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
A gentleman once found his daughter in one of the first-class houses of
the city, to which she had been tracked by the police. He sought her
there, and she received him with every demonstration of joy and
affection. He urged her to return home with him, promising that all
should be forgiven and forgotten, but she refused to do so, and was
deaf to all his entreaties. He brought her mother to see her, and
though the girl clung to her and wept bitterly in parting, she would
not go home. She felt that it was too late. She was lost.
Many of these poor creatures treasure sacredly the memories of their
childhood and home. They will speak of them with a calmness which shows
how deep and real is their despair. They would flee from their horrible
lives if they could, but they are so enslaved that they are not able to
do so. Their sin crushes them to the earth, and they cannot rise above
it.
THE SISTERS' ROW.
This is the name given to a row of first-class houses in West Twenty-
fifth street, all fashionable houses of prostitution. A woman came to
this city from a New England village, and was enticed into one of the
fashionable dens. She paid a visit to her home, dressed up in all her
finery. Her parents believed her a Broadway saleswoman, but to her
sisters, one by one, she confided the life of gayety and pleasure she
led, and one by one the sisters left the peaceful village, until, at
last, the whole seven sisters were domiciled in the crime-gilt palaces
in West Twenty-fifth street. Thus, one sister ruined six in her own
family; how many others in the same place is unknown.
Another instance: A woman, named----, is from Binghamton, in this
State. As a matter of course, she has correspondents in that place; she
knows all the giddy-headed girls of the town; she knows the
dissatisfied wives. The result is her house is a small Binghamton.
Thus, one girl from a village may ruin a dozen; and it is in this way
they so readily find the home they are in search of in a strange city.
THE ALBUM BUSINESS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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