Lights and Shadows of New York Life

J >> James D. McCabe >> Lights and Shadows of New York Life

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The women known outside of the city as "pretty waiter girls," are simply
a collection of poor wretches who have gone down almost to the end of
their fatal career. They may retain faint vestiges of their former
beauty, but that is all. They are beastly, foul-mouthed, brutal
wretches. Very many of them are half dead with consumption and disease.
They are in every respect disgusting. Yet young and old men, strangers
and citizens, come here to talk with them and spend their money on them.
Says the writer we have quoted, after describing a characteristic scene
in one of these places:

"The only noticeable thing about this exhibition of beastliness is the
utter unconcern of the other occupants of the room. They are accustomed
to it. One wonders, too, at the attraction this has for strangers.
There is really nothing in the people, the place, or the onlookers worthy
of a decent man's curiosity. The girls are, without exception, the
nastiest, most besotted drabs that ever walked the streets. They haven't
even the pride that clings to certain of their sisters who are in prison.
The whole assemblage, with the exception of such stragglers as myself,
who have a motive in studying it, is a mess of the meanest human rubbish
that a great city exudes. In the company there is a large preponderance
of the cub of seventeen and eighteen. Some of these boys are the sons of
merchants and lawyers, and are 'seeing life.' If they were told to go
into their kitchens at home and talk with the cook and the chambermaid,
they would consider themselves insulted. Yet they come here and talk
with other Irish girls every whit as ignorant and unattractive as the
servants at home--only the latter are virtuous and these are infamous.
Thus does one touch of vileness make the whole world kin."

V. THE DANCE HOUSES.

The dance houses differ from the concert saloons in this respect, that
they are one grade lower both as regards the inmates and the visitors,
and that dancing as well as drinking is carried on in them. They are
owned chiefly by men, though there are some which are the property of and
are managed by women. They are located in the worst quarters of the
city, generally in the streets near the East and North rivers, in order
to be easy of access to the sailors.

The buildings are greatly out of repair, and have a rickety, dirty
appearance. The main entrance leads to a long, narrow hall, the floor of
which is well sanded. The walls are ornamented with flashy prints, and
the ceiling with colored tissue paper cut in various fantastic shapes.
There is a bar at the farther end of the room, which is well stocked with
the meanest liquors, and chairs and benches are scattered about.

From five to a dozen women, so bloated and horrible to look upon, that a
decent man shudders with disgust as he beholds them, are lounging about
the room. They have reached the last step in the downward career of
fallen women, and will never leave this place until they are carried from
it to their graves, which are not far distant. They are miserably clad,
and are nearly always half crazy with liquor. They are cursed and kicked
about by the brutal owner of the place, and suffer still greater
violence, at times, in the drunken brawls for which these houses are
famous. Their sleeping rooms are above. They are sought by sailors and
by the lowest and most degraded of the city population. They are the
slaves of their masters. They have no money of their own. He claims a
part of their infamous earnings, and demands the rest for board and
clothes. Few have the courage to fly from these hells, and if they make
the attempt, they are forced back by the proprietor, who is frequently
aided in this unholy act by the law of the land. They cannot go into the
streets naked, and he claims the clothes on their backs as his property.
If they leave the premises with these clothes on, he charges them with
theft.

Let no one suppose that these women entered upon this grade of their
wretched life voluntarily. Many were drugged and forced into it, but the
majority are lost women who have come regularly down the ladder to this
depth. You can find in these hells women who, but a few years ago, were
ornaments of society. No woman who enters upon a life of shame can hope
to avoid coming to these places in the end. As sure as she takes the
first step in sin, she will take this last one also, struggle against it
as she may. This is the last depth. It has but one bright ray in all
its darkness--it does not last over a few months, for death soon ends it.
But, O, the horrors of such a death! No human being who has not looked
on such a death-bed can imagine the horrible form in which the Great
Destroyer comes. There is no hope. The poor wretch passes from untold
misery in this life to the doom which awaits those who die in their sins.

