ABOLITION AND ORDER
Meaning of term “Abolition.”—Immediate effect of abolition.—General
distinction between regulation and abolition.—Abolition not
_laissez-faire_.—Provisions of English law as to street-walking,—as to
brothels.—Legislation in Norway,—in Denmark,—in Holland,—in
Switzerland.—Public opinion an important factor.—Actual conditions as
to street-walking in London.—General improvement.—Actual conditions as
to vice resorts.—Effects of London policy.—Comparison with continental
cities.—Abolition and the police.—Conditions in provincial and
Scottish towns.—Conditions in abolition towns on the Continent.—The
suppression of bordells.—Street-walking in Copenhagen,—in
Christiania,—in Dutch cities.—No loss through abolition.—Prostitution
and vagabondage.—The domicile problem.—Prostitution and crime in
abolitionist communities.—Morals police in abolition communities.
The term abolition is more or less widely misunderstood. Not
infrequently it is supposed to mean “the abolition of prostitution,” and
abolitionists are represented as bent upon summarily abolishing
prostitution through statutory enactment or otherwise. As a matter of
fact, abolition refers only to the abolition of laws and police
ordinances regulating, recognizing, or licensing the practice of
prostitution;[527] and abolitionists are those who oppose all statutory
enactments or police decrees authorizing the inscription or medical
examination of prostitutes, as well as all laws which bear upon only one
of the two parties involved. Still another misconception will be exposed
in the course of the present chapter: opponents of abolition (i. e.,
those favoring regulation) often assume that abolition is identical with
_laissez-faire_; they argue that if the regulatory system is swept away
no apparatus remains by means of which prostitution can be kept in
bounds, and their terrified imaginations at once conjure up pictures of
abolitionist communities overwhelmed by the rising tide of immorality
and disease. Without at all prejudging the case either in favor of or
against abolition, the notion that abolition is a purely negative policy
beginning and ending with the ignoring of prostitution may be
characterized as baseless. Unquestionably, such might be the case. A
community might refuse to recognize prostitution by regulation, and
might, like the ostrich, bury its head in the sand, refusing to admit
the existence of prostitution as a phenomenon requiring the attention of
society. But, to be candid, this is nowhere the case, though one
frequently and commonly hears it said. The abolition of regulation has
nowhere resulted in a _laissez-faire_ policy. Against both the above
errors we need therefore to be warned at the outset. Abolition means
only the abolition of regulation, not the abolition of prostitution;
abolition does not require that prostitution be ignored, overlooked,
tabooed, or treated in a spirit of prudery as non-existent: it is
entirely consistent with thorough inquiry into the whole phenomenon, and
constructive social action aiming to deal with it.
Generally speaking, the immediate effect of abolition is to place the
mere act of prostitution in the same position as any other private vice.
The prostitute as such is like the drunkard as such, or the opium-eater.
A woman, for example, who prostitutes herself for money is in abolition
communities in the eye of the law in precisely the situation of the man
whom she has gratified: if the pair give no offence, the State takes no
cognizance of the act. The intervention of the law is conditioned not on
the act itself, but on certain conditions or results which make it
something more than an affair involving two participants. If decency is
violated, if disorder is created, if neighbors are scandalized, in some
countries if disease is communicated, society considers itself warranted
in interfering, just as it interferes in other circumstances to preserve
or to promote the peace and health of the community. So far, there would
appear to be little difference between what happens in regulated and
what happens in unregulated towns. In Paris, as in London, in Budapest,
as in Copenhagen, the mere act of irregular copulation is not regarded
as a crime, even though money passes; even in Germany, despite the
letter of the German law, which brands all non-registered professional
prostitution as criminal, inoffensive prostitution for money is treated
like ordinary immorality and is not interfered with. On the other hand,
everywhere the authorities act whenever the usual order of the community
is disturbed by prostitutes or prostitution. So far, then, I say,
regulation and non-regulation are alike. There are, however, two
distinct differences. In regulated towns, inscribed prostitutes are
treated differently from non-inscribed prostitutes; in non-regulated or
abolitionist towns, all prostitutes are regarded as alike. In regulated
towns, what is an offence if committed by a non-inscribed woman is not
an offence if done by an inscribed woman. In non-regulated towns
whatsoever constitutes a violation of law on the part of A would
constitute a violation of the law on the part of B. If street-walking is
forbidden to one, it is forbidden to all; it is not allowed to one sort
of prostitute (viz., the registered prostitute) and denied to another
(viz., the unregistered, falsely called clandestine) prostitute. If
disorderly houses are illegal, they are illegal: they are not legally
authorized for one group of women and criminal for another group. From
the standpoint of positive policy, this is a significant difference, for
it favors the formulation of a general policy applicable to the
phenomenon as a whole. Regulation is, as I have pointed out, a policy of
exceptions; and wherever a fractional policy is adhered to, the
exemptions operate as a drag upon a comprehensive program; the
exceptions impede and hamper the conception or the execution of any plan
conceived in reference to the entire problem.
The second distinction relates to the legal forms employed in dealing
with infractions of public order. I have described the methods employed
in regulated towns; by the act of inscription the woman surrenders the
rights and privileges of a human being; she makes herself a legal, as
she is already a social, pariah. The police may use their arbitrary
powers as considerately as they will; their behavior, if humane, comes
to the outcast as a matter of grace, not of right; except through the
pressure of public opinion, the woman has no assurance of humane
treatment,—she has no recourse, no redress, no rights. In abolitionist
countries, offences against order, decency, or health committed by
prostitutes are handled precisely as are the same offences when
committed by other persons. The law operates along established lines for
all offenders alike. If summary procedure is prescribed—i. e., a hearing
before a magistrate without a jury—it is prescribed for all persons
accused of the offences in question. In any event, the accused has every
opportunity and facility to make a defense,—attorneys, witnesses, and
the right of cross-examination. She can be convicted only by regular
processes, based on the explicit law of the land; in England, a writ of
habeas corpus would promptly take her before a court of competent
jurisdiction, if any ground for arbitrary detention could be made out. I
do not say, at this juncture, that the two points just instanced are of
themselves enough to justify abolition. The issue between regulation and
abolition will in this book be decided by the outcome of a comparison
between them in respect to order and disease,—the two aspects of
prostitution with which regulation undertakes to deal. Nevertheless, the
characteristic differences above touched on cannot be overlooked, if the
situation is to be grasped in all its essential bearings.
Though consistent in their indifference to prostitution in itself, the
statutes of abolitionist countries provide more or less amply for the
phenomena that are its prompt and well-nigh inevitable accompaniments:
so prompt and so inevitable indeed, that, for practical purposes,
prostitution itself can almost be said to be dealt with. A woman may
indeed prostitute herself with impunity; but if without reputable
occupation, she may be taken up as a vagabond. She may sell her favors
without for that act incurring the penalties of the law; but she may be
taken up for street-walking, for solicitation, for keeping a
brothel,—for any one, indeed, of the steps by means of which she
procures trade enough to keep breath in her wretched body. Abolition is
therefore not necessarily crippled in the matter of dealing with
nuisances; but the offending woman is prosecuted, not because she is a
prostitute, but because she has made herself obnoxious in practising
prostitution.
