Poverty is an integral part of nearly all the conditions of life which we have to consider as incentives to prostitution. In some instances, more, perhaps, than may be generally credited, poverty is a direct and proximate cause of this vice. In other words, “women previously and otherwise virtuous do prostitute their bodies for bread.” In most of the cases enumerated except that purely natural, but rare one, innate sexual desire, poverty is a remote cause. From the number of the human race who are under its griping, chilling pressure, poverty may be set down as a fruitful source of prostitution.
The connection of political circumstances with the phases of public morals is more intimate than the consideration of the superficial differences of the two matters would at first sight imply. But an attentive comparison of the state of public prosperity with the state of public crime will show that crime is somewhat dependent on food: the man with a well-filled stomach is no foe to order. Prostitution, as a means of supplying the cravings of hunger, is part of the same connection. It is true that in England there are poor-laws and work-houses, from and in which every destitute person, without reference to character, has a right to food and shelter. In the first place, however, the work-houses are objects of unmitigated aversion to the poorer classes. Various rules, in themselves hard, but rendered necessary by consideration for the rate-payers as well as for the beneficiaries, such as separation of husband and wife while receiving relief, separation of child and parent, etc., make the work-house system odious to the worthy and honest poor; while the strict rules, and the restraint and discipline enforced within the walls, make it still more odious to those who place their happiness in license and irregularity; added to this, in populous and poor districts, the claims upon the work-house in seasons of distress are too numerous for its capabilities. It is an awful truth that, notwithstanding the enormous revenues, nearly fifty millions of dollars per annum, collected for poor relief, and the immense establishments instituted throughout the country for the support and shelter of the distressed, sometimes the number of applicants is so great that their demands can not be met. Possibly, if these unfortunates could be distributed throughout the kingdom, so that the poverty of one spot could be balanced by the comparative prosperity of another, the fearful starvation in the midst of plenty, which is occasionally witnessed, need not occur. But in the mean while, and until the time when all the schemes and devices of modern improvement and advancement shall be finally perfected, and universal happiness attained, there is a mass of inconceivable wretchedness to be dealt with. In “Household Words” for November, 1855, Mr. Dickens gives a harrowing picture of London distress, of which he was himself an eye-witness.
It was a dark, rainy evening, and close against the wall of Whitechapel Work-house lay five bundles of rags. Mr. Dickens and his friend looked at them, and attempted to rouse them in vain. They knocked at the door, were admitted, saw the master of the work-house, and asked him if he knew there were five human beings—females—lying on the ground outside, cold and hungry. He did—at first he was annoyed—such applications were frequent—how could he meet them?—the house was full—the casual ward was full—what could he do more? When he found that Mr. Dickens’s aim was inquiry, not fault-finding, he was softened. The case was certainly shocking: how was it to be met? Mr. Dickens said he had heard outside that these wretched beings had been there two nights already. It was very possible. He could not deny or affirm it. There were often more in the same plight—sometimes twenty or thirty. He (the master) was obliged to give preference to women with children. The place was full. Unable to do more, Mr. Dickens left. On getting outside, he roused one of these poor wretches. She looked up, but said nothing. He asked her if she was hungry; she merely looked an affirmative. Would she know where to get something to eat? she again assented in the same way. “Then take this, and for God’s sake go and get something.” She took it, made no sign of thanks—“gathered herself up and slunk away—wilted into darkness, silent and heedless of all things.”
To what will not such misery as this compel suffering human nature? In times of commercial depression the police of London note an increase of street prostitution. It is said in the cities of England that the permanent prostitution of each place has a numerical relation to the means of occupation. In Edinburgh there are but few chances of employing female labor. Glasgow, Dundee, and Paisley are the seats of manufactures, and employ female labor extensively. According to Tait, the prostitution of Edinburgh far exceeds its proportion of prostitution to population as compared with the manufacturing towns.[306]
It seems unnecessary to multiply instances of poverty and indigence, inasmuch as the fact is most miserably indisputable: shirt-making at three cents, pantaloon-making at five or six cents—unceasing labor of fourteen hours a day bringing in only sixty or eighty cents a week, and competition even to obtain this. As the London Times once said, “The needle is the normal employment of every English woman; what, then, must be the condition of those tens of thousands who have nothing but that to depend upon?” Of late years, too, a still farther competition has been introduced in that ingenious invention of our country, the sewing machine.
In order to show the relation between unpaid and excessive labor and prostitution, we will instance a few cases.
One young woman said she made moleskin pantaloons (a very strong, stiff fabric) at the rate of fifteen cents per pair. She could manage twelve pairs per week when there was full employment; sometimes she could not get work. She worked from six in the morning until ten at night. With full work she could make two dollars a week, out of which she had to expend thirty-eight cents for thread and candle. On an average, in consequence of short work, she could not make more than seventy-five cents a week. Her father was dead, and she had to support her mother, who was sixty years of age. This girl endured her mode of existence for three years, till at length she agreed to live with a young man. When she made this statement she was within three months of her confinement. She felt the disgrace of her condition, to relieve her from which she said she prayed for death, and would not have gone wrong if she could have helped it.[307]
Such a case as this scarcely comes within the term prostitution, but she stated that many girls at the shop advised prostitution as a resource, and that others should do as they did, as by that means they had procured plenty to eat and clothes to wear. She gave it as her opinion that none of the thousands of girls who work at the same business earn a livelihood by their needle, but that all must and do prostitute themselves to eke out a subsistence.
Another woman, a case more directly in point, also said she could not earn more than seventy-five cents. She was a widow, and had three children when her husband died. Herself and her children had to live on these seventy-five cents. She might have gone into the work-house, and been there better supported than by her labor. Had she done so, the laws of the work-house are inexorable, she would have been separated from her children. Although one child died, she was now so reduced that she could not procure food. She took to the streets for a living, and she declared that hundreds of married and single women were doing the same thing for the same reasons.
A widow who had buried all her children could not support herself. From sheer inability to do so she took to prostitution.