Chapter XVI

., Hamburg.

[315] At the meeting in London to which allusion has been made, Mr. Acton (late Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary and Fellow of the Royal Medical Society) said that, "in his opinion, the subject under discussion was one worth legislating for. As a surgeon, he had investigated the subject not only in London, but in Paris and other Continental capitals, and he could speak with some authority as to the statistics of prostitution, and the manner in which the women became, as it were, absorbed in the population by whom they were surrounded. _From calculations based upon the census tables, it had come out that of all the unmarried women of full age in the country one in every 13 or 14 were immoral._ This might appear a startling announcement, but the calculation had been made upon returns, the truth of which had not been questioned. It was a popular error to suppose that these women died young, and made their exits from life in hospitals and work-houses. The fact was not so. Women of that class were all picked lives, and dissipation did not usually kill them. They led a life of prostitution for two, three, or four years, and then either married or got into some service or employment, and gradually became amalgamated with society. It was estimated that in this manner about 25 per cent. of the whole number amalgamated each year with the population."

From these remarks we may deduce the same continuance of a life of prostitution as given in the text, namely, an average of four years; but they advance another theory as to its termination, substituting reformation for death. We should be slow to give an unqualified endorsement to this opinion. That cases of reformation do take place, and probably to a greater extent than is generally imagined, can not be denied; but that one fourth of the total number of prostitutes abandon their sinful life every year, and become virtuous members of society, is a conclusion that American experience will not support. In England and on the European continent there may be a class of men in the lower ranks of life who do not regard virtue as a _sine qua non_ in the choice of a wife; indeed, the notorious facility with which the cast-off mistresses of noblemen or gentlemen can be married to a dependent sufficiently proves this; but in this country public opinion sets strongly in the opposite direction. Here, if a woman once errs, or is even suspected of error, she is rigorously excluded from virtuous society, and, although her subsequent life may be irreproachable, the lapse is seldom forgiven. The old Roman law, "Once a prostitute, always a prostitute," is too sternly enforced on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Acton's speech is the first intimation we have met of so very liberal a benevolence in England.

[316] We have calculated that there are upward of six hundred thousand women in London between fifteen and forty-five years old. The proportion of married women among these would be 370,000 and upward; unmarried women over twenty years, and widows, about 314,000.

[317] A very singular fact in connection with the census is that there is not a single individual returned as a prostitute. This is not that the authorities do not take cognizance of crime, for there are 22,451 female prisoners in Great Britain, all of whom, however, except 1274, are returned as having some legal occupation. There are 7600 female vagrants, sleeping in barns, tents, etc., of whom 2600 are under twenty years of age.

[318] Thomas Fowell Ruxton, on Prison Discipline.

[319] Lord Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review.

[320] _Rosa Anglica_, Pavia, 1492.

[321] A brief treatise touching the cure of the disease now usually called Lues Venerea. By W. Clovves, one of her Majesty's Chirurgeons. 1569: p. 149.

[322] Madame Calderon de la Barca.

[323] Clavijero.

[324] Waddy Thompson, Mexico in 1846, p. 115.

[325] Madame Calderon de la Barca, p. 259.

[326] Norman, Yucatan.

[327] Stevens, Travels in Central America.

[328] Among the Napuals, a remnant of the ancient Aztec inhabitants, marriage seems to have been under the direction of the chiefs, and consisted in first submitting the parties to lustrations, such as washing them in a river, and afterward tying them together in the bride's house, whither the relations brought presents to the new couple.

It was customary for only the kindred to lament the death of ordinary persons, but the decease of a cazique or war-chief was signalized by a general mourning for four days. Rape was punished with death, adultery by making the offender the slave of the injured husband, "unless pardoned by the high-priest on account of past services in war." There were certain degrees of relationship within which it was unlawful to marry, and sexual intercourse in such limits was punished with death. Upon matters of this kind there existed the greatest rigor, for, says Herrera, "he who courted or made signs to a married woman was banished." Fornication was punished by whipping.--_Squier's Notes on Central America_, p. 346.

[329] Squier, p. 50.

[330] Peru; Reiseskizzen in den Jahren 1838-1842. (Peru, Sketches of Travel.) By J. J. Von Tschudi. 2 vols. St. Gallen, 1846.

