“Madam --- is a married woman, her husband being Mr. ---, a Frenchman. He is in the same business as herself, practising it under an assumed name, having an office in the lower part of the city, and his advertisements are next to madam’s
in the daily papers. The interesting couple have a daughter, aged about fifteen, a blonde and beautiful girl, who looks too pure and good to live in such a magnificent den of infamy which is called her home.
“Madam --- keeps seven servants and four fast horses. In winter she drives in tandem, with large ermine sleigh-robes. On every afternoon in the summer she may be seen out alone driving in the Central Park. Her carriage is noted for its extraordinary showiness. There are various statements given as to how she came to adopt her profession. One is, that she was once a servant-girl in a large boarding-house. A couple left one day, and in cleaning up their room the girl, who was afterward to take the name of Madam ---, found a written receipt for a certain purpose. That she preserved, afterward recommending its use to a female friend, and finding it worked well, opened her C--- street office, and sold the medicine at a high figure. Another story is, that she was once a pretty bar-maid in a tavern in the suburbs of London, came to this country when about twenty years of age, made the acquaintance of a physician, and acquired some medical knowledge; was an astrologer and clairvoyant for a time, and afterward adopted her present profession. She is said to have considerable knowledge as to her specialty, which is probably the fact.
“She is said to be worth fully a million of dollars. She has practised her peculiar branch of medicine for many years, and with uniform success. Every one knows it, yet none can bring her to justice. She is too careful and too rich for that. Her immunity from punishment has been entirely owing to the fact that she only takes safe cases, never practising on a woman who has been pregnant more than four months. Her charge is $500 a case. Need there be any better confirmation of the assertion that the rich are greater votaries of the crime of abortion than the poor? Yet every crime has its punishment. Madame ---’s is her loneliness. She has made frantic efforts to get into some part of society better than the lowest. But the rich women who resort to her for ‘relief’ (this is the word used), turn their backs upon her in public. Madame --- has a daughter, and
she offered a quarter of a million to any man laying claim to respectability who would marry her. But her daughter is yet unmarried. Her eldest daughter ran away and married a policeman, and is now happy in being disowned by her own mother. Madame --- has her mansion, and carriages and horses, and every luxury riches can bring. All but position.”
Yet this woman and her associates continue to ply their fearful trade, and day after day in this great city this terrible slaughter of innocent beings goes on, and it will go on until the law makes the publication of the advertisements of these wretches, and the practice of their arts and the sale of their drugs, criminal offences.
It must not be supposed, however, that the best customers of the vendors of medicines for producing miscarriage and abortion are those who seek to hide their shame. It is a terrible fact that here, as in many other parts of the country, the crime of destroying their unborn offspring is repeatedly practised by married women in the secrecy of domestic life. These buy largely of the drugs and pills sold by the professional abortionists. New York is bad enough in this respect, but the crime is not confined to it. It is an appalling truth that so many American wives are practicers of the horrible sin of “prevention” that in certain sections of our country, the native population is either stationary or is dying out. So common is the practice, that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore and the Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, felt themselves called upon, a year or two ago, to publicly warn their people of the awful nature of it.
It is fashionable here, as elsewhere, not to have more than one, two, or three children. Men and women tell their friends every day that they do not mean to increase their families. They do mean, however, to enjoy the blessings of the married state, and to avoid its responsibilities. There is scarcely a physician in the city who is not applied to almost daily by persons of good position for advice as to the best means of preventing conception. The physicians of New York are men of honor, and they not only refuse to comply with the request, but
warn the applicants for advice as to the true moral and physical nature of the course they are seeking to adopt. Yet this warning does not turn them from their purpose. Failing to secure the assistance of scientific men, they seek the advice, and purchase the drugs, of the wretches whose trade is child murder. The evil grows greater every year. These wretches send their drugs all over the country, and “the American race is dying out.” In 1865, there were 780,931 families in the State of New York. Of these, 196,802 families had no children, 148,208 families had but one child each, 140,572 families had but two children each, and 107,342 families had but three children each. In nearly one-fourth of all the families there was not a child, and in 592,924 families, or more than three-fourths of all in the State, there was only a small fraction over one child to each family. Only about one child to each mother in the State reaches maturity. The New England States show even a worse state of affairs.
Is it a wonder, then, that Madame --- and her associates grow rich?