The keepers of these wretched places use every art to entice young and
innocent women into their dens, where they are ruined by force. The
police frequently rescue women from them who have been enticed into them
or carried there by force. Emigrant girls, who have strolled from the
depot at Castle Garden into the lower part of the city, are decoyed into
these places by being promised employment. Men and women are sent into
the country districts to ensnare young girls to these city hells.
Advertisements for employment are answered by these wretches, and every
art is exhausted in the effort to draw pure women within the walls of the
dance house. Let such a woman once cross the threshold, and she will be
drugged or forced to submit to her ruin. This accomplished, she will not
be allowed to leave the place until she has lost all hope of giving up
the life into which she has been driven.

The Missionaries' are constant visitors to these dens. They go with hope
that they may succeed in rescuing some poor creature from her terrible
life. As a rule, they meet with the vilest abuse, and are driven away
with curses, but sometimes they are successful. During the present
winter they have succeeded in effecting a change for the better in one of
the most notorious women in Water street.

[Picture: NOONDAY PRAYER MEETING AT WATER STREET HOME.]

VI. HARRY HILL'S.

Harry Hill is a well-known man among the disreputable classes of New
York. He is the proprietor of the largest and best known dance house in
the city. His establishment is in Houston street, a few doors west of
Mulberry street, and almost under the shadow of the Police Headquarters.
It is in full sight from Broadway, and at night a huge red and blue
lantern marks the entrance door. Near the main entrance there is a
private door for women. They are admitted free, as they constitute the
chief attraction to the men who visit the place. Entering through the
main door, the visitor finds himself in a low bar-room, very much like
the other establishments of the kind in the neighborhood. Passing
between the counters he reaches a door in the rear of them which opens
into the dance hall, which is above the level of the bar-room. Visitors
to this hall are charged an entrance fee of twenty-five cents, and are
expected to call for refreshments as soon as they enter.

Harry Hill is generally present during the evening, moving about among
his guests. He is a short, thick-set man, with a self-possessed,
resolute air, and a face indicative of his calling, and is about
fifty-four years old. He is sharp and decided in his manner, and exerts
himself to maintain order among his guests. He is enough of a politician
to be very sure that the authorities will not be severe with him in case
of trouble, but he has a horror of having his place entered by the police
in their official capacity. He enforces his orders with his fists if
necessary, and hustles refractory guests from his premises without
hesitating. The "fancy" generally submit to his commands, as they know
he is a formidable man when aroused. He keeps his eye on everything, and
though he has a business manager, conducts the whole establishment
himself. He has been in his wretched business fifteen years, and is said
to be wealthy. His profits have been estimated as high as fifty thousand
dollars per annum.

Harry Hill boasts that he keeps a "respectable house," but his
establishment is nothing more than one of the many gates to hell with
which the city abounds. There are no girls attached to the
establishment. All the guests of both sexes are merely outsiders who
come here to spend the evening. The rules of the house are printed in
rhyme, and are hung in the most conspicuous parts of the hall. They are
rigid, and prohibit any indecent or boisterous conduct or profane
swearing. The most disreputable characters are seen in the audience, but
no thieving or violence ever occurs within the hall. Whatever happens
after persons leave the place, the proprietor allows no violation of the
law within his doors.

The hall itself consists simply of a series of rooms which have been
"knocked into one" by the removal of the partition walls. As all these
rooms were not of the same height, the ceiling presents a curious
patchwork appearance. A long counter occupies one end of the hall, at
which refreshments and liquors are served. There is a stage at the other
side, on which low farces are performed, and a tall Punch and Judy box
occupies a conspicuous position. Benches and chairs are scattered about,
and a raised platform is provided for the "orchestra," which consists of
a piano, violin, and a bass viol. The centre of the room is a clear
space, and is used for dancing. If you do not dance you must leave,
unless you atone for your deficiency by a liberal expenditure of money.
The amusements are coarse and low. The songs are broad, and are full of
blasphemous outbursts, which are received with shouts of delight.

[Picture: HARRY HILL'S DANCE HOUSE.]

You will see all sorts of people at Harry Hill's. The women are, of
course, women of the town; but they are either just entering upon their
career, or still in its most prosperous phase. They are all handsomely
dressed, and some of them are very pretty. Some of them have come from
the better classes of society, and have an elegance and refinement of
manner and conversation which win them many admirers in the crowd. They
drink deep and constantly during the evening. Indeed, one is surprised
to see how much liquor they imbibe. The majority come here early in the
evening alone, but few go away without company for the night. You do not
see the same face here very long. The women cannot escape the inevitable
doom of the lost sisterhood. They go down the ladder; and Harry Hill
keeps his place clear of them after the first flush of their beauty and
success is past. You will then find them in the Five Points and Water
street hells.

