From the fact that youth is the grand desideratum, it is evident that a constant succession of young people will be driven into this arena, either by force or treachery. The average duration of life among these women does not exceed four years from the beginning of their career! There are, as in all cases, exceptions to this rule, but it is a tolerably well established fact that one fourth of the total number of abandoned women in this city die every year. Thus, by estimating the prostitutes in New York at six thousand (and this is not an exaggerated calculation, as will be proved hereafter), the appalling number of one thousand five hundred erring women are hurried to their last, long homes each year of our existence. Neglected and contemned while living, they pass from this world unnoticed and unwept. But their deaths leave vacancies which must be supplied: the inexorable demands of vice and dissipation must be gratified, and who can tell what innocent and happy family circle may next have to mourn the ruin and disgrace of one of its members? In a subsequent portion of this work it will be necessary to notice the means employed for ensnaring the innocent and unsuspecting, and to show that this is a danger which threatens all classes of the community.

Question. Were you born in America? If so, in what state?

State.Number.
Alabama 1
Carolina, North 2
"South 4
Columbia, District of 1
Connecticut 42
Delaware 1
Georgia 1
Illinois 1
Kentucky 2
Louisiana 4
Maine 24
Maryland 15
Massachusetts 71
Missouri 1
New Hampshire 7
New Jersey 69
New York 394
Ohio 8
Pennsylvania 77
Rhode Island 18
Vermont 10
Virginia 9
Total born in United States 762

The number of prostitutes in New York who were born within the limits of the United States slightly exceeds three eighths of the aggregate from whom replies to these queries were obtained. They are natives of twenty-one states and one district, and may be subdivided in geographical order as follows:

1. The Eastern District, containing Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, contributes one hundred and seventy-two women to the prostitutes of New York City.

2. The Middle States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, contribute five hundred and sixty-six women.

3. The Southern States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, contribute twelve women.

4. The Western States, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, contribute also twelve women.

On what hypothesis can these proportions be explained? Maine, on the extreme northeast, with a rocky, surge-beaten coast fronting on the wild Atlantic, with a harsh, cold climate, sends twenty-four women from her population of 580,000, while Virginia, with 1,421,000 inhabitants, contributes but nine! This difference in favor of the southern state can not be explained on the ground of distance, for the boundaries of each state are nearly equidistant from New York; nor can it be sustained by the idea that Maine has more sea-coast, as the maritime coast of the southern state is at least equal to that of the northern one, and the ordinary tendencies to immorality in sea-port towns would be equally felt in each. The case is still farther involved by the fact that in all southern cities the majority of prostitutes are from the north; and it is a well-known circumstance, that at certain periods large numbers of courtesans from New York, Boston, and other cities emigrate southward. Were the generally received opinion of the effects of a warm climate upon female organization to be adopted in this connection, not only would there be no necessity for this exodus, but the number of prostitutes received from Virginia should largely exceed those from Maine. This fact is sufficient to confirm the idea already expressed, that fraud or force is used to entrap these females. The natives of a bleak northern state are far more likely to be deceived by the artful misrepresentations of emissaries from New York than the denizens of the southern portion of our Union. The former lead a life of comparative hardship, the latter one of comparative ease. In Maine, over six thousand women, or one in every forty-six of the female population, are immured for six days in every week in a crowded factory; in Virginia, over three thousand women, or one in every one hundred and thirty-four of the female population, are similarly employed.[380] This mode of life will form a matter for subsequent consideration, so far as its tendencies to immorality are concerned.

Again: Place in contrast Rhode Island with eighteen women living by prostitution in New York, and a population of only 140,000, and Maryland with fifteen prostitutes in New York, and a population of 418,000, and a more palpable difference in favor of the southern state is apparent. The former sends one prostitute out of every eight thousand of her inhabitants; the latter, one out of every twenty-eight thousand.