The History of Prostitution Part 18

The licensed brothels are supplied with inmates by females (_kupplerinnen_) whose services are recognized by the authorities. In case of any emergency, the keeper applies to one of the procuresses, and if the girl she offers suits him, the candidate is first subjected to a medical examination. Pa.s.sed safely through this ordeal, she is taken to the police office and "written in" to her new keeper, who is bound to discharge certain of her debts, as the amount due his predecessor, for instance. If the medical officers report her sick, she is sent to the infirmary if she belong to Hamburg, but if a foreigner is dispatched out of the city forthwith. In cases where a woman thus applying to the authorities has not previously lived as a prost.i.tute, she is usually exhorted by the magistrate to abandon her intention and return to the paths of virtue, a routine piece of benevolence which is usually fruitless. The ordinary police fee for registration is two marks, the physician's fee is one mark, and the agent's usual remuneration four marks.

The registered women are thus kept strictly under the eye of the police, and, whenever they are disposed to quit their wretched life, have the special protection of that body. The keepers naturally throw all possible obstacles in the way of such a determination, especially if a girl is much in debt; but, by some means, whenever a woman is under any restraint, and is consequently unable to apply personally to the police, an anonymous note finds its way to the office, and speedily effects the desired object.

The authorities do not sympathize in any way with the brothel-keepers, but use all their energies to serve the women whenever any occasion offers.

The registered women are designated as "Brothel women" (_Bordell dirnen_), who live in licensed houses; as "Private women" (_fur sich wohnende dirnen_) when they live by themselves, in which case their landlords are mostly mechanics, hucksters, or laundresses; and the common "Street-walkers" (_Stra.s.sen dirnen_), who ply their trade in the streets, and find shelter in the abodes of indigence and misery. These last are the lowest grade of the registered women.

Most of the brothels (_bordelle_) are in the oldest parts of the city, to which they were originally limited, but the leading houses may be found in the _Schwieger stra.s.se_, a street of moderate traffic in a good neighborhood. Here the women are seated at the windows, conspicuously dressed up and prepared for the public eye, making themselves known to pa.s.sengers by their gestures and salutations. Some of these houses accommodate as many as fourteen inmates. They are well supplied with good mahogany furniture and fine draperies, and are neat and elegant throughout. The women are generally from twenty to twenty-five years old, and are attractively dressed and decorated. The venereal disease is very rare among this cla.s.s, great attention being paid to personal cleanliness, and the bath very frequently used. The men who visit this neighborhood consist of merchants, the richer public and business employes, officers, and especially the numerous commercial men who resort to Hamburg at all seasons of the year.

The denizens of the _Dammthorwall_, the _Drehbahm_, and _Ulricas stra.s.se_ lead but a dull life, as it is the custom in those localities for the women to sit at the windows all day. Their great diurnal event is the visit of the hair-dresser (_friseurian_), who, while contributing to the adornment of the person, a very serious affair, owing to the quant.i.ty of false hair required, and the necessity of making to-day's effect vary from yesterday's, also retails the latest items of interesting news or scandal.

Whenever any of these women go out to walk, it is customary for the keeper to send together two who are at variance with each other, so as to establish a mutual check. The hair-dressing and walk over, the next important occurrence is dinner, after which they spend their time solely at the doors or windows.

The hours of closing in these first and second rate brothels are not so strictly enforced by the police as in the lower parts. Occasionally the women are allowed to visit the b.a.l.l.s at the celebrated Hall of Mirrors, or other well-known dancing saloons in the vicinity.

In first-rate houses the accounts between the keeper and the women are but little understood. As already observed, some of them hire their clothes; others purchase from the landlord on credit, and he charges accordingly; but these matters trouble the women very slightly. If they leave one house to reside in another, the new keeper pays the old one's bill; if a woman abandons prost.i.tution entirely, the host's demand is totally irrecoverable.

In the second and third rate houses the charges for board and lodging are better understood. It will average about twenty marks (five dollars) a week, was.h.i.+ng, fire, and light being extra charges. The keeper will supply fortunate or attractive women with articles of dress to any reasonable amount, but his liberality is restricted toward those who have fewer visitors. His endeavor is to keep all in debt, and in this he is usually successful. Their ornaments are usually the property of the landlord, and form a common stock distributed among his boarders in the manner best calculated to increase or display their powers of fascination, and resumed by him at discretion.

