"Twenty years ago, when Matsell was Chief of Police, he used to try and break up the most notorious houses by stationing a policeman at the door, and when any one went in or out, the light from a bull's eye lantern was thrown in the face of the passer out or in. That has never been effective. Captain Speight tried it in the case of Mrs.----, who keeps the most splendidly furnished house in West Twenty-fifth street. She owns the house, and has a few boarders who pay her fifty dollars a week for board, and ten dollars a bottle for their wine, and twenty- five per cent, on the profits of her boarders. The attempt was made to oust this woman, but she very politely told the captain that he might honor her as long as he pleased with the policeman and his lantern, but she could stand it as long as he could; she owned the house, and she meant to live in it; nothing could be proven against it, and they dare not arrest her. The consequence was that after a time the bull's eye was withdrawn."
The latest ruse adopted to obtain fresh country or city girls is to publish an advertisement in the papers, for 'a young lady of some accomplishments to act as a companion for a lady about to travel abroad. The applicant must have some knowledge of French, be a good reader, have a knowledge and taste for music, and be of a lively disposition.' Such an advertisement brought a young lady from Newark to a certain house in Twenty-fifth street. She had not been long in the parlor until she saw at a glance the character of the house. Both then spoke in pretty plain terms. The applicant was given a week to think over it. She returned at the end of a week and voluntarily entered the house. She remained in it six months. Disgusted with the business, she returned to her parents--who believe to this day that she was all this time abroad--and afterwards married a highly respectable gentleman, and she is now supposed to be a virtuous woman.
"A beautiful young girl of seventeen, from Danbury, Connecticut when taken from one of these houses by her father, told him, in the station- house, that he might take her home, but she would run away the first chance. Her only excuse was: 'Mother is cross, and home is an old, dull, dead place.'"