[331] Horace St. John.

[332] Stewart's Brazil and La Plata: New York, 1856.

[333] Ewbank's Brazil, p. 135.

[334] Ib. p. 141.

[335] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition across the Rocky Mountains, vol. ii. p. 144.

[336] Thatcher's Indian Traits, vol. i. p. 51.

[337] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. 358.

[338] Ib. i. 166.

[339] Id. ib.

[340] Indian Traits, i. 104.

[341] Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, p. 148.

[342] Beckwourth, p. 201.

[343] Id. p. 401.

[344] Indian Traits, i. p. 114.

[345] Beckwourth, p. 169.

[346] Beckwourth, p. 212.

[347] Murray's British North America, vol. i. p. 115.

[348] Murray's British North America, vol. i. p. 94.

[349] Indian Traits, i. p. 136.

[350] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. p. 135.

[351] Ib. i. p. 151.

[352] Beckwourth, p. 179.

[353] Murray's British America, i. p. 94.

[354] Indian Traits, i. p. 128.

[355] Murray's British America, i. 94.

[356] Beckwourth, p. 157.

[357] Beckwourth, p. 238.

[358] Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, i. 166.

[359] Id. ib.

[360] Murray's British America, i. 125.

[361] The principal facts in this and the following chapter are taken from Mr. Horace St. John's article on Prostitution, in Mayhew's "London Labor and the London Poor."

[362] Russell's History of Polynesia, p. 75.

[363] Their institution is ascribed to Oro, the god of war. The resemblance between Areoi and [Greek: Aeês], the Greek god of war, is a coincidence.

[364] South Sea Missions, p. 88.

[365] U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 22.

[366] Missionary Voyage of Ship Duff, 1796, p. 336.

[367] U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. ii. p. 80.

[368] Ib. 148.

[369] Wilkes, vol. iv. p. 77.

[370] Since the preceding paragraphs were written, the operations of the Allied Powers against China, and the capture of Canton, have given some farther insight into the domestic economy of this people. The special correspondent of the London _Times_, writing from Hong Kong, February 22, 1858, thus describes Chinese holidays:

"During the _entrée acte_ all China has been exploding crackers, and Hong Kong has been celebrating its 'Isthmian games.' Toward the close of the three days of festivity the Chinese holiday became almost exciting. If they had kept up half as sharp a fire at Canton on the 29th of December as they did on the 14th of February, we should never have got over the walls with a less loss than 500 men. The streets both of Canton and Hong Kong were piled with myriads of exploded cracker carcasses. In Hong Kong, where I passed the last day of these festivities, grave men and sedate children were from morning till midnight hanging strings of these noisy things from their balconies, and perpetually renewing them as they exploded. The sing-song women, in their rich, handsome dresses, were screeching their shrill songs, and twanging their two-stringed lutes on every veranda in the Chinese quarter, while the lords of creation, assembled at a round table, were cramming the day-long repast. The women--hired singing women of not doubtful reputation--in the intervals of their music, take their seats at the table opposite the men. They do not eat, but their business being to promote the conviviality of the feast, they challenge the men to the samshu cup, and drink with them. It is astonishing to see what a quantity of diluted samshu these painted and brocaded she-Celestials can drink without any apparent effect. Ever and anon one of the company retires to a couch and takes an opium pipe, and then returns and recommences his meal. I was invited to one of these feasts; the dishes were excellent, but it lasted till I loathed the sight of food. I believe the Chinese spend fabulous sums in these entertainments; the sing-song women are often brought from distances, and are certainly chosen with some discrimination. They are an imitation of the Chinese lady, and, as the Chinese lady has no education and no duties, the difference between the poor sing-song girl and the poor abject wife is probably not observable in appearance or manner. The dress is particularly modest and becoming. They all have great quantities of black hair. If they would let it fall disheveled down their backs as the Manilla women do, they would be more picturesque, but not formal and decent, as China is, even in its wantonness. The Chinawoman's hair is gummed and built up into a structure rather resembling a huge flat-iron, and the edifice is adorned with combs, and jewels, and flowers, arranged with a certain taste. An embroidered blue silk tunic reaches from her chin nearly to her ankles. Below the tunic appear the gay trowsers, wrought with gold or silver thread; the instep glancing through the thin, white silk stockings, and a very small foot (when left to nature the Chinese have beautiful feet and hands) in a rich slipper, with a tremendous white sole in form of an inverted pyramid. In these sing-song girls you see the originals of the Chinese pictures--the painted faces, the high-arched, penciled eyebrows, the small, round mouth, the rather full and slightly sensual lip, naturally or artificially of a deep vermilion, the long, slit-shaped, half closed eyes, suggestive of indolence and slyness. What the voluble and jocose conversation addressed to them by the men may mean I can not tell, but their manners are quite decent, their replies are short and reserved, and every gesture, or song, or cup of samshu seems to be regulated by a known ceremonial."

