Year: 1871

Dem0ralizati0n Broadway


Our great city thoroughfare, although srchi-
tecturally improving daily, and still marvel
and beauty to the wondering eyes of our visit
ors from the country, is rapidly sinking in
point Of gentility to the level Of some of the
most disreputable byways Of the city. We do
not refer to the display of gaudily- dressed
statues or bejewelled danes of pleasure upon
the promenade Of afternoons, for then the
glare of daylight and, perhaps, some ever-pre-
sent vestiges of modesty throw q slight re-
straint over their conduct, and Broadway in
daylight is frequented by a cosmopolitan
tbrong, in which good and bad, virtuous and
evil, are SO promiscuously mixed that the
baser quality is not prominently or inde-
corously displayed. In the light of day sin
seeks usually to hide itself behind even the
thinnest veil Of virtue or obscurity, and the
sin on Broadway is not anomalous in this re-
| spsct.


But quite recently the great thoroughfare
has become the resort, after nightfall, of the
abandoned classes of the gentler and Trailer
sex, and from the first hours Of darkness until
early dawa its sidewalks are lined with ''scar-
let women plying their vocation. From
Iwenty-seventh street down to Canal tho
casual promenader meets these women, some
In groups of two or three, others alone, repre-
senting oil the grades of their vicious calling.
from the bedecked queens of the pave, in their
silks and jewelry, down to the wretched, thin
faced hangers-on Of guilt, oil as gaudily and
suggesiively dressed as their means will permit
leisurely threading their way, unmindful of the
garish gaslights or the dronng policemen, eye
Ing the men as they 60 along and saluting
them as boldly as if they were in their own
special domain of Greene street. The side
streets empty these throngs into the main
channel of Broadway at every block, and the
mass never diminishes until the early hours of
the new day. Then, at about two o'clock, the
basement dens called concert saloous pour
forth their floods of incarnate vice upon the
almost quiet street and the miserable carnival
begins again. 1t is an exceedingly unpleasant
thing for gentleman and lady to venture
along the thoroughfare during these hours
They see and hear things that are enough
to make the gentleman blush before his COM
panion, and to make her sink TO the earth in
very shame for the shameless Of her own
sex. Indeed, it is seldom that respectable
knowing ones venture upon such an expert
ment. The pleasant promenaders, the little
family parties that used to delight to look at
Broadway in the evening, have been frightened
of. The indecency Of the ''Mablle" and the
coarseness Of the "Alhambra" have been
transferred to it, and our own great thorough
fare seems likely to become an open air
brothel, excelling in infamy the Boulevards or
the Haymarket.


The remedy for all this is in the hands of
the police. If the social ulcer cannot be
eradicated let it at least he filmed over, so
that its offensiveness may not be brought any
more prominently than possible before the
moral senses of the community. Only few
months ago it was the custom of the policemen
to turn these unfortunates back into the side
streets whence they emerged to invade Broad
way, and thus in some degree their offensive
trade was confined to regions of i'll repute just
out Of Broadway. But the police do not
interfere with them now. Indeed, in many
instances they seem rather to affiliate with
them. Only the other evening an officer was
seen strolling along by the side of two of these
gaudy danes, chatting gleefully with them
and passing playful badinage of the kind
peculiar to such people, helping them over
the boarded portion of the sidewalk and occa-
sionally leaving their side for a moment to
''try" the closed doors on his beat. Steps
should be Immediately taken by Superintendent
Kelso to clear Broadway of the ill repute that
threatens to attach to it by these unseemly
displays Nothi.s, will ruin the reputation Of
our city SO mu1 as flaring vice upon our
principal thoroughfare, and nothing will 80
surely drive the honest and decorous portion
of our people to discredit the honesty and
decency of the city or the city government as
to have the most revolving phase of sin thus
launted in their faces in the very presence of
the city guardians and in the glaring lights of
the city's main promenade.


Ton MrRpUY Ia credited with hayjno bad