Fifteen, she is kept in some private house where her purchaser happens.
Every girl in a brothel is waited upon by a female servant who in most cases is her purchaser, and who though called a servant and performing the duties of a servant, is nevertheless the mistress of such girl and receives her earnings and keeps a guard over her. These servants are not for the most part prostitutes in the brothel, but they nearly all of them have their own male attachés, and accordingly rent some room in the neighbourhood of their brothel for their own purposes. It is in these rooms that their infant purchases are kept.
The ranks of the prostitutes are also recruited from servant girls who may have been sold by their mistresses on account of poverty. Such servants are the property of their mistresses, and the right of the mistress is recognized to sell the servant if she chooses to do so. Their age would probably be greater than that of daughters sold by parents, and if fifteen or thereabouts she would be expected to fetch, if tolerably good looking, as much as three or four hundred dollars.
The training of a prostitute commences by tuition in singing. A master is engaged who comes to the house and gives lessons to the intended prostitute. He is paid ten dollars for the song, and he undertakes to teach the song until it is perfectly acquired, irrespective of the length of time required in its preparation. The tuition includes the playing of the song as well as the singing of it. The instrument almost invariably used is a property...