This finely detailed article, published by the British-run Shanghai Times in 1918, reflects a growing movement by Christian organizations in Shanghai, particularly the local branch of the W.C.T.U. to address the social problem of prostitution in the city. It is a fascinating read on many levels. It begins with general speeches about “white slavery” and the condition of prostitution in cities around the world, and finally it hones in on the prostitution industry in Shanghai, taking the reader on a tour of the city’s vice districts in their heyday, as an anti-vice movement in the city gathered force and speed. This article also gives us a glimpse into the underworlds of vice and the role of Russian women in particular in stoking the furnaces of the sex industry in the city, at least among foreigners. It also mentions the efforts to eliminate vices and reform society, including the Door of Hope, an institution that offered refuge and reformation for former prostitutes in the city. Oddly the speaker doesn’t mention the ubiquitous Chinese courtesan houses, at least not directly. She does however mention the notorious area in the Hongkou district that became known as the Trenches and provides some very specific info about who was running and staffing these bars and cabarets. Finally, she ends with a rather idealistic and naive proposition for how to keep sailors and other international visitors occupied without resorting to the vice trade. The movement to crack down on the city’s “underworld” of vices, namely the sex trade, was one of the factors that eventually precipitated the rise of dance halls and cabarets in the city, where vice culture was clothed in more respectable garb.
UNDERWORLD OF SHANGHAI: FACTS AS TO COMMERCIALISED VICE. FALL OF RUSSIAN REFUGEES. SPEECHES AT LAST NIGHT’S MEETING
(The Shanghai Times Feb 8, 1918)
Under the auspices of the Shanghai Woman's Christian Temperance Union a well-attended public meeting was held yesterday in the Union Church Hill, under the chairmanship of Mr lsaac Mason, to discuss “Commercialised Vice” a theme which has been reviewed by the members of the Women’s Union at several previous meetings which were open only to women.
The Chairman said-:—Ladies and gentlemen: The W. C. T. U. has done me the honour of inviting me to preside at this meeting, not, I take it, with the idea of listening to any speech from me, but because, on the subject before us today, I form a link between the Union and Committee of Shanghai residents which is also considering the social vice subject, more especially as it concerns the city in which we live.
It is not my intention at present to do more than just refer in general terms to the fine propaganda which has been so efficiently carried out in the three meetings already held by the W.C.T.U. Mrs. Morgan will sum up the thoughts of the papers read better than I could do, and put them effectively before us all. I wish to congratulate the ladies on the way they have been able to bring real valuable matter to our notice. They have certainly succeeded in their object which was “to educate the members of their Union, and as many others as possible, on the subject of the devastation in morals, health, society and economic stability, caused by Commercialized Vice.”
As one who has ben privileged to read the admirable papers of Dr. Polk and Mill White, in their printed form, I wish to say how much I have appreciated them, and I heartily recommend them to all who have not yet heard or read them.
Shanghai has, of late, through the medium of these papers, and of correspondence and editorials in the press, come to know more of things as they really are,—and the Christian conscience has been once more deeply moved. That is the first step; but it is only one of the steps which must be taken in this campaign. We meet today to consider what we can do individually and collectively to promote the cause of purity, to cherish and exalt the ideals of womanhood and manliness, to persuade and win mankind to leave the lower for the higher planes of existence, to urge such reforms as are practicable, to fight the forces of evil, and to save some who are slaves to vice, whether through fault of their own, or through the shameless greed and base depravity of others.
There will be some who disapprove of such meetings as this. It is unpopular to speak or write of the seamy side of things—unless you can succeed in disguising it so as to make vice look like virtue, and prurience pose as purity. We may be told it is bad taste to even mention vice in mixed assemblies,—and that possibly by some who will sit in mixed companies and witness suggestive or indecent pictures without a qualm. I regard it as an encouraging sign that we meet jointly, men and women, to face facts as they are and to encourage each other to do our best to improve matters, regardless of what others may think of us, or what they may call us. ln taking this stand, our ladies are following the noble examples set by Mrs. Josephine Butler and her colleagues in England, and Miss Frances Willard and other brave women in America.