Pa.s.sing over some intermediate cla.s.ses of brothels, which present no remarkable characteristics, to those in the _Gangen_, we find the lowest grade of registered houses and registered women. Most of these are drinking-shops, and the police exercise the right of determining the prices to be charged for liquors. Here may frequently be seen host, guests, and girls, drinking and frolicking together in a small back room, where scenes of gross indelicacy (to use a mild term) frequently take place. The women in this district have literally to work hard, and are generally required to perform all the domestic labor of the establishment.

In winter it is a common occurrence for them to take a shovel and clear the snow and ice from the pavement in front of their domicile. Like others of their calling, they are seldom out of the landlord's debt, their board costing them from ten to fourteen marks weekly (say three to four dollars). Was.h.i.+ng, fire, and light cost a dollar more, and the hair-dresser's charge is about fifty cents. In addition to this, they must pay the weekly medical and monthly police tax. They spend a miserably monotonous existence, seldom leaving the house for weeks or even months, except when they are required to visit the doctors or the police. Their visitors are from the roughest and most animalized of the population, and the treatment they receive is merely that of purchasable commodities, intended to supply the grosser wants of men whose lives are centred in sensuality. Like their compeers of the St. Paul Suburb, they are usually women of great strength and endurance, but soon degenerate into mere pa.s.sive, pa.s.sionless tools. Could it be imagined that they were of reflective habits, it would be impossible to conceive a more severe punishment than their own sense of the degradation, the total loss of all womanly feelings, exhibited in their daily existence.

The brothel-keepers, among whom are some Jews, have no striking peculiarities as a cla.s.s. It has been already shown that both s.e.xes are engaged in the hideous trade, and, despite the police regulations and restrictions, the obligations and disabilities under which they are placed, it is undoubtedly a most lucrative occupation. The rental of a registered house is usually double the ordinary charge for similar tenements. There are some keepers who own the houses in which they live.

In their liabilities must be included the regulation which makes them responsible for thefts committed in their houses, and for any violence or disorder which may take place there, the penalties for which are fine, imprisonment, and loss of license. They also sustain considerable losses from the repentance of some of their inmates; but, in spite of all untoward circ.u.mstances, they contrive to make money rapidly.

The period during which they continue in _business_ is uncertain, many of them continuing their houses from inclination long after they have acc.u.mulated sufficient property to retire. Of the female keepers some are young and handsome, but these do not find much favor with their women, who dread the effects of an opposition. They are rarely married, but cohabit with some man for the sake of his protection. Among these _pro tempore_ husbands are some whose qualifications and previous positions render it surprising that they should consent to purchase existence from so polluted a source.

The housekeepers of the Hamburger Berg are not only under a separate munic.i.p.al jurisdiction, but are in themselves a different cla.s.s of people.

They are mostly men, their dealings being princ.i.p.ally with sailors, and their visitors sometimes demanding more physical strength than a woman could command to restrain them within the prescribed limits. Their houses are but indifferently furnished, and the whole arrangements are very humble and unpretending in character. A few years ago fatal quarrels were not uncommon among their customers, but this pugnacious tendency has been materially checked by a stricter and more constant police visitation. Even now, jealousy will sometimes cause a furious contest between two of the hardy sons of Neptune. The singular fidelity of some sailors to particular women will account for this. When a man returns from a long voyage, he is desirous of paying his attentions to the female who has before shared his affections and his wages, and if he finds her under the protection of another man, the natural result is a trial of strength as to who shall be the possessor of the beauty in dispute. These tournaments, or the general fray which sometimes arises at the close of the Sunday evening dance, require to be subdued by no gentle means: hearty blows are far more effectual peace-makers than words or threats.

Some of these registered hosts have followed their calling for many years.

One n.o.ble incident in connection with them must not be omitted. In the severe winter of 1846, the landlord of the "Four Lions," a brothel-keeper of twenty-four years' standing, maintained at his own cost, for some months, nearly one hundred poor families, many of them with three or four children each.

