The History of Prostitution Part 16

In Germany, prost.i.tution received a terrible impulse from the French Revolution, when the general disruption of public obligations paved the way to unbounded private license. Probably the licentiousness of Europe at the end of the last and commencement of the present century was more extravagant than at any other time. The irruption of immigrants at the fall of the French monarchy flooded Hamburg with Parisian morals and customs. Places of entertainment and sensual gratification arose in all directions, the homely, simple manners of the _Vaterland_ were subverted, and a less rigid line of conduct took their place. In the words of a writer of the day: "Our eating-houses were metamorphosed into restaurants; our dancing-rooms into saloons; our drinking-shops into pavilions; our cellars into halls; our girls into demoiselles; in short, we were thoroughly polished up by the immoral shoal of immigrants. Quick and unrestrained strode the crowd over our pleasant streets, and modesty and respectability fled with averted faces, to the sorrow of the few good men."

The name _demoiselle_ was granted to many of the common women, their places of resort being called "Ma'amselle houses." In those days the Hamburgers saw, with astonishment, houses fitted up and furnished in the style of mansions, with costly upholstery and cabinet-work.[264] Among the women were the _femmes entretenness_, who received their friends at certain hours, and whose favors were dispensed for a Louis d'or or a ducat. They frequented the first and second boxes of the German and French theatres, and drove through the public streets in handsome carriages. Some of the keepers of this cla.s.s of houses had physicians in their pay, whose services were always available by the inmates. _Pet.i.ts soupers_ were given here, and sometimes a ball took place.

These were literally the aristocracy of prost.i.tution. The second, third, and fourth grades resided in inferior streets or in the suburbs, differing in their attractions according to the rank which they a.s.sumed, but all equally shameless and unequivocal in their conduct and appearance.

Notwithstanding this rapid spread of prost.i.tution, the police of the city can not justly be charged with neglect of duty, any public outrage being followed by condign punishment. At one time a whole s.h.i.+p-load of nymphs of the _pave_ was dispatched to the colonies; at another a raid was made on the most conspicuous houses, some of the inmates alarmed into decency of conduct, and the incorrigible publicly exhibited in the streets, decorated with inscriptions signifying their offenses. The voice of the few was powerless against the corruptions of the many. The pamphlets and papers of the time teem with the proffered services of go-betweens, and even the Hamburg ladies themselves were far from perfection, if we may credit the evidence of a fict.i.tious pet.i.tion, praying, among other things, that the ladies restrict the indecency of their costume, and not make such a liberal display of their charms.

It was impossible such an extravagant state of society should long exist; a reaction was inevitable; and we find, accordingly, an ordinance enacted in 1807 by the Proctor Abendroth in reference to the matter. It recognized brothel-keeping and prost.i.tution as a calling, and permitted it under certain restrictions. A tax on the cla.s.s was imposed, and means were prescribed by which a register of all persons engaged therein was to be kept, and their health and general good conduct maintained and enforced.

The official justification of the tax is found in the order itself, which declares that, "for the purposes aforesaid" (police register and supervision, medical examination, maintenance in sickness, poverty, etc.), "and in order that the public shall be at no charges, each housekeeper shall, for every woman residing with him, pay two marks to the Proctor's treasury. The surplus of this treasury shall go to the Hospital."

During the French occupation in 1811, the police renewed and enforced the stringent regulations on the subject of common houses and women. The preamble of their "Instructions" (April, 1811) is worthy of notice:

"Public and personal safety require a constant inspection, as well of the public houses dedicated to debauchery, as of the women and girls who frequent the same, live therein, or dwell there from time to time.

This inspection must also be extended to those places which are not expressly appointed for dwelling-houses, but which, nevertheless, must be included among the public houses, inasmuch as they serve for refuge to the women and girls who wander about the streets."

