The
WILLIAM L.
CLEMENTS
LIBRARY
The University of Michigan
Masononens

27






WOMEN OF NEW YORK.



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THE
WOMEN OF NEW YORK
OR THE
UNDER-WORLD OF THE GREAT CITY.
ILLUSTRATING THE LIFE OF
WOMEN OF FASHION, WOMEN OF PLEASURE, ACTRESSES AND BALLET
GIRLS, SALOON GIRLS, PICKPOCKETS AND SHOPLIFTERS,
ARTISTS' FEMALE MODELS, WOMEN-OF-THE-TOWN,
ETC., ETC., ETC.
BY GEORGE ELLINGTON.
WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
NEW YORK:
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY,
No. 145 NASSAU STREET.
1869.


PREFACE.
DURING the last few years many books have been written
about New York—its secrets, mysteries and miseries—but no
work so exhaustive or authentic as this has been offered the
public. In it the women of the Metropolis are boldly and
truthfully unveiled, and every phase of society is thoroughly
ventilated. Where sin and immorality have tainted women in
high life, and where fashionable wives and beautiful daughters
have yielded to the enticer's arts, it tears the fictitious robes from
their forms and reveals their habits of life, their follies and frail-
ties. It may not be generally known that recruits for the army
of prostitution are obtained from the higher classes; and not un-
frequently the daughters of the wealthy-women who were once
belles in society—may be found within the glittering palaces of
crime in New York. Sketches of the lives of some of these are
given, together with the methods employed to lure virtue into
vice. Added to these, the lives of many actresses, women's
rights champions, lady physicians and bouquet-girls in the city
are fearlessly reviewed.
The author of this work has been thoroughly informed in
regard to the subject-matter, and his purpose is to inform the
public and reform society. He trusts that all classes of readers
will examine it with unprejudiced and candid minds before de-
ciding upon its merits or its mission. He sincerely desires that
are

PREFACE.
the women of the Metropolis may yet become as celebrated for
their virtues as those of the rural districts throughout the land,
and that they may not only win our admiration by their attention
to the many little pleasing arts peculiar to their sex, and thus
conquer like the Parthians, but that they may also win our
respect and love by their chastity, morality and good works, and
thus retain the fruits of their conquests.
Young men and women who read this work will perceive
everywhere in its pages the emptiness and folly of all social crime,
and the necessity for increased vigilance lest they are tempted to
their ruin. To the young men who are strangers to the city and
the machinations of its degraded ones to entrap them, we say, You
will herein see the precipice at your feet and more easily escape it.
To the young women who come hither in search of employment
or friends, though poverty press you down, though obscurity
throw its mantle over you and though friends frown at you, you
should set your face against the first step toward the deep depths
herein depicted.
Middle-aged persons, prominent members of, and leaders in,
society, and others, who are the parents of promising sons and
daughters, will herein find revelations the knowledge of which
may be of inestimable value.
There are doubtless many true and noble women among the
fashion and intelligence of the great city, but, we regret to say,
the army of the faithless and sinning ones seems to outnumber
them in proportions and outrank them in influence.

CONTENTS.
WOMEN OF FASHION.
CHAPTER I.
SOCIETY IN NEW YORK; WHAT IT WAS, AND WHAT IT IS.......
PAGE
......
17
CHAPTER II.
EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS..
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW YORK LADY'S TOILETTE.
CHAPTER IV.
FASHIONABLE PARTIES.
CHAPTER V.
WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN HIGH LIFE.....
CHAPTER VI.
FASHIONABLE PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW A FASHIONABLE WOMAN IS MADE UP"
.
.
...
..
CHAPTER VIII.
FASHIONABLE CIIURCIIES.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
WOMEN OF FASHION AT THE SPRINGS...
PAGE
99
CHAPTER X.
THE CHILDREN OF FASHIONABLE PARENTS.......
CHAPTER XI.
NEW YORK SHODDY.......
CHAPTER XII.
A FASHIONABLE LADY'S WARDROBE.
CHAPTER XIII.
" BEHIND THE SCENES IN HIGH LIFE”.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE “HOME JOURNAL” THE ORGAN OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.
152
WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
CHAPTER XV.
THE “UNDER-WORLD”
... 163
CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE “UNDER-WORLD,” BUT NOT OF IT
... 179
CHAPTER XVII.
HOUSES OF ILL-REPUTE; WHERE THEY ARE, AND HOW THEY ARE CONDUCTED.... 196
CHAPTER XVIII.
WOMEN OF PLEASURE; THEIR HAUNTS, THEIR HOMES AND THEIR VICTIMS......... 209
CHAPTER XIX.
THE USE OF NARCOTICS BY THE “ DEMI-MONDE”.
223

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XX.
THE FASHIONABLE DEMI-MONDE.............
PAGE
230
CHAPTER XXI.
PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES OF THE BELLES OF THE “UNDER-WORLD
CHAPTER XXII.
HOUSES OF ASSIGNATION.
CHAPTER XXIII.
“PRIVATE” SUPPER-ROOMS.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ROMANCE IN THE “UNDER-WORLD”........
CHAPTER XXV.
NYMPHS DU PAVE.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SUMMER SPORTS OF THE “DEMI-MONDE”
316
MARRIED WOMEN.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MATRIMONIAL INFELICITIES.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MARRIAGE À LA MODE...
CHAPTER XXIX.
MARRIED INTRIGUES IN MIDDLE LIFE
CHAPTER XXX.
MARRIED LIAISONS..
358

12
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXI.
SEPARATION” AND DIVORCE IN NEW YORK..
PAGE
374
CHAPTER XXXII.
“FAST WOMEN”
385
WICKED WOMEN.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
INFANTICIDE IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS.
395
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE WICKEDEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK,
... 406
CHAPTER XXXV.
FEMALE ASTROLOGISTS...
CHAPTER XXXVI.
FEMALE CLAIRVOYANTS....
CHAPTER XXXVII.
FEMALE ADVENTURERS..
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FEMALE PICKPOCKETS AND SHOPLIFTERS......
CHAPTER XXXIX.
BABY-FARMERS
CHAPTER XL.
THE CONCERT-SALOONS..
CHAPTER XLI.
" PERSONALS” AND FEDAL
· AND FEMALES
475

CONTENTS.
13
CHAPTER XLII.
MATRIMONIAL BROKERS..
PAGE
• 487
CHAPTER XLIII.
FEMALE “HELP” IN NEW YORK
FEMALE ARTISTES.
CHAPTER XLIV.
BALLET-GIRLS IN NEW YORK ..
506
CHAPTER XLV.
FEMALE MODELS....
519
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE ACTRESSES OF NEW YORK.....
• 522
LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE OUTSIDE....
532
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE INSIDE.......
543
OTHER WOMEN.
CHAPTER XLIX.
FEMALE PHYSICIANS..
533

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER L.
PAGE
STRONG-MINDED WOMEN
.... 562
CHAPTER LI.
HOMES OF THE POOR....
CHAPTER LII.
THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK
CHAPTER LIII.
THE WORKING GIRLS OF THE METROPOLIS.
CHAPTER LIV.
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
CHAPTER LV.
THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK-FROM FIFTH AVENUE TO BAXTER STREET...... 608
FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
CHAPTER LVI.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
CHAPTER LVII.
WORKING WOMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS...
CHAPTER LVIII.
HOMES FOR WOMEN....
CHAPTER LIX.
HOMES FOR THE “FALLEN".
CHAPTER LX.
THE WOMEN OF NEW YORK....

ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE BELLE OF FIFTH AVENUE...
PAGB
FRONTISPIECE.
THE BELLE OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.
22
WOMEN OF FASHION HAVING THEIR FEET BANDAGED TO MAKE THEM SMALL.....
ONE OF THE FEW GOOD MAMMAS ..........
A FIFTH AVENUE PARTY.-THE DANCE.
A FIFTH AVENUE PARTY.-REFRESHMENTS.......
58
THE TOAST.—“OUR LADY FRIENDS.”..
“FALSE FACES.”-AN ENAMELING STUDIO ON BROADWAY
84
FASHIONABLE WORSHIP.-"HAVE MERCY UPON US, MISERABLE SINNERS”....
92
FASHIONABLE BAPTISM.....
98
THE SCHOOL-GIRL ON HER AFTERNOON WALK.........
210
IN CENTRAL PARK ON MUSIC-DAY........
02
FEMALE CLERKS IN POSSESSION OF THE COUNTING-HOUSE..
APPOINTMENT AT CENTRAL PARK.—WAITING AT THE “FLORAL BRIDGE”......
... 144
SHOPPING IN BROADWAY.............
..... 150
CANAL STREET “CIGAR STORE” VISITED BY A TRACT DISTRIBUTOR...
.......... 172
MISS CORA G-, A BELLE OF THE “UNDER-WORLD”..
182
“THE MADAM”...
198
WOMEN OF PLEASURE ON THE PROMENADE.........
210
FAST WOMEN.—THE DRIVE IN CENTRAL PARK.
230
THE QUEEN OF THE “UNDER-WORLD”...
244
15

16
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
FAST WOMEN AT THE RACES.
- QUEEN OF THE BALLET....
270
A FEMALE GAMBLING-HOUSE ON BROADWAY..
288
HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD.-MAGDALENS IN THE LAUNDRY....
308
FEMALE BOAT CLUBS ON A PIC-NIC............
328
SEWING-GIRLS IN A BROADWAY ESTABLISHMENT.......
342
| MARRIED LIFE IN NEW YORK..............
358
SEWING-GIRLS TAKING HOME THEIR WORK...
372
AT THE RACES.—THE START.......
• 388
AT THE RACES."LIQUORING UP”...........
LA “SPIRITUAL” CIRCLE.-WAITING FOR THE “RAPS ”.......
THE SLUMS OF NEW YORK.-MINISTERING TO THE SICK...
INTERIOR OF A CONCERT-SALOON...
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.-THE LODGING-HOUSE.....
484
PRACTICING FOR THE BALLET.........
506
FEMALE MODELS.-THE ARTIST AT WORK...
... 520
FEMALE SEMINARIES.-SCHOOL-GIRLS OF THE PERIOD......
546
| THE SOROSIS IN COUNCIL.....
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.-THE DEAD WIFE....
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.-A “BUCKET SHOP”.
HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD. IN THE SEWING-ROOM.
HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD.-JUVENILES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.... .........

WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
WOMEN OF FASHION.
CHAPTER I.
SOCIETY IN NEW YORK; WHAT IT WAS, AND WHAT IT IS.
HE society of New York City of about fifty years
ago, as compared with that of the present day,
was remarkably pure and simple. Very many
elements, which have since been introduced into
it, were then entirely unknown upon this side of
the water. The reason of this is obvious enough.
Individuals were not possessed of the princely wealth
which many of them now have; many of the modern
luxuries were almost unknown; there were not so many
amusements; the people were forced to live slower than
they do now; it was far more difficult to travel from
place to place in this country, and few visited the Old
World who were not obliged to. The voyage across the
Atlantic was a long and tedious one, attended with con-
siderable risk, if not actual danger; there was no railroad
up the Hudson river, or in fact anywhere else; young

18
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Von
Mr. Vanderbilt was a well-to-do, stout fellow, who pad-
dled folks across the East river to the small and scattered
settlement of Brooklyn. The West was a wilderness;
Chicago had not been heard of; it took a week to go
down to Washington, or longer than it now takes to go to
San Francisco.
How can we but wonder that the people of those days
were slow and Democratic! Queer society this would
seem in our modern eyes. The Battery at the foot of
Broadway was then the fashionable resort for foppish
young men and tender maidens, who wished for a breath
of the sea air and a loving stroll with their hearts'
choice. Now the Battery is a never-thought-of spot,
given up to gingerbread women, immigrants from the
Old World, forlorn people in search of employment, city
express wagons, and ragged urchins of both sexes. In
that day men and women were busy attending to their
business, scraping the gold and silver together, founding
families. Then the grandmother of the now wealthy
family of the Lorillards was pounding up snuff from
tobacco leaves in a mortar, while the old Frenchman,
her husband, retailed it at his little dwelling and shop
not far from Chatham street. Then Mr. John Jacob
Astor was dealing in rat and fox skins; and a little later
still Mr. James Gordon Bennett published a paper as
large as some of our penny sheets, and wrote his own
editorials upon the head of an empty flour barrel. Even
Horace Greeley was looking about for a job.
If people had any society in those days, it was that
social meeting of friends and neighbors which is always

WOMEN OF FASHION.
19
pleasant, and which indulges in good dinners, long chats,
pleasant walks, and rides in lumbering coaches. If a
real camel’s-hair India shawl came into town, everybody
knew it, and if it appeared at the old Dutch Church the
next Sunday, it was the envy and admiration of all be-
holders.
In these good old days, which we love to read about
because they contained so much real happiness, most of
the women did their own work, or a portion of it, which
is more than can be said of the ladies of the present day
They dressed with more regard to health and comfort,
they ate simpler food at more seasonable hours, they took
more out-of-door exercise, and therefore they possessed
better health and more blooming roses in their cheeks.
It has been our good fortune to meet some of the few re-
maining old ladies of the ancient school of society, and
one can still trace faded beauty in their cheeks.
One may fancy what society was by recollecting what
it was not, or, in other words, by remembering what it
had to do without. In those days there was no Italian
opera; no French ballet-dancing; no Academy of Music
or of Design; no Fifth avenue or Central Park; but a
few private coaches, and those set on leather springs which
bowed out behind worse than the fashionable walking-
dresses of to-day; there were no fashionable restaurants
like Delmonico's; there were no great hotels filled with
hundreds of boarders; there were no club-houses, yacht
clubs, jockey clubs, sorosis clubs; there were no magnifi-
cent churches with or without ritualistic services; no dry
goods palaces for shopping excursions; no castle-like

WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
country-seats on the Hudson; no railroads; no steam-
boats or street cars. What could society be without any
of these ? Few of the ladies spoke French ; fewer still
played the piano; many of them danced; and all were
expert at needlework. Some of the ladies did not even
have a good English education. We have seen a letter
from Mrs. General George Washington, in which many
common words were misspelt! As for monogram note
paper, it couldn't be had—even envelopes had not been
invented.
The houses of that day were plain and unpretending
compared with those of the present. At first they were
built of wood, but as the city grew in size they were uni-
versally made of brick, with either sandstone or marble
window-caps. A few of these are still left in the lower
part of the city, in the vicinity of Bowling Green and
the Battery, and there is a cluster of them around what
was once St. John's Park. The rest have been shoveled
into carts and dumped into the sea, to make room for
wholesale dry goods houses. There was a time when
Frankfort street was a fashionable thoroughfare, and
many a brilliant party has been given there. Now it is
a dark, filthy place, full of bird-stuffers, clashing print-
ing-presses, screaming newsboys, dance-houses and old-
clothes men, who drag carts about which send forth un-
earthly sounds from strings of jangling bells.
Twenty-six years ago, when Charles Dickens first
visited this country, he was entertained at a dinner on
Hudson Square, at the house of one of the fashionables.
Now the same house is a second-rate boarding establish-
a

WOMEN OF FASHION.
ment, and on the stone door-post a bit of white paper has
been stuck up which reads, “Furnished rooms to let to
gentlemen, with or without board.” The street is called
“ Hash Row," and the “gentlemen” who apply are six
and eight-hundred-dollar clerks.
It was possible in those early days for a newspaper
poet to set the whole town agog with his rhymes. One
of these, Mr. Fitz-Greene Halleck, wrote verses for the
Evening Post, and everybody read them and called the
author a genius. Now it is proposed to build a monu-
ment to his memory in Central Park. This poet, when
a young fellow, was sought out by the editor of the Post,
complimented and invited to dinner. Fancy such a
proceeding taking place among the editorial fraternity
in this year of grace! Everybody would say the editor
was mad.
We are writing this in the house where the widow of
Alexander Hamilton used to live, and the next door is
the ancient family mansion of the Livingston family.
The rooms are large, but plain. The parlors are on the
second floor, and in their general arrangement resemble
the parlors of to-day. The mantels are of very fine
carved marble, one of which displays the head of a Me-
dusa. The doors are solid mahogany, and the knobs are
silver. Both houses contain a large number of rooms,
and are good specimens of a fifty-years-ago residence.
We seem to see the ladies, in their short-waisted, scanty-
skirted dresses, sitting in these rooms, and the men, in
their bell-crowned hats, walking on the streets. Negro
servants were fashionable then, and a game of whist was
ser
S

WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
often played in the back parlor, while the clink of the
wine-glasses could be heard if one cared to listen.
With the growth of the city, the increase of wealth,
the finding out of new inventions and the inflow of
people from all parts of the world, a gradual but most
transmogrifying change has come over the society of
New York. If some Rip Van Winkle could only look
in upon it, he would no longer recognize the city, the
people or their manners and habits.
Society to-day, in New York means everything and
anything. The city is so large that people have had to
draw the lines somewhere, and the result is a huge con-
glomerate mass of people, which go to make up what the
world calls “society.” The members of it are chiefly
concerned in the important item of living, although some
of them live at a fast, dying rate. The rage of the hour
with the masses is display, ostentation, dress and the
gratification of all the animal desires. Toes are edu-
cated more than hands, and the tongue talks vastly more
than the brain thinks. Polish, etiquette and accomplish-
ments are of more value than honesty of purpose and a
good common-sense education. There are exceptions to
this rule, as there are to all rules, but this is the way we
look at the masses. There is literary society and wealthy
society in New York; artistic and dramatic; political
and fashionable; German, French, Hebrew, English,
Italian, Irish and American. There is the old aristo-
cratic Knickerbocker, and the modern flashy tea-mer-
chant and hoop-skirt society. Then there is the
religious society of all denominations, and the fast so-

THE BELLE OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
23
ciety. There is Fifth avenue society, which includes
Murray Hill and Madison avenue, and there is hotel
and boarding-house society. Then we have the highly-
respectable society, and the shoddy and gift-jewelry
aristocrats. Anything may be denominated “society”
which is above or beyond the common, every-day class
of people. Of middle-life society there is a plenty, and,
since the majority of people are familiar with it, we do
not need to enlarge upon it. -
These are the various grades of society as they exist
to-day. It is all made up of Mr. and Mrs. Smiths who
are somebody, and Mr. and Mrs. Smiths who are nobody.
It consists of people who have money in their pockets, or
who are supposed to have, which is about the same thing.
To prove that all of them do not have it, it is only
necessary to state that the average residence of families
on Fifth avenue does not exceed five years. So you see
the wheel of that fickle goddess, Fortune, is constantly
turning, and once in half a decade all the Fifth avenue-
noodles are rotated out of their marble and sandstone
palaces, while as many more are rotated in.
Society of to-day represents the highest perfection of
our Anglo-Saxon civilization as developed under a re-
publican form of government in the New World. While
there is much in it which is worthy of all admiration,
there is much which is crude, false, foolish, wicked and
deserving of our censure. It is now content with noth-
ing short of what money can purchase. Everything
which gold will give society has. As the love of money
is the root of all evil, so society which is built on money

24
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
has much in it which is evil. It is content with nothing
less than palaces, picture-galleries, private theatres, vast
wardrobes, splendid equipages, retinues of servants and
an ever-changing life of amusements.
The qualifications for entering society in New York
are as various as the different grades of society itself.
Some men have fought their way in, like General Grant
and General Sheridan; some preach their way in; some
buy its favors; some write their way to fame and fortune.
Success in any sphere in life will open many society
doors. Mr. Bonner goes in good society through the
success of his Ledger; Mr. Bennett has Herald-ed him-
self into society; while his son, James Gordon, Jr., has
sailed in on his yacht! How James Fisk, Jr., got in
nobody knows; and it is doubtful if he ever has reached
the highest round in the ladder. Mr. G- , the great
tea-merchant, may be said to have tea-sed his way up;
while B- , the hoop-skirt man, has found himself in
good society by simply providing every house with a
skeleton.
But, joking aside, money is the one thing needful to
get into society. If a man or woman only has enough
of it, they can be received anywhere. It will open the
door to the most exclusive club-house on the Avenue;
will take one to the English breakfasts on Staten Island,
to the weddings at Trinity Chapel and Grace Church,
and to the receptions on Murray Hill. A comparatively
poor person can get an introduction into society if he has
any capacity whatever, but unless he has a fat purse at
his command, he will not be able to remain long. People
r Woman
O

WOMEN OF FASHION.
25
of wealth care very little for the company or acquaint-
ance of every-day poor folks, unless they have some
special calling or gift which compensates for the want
of money. A poet, an artist, a good musician, an
author, a brilliant scholar, and sometimes a very hand-
some person, will be received into society without any
particular questions being asked in relation to the
pockets. This class of people, however, usually have a
contempt for mere wealth without brains, and so they
quit fashionable life as such, and associate among them-
selves.
So, to get into artistic society, one must either be an
artist, a gentleman of letters or a patron of art; to get
into journalistic society, one must be a journalist; to be
a member of fast society, one must be a “hail-fellow-well-
met,” with anywhere from ten to fifty thousand dollars
a year which he is ready to throw away; to get into
aquatic society, we should have a yacht or schooner, and
take some interest in marine matters; to get into dra-
matic society, one must be fond of the drama, join a
dramatic club and patronize the actors; to get into Pres-
byterian or Christian-Association society, one had better
purchase a pew in Dr. Hall's or Dr. Adams' church
and cultivate the acquaintance of the Dodge family: in
other words some money, as well as piety, is needed to
get into good, first-class religious society in New York.
Piety alone will not accomplish this, for the simple
reason that so many people belong to the churches.
It is really a difficult matter for the majority of people,
men as well as women, to get into society. If everybody

26
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
was in it, there would be no society. The person who
* labors for his daily bread or weekly stipend, as some
melancholy individuals put it, must be content with his
or her lot. Hands, as such, are not recognized; neither
are brains always. It is doubtful if the choice society
of New York comprises more than two thousand people
out of a population of a million. This leaves nine hun-
dred and ninety-eight thousand people who are not in
society.
There is one class of society which should not be for-
gotten, and that is the shoddy. This is composed of the
ignorant, and sometimes vicious, which has become sud-
denly rich, either through speculation, striking oil or
gambling. There is always more or less of this class of
people in every large city. They are those who build
the largest swell-front houses, and are the soonest obliged
to leave them; they are those who insult the waiters at
the hotels, and appear on the street in full dress, as if
they were at a party or ball; they are those who dash
through the Park with horses in gold-trimmed harness
and servants in shining new livery; they are those who
lack modesty and talk in loud tones in public. In short,
it would be almost impossible to note all the points of a
shoddy aristocrat.
A story is told of one of them who had a daughter at
school. The mother called, and asked the madam how
her child was getting on. Said she: “I sent Sally a
beautiful pair of opera-glasses the first week she was
here, and I have ordered a splendid set of diamonds
from Ball & Black's. Madam Diedot is to have charge

WOMEN OF FASHION.
27
of her wardrobe. I want Sally to be a parlor boarder,
and learn all the accomplishments. Let her learn to
play the piano and harp, cultivate her voice, give her
dancing-lessons, and, above all, teach her how to receive
company. As soon as Mr. Upstart gets his new house
done, we shall have a perfect stream of callers. Is there
anything Sally wants, Madam Mears ?”
“Oh! she is a good girl," replied the madam, “and
has a plenty of everything to wear. She seems inclined
to do well, but is sadly in need of capacity.”
“A capacity? Is that all? Sally shall have one as
soon es I return to town. Mr. Upstart is rich enough to
purchase anything."
After all, true society has some other foundation than
gold to rest upon; and, whether one is so fortunate, or
unfortunate, as to be able to mingle with the wealth and
glitter of New York upper-tendom, he may congratulate
himself that it has nothing to offer which he cannot find
among his poorer friends and neighbors.

CH A P T Ꭼ Ꭱ II .
EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS.
DRESS does not make the man, but in this day it
makes the woman. Whatever else New York
& may boast of, it can point with pride to its well-
e dressed women. If any one wishes to see oceans
of handsome silks and satins, clouds of gossamer laces,
the richest fabrics which the world produces, from the
silks of India and China to the velvets and muslins of
France, and the latest styles of Paris and London, let
him enter the fashionable society of New York. He
will open his eyes with wonder. He steps into a saloon
full of women fit for presentation at court-he is smoth-
ered in dry goods and lost in a sea of beautiful fabrics.
Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of
these charming creatures, and the lilies of the field would
blush and hang their heads to find themselves in such a
brilliant scene.
Like the aforesaid lilies, these ladies neither toil nor
spin; they simply dress themselves. They are walking
frames for the display of dry-goods. The pity is, that
some plan has not been devised whereby they can hang
more yards of lace and silk upon their bodies than they
are now able to do.
28

WOMEN OF FASHION.
29
In the matter of female dress. New York City is ahead
of the world. It is a constant source of astonishment to
the Paris shopkeepers what becomes of all the rich
goods they send to America. Even with an empress
who has the fortunes of a whole people to spend, and
with an extravagant, foolish and profligate Court to ape
her, the high and mighty women of France do not and
cannot dress better than the ladies of the United States.
The best of everything in Paris is always kept to be sent
to New York. The women of Boston may be well and
richly dressed, but the prevailing fashions are always
toned down to a more sensible and classical elegance,
which is well-befitting the Athens of America. Brains
rule at the Hub; gold is the god in Gotham. The quiet
dames of Philadelphia are much more plainly clad than
their Manhattan sisters; while even the women of Cin-
cinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, do not go to such extreme
lengths as those of the metropolis.
The society of New York is so perfectly immense, is so
enormously wealthy and is made up of such heterogeneous
elements, that extravagance in dress seems to be demanded,
and it is very difficult for a lady who wishes to attract at-
tention and be admired not to get up toilettes of the most
elaborate kind. They must be distinguished for some-
thing; and like the overdressed wife of a negro in Chicago,
whom the Rev. Newman Hall met when there, they under-
take to distinguish themselves by putting on fine clothes.
There are some people who do not like the opera. Per-
haps they have no ear for music, or they have not got
educated up to an opera. Some cannot tell a good paint-

30
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ing from a bad one, and vice versâ. The fault is not the
artist's, but their own. They don't know when they see
a good picture, or what constitutes one. It is the same
with the subject of dress. Plain, every-day people are
used to plain clothes, and might be dreadfully shocked to
see a lady in full dress, as it is called in society, but in
half undress as it would be denominated in the country.
Persons may be educated to admire a fashionably-dressed
woman, and think it no harm that her arms are bare to
the shoulders, that she displays two-thirds of her bust, and
that her dress trails three yards on the carpet. It is all
a matter of taste, of education. Those who are used to it
don't mind it, and those who do not like it have the priv-
ilege of denouncing it. In the days of Madam de Pom-
padour, who was the mistress of Louis XV., it was an
uncommon thing for a woman to show any part of her
back, but the dresses were cut very low in front, and
hence the term Pompadour applied to that style of waist.
But to-day the dresses are often as low behind as before.
In New York City it is the fashion for ladies to dress
in the loudest and most extreme style possible. Fashion
is what constitutes the test of modesty or immodesty, of
decency or indecency, in dress. It is because Mrs. Dr.
Mary E. Walker persists in wearing her very short skirts
and pantaloons in the drawing-rooms of the White House
and in the halls of the Capitol that the newspaper cor-
respondents make so much fun of her. There is a time
and place for everything. Her peculiar style of dress
was doubtless very good for a nurse in the hospital, for
a surgeoness on the battle-field, or for long horseback

WOMEN OF FASHION.
31
rides in the country. So if Miss Olive Logan was obliged
to dig potatoes for a living or prune crab-apple trees, she
would dress accordingly. We have even met the famous
Mrs. Amelia Bloomer at a full-dress reception à la mode
like the rest of the ladies. A very decent dress in the
elegant drawing-rooms of the brown-stone palaces on
Fifth avenue might be considered quite indecent in the
moral shades of New England or the West. A fashion-
able Broadway walking-dress would excite the laughter
and ridicule of a country village, and if it should venture
into church on Sunday, the good pastor might lift up his
voice and his hands in warning against it. From all this
we see that in society it is modest to be in fashion, and
very immodest to be out of fashion.
In spite of all the comments indulged in the news-
papers, both long and short dresses continue to be worn,
and we expect always will be. Dresses with immense
trails, sometimes reaching clear out into the other parlor,
are worn at weddings, receptions, upon full-dress occa-
sions, such as dinners, balls, parties, etc. Short dresses
are worn upon the street, in the Park, for croquet-playing,
at English breakfasts and pic-nics, upon the piazzas of
watering-place hotels and at church. It would seem a
little out of place to have several yards of velvet trailing
up the broad aisle of a place designed for worship.
All women are ambitious to look well. This is natural.
It is not their fault. It is the way of the world. They
dress to win the admiration of the opposite sex as well as
their own, and to outshine their neighbors. Here a little
pride comes in, and if it is not carried too far it is a very

32
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
good thing. We are forced to admit, however, that the
chief attraction of some New York ladies consists in the
clothes they have on. Having neither beauty, wit nor
accomplishments, one is forced to turn to dry goods for
consolation. It is decidedly poor comfort. If in this
matter of overdressing there is any blame, the men are as
guilty as the women. What brother but is proud of his
sister's dress, so it wins applause? What husband but
insists that his wife shall go looking so that he is not
ashamed of her? The first question a young gentleman
asks about a young lady whom he proposes to take with
him to some public place is, “How does she get herself
up?" If the otherwise adorable Arabella dresses in a
dowdyish manner, he drops her at once, and disappoint-
ment, like the concealed worm in the bud of a rose, gnaws
at his heart. Love is a matter of petticoats as well as of
the heart, and if the latter are not fashionable, the former
becomes platonic at once.
The women understand all this. They know that in
an elaborate toilet they can go anywhere, and be accepted
by any man. A fashionable dress, like charity, now-a-
days covers a multitude of sins. Without a fashionable
dress a woman might as well be out of the world; she
certainly would very soon get out of society. The poet
has expressed the whole thing in six lines :
“And thinking "This will please him best,'
She takes a riband or a rose,
For he will see them on to-night;
And with the thought her color burns;
And having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right.”

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WOMEN OF FASHION HAVING THEIR FEET BANDAGED TO MAKE THEM SMALL


WOMEN OF FASHION.
It is just as Fanny Fern says. If a woman puts an old
shawl over her head and takes a basket on her arm, she
may go all over New York after nightfall, and no one
will insult her. But if she is dressed in a trailing silk,
every human puppy on Broadway will bark at her.
There is nothing so pleasing to a New York lady of
fashionable society as to have her dress, train and all,
described at full length in the papers. From the Tribune
and Sun down to the Court Journal, this is done. There
are at least three daily papers and one weekly (not weak-
ly) which devote themselves to describing the dresses of
society women. Some women have been known to pay
for the privilege of having their dresses described in
print. And some men have called the reporters' attention
to their wives for the express purpose of having them
admired.
Such is the ambition of some ladies to dress who are
not of the wealthy class, and whose husbands cannot
afford to gratify all their desires, that they will resort to
almost any expedient for procuring extra silks, ribbons
or a bit of costly lace. One of these desires is that which
half-starves the servants with the hope of cutting down
the grocery bills, but a more common one is the taking
in of work to do, and thus placing themselves in compe-
tition with the poor shop and sewing girls who are strug-
gling to keep body and soul together. They even go so
far as to underbid these poor girls, and thus wages are
kept down to the lowest starvation-prices. In the manu-
facture of neckties, for example, very many well-to-do
married women go to the shops and solicit work. If they

34
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
succeed in getting it, it is taken home and done on the
sly. For all the world they wouldn't have Mrs. Topknot
or Mrs. Du Pyster know that they ever did a stroke of
work. All this is so mean that we dismiss it without
further comment.
Nowhere else in America are there such fine opportu-
nities for the display of dress as in New York. Where
else in the broad world can there be found such a magnifi-
cent week-day promenade as Broadway, or such a Sun-
day morning strolling-place as Fifth avenue? Where
else in the United States are there so many elegant opera-
houses, academies, theatres and halls as in New York ?
Where else are there so many vast hotels with their five
and twelve hundred guests, their great parlors and long
halls for walking ? There is no city in the world which
has so large retail dry goods palaces, and we may well
doubt if there is any which gives more or larger balls and
parties. During the whole winter season, night after
night, Lent not even interrupting, there is one ceaseless
round of fashionable dissipations, public as well as private.
All these circumstances have a great influence over the
question of dress, and the women are not slow to take
advantage of them.
There is the Sunday stroll, with pensive face and prayer-
book in hand, on Fifth avenue. It is a street of unin-
terrupted magnificence—a type of the promiscuous shades
of social equality which, in some incongruous manner,
have managed to find residences upon it. Going to and
coming from church, all the fashionable city passes through
this street. The spacious sidewalks, bowered in the most

WOMEN OF FASHION.
35
luxurious of foliage, make it a tempting place to walk in
the fashionable season, especially on a bright and sunny
Sunday morning. Fifth avenue people ride on week-
days. The numerous club-houses, filled with young men
engaged in flattening their noses against the French
plate-glass windows, add to the attractions of the walk, so
far as the display of dress is concerned. The time will
be immediately subsequent to morning service. The
scene may be scarcely appropriate, following so soon upon
the religious exercises that have preceded it, but it is very
fascinating in its freaks of worldly frivolity. What of
loveliness and brilliancy in female face and form and
frippery of dress that passes for two hours in a kaleido-
scopic panorama from Central Park to Washington
Square, could not help but dazzle the most stoical of spec-
tators. Nothing to compare with it can be seen elsewhere,
at any time, in any part of the world. Dresses in blue,
and gold, and pink, and white, and violet, and green ;
dresses of lace, of silk, of muslin, of satin, of velvet, of
brocade; dresses flounced, elaborately trimmed, puffed,
long, short, scanty and full,—all the extremes of the latest
fashions mingle in one vast stream of wealth and luxury.
Dresses for the Park are not so elaborate, being, for
the wealthy, mostly carriage-dresses, which are seldom
seen by the public. Darker-colored silks and velvets are
worn. The display consists in fine carriages, richly ca-
parisoned horses and servants in livery.
The hotel promenade is a fashionable amusement with
ladies. Such hotels as the Fifth Avenue and the St.
Nicholas have immensely long halls running past the

36
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
public drawing-rooms. At certain hours of the day,
usually just before and after the six o'clock dinners, these
halls are filled with gentlemen and ladies, guests and
residents of the house, taking their little constitutional
and flirtation exercise. Sometimes the jam is immense.
Perhaps a dozen women just from a tour in Europe have
arrived. Before leaving they are bound to show all the
new dresses brought over from Paris. Now look out for
black laces trimmed with gold fringe and goiden satin,
for white satins edged with blue and swan’s down, for
cherry-red and rose-colored silks with black and white
lace flounces. The trails are fearful to tread upon. The
hum is bee-like; the simpering is immense; the Grecian
bend reaches perfection, and the Roman wipple is inten-
sified by the length of the boot-heels.
The Broadway promenade is confined to French walk-
ing-dresses in black silk, bright plushes, rich furs and
dark goods. No fashionable lady is supposed to be on
Broadway during the summer. She is either at Long
Branch, Saratoga or the White Mountains. A trail would
hardly be able to live on Broadway more than the dis-
tance of two blocks. We are not sure but the police would
curtail a very long one for blocking up the sidewalk.
Opera-dresses are principally elaborate as regards the
hat and the cloak. White for cloaks is always the most
fashionable color. Many ladies sit without hats at an
opera, or come without any, which is all the same thing.
Dresses for the church are a little more modest and sub-
dued than for other places, but even here very bright
colors and vast amounts of trimmings are worn.

WOMEN OF FASHION.
37
It is almost impossible to estimate the number of
dresses a very fashionable woman will have.. Most
women in society can afford to dress as it pleases them,
since they have inlimited amounts of money at their
disposal. Among females dress is the principal part of
society. What would Madam Mountain be without her
laces and diamonds, or Madam Blanche without her
silks and satins? Simply commonplace old women, past
their prime, destined to be wall-flowers. A fashionable
woman has just as many new dresses as the different
times she goes into society. The élite do not wear the
same dresses twice. If you can tell us how many recep-
tions she has in a year, how many weddings she attends,
how many balls she participates in, how many dinners she
gives, how many parties she goes to, how many operas
and theatres she patronizes, we can approximate some-
what to the size and cost of her wardrobe. It is not
unreasonable to suppose that she has two new dresses of
some sort for every day in the year, or seven hundred
and twenty. Now to purchase all these, to order them
made and to put them on afterward consumes a vast
amount of time. Indeed, the woman of society does
little but don and doff dry goods. For a few brief hours
she flutters the latest tint and mode in the glare of the
gas-light, and then repeats the same operation the next
night. She must have one or two velvet dresses which
cannot cost less than five hundred dollars each; she must
possess thousands of dollars' worth of laces, in the shape
of flounces, to loop up over the skirts of dresses as occa-
sion shall require. Walking-dresses cost from fifty to

38
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
three hundred dollars; ball-dresses are frequently im-
ported from Paris at a cost of from five hundred to a
thousand dollars; while wedding-dresses may cost from
one to five thousnd dollars. Nice white llama jackets
can be had for sixty dollars ; robes princesse, or overskirts
of lace, are worth from sixty to two hundred dollars.
Then there are traveling-dresses in black silk, in pongee,
velour, in pique, which range in price from seventy-five
to one hundred and seventy-five dollars. Then there are
evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the
garden and croquet-playing, dresses for horse-races and
for yacht-races, robes de nuit and robes de chambre,
dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for recep-
tions and for parties, dresses for watering-places and
dresses for all possible occasions. A lady going to the
Springs takes from twenty to sixty dresses, and fills an
enormous number of Saratoga trunks. They are of
every possible fabric—from Hindoo muslin, “gaze de
soie,” crape maretz, to the heavy silks of Lyons.
We know the wife of the editor of one of the great
morning newspapers of New York, now traveling in
Europe, whose dress-making bill in one year was ten
thousand dollars! What her dry goods bill amounted to
Heaven and her husband only knows. She was once
stopping at a summer hotel, and such was her anxiety to
always appear in a new dress that she would frequently
come down to dinner with a dress basted together just
strong enough to last while she disposed of a little turtle-
soup, a little Charlotte de Russe and a little ice cream.
Mrs. Judge R- , of New York, is considered one of

WOMEN UF FASHION.
39
the “queens of fashion.” She is a goodly-sized lady-
not quite so tall as Miss Anna Swan of Nova Scotia-
and she has the happy faculty of piling more dry goods
upon her person than any other lady in the city; and
what is more, she keeps on doing it. To give the reader
a taste of her quality, it is only necessary to describe a
dress she wore at the Dramatic Fund Ball, not many
years ago. There was a rich blue satin skirt, en train.
Over this there was looped up a magnificent brocade silk,
white, with bouquets of flowers woven in all the natural
colors. This overskirt was deeply flounced with costly
white lace, caught up with bunches of feathers of bright
colors. About her shoulders was thrown a fifteen-hun-
dred-dollar shawl. She had a head-dress of white
Ostrich feathers, white lace, gold pendants and purple
velvet. Add to all this a fan, a bouquet of rare flowers,
a lace handkerchief and jewelry almost beyond estimate,
and you see Mrs. Judge R- as she appears when full
blown.
Mrs. General V- is a lady who goes in society a
great deal. She has a new dress for every occasion.
The following costume appeared at the Charity Ball,
which is the great ball of the year in New York. It
was imported from Paris for the occasion, and was made
of white satin, point lace and a profusion of flowers.
The skirt had heavy flutings of satin around the bot-
tom, and the lace flounces were looped up at the sides
with bands of the most beautiful pinks, roses, lilies,
forget-me-nots and other flowers.
It is nothing uncommon to meet in New York society

40
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ladies who have on dry goods and jewelry to the value
of from thirty to fifty thousand dollars. Dress patterns
of twilled satin, the ground pale green, pearl, melon-
color or white, scattered with sprays of flowers in raised
velvet, sell for three hundred dollars each. Violet poult
de soie will sell for twelve dollars a yard; a figured moire
will sell for two hundred dollars the pattern; a pearl-
colored silk trimmed with point applique lace sells for
one thousand dollars; and so we might go on to an almost
indefinite length.
But we have said enough about the female extrava-
gance in dress which prevails in New York. Let us
look into one of the monster dry goods palaces of that
city where the fashionable world does its shopping, and
close. The house cost over a million of dollars; it
covers two acres of ground and has sixteen acres of dry
goods on sale. The commerce of the world is here em-
bodied in its most delicate and costly forms. Here is a
room where two acres of ladies are shopping; it is a vast
wilderness of elaborate pillars and counters for the dis-
play of goods. At night the electricity lights up five
hundred chandeliers, and the great palace is illuminated.
In this building there are employed nearly a thousand
clerks, who do nothing but deal out dry goods to the
women. A thousand pairs of gloves will be sold in one
day; over a million dollars' worth of goods is disposed of
in a week! Besides the clerks, there are frequently, in
busy times, as many as fifteen hundred women employed,
engaged in making walking-dresses, robes of silk and
satin and velvet, etc. From fifteen to twenty horses

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WOMEN OF FASHION.
runnur
and wagons are kept constantly running over the city to
deliver the dry goods at the houses of the purchasers.
Once we saw Ristori leaning her magnificent body
across the counter in this palace. She was buying a robe.
that would cost her over two thousand dollars. Her
dense luminous eye gleamed as she handled the gauze-like
texture of lace. Beside her sat her fair-haired and finely-
skinned daughter, Bianca, just budding into womanhood.
At the other side of the great classical tragedienne sat a
poor German woman, who was purchasing articles of
small value. These poor we have with us always, and
many of them are content with the crumbs which fall
from the tables of the rich. As we brought nothing into
the world, so it is sure we can take nothing out of it.
Let those living outside of Greenwood and Cypress Hill
dress while they may, for in Paradise no such elaborate
costumes are worn.

CHAPTER III.
THE NEW YORK LADY'S TOILETTE.
E T was a saying of old Dean Swift, after witnessing
the great improvements which man was every-
De where making on the face of the earth, that “Na-
ture must give way to art.” We have always sup-
posed, until we came to reside in the city of New York,
that woman, the next after man, was the most perfect
being created “in the beginning.” Even at this day we
give her the praise of being the better half of mankind,
the fairest portion, the most graceful and the “altogether
lovely.” But it seems there is something more. Women
are not satisfied with themselves, and so they have in-
vented an elaborate process for improving their own ap-
pearance. This is called making one's toilette. In
other words, it is an attempt to improve upon Nature, to
employ various arts for the purpose of touching up
a shabby face, or rounding out a lank form, that the eye
of the beholder may not be offended, at least, if it is not
charmed.
Well, who blames a woman for wishing to be considered
beautiful? We do not. It is a natural instinct implanted
within the breast of all womankind, from the Indian
maidens of our own Western forests, to the housemaids
92

WOMEN OF FASHION.
43
ea
of Yorkshire, England. Not long since a duchess in
Yorkshire gave a lecture to a lot of country girls who
were destined to do housework—as we call it in this coun-
try--and among other things she scolded them for their
love of flowers and bright ribbons. Imagine an Amer-
ican mistress talking to a Yankee girl in that way! We
came near weeping for the Yorkshire lasses when we
read this duchess' speech, and we shall never forgive
her for it.
It is a woman's privilege to be as handsome as she can
be. If fashion tells her to put her head into a barrel of
flour, and thus powder it, who shall object? If some
Madam Rachel proposes to enamel her face and make
her “beautiful for ever,” is it the part of an admiring
man to complain? If she loses one eye, by all means let
her get a glass one; it will be a thousand times better
looking than a pair of goggles or a green blind. If her
teeth were used up in her boarding-school days by eating
pickles and slate-pencils, it is the dentist's business to
supply a new set. Wax noses, take them as they run,
we object to, never yet having seen a well-made one. As
to false hair, we think it is a decided convenience. It
saves a vast amount of doing up, and when one retires
for the night it can be carefully put away in a drawer.
It should be secured from rats, however, as they are apt
to get into it.
The reader will please come with us into the boudoir of
a Fifth avenue belle. We will suppose, for the sake of
illustrating our subject to the fullest extent, that she is
counted a belle in society, where the world only sees her
4

44
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
after she is “made up,” but that in reality she is not the
piece of human perfection, physically speaking, which a
healthy man, with an eye to the artistic, would choose for
a wife. She is decidedly dilapidated ; that is, well on in
years, poor in flesh and a little the worse for wear. For
it is impossible for any lady to maintain her health and
a fresh rosy countenance who indulges in late hours, late
suppers, frequent balls, operas, dinner-parties, and the
wearying excitement of society generally. Nothing so
taxes the constitution of a person as a never-ending round
of fashionable dissipations. So our Arabella of the Ave-
nue is a lady of wealth, of society and fashion; but she
is faded, thin and of an uncertain age-perhaps twenty-
nine. She intends to spend the evening out, and com-
mences an elaborate toilette. Owing to an accident when
a girl she lost one eye. As she grew older she lost her
teeth. She never did have much hair. The color faded
from her cheeks long ago. The forehead, when permitted
to do so, shows a number of wrinkles. Her eyebrows are
not so heavy as they should be. Her chest has fallen in.
When she comes out of her boudoir she will be trans-
formed into a drawing-room angel.
The room which she is in is richly carpeted, and
ornamented with statuary. On the mantel there are vases
of delicious flowers. In the centre of the room, on a
marble-topped table, stands a large silver-plated, orna-
mental cooler, filled with ice to keep the room cool, for it
is a hot day in the summer. Long mirrors line the room,
and just now, as it is the fashion, all the furniture, walls,
picture-frames, etc., are covered with chintz in large and
TO

WOMEN OF FASHION.
45
gaudy patterns. It is of a light pea-green color for the
ground, filled with palm patterns, flowers, gayly-dressed
mandarins, scrolls, etc. Feeling languid and spiritless,
our lady takes a glass or two of Medoc wine, puts on a cash-
mere wrapper, orders her carriage, jumps in, draws the
curtains and drives to the Turkish bath. Nothing better
for beauty, says Bayard Taylor, and the Turkish women
are proverbially handsome. Besides, it sets the blood fly-
ing to the surface, and imparts a healthy glow to the skin.
She enters the marble room of the bath attired in the
Turkish chair, enjoys the delicious sensation of perspir-
ing from every pore for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then
a soft bed is made up on a marble bench, and two stout
female attendants commence the ecstatic process of sham-
pooing, going thoroughly over the body with the hands,
picking out all the muscles, and treating the limbs to a
series of healthy gymnastics. Then comes the application
of perfumed soaps and the Mexican grass, and then the
warm spray and cooling shower, and then the gentle lave-
ment in eau de rose or some other perfume, followed by a
short, sweet sleep. The bath is the foundation for all true
toilettes.
Mr. E. Hepple Hall, who has traveled in Abyssinia,
tells us that the ladies of that country are proud of a
well-developed breast, or “bust,” to speak in an artistic
sense. In this our olive-colored sisters are not behind
the rosy Saxon daughters of the civilized world. All
women like to be considered as having a well-rounded
form, and if they are not Greek Slaves in outline, they

46
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
will put forth all their powers to become so. Since it is
publicly advertised all over New York, and since every
gentleman may read the sign who chooses to do so in a
fashionable quarter of the city, there can be no harm or
impropriety in speaking of the “Mammarial Balm,” as it
is called, and the establishment where it is kept. The
object of the institution is to do away with the necessity
of compelling ladies to go to the stay or corset makers.
It intends, upon purely scientific or physiological princi-
ples, to develop that which Nature has left undeveloped.
Medical gentlemen advise the same course of treatment
in their books, as any versed in the science will testify.
The “Mammarial Balm,” which is extensively used by
the ladies of New York, is nothing more nor less than a
stimulating lotion applied to the breasts with brushes,
and aided in its work by cupping-glasses and air-pumps.
A lady makes the application two or three times a week,
and in the course of time a breast is developed which
suits the taste of the most exacting. To the same end
dumb-bells and Indian clubs are indulged in. Thus,
after leaving the Turkish bath, our belle may drive to
the “balm-for-every-wounded-breast” establishment, and
then home to her boudoir.
The false hair now comes in order. Vast quantities
of this are used in the shape of puffs, frizzes, chignons,
braids, curls and wigs. Most of it comes from France,
where it is cut for a price from the heads of peasants.
Dead hair, as it is called, having been cut from corpses,
is never used by respectable American dealers. As the
hair is brought to this country, it comes tied in a loose

WOMEN OF FASHION.
47
knot. It costs from ten to one hundred dollars a pound,
depending upon its length and color. Golden and
blonde hair is more costly than shades of black, brown,
chestnut and red. Most of the blonde hair worn by the
English girls in our theatres is made so by a chemical
preparation put upon it. Hair is bought and sold by
weight, and the amount ladies put upon their heads
usually varies from two to eight ounces. We knew one
very fashionable lady, however, who wore some sixteen
ounces on her head, which cost nearly one hundred dol-
lars. It costs a good deal to work the hair up into the
prevailing fashions, some of them requiring elaborate
patterns. Chignons are usually built over frames, and
worked into the butterfly, basket, puffed, curled, braided,
knotted and twisted patterns. Curls vary in price from
one to ten dollars.
The false hair having been put in place, it may be
powdered with flour until it is as white as the inside of a
meal-bag, or it may be powdered in gold, or in what is
called diamond dust. If the powder covers the face and
shoulders, it does not seem to matter much, and ladies
appear with it in society all the same. Where the hair
is natural, it is a long and difficult job to clean it of the
flour, etc., put on for the sake of fashion.
Painting the face, shoulders, neck and arms is in-
dulged in to a considerable extent by New York ladies.
Indeed, there are regular enameling establishments in the
city, one of which advertises to put it on so that it will
stay for a year. We fancy this is stretching the matter
a little, hut the very idea is horrible. Imagine a lady

48
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
going a whole year without washing her face! The eye-
lashes are frequently colored, and the eyebrows likewise.
Sometimes these are penciled, as it is called. False teeth
are uncommonly common. They are now almost the
rule, and no lady thinks it unbecoming to have the fact
known.
That woman who wears a glass eye is indeed unfortu-
nate; and yet, from one cause and another, there are
many such in society. A Broadway dealer in glass eyes
assures us that seven thousand people in the city wear
them. We have been to his manufactury, and seen the
lobby or parlor crowded with one-eyed men and women
waiting to give their orders. The beauty of a good glass
eye is, that it cannot be told from a natural one, when
properly made and put in. Some ladies keep boxes of
these useful things under lock and key in their toilet-
stands. They are always taken out at night and put in
in the morning. These eyes, when inserted, move and
look like the natural organ. This glass eye is simply a
shell, which is intended to cover the stump of the blind
eye; if it fits well, the motions of the natural eye are im-
parted to it without any difficulty. A glass eye will last
about three years. But we will not enlarge upon this
subject, as, properly speaking, it is but one of the curi-
osities of the toilette.
It is almost impossible to enumerate the articles which
a fashionable lady thinks she needs before she can appear
well in society. She mus have at least a dozen different
fans, of various tints and colors to match her dresses. A
Russian leather fan, which looks like a horse's foot when
in
TIL

VILM:918 NA
LI
THI
TIIN
//IM
24
2.
ONE OF THE FEW GOOD MAMMA'S.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
49
closed, is one of the latest novelties; a mother-of-pearl
fan is pretty, but rather dangerous to handle; Chinese
and Japanese fans have their day every little while;
satin fans, usually having family portraits on them, are
very choice; feather fans of bright colors are delicate
and pretty. All of these find their way to the toilet-
stand. Then there are opera-glasses, some of which
are gotten up regardless of cost. The finest we ever
heard of is owned by Victoria, Queen of England.
The finest in America is said to be in the possession
of the Hon. Mrs. John Morrissey, whose husband repre-
sents the Sixth ward in Congress. That is quite a step
from Victoria to Mrs. John Morrissey, isn't it? Those
ladies may stand next to each other in opera-glasses,
however. Mrs. M.'s opera-glass is made of gold, set
with diamonds, and has her monogram wrought upon
it in pearls. It is valued at several thousand dollars.
Every lady is supposed to have a casket of jewels, and
she does not belong to the cream of society if she cannot
show as many diamonds as her neighbors. It is curious
that those ladies in New York who display the most
costly sets of diamonds are either the wives of whisky-
merchants or actors. We have seen the wife of the
treasurer of one of the theatres of New York with
thirty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on her neck.
And yet one would not think it was such a very fine
thing to be the treasurer of a theatre. The wife of an-
other man, who commenced life a poor boy, and finally
took a commanding position in an express office, marry-
ing an actress, always displays from ten to forty thousand
CON

50
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
dollars' worth of diamonds. They have been mentioned
in the presses of the city so frequently that they are
always spoken of as “those diamonds.” Everybody
knows at once what they are and how much they cost.
A lady's casket should contain a set of diamonds, a set
of pearls, a set of corals, a medallion set, and as many
more as she can afford to purchase. There is no limit to
the amount. Fifteen or twenty finger-rings is a mode-
rate allowance. We have seen a lady, the wife of a
wealthy Senator, at a party with her arms bare up to the
shoulders, while most of the forearm, from the wrist to
the elbow, was covered with costly bracelets. It seemed
as if she commenced to put them on and forgot what she
was doing until the supply ran out. But this is not in
good taste, even if some wealthy women do indulge in
such an Indian-like propensity.
Of laces a fashionable woman can hardly have too
many. They are useful and pretty upon all occasions.
And vast sums of money are spent for them. Lace
flounces for dresses are bought which cost from one to
five hundred dollars a yard; while two and three thou-
sand dollars will be spent for a set or “rip.” Lace
pocket-handkerchiefs sometimes cost five and six hun-
dred dollars. Black laces are in greater demand than
white, because they wash better. Old white lace, which
has become yellow from time, is thought to be very
valuable.
It may not be known to our readers that the finest
shoes in the world are made in New York, some of them
taking the first prize at the great Paris Exposition, where

WOMEN OF FASHION.
51
they won the admiration of the French ladies. They
are such loves of boots that we half fell in love with
them ourselves. A hundred dollars will purchase four
pairs, and that ought to keep a lady shod for a month!
They are made of all colors, to suit the dress, and are
most wonderfully ornamented with patterns in leather-
work elaborately stitched. White satin slippers, deli-
cately quilted and trimmed with swan's down are beauti-
ful things for the house. In the matter of gloves, ladies
wear almost as many different pairs as they go out differ-
ent times. The most delicate tints are purchased, often
by the box. A woman may easily spend two or three
hundred dollars a year for this item alone.
From all of the foregoing, it will be seen that a fash-
ionable lady is a very expensive piece of furniture to
have in the house, and only men with ample incomes can
afford to keep them. All wealthy ladies are not necessa-
rily fashionable. Some of them set a very good example.
We never hear of Mrs. Peter Cooper, Mrs. Astor or
Mrs. A. T. Stewart indulging in foolish luxuries, al-
though their husbands are the wealthiest men in the
city. But gentlemen have their foolish weaknesses, and
if they do not spend as much as their wives in dress and
jewels, they indulge in wines, cigars, fast horses, club-
houses, yachts and the like, until in the end a great deal
of money is thrown away.

CHAPTER IV.
FASHIONABLE PARTIES.
IPI
CUMAN beings were made to be sociable, to enjoy
each other's society. A proper amount of this is
8% conducive to happiness, education and refinement,
but when indulged in to excess it spoils both men
and women. A constant whirlpool of excitement is sure
to swallow up much of that which is good in both intel-
lect and morals. Solitude has its beauties and its uses,
as old Zimmerman told us long ago. The springs of
pleasure soon dry up in the heat of the metropolis, and
one must fly to the country for relief, seeking for health
and meditation in rural shades, or he shortly becomes
unfit for the enjoyments of fashionable life.
People of wealth must be amused, since few of them
ever do any work. The major portion of their time is
spent in devising methods for the killing of time; and it
has been discovered that the best way to do this is to get
up balls, dinner-parties, receptions, private theatricals,
club-dinners, pic-nics, croquet-parties and the like. If
one's circle of acquaintance is large, so many of these are
given that during the season every evening will be en-
gaged. In the end, this produces about the stupidest set
of young men and women the world contains. And what
52

WOMEN OF FASHION.
53
is more to be deplored, it hurries many of them out of
the world, and into the imposing marble tombs at Green-
wood, as speedily as if they had taken through tickets on
the Erie or Long Island Railroad. If tombstones only
told the truth, we should read on half of them, “Died
from dissipation.”
Every possible occasion is seized upon by the fashion-
able people of New York to give a party. If a cele-
brated actress, or author, or general, or politician comes
to the city, somebody gets up a reception for him, and
invites all of his set. If a son arrives at the age of
twenty-one, he has a party; when the daughter “comes
out” into society, or has “ finished” her education and is
thrown into the market for the purpose of catching a
husband, she has a party given in her honor; when she
is about to be married, another “blow-out” takes place;
then there is still another at the wedding, and a series of
receptions afterward. If a statue is to be unveiled, a
party is given; if a family moves into a new house, then
comes a house-warming party; if somebody has been
married ten, fifteen, twenty-five or fifty years, parties
celebrate the event; if an appeal is made to charity, a
private concert is given or a calico ball is projected.
Then there are wine suppers, and honey suppers, and
strawberry suppers, and English breakfasts, and forty
other social entertainments, all of which cost a vast deal
of time and money.
So far as we have been able to discover, parties are all
alike. Thousands of cards are issued; there is a ci ush
of carriages, a blaze of gas-light, some most extravag int

54
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
in
mu
dressing, thronged parlors, perfume of flowers, delicious
music, exciting dancing, midnight hours, a late supper,
eating and drinking, and a drive home. This is the
short of it.
The long of it is quite a different tale. While very
many parties are given in private houses, it is now be-
coming more and more the custom in New York to give
them at a house set apart for the purpose. This saves
mussing up one's residence, and avoids the possibility of
losing anything or, in other words, lessens the chances
of having valuable plate and jewelry stolen from the
house. When a party is given outside, all one has to do
is to issue the cards, engage the music, pay for the supper
and the use of the house, order the flowers, and, when
the hour arrives, appear in the reception-room ready to
receive the guests. This is a very easy way to give an
entertainment, and answers every purpose. It avoids
exposing one's private residence, saves carpets and fur-
niture, and keeps a gang of strange servants out of the
kitchen. But it costs fearfully. Five, ten and even fifteen
thousand dollars have been spent in this way. The head
of the house simply has to give his check on some bank,
and the thing is done. Perhaps twice that sum was
made before leaving Wall street that afternoon, on the
rise in stocks or gold. What matter if it does have to
come out of the poor working-people at last? Style
must be kept up on Fifth avenue, and the squandering
of ten thousand dollars a night causes no qualms of
conscience.
Arabella Anderson is to be brought out. For two or

co
om
12
M
A FIFTH AVENUE PARTY - THE DANCE.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
three years she has been undergoing the process of educa-
tion at Madam Puff Ball's school on Murray Hill. She
has been taught how to receive company on Wednesdays,
with the Grecian bend thrown in, and French has been
the daily conversation of the family, except at dessert,
when a little English is spoken. Of late Arabella has
grown handsome, her form has developed, and she begins
to have a decided longing for beaux and the opera, but
most decidedly for the former. The only way to let the
young men know that she is in the market is to put her
on exhibition, and invite all the circle of acquaintances
to be introduced to her.
The evening arrives, and at about nine o'clock car-
riages, with drivers and footmen in livery, commence to
rattle up and down the Avenue. A carpet has been
spread from the door of the mansion to the curbstone.
Each carriage contains one or two ladies in full dress, and
a servant, and possibly a man. Some ladies wear such
very full dresses that the waiting-maids and men come in
the next carriage. We will suppose that Arabella rides
in her carriage standing up in the middle of it, holding
on to the straps, so as not to crumple her dress. Possibly
she has a brother who has been able to draw his legs up on
to the back seat. She alights from the carriage, passing
up to the door between a file of policemen and citizens,
who crowd up to see the sights. It is a curious fact that
neither weddings, funerals nor private parties can take
place in New York without calling in the aid of the
police. This is to protect the maids as well as the
pockets of the guests. Arabella has two dressing-maids,

56
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
both of which are engaged in holding up her train as she
sweeps into the house and up the grand staircase. They
also have shawls and wrappers to throw over her when
she returns home in the morning.
In the course of an hour the Avenue and cross streets
for several blocks are choked up with carriages, which
come pouring in from all directions. The policemen
shout for the drivers to form in line.; the drivers get
vexed and swear and scold at each other; the horses rear
and plunge; the occupants of coaches get impatient, and
some of them alight several blocks away from the house.
The scene is an exciting one, and grows more and more
so until the affair is over.
There is a crush inside of the house. Crowds of young
men linger in the halls and on the stairs, waiting for their
ladies to appear from the dressing-rooms. The squeeze is
really quite charming, and would be perfectly delightful,
as the French women say, if there was only a little sin
in it. The halls and stairways are lined with flowers, and
all the parlors show a profusion of them. As gentlemen
come in they deliver up their cards of invitation usually
to Sexton Brown, of Grace Church, who stands at the
door to receive them. A toilette room is in readiness
where boots can be polished, coats brushed and the hair
barbered. All being ready, the gentlemen and ladies
move, arm in arm, into the grand parlor, where the hosts
of the evening are saluted and complimented. Miss
Arabella, who is being brought out, is frequently pre-
sented with a bouquet of rare flowers, and before the eve-
ning is half over she has all she can string on to her

WOMEN OF FASHION.
57
arms or hold in her hands. The gentlemen bow, slightly
squeeze her fingers, and pass on. The ladies remark,
“How elegant she looks this evening!” Then comes a
promenade through the rooms, or collecting into little
knots and chatting, or finding out who is present, and
perhaps making new acquaintances. Where fifteen hun-
dred or two thousand people are present, two or three
hours can be easily consumed in this way.
All this while the dancing-hall is open ; and, from be-
hind a screen or hedge made of rare hot-house plants in
pots, delicious strains of music proceed. Across the op-
posite end of the room there is a raised platform, provided
with sofas and divans for such ladies as do not wish to
dance. A row of chairs around the room, tied together
in couples with pocket-handkerchiefs, denotes that the
German is to be danced in the course of the night. A
few couples indulge in a polka or a waltz, and possibly a
cotillon, before midnight, at which time the supper-room
is thrown open.
Then the grand rush takes place. Human beings can-
not be perfectly jolly until they have full stomachs, and
a few glasses of wine will untie their tongues very effect-
ually. A long table extends down the middle of the room,
loaded with everything which money can buy. It is
actually heaped with delicacies. French servants, ir
claw-hammer coats and white gloves and ties, are ready
to wait upon the guests. Sideboards display a lot of
silver, and run freely with choice brands of wine. Five
hundred bottles of wine, costing five dollars each, have
been disposed of in one evening at a fashionable New

58
1
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
York party. The ladies drink as generally as the men,
but let us hope not quite so frequently. They dispose of
their wine openly and without any apology. We have
never attended a party in New York yet, among wealthy,
fashionable people, where liquors of all kinds were not
served, and we never expect to.
It would be quite impossible to describe in detail the
bounties of the table, and, indeed, it is needless. After
the supper, the dancing commences in earnest. Every-
body pitches in, especially the young ladies and the
gentlemen, and in dancing the German some of them
remain upon the floor for hours. It is no accident that
the dance is what it is. It mingles the sexes in such
closeness of personal approach and contact as, outside of
the dance, is nowhere else tolerated. It does this under
a perplexity of circumstances that conspire to heighten
the impropriety of it. It is in the blaze of gas-light, and
the hour is dark; it is after a hearty supper, when one is
half intoxicated with wine, or at least excited and stimu-
lated; there is the delicious and unconscious intoxication
of music and motion in the blood; there is the strange
confusing sense of being individually unobserved among
so many—such is the occasion; and still, hour after hour,
the dance whirls its giddy kaleidoscope around, bringing
hearts so near that they almost beat against each other,
mixing the warm, mutual breaths, darting the fine per-
sonal electricity across between the meeting fingers, flush-
ing the face and lighting the eyes with a quick language,
subject often to gross interpretation on the part of the
vile-hearted. It might almost seem as if this species of

1
44
No 292
SO
.
A FIFTH AVENUE PARTY.-REFRESHMENTS.


WO YEN OF FASHION.
59
amusement, kept up under such circumstances, had been
invented on purpose to rob women of their modesty and
to demoralize men—to give our human passions leave to
disport themselves, unreproved by conscience, by reason
or by shame, almost at their will.
Not the least of the evils of these great parties are the
late hours to which they are kept up, and the frightfully
extravagant undress in which some of the women indulge.
What is wanting in dress about the waist or chest, seems
to have been added to the length of the skirt. Mr.
Lincoln once said to his wife, who was dressing for a
reception at the executive mansion, “Our pussy has a
remarkably long tail to-night.” We never see a fash-
ionably-dressed lady of the present day without thinking
of the pussy-tail. But what shall we say of that young
lady who exposes her chest almost to the floating ribs ?
And yet we have seen such sights at fashionable parties
in New York. To say nothing of the effects upon one's
morals, the physiological risks incurred are great, and
many a young girl has gone from the ball-room to the
sick chamber, never to leave it alive.
Somewhere toward morning the “rout” breaks up,
and the exhausted men and women are driven home to
pass a restless night and à languid day, preparatory to
going through with the same performance the next
night. So a whole season is spent, hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars are squandered, and health and character
are ruined. At last it comes to such a pass that men
only eat, drink, dance and simper, while the women dress,
gossip, dance and giggle. Even during the summer, at
nen

60
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the watering-places, the same excitements are kept up.
Can we wonder, in this state of things, that immorality,
selfishness, infidelity, matrimonial infelicities, extrava-
gance and intemperance are constantly on the increase ?
Let us return to simple and pure ways of living.

CHAPTER V.
WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS IN HIGH L FE.
VERYBODY is asking everybody else in New
York, why so many young men of the present
nese day, residing in that city, decline to get married.
The reason is, they cannot afford it—their in-
comes are not large enough to enable them to incur the
expenses of a wedding and set themselves up in house-
keeping. When a lady's lace pocket-handkerchief costs
a thousand dollars, how can a young man whose income
is anywhere from six to twelve hundred dollars take unto
himself a wife? It cannot be done, unless he is in a
situation where he can get hold of other people's money,
or unless he is a successful speculator in Wall street. If
he is a bank president or a cashier, you may be sure he
will find some way to keep up an establishment.
The only class of people in New York who marry are
the very poor-who dip into everything which offers,
regardless of consequences—and the very rich, who live
in palaces and throw away money. As for clerks, book-
keepers and sub-editors, they might as well cut their
throats as commit matrimony. Bolingbroke says mar-
riage was instituted because it was necessary that parents
should know certainly their own respective offspring.
61

62
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Such a necessity does not exist at the present day; cer-
tainly not in New York, where infants may be left on
the sidewalk to be picked up by the police and sent to
the “Island,” to be taken care of at the expense of the
public. A certain class of people, however, do have
some regard for their offspring, and could hardly be.,
induced to send them to the Commissioner of Charities.
That young man and young woman who can unite
their hands and hearts in this day of fashion and ex-
travagance are indeed fortunate. But when both of
them have ample fortunes at their command, it seems to
the crowd as if they should be excessively happy. They
have nothing to do but to enjoy life—no care for the
morrow; no worry about home or the means of getting a
living; able to come and go at pleasure; to take wed-
ding-trips in Europe, and entertain their friends in a
princely manner upon their return. This seems to be
almost the height of human happiness, but we know that
contentment and peace of mind cannot be bought with
gold. So, on the other hand, very poor, honest people
might marry if they were willing to come down to that
condition in life which their means indicated. Kalm
tells us, in his “ Travels in North America,” about 1747,
that when a poor widow, whose late husband had died
in debt, married again, she went to the church wearing
only her chemise. This was a practice which also
prevailed in England even as late as 1838, but we
think it too severely simple, and, if need be, would
recommend a young man to marry a wife in a nine-
penny calico.

WOMEN OF FASHION.
63
Marriage has always, among all nations, been made the
occasion for much rejoicing, and oftentimes for the spend-
ing of vast sums of money. Even among the Jews, in
Bible times, the festivities were sometimes kept up for
two weeks, and when the bridegroom set forth from his
house he was preceded by a band of musicians. Even to
this day the noise in the streets attendant upon an Ori-
ental wedding is remarkable. There are Jews in plenty
in New York, and hosts of Yankees as rich as Jews, but
they confine their music to the organ in the church. We
think it was Isaac who set the foolish fashion of making
wedding-presents; for, if we mistake not, he instructed
his servant to present Rebecca with a massive earring
and two bracelets. This was done to propitiate her
favor. After she had consented to the match, he gave
her jewels of gold and jewels of silver, and raiment.
The same practice is kept up in New York to-day
among all classes of people, whether they are Jews or
Gentiles.
After the consent of all parties has been obtained, and
sometimes whether it has or not, the bride's trousseau is
ordered from Paris. This may cost five or ten thousand
dollars. One of the most expensive articles connected
with this outfit is the veil, which is oftentimes of ex-
quisite lace. This, with the lace for the bridal dress,
may cost twenty-five hundred dollars. Originally, the
veil was intended to be a symbol of the submission of the
wife to her husband, but in these days of women's rights
it is nothing more than an expensive and pretty fashion.
The story is told of one sensible New York belle who

64
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
refused to wear any lace upon her marriage, but ordered
it to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. This
was done, and we venture to say there was never a hap-
pier bride or better wife in New York.
It is usual for the parties marrying to furnish the
bridesmaids with their dresses for the occasion. There
are any number, according to the taste of the bride.
Sometimes they wear veils, and sometimes not. It is
the fashion to have each bridesmaid wear a different
dress. Perhaps one is pink and white, one gold and
white, one red and white and one blue and white. If
the trimmings are pink, then the sash is pink, the flowers
are pink, the bouquet is pink, the gloves are pink, etc.
Some brides wear their husband's bridal present at the
wedding—some their father's, or uncle's, or mother's.
This depends upon what it is, whether a necklace of
diamonds, pearls or gold. Some wear a golden chain
and locket, and some prefer to have no jewelry about
them. It is all a matter of fancy.
The bride's dress is always white-either satin or mus-
lin. Many of these are made with immense trains and
décolletée waists. We have seen bride's dresses several
yards long behind, which looked like a puff of sea-foam
as they swept up the broad aisle of the church. Orange-
flowers seem to be essential to all fashionable weddings.
The real flowers are used. Sometimes as many as three
hundred dollars' worth of orange-flowers is used by one
bride. This custom is one of comparatively modern
date, and was derived from the East, where these flowers
are the emblems of a prosperous and fruitful marriage.

WOMEN OF FASHION.
The bridesmaids wear half-open rosebuds, and hold bou-
quets of the same.
The gentleman who is about to become a happy man,
and who moves in the first circles, gives his bachelor
.friends a parting supper just before his marriage. The
supposition is, that as he quits a bachelor's life he leaves
his bachelor friends behind. This supper is a very ele-
gant affair, and may take place at his hotel, at his father's
or at some great restaurant. At each place there is a
card of invitation to the wedding. Sometimes one's lady
friends are present at these feasts, but usually the young
gentlemen prefer to be by themselves. If the supper
takes place two or three weeks before the wedding, then
the gentlemen present have an opportunity to make an
all-night affair of it, and may get into their cups as deeply
as they please. Sometimes the repast is spread only an
hour or two before the wedding ceremony, and the gentle-
men drive from the hotel to the church. These bachelor
suppers may cost five hundred or more dollars.
The bridal outfit of a man is sometimes almost as costly
as that of a woman. Everything must be new, and in
the latest style. The usual dress is black, with white
satin tie. The English style of blue frock coats, colored
ties and light breeches does not find much favor in
America.
The tying of the knot usually takes place at the church.
A great many fashionable weddings occur at Grace
Church, Trinity Chapel, Christ Church or Adams' in
Madison Square, St. Mark’s and many more which might
be named. Sometimes fifteen hundred or two thousand

66
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
invitations are issued, and then only. those are admitted
to the church who hold cards of invitation, while police
are stationed at the doors to keep back the crowd. Fre-
quently, however, the public can gain admission to the
galleries, and to that part of the house not reserved, which
is indicated by stretching a white silk cord or ribbon
across the aisles. The church is always darkened and
the gas lit if the ceremony takes place in the day-time.
Dresses show to better advantage in the gas-light. Some-
times the church is elaborately trimmed with flowers
about the altar, the chancel and the organ loft. Immense
pyramids of flowers are placed near the bridal party, and
we have seen large beds of flowers suspended over the
bridal pair.
A fashionable organist is engaged to attend to the
music. He plays while the people are assembling, and
during the ceremony, for which he asks the modest fee
of one hundred dollars. He gives choice selections from
the operas, a wedding march and other appropriate music.
The latest dodge is to have music during the whole cere-
mony. Well, we are inside the great and massive church,
watching the people pour in. The street outside thunders
with the roll of carriages, and the organ inside thunders
with music. Down the aisle sweep scores of magnifi-
cently-dressed ladies, displaying sparkling jewels and
splendid laces. Silks rustle, hearts throb, cheeks blush,
eyes sparkle and all faces turn to see the bridal party
enter. The supreme moment arrives, and everybody
stands up to catch a glimpse of the beautiful creature who
is about to be sacrificed, and the lucky fellow who can

WOJEN OF FASHION.
67
call her his own. They are the last to come in. They
take their place before the clergyman, and in ten minutes
the whole thing is over with. Then comes a rush for the
carriages, a perfect crush, a drowning in laces, puffed hair
and flowers, and as fast as a carriage fills, off it drives to
the paternal mansion, where the reception is to be held.
The house is filled with flowers from top to bottom-in
the hall, on the mantels, the piano covered with them, the
harp twined with them, the pictures wreathed with them,
the statues crowned with them. The windows are full,
they arch-over the doorways and are festooned about the
ceiling. Thousands of dollars are sometimes spent to
decorate a house with flowers. Forty men have been
known to work all night to put them up. They are of
the most costly kinds—white japonicas, rosebuds, sweet
violets, azalias, lilies and many others.
“Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man
perfuming the door,” we read in an old play:
“ All hail to Hymen and his marriage day!
Strew rushes, and quickly come away;
Strew rushes, maidens, and ever as you strew,
Think one day, maidens, like will be done for you."
Shakspeare has said:
“Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse.”
When so many flowers are used at a wedding at such an.
enormous expense, we may well ask who will cast flowers
upon the grave when old Death claims the bride of to-
day? Many a fast rich woman, who was wedded amid all
these scenes of luxury and extravagance, has been driven
off to Greenwood or Cypress Hill at a brisk trot, and no-

68
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
body dropped even a sprig of cypress into her grave. A
good beginning may make a sad ending. Tears are not
always out of place at weddings
The newly-married couple stand in the great drawing-
room, under a canopy or bell of flowers, surrounded by
the groomsmen and bridesmaids, and for several hours a
constant stream of wealth and fashion surges through the
rooms congratulating and kissing the bride and groom.
The usual amount of hand-shaking is done, and a thou-
sand little nothings are said. After this comes the sup-
per. The great dining-room is thrown open, and servants
in livery stand ready to do the honors of the table.
Everything which the stomach of mortal man can desire
is there, from a baked salmon to a castle of ice-cream,
and a wedding cake so large that it takes four men to lift
it. We saw just such a cake once at a big wedding at the
St. Nicholas Hotel. There are large punch-bowls, and
wine and champagne of all brands flow as freely as water.
At a wedding on Fifth avenue, not long ago, five hundred
dollars' worth of champagne was swallowed-enough to
drown the tears of several widows and orphans. How
many heads of young men it turned and muddled, we
have not learned.
Before and after supper people continually visit the
room set apart for the display of the presents. Some-
times a large room will be filled with them. As much as
half a million of dollars have been given to a bride upon
her marriage. These presents come from all the relatives
and acquaintances. They consist of jewels of the most
costly character, silverware, laces, paintings, statuary, fine

WOMEN OF FASHION.
69
SO
porcelain, etc. We have seen large tables covered with
them, every article of which was for show and fashion,
nothing for use. Such is the tendency of the day. But
what should a modern wife want with any useful thing?
She does not know its value; she would go a long time
hungry if obliged to cook her own food. Indeed, we fear
some of them would starve while learning to make a loaf
of bread. The modern fashionable wife is simply good
as a figure-piece for the house; to do shopping; afford
fort and joy to her husband, perhaps; and to
ride out in a carriage with one driver, one footman and
two outriders.
After dinner comes dancing, music from a band having
filled the house ever since the ceremony at church. Fre-
quently, in the midst of these festivities, the bride and
groom don their traveling suits, jump into a carriage, and,
kissing everybody who offers, drive down to one of the
piers, cross the ferry and take a train of cars which is
waiting for them, to whirl them off to Washington, Boston,
Albany or some other place. If the bridal pair intend
going to Europe, then the wedding takes place in the
morning, and by noon they are on board the ocean
steamer, their state-room filled with beautiful flowers.
Thus ends a fashionable wedding in New York. After
the couple return from their wedding-tour, they receive
their guests at their new residence, which may have been
presented to them by a doting father, furnished through-
out at a total cost of two hundred thousand dollars.
Do you wonder why the poor young men of New
York do not marry? Can you guess why there are tens

70
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
era
IV-
of thousands of girls in that city who will never have
husbands? It is because a few lucky people have got all
the money, and the rest of the crowd must suffer for the
want of it. But it will not always be thus. The poor
are not always going to consent to see the rich getting
richer, while they sink deeper and deeper into the jaws
of poverty.
It costs almost as much to die in New York as it does
to live or get married. It is a fact that no respectable
poor man in the city can afford to die. A lot in Green-
wood, wherein to lay one's bones, costs more than a house-
lot in Brooklyn. Some people do die, though, who are
rich enough to afford it. A fashionable funeral costs any-
where from one to two thousand dollars. Great quan-
tities of money are spent for white flowers; the coffin
must be of rosewood or some other costly material,
mounted with silver and lined with satin. The corpse is
either dressed in white satin or a full suit of black broad-
cloth, if it is a man. Large sums of money are spent for
mourning materials, and the carriage-hire for the funeral
is very expensive. Some of the white marble fashionable
tombs at Greenwood are very costly, fitted up inside with
statuary, rare vases and sofas and seats. The doors are
often gilt to resemble gold, and other extravagances are
indulged in.
Sometimes the services take place at the house, and
sometimes at the church. In crossing the ferry it often
happens that the procession has to wait for a boat. Under
these circumstances, the young men acting as pall-bearers
have been known to leave their carriages for the purpose
re V
IS are

WOMEN OF FASHION.
of getting something to drink. And it is no uncommon
thing to see them smoking as the procession slowly winds
down Broadway. This is not always, however, one of the
essentials of a fashionable funeral. But it sometimes
takes place. From a wedding to a funeral may be but a
day, so we have united them in this chapter, for it is
always well for an individual to consider his latter end.

CHAPTER VI.
FASHIONABLE PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENTS.
T was a favorite amusement of Louis XV. of France
to stand at the window of his palace at Versailles,
Sy surrounded by his court, to witness a play which
was called “hunting the stag.” A man very richly
dressed, with a large pair of branching antlers fastened
on his head, was called the stag, while about a dozen other
men who pursued him were denominated the pack. The
pursued and the pursuers jumped into the great canal,
scrambled out again and ran about to all parts, while the
air resounded with acclamations and clapping of hands
to encourage the continuance of the sport. If one of the
pack lost his clothing during the hunt, so much the
better.
The times have changed a little for the better, let us
hope—since the days of Louis XV.; but wealthy, fashion-
able people, with nothing to do, have to be amused now
as well as then. We do not hunt the stag in our parks,
but we go hunting the goddess of Pleasure, chasing her
up and down through all the walks of fashionable life.
What is true of “society” in New York is also true of
“society” in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, only in
a less degree, because there is not so much of it in those

WOMEN OF FASHION.
73
cities, and there is not such an aggregation of immensely
wealthy families.
The fashionable private entertainments of New York
consist of eating, drinking, dancing, singing, playing at
games, etc. In fact, it includes all the list of animal grati-
fications, such as pampering the appetite or heating the im-
agination. Very wealthy people are not, as a usual thing,
very intellectual, for the simple reason that they have
never been called upon to use their brains, as all their
wants are supplied without any trouble or thought on their
part. On the contrary, it is very often the case that men,
and especially women, of wealth are decidedly stupid and
silly. They are interested in nothing higher than dress,
fine houses, horses and carriages, servants in livery, deli-
cacies for the palate and amusements for the eyes and
ears. In some circles, balls, parties and dress are the
staple items of conversation. The men, perhaps, are in-
terested in the rise and fall of gold, the best brand of
cigars, the latest importations of wine, the fastest horses,
and, it might be added, the fastest women; for wine and
women invariably go together.
Stag-hunting has in part given place to lion-hunting
in our day. Mrs. Leo Hunter of romance is no fiction,
but actually resides in New York, when not rambling
over Europe or absent at the Springs. Nothing pleases
her better than to have a crowd of celebrated people
about her or receiving hospitality at her hand. Her
husband is a collector of the internal revenue, and of
course he has plenty of money to keep up the show, even
if it is at the expense of Uncle Sam. Every Wednesday

74
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
VOU de
evening during the season she is “at home," and if you
are an author, a poet, an artist, a musician or an actor,
vou are welcome at her house. Having received her
card, you alight at the street door in full dress and pull
the bell. A servant in livery admits you, and another
one stands ready to take hat and cane, bonnet and wrap-
per, as the case may be. The parlor doors are wide open ;
there is a blaze of gas-light and all the rooms seem to
be thronged. Such a perfect babel of voices ! Every-
body seems talking at the same time, and some of them
have anything but musical voices. The walls of the
room are crowded with pictures; the mantels and brackets
have statuary upon them; the library displays a profu-
sion of books, as if they were recently taken from the
shelves in the bookstore; the piano is open, and at least
one woman and one man are playing upon it, while two
or three others are singing at the top of their voices.
Madam Leo Hunter is a little faded, and decidedly
feeble. She sits in a large Turkish chair near the fold-
ing-doors, between the two rooms, her delicate feet rest-
ing upon a huge satin cushion. She has a diamond
necklace on; her fingers are covered with diamond
rings; she wears a melon-colored satin dress, and over
her shoulders there is a costly white lace shawl, to keep
off any stray breeze, you know. As you pay her your
respects, she does not rise from the chair, but simply
extends her lily-white hand, which you clasp for a mo-
ment with your lilac-gloved fingers. She hopes you are
well, bids you welcome, asks you if you have any new
book in press, or if you have composed a new song
DI

22
THE TOAST._"OUR LADY FRIENDS."


WOMEN OF FASHIONv
75
.
recently, and gently waves her hand to have you pass
on, making room for some other notable person.
At such gatherings as these one meets Germans, Eng-
lishmen, Italians, Frenchmen and Americans. Signor
Bucili has a languishing air and huge black moustache.
He talks broken English, is frightfully dissipated, but
plays the piano superbly. It is all he can do. Miss
Pauline Poutlips draws beautifully in water colors. She
is discussing a picture with Archibald Blaldstone, a
member of the Academy. The subject is the Mohawk
Witch Riding on a Broomstick. Mr. Puddingbag is a
stuffy Englishman, who guzzles vast quantities of wine
and edits a review—musical, artistic or otherwise. He is
a loud talker, and once wrote a poem, about the author-
ship of which there has been considerable dispute. So
we might name all the people present. It is a wonderful
mixture of queer people, all of whom feel at home and
are having a good time generally. In the course of the
evening, Herr Bandman is asked to recite a selection from
Byron's “Manfred," and immediately after servants bring
in cake, winé, ices and creams, followed by coffee on
servers. After this has been disposed of, there is another
season of singing, talking and flirting, and then the
reception breaks up. Before it ends, however, some of
the women get very red in the face, and some of the gen-
tlemen talk shockingly loud and have to be assisted into
their carriages.
Suppers or dinners are very fashionable entertain-
ments, and they are often got up at an immense expense.
Perhaps all the viands are imported from Europe; sets

76
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
of china which cost two and three thousand dollars are
displayed, or costly silver services are brought out, and
now and then a gold service appears upon the table.
Mrs. Astor has a gold service, made in Paris, and there
are several others in New York. It is fearful to think
that while some people are eating out of gold dishes,
paid for in rent-money collected from the hard-laboring
and poverty-stricken, other human beings are walking
the streets in distress, the wolf of hunger gnawing
within them. If this state of things is wrong in the Old
World, where the few roll in luxury while the many
starve, how much more fearful is it in the New World,
where all men are supposed to be free and equal, and
where democratic institutions prevail !
Sometimes the lady who gives the supper is seized with
the fancy of having it known as the red, blue or golden
entertainment. Perhaps the room will be lined with red
hangings; the furniture covered with red plush; there
will be red table-linen, red dishes, red glasses, and all the
food will be served up red, while red candles light up the
table and red bouquets shed their perfume. The bill of
fare is often gotten up in a dainty and costly manner,
ornamented with bits of landscape or fruits and flowers,
painted by hand. Bouquets are often placed by the side
of each plate, inside of which is some valuable present,
such as a diamond ring, a pearl necklace or some other
article. At one supper, given not long since, there was
a large golden walnut by the side of each cover, inside
of which there was a valuable jewel.
Private theatricals are very common, and some wealthy

WOMEN OF FASHION.
New Yorkers go so far as to have private theatres at-
tached to their houses. Such was the case with Dr.
Ward and Mr. Leonard Jerome, and others who might
be named. The establishment of these is very expensive,
for it involves great outlays of money for scenery, prop-
erty, etc.; and then the actors engaged have to be paid
good sums. Oftentimes, however, the performers are
amateurs. This is refining and cultivating in its influ-
ence when the plays are high-toned and those engaged
in them moral people. Private theatricals are very com-
mon and fashionable in England, from the palace of the
Queen to the country farm-house. They tend to educate
and refine the people, and might be much more exten-
sively introduced into this country than they are.
The private theatres of New York are elegant rooms,
splendidly fitted up. (That of Mr. Leonard Jerome, on
Twenty-fifth street, was very fine. It had seats for some
six hundred people, had a beautiful stage, with all the
appointments, and was most elaborately frescoed.) The
friends of the gentleman owning the theatre are invited
to attend the performances, and it frequently happens
that some star actor is engaged to appear, supported, per-
haps, by some of the young men and women of society.
Sometimes these gentlemen give performances for the
benefit of charitable objects, or for literary and artistic
purposes. The ladies who attend these places of amuse-
ment dress in the most magnificent and costly style, dis-
playing a profusion of diamonds, satins and laces. The
company is select, all of their own set, and there is no
possibility of coming in contact with the crowd of com-

78
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
mon people. One of these performances was recently
given in Dr. Ward's theatre, at which the public was
admitted by paying a good price for the tickets. The
object was the raising of funds for the purpose of build-
ing a monument to a dead poet. One of the Harper
boys, of the great book-publishing house, not long ago
gave an Italian musician a benefit at the theatre of the
Union League Club-House. After the concert he treated
the artists and a select company to a supper. All this
costs fearfully, and money has to flow as freely as water
to accomplish it.
Charity concerts, private concerts and calico balls are
favorite species of amusement. It is needless to describe
any of these. A supper to a select few usually winds
up the evening's entertainment, which closes some time
before morning. Formal receptions, to which people are
invited by card, are very fashionable and quite common.
They are nothing more than grand dress affairs, where
there is a crush of people, and where people go to see
and to be seen. Several of these may take place on one
afternoon, when the ladies drive from one house to an-
other in quick succession. Quadrille and cotillon parties
have now given place to the German, as it is called.
This is nothing more nor less than an elaborate fancy
dance, in which as many couples can engage as choose,
the size of the room being the only limit. To dance it
well one must know how to waltz, polka, and, in fact,
dance all the fancy dances. The figures are very elab-
orate and very numerous. There is a book published in
New York which describes them all. Usually some

WOMEN OF FASHION.
young gentleman, who has more brains in his heels than
in his head, is selected to lead the German. He has
devoted his particular attention to it, and goes in society
all the time. He has soft hands, is sweet on the ladies,
is a beau of the first water, twists his moustache, wears
diamonds, and is altogether a “love of a man”—just the
fellow to lead the German. The gentlemen and ladies
are seated about the room in couples, on sofas, divans and
in chairs. The leader takes a partner, and either alone
or with one, two or three couples, as the case may be,
goes through with the first figure. Then all the rest do
the same, and by and by new figures are introduced, and
so the dance goes on, all night if need be. Sometimes a
lady will be on the floor two or three hours. The basis
of the popularity of the German is the fact that it is an
elaborate square and round dance mixed, which allows
every man to dance with whom he likes, as long and as
often as he chooses. So long as men are men and women
women we suppose the German will be popular. In one
of the figures bouquets of flowers are introduced, or
presents are made to each of the ladies by the gentlemen,
and vice versa.
In the summer season those New Yorkers who have
country-seats--and most of them have—give croquet-
parties, English breakfasts, fêtes champêtre, picnics and
the like. These may include dancing, music, refresh-
ments, sails, fireworks, a plenty of wine, moonlight
strolls, etc. Billiard-parties are fashionable. Very many
of the wealthy gentlemen of New York have. fine billiard-
rooms, and many ladies are very fond of the game. In-

80
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
deed, the daughter of a celebrated clergyman in the city
is an expert player.
just arrived from Europe and added to the gallery, or to
witness the unveiling of a statue. These latter are called
“symposiums.” One recently took place in New York,
in a very private manner, at an elegant house on Fifth
avenue, where the gentlemen were robed in the Roman
with a lyre. As they entered the house each one washed
his face and hands, being presented with a silver basin,
while a maiden, clothed in white, poured water from a
silver ewer. It wasn't a common ice-pitcher! After
dancing about the statue, singing songs, reciting poems,
etc., the covering was thrown off, and the marble god or
goddess stood forth as pure as our first parents in Eden,
and clothed in the garments worn anterior to the fall.
Such is a brief glance at some of the private fashion-
able entertainments of New York. It shows that the
people of that city love to amuse themselves, and that
they are really not much more sensible than Louis XV.
and his court, when hunting the stag was fun enough for
one day.
How much better it would be to seek out the worthy
poor, and aid them with some of this hard cash which is
now so recklessly cast into the maelstrom of pleasure !
With the single exception of theatricals, these entertain-
ments are enervating, and lead oftentimes to the worst re-
sults. We see it in wasted fortunes, in the divorce courts,
in the scandal and gossip of high life, in the reckless

WOMEN OF FASHION.
81
speculation of Wall street, in the grinding off the face
of the poor, in the intemperance and general demoraliza-
tion of our fashionable classes. This society is an un-
natural and unhealthy growth upon our body politic, and
the day is not distant when it must be destroyed or re-
formed, or the Republic is ruined, and we drift into an
aristocratic form of government as bad as that of France
or England. When there is one class of people who
waste so much money, another class must toil hard to
make up the deficiency. How long the poor will consent
to grow poorer that the rich may become richer, is a
question which time alone will decide.

CHAPTER VII.
HOW A FASHIONABLE WOMAN IS "MADE UP."
CAREFULLY-DRESSED fashionable woman is
CA; indeed a being “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
as Consider the labor she has performed, the time
spent and the material—its quantity, variety and
shape—that is centred upon her. Reflect how many
bones clasp her waist; the multitude of pins that flash and
hold and defend her; the innumerable hooks and eyes
that look out, catch hold and join to give strength, shape
and comeliness to hosts of nameless things; the bands of
steel that flaringly course about her; the cords that give
tautness, and confidence, and supposed comfort; and the
myriads of laces, and flowers, and jewels that ornament
and add finish to the congress of prettiness. These are
only a little of the untouched much. Although the mas-
culine world is aware of this always mysterious and won-
derful “make-up” of a woman, there are very few men
who have thoroughly studied the subject in all its ramifi-
cations. They pay the piper, but they know not the kind
or quality of goods which the said piper furnishes.
Writers, too, alert for every “sensation” whereby an
honest penny can be turned, have never treated the sub-
ject as a whole. It is a theme about which every one

WOMEN OF FASHION.
83
ar-
knows something, but no one knows everything. We
propose, in this chapter, to show how a pretty woman is
“made up” (as the common phrase is) from her head to
her feet, and how much it costs to make her up. The in-
formation contained herein will be interesting to the mar-
ried man, who will know how to appreciate his treasure
when he sees how much it has cost him in the total; also
to the single man contemplating matrimony, who is ad-
vised to take a good long look before he leaps and com-
mits the fatal deed.
We have already touched on the subject of hair in
a previous chapter. A few facts as to the prices may be
of interest. There are four varieties of false hair, viz.,
the chignons or waterfalls, wigs, curls and switches. .
The chignon is made of a wire-frame network, stuffed
with short hair or other material. It costs from one
to thirty dollars, according to size and material.
The wig is made of real human hair attached to a
frame and network. It ranges in price from fifty to two
hundred dollars, according to style and quality.
False curls are greatly in demand, either singly or in a
mass. They are composed of real hair, artificially curled,
and imitate Nature to a wonderful degree of perfection.
A single curl costs from six to twenty dollars. A good
head of curly hair of the reigning hue costs about one
hundred and fifty dollars.
Rolls or puffs are composed of horse hair or short-clip-
ped human hair, rolled and compressed together, over
which the rest of the hair is displayed. The cost of rolls
or puffs varies from twenty-five to fifty cents apiece and

84
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
man
upward. Switches are composed of short hair plaited
together, or of a string of hair as long as the length of
the longest threads of the human hair, and cost (full sets)
from five to one hundred dollars, according to the thick-
ness and the depth.
Fashionable women are in the habit of shaving and
clipping the little hair around the forehead, so as to give
the hair in front a pointed appearance; and the brow,
consequently, presents an arched look. The eyebrows
are penciled or painted with India ink, which gives them
a rather bluish appearance. The poudre subtile for uproot-
ing the superfluous hair costs one dollar a bottle, while noir
peloutte, with three pencils of various thicknesses for the
eyebrows, can be procured for two dollars and a half. For
the eyes, our New York belle uses belladonna to give the
upper part of the face a languishing, half-sentimental, half-
sensual look. To “get up” this same look costs two dol-
lars and a half in money, and an hour in time. Some-
times this substance is dropped into the eye, when it has
the effect to give that organ an eager and expressive look.
Reference has already been made in a previous chapter
to the practice of enameling the face and bust, which is
fast becoming common among some of our fashionable
women. The business is carried on by a chiropodist of
Broadway. Our illustration represents a scene in this
"enameling studio.” The process may be described as
follows: The lady is first carefully examined with a
microscope, and any rough hairs or fuzz which exist upon
the cheek or bust are at once removed with liniment or
plaster, medicated soap, scissors or tweezers. The cheeks

T COLDEN
HAIR
KALYDOR
PEARL
POWDER
COLORICETER
MYSTIC HAIRTINT
ni
SA
wum
THE
"FALSE FACES."—AN "ENAMELING" STUDIO ON BROADWAY.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
85
en
or bust are then coated with a fine enamel, which is com-
posed of arsenic or white lead and other ingredients
made into a semi-paste. An ordinary coating will last for
a day or two, but to render the operation of permanent
value, the process must be repeated once or twice a week.
The prices of enameling vary, but average about as fol-
lows: For enameling the face to last once or twice, from
ten to fifteen dollars; for enameling the face and bust tem-
porarily, from fifteen to twenty dollars; for enameling the
face to endure one or two weeks, from fifteen to twenty-
five dollars; for enameling the face and bust to last about
the same period, from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars ;
for keeping the face for six months in an enameled con-
dition, from two hundred to three hundred and fifty dol-
lars; for keeping the face and bust in the same state for
the same length of time, from four hundred to six hun-
dred dollars.
If “cheek” is a requisite in a man, much more so is it
in a woman. A pretty woman without a pretty cheek is
like a peach without a bloom. The belle of the period
can get whatever complexion she wishes by the use of
liquid rouge or vegetable rouge, which is not expensive,
and is applied to the face through the medium of wool or
flannel or a hare's foot. Bismuth is sometimes used, also
prepared chalk and preparations containing mercury.
Then there is the French paste which comes in pots, at
one dollar a pot, and is much used by the theatre and opera
people. Thirteen varieties of chalk and powder, eight
varieties of paste and twenty-three kinds of washes are for
sale by one dealer in cosmetics in New York. Common

86
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
prepared chalk can be bought for from ten to twenty-five
cents a package. A box of Meen Fun, a species of chalk,
can be procured at one dollar a box; Lubin's liquid rouge
is worth a dollar and a half a bottle; Oriet, with two
sponges, costs a dollar and a half; vegetable rouge costs
from three to five dollars, while what is called the “ Lady's
Pocket Companion," or Portable Complexion, a box con-
taining white and red, with puffs for the cheeks and pencils
for the eyebrows, can be procured for two dollars. Ali
these various articles cost but little when bought separate-
ly, but when it is considered that they have to be replen-
ished often and several different assortments used, the ag-
gregate amount is considerable. One lady estimates the
cost of keeping up her complexion at one hundred and
fifty dollars per annum.
The dentist is often brought in requisition to display
his skill in the manufacture of false teeth, which range
in price from twenty-five to two hundred dollars per set.
His services, however, are not confined to the mouth alone;
he deals also with the fashionable female cheek, which he
often fills out from the inside by means of hard composite
pads, which are placed on each side of the mouth, running
upward. These cheek-pads are called “plumpers,” and
cost from twenty-five to fifty dollars.
The figure of our New York woman is generally good,
with the exception of that very important part, the bust.
Cotton and horse-hair have long been used for the pur-
pose of developing the “female form divine” in this
particular direction, but artificial means of a more elab-
orate nature are oftentimes employed. Apparatus known

WOMEN OF FASHION.
87
as respirators—or "patent heavers," as they are some-
times called—are in vogue. These consist of a pair of
rubber bags, which can be blown up like life-preservers,
and when filled with air answer the purpose of the nat-
ural breast, so far as external purposes are concerned.
They vary in price from five to ten dollars, and are man-
ufactured to a considerable extent in the Bowery. The
perils of fashionable "shams” of this peculiar description
were illustrated at a dinner-party given by a noted New
York politician at his mansion on Fifth avenue. One of
the ladies present was remarked for the exquisite propor-
tions of her bust and the animation of her conversation.
Those who sat near the lady suddenly heard, in the
part, a sharp, small detonation, such as might be pro-
duced by the cracking open of a bean-pod. No one took
any notice of the inexplicable sound; but it was observed
that the lady became much less animated, that she kept
one arm raised across her bosom, and fanned herself in-
cessantly during the rest of the dinner, though the tem-
perature of the dining-room was by no means too high.
As soon as the company rose from the table, the lady,
still fanning herself, suddenly disappeared; but, as cer-
diminished outline as she retreated from the sphere of
vision, a good deal of suppressed merriment followed her
disappearance. The lady's absence, however, was very
short, for she returned to the drawing-room in the course
of a few minutes, triumphant in the same plastic perfec-
tion that had excited so much admiration during the

88
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
earlier part of the evening, and displayed all the aplomb
and vivacity which had made her so charming. The
screwing of the stopper through which the air is blown
into the class of “fixtures” in question having been
made this time sufficiently secure, the charms of Mrs.
B— underwent no further vicissitudes during the
course of the evening.
The “Grecian bend” proper has ceased to be the rage,
and is even going out of fashion. Still “traces of its
lingering yet remain.” Boots manufactured with un-
usually high heels, which necessarily throw the body for-
ward, and bustles of a peculiar arrangement, are used to
produce this monstrosity. The price of a “bend” is
from ten dollars upward.
To supply the deficiency of plump, well-rounded arms,
our fashionable lady has her sleeves padded, lined with
cotton and wool. The padding is a cheap process, cost-
ing from nothing up to a few dollars, and is much in
vogue for evening dresses.
The Italian women of high rank, in the olden time,
painted the 'palms of their hands so as to produce a deli-
cate effect. Our American ladies of the present day not
only paint the hand, but powder it. They paint the
veins so as to produce a delicate effect. Cream-paste is
also applied to the hands. Blue penciling is done, and
various French preparations used. The nails are regu-
larly trimmed, cleaned and colored with a fine powder,
applied with a brush. To keep the hand in proper trim
costs about fifty dollars a year.
Corsets, having so much to do with the beauty of the

WOMEN OF FASHION.
89
female figure, are of course largely used. When the
lady's waist is large and she wishes to reduce the size,
the whalebone of the corsets is replaced by steel. Cor-
sets are often padded about the waist and hips, so as to
give those parts a rounded look. Corsets are of all qual-
ities and shapes, and range in price from seventy-five
cents to thirty dollars.
The subject of female limbs is a very delicate one, and
we would pass it by, were it not that we are pledged to
give a full and truthful account of how a woman is made
up. False calves are very much used in New York by
actresses, women of pleasure and women of fashion as
well. They cost from seven to ten dollars, and are war-
ranted to look in all respects like the natural limb, and
in many respects a great deal better.
Not only are the ankles padded; when the knee is sharp
and angular in its outline a pad is used. Large feet are
made to look small by wearing shoes with the heels placed
considerably forward. The high instep—the Spanish foot
-can be procured at any bootmaker's for a consideration
of twelve or fifteen dollars. Ladies' shoes of the very best
quality, made to order, cost as high as twenty to twenty-
five dollars. A certain actress boasts that she never wears
“understandings" which cost less than thirty dollars.
Defects of a physical nature, which, at first sight.
would seem to be irremediable, may be almost entirely
concealed by the aid of appliances of machinery. A
leading lady on Madison avenue, who has by nature one
shoulder higher than the other, has, by art and her dress-
maker, both shoulders of an exact height. Another lady,

90
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
who resides in Twenty-second street, has one leg shorter
than the other, but, by the art of her doctor and dress-
maker, has this discrepancy entirely obviated in gait and
appearance. Artificial eyes are common even among fash-
ionable belles. It is sad to think that in the crowded party,
the brilliantly-lighted ball-room, or at the opera, the eye
that is beaming so softly and so brightly at us is only a
glass eye after all; but such is frequently the stern fact.
All women of fashion, it may be remarked in conclu-
sion, use artifice and deception in decorating the person.
Age is no safeguard against the practice. There is a
lady residing on the Avenue who is now eighty years
of age, and who sixty years ago was a belle in metropoli-
tan society. She fancies she is still the beauty she
was once. She wears a wig, a set of false teeth, with
plumpers, pads, a bustle, a Grecian bend, affects highly-
colored French shoes, and almost half supports a cosmetic
store on Broadway.
From what we have written in this chapter it will be
seen how false the woman of the world can be, as far as
outward appearance goes. We say nothing of the heart
of the fashionable woman, if she possesses such an ar-
ticle; we do not allude to the vows made and broken, the
promises forgotten as soon as uttered, the good resolutions
laughed at, the noble ambitions for a “surer, purer,
sweeter life” thrust aside in the whirl of social excite-
ment. Did we speak of the falsity of women as regards
their heart and their inner life, we would not only tire
the reader, but make him lose all faith in human nature,
at least as far as women are concerned.

