Prostitutes As Legal Citizens
No aspect of a prostitute's life indicated more clearly her integration into the mainstream of New York City life and her confidence in that position than did her participation as a citizen in the municipal and judicial processes of the city. Prostitutes accepted the fact that they had to work around the legal strictures of their society, but they also believed they were entitled to certain rights and privileges as members of the community. Prostitutes expected the municipal government to defend their interests and protect their persons and property. When they, their possessions, or their brothels were threatened, prostitutes called the watch, pressed charges, and gave court testimony against their aggressors. In defending their interests, prostitutes were not afraid of being highly visible or of taking public action against another party because they viewed themselves as a part of the public citizenry, not as legal deviants who must function outside the established system.
Besides bringing their own suits against individuals in the courts, prostitutes also were called upon to participate in legal hearings or public inquiries. Sometimes prostitutes were required to give information at inquests into the death of a friend, coworker, or patron, and at other times they were subpoenaed to testify as witnesses in divorce hearings. Although a husband's association with a prostitute proved he had violated a legally endorsed trust and must suffer the consequences, no questions were raised nor prosecutions made over the prostitute's participation in an activity that was supposedly prohibited by law.
Finally, just as serving as a public witness at an inquest or trial was a civic obligation assumed by prostitutes, so too was the payment of taxes on their real and personal property. Prostitutes were assessed on their assets like other citizens, and like others, they readily challenged their tax assessments when they believed they were too high.
A year in the life of Kate Hastings suggests the variety of ways a prostitute might interact with the court system and public officials. A native of New Hampshire, Hastings began her New York career in prostitution in 1845 when she went to work in Sarah Tuttle's Leonard Street brothel next door to the fifth ward station house. This brothel was familiar not only to the neighboring law enforcers but also to Justice
Robert Taylor, who in his diary mentions visiting it several times. Hastings took over management of Tuttle's brothel in 1848 and purchased the property from Tuttle two years later. Following the purchase of the brothel, Hastings went before the tax assessor to have her personal property holdings "sworn off" the tax roll, since she apparently had used her personal assets in purchasing the real estate property.[34] Hastings's appeal before the tax assessor was at least the fifth time over the period of a year that she made an appearance before some legal tribunal, including the police court, the criminal courts of Special Sessions and General Sessions, and the Superior Court.
Like other brothel managers, Hastings periodically had to contend with rowdy guests in her establishment. On one occasion she filed charges in police court against William Dowell for malicious mischief, and another time she gave testimony in the Court of General Sessions against James Berdell for assault and battery. Berdell had gotten into an argument with several of the women in Hastings's brothel and had raised such a disturbance that police were summoned. The officials immediately recognized Berdell as a fugitive from justice who was wanted for violently assaulting a police officer a year before.[35]
Hastings also made an appearance before the Superior Court of Connecticut in the divorce trial of John C. Holland, president of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad Company. Holland's wife, Frances, had subpoenaed Hastings and two other New York City prostitutes to verify her husband's infidelity. Hastings was a cooperative witness and gave a brief account of her years in prostitution, including a description of her involvement with "Marquis," the name by which all three prostitutes knew Holland. Not only did she describe Holland's intimacies with several of the fifteen women in the brothel, but she also stated: "He has never been in bed with me [but] he has had carnal knowledge of me in my parlor adjoining my bedroom."[36]
Hastings's confidence that publicity or notoriety would not jeopardize her freedom to practice her profession was even more evident in a case in which Hastings aggressively defended her "name and reputation" both on the streets and in the courtroom in response to an unflattering article in a local newspaper.
