direct bearing 
upon the subject of prostitution, and the condensation of them 
here will give readers an opportunity of verifying many of the 
previous remarks. 
The estimated population of the Union at the present time 
(1858) has been already given as 29,242,189 persons (including 
slaves). The proportion of females to males at each census from 
1790 to 1850 is stated as follows:1 
1T90. 
1800. 
1810. 
1820. 
1830. 
1840. 
1850. 
Males 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
100- 
Females ... 
96-4 
95-3 
96-2 
96-8 
9G-4 
95-6 
95* 
This relates only to the free population. In enumerating slaves 
no distinction of sex was made earlier than the year 1820. The 
ratio of male and female slaves since that date is as follows :2 
1S20. 
1830. 
1840. 
1850. 
100- 
100 
100- 
100- 
99-95 
95*19 
98-36 
99-55 
From these tables it appears that the males in the free popula- 
tion and the females in the slave population have been steadily 
increasing, but with no determined ratio of progression. 
Taking the total of free and slave population since the census 
of 1820, the excess of males is stated thus :3 
1820. 
1830. 
1840. 
1850. 
Males 
4.898,127 
6,529,696 
8,688,532 
11.837,661 
Females 
4,740,004 
6,336,324 
8,380,921 
11,354,215 
Excess of males.. 
158,123 
193,372 
307,611 
483,446 
It will be seen from this that in 1850 the males were in excess 
at the rate of 208 per cent., and by applying the same rule to the 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49. 2 Ibid. p. 87. 3 Ibid. p. 101. NEW YORK. 
619 
population of 1858 a fair estimate of the relative number of each 
sex at the present time may be made as follows: 
Males (1858) 14,925,188 
Females 14,316,951 
Excess of males .... 608,231 
Total estimated population . 29,242,139 
In the several geographical divisions of the Union the propor- 
tion of white males to white females is thus shown d 
New England States (Maine, New Hampshire, Yermont, Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut), 10087 females to 100 males. 
Middle States (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, and District of Columbia), 97'70 females to 100 males. 
Southern States (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Geor- 
gia, and Florida), 98’54 females to 100 males. 
Southwestern States (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, 
Arkansas, and Tennessee), 91'66 females to 100 males. 
Northwestern States (Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa), 92T1 females to 100 males. 
California and Territories, 86‘73 females to 100 males. 
Two facts are developed in this statement. In the New Eng- 
land States females are in excess of males. From this district 
comes the majority of all the native-born prostitutes who find 
their home in New York City. In the Northwestern States, to 
which it has been proposed to remove some of the surplus female 
labor of New York, the males are in excess, and any women sent 
there would aid in restoring the equilibrium of the sexes. 
The following table gives the relative percentage of each sex 
at different ages, and also the number of females to each hundred 
males:2 
Ages. 
Percentage of 
Males. 
Percentage of 
Females. 
Females to each 
100 Males. 
Under 5 years 
14-68 
14-95 
96-76 
From 5 years to 10 years 
13-69 
13-98 
97-03 
“ 10 “ 15 “ 
12-23 
12-35 
96-00 
“ 15 “ 20 “ 
10-39 
11-42 
104-46 
“ 20 “ 30 “ 
18-64 
18-46 
94-08 
“ 30 “ 40 “ 
12-85 
11-84 
87-55 
“ 40 “ 50 “ 
8-38 
7-86 
89-09 
“ 50 “ 60 “ 
4-97 
4-83 
92-15 
“ 60 “ 70 “ 
2-64 
2-69 
96-88 
“ 70 “ 80 “ 
1-11 
1-18 
101-01 
“ 80 “ 90 “ 
•31 
•36 
110-11 
“ 90 “ 100 “ 
•nr. S 
123-16 
“ 100 years upward 
120-45 
Ages unknown 
•07 
•03 
44-09 
100- 
100- 
95- 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49. 
* Ibid. p. 57. 620 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Experience has proved that the age at which female virtue is 
exposed to the most temptations, or at least the age at which the 
greater part of the prostitutes in New York have embraced their 
wretched calling, is from fifteen to twenty years, and the table 
above shows that at those periods females are in excess over 
males nearly per cent. Is it to be supposed that the numer- 
ical predominance is the cause of the temptations; or may it not 
rather be concluded that both are co-existent, and equally con- 
tribute to the sad result; or not temptation be more 
aggravated, because concentrated, if, at that critical period of life, 
males and females were in equal numbers ? , 
The following table gives the relative ages of the whole popu- 
lation without distinction of sex, but compares the white, free 
colored, and slave classes: 
Ages. 
Percentage of 
white Popu- 
lation. 1 
Percentage of 
free colored 
Population.2 
Percentage of 
slave Popu- 
lation.3 
Under 5 years of age 
14-81 
14-00 
16-87 
From 5 years to 10 years 
13-83 
13-36 
14-95 
“ 10 “ “ 15 “ 
12-28 
12-04 
13-61 
“ 15 “ “ 20 “ 
10-89 
10-08 
11-15 
“ 20 “ “ 30 “ 
18-55 
17-85 
17-86 
“ 30 “ “ 40 “ 
12-36 
12-71 
11-04 
“ 40 “ “ 50 “ 
8-13 
8-73 
6-86 
“ 50 “ “ 60 “ 
4-90 
5-60 
3-96 
“ 60 “ and upward 
4-20 
5-56 
3-68 
Ages unknown 
•05 
•07 
•02 
100- 
100- 
100- 
The ratio of births is in the4 
United States . . 1 birth to every 36 persons, or 2*75 per cent. 
Great Britain . . 1 “ “31 “ 3*22 “ 
France .... 1 “ “35 “ 2*86 « 
Russia .... 1 “ “36 “ 2‘75 “ 
Prussia and Austria 1 “ “ 26 “ 3*87 “ 
BIRTHS. 
EDUCATION. 
The importance of education and its influence upon the social 
problem of prostitution is a sufficient apology for the following 
extracts, in addition to what has been said already on the subject. 
There are in the United States 
239 colleges with an annual income of . $1,964,428 
80,978 public schools 9,529,542 
6,085 academies and private schools . . . 4,644,214 
87,302 educational institutions which cost . $16,138,184 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 94. 1 Ibid. p. 69. 
3 Ibid. p. 91. 4 Ibid. p. 104. NEW YORK. 
621 
These institutions are attended by 3,644,928 scholars.1 
There are in the United States 
Natives 858,306 
Foreigners 195,114 
Total ”i705~37420 
persons above twenty years of age who can not read or write. 
This number is subdivided thus ;2 
White. 
1* ree colored. 
Total. 
Males 
Females 
Total 
389,664 
573,234 
40,722 
49,800 
430,386 
623,034 
962,894 
90,522 
1,053,420 
This shows a remarkable preponderance of uneducated women. 
The percentage of children attending school in the United States, 
calculated on all between the ages of five and fifteen years is 
Natives 8081 per cent.3 
Foreigners 51* 7 3 “ 
a proof of the fact intimated already that foreign parents do not 
endeavor to avail themselves of the facilities provided for the edu- 
cation of their children. 
The illiterate of the population are thus minutely analyzed :4 
White illiterate to total white 4*92 per cent. 
Free colored illiterate to total free colored 20*83 “ 
Native white and free colored illiterate to total native white 
and free colored 4*85 “ 
Foreign white and free colored illiterate to total foreign 
white and free colored 8*24 “ 
Native illiterate white and free colored to total of both 
(native) over 20 years of age 10*35 “ 
Foreign illiterate white and free colored to total of both 
(foreign) over 20 years of age 14*48 “ 
Foreign illiterate over twenty years of age . . 195*114 
Foreign illiterate to total foreign over 20 years of age, sup- 
posing the illiterate to be all white ...... 14*51 “ 
Following the geographical sections we obtain the following 
results ;5 
Sections. 
Percentage of Pu- 
pils to the white 
Population. 
Percentage of Pupils 
to the white and free 
colored Population. 
Percentage of il- 
literate to white 
Population. 
New England States. 
25-90 
25-71 
1-88 
Middle States 
21-79 
21-02 
3-16 
Southern States 
14-52 
13-92 
9-22 
Southwestern States. 
16-32 
16-10 
8-45 
Northwestern States. 
21-72 
21-51 
5-03 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 141, 142. : Ibid. p. 145. 
3 Ibid. p. 150. 4 Ibid. p. 152. 5 Ibid. p. 152, 153. 622 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Sections. 
Percentage 
of illiterate to 
Natives. 
l eroentage of 
illiterate to 
Natives over 
20 Years of 
age. 
Percentage 
of illiterate to 
Foreigners. 
Percentage of 
illiterate to 
Foreigners 
over 20 Years 
of age. 
Percentage 
of illiterate to 
free Colored. 
New England States 
•26 
•42 
14-63 
24-39 
8-45 
Middle States 
1-84 
3-00 
9-55 
15-92 
22-42 
Southern States 
9 30 
20-30 
5-28 
8-80 
21-20 
Southwestern States 
8-41 
16-63 
9-12 
15-20 
18-54 
Northwestern States 
4-97 
9-92 
4-63 
7-72 
21-44 
California and Terri- 
tories 
| 17-50 
21-63 
14-13 
23-51 
12-47 
OCCUPATIONS. 
In the tables of occupations the only class noticed is the white 
and free colored male population over fifteen years of age, no re- 
turns of female employment being given. As interesting to the 
general reader, although not in immediate connection with the 
subject, the following is given d 
Ratio per cent. 
Occupations. to the total 
employed. 
Commerce, trade, manufactures, mechanic arts, and mining . 29-72 
Agriculture 44'69 
Labor (not agricultural) 18-50 
Army -10 
Sea and river navigation 2-17 
Law, Medicine, and Divinity 1*76 
Other pursuits requiring education 1-78 
Government civil service -46 
Domestic service . -41 
Other occupations -41 
100-00 
A similar but more elaborate statement of the occupations of 
the people of Great Britain was published in the British census 
for 1841, and is reprinted by Professor De Bow in his compen- 
dium.2 
Occupations. 
Percentage 
to total 
Males. 
Percentage 
to total 
Females. 
Percentage 
to total 
Population. 
Commerce, trade, and manufactures 
26-24 
7-12 
16-52 
Agriculture 
16-33 
•84 
7-96 
Labor (not agricultural) 
6-99 
1-21 
4-05 
1-42 
•70 
Navy and merchant seamen, boatmen, &c.... 
2-35 
117 
Clerical, legal, and medical professions 
•66 
•02 
•34 
Other pursuits requiring education 
1-17 
•36 
•76 
Government and municipal civil service 
•43 
•02 
•22 
Domestic servants 
2-78 
9-48 
6-18 
Persons of independent means 
1-47 
3-88 
2-69 
Pensioners, paupers, lunatics, and prisoners.. 
1-11 
1-01 
1-06 
Unoccupied (including women and children).. 
40-05 
76 06 
58-35 
100- 
too- 
100- 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 128. 
2 Ibid. p. 130. NEW YORK. 
623 
WAGES. 
In introducing this subject, Professor De Bow remarks, “The 
money price of wages, unless the price of other articles be known, 
gives but an unsatisfactory idea of the condition of the laboring 
classes at different periods and in different countries.” In the 
following tables of the rates of remuneration in 1850 this diffi- 
culty will scarcely exist, so far as New York is concerned at least. 
The large number of domestic servants who have been added to 
our population since that year precludes the possibility of any 
considerable advance in the rate of wages, and, as every reader has 
an idea of what a woman’s necessary expenses must be, each will 
be enabled to decide for himself whether the compensation is suf- 
ficient, or whether society at large would not be benefited were 
some of the surplus domestic servants removed to other localities, 
and thus, by increasing the demand, augment the wages. The 
following was the average weekly wages (with board) of a domes- 
tic servant in the year 1850 r1 
States. 
Alabama . 
Wages. 
$1 41 
States. 
Missouri . . . 
Wages. 
$1 It 
Arkansas . 
1 
61 
New Hampshire 
1 
27 
California 
13 
00 
New Jersey . . 
0 
97 
Columbia (District 
of). 
1 
31 
New York . . 
1 
05 
Connecticut . 
1 
36 
North Carolina . 
0 8t 
Delaware . 
0 
84 
Ohio .... 
0 
96 
Florida . , . 
1 
83 
Pennsylvania 
0 
80 
Georgia . . . 
1 
52 
Rhode Island 
1 
42 
Illinois . . . 
1 
14 
South Carolina . 
1 
42 
Indiana . 
0 
90 
Tennessee 
1 
00 
Iowa .... 
1 
01 
Texas .... 
2 
00 
Kentucky 
1 
09 
Vermont . 
1 
19 
Louisiana 
2 
57 
Virginia . . . 
0 
96 
Maine . . . 
1 
09 
Wisconsin 
1 
27 
Maryland . 
0 
89 
f Minnesota . 
2 
25 
Massachusetts . 
1 
48 
'I J New Mexico 
% I Oregon . . 
£ LUtah . . 
0 
78 
Michigan. . . 
1 
10 
10 
00 
Mississippi. . 
1 
52 
1 
46 
The following is a table of the monthly wages in factories in 
the different states. It is, of course, exclusive of board and lodg- 
ing. Looking at the amount received by female operatives, will 
any one feel surprised that they should abandon the incessant and 
poorly paid employment ? 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 164. 624 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
WAGES PER MONTH (WITHOUT BOARD). 
States. 
Cotton. 
Wool. 
Pig Iron. 
Iron Cast- 
ings. 
Wrought 
Iron. 
Fisheries. 
M. 
F. 
M. 
F. 
M. 
M. | F. 
M. 
F. 
M. 
I’. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
$ c. 
Alabama... 
11 71 
7 98 
... 
17 60 
30 05 
... 
15 29 
Arkansas... 
11 61 
5 88 
... 
... 
... 
... 
California.. 
... 
... 
23 33 
D. of Col.... 
14 02 
8 00 
30 00 
... 
27 05 
Connecticut 
19 08 
11 80 
24 12 
12 86 
26 80 
... 
27 02 8 00 
31 59 
20 81 
Delaware... 
15 31 
11 58 
18 79 
17 33 
23 36 
25 53 
Florida 
32 14 
5 00 
17 58 
8 40 
Georgia 
14 57 
7 39 
27 47 
14 10 
17 44 
5 00 
27 43 
11 35 
5 00 
Illinois 
22 00 
12 52 
22 06 
28 50 
Indiana 
13 02 
6 77 
21 81 
11 05 
26 00 
25 74 
27 45 
4 00 
Iowa 
11 14 
32 35 
Kentucky... 
14 95 
9 36 
15 30 
11 11 
20 23 
4 70 
24 89 
4 15 
32 06 
Louisiana .. 
35 60 
Maine 
29 35 
12 15 
22 57 
11 77 
22 00 
29 00 
5 00 
19 12 
Maryland .. 
15 42 
9 48 
18 60 
11 89 
20 14 
27 50 
24 31 
Massach’sts 
22 90 
13 60 
22 95 
14 22 
27 50 
30 90 
29 46 
12 79 
15 70 
Michigan... 
21 65 
11 47 
35 00 
28 68 
22 43 
Mississippi. 
14 21 
5 94 
37 91 
Missouri.... 
10 93 
10 00 
32 00 
6 50 
24 28 
19 63 
30 00 
N. Hamp... 
26 00 
13 47 
22 86 
14 53 
18 00 
33 05 
31 34 
10 00 
New Jersey 
17 98 
9 56 
25 22 
8 60 
21 20 
24 00 
27 31 
13 34 
New York.. 
18 32 
9 68 
19 97 
11 76 
25 00 
27 49 
28 91 
20 35 
N. Carolina 
11 65 
6 13 
18 00 
7 00 
8 00 
4 00 
23 46 
10 43 
4 78 
23 64 
11 77 
Ohio 
16 59 
9 42 
20 14 
10 90 
24 48 
27 32 
29 58 
19 07 
Pcnnsvlv’a. 
17 85 
9 91 
19 23 
10 41 
21 65 
5 11 
27 55 
6 0*0 
28 31 
6 57 
Rho. Island 
18 60 
12 95 
20 70 
15 18 
29 63 
57 85 
34 00 
S. Carolina 
13 94 
8 30 
13 59 
4 00 
Tennessee.. 
10 94 
6 42 
17 66 
6 00 
12 81 
5 11 
17 96 
4 50 
15 20 
5 00 
Texas 
20 00 
20 00 
43 43 
Vermont.... 
15 53 
12 65 
24 46 
11 81 
22 08 
28 27 
32 08 
Virginia.... 
10 18 
6 98 
18 17 
9 91 
12 76 
6 86 
19 91 
9 44 
25 41 
21 70 
Wisconsin.. 
22 48 
30 00 
26 73 
21 50 
The number of hands employed in these manufactures is as 
follows:1 
Manufactures. 
Men 
employed. 
Men’s average 
Wages per Month. 
Women 
employed. 
Women’s average 
Wages per Month. 
Cotton 
33,150 
$16 79 
59,136 
$9 24 
Wool 
22,678 
21 49. 
16,574 
11 86 
Pig iron 
20,298 
21 68 
150 
5 13 
Iron castings 
23,541 
27 38 
48 
5 87 
Wrought iron 
16,110 
27 02 
138 
7 35 
Fisheries 
20,704 
20 49 
429 
10 08 
Total employed 
136,481 
76,475 
From tables relating to pauperism in the United States we 
learn that in the year ending June 1, 1850, when our population 
was 28,191,876, there were supported (in whole or in part) at pub- 
lic expense :2 
PAUPERISM. 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 180-184. 2 Ibid. p. 163. NEW YORK. 
625 
Natives 66,434 
Foreigners * 68,538 
Total 134,912 
The cost of such support was $2,954,806. This is much less than 
the outlay in England, where, in the year 1848, there was expend- 
ed £6,180,764 sterling (or over thirty million dollars), the popula- 
tion being 17,521,9564 
There were confined in the various state prisons throughout 
the Union on June 1, 1850:2 
CRIME. 
White males 4643 
“ females 115 
Total whites 4158 
Colored males 801 
<c females 81 
Total colored 888 
Aggregate 5646 
Of these there were 
Native whites . ... . ... . 3259 
“ colored 866 
Total natives 4125 
Foreign whites 1499 
“ colored 22 
Total foreign 1521 
Aggregate 6646 
INTEMPERANCE. 
It need not be repeated that habits of intemperance and prosti- 
tution are closely allied. The following figures give the statistics 
of the breweries and distilleries in the United States :3 
The total number of these establishments is 121T 
In which is invested a capital of $8,501,514 
They employ 6140 hands, and consume during the year, 
Barley . . 3,181,195 bushels. 
Corn. . . 11,061,161 « 
Rye . . . 2,143,921 “ 
Oats. . . 56,601 “ 
Apples . . 526,840 bushels. 
Hops. . . 1,294 tons. 
Molasses . 61,615 hogsheads. 
Their yearly production is, 
Ale, 1,119,495 barrels, or 42,411,820 gallons. 
Whisky, etc . 41,864,224 “ 
Rum 6,500,500 « 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 162 (note). 2 Ibid. p. 166. 3 Ibid. p. 182. 
Total 90,336,544 “ 626 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
If these stimulants were used in the United States, exclusive of 
export or import, the average allowance for each man, woman, 
and child in the community would be nearly four gallons per 
year. The figures show how much we produce, but will not aid 
the inquiry as to how much is consumed. 
The words “Natives” and “Foreigners” have been so frequent- 
ly used in the course of this investigation, that the official census 
returns as to their relative numbers can not but be interesting.1 
NATIVITIES. 
Of the white population of the United States there were 
Born in the state in which they are now living . . 67*02 per cent. 
“ “ United States, hut not in the state in 
which they are now living 21*35 “ 
Total of natives . 88*37 “ 
Born in foreign countries 11*46 “ 
Unknown nativities *l7 “ 
100 “ 
Thus of every hundred white inhabitants of the United States, 
eighty-eight were natives of the soil. 
Of the free colored inhabitants there were2 
Natives 98*59 per cent. 
Foreigners *94 “ 
Unknown nativities *47 “ 
Too- 
The slave population are (for all practical purposes) entirely 
native. 
1 Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 61. 2 Ibid. p. 79. NEW YORK. 
627 
CHAPTEE XXXYIL 
NEW YORK.—REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
Effects of Prohibition.—Required Change of Policy.—Governmental Obligations. 
—Prostitution augmented by Seclusion.—lmpossibility of benevolent Assistance. 
—Necessity of sanitary Regulations.—Yellow Fever.—Effect of remedial Meas- 
ures in Paris.—Syphilitic Infection not a local Question.—Present Measures to 
check Syphilis.—lsland Hospital, Blackwell’s Island.—Mode of Admission, 
—Vagrancy Commitment “on Confession,” and its Action on Blackwell’s Isl- 
and.—Pecuniary Results.—Moral Effects.—Perpetuation of Disease.—Inade- 
quacy of Present Arrangements.—Discharges.—Writs of Habeas Corpus and 
Certiorari, how obtained, and their Effects.—Public Responsibility.—Proposed 
medical and police Surveillance.—Requirements.—Hospital Arrangements to be 
entirely separated from punitive Institutions. Medical Visitation. Power to 
place diseased Women under Treatment and detain them till cured.—Refutation 
of Objections.—Quack Advertisers.—Constitution of Medical Bureau.—Duties 
of Examiners.—License System.—Probable Effects of Surveillance.—Expenses 
of the proposed Plan.—Agitation in England.—The London Times on Prostitu- 
tion.—Objections considered.—Report from Medical Board of Bellevue Hos- 
pital on Prostitution and Syphilis.—Report from Resident Physician, Ran- 
dall’s Island, on Constitutional Syphilis.—Reliability of Statistics.—Resume 
of substantiated Facts. 