Close as the prostitute thus always is to the clutch of the law, the
distinction in principle is broad and clear. The prostitute is an object
of police action in abolition countries only when guilty of offences
against order and decency. Her business can with difficulty be conducted
without such offences. Nevertheless, as long as police interference is
conditioned on the offences in question, no novel or dangerous police
function is created,—such as would be created if the police were asked
to intervene on the ground of immorality. In the latter case, they would
be required to discharge an entirely new duty, distinct in quality from
anything else they do: they would become “_custodes morum_”—guardians of
public morals, instead of guardians of the public peace. To do the
latter they are competent, for breaches of the peace are open, obvious,
concrete,—perceptible by the ordinary senses of sight and hearing. It is
quite different with offences in the forum of morals. These are at times
difficult to detect, and involve subtle or problematic distinctions
which the police are too crude an instrument to make. Hence, as long as
the police deal with the concrete infractions by means of which
prostitution tends to bring itself into the net, they can act
consistently; should their range be extended so as to cover prostitution
as such, a partial policy would result: they could not act, unless guilt
were obvious; and this justified failure would create precisely the
opportunity for corruption and collusion that originates from
regulation. Finally, in so far as disorder leads to police interference
with prostitution, both parties to the act may be apprehended. Were
prostitution as such made a crime, only the woman would be reached. For
all these reasons, abolition legislation has consistently viewed
prostitution as a vice, attaching penalties only to its objectionable
manifestations.
We have seen in a previous chapter how prostitution tends to certain
forms or expressions,—street-walking and brothels, for example; how it
tends to associate itself with certain occupations or activities,—the
stage, the café, the public dance hall, and a few employments, genuine
or otherwise. The present chapter will tell how these various aspects
are dealt with in abolitionist communities and will endeavor to decide
whether regulation possesses any advantage over abolition in respect
thereto.[528]
The English law provides:[529] “Every common prostitute or night-walker
loitering and importuning passengers for the purpose of prostitution in
any street, to the obstruction, annoyance, or danger of the residents or
passengers”[530] may be arrested by a constable[531] without warrant and
on summary[532] conviction be fined 40s. or imprisoned fourteen days. In
the Metropolitan Police District of London a prostitute is liable to the
same penalty, even though actual solicitation is not proved.[533] The
English police have therefore full power and authority to clear the
streets.[534]
The law is equally clear on the subject of disorderly houses or
brothels. A brothel is in England defined as a “place resorted to by
persons of both sexes for the purpose of prostitution”; it need not be a
whole house and may be a single room, but it does not include a house
that is occupied by one woman who is there visited by many men for the
purposes of unlawful intercourse nor a house let out in separate
apartments to prostitutes in which the owner does not live and over
which he has no control.[535] The English definition is thus broad
enough to include not only outright resorts, where prostitutes live and
practise their trade, but _rendezvous_ houses and hotels where rooms are
let for immoral purposes to transient customers without baggage. The
Common Law viewed the brothel as a nuisance, on the same footing as a
gaming-house or any place frequented by noisy and disreputable
characters. It could be proceeded against by indictment, because it
“endangers the public peace by drawing together dissolute and detached
persons.”[536] Any person might initiate prosecution and recover a
reward, if the prosecution were successful. With the passage of the
_Criminal Law Amendment Act_ of 1885, however, more expeditious
procedure was introduced. The Act penalizes “any person who keeps or
manages or acts or assists in the management of a brothel,” permits the
use of premises he controls for the purposes of habitual prostitution or
is a party to such use.[537] Places kept for public dancing, music, and
other forms of entertainment as well as taverns, lodging-houses, etc.,
must be licensed; and, as we shall see, their relations to the practice
of prostitution have been greatly affected by the general change of
policy in this respect.
The statutes governing the provincial and Scottish cities are not the
same in all respects as those applicable to London, but in the upshot
there is little difference. The _Towns Police Clauses Act_ already
referred to is the legal warrant on the basis of which the provincial
authorities proceed. Certain towns, however, operate under special acts,
not materially different in theory or application. The law of Glasgow,
for example, runs as follows: “Every prostitute or street-walker who on
or near any street loiters about or importunes passengers for the
purpose of prostitution shall be liable to a penalty.”[538] In so far,
therefore, as the letter of the law is concerned, it is clear that
abolition in England by no means involves a policy of _laissez-faire_ as
respects the outward manifestations of prostitution. This is perhaps a
sufficient refutation of the commonly made statement that the English
law “ignores prostitution,” “shuts its eyes to it,” “refuses to
recognize its existence,” etc. As to all these points, English law
exactly corresponds with that of many continental nations; it deals, not
with prostitution in itself, but with scandal arising in connection
therewith. Further, the English law differs from that of some
continental nations in refusing to authorize or license prostitution,
but in so doing it occupies precisely the position of certain other
continental nations that maintain the same position.
At the present time, the abolition legislation of Norway and that of
Denmark—largely modeled upon it—are perhaps the most influential of all
statutory enactments dealing with prostitution.[539] In Norway, a severe
penalty is attached to the maintenance of houses of prostitution; the
ordinary provisions of the criminal code enable the police to arrest
women for intoxication, for solicitation, and for other violations of
decency; the prostitute can also be proceeded against on the ground of
vagabondage. Persons who for their own profit aid “in the immoral
intercourse of others or take advantage of such immoral intercourse” are
liable to imprisonment up to two years.[540]
The Danish law of 1906 follows along the Norwegian lines. It repeals the
law of 1866, by which regulation had been instituted, and, as Police
Inspector Schepelern-Larsen acutely remarked, the “prostitute’s
recalcitrancy was rewarded,” for the woman twice punished as a common
prostitute had—as elsewhere—been inscribed and was thereafter privileged
to pursue the course for entering upon which she had twice suffered a
penalty! The new law abolishes this privilege; it denounces the common
prostitute as a vagabond[541] and renders her amenable to the
consequences of vagabondage; any one who solicits or invites immorality
in such wise as to offend against the sense of shame, causes public
scandal, or annoys a neighbor is liable to punishment;[542] bordells are
expressly forbidden, and severe penalties are aimed at those conducting
places of assignation; the police are empowered to prevent keepers of
hotels, cafés, and restaurants from utilizing immoral women as
waitresses.
