William W. Sanger

“ Men who, in the ordinary relations of life, would scruple to defraud their neighbors of a dollar, do not hesitate to rob a confiding woman of her chastity. They who, in a business point of view, would regard obtaining goods under false pretenses as an act to be visited with all the severity of the law, hesitate not to obtain by even viler fraud the surrender of woman’s virtue to their fiendish lust. Is there no inconsistency in the social laws which condemn a swindler to the state prison for his offenses, and condemn a woman to perpetual infamy for her wrongs? ”

“ Now we say it with much shame, that in no capital city of Europe is there daily and nightly such a shameless display of prostitution as in London. At Paris, at Vienna, at Berlin, as every one knows, there is plenty of vice; but, at least, it is not allowed to parade the streets, to tempt the weak, to offend and disgust all rightly-thinking persons. If any one would see the evil of which we speak in its full development, let him pass along the Haymarket and its neighborhood at night, when the night-houses and the oyster-shops are open. ”

“ Every day makes the system of New York more like that of the most depraved capitals of continental Europe, and it remains for the good innate sense of the bulk of the American people to say how much farther we shall proceed in this frivolous, intriguing, and despicable manner of living; or whether they will not strive to perpetuate the stern morality of the Puritan fathers, our great moral safeguard so far, and thus put an effectual barrier against the inroads of a torrent which must undermine our whole social fabric, and finally crush us beneath the ruins. ”

“ None but they could gather round them of an evening the choicest spirits of the day, and elicit, in the freedom of unrestrained intercourse, wit and wisdom, flashing fancy and burning eloquence. What wonder that the Hetairæ should have filled so prominent a part in Greek society! And how small a compensation to virtuous women to know that their rivals could not stand by the altar when sacrifice was offered; could not give birth to a citizen! ”

“ This fact in itself sustains the theories that mental cultivation and sufficient employment are restrictions to the spread of prostitution.
If women are compelled to undergo merely the slavery of life, no moral advancement can ever be expected from them. If every approach to remunerative employment is systematically closed against them, nothing but degradation can ensue, and the moralist who shuddered with horror at the bare possibility of a woman being allowed to earn a competent living in a respectable manner will ejaculate, “What awful depravity exists in the female sex!” ”

“ Oh! women, women! why have you not more faith in yourselves, in that strong, inner purity, which alone can make a woman brave! which, if she knows herself to be clean in heart and desire, in body and soul, loving cleanness for its own sake, and not for the credit that it brings, will give her a freedom of action, and a fearlessness of consequences, which are to her a greater safeguard than any external decorum. ”

“ An aged prostitute thus bedizened would place herself at an open window with a sprig of myrtle in her hand, with which she would beckon to people in the street. When a customer was found, a servant would open the door and conduct him in silence to the chamber of her mistress. Before entering he paid the sum demanded, when he found himself in a room lighted only by a feeble glimmer passing through the curtain, which now hung down over the window. In such a twilight the most venerable old woman could not be distinguished from a Venus. ”

“ After its first local effects are over—and these, though generally mild, are sometimes frightful—the poison lingers in the system ready to break out on any provocation in some one of its many disgusting manifestations, often deforming and branding its victim, threatening life and making it a burden, and yet refusing the poor consolation of a grave. Like the vulture which fed on the entrails of the too amorous Tityus, it tortures and consumes, but is slow to destroy, and often its visible brand, like the scarlet badge once worn by the adulteress, proclaims a lasting disgrace. ”

“ He knows that laws which experience has demonstrated can not be enforced, teach disrespect and disobedience to all law. He knows that human passions can not be changed by human legislation. He knows that, if he attempt the impossible greater in the control of vice, he is certain to neglect the possible and important less. He knows that the river will not cease to flow at his command. If it overflows and desolates, he raises its banks and dikes in the flood to prevent a general inundation. For hundreds of years the governments of Europe have tried in vain to dry up the sources of prostitution ”

“ Were it no more disgraceful to contract syphilis than it is to have fever and ague, the diseased would seek early relief, which is nearly equivalent to certain relief, and the disorder would soon be confined to the pitiable few who have lost in drunkenness and misery the instinctive dread of all that is foul and disgusting in personal disease. Prostitution, it is true, would then be restored to its old Roman dignity, yet venereal disease could then be reached, and all but eradicated. But a respectable syphilis does not belong to our age and nation. ”

“ For the suppression, or even checking of the general vice, none whatever. The association in New York deserves much praise for its zealous benevolence. They have brought back some of these erring women to the paths of virtue, but they have done no more to stop the current of prostitution than he could do to dry up the current of the Hudson who dips water with a bucket. In truth it may be said that the paths of virtue have been found to be slippery places for some that would be thought converts. Wisdom’s ways have been found too peaceful for these daughters of excitement. ”

“ The interior is of corresponding splendor, and when the vast hall resounds with the music of the grand orchestra, and is filled with a gay crowd rustling in silks or satins, or lounging in the hall, or whirling in the giddy waltz, it is certainly a scene to intoxicate the youth who frequent it in search of adventure, or to drink in the poison of seductive and deceiving, although bright and fascinating eyes. Should the foreigner visit this scene on one of its gay nights, he may get a glimpse of the depths of Berlin life. ”

“ As the last spark of inherent virtue flickers and dies in her bosom, and she becomes sensible that she is indeed lost, that her anticipated happiness proves but splendid misery, she also becomes conscious that the door of reformation is practically closed against her. But this life of gay depravity can not last; her mind becomes tainted with the moral miasma in which she lives; her physical powers wane under the trials imposed upon them, and her career in a fashionable house of prostitution comes to an end; she must descend in the ladder of vice. ”

