Last winter an old gray-haired man came to the city from his farm in New England, accompanied by his son, a manly youth, in search of his lost daughter. His description enabled the police to recognize the girl as one who had but recently appeared in the city, and they at once led the father and brother to the house of which she was an inmate. As they entered the parlor, the girl recognized her father, and with a cry of joy sprang into his arms. She readily consented to go back with him, and that night all three left the city for their distant home.
A gentleman once found his daughter in one of the first-class houses of the city, to which she had been tracked by the police. He sought her there, and she received him with every demonstration of joy and affection. He urged her to return home with him, promising that all should be forgiven, and forgotten, but she refused to do so, and was deaf to all his entreaties. He brought her mother to see her, and though the girl clung to her and wept bitterly in parting, she would not go home. She felt that it was too late. She was lost.
Many of these poor creatures treasure sacredly the memories of their childhood and home. They will speak of them with a calmness which shows how deep and real is their despair. They would flee from their horrible lives if they could, but they are so enslaved that they are not able to do so. Their sin crushes them to the earth, and they cannot rise above it.
Drunkenness is very common among women of this class. Generally the liquors used are of an inferior quality, and do their dreadful work on the health and beauty of their victim very quickly. The use of narcotics is also very common. All the drug stores in the vicinity of these houses sell large quantities of opium, chloroform, and morphia. Absinthe is a popular drink. This liquor is a slow but deadly poison, and destroys the nervous system and brain, and produces insanity. Suicides are frequent, and many of the poor creatures fall victims to the brutality of the men who seek their society.
II. HOUSES OF ASSIGNATION.
There are over one hundred houses of assignation of all kinds in the city known to the police. This estimate includes the bed-houses, of which we shall speak further on. Besides these, there are places used for assignations which the officials of the law do not and cannot include in their returns. These are the smaller hotels, and sometimes the larger ones. Sometimes women take rooms in some of the cheap hotels, and there receive the visits of men whose acquaintance they have made on the street or at some place of amusement. Very often the proprietor of the house is simply victimized by such people, and several respectable houses have been so far overrun by them that decent persons have avoided them altogether. One or two of the smaller hotels of the city bear a most unenviable reputation of this kind. Even the first-class hotels cannot keep themselves entirely free from the presence of courtezans of the better class. Rich men keep their mistresses at them in elegant style, and the guests, and sometimes the proprietors, are in utter ignorance of the woman’s true character. Again, women will live at the fashionable hotels, in the strictest propriety, and live by the proceeds of their meetings with men at houses of assignation.
The best houses are located in respectable, and a few in
fashionable neighborhoods. In various ways they soon acquire a notoriety amongst persons having use for them. In the majority of them, the proprietress resides alone. Her visitors are persons of all classes in society. Married women meet their lovers here, and young girls pass in these polluted chambers the hours their parents suppose them to be devoting to healthful and innocent amusements. There are many nominally virtuous women in the city who visit these places one or more times each week. They come in the day, if necessary, but generally at night. A visit to the theatre, the opera, or a concert is too often followed by a visit to one of these places. It is said by those who claim to know, that sometimes women of good social position even possess pass keys to such houses. The hot-house fashionable society, to which we have referred elsewhere, sends many visitors here. Some married women visit these places because they love other men better than their lawful husbands. Others sin from mercenary motives. Their limited means do not allow them to gratify their taste for dress and display, and they acquire the desired ability in this infamous manner.
The majority of the houses are well known, and are scarcely conducted with secrecy, which is the chief requisite. The better class houses are handsomely furnished, and everything is conducted in the most secret manner. The police have often discovered assignation houses in residences which they believed to be simply the homes of private families. All these houses bring high rents. Men of “respectable” position have been known to furnish houses for this use, and have either engaged women to manage them, or have let them at enormous rents, supporting their own families in style on the proceeds of these dens of infamy.
The prices paid by visitors for the use of the rooms are large, and the receipts of the keeper make her fully able to pay the large rent demanded of her.