As for the men, they represent all kinds of people and professions. You
may see here men high in public life, side by side with the Five Points
ruffian. Judges, lawyers, policemen off duty and in plain clothes,
officers of the army and navy, merchants, bankers, editors, soldiers,
sailors, clerks, and even boys, mingle here in friendly confusion. As
the profits of the establishment are derived from the bar, drinking is,
of course, encouraged, and the majority of the men are more or less drunk
all the time. They spend their money freely in such a condition. Harry
Hill watches the course of affairs closely during the evening. If he
knows a guest and likes him, he will take care that he is not exposed to
danger, after he is too far gone in liquor to protect himself. He will
either send him home, or send for his friends. If the man is a stranger,
he does not interfere--only, no crime must be committed in his house.
Thieves, pickpockets, burglars, roughs, and pugilists are plentifully
scattered through the audience. These men are constantly on the watch
for victims. It is easy for them to drug the liquor of a man they are
endeavoring to secure, without the knowledge of the proprietor of the
house; or, if they do not tamper with his liquor, they can persuade him
to drink to excess. In either case, they lead him from the hall, under
pretence of taking him home. He never sees home until they have stripped
him of all his valuables. Sometimes he finds his long home, in less than
an hour after leaving the hall; and the harbor police find his body
floating on the tide at sunrise. Women frequently decoy men to places
where they are robbed. No crime is committed in the dance hall, but
plans are laid there, victims are marked, and tracked to loss or death,
and, frequently, an idle, thoughtless visit there has been the beginning
of a life of ruin. The company to be met with is that which ought to be
shunned. Visits from curiosity are dangerous. Stay away. To be found
on the Devil's ground is voluntarily to surrender yourself a willing
captive to him. Stay away. It is a place in which no virtuous woman is
ever seen, and in which an honest man ought to be ashamed to show his
face.

VII. MASKED BALLS.

The masked balls, which are held in the city every winter, are largely
attended by impure women and their male friends. Even those which assume
to be the most select are invaded by these people in spite of the
precautions of the managers. Some of them are notoriously indecent, and
it may be safely asserted that all are favorable to the growth of
immorality. On the 22d of December, 1869, one of the most infamous
affairs of this kind was held in the French Theatre, on Fourteenth
street. I give the account of it published in the _World_ of December
24th, of that year:

"The _'Societe des Bals d'Artistes_,' an organization which has no other
excuse for existing than the profits of an annual dance, and which last
year combined debauchery with dancing in a manner entirely new to this
city, on Wednesday night had possession of the _Theatre Francais_, in
which was to be given what was extensively advertised as the 'First_ Bal
d'Opera_.' The only conspicuous name in this society (which is composed
of Frenchmen) is that attached to the circular published below, but it is
reasonable to suppose that the men who got up the ball were animated by a
purely French desire to make a little money and have a good deal of
Parisian carousing, which should end, as those things do only in Paris,
in high and comparatively harmless exhilaration. But they mistake the
locality. This is not Paris. The peculiar success of the ball given
under their auspices last year was not forgotten by the class of roughs
indigenous to New York. Under the name of _Bal d'Opera_, licence, it was
found, could be had for actions that would be no where else tolerated in
a civilized community. It was found, moreover, that this description of
ball would bring together, with its promise of licence, that class of
reckless women who find opportunities to exhibit themselves in their full
harlotry to the world, too much restricted and narrowed by enactment and
public opinion not to take advantage of this one. The scenes which took
place about the entrance of the French Theatre, when the _'artistes'_
commenced to arrive, were sufficiently indicative of the character of the
entertainment. At 11 o'clock there were about a thousand men and boys
there congregated, forming an impenetrable jam, through which the police
kept open a narrow avenue for the masqueraders to pass from the coaches
to the door. This crowd was manifestly made up of the two _sui generis_
types of character which in this city have received the appellation of
'loafers' and 'counter jumpers.' Wide apart as they ordinarily may be,
on such an occasion as this they are animated by common desires and
common misfortunes. The inability to buy a ticket of admission, and the
overpowering desire to see women disporting themselves in semi-nude
attire and unprotected by any of the doubts which attach to their
characters in ordinary street life, brought these moon-calves together,
on a wet and chilly night, to stand for hours in the street to catch a
passing glimpse of a stockinged leg or a bare arm, and to shout their
ribald criticisms in the full immunity of fellowship. It was enough for
them that the women came unattended. Every mask that stepped from her
coach was beset by hoots and yells and the vile wit of shallow-brained
ruffians, or the criticism of the staring counter-jumpers. There was
also the chance open to the rougher members of this assemblage of
ultimately getting into the ball without paying. They had no
well-defined plan, but they felt instinctively that when their own
passions had been sufficiently aroused, and when the later scenes inside
had grown tumultuous, they could knock the door-keeper's hat over his
face, and go brawling in like wolves. There were knots of half-grown men
on the corners of the street and about the adjacent pot-houses who were
driving a good traffic in tickets, and other knots of creatures, neither
men nor boys, but that New York intermedium, who has lost the honesty of
the boy without gaining the manliness of the man, were speculating upon
the probabilities of a fight, and expressing very decided opinions as to
the possibility of licking the Frenchmen who would endeavor to keep them
out or keep them orderly after they got in.