CHAPTER VIII.
FASHIONABLE CHURCHES.
APOD and Mammon are worshiped together in Nero
20 York. It is a very appropriate thing that the
A most costly church in the city, with the tallest
spire, stands at the head of Wall street, overlook-
ing the dens of the money-changers. The tall spire of
Trinity Church can be seen looming up toward the sky
from a great distance around. Although one of the
oldest churches in the city, it is still fashionable after a
certain sense of that word. Many old and wealthy fam-
ilies, who long ago went several miles up town to live,
roll down Broadway in their carriages on every Sunday
morning, prayer-book in hand, to worship in the Cathe-
dral, as it is called. An Englishman would smile, and
call it a chapel, even though the Prince of Wales has sat
in one of its pews. There are two or three sextons in
constant attendance upon Trinity Church, the duty of
one being to watch the entrance to the tower, and see that
no one slips up its hundreds of steps without dropping a
shilling into his palm. He eyes the tower door as closely
as a rat does a cat when passing from her hole. You
know it would almost break the back of old Trinity to
lose a sixpence! The other sexton is a fussy Dutchman,

92
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
who spends his time closing doors, posting the programme
of exercises for the day, and driving boys off the steps
and out of the porches. Another sexton, if there be so
many, lights the candles in the chancel, covers up the
reading-desks with cloths, and sees that no bad-minded
person runs off with one of the stone pillars or the big
stained-glass window with the twelve apostles which
excites the admiration of all beholders. The sextons all
wear badges, which look like crosses or clover leaves—it
is hard to tell which.
The time of all others to visit Trinity is at a
big funeral or the consecration of a bishop; and the
place to see the fun is in the robing-room. One time,
not long ago, some one or two hundred priests and
bishops collected at Trinity and thronged the robing-
room. It was a fearfully hot day in the summer, and
each man had to put on a white robe. Besides these,
there were hosts of choir-boys to be dressed up. The
crush was terrible, and after the dressing the room pre-
sented a very funny sight. The whole wardrobe of
Trinity had been called into use, and trunks stood agape
in every direction, while clothes-horses were loaded down
with garments. After the robing the gentleman marched
out, two and two, singing, the organs of the church
accompanying them. It is said that upon one of these
occasions Mr. Jo. Howard, the bogus-proclamation man,
slipped himself into a dress, and, catching up a prayer-
book, marched through the church with the rest. We
cannot vouch for the truth of this story, but presume it
was a fact.

W
us
RAS
HER
PASSAT
valore del
FASHIONABLE WORSHIP, —"HAVE MERCY UPON US MISERABLE SINNERS."


WOMEN OF FASHION.
Upon these extraordinary occasions the great church is
thronged with hundreds and thousands of people. The
poor and the rich, the beggars and the millionaires jostle
each other, and are seen to go through with the ceremo-
church always makes a profuse display of green trim-
mings; and when the splendid chime of bells in its
steeple is to ring out the national or other airs, then the
church rapidly fills up with people intent upon hearing
the melody. Services are held in this church every day
the year round, whether anybody is present to hear them
or not. The priests come out in white robes, and the
choir-boys ditto. Prayers and lessons are read, songs
are sung, and then the house is deserted again. As the
church is always open, it is no unfrequent sight to see a
merchant or a Wall street broker rush into it, drop on
his knees at the chancel-steps and say his prayers.
People from the country and emigrants passing through
New York often step inside of it to see how the money-
kings of New York worship their Lord.
Grace Church, at the upper end of Broadway, still
stands foremost among the fashionable churches. It is
very beautiful inside, with its richly-stained glass win-
dows, its light and graceful arches, its carved work and
statues. Large crowds of fashionable people attend
church here every Sunday during the season ; for the
reader should know that religion in New York, like balls,
oysters, the opera, skating, etc., has its season, after which
it is unfashionable to go to church. As people only eat
oysters in those months which have an r in them, so

94
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
fashionable people do not go to church in New York in
those months which are spelled without an r. For polite-
ness' sake, this is called “the heated term.” Fancy it's
getting too hot on earth to go to church! Will it ever
get so hot that some people will find it difficult to get to
heaven? During this unfashionable heated term all the
first-class churches are closed, the pastors are off to
Europe and the members are, with their families, on ex-
hibition at the Springs.
But to return to Grace Church. It is really quite a
sight to stand on the sidewalk and watch the coaches
drive up and set down their contents. The gentlemen
alighting are attired in the most exquisite manner—with
tight-fitting shoes, tight-pantaloons, cutaway coats,
beaver hats and bright kid gloves. One almost wonders
that the opera-glasses have been left at home. And the
dear ladies! how richly they are dressed in pink, blue,
green and purple satins, in costly shawls and cloaks !
Delightful, charming sinners, with such grave faces and
such unelastic step! They trip into the hall and down the
marble-paved aisles, and into the soft-cushioned, damask-
lined seats. Then the silvery-toned organ gives forth a
delightful opera, perhaps a selection from “Midsummer
Night's Dream,” and then the services commence. There
is an immense sexton here, with a big diamond pin on his
shirt-front. He is the celebrated Brown, and attends to
seating strangers and distributing cards of invitation
among the polite people. He is a man of some wealth,
and has traveled a good deal about the world. But if
you want a good seat at Grace Church, you had better be
am
S a man

WOMEN OF FASHION.
95
dressed in the height of the fashion and drive up to the
door in a coach, with servants in livery.
The rector of Grace Church has the comfortable salary
of fifteen thousand dollars a year in gold, and a marble
house, adjoining the church, to live in, rent free. His
position is probably one of the finest and easiest of any
clergyman in the United States. He is not dependent
upon donation-visits for his bread and butter, and keeps
a carriage as well as the rest of the fashionable and aris-
tocratic New Yorkers.
Another fashionable New York church is that of Rev.
Dr. Bellows, on Fourth avenue, known as All Souls'. It
is built in the form of a Greek cross, and is made of red
brick and white marble in alternate layers. This gives
the outside of the church a very peculiar appearance, and
some people of lively imaginations have fancied it re-
sembled the stripes upon a zebra. The inside of the
house is very neat, the walls being plain white, while the
framework of the roof overhead is very dark, almost like
black walnut. A stained glass dome in the centre of the
roof sheds a dim religious light over the audience. Many
wealthy and fashionable people can be seen here. Peter
Cooper and Moses H. Grinnell are attendants. The seats
are arranged in a very peculiar manner, almost like those
in an amphitheatre. They are all lined with red damask.
The music at this church is very fine.
On the same avenue, and not far from All Souls', is a
white marble church with a tall and graceful spire.
This is St. Paul's, a Methodist church, and here Vice-
President Colfax worships when in the city. It is quite

96
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
plain inside for so elegant a house, but on Sunday it is
thronged with fashionable people.
St. George's Church, on Stuyvesant Square, is a gor-
geous place of worship, done off inside with blue and gold
and all the colors of the rainbow. The house is very
lofty, and has two tall spires. The audience-room is
large, and the pews are remarkably comfortable. This is
a very fashionable place of worship, and of a Sunday a
great deal of overdressing on the part of the ladies can
be seen. Many of the costumes worn would look much
better at a full-dress dinner, a ball or an opera.
There is but one Presbyterian church on Madison
Square, and that is the Rev. Dr. Adams'. It is a
brown-stone house, of a cold, forbidding and aristo-
cratic appearance, with a very tall steeple. This is
one of the most fashionable Presbyterian houses of
worship in New York, and is thronged with wealthy
people. A great many young men attend here, and
consequently there is the same number of young ladies.
It is almost impossible for strangers to get seats in this
house. Even members of the church frequently find
it difficult. It has been stated that three hundred
families were waiting to get pews in this temple. Such
inen as General McClellan, Professor S. B. Morse,
and hosts of others, not unknown to fame, attend here.
The inside of the church is very rich, and everywhere
gives tokens of the wealth of those who worship in it.
Red, gold, blue and silver are the prevailing colors. The
roof or ceiling of the house is made to resemble the blue
sky, studded with stars. The organ-loft is very hand-

WOMEN OF FASHION.
97
some and the pulpit is imposing. We have known young
men who belonged to this church to leave it, because they
could not afford the expense of attending it. And it was
in this church that the pastor made the discovery that
most of the babes brought to him for baptism were stupe-
fied with paregoric and soothing syrups to keep them
from crying during the ceremony.
Time and space would fail us to mention all the fashion-
able churches in New York. Some of the more prom-
inent are: Christ Church on Fifth avenue; Rev. Dr. Hall's
on the same avenue; the Church of the Divine Paternity
on the same avenue; Trinity Chapel, St. Alban’s, so famed
for its ritualism ; St. Stephen's on Twenty-eighth street;
Church of the Messiah ; the great synagogue, Emanu-El
on Fifth avenue, and many others which might be named.
St. Stephen's is a very large Catholic church, and will
hold several thousand people. It is much like a cathe-
dral inside. Vast numbers of people flock here, but the
main attraction for Protestants is the music, which is
very good, and in the afternoon services or vespers there
is a plenty of it. Sometimes the crush in the halls and
on the steps is so great as to cause women to faint, while
the men have to keep their overcoats buttoned up, as they
are in danger of losing them. The ceremonies at this
church, with the priests in their gorgeous robes, the
chanting of the choir, the thundering of the organ, the
striking of bells and the swinging of the censer filling
the church with perfumed smoke, is very imposing and
attractive. To add to the effect, all the people join in the
worship. No wonder that this church is always filled

98
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
with thousands of people! It is much more interesting
to witness all this than any ceremony which the Ritualists
have yet been able to inaugurate at St. Alban’s.
Trinity Chapel is a very peculiar-looking church in-
side, very long, quite plain, with a chancel filled with
filigree-work. A great many fashionable weddings take
place in this house of worship, for which it seems to be
well adapted. The central aisle is broad and paved with
marble, and when the bridal party is at one end, the effect
at the other end, so far away, is very pretty.
Christ Church on Fifth avenue is very dazzling inside
from the extreme richness of its ornamentation. The
ceiling is arched and supported by lofty pillars, all of
which are painted in many bright colors. Gold and blue
are the prevailing tints. The people who attend here
display a vast amount of dress in the latest styles. No
street in the city of New York ever presents so brilliant
an appearance as Fifth avenue on Sunday, when all the
church-going people are returning from worship. The
scene reminds one of a fair or jubilee, or a promenade
upon a holiday. It is no place for poor people and beg-
gars, and few of them are ever seen on the street. In-
deed, religion in New York is only for the wealthy-those
who can dress well and who can afford the expense of a
pew in a costly church. And with the wealthy many of
them go to church because it is fashionable. At all
events, they never go except in the season and when it
is fashionable. This state of things is undoubtedly to be
deplored, but the question is, How better it in a town
where Mammon is worshiped six days in a week?

menea
fun peu de mobilyalari
FASHIONABLE BAPTISM.


CHAPTER IX.
WOMEN OF FASHION AT THE SPRINGS.
ALTHOUGH New York is one of the pleasantest
As cities in the world in which to spend the summer,
@s being entirely surrounded by water, and remark-
ably favored with frequent showers, and cooling
breezes from the ocean and the Highlands of the Hudson,
yet all of its inhabitants who can get away during the
days of the dog-star do so. The annual hegira from the
city is immense. All the surrounding country for a hun-
dred miles is filled with Gothamites, who seem to be only
too glad to leave their marble and sandstone palaces be-
hind. Perhaps no city in the Union is so conveniently
situated as respects the number and variety of its water-
ing-places. There are magnificent beaches with the surf
of old Ocean rolling in upon them; there are rocky island
coasts; charming lakes; picturesque banks of rivers ;
mountains in profusion; broad stretches of country filled
with charming valleys and hills; in short, everything the
heart of man or woman could desire in the shape of a
rural retreat. So perhaps it is not to be wondered at
that the people of New York are tempted away from
their homes during the summer.
It is only a night's ride to Newport. You leave the
99

100
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
city on Saturday after work, you spend the Sabbath in
Newport, and on Monday morning you plunge into Wall
street as fresh as a schoolboy. It is but an hour or two
to Long Branch; half an hour to Staten Island, dotted
all over with villas ; a few hours to West Point, and the
same to Lake Mahopac. There is New London close by;
there are the unrivaled Highlands of the Hudson, filled
with charming country-seats from New York to Troy;
there is Orange county and all the eastern portion of
New Jersey; there are the hills of old Berkshire, and
there are scores of charming places along the coast of
Long Island. What more lovely than a sail on Green-
wood Lake or a row on Lake Mahopac? And who can
be out of his element when “on the beach at Long
Branch ?” A pull after sunset on the Kill von Kull is
not to be laughed at; and the coolest spot we ever found
was while floating in a boat at the foot of the Pallisades,
the dark shadow thrown upon the water almost resembling
night. It is only a night's ride to Saratoga, and a day's
journey to Niagara.
The favorite places of resort with New Yorkers are
Saratoga, West Point, Long Branch, New London, Lake
Mahopac, Orange county and Newport. To visit any
of these places for the summer is to “go to the Springs,"
to “live at a watering-place,” to be in the fashion, and to
have a plenty of society and sight-seeing. As every-
thing closes up in the city during the summer, from the
grand opera-houses to the grand churches, it is a little
dull in town, and we can hardly wonder that fashionable
people leave it. In other days, the excuse for going to
DW
n.

WOMEN OF FASHION.
101
the watering-places was health or recreation ; to-day the
disgusting mineral water is a secondary consideration, and
pleasure and dissipation rule the hour. The original
design of watering-places has become obsolete. Salt-
water baths, mountain air, fishing, yachting, country milk,
etc., are but side-shows to the great Vanity Fair which is
inaugurated—incidental to the season of dress, flirtation,
intemperance, display of horses and carriages, rounds of
amusement and squanderings of money. It would seem
that after a winter of unrest, of late nights, of balls,
parties and heavy dinners, one would be only too glad to
seek rural retirement away from the thousands and mil-
lions of overteeming cities. But there is a class of people
who are never satisfied with a quiet life. To this class
belong the fashionable men and women of New York.
To be obliged to live away from a crowd, or outside of
an immense boarding-house or hotel, would deprive them
of half the enjoyment of existence. One might as well
be sent to the State's prison or the Adirondack mountains
at once. The summer should be devoted to repairing the
winter's exhaustion—to the fitting of one's self for the
enjoyment of lectures, study, art and religious exercises.
Now the tables are turned, and the dissipations of the
summer are actually worse than those of the winter.
Whatever American watering-places might have been
once, they are no longer fit for decent, pure and respect-
able women to visit. And if not for these, then they are
equally unfit for men, for we claim that what is bad for
one sex is just as bad for the other.
The woman of to-day who goes to a fashionable water-
im

102
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ing-place puts herself on exhibition the same as if she
stepped into a glass show-case on Broadway, Chestnut or
Washington street. She expects to be looked at-she
goes for that purpose—and she intends to be as fine as
any of her companions. This involves magnificent and
countless dresses, profuse diamonds, thoroughbred and
speedy horses, etc. Young ladies frequently go to the
Springs with eight, ten or a dozen immense trunks, filled
with dresses. They expect to wear all these, and they
ask for nothing but a plenty of beaux, a plenty of dan-
cing and a ceaseless round of flirtation. Strange to say,
even some good clergymen are regular visitors at the
Springs. They usually balance their several accounts,
however, by preaching on Sunday two or three times
during the season. If we have fashionable people, we
are sure to have fashionable clergymen.
The story of the Springs has never been told in print,
and we fear it never will be. It is a dark, strange, awful
romance, which leads down to the pit of moral and phys-
ical death. Now and then a domestic horror, a gross
immorality, a terrible profligacy or an awful tragedy
creeps into the papers, but it is soon forgotten or hushed
up. Those who visit the Springs, however, know of their
existence, and could tell tales which would curdle the
blood and freeze the young heart. The atmosphere is pes-
tilential. Husbands soon discover that their peace and
happiness are ruined, and their downfall dates from the
deadly influence which came upon them at the watering-
place. Wives see their husbands transfer their affections
to another, or contract habits of intemperance which lead
al

WOMEN OF FASHION.
103
them to ruin and death. Mothers see their sons on the
downward path, their feet tempted by the wiles of some
fashionable woman. In that unholy school, fathers see
their daughters learning an undesirable and fatal wisdom.
Many a daughter has come home from the Springs ruined;
so has many a son.
But a year or two since a terrible tragedy occurred in
one of the large, crowded and fashionable hotels at Sara-
toga. The parlor was filled with ladies chatting. A hall
ran back of it, in which some men were having their boots
polished. One young man, who had recently visited the
bar, and was therefore under the influence of liquor,
passed through the hall, and as he did so he playfully
caught hold of a cane which a gentleman held while his
boots were being polished. The gentleman felt insulted;
he drew a pistol from his pocket and shot the half-intox-
icated man dead upon the spot. He was cut down in the
prime of life, in the midst of strangers, away from home.
At the report of the pistol many of the fashionable
women who crowded the parlor fainted, while others
turned pale and trembled or screamed with fright. A
lady who was present asserts that numbers of them sup-
posed their husbands had been shot: they thought of the
bar-room, of the gaming-table, of the race-course, and
they knew that where there is such a herding together
of so many given up to dissipation, it takes but a little
provocation to produce the saddest and most terrible
results.
A worse thing than this happened only a year or two
ago at Long Branch. A party of young men and young

101
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
VOD
omany
ladies, belonging to the best society in the city of New
York, took a drive along the beach-road after dark. The
whole party, men and women, were intoxicated on wine
or soine other liquor. During the progress of the hila-
rious drive the horses became frightened, and the inmates
of the carriage were thrown out. They were all hurt,
and one of them—a young woman—was killed outright!
They were picked up and placed upon sofas in a parlor
of one of the great hotels. There they lay, stupidly
drunk! And one of the attendants upon these unfortu-
nates at that time is now the chief magistrate of one of
the most powerful, populous and wealthy States in the
Union.
One shudders at such awful facts as these, but many
more might be related. And where one comes to the
knowledge of the public, scores exist.
The whole watering-place system of to-day is but a
monstrous fabric of idleness, profligacy and immorality.
Neither health, comfort nor convenience is to be found
at them. People are crowded together like sheep in a
fold; vast numbers of strangers, frequently a thousand
or fifteen hundred in one hotel, are constantly coming in
contact with each other, the bad as well as the good.
Any roué who dresses well can insinuate himself artfully
into the society of almost any young lady he pleases; any
blackleg can form the acquaintance of a high-minded
young man, and ruin him for ever. So there is a con-
stant demoralization going on, in the wake of which fol-
lows ruin.
A Vermont poet has sung in jingling verses, "What
C

WOMEN OF FASHION.
105
they do at the Springs.” A little more truth might be
put into the poetry, and we will undertake to tell the
story in prose. Late hours are the rule-late to bed, late
up in the morning, late to meals, late everything. Eat-
ing is one of the principal exercises. The dining-rooms
are open at all hours of the day, and during the greater
part of the night wornout servants are carrying extra
meals to the rooms. Drinking is universal. The bar-
rooms of our watering-place hotels are constantly
thronged. Mixed drinks are the rule. There is a con-
stant clicking of glasses, uncorking of bottles and scrap-
ing of ice. Women drink as well as the men, only they
do it in their rooms or at the table. The billiard-rooms
and bowling-alleys are all the time filled. Riding out is
a favorite pastime, either on horseback or in carriages.
Boating by moonlight, and sometimes when it is very
dark, is common. Fancy a woman off with a strange
gentleman on some lake until almost midnight!
The women at the Springs are very idle. They do
nothing but dress, throng the piazzas, gossip in the par-
lors, ride out and dance. They are fond of the masque-
rade balls, and love to go to great expense in getting up
costumes. A few of them read novels; some have chil-
dren with them, and these have to be looked after a little.
If at Long Branch, a stroll on the beach is in order, and
the later and longer the walk the better. If at Saratoga,
a walk to the Springs and a sip of the water—just a sip.
There is a dance at some one of the hotels every night,
and now and then an immense ball. At these many
women get a sufficient quantity of exercise to keep them

106
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
in bed until noon of the next day. This is the senselesu
story of the Springs. It is nothing but miserable osten-
tation and vanity-hollow show, vulgar magnificence and
ruinous rivalry. Except in a few rare instances, pleasure
is not to be found at these places. Every man who rever-
ences womanhood will refrain from taking his wife or
sister or daughter to such places as Saratoga, Newport and
Long Branch. It is not quite so bad at Niagara or New
London. The true way to enjoy the summer in the
country is to go to some retired spot, or to have a house
of one's own on the banks of the Hudson. Many of the
best class of New York people do build villas in the
country, and these are usually too sensible to trouble
themselves about the Springs.

CHAPTER X.
THE CHILDREN OF FASHIONABLE PARENTS.
x
0
HERE are no children in America: so Scotch and
English visitors assert. And when our little ones
travel on the Continent, they excite the amaze-
ment of all French matrons and housewives. It is
certainly true that there are no children in New York,
whatever else there may be in the country. A six or
eight-year-old boy on a two-forty velocipede, with a cigar
in his mouth, casting sheep's eyes at a girl of ten on a
bench in Union or Washington Square, is the modern
picture of a boy in New York. He knows the “ropes"
of the whole town, and is “posted” on all its mysteries.
Does he go to see Humpty Dumpty or Mother Hubbard ?
Not he. Let rustics from New Jersey do that! He is
of the opinion that Booth didn't make love to Miss
McVickar in the play of Romeo and Juliet as well on
the boards as off them. That's the latest joke which
amuses him, and he smiles at it as he stops another eight
or ten-year-old boy on Broadway for the purpose of
"getting a light.”
The only genuine children there are in New York are
the boys who scream oranges at sixteen for a quarter; the
boys who hang about the pineapple and banana ships, at
107

*108
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
he wharves, just in from Cuba; the dirty brats who infest
the City Hall Park with boxes and boot-brushes; the
girls and boys who scream News-er, Mail-er, 'Press-er, etc.,
during the long afternoon and evening. These are the
city's children, turned out into the streets to feed on what
they can get, to grow up into almshouse and penitentiary
inmates. If you look into the charity schools of Five
Points, at New Bowery, all over the city, you will see
children from two weeks old, upward, seated in long
rows, being fed on wheat bread, as if they were so many
sheep in a stall or pigs in a pen. Oh but some of them
have fat little arms, blue eyes, flaxen hair, rosy cheeks
and dimples! With these we have nothing to do
Some rich folks have children as well as poor folks.
The fashionable child of to-day keeps its pony-carriage
for Central Park; lives in the nursery with half a dozen
servants; is taken out to air on Madison Square; prom-
enades up and down Fifth avenue; gives entertainments ;
goes to balls; invests in oil stocks, and makes itself con-
spicuous in the parlors of hotels, boarding-houses, etc.
There is a business college in New York where young
men of from eight years, upward, are taught bookkeep-
ing. Not long ago we looked in upon it. Some of these
fellows, hardly out of their high chairs, so it seemed, had
just passed their examinations and were waiting for their
diplomas! 'At ten years of age they were anxious to go
into business. At thirteen they were ready to stand at the
head of a large commercial house. Some of these fellows
were not large enough or old enough to graduate, and
were actually obliged to wait a year or two before they

WOMEN OF FASHION.
109
could take a diploma. It seemed sad to think of, when
time is so precious. The president of the college gravely
informed me that he didn't advise parents to have their
children graduate before they were fourteen! Imagine a
boy of that age up in the mysteries of banking, book-
keeping, the commission business, political economy, etc!
Even all New York boys are not like these boys, we are
glad to confess.
The New York fashionable girls! If they haven't
beaux, and are not well versed in the art of coquetry at
ten years of age, then they are stupid; that is all. It
seems as if American parents were not satisfied with the
natural stimulus which life in a great city gives, but re-
sort to artificial, hot-house processes to develop their chil-
dren. The way in which children of both sexes are
dressed in the city of New York is a shame and disgrace,
as well as being fearfully detrimental to health. Bare
arms, bare waists, bare legs—every whit as bad as the
naked drama. Silks, satins, velvets, laces, jewels—things
costly enough for a princess. These little wretches are
then taken out on to the public parks and exhibited, or
they come down the west side of Broadway in shoals.
We tremble for their future health and morals. We do
not wonder our young girls and young men, so many of
them, are what they are—foolish, proud, vain, silly and
no better than they ought to be. The seeds of much of
this after-crop of wild oats are sowed in childhood.
Recently a mother went to a dry goods palace in New
York and ordered a trousseau for her daughter's doll,
There was a complete outfit in underclothing, silk and

110
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
lace. A miniature India shawl at an expense of thirty
dollars, and a lace handkerchief valued at twelve dollars,
were among the articles. If this was spent for a doll,
what, think you, would be lavished upon the child itself?
The bare thought is an appalling one, and leads to reflec-
tions of the most unpleasant nature.
A few years from now, and all those children who are
so fortunate as to live will grow up into men and women,
occupying the places now filled by older persons. If we
cultivate in them loose French manners and morals when
young, we shall see these increased when they get older.
They will assuredly grow from bad to worse. Seeds once
planted in childhood spring into blossoms and fruit at
maturity. Show me intemperate or licentious men or
women, and I will tell you what sort of parents they had.
Children should be children until the proper time arrives
for them to be something else. There is nothing so dis-
agreeable as a precocious boy or girl. And nothing so
helps to bring about this state of things as a resi-
dence in a hotel or boarding-house—a manner of living
which is very fashionable in large places, and daily
becoming more so. Hotel-bred children are almost sure
to come to some untimely end, either in health or morals.
We have yet to learn of an instance where one of them
ever made a respectable, first-class citizen. But we do
know of many young men, as well as women, who came
up amid these unfortunate and blighting surroundings,
who have actually broken down in all that pertains to
strength of character and physical robustness.
The female “child of the period” is as much addicted

C
om
will
GE
Jatheti
bili
S
NWENE
THE SCHOOL GIRL ON HER AFTERNOON WALK.
IND numri itke
Sim


WOMEN OF FASHION.
111
to dress, has as great a love for it, and desires just as
much to be in fashion, as her aristocratic mother. The
sin of excess has descended to the first generation, with-
out waiting until the third or fourth has been ushered
in. The mothers of the world of fashion encourage
their offspring in the thought of dress, give them fine
clothing, teach them pert and womanly airs, and, in fact,
endeavor to make them as much like grown people out-
wardly as possible. The object is to make them look
pretty, without regard to the consequences; the result is
shocking to good morals and physiological law. Child-
freezing is a common crime, but seldom punished save by
the death of the victim; and this is oftener set down
to the aceount of a mysterious providence than it is to
ignorance on the part of parents. We protest against
bare legs, whether on boys or girls, or at the theatre.
Not long since we were strolling in Central Park,
when there passed us on the carriage-road a small
basket-wagon, drawn by a span of black ponies. Seated
in this wagon were two girls of twelve or thirteen years
of age. They were tripped out in the extreme of the
fashion, and one of them had hold of the ribbons.
Perched up in a sort of rookery behind them was the
male “ tiger," with his arms folded across his breast, his
bright buttons glittering in the sun and the cockade on
his hat bobbing up and down. The young misses had
been taking their afternoon drive, and as they turned for
home they kept up a loud flirtation with some young
men in another carriage, and did not hesitate to bandy
words with any young man within earshot! Such are

112
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
some of the fashionable children of New York. We
had sooner have our offspring take their chances of
making respectable men and women with the so-called
laboring classes.
The fashion has become quite common of late to allow
children to give large juvenile entertainments, and in
many instances to attend those which are projected for
older people. Here crowds of boys and girls of a sus-
ceptible age meet together under the intoxicating in-
fluence of music, gaslight, full dress, late suppers, wines
and punches. They have been to watering-places and
hotels, and mingled in grown people's society enough to
learn all the vices and follies of it. They are quick to
read cause and effect, and to perceive those things which
should be hidden from them. They dress in the same
absurd fashions, go through with the same round of talk,
flirtations, etc., indulge in the same wines and cigars, and
perhaps carry things to a far greater extent. Thus girls
lose their modesty before they are conscious of having
it; they become heartless, bold and disagreeable; they
grow up to be terrible flirts; and if they marry, which
they sometimes do to the first roué who offers, they make
fearful wives and awful mothers. Heaven pity the chil-
dren born of such parents !
It is a sad sight to see girls of fourteen and sixteen
defying all parental authority; to see them forming ali
sorts of alliances with boys and young men-receiving
the attentions of individuals of known bad character,
who would not hesitate to take advantage of the first
opportunity which offered. There are a plenty of such

WOMEN OF FASHION.
113
young men in New York, some of whom are mere boys,
and they are quite as apt to abound in fashionable life as
any. The fashionable young girl of to-day is taught to
do nothing. She sings a little, she plays the piano a
little, she learns drawing-room manners, and she spends
a vast amount of time in receiving company, in going to
the milliners and dress-maker's, in walking on the streets,
or promenading up and down the piazzas of some vast
hotel at a watering-place. She is intensely ignorant of
everything, not even knowing how to protect herself
from harm. In short, she is a creature in whom nothing
but the passions and selfish propensities have been devel-
oped; and if she possesses any charms, she takes pride in
displaying them, and soon learns that these are what call
so many beaux to her feet. It hardly seems possible that
girls could arrive to this state of knowledge of good and
evil, but it is quite a common fact in New York, and,
what is more alarming still, the matter seems to be grow-
ing daily worse. Thus fashion ruins our girls. It makes
them proud, vain, full of self-admiration, passionate, ig-
norant, easily imposed upon. Their characters have no
foundation upon which to rest; their beauty soon fades,
their health gives out, and, as they find themselves losing
their attractions, they resort to all manner of devices to
preserve form and beauty. But the husband is disgusted,
and he turns, in too many instances, to other women.
In this way French morals creep even into our best so-
ciety, and all under the patronage of the baleful goddess
of Fashion.

CHAPTER XI.
NEW YORK "SHODDY."
0
MODFISH and Shoddy, when applied to society, are
nearly identical in their meaning. Shoddy, how-
ever, is supposed to possess wealth, perhaps enor-
mous bags filled with gold, while Codfish professes
to have wealth, makes a tolerable sort of a show out of
something, and always occupies a doubtful place.
Where Shoddy made its fortune, it is very hard to tell.
It might have been a lucky hit on Wall street; perhaps
it was an oil well, possibly a gold mine, but more likely
it was by having the monopoly of some business or the
exclusive use of a patent which all the people patronized.
We have nothing to say against honest labor, or gains
honestly acquired or obtained by any legitimate means ;
neither is it any of our business if a man starts some
new thing and gets rich out of it. If, like the late Colo-
nel Colt, somebody invents a pistol of a superior pattern,
and all the world buys it, and the profits go to build a
splendid country-seat like “Armsmear” and to found a
family in wealth, we have nothing to say against it.
Such people are benefactors to their race, since they
increase business, add wealth to the town in which they
live, furnish employment for hundreds and perhaps
114

WOMEN OF FASHION.
115
thousands of people, and, if they are public-spirited, they
found libraries, build churches, open parks and establish
colleges. Nobody thinks of calling George Peabody
"shoddy,” even if he did make his fortune in specula-
tion. The late Matthew Vassar could hardly be called
shoddy, although he made his money brewing ale, and
neither he nor his wife were polished or educated. Some
over-nice people, however, do turn up their noses at his
female college and say that it was founded in beer; that
Mr. Vassar made people drunk; that he was nothing
but a common brewer, etc. But there the college stands,
a glorious institution—as much of an honor to its founder
as the Cornell University is to Mr. Ezra Cornell. If
Mr. Vassar when he went down to New York had made
a great display of himself and his family; had been in
the habit of wearing white velvet breeches and enormous
clusters of diamonds; had driven fast horses up and
down the Avenues in white harness, gold-mounted, with
servants in scarlet livery and outriders; if the ladies of
his household had trailed satins up and down Broadway
and bought out whole jewelry stores at a single shopping
excursion, then sober, respectable people might have
cried out, “Shoddy” or “Beer.” But the good old gen-
tleman did nothing of the kind, and herein he showed
his good sense.
Some people do carry on in just this way, however.
They possess neither good breeding nor good sense. They
have the almighty dollar in their pockets, but soft soap
in their skulls, or putty, which amounts to about the same
thing. Now, it is honest for a man to get his living by

116
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
selling tea or making coffins or paper collars or hoop-
skirts, but it is hardly the thing to be known in society
simply as the wife of the great hoop-skirt man, the great
paper-collar man, or the biggest undertaker in New York.
Polite society does not smack quite so much of the shops.
That should be left on the street where it belongs, and it
would be without any difficulty if those who keep them
were not always making themselves conspicuous as well
as ridiculous in the world. The poet Saxe tells us that it
is dangerous to trace one's pedigree, for it may end in a
hempen cord or a waxed end. Neither the gallows nor
lapstone, if they were the means of life and death to our
great-great-grandfather, should in the least affect one's
position in society. Nobody in America thinks the less
of Edwin Booth for the great crime of his brother; and
there are some, we are sorry to say, who seem to think
the more of Daniel Sickles for the dissipation and scan-
dal of his early life. Shall we ask too particularly after
the ancestors of Horace Greeley, James Gordon Bennett,
Robert Bonner, A. T. Stewart, John Jacob Astor, Presi-
dent Grant or even the late President Lincoln ? Not by
any means. They were all humble people—“Poor but
pious," as the phrase is. Now, if any of these gentlemen
or their sons should to-day refuse to recognize a poor but
honest workingman simply because he was poor, we should
at once brand him as “shoddy.” This is worse than an
aristocratic lord of England would do, for, whatever else
they may possess, most of them have good breeding.
Look at the bright example of the Duke of Sutherland,
one of the wealthiest men in England. We have seen
0

WOMEN OF FASHION.
117
Mr. A. T. Stewart as much embarrassed in the presence
of an intelligent young man without a dollar in the
world as he ever was in his life. It is good breeding
and intelligence which makes the man, and not the gold
he has in his pocket. And yet some people seem to think
otherwise.
There are plenty of shoddyites in New York. They
spend money as if every dollar was not earned by the
hard toil of some poor laborer. They keep the fastest
four-in-hands, and the largest number of servants; they
dress in the finest linen and purple; at a public dinner
they get drunk and slip under the table; they strut pomp-
ously wherever they go; they are the most insulting to,
and exacting of, all those servants who come in contact
with them; they throw bouquets to the bare-legged
dancers, and keep company in public with people of
doubtful virtue; they rob banks to speculate in real
estate; they purchase railroads, hotels, opera-houses,
steamboats, and Heaven knows what; they are very
tenacious of the purity of their character, and snap at a
hundred-thousand-dollar libel suit as a turtle does at a
fly; they patronize the horse-races, build yachts, import
wines and run over Europe insulting every gentleman
they meet. These are some of their characteristics.
Shoddy is very fond of seeing items not unlike the
following in the papers :
“Mrs. Philander Parian has a hundred-thousand-dol-
lar set of diamonds. They are said to be the richest in
the city.” (Her husband was a whisky distiller in Ohio.)
“Mrs. Duplex Elliptic took the character of Mrs.

118
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
George Washington at the fancy-dress ball at Lake Ma-
hopac. She wore a suit of black-silk velvet, lined with
white satin. She was the richest-dressed lady present.”
(Mr. Elliptic runs a hoop-skirt factory in New York city.)
“Mrs. Coffee has the finest turn-out on the Avenue.
The mountings of the harness are solid gold, and the car-
riages were imported from Paris." (Mr. Coffee is a tea
merchant, and works his clerks nearly to death, early
and late.)
“ Mrs. Theodore Eugene Fizzle is building a splendid
villa at Newport this summer. Her daughter Blanche
drives a pony phaeton.” . (Mrs. Fizzle is the wife of
Theodore Fizzle, who goes about the country spouting on
the wrongs of the Sandwich Islanders.)
“Mr. Moses H. Sheepsfoot has just built the finest
hotel in the city.” (He publishes a popular story-paper,
and never pays his contributors.)
“ Mrs. Jerome B. Fillmore treated the members of the
press to a ride in her English drop yesterday.” (Mr.
Fillmore is a blackleg.)
“Madam Vere de Vere has receptions every Sunday
evening.” (The madam is a humbug, and everybody
hates her.)
These newspaper paragraphs might be multiplied
almost indefinitely. They are all shoddy, whenever and
wherever we see them.
Perhaps the rankest shoddy in New York is the patent-
medicine shoddy. The outside public has little idea how
it thrives upon the gullibility of mankind. Pills, pow-
ders, syrups, constitutional medicines, hair dyes, per-

WOMEN OF FASHION.
119
fumes, blisters—all bring in heaps of gold, and build, for
the advertisers of these nostrums, fine palaces, wherein
they laugh at all the world for the easy manner in which
it is fooled. There is a shoddy aristocracy growing up
out of mineral waters, and another out of ballet-dancing,
and another out of the keeping of houses of ill-fame.
So the money comes in, nobody is to ask where it comes
from. These people always live fully up to their income,
and frequently beyond it. They are those who indulge in
monogram window curtains; who think “Richelieu” one
of Shakspeare's finest plays; who cover their furniture
with India shawls; who order the sexton to seat no
strangers in their pews; who take coffee in bed at ten
A. M., and dinner at nine-thirty P. M. every night; who
import all their dresses from Paris, and coats from Lon-
don; who always go out in white kid gloves; who invest
largely in diamonds; who put their children in nurseries,
and allow them to visit their parents for fifteen minutes
once a day; who go to the opera every night, occupying
a box; who never drink water; who think books are
stupid and lectures bores.
There is one virtue in New York shoddy, and that is,
it does not last long. Sooner or later a crash comes, and
down tumbles the splendid fabric. The fall makes a
sensation for a day, and straightway is forgotten. These
people spend money so rapidly, make such a show while
it does last, that, like a sky-rocket, the stick is soon all
that is left.
If Shoddy is a young man, he must spend at least ten
or twenty thousand dollars a year, and use his whole

120
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
time spending it. Not many weeks ago one of these fel-
lows admitted that his personal bills were ten thousand a
year, while he neither drank, smoked nor gambled-
something rather remarkable for a shoddyite. “I cannot
afford to take a wife,” said he, ” as long as it costs me so
much to live.” His particular fancy was for fast horses,
and elegant carriages, and he always dressed in the latest
mode. Some of his blue-and-buff suits and seal-skin
coats were quite stunning in their way.
Miss Shoddy came to New York with quite a fortune,
left her by her father, who was a brewer in Northern
Ohio. She went to a boarding-school on Murray Hill,
and during the three years she was there, finishing, she
spent the whole of her fortune in dresses and bon-bons.
And what is worse, she did not succeed in catching a
husband either. A man of ordinary means attempted to
propose to her with all her sea of silk and lace before his
vision. “She would ruin me," he exclaimed, and de-
parted in peace. Those sensible fellows who had a plenty
of money in bank and belonged to the old families—ah!
what a sweet sound there is in that name!-saw through
Miss Shoddy's little game, and allowed her to go on in
her little comedy of dress and be dressed. So, between
these two sets of possible beaux, Miss S. slid to the
ground an old maid.
Another Miss Shoddy was the daughter of Colonel
Big Gun. She was very particular about putting the title
of Colonel before her father's name. She came to New
York and “went in” as a parlor boarder on Twelfth
street or thereabouts. This gave her the opportunity of

WOMEN OF FASHION.
121
W
seeing any young man who might call. One day, Mr.
Red, of Gingham, Denim & Co., proposed to her, and
she accepted him. In dry goods parlance, he was “ chief
of the white goods department,” and a sensible, well-
enough-to-do fellow. It is to be supposed that Miss
Shoddy loved this fellow, or she never would have mar-
ried him. Her father and mother felt terribly worked
up about this marriage. They considered it a shame and
a disgrace for a daughter of Colonel Big Gun to throw
herself away upon such a blunderbuss of a fellow, a
mere pea-shooter. He had popped the question, how-
ever, and nothing but the ceremony was wanted. When
this took place the papers announced the fact, and very
naturally added that Mr. Red was chief of the white
goods department at Gingham, Denim & Co.'s. This
was the last feather upon the camel's back of the Gun
family. Mrs. Gun went off in a fainting-fit when she
saw the notice, declaring that she never should be able to
hold her head up in society again, and that she should
quit the Springs for life.
The greatest sin Shoddy commits against society is in
flaunting its banners of extravagance and vice in the
faces of decent, respectable people. There is no influence
so powerful as that of example; and when one woman
steps beyond the bounds of propriety in any direction,
she is sure to be followed by a dozen other weak ones,
until finally thousands are found to be pursuing the same
frightful course. Thus the whole of society becomes de-
moralized and corrupted. Things of use and of beauty
are degraded to purposes which are positively sinful.

122
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Many a woman in New York spends all the money she
can control for her personal adornment, in the vain hope
that it will bring her in pleasure in the shape of position,
society or companionship. And some of them resort to
all manner of means to obtain this money. If they are
married, they will even bankrupt their husbands for their
own selfish gratification, or they will put themselves under
obligations to other men, whose forms should never be
allowed to darken their doors, and then they will receive
money from them, which will be spent in laces, bonnets,
silks and satins. These in turn are displayed to the
public, the desire of some other woman's heart is fanned
into a flame, and, unless she can possess a lace princess'
robe, she will be perfectly miserable and unhappy. And
as the mistress is, so is the maid; the vices of the parlor
soon find their way down stairs into the kitchen. In
turn, the servants become corrupted, and cannot be
trusted ; they dress beyond their means and keep up
a show which they are not able to maintain.
Look into the ante-rooms of the Academy of Music
upon the night of some great ball. See the red-faced or
pale-faced sensuous young men and middle-aged men
clustering in the lobbies about the doors of the ladies'
dressing-rooms, waiting for some over or under-dressed
woman, who exposes her arms, shoulders and bust to his
gaze, to enter the ball-room with him. She trails an
apricot-colored satin upon the floor to the length of sev-
eral yards; she hangs languidly upon his arms, presses
his hand and looks ravishingly into his eyes. He returns
the gaze, his face flashing with excitement as he does so.
eaDS

BOS
HINNAT
10
IN CENTRAL PARK ON “MUSIC DAY."


WOMEN OF FASHION.
123
man
Soon he is waltzing with her, and she throws her head
into his bosom, her hot breath falling upon his neck; he
draws her more closely to him, his right hand pressing
her waist with a convulsive grasp. Thus they whirl
until exhausted, when they retire to a box and order
wine. Perhaps they withdraw from the ball before its
close, and, entering a carriage which has the curtains
drawn, drive for an hour or two before reaching home,
if, indeed, they go home at all before morning!
This is not a solitary or overdrawn picture of the
Shoddy of New York. There are thousands of just such
cases; so many of them that we tremble for the safety of
our wives and daughters as well as our sons. These
women are to be met with everywhere—in the Park, on
the street, at the church, in the public parlors and halls
of the great hotels, in the boarding-houses, at the the-
atres, at balls, and even at weddings. Their chief
topic of conversation is personal gossip and scandal,
dress and flirtation experiences. As women have less to
engage their attention than men, so they are able to do
more mischief in corrupting the circle of their acquaint-
ances and society generally.
Shoddy indulges in grand banquets, where the women
come as much under the influence of wine as the men.
“They are chattering like blackbirds up in the parlor,"
says the French waiter, as he thrusts his head into the
kitchen. This means that they are half intoxicated.
When people get into this condition, they care very little
what they do, and we drop the curtain over a scene which
is nothing but a disgrace to any people.
me
TO

124
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The effect of all this upon the community at large is
deplorable in the extreme. We sometimes see it entering
the best mansions in the land; corrupting our civil offi-
cers; getting into the White House, into the Houses of
Legislation, into our country towns and villages. It is
sapping the very foundations of society and of our repub-
lican institutions. We cannot be too earnest in frowning
it down.
“God made the country, but man made the town,"
sings Cowper. It is the country which must save the
town, since only in brick walls, where people are hived
together, do such vices flourish.
Such is a partial picture of Shoddy. All the world
knows how it blunders and thunders; how it squanders
fortunes and leads a fast life; how it disgusts Europe and
excites the pity and contempt of America; how it values
diamonds above virtue, and green backs more than cul-
ture; how it insults the servants, puts on airs, thrusts
itself forward, makes ridiculous exhibitions, always ap-
pears in full dress, and does a thousand other wonderful
things too pitiful to put on paper even. As New York is
the largest city in the New World, so there is more
shoddy in it than in any other place in the United States.

CHAPTER XII.
A FASHIONABLE LADY'S WARDROBE.
NERY many persons, especially those living out of
town, believe that the prices sometimes given by
HS writers of the cost of ladies' wardrobes in New
York are exaggerated. This may sometimes be
the case, but, at the same time, we would remark that an
immense amount of money is annually spent by the
fashionable women of the metropolis in adorning their
persons. After the female form is clothed from head to
foot, from top to toe, it may be, and doubtless is, divine
likewise exceedingly dear.
A lady not long ago took the trouble to take an
"account of stock” of a fashionable belle of the metrop-
olis, writing down and giving a full description of all
the different articles of her wardrobe. We present it to
the readers of our work, believing that to the ladies it
will prove interesting as a very faithful and correct
account of fashionable female apparel, and to the sterner
sex will serve to show how much the raiment of a
woman of New York may be made to cost.
The schedule is as follows:
6 silk robes—red, enameled, green, blue, yellow,
ena
125

126
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
pink, black-with fringes, ruches, velvets, lace
trimmings, etc., - - - - - - $950
1 blue Marie Louise gros-de-Naples, brocaded with
silver taken from the looms of Lyons; cost, with-
out a stitch in it, -. - - - - 300
Silver bullion fringe tassels and real lace to match, 200
1 rose-colored satin, brocaded in white velvet, with
deep flounce of real blonde lace, half yard wide;
sleeves and bertha richly trimmed with the same
rose-colored satin ribbon; satin on each side, with
silk cord and tassel; lined throughout body, skirt
and sleeves with white silk, - - - - 400
Lwhite satin of exceedingly rich quality, trimmed
with blonde and bugles; two flounces of very deep
point d'Alençon sleeves of the same, reaching
down to the elbows, and bertha to match, with
white bugles and blonde to match, - - 2500
| royal blue satin dress, trimmed, apron-shape, with
black Brussels lace and gold and bugle trimmings,
with one flounce, going all around the skirt, of
black Brussels lace; body and sleeves to match ;
sleeves looped up with blue velvet roses set in
lace, to imitate a bouquet, - - - - 1500
1 dove-colored satin dress, trimmed with velvet,
half yard deep; a long trail with the velvet going
áll around, with llama fringe and dove-colored
acorns, forming a heading to the velvet, and going
all up the skirt and around the long Greek
sleeves; the sleeves lined with white satin and
quills of silver ribbon going around the throat;

WOMEN OF FASHION.
127
lined throughout with white silk, having belong-
ing to it a cloak and hood, lined and trimmed to
match; made in Paris, - - - - $425
1 black Mantua velvet robe, long train, sleeves
hanging down as far as the knees, open, lined
with white satin and trimmed all round with
seed-pearls, as well as all round the top of low
body—the seed-pearls forming clusters of leaves
going down front of skirt and all round the skirt
and train, - - - - - - - 500
1 rich moire-antique dress, embroidered in gold from
the body to the skirt and sleeves and all round,
taken up and fastened up with gold embroidery to
imitate the folds and wrinkles of the dress, trim-
med round the edge with white Brussels lace,
having an underskirt of amber satin trimmed
with Brussels lace, to show underneath; lined
throughout with silk, - - - - - 400
1 large Brussels lace shawl, of exquisite fineness and
elegance of design, to go with it, - - - 700
1 crimson velvet dress, lined throughout with rose-
colored silk; train very long, trimmed with rich
silk, blonde lace covering the entire train, being
carried around and brought up the front of the
dress and body, forming the bertha; and sleeves
looped up with white roses; turquoise fan and
slippers to match, - - - - - 400
1 blue mercantique (lined), low body, trimmed with
Honiton lace, body and sleeves; one piece of silk
to match, unmade, intended for high body, and
cal
а ГО

128
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
two deep flounces of Honiton lace, not attached to
dress; handkerchief and cape to match, - $300
1 gea-green glacé silk dress, trimmed with Irish
point lace, flounced, and black velvet bows and
ends at intervals; Irish point lace on body and
sleeves, - - - - - - - - 175
1 Irish point lace shawl to match, exceedingly fine;
imported handkerchief and cape to match, - - 460
1 white moiré silk, trimmed with black point
d'Alençon sleeves and body, and large bars
crossed, made of the lace, all around the dress
quarter of a yard deep, graduating to three-
quarters of a yard at the back; long train, - - 200
1 large black point d'Alençon shawl, to go with it, - 300
1 blue gros-de-Naples, with the flounces of white
silk, brocaded, trimmed with deep chenille fringe
and blue passementerie; high body, in the form
of jacket, with fringe and trimming to match-
sleeves slashed and trimmed to match; low body,
trimmed with chenille and silk blonde; bertha,
sleeves and around the top of body trimmed with
narrow lace; both bodies lined with silk, - - 250
1 rich silk apricot robe, brocaded in white, not lined,
with silk fringe woven on the dress body, with the
trimmings and fringe to match; small cape for
throat, to match, - - - - - - 200
1 pink silk robe, with flounces; the flounces white
ground and pink leaves trimmed with fringe;
high and low body, trimmed with fringe and rib-
bons, and bertha trimmed with fringe and rib-

WOMEN OF FASHION.
129
bons ; sleeves slashed open and lined with white
satin, - - - - - - - $200
1 rose-colored robe, with flounces; high and low
body, having fringe and trimming woven to imi-
tate Russian fur; both bodies trimmed with fringe
ribbons and narrow lace, - - - - - 250
mauve-colored glacé silk, braided and bugled
all around the bottom of skirt, on the front of
body, around the band of Garibaldi body, down
the sleeves and round the cuffs of Garibaldi body;
the low body, with bertha deeply braided and
bugled, with sleeves to match; long sash, with
end and bows and belts, all richly braided and
bugled with thread lace, - - - - - 180
1 vraie couleur de rose gros-de-Naples, with
flounces richly brocaded with bouquet in natural
size and color, made to represent the same in
panels, trimmed with gimp and fringe to match ;
also, high and low body, with bertha and trim-
mings to match, - - - - - - 300
1 pink morning robe, very superb, trimmed down the
side with white satin a quarter of a yard wide,
sleeves trimmed to match, satin-stitched, with
flounces in pink silk on edge of satin, passemen-
terie cord and tassels, - - - - - 250
gold-colored silk aersphane, with three skirts, each
skirt trimmed with quillings of yellow satin rib-
bon, looped up with pink roses; body to match,
trimmed with silk blonde; white blonde round the
neck; satin quillings; silk blonde on the sleeves,
0

130
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
nor
and lace and yellow satin; rich underskirt to
match, - - - - - - - . $100
2 very richly embroidered French cambric morning-
dresses, with bullion and heavy satin ribbons run-
ning through; one lined throughout with pink,
the other with blue silk, - - - - - 100
1 rich black silk glacé, trimmed with bugles and
black velvet, - - - - - - - 200
1 blue-black Irish silk poplin, made in Gabrielle
style, trimmed with scarlet velvet all round
the skirt; sleeves and body-belt and buckle to
match, - - - - - - - - 125
1 cashmere, shawl pattern, morning-dress, lined ;
sleeves and flies lined with red silk, cord and tas-
sels to match ; not twice on, - - - - 100
1 white Swiss muslin, with double skirt and ribbon
running through the upper and lower hems of each
skirt, of pink satin; body with Greek sleeves to
match, - - - - - - - - 90
1 straw-colored silk dress, trimmed with black vel-
vet, and body of the same, - - - - 80
1 white Swiss muslin robe, with one plain skirt and
one above, graduated by larger and smaller tucks,
to imitate three flounces; the sleeves with puffs,
and long sleeves with tucks, down and across to
match skirts, and Garibaldi body made to match ;
one pink satin under-body to go with it, - - 95
1 white Swiss muslin dress, with three flounces, quill-
ed and tucked, graduated one above the other, with
headings of lace on the top of each flounce; low

· WOMEN OF FASHION.
131
body, with tuck, bretelles and broad-colored sars-
net ribbon, - - - - - - - $90
1 India muslin dress, very full, embroidered to imi-
tate three flounces; and Greek body and sleeves,
also embroidered to match sky-blue skirt and body
to go underneath, - - - - - - 110
1 India muslin dress, double skirt, richly embroidered,
with high jacket and long sleeves embroidered to
match, - - - - - - - - 90
1 pink satin skirt and bodice, to go underneath, - 25
1 white long morning-dress, embroidered round the
skirt and up the front, in two flounces, one hanging
over the other; sleeves and cuffs to match, - - 60
1 white muslin, with white spots, skirt and bodice
trimmed with bullion and narrow real Valen-
ciennes lace, - - - - - - - 80
2 white cambric morning-dresses, one very richly em-
broidered, in wheels and flounces; and jacket to
match, - - - -- -- -- -- - 275
1 white Swiss muslin jacket, very richly embroidered;
skirt and bodice to match, - - - - 100
3 cambric tight-fitting jackets, with collar and sleeves
very richly embroidered, to imitate old Spanish
point, - - - -
- - - 120
5 Marie Antoinettes, made entirely of French muslin,
with triple bullion and double face; pink satin
ribbon running through. Cost $60 each, - - 300
1 pique morning dress and jacket, richly embroid-
ered, - - - - - - - 75
1 pique skirt, richly embroidered, - - - 50

132
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
6 fine Swiss muslin skirts, four yards in each, trim-
med with two rows of real lace, to set in full, finely
finished, - - - - - - - - $55
2 very rich bastistes, for morning-dresses, - - 120
2 very fine cambric skirts, delicately embroidered, to
wear with open morning-dresses, - - - 60
2 fine linen skirts, embroidered in open work, - 40
2 silk grenadine dresses, trimmed with Maltese
lace and veljet; two bodices to match, blue and
green, - - - - - - - - 200
2 silk baréges, trimmed with velvet and fringe, and
bodice to match, - - - - - - 200
1 Scotch catlin silk full dress, Stewart, trimmed with
black velvet and fringe, made to match colors of
dress, - - - - - - - - 100
3 Balmoral skirts, very elegant, embroidered in silk, 90
1 ponceau silk dress, trimmed with llama fringe and
gold balls; body and sleeves very richly trimmed
to match, - - - - - - - - 250
1 blue silk to match, trimmed with steel fringe and
bugles; body and sleeves richly trimmed, - - 250
1 French muslin jacket, with lapels and sleeves to
turn back, very heavily embroidered, - - - 40
1 set point d'Alençon, consisting of shirt sleeves,
handkerchief and collar, - - - - - 120
1 point d'Alençon extra large handkerchief, - - 100
1 set Honiton lace, consisting of handkerchief, collar
and sleeves, - - - - - - - 80
1 set Maltese lace, consisting of handkerchief, collar,
velvet cape, - - - - - - - 300

WOMEN OF FASHION.
133
1 set Irish point lace, very rich, consisting of wide,
deep sleeves, handkerchief and collar, - - $80
1 'cape of ditto, going up to the neck and shut at the
back, - - . - - - - - - 35
2 black lace mantillas, - - - - - - 40
1 black lace jacket, -
1 cape, composed of Valenciennes lace, - - - 75
2 dozen very rich embroidered cambric chemises,
with lace, - - - - - - - 120
6 ditto, with puffed bullions in front, - - - 100
18 Irish linen chemises, with very rich fronts,
7 Irish linen, embroidered, -
1 dozen night-dresses, very rich fronts, -
3 linen do., very rich, - - - -
1 dozen embroidered drawers,
2 very rich do., -
11 new pairs silk stockings, in box, ..
1 dozen Lisle thread stockings, - -
9 pair boots and shoes, - - - - -
3 pair embroidered slippers, very rich, in gold,
1 pair Irish point lace sleeves (extra), - -
1 black velvet embroidered mantilla, imported, - 450
1 do., silk, embroidered with bugles, imported, - 100
1 glacé silk, tight-fitting basque, with black zeplore
lace cape; trimmed in every width with narrow
lace to match, - - - - - - - 65
1 black silk Arab, with two tassels,
1 dust-wrapper, from Cashmere, -
- 18
4 magnificent opera-cloaks, -
1 red scarlet cloth cloak, trimmed with yellow cord, 12
5
175

134
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
-
-
35
lus,
1 cloth, drab-color, cloak,
1 cloak, with hood lined with silk, - - - 10
2 dozen cambric, embroidered, with name Fanny, -
1 set Russian sable muffs, cape and boa, - - 100
1 tortoise shell comb, made in one piece and very
rich, - - - - - - - -
6 fancy combs, -
1 very rich mother-of-pearl, gold inlaid, and vol.
feathers beautifully painted by hand, - - -
1 fan of mother-of-pearl, inlaid in gold, with silk
and white and Job's spangles, - - - - 45
1 blue mother-of-pearl, with looking-glass; imita-
tion ruby and emeralds, - - -
6 other fans, of various kinds,
1 parasol, all ivory handle throughout, engraved
with name in full, covering of silk and Irish point
lace, very fine, covering the entire parasol, - - 100
Several other parasols, - - - - - - 25
1 real gold head-ornament, representing the comet
and eclipse appearing, - - - - 100
About twenty hair-nets, silver, gold and all colors
and pearls, - - - - - - - 40
4 ladies' bonnets, some exceedingly elegant, - - 100
1 box marabout feathers, for dressing the hair, - 50
1 box artificial flowers, - - - - - 15
1 lot new ribbon, for sashes; velvet, silk and satin, 35
1 small miniature model piano, played by mechan-
ism, from Vienna, - - - - - - 50
1 lady's writing-desk, inlaid with tortoise-shell and
mother-of-pearl, lined with silk velvet, with com-

SS
VSSS
FEMALE CLERKS IN POSSESSION OF THE COUNTING-HOUSE.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
135
oth
partments and secretary; carved mother-of-pearl
paper-knife, gold seal, gold pencil, case full of
fancy writing paper; made in Paris, - - $200
1 bula work-box, elegant; inlaid with silver and
lined with ci-satin, fitted with gold thimble, needle,
scissors, pen-knife, gold bodkin, cotton winders;
outside to match French piano, - - - - 125
*1 long knitting-case to match the above, fitted with
needles, beads and silk of every description, - 40
1 papier-maché work-box, and fitted up, - - 5
1 morocco work-bag, ornamented with bright steel;
fitted up with scissors, thimble, etc., - - - 3
1 lady's Russia leather shopping-bag, with silver
and gilt clasps for chain and key, - - - 15
1 18-karat gold filigree card case,
1 set gold whist-markers, in hands on little box, a
present unto her,
- 50
1 lady's small work-bag, silk fittings, - -
1 solid silver porte-monnaie, -
1 little blue porte-monnaie; velvet and cords and
tassel, - - - - - - - - 3
1 ladies' companion, with fixings in silver; a present, 45
1 hair-pin stand; a small book-case, with small
drawers and mirror, - - - - - 14
1 basket of mother-of-pearl, and gilt and red satin,
full of wax-flowers, -
1 elegant Bible in gilt, edge mounted in gold, - 30
43 volumes various miniature books, bound most ele-
gantly in morocco, and brought as a present from
Europe, . . - - - - - - 100
11

136
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
55
1 silver pin-cushion and sewer for fastening on the
table, - - - - - - - - $23
1 elegant, richly-carved ivory work-table, brought
from Mexico, inside fitted up with silk and differ-
ent compartments, standing three feet high, - 400
1 lady's solid silver rutler, from Mexico, - - 25
1 gilt head-ornament, representing a dagger, - - 3
1 lady's English dressing-case, solid silver fittings,
English make and stamp, rosewood, bound with
brass and gilt, fitted and lined with silver, - 250
1 pair rich carved ivory hair-brushes, engraved with
name and crest, - - - - - - 155
1 ditto engraved and crest, ..
1 small ivory hair-brush, -
1 ebony hair-brush, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, 20
1 Berlin-wool worked cushion, - - - - 50
1 sewing-chair, elegantly embroidered seat and
back, . . . . . .
1 Berlin-wool Affghan, - - - . - - 100
1 fire-screen, Berlin work, beads, representing Charles
II. hunting, - - - - - - - 125
1 large sole-leather trunk, about four feet long and
three feet deep, lined with red morocco, handsome-
ly ornamented in gold, embossed on the red mo-
rocco, with seven compartments; very scientifically
constructed for the necessities of a lady's ward-
robe, with springs to hold open each compartment;
and the lace compartment could, at pleasure, be
rested on two steel legs, covered with gilt embossed
morocco, representing a writing table, with a port-
-
75

WOMEN OF FASHION.
137
folio containing writing materials; it had two
large French patent locks, - - - $250
1 lady's traveling trunk, with cover, containing a
quantity of worn dresses, zouave cloth and gold,
druided jacket cloaks, woolen, ditto, opera cloak,
etc., - - - - - - • - 73
Total, . - - - - $21,000

CHAPTER XIII.
"BEHIND THE SCENES IN HIGH LIFE.
ANCE, being a series of circumstances and
events out of the common order of things, thrives
as well in the world of fashion. The “ daily round,
the common task," does not furnish all that the
fashionable woman asks. On the contrary, the daily round
becomes very dull, and the common task a very weari-
some one. The fashionable lady is a liberal patron of
the public libraries and an assiduous reader of fictitious
literature. She has two or three subscriptions running
at the principal institutions. All the novels of the period
are, of course, read with avidity, as well as those of any
other period which possess any exciting interest. Biga-
mies, elopements, adulteries and the like crimes, are con-
sidered highly interesting to read of; the question whether
they have a good or bad effect is never thought of. Plays
at the theatres which are highly melo-dramatic, and ap-
peal to the passions, such as “East Lynne; or, The
Elopement,” “Griffith Gaunt; .or, Jealousy," are ad-
mired the most, and draw the largest and best houses.
All that is exciting, novel or picturesque in literature, on
the stage or in life, possesses a charm for the woman of
fashion who has worn out all natural pleasures, and be-
138

WOMEN OF FASHION.
139
come blasé. From reading exciting novels of this cha-
racter, and seeing such plays as we have alluded to, the
heart very naturally soon becomes corrupted. Impure
ideas arise in the mind and distinctions between right
and wrong become obliterated. From reading of elope- .
ments the woman desires to participate in one; seeing
bigamy enacted on the mimic stage often leads to bigamy
in real life.
We propose to give the reader in this chapter an
account of some of the more noted romances that have
occurred of late years in the fashionable world. They
are all true, and society has not yet ceased to gossip about
them. They will serve to show somewhat how fashion-
able society conducts itself “behind the scenes" in the
great metropolis. In the early part of 1868, Miss Anna
Benedict burst like a comet of resplendent beauty upon
the fashionable society of New York. She was scarcely
seventeen, a voluptuous brunette from Louisiana. Of
course it was impossible for so much beauty to remain
long unclaimed, and so it was not surprising that the day
after she had completed her seventeenth birth-day she was
married to Mr. Charles Ravenel, a merchant on Water
street. “The mellow wedding-bells” rang out their
merry tintinnabulations on that joyful occasion, but they
did not truly prophesy any enduring happiness on the
part of the young people, for scarcely had the New Year
been ushered in than Mr. Ravenel died with consump-
tion. Anna was thus left a widow almost before she had
attained womanhood. In April she gave birth to an in-
fant, which, however, did not seem to take kindly to this

110
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
world, and departed noiselessly as it had come after stay-
ing three weeks.
The elder Weller, in warning his son against the wiles
of similarly-circumstanced ladies, affirms that “one vidder
is equal to twenty-five single women.” When the lady in
question not only possesses the widow's experience, but adds
to it the maiden's years and beauty, she is irresistible.
This truth found Dr. Julius Steinway, a rising young
physician, who had attended her during her confinement.
He had seen beauty in tears, and longed to comfort her.
After some alluring on her part, he put the momentous
question. She did not say “No” when she meant
“Yes,” and so the wedding-day was settled and the
doctor happy. As Mrs. Dr. Steinway, a new life opened
to Anna. Her husband was kind and considerate, but he
possessed that very annoying infirmity, an irritable tem-
per. Anna, too, had a temper of her own, so that their
fireside was not altogether innocent of word-storms before
the third moon of their married life had passed. So
matters went on until one morning Anna saw her darling
doctor with his arms round the plump form of the maid-
servant, and actually kissing her. She burst upon her
astonished husband, and saluted the girl with a tirade
worthy of Tam O’Shanter's Kate. The doctor raved
and cursed, but the injured wife was not to be intimidated,
go and “be blowed.” She took him at his word, and so
it happened that she was once again under the parental
wings. Like all quick-tempered people, the doctor was
kind-hearted, and after the first storm was over, he re-

WOMEN OF FASHION.
141
solved to go and implore his wife to return and promise
amendment for the future. When he arrived at the
house, he was refused admittance, so he was compelled to
return and pen a letter to her. It was a very penitent,
deprecatory letter, and apparently touched her heart, for
she returned to him on condition that the servant should
be sent away and he should behave better in future.
Everything went on smoothly for about six months until
one morning Anna was shopping, and she heard one of
the shop-girls say, “There goes Dr. Steinway.” “Do
you know him ?” asked another. “You bet!” was the
laconic reply. Anna was highly indignant, but she said
not a word to her doctor-husband. A few days after the
doctor came home with his arm in a sling. He said his
horse had run away. This was the truth, but not the
whole, for the next day the paper gave a report of the
accident, and went on to say that Dr. Steinway's lady was
severely injured. Anna's suspicions being aroused, she
proceeded to make inquiries, and found that the “lady”
was the identical shop-girl who had “bet” on her know- .
ledge of the doctor. There was a tremendous storm
between the doctor and his injured wife. She would
listen to no apology or promise of amendment, but re-
turned again to her father's house. Again he tried to
see her and was denied. Then came mutual concessions,
and finally a satisfactory arrangement, and Anna re-
turned again to her husband's house. The doctor, being
very much taken up with his business, could not always
go out with her. He would sometimes take her to the
matinée at Niblo's and leave her at the door. In this

142
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Thespian temple she somehow or other made the ac-
quaintance of a very fascinating stranger, Mr. Wm. A.
Hamilton, who talked to her, and who was really (so
she thought) “the dearest creature alive.” It was a
dangerous experiment. Step by step she went down-
ward. The doctor's suspicions were aroused. He
watched her, and found that she accompanied this young
exquisite to assignation-houses in broad daylight. He
caught them one day in a house on Amity street, and
charged her with unfaithfulness. She boldly confessed,
and “ didn't care who knew it.” Of course, the doctor
raved and swore, but all he could do was to banish her
from his house. A short time since the couple were
divorced.
Mrs. W— is the wife of Dr. John A. W—, of
New York. She is a woman of much culture and great
personal beauty. She owned considerable property before
her marriage with a man whom she acknowledges a
tender husband, and for whom she has the highest respect
and esteem.
In March, 1864, Mr. Arthur H— , an artist of some
note, was introduced to the family. He soon became very
intimate there—more so than Dr. W— appeared to
relish. The doctor was.considerably older than his wife;
Mrs. W— was pretty, the young artist agreeable, and
a very natural consequence ensued. The doctor was
jealous.
As soon as Mrs. W— saw that her husband began
to have suspicions, she confessed to him that there had
been an improper intimacy existing for some time between

WOMEN OF FASHION.
143
.
herself and H- ; that she had been in the habit of
meeting H— in his studio and other places ; that she
had been greatly in the wrong, but that she was sorry,
and solemnly promised to have nothing to do with him
for the future, but to be a good wife to him.
Dr. W— then told — never to come to his
house again, and forgave his wife. .
In July, 1866, he intercepted letters between H-
and his wife, in which — engaged Mrs. W— to
run away with him, and called her his “ dear wife.” Dr.
W- then went to his wife and remonstrated with her
for her conduct. He found with surprise and displeas-
ure that she loved H— so much that she was unde-
cided whether or not it was her duty to go to him and
leave her husband. Dr. W- then told her to make a
decision, as he would not support an unfaithful wife.
She being unable to decide, and thinking that a consul-
tation with her old school-teacher would aid her, set off
to see him. The result was, that she came to the conclu-
sion that it was her duty to remain with her husband,
and again she promised to be a true wife.
Dr. W— then received her kindly again, and things
went on smoothly until, soon after, she refused to cohabit
with him, giving no reason for such conduct. He then
suspected that she had met H— again, and charged
her with it. She confessed that she had, and then said
that she “would not room with her husband because
she loved H— .” He then insisted that she should
finally decide the question she had been trying to settle
for nearly a year—whether or not she would go to
an

144
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
H- She again wished to consult her old teacher,
and her husband, hoping she might, by reflection, re-
alize the position in which she was placed, gave her
money to go. She again came back with a promise of
abandoning H- and living a good life. Dr. W-
again forgave her for the sake of his child, though against
his own convictions and the advice of friends.
About May, 1867, Mrs. W— finally decided that
she loved H= ; and as she felt that she was spiritually
his wife, and could no longer, in conscience, live with her
husband, she proposed that he (her husband) should pay
her board and furnish her room at her mother's house in
Bloomfield, New Jersey. This he consented to do upon
condition that she should not correspond with or have
anything to do with H - In July she informed him
that she would no longer receive his support, but was
going to take measures for a divorce. She then left her
home with H— The next day the doctor and her
mother went after them, and tried to persuade her
to return home. From March to July he did every-
thing he could to induce her to break from her infatua-
tion. Notwithstanding all her promises that she would
hold no intercourse with H- , she did meet him
constantly, and finally went away with him, though not
to go to Europe, as was proposed, as he was arrested and
held under bail by Dr. W— for seducing his wife.
The doctor says that his wife had no reason for leaving
him except her belief in the doctrine of “free-love"
and that was her "affinity.” He says she asso-
ciated with people who also believed it; Mrs. L- ,

APPOINTMENT AT CENTRAL PARK-WAITING AT THE "FLORAL BRIDGE.”


WOMEN OF FASHION.
145
who left her husband, procured a divorce and is now
the wife of the artist B- , living abroad; Mrs. M-
who ran away from her husband with A. E. R-
and is now living with him somewhere out West; and
others of the same character.
Mrs. W— 's infatuation concerning her lover
H— is almost beyond belief. She says she could not
help it—that H- was in reality her husband because
she loved him, and if she lived with the doctor simply
because there had been a ceremony passed between them,
it would be simply a legal prostitution of herself.
The Cupid's bower of the free-lovers was at the house
of Mrs. B , in New Haven, Connecticut, where Mrs.
W- resided from July to the following September.
H— was in the habit of coming every Saturday
morning and remaining until the following Monday
evening. He was at such times constantly in Mrs.
W— 's society, in the room in the second story of
the house, and going with her on walks and drives
and in sea-bathing and visits to the Lavin Rock Hotel,
where H— had a room. They conducted themselves
with the greatest intimacy and affection; so much so as
to cause remark."
The following letter will show the way H— had
of professing his love and devotion to her. It was
written by him to a lady friend of Mrs. W— He
commences with an account of an illness from which
he has just recovered, and says, “Her spirit, which
was ever present, held me safe for years of future
worth, perhaps happiness. She was ever by me in

146
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
spirit, and her love baffled death. She has been such
a blessing to me from the first. Tell her I shall win
the golden spurs for love's sake; she will know what
that means. Tell her I'm strong in hope, faith and
love. And tell her I wear a symbol of love on my
finger, put there by her; a talisman encased in purple
on my heart, and in my heart her image only. Let
her never put faith in what rumor may say of me.
If a change comes to my love, I shall tell her of it
myself, and till I do she must have faith in my truth.
May God deny me the joys of immortal life if I hesi-
tate to tell her of any change which would alter our
relations to each other. Love is immortal; God is good,
and I too believe that he will satisfy the need he has
created in our hearts.”
This is the husband's story. The wife says that she
was treated with the greatest cruelty both during and
after her confinement. She denies the charge of adul-
tery, as does H-
A romantic incident occurred at Newport last sum-
mer. A young man from Philadelphia lost his heart
to a pretty New York girl, whose father was president
of a prominent bank and very wealthy. He was a
salaried clerk, though of very good family, and was un-
willing, on account of his poverty, to propose marriage,
even though he had reason to believe his passion was
returned. He made this confession, it seems, to one of
his friends, and the story of his modesty and pride
reached the young lady's ears, and touched her, very
naturally.

WOMEN OF FASHION.
147
A few weeks afterward the fair New Yorker was driv-
ing on the beach alone when her horse became frightened
at the surf and ran off at a furious pace. She lost
all control of the terrified animal, which had run at
least two miles, when the enamored swain, exactly as
it happens in romances, chanced to be walking by the
border of the sounding main, as Homer would put it,
thinking of the cheerless future without the idol of his
soul, etc., etc., and so on.
In a few moments he held the horse's head, was
dragged a few hundred yards before he could check the
animal's course, and then snatched the half-fainting
girl from the vehicle. Once in his arms, she swooned
wholly of course. He held her in his embrace until she
recovered. She murmured her gratitude, he his pas-
sion, and they walked to the hotel with rosy blushes
all over their faces.
That night the wealthy father heard of his daugh-
ter's rescue, and after talking with her discovered that
she loved the fellow. The following morning he sent for
the clerk and discovered that he loved the girl.
“Why the devil didn't you propose to. her? How
was she or I to know anything of the state of your
heart unless you told her about it? You don't expect a
pretty woman, with two hundred thousand dollars in
her own right, to run about with her love in her hand,
asking handsome scapegraces like yourself to take it,
do you?”
"I knew, sir, that I was very poor, and you very
rich—that it was not probable you would—”

148
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“Nonsense! I don't want my daughter to marry a
bank account. My own is high enough for her. You
are worthy; and if you love her go and tell her so,
and let me hear no more such stuff about poverty and
wealth.”
The young man went, and from the fact that they
were married last December, it may be inferred that they
came to an understanding then, though there may have
been misunderstandings since that date.
The narrative is not a whit original or new, except
in the fact that the paterfamilias had sense enough to
prefer his daughter's happiness to superfluous riches.
Eccentricity does not often develop itself in women
of fashion, but now and then we see it.
One of the strangest freaks of a fashionable lady-
single but wealthy-we have now to relate. A few
months ago, a young man, salesman in one of the leading
houses in New York, saw a young lady enter, to whom,
during the previous eight or ten days, he had sold a
number of dresses, shawls, gloves, etc. The stranger was
very pretty, and naturally the young man made himself
agreeable and attentive. Whenever she visited the
store, she always addressed herself to him, and while
examining the articles he placed before her talked
much. The day we speak of she was far less commu-
nicative than usual, and after having made a hurried
selection, she said to the clerk:
“I shall be at No. — Madison avenue in one hour;
here is the address. Be kind enough to accompany the
boy when he brings those articles.”

WOMEN OF FASHION.
149
With these words she bowed reservedly and hastily
left the store.
The young man was at a loss what to think. How-
ever, an hour later he entered the apartment of the
lady, who invited him, sans facon, like an acquaintance
of long standing, to lunch with her. Although thinking
his customer's manners somewhat strange, the clerk
accepted. While partaking of the refreshments, the
young lady somewhat abruptly addressed her guest,
saying:
“Sir, are you brave enough to protect a woman
against any insult to which she might be subjected ?
Answer me with truth and candor.”
“ Without conceit, I may say yes,” answered the
young man.
“Very well. You work in order to make money. Is
it not so ?”
“ Certainly.”
“This is what I wish to propose. I am alone, or
almost alone, in the world; my fortune or my actions
concern no one but myself; I wish to see life in the
metropolis for a certain reason, and I very well know
that I cannot do that alone. You please me, and if
you do not object you shall be my champion. I will
repay you for your lost time.”
The young man tried to speak, but she immediately
resumed:
“I insist on remunerating you; this is strictly a
matter of business ; I regard it in that light. Accept
or decline. Which shall it be?”.
- 12

150
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“I accept,” answered the clerk, after a moment's hesi-
tation.
“I am satisfied,” continued the lady, “that you are
a gentleman, and will not make yourself ridiculous by
making love and flattering me, for I warn you that
the very first compliment you pay me ends our con-
tract. Is it agreed ?”
“Madam, I am at your service.”
“From to-morrow ?”.
“From this moment. I require only enough time
to write to my employers.”
And the terms of this extraordinary compact were
entered into to the letter.
The clerk was charming; he proved himself intel-
ligent, attractive, delicate, without all that small talk
that men generally delight to inflict on women. In fact,
the lady was truly delighted with the choice she had
made. They went to all the haunts of New York that
a lady could go to with any degree of safety, and at
the end of the young man's engagement his employ-
eress handed him a heavy roll of bills, and the two
separated, mutually pleased with one another.
Several weeks after these singular services had been
performed, an expressman brought to the door of No. —
Madison avenue, a small box and a letter. The box
contained a diamond set; the letter a few words only,
but well chosen, to express a true affection. It is need-
less to say that the letter was from the young clerk,
who had taken this method of returning the money
forced upon him by the young lady for services ren-

WOMEN OF FASHION.
151
dered. On sending to his former employers, she found
that he had left and gone—no one knew whither. But
she ultimately learned that he had taken, in another
house, a situation far inferior to that which he formerly
occupied. Probably till then she was undecided as to
her course, but when she heard this her mind was made
up. She decided that she loved him and wrote. He
came at once.
They were married a short time since. It is said that
the young lady's object in “seeing life” was to get
material for a work on the great city.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE “HOME JOURNAL" THE ORGAN OF FASHIONABLE SOCIETY.
CAN a marble building on Park place, sandwiched in
1 between the offices of the Independent and the
Nation, are the tasty and cheerful editorial-rooms
of the Home Journal, that well-known paper,
which is now, both at home and abroad, the recognized
organ of American fashionable society. It may well be
doubted if any other paper in the United States has
such a choice and select circle of patrons, including, as
it does, the wealth and refinement of the land. The
first number of the Home Journal appeared on the
21st of November in 1846—or at least this was the
day it was christened with its present familiar name.
It first saw the light as the National Press, October 7th,
1844. But after forty numbers had been issued, its
editors, General Geo. P. Morris and N. P. Willis,
decided to change its name. Under the joint editor-
ship of these two well-known writers and gentlemen,
the Home Journal flourished wonderfully, and soon
became firmly established as well as a general favorite.
It immediately took cognizance of the fashionable and
belles-lettres interests of the day, and has maintained its
reputation ever since. It is now, in fact, the Court
152

WOMEN OF FASHION.
153
no
Journal of America, and is resorted to as such by all
classes who are interested in fashionable news.
General G. P. Morris, the founder of the National
Press, and for many years one of the editors of the
Home Journal with Mr. Willis, was a poet and writer of
no mean reputation, and he has left us many of the
sweetest ballads we have. Some of these have been,
and are now, very popular. Many have been set to
music and sung all over the world. Perhaps one of his
best-known poems is the one called “Woodman, Spare
that Tree.” Several editions of his songs and ballads
have been given to the public. He was born in Phila-
delphia in 1801, but early came to New York, and when
but twenty-two years of age he commenced the publica-
tion of a paper called the Mirror. This he continued to
publish until 1842. In 1843 it was revived and called
The New Mirror. During his long career as an editor
he formed the acquaintance of all the literary men of
the day, and when he edited the Home Journal he was
favored with contributions from Washington Irving,
Paulding, Wm. Cullen Bryant, and many other of the
best writers of the period.
It may almost be said that the Home Journal is the
father of American literature. Scores of our most prom-
ising and now famous writers made their first bow to
the public through its columns. They were kindly en-
couraged by its editors, Mr. Willis being especially apt
at - detecting signs of genius, and the result is that now
the world is indebted to the Home Journal for bringing
out some of our foremost authors, who otherwise might

154
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
have been born to blush unseen and waste their fra-
grance upon the desert air. Messrs. Morris and Willis
have given fame and reputation to many a “mute, in-
glorious Milton.” Among these writers we have only to
mention such names as Theodore S. Fay, Bayard Taylor,
James Parton, Aldrich, Fanny Forrester, Barry Gray,
M. Tracy Walworth and Don Piatt.
We all know the story of Mr. Parton's connection
with the Home Journal—how he felt an inclination
to write, and for a long time sent anonymous articles to
Mr. Willis, even taking them to his residence with his
own hands. They were published and flatteringly
noticed, and at last Mr. Parton had an invitation to
visit Mr. Willis at his house. The interview was a
pleasant one, for Mr. Willis was a thorough gentleman
and loved to encourage young men. In the course of
time Mr. Parton was employed on the Home Journal
as a sort of assistant editor, at the frightfully small
salary of eight dollars a week—the same sum which the
late H. J. Raymond received when he worked for Horace
Greeley on the Tribune. Mr. Parton was a patient,
industrious worker, and gradually rose in the profession.
His special forte was biography, and his first consider-
able work was a life of Horace Greeley, which was so
well done and met with such a kindly reception that
he has written a large number of books since. Mr.
Parton has long since retired from active journalism,
and confines himself to the magazines, pamphlets and
We first made the acquaintance of Mr. N. P. Willis,

WOMEN OF FASHION.
155
like many others, by letter, and the correspondence was
an exceedingly pleasant one. He had a very neat and
agreeable way of saying good things; he was the tho-
rough scholar and gentleman, well read and extensively
traveled. He could adapt himself to any society in
which he might happen to be, and would write just
as graceful a letter to the country rustic as to a duchess.
He was born January 20, 1807, in Portland, Me. He
was educated at the Latin School of Boston, the Phillips
Academy at Andover, and at Yale College, where he
graduated in 1827, or when only twenty years of age.
He commenced publishing poetry while in college. Soon
after graduating he established the American Monthly
Magazine, which was conducted two years, and then
merged into The New York Mirror, conducted by Morris.
Mr. Willis then went to Europe, and during his stay
in Paris was attached to the American Legation by Mr.
Rives. Armed with a diplomatic passport, he visited
most of the courts of Europe and the East, and thus
came in contact with all the celebrated literary people
of the day. While abroad he wrote home letters to
the Mirror, some of which were reproduced in England,
and caused quite a sensation. These were called “Pencil-
ings by the Way.” He was abroad four years, and mar-
ried a daughter of General Wm. Stace, then in command
of the arsenal at Woolwich and a distinguished officer.
With his young wife Mr. Willis returned to America,
and settled at “Glenmary,” a beautiful spot in the val-
ley of the Susquehanna. Here he wrote the “Letters
from Under a Bridge,” and here his only daughter by

156
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
his first wife, Imogen, was born. At the end of four
years he left “Glenmary,” and once more engaged in
active life, and made a second trip to England, where
he engaged Thackeray to write for his journal. He came
home and established, with Mr. Morris, The Evening
Mirror. About this time his health began to fail, his
wife died, and he went back to Europe, and had a long
and tedious illness at the baths of Germany. He again
came to this country, and ever afterward, up to the day
of his death, acted as leading editor of the Home Journal.
He took extensive tours through the South and West
and in the West Indies; he built a new home on the
Hudson called “Idlewild,” and in 1845 married Cor-
nelia, the only daughter of Hon. Joseph Grinnell, of
Massachusetts. By this wife he had one son and two
daughters. Mr. Willis' collected writings make some
nine or ten volumes. They are pleasing, interesting and
highly finished. His poems are musical, original and
of a high order, his sacred poems having had a great
reputation. As a traveler, Mr. Willis had no superior
in representing the humors and experiences of the world.
He died about two years ago, and his remains now rest
in Mount Auburn, near Boston, while his beautiful Idle-
wild has passed out of the hands of his family.
The Home Journal still lives, although Mr. Willis and
Gen. Morris are both dead. There is a new office and a
new corps of editors now, but the paper maintains its
high literary standard, and is as popular as ever. The
present editors are Mr. Morris Phillips, Mr. Perry and
Mr. J. Hal. Elliott. Mr. Phillips was long associated with
now

TINTUITIL
2
SIIOPPING IN BROADWAY.


