Slocum v. People (90 Ill. 274, 1878)

Mr. Justice Bakes

delivered the opinion of the Court:

■ We are called upon to give a construction to the first section of the Criminal Code, Revised Statutes 1874, p. 352, which reads as follows:

“ Whoever entices or takes away any unmarried female of a chaste life and conversation from the parents’ house, or wherever she may be found, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, and whoever aids and assists in such abduction for such purpose, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years.”

The first question that arises upon this record is, as to what constitutes an enticing or taking away from the parents’ house, within the purview of this statute. Is it sufficient that a girl living with her parents is induced, by persuasion or enticements, to go to some convenient place, away from her father’s house but in the immediate neighborhood, for the purposes of prostitution, where she is gone only for an hour or two at a time, she continuing all the while to dwell with the parents, as usual? We think it plain, both upon reason and authority, that the taking or enticing is not necessarily to a place distant from the family residence, or that any particular length of distance is required in order to bring the case within this requirement of the statute. If any fixed distance is a prerequisite to the commission of the offense charged, then it is difficult to perceive how or by what means we are to ascertain what this required distance is, and to distinguish cases without the statute from those within, and determine where the dividing line is. So, also, it would appear it is not essential that the girl should be kept permanently away from the parental home, or that there should be any intention so to keep her. Bishop’s Stat. Crimes, 637.

Under English enactments of a somewhat similar character, it was held to be a sufficient taking where the girl was taken for an hour or two from her father’s house and married, but not defiled. Regina v. Baillie, 8 Cox C. C. 238. And in Regina v. Timmins, 8 Cox C. C. 401, it was held sufficient where the defendant had been three days sleeping with her at night. In People v. Parshall, 6 Parker’s C. R. 129, which was prosecuted under a New York statute making it a penal offense to take away any female under the age of fourteen years from her father, mother, guardian, or other person having the legal charge of her person, it was held that to constitute a taking under the statute there must be some positive act to get the female away from the person having the legal charge of her, and that a mere seduction did not amount to a taking; but in that -case it did not appear that the defendant ever was at the house of the person having charge of the girl, nor does it appear from the report of the case that he ever assisted or influenced her to leave such person for any distance whatever, or for any space of time, however temporary. The opinion, states, “all the meetings he had with her were in the streets, and the testimony of the girl does not tend to show that there was any taking of her, in the sense of the .statute.” It does not appear that the meetings were even preconcerted. The girl had already left the person under whose control she was, and the defendant then met and attempted to seduce her. The case only reiterates the well-established principle, that if the female leaves her home of her own accord, and without any enticement or interference on the part of the prisoner, then the offense can not be committed. Bishop S. C. 634, 640, and authorities there cited.

In Regina v. Miller, 14 English Beports, by Moalc, 633, the girl was in the lawful charge of her master, and not of her father, at the time of the alleged offense, and she had permission from her master to be away, and the prisoner had no connection with the transaction until after she had left his house under such permission. The prosecution was based on 24 and 25 Viet. C. 100, sec. 55, which imposes punishment on any one who shall unlawfully take an unmarried girl under the age of sixteen years “out of the possession and against the will of her father or mother or any other person having the lawful care or charge of her.” The sole intention of the enactment Avas to protect the laAvful custodian in the possession of female children, and under the circumstances of that case it Avas held, that there Avas no taking and keeping such as the laAV required to sustain a conviction under that statute. Not only AAras the statute different from ours in phraseology, but its Avhole scope, meaning and purpose Avere different.

Enticing or taking aAvay a female from the parents’ home, for the purpose of prostitution, is clearly Avithin the language of our statute, be that taking or enticing to a place distant or near, or be it for a long or short space of time. The crime charged is abduction, and it is so styled in the body of the statute. The taking or enticing aAvay from the parents’ house is the gist of the offense. Under the English statutes against abducting an heiress, the offense might Avell be committed although the detention Avas but temporary and the transaction confined to but an exceedingly limited territory. Such enticing or taking away is also Avithin the intention of our statute. The legislature, in passing the statute under consideration, had undoubtedly in view the punishment of pimps and procurers Avho entice and carry off young girls and induce them to abandon, for once and all, their homes and the control of their parents for the purpose of becoming permanent inmates of houses of ill-fame or living as concubines; but it also had in AÚeAV such persons, more especially in large towns and cities, as entice girls from the parents’ house to a den of infamy in the immediate neighborhood, for the purpose of prostituting them for pay to whomsoever may come, even though the absences from the parental roof are of but a temporary character. The latter evil is not only as much Avithin the terms of the statute as the former, but is equally Avithin the evils intended to be remedied. We are not inclined to explain aAvay the meaning of a Avholesome and remedial statute in order to make an exception of that Avhich is plainly within the mischief intended to be cured.-

At the same time Ave do not Avish to be understood as holding that it was the intention of the General Assembly to make seduction, adultery or fornication a felony, and a crime punishable by confinement in the penitentiary. The case suggested by counsel, where a young woman, living with her parents, is induced or enticed by a man to leave home and meet him for a few hours and have illicit intercourse with him within a few rods of her home, after which she returns to her parents’ house as usual, is clearly not within the scope of the statute, as it lacks at least one ingredient, if not more, necessary to constitute the offense. It lacks the ingredient of an intention to reduce the female to a condition of either common prostitution or concubinage.

The second 'point raised is as to whether the prosecuting witness, in leaving her parents’ house, was enticed by defendants, and left in consequence of such enticements. It admits of no doubt, if the evidence of the prosecution is reliable, that the plaintiffs in error were acting in concert in all that was done by either to accomplish the ruin of this young girl. We .find from that evidence that almost from their very first acquaintance with the girl, Mrs. Slocum held out inducements to her to come to her house and have intercourse with the co-defendant, but the enticements and allurements suggested were of such character that we do not care to repeat them. Before any act of illicit intercourse, she frequently went to the girl’s home to get her to come, frequently sent a boy for her, and called her in from the street as she was passing the house in going down town. The allurements held out were such as would perhaps most usually and naturally repel and disgust a virtuous woman, but then they were such as were calculated to awaken the desires and inflame the imagination and passions, and weaken the moral and prudential restraints that surrounded her. The kind and extent of seductive arts, which will satisfy the law, do not depend upon any absolute rule.

If the inducements held out did, as a matter of fact, entice her from her parents’ house, then both the letter and spirit of the statute are met, at least so far as this point is involved.

The next matter that demands consideration is, whether the enticing and taking away in this case were for the purpose of prostitution. We may admit that there is a distinction between prostitution and illegal sexual intercourse with but one person, and that if the prosecuting witness was enticed away f •cm home solely for the purpose of having such intercourse with one of the plaintiffs in error, then, unless such intercourse were of a character that it would amount to concubinage, it would not be an offense within this statute. The statute is not against leaving home for the purpose of prostitution; it denounces a penalty against those who entice or take away from home for such purpose. The purpose that is contemplated by the law is one existing in the mind of the perpetrator of the offense; it does not require that such purpose must necessarily exist in the mind of the victim. If the object and motive of a procurer be to get a girl to leave home for the purpose of making her an inmate of a house