Sixty-five millions of dollars a year paid out for prostitution in New York city at the present time, without accounting for the hospital or police expenses, or the rentals, would be a most conservative estimate, basing this figure on the factors laid down by Sanger in 1858, and taking no account of the greater expenditure of money at the close of this century. Fully five times as many men as women are degraded by impurity, and they supply the funds for this business. But the enormous tribute of money which men pay bo vice is as nothing in comparison to the racial degradation and damnation.
Mirth and revelry may seem to be inseparably connected with prostitution, and a casual observer would suppose that the pleasure of that kind of life predominated over the pain; but the mirth is a sham for none care for a disconsolate and tearful harlot.
Conscious that their condition in every respect is wholly unsatisfactory, that the terms of endearment with which they are addressed mean nothing but a stimulus to a base sentimentalism, and that their path leads away from marriage to premature aging, disease and death, they cannot for a moment be happy.
"And amid all this array of luxurious homes, of splendid dresses, of comparative affluence, the question arises, Are they happy? A moment's consideration will prompt the answer that they cannot be.
Continued indulgence in their course of life tends to obliterate the sense of degradation, and makes their career almost second nature, but even the most confirmed must at times reflect.
The memory of what they have been, the thought of what they are, the dread of what they must be, haunt their minds; conscience will make itself heard.
Many a poor girl dressed in silks or satins, gleaming with jewelry, and receiving with a gay smile the lavish compliments of her 'friend', ia mentally racked with a keen appreciation of her true position.
She knows that the world condemns her, and her own heart admits the justice of the verdict. She knows that he who is so ostentatiously parading his admiration regards her but as a purchased instrument to minister to his gratification. She feels that she is, emphatically, alone in the world, and her merry laugh but ill conceals a breaking heart".
The number of prostitutes who commit suicide, led to it by the utter hopelessness of their condition, is far beyond what we might expect. As far as this life goes, at least, the women realize that they are utterly ruined, and under such circumstances it seems incomprehensible that any one could conceive of their being happy.
Fornicators and prostitutes and the keepers of brothels desire nothing so much as to be let alone; and he who opposes them, by endeavoring to bring about reforms, receives their condemnation for calling the public attention to this festering pestilence which is insidiously ruining so large a number of our young men and women.
Impurity thrives on ignorance; but, as in medical practice, the cure can come only when we understand the character, cause, course and prognosis of the malady. A strong and ardent passion which exerts such a venomous power in destroying our homes, and in ruining the stabil ity of society by entailing degradation, illegitimacy, abortions, and ineradicable disease, surely merits the profound consideration of every right minded man.