"At a meeting of the Liberal Christian League, held at Rev. Robert Collyer's church, on Sunday evening, Feb. 3, a report was read by the Chairman of the Committee on Friendless Women, from which the following is an extract:—
Your Committee aimed [in visiting houses of ill-fame], in Chicago, to find out, as nearly as possible, the general facts concerning the lives of this class of women.
It was found that these women of pleasure, as they are called, instead of leading the idle and luxurious life which many imagine, are, in fact, the most steadily employed of any class in the community, and have the least available leisure. Your Committee have never yet visited a house of this kind, staying on the average half an hour, but they have found male visitors, either there when they entered, or coming in before they left; and this in the open day. Inquiries put to the women concerning their hours of leisure developed incidentally the fact, that it is only at certain times, on certain days, that they can get out; and then it must be strictly in the prosecution of their calling. The terms on which these women are kept, are usually a certain stipulated sum per week for room rent, and, over and above this, the half of their earnings; which makes it necessary for the keepers to have a constant eye upon the girls, to prevent their taking money outside. The number of men supporting these houses is, moreover, so much greater than the number of women supported therein, that every girl is kept in constant requisition, either at the house, or as a walking advertisement on the street and at public places.
Your Committee, before making these visits, were constantly assured that these women preferred this way of life, and would scout the efforts of their own sex at reforming them. Your Committee take great pleasure in reporting, that, in every instance, they have found this charge utterly unsustained. Everywhere doors were freely opened to them; they were treated with as much politeness and cordiality as they have ever received in the most respectable houses; and the conversation was of the freest and most satisfactory character.
'Are you happy in this life?' was asked of a delicate girl in her teens, who had been seen, five minutes before, dancing and singing about a man in an adjoining apartment in the most wanton manner,—'Are you happy in this life?'
Tears, sudden and sincere, with a look of indignant protest, filled her eyes, as she answered,—
'Think how we have to treat the men: that of itself is enough to prevent any woman from being happy.'
'But you do not always talk this way to men?' was the reply.
'Oh, no!' she said; 'I would never tell a man that. We always tell the men that we like this life, and would not live any other, if we could; but women know.'
Another voluntarily mentioned the intemperance with which they are universally and justly charged, as one of the hard necessities of their position. Women ought not to drink, she admitted; but they would die if they did not, or go mad with anguish and despair.
Your Committee feel, that, at the present stage of investigation, it may seem premature to speak of the causes of this terrible evil; this slavery, which their observation assures them is more degrading and horrible than any other upon the face of the earth: but two causes have met them so constantly face to face, that they cannot in justice refrain from mentioning them.
The first is the terribly prevalent and everywhere tolerated licentiousness of men. Your Committee believe it to be an admitted fact, that, if to-day every woman of abandoned life could suddenly be removed from the dens of this city and placed in a respectable position, it would not be six months before their places would be filled, from the ranks of women who are now virtuous; and they have no faith in any system of reform which does not strike effectual blows at this, the mainspring of the evil.
Over against this, the first great pillar of the institution, stands the almost equally colossal one of poverty, and the exclusion of women from the ordinary fields of labor.
'Here is what I work for,' said a fine, strong-looking woman, as she placed her hand on the head of a bright boy of two years. 'He is my child. I have him to support. There is no other way in which I could earn a comfortable subsistence for myself and him.'
Another, the keeper of a house of ill-fame, an intelligent, graceful, refined-looking woman,—a woman who would have been an ornament to any society,—said:—
'I was left suddenly poor, with my mother to support. I had never been used to work, and there seemed no work I could do that would support us both. The circumstances of my life seemed to force me into this way of living;' which meant, of course, that some man stood ready to offer her kindness, protection, support, every thing but marriage, and she accepted it. 'My mother, to-day, is as innocent of any knowledge of my way of life, as a saint in heaven. I live in daily terror and solicitude lest she should find it out, for it would kill her. I am going soon on a visit to her, and shall carry with me twelve hundred and fifty dollars, with which to secure her a home for life; so that, whatever happens to me, she will be provided for.'
In confirmation of this story, a hack came to the door while she was speaking, to carry her to the train she had previously indicated; which fact, together with her earnest and sincere manner, left no doubt in the minds of your Committee concerning the truthfulness of her story.
In regard to the series of meetings proposed to be inaugurated, your Committee are obliged for the present to report unfavorably, for the following reasons:—
The proposition was everywhere cordially met among the women. They readily agreed to the usefulness of the project, and mentioned only one objection, and that to time. 'Sunday,' was the invariable answer, 'is our busiest day. We could hardly get away at all on that day; but we will try to do so.' Your Committee saw at once the blunder they had made in forgetting that Sunday is the leisure day of men; and therefore went to the first appointed meeting, through a cold and blinding snowstorm, with little hope of success. They found the room already occupied by some six or eight street roughs, evidently waiting for what might transpire. They left the room very soon, but took their station about the door, and remained there as long as the Committee did. Subsequent inquiries confirmed the impression, that they were sent there by some of the men who had been in the houses at the time of the visits, to break up the meetings, for which purpose, of course, only their presence would be necessary.
