The following cases closely resemble each other, and are presented in conjunction:
A. D.: “My parents were dead. I lived with my uncle, who treated me very unkindly.”
L. S.: “My parents died when I was young. I lived with an uncle and aunt, who used me ill.” The deprivation of each of these unfortunate women in the death of their parents, a loss almost incalculable in its results, placed them under the guardianship of those who alike neglected their duties and rendered the trust a medium for unkindness to the orphans. It seems surprising that the memory of a deceased brother or sister can not secure even ordinary care for their children. It can not be expected that the surviving relatives would exhibit the same amount of affection as would have been shown by the parents, but disappointment must be experienced if they make no pretensions to kindness. The dictates of nature are violated when harshness takes the place of sympathy, and destitution is considered a sufficient warrant for deliberate and continuous ill-treatment. Such conduct renders a girl reckless and misanthropic, and will drive her to seek, in unhallowed love, the affection her guardians have refused.
L. M.: “I was taken by my sister-in-law to a house of prostitution, and there violated.” It is not often such a case of barbarity is found in civilized life, nor indeed in less polished communities, as this forcible violation of a young girl through the aid and connivance of her sister-in-law. The mind recoils, with disgust, from the instances of rape so frequently occurring, but this case is so peculiarly aggravated that it can not be contemplated without a feeling of shame for the depravity of human nature. In the one case, the brutal passions of a man are displayed in a brutal manner; in the other, the same cause exists to a similar extent, coupled with the blackest perfidy of a female relative. To such a shameless violation of the laws of consanguinity, such an outrageous conspiracy between a vile man and a monster of a woman, the sister must have been induced to lend her aid by some means best known to herself. It is quite impossible to imagine she possessed a single spark of virtue; on the contrary, she must have sunk, long before this occurrence, to the lowest depths of vice, or she never would have been an instrument in such an infernal scheme. The consideration she received is, of course, known only to the parties themselves, but it would give a farther insight to her character if the reader could be informed of the estimate set by a sister-in-law upon an orphan’s virtue. The result of the outrage is, no doubt, exactly what the criminals anticipated. The victim knew that her character was ruined, that she had no alternative but prostitution, and, while the guilty pair who literally forced her to sin can congratulate each other on the success of their machinations, she must endure the penalty in a life of crime and misery.
G. H.: “I was detected and exposed by my brother.” This girl, who had yielded to the entreaties of a man whom “she loved, not wisely, but too well,” may assign her subsequent career of vice to the conduct of her brother. He must have been sadly deficient in all kindly feeling thus to parade his sister’s dishonor, and also possessed of a very limited knowledge of human nature, or a large amount of malevolence. It can scarcely be imagined that he acted from ignorance, as he must have been certain that such an exposure would most probably induce his sister to continue an intercourse which was publicly known, and therefore could not augment her disgrace; nor can it be conceived that a malicious desire to blast her character governed his conduct. But, whatever his motive, the result was the same. She was forced to a life of prostitution, from which she might have been rescued had kind and affectionate means been employed, instead of the cruel and heedless course which was adopted.
C. W.: “My parents died when I was young. I was brought up by relatives who went to California when I was sixteen years old, and left me destitute. I had no trade.” There is no allegation that this girl’s relatives used her unkindly during the time she lived with them, but they deserted her, in a helpless condition, at the very time when she most needed their guardianship. They could not have been ignorant of the many temptations to which a young woman, without protectors or means of livelihood, is exposed in New York, and yet they removed to a distance, and left her to meet these trials alone. A girl whom they had reared from infancy, and for whom they must have entertained considerable affection, they tamely abandoned to an almost certain fate far worse than death. To say the least, it was a most inconsiderate step, and has resulted very disastrously.
E. R.: “My husband deserted me to live with another woman; my parents were dead; I went to my brother’s house, and he turned me out.” Fraternal unkindness farther exemplified! An orphan sister, deserted by her husband, asked from her brother the shelter of his roof, and he drove her from the house! Such conduct would have been barbarous if even a stranger had made the appeal; in the present instance, it exhibits a cruelty which can not be too severely reprobated.
C. B.: “My parents were dead. I was out of place. I had no relations but an uncle, who would not give me any shelter unless I paid him for it. I went on the town to get money to pay for my lodgings.” This uncle’s name ought to be handed down to posterity as a synonym of hard-hearted selfishness, and as indicating another manner in which money can be made. His miserly propensities must have been very strongly developed when he refused a shelter to his destitute niece unless she paid for it. It certainly did not matter to him how or where she obtained the means, and doubtless his equanimity was not disturbed when he ascertained that the money she paid him was the price of her shame. The coin was as bright in his hand, as useful to him to hoard or to spend, as if it had been her honest earning. Probably he would have been excessively annoyed (it is the characteristic of such men) if any plain-spoken person had told him that he was the means of making this girl a prostitute; but can it be denied that such was the fact, when he received some portion of the money earned by his niece’s prostitution before he would allow her to sleep in his house?
L. S.: “My sister ill-treated me because I had no work.” Here a sister seems to have regarded money as the chief good. The applicant was out of employment, in itself enough to enlist one’s sympathies; she was in want, which should have been an additional reason for kindness; and yet, for these causes, a sister ill-treated her.
In thus endeavoring to show the several duties of parents, husbands, and relatives to those dependent females who are liable to be exposed at any moment to temptations leading from the path of virtue, cases have been exhibited in which a departure from the universally recognized obligations of these classes has added recruits to the ranks of prostitution. In these remarks, the endeavor has been to advance nothing resting on a theory; to advocate nothing unless supported by facts or acknowledged by common sense; to exonerate no one from blame when circumstances demanded a censure, and to condemn none in favor of whom there could be an existing doubt.