The Cadet System
In police parlance the “Cadet system” is the application of modern methods in fostering and promoting the work of a procurer who secures victims for the brothel. The system goes back to the days of Greek and Roman degeneracy. But we are dealing at the present time, not with European or even Asiatic conditions, but with New York at the beginning of the twentieth century.
How the term “Cadet” originated is hard to tell, as there seems to be no connection between a young man who is being educated for the military service and the man who provides for the sensual gratification of the abandoned herd.
The most guarded estimate of the number of prostitutions in Greater New York is put down at 70,000, yet there is no accurate information on the subject.
It is the opinion of good authorities that the Raines Law has done more to make the life of the prostitute and her male sensualist respectable in New York than any other ten causes. A large number of the saloons that go under that name are classed by keen observers as brothels of the worst kind. The Raines-Law-saloon-hotel gives a cloak of quasi-respectability to the brothel and makes prostitution attractive and profitable, and the rumseller for a small fee condones the crime against the sexes.
Frequently the city Cadet goes into another state, like Pennsylvania or Maryland, and advertising in some local paper for girls to work in a hotel or factory, he offers good wages and is willing to pay all expenses to the city. The result is that he has a dozen applications out of which he selects five or six of the most attractive ones. After he reaches the city, they are turned over to human devils and afterwards sold to brothel keepers at prices varying from $100 to $200 each.
New York has still a large number of these disorderly houses which contain from five to twenty girls. The proprietors call them boarding houses, but their right name is brothel. Under cover of night these women go out on the street and when they find a victim, take him to the brothel where he is robbed and then kicked on the sidewalk.
A few years ago the city “Cadet” became so bold in his business that the Legislature increased the penalty attached to the crime of abduction by making it ten years instead of five in state prison and a thousand dollars fine. Respectable girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty were often induced to leave home and come to New York from rural settlements, only to find on their arrival that they were grossly deceived by these lying scoundrels.
Some time ago Annie Bolt, a Brooklyn girl, was rescued from a wretched den on East Thirteenth Street, Manhattan, by Brooklyn officers. The girl had been lured from her home weeks before, by a young man who gave his name as Abe Krinkoe. He gave her to understand that he was taking her to a braid factory in New York. Krinkoe was afterwards arrested and indicted on a charge of abduction.
Once in this house of prostitution, Annie’s clothing was taken away, and she was told that if she attempted to escape she would be killed. She managed, however, to drop a letter to the sidewalk, addressed to her mother, telling of her plight. Some one picked it up and mailed it and her rescue followed.
Not long since a woman who labors among these unfortunates on the West Side informed me that one night she counted no less than thirty-six girls taken to a large brown stone house in a fashionable part of the city by a few procurers or cadets. When they crossed the threshold of that house, they were actually sold into slavery. Their clothes was taken from them and they were kept indoors and almost nude for a whole year. Afterwards they were turned loose in the cold blasts of winter to make room for others, such as they were once, pure girls.
The only way to rid the city of prostitution is to make it a criminal offence for both male and female and cease condoning it as a human infirmity!
In a short time these poor creatures are themselves abandoned, deserted, avoided, and even loathed by those who once held them in high estimation, and as they are unknown and friendless in the great city, they have no alternative left but to become the instruments of immorality to others or die in despair.
After a few years, if these girls are not sent to Auburn prison for a long term, they become Police Court habitues. They are frequently arrested for intoxication, disorderly conduct or soliciting on the street. When they come to the Tombs they present a shocking appearance—with bleared eyes, bloated face, disheveled hair and soiled clothing—having lost the sense of womanly shame.
I have often spoken to them—always kindly—and have seen the tears start in their eyes as I have asked after their mothers. They appear callous on every other subject, but here I have always touched a tender chord. Many of these girls have informed me that they are in the business for the money and the dress that are in it; and they do not want to reform.
In the corridor of the Women’s prison at the Tombs they talk and often fight among themselves. How shocking their obscenity, oaths, imprecations—the very language of hell. Some of these women have been in prison for short terms as often as fifty or a hundred times. Many prostitutes are frequently arrested for robbery, but as a rule escape, as the degenerate complainant seldom appears against them. They swing with pendulum regularity from a brief imprisonment to liberty, till they end their days as a river suicide.
More than once I have gone through Chinatown at midnight in company with a ward detective where I could see for myself, under the glare of the electric light, some of the frightful aspects of prostitution.
There is said to be from one thousand to five thousand Celestials in Chinatown. Nearly every one has a white girl with whom he lives.
They occupy from one to three small rooms, but many of them have only one room where they live, eat and sleep. The girls who live with Chinamen seem to have a terrible fascination for such a life, for no matter how often the police raid the place and send them to prison, they are soon back again at the old life.
Many of these girls come from respectable families, as I know from investigations which I have personally made. After a couple of years of such life, the Chinaman abandons his paramour and flees to parts unknown. It is most difficult to locate a Chinaman as it is impossible to identify him. When he returns again it is with a new—fresh—girl as a mistress. The abandoned one after a few days takes to the street, or swallows carbolic acid.
Two sisters, once known as respectable girls, but who always refused to disclose their identity, informed a friend of mine that their father was a country preacher. They lived with Chinamen for several years. I knew another girl who ran away from a respectable Brooklyn home to lead an immoral life with a Chinaman. Nor is this at all uncommon. Whatever fascination there is about it, it invariably ends in disgrace, and finally in the dark waters of the river or Potter’s Field.
Recently Police Captain Galvin, who was appointed to the command of the Elizabeth Street Station, which is known in Police parlance as the “Bloody Sixth,” by Commissioner Bingham, has driven out of Chinatown between two and three hundred white girls, the mistresses of Chinamen. This is a feat performed by no other policeman in the history of the “Bloody Sixth.”