New York has still a large number of these disorderly houses which contain from five to twenty girls. The proprietors call them boarding houses, but their right name is brothel. Under cover of night these women go out on the street and when they find a victim, take him to the brothel where he is robbed and then kicked on the sidewalk.
A few years ago the city “Cadet” became so bold in his business that the Legislature increased the penalty attached to the crime of abduction by making it ten years instead of five in state prison and a thousand dollars fine. Respectable girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty were often induced to leave home and come to New York from rural settlements, only to find on their arrival that they were grossly deceived by these lying scoundrels.
Some time ago Annie Bolt, a Brooklyn girl, was rescued from a wretched den on East Thirteenth Street, Manhattan, by Brooklyn officers. The girl had been lured from her home weeks before, by a young man who gave his name as Abe Krinkoe. He gave her to understand that he was taking her to a braid factory in New York. Krinkoe was afterwards arrested and indicted on a charge of abduction.
Once in this house of prostitution, Annie’s clothing was taken away, and she was told that if she attempted to escape she would be killed. She managed, however, to drop a letter to the sidewalk, addressed to her mother, telling of her plight. Some one picked it up and mailed it and her rescue followed.
Not long since a woman who labors among these unfortunates on the West Side informed me that one night she counted no less than thirty-six girls taken to a large brown stone house in a fashionable part of the city by a few procurers or cadets. When they crossed the threshold of that house, they were actually sold into slavery. Their clothes was taken from them and they were kept indoors and almost nude for a whole year. Afterwards they were turned loose in the cold blasts of winter to make room for others, such as they were once, pure girls.
The only way to rid the city of prostitution is to make it a criminal offence for both male and female and cease condoning it as a human infirmity!
In a short time these poor creatures are themselves abandoned, deserted, avoided, and even loathed by those who once held them in high estimation, and as they are unknown and friendless in the great city, they have no alternative left but to become the instruments of immorality to others or die in despair.
After a few years, if these girls are not sent to Auburn prison for a long term, they become Police Court habitues. They are frequently arrested for intoxication, disorderly conduct or soliciting on the street. When they come to the Tombs they present a shocking appearance—with bleared eyes, bloated face, disheveled hair and soiled clothing—having lost the sense of womanly shame.
I have often spoken to them—always kindly—and have seen the tears start in their eyes as I have asked after their mothers. They appear callous on every other subject, but here I have always touched a tender chord. Many of these girls have informed me that they are in the business for the money and the dress that are in it; and they do not want to reform.
In the corridor of the Women’s prison at the Tombs they talk and often fight among themselves. How shocking their obscenity, oaths, imprecations—the very language of hell. Some of these women have been in prison for short terms as often as fifty or a hundred times. Many prostitutes are frequently arrested for robbery, but as a rule escape, as the degenerate complainant seldom appears against them. They swing with pendulum regularity from a brief imprisonment to liberty, till they end their days as a river suicide.