For several reasons these figures are far from suggesting the actual extent of venereal infection,—in the first place, because, as above stated, the hospitals receive but afraction of the sufferers; in the second, because accurate diagnosis has only recently become feasible. The percentages increase heavily as soon as the more delicate and reliable tests devised by Wassermann and others are applied. For example, 308 adults were admitted to the medical wards of a certain New York hospital during the months of January, February, and March, 1913; though the Wassermann test for syphilis was made in the case of only 166 of these, 38,i. e., 23 percent of those examined, gave positive results; this is equivalent to 12.3 percent of the entire 308. Had the test been applied to all adults admitted, undoubtedly the ratio of syphilitic infection would have been higher still. As a matter of fact, the test as usually performed does not disclose all cases of infection; so that the prevalence of disease is actually greater than the tests indicate.
The civil state of the patients in the cases first mentioned is shown in the following table:
From the standpoint of occupation, every social class is represented,—necessarily so, inasmuch as every social class figures in the phenomena of prostitution. The occupations given by male patients were as follows: professional, 52; clerical and official, 307; mercantile and trading, 250; public entertainment, 120; personal service, police and military, 186; laboring and servant, 1,181; manufacturing and mechanical industry, 932; agricultural, transportation, and other outdoor employments,645; no occupations, 58; classified as unknown, 8; children, 11; congenital origin, 31; schoolboys, 10; students, 10. The occupations of female patients are as follows: professional, 46; domestic and personal, 1,144; trade and transportation, 109; manufacturing and mechanical, 86; no occupations, 72; unknown, 9; schoolgirls, 21; children, 76.
In respect to the disease with which they were afflicted, 413 of the 1,563 females suffered from syphilis; 1,036 from gonorrhœa; 9 from chancroids, and 105 from complications. Eight hundred and eighty-three of the men were suffering from syphilis; 1,445 from gonorrhœa; 203 from chancroids, and 1,276 from complications.
It needs no argument to show that the cost of prostitution is enormously augmented even by the amount of disease accounted for in the preceding discussion; as this represents but a small part of the whole, the totals thus reached require to be multiplied by a large factor. But the reckoning would still be incomplete, even if we knew the actual volume of syphilis, gonorrhœa and chancre; for there would remain to be included the remote effects, not less certainly due to venereal affection, and even more fateful and costly than the immediate manifestations,—paralysis, sterility, miscarriage, deformity, degeneracy, insanity,—curses that stretch even “unto the third and fourth generations.” From the effort to translate such losses into dollars and cents, the boldest calculator may well shrink: yet they are a part,—a certain, inevitable part—of the cost of prostitution.
CHAPTER VII
PROSTITUTION, THE POLICE, AND THE LAW
In respect to vice and vice resorts, the police rules require that each police captain must report to the Commissioner all places in his precinct where disorderly, degraded or lawless people congregate, and also give notice in writing to the owner, lessee or occupant, that such room or building is so used, and that such use constitutes a misdemeanor. If the owner, lessee, or occupant does not abate the nuisance, the captain is empowered to obtain a warrant for his arrest and to prosecute him as required by law. In addition, each captain is required to make charges of neglect of duty against any patrolman who fails to discover a serious breach of peace on his post, or fails to arrest any person guilty of such offense. If a house is under suspicion of being disorderly or is so in fact, the officer on the beat is required to restrain acts of disorder, prevent soliciting from windows, doors, or on the streets, and to arrest all persons so doing. He must also carefully observe all other places of suspicious nature, obtain evidence as to the character and ownership of such houses and report the same to his commanding officer.[229]
Between January 1 and August 1, 1912, police captainsin Manhattan reported to the department 112 separate places as suspicious or disorderly; against these, they made 542 complaints. Seven complaints were made against one place in the 5th precinct, 46 against 9 places in the 16th precinct, 180 against 35 places in the 23rd. The police activities are tabulated in the following table:[230]
POLICE REPORTS
The following table distributes the places reported according to the character of the resort and the precinct:
POLICE REPORTS
On the basis of both months and precincts these reports are distributed thus:
POLICE REPORTS
It would appear thus that in the fifth precinct the same house is reported month after month; in the 18th, 11 houses are reported during five of the 6 months; in the 26th precinct, 15 houses are systematically and regularly denounced.
Our own investigation began approximately three weeks later than the above tables and ran three months longer. In its course, our investigators reported 429 parlor houses, massage parlors, furnished room houses and hotels; and 379 saloons and miscellaneous places allied with prostitution. The 429 resorts first mentioned are distributed as follows:
INVESTIGATORS’ REPORTS
The 379 saloons and miscellaneous places allied with prostitution were discovered in the following precincts:
Comparison of the police reports with those made by our investigators shows marked differences. For example: in the sixth precinct, the police report 4 addresses, our agents 18, of which 11 were saloons, etc.; in the 15th, the police found 9, our agents 65, twenty-six of them saloons, etc.; in the 21st, the police gave 6, our agents 37, seventeen of them saloons, etc.; in the 22nd, the police report 10, our agents 118, forty-five of them saloons; in the 26th, 15 and 133 respectively, 61 of the latter being saloons, etc.; in the 28th, one place is noted by the police, 32 by our agents, 16 of them saloons, etc.; in the 32nd, none by the police, 25 by our agents, 23 of them saloons, etc.; in the 33rd precinct none is reported by police, one by our agents.
