The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them

THEIR SUFFERINGS AND CRIMES

A girl street-rover is to my mind the most painful figure in all the unfortunate crowd of a large city. With a boy, "Arab of the streets," one always has the consolation that, despite his ragged clothes and bed in a box or hay-barge, he often has a rather good time of it, and enjoys many of the delicious pleasures of a child's roving life, and that a fortunate turn of events may at any time make an honest, industrious fellow of him. At heart we cannot say that he is much corrupted; his sins belong to his ignorance and his condition, and are often easily corrected by a radical change of circumstances. The oaths, tobacco-spitting, and slang, and even the fighting and stealing of a street-boy, are not so bad as they look. Refined influences, the checks of religion, and a fairer chance for existence without incessant struggle, will often utterly eradicate these evil habits, and the rough, thieving New York vagrant make an honest, hardworking Western pioneer. It is true that sometimes the habit of vagrancy and idling may be too deeply worked in him for his character to speedily reform; but, if of tender years, a change of circumstances will nearly always bring a change of character.

With a girl-vagrant it is different. She feels homelessness and friendlessness more; she has more of the feminine dependence on affection; the street-trades, too, are harder for her, and the return at night to some lonely cellar or tenement-room, crowded with dirty people of all ages and sexes, is more dreary. She develops body and mind earlier than the boy, and the habits of vagabondism stamped on her in childhood are more difficult to wear off.

Then the strange and mysterious subject of sexual vice comes in. It has often seemed to me one of the most dark arrangements of this singular world that a female child of the poor should be permitted to start on its immortal career with almost every influence about it degrading, its inherited tendencies overwhelming toward indulgence of passion, its examples all of crime or lust, its lower nature awake long before its higher, and then that it should be allowed to soil and degrade its soul before the maturity of reason, and beyond all human possibility of cleansing!

For there is no reality in the sentimental assertion that the sexual sins of the lad are as degrading as those of the girl. The instinct of the female is more toward the preservation of purity, and therefore her fall is deeper – an instinct grounded in the desire of preserving a stock, or even the necessity of perpetuating our race.

Still, were the indulgences of the two sexes of a similar character – as in savage races – were they both following passion alone, the moral effect would not perhaps be so different in the two cases. But the sin of the girl soon becomes what the Bible calls "a sin against one's own body," the most debasing of all sins. She soon learns to offer for sale that which is in its nature beyond all price, and to feign the most sacred affections, and barter with the most delicate instincts. She no longer merely follows blindly and excessively an instinct; she perverts a passion and sells herself. The only parallel case with the male sex would be that in some Eastern communities which are rotting and falling to pieces from their debasing and unnatural crimes. When we hear of such disgusting offenses under any form of civilization, whether it be under the Rome of the Empire, or the Turkey of to-day, we know that disaster, ruin, and death, are near the State and the people.

This crime, with the girl, seems to sap and rot the whole nature. She loses self-respect, without which every human being soon sinks to the lowest depths; she loses the habit of industry, and cannot be taught to work. Having won her food at the table of Nature by unnatural means, Nature seems to cast her out, and henceforth she cannot labor. Living in a state of unnatural excitement, often worked up to a high pitch of nervous tension by stimulants, becoming weak in body and mind, her character loses fixedness of purpose and tenacity and true energy. The diabolical women who support and plunder her, the vile society she keeps, the literature she reads, the business she has chosen or fallen into, serve continually more and more to degrade and defile her. If, in a moment of remorse, she flee away and take honest work, her weakness and bad habits follow her; she is inefficient, careless, unsteady, and lazy; she craves the stimulus and hollow gayety of the wild life she has led; her ill name dogs her; all the wicked have an instinct of her former evil courses; the world and herself are against reform, and, unless she chance to have a higher moral nature or stronger will than most of her class, or unless Religion should touch even her polluted soul, she soon falls back, and gives one more sad illustration of the immense difficulty of a fallen woman rising again.

The great majority of prostitutes, it must be remembered, have had no romantic or sensational history, though they always affect this. They usually relate, and perhaps even imagine, that they have been seduced from the paths of virtue suddenly and by the wiles of some heartless seducer. Often they describe themselves as belonging to some virtuous, respectable, and even wealthy family. Their real history, however, is much more commonplace and matter-of-fact. They have been poor women's daughters, and did not want to work as their mothers did; or they have grown up in a tenement-room, crowded with boys and men, and lost purity before they knew what it was; or they have liked gay company, and have had no good influences around them, and sought pleasure in criminal indulgences; or they have been street-children, poor, neglected, and ignorant, and thus naturally and inevitably have become depraved women. Their sad life and debased character are the natural outgrowth of poverty, ignorance, and laziness. The number among them who have "seen better days," or have fallen from heights of virtue, is incredibly small. They show what fruits neglect in childhood, and want of education and of the habit of labor, and the absence of pure examples, will inevitably bear. Yet in their low estate they always show some of the divine qualities of their sex. The physicians in the Blackwell's Island Hospital say that there are no nurses so tender and devoted to the sick and dying as these girls. And the honesty of their dealings with the washerwomen and shopkeepers, who trust them while in their vile houses, has often been noted.