WOMEN OF FASHION.
157
Mr. Willis in the literary management of the paper
before his death, and very naturally assumed the control
of its columns upon the poet's decease. He is an active,
industrious, untiring worker, and has a large amount of
literary labor, besides that involved in the conduct of the
Home Journal. It would be hard to find a more genial,
pleasant man than Mr. Morris Phillips. He shows the
same consideration to young authors which Mr. Willis
did, and we doubt not he is bringing many to the notice
of the public who will hereafter thank the Home Journal
for its aid and encouragement. For having first intro-
duced into the American press those features which now
have a place in nearly every metropolitan newspaper
(“Fashionable Intelligence” and “Society News”) he
deserves all of the praise or should bear all the blame.
For a long time it was his desire to have the Home Jour-
nal regarded as “ The Court Journal of America," and
in a prospectus of the paper, issued many years since,
he gave that as a second heading or title. In the year
1866 he had decided to introduce this novelty, and in
January, 1867, such a department was commenced in
the Home Journal, although Mr. Willis did not alto-
gether approve of the idea. It is unnecessary for us to
say how well the paper has succeeded with this additional
feature, and now but few papers in the city, with any
pretension of circulation among the better classes, are
without such a department.
Morris Phillips, like many of the leading editors of
this country, is a self-made man. He gained his present
position not by mere accident. He was born May 9,
2

158
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
1834. His father was a highly respected merchant, but
he having died when Morris was but five years old
(and not leaving a great fortune for each of his chil-
dren), our young editor had to earn his own living
as soon as he was able. He received a liberal edu-
cation, and was well prepared for a mercantile life, but
finding the commercial world unsuited to his tastes,
he left it and entered the law office of the late District
Attorney of New York, N. Bowditch Blunt, for the
purpose of studying law as a profession. This did not
engage him long, when an excellent offer was made
to him by a large mercantile house, and Morris Phillips
found himself deep in “ dollars and cents” in the city
of Cleveland, Ohio, then known as “Out West.” But
our young friend was fickle as his fortune was varied,
for in a few months after this he was again poring
over Kent, Blackstone et al. with a celebrated firm of
lawyers in Buffalo. It was evident that he had not
even yet found his proper element. But his time
had come.
In the year 1854, and when the subject of our sketch
was but nineteen years old, General Geo. P. Morris,
editor of the Home Journal, tendered him the position
of secretary (or “right-hand man” as the poet called
him), and he has been connected with that paper in one
way or another ever since, excepting when he owned
and edited the old Knickerbocker Magazine during
part of 1862.
Morris Phillips commenced his newspaper life at the
very bottom round of the ladder, and has reached his

WOMEN OF FASHION.
159
present proud position by hard work, personal attention
to business, and, more than all, by giving the very best
of the most suitable kind of literature and news for the
fashionable world for which he caters. As an editor and
manager he has few, if any, superiors in the country.
Several attempts have been made of late years to start
papers similar in character to the Home Journal, but
they have all failed. The Home Journal has always
held its own, and is to-day the recognized leading society
organ of the country.
Personally, Mr. Phillips is very much liked and has
many friends. He is a genial, good-natured gentleman,
considerable under the medium height, though well built ;
has black curly hair, black moustache and side-whiskers,
dresses well, and is particularly noted for his gentlemanly
manners. When he first entered the Home Journal
office, fifteen years ago, he received a salary of but five
dollars per week. On the death of Mr. Morris, in July,
1864, he purchased the poet's half-interest in the paper,
and became co-editor and partner with N. P. Willis, and
in the autumn of 1866 became sole proprietor of the
concern. In 1867 he parted with one-half of the pro-
prietorship, associating with himself George Perry and
J. H. Elliott. The former had been for the previous
year or two one of the editors of the paper, and the
latter had long been a favorite contributor.
George Perry is a native of Berkshire county, Massa-
chusetts. In his youth he received a thorough collegiate
education, and graduated at Williams College in 1849.
The following year he commenced the study of the law

160
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
under Judge C. A. Dewey, of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Before completing his course of legal studies he left the
law for the more attractive pursuits of journalism. He
contributed many articles in both prose and verse to the
leading papers and magazines of the day. His poetical
efforts have been highly praised by eminent critics. He
is a thorough French and German scholar, and has pub-
lished some admirable translations of Victor Hugo,
Lamartine, Goethe, Schiller and other authors.
In 1867, on the death of Mr. N. P. Willis, he was in-
vited by Mr. Morris Phillips, the surviving partner of
Mr. Willis, to the position of editor-in-chief of the
Home Journal. At the same time he became part pro-
prietor of the paper.
Of his talents as a poet and writer the “ American
Art Journal” says:
“Mr. Perry is a terse, vigorous and elegant writer,
varied in his style, but always eminently readable. As a
poet he has traits of rare excellence. His imagination is
fanciful, but yet most earnest and tender. He has an
affluence of words and imagery always rich, appropriate
and picturesque.”
· Mr. J. H. Elliott was born in Providence, Rhode
Island, in 1839. He received a good school education,
and was fitted for college, but was prevented from pursu-
ing his collegiate studies by delicate health. In 1862 he
became the publisher of the Knickerbocker Magazine,
then edited by Kinahan Cornwallis. Iņ 1867, on the
death of Mr. Willis, he purchased one-quarter interest
in the Home Journal, and became associated in its

WOMEN OF FASHION.
161
management and editorship with Mr. Morris Phillips
and Mr. George Perry. He had been a favorite con-
tributor to that paper for several years. Began writing
for the press immediately on leaving school, and during
some years spent in commercial pursuits thus occupied
nearly all his leisure, finding in his pen the most agree-
able recreation. During this time his contributions, both
prose and verse, appeared in many of the leading news-
papers and periodicals of New England and New York
With such an editorial staff as this—with so much
young blood in it—the Home Journal has taken a new
lease of life, and weekly makes its appearance charm-
ingly fresh and full of vigor. It is now the mirror of
fashionable society, and all the upper ten thousand
turn to it, knowing that their latest movements have
been chronicled therein. When first started, it aimed to
be the best family paper in America, and succeeded
beyond all expectation. Its main feature was romance,
the subordinate ones being poetry, reviews of books, art
criticisms, essays, selections from foreign magazines and
papers, biographical sketches, personal paragraphs, etc.
To a certain extent the Journal still keeps up these
features, although the times have demanded somewhat
of a change. As wealth increased and society consoli-
dated, the people naturally looked for a fashionable
society journal which should take cognizance of ap-
proaching marriages ; marriage “arrangements,” as the
English call them, or engagements; the arrival and
departure of prominent people to and from town; the
numerous brilliant entertainments given at country-seats

162
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and town-residences, and all the incidents of the season
at the watering-places.
Our experience in editing a fashion and society paper
convinces us that there is no other kind of reading the
public is so fond of. Nothing is so gratifying as a
pleasant personal paragraph; and however much some
selfish, some over-fastidious editors may cry out about
impersonal journalism, we are convinced nothing pleases
them better than a paragraph about themselves. Even
William Cullen Bryant and George William Curtis are
fond of being noticed. If these gentlemen like items,
can we expect that people of wealth and fashion are
less fond of them? The length of Angelina Amelia
Matilda's trail is of sufficient importance to put into
the paper; so also is the name of the young gentleman
who has proposed to her. It at once puts him on his
good behavior. If Mrs. Hugh Allenton engages rooms
at Long Branch or Cape May for the season, let it be
can
are
nan
Morehouse marries Duke Howard of England, let that
be known, and let the world take a peep at her presents
and the bridesmaids. Why should she keep all these
good things to herself? The Home Journal never trifles
or lowers its tone. It is always dignified and reliable,
and for these reasons has now a high place in the con-
fidence of the American people.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
CHAPTER XV.
°EO
W
n
"THE UNDER-WORLD."
EM HERE is a world within a world.” It is chiefly in
the sphere of society and fashion that the poet's
line has received its most striking illustration.
Within the gay and glittering circle of good socie-
ty-within it to a certain degree, and more especially
around and all about it-lies the indescribable, undefina-
ble, but unmistakable under-world. The term “under-
world” is a very suggestive phrase; yet it is by no
means easy to give to it a full and satisfactory definition,
at least on paper. It is simply what its literal interpre-
tation implies; and yet it is something more. It is a
between world, a half-way world, a beneath world; and
yet it is in itself a complete world. The under-world, in
short, is that division of the feminine world which is
devoted to pleasure only. It contains more beauty,
wealth and extravagance than the outer world is usually
willing to concede, and its influence upon, and proximity
to, the latter is such that both occasionally claim the same
prominent member of society. It unquestionably fills an
important place in metropolitan existence. Princes and
163
13

164
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
marquises and generals and ministers of state figure in
it. Cora Pearl exhibits herself and her horses on the
Boulevards in Paris; her American sister on Broadway
or at the theatre in New York. Anonyma renders her-
self famous—or infamous, as men may have it. The
papers are full of the under-world; and the people must
see it everywhere, whether they seek for it or no. In
London, the under-world is to be found at home, among
the aristocracy—haunting even, it has been whispered,
the very throne itself. Abroad, it is a reality, while in
this country we are importing it largely. The New
York under-world is a very passable imitation of its
Parisian original. Perhaps in some respects it has sur-
passed its model. No man, woman or child of ordinary
intelligence can promenade Broadway for two hours
without encountering it face to face. Shutting the eyes
will not conceal its existence. Whether we choose to see
it or not, there it is, ever before and about us. And it is
prominent not only on Broadway; it crowds the Acad-
emy of Music on an opera-night, and its members, gayly
attired, take possession of the boxes in our theatres.
You will behold them at the masked balls in the winter
seasons, among the most noticeable of the maskers. Not
only so, but the under-world will be recognized by the
wise ones comfortably residing on Madison avenue or
sheltered within the walls of a Fifth avenue fashionable
boarding-house. Its fair ones assume all manner of dis-
guises, take names at pleasure, adopt whatever lines of
character will best suit their designs, and play their
parts to perfection. Now a Traviata will be found gor-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
165
e
ce
geously ensconced at a metropolitan hotel, bearing the
name of some distinguished citizen; a year later, perhaps
the same dear creature will possess her home in a west-
side cross-street, and take the air in her carriage.
In pleasant weather you may behold her at the races,
or receive a smile from her at the Park, or a glance as
she rushes past you on the Bloomingdale road. In
summer you may meet her at a hop at Saratoga, or
dance with her, if you will, at a reunion at Long Branch.
In the fall you will stumble over her making her pur-
chases at the most prominent business-places, and in the
winter you will see her everywhere.
No apology is needed for the appearance of several
chapters in this book on the under-world. Facts are
the province of this work, and, as before stated, the
under-world is an undeniable fact. It involves at the
present time, in the great city of New York, the expen-
diture of millions of dollars annually, invested in dresses,
horses, carriages, diamonds, houses, furniture, etc. Thus
one popular belle alone is known to make and spend
money at the rate of thirty thousand dollars per annum
-a sum exceeding considerably the salary of the Presi-
dent of the United States. A rival belle claims some
twenty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds, presented to
her by her admirers within the last two years; while a
third fair one recently lived in her own brown-stone
house on the Avenue and kept her horse and carriage.
A very large percentage of the local trade of the me-
tropolis is due to the under-world. This sisterhood
purchase the most expensive dresses, the rarest bonnets,
MO
SO

166
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
'the neatest boots. They entirely support the theatre
matinees, and add largely to the evening receipts of the
places of amusement. Our fashionable restaurants regard
them as the highest type of fine customers, and hail their
presence with delight. In a pecuniary point of view,
therefore, the under-world demands the attention of the
chronicler of female life in the metropolis. But in a
social aspect the subject is still more noteworthy. The
number of fashionable bloods and old fogies, known
rakes and presumedly pious people, wealthy bachelors
and respectable married men, fast sons and moral hus-
bands—including fathers, millionaires, private gentlemen,
politicians, lawyers, sporting men and gamblers—who
know of and are known to the under-world, is a sta-
tistical calculation which would convulse society and the
world if revealed. Perhaps it is not exceeding the truth
to state that at least two men in three, comprising the
wealth and fashion and leisure of the metropolis, devote
a certain portion of their time and wealth to some fair
one, in regard to whose existence their female relatives
are profoundly in the dark.
In another chapter of this book we give a descrip-
tion of the appearance of some of the leading belles of
the under-world in the city of New York; and, if the
space and propriety of the thing did not forbid in a
work of this character, we might give a list of nearly
all the leading belles of this under world, affording
information regarding the personal appearance of its
menibers, their intellectual calibre and accomplishments,
their style of dress, their histories, and all other facts

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
167
ne
of interest. Some would be found to be blondes, and
others brunettes; some tall, and others short; some
thin, and others stout; some tasteful to an extreme in
their dress, and others flashy and vulgar. A few are
highly educated, refined and accomplished; others—and
the larger class—are merely superficial, or decidedly
illiterate; some are full of sentiment and feeling, while
many of them, shrewd and calculating, are frequently
rendered cold and mercenary by experience. Some have
histories bordering on the romantic, while others have
never so much as dreamed of romance once during their
-whole lives.
There are various grades of refinement and respect-
ability among the inhabitants of this under-world.
Some women, whose real character even the closest
observer would not suspect, move in it and are its
brightest ornaments. They have the entrée to the good
society of the metropolis—or rather the fashionable so-
ciety—and are the friends and chosen companions of
some of the wealthiest and most intellectual men of
the city, and often appear in public with them. These
women do not live in houses devoted to prostitution,
but they are the very highest type of the women of
pleasure; they board in fine style at some Broadway
hotel or fashionable boarding-house in an aristocratic
quarter of the town, and pass to the world for the
wives of the men with whom they live. At times they
live alone, enjoying occasionally the company of a gentle-
man visitor, who is represented as being a brother, a
cousin or a very wealthy uncle. But they are myste-

168
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
me
rious females, and are seldom fathomed by those around
them. Virtuous young women seldom become intimate
with them, old ladies avoid them, and a few men shrug
their shoulders when their names are mentioned. They
are, among a narrow circle, marked.
* There is another way in which fashionable prostitu-
tion is carried on. Several wealthy men, to whom
money is no object, simply because they have plenty
of it, hire or purchase a fine house in a respectable
and fashionable quarter of the city. They furnish it
elegantly, and employ a respectable middle-aged lady to
act as housekeeper. Here they live a part of their time,
bringing in any women whom they see fit, and thus
relieve themselves of the odium attached to patronizing
professional houses of prostitution or assignation. This
mode is becoming more and more common, and its
secrecy is evidently its chief recommendation. Many
houses used for this purpose are situated on Fifth and
Madison avenues, especially between Twenty-third and
Twenty-fourth streets, which seems to be a favored locality.
The inmates of the fashionable houses of prostitution
come next in the order of respectability, or rather
“style.” They live in houses in stylish and respect-
able neighborhoods, in which there are beautiful and,
in many instances, accomplished women. They take their
first lessons in crime in elegantly-furnished rooms, where
velvet carpets yield softly to dainty feet, where luxu-
rious upholstery opens its arms to amorous languor,
where stately mirrors reflect the brilliant lights and
fashionable attire, where music, painting, sculpture, rare

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
169
jewels, polite manners and all the allurements of good
breeding blend their charms to intoxicate the heart
and reconcile the conscience.
This is the first degree; and their first experience
with the one who has seduced them is charmed by
the supposed ecstasies of such a life. The wealthy
and the fashionable fill the parlors, and each girl soon
finds a favorite: thus for a time happiness and the
intoxication of pleasure seem to be her destiny. Her
lover more frequently gives than receives presents from
her, his gifts being such as dresses, jewels and Heaven
only knows what all, and where they come from, in
many cases. As often as the rules of the house will
admit, these admirers take them to the theatre, or the
various other resorts of pleasure, even appearing proud
of their company and fine presence.
Their time for remaining in a house of this class
is, on an average, one year. By this time the keepers,
wish to fill their places with fresher and less knowli
victims, feeling sure of retaining whatever friends they
may have made as future customers, and so they are
turned away. This is generally looked upon as humili-
ating; and, assuming that their charms are on the wane,
they are obliged to accept a home at least one degree
lower.
At these places they find much harsher treatment,
both from the women who keep them and from those
whose company they are obliged to keep. They find,
also, but a faded semblance of the luxury they were
formerly accustomed to. The men who frequent the

170
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
house are of a rougher cast, less choice in their lan
guage, less fashionable, less fastidious and companionable
in every respect.
This degree generally lasts from two to three years,
by which time the woman has become a confirmed pros-
titute; has all the appearance of one of her calling; is
known to all the frequenters of that class of houses; has
a familiar nod for and from all the statues on Broadway,
and the police know her for what she is and suspect
her for what she may become. Her olden modesty has
departed, and she is now brazen, loud-mouthed and
often vulgar and profane. Such characteristics always
gather strength. She has become hardened, and is easily
led along by those in whose power she is. Sometimes
she is educated entirely in thievery, and if expert she
generally becomes a thief's “moll,” or partner, and fol-
lows his calling until justice breaks the charm.
But at the end of two or three years she is gener-
ally too well known and too hardened for even this
class of houses, and she is again turned away. If, then,
she is valuable to her lover, he generally follows her
fortunes; or if she has become too reckless, he abandons
her to another of a still lower grade than himself, and
takes up with a new one. And we next find her in
Greene street, a boarder at a third-rate house, where
everybody is admitted, from a country merchant to a
sailor or a coal-heaver.
From this degree she is necessarily often taken before
the police courts to answer for theft which she has
committed at the instigation of her lover, from which

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
171
charge she sometimes escapes, but oftener goes to Black-
well's Island, where her humiliation and abasement are
complete.
Once sent to the Island, she seldom or never becomes
the inmate even of a third-rate brothel, since the keepers
of them look carefully to their standing with the police,
and she either goes to one still lower, or is compelled to
become a common street-walker. Occasionally, however,
she becomes an inmate of what is known as a “cigar
store”-an establishment which, to the uninitiated ob-
server, has the appearance of being a bona fide store
for the sale of cigars. There is a very large display
of cigar-boxes in the window, and possibly a few cigars
are exposed for sale; but behind this "masked battery"
sits a young woman with some traces of beauty about
her face, and who, from her appearance, has evidently
passed through many a scene of vice, carousal and
dissipation.
These cigar-store batteries are to be found in nearly
all of the down-town wards, although in the First,
Fourth and some parts of the other wards, they partake
more of the character of low dance-houses. In the
Second, Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Twelfth wards they
are to be found in much greater abundance than is
desirable for the peace of the city. In some localities
they are conducted so secretly that the police scarcely
dare assert their existence, while in others the painted
occupants of them may be seen sitting by the open door,
or conveniently-arranged show-window, like spiders
anxiously waiting for flies.
SIL

172
WOJEN OF NEW YORK.
There are seven of these on Canal street, six on West
Broadway, three on Franklin street, in close proximity;
and at each window these brazen creatures show their
faces and openly solicit the passers-by. Many, if not all
of them, do keep a few exceedingly poor cigars, contempt-
ible cabbage-leaf rolls; and if a stranger or a curious
one chances in, they charge him from twenty-five to fifty
cents apiece for them. The majority of them keep soda-
water, and one of their first inquiries is, if you are not
going to treat. If a man is green enough to humor this
little game, he will see the presiding beauty of the place
open a bottle of soda-water and fill half a dozen glasses
therefrom for her girls. Verdant is then asked to pay
fifteen cents per drink, which makes the profit on one
bottle of soda very considerable.
But, like their sisters of the concert-saloons, most of
them sell liquor on the sly, and make use of all the de-
vices that a vicious female heart can conceive to get at
the money of the unwary. These resorts employ a few
empty cigar-boxes as a mask for their deformity, while
the concert-saloons employ music-both places being
the traps over moral cess-pools, out of which no man
ever came as he was before.
From this grade to the dens of Water street is but a
step, and that step is easily taken; while beyond it, only
a short distance, lies Potter's Field. Ninety-nine out of
every hundred of the women-of-the-town go through
these very grades, become the victims of their so-called
lovers, and end their trials, troubles and pleasures in the
same oblivion—a pauper's grave in Potter's Field. It
III

NN
CANAL STREET "CIGAR STORE,” VISITED BY A TRACT DISTRIBUTOR.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
173
matters not how bright and beautiful, how intelligent
they are at the outset of their career; they may tarry
longer; they may avoid the snares set to entrap them
for a greater length of time; they may encounter other
incidents and other phases than those recorded here; but
they all end the same, and, as a general thing, add one
more mound to the many unhallowed graves.
The city of New York has three different classes of
localities devoted to prostitution, as distinct from each
other as the flea is from the bedbug and the vampire, and
yet all of the same intrinsic immoral character-just as
all the three animals named are blood-suckers, and differ
only in degree. These three classes are, to begin with
the lowest, the saloons with the waiter-girls, the houses
of prostitution, and those of assignation. There are four
hundred and ninety-two houses, in New York, in which
are harbored no less than one thousand nine hundred
and sixty-eight females living a life of shame. -
The worst of all are what are commonly called houses
of assignation; and it is enough to remark that the
existence, by toleration of the police, of places of this
nature saps the very foundation of society. There are
stringent laws on our statute-books against this. The
police are charged with the duty of bringing all offenders
to justice and seeing the laws executed. The authorities
claim to know every house and every hole where prosti-
tution, either public or private, dwells. Why, then, not
execute the law? Why can harlots parade their shame
in public, and all with the knowledge of the police de-
partment? Yet, what is still worse, members of the

174
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
police force themselves, to whom we look to root out this
gigantic evil, are at times found in flagrante delicto with
the women-of-the-town. A case is in the morning paper
as we are writing this chapter. An officer of the Twenty-
ninth precinct (one of the most respectable precincts in
the city) was tried before the Board of Police Commis-
sioners. He entered a saloon with a nymph du pave, ate
oysters and drank with her, at her expense, and then
forcibly outraged her person. He also visited the house
at which she was stopping, and threatened to send her to
prison if she complained of him.
.
This incident is only one of many which are almost
daily occurring. The papers do not always report them,
and the guilty parties are not always brought to trial.
The police system, like the whole government of New
York, is rotten in the extreme, and sadly needs over-
hauling.
The women-of-the-town of the great metropolis are
of all nationalities, and come from all parts of the Union.
There is a regularly-organized system of replenishing
the better class of houses of prostitution with fresh
subjects as fast as the present occupants grow old, ugly
or too sick to follow their unhappy and unwholesome
life. Some of the houses regularly employ men the
year round to seduce and introduce new subjects to
their establishments. These men are generally hand-
some, with a fine appearance, easy manners, and hearts
blacker than the face of the blackest African ever
born. They go out of the city-very often Down East,
but sometimes to the Far West-to some obscure town

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
175
ma
or small-sized city. There they put up at the best hotel,
represent that they are speculators in land or gentle-
men traveling for pleasure, soon make male acquaint-
ance, and thus get introductions into ladies' society.
They fix their eye on some particularly fine, prepossess-
ing girl-of weak character and romantically inclined-
and after a proper length of time has elapsed for
acquaintance, make love to her in the most desperate
manner. Being men of some culture, thoroughly posted
as to the weaknesses of human nature, especially as
regards the female sex, they use their knowledge and
talent for this base purpose with success. Their agree-
able manners, brilliant conversation and man-of-the-
world ways are well calculated to charm any ordinary
young woman-much more any one whose mind has be-
come unsettled by the novels of the period, and who
longs for a romantic adventure. Their victim is ripe
for them ; she has devoted nearly all of her spare
time to the reading of sensational novels of the worst
character, wherein elopements, bigamies, violations of
the seventh commandment and dangerous views as to
love play a very prominent part. Her imagination in-
flamed by the glowing language and exciting plot of
this class of books, she very readily puts herself in
the place of the particular heroine she may admire,
and longs for an opportunity to gratify her ambition
as chief actress in a scene out of the common run of
daily affairs.
It is one from just this class of weak-minded young
women that our smooth-faced villain picks out his vic-

176
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
LI
tim. Before long the young woman's heart is con-
quered. She avows beneath the moon, on some calm
summer's night, that she loves the rascal by her side
with her whole heart, and will never, never desert
him.
Alas! if she only knew the truth—the fatal conse-
quences of even one wrong step! She will know too
much before long.
He then proposes an elopement, to which she heartily
accedes, and some fine morning a pair of foolish parents
miss the pride of their household. Detectives are set
on the watch. They know pretty well, on hearing
the description of the fine strange gentleman who
was missed on the same morning as the young lady,
how matters stand, and before many weeks find the
lost one—lost in a double sense—in one of the fashion-
able establishments of the metropolis, whither she had
been brought and seduced by the man she foolishly and
fondly believed was to make her life one long dream
of happiness. Sometimes she consents to go to her
home; sometimes shame induces her to stay in the city,
and she goes through all the various grades of the woman-
of-the-town.
The men who do this kind of work make it their sole
business, though they occasionally gamble for excitement
or to pass away the time. Their pay varies. Some
receive only fifty dollars for “a case;” others a hundred
dollars; others two and three hundred dollars, and some
as high as five hundred dollars. This does not include
their expenses, which are extra and paid in addition.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
177
The price for the work depends on the parties who get
it done, and the beauty of the young woman who is to
be compelled to gratify the libidinous desires of the me-
tropolitan sensualist.
In conclusion, we may say that the women-of-the-town
are entitled to the warmest sympathy and aid of those
professing to be moralists and Christian philanthropists.
Yet they seem to be entirely forgotten when any efforts
are made for the physical good and moral elevation of
the unfortunate. They are, in many cases, the victims
of designing men. Their own credulity and weakness
resulted in their downfall. Many, of course, have fallen
through their own bad passions and evil inclinations, but
in the majority of cases the courtesan can trace her ruin
to the seducer's arts. It is a mistaken notion to view as
criminals, worthy only of severe condemnation, those
who are essentially the victims of misfortune. Then
there is a gross injustice in the distinction which is made
between openly licentious men and frail women. We
cannot see any difference in the degree of their guilt.
A man may revel in licentiousness, and even boast of it,
yet he is admitted into good society all the same; but let
a woman's reputation become tainted, and, no matter
what may be the circumstances of the case, nor how
much she may be entitled to pity, she is scorned by her
own sex, and in a manner compelled to adopt a career of
infamy. All this is radically wrong. We should con-
demn the libertine as well as his victim, and extend a
helping hand to raise from the depths of degradation
such “bad women” as may sincerely desire reformation.
are
11

178
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
As public sentiment exists now, women are the greatest
sufferers from the spread of licentiousness. The seducer **
and the destroyer of domestic honor stalks abroad un-
harmed. Our laws do not afford adequate protection to
the home of the citizen from invasion by the libertine.

CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE “UNDER-WORLD," BUT NOT OF IT.
(1 HE term “women of pleasure” is very general,
and comprehends a vast number of women in
or the metropolis who are not recognized properly
as women-of-the-town, but who are, neverthe-
less, guilty semi-occasionally of improper conduct. They
are as much devoted to pleasure as the frail sisters
whom society refuses to recognize or associate with.
They make money in the way of receiving presents
from their gentlemen admirers. They join with much
zest in all the revels of the season, and live, in fact,
for pleasure, and pleasure alone. The open difference
between them and those women who professionally
sell their charms is very distinctly marked, however,
and almost as distinct as the distinction between the
virtuous and the vicious. This peculiar class of wo-
men abounds in every city, but thrives more particu-
larly in New York.
In one sense they may be termed “fast,” but at
the same time keep up an appearance of respect-
ability, and are believed by the great majority of the
world's people to be virtuous. Yet their bad con-
duct is known at last. Detectives, members of the
179

180
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
police force; men about town, who have nothing to
do but look on at the doings and misdoings of their
neighbors; gossiping women who have plenty of time
to hunt up scandals,-all these classes of persons can
point their finger to many women who are quietly
pursuing a life of sin, and whom the great mass of
people would never believe were guilty of any mis-
conduct. There is probably as much prostitution car-
ried on in New York in a private way as there is
in an open and public manner. It is our province
in this chapter to write of this phase of woman's
life in the great city.
These women are very secret in their goings on.
They do not openly solicit custom.' They dress as
real ladies dress, behave themselves quite properly
when other people's eyes are on them, and do not
attract attention or cause remark. They are not always
single women. Many “grass widows” and many real
widows, together with an infinite number of sham
widows, belong to this class. They let furnished rooms
in some quiet part of the city in a respectable house,
and perhaps ostensibly carry on dressmaking or mil-
linery, wax flowers or some other business. Occasion-
ally they solicit custom, though in a somewhat novel
way. On looking over the morning paper, you will
bee under the head of “Situations Wanted—Females,"
such advertisements as the following:
A WIDOW LADY, IN DISTRESSED CIRCUMSTANCES, WOULD
A like to act as Housekeeper for some elderly gentleman of means.
Address Mrs. D- , Station G.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
181
YOUNG LADY WOULD LIKE TO DO COPYING AT HOME.
A Terms very reasonable, and satisfaction guaranteed.
A YOUNG LADY, AN ORPHAN, CAST OUT ON A FRIEND-
A less world, would like a position as Governess in a respectable family.
No objection to travel.
There are numerous advertisements of this class
appearing daily in the papers. Many of them are
of course bona fide, and are inserted by women
who really desire the situations they advertise for;
but there is a large number of women who adopt
this means of becoming acquainted with men of wealth,
for the purpose of getting customers for their nefa-
rious trade.
The extent to which these women abound is per-
fectly enormous; and were the true number ascer-
tained it would startle the most apathetic, and show
how rotten society is in the great commercial city of
the Union.
Owing to the loose, and, perhaps, too liberal ideas in
regard to the marital relation at the present time,
and the growing love of females for fashion and ex-
travagance, married women are as great sinners in this
respect as any other class. A particularly interesting
and searching chapter in regard to their frailties will
be found in another part of the book.
One would naturally suppose that for young women to
sell soap, hair-pomades, apples, oranges, lemonade powder,
books, maps, charts, engravings and pens was a very vir-
tuous act. Perhaps it is; but it does not prove that the
same young women are virtuous themselves. Hundreds
of females carry on these particular occupations as a

182
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“blind,” going around to the various offices. Many of
them are beautiful; they are nearly all good talkers ;
and there is here and there among them a poor, modest
and perhaps orphaned girl, who is trying by one of
these various means to make an honest and decent live-
lihood. It is proper to say, in this connection, that the
majority of this class of girls are foreigners—Italians,
Germans, Swiss, French, and a few English.
We alluded in the last chapter to the fashionable club-
houses of some of our wealthy young men, and spoke
of the growing increase of this private and select mode
of prostitution. Let us describe one of these buildings.
There is a certain brown-stone mansion on Fifth avenue,
not very far from Thirty-fourth street, which is devoted
to this purpose. There is nothing remarkable about its
appearance. The curtains are always drawn down; no
one is ever seen by the windows. This house was pur-
chased by five wealthy gentlemen of New York for one
hundred thousand dollars. They are men distinguished,
and whose names are household words in American
homes. One of them was a famous man, recently de-
ceased; another a certain prominent New York judge;
• two others well-known local politicians; and the last an
actor of note. The deceased gentleman was married, as
also the judge and the actor; the politicians lived “on
the European plan.”
There are young women in New York who are "fast,"
but do not care to become inmates of professional houses
or openly solicit custom on the street. They live alone.
Finding the need of the advice and comfort of soine
ne

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
183
disinterested gentleman, they watch the hotel arrivals in
the evening papers, and send some of the parties dainty
cards, in the most femininely-approved and scented little
envelopes. The little missives read like this:
MISS GUSSIE,
No. 2076 High-up street,
AT HOME.
These little cards often fall into the hands of gentle-
men of years. It is said to be a touching sight to see a
gushing old gentleman put on his eye-glasses, read the
missive with glistening eyes, and then, as he wipes his
eye-glasses, soliloquize: “Miss Gussie ? Gussie? Sweet
name. Don't know her. Must be some young lady
acquaintance of my daughter, alone in the city. How
lonesome she must feel! What would her folks say if I
neglected her? I must call this evening.” And invari-
ably he does.
The professional women-of-the-town employ well-
dressed men-more generally their lovers—to solicit
custom. These men hang around hotels and places of
public amusement and general resort, become acquainted
with young men from the country who have plenty of
money, and introduce them to lady (?) friends, who take
good care that they go to their rural homes moneyless,
though with much experience as regards the under-world
of the great metropolis.
The sewing-girls of New York, as a rule, are an
honest, hard-working, industrious and virtuous class of
females, but there are exceptions. There are many of

184
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
them who secretly dispose of their virtue “for a consid-
eration.” The tendency of the women of the present
age to overdress does much to make these girls take the
downward road. Like all females, they love dress and
personal adornment, and, not being able to make money
enough by their legitimate calling, they resort to the
means we have alluded to. Indeed, at the prices which
many of them receive for their work, they are not even
able to enjoy the comforts of life, much less its luxuries.
They live in out-of-the-way garrets, in tenements among
the lowest streets in the city, where filth reigns the year
round, and not only men, but women and children, even
to the smallest, are vile and corrupt. What wonder,
then, that sometimes, when money is held out as an
inducement to commit crime, they fall? On the one
hand is poverty, want, starvation, perhaps; on the other,
fine clothing, good food and plenty of it, and rest from
labor.
Broadway presents a lively spectacle at about six or
seven in the afternoon, when these girls are returning
from their day's work. Some of them, perhaps, desire
to lead a fast life, and believe that there must be
pleasure in following the short but gay career of a
woman-of-the-town. They have that end in view, and
foolishly think that they can follow that unhappy calling
in a manner not so openly vulgar as do the common
prostitutes. But, alas! they do not know the whole
truth, or they would not allow such thoughts to enter
their brains. Others have little or no care for reputa-
tion. They are worn out with their work, tired of
Om

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ATKIMUSAUHIMUTTA
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nuIRLANIB
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MISS CORA G-, A BELLE OF THE "UNDER-WORLD."


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
185
BUL
poverty and hard work, begin to believe that virtue does
not by any means begin to have its own reward; and,
consequently, they will follow in what at first seem to
be the pleasant paths of vice, and receive better wages.
Men very frequently, by mistake, accost girls of this
class, thinking they are prostitutes; and too often the
broken-hearted, sorrow-stricken and hopeless females
yield to the temptation, and thus take the first step on
the downward road.
There are many men who make it a business to ruin
serving-girls and females who are obliged to work for a
living. The employers do it; the male employés, the
roués, the sporting-men, the fast men, and the accom-
plished villains. We have in mind the case of an
employer.
In the upper part of the city there is a large hoop-
skirt manufactory where many girls are employed, all
of them being between the ages of fifteen and twenty-
five. They get small pay, as may be naturally supposed,
and have to work very hard, which no one will doubt.
The proprietor of the factory is a married man, about
forty years of age. He is a man of good business
qualifications, but without the least particle of moral
principle. In the course of two years he has ruined
three beautiful and promising young women. He adver-
tises occasionally for girls to work on hoop-skirts, and of
course receives many applications from hundreds of
females out of employment or just going out in the world
to earn their living. It is a noticeable fact that he always
selects the most beautiful girls, and lets the ugly ones go.

186
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Among the young women who, some eighteen months
ago, answered his advertisement in person, was one named
Flora Dalton. She was just budding into womanhood,
about nineteen years of age of fine form, pretty face,
very pleasing manners, and full of life and spirit. She
was born in Norwich, Connecticut, but had come to stay
with an old aunt in New York and work for her living.
Seeing an advertisement in the papers for hoop-skirt
workers, and believing that she could soon learn the
business, she answered it in person—the man desiring
help being the proprietor, Mr. B- s by name, whom we
have already alluded to.
He saw at once that the young woman was beauti-
ful, and he engaged her, though well knowing that she
would not prove valuable to him as a worker. Miss
Dalton was overjoyed at the prospect of being able to
earn her own living, and eagerly commenced her duties.
She made friends with the other girls of the establish-
ment, and before long was on a very friendly footing with
Mr. B- s. Being from the country, accustomed to
honest people, honest ways, and having that “simple
faith” which the poet tells us is more than Norman
blood, she before long began to consider Mr. B- s as
her best male friend. He was very kind to her; often,
when the least indisposed, excused her from work; as-
sisted and encouraged her; made promises of promo-
tion and an increase of salary. After a while he in-
vited her to attend church with him, which she did; and
then to go to a concert with him, which she did.
Then an invitation-several of them—to see the play;

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
187
all of which were accepted. After the theatre, supper
and wine.
It took time to take these various steps, but they all
came in due season, and fate seemed to help the monster
in his base attempt. The excitement of the city pleasures,
once entered into, possessed a charm to the young woman
which utterly drove away all her former good principles
and resolutions, as well as wholesome ideas of life. Suffi-
cient to say, that ere many months she yielded to the
seductions of the tempter, and is now the inmate of a
fashionable house of prostitution in Eighth street.
The story of the two other young ladies need not be
given, nor their names. Their virtue and good name were
lost in about the same way as the one we have alluded to.
There may have been, and doubtless was, a varying in
the circumstances of each case, but the end was the same.
One of them is now a “parlor girl” in a Brooklyn house
of ill-fame; the other returned to her home in New
Jersey, and will no doubt be saved from going that down-
ward road which only too surely leads to destruction.
If the serving-girls of New York are occasionally
loose in their conduct, the young women who attend in
the various stores are much oftener so; or rather there
is a greater number of them who occasionally join in
pleasures which are forbidden by good morals and good
sense. The “dollar stores,” which have of late years
been started on Broadway, furnish many specimens of
young females who are inclined to be frail. Indeed,
many professional prostitutes are known to stand behind
the counters of these stores.

188
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
They take such situations, believing that the opportu-
nity for soliciting customers for themselves is one of the
best that can be had. The store is patronized very largely
by men during the day, but especially in the evening;
and the consequence is, that there is a very large quantity
of flirtation going on between them and the female clerks,
which always leads to something not quite so innocent.
The young ladies in these establishments are all possessed
of a goodly amount of charms, which are quite liberally
displayed to the looker-on in the modern Sodom. There
is a dollar store on Broadway that is said never to
have paid any money for its young lady attendants-
they being willing to work for nothing, on account of the
good chances that were afforded them to make the ac-
quaintance of men, and finally get money from them.
There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule, and
we do not make the sweeping charge that none of the
females employed in this class of establishments are vir-
tuous. Not many months since an incident occurred,
which proved only too well that there was one at least
who was proud of her honor and good name. A certain
young lady was employed in one of the up-town Broad-
way dollar stores, which carried on a large business, and
which was filled every day with ladies and gentlemen.
Among the customers to the establishment was a young
man employed as dealer in a noted gambling-saloon in
West Twenty-sixth street. He was about twenty-eight
years of age, handsome, and with manners well calculated
to please. He very frequently, in the course of about
three months, made purchases at the counter presided

WOMEN OF PLEASURE:
189
over by a Miss Parsons, who was young and pretty-
about the only qualifications, by the by, necessary for a
lady clerk in this class of stores. She was an estimable
young woman, the only daughter of a widowed mother,
a member of a Sabbath-school Bible class, and of course
virtuous. The young gambler did not succeed as well as
he thought he would at the outset in getting into her
good graces, and finally met with several rebuffs which
told him very plainly that his company and compli-
ments were not desirable. This manner of treatment he
was not at all used to. He had been in the habit of
having women favor his attentions rather than sneer at
them, and he was very much chagrined. He had set
his heart on ruining the girl, however, and, as he could
not accomplish his object by fair means, determined to
try foul. He employed two ruffians, who found out the
time at which the store closed at night (which was about
half-past ten o'clock); and they one night got a carriage,
drove up in front of the place, and as Miss Parsons was
leaving, one of them took hold of her quickly, gagged her
and put her in the carriage. Before she could make any
resistance she was driven off-where, no one knows. Some
time after she returned to her home, but refused to detail
the adventures that had befallen her; but fortunately she
has not lost hope of leading a good and useful life.
Many confiding parents of the suburbs would be as-
tonished and confounded could they but know that their
daughters, whom they suppose are engaged in Broadway
stores, were leading lives of shame, and that the rich
jewelry and handsome clothing worn by these erring

190
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
daughters are the wages of prostitution. And in many
cases the first intimation that these doting parents have
of the life their daughter has been leading, perhaps for
years, is on receiving the intelligence some day that she
has committed suicide in a house of ill-fame, of which
she had long been an inmate, the act induced, perhaps,
by a fit of remorse occasioned by contrasting the hollow-
ness and mockery of the life she had led of late with the
purity of that before she became acquainted with city life.
Such a case came to our notice not long since. Mary
H— , the daughter of a farmer in one of the Eastern
States, was brought on to New York city, with the under-
standing, on her part, that she was to learn the trade of
a milliner in one of our large and fashionable establish-
ments, intending, as soon as her trade was learned, to go
back to her native village and open a store of the same
description.
A few months subsequent to her arrival she formed
the acquaintance of a young man, a scion of a rich family,
and by his specious promises, backed up by presents of
great value, she was induced to leave her situation, of
which long hours, hard work and low wages had rendered
her tired, and enter an up-town house.
She was nominally under his protection, and need not,
necessarily, have made the acquaintance of other gentle-
men visitors at the house; but she soon entered into the
excitement attendant on such a life, and became one of
the most noted of the demi-monde, of course under an
assumed name. It is a little singular that none of this
sisterhood of fallen stars have the hardihood to retain

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
191
the names they bore in their better and purer days. She
was seen at race-tracks, and even at public balls (for so
debauched has society become of late that this class of
women frequent our public assemblages without question,
and jostle our wives, mothers and sisters in the throng),
bedizened with jewels, laces and rich clothing, and appa-
rently the gayest of the gay. Women avoided her or
passed her by with scorn, and these she apparently treated
with contempt or returned their scorn with interest.
Men, however, sought her company—not alone politicians
and gamblers, who are supposed to be without shame,
having no characters to lose (or if they have it would be
an advantage to the owners to be rid of them), or brainless
young noodles, possessed of nothing but a fashionable
tailor and a rich father, but men of standing in the com-
munity-lawyers, whose dicta on matters appertaining
to Coke and Littleton were unquestioned ; capitalists,
whose checks were good for millions: these and others
sought her company in preference to that of better, though
less brilliant women. She has received a pretty fair
education, and possessing good conversational powers,
she had the faculty of attracting to her side men of cul-
ture, who would have turned with disgust from an igno-
rant woman, no matter how handsome or well dressed.
With true Yankee shrewdness, our heroine determined to
turn her gifts into account and open a house herself. She
did so, and gathered around her a bevy of girls who
would have attracted the coldest of mortals, and was soon
growing rich. Many a young man of promise, holding
a position of trust, may thank that house and its inmates
15

192
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
for his early ruin. In a few years the quondam country
girl had grown rich, but she was not content. Sitting in
her gilded house of shame, there were times when the
memories of the past came over her, and she would have
freely given all her wealth to be again the innocent coun-
try girl of ten years previous. She sought refuge from
her thoughts in dissipation, and gradually changed from
the fine, intellectual-looking woman to the usual type of
women of this class—red-faced, coarse and brutal. Her
end was a sudden and awful one. She had opened in
New Orleans a house similar in character to the one kept
by her in New York, and had gathered together a choice
collection of human wares. The steamer on which they
embarked contained such a human freight as is not often
found within so narrow a compass.
It consisted of a circus troupe, a French ballet troupe,
and about one hundred females of the class our heroine
was taking down. Rough weather was encountered, and
when off Charleston, S. C., the ill-fated “Evening Star”
foundered and sunk with nearly every soul on board.
Our heroine perished with the ship.
Captain Thorne, of the Fourth Precinct, whose ter-
ritory comprises all that portion of the city of New York
which takes in Water, Cherry and other streets where
sailor dance-houses and the lowest kind of houses of pros-
titution abound, not long since happened upon a singular
case. One of those Chatham street basement saloons that
abound in that thoroughfare had become very trouble-
some, complaints against it from those who do business
in the vicinity being of frequent occurrence; and he deter-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
193
mined to break it up. A fight soon after occurred in it,
when, taking a posse of men with him, Capt. Thorne en-
tered the place and arrested all there, including a number
of abandoned females. Among the latter were two sis-
ters, who begged very hard to be released, declaring, if
they were allowed their liberty, they would abandon their
present course of life.
This promise is so commonly made by women of this
class that Capt. Thorne would have paid no attention to
it, had not one of them informed him that they were the
daughters of a well-to-do farmer in Westchester county,
and that their parents supposed them to be on a visit to a
friend in the city. If they were sent to Blackwell's
Island for six months, as would most likely be the case
if taken before a magistrate, their conduct would be fully
exposed to their parents. The girls, according to their
own account, had for a long time previous been in the
habit of visiting the saloon in which they were found, at
short intervals, remaining there for a week or two, and
then returning home, the parents believing that they had
been visiting friends. Capt. Thorne made such inquiries
as convinced him that the story told by the girls was
true. The magistrate before whom the erring ones were
taken was made acquainted with the facts of the case,
and he discharged them on condition that they should go
home and not again be found in such company as grace
the Chatham street “dives.” Should they again be
arrested, they need expect no mercy. Not long since
Capt. Thorne heard from them, and was agreeably sur-
prised to learn that they had entirely reformed and had

.194
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
20
mu
married well and happy. Their parents or friends never
heard of their adventures in the “big city.”
Recently an individual giving the name of "D. C.
Carter,” holding forth in Leroy Place, advertised for a
governess to go West, to whom good wages would be paid,
and a permanent place guaranteed. Over one hundred
ladies applied for the place, numbering, among their
ranks, young and old, good-looking, handsome, plain and
extremely homely. He finally selected a young girl
named Florence Pierson, whose parents resided in Broad-
way, near Twenty-seventh street. He informed her that
he wished her to accompany him to Chicago, and stated
that he was a lawyer, living at No. - South Clark
street, Chicago, Ill. The representations made by him
were apparently so fair that the girl consented to go with
him to his Western home. Before starting, Carter pur-
chased for Miss Pierson several articles of wearing ap-
parel, some jewelry and other articles, he alleging that
he wished her to make a good appearance among his
Western friends. On the way to Buffalo, over the New
York Central Railroad, Carter wished her to occupy the
same berth with him in the sleeping-car, and made other
proposals that left no doubt as to his purpose.
The girl indignantly rejected the indecent proposals,
and finally made the conductor acquainted with her story;
aud on the arrival of the train at Buffalo that official nar-
rated the circumstances to some charitable gentlemen,
who at once paid the girl's fare back to New York. In
the mean time, the girl's mother, who had received a let-
ter from her daughter after the latter had left, acquaint-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
195
ing her with the step she had taken, had visited Super-
intendent Kennedy and asked his advice in the matter.
He advised that the Chief of Police at Buffalo should be
telegraphed to and requested to stop the pair; but to this
the mother objected, as she feared the effect an arrest
would have upon her nervous system. Finally, the
Superintendent gave her a letter to the Chief of Police at
Chicago, and with this the afflicted mother departed. She
was about to start for that city when her heart was glad-
dened by her daughter's return. The latter is thankful
at her narrow escape, and will not again trust herself in
the clutches of one of these scourges of society.

CHAPTER XVII.
HOUSES OF ILL-REPUTE; WHERE THEY ARE, AND HOW THEY ARE
CONDUCTED.
0
O N speaking of the locality of the houses of ill-
| repute in the great city, it would be more difficult
e to state where they are not, than where they are.
There is no street so fashionable, no neighborhood
so respectable, no avenue so aristocratic, but that it
contains a greater or less number of houses of this cha-
racter. They abound in the lower part of the city, within
a stone's throw of Trinity Church; they thrive in the
central portion; they may be seen on Fifth avenue, within
hearing distance of neighboring church-bells, or in the
quiet precincts of Lexington or Madison avenues; in the
best portions of Fourteenth, Twenty-third, Thirty-fourth
and Forty-second streets; on Stuveysant or Washington
Squares; on Broadway, in Baxter and Water streets; in
fact, in almost any street of any size in New York. Many
of them are, of course, not known to the outside public,
or even, perhaps, in some instances, to the police—are
conducted in a private manner, and only known to the
favored few who are admitted within their doors. Houses
of this character are on the increase, rather than the de-
crease. What New York will be in point of morals fifty
196

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
197
in
100
or even twenty years hence, it would be, of course, impos-
sible to state correctly; but there is not much doubt that,
unless a mighty change takes place, it will out-Sodom
Sodom.
Probably the majority of the houses of prostitution in
the metropolis are called “parlor-houses.” The inmates
hire rooms of the proprietor of the establishment, and
remain in the parlor during the evening, receiving what-
ever company may come in.
The “gentlemen” as they enter the room find the
young women sitting in various exceedingly free-and-easy
attitudes, and are at liberty to make a choice of some one
of them who happens to strike their fancy. An acquaint-
ance soon begins. Before long the young woman, in the
most obliging and open manner, has given you a short
account of her life, not one word of which is true. Wo-
men of this class have the imagination wonderfully devel-
oped, are good story-tellers, and would apparently make
agreeable story-writers.
This special class of houses may be found in all parts
of the city, and they are of all grades as regards respect-
ability. There are parlor-houses on Fifth avenue, in the
midst of the aristocracy, as well as in Water street ;
among the select and refined denizens of Murray Hill,
and in such streets as Greene, Houston, Prince, and
others of that character.
The parlor-houses are very largely patronized, and
probably get more custom than any other which are
devoted to the peculiar business of which we are writing.
Vast sums of money are annually spent within their
we are

198
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
е
On
walls, and hundreds of young men are annually ruined
for ever.
Let us enter one of these houses of middling respect-
ability. We ring the bell, wait a moment, and a large,
fine-looking woman comes to the door. She is the pro-
prietress—the "madam ;” very few are kept by males.
There are no questions asked. She is used to visitors,
and bids us a good-evening. We find her name is
W— The parlor is on the right, and we enter. It
is well furnished. There are several sofas in the room.
On one of them a young woman lies at full length, but
she rises as we enter. Two or three other females smi-
lingly come forward and shake us heartily by the hand,
and express pleasure at meeting us. On the walls are
pictures of a varied character: there are a few “love
scenes,” both choice and fancy; a representation of the
god of wine, Bacchus, and one or two Venuses; several
engravings of beautiful women; possibly one or two of
Cole's “Voyage of Life.” There are fine ornamental
vases on the mantelpiece, a beautiful clock and articles
of virtu—the only virtue there is in the place, it is to be
feared, unless the old servant be excepted.
The conversation lags; you do not know what to say
to women of this class. You cannot speak of the last
new novel, or even play, for they seldom find time to
attend the theatre. These subjects are too far above
their capacities. As for the last murder, that is too low
for them, for, remember, we are not among the lowest
prostitutes; there are several grades below them. You
see that they read the Sunday Mercury, the Ledger, the

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WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
199
Sporting Times and the Police News, for these papers are
lying around the room. As you are not in the habit of
perusing those papers, you cannot talk of them or their
contents. But the young women come to your relief.
They manage to keep up a flow of conversation all the
time—about the weather, or your family history, or
theirs, and appear in the best of humor, and before long
make you think you are the entertainer, instead of the
entertained. After a while, delicate hints are thrown
and that a bottle of wine would be acceptable. And
un
“ Gertrude,” the landlady says, “one champagne.”
Gertrude, an old and dried-up colored woman, soon
answers the summons, and the champagne comes. She
uncorks it, brings forth a tray of glasses, and every one
in the room partakes with apparent gusto.
And then you begin to think it time to go. You ask
the price of the champagne.
“Seven dollars," is the reply (with an emphasis on the
seven).
“Rather steep!” you say to yourself. But you must
make no complaint; that is the price they charge; that
is the price they get; and because they get it, they
charge it. Looked at as so much experience of a very
peculiar sort, the scene may have been worth the price
you paid for it.
All sorts of men come and go while you are there.
There is a continual change in the company. That fine-
looking, sedate old gentleman, who has just entered the

200
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
room, and who seats himself beside the young woman
with curls, is considered “respectable” by the world at
large. He is a bank clerk in Wall street. There is a
large representation of young men who are boisterous,
“ treat” very often and essay to sing comic songs. They
display their money freely, and are well looked after by
the young women.
There is a piano in the room, which is played by a
man hired for the purpose. Nothing but popular and
lively music is played. Only the songs of the period
find favor in the eyes of the class of people who patron-
ize these establishments. During the war, “When this
cruel war is over,” “John Brown,” “We'll fight for
Uncle Sam,” “Red, White and Blue,” etc., were the
popular songs of the day. At the present time Offen-
bach's music is much in favor, and such songs as “Up in
a Balloon,” “Tassels on the Boots,” “Rollicking Rams,"
“ Bells will go Ringing for Sarah,” “Not for Joe,"
“Champagne Charlie,” etc
These women of the “parlor-houses," as they are
called, lead a very unhappy and miserable life. It mat-
ters very little how fashionable the establishment may be-
in fact it may be worse for them on that account. The
women are obliged to be up very late, seldom retiring
before two o'clock in the morning. They are expected to
drink with every one who “treats.” During the day they
are sick and weary, and are obliged to be in the house,
even then, to receive any stray callers. They pay high
board. In the lower houses, they pay $10 a week; in the
middling class, $20 to $25; in the higher, $40 to $50.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
201
Woman
and in the very highest as much as $70 a week. This,
of course, includes a furnished room. In the cheap
houses the room is small, sparsely furnished; in the bet-
ter class of houses, quite neat and tasty-looking; while
in the highest-priced houses all that a luxurious taste can
suggest for comfort or to charm the senses is procured.
The earnings of the “parlor girls” vary, of course,
very much. The poorer ones make at least $20 a week.
Those of the middle grade earn from $30 to $40; the
fashionable young women average $150 a week. If a
woman is pretty, she, of course, makes the most money.
There are cases where a handsome girl of this class has
made $100, even $200, in a single day, and that with-
out stealing from any of her numerous lovers.
The parlor-houses are, indeed, the places which lead
down to hell. The proprietors of them are female fiends
of the worst kind, who seem to have lost all the better
qualities of human nature, supposing they ever had them.
A sad case-illustrating many of the same sort which
never find their way into the papers—came to light, a
short time since. A young girl, aged only eighteen, was
the victim. She arrived in the city alone and without
a friend, having come from Westchester county. Not
knowing any public hotel where she could lodge, she
endeavored to find her way to the Girls Lodging House,
of which she had heard. On going along Canal street,
she was met by a young woman named Hattie Jackson,
who asked her where she was going, and what she was
doing. A conversation ensued, during which the young
country girl (Miss Lowery) informed her interrogator

202
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
that she was in search of the Girls' Lodging House.
Hattie offered to accompany her to that house, but in-
stead of doing so took her to a famous “parlor-house” in
Greene street. On arriving there she was cordially
received by the “madam,” and took dinner in company
with a dozen or more other girls. She was then shown
a room on the top floor, and there compelled to remove
her own clothing, and don a pair of red gaiters and a low-
necked dress. It was not till then that she guessed what
description of a house she was in, and demanded that she
be allowed to leave the place immediately. She earnestly
entreated, with the tears streaming from her eyes, that
she might go away, but the heartless madam only an-
swered her appeal by saying:
“You have got in here, and you shall see how you
shall get out again.”
The poor girl was detained in this house for several
days, and compelled by force to gratify the base passions
of several heartless men.
The women-of-the-town rely on dress as the principal
adjunct to aid them in their calling. We call to mind the
case of a young and beautiful girl of this unhappy class
who had reverses of fortune, losing what money and
clothing she had by fire. “Oh," said she, “if I only
had a fine dress to-day, I could go out and soon make
enough money.” The love of dress leads too many
women into this life of shame, and dress alone supports
and helps them after they have fallen.
Nearly all of them have “lovers," as they are called.
Sometimes the girls support the lovers, and sometimes

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
203
the lovers support the girls—the first custom being the
more common, and the latter more honored in the breach
than in the observance. The lovers are supposed by the
women to be their best friends. They introduce them to
men who have money, and give them the benefit of
advice in regard to business matters. These men, as
may be very well supposed, are low, and even more
degraded than the women whose money they accept.
They have no occupation, unless it be gambling. On
every day they may be seen on the Broadway corners,
especially near such streets as Prince, Houston, Bleecker,
Broome and Amity. They dress well, and outwardly
look like gentlemen. Some follow thieving to make an
extra amount of money, and all boast of being “sports.”
Frequently, when they have had money to start on, they
open “panel-houses,” or help play the “husband game."
In the “panel-houses” the women lure the unsuspecting
stranger to be robbed. There are no less than three
of these houses on a single block in Bleecker street, and
many may be found in Prince, Greene and Houston
streets. The young woman who is a “panel” thief is
nearly always a street-walker. She dresses in the height
of fashion, so as to attract attention. If blonde hair is
the rage, and she is not possessed of it by nature, she
calls on art to aid her—in other words, purchases a
blonde wig. Broadway is her favorite walk; there
everybody may be seen. Her only success, however, is
in meeting some one who is "green,” and with no know-
ledge of the various tricks of this class of women. Sea-
captains, sailors (who are nearly always, by some accident,

204
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
half drunk), young men from the country who come out
after nightfall to see the sights, visitors from neighboring
cities and towns taking their first look at New York by
gaslight,—these are the classes of men who are invariably
“taken in ” by the female sharpers. A man of either
of these classes is invariably attracted by the finé dress
and personal appearance of the nymph du pave who
practices the "panel” game. After he has spoken to
her, it is not long before he accepts her invitation to go
to her room or a “bed-house” “round the corner.” The
unsuspecting stranger little dreams that there is to be
any performance in real life of “Foul Play.” After
entering the room he disrobes himself, places his clothes
on a chair, which is generally in the middle of the room,
and retires. Around the bed is hung a heavy curtain.
which completely hides all objects from the sight. The
young woman is very talkative, and talks in a very loud
voice. During her conversation there is a scene being
enacted on the other side of the curtain. The girl's
“lover” has entered the room through a “panel” cut in
the wall or door, and is rapidly “going through” the
pockets of the stranger's clothing. When the visitor
arises and puts his clothes on, he finds, to his utter dis-
may, that he has been robbed of all the money which he
brought to “town” for the purpose of making purchases
of merchandise for his country store, or, if he be a sailor,
the wages from his last voyage. There is no use in talk-
ing to the young woman about it. She seems very much
surprised and chagrined at the occurrence, and wonders
how any one could have entered the room when the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
205
door was locked. And her visitor wonders at the same
thing.
Not one man in a hundred, or even a thousand, who is
robbed in this way, ever informs the police of the fact,
for the reason that he does not care to have it publicly
known that he was ever in a “fast” house. The conse-
quence is, that the game is considered by the women quite
a safe one, and is practiced to a very large extent. One
of the most beautiful women-of-the-town in New York,
whose residence is in Bleecker street, near Greene,
is a panel thief. Her figure is perfect; her grace be-
witching; her conversation intellectual and refined. She
has made a fortune for herself and lover (whom she sup-
ports), and is as expert at pocket-picking as she is at
drawing men into panel-houses and robbing them.
The “husband game” is practiced in this way: A
woman has persuaded some man to go with her to her
room. He pays his money in advance at the request of
the girl, and is sitting on the sofa fondling her. Pres-
ently a noise is heard at the front door and the sound of
some one coming up stairs.
“Oh my! there's my husband!” says the young
woman. “I forgot to tell you I was married. Run,
quick, or he'll kill you!”
The gentleman, fully apprehending the consequences
of meeting a lady's husband under such delicate circum-
stances, is fearfully alarmed. The mock husband comes
on the scene, apparently terribly enraged, and, being
muscular and of goodly size, threatens to give the in-
truder a thrashing, drawing a revolver from his pocket
ТОО
00
16

206
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
at the same time. He says he will have the destroyer
of his domestic happiness arrested and exposed if he
does not satisfy his wounded honor by giving him
money, which request is nearly always acceded to. This
trick, however, is most generally played on countrymen
-seldom on residents of the city.
There are portions of the city which are specially
known as localities for houses of ill-fame. Mercer street,
in olden times, was the principal street for them, but is
so no longer. Warehouses are rapidly being built on the
sites of the former houses of ill-repute. Water street
contains the low dance-houses and the home of the
“Wickedest man in New York;" Baxter street the very
lowest of the houses of prostitution. Greene street is
filled with them, and attracts a very miscellaneous
crowd-sailors, countrymen, city people and foreigners.
Bleecker street, Prince street, Broome street and Amity
street are notorious in this regard. In fact, in this par-
ticular portion of the city, more than any other part,
houses of this character abound. There is an anecdote
told of a countryman who, standing one evening on the
corner of Bleecker and Greene streets, inquired of a
policeman:
“I say, officer, can you tell me where there are any
'fast' houses around here?”
“Well, my friend,” answered the man of the locust and
brass buttons, “I think I can. You can go in any
house around here and not get in the wrong one."
The houses inhabited by the colored women-of-the-town
are principally in Crosby street and West Broadway.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
207
They are patronized by members of the dusky race, and
white men as well.
Probably there are no buildings in the metropolis
where miscegenation is carried on to a greater extent
and more unblushingly and openly than in several small
wooden rookeries, situated in Church street, not far from
the corner of Canal. The buildings are very old, and
look as if they might fall down from old age. They have
never been painted, and great seams and cracks are ex-
hibited. The bannisters are off the stoops, some of the
steps gone, and their general appearance is one of decay,
though not of desolation. The heads of colored women
may occasionally be seen to peep from the windows during
the day and evening. Past these buildings every day, at
all hours, come and go the cars of the Broadway line, in
which ride men representing a greater amount of wealth
than those who patronize any other line in the city. Fine
ladies, dressed in the richest of silks, many of them the wives
of these wealthy and famous merchants and bankers, look
from the window as the car rapidly turns the corner, and see
these same old dilapidated buildings, but little dream
what they are, or who are in them, or what the residents
do for a living. They little think that their sons, or even
their husbands, might sometimes be found in them enjoy-
ing the society of Africans. And yet this is often the
case. In company with a detective, we once paid a visit
to these buildings. Most of the women having rooms in
them were as black as the ace of spades. As we went in
the door, a large black woman was seen standing in the
entrance:

208
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“Come, honey,” said she, “come up stairs—I have a
nice fire."
On our administering a reprimand and volunteering
some advice, she broke forth in a volley of oaths of a hor-
rible character. There were about eight girls in the
house. They all paid a rent of eight dollars a week for
their rooms. The apartments were of middling size,
most of them having but little furniture in them—a bed,
two or three chairs, some rude toilet conveniences and
a stove at which they cook their meals. Some of the girls
were regularly kept as mistresses by white men. None
but white men visit the buildings. A well-known mer-
chant may occasionally be seen here. Several young
men who attend church, and move in “good society," are
frequent visitors to the house. A hatter of Broadway
and the agent of a prominent insurance company are also
practical believers in the doctrine of miscegenation.
The fashionable houses of prostitution are in the upper
part of the city, and we reserve a description of them for
another chapter. There is a row of seven brown-stone
houses, in a certain up-town street, which took the name
of the “Seven Sisters” when the play of that name was
being performed some years ago at the Olympic Theatre.

CHAPTER XVIII.
WOMEN OF PLEASURE; THEIR HAUNTS, THEIR HOMES AND THEIR
VICTIMS.
AHE women of pleasure of the great metropolis must
have homes to live in like the rest of the world.
The virtuous and the vicious alike love fine dress,
and there is little open difference between them ;
and meat and drink are consumed just the same in the
mysterious under-world of which we all hear so much,
but know so little, as by the wealthy and refined, the
rich and respectable. The demi-monde live in houses
more or less respectable according to their means, just
like other people who work honestly for a living.
There are degrees of fashion and caste among the
Aspasias of society as well as among that portion
of the social system which delights in calling itself
respectable and virtuous. The more wealthy of the
demi-monde live in the upper portion of the city.
Fifth avenue contains a number of the celebrities.
Madison avenue and Lexington avenue can boast of a
few houses owned by these women, and even on Wash-
ington Square, in the midst of the old-school aristoc-
racy, there is an antiquated mansion owned by one of
the frail sisters. On Fourteenth, Twenty-third, Thirty-
209

210
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
fourth and Forty-second streets are fine residences owned
by women who have gained, or are at present gaining,
a fortune by the sale of their charms. All the hotels
on Broadway contain them. Sometimes the women re-
present themselves as widows, sometimes single but alone
in the world, and sometimes they represent nothing, but
offer a large price for suitable accommodations, and
always get them. Time was when any respectable New
York hotel would not take in women of this class, but
that time has passed. They prove the very best cus-
tomers the hotels can have, always engaging the finest
rooms, indulging in many “extras” beyond the regular
routine, and also forming gentlemen acquaintances, who
run up very heavy wine-and-supper bills—all for the
benefit of “mine host." The opportunities for plying
their vocation are particularly good at a first-class New
York hotel. It is there that men of money most do
board. The rich miner from the mines, the oil specu-
lator who has just sold out his “well,” the returned
Californian from the gold regions, the wealthy European
on a tour of inspection, the merchant from the Western
city come to buy merchandise, and the capitalist seeking
for an investment,—all these have an overplus of money,
and all put up at the very best hotels in the city. It is
not long before Anonyma finds them out. She has met
them a thousand times, or rather men of the same kind,
which is about the same thing. They are easily entrap-
ped by the artful and bewitching smiles of the beautiful
false one, and before long find themselves several hun-
dred dollars the poorer. These women make immense

WOMEN OF PLEASURE ON THE PROMENADE.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
211
rs a
sums of money. A noted belle of this class, who plies
her business at the hotels very skillfully, is the possessor
of a fortune of nearly five hundred thousand dollars,
and makes nearly twenty-five thousand dollars a year, to
say nothing of the costly presents she receives in that
time, which must amount to twice that sum. Her board
bill alone is a hundred dollars a week. She stops at a
fashionable hotel in the neighborhood of Madison Square.
The next grade of the women-of-the-town also re-
side, for the most part, in the upper portion of the
city. Every street from Twenty-fourth to Thirty-third
contains more or less of them. These differ from
the first named in not being so accomplished and in
obtaining less wealthy customers. Moreover, they make
no open pretensions to virtue, while the others do, and
to many persons would appear perfectly respectable.
The girls have furnished rooms in this quarter, where
they bring their friends. They obtain customers in
every way. During the day they are on Broadway,
ostensibly for the purpose of shopping, but really to
make male acquaintances. They largely support the
matinées of the theatres, and can be seen any Saturday
afternoon at the concert at Central Park. They have
not yet got worn out from their unhappy and immoral
dissipations, and are really beautiful. It is their first or
second year “on the town.” They make considerable
money, averaging from fifty to a hundred dollars a week.
They save none of their earnings. As fast as a few
dollars are made they are spent in buying new articles
of apparel or indulging in carriage rides or amusements

212
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
or fine dinners. Women of this class never read politi-
cal economy; they know neither the benefits of saving
money nor "saving grace;" Ben Franklin, if he were
to come back again, would preach to them of prudence
in vain.
After these women have lived in this way for a year or
two, they begin to get reckless. Occasionally they over-
drink, and then their position as women of this second
class is lost. They move to a lower part of the city-
to Spring, Houston, Greene, Crosby, Broome, Canal,
Bleecker, Wooster or Prince streets. The Eighth and the
Fifteenth wards have long been known as containing
more of the third class of women-of-the-town than any
other two wards in the city. Greene street is the most
noted street in this particular. Chaos and bacchanalian
songs and orgies reign supreme from early morn till
dewy eve, and at the small hours of the morning the
women sink into a drunken slumber, only to arise in
a few hours and begin their regular routine of business.
These persons live fast, dissipate without limit, and, as
a natural consequence, go down to an early grave, un-
honored and unsung, when they are just in the prime
of life, and might have become ornaments to society and
an honor to themselves.
The cause of many a young man now serving out a
term of imprisonment in our State prisons has began
here; clerks who were holding advancing positions with
a moderate salary, which would support them handsomely
without the least attempt at economy, desiring to see the
ways of the world, first enter one of these bagnios, where

TOJEN OF PLEASURE.
213
en
&
all is merriment. He quietly takes a seat in one corner
of the brilliantly-lighted parlor, not being accustomed
to such sights, and gazes, with eyes wide open, at the
scenes of hilarity and merriment that are enacted around
him. His bashfulness and timidity soon wear off, and
at the solicitation of some female he escorts her to the
bar, hesitatingly calls for drinks, pays for them and
accompanies his companion to a seat.
He enjoys the experience, as it is something out of his
regular routine of enjoyment, and having imbibed suffi-
ciently he enters into the revelry with all the ease and
boldness of one who has witnessed such scenes time
without number.
His first visit has been an eventful one; he has seen
a new phase of life and rather enjoys it—is infatuated
with his former companion, who gives him sundry little
taps under the chin, whispers words of endearment, and
administers several affectionate kisses, which seem to
burn his lips. He cannot resist the temptation to visit
the place again, and as soon as his supper is finished
on the following night, he hastily dons his hat and
sallies forth to meet his new-made friend, to whom he
gives some little present as a token of affection for her.
If you will drop into the den, you will see him there
night after night reclining in her arms. His salary is
not now large enough to meet his increased expenses,
and as a last resort, to keep in the good graces of his
friend, he embezzles from his employer without detec-
tion, and becoming encouraged with his successes re-
peats the operation until he is detected, arrested, and

211
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
finds himself an inmate of the prison, branded as a
thief, despised and loathed by all.
What care the fiends who have brought him to this ?
Do they intercede in his behalf? No; they have ob-
tained his money, effected his ruin, and are in search
of new victims. There are plenty of women in these
two wards who have grown rich off such adventures as
these, who are now riding in their carriages, wear their
diamonds and keep their summer residences. A few
real cases of this class will be of interest, and serve to
illustrate more forcibly the subject on which we are
writing.
Charles B- was formerly a policeman, but for
some reason unknown was discharged from the police
force. He had and has still as fond and loving a part-
ner for a wife as ever a man was blessed with; she has
borne him two children, who are still living with their
mother in Brooklyn. Mr. B- was always rather
fast, and in the course of his duties or pleasures, it
matters little which, became acquainted with a woman-of-
the-town, the proprietress of a house on Howard street.
To her he formed a strong attachment. But there was
an obstacle in the way; the woman had a lover, and the
new aspirant for affection naturally felt jealous. One
night, while the lover was walking along the street, he
was suddenly struck on the back of the head with a
club, which felled him insensible to the pavement. He
was removed to the hospital, where he remained uncon-
scious for a few days, and then died. It was never ascer-
tained whose hands administered the blow, and the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
215
matter was soon forgotten. Mr. B- , the ex-police-
man, in the mean time occasionally visited the pro-
prietress, until at length he abandoned his wife and
family and lived with her. From Howard street they
moved to Mercer, where they have for years carried on
an extensive business—have made many investments
which brought them handsome returns. They are the
owners of a fine farm on Long Island, keep several fast
horses, and may often be seen on the road or at the
races with a handsome turn-out. You would call that
handsome, finely-built, genteel-looking man a perfectly
respectable member of society. How did he make his
wealth, though? Who pays for the fine horses and
carriages, the mansion in the city, the good clothes and
the rest? Come with us to a certain den in Mercer
street, and cast your eyes on a dozen or two half-starved,
half-clad, bloated, disgusting-looking females, and the
story is told. They are ruining their health and bodies
for a few dollars a week; they are selling their souls for
the benefit of this man and woman—their masters.
During all the revelry, the sound of lively music and
fine singing, we cannot help but think of words uttered
more than a thousand years ago : “What shall it profit
a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?”
As we pass along Greene street, we see a house, over the
front door of which there is a large colored, illuminated
chandelier, with the one word, “Flora,” painted upon it.
In the day-time you will see the same word in letters
of gold on the house. The name which we give is, of
course, assumed, as we do not care to advertise the place

216
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
LO
-it is already too easily found by the New Yorker
and the stranger. She has gained more notoriety than
any other woman outside of the fashionable class of the
demi-monde. The history of this woman is somewhat
interesting, and could it be written minutely would
form a volume in itself. Her original name was Char-
lotte N- , and arriving from Albany, New York,
about twenty years ago, she opened a house in Howard
street. Her business prospered, and before long she
opened a house on a much larger scale in Greene street,
where she remained until recently, when she moved
farther up the street and opened a more costly house.
Several years ago she became infatuated with a young
and wayward youth whose father is an extensive piano
manufacturer up town. She finally persuaded him to
marry her. His family, in consequence of this step of
their son, felt themselves so degraded and humbled that
for some time they withdrew from society and refused
to recognize the son as a member. He lived with her
several years, and a son and daughter were born to
them, when he becoming too familiar with the “ladies"
of the house, she sent him away. He suddenly dis-
appeared, since which time no trace could be found of his
whereabouts. Several years after his disappearance she
sued for and obtained a divorce. Her son lived to be
about twenty years of age, and was spoken of as
an exemplary young man by every one who knew
him. She spared no money or pains in educating him,
and at his death placed a handsome monument over his
final resting-place in Greenwood Cemetery. The daugh-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
217
man
ter, who was always kept at boarding-school, and knew
nothing of her mother's mode of living or early history,
was married in May, 1869, to an estimable young man
of Paterson, New Jersey.
This woman has acquired a fortune, owning a large
farm at Paterson, two houses and lots in Brooklyn, be-
sides considerable personal property in New York. She
dresses in the greatest elegance, and when her toilette
is complete, if it were not for her ignorant manners and
conversation, would be courted by not a few. During
the war she made a great deal of money from the soldier-
boys, who spent their money upon her without stint.
At this time she had agents in different parts of the
country, hunting up and inducing young girls to come
to New York and enter upon a life of shame. Many a
poor girl who to-day lies in Potter's Field was enticed
by this woman's agents from the factories of Paterson,
stealthily leaving her parents, who would make every
exertion, without success, in endeavoring to find their lost
one. As this book is being written the papers have
reported the trial of this woman, who was brought up
before the court on the charge of assisting a man to out-
rage a young girl in F 's own house.
As the demi-monde live in furnished rooms, they are
obliged to purchase their meals at the restaurants. They
lead a nomadic life, and make as many changes in their
rooms as they do in their lovers. They soon tire of one
situation, or, failing to pay the rent, they are compelled
to leave. The rent of the room is paid in advance, and
varies from five to fifty dollars a week. It is estimated
wa

218
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
that a certain woman, who leads this short and fitful
career, has been in no less than a thousand houses as a
tenant in the course of her life. The houses where these
rooms are let out abound in Houston, Prince and Woos-
ter streets. Bleecker street is also full of them, as it is
of respectable people and people of all sorts. The
owners of the houses are very often highly respectable,
and pursue the practice simply to make money.
To give a definite idea as to where these women get
their various meals would be impossible. The restau-
rants they patronize are all over the city. They are
irregular in their hours of eating, unless they are con-
nected with a “parlor-house,” when they are only board-
ers. Breakfast may be eaten at ten, eleven, twelve or
even one or two o'clock in the day, depending on the
hour of getting up; dinner between twelve and six
o'clock; supper from six P. M. to three A. M.; or there
may be no meal at all eaten during the day. The girl
may have no money-have spent all her earnings in
a night's carousal, as too many of them do—in which
case she is obliged to go without food unless she can
borrow money enough to pay for it, or get “ tick.” The
“ coffee-and-cake” saloons, always a peculiar institution
of the metropolis, are largely patronized by the middling
class of the demi-monde. They are cheap, and coffee
and cakes is a cheap dish. There is a coffee-and-cake
saloon in Prince street, and another in Houston street,
which serve the purpose of a club-room or meeting-place
for women of this character. From ten o'clock at night
until one in the morning these places are filled with

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
219
the Pariahs of society, who meet for the purpose of lunch-
ing and having a chat. The listener can here gain some
information as to what most interests these women who
are outcasts on the world. The principal talk between
them is about how much money they have made, where
they are living, what streets they are walking on, or
whose house they are inmates of. The names of men are
sometimes mentioned, these being the “lovers” of the
young women. It is said that this girl has “shaken”
Johnny So-and-so, or Johnny So-and-so has “shaken”
the girl; Nancy has gone on the Albany boats for the
summer ; Mary has had a fight with her landlady; Bella
has been arrested and sent to the island for drunkenness;
Charlotte has committed suicide, or Alice has made
money, bought a fine wardrobe and gone to Mrs. D— 's
fashionable house.
The conversation is decidedly business like, at least
with the majority. Some girls don't talk at all; they
are modest and good-looking, and seem to have some
vestige of self-respect left. Others converse, but are of
a literary turn; they go in raptures over this or that
story in the weekly paper, but the literary specimens
are few and far between. The thought of neariy all
these women is on money, and their talk naturally turns
to that.
A favorite resort of the gayer and livelier women-of-
the-town—those who are burning the candle of life at
both ends—is at some of the ball-rooms of Greene or
Mercer street. These ball-rooms are large, though the
ceiling is rather low. They are poorly furnished. A
n mo
as

220
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
long, stationary bench runs around the room, and on a
stage at the farther end three or four musicians, who
never play in tune or in time, are endeavoring to dis-
course “ most excellent music.” There is a bar at the
opposite end, from which bad liquor is dispensed at
exorbitant prices. Countrymen and foolish young
men of the city patronize these ball-rooms, paying an
admission of twenty-five cents, and going in for the
purpose of getting a girl. The girls are admitted free,
as they are the principal attraction. Dancing and
drinking is carried on until daylight breaks, winding up
with the Can-Can after the latest Parisian style.
There are some girls whose taste is different. They
take no interest in the trippings of Terpsichore, but love
rather the sound of revelry and the merry chink of
giasses. They are nearing the last step in the life of the
woman-of-the-town. Becoming desperate through sick-
ness, disappointment or ill-luck, they have taken to hard
drinking. They patronize the same bar-rooms that
men go to, though there are one or two liquor-stores in
Houston street where they are principally in the habit
of going. Gin is their favorite drink, and they drink
as long as they have money to pay for it, and until they
have become completely drunk. The police arrest them
for disorderly conduct as they are on their way home,
and the next day, filled with shame, they resolve to drink
only the more—carry out their resolution, and in a few
months come to an early end. Ill-treatment and jeal-
ousy on the part of “lovers" lead many of these girls
to this unhappy practice.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
221
A noted sporting-house on Houston street, near Broad-
way, is perhaps the best-known resort for the demi-monde
after ten o'clock in the evening. It is kept by an ex-
pugilist, who is a singular mixture of good and bad
qualities. The admission to the “club-rooms” for men
is twenty-five cents—the women go in free. A variety
performance is given during the evening, consisting of
negro minstrelsy, Irish and Dutch comic singing, Punch
and Judy, and dancing can be indulged in ad libitum by
every one.
We have thus mentioned some of the resorts of what
may be styled the middle-class of the demi-monde.
Other places might be named, but these must suffice.
These women, like the poor, we have always with us. On
Broadway, in the broad noonday or in “witching hour
of night,” they walk; in stages, in cars, at the theatre,
the concert, the ball-room, the lecture, even the church,
they may be seen. At the Central Park, or on the ave-
nue or road, they ride in fine carriages drawn by splen-
did horses. The summer resort will find them, and in
the winter at the various prominent balls they manage to
gain an entrance.
And yet no one seems to see Aspasia. Women look
the other way, and but few men take notice of her as she
flaunts by in her fine dress. There is no one to speak
to her, no one to notice her but those of her own class.
She is always alone, and indeed an outcast from society.
Fine ladies and gentlemen on the Sabbath-day fre-
quently hear read from a very old and a very good book
the story of One who was not ashamed to walk with the
nue (

222
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
harlot in the streets of a very ancient city. How many
of these same people, however, would dare in this modern
time and modern city to walk with one of these women
in the open day, say to her a kindly word, and, more
than all, by showing her some respect, teach her to re-
• spect herself ?

moonca
CA
CHAPTER XIX.
THE USE OF NARCOTICS BY THE DEMI-MONDE.
M OMEN of all classes of society in New York use
stimulants and narcotics to a greater or less ex-
09 tent, but the demi-monde in particular, above and
beyond all others, are addicted to these unwhole-
some and life-destroying habits. If the women of
fashion are compelled to use various kinds of opiates
to induce sleep, how much more are the women of
pleasure, whose life is one continued round of dissipation
all the year through, and who never know what rest is!
They are irregular in their hours of eating, in their
hours of retiring, in the length of time they sleep; and
the consequence is, that their nervous systems are nearly
always out of repair, and they are obliged to resort to
drugs to induce sleep. This practice is about as common
as eating among them, and is indulged in by all classes
of women-of-the-town, whether they be high or low.
Hasheesh was the favorite drug with these women some
years ago, but is no longer thought much of. Arsenic
was the next "sensation" in this line, and has held its
own until the present time, principally for the reason
that it sicklies the brow o'er with the “pale cast of
thought,” and makes the person look pale and interest-
223

224
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ing. Laudanum is a favorite drug with the demi-monde,
and some of them carry its use to a fearful extent. A
resident of a noted house in Wilson Place is in the
habit of taking as much as a pint of laudanum in a
single day. There are very many who can take a gill or
two gills a day without any perceptible bad effect. It
is a fact that there is residing in the upper part of the
city a woman of this class, who is nearly sixty years of
age, and who, for the last ten years, has averaged fifteen
grains of morphia per day, and has been in the habit of
eating opium for the past twenty-five years. Another
case worthy of mention is that of a poor girl who once
a week washes out a certain drug store in the vicinity
of Bleecker street, for an allowance of an ounce of laud-
anum a day. This she has been doing for the past five
years. She is a poor wreck of the finely-formed beauty
she once was, and before long she will die from the use
of this very drug which she says she is now unable to
dispense with.
Occasionally there are instances where physicians
themselves have paved the way for an over-use of these
drugs. They often prescribe them for these girls during
illness, and the patients forming a strong liking for them,
continue their use for many years to come, possibly until
they die. We have a case now in mind directly trace-
able to medical prescription. A young girl about twenty
years of age, an inmate of a house in Greene street, was
suddenly taken very seriously ill. She had been leading
a very fast life for a year or two before, and paid for it
in a severe fit of sickness. Her nervous system was com-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
225
pletely shattered and broken down, and the physician
who had charge of her prescribed a small amount of
morphia. Before twelve days the patient had developed
a fierce mania for the drug, and took it at the rate of
twelve grains per day. An effort was made to substitute
brandy for opium, and the patient was kept in a state
of drunkenness for days, but all to no purpose. On
her recovering from the use of the brandy, the drug was
again resorted to. At last the poor creature had to be
removed to the insane asylum. There the examining
physician said she would die if the use of the drug were
to be cut off. She stayed there a few weeks, and finally
died from her own physician reducing the dose of the
drug. This is only one case of dozens that might be
mentioned. Injudicious prescriptions by physicians often
lead women to use drugs of this character as men do
tobacco, though of course not in such large quantities.
The habit of using any of these drugs once formed,
there is no difficulty in procuring them at the apothecary
stores, even without a medical order. There is scarcely.
a drug store in New York between Canal and Forty-
second streets, on both sides of the city, but what has
from ten to twenty opium customers among the demi-
monde, and some of them sell more without a prescription
or order than with either. The argument is, the law
is absurd; the customer can find enough physicians will-
ing to write an order for a small fee; if, therefore, it is
not given without an order, it is only putting the habitué
to extra trouble—the conclusion being that the seller
is only legally, and not morally, culpable. “If a woman
66
WO

226
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
wishes to commit suicide with morphia," argues the
druggist,“ my withholding the drug till she brings an
order will not prevent it; and besides, should I with-
hold, she will probably procure it elsewhere, where the
statute is less stringently observed.” This is the reason-
ing of the vender in point of substance, and it cannot
be denied that it has some plausibility. Though plau-
sible or otherwise, the fact remains that there is not a
drug store in New York City where a customer cannot
procure the drug by asking for it. In fact, the drug-
gists are not more than one in four, on the average, who
will not vend to a total stranger (without medical order)
as soon as they will to a regular customer of the store.
In the majority of cases even the name and residence
of the buying party are not registered, and in many
cases it is not even habitual with the druggist to label
the bottle containing the laudanum other than with the
word “Poison"—the name of the firm and the name of
the drug being omitted for prudential reasons. If mor-
phia is called for, it is put up and enclosed in a plain
envelope, with the simple half query, “You know what
this is, of course ?” and provided there is nothing to
criminate the druggist on the envelope or vial, a girl
may commit suicide fifty times if she can, and so wills,
it is no business of his.
It can hardly be wondered at, however, that some poor
wretches of this character, abandoned beyond all hope,
scoffed at and scorned by the world, and receiving no
kindly word from any one,—it can hardly be wondered
at, we say, that some of these women indulge in the use

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
227
of opium, when we consider the powerful and pleasing
fascination it works on the human system. In its first
and primary action it has the effect of a powerful and
vital stimulant, and the person who takes it feels like a
new being for a short time. But the reaction constitutes
the terror. The three stages of vital stimulation passed
over—the nervous and fantastic perturbation and drowsy
languor passed over-there succeeds a slumber of
troubled dreams resembling nightmare, whence the
patient may or may not wake up at the proper time,
according to the size of the dose.
The districts of the demi-monde form the leading part
of the retail trade. Drug stores in and near Mercer,
Wooster, Greene and Crosby streets, from Broome to
Amity streets, sell large quantities of opium. It would
be a correct estimate to say that about one-fourth of the
women of the under-world habitually use the drug, while
nearly all of the remaining three-fourths indulge in its
use occasionally when depression and despair have suc-
ceeded to dissipation and licentiousness.
The fashionable women-of-the-town are not only ad-
dicted to the habit of using drugs, but of imitating their
Parisian sisters (whom they try to copy in nearly every
respect) in the use of cordials and dram-drinking. This
class of the demi-monde never get grossly intoxicated,
at least so long as they maintain their position as fashion-
ables. The use of cordials among this class of females
is very large and constantly on the increase. Curaçoa
is a favorite drink. It is compounded as follows: twenty-
two parts wormwood, twenty orange-peel, cclored with

228
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
red saffron and mixed with alcohol. Anisette, another
popular beverage, is made as follows: wormwood and
aniseed, red and white saffron and alcohol. Kimmel is
composed of wormwood and alcohol in different propor-
tions from the ones just mentioned. Beaumarchais is a
cordial composed of certain parts of wormwood, saffron
and alcohol. It will be noted that the principal ingre-
dients of these drinks are wormwood and alcohol, both
of which are very deleterious to the human system, espe-
cially the wormwood.
Absinthe, which is largely consumed by the Pariahs
of Paris, and also by their sisters in New York, is nothing
more than a poison. It is composed of wormwood, ani-
seed, flag-root, etc., reduced by distillation, macerated and
soaked for a week in proof spirits. The essential oil of
anise is also added, and a certain test called whitening is
then employed, and if the compound does not endure
the ordeal satisfactorily, indigo, tinctures, nettles and
even blue vitriol or the sulphate of copper, is added till
all is satisfactory. Absinthe acts very powerfully on the
nervous system, and in this very nerve-action lie at
once the charm and the danger of absinthe. It at once
stimulates the brain in the most delightful manner, but
the reaction is terrible. Muscular contractions, spasms,
physical weakness, nightmare, hypochondriasis,—all these
follow the use of this drink. An inmate of a fashion-
able house in Eighth street conceived an ardent fondness
for absinthe about three years ago, and has ever since
surrendered herself madly to this passion. She is fast
becoming a wreck of the beautiful courtesan she once was.
her
TV
ervo

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
229
One of the most stylish of the demi-monde, living in
West Twenty-sixth street, takes absinthe and other cor-
dials every day. Her bill for these liquors to a merchant
down town for a single month was seventy-five dollars.
She uses them in wine principally, taking them before
retiring to rest, as they produce, she says, a most pleasing
sensation and lull her to rest. There are certain kinds
of lozenges whose chief ingredients are absinthe and
anisette, which have a large sale.
How many are led to these habits through remorse pro-
duced by remembrances of their early home and their
virtuous and happy childhood, who can tell? How
many bear all sorts of ill-treatment from their “lovers ;"
how many desire to lead a “godly, righteous and sober
life,” and yet cannot with all the world against them;
how many bear through life aching hearts and sick
bodies, and yet wear smiles upon their faces; how many
yearn for a pure and holy love which they can never get,
and so seek refuge in opiates to drown their sorrow; and
finally, how many “rather than bear the ills they have,
fly to others they know not of,”—how many do all
these things, and finally drown their cares with drugs,
can only be known to Him who ruleth over all, who
knoweth all things, and who careth for the poor, the
widow and the outcast, though an uncharitable and
unkind world may pass them by.

CHAPTER XX.
'HERE is an ästhetic side to vice as there is to
virtue. The respectable and virtuous man, as soon
ole as he becomes wealthy, refines his pleasure and
brings in all that is good and beautiful in all the
arts to minister to his gratifiation. It was once thought
fit and beautiful enough to worship in plain churches,
with no cushions on the seats, to be drawn to the edifice
in a wagon, to dress plainly and live simply. But with
the progress of the age and the advancement of civiliza-
tion all this is changed. Churches cannot be made too
beautiful in these days for the city worshiper; seats can-
not be made too soft and downy; carriages cannot be too
costly to bear the saints away, and the apparel of the
modern religionist bears a striking contrast to that of our
forefathers only a few score years ago. And just as the
wealthy virtuous, when conforming to the customs of
society or when seeking pleasure, bring to their aid all
that the arts can give them, so do the wealthy vicious.
The beautiful is not monopolized by the virtuous, although
the true and the good may be. Vicious and wicked
ma
and statuary, the compositions of the best musical masters,
230

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Wom
W
FAST WOMEN.-TIE DRIVE IN CENTRAL PARK.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
231
as well as the rest of mankind, and have as good a taste
in these particulars as any one. There are sensualists
and grossly wicked men and women, who would not
dream of indulging in vices in their original raw state,
who will become adepts in sin when those same vices
are gilded. They believe in the saying of Burke, that
“vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness.” You
cannot gild refined gold, the poet said, but you can so
gild vice and wickedness as to change it wonderfully and
make it appear not like virtue, but as if there were no
sin in it. “Money makes the man” in more senses than
one. The world is quick to detect the wrong-doings of
the poor man, but the vices of the rich man are over-
looked and forgiven;
Папае
"Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all."
There is an upper world even in this under-world of
which we are writing—a world where wealth and beauty
reign supreme, where every one wears a mask and seems
other than he is. The fashionable houses of the demi-
monde are nowhere more abundant and nowhere more
liberally patronized than in New York. Paris can boast
of many houses of this character, but the great metropo-
lis is not far behind in point of numbers or “style.”
The weakness for women is even greater than the weak-
ness for wine in the breast of the wealthy New Yorker,
and he is not to be outdone by the gay Parisian in
spending money on the frail ones. Thousands of dollars
are annually spent by men of wealth and high social

232
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
standing on the fashionable and stylish women of this
character.
The fashionable houses are all above Canal street, the
majority of them being above Fourteenth street. Mercer
street was at one time filled with them, and was found
to be a good business locality, being near so many of the
Broadway hotels. But property has lately very much
increased in value in this street, and warehouses of im-
mense proportions are taking the places of the houses
where scenes of revelry were once enacted.
The difference between the higher-class house and
others of a lower grade is marked. The former is
always imposing in appearance from the outside, and
looks like the private residence of a family of means.
The curtains are drawn, the blinds closed, and there is
never anything improper seen from the outside. The
girls never sit by the windows to solicit custom, and,
indeed, never solicit it anywhere. The furniture and
appointments of the house are of the most elegant de-
scription. Everything is there that money can procure
which will gratify the eye or charm the senses. The
sofas and chairs are of the richest description, covered
with highly-ornamented satin or brocatelle. Pictures,
engravings and chromos adorn the walls. Statuettes
on pedestals are in various parts of the parlors and in
niches in the walls on the stairways. The carpet is of
velvet, the chandeliers large and shedding a brilliant
light over the apartment. Sofas and divans are in con-
venient corners; a black walnut book-case, filled with
elegantly-bound books, bespeaks a literary taste; and a

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
233
grand piano, of one of the best makers, shows that some
one in the house is a musician. The parlors are the
same as those of any fashionable mansion on Fifth or
Madison avenue, and in furnishing them it is aimed to
make them look as nearly like the parlors of the fashion-
ably respectable houses as can be.
A person calling at one of these resorts rings the bell.
The summons is answered sometimes by the proprietress,
but generally by a colored servant. The door is not
opened until the stranger is viewed through an iron
panel in the door. If he looks well dressed and gentle-
manly, and is not under the influence of liquor, he is
admitted. He is shown into one of the magnificently-
furnished parlors. He waits alone for a few minutes,
when about a dozen young ladies enter the room. They
are all beautiful, and of all styles of loveliness. Some
are tall, some short; some thin, others plump; some with
dark and others with light hair; some gay and vivacious-
looking, others modest and retiring; some full of life and
fun, others ladylike and quiet. All tastes can be grati-
fied from this bevy of fair girls. They are dressed after
the latest fashion in full evening-dress, though one or
two may be attired in white wrappers. They look like
any other party of young ladies, with the exception that
some may show signs of past dissipation in their faces,
but so do women of fashion who are supposed to be vir-
tuous. Most of them are intelligent—some highly accom-
plished. They converse with you on the ordinary topics
of the day—on the weather, the news of the day, the
last novel of Miss Braddon or Wilkie Collins, the re-
re-
18

234
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ception of Charles Dickens, the laying of the French
cable, the suicide of the Wall street broker, or the
Fourieristic idea of love. If you are a stranger, they
ask where you came from, how long you have been in
the city, and how you like it; whether you don't think
it a very wicked place and they very naughty girls.
Some are witty and good at repartee, others are solemn
and appear to have their thoughts far away; some are
so full of life as to border on the boisterous, others as
ladylike and modest and sweet-natured as any females
you ever met. Some of them may be musicians and
favor you with selections from the best operas. They do
not sing the lively songs of the day, but may warble a
plaintive melody of true love, or about a country home
on the hillside, or the innocent days of childhood, in
such a touching manner that it will bring tears to your
eyes. Perhaps they put more heart in singing it than
most of us think. You order a bottle of champagne (at
eight dollars), and after drinking their healths take your
leave.
The girls who are in these houses are generally the
daughters of wealthy parents in good position in society,
and have been seduced by men equally high in the social
scale. This is their first, or it may be second, year “on
the town.” They have received the benefit of a good
education, and were destined to be women of high stand-
ing in society, until, ruined in character (according to the
conventional idea), they took up their abode in one of
these fashionable palaces of sin. They pay a high price
for board—from fifty to a hundred dollars a week, depend-

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
235
ing on the room they occupy. Their rooms are all finely
furnished. Everything necessary for a lady's complete
toilette is at hand, and numerous servants ready to wait
on them at a moment's call. They remain here until
their beauty fades, when they are told to leave and do
the best they can.
The proprietress or “madam” of one of these institutions
is a study. She is between thirty-five and fifty years of
age, nearly always portly in appearance, and not always
beautiful. She is cold, cynical and icy in her man-
ners. She has seen the world in many of its phases, has
been badly treated by men and women, and has lost all
faith in human nature. She swears by Rochefoucauld,
and prefers Voltaire to all other authors. To make
money and spend it on her own person is her only am-
bition. She has long since ceased to believe in love or
friendship, and looks only to the present day for hap-
piness. The “madam” is seldom kind to the girls under
her charge, but there are exceptions to every rule. She
makes her money out of them, and if they are sick it
is only so much loss to her. Before long the girls are
“madams” on a small scale, so far as a cold cynicism
and disbelief in goodness and human nature are concerned.
Distinguished men, both of the city and the land, visit
these houses. They are the resorts of many of the
“notabilities.” You cannot see them there, to be sure,
for every one's business is his own and nobody else's at
these places, and you see no men while you are in them.
Politicians are great patrons, especially local politicians;
Congressmen drop in when on a chance visit to New

236
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
York during the session, and Senators occasionally lend
their distinguished presence to the scene. All men who
have money are visitors-gamblers, horse-jockeys, star-
actors and circus-riders, negro-minstrel managers, stock-
speculators, gold-brokers, railway-directors, prize-fighters,
gentlemen with fortunes and respectable merchants,—all
these spend their spare cash in the house of the fashion-
able demi-monde. It requires to be “made of money”—
as the expressive phrase runs—to visit these resorts. A
man may spend a hundred dollars in the course of a
single evening without any trouble whatever.
Nearly all the girls have “lovers” or favorites. They
do not support the lovers, however, as girls of a lower
order do, but rather receive many handsome presents in
jewelry and cash from them. Occasionally a girl gives
up her mode of life, removes from the house and lives
with one of these men, who wholly supports her.
A word as to the locality of some of the more prom-
inent of these houses.
One of the most fashionable of this kind is situated
in Wilson Place, a quiet street west of Broadway, where
very few persons ever walk. It is a plain brick house,
not very imposing in appearance. The proprietress is
a lady of some culture, of pleasant manners and pos-
sessed of considerable beauty. There is no particular
interest attached to her life. The inmates of her house
are characterized for their beauty and accomplishments.
The establishment is also noted for being patronized by
men of high position and authority in the city's and
nation's affairs.
me

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
237
The house of Mrs. - in East Fourteenth street, is
also of brick, but is large and imposing in appearance,
standing a little back from the street. It is the re-
sort of the Southerners, or was before the war, and is
at present the favorite resort of the “gentlemen from
Hingland.” The proprietress is a small, old, ugly.
bloated-looking woman, who dresses very flashily and
drives out in her carriage on Broadway on pleasant
afternoons. She formerly kept in Eighth street, but was
compelled to leave, owing to the complaints of the neigh-
bors. Persons living near her in Fourteenth street also
took legal measures some time ago to compel her to
leave, but they failed. Madam — proved that she had
not disturbed the public peace, and as she owned the
house in which she lived, had a right to live in it and
do what she chose. And the court sustained her. The
case might have been decided differently outside of New
York.
On Fifth, Madison and Lexington avenues, each, there
are three or four houses. They are kept very private,
indeed, and entrance can only be had on the strength
of a personal introduction. The inmates are about the
same, however, as elsewhere, and the houses also, with
the exception that they are more imposing in appearance
and furnished with greater richness. In West Fifteenth
street is a noted resort for the men of quiet tastes. The
house is one of a row of plain brown-stone mansions.
It is elegantly furnished, and the young ladies are noted
for being not only very beautiful, but very intelligent.
Madam — the proprietress, is a large, fine-looking
re
TOV
2
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238
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
woman, intelligent and interesting in a conversation, and
naturally of a quiet disposition. This is the most quiet
house of this character in the city.
In striking contrast to the last named is a large estab-
lishment in Eighth street, and perhaps the best known
in the city. It has been kept for years by the well-
known Mrs. — , and has witnessed many a scene of
dissipation and mad revelry. The fast men and the aris-
tocratic young bloods of the period patronize it prin-
cipally. Here are about twenty inmates. They are not
remarkable for good looks, and still less for good man-
ners. Some years ago the party were quite intelligent
and ladylike, but changes have been made since then,
and at present the girls are very ordinary in every par-
ticular. Dissipation here rules supreme. More wine
and other liquors are consumed than by any other two
houses of prostitution in the city. The poor women are
consequently nearly always sick. They were once all in
the habit of using chloroform to induce sleep. One of
their number, a few months since (May, 1869), took too
large a dose and died from its effects. Frightened by
this accident, since that time the use of the article has
been discontinued.
The “madam” who keeps the institution has a history.
She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and about
fifteen years ago came to New York and opened a house
in the lower part of the city. She sold out after two or
three years and removed to Eighth street, where she
has kept ever since. She was a servant-girl in New
Haven : now she is worth considerable property. She

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
239
is handsome, but seldom mingles in the company that
visits her place, preferring to remain in the privacy of
her own room.
Some women who have kept these houses in former
years have retired from the business, having made a
fortune. There are several instances of this character.
A widow who, ten years ago, kept in the vicinity of the
Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Mulberry street,
retired after she had made a fortune, married a gentle-
man of position, and is now living a virtuous life. The
case of two sisters, who openly acknowledged to their
friends that they went into the business to make money
enough to purchase back their old home in Western
New York, may be familiar to many New Yorkers.
They finally succeeded in acquiring a fortune of twenty
thousand dollars, which they devoted to the purpose
named, and are now living on their ancestral domains.
Other instances might be given did space permit.
Many of the fashionable women-of-the-town gamble
to make money and pass the time away. There is a
gambling-saloon on Broadway largely patronized by
them, though the principal one is in the upper part of
the city. It is in Twenty-third street, near Madison
avenue, and patronized exclusively by females. We
will visit it. It is a modest, unpretending-looking house,
the entrance scrupulously clean, and presenting no differ-
ence externally to those adjoining, save that the blinds
are all tightly closed. Ringing the bell, we are admitted
by a gorgeously-appareled woman, who acts as janitress.
On one side of the hall is a superb painting of Leda and

240
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the Swan; on the opposite side is another painting, equally
good, of Venus rising from the sea.
Ascending the stairs, we are ushered into the parlors
on the first floor. They are elegantly, even luxuriously,
furnished. The person who fitted up these rooms must
have had exquisite taste. The paintings hanging on the
walls are rare and valuable, but the most conspicuous,
and the one that first strikes the eye and rivets the atten-
tion, is that by, Ary Scheffer, of the gambling-scene from
Bulwer's play of “Money,” and for which, it is stated,
August Belmont offered $25,000 and was refused. Seat-
ed around the room and at the gambling-table are a
number of ladies, all of whom are dressed in the height
of fashion. The players are flushed with excitement,
but the dealer, in her Pompadour waist, half revealing,
half concealing, her ample bust, sits calm and collected,
and rakes in the “chips” with the utmost sang froid.
Ever and anon some player, when a heavy bet is lost,
calls for wine, which is speedily supplied by an attentive
and demure-looking Hebe. Demure-yes, but it is the
demureness of a cat. Offend her, and she will quickly
show you that she has claws.
That lady at the centre of the table was once the wife
of one of our most wealthy merchants, but separated from
him, and is now one of the demi-monde. We could tell
you her name, but tales must never be told out of school.
Observe that young lady with a bonnet no longer than
a cockle-shell and Bismarck brown ribbons—the one who
is now taking off her diamond ring to stake, and which
she will certainly lose: she is one of the noted belles of
uren

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
241
the under-world. Ah, our wealthy merchant's wife is a
loser; see, she rises from the table, biting her lips till
the blood comes to conceal her emotion. Come, let us
away. Such scenes do not make our opinion of poor,
weak human nature the more exalted. Respectable,
wealthy women, who crave for more money, sometimes
visit this house, it being in a fashionable and unsuspicious
quarter of the city. When we think of this fact, is it
any wonder that we so frequently see rewards offered for
lost diamond rings, bracelets and necklaces ? If we had
the power of Asmodeus, we would see these “lost” arti-
cles in the safe of some gentleman who has for his sign
the old Lombardy emblem of three balls. The thirst
for gambling will be satisfied and money must be ob-
tained. Hamlet was right: there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
Thus have we endeavored to give the reader some idea
of the aristocratic and select portion of the so-called gay
world of the great metropolis. But the term "gay" is a
misnomer, for there is no gayety but on the outside. To
the observer, coming for the first time into one of these
fashionable houses of vice, everything appears agreeable
and every one happy. But if the truth were known,
quite a different state of affairs would be revealed. Many
of these same women, who appear so free from care, and
make you feel so self-possessed by their pleasing conver-
sation and lively manners, have their thoughts directed
far away. Many of them have only a few months before
been seduced and taken from pleasant homes, and they
think of the happy, virtuous life they might have led
COU
me

242
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
but for their betrayers. They crave for an honest spirit-
ual love which they can never get; they have many a
day-dream of wives and mothers with pretty children
clambering round their skirts—of kind husbands and
indulgent fathers—of the good homes they might have
had, and the happiness and self-respectful feeling that
might have been theirs; visions of what their lives
might have been continually come up before them; and
when they compare these same visions with their present
positions—scorned by society and really loved by none-
they rush still more madly into dissipation, that they
may not think of the past or the future that could have
been theirs.
It remains to be said, in parting with these butterflies,
that in character before long they are as bad as the rest
of their class. True, there are good women among them
-women who have not lost all their womanliness, who
are kind of heart and take care of their companions
when ill, and love little children. But these specimens
are rare. The fashionable demi-monde soon lose con-
science, and are as dead to its value as to the value of
virtue. Let them lead their gay lives while they may,
they will eventually go down. Their beauty will fade;
the color from the cheek, the sparkle from the eye, the
animation and life which were their principal attraction,
will all pass away. To-day, they may shine in brilliant
parlors; before many months you may see them in a
den in Greene or Mercer street. To-day, they wear the
finest and most costly apparel; it will not be long before
it will find its way to the pawnbroker's, and they will

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
213
clothe themselves in plainer raiment. To-day, they eat
the best of food and drink the most expensive wines;
a year will not pass before they may want a crust of
bread. To-day, they ride in a gilded coach to Central
Park; the time may not be far distant when they will
ride to Blackwell's Island in the “Black Maria.”