Several of New York City's mid-nineteenth-century newspaper editors were controversial figures. After the 1830s there was an increase in the number of inexpensive New York dailies, the penny press, whose
common fare was topics that would have been considered improper or indecent to discuss in print a decade earlier. Many of the stories encouraged a popular taste for vicarious vice and crime, while others appear both to have offended sensibilities and wounded reputations. Editors such as James W. Webb of the Courier and Enquirer , James G. Bennett of the Herald , George Wilkes of the Police Gazette , Moses Y. Beach of the Sun , and E. Z. C. Judson of Ned Buntline's Own not only squabbled with each other as editors of competing papers but also became embroiled in a number of controversies with members of the reading public.[37] Both editors and citizens were brought to physical blows over the anger and animosities created by news articles. In light of this, editor J. G. Bennett's biographer has stated that nineteenth-century "editorial impact could almost be measured by the number of welts and bruises a newspaper proprietor displayed. Assaulting an editor, generally with a whip, was rarely out of season on the streets of New York."[38]
In April 1849, E. Z. C. Judson, editor of Ned Buntline's Own , printed an article in his paper mentioning Kate Hastings. The first half of the small article called "Description of Gamblers" portrayed a local figure, Samuel A. Suydam, as a very unattractive person. The last half of the column said that
if . . . any of my readers feel particularly anxious to see this notorious blackleg, his den is at No. 14 Barclay-Street, and his chere amie is the infamous east-off mistress of a deceased gambler, known as gallows Kate Hastings, the keeper of a low house of prostitution in Leonard-Street. Sam dances attendance to this strumpet when called on.[39]
According to a letter from Hastings printed in the Herald , Hastings learned about the article the day after its publication while she was shopping in a store on Ann Street. Hastings stated that the article was "derogatory to my own character and the character of my house. . .. I immediately said I would cowhide Ned Buntline the first time I caught him in a public street." Just as Hastings declared this to her acquaintances, Judson passed the store, and Hastings followed and caught him by the arm. She told him she would cowhide him for the insult the next time she met him, and she would wait on Broadway until the opportunity arose. Five days later, after waiting an hour on the corner near Judson's office, Hastings found her opportunity. As Judson walked down
the street with friends, she gave him two blows on the head. Hastings said she "didn't stop to see if he was much hurt and didn't care."[40]
The assault attracted much attention and comment both in the press and from New York citizens. J. G. Bennett appeared to take special delight in reporting an embellished version of the story in the Herald . The paper said it was alleged Judson had drawn a pistol and threatened the life of his fair assailant. Infuriated by the reporting of the affair, Judson wrote the paper pointing out that he had not drawn a pistol nor had a word been said. He stated he felt the Herald's reporting was so particularly malignant that he had directed his lawyer "to enter a suit for libel against the paper's proprietor unless he gives a full and immediate retraction."[41]
Judson filed charges of assault and battery against Hastings, and her case went before a grand jury. The grand jury could not find a bill against her, so the case was "laid over." Hastings waived her right to a trial by jury and accepted a bench trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The press gave a detailed description of Hastings's appearance before the court:
She had on a splendid fawn-colored silk dress, and wore a rich broche shawl, with a pearl colored straw hat. She had about her person a profusion of jewelry, charms, watch, bracelets, buckles, pencil head, watch-key, and other like articles of adornment. She came in with a smart business-like air, and seemed to court dispatch.[42]
According to the Herald , the trial attracted a large group of spectators who were so eager to view Hastings they "stood to see her, put on eyeglasses, and ran to the balcony."[43]
Hastings's court deposition defended her actions on the basis of the derogatory attack that had been made on her by Judson in his paper. She stated that Judson had for a considerable period published similar gross attacks upon her which had been calculated to arouse her anger, and thus they had succeeded in causing her to "chastise" him. Even though the grand jury did not find a bill against her, Hastings said she wished to save the county the expense of a jury trial so had waived that right. She stated she readily accepted guilt for inflicting the chastisement upon Judson but believed that his "scurrilous attack" on her left him fully meriting the severe punishment she had meted out. Hastings reinforced charges that her adversary had a venomous nature and an unsavory
character by submitting as evidence two letters that had been sent to her the day following the confrontation on Broadway. One was signed by Judson and said:
You are an infernal dirty bitch and if you ever attempt to do to me a similar act you may consider yourself shot. Take warning by this you dirty whore. My paper is mine and I am able to be responsible for any articles contained therein.
