September 3, 2025 • 36 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 sixty one 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 Escimia. The History of Prostitution by William Sanger,
(00:24):
Section sixty one, Chapter thirty seven. New York Remedial Measures,
Part three. Public decency would be served in another manner.
It is a most humiliating admission that New York is
fast approaching to the condition of certain foreign cities where
unnatural practices first led to the contemplation and adoption of
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these or similar remedial measures. In our case, they are
known to the authorities, but are so revolting that they
never have been and never can be made public. Of course,
such an organization would take special cognizance of these detestable abominations.
Objections to the expense of the plan may be raised,
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and it cannot be denied that it will be large.
Yet it will be a matter of economy to incur it,
even at the risk of increasing taxation, which it will
not do. Recollect that every year. As the virulence of
syphilis was abated, the cause of the expense would diminish,
and that in a direct ratio to the energy displayed
in the examination, would be the progressive reduction of expenditure.
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It has already been indicated how some of the inmates
of a syphilitic hospital, from whom hitherto nothing has been received,
could be made to contribute their quota of the cost.
Now the public bear all the expenses, either as assessments
or as private payments in individual attacks. The magnitude of
the latter item has been already estimated, and were it
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possible to calculate in addition the value of lost time,
the injury to business, and the deterioration of the constitution,
the total in one year would be far more than
sufficient to carry out the whole of this plan for
double the time. It would also be economy to incur
the outlay on account of the benefits to succeeding generations.
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Syphilis is not confined in its effects to the lifetime
of the men or women who contracted, but is entailed
on their descendants. These, provided they survive its baneful effects
during infancy, are mentally and physically unfitted for business or
the active pursuits of life, and consequently, are frequently indebted
for the means of sustenance to their friends or to
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public institutions. If the liability to that disease among parents
can be removed, no fears need be entertained about their children.
We are not so sanguine as to imagine that all
the good efforts above enumerated could be accomplished instanter. It
would be a work of time. But the sooner it
is commenced, the better for all the interests involved. Many
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persons will say, Oh, these evils do not concern us,
These diseases will never injure us or ours. Why should
we trouble ourselves and give our money, time, and attention
to such matters? Stop, reader, While human passion exists, and
while the means of gratifying it can be obtained, you
and yours can, and will, nay do, now suffer from it,
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directly or indirectly. The first question for any citizen to
ask himself is can prostitution be abolished? Can it be
crushed out? If this be answered in the negative, as
it must be, then the next question brings him to
the point sought to be attained in these pages, namely,
the means that shall be taken to circumscribe and diminish
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its consequent diseases and evils. This question has latterly been
attracting some attention in England, and plans to mitigate the
evil have been publicly discussed. The chief grounds of complaints,
or at least those brought most prominently forward, were the
assembling of prostitutes in the streets, the annoyance they caused
to passengers, and the disorderly character of night houses. This
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term is applied in London to those public houses, supper rooms,
wine and cigar saloons, et cetera, which are situated near
the theaters and places of public entertainment, and being permitted
to remain open all night, become resorts for prostitutes. A
public meeting for consultation upon these evils was held in
London in January last, eighteen fifty eight, and the remarks
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made by some of the speakers are so much in
accordance with the general tenor of this work as to
be worth extracting in justice to the writer. It must
be premised that the preceding part of this chapter was
penned twelve months before the report of this meeting was
made public. The Chairman observed that he was glad to
see so general an interest elicited on this subject, and
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that he hoped it would lead to some practical result.
It would, in fact be impossible to aggravate the evil,
for neither in Paris, Berlin, New York, nor even in
the cities of Asia was there such a public exhibition
of profligacy end quote. The following resolutions were submitted and adopted.
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Quote resolved that a deputation due weight, as early as possible,
upon Sir George Gray, for the purpose of most respectfully
but earnestly representing to Her Majesty's Government the necessity of
effectual measures being taken to put down the open exhibition
of street prostitution, which, in various parts of the metropolis,
particularly in the important thoroughfares of the Haymarket, Coventry Street,
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Regent Street, Portland Place, and other adjacent localities, is carried
on with a disregard of public decency, and to an
extent tolerated in no other capital or city of the
civilized world. That such deputation be instructed to urge upon
Her Majesty's Government the following measures. Whereby it is believed
that the evil complained of may be effectually controlled. Firstly
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the enforcement upon a systematic plan, and by means of
a department of the police specially appointed and instructed for
that purpose, of the provisions of the second and third
of Victoria Capitulus forty seven in reference to street prostitution,
which provisions have in certain localities been heretofore carried out
with the best effect, and in others have been ineffectual
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only because acted upon partially and not upon any uniform system.
And secondly, the passing and Act for licensing and placing
under proper regulations as to supervision and hours of closing
all houses of entertainment or for the supply of refreshments
intended to be opened to the public after a certain
fixed hour. It being a matter of public notoriety that
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the houses of this description, popularly known as night houses, have,
by becoming the places of resort of crowds of prostitutes
and other idle and disorderly persons at all hours of
the night, greatly contributed to the present disgraceful exhibition of
street prostitution. That the attention of the government be also
directed to the number of foreign prostitutes systematically imported into
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this country and to the means of controlling this evil.
The substance of one of the addresses made on the
subject was as follows. The speaker quote begged to remind
the meeting that a change had already been effected through
the action of the police in the aspect of the
Haymarket and Regent Street. Heretofore so much complained of the
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sense that the public eye was upon their class, had
caused a corresponding amendment in the dress and demeanor of
the females frequenting those streets, and the objects of this
association were so far in good train, strongly oppressive, or,
as some delicately said, repressive measures could only be carried
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out by an extent of police interference, inconsistent with the
prejudices of English people, who were indisposed to deny a
large extent of personal freedom to persons of even the
most disorderly classes who had not absolutely forfeited their civil rights.
If the Association went the length of advocating that the
act of prostitution should involve such forfeiture and the entire
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riddance of London streets from the presence of prostitutes, they
would soon find their hands over full, unless they thought
it possible to exterminate the vice altogether. They would find
that its wholesale clearance from the streets would necessitate registration, licensing,
and confinement in certain authorized quarters or streets, as prevailed abroad.
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But such restrictions would entail a more ample recognition and
legalization than had hitherto obtained, and so ample, indeed as
to be very distasteful to what was called the religious public.