"The grounds of this inspection are two-fold. In one respect they belong to the maintenance of public order: it is needful that no one be withdrawn from the eye of the police, nor find an asylum in such houses. It is likewise expedient that the magistracy take notice of disgraceful and disorderly proceedings, or prevent those which take place too often in the town. The other grounds respect the public health. The habits of debauchery have become so general, and inspection has, for some years, become so difficult, that the most dangerous maladies have increased to an unprecedented extent. All cla.s.ses of society complain, and call loudly for regulations to restrain these evils. These considerations have moved the General Police Commissary to renew, in full force, the before-enacted laws and regulations, and to order them to be enforced with rigor in the present state of affairs."

After the withdrawal of the French, the vigilance of the police authorities seems to have relaxed, if we are to judge by complaints published at the time, in which they are accused of complicity with the unfortunates who infested the streets of Hamburg, and are said, "by the agency of a trifling bribe, to be able to ply their hideous trade un.o.bstructed, and to the great annoyance of the virtuously disposed, who, after certain hours of the evening, are unable to pa.s.s along the streets."

In 1820, "the previously existing police regulations against prost.i.tutes being proved very ineffectual, insomuch that they infest the public streets and ways, not only to the offense of decency and propriety, but to the endangerment of public order and safety," it was ordered that the regulations should be renewed, and additional powers were given to the police to enforce the registry of individuals coming within the scope of the law.

At this time we find some information as to the number of prost.i.tutes, who are stated to be about five hundred, chiefly foreigners, and their receipts from their patrons, but we have no guide to the number of women who pursued their calling privately, which must have been large.

The civic administration of the Senator Hudtwalcker is marked by earnest endeavors to control prost.i.tution and restrict it within known bounds.

Some of his views on the subject met much opposition. He wished to close up one end of a notorious street, and to wall up the back windows, stationing a watchman constantly at the end left open. After great personal attention to the subject, he published the result of his experience.[265] His principles are those upon which the present police regulations of Hamburg are based. He says:

"All brothel-keepers and girls should be distinctly made to understand that their infamous and ruinous calling is only _tolerated_, not permitted, or authorized, or even well wished. Still less can they feel that they have any right to compare themselves with worthy citizens as though their calling, because an impost is levied on them, can be put on a level with other permitted callings. They must remember that this impost is raised solely to defray the necessary cost of police supervision, and of the cure of maladies brought on the common women by their own profligate course of life."

"2. Public or private brothel-keeping to be notified to the police; the regulations to be read over and subscribed; offenders to be punished by bread and water, and the House of Correction. If an uninscribed woman have the venereal disease, the fact is _prima facie_ evidence of prost.i.tution."

"3. Change of residence to be notified, under penalty."

"4. The concession may be withdrawn by the authorities at their pleasure."

"5. Houses of accommodation will only be tolerated,

(_a._) where the landlord is inscribed;

(_b._) where a resident girl is inscribed;

(_c._) where an inscribed girl is the party using it."

"6. Women from abroad, kept by single men, must obtain the police residence permission, and should pay the tax for the first cla.s.s, without, however, being subject to medical visits. They have the right of the free use of the General Infirmary. Should such a girl be proved to have intercourse with several men, or, being venereal, to have infected others, she should be treated as a public woman."

7, 8, 9. Prescribe the identification of individuals subscribing; the details of their place of birth; the consent of parents when living; also, "That any brothel-keeper detaining an innocent girl on false pretenses shall be punished with fine and imprisonment, and the concession be withdrawn."

"10. Female servants or relatives of brothel-keepers residing with them to be over twenty-five years of age."

"11. No prost.i.tute is suffered to keep children of either s.e.x over ten years of age; even her own must be brought up elsewhere if she continues her calling."

12. Prohibits solicitation of pa.s.sengers.

"13. No common woman to be in the streets after eleven at night without a male companion."

14. Limits the places to which prost.i.tutes may resort.

"15. Young people, under twenty years, not to enter a brothel."

"16. No music or gaming in brothels, nor liquor-selling, except by special permission."

"17. Noise and uproar in brothels punishable."

"18. No brothel-keeper or inscribed woman to permit extortion or violence to a customer, but they may detain persons who have not paid.

Thefts or foul dealing prohibited; the landlord _prima facie_ responsible."

"19. No compulsion or violence of the women by the keeper, nor by guests with his cognizance."

