Great care is taken by the proprietors of these houses that the visits of their guests shall be as private as possible. Upon ringing the bell the visitor is admitted by a finely dressed servant, and shown into the parlor. If he desires an interview with any particular person he is quickly admitted to her presence. If his visit is "general," he awaits in the parlor the entrance of the inmates of the house, who drop in at intervals. No other gentleman is admitted to the parlor while he is there, and in leaving the house no one is allowed to enter or look into the parlors. If two men enter together they are thrown into the parlor at the same time.
The earnings of the inmates are very large. They pay an extravagant rate of board, and are expected to dress handsomely. They rarely save any thing. They are well cared for by the proprietress as long as they are profitable to her, but in case of sickness, or the loss of their beauty, they are turned out of doors without the slightest hesitation. Generally they are in debt to the proprietress at such times, and their property is seized by her to satisfy her claims.
In entering these houses, women believe they will always be able to keep themselves amongst the best classes of such females. They are soon undeceived, however. The rule is so rigid that there is not more than one exception in a thousand cases. They rarely remain in first-class houses more than a few months, or a year at the longest. In leaving them, they begin to go down the ladder, until they reach the dance- houses and purlieus of the city, where disease and death in their most horrible forms await them. All this in a few years, for the life which such women, even the best of them, lead, is so fearfully destructive of body and soul that a very few survive it more than five years at the longest. The police authorities say that the first-class houses change their inmates every few months.
Let no woman deceive herself, "_The wages of sin is death._" Once entered upon a life of shame, however glittering it may be in the outset, her fate is certain--unless she anticipates her final doom by suicide. She cannot reform if she would. No one will help her back to the paths of right. Even those who loved her best, in her virtue, will turn from her in horror in her sin. She will be driven on by an avenging fate, which she cannot resist if she would, until she is one of those wretched, lost creatures, whose dens are in the purlieus of the Five Points and Water street. There is only one means of safety. Avoid the first step. Once place your foot in the downward path, and you are lost. "_The Wages of sin is death_"