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 states- 
men 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 ag- 
gravated the evil it was intended to suppress. At subsequent pe- 
riods, however, different measures have been adopted with differ- 
ent results. 
It will be necessary, in the first place, to consider the effect of 
stringent prohibitory measures. The records given in the previ- 
ous 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 628 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
have proved equally powerless to accomplish the object. Admit- 
ting 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 com- 
pel 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 exterm- 
inated has steadily increased, does not reason suggest the expedi- 
ency of resorting to other measures for its suppression ? 
It has been said that “ History is philosophy teaching by ex- 
ample,” and, if such instruction is well considered, none can fail 
to see therein an unanswerable argument against excessive se- 
verity in this matter. The several statutes proscribing prostitu- 
tion have been detailed, and their specific results given, as gather- 
ed from the experience of various countries. At the time these 
laws were in force, it is hardly probable that their authors regard- 
ed 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 ex- 
perience 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 ac- 
knowledgment 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 physiol- 
ogy alike forbid any such utopian idea. But will not a more en- 
lightened 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 NEW YORK. 
629 
the effect of the change has been to place any additional difficul- 
ties 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 prev- 
alent that the most effectual way to deal with criminals is to at- 
tempt to raise them above what they were, in contradistinction to 
the old plan of sinking them lower.1 It is now freely acknowl- 
edged that the elevating, instead of the depressing process, is con- 
sonant both with the spirit of our republican institutions and with 
humanizing policy. Even if American society is not yet pre- 
pared to take a course directly the reverse of its present prohib- 
itory 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 or- 
ganization, 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 
1 “That for a single offense, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a 
doctrine repugnant even to Nature’s own dealings in the visible world. There her 
voice clearly says, ‘Let all these wonderful powers of vital renewal have free play; 
let the foul flesh slough itself away; lop off the gangrened limb; enter into life, 
maimed if it must be,’ but never until the last moment of total dissolution does she 
say, ‘Thou shalt not enter into life at all.’ 
“Therefore, once let a woman feel that ‘while there is life there is hope,’ de- 
pendent on the only one condition that she shall sin no more, and what a future you 
open to her! what a weight you lift off from her poor miserable spirit, which might 
otherwise be crushed down to the lowest deep, to that which is far worse than any 
bodily pollution, ineradicable corruption of soul.”—A Woman's Thoughts upon Wom- 
en (New York ed.), p. 269. 
“ It may often be noticed the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away 
from the slightest whiff of the odor of unsanctity. The good are ever the most 
charitable, the pure are the most brave. I believe there are hundreds and thou- 
sands of Englishwomen who would willingly throw the shelter of their stainless re- 
pute around any poor creature who came to them and said honestly, ‘I have sin- 
ned, help me that I may sin no more.’ But the unfortunates will not believe this. 
They are like the poor Indians, who think it necessary to pacify the evil principle 
by a greater worship than that which they offer to the Good Spirit, because, they 
say, the Bad Spirit is the stronger.”—lbid. p. 272. HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
concerned in the matter, and their mutual obligations, their policy, 
and their pecuniary interests require that these wandering mem- 
bers of the body corporate should have a reasonable opportunity 
for reformation. Which will give this opportunity most effectu- 
ally—to crush them under the weight of their own misdeeds, or to 
adopt a liberal course likely to induce them to abandon their de- 
praved habits? One of the secrets which bound the soldiers of 
the empire to the standard of Napoleon through all bis 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 
commander1 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 ?2 
It may be considered a bold assertion, that our present mode of 
dealing with prostitution is calculated to widely extend its preva- 
2 “Surely the consciousness of lost innocence must be the most awful punish- 
ment to any woman, and from it no kindness, no sympathy, no concealment of 
shame, or even restoration to good repute, can entirely free her. She must bear 
her burden, lighter or heavier as it may seem at different times, and she must bear 
it to the day of her death. I think this fact alone is enough to make a chaste 
woman’s first feeling toward an unchaste that of unqualified, unmitigated pity. 
1 Captain Ingraham. 
“Allowing the pity, what is the next thing to be done? Surely there must be 
some light beyond that of mere compassion to guide her in her after-conduct to- 
ward them. Where shall we find this light? In the world and its ordinary code 
of social morality, suited to social conscience? I fear not. The general opinion, 
even among good men, seems to be that this great question is a very sad thing, but 
a sort of unconquerable necessity; there is no use in talking about it, and, indeed, 
the less it is talked of the better. Good women are much of the same mind. The 
laxer-principled of both sexes treat the matter with philosophical indifference, or 
with the kind of laugh that makes the blood boil in any truly virtuous heart. 
“ I believe there is no other light on this difficult question than that given by the 
New Testament. There, clear and plain, and every where repeated, shines the doc- 
trine that for every crime, being repented of and forsaken, there is forgiveness with 
Heaven, and if with Heaven there ought to be with men. 
“When you shut the door of hope on any human soul you may at once give up 
all chance of its reformation. As well bid a man eat without food, see without 
light, or breathe without air, as bid him mend his ways, while at the same time you 
tell him that, however he amends, he will be in just the same position, the same 
hopelessly degraded, unpardoned, miserable sinner.”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon 
Women (New York ed.), p. 266. NEW YORK. 
631 
lence, yet the historical facts already given are sufficient to prove 
its truth without further argument. The existing rule of treat- 
ment, instead of suppressing the vice, merely drives it into seclu- 
sion—a result far different from the design, and infinitely increas- 
ing its power. To those secret haunts of prostitution resort the 
lowest and most depraved of the male sex, with the full knowl- 
edge 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 Associa- 
tions 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. Re- 
formers can not come near the fountain-head, and they are con- 
sequently now as far from the consummation of their praiseworthy 
intentions as when they commenced their labors; because prohib- 
itory 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 ref- 
ormation. 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 char- 
itable organizations. To alleviate the sorrows of their final suffer- 
ings, to soothe the agony of the hour of death, to divest of its ter- 
rors 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 re- 
mains to them ; to guide them to a path in which they can retrace 
the false steps already taken, and become useful members of soci- 632 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION 
ety. 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 oc- 
curred 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 rig- 
orous and careful sanitary measures were needed, and the clean- 
ing 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 phi- 
lanthropy 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 testi- 
mony of physicians who have had recent opportunities of investi- 
gating 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 con- 
temporaries insist that it shall be at all times open to the surveil- 
lance of properly appointed persons. 
The extent of syphilitic infection in New York has been por- 
trayed in the preceding chapter, but the danger of contamination 
must not be viewed as a merely local question. From its com- 
mercial 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 emi- 
grants from and to all parts of the Union. Foreigners reach here 
in large numbers every day, intending to travel to other states. If NEW YORK. 
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 empo- 
rium 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 cul- 
tivated and disseminated. 
Possessed, then, of indubitable proofs of the existence of syphi- 
lis, and the knowledge that its range is more widely extended ev- 
ery 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, be- 
cause based upon an erroneous theory, namely, the idea of sup- 
pression. The principal public or free hospital where the vene- 
real disease is confessedly treated is the Penitentiary Hospital on 
Blackwell’s Island, now known as the Island Hospital. To ob- 
tain 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 commit- 
ted to the Work-house by a police justice for vagrancy, drunken- 
ness, 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 com- 
mitment. 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 char- 
latans, 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, 634 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
and directed to apply to a police •justice. They follow this ad- 
vice, and in nine cases out of ten the magistrate’s only remark is, 
“Do yon 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 docu- 
ments : 
“ City and County of New York, ns. 
“ By , Esquire, one of the Police Justices in and for the 
City and County of New York. 
“ To the Constables and Policemen of the said City, and every of them, 
and to the Warden of the Penitentiary of the City and County of 
New York: 
“THESE ARE IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE 
OF NEW YORK, to command you, the said Constables and Policemen, to 
convey to the said Penitentiary the body of , who stands 
charged before me with being a VAGRANT, viz., being without the means 
of supporting self, and having contracted an INFECTIOUS DISEASE 
IN THE PRACTICE OF DEBAUCHERY, viz., the venereal disease, re- 
quiring charitable aid to restore to health, whereof he is convict- 
ed of record on confession, the record of which conviction has been made 
and filed in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Sessions of the City and 
County aforesaid, and it appearing to me that the said is 
an improper person to be sent to the Alms-house, you, the said Warden, 
are hereby commanded to receive into your custody, in the said Peniten- 
tiary, the body of the said , and safely keep for the 
space of month— , or until he shall he thence delivered by due 
course of law. 
“Given under my hand and seal, this day of , in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty . 
u , Police Justice.” 
This is technically called a commitment “on confession,” and 
its effects are precisely the same as they would be if the individu- 
al 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 com- 
mitment ; 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 im- 
mediately secure the sufferer the medical attention his case re- 
quires, but they have no power to send any one direct to the 
Hospital. NEW YORK. 
635 
And here an inquiry will naturally suggest itself, What does, 
or what should a magistrate know about committing a sick per- 
son, 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 dis- 
ease, and in this state is received at the Penitentiary or Work- 
house, where his clothes are taken from him, the institution cos- 
tume supplied, and the particulars of his name, age, nativity, oc- 
cupation, etc., are registered with an abstract of the commitment 
by virtue of which he is detained. He is then subjected to medi- 
cal examination and transferred to the Hospital. In this institu- 
tion he remains until cured, if that end is attained before the ex- 
piration of his sentence, and is then re-transferred to the Peniten- 
tiary or Work-house. The average time required for the success- 
ful treatment of the disease named, in the Blackwell’s Island Hos- 
pital, 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 incar- 
ceration 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 sup- 
ported 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 ab- 
surdity 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 ac- 
knowledged by all as a degradation; while a vagrancy commit- 
ment to the Work-house or Penitentiary is a positive disgrace. 
The system is a portion of the crushing-out plan already men- 
tioned, 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 636 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
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 add- 
ing 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 eco- 
nomical 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 lit- 
tle 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 sys- 
tem, the physician and the philanthropist could combine their ef- 
forts. The former would not have to encounter disease inveter- 
ately 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 en- 
dure torture from her maladies, or rely upon the assistance of em- NEW YORK. 
637 
pirics, and submit to all their extortions, rather than become a pris- 
oner. But when every resource is exhausted, and her physical tor- 
ments 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 ad- 
ditional 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 unfortu- 
nately contracts disease ? Can we consistently blame her if she 
becomes callous, when every legal provision directly tends to in- 
durate her sensibilities ? The misconduct of parents toward chil- 
dren 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 hun- 
ger, 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 mis- 
take, 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 con- 
duct convicts us of inconsistency. We have no warrant to con- 
demn 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 cul- 
pable. 638 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
This system, with all its absurdity, its prejudicial effect on pub- 
lic health, and its obvious tendency to immorality, is not adequate 
to stay the destroying scourge; on the contrary, it is likely to ex- 
tend its ravages. If a prostitute, arrested and committed to Black- 
well’s Island for drunkenness or any disorderly conduct, is found 
to be diseased, or if she commits herself knowing that she is in- 
fected, she is immediately placed under medical charge. She will 
probably remain contentedly in the hospital until the worst symp- 
toms 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 dis- 
ease, 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 whole- 
sale 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 per- 
taining to prostitution in which they occasionally exert their abil- 
ities. The vagrancy commitments by which women are “sent 
up” are generally insufficient, and there is no legal power to de- 
tain 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 im- 
mediate 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 con- 
cerned. 
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 NEW YORK. 
639 
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 conse- 
quences. 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 over- 
ruled, because the statute establishing the Work-house plainly 
shows a contrary intent. 
A prisoner is entitled to a discharge on another ground, name- 
ly, 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, ex- 
cepting 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 640 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
for his detention. The judge is strictly prohibited from entertain- 
ing any question beyond the legality of the papers; with the 
moral aspect of the question he can not interfere, and as the com- 
mitments are generally informal he has no alternative but to dis- 
charge the prisoner. 
Application for these writs must be made in the name of an at- 
torney, 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 re- 
lief which was deemed effectual at the time, but this mode is 
evaded, or can not be observed, by those upon whom its adminis- 
tration 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 con- 
centrated 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 exam- 
ined for a few moments in connection with the general aspect of 
prostitution. Few will deny that the mass of the people are an- 
swerable for many of its evils. They are cognizant of the exist- 
ence 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 employ- 
ment 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 de- 
frauding us.” The only way to secure confidence is to bestow NEW YORK. 
641 
confidence; but if a person is treated in a manner likely to de- 
stroy self-respect, the inevitable result will be a recklessness as to 
bis 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 frequent- 
ly 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 in- 
terests 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 de- 
plorable 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 whis- 
pers ; that more harm would result from instituting inquiries than 
if it were allowed to exist and fester on unnoticed.1 This apathy, 
1 “We have no right, mercifully constituted ■with less temptation to evil than 
men, to shrink with sanctimonious ultra-delicacy from the barest mention of things 
we must know to exist. If we do not know it, our ignorance is at once both help- 
less and dangerous; narrows our judgment, exposes us to a thousand painful mis- 
takes, and greatly limits our powers of usefulness.”—A Woman's Thoughts upon 
Women (New York edition), p. 255. 
“No single woman who takes any thought of what is going on around her, no 
mistress or mother who requires constantly servants for her house and nursemaids 
for her children, can or dare blind herself to the fact. Better face truth at once in 
all its bareness than be swaddled up forever in the folds of a silken falsehood.”— 
lb., p. 259. 
“ Many of us will not investigate this subject because they are afraid: afraid not 
so much of being, as being thought to be, especially by the other sex, incorrect, in- 
delicate, unfeminine; of being supposed to know more than they ought to know, or 
than the present refinement of society—a good and beautiful thing when real—con- 
cludes that they do know. 642 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
which has heretofore been the policy, has made prostitution the 
monster evil which it now is, and upon those who have advo- 
cated, or may advocate, a continuance of the same course of si- 
lence 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 diamet- 
rically 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 com- 
munity are equally responsible on account of their non-interfer- 
ence 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 char- 
acter 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 de- 
struction. “ She is down, keep her down!” is the almost univer- 
sal 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 de- 
nunciations 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 neces- 
sity, must expiate her fault by submitting to a constant succession 
of indignities and annoyances. He, whose conduct has made her 
“Oh! women, women! why have you not more faith in yourselves, in that 
strong, inner purity, which alone can make a woman brave ! which, if she knows 
herself to be clean in heart and desire, in body and soul, loving cleanness for its 
own sake, and not for the credit that it brings, will give her a freedom of action, 
and a fearlessness of consequences, which are to her a greater safeguard than any 
external decorum. To be, and not to seem, is the amulet of her innocence.”—lb., 
p. 261. NEW YORK. 
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. 
643 
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 cor- 
porations 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 de- 
creasing 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 arrange- 
ments 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 he 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 dif- 
ficult to imagine it otherwise if the facts are dispassionately con- 
sidered, 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 644 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
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 ur- 
gent 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 jurisdic- 
tion 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 pur- 
poses. This is especially necessary in a syphilitic hospital, on ac- 
count 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, he it ever so transient, has hut confirmed 
womm in vice. 
The tendency of imprisonment is directly contrary to any ref- 
ormation, 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, par- 
ticularly 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 turpi- 
tude 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 expend- 
itures of the institution. Among these women, as a bod}', 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 NEW YORK. 
645 
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 ques- 
tion is, how to be relieved of the incubus. Eigorous 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, cer- 
tainly of healthy existence, and its inestimable importance must 
over-ride all doubts and difficulties. In view of the dangers sur- 
rounding our rising generation, even supposing the men and wom- 
en 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 simi- 
lar 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 supervis- 
ion, and the establishment of a medical bureau in connection there- 
with 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 646 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
and personal. The slightest symptom of disease should be suf- 
ficient 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 admit- 
ted 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 carrjdng out the plan 
suggested now; resorting to treatment whenever he finds it neces- 
sary. 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 in- 
fected, 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, the}’" are con- 
tent 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 wom- 
en 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 oilier a premium to 
lewdness by circumscribing the dangers of infection; but this 
argument can have little weight, as it is scarcely possible that MEW YOKE. 
647 
promiscuous sexual intercourse can be carried on much more ex- 
tensively 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 vene- 
real 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 ex- 
tended 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 in- 
ducements 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 mar- 
ried 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 Kandall’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 648 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
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 com- 
munity, he would not for one moment regard it an infringement 
of personal liberty to place the subject under proper care and re- 
straint. 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 infec- 
tion, and there would be but few objectors to these suggestions. 
Among that few, the principal portion doubtless would be the ad- 
vertising empirics whose disgusting announcements occupy so 
much space in the columns of our daily journals. That they de- 
rive 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 expe- 
rience,” 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 con- 
tributing to their wealth. 
Farther: Such an institution and organization as has been de- 
scribed 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 he done), this is an 
indispensable requisite. One half the danger of venereal infec- 
tion 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 NEW YORK. 
649 
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 rea- 
sonable for a lawyer to petition the courts to order a vessel de- 
tained in Quarantine by the Board of Health because she was in- 
fected 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 cei'tiorari, 
the effect of which is to take an abandoned woman reeking with 
disease from an institution where she is under treatment, and al- 
low her to extend the venereal poison to every one who may 
have intercourse with her. This must not be understood as indi- 
cating 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 mem- 
ber 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 exist- 
ing 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 in- 
mate 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 intrust- 
ed, although connected with the Police Department, would re- 
quire 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 pow- 
er ; and its isolation would be equally important, because much 
would depend on the discretion of the examiners, and many con- 
tingencies might arise where a strict line of routine duty would 
defeat the object in view. They would be literally a “detective 650 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
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 execu- 
tives 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 re- 
quired to perform its whole duty, uncompromisingly and fearless- 
ly; 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 co- 
adjutors of those who delight to bear the Gospel to these poor de- 
graded beings; and even while listening to a recital of bodily suf- 
ferings, instances would arise where the acts of the good Samari- 
tan would be required at their hands. They would be the depos- 
itaries 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.1 
1 “Reformatories, Magdalene Institutions, and the like, are admirable in their 
way, but there are numberless cases in which individual judgment and help alone 
are possible. It is this, the train of thought which shall result in act, and which I 
desire to suggest to individual minds, in the hope of arousing that imperceptibly 
small influence of the many, which forms the strongest lever of universal opinion. 
“ All I can do—all, I fear, that any one can do by mere speech, is to impress 
upon every woman, and chiefly upon those who, reared innocently in safe homes, 
view the wicked world without somewhat like gazer’s at a show' or spectators at a 
battle, shocked, wondering, perhaps pitying a little, but not understanding at all, 
that repentance is possible. Also, that once having returned to a chaste life, a 
woman’s former life should never be ‘ cast up’ against her; that she should be al- 
lowed to resume, if not her pristine position, at least one that is full of usefulness, 
pleasantness, and respect, a respect the amount of which must be determined by her 
ow'n daily conduct. She should be judged solely by w'hat she is now, and not by what 
she has been. That judgment may be, ought to be stern and fixed as justice itself 
with regard to her present, and even her past so far as concerns the crime commit- 
ted ; but it ought never to take the lawr into its own hands toward the criminal, 
who may long since have become less a criminal than a sufferer. Virtue degrades NEW YORK. 
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. 
651 
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 num- 
ber of wise and good men contend that the sale or use of intoxi- 
cating beverages is not only an unmitigated evil, but even crim- 
inal ; they have entertained and publicly declared these senti- 
ments 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 prosti- 
tution, 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 legiti- 
mately come within the province of the medical inspectors, and 
their reports thereon to the police executive would insure imme- 
diate 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 
herself, and loses every vestige of her power, when her dealings with vice sink into 
a mere matter of individual opinion, personal dislike, or selfish fear of harm. For 
all offenses, punishment, retributive and inevitable, must come; but punishment is 
one thing, revenge is another. One only, who is Omniscient as well as Omnipo- 
tent, can declare, ‘Vengeance is Mine.’”—A Woman's Thoughts upon Women (New 
York ed.), p. 275. 652 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
least as places of residence, if they knew they were at any mo- 
ment 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 di- 
minished. 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 ex- 
amination, 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 ef- 
fectually perform their duties the Medical Bureau and the Gen- 
eral Police Department would find it necessary to make them- 
selves 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 be- 
cause 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 wom- 
en, they could act in the same manner as on the Continent of Eu- 
rope, namely, touch them upon the shoulder and quietly give 
them a hint to leave. Or another reform could easily be intro- 
duced—the confinement of all prostitutes to particular localities in NEW YORK. 
the city, so as to limit their influence. This would he tantamount 
to the ancient regulations prescribing their dress or some distinct- 
ive 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 econ- 
omy to incur it, even at the risk of increasing taxation, which it 
will not do. Recollect that every year, as the virulence of syph- 
ilis 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 con- 
tribute their quota of the cost. Now, the public bear all the ex- 
penses, either as assessments or as private payments in individual 
attacks. The magnitude of the latter item has been already esti- 
mated, and were it possible to calculate in addition the value of 
lost time, the injury to business, and the deterioration of the con- 
stitution, 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 un- 
fitted 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 654 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
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 he obtained, you and 
yours can and will, nay, do now suffer from if directly or indirectly. 
The first question for any citizen to ask himself is, Can prostitu- 
tion 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 En- 
gland, 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 disor- 
derly 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 entertain- 
ment, and, being permitted to remain open all night, become re- 
sorts for prostitutes. A public meeting for consultation upon 
these evils was held in London in January last (1858), and the re- 
marks made by some of the speakers are so much in accordance 
with the general tenor of this work as to bo 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 chairman observed “ that he was glad to see so general an interest 
elicited on this subject, and that he hoped it would lead to some practical 
result. It would, in fact, he impossible to aggravate the evil, for neither in 
Paris, Berlin, New York, nor even in the cities of Asia, was there such a pub- 
lic exhibition of profligacy.” 