It would be obviously unjust to exempt from pressure the
ladylike prosperous harlot, while a miserable, vulgar, painted outcast was
consignable because she stood out from the picture somewhat broadly
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to the police cell and the bridewell. The meeting must
be aware that there was already abroad among the lower
half million of Londoners an impression that the police was
already strict enough, and that this opinion was shared by
numbers of intelligent men, neither paupers nor criminals. They must
remember that many a gentleman of character had passed a
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night in a police cell for interfering in the defense
of prostitutes against the police, and this sentiment would deepen
very dangerously if the police pressure were put on double or,
as some would have it, tenfold. The very policemen, too,
men sprung from the same class of society as those
female offenders, were as likely as any one else to
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be faint hearted in the work of relieving the eyes
and ears of gentility from the presence of those whose
situation they were not slow to trace to the schemes
and desires of the genteel class. He did not think
that the power of discrimination could be safely entrusted to
the ill paid constables, the Metropolitan Police, and the association
of certain ratepayers with the police as witnesses, as hinted
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at by one of the delegates, would soon, if established,
fall into desuetude. With the view of checking the evil
in a satisfactory manner, he would recommend the institution of
a special service of street orderlies or regulators in uniform,
a well paid, superior, temperate and discreet class of men,
if possible, whose functions should be to observe not to
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spy upon all prostitutes, especially those of the street walking order,
and whose circulation, as opposed to loitering and haunting particular
spots they should insist upon. They should work not by threats,
but by entreaty, advice, suggestion, but in the case of contumacy,
should have the right to call in the regular force.
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He believed that the right of entry and inspection of
all places of ill fame should be vested in the
Home Secretary and his delegates, and this would be attained
least a press by a proper system of licensing. Forced
concentration would not be tolerated here, but concentration was valuable
as bringing immorality under more control parochial crusades, though prima
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fosier a public blessing, had often the effect of spreading corruption.
It was recollected at Cambridge that when a certain proctor
made very frequent descents upon the hamlet of Barnwell, where
much of the parasitical vices of that university had taken root,
the people in question, far from cure or conversion, merely
extended their radius into more rural villages. These were so
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soon corrupted that representations were addressed to the university by
the parochial clergy, praying that the plague of Barnwell should
be confined to its old bounds and not let loose
upon their simpler perishes. It was notorious that the same
kind of thing followed, on a very large scale the
expulsion of prostitutes from Brussels. And it could not be
supposed that the attempt to strangle the growth of immorality
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by broadcasting its seeds, which was found impracticable under the
powerful discipline of the English University and the Belgian capital,
could answer. Among this enormous and when roused unmanageable population.
The evicted of Norton Street, in the parish of all Souls,
had settled quietly down in the next parish, incompressible as water.
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The vice had but shifted its ground, and from a
really moral point of view, more harm than good had
accrued from the change. These remarks do not call for
any amplification. A few days after the meeting, a leading
article appeared in the London Times. It must be remembered
that for many years the settled policy of the conductors
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of that journal has been to make it rather the
exponent than the leader of public opinion, and the importance
generally attached to it arises from a knowledge of this fact.
We give the article almost entire quote. There is a
very disagreeable subject which we are compelled to bring, although
most reluctantly before the notice of the public, because it
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has become necessary to bring public opinion to bear upon it.
Many clergymen and gentlemen are now associating themselves together for
the purpose of dealing in some degree with the notorious
evil of street prostitution. It is our earnest desire to
give them all the support in our power, so long
as they confine themselves to reasonable measures of discouragement and repression.
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Let us not nourish any visionary expectations. It would be
simply idle to suppose that the evil against which we
are now directing our efforts can be put down by
the strong hand of power. It is with moral as
with physical disease. There is no use in looking for
an entirely satisfactory result from the treatment of symptoms. There
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may be alleviation, there may be diminution of the disorder,
but there will be no perfect cure. Whatever tends to
raise the standard of public morality will also tend to
diminish prostitution. In such a case, we are dealing with
two parties, the tempter, let us say, and the tempted,
with the man and with the woman. It is probably
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with the first of the two, that we should principally
concern ourselves if we would bring about any serious result.
It is on the sacred action of family life, with
the thousand influences it brings to bear upon the minds
and conduct of men, that we must chiefly depend if
we would see any notable diminution in the numbers of
those unfortunate creatures who now parade our streets. Let it
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be once understood that even among a man's fellows and associates,
immorality is a thing to be ashamed of, and at
least we should get rid of the contagion of vice.
Time was, and the time is not a very remote
one when a British gentleman, we speak of all three
home divisions of the Empire, would nightly stagger or be
carried up to his bed fuddled, if not absolutely drunk.
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A man who should thus expose himself in our own
days would be set down as a beast, and his
society would be avoided by all who set store on
their own good name. In this respect, there has been
a palpable improvement in the manners of the age. Surely
public opinion can be brought to bear against one vice
as well as another. The time may come when a
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man may shrink from presenting himself in the sacred circle
of his mother, his sisters, and his other female relatives,
wreeking from secret immorality. Conscience can turn on a bull's
eye as well as a policeman, and the culprit may
stand self convicted, although no one has been there to
convict him save himself. The influences, however, of which we
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speak are of slow growth, and cannot much be quickened
by the hand of power. It has become necessary to
deal at once with certain results. Now we say it
with much shame that in no capital city of Europe
is there daily and nightly such a shameless display of
prostitute as in London, at Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin.
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As every one knows, there is plenty of vice, but
at least it is not allowed to parade the streets,
to tempt the weak, to offend and disgust all rightly
thinking persons. If any one would see the evil of
which we speak in its full development, let him pass
along the Haymarket and its neighborhood at night, when the
nighthouses and the oyster shops are open. It is not
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an easy matter to make your way along without molestation.
In Regent Street, in the strand in Fleet Street. The
same nuisance, but in a less degree, prevails. Now we
are well aware that if all the unfortunate creatures who
parade these localities were swept away tomorrow, if the nighthouses
and oyster shops were closed by the police, we should
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not have really suppressed immorality. We should, however, have removed
the evil from the sight of those who are disgusted
and annoyed by its display. Well More, we should have
removed it from the sight of those who, probably, had
they not been tempted by the sight of these opportunities,
would not have fallen. Now. As one practical measure for
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the discouragement of prostitution, all these night houses and others
might be placed under the surveillance of the police. Licenses
for opening them and keeping them open might be given
only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees
of their respectability. They might be compelled to close at
certain hours. In point of fact, the community could tolerate
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well nigh any degree of inconvenience inflicted upon their frequenters.
In two other analogous cases, similar evils have been dealt
with in this way and with the happiest results. We
speak of gaming houses and betting offices. It is quite
certain that persons who are firmly resolved to play and
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ti bet will affect their purpose even now. But at
least the sum of the evils resulting from these two
has been greatly diminished since the community has resolved to
withdraw from them its recognition. England should not grant her
exequator to prostitution. This is one thing which might be tried.