[371] Golownin, vol. iii. p. 52.

[372] Perry's Expedition, p. 462.

[373] Arctic Explorations, vol. i. p. 373.

[374] Ibid. ii. 250.

[375] Ibid. ii. 115.

[376] Arctic Explorations, ii. 123.

[377] Ibid. ii. 125.

[378] Ibid. ii 109.

[379] Ibid. ii. 121.

[380] U. S. Census, 1850.

[381] Compendium of U. S. Census, 1850, p. 148.

[382] Compendium of United States Census, 1850, p. 142, etc.; Census of the State of New York, 1855, p. 16; Report of the Board of Education of New York City, 1857, p. 13, 18, 22, etc.

[383] New York City Inspector's Reports, 1854, 1855, 1856.

[384] New York State Census, 1855, p. 38.

[385] New York City Inspector's Reports, 1854, 1855, 1856.

[386] Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., p. 8.

[387] Ib. p. 13.

[388] Report on Infant Mortality in large Cities, by D. Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., p. 9.

[389] Since these pages were prepared for the press, a work has been reprinted in New York, called "A Woman's Thoughts upon Women, by the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman,'" which contains many passages pertinent to this inquiry. The high reputation of its author (Miss Mulock), not only for literary ability, but for practical benevolence and womanly charity, will be sufficient apology for submitting some of her remarks to the reader in the shape of notes. It is satisfactory to know that many sentiments advanced herein are such as Miss Mulock has advocated on the other side of the Atlantic. On the subject of seduction, she remarks:

"I think it can not be doubted that even the loss of personal chastity does not indicate total corruption, or entail permanent degradation; that after it, and in spite of it, many estimable and womanly qualities may be found existing, not only in our picturesque _Nell Gwynnes_ and _Peg Woffingtons_, but our poor every-day sinners: the servant obliged to be dismissed without a character and with a baby; the seamstress quitting starvation for elegant infamy; the illiterate village lass, who thinks it so grand to be made a lady of--so much better to be a rich man's mistress than a working man's ill-used wife, or, rather, slave.

"Till we allow that no one sin, not even this sin, necessarily corrupts the entire character, we shall scarcely be able to judge it with that fairness which gives hopes of our remedying it, or trying to lessen, in ever so minute a degree, by our individual dealing with any individual case that comes in our way, the enormous aggregate of misery that it entails. This it behooves us to do, even on selfish grounds, for it touches us closer than many of us are aware--ay, in our own hearths and homes; in the sons and brothers that we have to send out to struggle in a world of which we at the fireside know absolutely nothing: if we marry, in the fathers we give to our innocent children, the servants we trust their infancy to, and the influences to which we are obliged to expose them daily and hourly, unless we were to bring them up in a sort of domestic Happy Valley, which their first effort would be to get out of as fast as ever they could. And supposing we are saved from all this; that our position is one peculiarly exempt from evil; that if pollution in any form comes nigh us, we sweep it hastily and noiselessly away from our doors, and think we are right and safe--alas! we forget that a refuse-heap outside her gate may breed a plague even in a queen's palace."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 261.

[390] Miss Mulock remarks on female occupations: "Equality of sexes is not in the nature of things. One only 'right' we have to assert in common with mankind, and that is as much in our hands as theirs--the right of having something to do."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 13.

"The Father of all has never put one man or one woman into this world without giving each something to do there."--Ibid., p. 19.

"This fact remains patent to any person of common sense and experience, that in the present day one half of our women are obliged to take care of themselves, obliged to look solely to themselves for maintenance, position, occupation, amusement, reputation, life."--Ibid., p. 29.