E. Z. C. Judson[44]
The second letter, which also appeared to be in Judson's handwriting, was signed, "One Who Knows Something." It justified the actions of Judson and accused Hastings of being a destroyer of youthful morals and lives, a "damd [sic ] whore . . . [who is] fucked every night by sporting men." The letter ended with the warning: "Woe be to you cursed whore. Look out!"[45]
The judges accepted Hastings's plea of guilty, said they trusted she would not attack the man again, and imposed a fine of 6 cents. The Herald reported that when her sentence was pronounced, "Kate very deliberately opened an elegant purse she held in her hand, and was about to pay the sixpence down at once, but her counsel interposed saying to her that the amount was merely nominal, and that she might leave it to him to arrange." According to the press, when the trial ended voices were heard all around expressing approbation at the decision of the court, and as Hastings left the room she audibly remarked that if Judson did not leave her alone in the future he would not be able to come to court the next time.[46]
In spite of the animosities expressed for each other, Judson and Hastings appear to have eventually reached a truce in their relationship. A police officer testified to seeing Judson and some companions leaving Hastings's brothel only a month and a half after the trial for her assault on him.[47]
Many prostitutes were just as active as Hastings in their roles as citizens of the community—or in their interactions with municipal agencies, such as tax assessors. A review of tax records in wards five and eight in eight different years during the 1840s and 1850s reveals twenty-four instances of known prostitutes appealing their assessments. Some prostitutes, such as Eliza Pratt, Adeline Miller, Sarah Tuttle, Fanny White, and Ann Thomas challenged their appraisals on more than one occasion. The fact that prostitutes took advantage of the appeals process
13.
Letter from Editor Judson to Prostitute Kate Hastings.
This letter, written by an angry E. Z. C. Judson after being horsewhipped
by Hastings, was submitted as evidence at the court hearing on the incident.
(NYDA Indictments, People v. Hastings, 17 April 1849, Municipal Archives,
Department of Records and Information Services, City of New York)
indicates that they were not afraid of challenging municipal officials and were not concerned about keeping a low profile for fear that public attention might jeopardize their ability to work in the community.[48]
Court records and newspapers also indicate that prostitutes repeatedly were called upon to serve as witnesses at public trials or hearings, especially to supply testimony verifying infidelity in divorce proceedings. When the parties involved were prominent, such as John Holland, the trials became news events, and the prostitutes became well known to the community. Six months after Judson's altercation with Hastings, his wife sued for divorce, and Fanny White and the occupants of her house testified to repeated instances of adultery on Judson's part. Testimony of prostitutes also was used in the 1852 divorce trial of the famous actor Edwin Forrest. Caroline Ingersoll, manager of assignation and prostitution boarding houses, gave guarded but important testimony that was crucial in bringing about a decision favorable to Mrs. Forrest.[49]
Prostitutes also testified at inquests or trials involving the deaths of prostitutes or their patrons and at investigative hearings into suspected crimes, such as the fire that destroyed the National Theatre and Julia Brown's brothel next door. In the case of the fire, officials were investigating both a suspected arson and the death of a young prostitute. In the 1836 Jewett murder trial, ten prostitutes testified about events at the brothel and gave information concerning the parties involved. In the 1843 murder of Charles Corlis, five prostitutes were called to give information about circumstances surrounding the death. In the 1870 murder of Benjamin Nathan, Clara Dale, a prostitute from Irene McGready's brothel, was a key witness because she provided the alibi for the prosecution's major suspect, Nathan's son.[50]