CHAPTER XXI.
PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES OF THE BELLES OF THE UNDER-WORLD.
67 T is a rather remarkable fact in human nature that
every one, without exception, is interested in any
O gossip in regard to the women of pleasure of New
York. No matter how moral or religious a man
may be, items of personal interest relating to well-known
Anonymas are received with avidity. Men in high
standing in respectable society—clergymen, Sabbath-
school teachers, moral and religious reformers and tract
distributors—all stop to look at the beautiful frail one
as she passes down Broadway, and all will equally listen
to any information in regard to her history. There will
be no excuse, therefore, for the following pen-and-ink
sketches of some of the best-known denizens of the
under-world. For obvious reasons the names of the
parties are not given.
Mary Nathalie B— is a feature of Saturday ma-
tinées at the theatre and of Fifth avenue on Sunday
afternoons. She resides in one of the most elegant
brown-stone palaces on Madison avenue, and is, perhaps,
the most exclusive woman of the under-world. She has
been known to decline an introduction to a millionaire,
in which precedent she has had no teacher and but few
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WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
245
pupils. Strange to record, though extravagant in every
variety of expenditure, she cares very little for money
where her heart is concerned; and that she has a heart
has been often demonstrated. Her liberality to those
whom she has proved her friends is as remarkable as
her indifference to and distrust of mere acquaintances or
flatterers. Her beauty is of the German order, full and
blonde; her eye is large and bright, and utterly inde-
scribable in expression, as it varies with every mood of
its fair mistress; her education would qualify her for
any station; her connections are of the highest respect-
ability in Baltimore; her history is simply that of a
woman who, having before her the choice of being a
wife of dull, severe, Puritan respectability, or spending
a short life of unrestrained gayety, deliberately decided
in favor of the latter, and has cheerfully abided the
consequences.
Mrs. Henry —- is a woman of imposing presence,
of medium stature, with semi-pale, semi-dark complexion,
and a face which, though not beautiful, is irresistibly
attractive. Her style of dress is fashionable and adapted
to her physique. She has been for several seasons a
visitor at Long Branch. She generally takes the air in
a handsome, one-horse coupé, accompanied invariably
by children. Her education is limited, but she has a
fund of common sense sufficient to cover her mental
deficiencies.
Miss Lizzie - of Twelfth street, is a celebrated
creature of “everywhere," and has fluctuated for some
years between New York and Philadelphia. Her parents

246
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
are respectable people, living in New Jersey. At an
early age she left her home, commenced the life of a
Bohemian, then studied for the stage, then abandoned the
attempt, then essayed the rôle of a lady of fashion, then
scribbled for the Philadelphia newspapers, subsequently
became a perambulating feature of Broadway, and at last
determined to seek her fortune in New Orleans, securing
her passage by the Evening Star, but, fortunately for
herself, arriving at the wharf too late to sail in the ill-
fated vessel. What further phases she has yet to pass
through are only known to herself and Providence. She
is a rather tall, slight, pale-faced woman, with a wild eye,
a quick gait and a peculiarly shrill voice. This last pos-
session is her most prominent characteristic. In dress
she fluctuates greatly. Ever and anon she will be seen
in apparently the last stages of dilapidation, while a week
after she will promenade Broadway attired in the height
of the fashion. She is also possessed of a great facility
in changing her admirers.
Carrie — , of West Twenty-fifth street, is a native
of New England. In her deportment a lady, she is
utterly free from provincialism, is educated and refined,
reserved in her manners, and tasteful to a degree in mat-
ters of dress, affecting sober colors and the utmost
modesty. Her figure is slight, but graceful; and her
face, though by no means strikingly handsome, is one
of those rare countenances that improve upon acquaint-
ance; at first one would pronounce it almost plain, but
would end by calling it beautiful. Her eyes are expres-
sive, and her voice musical. Her stock of jewelry is

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
247
small, but select. Her history is understood to be roman-
tic, but she never alludes to it or herself.
· Miss Frankie- , of West Twenty-sixth street, is a
very beautiful and interesting creature—a blonde, of
slender figure and graceful form, exquisitely propor-
tioned; her hair is dark and curly; her eyes of a deep
blue, dreamy and languid; her hands and feet are espe-
cially noticeable, being as small as such appendages can
well be to be of any use, while at the same time they are
of the neatest possible shape; her face possesses a pleas-
ant and piquant expression; her voice, though somewhat
shrill, is musical; her manners are retiring, yet coquet-
tish; altogether, she is decidedly attractive; she dresses
richly in outré styles and strong colors, yet does not
positively overstep the bounds of taste; she affects in the
house red and white satin gowns, while for the street she
attires herself in green, pink and gorgeously-trimmed
drab short dresses. She is a general favorite, and has
become one of the features of her locality.
Miss Gertrude - is one of the most charming and
at the same time most bizarre of her sex. Her appear-
ance would indicate a woman of feeling and refinement;
her features are cast in a thoughtful mould; there is an
air of melancholy about her countenance which excites
in the beholder an undefinable interest. But this is
surface-show only. In reality, she is one of the most
dashing women in the metropolis-prone to revelry as
though it were a second nature—the life of late suppers,
the soul of merriment, extravagant in expenditure and
showy in dress. In person she is slender, graceful, of
Men
19

248
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
medium stature, mixed complexion, large eyes and dark
hair. Her limbs are especially beautiful; her arm is
exquisitely shaped, tapering to the wrist. Her favorite
true. Her life has been a series of romantic incidents.
Mrs. Ellen - , of East Twenty-eighth street, is
decidedly one of the handsomest women in the metropo-
lis ; though somewhat passé, she is still superb. She is
of more than average height, and also of more than
average width-if we may be allowed the expression.
But her figure is so finely proportioned that it leaves
naught to be desired. Her complexion is dark, her eyes
piercing, her forehead arched, her mouth exquisitely rosy;
her manner is dignified, though when she deigns to
please her smile is bewitching. Her voice is musical,
and her taste in dress is not surpassed by any woman in
the metropolis. About once every month she alters
her whole attire, changing alike its color and style as
fashion may dictate or as her womanly whim may sug-
gest. She promenades Broadway every pleasant after-
noon, and has become a feature, as it were, of that thor-
oughfare. She is a lady in susceptibility; is fond of the
drama, and, though not educated or accomplished herself,
appreciates accomplishments and education in others.
She is alike shrewd and sentimental.
Miss Sallie - , of West Twenty-fifth street, is a
celebrated woman, having a reputation co-extensive with
the cities of Philadelphia and New York. She is a
native of the former place, and was born of respectable
parents, who were Quakers, well connected and highly

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
249
esteemed—the family including a Quaker preacher. She
eyinced a decided disinclination for the habits and pur-
suits of young ladydom, and at the early age of seven-
teen left the paternal roof. Being of an ambitious dis-
position and expensive tastes, she, with the assistance of
two or three prominent Philadelphians, opened an ele-
gant establishment in the City of Brotherly Love, which
soon became one of the features of its life about town.
It was located on Sansom street, and was patronized by
the crême de la crême of the Quaker aristocracy. She
then removed to New York, and has for some years pre-
sided over a hospitable resort. Miss — is a slight,
tall, elegantly-shaped, fair brunette, with fine dark hair,
expressive black eyes, a small, sweet mouth, a low, musi-
cal voice, and a winning address. Her manner, perhaps,
is, after all, her chief attraction. Not a lady in the land
can be more refined and polished than Miss Sallie —
when so inclined. In her dress she evinces good taste,
preferring richness of material to display. She almost
invariably affects high-necked dresses and plain colors,
generally appearing in black; her bonnets are plain, and
she never wears a jockey. Though possessed of a large
and choice collection of diamonds, she seldom wears
them, contenting herself with a red coral set, very costly,
but unobtrusive. She is addicted to pets—lap-dogs are
her special weakness. She is kindly in her treatment of
animals, being a member of Bergh's society, and always
preserves a dignity which is impressive, though she can
be the soul of merriment among her intimates. Her
house is a great resort for Philadelphians, her parties

250
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
being known as “ Quaker reunions.” Her health has
been for some time poor, and it is said that she proposes
to retire from public life.
Miss Fannie , of West Sixteenth street, is in cer-
tain circles an acknowledged queen. In person she is
very tall and very slender, with a figure elegantly pro-
portioned. Her face is rather expressive than handsome,
while her mouth is remarkably beautiful. Her eyes are
large, of a peculiar variable shade and full of character.
Her waist is small, her fingers long and tapering and
her foot aristocratic. Her favorite specialty is dress ; on
this point she has few equals and acknowledges no supe-
rior. Her attire is marked by an artistic attention to
detail; every article of her apparel has a certain refer-
ence in form, color and material to some other portion;
while in the items of gloves, laces and boots she is as
tasteful as she is extravagant. One of her opera-dresses
is fashioned after a style worn by the royal Eugénie,
consisting of a long or Empress skirt, and a basque
attached, elaborately embroidered in silk and gold, the
material being of the richest black satin. The lady's
diamonds are estimated at ten thousand dollars. The
sensation excited by her appearance at Saratoga one or
two seasons ago is still fresh, doubtless, in the minds of
many persons who were present at the time. Her con-
versational powers are excellent and her manners refined.
Though she is as cool-headed as any strong-minded
woman in existence, taken altogether she is a character-
istic type of her class.
Miss Sarah —, of West Twenty-second street, claims

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
251
to be connected with a leading family in Ohio; is a tall,
stately, well-formed brunette, specially noticeable for her
taste in dress. Her fashions are always of the latest, or
rather of the earliest, preceding those of the modistes
themselves. Her favorite color is red—not of a vulgar
tint, however, but subdued, and admirably relieved by
other colors. Her judgment in bonnets is specially
correct, and her arrangement of her hair is unsurpassed
in the effect produced.
Miss Rose - recently residing at a Broadway hotel,
formerly achieved a success in California, winning fame
and fortune in the earlier days of that illustrious State.
In person she is a dark brunette, tall and of commanding
presence, with a very handsome face, full of life and ani-
mation. In demeanor she is remarkably refined and
ladylike; is accomplished and intelligent. She is also
noted for her benevolence of disposition, and she has
given away large sums in charity. Notwithstanding her
good heart, she possesses a shrewd head and a thorough
knowledge of human nature, by which she has acquired
a comfortable competence, estimated at twenty thousand
dollars, well invested.
Miss Nellie — is a tall, handsome, finely-formed
woman, of remarkably lovely and delicate complexion,
of an indescribable shade between blonde and brunette.
She recently leased a magnificent house on the Avenue,
between Twenty-first and Twenty-second streets, near the
celebrated Café Louvre, and refurnished it in the most
sumptuous style, although she rented the residence, nom-
inally furnished, from its original proprietress—a fashion-

252
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
able leader known as the Countess—and paid for the
lease the enormous sum of one thousand dollars per
month. Her pleasing manners, combined with her great
native shrewdness, rendered her popular; but she has
lately retired alike from the Avenue and from the world.
Mrs. Charles — is the widow of an army officer;
a beautiful woman, a slender, petit brunette, who attires
herself in the most récherché and costly of black dresses,
elegantly trimmed, and so cut as to display to the utmost
her graceful figure. She has resided at the St. Nicholas
and Fifth Avenue Hotels, and is one of the most accom-
plished of her class, and a charitable and kind-hearted
woman.
Miss Ida - , of West Twenty-fifth street, is a re-
markably handsome young creature; tall, stately, ma-
jestic, when she chooses, yet at the same time slender
and graceful as a fawn. Her figure is full and superbly
rounded. Her features are regular; her forehead is
finely arched; her eyebrows delicately penciled; her
eyes are large, light and expressive; her hair luxuriant;
and her mouth full, yet delicate in outline. Physically,
she closely approaches perfection. Her voice is sweet
and her manner pleasant. She converses fluently, and
sings and performs upon the piano creditably. She ap-
pears to be retiring in disposition, and would, at first
sight, in her favorite drab dress, be taken for a demure
Quakeress. But in reality she is one of the gayest,
wildest, maddest and most reckless of her class, and is a
striking illustration of how little appearances are to be
trusted, especially where the fair sex is concerned. She

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
253
also presents a forcible example of the power of training,
for in this great city and age of ours women are trained
nie
ment, precisely as men are trained into medicine, law,
politics or trade.
Fannie - , of Seventeenth street, known as “ye
gentle savage,” is a dark brunette, of very peculiar ap-
pearance-like a girl of Indian origin. In fact, it is
reported that her original progenitors belonged to the
Sioux tribe. However this may be, this young lady
has lost all the primeval habits of her tribe, and now
adorns herself not with beads and wampum, but with
the richest and most tasteful silks and satins, the neatest
gloves and the gayest bonnets.
Miss Josie - , of Eighth street, has for some time
held a prominent place among the leaders of the under-
world. Her history possesses a certain degree of roman-
tic interest. She visits the watering-places, keeps a
carriage and horses, and owns a very choice assortment
of diamonds, which are deposited in a down-town estab-
lishment for safe-keeping. In person she is prepossess-
ing—a graceful, elegantly-formed woman; though no
longer young, still decidedly attractive. She is reserved
to those under her authority, but is said to be kind-
hearted and exceedingly liberal, and is a lady of extraor-
dinary refinement.
Miss Athena - , of Thompson street, is a fair young
coquette. Her person, her character and her history are
alike peculiar. She was born in Athens, Greece, from
which circumstance her favorite name is derived. At

254
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Surren
an early age she was brought to this country, and with
her parents settled in the neat but noisy town of Boston.
Here she attracted the attention of a tragedian, who,
marking her youthful precocity of talent, offered to
educate her at his own expense for the stage. This offer
was accepted, and the child developed herself into an
admirable actress. But in the course of years, as the
young Athena expanded into a beautiful woman, as she
increased in stature and statuesque loveliness, the teacher
became the pupil and wooed and won her early affections.
Athena was of a temperament that permitted her to do
nothing by halves, so she surrendered her whole heart
and soul to her master-lover; became the most ardent of
his worshipers and the leading lady in his company.
This status continued for several years, but at length a
coldness came between the tragedian and his inamorata.
Of the cause of this break the advocates of the lady
give one version and the adherents of the actor another.
But whatever may have been the cause, the result was
disastrous to the woman. She lost her professional posi-
tion and neutralized all her personal claims. For the
first time in her life she was literally alone in the world;
and as misfortune never comes single, so at this evil time
sickness seized upon her. While confined to her bed,
deeply in debt, and each day becoming more and more
involved in difficulties, a woman connected with one of
the leading theatres was made cognizant of her con-
dition, and introduced a female friend who attended to
the poor girl during her illness. But on the girl's re-
covery this kindness was ascertained to have been the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
255
reverse of disinterested. In person Athena is tall, grace-
ful, majestic, with a magnificent bust. Her face is Gre-
cian, superbly classical, her eyes are souls, her mouth,
rich, rounded, chiseled, full of expression, her hands
and feet are models for a sculptor, her hair is long, rich,
dark and glossy, her voice, soft and low, her manner
the perfection of impulsive dignity.
Her accomplishments are varied. She speaks French
fluently, Italian poetically and Spanish musically. She
is also versed in her native Greek. She performs bril-
liantly upon the piano and harp, sings with feeling and
dances superbly. Has a retentive memory, recites dra-
matically; is fond of poetry, writes poetry herself and is
full of nobility of feeling.
Miss Nellie — West Thirty-first street, is a woman
who merits more than a passing notice. She is a blonde
with red hair, petite, and possessing a good figure; de-
cidedly pleasing. She is one of the smartest, shrewdest,
most practical women in the metropolis, has saved
money, and it is understood owns considerable real estate.
Being of humble birth and uneducated, she determined
to avail herself of the opportunity afforded by the pos-
session of means for the pursuit of knowledge, and
accordingly, having acquired a competence, she departed
to the interior and attended school, rendering herself,
in a short time, thoroughly familiar with the English
branches. A woman of a stamp like this should have
been a man.
Miss Minnie - recently of West Fourteenth street,
now of West Twenty-sixth street, is a woman whose

256
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
character and history well deserve statement and study.
She is a blonde, pale, ladylike, spirituelle, with large,
expressive eyes, full of poetry and feeling, possessing a
wonderful faculty of concentrating the attention of the
beholder; her teeth superb, her voice musical, her face
intellectual and expressive to a high degree. Her mouth
is large, but rich and beautiful. Her manner is that of
a thoroughbred lady of culture and refinement; her
slightest motion is grace itself. She dresses in black cr
white—in these two colors only—each of which becomes
her admirably. Her figure is full, rounded, elegantly
formed, neither tall nor petite—a happy mean between
two extremes. Her hand is large, but very finely formed,
and her foot small. In character she is retiring, avoid-
ing noise, ostentation and all vulgarity. She possesses
a varied round of accomplishments, sings artistically and
performs upon the piano with a skill and touch that
would be remarkable even in a professional musician,
Her taste in literature evinces alike judgment and feel-
ing, her four favorite authors being Shakespeare, Byron,
Shelly and Bailey, whose “Festus” she particularly
admires. From each of these authors she quotes with
discretion, ability and sentiment. There are few profes-
sional readers who can surpass her in these respects.
As a woman, she is gifted with naturally lofty and pure
instincts, and nervously shuns all that is unsuited to her
sex. There are few in any metropolis who are her
equals. She was born in a country town in Virginia,
was carefully reared, was married to a well-known Yankee
Radical, was abandoned by him, married again a Con-

11
SM
FAST WOMEN AT THE RACES,


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
257
federate captain, who died during the fearful Seven
Days' Battle. After his death, served as a Southern
spy, then opened an elegant establishment in Richmond,
and then finally came North.
Miss Gertrude — , of Marion street, is a brunette,
with a splendidly expressive eye and a speaking face.
A countenance seemingly full of soul and a graceful
and impressive manner. To gaze at her for the first
time, one would imagine her to be the very essence of
the romantic and the sentimental, but in reality she is
the reverse. Her whole existence is a feverish whirl
of excitement, her only object in life being, it seems, to
avoid thought; her only watchword being that of hun-
dreds—“ Anything but reflection.”
Miss May — is a brunette, very tall, very slender,
yet graceful and well-proportioned. This lady is pas-
sionately devoted to music, and is herself an accom-
plished performer. Having a taste for the bizarre in
her composition, she has lately studied the banjo, and
performs alike comically and creditably. She is a versed
linguist, speaking fluently French, German and Spanish.
She is by birth a New Yorker, of German descent, and
is said to have resided for some time in California, where
she was connected with a minstrel troupe. Her dresses
are numerous and fashionable. Her manners pleasing.
Miss Margaret - , of Neilson Place, is a beautiful
blonde, of graceful figure and attractive mien, remark-
able both for distingué appearance and manner, and
dresses with charming taste—not gaudily, but always
richly and in the latest fashion. She is a native of

258
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Providence, Rhode Island, and is now in the twenty-
fourth year of her age, and is thoroughly educated,
having graduated from one of the leading ladies' semi-
naries of New England. She speaks French as fluently
as English, and is accomplished in music. She is not
only elegant and refined in her manners, but possesses
conversational powers and mental culture that would fit
her for any sphere.
Madam C— , known as the Cuban sylph, is a Spanish
widow, the relict of a painter, who bequeathed to her
the bulk of his property. She removed with her slaves
to New Orleans just prior to the commencement of the
late war, lost property during the conflict, and then
settled in this city, still being worth about one hundred
thousand dollars, to which sum she has since added con-
siderable by her own attractions. She is tall, slender
and stately. This stateliness, combined with a shrewd
head and a kind heart, is peculiarly characteristic. She
is seldom on Broadway, but frequents the Park in a
pony phaeton. She is also mistress of an elegant assort-
ment of jewelry and diamonds, comprising a superb
solitaire diamond brooch and a set of red coral. She
is also addicted to dogs—so fond of them, in fact, that
she has them copied in all sorts of positions in marble,
and places their effigies outside as well as inside her
doors. Madam has recently purchased a large, brown-
stone dwelling in an aristocratic portion of Twenty-sixth
street, and has furnished it throughout in the most
luxurious style, especially in the items of paintings and
statuettes. One apartment is known as the gold-room,

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
259
and is a very different structure from the down-town
institution of the same name. It is a moderate-sized
second-story room, with all its furniture and appoint-
ments of the finest and of the yellowest—the walls are
papered with yellow, the carpet and curtains are of a
yellow hue, ditto the tables and chairs, while the toilet-
cases and all the paraphernalia of a bed-room are of the
same tint. The cost of this singular but strikingly hand-
some apartment has already exceeded two thousand
dollars. Madam C— is a womån of some education,
popular alike with her own sex and the other, and is an
ardent worshiper of Morpheus.

CHAPTER XXII.
HOUSES OF ASSIGNATION.
16.
91T is very probable that houses for the purpose of
21] assignations, or meetings, have always existed in
So New York. Human nature, the philosophers tell
us, is the same in all times and among all people,
and our old English and Dutch ancestors were doubtless
frequently guilty of intrigues and improprieties the same
as their descendants. But the evil has of course grown,
until now it has assumed almost colossal proportions, and
the all-important question of how to remedy it may well
puzzle the heads of the wisest men of the day.
Like everything else, houses of assignation, as civiliza-
tion has “progressed,” have changed for the better—so far,
at least, as their appearance and general appointments are
concerned. The arts have been patronized by their pro-
prietresses, and money has been freely used to make them
beautiful. The road to vice is easy in the great city, and
is made as agreeable as taste can make it.
Assignation-houses, unlike houses of prostitution, exist
in all parts of the city. Houses of the latter class are
confined to certain districts, while those of the former
may be found in many unlooked-for and unsuspected
neighborhoods.
260

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
261
The most fashionable house of assignation in New
York is in Twelfth street, not far from the aristocratic
and select Fifth avenue. It is presided over by a very
ladylike woman, who frequently tells her customers that
she scorns the business, but is in it to make money.
Near it is a public school, largely attended by young
ladies of the best families in the city. They pass the
door of this house every day in crowds, little knowing
how near there is a trap set for them and all of their sex.
There is another house in Twelfth street, near the Third
avenue, which is resorted to very much by married
women. In the shady precincts of University Place, near
the Fifth avenue, there is another, chiefly patronized by
the aristocracy, both male and female. In Thirty-ninth
street, near the Sixth avenue, is another; in Bleecker
street, near the Bowery, is a noted institution; in Eleventh
street, near Fourth avenue, is one well known for being
very retired. There is a house in Houston street, of the
existence of which very few persons are aware. It is a
great resort for unfaithful married women. The front
windows are fitted up as if for a store. A display is
made at the windows of ladies' white clothing and chil-
dren's apparel. The married lady whom some one seeks
to entice into a house of this character prefers to go to
this particular one, from the fact that, as it looks like a
store, she will thereby avoid being suspected. Even the
neighbors, and many members of the police force, do not
know the character of this house, so quietly is it con-
ducted and so well does the “ blind” work. It is kept by
a Southern woman, tall, dark-complexioned, not very
20

262
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
handsome, but of great business talent and remarkably
good judgment. She formerly was the wife of a well-
known lawyer of New Orleans, but, from some reason,
separated from him. She then opened a house of assig-
nation in Chicago, and would have made money, but for
the fact that she became dissipated and did not attend to
her business. She finally removed to New York and
opened the house in question, abandoned her habits of
drinking, and is now on the road to fortune. The building
is a three-story brick, is modest-looking in itself, though
made noticeable by large awnings at the windows. It is
furnished in good taste, though plainly.
There is nothing remarkable in the outside appearance
of an assignation-house. It is plain, quiet, almost Quaker-
looking in appearance. Not a slat of a single blind is
open. How the rooms ever get aired is a mystery; maybe
they go without air. The hall door shuts to of itself
when you open it. On going up stairs you see no one.
There are two or three doors open. The rooms are neatly
furnished—better than those of many a hotel at which you
have stopped. Seeing no one, hearing no one, you might
think the house is uninhabited, but never believe it. The
watchful eye of a woman is already on you; she is peep-
ing through one of the doors, which is open on a crack.
Soon she comes out and greets you. You are surprised
at her ladylike manners, her gentleness, her suavity.
Yes, she is a very agreeable person, but don't arouse her,
or you might change your good opinion of her. One or
two colored servants pass you and go up stairs. You see
no white servants, no ladies (unless you express a desire

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
263
for an introduction to one, when a female will be brought),
there is no noise, no sound of revelry or undue mirth.
The madam has a soft, low voice—“an excellent thing in
woman,” as Shakespeare says--and you would scarce
believe that this was one of the numerous “gates of hell”
in the great city.
In conducting houses of this character the great thing
observed is secresy. As a general rule, the houses are
located in out-of-the-way streets, though occasionally one
may be found on a prominent avenue or largely-traveled
street. They look like any respectable private residence,
with the exception that the blinds are always tightly
closed. There is seldom any disturbance in one of these
resorts. A person might live next door to one for years
and hardly know its character. There is no noise, no
loud singing or talking, and very few “descents” are
made by the police.
The rooms in the best class of the assignation-houses
are elegantly furnished. There are two little private
parlors in some of them, where interviews are had, and
ladies, married or single, wait for their lovers or friends.
Some of the houses are patronized almost wholly by
women-of-the-town, who induce men to accompany
them; others are noted as the resorts of unfaithful
wives and derelict husbands; others again for the gen-
tlemanly roués who take there and seduce virtuous young
women.
These houses bring a large rent. They are nearly
always owned by “ respectable” persons, who give them
out to agents, who, in turn, let them to persons in this

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WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
business at a high figure. The proprietors ask no ques-
tions of the agents, but pocket their rent; the agents
ask no questions of the rentees, but receive the rent
promptly on each quarter-day and pocket their commis-
sion. Church-goers, deacons and men high in the
moral estimation of the community, let their houses in
this way (always through agents, however), and in the
mean time subscribe to Magdalen asylums and con-
tribute their funds in aid of various places of reform
for the “fallen.” It very often happens that the money
paid by the women-of-the-town to the madam finds its
way to the agent, thence to the owner of the house, and
finally is given by him in aid of Christianizing and
“saving” the very women who once had the money.
The money made by the “madams” is enormous.
Some of them take in only twenty-five dollars in a
night-others fifty, others a hundred, and others still a
hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. They con-
tain a great or small number of rooms, according, of
course, to the size of the building. The principal as-
signation-houses of the city may be said to be hotels
on a small scale; the rooms are numbered. Some
houses have only ten rooms, others twenty, while some
of the largest houses have as many as fifty rooms.
Those of the latter class are generally two houses in
one or a large corner house or “double” house. The
most private houses in the city are on the east side,
among the poor, where the old aristocracy of New York
once resided. These are visited mostly by married
women and their lovers. Only one or two rooms may

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
265
be to let in the house, and no one outside of its keeper
and a few visitors know its character.
The better class of assignation-houses are beautifully
furnished. The carpets, the furniture and everything
connected with them are of the richest description. A
well-known actor (a comedian) formerly kept an estab-1
lishment of this character in a quiet street near Broad-
way. It was magnificently furnished, the walls of the
various rooms being covered with paintings of the best
American and European artists, and all the appoint-
ments being of the most recherché description.
The women who keep houses of this character have
arisen from the “depths,” for it is considered more
respectable to keep an assignation-house than to be a
woman-of-the-town. They have nearly all of them been
prostitutes, but have possessed more sense and better
judgment than the majority of this class of women.
They have seen how other women made money from
their sex, and they determined to go and do likewise.
Keepers of houses of assignation are women who have
seen much of the world; they have seen that the world's
people are divided into two classes—those who do all
the work and those who reap all the benefits, and they
have determined to be one of the reapers rather than
the workers. They see it takes a clear head for their
business, and so they never indulge in strong drink.
They see it takes good health, and so they respect their
bodies and obey the sanitary laws. They see that men
who are successful mind their own business, and they
do the same, trusting no one and telling no one of

266
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
their affairs. They see that to be pecuniarily success-
ful one must be grasping, selfish and shrewd, and so
they are all three, and a great deal more besides. They
have fine heads for business, fine minds for thinking,
good judgment in most things and no conscience in
anything. They seldom are kind-hearted, like some of
the “madams” of the houses of prostitution. They are
the misers of the wicked women in New York. They
enter the business purely for the purpose of making
money, and all other considerations but that one are
thrust aside. They will do anything and everything
for money; they are the female gamblers of the under-
world.
A divorced wife is the proprietress of one of the most
fashionable houses of this class in New York. She
moved, at one time, in the very best of metropolitan
society, but, on being divorced, opened in this business.
She has kept it a secret. Her husband and friends think
she is in Europe. She is a woman of beauty and much
culture. She has fine literary taste, and spends most
of the day-time in reading. Poetry is her delight, and
she is a poetess of no mean pretensions herself. She is
silent, ladylike, but cold in her manners-has no friends
and wants none. An English lady, once one of the low-
est of the women-of-the-town, is the keeper of another
of these houses. Her name, years ago, often figured in
the police reports of the daily papers, when she was
arrested for drunkenness. Her progress, contrary to the
usual rule, has been upward, not downward. From being
a common woman of pleasure, she entered a fashionable

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
267
parlor-house. There it was she determined to reform
altogether and abandon her mode of life. She was
ambitious and desirous of making fifty thousand dollars
wherewith to purchase a summer residence, thus grati-
fying a dream of her youth. She made considerable
money, saved all she could, and ere long opened a house
of assignation in Eleventh street. She has now a fortune
of fifty thousand dollars, besides a country-house worth
the same amount, and situated back of Fordham on the
banks of the Harlem river.
Many women of this class have retired, having, for a
wonder, become satisfied with the fortunes they have
made. The residents of the fashionable Murray Hili
little think that they have three "widows” in their midst
who were once the keepers of assignation-houses, and yet
such is the fact. These women, who are not at all related
to each other, and who live apart, have each made inde-
pendent fortunes, own their houses, live alone, are very
“select” and move in the best of metropolitan society.
They attend a neighboring church on "the Avenue, '
contribute largely to the various charitable and religious
enterprises, and, to all outward appearances, are the same
as any of their respectable neighbors. Other instances
of this sort might be given, but these must suffice.
Quiet, respectable, popularly-believed-to-be-virtuous
men are the principal patrons of the assignation-houses.
Everything is so secret, quiet and safe. You meet no one
but the "madam” and a colored servant or two. You
are asked no questions and ask none. The best men in
the city can be occasionally seen here. One of the
ON

268
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Twelfth street establishments is favored with the visits of
some notabilities. A certain lawyer, in high standing in
the community, pays the house a visit once a week. He
comes in his carriage, and regularly supports a young
woman. His wife is a leader of the ton and a belle at the
various fashionable balls of the season. Bankers, whom
one would think, from their continued conversation about
business, thought only of making money, find time “oft
in the stilly night to repair to these houses. Family
physicians, who to the world look very solemn and
learned, occasionally cast off their solemnity and forget
their learning, and meet their lady friends at these places.
Plodding lawyers, shrewd brokers, quiet merchants,
respectable tradesmen, sharp speculators, enterprising
book-publishers, men of the world and men about town-
all are occasional patrons of these establishments.
Married ladies, who, to the world, bear an unsullied
reputation, visit them-generally in the day-time, very
seldom in the evening. “Appointments” are made by
the guilty parties to meet at a specified house of assigna-
tion at a certain time. The lady is on hand at the hour
named and meets her friend, or, if he has not arrived,
waits his coming in a private parlor. The unfaithful wife
has intimated at home that she was going out“shopping,"
or “to the picture-gallery,” or for a “promenade.” Mar-
ried women residing in villages and towns adjacent to
New York are largely guilty of assignations, and meet
their gentlemen friends in this way. The love of the
romantic doubtless leads many women to commit these
gross and horrible improprieties. The play of “ East

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
269
10
Lynne”—a favorite dramatic composition among the
female sex, in which a wife proves unfaithful to her
husband-has doubtless led many a wife who has seen the
drama to commit the same crime. That same play is
called a "moral and emotional play,” but, if the truth
were known, it is probable that most women see only the
emotional part in it, not the moral.
To many of these houses virtuous young women of
high social standing are taken, and there seduced. The
destroyers of their happiness take them to these places,
representing the house as the residence of a friend, and
only until the poor girls are in the house do they know
its bad character. This method of secret sinning—the
more dangerous as it is the more secret—is largely
increasing in New York. Assignation-houses were never
so abundant as at present, never so largely patronized,
especially by married men and unfaithful wives. The
police do not “ descend” upon them—indeed, cannot make
a descent unless a complaint is made, and this is seldom
done, for really there is nothing that may be said to be a
nuisance to complain of. The houses are kept very
quiet, women are seldom seen near them, and the build-
ings do not differ openly from any ordinary private
residence.
For years their doors have been opened and shut; for
years virtuous young women have been led into these pit-
falls of hell without knowing where they were going, and
finding out too late that they had lost their good name
for ever, and, for years hence, these same things will
probably go on, unless government directs its attention to

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WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the remedying of these evils instead of winking at them
and acting as if they did not exist. The present times, in
this particular, at least, are indeed “out of joint.”
The really safe and secret way in which assignation-
houses are conducted renders them peculiarly success-
ful. Married women are constantly seen in them.
Cases, too, have been known where a husband has en-
tered one door while his wife was just leaving by the
other. Beautiful and innocent young women are led
here by base and designing men, and coaxed or forced
to gratify their libidinous desires.
If these houses could only tell their story, what a sad
and painful romance would it be? It would speak of
faithless wives assuming, in good society, the virtue they
had not; of intrigues, jealousies, suspicions, sometimes
murders within their walls; of fair young girls, once
full of high hopes and noble aspirations, taking the
first false step which so surely leads them down to the
deepest hell; of black-hearted, deep-dyed scoundrels,
who prey on innocence and make a jest of virtue.
Through all the year these crimes go on—through
winter, when the pure snow falls on a sinful world;
through all the autumn, spring and summer-time, when
birds sing praises to their Maker and God's bright sun-
shine makes the old Earth look beautiful and glad,
Would that that same sunshine could make the world
look good as well as bright; would that it could shine
so brightly on these places of sin that all the world
could see the awful truth, and be horrified for once; and
more than all, would that it could shed a ray of light,

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QUEEN OF THE BALLET.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
271
though ever so small, in the hearts and consciences of those
morally depraved persons, and make them turn from
their wicked ways and sin no more. Day by day is
Pandemonium in New York growing larger, greater
and stronger, and vice becoming more general, and out
of the depths all good and true men and women cry
out, “How long, O Lord, how long!”

CHAPTER XXIII.
in many
" PRIVATE” SUPPER-ROOMS.
EMHAT are commonly called "private” supper-rooms
U are principally resorted to by the demi-monde
09 married and single women of easy virtue. They
are a modern institution. In 1812 there were
no private supper-rooms in New York, in 1840 there
were a dozen or more, and in 1850 they could be found
in many parts of the city. At the present time they
abound more than ever before, and the supply far ex-
ceeds the demand for them.
These supper-rooms are distinguished, as their name
implies, for being “private," and also, as their name
does not imply, for being very high-priced. They ex-
ist everywhere—no particular portion of the city is
noted for them. You can find them on Fifth avenue
and Baxter street, on the cosmopolitan Broadway and
the “ Cheapside” of the metropolis, the Bowery; quiet,
out-of-the-way streets contain them, and there is not an
avenue in the city that has not a score or more of them.
Although they are very abundant at the present time, it
may be proper to state that all of them do not make
much money; there are so many that opposition is felt.
The private supper-room, so far as outward appear-
name
272

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
273
ances go, at least, looks about the same as any other
ordinary supper-room. It may be in a basement or
level with the sidewalk, or in what was once a private
building; it may be large and capable of accommodating
a very large number, or it may be small in dimensions
and decidedly select in character. Most generally the
private supper-rooms are attached to an ordinary res-
taurant or oyster-cellar. There is one entrance to the
main restaurant, while a little farther on an illumin-
ated sign bears the inscription :
PRIVATE SUPPER-ROOMS.
The metropolitan mind, being prone to evil, knows fully
the import of these mysterious words; whereas the rural
mind might pause and ponder some time and then be
not fully convinced why supper-rooms should be pri-
vate at all. As we have already intimated, one great
distinguishing feature of this private and exclusive
supper-room is that double the ordinary price is charged
for food and drink. If you enter the ordinary restau-
rant door, you can get a good meal for quite a reason-
able sum; if you enter the "private” door, you can
get the same good meal, but will be compelled to pay
a very unreasonable and highly-exorbitant sum. The
restaurant proper makes money in a thoroughly legit-
imate and honest way; the “private” restaurant im-
proper thrives on enormous profits; and grows rich be-
fore its time from the pockets of the foolish people who
feed in it.
Ordinarily, you pay at a bar fifteen cents for wine; in

274
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ve
the private supper-rooms it is twenty-five cents. For
plain liquors you pay thirty or forty cents; for mixed and
fancy drinks, forty and fifty cents; for lemon soda, which
costs about five cents, twenty cents, and in that proportion
for all the other liquids. As to food, the prices are
beyond all reason, and beyond all belief to those who
have not been posted on the subject. Roast beef, sixty
cents (ordinarily thirty-five or forty cents); roast lamb,
seventy-five; roast turkey, $1.25; roast goose, $1.50;
roast spring-chicken, $2; lobster, $1; frogs, $1; coffee
and tea, forty cents, and dried toast, forty; partridges,
squabs, pigeons and other delicacies cost what would be a
small sized fortune to a pea-nut dealer or honest old
apple-woman,
The interiors of these very peculiar institutions deserve
to be noticed. We will enter a well-known private supper-
room, on the corner of — street and Broadway. On
each side of the entrance is a sign hung on the railing,
bearing the words, “ Private supper-rooms for ladies and
gentlemen.” Over the door, on a glass shade, is painted,
“Private supper-rooms.” We go down a pair of steps
and find ourselves in front of a door, the upper panels of
which consist of fancy glass. We no sooner stand in
front of it than it is opened by a colored gentleman. We
have a lady, or could not gain an entrance to this inner
sanctum sanctorum of the eating-house. The colored man
calls another waiter, who, with many bows and a broad
grin on his black face, shows us to the private supper-
room of which we have heard so much. An ordinary
room has simply been divided up into small rooms-very

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
275
small rooms, by the way; and that is all. There is no
white table-cloth, and there is a lounge on one side of the
room. The place is not quiet by any means. You can
hear the clinking of glasses, the sound of revelry and
laughter. You can hear conversation in the distance
loud talk, low talk, sweet talk and half-angry and drunken
talk. Any one can go to an ordinary supper-room if he
has money enough. Waiters are rushing to and fro, bells
are continually ringing, and an occasional "pop" of a
champagne cork can be heard.
These supper-rooms are open all night. Business
begins about nine o'clock, and is carried on until daylight
breaks, and then throughout the day. You can get a
plate of pork and beans at twelve o'clock at night, or a
mutton chop at one or two o'clock in the morning, and
when the clock strikes three or four, you can find people
in these rooms, consuming fish balls with all the vege-
tables (and drinks) in season, or indulging in a plate of
There are, of course, all grades of private supper-
rooms. The one we have just described is not one of the
highest class, but may be called next to the highest. In
prices, nearly all, except those on the East side, are high,
and alike in that respect. In Greene street, the quarters
are not so fine, the waiters not so attentive, the company
exceedingly boisterous and rough. In the Bowery and
the streets adjacent it is even worse. Style is not
thought much of there, the denizens of that quarter
taking out their money's worth in eating.
are
21.

276
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The fashionable supper-rooms are furnished in the
most expensive and richest manner possible. One near
Broadway, on a certain quiet street, attracts attention of
the stranger. It is a corner building, and was once a
private dwelling-house. The windows are hung with the
richest of lace curtains. The open front-door shows the
stairs to be carpeted with tapestry. Velvet carpets are on
the floors of the various rooms, and the furniture is the
costliest and best that money can procure. There are no
signs on this house. The private entrance, on the side
street, leads to the private rooms, the front door to the
general restaurant. The private rooms are on the third
and fourth floors, the general dining-room on the second
floor.
A word as to the locality of these places. The most
fashionable and select resort down town, on the West side,
we have just given. On the East side, the most stylish is
located on Third avenue, in the neighborhood of St.
Mark's Place. On Broadway, between Houston and
Bleecker streets, there are two or three, patronized by
women-of-the-town of all grades. In Houston street,
there is one quite stylish in appearance, and noted for the
elegant manner of doing things. In Thirteenth street,
is a well-known French supper-room, much resorted to
by the French ballet-girls during the recent reign of
Opera Bouffe. In Twenty-fifth street, on the West side,
is the principal up-town private supper-room, and on
Sixth avenue and Broadway, above the Fifth Avenue
Hotel, there are several, largely patronized.
As may be naturally supposed from the figures we

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
277
have previously given, the proprietors of these establish-
ments make considerable money. There is a supper-
room on Broadway which has had nearly a dozen propri-
etors within the last few years, each one of whom has
· been able to retire from the business wealthy.
These places are much resorted to by men who aim to
seduce young girls. A pure and innocent young woman,
of course, has no idea of the bad character of these
places, and, on being invited to take supper in one of
them, generally accepts the invitation. Two or three
fashionable institutions in the upper part of the city are
very much used by monsters in the shape of men for
this base purpose. On Sixth avenue is one kept by a
Frenchman, which is a pest-house and a disgrace to civil-
ization. Off of each supper-room is a door leading into
a bed-room. Many a young girl has fallen in this place,
and found out, alas ! too late, that she was lost for ever.
As a last word on this subject, we may say that the
private supper-rooms are one of the very worst features
connected with the social evil. They are, in reality,
nothing more than places for assignations. When we
think of the many pure and virtuous females who are
brought to ruin within their walls—of the dissipation
which goes on night after night, we may well pause, and
hope for a time to come when they can be reformed to a
very great extent, or, possibly by legal enactment, done
away with for ever.

CHAPTER XXIV.
ROMANCE IN THE UNDER-WORLD."
A HE goddess of poetry and romancé holds great
sway over this strange and wonderful under-world
of of which we have been speaking. It was from too
great a devotion to this same goddess that many
of the denizens of this world came to their low estate,
and were cast out of the pale of good society for ever.
Love lured them on in their mad career, and the romantic
in scenery and situation surrounded them when they lost
their good name. Under green leaves, across the
meadows, by rippling brooks which daily seem to sing
cheery songs, in the woods with the sunshine casting
shadows of good and evil all about, along quiet and
unobscured walks shaded by great oaks, and in the pale
moonlight and starlight on quiet country roads, have
most of these women walked, listening to vows of con-
stancy and love, and found, too late, how false was man
and how foolish it was to trust him. These women lived
on romance in their early youth. Not one but what had
her dream, not one but looked forward to meeting some
ideal man, to living in some ideal house, to journeying on
through life such as few of the common sort journey;
not one whose dream was not far too good for this world,
M
278

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
279
and did far greater credit to human nature than it
deserved. The imaginative, the ideal, the unreal at one
time predominated in the minds of these women of
pleasure. They did not see life as it was--a struggle to
live rightly and resist temptation, and “ a daily round of
common tasks.” They thought with the poet,
“Things are not what they seem."
Life to them, before they fell, was what it ought to be,
not what it really is. They believed, with Pyrrho the
philosopher, that existence was a dream. A bright,
beautiful dream it seemed to be at first to these young
hearts; all was happiness before them. But the reality,
alas! how different! How many days and nights, in
their after life, have they looked back into the past and
witnessed over and over again, in their mind's eye, the
many scenes of sin and sorrow they had passed through!
How many fitful changes from good to bad, from happi-
ness to misery, from wealth to poverty, from “lively to
severe,” came to them! They have indeed been
“A pipe for Fortune's finger,
To sound what stop she please."
How often and often, when going down lower and
lower in their sinful and unhappy career, have they
looked back to the days of their happy past—far back
it seems to them—when they were virtuous and lived
good lives! They see the home in the country—the
low farm-house, surrounded by stately trees; they hear
the sound of birds; they see the men working in

280
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the field; they remember the scene at the family-table-
* father, mother, brothers and sisters at the noonday meal;
they dream of some early love, an attachment to some
country swain—plain, perhaps awkward, but honest and
good withal; the country church, the village school-
house, where they pursued their early studies; the pic-
nics in the summer, the parties in the winter,—all
these are things which continually come before the
minds of these poor women, without exception, because
their rank, station and the character of their homes
have nearly all been the same. How often their thoughts
turn back to these things, God only knows; or how
often they resolve to strive and lead a better life, and
try and become discouraged in their attempt; how
many times in their own hearts they long for death to
release them from the bondage of sin, and in their
wild dissipations have thoughts of a “purer, surer,
sweeter life than this,”—all these things are known
to no man, but remain secrets with them for ever.
We give below a few of the histories of some of the
more prominent women of the metropolis of the class
of which we have been writing. Some of them have
been the very best of their class, while others have
not moved in such good circles. Whatever they have
been, their histories, which are all true—the name being
of course omitted — will probably possess interest to
many. A book twice the size of this one might be filled
with the stories of the lives of the demi-monde, but the
present rather lengthy chapter is all the space we can
afford on this interesting topic.

WOJEN OF PLEASURE.
281
At the very best, women are queer beings. There is
no accounting for their various moods. They appear to
be creatures of impulse and governed by passion. They
* are incomprehensible. They are April and December;
clouds and sunshine; torrid or frigid. Where they love,
they sacrifice all; and where they hate, they hate to the
bitter end. But in whatever category they may be
placed, they are necessary to man's happiness, and it is
therefore his duty to protect and cherish them, and at
all times to elevate rather than debase them.
There are many causes combined to crush women and
throw them “on the town” for support. Of these it is
only necessary to mention a few. Pride is one, love of
dress is another, a desire to live a life of ease another,
and passion is another, while in some instances poverty
may be another. But no matter what may be the cause
of woman's fall, reaction is sure to come, and the poor
weary creature seeks rest—sometimes in the grave. This
suggests the important question, “Is there no escape
for women who have made a misstep?” Yes, when
Christian men and women will take the erring sister-
hood by the hand and lead them to reform.
A case came up before one of the New York police
courts some time ago that bears out the assertion just
made. A respectable-looking woman, twenty-eight years
of age, with good features-round, regularly-moulded
and prepossessing—but who bore upon her countenance
unmistakable signs of dissipation, stepped up to the
judge and desired that he would send her to Black-
well's Island. She stated that she was sick, but, with

282
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
an
ne any
the exception of that expression of countenance that
indicated the sickness of the mind, she appeared to be
in good health. The judge looked at her surprised, and
referred her to his clerk, whom he instructed to make -
out the necessary certificate. The clerk asked her if
she really was sick, to which she made answer in a
manner that carried conviction with it.
“Yes, yes, I am sick," she said bitterly—"sick and
weary of leading the life of a fallen woman; commit
me to prison. Do anything with me. Send me any-
where, but, O my God! do not let me go back upon the
town to lead a life of shame.”
Her request was complied with, and she afterward
related the following story:
“Ten years ago, I was a reigning belle of Washing-
ton, much sought after and much courted and flattered
by hosts of admirers. My parents were pure-minded,
good, religious people, whose hearts were so far from
evil that they could not suspect others of committing
crime. Thus it was that the serpent-destroyer was per-
mitted to entwine itself around my innocent heart before
my devoted parents suspected wrong."
The beautiful Martha (Martha
G w as her real
name) was courted and finally seduced by a Western
Congressman. Their liaison continued for a long time
without the parents suspecting any wrong. When at
length suspicion began to rest upon her, she quitted the
home of her girlhood, youth and innocence, and became
the mistress of her seducer. Three years sufficed to sate
his unholy love; then Martha held the same place in the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
283
affections of a Philadelphia merchant for two years
longer. She finally deserted him for a well-dressed,
good-looking adventurer whom she met while on a sum-
mer visit to Saratoga.
This fellow proved to be a gambler, who soon squan-
dered all the money she had, and that was considerable.
He then took her to Baltimore, and left her in one of the
gilded maisons de joie of that city. Here she reigned a
belle, as she had in good society, and it was here she
commenced the downward career in the lower phases of
immorality that places her in the position she occupies
to-day. Drunken dissipation commanded force which
her vital energies could not provide, and she concluded
to come to New York, where she could proceed with more
ease on the road she had chosen.
Accompanied by another lover she reached this city,
where the same rôle was enacted, and although at one
time ranking as one of the queens of the demi-monde of
New York, the contraction of bad habits, which even her
sense of right could not control, led her to descend, step
by step, the scale of immorality, until, at length, she
found herself an inmate of a Wooster street den. Here
she resolved to mend her ways, and, if possible, retrieve
many of the errors of the past by atonement in the
future. Hence her application to the court.
Nellie T- , a lost girl, and formerly an inmate of a
house of ill-repute on Crosby street, committed suicide a
short time since by taking a dose of arsenic. There are
circumstances attending the life and death of this un-
happy girl which single her out from a crowd of her
IDIO

284
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
wa
an
companions, and give her history such a coloring as is
seldom found in the career of women of this class.
Nellie T— (an assumed name) was born of respect-
able parents, in Cayuga county, New York, and at the
time of her death was not quite nineteen years old. She
was unusually talented, and, having received a good
education, was destined by Nature for a place of honor
and respectability above the common order. About three
years and a half ago she became acquainted with a man,
one of whose many aliases is P— , and who, it appears,
was a desperate and disreputable character. This man
called to see her at her home in Cayuga county, and by
his wiles and intrigues soon gained her confidence and
love. Her parents, who doubtless had heard of the bad
character of the visitor, forbade her receiving his visits ;
but when one night they found her on the point of
eloping with him, they consented to her marriage. He
soon revealed to her his real character, and its influence
was ruinous for ever, for he changed her very nature,
and from an artless, impulsive girl, she became a guilty
wretch. She seemed to have forgotten everything of
good that she had ever known, and to have acquired a
wild, ungovernable fury, allowing every passion full play
without restraint of any kind. When she found it was
an outlaw and a villain she had married, and heard that
he had another wife living, that her companions were
only thieves and disreputable characters, she sank in
despair and abandoned every thought of virtue.
She lived for a while with her husband, in Elmira,
New York. The officers of the law were after him, and
1 an

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
285
once she fired at a man who was attempting to arrest
him. For this she was arrested and sent to the peniten-
tiary for two years, and served out her time. She soon
after went to Albany and entered upon a life of sin. She
grew to hate, with an intense hatred, the man whom she
had married, and after her release did not live with him
again. She is reported to have twice attempted the
taking of his life.
Among her associates she was well liked. They
describe her as a girl of few words, retired in her man-
ners, but with a revengeful thought always lurking
within her. She spent most of her time reading, writing
and composing poetry, and in her trunk were found about
two hundred of her letters and many scraps of poetry,
all of which show that she was well read and carefully
educated.
The following letter is a fair specimen of her ability,
and contains not only a sketch of her life, but also a
moral that should impress all whom thoughtlessness may
allow to play with temptation :
"SUNDAY, May -
“MY DARLING GEORGE:
"How glad, very glad, I was to receive your loving
letter. Now, George, we will just drop all foolishness
and sin no more.... So you thought me too
good for such a life; ah, pet, that time was, but is no
more. I've striven hard to crush an accusing conscience
and attain my present eminence. I can now laugh
at verdancy with the best of you. My only besetting

286
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
weakness at present is my devotion to yourself, and on
your account I have taken up my habitation in G street.
My other quarters got too warm for me; am I not of a
sacrificing temperament ? And most lovers would get
tired of me, and so will you in time. Ah, George, I am
inclined to think you are putting too much value upon
yourself. Let that be as it may; only think enough
of yourself; and me, too, hereafter. You will find me
a faithful servant, if you are rather dismayed at my
attachment to cold steel, as you term it.
“The cold steel will never go back on you, nor in-
terfere with your domestic bliss in the least; so don't
distress yourself, I beg of you. I will try to visit
you again spon, if I could only be certain that my visits
were as agreeable to you as you pretend they are. Have
you any idea in the least when your fate and mine is
to be decided ? It seems to me your trial is unnecessarily
long; be it long or short, you will always find your
humble servant anxious and rejoiced to see you.
“- won't trouble us again, anyways soon; he thinks
Jim too much for him. My curses follow him as con-
tinually and constantly as my blessings and love hover
around you, dear George. Why has he made me the
thing I am ?
“When I look back upon the various changes of my
existence, and behold the wreck of what was once pure
and good—when I think of the time, only three short
years ago, when my life's young blood ran high-when
I was happy, so happy, in loving and believing myself
beloved by a man who had it in his power to advance

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
287
my future interest and make me a woman of truth and
virtue—one to be loved and respected! But how has
he used his power? By making me the guilty thing
I am. He dashed my fond hopes to the ground; thrust
me in the midst of vice and infamy; led me where I
shuddered to walk; placed the wine-cup to my lips and
bade me drink. I was then but sixteen years old. He
called me green, foolish—a child, and said he would
educate me; which he has done-yes, which he has done
—and at what a cost have I served him! I have sold
my hopes of heaven for a share of hell. I have made
my life a curse to me; oh I have drained the cup of
bitterness to the dregs, and now behold the consequence!
You see in the reckless Nell a proof of what might have
been, and then blame her. But I will have my revenge.
What care I though confidence be betrayed through me?
So have mine suffered; though hearts may ache, so mine
has ached; though lives may one day be wrecked, số
has mine been seared and chilled. Some one shall pay
for my lost happiness. Why not the world? Must I,
who have such a keen appreciation of the good and beau-
tiful—such a perfect sense of what is pure and lofty-see
others revel in their midst and myself an outcast ? No,
never!. I will yet enjoy all this, though it has lost me
my honor, and may eventually cost me my life. Darling
George, please write again soon, very soon, to your own
loving
“NELL.”
On the evening of her suicide she was sitting in the
parlor of the house at which she was stopping—a “par-

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WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
nel
WQ
lor-house” on Houston street. She was unusually quiet
and thoughtful. Suddenly, without a word or a moment's
warning, she fell on the floor and commenced writhing
in agony. It was a dramatic scene. The poor, aban-
doned women of the house were for the moment shocked
into solemnity. They gathered about her, and with wide-
open eyes looked on the awful scene. Fright was de-
picted on every lineament of their countenances, and they
thought of the awful eternity and the world beyond.
For once there was quiet and solemnity in this temple
of sin, for the old reaper Death had entered and carried
a soul away.
Suicide is quite common among this class of women.
Very lately one of the New York papers contained a
notice of the death of a young girl who had taken
poison and died under rather peculiar circumstances.
She was found in a Fulton-ferry stage at the ferry, ap-
parently in a fit, and was taken by an officer to the
Beeckman-street police-station. On her person was found
a glass, which seemed to have in it a mixture of Paris
green. Though able to speak, she refused to say any-
thing about herself, and was taken to the hospital, where
she died at about nine the next evening.
The career of this girl is more than ordinarily note-
worthy. She called herself Mary Ella R— , but con-
fessed once that that was not her true name. She was
born near New Bedford, and there became acquainted
with a young man named Mr. H— who was afterward
a member of the police force in New York. She was
brought into disgrace by this man, and then he persuaded
is

Mini
HD
UNTUUTTIR
A FEMALE GAMBLING HOUSE ON BROADWAY.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
289
her to come to the great metropolis and enter a Catholic
institution in Westchester county. After having been
there a short time as a novice, she left and went to live
with Policeman H- In time she appeared at the
“Midnight Mission,” and was sent to Bellevue Hospital,
where she gave birth to a child.
She then went to Connecticut as a nurse, returned and
became an attendant in a hospital, where she remained a
short time. But before long she suddenly disappeared.
Not many weeks passed, however, when she again applied
to the “Midnight Mission” and promised to reform. But
becoming discontented, she went on the town; then stayed
a while in the House of the Good Shepherd—a reforma-
tory institution for fallen women-but conducted herself
most unaccountably by wandering from place to place.
Finally, she went home to her sister's, in Massachusetts.
While there, she received a letter from a notorious woman
in New York, offering her inducements to return to the
metropolis. Accordingly, she left her sister's, and in a
very singular way. It seems that one day she and some
of her friends went off to skate. They stopped at the
depôt and amused themselves by jumping on and off the
cars, to see who could keep on the longest while the cars
were in motion. Ella joined in the frolic, and the last
time she jumped stayed on, and was whirled away to her
old haunts in New York.
Thereafter, for a year longer, she became literally an
abandoned woman. She was frequently found intoxicated
on the streets, and once, in despair, she attempted to
hang herself in the Jefferson Market Prison. On one
22

290
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
occasion she said she was going home again, and asked a
policeman to get her clothes from the house in which she
was boarding. But no sooner had she got them than she
went to another place in the city. She used to say to her
companions that she was lost and going to destruction,
and that it was not her fault. Whose was it?
It is frequently the case that married women, for some
real or fancied injury, leave their husbands and become
members of the demi-monde. Then again, in these latter
days, a wife will take the notion in her head that her
husband does not provide well enough for his family.
The result is a separation. She, being gay, is bound to
wear good clothes. If her husband cannot buy them, she
knows how they can be got. At first, she does not intend
to be a really bad woman. She proposes to work “on the
sly,” but soon she sees that she is on the inclined plane,
and it will not be long before we meet her among the
outcasts.
An interesting, and, at the same time, sad instance of
this character recently came to light.
Some nine years ago, Mr. — and Mary S— , of
Providence, Rhode Island, were united in marriage, with
fond hopes, no doubt, of matrimonial happiness. A
minister of the Gospel blessed them and asked the God
of all to smile upon and guide them along the path of
life. The omens of their wedding-day presaged not the
coming of their future troubles and sorrows, and all
seemed well. Time rolled on, until two children—a boy
and a girl—were the offspring of the marriage, who
should have been two strong links to bind the young

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
291
m
Ton
couple to a strict observance of their holy vows, solemnly
made to each other “in the presence of God and these
witnesses,” upon their wedding-day. But war's clarion
trumpet called the husband from his home, and donning
the blue and shouldering his musket, he marched under
the banner of the stars and stripes “to brave exposure in
the tented field and dangers upon the battle's crested
front.” The wife remained at home to pray for the hour
of his safe return and nurse the little babe sleeping in
her cradle or smiling in her loving arms.
But alas for woman's frailty! Time and her hus-
band's absence taught the wife and mother to cease to
love her husband, her woman's virtue and her chastity,
and in an evil hour she fell, and sin and shame held
dominion over her.
When “grim-visaged War had smoothed his wrinkled
front," and gentle Peace spread her white pinions to the
breeze, the husband returned to his wife whom he had
promised in the honesty of his heart to love all the days
of his life. But how changed was she! How terrible
were the tidings that reached his ears! She had been
false to her vows, and the finger of public scorn and
indignation pointed at her as a faithless wife and fallen
woman. Then came the separation. Mrs. S— , after
separating from her husband, removed to New York, and
there opened a notorious house of prostitution on Greene
street, not far from Bleecker.
Swiftly she traveled down the road that leads to the
deepest, vilest depths of infamy and shame. Each step
of her progress was marked with disgrace and odium,

292
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
until she was despised even by her own class. Her house
had become the chosen dwelling-place of sin and prosti-
tution, where degradation set its ebon seal upon feminine
character: female virtue, chastity and loveliness were lost
sight of in her den of iniquity. She became the reproach
and disgrace of the neighborhood in which she lived.
For some reason, she did not succeed in business and was
obliged to move. Shelterless and almost penniless, Mary
went to the home of her mother in the country, where
she was ready to seek new adventures and notoriety.
Nothing turned up until her patience was threadbare,
and she was under the necessity of whipping her poor
old mother and driving her away from home, that she
might again create a sensation. She soon tired of living
in a quiet country place, and finally left it for a Western
city, where, at last accounts, her habits of life were of the
most deplorable character.
From this history it will be seen how low a woman
may fall when she has once taken the first false step.
A very singular and painful case, which affords a
remarkable illustration of the condition of morals in
New York, and which shows what an opportunity there
is for women anxious for a mission “to go about doing
good,” came up before one of the justices of Jefferson
Market Police Court not long since.
Delia D— , a young girl eighteen years of age, very
beautiful and peculiarly interesting, was brought up
before the justice by her two aunts, who charged that
she ran away from the home of the latter in Boston, for
some cause that did not appear, and on arriving in New
m

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
293
York, friendless and destitute, was entrapped by a colored
woman, a keeper of a house in Sixth avenue, where whites
and blacks met together for improper purposes, and had
in consequence been leading a life of shame. The poor
girl seemed to realize to the fullest her terrible position,
and could scarcely render herself intelligible to the
justice through the violence of her grief. Her father
and mother died when she and her younger sister were
yet children. Surrounded by temptation and pinched
by poverty, the two girls early learned the business of
artificial flower-making, and earned a scanty subsistence
in their native town of C , Massachusetts. Deprived
of the protection of their natural guardians, and wanting
intelligent and kindly supervision, they were foredoomed.
Both were remarkably beautiful, and intellectual gifts of
no common order enabled them to take full advantage
of the little instruction they had leisure to receive. A
wealthy merchant of New York, with a family of several
children, became enamored of Delia, and in due time
she yielded and was abandoned to despair. About the
same period Nellie was deceived by another as heartless
as the New Yorker, and both the unfortunate ones found
that they were bankrupt in name and virtue. They at
once left for Boston and took up their abode with their
aunt, Mrs. S— Nellie soon after got engaged as a
lady's maid, and has since filled that position to the
entire satisfaction of her employer; but Delia was
unable to procure a situation, and was compelled to
remain with her aunt. It did not appear that she was
contented. One night Delia stole out of her aunt's house

294
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and fled to New York, to her other aunt, Mrs. B .
Failing to find her on her arrival, she wandered about
the streets, friendless and alone, the sport of the midnight
bacchanal and the eyesore of women without pity or com-
passion. At length she encountered the colored woman
who offered her a home and protection. She accepted,
of course, but, as she affirmed, without knowing the
character of the place into which she was brought by the
designing woman. Here she remained, subject to the
infamous people who controlled her, until one of her
aunts, happening to see her one day at the door, caused
her arrest. The aunts begged the justice to commit
her to the House of the Good Shepherd, which was
accordingly done. When leaving the court the poor girl
cried as if her heart would break.
We have thus given the truthful histories of a few of
the women of pleasure of the great city. The reader
will see that there is an air of sameness about them, but
that cannot of course be helped. It would be the same
did we give a thousand stories of the lives of these
women, instead of a dozen. They have nearly all passed
through the same experiences and lived the same sort of
lives. They were born and reared in quiet country
homes or in the city. They early felt a desire to love
and be loved in a holy and pure manner. And then the
tempter came; nearly always he was handsome; some-
times intellectual, often possessed of some good qualities,
but always without honor or conscience. The girl, believ-
ing his promise that he would marry her, fell. And
then her lover left her and she heard no more of him.

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
295
Heartsick and utterly miserable, she left her home and
entered on a life of sin in the metropolis. At first she
was happy. She made plenty of money and gratified a
long-cherished ambition to dress well. The gay society
she was in pleased her. She started in a fine house of
the better class, and enjoyed luxuries such as she had only
dreamt of before. But soon the taste for all these things
began to fail. They were found not to be self-satisfying ;
they did not, nor will they ever as long as time shall
last, meet the desire of the human heart; there was a
great want, a great longing to be satisfied with something
-with what?
These women have felt this same longing—some sooner,
others later, but felt it they always have and always
will.
And not knowing what this want was, she plunged
wildly into dissipation, and was soon compelled to leave
the luxurious resort for a humbler one. And then she
went down rapidly. All self-respect was lost. She was
found drunk in the street, and taken to the station-house
and sent to the island.
And last scene of all, that ends the sad, eventful story
of the woman-of-the-town, the burial in Potter's Field.
A sad ending to what might have been a brilliant and
good career. One or two followers to the grave—a hasty
service or possibly none at all—the burial with no show
of feeling—the turf thrown on the grave.
After all this, who can tell to what sphere her spirit
goes ?—whether above, below, beyond; whether it re-
mains here, or is taken by the good Father of All; or

296
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
descends into hell, or dwells a time in Purgatory, or
remains until the last day. All this we know not, but
may hope, at least, that the poor, unhappy creature will
meet with better treatment hereafter than she met in this
unhappy world.

CHAPTER XXV.
NYMPHS DU PAVE..
UT of doors, on the streets of New York, under
the light of the gas-lamps, the denizens of the
695 under-world may be seen in even greater numbers
than in the fine houses, elegant parlors and popular
resorts of which we have been speaking in the last few
chapters. There is a lower world even in the under-world
—a world within two worlds; a plebeian order of cyprians
who are looked down upon by their sisters who dress
finer, make more money and live in more stylish houses.
This poorer class of women-of-the-town are numbered by
the thousands—the better, and more aristocratic and select
classes, only by the hundreds. The higher class may
possess some culture, always a certain amount of refine-
ment and self-respect; the other class have got to the
lower rounds of the ladder of vice-have little or no
refinement and still less self-respect. The one class may
have hope of bettering their position, of abandoning their
mode of life and of retiring with a balance in the bank;
the other know that their tendency is downward, not
upward, and that one day the poor-house may contain
them; and as for bank accounts or thoughts of saving
for the future rainy day which comes to all in life, they
use
297

298
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
take no thought, and are content if they can see only one
meal ahead. This lower order of women are utterly
reckless and careless alike for their health, their doings
and their ultimate destiny. They are the Bohemians of
the under-world, using that much abused term in its
lowest sense. They have reached despair in their career,
and have abandoned themselves, soul and body, to the
fate that controls them. They have no thought for the
future and try to forget the past. They taste vice in its
lowest forms and spend their time in dissipation. They
are unsettled and wanderers. One city is as good to
them as another; they have no choice; they would as soon
live in one place as another, and are led by the force of
circumstances or the weakness of their own wills to
doing anything that may be proposed to be done, going
anywhere, and caring naught whether they live or die,
survive or perish.
These would seem to be some of the characteristics of
this class of unhappy women—so far, at least, as conver-
sation with some of them would show.
They differ from other classes in being what is called
“street-walkers,” or “cruisers.” They are “on the
town,” walk on its streets and live off of its resident and
visiting population. Broadway is their favorite resort-
their principal time of going out, at night. The gas-
lights are no sooner lighted than they come forth. It is
fit that they should walk on Broadway. The street is
broad, and on its pavements how many thousands have
been led to destruction God only knows. It is a too gay
and bright place during all but six or eight hours of the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
299
twenty-four. In the day, crowded with residents of the
great city, visitors from the North, the South, the East,
the West, the dwellers of England and all Europe,
including, doubtless, representatives from Mesopotamia.
One meets every one he knows on Broadway in the
course of a year, and the women of pleasure always.
By day they walk under the pure sunlight, by night
under the flickering gas. But they may always be seen
on the great avenue; day after day, night after night, on
broiling hot summer days, on cool, pleasant evenings in
the spring-time, or in the depth of winter, when the
snow covers the ground and the sound of merry sleigh-
bells greet the ear. At all times of the day and night
they may be seen. In the morning, shopping or on the
tramp; in the afternoon, promenading and on the watch
for victims; in the early evening, at midnight, at one,
two, three, and even four o'clock in the early morning,
they walk the streets and ply their avocation. By day,
they look pale and sickly, unhappy, dissipated, worn out
and forlorn. By night, they appear to be beautiful, with
smiling faces, light and buoyant step, and apparently the
possessors of happy hearts. The gas-light is a good
friend of theirs, it hides so many defects.
Broadway, being a cosmopolitan. street, has street-
walkers of all degrees and grades. A few of them are
beautiful, many are ugly; some finely dressed, others
poorly attired; some are modest and retired in their
manners, others bold and making no display of modesty ;
some walk at a brisk pace, others move along slowly;
some are graceful and queenly in their carriage, others,
Son

300
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
careless. There are old and young, small and large,
lively and quiet, poetical, sentimental, matter-of-fact,
thoughtful, thoughtless, gay and sober; all sorts compose
this Broadway squad, or rather army, of frail femininity,
as they troop along with the same thought that fills the
brains of men by day—to make money.
And just as there is a difference between men in the
capacity to make money, so there is in regard to these
women. Some are more shrewd than others, and are
capable and succeed in making more money than their
companions. But it makes little difference, after all.
Even this latter class spend their earnings as fast as
made in reckless extravagance or wild dissipation.
But there are other streets in which they may be seen.
Mercer, the first street running parallel with and west
of Broadway, has many of them at night. It is a quiet
thoroughfare after dark. Most of the buildings are de-
voted to business purposes, with here and there an assig-
nation-house or lager-beer saloon. The girls find this
the favorite haunt of quiet, respectable elderly gentle-
men and married men, who desire the society of frail
ones. More of these two classes of men are “caught
by these women on the two streets mentioned than on
any other two in the city. Crosby street, the first street
parallel with and east of Broadway, is also much fre-
quented at night by this class of women. On it are
many houses of prostitution, and one or two resorts for
assignation purposes. Wooster, Greene, Thompson, West
Broadway, Canal, Hudson, Houston, Prince, Spring,
Broome, Amity-in fact all the side streets from Amity

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
301
verrun
to Canal street are overrun with the nymphs du pave by
night.
Greene street, two streets to the west of Broadway and
running parallel with it, is one of the most noted streets
in the city for houses of prostitution and a place for street-
walkers. In it are establishments of all grades except
the extremely fashionable. It is eight o'clock at night:
let us walk through the street and see what we can. We
turn from the noisy din of Broadway into Amity street,
and are soon in Greene street, notorious the United States
over. You will notice that there are many young women
who pass us, but you must not judge them too quickly;
they are all virtuous—at least the most of them we see
now. They are working-girls returning home from their
work. There are sewing-girls, workers in parasols, mil-
liners, mantua-makers, girls employed in hoop-skirt
manufactories and establishments of various kinds situ-
ated on Canal, Broome, Prince, Spring and other streets
lower down in the city. They are dressed plainly in
calicoes or some cheap stuff, and walk quickly by. They
go to garret-rooms or have bed-rooms far up town-some
living alone, while others support aged parents or sickly
brothers or sisters.
On walking down the street a few blocks, we see houses
on both sides which bear outward signs of being of bad
character. Over the doorway of nearly every house is
a large lamp—as large as the one at the street-corner, and
generally of some bright-colored glass. The hall-door
stands wide open. The place looks clean and neat,
though the building is of brick and looks aged. The

302
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
shutters are all closed, though in the parlor and in one
or two of the upper rooms a light may be seen peeping
through. On the fan-light over the doors of many of
these places are the names of the keepers in large cha-
racters. There are “Lizzies,” and “Floras,” the “ Black
Crook,” the “Gem,” the “Forget-me-not,” “Sinbad the
Sailor” and (more than) “Forty Thieves.” The sound
of pianos wretchedly out of tune proceeds from each
house. The performer executes some of the many popu-
lar songs of the day—“Champagne Charlie,” “Not for
Joe,” “La Grande Duchesse,” the letter-song in “La
Perichole,” or whatever the musical sensation of the day
probably they are. They live at the house, or are the
“pals” or “lovers” of some of the women connected
with it. Some of the girls you will also see on the
steps. Women are continually walking past you dressed
gaudily, though they are ugly in face. They are bold
and openly solicit you, calling every one Johnny, and if
encouraged in the least will open a conversation with
you. To avoid them you say nothing and walk on.
And that is Greene street all through. As it gets
later at night, there is more life and hilarity. It is a
street where orgies and midnight carousals hold full
sway. At twelve or one o'clock in the morning, pianos
are in full blast, men and women singing in the parlors,
the street filled with men and women, obscene talk and
swearing greet the ear at every step, and revelry reigns
supreme. The houses are open all night. At three
en

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
303
o'clock in the morning women sit at the windows waiting
for chance ,visitors; and as the workingman goes to his
task in the early dawn he will meet on Greene street
half-tipsy men, who have come from its bagnios and are
returning to their homes. We should say a word as to
the more stylish of the nymphs du pave who walk on
Broadway and Fifth avenue every evening—past the
Fifth Avenue Hotel, the St. James and the Hoffman House.
This is a favorite walk of this class of women, and they
succeed in making considerable money. They are dis-
tinguished from ordinary nymphs by dressing very finely
-always after the very latest fashion. During the rage
for blonde hair many of them wore false hair of that
color. The most beautiful woman of this particular class
walks nightly past these hotels. She is a panel-thief,
and succeeds in making an immense amount of money.
There are many rich merchants from other cities charmed
by these nymphs. While picking their teeth on the
steps of the hotel a brazen girl, apparently beautiful,
picks them up. Only a short time since a beautiful
“ blonde” girl (blonde by art, but not by nature) “caught
a New Orleans merchant, who was so enchanted with her
that he furnished her money to open an assignation-
house, which is in full blast on Sixth avenue.
The city parks and squares are favorite resorts for
these characters. In Madison Square, on most pleasant
evenings during the summer, the seats are occupied by
women of easy virtue and their lovers or friends. Union
Square has long been noted as a resort for harlots, espe-
cially toward evening. At that particular time these

304
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
women seat themselves on the benches, and make over-
tures toward acquaintanceship to business men as they
come up town. The City Hall Park (a park only in
name) is the worst resort in the city for loose cha-
racters. The denizens of the concert-saloons and low
dance-houses of Chatham and William streets are in
the habit of coming to it at all hours of the night, dis-
playing themselves to the gaze of respectable persons,
and oftentimes conducting themselves in the most inde-
cent manner. There are various parks kept by private
individuals on the outskirts of the city, where immoral-
ities of the grossest and most heinous character are prac-
ticed, and where orgies of the most bacchanalian descrip-
tion are carried out at all hours of the night. Even
the Central Park itself is very much resorted to by
these women and their male acquaintances during the
night, but the police keep a watchful eye on them.
Washington Parade Ground, however, is probably the
favorite park of these women. Its location partly leads
them to come to it, being very near houses of illrepute
of all degrees of decency. Women of loose character
may be seen here during the day, and at all hours of
the night, sitting on the benches alone, on the “pick
up,” or conversing with men whom they have lured to
their side. Around Washington Square they walk until
almost the gray of morning appears. They are the
only bright feature to that dark and lonely spot, where
few respectable persons are ever seen to walk after dark.
These women who walk the streets are not all “ pro-
fessionals.” There are many girls who work for their

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
305
daily bread during the day, but parade the streets by
night for improper purposes. The vast army of sewing-
girls of the metropolis are doubtless a hard-working,
industrious and worthy class, but there are black sheep
among them. So with the artificial-flower makers, hoop-
skirt makers, seamstresses, female clerks, and, in fact,
women in all the various industrial branches in New
York. Many will do certain things for money which they
ought not to do. The love of dress, and the scanty pay af-
forded them for their work, doubtless lead many to enter
into a life of shame. And not only working-women,
but married women, are guilty of these indiscretions.
To be sure, they do not walk the streets by night really
and ostensibly for this purpose, but still they are willing
to be led astray. Married women who are unhappy with
their husbands—who have ceased to love them-grass
widows and real widows, make up a large number of
unfaithful wives. Really and truly, they may be on the
street for the purpose of making a purchase, doing some
shopping, or, the poorest excuse, taking an evening walk.
If a gentleman, good-looking and apparently with money,
should speak to one of these women, however, he would
find she would not regard it in the light of an insult-
only an innocent “flirtation,” which ultimately and
always leads to a loss of good name. Servant-girls do
the same thing on the sly, and young women from the
country, who have been seduced and who have strength
of will enough not to go into a regular house of pros-
titution, occasionally, on their visits to the city, take part
in the same kind of “innocent flirtations."
23

306
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
rece
Most of the particular class of the women of which
we are speaking reside in poor neighborhoods and
wretched-looking houses. There is no particular street
which is noted for being populated by them. Their
residences are in all parts of the city. Many of them
prefer a central location, and consequently the majority
reside within two or three blocks of Broadway or the
Bowery, somewhere above Canal street. The house is
sometimes a tenement, though not necessarily such.
Very often proprietors of houses let them out in “fur-
nished rooms.” The price for these rooms averages about
six dollars and a half a week. Some women pay higher,
but few can afford it. A decent furnished room cannot
be had for less than five dollars a week. Bleecker street
is filled with houses devoted to the letting out of fur-
nished rooms; also Amity, which is a favorite street
with the nymphs du pave. On Broadway there are
a few large buildings the rooms of which are let out
to these women. On nearly all these houses there is
placed a bill:
“FURNISHED ROOMS
TO LET.
INQUIRE, ETC.”
- Very few words, but they mean a great deal.
The apartments are furnished comfortably, and bear
the appearance of any other ordinary room. Some girls
have ornaments for the mantelpiece and bureau, but very
few evince any taste in this direction. There may be a
photograph, however, of some lover in the good days

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
307
mu
Occur
long since past, of their husband, if they happened
to be married, or of the man to whom they owed all the
misery that comes from being “on the town.” On the
bureau are articles for the toilette, plenty of powder
ana rouge, stray hair-pins, a waterfall and many female
contrivances which belong alike to the virtuous as well
as the vicious. Some girls are naturally neat, and so
their rooms are kept pleasant and have an inviting look ;
others care nothing for looks, and consequently untidi-
ness and even disorder prevail everywhere through
their apartments.
A singular and somewhat amusing mistake occurred
not long since in regard to "furnished rooms."
A young couple, who had been married but a short
time, came to New York from the “rural districts.”
They put up at one of the Broadway hotels, but finding
that their expenses were more than their income would
warrant, they determined to take furnished rooms and
live à la Bohemien. Accordingly, they did what hun-
dreds of persons do during the “merry month of May”-
that is, searched the papers for advertisements of “fur-
nished rooms.” They found plenty, and some that
promised to suit. They therefore went together to look
at some of them, but saw none to their liking. The
next morning at breakfast the husband said, looking up
from his paper, “My dear, have you anything special
to do to-day; if not, I wish you would answer these
advertisements, and see if you can find anything to suit
us. You can do it as well as I, and I shall be busy.
You might take Mrs. G- ” (mentioning the name of

308
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
mani
was
е
ere
a friend) “with you; she is more acquainted with the
city than you are.”
“Certainly, Harry, I can as well as not,” replied the
young and therefore dutiful wife.
She called on Mrs. G- , and they started together.
The first place they tried was a large, stylish-looking
house in Waverly Place. The door was opened by a
female, quiet and ladylike in her manners, who was
dressed in deep mourning. They asked if there were
rooms to rent, and being answered in the affirmative, fol-
lowed her up stairs to look at them. They were on the
third floor—two airy, light, beautiful rooms, opening one
out of the other, and beautifully furnished.
“Mrs. Harry” was charmed, and went into ecstasies
of delight. They were “just what she wanted”—weren't
they beautiful ?”—“she knew they would just suit Harry.
How much were they ?”
“Fifty dollars a week.”
“What !” exclaimed both ladies together.
“Fifty dollars a week,” repeated the proprietress.
The ladies looked at one another in amazement, and
then the truth of the case began to dawn upon Mrs.
G— 's mind. She tried to whisper to Mrs. Harry that
they were in a house of assignation, but the younger lady
was too intent on the business in hand to notice.
“But my husband could never pay such a rent as
that,” she said.
The woman slightly raised her eyebrows at the words,
and said:
"I never rent my rooms to any but single ladies."

PEAF
-
MI
PRO
HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD.-MAGDALENS IN THE LAUNDRY


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
309
OL
Then Mrs. Harry began to comprehend, and was as
anxious to get away as her friend. Indeed, she was in
such haste, and cared so little to conceal it, that the
woman smiled and said :
“You need have no fear, ladies--no one shall harm
you,” and quietly and politely bowed them out.
The nymphs du pave, of course, are not on the tramp
all the time at night. They take occasional respites,
long or short, as feeling, circumstance or their will
determines. There is some good feeling (it can hardly
be called friendship) in them, and they are anxious to
gossip to each other about their affairs the same as the
virtuous world. At night they may be seen in groups
of three, four or half a dozen, standing on certain corners
and holding friendly chat as to their affairs. A few of
them patronize the “private supper-rooms” on their
own account, but this is not often done; they are treated
quite often enough by their admirers to suppers. The
coffee-and-cake saloons receive large patronage from
them. They have no regular hours for eating: break-
fast, dinner and supper may all be taken during the
twelve hours of darkness. The coffee-and-cake saloons
are very reasonable in their prices—one always gets the
worth of his money in them.
The more dissolute and dissipated of these nymphs du
pave prefer the liquor-store for a resting and refreshing
place. They meet at these places in large numbers.
Certain stores are known places of resort, and answer
to the women all the purposes that a club does to men.
Here liquor is drunk in large quantities, gin being the
urs

310
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
DIS
favorite beverage—wines, lemonades, sodas, etc., being
utterly discarded for liquors of a stronger quality.
A word should be said as to the demi-monde of the
east side of the city. The principal difference between
them and their sisters of the west side is the fact that
they are of a lower order, not so good-looking, and attire
themselves in a very gaudy and showy manner in order
to attract the attention of the passer-by. The “Bowery
style,” as it is called, is a very “loud” style, and well
calculated to cause one to gaze—not always, possibly
never, with admiration, but still to gaze. There are
many foreign girls on the east side-the Germans and
the Irish predominating. They live in the streets on
the east of the Bowery, in large tenements. There are
very few decent houses of prostitution in that part of the
city, and not one of the fashionable order. The east-
side women attract to their side boatmen, seamen, me-
chanics, workingmen, fourth-rate actors and the Bowery
b’hoys, who are physically great and very healthy,
though they have no visible means of support.
We have given, in a previous page, some of the his-
tories of women of pleasure who have moved in the
better circles. We will close the present chapter with
the histories of three women-of-the-town who became
nymphs du pave, and whose tendency was downward.
In a house on Crosby street lived, a short time since,
two sisters, both under eighteen years of age. The
story they told was sad enough. Whether it was in all
respects truthful, is another question. They had been
seduced, both of them under a promise of marriage, and,

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
311
as if to render the crime more shocking, they had been
betrayed by the same person. Life at home—they lived
in one of the interior towns of the State—became speed-
ily insupportable, for their disgrace got to be soon appa-
rent, and the two poor girls decided at last to hide them-
selves and their shame in the great city.
Soon after their arrival there was a child born to
each, but neither infant lived long. Whether the
“mothers, yet not wives,” added to the burden they
were bearing the crime of infanticide, there are no
means of determining. Each denied the commission of
the deed. But it is one of the worst results of a fall
from virtue that all confidence in even the most solemn
asseverations of innocence is shaken, and one doubts
even when he would gladly believe.
After the birth and death of their children the two
sought work. They went to many places in the city
where they thought it would be found, but failed every-
where. The ranks of sewing-girls were full, and into
no man's house as hired servants could they enter. Star-
vation stared them in the face. Their wardrobes began
to need replenishing. What could they do? Into one
life they could enter and find present relief. One house
was always standing with an open door-one refuge was
ever awaiting them. Let him who casts the first stone
first remember their temptation-first remember the awful
strait in which they were placed. Perhaps he will then
cast that stone with some gentleness, or perhaps he will
refrain altogether from casting it.
One day they entered the house in Crosby street.

312
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
e
They were dismayed, they said, by the horrors of the
life in which they found themselves. They stood ter-
rified and speechless in the presence of its fearful reali-
ties. Their only resort was—this is the story they told
the officers—to fall on their knees and pray to Christ
and the mother of Christ, the Holy Virgin, for protection
and deliverance.
What money they could save they did, looking forward
to the time when they could return home. But their
savings did not amount to much, for they had to pay the
landlady of the house sixteen dollars per week, besides
giving her half of all they earned. Truly were they
finding the wages of sin to be death. Four weeks they
spent together, when at last they had succeeded by the
most rigid economy in saving money enough to take one
home. How these two sisters decided the question of
life and death we are not told. But the fact that the
choice fell at last on the younger seems to tell that over
her sister the elder one watched with something of a
mother's love and yearning tenderness.
Fortunately-it seems almost like romance—two offi-
cers came to the house the very day that had been set
for the journey home. A few questions, a few answers,
and the long, hard life was ended-ended, let us hope,
for ever. Both were taken away and were kindly cared
for, and finally returned to their friends.
Mary E- was the daughter of a wealthy, influen-
tial merchant residing in the small town of L- , in
Wisconsin. All her life she had been attended with the
most affectionate care. A loving mother and indulgent

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
313
father watched over their only child, and perhaps passed
too leniently over her greatest fault-a tendency to invest
any object of her affection with the glories of her poetic
imagination. When Mary was about eighteen, a stranger
came to the place, and by means of letters and creden-
tials from men of standing in New York obtained an
introduction to our heroine. He was a man of very
ordinary appearance--in fact, would have been mean-
looking if he had not been well dressed—but he had what
is vulgarly called the “ gift of gab,” and almost imme-
diately made an impression on the impulsive girl. She
told her father what a delightful man she had met, and
he invited him to the house. The intimacy ripened :
Mary loved him, and he, like the designing villain that
he was, saw it and took advantage of her young inno-
cence. He professed to be highly romantic, and despised
the ordinary mode of marriage; so one day, when they
were walking together, he persuaded her to go with him
to the house of a minister and get married. She con-
sented and they were united. Her father was displeased,
but, as it could not be helped, he gave them his blessing,
and they came to New York. He fitted up a house in fine
style for her, and for about two years they lived together
happily. At the end of that time he began to tire of her,
and one day startled her with the announcement that the
marriage had been a false one, and that now she must
shift for herself. She was a young, friendless girl, alone
in the great city, unprotected and uncared for. He left.
her, and she tried for a while to support herself by sew-
ing, but that failed, and she saw starvation staring her

314
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
in the face. She saw no way out of her trouble but one
-prostitution; so she became a nymph du pave. As she
was pretty, it was not long before she found a lover who
wanted her all to himself-was wealthy and furnished a
house for her. She lived with him for a while, he being
very liberal to her, making her handsome presents—
among others a beautiful diamond cross.
One morning, after they had lived together about
three months, he came to the house in a state of mind
which she found difficult to understand. He seemed
excited and nervous, and withal in a remarkably bad
temper. After he had been gone some time, she missed
her diamond cross, which had been sticking on the
cushion in the room. She immediately searched for it,
but failing to find it, went down to his place of business,
intending to tell him of her loss. When she arrived,
she saw him fingering the cross and trying to pick out
the stones.
“Oh,” she said, starting forward, “I am so glad you
have it! I thought it was lost.”
He started to his feet as if he had been struck.
“What the d-1 do you want here ?” he roughly in-
quired.
"I came to tell you I had lost my pin, but I see you
have it; I'm so glad!"
He changed his manner and said: “I saw one of the
stones was out, so I took it to have it replaced.”
“ You are very kind,” she replied.
“By the way, Mary, can you do an errand for me?-I
am very busy just now.”

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
315
.
“ Certainly—I have nothing to do.”.
So he sent her on an errand that would take her two
or three hours. When she got home, she found the door
locked and no one to answer the bell. She knocked till
she was tired, and then asked a woman, who put her
head out of the next-door house, what was the matter.
She said that a gentleman had come there that afternoon,
removed all the furniture, locked the house and given
the key to the landlord, saying that he should not want
it any longer.
Mary was perplexed, but she went back to the store,
where she learned that her lover had sailed an hour
before for Europe, leaving no word behind. Here was
another blow: again she was alone — again she took
refuge in a life of shame. She went on from bad to
worse, until, at the present time, she is continually get-
ting drunk, and every now and then is sent to the Island.
ON

CHAPTER XXVI.
SUMMER SPORTS OF THE "DEMI-MONDE."
67 HE demi-monde of all grades like amusement, the
same as the rest of humanity. It might be sup-
ole posed that their continued round of dissipation
by night was sufficient recreation, but this is a
mistake. Nearly all of them look on their calling as
a business, not as recreation. They smile and seem
happy before their friends, but in reality they may be
heavy-hearted. They outwardly appear to enjoy their
various midnight revelries, but within their own hearts
they care nothing for them. While .pursuing their
calling they wear a mask and seem what they are not.
Among themselves, however, they are free from care,
and honest—there is honor among harlots as well as
among thieves.
It is during the summer-time that these women most
enjoy themselves, and it is the pic-nic which possesses
the greatest charms for them. The number of excur-
sions, pic-nics, cotillion-parties and moonlight-excursions
that leave the city of New York during the months of
June, July and August, and the early part of September
of each year, is almost beyond calculation. Fences and
curbstones throughout the summer are filled with posters
316

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
317
announcing the projected excursion of this or that asso-
ciation, club or society, to popular places of resort near
the great city. All these places are sufficiently near
New York to allow the party to go and return in a
single day. The excursion is nearly always by water, a
steamer being chartered for the occasion, or, which is
more generally the case, a barge and steam-tug. On the
boat there is an ample chance afforded to indulge in the
bewildering whirr of the mazy dance; there is always
dancing at these pic-nics—it is the chief feature of the
affair. There is an immense crowd. The gentlemen are
large, broad-shouldered, muscular-looking beings, dressed
in broadcloth; from their looks one has reason to suspect
their connection with the prize-ring. The number of
young women is immense. The boat is completely filled
with persons, and there is scarcely room to turn around.
The females are very gaudily and showily dressed. Some
of them are quite good-looking. They have evidently
spent much time in perfecting their toilettes. Their
dresses are short, moreover, and display feet delicately
and beautifully small, and ankles of fair proportions-
both of which parts of the human body they are not at
all loth to exhibit.
The boat starts from the city at about eight or nine
o'clock. The pic-nic has been advertised ahead by
means of large posters. It may be the “ Jolly Crows,"
“ Gideon's Band” or the “ Robinson Crusoe Club”
which is to give the excursion, but from the name and
general announcement the knowing ones will see that
the demi-monde will be present. At nearly all of these
annou

318
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
affairs, too, young women who are not members of this
order may be seen-working-women and young women
who don't work, but admire a boisterous time. Every
one is exceedingly good-natured at starting. Crowds
troop down to the dock, some of the men carrying
baskets of provisions. On board the boat people soon
become acquainted with each other; there is a decided
disposition to be friendly. The boat has scarcely left
the dock when dancing is begun and carried on in a
very lively manner. The hilarity increases. Men talk
in a loud voice, and the women indulge in an im-
moderate amount of laughter. On reaching the ground
lunch or dinner is had. Every one has a sharp appetite.
Both men and women drink whisky and gin. After
lunch, there is dancing on a platform, swinging, loafing,
talking, romping, smoking and walking. The after-
noon is nearly gone when the boat takes the party home.
The men, half intoxicated, are wonderfully merry—the
women not much less so. Dancing is indulged in all
the way to the city. When the party arrive in New
York, they wearily take themselves to their homes.
Of late years the meanest of the pickpockets have
patronized excursions and pic-nics, and taken their
chances with the crowd of unsuspecting pleasure-seekers.
Oftentimes an officer is detailed to accompany these
excursions for the purpose of affording them protection,
but even such precautions are not always successful.
There are many pic-nics (improperly called such, how-
ever) held in the evening, at which the demi-monde pre-
dominate. There are eight or ten gardens within the

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
319
limits of New York where these “pic-nics” are held.
On the East River side, there is the Union Park, foot
of Sixtieth street; Landmann's Hamilton Park, Sixty-
eighth street and Third avenue; the Cremorne Gardens,
almost opposite; Bellevue Garden, foot of Eightieth
street; the East River Park, foot of Eighty-fourth street,
which neighbors have several times tried to have in-
dicted as a nuisance, together with several smaller gardens
where lager beer is sold and music furnished. On the
west side of the city, there are only three gardens of
large magnitude—the Broadway Park, on Broadway,
near Ninety-seventh street; Elm Park, on Broadway,
near Ninetieth street; and Lion Park, on Eighth avenue,
near One-hundred-and-tenth street.
The great majority of the public pic-nics of the present
day are indecent. The demi-monde attend them all, and
are expected to be present. This, of course, has a pecu-
liarly bad effect on the few decent young women who are
induced to go. The youth of both sexes are more or less
demoralized, and the commonest observation proves that
drunkenness, theft, lewdness and all kinds of dissipation
are on the increase from their influence and example.
It may be well to look for a moment at those who con-
stitute the majority of the pic-nics that hold their revels
at these parks and gardens. There are in the city of New
York alone, according to police estimation, nearly three
hundred different societies who give one or more balls
during the winter months, and who indulge in at least
one pic-nic during the summer. Some of them are
highly respectable German clubs and societies, which

320
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
maintain a good character in all they do, except occasion-
ally getting somewhat convivial when under the influence
of their national beverage. At the evening pic-nics of
which we have been speaking a person may see the faces
of the well-dressed corner loafers who hang about the
avenues, in front of cigar and rum shops, and who make
it their business to insult ladies as they pass along the
street. Many of these evening pic-nics are almost wholly
composed of these loafers and the lower order of the
demi-monde. A dozen or more of them club together
under some peculiar name, sometimes having a meeting-
room, or sometimes using the street corners or an accom-
modating liquor saloon for business purposes. It is not
at all unfrequent for professional thieves thus to band
together and get up a crowd at their entertainments that
they may pluck them. It is openly avowed that many
of these clubs exist solely for what they can make from
their gatherings. Each person composing the club dis-
poses of a few tickets to a few male friends, women-about-
town, together with a few young girls indifferently honest
and indifferently virtuous.
Arriving at the gardens in the afternoon, the party
find fresh air, a few tokens of verdure, a small supply
of natural and a large amount of artificial shade. The
better side of the picture is presented first. The heat
and dust of the city are left behind, and a certain sense
of abandon comes to every one. The dance is at once
indulged in. While the breezes play with the holiday
attire of the young women, the music commences and
they float into the dance. The revel grows wilder, but
УО)

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
321
for a time is kept within decent bounds. The very air
seems laden with hilarity. This, however, is only a
preface to the real sport which the evening produces.
When the lamps are lighted in the trees around the
platform, in the arbors and among the shaded walks, a
fresh company arrive after working hours and a livelier
picture is presented. Rest and supper have rejuvenated
those whom the dance has tired out. The newly-come
party are of those who love night rather than day—those
who seek pleasure and victims. But they are not all of
this kind, any more than the afternoon party are all bad.
Many unsophisticated ones of both sexes come from
motives of curiosity or for a night's adventure. One of
the most significant sights to be met with at these evening
pic-nics is the large number of young working-girls that
attend them. At the gate, during the fore part of the
evening, may be seen dozens of these young creatures,
lingering around with the hope of being asked in by some
acquaintance or stranger. It is not an unusual sight to
see them importune entire strangers to take them within
the enclosure. What the fate of these girls must be we
leave the reader to guess. They seldom have any amuse-
ment, and the sound of music, and their imagination
heightened regarding the pleasure being enjoyed within,
make them as intoxicated with desire as those within are
with actual pleasure. Such girls are easily persuaded by
rowdies to go inside, and the newness of the pleasure,
with a few glasses of wine or beer, soon accomplishes their
fall. Old and young rascals frequent these dances and
then boast of the conquests they have made. There are

322
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
secluded walks and bowers; there are private supper-
rooms and blind waiters; there are numerous adjuncts
that lend their aid to the wiles of these base men; and the
consequences are, the comparatively innocent are seduced,
and those already fallen are made worse.
All this is going on amid the flow of music and the
seemingly happy laugh; dazzling forms and brilliant
lights lend their charms to the scene; and the baccha-
nalian revelry, as yet subdued, is throwing over all a
gauze of innocent recreation. A stranger might enter
one of these gardens at such a time, and, being attracted
by the music and excitement on the dancing-floor, he
might not see any of these scenes of which we speak.
The music and the lights, the crowd and the sound of
revelry, act as a blind to the enactments of debauchery.
But if he glances around, he will see young girls seated
at tables drinking beer and already under its influence.
He will hear the wild laugh, the vulgar jest, and see
the careless arrangement of drapery and the negligent
attitude which suggests the heart's abandon and the
mind's indecision.
The hours of evening wear away, and under the
influence of the dance, the music and the frequent pota-
tions, the lurking devil throws down the mask of semi-
decency, and unrestrained passions take possession of
the hour and the scene. Young people of both sexes
stagger about in reckless bewilderment, making senseless
speeches, shouting slang phrases, or making coarse, inde-
cent allusions and exposures. The dance becomes a
general break-down, in which all hands take part, and

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
323
what may appear pleasure to those engaged in it becomes
an uproarious burlesque to the sober observer and a
nuisance to those who live in the neighborhood. The
young women have ceased to drink lager beer, and now
walk up to the bar and call for whisky and gin, as they
might do in a brothel. Girls with hair and dresses
crumpled respond to their partners' rude embrace, and
whirl in wild disorder about the room, under the delusion
that they are following the music of the dance. Here
comes a verdant youth who has fallen into the hands of a
fallen angel. He is quite drunk. She is one whose thought
is ever to make money, and she marks him for her own.
She is fresh and watchful, although pretending to join
in his incoherent song. Still grasping a mug of beer
and attempting to sing a ditty in its praise, she leads
him artfully along and away from the crowd, followed
by her companions in mischief. Their arms are locked,
and he is happy in the thoughts of the “lark” he is
helping to carry out. When slightly removed from ob-
servation, the “pal” of his companion thrusts her arm
between them and relieves him of his watch and money.
The work is done quickly and artistically. He is led
back to a seat and told to remain until her return, which
will be in a minute. His artful robbers quit the place,
and he sleeps on until thrust from the place by the pro-
prietor when the revel is over. Nor is this all. Some
of the most beautiful of the demi-monde are often em-
ployed by pickpockets to rope in victims.
The pic-nics of the demi-monde, and the pic-nics prin-
cipally patronized by them, have worked a serious evil

324
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
on the community. They have made more prostitutes
and degraded more young girls than any other cause
that can be named. They have encouraged thieving;
brought the vicious into contact with some that were
comparatively pure; made young men and women drunk-
ards; propagated slang language and inoculated it into
society; created brazen women and made unrefined men;
made it seem that all women were alike and to be ap-
proached with vulgar familiarity; given an edge to
rowdyism and a countenance to lewdness; and finally de-
bauched society with their serpentine slime until it festers
to its very core. For these reasons pic-nics of this par-
ticular class should either be abolished, or placed under
such guard as to be shorn of their impurities.
The pic-nics of which we have been speaking, as we
have intimated, are not composed wholly of the demi-
monde, although that class of women largely predominate
at them. Some of them go for the purpose of picking
up victims, but it is fair to presume that the great ma-
jority go for the sake of having some pleasure. Those
who go for the last purpose named are accompanied by
their-“lovers” or favorites. Occasionally, however, a
number of the cyprians of the city and their friends go
on a pic-nic by themselves. There are no semi-virtuous
persons present—the whole company is fallen. A pic-
nic of this character was recently had. It took place in
the month of June of the current year, and was a
decided sensation. It was of a regular society composed
wholly of the demi-monde and their male friends. They
hailed principally from Greene, Mercer, Amity, Prince,
as

WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
325
Houston and Bleecker streets. The gathering was a very
large one-two barges and a steam-tug were engaged for
the occasion. The party was a very gay one. The
women were attired in the gayest colors, their dresses
being very short. The excursion left about nine o'clock
and went to Dobbs' Ferry, a pleasant summer resort on
the Hudson River, a short distance from New York.
On the way up and coming home, as well as on the
ground, dancing was of course indulged in. The terpsi-
chorean amusement would have shocked the senses of
our ancestors, accustomed to the stately minuet or old-
fashioned quadrille. The dancing was decidedly French
in its character, and very wild in execution. Plain
dances could not satisfy these people. The Can-Can
was performed over and over again according to the
latest dates, and when waltzing, quadrilling or cotillion-
ing was indulged in it was executed in a manner utterly
unknown to the devotees of Terpsichore. The women
threw themselves around in the most loose and reckless
manner, exposing their persons outrageously and shame-
fully. The dancing was France outdone by Mercer
and Greene streets -- the Can-can out-Paris-ed in
America.
It is very seldom that the fashionable demi-monde
indulge in pic-nicking of the style we have alluded tu.
They probably take more amusement than do their sisters
lower down on the ladder of vice, but in a very different
way. The fashionable beauties of the under-world have
many friends of wealth who, strange to say, take pride
and pleasure in escorting them out. Drives in Central
-C00

326
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Park, a season at Long Branch, Newport or Saratoga,
sometimes a trip to Europe, afford some of the means of
enjoyment of this class of women. Men of high position
are not ashamed to be seen with these females. On a
Sunday, at a hotel near Central Park, we have seen
several of the City's officials, two or three lawyers of
prominence and one or two legislators (all married men),
enjoying themselves in company with beautiful but frail
women. We have also seen a prominent comedian, noted
for his wit and fine powers as a writer and actor, sit
during a matinee performance in a private box with
several of the fashionable demi-monde. But these are
only solitary instances among many that might be named,
and are chiefly noticeable on account of the high position
of the parties.
The better class of the, under-world, however, have
ways of enjoying themselves alone. A number of them
have formed themselves into a boat club, and every sum-
mer enjoy the sport of rowing on a little river in New
Jersey, away from the vulgar gaze. They have a tasty
uniform, fashioned so as to fully display their graceful
and beautiful forms, and are said to be expert oarswomen.
This certainly is the most sensible way we have yet heard
of these women enjoying themselves.
The more wealthy of the frail women, who have due
regard to their health, and who possess somewhat of the
good sense and judgment of their Parisian sisters, prefer
the watering-places in summer to being in the city. And
thither they go-sometimes as the "wife” of some wealthy
man, sometimes alone. You may jostle against them at
sum-

.
Call
SEN
D
ie
W
2.
MURUNDI
2
FEMALE BOAT CLUBS ON A PICNIC.