"20. A woman wis.h.i.+ng to return to a virtuous life at liberty to do so, notwithstanding any keeper's claims. If they disagree as to such claims, the police to settle them, but in no case has the keeper any lien on her. Nevertheless, this privilege not to be abused. If a woman returns to her evil courses, the keeper's claims on her revive, and she may even be punished. Limitation, according to the cla.s.s of a woman, of the right of borrowing money."

"21. If parents or relatives will undertake the reclamation of a prost.i.tute, the police will compel rest.i.tution of her person, irrespective of the keeper's claims, or even of the woman's own refusal."

"22. A woman changing her residence, and disputing any settlement with the keeper, can have the same rectified by the police."

"23. The women to be subjected every week to medical visitation. No woman, during menstruation, or with any malady in the s.e.xual organs, to receive visits from a man. No woman to be approached by a man diseased, or reasonably suspected of disease. To this end, a statement of the signs of venereal disease to be furnished."

"24. The orders of the public physician are imperative, and must be strictly observed. Want of personal cleanliness increasing the virulence of syphilis, the directions of the physician on this matter to be imperatively followed."

"25. The medical officer to report the result of examination to the police, and to enter the same in a book to be kept by each woman, to be produced on demand."

"26. A woman finding herself to be venereally infected to report either to the keeper or the police; in other illness to report to the medical officer, who will direct her course of treatment at home, or, in venereal and infectious cases, at the hospital. In cases of pregnancy she is to report herself to the medical officer."

"27. A keeper punishable for the disease of a man in his house, and liable for the charges of cure."

The remaining sections relate to the collection of the tax; the penalties for violation are fine and imprisonment.

Having thus briefly sketched the progress of legislation on prost.i.tution in Hamburg, based upon the principle that "prost.i.tution is a necessary evil, and, as such, must be endured under strict supervision of the authorities," it seems an appropriate place to copy the following remarks of an eminent local writer:

"That brothels are an evil no one can deny; still, the arguments against the sufferance of brothels are, except as to that incontestable truth, no answer to the 'necessity,' which is the very _gist_ of the thing, and which necessity is based on the uncontrollable nature of s.e.xual intercourse, and on the circ.u.mstances of our social condition."

"The sufferance of brothels is necessary,

"1. For the repression of profligacy, of private prost.i.tution as well as of its kindred crimes, adultery, rape, abortion, infanticide, and all kinds of illicit gratification of s.e.xual pa.s.sion. The latter cases occur very rarely with us. Of Paederasty or Sodomy we find but few instances; and of that unnatural intercourse of women with each other, referred to by Parent-Duchatelet as common among the Parisian girls, we find no trace."

"The sufferance of brothels operates to the suppression of private prost.i.tution, in so far as brothel-keepers and the 'inscribed' women are, for their own interest, opposed to it, and are serviceable to the police in its detection. Unquestionably, private prost.i.tution is an incalculably greater evil than public vice."

"2. On grounds of public policy in regard to health. It is quite erroneous to suppose that these legalized brothels contribute to the spread of syphilitic maladies. This should rather be imputed to the private prost.i.tution which would ensue on the breaking up of the brothels, and from which that medical police supervision that now limits the spread of infection would, of course, be withdrawn. The experience of all time proves that, by means of secret prost.i.tution, the intensity and virulence of venereal disorders have been aggravated, to the multiplication of those appalling examples familiar to every medical reader, and which cause one to shudder with horror; while numerically, disease and its consequences have been carried into every cla.s.s of society. It is precisely our knowledge of these very facts which has induced the sufferance, or, rather, the regulation of these brothels."

"3. _Suppression is_ ABSOLUTELY IMPRACTICABLE, inasmuch as the evil is rooted in an unconquerable physical requirement. It would seem as if the zeal against public brothels implied that by their extinction a limitation of s.e.xual intercourse, except in marriage, would be effected. This is erroneous, for reliable details prove that for every hundred brothel women there would be two hundred private prost.i.tutes, and no human power could prevent this. In a great city and frequented sea-port like Hamburg, the hope of amending this would be purely chimerical."