Part 21 (2/2)
THE ALb.u.m BUSINESS.
A peculiarity of the Twenty-ninth Police Precinct of the city, in which the majority of the better cla.s.s of houses are located, ”is the large number of lady boarders, who do nothing, apparently, for a living. They live in furnished rooms, or they may board in respectable families.
They leave their cards with the madame of the house, together with their photograph. They live within a few minutes' call, and when a gentleman enters the parlor he has a few minutes' chat with the madame, who hands him the alb.u.m. He runs his eye over the pictures, makes his choice, and a messenger is dispatched for No. 12 or 24. These are what may be termed the day ladies, or outside boarders. Some of them are married, living with their husbands, who know nothing of what is going on, and it may be some of them have shown the readers of the _Sun_ how cheap they can keep house, dress well, and put money in the bank beside, on a given weekly income of their husband. Those ladies who hire furnished rooms all dine at the restaurants, but they are never found soliciting men in the street. True, in the restaurant they may accept a recognition, but a man has to be careful what he is about.”
EFFORTS TO BREAK UP THESE HOUSES.
”Twenty years ago, when Matsell was Chief of Police, he used to try and break up the most notorious houses by stationing a policeman at the door, and when any one went in or out, the light from a bull's eye lantern was thrown in the face of the pa.s.ser out or in. That has never been effective. Captain Speight tried it in the case of Mrs.----, who keeps the most splendidly furnished house in West Twenty-fifth street.
She owns the house, and has a few boarders who pay her fifty dollars a week for board, and ten dollars a bottle for their wine, and twenty- five per cent, on the profits of her boarders. The attempt was made to oust this woman, but she very politely told the captain that he might honor her as long as he pleased with the policeman and his lantern, but she could stand it as long as he could; she owned the house, and she meant to live in it; nothing could be proven against it, and they dare not arrest her. The consequence was that after a time the bull's eye was withdrawn.”
A NEW RUSE ADOPTED.
The latest ruse adopted to obtain fresh country or city girls is to publish an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers, for 'a young lady of some accomplishments to act as a companion for a lady about to travel abroad. The applicant must have some knowledge of French, be a good reader, have a knowledge and taste for music, and be of a lively disposition.' Such an advertis.e.m.e.nt brought a young lady from Newark to a certain house in Twenty-fifth street. She had not been long in the parlor until she saw at a glance the character of the house. Both then spoke in pretty plain terms. The applicant was given a week to think over it. She returned at the end of a week and voluntarily entered the house. She remained in it six months. Disgusted with the business, she returned to her parents--who believe to this day that she was all this time abroad--and afterwards married a highly respectable gentleman, and she is now supposed to be a virtuous woman.
”A beautiful young girl of seventeen, from Danbury, Connecticut when taken from one of these houses by her father, told him, in the station- house, that he might take her home, but she would run away the first chance. Her only excuse was: 'Mother is cross, and home is an old, dull, dead place.'”
A SOILED DOVE.
On the 1st of December, 1857, a funeral wended its slow pa.s.sage along the crowded Broadway--for a few blocks, at least--challenging a certain share of the attention of the promenaders of that fas.h.i.+onable thoroughfare. There were but two carriages following the hea.r.s.e, and the hea.r.s.e itself contained all that remained of a young woman--a girl who had died in her eighteenth year, and whose name on earth had been Mary R----.
Mary R----, was the daughter of a poor couple in the interior of the State of New York. She was a girl of exquisite grace and beauty, but her life had been one of toil until her sixteenth year, when she attracted the attention of the son of a city millionaire, whose country seat was in the neighborhood. He was pleased with her beauty, and she simple and confiding, gave her heart to him without a struggle. She trusted him, and fell a victim to his arts. He took her to New York with him, and placed her in a neat little room in Sixth Avenue.
She was a 'soiled dove,' indeed, but the gentlest and dearest, and most devoted of 'doves,' 'soiled,' not by herself, but by others--soiled externally, but not impure within. There are many such doves as she-- poor creatures to be pitied, not to be commended, not at all to be imitated, but not to be harshly or wholly condemned--more sinned against than sinning.