WOMEN OF PLEASURE.
327
the Springs at Saratoga, you will see them at your side at
Niagara Falls admiring the grandeur of the scene, or at
Newport, Long Branch or Cape May they will be near
you bathing in the surf, receiving the embraces of the
“amorous ocean."
In the winter there is a surfeit of sport, for every one,
going on in the city. The principal amusements of the
demi-monde during the cold weather are balls. Some of
these entertainments are gotten up by or solely for them.
During the past one or two seasons some of the wealthiest
young men in New York have had a hand in starting
them. They differ from other balls in being character-
ized by a greater degree of abandon; the Can-Can is
always indulged in. It makes but little difference, how-
ever, as to the good character of the ball or who are the
originators of it—some of the demi-monde always attend.
The most respectable public balls of the season are not
free from their presence. The masquerade balls are their
particular favorites. Here the revelry is of the wildest
description, and almost all thoughts of decency are put
aside. It was a fitting motto for one of these balls
during a late season, “Let us live for to-day, distrustful
of to-morrow.”
Whatever may be the enjoyments or pleasures of the
demi-monde, they soon tire of them. Having but little
judgment, the majority of them drink deep from the
well-spring of pleasure, and before long they sicken of
it. Not content with taking a draught occasionally, they
exhaust it all at once, or in a very short time, and the
consequence is, become blasé and tired of everything.

328
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Life soon becomes wearisome, and the once gay and
happy creature who fluttered about for a time in the
under-world, and whom some were foolish enough to
envy, sinks into melancholy.
In the melancholy peculiar to fallen women there is an
amount of suffering and disease that few of our readers
have any conception of. It frequently partakes of the
nature of insanity, and causes them to abandon them-
selves to every species of degraded excitement, or in some
instances to seek relief in suicide. There are cases where
females have successfully striven against this disease to
outward appearance, but it invariably saps the fountain
of life and speedily consigns them to an early grave, and
hides them
"From the general scorn
That haunts and dogs them like an injured ghost,
Implacable.”

MARRIED WOMEN.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MATRIMONIAL INFELICITIES.
A1HERE is a great deal of unhappy married life
which reaches the ear of the public through the
online courts and the newspapers; there is much which
is talked of at tea-tables as neighborhood scandal;
there is a vast amount of it which finds its way to the
ears of the doctor and the clergyman; and we have
every reason to believe that there is still more which
never sees the light. The proportion of really happy
marriages is exceedingly few—so few that if the truth
were known publicly, it may well be imagined that many
who now rush heedlessly into matrimony would hesitate
upon the brink of its consummation. Other things
being equal, it may be asserted without fear of contra-
diction that there are more unhappy marriages in the
town than in the country. People who have a plenty
of sunshine and fresh air, who take a daily amount of
exercise and live on wholesome food, who own pretty
cottages or small farms, and constantly come in contact
with Nature, who is always pure and smiling, are sur-
rounded by happy influences which tend to make them
329

330
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
contented with their lot, themselves and their com-
panions. This is the hygienic view of the matter, and
it has a stronger influence than many would suspect.
When people are ambitious to live in high stoops, Eng-
lish basement, swell front, brownstone houses, on Thirty-
fourth or Forty-seventh street, they will put up with
many inconveniences, stretch a moral obligation or two
if need be, and do many other things to accomplish
their purpose. There never was a more truthful saying
than that of the poet Cowper, that “God made the
country, and man made the town.”
The town is full of opportunities and temptations.
Bad men and bad women concentrate there, even as
bees flock to a hive. Each acts and reacts upon the
other, and in the end the whole body social becomes
demoralized. Respectable people do that in the town
which they would never think of doing in the country.
In a village of three or four thousand inhabitants there
is a public opinion so strong that no one cares to run
counter to it. The life and actions of each individual
are known, and if they do not come up to the average
standard, there is a village flutter at once. If Farmer
Jones pays more attention than he ought to Mrs. Last,
wife of the cobbler, the poor shoemaker would never
hear the last of it, and it would be strange, indeed, if
he did not give his wife a basting or a wax-end at
least. We speak figuratively, of course, for it is not to
be supposed that any husband is so brutal as to actually
beat his wife, although we sometimes read of such things
· in the newspapers. Even if young Tom Woodman pays
се

MARRIED WOMEN.
331
his attentions to Anna Maria Cheesely, the moment of
their engagement is known to the gossips of the village.
Anna tells her intimate friend, Hannah; she tells her
mother; her mother tells her husband; he tells his best
male friend, and then the news takes the wings of the
morning and flies all over the town.
In the city there is no public opinion. The one hun-
dred thousand or million of people are too many to pay
much attention to their neighbors' affairs, or to attempt
to control the marriage relations. Every one is sup-
posed to look out for himself. People go in sets, and
seldom know anything, which may be taking place in
any other set. Only in their own families are they
under any supervision whatever. The moment they
step upon the street, that moment they are among
strangers. It is possible for an old resident of New
York to go the whole length of Broadway, meeting
perhaps twenty thousand people, and not discovering
one familiar face among them. So the people who
live in town do what they please, come and go as
they please, and nobody knows or cares anything about
it. This gives great liberty and great license. It gives
too much for some people, and they are very ready to
take advantage of it.
Under this peculiar condition of things, perhaps, we
should not be surprised if many wives proved unfaithful
to their husbands, and vice versâ. In fact, the wife often
discovers that the husband is unfaithful to her—that, for
some reason or other, he keeps another woman with whom
he divides his affections and attention. She soon comes

332
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
SOU
to the conclusion that what is sauce for the gander is
sauce for the goose, and very soon she finds a dashing
young man who is ready to make himself useful as well
as ornamental. There are a thousand causes which tend
to produce matrimonial infelicities in the city, and the
wonder is that we do not have more of them. We have
come to the decided conclusion that love does not always
take flight from the window upon the approach of pov-
erty; it seems to droop and languish in the palaces of the
rich all the same. A very wealthy gentleman of forty
or fifty falls in love with a pretty face, a fine figure and
a dashing belle. She is as young as she is handsome,
and marries the millionaire the first minute he mentions
it. A splendid four-in-hand, a magnificent house, a
retinue of servants, are not to be refused every day.
So she takes him for better or worse. It is often worse
in the end. As soon as the novelty of the situation has
worn off, she longs for society and amusement. He, the
old Blue Beard that he is, hopes to keep her shut up
in his stone house while he is off on business. In short,
he grows jealous, is supremely selfish, tells his wife
what she may and what she may not do, who she may
see and where she may go. He refuses to trust her, and
she in her turn refuses to trust or be ruled by him. She
is a woman of life and spirit, and as her husband has
nothing attractive about him but his wealth, she soon
comes to regard that as a burden. “What is the use of
it all,” she says, “if I cannot be happy? These fine
carpets, laces, furniture, etc., do me no good; these ser-
vants are no company; I have driven over the Central

MARRIED WOMEN.
333
Park, and been shopping on Broadway, until I hate
the sight of those places; I have been to the opera
and theatre until I am tired of them; I am not fond
of books or music or painting, and if I were I should
not care to be mewed up in a studio or library all day.”
The truth of the matter is, this wealthy, unhappy
woman wants society, wants somebody to love and some-
body to love her, wants to be appreciated, and possibly
flattered. At last she disregards Mr. Moneybags, and
goes into society. She plunges into it as a beautiful
maiden does into the surf at Long Branch or Newport.
Alas! the undertow or tide sometimes takes her out to
sea, and she is lost!
There are always plenty of male sharks, redolent of
Lubin, with oily tongues, curled hair, smiling lips,
sparkling eyes, and all the arts and graces of the dancing-
master, roaming about in society, seeking what small fish
they may swallow. They had just as soon take down one
of the Codfish aristocracy as a member of a Knicker-
bocker family; they would think nothing of feasting off
of a country maiden, so she was pretty; and a dashing
widow “who knows a thing or two” is just the thing for
a dainty dish. Having no wife of their own, they are
ready upon the shortest notice to play the part of hus-
band to those unfortunate wives who have had a falling
out with their rightful lords and masters. They meet
our lady from the palace, who has plunged into society,
and the result is a mutual admiration, which leads to a
further intimacy within the circle, of which we do not
need to treat. He is everywhere attendant upon her-
25

334
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
even at public balls and operas. As soon as Mr. Money-
bags goes from home, he calls at the house with his
carriage and the two drive off for a long ride. He is
invited to the table of Mrs. Moneybags, and is made a
welcome visitor at the house at all hours of the day, and
we had almost said at all hours of the night. If she goes
to the seaside or Springs for the summer, she informs
him of the fact, and, as her husband returns to town on
the Monday morning's boat, he starts from town on the
evening boat of the same day. Sometimes this lover is a
man in moderate circumstances. When this is the case,
the woman who has accepted him supplies him with
pocket-money.
• Many women are easily susceptible to influence from
the opposite sex if they are brought in contact with
them and listen to their blandishments. And in a city
like New York there are not wanting any number of
men, from the age of twenty to fifty, who are constantly
on the alert to induce some butterfly of fashion, à la the
spider and the fly, to walk into their parlor. Almost
before the woman knows it she is in the hands of the
destroyer, and peace and happiness have fled from her
household for ever. The blame is not to be all charged
upon the men, however, for there be women who seek to
entrap young men, and we fear very few Josephs are
found among them. These women, we are charitable
enough to suppose, are not always bad at heart. They
are rather too often the victims of circumstances which
they do not understand, and therefore are not capable of
rising above. They tempt and are tempted. They go to
Won

MARRIED WOMEN.
335
balls and parties; they dance and drink wine; they come
in intimate contact with many persons of the opposite
sex; they expose, according to the mandates of Fashion,
the most charming portions of their persons; they
indulge in luxurious and rich living; they attend exciting
and unhealthy plays; they read rose-colored and stimu-
lating romances in books and papers, and the result is,
they fall. Woman is not naturally so passionate a
creature as man, but she has a lively imagination ; she
dreams of bliss, she revels in delightful pictures of the
fancy, and the life of dissipation she is living tends to
give shape and direction to her thoughts. She at last
longs for that which at first she only dreamt about, and
although it lasts but for a moment, yet she is willing to
stake everything upon that moment. So the first oppor-
tunity which presents is embraced.
This is a fair picture of city life in the higher walks,
where ease, wealth and luxury reign supreme. It does
not include all wealthy people, of course. Indeed, the
proportion of good outnumbers the bad by far. But
since thousands are able to resist temptation, there is no
need on our part of pointing out to them the dangers to
be avoided. From this sad picture we can draw but one
conclusion-viz., that the farther people wander from a
pure and simple method of living, the greater becomes
the danger. Luxury brings license; the city is full of
temptations because it is outside of the influence of
restraint. Those who go to the town to live, be they men
or women, should discard the hollow and artificial and
keep their eyes open.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
MARRIAGE A LA MODE.
7 HERE are women standing in the highest places in
society who love to be constantly engaged in affairs
o of the heart. Their business seems to be that of
making conquests. The excitement of the diver-
sion—for it is hardly considered anything more-the
romance, the danger of it, and oftentimes the encourage-
· ment they receive from the objects of their admiration,
lead them on from field to field, to make new attacks
and win new victories. Society is full of peccadilloes.
These petit péchés, as the French call them, or small
transgressions, as we polite Anglo-Saxons translate them,
are winked at by many people as a matter of course.
Has the Prince been down to the lodge to see the gar-
dener's pretty daughter ? Everybody admires some-
body's pretty daughter. The Prince is a gallant. He
must sow his wild oats, you know. What if he does
pluck up a few, wee, modest daisies by the roots and
scatter the leaves of a rose or two! There will be as
many fresh and blooming next year as ever. But when
the blue-eyed violets and the coquettish pinks make an
attack on the Prince, how is he to resist it? Some do,
but the most of them do not. Men, as a class, as we have
336

MARRIED WOMEN.
337
before had occasion to notice, are passionate, and care
principally for the gratification of self. Women are fond
of admiration, adulation and flattery; especially do they
admire men if these lords of creation are lusty, robust,
strong, handsome and well-formed. The stronger vessel
at once contains or swallows up the weaker. The oak
stretches out its arms to clasp the vine. And since the
person of a woman is the great centre of attraction, each
one of them does the best they can to make themselves
attractive. Where is the harm ? they argue—those, at
least, who are in society. We are denied political influ-
ence; we must take all our wines on the sly and never
get “gloriously high ;" we cannot attend the races or
drive fast horses; we are not allowed to travel over the
world alone; we may not even set foot in a theatre with-
out a man at our elbow; we have fine houses, with a full
force of servants, and nothing to do at home: who
wonders that we turn our attention to gentlemen, adorn
ourselves, and do the best that we can to smash their
hearts ?
Such is the language of society in New York as read
in the actions of many of its female members. But
heart-smashing is a dangerous business : it leads to mar-
riages of convenience or pleasure, which the priest, not
the justice of the peace, is called in to witness. It ignores,
for the time being, existing relations, and throws open
the boudoir to those who otherwise would never set foot
within its privacy. There is always this much to be said
in favor of the “queens of fashion” who do such things: -
they are no worse than the kings. If the men were

338
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
always what they should be, there would be few com-
plaints of wayward wives.
But many women have no husbands. They may be
ladies of great wealth, and they do not care to tie them-
selves up to a man who perhaps marries them only for
the purpose of spending their fortunes. So far as the
world is concerned they are independent. There is no
necessity for marrying for the sake of a home. And as
for society, there will always be a plenty of that wher-
ever there is money. Is it reasonable to suppose that
these ladies are for ever and at all times stolidly indif-
ferent to the joys of wedded life? Shall nocturnal
isolation be their for ever habit? The proposition is
absurd. They have active imaginations; they have read .
the poets and romancers understandingly, and are versed
in mythology—in the story of Jupiter, of Venus and
Adonis, of all the rest of them. They are mistresses of
themselves and their own fortunes. This very inde-
pendence gives them opportunities which the majority of
womankind do not enjoy. All of these opportunities do
not run to waste. One draught from the sweet cup of
pleasure is followed by another and another, until one or
both are satisfied. The great, thundering, church-going,
toiling, commonplace, outside world knows nothing of all
this. The consequences are accepted, and the results
bring neither poverty nor crime to the state. It is simply
an after-taste of what once was in Eden.
These cases do not form the rule in any society, as yet,
in America, thank Heaven! New York is far from being
as bad as Paris. There are too many cool, respectable,
WO
101

MARRIED WOMEN.
339
strong-minded people to allow these small sins to become
quite as common as the ordinary events of life. Some
instances in New York society, however, are not unknown
to the public, and it may not be out of place for us to
suppose a few of them.
Many a wealthy old gentleman in New York, who was
very "gay" when a young man, and went his mother
never knew where, has a young and dashing wife, or a
middle-aged companion, who regards her husband as the
figure-head of the household, but of no earthly use save
to settle bills, attend to business and shell out the cash.
It would be nothing strange if Mr. Codger was just as
indifferent to his wife. Having outgrown his love for
women, he is tolerant and virtuous because the fires of
youth have long ago expended themselves. There is
nothing left for them to feed upon, and he sits among the
coals and ashes of other days. The coals, aforesaid, are
not red hot, however. This condition of things leaves
the front door of the household wide open for very many
improprieties, and they frequently troop in like masque-
raders to a dance. Perhaps a page comes first, followed
by a harlequin, then a knight, possibly a priest (like that
plump one Browning tells about in his “Ring and the
Book”), and lastly a baron, a lord or a king. Cases in
point are not wanting, even in New York. .
Manhattan Island has two ends to it—one of which
contains many elegant private residences, some of which
overlook the Hudson, while from the windows of others
charming views of Long Island and the Sound can be
obtained. Some of these mansions, embowered in trees
S
in

340
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and surrounded by lawns and drives, are always pointed
out to people who go sailing up or down either of the
rivers which border the city. In one of these beautiful
residences lives the dashing society lady, Madam Blank,
the wife of a gentleman of considerable influence. She
has the reputation of being exceedingly fond of the
society of gentlemen, and, as she has a plenty of money.
at her disposal, she keeps “open house," as the phrase is,
giving large dinner-parties, evening entertainments, etc.,
receiving the attentions of all those who have the oppor-
tunity of paying their respects to her. We are assured
that it is positively dangerous for any pure-minded young
man or woman to become a member of this circle of
society. This madam, who is so fond of the flesh-pots of
Egypt, indulges now and then in a little romantic
excursion or doubtful amusement. She has been known
to make an appointment, under the excuse of shopping-
a by no means unfrequent occurrence among certain
we
Ina
store on Broadway or some of the avenues. If there
were hundreds of people in the same store at the same
time, buying goods, so much the better for her plans.
The very idea of a crowd often shields one from obser-
vation. It is as good as a country forest or the woods of
England. Disguising herself in a deep black costume,
with a heavy, nun-like veil over her face, she drives to
the store at the appointed hour and commences to look at
or the dress-goods counter; wherever it is, the gentleman
expected finds his way to it as if by accident, and the two

MARRIED WOMEN.
341
soon pass out of the bazaar together, driving to a house
mutually agreed upon. These things have been done
more than once, but ofttimes the ladies' veils are too thin
for the searching glances of the clerks in attendance, and
their secrets are discovered.
All the actresses of New York are not so bad as
some would like to have us believe, but every flock of
sheep is supposed to have its black one. Some of these
“soiled lambs," as they have been not inaptly described,
are known to the public, and play even now at the
popular theatres on Broadway. People applaud them
when they appear before the foot-lights, and their names
appear with approbation in all the newspapers of the
city. Perhaps these poor girls have beauty in face, form
and hair, and falling under the notice of wealthy gentle-
men, they find it hard to escape their presence or resist
their influence. We have in mind the case of one highly
respectable gentleman, who became so infatuated with a
pair of black eyes, rich flowing locks and round limbs
that he was led by their possessor to the brink of destruc-
tion. This Venus would descend from the stage like a
goddess perhaps, and taking her lover by the arm, after
the play was over, urge him into her carriage, telling the
driver to drive home-to some sort of a home, Heaven
knows what. Many gentlemen of good society are fre-
quent attendants at the theatres where these creatures
play, and they do not hesitate to publicly applaud them.
It is the common rumor of the town that they often live
together as married people whenever they see fit to do
so. Some of these men, to their shame be it said, have

342
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
wives and interesting families of sons and daughters.
They may have married these wives when young men,
and before they had become fortunate in place or busi-
ness. Coming from the country to the city, for a few
years, while struggling with poverty, they are faithful
to their first loves. As young men they fancied the
country girl and married her possibly they loved her.
With the flight of time they grew very rich; stood at
the head of a large commercial house, or took the lead
of a political party. But their wives were the same
simple, unpretending women they were when first mar-
ried. They could not shine brilliantly in society, not
having received a brilliant education when young. So
their husbands learned to love somebody else. They
fell into the blonde meshes of the actresses, and were
charmed; they accepted their devotions; and while keep-
ing up the semblance of respectability at home, they
formed a marriage à la mode—a marriage of convenience
-which is just no marriage at all.
People who have once tasted luxury, and fallen from
it, have such an intense desire to get back again that
they will resort to fanciful marriages or something worse.
There is living on one of the streets of New York a
widow with her daughter. This woman was once the
wife of a man well-to-do in the world, but he lost his
property, or the most of it, at least, and died. Then the
sorrowing one was obliged to step down several pegs in
the social scale. Having had the supreme felicity of
associating with the banker's wife, the undertaker's
daughter, the merchant's son and the butcher's heir, she

MS
TUTURE. INTITUWI.
UN
SEWING GIRLS IN A BROADWAY ESTABLISHMENT.


MARRIED WOMEN.
343
longed to get back into the same society. But how to
do it, how to “raise the wind,” how to find the cash
necessary to keep up appearances ! The daughter was
handsome and charming, and the mother encouraged the
attentions of a young man who was willing to pay a
good price for her virtue. This may seem impossible,
but we believe it to be a fact. The daughter, to her
honor be it said, refused the attentions of this gentle-
man, and he was too much of a man to press his suit.
He turned away from her, saying, “Whenever you get
tired of living in poverty, come to me and I will fur-
nish you with money.” And the mother continues to
urge her daughter to tread the downward path. We
fear that in the end poverty will conquer virtue.
Many married women in New York form very indis-
creet acquaintances with clerks. So well is this fact
known that some shopkeepers make it a rule to employ
the finest-looking young men they can find to draw
custom. And we predict that so long as women do the
shopping, just so long will men stand behind the counter
to wait upon them. It is a fact that most women had
rather be attended by a polite, handsome man, who will
smile upon them and say pretty things, than by the
cleverest girls that can be found. So we expect that men
will always be counter-jumpers, however certain books
and newspapers may object to it or argue against it. It
is but natural that a woman should admire a well-built
man, and vice versâ. In the “dollar stores” of New
York, which are mostly patronized by men, the clerks
are all young ladies, the handsomest that can be found.

344
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
-
LUI
They are put there to draw, and they do draw at an
astonishing rate, judging by the thousands who throng
those bazaars.
This is one of the reasons why shopping becomes such
a passion with the women, and is such a bore to the men.
What fun or interest could there be for a man to pur-
chase a dozen yards of silk from a man? But for a
woman, the case is entirely different. The clerk from
behind his moustaches smilingly tells her how well she
would look in that “moonlight-on-the-lake,” and asks
her to walk into another room, where she can see it by gas-
light. This gaslight is a sort of an artificial moonlight,
you know, and sometimes it produces the same effects.
The clerk turns it down or up to produce the different
effects, and being ever on the alert, he takes advantage
of the first opportunity to steal a kiss. Stolen fruit is
always the sweetest. The acquaintance thus commenced
ripens into a more intimate one, and at last the fortunate
clerk rides out in my lady's carriage, goes to the theatre
with her, and draws all his supply of pocket-money from
her well-filled purse. The husband of this susceptible
creature may be in Europe, or off on an excursion to
California, or yachting, or it is possible she has no hus-
band.
Other married women go even farther than this, if they
do not fare worse. There is now living in New York a
lady of considerable beauty, who was once known to the
public. She had a husband, said to be a nice fellow
and a good man. He took his wife to the Old World,
and became attached to one of the most brilliant courts

MARRIED WOMEN.
345
of Europe. Here his wife basked in the sunshine of
admiring glances, learned to speak French and became
graceful and accomplished. She had sons by her hus-
band—bright, promising boys. For some reason, never
made known to the public, she decided to abandon him
and his children, and whether or not she ever procured
a divorce, she assumed another name and boldly appeared
before the public. At the same time she formed a
boarding-house acquaintance with a gentleman of no
special note, and permitted him to pay his undivided
attention to her. She appeared with him in public
everywhere—at receptions, balls, on the promenade; she
went to the watering-places with him, and even hob-
nobbed with the highest officials of the land and the
generals of the army. With such a high hand did she
carry on all these operations that the public mouth of
rebuke was closed, and good society opened its doors to
her.
These are but a few notable instances of fancy mar-
riages well known in New York society. Many more
might be given, but enough has been put on record to
show the reader that “all is not gold that glitters," and
that vice often assumes the garb of virtue, while even
virtue will, worship fashion and gold. The opportunities
for doing all these things are so ample in the town that
those who are ever tempted in this direction should be on
guard every moment. Eternal vigilance is the price of
virtue, as well as of liberty.

CHAPTER XXIX.
MARRIED INTRIGUES IN MIDDLE LIFE.
AT is chiefly the middle classes” that are supposed
Il to hold society together and prevent the utter
op disorganization of the body social. The middle
classes are supposed to be the moral classes. All
the virtues are centered in them, or, if not centered in
them, they are commonly supposed to be more virtuous
and moral than either the higher or the lower classes.
The wicked fashionable and the wicked poor sin always,
but the middle classes keep a medium in morality and
goodness as they do in wealth, and, if guilty at all,
are only guilty of occasional transgressions of the moral
code. They are supposed to have the best sense in every-
thing, to avoid all extremes in everything, and go through
life in such a manner that at the end of the great drama
of existence they can truly say the world was left better
than when they entered it.
It is certainly a pleasant thing to think that this is the
case—to know that there are some men and women in the
community who scorn the frivolities and immoralities of
the fashionable and the almost total depravity of the
wretchedly poor; that there are some who pursue their
daily round of common duties, finding enough pleasure
346

MARRIED WOMEN.
347
mu
2
le ma
and excitement in them, and enough reward in virtue for
the good lives they lead; who attend church, and gain
much religious and moral instruction which they put in
practice; who fulfill every duty that life imposes on the
individual; who marry at the proper age, and rear chil-.
dren to live noble and good lives after they have gone;
who, in fact, have conscience and heart and an earnest
desire, which they carry out as best they know how, to
follow the dictates of the church catechism, to lead “a
godly, righteous and sober life.” And doubtless there are
many women in the great metropolis who lead these same
lives, and are thus an honor to the city, the country and
the world. But it is to be feared, and, indeed, is known .
to be the actual fact, that there are many married women
among the middle classes who are guilty of the same
improprieties and immoralities that their fashionable
sisters are charged with.
The middle classes comprise many varieties of people.
The wives of young mechanics, of workingmen who
make more money than workingmen usually do, of
merchants, and clerks, and storekeepers, and tradesmen,
and young professional men whose incomes are not large,
and who are not able to support their families in that
degree of elegance and style that the fashionably wealthy
are able to all these women are in the middle class,
which class constitutes by far the largest number of any
particular class of women in New York.
Every generation has been called “wicked and per-
verse” by those who have lived in it. Thus has it been
since the world began, and thus probably will it be as
26

348
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
long as the world remains. Every one remembers the
old times in New York, and how the people thought
their times were bad; but how much superior was the
state of society as it was then in New York, especially as
regards the married relations, compared with what it is
now! At that time there was a proper regard paid to
morality, and religion was more than a mere system of
forms or a dry formula of beliefs. Mothers gave a true
womanly education to their daughters, and sought to
make them an honor to themselves and the world. The
introduction of the Greek Slave to New York some years
ago doubtless had something, though not everything, to
do with the decrease of public morality and the laxity in
the moral sentiments in regard to marriage and the mar-
riage relation. The contemplation of this nude statue,
beautiful as it was as a work of art, did much to excite
the baser passions of the male sex and blunt the modesty
of females. Photography has also done much harm.
Within the last few years colored pictures of the demi-
monde of Paris, arrayed in gay colors and in suggestive
attitudes, have been liberally displayed in the shop win-
dows, and have unquestionably had a bad influence on the
pure-minded women who have looked at them. Add to
these the influence of the Opera Bouffe, with its immoral
songs and lascivious Can-Can, and later still, the reign
of the blondes in the metropolis, with their immodest
actions and free-and-easy way on and off the stage, and
it is but very fair to presume that many women of the
middle classes, who nearly wholly support the metro-
politan drama, should become utterly demoralized and
many
Ome

MARRIED WOMEN.
349
Iler
lose that modesty and goodness which all men look for in
women.
The causes which induce married women of the
middle class of society to indulge in improprieties are
various. Probably the greater number of them do it
for the presents and money they receive, for all women
who do these things receive pecuniary profit directly or
indirectly. Marriage was not the golden dream the
young mechanic's, clerk's or workingman's wife thought
it would be. It became very tiresome to sit in the house
all day-only a room perchance in a tenement-house-
and darn stockings, make puddings; at the same time,
may be, keeping a cradle rocking. This was certainly
not like the marriages Maria or Jane had read of in the
weekly papers, where the wife had plenty of servants
to wait on her, and everything she wanted in the way of
eating, drinking or wearing apparel. While the wife
is thus ruminating, sitting at her window, a handsome
stranger flirts with her from the street. What harm
can there be in flirting? Just once to revive the remin-
iscences of the past before she was married. And she
flirts with the stranger. He is of course handsome-has
plenty of money. He flirts for a purpose—the wife for
amusement. They become acquainted-meet by chance
on the street. The acquaintance finally ends in the loss
by the wife of what she can never restore to her husband.
Such is the progress in this kind of sin with nearly
all women of the middling classes. Some there may be
whose husbands supply them with every reasonable want.
They live in a comfortable, well-furnished house; their

350
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
clothes are not of the richest description, but are neat
and pretty; they have no carriage in which to ride, but
money enough to pay car fare; the luxuries of life are
not theirs, but all the comforts of existence belong to
them. And yet they are unsatisfied. The tempter comes
to them; fine presents are offered and accepted, and ere
long the wife, who was all to her husband, falls, and
henceforth plays the hypocrite to the world, or goes
lower down on the ladder of vice.
Instances in regard to this subject might be given
without number. We were lately put in possession of a
peculiarly sad case. There is an honest mechanic living
on Eighth avenue, who earns only twenty dollars per
week, but who is blessed with an extravagant wife. She
can be seen on almost any Saturday afternoon at some
matinée, robed in a six-hundred-dollar shawl and other
articles of dress of proportionate value. She is very hand-
some, is the mother of four children, and receives her dresses
from a merchant of Broadway, who is her second cousin,
and who, her deluded husband is made to believe, gives
these fine articles on account of their relationship!
In order to carry on their immoral practices the mar-
ried women are guilty of assignations. The methods
resorted to in appointing meetings are almost as numerous
as those who meet. But the masks worn by the disloyal
wives are many and intricate, the most popular one at
present being what is known as the “children dodge;"
that is, the woman takes a small child along with her-
a little girl of five or six years—for the purpose of dis-
arming suspicions which may be suggested by her move-

MARRIED WOMEN.
351
ments. Mothers may be seen every day with their little
innocents on the way to make assignations, and unmind-
ful of the consequences upon the child as much as upon
themselves. And seeing how successful this piece of
strategy is, the demi-monde have resorted to the same
practice, by which, taken in connection with the garb of
deep mourning which they put on, they can pass into
any place unrecognized and unsuspected.
Assignations by married women are held in places
where they would never for a moment be suspected—at
the Cooper Institute, the Academy of Design, the various
exhibition and art-galleries on Broadway and Fifth ave-
nue, and in fact in all resorts where honest and virtuous
women congregate. It would be hard to point to a place
where the public are admitted, either in Brooklyn or
New York, that these assignations are not held. They
are arranged for at a fashionable church on Fifth avenue
or a Brooklyn ferry-house. The clergymen themselves
have denounced them. At the matinée, on the street
corner, in the Central Park, the weekly prayer-meeting
or even the auction sale, unfaithful wives may be seen
waiting for their lovers or paramours.
The pedestrian, as he walks along the streets of New
York, pondering on its greatness and wondering at its
wickedness, may frequently have noticed chalk-marks on
the sidewalks. They look innocent enough-much like
the work of a childish hand who had been playing the
game of "hop-scotch.” The children do make the most
of these marks, but not always. Men sometimes make
them; they desire an assignation with the lady of the

352
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
establishment, and select this novel method of informing
her of the time and place. A few uncouth figures, seem-
ingly meaningless, can be placed upon the brown-stone
steps, and as easily deciphered the next day by the lady
within, who possesses the required “key."
There is a case at present before one of the courts of
New York, wherein the adultery of the wife is sought to
be proved. Suspicion was first aroused in the husband's
mind by frequently finding this cabalistic sentence in
letters of chalk on his front stoop: “C. A. 10.” At first
he attributed it to the boys in the neighborhood, and
requested a policeman to watch for and arrest the culprits.
But the officer was unable to find who placed the letters
there, and so informed the gentleman.
This set the husband to thinking, and he resolved to
watch, believing that there must be some meaning to the
signs. About three o'clock one morning he saw a young
man approach, and, after looking cautiously about, place
the same sign upon the step. His suspicions were
aroused. The next day he observed that his young and
handsome wife took a trip to Jersey City, going at the
hour of ten; also, on other occasions, at the hour desig-
nated by the figure placed on the step. The result was,
that the husband tracked his wife to an assignation-house
in Jersey City, where she was met by the young man
who had marked the step with chalk at the unseasonable
hour of three in the morning.
It would be supposed that church-people—that is, those
persons who attend divine service regularly, and are very
particular about always impressing on every one with

MARRIED WOJEN.
353
whom they come in contact the importance of spiritual
teaching and living—would be the very last class of per-
sons to transgress in any essential respect, much less
commit so glaring and so universally denounced a crime
as a violation of the seventh commandment. Such,
however, is not the case, or, at least, as much so as it
ought to be from the numerous professions which they
make, and the holy horror with which they lift up their
hands publicly whenever anything of the kind is men-
tioned.
There are several reasons why this is so; the principal
of which is, the deterioration in the character of the
preaching. Fifty years ago, preachers of the Gospel were
earnest, high-souled-inspired, as it were, with the very
Spirit of God. They spoke what they believed, carrying
conviction to the hearts of their hearers. There were no
lukewarm discourses then, to put people to sleep whether
they would or not. All was fire, enthusiasm. Now what
is it? In place of the rude eloquence we have the
smooth, carefully-weighed sentences, perfectly correct as
far as propriety of diction goes, in exact accordance with
all the rules of rhetoric and grammar, but how inane,
how lacking in all that goes to make up a soul-stirring,
right-inspiring, wrong-hating sermon! Where now is
the Luther with his rugged words, fresh chipped from the
block of truth, which he hurled at a bigoted and super-
stitious people, careless of the wounds he might inflict? or
the Melancthon, with his pure, ethereal life, a living,
moving type of that sweet existence which he sought but
to copy?

354
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Perhaps another reason, just as influential, is the love
of dress and fashion which seems to possess the women
of this generation. Church-women are not excepted; it
seems as if the plague spot came upon all alike-Jew and
Gentile, Pharisee and Samaritan. This, of course, tends
to cause inattention and indifference to religious matters;
hence the stagnation of the Church now-a-days.
Another thing that greatly tends to undermine the
virtue and morality of women, even those who are
regular members and constant attendants of churches, is
the growing spirit of liberality which is gaining ground
every day in this country with regard to religious views
and doctrines.
The old saying, that constant dropping will wear away
a stone, is no less true of intellectual ideas than of physi-
cal substances, and there are men who are base enough
to employ this wearing process upon the minds of women
against whom they have evil designs. It may be it will
commence in the Sunday-school room (for the devil takes
all places for his theatre), by dropping some light, half-
profane remark, which, perhaps, at the time, will shock
the mind among whose rich, abundant wheat the tares
may fall. But such things, unfortunately, never are lost.
Where good, sound, orthodox doctrine falls on the ear
unheeded, frivolous sayings remain in the mind and
bring forth evil fruit “an hundred-fold.”
The next step of the religious woman, after beginning
to think lightly of religion, is to be less strict in the ob-
servance of its requirements. Then comes the theatre
and dress, and all the thousand delightfully wicked things

MARRIED WOMEN.
355
which come with them. The present lewd state of the-
atrical representations has much to answer for in this
respect. What modest, pure-minded woman but would
be more or less contaminated, according to her temper-
ament, at seeing, night after night, such scenes as are now
put upon the stage? The very fact that they are now
thought nothing of shows to what an alarming extent
the contagion has spread.
Perhaps a gentleman introduces a friend, it may be his
partner, into his family; his wife is young, ardent,
slightly tinctured with the radicalism of the times. The
stranger is handsome, a thorough man of the world,
thinking nothing of committing improprieties of all
kinds. He finds it an easy matter to persuade her to
think that all old-time notions on this subject are prudish
and ridiculous; so down goes the last defence of virtue,
and the wife becomes a willing victim to the seducer.
This is the history of hundreds of the married women
of New York.
We have already intimated in another chapter that
some of the assignation-houses of the city are kept by
women belonging to churches. This is the fact, in-
credible as it may appear. We know of two-one in
Twelfth street, kept by a woman who attends divine
service at a fashionable church on Fifth avenue, and
another in Waverley Place, whose mistress belongs to a
prominent High-Church Episcopalian congregation down
town, who always subscribes liberally to any charity, and
* is an officer on several church committees, one of which
is for the reformation of fallen women.

356
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
A house of prostitution in Greene street is kept,
through an agent, by a woman who is acting manager of
an institution for the benefit of soldiers' widows, and
who belongs to a strait-laced Scotch Presbyterian church
in the upper part of the city.
And another woman, who is noted as a very successful
tract distributor, is also known (to the detectives, at least)
as a “house-keeper.”
In contemplating this terrible state of the middle
class of society—the class to which a city and a nation
look to prevent anarchy and disunion breaking out in
their midst—we are reminded that a remedy for the evils
should be offered. But to do this is above and beyond
our province. To the reformer, who devotes his days
and nights to thought for the benefit of humanity, we
must leave this problem of the reform of the married
women of the present day. We raise the voice of warn-
ing boldly, fearlessly, and speak plainly of the subject
with which we are dealing. It is for those wiser than
we are to suggest reform. We sound the alarm—they
must apply the remedy.
The broadest charity cannot overlook these sins in
the married women, whom we expect to give us a good
rather than an evil example. We cannot sing of them
with the poet,
urn-
That if weak women went astray,
Their stars were more in fault than they."
Though one through all his life had drunk deep draughts
from the well-spring of charity, eaten of angels' food and

MARRIED WOMEN.
357
lived with the gods, he could not forgive or entirely over-
look the deep, dark and damning sins of the married
women of the period. They were tempted, but they
knew better ; they were offered great inducements, it may
be, but they forsook tender husbands and helpless chil-
dren. They were not young girls thrown out on a wicked
world of which they knew nothing. Experience had
been theirs ; long years had passed over their heads, in
which they saw the sure reward of virtue and the punish-
ment of vice.
We can have charity for the woman-of-the-town; we
can remember the trials and temptations she went
through; her early innocence; her fall, accomplished by
another; her isolation in the world, and her nomadic,
strange, unhappy after-life. But what can we say of the
woman who made solemn vows before Heaven that she
would be chaste and pure?
Even before entering
“The dark portal,
Goal of all mortal,"
she will suffer and repent of her sin. Her pleasant
days will not last long, the sunshine will not always
remain. Dark shadows will come o'er her life. The
form of the good husband she wronged will continually
haunt her, and the sweet, plaintive voices of her pure
and innocent little children will continually ring a death-
knell in her ears.

CHAPTER XXX.
MARRIED LIAISONS.
A HERE are many married women in the great
U metropolis, as it has been shown in the last two or
of three chapters, who, to say the least, so far as pro-
priety and goodness are concerned, are “very
onsartain.” Their ways are not the ways of the virtuous.
They scorn the beautiful and good type of woman of a
past period. Religion to them is either an outside form,
or they do not believe in it at all, which is more like to
be the case. If they are intellectual, they are skeptical
philosophers, and if they are not, they are disbelievers in
the principles of morality. Whatever they are, they are
a bad, dangerous class of females, and exercise a terribly
evil influence on the rising generation of both sexes in
the great city. A lady once remarked to a gentleman
friend that she did not much blame the married men of
New York for their unfaithfulness in the marriage
relation—that really they were not to blame—that the
women led them on to commit the wrongs they did. This
is doubtless very much, though not altogether, the case.
The women of New York—the married women to a
very great extent, are responsible for an immense amount
of the wickedness done in Gotham. Led on by their
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THE HUSBAND,
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MARRIED LIFE IN NEW YORK.


MARRIED WOMEN.
359
great passions, they often induce men to forsake dutiful
wives and lovely children; then to neglect business; then
to gamble, to make up the deficient amount of money they
could have made honestly; then to drink, and finally to
die poor, neglected or miserable, or find refuge in suicide.
There is no reason in these women. Once in love with
another man, once having left their husband or ceased to-
love him, there is no thought in their minds but of drag-
ging the man they love, or fancy they love (who is him-
self often married), down to the depths they eventually
reach themselves.
It is very easy to see that these women have not been
brought up and educated properly in early youth.
When young girls they were allowed to “run wild,” and
had the disadvantage of having parents who were too
lenient with them. They have been sent to boarding-
schools at an early age. There the teachers were not
strict. Novels were read, flirtations were indulged in.
Their “first love” affairs may have been innocent enough
so far as any criminal act was concerned, but did them
no good and much harm. They neglected their educa-
tion, and believed the only object in life was to have a
“good time,” and such a time they had. Leaving school
with no taste for reading, with no thought of doing any-
thing noble or good in life, time hung heavily on their
hands at first, until they decided that marriage was
woman's only ambition. They encouraged the advances
of the first man who came along, irrespective of the fact
whether they loved him or not. The man proposes, they
accept; in a year, possibly sooner, tire of their husband.

360
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
But it is not long before they fall in love again with the
first handsome whiskered friend of their better half, and
so, in the end, become unfaithful wives, if, indeed, they
ever had the right to be called by so sacred and holy a
name.
It is thought to be a matter of sufficient interest to give
to the reader several stories of the liaisons of certain
married women of New York, in order that it may be
seen how such affairs are conducted.
In August, 1864, Miss Fanny Maria R— was united
to Mr. Walter P. H— The lady was a native of
Montreal, Canada, and had entree to the very best of
metropolitan society, the young gentleman intending
soon to settle for business in New York. The courtship
of the parties was a romance, they having met at Niagara
Falls during the early part of the summer season.
During their “love's young dream” at this delightful
watering-place, time and space were annihilated, and the
two lovers experienced the bliss of Eden when Creation
was young. The importunities of pimps and swindlers,
the manifold extortions of carriage-drivers, and the end-
less extortions of the horde of humans that affect the
Falls, had lost their venom and become endurable. The
trail of the serpent had vanished, and the youth and maid
were frantically in love. The lanes and bowers and
shady paths on either side of the Falls were musical with
their cooings, and the services of the post-office were put
in requisition by the young lady at least, to impart the
tender secret to papa at Montreal, and to beseech his
consent and parental benediction on the proposed union.

MARRIED WOMEN.
361
The result was, that the young couple were married,
received the benedictions of their respective parents, and,
for a wedding tour, sailed across the Atlantic to the city
of luxury-Paris. There much dissipation and gayety
· were indulged in, and by and by Mr. H— saw a ten-
dency in his wife to flirtation. He tried some gentle
remonstrance with her, but the newly-married spouse
had a temper of her own, and the husband's well-meant
reproof was productive of a domestic fracas, in which the
wife came out with an assertion of her “woman's rights.”
This was not the only disagreement they had. There
were many others, all relating to the same subject. The
wife still flirted and the husband still waged a wordy war,
which the lady treated with contempt. Mrs. H— had.
become intimately acquainted with a certain Louis de
Barron—an Adonis of Parisian fashionable society—and
the allurements of this handsome and gallant gentleman
had nearly turned the young wife's head. In all the
nameless graces that win the heart of a female this man
was an adept. It is not, therefore, altogether surprising
that, in the progress of this unfortunate acquaintance, an
awkward contretemps should occur, that sent a burning
thrill of indignation to the husband's heart and mantled
his cheek with honest shame. A dénouement between
the foolish, erring wife and the fond but infuriated hus-
band followed. Fierce invectives were interchanged, and
a separation took place. And this was done only two
short months after the couple had been united on a beau-
tiful fall day at Niagara Falls.
The husband crossed the ocean a blighted, chapfallen
27

362
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and miserably disappointed man, while the wife remained
for some time in the gay city and sipped the intoxicating
sweets of her new life. But it seems to be one of the
wise ordinances of Divine Providence that lamentation,
mourning and woe quickly come in the wake of the
frivolous woman. Louis, the Adonis, whom the wife
fancied the perfection of manhood, assumed the rôle of
a fiend, and one day his paramour sold her effects and
employed the money in securing a passage to New York,
to which place her parents had removed. There she
went to her home and spent some time in thoughtfulness,
and looked back on the experience she had gone through
in such a short space of time.
In the mean time the husband had established himself
in business in New York, and, so far as pecuniary matters
were concerned, was doing well. One evening, a few
months after he had been in the city, he attended one
of the theatres—Niblo's. While there his attention
was particularly called to a beautiful woman in a private
box on the opposite side of the theatre to which he was
sitting. On closely inspecting her through his opera-
glass, it proved to be his wife in the company of her
parents. She looked so very beautiful that he at once
wished for a reconciliation. He sought her presence,
and the result was a happy meeting. The old love was
again revived, and at an interview held the next day the
husband and wife agreed to live together again. Mr.
H— purchased a fine brown-stone house on Thirty-
third street, near Fifth avenue, and furnished it in the
most elegant manner. At first it appeared that happiness

MARRIED WOMEN.
363
was going to dawn on this second edition of wedded life,
but it was not to be. The wife was too much wedded
to her idols, though the husband for a long time remained
in ignorance of her infidelities. Finally, he began to
suspect and decided to watch Mrs. H— He one day
told her he was going to his home in Buffalo for a few
days, but did not. Toward evening he got in the rear
of his house and eagerly surveyed the parlors through
the blinds. He saw the bright fire in the back parlor,
the little poodle on the hearthrug and the cat purring
near by. His wife was alone, but seemed to look ex-
pectant. Before long the door-bell rang, a handsome
strange gentleman entered the room, and Mrs. H-
was folded in his embrace. They sat upon the sofa and
acted for all the world like lovers, even going much
further than the broadest views of propriety would
warrant.
This was enough to prove to the too good-natured hus-
band that his wife was not the woman for him. He was
spared the necessity of applying for a divorce, however,
as Mrs. H- very soon afterward left the city with her
latest lover.
It is sometimes, though very seldom, the case that two
married women may fall in love with a man and resort
to desperate means in order to decide as to which has the
greatest claim to him. We heard of a case of this cha-
racter a short time since.
Two ladies, one day, during a certain summer, were
scaling, åt six o'clock in the morning, the Highlands of
Neversink, near New York, at a few miles distance from
S-
mar
nen

364
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
CS 1
the little village of T— Upon reaching the summit of
a hill they stopped two women, and by means of a sum
of money induced them to serve as witnesses in a very
important operation, which they said they were about to
execute. The two ladies next measured the ground.
They faced each other at a distance of about twenty
steps. Each of them drew a pistol from under her
cloak. At the sight of the weapons the women witnesses
uttered piercing screams, and advanced with uplifted
arms to prevent the Amazons from firing upon each
other. But two shots were discharged at the same
moment. The ladies then reloaded, and took position in
front of each other at a distance of fifteen steps. They
appearance; it was a clergyman of the “muscular Chris-
tian school,” who was taking his morning walk. He
urged the two rivals to make up their quarrel, and suc-
ceeded in reconciling them.
Both of these ladies, who were married and moved in
good society in the metropolis, were in love with a hand-
some young merchant of Cliff street. He paid attention
to both of them, but they desired to decide in this novel
way who should be his favorite. It is but proper to
state that the duel was kept very secret, and until now
an account of it has never been published. .
In the instances which we have already given of the bad
conduct of married women we have confined ourselves,
though unintentionally, to the higher class of society.
But, as we show in another chapter, the ladies in the
middle classes of society are equally prone to unfaithful-
7

MARRIED WOMEN.
365
ness. It is not alone the wealthy—those who live at their
ease and are a prey to ennui—who form the large number
of women who indulge in liaisons when out of their
husbands' sight. The respectable middle classes, whom
we have heretofore looked to as being the bulwarks of
society, its strength and stamina, are equally culpable
in this regard. Let us relate an instance in point:
About five years ago, Mr. Mortimer B_ , a respect-
able and highly promising young man, was united in
marriage to Miss Clara G- , a young lady of what
may be called the “middle classes.” Neither of the
parties was very young—the gentleman having passed
his twenty-eighth year, the lady her twenty-third. The
young wife's mother was a widow, once beautiful and
still retaining a shadow of her good looks. For a time
after the marriage everything went pleasant. The hus-
band opened a gentlemen's furnishing store on one of the
principal avenues of the city, and the wife at first took
an uncommon interest in his business, staying for hours
in the store, waiting on customers and endeavoring in
every way to promote her husband's (and thereby her
own) interests. But she soon tired of this sort of life.
It was very quiet, to be sure, but would certainly have
satisfied any good, homelike woman : at the store during
the day (an attendant in the evening), at home at night
reading or conversing, an occasional visit to the theatre
and an excursion in the country on Sunday, and that was
all. The wife thought in her own heart that she would
like something different from this. She wanted more
money. She wanted to dress finer, to attend the amuse-

366
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ments oftener, to go to all the balls, and in fact pursue
a round of pleasures and dissipations which would make
it necessary for her husband to possess an income of at
least ten thousand a year. She did not show her dis-
content before her husband, but broached the subject to
her mother, who thoroughly sympathized in her desires,
and, what was more, remarked that she often had the
same desires herself. But nothing could be done for
either but to mourn “in a quiet sort of way” and wish
that things were or had been different.
Among the customers whom Mrs. B- waited on
one day was a large, fine-looking, broad-shouldered, keen-
eyed gentleman. He was dressed in black broadcloth,
and acted as if he had money. He was, moreover, very
gentlemanly and pleasant in his manners to Mrs. B-
With a very sharp voice, he at the same time had a
certain open manner that inspired respect and confidence.
Mrs. B- liked his looks. She, too, was pleasant in
return. This pleasantness on both sides made conversa-
tion very easy, and ere long an acquaintance was struck
up. The gentleman informed her that he was a publisher,
doing business in the lower part of the city, incidentally
remarked that he was unmarried, and took occasion to
say that he might call again for some neckties. Mrs.
B— counted the days until he came, which was about
a week afterward, when he made his purchases, and after
more pleasant conversation proposed an evening walk.
She said she could not (not “would not”), but would
meet him the next day for a promenade. The propo-
sition was agreed to, and the next day the two met and

MARRIED WOMEN.
367
walked in Washington Parade Ground. This was only
one of a series of many meetings that were had-meet-
ings that did not consist of innocent walks and conver-
sation, but, before long, of criminal acts. The publisher
made Mrs. B- some fine presents, “loaned” her
money sometimes, and played the gallant in all ways.
Not only this, the wife, who made her mother a con-
fidant in everything, told her of the new fortune that
had come to her in the shape of the newly-found
“friend.” Finally, at his own request, he was introduced
to the mother, made love to her and became her“ friend”
and helper, though all the time unbeknown to the
daughter. And so matters continued, and are now at
the present writing. The husband, being one of the
most innocent and trustful men imaginable, and one who
would do no wrong himself, never suspects any impro-
priety on the part of his wife. Practice in assignations
has made her shrewd, and she conducts herself in such
an apparently faithful manner when near her husband
that he would never believe her capable of unfaithful-
ness, much less guilty of it.
Another sad case of swindling and desertion on the
part of a wife toward her husband and family was de-
veloped a short time since, the circumstances concerning
which are as follows: May - the wife of a well-to-do
merchant of Broad street, New York, had been a mar-
ried woman for some eight years. Until the fall of 1868
she seemed to be a loving and devoted wife, but afterward
did not prove herself the upright, honest woman that a
fond husband supposed her to be. During the fall just

368
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
me
vas
passed May paid a visit to Newark, New Jersey, remain-
ing away from her family for several weeks. After her
return home, her husband thought that her conduct had
changed toward him, and, though believing that she no
longer loved him, he tried to make her home a happy
one. One day, when she was overhauling some letters, a
photograph of a handsome man fell to the floor and was
picked up by her little boy, who asked his mother who
it was. The little fellow was informed that it was the
picture of a cousin. Mr. L- obtained possession of
the photograph, and was at once satisfied that it was no
relative of theirs. To make it more suspicious to his
jealous mind, the back of the card denoted that it had
been made in Newark. After that he felt certain that
she was no longer a faithful wife, but with great kindness
forgave her, on promise of good behavior. Some months
after this discovery, Mr. L- sold out his business in
New York and decided to remove to St. Louis, partly
because he believed business would be better there, and
partly to get away from the city where he had first expe-
rienced his marital unhappiness. The family went on
board a Western-bound train. On arriving at Cincin-
nati, as the baggage had not yet come, Mrs. L- vol-
unteered to remain behind and see that it was properly
cared for. Since then she has not been seen by her hus-
band and little son. To make matters still worse, Mr.
— says he is certain that she had in her possession
sixteen thousand dollars. Of this large amount, three
thousand dollars was her own private property. Think-
ing that his wife would soon follow, he remained on the
гео

MARRIED WOMEN.
369
train and was conveyed to Indianapolis, where he waited
the arrival of Mrs. L- , but all in vain. Determined
to ascertain, if possible, the reason of her long absence,
he returned to Cincinnati. He at once reported the
above facts at the central police station to a detective,
who, aided by experienced help, was sent to unravel the
mystery connected with the wife's absence.
Certainly, the most curious case of marital infelicity,
ending in elopement, was developed in Brooklyn, the
particulars of which are, that a married woman had for
some time frequently visited New York, under pretence
of seeing her sister. One day, on returning from one of
these visits, she brought a lady with her, who was intro-
duced to her husband as Mrs. — , an old schoolmate of
the wife, who wished to stay with the family for a few
days. The generous husband acquiesced in everything
his good wife wished, and no objection was made. The
visitor was very timid and not used to the noise of the
city, and was afraid to sleep alone; so the wife retired
with her to the room assigned her, while the husband
slept with his children. This programme continued for
several weeks, when the visitor, who had exceedingly
enjoyed her visit to her friend and neighbor, departed
for home. On election day the wife took advantage of
her spouse remaining at home to have him assist her in
getting up carpets and shaking of the same, preparatory
to cleaning house for the winter. The house was in
confusion. On the husband's return in the evening, he
found his wife, family and household articles all gone.
The next day developed the fact that the wife had

370
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
shipped the children to Norwalk, Connecticut, to her
husband's sister, and she took tickets for a train West-
ward with the above-mentioned Mrs. - , who turned
out to be a young man of effeminate characteristics.
One of the children remarked, on Mrs. - entering
the house, that she acted something “like a man,” but it
was not remarked. The furniture, money and valuables
taken amounted to nearly four thousand dollars. The
family enjoyed a good reputation, and this unlooked-for
incident considerably shocked the sensibilities of the
quiet, respectable and genteel neighborhood in which
they lived.
· But there is an amusing side even to matrimonial infe-
licities and the violations of one of God's most holy
ordinances.
A rich joke concerning a couple of lovers, an unfaith-
ful wife whose husband was absent from the city, and her
paramour, both of Brooklyn, came to light within the
last two or three months. At the close of one of the
hottest days of last July, this couple might have been
seen seated upon the roof of a certain cottage in Brook-
lyn owned by the gentleman, and which at that time was
occupied by himself alone. The roof was flat and cov-
ered with gravel and pitch.
There they sat
“Through the few hours, the happy moments few:
So warm with heat, so rich with love they flew,
That their full souls forgot the will to roam,
And rested there as in a dream at home."
The sun during the day had been very warm, and thus

MARRIED WOMEN.
371
rem
they met to spend the fleeting hours of twilight, enjoy-
ing the pleasant breeze that floated up from the garden
beneath and the sea beyond. As the evening grew cooler
they “hitched” up nearer to each other and gently
pressed each other's hands, and all passed quietly and
lovingly until the bell tolled midnight.
“None but the loving and beloved
Should be awake at this sweet hour.”
The tolling of the bell reminded them that
“Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep,”
was requisite for lovers as well as the rest of humanity
and the brute creation. Still, seated near each other,
kisses were exchanged again and again, like
“Linked sweetness, long drawn out.”
At length, after many vain attempts to sever these
pleasant pleasures, the transported pair found that they
were bound together by more sticking bonds than they
imagined—even tighter than the marriage noose, out of
which the unfaithful wife would have been glad to slip
her head.
The hot sun had melted the pitch, and after sitting
so long, and the night air having cooled the resinous
matter, they found they were both fast. The gen-
tleman first attempted to disengage himself, but found,
like
“Aunt Jemima's plaster,
The more you tried to pull it off,
The more it stuck the faster."
The lady then attempted to get up, which she did,

372
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.,
after many struggles, minus the skirt of her dress. In
this plight she attempted to relieve her disconsolate part-
ner, but it was of no use-he couldn't come. After much
parley, he came to the conclusion that he could manage
it by slipping off his pants. Accordingly, he asked of
his companion to descend into the house and bring up
a new pair of his indispensable "inexpressibles.” The
lady went down stairs, but the key of the wardrobe
could not be found, though a long search was made
for it. With this information the gentleman stripped
off his boots, and loosening his suspenders, drew himself
out of his pants as easily as possible, and the couple took
themselves down stairs.
The number of instances of married liaisons which
we have given will suffice to show the manner in which
such improprieties are carried on. The cases which we
have mentioned are all authentic, and did we give the
names of the parties connected with some of them, no
small sensation would be produced.
It is strange to see women of culture, and with a
certain amount—very often a very high degree of refine-
ment, engage in the gross immoralities which we have en-
deavored faithfully to depict. And yet, strange as it may
seem, the fact remains that it is actually the case. When
we see authoresses and actresses, poetesses and women of
high intellectual gifts, engage in amours away from
their husbands' sight, we may indeed shudder at the
awful condition of metropolitan society; when mothers
leave their children and fly away with men they think
they love, it is surely a time for reformers to raise a

WINAY
MTU
IND
un
Termin
mimi
UTRUM
SEWING GIRLS TAKING HOME THEIR WORK.


MARRIED WOMEN.
373
warning voice as to the ultimate consequences of such
conduct, and the ultimate destiny of a country if such
practices are not soon for ever abolished.
Ample work is here offered for those who would reform
humanity. No place that needs so much reforming in
all things as the great metropolis; and no class of people,
whether high or low, rich or poor, who so much need
the doctrines of sound morality and true Christianity
thundered into their ears as the married women of New
York. For young women to be guilty of improprieties
of the character of which we have been speaking is
indeed bad, but thrice, nay, a thousand times, worse is it
in those married women who have vowed to love, honor
and cherish but one man throughout their lives. It is
in the keeping of this holy and sacred bond of matrimony
pure and free from contamination that we chiefly expect
to keep society together. What will many mothers of
New York be if this form of wickedness continues ? and
what will be the character of the rising generation of
children if wives and mothers do not quickly cease to
do evil and learn to do well ? .
Strong need is there of earnest preaching on the part
of the clergy of all sects on the moral duties in life,
especially on the holiness and sacredness of the married
relation; strong need of help from all who love the beau-
tiful and good and hope one day to see the world better
than it is; strong need of all women in New York, who
have not fallen, to watch and pray that they enter not
into temptation, and keep others as well from losing their
honor, virtue and self-respect.

CHAPTER XXXI.
"SEPARATION” AND DIVORCE IN NEW YORK.
an
man
XS regards the institution of marriage, New York is
A fast getting to be like the gay and dissolute city
@r of Paris. There are a great number of people
who get married, but the number who separate
after marriage is almost equally as large. The relation
of husband and wife is looked on as a very holy and
pleasant relation when the husband and wife happen to
be congenial to each other and do not form new attach-
ments after they are united; but when the case is other-
wise, the parties to the contract seek a separation as soon
as possible. The marriage tie is considered a fit and
proper tie, but neither so fit nor proper that it cannot be
cut as convenience or circumstances may dictate.
There has never been a time in the history of the
great metropolis when there have been so many divorces
as during the last few years. For some unexplainable
reason, the number of disagreements between married
people has increased to an enormous extent, many of
them of such a serious nature as to warrant the parties
in seeking a divorce from each other. So many are
the differences and misunderstandings between married
people in New York that several lawyers advertise
374

MARRIED WOMEN.
375
themselves in the papers as paying particular attention
to this branch of their profession. The advertisement
reads somewhat as follows:
“ABSOLUTE DIVORCES LEGALLY OBTAINED in any State. No publicity;
no charge until divorce obtained. Success guaranteed. Advice free.
No., Nassau street.
This of course reads very temptingly to parties who
are tired of the marriage relation, and who desire to get
out of it. Success is guaranteed; there will be no pub-
licity. As to pecuniary matters, there will be no charge
until the divorce is obtained, and, more than all, advice
on the subject is free. The last straw broke the camel's
back, and the last statement in this artfully-worded
advertisement generally leads the unhappily-married
reader to consult the man of Coke and Blackstone in
regard to disuniting the couple of which he or she forms
one of the parties.
The reasons which cause married persons to seek a
divorce in New York are often very slight indeed. In
most cases, the plain fact is simply that one of the parties
is tired of the other's society, and desires to live alone or
seek some more congenial companion. But there are
real divorces and real causes for the same. There are
many cases in which adultery is the cause; a still larger
number where incompatibility is the reason; and others,
again, where the parties disagree on nearly every point,
or in the bringing-up of children, or in the expenditure
of money, or a thousand other little and apparently
trifling things that might be named (and remedied), but
which all go to make up the “ being, end and aim”-
28

376
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
happiness. Occasionally the cause is cruelty—as recently
a wife was found to be addicted to the habit of throwing
camp-stools and chairs at her husband, which case was
certainly quite as heartrending as that of the unhappy
husband whose “better half” amused herself with comb-
ing her lord's hair with a three-legged stool.
We will give the reader a few instances of divorce in
New York which seem to possess more than ordinary
interest, and may be looked on as the eccentricities of
marital infelicities.
Mrs. Laura M— was a widow, possessed of a large
fortune from her first husband. As a natural conse-
quence, she was courted by many, possibly loved by all
who made matrimonial advances to her. At any rate,
she accepted an offer of marriage, and became united to
a man of no pecuniary worth, but, she trusted, a man of
sense and honor, who could take care of her and her
property. But such did not prove to be the case. For a
year or so, matters went along very smoothly, but at the
end of that time her husband lost interest in her, though
he kept up a decided personal interest in the property.
All the money he could get from his wealthy wife he
spent in dissipation, and became utterly demoralized and
useless generally. The wife, being a woman of sense, and
not relishing the idea of this sort of proceeding, took
her own course. As her husband cared nothing for her,
she thought she was under no obligation or necessity to
care for her husband. She formed new attachments.
Becoming acquainted with an actor of one of the Broad-
way theatres, she formed a decided friendship for him,

MARRIED WOMEN.
377
rode in the Park with him, promenaded Broadway, and
in fact, conducted herself toward him as affectionately as
a woman could toward a man. Her husband being of no
use or pleasure to her, and daily growing worse instead
of better, she one day very coolly made this proposition
to him: He was to apply for a divorce from her on the
ground of her unfaithfulness, in consideration for doing
which she would pay him five thousand dollars! The
husband agreed to the proposition. He applied for a
divorce, receiving one thousand dollars from his wife as
soon as she received his complaint. The trial was had,
the wife furnishing her husband proofs of her own guilt,
and the divorce granted. At the conclusion of the liti-
gation the husband received the four thousand dollars
balance due him, in payments of five hundred dollars a
week.
This desire of wives to separate themselves from their
husbands on slight grounds, or no grounds at all, is felt
and seen in all classes of society. Even the wives of
stage-drivers crave separation as well as persons moving
in better society, as this somewhat curious case will show :
A stage-driver was one day arrested in New York on the
charge of poisoning his wife. He had been married to
her about two years, supporting her as well as he was
able from his scanty earnings. One morning she was
taken suddenly sick, having severe pains in the head.
The husband said he would give her something to stop
the pain, and administered to her a dose of chloroform
from a small vial. She, suspecting foul play, spit the
liquid out of her mouth and called for the police. The
Oon

378
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
police entered the house and arrested the man on the
charge, preferred by his wife, of attempting to poison her.
Failing to find one thousand dollars bail, the husband
was locked up. It turned out on the trial that, instead
of the husband attempting to get rid of his wife, she
desired to get rid of her husband, and with this view
trumped up the charge against him of attempting to
poison !
In one of the most exquisite of the many little palaces
on Fifth avenue occurred, a short time since, a domestic
emeute in which a mother and daughter and a stepfather
were concerned. The mother was a faded beauty, but
when “made up” looked exceedingly well. At night
her rouge hid her wrinkles, and bismuth paste effaced
the cruel crows' feet. She had an interesting daughter
of about twenty summers, a brunette, tall and handsome.
The mother married a wealthy diamond broker of Broad-
way, and at the outset it looked as if the proverbially
“merry marriage-bell” would tinkle and be merry for
many years to come. Mother, husband and stepdaughter
lived together in the Fifth avenue residence, in spite of
the old axiom that “two's company and three's a crowd.”
It soon came to light, however, that the wife became
enamored of a young broker, who, strange to say, took
an uncommon liking to her and held improper inter-
course with her. The consequence was, that the father
sued for and obtained a divorce. There had always been
much affection existing between him and the stepdaugh-
ter-affection, too, not at all Platonic, but of an improper
character; so the two agreed to live with each other as
m01

MARRIED WOMEN.
379
man and wife. The strangest thing is, that the aged
wife and mother visited and received visits from her
former husband and daughter, and a very pleasant un-
derstanding seemed to exist between the parties.
There is underlying even what is called “good society"
a stratum of crime and evil-doing that, if the half of it
were known, would greatly shock the moral sense of the
community.
A quiet, unpretending house in Fifteenth street was
the scene of a domestic drama, the principal actors in
which were persons in good standing and of highly
respectable antecedents.
Mr. and Mrs.
C h ad been married about seventeen
years, and their two children were away at school in the
country. Thus the wife's time was not filled with all
those multitudinous cares which come with motherhood,
and perhaps that was the reason that, according to the
old rhyme, “Satan found some mischief still for idle
hands to do.” The mischief in this case came in the
shape of a handsome stranger introduced by the husband
and cordially welcomed by the wife. He was a Cuban
officer, who had come to the North to raise volunteers,
and Mr. C. invited him to make his house his home
during his stay.
Never very happy with her husband, the plain, prac-
tical man of business, Mrs. C— , a silly, romantic
woman, turned with delight to the fulsome flatteries and
honeyed compliments that were poured into her ear by the
dark-eyed, smooth-tongued son of the South, and yielded
to the seductive fascinations of his presence. Music was

380
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
a common ground on which they could meet, and night
after night, while the husband was engrossed with the
rise and fall of stocks behind his newspaper, or dozed
over the items of city interest, the wife was “singing her
soul away” and giving herself up to the absorbing passion
of an unholy love.
Every morning, on her dressing-table, lay an exquisite
bouquet, with a slip of card attached on which was writ-
ten “Carlos ;” and every evening, richly dressed, her
face all wreathed with smiles and some lovely flower in
her hair or on her bosom, she descended to the parlor to
meet him. No wonder that Mr. C finally began to
open his eyes and look about him, and what he saw did
not please him. The result of his investigations was,
that “ Carlos” removed himself and baggage to a hotel
and Mrs. C— had the “sulks.”
But there are more ways than one to accomplish one's
objects, and scarcely a morning passed that did not bring
the Cuban to the house—always, however, after the
master had gone down town. Sometimes he would come
in a carriage to take her out riding; sometimes they
would saunter out, arm in arm, and take long walks to-
gether, every moment riveting faster the chain between
the unfortunate woman and her unprincipled paramour.
At last the husband found this out by the scandal that
was afloat, and now, fairly furious, threatened the rascal
with the law and his wife with imprisonment if it was
not stopped.
For a while they kept very quiet and did nothing to
occasion any remark, but they were quietly making their

MARRIED WOMEN.
381
preparations, and one dark night they “made a flitting,"
and the “place that once knew them knew them no
more.” In other words, when the officer decided to go
to Cuba, Mrs. C— said she would go with him, and
went. And since then nothing has been heard of either.
For shrewdness and a general knowledge as to the weak-
nesses of human nature, as they exist in the male portion
of humanity, commend us to the New York widow.
Shrewd by the experience she has had, she is made more
so by the fact that she lives in the great metropolis, where
sharpers of both sexes most abound, and where, if one
would succeed in anything in life, he must keep his eyes
uncommonly wide open. It is strange what fascination
there is about the young widow which makes her so
much courted and admired, but certain it is that when
the best-laid schemes of married and single women
men
“Gang aft a gley,"
the wonderful widow appears on the scene, and goes off
successful in whatever the affair may be.
A year or two since a young widow was married to
an estimable young gentleman employed in one of the
leading express offices of New York. Before her mar-
riage they met at a fashionable watering-place and be-
came acquainted. The acquaintance ripened into a sin-
cere and warm attachment on the part of the gentleman.
The lady represented herself as a widow, whose husband
had been dead about two years, and who had left his
wife very wealthy at his death. Charming and rich, she
had many admirers, but of them all she favored our

382
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
young friend the most. They were always together,
walking or riding, and their intimacy began to be talked
about in their circle of friends.
At last she promised to marry him, and they were
united with due form and ceremony. After the marriage
they came to New York, and the bride conducted her
new-made husband to a palatial residence which she said
was hers. It was an elegant house, with the most luxu-
rious and tasteful appointments. The most expensive
and rare paintings and articles of virtu adorned the
spacious rooms; the most lovely flowers blossomed in the
fragrant parterres of the garden, and a shady bower stood
at one side entirely covered with climbing roses and
honeysuckles, where the newly-wedded pair lisped their
words of love and dreamed their dream of future bliss.
Obsequious servants were ready to answer to every call,
and the first few days of the honeymoon passed off in
peace and harmony.
But some important business called the husband away
from his bride. He counted the moments that he was
absent from her. They seemed leaden-winged, and with
his business quickly despatched he hurried back, expect-
ing a fond welcome. He mounted the steps—the door
was locked. He rang the bell, and a servant came to the
door. He started to go in, but the man barred the door.
He inquired for his wife, and was informed that she had
not been there since he had been absent. What was to
be done? Mournfully he turned away and hastened to a
sister of his wife. She had not seen her during his
absence, so she said. Half-distracted, he went to a mer-
0
-
W

MARRIED WOMEN.
383
chant whom his wife had represented as her uncle, and
heard that she “had left his office but half an hour
before.” Completely nonplussed, the young man replied
that he had been to her house and been told that she
had not been seen for some time. Imagine his astonish-
ment when this merchant millionaire answered, “ Young
man, you have been badly sold. This woman, whom
you so foolishly married, is and has been my companion
for the last five years. The house and furniture which
she said was hers are mine, and my advice to you is to
keep away from my property.”
For many days the disappointed husband lingered in
New York, not daring to visit his wife's residence, and
vainly seeking to obtain an interview. One day a happy
thought struck him. He had taken a watch of hers to
be mended; he secured it, and solaced himself with the
reflection that at least he had obtained some slight recom-
pense for the expense he had incurred.
In a few days, however, he was astonished to receive a
polite note from “the uncle,” requesting him to return
the watch. After reflection he concluded to do so, and
remains to-day “a sadder and a wiser man.”
The divorce business has grown to immense propor-
tions during the last few years. Several of the lawyers
who make this their specialty have become very wealthy,
live in magnificent mansions and enjoy all the comforts
and luxuries that wealth can bring. Their offices are
fitted up in the most inviting manner. Paintings grace
the walls, and statuettes of Venus, the goddess of love,
who has made all the havoc which these legal gentlemen

384
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
are trying to set right, adorn the niches of the room.
Gentlemanly, well-dressed clerks usher in the unhappy
stranger longing to be again the free man he once was, and
the head of the establishment is all suavity and attention.
Private rooms invite private consultation and an open
confession of the woes of the unhappily wedded. De-
tectives are connected with the office, whose especial
qualifications render them fit to discover marital infidel-
ities, whether they exist or not. :
There certainly needs to be a reform in regard to the
manner and method of divorce. A republic can never
long exist where the family tie, with all the sweet asso-
ciations of husband, wife and children, is not sustained
and upheld. When the married soon seek separation
after being united, it certainly shows a laxity in the
moral condition of society which is as wicked as it is
deplorable.

CHAPTER XXXII.
" FAST" WOMEN.
SNEOPLE are in the habit of talking very glibly
| about a man being fast, but very few have a dis-
02 tinct idea as to what a “fast man” really is. The
city of New York abounds in fast men of all
grades of refinement, intelligence, wealth and social posi-
tion. You meet them on the street corners, in the public
bar-rooms, lounging on hotel-steps, in the concert-hall, at
the theatre, sometimes at church, very often in the bil-
liard-saloon, or promenading on Broadway. The fast
man is an “institution” of New York. New York
thrives out of him, and he in turn, by some unseen and
miraculous means, thrives out of New York. A fast
man may be said to be an individual or human being
who has no visible means of support, who has plenty of
time, who seems to be idle all the day and sometimes all
the night, who has a good supply of money, which he
spends liberally, and who disdains the “neat not gaudy”
style in raiment. He attends the races, plays billiards
immoderately, drinks more or less, as his good sense or
judgment dictates, or, if he has neither of these qual-
ities, drinks over-much, attends the theatre, bets, owns a
fast horse and indulges in all the sports of the period,
385

386
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
e
m
whatever they may happen to be, always provided they
do not call for an over amount of physical exertion, which
is the horror of all fast men. This is the fast man of
New York; but there are fast women also.
These women possess very much the same characteris-
tics as the fast man; that is, as far as a female can pos-
sibly possess these attributes. They indulge in all the
"manly sports” which it is possible for women to indulge
in, and their philosophy or belief, if they have either, is
to eat, drink and be merry. They are of the world,
worldly, and prefer to live and enjoy the present, dis-
trustful of what the future may bring forth. Spiritu-
ality, the imaginative, the artistic, in its highest sense,
or intellectual traits, they have not, and think nothing of.
The number of these fast women in New York is per-
fectly astounding to persons who really have a chance to
know. There are, of course, a great many good women in
New York who are not fast, but it would seem sometimes
as if those of an opposite character far outnumbered
them. Fast women are not necessarily bad—they may
be virtuous, they may scorn or pity the cyprian—but
whatever they may be in that respect they are “fast,"
and lead an exceedingly rapid though short life.
Who are they? They are young widows of gay pro-
clivities; they are wives who are tired of the married
relation and who crave for excitement; they are young
girls who are more or less addicted to reading sporting
novels and the flash papers of the day, and who possess a
large amount of masculinity in their natures; they are
women of every and any age, who have a large amount
TI

MARRIED WOMEN.
387
of vital and physical energy, and who in their early
youth were known as being “wild,” and whose wildness
has not been tamed or curbed by the advance of years or
the varied experiences of life. Women of weak minds
without an object in life; haters of work and effort of
any kind; no lovers of literature, unless it be of the
flashiest, spiciest and liveliest kind, and with but few of
the sweet, tender and good qualities which go to make
up the true woman.
The young women of the period form a large number
of this class of females. There are hundreds of girls
who are ruined every year in New York: it may not be
in character, but at least as far as all practical good is
- concerned. They have had the misfortune to possess
parents who knew little or nothing as to the bringing up
of children—who allowed their offspring to take their
own course, and the consequence was that the children
learnt to do evil rather than good. Many girls of New
York, who have been sent to seminaries out of the city,
have there received an immense amount of harm and
learned no good. Meeting there other young women who
were well versed in the wicked ways of the wicked world,
they became wild and unruly, neglected their studies,
lived only for fun and enjoyment, and lost all desire to
live a quiet and peaceable life. The country soon be-
comes irksome and a “bore” to such girls. The sound
of the birds possesses no charm for them. They will go
into ecstasies over the beauty of a horse, but not of a
sunset; and the last Opera Bouffe, or the latest edition
of the Can-Can from Paris, is of more interest to them

388
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Come
than the sweet poems of Tennyson. Reading novels of
a peculiar kind, which have become popular in England
and been brought thence to this country, has doubtless
had much to do with forming the character of this class
of females. The sporting novel, a peculiar and very
popular kind of fiction in England, wherein the heroine
always talks “slang," thinks much of horse-flesh, leaps
five-barred gates, talks horse (and possibly eats it) and
possesses masculine characteristics generally. Owing to
the different manner in which the turf and sports gener-
ally are conducted in the old country, it is doubtful if
books of this character have a very bad tendency on the
women of England. But when they are imported to
America, it is natural that the young female American
should overdo the imitation of these heroines, as she
overdoes almost everything else.
But the great majority of the fast women of New York,
after all, are fast by nature. Books and reading, the
example of fathers, brothers and husbands, have con-
tributed but little to make them what they are. It is
natural for them to be fast, and possibly they fill their
destiny for some wise but certainly inscrutable purpose.
The fast women of New York are very fond of the
turf. Jerome Park or the Fashion Course on Long
Island presents a gay appearance on the day of a race.
Fully one-third of the vast audience is composed of
ladies. They are attired in dresses of many colors and
after the latest fashion. The race is a good place to see
the latest mode or get a view of the coming monstrosity
in female attire or female habit. It was at the Saratoga
re

HOMILINE
.
V
AT THE RACES.-"THE START."


MARRIED WOMEN.
389
races that the “ Grecian Bend” first made its appearance.
A great interest is taken in the race by the ladies. They
appear to eye the horses with as much keenness and
pleasure as their male companions. They are posted as
to the various racing terms, and can in a five minutes'
conversation astonish a countryman with their knowledge
of horse-flesh. They bet sometimes in gloves, dresses,
shawls or hats, but quite as often in money.
Just before the race comes off the excitement is intense,
and as the horses run around the course an almost death-
less stillness reigns until they are on the “quarter-
stretch,” when the excitement is of the wildest and most
intense character. The women stand on the seats of the
amphitheatre, waving their handkerchiefs, gesticulating,
forgetting their modesty, and, for the moment, completely
lose their senses, in their great desire to see which animal
will be the winner.
A great deal of female gambling is done in the city.
The passion of some women to make money quickly and
without work is just as great as it is in man. Fine
dresses have to be bought and large establishments have
to be sustained. Mrs. A. does not like to see Mrs. B.
outdo her in expensive furniture, wearing apparel or the
beauty of her carriage. Money has to be procured in
one way or another. Paterfamilias is bending every
nerve and sinew, but cannot, with all his efforts, make
enough money to supply the extravagant wants of his
expensive wife. So she determines to supply them her-
self. She has no knowledge of any business or avocation
suited to women, and if she had, the returns from it
29

390
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
would be insufficient for her purpose; so she gambles,
quietly and without the knowledge of her husband or
any of her friends. Perhaps, however, her most inti-
mate friend may be her companion in the pursuit, but
that is all.
There are several female gambling-saloons in New
York. There is one on Broadway, not very far from
Prince street. It is on the first floor over a large store,
where ladies are frequently in the habit of making pur-
chases during the day. There are two large rooms—a
front and a back room-fitted up in the most elegant
manner. Chairs and sofas of the richest and most costly
description temptingly induce the wearied one to rest.
Elegant French mirrors reflect beautiful forms and lovely
faces, and over the soft velvet carpet many a proud
woman has trod with her dainty feet. Women of posi-
tion have been here. A senator's wife has just left the
room we enter, and over there in the corner, sitting in
that large, easy, softly-cushioned arm-chair, is a quiet-
looking lady, whom you would scarcely think would be
guilty of “bucking the tiger.” She is an authoress, or,
* rather, was once. Not succeeding in her profession, and
making but a scanty living from it, and failing, also, in
acquiring that degree of fame which she thought she was
entitled to, she became desperate and invested all her
spare cash in gaming.
A large table is placed in the centre of the front room,
on which the gambling is done, the rear apartment being
used for the purposes of sociality and friendly conversa-
tion. The establishment is carried on by a lady, the

MARRIED WOMEN.
391
divorced wife of a wealthy retired New York banker,
who has for many years sojourned in Europe, and will
probably remain there all the rest of his life.
We have mentioned and described in a former part of
this work a female gambling-saloon in Twenty-third
street. Another very stylish saloon of this character is
situated in Thirty-fourth street, not far from Fifth
avenue. It is a plain brown-stone house, not at all
distinguishable from the row of which it is a part. The
gaming is carried on in the parlors. The furniture and
general appointments of the house differ very little from
those of the Broadway establishment we have just re-
ferred to. There is the same degree of elegance, the
same air of wealth and taste. Very high sums are lost
in this resort. As high as twenty thousand dollars have
been lost in a single hour by the fair player, and fre-
quently five thousand dollars, and sums ranging from
that to one thousand dollars, are lost or won. We might
mention many other saloons in various parts of the city,
some in very retired quarters, where they would be least
suspected, and others on the prominent avenues and
streets of the city, but it would be only wearying the
reader. In describing one, we have described all. The
games are always conducted throughout the day, the
busiest time being from 10 A. M. to 3 P. M. These are
the shopping-hours in New York, and it is very conve-
nient for the female gambler to give out word to her
servants or friends at home that she has gone out
“shopping." Very much surprised and shocked
would the friends and servants be did they know the

392
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ure
very singular "shop" at which madam spent most of her
time.
We have mentioned that many women gamble for the
purpose of making money to supply their extravagant
wants, but it is fair to say that the great majority of female
gamblers indulge in the game for excitement and pleas-
ure. It is only now and then that the husband of a
wealthy woman cannot furnish enough money to supply
even the most extravagant demands. It is the fast
women—the class of which we speak particularly in this
chapter—who spend most of their time at the gambling-
saloon. They do so because they crave excitement like
men, and as there is very little, if any, risk of being
detected, the practice can be followed with impunity.
The fast woman like the fast man likewise indulges in
drink. In “good society” she only takes a glass of wine
or possibly nothing at all, but she likes and craves for
liquids of a much stronger kind. For the convenience
and comfort of this class of females there are private
sample-rooms or “cabinets," as they are called, “for
ladies only.” They are conducted in the most secret
manner, and always under cover of some legitimate busi-
ness. There are at the present time about a dozen of
these sample-rooms for females in New York. The prin-
cipal one in the city is on Broadway. There is a large
hoop-skirt store not many blocks from an up-town street.
Thither fair women repair in large numbers every day
-ostensibly, of course—to purchase the necessary and
graceful article of female apparel which the establish-
ment deals in, but really for a very different purpose.

MARRIED WOMEN.
393
In the rear of the store is a partition running across the
room, in the middle of which is seen a small door marked
“private.” It is within this mysterious enclosure that the
cup that cheers and too often inebriates is dispensed.
There is no bar, as in the ordinary sample-room where
men most do congregate, but an elegant black walnut
bookcase, in which are decanters containing wines,
brandies, gins, whiskies.
Some of the ladies who patronize this particular place
only partake of wine; others indulge in gin, and a very
great number call for whisky.
On “Opening Day” in New York nearly all the
milliners in the city treat their lady friends to wine and
cake. It has got to be a general practice. The milliners
discover that the practice remunerates them, and it is
found that the ladies do not object to being treated.
Some of the fair and fast ones are guilty of imbibing too
much on these occasions, and go home in a state at least
bordering on intoxication. Preachers have been known
to discourse on this subject from the pulpit, and deprecate
the custom of having an “Opening Day” at all, for the
reason of the excesses in drinking which we have al-
luded to.
Fast females are also addicted to the habit of playing
billiards, in which game there is certainly much less
harm than in other of their games and pastimes. One
of the floors of a private house in a side street in the
upper part of the city is devoted to the purposes of a
billiard-room. There are ten tables, which are in use
nearly all day-from nine o'clock in the morning until

394
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
five in the afternoon. Wines and liquors of various
kinds can be procured for the necessary consideration.
Not only females who are entitled to be called “fast” are
to be found in this place, but ladies who would shun very
many of the other pleasures and dissipations of the world
occasionally drop in here to have a quiet game.
In depicting female extravagance and female dissipation
in New York the pen grows weary and the heart sickens.
It would seem sometimes as if civilization was not en-
titled to make the boast it does, and that a return to
savage life, with all its rude simplicity and rough but
purer ways of living, would be preferable to the present
mode. The fast females continue to increase in numbers
rather than diminish. The new novels, the latest plays,
the examples of fathers and brothers, and the immense
numbers of the finely-dressed demi-monde of the great
metropolis, all seem to urge women on toward a dissipated
and unnatural career. Only by the earnest work of the
reformer, a sound morality preached from the pulpit,
and, more than all, by the good example of those noble
women who strive to and succeed in living holy and good
lives, can we hope to see a change in this unhappy state
of affairs.

WICKED WOMEN.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
INFANTICIDE IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS.
ROBABLY there is no class of persons in New
York, who manage a criminal business, adroitly
Sescape their deserved punishment so often, and
make so much money, as the abortionists. The
fact that the law requires proof positive of the crime,
and undeniable evidence that an accused person does
commit or attempt to commit an abortion, is really the
ladder of their escape, and, in fact, their only safety.
Their business, transacted, as it is in almost every case,
between themselves and their patient (often their victim),
and without the intervention of a third person, is a suffi-
cient guarantee to them that their crime will be unknown.
A patient very rarely visits an abortionist unless it is to
hide her shame and dishonor. When she undergoes such
risks to conceal her guilt, it is obviously plain that she
will not reveal it to any other person. The abortionists
also know full well the danger that threatens them.
Having a long term in State prison in view should they
inadvertently act without caution, they invariably trans-
act their business with the utmost secresy and discrimi-
395

396
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
nation. The unfortunate woman or girl who has been de-
ceived is fearful of the consequences of her foolish attach-
ment for some thoroughly heartless scoundrel. She often
meditates suicide, and has even brought herself to look
upon poison or the muddy waters of a river as a relief
from her existence, until by some means or other she
happens to see such an advertisement as the following:
"A Cure for Ladies immediately. Madam -—'s Female Antidote. The
only reliable medicine that can be procured; certain to have the desired
effect in twenty-four hours, without any injurious results."
The advertisement probably states further that the
female physician cures ladies at one interview, without
any inconvenience or danger. A little farther down the
column she sees an announcement something similar to
the following:
“Sure Cure for Ladies in Trouble. No injurious medicines or instruments
used. Consultation and advice free."
She reads this and sees a chance of avoiding the inev-
itable disgrace that must ensue to herself and relations
should her guilt become known. She forthwith avails
herself of it, and, deciding which doctor she will go to,
she pays him a visit, and, after having her purse drained
and her health shattered, she may escape the dreaded
results.
Under the head of abortionists it must be understood
there are different classes. First, there is the one whose
advertisements, under the head of “Dr.,” are conspicu-
ous in almost every paper which will print them. Next
comes the female abortionists, the richer class of whom
also advertise largely; and lastly, the midwives, who,

WICKED WOMEN.
397
when it pays them to do so, will in some cases consent to
earn money by the commission of this fearful crime.
First in order, then, the doctor, who styles himself the
“ladies' friend,” which appellation would be more truth-
ful if the second letter were omitted from that word of
endearment. He is, as a rule, either a man who has
studied for a diploma and failed to pass his examina-
tion, or one who, though he is really an M. D., because
it pays better, devotes his time to this particular branch
of his profession, and advertises largely to that effect;
while, in nine cases out of ten, if he attended to a legiti-
mate branch of his vocation, he would prove worthless
and inefficient. There are many abortionists in New
York to-day who live in first-class style, attend to nothing
but “first-class” cases, receive nothing but first-class fees,
and are accepted in society as first-class members.
These men, some of them at least, are received into
first-class society, not because of their gentlemanly or
engaging manners, nor even yet on account of their
money, but from the fact that they exercise a certain
amount of influence and are possessed of a vast deal of
audacity. They are cognizant of many a family secret
that comes under the jurisdiction of their peculiar voca-
tion; and this fact enables them successfully, if they like,
to dare these parties to treat them any other than respect-
fully. There is a skeleton in every house, a secret in
every family; and too often the doctor, midwife and
accoucheur have to be treated publicly, socially and
pecuniarily in accordance with this fact. It is such men
as these who, by their nefarious practices, have been en-

398
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
abled to accumulate a large amount of money, that are
the proprietors of private hospitals or lying-in asylums,
where the better class of women who have fallen from the
path of virtue may, under a pretence of a prolonged visit
to some distant friends, become inmates, and, after all
traces of their guilt have been successfully hidden, can un-
blushingly return to their friends, and be regarded in their
social circles as models of chastity and perfections of virtue.
Next come the female abortionists, who in some cases
transact a larger and more profitable business than the
doctors. There are several reasons for this, the principal
of which is, that a female would, under the peculiar cir-
cumstances in which she is placed, reveal her condition
to one of her own sex rather than to a man. The num-
ber of female abortionists in New York city is a disgrace
and a ridicule upon the laws for the prevention of such
inhuman proceedings. True, the majority of them are
of the poorer class, but there are many who are literally
rolling in wealth, the result of their illegal and unnatural
pursuits. The names of many could be mentioned. One,
however, will be sufficient, and, although she has been
the most successful of her contemporaries, yet her card is
a good criterion for the rest of her class. Her name,
Madame —, is well known, and needs no comment.
Most of the better and most successful of her kind are
in the habit of receiving no less than one hundred or
one hundred and fifty dollars for each case, and often as
much as five hundred or one thousand dollars. The less
successful of the female abortionists, whose practice or
business is limited, to some extent, through lack of funds

WICKED WOMEN.
399
to advertise the same, are content with considerably less
sums for their services. Cases have been known where
as low as five dollars has been received, and very rarely
do they get a chance to make more than fifty or sixty
dollars, which is considered a first-rate fee.
The female abortionists in New York are mostly of
foreign birth or extraction, and have generally risen to
their present position from being first-class nurses-in
Germany, especially, there being medicine schools or
colleges in which they graduate after a course of prob-
ably six or nine months' study as nurses. The object
for which these colleges were established is entirely
ignored by the woman, who, from the smattering of
medical knowledge she obtains there, seeks to perfect
herself as an abortionist. Yet so it is; and this fact is
antagonistic to the scriptural assertion that “of good,
can no evil be produced.”
The midwife comes next. As a rule (there are excep-
tions, of course, to all rules, but as a rule), the midwife
is a woman whose knowledge of medicine is infinitely
less than that of the regular abortionist, although her
experience practically may be as good. To aid the mid-
wife in the consummation of her intents, she, not unfre-
quently, has to bring the whole force of her wits to her
assistance. Not being thoroughly versed in all the ins
and outs, or, as they may be not inappropriately termed,
the “side issues” of her professed calling, she is now and
then completely cornered by some unusual and unexpected
difficulty arising on the part of the patient. In such
cases her only refuge is, as has been stated, her ready wit,

400
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and a friendly druggist upon whom she can rely to help
her out of her difficulty. If he should fail to do so, her
reputation as a midwife, should anything serious accrue
to her patient, would be considerably lessened. For in-
stance, the sickness of a patient under her care assumes
a new and to her unknown turn; the patient becomes
worse, and is, perhaps, in danger of losing her life.
Patient's friends look to the midwife to bring her round;
midwife not knowing how to act, yet knowing full well
that her actions are all noted, is careful not to betray her
ignorance. With smiling countenance she assures the
anxious friends that their “dear friend” is all right, yet
under all this she carefully notes each new feature and
every symptom of the patient. Suddenly she remembers
that there is some particular herb or medicine that is
essentially necessary, and to get which her personal pres-
ence at the drug store is equally as essential; and in a
hurry she starts to the druggist she is in the habit of
patronizing. To him she explains her case, and generally
he advises her how to act pretty correctly, and following
his directions her patient recovers, and she is looked upon
as a miracle of perfection in her art.
If, on the other hand, she fails to be enlightened on
the subject at her friendly druggist's, she often loses her
fee and reputation at once. The midwife often resorts
to the practice of producing abortion, but, as a rule, her
limited knowledge happily precludes the possibility of
her taking dangerous cases in hand; therefore, she seldom
meddles with that branch of the business unless she is
pretty certain of safe results.

WICKED WOMEN.
401
The medicines used to produce abortions are far from
being as certain as it is generally believed. The surest
of these, if it can be said there is any certainty in any of
them, is the oil of savine. This oil is distilled in Eng-
land, and is a stimulant, actively rubefacient, and an em-
menagogue. Savine is an evergreen shrub, a native of
the south of Europe and of the Levant. It is also found
growing wild on the borders of the north-western lakes
of this country.
The dose is from two to five drops, though such a dose
would not be sufficient to cause an abortion. This oil
ought not to be, by law, obtained from a druggist unless
ordered by a physician, but it is an undeniable fact that
it is sold to persons who, the seller knows perfectly well,
will use it illegally. The next is the oil of pennyroyal,
which is also often used by abortionists. Legitimately,
it is employed as a domestic remedy in amenorrhoea, the
dose being from two to ten drops.
Then again there are preparations of ergot, and several
others, but the above are by far the more powerful and
the most dangerous, and supposed to be the most efficient.
Oil of savine is rarely used, even by the experts, unless
the case is very urgent, and generally, though not always,
the patient is notified of the probable results. Many and
many a death has resulted from the use of these drugs,
from the simple reason that their action is so violent
that it generally shatters the system of those who take
them, and the result is death.
Sometimes the decease of the patient may not occur
immediately after the abortion is produced, but it is a

402
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
dangerous and hazardous experiment to prescribe such
medicines.
The prostration, after the dose has been taken by the
patient, has been known to be so great that the unfortu-
nate woman has breathed her last within a few hours
after the oil had been received into her system. The
reader must not suppose that abortions are produced by
this means alone. On the other hand, both savine and
pennyroyal, from their rank smell, are easily detected
in case of a post-mortem examination, and for this reason
they are seldom used unless the patient positively refuses
to submit to an instrumental operation.
It is the instruments that are used to effect the de-
sired results that so often cause the death of both mother
and child. A woman who visits an abortionist for the
purpose of getting rid of her offspring, and consents to
submit to the use of instruments, may, in nine cases out
of ten, be fatally injured in a few moments. Yet of the
two evils the abortionists (for their own sakes) choose
the least. Instruments are safer than medicine, and
therefore they try to induce their patients to subject them-
selves to an operation.
The “Portuguese Pills,” and all other pills which are
sold at the extortionate price of five dollars per box, are re-
ally not nearly so effective to produce the desired results as
is generally supposed. They are generally simply purga-
tive pills. The main object in them, however, is to pro-
cure for the doctor a patient, who, thinking that the pills
will be all that is required, gets them, inwardly satisfied,
no doubt, that she can get off so easily. That is all the

UIMEIRA
Anna
WH
Clinic
AT THE RACES. -- " LIQUORING UP.'


