September 3, 2025 • 34 mins
This investigation delves into the complex and often overlooked issues surrounding prostitution. While many individuals instinctively seek the causes behind societal vices, a significant portion of the intelligent population in New York has suffered the consequences of this persistent issue without exploring its root causes. Each year, countless lives are impacted, as broken health and tarnished reputations emerge from this vice. Is it too late to awaken your curiosity and compassion for this critical matter? We argue that it is high time to conduct an inquiry that addresses these pressing concerns‚one that is essential for public safety, personal well-being, and the greater good.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fifty nine of the History of Prostitution. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Ramon Eschimia. The History of Prostitution by William Sanger,
(00:23):
Section fifty nine, Chapter thirty seven, Part one, New York.
Remedial measures, effects of prohibition, required change of policy, governmental obligations.
Prostitution augmented by seclusion, impossibility of benevolent assistance, necessity of
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sanitary regulations, yellow fever effect of remedial measures in Paris,
Phylitic infection not a local question. Present measures to check
syphilis Island Hospital, Blackwell's Island, mode of admission, vagrancy, commitment
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on confession and its action on Blackwell's Island, Pecuniary results,
moral effects, perpetuation of disease, Inadequacy of present arrangements, discharges,
writs of habeas corpus and serdiorari, how obtained and their
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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
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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
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on prostitution Objections considered, Report from Medical Board of Bellevue
Hospital on prostitution and syphilis. Report from resident Physician Randall's
Island on constitutional syphilis. Reliability of statistics, resume of substantiated facts.
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Having traced the causes and alineated the extent and effects
of the evil of prostitution as it exists in New
York at the present time, and evident duty is to
inquire what measures can be devised to stay them march
of this desolating plague in its ravages on the health
and morals of the public. This is a problem, the
solution of which has for centuries interested philanthropists and statesmen
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in different countries. They commenced with a theory that vice
could be suppressed by statutory enactments, and the crushing out
process was vigorously tried under various auspices, until experience demonstrated
that it virtually increased and aggravated the evil it was
intended to suppress. At subsequent periods, however, different measures have
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been adopted with different results. It will be necessary, in
the first place to consider the effect of stringent prohibitory measures.
The records given in the previous chapters of this work
show what these have attempted, and they also show at
the same time the uselessness of endeavoring to eradicate prostitution
by compulsory legislation. The lash, the dungeon, the rack, and
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the stake have each been tried, and all have proved
equally powerless to accomplish the object. Admitting that in religion, morals,
or politics, it is impossible to force concurrence in any
particular sentiment, while a kindly persuasive plan may lead to
its adoption, admitting that all attempts to compel prostitutes to
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be virtuous have notoriously failed, has not the time arrived
for a change of policy? If in direct ratio to
the stringency of prohibitory measures, the vice sought to be
exterminated has steadily increased, does not reason suggest the expediency
of resorting to other measures for its suppression. It has
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been said that history is philosophy teaching by example, and
if such instruction is well considered, none can fail to
see therein an unanswerable argument against excessive severity in this matter.
The several statutes prescribing prostitution have been detailed and their
specific results given. As gathered from the experience of various
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countries at the time these laws were in force, it
is hardly probable that their authors regarded them as unsusceptible
of improvement. And the question now arises for decision in
this age of general progress, is it not our duty
to try the effect of some other line of action?
In this country, in common with other nations, we have
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passed laws intended to crush out prostitution, have made vigorous
protests on paper against its existence, and there our labors
have ended. The experience acquired in this course of legislation
only demonstrates that such laws cannot be enforced so as
to produce the desired effect. But why are they still
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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
some to others more practicable and more useful in their stead.
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A candid acknowledgment of error, whether by an individual or
a community, is always a creditable and graceful act. It
shows that experience has dictated a wiser course, that reflection
and experiment have condemned the former plan. It is not
to be supposed that any system of laws will entirely
eradicate prostitution. History, social arrangements, and physiology alike forbid any
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such utopian idea, but will not a more enlightened policy
do much toward diminishing it. Many of the present generation
can recollect the time when it was considered right and
proper to imprison an insolvent debtor. But this idea is
now wisely repudiated by society, and no one will assert
that the effect of the change has been to place
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any additional difficulties in the way of collecting legal claims.
Capital punishment has been abolished in many cases, and yet
it is a well known fact that crime has diminished
where this experiment has been tried. This is more particularly
the case in England, where forgery, which was punished with death,
is comparatively rare. Since the amelioration of the law, a
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general conviction is becoming prevalent that the most effectual way
to deal with criminals is to attempt to raise them
above what they were, in contradistinction to the old plan
of sinking them lower. It is now freely acknowledged that
the elevating instead of the depressing process is consonant both
with the spirit of our republican institutions and with humanizing policy.