In the following table, both sets of reports are arranged side by side in tabular form, all forms of disorderly resorts being grouped together:
Tenement resorts are not included in the preceding data. In the year 1912, the police reported to the Tenement House Department as vicious 138 separate addresses, in which they had made 153 arrests,—65 of these arrests in two precincts, the 13th and the 15th; from 247 other sources, the department learned of 211 addresses: in all, 349 separate places were reported.[231]Our own agents discovered 1,172 separate disorderly apartments in tenements at 578 separate addresses between January 24th and November 15th.
In the following table, both sets of reports arecombined, according to precincts; the tenement house reports cover the entire year (January-December 31, 1912), ours only the period of investigation (January 24-November 15, 1912):
TENEMENT HOUSE DEPARTMENT RECORDS
During the same period, 794 separate saloons and concert halls were investigated, of which almost one-half,—308—were found disorderly; in addition to which, 91 miscellaneous places of a disorderly character were reported. The distribution of such disorderly places by precincts was as follows:
The total number of actual vice resorts of all kindsdiscovered in Manhattan was 1,606, situated at 1,007 different addresses; in the 26th precinct, 174 were found,—29 parlor houses, 17 massage parlors, 102 tenement resorts, 10 furnished room houses, 16 hotels; in the 22nd precinct, 148 disorderly places were located, 22 parlor houses, 3 massage rooms, 75 tenement resorts, 41 furnished room houses, 7 hotels.
The investigator who succeeds in establishing himself on a footing of unsuspected familiarity in the underworld is soon admitted to confidences which show how the underworld accounts to itself for the comparative statistics above given. The credibility of the confidences in question each reader must decide for himself. Among themselves, as has already been pointed out, owners, madames and women talk freely. The conversations overheard are not staged, nor are they exceptional in character. Our agents participated in and reported in the form of affidavits frequent conversations and discussions, in which the relations between police and promoters formed the main or sole topic. Whether the details are literally accurate or not these conversations, reported from all sections of the city, and by different observers, working independently of one another, at least portray the state of feeling and opinion of the participants and their like.
On March 7, 1912, a group of men[232]interested in a West 26th Street house[233]were discussing prospects. “Profits are not what they used to be,” complained one of them. “I used to be able to bank $600 or more every week. To-day my receipts are $1,500 a week,but see,—thirteen plain clothes men[234]get $10 a month each; one of them, a tough proposition, gets $25; two patrolmen get $2 each a day; the lieutenant and sergeant get $5 a month; besides, regular protection costs $100 a month, paid to a go-between,[235]once a wardman. And then I’ve got to buy tickets and contribute to funds for strong arm guys in trouble.”
Mysteriously rapid communication of inside information as to police policy and movements is a frequent theme. A well-known owner was in conference with his mates on March 21, 1912. “They are all transferred, not one of them is here,” he announced in reference to the plain clothes men. It subsequently developed that at the time the statement was made, the men transferred had themselves not yet learned that such a step was contemplated.[236]
On May 2, 1912, a card game and drinking-bout was in progress at a well-known establishment. The following dialogue took place:
“How is business?” asked one of the men, as he was shuffling the cards.
“Well, we run pretty strong,” replied the other. “Let us hope that it will keep up. There’s a new style nowadays. The ‘coppers’ don’t call us out any more; we deal with an outsider.”
“Who is it?” asked the questioner (our agent).
“What do you care?” was the reply. “Do I ask you who you gave-up to, uptown?”
After the Rosenthal murder, however, the aspect of affairs changed. About six o’clock in the evening of July 18 the “king” was consulted by several anxious associates to ascertain whether he had “seen” anybody. He replied that he had, and that everything was all right, unless something unforeseen should happen, as the “squeal” thus far involved only the gamblers. Suspense was thereby relieved and great was the merriment thereon. “It might be better if we had a grocery store,” suggested one of the wits present. A week later, however, the situation was more squally. It had begun to be whispered that “the police would take no protection money on the first of the coming month.” It was recalled that on a previous occasion 12 houses in a certain block had each paid $500 on Monday and that on the following Saturday, the houses were smashed up. “The same thing might happen here,” remarked an anxious proprietor. On the day that payment was to be made, August 1, to be precise, a well-known owner entered a West 26th Street resort with a big roll of bills, as to the destination of which he was in doubt. One of his pals had left town, the other was in jail. He “didn’t know whether the police would take it or not.” Suddenly a brilliant idea struck him; he turned to our agent who was supposed to be conducting an uptown flat and to be in position to secure protection, offering him the money. “You take it,” he suggested, “see what you can do. Maybe you can connect.”
To the same effect is the testimony of a memorandum procured under somewhat dramatic conditions. On May3, 1912, a large group of owners[237]were engaged in playing cards at a well-known establishment. Two of the group stopped their game in order to engage in calculations involving the sale of a third-interest in a house in West 25th Street. The memorandum was subsequently obtained by our agent. Six different accounts figured in the calculation of income, expenses, profits, etc. In the matter of expenses, $631 appear as paid out for the following items: “Buttons” (i. e., uniformed police) $166; sergeant, $30; “gang” (perhaps plain clothes men) $104; club (meaning unknown), $200; boss, $25; smaller items absorb the remainder.