Beyond this determined opposition which would no doubt be encountered at the hands of the male supporters of the institution, your Committee see but one serious difficulty; and that is, the deep-rooted scepticism which prevail among the women concerning any general sentiment of Christian charity in their behalf. They have so long been persecuted with unjust opprobrium, abandoned, outcast, left to live or die as they might, without one word of pity or encouragement, while the men who shared their sins, and were oftentimes the guiltier partners, were the honored and trusted associates of Christian women, pillars perhaps in Christian churches, that they have naturally come to feel, that the sympathy of one or two good women, however earnest and grateful it may be in itself, will be of little avail against the malignity of the whole banded world.
Still your Committee have seen nothing, so far, to discourage them in their efforts, but every thing to impress upon them the feeling of imperative duty in this direction.
(Signed) Mrs. C.F. Corbin, Chairman.
"The plan of action proposed by this Committee was to visit the women in a friendly, Christ-like spirit, inaugurate a series of meetings among them, organize efforts in the direction of saving their money, so that they might be able to take an independent position, with only such moral support as should be necessary to enable them to face the opposition of the world, and to direct their lavish free-heartedness into channels of benevolence toward the old and worn-out of their number. Pure and healthful pleasures would also be provided for them, good music, the reading of fine poems and interesting stories, and so a beginning made toward introducing principles of steadiness and sobriety into their now totally abandoned and desperate lives."
[16] This expression, used in all such places to denote the food, tea, coffee, or gin, used by the overstrained girls, is terribly significant.
[17] I do not know that any person has ever practically carried out Legouvé's estimate of labor as a moral help, but Marie de Lamourous, the foundress of the House of Mercy at Bourdeaux. This was a refuge for ruined women, whom she trained to self-support. Some one offered her a sum sufficient to insure her family a comfortable living; but she wisely refused it. "No false pretences," she said: "if we are not compelled to labor, we shall not labor. An idle mind makes its own temptations. I can do nothing without work."
[18] When woman's power to work is called in question, men almost always remark, that she has shown no inventive genius whatever. Should a proper history of the arts ever be written, this will be found to be an entire mistake. Patentees are not always inventors; and many of these, after hopeless labor carried on for years, have owed a final success to some woman's power of adaptation. We need not, however, take refuge in general statement, nor in the traditional fact that she invented spindle, distaff, needle, and scissors. Any new-born barbarian, pressed by necessity, might accomplish so much. The most delicate and beautiful obstetrical instruments were invented by Madame Boivin. Madame Ducoudray invented the manikin; Madame Breton, the system of artificial nourishment for babes; Morandi and Bihéron adapted wax to the purposes of medical illustration; and it was to the observations of Mademoiselle Bihéron, recorded in wax, that Dr. Hunter owed the illustrations of his best work. He was her generous friend; but she preceded him seven years in this direction, and may possibly have given him the right to use her observations as his own. Madame Rondet has, in the present century, invented a tube to be used in cases of restoration from asphyxia. It is easy to quote these cases from the history of medicine, because an honest French physician has taken pains to preserve them; but the following instances of inventive and mechanical power may be less known:—
In 1823, the first patent of invention was taken out in Paris by Madame Dutillet, for the formation of artificial marble. This was so successful a patent, that she sold it in 1824; and the purchaser renewed it, with still further improvements.
In 1836, Burrows, an Englishman, took out a patent for cement. Madame Bex, of Paris, found this cement a failure in damp places, and published a method of less limited application, in which bitumen was employed.
In 1840, Mrs. Marshall, once of Manchester, England, and now of Edinburgh, was struck with the idea, that the electric forces evolved by decaying animal and vegetable matter, acting upon calcareous substances, must have much to do with the natural formation of marble. In five years, by upwards of ten thousand experiments, she perfected an artificial marble, whose constituents and manufacture were entirely within control, and which could be made in hours or months, at the maker's volition. To this cement she gave the simple Italian name of intonuca. It is singular that she should so intuitively have seized this secret; for, under Madame Dutillet's patent, we are expressly informed that all vegetable matter must be removed from the composition, if we would have the cement indestructible. The example is an interesting one; for the ten thousand disagreeable experiments show that one woman at least possessed the power of persistent application, of long-protracted labor, so often denied.
Starch first came into use in England in 1564. It was carried thither by a Mrs. Dinghen Vanden Plasse, of Flanders, who set up business as a professed starcher, and instructed others how to use the article for five pounds, and how to make it for twenty pounds.