| New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has | |||||||
| 1 | prostitute | to | every | 40 | men. | ||
| but including the suburbs | 1 | " | " | " | 64 | " | |
| Buffalo has | 1 | " | " | " | 65 | " | |
| Louisville has | 1 | " | " | " | 64 | " | |
| Newark has | 1 | " | " | " | 366 | " | |
| New Haven has | 1 | " | " | " | 87 | " | |
| Norfolk has | 1 | " | " | " | 29 | " | |
| Philadelphia has | 1 | " | " | " | 344 | " | |
| Pittsburgh has | 1 | " | " | " | 192 | " | |
| Savannah has | 1 | " | " | " | 44 | " | |
It can scarcely be doubted that the worthy mayors of Newark, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg have been misinformed as to the extent of the vice in their respective cities. Respecting Newark, for instance, the writer was recently informed that prostitution was not so rare as Mayor Poinier’s letter would imply, but that prostitutes and known houses of prostitution were to be found scattered over the city, and that the fact was notorious to nearly every resident. This information was received from a gentleman himself an inhabitant of Newark. There is no doubt that much of the vice of Newark finds a home in New York, as the mayor says, but it is equally certain that it is not all expatriated.
The mayor of Philadelphia is particularly wide of the mark. There may not be as many public prostitutes there as in New York, but it is proverbial, and is as widely known as is Philadelphia itself, that its streets abound in houses of assignation and private houses of prostitution.
Pittsburgh is situated at the head of navigation on the Ohio River, at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, both navigable. She has canals, rail-roads, and large manufactories, and, if closely examined, would probably show a larger proportion of prostitutes than above reported.
Norfolk is the largest naval depôt in this country, and its population can not be held responsible for all the prostitution within its limits. In both Norfolk and Savannah we presume that the larger portion of the abandoned women at the time the census was taken were colored people, whose virtue is always at a discount under the most favorable circumstances, and to which a seaport is always fatal.
But another calculation may be made upon the assumption that the males who have commerce with prostitutes form only one fourth of the population, and the proportions resulting from that are as follows:
| New York, on the resident population of the city proper, has | |||||||
| 1 | prostitute | to | every | 30 | men. | ||
| but including the suburbs | 1 | " | " | " | 50 | " | |
| Buffalo has | 1 | " | " | " | 49 | " | |
| Louisville has | 1 | " | " | " | 48 | " | |
| Newark has | 1 | " | " | " | 275 | " | |
| New Haven has | 1 | " | " | " | 65 | " | |
| Norfolk has | 1 | " | " | " | 23 | " | |
| Philadelphia has | 1 | " | " | " | 258 | " | |
| Pittsburgh has | 1 | " | " | " | 144 | " | |
| Savannah has | 1 | " | " | " | 33 | " | |
To arrive at an average we will omit the calculation of the proportion of prostitutes to the population of New York City proper, it having been shown already that the responsibility of much of it must rest upon the suburbs and upon visitors, and also omit Newark, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg, because the reports from those cities are palpably underrated. This done, the mean of the two estimates stands thus:
| New York | 1 | prostitute | to | every | 57 | men. | |
| Buffalo | 1 | " | " | " | 57 | " | |
| Louisville | 1 | " | " | " | 56 | " | |
| New Haven | 1 | " | " | " | 76 | " | |
| Norfolk | 1 | " | " | " | 26 | " | |
| Savannah | 1 | " | " | " | 39 | " | |
| and the mean of the whole is | 1 | " | " | " | 52 | " |