The Secrets of the Great City / A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City

by James Dabney McCabe

Houses of prostitution, six hundred and twenty-one. Houses of assignation, ninety-nine. Concert saloons of ill repute, seventy-five. Public prostitutes, two thousand six hundred and seventy. Waiter girls in concert and drinking saloons, seven hundred and forty-seven.

You will see that houses of prostitution have increased twenty-two in two years, and houses of assignation have decreased thirteen. Concert saloons have increased four. Prostitutes have increased five hundred and forty-seven. The waiter girls will be increased by the figures to come in.

As it regards 'other women,' we have no means of knowing anything of their number. That there are many of them cannot be disputed; the number of houses for their accommodation tells us that; but there is no such number as two thousand five hundred, you may depend on it, visit those places, and of those who do, the waiter girls furnish the larger portion.

So that, taking all the public prostitutes, and all the waiter girls in music saloons (and these we have to a unit), there are but three thousand three hundred.

Medical estimates are humbugs, from Dr. D. M. Reeves down to Dr. Sanger. According to Dr. Reeves, every female in the city, over thirteen years of age, was required to fill up his estimate of lewd women, and Dr. Sanger is but little more reasonable. Very respectfully, yours, JOHN A. KENNEDY.

Nearly three years have elapsed since the above letter was written, and there can be no doubt that the interval has witnessed a very decided increase of this species of vice. The greatest increase is, perhaps, in the class termed by Mr. Kennedy "other women," in which are included the women of nominal respectability, whose crime is known only to themselves and their lovers. They are the last persons in the world one would think of accusing, for they are not even suspected of wrong doing. Many of them seem to be innocent young girls, others wives and mothers of undoubted purity. Society is corrupt to its very heart in the great city, and there are thousands of nominally virtuous women who lead, in secret, lives of shame. The authorities cannot include this class in their statistics, as they know nothing of them.

FIRST-CLASS HOUSES.

There are very few first-class houses of ill-fame in the city, and they are located in the best neighborhoods. They are generally hired fully furnished, the annual rent in some cases amounting to ten and twelve thousand dollars. The neighbors have little or no suspicion as to their character, which is, in such cases, known only to the police and their frequenters. The establishment is palatial in its appointments, and is conducted with the utmost outward propriety.

The proprietress is generally a middle-aged woman of fine personal appearance. She has a man living with her, who passes as her husband, in order that she may be able to show a legal protector in case of trouble with the authorities. This couple usually assume some foreign name, and pass themselves off upon the unsuspecting as persons of the highest respectability.

The inmates are usually young women, or women in the prime of life. They are carefully chosen for their beauty and charms, and are frequently persons of education and refinement. They are required to observe the utmost decorum in the parlors of the house, and their toilettes are exquisite and modest. They never make acquaintances on the street, and, indeed, have no need to do so. The women who fill these houses are generally of respectable origin. They are the daughters, often the wives or widows, of persons of the best social position. Some have been drawn astray by villains; some have been drugged and ruined, and have fled to these places to hide their shame from their friends; some have adopted the life in order to avoid poverty, their means having been suddenly swept away; some have entered from motives of extravagance and vanity; some are married women, who have been unfaithful to their husbands, and who have been deserted in consequence; some have been ruined by the cruelty and neglect of their husbands; some, horrible as it may seem, have been forced into such a life by their parents; and, others, who constitute the smallest class, have adopted the life from motives of pure licentiousness. But, whatever may be the cause, the fact is evident to all—these places are always full of women competent to grace the best circles of social life.