In the dance-houses there is music every evening except Sat.u.r.day; on week-days from six to eleven, and on Sundays from four to eleven. At eleven the music is stopped, and at twelve the house is peremptorily closed. The evenings during the week are comparatively dull affairs, and male visitors are sometimes so scarce that the women are compelled to dance with each other, or sit in inglorious idleness. A scene of the wildest uproar and most uncontrolled mirth is exhibited on Sunday evenings. Every variety of national dance may then be seen--cachucha, reel, jig, contre-dance, waltz, and hornpipe have each their several admirers. Songs and shouts are heard in every conceivable dialect, and the room becomes literally "confusion worse confounded" until the hour arrives for closing.

Of the registered women living by themselves there is little to note. They are more industrious than those in brothels. Many of them have a fixed occupation, but resort to prost.i.tution to increase their income. Money earned in this way is occasionally required for the common necessaries of life, but is more frequently spent in personal gratification, in the way of fine dresses, ornaments, etc., or is appropriated to support the extravagance of some lover, who repays the generosity by a little flattering attention, or an occasional escort to some dancing saloon in the suburbs. The visitors to these women are more select than those to the courtesans. .h.i.therto described.

In the lowest ranks of prost.i.tution, the common "street-walkers," to be met at all times and places, under all circ.u.mstances and of all ages, we find the most prolific sources of infection. A certain, though very small remnant of decency, seconded by the invaluable watchfulness of the police, secures the visitor from disease among the inmates of registered houses, but the street-walker is under no such control. Young girls scarcely more than children, old women almost grandmothers, ply their frightful trade on the "walls" around the city, and in other obscure places, where a trifling present will purchase their caresses. Their princ.i.p.al customers are young boys and very old men, their practices being continued under the shades of evening until the arrival of the night-watch drives them to their wretched dens.

The Hamburg police are perfectly cognizant of these proceedings, and wage perpetual war against individuals, but find it altogether impossible to suppress the cla.s.s, among whom are the habitual tenants of the jail and the House of Correction. No one can differ in opinion from Dr. Lippert, who says, "In this cla.s.s of women the most pernicious results of prost.i.tution are to be found."

Private or domestic prost.i.tution, so widely extended in every great town, exists in less proportion in Hamburg than in other capital cities of the same extent. That disgraceful union in evil occasionally met with on the Continent, in which husband and wife mutually agree to follow their inclinations or l.u.s.ts untrammeled by each other, is scarcely known. The kept woman is comparatively rare. The expense attendant upon such an appendage of luxury is a serious consideration, and none but the wealthy patrician or successful business man venture on the step. It is a.s.sumed, on very good authority, that there are not fifty "mistresses" in Hamburg.

Those residing there are under no police control, as in a public point of view they commit no breach of law.

Under the second head of private prost.i.tution we find those who, having legitimate employment, increase their earnings in this manner. We have alluded already to the same cla.s.s of registered women, but the greater portion keep themselves aloof from police observation as long as possible.

They are composed of needle-women, laundresses, hair-dressers, shop-girls, and others, but it must not be supposed that they represent the majority of women dependent upon those occupations. The contrary is the fact; for in Hamburg, as every where else, are to be found many bright examples of chast.i.ty in the midst of poverty; of patient, persevering industry and integrity in unfavorable circ.u.mstances. Those working women who are willing to accept the price of sin are known in the streets by a peculiar gait, by their searching and inviting glances, or their treacherous but winning smile, and also by frequently walking in the same neighborhood.

They are seldom seen abroad during the day, but in the afternoon, about "'change hours," they begin to resort to the streets near the _Bourse_, encountering the men as they hurry to and from the centre of business. In the evening they promenade in the vicinity of the hotels and theatres, on the _Jungfernstig_, the new walls, etc., when night helps their _incognito_, and shrouds them in a little more mystery. They are fond of attending the theatres and dancing saloons on Sundays and holidays, like the Parisian _grisette_, in company with a lover, but the sum of their enjoyment is complete if they can partic.i.p.ate in the annual Shrove Tuesday ball and masquerade at the Apollo Saal, the Elb Pavilion, or the theatre.

