The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World

by William W. Sanger

This mean may be fairly assumed as the proportion existing in all the large cities of the Union, and the farther assumption that the men who visit houses of prostitution form one fourth of the total population will give a basis upon which the total number of the Prostitutes in the United States may be estimated with some accuracy. The calculation can not, of course, be claimed as absolutely correct, as that would be an impossibility, but is submitted as a probability on which the reader can form his own conclusion.

The population of the United States in 1858 was estimated by Professor De Bow, when preparing the compendium of the census of 1850, and his calculation at that time was that by the present year it would amount to 29,242,139 persons, which may be taken in round numbers 29,000,000. From this must be deducted 3,500,000 slaves, which will leave the free inhabitants 25,500,000, and the proportion of adult males to this number is 6,375,000. It may next be assumed that one half of these men live in country places or small cities where prostitution does not exist, the other moiety being inhabitants of cities with a population of twenty thousand or upward; and upon the basis already proved of one prostitute to every fifty-two men, the result would be a total of 61,298 prostitutes. The whole area of the United States is 2,936,166 square miles, and if all the prostitutes therein were equally divided over this surface, there would be one for every forty-seven square miles, or if they were walking in continuous line, thirty-six inches from each other, they would make a column nearly thirty-five miles long. If the inhabitants of large cities were only one third, the number of prostitutes would be 41,058. These suggestions are, of course, mere matters for consideration, and are not given as definite facts.

Allusions have already been made to many exaggerated opinions as to the extent of prostitution in New York City, and it may be well to notice in this place some passages in a work entitled “An inquiry into the extent, causes, and consequences of Prostitution in Edinburgh, by William Tait, Surgeon: 2d edition, 1842.” The author starts with the impression that the capital of Scotland is the most moral city on the face of the earth, and after fixing the number of public prostitutes in Edinburgh at eight hundred, or one to every eighty of the adult male population, remarks:

“In London there is one for every sixty, and in Paris one for every fifteen. Edinburgh is thus about twenty-five per cent. better than London, while the latter is about seventy per cent. better than Paris.” (Happy Edinburgh!) “And what is to be said of the chief city of the United States of America, of the independent, liberal, religious, and enlightened inhabitants of New York? It will scarcely be credited that that city furnishes a prostitute for every six or seven of its adult male population! Alas! for the religion and morality of the country that affords such a demonstration of its depravity. It was not surpassed even by the metropolis of France during the heat and fervor of the Revolution, when libertinism reigned triumphant, and the laws of God and man were alike set at defiance.”—Page 6.

This picture is any thing but flattering to our national pride; but it loses very much of its effect because it is contrary to the truth. It will, however, satisfy our readers that Mr. Tait was misinformed, and they may feel a slight gratification in the conclusion that his pathetic lament for the religion and morality of their country was unnecessary. On page 8 of the same work we find:

“After stating that there were upward of ten thousand abandoned women in the city of New York, the Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall, chaplain to the New York Magdalen Asylum, goes on to say: ‘Besides these, we have the clearest evidence that there are hundreds of private harlots and kept mistresses, many of whom keep up a show of industry as domestics, seamstresses, nurses, etc., in the most respectable families, and throng the houses of assignation every night. Although we have no means of ascertaining the number of these, yet enough has been learned from the facts already developed to convince us that the aggregate is alarmingly great, perhaps little behind the proportion of the city of London, whose police report asserts, on the authority of accurate researches, that the number of private prostitutes in that city is fully equal to the number of public harlots.’”

In this passage Mr. Tait shifts the responsibility of his figures to the shoulders of the Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall, who is represented as declaring the number of public prostitutes in New York sixteen years ago to be ten thousand, and assuming the private prostitutes to amount to the same number, making an aggregate nearly three times as large as an actual and searching inquiry has found at the present time. During the last sixteen years vice has not decreased in New York, but has steadily increased, and yet the most diligent search can discover in 1858 only 7860 public and private prostitutes, instead of the twenty thousand mentioned in the publication under notice! We imagine it to be an imperative duty to be tolerably well acquainted with a social evil before attempting to write upon it, and although Mr. Tait’s book can not, by any possibility, injure our city, on account of the palpable misrepresentations it contains, we allude to it to show the opinion entertained of New York and its vices on the other side of the Atlantic. Were an apology necessary for the preset work, such statements as these would be amply sufficient.

Mr. Tait loses no opportunity to hurl a sly dart at New York. Thus (on page 38), after quoting the words of the Rev. Mr. M‘Dowall as to the character of an abandoned woman in New York, he (Mr. Tait) continues:

“He says nothing of the state of religious feeling among the prostitutes there; and if we are to regard his statement of the number of prostitutes as strictly correct, it may very well be questioned whether any considerable number of the inhabitants of that city are under the influence of sincere religious feeling.”

Some of our New York City readers may probably recollect that the publication of Mr. M‘Dowall’s “Inquiry” produced very considerable excitement here at the time, and opinions were freely expressed that he was either very ignorant on matters of that nature, or intentionally colored his statements, and was in either case entirely unfitted for the task he had assumed.