We have passed the day of smoothing over all that is unpleasant and remaining in ignorance, real or assumed. Our Health Officers, being sensible men, know that nothing is gained by ignoring the poisons lurking in dangerous areas. They bravely turn on the light, and bring things to the surface, not simply to gaze upon, but in order to size up the dangers and take effective measures for the good of all, the stricken as well as the healthy. There are still Chinese surgeons who cover all sores with huge plasters, and trust to luck. But we prefer the careful surgeon who probes to see the extent of the damage in order to apply his remedy with knowledge and skill. These meetings have been on a sound basis scientifically, and have already resulted in good in the information given. It remains now for us to make practical use of the facts in our hands, and to honestly try to make things better, and naturally our first efforts should be in our immediate surroundings. The consideration of the matters is the object of our meeting today. I now call upon Mrs. Morgan to address you.
Mrs. Morgan’s Address.
Our programme this afternoon is a summary of the facts and impressions gathered from the meetings of the past three months, followed by a free discussion. It rests with me simply to set the ball rolling,--a process which takes but little time and fortunately less wisdom. We have no new topic under consideration,—not even a fresh aspect of the subject. The only difference between this and the previous meeting is that not one but, we hope, many will contribute, and that not one, but both sexes are present, to consider the very difficult and unpleasant problem which lies before us.
It is far easier to work than to speak, more especially under present circumstances. But I have to remember that no one in this hall would have come here unless impelled by real interest. Sympathy may therefore be taken for granted,
And why are we here? Many men and women outside these walls are asking “To what purpose is this waste of time? What good can possibly result from such meeting?” “The Social Evil has existed and will exist,” said a lady conspicuous in rescue work, to me the other day. “You will never stop it.” Others argue thus, “Live straight yourself and leave others to paddle their own canoes. If they paddle into the rapids and are drowned, it is their own look-out” and so on. Probably the great majority of people in this “Model Settlement” argue in this way and scorn even the contemplation of the “dregs of life.” For just about fifty years Charles Dickens wrote in the preface to one of his best known novels; “There are people of so refined and delicate a nature that they cannot bear the contemplation of shabby rags, foul and frowsy dens, haunts of vice and hunger.” “But,” he goes on to say, "I have no faith in the delicacy which scorns to look upon them, and it seems to me that to paint them in all their wretchedness and squalor would be a service to Society; and that the truth needs to be told.” So he wrote of Bill Sykes and Nancy; and the world has been wiser ever since.
Believing, therefore, that though ignorance of this ghastly trade is certainly bliss, yet it is still better to be wise. We have held this series of special meetings on the hygienic, economic and social aspects of commercialized vice and we now invite our brothers to participate in an endeavour to summarize the situation.
At the first meeting, the speaker dealt most comprehensively with the medical side of the evil. It would be impossible in a mixed gathering such as this to quote in detail from that fine address, but we then learnt: that venereal disease, which is the direct resu!t of immorality, is the greatest menace to the health of the community, —that it is subtle, hereditary, difficult to diagnose, hard, if not impossible to cure and that, owing to present war conditions, it is rapidly on the increase.
We also learnt that clinical examination which has been considered a safeguard, and, when conducted as it usually is, more or less hurriedly- and without the use of a microscope, and of one sex only, a failure, in that such an examination engenders a false sense of security and, therefore, entices more to run the risk of infection.
At our second meeting we learnt that the vice business is a colossal and hideous reality, which encourages and cultivates prostitution for its own commercial profit, all the world over.
Wo learnt that the article for sale in this awful trade is woman, and that revenues are being derived, in this and other cities, from women who are on the market.
We learnt that the traffic is cleverly planned and stratified, all the world over, to attract every class of society, from the man who owns his own motor-car, down to the street scavenger: and ricksha coolie, and that the profits to the exploiters run up into the millions annually,—those exploiters being men who move from place to place with their chattels, in search of the best market.
Wo learnt that those procurers, as a rule, hire a woman to run their houses. Such women have also in their time been “white slaves ” and now receive a salary of about $150 gold per month.
The proprietors also employ commercial agents—runners, look-outs, water-boys, chauffeurs, cab-men, ricsha coolies, who resort to deceit, intoxication and “doping,” to get their “goods.” Advertisements are moreover sent out to ships, hotels, etc., when new inmates of these houses arrive.
We also heard that the average number of customers served by one “slave” daily is 10 or 11 in Europe, and 15 or 16 in America, also that a girl can earn four times as much as a prostitute as she can in any respectable industry.
We have learnt that artificial rents are offered and received for houses of ill-fame, and that the owners and agents go scot-free. Also that many professedly God-fearing men and ladies in good society, are owners of this kind of property.
The sources of stimulus to immorality are, we are reminded, alcohol, late hours, sensuous amusements, starvation wages, low theatres, indecent picture shows and dancing halls.