The following resolutions were submitted and adopted : 
“ Resolved, That a deputation do wait as early as possible upon Sir George 
Grey, for the purpose of most respectfully hut earnestly representing to her 
majesty’s government the necessity of effectual measures being taken to put 
down the open exhibition of street prostitution, which in various parts of the 
metropolis, particularly in the important thoroughfares of the Haymarket, NEW YORK. 
655 
Coventry Street, Regent Street, Portland Place, and other adjacent localities, 
is carried on with a disregard of public decency and to an extent tolerated 
in no other capital or city of the civilized world. 
“ That such deputation be instructed to urge upon her majesty’s govern- 
ment the following measures, whereby it is believed that the evil complained 
of may be effectually controlled : 
“ Firstly, the enforcement, upon a systematic plan and by means of a de- 
partment of the police specially appointed and instructed for that purpose, 
of the provisions of the 2d and 3d of Victoria, cap. 47, in reference to street 
prostitution, which provisions have in certain localities been heretofore car- 
ried out with the best effect, and in others have been ineffectual only be- 
cause acted upon partially, and not upon any uniform system. 
“ And, secondly, the passing an act for licensing and placing under prop- 
er regulations, as to supervision and hours of closing, all houses of entertain- 
ment, or for the supply of refreshments, intended to be opened to the public 
after a certain fixed hour, it being matter of public notoriety that the houses 
of this description popularly known as night-houses have, by becoming the 
places of resort of crowds of prostitutes and other idle and disorderly per- 
sons at all hours of the night, greatly contributed to the present disgraceful 
exhibition of street prostitution. 
“ That the attention of the government be also directed to the number of 
foreign prostitutes systematically imported into this country, and to the 
means of controlling this evil.” 
The substance of one of the addresses made on the subject was 
as follows: 
The speaker “ begged to remind the meeting that a change had already 
been effected through the action of the police in the aspect of the Haymar- 
ket and Regent Street, heretofore so much complained of. The sense that 
the public eye was upon their class had caused a corresponding amendment 
in the dress and demeanor of the females frequenting those streets ; and the 
objects of this association were, so far, in good train. Strongly oppressive, 
or, as some delicately said, repressive measures could only be carried out by 
an extent of police interference inconsistent with the prejudices of English 
people, who were indisposed to deny a large extent of personal freedom to 
persons of even the most disorderly classes who had not absolutely forfeited 
their civil rights. If the association went the length of advocating that the 
act of prostitution should involve such forfeiture, and the entire riddance of 
London streets from the presence of prostitutes, they would soon find their 
hands over full. Unless they thought it possible to exterminate the vice 
altogether, they would find that its wholesale clearance from the streets 
would necessitate registration, licensing, and confinement in certain author- 
ized quarters or streets, as prevailed abroad; but such restrictions would 
entail a more ample recognition and legalization than had hitherto obtained, 656 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
and so ample, indeed, as to be very distasteful to what was called the relig- 
ious public. It would be obviously uuju tto exempt from pressure the lady- 
like prosperous harlot, while a miserable, vulgar, painted outcast was con- 
signable, because she stood out from the picture somewhat broadly, to the 
police cell and the bridewell. The meeting must be aware that there was 
already abroad among the lower half million of Londoners an impression 
that the police was already strict enough—and that this opinion was shared 
by numbers of intelligent men, neither paupers nor criminals. They must 
remember that many a gentleman of character had passed a night in a po- 
lice cell for interfering in the defense of prostitutes against the police. And 
this sentiment would deepen very dangerously if the police pressure were 
put on double, or, as some would have it, tenfold. The very policemen, too 
—men sprung from the same class of society as those female offenders— 
were as likely as any one else to be fainthearted in the work of relieving 
the eyes and ears of gentility from the presence of those whose situation 
they were not slow to trace to the schemes and desires of the genteel class. 
He did not think that the power of discrimination could be safely intrusted 
to the ill-paid constables of the Metropolitan Police, and the association of 
certain rate-payers with the police as witnesses, as hinted at by one of the 
delegates, would soon, if established, fall into desuetude. With the view of 
checking the evil in a satisfactory manner, he would recommend the institu- 
tion of a special service of street orderlies or regulators in uniform, a well- 
paid, superior, temperate, and discreet class of men, if possible, whose func- 
tions should be to observe, not to spy upon all prostitutes, especially those 
of the street-walking order, and whose circulation, as opposed to loitering 
and haunting particular spots, they should insist upon. They should work, 
not by threats, but by entreaty, advice, suggestion; but in case of contu- 
macy, should have the right to call in the regular force. He believed that 
the right of entry and inspection of all places of ill fame should be vested 
in the Home Secretary and his delegates, and this would be attained least 
oppressively by a proper system of licensing. Forced concentration would 
not be tolerated here; but concentration was valuable, as bringing immo- 
rality more under control. Parochial crusades, though prima facie, a pub- 
lic blessing, had often the effect of spreading corruption. It was recollected 
at Cambridge that when a certain proctor made very frequent descents upon 
the hamlet of Barnwall, where much of the parasitical vices of that Univer- 
sity had taken root, the people in question, far from cure or conversion, 
merely extended their radius into more rural villages. These were so soon 
corrupted that representations were addressed to the University by the paro- 
chial clergy, praying that the plague of Barnwall should be confined to its 
old bounds, and not let loose upon their simpler parishes. It was notorious 
that the same kind of thing followed on a very large scale the expulsion ot 
prostitutes from Brussels, and it could not be supposed that the attempt to NEW YORK. 
657 
strangle the growth of immorality by broadcasting its seeds, which was 
found impracticable under the powerful discipline of the English University 
and the Belgian capital, could answer among this enormous, and when 
roused, unmanageable population. The evicted of Norton Street, in the 
parish of All Souls, had settled quietly down in the next parish. Incom- 
pressible as water, the vice had but shifted its ground, and from a really 
moral point of view, more harm than good had accrued from the change.” 
These remarks do not call for any amplification. A few clays 
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 ex- 
ponent than the leader of public opinion, and the importance gen- 
erally attached to it arises from a knowledge of this fact. We 
give the article almost entire. 
“ There is a very disagreeable subject which we are compelled to bring, 
although most reluctantly, before the notice of the public, because it has 
become necessary to bring public opinion to bear upon it. Many clergymen 
and gentlemen are now associating themselves together for the purpose ol 
dealing in some degree with the notorious evil of street prostitution. It is 
our earnest desire to give them all the support in our power, so long as they 
confine themselves to reasonable measures of discouragement and repression. 
Let us not nourish any visionary expectations; it would be simply idle to 
suppose that the evil against which we are now directing our efforts, can be 
put down by the strong hand of power. It is with moral as with physical 
disease—there is no use in looking for an entirely satisfactory result from 
the treatment of symptoms; there may be alleviation, there may be dim- 
inution of the disorder, but there will be no perfect cure. Whatever tends 
to raise the standard of public morality will also tend to diminish prostitu- 
tion. In such a case we are dealing with two parties: the tempter, let us 
say, and the tempted ; with the man and with the woman. It is probably 
with the first of the two that we should principally concern ourselves if we 
would bring about any serious result. It is on the sacred action of family 
life, with the thousand influences it brings to bear upon the minds and con- 
duct of men, that we must chiefly depend if we would see any notable dim- 
inution in the numbers of those unfortunate creatures who now parade our 
streets. Let it be once understood that even among a man’s fellows and 
associates immorality is a thing to be ashamed of, and at least we should 
get rid of the contagion of vice. Time was, and the time is not a very re- 
mote one, when a British gentleman—we speak of all three home divisions 
of the empire—would nightly stagger or be carried up to his bed fuddled, 
if not absolutely drunk. A man who should thus expose himself in our 
own days would be set down as a beast, and his society would be avoided by 658 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
all who set store on their own good name. In this respect there has "been 
a palpable improvement in the manners of the age. Surely public opinion 
can be brought to bear against one vice as well as another. The time 
may come when a man may shrink from presenting himself in the sa- 
cred circle of his mother, his sisters, and his other female relatives, reeking 
from secret immorality. Conscience can turn on a bull’s eye as well as a 
policeman, and the culprit may stand self-convicted, although no one has 
been there to convict him save himself. 
“ The influences, however, of which we speak are of slow growth, and can 
not be much quickened by the hand of power. It has become necessary 
to deal at once with certain results. Now we say it with much shame, 
that in no capital city of Europe is there daily and nightly such a shame- 
less display of prostitution as in London. At Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin, 
as every one knows, there is plenty of vice ; but, at least, it is not allowed 
to parade the streets, to tempt the weak, to offend and disgust all rightly- 
thinking persons. If any one would see the evil of which we speak in its 
full development, let him pass along the Haymarket and its neighborhood 
at night, when the night-houses and the oyster-shops are open. It is not 
an easy matter to make your way along without molestation. In Regent 
Street, in the Strand, in Fleet Street, the same nuisance, but in a less de- 
gree, prevails. Now we are well aware that, if all the unfortunate creatures 
who parade these localities were swept away to-morrow, if the night-houses 
and oyster-shops were closed by the police, we should not have really sup- 
pressed immorality. We should, however, have removed the evil from the 
sight of those who are disgusted and annoyed by its display; and, still 
more, we should have removed it from the sight of those who, probably, had 
they not been tempted by the sight of these opportunities, would not have 
fallen. 
“ Now, as one practical measure for the discouragement of prostitution, all 
these night-houses and others might be placed under the surveillance of the 
police. Licenses for opening them and keeping them open might be given 
only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees of their respecta- 
bility. They might be compelled to close at certain hours; in point of 
fact, the community could tolerate well-nigh any degree of inconvenience 
inflicted upon their frequenters. In two other analogous cases similar evils 
have been dealt with in this way, and with the happiest results: we speak 
of gaming-houses and betting-offices. It is quite certain that persons who 
are firmly resolved to play and to bet will effect their purpose even now, but 
at least the sum of the evils resulting from these two vices has been greatly 
diminished since the community has resolved to withdraw from them its 
recognition. England should not grant her exequatur to prostitution. This 
is one thing which might be tried; another would be to give increased 
force to clauses which, as we believe, already exist in police acts, by which NEW YORK. 
659 
the police are empowered to stop the solicitation and gathering together of 
prostitutes in the public streets. In such a case we must trample down 
definitions and exceptional cases with an elephant’s foot, and go straight for 
results. The rule in all such cases is to give the power, and to leave it in 
the discretion of the authorities only to employ it on proper occasions. We 
have ample guarantees nowadays that such discretion can not be abused. 
“ Here, then, are two things which may be done without opening any 
visionary trenches. The police may be directed to deal with prostitutes as 
they do with mendicants, and the centres of pollution may be brought under 
proper regulation. 
“We know well enough that in such a capital as London it is hopeless 
to expect that vice of this description can be expunged altogether from the 
catalogue of our national sins, but at least let as many difficulties as possi- 
ble be thrown in its way. Again ; the benevolent persons who have taken it 
in hand to deal with this monstrous evil assert that the introduction of for- 
eign prostitutes, or, what is still worse, of girls yet uncontaminated, for the 
purposes of prostitution, might be discouraged much more than it is, perhaps 
well-nigh totally prevented. Undoubtedly England does not desire free 
trade in prostitution. Preventive measures upon this subject are surround- 
ed with difficulties; but that is no reason for despair, but one for additional 
exertion. Very numerous and influential meetings have been held upon 
this subject, and we augur well of their success. There was no display of 
ultra-Puritanic rigor, no attempt to deal with impossibilities. The speakers 
in the main contended that the public exhibition of prostitution might be 
successfully with, even if the vice were beyond their reach. Our 
streets, at least, can be purged of the public scandal, the disgraceful night- 
houses may be deprived of their powers of corruption, the keepers of brothels 
may be brought under the lash of the law, and the importation of foreign 
prostitutes may be diminished, if not put down altogether, if the public will 
take the subject up in earnest. Such were the principal points on which 
the speakers insisted ; at least their views deserve a trial.” 
This plan is calculated to restrict prostitution by placing it un- 
der 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 en- 
tertainment 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 pros- 
titutes, as already mentioned, as, in default of this, a natural con- 660 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
struction 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 neighbor- 
hoods 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 con- 
sidered 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 restric- 
tion much would be gained, so far as the public decency of the 
streets and the transit of passengers are concerned, but no possi- 
ble check would be imposed on the ravages of disease. The prop- 
osition 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 imme- 
diately 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 charac- 
ter 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 thresh- 
old, and intimated that it was the resort of the abandoned and NEW YORK. 
661 
vicious. In London, as in New York, we do not believe that il- 
licit sexual intercourse can be carried to any greater extent than 
it is now; so no danger of an increase of vice need be apprehend- 
ed there from any measures calculated to remove some of the ul- 
terior 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: 
“ In a late letter on the subject of the ‘ turning-boxes’ of the Foundling 
Hospitals I spoke of the repugnance of Protestant communities to any offi- 
cial compromise with one sin in order even to destroy a greater; for, that 
the secret reception of illegitimate children by the state does contribute 
enormously to the extinction of the crime of infanticide, while it does not 
generally increase the number of these unfortunate children, is too well 
shown by statistics to remain longer a question for discussion. But we 
have another and a more striking example of this repugnance to a collusion 
with one evil in order to smother out another and a greater in the want of 
legislation in Protestant countries on the subject of prostitution. 
“Paris, Thursday, May 27, 1858. 
“ For many months, as you know, the municipality officers, the church- 
wardens, and the journals of London have been excited over this very ques- 
tion of prostitution ; and no wonder. One need but to leave Paris and fall 
suddenly in the streets of London at an advanced hour of the evening to 
comprehend the excitement of its citizens on this subject. To the French- 
man, crossing the Channel is like crossing the River Styx; he falls sudden- 
ly into a pandemonium of street disorder and drunken licentiousness for 
which he is not prepared. He recalls Mery’s terrible picture in ‘ Nezim,’ 
and does not find it overdrawn. He sees nothing like this in his own city, 
and he is surprised beyond measure, for he has been taught to believe in 
the Puritanism of Protestant countries. 
“ When an American or an Englishman, habituated to the revolting 
night-scenes of New York or London, first arrives in Paris, he is astonished 
at the absolute absence of similar scenes in our streets. He has, perhaps, 
arrived here with the impression - most foreigners do—that prostitution, 
and revelry, and drunken debauchery stalk forth in the day and render hid- 
eous the night. But he forgets that he has arrived in a city where there 
are laws and a police to execute them—in a city where refinement and the 
proprieties of life are carried to their extreme perfection, and where such 
license and debauchery as prevails in English and American cities would be 
an absolute contradiction to the spirit and habits of the people. The reader 
will please observe that I do not speak of the morals of the people, but of 
their ideas of decorum and of the proprieties of life; of what is due to de- 
cency and an ordinary respect for appearances. 662 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“This extreme attention to appearances is, in fact, one of the principal 
attractions of a residence in Paris. The city is not only maintained free of 
inanimate filth, but of animate filth as well; at least, you are not forced to 
see it if you do not wish to. In London no lady dare walk out unattended 
after 8 o’clock in the evening, and after 11 o’clock she will have her eyes 
and ears insulted, no matter how well attended, while in Paris she may re- 
main in the streets to any horn- of the night, and neither have her eyes of- 
fended nor her ears insulted. 
“ How is this happy result accomplished? In 1851 the official register of 
the police of Paris showed 4300 public girls on its books; the number now 
may be stated at 5000. These girls and the houses in which they live are 
subjected to a series of stringent laws which renders them innoxious and in- 
offensive to the community, the police adopting the principle that since it is 
impossible to suppress the evil, it should be rendered as inoffensive to the 
public eye and to the public salubrity as possible. All these houses are 
obliged to be closed at 11 o’clock precisely. The girls are obliged to remain 
in the house, and the windows are always covered with blinds, night and 
day. A few girls are permitted, here and there, to walk up and down, in 
front of their door, from I to 11 o’clock precisely, but it is against the law 
to accost the passers-by. The houses are visited once a week by a medical 
and an ordinary inspector real inspectors, appointed by government, and 
not humbugging ward politicians. 
“ Another class of girls, and much the larger class, are those who fre- 
quent the public balls, concerts, and theatres girls who live alone in pub- 
lic lodging-houses, and who, for the most part, are not enrolled on the police- 
books nor submitted to the ordinary sanitary regulations. But this class 
are no more permitted than the rest, either in the street or at their favorite 
evening resorts, to accost people for purposes of commerce. The streets and 
the public balls are full of policemen in citizen’s dress, whose business it is to 
detect such girls as violate the law in regard to addressing people, and to 
put their names on the police-books, thus requiring them to take out a li- 
cense, and to submit to all the police regulations on the new class to which 
they have entered. As a girl regards herself as forever lost when her name 
is once placed on the police-book, and as she never knows when an officer’s 
eye may be upon her, she takes good care to violate as rarely as possible 
this law prohibiting solicitations in public. This class are always elegantly 
dressed ; it is notorious even that they are the first to initiate and to prop- 
agate those very fashions which make the tour of the world as the latest 
Paris modes. Many of them are reserved and elegant in their manners, 
and require a punctiliousness of etiquette which would not be out of place in 
the most aristocratic saloon. But one of the great aids to the Paris police 
in the maintenance of public decency in this class, is the fact that they do 
not use strong drinks ; a drunken public woman is never seen. As liquor NEW YORK. 
663 
is the greatest debaser of mankind, this one fact strikes out a marked line 
of distinction between this class here and in England and the United States. 
The great majority do not lose their self-respect, and they take good care 
of their health, hoping later on to reform and get married. This is here the 
rule, whereas in England and the United States they throw themselves away 
as rapidly as possible. 
“It is thus that the fashionable promenades of Paris, the public balls, and 
the gardens even, may be frequented by ladies and children at all hours of 
the evening and night without once seeing any of those offensive movements 
of public women so common in the streets of English and American cities. 
Contrast this state of things with that of London. Let the reader, if he 
has ever lived there, recall to mind the Strand, the Haymarket, Piccadilly, 
Leicester Square, and Regent Street - the fashionable business quarters of 
the city. One hesitates to enter upon a description of such a scene. It 
refreshes his historical recollections of the decadence of Rome; his name 
should be Plato to look upon such sights. The streets swarm with drunk- 
en and foul-spoken young girls often mere children; and when I say 
swarm, I mean that you have to push your way to get through them. Is 
it then strange that the citizens of London should feel scandalized at this 
state of things, or that its journals or its church-wardens should seek to find 
a remedy for the nuisance 1 They will think of every thing else before they 
arrive at the simple, effective, and beautifully working Paris system, be- 
cause they are a Protestant people and must not compromise with a sin. 
It must be left to find its own level. Honorable citizens must consent to 
allow their sons, often their families, to come in contact with these demor- 
alizing, stony-hearted horrors of the streets; they must suffer individually 
and as a community from the vile tendencies of street prostitution, because 
they hesitate to legalize it and to give it over to the care of the police. To 
see the finest evening promenades of a Protestant and Christian city given 
up exclusively to the unutterable shames and horrors of street-prostitution 
is a problem in the catalogue of inconsistencies which Catholic and infidel 
France can not fathom. In France the law acts on the principle that for a 
public woman to be seen in the street is an insult to public taste, and hence, 
when it is necessary for these girls to be conveyed to prison, to the Hospital, 
or to the dispensary of the Prefecture of Police, they are mounted in close 
carriages constructed for the purpose; or when by hazard they are obliged 
to take a public fiacre they are required to keep the blinds down. You 
may say what you please about the surface-morality of the French, but their 
respect for the public eye does honor to their civilization, and their law on 
this evil would be well adopted elsewhere. There is no truer principle in 
civil government than that the moral sores of society should be hidden as 
much as possible from the public view, for it is now too late in the day to 
combat the maxim long ago put in print by Pope, that vice is propagated 664 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
by a familiarity with it. The French law may be culpable in permitting 
masked balls and the keeping of concubines, but these are affairs that be- 
long to the interior, which the public need not see if they do not wish to; 
the important distinction is, that the French law does not compel an honest 
father of a family, in returning from church or theatre, to push his way 
through mobs of drunken lewd women, who salute his children’s ears with 
language they ought never to hear. 
“ In one of its last articles on the general subject of prostitution, the Lon- 
don Times makes some judicious remarks which are completely verified in 
the same class in Paris. Thus the Times declares that the proper method 
of diminishing the number of these unfortunates (for to think of eradicating 
the evil is an illusion) is not by missionary efforts directed to them, but 
rather to their poor parents; fur these poor girls were raised in sin, and 
never made afall. The same thing holds good here. Ninety-five hundredths 
of all the public women of Paris are born and raised in filthiness of mind 
and body; at the age of ten, twelve, and fourteen years they are already 
prostitutes and thieves, and when they get their first silk dress, their first 
fine toilet, earned in their shameful profession, they take a step higher in 
the scale of morality; for then they cease to steal, they acquire a certain 
degree of pride in their conduct, they are more respectful and decently be- 
haved. So that, paradoxical as it may seem, the immense majority of the 
public women of Paris, instead of making a fall, have actually been promoted 
in the scale of morality. But all these women know nothing else than the 
life in which they have been raised; they are fit for nothing else, they are 
incorrigibly averse to all the moral suasion that can be addressed to them, 
and the real remedy is an enlightenment of the parents of such children, a 
general improvement in the moral tone of the lowest classes. In fine, if it 
is an evil which can not be eradicated, if the children of beggars, and rag- 
pickers, and concierges will fall into evil-doing, it is right to protect society 
at least from the public demonstration of their vile occupation by the pas- 
sage of effective police laws.” 
