In other houses, women rent rooms and take their meals outside. They bring their male friends to their rooms at any hour, as they have pass- keys to the house. These establishments pass in the neighborhood for reputable lodging-houses.
Men of "respectable" position frequently furnish houses for this purpose, and either engage women to manage them, or rent them, out at enormous sums. They live in style, and support their families on the proceeds of these dens of infamy.
The city papers are full of advertisements of these places. They are represented as "Rooms to let to quiet persons," or "Rooms in a strictly private family, where boarders are not annoyed with impertinent questions," or "A handsome room to let, with board for the lady only," or "Handsome apartments to gentlemen, by a widow lady living alone." These advertisements are at once recognized by those in search of them. Families from the country frequently stumble across these places by accident. If the female members are young and handsome, they are received, and the mistake is not found out, perhaps, until it is too late.
Respectable families are frequently victimized by having dwellings sold or rented to them which have been formerly used as houses of this kind. A Mexican Minister to the United States was once caught in this way rather curiously. Being a stranger in the city, he saw in print the notice of a splendid house, with the furniture for sale, in West Twenty-seventh street. He went up and saw it, and was pleased with the location, the house, the furniture, and even the price. He bought it, and moved in with his family. He was not located there twenty-four hours until he found that the house he had bought had been a notorious house of assignation, and that he was sandwiched in between two equally notorious houses. Many an oath came from his mouth, when a young or an old grayheaded Hotspur rang the bell; and many an old patron of the house has been astonished at being most abruptly told to go further than the next door for what he wanted. The old Mexican managed to stand it out six months, and a real estate agent, who had an eye to business, knowing that he could be tempted to sell out, advertised for a house in Twenty-seventh street, in the Spanish paper. The bait took—the diplomatist was happy to sell it for the half of what it was worth; thinking somebody would get burned, he was glad to get rid of it at any price. In a few weeks afterward, the house was re-sold for double the money paid for it, and converted back to its old purposes.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
STREET-WALKERS.
As soon as the sun sets over the Great City, Broadway, and the streets running parallel with it, become infested with numbers of young girls and women, who pass up and down the thoroughfares with a quick, mysterious air, which rarely fails to draw attention to them. These are known as street-walkers, and it would seem from outward indications that their number is steadily increasing. The best looking and the best dressed are seen on Broadway, and in parts of Fifth and Fourth Avenues. The others correspond to the localities they frequent. They are chiefly young girls, seventeen being the average age, but you will see children of twelve and thirteen amongst them. Very few promenade Broadway below Canal street. The neighborhoods of the hotels and places of amusement are the most frequented. Some of the girls are pretty and modest, but the majority are ugly and brazen. New faces are constantly appearing on Broadway, to take the places of the old ones which have gone down to the depths.
The majority of the girls have some regular employment at which they work in the day. Their regular earnings are small, and they take this means of increasing them. Some, however, sleep all day, and ply their infamous trade at night. There are cases in which the girls are driven to such a life by their parents, who either wish to rid themselves of their child's support, or to profit by her earnings. We have known cases where the girls have voluntarily supported their parents by the wages of their shame. We once heard of two sisters, well known on Broadway, who devoted their earnings to paying off a heavy debt of their father, which he was unable to meet. Sometimes these girls deserve more pity than blame; but a very large proportion of them, perhaps the majority, act as decoys for garroters and thieves. Hundreds of strangers, coming to the city, follow them to their rooms only to find themselves in the power of thieves, who compel them on pain of instant death to surrender all their valuables. The room taken by the decoy is vacated immediately after the robbery, the girl and her confederate disappear, and it is impossible to find them.
The police do not allow these girls to stop and converse with men on Broadway. If a girl succeeds in finding a companion, she beckons him into one of the side streets, where the police will not interfere with her. If he is willing to go with her, she conducts him to her room which is in one of the numerous bed-houses of the city.