Drinking and drugging, we all know, go hand in hand with vice. They are its sina qua non; and are in themselves monster evils. A prostitute receives a commission on every drink she serves to a customer. Four drug stores in Chicago sell as much as 4 lbs. of morphia and 6 oz. of cocaine in one month.
The results of this awful traffic are the unproductiveness of millions of women; childless homes; asylums full of insane and the general degeneracy of the race. Each army corps has now its own hospital for venereal disease.
Following upon these statistics, Mrs. Willard Eddy showed up that the causes of social vice were degeneracy, ignorance, lack of will power, unoccupied time; little or no social life. These could be overcome the future by education along sex lines in the Home, the School and the Church, teaching not so much the natural consequences of irregular living, but the sin therein involved,—sin against oneself, one’s neighbour and God.
For worse than all the private bereavement and national poverty arising out of this terrible war, will be pollution of corporal life threatening the well being of every individual. In future there must be less glitter and more care: for the things which really matter,—proper housing, living wages, supervision of a place of amusement,— no unprotected girls in bars and hotels, no children under age in factories.
Having now given a brief and very inadequate resume of the facts already laid before us at previous meetings, I turn to the second matter for consideration, viz:
How does all this touch us as individuals out here, except that in so far as we are parts of the great whole? Is it, in short, any business of ours and, if so, what are we to do?
In other words “Are we called upon to repair the wall ever against our own house” as they managed things in Jerusalem in the old days. The need for “Building” is patent enough. It is urged by some in authority that Shanghai is “no worse than other places,”—that “the best is being done that can be done,”..and that “there is really nothing to worry about,” though one of the Admirals has called Shanghai “the worst port in the East,” But even if Shanghai is not worse than Paris, New York, Chicago, London, or Berlin, is that any consolation? A mother whose child is dying of scarlet fever or smallpox in our Isolation Hospital, due to the want of precaution on her part, finds it but poor consolation to be told that some one else’s child died of the same disease in America or Europe! The ruling thought in her mind is “Would that I had not exposed her to infection!” She feels keen remorse. She would give all she possesses if preventive measures could be taken now. But it is too late!
Do we not feel remorse when we hear, of the wreck of fair young lives which might have been saved, and if preventive measures had been taken? We surely owe it to the place in which our lot is just now cast to try and live up to our ideals and help others to do so.
As to the conditions of things in Shanghai, I have spent many hours lately in trying to ascertain them. But complete accuracy is unobtainable, even if details were of much value. The difficulty lies largely in the international element of this foreign settlement, but also in the fact that, apart from Nanking Road and other thoroughfares on which soliciting goes on nightly, to the disgrace and ruin of pedestrians, many of the prostitutes are hidden away in alleyways behind the main streets and no one knows of the actual numbers. I have been told that there are 45,000 such Chinese in the settlement. This is probably incorrect. But even if the figure be only 10,000 (and there were as many as that fifteen years ago), that is an appalling menace to a total population of 800,000 which includes all the other women and children!
In Kiangse Road there are 10 houses, containing about 100 women, all of course foreign. These houses have no licence, neither has any other brothel in Shanghai, although, according to By-law 34, it is illegal to open such places without one.
There are several other houses kept by Europeans sectored about in various districts, but most of these are not registered at any consulate; and a good many lie outside the Municipal area, Some of these are run by low class Russians, some by Rumanians and one, in Chapoo Road, not far from the General Hospital, by two French girls.
With regard to the Chinese who cater for foreigners’ and their own people alike, there are at the corner of Shantung and Av. Edward VII 50 houses resorted to by Chinese sailors of the lowest type, 20 cents being the price of service for one night. In Shanse Road there are 8 similar ones. There is also one in an alleyway off Szechuen Road south, frequented by foreigners.
The district west of Shanse Road, on’ both sides of Nanking Road, is too thickly populated with harlots to give figures, or perhaps it would be more strictly truthful to say that I have been unable to obtain them. In the midst of these, on the north side, is the Receiving Home of the Door of Hope, and one of the devoted workers there told me that after three o’clock in the morning sleep was practically impossible, as the inmates when disappointed of customers and fearful of the wrath of their mistresses, shouted out of the window for trade, vying with one another in hailing any late passers-by.
The districts consisting of Yuhang, Miller, Chapoo, East Dixwell, Fearon, and Yalu Roads are too well known by repute to require much mention. In the first there are 3 houses containing 7 women, all Russian, but not registered at any consulate. These are visited by sailors and civilians. There are also two Chinese houses in that road.