The words of sympathy and religion always touch their hearts, though the effect passes like the April cloud. On a broad scale, probably no remedy that man could apply would ever cure this fatal disease of society. It may, however, be diminished in its ravages, and prevented in a large measure. The check to its devastations in a laboring or poor class will be the facility of marriage, the opening of new channels of female work, but, above all, the influences of education and Religion.

An incident occurred daring our early labors, which is worth preserving:

EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL DURING 1854

THE TOMBS

"Mrs. Forster, the excellent Matron of the Female Department of the prison, had told us of an interesting young German girl, committed for vagrancy, who might just at this crisis be rescued. I entered these soiled and gloomy Egyptian archways, so appropriate and so depressing, that the sight of the low columns and lotus capitals is to me now inevitably associated with the somber and miserable histories of the place.

"After a short waiting, the girl was brought in – a German girl, apparently about fourteen, very thinly but neatly dressed, of slight figure, and a face intelligent and old for her years, the eye passionate and shrewd. I give details because the conversation which followed was remarkable.

"The poor feel, but they can seldom speak. The story she told, with a wonderful eloquence, thrilled to all our hearts; it seemed to us, then, like the first articulate voice from the great poor class of the city.

"Her eye had a hard look at first, but softened when I spoke to her in her own language.

"'Have you been long here?'

"'Only two days, sir.'

"Why are you here?'

"'I will tell you, sir. I was working out with a lady. I had to get up early and go to bed late, and I never had rest. She worked me always; and, finally, because I could not do everything, she beat me – she beat me like a dog, and I ran away; I could not bear it.'

"The manner of this was wonderfully passionate and eloquent.

"'But I thought you were arrested for being near a place of bad character,' said I.

"'I am going to tell you, sir. The next day I and my father went to get some clothes I left there, and the lady wouldn't give them up; and what could we do? What can the poor do? My father is a poor old man, who picks rags in the streets, and I have never picked rags yet. He said, "I don't want you to be a rag-picker. You are not a child now – people will look at you – you will come to harm." And I said, "No, father, I will help you. We must do something now, I am out of place;" and so I went out. I picked all day, and didn't make much, and I was cold and hungry. Towards night, a gentleman met me – a very fine, well-dressed gentleman, an American, and he said, "Will you go home with me!" and I said, "No." He said, "I will give you twenty shillings," and I told him I would go. And the next morning I was taken up outside by the officer.'

"'Poor girl!' said some one, 'had you forgotten your mother? and what a sin it was!'

"'No, sir, I did remember her. She had no clothes, and I had no shoes; and I have only this (she shivered in her thin dress), and winter is coming on. I know what making money is, sir. I am only fourteen, but I am old enough. I have had to take care of myself ever since I was ten years old, and I have never had a cent given me. It may be a sin, sir (and the tears rained down her cheeks, which she did not try to wipe away). I do not ask you to forgive it. Men can't forgive, but God will forgive. I know about men.

"'The rich do such things and worse, and no one says anything against them. But I, sir —I am poor! (This she said with a tone which struck the very heart-strings.) I have never had any one to take care of me. Many is the day I have gone hungry from morning till night, because I did not dare spend a cent or two, the only ones I had. Oh, I have wished sometimes so to die! Why does not God kill me!'

"She was choked by her sobs. We let her calm herself a moment, and then told her our plan of finding her a good home, where she could make an honest living. She was mistrustful. 'I will tell you, mein Herren; I know men, and I do not believe any one, I have been cheated so often. There is no trust in any one. I am not a child. I have lived as long as people twice as old.'

"'But you do not wish to stay in prison?'

"'O God, no! Oh, there is such a weight on my heart here. There is nothing but bad to learn in prison. These dirty Irish girls! I would kill myself if I had to stay here. Why was I ever born? I have such Kummerniss (woes) here (she pressed her hand on her heart) – I am poor!'

"We explained our plan more at length, and she became satisfied. We wished her to be bound to stay some years.

"'No,' said she, passionately, 'I cannot; I confess to you, gentlemen. I should either run away or die, if I was bound.'

"We talked with the matron. She had never known, she said, in her experience, such a remarkable girl. The children there of nine or ten years were often as old as young women, but this girl was an experienced woman. The offense, however, she had no doubt was her first.

"We obtained her release; and one of us, Mr. G., walked over to her house or cabin, some three miles on the other side of Williamsburgh, in order that she might see her parents before she went to her new home.

"As she walked along, she looked up in Mr. G.'s face, and asked, thoughtfully. Why we came there for her? He explained. She listened, and after a little while, said, in broken English 'Don't you think better for poor little girls to die than live?' He spoke kindly to her, and said something about a good God. She shook her head, 'No, no good God. Why am I so? It always was so. Why much suffer, if good God?' He told her they would get her a supper, and in the morning she should start off and find new friends. She became gradually almost ungoverned – sobbed – would like to die, even threatened suicide in this wild way.