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Even if American society is not yet prepared to take
a course directly the reverse of its present prohibitory practice,
prudence dictates the adoption of some medium rule by which
prostitution can be kept in check without being encouraged or allowed,
as in the Prussian laws, which expressly declare that the
vice is tolerated but not permitted. Government should be patriarchal
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in its character and exercise an effective but parental supervision
over all its subjects. This is the living principle which
gives vitality and strength to any organization, and no satisfactory
government can exist if it is absent. Now in regard
to prostitutes, admitting that they have erred. Still, the people
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who constitute the government in this country are concerned in
the matter, and their mutual obligations, their policy, and their
pecuniary interests require that these wandering members of the body
corporate should have a reasonable opportunity for reformation, which will
give this opportunity most effectually to crush them under the
weight of their own misdeeds, or to adopt a liberal
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course likely to induce them to abandon their depraved habits.
One of the secrets which found the soldiers of the
Empire to the standard of Napoleon through all his battles
and vicissitudes, was the knowledge that France regarded them as
her children and would not fail to p p and
support them. The words I am a Roman citizen derive
their magic power from the fact that the Roman Empire
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treated all her citizens as sons and watched over their
interests with parental care. The recent outburst of popular enthusiasm
in our own country when the commander 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
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who need our kindly care. It may be considered a
bold assertion that our present mode of dealing with prostitution
is calculated to widely extend its prevalence. Yet the historical
facts already given are sufficient to prove its truth without
further argument. The existing rule of treatment, instead of suppressing
the vice, merely drives it into seclusion, a result far
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different from the design and infinitely increasing its power. To
those secret haunts of prostitution resort the lowest and most
praved of the male sex, with the full knowledge that
a fundamental law of our commonwealth considers every house a
castle into which no officer can enter unless armed with
a special legal authority or called into suppress an outrage.
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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
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organized prison associations and Magdalene asylums to bear upon prostitution,
but they can only reach it in its lowest grades.
When the females become inmates of public institutions from destitution
and disease. Reformers cannot come near the fountain head, and
they are consequently now as far from the consummation of
their praiseworthy intentions as when they commence their labors, because
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prohibitory measures force prostitutes to take shelter in seclusion, and
it is only when women are consigned to our hospitals,
workhouses and penitentiaries that they become accessible. By this time
they are so far sunk into pravity as to afford
very slender hope of reformation. This is especially true of
Magdalene asylums. There is indeed a field white unto the
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harvest for benevolent exertions in the most secluded haunts of prostitution,
if they could only be made accessible. Sympathy is worthily
bestowed upon the sick or dying women transferred from public
institutions to charitable organizations, to alleviate the sorrows of their
final sufferings, to soothe the agony of the hour of death,
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to divest of its terrors. The passage from this world
to the dread future is a work in which the
heart of any Christian must rejoice. But it is only
a part of the duties contemplated by such asylums. While
their projector gladly administer the consolations of our holy religion
to an expiring Magdalene, they also seek an opportunity to
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direct erring women to the paths of virtue during the
life that still remains to them, to guide them to
a path in which they can retrace the false steps
already taken and become useful members of society. His opportunity
for exertion is denied under the system which drives vice
into seclusion. Turning now from considering the operation of repressive laws,
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we notice the importance of sanitary and quarantine regulations. One
of the first cares of a good government is to
preserve and promote the public health. An illustration of this
position occurred in the summer of eighteen fifty six, when
fears were entertained that the city would be visited by
a frightful epidemic fever. The public voice declared through the
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newspapers that the most rigorous and careful sanitary measures were
needed and the cleaning of streets, the removal of nuisances,
the purification of tenants, 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
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and apparently so imminent, the United Voice of Public Opinions
sanctioned the very course advocated here, namely, the adoption of
remedial or more properly speaking, preventative measures. Venereal poison is
as destructive, although not so suddenly fatal, as yellow fever,
and every motive of philanthropy and economy urges the necessity
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of effective means for its counter action. Since remedial or
preventive measures have been adopted in Paris, the number of
cases of disease and the virulence of its form have
materially abated. This fact is asserted not merely on our
own personal knowledge, but also from the corroborative testimony of
physicians who have had recent opportunities of investigating the subject
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in that capital. The diminution can be easily explained by
a comparison of the laws and regulations applicable to prostitution,
We in New York, by our stringent prohibition, drive the
vice into seclusion and deprive ourselves of the means of
watching either its progress or results, while our French contemporaries
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insist that it shall be at all times open to
the surveillance of properly appointed persons. The extent of syphilitic
infection in New York has been portrayed in the preceding chapter,
but the danger of contamination must not be viewed as
a merely local question. From its commercial importance, its mercantile marine,
its centralization of railroads and canals, and its facilities for
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river navigation, this city is now the great point of
arrival and departure of travelers and emigrants from into all
parts of the Union. Foreigners reach here in large numbers
every day, intending to travel to other states. If they
remain in the city a few days only, they are
bose to its temptations and may contract disease, which, by
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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 storekeepers visit
this commercial emporium to obtain supplies of goods, and they
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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 hotbed where,
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from the nature of its laws on prostitution, syphilis may
be cultivated and disseminated. Possessed then of indubitable proofs of
the existence of syphilis, and the knowledge that its range
is more widely extended every day, gathering additional malignity in
its progress, the next point is to inquire what measures
have been adopted to check its ravages. These have hitherto
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been found totally inadequate, because, based upon an erroneous theory,
namely the idea of suppression, the principal public or free
hospital where the venereal disease is confessedly treated is the
Penitentiary Hospital on Blackwell's Island, now known as the Island Hospital.