Another cla.s.s of private prost.i.tutes is known to the police by the term "_Winklehuren_" (hedge w----). These are of the lower cla.s.s of female operatives. Servant-girls, from their proximity to the junior members of families, often spread disease in the household of their employers. Dr.

Lippert records as a medical fact that examinations have frequently shown the domestics in the highest families to be literally saturated with venereal disease, and he states his opinion that six out of every ten servant-girls who are found in the streets at night are accessible to pecuniary temptation. This ratio is very large, but as it is a local matter with which he is presumed to be well acquainted, it would be out of place to attempt either to sustain or controvert it.

All these private prost.i.tutes resort to the houses of accommodation (_Absteigequartiere_), which exist in spite of the constant watchfulness of the police. When they are hunted up and rooted out of one place, they reappear under another guise elsewhere; a removal being facilitated by the slender nature of their equipment, which seldom consists of more than furniture for one room. For "genteel" delinquents, they are placed where the accommodation is veiled under the French disguise of _pet.i.ts soupers_, or some such flimsy artifice.

To the question, "What becomes of the prost.i.tutes?" Hamburg offers no special reply. Under favorable circ.u.mstances, they abandon their calling, and become the wives of mechanics or small tradesmen; or they carry on some business for themselves, and strive to become reputable members of society; or they become companion to some man, and follow his fortunes, usually reverting to common prost.i.tution. When their charms are entirely lost, and no hope remains of earning a living from their sale, they sometimes, but very rarely, become brothel-keepers; sometimes procuresses; and, more frequently, servants in the registered houses.

Some of the dancing saloons already mentioned have attained European celebrity. They stand in the same relation to common women as the exchange does to the mercantile community. Their female visitors are mostly prost.i.tutes, a fact which deprives the scene of many fascinations existing in other cities. In the end of the last century there was no public place expressly designed for dancing, until, with the many equivocal blessings disseminated by the French Revolution, they also became an inst.i.tution.

The Hamburg saloons are conducted with order and quiet, and are generally closed about one o'clock in the morning. One of the most important, the Bacchus Hall, was burned down some few years since, and the authorities have, as yet, refused to grant a license for its re-erection.

As public places which in some degree facilitate prost.i.tution, mention must be made of the common sleeping apartments locally called "deep cellars" (_tiefen kellar_). These are roomy vaults, many feet under ground, in which the poor find nightly shelter at very low prices. They are provided with beds and bedding. In the depth of poverty to which some of their customers have fallen, they can not afford to pay two sch.e.l.lings (about four cents) for the luxury of a bed, and these repose their weary limbs on some foul straw, or on the ground, at the charge of half a sch.e.l.ling. Some of these cellars are fifteen or twenty feet below the surface of the street, and it will not require a very vivid imagination to portray their horrors.

The beer and wine houses of Hamburg are tolerably free from prost.i.tution; but a new cla.s.s has lately sprung up, called "cellar-keeping"

(_kellerwirthschaff_), and in these the guests are served by females in fancy costume, Swiss, Polish, or Circa.s.sian, as the case may be. Many of these contain private rooms for prost.i.tution, and, although they are closely watched by the police, who sometimes ungallantly expel the fair foreigners and close the establishments, they still flourish, others being speedily opened elsewhere to fill up the gap.

From this general description of prost.i.tutes, their habitations, and customs, we will proceed to a consideration of their condition as to health, and the extent and virulence of syphilis among them, still taking the pamphlet of Dr. Lippert for our guide.

It is generally imagined that the excessive action of the generative organs interferes with the power of procreation in common women. Dr.

