Part 11 (1/2)
$15 for his, the lawyer's services, and
$25 to go to the arresting officer for his testimony.
It is alleged that the lawyer in question has agents on Sixth Avenue keeping tab on the street walkers. When the girl is ”picked up,” these agents are on the ground and see that he gets the case; he guarantees to turn her out for $50 or more, whatever he can get, but under no conditions accepts less than $35. If the girl has no ready money and has jewelry, that is taken as security. The first thing he does is to have the case adjourned for two days, which means no less than $15 for bail. During the two-days' adjournment, the lawyer ”feels out” the plain clothes man who ”picked up” the girl. If the detective falls, he usually gets $15 from the lawyer's fee. If the detective insists on prosecuting, the lawyer has a man ready to swear that it was he who was in conversation with the woman at the time she was arrested, though this is not usually necessary. If the plain clothes man has made an affidavit prior to the granting of the adjournment and is ready to ”fall,” he will permit the lawyer to entangle him in his cross-examination and to bring it out that he, the plain clothes man, approached the girl, and, in other ways, will contradict himself ”safely.” This is resorted to when the affidavit is unfavorable to the girl.
Despite the enormous volume of prost.i.tution in Manhattan, the actual number of convictions is small, and the main culprits go scot-free.
During a period of nine months, ending September 30, 1912, 143 disorderly house cases were tried in Special Sessions. Twenty-five pleas of guilty were entered, 82 were convicted, 32 acquitted, and other disposition was made of 4.
The total number of disorderly house cases received in this court from January 1, 1912, to October 1, 1912, was 180, and on September 30, 1912, there were 62 actions still pending.
Of the 107 cases in which the defendants were found guilty or pleaded guilty, the following dispositions were made:
Jail sentences 80 Average term being 3 months and 27 days
Fines 18 The total amount being $2,325.00 or an average fine of 129.00
Suspended sentences 9
In general, the convictions secured were those of employees, the prevailing rules of evidence making it almost impossible to reach the princ.i.p.als.
In the matter of saloons, for the year ending September 30, 1912, the Excise Commission in New York County brought revocation proceedings which resulted in the denial of the privilege of traffic in liquor for one year in only 6 cases. During the same period, the Commissioner brought 143 actions to recover the penalty under bond, of which 18 were cash bond places. These cases, we understand, refer particularly to disorderly hotels.[303]
From October, 1911, to September, 1912, 159 arrests were made for prost.i.tution in tenement houses under Section 150 of the Tenement House Law. Of these, 36 were discharged and 123 convicted. Eighty-four of those convicted were sent to the workhouse for six months, 27 were put on probation, and other dispositions were made of 12.
Between January 1, 1912, and December 31, 1912, or approximately during the period of this investigation, the Tenement House Department recorded 247 prost.i.tution complaints at 211 separate addresses in Manhattan. The time which elapsed between the receipt of the complaint and the report of the inspector was: returned the same day, 5 cases; from 1 to 5 days, 55 cases; 6 days to 2 weeks, 139 cases; 15 days to 1 month, 38 cases; and over 1 month, 9 cases and one unknown. The average number of days which elapsed between the receipt of the complaint and the final report of the Tenement House Inspector is 10.75, which represents prompter action than was previously obtained. In the period from August 1, 1902, to October, 1908, the average length of time which elapsed between the receipt of a prost.i.tution complaint and the final report of the inspector was 11.28 days.
In conclusion, it is proper to state that the purpose of the foregoing chapter is to picture a situation and not by implication to indicate the responsibility for it. Whether the discrepancies between our reports and official records are due to bad laws impossible of enforcement, to the instructions emanating from superior officials, to inefficiency, to corruption, to the existence of evils with which no official machinery can cope, or finally to all these causes operating together, we do not undertake to say or to imply. The facts are as stated above; the situation portrayed by them actually exists. It is for the community to consider their significance, and to devise such measures as careful reflection may approve.