To obtain the benefit of medical treatment therein, it is
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necessary that the patient should have been sentenced from the
court of Sessions to the penitentiary for the commission of
some crime, or committed to the workhouse by a police
justice for vagrancy, drunkenness or disorderly conduct. From this fact
it will be seen that there is strictly speaking no
free hospital for such diseases, as the only one intended
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for their treatment will or can receive none but those
sentence for an infraction of the laws. Still, the necessity
for professional assistance compels many, both males and females to
submit to the degradation of a police commitment. Unfortunate women
or laboring men find that they are suffering from infection.
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Possibly they have no money, or probably they have exhausted
their funds in payments to Charlatan's 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
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their state, and directed to apply to a police justice.
They follow this advice, and in nine cases out of ten,
the magistrates only remark is do you want me to
send you to the hospital? The answer, of course, is
in the affirmative, and he forthwith signs of printed commitment
to the penitentiary or workhouse for a time named therein
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and ranging from one to six months, at the discretion
of the magistrate. The following is a copy of one
of these documents. City and County of New York, silicit
by Blank Esquire, one of the police Justices in and
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for the City of 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 Blank, who stands charged
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before me with being a vagrant viz. Being without the
means of supporting him or herself, and having contracted an
infectious disease in the practice of debauchery viz. The venereal
disease requiring charitable aid to restore him or hurt health,
whereof he or she is convicted of record on confession,
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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 Blank is an improper person
to be sent to the almshouse. You, the said warden,
are hereby commanded to receive into your custody in the
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said penitentiary the body of the said Blank and Blank
safely keep for the space of blank months, or until
he or she shall be thence delivered by due course
of law given under my hand, and seal this blank
day of blank month in the year of our Lord
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one thousand, eight hundred and fifty blank blank Police justice.
This is technically called a commitment on conf and its
effects are precisely the same as they would be if
the individual had been convicted of any tangible act of vagrancy.
He is, in law and in fact a prisoner for
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the space of time named in the commitment. He must
wear the prison garb and submit to the prison discipline
until the expiration of his sentence. It is well known
to the justices that a penal commitment like the above
will immediately secure the sufferer the medical attention his case requires.
But they have no power to send anyone direct to
the hospital. And here an inquiry will naturally suggest itself,
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what does or what should a magistrate know about committing
a sick person, and how can he decide the time
such invalids 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
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to the pecuniary effects of this plan to illustrate, suppose
the case of a man committed for six months. He
is suffering from some form of venereal disease, and in
this state is received at the penitentiary or workhouse, where
his clothes are taken from him, the institution costumes supplied,
and the particulars of his name, age, nativity, occupation, etc.
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Are registered with an abstract of the commitment by virtue
of which he is detained. He is then subjected to
medical examination and transferred to the hospital. In this institution
he remains until cured if that end is attained before
the expiration of his sentence, and is then re transferred
to the penitentiary or workhouse. The average time required for
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the successful treatment of the disease named in the Blackwells
Island Hospital will not probably exceed two months, and often
a much shorter period is sufficient. But the man has
been committed for six months, and for the unexpired four
months of his life incarceration he has to be fed, clothed,
and lodged at the expense of the almshouse department. The
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labor he can perform will never amount in value to
the actual cost of his support, so that he has
maintained four months in accordance with law at a positive
cost to the taxpayers of the city, because they have
already supported him for two months in the hospital. In
the aggregate of cases during a year, these costs amount
to a very large sum. Need any farther argument be
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adduced to show the palpable absurdity of the system. A
few words upon the moral effect of this local system
upon prostitution in New York, premising that being a prostitute
is acknowledged by all as a degradation, while a vagrancy
commitment to the workhouse or penitentiary is a positive disgrace.
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The system is a portion of the crushing out planned
already mentioned, and it says, in effect, we, the people
of New York City, will give you an opportunity to
be cured of your loathsome and destructive malady, but only
upon the condition that you become the inmate of a
penal institution. We know that you cannot be cured unless
you accept our terms, and we will make those terms
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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 cannot be
coexistent in the same person by adding farther and unnecessary
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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
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cure until they are absolutely compelled to do so. How
excessively wrong is this principle in a hygienic point of view,
must be evident A directly contrary course, making the hospital
attractive instead of repulsive, would be the true policy, and
would be the most economical in its results. Nor is
it justice to the medical departments of our public institutions
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to clog their labors with the 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 service is much
more effectual, whereas little or nothing can be accomplished when
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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 entertained
of any good results. Under a more liberal system, the
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physician and the philanthropists could combine their efforts. The former
would not have to encounter disease inveterately fixed on a
broken down constitution. The latter would not find his benevolent
designs frustrated by a lengthened career of depravity now become habitual.