For a while Mary R----'s life in New York was a paradise--at least it was a paradise to her. She lived all day in her cosy little apartment, did her own little housework, cooked her own little dinner, sung her own little songs, and was as happy as a bird, thinking all the while of him, the man she loved--the man whose smile was all in all to her of earth. At night she would receive her beloved in her best dress and sweetest smile; and if he deigned to walk with her around the block, or take her with him to the Central Park, she would be supremely blessed, and dance around him with delight. She cost nothing, or next to nothing; her wants were simple, her vanity and love of amus.e.m.e.nt were vastly below the average of her s.e.x, she only needed love, and there is an old saying that 'love is cheap.' But, alas! there is no more expensive luxury than love--for love requires what few men really possess, a heart--and this article of a heart was precisely what the merchant's son did not possess. In time, he wearied of this young girl and her affection; her tenderness became commonplace; besides he had discovered attractions elsewhere. And so he determined 'to end with Mary,' and he ended indeed. Though he knew that she wors.h.i.+pped the very ground that he trod on, though he knew that every unkind word he uttered went through her heart as would a stab though he knew that the very idea of his leaving her would blast her happiness like a lightning stroke; yet he boldly announced to her that their intimacy must cease, that 'he must leave her. True, he would see her comfortably provided for, during a while at least, until she could find another protector,'
etc., etc.
”The agonized Mary could listen to naught more. For the first time in her life, out of the anguish and true love of her heart, she reproached the man to whom her every thought had been devoted--she reminded him of all his promises of affection, all his pledges of pa.s.sion, she clung to him, and avowed by all that she considered holy, _himself_, that she would not let him go. In brief, she raised what 'fast men' style a scene, and a scene was just one of those things which irritated the merchant's son beyond his powers of control.
”The scoundrel, for such he was, though by birth, education, and position a gentleman, irritated at her entreaties, vexed with himself, despising the meanness of his own soul, and hating her for revealing it to him, raised his arm, and despite her look of love and sorrow, absolutely struck her to the earth. The poor girl never shrieked, never resisted, she even kissed, with an almost divinely tender forgiveness, his hand--his hand who struck her--and then fell to the floor of her pleasant, though humble little room, insensible.
”With a curse, half levelled at her and half at himself, the false 'lover' departed. The young millionaire never looked upon Mary R----'s face again. In three days there was no Mary R----'s face to look at; for the 'soiled dove' within that time had died--not from the blow, oh, no--_that_ was a trifle; but from the _unkindness_ of it; not from a fractured limb, or from a ruptured bloodvessel, but from a broken heart. She was buried at the expense of the woman of whom her destroyer had rented the little apartment on Sixth Avenue, where she had pa.s.sed her happiest days and her last. The rich merchant's son heard of her death with a half sigh and then a shrug; but if ever the blood of a human being lay upon the head of another, that of poor Mary R--lies upon the head of the rich merchant's son, and will be required of him.”
There are several a.s.sociations in the city, whose object is to rescue lost women from their lives of shame. Prominent amongst these is the Midnight Mission.
THE MIDNIGHT MISSION.
This inst.i.tution is located on Amity street, and is open at all hours, to all who seek its doors voluntarily, or are directed thither. The managers in a recent report, speak of their success as follows:
”That the managers have reason to believe that more than sixty women have been benefited through their endeavors recently, many of whom have abandoned their life of shame, and a large proportion are already restored to their friends, or have been placed in respectable situations, where they are earning an honest living. Twenty are now in charge, in process of industrial, moral, and religious training, preparatory to taking positions of usefulness and respectability. Could they be seen by the public, as we see them, after the work of the day is ended, grouped together in conversation, in innocent recreation, or in devotion, their faces already beaming with the light of hope for this life and the life to come, surely we should need no other argument to induce Christian people, with kind words and abounding gifts, to speed us in our work of love.”
We would not upon any consideration weaken one single effort in behalf of these poor creatures, but we cannot disguise the fact that but few of this cla.s.s are saved. Women who enter the downward path rarely retrace their steps.
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