Another would be to give increased force to clauses which,
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as we believe, already exist in police acts, by which
the police are empowered to stop the solicitation in gathering
together prostitutes in the public streets. In such a case,
we must trample down definitions and exceptional cases with an
elephant's foot and go straight for results. The rule in
all such cases is to give the power and to
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leave it in the discretion of the authorities, only to
employ it on the proper occasions. We have ample guarantees
nowadays that such discretion cannot be abused. Here, then, are
two things which may be done without opening any visionary trenches.
The police may be directed to deal with prostitutes as
they do with mendicants, and the center of pollution may
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be brought under proper regulation. We know well enough that
in such a capital as London, it is hopeless to
expect the advice of this description can be expunged altogether
from the catalog of our national sins. But at least
let as many difficulties as possible be thrown in its way. Again,
the benevolent persons who have taken it in hand to
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deal with this monstrous evil, assert that the introduction of
foreign prostitutes, or what is still worse, of girls yet
uncontaminated for the purposes of prostitution, might be discouraged much
more than it is perhaps well nigh totally prevented. Undoubtedly,
England does not desire free trade in prostitution. Preventive measures
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upon this subject are surrounded with difficulties, but that is
no reason for despair, but for one additional exertion. Very
numerous and influential meetings have been held upon this subject,
and we augur well of their success. There was no
display of ultra puritanic rigor no attempt to deal with impossibilities.
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The speakers in the main contended that the public exhibition
of prostitution might be successfully dealt with, even if the
vice were beyond their reach. Our streets at least can
be purged of the public scandal. The disgraceful nighthouses may
be deprived of their powers of corruption, the keepers of
brothels may be brought under the lash of the law,
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and the importation of foreign prostitutes may be diminished, if
not put down altogether, if the public will take the
subject up in earnest. Such were the principal points on
which the speakers insisted, at least their views deserve a trial.
This plan is calculated to restrict prostitution by placing it
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under surveillance. It requires no additional licensing system, as every
public house, wine shop or cigar shop in London, whether
kept open at day or night, whether of a respectable
or immoral class, requires a license under the excise laws.
The proposals just quoted urge that the permission to keep
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these places of entertainment should be limited and quote given
only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees
of their respectability end quote. It will be necessary for
the reader to bear in mind that night houses are
not houses of prostitution, but merely resorts for prostitutes, as
already mentioned. As in default of this, a natural construction
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would be the times proposed to license brothels. The two
are as distinct as possible, and it would be as
consistent to style some of the fashionable oyster saloons and
restaurants of New York houses of ill fame because abandoned
women resort to them, as to class the night houses
of London in that catalog. They are simply places for
public refreshment in the neighborhoods of theaters, markets, et cetera,
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which are permitted to continue open all night in deference
to a supposed public requirement. And though from the character
of their visitants, they cannot be considered schools of morality
or decency, yet no prostitution takes place in them. The
interests of the proprietors guard against this, as it would
immediately cause the licenses to be revoked and consequently close
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the place entirely. By placing the resorts of London prostitutes
under this restriction, much would be gained, so far as
the public decency of the streets and the transit of
passengers are concerned, but no possible check would be imposed
on the ravages of disease. The proposition at the meeting
to license the brothels would do this, but as was
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anticipated by the speaker quote, it would be very distasteful
to the religious public end quote, and the act of
recognition would be immediately construed as an act of approval
or at least of sanction, that it would not merit.
This censure must be evident. The only approval or sanction
given to the vice would in fact consists in saying
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to the keepers of houses of ill fame, we shall
not attempt to close your doors, for we know that
would be impossible, but we shall claim the right of
entry at any moment to watch your proceedings. It has
ever been an unquestioned policy to choose the least of
two evils when you must take one. And if the
British government should ever license brothels, they will certainly adopt
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the theory. To the population of London. Less danger would
inure from this toleration than from the unknown, unwatched courtesans
who haunt their streets. Many an apparently respectable man will
follow a woman into a house of prostitution when it
is conducted quietly and furtively, Who would hesitate before he
accompanied her into a known and licensed brothel, While many
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a stranger, who may date his physical ruin and possibly
the loss of character and honor, from the hour when
he entered a private house of prostitution, would be saved.
Many a bitter memory, had an official recognition of its
true character, met him on its threshold, and intimated that
it was the resort of the abandoned and vicious. In London,
as in New York, we do not believe that illicit
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sexual intercourse can be carried to any greater extent than
it is now, So no danger of an increase of
vice need be apprehended there from any measures calculated to
remove some of the ulterior and fatal effects of dissipation
in contrast to the public display of immorality in the
streets of London. Is the following description of prostitution in Paris.
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It is extracted from the foreign correspondence of a New
York journal quote Paris, Thursday, May twenty seventh, eighteen fifty eight.
In a late letter on the subject of the turning
boxes of the Foundling Hospitals, I spoke of the repugnance
of Protestant communities to any official compromise with one sin
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in order even to destroy a greater. For that the
secret reception of illegitimate children by the state does contribute
enormously to the extinction of the crime of infanticide, while
it does not generally increase the number of these unfortunate
children is too, while shown by statistics, to remain longer
a question for discussion. But we have another and a
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more striking example of this repugnance to a collusion with
one evil in order to smother out another, and a
greater in the want of legislation in Protestant countries on
the subject of prostitution. For many months, as you know,
the municipality officers, the churchwardens, and the journals of London
have been excited over this very question of prostitution. And
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no wonder one need but to leave Paris and fall
suddenly in the streets of London at an advanced hour
of the evening to comprehend the excitement of its citizens
on this subject. To the Frenchman, crossing the Channel is
like crossing the River Styx. He falls suddenly into a
pandemonium of street disorder and drunken licentiousness for which he
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is not prepared. He recalls Mary's terrible picture in Nazima
and does not find it overdrawn. He sees nothing like
this in his own city, and he is surprised beyond measure,
for he has been taught to believe in the puritanism
of Protestant countries. When an American or an Englishman habituated
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to the revolting night scenes of New York or London
first arrives in Paris, he is astonished at the absolute
absence of similar scenes in our streets. He has perhaps
arrived here with the impression most foreigners do that prostitution
and revelry and drunken debauchery stalk forth in the day
and render hideous the night. But he forgets that he
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has arrived in a city where there are laws and
a police to execute them, in a city where refinement
and the proprieties of life are carried to their extreme perfection,
and where such license and debauchery as prevails in English
and American cities would be an absolute contradiction to the
spirit and habits of the people. The reader will please
observe that I do not speak of the morals of
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the people, but of their ideas of decorum and the
proprieties of life, of what is due to decency and
an ordinary respect for appearances. This extreme attention to appearances
is in fact one of the principal attractions of a
residence in Paris. The city is not only maintained free
of inanimate filth, but of animate filth as well. At
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least you are not forced to see it if you
do not wish to. In London, no lady dare walk
out unattended after eight o'clock in the evening, and after
eleven o'clock she will have her eyes and ears insulted,
no matter how well attended. While in Paris she may
remain in the streets to any hour of the night
and neither have her eyes offended nor her ears insulted.
