The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-03-17


Eastern States, and that Is q revolution at !.
the ballot box which will completely over
throw the party who are the cause Of the Ca
lamity, and have inaugurated political chaos
which we fear will only end in reign Of ter
TOR.
The Police and the Broadway Night
walkers.
In several instances, from time to time,
we have had spasmodic efforts on the part
of the police to rid. Broadway and other tho
roughfares of the hordes Of disreputsble women
and girls who infest these localities at night,
and whose conduct and language are most often
eive to respectable persons; bnt the nuisance,
after all, has never been removed. The truth
Is that the method adopted IL not the right one.
1t is of no use to arrest some thirty or forty Of
these females as Capt. Turnbull did on Thurs
day night, and huddle them all together in
the station house. to laugh and make merry un-
til morning, and then discharge them; or to
send few of them to the Penitentiary, only to
be released by the Ten Governors in few
hours, as we understand has been done repeat
eddy. If these unfortunate creatures are guilty
of any offence, they should be treated like all
other violators of the law, and il theyare not,
they should not be molested. From their expe-
rience of the amount of punishment usually
awarded to them when arrested, they have
come to despise and laugh at the police and the
authorities, 60 that forays like those of Capt.
Turnbull are nothing better than farce. As
q preventive or q reformatory measure, this
mode of making great haul Of unruly prosti-
tutes now and then by the police is worse
than futile, as long a. they are turned loose
again by Almshouse Governors, at the insti-
cation Of pettifogging lawyers, to pursue their
old habits, and continue nuisance apon the
public etreets.
Wherever the authority to govern this city
and protect its citizens lies-whether 1t be at
Albany or in the City Hall, or In the Superin-
tendent Of Police, the Mayor, or the Ten
1Governors-u unless some measures are taken to
punish offenders OF this class, we cannot expect
any improvement In the condition Of Broadway
after nightfall.
We have Msgdalen asylnms and other insti-
tutions for retaining these miserable crear
lures, but we hardly think that they effect
much good We. remember the novel efforts
recently made in London by Rev. Baptist
Noel and other philsnthropic clergymen to re-
form this class Of women, with whom the
British capital abounds, and with whom New
York will very soon be quite as much infested
The plan then adopted was to send printed
invitations to all the houses of Ill fame in the
metropolis, requesting the company Of the in.
mates to q social gathering on certain
evening, when toast and tea and coffee were
- furnished to the guests. The invitations were
numerousy responded to. Some two or three
hundred women came, curious, no doubt, to
discover what it all meant. They were received
by Mr.. Noel and his philanthropic friends, and
they chatted gayly and enjoyed their toast and
tea with as much gusto as the most moral peo-
pie in the world. Impressive addresses were
then delivered by the philanthropists Rev.
Baptist Noel leading off: the iniquity of their
lives was painted in terrible colors, and every
argument was used to induce them to enter
in body the reformatory institution which
was prepared for them. At the touching
allusions of the speakers to their early homes,
their former innocence, and the suferings of
their parents, many Of the unfortunate ones
.sobbed and wept. But what was the upshot?
About half dozen Of them only got into the
carriages prepared for them, and entered the
reformatory school; all the rest returned to
their old haunts and old habits of Life when the
toast and tea were disposed of.
The affair got noised abroad, and when q
second invitation was sent ont, q still larger
number Of females attended the soirse; the
I same thing was gone through with, and at the
conclusion of the affair some four or five old
incapacitated females drove off to the Reforms
tory, and all the younger ones joined vast
crowd Of friends of the other sex, who, to the
establishment of the philanthropic reformers,
were assembled outside the building, waiting
for them. Thus the Rev. Baptist Noel's cele-
brated reformatory scheme failed.
The fact is. there is but one way of protect
ing respectable persons in the streets at night
from molestation by this class of women, and
that is. by adopting the Paris plan. If our
Aauthorities will adopt that system, we shall
have Broadway as free from this kind of nui-
sance as the boulevards of Paris.
The BoARD OF ALDERMEN AND THE PRESIDENT
: Tor THE CRoToN BoARD.-The Aldermen pertina-