"Kindness and calm words at length made her more reasonable. After much trouble, they reached the home or den of the poor rag-picker. The parents were very grateful, and she was to start off the next morning to a country home, where, perhaps finally, the parents will join her.

"For myself, the evening shadow seemed more somber, and the cheerful home-lights less cheerful, as I walked home, remembering such a history.

"Ye who are happy, whose lives have been under sunshine and gentle influences around whom Affection, and Piety, and Love have watched, as ye gather in cheerful circles these autumn evenings, think of these bitter and friendless children of the poor, in the great city. But few have such eloquent expressions as this poor girl, yet all inarticulately feel.

"There are sad histories beneath this gay world – lives over which is the very shadow of death. God be thanked, there is a Heart which feels for them all, where every pang and groan will find a sympathy, which will one day right the wrong, and bring back the light over human life.

"The day is short for us all; but for some it will be a pleasant thought, when we come to lay down our heads at last, that we have eased a few aching hearts, and brought peace and new hope to the dark lives of those whom men had forgotten or cast out."

CHAPTER XI

LEGAL TREATMENT OF PROSTITUTES

SHOULD LICENSES BE ALLOWED?

The question of the best mode of legally controlling the great evil of prostitution, and confining its bad physical effects, is a very difficult one.

The merely philosophical inquirer, or even the physician, regarding humanity "in the broad," comes naturally to the conclusion that this offense is one of the inevitable evils which always have followed, and always will follow, the track of civilization; that it is to be looked upon, like small-pox or scarlet fever, as a disease of civilized man, and is to be treated accordingly, by physical and scientific means, and must be controlled, as it cannot be uprooted, by legislation. Or they regard it as they do intoxication, as the effect of a misdirected natural desire, which is everywhere thought to be a legitimate object both of permission or recognition by government, as well as of check by rigid laws.

If medical men, their minds are almost exclusively directed toward the frightful effects on society and upon the innocent, of the diseases which attend this offense. They see that legislation would at once check the ravages from these terrible maladies, and that a system of licenses such as is practiced in the Continental cities would prevent them from spreading through society and punishing those who had never sinned. As scientific healers of human maladies, they feel that anything is a gain which lessens human suffering, controls disease, and keeps up the general health of the community. Their position, too, has been strengthened by the foolish and superstitious arguments of their opponents. It has been claimed that syphilitic disorders are a peculiar and supernatural punishment for sin and wrong-doing; that by interfering with their legitimate action on the guilty, we presume to diminish the punishments inflicted by the Almighty; and, in so far as we cure or restrain these diseases, we lessen one great sanction which nature and Providence have placed before the infraction of the law of virtue.

The medical man, however, replies very pertinently that he has nothing to do with the Divine sanctions; that his business is to cure human diseases and lessen human suffering wherever he find them; and that gout, or rheumatism, or diphtheria, or scarlet fever, are as much "punishments" as the diseases of this vice. If he refused to visit a patient whenever he thought that his sins had brought upon him his diseases, he would have very little occupation, and mankind would receive very little alleviation from the medical art. Nor is he even called upon to refuse to cure a patient who, he knows, will immediately begin again his evil courses. The physician is not a judge or an executioner. He has nothing to do but to cure and alleviate. Influenced by this aspect of his duty, the medical man almost universally advocates licenses to prostitutes, based on medical examination, and a strict legal control of the participants in this offense.

On the other hand, those of us who deal with the moral aspects of the case, and who know the class that are ruined body and soul by this criminal business, have a profound dread of anything which, to the young, should appear to legalize or approve, or even recognize it. The worst evil in prostitution is to the woman, and the worst element in that is moral rather than physical.

The man has the tremendous responsibility on his soul of doing his part in helping to plunge a human being into the lowest depths of misery and moral degradation. He has also all the moral responsibility which the Divine law of purity places on each individual, and the farther burden of possibly causing disease hereafter to the innocent and virtuous.

But the woman who pursues this as a business has seldom any hope in this world, either of mental or moral health. The class, as a class, are the most desperate and unfortunate which reformatory agencies ever touch. Now, any friend of the well-being of society, knowing the strength of men's passions, and the utter misery and degradation of these victims of them, will dread any public measure or legislation which will tend to weaken the respect of young men for virtue, or to make this offense looked upon as permissible, or which will add to the number of these wretched women by diminishing the public and legal condemnation of their debasing traffic.

Among the large class of poor and ignorant girls in a large city who are always just on the line between virtue and vice, who can say how many more would be plunged into this abyss of misery by an apparent legal approval or recognition of the offense through a system of license? Among the thousand young men who are under incessant temptations in a city like this, who can say how many are saved by the consciousness that this offense is looked upon both by morality and law as an offense, and is not even recognized as permissible and legal? A city license constitutes a profession of prostitutes. The law and opinion recognize them. The evil becomes more fixed by its public recognition.