of the young and inexperienced with subjects that have a tendency to mislead or deprave them. Suppose this argument were admitted to have some force, what, it may be asked, is to be done with a system so debasing in its nature and so ruinous in its results? Is it better to suffer it to go on perpetuating itself and contentedly to behold it carrying down its thousands to a gloomy grave than to make a determined effort to resist its progress, simply because such an effort may, perhaps, minister to a vitiated appetite or exert a deceitful influence on the mind of some thoughtless youth? Even on the supposition that some wretched man may be rendered more miserable, or some hopeful youth may have his moral principles shaken, still the evil to be remedied is of so gigantic a nature that its arrestment would not be too dearly purchased, were the supposed consequences necessarily connected with it. But it may, after all, be a question whether such an idea be not visionary. Would a disclosure that could be offered with any degree of consistency to the public, tend to deprave still more the taste of that man who has already abandoned himself to sensual gratifications, and who is in the daily practice of associating with persons whose actions and habits constitute the very essence of impurity? Or is a man who has partially gone astray, but who still retains some sensibility of moral sentiment, likely to make a more rapid descent when his path is seen to be strewed with the melancholy remains of human victims? Or shall it be affirmed that a youth—as yet uncontaminated with the vices of the world, and whose mind has been disciplined to soundness of thinking—would experience any other sensation than that of horror at the exhibition of human folly and guilt?
“The News” he concluded “should consider its labor well bestowed, and its exertions amply rewarded if through its instrumentality, the public shall be made to think more seriously and to act more vigorously in regard to a subject which I consider of infinite moment, connected as it is with the everlasting destiny of no inconsiderable portion of the human race.”
CHAPTER XXXVI.
KILLJOY HOUSE.
The French in their superficial way speak of a bagnio as a maison de joie, which may be translated literally as a house of joy. It would be impossible to conceive of a more false description of these habitations of vice. Riotous exhilaration produced by drink there is, hideous hysterical hilarity there is—but joy, none. The merriment of the inmates of such a house has a commercial value, and they do not use any of it when the men who pay for it are not about.
“I have often thought,” said a man who was connected with the city police for some ten years, a man of great good sense and wide general reading, “that the people who speak in condemnation of the social evil do not dwell sufficiently on the actual revolting facts connected with the life of a woman of the town. I have read sensational newspaper articles, and I have heard preachers’ sermons on the subject, but in all there is a lack of practical treatment. After you have read or heard them, a person who does not know the facts would think that a house of ill-fame was the abode of wicked and unholy but yet picturesque passion. In spite of themselves they succeed in surrounding the unsavory mess with a halo of romance, than which there could be nothing further from the facts. There is no romance in the lives of evil women. Everything about them is gross, sordid and mercenary. The master passion of their lives is not sensuality, but a greed for money and display conjoined with envy and all uncharitableness. They are the slaves of the vile women who keep the houses in which they live. While they are new to the life, pretty and popular, they are allowed certain latitude. These are the ones whom you see parading the streets, sitting in the houses of entertainment, and driving to the races. But when
THEIR WITHERING LIVES
begin to tell upon their good looks, their days of merriment are over. They now become slaves in the vilest sense of the word. The money for which they sell their souls is the constant prey of the hoary old brothel-keeper to whom they are in bondage. The majority of the men who visit their dens are in liquor. Is there anything picturesque about half-a-dozen dull-eyed creatures being roused out of their sleep in the small hours of the morning to be marshalled before an old brute with rum-laden breath and filthy person whose sottish fancy has led him here? Is it possible to conceive a woman with a single vestige of pride left consenting to be at the pick and choose of such a loathsome creature? Yet this is a frequent sight in these houses of hell. Is there any romance about that? And when the choice is made the other five are eaten with envy. But it is envy, spitefulness, and all uncharitableness, morning, noon and night with them. The demon of hatred is the presiding spirit of their sunless habitations. She who has good looks and youth is a continual eyesore to the woman whose lustre of girlhood is a thing now of memory. She is hated and slandered, and she glories in the fact because it is a tribute to qualities which she has that they have not. But her hour comes too soon and too surely, and a younger rival hurries her down the slope, to be herself displaced in turn as the months go by, leaving their impress of dissipation.
Envy and hatred of each other are common characteristics, and the same may be said of lying, intemperance and profanity. Lying is part of their trade, and is a necessity of their existence, and so much of a habit does the practice become that they