Causes.Numbers.
Inclination 513
Destitution 525
Seduced and abandoned 258
Drink, and the desire to drink 181
Ill-treatment of parents, relatives, or husbands 164
As an easy life 124
Bad company 84
Persuaded by prostitutes 71
Too idle to work 29
Violated 27
Seduced on board emigrant ships 16
"in emigrant boarding houses 8
Total 2000

This question is probably the most important of the series, as the replies lay open to a considerable extent those hidden springs of evil which have hitherto been known only from their results. First in order stands the reply “Inclination,” which can only be understood as meaning a voluntary resort to prostitution in order to gratify the sexual passions. Five hundred and thirteen women, more than one fourth of the gross number, give this as their reason. If their representations were borne out by facts, it would make the task of grappling with the vice a most arduous one, and afford very slight grounds to hope for any amelioration; but it is imagined that the circumstances which induced the ruin of most of those who gave the answer will prove that, if a positive inclination to vice was the proximate cause of the fall, it was but the result of other and controlling influences. In itself such an answer would imply an innate depravity, a want of true womanly feeling, which is actually incredible. The force of desire can neither be denied nor disputed, but still in the bosoms of most females that force exists in a slumbering state until aroused by some outside influences. No woman can understand its power until some positive cause of excitement exists. What is sufficient to awaken the dormant passion is a question that admits innumerable answers. Acquaintance with the opposite sex, particularly if extended so far as to become a reciprocal affection, will tend to this; so will the companionship of females who have yielded to its power; and so will the excitement of intoxication. But it must be repeated, and most decidedly, that without these or some other equally stimulating cause, the full force of sexual desire is seldom known to a virtuous woman. In the male sex nature has provided a more susceptible organization than in females, apparently with the beneficent design of repressing those evils which must result from mutual appetite equally felt by both. In other words, man is the aggressive animal, so far as sexual desire is involved. Were it otherwise, and the passions in both sexes equal, illegitimacy and prostitution would be far more rife in our midst than at present.

Some few of the cases in which the reply “Inclination” was given are herewith submitted, with the explanation which accompanied each return. C. M.: while virtuous, this girl had visited dance-houses, where she became acquainted with prostitutes, who persuaded her that they led an easy, merry life; her inclination was the result of female persuasion. E. C. left her husband, and became a prostitute willingly, in order to obtain intoxicating liquors which had been refused her at home. E. R. was deserted by her husband because she drank to excess, and became a prostitute in order to obtain liquor. In this and the preceding case, inclination was the result solely of intemperance. A. J. willingly sacrificed her virtue to a man she loved. C. L.: her inclination was swayed by the advice of women already on the town. J. J. continued this course from inclination after having been seduced by her lover. S. C.: this girl’s inclination arose from a love of liquor. Enough has been quoted to prove that, in many of the cases, what is called willing prostitution is the sequel of some communication or circumstances which undermine the principles of virtue and arouse the latent passions.

Destitution is assigned as a reason in five hundred and twenty-five cases. In many of these it is unquestionably true that positive, actual want, the apparent and dreaded approach of starvation, was the real cause of degradation. The following instances of this imperative necessity will appeal to the understanding and the heart more forcibly than any arguments that could be used. As in all the selections already made, or that may be made hereafter, these cases are taken indiscriminately from the replies received, and might be indefinitely extended.

During the progress of this investigation in one of the lower wards of the city, attention was drawn to a pale but interesting-looking girl, about seventeen years of age, from whose replies the following narrative is condensed, retaining her own words as nearly as possible.