CHAPTER VIII
A STUDY OF PROSt.i.tUTES COMMITTED FROM NEW YORK CITY TO THE STATE REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN AT BEDFORD HILLS
_By Katharine Bement Davis, Superintendent._
_Sources_:--The materials for this study are found in the records of 647 prost.i.tutes committed from New York City to the State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills.[304] Of these, 279 were in the inst.i.tution at the time the study was made. The remainder were either on parole or had been discharged on completion of sentence. The data are gathered from the girls' own stories supplemented by information from their families, from correspondence with previous employers, interviews with officials of other inst.i.tutions, letters received and sent by the women themselves; from the officers who chaperone all visits to the girls while in the inst.i.tution and from personal acquaintance extending in every case from three months to several years. The difficulties inherent in the compilation of such statistics are obvious. Certain data, such as birthplace, age, size of family, education, religion and previous occupation, are probably very nearly accurate. When we leave the domain of facts easily verifiable and come to the question of causes of prost.i.tution, earnings of prost.i.tution, reasons for coming to New York City, past inst.i.tution records, conjugal condition, there is always a possibility of error. But we believe the study is, on the whole, a fair picture of the New York City prost.i.tute who is convicted in the New York City courts. It may be said that the women convicted in the courts are not a fair sample of New York prost.i.tutes as a cla.s.s, for the reason that the more prosperous ones are so protected as not to suffer molestation from the police. A comparison, however, of the tables of the inst.i.tution cases with the cases of women on the streets which include all grades from those who frequent the more expensive hotels down, will not show wide variations.
_Birthplace and Parentage_:--New York's population is composed of as heterogeneous elements as any city on the continent. It is the meeting place of the nations. What effect has this on the composition of a body of New York prost.i.tutes? Does the native-born American who has enjoyed the economic and social advantages of this country contribute a greater or less percentage than the various groups of foreign-born? Interesting from the point of view of our immigration problem is the proportionate number contributed by each of the chief races in New York City.
An a.n.a.lysis of the 647 Bedford cases shows that American-born whites contribute 62.75 percent of the entire number; American-born colored women furnish 13.14 percent while the foreign-born women are 24.11 percent of the total. (See Table I.) A preliminary bulletin issued by the United States Census Bureau for the Census of 1910, places the native white population of New York City at 57.3 percent, while the foreign population is estimated at 40.4 percent of the entire population. According to this, the American-born contribute more and the foreign-born less than their proportion to the Bedford prost.i.tutes. But 647 cases are a very small number on which to base any judgment. We have at hand, however, some other statistics. The histories of 610 prost.i.tutes in other inst.i.tutions have been a.n.a.lyzed.[305] Of these, 168 or 27.2 percent were white foreign-born and 68.5 percent were white American-born. In the study of 1,106 street cases, all white women, made in connection with this report, we find 31 percent foreign-born and 68.9 percent American-born.[306] The percentage of foreign-born is here somewhat higher than in the inst.i.tution cases because practically no colored women were included among the street cases and few in the inst.i.tutions other than Bedford. Combining the three sets of records, or 2,363 cases, we have 67 percent American-born white as against 28 percent foreign-born; a poor showing for the American-born.
(See page 250, Table XLIX, columns III and IV.)
Taking up a comparison of the different nationalities, we find that in the Bedford cases the countries in the order of their numerical contributions stood as follows: Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Ireland, England-Scotland, France, and Italy. (See Table XLIX, column II.) Ranking the contributions to the 610 cases in the other inst.i.tutions in the same way, the first five places on the list were identical. Canada comes sixth and France is relegated to eighth place. (Table, column III.) Examining the street cases in the same way, Russia comes first, Germany and Austria-Hungary exchange places as do Ireland and England-Scotland, France and Italy occupying sixth and seventh places. (Table, column IV.) Combining all records, the order is the same as for the street cases with the exception that Ireland and England-Scotland are reversed. (Table, column V.) Ranking the foreign-born population of New York City in point of numbers, we have Russia, Germany, Ireland, Austria-Hungary, England-Scotland, and France. (Table, column IV.) Dropping out Italy, the order remains as in column V.
Table L shows numbers and percentages. From this, it would seem that, with the exception of Italy, the various foreign groups contribute prost.i.tutes in numbers proportioned to their numerical rank but not in proportion to their percentage of the total population; thus, Russia forming a trifle over 10 percent of the population contributes only about 8.3 percent of prost.i.tutes; Germany and Austria-Hungary come very near to contributing their full quota; Ireland only about half, while England-Scotland send us a very few more and France a good many more than their proper proportion.
It is a well-known fact that Italy sends to the United States every year, many hundred unmarried men or men without their families. This probably accounts for the small proportion of Italy's contribution. It may be argued that this is not a fair rating as we have no complete census of New York prost.i.tutes, but owing to the methods employed in securing our material both in and out of inst.i.tutions, we probably have here as representative a group of prost.i.tutes as can be found, and a fair cross section of the entire number. It might be a more just comparison if we had the figures for the female population of the various national groups within the age limits of the women studied, but that is not attainable.
With the exception of the Italian and possibly some of the component parts of the Russian and Hungarian groups, the figures used here are believed to be fairly comparable.