The 'Pitiful Hedizzened Hurlots': Seattle's Moral Panic Over the Steamship Brothels

MR. EDITOR—Is anything going to be done about it? Is there such an institution as a Court of Justice, or a Prosecuting Attorney, or a Sheriff, to be found in the City of Seattle, or in the County of King, or in the Territory of Washington? How long are people claiming a degree of respectability to countenance the thing? Is not every dollar coined from its infamy, a dollar invested by the devil himself?

Only last week, twenty-five of the pitiful hedizzened hurlots trooped down to the North Pacific at mid-day, and ranged themselves in full view of passengers—tourists—strangers—emigrants seeking homes. They go every day; they crowd our streets and jostle our wives and daughters from the walks. However, they bring no inconsiderable profit to steamers as they traverse the Sound, carrying pollution and death to every port. They support merchants and saloons, lawyers and preachers, newspapers and directories, but more especially doctors.

People standing on the decks of steamers ask, 'Who are these? What? Where do they live?' There.—What, alongside that church, near the heart of your city? Yes. The mutual bell which calls the faithful to morning prayer chimes its song within half a stone's throw of the blear-eyed denizens of the foulest den in the land; and on Sunday eve, the sweet tones of Angelus Domine are driven back into the very bell’s throat by the discordant roar of a huge skating rink crowded with drunken white men and degraded squaws.

Other churches you see strung along that peerless hill-side, and neat and tasteful cottages between. Yes. It does look like civilization. Can't it be stopped, you say? No, I think not. Not now.