Pimp

“ The banker, with the cashier of his competitor, are jostling with a frowsy bootblack; the business man discusses the board with the pickpocket; the thief and gambler is everywhere. The odor of state prison associations is upon many. The pimp, the bummer, the thug, the midnight housebreaker and the daylight lawbreaker, all mingle in the throng with the representatives of business probity and youthful innocence—with the prop and stay of one family, and with the hope and pride of another household. ”

“ There are many street walkers who are “free lances,” taking their trade to the hotel which offers the best inducements. They realize that they are adrift—with no one but their “pimp” to protect them. And “pimps” are usually admirable protectors, masters of the art of “saving” their women from the hand of the law. They are keen, wise young men, well grounded in the business of exploiting the girls of the street at the least possible expense. ”

“ PUNT. What is he for a creature? CAR. A pimp, a pimp, that I have observed yonder, the rarest superficies of a humour; he comes every morning to empty his lungs in Paul's here; and offers up some five or six hecatombs of faces and sighs, and away again. Here he comes; nay, walk, walk, be not seen to note him, and we shall have excellent sport. ENTER SHIFT; AND WALKS BY, USING ACTION TO HIS RAPIER. PUNT. 'Slid, he vented a sigh e'en now, I thought he would have blown up the church. ”

“ Some of the girls who frequent these public dance halls reveal their loose morals by their manners and actions, but many are innocent working girls who seek legitimate recreation. The sinister element is the pimp who attends with the coldblooded purpose of finding new subjects of debauchery and of subsequent exploitation for gain. These agents of commercialized vice are usually well-dressed, well-mannered, and introduce themselves politely and easily to strangers. They often pretend love at first sight and exhibit marked devotion, by which girls are deceived and to which they too often yield. ”

“ Whoever being a male person, frequents [Pg 397] houses of ill-fame, or of assignation, or associates with females known or reputed as prostitutes, or frequents gambling houses with prostitutes, or is engaged in or about a house of prostitution, is a pimp, and shall be fined in any sum not more than one hundred dollars, and be imprisoned in the county jail not more than sixty days. ”

“ I do not allude here to the homosexual males whose mentality shall be considered in another chapter. By male prostitutes, I mean men who consort with women, in or out of wedlock, for purely sordid considerations.
The Pimp who exploits some prostitute is a prostitute himself, but so is the man who marries [Pg 110] for money or power a woman who does not attract him sexually. The male prostitute is, if anything, ethically inferior to the female prostitute.
Prevention, rather than any form of cure, may some day solve the problem of prostitution. ”

“ The women remit their earnings, even if separated hundreds of miles. For example, Fanny, a woman belonging to a notorious pimp, [146] formerly solicited on Third Avenue. A year or more ago Fanny was brought into court, charged with street walking. She was sentenced to not less than three months nor more than five; after a month she was released, according to her pimp, who declared that it had cost him $500 in lawyers’ fees, etc. Thereupon he sent Fanny to Butte, Montana, whence at the end of one week she sent him $150. ”

“ Sometimes, if the hour is late and they are in the right place, the pimps and their women become so bold as openly to go through the pockets of their victims and afterwards throw them into the street. On one such occasion the victim called loudly for the police, and, though an officer stood on the other side of the street, his eyes were withheld and his ears were stopped. ”

“ The successful procurer as well as the pimp, to be next described, boasts that, once a girl comes under his influence, she will do anything for him. No matter how ugly or repulsive outwardly, he holds his women. One of the most active procurers in the city is short, heavy, and humpbacked. [133] He has the reputation of being even more successful than a competitor [134] who is handsome, athletic, and well-dressed. The former has been apprehended in other cities on the charge of procuring, once serving two and a half years in Philadelphia under an assumed name. ”