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How is this happy result accomplished? In eighteen fifty one,
the official register of the Police of Paris showed forty
three hundred public girls on its books. The number now
may be stated at five thousand. Girls and the houses
in which they live are subjected to a series of
stringent laws which renders them innoxious and inoffensive to the community.
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The police adopting the principle that, since it is impossible
to suppress the evil, it should be rendered as inoffensive
to the public eye and to the public salubrity as possible.
All these houses are obliged to be closed at eleven
o'clock precisely, The girls are obliged to remain in the house,
and the windows are always covered with blinds night and day.
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A few girls are permitted here and there to walk
up and down in front of their door from seven
to eleven o'clock precisely, but it is against the law
to accost the passers by. The houses are visited once
a week by a medical and an ordinary inspector, real
inspectors appointed by government and not humbugging ward politicians. Another
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class of girls, and much the larger class, are those
who frequent the public balls, concerts and theaters, girls who
live alone in public lodging houses, and who for the
most part are not enrolled on the police books nor
submitted to the ordinary sanitary regulations. But this class are
no more permitted than the rest, either in the street
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or at their favorite evening resorts, to accost people for
the purposes of commerce. The streets, in the public balls
are full of policemen in citizen's dress, whose business it
is to detect such girls as violate the law in
regard to addressing people, and to put their names on
the police books, thus requiring them to take out a
license and to submit to all the police regulations on
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the new class to which they have entered. As a
girl regards herself as forever lost when her name is
once placed on the police book, and as she never
knows when an officer's eye may be upon her, she
takes good care to violate as rarely as possible this
law prohibiting solicitations in public. This class are always elegantly dressed.
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It is notorious even that they are first to initiate
and to propagate those very fashions which make the tour
of the world as the latest Paris modes. Many of
them are reserved and elegant in their manners, and require
a punctiliousness of etiquette which would not be out of
place in the most aristocratic saloon. But one of the
great aids to the Paris police in the maintenance of
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public decency in this class is the fact that they
do not use strong drinks. A drunken public woman is
never seen as liquor is the greatest abaser of mankind.
This one fact strikes out a marked line of distinction
between this class here and in England and the United States.
The great majority do not lose their self respect, and
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they take good care of their health, hoping later on
to reform and get married. This is here the rule,
whereas in England in the United States they throw themselves
away as rapidly as possible. It is thus that the
fashionable promenades of Paris, the public balls, and the gardens
even may be frequented by ladies and children at all
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hours of the evening and night, without once seeing any
of those offensive movements of public women so common in
the streets of English and American cities. Contrast this state
of things with that of London. Let the reader, if
he has ever lived there, recall to the mind the Strand,
the Haymarket, Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Regent Street, the fashionable
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business quarters of the city. One hesitates to enter upon
a description of such a scene, it refreshes his historical
recollections of the decadence of Rome. His name should be Plato.
To look upon such sits the streets swarm with drunken
and foul spoken young girls, often mere children. And when
I say swarm, I mean that you have to push
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your way to get through them. Is it then strange
that the citizens of London should feel scandalized at the
state of things, or that its journals or its churchwardens
should seek to find a remedy for the nuisance. They
will think of everything else, for they arrive at the simple,
effective and beautifully working Paris system because they are a
Protestant people and must not compromise with a sin. It
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must be left to find its own level. Honorable citizens
must consent to allow their sons, often their families, to
come in contact with these demoralizing, stony hearted horrors of
the streets. They must suffer, individually and as a community
from the vile tendencies of street prostitution because they hesitate
to legalize it and to give it over to the
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care of the police. To see the finest evening promenades
of a Protestant and Christian city given up exclusively to
the unutterable shames and horrors of street prostitution is a
problem in the catalog of inconsistencies which Catholic and infidel
France cannot fathom. In France, the law acts on the
principle that for a public woman to be seen in
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the street is an insult to public taste. And hence,
when it is necessary for these girls to be conveyed
to prison, to the hospital, or to the dispensary of
the Prefecture of Police, they are mounted in close carriages
constructed for the purpose. Or when by hazard they are
obliged to take a public fiacre, they are required to
keep the blinds down. You may say what you please
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about the surface morality of the French, but their respect
for the public eye does honor to their civilization, and
their law on this evil would be well adopted elsewhere.
There is no truer principle in civil government than that
the moral source of society should be hidden as much
as possible from the public view. For it is now
too late in the day to combat the maxim long
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ago put in print by Pope. That vice is propagated
by a familiarity with it. The French law may be
culpable in permitting masked balls and the keeping of concubines,
but these are affairs that belong to the interior, which
the public need not see if they do not wish to.
The important distinction is that the French law does not
compel an honest father of a family, in returning from
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church or theater, to push his way through mobs of drunken,
lewd women who salute his children's ears with language they
ought never to hear. In one of its last articles
on the general subject of prostitution, the London Times makes
some judicious remarks which are completely verified in the same
class as Paris. Thus the Times declares the proper method
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of diminishing the number of these unfortunates. For to think
of eradicating the evil as an illusion is not by
missionary efforts directed to them, but rather to their poor parents.
For these poor girls were raised in sin and never
made a fall. The same thing holds good here. Ninety
five hundreds of all the public women of Paris are
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born and raised in filthiness of mind and body. At
the age of ten, twelve and fourteen years, they are
already prostitutes and thieves. And when they get their first
silk dress, their first fine toilette earned in their shameful profession,
they take a step higher in the scale of morality.
For then they cease to steal, they acquire a certain
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degree of pride in their conduct. They are more respectful
and decently behaved, so that, paradoxical as it may seem,
the immense majority of the public women of Paris, instead
of making a fall, have actually been promoted in the
scale of morality. But all these women know nothing else
than the life in which they have been raised. They
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are fit for nothing else. They are incorrigibly averse to
all the moral suasion that can be addressed to them.
And the real remedy is an enlightenment of the parents
of such children, a general improvement in the moral tone
of the lowest classes. In fine, if it is an
evil which cannot be eradicated, if the children of beggars
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and ragpickers and concierge will fall into evil doing, it
is right to protect society, at least from the public
demonstration of their vile occupation, by the passage of effective
police laws. End of sections sixty one. Recording by Ramon Escamilla, Conway, Arkansas.
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R A. M O N E. S C A M
I L L A dot WordPress dot com.