Prostitutes frequently appeared as plaintiffs in court cases. Some of the complaints filed in court by prostitutes were against their employees or servants, most often in cases involving the theft of clothing, items of adornment, or money. Servants appear to have been named as culprits far more often than were prostitute coworkers, and courts seem to have been tougher about, and less forgiving of, a charge of theft than a charge of practicing prostitution. Two servants in the house of Antoinette Goldstreng stole $97.40 from a stocking where Goldstreng kept the weekly rental fees. Even though police officers recovered part of the money, the two servants were sent to prison for two years. Eliza Fisher's servant Mary Ann Furman also was sent to prison for stealing two hocks,
two shirts, two lace collars, and a velvet hat. Fisher made another complaint in court a couple of years later, when a second servant was arrested for stealing four petticoats, two dresses, a veil, a shawl, and $9 cash. Abby Meyers's servant Amelia Thompson was jailed for twenty days for stealing material worth a mere $1.50, and another servant of Meyers was arrested and committed for taking a writing desk and silver valued at $200. Prostitute Matilda Edmonds, a resident in Isabella Stewart's brothel, was arrested and sent to prison for stealing a gold watch, gold pencil, silk dress, hat, and other articles valued at $100.[51]
Theft also was an issue between prostitutes and their clients. Clients often claimed they had been robbed while in a brothel, but prostitutes also brought charges against customers who used their entry into the establishment as an easy opportunity to take unguarded valuables. Prostitute Jane Smith screamed for the watch when she realized a roll of bills had been taken from her pocket while a patron was with her in her room. The man was immediately arrested and taken to the police. Rachel Porter complained to police that a man had taken a safety chain worth $15 from her neck while they were together in her brothel. The customer denied the charges, and the necklace was not found, but Porter said he had given it to another man. Law officials believed Porter's story over that of the customer, and he was committed to jail. The newspaper reporter covering the story commented that the customer's "appearance warranted the expectation of better things from him."[52]
Some prostitutes may have used charges of theft as a means of getting assistance in removing an unwanted customer from a brothel. Abby Meyers called officers to arrest a patron she claimed had robbed her while in her house. Meyers did not appear at the police station the next morning to press charges, so the newspaper assumed Meyers had not been robbed at all.[53]
Prostitutes appeared in court as plaintiffs most often when pressing charges against patrons and other males who created disturbances in their brothels. Sometimes clients got drunk or rowdy and refused to leave, so the watch was called to assist with their eviction. A guest at 24 Anthony who became angry and would not leave when ordered out at 1:30 A.M . got into a scuffle with one of the women in the house. The watch was summoned, and he was put in jail. Mary Jewell refused to let a lawyer into her brothel after midnight, so he kicked in the door. She called the watch and pressed charges in court.
Often customers were destructive of a prostitute's property, and in most cases prostitutes immediately prosecuted the assaulters. Two so-called "Texas patriots" who raised a ruckus in Catherine Cochran's brothel by bragging about their war exploits were thrown out by the other male customers. The two men returned and started smashing glasses and assaulting the women and were sent to jail. Mary Wall admitted five customers who had arrived at her brothel in a hack. Once seated in the parlor, they requested drinks, and then one proceeded to use a fire shovel to destroy decanters and almost all the other glassware on the sideboard. Wall took them to court for their assault.[54]
Much of the property destruction and physical violence that occurred in brothels, especially in the 1830s and early 1840s, was the result of groups of rowdy males who roamed the streets and took great pleasure in wanton attacks upon prostitution houses. Whether these attacks were the result of excessive alcohol, male resentment over the independence of working and sexually active women, or entertainment for men who saw violence as an assertion of their rising social and political power in an increasingly egalitarian society, the victims of the attacks often tended to be those persons perceived to be "oppressed, unpopular, or unprotected."[55] Prostitutes were viewed as vulnerable because they were women and possibly because they operated as "illegals" in the community, but ruffians were often surprised at the persistence and force of both the legal and physical responses of these women to their attacks.