WICKED WOMEN.
403
doctor wants; but once let the doctor know his patient,
and she rarely goes to any one else under the existing
circumstances. Then she may take all the pills she likes,
but ultimately she will have to submit to an operation at
the hands of the doctor whom she has visited.
The law, according to the revised statutes of the State
of New York, with regard to producing abortions, reads
thus: “The willful killing of an unborn quick child by
any injury to the mother of the child, which would be
murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, shall
be deemed manslaughter in the first degree."
This crime is punishable by a term of not less than
seven years in prison. The law further reads: “Every
person who shall administer to any woman pregnant with
a quick child, or prescribe for any such woman, or advise
and procure for any such woman, any medicines, drugs
or substance whatever, or shall use or employ any instru-
ment or other means, with intent thereby to destroy such
child, unless the same shall have been necessary to pre-
serve the life of such mother, shall, in case the death of
such child or such mother be thereby produced, be
deemed guilty of manslaughter in the second degree.”
This is punishable by not less than four, and not
longer than seven, years' imprisonment.
This law is apparently very stringent; and so it is,
could these murderous wretches (a worse name would
better suit them) be clearly proved to have broken it;
but it is hard to convict abortionists, from the fact,
which has been already stated, that these transactions are
solely confined to themselves and their patients. This
30

404
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
fact is clearly proved by the records at the coroner's
office and at the courts. A woman may have told a
hundred persons before her death that such and such an
individual had produced an abortion upon her; she may
describe the operation minutely, and yet, in case of her
death, this evidence before a court is only hearsay, and,
according to law, the criminal cannot be found guilty
upon it. The only way to do is for the ante-mortem
declaration of the woman to be taken by the coroner, and
such statement to be given in presence of witnesses, and
also to have the signature of the deponent attached to it.
Upon this evidence alone can the abortionist be con-
victed, unless some other person besides the patient wit-
nesses the operation. This, however, abortionists never
allow.
On the other hand, the only punishment they receive
is being detained by the coroner, who can refuse bail, in
case of an inquest. To keep them longer in prison, he
can postpone the inquest from time to time, and when at
last the verdict is given, which is that the deceased is
supposed to have come to her death at the hands of the
abortionist, the coroner commits said abortionist to prison
until the case comes up before the court. In court, he or
not having obtained proof positive to convict, the court
has no other course to pursue than to set the prisoner at
liberty, who immediately commences his or her operations
again.
The statistics in abortion show that the ratio of fætal
deaths in New York city is fearful. Out of every four

WICKED WOMEN.
405
children born, one is either born dead or prematurely,
while a far greater number are probably criminally con-
cealed. The carnival of crime has risen to such a height
that it works out its own retribution in the steady de-
crease of the American population and in deplorable
mental, moral and physical degeneracy. Though to
errors in dress, such as tight lacing, having their origin
in the ignorance of mothers, may be ascribed a large
amount of this fearful evil, yet the abortionists may be
credited with a great deal more. Day after day these
men and women pursue their damnable occupation; day
after day are recorded the deaths of their victims; and
yet they were never so strong, never so rich, and never
was their business conducted in such an unblushing and
barefaced manner as it is to-day. It is to be hoped that
before long notice will be taken of this fact, and such
laws made and enforced as will eventually stop these
unscrupulous murderers.
men
ev
lever

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE WICKEDEST WOMAN IN NEW YORK.
QOY common consent, as well as by reason of her
On peculiar calling, Madam — , of Fifth avenue, is
Testyled “The wickedest woman in New York.”
® According to her advertisement in the papers and
the City Directory, she calls herself a “female physician
and professor of midwifery.”
Madam — is about fifty-five years of age, is a short,
plump, vulgar-looking woman, with dark, piercing eyes
and jet-black hair. Once she was handsome, but pos-
sesses now no traces of her former beauty. She looks
like an upstart or “shoddy” female, but not particularly
wicked or heartless.
She commenced business about twenty years ago. Her
establishment at that time was in Chambers street, and
for some time she was but little known. About four years
after she had begun business an event occurred which
rendered her one of the most notorious women of the
city. A young woman died who had been under her
treatment, and Madam was arrested. She was
tried before one of the courts, and her trial became a
sensation for many days. The papers were filled with
the testimony in the case, and the arguments of the lead-
ing counsel were given in full.
406

WICKED WOMEN.
407
All sorts of accounts, too, were furnished as to the
history of the accused, the evil of abortion, and the ne-
cessity of adopting stricter laws in regard to it.
There was ample testimony offered on which Madam
- could be convicted, but justice at that time, as at
the present, was open to pecuniary inducements. Madam
- had already made considerable money from her im-
proper trade, and it was rumored at the time that she
purchased a verdict of “Not Guilty” for one hundred
thousand dollars. It was a big price to pay, but she
regained her liberty, and, what was more, made money by
the large investment. Her trial proved to be an im-
mense advertisement for her, and shortly afterward she
removed from Chambers street, purchasing a large mansion
on Fifth avenue, not far from the Central Park. In that
house she has lived from that time to the present, and
says she intends to remain there until her death. The
building is of brown-stone, and is one of the finest on the
Avenue. It is a corner house, five stories high, the win-
dows of which command from below a fine view of the
Fifth avenue, and the Central Park from above. Shades
of a most gaudy, though very vulgar, pattern are at the
windows. No other house in Fifth avenue or in New
York possesses such shades, or, indeed, would any one
else in the city want to.
Madam - purchased this house, it is stated, through
an agent in real estate. She could not have procured it
otherwise, as the owner would have refused to sell it to
her on account of her business. Property in the neigh-
borhood in which she lives cannot be sold for any rea-

408
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
sonable figure. The vacant lots on the side of her
mansion have been offered for several years at reduced
prices, but no one will take them. Efforts have been
made to buy her out, but without success; she has been
offered many thousand dollars in advance of the price
she paid for her mansion, but she refuses to sell, saying
that she bought the house not for speculation, but for a
home, and she intends to remain there as long as she
lives.
Her residence is the most magnificently furnished of
any establishment on Fifth avenue, at the head of which
it stands. It is finished and furnished like a palace.
Each window consists of but two enormous panes of plate
glass. There are fifty-two windows hung with satin and
French lace curtains. Her office is in the basement,
where she receives her callers. On the first floor are the
grand hall of tessellated marble, lined with mirrors; the
three immense dining-rooms, furnished in bronze and
gold with yellow satin hangings, an enormous French
mirror in mosaic gilding at every panel ; ceilings in me-
dallions and cornices; more parlors and reception-rooms;
butler's pantry lined with solid silver services; dining-
room with all imported furniture. Other parlors on the
floor above; a guest-chamber in blue brocade satin, with
gold-and-ebony bedstead elegantly covered; boudoir for
dressing in every room; madam and husband's own room,
granddaughter's room, news-room, study. Fourth floor-
servants' rooms in mahogany and Brussels carpet, and
circular picture-gallery; the fifth floor contains a magni-
ficent billiard-room, dancing-hall, with pictures, piano,
WS-ro
n

WICKED WOMEN.
409
etc., and commands a fine view of Fifth avenue. The
whole house is filled with statuettes, paintings, rare
bronzes, ornamental and valuable clocks, candelabras,
silver globes and articles of virtu, chosen with unexcep-
tionable taste.
Madam — is a married woman, her husband being
Mr. — , a Frenchman. He is in the same business as
herself, practicing it under an assumed name, having an
office in the lower part of the city, and his advertisements
are next to madam's in the daily papers. The interest-
ing couple have a daughter, aged about fifteen, a blonde
and beautiful girl, who looks too pure and good to live in
such a magnificent den of infamy which is called her
home. On her last birth-day her mother presented her
with a magnificent Bible, illustrated by Gustave Doré.
Madam — keeps seven servants and four fast horses.
In winter she drives in tandem, with large ermine sleigh-
robes. On every afternoon in the summer she may be
seen out alone driving in the Central Park. Her car-
riage is noted for its extraordinary showiness. There are
various statements given as to how she came to adopt her
profession. One is, that she was once a servant-girl in a
large boarding-house. A couple left one day, and in
cleaning up their room the girl, who was afterward to
take the name of Madam - , found a written receipt
for a certain purpose. That she preserved, afterward re-
commending its use to a female friend, and finding it
worked well, opened her Chambers-street office and sold
the medicine at a high figure. Another story is, that she
was once a pretty bar-maid in a tavern in the suburbs of
one

410
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
London, came to this country when about twenty years
of age, made the acquaintance of a physician and acquired
some medical knowledge; was an astrologer and clairvoy-
ant for a time, and afterward adopted her present pro-
fession. She is said to have considerable practical know-
ledge as to her specialty, which is probably the fact.
Madam — 's prices are very high. For her ordinary
medicine she charges five dollars; for professional ser-
vices, from two hundred to two thousand dollars. Rooms
can be engaged at her house and board obtained at enor-
mous rates. During her interviews with parties, it is
said there is always a secret listener placed in a closet
near by.
The practice of producing abortions is indulged in by
women of nearly all classes of society. The women of
fashion, however, are most guilty in this respect, while it
is said that the poor Irish seldom, if ever, resort to the
practice. It is not considered fashionable to have chil-
dren. It interferes with the round of dissipation of the
stylish woman, and compels her, for a time at least, to
live a life somewhat secluded. The sound of baby voices
has no charm for the fashionable females; the innocent
laughter of little ones, the sweet simplicity of babyhood
and the joy of motherhood are naught to the scions of
the aristocracy.
The words of a divine, recently given to the world on
this subject of fashionable murder, came at a fit and
proper time. “The sin of Sodom !” says he. “What
was it? What led to it? Very likely the very fashion
of our day was the stepping-stone to the fashionable sin

WICKED WOMEN.
411
of Sodom. We are drifting fast that way. ... The
great object of the marriage institution—the rich bless-
ing left from Eden-is not that the husband may live in
legal fornication and the wife in legal prostitution, but
fulfill the first great command of the Bible. O woman!
honored, loved, cheered and upheld while you meet the
great responsibilities for which you were created, can you
be thrust down from the high and holy position of being
a true and faithful mother, to be a toy, a plaything, and
something far lower than that? O women of America !
women of this century! are you to see foreigners rear up
large families under all their disadvantages, while you,
blessed as no other women in the world are blessed, refuse
to meet the high responsibilities and the holy joys which
God lays at your feet? Depend on it, if we continue to
do as we are doing in this respect, the wrath of God will
burn toward our land, and his indignation will glow until
we are consumed. He will not be mocked, nor have his
own institutions trampled on or despised. In what way
he will first strike, or where the fire that will light the
pathway of his thunderbolts will first kindle, I pretend
not to say. But I feel perfectly sure that this one sin,
unrepented of and unreformed of, is enough to sink our
nation in guilt, and to bring the angel with his “sword
bathed in heaven' to destroy us.”

CHAPTER XXXV.
FEMALE ASTROLOGISTS.
EFEMALE astrologists seem to flourish in New York,
311 and a countless number of idle individuals make
929 money out of the gullibility of the many who are will-
ing to be duped by their pretended “revelations.”
Foolish young ladies, ignorant young men, and many
others, older in years than wisdom, as soon as any diffi-
culty arises in their business or other affairs, go to one
of the “professors” of this noble mystery and humbug,
to find out what the future has in store for them. The
young ladies, of course, go to find out when and whom
they will marry-how old he will be; how much money
he will possess; how he will look. Some of them are
anxious on the child-question, and go to receive informa-
tion as to how many offspring they will probably possess.
The young men go to find out how they can make a
fortune without honest work; which neither the astrolo-
ger nor any one else can tell them. Some adolescent
youngsters have been known to consult the divinities as
to when they would have a moustache, and as to the
means of promoting the growth of that necessary appen-
dage to the “young man of the period.” The old bache-
lors consult as to where are the best boarding-houses,
where there are no children; the maiden ladies, as to who
412

WICKED WOMEN.
413
are “good matches and where they may be found; the
negroes, male and female, as to what are the “lucky
numbers” in the game of policy; the rich people as to
how they can be happy, and the poor as to how they may
get rich; and they are, one and all, without exception,
fooled.
It is almost needless to say that the female astrologists
of our day are not women of learning. On the contrary,
they are about as unlearned and illiterate a set of females
as can be found; that is, of those who profess to know
anything about science.
Where do these learned (?) savants come from? One
of the principal male humbugs of this class, in this line
in New York, came from the West—a small town in the
wildest part of the wild State of Wisconsin. Out there,
when a young man, he was “bred to a carpentier,” and
followed that useful branch of industry for a year or two
in his native place. But he was of an ambitious turn of
mind. He wanted to see life, and, what is more, make
more money than he could by his honest trade. Chance,
which does so many strange things in this queer world,
threw in his way a little book on fortune-telling. This
he took a great interest in reading, and finally had read,
or rather studied it, to such an extent that he mastered its
contents. He sought other books on the subject of fortune-
telling and astrology, and after much searching found
them and perused them with the same interest. He
saved enough money from working at his trade to enable
him to leave his little town and reach the great city of
New York, to see which is the desire of so many youthful

414
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
was
ears
hearts. In the metropolis he became first a clerk in a
dry-goods store, then a bookkeeper in a mercantile house,
where he ought to have stayed. Tiring of that, he set
himself up in the papers, as a teller of fortunes-address,
J— B— , Box No. —, New York Post-office. This
was nearly twenty years ago, and the mystic art was a
new thing at that time; so the bait took. He had any
number of answers to his advertisement, and the money
(sixty cents a head) came pouring in rapidly. Before
long, he gave up his clerkship and devoted his whole
time to telling fortunes, opening an office in Canal street.
From that day to this he has pursued this “profession,"
advertising largely in the daily and weekly papers. If
you will go to his office on almost any day of the week,
you will find it crowded with people of all grades of
intelligence and fortune, anxious to know their “destiny."
Another famous fortune-teller was once a blacksmith,
but left the anvil and forge to seek richer fields and
newer pastures of wealth in the great cities of the East.
In Philadelphia he became connected with, as an "usher”
and assistant to, an astrologer. He remained with him a
few years, and then opened for himself in New York,
having during his apprenticeship learned all the “tricks”
of the trade.
One of the most successful fortune-tellers of St. Louis
studied medicine in a famous Western medical college,
but before his term expired was kicked out by the
authorities of the college because of some scandal abou
his conduct with one of the daughters of the head pro-
fessor of the institution. To the little medical knowledge

WICKED WOMEN.
415
he knew was added a great deal of cheek, and
after various ups and downs in life we find him an
astrologer.
Among the female necromancers there is to be noticed
the same idiosyncrasies of fortune. Some have been
dressmakers, milliners and even shop-girls, in the early
stages of their career in life. Many of them have been
Spiritualists, but have been of the scientific class of that
very peculiar class of individuals; and their investiga-
tions carrying them into scientific studies, and among
them the study of astronomy, they have given up their
search as to the various “spheres” supposed to exist, and
ideas of “spent life,” for the more solid, tangible and
(supposed to be) practical state of their relation to the
events of human life.
It would seem that this class of humbugs select the
poorest and meanest places to live in that can be found.
They hold out (in New York) in such streets as Mercer,
Laurens, Baxter, Essex, Greene and Mulberry, in the
dirtiest parts of Eighth avenue and the poorest class of
side streets opening from it.
In Canal street they flourish, and in nearly all the
miserable streets in the eastern part of the city you will
find one or two of them. The building they occupy is
always old, and a tenement, with three or four bells on
the sides of the entrance door. The entry is dark, with
no carpet or oil cloth, and a general appearance of nasti-
ness greets your eye on entering the house, and a smell
of cabbage, onions or codfish salutes your olfactories.
The room in which the madam or professor makes dis-

416
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
closures of the "past, present and future” is sometimes,
though rarely, on the first floor--more generally on the
second or third. You clamber up the narrow staircase,
with a stair-rod on about every third or fourth stair,
which serves to keep in place a nearly worn-out carpet,
and finally reach the room desired. At your knock it
is opened by the person you seek. If a man, he is gener-
ally tall, gaunt, with long hair, who reminds you at first
of a Spiritualist, only he seems to have a keener eye for
business than his co-laborers in the art of humbugging.
If a woman, she is always large, portly, with a calico
dress, dirty; with hair disarranged, slippers down at
heel, dirty stockings and generally dirty appearance.
They themselves tell nothing, and it is their object to
make their visitor tell everything. Every one who has
read Marryatt's famous novel, “ Japhet in Search of a
Father," will remember how the magician in that book
told the fortunes of some of the most distinguished per-
sons in each town he visited. A few days previous to
his intended visit, he sent on one of his numerous satel-
lites, who, from inquiries made of the tavern-keepers and
other public personages, managed to find out the principal
events of the lives of such persons as would be likely to
consult an astrologer. These facts he made a note of, and
furnished them to his employer. It nearly always hap-
pened that they were right in their conjectures as to the
persons who would consult an astrologer. See how easy
it is to tell fortunes if you only know how!
There is an amusing account extant of a man, in the
guise of a young lady, who consulted one of the oracles

WICKED WOMEN.
417
of New York—a certain Madam A- The madam
is described as a woman about forty years of age, with
coarse features, and evidently a Hibernian. The follow-
ing dialogue ensued, the madam speaking first :
“You want your fortune told; the fee, if you please.”
“ How much is it ?”
“One dollar.”
The greenback was produced, handed over, placed in
madam's capacious pocket-book, and safely deposited in
the bosom of her gown.
“Now we are ready. You are not nervous or tim-
orous ?”
“Not in the least."
Throwing herself on a lounge, the great “clairvoyant
was soon in a stupor: eagerly seizing the hand of her
“dupe," she fixed her eyes with a strong glare upon those
of the latter, and after a convulsive movement of the
features, articulated the following, with great apparent
effort:
“You were born in this country (that's not so, to begin
with]. Your parents are dead [long ago]. You live by
your labor [true enough]. You are not yet twenty-nine
[forty, last birth-day], and have a long life before you
[good news].
Troubles and dangers beset your path. You will pass
through great affliction, but will come out all right at
last (satisfactory]. A young man is greatly in love with
you [!], and would give all he is worth to marry you [!].
You do not care for him, however, and will never marry
him [not at all probable]. You will not marry until you

418
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
are twenty-five, and your husband will be a widower with
three children. He will treat you unkindly, but happily
he will not live long, and you will marry again. Between
the death of your first husband and your second mar-
riage quite a long time will elapse, and during that period
dark clouds will cover the path of your life; but with a
brave heart and unconquerable will you will surmount
the many trials and temptations to which you have been
exposed. The number six is very unlucky for you [in-
deed]; beware of it. You were born in 1846, and you
will die (uttered in a voice of solemn warning) when you
are fifty-six.”
The female astrological fraternity have a mode of ad-
vertising all their own. Madam W- informs us that
she will tell the “ object of our visit,” etc., and adds that
her place is “over the bakery.” A very queer place for
a woman of her profession to be. Mrs. N— gravely
informs us that “the influences and effects of the config-
urations of the planets at the time of the late lunar
eclipse, in the month of September, are not yet over, and
which will be seriously felt by many through the greater
part of this month. Much connubial unhappiness and
many separations will occur in this month. The light or
nimble-fingered gentry are still very active; they will be
lurking and looking out for plunder and robbing in vari-
ous ways at every opportunity. Those persons who were
born when the moon and Mercury were in conjunction,
and both in opposition or evil configuration of Mars, are
expert thieves; and if such configurations happen in
Cancer or Capricorn at birth, such thieves will be caught,

WICKED WOMEN.
419
sent up and have desert of their deeds. The planet Her-
schel, or Uranus, is hard against those thievish folk for
some time to come. There is still danger, in this month,
of robberies in the bank and postal department, both
near by and far off. Murders, suicides and other hor-
rible crimes prevail among us and in foreign parts.
Frequent fires and incendiaries will occur during this
month. Some of those foreign events I predicted in
September are fast coming out; some are in this month,
and some not until November. Persons born on the
3d, 4th or 5th July, in any year, will have strange, un-
expected losses in their families; also other troubles
and quarrels. Those born on the 16th, 17th or 18th
of January, in any year, will feel the benign influences
of Jupiter. For a few months to come they will be suc-
cessful in business; they will gain health, wealth and
friends. Those born within a day of the 17th November
or the 15th May will have much trouble, danger of being
robbed, ill health, many crosses and losses in business.
Let them avoid all rash acts and movements, and be
temperate in all things. It would be well for all such to
hold consultation with an astrologer who is well versed
in the astral science.”
Madam C— warns us that she, and she alone, is
possessed of the great French secret that “creates love
and causes speedy marriage.” A great many would like
some charm to dissolve some hasty marriages, but no
astrologer gives us that.
Madam B— tells us that she has no equal in Amer-
ica, and is the lady who “first advertised in New York
e
31

420
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and Boston.” No matter how serious are your troubles
or ailments, she can relieve them both. She closes with
this bit of poe—no, rhyme:
“All ladies should call and see
The only genuine clairvoyant, Madam B-.
She will relieve you of trouble, restore you to health,
Recover lost property, lead you to wealth.”
SON.
And then there are hosts of others, male and female,
who advertise themselves as the only real and bona fide
astrologers, and “all others are impostors.” If they left
out the second word, they would tell the exact truth of
themselves.
Most of the astrologers are agreed on some general
principles of the “science;" for instance, the influence
certain planets have on the future character of a person.
To illustrate :
A person born under the sign of Aries, in the month
of March, usually has a forcible character, a spare, dry,
strong body, piercing eye, face more oval than round,
large bones, dark eyebrows, thick, full, well-set shoulders,
long, indifferent neck, hair of a red hue, swarthy com-
plexion and violent disposition.
A person born in April, under the sign Taurus, will
have a broad forehead, thick lips, dark, curly hair, dull
and unfeeling, slow to anger, but if once provoked very
malicious.
The person born in May, under the sign Gemini, is
tall, fair, of a sanguine temperament, with long arms but
short, fleshy hands and feet, dark eyes, brown hair, quick-
sighted, smart, active look and good understanding.

WICKED WOMEN.
421
The person born under the sign Cancer, in the month
of June, is of middle stature, fair, round face, gray eyes,
weak voice, the upper part of the body large, dull,
effeminate constitution, and, if a female, very prolific.
In July, under the sign Leo, has a large, full body,
broad shoulders, austere countenance, large staring eyes,
dark yellow hair, strong voice, high, resolute disposition,
haughty and ambitious, generous, free and courteous.
The latter part of the sign the person is weaker and his
hair rather flaxen.
The person born in August, under the sign Virgo, is
well made, tall, rather slender, but compact, has a ruddy
complexion, face more round than oval, witty, ingenious,
studious, but fickle-minded.
In September, under Libra, tall and elegantly made,
with round beautiful face, ruddy in youth, but inclined
to pimples when old, light yellow, auburn or flaxen hair,
blue eyes and upright in principle, temper even as the
balance.
In October, the sign Scorpio, strong, corpulent, robust ;
middle-sized person, dark complexion, brown curly hair,
thick neck and legs, short body, heavy and coarse, re-
served, deceitful, but active.
Under the sign Sagittarius, in November, well-formed,
rather above the middle stature, ruddy complexion, hand-
some oval face, fine clear eyes, chesnut hair, inclined to
baldness, active, strong, intrepid.
In December, under the sign Capricorn, the native is
of a dry constitution, slender make, long thin face, thin
beard, dark hair, long neck, narrow chin and breast, weak

422
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
a
knees, and often deformed. Disposition subtle, witty
but changeable, at times melancholy, capricious as the
goat.
Under the sign Aquarius, in January, well set, robust,
healthy constitution, not tall, long face, clear complexion,
hazel eyes and good disposition. This sign gives more
beauty than any other except that of Libra.
In February, under the sign Pisces, gives short, pale,
fleshy persons, crooked or given to stooping in their walk,
round-shouldered, brown hair, and sometimes a good
color, often given to drink, like the fish, which is the
meaning of the sign.
It is only now and then that one who practices this
profession, or business, or whatever it might be called,
gets rich. There are one or two in the city of New York
who have amassed considerable money by the practice of
this species of fraud on the community.
There are, as may be supposed, quite a number of
wealthy persons with exceeding weak minds who consult
the astrologers and the “ test mediums,” their next of
kin. This wealthy clientage is given, as is the case gen-
erally in other professions and businesses, to one or two
particular stars, who have made a very “good thing”?
out of it. Mr. J. B- , of New York, is supposed to
be worth some fifty thousand dollars. Madam — , who
to her astrological powers adds a knowledge of quack
medicine, makes over two hundred dollars a week, and
sports a fine team on the Fifth avenue on pleasant after-
noons. Madame B- issues over eighty thousand cir-
culars every six months, which are distributed far and

WICKED WOMEN.
423
man
lan
wide, and are the means of bringing many dupes to her
feet.
The female fortune-tellers of New York are not all
divided under the head of astrologists. They are called
by the names of clairvoyant, seers and oracles.
The eastern part of the city is noted for them. In
little side streets which many New Yorkers never heard
of, up dirty alleys in wretched tenements, they may be
found holding the scales of destiny in their hands.
Coarse, illiterate, ill-mannered, but shrewd and enterpris-
ing, they bring many foolish fish to their net and many
a dollar to their purse.
There is nothing in the world they will not tell you.
If you are in search of an absent friend, they will tell
you where he may be found. If you have lost money,
they will inform you where it is hid. If you are in love,
they will let you know of your probable success; or if
you chance to want wealth, they will kindly tell you how
it can be easily procured. Strange that they never take
advantage of their knowledge on this latter point! They
never become suddenly wealthy, but acquire money by
following their own avocation, the same as the rest of the
world.
Among the patrons of these humbugs may be noted
a famous operator in the stock market, who consults as
to the safety of investments; a well-known clothing mer-
chant; a famous tragedian, the particular favorite of the
fair sex; an opera-singer of repute; and a clergyman who
officiates for a fashionable congregation.
Our advice to the reader is, to avoid all fortune-tellers,

424
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
astrologers and the like. There is no human being living
who can foretell the future of a man or woman. If one
is desirous of getting rich, we can advise him as well as
the star-gazer, and make no charge at that. It is, “ to
work indefatigably and never spend a cent." Those who
try this method of getting wealth, say it works admirably.

DC030
A "SPIRITUAL" CIRCLE. —WAITING FOR THE "RAPS."


CHAPTER XXXVI.
FEMALE CLAIRVOYANTS.
AHE number of female clairvoyants in New York
Ul is considerably less than the astrologists, but the
the former class of women are equally as unprincipled
as the latter. The astrologists are a lower order of
swindlers. The poorer classes principally patronize them,
and, though they draw a certain number of wealthy
people to their sanctums, they only succeed in humbug-
ging a very gullible class of individuals.
The clairvoyants, on the contrary, are higher up in
the scale of female frauds. They make greater preten-
sions to knowledge; they live in better neighborhoods,
on finer streets, in nicer houses, and are generally looked
upon with more respect and confidence by the multitude
than the astrologists. The clairvoyants are, properly
speaking, seers, and claim to have special powers which
enable them to look in the future and read the book of
Fate; the astrologers claim to come to their conclusions
by the will of the science of the stars and the movements
of the heavenly planets. The one class read the future
inspirationally—the other by the aid of “science,” so
called.
The newspapers contain the advertisements of these
425

426
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
clairvoyants. “Madam M— , the great unrivaled
clairvoyant," announces that she can be consulted on the
“past, present and future, and that she is able to pro-
duce the likenesses of either husband or wife, as the case
may demand. The “seventh daughter of a seventh
daughter” also informs us that she is capable of gaining
the undying affection of any lady or gentleman on the
one hand for any gentleman or lady on the other.
The searcher after magic love is requested to “consult
the world-renowned Donna Inez J , the clairvoyant-
teller," upon everything connected with marriage, busi-
ness or sickness.
Such notices as these are common, and are well known
by every person who is in the habit of glancing occasion-
ally at those journals in which they are inserted. But
few persons have been behind the scenes or penetrated
the mystery which is supposed to surround this class of
humbugs; every one has an idea that fraud and trickery
are practiced, but in what manner they cannot tell.
The clairvoyants claim to tell what is past and predict
what is to come while in a mesmeric state. They also
pretend to discern objects, while in that state, which are
not visible to the senses.
Many astounding instances of this latter class have
been given to the public through the agency of these
“mediums” and clairvoyants, but very few of them are
worth crediting. The clairvoyant is sometimes a Spirit-
ualist, but generally not, and for that reason a fraud.
We recently paid a visit to one of the leading metro-
politan clairvoyants. The house was situated up town in

WICKED WOMEN.
427
2
a poor neighborhood. Ascending a rickety stairway, we
reached the second floor, where the “madam’s” name,
gaudily painted on a tin plate and nailed to a door, in-
dicated that the sanctum was within. Opening the door,
we found ourselves in a rather poorly furnished room, in
which were a few chairs, a sofa and a table, whose dilapi-
dated appearance, upon close examination, suggested that
the time of their creation was remote and distant. A
looking-glass and a few pictures of a very inferior qual-
ity adorned the walls. Upon the table laid a chart, a
peculiarly-shaped glass globe and an antiquated-look-
ing vessel (similar to the Roman pitcher) that contained
water.
“Madam” herself was seated on the sofa. She was a
large, coarse-looking woman, about thirty years of age,
dressed plainly, but neatly; once she was evidently beauti-
ful, and still bore some traces of good looks. She imme-
diately arose to receive her guest, and the following col-
loquy took place :
AUTHOR.—I see by your advertisement, madam, that
you are a clairvoyant ?
MADAM.-I am; do you wish a consultation ?
A.-Yes.
M.—Ever consulted a medium before ?
The man of the pen said that he had not; upon which
she assigned him to a seat, and, taking one herself, stated
that her terms were “cash in advance." Upon being
supplied with the necessary shinplasters, she seated her-
self in her chair with becoming dignity and quietly
closed her deep blue eyes. After a few hitches and

428
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
hems, she finally got herself into the correct attitude for
a trance. For one or two minutes there was a nervous
twitching of the muscles of the face, arms and hands,
while her whole frame was more or less affected with
convulsions. The first articulate sound was given in the
shape of a deep, guttural accent, something midway be-
tween a grunt and a groan. In a moment or so the
sound was repeated, when, in a gentle voice, she began
to talk. She informed the visitor that he had no busi-
ness, and had but poor prospect of obtaining any, when
suddenly a dark-haired, affectionate girl came up to take
part in his fortune. She was desperately in love with
him, but he did not reciprocate, although he would in
course of time. He was unmarried, but would eventually
enter into bonds of wedlock and become prosperous in
business and the father of a numerous family. In
answer to questions, the author was informed that he
was in good health, troubled with no bodily infirmities
and might live to a good old age.
The “seer” then returned to her natural state, and the
visitor departed.
We next wended our way to Madam - 's. Her
quarters were in a far better neighborhood than those of
the madam previously mentioned. Her room was on the
first floor, and very comfortably and even tastily fur-
nished.
After a few moments of waiting, madam made her ap-
pearance. She was dressed in plain black silk, and looked
older and more intellectual than the prophetess we just
visited. She carried on her arm a long dark cloak, upon

WICKED WOMEN.
429
which was worked numerous devices similar to Egyptian
characters. She accosted us suddenly with-
“My friend, dost thou want to have the future revealed
unto thee?”
Upon which we answered, “Yes.”
_“Is there anything particular about which thou wouldst
learn ?-a friend, perchance, thy business, or thy future
destiny ?”
The author stated that he would like to go through the
“whole course." Upon which the awe-imposing indi-
vidual seated herself opposite a celestial globe and com-
menced questioning the author as to the date of his birth.
She then informed us that we were born under Mars,
Jupiter and Venus, which was an index, if not a warrant,
for success in life. Mars indicated that at some period
there would be a fearful struggle to wrestle with ; Jupiter
indicated that sufficient strength would be given to resist
and overcome this struggle and also all the wiles of ad-
versaries; while Venus stood as a sort of underwriter
about his cradle to ensure him a happy marriage and
good success during life. He was employed in a furni-
ture house of some description, but would soon change
his avocation and go out West, where he would meet with
a beautiful and accomplished woman, who would love
him to distraction. He must beware of her. In the
West he would strike the vein that would lead to his
being ultimately wealthy. He was not married, and
never would be, as he preferred a bachelor's life by far.
He was very affectionate to all his friends, and was pos-
sessed of an extraordinary amount of filial love.

430
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
And here the interview ended, the necessary green-
back equivalent, to the amount of two dollars, having
been paid.
The clairvoyant we have just alluded to should be
called an astrological-clairvoyant, as she sometimes tells
fortunes, or professes to tell them, through the agency of
the heavenly planets, and at other times by means of
(so-called) spiritual insight into the mysteries of futurity.
There is another prophetess who cannot be called a
clairvoyant, but may be alluded to in this connection.
Her name is Madam H , and she holds forth in the
back room of a certain ordinary-looking house in the
poorer part of West Twenty-eighth street. She pretends
to tell fortunes through the agency of cards entirely. A
reporter recently called on this lady about midday, and,
finding her disengaged, proceeded at once to business
without any ceremony. She entirely eschews the “spir-
itual influence” of the clairvoyants, and does all her
seeing into the future through a pack of cards. By
request, the reporter took a seat at her side by the table,
when she took the cards and, after having given them a
shuffle, she handed them to him to do the same, which he
did. She then “cut them into four piles. These piles
she manipulated in a very scientific manner, and distrib-
uted them about the table in accordance with certain rules.
After this distribution was completed, he was informed
that there would shortly be sickness in his house, and
that a change was to take place in his business affairs.
This change would be attended by a journey over a large
body of water, and, in the mean time, he was to look for

WICKED WOMEN.
431
the coming of a lady friend. Shortly after this he would
receive a letter containing good tidings, and he would
soon experience a great change. He was warned to
beware of a certain black-eyed, black-haired man, who
was a snakish individual, and would do him harm. At
the same time there was a light-haired gentleman friend
who would always prove true and help him out of a series
of difficulties. She then looked at the palm of his hand,
and after a long and earnest examination informed him
that his life would be very short; he would travel a great
deal, but mostly over water.
Madam H- proved to be a very candid person, for
when the reporter told her he had been to see three
astrologists before her, she said,
“Then you must have had a rich experience."
He said it was true, and from the different stories he
had heard from each he was inclined to think they were
humbugs. She laughed, and admitted that there was a
great deal of trickery practiced, and also much “guess-
work” done; but then “guessing,” she said, “strictly
speaking, is no more largely or ingeniously interwoven
with the profession of the fortune-teller than with many
other professions. The physician 'guesses;' so does the
divine, and also the lawyer and editor, ånd so do we; but
we can give a good varnish to any ‘guess-work' we have
to use."
She said she had little faith in “medicines," although
more than formerly. There was something about spirit-
ualism she could not understand.
Madam B- , who says she is from Paris, affirms that

432
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
she is in possession of the French secret by which the
possessor can ensure the love of any one of the opposite
sex he or she may choose, and also bring about a speedy
marriage. Madam B— 's apartments, situate a consid-
erable way up town, were by far the handsomest the
author visited. She occupies a back parlor, which is for
the use of her visitors who may be waiting her leisure.
The walls were hung with pictures, among which he
noticed “Christ Walking on the Sea,” “Bethlehem,”
and a very pretty one called the “Golden Horn.” Her
little marble-topped table was covered with choice books,
such as “Lalla Rookh,” “Loving and Living," and a
very fine volume of Shakespeare's Works. Adjoining
the parlor was a small, pleasant side-room, where all
interviews are held, and which was also tidy and had
evidently been arranged by a woman. Madam B— is
of a medium size, has a very attractive figure, sparkling
blue eyes, light, wavy hair, fair complexioni, talent and
beauty in every expression of the face, a pleasing voice,
and lots of little ways besides which are wickedly be-
witching. The author had his fortune told, but the great
idea was to get the “French secret.”
The subject was broached. He asked her if she had
a secret to sell, and she said “yes, and it is a dangerous
one,” and also one which she did not sell indiscriminately;
and it was not until the author made use of his very best
conversational powers that he succeeded in buying it.
However, the following is a synopsis of the conversation
that ensued after the subject was broached :
MADAM.—I knew that was what you came here for the

WICKED WOMEN.
433
moment you entered the room, and you don't care about
the answers I have given you at all. I haven't told you
much, anyhow.
AUTHOR.—You must not be uncharitable, for, thus far,
we have been very candid with one another, and it is only
carrying my curiosity one step farther when I ask you
for the secret.
MADAM.—Yes, but you want to take advantage of that
blue-eyed girl I told you of, and if I thought that you
did, I would not let you have it for any money.
AUTHOR.—Why, I am surprised that you exercise so
much caution about the sale of this secret. I should
judge from that that you believe in its efficacy. But,
seriously, I will give you my honor that I will never use
it indiscreetly.
MADAM.—Your honor! I should count my experience
of little worth had it not taught me how to estimate “the
honor” of you gentlemen. I wouldn't give a copper for
a Bible edition of the honor you talk about: it's all gam-
mon.
AUTHOR.—That's a little too severe, I think; but, really,
don't you think your secret would be safe with me?
MADAM.—No, I don't, and I shall only give it to you
on certain conditions.
AUTHOR.— Very well, then, name them.
She then explained those conditions upon which he
was to become the happy possessor of this secret, and
then she told him that she had two greatly differing in
cost and application. The first was the most Frenchy
and expensive and reliable. Having chosen the best of
32

434
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
these two secrets, there arose a little bit of spicy conver-
sation between them regarding the mysteries of the art.
She, in the mean time, was busily engaged in preparing
the dangerous secret which was to arm him with a subtle
power that would, if he chose, make sad havoc with
maiden hearts and give him an advantage over Cupid's
keenest scholar—the dashing young widow.
“Well,” our readers will say, “why don't you tell us
what the secret is ?! Yes, but, reader, the author bought
the secret of Madam B— , pledging her his honor that
he would not reveal it. Therefore the secret is a secret
still with him, and the only way for you to do is by a
little shrewdness and a few dollars possess yourself of
the secret in the same way he did.
From his experience with the different characters that
have just been described the author runs over his notes
and finds as follows: That he has no business and has no
prospect of getting any, and immediately after finds that
he was never in a better business condition than at pres-
ent. He will be married and have a large fåmily, says
one; another, that he preferred bachelorhood and would
never get married. He was desperately loved by a dark-
eyed and fair-haired girl, and would marry her and live
to a good old age; and again he was assured that his life
was short.
A good deal that was good and a good deal that was
bad was told him, and on the whole he is unable to deter-
mine how much the information is actually worth. The
stories of each are, however, as different as “chalk from
cheese," and only serve to convince any one that the whole

WICKED WOMEN.
435
lot of these clairvoyants, etc., are frauds in every sense
of the word.
Whether the business of fortune-telling is a gift, an
art, a science or a humbug, the testimony submitted here
ought to be sufficient to enable every man and woman to
judge.
The people who visit clairvoyants belong to all classes
--from the richest to the poorest, and all circles-relig-
ious, political and scientific.
Gross ignorance, as well as refined intelligence, often
come under the supervision and jurisdiction of the fortune-
teller. Some of these clairvoyants have been regularly
employed by parties interested in mining and oil stocks.
Some business men would not invest a dollar without con-
sulting them. Physicians, manufacturers and artisans
have been known to rely upon fortune-tellers in all busi-
ness transactions. There is, has been and always will be,
a certain class of persons who are always willing to be-
lieve in such things, and who would as soon think of set-
ting down a clairvoyant as a fraud as they would of
denying the veracity of Holy Writ.
It is estimated that there are at present in this city in
the neighborhood of two hundred astrologers, clairvoy-
ants, fortune-tellers and soothsayers; and while all make
a livelihood at it, quite a number do a large and profit-
able business. One of them says: “Her patronage, or
rather the profits arising from her business, are surprising.
Not unfrequently her receipts are fifty dollars per day-
seldom less than ten dollars; while her tariff of prices is
graded according to the value of the information she

436
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
thinks she has imparted. She tells nothing for less than
one dollar, and has received fifty dollars for one sitting.
Some days she “sits” ten or a dozen times, while her cus-
tomers are often kept waiting in an ante-room. As a
general thing, their quarters are not elegantly furnished;
yet there are to be found, in the aristocratic part of the
city,“ seers” who live in magnificent apartments. This
class do not advertise; their business is done through a
circular or card, and their customers are always of the
higher class.
One of this class gives her expenses at eighty dollars
per week, and states that she has frequently made five
thousand dollars per annum clear profit.
Upon an estimate, the citizens of New York pay an-
nually three hundred thousand dollars for fortune-telling;
and it is probable that this expense will never be mate-
rially reduced as long as superstition remains an element
of human nature.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
FEMALE ADVENTURERS.
VU
HERE are female as well as male beats. The art.
of swindling and making money without giving
een any equivalent therefor is not confined by sex or
o limited to any particular class of individuals. It
is very probable that there are as many swindlers in New
York who belong to the female sex as there are who
glory in the dignity of being men. The females, of
course, differ very much from their male companions in
their mode and manner of work; but, however much
they may differ in these respects, they all agree in one
thing-namely, to make money.
Female adventurers may be met with in all parts of
the world, and have been frequently introduced in the
modern play and novel. On the Continent they flourish,
making sad havoc with manly hearts, and succeed in
gaining wealth and sometimes high position. In New
York, more than any other city in the Union, this class
of women may be met with. They abound, but not in as
large numbers as their male prototypes. On Broadway
you may see them, as, indeed, you may see every one
else, good, bad and indifferent. In the church, with eyes
earnestly riveted on the prayer or hymn book; at the
437

438
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
theatre, laughing or weeping over the play; in the ball-
room, whirling around in the mazy waltz; at the seaside
resort in the summer-time, promenading on the piazza or
strolling along the beach.
There is one marked peculiarity about the adventuress:
she is always of the middle age. No one ever saw an
adventuress under the age of thirty-five. No woman
could possibly play any very desperate or dangerous
game which required forethought, discrimination and
shrewdness who was under that age. To the keen ob-
server the adventuress looks suspicious. There is some-
thing mysterious about her, only it is unexplainable—a
certain air or manner which no other woman has. She
talks much, but seems, after all, to say little; she pro-
fesses to make you her confidant, and yet, on calmly
looking back to the conversations, you find you have not
received many tokens of her confidence; she may ear-
nestly profess to love you, and yet you may have sincere
doubts as to the truthfulness of her profession. She is,
on the whole, a very strange being, inexplicable and past
finding out—a fearful and wonderful actress, whom it
were well for you to let alone.
She generally stops at some fashionable up-town hotel
in the city, and always travels alone; represents herself
as a widow cast out upon a friendless world; she has a
small competency, but very small—barely sufficient to
keep her supplied with the necessaries of life and such
luxuries as she has been accustomed to in palmier days.
She dresses well, is refined in her manners, agreeable in
conversation and creates a good impression immediately.

WICKED WOMEN.
439
She possesses wonderful shrewdness and is an excellent
judge of human nature-knows weak-minded and strong-
minded men and women, and carefully avoids both of the
latter classes. Easy-going married men, free with their
money and free in their morals, and the middle-aged
bachelors, are her particular favorites. With these she
very soon becomes popular. Both of these classes of men
adore her and would willingly lay down their lives for
her, and eventually become her victims.
The primary and sole object of a female adventurer is
to make money. All other considerations are thrown aside
to gratify that ambition. She has no profession or busi-
ness, and wants none. She believes the world owes her
a living, and she takes a living from the world. She is
blasé. Love has no charms for her, and friendship she
does not believe in. The intellectual, the artistic, the
true, beautiful and good, possess no interest for her.
Eating and drinking, and the physical enjoyments of life
generally, are all she is interested in. To gratify all
these desires she must have money, and to have it she
swindles and imposes on such of the male sex as she
can overcome by her arts.
She adopts all methods to gain her object. Boarding
at a fashionable Broadway hotel and dressing in style,
it is not long before she becomes acquainted with some
the Far West. He is on his first visit to New York, and
he has been but little in ladies' society. He is enraptured
over his new acquaintance, and when she states to him
that she is particularly in need of a loan of two or three

440
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
hundred dollars for a short time, he is not at all backward
in supplying her with the funds, very often doubling the
sum, and telling her she can return it at any time she
sees fit. It is generally the case that she never sees fit to
return it at all.
Some adventuresses make it their object to gain a rich
husband. They crave wealth and position, a fine house,
a retinue of servants, and all the other luxuries that
wealth brings. Some wealthy and foolish man comes
along who falls in love with this female sharper, and
eventually marries her.
An adventuress naturally troubles the peace of the
manly mind. It is always an unpleasant thing for a
man to find out that he has been “taken in and done for”
by a woman supposed to belong to the sex which, by
nature and qualifications, is the weaker. The adventuress
sets this old-established law at defiance, and proves that
a woman may plan deeply and execute her plans with as
much ability as any of the sterner sex.
It is well to beware of female adventurers. No good
ever comes from associating with them. Their voices are
musical, but their hearts are attuned to wickedness and
deceit. Their faces are fair, but their vows fickle. They
may charm for a time, and lend all the graces and intel-
lect to make them beloved and adored, but in the end it
will be found that they have led their victim down to the
depths.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FEMALE PICKPOCKETS AND SHOPLIFTERS.
CFEMALE pickpockets are not abundant in New York.
11 What is the precise reason for this is not exactly
999 known. Though very expert, they do not make as
e good pickpockets as those of the opposite sex. It
is more difficult for them to pick a pocket without being
detected, owing to the manner in which women dress, and
from the fact that females are nearly always more observed
than men. And yet there are a goodly number of
females in the great metropolis who make their living by
picking pockets, and who possess a degree of shrewdness
which, under the circumstances, is quite wonderful.
Female thieves are professionals. Of the depraved in
the female sex they are the most depraved; of the aban-
doned, the most abandoned. They are lost to all sense of
honor and all sense of duty. There may be hope for the
cyprian, with her gaudy colors and indecent ways. She
may have a good heart and an honest desire to reform.
But for the female thief there is no hope. Society to her
is only a vast collection of beings to prey upon; and to
make money by stealing from others is her only work
and ambition in life, until justice and law bring her to a
stop in her criminal career.
441

442
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The female pickpockets travel principally in the Broad-
way stages during the day-time. In the omnibuses there
is a very good chance to ply their avocation, and they
make very large hauls of money here. It is a very com-
mon and a very old practice for a lady pickpocket io re-
quest a gentleman sitting next to her in an omnibus or a
car to raise or lower the window. The lady is good-look-
ing and the gentleman polite, and the latter executes the
request of the fair one. While he is in the act of per-
forming this service, the “lady” relieves him of his watch,
and shortly after leaves the stage and is lost in the crowd.
This is a very old practice, however, on the part of female
pickpockets, and sometimes they are caught at it.
Not long since a woman riding in a Third avenue car
picked the pocket of the lady sitting next to her. She
saw at once that the lady suspected her, and adopted a
very novel mode of screening herself from the crime.
She asked the lady if she would be so kind as to put her
hand in her pocket. The lady asked the reason why;
when the pickpocket answered that she had rheumatism
in her arms and could not use them, and would therefore
like the lady to take her purse out for her. The lady did
as requested, but no sooner had she done so than the
pickpocket cried out, “Stop thief! stop thief !” and or-
dered the conductor to have the car stopped, and the
lady who had performed the service for her was arrested.
The innocent lady was taken to court, and would very
probably have been convicted, as the evidence was cer-
tainly strong enough against her, but just as she was
about to be committed to prison, after averring over and

WICKED WOMEN.
443
wa
over again her innocence of the crime, on putting her
hand in her own pocket, she missed her purse, and asked
that the woman who accused her of being a pickpocket
should be searched. At the lady's earnest request this
was done, and the missing purse found and identified.
By this means the lady escaped and the real pickpocket
was brought to justice.
There are few female or male pickpockets who ever get
rich by following their profession. They are wasteful
and extravagant in the expenditure of money, and conse-
quently never save anything. They live only for the
present, and when the future comes, bringing with it
sickness and poverty, they have nothing to fall back
upon, and generally end their days in the poor-house or
become victims of suicide. While they live they live,
however, partaking of the best of the sensual delights
that the world affords and enjoying physical existence to
the highest possible extent. There are women in New
York at present who pursue this avocation who board at
the best hotels the whole year round, taking the best
rooms, owning fine horses and elegant carriages, having
their private boxes at the opera or the theatre, and who
dress in the most stylish and expensive manner.
It would hardly be thought that a female pickpocket
would ever be very deeply loved by one of the opposite
sex, and yet such is the fact. Many of these women
have good husbands, who are kind and indulgent to them,
and who respect and love them as though they were not
criminals. In the winter of 186— a young Kentuckian
had come to the city purely for pleasure. Of great

444
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
wealth, and by no means careful of his personal asso-
ciates, he soon plunged into a career of dissipation, which
rapidly fitted him to become the victim of one of the
most remarkable female pickpockets of the metropolis.
She had once plied her vocation almost daily, but of later
years had given up the profession, having no actual neces-
sity to pursue it. The person was the wife of a noted
gambler. She had apartments at the most fashionable
hotel in the city, and occasionally acted as a decoy to her
profligate and unscrupulous consort. She was a Spanish
Creole, and possessed every fascinating trait which has so
distinguished the women of her race; but, added to the
exquisite beauty of her person, she possessed an educated
mind, and was in reality fitted to adorn any sphere in
society. Always dressed in robes that ever enhanced h
rich tropical beauty, easy of access, and to the uninitiated
and susceptible youth, upon whom she lavished every
bewildering charm of manner and address, it is not sur-
prising she soon became a creature at whose shrine both
heart and sense were gladly surrendered. He accompa-
nied her to theatres, balls and parties, and, as the influence
of her artfully-woven meshes became each day stronger
and he less capable of resisting them, she gradually drew
him within the pale of her husband's evil designs. Her
elegantly-appointed parlor became the theatre of little
card-parties, at which costly wines and the blandishments
of female beauty formed a combination of attractions
which his blinded perceptions could not resist. Step by
step he was led along the road to ruin.
He never saw his peril, or if he did it was discerned.

WW
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THE SLUMS OF NEW YORK. —MINISTERING TO THE SICK.


WICKED WOMEN.
445
only to be forgotten in the smile of his dark-eyed en-
chantress. Vast sums had now swollen from the pittances
hazarded at first. His own means had been exhausted;
his friends had been appealed to until they would loan
no longer; still unmindful of his perilous career, a crim-
inal step was taken, and a forged draft supplied him with
the means he could not otherwise procure. Another and
another followed, until the vast sums he squandered had
absorbed every dollar of his inheritance. And now he
awoke from his dream of passion to realize the utter
hopelessness of his condition. Bankrupt and criminal, a
single hope still lingered around the memory of his
wrecked life and fortune-one ray only of possible hap-
piness was left to him as he brooded over his sin; and
that the love of the beautiful woman who had ruined
him. To him she had become as an Elvira to Lamartine,
the Heloise of Abelard, and now in the cleft of his torn
heart he cherished her as a beautiful flower in sweet
memorial of a happier time. He knew she had ruined
him; he knew that the beautiful casket shrined no jewel
of purity; but he knew he loved her despite her crimes
and his own. Flight was still left him—the magnanimity
of his friends and creditors had left him this. From the
consequences of his crime and the scorn of his friends
he perceived the necessity of this last alternative of the
criminal and wretched outcast of society. But before he
went he solicited and obtained an interview with the
woman he had looked upon as an angel and worshiped as
such. What passed at the interview was never known,
nor ever will be. He had been in her presence perhaps an

446
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
hour, when the scream of a woman in deadly fright
echoed through the house, followed by the report of a
pistol. The startled servant rushed to the apartment, but
recoiled in horror. In the centre of the room, a bullet
through his brain, lay the body of the young Kentuckian
-a suicide; beside him, rigid and pale as death, stood
the woman, but the light of reason had fled from her
eyes; a just retribution had paralyzed her mind. The
spell of her dark enchantments was loosened; her ex-
quisite beauty and fascinating charms were gone and the
gambler's wife was a maniac.
The shoplifters of New York are composed of both
sexes, but there are probably more women in the business
than men. Their field of operations is principally in the
Broadway or Bowery stores. They always have a con-
federate to attract the attention of the merchants while
the purloining takes place. They are very shrewdmuch
more so than the pickpockets. They adopt all sorts of
methods to carry on their avocations, and are compelled
to get up new ones very often, as the old ones are quickly
found out. They are very skillful from long practice in
their art, and can purloin a piece of goods, a watch or a
set of diamonds almost from under the very eyes of a
clerk in a manner that would do credit to a professional
magician.
Many shoplifters compel their little children to engage
in the business. After being educated up to it, the little
ones become adepts in this ingenious way of robbing.
The genius of the mothers in this direction descends even
unto the third and fourth generation. Children are not
re

WICKED WOMEN.
447
suspected like grown folks, and that is another reason
why they make good shoplifters.
Some female shoplifters often have large bags into
which, while the clerk is looking in another direction,
they throw large quantities of plunder, and make off
with it.
The female criminals of New York seldom, if ever,
reform. A woman who has once taken the downward
road to vice never turns back, unless she be a cyprian,
when, possibly, her heart may be touched by memories of
her past pure life, and she may endeavor to reform. But
the pickpockets, the thieves, the shoplifters, and, in fact,
all criminals of the female sex in the great metropolis,
go on from bad to worse. For them the trumpet call
to duty and the right sounds its alarm in vain, and all
attempts to bring them in the right paths prove of no
avail. Lower and lower down they go on the road of
vice. After pocket-picking, shoplifting; after shoplifting,
an accomplice of burglars; then drugging men and rob-
bing them of their money—thus playing in the characters
of the cyprian and the robber; after that it may be
murder, when the strong arm of the law grasps them and
holds them in solitary confinement for a lifetime, or they
expiate their sin upon the scaffold, and so pass away from
the world.
33
ата.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
BABY-FARMERS
ce
HILDREN do not, strictly speaking, concern the
SU subject of the present work, and yet some view of
n ye the facts of how surplus offspring are disposed of
O in the great metropolis will probably be interest-
ing, as serving to show somewhat the character of their
mothers. It is not a pleasant subject to deal with, reveal-
ing as it does the depravity of the female heart, but the
province of the author of the present treatise is to give
facts as they really are, and not to speak of things as
they ought to be.
Of late years, in this as in other countries, there has
grown a decided' aversion to the bearing of children by
wives and the support of children by husbands, while, on
the other hand, the ratio of illegitimate children has not
only equaled the average standard of numbers, but even
exceeded it. This state of things prevails not only in
France, where the marriage tie hangs loosely around the
necks of the married pair, and in Italy, where the blood
is as warm as the climate, but in high-pretending Eng-
land as well, and especially in kirk-going Scotland, where
the number of illegitimate births bears a large proportion
to the legitimate.
448

WICKED WOMEN.
449
As far as our own country is concerned, until within
from extravagance and immorality; but of late years,
especially since the war, we have been cursed abundantly
with both of these inflictions, and at the present time our
fashionable women are very much averse to being called
mothers.
There are various methods by which children are dis-
posed of after birth. They are dropped, or adopted, or
put in a public institute, or given away, or thrown away.
The child may be simply left in a basket upon some-
body's doorstep. This is more popular in novels than it
is in ordinary life; still, it is really done every day, or,
rather, every night. On the evening of the 4th of July
last, a pretty little female infant was found lying on his
doorstep by a gentleman living on Thirty-third street,
who took the waif into his house.
A little girl was found in a basket at the door of an
institute, corner of Fifty-first street and Third avenue.
The infant was dressed in splendid swaddling-clothes,
with lace of considerable value upon them, and a gold
locket was around its neck. A letter was pinned to the
to keep the infant, and at some future time it would be re-
claimed. It was a beautiful child, evidently the offspring
of wealthy parents. It was admitted into the institution.
A young lady was recently married with considerable
eclat from the Church of the Ascension, who had been
left in a basket upon the doorsteps of her fashionable and
wealthy parents.

450
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
A young and fashionable lady, now living in Lexington
avenue, had a child some years ago and abandoned it.
Time went on. The lady (her early faux pas unknown)
married a gentleman of wealth, but had no children.
She longed to become the possessor of a little one, as did
likewise her husband. She accordingly visited the insti-
tution at Ward's Island. While there she was struck
with the appearance of a little girl; she requested per-
mission of the authorities to adopt her. It was granted.
The little girl related to the lady all she knew of her past
life, which was simply the usual reminiscence of a found-
ling. Whatever clothes are found upon an infant on its
being brought are carefully preserved, and upon its being
adopted they are given to the party adopting the child.
The clothes in this case were given to the lady. Upon
one of the articles a name had been worked. The lady
immediately recognized it as her work. She had adopted
her own child, ignorant of the fact at the time. The
secret was kept from her husband for a while, but at last
the wife and mother suffered mentally so severely that
she confided the secret to her lord, who forgave her.
It must not, however, be imagined that, as a general
rule, infants left upon doorsteps in baskets turn out well
in after-life, or that men and women are so benevo-
lent and romantic as to adopt every brat they find in
their way. On the contrary, about nine out of every ten
children thus abandoned are sent to the Commissioners
of Charities and Corrections, who in their turn send them
to the Island, where they very soon die.
The most popular way of getting rid of children is by

WICKED WOMEN.
451
putting them into the hands of those who make a busi-
ness of supplying babies for adoption. It takes all kinds
of people to make a world; and now-a-days, when compe-
tition is so great, and the necessities of life are so many
and so very high, any business which can be made to pay
is sought after and followed; and this adopted-baby
business can be made to pay.
In St. Mark's Place there has been located a sort of
baby-farm. A female physician, in conjunction with a
male doctor, undertakes to supply those wishing to adopt
children with the objects of their wishes. The woman
herself, the baby-farmer, is smart and rather good-looking,
has a still tongue, a wise head, keeps her own secrets,
knows a great many secrets of other people, and makes
money out of them both.
She never “sells” a child-only “disposes” of it for
a "consideration,” and only to “respectable” and “re-
sponsible” parties. She makes a present of the child to
the party patronizing her and wishing to adopt one; and
then, out of sheer reciprocation and good-nature, the
adopting party presents her with from fifty to one hun-
dred and fifty dollars, as the case may be.
Another establishment for the purpose of child-adopt-
ing has been located on Third avenue, in the vicinity of
Stewart's new store. This place is situated over a shop;
and as you ring the door-bell, you walk up stairs, where you
are received by a neatly-dressed, quiet-mannered, middle-
aged woman, who, after convincing herself of your good
faith, clearly explains the modus operandi of matters.
The doctress, in conjunction with a doctor, for whom she

452
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
acts as agent, receives sick patients—ladies requiring deli-
cate nursing, etc.—and also disposes of any pledges of
affection they may receive from the above sources or any
other. Unlike the party previously mentioned, these
latter parties do not expect any fee or perquisite from the
person adopting any baby from their establishment. On
the contrary, they are only too glad to get rid of the
babies gratis, and expect to have their profit solely out
of the original parties to whom they are indebted for the
baby. The establishment on Third avenue is but an
office, the real business being transacted at a sort of
female hospital and wholesale nursery up town on the
east side. Here the patients are attended to during sick-
ness; and as soon as an infant is ushered into the world
it is registered and handed over to the temporary charge
of a nurse, until it is finally disposed of by adoption or
got rid of by death. Twenty-five dollars a week is
charged for board to any lady taken care of in this in-
stitution. The fee for nursing and medical attendance
is one hundred dollars, and the charge for the satisfactory
disposing of a child varies from fifty to one hundred
dollars.
A third baby-farmhouse is located on Nineteenth street.
In this temple of the innocents the main feature is a
large nursery, where a supply of fresh babies is constantly
kept on hand. If not soon adopted, however, the poor
innocents have a hard time of it, as the presiding genius,
a notorious woman, will then commence to lessen the
expenses of their diet, until finally, oftentimes, all ex-
penses connected with them are terminated with existence.

WICKED WOMEN.
453
ATO
Another baby-farm is located near Yorkville, and is
managed by a woman, who, if she cannot get rid of these
foundlings entrusted to her (care ?) by trick or false
representation, will not hesitate at other methods.
These establishments and others of a similar nature
have been occasionally interfered with by the police
authorities, but the raids upon them are spasmodic and
ineffectual, and so baby-farming flourishes.
Before the war it was comparatively easy to get rid of
a baby by adoption, but since the war the number of
people anxious to adopt other people's offspring has
materially diminished.
One-half of the advertisements of fine babies ready for
adoption, or of mothers who are willing for their chil-
dren's sake to part with them, are bogus-nothing but
the most transparent tricks in trade.
A third method of making way with unwelcome off-
spring is to send them to a foundling hospital. The
theory of all foundling hospitals and asylums is credit-
able to the heart of humanity, but in practice they
fall very far short of what they ought to be. The
public infants' hospital of New York is situated on
Ward's Island, in the East River, a few miles from New
York.
It was formerly the practice of the Commissioners to
send all foundlings to the almshouse in charge of the
female inmates. In 1866 they were sent to the Inebriate
Asylum on Ward's Island, wet nurses being appointed to
nourish them temporarily while a hospital was being built
on Randall's Island for their reception. This hospital

454
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
is now nearly completed, and in the course of a few weeks
the infants will be sent there.
The establishment now on Ward's Island is conducted
on the following principle: Children arriving on the
island are placed in quarantine for several days, where
they are examined by a physician. If at all diseased,
they are sent to the infants' hospital, and if in good
health, they are distributed to the several nurseries of
which there are six), according to their age. As soon as
they attain a certain age they are sent to a school on the
island, under the same regulations which govern public
schools in New York. The hours before and after school
are devoted to recreation.
The Randall's Island nurseries have received during
the year 1868, eleven hundred and twenty-four children,
of whom six hundred and seventy-nine were boys and
four hundred and forty-five girls.
There are also private institutions. Such is the Chil-
dren's Hospital, corner of Fifty-first street and Third
avenue. This institution is conducted solely upon the
voluntary system. Foundlings, from the age of one week
(even less in many cases) to that of nine months, or occa-
sionally still older, are received and skilled nurses are
provided.
There is a hospital for children in Second avenue, sup-
ported by voluntary contribution and well managed; and
another in West Eleventh street, under the auspices of
the Sisters of Charity. These are not foundling hospi-
tals solely or specially, but a large percentage of their
inmates belong to this unfortunate class.
Were

WICKED WOMEN.
455
It must be carefully borne in mind that the foundlings
and the deserted children of New York are not the off-
spring solely of the poor. From eight to ten per cent.
are, on the contrary, the children of the rich—of those
abundantly able to support their offspring, if so disposed.
At the Children's Hospital, for instance, over forty cases
have transpired in which the evidence is incontestable of
the children having been of wealthy origin, while there
is evidence enough to warrant a moral certainty of the
same thing in even a greater number of instances. Cases
have transpired, too, of wealthy mothers who have sent
their children to the care of the public institutions, and
have there abandoned them to their fate. A leading
belle of Fifth avenue, shortly to be married, is rumored
to be the mother of a child recently taken from the
Island and adopted by another party; and instances of
this sort could be multiplied.
- To give a faint idea of the number of illegitimate chil.
dren in New York, we may here mention that a leading
popular lawyer of great eloquence has transmitted to the
care of posterity two interesting children; a wealthy mer-
chant, reported to be childless, has three or four children,
whom he supports in elegant style, as he can afford the
expense; a banker, favorably received in social circles,
has two children who know him as father, and three more
children who do not so know him ; two prominent New
York politicians have double families—one recognized, the
other not; a well-known New York actor, though un-
known to the metropolis as a father, is yet active in that
capacity in a quiet way on the east side of town; a prom-

456
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
inent “bull” in Wall street has an unclaimed son who
operates in Wall street, and not long ago cornered his
own father; while one of our kings of finance and lords
of luxury, one of our prominent representative metro-
politans, is himself the left-handed scion of one of the
partners of a celebrated house.
A wealthy lady, who dispenses a liberal hospitality on
Madison avenue, is the offspring of a match which was
based more upon love than law; while a Fifth avenue
beauty of some notoriety is the mother of two interesting
children, who never, however, visit her house, though the
lady calls upon them every week or so, in a neat little
house on West Fifteenth street, where the brother and
sister live in peace and comfort. These latter have never
seen, to their own knowledge, their father, though that
gentleman is doing business down town daily
The multiplication of these facts—and they can be
multiplied indefinitely-would only serve to show what
has been already shown, that the upper classes as well as
the lower are tainted with immorality and are cursed
with its results; while the facts of this chapter prove con-
clusively that, spite of civilization and Christianity, the
city of New York, as a metropolis, is careless of and cruel
to its foundlings.

CHAPTER XL.
THE CONCERT-SALOONS.
CAN police statistics there has recently been made
Il public, to our knowledge, no exact estimate of the
De number of concert-saloons in New York, but we
shall give a careful estimate, with statements per-
taining thereto, which will not be far from correct, and
which cannot fail to be of interest and value to the
student of life's darker sides.
In point of number, profit and extent of vicious influ-
ence, at least, the “concert-saloon” is an institution of
evil that may be considered unique to the metropolis of
this continent. Directly or indirectly, it infects all
degrees of men—perceptibly or imperceptibly, it taints
all societies of woman. The tax-payer, though he may
not know it, feels its baleful influence in each yearly
assessment; the mother, sister or wife, in the drooping
eye, unsteady hand, and moral deterioration of father,
brother or son; the honest meaner in the Satanic impulse
which thrusts his hand in his employer's cash-box; the
spruce stranger at the towering hotel and the wave-worn
blue-jacket from the far mid-sea, both alike; all social
life itself, when the cheap gambler's victim, a robber
or defaulter for his depleted purse, whirls by rail to
457

458
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
те
10
Ore
ignominy and striped garments at Sing-Sing; and when
the red hand of murder reaches with a bowie-knife from
the half earth den to stab the drunkard as he reels along
the curb.
Concert-saloons have their grades, classes and specifi-
cations in almost exact correspondence with prostitution
itself, so intimate are the relations of all systematized
vice. But in just the same correspondence no more can
the former be graded and classified with any degree of
minuteness.
Take a map of the city and draw an oval, including
Fourteenth and Leonard streets by its ends, with the
eastern bulge taking in the farther side of the Bowery,
and the western clutching at the foul skirts of Thompson
street, and narrowing in Church street of infamous fame
as it curves south-eastward, to connect the line. With
probably one exception, the enclosure will (with many of
the viler kinds, however) comprise the least unsightly
concert-saloons; the single exception being the most
specious and brilliant of all—the “Louvre,” as it is
called, at the Fifth avenue and Broadway corners of
Twenty-third street. The grosser and more loathsome
varieties incubate and edge within the egg-shaped line,
and include the foul dens of Canal street, West Broad-
way, William, Cherry, Water and Roosevelt streets, and
the “sailors' dance-houses," skirting the two rivers and
the Battery verge.
Broadway contains twenty-four; the Bowery, Chatham
street and Third avenue, about thirty-six; William and
contiguous streets, twenty-two; the East River side,

WICKED WOMEN.
459
including South, Water, Cherry, Roosevelt streets, and a
few others, about fifty; the North River side, including
West Greenwich, Washington and intersecting streets,
about seventy-five; others, too scattered to localize, say
one hundred, or an aggregate of three hundred.
About one hundred and fifty of these (the very lowest)
employ an average of four girls each—six hundred; an
average of six girls to each of one hundred dens wouid
give six hundred more; the remaining fifty, which are
the least repulsive in appearance, if not in character, em-
ploy about ten girls each-five hundred: making seven-
teen hundred wretches doomed to the worst conceivable
infamy.
The three hundred saloons will give employment to
about two hundred men-barkeepers; and one hundred
and fifty women—"madams” or procuresses of the mean-
est, dirtiest type; the man in some cases being joined
with the woman in running the establishment; while in
the better class, as they are called, men alone are em-
ployed in the managerial capacity—sometimes the pro-
prietor being his own bartender, and in other cases there
being a proprietor employing a number of bartenders.
With comparatively few exceptions, each of the girls
or "waitresses” employed in the concert-saloons has her
“ friend” or lover, which would give an average of seven-
teen hundred regular male visitors—all loafers and dan-
gerous characters, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred, pickpockets, thieves, burglars, and, perhaps, far
worse.
The occasional visitors (out of whom the money is

460
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ce
made, and out of whose vices and follies the concert-
saloons take their only growth) are furnished mainly by
the hotels, the shipping and the neighboring military
posts; while those derived from our city and suburban
residents are often so frequent and regular in their custom
as to almost deserve classification with the “friends” of
the young ladies. It would be futile to even roughly
estimate their number. But it must be thousands by the
day, and hundreds of thousands by the annual count.
This is about as near as the evil of the “concert-
saloon” can be systematically classified, so as to render it
easily intelligible to the general reader. But we can, in
a measure, count them by grades or steps, and in doing
so commence with the highest or most exclusive.
We have said that there was a perfect correspondence
between the concert-saloon and prostitution proper. The
requisites for entrance into the highest grade of the latter
are precisely the same as those demanded by the upper
step of the former-viz., money to spend, good clothes
and a bearing not outwardly vicious.
Let us enter, say, the most brilliant of them all. The
glare of the colored side-lights or corruscating crystals
overhead have led us to the entrance, and the clink of
glasses, mingling with a seductive rustling of mobile
silks, is the Circean music of our descent.
There is a large, airy, brilliantly-illuminated saloon,
with a splendid bar; a number of busy barkeepers be-
hind it; twice as many well-dressed men before it, talk-
ing, tippling and laughing; ten times the number, equally
showily dressed, seated around elegant little round-topped

WICKED WOMEN.
461
marble tables ranged at the sides of the saloon, and a
dozen or fifteen girls carrying liquor from one part of the
room to the other, or seated at the tables conversing
smilingly with the men.
The girls are all of them neatly and modestly-
some of them elegantly—attired. None of them, appa-
rently, are more pleasing and affable than your sister
would be; and many of them are far prettier than the
sisters of most of us. There are, doubtless, a thousand
differences that are not apparent. There is one that is
glaringly obvious at first sight: they all drink rum.
It may, indeed, be with very fresh and pretty lips,
through the delicatest of hollow straws and from the
rosiest of goblets, but the devil laughs at the bottom, and
a step will clutch the brandy-bottle where there are no
men's glances to be rudely shocked.
Most of the males are young men, reckless, devil-may-
care young fellows, and many of them with frank, clear
brows. With some, the converse with the young ladies
is of a slightly familiar tone, indicating an acquaintance
of greater or less standing. With others, it is accompa-
nied by significant glances and a not all-innocent smile,
which have a deeper meaning. Again, with others, it is
combined with a bold glance of confidence and power on
the one side, and a fear-shrinking, deprecating look on
the other, which hath still a deeper and more painful
suggestiveness than all.
Suppose you undertake to obtain a profounder insight
into these girls' characters than that which may be
caught from beneath the shallows of their rippling

462
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
an 2
smiles. With some you can have no immediate com-
munication. They may be engaged with a heavy wine-
drinking party. In addition to her small salary the
waitress has a percentage on her sales of the night.
Half a dozen men opening champagne rapidly at five
dollars per bottle do not come along every night of the
week; and perhaps he who is paying for the most of it
has regarded her with an ardent eye. The concert-saloon
girl is prudent. She can look beyond the feast as well as
revel therein.
Of those the least engaged you may beckon to the
most pleasing, and she will approach in the most lady-
like manner. She will bring you whatever you order
respectfully and silently; but if you ask her to join you
in drinking, a glance, a smile and a courtesy will be your
additional reward. You will be instantly aware of her
business tact by observing that she has chosen for herself
the most expensive concoction which the establishment
affords. If you wish to further friendly and confidential
feelings, you will express wonder that she has chosen
such a cheap and tasteless drink for such pretty lips as
hers. Display all the money you have in paying for the
same and invite her to be seated.
She will comply, and so long as you spend money
largely and rapidly will stay there as long as the shop is
open, bestowing upon you the largesse of her sweetness
and smiles. It is her cue to be reticent upon many sub-
jects, and it may require several separate visits before
you are sufficiently ingratiated to win a degree of confi-
dence. Then, after she has fully opened her heart re-

WOT
shorn
6
DI UN
INTERIOR OF A CONCERT-SALOON.


WICKED WOMEN.
463
specting what she knows about concert saloons and their
inmates, you will doubtless depart with the delicious
satisfaction of knowing that you have been the recipient
of a tissue of falsehoods.
Any hint upon your part that there might be such a
thing as a flaw—the most imperceptible, volatile, trifling,
unimportant flaw—in the conduct of her moral life will
be met with either a stony, withering stare of indignation,
or a shrinking, tearful, hurt expression which will go to
your heart. If your heart is so remorseful that you ven-
ture to heal the wound you have caused her virtue by a
pecuniary consideration in the shape of a ten-dollar bill
slipped into her shrinking hand, she may be rendered so
childlike confiding by your generosity as to confess that
she has made a misstep, which is the secret of her present
position, away from the society of which she was once the
idol and the star. Then, if your heart melts sufficiently
to repeat your contritious rewards to the poor innocent at
your side, you will soon arrive at the conclusion that she
is quite as much of a commodity as the liquor you are
imbibing.
If you are a close observer, you will perceive that each
of these girls, even in her gayest moments, is perpetually
pursued by a shadow of fear. You will finally trace its
primary cause to a pair of sharp, jealous eyes always fol-
lowing, always fixed upon her. The eyes will belong to
a man showily dressed, beamily booted, shiningly hatted,
and with a general air of nothing to do. Then you will
have the exalted satisfaction of knowing that all the
money which you have been lavishing upon your pretty

464
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
dear, or nine-tenths of it, goes to buy those shiny hats,
those beamy boots, those showy clothes, and to cram with
food and rum the mean, contemptible, cowardly loafer
who lurks within them.
And the glasses clink, the silks rustle, the smiles ra-
diate within; the side-lights glitter, the revolving crystals
corruscate without; and the brilliant concert-saloon flows
on, night after night. Sometimes there are oaths, loud
words and threats. Then the proprietor-generally a
portly man, either German or French--steps in with the
rebuking remark that they seem to forget that his is a
perfectly respectable house, and that order must be en-
forced, and with perhaps a hint at police intervention,
which usually restores order.
Under the nose of Madison Square, in the locality of
the big marble hotels, flourishes the gigantic “Louvre.”
Undermining the better part of the block, its spacious
saloons stretch away to the right and left, saloon beyond
saloon. Substantial columns, massive as the Park gates,
divide hall from hall. That room to the left is the
billiard-room; this middle apartment the grand drinking-
hall with its great bar; and under the alcoves, there at
the end, on the right, are more retired tippling-places.
The walls are frescoed and painted with the rarest of
artistic skill. Broad bands of gold, great panels of deep
emerald, baskets of luscious fruit, purple grapes in heavy
clusters, golden apples and sunny flowers all but fragrant.
In the centre of the middle hall a statue-fountain shoots
its cooling spray, and the myriads of lights gleaming on
it turn its showers into a cascade of sparkles. Gold and

WICKED WOMEN.
465
silver fish sport at its base, and green mosses encircle its
big white basin. The great bar is very rich with varied
colored cut-glass and silverware, and numerous mirrors
reflecting the bright lights, the gay walks and the motley
crowd, hanging in every conspicuous corner. In the bil-
liard-room you will find plenty of the youths of the “best
society” chalking their cues and pocketing the “reds ;"
in the main hall, a scene of tempered carousal; in the
alcoves, quiet Germans sipping lager and winking at the
pretty waitresses. Let us take one of these alcoved-
tables, where those count-like, long-whiskered Teutons
are enjoying their beer, and survey this tippling congre-
gation. There are about two hundred thirsty and loving
bacchanalians enjoying themselves, or pretending to do
so, beneath the charms and smiles of some thirty « pretty
waitresses.” Pretty is the term set down on the “bills”
-its application literally is a “whopper,” for the better
part of these Hebes and female Ganymedes are very
coarse, fat and prodigiously ugly. The youth who would
style them all beautiful, or feel the palpitations of his
heart getting very audible by the fascination of their
presence, is made of different stuff from ordinary mortals
or is very deep in his cups. Yet there are a few—you
could count them on your fingers—who are not ordinary,
and in the every-day crowd of Broadway would be styled
attractive. One of these is presiding over the destinies
of a bottle of “Widow Clicquot,” and clinking her small
iced goblet with the flowing cups of a party of well
dressed, young, evidently very English, cockneys, to
whom the “concert-saloon” is of the old-country style

466
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and a familiar institution. The champagne is resting in
an ice-bucket at the side of the table, and one bottle fol-
lows another closely. They are very red-faced from
the deepness of their rosy potations their complexions
weatherstained from a recent Atlantic cruise; pendant
whiskers sandy as the soil of Jersey, cut in Lord Dun-
dreary style, adorn them all. They talk very loud, are
very earnest in their admiration of the presiding beauty,
and now and then let fly a squib at the wide difference
between Yankeedom and the land of their royal queen.
Hebe gets a little indignant at this, and with the slightest
pout of her lips and the least bit of indignation in her
eyes retorts rather sarcastically. The other females, who
occasionally press past the group, cast very envious eyes
at her, for they know before the meeting breaks up Hebe
will rejoice in a better-lined purse, and some day in the
future sport another diamond ring on her well-loaded
hand. Shall we sketch this fair and frail sister ? Clad
in a dark dress, fitting very elegantly to her well-defined
bust and falling in graceful folds, its sombre material sets
off well the dazzling whiteness of her round throat and
snowy hands; her chin is dimpled, her lips very red and
wear a luscious, habitual pout; her nose is thin and
straight; her large eyes dark hazel, with a long shadow
of black lashes; her hair is raven, very glossy and heavy;
a golden band binds her forehead, and down her back
fall clusters of pendant curls; and as she tosses her well-
shaped head, very conscious of her winning charms,
there's a queenly grace that in hearts less steeled than
the major part of the youths about town would work

WICKED WOMEN.
467
Cory
fearful havoc. The portly old figure at the bar and his
busy staff look very much pleased as they cast a frequent
glance at the table, for this Hebe is a great coiner to
them of a golden vintage.
“Can't yer drink some more of the wine, my dear ?!!
says the first cockney to her, as he peers with bloodshot
eyes at her yet untasted glass.
“ Deuced good wine, for this country. Not so good as
at the Alambra, in Lun'on, though. Can't yer take a
bit more, though ?” .
Hebe looks at the bottle in the bucket (it's nearly
empty), then at the cormorants at the bar, who express
an unmistakable “Go ahead.” Hebe says she likes fresh
wine; she's afraid that in the bottle's flat.
“Gwacious! what a charming cweature!” says another
son of Britannia; and the soft youth calls for a fresh
bottle of “Madame Clicquot.”
Hebe has a share in the profits of the wine, and the
sly puss shows it in the merry twinkle she throws at the
bar; so she goes on bewitching and befoozling these Eng-
lish sports—dukes or bagmen-drinking very little and
very cautiously, too, until far into the midnight; and
when they break up, a gold sovereign or two will glisten
as it changes hands, and deeper and more sensational
scenes will close a nightly farce.
We may go two grades lower, and without quitting
Broadway, though they have their counterparts on the
Bowery and, in two or three instances, on Third avenue.
Through both of these our pretty deceiver of the brilliant
saloon assuredly passes in her downward career.

468
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
We may take the Broadway Garden (or either of its
“branches”) as the best representation of the second
step.
She is now just a little passé, but is still pretty and pleas-
ing, though with a tinge of effrontery. An occasional
laugh now is mingled with her smile, which, you will
notice, has also grown bolder and broader. There is a
lingering endeavor to keep up the maiden modesty and
coy reserve she once so well assumed, but a forgetful,
coarse word pierces the mask. The red Hand that had
her in its down-dragging grip has left its mark, faint
but indelible, upon her white skirts, and, crumple them
as she may, she cannot conceal it. At your invitation,
she will drink a punch now, instead of a cobbler, and, to
admire its small beauty, you may even take her hand,
unbidden, in your own. She has grown somewhat in
truthfulness, in the same proportion as she has sunk from
that air of exclusiveness and respectability which now
falsehood can all conceal. She admits she has admirers,
and will point them out. One of her fellow-waitresses is
her chum, for whose qualities she has nothing but praise;
but of others she is either envious or contemptuous.
Their lovers are such as she wouldn't permit to speak to
her for an instant. She prefers her present quarters to
those in which you first made her acquaintance. These,
you see, are so free, easy, cozy and “home”-like. At
the up-town place they always put on too many airs
for her taste, and the proprietor was a mean, grasping
hog.
But in one thing we find our charmer unchanged.

WICKED WOMEN.
469
There is the same following fear, the same strange, dep-
recating dread which haunted her from the first. And
there are the same two eyes ever following, ever fixed
upon her. No, they are not the same, and the face is
another and a coarser. But their enduring watchfulness
is just as intense, just as jealous and threatening. And
there are the showy clothes, the shining hat and the
beaming boots—a little less showy, a little less shining,
not quite so beaming, perhaps, but none the less paid for
by your money and that man's money and the other
man's money. They don't cost so much, because she
doesn't make so much. She has cheapened with the
liquor at your hand; side by side, the wine and the
woman sink together. “Won't you treat again ?" she
asks. No, you believe you won't; and, more than half
disgusted, you stroll through the galleried, many-lighted
saloon.
This has also changed, in strange analogy to the girl
you have left. There is less gingerbread and more
music_less wine and more beer. The cigar smoke is
more vile and rank. A third of the visitors are coarse,
ill-dressed fellows, with here and there a grimed me-
chanic fresh from his shop. There are rudely-daubed
landscapes and impossible pagodas and preposterous
houris painted upon the walls. There is some melody
left in that poor rouged creature who is bawling a ballad
from the rostrum at the farther end of the saloon, but
the auditors would not listen to her if her dress were cut
less indecently low. The barkeepers are all Germans,
and the proprietor a Teuton of huge girth, who does not

470
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
hesitate to openly and grufily chide the girls for smallness
of sales or other derelictions of “duty.”
They held their heads high at the upper place, but
now, poor things! they tremble at his voice, for, if they
lose their situations here, what must be their lot one step
lower ?
Some years since the daughter of Prince Henry of
Reuss-Griez, a small German principality in the middle
of Germany, became deeply attached to a young sub-
altern who commanded the annual contingent furnished
the army of the king of Prussia. Of course, all thought
of marrying him with the consent of the prince was out
of the question ; but it was arranged that the young lieu-
tenant should resign his position in the army, and together
they would escape to the United States. Embarking at
Antwerp, they came to New York and were married.
But being young and without experience in the ways of
the world, their little means were soon exhausted, and
they found themselves in a strange land, friendless and
in poverty. They were afraid to communicate with any
of their countrymen, lest the circumstances of their flight
should be known and themselves arrested.
Unacquainted with the laws of the United States, and
supposing that the authority of their petty prince was as
potent here as among the grain-fields of their native land,
they sought obscurity and shrunk from their names and
station being emblazoned abroad. At last, pushed to
the extreme of poverty, the husband, who was an excel-
lent musician, obtained a situation in the orchestra at
Niblo's Garden; but learning that inquiries had been

WICKED WOMEN.
471
made by the Prussian consul as to their presence in the
city, he threw up his engagement, and in the summer of
1867 fell a victim to the typhoid fever. His wife, now
left alone and reduced to the extreme of poverty, applied
for and obtained a situation in a beer-saloon in this city,
where she now is.
It is a strange episode in real life, but a true one, and
exhibits, as no moralist could describe, the vicissitudes of
fortune. She is now, perhaps, twenty-five years of age,
small in stature, with an elegant, symmetrical figure and
face decidedly pretty. Her face is shaded with light
brown curls, and her manners and conversation evince
one accustomed to good society. She displays a good
deal of reluctance in talking to strangers, but once inter-
ested in conversation she becomes animated and engaging.
She seems to feel her questionable position very sensibly,
and the slightest allusion to what she was and is now is
sufficient to provoke her to tears.
The gradations in concert-saloon life are so regular
that in the third grade the depression is just about the
same as that existing between the first and last described.
Our beauty of the first chapter is still pretty, but painted
to the temples. She dresses with cheap gaudiness, doesn't
take so much pains with her hair, and the brilliancy in
her eyes is the fever of strong drink. She laughs oftener
than she smiles, and doesn't care if she shows a good bit
of her pretty ankle as she takes her seat. The place
itself is deeper down, much smaller, and the female in-
mates fewer-say four or five. Ten to one, it is divided
off into small compartments, after the manner of the par-

472
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
titions in some restaurants. Twenty to one, you will,
upon reaching the lower step, be half inclined to turn
back and reascend—the loafers sitting or lounging around
within are so repulsive and brutal. You are among the
“ dangerous classes.” The devil yearly flings a hundred
weapons through the metropolis from his headquarters in
East Houston street, and the handle of each is caught
in its flight by one or another of these young rowdies of
the loud shirt-front and long-tailed, short-waisted overcoat
guild. Perhaps our pretty one hath now a black eye or
a cut lip, for rough and ready are these lovers, and with
them it is a caress or a blow, according to the state of
trade.
Perhaps we will find her, after taking our next step, in
one of those “ Evening Star," “Rising Sun,” “ Eldorado”
dens, some of which still burrow on Broadway, east side,
where harem costumes, a wheezing flute, a squalling
singer, and a Dutch murderer of the pianoforte are the
rather equivocal attractions. The women can curse as
loud as the men, and drink spirits with equal freedom
and zest. Almost each of these dens has a tradition of
murder or bloodshed dore within their painted walls.
The "madam” of the place is her own bartender, and
will dispense you vitriolized cider, under the name of
champagne, with as much coolness as she will charge you
a quarter of a dollar for a genuine Havana cigar made out
of Jersey cabbage-leaves.
When we first met our little beauty at the upper round,
with her neat, tidy dress, her blooming, modest face, and
her tiny white hands, we would have given what we could

WICKED WOMEN.
473
afford for a glimpse of her tender ankle and pretty foot;
now we turn away with disgust from the tawdry-jacketed,
loose-pantalooned little piece of coarse brazenry, at whose
skirts the inevitable red, down-dragging Hand has
clutched with bloody fingers and all-certain grip. Jen-
kins, the defaulter, and doting dupe of little Genevieve
Brower, owed his ruin and his prison-death to a den
hardly less vile than one of these, kept by the notorious
Madam Bell; though the upper-ten concert-saloons have
chiefly the honor of bringing down such high game-
down, down, down, and still down!
You can take them step by step, or three at a jump,
and reach the very lowest, with the black ooze of the
final wave coming and retreating, swashing and dripping,
over the slippery slab—the German women-dungeons of
Canal street, West Broadway, Centre, Chatham and Wil-
liam streets, the white-curtained, noisome holes, where the
wretched, one-garmented unfortunates are not even per-
mitted to go above ground lest they might steal that one
garment, which is not their own; the “Sailors' Rests”
and “Good Havens," where Jack not unfrequently ends
his life-voyage by the robber's dagger and the thief's
slung-shot—where women are cats and men are dogs;
where
"The vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head,
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife;
Where chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life!”
And here, too, we may find our “pretty one,” but shrill-
voiced from strychnine, dirty, diseased, filthy, perhaps

474
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
eyeless or toothless from a ruffian-stroke, and still linger-
ing, lingering for a wild moment ere the splash into the
wave that whirls her to the gulf. Verily, the true story
of her young life, word for word, incident by incident,
would be wilder and more desperate than the inventive
pen of Fiction could ever frame.

CHAPTER XLI.
.“ PERSONALS" AND FEMALES.
MHE “Personal” column of the morning paper was
U originally started to afford a means of making
osoites public inquiry for absent friends. But it very
soon came to be abused, and before long served
principally as a means for appointing assignations, and
as a convenient and safe mode of communication for
thieves and blacklegs generally. But the personals re-
veal all sorts of characters, and inquiries of various
descriptions are propounded.
Take a copy of the morning Herald and run your eye
down the personal column. There you will see that
Toby is requested to crack to night at eleven. The dark
lady desires the acquaintance of the blonde gentleman
who rode up town in a Fifth-avenue stage and was eating
peanuts. Andrew O'Rourke wants information about his
long-lost sister Bridget. Mollie Muggins informs us that
she lives at No. — West Twenty-sixth street. Mr. Paul
Piper warns persons not to trust his wife Priscilla Piper,
she having left his bed and board; and Ephraim re-
marks mildly that he considers the Railroad
Company a swindle.
Sometimes matrimonial prizes are advertised for under
the head of “Personals” in the morning paper.
475

476
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
A few months since a girl living in a town in Massa-
chusetts answered one of these advertisements, telling a
pitiful story of abuse at home, inability to earn an honest
living, a board-bill unpaid, and her trunk in pawn and
in the hands of her boarding-house keeper. She wound
up by saying in plain terms, after stating her age, that
her friends considered her good-looking, that she didn't
suppose the advertiser really wanted a wife, but that dis-
satisfaction rendered her not unwilling to be his mistress.
If the advertiser would send her enough money to pay
her board-bill and fare to New York-say twenty dollars
—she would meet him in New York. An investigation
into the affair resulted in finding out that the young girl
was a young man who made it a practice of answering
advertisements in that way.
The sub-post-offices of the city—i. e. the “stations”-
were formerly used by parties of questionable repute,
and by women and young girls generally who were in-
clined to evil ways. Parties were then allowed to have a
box of their own at these offices, or to call for their letters,
when they would be delivered to them. But now the
case is different. Where a letter now is sent to a sub-
post-office, the party calls for it knowing that it will come
there. He is asked his name and address, and in an
hour and a half the letter is delivered at his residence.
Now, it is not likely that a married man engaged in an
intrigue would risk his letters to be sent to his house,
where, likely, they might come under his wife's inspec-
tion. It would be exceedingly dangerous to allow such
explosive missives to enter the domestic domicil, and thus
nan

WICKED WOMEN.
477
much of this nefarious sort of correspondence has been
cut off by the delivery of letters at the residence instead
of the post-office.
At Station “T” it was formerly customary for as
many as a thousand school-misses to call in one week for
letters, and sometimes the silly young things were accom-
panied by their teachers — the women to whose charge
too careless or too trusting parents had entrusted them.
The grand rush was at eight in the morning and four in
the afternoon. Procuresses made it the business of form-
ing the acquaintance of young, susceptible girls on their
way from school. Waylaying them in the cars, they
opened conversation, and gradually led their minds into
the abnormal channels which the reading of sensational
books, the conversation of sickly-sentimental companions
and clandestine correspondence with unprincipled men
inclined them to. In this way many of these vile women
found prey for the men who paid them for their fiendish
work. With their minds filled with morbid ideas of life,
sentiment and passion, young girls, longing for some one
to breathe into their ears the language of passionate love,
were easily entrapped into correspondence. Not a few
besides, who began such correspondence for mere fun, have
become infatuated with their unknown admirers—been
persuaded to grant an interview at some respectable-
looking house—which, alas ! for them was but a whited
sepulchre—and left that house with burning cheeks,
shame-stricken and ruined. Think of a thousand calls
made in one week by school-girls at only one of the
fourteen sub-post-offices of New York!
35

478
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
leans
The new arrangement has broken this up also, for the
children would not dare to have their letters sent home
to their houses, where parents would be almost sure to
get them and discover the guilty course they were enter-
ing on.
If Station “F” was bad, Station “D” was worse-
worse indeed than all the others put together. It was
made the vehicle for the most barefaced swindling. The
reason that Station “D” was selected was simple; it is in
the Bible House. When a party had concocted a nefa-
rious scheme for swindling, they had two methods by
which to reach the desired victims. They could either
get an advertising agent to make a judicious selection of
as many country papers as their means would afford, and
insert in them the projected scheme, or, with the aid of a
post-office directory, they could mail circulars to any
point desirable. The advertisement or circular would
order all letters of application to be addressed to the
fictitious firm at “No. 12 Bible House."
The name Bible House carries with it to unsophisti-
cated country minds an idea of religious respectability.
Country people think that every room in the Bible House
is under the religious control of the Bible Society. They
do noť for a moment dream that the Bible House is a vast
building in which scores of offices are let and occupied
by men who carry on all kinds of enterprises, good, bad
and indifferent, and over which the Bible House people
have no control whatever, as they only occupy a small
portion of the building. The pious name serves as a bait
to the unsuspecting gudgeons, and by it many victims

WICKED WOMEN.
479
are ensnared, for “No. 12 Bible House” is Post-office
Station “D.” The superintendent of this office is of the
opinion that, although they have succeeded in breaking
up this amorous correspondence and destroyed the use
of the office for assignation purposes, they cannot prevent
swindlers from using it as before.
Under the old system of delivery, the time of the
clerks at the different stations was monopolized by the
window delivery, to the detriment of the public service.
It was also liable to all the abuse of a post-office by
callers, better known as repeaters. This monopolized all
their time. The applications for letters were from twenty-
five hundred to thirty-five hundred a day.
The evil of clandestine correspondence, however, is not
yet broken up, and ere long the school-girls will be in as
much danger as they were before.
We were told a curious story by one of the superin-
tendents of the post-office, which illustrates the strange
dénoûements that sometimes happen to hidden guilt. A
gentleman well-to-do in the world, old enough to have
marriageable daughters, became enamored of a lady whom
he accidentally met in a city car. He thought she looked
upon him with an eye that favored future acquaintance.
When he got home he felt twenty years younger. He
sat down and penned a youngster's effusion of love to his
fair unknown Rosalind, and forwarded it to Post-office
Station - In the “ Personals” he informed the lady
who wore a light veil, and who sat next to a gentleman
who wore a white hat, in a Third avenue car, that a letter
was awaiting her at the aforesaid station.

480
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Most likely the light-veiled lady aforesaid never saw
the advertisement, but another young lady who saw it
fancied she was the person meant, and answered it. She
was in the habit of going with schoolmates to this station
for the fun of the thing, and had applied for the letter,
and got it.
Out of this sprang a correspondence which extended
through months, and the English language was ransacked
for expressions to paint the old Lothario's admiration for
his inamorata. No woman in her teens is proof against
flattery, and it was not long before each missive when
received sent through her an indescribable fluttering
thrill of pleasing emotion, making her imagine herself
the happiest woman alive. The worshiper and worshiped
must see each other. After much begging, beseeching
and praying she consented to meet him at the private
dwelling of a lady friend of his. The time and place
were finally settled. After dusk she wended her way to
a questionable portion of the city, picturing in her mind's
eye the appearance of the Adonis who had inspired her
emotional nature with such excitement. With palpitat-
ing heart and trembling hand she pulled the bell. The
door opened, and she was conducted up stairs and shown
to the room in which the unknown friend was waiting
for her.
She entered, and the next moment was clasped tightly
in the arms of her adorer. He raised her veil to press
his lips to hers. “Great Heavens !” — it was his own
niece.
The lady screamed and fainted, and in the excitement

WICKED WOMEN.
481
attending the scene the discovered and disappointed old
sinner picked up his hat and rushed from the house.
A few months ago the following personal advertise-
ment appeared in one of our morning papers :
“ Sweet face at the window.—Will the beautiful young
lady who smiles nearly every morning upon the gent who
rides past her house on the Eighth avenue cars have the
kindness to address a note to 'Admirer, Station E,'
stating when and how an interview may be had ?”
Chancing to know the smitten youth who inserted this
amorous “personal,” we resolved to see what came of it.
He was what is generally termed a quiet man, and the
last person in the world to engage in a flirtation.
The next day he received nine different letters in
answer to this advertisement, showing beyond a doubt
that there was more than one “sweet face at the window"
that smiled on some fortunate passenger or other every
morning, and who undoubtedly imagined that her face
was the one alluded to by this advertiser. Our friend
was in a quandary. At last he decided to appoint a
meeting with all of them at a well-known restaurant,
where, unknown to all but the one he sought, he could
have the opportunity for which he wished.
The evening came, and our friend entered the saloon
and took a position at a table where he could observe all
who entered. As the hour approached quite a number
of ladies came in and took seats at various tables. They
each bore on their “sweet faces” a look of expectancy,
and they placed themselves in good positions to see all
who entered after them. Most of them had passed that

482
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
period of life when woman's charms are most enticing to
men.
Finally, his eye fell upon the object of his search. He
left the table and approached her. The meeting was as
cordial as might have been expected. He led her back
to the table and ordered more refreshments, while the
rest of the fair ones looked on in wonderment. To a few
the truth was plain, but our friend soon sought the open
air with his fair companion, leaving the others to their
fates.
She was really a fine-looking woman, with a good edu-
cation, and a quaint brilliancy of conversation which
would have charmed any man of taste. The hours
glided away to ten o'clock, when she said she must leave
him. He talked to her with all the impassioned fervor
of first love, but she treated all his protestations with the
most delightful nonchalance and gayly laughed them
away. He, however, was sincere and true, and tried to
turn her from her lightness and frivolity to thoughts of
home and marriage, but all to no purpose. Weeks and
months passed away, and she seemed to enjoy the flirta-
tion immensely. At last he awoke from the spell she had
cast so bewitchingly round him, and openly accused her
of trifling with his affections. She denied this with tears
in her eyes, and said she loved him—thus paving the way
for another six months' flirtation.
But there came a time when the mask fell. A gentle-
man, an entire stranger, called upon him one evening.
He was, he said, the husband of the woman, and, as he
was convinced that our friend was acting entirely in the

WICKED WOMEN.
483
dark, had come to make an explanation. Our friend was
thunderstruck. The husband then opened the box and
handed him all the presents he had sent his wife. The
lover was cured. He patronizes another line of cars, and
to this day never allows himself to be led into another
flirtation.
In one of the up-town streets, near Broadway, in a
quiet, modest-looking little stationery store, is the “Per-
sonal Bureau.” It is very convenient to the quarters of
the better class of the demi-monde, who, of course, pat-
ronize it largely. There are crowds of them in there
daily. The manner of conducting the affairs of this
“ Bureau” is very simple. There is a blank book on the
counter; the first few pages are devoted to ladies, who
write down their names and addresses, at the same time
stating the kind of a correspondent they desire. Some
of the descriptions are here transferred, for the benefit of
our readers. Here is a concise announcement:
“Lillie A- ; a good-looking young lady, eighteen
years of age.”
Here is one yet more concise :
“Miss Lillian — ; a beautiful young lady of seven.
teen.”
“Blanche G— ; a very pretty girl, aged twenty;
full of fun. Object in corresponding, fun, and to gratify
a curiosity as to how many gentlemen will be foolish
enough to answer this.”
Here is one of the “ business-like” class:
“Who will correspond with me? My name is Saran,
and I don't care who knows it.
SARAH.”

484
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Concise again:
“Miss Kate B— is anxious to hear from somebody.”
“Lavinia T w ould be happy to receive a note from
any pleasant and reliable gentleman.”
“Miss Whale, a beautiful blonde, would like to hear
from one who had a will of his own."
“Miss H— would like to correspond with some kind,
good-natured gentleman, who would be willing to devote
some of his spare time to her company."
Here is one which must really be "in fun:"
“Miss Lavinia , fifteen years of age, a beautiful
brunette; she likes an old man, blind preferred; must
have good teeth and money."
Here is an honest young woman:
“Miss C. B— I am not good-looking, nor yet very
smart; gray eyes, flat nose, red hair, large mouth, but
very loving disposition.”
How many young men will feel that the “loving dis-
position” counterbalances all the other defects in beauty ?
Possibly the number will be 0.
Here is a singular young woman. Is she really in
search of knowledge, or what?-
“Miss Nettie H— would like a few gentlemen cor-
respondents, who would make it an important point to
send in each letter some useful information regarding
ways, manners, customs, etc. Fun and amusement espe-
cially requisite.”
Ah! those “ways and manners," what are they?
Of what country? I pause: I do not know—who
does ?
mal

martil
THE
Guin
TELLON
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.-THE LODGING-HOUSE.


WICKED WOMEN.
485
Here is the way the excessively “nice” young lady
announces herself:
“Miss Annie B , a young lady of high family
(fourth-floorer), probably highly accomplished and of a
sweet temper, desires to exchange cartes de visite with a
nice' gentleman.”
Here is the way the desperate young woman puts it:
“Rose L- , eighteen years of age; very homely;
haven't a friend in the world. Will some one console me?”!
We suppose so.
But we have done justice to the ladies (even if they
can't vote). Let us see how the gentlemen do the thing.
The modest man appears in the shape of
“James P- , a very homely gentleman, of thirty-
five, wishes to correspond with a blue-eyed, light-haired
young lady. Must be tall, not younger than twenty-five
nor more than forty. A homely person preferred to a
beauty. Must be stylish. Grass widow preferred.”
But come to think, is he not joking ? The idea of want-
ing a homely person, who must be “stylish !” About as
absurd as would be the sight of a young Quakeress aping
the manners of a Fifth-avenue belle.
The “soft” young man writes in this fashion :
“Edwin” would like to correspond with an amiable
young lady, not over twenty years of age, who could ap-
preciate a loving and a constant heart, which has never
been struck by Cupid's dart.”
The vain young man appears in the shape of
“S. J. A- , a handsome young man, but full of
fun."

486
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The young man who attempts to be smart, but ends in
being ridiculous, writes :
“ Gustavus B- is a dancer, skater, swimmer, etc.;
not good-looking nor graceful.”
Here we have the young man who wants to create a
man
except a laugh:
“T. C. M- , fine-looking, full of fun, with all the
necessary qualities for a lady's man.”
The young man who goes to the theatres and gets
“rather spooney” indites the following on the “ Personal”
book:
“Romeo wants to find 'one whose beauty hangs upon
the cheek of night like a rich jewel' in a - nigger's
ear.”
To wind up, the witty young man writes:
“G. A— , age twenty-three; not wealthy, but healthy;
not handsome, but real good.”
This “Personal” Bureau is of great use to a certain
class of people of the metropolis—more particularly the
classes known as the demi-monde, the fast men and the
women who are inclined to a rapid life. All these classes of
people need some place, other than their residences, where
letters can be directed to assumed names, especially as the
Post-office Department does not allow letters to be directed
to the stations to be called for.

