The typical Montreal prostitute in Montreal's Red Light would have sex with up to 20 times a day (That's not so much- Chimples) and would make $3 a pop in the mid-40s. But she'd have to give half that to her handlers. So she'd leave with something like $35 in her pocket, which was still about 4 times what an average shmo would make in a typical job, considering that a typical salary back then was about $8 a day.
A quickie with a hooker in one of these places cost just under half a days wage, which would work out to maybe $80 in today's money, depending on what somebody earns per day in their work. That seems to be the price of a prostitute nowadays, according to sites like annonces123. So it seems that the prices have risen on scale.A typical year saw saw about 660 raids, 1,300 hookers arrested, and an average of 328 men, of course the fix was in thanks to crooked cops and the places were generally tipped off in advance.
The big ringleaders were said to be a nightclub owner, a bank robber who had been hanged for holding up a bank truck, a gambler who had owned a theatre which had been closed down by authorities and a smuggler who was murdered by the mob after narcing on them.
So you could see that the big names had disappeared before the big raids happen, so perhaps the bribe well had run dry.
Whorehouses would get packlocked but would simply change their addresses, the cops and city authorities were on the take so they'd let it happen and the operations would continue unabated at places like the one seen above (on St. Dominique just south of St. Catherine).
Now 70 years later, we've got to ask: where did the money go? Of the people who got rich off of that operation, what happened to their wealth? Presumably their children inherited the money and lived in well-off conditions. Curious to know if some of those recipients or old time hookers are still around.
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