As an indication that the sentiments advanced in this chapter 
are entertained bj others of the medical profession, and as endors- 
ing 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., Presi- 
dent of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house (by whose di- 
rection they are embodied in this work); and also to a report 
from H. N. Whittelsey, M. I)., Eesident Physician of the Nursery 
Hospital, Randall’s Island, on the same subject. NEW YORK. 
665 
“ Report of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital in reply to Interroga- 
tories of Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors 
of the Alms-house, upon Constitutional Syphilis. 
(Copy.) 
“Office of the Governors of the Alms-house, Rotunda, Park, I 
New York, August 24, 1855. ) 
“ Gentlemen, I am led to believe that a large number of the inmates of 
Bellevue Hospital are affected with syphilis in some of its many forms, and 
believing that the Governors of the Alms-house are called upon to take 
measures to remove, as far as possible, the cause of this great malady, to 
dry up the sources of an evil which prevails so extensively, saps the health 
and taxes the wealth of the city, etc., largely ; and believing farther that, if 
the vice can not be stayed, humanity as well as policy would suggest that 
the dangers which surround it can be lessened, I propose a few interroga- 
tories tending toward the accomplishment of this great object, desiring your 
views upon them in reply as early as Ist of October. 
“To the Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital; 
“ 1. What percentage of the total number of patients admitted to Belle- 
vue Hospital suffer directly or indirectly from syphilis ? 
“ 2. Are there not patients admitted to Bellevue Hospital whose dis- 
eases are attributable to the taint of syphilis; and have not many of the 
inmates been forced to place themselves under treatment therein, and thus 
become dependent on the city, from being unfitted in body and mind for the 
ordinary duties of life in consequence of syphilitic diseases'? 
“ 3. Are not the children of parents thus affected unhealthy ? 
“ 4. What means, in your opinion, could be adopted to eradicate or les- 
sen the disease in the city ? 
“By giving the above queries your earliest attention, you will greatly 
oblige your very obedient servant, Isaac Townsend, President.” 
“At a special meeting of the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, held 
December 18, 1855, the following report, in answer to a letter from Isaac 
Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors of the Alms-house, 
dated August 24, 1855, touching the subjects of syphilis and prostitution, 
was read by Doctor Alonzo Clark, Chairman of the Committee appointed 
by the Medical Board to consider and reply to said letter. 
“On motion, the report was accepted, and ordered for transmission to 
the President of the Board of Governors, after having received the signa- 
tures of the President and Secretary. 
“ John T. Metcalfe, M. D., Secretary pro tem. to the 
Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital. 
“New York, December, 1855.” 666 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“report on prostitution and syphilis. 
“ To Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board 
of Governors of the Alms-house. 
“In answer to your inquiries, the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital 
respectfully reply, 
“ That they caused a census of the Hospital to be taken on the 24th 
October last, for the purpose of ascertaining what proportion of the patients 
had suffered from venereal diseases. From that enumeration they learn 
that out of 417 persons then under medical and surgical treatment, 142, or 
about one third, had been so affected. In the several divisions of the house 
the numbers are as follows, viz.: 
“Of 72 females on the surgical side, 17, or 1 in 4'24. 
“ Of 130 females on the medical side, 17, or 1 in 8 nearly. 
“ Of 118 males on the medical side, 45, or 1 in 2-6. 
“Of 127 males on the surgical side, 63, or 1 in 2. 
So that out of 245 males then under treatment, 108, or 1 in 2*27, had had 
some form of venereal disease; and among 202 females, 34, or lin 6, had 
been similarly affected. 
“ Of the whole number who confessed that they had had affections of this 
class, 106 had had syphilis, and 36 had had gonorrhoea. 
“ Of the 106 who had had syphilis, 53, or just one half, were still labor- 
ing under the influence of the poison with which they had been inoculated, 
in many instances, years before. 
“ As almost all these patients were admitted for other diseases, or with 
affections which the physician alone would recognize as the remote effects 
of syphilis, it is perhaps fair to assume that they represent, with some ex- 
aggeration, the class of society from which they come. 
“ The Board has been favored with the census of the New York Hospi- 
tal (Broadway), taken for the purpose of ascertaining the proportion of 
syphilitic cases among the patients of that institution ; from which it ap- 
pears that the whole number of patients on the Bth of December was 233, 
and that 99 of that number had had venereal disease, and 37 were then 
under treatment for the same affections recently contracted. Counting the 
old cases alone, most of which were admitted, probably, for other diseases, 
this proportion considerably exceeds that above recorded for Bellevue Hos- 
pital, it being as high as 1 in 2*35. It is proper, however, in this con- 
nection to state that the returns for Bellevue Hospital are believed to be in- 
complete. They are based in a considerable degree on the confessions of the 
patients; and it is known that many, especially among the women, have 
denied any contamination, when facts, subsequently developed, have shown 
that their statements were not true. 
“ Is it to be believed, then, that one in three, or even one in four, of that NEW YORK. 
667 
large class of our population whose circumstances compel them to seek the 
occasional aid of medical charities, are tainted with venereal poison ? This 
the Medical Board do not think they are authorized to state. But the facts 
here cited, and others within their reach, justify them in saying that vene- 
real diseases prevail to an alarming extent among the poor of the city. The 
large number of women sent by the police courts to be treated for these dis- 
eases at the Penitentiary Hospital would alone be sufficient evidence of this. 
Yet such persons constitute but a small proportion of those who, even among 
the poor, suffer from these disorders. Dispensary physicians, and those in 
private practice, can show a much longer list of the victims of impure inter- 
course. 
44 But the disease is not confined to this class. The advertisements which 
crowd the newspapers, introduced by men who 4 confine their practice to one 
class of disease, in which’ they 4 have treated twenty thousand cases,’ more 
or less, demonstrate how large is the company of irregulars wdio live and 
grow rich on the harvest of these grapes of Sodom. And yet their long list 
of 4 unfortunates’ would disclose but a fraction of the evil among those who 
are able to pay for medical services. The Medical Board are unable to state 
what proportion of the income of regular and qualified physicians in this city 
is derived from the treatment of venereal diseases, but they know it is large, 
and that many who never advertise their skill receive more from this source 
than from all other sources together. They believe that there is no one 
among the unavoidable diseases, however prevalent, for the treatment of 
which the well-to-do citizens of New York pay one half so much as they 
pay to be relieved from the consequences of their illicit pleasures. 
44 The city bills of mortality give little information regarding the fre- 
quency of venereal affections. Lues Venerea keeps its place in the tables, 
and counts its score or two of deaths annually. Although this class of dis- 
orders is not frequently fatal, except among children, it is credited with only 
a fraction of the work it actually performs. The physician does not feel 
called upon, in his return of the causes of death, to brand his patient’s mem- 
ory with disgrace, or to record an accusation against near relatives. During 
infancy the real disease is buried under such terms as Marasmus, Atrophia, 
Infantile Debility, or Inflammation, while in adults, Inflammation of the 
Throat, Phagedaena, Ulceration, Scrofula, and the like, take the responsibil- 
ity of the death. 
44 These affections are strictly what the advertisers denominate them, 
4 private diseases’—a leprosy which the 4 unfortunate’ always strives to con- 
ceal, and, so long as it spares his speech and countenance, usually succeeds 
in concealing. The physician is his only confidant, and the physician re- 
fers all to the class of4 innocent secrets,’ which are not to be revealed. The 
public, therefore, know little of the prevalence of such diseases, and still less 
of the fearful ravages they are capable of making. 668 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“ Still, as has been just said, syphilis is not often the immediate cause of 
death in adults. After its first local effects are over- and these, though 
generally mild, are sometimes frightful— the poison lingers in the system 
ready to break out on any provocation in some one of its many disgusting 
manifestations, often deforming and branding its victim, threatening life 
and making it a burden, and yet refusing the poor consolation of a grave. 
Like the vulture which fed on the entrails of the too amorous Tityus, it tor- 
tures and consumes, but is slow to destroy, and often its visible brand, like 
the scarlet badge once worn by the adulteress, proclaims a lasting disgrace. 
The protracted suffering of mind and body produced by this class of distem- 
pers, the ever-changing and often loathsome form of their secondary acci- 
dents, and the almost irradicable character of the poison, seem almost to 
justify an old opinion, sanctioned by a papal bull as late as 1826, that these 
diseases are an avenging plague, appointed by Heaven as a special punish- 
ment for a special sin. 
“ The relentless character of syphilitic diseases stands out in painful re- 
lief in its transmission from parent to offspring. Here it is, indeed, that 
the children’s teeth are set on edge, because the fathers have eaten sour 
grapes. The contaminated husband or wife is left through years of child- 
lessness or of successive bereavements to mourn over early follies, and to 
repent when repentance is fruitless. The syphilitic man or woman can 
hardly become the parent of a healthy child. 
“ A young man has imbibed the contagion ; it has become constitution- 
al. After a few weeks, or months perhaps, of treatment, the visible signs 
of the disease no longer torment him. He has contracted a matrimonial 
alliance, and soon marries a healthy and virtuous woman. He flatters him- 
self that he is cured. A few months suffice to give him painful proof of 
his error, for then his growing hopes of paternity are suddenly blasted. In- 
stead of the child of his hopes he sees a shriveled and leprous corpse. This 
is but the first in a series of similar misfortunes. He has poisoned the 
fruit of his loins, and again and again, and still again, it falls withered and 
dead. At length nature seems to have triumphed over this foe to domestic 
happiness, and the parents’ hearts are gladdened by the sight of a living 
child. Their joy is short-lived. The child is feeble and sickly, and in a 
few days or weeks another death is added to the penance list of the hum- 
bled and grieving father. 
“This mournful story will need no essential changes in the narration, 
should the poison of impure intercourse, legitimate or illicit, linger in the 
veins of the mother. 
“ A child of such a connection may be born in apparent health, but be- 
fore six months have passed, some one of the numerous forms of infantile 
syphilis will be likely to appear and threaten its life. In the contest which 
follows between disease and the treatment, the physician is commonly vie- NEW YORK. 
669 
torious, but the contest is in many cases protracted, and often it is to be re- 
newed again and again. And after all, it is not believed that children 
thus tainted at their birth often grow up and acquire that degree of health 
and vigoi: which is popularly ascribed to a good constitution. 
“ These are facts familiar to physicians practicing in large towns. But 
the history of inherited syphilis is not complete. If, in the case just recited, 
the wife escape contamination from her husband and her unborn child, yet 
the sad consequences of that husband’s folly are not yet exhausted. That 
tainted child, now a sickly nursling at her breast, has a venom in its ulcer- 
ated lips which can inoculate the mother with its own loathsome poison, 
while it draws its sustenance from the sacred fountain of infantile life. But 
this is not all. These little innocents sometimes spread their disease through 
the whole circle of those who bestow on them their care and kindness. The 
contagion spreads through the use of the same spoon, the same linen, and 
even by that highest token of affection, a kiss. It has been known that a 
single diseased child has contaminated its mother, a hired nurse, and, 
through that nurse, the nurse’s child, and, in addition to these, the hus- 
band’s mother and the mother’s sister. Such are sometimes the weighty 
consequences of a single error. 
“ PKEVENTION. 
“ That the great source of the venereal poison is prostitution, requires no 
argument. The first question, then, to be answered, is, Can prostitution be 
prevented ? In answering this question, it is necessary to remember that 
the history of the world demonstrates the existence of this vice in all ages, 
and among all nations, since the day its first pages were written. The ap- 
petite which incites it has always been stronger than moral restraints— 
stronger than the law. No rigor of punishment, no violence of public de- 
nunciation ; neither exile, nor the dungeon, nor yet the disgusting malady 
with which nature punishes the practice has ever effected its extermination, 
even for a single year. Great as this evil has always been, it can not be 
denied that in our own time some of the accidents of what is called the 
progress of society tend, at least in large towns, greatly to increase it. The 
expenses of living are every where the great obstacle to early marriages, 
whether such expenses be positively necessary or be demanded by the social 
position of the individual, the fashion of his class, and therefore become 
relatively necessary. Wherever these expenses increase more rapidly than 
the rewards of labor, marriage becomes impossible for a constantly increasing 
number, or can only be purchased at the price of social position. But ab- 
stinence from marriage does not abolish or moderate the natural appetites. 
The great law of nature on which the existence of the race depends is not 
abrogated by any artificial state of society. Moral or religious principles 
will restrain its operations in some ; human laws in some; the fear of con- 670 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
sequences in some; yet there always have been, and probably always will 
be, many of both sexes who are not restrained by any of these considera- 
tions. These have sustained, and probably will continue to sustain, not 
only prostitution but houses of prostitution, in the face of every human law. 
Suppressed in one form, it immediately assumes another. Again pursued, 
it retreats to hiding-places where darkness and secrecy protect it from the 
pursuer. 
“ Severe penalties have heretofore only increased the evils of prostitution. 
If a hundred women are consigned to prison for this vice to-day, before a 
month has elapsed a hundred more have taken their places, and the hundred, 
though punished, are not reformed. Impelled by a love of their profession, 
or some by the passion to emulate the more fortunate of their sex in the 
finery of dress (a passion which first occasioned their fall), many by want, 
and all by a sense that they are outcasts, they are no sooner liberated than 
they return with new zeal to the life from which they have been detained 
only by force. Severe laws compel secrecy; they can do no more. When 
prostitution is criminal, disease, if known to others, is a practical convic- 
tion. Under such circumstances the contaminated will be slow to confess 
disease, and so subject themselves to punishment. Yet their passions and 
their necessities alike forbid even temporary abstinence. They spread dis- 
ease without limit. 
“Under this fact lies an important thought. Were it no more disgrace- 
ful to contract syphilis than it is to have fever and ague, the diseased would 
seek early relief, which is nearly equivalent to certain relief, and the disor- 
der would soon be confined to the pitiable few who have lost in drunkenness 
and misery the instinctive dread of all that is foul and disgusting in person- 
al disease. Prostitution, it is true, would then be restored to its old Homan 
dignity, yet venereal disease could then be reached, and all bid eradicated. 
But a respectable syphilis does not belong to our age and nation. It lost 
caste in the beginning, and its exploits in modern times have not been of a 
character to win it friends. The supposition aims only to show, by con- 
trast, the evils of well-intended, but probably injudicious legislation. Re- 
garding pains and penalties: if the whip, confiscation, and banishment, in 
the hands of Charlemagne and St. Louis, aided by a right good will and all 
the powers of a military despotism, could not suppress prostitution, or even 
prevent the opening of houses of prostitution ; if penal laws in Europe, from 
the days of these earnest princes until now, have utterly failed of their ob- 
ject, as they notoriously have, it is fair to ask how much more can prohib- 
itory laws accomplish in a country where the right of private judgment and 
personal liberty in speech and action arc the very foundation of the body 
politic'? They have hitherto been inefiectual. In spite of such laws, the 
vice is increasing. In consequence of such laws, its most enormous physical 
evil is extending its baleful influence through every rank and circle of soci- NEW YORK. 
671 
ety. It is still emphatically the plague of the poor; it still brings sorrow 
and misery to the firesides of the affluent and titled. 
“ A utopian view of the perfectibility of man might look for the reme- 
dy to this evil in universal early marriages, in domestic happiness, and in a 
universal moral sense which will compel men and women to keep their 
marriage vows. But, taking man as he is, we find the tides of society set 
with constantly increasing strength against early marriages ; that domestic 
happiness is not synonymous with marriage, whether early or late ; and that 
the moral sense which should teach all men to observe even their solemn 
promises would be miraculous. For these things the law has done all that 
has been thought wise to attempt, probably all that it can do. 
“ But it may be asked, If government has the power to relieve society of 
the vice of drunkenness, why despair of its power regarding prostitution'? 
In reply it may be asked if the drunkard himself is ever cured of his vi- 
cious appetite by penalties ? The statute despairs of this. It even recog- 
nizes its inability to prevent the sale of intoxicating drinks while they ex- 
ist ; it therefore claims the right to seize and destroy them. Can it seize 
on and destroy the inborn passion which fills and supports houses of prosti- 
tution ? Then it can not do for the one what it hopes to do for the other. 
“ Again: the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade have been cited 
in this connection as illustrating the power of law. In trespass, theft, 
violence, or fraud, some one is wronged; and those who have been injured 
seek to bring the offender to justice. Here there is no aggrieved person. 
All who are in interest are so in interest that they deprecate the interfer- 
ence of all law, except what they claim to believe is the law of Nature. 
“ But is there no hope in the societies of moral reform ? For the sup- 
pression, or even checking of the general vice, none whatever. The asso- 
ciation in New York deserves much praise for its zealous benevolence. They 
have brought back some of these erring women to the paths of virtue, but 
they have done no more to stop the current of prostitution thau he could do 
to dry up the current of the Hudson who dips water with a bucket. In 
truth it may be said that the paths of virtue have been found to be slip- 
pery places for some that would be thought converts. Wisdom’s ways have 
been found too peaceful for these daughters of excitement. This is said in 
no spirit of disparagement to the efforts of the society. They may well be 
proud of what they have done. But it is said to show how little the kind- 
est and the best can do to reclaim those who have once fallen from virtue 
and honor. 
“ Let the great fact, then, be well understood, that prohibitory measures 
have always failed, and, from the nature of the case, must forever fail to 
suppress prostitution. 
“ Let this additional fact, illustrated in the foregoing remark, be well 
considered, that penalties do not reform the offender, but that they enforce 672 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
secrecy in the offense, and silence regarding its consequences, which is a 
chief cause of the present wide diffusion of the venereal poison. 
“What, then, is the proper province of legislation in this important 
matter 1 
“The wise lawgiver does not attempt impossibilities. He knows that 
laws which experience has demonstrated can not be enforced, teach disre- 
spect and disobedience to all law. He knows that human passions can not 
be changed by human legislation. He knows that, if he attempt the im- 
possible greater in the control of vice, he is certain to neglect the possible 
and important less. He knows that the river will not cease to flow at his 
command. If it overflows and desolates, he raises its banks and dikes in 
the flood to prevent a general inundation. For hundreds of years the gov- 
ernments of Europe have tried in vain to dry up the sources of prostitution ; 
with the opening of the present century they began to dike in the river and 
prevent avoidable mischief. For a long time we too have had laws against 
prostitution, which, with every proper effort on the part of those in authori- 
ty, have proved as useless as those who live by this illicit traffic could de- 
sire—as mischievous in spreading disease as the quack advertiser could wish. 
Is it not time, then, to inquire whether we have not attempted too much ; 
whether, if we attempt less, we shall not accomplish more ? May we not be 
able to limit and control what we have not the power to prevent 1 If we 
can not do all that a large benevolence might wish to accomplish, in the 
name of humanity is it not our duty to do what is useful and practicable 
—all that is possible 1 
“ While the Medical Board are persuaded that by a change of policy, such 
as is suggested by the facts and reasons herewith submitted, much can be 
done to limit and control prostitution, and much more toward the eradica- 
tion of venereal diseases, they are not yet prepared to offer the details of a 
plan by which they hope these important ends can be attained. With the as- 
sistance of the Board of Grovernors, they are now in correspondence with the 
medical officers of many of the larger cities of Europe, where restrictive 
measures have replaced prohibitory. When they have obtained the infor- 
mation which they hope this correspondence will furnish, they will ask leave 
to submit a supplementary report. 
“ John T. Metcalfe, M. D., Secretary pro tern. 
“ John W. Francis, M. D., President. 
“ Note.—It is believed that not far from ten per cent, of the inmates of Bellevue 
Hospital arc admitted for affections which have their origin remotely in venereal 
disease. A certain form of rheumatism, certain inflammations of the throat, eyes, 
bones, and joints; stricture and cutaneous eruptions are the most common diseases 
of this class. What proportion, if any, of those who suffer from scrofula and scrof- 
ulous inflammations, from consumption and other chronic diseases, owe their pres- 
ent illness to a constitutional syphilitic vice, inherited or acquired, there are no 
means of determining satisfactorily.” NEW YORK. 
673 
Medical Board, Bellevue Hospital, New York: 
JOHN W. FRANCIS, M. 1)., President. 
Isaac Wood, M. D. 
Alexander H. Stevens, M. D. 
James R. Wood, M. D. 
John T. Metcalfe, M. D. 
Alonzo Clark, M. D. 
Willard Parker, M. D. 
Charles D. Smith, M. D. 
Lewis A. Sayre, M. D. 
John J. Crane, M. D. 
John A. Lidell, M. D. 
Stephen Smith, M. D. 
Benjamin W. M‘C ready, M. D. 
Isaac E. Taylor, M. D. 
George T. Elliott, M. D. 
B. Fordyce Barker, M. D. 
Valentine Mott, M. D. 
“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 : 
(Copy.) 
“ 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 prop- 
erly 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.” 
“ Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board 
of Governors of the Alms-house. 
“Randall’s Island, Dec. 24, 1855. 
“ Dear Sir,—In regard to the interrogatories contained in your note of 
a recent date on the subject of hereditary syphilis, I have the honor to 
reply: 
“1. Regarding its prevalence. It is a matter of record that nine tenths 
of all diseases treated in this hospital during the past five years have been 
of constitutional origin, and for the most part hereditary. These diseases 
assume a variety of forms, and involve nearly every structure of the body, 
terminating in cachexia, marasmus, phagedaena, etc., etc. The exact pro- 
portion which hereditary syphilis bears to this sum of constitutional de- 
pravity can not be stated with accuracy for the following reasons: 674 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
“ Children are admitted to this institution between two and fifteen years 
of age, thus throwing out of the category infantile syphilis in all its forms ; 
and except in few cases, showing none of its specific characteristics, having 
been modified by appropriate treatment, but manifests itself by general con- 
stitutional depravity, and determines a great variety of diseases, embrac- 
ing nearly every form of skin disease, affection of the mucous membranes and 
their dependencies, diseases of the eye and ear, of the bones, especially of 
joints, etc., proving the prolific and lamentable source of many of the dis- 
eases incident to children of the class presented in this institution. Making, 
then, due allowance for its masked form, in which the consequences of in- 
herited syphilis appear in this institution, together with the absence of the 
previous history both of patients and parents, it is believed an approximate 
estimate may be made of the part which this malady bears to the sum of 
constitutional disease. From the foregoing facts, and from careful observation 
during the past few years in this branch of the Alms-house Department, it 
appears that human degradation is the source of the stream of pollution sup- 
plying this hospital with disease; and farther, that of all the vices which 
make up the sum total of depravity, both moral and physical, prostitution 
and its consequences furnish the larger proportion. 
