The procuress may be dealt with in this same connection. Like the madame she has, as a rule, become too old to find prostitution itself any longer a profitable business; but native shrewdness and plausibility enable her to turn her experience to account as a pandar. I have already spoken of men procurers; but the woman procurer is even more insidious. She meets young girls in private rooms, talks to them in public places, invites them to her home without arousing suspicion. As a woman she knows many avenues of approach closed to men, and is quick to sympathize with discouraged or vain girls.
One of the best procuresses in New York City operates as a sort of employment agent, receiving a commission from immoral girls for finding profitable houses for them to work in. In this way she supplies the cheaper grade of houses, the girls paying her from $2 to $5 commission, according to the character of the house to which she sends them. Another,[168] also the madame of a house in West 38th Street,[169] goes to France to secure girls for her exclusive $5 and $10 house. On June 6, 1912, eight inmates were counted in her establishment, several of whom were young French girls who could speak little or no English. One of them told a stranger that she had not been in this country very long. On July 17, 1912, at about 7 P. M., a madame was asked[170] whether she could use three girls just brought from Vancouver, British Columbia. Betsy, the madame, said she could not, but pointed with her finger to two men owners[171] of a house in West 28th Street.[172] One of them asked the woman what the girls looked like. The procuress indicated that they were well built, young, and pretty. The man cautiously advised the woman to take the girls somewhere and “green them out.”[173]
The close and essential connection between the white slave traffic and houses of prostitution is clearly exhibited by the foregoing instances. Houses of prostitution cannot exist except through trafficking in women. Prostitutes who live scattered through the city may earn money for their pimps; but traffic in scattered prostitutes is practically impossible. As soon as houses are set up, an opportunity for trade is created. The proprietors give specific orders to the procurer—for young girls, for innocent girls, for blondes, for brunettes, for slender women, for stout women. And the procurer fills the order, resorting to every possible device in the effort to do so,—to deceit, misrepresentation, intoxication, “doping,” or what not. The white slave traffic is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prostitution.
PROSTITUTE AND CUSTOMER
(a) THE PROSTITUTE
The professional prostitute, in the sense in which the term is here used, is the woman or girl who sells herself for money, whether for her own pecuniary benefit, or under the direction or control of owners of vice resorts, of madames, procurers, or pimps. There has been much speculation as to the number of such women in New York City. Various estimates have been made from time to time, ranging from 25,000 to 100,000. A recent estimate places the number at 30,000.
At the beginning of this investigation, it was determined to count all women who were believed to be professional prostitutes seen in connection with resorts of all kinds in Manhattan, as well as those who used the streets for solicitation. Although these resorts were visited two or more times, only one count made on one visit is included in the total. As a result of this method, adhered to throughout the entire period of the study, i. e., from January 24th, 1912, to November 15th, 1912, the number of professional prostitutes actually counted was 14,926. Of this number, 6,759 were found on the streets in different localities in Manhattan; 8,167 prostitutes were seen and counted in parlor houses, resorts in tenement apartments, disorderly massage parlors, hotels, saloons, concert halls, and miscellaneous places.[174] Not all the vice resorts operating in Manhattan were visited; nor were all the women in these resorts seen during the visits: a certain number of repetitions would thus probably be more than offset. On the basis of the foregoing figures, it is safe to say that a total in round numbers of 15,000 does not overstate the number of professional prostitutes in Manhattan. This estimate does not include occasional or clandestine prostitutes; it includes those only who publicly offer themselves for sale in the open marts.