“ A house without a woman stands in need of rather a severe discipline to preserve that modesty which is inseparable from dignity. He soon converted ours into a place of filthy debauch and scandalous licentiousness, the haunt of knaves and debauchees. He procured for second gentleman to his excellency, in the place of him whom he got discharged, another pimp like himself, who kept a house of ill—fame, at the Cross of Malta ”

“ On June 21, 1912, the pimp complained that Fanny was then sending him only $150 per month. He was sure that she was “holding out on him,” for he knew that she made at least $100 a week.
Sophia, belonging to an equally well-known cadet, [147] whose own parents try to secure women for him, reached [Pg 92] New York from New Orleans late in June, 1912. Her pimp and her brother met her at the station. ”

“ That the girl supports a pimp to protect her and keep her out of trouble with the police is not the main element. In European cities where girls are registered by the police and protected as far as possible from this exploitation, they nevertheless support pimps, and in some cities the number doing this is as much as 90 per cent of the registered prostitutes.
It frequently happens also that a girl is drawn or drifts out of her family and community into a bad gang, as in case No. ”

“ But it is the modern arsenal of prostitution which plays the principal role. The proxenets (pimps) exploit both the sexual appetites of men and the weakness and venality of women. Their chief source of gain consisting in the artificial excitation of the male sexual appetite by all possible means, their art consists in dressing their merchandise, the prostitutes, with attractive refinement, especially when dealing with rich clients who pay well. ”

“ The professional prostitute, in the sense in which the term is here used, is the woman or girl who sells herself for money, whether for her own pecuniary benefit, or under the direction or control of owners of vice resorts, of madames, procurers, or pimps. ”

“ The real purpose of the place is to afford a rendezvous where confidences may be exchanged and deals planned—where birds of a feather may flock together and be fed or entertained. It is indeed a varied group that sit about the tables or lounge idly at the entrance: owners of houses of prostitution, madames and inmates, street walkers, pimps, procurers, gamblers, pickpockets, thieves, and crooks of every shade and kind. Young boys of the neighborhood become fascinated with the adventurous lives of the men who frequent these places and soon join their ranks. ”

“ Dancing is, indeed, cultivated for the express purpose of stimulating the sale of liquor and what goes with it. The dances are frequented by prostitutes, pimps, thieves, and those who want to see the “sights.” Young and foolish girls, for whom “social club” dances have become commonplace, are persuaded to visit these saloons. Here they meet men whose sole object is their subsequent exploitation for pleasure or for money. Under this influence and [Pg 57] environment they drift all the more rapidly into lives of professional prostitution. ”

“ Among the best known of these is a saloonkeeper [244] once enjoying the reputation of protecting the entire Red Light district, at that time situated in Allen Street. His saloon [245] is now a hangout for thieves, gamblers and the like. Two patrolmen and an officer [246] are named as coming to his resort to “fix” pimp cases. The “lookout” [247] for a Sixth Avenue [248] establishment remarked, in describing the financial operations of the place, that he receives 10 percent of the profits monthly, that $200 a month go to inspector and captain, and that the patrolman [249] is paid nightly. ”

“ Two of the girls are under 18.
... With rare exceptions, not only the innocent women imported into this Country, but the prostitutes as well, are associated with men whose business it is to protect them, direct them, and control them, and who frequently, if not usually, make it their business to plunder them unmercifully. Now [Pg 15] this system of subjection to a man has become common. The procurer or the pimp may put his woman into a disorderly house, sharing profits with the “madam”. He may sell her outright; he may act as an agent for another man ”

“ At the noon hour or at closing time he stands in front of entrances to factories, department stores, and other places of business to accost the workmen and distribute cards.
[Pg 13] These young men are usually pimps or ex-pimps, former waiters in saloons and restaurants, ex-prize fighters and wrestlers, gamblers, crooks, and pickpockets who have lost their nerve. [14] They form a class by themselves. They are the “down-and-outers” in the underworld, eager for any job no matter how poor the wage. Some of them are well known and take pride in their ability to “run in” a lot of customers. ”