George Gale and some of his friends spent two weeks in the spring of 1831 harassing several brothels, including those of Phoebe Doty and Elizabeth Baker. Both Dory and Baker were attacked three times each during this period. At Baker's brothel, the men threw stones at the house, breaking and destroying windows, and then demolished her stoop and forced themselves inside, where they were "crass and offensive." At Doty's house, Gale and Enoch Carter kicked furniture, took lamps down, spilled oil, and threatened to knock Doty to the floor. Angered rather than intimidated, the women filed charges against the men.[56]
Bullies did not single out prostitutes alone for their vicious rampages. In late April of 1835, the house of Elizabeth Jeffreys at 63 Church was forcibly entered by John Chichester, John Boyd, and several other members of their notorious gang. The men assaulted Jeffreys, moved on to the home of Abel Welles and repeated the same violence, and then attacked three men in a neighborhood store. The next week, the gang
went to the brothel of Jane Ann Jackson and threw brickbats and stones against the door and windows, breaking the window shutters and sash. They then entered the brothel, assaulted Jackson with a large gilt ball, and threatened to set fire to her house. From Jackson's they went to Eliza Ludlow's brothel and forced her to serve them brandy. Afterward, Chichester and friends threw the glasses into the fire, burned a rug, broke a bench by hurling it at a prostitute, and threatened to toss a woman out the window. After leaving the brothel, the bullies assaulted three more men in the street and broke several street lamps. The prostitutes, joined by the other neighbors who had been attacked, pressed charges against the Chichester gang, and the men were convicted.[57]
Prostitutes made especially easy targets for the bullies. Brothels were managed by women and were open at very late hours. Also, prostitutes angered some men by denying them entry to their brothels, by refusing to let them act as they wished when admitted, or by refusing sexual service to some. Violence was a response to rejection and frustration, but it was also a form of sport. As the activities of the Chichester gang illustrate, however, many neighborhood citizens besides prostitutes suffered from the increased street violence of the period, indicating that attacks on prostitutes were because they were vulnerable citizens rather than unacceptable social outcasts. Certainly, they felt secure enough as members of the community to prosecute the bullies instead of being cowed by their aggressiveness.[58]
Prostitutes pressed criminal charges against rowdy males to get them incarcerated, but they also pursued damages in court for the property the men destroyed. A gang of six men broke into the vacated brothel of Adeline Miller at 44 Orange Street, destroying about $100 worth of furniture. From Orange Street they went to Miller's house at 133 Reed and in spite of her resistance, broke into the window, threw bottles of liquor at Miller and then began destroying her most valuable property, demolishing $400 worth of oil paintings, glassware, mirrors and furnishings. They asked for money, and as she was giving it to them they grabbed her by the throat and struck her on the head with an iron bar. From Miller's the men went to the house of Jane Weston (alias Jenny Graham), where they drank and demolished a basket of champagne before asking for money. Both women swore out complaints against the men, and they were jailed. They also sought remuneration for damages.
Five months after the attack on the brothels, the men were ordered by the court to make restitution of $700 and fees before they were released from jail.[59]
Court prosecutions were not the only way prostitutes responded to assaults, intimidation, and the loss of property. Many prostitutes responded to physical force by defending themselves with aggressive physical actions. On Christmas day in 1847 John Briggs and some friends came to the brothel of Phoebe Dory at 166 Church Street. Briggs and his cronies became very rowdy, bullied the inmates of the brothel, and began to conduct themselves in a "beastly and indecent manner." When the men refused to leave, one of the women in the brothel, Moll Stephens, put a gun to Briggs's head and pulled the trigger. Fortunately for Briggs, the bullet chamber that was shot was the only one of the six that was empty. Briggs grabbed the gun and ran out of the brothel. The next day Doty filed charges against Briggs for assault and battery, but he countered with the same charges against Stephens. The judge put both parties on bail, but the Police Gazette pointed out that, when a black boy had done the same thing with a pistol to a black prostitute a few years before, he had been sent to state prison for nine and a half years.[60]
Another instance of self-defense occurred in a Duane Street brothel when one of the patrons became jealous of the attention being shown another customer by an attractive prostitute named Maria. Later the customer took Maria to her room and threatened her with a dagger. Although Maria was short, she was very muscular and, when the jealous customer threatened her, she jumped up, seized his arm, snatched the dagger, threw him on the floor, put her knee on his chest, called him names, slapped his face, and then threw him down the stairs. Prostitute Mary Gamble, when attacked with a sword and stabbed in the nose, scratched her assailant's face so badly that she was certain he would show the marks for weeks. When three men kicked open the door of Susan Shannon's brothel, she cut one with a sword. Jane Williams also acted to protect herself when twelve men tried to forcibly enter her brothel. She confronted the men with a revolver, but one man hit her, took the gun from her, and ran away. Williams then pursued justice by filing charges in criminal court.[61]
Sometimes prostitutes responded physically to attacks or injuries that were non-physical in nature. Kate Hastings horsewhipped Judson for
insulting her, and Amelia Norman stabbed Henry Ballard for abandoning her after making her pregnant. Ginderella Marshall, madam of a Leonard Street brothel, horsewhipped and struck on the head a guest who would not pay after enjoying himself in her house. Mary Stewart confronted a man in her brothel with a gun and threatened to blow his brains out. The man had come to persuade his younger brother, who was living with Stewart, to leave the prostitute and go home. Another prostitute assaulted and attempted to stab a man on behalf of her paramour. The man had given testimony against her lover, charging him with stealing a watch.[62]
The self-assurance prostitutes showed concerning their rights as community citizens is especially evident in a few cases one would have thought would be almost impossible for a prostitute to win. Because rape was generally regarded as a sexual act instead of a violent assault, any woman had difficulty proving her case. If challenged, a woman charging rape usually had to establish that she was chaste, which obviously was a difficult burden of proof for a prostitute.[63] Nevertheless, some prostitutes did file charges of rape and attempted rape, and their attackers were convicted. Even if justice officials thought of the act as assault and battery, the prostitute was better off than in cases where the rape was believed to be what she had bargained for as a prostitute.