CHAPTER XLII.
MATRIMONIAL BROKERS.
e
1
AT is found that there are a certain number of people
31 in the world who are unable to contract a matri-
monial alliance after the ordinary fashion. There
are men who cannot summon up enough courage
to ask the all-important question of the fair one they
adore from afar off, and there are women to whom, for
a variety of reasons beside the one just named, the ques-
tion is never “popped.” Matrimonial Bureaus—or, to
speak plainer and more properly, matrimonial brokerage
offices—were originally established for this class of indi-
viduals. To the bashful bachelor, fresh from the country,
who desired a wife, but yet could not make so bold as
to openly make love to any female, these Bureaus were a
great boon; and to the match-making mamma, with
daughters on her hands whom she desired to foist on
the market, they were a special providence.
But the Matrimonial Bureaus, though they may have
been started with the honest intention of benefiting per-
sons of both sexes who are naturally backward and bash-
ful in each other's society, did not long remain true to
that character. From helping bachelors and maidens,
they came to harm them, their object being finally to
487

488
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
unite persons together, either of whom possessed great
wealth (without regard to the “affinities”), and get a
large percentage for their trouble.
These Bureaus are advertised in the daily and weekly
papers, the same as nearly every other business in New
York. In the winter but very little business is done,
cold weather apparently not being conducive to love; but
in the spring-time, when the birds twitter on the leafy
boughs, and the rivulets begin to run, and the grass grows
green, and the flowers bloom, Cupid seems to come forth
from his hiding-place, and the matrimonial market, to
use a mercantile phrase, is “firm, with a steady demand.”
Some of the advertisements of Matrimonial Bureaus in
the daily papers read as follows:
“Married Life.—Ladies and gentlemen desiring to
form a matrimonial alliance will do well to consult with
the undersigned. He would respectfully inform the pub-
lic that he has had special facilities in his profession
during the past few years, and has been the means of
bringing together many persons who have been happily
united in marriage. Terms reasonable. All communi-
cations strictly confidential.
“ C. UPID,
“No. — Broadway.”
“Wedded Bliss. It is a fact, which is well known by
all, that there is nothing so conducive to happiness in
life as a proper matrimonial alliance. Persons who con-
template matrimony will avoid making any mistake by
addressing
“OSCAR BOODLES,
“No. — Bleecker street."

WICKED WOMEN.
489
A third advertisement is more business-like than either
of the preceding :
“ John Jameson & Co., Matrimonial Brokers, inform
the public that they have lately established an office at
No. — University Place. Persons desirous of forming
happy matrimonial alliances would do well to consult
them. All business promptly attended to and considered
strictly confidential.”
Strange to say, the great majority of persons are at-
tracted by these advertisements. And yet it is not very
strange when we think what the great majority of persons
really are-remembering Carlyle's saying that “the popu-
lation of England is eighteen millions, mostly fools.”
There are hundreds who patronize the brokers, who come
to them on the sly, who make an engagement and get
married, and no one ever knows how they came to enter
the happy state but themselves and their matrimonial
agents.
The brokers find few patrons of their establishments
in the cities. In New York there are always enough
match-making mammas or intriguing women whose sole
and only ambition is to bring couples together who will
marry each other. Such persons practice matrimonial
brokerage for pure love, and seem to have natural powers
which befit them for their occupation. It is those who
live in the country who find the greatest use for the
Matrimonial Bureau. The charms of city life with all
its gayety and varied means of “killing” time are suffi-
cient for the single man of the city, but the bucolic
bachelor grows lonesome as he sits by the cheerless fire

490
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
on cold winter nights listening to the howling winds, the
hail and rain beating against the window-pane, and wishes
for a fair companion who will share his life and bring
with her social cheer and good sense to the household.
Let us suppose that Mr. Arthur Spruggins, of Ulster
county, is a bachelor. He is forty years of age, not very
crusty, but rather cynical, and yet craves the society of a
wife. He has money—is worth twenty thousand dollars.
He likes female society, and finds pleasure in the social
circle; that is, in the society of the best females who
have arrived at years which may truly be called discreet.
He feels a strong desire to enter into a matrimonial
alliance. But Spruggins is bashful. If there were any.
possible means by which he could be united to a woman
without going through a courtship himself, he would
marry her in a moment. He favors the woman's rights
movement so far as those ladies advocate that women
should have the right to court as well as men. On
reading the papers he reads the advertisement of Mr.
Smithers, the noted matrimonial broker. Spruggins
comes to New York and calls on Smithers. Smithers is
glad to see Spruggins, and Spruggins is equally glad to
see Smithers. Spruggins wants a wife the very worst
way, and Smithers is very much in need of money.
Spruggins inquires if there are any ladies on the books
who would be likely to suit him, and Smithers imme-
diately remarks, after a scratching of his head, some
careful thought and a looking into vacancy, that he has
just the woman in his mind's eye who will suit Sprug-
gins—Miss Carrie Carbuncle, an estimable lady, at present

WICKED WOMEN.
491
residing in Newark. A note is at once despatched to
Miss Carbuncle, and forthwith, at the appointed day, she
appears at the matrimonial office. There she encounters
Spruggins, who is quite satisfied with her appearance.
She is not good-looking, but fair; not very old or very
young; apparently a sensible, home-like woman, who, to
all appearances could fulfill the requirements of a wife as
expressed in the old rhyme:
“Make a pudding, darn a stocking;
At the same time keep a cradle rocking.”
After spending a week going about the city in each
other's society, Mr. Spruggins and Miss Carbuncle decide
that they will unite, and travel the rugged journey of life
together. Spruggins is happy; so is Smithers when he
receives a hundred-dollar note for his trouble in effecting
the engagement; and Miss Carbuncle is quite as joyous
as any one, feeling that she has a home for life and a
good husband to take care of and provide for her.
Spendthrifts, who have squandered their fortunes and
need a dowry to replace them, can sometimes read in the
metropolitan papers an advertisement of a handsome,
modest and amiable young lady, with an income of ten
thousand dollars a year. They hasten to write, and two
days after receive a response; and, with a hand trembling
with emotion, they open this Cupid's missive, which says
that such business cannot be done by correspondence, and
begs them to call at his “Bureau," assuring them that,
theirs being the first communication, they will have the
preference. They imagine the fortune already theirs.
36

492
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
room
The bureau is generally situated in a very fine house.
A valet in livery introduces you into a magnificent
saloon, ornamented with exquisite taste, from whose open
doors you perceive a succession of rich apartments. Here
Cupid reigns supreme. All the paintings, statuettes and
books are devoted to this god. Two pretty children
(hired, without doubt) are playing in the room. After
being kept waiting a short time, the broker appears and
excuses himself upon the plea of business for making
you wait; after which he rings, and with an insinuating
smile begs to offer you a glass of wine. When the same
valet appears he expresses his astonishment at seeing him
perform this service, and demands with an angry air,
Where is James, John, Peter? He answers without hesi-
tation-one has gone to the bank, another to the opera to
engage a seat for madam, and a third for the affair of
Mr. - This deception is intended to make an im-
pression. The valet is the only servant of the establish-
ment, and is even the father of the children in the saloon.
This is only the prologue: now the comedy commences.
“Sir, I have had the honor of addressing you in answer
to the advertisement. When can I be presented to this
lady? You are without profession? Yes—she is honor-
able, then? Your antecedents? You shall be informed
of them.” The conversation continues thus, in order that
the broker may form an idea of the degree of intelligence
of his victim, and what precautions to take to prevent
compromising himself. I shall expect only five per cent.
upon the dowry. Very well. Payable when you receive
it. Admirable! But before going farther the broker

WICKED WOMEN.
493
demands the fees of the “Bureau” for expenses incurred
in making inquiries, etc., which vary according to the
credulity of the visitor and the amount of the dowry.
He asks eighty dollars, adding that, with twenty more,
you will have the right of choosing for six months from
all the ladies in his establishment. Such a tempting offer
could not be resisted, so the applicant gives the hundred
dollars. In exchange for his money he receives a receipt,
with the terms of the agreement, for which he must pay
two dollars extra.
He waits with impatience the moment of the first inter-
view. At last the broker presents him. The lady is
escorted by her aunt. They are mutually pleased, and,
after a short interchange of compliments, they leave the
room. He wishes to escort them to their carriage. This
the broker prevents, as they belong to the establishment,
being hired for a dollar per day, and the elegant dresses
and articles of the toilet necessary for their transforma-
tion (for they are blondes or brunettes, according to the
taste of the dupe) are furnished by the broker. He in-
sinuates softly that it is a good idea to invite them to
breakfast at his house, for at table they can converse
freely, and after that you will be invited to visit them.
For this breakfast of four persons he asks twelve dollars,
which is nothing, as he has the wines, of which he makes
no account with friends.
At breakfast the table is supplied with large joints of
cold meats and a splendid turkey, of which the ladies
refuse to partake the slightest morsel; and for two rea-
sons—first, that a wife who eats little is an advantage;

494
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and, secondly, that this same repast will serve for other
victims. Upon some pretext the ladies leave the table, as
they recollect an engagement at their banker's, etc. The
broker softly informs him that he must send to his native
place to make inquiries about him, and requests him to
call the next day and arrange this matter, which he ac-
cordingly does, and there meets accidentally the lady and
her aunt.
A clerk is called, who is to make the necessary inqui-
ries. The applicant must pay the expenses of the journey,
which will amount to twenty-five dollars. He hesitates.
The aunt, very naturally, declares that she will pay one-
half, and, to set the example, draws out an elegant silk
purse, which she says is the work of her niece. He
admires it; she offers it to him; he accepts, and, as it is
necessary to strike while the iron is hot, the clerk leaves
immediately. During the clerk's absence the applicant
again visits the agency, but does not meet the ladies. The
broker reminds him of the gift of the purse, and, wishing
to make a return, he responds to the reminder in the gift
of a brilliant worth fifty dollars.
The clerk (who has not left the city) has been taken
suddenly ill on his journey, which lasts four days and
costs sixteen dollars. Finally, the applicant becomes im-
patient, but the broker informs him, with an air of the
deepest grief, that he must consider himself very fortu-
nate; that his vigilance has saved him from the great
misfortune which menaced him; that he has just learned
that the father of the young girl is a condemned felon-
that she is unworthy of him. He leaves, congratulating

WICKED WOMEN.
495
himself upon his escape. The trick is played, leaving
room for another.
It is sometimes the case that men with mistresses, with
whom they have agreed to live for a certain length of
time, become tired of them before the expiration of the
period, and desire a matrimonial broker to dispose of
them. Very high fees are paid for services of this cha-
racter. The broker receives five hundred dollars, and
sometimes even a larger sum for his trouble. The women
become the bona-fide wives of some men, ignorant of their
former position. Sometimes they make very poor wives,
but, on the whole, they are a great deal better than the
average.
The prices for matrimonial brokerage vary. The best
brokers charge one hundred to two hundred and fifty
dollars. Some of the profession only charge fifty dollars,
and a few out-of-the-way sort not more than twenty-five
dollars. Services of this character, like services of almost
every other character in the world, can be performed for
a low or a high figure, whichever the party chooses to
pay.
Matrimonial brokers are nearly all of them dishonest
and unprincipled. Their only object in pursuing their
calling is to make money. Consequently, they twist facts
and tell falsehoods wherever it is to their advantage.
They affect to be very genteel, high-principled, with fine
feelings and a delicate sense of honor, but the fact is
otherwise. Women are engaged in the business, and
generally succeed better than the men, being greater
adepts at deception.

496
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The business of matrimonial brokerage is rapidly be-
coming less and less in New York, or rather its character
is changing. To get a wife from these professionals too
often means to get a mistress, and the Bureaus are often
used as places for assignations.
This modern reform, like too many reforms which have
come into vogue of late years, thus seems to be of little
benefit, and to work harm rather than good. There
appears to be no easy or royal road to marriage; and an
orthodox courtship, with all its concomitants of moon-
light and starlight walks, its tender romance and passion-
ate poetry, seems to be the only true, honest and proper
way to win a wife.

CHAPTER XLIII.
FEMALE “HELP" IN NEW YORK.
CAN the good old times, which, after all, may not
11 have been so good as they are represented to be,
a servant-girl was called a “servant.” But with
the advancing tide of civilization servants objected.
to being called servant, and so their employers and every
one else now-a-days call them “domestics” or “female
help.” These are the names by which they go in the
household, and agencies for the hiring-out of servants
are called “help” and “domestic” agencies.
The female help of New York forms a very large and
important element in the female life of the great city.
Not only in point of numbers is this the fact, but also in
point of influence and in regard to the peculiar relatious
they often stand to heads of the household. Did domes-
tics choose, they could tell many a tale which, though it
might not freeze the blood of youth, would astonish all.
Let us trace the progress of a female domestic, begin-
ning with her arrival in New York.
On the arrival of an emigrant vessel at quarantine it
is boarded by an officer of the Emigrant Commissioners,
who ascertains the number of passengers, the deaths
which have taken place, etc., and is relieved by an officer
497

498
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
of the Metropolitan Police force after the vessel has been
anchored off the Battery.
The landing-agent here takes the ship's passengers in
charge, and accompanied by an Inspector of Customs, he
examines everything, and the emigrants are finally landed
on the morning following their arrival at Castle Garden.
The moment the poor creatures get permission to go
ashore, such a rush and such a shout of joy goes up as
only human beings can give vent to after a long confine-
ment between the decks of a crowded, often pestilential,
and always unhealthy, ship.
· The arrivals of emigrant vessels average three per day
the whole year round, and these come principally from
Queenstown, Ireland; Liverpool, England; and the vari-
ous ports of Germany. Nearly every country in the Old
World sends its representatives to the shores of New
York.
The female emigrants from England, Ireland and from
some parts of Germany generally stay in New York,
either in the city or its neighborhood, or go East to the
various manufacturing cities and villages, being used to
and preferring such employment as they afford, rather
than to take their chances in the wild West.
A great deal of swindling and sharp practice is employed
by certain sharpers around Castle Garden on the emi-
grants. Some of the yarns of these heartless vultures
would be of interest, but space will not permit us to give
them.
A very large proportion of the women remain in New
York, intending to obtain situations as nurses, domestics,

TWICKED WOMEN.
499
cooks, etc., in families. These women go to some one of
the numerous intelligence-offices of the city, and after
waiting there for many days possibly secure places, or
they may advertise in the Herald and obtain situations
in that way. Then follow years of work in their calling.
Some are never anything but servants, but the majority
get married and become “domestic” in a very different
sense.
Many of the employment-offices are really deserving
institutions, which supply a legitimate demand; but not
a few are mere pretences, not only upon the general
public, but particularly upon that portion of it which
can least afford to be swindled, but which most deserves
our sympathy. There are a variety of intelligence-offices
which, in many cases, deserve severe censure. They
advertise or profess to furnish mothers who are unable
to nurse their own children with persons who are fully
competent to perform that function in their own stead.
In this view, they are persons of the utmost importance
to the domestic history of hundreds, nay, thousands, of
families annually, as a large percentage of American
mothers are unable or unwilling to nurse their own off-
spring. The age of an infant of course determines the
age of the nutriment or milk which should be supplied
to it by its wet-nurse or foster-mother; and it can readily
be conceived that if the ages of the two differ materially,
the most dangerous consequences to the health of the
infant will eventually ensue—nay, further, that the very
life of the babe may be endangered.
Notwithstanding this fact, the keepers of the agencies

500
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
of which we write do not hesitate to sacrifice deliberately
and willfully the good of the child to their own conve-
nience or pecuniary interests. From the very circum-
stances of the case, the mother or her representative is
compelled to state in advance to the keeper of the agency
the age of her child; and in at least five cases out of ten
all that the keeper does is simply to introduce to the
mother (after a day's delay for the sake of appearances)
a woman whose nutriment, she avers and is willing to
swear, is precisely the very age desired, though in reality
it may be six months younger or six months older than is
required.
The position of servant or domestic has its adyantages
from a kleptomaniac point of view, and is not unfre-
quently desired on that account by the professed thief.
Thus, it is oftentimes essential for one burglar to have a
more thorough knowledge of the interior of some man-
sion which he intends to “crack” than he can procure
in propriâ personâ, with all his skill or vigilance. In
that case he resorts to a pal or female accomplice, or lady
friend in the business, arranges with her to enter that
house as a servant which he intends to enter soon quietly
as a burglar. A woman known as Mary Ann Smith,
with various other aliases, has been known to have been
in this way accessory to at least three up-town burglaries ;
while another and a younger person, called “ Bully
Jennie,” has been instrumental in similar undertakings.
The latter person generally has “a follower," who comes
to see her on Sunday nights, and during the week occa-
sionally--the said follower being, of course, none other

WICKED WOMEN.
501
Women
Own
than a burglar in disguise. There are also not a few
women who are thieves entirely on their own account
and who find it to their interest to accomplish their little
plans under the pretence of domestic service.
Employment agencies, especially those which are for
the avowed benefit of females, are not only debased into
vehicles of dishonesty, but are likewise used as the instru-
ment to aid in the carrying out of still deeper villainy.
The women who are to be found in these establishments
waiting employment are oftentimes sent not only to ser-
vice, but to sin.
Vice has its army of patrons, and must consequently
have its army of victims; and as the latter rapidly pass
away, others must be found to supply their places. It is
fashionable, too, among men of pleasure to affect the
ber of such women weekly come to our large cities in
search of work, and consequently fall into the embrace
of the intelligence-offices, it is evident that these intelli-
gence-offices could readily be rendered available for illicit
purposes, and they are.
Out of one hundred and sixty-two women-of-the-town
recently interrogated by a physician who is collecting
material for a work on city life, considered in its medical
aspects, seventeen were found to owe their ruin to the
facilities which are offered to vice by so-called intelligence-
offices.
Sometimes the keeper of a house of ill-repute is in
collusion with keepers of intelligence-offices, the latter
agreeing for a certain sum to apprise the former of every

502
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
woman of any degree of beauty who applies for his
professional services.
In other cases, the keeper of a fashionable temple of in-
iquity employs a female as her agent to visit the various
employment-offices and select the most available victims.
These agents pretend to be very respectable people, and
while “on duty” look the beau-ideal of orthodox people,
and engage a poor girl in so gracious and good a manner
that she goes to slaughter as unconsciously as a lamb.
Sometimes the intelligence-office keeper is aware of the
real character of this fiend in human shape; sometimes
he is not aware; but in no case does he ever trouble him-
self to penetrate beyond outside appearances. If the
employee is satisfied and her employer, he pockets his
fee and asks no questions. Why should he ? Sometimes
the decoyed domestic is drugged or forced into iniquity,
but these cases are comparatively rare, and for the most
part the active sinners in these transactions trust to time
and evil example to lead their victim into evil—and trust
rightly.
Another trick in trade is not infrequently played in
this wise: A courtezan in the interest of some house will
herself adopt the rôle of a domestic seeking employment,
and in this capacity visits an intelligence-office, renders
herself intimately acquainted with the antecedents and
availabilities of her associates, and thus secures the pick
of the establishment.
The mistress of a fashionable establishment herself will
sometimes act as her own agent in this work. Thus
Madam M— is said, in her earlier days, not to have
are
ral

WICKED WOMEN.
503
Own a
altogether overlooked this source of information in her
peculiar line, though in justice to her it must be said that
she has always proved a kind mistress and a liberal-
minded boarding-house keeper.
It is very startling, strange and terrible, but neverthe-
less a fact, that several of the wealthy men of New York
have, on their own account, an understanding with cer-
tain parties in the intelligence-office business; the latter
inform them promptly whenever any applicant more than
ordinarily attractive presents herself, and the former rush
immediately to the office and apply for a housekeeper,
etc., and of course pay a liberal fee.
In addition to the darker sides of the picture, there are
multitudinous and small devices without number in con-
nection with the employment-offices; yet even their little
dodges are not destitute of ingenuity and invention. It
must take some amount of thought, of suggestive faculty
and of executive smartness, all combined, to carry these
petty swindling schemes into active and successful opera-
tion. One of the dodges most extensively practiced all
the time is that of cutting out advertisements from the
daily papers—advertisements for all manner of female
help. The man who does this opens an office, and then
advertises that he has situations open for each and every
one of these classes. The poor out of employment, ever
eager to catch at the first chance presented them for a
situation, greedily swallow the bait, and crowds of them
flock to the place through every business-hour of the day.
They make their applications for cookships, or what not.
When one of the cut-out advertisements, pasted on a

504
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
piece of white paper, is handed them, they are asked a
fee of three dollars, and told to go to that address. Of
course, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they find
“the place is engaged.” Some of the more energetic
come back and make trouble, but even the most persist-
ent are generally got rid of at last. Many even are
induced to take a second chance in the same lottery.
Then there are the employers who are in league with the
intelligence-offices. Some of these live in showy houses,
in quite respectable neighborhoods. "A superior class of
“girl” is sent to them for manipulation. There being no
law compelling any term of notice between employer and
servant, the modus operandi is this: The girl takes up
the usual advertisement, or more usually a written recom-
· mendation, is engaged, and in less than twenty-four hours
is provoked into a hasty quarrel and ejected. She goes
back for redress, but is told there is no help for her—it
must have been her own temper; but the office will try
and find her another place-of course, for another fee.
Furthermore, there are girls who are in with offices
where the employers instead of the help pay fees for
being suited. To an office of this kind comes a farmer, we
will say, from some neighboring town or village, and he
pays his fee and off he goes to the car or steamboat with
his supposed domestic prize. They get to the depôt or
the pier; the bell is ringing; there is bustle, confusion
and excitement; the farmer leaps on board, thinking that
Mary Jane or Bridget is following, but before he knows
what he is about, he is whisking or paddling rapidly
away, leaving that innocent young female behind. She

WICKED WOMEN.
505
only waits long enough to keep up a show of disappoint-
ment at that catastrophe, and then hurries back to the
office to get her agreed-upon percentage. And most
probably the old fellow will be fooled again the same way
the next time he comes to the city.
Such are some of the ins and outs, the mysteries and the
unknown things, connected with the female helps of New
York. Physically, they are a hardy, muscular set of
women, able and generally ready to work; intellectually,
they are unlearned and illiterate, following their instincts,
good or bad, as they may happen to be, and caring naught
for the cultivation of their minds; and morally they are
the same as the females of any other profession or busi-
ness—no better and no worse. There be those among
them who are fit for crimes of the deepest dye, and who
for money would commit almost any crime in the calen-
dar, even murder, which fact the newspapers of the city
frequently testify to. And, then, on the other hand,
there be those among them who have sweet natures and
hearts attuned to kindness. Beside sick beds they will
wait and watch, and when death draws near to their
friend or employer, speak of the sweet comfort of religion,
and prove that those in the so-called lower walks of life
can have high thoughts, noble and religious aspirations
as well as others whom Fate has dealt with better so far
as worldly prosperity is concerned.

CHAPTER XLIV.
BALLET-GIRLS IN NEW YORK.
AHERE are in New York city, exclusive of premiers
U and leaders, about five hundred ballet-girls or cory-
des phées, holding only second-rate places, and whose
pay ranges from seven to fifteen dollars per week.
Of this number, about two hundred are regularly en-
gaged in some daily occupation, and, as a general thing,
are the lowest salaried, as by reason of their occupations
they are unable to devote as much of their time to the
profession as a larger salary demands; and, in fact, if a
ballet can be completed without their aid, they are gener-
ally left out in the cold—their services being only in de-
mand when “fillers-in” for a large ballet are required.
Of this number, five hundred (about one-half) are em-
ployed at intervals during the year, the greater part
being engaged at Wallack's, Niblo's and the Olympic
theatres, while a few of them fill engagements in other
cities; for New York is the great distributing bureau of
the country for this class of artists, and from her large
number completes at short notice, for any theatre ordering
it, a ballet of any size.
The life that most of these girls lead is truly a hard
one, and to get at the average length of their days would
506

DEI
PRACTISING FOR THE BALLET,


FEMALE ARTISTES.
507
puzzle the most astute actuary. Taken when they are
quite young, with their bones hardly firm enough to sup-
port their bodies, they are worked from three to five
hours daily in a manner that would exhaust a Broadway
belle in half an hour; yet these poor little creatures,
either from ambition or by threats, are kept exercising
incessantly until they have arrived at a degree of Terpsi-
chorean perfection that fits them for managerial inspec-
tion. It is probably supposed by many that an engage-
ment once effected the life of the coryphée becomes one
of comparative ease, but such is not the case. From six
weeks to two months before a ballet is to be produced
they have to rehearse day and night, and this rehearsal
does not consist alone in dancing, but in a series of the
most violent gymnastics. Legs, arms and bodies have to
be limbered; a certain height has to be kicked, and, to
insure against failure, a coryphée must stand supported
by one arm and throw her feet in the air until the height
desired can be obtained with comparative ease. . The arms
have then to be moved backward and forward until their
motion becomes almost mechanical; the knees have to be
limbered and the bodies bent until they become so elastic
that one might almost doubt if they possessed any bones
in them. Their memories also have to be taxed to their
utmost, that they may, with the certainty of clock-work,
go through the multiplicity of figures necessary to the
dance. The most of this, however, becomes an easy
matter where girls have been taken at a very early age;
but, as is often the case, when grown-up girls conceive a
desire to go upon the stage as dancers, the labor and time

508
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
it requires to educate them up to the proper standard are
enormous. There are in New York two or three schools
for this purpose; and in many cases, where the pupil is not
able to pay the expenses of tuition, she is, if the teacher
thinks her a profitable investment, educated by him and
by him brought out, he taking, after an engagement has
been effected for her, a certain percentage of the wages
until he has been fully reimbursed for his time and
trouble.
With one or two exceptions, managers make the cory-
phées furnish their own tights and shoes—the former cost-
ing from fifteen to twenty dollars, and the latter from one
dollar and fifty cents to seven and twelve dollars. It is,
however, but fair to add that, when necessary, the money
is always advanced to them to make the purchases, the
amount being retained on pay day from their salaries.
There are many people in the world who look upon the
coryphées of our different theatres as so many fast girls,
and who disbelieve that virtue could exist in a girl whose
trade, as they sneeringly call it, is that of the ballet-
dancer. If these persons would take the trouble to learn
before they condemn they would find out their mistake,
and see how utterly unjust they had been toward a neces-
sary class of whom they know nothing. Some of these
girls may not be what they ought, but there are many
good and pure girls to be found in the ranks of the cory-
phées—many whose hearts throb with warm and gen-
erous impulses that would grace any society; girls who,
by talent and force of circumstances, have been driven to
dance for a living, but whose every penny is honestly

FEMALE ARTISTES.
509
vous
earned and mercifully and charitably bestowed for the
support of aged and helpless relatives.
True, many of these girls might find other occupation,
but it would not be so remunerative, and certainly they
have a right to follow that calling which suits them best.
Ballet-girls, as a general thing, especially those who do
not reside with their relatives, are very clannish, and
generally live in sets of six, ten or a dozen together.
They also have their partiality for streets, Bleecker and
Houston streets being their choice, probably from the
fact that board is cheaper there than in other localities.
Many of these girls live on the European plan-more
perhaps for the convenience of the style than its cheap-
ness; and, until recently, a certain hotel on Broadway,
near Bleecker street, was their great rendezvous. It was
here that the famous “Black Crook” ballet resorted after
the fatigues of the night to refresh themselves, and they
would sit here quietly eating and drinking until the small
hours of the morning, when they would separate for their
lodgings in the above-mentioned streets.
It was a curiosity to watch this bevy of blondes taking
their late supper, sometimes accompanied by male friends
and sometimes alone; and many an anxious father, who
has lain awake to hear the click of his son's night-key in
the latch, had he happened to have passed that hotel and
glanced into the restaurant could have satisfied himself
as to what sort of a debating-club it was that detained
Master Charles until such unseemly hours of the morning.
These girls mostly resided in Bleecker street, the —
House and one or two others near it being filled with
a
a

510
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
them; and to their credit be it said they were as quiet
and orderly as could be desired. People often wonder,
and the question is often asked, what has become of the
girls that composed this immense troupe ? Have they all
returned to England ? Not so. Many of them yet re-
main, and appear nightly on some metropolitan stage. If
they are not recognized, it is because a love of change or
some other circumstance has induced them to alter the
color of their hair; but certain it is many of them stili
remain in New York; and Niblo's Garden, only a short
time since, nightly produced to the admiring gaze of its
patrons quite a respectable number of the blonde British-
ers who first inducted the metropolitans into the myste-
ries of the “demon dance” and its accessories. Many of
these girls are also residing in other cities of the Union.
The “Gayeties” of Chicago have enticed a large number
there, Philadelphia has offered attractions to which many
have flown, New Orleans has become the home of some,
and four or five have married and left the stage, and some
have returned to Old England, and we may not look upon
their like again.
To the close observer there is a marked difference in
the coryphées of the different countries. The thorough-
bred American coryphée is as different from the English,
German or French importation as can well be imagined,
and then again there is a vast difference between these
nationalities.
The American, as a general thing, is better formed and
needs less of the artificial to make her presentable. She
is also more dainty, and though rarely aspiring to the

FEMALE ARTISTES.
511
CON
position of “première,” her natural grace and elegance
combined, together with her ambition to succeed and her
aptness for the profession, render her in the estimation
of competent judges the true artiste. The fact that
American girls are rarely brought out as "" premières” is a
verification of the old adage, “A prophet is not without
honor, save in his own country.” Some of these girls
have gone to Europe and created a sensation, have been
heralded in flaming three-sheet posters as the great
American danseuse, and that too at a time when New
York was going crazy over the new arrivals of trans-
Atlantic blondes.
Some of our best actresses commenced their career as
ballet-girls, and one or two of our favorite lyric artists
commenced in the same way. The number of American
ballet-girls, compared with other countries, is very small;
but the exact reason why is not known, unless it be from
the fact that they are more modest or that there are fewer
of them who are entirely dependent upon their own labor
for support; or probably it is owing to the fact that the
same attention, until recently, has not been given to the
ballet in this country that was paid to it in Europe.
Certainly, as regards the chastity of the ballet, Ameri-
can girls stand first in the list. In regard to première
dancers, the same may be said of England, English girls
generally being content to remain in the ranks as cory-
phées; nor have they the ability, as a class, to rise higher.
The applause that an English dancer elicits is not so
much on account of her fine execution; it is excited
more by her abandon and the wanton manner in which

512
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
she exhibits her charms. It is physical; it may be nat-
ural or artificial means have been resorted to for the pur-
pose of adding voluptuousness to her form. English
girls are too heavy; they have no grace, and either pos-
sess or assume a stolid indifference to the business in
hand; they are content if they go through the figures of
the dance without a mistake, and so escape the curses of
the “maître de ballet.” They have neither the ambition
nor the aptitude of the American girl, and hence remain
coryphées till they leave the stage.
The Italian and French women are the most artistic
dancers, though they have some powerful rivals in the
Spanish and German women. The Italians have paid
more attention to the ballet than any other nation, and
consequently have brought it nearer to perfection. In
this country one rarely sees an Italian girl in the ranks ;
they are either premières or leaders, and though they
generally lack that fine physical development to be found
in the dancers of other countries, their grace and consum-
mate skill render them favorites. The French dancer is
all life and vivacity, and bursts upon you with a dash
and esprit du corps that is electrical. She takes you by
storm, and there is no resisting her. She needs your
applause and you cannot refuse it. She may make a
false step, may dance out of time; you cannot hiss her.
She knows the way to your heart; she has caught your
eye and smiles, and the “pray, forgive me” look she
casts, as she redoubles her efforts to redeem herself, wins
your sympathy, and you applaud to the echo what you
would condemn in another. French women have done

FEMALE ARTISTES.
513
much to bring ballet-dancing to perfection; but their
peculiar ideas of morality have brought upon its devotees
the bitterest anathemas of all pseudo-moralists.
German women generally make good dancers, and, as
a class, are well-formed, and their powers of endurance
enable them to acquire that practical knowledge which
hard and long training alone can give, and which women
of more delicate constitutions cannot stand. The German
girl is rarely a brilliant dancer, but she is a perfect one,
and the few German premières who have appeared upon
our metropolitan boards have met with a success that
must be gratifying to them, insomuch as it is proof posi-
tive that their efforts to please were not in vain.
Spanish girls are beautiful, easy and graceful dancers,
though the stage in this country is rarely graced with
their presence. They combine in an extraordinary de-
gree the mercurial disposition of the French women with
the litheness and easy grace of the Italian, though very
critical judges will tell you that the movements of the
Spanish woman, more especially in walking, are essentially
her own. There is a graceful elasticity in her motions
that seems more natural than acquired; and the old say-
ing, “Spanish women do not walk, but float through the
air," is brought vividly to mind when watching the ele-
gant action of a Spanish première danseuse. What the
special attractions for becoming a coryphée are, outside
of the fact that it furnishes occupation and fair wages, is
a puzzle that none save those who enter the profession can
solve. They all have their reasons, however, and no two
are alike.

514
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Of late years girls from almost every walk in life have
entered the ballet. One of the handsomest and most
attractive coryphées at Niblo's Garden last season was
formerly a chambermaid, and another who took a most
prominent part had but lately quit the circus ring, and
the ballet at Tammany boasted of seyeral ex-members of
the sawdust profession. Of the pretty waiter-girls that
formerly added to the attractions of the Broadway saloons,
probably one-third are now ballet-girls. The stage fever
raged terribly when the ballet mania first broke out
among the New Yorkers, and many girls, who were then
getting five to eight dollars weekly for shop-work of
various kinds, let needle, press and machine go, and with
all the ardor of youth fung themselves upon the stage,
many of them with well-based claims (physically) for
public favor. Of their successes the world knows little;
and probably cares less. They have been various. Many
have risen to the goal of their ambition, many have given
up and returned to their former occupations, while many
have sunk low into that dark abyss from which there is
no resurrection, without hope and without mercy, betrayed
by those who flatter but to ruin. One of these poor
creatures confessed, when lying upon what she considered
her death bed, that her employer had induced her against
her will to go upon the stage. His motives she did not
understand then, but bitter experience had taught her
since that her ruin was what he sought, and it could
be done in that way with less risk to himself. His pur-
pose accomplished, the scoundrel deserted his victim to
live down her shame as best she could. And this is but
Tun

FEMALE ARTISTES.
515
one of the many stories that could be told of a like
nature.
The life of a ballet-girl, however, is not all hardship.
There is much about it that is enjoyable, and the coryphée
is not one to let a chance slip that promises any pleasure.
The acquaintances she makes in her profession are gener-
ally pleasure-seekers; and as they are numerous, her field
for excitement is an extensive one. Fishing-excursions,
pic-nics, boat-rides, fun behind the scenes and, above
all, the late suppers after the night's work is done, afford
intervals of excitement that banish from her heart the
memory of many sad hours. The majority of these girls
need and must have excitement. Without it they could
not exist. It is the great panacea for all their ills. As
a mass, their religious training has been sadly neglected;
and as a consequence they know little, and care less, what
the future will bring forth. Seemingly, they live but for
the pleasures of the day.
A talk on theology with some of these goddesses of the
silk-tight and kid-slipper profession would rather astonish
some of the orthodox clergy, and if they would take the
trouble to spend an hour in the green-room devoted to
the use of the disciples of Terpsichore, they would find
that Swedenborg had more proselytes than they were
aware of. Yet some of them have a firm Christian faith
and conscientiously live up to it; and there is at this time
a young lady teacher in one of our public schools—and
she has also a Sunday-school class—whose first earnings
were those of a coryphée. She is respected and loved
by all who know her, and it is yet to be ascertained that

516
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
her teachings are less moral than those of her companions.
Many of these girls have married excellent young men,
who have given them good positions in society-positions
which they have filled with credit to themselves and
honor to their husbands.
It is behind the scenes, probably, that the ballet-girl
is seen to the best advantage; it is there that her true
nature more plainly shows itself. Thoroughly excited
by the dance, it is the place to test her disposition. Enter
and try it. Many a redoubtable Lothario, whose con-
ceited brain never for a moment dreamed of defeat, has
been glad to make good his retreat from the sharp claws
and bitter tongue of some excited Amazon, whose ire he
had provoked by his untimely gallantry. Nevertheless, it
is generally what young America would call a jolly place,
and the youngster who has carte blanche to visit this retreat
of the goddesses considers himself a lucky dog. But in-
discretion and vain boasting are apt to spoil this sport
and sometimes to get the boaster into trouble.
The priests and press may rail at the ballet until the
crack of doom ; it can do no good. Women have danced
since the world began, and will dance until it ends.
Dancing-women are now, and have always been, one of
the features of every land under the sun, civilized and
heathen, and, with one exception, that nation is not in
existence whose dancers have not appeared on the boards
of some theatre. That nation is Africa; and the indi-
vidual who has not yet passed through the fiery ordeal
of inspection by some metropolitan audience, and gone
through a rough handling without gloves by some of our
DILO

FEMALE ARTISTES.
517
modern critics, is the negro. The anatomical formation
of Dinah's heel precludes the possibility of her ever suc-
ceeding as a coryphée. Some genius, who thought to
startle the Crescent City from its summer reverie a few
years ago, undertook to train a colored ballet corps, with
which he expected to make a fortune. He enlisted forty-
five likely girls and trained them, first singly and then all
together. One at a time, the arrangement worked well
and bid fair to be a success, but for the life of them they
could not manoeuvre together. Heel and toe-ology was a
science they could not manage; their heels were in each
other's way, and their specific gravity being too near the
centre of the foot prevented those airy and artistic move-
ments on tip-toe so necessary to the finished dancer and
so loudly applauded by the audience. The undertaking
was a failure, and seems to have settled the question that
the colored folk must be content to enjoy with their ocu-
lars only a species of elegant amusement that nature
never formed them to indulge in.
The majority of coryphées are better developed than
the premières, and probably there can be no better reason
given for the fact than the one given by a celebrated
première when asked why it was so.
“The training," said she, “ that a girl undergoes to
become a première danseuse of any note is similar to that
given to prize-fighters and race-horses, and is so severe
that all surplus flesh is worked down to bone and muscle.
Our limbs,” she added, “ are better developed, as far as
muscle goes, than are those of the coryphée; but, from
the fact that the flesh has been worked off them, they do

518
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
not present those plump and well-developed limbs that
men admire so much in women, and especially in
dancers.”
The reign of the ballet, however, is over, and it will
be some months, possibly years, before New York will
again witness another “long run” of such productions as
the “ Black Crook” and the “White Fawn.” The Amer-
icans—the New Yorkers especially—ever crave for some-
thing new; and the only reason the ballet pieces and the
opera bouffe succeeded so well at first was on account of
their being new and novel features in theatrical represen-
tations. The metropolitans have had a surfeit of this
kind of entertainment, and the ballet, now crushed to
earth, will never again rise to any importance, at least
during the present generation.

CHAPTER XLV.
FEMALE. MODELS.
ממגוון
20
THERE are about as many “ female models” in the
great metropolis as there are model females. Both
is kinds of the genus female exist, but they are few
and far between. To be a model female requires
considerable good sense and qualities of the head and
heart. To be a female model one can get along without
any of these qualifications, so long as she possesses a fine,
voluptuous form; and just so long as her arms, her breast
or her limbs are developed in a truly artistic and beautiful
manner she may be a female model in demand and no
longer.
There are many sculptors in New York and a few
painters who find it necessary to employ living human
models in their profession. Only of late years, however,
has the practice been pursued. For a long time the fol-
lowers of these fine arts were content with the creations
of their own imaginations, but as the years advanced
they became dissatisfied with their ideal beauties, and thus
it was that efforts were made to employ young women
who would act as models, which efforts were successful.
The women who act in this capacity are nearly always
engaged in some other occupation, their services as models
519

520
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
being only required now and then by the professionals.
Some of them are seamstresses, others clerks in down-
town establishments, while a few may be bookfolders or
have some trade. It is a fact, however, that the best
models in New York are two girls who are servants in
private families in the upper part of the city. Naturally
of fine forms, their exercise keeps them in very good
physical condition. They are two sisters, brunettes, and
of faultless physiques, and perfect models of female grace.
Models are of various degrees of beauty, so far as
regards physical development. Some models have par-
ticularly beautiful limbs; in others, the arms are remark-
ably well developed; some have busts of unusual magnifi-
cence, and still others are prized for the symmetry and
beauty of their whole forms.
Many young women act as models, so far as their faces
are concerned. The supply of this class being very large,
there is not near as much demand for them as there is
for those women who are willing to exhibit other portions
of their persons.
The pay of the female models varies, depending alto-
gether on the kind and amount of services they render.
Those who only sit for their faces receive not more than
a dollar or two a day; those who display their arms
receive about the same sum; those who exhibit their
lower limbs are paid from five to ten dollars a day, while
the young women who stand for nude statues receive
about twenty-five or thirty dollars a day.
There is but little of special interest attached to female
models. It is well to inform those who do not already

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FEMALE MODELS —THE ARTIST AT WORK.
38


FEMALE ARTISTES.
521
know the fact that such a class of peculiar workers exist
and make a living by following an avocation which pos-
sibly many persons have never heard of.
There are all sorts of scandals told in regard to these
women-of the delicate relations in which they stand to
their artistic employers, who are not all of them as
asthetic or angelic as the outside public believes them
to be. But it is not our province to give any facts we
may be possessed of in regard to such scandals. It is
very probable that many things are said about them
which are not true, the same as of any body of persons
who are in a position where the temptation to do wrong
is very strong. And yet there is much truth which it is
unpleasant to know in regard to them. Whatever they
may be morally or intellectually, they certainly all of
hem ply their vocation for the money it brings and from
no particular love of art or the true and the beautiful. If
they are not model females they are certainly always
female models.

CHAPTER XLVI.
THE ACTRESSES OF NEW YORK.
AHE women of the stage in New York occupy a
position in society at once anomalous and interest-
ering. The old ban of Puritanism still prevents
their admission to the inner circle of the best
society; but the more distinguished members of the pro-
fession, who have won a name in spite of prejudice and a
ridiculous feeling of caste, have in many instances broken
over the old barriers with an imperial sway and been ad-
mitted to the exclusive circles of the very best society in
New York. It is not necessary to mention such names
as Kellogg, La Grange, Hoey, Parepa Rosa and a score
of others equally respected by the public and the fastidi-
ous few, to demonstrate that art has succeeded in certain
cases in overthrowing the flimsy barrier of an old régime.
But there is another, and by far the largest, division,
which occupies its own position, neither mingling with
the world about it nor making a conspicuous world of its
own. In this quiet but busy set we shall find the “ lead-
ing women,” the "walking-ladies," the “juveniles,” the
utility, and the whole working force of the vast commu-
nity of actresses fed and favored by the dozen theatres in
our midst. It comprises the theatrical women of New
522

FEMALE ARTISTES.
523
York proper. It is true, on the first night of a new piece,
there will be congregated at the theatre a choice set of
celebrities. There are sure to be present the retired ac-
tresses who have married wealthy merchants, the actresses
who have given up the stage for magazine writing, the
brazen mistresses of speculators and the tawdry ballet-
women, who have found a more remunerative occupation
than “standing round in tights;" but these are not to be
confounded with the really industrious and often virtuous
members of a profession, who care less to criticise and
enjoy it than to earn their living by it. In all, there are
about three hundred women employed directly in the
enactment of plays in New York. About one-third of
them are married women living with their husbands, who
are also players, in boarding-houses, hotels and secluded
apartments in the by-streets. They are members of stock
companies, receive regular salaries, and pursue their avo-
cations with the same earnestness and singleness of pur-
pose that other workers in different pursuits evince.
Their salaries range from twelve to fifty dollars a week,
sometimes running even higher than that for short en-
gagements. Add to this the constantly fluctuating crowd
of small stars and imported “ features,” who gravitate to
New York to get engagements and to consult the dra-
matic agencies, and the still larger crowd of supernume-
rary women who fill in the choruses and ballets and help
with limb and finery to eke out the spectacle or swell the
crowd in the dramas, where mere action or show is de-
sired, and we have a community of no small dimensions.
Well known as these characters are to the audiences of

524
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
WOW
the various places of amusement, most of them pass un-
observed and unrecognized in the great crowd of humanity
which floats to and fro on our streets. Not a few of these
women are or have been remarkable beauties, and have
had admirers by the scores, who can tell you of their first
appearances and successes and vicissitudes with chrono-
logical accuracy. There are even now remaining among
them two or three historic marvels who date their early
successes to the old Park and Bowery theatres; and not a
few of the sturdy leading women who come and go with
the organization and setting out of the itinerant compa-
nies are remembered as “supers” in the old Olympic,
where they received their first instructions, professional
and moral, from “ Jim Boggs” himself.
Here and there are New York actresses who have won
rather more than a professional reputation. It was a
well-understood fact in literary and dramatic circles that
one prominent New York comedienne was for two or
three years the protégé, if nothing more, of a distin-
guished journalist, and the habitual theatre-goer cannot
have failed to notice, night after night, that a no less
prominent railroad manager is always accompanied to his
private box by two actresses, neither of whom is his wife.
The domestic relations of certain of the class can never
be definitely settled, though they are by no means careful
to conceal their intimacies. Indeed, one may see on any
extraordinary representation three or four well-known
artistes who have separated from their husbands occupy-
ing prominent seats in the most conspicuous parts of the
theatre, accompanied by their beaux, while the husbands
le

FEMALE ARTISTES.
525
are equally prominent in another part, generally in at-
tendance upon ladies. From the carelessness of these few
the public are too apt to condemn the class; whereas it is
no less true that a number of New York actresses have
lived among us for years as wives and mothers, rearing
their families to usefulness, and by their own efforts
equipping them competently for their struggles in life.
As to the charge of improvidence, so often brought
against the players, and particularly the female portion,
it is not wholly untrue. But the circumstances of their
lives, the demands of an exacting and exceptional profes-
sion must be considered. The leading woman in our best
theatres gets about fifty dollars a week. Out of this she
has to provide a continually-changing wardrobe; and so
expensive has this become of late years, owing to the
realistic taste of the public, that the sum barely suffices
to provide the outfit which the stage-manager and the
audience require.' But, withal, the actress is liberal; her
tastes have been cultivated and are imperious. She is
frequently overtasked, and needs the speedy recuperation
of wine and expensive suppers. She is called upon con-
stantly by unfortunate members of the company for assist-
ance; and they make it a point of honor to help each
other. If she is sick or indisposed she is fined or her
place filled by some one who is likely to make a hit with
the public, ever ready to greet a fresh face with applause;
in which case her position is ruined. If she has the abil-
ity or versatility or business tact to make a touring en-
gagement, she is at the mercy of a shrewd agent, who
fingers her receipts while she is behind the scenes. She

526
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
cannot predicate success a day ahead. To-day she may
be received with thunders of applause, and to-morrow be
cut up by the critics and deserted by the public. The
whole course of her experience tends to make her a prod-
igal, and if she comes out at the close of the season with
money in the bank it is owing to her own shrewdness and
self-sacrifice no less than her popularity.
Of course the actress is a jealous, hyper-sensitive crea-
ture. Her private disposition is not all smiles, as we see
it over the foot-lights. Too often she uses loose language
-a habit contracted in the long association with men.
She contracts insensibly a morbid love of applause. The
greatest cantatrice in America, and peculiarly a New
York woman, though not born here, has repeatedly fallen
out with the best artistes who accompanied her in concert
tours, and upon whom she mainly depended, because they
were encored when she was not; and whole weeks of
bickering and months of sorrow have ensued because the
name of a rival appeared upon the poster in larger type
than her own.
In spite of all these things, New York actresses have
made fortunes upon the boards. We may find in Brook-
lyn, on Staten Island and up the Hudson, here and there,
costly, but unpretentious abodes, where these stars pass
their leisure hours. Several of them are now traveling
for pleasure abroad, and one is a prominent stockholder
in a popular and prosperous corporation.
The gradual change which has taken place in the cha-
racter of popular amusements is nowhere shown more
strongly than in the character and appearance of the

FEMALE ARTISTES.
527
21
women who cater to popular taste. The comparatively
recent domination of burlesque and kindred forms of en-
tertainment, in which women almost exclusively assume
the rôles, and almost always with an understanding that
personal attractions of face and form and certain accom-
plishments of easy acquirement are preferable to any real
art, have brought to the surface a new brood of women,
generally of unusual physical beauty, but not always of
the highest sense of decorum. They depend upon their
personal attractions for an engagement, and are less loth
than the older and more deserving actresses to exhibit
themselves on the street. Indeed, this was a favorite
method of advertising during the season of last winter;
and half a score of pretty women could be pointed out
any fine day on Broadway, flaunting in costly raiment
among the wealthiest of our dowagers and the proudest
of our belles. There are several New York actresses
who, during the summer season, drove the jauntiest
phætons and the liveliest horses at Long Branch and
Saratoga, and ten at least made themselves conspicuous
at Newport; but none of them value their profession so
much as their good looks. .
The same style of entertainment has also largely re-
cruited the ballet force. An American ballet-girl was a
thing unknown to the city a few years ago, and until very
recently as difficult to find as an American chorus singer
for opera. Now there are plenty of both.
X
The actresses who have by hard work and long expe-
rience attained to a certain position in the profession, wbo
are really valuable acquisitions to any company, are rarely

528
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
met outside of the greenroom or the rehearsals. They
live a quiet and somewhat unnatural life, up late at night,
going to bed fagged and rising toward noon the next
day. The demands of their own persons and wardrobes
keep them busy during the hours that they can spare
from study and the theatre. Now and then you will meet
them “in the front” at a matinée performance if the play
or the company be a new one, and then they will be
accompanied by gentlemen, and in no wise conspicuous
by their dress or deportment. Nothing like the profli-
gacy or disregard of conventional propriety shown by the
members of the French companies brought to this city
last winter to perform in Opera Bouffe was ever known
among American or English actors. The very ballet-
girls of those companies gave champagne suppers night
after night, and in their favorite resorts danced out the
morning after the regular performance with hilarious
revelry.
The New York actress is, indeed, a very fair specimen
of the morality, industry and sobriety of the sex. As a
rule, she is a woman of many attainments, pretty thor-
oughly conversant with current events and a keen
observer of the world which comes under her observation.
She has a knowledge of the various accomplishments
which society deems necessary for the body. She must
be a tolerable musician, she is an artist in dress, and from
long association an unerring critic in scenic effects. She
can dance, fence and box a little at a pinch. She is a
good conversationalist, for out of the fund of memorized
sentences there is always a ready and apt phrase turning up.

FEMALE ARTISTES.
529
She reads the papers carefully, if only to hear of chances,
and she has an unerring method of instantly detecting
the real admirer of her ability from the common flatterer
who hangs upon her skirts after and before performance.
Those who have risen to the brightness of stars and
come and go continually have, in most cases, won an
independence and often a recognition of their merits by
their own smartness. It was once said by a prominent
critic that none of the American actresses could be ladies
on the stage. Some of them have married into good
society, and preside over fashionable households with all
the grace and refinement of real aristocrats. And there
are no less than three in New York at present who are
recognized literary stars, who have written successful
plays, and who contribute regularly to the current litera-
ture of the country
Mrs. Bowers, Mrs. Lander, Miss Heron and Miss Wes-
tern, are all instances of indefatigable will and pluck,
carrying their possessors from the lowest to the highest
round of the dramatic ladder.
On the other hand, there are a number of young
actresses in the city whose fair proportions and fascinating
manners have not only ruined a great number of young
men, but have all but ruined the women themselves.
The flattery and temptation of the stage, its accessibility
in this city to the young men of the clubs and the large
Bohemian crowd, the carelessness and often enough the
depravity of the managers, combine to render the neo-
phyte’s life upon the boards a peculiarly hazardous one.
That so many of the girls pass through this ordeal un-

530
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
nan
scathed and eventually become actresses of respectability
and worth are owing more to their own earnestness and
virtue than to any assistance they receive from the pro-
fession or encouragement from the public. Of late years
a custom has grown up of sending presents of all kinds
to favorite actresses. Bouquets, jewelry, and even money,
are every night sent upon the boards by young men.
The valuables are hidden generally in a bunch of tube-
roses, to which a note is attached designating the recipient.
Those who have watched these girls, when bouquets are
flung to them, eagerly turn them over in search of the
name will readily appreciate this when it is stated that
on one stage at least two thousand dollars' worth of
jewelry was conveyed to these women in bouquets last
winter in one week. One prominent English actress
during the same season received in the aggregate ten
thousand dollars' worth of presents, many carried to her
by the servants of married ladies and consisting of costly
articles of toilet and ornament. As an offset to this, it
must be remembered that the popularity of the prettiest
girl is very evanescent. To-day she may be the pet of
the parquette, and to-morrow a fresh face takes her place;
and it may be that a knowledge of the uncertainty of
their harvest has no small influence in actuating them
to make hay while the sun shines. Still, the rule holds
good, even with these people, that lightly won lightly
held. They are seldom avaricious, spend money bounte-
ously and give and lend on all occasions. One of the
most notorious of American actresses, who died lately in
Paris, during her last engagement in New York drove

FEMALE ARTISTES.
531
her private coach and had her own footmen. On more
than one occasion she drew up in Broadway and sent her
purse to some miserable mendicant upon the sidewalk.
What influence the New York actresses may have exerted,
directly or indirectly, upon our society as a class would be
an interesting study. Certainly they have done their
share toward perpetuating the noblest histrionic records.
Just as this volume goes to press two American artistes
are on their way to this country from long Continental
tours and a series of the most brilliant triumphs in all
the capitals of Europe. Everywhere—in Italy, Ger-
many, France and England—they have been received by
the critical audiences of the Old World with an enthu-
siasm America could never have predicted. And here,
in the ranks of private life, despite the prejudice against
the profession, women are to be found every day of the
finest culture and brightest endowments anxious to make
a venture upon the lyric or histrionic stage. Indeed
every winter brings us a crowd of débutantes from exclu-
sive circles, and every season finds the ranks of the pro-
fession recruited by women who prefer this opportunity
to exercise their talents to the dependent and precarious
routines which society prescribes for independent women.

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE OUTSIDE.
NEW YORK city is the great centre for female
1 educational institutions, which profess to thoroughly
educate young ladies and fit them for wives and
mothers. Aside from the public institutions which
are well known to the world, and which differ in no wise
from similar ones throughout the country, save only in
their extent, cost and magnificence, there are numerous
private establishments or boarding-schools. They are
mansion, family, parlor affairs, whichever you will, and
are an outgrowth of that false aristocratic sentiment which
imagines that young budding women of a certain class
need an exclusive, tender, hot-house education to fit them
to become the wives of men of wealth and position—to
enable them to shine in the drawing-rooms of Fifth,
Madison and Lexington avenues The young women of
wealth who have the misfortune to attend these schools
are treated as if they were made of a little better clay than
the rest of the human family, and were therefore exempt
from the ills to which flesh is heir. They are only taught
the bright and sunny side of life—are educated to believe
532

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
533
that the highest ambition of woman should be to please
the men, shine in fashionable circles and behave in a
pretty, wax-doll manner.
Most of the fashionable boarding-schools of New York
have the appearance—outside at least—of being family
mansions of the better class. Indeed, in passing along
the street, it is difficult to distinguish them from resi-
dences of the wealthy. They are situated on Madison
avenue, on Murray Hill and cluster about Fifth avenue,
all the way from Twelfth street to Central Park. Some
of them are imposing brown-stone houses, and others are
brick with sand-stone trimmings. Inside, the schools are
fitted up in the most luxurious and costly manner-im-
mense drawing-rooms, halls, dining-rooms, etc., and usu-
ally a school-room or chapel attached, in which the reci-
tations take place. The young ladies' rooms are in the
building, and have all the conveniences and comforts of
home. Indeed, they are allowed to take their breakfasts
“ between the sheets," as George Augustus Sala would put
it, if they feel so inclined. But of this more hereafter.
Not long ago a young gentleman of New York City
formed the determination of investigating this “boarding-
school” business for himself. He determined to penetrate
into the secret of these establishments, as far as it was
possible, and find out just how they were conducted.
This was no small undertaking, as you may fancy. But
he was equal to the emergency. He happened to have
a young sister residing in a distant State, and he
thought it would be a fine thing to educate her up to
concert pitch. He determined to make “his sister” the

534
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
scapegoat to open all the doors of the fashionable board-
ing-schools in New York. He also determined to be
very fastidious in his choice of schools, and to visit them
all before he would make a selection. He searched out
the streets and numbers of the most aristocratic schools
in the city, and dressing himself in the latest style, even
to kid gloves and a cane, he ordered a carriage and started
out on his tour of inspection. Of course he only saw the
outside of these establishments, but he found much which
was interesting and valuable.
It is a fact no less curious than true that girls are sent
from all parts of the United States to the city of New
York to be educated. The very idea of a large city seems
to have a fascination about it which draws to itself all
that is fascinating. And yet it may well be doubted if
there is a worse place in the world to study. Surrounded
by ten thousand excitements, in the midst of thundering
streets and clashing fire-bells, in a whirl of fashion,
operas, balls and concerts, always being sought out by
swarms of young men who buzz about a female boarding-
school as flies do about a molasses tub, how can it be
expected that the dear creatures can learn anything but
the accomplishments and the arts of flirtation and
coquetry? Let all parents who value the moral character
and good common sense of their daughters educate them
at home, or at least in the country.
That plebeian family, the people, who fill the ill-man-
nered public schools, have nothing to do with us for the
present. We are seated at the dinner-table, where French
and Italian are spoken as fluently as the mother tongue;

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
535
we are surrounded by all that art and science can con-
tribute to luxury and comfort. We drive up to a large
brick house on the top of Murray Hill, and, ascending
the stone steps, ring the bell. A black servant in livery
opens the door. It is the boarding-school of Mrs. Syl-
vanus Silvertop. An immensely long drawing-room at
one side of the hall is splendidly furnished, and filled with
rare oil paintings, the most of which represent scenes
from the Bible. These are, indeed, very appropriate.
This school only has from thirty to forty young ladies.
We ask for Mrs. Silvertop, wife of the Rev. Mr. Silver-
top, who used to preach in Albany so many years ago,
and shortly a little bustling lady comes into the parlor
in full dress, even with a bonnet on. She can talk as
fast as the arms of a windmill can turn :
“You have a sister to educate. I am glad to know it.
We are not quite full, and I could accommodate one or
two more young ladies. We have a very select circle of
young ladies here, and I try to be a mother to all of
them. You know, of course, the character of my school;
it is the finest to be found in this city—strictly first-
class. We spare neither pains nor expense to make it so.
You can see the style of the house for yourself. Every-
thing corresponds. The expenses for a year will amount
to about one thousand dollars, not to mention shopping
and the other bills of the young ladies. They can spend
five thousand dollars a year if they wish, as there is
nothing to hinder. Some young ladies, you know, have
all the money they want and dress as extravagantly as
they please, but I do not encourage it in them. In these
39

536
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
hard times I think we should study economy. French
is the universally spoken language of the family, save
a little while after dinner, at dessert. The very best
teachers which can be procured in music, art, literature,
French and Spanish are always at the disposal of the
pupils.
“Oh no, it is not difficult by any means for a young
gentleman to see a young lady who is going to school
here. I treat them just the same as though they were
in their fathers' houses. We have receptions every
Friday, but gentlemen can call at any time if they have
a note of introduction. We do not wish them to call too
often, and no gentleman would do that.
“The discipline of the school is based upon those
principles of Christian courtesy which are the foundation
of all true order. I act as a mother to the young ladies,
and take a vigilant care of their health and education.
Now, if you think your sister would be pleased to come
here, we shall be most happy to see her.”
This was the outside of one school. We inquired as to
the class of young ladies who attended this school.
“Oh, they are mostly the daughters of wealthy parents.
It must be so, since the expenses are too high for common
folks. Bankers, Wall street brokers, celebrated clergy-
men, successful politicians, governors, merchants, doctors
and all first-class people send their daughters here.
Some of them bring dressing-maids with them to wait
upon them, but that is of rare occurrence. A plenty of
servants are always provided in the house to do all need-
ful work. Those young ladies who come from a distance

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
. 537
board in the house, but we have many day-scholars, who
live at home.”
Taking his hat, our hero bade Mrs. Silvertop “Good-
day," promising to send his sister at once. He then
drove to a large brown-stone palace on West Thirty-
second street near Fifth avenue, known as the Princesses'
Institute. It is a remarkably nice and select place, only
twelve young ladies being boarders. Rev. Mr. and Mrs.
Prince are the principals. It is a little queer how many
clergymen there are engaged in this business of cultivat-
ing the minds of young ladies. When clergymen do not
stand at the head of these institutions we find madames,
who have seen better days, or old maids who are in the
habit of calling themselves “Misses So-and-So” on their
cards and in their circulars. This little joke is all very
well, but it has got to be so thin now that most of the
world sees through it. But to return to the Princesses
Institute. The expenses at this institution range from
seven to twelve hundred dollars a year, “according to
habits," as it is called. If a young lady is in the habit
of throwing away money, she can get rid of a good deal
of it in the course of a year. There is no doubt about
that, as many parents can testify. Some of the young
ladies are taken at this institution when quite young, and
remain in the family for ten years. Think of that,
fathers and mothers who have lovely and interesting
daughters! For ten long years you send them away
from home to be entrusted to the care of strangers, that
they may be educated fit to appear in society. For ten
long years, with the exception of short vacations, you are

538
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
deprived of their love and society, their sparkling eyes
and bewitching smiles. One might as well not have any
children as to raise them for the market in this artificial
and hot-house manner; for ten chances to one if they
do not give their hearts and hands to some exquisite
fellow or other before they leave the boarding-school,
only graduating or eloping for the purpose of getting
married. This is what it resolves itself into at the
present day. A young girl is the most unfortunate of
creatures. She has the period of nursery existence, the
boarding-school existence and the married life, when she
too often jumps out of the frying-pan into the fire.
The young ladies at the Princesses’ Institute are not so
perfectly miserable, we may suppose, during their long
incarceration as some young girls are who are not so for-
tunate as to be fashionably educated. They are permitted
to go to lectures and operas occasionally, at the desire of
their parents. They are always sent off in close carriages
to the Academy of Music, have reserved seats and enter
the edifice by a private doorway. This is to avoid com-
ing in contact with those male wolves in “Store clothes”
who are always hanging about such places, seeking whom
they may devour. These “dear lambs” see enough of
fashion at the great receptions which take place once in
three, four or six weeks. When a new dress is to be made,
a fashionable dressmaker is sent for and the garment is
manufactured in the house. Round dancing is not allowed
at this institution, but “dancing on the square,” or square
dances, are sometimes indulged in by the young ladies
after dinner. At these times one of the misses plays the
e
SE

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
539
piano, and Rev. Mr. Prince “calls off.” As usual, French
is the language of the family here, and the education of
the young ladies is said to be very thorough. The young
ladies of the boarding department are allowed to see their
friends on Wednesday, after three o'clock P. M., and dur-
ing the whole of Saturday. Gentlemen are only received
on the first Wednesday evening of the month, and then
they are required to bring a letter of introduction from
the parents to Mrs. Prince. This is all very strict, you
see, but men are not to be trusted, and there must be
some means of protecting the ladies. But gentlemen
sometimes do get into these boarding-schools without the
formal letter of introduction. There are tricks in all
trades, and love knows no bounds; it o’erleaps the highest
walls, for walls cannot keep love out. We wouldn't give
much for a young man's head of hair, however, if Mrs.
Prince should find him in one of those “ chambers of
delight” which abound in her house.
On West Thirty-eighth street, two doors from Fifth
avenue, there is another brown-stone palace, known as
the Anglo-Saxon French and English school for young
ladies. Here the girls are put through a course of phys-
ical, mental, moral and religious sprouts which is said to
fit them for any position in life which they are likely to
occupy. It is presumed beforehand that they will all
marry well-to-do husbands, keep a carriage, have fine
residences and give magnificent receptions. For such a
life of struggle, hardship and deprivation a thorough
education is very desirable. It can be had for about one
thousand dollars a year, with French thrown in. Thy

540
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
house is warmed by means of hot-water furnaces, which
give a large influx of fresh air and a bland, summer-like
temperature the year round. Mrs. Anglo-Saxon says-
and we take her word for it—that this school has for its
objects thoroughness, physical culture, education of the
moral sentiments, the unfolding of the social affections
and a practical education. It may be safely presumed
that this last does not include plain-sewing and bread-
making. Modesty, tenderness and grace are cultivated.
Good as far as it goes, for Heaven knows there is need
enough of modesty in fashionable life, even among young
ladies. As to the “tenderness,” we really think there is
quite enough of that already. Some young ladies are
exceedingly tender, especially about the finger-tips and in
the region of the heart, to say nothing in reference to
brains. We would recommend that the cultivation of
tenderness be abandoned for the present. Some people
like tender things, however, and experience shows they
are not able to stand much. The course of study at this
school is substantially the same as that for boys. Much
attention is paid to Latin and mathematics. The friends
of the pupils can visit the school at all times.
With one more visit to a fashionable New York
boarding-school we will finish. This is an institu-
tution where show and fashion reign supreme. It is
an establishment for making money and acquiring a
smattering of things. The young ladies are taught
to dress and taught how to receive company. It is a
sort of conservatory for birds of Paradise, for fire-flies
and parrots. The length of one's trail is frequently the
are

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
541
all-engrossing subject of thought. The manners of the
maids are stiff and pompous. This school—it is on West
Thirty-eighth street—is a large and crowded establishment.
The girls flock to it from all over like pigeons to a dove-
cote. Madam Windermere instructs them in all polite
knowledge, and if they do not improve it is because they
have no capacity. The young ladies complain a great
deal about the school-room, which contains no side
windows, the light coming in from the top. This is
decidedly unpleasant, as it cuts off all communication
from the street, and there isn't the least bit of a chauce
to get up a flirtation with one's pocket-handkerchief or
otherwise.
No public receptions are ever given at this school, and
no company is allowed. Of all the awful creatures that
could visit at Madam Windermere's, man is the most
horrible. He is a bird of two legs, without feathers, if
we accept the ancient philosopher's definition. Every
Saturday the young ladies have to appear in full dress.
This is for the purpose of giving them an airing, and
teaching them manners. We descend to the drawing-
room, and are received by Madam Windermere in person.
The whole performance is said to be insufferably dull and
uninteresting. The ladies can take no interest in it, since
no gentlemen are present. They go through all the
operations with a languid, listless air, and vote the recep-
tion a bore as soon as they escape to their rooms.
There is one other class of fashionable schools in the
city which deserve a passing notice. These are for parlor-
boarders, as they are called, where one or two special
We
TO01

542
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
studies are pursued. The young ladies attending them
have no restrictions placed upon them whatever. They
have full use of the parlors and can see all the company
they wish. They are supposed to be of that age and
discretion when knowledge is wisdom. Therefore they
run no risks. Or if they receive the attentions of a
gentleman, they do so with their eyes open and a full
knowledge of the possible consequences. These schools,
as might be expected, are popular and well patronized.
But we think a more sensible way would be to keep one's
daughter at home and employ a tutor. Parlor-board-
ing in New York sometimes makes sad work with hearts
as well as heads. All young ladies who indulge in it
run great risks of getting married. And if there should
be “a man in the house," who can tell whether or not
the old folks at home would shut the door upon him ?
We might notice a score of other fashionable boarding-
schools in New York, but they present nearly the same
features. Besides, we are anxious to take a pass inside of
them, which we will now proceed to do.

CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE INSIDE.
& FASHIONABLE education at the present day
SA's unfits both men and women for the practical real-
@sities of life, but especially does it produce disas-
trous effects upon the latter, for when a woman
once leaves school and enters upon the duties of house-
keeping or the rounds of dissipation common to life
among the wealthy, her book-knowledge is soon forgotten,
and she ceases to acquire more. Besides, there is little
to ever call it into use afterward, unless misfortune throws
her upon her own resources. With men the case is a
different one. They cannot engage successfully in any
business unless they have a proper knowledge of it, and
if they do not receive this at the boarding-school or
college, then they can turn to some special business
college or go into business with a gentleman who has had
a long experience in it.
The very foundation-idea of a fashionable education for
women, as carried out in the New York boarding-schools
and elsewhere, is wrong. We boldly proclaim that it
ruins women, mentally, morally and socially. It robs.
them of half the attributes of womanhood; it leaves them
defenceless, and therefore they are weak and easily be-
543

544
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
wn Wome
come a prey to the enemy; it keeps them children when
they should be full-grown women; it feeds them on
literary trash and academical sweetmeats when they need
nourishing, solid food; it regards them as of a peculiar
sex, and therefore gives them a sexual education; it takes
the theory that men admire grace, beauty, dress, good
taste, a childlike innocence and accomplishments; there-
fore it attempts to teach them manners, French, Italian,
the art of talking without saying anything, music, and a
host of other fal-de-ral, which might do very well if this
world was an Eden and all the people in it angels.
Whatever the women of this world may be, it is an
unfortunate fact that many of the men are no better
than they ought to be. The tables have been turned
since Eve tempted the man to sin: Adam now tempts
Eve. The folly of wedding angels with men is appa-
rent on the face of things. If we bring up our girls to
be such pretty, sweet, innocent creatures, we should be-
stow the same care upon the boys, for in the end the two
will find each other out.
So, then, the long and the short of it is, girls are
educated in New York to make women which shall please
the eyes of men women who shall satisfy their desires
and passions. Not women to be wives and helpmates in
the true sense of the word, but creatures for the use of
men, or to shine in drawing-rooms, attract attention on
the promenade or become the centre of an admiring
circle in society. This is the modern woman — the
modern wife. And what better could we expect from the
girl of the period ? Aha! my dear sir, she is no myth,

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
515
but may be your daughter, your sister or your sweet
cousin.
mol
Don't imagine the girls are all fools if they have been
graduated at a fashionable boarding-school at an expense
of two thousand dollars a year! The argus eye of
Madam Watch’em was not always quick enough to detect
the sly glances cast at her pupils in omnibus or coach, at
the church or theatre. Miss knows how to interpret
them, even if her eyes are steadily fixed upon the white
and gold altar-cloth, or if she coughs behind her fan.
Even the dark-faced, grave, venerable African, who
stands at the hall-door and bows the people out and in,
has his gay moments, when he pinches Belle and Ida
under the ribs-on the sly, of course. They rather like
it than otherwise, the same as women are fond of watch-
ing monkeys at the zoological gardens. The gas burns
dim in the hall, and there isn't the least chance of being
discovered. Besides, Jim is the only man about the house.
Even a black one is better than nothing !
The young men of the present day are not so gallant
as they were in the days of Romeo and Juliet, when
Romeo scaled high walls and listened to the nightingale
on Juliet's balcony. The silken ladder of fiction has
gone out of use; in fact, it couldn't be used now-a-days,
with burglar alarms on all the 'windows and policemen on
the sidewalks. Such is the unromantic turn affairs have
taken in New York.
A husband being the central idea of female education
in New York, females are educated accordingly. They
are gotten up expressly for the use of their husbands,

516
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
and for no other purpose. To this end they play the
piano. And here a door is opened through which a good
deal of the gay life of the world enters; we might almost
say the wicked life. How should it be otherwise ? Music-
teachers are quite human; indeed, they are apt to have
all the weaknesses of their sex: soft hands, soft brains,
soft hearts, ready for any fate. They not only teach
music, but whisper love, and practice lip osculation, and
look unutterable things with the eyes, and display their
forms to the best of advantage—all with the intention of
producing an impression upon the heart of their pupil.
A correspondence is also often carried on, and they fre-
quently act as a medium of communication between the
miss mewed up in the parlor and the lovesick swain
sighing on the door-step.
Beware of the girl with the drooping eyelids, who casts
down her eyes before strangers and talks in whisper.
She is wiser in worldly wisdom than she seems. She is
in a passive condition, waiting to be acted upon. She
knows how to play the part of soft putty to perfection,
and she thus holds out the invitation for some man to
come and mould her over to suit himself. He has but to
propose after the approved fashion and she will whis-
per, “Yes.” She will even go farther than that, if need
be, to suit him. There is danger in this placid,
smooth stream of water. It may be very still, but it
runs deep.
Beware of the girl with the Grecian bend. It does
not always indicate a lack of the phosphate of lime in
the spinal column, but it does indicate a feminine design

INHIN
ILAAN
WOMMONON
IMMA
EDUVOAM
NIN
பா
பரபரப்பாரா
FEMALE SEMINARIES.—SCHOOL GIRLS OF THE PERIOD.


LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
547
er
to produce an impression upon the heart of some young
man. It is a signboard displayed for the express purpose
of being read by all men. Women who bend so easily
in the back are apt to bend just as easy in other
directions, and when the conscience takes on a Grecian
bend it is to be deplored; nothing but marriage will
save it.
Beware of the girl who displays so much dress it is
difficult to tell her from a milliner or a fashion lay-
figure. Over-dressing is as bad as undressing. Both
extremes flourish at our boarding-schools. The rule
seems to be, if a girl is not attractive, make her so with
muslin, silk and lace. If she is attractive, let the world
know it, and display as much of her person as possible.
Ah! such white hands! so delicate and small! A man
could crush them both in one of his as easily as if they
were made of wax. Two such little feet! Why, both of
them could be put into, a man's boot. Such a wealth of
hair! if it is not false it is worth possessing. Such teeth!
whiter than snowdrops or pearls. And such lips ! as red
as the rosy side of a peach. Good Heavens! to fancy
such a woman knowing anything about this wicked world
or how men are all gay deceivers ! I'll marry her, but
will never whisper to her how I have broken the hearts
of half a dozen other girls, each as good as she is, and
possessing every needed virtue, only they were in the
humbler walks of life.
The girls who come to New York to be educated
belong to wealthy families. This is a fact, per se, since
no poor man can afford to send his daughter to such

548
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
was
schools of extravagance and foolishness. Their fathers
occupy all sorts of high stations in life-politicians, mer-
chants, clergymen, bankers, railroad men, judges, law-
yers, brokers, inventors, speculators, etc. Only money is
needed to open the doors of the seminary and place all
on a footing. No matter how the money was made; no
matter what the antecedents of the parties may have
been; no matter who the mother was or what the father
is, if only there is money, it is all right. It may be the
daughter of a hotel-keeper, of a member of the prize-
ring, of a gambler, of the street-cleaner, of a quack
doctor. Fancy one's sister in such a crowd of black
sheep! Fancy mingling with such high-toned families
and shoddy aristocrats! But they come from all over
the country and live together in one house, much after
the fashion of the Mormons or the inmates of tenement-
houses.
And then the French master is introduced, and the
teacher of Italian, and the drawing-teacher, and the
painter in oils, and the professor of vocal music. All
these men may be very polite and dress exceedingly
fine; but a man may have a ruffle on his shirt and be a
vain man, or he may smile and smile, and be a villain
still. Beware of all these teachers who in fest our board-
ing-schools and get up elopements and steal young ladies'
hearts. We haven't a particle of confidence in them, and
had just as soon risk our daughters at a boys' college. It
is a fact that at Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, on the
Hudson, they will not allow any male professors who are
not married; and they must have their wives with them.

LIFE IN A FEMALE SEMINARY.
549
The trustees of this college have studied human nature,
and do not believe, with the poet, that
“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long."
en
They know most men will take what they can get.
Perhaps the most curious thing about female education
in New York is the fact that while the girls are taught to
please the men and made to understand that marriage is
the sole end and aim of their lives, yet the teachers of all
these schools profess to have a great horror of the male
sex generally. Men are treated as if they were sharks
with their mouths wide open. It is our opinion that they
are a harmless set of porpoises, who go tumbling about,
splashing the water and having a good time. They are
a jolly set of fellows, in for a little fun. Why these
boarding-school mistresses should dread them so it is dif-
ficult to see. We suspect many of them have come up
old maids, and the rest have had unfortunate husbands,
or, perhaps we should say, unfortunate matrimonial expe-
riences. If everybody, like the famous Brignoli, only be-
longed to the Eunuch Society!—but then everybody don't.
Men being regarded with horror, the receptions at
these boarding-schools are very formal and peculiar
affairs. To get inside of the house we must bring a
formal introduction from the parents of the pupil, with
an explicit statement of how many times they may call
during the season. Even then it will not do to go too
often, or to stay too long, or to say too much. We will
say that the reception begins at eight o'clock of a Wed-
40

550
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
nesday evening. Before this hour the girls have all been
dressed in their best clothes and sent into the back parlor
or library, where they sit down in long rows, like bach-
elors' buttons or tulips in a flower-bed. They are caged
up like hot-house plants or canary birds, and are there-
fore made, to look at. The guests, as they arrive, are
received in the front parlor. “Who do you wish to see,
sir ?” asks the stately and towering matron of sixty-five
or seventy, trigged out in satins and laces. “Miss Gracie
Gates, daughter of Hon. Peter Gates,” is the humble
reply. “In a few moments, sir. Please wait until she
comes. Amuse yourself with looking at the photographs
or other works of art. Gracie has had one or two calls
this evening, and I must not let her come out too soon.
We have to limit the girls in these things, you know.
We find it absolutely necessary. There are so many
young men in New York who are anxious to make the
acquaintance of my pupils that I have to put my foot
down. Excuse me; there comes a man to see Miss Cobb.”
The stately form addresses herself to another man, and
we lean up against the marble mantel, where we can look
into the back parlor and catch the eye of Miss Gates.
She smiles, bows, doubles up her little white fist and
shakes it meaningly at the stately form which has just
left us. At this the other girls smile and blush, and
some of them bow, for if the man with his back to the
mantel is a friend of Gracie's, he is a good fellow, appre-
ciates the situation and can be trusted. One or two fel-
lows, more venturesome than the rest, with one eye on
the stately form, venture to cross the threshold of the

LIFE IN A FEJALE SEMINARY.
551
Те
back parlor and shake hands with all the pretty girls
they can get hold of. The moment the stately form
turns her head he dodges back and the mice stop playing.
How can they enjoy themselves while such green cat's
eyes are looking upon them? Some music is announced,
and while it is being thumped out of a couple of pianos
everybody is expected to keep perfectly still, with one
eye on the pedal. As soon as it is finished a general
clapping of hands takes place—not so much because the
audience was charmed, but because it is finished.
The madam now crooks her finger to Gracie, and
Miss Gates comes out to meet us. “Just five minutes,
remember!” the stately form whispers in her ear. “You
are having more than your share to-night.” “Oh, Mr.
Blank,” says Gracie, “I'm so glad you came to see me!
But we must talk very fast. At half-past nine we are
all sent off to our rooms. You'll see us go filing through
this parlor and the hall like Indians on a trail. Indeed,
we are treated very much as if we were little savages.
Isn't it a downright shame that she keeps us all mewed
up in that back parlor? Now some of the girls haven't
had a call to-night, and they won't have, because there is
nobody in the city to call on them. You see, they come
from Canada and the Far West, and have no relatives
near here. If they could only be allowed to come out
and mingle with the rest of the folks, how nice and sen-
sible it would be! There's May Mallows won't have a
body to come and see her to-night. I'd like to introduce
her to you, but the madam will not allow it. I am sure
if you are good enough to be my friend you are good

552
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
enough to be May's. Now, May Mallows and Kittie Lee
and Julia Armstrong and Minnie Walters will all have a
hearty cry to-night, when they get to their rooms, just
because they are so homesick and there is no one to call
and see them. I can tell you, we are treated in a most
shameful manner, if madam is so smiling and everything
looks so nice and grand about her. There, my five
minutes are up. Be sure and come to see me at the next
reception; I shall depend upon it. And do send me a
letter, and a pound of candy and a basket of fruit.
Good-bye. Don't forget!"
Back she goes into the horrible back parlor. We take
our hat and bid the stately form “Good-night.” “Going
so soon, Mr. Blank ?” “Business calls,” we reply, only
too glad to get out of the false and stifling air of a
New York boarding-school, where young women are
trained instead of being educated.
P

CHAPTER XLIX.
FEMALE PHYSICIANS.
More
CAT may well be doubted if any other city in the
11 Union can boast of so many well-educated phy-
So sicians as New York. Some of these have an
extensive and well-paying general practice which
brings them in a handsome income, while others do a more
moderate business. There is hardly any being so well
worthy of our admiration as a highly-educated, accom-
plished, sensible lady. Perhaps one reason of this is that
we so seldom meet with them. Like a diamond of great
price, they are very valuable when found.
The time was, and that not long ago, either, when the
idea of a woman becoming a physician was laughed and
hooted at as the most astonishing and absurd thing im-
aginable. And we confess that there is something rather
startling in the idea to a sensitive man that if he hap-
pens to make the acquaintance of a female “saw-bones”
she is able, with her physiological and anatomical eyes,
to look through and through his body as if it was made
of glass. She knows just how many vertebræ there are
in his spinal column; she can read a red nose like a
book, and is able to account for dark or white rings under
the eyes. If his hands tremble or his knees shake-and
e
553

554
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
they sometimes do early in the morning—she can divine
the cause.
Then her finger has an eye in the end of it. Let her
place it for a moment upon the wrist of a man and she
will be able to diagnose his case at once. What man's
heart would beat any slower with a pretty woman's finger
on his wrist? But lady physicians do not doctor men ? you
exclaim. Why not? What is there to hinder ? Aren't
they obliged to go when called for? And hasn't a gentle-
man a perfect right to have a female M. D. if he sees fit?
What is sauce for the goose ought to be for the gander,
and we are sure gentlemen doctors attend the ladies.
But the times are changing wonderfully in this the
nineteenth century. Hereafter, it seems, we are to have
women-doctors for women, and men-doctors for men. We
have just as much confidence in the judgment of a well-
educated woman as we have in half of the medical
students who are annually graduated from the colleges
of this country. The female physicians of New York
have superior advantages for acquiring an education and
an extensive practice. There are several colleges founded
especially for them, and all the hospitals are open to
them. In some of the colleges the men and women
attend the lectures together, as in the homeopathic and
hydropathic. Then there are colleges exclusively for
women as there are for men. We doubt if women have,
as yet, ever been admitted into any of the great and
regular allopathic colleges—such as the College of Phy-
sicians and Surgeons, the Bellevue Medical College and
the University Medical College. All the women we ever

FENILE PHYSICIANS.
555
saw in these institutions were either there as patients or
as subjects on the dissecting-table—the latter being dead,
of course.
It is our idea that a woman-doctor should be put
through, in all particulars, the same course as men. Let
her hear all the lectures, know the worst of everything,
and be able to perform capital surgical operations, such
as amputating an arm, leg, or extracting a ball from a
gunshot wound. If a woman puts M. D. to her name
and hangs out her shingle, she can never tell what emer-
gency may arise when all of her experience and know-
ledge will be put to the test. If a man falls and breaks
his leg in front of her house, or is run over by an omni-
bus at the next block, she ought to be able, in the absence
of any one else, to set his limb, reducing the fracture in
a scientific and workmanlike manner. There are some
women in New York who can do this, but only a few.
For the most part, the majority of them attend only to
theory and practice; they devote their attention to chil-
dren and the complaints of their own sex. This is very
proper and exceedingly appropriate. If any class of
persons need a medical or physiological education, it is
women.
The human family is deplorably ignorant of all that
pertains to self. “The proper study of mankind is man.”
Yet no other study is so much neglected. How many
men can tell on which side the liver is located; what the
there is a pulsation at the wrist, the side of the stomach ;
or where the kidneys are located? We may add that the

556
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
same profound ignorance, only in a greater degree, pre-
vails among women. This is deplorable, since the
mothers of the race should also be the nurses and the
teachers. The results of this ignorance are seen in the
untimely death of so many infants, in some instances
the percentage being nearly fifty before they reach two
or three years of age. If women knew more about them-
selves, they would not so outrage their persons in the
shape of tight corsets, thin dresses, high-heeled boots,
enamel for the face, bare arms, trailing skirts, thin-soled
shoes, late suppers, inordinate dancing, late hours, and
many other dissipations which might be named.
The female physicians of New York form a distinct
class by themselves. They are professional women, and
get their living as such. Sometimes they have doctors
for husbands, and not unfrequently both are called in
consultation over the same case. More commonly, how-
ever, they are widowed or maiden ladies. They are
obliged to study long and hard to fit themselves for the
positions they occupy, and the exactions of their pro-
fession leave them little time for anything else. Thus
they often become overworked—have an anxious and
careworn look, which we do not like to see upon the brow
of a woman. Business swallows up all their other enjoy-
ments, and stamps itself in unmistakable characters upon
their faces. This is only with those who have a large
practice and many important cases. But as a reward for
their labor they reap a handsome harvest of green backs
and live in elegantly-furnished brown-stone palaces. Some
of them keep carriages and drivers. Thirty-fourth street

FEJALE PHYSICIANS.
557
seems to be a favorite locality for well-to-do doctors of
both sexes; and if one cares to go from end to end of it,
he will discover the signs of a large number of female
physicians. The annual income of some of these is
from ten to fifty thousand dollars a year, while others
earn only enough to pay their expenses and get a com-
fortable living
There are but a very few allopathic lady physicians.
As a rule, they do not take naturally to blue mass, cap-
sicum, Dover's powder, cantharides and castor oil. They
hate saddle-bags and stinking drugs. The little white
pills and the high attenuations of the homeopathic school
have a charm for them. This method of medicine is so
neat and so safe. If one doesn't do any good, very little
harm is done, at least. To be sure, the mother tinctures
are a little strong, and some of them are powerful poisons,
but then belladonna and aconite are never given in the
mother tincture. A drop of this fearful stuff must be
put in a thousand drops of water, and one drop of that
treated in the same way, and so on an indefinite number
of times. Then, if the patient dies, no chemist will ever
be able to detect poison in the stomach, and so send the
physician to jail or the gallows for malpractice. As
homoeopathic physicians the ladies are just as successful
as the gentlemen. And as a method of cure for chil-
dren perhaps nothing could be better. Most cases of
sickness only need to be left to themselves and Nature
will effect a cure. It is the officious meddling of doctors
which peoples our cities of the dead with human beings
sent to their long homes before their time comes.

558
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
There was once a hydropathic or water-cure college in
New York, which ground out a large number of female
physicians annually. At this college the women wore
short dresses, like those invented by Mrs. Bloomer and
patronized by Dr. Mary Walker. They also wore their
hair cut short in the neck or flowing down their backs;
they boarded themselves and dieted on vegetables and
bran bread. In a dingy hall on Sixth avenue they as-
sembled day after day to hear the virtues of cold water
extolled and other systems of medicine denounced. They
handled skulls as empty as their own, and pawed over the
boxes of leg and finger bones; they looked at charts
which displayed all the parts of the human body, outside
and inside, as large as life; and they practiced ausculta-
tion on each other's lips and chests, to perfect themselves
in that branch of the healing art. They were taught
how to give warm-water emetics, how to put people into
wet-sheet packs and how to foment their stomachs with
hot flannels. This class of female physicians never give
any medicine, since they have no faith in the contents of
drug-stores. And, as it is difficult to take a watering
establishment around with them, we may safely conclude
they never reach a very large practice.
Do ladies learning to be doctors, dissect? you ask.
Certainly they do. How else could they get an accurate
knowledge of anatomy? They are as fond of picking
men to pieces with forceps and scalpel as the men are
fond of cutting up women into ribbons. This is natural,
and quite to be expected. What could be more charming
in the eyes of a scientific man than a well-formed, beau-

FEMALE PHYSICIANS.
559
tiful woman on the table before him, with rounded limbs
and delicate outlines, looking more as if in a natural
sleep than that of death? The subjects for the dissect-
ing-room are seldom of this character, however, unless
somebody has been particularly fortunate at body-snatch-
ing. They are too often the poor, unfortunate, outcast
paupers or criminals of the world, who die in the public
institutions or upon the streets, or in some wretched
hole of an attic or a garret. These bare bodies, present
anything but an inviting appearance. They are often
horrible to look upon-deformed, maimed, eaten up with
disease, emaciated for the want of food. They come
packed like swine, in boxes or barrels, and sometimes are
frozen as stiff as a side of beef in midwinter.
How must a woman delight to cut up the body of a
powerful and well-formed man! See his brawny arms,
his large chest, his rounded trunk, his well-trained limbs,
nicely fitted to his body—the perfection of grace and
strength. Ah! many a woman who studies medicine
does so just for the opportunity of cutting up such a
glorious specimen of humanity. Ladies usually have
separate dissecting-rooms, where parties of three or four
engage upon one subject—Ida taking half of the chest,
with the right arm and corresponding side of the face:
Isabella taking the other side; Jane taking one leg and
half of the trunk, and Alice taking the other side. If
there are any choice titbits, these are shared equally by
the whole.
The first sensation of putting a knife into a dead body
-isn't it something awful? The anticipation of it is, but

560
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the reality is not half so bad as it seems. To peel the
cuticle from one's arm is much like taking the skin from
an orange; to cut open one's heart with a bright and
sharp knife is not half so bad as it is to break it with tri-
fling in one's lifetime; to peep into a man's chest and see
what he carries underneath his vest is almost as interest-
ing as it is to examine some foreign views in a stereoscope.
There is nothing like getting used to a thing, and ladies
as well as gentlemen can do it if only they make up their
minds. As the sister of Mrs. Dombey said to her while
on her deathbed, “If you will only make an effort,
Fanny, you can get well.”
Many female physicians devote themselves to special
practice. They attend to peculiar cases, such as all mar-
ried women, and some single ones, are liable to. Some
of these are called accoucheurs. They have houses of
their own, and receive patients, during confinement, be-
neath their roofs. They ask no question who a woman
may be or where she comes from, so long as the money
to pay expenses is forthcoming. A very large business
of this kind is done in New York, and we are sorry to
say that many of the customers are unfortunate girls
from the country who have been betrayed by their pre-
tended lovers. Coming to the great and thundering city,
they hope to hide their shame in some establishment pro-
vided for the purpose. As the world already knows, one
of the finest residences on Fifth avenue was built by a
female physician (if we may call her such) who devoted
her attention to this class of cases. Even now she has an
office in the basement of her house, with a side entrance,

FEMALE PHYSICIANS.
561
through which women can be seen going at all hours of
the day and night.
Such is a brief glimpse at the female doctors of New
York. The only peculiarity about them is, that they are
professional women and look upon men with an eye to
business.

CHAPTER L.
STRONG-MINDED WOMEN,
2CTRONG-MINDED women are a modern institu-
estion, and a dozen years ago hardly one female
7 could be found in the city of New York who would
© openly acknowledge that she was strong-minded-
using the word in its popular sense. But there are large
numbers at the present time who would not only acknow-
ledge that they were such, but glory in it.
The term “strong-minded” has been applied to those
females who are anxious to vote and take an active part
in the politics of the period. Since the war the cham-
pions of the woman's suffrage movement have worked
laboriously, and doubtless in good faith, for proselytes
to their peculiar views, and have certainly succeeded in
creating a considerable stir in the public mind and con-
verting many to a belief in their doctrines.
The prime mover and leader, organizer and general
manager of the woman's suffrage movement is Miss
Susan B. Anthony, whose name is well known through-
out the United States, and whose face will be also, if she
continues to travel as much in the future as she has done
in the past.
Miss Anthony is of Quaker descent. She was born in
562

STRONG-MINDED WOMEN.
563
the little town of South Adams, Massachusetts. At an
early age she was brought by her parents to live in
Monroe county, New York State, a few miles from
Rochester. The early years of her life were passed in
teaching school, for which vocation, by appearance and
natural gifts, she was well qualified. After that she
became a female reformer, for many years lecturing first
on temperance and then on anti-slavery. She was one
of the strongest Abolitionists before and during the war,
and was the prime mover and originator of the “Woman's
Loyal League,” which was inaugurated during the late
struggle, and succeeded in arousing the patriotism of the
women of America. When slavery was abolished in the
United States, Miss Anthony turned her attention to the
subject of suffrage for women, and her chief and almost
only wish at the present time is to vote herself, and see
that the women of the country have the same privilege.
She is a very earnest, hard-working, strong-minded
woman, and has the appearance of being entirely sincere
in her opinions. She is radical in religion as well as in
politics, and it is very probable some of her social and
domestic views would shock many good orthodox and
sensitive souls..
Miss Anthony is a tall, slender lady, and not beautiful.
Her cheek bones are high and prominent; her face thin;
she wears spectacles, and has the look of one who pos-
sesses a great deal of determination and is thoroughly
self-reliant. She is a forcible though not elegant writer,
and represents the executive and business power of the
woman's movement. As an organizer of meetings, a

564
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“ drummer"-up of money, she has few, if any, equals
among the sterner sex. She is the proprietor of the
Revolution, a weekly paper, and the organ of the strong-
minded females of the country.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is quite as well known as Miss
Anthony. She is the ablest writer of the woman's rights
champions, and as a speaker for the cause is in much
demand.
Mrs. Stanton is the daughter of Judge Cady, and a
native of Johnstown, New York. At twenty she was
married to Mr. Henry B. Stanton, a young lawyer; soon
after her marriage she went to reside at Seneca Falls,
New York, stopping there for fourteen years. It was at
this place that she first felt an interest in the woman's
movement, and where she made her first speech. She
became acquainted with Mrs. Bloomer (the first lady to
adopt the short skirt), Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Dalles
Smith, Antoinette L. Brown, Abby Kelly Foster, Ernes-
tine L. Rose, Frances D. Gage, and nearly all of the
female reformers of the period. She was a good speaker
from the start, possessing an easy and graceful delivery,
and manners that were at once winning and captivating
with all. Since her first speech at Seneca Falls she has
been one of the most earnest workers in the cause of
woman's enfranchisement.
Mrs. Stanton is a medium-sized woman, inclined to
embonpoint. Her face wears a cheerful, resigned expres-
sion, and she frequently expresses the belief that if things
are not as they ought to be now, they will be all right in
the golden future, when women shall have the right to

STRONG-MINDED WOMEN.
565
DI
vote. Her hair is prematurely white, and clusters in
curls about a well-shaped forehead. Her manners are
very pleasing, and she is probably the most popular of all
the “strong-minded women,” at least among the disbe-
lievers in the cause. She has a large family of boys and
girls, one or two of her sons being full-grown and en-
gaged in professional pursuits. Mrs. Stanton lives in the
city during the winter, and in the summer-time resides at
Finafly, a little village of New Jersey. She is the editor
of the Revolution and the president of the “Woman's
Suffrage Association.”
The headquarters of the strong-minded women in New
York is the “Woman's Bureau,” located at No. 49 East
Twenty-third street. It is one of a row of brown-stone
buildings, and was purchased by a Miss Phelps, a lady of
wealth and a late convert to the women's rights doctrines.
The whole of the first floor is occupied by the offices of
the Revolution. The rooms are finely furnished and
evince the taste of woman in their various arrangements.
Brussels carpets are on the floors and pictures and fine
engravings adorn the walls.
The parlors are on the second story of the building,
and are very tastefully furnished, and are used as a
temporary art gallery. The upper story of the house
is to be soon converted into a permanent gallery for
the reception of pictures and works of statuary. The
Revolution department represents the “Woman's Suffrage
Bureau,” presided over by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Miss Anthony presides over the Art Department, while
Miss Phelps superintends what little there is of the
41

566
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
are
Working Woman's Bureau. There is a library and a
reading-room connected with the establishment. Every
week meetings of the Woman's Suffrage Bureau are held
at this house, where the "cause” is discussed pro and con,
poems recited, essays read and a certain amount of mutual
admiration indulged in. Among the many ladies who
are interested in the Woman's Suffrage movement, and
who may occasionally be seen at the Woman's Bureau
meetings, are Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, Rev. Mrs. Olympia
Brown (a Universalist preacher), Mrs. Dr. Brown, Mrs.
Dr. Lozier, Mrs. Mary L. Booth and the late convert to
the female suffrage ranks, who embodies much beauty and
a deal more liveliness—Miss Olive Logan, a retired actress
and popular magazine writer.
There is another branch of women who may be called
strong-minded, but who do not altogether affiliate with
the Anthony-Stanton party—the ladies of “Sorosis.”
These ladies, it would seem, lay less stress on voting, but
believe more in personal improvement and practical work
for the amelioration of the wrongs of their sex. True,
many of them want to vote, but voting is not to them the
panacea for every difficulty, nor yet the balm for every
wound.
Mrs. D. G. Croly (the wife of the managing editor of
the World), better known as “Jennie June,” was one of
the originators of “Sorosis.” She has been a popular
writer of sketches for the magazines and papers for many
years past, and is at present the editress of Madame
Demorest's Fashion Magazine. She is a little under the
medium size; has light, curly hair and eyes of the ten-

•AS
m
.
es
SUM
KRISH
NIDAD
THE SOROSIS IN COUNCIL.


STRONG-MINDED WOMEN.
567
derest blue. She is nervous in manner, quick of speech
and very amiable. Her house is frequently the scene of
pleasant literary reunions.
Alice and Phoebe Cary, the sweet singers whose poems
every one has read, are members of “Sorosis.” Miss
Phoebe Cary is a short, plump, full-faced lady, about forty
years of age. Her hair and eyes are dark, very dark.
She writes many humorous poems, and is inclined to
punning. Her sister, on the contrary, is a delicately-
built lady, and has never been in robust health. Though
not handsome, her face is an interesting one on account
of the look of sadness it always seems to wear.
Among the other members or sympathizers in the
Sorosis” Female Club may be mentioned Kate Field,
1 lively lady, highly accomplished, the daughter of Mr.
James M. Field, the actor, now deceased; Mrs. Mary C.
Ames, the Washington correspondent of the Independent;
Madam Octavia Walton le Vert, well known as a South-
ern authoress of repute, who once lived in Mobile, Ala-
bama, but whose residence is now in New York. “Fanny
Fern" (Mrs. James Parton) is also an attendant at the
meetings. She is a lady over whose head more than fifty
summers have come and gone, but whose heart is as young
as a girl's. She is lively and animated in conversation,
and is noted for being quite as independent in her actions
as she is in her writings.