The Dutch law of 1911 for the prevention of immorality bears with
especial severity on the violation of minors and the promoting of
immorality—the latter intended to suppress bordells,[543] and to prevent
third parties from profiting through the demoralization of others. Local
ordinances in some instances go even further: in Amsterdam, for example,
owners and renters are forbidden to “afford others an opportunity for
immoral acts, either customarily or in the pursuit of gain”; after such
places have been closed or ordered closed “it is prohibited to visit
them.”[544]
Street order is a matter of local determination. At Amsterdam the
ordinance reads: “Women are forbidden to take their stand on the steps
or in the doorways of taverns and beer-houses or other houses accessible
to the public, or being within the houses to attract the attention of
passers-by to themselves by a deliberate act of communication or
exposure.”[545] But a more formidable weapon is put in the hands of the
authorities by the following proviso: “Women are forbidden to stand in
the public streets, in front of or in the vicinity of the places above
specified or on the corners of streets in which such places are situated
or _to walk up and down_ in the vicinity after a police officer has
ordered them to move on.”[546]
It is perhaps unnecessary to enter into the question at greater length
in order to show that abolition does not mean _laissez-faire_; in all
the countries that I visited, abolition of regulation is accompanied by
definite statutory authority to deal adequately with prostitution in so
far as it imperils order and decency. Switzerland,[547] where the
discussion has thus far been left to cantonal regulation,[548] may serve
as a concluding instance. In Zurich, to take a fair representative,
persons who provide opportunity for the immorality of others or derive a
profit therefrom (i. e., bordell-keepers) are liable to heavy fine and
five years of hard labor.[549] For the maintenance of decency in public
thoroughfares, it is provided that “women who in public places offer
themselves for immoral purposes or tempt thereto may be imprisoned up to
eight days.”[550]
Clearly, therefore, it does not follow that the laws are silent or
ineffective merely because prostitution is in itself regarded as a vice,
not as a crime; on the contrary, legislation may in non-regulated
countries be at once more comprehensive and more consistent than in
regulated communities. I have already instituted a comparison between
regulation and abolition in respect to certain points. For the sake of
simplicity, it may be well to continue this method, as we proceed. As
far, then, as the legislation goes, the police authorities of London,
Copenhagen, and Christiania evidently have a simpler, more logical and
more thoroughgoing statutory basis from which to proceed in the
protection of the public and of the prostitute herself than is possessed
by the police of any regulated town or country. For the London or
Copenhagen police can at least go as far as the police of Berlin or
Hamburg and they can act consistently in reference to all prostitutes.
They are empowered to deal with the entire phenomenon in so far as it
endangers public order; at no point are they balked by the exemptions
that regulation makes in favor of women privileged through inscription.
This point, however, must not as yet be regarded as decisive of the
issue. It still remains to be seen how the competing systems work.
For laws do not enforce themselves. They must be converted into a policy
by the attitude of the police, by the interpretations of the courts, by
the demand of public opinion. Let us consider briefly how statutory
provisions are modified by these factors.
Public opinion is unquestionably the most powerful of influences. Be the
letter of the law what it may, actual achievement under it will depend
first and foremost on what general sentiment demands and consistently
supports. As abolition has been brought about in part by agitation on
ethical lines, one would expect a more highly developed public opinion
in abolitionist countries. This undoubtedly exists. The suppression of
the public bordell is without question an achievement due not only to
legislation, but to popular insistence that police and courts enforce
the law. In Germany as in England, the bordell is illegal; but public
opinion in Germany being less highly developed and less articulate, the
law remains in most places a dead letter.
Curiously enough, public opinion in this entire matter is more or less
self-contradictory. On the one hand, orderly streets, free of scandal,
are required; on the other hand, a blunder made or apparently made by
the police is violently resented. The same opinion that demands the
former stands ready to burst into flame in the event of the latter. The
Royal Commission which, in consequence of a supposed blunder,
investigated the London police, declared that “the main difficulty in
enforcing the law (as to solicitation) is caused by the
over-sensitiveness and impatience of the public whenever there seems
ground, however slight, for alleging that there has been a mistake in
arresting a woman on a charge of solicitation. Not only the particular
constable who effected the arrest, but the police as a whole find
themselves suddenly the object of public censure in the press, in
society and even in Parliament. These displays of emotion are curious in
the case of a law-abiding and law-respecting community such as ours
seeing that similar feelings of indignation are rarely aroused in cases
where men are acquitted of crime of the greatest gravity. Every one
must, however, recognize that it is a very terrible misfortune for an
honest woman or girl to be publicly tried on a charge involving an
imputation of peculiarly disgraceful unchastity. Whatever may be the
causes of, or excuses for, these gusts of popular emotion, there can be
no doubt that they tend to some extent to impair the activity of
constables.”[551] We may expect, therefore, to find actual conditions
not so good as the law to the extent that public opinion fails to
require or sustain their enforcement, and to the extent that
hypersensitiveness or hysteria is ready to attack the police where
absolutely overwhelming proof can not be furnished at the moment.
The construction of the law by the courts—itself both a result and a
maker of opinion—is likewise an important factor in deciding what
legislation will achieve. Wherever magistrates disagree as to the
precise intention of the statute, a twilight zone is created, in
consequence of which the scope of the law is indirectly narrowed; for
official policy tends to restrict itself to acts that the courts will be
sure to uphold.[552] Finally, the rules, the policy, even the tradition
of the police department in applying statutes and judicial decisions and
in endeavoring to meet, without outrunning, the demands of public
opinion, tend now to stretch, now to restrict, the law as it stands on
the statute books. For example, the Danish statute punishes any
exhibition or act that disturbs order, offends the sense of shame, etc.
The courts, it is now pointed out, might have deprived the section of
all its force by requiring the production of a witness whose sense of
shame was actually outraged. They have, however,—undoubtedly governed by
public opinion—construed the provision to refer to conduct which would
naturally give such offence,—and the policeman’s evidence is sufficient.
This section has therefore been effective. On the other hand, the courts
have held that it is no offence for prostitutes to gather in small knots
on the streets,—as a result of which the phenomenon has latterly become
more prominent in Copenhagen.
It is our present task to ascertain what actually happens in
abolitionist communities and to compare the results with the conditions
described in previous chapters. The practical outcome of the English
statutes, as interpreted by the courts and as demanded by public
opinion, is reflected in the regulations promulgated for the guidance of
constables by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In respect to
brothels, the London constable is instructed to “note in his pocket-book
and report any house apparently used as a brothel.”[553] The constable
takes no further step on his own initiative; arrests are made on
direction of borough or other authorities, after complaint by neighbors
or others interested.[554] Prostitutes on the street are to be dealt
with discreetly—“not to be interfered with unnecessarily.” The names of
women acting like prostitutes are to be reported; women engaged in
soliciting are to be warned before arrest;[555] annoyance of passers-by
is to be prevented.[556] The police act on their own initiative only if
the behavior of the woman is offensive, annoying, or scandalous. The
unobtrusive prostitute is not molested. Keepers of licensed premises, i.
e., liquor establishments, refreshment houses, etc., are to be reported
if they permit prostitutes habitually to resort to their
establishments.[557]
The limitations thus placed on the constable are partly due to the size
of the area covered. I have already had occasion to remark how certain
situations change qualitatively whenever they undergo a radical
quantitative expansion. Centralized supervision of the individual
conduct of sixteen thousand policemen dealing with so delicate a matter
as prostitution is difficult in the highest degree. When does the
conduct of a woman stamp her as a prostitute in such wise that a
magistrate will sustain the constable who apprehends her? When does her
conduct overpass the limits of toleration? Shall the patrolman enter
suspected disorderly houses for the purpose of satisfying himself as to
their character? In small towns, where everything readily becomes
notorious, it is a comparatively simple matter to check up the doings of
the police; where the head is sound and the motives are pure—as is
regularly the case abroad—more or less initiative may be safely
entrusted to a constable who is thus easily supervised. But in London
the magnitude of the task would expose the patrolman to grave danger of
corruption and collusion. He might be corruptly induced to overlook
cautious violations of the law, if it were made his duty to be the
aggressor in taking action; or he might be tempted to levy blackmail,
difficult as that would be under existing circumstances.[558] His
initiative is therefore restricted to concrete and overt instances.