Section sixty one 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 Escimia. The History of Prostitution by William Sanger,
(00:24):
Section sixty one, Chapter thirty seven. New York Remedial Measures,
Part three. Public decency would be served in another manner.
It is a most humiliating admission that New York is
fast approaching to the condition of certain foreign cities where
unnatural practices first led to the contemplation and adoption of
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these or similar remedial measures. In our case, they are
known to the authorities, but are so revolting that they
never have been and never can be made public. Of course,
such an organization would take special cognizance of these detestable abominations.
Objections to the expense of the plan may be raised,
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and it cannot be denied that it will be large.
Yet it will be a matter of economy to incur it,
even at the risk of increasing taxation, which it will
not do. Recollect that every year. As the virulence of
syphilis was abated, the cause of the expense would diminish,
and that in a direct ratio to the energy displayed
in the examination, would be the progressive reduction of expenditure.
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It has already been indicated how some of the inmates
of a syphilitic hospital, from whom hitherto nothing has been received,
could be made to contribute their quota of the cost.
Now the public bear all the expenses, either as assessments
or as private payments in individual attacks. The magnitude of
the latter item has been already estimated, and were it
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possible to calculate in addition the value of lost time,
the injury to business, and the deterioration of the constitution,
the total in one year would be far more than
sufficient to carry out the whole of this plan for
double the time. It would also be economy to incur
the outlay on account of the benefits to succeeding generations.
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Syphilis is not confined in its effects to the lifetime
of the men or women who contracted, but is entailed
on their descendants. These, provided they survive its baneful effects
during infancy, are mentally and physically unfitted for business or
the active pursuits of life, and consequently, are frequently indebted
for the means of sustenance to their friends or to
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public institutions. If the liability to that disease among parents
can be removed, no fears need be entertained about their children.
We are not so sanguine as to imagine that all
the good efforts above enumerated could be accomplished instanter. It
would be a work of time. But the sooner it
is commenced, the better for all the interests involved. Many
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persons will say, Oh, these evils do not concern us,
These diseases will never injure us or ours. Why should
we trouble ourselves and give our money, time, and attention
to such matters? Stop, reader, While human passion exists, and
while the means of gratifying it can be obtained, you
and yours can, and will, nay do, now suffer from it,
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directly or indirectly. The first question for any citizen to
ask himself is can prostitution be abolished? Can it be
crushed out? If this be answered in the negative, as
it must be, then the next question brings him to
the point sought to be attained in these pages, namely,
the means that shall be taken to circumscribe and diminish
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its consequent diseases and evils. This question has latterly been
attracting some attention in England, and plans to mitigate the
evil have been publicly discussed. The chief grounds of complaints,
or at least those brought most prominently forward, were the
assembling of prostitutes in the streets, the annoyance they caused
to passengers, and the disorderly character of night houses. This
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term is applied in London to those public houses, supper rooms,
wine and cigar saloons, et cetera, which are situated near
the theaters and places of public entertainment, and being permitted
to remain open all night, become resorts for prostitutes. A
public meeting for consultation upon these evils was held in
London in January last, eighteen fifty eight, and the remarks
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made by some of the speakers are so much in
accordance with the general tenor of this work as to
be worth extracting in justice to the writer. It must
be premised that the preceding part of this chapter was
penned twelve months before the report of this meeting was
made public. The Chairman observed that he was glad to
see so general an interest elicited on this subject, and
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that he hoped it would lead to some practical result.
It would, in fact be impossible to aggravate the evil,
for neither in Paris, Berlin, New York, nor even in
the cities of Asia was there such a public exhibition
of profligacy end quote. The following resolutions were submitted and adopted.
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Quote resolved that a deputation due weight, as early as possible,
upon Sir George Gray, for the purpose of most respectfully
but earnestly representing to Her Majesty's Government the necessity of
effectual measures being taken to put down the open exhibition
of street prostitution, which, in various parts of the metropolis,
particularly in the important thoroughfares of the Haymarket, Coventry Street,
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Regent Street, Portland Place, and other adjacent localities, is carried
on with a disregard of public decency, and to an
extent tolerated in no other capital or city of the
civilized world. That such deputation be instructed to urge upon
Her Majesty's Government the following measures. Whereby it is believed
that the evil complained of may be effectually controlled. Firstly
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the enforcement upon a systematic plan, and by means of
a department of the police specially appointed and instructed for
that purpose, of the provisions of the second and third
of Victoria Capitulus forty seven in reference to street prostitution,
which provisions have in certain localities been heretofore carried out
with the best effect, and in others have been ineffectual
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only because acted upon partially and not upon any uniform system.
And secondly, the passing and Act for licensing and placing
under proper regulations as to supervision and hours of closing
all houses of entertainment or for the supply of refreshments
intended to be opened to the public after a certain
fixed hour. It being a matter of public notoriety that
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the houses of this description, popularly known as night houses, have,
by becoming the places of resort of crowds of prostitutes
and other idle and disorderly persons at all hours of
the night, greatly contributed to the present disgraceful exhibition of
street prostitution. That the attention of the government be also
directed to the number of foreign prostitutes systematically imported into
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this country and to the means of controlling this evil.
The substance of one of the addresses made on the
subject was as follows. The speaker quote begged to remind
the meeting that a change had already been effected through
the action of the police in the aspect of the
Haymarket and Regent Street. Heretofore so much complained of the
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sense that the public eye was upon their class, had
caused a corresponding amendment in the dress and demeanor of
the females frequenting those streets, and the objects of this
association were so far in good train, strongly oppressive, or,
as some delicately said, repressive measures could only be carried
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out by an extent of police interference, inconsistent with the
prejudices of English people, who were indisposed to deny a
large extent of personal freedom to persons of even the
most disorderly classes who had not absolutely forfeited their civil rights.
If the Association went the length of advocating that the
act of prostitution should involve such forfeiture and the entire
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riddance of London streets from the presence of prostitutes, they
would soon find their hands over full, unless they thought
it possible to exterminate the vice altogether. They would find
that its wholesale clearance from the streets would necessitate registration, licensing,
and confinement in certain authorized quarters or streets, as prevailed abroad.
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But such restrictions would entail a more ample recognition and
legalization than had hitherto obtained, and so ample, indeed as
to be very distasteful to what was called the religious public.