One case of rape involved a gang of men led by Thomas Hyer. The men entered the brothel of Ellen Holly and gang-raped one of her boarders, Ellen Bellmire. Hyer and his friends were convicted of the assault but were out of jail by the end of a year. Eliza Logue's house was forcibly entered by five men who destroyed some furnishings, strangled Logue, and then "threw her across the foot of a bed and endeavored by force and violence to have connection with her." Only the arrival of the watch prevented the rape from occurring, but charges were brought against the men, and they were convicted.[64] Prostitute Hannah Fuller also pressed charges for attempted rape. Fuller was seated in the window of her bedroom at 4 A.M . one summer morning when William Ford passed by and saw her. Ford climbed over the gate and broke into the house. After kicking in Fuller's door, Ford removed his boots and pants and carried her to bed and attempted to "ravish and . . . carnally know her." Mary Ann Grovenor came to help Fuller but left when Ford threatened to split open her head. Only through the intervention of the watch was the rape prevented.
Fuller pressed charges against Ford but later withdrew her complaint, saying she "believed he was under an excitement at the time" and was an "old friend and has been for a long time back and still is." She requested that no further action be taken against him because she now believed they were both at fault. "Had I known the consequences to befall him I would never have made the complaint." The court then prosecuted Ford for assault and battery on the watchman.[65]
A second type of case where a prostitute might not expect to receive a sympathetic hearing involved harassment when streetwalking. By the 1850s, because of the large influx of poor immigrants to New York and the great increase in street traffic, authorities became very strict in policing city thoroughfares if the public complained that prostitutes were being a nuisance. As the 1855 case of Matilda Wade showed, any woman on the streets at night had difficulty proving she was not a streetwalker or vagrant. Streetwalkers in the two preceding decades also had been considered a public harassment as well as a symbol of eroding public morality, but several cases illustrate that these women believed they should be guaranteed and usually received—personal protection even while plying their trade on public thoroughfares.
Prostitute Mary Smith of Leonard Street filed charges against William Nosworthy for assaulting her as she was walking home from the Park Theater. Nosworthy seized her and "raised her clothes so to expose her nakedness to passers by." Nosworthy was fully prosecuted. Another prostitute who was promenading on Broadway was approached and kissed by a drunken man. She objected to his sexual advances and prosecuted him but dropped the charges after he apologized. Prostitute Julia Meadows also was strolling on Broadway at night when a young man approached her from behind and threw oil of vitriol on her clothes, burning both her silk dress and her visette. Meadows screamed for the police, who pursued and caught the man; she filed charges, and he was committed. Prostitute Jane Williams, while on her evening stroll, picked up hack driver Jim Waters and was taking him to her brothel when they passed another man who touched Williams's shoulder. Williams left Waters for the new escort, and Waters seized her by the arm and objected. After Williams hit Waters in the face, he turned her over to the watch, charging her with assault and battery. Williams told the judge she hit him in order to get away, and the judge ruled against Waters, dismissing the case on grounds of self-defense.[66]
Although there are many examples that demonstrate how prostitutes enjoyed the rights and privileges of community citizenship, there are also instances that illustrate that the prostitute was always vulnerable in public disputes because of the illegal status and stigma of her profession. Even though prostitutes frequently used the legal and judicial system for their own interests, there was the possibility their credibility would be challenged because of their way of life. In the case of a theft or other conflict, it was the prostitute's word against the client's, and the reports of these cases indicate that the lack of an "irreproachable character" sometimes worked against prostitutes. In the well-publicized Jewett murder trial in 1836, for example, the major thrust of the defense counsel's argument was that the testimony of prostitutes could not be received in a court of justice, even in a trial for murder. According to the defense counsel, "the connection between chastity and veracity is so vital that the loss of the former is the instant destruction of the latter."[67] The judge in the case concurred with the defense, and in his charge to the jury warned that jurors must