Further steps depend on the action of higher authorities,—a machinery
readily set in motion by protest or complaint. The department thus has
the guarantee of both evidence and supervision, since the parties who
lodge the complaint will see to it that proper steps follow. In a
peculiar degree, therefore, it is true that in London conditions depend
on the state of public opinion.
In consequence of the policy described above in respect to
street-walking, somewhat spotty conditions characterize the metropolis.
Women are distinctly abundant in the streets radiating from and in the
vicinity of Trafalgar Square, Oxford Circus, Regent Circus, and the
various railway stations. As a rule they conduct themselves
unobtrusively, communicating furtively with passers-by, though, after
midnight, they are at times more aggressive. Whenever the police are
sustained by the aroused public opinion of a given locality, improvement
ensues; for the inhabitants of a given neighborhood having protested
become checks on the police assigned to the district; unless action is
taken along the desired lines, suspicion is awakened and protests
accumulate. In this way, the Strand, only a few years ago one of the
scandals of London, has been rendered comparatively innocuous. Besides
the transformation wrought in particular spots, an unmistakable general
improvement is noticeable throughout London. This is a fact familiar to
travelers returning to London after an interval of a few years; it was
practically the unanimous testimony before the Royal Commission. On this
point it is hardly necessary to do more than to quote the words of Mr.
W. A. Coote: “I have known London for the past forty years, and my
memory goes back to quite forty-seven years. I knew the Haymarket and
Piccadilly very well forty-seven years ago and I say that London to-day,
compared with what it was forty years ago, is an open-air cathedral.
Everything has gone for the better.”[559] The laws remain the same, but
popular demand has caused, or enabled, police and courts gradually to
make more of them. The increased activity of the police is evidenced by
the greater frequency of arrests, 2,409 in 1901, 4,206 in 1905. The
courts have more than kept pace. Of the smaller number arrested in 1901,
274 (11.4%) were discharged: of the larger number arrested in 1905, 252
(6.3%) were discharged.[560] The high percentage of convictions
testifies to the discrete manner in which the police discharge their
duties.
How stands it with the brothel or disorderly house?[561] A brothel—it
may be well to repeat—is a house in which prostitutes live, to which
they bring or in which they receive their patrons. It has been held,
however, that no brothel exists where only one woman prostitutes herself
for money. The room to which the street-walker retires with her prey is
not a brothel in the meaning of the law. But wherever two or more women
occupy premises for the purpose of carrying on prostitution, a brothel
exists, no matter what the subterfuge employed,—be the quarters in
question their living-rooms, a pretended manicure or massage
establishment, or what not. Such resorts nowadays lead a stealthy,
uneasy, transient life in many sections of London, including the
suburbs. In the West End a few fashionable brothels are found, located
where they are least likely to be noticed, and transacting their
business with a limited clientele procured through introduction. Much
more frequent, but also much less stable, are the brothels of the
Haymarket region, masking as massage rooms, baths, as schools for the
teaching of foreign languages or elocution, or as rheumatism cures. The
women conducting these places advertise in certain periodicals and even
send “sandwich men” parading through Regent Street and Bond Street.[562]
The inmates are, however, very careful not to attract the attention of
others in the same house or in the neighborhood; hence the places are
open only during usual business hours, though they make appointments
elsewhere for other times.[563] The police are, of course, usually
informed; but in accordance with their policy are content to preserve
decorum until outside agencies move; whereupon the brothel is broken up,
the inmates being either arrested or dispersed. Certain sections of
London have been greatly improved by organization work of this type. For
example, the Central South London Free Church Council has been
beneficially active in South London. In 1909, this organization
prosecuted 68 brothel-keepers; in 1910, 53; in 1911, 32; the reduction
being due not to decreased vigor, but to better conditions.[564] The
activities of the police in this direction are exhibited in the
following table:[565]
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Convicted, held to bail,
or committed to Reform
Taken into Custody Discharged School
Year Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total
1901 145 243 388 11 27 38 134 216 350
1902 142 271 413 16 25 41 126 245 371
1904 292 442 734 30 55 85 260 386 646
1905 269 431 700 29 40 69 240 390 630
1906 264 403 667 24 40 64 239 363 602
1907 187 305 492 14 27 41 173 278 451
1908 154 192 346 13 19 32 132 152 284[566]
1909 184 219 403 17 17 34 160 174 334[567]
1910 110 182 292 9 16 25 90 139 229[568]
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
A certain amount of repressive activity, evoked in the same
fashion—viz., by outside protest or actual disorder—goes on in reference
to assignation hotels, and other resorts apt to be frequented by
prostitutes. The public drinking-house is the object of more severe
measures, in furtherance of the policy of reducing the number of
taverns. A license is in danger of cancellation, whenever prostitutes
are harbored.
English activity in respect to prostitution thus involves the
suppression of brothels and the gradual improvement of street
conditions. Too little is accurately known regarding the dimensions of
the prostitute army to decide how this policy affects the number of
women engaged. There can be no doubt, however, that it diminishes the
attractiveness of the career on the financial side; for the women are
practically forced to pick up their customers on the street under
conditions very unfavorable to the canvass for trade, and in the long
run diminished returns must check the recruiting process, on the
professional side at any rate. If by reason of the furtive and shifting
manner in which the trade must be plied, the volume of business is
slighter, then beyond any doubt the amount of disease disseminated and
the amount of financial waste are both correspondingly diminished.
Our main interest at this moment is, however, comparative. London,
Berlin, Paris, and Vienna are cosmopolitan cities. London does not
regulate prostitution; all the others do. London has no morals police;
all the others have. London watches prostitution through the ordinary
uniformed force acting under strict instructions; the others employ
plain-clothes men with special powers. London possesses no arbitrary
police process; all the others do. Does London suffer in the comparison
in respect to public order and decency? Most assuredly not. The
Haymarket may perhaps be no better than the Boulevards,
Friederichstrasse, or Kärntnerstrasse; it is in any case no worse.
Conditions have improved everywhere; but I suspect there has been more
amelioration in London and that it is likely to travel further than
anywhere on the Continent. The cities differ, of course, in regard to
many important elements,—race, tradition, ideals; and these elements
affect more or less the aspects of social order with which we are
dealing. But in any event the evidence warrants us in concluding that,
taking the actual situation as we find it, the English metropolis shows
no sign that it lacks a police instrument that the others possess. To
prove that such an instrument confers no comparative advantage is, of
course, conclusive against it; but our previous examination strengthens
the case for abolition to the extent that it disclosed substantial
disadvantages on the side of regulation.