It would be obviously unjust to exempt from pressure the
ladylike prosperous harlot, while a miserable, vulgar, painted outcast was
consignable because she stood out from the picture somewhat broadly
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to the police cell and the bridewell. The meeting must
be aware that there was already abroad among the lower
half million of Londoners an impression that the police was
already strict enough, and that this opinion was shared by
numbers of intelligent men, neither paupers nor criminals. They must
remember that many a gentleman of character had passed a
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night in a police cell for interfering in the defense
of prostitutes against the police, and this sentiment would deepen
very dangerously if the police pressure were put on double or,
as some would have it, tenfold. The very policemen, too,
men sprung from the same class of society as those
female offenders, were as likely as any one else to
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be faint hearted in the work of relieving the eyes
and ears of gentility from the presence of those whose
situation they were not slow to trace to the schemes
and desires of the genteel class. He did not think
that the power of discrimination could be safely entrusted to
the ill paid constables, the Metropolitan Police, and the association
of certain ratepayers with the police as witnesses, as hinted
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at by one of the delegates, would soon, if established,
fall into desuetude. With the view of checking the evil
in a satisfactory manner, he would recommend the institution of
a special service of street orderlies or regulators in uniform,
a well paid, superior, temperate and discreet class of men,
if possible, whose functions should be to observe not to
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spy upon all prostitutes, especially those of the street walking order,
and whose circulation, as opposed to loitering and haunting particular
spots they should insist upon. They should work not by threats,
but by entreaty, advice, suggestion, but in the case of contumacy,
should have the right to call in the regular force.
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He believed that the right of entry and inspection of
all places of ill fame should be vested in the
Home Secretary and his delegates, and this would be attained
least a press by a proper system of licensing. Forced
concentration would not be tolerated here, but concentration was valuable
as bringing immorality under more control parochial crusades, though prima
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fosier a public blessing, had often the effect of spreading corruption.
It was recollected at Cambridge that when a certain proctor
made very frequent descents upon the hamlet of Barnwell, where
much of the parasitical vices of that university had taken root,
the people in question, far from cure or conversion, merely
extended their radius into more rural villages. These were so
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soon corrupted that representations were addressed to the university by
the parochial clergy, praying that the plague of Barnwell should
be confined to its old bounds and not let loose
upon their simpler perishes. It was notorious that the same
kind of thing followed, on a very large scale the
expulsion of prostitutes from Brussels. And it could not be
supposed that the attempt to strangle the growth of immorality
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by broadcasting its seeds, which was found impracticable under the
powerful discipline of the English University and the Belgian capital,
could answer. Among this enormous and when roused unmanageable population.
The evicted of Norton Street, in the parish of all Souls,
had settled quietly down in the next parish, incompressible as water.
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The vice had but shifted its ground, and from a
really moral point of view, more harm than good had
accrued from the change. These remarks do not call for
any amplification. A few days after the meeting, a leading
article appeared in the London Times. It must be remembered
that for many years the settled policy of the conductors
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of that journal has been to make it rather the
exponent than the leader of public opinion, and the importance
generally attached to it arises from a knowledge of this fact.
We give the article almost entire quote. There is a
very disagreeable subject which we are compelled to bring, although
most reluctantly before the notice of the public, because it
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has become necessary to bring public opinion to bear upon it.
Many clergymen and gentlemen are now associating themselves together for
the purpose of dealing in some degree with the notorious
evil of street prostitution. It is our earnest desire to
give them all the support in our power, so long
as they confine themselves to reasonable measures of discouragement and repression.
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Let us not nourish any visionary expectations. It would be
simply idle to suppose that the evil against which we
are now directing our efforts can be put down by
the strong hand of power. It is with moral as
with physical disease. There is no use in looking for
an entirely satisfactory result from the treatment of symptoms. There
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may be alleviation, there may be diminution of the disorder,
but there will be no perfect cure. Whatever tends to
raise the standard of public morality will also tend to
diminish prostitution. In such a case, we are dealing with
two parties, the tempter, let us say, and the tempted,
with the man and with the woman. It is probably
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with the first of the two, that we should principally
concern ourselves if we would bring about any serious result.
It is on the sacred action of family life, with
the thousand influences it brings to bear upon the minds
and conduct of men, that we must chiefly depend if
we would see any notable diminution in the numbers of
those unfortunate creatures who now parade our streets. Let it
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be once understood that even among a man's fellows and associates,
immorality is a thing to be ashamed of, and at
least we should get rid of the contagion of vice.
Time was, and the time is not a very remote
one when a British gentleman, we speak of all three
home divisions of the Empire, would nightly stagger or be
carried up to his bed fuddled, if not absolutely drunk.
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A man who should thus expose himself in our own
days would be set down as a beast, and his
society would be avoided by all who set store on
their own good name. In this respect, there has been
a palpable improvement in the manners of the age. Surely
public opinion can be brought to bear against one vice
as well as another. The time may come when a
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man may shrink from presenting himself in the sacred circle
of his mother, his sisters, and his other female relatives,
wreeking from secret immorality. Conscience can turn on a bull's
eye as well as a policeman, and the culprit may
stand self convicted, although no one has been there to
convict him save himself. The influences, however, of which we
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speak are of slow growth, and cannot much be quickened
by the hand of power. It has become necessary to
deal at once with certain results. Now we say it
with much shame that in no capital city of Europe
is there daily and nightly such a shameless display of
prostitute as in London, at Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin.
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As every one knows, there is plenty of vice, but
at least it is not allowed to parade the streets,
to tempt the weak, to offend and disgust all rightly
thinking persons. If any one would see the evil of
which we speak in its full development, let him pass
along the Haymarket and its neighborhood at night, when the
nighthouses and the oyster shops are open. It is not
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an easy matter to make your way along without molestation.
In Regent Street, in the strand in Fleet Street. The
same nuisance, but in a less degree, prevails. Now we
are well aware that if all the unfortunate creatures who
parade these localities were swept away tomorrow, if the nighthouses
and oyster shops were closed by the police, we should
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not have really suppressed immorality. We should, however, have removed
the evil from the sight of those who are disgusted
and annoyed by its display. Well More, we should have
removed it from the sight of those who, probably, had
they not been tempted by the sight of these opportunities,
would not have fallen. Now. As one practical measure for
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the discouragement of prostitution, all these night houses and others
might be placed under the surveillance of the police. Licenses
for opening them and keeping them open might be given
only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees
of their respectability. They might be compelled to close at
certain hours. In point of fact, the community could tolerate
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well nigh any degree of inconvenience inflicted upon their frequenters.
In two other analogous cases, similar evils have been dealt
with in this way and with the happiest results. We
speak of gaming houses and betting offices. It is quite
certain that persons who are firmly resolved to play and
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ti bet will affect their purpose even now. But at
least the sum of the evils resulting from these two
has been greatly diminished since the community has resolved to
withdraw from them its recognition. England should not grant her
exequator to prostitution. This is one thing which might be tried.
