A comparison of these figures with the percentage of Catholics, Protestants and Jews in the population of New York City would be interesting. These latter figures are very hard to get at except in the most general way. The latest authoritative study with which I am familiar is that made by the United States Census Bureau in 1906. It gives the church membership as reported by the various denominations as 1,838,482. On a basis of a regular growth in population from 1900 to 1910, the population of New York City in 1906 was about 4,235,010. On this basis, only 43.4 percent of the population have church connections. Only the heads of Jewish families are reported in this census. They are placed at 30,414. The World Almanac for 1913 is responsible for the statement quoted from “Christian Work and Evangelist” that there are 905,000 Jews in New York. This means racially as well as religiously Jewish. This would be about 19 percent of the entire population. The Census for 1906 gives to the Catholics 1,413,775, or 33.38 percent of the entire population and to the various Protestant denominations only 327,690, or 8.8 percent of the population. This would leave about 38 percent of the population without direct church connection to be distributed as to original affiliations between Catholic and Protestants. I should expect that here the Protestants would outnumber the Catholics.
Bedford’s quota of Protestant girls is high, among other reasons because the House of the Good Shepherd, whose inmates are chiefly Catholics, is much the largest of the private institutions to which delinquent women are committed. I should personally believe that if we had the necessary data we should find that, as in the case of the Jewish women, the Protestants and Catholics would contribute in about their proportion in the community at large to the whole group of prostitutes.
Age:—[Table XIV] shows in column 1 the ages of 647 prostitutes on their commitment to Bedford. In column 2 it shows the age of the girl when she says she committed her first sexual offense. We have the data only in 300 cases. Of these, 279 are cases still in the institution. The age on entering prostitution is also only known for the cases in the institution, as we did not attempt to secure this special data until the beginning of the present study. It will be noted that about 7 percent of the whole number committed their first offense before they were fourteen, and that an additional 9 percent were fourteen at the time. There is, however, only the difference of a year in the average time in committing the first offense and in entering a life of prostitution. The graph which illustrates this was made by using percentages in order to have comparable curves.
Various Other Contributing Factors:—There has been considerable discussion as to the relative influence of country and city life in the production of character which leads to an irregular sexual life. We have registered the birthplace of all the women included in this study. We find that out of the 491 American-born women, 404 were born in cities while only 85 are known to have been country-born. Of the city-born, 290 or 59.2 percent of the total number of American-born were born in New York City. So far as this goes, it does not support the contention that the ranks of prostitution are recruited from country girls brought to the city for the purpose of immorality. We inquired of 139 girls in the institution at the time the study was made who were born outside of New York City but practised prostitution there, why they had come to New York. Seventy-eight of these claim to have come to the city with their families, who moved there for economic reasons. Only 9 admit having come with the purpose of entering the life; one came with her lover; 10 “to see New York”; 26 for work and 11 claim that they ran away from home to escape unpleasant conditions and came to New York simply because it was the handiest thing to do. Only 4 were unwilling to answer the question. In none of these cases had we any information which would contradict the statements made by the girls.
We have previously stated that 279 of the total number studied were in the institution when this special study began. We were interested to know how many of them were practising prostitution continuously and living entirely by it. One hundred and sixty-six claim to have been practising it continuously from the time they began; 55 either did not care to answer or gave unsatisfactory answers in the sense that they were obviously misleading; 58 claim to have been practising prostitution intermittently simply to eke out their wages or to get extra money. Thirty-two of the girls who were practising it at intervals and 43 who were practising it continuously, were engaged in trade. Of these, domestic servants were the largest single group, with factory operatives second. The girls who were working at trades excluding domestic service, were for the most part earning small wages; but the number of cases for which we have this data are few, too few on which to base any conclusions. The weekly earnings from prostitution as given by 146 girls who gave a maximum and of 95 girls who gave a minimum, is also to be taken with allowances. See [Table XIX]. It is our general experience that the majority of prostitutes have little conception of the value of money. They earn it easily and spend it as easily. Even among those who claim to make far more than the wages of even well paid working girls, it is not infrequent to find young women without changes of underclothing. These, of course, are the women who are not patronized by a well-to-do class of men.
As indicative of the character of the girl, their statements as to the reasons for their first sexual offense and of what they believe to be the causes leading up to prostitution as a career are illuminating. One hundred and eight out of 279 claim that their first wrong-doing was because they yielded to a man whom they loved; 57 admit that it was for pay; 62 claim to have been forced into the first act; 23 yielded where there was no love and where neither money nor force was used, but succumbed through weakness of will; two only state they did it because they liked it; 27 “could not remember why.” See [Table XXI].
As will be seen when we discuss the mentality of the girls, they are not as a class given to introspection or self-analysis. They are as a rule, incapable of this even if they try. It appeared to us worth while, however, to ask them what they thought were the reasons that led them into an immoral life. It is a very rare thing for a girl to admit that she would be willing to have a younger sister enter the life and this often can be used as a key to secure their willingness to discuss the situation. Two hundred and seventy-nine girls gave 671 reasons. We have grouped them as well as we can. The surprising thing is that very few directly economic reasons are given. It might be supposed that in friendly conversation, a girl would wish to make the greatest possible excuse for herself, and that the one most ready to hand would be the inability to earn a living. But in only 19 cases was this given as an excuse; and by referring to a similar table for street cases, it will be noticed that only 139 out of 1,106 gave a directly economic reason. It will be noted that only 7 out of 671 gave previous use of drink and drugs. As a result of experience, I should say that drink is a consequence rather than a cause of a life of prostitution, although a good many girls have admitted to me that their first wrong-doing occurred after taking an unaccustomed drink. In this connection our medical records at Bedford with regard to the use of alcoholic drinks, drugs and cigarettes, show that at entrance 112 individuals, or 17 percent of the 647 women studied were suffering from one or the other alone, or from combinations, as shown in the following table:
EXCESSIVE USE OF ALCOHOLIC DRINKS, DRUGS AND CIGARETTES
| Alcohol | 45 | ||
| Drugs | 23 | ||
| Cigarettes | 7 | ||
| Alcohol and cigarettes | 18 | ||
| Alcohol and drugs | 8 | ||
| Drugs and cigarettes | 5 | ||
| Alcohol, drugs and cigarettes | 6 | ||
| Total | 112 | 17.3% | |
| Not suffering at entrance from effects of above | 535 | 82.6 | |
| 647 |
Five hundred and thirty-five showed no injurious effects so far as was evident from a physical examination. We cannot give figures as to the exact number who used alcohol or cigarettes in moderation. We believe the number to be high.