“ Here we have the sad picture presented of a large number of children 
doomed to an early grave, or to breathe out their miserable existence bear- 
ing a loathsome disease, carrying the penalties of vice of which they them- 
selves are innocent, being a generation contaminated, and capable only of 
contaminating in turn. 
“ In the above sketch I have confined my statement to syphilis as mani- 
fested in the Nursery Hospital, where the average number of cases of dis- 
ease treated is about two thousand. From this field is excluded every 
variety of the disease except the one, viz,, constitutional syphilis affecting 
children after having been modified by treatment in the infant. 
“ H. N. Whittelsey, M. D.” 
It has been stated already that the information obtained in the 
course of this investigation is, to a very great degree, undoubtedly 
reliable; but a few words more in reference to the same subject 
will not be out of place, if we consider the importance such infor- 
mation assumes when it is made the basis of serious deduction. 
These women were examined singly and alone, and a person who 
has been engaged for a number of years in any particular inquiry 
is able, by his experience, to judge whether his informants are 
speaking the truth in their replies. For this, among other reasons, 
we are satisfied that in almost every case there was no deception 
practiced, but that the answers obtained were true in all essential 
points. Another evidence of correctness is the degree of congrui- NEW YORK. 
675 
ty that characterized the greater part of the replies. Farther than 
this: a reference to the questions themselves (as reprinted in 
chapter XXXII.) will show that they were so arranged that false- 
hoods would be easily detected unless veiy carefully contrived be- 
fore the time of examination, of which those examined had no 
notice, and consequently no opportunity for fraud or deception 
could possibly exist. 
It is not denied that there were many difficulties to be encoun- 
tered, although the mode of operation was simple. It may be 
briefly described as follows. The captain of each police district 
(and oftentimes the writer with him) explained his object to the 
keeper of the house, assuring her that there was no intention to 
annoy, harass, or expose her; and, particularly, that no prosecu- 
tions should be based upon any information thus collected. This 
latter promise was supported by a letter from a high legal func- 
tionary addressed to the Mayor and Police Department, assuring 
them that the particulars they collected should not be used in any 
manner prejudicial to the women themselves, as it was believed 
that a collection of the necessary information required by such 
a work as the present would be productive of good to the city. 
When satisfied upon the subject of prosecution, they were told 
that the real motive was to obtain correct particulars of prostitu- 
tion without exposing individual cases, so as to enable the public 
to judge of its extent, and assist them in forming an opinion as to 
the necessity of arrangements which would ultimately become 
protective to our citizens at large, as well as to housekeepers and 
courtesans, and many of the housekeepers expressed a hope that 
the design might be accomplished. Their interests, therefore, led 
them to speak the truth. In short, from the precautions taken, 
and from, the result itself, very little doubt can be entertained as 
to the authenticity of the principal part of the replies on all essen- 
tial points; and upon this consideration these replies have been 
made the basis of the description and remarks upon Prostitution 
in New York. 
The task is completed, and the reader’s attention may be invited 
to the various facts substantiated, as embodied in the following 
RECAPITULATION. 
There are six thousand public prostitutes in New York. 
The majority of these are from fifteen to twenty-five years old. 
Three eighths of them were born in the United States. 676 
HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION. 
Many of those born abroad came here poor, to improve their 
condition. 
Education is at a very low standard with them. 
One fifth of them are married women. 
One half of them have given birth to children, and more than 
one half of these children are illegitimate. 
The ratio of mortality among children of prostitutes is four 
times greater than the ordinary ratio among children in New 
York. 
Many of these children are living in the abodes of vice and ob- 
scenity. 
The majority of these women have been prostitutes for less than 
four years. 
The average duration of a prostitute’s life is only four years. 
Nearly one half of the prostitutes in New York admit that they 
are or have been sufferers from syphilis. 
Seduction; destitution; ill treatment by parents, husbands, or 
relatives; intemperance; and bad company, are the main causes of 
prostitution. 
Women in this city have not sufficient means of employment. 
Their employment is inadequately remunerated. 
The associations of many employments are prejudicial to mo- 
rality. 
Six sevenths of the prostitutes drink intoxicating liquors to a 
greater or less extent. 
Parental influences induced habits of intoxication. 
A professed respect for religion is common among them. 
A capital of nearly four millions of dollars is invested in the bus- 
iness of prostitution. 
The annual expenditure on account of prostitution is more than 
seven millions of dollars. 
Prohibitory measures have signally failed to suppress or check 
prostitution. 
A necessity exists for some action. 
Motives of policy require a change in the mode of procedure. APPENDIX. 
NEWYORK TO-DAY. 
Estimated Number of Prostitutes.—Growth of the City Attended with Increase 
of Vice.—Official Figures and Views.—Effects of Attempted Suppression.— 
Prostitution and the Public Health.—Syphilis in the Hospitals.—The St. 
Louis Experiment.—lts Wholesome Effects.—Why the Law was .Repealed.— 
Divided Public Sentiment as to Recognizing and Regulating Prostitution. 
The investigation of the subject of public prostitution in the 
city of New York, the results of which are given in the pre- 
ceding pages, was brought to a close in 1858. The population 
of the city at that time was about 700,000, and Dr. Sanger 
placed the number of public prostitutes at 6,000, or one in every 
117 inhabitants. According to the last State census (1892) the 
population of the city was about 1,800,000, and, if the increase 
of prostitution has kept pace with the city’s growth, the num- 
ber of those constituting the appalling roll of vice at the present 
time should be, in round numbers, 15,500. But these figures, 
startling as they are, would seem to fall far short of the calcu- 
lations of many intelligent investigators of the subject, who 
place the number as high as 25,000 and even 30,000. The lat- 
ter was the figure given by a high police official about a year 
ago. The sensational estimate, tacitly accepted by the com- 
mittee of the State Senate during its late inquiry, putting the 
number at 50,000, bears on its face the mark of exaggeration, 
as it would show one prostitute in every 36 inhabitants, includ- 
ing men, women, and children. 
An attempt, at the present time, to make such an enumera- 
tion of the prostitutes of the city as was made by Dr. Sanger 
in 1858 would, for several reasons, prove quite futile. Even 
were the police authorities disposed to contribute their aid to 
the undertaking, they would be powerless to perform the work 
intelligently, since recent events with which the reader is famil- 
iar have resulted in driving very many of these prostitutes into 
hiding. In short, open prostitution and the existence of recog- 
nized houses of prostitution, as in 1858, are now officially 678 
APPENDIX. 
denied by the police as a body, whatever views on the subject 
may be individually entertained by them. Superintendent 
Byrnes has only to say : “ There is no record of these people 
kept in this department.” 
If we accept 30,000 as a reasonable estimate of the number 
of prostitutes and 1,800,000 as the resident population of the 
city, we have a showing of one prostitute in about every 55 
inhabitants. But those constituting the resident population of 
Hew York are by no means the only patrons of Hew York’s 
prostitutes. The floating population of the city, always large, 
and made up chiefly of the male sex, away from home and 
home influences, contributes, no doubt, more largely than any 
other element to the support of these women. The outlying 
cities and larger towns, where there are few or no public pros- 
titutes, are also all tributary to Hew York in this respect, just 
as they contribute nightly to the attendance at our theatres; 
and in view of these facts it would probably be no exaggera- 
tion to say that the 30,000 prostitutes of Hew York are main- 
tained by a population of 4,000,000 or even 5,000,000 instead 
of 1,800,000. When we consider the close proximity to the 
metropolis, to its theatres, its churches, its shops, as well as its 
haunts of vice, of such cities as Brooklyn and Hewark, it 
speaks little or nothing for the superior virtue of these commu- 
nities that they are not infested with public courtesans as Hew 
York is. The hundreds of thousands who, while claiming to 
be residents of these outlying cities and towns, daily come to 
the metropolis to transact their business, must necessarily con- 
tribute thousands who also spend nights of dissipation here. 
They are, moreover, quite as well acquainted with the ways and 
byways of the city as are the residents of our up-town wards. 
Hor is this surrounding population less a contributor to, than 
it is a patron of, the prostitution of Hew York. The woman 
whose fall from virtue occurs in the smaller town naturally 
seeks the larger city in which to lead a life of sin ; and it not 
infrequently occurs that, while practising her calling here, she 
is still known to and patronized by her former townspeople 
who were her associates when a virtuous girl. Thus the vicious 
class of a very large population outside of Hew York becomes 
directly a charge upon this city, swelling the number of inmates 
first of our fashionable haunts of vice, then of our dives, of our APPENDIX. 
679 
reformatories, our asylums, our hospitals, and, at last, our 
potter’s field. 
That the increase of prostitution has even outstripped the 
continuous growth of New York in the last quarter of a cen- 
tury there can be little doubt. Such a disproportionate increase 
of vice and the vicious classes would seem to attend the growth 
of all cities. Definite data shows this to have been the case 
in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European capitals. There 
are periods, also, that seem to be peculiarly prolific of prostitu- 
tion. The police official to whom we have already referred, 
and whose opinions are based upon long experience and obser- 
vation, expresses the view that during the years of our late 
civil war there was a very marked increase of prostitution, not 
only in New York, but throughout the country. Periods of 
business depression, also, would seem to be marked by like 
results; and the same authority is of the opinion that in the 
past two years, despite all efforts to suppress public prostitu- 
tion, there has been an almost unprecedented addition to the 
ranks of those who either covertly or openly seek to exist by 
the practice of this vice. That such should be the case will 
appear when we come to consider the causes which lead 
women to prostitution. Chief among these causes, as Dr. 
Sanger found it in 1858, as we find it to-day, and will, no 
doubt, find it to the end, is poverty, “ the stern necessity to 
live.”1 The fact that women are perhaps better paid to-day 
than they were when Dr. Sanger made his inquiry, and that 
new avenues of employment have been opened to them, can- 
not be regarded as affecting the matter to any marked extent, 
when we consider the vast and constantly increasing number of 
the unemployed and dependant. 
The last quarter of a century has witnessed great changes in 
New York—changes in the types and character of its population 
as well as a numerical increase—and could Dr. Sanger revisit 
to-day the scenes of his former labors he would witness a meta- 
morphosis of the city in respect to not only its geography and 
inhabitants, but in the location, number, and character of those 
constituting its vicious and dangerous classes. He would dis- 
1 Dr. F. R. Sturgis, whose observation has been very large both in this 
country and abroad, expresses the opinion that love of dress is even a more 
common cause of woman’s fall than poverty. 680 
APPENDIX. 
cover new causes and sources of vice, if, indeed, he did not 
discover new vices. Where he met the Irish, German, and 
Anglo-American, he would find to-day the Italian, the Russian 
Jew, and the Chinese. The influx of these latter in the last 
few years, while contributing very slightly to the ranks of 
public prostitution, has introduced vices peculiar to these races, 
and, through habits of uncleanliness and lax morals, done much 
to generate and scatter infections incident to illicit sexual indul- 
gence. The statistics of the City Dispensary, to which we will 
have occasion to refer later on, convey some idea of the vice and 
disease which exist among and infect the large class who pop- 
ulate the overcrowded tenement districts of the city. When 
we consider that venereal disease is the direct offspring of 
uncleanliness, this condition of things, this fearful menace to the 
public health, cannot be wondered at. Dr. R. W. Taylor,’ consult- 
ing surgeon of the City Hospital, and whose long experience in 
the treatment of contagions incident to vice is probably not 
exceeded by that of any member of his profession, did not hes- 
itate to express to the writer the startling opinion that the 
large majority of those who have come under his care and atten- 
tion in the last few years have come not from the houses of 
prostitution nor the street-walking class nor those contaminated 
by public prostitutes, but from the overcrowded tenements in 
the foreign quarters of the city. We will endeavor, before con- 
cluding this chapter, to consider the wisdom of legislation look- 
ing to the enrollment and regulation of New York’s 30,000 
public courtesans, and, in view of the facts just stated, it would 
seem that more effective and rigorous tenement-house and fac- 
tory laws are equally essential as sanitary measures. A start- 
ling discovery made by the writer, in his investigation of the 
vice and disease existing in a single block on the east side of the 
O O 
city, was the extreme youth of a majority of the women or girls 
infected. A mere child of fourteen jmarsjn one tenement,having 
contracted disease, communicated it directly to eleven others 
living under the same roof. This would seem to suggest 
' Dr. Taylor has, in various capacities, been connected with the City Hospi- 
tal since 1860, and, during this long period, his practice has been largely con- 
fined to the venereal wards of the institution. He is, therefore, an authority on 
inis subject. There are in the City Hospital, at present, three male and three 
female wards, six in all, in which patients suffering from venereal diseases 
only are admitted 681 
APPENDIX. 
almost promiscuous intercourse among the occupants of the 
building. 
That there has been a fearful increase of juvenile vice in 
the last few years cannot be questioned. Dr, Sanger found 
among the inmates of public houses of prostitution many who 
had not reached fifteen years of age. Yet he probably knew 
nothing of that modern creature of depravity, to whom we can 
refer only in the vernacular of the day, the “chippy.” To 
some extent these children correspond to the “ flower girls ” 
of Paris, and here, as there, their patrons would seem more 
frequently to be those libertines who are far advanced in years 
as well as in sin. 
Probably the average life of a prostitute is neither more nor 
less than it was at the date of Dr. Sanger’s investigation, for 
there has been no marked change in the habits of these women, 
certainly no improvement. The use of intoxicating liquors, an 
almost invariable accompaniment of prostitution, has certainly 
not diminished, if, indeed, it has not increased among them. 
The elder Dr. Gross, of Philadelphia, writing about twenty 
years after Dr. Sanger, says of the prostitute in this respect: 
“ Her life is generally a short one, often not exceeding three, 
four, or, at most, five years. Steeped as she commonly is in 
misery, poverty, and degradation, she soon seeks consolation in 
hard drink, and finally sinks under the combined influence of 
syphilitic poison and alcoholic stimulation.” 1 
From time to time, since the earliest history of human 
government, efforts have been made to suppress prostitution. 
The utter failure of such efforts in every instance has been 
shown by Dr. Sanger and numerous other writers; and, as the 
passions of man and the frailty of woman remain unchanged, 
there is no reason why the arm of the law or moral influences 
should be more potent in accomplishing enforced virtue and 
chastity in the nineteenth than they were in the tenth or the 
fifth century. On the contrary it may be asserted that the 
advance which mankind has made in civilization and intelli- 
gence has, on the one hand, swept away superstitions which 
once gave to the Church a power it no longer possesses, while, 
1 “Syphilis in its Relation to the Public Health,” being a paper read byS. D. 
Gross, M.D., LL.D., before the American Medical Association at its meeting 
in Detroit, June 3, 1874- 682 
APPENDIX. 
on the other hand, it has been productive of a vastly enlarged 
spirit of personal liberty which is too quick to defy the enforce- 
ment of sumptuary measures. There are ample laws against 
prostitution, both human and divine; but all attempts to rigidly 
enforce them, whether dictated by considerations of public 
policy or sentiments of religious duty, have signally failed 
whenever or wherever they have been made. 
New York has, within the past year, witnessed such an 
effort, inaugurated and led by a clergyman of much intelli- 
gence and great courage, and backed by the thoroughly 
aroused moral sentiment of the community, regardless of sect 
or creed; and yet the writer ventures the opinion that there is 
no well-informed observer of the movement or its results who 
will assert that prostitution in this city has decreased or that 
there is one less prostitute among us than there was a year 
ago. If such there be, he has only to consult the records of 
New York’s hospitals and infirmaries, where the statistics of 
diseases incident to prostitution attest the existence of prosti- 
tution, to find a most emphatic refutation of any claim to 
increased virtue among us. There has been no exodus of 
prostitutes from the city, and if, in any instance, a woman 
of this class has fled beyond the jurisdiction of courts or a 
legally constituted investigating committee, her flight has been 
prompted not by the fact of her being a prostitute or the keeper 
of a house of prostitution, but because she might become an 
involuntary witness to questionable transactions, not with her 
patrons, but with those charged with enforcing the laws 
against her business and her class. 
It is claimed that notorious houses of prostitution have been 
closed, and that prostitutes have been driven out of certain 
neighborhoods which were hitherto their haunts. If this be 
so, and these women have not left the city, where are they ? 
Or, to use the language of a physician who has a large private 
practice among them, we might rather ask, tk Where are 
they not?” The testimony of real estate and renting agents 
who have on their lists apartments and fiats in the upper 
wards of the city, on streets and in neighborhoods heretofore 
regarded as respectable, would no doubt supply an answer to 
this question. In January last a city journal,1 under the cap- 
1 The Morning Advertiser. APPENDIX. 
tion of “What Shall We Do with the Outcasts?” published 
several communications from these agents, all of whom 
admitted having had numerous applications for apartments 
from women they thought to be prostitutes, and whom, on this 
account, they refused to do business with. But that these 
women have experienced much difficulty in securing quarters 
somewhere, and generally beyond the more thoroughly policed 
quarters of the city, following the flow of population farther 
and farther uptown, and insidiously penetrating even aristo- 
cratic neighborhoods, would not seem to be borne out by the 
facts of the case. If there has been any decrease of public 
prostitution, which is perhaps a debatable proposition, it has 
logically resulted in an increase of clandestine prostitution, 
which is invariably a more dangerous phase of vice, whether 
regarded from a moral or sanitary standpoint. 
That there is more or less clandestine prostitution in all 
cities, and even in the smaller towns, cannot be questioned, and 
this leads us to inquire, what is clandestine in contradistinc- 
tion to public prostitution ? The query is not so simple a 
one to answer as it may seem, and involves an inquiry into 
what constitutes prostitution. Where both parties to the act 
have more or less regard for their reputations, and seek to 
conceal their sin from the knowledge of the world, the woman, 
if she may be called a prostitute, is only such clandestinely. 
If, in such a case, the woman sells her favors for a considera- 
tion of money or other valuables, she comes, no doubt, within 
the accepted meaning of the term prostitute. If the man is 
regardful of his reputation, and, though the woman is lost to 
shame, seeks the gratification of his passion outside of the com- 
mon brothel, as, for instance, in a house of assignation or a hotel, 
where he may even register the woman as his wife, the act 
on the woman’s part is prostitution clandestinely practised. 
Where both man and woman are thoroughly depraved and 
lost to shame they may, nevertheless, for various reasons, con- 
summate the vicious act clandestinely. When the reckless and 
shameless woman finds a customer (or a victim) she rarely 
experiences any difficulty in finding a safe place into which to 
conduct him, whatever his fears of scandal or exposure may be. 
There has, no doubt, been a marked change in the character of 
assignation houses in New York within the past few years; not 684 
APPENDIX. 
that they have become any less in number, however. Those 
houses, presided over by women, and in many instances known 
to the initiated only, have to a great extent been supplanted by a 
certain class of so-called “ hotels,” conducted by men and open 
to all comers. The recent raiding of several of these places by 
the police has brought them into notice and made public the 
methods on which they are conducted. About the only claim 
to their being hotels rests upon the fact that a hotel register 
is kept in them. Upon this the male customer is required to 
enter his supposed name, with the addenda “ and wife,” before 
he and his female companion are assigned a room. Of course 
the name he inscribes in no way concerns or interests the 
recipient of his money, and its being entered is nothing more 
than a form, or rather a “ blind,” for the protection of the 
place. That the name written (perhaps in a disguised hand) is 
that bestowed upon the man at the baptismal font, rarely 
occurs. That these places are hotels only in name, and in 
fact are really assignation houses, is sufficiently attested by the 
facts that their patrons seldom if ever have baggage, even so 
much as a satchel containing a night-robe, and that the rooms 
are occupied in turn by numerous couples during a single night. 
That these places are further equipped for mischief can be 
found in the fact that attached to most of them is a licensed 
bar from which intoxicants can be readily ordered to the 
rooms. But here we wish to do full justice to the Excise 
Department of the city by stating that in almost every instance 
where these establishments have been detected and raided by 
the police, the license to sell liquor on the premises has been 
promptly revoked. And perhaps this is the severest penalty 
that could be imposed on the proprietors. 
That clandestine prostitution, or at least illicit intercourse of 
the sexes, is also carried on to a greater or less extent in even 
the best and most exclusive of our hotels, is a fact that we refer 
to only because it serves to show how extremely difficult it is to 
control this vice or erect barriers, legal or other, that will keep 
it within channels where virtue and respectability are least apt 
to come in contact with it. When these channels are dammed 
and the overflow follows, what neighborhood, what class can 
escape the inundation ? There is, no doubt, a constant effort 
made on the part of those conducting the respectable hotels to APPENDIX. 