Another would be to give increased force to clauses which,
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as we believe, already exist in police acts, by which
the police are empowered to stop the solicitation in gathering
together prostitutes in the public streets. In such a case,
we must trample down definitions and exceptional cases with an
elephant's foot and go straight for results. The rule in
all such cases is to give the power and to
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leave it in the discretion of the authorities, only to
employ it on the proper occasions. We have ample guarantees
nowadays that such discretion cannot be abused. Here, then, are
two things which may be done without opening any visionary trenches.
The police may be directed to deal with prostitutes as
they do with mendicants, and the center of pollution may
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be brought under proper regulation. We know well enough that
in such a capital as London, it is hopeless to
expect the advice of this description can be expunged altogether
from the catalog of our national sins. But at least
let as many difficulties as possible be thrown in its way. Again,
the benevolent persons who have taken it in hand to
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deal with this monstrous evil, assert that the introduction of
foreign prostitutes, or what is still worse, of girls yet
uncontaminated for the purposes of prostitution, might be discouraged much
more than it is perhaps well nigh totally prevented. Undoubtedly,
England does not desire free trade in prostitution. Preventive measures
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upon this subject are surrounded with difficulties, but that is
no reason for despair, but for one additional exertion. Very
numerous and influential meetings have been held upon this subject,
and we augur well of their success. There was no
display of ultra puritanic rigor no attempt to deal with impossibilities.
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The speakers in the main contended that the public exhibition
of prostitution might be successfully dealt with, even if the
vice were beyond their reach. Our streets at least can
be purged of the public scandal. The disgraceful nighthouses may
be deprived of their powers of corruption, the keepers of
brothels may be brought under the lash of the law,
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and the importation of foreign prostitutes may be diminished, if
not put down altogether, if the public will take the
subject up in earnest. Such were the principal points on
which the speakers insisted, at least their views deserve a trial.
This plan is calculated to restrict prostitution by placing it
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under surveillance. It requires no additional licensing system, as every
public house, wine shop or cigar shop in London, whether
kept open at day or night, whether of a respectable
or immoral class, requires a license under the excise laws.
The proposals just quoted urge that the permission to keep
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these places of entertainment should be limited and quote given
only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees
of their respectability end quote. It will be necessary for
the reader to bear in mind that night houses are
not houses of prostitution, but merely resorts for prostitutes, as
already mentioned. As in default of this, a natural construction
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would be the times proposed to license brothels. The two
are as distinct as possible, and it would be as
consistent to style some of the fashionable oyster saloons and
restaurants of New York houses of ill fame because abandoned
women resort to them, as to class the night houses
of London in that catalog. They are simply places for
public refreshment in the neighborhoods of theaters, markets, et cetera,
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which are permitted to continue open all night in deference
to a supposed public requirement. And though from the character
of their visitants, they cannot be considered schools of morality
or decency, yet no prostitution takes place in them. The
interests of the proprietors guard against this, as it would
immediately cause the licenses to be revoked and consequently close
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the place entirely. By placing the resorts of London prostitutes
under this restriction, much would be gained, so far as
the public decency of the streets and the transit of
passengers are concerned, but no possible check would be imposed
on the ravages of disease. The proposition at the meeting
to license the brothels would do this, but as was
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anticipated by the speaker quote, it would be very distasteful
to the religious public end quote, and the act of
recognition would be immediately construed as an act of approval
or at least of sanction, that it would not merit.
This censure must be evident. The only approval or sanction
given to the vice would in fact consists in saying
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to the keepers of houses of ill fame, we shall
not attempt to close your doors, for we know that
would be impossible, but we shall claim the right of
entry at any moment to watch your proceedings. It has
ever been an unquestioned policy to choose the least of
two evils when you must take one. And if the
British government should ever license brothels, they will certainly adopt
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the theory. To the population of London. Less danger would
inure from this toleration than from the unknown, unwatched courtesans
who haunt their streets. Many an apparently respectable man will
follow a woman into a house of prostitution when it
is conducted quietly and furtively, Who would hesitate before he
accompanied her into a known and licensed brothel, While many
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a stranger, who may date his physical ruin and possibly
the loss of character and honor, from the hour when
he entered a private house of prostitution, would be saved.
Many a bitter memory, had an official recognition of its
true character, met him on its threshold, and intimated that
it was the resort of the abandoned and vicious. In London,
as in New York, we do not believe that illicit
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sexual intercourse can be carried to any greater extent than
it is now, So no danger of an increase of
vice need be apprehended there from any measures calculated to
remove some of the ulterior and fatal effects of dissipation
in contrast to the public display of immorality in the
streets of London. Is the following description of prostitution in Paris.
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It is extracted from the foreign correspondence of a New
York journal quote Paris, Thursday, May twenty seventh, eighteen fifty eight.
In a late letter on the subject of the turning
boxes of the Foundling Hospitals, I spoke of the repugnance
of Protestant communities to any official compromise with one sin
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in order even to destroy a greater. For that the
secret reception of illegitimate children by the state does contribute
enormously to the extinction of the crime of infanticide, while
it does not generally increase the number of these unfortunate
children is too, while shown by statistics, to remain longer
a question for discussion. But we have another and a
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more striking example of this repugnance to a collusion with
one evil in order to smother out another, and a
greater in the want of legislation in Protestant countries on
the subject of prostitution. For many months, as you know,
the municipality officers, the churchwardens, and the journals of London
have been excited over this very question of prostitution. And
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no wonder one need but to leave Paris and fall
suddenly in the streets of London at an advanced hour
of the evening to comprehend the excitement of its citizens
on this subject. To the Frenchman, crossing the Channel is
like crossing the River Styx. He falls suddenly into a
pandemonium of street disorder and drunken licentiousness for which he
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is not prepared. He recalls Mary's terrible picture in Nazima
and does not find it overdrawn. He sees nothing like
this in his own city, and he is surprised beyond measure,
for he has been taught to believe in the puritanism
of Protestant countries. When an American or an Englishman habituated
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to the revolting night scenes of New York or London
first arrives in Paris, he is astonished at the absolute
absence of similar scenes in our streets. He has perhaps
arrived here with the impression most foreigners do that prostitution
and revelry and drunken debauchery stalk forth in the day
and render hideous the night. But he forgets that he
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has arrived in a city where there are laws and
a police to execute them, in a city where refinement
and the proprieties of life are carried to their extreme perfection,
and where such license and debauchery as prevails in English
and American cities would be an absolute contradiction to the
spirit and habits of the people. The reader will please
observe that I do not speak of the morals of
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the people, but of their ideas of decorum and the
proprieties of life, of what is due to decency and
an ordinary respect for appearances. This extreme attention to appearances
is in fact one of the principal attractions of a
residence in Paris. The city is not only maintained free
of inanimate filth, but of animate filth as well. At
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least you are not forced to see it if you
do not wish to. In London, no lady dare walk
out unattended after eight o'clock in the evening, and after
eleven o'clock she will have her eyes and ears insulted,
no matter how well attended. While in Paris she may
remain in the streets to any hour of the night
and neither have her eyes offended nor her ears insulted.