I am by no means disposed to imply that London has exhausted the
possibilities of wise action in reference to prostitution,—that its
procedure leaves nothing to be desired. There would, for example, appear
to be no good reason why a prostitute calling herself “Nurse Dora”
should be privileged to advertise herself on billboards circulating up
and down Regent Street and Bond Street.[569] But at this juncture I am
not especially concerned to indicate the defects of any particular
abolition town. The issue is for the moment between regulation and
abolition and we are interested in ascertaining whether, as the matter
now stands, abolition communities necessarily fare worse in respect to
external order than regulation communities, and whether, in general,
abolition promises better or worse results than regulation.
The London method, it is often urged, scatters prostitution, thus
rendering it more difficult to deal with and more dangerous to the
innocent poor. Neither assertion is, as compared with regulation on the
Continent, actually or necessarily true. In so far as prostitution tends
to be associated with crime, dispersion is sound policy; the police of
set purpose break up nests of crime. Evil-doers—prostitutes among
them—are most dangerous in gangs; dispersion strips them of power,
cunning, and daring. There are, however, limits to dispersion, fixed by
rental, character of the neighborhood, etc., in consequence of which
birds of a feather still continue to flock together. Hence the
scattering is continually interrupted by brief fortuitous settlement
here and there, or by longer joint sojournings in buildings out of which
decent people are gradually edged. This happens in London; but,
unfortunately for the contrast set up by regulationists, it happens
everywhere else as well. Prostitution is assuredly no more widely
scattered in London than in any of the other cities compared with it;
maps showing its incidence would abundantly sustain this assertion.
Berlin is in this respect precisely like London; the Berlin prostitute
lives anywhere, well-nigh everywhere, and, besides, frequently possesses
a key to a room in an apartment building close to the scene of her
nightly perambulations. In Paris and Vienna, the amount of bordelled
prostitution being negligible, the numerous non-interned women live
where they please; in Vienna, indeed, as I have pointed out, the police
rules expressly forbid needless interference with their preferences as
to domicile; in Paris, they congregate in the congenial environment of
Montmartre and the Latin Quarter; but they are not excluded from
fashionable thoroughfares such as the Avenue Victor Hugo, or the spokes
of the wheel radiating from the Arc de Triomphe. Abolition does not
suffer by comparison with regulation in this respect.
An interesting light is shed on the relation of street and bordell,
discussed in a previous chapter, by the experience of London. Regent
Street and Piccadilly are still notorious for the number of loose women
frequenting them; but far less so than formerly when “at certain hours
they became so crowded with undesirable persons as to make the use of
the streets irksome to respectable persons.”[570] In this same area over
three hundred disorderly houses have been closed in consequence of legal
proceedings in the division of St. James, covering about three-quarters
of a square mile. The tightening of police control may explain the
improvement in street conditions; but the coincidence of improved
streets and closed brothels shows clearly that suppression of brothels
does not necessarily result in aggravation of street conditions; there
is, as I have previously pointed out, every reason to believe just the
reverse.
A word as to the effect of abolition on the character of the police. I
have emphasized the admirable quality of the continental police, due in
the first place, unless I err, to the secure tenure, the independence,
integrity, and intelligence of the commanding officers; the weak
spot—and that of varying seriousness—is the morals division, which,
capable of proving anywhere a localized infection, has in some instances
become an open sore. That abolition is solely responsible for the
difference I do not affirm; but it is at least noticeable that the
police of the British metropolis have passed practically unscathed
through the most searching criticism,—the strongest witness in behalf of
their general probity, humanity, and helpfulness having been borne by
those who know most of their relations with prostitution. Exceptions
were indeed found; a force approximating 17,000 men could hardly be
entirely lacking in black sheep. For example, the Royal Commission
verified thirteen complaints preferred by superior officers against
constables,—one of consorting with prostitutes, twelve of relations with
brothel-keepers,[571]—all severely dealt with; but, on the whole, they
“had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the force discharge
their duties (in respect to prostitution) with honesty, discretion, and
efficiency.”[572]
The charge most readily made relates to the corruption of constables by
prostitutes in the street with a view to securing immunity from arrest.
I have shown the practical difficulties in the way of controlling this
matter in regulated towns where certain women have the right to
promenade,—a right which can be corruptly extended to others, and no one
be the wiser; for who but the policeman can judge whether a prostitute
is entitled to the privilege of the streets? In abolition London the
situation is so far different, that any exceptions raise at once a
presumption of wrong-doing or negligence. Hence, whatever the policy
pursued, be it lax or strict, uniformity is necessary. A decade or two
ago, when public opinion was indifferent, aggressive solicitation went
on, not because it was paid for, but because no one objected; nowadays,
certain streets have been cleared and nowhere is solicitation actively
obtrusive, because public opinion is articulate and the police, however
inclined, would not dare to play favorites.[573] Sir Edward Henry,
testifying before the Royal Commission, declared: “No complaint, oral or
written, has been made to me during the three and a half years I have
been Commissioner, charging the police with levying blackmail from women
of the unfortunate class. I am satisfied that if any individual man were
to take money from these women it would come to the knowledge of his
comrades, who would look upon him as an unmitigated blackguard and that
he could not remain in the force for long. I do not say that individual
instances of taking money may not occur, but the whole force know that
any proved misconduct of this sort would be severely dealt with. It is
quite impossible that there should be any systematized blackmailing,
because the variation in the beats is so great and in a street like
Regent Street where, on either side there are parts of ten beats, it
would not be of the slightest use to a woman to bribe the first
constable she came to, because she would only go a few yards before she
came to another beat. Therefore anything like a system of blackmailing
is impracticable and certainly could not exist many days without being
known to the authorities.”[574]
To restate briefly the upshot of the foregoing discussion: as compared
with cosmopolitan continental cities that regulate prostitution, London
has lost nothing and actually gained something through its abolition
policy. No community has as yet envisaged and attacked the entire
problem involved in commercialized prostitution,—no community, I say,
whether regulationist or abolitionist. On the whole, as we shall also
see in the next chapter, abolitionist cities have been the more active
in initiative, but the aggressive conscience of the world has too
recently awakened to have as yet achieved a great deal. As to the two
matters now concerning us—order in the streets and brothels—the lowest
level reached in London nowhere falls as low as in the continental
capitals where regulation is in vogue.