“I have been leading this life from about the middle of last January (1856). It was absolute want that drove me to it. My sister, who was about three years older than I am, lived with me. She was deformed and a cripple from a fall she had while a child, and could not do any hard work. She could do a little sewing, and when we both were able to get work we could just make a living. When the heavy snow-storm came our work stopped, and we were in want of food and coals. One very cold morning, just after I had been to the store, the landlord’s agent called for some rent we owed, and told us that, if we could not pay it, we should have to move. The agent was a kind man, and gave us a little money to buy some coals. We did not know what we were to do, and were both crying about it, when the woman who keeps this house (where she was then living) came in and brought some sewing for us to do that day. She said that she had been recommended to us by a woman who lived in the same house, but I found out since that she had watched me, and only said this for an excuse. When the work was done I brought it home here. I had heard of such places before, but had never been inside one. I was very cold, and she made me sit down by the fire, and began to talk to me, saying how much better off I should be if I would come and live with her. I told her I could not leave my sister, who was the only relation I had, and could not help herself; but she said I should be able to help my sister, and that she would find some light sewing for her to do, so that she should not want. She talked a good deal more, and I felt inclined to do as she wanted me, but then I thought how wicked it would be, and at last I told her I would think about it. When I got home and saw my sister so sick as she was, and wanting many little things that we had no money to buy, and no friends to help us to, my heart almost broke. However, I said nothing to her then. I laid awake all night thinking, and in the morning I made up my mind to come here. I told her what I was going to do, and she begged me not, but my mind was made up. She said it would be sin, and I told her that I should have to answer for that, and that I was forced to do it because there was no other way to keep myself and help her, and I knew she could not work much for herself, and I was sure she would not live a day if we were turned into the streets. She tried all she could to persuade me not, but I was determined, and so I came here. I hated the thoughts of such a life, and my only reason for coming was that I might help her. I thought that, if I had been alone, I would sooner have starved, but I could not bear to see her suffering. She only lived a few weeks after I came here. I broke her heart. I do not like the life. I would do almost any thing to get out of it; but, now that I have once done wrong, I can not get any one to give me work, and I must stop here unless I wish to be starved to death.”

This plain and affecting narrative needs no comment. It reveals the history of many an unfortunate woman in this city, and while it must appeal to every sensitive heart, it argues most forcibly for some intervention in such cases. The following statements of other women who have suffered and fallen in a similar manner will show that the preceding is not an isolated case. M. M., a widow with one child, earned $1 50 per week as a tailoress. J. Y., a servant, was taken sick while in a situation, spent all her money, and could get no employment when she recovered. M. T. (quoting her own words) “had no work, no money, and no home.” S. F., a widow with three children, could earn two dollars weekly at cap-making, but could not obtain steady employment even at those prices. M. F. had been out of place for some time, and had no money. E. H. earned from two to three dollars per week as tailoress, but had been out of employment for some time. L. C. G.: the examining officer reports in this case, “This girl (a tailoress) is a stranger, without any relations. She received a dollar and a half a week, which would not maintain her.” M. C., a servant, was receiving five dollars a month. She sent all her earnings to her mother, and soon after lost her situation, when she had no means to support herself. M. S., also a servant, received one dollar a month wages. A. B. landed in Baltimore from Germany, and was robbed of all her money the very day she reached the shore. M. F., a shirt-maker, earned one dollar a week. E. M. G.: the captain of police in the district where this woman resides says, “This girl struggled hard with the world before she became a prostitute, sleeping in station-houses at night, and living on bread and water during the day.” He adds: “In my experience of three years, I have known over fifty cases whose history would be similar to hers, and who are now prostitutes.”

These details give some insight into the under-current of city life. The most prominent fact is that a large number of females, both operatives and domestics, earn so small wages that a temporary cessation of their business, or being a short time out of a situation, is sufficient to reduce them to absolute distress. Provident habits are useless in their cases; for, much as they may feel the necessity, they have nothing to save, and the very day that they encounter a reverse sees them penniless. The struggle a virtuous girl will wage against fate in such circumstances may be conceived: it is a literal battle for life, and in the result life is too often preserved only by the sacrifice of virtue.

“Seduced and abandoned.” Two hundred and fifty-eight women make this reply. These numbers give but a faint idea of the actual total that should be recorded under the designation, as many who are included in other classes should doubtless have been returned in this. It has already been shown that under the answer “Inclination” are comprised the responses of many who were the victims of seduction before such inclination existed, and there can be no question that among those who assign “Drink, and the desire to drink” as the cause of their becoming prostitutes, may be found many whose first departure from the rules of sobriety was actuated by a desire to drive from their memories all recollections of their seducers’ falsehoods. Of the number who were persuaded by women, themselves already fallen, to become public courtesans, it is but reasonable to conclude that many had previously yielded their honor to some lover under false protestations of attachment and fidelity.

It is needless to resort to argument to prove that seduction is a vast social wrong, involving in its consequences not only the entire loss of female character, but also totally destroying the consciousness of integrity on the part of the male sex. It matters not under what circumstances the crime may be perpetrated, none can be found that will exonerate the active offender from the imputation of fraud and treachery. A woman’s heart longs for a reciprocal affection, and, to insure this, she will occasionally yield her honor to her lover’s importunities, but only when her attachment has become so concentrated upon its object as to invest him with every attribute of perfection, to find in every word he utters and every action he performs but some token of his devotion to her. Love is then literally a passion, an idolatry, and its power is universally acknowledged.