"The attendants upon the ball, on entering the vestibule, were handed the
following circular, printed neatly in blue ink:

"'The purpose of the President and Committee of the Societe des Bals
d'Artistes is to preserve the most stringent order, and to prevent
any infraction of the laws of decency. Any attempt at disturbance or
lewdness will be repressed with the most extreme severity, and
sufficient force is provided to warrant quietness and obedience to
laws.

'The President, L. MERCIER.'

"That such was the purpose of the committee we have no reason to doubt.
But it was no wiser than the purpose of the man who invited a smoking
party to his powder magazine, and told them his object was to prevent
explosion. The dancing commenced at 11 o'clock. At that time the floor,
extending from the edge of the dress-circle to the extreme limit of the
stage, presented a curious spectacle. Probably there were a hundred
masked women present, among five hundred masked and unmasked men. These
women were dressed in fancy costumes, nearly all selected with a view to
expose as much of the person as possible. By far the greater number wore
trunk hose and fleshings; but many were attired in the short skirts of
the ballet, with some attempt at bayadere and daughter of the regiment in
the bodices and trimmings. Here and there a woman wore trailing skirts
of rich material, and flashed her diamonds in the gaslight as she swung
the train about. There was no attempt on the part of the men to assume
imposing or elegant disguises. The cheapest dominoes, and generally
nothing more than a mask, afforded them all they wanted--the opportunity
to carry on a bravado and promiscuous flirtation with these women. That
part of the family circle tier which faces the stage was given up to the
musicians. The rest of the gallery was crowded with spectators. The
boxes below were all taken up, the occupants being mainly maskers
overlooking the dance. But the proscenium boxes, and notably the two
lower ones on either side, were filled with a crew of coarse-featured,
semi-officious looking roughs, who might be politicians, or gamblers, or
deputy-sheriffs, or cut-throats, or all, but who, at all events, had no
intention of dancing, and had hired these boxes with the one view of
having a good time at the expense of the women, the managers, and, if
necessary, the public peace itself. They were crowded in; some of them
stood up and smoked cigars; all of them kept their hats on; one or two
were burly beasts, who glared upon the half-exposed women on the floor
with a stolid interest that could only be heightened and intensified by
some outrageous departure from the seemliness of simple enjoyment. They
have their fellows on the floor, to whom they shout and telegraph. They
have liquor in the boxes, and they use it with a show of conviviality to
increase their recklessness.