consider well the character of the persons brought forward as witnesses. Testimony principally is drawn from ... persons of very bad repute ... [and] their testimony is not to be credited unless corroborated by testimony drawn from more credible sources. In the judgment of the law you are not entitled to conviction upon it; but if it be corroborated and strengthened by other credible testimony then give to it all the credibility which it is in justice entitled.[68]
Since one young man contradicted the testimony of the prostitutes at the trial, the suspected murderer was found not guilty. Most of the editorial opinion was against the decision of the court. The Sun noted that the defense counsel's argument was based on a "specious and dangerous principle" on the basis of which crimes need only be committed in the presence of prostitutes for the murderers to walk away free. The paper also pointed out that the counsel himself had won many convictions in the past based on "testimony of the same character."[69]The Advocate of Moral Reform voiced similar sentiments, adding that it saw
no reason why the testimony of Mrs. Townsend and her inmates is not worth as much as that of the young men, who by their own confession are in the habit of visiting her house constantly ... thus reducing themselves to her level.[70]
There were a number of sources in the period that reinforced the notion that "prostitutes are known to be notorious liars." The Advocate of Moral Reform ran an article in 1841, "The Habit of Lying Among Prostitutes," which was taken from William Tait's study, Prostitution in Edinburgh .[71] In the February 1840 trial of a group of men who were charged with assaulting Susan Shannon at her brothel, the jury was unable to reach a verdict because one juror stated that he "did not consider a prostitute a human being, and could in no event find a verdict from her testimony." Two weeks after the Shannon trial, however, Justice Wyman found two men guilty of assault and battery on Julia Brown and her prostitutes, even though the defendants claimed the prostitutes had lied. After hearing the verdict the men expressed indignation that the testimony of the prostitutes had been valued over theirs.[72]
Although prostitutes' credibility in testimony continued to be challenged periodically throughout the middle decades of the nineteenth century, judicial experience confirmed that a prostitute's veracity could be accepted with the same care as that of any other citizen. In the disorderly house trial of Mary Fowler, nine years after the Shannon and Brown cases, Judge C. P. Daley declared that "bad and vicious habits do not necessarily imply a want of veracity, for it is a matter of familiar experience in the courts of justice, that persons otherwise of the most degraded character, not unfrequently manifest a strict regard for truth."[73] A prostitute's testimony would continue to be accepted or rejected based on the plausibility of the evidence given—or the attitudes of the legal officials in charge.
Thus, whether challenging laws that discriminated against them or working with law officials, courts, and municipal agencies to further their own interests, prostitutes of the mid-nineteenth century demonstrated that, in spite of the existence of anti-prostitution laws, they and their profession were very much a part of the social fabric of New York City life. The ambivalence shown by both ordinary citizens and officials toward prostitution underscored this position in the community. Anti-prostitution laws were kept on the statute books in an effort to satisfy a public need to feel that morality was being preserved and that the unrespectable and poor classes would be kept in control when necessary, but the actual casual and discretionary enforcement of the laws illustrates that many citizens did not find the existence of prostitutes in their neighborhoods so offensive. Prostitutes did not, however, achieve the
status of coworkers and fellow citizens in the urban community merely because New Yorkers showed a tolerance or lack of concern about them. Prostitutes actively worked to create a positive customary and legal environment for themselves in ways that helped integrate them into New York City life. In theory, they were faced with laws vastly indiscriminate and procedurally unrestrained, but in practice, the more successful prostitutes particularly were able to use their money and their working legal knowledge and connections to make vigorous use of the law to protect themselves.