The police of the English metropolis is under the control of the Home
Office of the National Government; in all other towns, the force is
managed by the Watch Committee of the Town Council.[575] The latter are
therefore, perhaps, a bit more sensitive to public opinion and depend
more nearly on the tone of the municipal government. Fortunately in
Great Britain this tone is nowadays high, the membership of the Watch
Committee being scrutinized with especial care. This has not, however,
always been the case. As recently as the nineties the Chairman of the
Watch Committee and head of the licensing board in Liverpool was the
attorney of the brewing interests, and brewers were largely represented
on the committee itself. It was no accident, perhaps, that with these
conditions the town possessed a protected vice district containing
upwards of four hundred houses and that the public houses (saloons)
systematically harbored prostitutes. A vigorous agitation, the machinery
of which is still preserved and in motion, resulted in a complete
rehabilitation of the local government. The liquor interest was excluded
from the Watch Committee and neither in Liverpool nor elsewhere is it
now regarded as fit to be represented thereon; the unholy alliance
between prostitution and liquor has been largely destroyed by the
ruthless cancellation of licenses; in Liverpool the number has already
been reduced from 2,500 to 1,700.[576] A determined and systematic
effort has also been made to restore the streets to decency and to
destroy brothels. For this work, in the provinces and Scotland, as in
London, no special police machinery exists. Prostitution is handled by
the regular force, uniformed or plain-clothes,—by men, that is, who deal
with all other infractions of law. There is no morals division; nor is
any effort made to list or catalogue the prostitute as such. The genial
inspector of the Birmingham police, to whom I am beholden for an inner
view of the police situation there, was conscious of no necessity for
any special machinery. He did not know how many prostitutes there were
in Birmingham,—no police officer had ever tried to find out. He could
not tell, therefore, whether they were more or less numerous. Why should
he? The law-abiding prostitute must be the concern of other agencies.
The law-breakers among them he knew and watched precisely as he knew and
watched law-breakers of other kinds. Walking the streets at midnight, he
pointed out to me women who were thieves and pickpockets,—in whom he was
interested for that reason and not simply because they were prostitutes;
and he showed me their haunts,—precisely as the haunts of law-breakers,
prostitutes and others, were pointed out to me in London. No
extraordinary mechanism,—no mechanism, I mean, not otherwise needed in
dealing with urban crime,—was needed in either place for this purpose;
and no lack of knowledge or power to cope with individuals or with
emergencies was felt or betrayed; nor was the integrity of the force
imperilled by its dealings with prostitution, for that integrity was
safeguarded by the quality of the head officers, by the principles on
which recruits were procured, and by the limitations erected by statute.
In these circumstances, the provincial like the London brothel leads a
stealthy existence. Two or more women occupy a house or flat[577] for a
brief period. The more prosperous occupy small houses on the edge of
town; the word is passed through cab-drivers or from “friend” to
“friend.” In certain sections of Manchester the position of the window
shades and of the front door is a signal to the initiated. In the side
streets leading from Oxford Street, Manchester, many doors are
significantly ajar up to the late hours of the night. Shortly conscious
of being observed, the women fold their tents and steal elsewhere,
repeating the performance. Not infrequently, neighbors complain and the
town authorities apprehend the inmates, subjecting them to fine or
imprisonment. Statistics convey some notion of the vigor of the
policy,—none as to whether the evil decreases or increases. In
Liverpool, for example, there were 162 prosecutions for brothel-keeping
in 1902, with 147 convictions; 196 prosecutions with 116 convictions in
1910; in the nine years from 1902 to 1911, there were altogether 1,720
arrests, 1,411 convictions.[578] In Edinburgh, the number of brothels
known to the police shows a marked diminution,—from 45 in 1901 to 29 in
1911,—not unconnected perhaps with increased severity on the part of the
authorities who arrested nine women of the larger number (45) in 1901,
thirty-five women of the smaller number (29) in 1911.[579]
Street conditions have undergone precisely the same evolution previously
described as generally taking place. Time was—and that within recent
memory—when importuning on the main highways was well-nigh unrestrained.
Nowadays the prostitute walks more or less swiftly by, indicating her
object by a stealthy glance or mumbled word. Hoping for a nibble she
retires into a side street waiting to be approached by her supposed
quarry.[580] If disappointed, she resumes her inoffensive promenading.
The public houses are less and less used for this purpose, because the
publican fears the loss of his license. If an arrangement is perfected,
the pair retire to the woman’s room or to an assignation hotel, though
the latter operate with great caution. Parks, cabs, even railway
compartments are utilized. Not infrequently a journey to a suburb is
urged; in Liverpool, a street-walker suggested “Bootle,” several miles
distant, as the nearest place that was sure of being free from
interruption or molestation.
The policy described keeps the brothel inconspicuous and relatively
infrequent; it renders the streets fairly unobjectionable. Does it
accomplish anything more? The officials are entirely candid on this
point. The Birmingham inspector “does not believe that the amount of
prostitution has been decreased through keeping it ‘on the move’ or
through punishment. It disappears here, to reappear there. Girls are
easily found; but”—and I shall recur to the point—“they tempt less.” A
prominent and experienced member of the Watch Committee expressed
similar views: “The present policy drives women from one cover to
another; it prevents anything like a tropical growth.” In Edinburgh the
actual number of notorious prostitutes appears to have been reduced, for
the police returns, 424 in 1901, had shrunk to 180 in 1911.[581] The
Chief Constable of Liverpool inclines also “to think that the decline of
the figures over nine years corresponds with a reduction in professional
prostitution, but it seems quite possible that the reduction is due to
the professional being ousted by the amateur.”[582]
It seems beyond dispute that prostitution, like any other business
enterprise, suffers when deprived of the advantage of position. What
hinders, reduces. The actual number of customers that can be picked up
by a street-walker compelled to forego all positive advances, or a woman
living in a brothel the location and character of which can only be
allowed to leak out surreptitiously, is bound to be diminished; and the
diminution of customers means the diminution of waste and disease. The
inducement to join the professional ranks is thereby lessened.
It is not pretended that repression and punishment achieve anything with
the hardened offender. The Chief Constable of Glasgow reporting to the
corporation of the city, states: “The imposition of a fine does not
prove a deterrent; any person may pay the fine and the woman continue
her way of life.”[583] The Chief Constable of Liverpool reports as “a
typical, not exceptional” case that of a prostitute fifty years old,
first convicted in 1884 and in 1910 sent to prison on her 156th
conviction.[584] In Edinburgh, coincidently with the reduction in the
number of notorious women, the number of arrests rose from 158 in 1901,
to 773 in 1911,—it reached 1,020 in 1910. Did the increased frequency of
arrests, due to the instructions issued to the police to act without
warning lead to an exodus from the city? Not improbably; but it was
futile for the reform of those who remained, for some of them were
convicted as many as eight or ten times in a single year. During the
first six months of 1911, 331 women under 23 years of age were sent to
Glasgow prison; 220 of these were convicted of importuning; only 72 of
the entire number were first offenders; among the others some had been
previously convicted as many as 34, 50, or even 69 times.[585] Nor are
hard-labor sentences more efficacious on the Continent in deterring
women from continuing a dissolute life. Of those thus punished at
Stockholm, between 1882 and 1884, 96.9% persisted in their evil courses
after the expiration of their prison terms; between 1885 and 1889,
98.3%; between 1890 and 1894, 96.7%; 96.8% in the period 1895–1899;
96.7% in 1900–2. The small remnant did not necessarily do better; they
may have left the city or escaped notice.[586] In regulation, as in
abolition communities, the system of fining and imprisoning offenders—be
they prostitutes or not—is futile, expensive, and demoralizing.