685 
exclude persons of bad or even questionable reputations, of 
either sex, but no precaution in this matter can prevent at least 
occasional imposition. The most scrutinizing hotel clerk, who 
is generally a good judge of human nature, will admit that he 
has often been deceived. Of the couple well dressed and of 
proper deportment, he has no warrant to demand a marriage 
certificate. Indeed, he would do so at his personal peril in 
some cases, and in any instance a mistake would be not only 
embarrassing, but expensive. Those availing themselves of this 
fact generally understand full well the disadvantage the hotel 
clerk labors under. The well dressed country swain, over atten- 
tive to his pretty and susceptible wife, would be more apt to 
raise in the clerk’s mind a suspicion than would the nonchalant 
city roue who, having often rehearsed, knows full well how to 
play his deceptive part. There is happily this to say, however, 
that those who impose upon the proprietor or the clerk of the 
respectable hotel generally so demean themselves that they 
come and go without their true character being discovered, 
and so no scandal is created and no real harm is accomplished. 
In considering prostitution, either public or clandestine, in its 
relation to public health, we approach the subject in its most 
serious and important aspect; and, fortunately, in this case we 
are provided with somewhat more definite data and a much 
fuller expression of opinion than we have been able to secure 
from those persons who have had to do with the evil merely as 
instruments of our defective laws. But even here the non- 
existence of reliable statistics, outside of a very few institutions, 
the closing of their doors against sufferers from venereal afflic- 
tions by many of our hospitals, in short, the inclination of the 
public to close its eyes against the existence of the evil and its 
direful ravages, physical as well as moral, sadly confront us. 
If even sufficient data to arouse the public understanding and 
the public conscience to an appreciation of what unregulated 
prostitution and the unchecked spreading of the infections 
resulting from this evil can be given, we will feel that our 
labor in this direction will not have been in vain. To quote 
again from Dr. Gross: 
“It would be a matter of deep interest, and, in a practical point of 
view, of the greatest possible value, if we could ascertain, even approxi- 
mately, the extent of syphilis in our cities and larger towns ; but for 686 
APPENDIX. 
such a decision there are, unfortunately, little data. It may, however, be 
assumed that it is of gigantic proportions ; that it exists in many of the 
best and noblest families of the land ; that since the establishment of 
railway travel it has penetrated every rural district ; and that it is 
poisoning, and slowly, but surely, undermining, the very fountains of life 
in every direction, sowing the seeds of death among our people, and 
gradually deteriorating the national health.” 
Dr. Gross estimated, at the date of his paper, that there was 
in the United States one person infected with the syphilitic 
virus in every 20 of our population. This, at the present time 
(1895), estimating our population in round numbers at 
70,000,000, would show the startling number of 3,500,000 
syphilitics. In 1874, Dr. F. K. Sturgis read before the Ameri- 
can Public Health Association an interesting paper,1 in which 
he estimated that out of a population of 942,292 persons, 50,450 
were suffering from syphilis in Hew York City. And he 
observes: “ I believe this number to be under, rather than 
above, the true amount.” But “even this,” he continues, 
“ represents only the civil population.” The report of the 
Mercantile Marine of Hew York City shows a still worse state 
of things. During 1872 and 1873 the total number of patients 
treated was 24,645, and of this number 3,779 were due to 
syphilis. If all the venereal cases are considered in the above 
sets of figures the number becomes still larger—for Hew York 
City, 61,705 ; for the Mercantile Marine, 4,170. 
In giving these figures of Dr. Sturgis, we may remark that 
they are the most complete and authentic that have been com- 
piled since Dr. Sanger’s investigation, and they afford us a basis 
of estimating with approximate accuracy, at least, the amount 
of venereal and syphilis prevailing in this city at the present 
time. Dr. Sturgis expressed to the writer the opinion that 
these diseases have certainly not decreased in later years, but 
have fully kept pace with the city’s growth and the attendant 
growth of prostitution. The population of Hew York has at 
least doubled since the date of Dr. Sturgis’s enumerations, there- 
fore it is reasonable to conclude that instead of 50,000 there are 
100,000 persons among us to-day who are suffering from syphilis. 
In 1893, Dr. Prince A. Morrow, Chairman of the Board of 
'“The Relations of Syphilis to Public Health.” By Frederic R. Sturgis, 
M.D., Clinical Lecturer upon Venereal Diseases in the University of the City 
of New York, Surgeon to Charity Hospital, etc. APPENDIX. 
687 
Burgeons of the Charity Hospital, Blackwell’s Island, contrib- 
uted to medical literature an exhaustive treatise, in three large 
volumes, upon the ailments resulting from vice.l From a paper 
contributed to the second volume of this work by Dr. Samuel 
F. Armstrong,2 we quote, under the heading of “ Statics [of 
syphilis] in the General Hospitals,” the following: 
Here our research is confronted by the fact that general hospitals, as a 
rule, take but few patients suffering from syphilis ; the illogical position 
being maintained that such patients are affected by a disease that has been 
acquired in consequence of their own viciousness, and that, as a hospital 
cannot afford relief to all that apply, therefore these cases are best refused. 
Thus, in the reports of the Massachusetts General Hospital for the years 
1879 to 1887 inclusive, it may be found that from four to twelve per cent, 
of the total number of persons refused admission were suffering from 
syphilis. The annual reports of St. Luke’s Hospital, New York City, show 
the number of cases of men and women suffering from syphilis that were 
treated in that institutiqn, as well as the diseases from which those refused 
admission were suffering. From Table I. it may be seen that from three 
to fifteen times as many syphilitic patients were refused treatment as were 
treated for that disease; and from this hospital, here cited because its 
reports happened to be most convenient, we may judge the action of most, 
if not of all, similar institutions. 
TABLE I. 
PER CENT. OF SYPHILITIC PATIENTS TREATED AND REFUSED TREATMENT. 
Year. 
1881 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
1889 
1890 
Per cent, of Syphilitic 
Patients treated 
0.8 
0.7 
0.9 
1.0 
1.2 
1.1 
0.8 
1.3 
1.8 
1.8 
Per cent, of Syphilitic 
Patients among those 
refused 
6.0 
4.8 
4.8 
15.4 
18.0 
4.0 
4.4 
5.0 
5.4 
4.5 
ST. ltjke’s hospital,. 
From the statistics of the United States Marine Hospital Service for the 
decade 1881 to 1890 inclusive, it may be learned that in a number of 
patients, ranging from thirty-two to fifty thousand a year, the number of 
cases of primary syphilis varies from three to five and one-tenth to fifteen 
per cent., while the percentage of deaths due to syphilis to the total 
mortality varies from one to two and three-tenths per cent. When these 
1 “A System of Genito-Urinary Diseases, Syphilology, and Dermatology,” 
edited by P. A. Morrow, M.D., Clinical Professor of Genito-Urinary Diseases, 
formerly Lecturer on Dermatology in the University of the City of New York, 
etc. 
2 Samuel Treat Armstrong, M.D., Ph.D., Visiting Physician to Harlem 
Hospital, ex-passed Assistant Surgeon United States Marine Hospital, Chair- 
man of Section on Public Health, New York Academy of Medicine, etc. 688 
APPENDIX. 
statistics are further analyzed, a difference is found between the frequency 
with which these forms of syphilis occur in hospital and in dispensary 
patients. In the former class the percentage of primary syphilis varies 
from one to three, while among dispensary patients it varies from one and 
one-tenth to two and two-tenths per cent.; and secondary syphilis in 
the former class varies from four and five-tenths to six and four-tenths 
per cent., while in the latter class it varies from seven and two-tenths 
to eight and six-tenths per cent. The average annual percentage of cases 
of primary syphilis among hospital patients is 1.94, and among dispen- 
sary patients it is 1.58 ; the average annual percentage of cases of second- 
ary syphilis in the former class is 5.29, in the latter 7.77. Notwith- 
standing the wide variation in the number of patients treated annually, 
an inspection shows the close relationship sustained between the percentage 
of cases of primary and secondary syphilis. 
In 1881, 9.7 per cent, of the total patients treated were suffering from 
syphilitic diseases; in 1882, 8.8 per cent.; in 1883, 8.2 per cent.; in 
1884 and 1885, about 7.6 per cent.; in 1886, 8.3 per cent.; in 1887, 1888, 
and 1889, about 9.2 per cent.; and in 1890, 8.4 per cent. In other words, 
among a number of thousands of patients coming from a class of society sup- 
posed to be particularly susceptible to venereal diseases, less than ten per 
cent, of the total number of patients treated were suffering from the various 
forms of syphilis. These percentages show no tendency to an increase or to a 
decrease of the disease during successive years, and their range or variation 
is so moderate that the mean and probable error of each year is about one 
per cent. Another factor that is to be considered is, that there is absolutely 
no more restriction imposed upon these men than there is upon the members 
of the community at large. 
We are indebted to Warden Robert Roberts of the Charity 
Hospital for the following table showing the number of persons 
suffering from venereal disease who were sent to that institu- 
tion by the Commissioners of Charities and Correction during 
the five years from 1890 to 1894, inclusive: 
Month. 
1890 
1891 
1892 
1893 
1894 
January 
119 
120 
121 
92 
74 
February 
116 
94 
113 
78 
54 
March 
130 
94 
109 
76 
89 
April 
131 
93 
88 
55 
99 
May 
127 
102 
95 
68 
113 
June 
125 
127 
116 
88 
115 
July 
150 
140 
112 
104 
122 
August 
147 
126 
141 
163 
156 
September 
152 
118 
127 
164 
131 
October 
138 
105 
96 
66 
113 
November. .... 
140 
137 
123 
113 
108 
December 
133 
152 
121 
111 
92 
Total 
1,608 
1,408 
1,362 
1,178 
1,266 APPENDIX. 
689 
These figures may admit of some explanation. The steady 
decrease in the number of persons treated from 1890 to and 
including 1894, can possibly be accounted for upon the theory 
that several of the city hospitals have somewhat relaxed their 
former rule of wholly excluding those suffering from venereal 
diseases. It is upon this theory that Dr. Taylor accounts for 
these figures. Not that the fact carries with it any great sig- 
nificance, but it will be noted that the number treated for vene- 
real disease in this hospital in 1894, covering the period when a 
spasmodic effort to enforce the laws against prostitution was 
being made, shows a considerable increase as compared with 
the preceding year, 1893. 
The number of venereal patients treated in the New York 
Dispensary during the first three months of the current year 
likewise shows an increase when compared with the correspond- 
ing period of the preceding year. These are the figures : 
First three months of 1894 769 
“ “ “ “ 1895 823 
Increase 46 
And we may add. in this connection, that about ten per cent of 
those treated in these periods were suffering from syphilis. 
The following interrogations, which are substantially the 
same as those submitted to Dr. Sanger by Isaac Townsend, 
Esq., in 1858, when the latter was president of the “ Board of 
Governors of the Almshouse of the City and County of New 
York,” 1 were submitted by the writer to Dr. Prince A. Morrow, 
Chairman of the Board of Surgeons of the City Hospital, and 
to Dr. Frederic R. Sturgis, and Dr. R. W. Taylor, also of the 
medical staff of that institution : 
1, What proportion of the inmates of the institution under your medical 
charge are, in your opinion, directly or indirectly suffering from syphilis ? 
2. Are, or are not, the number of such inmates on the increase ? 
3. Do not patients in the different institutions often leave before the 
disease is cured, so that they are liable to infect other persons after their 
departure ? 
4. Are not the offspring of parents affected with constitutional syphilis 
1 In 1860 the present Board of Commissioners of Public Charities and Cor- 
rection succeeded the Governors of the Almshouse in its charge of the va- 
grant and pauper institutions of the city and county of New York. 690 
APPENDIX. 
subject to many diseases of like character which cause them to become a 
charge upon the city for long periods of time and often for life ? 
5. What are your views in reference to the best means of checking and 
decreasing this disease; and what plan, in your opinion, could be adopted 
to relieve New York City of the enormous amount of misery and expense 
caused by syphilis ? 
To these interrogatories were added the following also: 
6. Is it your opinion that there has been a marked abatement of diseases 
incident to prostitution within the past twenty-five years ? 
7. Have more recent methods of treating venereal diseases resulted in 
lessening the transmission of such diseases to the offspring of those con- 
taminated ? 
8. Do you believe that the closing of houses of prostitution and the 
scattering of the inmates of such houses into less public places to ply their 
calling is calculated to increase or diminish disease among them ? 
Dr. Morrow has kindly given the following replies to all but 
the first two questions (referring for answers to these to the 
books of the hospital): 
3. Yes; the duration of the stay of such patients in the hospital being 
entirely voluntary, they often leave before they are cured, when the disease 
is actively contagious and susceptible of hereditary transmission. 
4. The effect of hereditary syphilis is manifest in the production of 
numerous diseased states or conditions which seriously impair the vitality 
of the child, and which may be termed para syphilitic affections. Prom- 
inent among these may be mentioned certain organic and dystrophic 
troubles, arrest of development (physical and mental), hydrocephalus, 
rickets, epilepsy, infantile paralysis, tabes, etc. 
5. No system or plan of checking the spread of syphilis can be devised 
into which the regulation of prostitution does not enter as the principal and 
most essential factor. lam not prepared to formulate my views as to the 
best means of regulating prostitution. 
7. No; while it is generally conceded that syphilitics are less liable to 
transmit their disease when under the full influence of active specific 
treatment, practically this condition is seldom complied with, especially 
among the ignorant lower classes. 
6. I think not; on the contrary, there has been an increase. 
8. A careful investigation into the sources of syphilis would seem to 
show that clandestine or private j)rostitution is responsible for more cases 
of the disease than public houses of prostitution, where commercial 
interest prompts the proprietress of the establishment to protect her 
patrons as far as possible from danger of contagion. 
In response to the above inquiries Dr. Sturgis has given his 
views quite freely and fully in the following communication 
addressed to the writer; APPENDIX. 
691 
New York, April 27, 1895. 
My Dear Sir : 
In reply to the list of questions which you have submitted to me, with 
regard to the subject of prostitution as affecting the public health, before 
answering your questions categorically, allow me to state that, of course, 
the answers given are based upon opinion and belief, and cannot be con- 
sidered as absolutely correct without an opportunity of consulting statis- 
tics and figures bearing upon the several points contained in your commu- 
nication. 
In answer to the first question, “What proportion of the inmates of 
institutions under your medical charge, are, in your opinion, directly or 
indirectly suffering from syphilis ? ” I would reply that, in the wards 
devoted to venereal diseases which are under my professional supervision, 
I should say that certainly from fifty per cent, to sixty-five per cent, of 
the cases were syphilitic. In a paper which I read some years ago before the 
American Public Health Association, I collated the cases which occurred in 
the New York Dispensary, and in the Charity Hospital, as it was then 
called, on Blackwell’s Island, and the proportion of syphilis to all venereal 
cases was forty-one per cent. 
Query 2. Are or are not the number of such inmates steadily on the 
increase ? 
That question I cannot answer without having the statistics of the 
hospitals at my disposal. I should say, however, that while there might 
be no actual increase as regards the hospital itself, the proportion of 
venereal diseases to the total population is slowly but steadily increasing. 
Query 3. Do not patients in the different institutions often leave before 
the disease is cured, so that they are liable to infect other persons after 
their departure ? 
Yes. It is certainly very unfortunate that syphilitic or venereal subjects 
cannot be retained until the surgeon decides that they at least are no 
longer objects of dangerous contamination to those about them. Formerly 
patients were self-committed; that is to say, upon application at the central 
office of the institution, they were obliged to become as “self-committed 
criminals.” That gave the surgeon the right to retain them as long as he 
thought it necessary to complete the cure or, at any rate, if not a cure, to 
retain them until the dangerous and contagious period had passed. That 
wise rule has been abolished, and patients can come and go from the 
venereal divisions as they do from other divisions of the hospital. 
Query 4. Are not the offspring of parents affected with constitutional 
syphilis subject to many diseases of like character, which cause them to 
become a charge upon the city for long periods of time, and often for 
life ? 
Probably not ; for, fortunately, most of the offspring of parents affected 
with syphilis, and this is especially true where both parents are diseased, 
die within the first six months of their extra-uterine life. Where the male 
parent only is infected and the mother escapes infection, the children in APPENDIX. 
a very large proportion of cases, and I myself personally think in all 
cases, do not show any signs of disease, and are, to all intents and purposes, 
as healthy as the average child. If the mortality among syphilitic children 
were not so great, they would possibly become a charge upon the city 
charities. 
Query 5. What are your views in reference to the best means of check- 
ing this disease ; and what plan, in your opinion, could be adopted to 
relieve New York City of the enormous amount of misery and expense 
caused by syphilis ? 
A good-sized volume could be written in answer to this question. 
Stated briefly, proper supervision (both medical and police). Proper 
control, if honestly and conscientiously carried out, would, in my opinion, 
decidedly check the increase of the disease, and probably decrease not 
only its virulence, but its frequency. As to the plan, I must decline to 
commit myself to any special one, as it is impossible, in the present con- 
dition of municipal politics, to even hope that such a thing would be 
conscientiously and thoroughly carried out. Irrespective of the question 
of official blackmail which is always in these cases possible, and which 
a recent investigation in this city has shown to be more than possible, the 
sentiment of the Anglo-Saxon race, whether wise or foolish, is strongly 
against the question of official supervision and control of this evil. In 
this we appear to follow the example of the ostrich, which remarkable 
bird is said to bury its head in the sand, and, inasmuch as it sees nothing, 
believes that nothing sees it. Although a self-evident fact that such 
things as harlots and syphilis exist, we declare that nothing shall be 
done to check or control them. In sanctified circles such control, I 
understand, is considered a compromise with sin. 
Query 6. Is it your opinion that there has been any marked abatement 
of disease incident to prostitution within the past twenty-five years ? 
Again the absence of statistics prevents me from making a categorical 
reply to this question. Judging from my own experience and that of 
others, I should say decidedly that it had not. 
Query 7. Have more recent methods of treating venereal diseases 
resulted in lessening the transmission of such disease to the offspring of 
those contaminated ? 
My opinion is that they have, in lessening the intensity of the disease, 
diminished the chances of transmission to the foetus in utero, either 
indirectly through the father, if we believe in that mode of transmission, 
or directly through the medium of the mother. 
Query 8. Do you believe that the closing of houses of prostitution and 
scattering the inmates of such houses into less public places to ply their 
calling, is calculated to increase or diminish disease among them ? 
I know such action is calculated to increase venereal diseases among 
public women, inasmuch as the majority of them are careless of their 
health and somewhat careless in their habits. The seasoned woman, who 
has passed her novitiate in prostitution, who appreciates the fact that her APPENDIX. 
bread and butter depends upon her sexual health, and who knows that 
disease of her genital organs means loss of custom, loss of money, and per- 
haps destitution, is a careful woman, and, looking at it in a purely sexual 
light, is the best of all women to have connection with. But the young 
harlot knows little about the question of her sexual health, and appreciates 
still less the importance of looking after herself until disease has over- 
taken her, and then, either through ignorance, or perhaps from dire neces- 
sity, plies her trade till pain and misery force her to stop, and, in the 
meantime, she has been the cause of numerous infections, not only to her 
male companions, but to the innocent wives and children at home. Now, 
I urge the plea of proper regulation, entirely apart from the sentimental 
side. Medical men can not and do not look upon disease as a divine pun- 
ishment, and I do not see how any sensible person can hold that view 
without having his belief in the goodness and kindness of God severely 
shaken. It is purely a matter of sanitation; and I believe that a proper 
control would tend to diminish venereal diseases. Failure of the system 
in foreign cities, where it has been introduced, is due to the fact that the 
supervision has not been properly carried out and the control has not been 
stringent. In instances where thoroughness and knowledge are directed 
towards the extinction of this disease, I believe it is as capable of ameliora- 
tion and of limitation as is its no less terrible, if more decent, congener, 
the small-pox. 
I trust I have answered the questions you have put to me satisfactorily, 
and I remain, with expressions of respect, 
Yours very faithfully, 
F. E. Sturgis. 
Dr. Taylor, while substantially agreeing with Drs. Morrow 
and Sturgis in the views expressed by them, is of the opinion 
that not only a larger percentage of venereal disease and syphilis 
comes from clandestine than from public or open prostitution, 
but that a still larger percentage than from either of these is 
contributed by a class composed of those who are not recognized 
as prostitutes, and who, therefore, could not be reached by any 
scheme of regulation or control. A thoroughly enforced system 
of sanitary visitation and inspection of those females who could 
be enrolled by the police would, in his opinion, be conducive to 
the public health, and result, in some measure at least, in less- 
ening the existence and spread of venereal disease and syphilis, 
and should, therefore, be adopted; but that this should be fol- 
lowed by supplementary legislation, which should, if possible, 
reach the tenement house, the factory, and all establishments 
where females in large numbers are employed on small salaries. 694 
APPENDIX. 
The view which Dr. Taylor entertains of accomplishing this 
latter result is, however, a very gloomy one. 
Volumes have been written upon the scourge of syphilis, 
and volumes more might still be written without exhausting 
the terrible subject. We have quoted quite sufficiently from 
those who are eminent as syphilologists, and there is probably 
no physician, however circumscribed his practice or observa- 
tion, who cannot testify to the ravages of the disorder. Can 
the disease be controlled ? Can its ravages be circumscribed 
or lessened? The writer, adopting the language of Dr. Mor- 
row, believes that “ the regulation of prostitution, and the con- 
trol of syphilis are but convertible terms.” 
No one can read the concluding pages of Dr. Sanger’s work 
without discovering that he was an earnest advocate of the 
regulation of prostitution by legislative enactment, of a thor- 
ough system of enrollment, licensing, and sanitary inspection. 
It is sad to reflect that, practically, the only experiment in that 
direction on this side of the water was made in a Western city 
about the time of his death, which occurred in 1872. A law, 
drafted upon the lines of that in operation in Paris, was en- 
acted by the Missouri legislature, the object of which was to 
regulate and bring under control prostitution in the city of St, 
Louis. For about a year only this law remained upon the 
statute books of the State—a very short period, and yet suffi- 
ciently long to test, in a measure, its operation and effect. 