The effect of the provision which offers medical aid to
prisoners only is that every woman of the town will
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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 once step more will plunge
her into a bottomless abyss of helplessness and hopeless woe,
that she will voluntarily accept the proffered aid. She will
endure torture from her maladies, or rely upon the assistance
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of empirics and submit to all their extortions rather than
become a prisoner. But when every resource is exhausted and
her physical torments plainly tell her that she must obtain
medical relief or die, then she submits. Once in the hospital,
she is relieved after a period of protracted sickness and
leaves it to return to her old haunts, because she
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can go nowhere else, the law having affixed the additional
disgrace of imprisonment upon her former bad character. Sociality is
a characteristic of human nature, and if these women cannot
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
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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 Potter's 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
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single deviation from the paths of virtue drives many women
to prostate why add to the existing sense of shame
another infamy when she unfortunately contracts disease? Can we consistently
blame her if she becomes callous when every legal provision
directly tends to indurate her sensibilities. The misconduct of parents
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toward children has been shown as one of the causes
of prostitution. The father or mother drives from the paternal
roof the child who has committed but a single error. Then,
under the pressure of hunger, she inevitably sins more deeply,
becomes diseased, applies to the public for relief, and is
sentenced to imprisonment. The first mistake, that of the parents,
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makes her vicious. The second mistake, incarceration, confirms her and 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?
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If it is right for us, a body corporate, to
practice such cruel oppression, is it not equally justifiable for
each member of the body to act in the same
manner in his individual capacity. Of course, what is right
for the multitude must be right for the individual, and
our own conduct convicts us of inconsistency. We have no
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warrant to condemn parents for single acts which we perform collectively,
or if we are right in censuring them, we are
wrong in performing the same acts ourselves. If they are reprehensible,
we also are culpable. This system with all its absurdity,
its prejudicial effect on public health, and its obvious tendency
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to immorality, is not adequate to stay the destroying scourge.
On the contrary, it is likely to extend its ravages.
If a prostitute arrested and committed to Blackwell's Island for
drunkenness or any disorderly conduct, is found to be diseased,
or if she commits herself knowing that she is infected,
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she is immediately placed under medical charge. She will probably
remain contentedly in the hospital until the worst symptoms of
the disease are subdued. By this time, the discipline of
the institution has become irksome to her. She communicates with
the brothel keeper with whom she formerly boarded, or with
some lover or acquaintance who sues out a writ of
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sertiorari or habeas corpus, which instantly affects her discharge. She
now returns to her former haunts, half cured again, to
aid in disseminating disease farther, to undermine her own constitution,
and to infect men who will in turn become a
charge upon taxpayers, or by their agency, cause others to
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become thus liable. The instance of wholesale release mentioned in
the previous chapter will recur to the mind of the reader.
The experience of almost every day confirms these statements. It
is well known that there are those who hang around
the various police courts expressly to attend to such business,
and who make a large income from this source, Exclusive
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of other matters pertaining to prostitution, in which they occasionally
exert their abilities. The vagrancy commitments by which women are
sent up are generally insufficient, and there is no legal
power to detain them and force them to submit to
the treatment they so much require. It has been asserted
by legal men of high standing that nearly the whole
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of the commitments issued by police justices are defective, and
that there exists in law no impediment to the immediate
discharge of every prostitute now on Blackwell's Island. The public
can readily perceive the necessary inefficiency of these institutions so
far as the prevention of venereal disease is concerned. The
facility with which prostitutes committed to Blackwell's Island can obtain
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their discharge may be attributed to want of care in
making out the commitments. A recent statute eighteen fifty four
describes 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
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not observed, and the reason assigned by magistrates is that
their own time and the time of their clerks is
so fully occupied by the press of business before them
that they cannot proceed as minutely as the Act erects.
This confirms the view already expressed of the impolicy and
impropriety of placing such onerous and extra judicial duties upon
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the justices. But as they would be liable to be
sued for false imprisonment if they committed under this Act
without observing all its requirements, they issue their commitments in
the old form required by the revised statutes, and are
sheltered thereby from ulterior consequences. These commitments direct the persons
to be confined in the penitentiary, but the local arrangements
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of Blackwell's Island require them to be sent to the workhouse,
and unless this transfer is actually made in each case
by the governors of the almshouse, for they cannot 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 workhouse is part of
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the penitentiary, but this point has been overruled because the
statute establishing the workhouse plainly shows a contrary intent. A
prisoner is entitled to a discharge on another ground, namely
because the commitment has not been filed as directed, or
on another ground that the commitment does not recite the
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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 eighteen fifty four has
not been complied with. On these grounds, a writ of
sertiorari or habeas corpus is sued out, the preliminary steps
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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
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time at which it shall be returnable. The action of
the two writs is similar, excepting that a writ of
habeas corpus requires the production of the prisoner before the
judge in addition to a return of the cause of detention,
while a writ of serdiaarari 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
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copy of the commitment under which he is held. And
from the already stated informality of these documents, it will
be apparent there can be no legal ground for his detention.
The judge is strictly prohibited from entertaining any question beyond
the legality of the papers. With the moral aspect of
the question he cannot interfere, and as the commitments are
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generally informal, he has no alternative but to discharge the prisoner.
Application for these writs must be made in the name
of an attorney, but such name is often used by
an agent who transacts the business and divides the fee
with his principal end of Section fifty nine. Recording by
(34:29):
Ramon Escimia Conway, Arkansas, r A M O n E.
