The History of Prostitution Part 24

"(_a._) An examination chair, of an approved pattern.

"(_b._) Two or three specula.

"(_c._) Several pounds of chloride of lime.

"(_d._) For every female, besides necessary linen, her own was.h.i.+ng apparatus, her own syringe, and two or three sponges.

"13. The keeper is strictly charged that he cause the women to observe decency and propriety whenever it is allowed them to walk abroad in the streets, or to take exercise in the open air for the sake of their health. If any of these persons require to take any such necessary walk, the keeper can not refuse her, but must provide a suitable male companion, who is to take charge of her. She is to be respectably and decently clad, is not to stand still on the streets, nor to remain out longer than is requisite for completing her business or for proper exercise.

"14. In case any woman manifests a fixed desire to give up her profligate mode of life, the keeper shall make no attempt to turn her from it, and can not, even on account of sureties he may be under, hinder her from carrying out her determination. Moreover, the keeper must present the woman with apparel suitable to a woman of the serving cla.s.s, in case she should be dest.i.tute of the same."

15. Provides for change of keepers.

"16. The keeper is expected to give all a.s.sistance to the commission in their efforts to lead such persons back to an honest livelihood; especially so in their endeavors to suppress illicit prost.i.tution, and to detect the sources of venereal infection."

CHAPTER XVIII.

LEIPZIG.

Population.--Registered and illicit Prost.i.tutes.--Servants.-- Kept-women.--Brothels.--Nationality of Prost.i.tutes.--Habits.-- Fairs.--Visitors.--Earnings of Prost.i.tutes.

But very few remarks are necessary concerning prost.i.tution in Leipzig, where no striking peculiarity marks the common women as a cla.s.s, and the legislation is based on the ordinary German principle of toleration.

If we reckon its garrison as a part of the population of the town, the number of inhabitants will amount to about one hundred thousand, nearly one third of whom are soldiers or transient residents. It is subject to many fluctuations at various times, but the general average may be a.s.sumed at the number stated. Of the permanent residents there are about six hundred well known and professed male rogues and blacklegs; these are under the constant and vigilant _surveillance_ of the police. They unquestionably exert a considerable influence on the female morality of the place, not only from their own _amours_, for which men of this character are notorious wherever located, but by the agency they frequently a.s.sume to arrange the "pleasures" of their victims and acquaintances.

It need, therefore, occasion no surprise to ascertain that, in addition to about three hundred registered prost.i.tutes who are subject to medical and police supervision, there are about twelve hundred women who notoriously frequent the city, from the neighboring towns and villages, for purposes of prost.i.tution, whenever a large influx of visitors makes it probable that Leipzig will be a lucrative market for them. These are not directly under any police control. To this number of fifteen hundred avowed and known prost.i.tutes, who are to be found in the city during busy seasons of the year, must be added the cla.s.s of irregular or private courtesans, mostly composed of domestics. It is estimated there are three thousand servant-girls in the city, and the habits of a large number of them leave no doubt as to the propriety of including them in this enumeration; indeed, those who have had the best opportunities for observation do not hesitate to a.s.sert that at least one third are vicious. a.s.suming this to be an accurate calculation, we have 2500 prost.i.tutes, or one in every forty of the gross population, exclusive of kept mistresses, or those frail women in the more aristocratic circles of society who should properly be cla.s.sed with them. In this respect we have no reason to conclude that Leipzig is either better or worse than other large cities of the present day.

There are about sixty-six common brothels in Leipzig, the majority of which are registered and closely watched by the police. They are situated in the lowest and least frequented parts of the city, and many of them present, in excess, some of the worst features of such places. To escape their annoyances as far as possible, and retain that outward show of respectability most acceptable to their visitors, many of the prost.i.tutes have private lodgings in various parts of the town, resorting to every conceivable disguise to conceal or modify their real character. Very many of them are said to be married women, whose husbands not merely connive at, but frequently compel this loathsome trade for the sake of its emoluments.

The proprietors of the tolerated brothels "a.s.sume a virtue if they have it not," and seek to disguise their houses under the names of coffee-houses or restaurants; a course recognized by the authorities, who do not insist upon calling such places by the vernacular designation, as is done in Hamburg or Berlin.

The women inhabiting these houses are princ.i.p.ally natives of Altenburg, Berlin, Dresden, or Brunswick; those from the latter district are noted by travelers for their personal beauty. Very few Polish women are found here.

The requisite supply of women is kept up through the agency of procuresses, as in Hamburg, who are remunerated by the brothel-keepers in proportion to the distance they have traveled to secure recruits, or according to the attractions of the girl, or her probable success in the establishment.