"At twelve o'clock there is a jam; most of the crowd outside has got in
by some means; the floor is a mass of people. Suddenly there is a fight
in the boxes. Exultant cries issue from the proscenium. At once turn up
all the masked faces in the whirling mass. It is a Frenchman beset by
two, aye three, Americans. Blows are given and taken; then they all go
down out of sight--only to appear again; the three are on him; they are
screeching with that fierce animal sound that comes through set teeth,
and in men and bull-dogs is pitched upon the same note. The maskers
rather like it; they applaud and cheer on--not the parties, but the
fight--and when the police get into the boxes and drag out the assaulted
man, and leave the assailants behind, the proscenium bellows a moment
with ironical laughter, the music breaks out afresh, and the dancers
resume their antics as though nothing had happened.

"Enough liquor has now been swallowed to float recklessness up to the
high-water mark. There is another fight going on in the vestibule. One
of the women has been caught up by the crowd and tossed bodily into the
proscenium box, where she is caught and dragged by half a dozen brutes in
over the sill and furniture in such a manner as to disarrange as much as
possible what small vestige of raiment there is on her. The feat awakens
general enjoyment. Men and women below vent their coarse laughter at the
sorry figure she cuts and at the exposure of her person. Presently the
trick is repeated on the other side. A young woman, rather pretty and
dressed in long skirts, is thrown up, and falls back into the arms of the
crowd, who turn her over, envelop her head in her own skirts, and again
toss her up temporarily denuded. The more exactly this proceeding
outrages decency, the better it is liked. One or two repetitions of it
occurred which exceeded the limits of proper recital. The women were
bundled into the boxes, and there they were fallen upon by the crew of
half drunken ruffians, and mauled, and pulled, and exhibited in the worst
possible aspects, amid the jeers and laughter of the other drunken
wretches upon the floor. One, a heavier woman than the rest, is thrown
out of the box and falls heavily upon the floor. She is picked up
insensible by the police and carried out. There is not a whisper of
shame in the crowd. It is now drunken with liquor and its own
beastliness. It whirls in mad eddies round and round. The panting women
in the delirium of excitement; their eyes, flashing with the sudden
abnormal light of physical elation, bound and leap like tigresses; they
have lost the last sense of prudence and safety. Some of them are
unmasked, and reveal the faces of brazen and notorious she-devils, who
elsewhere are cut off by edict from this contact with the public; a few
of them are young, and would be pretty but for the lascivious glare now
lighting their faces and the smears of paint which overlay their skins;
all of them are poisonous, pitiable creatures, suffering now with the
only kind of delirium which their lives afford, rancorous, obscene,
filthy beauties, out of the gutter of civilization, gone mad with the
licence of music and the contact of men, and beset by crowds of
libidinous and unscrupulous ninnies who, anywhere else, would be ashamed
of their intimacy, or roughs to whom this kind of a ball affords the only
opportunity to exercise the few animal faculties that are left to them.

"M. Mercier stands in the middle of the floor, and shouts to the
musicians to go on. For it isn't safe for them to stop. Whenever they
do, there is a fight. One stalwart beauty, in bare arms, has knocked
down a young man in the entrance way, and left the marks of her high
heels on his face. She would have kicked the life out of him while her
bully held him down, if a still stronger policeman had not flung her like
a mass of offal into a corner. There she is picked up, and, backed by a
half dozen of her associates, pushes and strikes promiscuously, and the
dense crowd about her push also and strike, and sway here and there, and
yell, and hiss, and curse, until the entire police force in the place
drag out a score of them, and then the rest go on with the dancing,
between which and the fighting there is so little difference.

"In one of the boxes sits --- ---, with a masked woman. But it is
getting too warm for him. The few French women who came as spectators,
and occupied the seats in the family circle, went away long ago. They
were probably respectable. On the floor one sees at intervals well known
men, who either were deceived by the announcement of a _Bal d'Opera_, or
were too smart to be deceived by anything of this sort. A few newspaper
reporters, looking on with stoical eye; here a prize-fighter, and there a
knot of gamblers; here an adolescent alderman, dancing with a notorious
inmate of the police courts; there a deputy sheriff, too drunk to be
anything but sick and sensual. Now the can-can commences. But it comes
without any zest, for all of its peculiarities have been indulged in long
before. It is no longer a dance at all, but a wild series of indecent
exposures, a tumultuous orgie, in which one man is struck by an unknown
assailant; and his cheek laid open with a sharp ring, and his white vest
and tie splashed with blood, give a horrible color to the figure that is
led out.