Meanwhile, below the surface, lie the frightful evils out of which
professional prostitution comes. An acrid controversy in Glasgow between
the Inspector of the Parish and the Chief Constable throws a flood of
light on a situation which neither regulation nor abolition touches. The
former cites the volume of existing immorality, the frequent violation
of children, the existence of ice-cream shops which are merely cloaks
for indecency; the latter replies that prostitution is in itself no
crime, that arrests can be made only where habitual prostitutes are
guilty of importuning, that the difficulties of proof in case of immoral
establishments are very serious, and that incidental prostitution and
immorality lie outside the province of the police.[587] Thus even though
regulation is condemned, it is necessary to remember that the serious
problem remains. This must not be overlooked. Our immediate concern is
however, once more, simply as to whether the provincial and Scottish
towns lose anything through not possessing the regulatory apparatus
found in continental towns of the same size. There can be but one
opinion on this point: no single phenomenon can be cited tending to show
that the situation would be bettered by regulation or that it suffers
for the lack of it.
The comparison between regulation and abolition can, however, be most
fairly made on the Continent, where the manner of living, the point of
view, and the social traditions of regulation and abolition communities
are more nearly alike. Moreover, the abolitionist cities that enter into
the comparison have all had regulatory systems,—some of them quite
recently. What have they lost through abolition? How do they bear
comparison with those that still retain regulation?
The subject is by no means a simple one, in part at least because its
discussion has been carried on in a spirit of acrimonious controversy.
Complete and dispassionate accounts of conditions during and after
regulation either in regulated or abolitionist communities have nowhere
been prepared; the only reliable statistics in existence deal merely
with certain phases of the evil, and leave unsettled the question as to
whether other phases have become better or worse, after or in
consequence of abolition. Moreover, all the cities involved have grown
with amazing rapidity; they have become larger, richer, more luxurious,
in some ways more frivolous. They compete with each other and even with
much larger towns in brilliancy and seductiveness. This increased
playfulness is certainly reflected in the increase of some forms of
immorality without involving in any degree the issue between regulation
and abolition.
Continental abolition has usually required two steps. In the first
place, bordells were suppressed; after a brief interval, registration
and medical inspection have been abandoned. Whatever has happened in
consequence of abolition, the mere suppression of the bordell can have
had little immediate or direct effect. The bordell was, as previously
pointed out, moribund anyway; its legal extermination involved hardly a
perceptible shock. At Zurich eighteen houses, containing fifty-seven
women were forcibly closed, at Rotterdam four with twenty women, at
Copenhagen three. On the face of the matter, it may, therefore, be
affirmed that nowhere in Europe has the closing of bordells as the first
step towards abolition involved unfavorable consequences.
This is not to say that the other forms of prostitution—the concealed
brothel, the counterfeit employment,[588] the low drinking-shop, the
dance hall, etc., have been lessened or mitigated by the abolition of
the bordell. Whether any particular surreptitious form of bordell exists
or not is not a question of abolition or regulation, but of the law, the
manner of its enforcement, the condition of public opinion, the attitude
of the courts, and the general feasibility of effective repression. Many
of these forms were briefly characterized in the opening chapter. They
are found everywhere,—in regulated cities, such as Hamburg and Budapest,
where the bordell is officially favored; in Vienna, where, though
officially reprobated, it still continues to exist: in Munich and
Berlin, where it is no longer tolerated; and just as well in abolition
towns,—Copenhagen, Zurich, and Christiania, for example. I have no
desire to understate the facts. Resorts serving the purpose of bordells
are almost universally met with—with or without regular bordells. I have
touched on the English brothels and the Berlin bars. In Amsterdam, one
finds clubs or pretended “pensions,” to which the visitor is conducted
by a cabdriver or directed by an acquaintance or a hotel porter and in
which he is entertained in whatever fashion he prefers. Along the
Binnenrotte in Rotterdam and in the narrow out-of-the-way streets of old
Zurich, cigar shops,[589] whose outfit consists mainly of empty boxes
and bedizened females, unmistakably proclaim their purpose. The
purchaser of one of the few cigars in stock, unless an object of
suspicion, need only lay a coin of moderate size on the counter in
payment; he will soon learn that there is no change in the drawer, but
that there are other ways of squaring the account.[590] If he prove
obdurate, the drawer is somehow discovered to contain the necessary
change; if he seems to be impressionable, his attention will be called
to a photograph and the inner salon will be recommended. In many towns,
too, “American bars” are found, most of them liquor establishments
behind the counters of which prostitutes hand out liquor and encourage
assignations. The proprietors escape punishment because the assignations
are fulfilled elsewhere than on his premises. Filthy establishments more
flagrantly devoted to the same purposes exist in abolition Zurich as in
regulation Bremen.[591]
Would these establishments revert to bordells, if the transformation
were allowed or forced? Perhaps, to a limited extent. But the change
would simply convert a few furtive and ill-patronized resorts into
notorious and well-attended bordells, the rest remaining by preference
what they now are. The net outcome would be bad, not good. Meanwhile
Christiania proves that the forms in question do not result merely from
suppression of the bordell, for the Animierkneipe with female service
does not exist there and counterfeit employments are rare.
The weight of authority—lay and official—unquestionably favors the view
here taken,—that the suppression of the bordell has operated in the
public interest. True enough, a writer discussing the entire evolution
of the problem, claims that the disappearance of the bordell in Zurich
has been accompanied “by an increase of secret ‘hole and corner’
prostitution, beyond the scope of the law,”[592] but no argument or
evidence shows that abolition is in any wise responsible for the fact,
if fact it be. It is assuredly not without significance as militating
towards a directly opposite conclusion that prosecutions for
pandering[593] have in the long run decreased, not increased, although
the suppression of bordells would, if general conditions actually
deteriorated, necessarily lead to an increase in the activity of the
pander. The bordells were closed in 1898: in 1895, 22; in 1896, 19; in
1897, 27 persons were convicted on the charge of pandering. During the
next three years, 30, 33, and 25; during the last five years, 13, 23,
28, 26, and 22 respectively. The learned chief of the Zurich police
declared to me that the bordell system “had earned practically universal
disapprobation. No one would now again urge the introduction of
tolerated houses, not even the unprejudiced and liberally-disposed.
Houses where a madame can hire out girls and acquire profits are not
wanted by any one.” An important official in Christiania urged that
whether regulation is desirable or not, the destruction of the bordell
was an advantage. The Amsterdam police favored their extirpation and
after fifteen years’ experience “are still opposed to them.” The
foregoing judgments are based on police grounds; assuredly the case
against the bordell would be all the stronger, were indirect
considerations also allowed to weigh.
Nowhere does the suppression of the bordell aggravate the domicile
problem, which, as a matter of fact, settles itself in abolition towns,
just as it does in regulation towns. The English, Swiss, Dutch, and
Scandinavian prostitutes seek rooms in sections occupied by the poor,
usually paying a considerably higher rental than is paid by decent folk.