S c A m I l l A dot WordPress,
dot com
Section fifty nine of the History of Prostitution. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Ramon Eschimia. The History of Prostitution by William Sanger,
(00:23):
Section fifty nine, Chapter thirty seven, Part one, New York.
Remedial measures, effects of prohibition, required change of policy, governmental obligations.
Prostitution augmented by seclusion, impossibility of benevolent assistance, necessity of
(00:50):
sanitary regulations, yellow fever effect of remedial measures in Paris,
Phylitic infection not a local question. Present measures to check
syphilis Island Hospital, Blackwell's Island, mode of admission, vagrancy, commitment
(01:14):
on confession and its action on Blackwell's Island, Pecuniary results,
moral effects, perpetuation of disease, Inadequacy of present arrangements, discharges,
writs of habeas corpus and serdiorari, how obtained and their
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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
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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
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on prostitution Objections considered, Report from Medical Board of Bellevue
Hospital on prostitution and syphilis. Report from resident Physician Randall's
Island on constitutional syphilis. Reliability of statistics, resume of substantiated facts.
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Having traced the causes and alineated the extent and effects
of the evil of prostitution as it exists in New
York at the present time, and evident duty is to
inquire what measures can be devised to stay them march
of this desolating plague in its ravages on the health
and morals of the public. This is a problem, the
solution of which has for centuries interested philanthropists and statesmen
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in different countries. They commenced with a theory that vice
could be suppressed by statutory enactments, and the crushing out
process was vigorously tried under various auspices, until experience demonstrated
that it virtually increased and aggravated the evil it was
intended to suppress. At subsequent periods, however, different measures have
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been adopted with different results. It will be necessary, in
the first place to consider the effect of stringent prohibitory measures.
The records given in the previous chapters of this work
show what these have attempted, and they also show at
the same time the uselessness of endeavoring to eradicate prostitution
by compulsory legislation. The lash, the dungeon, the rack, and
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the stake have each been tried, and all have proved
equally powerless to accomplish the object. Admitting that in religion, morals,
or politics, it is impossible to force concurrence in any
particular sentiment, while a kindly persuasive plan may lead to
its adoption, admitting that all attempts to compel prostitutes to
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be virtuous have notoriously failed, has not the time arrived
for a change of policy? If in direct ratio to
the stringency of prohibitory measures, the vice sought to be
exterminated has steadily increased, does not reason suggest the expediency
of resorting to other measures for its suppression. It has
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been said that history is philosophy teaching by example, and
if such instruction is well considered, none can fail to
see therein an unanswerable argument against excessive severity in this matter.
The several statutes prescribing prostitution have been detailed and their
specific results given. As gathered from the experience of various
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countries at the time these laws were in force, it
is hardly probable that their authors regarded them as unsusceptible
of improvement. And the question now arises for decision in
this age of general progress, is it not our duty
to try the effect of some other line of action?
In this country, in common with other nations, we have
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passed laws intended to crush out prostitution, have made vigorous
protests on paper against its existence, and there our labors
have ended. The experience acquired in this course of legislation
only demonstrates that such laws cannot be enforced so as
to produce the desired effect. But why are they still
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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
some to others more practicable and more useful in their stead.
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A candid acknowledgment of error, whether by an individual or
a community, is always a creditable and graceful act. It
shows that experience has dictated a wiser course, that reflection
and experiment have condemned the former plan. It is not
to be supposed that any system of laws will entirely
eradicate prostitution. History, social arrangements, and physiology alike forbid any
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such utopian idea, but will not a more enlightened policy
do much toward diminishing it. Many of the present generation
can recollect the time when it was considered right and
proper to imprison an insolvent debtor. But this idea is
now wisely repudiated by society, and no one will assert
that the effect of the change has been to place
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any additional difficulties in the way of collecting legal claims.
Capital punishment has been abolished in many cases, and yet
it is a well known fact that crime has diminished
where this experiment has been tried. This is more particularly
the case in England, where forgery, which was punished with death,
is comparatively rare. Since the amelioration of the law, a
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general conviction is becoming prevalent that the most effectual way
to deal with criminals is to attempt to raise them
above what they were, in contradistinction to the old plan
of sinking them lower. It is now freely acknowledged that
the elevating instead of the depressing process is consonant both
with the spirit of our republican institutions and with humanizing policy.
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Even if American society is not yet prepared to take
a course directly the reverse of its present prohibitory practice,
prudence dictates the adoption of some medium rule by which
prostitution can be kept in check without being encouraged or allowed,
as in the Prussian laws, which expressly declare that the
vice is tolerated but not permitted. Government should be patriarchal
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in its character and exercise an effective but parental supervision
over all its subjects. This is the living principle which
gives vitality and strength to any organization, and no satisfactory
government can exist if it is absent. Now in regard
to prostitutes, admitting that they have erred. Still, the people
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who constitute the government in this country are concerned in
the matter, and their mutual obligations, their policy, and their
pecuniary interests require that these wandering members of the body
corporate should have a reasonable opportunity for reformation, which will
give this opportunity most effectually to crush them under the
weight of their own misdeeds, or to adopt a liberal
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course likely to induce them to abandon their depraved habits.