Miller Road contains one foreign and one Chinese house,—also a boarding house which I shall have occasion to speak later. Yalu and Fearon Roads are the so-called “prescribed area,” reserved for Cantonese girls, every house in the former street being used for immoral purposes, and the latter containing 10 Chinese brothels for the use of foreigners and others. The girls in these roads undergo regular examination in the Chinese Isolation Hospital.
The price for service in the houses filled with Chinese varies from 20 cents to 15.
The inmates give the authorities very little trouble (which accounts, partly, I suppose, for their continued existence). They ply their evil trade quietly. No arrests can be made on the streets unless a prostitute is seen pulling a man, and even then prosecution has been refused in Court, for lack of witness other than that of the arrestor. The girls and their exploiters are aware of this, and may usually be seen standing quietly in groups at the entrance of alleyways or strolling along the pavement followed by their amahs. One evening returning from Bubbling Well between 11 and 12 o’clock at night in a ricsha, I counted 34 such girls between the Palace Annex and Chekiang Road.
Of the big Yangzepoo district I have no statistics to offer. But there are also, as you all well know, many places of ill-repute and temptation lying outside the Municipal area, north of Range Road. The police have tried hard to improve matters, with the result that only 6 low class bars are left on the main road. These are all licensed by the Chapei authorities. Out of these five, two are kept by Chinese, one by an Austrian and two by Russians, Some of the bar maids are Russians, some Japanese, and there is (sad to say!) one English girl, whom repeated efforts to rescue has so far proved unavailing. One of these bars, though financed by a Chinaman, is run by an ex-American sailor, who keeps a Japanese barmaid. Another of the barmaids, in the Alhambra, is married to an American.
Behind these bars and close to the Isis Theatre, four places have recently been opened, viz. The Cafe Moderne, —a bar and a dancing saloon opened all night; The Rialto, kept by a Russian Jewess; the International Cabaret and Dancing Hall, run by a French woman and the Tipperary Bar kept by a Chinaman. These are patronised by the poorer classes of Germans, Russians, and Portuguese.
It rests now with others to discuss methods of reform. For myself, I wish to plead for greater preventive measures, By all means let us reclaim the fallen. All honour to these, more especially the ladies of the Door of Hope, who for the past 17 or 18 years have been steadily, patiently, successfully pursuing this Christ-like work. Let us also got some of the brothels closed, if we can, so long as the remaining ones are not licensed. Let us, above all, clear Nanking Road off traps for loungers. All these things might be done if the citizens in Shanghai had sufficient determination. But what we need most is counter-attractions of a sound and healthful nature. I am convinced that the majority of men and women desire to live pure lives, and given favourable conditions, would remained unscathed. What can we expect when our streets are all of pitfalls, and when evil suggestion, opportunity, and temptation meet men at every turn ? What can one expect if a girl does not even get a living wage? It isn’t easy for a young woman to house, feed, and clothe herself upon $50 a month nowadays especially if she likes pretty things as every girl should. And if she has no work at all—if she is stranded on these shores, moneyless and friendless, knowing no one and without any recommendations, as two poor Russian refugees were three weeks ago, —then the path of prostitution becomes not only a temptation, but in their eyes, (for they were young and loved life, and being ignorant, didn’t realize the consequences),--a necessity. Oh the pity of it, when we sit in our comfortable homes!
We don’t realize enough that young men, sailors or otherwise, need occupation, recreation, fun, social life—in short, a free vent for their energy when on shore. They also need friendship, sympathy, and often practical help. Where can they go to get these in Shanghai? Most of them would really far rather spend the evening in lawful amusements and games, music, spinning yarns about their mothers and their sweethearts in the dear homeland, than in a low class eating house or bar on the streets. They want to be good. It is only when idleness besets them and temptation lures that their lower nature comes uppermost and they fall. One fall makes the nest more easy. Then follows remorse, disease, despair, disgrace, death!
If every home represented here today were open to the home sick sailor boys and the young men in houses of business, and if we all laid ourselves out to give them a good time—good dinners without wine, good fun without coarseness, good story books to read in their leisure hours, the society of ladies then the brothels of Shanghai would soon have to close down.
We need, however, not only to open our homes, but we need a well-organized and thoroughly equipped club and hostel, run on total abstinence lines, with a good library, good concerts, and entertainments, and at the head a gifted woman who would inspire the whole and give herself heart and soul to the uplift of the visitors.