In regard to dress, manners, conduct, and the other incidents of their calling, there is little distinction between the prost.i.tutes of Leipzig and those of other European cities. A late anonymous writer gives them credit as a cla.s.s for a studious, literary habit, and names a somewhat intelligent selection of light works as those they prefer to read, such as the writings of Fredrika Bremer, Bulwer, Walter Scott, Caroline Pichler, Schiller, and others. If this statement be correct, it may be accounted for by the great local demand for literature, books and furs being universally known as the great staples of Leipzig, and the fact can scarcely be a.s.sumed as indicative of any especial inclination for _belles-lettres_. Prost.i.tution and studious habits or reflective minds are very seldom a.s.sociated. The majority of the brothel-keepers are stated to be anti-literary in their tastes. They keep the women plentifully supplied with cards and dominoes, which they use more for the purpose of predicting good fortunes to their visitors and themselves than for gambling. We have never heard that any of their liberal prognostications have been verified.

Apparently the same usages and habits of life prevail among the common women of Leipzig as among those of Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, London, or elsewhere. Indolent from the nature of their position, envious from their relations.h.i.+p to their compeers, their life would seem to pa.s.s in a routine of doing nothing with considerable zest, or of quarreling among each other with noteworthy animation.

No material variation from the ordinary routine of sickness caused by prost.i.tution has been discovered in Leipzig. Syphilis has its average number of victims, the intensity of the malady being diminished or aggravated as a less or greater number of strangers may happen to be in the city.

The medical and police surveillance of prost.i.tutes in European countries being modeled almost literally from one system, as is also the strictness with which it is now enforced, it is unnecessary to say any thing of its workings in Leipzig farther than the fact that the variable and floating nature of the population, at times, makes its application a difficult task. A description of it would be only a repet.i.tion of what has already been said of Paris, Hamburg, or Berlin.

The great fairs draw a large concourse of strangers from all parts of the world to Leipzig, and its geographical position beyond the centre of Europe brings it so close to the frontiers of Turkey, Poland, the Danubian provinces, and Russia, that the scene at these meetings is perhaps more motley and curious in race, costume, and characteristics than in any other city in the world. Among so heterogeneous a ma.s.s there exist many standards of morality. The semi-barbarous habits of some of the visitors entail a large share of sorrows on the prost.i.tutes; more, in fact, than are generally experienced by any but the very lowest grade of women in other places. When in the tolerated houses, these rude hordes abandon themselves to the grossest licentiousness, use expressions compared with which the ordinary conversation of brothels is chaste and refined, and seek to extinguish every vestige of shame or womanly feeling in their companions. If a woman ventures to remonstrate at such extravagant lewdness, the reply is, "Well, now, be silent. I have paid you, and you are mine as long as I have you." It may therefore be easily credited that during such periods no shadow of decency can be found in the common houses. Any which exists (and truth compels the admission that it is very rare during the crowded season) can only be traced among those women who have private lodgings.

The only compensation for such depravity is found in the large sums obtained by the women from their lovers, in some cases amounting to forty thalers (about thirty dollars) per week. Of this, one half always goes to the brothel-keeper as his share, and, calculating his expenses to be five thalers per week for the board and lodging of each woman, it will be seen that his profits are not inconsiderable. The sum retained by the women is spent for articles of dress, pleasure, etc. This calculation is for a time when the town is in the full tide of commercial prosperity; but if we a.s.sume the average receipts at ordinary times to be one half only, we shall be able to form a tolerably good idea of the financial result of prost.i.tution in Leipzig.

CHAPTER XIX.

DENMARK.

Prost.i.tution in Copenhagen.--Police Regulations.--Illegitimacy.-- Brothels.--Syphilis.--Laws of Marriage and Divorce.--Infanticide.-- Adultery.--New Marriage Ordinances.

Prost.i.tutes are very numerous in Copenhagen. This might be expected from the mixed character of the city, at once a capital, military station, and sea-port. It has been remarked by a traveler of great experience[267] that it is very rare to see a drunken man or a street-walker in Copenhagen; all seem to have a home or a place to go to, and the general character of the Danes is that of an orderly, educated, well-conducted people.

Some of the prost.i.tutes of Copenhagen live in a kind of hotel, where they hold public entertainments; others live in brothels; and others still have private lodgings. There is nothing remarkable enough about them to call for any particular description. They are under police regulation to some extent, and receive a sort of half permission, which is not withdrawn during good conduct. A regulation is extant which professes to limit the number of children they are allowed to bear, without becoming amenable to the law as criminals. It requires that the mother of more than two illegitimate children be fined and imprisoned. As may be readily imagined, the law is very rarely enforced, its impolicy, if rigorously applied, being self-evident, since it would operate as a direct premium for abortion.

"Formal concessions are not granted either to public prost.i.tutes or those with whom they lodge; neither are there in Denmark brothels, in the ordinary sense of the term, as they are found in other countries."[268] So writes a Danish official. His distinction is too nice to be appreciated.