“ The corruption of the State and its officials, especially the police and the medical inspectors of brothels, the general depravity which results from official toleration, and the perversion of ideas of morality among the public, increase habits of prostitution, and with it the danger of infection. Assured of impunity the pimps and their acolytes become more and more audacious and extend their business, while the prostitutes, whose number is increased by this system, seek to escape the police and practice their trade clandestinely. ”

“ Some pimps beat their women, on the principle that that is the only way to make them fear and love them. This may seem a paradox; but it is indeed true that many prostitutes do not believe their lovers care for them unless they “beat them up” occasionally. ”

“ The cigar store, the pool room, the coffee and cake restaurant, are the favorite resorts of the pimps. Here they come to make deals for their women, to receive telephone messages from their girls on the street or in vice resorts, to plan “line ups” [83] when a “young chicken” is about to be broken into the business, and to buy drugs for their girls and themselves. ”

“ As neighborhood boys they have little difficulty in securing girls who, like themselves, are adventurous, or already immoral. It therefore becomes easy either to trap a girl and ruin her, or to “break in” the already immoral girl to a life of professional prostitution under protection.
It is a strange fact, but it is true, that prostitutes often select young men whom they see in front of pool rooms and cigar stores and actually invite them to become their pimps and share the proceeds of their business. ”

“ Finally, bartenders and waiters in disorderly saloons often act as agents for the procuring of customers: indeed, they are not seldom the pimps of the women for whom they act. Customers entering the saloon to drink are directed to the tables where their women sit or receive the business cards of the houses where their women are to be found. ”

“ Having attached the girl to herself, she sells her all sorts of things: coats, suits, dresses, kimonos, chemises, underwear, hosiery, shoes, hats, gloves, feathers, plumes, combs, hairpins, toilet articles, silver meshbags, watches and rings. Hundreds of girls are thus preyed upon. Not infrequently, however, it happens that madames prefer that their girls keep their pimps, because such girls are made to work harder by the aid of the latter. ”

“ Pimps sought custom for these houses and there was a good understanding between the parasites and the prostitutes. From the very nature of their calling, they were the friends and companions of courtesans. Such characters could not but be mutually necessary to each other. The harlot solicited the acquaintance of the client or parasite, that she might the more easily obtain and carry on intrigues with the rich and dissipated. ”

“ They have never had moral standards in any proper sense of the term. The large majority of boys who become pimps and seducers of girls and the large majority of girls who become prostitutes were at the start not immoral, but unmoral. Later the boy drifts to the pool parlor or gambling room for his recreation and companionship, the girl to public dance halls and similar places of amusement. ”

“ Other brothel-keepers have female agents in the country towns, who send them girls. One well-known woman, who kept for many years one of the largest establishments in France, employed a traveling clerk with a large salary. Some obtain boarders from [Pg 144] their own province or native city; others, who have followed a trade, get recruits from the acquaintances they made at the workshop. Latterly, it would seem, pimps have carried on their trade with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was noticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from Rheims. ”

“ One of the methods used by X 306 to draw trade is to allow messages and mail for prostitutes and their pimps to be delivered at her parlor. One of the prostitutes is the wife of X 308. She is a street walker and also a shoplifter. Becky X 309 and her sister Sarah, who [Pg 325] solicit on the Bowery, both go to Rosie’s to have their hair dressed.
February 9, 1912. Twenty-five pimps, gamblers and crooks were in the restaurant at X 311, Second Avenue. The chief amusement of these men is gambling, playing such games as stuss, poker, and “klobiosh.” ”

“ The prostitutes who frequent certain saloons in Manhattan combine their immoral business with crime, particularly stealing. They boldly seek out a man who appears to be “green,” or under the influence of liquor, and “trim him,” as they say. The girls use their pimps, or, what may be nearer the truth, the pimps use their girls, to carry out these robberies. ”