Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) THE HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION: ITS EXTENT, CAUSES, AND EFFECTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. [BEING AN OFFICIAL REPORT TO THE BOARD OF ALMS-HOUSE GOVERNORS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.] BY WILLIAM W. SANGER, M.D., RESIDENT PHYSICIAN, BLACKWELL'S ISLAND, NEW YORK CITY; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE; LATE ONE OF THE PHYSICIANS TO THE MARINE HOSPITAL, QUARANTINE, NEW YORK, ETC., ETC., ETC. "To such grievances as society can not readily cure, it usually forbids utterance on pain of its scorn; this scorn being only a sort of tinseled cloak to its deformed weakness."--CURRER BELL, _Shirley_. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1858. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. DEDICATION. TO THE GOVERNORS OF THE ALMS-HOUSE OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK. SIRS,--To your honorable Board I dedicate the following pages, the result of an investigation into the causes and extent of Prostitution. Yours was the conception, mine has been the execution of the work; to you am I indebted for many valuable suggestions; to your kindness for much encouraging approbation; and now to your hands I confide my labors, in the conviction that they will not be futile; that your patriotism, your philanthropy, and your humanity will be at once enlisted in the cause. In so noble an endeavor it will be a source of satisfaction to remember that I assisted you in those generous exertions which will add fresh laurels to your names; that I had some share in the effort which will induce future generations to remember with pride that the first blow struck in the Western World at the gigantic vice Prostitution was aimed by the GOVERNORS OF THE ALMS-HOUSE OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK. I am your obliged fellow-citizen, WILLIAM W. SANGER, M.D. Resident Physician's Office, Blackwell's Island, New York City, August 10th, 1858. ADVERTISEMENT. The reader will perceive from the body of this work that the "History of Prostitution" was commenced in the year 1856. It was completed and ready for the press at the close of 1857. On the morning of February 13th, 1858, the Island Hospital on Blackwell's Island was entirely consumed by fire, which spread so rapidly as to render it impossible to save any thing from the flames. Among the property destroyed, my library and manuscripts were included. Fortunately, the first draught of this work had been previously removed from my office, and was preserved, and from that the present volume has been prepared.