One of the secrets which found the soldiers of the
Empire to the standard of Napoleon through all his battles
and vicissitudes, was the knowledge that France regarded them as
her children and would not fail to p p and
support them. The words I am a Roman citizen derive
their magic power from the fact that the Roman Empire
(09:07):
treated all her citizens as sons and watched over their
interests with parental care. The recent outburst of popular enthusiasm
in our own country when the commander 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
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who need our kindly care. It may be considered a
bold assertion that our present mode of dealing with prostitution
is calculated to widely extend its prevalence. Yet the historical
facts already given are sufficient to prove its truth without
further argument. The existing rule of treatment, instead of suppressing
the vice, merely drives it into seclusion, a result far
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different from the design and infinitely increasing its power. To
those secret haunts of prostitution resort the lowest and most
praved of the male sex, with the full knowledge that
a fundamental law of our commonwealth considers every house a
castle into which no officer can enter unless armed with
a special legal authority or called into suppress an outrage.
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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
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organized prison associations and Magdalene asylums to bear upon prostitution,
but they can only reach it in its lowest grades.
When the females become inmates of public institutions from destitution
and disease. Reformers cannot come near the fountain head, and
they are consequently now as far from the consummation of
their praiseworthy intentions as when they commence their labors, because
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prohibitory measures force prostitutes to take shelter in seclusion, and
it is only when women are consigned to our hospitals,
workhouses and penitentiaries that they become accessible. By this time
they are so far sunk into pravity as to afford
very slender hope of reformation. This is especially true of
Magdalene asylums. There is indeed a field white unto the
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harvest for benevolent exertions in the most secluded haunts of prostitution,
if they could only be made accessible. Sympathy is worthily
bestowed upon the sick or dying women transferred from public
institutions to charitable organizations, to alleviate the sorrows of their
final sufferings, to soothe the agony of the hour of death,
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to divest of its terrors. The passage from this world
to the dread future is a work in which the
heart of any Christian must rejoice. But it is only
a part of the duties contemplated by such asylums. While
their projector gladly administer the consolations of our holy religion
to an expiring Magdalene, they also seek an opportunity to
(12:07):
direct erring women to the paths of virtue during the
life that still remains to them, to guide them to
a path in which they can retrace the false steps
already taken and become useful members of society. His opportunity
for exertion is denied under the system which drives vice
into seclusion. Turning now from considering the operation of repressive laws,
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we notice the importance of sanitary and quarantine regulations. One
of the first cares of a good government is to
preserve and promote the public health. An illustration of this
position occurred in the summer of eighteen fifty six, when
fears were entertained that the city would be visited by
a frightful epidemic fever. The public voice declared through the
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newspapers that the most rigorous and careful sanitary measures were
needed and the cleaning of streets, the removal of nuisances,
the purification of tenants, 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
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and apparently so imminent, the United Voice of Public Opinions
sanctioned the very course advocated here, namely, the adoption of
remedial or more properly speaking, preventative measures. Venereal poison is
as destructive, although not so suddenly fatal, as yellow fever,
and every motive of philanthropy and economy urges the necessity
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of effective means for its counter action. Since remedial or
preventive measures have been adopted in Paris, the number of
cases of disease and the virulence of its form have
materially abated. This fact is asserted not merely on our
own personal knowledge, but also from the corroborative testimony of
physicians who have had recent opportunities of investigating the subject
(13:57):
in that capital. The diminution can be easily explained by
a comparison of the laws and regulations applicable to prostitution,
We in New York, by our stringent prohibition, drive the
vice into seclusion and deprive ourselves of the means of
watching either its progress or results, while our French contemporaries
(14:18):
insist that it shall be at all times open to
the surveillance of properly appointed persons. The extent of syphilitic
infection in New York has been portrayed in the preceding chapter,
but the danger of contamination must not be viewed as
a merely local question. From its commercial importance, its mercantile marine,
its centralization of railroads and canals, and its facilities for
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river navigation, this city is now the great point of
arrival and departure of travelers and emigrants from into all
parts of the Union. Foreigners reach here in large numbers
every day, intending to travel to other states. If they
remain in the city a few days only, they are
bose to its temptations and may contract disease, which, by
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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 storekeepers visit
this commercial emporium to obtain supplies of goods, and they
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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 hotbed where,
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from the nature of its laws on prostitution, syphilis may
be cultivated and disseminated. Possessed then of indubitable proofs of
the existence of syphilis, and the knowledge that its range
is more widely extended every day, gathering additional malignity in
its progress, the next point is to inquire what measures
have been adopted to check its ravages. These have hitherto
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been found totally inadequate, because, based upon an erroneous theory,
namely the idea of suppression, the principal public or free
hospital where the venereal disease is confessedly treated is the
Penitentiary Hospital on Blackwell's Island, now known as the Island Hospital.
