The History of Prostitution Part 60

"Answer. Seventy-five thousand seven hundred and fifty (75,750).

"The above is arrived at from the personal knowledge of some of our police-officers; no doubt the number is much greater.

"At the last census our population of the city proper was over sixty thousand (60,000). The population at that time of Pittsburgh, Alleghany, and the suburbs of Pittsburgh, was nearly one hundred thousand.

"Respectfully, your obedient servant, "WM. BINGHAM, Mayor."

SAVANNAH, GA.

(Copy.)

"Mayor's Office, City of Savannah, Ga., Sept. 18, 1856.

"WM. W. SANGER, Resident Physician, "Blackwell's Island, New York City:

"DEAR SIR,--In this city there are fifteen houses of prost.i.tution, three a.s.signation-houses, ninety-three white, and one hundred and five colored prost.i.tutes. In the winter season the number is greatly increased by supplies from New York City.

"I can not answer what number of private prost.i.tutes or kept mistresses there are here.

"Our present population is about twenty-six thousand.

"Very truly yours, "EDWARD C. ANDERSON, Mayor."

These replies may be condensed as follows:

+------------------------------------------------------- Houses. Cities. Reported by -------------------------- Houses of Houses of Prost.i.tution. a.s.signation. ------------ -------------- ------------- ------------ Buffalo Mayor Stevens 87 37 Louisville " Barber 79 39 Newark " Poinier New Haven " Galpin 10 6 Norfolk " Ferguson 40 Philadelphia " Vaux 130 50 Pittsburgh " Bingham 19 9 Savannah " Anderson 15 3 +-------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------+ Prost.i.tutes. ----------------------------------------------- Population. Public Private Kept Total Prost.i.tutes. Prost.i.tutes. Mistresses. of abandoned Women. ------------ ------------ ----------- --------- ----------- 272 81 31 384 75,000 214 93 60 367 70,000 50 50 55,000 93 30 123 32,000 150 50 8 208 18,000 475 105 580 600,000 77 37 16 130 75,750 198 198 26,000 ------------------------------------------------------------+

It has already been stated, on the authority of the state census of 1855, that the adult male population of New York City form nearly one third of the total inhabitants, and the same rule may be applied to these cities to ascertain the comparative number of prost.i.tutes and their customers. The proportions stand as follows:

New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has 1 prost.i.tute to every 40 men.

but including the suburbs 1 " " " 64 "

Buffalo has 1 " " " 65 "

Louisville has 1 " " " 64 "

Newark has 1 " " " 366 "

New Haven has 1 " " " 87 "

Norfolk has 1 " " " 29 "

Philadelphia has 1 " " " 344 "

Pittsburgh has 1 " " " 192 "

Savannah has 1 " " " 44 "

It can scarcely be doubted that the worthy mayors of Newark, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg have been misinformed as to the extent of the vice in their respective cities. Respecting Newark, for instance, the writer was recently informed that prost.i.tution was not so rare as Mayor Poinier's letter would imply, but that prost.i.tutes and known houses of prost.i.tution were to be found scattered over the city, and that the fact was notorious to nearly every resident. This information was received from a gentleman himself an inhabitant of Newark. There is no doubt that much of the vice of Newark finds a home in New York, as the mayor says, but it is equally certain that it is not all expatriated.

The mayor of Philadelphia is particularly wide of the mark. There may not be as many public prost.i.tutes there as in New York, but it is proverbial, and is as widely known as is Philadelphia itself, that its streets abound in houses of a.s.signation and private houses of prost.i.tution.

Pittsburgh is situated at the head of navigation on the Ohio River, at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, both navigable. She has ca.n.a.ls, rail-roads, and large manufactories, and, if closely examined, would probably show a larger proportion of prost.i.tutes than above reported.

Norfolk is the largest naval depot in this country, and its population can not be held responsible for all the prost.i.tution within its limits. In both Norfolk and Savannah we presume that the larger portion of the abandoned women at the time the census was taken were colored people, whose virtue is always at a discount under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, and to which a seaport is always fatal.

But another calculation may be made upon the a.s.sumption that the males who have commerce with prost.i.tutes form only one fourth of the population, and the proportions resulting from that are as follows:

New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has 1 prost.i.tute to every 30 men.

but including the suburbs 1 " " " 50 "

Buffalo has 1 " " " 49 "

Louisville has 1 " " " 48 "

Newark has 1 " " " 275 "

New Haven has 1 " " " 65 "

Norfolk has 1 " " " 23 "

Philadelphia has 1 " " " 258 "

Pittsburgh has 1 " " " 144 "

Savannah has 1 " " " 33 "

To arrive at an average we will omit the calculation of the proportion of prost.i.tutes to the population of New York City proper, it having been shown already that the responsibility of much of it must rest upon the suburbs and upon visitors, and also omit Newark, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg, because the reports from those cities are palpably underrated.

This done, the mean of the two estimates stands thus:

New York 1 prost.i.tute to every 57 men.

Buffalo 1 " " " 57 "

Louisville 1 " " " 56 "

New Haven 1 " " " 76 "

Norfolk 1 " " " 26 "

Savannah 1 " " " 39 "

-- and the mean of the whole is 1 " " " 52 "

This mean may be fairly a.s.sumed as the proportion existing in all the large cities of the Union, and the farther a.s.sumption that the men who visit houses of prost.i.tution form one fourth of the total population will give a basis upon which the total number of the Prost.i.tutes in the United States may be estimated with some accuracy. The calculation can not, of course, be claimed as absolutely correct, as that would be an impossibility, but is submitted as a probability on which the reader can form his own conclusion.