Lippert undertakes to controvert this opinion, with what success medical men whose professional experience has been among this cla.s.s will be able to judge. He supports his views by general a.s.sertions rather than by specific facts, but refers, in corroboration, to well-known instances in which children have been born while the mothers were living in a state of open prost.i.tution, as also to those cases where women who have abandoned the habit of promiscuous intercourse confine themselves to one man by marriage or cohabitation, and then become mothers. He attributes their sterility during prost.i.tution to their wild and irregular life, their constant exposure to weather, etc., and argues that the powers of conception are suspended, but not destroyed thereby. He also introduces the fact that abortions are frequently produced in Hamburg by the common women themselves, or by some old crones who preside over their orgies, and are stated to have a long list of drugs applicable to this purpose, which they use in a reckless manner. The medical police are not unaware of these proceedings, but find them difficult to detect, as a woman will endeavor to avoid the stated examination by pleading excessive menstruation, or inventing some story she thinks likely to deceive, until all traces of the abortion are removed. The remarks of Dr. Lippert would lead to the belief that the _excessive use_ of the female organs was more favorable to health than the disuse would be, a conclusion which most physicians will not be willing to admit. He adds, "Cancer of the womb occurred but once in my experience of eleven years at the General Infirmary, and cases of prolapsus uteri are very rare."

A disease incident to common women, _Colica scortorum_ (W----'s Colic), happens in Hamburg as elsewhere, but is attributed to exposure to the weather more than any other cause. It consists of pain in the womb, extending across the abdomen round to the loins, and sometimes including the whole region of the stomach. It is frequently accompanied with gastric derangement, sickness, or diarrhoea.

The enlargement of the c.l.i.toris, so much insisted on by some writers, Lippert altogether doubts, except as a very exceptional case; nor does he admit any effect of prost.i.tution on the r.e.c.t.u.m unless induced by unnatural intercourse. As a general result of his observations, he concludes that, "apart from syphilitic affections, the generative organs of a prost.i.tute do not usually differ from those of a virtuous woman."

We find some returns of diseases not directly connected with prost.i.tution; thus, cases of itch, which is now becoming rare, were in

1836 62 1837 76 1838 87 1839 98 1844 38 1845 22 1846 36

Of other general maladies, including fevers, inflammation of the lungs, liver, womb, etc., rheumatism, small-pox, piles, jaundice, gout, dropsy, and diarrhoea, the following are reported:

1837 62 1838 90 1839 100 1844 85 1845 76 1846 77

Convulsions are more rare than in the female s.e.x in general; of hysteria there is scarcely a trace, and a few cases of epilepsy are ascribed to the use of ardent spirits.

Delirium tremens seldom occurs. The vigilance of the police, and the prompt committal to prison of every prost.i.tute found drunk and disorderly, may account for this. The proportion of cases of delirium tremens was only about one in one thousand.

Mania sometimes shows itself. Remorse may produce this, as may a violent affection for some particular man.

Of the actual extent of venereal disease in Hamburg, or any other city, it is impossible to speak with certainty, but the fact that in the general hospital there it is of a very mild type is an argument in favor of medical inspection. Dr. Lippert says:

"The usual form is gonorrhoea, with its complications, bubo, inflammation of the s.c.r.o.t.u.m, phymosis, paraphymosis, etc. Inflammation of the prostate gland, and stricture, are comparatively rare. Disease of the r.e.c.t.u.m is very rare, but there are examples."

"We have excoriations and irritations of the s.e.xual organs. The simple chancre is common; the indurated chancre not unfrequent; the phagedaenic chancre is seldom met with. In general, the sores have a mild character, and heal easily with simple treatment and regular topical applications. _Herpes preputialis_ is extremely general. This is a group of small pustules, quickly healing up, but as quickly breaking out again, often in regular periodical recurrence. It is found especially on men who have suffered from gonorrhoea or chancre."

"Secondary syphilis, ulcers of the neck, eruptions, syphilitic inflammation of the eyes, tumors, etc. These prevail more at some times than at others; how far the _genus epidemic.u.m_, the weather and season, the idiosyncrasy of the person, or the intensity of the infection operate, we have yet to learn."

"_Tertiary syphilis is rare._"

"In sea-ports it is often observable that the disease takes peculiar aspects, and what may be called exotic forms are occasionally encountered. With sailors, syphilis is frequently latent or only partially cured, and is intensified by their habits and diet. s.e.xual intercourse with them will produce it in an exaggerated character.

This is not so much the case in Hamburg, owing to the constant and prompt medical attention; still, some distinction is observable between the venereal maladies of the city women and those of the St.

Paul Suburb. Among the latter the cases of a malignant type generally occur."