CHAPTER LI.
HOMES OF THE POOR.
VERY large number of wealthy persons have em-
SA barked in the tenement-house trade in New York
w city, and have ventured large capital in it, know-
ing that from the manner in which such houses
are at present conducted it is a paying speculation; and
it is estimated that more than seventy-five per cent, of
the population of New York are at present living in
tenement-houses—that is, houses in which reside three
or more families. This ratio appears very large, but it
is nevertheless true, and is the result of various causes.
The poorer classes cannot afford house rent, and are
obliged to resort to the tenant-house; and the middle
class have latterly been obliged to do the same; conse-
quently few but the higher and wealthier citizens can
afford to keep a house to themselves.
Circumstances incident to the growth and commerce
of this city nearly blotted out the private residences of
the middle classes in the community, and with the loss
of that class of domestic houses the people that have
been driven from them to the common tenant-house have
become assimilated to the poorer classes, from which the
almshouse, the hospitals and dispensaries are filled.
Wh
568

HOMES OF THE POOR.
569
WO
MO
When the old homesteads began to disappear, the astute
owners and agents of property saw that great profits
would be realized by the conversion of houses and blocks
into “barracks,” and dividing their space into the small-
est proportions capable of containing human life within
four walls. Thus did the tenant-house system become
a speculation, and the speculators have succeeded in
making of it an “institution” unparalleled in any of
the other great maritime cities of the world.
In order to derive the greater profit, the keepers of the
lower class of tenement-houses have so arranged them
that little room, no ventilation, foul air and bad odors
are the equivalents the tenant receives for his rent. The
people are crowded almost to suffocation in these “pens,"
which are commonly structures in which live a dense
mass of human beings, many of them occupying the one
room, carrying on therein their daily work, and often
the daily routine of eating, drinking, sleeping, cooking,
washing and fighting. In many of the rooms the light
is very bad, and yet girls try to sew there; consequently
their sight becomes weakened and is sometimes totally
destroyed. The water-closets, if any, are put up some-
what in the style of stalls, but not with the same regard
to ventilation and cleanliness. They have no doors to
preserve any decency of feeling, and are so situated-
close to the entrance of the house—that the deadly mias-
mata penetrate through the entire building, and are a
prolific source of obdurate and fatal maladies of a diar-
rhoeal and febrile nature.
The evils arising from overcrowding these houses are

570
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
many, both physical and moral; and it must be accepted
as a fact that the sanitary wants and the social evils of the
city have become centralized in the tenant-house districts,
for where no better precautions are taken against disease
or epidemics, sickness and disease must have their sway;
and where so many of the different sexes, of various tem-
peraments and passions, associate together, the bad will
make others bad, and example will demoralize more. In
many of the houses women of well-known bad repute
live in the room next that occupied by some honest family
with hard-working daughters. The dress, the ease, the
idleness of the bad woman have their own bad effect, and
meeting such as she and her companions constantly on
the stairways or in the alleys, throws temptations in the
way of the poor working-girl, and the vile conversation
she hears around adds to the danger; and in many in-
stances her fall is certain, and when it occurs may be
charged to the account of the tenant-houses and of the
owners who derive their large incomes from these nests
of pestilence, of poverty, temptation and want. The
sanitary surroundings have their own brutalizing effects,
so that at once becomes apparent the necessity for reform
--not as a benefit to one district alone, but to the city at
large, which must gain or lose, more or less, by the sani-
tary condition of its several sections. To individuals and
communities health is an invaluable boon–equally valu-
able to the rich and to the poor. Its influence extends
not only to the social and moral condition of the individ-
ual, but to society at large, and public health becomes a
public blessing.

HOMES OF THE POOR.
571
Many of the bad tenement districts of the city are
almost in the same overcrowded condition as they were
ten years ago. The alleys may be cleaner and the houses
whitewashed, but there yet exists the same room for im-
provement in the way of ventilation, light and sewerage.
The famous Rotten Row, in the neighborhood of Grand
street, consists of bad, dilapidated houses. Rag-pickers'
Row, off Second street, may be placed in the same cate-
gory. The classic Murderer's alley, near Baxter street,
is not one shadow improved; its rows of houses are worse-
looking and more shaky than ever, and the alley, which
allows five feet of room as a passage for the occupants of
each row, presents to-day a view as distressing as could
be imagined, and could not have been worse ten or more
years ago.
The Fourth Ward is, as regards its sanitary condition
and its number of human packing-houses, as bad, if not
worse than it ever was. In a moral view it presents a
hideous spectacle. Here the poor, honest, hard-working
men and women and their children are placed in the close
men
bridled prostitution and thieving. There are at the pres-
ent moment very nearly five hundred tenement-houses in
the ward, and the police state that there is scarcely one
of them in which cannot be found a prostitute or a family
of thieves and pickpockets. How many children will
grow up in those haunts honest men and women? Some
houses in the ward are devoted completely to vice and
where numbers of the most abandoned women occupy

572
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
small shanties, and in some instances six and eight of
them sleep, eat, drink and carry on their orgies in a
small, dark, dingy and foul-smelling basement.
In Cherry street, in the lots at or near Nos. 36 and 38,
are two alleys, one of which is called Gotham court, in
which are situated two of the largest tenement-houses in
the city. To give a faithful description of these places
would be beyond the power of the pen. The ground
covered measures thirty-four feet wide in front and
rear, and two hundred and thirty-four feet long, and the
building is five stories high. On the north it is contigu-
ous to a large tenant-house fronting on Roosevelt; on
the west an alley, nine feet wide, separates it from a sim-
ilar structure, forming part of the “court;" on the east
another alley, seven feet wide, divides it from the rear of
a number of houses in Roosevelt street. In the basement
of this building are the “necessary houses,” which are
reached from the hall by a ladder, the foot of which rests
on the slimy floor of an unoccupied cellar, full of every
kind of refuse. One cannot possibly approach this place
without being soiled in the most offensive manner, and
this, too, in the day-time; at night the total darkness
renders it more dangerous, and many of the tenants
therefore deposit all kinds of refuse-matter in pails,
which are kept in their rooms and afterward emptied
into the street. The system adopted for cleansing the
necessary houses is totally insufficient; and this is evi-
dent to the visitor, who can easily perceive a distinct odor
as high up as the third floor. The contents of these
places are discharged into subterranean drains or sewers,

HOMES OF THE POOR.
573
external atmosphere by a series of grated openings,
through which fetid exhalations are continually arising.
These openings receive the drainage of the buildings,
besides the refuse-matter which is not too bulky to pass
through the gratings—a bordering of disgusting filth
frequently surrounding them.
This structure contains twelve principal divisions, each
having a common staircase communicating with ten
domiciles, making one hundred and twenty tenements in
all. Each tenement consists of two rooms, the largest of
which is fourteen feet eight inches long, nine feet six
inches wide, and eight feet four inches high. The
smaller, having the same length and height, is eight feet
six inches wide. The two apartments together are esti-
mated to contain one thousand nine hundred and fifty-
five and a half cubic feet. Each room has one small
window. The doors leading from the landings are con-
tiguous to the wall in which these windows are situated,
so that it is impossible for a current of air to pass through
the rooms under any circumstances. On visiting in com-
pany with Mr. Halliday, the efficient Superintendent of
the Five Points' House of Industry, it was stated there
premises. Of the entire number of tenements, but few,
very few, were found in a condition approaching clean-
liness. The entire establishment swarms with vermin,
and house-bugs are on the most familiar terms with the
occupants, as their faces and hands plainly tell.
About thirty per cent. of the inhabitants are, it is

574
HOMES OF THE POOR.
stated, suffering from diseases of a more or less serious
character. The tenants hail from every portion of the
globe, and follow almost every known and conceivable
business. Tailoring is carried on in about twelve of the
tenements. The others are occupied by honest working
men and their families, and by thieves, beggars, organ-
grinders, nymphs du pave and many others of a somewhat
similar calling. Children are here in numbers, many
of them victims of disease; and it is a sad spectacle to
witness the attenuated forms, the sunken eyes, the pinched
and withered faces of the little patients, young in years
but old in suffering, who are the prey of infantile mar-
asmus and the victims of the insatiable rapacity of the
merciless tenant-house owners.
Within two lots of the tenement previously mentioned
stands another human pen at one side of an alley six feet
wide at one end, and not more than eighteen inches at
the other. It is occupied by over thirty families, and
here may be discovered a zoological collection, if not of
a very high, at least of a very unusual order. In one
apartment an old woman was occupied in feeding a batch
of poodles, about six weeks old, not one of whom, when
arrived at the age of maturity, would be larger than a
fair-sized rat. She stints their growth, and at the same
time feeds them, by administering potions of bad whisky,
of which she occasionally partakes herself. For the ani-
mals, by no means dangerous, she calculates on obtaining
from ten to twenty and thirty dollars for each. The
sound of a very badly-played violin struck the ears
unharmoniously, not only on account of the wretched
e

HOMES OF THE POOR.
575
efforts of the musician, but of the dismal gloom of the
surroundings, where one would suppose the slightest sign
of anything indicative of civilization or refinement was
greatly out of place. The rooms in this house are of
about the same dimensions as the one above referred to,
and the ventilation and atmosphere quite as bad and
offensive.
There are many other tenant-houses in the same con-
dition in this street, where numbers of human beings are
crowded together and packed in pens in which no owner
would allow his horse to stable. Bad ventilation, mis-
erable light, no accommodations, foul air and fouler mat-
ter distinguish them all, and render them pest-spots from
which it is wonderful a perpetual epidemic does not
attack the city.
Roosevelt street, like its neighbor, Cherry, has many
noisome dens in which human beings live, or, to speak
more properly, pine away and die; and of the “institu-
tions” of which the vicinage may boast, none can ap-
proach in filth and utter disregard of cleanliness a large
unnumbered house about three squares from the ferry,
The entrance is through a court kept only passably clean;
but at the end is a sink which, from its open locality, is
resorted to by passers from the street. There is, in point
of fact, no door to this building, the place which was
once the doorway being now more than double its original
size, the bricks having either fallen out or been torn out
for a fight or some like amusement. The windows are
not there; at least, there is neither glass nor sash, and
holes stuffed with old newspapers serve the purpose of

576
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
keeping out the light and the fresh air, and of making
prisoners of smoke and bad and foul odors. A family
of three occupied the attic; their furniture consisted of
blocks of wood to answer the purpose of chairs, a rickety
table, a few dilapidated cooking utensils, a cupboard in the
wall and a bedstead on the floor, where lay the old dusty
mattress, in the same state as it was the night before, and
probably has been for many a long day and night past.
Here also the door was conspicuous by its absence, and the
remnants of the thing that once bore the name lay thrown
aside as unfit for use until the chills of winter began to
pinch the unfortunate inhabitants, and then it and its
collection of soiled matter will be fortunately devoted to.
the fire. For this place something in human shape re-
ceived three dollars per month rent.
The remainder of the attic was filled by a number of
“ dock-rats”-juvenile thieves, who come here and throw
themselves on the floor to sleep when all efforts at “prig-
ging” have failed the day before.
In conclusion, we may remark that the homes of the
poor are a disgrace to New York and its much-boasted
philanthropy. The rich men of the metropolis could
surely erect no better monument during their lifetime, or
leave no better legacy at their death, than comfortable
houses at cheap rents for the homeless poor of the Empire
City.
w

CHAPTER LII.
THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
10
Y FEW months since, a New York woman, named
CASophia Myers, was sentenced by Judge Kelly to
@ the penitentiary for six months for swindling, or
“larceny by trick and device," practiced upon
Margaret Boyle, a young woman living in Brooklyn.
Miss Boyle would have found no redress for the wrong
inflicted upon her but for the “Working Woman's Pro-
tective Union” of New York, which took up her case
free of charge and prosecuted it to a successful issue.
What is the daily life of that numerous class of widows,
mothers, wives, sisters, daughters in our midst, known as
working women ? and what is the Working Women's
Protective Union ?
When the first faint blush of light appears in the east
and brings out the dark grays and dull reds of Williams-
burg into strong relief; when the bright moon, high above
Staten Island, begins to lose its brilliancy; when the top-
most stone of Trinity church spire stands out sharp and
clear against the blurred sky, while all below is obscure and
ill-defined; when lighthouse lanterns down the bay and
along the coast are put out; when the morning-gun of the
Navy Yard is heard, and its boom reverberates through
577

578
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
neighboring streets in the City of Churches; when troops
of newsboys in Front street near Fulton practice gym-
nastics on adjacent house-railings, walk indiscriminately
and with equal facility on hands or feet, and mingle their
wild shouts with the rattle and clank of the newspaper-
office lightning-presses; when the milkman's cry comes
faintly in through closed windows; when the first curl of
smoke rises out of chimney-tops; when the cock crows
shrilly in rear yards and the air around is resonant with
its notes; when half New York turns over in bed, yawns
and enters upon a comfortable second sleep,--the work-
ing-woman starts up from her perturbed slumbers, puts
on her well-worn garments with that benumbed sense of
pain which most people have felt at least once in a life-
time, partakes of breakfast with most undue haste and
hurries off at the top of her speed to work. With hur-
ried step she goes forth and joins a crowd of her sisters
on the various public streets and avenues of the city, all
going to their work.
Broadway, which leads alike to the bankers' offices
with their thousands of gold, the large mercantile houses
with their immense stocks of goods, leads also to the work-
ing places of the working women. At early morn these
poor females walk down the great Vanity Fair; later still,
the working men; then the shop-boys; then the young
clerks; then the junior partners. Later still, the heavy
members of the firm roll down in their magnificent car-
riages; and by noon the wives and daughters, who spend
the money their husbands and brothers make, will be out
in large numbers promenading and patronizing the vari-

THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
579
re
ous stores. What a contrast between five and six A. M.,
on Broadway, and twelve noon! If one could only see at
the same time the working girls and women walk on one
side of the way, and the women of wealth who profit by
their labor on the other, the contrast would be very great.
The women work in all parts of the city. Many are
connected with some of the large houses on Broadway;
many go to the side streets on the east and west side, and
a countless number go down the Bowery and are em-
ployed in houses on the streets branching off from that
thoroughfare. .
From seven A. M. until six P. m., and later, these women
are kept on duty. Fighting bravely the hard battle of
life, as they bend mechanically over the sewing-machine
until its dull noise almost cheats them out of their seven
senses, and they are little else than mere automata ;
as taper fingers fashion buttonholes which others wear
out; as printed sheets are folded to be afterward con-
ned at leisure in luxurious abodes on Murray Hill and
Fifth avenue, and during idle moments at Saratoga and
Long Branch; as vests and shirts and fans and um-
brellas and wigs and feathers and cloaks and paper-
boxes and dresses are made; as burnishing is done,
type set and furs sewed; as beadwork assumes shape
and ornamental beauty; as graceful wreaths of arti-
ficial flowers come into existence—they yet break down
sometimes in the very middle of the strife, only to
recover their courage and renew their exertions as
thoughts of the dependent ones at home and their own
necessities throng around them. Home! What do they,

580
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
eve
what can they, know about home, in the true sense of
the word, except as a memory, a mere tradition, a beauti-
ful figment of the brain ?
Where does the woman live?
It is in a miserable room in a rickety tenement-house,
with a newspaper for a window-curtain, with a soap-box
for a chair—the only one-with a window-sill for its sole
table; no furniture in the room but a little stove and a
rude bed. Here dwells one poor girl, supporting herself
and a little brother by the work she does with her needle.
The parents are dead; the girl is without other relations
than this little boy in the whole world, so far as she
knows. No wonder she clings to him with such strong
devotion. He is yet too small to run in the streets, and
never leaves his sister. The case has one advantage;
they are a protection in some measure to each other annid
the temptations of their sad life. All days are alike to
this girl, Sunday excepted. She rises with the first gleam
of daylight that penetrates her solitary window. If it is
winter, she makes her fire with hands that carefully count
the pieces of coal bought in small quantities from a
grocery on the corner, where coals are retailed for fifteen
cents a scuttleful-her scuttle is a wooden box picked up
in the street. She eats a miserable breakfast of bread
and perhaps potatoes. Meat—which ought to be hers
every day, to help her to bear the heavy burden of her
exhausting toil—is as much of a rarity to her as mush-
rooms in midwinter. And then she commences her
needlework. She seats herself on her box by the win-
dow and makes shirts for a large house on Broadway.

THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
581
What do you think she gets for making such a shirt as
that which she holds in her hand—the blue cotton affair
called a “hickory?” Six cents, and she furnishes her own
thread! She makes linen coats for from fifteen to twenty
cents a dozen; flannel shirts for one dollar a. dozen; and
other articles for like sums. The rent she pays for this
bare apartment is three dollars and a half a month-a
sum lower than the average. To merely pay her rent,
then, she must make two whole shirts a day. Food, fuel
and clothing must be paid for with whatever she can earn
beyond this sum. At evening she eats her supper—the
principal meal of the day with her, for then she partakes
of a cup of tea, which revives her somewhat after her
long hours of toil, and helps to prepare her for those
which are to come. Yes, there are more to come; she
has no time to rest yet. Perhaps now she has a quantity
of work to take to the shop, and if she has, this is the
hour chosen to take it. She cannot spare precious day-
light in which to go home with her work, and it is as
easy to go after dark as by day. She takes the bundle
of shirts and goes off. If the weather is fine, little
brother goes with her, toddling along by her side; if it
is not, he sits patiently in the dark, frequently cold, room
and awaits her return. Thus it is ever “in the depth
of helpless poverty."
daily in the city and who bring work home to be done, a
considerable number obtain work from Brooklyn em-
ployers. Taking the wages which obtain in twelve of the

582
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
most common trades, it will be found that their average
earnings are six dollars per week.
A man hires girls to work for him by the week; the
end of the week comes ; the girls ask for their pittance;
he tells them he has “got the shorts,” and pays only a
part of what they are entitled to. The second Saturday
comes, and this operation is repeated. It is continued for
weeks, until finally they refuse to work longer without
their back pay. Then he flies into a simulated passion,
denies the debt and bids the poor girls pack off, well
aware that he can get others to supply their places very
easily. If only one out of that number of girls has no
friend to right the wrong, what will become of her ?
Another man gives girls work to do at home, promising
them a price so far in advance of ordinary terms that the
poor creatures feel quite elated over their good fortune in
coming across so generous an employer. He requires a
deposit from them equal to the full value of the materials
they take away, and, in their eagerness to get such prom-
ising employment, clothes are pawned or some poor
woman they know loans them the deposit. When the
work is done, it is taken back and the villain curses them
for bunglers, declares the work is spoiled, orders them
out of the shop and refuses to pay back the deposit.
Without a protector at her side, what can a poor, weak
girl do under those circumstances in a city like New
York?
If a country girl or woman lands for the first time in a
great metropolis, is moneyless and without support, has
not the courage and knows not where to ask for work,

THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
583
me
what becomes of her when no guide is available to take
her kindly by the hand and show her where to go and
what to do?
If any woman wants to earn an honest livelihood, will
she voluntarily starve if unable through ignorance to set
about it?
Sometimes she does, and has done so in the opulent city
of New York, but not often.
There are so few departments of labor open to women
that in those departments the supply of female labor is
frightfully in advance of the demand. The business
world offers the lowest wages to eager applicants, certain
that they will be ravenously clutched; and, indeed to see
the mob of women that block and choke these few and
narrow gates open to them—the struggle, the press, the
agony, the trembling earnestness —one might suppose
they were entering the temple of fame or wealth, or, at
least, had some cozy little cottage ahead, in which compe-
tence awaited the winner. Nothing of the sort—these
are blind alleys, one and all. The mere getting in and
keeping in are the meagre objects of this terrible struggle.
A woman who has not genius, or is not a rare exception,
has no opening, no promotion, no career. She turns
hopelessly on a pivot; at every turn the sand gives way
and she sinks lower; at every turn light and air are more
difficult, and she turns and digs her own grave. Do you
say these are figures of speech? Here, then, are the
figures of fact. There are now thirty thousand women
in New York whose labor averages from twelve to fifteen
hours a day, and yet whose income seldom exceeds thirty-

584
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
three cents a day. Operatives on sewing-machines and a
few others enjoy comparative opulence, gaining five to
eight dollars a week, though from this are to be paid
three or four dollars for a bed in a wretched room with
several other occupants—often without a window or any
provision for pure air, and with only the poor food found
where such rooms abound. Thousands of ladies, of good
family and education, as teachers receive from two to six
hundred dollars a year. Few women get beyond that,
and a large proportion of them are mothers with children.
Over these poorly-paid laborers broods the sense of hope-
less toil; there is no bright future. The woman who is
fevered, hurried and aching, who works from daylight to
midnight, loathing her mean room, her joyless life, will
in ten years neither better herself nor her children.
A few months since there was a great hue and cry
made over what was called the “wickedest man in New
York.” The man alluded to, John Allen by name, would
never have been so widely known had it not been for
the exceedingly sensational and truly original title which
a certain sketch-writer gave to him. But there are worse
men in New York than John Allen. John fleeces men,
who know the consequences of a midnight carousal in
Water street, and therefore are not to be pitied. John's
cash accounts with his women are represented as being
invariably kept “on the square.” The reporter can
name an Israelite who employed a sick female fifteen
hours per day at two dollars and a half per week, and
then waited until the affair had been placed in the
hands of a lawyer before he handed over the last dollar.

THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
585
n
John lubricates the track upon which inmates of his
brothel slide down to perdition with kindness; but we
know an employer who has grown rich upon the labor of
hunger-pricked, garret-tenantry females, one of whom
was found dead one bitter cold night in her miserable
attic, clutching in her frozen fingers a half-finished gar-
ment; and who refused, when importuned, to pay even as
much as the price of a shroud in which to wrap the
frozen body, which received a pauper's burial. Wickeder
men than John Allen there are outside of Water street,
a list of whose names may at any time be obtained by
the curious at a benevolent institution in Bleecker street;
a partial record of whose misdeeds are to be found in-
scribed in a sizable book, from which the facts of the fol-
lowing case of heartless rapacity were obtained:
Among the employés of a certain Israelitish manufac-
turer of straw goods in New York was a poor French
woman, who, with her three small children, occupied
apartments in a rear tenement-house in Mulberry street.
What renders this case of more than ordinary interest is
the fact that this lady had once been in affluent circum-
stances, and at one period of her life moved in the most
wealthy circles of Paris. Misfortune befell her in the
death of her husband, who was accidentally killed upon
a railroad train. The bulk of the property of her de-
ceased husband was seized upon by her creditors. The
widow, however, succeeded in saving from the general
wreck a few hundred dollars, and with this she emigrated
to America, arriving here in the spring, and bringing
with her three little children. Here she anticipated she

586
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
would be enabled, with the aid of her superior education,
to provide for herself and family. For several weeks
her efforts at securing employment proved unavailing; but
just before her last dollar was expended, she succeeded
in forming a class in French, which she instructed for two
months, at the expiration of which time she was deprived
of this her only support—her pupils leaving her for the
purpose of a summer's holiday at the fashionable water-
ing-places. Other efforts were made to secure the position
of teacher of languages (with several of which she is
conversant), but all to no effect. Finally, reduced to
absolute want, the lady was obliged to resort to manual
labor in order to provide herself and little ones with
bread. Unused as she was to toil, her efforts to obtain
employment were attended with little or no success. Day
by day her case grew more desperate, until, at last, unable
to pay the rent of her miserable attic apartment, she and
her little ones were thrust into the street. Homeless and
friendless, with not sufficient money wherewith to pur-
chase a supper for herself and famishing little ones, the
lady was forced to beg; which course, up to this time in
her unfortunate career, she had looked upon as barely
preferable to death itself. She had a few acquaintances
among the parents of her former pupils, and to these she
resolved to apply for aid. Her efforts in this direction
were but a repetition of the old, old story. Her friends,
who, during her prosperity, were lavishing their atten-
tions to her, now, that misfortune had overtaken her,
refused to recognize her, and thrust her from their doors
without a penny. Fortune relented one day, and re-

THE WORKING WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
587
V man
warded her efforts with a situation in a manufactory of
straw goods. To be sure, the compensation was small;
still, as bread enough might be secured in this manner to
keep the wolf from the door until something better might
present itself, she resolved to accept the terms of the
straw manufacturer, and entered upon her duties. For
a week or two the sum earned by the unfortunate lady
was faithfully paid her, but on the third week the pusil-
lanimous nature of the Jew cropped out. She had bar-
gained to manufacture straw hats at eighty cents a dozen,
or six and two-thirds cents each. At this rate, she managed
tu earn two dollars and fifty cents per week. Upon ap-
plying for her wages at the close of the third week, the
employer informed her that he had discovered that six
and two-thirds cents apiece was too large a compensation,
and that from eighty cents he had resolved to reduce her
pay to seventy cents a dozen, and accordingly presented
her with her weekly payment, first deducting one dollar
and forty cents from her wages. Pressed as she was for
money, the lady refused to accept these terms, and at
once set about seeking legal redress. Learning that at
the “Working Women's Union” of Bleecker street legal
advice was furnished free of charge to such as herself,
she laid her grievances before the officers of the institu-
tion, who at once placed the affair in the hands of their
legal adviser, who soon brought the rapacious Israelite to
terms. At the time of her application to the institution
the lady stated that she had been without fire, and, with
the exception of a small loaf or two of bread and
what few potatoes her children were enabled to gather

588
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
from about the stalls in several of the markets, without
food for several days.
Many other instances equally as heartrending as this one
might be given, did space permit it.
To the thoughtful mind it appears strange that such
things as these should be in New York, so full of wealth,
so full of “ Christianity” and good men and women. The
only solution to the problem is, that here, of the thou-
sands who attend the churches, hardly one has the true
spirit of Christianity—the desire to help the poor, the
fatherless, the widow and the working women. Many of
the employers who practice these enormous outrages on
the working women are members of churches in good
theological standing. But happily a change seems likely
to occur. The world no longer pays the same respect to
professions of religion it did once. The tendency is to
look at the actions of men rather than their belief, and
with the advancing strides which liberal Christianity,
Spiritualism, Comtism and free thought are gradually
making in the world, we may lose some of the old tradi-
tions endeared to us by time, but have a higher moral
standard and sense of dealing justly and fairly with our
fellow-men and women.
We can hardly wonder at seeing so many “unfortu-
nates” on our streets at night. One almost wonders that
there could be a single woman in the great city who
would consent to bear the sufferings which, as a working
woman, she would endure, when all the comforts and
many of the luxuries of life could be hers, by taking an
easier though immoral course.

KI
SRINA
LIFE IN THE SLUMS. – THE DEAD WIFE.


CHAPTER LIII.
THE WORKING GIRLS OF THE METROPOL S.
20TITCH, stitch, stitch, from early morn till weary
as eve—this is the fate of thousands of girls in the
o great metropolis. 'It is wonderful and painful to
think how arduously some of the poor working
girls of New York toil for their daily bread—how there
are some who cannot work, and are at their wits' end con-
stantly to know how to ward off those fell demons, pov-
erty and hunger, that so constantly menace them like the
sword of Damocles. How many there are, lastly, who
are very young outcasts and beggars, who have caught la
maladie Bohemienne, and, being infected with street fever,
are lost like the boys, unless they can be taken away out
of the city and all its associations.
Old Tom Hood, in his thrilling ballad-song entitled
“The Song of the Shirt,” was truer to nature than most
poets usually are, and sketched a picture which thousands
of poor girls in every country-in our own, happily, not
to such an extent, however-can realize but too well in
their daily lives. The occupation of the seamstress is a
sad example of the struggle going on around us for exist-
ence; and it is about the most uninteresting and wearying
species of toil that could be well imagined.
589

590
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
“Work, work, work,
Till the brain begins to swim,
And work, work, work,
Till the eyes are heavy and dim.
Seam and gusset and band,
Band and gusset and seam,
Till o'er the buttons I fall asleep
And sew them on in my dream."
Although toil is so hard in the “ould country," how-
ever, women are better paid here, and the picture of the
bent seamstress-although God knows it can be seen often
enough in London—is not of so deplorable a pattern in
the Empire City. Women's work is to a great extent
well paid, their services eagerly sought for, and there
being so many openings for them, from clerkships and
store-work down to domestic employment, they have not
much reason to complain of the dearth of labor. Our
article, however, does not concern altogether those of our
older-grown sisters; it has more reference to the girls-
the little misses especially—of New York; their numbers
and occupation; how they wander to the streets, and
what means are employed to save them ere it be too late
for rescue and their ruin be complete.
Girls have one great advantage—or whatever quality
it pleases the reader best to term it-over boys, and that
is, they grow old sooner. A girl of fourteen is much
more advanced, generally speaking, than a boy of the
same age. She is a regular little woman, a housekeeper
who can take all the charge of her little brothers and
sisters upon her shoulders and mind them as “mother”
would do, look after “father," and in fact manage the
00

THE WORKING GIRLS OF THE METROPOLIS.
591
entire domestic economy of the house. Robert, the boy,
however, of the same age, can only think of tops and
marbles, has a longing still for a hoop, and is essentially
a boy all over, while the girl is part woman while yet a
child.
It is gratifying to reflect that, although so many boys
turn out badly and are apparently bred up to be future
criminals, the proportion of girls who are convicted at the
various courts of the city is far less—not more, indeed,
than from one-half down to one-fourth. The number of
girls, for instance, committed to the House of Refuge on
Randall's Island during the year 1868 was only about
five hundred and fifty, against one thousand boys, and
the number of discharges from that institution was nearly
in the same proportion.
Pouring across the Brooklyn, Jersey and Hoboken fer-
ries, every morning can be seen thousands of little and
big girl workers of our city. Some—the generality—are
jaunty and neat in their appearance, and many fashion-
ably dressed; while others are poorly though decently
clad, and exhibit all the characteristics of honest industry.
How bright and rosy their faces look, flushed with the
genuine hue of health !—how much opposed to the pale,
care-worn countenance of the poor needle-woman! Sum-
mer is the time to see the work girls at their best, for their
gayly-tinted muslins and all the various draperies that can
be worn at that season of the year set off their faces and
figures to advantage, and you would think them all little
butterflies of fashion, and not some of the busiest of the
busy bees in the working-hive of the city. They throng

592
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the ladies' compartment of the ferry-boat and stand on the
platform in front, with the fresh sea-breeze floating about
them and freshening the color in their cheeks, gayly talk-
ing and laughing one with another until the opposite side
is reached and they disembark, to hurry off to the various
places where they are employed. Gayly they trip off
and quickly disappear--one here, another there, until by
eight or nine o'clock they are all housed and at work.
To follow the girls-speaking of the older ones—to
their daily avocations would require an ubiquitous pres-
ence and a pair of "seven-leagued boots,” at the least.
In the number of wholesale clothing, carpet salesrooms,
fancy goods repositories, publishing and bookfolding, mil-
linery and dressmaking establishments, not to speak of
stationery stores and small retail places, the greater por-
tion of the labor required is performed by girls between
the ages of sixteen and twenty, and upward. Their
nimble little fingers can sew and pack and fold and serve
customers better than those of the “nobler” sex; and
hence there is a great demand for woman-labor-a demand
which absorbs nearly all the alien supply that is con-
stantly drifting to our shores.
The wages given to girls—that is, sewing girls who
make up clothes for the ready-made shops in the Bowery
and Fulton street—are not so high as might be expected,
considering the demand there is for such labor and the
high price of board and lodging; but still, the girls appear
to do well and support themselves in comfort, if not afflu-
ence. Some work at home, and you can see them some-
times returning to their employers' places with large piles
CO

THE WORKING GIRLS OF THE METROPOLIS.
593
of garments made up—coats and waistcoats and panta-
loons—for which they are paid so much apiece. Others
are engaged all the day in the long work-rooms, where
they sit and sew, hundreds together, from eight in the
morning till five or six at night, when they turn out
and go home. Some species of millinery, and in winter
fur-sewing and making up of muffs and victorines, are
the best-paid sorts of work; and those girls who are em-
ployed as saleswomen, too,“ down town” and “up town,”
are also well remunerated for their labor. Many are en-
we
Washington that the girls eclipse the men in diligence
and aptitude for work. Consequently, there is no want of
scope in which the girls can employ themselves and earn
an honest livelihood.
During the war numbers of girls were employed in
cigar stores, both for manufacturing the fragrant weed
and also as the retailers thereof; and since then many.
have earned large wages as hoop-skirt makers. How-
ever, as the crinoline mania has gone out, and dresses
“ made to the figure” become the fashion, this branch of
Besides those who spend their long days in the stores
and manufactories of the metropolis, a number of little
girls carry on a thriving trade in making bouquets and
selling them in the street to the passers-by. The flower-
girls of Paris have long been an institution of that “gay
city,” and they promise to become equally celebrated in
New York. From the Fifth Avenue Hotel down to the
last of the Broadway theatres in the evening, and opposite
43

594
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Trinity Church, and at all the ferries during the morning
and “burden and heat of the day,” these pretty little pro-
viders of “flowers for the million” are to be seen sitting
enthroned in roses—little queens in their own parterres-
offering to the youths and maidens and dapper business
men of the city buds and sprays and bouquets wherewith
to adorn themselves and sport at the theatres in the even-
ing. Some of these little flower-girls have quite histories
of their own, and many accumulate quite a large fortune
in the business. One, who has a stand at a well-known
spot, is said to drive down there in her brougham, and
to have quite a large establishment of her own up town-
“when she's at home,” as Paddy would say. All these
girls have to get up very early in the morning-long
before the lazy lark of the poets has thought of shaking
his pinions in the air—and they proceed to Jersey and
Long Island, and lay up their stock of flowers for the
· day. They purchase them wholesale, we might say, at
small cost, and making them up into tiny bouquets and
big bunches, retail them often at one hundred per cent.
profit.
If the morning scene is busy, however, when girls are
going to work, how much more lively is that of the even-
ing, when hundreds, thousands are let loose from toil, and
can be seen making toward home! The Bowery and Broad-
way, between five and six and seven o'clock, respectively,
resemble a sort of ladies' fair, where multitudes of female
pedestrians can be observed pouring out of the various
stores along the way, and uniting in one vast current
that bears steadily along for the upper parts of the city.

THE WORKING GIRLS OF THE METROPOLIS.
595
len
Here they are merry, romping girls, careless and light-
hearted, whose spirits have by no means been oppressed
by toil, laughing together with the heartiest enjoyment as
they deftly steer their way between the contrary shoals
of passengers that fill up the sidewalk-one current flow-
ing down toward the ferry; the other as swiftly in the
other direction. Our city is the busiest in the world.
Here all work, and work cheerfully, and we have few
idlers, so to speak, proportionately, among the vast in-
creasing population of New York. Our men work, so
do our women, and our boys and girls follow the same
praiseworthy example. No members of a family are
felt to be a burden, for all give their share to the general
support of the whole circle; and the girls are about the
most industrious workers of all. It is a pity, however,
that more of the poorer classes of these will not go Jut
to house-service, when good domestic servants are so
much needed. It would be undoubtedly for their own
benefit, for besides having ample wages and being well-
clothed and fed—which shop-work hardly allows them
to be at present—they would have a better prospect of
being married and settled in life.
Mechanics and artisans would rather have a wife who
understands all about domestic work than one who can
only sew and make artificial flowers, and does not know
how to cook. This point is worthy of the consideration of
our girls. Like the boys, a certain proportion of the
girls of New York are imbued with the spirit of vagrancy,
and wander about the streets either as beggars, under
the tuition of unprincipled parents, or as helpless little

596
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Bedouins-houseless, homeless, corruptible and corrupted
little specimens of humanity.
Although a less number of vagrant girls are to be
found in the streets, still a considerable proportion are
such, and how they live and where they sleep at night are
a puzzle to many. All of us have seen them. Ragged,,
with dirty faces, unkempt hair, and pleading look or
defiant, don’t-care expression of countenance, they stand
at street corners and at all busy places, either begging
openly for alms or soliciting them by means of fictitious
articles that are for sale and are never sold. The earn-
ings of some of these little girl-beggars are so large that
the parents will not part with them and allow them to
be taken into the home of any society; and so they are
led on from beggary to worse acts, and even crimes.

CHAPTER LIV.
LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
CON New York—more, perhaps, than in any other
city in the world-poverty and wealth, luxury and
200 want, stand in near proximity. It is a palace on
one side and a hovel on the other; and yet there
are thousands of people in the great metropolis who
know literally nothing by actual contact of the amount
of squalor, misery and destitution they might encounter
Much has been written of the lodging-houses of New
York, and their squalid filth has been depicted with fidel-
ity and earnestness. There are places in the Fourth and
Sixth wards where for the paltry sum of five cents a
night's lodging may be obtained—the lodging consisting
of a place on the floor, a dirty, filthy pallet, covered by
a few old rags, to rest upon, shared in common with fifty
others, in an atmosphere vitiated in winter by the heat
of a red-hot stove and the breaths of the half hundred
sleepers. In most cases the lodging-house is beneath the
level of the street, and to the other discomforts is added
those of dampness and the additional foulness of the air.
Is it any wonder that oftentimes some of the unfortunate
lodgers are found dead on their wretched pallets in the
597

598
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
morning? These are bad enough off, but there are many
who fare even worse: we refer to those who do not possess a
cent, and are compelled to seek for shelter in the station-
house. The lodging-rooms are generally in an apartment
adjoining the prison, and differing from the latter only in
the lack of comfort. In the centre of each of the two
rooms is a large stove heated red hot. Around each
room is a platform sloping toward the centre of the apart-
ment; and this is the only accommodation in shape of a
bed provided for those seeking a lodging. These rooms
are about twelve or fourteen feet square, and are assigned
respectively to the males and females, the sexes being
very properly separated for the time being.
The rooms are generally crowded with fifteen or twenty
persons in them, and yet on very inclement nights not
less than thirty or thirty-five persons are often put in
each in many of the down-town precincts. It is a fearful
thing to turn away a poor, shivering wretch who implores
that he may be allowed to pass a night in the station-
house; and yet it is often done for the simple reason that
the lodging-room is so overcrowded that there is no pos-
sible chance to crowd in any more. Those denied admit-
tance are told to go to some other station-house to seek
for shelter, the location of the one nearest being given
them. Most likely, on applying there, the suppliant re-
ceives the same rebuff as at the other station-house.
The majority of female lodgers are, of course, of the
lowest class, but occasionally a woman of evident respect-
ability, although of course very poor, applies for a night's
lodging. Fancy what must be her feelings at being com-

LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
599
pelled either to pass the night in such a filthy hole, or
walk the streets and be subjected to the brutal insults of
the ruffians who infest the thoroughfares.
Enter the sleeping-room devoted to the men. Here
are about the same number, made up almost altogether
of the lowest grade of life, or what is known as “bum-
mers.” But there are a few among the number of evident
respectability, and these must feel it a torture to be com-
pelled to pass a night in such a place, for, if anything, the
men's room is worse than that of the women. The stench
of woolen clothing long worn, dampened by rain and dry-
ing in the fearfully hot atmosphere, is horrible—appa-
rently sufficient to breed a pestilence.
Many of the station-houses are not even so well pro-
vided with accommodations as the Fourth, the lodgers
being placed either in the spare cells or occasionally in
the space devoted to the storage of coal. Should there
be a larger number of prisoners than usual, these lodgers
must make room for them, and accordingly the unfortu-
nate shelter-seekers are turned into the street. During
the past winter a German shot himself in one of the
German boarding houses in the lower part of the city,
and by direction of the coroner the body was removed to
the Liberty street police station pending the inquest.
There was no place in which to put the body but the
lodgers' room, and consequently about twenty female
lodgers were turned into the streets on a bitter cold night.
In the preparation of this work the author made a tour
of inspection through the “slums” of the great city, vis-
iting some of the streets inhabited by the poorer classes

600
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
of the population, and made a close scrutiny into their
means of livelihood and modes of living. We obtained
the escort of an officer of the police force; not that there
was any danger connected with the tour of inspection
proposed by us, but simply that the company of an offi-
cial, like our friend, would be to us an “open sesame”
when otherwise our right of admission would be ques-
tioned.
The first house we entered was a tenement in Mulberry
street. This was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, it
not having occurred to us then that the best time for our
visit would be after dark, when the male portion of the
tenants—such as had employments—would be at leisure
and at home. With what class to rank this house was a
puzzle. It was very inferior to others in the same street,
and yet not nearly so bad as several others that we entered
the evening of the same day. It was of brick, four sto-
ries in height, with a flight of steps, six or eight in
number, leading to the doorway. The hall and stairways
were entirely bare, and much worn by the tread of many
feet. As we ascended, the unsteady balustrades shook
at every step, and a slatternly-looking woman enter-
ing by the back way caused us to pause for the purpose
of interrogating her in reference to the occupants of the
premises.
“An' it's meself that ought to know,” she replied, in
answer to our question of how many families were in the
house, “ for I've lived here now goin' on a twelvemonth.
There's—let me see,” said she, calling them by name and
counting them off on her fingers—“there's—twenty-
we

LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
601
twen-twenty-four-five; twenty-five, and not a cowl
From the conversation of this female, who was of a
communicative turn, and who, judging from her features
as well as her brogue, was undoubtedly of Celtic origin,
we learned that her husband contributed to the support
of herself and children (two boys and a girl), ranging in
years from five to eleven, all equally as frowzy as herself,
and having the same soiled, begrimed appearance, by shov-
eling coal. In reply to our inquiry, whether she did noth-
ing herself to aid her husband in his honest endeavors, she
replied that she sometimes took in washing; but how she
ever managed to get the clothes clean, and how she kept
them so after they were once washed, in that dirty room
on the hall floor, and herself so typical of dirt, to say
nothing of the three children and her husband a coal-
heaver, was, to say the least, somewhat mysterious.
“It isn't much that I gets to do,” she went on, some-
what apologetically; “but what little I do, helps. But
most of the people I works for are too poor to pay, and
so either wash their own clothes or go dirty.”
The front room on the same floor, she informed us, was
occupied by a tailor, who was on a spree and away from
home. We ascended the stairs, followed by the lady her-
self and her three children, she having offered to be our
guide through the house and to introduce us to some of
the tenants on the floors above. There was little or noth-
ing to interest us in these—the same bare floors, the same
blank walls, the same pine tables, broken chairs and
ragged bedding; the same neglected-looking occupants ;
Own
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602
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
mai
nothing save the usual accompaniments of that particular
grade of poverty.
On reaching the ground in our descent to the street
our ears were saluted by a wild howl, for it certainly was
nothing else—a wild, prolonged, frenzied sort of howl-
which issued from a tenement in the rear. The distance
between the two houses was about fifteen feet; and on
looking out of a back window, we saw, to our astonish-
ment, seated conspicuously in one of the windows of the
rear tenement, a rather oldish woman, with an enormous
muslin cap upon her head, whose border was a perfect
marvel of frills. She sat rocking herself to and fro with
a quick, restless motion, uttering the same barbarous howl
that we had first heard—a long, loud torrent of inarticu-
late noises—pausing now and then to wipe her eyes with
her apron, or to hold before her at arms' length a pair
of much-worn, much-patched pantaloons, at the contem-
plation of which her grief so overcame her that she had
recourse each time to a suspicious-looking black bottle,
which stood somewhere beside her in the room, after
which she would invariably howl again—louder, longer,
dismaller, dolefuller, if possible, than before.
“Sure an' it's Mrs. Maloney,” said our entertainer in
explanation. “It's only two days since she lost her son,
as fine a lad as ever was seen; it ’ud be long until yez
saw his likes."
As if these words of condolence and approval had
somehow been overheard and touched anew a more sensi.
tive chord in Mrs. Maloney's breast, a howl surpassing
all previous ones issued from the healthy lungs of that

LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
603
lady; the trowsers dropped into her lap; the bottle was
elevated to her lips, and the rocking resumed at such
a pace as to cause each separate and individual frill in
the poor woman's cap to flap and flutter like the sails of
a windmill.
Reaching the sidewalk, with Mrs. Maloney's lamenta-
tion still ringing in our ears, we found ourselves the
centre of a circle of ragged, wonder-stricken children,
with here and there a grown man or woman on the out-
skirts, staring at us with wide-open eyes and mouths,
vainly endeavoring to conjure up some probable reason
for our presence within the house. Various were the
surmises indulged in—all of them more or less wide of
the truth-in relation to our visit; but utterly regardless
of these, as the crowd opened before us, we made our way
out of it and down the dirty, foul-smelling street to a
house somewhat inferior outwardly, but of the same
general pretensions within as that we had just quitted.
We met with nothing here worthy even of a passing
notice, with the exception, perhaps, of a small dog-fight
which was progressing in the back yard, aided and
abetted by half a dozen ragged urchins, who, at sight of
the officer, and as if actuated by a single impulse, beat
a hasty and ignominious retreat, leaving the dogs to fight
it out on that line all the year round if they felt. so
disposed.
It was on leaving this last tenement that we concluded
to postpone all further research until after dark; and
about half-past eight o'clock started on a second inspec-
tion. On this round we visited a house in Baxter street,

604
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
very far worse, both in appearance as well as the condition
of its occupants, than those in Mulberry street. Through
the vile street, reeking with filth and abounding in horrid
stenches, our ears ringing with the Babel of voices issuing
from a hundred throats at once, we picked our way till
we came in front of a tall house that in the broad light
of day must have presented a scaly, leprous appearance
on its unsightly front. Judging from the glimpse we had
of it by the dim gaslight, the stoop was crowded with
people of both sexes—the men smoking, the women gos-
siping, the children wrangling among themselves, while
from the windows above the shadowy outlines of sundry
heads and shoulders were visible, thrust half-way out
over the sills. There appeared to be something more
than usual under discussion, for the men conversed while
smoking with almost as much interest as the women-
some mysterious and low, others loud and excited. As
we stopped close to the foot of the steps, all eyes were
turned upon us, and a silence fell upon each lip at sight
of the officer's uniform. In reply to his inquiry as to
what all the loud talking meant, a large, portly woman,
with arms akimbo, who seemed to be the centre of the
female group, made answer as follows:
“Shure an’ it's about Misthress O'Flannigan's baby that
was hung up by the neck this mornin' in one of the rooms
above by its father, an' he ravin' mad with delirium; and
Misthress O'Flannigan herself, poor cratur, that sick she
couldn't stir nor move a hand, as yourself well knows.”
“What have they done with the woman ?” asked the
officer.

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LIFE IN THE SLUMS.-A "BUCKET SHOP."


LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
605
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“They took her to Billevue this mornin', where she
will be cared for and nursed; and the husband, him they
took away to the Tombs, which is the place for the loikes
of him, bad luck to 'em !”
What Mr. O'Flannigan's reason may have been for thus
performing the part of hangman to his infantine progeny,
except that he was laboring under a severe attack of de-
lirium tremens, did not appear. In that house there were
upward of forty families. The front basement was
occupied as a small grocery, while the apartment back of
it served as kitchen, sleeping-room and living-room for
the grocer and his family. The first-floor front was ten-
anted by the woman who had imparted to us the infor-
mation respecting the hanging of O'Flannigan's baby.
This woman had a sort of supervision of the premises,
and was the wife of a one-legged man, who sat smoking
on the lower step, making very fair time with the assist-
ance of a stout crutch which lay beside him where he
sat. There was an organ-grinder in one of the rooms
up stairs, with a wife and four children—three girls and
a boy. The youth, it appeared, had essayed the boot-
blacking business, but owing to his foreign origin had
been driven off by the other boys, who nicknamed him
Maccaroni, in derision of his nationality. Next to these
was a Frenchman and his family, who were all chiffonniers
or rag-pickers.
Leaving this house, we visited one farther down the
street, where around the basement door were gathered a
group of children that every now and then scattered and
fled, shouting, screaming and laughing, some of them, at

606
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the approach of a man from within—a short, thick-set,
evil-looking fellow, with a coarse, bristly beard and a
bushy head of hair, and a very hairy breast visible be-
neath his open shirt of thick gray wool, who invariably,
from accident or intention, fell upon his hands on reach-
ing the top step and uttered noises somewhat resembling
the bellowing of a wild bull, his eyes flaming with rage
and his teeth gleaming like those of some hungry animal.
In this house there was about an equal number of fami-
lies with the one we had just left. If anything, the
building itself was a little worse than the other, which
was rotten and rickety enough, in all conscience. The
children of one family, four in number, were all street-
sweepers, and were looking forward to the approaching
winter with a view to a brisk business. We found here
two young married couples, the brides claiming to be sis-
ters, occupying the same apartment, with only a torn
screen separating their domains. They were street-singers
and musicians. There was an organ in one corner of the
room and a couple of tambourines hanging upon nails
driven into the wall. In this house there were also seve-
ral Chinamen. We were conducted over the premises by
a woman who was in charge—a small, shriveled-up old
creature, rather neat in appearance, by comparison with
others, who occupied the lower floor.
We might rehearse at greater length our travels
through the slums of New York, and the sights and
scenes of misery and degradation which are everywhere
to be witnessed, but it would be the same old story.
Everywhere vice in its lowest form, filthy surroundings,

LIFE IN THE SLUMS.
607
bad associations and vile and wicked people, with appa-
rently no redeeming trait in their characters and no
sweetness of nature or kindness of heart. The poor of
New York are so situated that vice cannot help but
flourish and grow amongst them, and, unless those who
have the power see to it and improve this state of affairs,
we may expect to see crime flourish to the detriment of all
classes of society, whether good or bad.
44

CHAPTER LV.
THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK-FROM FIFTH AVENUE TO BAXTER
STREET
THE readers of one or two of the New York papers
may have noticed a short time since, under the
a head of “Personals,” an advertisement reading as
follows:
DOD.-I AM WELL; BUT WE ARE IN AFFLICTION, AND
D long for you, that we may comfort one another. There is a letter for
Dod at the Post-office.
Very few—probably not more than one or two—in the
great metropolis know the peculiar and interesting history
of the writer of the Personal in question, or through what
strange adventures she has passed, although not yet much
over middle age.
In the year 1839 there lived in the city of New York.
in (what is now) an old-fashioned wooden house in Fifth
avenue, near the corner of Fifty-fourth street, a family
by the name of Dalton. The father was engaged in mer-
cantile pursuits on Broad street, and his wife (who was
living) had presented him with two sons and two daugh-
ters—the former, at the time we are speaking of, being
aged respectively, thirteen and fourteen, and the latter
seventeen and eighteen. The name of the eldest daugh-
608

THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
609
ter, with whom we have to do, was Margaret. She was a
beautiful girl, a brunette, full of life, fire and passion, the
idol of her father and the best beloved of her mother.
The house in which the Daltons lived at that time was a
“mansion," and considered one of the finest in the city,
being almost the only house for several blocks, quite re-
tired and surrounded by trees and shrubbery of every
description. Parties and balls were often given in it,
however, which were attended by the élite of the metrop-
olis, for there was quite as much pomp and fashion in
that day as at the present time. Of all the beauties who
reigned in the society of that day, Margaret Dalton was
the most courted. She had gentlemen admirers almost
without number, and was for many seasons the reigning
belle. Her life was a very happy one in her father's
house.
She had all that money could buy, and no wish of hers
was left ungratified. Apparently, the future had nothing
but happiness for her. But fate arranges our lives in
very different ways from those we anticipate, and Mar-
garet's life was doomed to be far different from the flowery
one she looked forward to. When she was about twenty
years of age she was wooed and won by a man named
Ralph Bartlett, an Englishman of considerable wealth,
who had come to America merely for the purpose of
pleasure—to see “the blarsted country," and then leave
for the British Isles. While in New York he became
acquainted with Miss Dalton; took a fancy to her, said
that he loved her, and made her an offer of marriage,
which was accepted. Margaret was a woman whose pas-

610
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
sions were very strongly developed, and before she was
engaged many months her intended husband seduced
her under a solemn promise of marriage. Margaret
Dalton lost her virtue through trusting the man she
loved, who soon after betraying her left for parts un-
known, and has never since been heard from. Margaret
remained in the home of her parents until her condition
became openly manifest, when her father cast her off,
closing the doors of his house against her, and for-
bidding her ever to return. Having a little money, she
went West, and remained for some time in Cincinnati,
making her living by dressmaking. She was employed
by a well-known modiste, who since that time has become
famous, making a large fortune in her business, and who
now resides in New York. The amount Margaret made
in this way was very small, and ere long, losing courage
and hope, as women too often do in like trying circum-
stances, she consented to become the mistress of a noted
gambler of the Queen City. He treated her kindly and
dealt liberally with her and her little child. She finally
separated from him, however, and then became connected
with a famous house of the demi-monde on Vine street
in that city-very fashionable and to a certain extent
select. While in this house she made the acquaintance
of a Mr. B- , of St. Louis, with whom she went to
that city, or rather started to go. On the way the train
ran off the track. Mr. B_ was killed, though Miss
Dalton escaped uninjured. The accident took place near
the little town of Olney, in the State of Illinois. At this
place Miss Dalton proposed to remain for a night or two

THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
611
after the accident, and then proceed to St. Louis, but
ended by staying in the little town for a year. Finding
she had but little money, she became a nymph du pave,
being the first woman who had ever made prostitution a
business in that virtuous town. She made considerable
money there, though the place was small, having for her
customers several well-to-do farmers from the country, as
well as nearly all the merchants of the town, old and
young, who were “gallantly” inclined.
But she soon tired of this rural simplicity, though she
made it pay, and determined to remove to New York,
which she did in 1856. For some months she did not
do anything, living on the little money she had made in
the West. But this soon ran out, and she looked about
for a suitable place to pursue her calling, for she was now
determined to lead the life of a woman-of-the-town. At
that time there was and still is a famous house of prosti-
tution on Mercer street, in the rear of the St. Nicholas
Hotel. Margaret heard of it and went there; sought to
become an inmate and succeeded. The house was noted
for having more drinking-parties and carrying dissipation
to a greater extent than any other institution of the kind
in the city. The amount of wine and whisky consumed
there could hardly be computed. This was not on excep-
tional occasions, but was the rule and practice night after
night. Men reeled about the parlors in the most beastly
state of intoxication, and the women were equally ad-
dicted to dissipation. It was in this place that Margaret
became fully accomplished in the art of drinking, and
where she lost the little remaining sense of delicacy she

612
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
possessed. For week after week she would not be sober
an hour, spending the nights in carousal and the days in
trying to sleep.
While in this house she made one friend who proved
true to her through life-a young French girl named
Dodey Duvigne. The girl had been seduced in Paris,
and came to America to find respectable employment, but
not succeeding became a woman-of-the-town. Between
Margaret and this young foreign girl there existed a
deep and undying friendship. When sober, they asso-
ciated together, walked the streets, went into the country,
without ever having a jealous feeling come between them
--enjoying a friendship, in fact, such as is seldom seen
between women of this class. Margaret's downfall was
very rapid after her entrée to this house. Her dissipation
caused bad health, and bad health destroyed much of the
beauty which she once possessed. Her little child accom-
panied her, and grew up learning nothing apparently but
evil.
It would be tedious to trace the career of Margaret
Dalton minutely up to the present time; to tell how she
moved from place to place in the city for a number of
years; how she went to the war as a vivandière; how she
lay sick for many a day in the hospital at Vicksburg;
how she recovered, and when the war was nearly over
came to New York again. Let us come at once to the
last scene—pauper life in Baxter street. A few nights
ago the writer was escorted by two detectives through
the purlieus of the lower part of the city of New York.
Among other places he went through Baxter street.
mov
a
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THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
613
After going to many dens of infamy, the detectives
stopped to consider where next to conduct their guests.
“Take 'em to Mag's,” said the younger of the detect-
ives. “Let 'em see how low a woman can get-one who
was once one of the brightest girls and proudest beauties
in the land.”
The suggestion, being acquiesced in, was acted on.
Through long, narrow and nasty streets the party walked;
past men reeling drunk; past women cursing and swear-
ing; past low-browed, short-haired, skulking villains, who
dodged quickly by; past little children, who seemed to
have lost all the childhood they ever had, if indeed they
ever had any.
“This way,” said the detective, leading the way through
a long, narrow alley, full of foul and noisome smells,
which led to a back yard, in the rear of which was a
large, five-story brick house.
“Be careful of your heads!”
Down three or four steps, through a doorway so low
that we could not stand upright, traversing a long, narrow
entry, we came to a door. The officer knocked, and the
door was opened. The room was very small; scarce any
furniture could be seen. The floor was bare of carpet or
oil-cloth, and the whole appearance of the room uncom-
fortable in the extreme. A woman in a state of beastly,
crazy intoxication was standing by the side of a great,
hulking negro in one corner of the room, and vowing,
while she brandished a whisky bottle in one hand, that
she would never leave him, but would live with him for
her husband for life. Two or three wretched-looking and

614
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
poorly-dressed Irishmen stared at the intruders, seeming
to wonder what could have brought us there. The woman
vociferating in the corner was no other than Margaret
Dalton—the once beautiful belle of Fifth avenue. She
had indeed taken the last step in degradation, descended to
the lowest point in the social scale—become a pauper, an
outcast, a prostitute of the lowest and vilest type.
Her child was with her, very sick and not likely to
live. The only vestige of womanhood remaining to the
poor debauchee in her degradation seemed to be her love
for this little girl—the fruit of her misfortune, the monu-
ment of her fatal love and fall. Her own life had been
too full of evil to allow her to give any virtuous teaching
to the child, but she had endeavored to be kind to her
and provide for her physically-loving her fondly in her
own poor way. Now the child was ill—ill unto death,
the wretched mother feared—and she had not the means
to provide for her even the commonest comforts. Among
her vile acquaintances in Baxter street there was no one
of whom she could ask aid. Finally, she thought of her
old friend, the French girl Dodey Duvigne, of whom she
had for some years lost track. But how to find her was
the question. She was the only true friend she had ever
had, and now, in her misery, her heart yearned for her.
Inquiry was useless at any of her old resorts. Finally,
she happened to remember the mode of communication
she had often adopted in her more halcyon days——the
“Personal” column of the morning paper. She had the
advertisement written which is given in the first part of
this chapter. For many days it ran in one or two metro-

THE POOR WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
615
politan papers, and finally was discontinued. Let us hope
that the poor, degraded woman may find her friend of
early years and renew perhaps the only pleasant remem-
brance her life had afforded since she fell from virtue into
the great maelstrom of vice.

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
CHAPTER LVI.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
C ROM the earliest ages of Christianity the Ro-
911 man Catholic Church has encouraged the adop-
tion of a religious life by women. For many
vages, however, the conventual system, while devel-
oping individual sanctity, had little effect upon the outer
world. The nuns, shut up in their convents, busied
themselves in the offices of religion and in exciting
among themselves the impulses of a holy life. But
when the Reformation came, a wonderful change, caused
by the zealous exertions of the Jesuit fathers, came over
all the monastic orders, both male and female. It was
seen that the battle of the Church must be fought in the
world, and not behind the walls of religious houses. As
the Jesuits devoted themselves with incredible zeal to the
tuition of male youth, a number of Orders sprang up
among women for the teaching of girls. It would lead
us too far away, however, from the present subject to
refer more extensively to these; we must confine our-
selves to the female religious Orders found in the United
States.
616

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
617
The principal of these are the Sisters of Charity and
the Sisters of Mercy. There are a few establishments of
“enclosed” nuns, as they are called, and these will be
adverted to presently.
The Order of the Sisters of Charity was founded some
years ago by Mrs. Seton, a pious and wealthy lady con-
nected with the Roosevelt family of this city. She orig-
inally belonged to the Protestant Episcopal Church, but
becoming a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, devoted
the remainder of her life to religious and philanthropic
works. Seeing the need in this country of an Order of
women devoted to the teaching of children, the visitation
of the sick and the friendless, the instruction of persons
in prison, and other such duties, she determined to found
an Order of women whose lives should be devoted to
these objects. The permission of the Pope was accord-
ingly gained for the establishment of the Order of the
Sisters of Charity, and Mother Seton was their first
Superior.
We believe the Order was at first established in New
Jersey, but its headquarters are now located at Mount
St. Vincent, where a piece of land was purchased some
years ago by Mother Angelo, the venerable sister of the
late Archbishop Hughes, who was next Superior of the
Order. Upon this site a convent has been built, which
now holds three hundred and twenty professed Sisters,
seventy-three novices and seventeen postulants.
The rule of the American Sisters of Charity very
much resembles that of the French Sisters. They are
not "enclosed”—that is, they are not strictly confined

618
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
IS
to the convent walls, as was the case with nuns of the
ancient pattern; they are allowed to mix freely in the
world for the performance of the duties required of
them, returning to their convents at night or whenever
their avocations permit. There is, of course, a certain
religious routine which it is incumbent upon them to
perform, but this embraces few austerities; indeed, their
strength is so taxed by their various educational and
philanthropic duties that very little of the luxury of
asceticism is permitted to them by their Superiors and
confessors. They have need to be strong and healthy.
The Order grew, as one of the Sisters said to the writer,
“from a grain of mustard seed.” But though its begin-
nings were small and weak, it is now quite a large and
effective Order, and possesses sixty-one establishments
in New York, Jersey City, Brooklyn, New Haven and
Providence.
The headquarters of the Sisters of Charity within the
city of New York are at St. Patrick's Orphan Asylum,
in Prince street. This house is under the charge of
Sister Mary Frances, Sister Superior, and there are prob-
ably about twenty or thirty Sisters generally living there.
The house was founded in 1825, and is a comfortable, old-
fashioned establishment, where the children appear to
live very happy and contented lives. Nearly two hun-
dred children are boarded and educated here.
The Male Orphan Asylum, in charge of the Sisters of
Charity, is on Fifth avenue, and fills the block bounded
by Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets. It is a very
spacious building, without architectural pretensions, but

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
619
having very handsome grounds. There are at present
about five hundred and fifty orphan boys there. These
children are all tended and educated by Sisters of Charity,
of whom Sister Mary Regina is the Superior.
The other establishments in charge of these Sisters are
the new Female Orphan Asylum in Madison avenue, St.
Stephen’s Home for Destitute Children in Twenty-eighth
street, St. Joseph's Home for Aged Women in West
Fifteenth street, etc.; and they are now actively engaged
in raising funds for a Foundling Asylum and for an
Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.
But, as we have said, their principal vocation is teach-
ing; and the amount of educational work performed by
the Sisters is really surprising, considering that the re-
sources of the Order are by no means large. In upward
of four-fifths of the parochial female schools connected
with the Roman Catholic churches in the city the teach-
ers are Sisters of Charity. They devote themselves to
this work with a zeal which knows no limits and is
daunted by no obstacles. And it must be recollected
that some of the schools are crowded with children
drawn from the very humble, and sometimes (it cannot
be denied) from the depraved, classes, so that the work
the Sisters have to perform is far from inviting, far from
pleasant, far from agreeable. Yet among such as these
the Sisters labor year after year with a devotion which
cannot but win the sympathies of all who love humanity.
In addition to these duties, the Sisters visit the poor of
the parishes where they are stationed, and minister to the
sick and dying. Sisters of Charity also regularly visit

620
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
Bellevue Hospital and the prisons and reformatories on
Ward's and Blackwell's islands, where they devote them-
selves to the instruction of all who are willing to receive
their ministrations.
The Sisters of Mercy is another modern Order like
the former, differing entirely in its scope and objects
from the ancient ascetic Orders of women. It was
founded in Dublin in 1827, by Mother Catherine Mac-
auley. The life of this remarkable woman has lately
been published, and exhibits her nature in a very noble
and interesting light. Although born in a humble sphere
of society, and passing the greater portion of her life as
a domestic servant, she possessed a character of saintly
dignity. The experiences of the most excellent among
the religious of any Church can hardly present a more
exalted mysticism than seems to have possessed her soul,
while joined to this rare spiritual attainment was a
degree of tender sympathy, of practical insight and of
rugged force which marked her out for a leader of minds.
She founded the Order of Mercy in Dublin amidst
discouragements that would have unnerved most other
women. But it met a great want; it fulfilled a “mis-
sion,” and therefore could not die. Archbishop Hughes
admired the Order which his great country woman had
established. Doubtless, he sympathized with the work
of a character resembling in so many respects his own;
and it was at his request that in 1846 a detachment of
the Sisters of Mercy-for it hardly seems incongruous to
use a military term in regard to these monastic Orders, so
perfect is their discipline—was sent to plant the Order
0 many

HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD.-IN THE SEWING-ROOM,


FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
621
in New York city. In fact, the archbishop, returning
from a visit to Ireland, brought the worthy Sisters with
him.
The headquarters of the Sisters of Mercy is at 33 and
35 East Houston street. This locality does not strike one
as very satisfactory for a religious establishment, but it
must be remembered that when the convent was founded
the social aspect of New York was very different. In
those days Bleecker street was the centre of fashion, and
the beau monde lived thereabouts and aired its gentility
along that part of Broadway. So that Houston street, if
not distinctively a genteel quarter, had at least near rela-
tionship with the quality. The convent is a very large
pile of buildings, covering a large space of ground and
having a considerable number of apartments within its
area, besides a handsome chapel and a small convent gar-
den. The building embraces three establishments :
1. St. Catherine’s Convent of Mercy, of which the
Rev. Mother Mary Augustina is the Superior. There .
were, according to the latest information, fifty-one women
in the house, divided as follows: Professed choir Sisters,
twenty; professed lay, fifteen; novices, thirteen; postu-
lants, three.
2. The House of Mercy, at 33 East Houston street.
This is a sort of refuge for young women who are friend-
less in the city, and who, if left to their own resources,
would not improbably fall from a virtuous course. Many
of these girls arrive from Ireland without the slightest
experience of the life of cities; some know nothing even
of household duties, having spent their lives at work in
45

622
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
the fields, and are therefore almost wholly unfitted for the
ordinary avocations of women in this country. These
girls are taken in hand by the Sisters and taught laundry-
work, cooking, needlework, and, in addition, how to tend
the sick and make themselves highly useful in a home.
Washing, needlework and ironing are therefore taken in
at this establishment; and the profits derived from these
employments render the House very nearly self-support-
ing. What is wanting is made up by the gifts of the
pious and benevolent. There are at present about one
hundred and twenty girls in the establishment.
3. St. Catherine's Academy of Our Lady of Mercy is
attached to the convent, and the pupils, who lately have
averaged about eighty or ninety in number, are taught by
the Sisters; and the profits derived from this source are
devoted to the general objects of the Order—the relief of
the poor and distressed, the visitation of the sick and the
supply of extras to unhappy women suffering terms of
imprisonment. The Sisters of Mercy are indefatigable in
their labors among the sick poor. Whenever they are
notified from any source of the existence of any case of
distress or suffering, the Mother Superior promptly sends
out two of the Sisters, with all necessary supplies for the
distressed object. The amount of good they do is incal-
culable, and their Order deserves to be held in high
estimation.
In addition to the labors above mentioned, the Sisters
of Mercy are now pushing forward a very meritorious
work-namely, a home for the protection of destitute little
girls, and especially the orphans of deceased soldiers.

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
623
The Sisters of Mercy, it will be remembered, did good
service during the war as hospital nurses'; and hearing
many of the sick and dying soldiers lament the friendless
and destitute condition in which their wives and children
would be left, the Sisters pledged themselves to those men
that they would endeavor to found a Home for the poor
children. After much exertion they have been enabled
to procure a site for the building on Madison avenue, and
the Home is now rapidly approaching completion. It is
called the St. Joseph's Industrial Home, and will prove a
valuable addition to the benevolent institutions of the
city.
The principal Roman Catholic asylum for the reforma-
tion of fallen women in this city is the Convent of the
Good Shepherd, at Ninetieth street, East River. It is in
charge of the Order of cloistered nuns known as the
Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd.
These are regular “enclosed” nuns, after the ancient pat-
tern. They never leave their convent, practice the regu-
lar offices and the austerities, and are not even allowed to
be in the same rooms with strangers, all conversation
being conducted at the grille.
The life and condition of the harlot have often been
painted in glowing and terrible colors, but however deep
the lurid tones with which the picture has been touched,
perlaps these horrid shadows have never surpassed
the truth. Cast out from the society of the good, the
agreeable, the virtuous, for her there exists nothing that
deserves the name of a home. She is compelled to herd
in some wretched den of debauchery with girls, per-

624
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
chance, more depraved than herself, or with men whose
touch is pollution, and whose presence would be an insult
to virtuous females. With such associates her daily life
is passed. At night, when the gin-palace is flashing with
gaslights reflected from gilded mirrors, when the dancing
casino pours forth its jangle of creaking sounds that only
a lunatic would mistake for music, and when the gambling-
hell begins to invite its fevered votaries to their doom,
then it is that the “woman of pleasure," as she is called
with an ironical euphuism, sallies forth upon her tour
of misery and sadness. Thoreau, with remarkable pro-
fundity of thought, says that every time we go out for
a walk it ought to be to a Holy Land, but what sort of
land do these wretched girls travel to, metaphorically,
when they go nightly “cruising” upon Broadway? Is
it not upon a devil's land? Ah, upon a land where are
the million devils of lust, of insult, of degradation, of
vice, of all shame and reproach! One night we saw two
pretty girls of this class meet each other near Haugh-
wout's upon Broadway; and in a sudden burst of inno-
cent mirth and affection, they clasped each other so
warmly in an embrace that they pushed slightly against
a male person who turned at that moment out of Broome
street, and whom they had not seen approaching. This
person was one of the lower order of brutes, whom even
girls of this class would never think of addressing. He
hurled at these poor creatures imprecations that made
one shudder, and ended by threatening to “smash the
jaws of both.” The unhappy girls, cowed and frightened,
and not daring to reply lest a street 'altercation should
near

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
625
spring up, and then their well-known character would
get them arrested, separated from each other; and slunk
away in opposite directions, their hearts doubtless swell-
ing with shame, grief and despair as they heard the part-
ing words of the monster.
It is from such a life of degradation as this that the
Sisters of Charity of the Good Shepherd desire to redeem
these unhappy girls. The Sisters commenced their work
in the city of New York on the 2d day of October, 1857.
They opened a house in Fourteenth street, and the entire
establishment consisted of but five religious. Their mis-
sion was extremely successful, both as regards the redemp-
tion of erring women and the attracting of pious young
ladies to join an Order calling for so exalted an exercise
of the virtue of Christian charity. It was soon found,
however, that Fourteenth street was an unsuitable locality
for the work; and within a year or two a lot was pur-
chased at Ninetieth street, on the banks of the East River
(then quite a wild and desolate region), and suitable
buildings erected thereon. These buildings include the
convent proper, where the nuns of the Good Shepherd
themselves reside, the House of the Penitents, the chapel,
the dormitories, work-rooms, etc., all arranged round a
large paved yard. By the side of the convent, and
stretching down to the river, is a very pretty little garden.
The situation is most admirable, whether as regards
healthfulness or cheerfulness; and we know how power-
ful a moral medicine are the charming and salubrious
aspects of Nature to the human soul.
| On entering the convent, one is received by a grim old

626
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
porteress, who does not wear the regular habit of the
Order, but appears to be a sort of lay Sister. On either
side of the entrance is a good-sized parlor, in which one
immediately observes a remarkable piece of furniture.
Across the centre of each apartment runs a partition
about two feet six inches high; and above this is placed
the famous grille or grating, which is so conspicuous a
feature in all the sentimental romance of a past day.
The grille is composed of thin strips of iron, crossing
each other at right angles, and forming a lattice-work,
through which one can see and converse with any person
on the other side. The parlor on the right hand appears
to be reserved for penitents and their visitors; that on
the left hand, for the Mother Superior and the visitors to
the nuns. At the bottom of the grille, in the nuns'
parlor, is a small door, fastened inside with a padlock;
and this is mostly unfastened when a person wishes to
talk for some time with a nun on particular business ; and
the parties sit one on each side of the opening, and so
carry their conversation on with perfect ease.
There are three classes of persons who are received
into the Convent of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd
besides the nuns; and these classes are all separated from
each other most completely, and are never permitted to
have the slightest communication with each other. This
is deemed very essential to the perfect regulation or ref-
ormation of the various classes. The first class consists
of Magdalens who are penitents, who have been con-
verted and are leading the life of religious, under the
rule of the third Order of Saint Teresa. There are at
10us

FEJALE INSTITUTIONS.
627
present in the convent about fifty young women who have
taken upon themselves the vows of this Order, which are
fundamentally the same as those taken by all religious
in the Roman Catholic Church, viz., poverty, chastity
and obedience. They wear a long brown habit, bound
round the waist with a blue cord and large tassels hang-
ing on the left side, and the usual string of beads. Their
beads are covered with the white wimple, which once
formed a portion of the common costume of women, and
over this they wear a black veil. The habit of this Order
is quite graceful and picturesque. Fifty-seven persons
have assumed the habit since the opening of the convent.
The second class of inmates of the House of the Good
Shepherd is that of the penitent women and girls. The
total number received into this class since 1857 is nine
hundred and sixty. This number is accounted for as
follows: Six hundred and ninety-two have returned to
their families or have been provided with situations;
fifty-seven have become Magdalens and entered the Order
above mentioned; and eleven have died. This leaves a
balance of two hundred; and that is the number now
remaining in the penitents' class. The Superior of the
convent is the Rev. Mother Mary Magdalen of Jesus;
and of regular nuns of the Order of the Good Shepherd
there are thirty-six; novices, twenty-eight; postulants,
one.
The department of the convent reserved for the peni-
tents' class is well worthy a visit. Although indiscrimi-
nate admission is of course against the rules, yet the
Mother Superior is always ready to admit those who come
TU
LOT

628
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
properly vouched for. On passing through the main build-
ing, we reach the House of Correction, a very large six-
story building, commanding a fine view of the river from
every floor. Here hundreds of young girls and women
are seen busily engaged in working at the needle or at
the sewing-machines. The girls wear light dresses, with
black tippets, upon the back of which is inscribed the
holy monogram, I. H. S., with a cross above. Upon
their heads they wear a linen contrivance, which partakes
of the characters of a veil, a sun-bonnet and a wimple.
Some of the girls have a way of arranging it in quite a
tasteful and pleasing manner upon their heads. The
girls seem to be very happy and contented. There are
monitresses and nuns continually moving about the rooms
where the classes are at work; and, though strict silence
is observed during work-hours, the girls are encouraged
in all innocent gayety. In walking down these long rows
of girls one scarcely observes a single face bearing marks
of sickness or sadness. Rosy cheeks, robust forms, spark-
ling eyes and cheerful looks seem to be the prevailing
characteristics of the beneficiaries. They work for two
or three hours, mornings and afternoons; they have reg-
ular hours for recreation and exercise, and, of course, fixed
periods for meals and sleep. They hear mass every day,
and a wider round of religious observances on Sundays.
In fact, their lives appear to pass in alternations of agree-
able occupation and recreation; and, as a writer who
visited the convent recently remarks, “in none of the
departments of labor did we detect the least attempt at
sullenness or dissatisfaction.”

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
629
re
Upon the lower floors and basement of this building is
the laundry department, where girls who are peculiarly
qualified for this work are seen busily employed. The
laundry is a delightfully clean and airy building, and is
fitted up with every convenience and all modern improve-
ments, those for starching, fluting and ironing being of
particular interest.
The dormitories are in the attic story of this building.
They are light, airy, and, of course, exceedingly well ven-
tilated, but they appear to be somewhat crowded, owing
to the present increased number of inmates.
The third department into which the establishment of
the Good Shepherd is divided is called the “Preservation
Class.” This class is composed of children and of young
persons who are in danger of falling into habits of vice.
There are at present about one hundred in this class.
Some of these are very young, not more than five or six
years old. The Sisters are anxious to get hold of the
children of bad and vicious parents, as they think they
can thus save many a child from entering upon a life of
sin, ending in horrible destruction. Some of this class,
however, are older, being girls of fourteen and fifteen
years of age. The class presents a pleasing picture to the
visitor. All the children appear to be in excellent health.
Their fine, clear complexions, their physical vigor and
their general deportment prove that they are sheltered by
kind and indulgent friends. According to the latest re-
turns of the work of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd,
the total number of children received into the Preserva-
tion Class was five hundred. About one hundred and
an

630
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
sixty of the children had been provided with situations,
eight had died and two hundred and ninety-eight had
returned to their homes.
In the year 1867 another class was opened in the Con-
vent of the Good Shepherd for an entirely different de-
scription of persons. This class was of a reformatory
character, and the girls and women composing it were
those who had been convicted of minor offences in the
State courts, and who, under other circumstances, would
be committed to the city or State prisons. Our readers
have doubtless frequently heard of reformatory schools
for boys. This idea was first conceived by a benevolent
Frenchman. He found, upon inquiry, that the boys com-
mitted to prison under the old system seldom received
any benefit or imbibed any corrective principles from the
discipline to which they were there subjected. On the
contrary, the chances were largely in favor of their be-
coming more and more hardened in vice every time they
were committed, until at last punishment had no terrors
for them, and the prisons became their habitual resort until
the guillotine or the galleys terminated their career. The
association of these boys with other criminals of a more
depraved character indelibly impressed upon their young
and susceptible natures the taste and ambition for more
advanced crime; they took their degrees in wickedness,
and thenceforward looked upon society only as a prey and
a spoil. To remedy this shocking state of things he pro-
posed that reformatory schools should be established,
where the boys should be kept by themselves and away
from older criminals, be subjected to a discipline more

FEJALE INSTITUTIONS.
631
suited to their young natures, and be taught healthful
and useful handicrafts. The farm of Mettray, which has
been so much praised on account of its beneficial treat-
ment of youthful criminals, was accordingly founded; the
laws of France were altered so as to admit of the com-
mittal of boys to this establishment; and in a few years
it was found that the system was eminently successful.
There were fewer recommittals of boys who had been at
the Mettray farm; most of the children who had been
instructed in trades became useful members of society;
their health was improved by outdoor avocations; their
moral feelings were trained in the right direction; their
intellect was expanded by educational means. This sys-
tem was found by philanthropists to work so successfully
that it was introduced into England, where there is an
excellent reformatory school situated in the beautiful Isle
of Wight; and also into the United States—one of the
principal establishments of this class being on Randall's
Island, where the boys are subjected to very admirable
systems both of discipline and instruction.
It was something of this nature which the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd attempted to introduce, and their efforts
have been eminently successful. Girls of the Roman
Catholic faith, committed in the city courts for minor
offences, are constantly committed to the House of the
Good Shepherd, instead of the ordinary prisons, the State
government defraying the expenses of their support at a
fixed rate. It is easy to see that these persons are brought
under a much more effective system of supervision and
discipline than they would be likely to experience in

632
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
prisons, where they would be brought into contact with
the most depraved of their sex. There is some hope for
them—that the spark of good feeling which is really
present in every human heart will be awakened, and lead
them, it may be through sorrow and remorse, but still
with hopefulness, to a better course of life. The first aim
of the Sisters in dealing with these unhappy girls is to
secure their love and confidence. They learn that the
discipline to which they are subjected is not a system of
harsh revenge, but a necessary corrective. They become
patient, and then hopeful, and generally leave the insti-
tution, when their term of commitment is expired, with a
determination to seek the paths of morality and hap-
piness.
Such are, in brief detail, the principal features of the
Convent of the Good Shepherd. The nuns of the Order
having general supervision over the whole convent wear
a white habit, with a blue cord and tassel round the waist.
Their heads have the usual conventual attire, the veil
being black. In the chapel the seats of the nuns are
arranged down either side, with high chairs beside the
doorway for the Mother Superior and the principal assist-
ant. But even in the sacred edifice marks of the austere
rule of St. Teresa, which forbids any of her daughters to
be in the same apartment with men except under rigid
restriction, are to be observed. The altar and all the
sanctuary is separated from the chapel by an iron lattice,
exactly as we have seen in the parlors below. Behind
this lattice the priest, with his attendant acolytes, performs
the offices of the Church and celebrates all the mysteries.

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
633
The nuns, when they communicate, take the holy wafer
through the bars of the grille.
There can be no question that the Convent of the Good
Shepherd is an institution of great utility, and it is surely
accomplishing a good work among the erring, the vicious
and the depraved.
There is a Protestant House of the Good Shepherd
on Eighty-fourth street, the objects of which are very
similar to those of the institution just described. It is a
very handsome building, five or six stories high, and is
in a good, healthful position. The affairs are regulated
by a board of management, of which the Bishop of New
York is president.
There are other convents of the Roman Catholic Orders
of women scattered in different parts of the city, but
none of them possessing such prominent features as those
already described.
The nuns of Notre Dame have three convents-one is
situated at No. 165 Third street, and is under the charge
of Sister Mary Hyacintha, with twelve professed nuns.
These ladies keep a boarding-school, where a very supe-
rior education is given to young ladies—the charges for
tuition being moderate; another of their convents is at
Eighty-ninth street and First avenue, with Sister Mary
Anastasia for Superior, and ten Sisters; the third convent
is at No. 257 West Forty-ninth street, with Sister Mary Ja-
coba as Superior, and four Sisters. The Sisters of Notre
Dame teach gratuitously in the parochial schools of three
of the Roman Catholic churches-namely, in the Church
of the Assumption, in the Church of Our Lady of Sor-
OMI
PS
se
nuns.

634
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
rows and in the Church of the Redeemer. The Sisters
of Notre Dame have also an orphan asylum in charge at
Eighty-ninth street and First avenue, where one hundred
and fifty orphans are taught and clothed. The asylum
is in very excellent order, being admirably conducted by
the Sisters, and is well worthy a visit.
The Ladies of the Sacred Heart have two parochial
schools in charge—namely, those of St. Francis Xavier
and of the Annunciation. The former is a Jesuit church,
and it is not a little remarkable that the good fathers
prefer ladies of a lay Order to conduct their female
schools in preference to the regular Orders of the Sisters
of Charity or the others.
The Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic have two con-
vents—at No. 127 Second street and at No. 227 West
Thirtieth street. Sister Augustina is the Superior of the
first, with six professed nuns and two novices; and Sister
Cunegunda is the Superior of the second, but the number
of nuns is not ascertained. These ladies are “enclosed”
nuns after the strictest pattern, the rules of St. Dominic
being the most austere and terrible of all the Orders.
Some of the Sisters, however, under dispensation, are
allowed to teach in the parish schools of St. John the
Baptist and St. Nicholas.
The convent of the nuns of the Holy Cross is at No.
146 West Twenty-sixth street, Sister Mary of the Re-
demption being Superior, with number of nuns not ascer-
tained. The St. Vincent de Paul Orphan Asylum is
attached to this convent, wherein sixty girls and twenty-
five boys are educated and maintained. The nuns also

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HOUSE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD.—JUVENILES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.


FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
635
teach in the parochial school of the Church of St. Vin-
cent de Paul.
The convent of the Missionary Sisters of the Third
Order of St. Francis is at No. 143 West Thirty-first
street. The Superior is Rev. Mother Gertrude of the
Most Blessed Sacrament, with four professed nuns, four
professed novices and two postulants. These ladies teach
in the schools of the Church of St. Francis of Ainsi.
The Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis have a small
hospital and convent at Nos. 407 and 409 East Fifth
street, near Avenue B. There are thirteen nuns in the
convent, with Sister Serena for Superior. This is a Ger-
man Order, and the work of the Sisters is principally
among the dense German population in this part of the
city.
46

CHAPTER LVII.
WORKING WOMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS,
7F there is a great deal of poverty and crime in New
York, there are many institutions of a public cha-
racter whose mission it is to alleviate these misfor-
tunes as much as possible. Though the Empire
City of the Union contains many wicked persons, it can
boast of having as many, if not more, philanthropists
than any other city in the country. In public institu-
tions, founded by individual or co-operative enterprise, it
is particularly prolific. It is our purpose in this depart-
ment to give an account of all the societies or organiza-
tions which have for their object the bettering of the
condition of the WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
The “Working Women's Association,” the name of
which is at the head of this chapter, is intended for the
protection of working women. It was organized for the
common benefit of all those women who obtain a liveli-
hood by other employments than household services, and
seek that benefit-
First. By securing legal protection from frauds and
impositions free of expense.
Second. By appeals, respectfully but urgently made, to
employers for wages proportioned to the cost of living,
636

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
637
IL
and for such shortening of the hours of labor as is due to
health and the requirements of household affairs.
Third. By seeking new and appropriate spheres of
labor in departments not now occupied by them.
Fourth. By sustaining a registry system, through which
those out of work may be assisted in finding employment.
Fifth. By appeals to the community at large for that
sympathy and support which is due to working women.
The origin of this institution is due to the large num-
bers of women and girls who, by the loss of husbands
and brothers in the battle-fields and hospitals, or from
any other cause, are thrown upon their own exertions for
the means of support, as well as to the inadequate com-
pensation paid for such labor as they could perform.
The association consists of such persons as contribute
ten dollars or more annually to its support. Its officers
are elected annually, and its constitution is drawn in ac-
cordance with the objects above set forth.
The Union, though supported by private contributions,
is not a charity, and very large numbers of those for
whose benefit it is maintained were, before the rebellion,
surrounded by all the comforts of life. Nearly all the
women who come to the Union do not ask for charity;
they only ask for assistance and encouragement on the
occasion of their first battle with the world. Statistics
prove that female labor is paid worse in New York than
any other. As an instance of this, the case of a soldier's
widow may be mentioned. She has four children to sup-
port, and embroiders infants' cloaks for a large establish-
ment on Broadway. Each of these garments requires

638
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
ren
two weeks of incessant toil to complete it, and it is
sold in the store for which it is made at from fifty
to seventy-five dollars; while the poor woman whose
skillful hands fashion the dainty garment destined for
some more favored child of fortune than her own poor
orphans receives four dollars and fifty cents for her labor.
When she remonstrates for the price given, she is told
that if she does not want it, there are plenty of others
who do.
Though the Working Women's Union assists all who
come within its province, it does not encourage any who
expect to live without working. It teaches young women
to help themselves.
During the last year, three thousand three hundred
and seventy-nine were supplied with work, and although,
from the great competition of thousands of applicants, the
prices are miserably small, yet it saved them from starva-
tion. They comprised women and girls of all nationalities,
religions and conditions, regardless of origin or color.
Of these, four hundred and forty-two were widows, four
hundred and ninety-five soldiers' widows, one hundred
and thirty-four soldiers' wives, five hundred and eighty-
five orphans, five hundred and ninety-two half-orphans,
six hundred and fifty-one girls with parents, four hun-
dred and thirty-one women with husbands; forty-nine
were homeless, friendless girls, thrown upon their own
resources and the charities of the world, many of them
of very interesting appearance. What would have been
their fate if they had not found protection and work from
the Union? The great remedy for the social evil which
Own

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
639
now engrosses the attention of our legislators and philan-
thropists is to give work to girls and keep them from
going astray under the pressure of pinching poverty.
The great aim should be to save them from falling, as
well as to try and help them up after they have fallen.
Nearly two hundred complaints against employers were
received during the same period, of which at least two-
thirds were settled. The sum of three hundred and
twenty-five dollars, due to working women, was collected
in a single week. The notorious Sophia Myers, who was
sentenced by Judge Kelly to the Penitentiary for six
months for swindling sewing-girls, was brought to justice
through this institution. These poor women would have
found no redress for the wrong inflicted upon them but
for the “Working Women's Protective Union,” which
took up their case free of charge and prosecuted it to a
successful issue.

CHAPTER LVIII.
"" HOMES" FOR WOMEN.
OUT Glona
MHE “lone woman” coming to New York a total
stranger finds it almost impossible to obtain lodg-
eing in any respectable house or hotel. Society has
decided that good women must never travel alone;
and therefore, when a female comes to a hotel or private
house in the city for accommodations, the inference is at
once drawn that she is not a good woman, but quite the
contrary. To provide lodgings for the working women
of the metropolis the “Home for Working Women” was
established.
The idea of establishing such an institution was bor-
rowed from the model female lodging-houses of London,
England. The Home is located at No. 45 Elizabeth
street, near Canal. The building was once a tenement-
house for colored persons, and is six stories high. The
individuals who started the Home bought the property for
one hundred thousand dollars, and expended fifty thou-
sand dollars additional to make the necessary alterations,
improvements and repairs. About one hundred boarders
patronized it during the first few weeks, and the number
has increased up to the present time. At present there
are nearly three hundred boarders, while during the
winter the number foots up to five hundred.
640

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
641
There is an office on the first floor-something like a
hotel office—where the boarders register their names, and
which is presided over by a young lady, who keeps all
the books and accounts. On the same floor is a good-
sized reading-room, containing all the current publications
-daily, weekly and monthly; also a reception-room,
where the boarders receive their friends and acquaint-
ances. The parlor on the same floor contains a piano,
and during the evening the inmates have social gather-
ings, enlivened by instrumental and vocal music. The
upper floors are used as wards or sleeping-apartments.
The rooms are large and airy. The beds are arranged in
rows, and separated by white screens.
When the Home was first organized, the price for board
and washing was three dollars and twenty-five cents per
week. Since then, however, the price has been changed,
and one dollar and twenty-five cents is now charged for
lodging and washing, while meals are procured in a res-
taurant connected with the establishment, and each one
pays for whatever she may order. The cooking is plain
and substantial, but everything is clean-much cleaner
than at some of the high-priced Broadway restaurants-
and a meal costs from fifteen to twenty-five or thirty
cents.
Religious exercises are had every evening. The lodg-
ers are admitted until eleven o'clock at night. If they
come later than that, they are charged twenty-five cents
extra for lodging.
The majority who come there are foreigners, but there
are many American women who patronize it, and doubt-
me

642
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
less the number would be greater if it were not for the
fact that many. American women think it is a charitable
institution, when it is not. When this false impression is
corrected the Home will become even a greater means of
good than it is at present, and will succeed in drawing to
its doors many worthy women who are at present living
in the wretched tenements of the city.
There is a Girls' Lodging House at No. 125 Bleecker
street. The object of this institution is to reach every
bare-footed, homeless little girl who wishes clean cloth-
ing, a clean bed and to be placed in a comfortable home.
It is to give a lodging or meal, for five cents each, to the
young girl thrown suddenly out of employment or a
situation, and who has no friends to whom she may apply.
It is to shelter the young stranger who comes to the city
expecting to find friends or work, and prevent her from
going to doubtful boarding houses or low lodging-rooms,
and render her such assistance as she most needs—to sur-
round her, while there, with good home and moral influ-
ences, and teach her, as far as practicable in the short time
she remains, how to sew and make herself useful in the
kitchen; to give the needy girl an opportunity to pay her
own way in work, and not run in debt for board while out
of employment.
During the past year the House has sheltered one thou-
sand one hundred and ninety-one lodgers, and given
thirty-five thousand four hundred and twenty-nine meals
-ten thousand seven hundred and twenty-five of which
were paid for.

CHAPTER LIX.
HOMES FOR THE "FALLEN."
CoT is the opinion of many officers and officials con-
1 nected with the Metropolitan Police force that all
Se efforts at reforming the fallen women of the city
are useless, or nearly so. But notwithstanding this
belief on the part of persons who, from their positions,
ought to be good judges in the matter, benevolent persons
have started two Magdalen institutions in the city.
The principal one of these is the “Midnight Mission,”
located at No. 23 Amity street. It is a large four-story,
plain-looking brick house, two short blocks from Broad-
way. The Mission was organized in the year 1868 by
ten persons—seven men and three women. Many were
opposed to the movement, among them a large number
of church people, who believed the charity an imprac-
ticable one. But notwithstanding this opposition the
“Midnight Mission” was started, and from its commence-
ment has been a success.
On every Thursday and Friday evening of each week
meetings are held at the rooms of the Mission. The
advertisement on printed cards reads as follows:
“The committee of the Midnight Mission will be
happy to see you at tea at ten o'clock on any Friday
643

644
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
evening, at No. 23 Amity street, between Greene and
Mercer. Rooms open every day, from two to four o'clock
P. M., for private conversation and friendly advice.”
The cards containing this announcement are distributed
among the inmates of the various houses of prostitution
which abound in the neighborhood. Missionaries, clergy-
men generally, also walk the streets at night and give
the cards to the street-walkers who will accept them.
The meetings on Friday evenings are very interesting.
Some plain, simple refreshments are provided, after which
religious exercises are gone through with. The women
are persuaded to tell the story of their lives and unfold
their troubles to the good women who have charge of the
institution, and who administer to them such advice and
comfort as it is in their power to bestow. The girls who
visit the Mission are from seventeen to twenty-five years
of age. There are about as many foreigners as Americans.
Some of the girls are good-looking, but scarcely one is
possessed of any education.
The first yearly report shows that eight hundred women
attended the Friday evening meetings during the year.
Of this number, seventy-seven were induced to remain
in the Mission; and forty-eight of the seventy-seven
were entirely reformed. Of those who remained in the
Mission, fourteen have found virtuous homes, seven have
been returned to their friends, eight placed in charitable
institutions, nine have been lost sight of, twenty-two have
gone back to their old life of shame, and seventeen were
in the Mission house at the close of the year.
The expenses of the Mission during the first year were
ve

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
645
fifty thousand dollars-about two hundred dollars for
each woman saved. This is certainly a cheap enough
price to save a soul, when we consider the harm, directly
and indirectly, the fallen woman might have done had
she pursued her bad career.
Of all the charities in the metropolis, this is certainly
one of the very best. It is well conducted by rational
Christian men and women, who aim to do all the good
they can in this particular way, without expecting to stop
entirely prostitution in New York.
The “House of Mercy,” located at the foot of Eighty-
sixth street, on the banks of the Hudson river, is an
institution for the reformation of fallen women. It was
established in 1856, by Mrs. Richmond, the wife of the
Rev. William Richmond, a clergyman of the Episcopal
persuasion. It is conducted by the Sisters of St. Mary, an
Order of the Episcopal Church, of the division of that body
called “High.” The House is conducted on very strict
principles, and in its outward appearance and many of its
inward customs has the appearance of being a Roman
Catholic charity. A high fence surrounds the grounds
of the building, and great circumspection is observed in
the admission of visitors. Part of the day is spent in
working, sewing and laundry-work, and part in religious
exercises.
The last report shows that the whole number of inmates
in the institution was one hundred and twenty. Of these,
twenty-eight returned to their friends, five went to ser-
vice, two were sent to hospital, seven were sent to other
institutions, two died, sixteen left with permission, eight

646
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
were sent away, and eight ran away. The number of
garments made during the year was five hundred and
sixty-one.
The “House of the Good Shepherd” is another institu-
tion for the reclamation and reformation of that class of
women concerning whom the Saviour said, “Let who is
without sin cast the first stone."
It is located at the foot of Eighty-ninth and Ninetieth
streets, on the East River. It is a house of correction,
attempting, by moral means alone, to reform the worst
abuses, and to provide a home—a happy and quiet re-
treat—for the inmates of the houses of infamy.
On application to the institution, so long as any room
remains to accommodate them, young women coming from
any part of the country, of any religion whatever, are
received without being questioned, and the same uniform
kindness is paid and the same accommodations and train-
ing provided for all, without the least regard being paid to
the particular religion in which they have been educated.
As no force is used to compel persons to enter the insti-
tution, so they are under no restraint to remain, but on
application to the Mother Superior can at any time leave,
though while under protection they remain always within
the enclosure, where they are trained, educated to useful
occupations, and when thoroughly reformed the religious
give them a perpetual home, or send them into the world
safe, useful and virtuous members of society. The labors
of the Sisters have been attended with the happiest re-
sults, not only on account of the number who have been
received into the establishment, but because in most in-

FEMALE INSTITUTIONS.
647
U
nuary
stances those who have entered have been entirely and
thoroughly converted.
The number in the institution on the 1st of January,
1869, was four hundred and eighty.
The inmates are divided into four classes, each of which
is entirely separated from the others—no communication
being allowed between the different classes.
The first consist of Magdalens, who are penitents, who
have been converted and are leading the life of religious,
under the rule of the third Order of St. Teresa—fifty.
The second class is that of the penitent women and
girls who have been received into the asylum in order to
be converted-two hundred.
The third class is that of the preservation, composed
of children who are in danger of falling, and mostly those
of bad parents.
The fourth class is composed of girls within the ages of
fourteen and twenty-one, committed by magistrates.
These make up a total of four hundred and eighty, the
total number received into the institution since its foun-
dation being, at the last report, one thousand nine hun-
dred and eighty-six.
The institution was commenced on Fourteenth street,
New York, on the 2d day of October, 1857, by five re-
ligious of the Order of Our Lady of Charity of the Good
Shepherd. By reception of novices since that period the
community has increased to eighty-three members and
six out-door Sisters, eleven of whom are engaged in
forming a foundation of the Order in Boston, and twelve
more in Brooklyn.

CHAPTER LX.
THE WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
MAROUGH nearly seven hundred pages we have
conducted the reader in writing of the Women of
New York. We have endeavored, as it was our
intention at the outset, to illustrate the life of the
female sex in high and low places, giving due credit to
the good and showing up the vices of the bad; exposing
the follies of the rich, and contrasting them with the
sorrows and trials of the poor. Vice, virtue, happiness
and misery, fashion and folly, have been herein illustrated
as they appertain to the women of the Empire City.
We have shown the true character of the women of
fashion, and given a searching review of female life as it
is in the higher circles of society in New York.
Married ladies, as they really are, and not as they are
popularly supposed to be, have been exposed, and the
delicate though necessarily instructive and interesting
topic of the Women of Pleasure has been fearlessly dealt
with, and much information given in regard to that
largely-increasing class of females. Besides these, we
have furnished the reader with a truthful and interest-
ing account of life among the poor—their homes, their
haunts and habits; the wicked women of all classes in
648

WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
649
the metropolis; the female frauds; the Spiritualists; the
young ladies and their seminaries; concert-saloons and
their inmates; artists' female models, and lady physicians;
females and “Personals,” and a Matrimonial Bureau ;
women-of-all-work, women of all good and the “strong-
minded” females,—all have been thoroughly, and, we
trust, interestingly, treated of; and in addition, the vari-
ous female reformatory institutions of the city that were
worthy of mention received due notice at our hands.
Such is the “ Women of New York.”
In presenting it to the public, the author and publish-
ers may justly congratulate themselves that the topic is
new and the subject one of intense interest. For who is
not interested in women, whom the poet calls “lovely,"
but who, as some chapters of our work will show, are not
always lovable or good ? But such as they are, embra-
cing as they do all sorts, conditions and classes, they are
given to the world. Of the great influence that the
female sex has, few can comprehend. As mothers, they
rear children; as sisters, they are dear counselors; and
as loved ones and wives, they form the character and
direct the aspirations and ambitions of men. By the
cradle, they watch the embryonic man; and when sick-
ness and death comes to the husband, brother or friend,
they are at the bedside administering sweet comfort and
pointing to the true Source of consolation. From birth
to death they are guides, philosophers and friends.
Whether their aspirations are for good or evil is a very
important question, not only for men, but humanity and
the future of the race.

650
WOMEN OF NEW YORK.
With the prevailing talk about the woman of the
future, let us hope that when she comes she will be all
that woman should be—tender, faithful, good and true,
exercising a noble and beneficent influence on all man-
kind and womankind, and inciting them to lead faithful
and right lives; one who shall be a faithful wife and a
good mother; who can grace the social circle and be an
elegant entertainer without falling into too familiar rela-
tions with men; who shall be lovely and lovable, wise
and witty; prudent, but not mean or extravagant; intel-
lectual, but not priggish, conceited or a blue-stocking;
who shall have all her rights, being right herself.
When such a woman comes, may we not call her The
Woman of New York, and write a book extolling her
virtues and magnifying her good name?
0
2
THE END.





30112
Ellington,
George, pseud.