To obtain the benefit of medical treatment therein, it is
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necessary that the patient should have been sentenced from the
court of Sessions to the penitentiary for the commission of
some crime, or committed to the workhouse by a police
justice for vagrancy, drunkenness or disorderly conduct. From this fact
it will be seen that there is strictly speaking no
free hospital for such diseases, as the only one intended
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for their treatment will or can receive none but those
sentence for an infraction of the laws. Still, the necessity
for professional assistance compels many, both males and females to
submit to the degradation of a police commitment. Unfortunate women
or laboring men find that they are suffering from infection.
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Possibly they have no money, or probably they have exhausted
their funds in payments to Charlatan's 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
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their state, and directed to apply to a police justice.
They follow this advice, and in nine cases out of ten,
the magistrates only remark is do you want me to
send you to the hospital? The answer, of course, is
in the affirmative, and he forthwith signs of printed commitment
to the penitentiary or workhouse for a time named therein
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and ranging from one to six months, at the discretion
of the magistrate. The following is a copy of one
of these documents. City and County of New York, silicit
by Blank Esquire, one of the police Justices in and
(18:19):
for the City of 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 Blank, who stands charged
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before me with being a vagrant viz. Being without the
means of supporting him or herself, and having contracted an
infectious disease in the practice of debauchery viz. The venereal
disease requiring charitable aid to restore him or hurt health,
whereof he or she is convicted of record on confession,
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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 Blank is an improper person
to be sent to the almshouse. You, the said warden,
are hereby commanded to receive into your custody in the
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said penitentiary the body of the said Blank and Blank
safely keep for the space of blank months, or until
he or she shall be thence delivered by due course
of law given under my hand, and seal this blank
day of blank month in the year of our Lord
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one thousand, eight hundred and fifty blank blank Police justice.
This is technically called a commitment on conf and its
effects are precisely the same as they would be if
the individual had been convicted of any tangible act of vagrancy.
He is, in law and in fact a prisoner for
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the space of time named in the commitment. He must
wear the prison garb and submit to the prison discipline
until the expiration of his sentence. It is well known
to the justices that a penal commitment like the above
will immediately secure the sufferer the medical attention his case requires.
But they have no power to send anyone direct to
the hospital. And here an inquiry will naturally suggest itself,
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what does or what should a magistrate know about committing
a sick person, and how can he decide the time
such invalids 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
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to the pecuniary effects of this plan to illustrate, suppose
the case of a man committed for six months. He
is suffering from some form of venereal disease, and in
this state is received at the penitentiary or workhouse, where
his clothes are taken from him, the institution costumes supplied,
and the particulars of his name, age, nativity, occupation, etc.
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Are registered with an abstract of the commitment by virtue
of which he is detained. He is then subjected to
medical examination and transferred to the hospital. In this institution
he remains until cured if that end is attained before
the expiration of his sentence, and is then re transferred
to the penitentiary or workhouse. The average time required for
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the successful treatment of the disease named in the Blackwells
Island Hospital will not probably exceed two months, and often
a much shorter period is sufficient. But the man has
been committed for six months, and for the unexpired four
months of his life incarceration he has to be fed, clothed,
and lodged at the expense of the almshouse department. The
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labor he can perform will never amount in value to
the actual cost of his support, so that he has
maintained four months in accordance with law at a positive
cost to the taxpayers of the city, because they have
already supported him for two months in the hospital. In
the aggregate of cases during a year, these costs amount
to a very large sum. Need any farther argument be
(22:29):
adduced to show the palpable absurdity of the system. A
few words upon the moral effect of this local system
upon prostitution in New York, premising that being a prostitute
is acknowledged by all as a degradation, while a vagrancy
commitment to the workhouse or penitentiary is a positive disgrace.
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The system is a portion of the crushing out planned
already mentioned, and it says, in effect, we, the people
of New York City, will give you an opportunity to
be cured of your loathsome and destructive malady, but only
upon the condition that you become the inmate of a
penal institution. We know that you cannot be cured unless
you accept our terms, and we will make those terms
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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 cannot be
coexistent in the same person by adding farther and unnecessary
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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
(23:57):
cure until they are absolutely compelled to do so. How
excessively wrong is this principle in a hygienic point of view,
must be evident A directly contrary course, making the hospital
attractive instead of repulsive, would be the true policy, and
would be the most economical in its results. Nor is
it justice to the medical departments of our public institutions
(24:20):
to clog their labors with the 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 service is much
more effectual, whereas little or nothing can be accomplished when
(24:40):
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 entertained
of any good results. Under a more liberal system, the
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physician and the philanthropists could combine their efforts. The former
would not have to encounter disease inveterately fixed on a
broken down constitution. The latter would not find his benevolent
designs frustrated by a lengthened career of depravity now become habitual.