The Copenhagen police know of the existence of such women, and put them under strict regulations, not altogether prohibitory. They control and interfere with prost.i.tutes; they do not tolerate them--that is to say, they do not issue a regular license to them or to the brothel-keepers.

Consequently, there are no recognized brothels. The house in which courtesans live is a private dwelling, so far as the police are concerned, and is only interfered with when it becomes disorderly, the keeper not being accountable for the women or their conduct.

Nevertheless, the police regulations prescribe the number of women recognized as prost.i.tutes who may live in any house, and from their official reports, it seems that there were in Copenhagen in

1850 201 prost.i.tutes.

1852 198 "

In the latter year there were sixty-eight persons who were authorized to lodge from one to four women each, the total of the women permitted to live in these houses being 139, and the remaining 59 being allowed to reside in private apartments. "Care is taken that they are all treated in the general hospital, and that they shall not be treated elsewhere, unless they give a sufficient guarantee not to propagate disease, or their personal position requires certain consideration, a thing which can seldom apply to the generality of prost.i.tutes." The meaning of this regulation is not very clear, nor is "certain consideration" an intelligible phrase; it may imply pregnancy, or it may mean influential friends. The medical officer visits all cases which the police refer to him, and makes the necessary examinations, receiving his fees from the police.

The rules for detection and suppression of syphilis in Copenhagen are very stringent. All persons under arrest are required to declare if they are then, or have been lately diseased, and are liable to punishment if they conceal or misstate the facts. A visit of inspection is made when a s.h.i.+p is about to go to sea. All non-commissioned officers, musicians, and soldiers are examined on entering and leaving the service, and also regularly every month during their stay in it.

To check the propagation of venereal disease, every soldier who is attacked is obliged to state the source of his infection, whereupon information of the individual is given to the police. Those who do not give early intimation of their disease are liable to bread and water diet for a certain time after their cure. In 1797, all the inhabitants of several districts were obliged to submit to an examination, ordered by the chancellor, on account of the frequency of syphilitic cases therein.

The following table, taken from Berhand's minute on Copenhagen, shows the working of the system there for seven years. The most remarkable feature is the large number who married or went to service, which would seem to indicate a more charitable feeling on the part of the Danes than is usually evinced toward these unfortunates:

+---------------------------------- Prost.i.tutes registered. -------------------------- Years. At During commencement the Total. of the year. year. ------ ------------ ------ ------ 1844 297 34 331 1845 284 43 327 1846 256 18 274 1847 241 22 263 1848 116 27 143 1849 208 19 227 1850 196 23 219 +----------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Prost.i.tutes abandoned their calling. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Went to Transferred Sent to Left the Committed service. to the Prison. Married. Country. Died. Suicide. Total. commission for the Poor. -------- ----------- ------- -------- -------- ----- --------- ------ 20 13 1 16 2 7 4 63 14 27 - 24 4 3 - 77 15 16 2 13 1 2 - 49 20 17 1 17 2 4 1 62 15 16 1 16 2 7 - 51 17 10 1 9 - 6 1 44 18 7 1 1 - - - 27 ---------------------------------------------------------------------+

By a code of 1734, promises of marriage might be either verbal in the presence of witnesses, or written and certified by two witnesses. Widows acting against the consent of their guardians, and women of bad repute, were excluded from the benefit of this code. A servant pregnant by her master, her master's son, or any one domiciled in her master's house, could not plead a promise of marriage. Corroborative testimony was sometimes required in affiliation cases, where the putative father denied his liability on oath.

Divorce was allowed on simple abandonment for seven years; desertion for three years; in case of sentence of perpetual imprisonment; of ante-nuptial impotence; of ante-nuptial venereal disease; of insanity; and of adultery. Divorce by mutual consent might also take place, but three years' separation from bed and board was requisite as a preliminary. The king had a prerogative of divorce, without cause shown.

Illegitimate children were to be supported by their father until two years old, according to his rank in life. They could not inherit the paternal property, but might take the mother's. They could be legitimatized by subsequent marriage or adoption.

Infanticide was punished by beheading, and exhibiting the head of the criminal on a spike.

Adultery is punished by law in both husband and wife. Practically it is seldom noticed.

In 1834 a new ordinance was proclaimed fixing all the minutiae of marriage contracts, parental obligations, and the general laws of s.e.xual intercourse. A man is a minor until eighteen, and under some degree of parental authority to twenty-five, at which age he becomes a citizen. The woman is under tutelage all her life. Guardians are a.s.signed to widows, who control their legal powers, but a widow may choose her own guardian.

The laws of divorce are similar to those of France. The practice of formal betrothal is as common in Denmark as in Northern Germany, and implies a real and binding engagement, not to be broken without cause shown, or without discredit to one or both parties. Whether this custom favors illegitimacy is still a disputed point in Denmark.