The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- History
Medical estimates are humbugs, from Dr. D. M. Reeves down to Dr.
Sanger. According to Dr. Reeves, every female in the city, over
thirteen years of age, was required to fill up his estimate of lewd
women, and Dr. Sanger is but little more reasonable.
Very respectfully, yours, JOHN A. KENNEDY.
Nearly three years have elapsed since the above letter was written, and
there can be no doubt that the interval has witnessed a very decided
increase of this species of vice. The greatest increase is, perhaps, in
the class termed by Mr. Kennedy "other women," in which are included
the women of nominal respectability, whose crime is known only to
themselves and their lovers. They are the last persons in the world one
would think of accusing, for they are not even suspected of wrong
doing. Many of them seem to be innocent young girls, others wives and
mothers of undoubted purity. Society is corrupt to its very heart in
the great city, and there are thousands of nominally virtuous women who
lead, in secret, lives of shame. The authorities cannot include this
class in their statistics, as they know nothing of them.
FIRST-CLASS HOUSES.
There are very few first-class houses of ill-fame in the city, and they
are located in the best neighborhoods. They are generally hired fully
furnished, the annual rent in some cases amounting to ten and twelve
thousand dollars. The neighbors have little or no suspicion as to their
character, which is, in such cases, known only to the police and their
frequenters. The establishment is palatial in its appointments, and is
conducted with the utmost outward propriety.
The proprietress is generally a middle-aged woman of fine personal
appearance. She has a man living with her, who passes as her husband,
in order that she may be able to show a legal protector in case of
trouble with the authorities. This couple usually assume some foreign
name, and pass themselves off upon the unsuspecting as persons of the
highest respectability.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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