"Is society to draw up a code of regulations as to what is proper for us to do, and what not?"--Ibid., p. 31.

"The world is slowly discovering that women are capable for far more crafts than was supposed, if only they are properly educated for them; that they are good accountants, shop-keepers, drapers' assistants, telegraph clerks, watch-makers; and doubtless would be better if the ordinary training which almost every young man has a chance of getting were thought equally indispensable to young women."--Ibid., p. 76.

[391] Histoire Morale des Femmes. Par M. Ernest Legouvé. Paris, 1849.

[392] Westminster Review (London), July, 1850. American edition, vol. xxx. No. 2.

[393] De la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris, vol. i. p. 96.

[394] "The root of all improvement must be the mistress's own conviction, religious and sincere, of the truth that she and her servants share one common womanhood, with aims, hopes, and interests distinctly defined, and pursued with equal eagerness; with a life here meant as a school for the next life; with an immortal soul."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 130.

[395] "Neither labor nor material can possibly be got 'cheaply,' that is, below its average acknowledged cost, without _somebody being cheated_: consequently, these devotees to cheapness are, very frequently, little better than genteel swindlers."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 72.

[396] Mary Barton, by Mrs. Gaskell, vol. i., p. 258 (London edition.)

[397] Report of the Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island, to the Governors of the Alms House, 1854, p. 26.

[398] On a former page the results of a police investigation of the number of prostitutes in London in the year 1857 is given. It will be remembered that only 8600 common women were reported, in a population of nearly 2,500,000. The inquiries in New York and London would alike lead to the opinion that the extent of the vice is generally overrated.

[399] Report of Resident Physician, Blackwell's Island, to the Governors of the Alms-house, New York, for 1856, p. 40.

[400] Ibid., 1857, p. 26.

[401] The list of questions inclosed was a printed copy of the interrogatories used in New York, and already given in these pages.

[402] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49.

[403] Ibid. p. 87.

[404] Ibid. p. 101.

[405] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 49.

[406] Ibid. p. 57.

[407] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 94.

[408] Ibid. p. 69.

[409] Ibid. p. 91.

[410] Ibid. p 104.

[411] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 141, 142.

[412] Ibid. p. 145.

[413] Ibid. p. 150.

[414] Ibid. p. 152.

[415] Ibid. p. 152, 153.

[416] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 128.

[417] Ibid. p. 130.

[418] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 164.

[419] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 180-184.

[420] Ibid. p. 163.

[421] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 162 (note).

[422] Ibid. p. 166.

[423] Ibid. p. 182.

[424] Compendium of Seventh Census, p. 61.

[425] Ibid. p. 79.

[426] "That for a single offense, however grave, a whole life should be blasted, is a doctrine repugnant even to Nature's own dealings in the visible world. There her voice clearly says, 'Let all these wonderful powers of vital renewal have free play; let the foul flesh slough itself away; lop off the gangrened limb; enter into life, maimed if it must be,' but never until the last moment of total dissolution does she say, 'Thou shalt not enter into life at all.'

"Therefore, once let a woman feel that 'while there is life there is hope,' dependent on the only one condition that she shall _sin no more_, and what a future you open to her! what a weight you lift off from her poor miserable spirit, which might otherwise be crushed down to the lowest deep, to that which is far worse than any bodily pollution, ineradicable corruption of soul."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 269.

"It may often be noticed the less virtuous people are, the more they shrink away from the slightest whiff of the odor of unsanctity. The good are ever the most charitable, the pure are the most brave. I believe there are hundreds and thousands of Englishwomen who would willingly throw the shelter of their stainless repute around any poor creature who came to them and said honestly, 'I have sinned, help me that I may sin no more.' But the unfortunates will not believe this. They are like the poor Indians, who think it necessary to pacify the evil principle by a greater worship than that which they offer to the Good Spirit, because, they say, the Bad Spirit is the stronger."--Ibid. p. 272.

[427] Captain Ingraham.