Its repeal, to quote the language of a St. Louis journalist in a 
recently published communication,* “ was the result, not of 
any failure of the measure to accomplish the wholesome ends 
for which it was enacted, but it was in obedience to a morbid 
sentiment, begotten of absolute ignorance of the subject.” The 
writer adds: “ There was not a vote from any member repre- 
senting a city constituency favorable to the repeal of the law, 
and not a vote expressive of the sentiment of a country constit- 
uency against it. The incidents attending the event were 
dramatic. Throughout the State there was a moral uprising 
against what was regarded as the licensing of vice, and the lob- 
bies of both branches of the legislature were taken complete 
possession of by the clergy of the various denominations and 
earnest co-workers of the other sex. A petition, praying for 
*“ The Missouri Social Evil Law.”—Morning Advertiser, January 12, 1895, 695 
APPENDIX. 
the repeal of the obnoxious law, signed by more than one hun- 
dred thousand good people, was presented. The document was 
cumbersome. A wheelbarrow decorated with white ribbons, 
and accompanied by a group of innocent young girls attired in 
spotless white gowns, was brought into service, and on it the 
gigantic and emphatic protest against the licensing of vice was 
wheeled up to the clerk’s desk to be read. Courageous, indeed, 
would have been the country member who would have voted 
otherwise than he did. There were, of course, counter-petitions 
from the cities, and conspicuous among the signers of these lat- 
ter were members of the medical profession. Indeed, lam 
sure the law received the almost unanimous endorsement of the 
doctors of medicine, as it received quite as unanimously the 
condemnation of the doctors of divinity. 
The provisions of the St. Louis law were substantially as fol- 
lows : All prostitutes publicly plying their avocation were 
registered. These were divided into three classes—the inmates 
of houses, the occupants of rooms outside of such houses, and 
those known as “ kept women,” or mistresses. There was no 
distinction whatever between these classes. In the eye of the 
law the “ kept woman ” was quite as much a prostitute and 
subject to the provisions of the law as her less fortunate sister 
of the common disorderly house. No registered woman was 
permitted to change her abode without first giving notice to 
the authorities, so that her whereabouts was constantly known. 
Many of the more vicious and corrupting practices of the 
business were absolutely prohibited and practically suppressed. 
Soliciting, either on the street or from windows or doors of 
houses of prostitution, was severely punished, a second offense 
generally resulting in a deportation of the offender from the 
city as a vagrant. No carriage or public conveyance was per- 
mitted to stop or stand in front of a house. No “ red lamp of 
sin ” was tolerated ; in short, no light of a color calculated to 
attract the attention of a passerby was allowed in hallway or 
parlor. The front doors of all houses were kept unlocked, thus 
admitting at all hours not only the patron, but the police as 
well. In fact, every barrier between the authorities and this 
vicious class was, as far as possible, removed. 
The city was divided into three districts, both in respect to 
sanitary and police regulation. A physician of recognized stand- 696 
APPENDIX. 
ing was placed in charge of each of these districts, whose duty 
it was to compel a weekly medical inspection of each and all 
of the registered unfortunates. A nominal fee was collected 
weekly from the inmates of houses and rooms, and a larger fee 
from the proprietors of houses. The money thus collected 
went indirectly back, to a great extent, to those contributing 
it, as it was largely devoted to the maintenance of a hospital, 
open at all times to the members of this unfortunate class. 
Referring to this hospital, the writer from whom we have 
just quoted observes : “ If ever these rarely reclairaable women 
were brought directly under effective moral influences, it was 
when inmates of this well-regulated sanitary institution, where 
not only the best medical attention was afforded them, but 
every moral influence cast about them calculated to induce 
reformation.” 
Again this apparently well-informed writer says : “ The law 
had been in operation but a short time when its salutary effects 
were clearly discernible. Primarily, the evil itself was lessened, 
many of the worst members of a bad class preferring to leave 
the community sooner than to subject themselves to the re- 
quirements of the new law. But of more consequence and 
value to the city was the marked decrease of physical ailments 
invariably attendant upon this vice.” And this latter state- 
ment would seem to have been attested by many of the lead- 
ing physicians of the city. The Missouri Medical Record,* in 
an editorial printed a few weeks after the repeal of the law, 
stated that “ the system had operated most beneficially in the 
interests of the community as well as the welfare of the pros- 
titute,” adding that “ many of the inmates of the hospital, 
influenced by the ministrations of good men and noble women, 
had been seeking the ‘ purer and better way,’ and had become 
so fully aware of the physical advantages arising out of the 
law, that not a few of them voluntarily subjected themselves to 
inspection at their own expense, after the abrogation of the law.” 
Even prior to the enactment and repeal of the St. Louis law 
another short-lived experiment was made in the same direction, 
in a much smaller city, and under very different conditions. It 
is well worth referring to, however, as the results accomplished 
bear out all that was claimed for the St. Louis system. 
1 Missouri Medical Record, May 15, 1874. APPENDIX. 
697 
At the eighth annual meeting of the American Public Health 
Association, held in Hew Orleans, in November, 1880, Dr. A. 
L. Gihon, Medical Director of the United States Navy, as 
chairman of a committee appointed the preceding year to 
investigate the prevalence of venereal diseases and suggestsome 
practical plan of prevention, submitted a very interesting 
report, in which occurs the following: “ Colonel Fletcher, of 
the Surgeon-General’s Office of the United States Army, writes 
to your committee: 
“In 1868, while I was on duty in Nashville, the question of the periodi- 
cal examination of prostitutes, as a protection to the troops stationed at 
or passing through that city, was referred to another medical officer and 
myself. We drew up regulations for the purpose, and for nearly three 
years the women were examined, at first every two weeks, but subse- 
quently every ten days. 
“I believe this was the first occasion of any systematic inspection of 
prostitutes attempted in the United States. Its results may be briefly 
stated thus : 
“ 1. The amount of venereal disease was markedly lessened, so much so 
that its occurrence came to be looked upon (absurdly, of course) as an 
imputation on the care of the examining surgeon. 
“3. The women, who were at first rebellious, became quite reconciled to 
the system. I have known them to come to the hospital voluntarily, desir- 
ing to be examined for suspected disease. 
“3. It was self-supporting, the fees paying the expenses of the hos- 
pital.” 
The committee from whose report we have quoted the above 
recommended that a law should be enacted that would make it 
a criminal offense to knowingly communicate, directly or 
indirectly, or to be instrumental in communicating, a conta- 
gious disease, such as small-pox, scarlatina, or venereal diseases, 
and giving to boards of health, and to State and municipal 
health officials under their control, the same power of prevent- 
ing, detecting, suppressing, and gratuitously treating venereal 
diseases that they now possess in the case of small-pox or other 
contagious diseases. 
Since the publication of Dr. Sanger’s work the law known 
as the “ Contagious Diseases Act ” has been tried and aban- 
doned in Great Britain. The arguments advanced by mem- 
bers of the medical profession as well as laymen, both favorable 
to and against this law, would fill volumes, and many of the 698 
APPENDIX. 
latter were based upon morbid ideas of morality. Perhaps the 
strongest argument put forward (if it is an argument) by those 
favoring the abrogation of the measure was that its provisions 
were carelessly and indifferently enforced. The same assertion 
has been advanced against the system as it exists in Paris, 
Berlin, and elsewhere. But neglect, inefficiency, or dishonesty 
among those charged with executing a law cannot logically 
stand as arguments against the law. 
The great majority of the members of the medical profession 
who have given the subject attention, would seem to earnestly 
favor some system of regulation and inspection as the only 
means of checking and controlling syphilis. This profession 
has strong allies also among laymen who are not blinded by 
prejudice. Were the effects of the scourge of s}Tphilis to end 
with the guilty, were the innocent exempt, we might, perhaps, 
accept the argument of the moralist that “ those who sin 
should suffer.” But when we bear in mind that the unoffend- 
ing offspring of erring parents are also sufferers, justice and 
humanity demand, for them at least, succor and protection. 
After giving the statistics that we have elsewhere presented, Dr. 
Gross adds : “ Can we wonder at the enormous rate of infantile 
mortality in our larger cities ? Like apples which rot upon the 
tree before they are ripe, the children of these infected persons 
drop dead from their mother’s womb ; or, if they are born 
alive, they are sure to perish soon after birth.” 
That there has been no abatement of venereal diseases since 
the date of Dr. Sanger’s investigation, but that they have 
steadily increased with the growth of the country, and the cor- 
responding increase of prostitution, may be inferred from the 
figures we have been able to present as to New York City. 
Shall we as a people, as a nation, or a State, still close our eyes, 
and ostrich-like bury our heads, that we may not see the vice 
and disease that are working such mischief, such havoc 
among us; or will we by legislation attempt at least to lessen 
the evil and its ravages and keep them within bound ? To quote 
again from Dr. Gross: 
“When a pestilence, as, for example, small-pox or cholera, breaks out in 
a community, and threatens to decimate its population, every man’s fears 
are at once aroused, and steps taken to counteract its progress ; every 
citizen is upon the alert, and every newspaper is urgent in its appeals for ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
699 
help ; but here is a disease (syphilis), a thousand times worse than the 
most deadly epidemic, doing its work slowly, and, as it were, in disguise 
and darkness, ruining entire families, destroying many of our best men 
and women, and laying the foundation of untold misery, wretchedness, and 
woe, not unfrequently extending through several generations, and literally 
poisoning the very fountains of life.” 
Many arguments have been advanced by the metropolitan 
press favorable to local self-government for our larger cities, 
and possibly none stronger could be put forward than that 
through local legislation, uninfluenced by rural ignorance and 
prejudice, and unobstructed by rural interference, some system 
might be devised by which prostitution in New York City and 
in the larger cities of other States could be brought under such 
surveillance and control as would greatly lessen its ghastly con- 
sequences, disease and death. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
For numerous courtesies and much assistance in the prepara- 
tion of the appendix and notes to this volume, the writer desires 
to express his grateful acknowledgments to those members of 
the medical profession whose names appear in the work, and 
also to Dr. C. W. Cutler, Physician-in-chief, and Dr. M. J. 
Echeverria, in charge of the Genito-Urinary department of the 
New York Dispensary; Mr. G. F. Britton, Secretary of the 
Commission of Charities and Correction ; Mr. John S. Brownne, 
Resident Librarian of the Academy of Medicine; and to Mr. 
Robert Roberts, Warden of the City Hospital, Blackwell’s 
Island. INDEX. 
Abortion, New York 4811 
Abyssinia 389; 
ASdiles, Powers of. 67 
Afghanistan 418 
Africa 385 
“ Northern 444 
Ages of Prostitutes, Great Britain... 347 
“ Hamburg 200 
“ New York 452 
“ Paris 140 
“ Rome 49 
Agnes Sorel 109 
Aid to reformatory Measures 23 
Algeria 180 
Alms-house, Blackwell’s Island 587-604 
American Medical Association on 
Infant Mortality 482 
Anglo-Saxon Rule in England 283 
Anne Boleyn 294 
Anne, Empress of Russia 266 
Arcadians and Flute Players 50 
Archiatri 85 
Architecture, obscene 95 
Areoi of the South Sea Islands 398 
Areopagus 45 
Aspasia 55 
Assignation Houses, Hamburg 211 
“ New York 566 
“ “ Ori- 
gin of 568 
Asylum of Bon Pasteur, Paris 152 
Athens 44 
Attempts to suppress Prostitution.... 19 
Augustan Age, Rome 67 
Auletrides 46, 50 
Australia 392 
“ Female Emigration to 395 
Avignon 162 
“ public Brothel at 100 
Baal, Worship of 37 
Babylonian Banquets 42 
Bacchis 56 
Barbarous Nations 385 
Beatrice Cenci 159 
Belgium 187 
“ Immorality of 187 
“ Illegitimacy in 187 
Belle Ferronniere 11l 
Bellevue Hospital, New York... 589, 602 
Page 
i Page 
Bellevue Hospital, Report of Medical 
Board 665 
Berlin, Dancing Saloons 246 
‘ ‘ Effects of French Revolution 234 
“ “ Suppression of 
Prostitution 244 
Berlin, Illegitimacy 250 
“ Increase of Syphilis 248 
“ Number of Prostitutes 233 
“ Police Regulations 251 
“ Popular Feeling against li- 
censed Brothels 241 
Berlin, Private Life 247 
“ Public Life 245 
Biblical Description of Prostitution.. 39 
Bicetre, Hospital of 135 
Blackwell’s Island, Commitments to 633 
“ Discharges from 638 
Boarding Schools, Dangers of 519 
Board of Governors, Duties of 27 
“ Interrogatories 
by 28 
Board of Governors, Members of 27 
“ Preliminary Re- 
port to 29 
Bon Pasteur Asylum, Paris 152 
Borneo 418 
Brahmins, religious Ceremonies of.. 423 
Breslau, Effects of Suppression of 
Brothels , 237 
Brides’ Fair, Russia 274 
Britain, Roman Invasion of 282 
British Army, Syphilis in 357 
“ Kings, Lives of the early 285 
“ Merchant Service, Syphilis in 357 
“ Navy, Syphilis in 357 
“ North America 460 
Britons, Marriage Ceremonies of an- 
cient 282 
Brooklyn City Hospital, Long Isl-) 592 
and j 602 
Brothels in Algiers 184 
“ Avignon 100 
“ Belgium 188 
“ Berlin, abolished by Roy- 
al Order 243 
Brothels in Berlin, public Opposition 
to 241 
Brothels in China 433 
“ Denmark 256 702 
INDEX, 
Page 
Brothels in England 316 
“ Hamburg 206 
“ Japan 437! 
“ Leipzig 253 j 
“ Mantua 161 
“ New York, Capital in- 
vested in 599 
Brothels in New York, Management 
of 554 
Brothels in New York, Receipts 0f... 554 
“ “ Value of 553 
“ “ German 560 
“ “ Sailors’ 562 
“ Paris 141 
“ Rome 161 
“ Spain 171 
“ Sweden 279 
“ Venice 161 
Bubastis, Festival of 40 
Buffalo, N. Y., Prostitutes in 608 
Byron (Lord) on Italian Morality— 166 
Callipygian Games 52 
Canute, Laws of 284 
Capital Punishment, Effects of Abo- 
lition of 629 
Career of a Prostitute 453 
Carthage 42 
Catharine 1., of Russia 263 
“ 11., “ 267 
Causes of Prostitution, Algiers 184 
“ Paris 141 
“ New York.... 488 
Cavaliere Servente 165 
Celebes 428 
Celsus on secret Diseases 84 
Central and South America 364 
Ceylon 425 
Charlemagne, Legislation of 94 
Charles 11., of England 299, 304 
Charles VIII 109 
Chastity enforced by the early Chris- 
tians 86 
Children’s Aid Society, New York .. 530 
Children of Prostitutes, New York .. 477 
Chili 367 
China 429 
Chinese Holidays 434 
Chivalry in England, Effects on Mo- 
rality of 290 
Christian Doctrine, Features of. 86 
“ Era 86 
“ Fathers on Prostitution ... 91 
“ Virgins, Persecution 0f.... 87 
Chrysarguron, or Tax on Prosti- 
tutes 92 
Cicisbeo 165 
Circassia 441 
Civil Condition of Prostitutes, New 
York 473 
Classes of Prostitutes 148 
Classical Studies, Effects of 521 
Page 
Claudine du Tencin 127 
Cologne, Effects of Suppression of 
Brothels in 243 
Commodus 83 
'Competition a Flea for insufficient 
Wages 530 
Connecticut 458 
Consequences of Prostitution 19 
Continuance of Prostitution, New 
York 484 
Conventual Life, immoral Instances 
in 90 
Conventual Life in Portugal 178 
Copenhagen, Number of Prostitutes 
in 256 
Copenhagen, Syphilis in 257 
Corinth 44 
Corinthian Prostitutes 58 
Cork, Number of Prostitutes in 342 
Cortejos 175 
Cost of Prostitution in New York 599 
Costume of Prostitutes, Bergamo 162 
“ Greece 46 
“ Mantua 162 
“ Milan 162 
“ Parma 162 
Council of Trent 156 
Court of Prostitutes, Naples 160 
Dahomey 387 
Dancers, Rome 69 
Dancing Saloons, Berlin 246 
“ Hamburg 212 
Dangers of a Prostitute’s Life 485 
Danish little in England 287 
De la Valliere, Mademoiselle 124 
Delirium Tremens 542, 543 
De Maintenon, Madame 124 
Demilt Dispensary, New York.. 591, 602 
Denmark 256 
“ Brothels in 256 
“ Illegitimacy in 256 
Destitution a Cause of Prostitution.. 489 
‘ ‘ Instances of, in New York 491 
Diana de Poictiers 11l 
Dicteria 43 
“ Inviolability of 48 
Dicteriades 46, 47 
Disease in Children 334 
Dispensary, Algiers 182, 185 
“ Belgium 188 
“ Paris 138 
Distinguishing Costume of Prosti- 
tutes 44 
Domestic Life of Prostitutes, Ham- 
burg 202 
Domestic Life of Prostitutes, Leipzig 255 
Domestic Servants, Belgium 187 
“ England 330 
“ Hamburg... 199,211 
“ Leipzig 253 
“ New York 526 INDEX. 
703 
Page 
Draconian Laws 43 
Dress, Indecency of 117 
“ of French Prostitutes 97 
Dubarry, Madame 128 
Dublin, Number of Prostitutes in 341 > 
Duchess of Berri 126 
Duke of Orleans 125 
Duration of a Prostitute’s Life 455 
Duties of Husbands 505 
“ Parents 498 
“ Relatives 511 
Early Christians, alleged Immorality 
of 89 
Eastern Dispensary, New York 591, 602 
Edinburgh, Number of Prostitutes in 341 
Education, compulsory 471 
“ in Great Britain 335 
“ of Prostitutes, New York 468 
“ “ Paris 140 
“ in United States 620 
Educational Facilities in Europe 469 
“ in U. States.. 469 
“ Neglect 0f.... 469 
Effects of Indifference upon Prostitu- 
tion 25 
Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor 40 
Egyptian Courtesans 40 
Elagabalus 83 
Elizabeth, of England 295 
Elizabeth, of Russia 266 
Emigrant Boarding-house Keepers.. 461 
Emigrants, Influences at Port of De- 
parture on 461 
Emigrants, Influences during Voyage 
on 461 
Emigrants, Influences on reaching 
New York on 461 
Emigrants, Poverty of. 465 
“ Hospital, Ward’s Isl-> 590 
and ) 602 
Emigrate, Assistance to 466 
“ Inducements to 465 
England 460 
“ Brothels 316 
“ Causes of Prostitution., 319 
“ Continental Trade in Pros- 
titution 315 
England, Court Morals 305 
“ Discussion on Prostitution. 653 
“ Domestic Servants 330 
“ Effects of Chivalry on Mo- 
rality 290 
England, excessive Poverty 327 
“ Feudal Lords 288 
“ Lodging-houses 324 
“ overcrowded Dwellings 322 
“ Procuresses 308, 313 
“ Profligacy of Troubadours. 292 
“ Prostitution at the present 
Time 312 
England, Public Amusements 330 
Page 
England, Puritan Rule 298 
“ Restoration of Charles 11.. 298 
“ Work-house System 326 
j Erotic Literature 77 
Esquimaux 447 
Example, its Effects on Prostitution. 325 
Expediency of Investigation 22 
[Extent, Effects, and Cost of Prosti- 
tution 575 
Factories, Great Britain 332 
“ United States 534 
Fair Rosamond 292 
Fathers of Prostitutes, Business 0f... 535 
Female Employment 529 
Female Occupations, Effect of 533 
‘ ‘ Monotony 0f... 526 
Female Penitentiary, London 351 
Feudal Lords in England 288 
Financial Panic, Effect of 577 
Floralian Games 64 
Foreign-born Prostitutes 460 
Foreign Manners, Influence of 570 
Foreign Women, Demoralization of. 461 
Foundling Hospitals, Belgium 187 
“ Italy 167 
“ Mexico 363 
“ Portugal ....... 180 
“ Rio Janeiro.... 371 
“ Russia 276 
“ Spam 176 
“ Sweden 278 
Fracastor, Diagnosis of Syphilis by.. 132 
France 93 
“ during the Middle Ages 93 
‘ * from the Middle Ages to Lou- 
is XIII 108 
France from Louis XIII. to present 
Day 120 
France, Female Employment.... 529 
“ obscene Literature 102 
“ present Regulations 139 
“ Provincial Legislation 98 
“ Syphilis 131 
Francis 1 110 
Franks, Concubinage among the 94 
Free Love 569 
French Legislation 119 
“ Republican 122 
French Revolution, Effects in Berlin 
of 234 
French Revolution, Effects in Great 
Britain 310 
French Revolution, Effects in Ham- 
burg 191 
French Revolution, Effects in Paris . 122 
Gauls, Morality of the 93 
“ Roman Description of the 93 
George 111 308 
“ IV 309 
German Ball-rooms in New York 523, 561 704 
INDEX. 