The population of the United States in 1858 was estimated by Professor De Bow, when preparing the compendium of the census of 1850, and his calculation at that time was that by the present year it would amount to 29,242,139 persons, which may be taken in round numbers 29,000,000. From this must be deducted 3,500,000 slaves, which will leave the free inhabitants 25,500,000, and the proportion of adult males to this number is 6,375,000. It may next be a.s.sumed that one half of these men live in country places or small cities where prost.i.tution does not exist, the other moiety being inhabitants of cities with a population of twenty thousand or upward; and upon the basis already proved of one prost.i.tute to every fifty-two men, the result would be a total of 61,298 prost.i.tutes.

The whole area of the United States is 2,936,166 square miles, and if all the prost.i.tutes therein were equally divided over this surface, there would be one for every forty-seven square miles, or if they were walking in continuous line, thirty-six inches from each other, they would make a column nearly thirty-five miles long. If the inhabitants of large cities were only one third, the number of prost.i.tutes would be 41,058. These suggestions are, of course, mere matters for consideration, and are not given as definite facts.

Allusions have already been made to many exaggerated opinions as to the extent of prost.i.tution in New York City, and it may be well to notice in this place some pa.s.sages in a work ent.i.tled "An inquiry into the extent, causes, and consequences of Prost.i.tution in Edinburgh, by William Tait, Surgeon: 2d edition, 1842." The author starts with the impression that the capital of Scotland is the most moral city on the face of the earth, and after fixing the number of public prost.i.tutes in Edinburgh at eight hundred, or one to every eighty of the adult male population, remarks:

"In London there is one for every sixty, and in Paris one for every fifteen. Edinburgh is thus about twenty-five per cent. better than London, while the latter is about seventy per cent. better than Paris." (Happy Edinburgh!) "And what is to be said of the chief city of the United States of America, of the independent, liberal, religious, and enlightened inhabitants of New York? It will scarcely be credited that that city furnishes a prost.i.tute for every six or seven of its adult male population! Alas! for the religion and morality of the country that affords such a demonstration of its depravity. It was not surpa.s.sed even by the metropolis of France during the heat and fervor of the Revolution, when libertinism reigned triumphant, and the laws of G.o.d and man were alike set at defiance."--Page 6.

This picture is any thing but flattering to our national pride; but it loses very much of its effect because it is contrary to the truth. It will, however, satisfy our readers that Mr. Tait was misinformed, and they may feel a slight gratification in the conclusion that his pathetic lament for the religion and morality of their country was unnecessary. On page 8 of the same work we find:

"After stating that there were upward of ten thousand abandoned women in the city of New York, the Rev. Mr. M'Dowall, chaplain to the New York Magdalen Asylum, goes on to say: 'Besides these, we have the clearest evidence that there are hundreds of private harlots and kept mistresses, many of whom keep up a show of industry as domestics, seamstresses, nurses, etc., in the most respectable families, and throng the houses of a.s.signation every night. Although we have no means of ascertaining the number of these, yet enough has been learned from the facts already developed to convince us that the aggregate is alarmingly great, perhaps little behind the proportion of the city of London, whose police report a.s.serts, on the authority of accurate researches, that the number of private prost.i.tutes in that city is fully equal to the number of public harlots.'"

In this pa.s.sage Mr. Tait s.h.i.+fts the responsibility of his figures to the shoulders of the Rev. Mr. M'Dowall, who is represented as declaring the number of public prost.i.tutes in New York sixteen years ago to be ten thousand, and a.s.suming the private prost.i.tutes to amount to the same number, making an aggregate nearly three times as large as an actual and searching inquiry has found at the present time. During the last sixteen years vice has not decreased in New York, but has steadily increased, and yet the most diligent search can discover in 1858 only 7860 public and private prost.i.tutes, instead of the twenty thousand mentioned in the publication under notice! We imagine it to be an imperative duty to be tolerably well acquainted with a social evil before attempting to write upon it, and although Mr. Tait's book can not, by any possibility, injure our city, on account of the palpable misrepresentations it contains, we allude to it to show the opinion entertained of New York and its vices on the other side of the Atlantic. Were an apology necessary for the preset work, such statements as these would be amply sufficient.

Mr. Tait loses no opportunity to hurl a sly dart at New York. Thus (on page 38), after quoting the words of the Rev. Mr. M'Dowall as to the character of an abandoned woman in New York, he (Mr. Tait) continues:

"He says nothing of the state of religious feeling among the prost.i.tutes there; and if we are to regard his statement of the number of prost.i.tutes as strictly correct, it may very well be questioned whether any considerable number of the inhabitants of that city are under the influence of sincere religious feeling."

Some of our New York City readers may probably recollect that the publication of Mr. M'Dowall's "Inquiry" produced very considerable excitement here at the time, and opinions were freely expressed that he was either very ignorant on matters of that nature, or intentionally colored his statements, and was in either case entirely unfitted for the task he had a.s.sumed.

Mr. Tait a.s.sumes the population of Edinburgh at about two hundred thousand, the number of public prost.i.tutes at eight hundred, and of private prost.i.tutes at nearly twelve hundred, or a total of two thousand abandoned women. This gives one prost.i.tute to every thirty-two adult males, if we adopt his system of calculation; or one prost.i.tute to every twenty-five adult males, if we adopt the system of calculation which has been applied to the United States in the present work. From his own figures, then, it can be seen, that although New York City is so awfully irreligious, it has less prost.i.tution than pious Edinburgh.