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How is this happy result accomplished? In eighteen fifty one,
the official register of the Police of Paris showed forty
three hundred public girls on its books. The number now
may be stated at five thousand. Girls and the houses
in which they live are subjected to a series of
stringent laws which renders them innoxious and inoffensive to the community.
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The police adopting the principle that, since it is impossible
to suppress the evil, it should be rendered as inoffensive
to the public eye and to the public salubrity as possible.
All these houses are obliged to be closed at eleven
o'clock precisely, The girls are obliged to remain in the house,
and the windows are always covered with blinds night and day.
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A few girls are permitted here and there to walk
up and down in front of their door from seven
to eleven o'clock precisely, but it is against the law
to accost the passers by. The houses are visited once
a week by a medical and an ordinary inspector, real
inspectors appointed by government and not humbugging ward politicians. Another
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class of girls, and much the larger class, are those
who frequent the public balls, concerts and theaters, girls who
live alone in public lodging houses, and who for the
most part are not enrolled on the police books nor
submitted to the ordinary sanitary regulations. But this class are
no more permitted than the rest, either in the street
(29:14):
or at their favorite evening resorts, to accost people for
the purposes of commerce. The streets, in the public balls
are full of policemen in citizen's dress, whose business it
is to detect such girls as violate the law in
regard to addressing people, and to put their names on
the police books, thus requiring them to take out a
license and to submit to all the police regulations on
(29:37):
the new class to which they have entered. As a
girl regards herself as forever lost when her name is
once placed on the police book, and as she never
knows when an officer's eye may be upon her, she
takes good care to violate as rarely as possible this
law prohibiting solicitations in public. This class are always elegantly dressed.
(29:58):
It is notorious even that they are first to initiate
and to propagate those very fashions which make the tour
of the world as the latest Paris modes. Many of
them are reserved and elegant in their manners, and require
a punctiliousness of etiquette which would not be out of
place in the most aristocratic saloon. But one of the
great aids to the Paris police in the maintenance of
(30:19):
public decency in this class is the fact that they
do not use strong drinks. A drunken public woman is
never seen as liquor is the greatest abaser of mankind.
This one fact strikes out a marked line of distinction
between this class here and in England and the United States.
The great majority do not lose their self respect, and
(30:40):
they take good care of their health, hoping later on
to reform and get married. This is here the rule,
whereas in England in the United States they throw themselves
away as rapidly as possible. It is thus that the
fashionable promenades of Paris, the public balls, and the gardens
even may be frequented by ladies and children at all
(31:01):
hours of the evening and night, without once seeing any
of those offensive movements of public women so common in
the streets of English and American cities. Contrast this state
of things with that of London. Let the reader, if
he has ever lived there, recall to the mind the Strand,
the Haymarket, Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Regent Street, the fashionable
(31:24):
business quarters of the city. One hesitates to enter upon
a description of such a scene, it refreshes his historical
recollections of the decadence of Rome. His name should be Plato.
To look upon such sits the streets swarm with drunken
and foul spoken young girls, often mere children. And when
I say swarm, I mean that you have to push
(31:45):
your way to get through them. Is it then strange
that the citizens of London should feel scandalized at the
state of things, or that its journals or its churchwardens
should seek to find a remedy for the nuisance. They
will think of everything else, for they arrive at the simple,
effective and beautifully working Paris system because they are a
Protestant people and must not compromise with a sin. It
(32:10):
must be left to find its own level. Honorable citizens
must consent to allow their sons, often their families, to
come in contact with these demoralizing, stony hearted horrors of
the streets. They must suffer, individually and as a community
from the vile tendencies of street prostitution because they hesitate
to legalize it and to give it over to the
(32:31):
care of the police. To see the finest evening promenades
of a Protestant and Christian city given up exclusively to
the unutterable shames and horrors of street prostitution is a
problem in the catalog of inconsistencies which Catholic and infidel
France cannot fathom. In France, the law acts on the
principle that for a public woman to be seen in
(32:52):
the street is an insult to public taste. And hence,
when it is necessary for these girls to be conveyed
to prison, to the hospital, or to the dispensary of
the Prefecture of Police, they are mounted in close carriages
constructed for the purpose. Or when by hazard they are
obliged to take a public fiacre, they are required to
keep the blinds down. You may say what you please
(33:15):
about the surface morality of the French, but their respect
for the public eye does honor to their civilization, and
their law on this evil would be well adopted elsewhere.
There is no truer principle in civil government than that
the moral source of society should be hidden as much
as possible from the public view. For it is now
too late in the day to combat the maxim long
(33:35):
ago put in print by Pope. That vice is propagated
by a familiarity with it. The French law may be
culpable in permitting masked balls and the keeping of concubines,
but these are affairs that belong to the interior, which
the public need not see if they do not wish to.
The important distinction is that the French law does not
compel an honest father of a family, in returning from
(33:58):
church or theater, to push his way through mobs of drunken,
lewd women who salute his children's ears with language they
ought never to hear. In one of its last articles
on the general subject of prostitution, the London Times makes
some judicious remarks which are completely verified in the same
class as Paris. Thus the Times declares the proper method
(34:21):
of diminishing the number of these unfortunates. For to think
of eradicating the evil as an illusion is not by
missionary efforts directed to them, but rather to their poor parents.
For these poor girls were raised in sin and never
made a fall. The same thing holds good here. Ninety
five hundreds of all the public women of Paris are
(34:42):
born and raised in filthiness of mind and body. At
the age of ten, twelve and fourteen years, they are
already prostitutes and thieves. And when they get their first
silk dress, their first fine toilette earned in their shameful profession,
they take a step higher in the scale of morality.
For then they cease to steal, they acquire a certain
(35:03):
degree of pride in their conduct. They are more respectful
and decently behaved, so that, paradoxical as it may seem,
the immense majority of the public women of Paris, instead
of making a fall, have actually been promoted in the
scale of morality. But all these women know nothing else
than the life in which they have been raised. They
(35:24):
are fit for nothing else. They are incorrigibly averse to
all the moral suasion that can be addressed to them.
And the real remedy is an enlightenment of the parents
of such children, a general improvement in the moral tone
of the lowest classes. In fine, if it is an
evil which cannot be eradicated, if the children of beggars
(35:45):
and ragpickers and concierge will fall into evil doing, it
is right to protect society, at least from the public
demonstration of their vile occupation, by the passage of effective
police laws. End of sections sixty one. Recording by Ramon Escamilla, Conway, Arkansas.
(36:06):
R A. M O N E. S C A M
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