Page 
German Brothels in New York 560 
Glasgow, Number of Prostitutes in .. 341 
Glycera 61 
Gnathena 57 
Gnathenion 57 
Governmental Duty 6291 
Governors of Alms-house 27; 
“ Interroga- 
tories by 28 
Gradation of Prostitution 453 
Granada, public Brothels at 172 
Great Britain 282 
“ Ages of Prostitutes .... 347 
“ Education 335 
“ Factories 332 
“ Illegitimacy 337 
“ Juvenile Prostitution.. 331 
“ Needle Women 344 
“ Occupations of Inhab- 
itants 622 
Great Britain, Syphilis 354 
“ Work-houses 332 
Greece 43 
“ erotic Literature of 62 
“ Flute Players 50 
“ Tax on Prostitutes 46 
Greenland 449 
Gretna Green Marriages 311 
Guardian Society, London 351 
Guatemala 365 
Gynecea 94 
Hair of Greek Courtesans 46 
Halle, Effects of Suppression of 
Brothels in 243 
Hamburg 189 
“ Ages of Prostitutes 200 
‘ ‘ Assignation Houses 211 
“ Brothels 198,206 
“ Classes of Prostitutes 199 
“ Dancing-saloons 212 
“ Illegitimacy 199 
“ Kept Mistresses 210 
“ Kurhaus 216 
“ Laws 191 
“ Magdalen Hospital 218 
“ Nationality of Prostitutes 200 
“ Number of Prostitutes in. 198 
“ Police Regulations 193 
“ Prostitutes, domestic Life 
of 202 
Hamburg, Prostitutes, Physique 201 
“ private Prostitution 210 
“ Recognized Procuresses... 205 
“ Street-walkers 210 
“ Syphilis 214 
Hamburger Berg 201 
Henry 11., of France 112 
“ 111., “ 116 
“ VIII., of England 294 
“ of Navarre 114 
Hetairte - 46, 63! 
Page 
Hetairse, Influence of. 62 
“ social Position of 54 
Hipparchia 56 
Honduras 366 
Hospital du Midi, Paris 136 
“ in Rome 164 
j Hottentots 385 
Houses of Assignation, New York ... 566 
Iceland 449 
Idols retained as Christian Symbols. 90 
Illegitimacy in Belgium 187 
“ Berlin 250 
“ Denmark 256 
“ Great Britain 337 
“ Lima 368 
“ New York 480 
“ Norway 280 
“ Sweden 278 
111 Treatment by Parents, etc., a 
Cause of Prostitution 498 
Immigration, its Effects on Prostitu- 
tion 459 
Immorality of Belgium 187 
“ Spain 169 
Inclination a Cause of Prostitution.. 488 
Incubes, Belief in 103 
India 421 
Infanticide in China 432 
“ India 424 
“ Lima 368 
Infant Mortality, New York 481 
Inscription of Prostitutes 144 
Intelligence Offices an Agency for 
Prostitution 517 
Intemperance of Prostitutes 540 
“ Parents of Prosti- 
tutes 544 
Intoxication a Cause of Prostitution 497 
Introduction 17 
Ireland 460 
Irish Farmers 537 
Isabel of Bavaria 108 
Island Hospital, Blackwell’s Island, 
586, 601, 633 
Italian Morality 165 
“ Lord Byron on 166 
Italian Yices introduced to France.. 112 
Italy 154 
“ Decline of public Morals 155 
“ Influence of Papal Court 155 
“ Syphilis 157 
‘ ‘ unnatural Crimes 169 
James 1., of England 296 
“ 11., “ 304 
Jane Shore 293 
Japan . 435 
Java 408 
Jephthah’s Daughter 38 
| Jerusalem 37 
I Jews, the 35 INDEX. 
705 
Page I 
Judah ana Tamar 36 
Julian Laws 67i 
Justinian 93 
Juvenal’s Description of a House of 
Prostitution 72 
Juvenile Depravity 32, 331, 453 
Kaffirs 386 
Kashmir 419 
Kept Mistresses 172, 210 
Kings County Hospital, Long 592 
and ) 602 
Kordofan 390 
Kurhaus of Hamburg 216 
Lamia 53 
Lais 58 
Lateran Council 156 
Latin Authors, Pruriency of 80 
Laws on Prostitution by Moses 36 
“ France 119' 
“ “ Repub- 
lican 122 
Laws on Prostitution, Lycurgus 45 
“ Naples 169 
“ Portugal 179| 
“ Pnrssia ... 219, 225| 
“ Russia 261 
League, the Huguenot, its Influence 
in France 116 
Leeds, Number of Prostitutes in 341 
Leipzig 252 
“ Brothels 253 
“ domestic Life of Prostitutes.. 254 
“ Nationality of Prostitutes .... 254j 
“ Syphilis 255 
Lesbian Love 62 
Licensed Prostitutes in Persia 417 
License System in New York 651 
Lima 367 
“ Illegitimacy and Infanticide ... 368 
Literature, France 129 
“ Great Britain 299 
Liverpool, Number of Prostitutes in . 341 
Lock Hospital, London 350 
Lodging Houses, England 324 
London Female Penitentiary 351 
“ Guardian Society 351 
“ Lock Hospital 350 
“ Night Houses 653 
“ Number of Prostitutes in.... 340 
“ obscene Publications 334 
“ public Meeting on Prostitu- 
tion..... 653 
London, Saint Bartholomew’s Hos- 
pital 357 
London Times, the, on Prostitution... 657 
Louisville, Ky., Prostitution in 608 
Louis IX., of France 95 
“ XI., “ 109 
“ xii., “ nor 
“ XIII., “ 123 
Page 
Louis XIV., of France 124 
“ XV., “ 128 
Louise de Querouaille 302 
Lupanaria 70 
Lycurgus, Laws of 45 
Magdalen Asylums 631 
“ Hamburg 218 
“ Paris 152 
Maine 457 
I Male Prostitutes 70 
Manchester, Number of Prostitutes 
! in 341 
I Mantua, Brothels in 161 
| Margaret, Queen of Navarre 114 
Marriage Ceremonies of the ancient 
Britons 282 
Marriage Ceremonies in France 107 
Marriage, Belgium 187 
“ Norway 280 
“ Rome 81 
“ Effects of early 474 
“ ill-assorted 331 
“ Violation of 473 
Martial 78 
Maryland 457 
Massachusetts 458 
Medical Bureau, proposed, New York 640 
Medical Colleges, New York 501 
Medical Institutions, Theory of, New 
York 633 
Medical Visitation of Prostitutes 645 
“ Paris 149 
Medicis, the, Effects upon French 
Morality of 112 
Messalina 72 
Mexican Clergy, Morals of 360 
“ Society 361 
Mexico 350 
“ Foundling Hospital 363 
Moloch, Worship of. 37 
Montpellier, public Brothel at 100 
Moral Chastity, Doctrine of ........... 88 
Mothers of Prostitutes in New York. 538 
Mrs. Fry, benevolent Exertions of— 353 
Nach Girls 420 
Naples, Court of Prostitutes 160 
“ Laws on Prostitution 159 
Nationality of Prostitutes, Algiers ... 184 
“ Hamburg. 200 
“ Leipzig 254 
“ New York. 456 
Naucratis 41 
Needle-women, Great Britain 344 
“ New York 527 
Nell Gwynnc 302 
Nepotism 155 
Nero 83 
Newark, N. J., Prostitution in 609 
New Hampshire 458 
New Haven, Conn., Prostitution in.. 609 706 
INDEX. 
Page] 
New Jersey 458 
New York, Abortion 481 
“ Age of Prostitutes 452 
“ Aggregate Prostitution... 584 
“ Assignation Houses 666 
“ Assistance to emigrate to 466 
“ ' Average Wages of Worn- 529 
en 629 
New York Brothels, Capital invest- 
ed in 599 
New York Brothels, Management of 554 
“ “ Receipts of 554 
“ “ Value of 553 
“ Brothel-keepers 553 
“ Business of Fathers of 
Prostitutes 635 
New York, Business of Mothers of 
Prostitutes 538 
New York, Career of a Prostitute.... 453 
“ Causes of Prostitution ... 488 
“ Census Returns, Relia- 
bility of 674 
New York Children’s Aid Society— 630 
“ Children of Prostitutes 477 
“ civil Condition of Prosti- 
tutes 473 
New York, Continuance of Prostitu- 
tion 484 
New York, Cost of Surveillance 653 
“ Dangers of a Prostitute’s 
Life 485 
New York, Dangers of Syphilitic In- 
fection 632 
New York, Death of Parents of Pros- 
titutes 539 
New York, Delirium Tremens 543 
“ Dispensaries 590, 602 
“ Duration of a Prostitute’s 
Life 455 
New York, Education of Prostitutes. 468 
“ Effects of Destitution 489 
“ “ early Marriage 474 
“ “ female Occupa- 
tion 533 
New York, Effects of Inclination 488 
“ Extent, Effects, and Cost 
of Prostitution 575 
New York, German Ball-rooms 523, 661 
“ “ Brothels 560 
“ Gradation of Prostitutes. 453 
“ foreign-born Prostitutes.. 460 
“ Hospitals 590, 602 
“ Illegitimacy 480 
“ ill Treatment of Parents, 
Husbands, and Relatives 498 
New York, Inducements to emigrate 465 
“ Infant Mortality 481 
“ Influence of Suburbs on 
Prostitution 585 
New York, Instances of Destitution . 491 
“ Intemperance of Prosti- 
tutes 540 
Page 
New York, Intemperance of Parents 
of Prostitutes 544 
New York Intelligence Offices 617 
New York, Intoxication a Cause of 
Prostitution 497 
'New York, Juvenile Depravity 453 
“ License System 651 
“ Life of a Seamstress 490 
‘ ‘ Medical Institutions, 
Theory of 633 
New York, Metropolitan Police Esti- 
mate of Prostitutes 579 
New York, Nativity of Prostitutes.... 456 
“ Necessity for a Syphilitic 
Hospital 644 
New York, Number of Prostitutes ... 576 
“ Obscene Publications 521 
“ Origin of Assignation 
Houses 568 
New York Panel Houses 573 
“ Parlor Houses 549 
“ Police and Judiciary Ex- 
penses 605 
New York, Poverty of Emigrants.... 465 
“ private Prostitutes 582 
“ Preponderance of Prosti- 
tutes from Northern States 457 
|New York, Proportion of Children 
t attending School 471 
New York, proposed Surveillance of 
Prostitution 643 
New York, proposed medical Visita- 
tion of Prostitutes 645 
New York Prostitutes and Houses of 
Prostitution 649 
New York Prostitutes compared with 
Population 585 
New York Prostitutes, exaggerated 
Estimates of 577 
New York Prostitutes, Income 0f... 600 
“ “ Length of 
Residence in New York City 464 
New York Prostitutes, Length of 
Residence in New York State 464 
New York Prostitutes, Length of 
Residence in United Sates 463 
New York, Recapitulation of Facts.. 675 
“ Religion of Prostitutes... 545 
“ “ Parents of 
Prostitutes 545 
New York, Remedial Measures 627 
“ Sailors’ Ball-rooms 563 
“ “ Brothels 562 
“ Schedule of Questions ... 450 
“ Seduction in 492 
“ Statistics of 450 
“ Syphilis in 586 
“ “ Number of Pros- 
titutes infected 487 
New York, Theory of present Med- 
ical Institutions 633 
New York, Widowed Prostitutes 477 INDEX 
707 
Page 
New Zealand 394 
Norfolk, Ya., Prostitution in 610 
Norman Rule in England 288 
North American Indians 372 
Northern Africa 444 
Norway 277 
“ Illegitimacy in 280 
“ Syphilis in 281 
Number of Prostitutes in Berlin 233 
“ China 433 
“ Copenhagen 256 
“ Cork 342 
“ Dublin 341 
“ Leipzig 253 
Nursery, Randall’s Island, New York, 
590, 602, 605 
Obscene Literature 102 
“ France 117 
“ London 334 
“ New York 521 
Offenses of Prostitutes 150 
Open-air Prostitution 74 
Overcrowded Dwellings 322 
Ovid 78 
Panel Houses, New York 573 
Parc aux Cerfs 128 
Parent-Duchatelet, Laws of France . 121 
“ “ for Repres- 
sion of Prostitution 153 
Paris, Ages of Prostitutes 140 
“ Bon Pasteur Asylum 152 
“ Brothels 141 
“ Causes of Prostitution 141 
“ Classes of Prostitutes 148 
“ Dispensary 138 
“ Education of Prostitutes 140 
“ Hospital de Lourcine 137 
P Inscription of Prostitutes 144 
“ Medical Visitation 149 
“ Number of Prostitutes 139 
“ Offenses of Prostitutes 150 
“ Operation of remedial Meas- 
ures 632 
Paris, Prisons for Prostitutes 151 
“ Procuresses 143 
“ Prostitution in 1858 661 
“ Punishment of Prostitutes 149 
“ Radiation of Prostitutes 147 
“ Statistics of Syphilis 138 
Parlor Houses, New York 549 
Penitentiary, Blackwell’s Island 587, 604 
Pennsylvania 458 
Persia 415 
Persian Banquets 42 
Peru 367 
Peter the Great, of Russia 262 
Philadelphia, Pa., Prostitution in— 611 
Philanthropic Labors, and Results... 631 
Philosophy in France, Tendency of.. 130 
Philtres 63 
Page 
Phoenician Customs 42 
Phryne 45, 59 
Physiological Education, Importance 
of 520 
Piedmont, Laws of. 162 
Pisistratidae 44 
Pittsburgh, Pa, Prostitution in 611 
Police Regulations, Algiers 182 
“ Berlin 251 
“ France 139 
“ Russia 227 
Police of New York, Captains of 31 
“ Inspectors 0f.... 580 
Police and Judiciary Expenses, New 
York 605 
Political Circumstances, their Con- 
nection with Prostitution 326 
Polynesia 397 
Portugal 178 
“ Laws of. 179 
Poverty in England 327 
Preponderance of Prostitutes from 
Northern States in New York 457 
Preservation of female Honor 23 
Prisons for Prostitutes 151 
Private Interest connected with Pros- 
titution 23 
Private Life in Berlin, Description of 247 
Private Prostitution in Hamburg 210 
“ New York.... 582 
Procuresses in England 308, 313 
“ France 97, 101 
‘ ‘ Hamburg 205 
“ Paris 143 
Prohibition, Effects of 627 
“ “ in France 95 
Propriety of Investigation 20 
Prostitutes compared with Population 585 
“ Converted by the early 
Christians 88 
Prostitutes, exaggerated estimates of 577 
“ in Algiers, Nationality of 184 
“ “ Number 0f.... 183 
“ in New York, Income of 600 
kindly Feeling toward 
each other 547 
Prostitutes, Number of in Edinburgh 341 
“ “ Glasgow... 341 
“ “ Leeds 341 
“ “ Liverpool. 341 
“ “ London ... 340 
“ “ Manches- 
ter 341 
Prostitutes, Number of in New York 575 
“ “ Paris 139 
“ “ the United 
States 615 
Prostitutes recognized in Judaea 38 
Prostitution a State Monopoly 43 
“ aggregate Cost of. 606 
“ augmented by Secrecy.. 631 
“ Biblical Description of.. 39 708 
INDEX 
Page 
Prostitution coeval with Society 35 
earliest Record of 35 
“ Impossibility of Sup-) 19 
pressing > 628 
Prostitution increased by present 
Regulations.... 630 
Prostitution, Notoriety of 17 
‘ ‘ proposed Surveillance 
of 643 
Prostitution, Traders in 69 
Prussia 219 
Prussian Laws on Prostitution.. 219-225 
“ Police Regulations 227 
“ royal Rescript on Prostitu- 
tion 223 
Public Amusements 330 
Public Decency advanced by Surveil- 
lance 652 
Public Life in Berlin, Description of. 245 
Public Morals affected by Police Sur- 
veillance 651 
Public Responsibility 640 
Punishment of Prostitutes 149 
Puritan Rule in England 298 
Pythionice 60 
“ Tomb of 61 
Radiation of Prostitutes, Paris 147 
Reese (Dr. D. M.) on Infant Mortal- 
ity 482 
Registration of Prostitutes 144 
Religion of Prostitutes 545 
“ Parents of Prostitutes ... 545 
Religious Prostitution in Chaldea— 41 
“ Greece 43 
Remedial Measures in Paris, Opera- 
tion of 632 
Remedial Measures, proposed 627 
Report on Infant Mortality, by Dr. 
Reese 482 
Report of Medical Board, Bellevue 
Hospital 665 
Report of Resident Physician, Black- 
well’s Island 29 
Report of Resident Physician, Ran- 
dall’s Island 673 
Repression of Prostitution, Parent- 
Duchatelet’s Law for 153 
Republican Legislation in France.... 122 
Resorts of Criminals 22 
Restoration of Charles 11., Effect on 
Morality of 298 
Rhadopis 41 
Rhode Island 457 
Rio Janeiro, Foundling Hospitals in 371 
Roi des Ribands 96 
Rome 64 
“ Banquets 81 
“ Baths 73 
“ Brothels 161 
“ Commessationes 82 
“ Costume of Prostitutes 75 
Page 
Rome, Drug Sellers 85 
“ Emperors 82 
‘ ‘ Houses of Prostitution 70 
“ Laws governing Prostitution. 64 
“ Physicians 85 
“ Prostitutes, Classes of 68 
“ “ Habits of. 75 
“ “ Number of 68 
“ “ Remuneration of. 76 
“ Republican Legislation 67 
“ secret Diseases 84 
“ Society, Demoralization 0f.... 79 
“ Taverns 74 
Ruffiani 169 
Russia 261 
“ Brides’ Fair 274 
“ Foundling Hospitals 275 
“ Laws of 261 
“ Marriage ceremonies 274 
“ Morals of the present Day 272 
“ Syphilis 276 
Sabat des Sorciers 104 
Sailors’ Ball-rooms, New Y0rk....... 563 
“ Brothels, New York 562 
Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital, Lon- 
don 357 
Saint Petersburg Foundling Hospital 275 
Salpe'triere, Hospital of 134 
Sanitary Regulations, Importance of 632 
Savannah, Ga., Prostitution in 612 
Schedule of Questions, New York 450 
Scotland 460 
Seaman’s Retreat, Staten Island 592, 602 
Seamstress, the, in New York 490 
Secret Diseases among the Jews 36 
“ at Rome 84 
Sectarian Aids to Prostitution 105 
Seduction 320 
- “ a Cause of Prostitution 492 
“ a social Wrong 495 
Semicivilized Nations 415 
Seville, public Brothels at 172 
Sexual Desire 320 
Siberia 445 
Society, Prostitution coeval with 35 
Solomon’s Temple 38 
Solon, Laws of 43 
Spain 168 
“ Court of 170 
“ Immorality of 169 
“ public Brothels in 172 
Spanish and Roman Laws, Similari- 
ty of 168 
Spanish Laws 172 
“ Women, Education of 177 
Sparta 45 
Statistics of New York 450 
Stockholm, Immorality of 280 
“ Illegitimacy in 278 
Svecubes, Belief in 103 
Sumatra 411 INDEX. 
709 
Page | 
Suttee 424 j 
Sweden 277 
“ Brothels in 279 
“ Foundling Hospitals in 278 
“ Illegitimacy in 278 
“ Syphilis in 279 
Switzerland 259 
Syphilis, Algiers 186 
“ Belgium 188 
“ Berlin 248 
“ British Army 357 
“ “ Merchant Service .. 357 
“ “ Navy 357 
“ Copenhagen 257 
“ France 131 
“ Great Britain 354 
“ Hamburg 214 
“ India 424 
“ Italy 157 
“ Japan 439 
“ Kashmir 421 
“ Leipzig 255 
“ New York 586 
“ “ aggregate Ex- 
penses of. 603 
Syphilis, New York, Number of Pros- 
titutes infected by 487 
Syphilis, New York, treated by Drug 
Sellers 595 
Syphilis, New York, treated by Ad- 
vertisers 596 
Syphilis, New York, treated by pat- 
ent Medicines 595 
Syphilis, New York, treated in pri- 
vate Practice 592 
Syphilis, New Zealand 395 
“ Norway 281 
“ Paris 138 
“ Portugal . 179 
“ Rome 164 
“ Russia 276 
“ Sandwich Islands 404 
“ Spain 174 
“ Sweden 279 
Syphilitic Hospital in New York, Ne- 
cessity of 644 
Syphilitic Infection, Danger of 632 
“ Patients, Neglect of 133 
Tait (of Edinburgh) on Prostitution 
in New York f 615 
Tartar Races 440, 
Tax on Prostitutes, Algiers 182 
Templars, Depravity of 97j 
Thargelia 55 i 
Page 
Theatricals, France 118 
“ Great Britain 300 
Theodora, Empress of Rome 92 
“ Attempts to reclaim Pros- 
titutes by 92 
Toulouse, public Brothel at 99 
Troubadours, Profligacy of 292 
Turkey 442 
Ulra, Laws of. 189 
Ultra-Gangetic Nations 427 
Underpaid Labor 328 
United States, Ages of Inhabitants.. 619 
“ Births in 620 
“ Crime in 625 
“ Education in 620 
“ Intemperance in 625 
‘ ‘ Number of Prostitutes 
in 615 
United States, Occupations of Inhab- 
itants 622 
United States, Pauperism in 624 
“ Prostitutes in various 
Cities of 607 
United States, Statistics of 618 
“ Wages in 623 
Unnatural Crimes 159 
Vagrancy Commitments 633 
“ moral Ef- 
fects of 635 
Vagrancy Commitments “on Con- 
fession” 634 
Vagrancy Commitments, pecuniary 
Effects of 635 
Valencia, public Brothel at 172 
Vectigal, or Tax on Prostitutes 92 
Venice, Brothels in 161 
“ Prostitutes in 162 
Venus, Worship of 53 
Vermont 458 
Virginia 457 
Wages influenced by Competition ... 530 
Wales 460 
West Indies 406 
Widowed Prostitutes 477 
Witches, Persecution of 105 
Women, average Wages of in N. ¥.. 529 
“ Capability of 525 
“ Social Condition of 525 
Work-house, Blackwell’s Island 587-603 
“ Great Britain 332 
Yucatan 365 
THE END.