[428] "Surely the consciousness of lost innocence must be the most awful punishment to any woman, and from it no kindness, no sympathy, no concealment of shame, or even restoration to good repute, can entirely free her. She must bear her burden, lighter or heavier as it may seem at different times, and she must bear it to the day of her death. I think this fact alone is enough to make a chaste woman's first feeling toward an unchaste that of unqualified, unmitigated pity.

"Allowing the pity, what is the next thing to be done? Surely there must be some light beyond that of mere compassion to guide her in her after-conduct toward them. Where shall we find this light? In the world and its ordinary code of social morality, suited to social conscience? I fear not. The general opinion, even among good men, seems to be that this great question is a very sad thing, but a sort of unconquerable necessity; there is no use in talking about it, and, indeed, the less it is talked of the better. Good women are much of the same mind. The laxer-principled of both sexes treat the matter with philosophical indifference, or with the kind of laugh that makes the blood boil in any truly virtuous heart.

"I believe there is no other light on this difficult question than that given by the New Testament. There, clear and plain, and every where repeated, shines the doctrine that for every crime, being repented of and forsaken, there is forgiveness with Heaven, and if with Heaven there ought to be with men.

"When you shut the door of hope on any human soul you may at once give up all chance of its reformation. As well bid a man eat without food, see without light, or breathe without air, as bid him mend his ways, while at the same time you tell him that, however he amends, he will be in just the same position, the same hopelessly degraded, unpardoned, miserable sinner."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 266.

[429] "We have no right, mercifully constituted with less temptation to evil than men, to shrink with sanctimonious ultra-delicacy from the barest mention of things we must know to exist. If we do not know it, our ignorance is at once both helpless and dangerous; narrows our judgment, exposes us to a thousand painful mistakes, and greatly limits our powers of usefulness."--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York edition), p. 255.

"No single woman who takes any thought of what is going on around her, no mistress or mother who requires constantly servants for her house and nursemaids for her children, can or dare blind herself to the fact. Better face truth at once in all its bareness than be swaddled up forever in the folds of a silken falsehood."--Ib., p. 259.

"Many of us will not investigate this subject because they are afraid: afraid not so much of being, as being thought to be, especially by the other sex, incorrect, indelicate, unfeminine; of being supposed to know more than they ought to know, or than the present refinement of society--a good and beautiful thing when real--concludes that they do know.

"Oh! women, women! why have you not more faith in yourselves, in that strong, inner purity, which alone can make a woman brave! which, if she knows herself to be clean in heart and desire, in body and soul, loving cleanness for its own sake, and not for the credit that it brings, will give her a freedom of action, and a fearlessness of consequences, which are to her a greater safeguard than any external decorum. To be, and not to seem, is the amulet of her innocence."--Ib., p. 261.

[430] "Reformatories, Magdalene Institutions, and the like, are admirable in their way, but there are numberless cases in which individual judgment and help alone are possible. It is this, the train of thought which shall result in act, and which I desire to suggest to individual minds, in the hope of arousing that imperceptibly small influence of the many, which forms the strongest lever of universal opinion.

"All I can do--all, I fear, that any one can do by mere speech, is to impress upon every woman, and chiefly upon those who, reared innocently in safe homes, view the wicked world without somewhat like gazers at a show or spectators at a battle, shocked, wondering, perhaps pitying a little, but not understanding at all, that repentance is possible. Also, that once having returned to a chaste life, a woman's former life should never be 'cast up' against her; that she should be allowed to resume, if not her pristine position, at least one that is full of usefulness, pleasantness, and respect, a respect the amount of which must be determined by her own daily conduct. She should be judged solely by what she is now, and not by what she has been. That judgment may be, ought to be stern and fixed as justice itself with regard to her present, and even her past so far as concerns the crime committed; but it ought never to take the law into its own hands toward the criminal, who may long since have become less a criminal than a sufferer. Virtue degrades herself, and loses every vestige of her power, when her dealings with vice sink into a mere matter of individual opinion, personal dislike, or selfish fear of harm. For all offenses, punishment, retributive and inevitable, must come; but punishment is one thing, revenge is another. One only, who is Omniscient as well as Omnipotent, can declare, 'Vengeance is Mine.'"--_A Woman's Thoughts upon Women_ (New York ed.), p. 275.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The original text includes Greek characters that have been replaced with transliterations in this text version.

End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Prostitution, by William W. Sanger