The effect of the provision which offers medical aid to
prisoners only is that every woman of the town will
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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 once step more will plunge
her into a bottomless abyss of helplessness and hopeless woe,
that she will voluntarily accept the proffered aid. She will
endure torture from her maladies, or rely upon the assistance
(25:48):
of empirics and submit to all their extortions rather than
become a prisoner. But when every resource is exhausted and
her physical torments plainly tell her that she must obtain
medical relief or die, then she submits. Once in the hospital,
she is relieved after a period of protracted sickness and
leaves it to return to her old haunts, because she
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can go nowhere else, the law having affixed the additional
disgrace of imprisonment upon her former bad character. Sociality is
a characteristic of human nature, and if these women cannot
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
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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 Potter's 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
(26:56):
single deviation from the paths of virtue drives many women
to prostate why add to the existing sense of shame
another infamy when she unfortunately contracts disease? Can we consistently
blame her if she becomes callous when every legal provision
directly tends to indurate her sensibilities. The misconduct of parents
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toward children has been shown as one of the causes
of prostitution. The father or mother drives from the paternal
roof the child who has committed but a single error. Then,
under the pressure of hunger, she inevitably sins more deeply,
becomes diseased, applies to the public for relief, and is
sentenced to imprisonment. The first mistake, that of the parents,
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makes her vicious. The second mistake, incarceration, confirms her and 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?
(28:00):
If it is right for us, a body corporate, to
practice such cruel oppression, is it not equally justifiable for
each member of the body to act in the same
manner in his individual capacity. Of course, what is right
for the multitude must be right for the individual, and
our own conduct convicts us of inconsistency. We have no
(28:21):
warrant to condemn parents for single acts which we perform collectively,
or if we are right in censuring them, we are
wrong in performing the same acts ourselves. If they are reprehensible,
we also are culpable. This system with all its absurdity,
its prejudicial effect on public health, and its obvious tendency
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to immorality, is not adequate to stay the destroying scourge.
On the contrary, it is likely to extend its ravages.
If a prostitute arrested and committed to Blackwell's Island for
drunkenness or any disorderly conduct, is found to be diseased,
or if she commits herself knowing that she is infected,
(29:03):
she is immediately placed under medical charge. She will probably
remain contentedly in the hospital until the worst symptoms of
the disease are subdued. By this time, the discipline of
the institution has become irksome to her. She communicates with
the brothel keeper with whom she formerly boarded, or with
some lover or acquaintance who sues out a writ of
(29:26):
sertiorari or habeas corpus, which instantly affects her discharge. She
now returns to her former haunts, half cured again, to
aid in disseminating disease farther, to undermine her own constitution,
and to infect men who will in turn become a
charge upon taxpayers, or by their agency, cause others to
(29:46):
become thus liable. The instance of wholesale release mentioned in
the previous chapter will recur to the mind of the reader.
The experience of almost every day confirms these statements. It
is well known that there are those who hang around
the various police courts expressly to attend to such business,
and who make a large income from this source, Exclusive
(30:08):
of other matters pertaining to prostitution, in which they occasionally
exert their abilities. The vagrancy commitments by which women are
sent up are generally insufficient, and there is no legal
power to detain them and force them to submit to
the treatment they so much require. It has been asserted
by legal men of high standing that nearly the whole
(30:28):
of the commitments issued by police justices are defective, and
that there exists in law no impediment to the immediate
discharge of every prostitute now on Blackwell's Island. The public
can readily perceive the necessary inefficiency of these institutions so
far as the prevention of venereal disease is concerned. The
facility with which prostitutes committed to Blackwell's Island can obtain
(30:51):
their discharge may be attributed to want of care in
making out the commitments. A recent statute eighteen fifty four
describes 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
(31:13):
not observed, and the reason assigned by magistrates is that
their own time and the time of their clerks is
so fully occupied by the press of business before them
that they cannot proceed as minutely as the Act erects.
This confirms the view already expressed of the impolicy and
impropriety of placing such onerous and extra judicial duties upon
(31:35):
the justices. But as they would be liable to be
sued for false imprisonment if they committed under this Act
without observing all its requirements, they issue their commitments in
the old form required by the revised statutes, and are
sheltered thereby from ulterior consequences. These commitments direct the persons
to be confined in the penitentiary, but the local arrangements
(31:58):
of Blackwell's Island require them to be sent to the workhouse,
and unless this transfer is actually made in each case
by the governors of the almshouse, for they cannot 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 workhouse is part of
(32:19):
the penitentiary, but this point has been overruled because the
statute establishing the workhouse plainly shows a contrary intent. A
prisoner is entitled to a discharge on another ground, namely
because the commitment has not been filed as directed, or
on another ground that the commitment does not recite the
(32:39):
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 eighteen fifty four has
not been complied with. On these grounds, a writ of
sertiorari or habeas corpus is sued out, the preliminary steps
(33:01):
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
(33:23):
time at which it shall be returnable. The action of
the two writs is similar, excepting that a writ of
habeas corpus requires the production of the prisoner before the
judge in addition to a return of the cause of detention,
while a writ of serdiaarari 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
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copy of the commitment under which he is held. And
from the already stated informality of these documents, it will
be apparent there can be no legal ground for his detention.
The judge is strictly prohibited from entertaining any question beyond
the legality of the papers. With the moral aspect of
the question he cannot interfere, and as the commitments are
(34:07):
generally informal, he has no alternative but to discharge the prisoner.
Application for these writs must be made in the name
of an attorney, but such name is often used by
an agent who transacts the business and divides the fee
with his principal end of Section fifty nine. Recording by
(34:29):
Ramon Escimia Conway, Arkansas, r A M O n E.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.