“ Surely public opinion can be brought to bear against one vice as well as another. The time may come when a man may shrink from presenting himself in the sacred circle of his mother, his sisters, and his other female relatives, reeking from secret immorality. Conscience can turn on a bull’s eye as well as a policeman, and the culprit may stand self-convicted, although no one has been there to convict him save himself. ”

“ The death of a father is a sad calamity for his children; the hand that has nourished and protected them, that has toiled for their support, is cold in the grave; their earthly support is gone. But a more grievous affliction still is the death of a mother. It is she to whom the children look in all their infant sufferings; it is her ear that is ever open to their sorrows ”

“ Why add to the existing sense of shame another infamy when she unfortunately contracts disease? Can we consistently blame her if she becomes callous, when every legal provision directly tends to indurate her sensibilities? The misconduct of parents toward children has been shown as one of the causes of prostitution. The father or mother drives from the paternal roof the child who has committed but a single error. Then, under the pressure of hunger, she inevitably sins more deeply, becomes diseased, applies to the public for relief, and is sentenced to imprisonment! ”

“ The political turmoils of Europe, in the last eight or ten years, have thrown among us numerous refugees who have been reared in the hot-beds of intrigue, and who, styling themselves artistes, depend upon our unexampled prosperity, the increase of our wealth, the improvement of our country, and our known predilections for foreigners, to enable them to make a living, and also to establish the same state of morals and manners existing in the cities whence they came. The United States are now the great harvest-field for art, which, with science, music, and poetry, aids to improve the mind. ”

“ The world has studiously drawn a screen before it, and when the sufferings of its victims became so apparent that the vice was palpable, an additional mystery was thrown around it, and the people of the nineteenth century know it but as a sin with which they can not interfere. It has all the imagined force of a monster, because of its obscurity; all the virulence of an avenging fiend, because its true powers are hidden; and even those who suffered from its poison have been led to believe that its mysteries were so inscrutable as to defy all approach. ”

“ Let him turn the page, and his soul recoils in disgust and deepest horror from the narrative of corruption the most abandoned, ambition the most unscrupulous, lust the most abominable, crime the most tremendous, to which the history of the world scarcely offers a parallel, and which brands the perpetrators with the execration of all succeeding generations. ”

“ This is more especially true of Magdalen Asylums. There is indeed a “field white unto the harvest” for benevolent exertions in the most secluded haunts of prostitution, if they could only be made accessible. Sympathy is worthily bestowed upon the sick or dying women transferred from public institutions to charitable organizations. To alleviate the sorrows of their final sufferings, to soothe the agony of the hour of death, to divest of its terrors the passage from this world to the dread future, is a work in which the heart of any Christian must rejoice. ”

“ Virtue degrades herself, and loses every vestige of her power, when her dealings with vice sink into a mere matter of individual opinion, personal dislike, or selfish fear of harm. For all offenses, punishment, retributive and inevitable, must come; but punishment is one thing, revenge is another. One only, who is Omniscient as well as Omnipotent, can declare, ‘Vengeance is Mine.’”—A Woman’s Thoughts upon Women (New York ed.) ”

“ As soon as this conviction of a mutual love possesses her mind, as soon as her heart responds to its magic touch, she lives in a new atmosphere; her individuality is lost; her thoughts revert only to her lover. Devoted to the promotion of his happiness, she thinks not of her own; and only when it is too late does she awake from the spell that lures her to destruction. In such a case as this, a woman does not merit the contempt with which her conduct is visited. She has sinned from weakness, not from vice ”

“ Can it seize on and destroy the inborn passion which fills and supports houses of prostitution? Then it can not do for the one what it hopes to do for the other.
“Again: the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade have been cited in this connection as illustrating the power of law. In trespass, theft, violence, or fraud, some one is wronged; and those who have been injured seek to bring the offender to justice. Here there is no aggrieved person. All who are in interest are so in interest that they deprecate the interference of all law, except what they claim to believe is the law of Nature. ”

“ The history of their lives comprises two phases: in the full bloom of their fascinating beauty their time is divided between doing naught and naughty doings; when their charms are on the wane, they take to devotion and scandal. A young lady of Lima rises late, dresses her hair with orange or jasmine flowers, and waits for breakfast, after which she receives or pays visits. During the heat of the day she swings in a hammock or reclines on a sofa, smoking a cigar. After dinner she again pays visits, and finishes the evening either in the theatre, or the Plaza, or on the bridge. ”

“ Let there be but a breath of suspicion against her fair fame, no matter from what vile source it may emanate, and the energies of man seem directed toward her destruction. “She is down, keep her down!” is the almost universal cry, and this malignant process is continued until the victim is positively forced into a life of undisguised immorality. The sacred decision, “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone,” is entirely forgotten, and the most violent in their denunciations are frequently those who are the most blameworthy themselves. ”

“ We have witnessed the meetings of parents with their lost children; have stood beside the bed where a frail, suffering woman was yielding her last breath, and have shuddered at the awful mental agony overpowering her physical suffering. No doubt can exist that, were it possible to introduce the reader of these pages to such scenes, or even could they be adequately described in all their accumulated horrors, the cordial co-operation of all the friends of virtue and humanity would be secured in furtherance of any plan which would check this mighty torrent of vice and woe. ”