More than once I have gone through Chinatown at midnight in company with a ward detective where I could see for myself, under the glare of the electric light, some of the frightful aspects of prostitution.
There is said to be from one thousand to five thousand Celestials in Chinatown. Nearly every one has a white girl with whom he lives.
They occupy from one to three small rooms, but many of them have only one room where they live, eat and sleep. The girls who live with Chinamen seem to have a terrible fascination for such a life, for no matter how often the police raid the place and send them to prison, they are soon back again at the old life.
Many of these girls come from respectable families, as I know from investigations which I have personally made. After a couple of years of such life, the Chinaman abandons his paramour and flees to parts unknown. It is most difficult to locate a Chinaman as it is impossible to identify him. When he returns again it is with a new—fresh—girl as a mistress. The abandoned one after a few days takes to the street, or swallows carbolic acid.
Two sisters, once known as respectable girls, but who always refused to disclose their identity, informed a friend of mine that their father was a country preacher. They lived with Chinamen for several years. I knew another girl who ran away from a respectable Brooklyn home to lead an immoral life with a Chinaman. Nor is this at all uncommon. Whatever fascination there is about it, it invariably ends in disgrace, and finally in the dark waters of the river or Potter’s Field.
Recently Police Captain Galvin, who was appointed to the command of the Elizabeth Street Station, which is known in Police parlance as the “Bloody Sixth,” by Commissioner Bingham, has driven out of Chinatown between two and three hundred white girls, the mistresses of Chinamen. This is a feat performed by no other policeman in the history of the “Bloody Sixth.”
(2) The Women of The Tombs
Naturally women do not figure in crime as much as men, and for various reasons.
In the first place women are more domesticated, work in the interests of the home where they fight life’s battles, are more gentle, artless and persuasive in their methods than the sterner sex.
During the past quarter of a century New York has furnished a large number of murderesses, fences, thieves and women of the street, among her criminal classes.