In some cases their character is concealed and their business transacted
elsewhere; in others, when neighbors or fellow-tenants are too poor or
too careless to protest, the women utilize their own lodgings. The
street-walkers of London tend to congregate in apartment houses or
“mansions” from which respectable families are crowded out; in the
provincial towns they occupy small houses. If renting of rooms to
prostitutes is in itself made a crime, the law is broken, as at Berlin,
and of course most regularly in case of the more clever and well-to-do;
or the stupid and wretched are pushed into vagabondage rather than out
of prostitution. Some interesting statistics on this point come from
Zurich where, since 1897, the renting of a domicile to a prostitute
constitutes a punishable offence. As the execution of the law has been
more efficient, the percentage of homeless prostitutes, who sleep in
public lodging-houses or elsewhere, now here, now there, betrays a
tendency to increase. Police statistics, dealing with 361 prostitutes,
in 1904, show 69.8% having a regular domicile, 30.2% without domicile;
in 1908, of 399 women, the proportions were 52.6%, 47.4% respectively;
in 1910, of 601 women, 62.2% and 37.8% respectively.[594] The domicile
problem is indeed soluble only as the general problem of prostitution
itself is solved; it is made neither better nor worse by abolition.
The preceding discussion makes clear that the bordell played but a
slight part in the prostitution-economy of Norway, Denmark, Holland, and
Switzerland at the time of its abolition. The step was of moral rather
than of immediate practical importance. It indicated a change in the
attitude of society, that might in time produce results; but there was
no perceptible result at the moment. How stands the situation in respect
to order in the streets? Was the abolition of control attended by
increased prominence of prostitutes in the public highways of
continental towns or greater difficulty in keeping track of them, where
advisable to do so?
Of the abolition cities that I visited, prostitutes are most prominent
in the chief thoroughfares of Copenhagen, particularly in the vicinity
of the Tivoli, a popular amusement resort in the heart of the town, and
on the street corners and open squares near-by; they loiter alone or in
small groups, making no aggressive effort to attract attention; from
time to time they retreat into the cafés or variety shows abounding in
the vicinity. The main shopping street of Christiania—Karl Johans
Gade—appears to be free of promenading prostitutes by day; at night,
they are in distinct evidence there and in amusement gardens close by;
once more their demeanor is quiet and unobtrusive. In the Hague the
street prostitute is barely noticeable; an occasional woman is
observable in the crowds that night and day push through the busy little
street on which most of the retail shops are found; others can be hunted
down in low cafés. Rotterdam—a city of different type—presents a
slightly different aspect. In the earlier hours of the evening, women
hasten to the skating-rink, dance halls and cafés. When, at midnight,
these resorts close, prostitutes appear for a while on the streets. The
streets of Amsterdam were, at the time of my visit, the cleanest I had
anywhere observed; the ordinance authorizing arrest of the prostitute
for promenading has been enforced with sufficient vigor and discretion
to attain its object. Zurich is not substantially different from other
abolition towns. As late as midnight only occasional and cautious
street-walkers were to be observed; in reply to a question, an inquirer
was informed by one of these that she would shortly leave for Geneva,—a
regulation town,—“there is too little doing here.” Women, of whose
character their appearance leaves no doubt, survey the male passer-by
and retreat into a side street to give him an opportunity to seek an
interview; but unless intoxicated, they quietly await his approach.
The number of police arrests required in order to bring about the
conditions above described does not seem excessively large. In
Christiania, I was officially informed that “arrests for solicitation
were few”; in Amsterdam (population 580,960) 370 arrests were made in
1910, 382, in 1911.[595] The situation in Copenhagen (population
462,161) is portrayed by the following statistics: for soliciting,
offending against “the sense of shame,”[596] and “vagabondage,” 288
arrests were made in 1907, the year succeeding the repeal of regulation;
in 1908, 344; in 1909, 432; in 1910, 414; in 1911, 353. The total, not
large in any case, is due to the inclusion of vagabondage, to the growth
of the city, and to a judicial decision to the effect that prostitutes
congregating in the streets cannot be arrested or dispersed; for out of
these casual gatherings occasional disturbances leading to subsequent
arrests sometimes arise.
Have conditions in the towns above named been affected for the worse by
the sudden and recent change from regulation to abolition? I did not
find a single police officer who answered that question in the
affirmative. The division chief at Copenhagen stated to me: “Regulation
was entirely dispensed with in 1906; in the interval the police have
learned how to procure all the information and to take all the steps for
which at one time a morals police and regulation were supposed to be
necessary.”[597] When the new law abrogating police control was
proposed, objection was made on the ground that, in the absence of
police power to confine prostitutes to specific localities, they would
infest the whole city: “It has not happened; prostitution is more
scattered and thus more readily handled, but it does not invade all
sections. The suppression of summary police punishments has done no
harm; the ordinary courts with their usual processes have proved
adequate to maintain order and decency. Conditions are at least as good
as under the old system; some streets have been entirely freed; the main
streets are no worse; clandestine prostitution has not been aggravated;
indeed up to now nothing has happened to cause us to regret,”—with which
the grateful official “touched wood!”[598] Elsewhere, I was informed
that the former partisans of regulation were “struck dumb.”[599] If
abolition were working badly, one would hear “I told you so” from its
original opponents; there are, as a matter of fact, very few
regulationists any longer in Copenhagen, though certain points to be
shortly discussed are not yet clear. Officials of the same rank in
Christiania stated: “Regulation will never be restored.” The partisans
of regulation have steadily diminished in number and volubility. An
incident reported from Christiania, however, is interesting as showing
that everything that has happened since abolition has not necessarily
happened on account of abolition. In 1899 it was, for example, pointed
out at a medical conference in Christiania that street conditions had
become temporarily worse. The speaker attributed the fact to abolition;
but the argument was presently refuted by the statement that the real
reason for deterioration was the instruction to the police that “they
had no right to interfere with soliciting unless it was done in a
distinctly indecent manner.” Stockholm has not yet abolished regulation,
but the system has decayed so rapidly that bad results ought to be
perceptible, if regulation was really of any consequence whatsoever. I
have already called attention to the sudden drop in the new enrolments,
from 119 in 1903 to 67 in 1904; the number of annual inspections fell
from 20,849 in 1903 to 6,652 in 1911. The institution thus shrank
two-thirds within a few years, “without any resultant disadvantages from
the standpoint of public order; an activity that can be reduced 66⅔%
without a trace of inconvenience can hardly be regarded as necessary for
the public welfare.”[600] In Holland the abolition movement spread from
town to town,—an improbable course, had the absence of regulation done
harm. The Chief of the Hague police assured me that he “cherished no
regret on the score of abolishing regulation or bordells”; the division
chief admitted that, although having been a regulationist during the
regulation period, experience with the alternative system had made him a
strong abolitionist; he would “advise all cities to abolish regulation
and none to introduce it.” No stronger expressions were anywhere used
than by the Amsterdam Chief and his staff; they were outright
abolitionists; they believed regulation inseparable from police
corruption—an opinion echoed elsewhere as well; they found no greater
difficulty in handling the problems—criminal or other—in consequence of
abolition. In either case “incessant vigilance and effort” were
required. It is true that the police officials of France and Germany
give quite different accounts of what is to be observed in abolitionist
communities; but these statements are usually based on prophecies made
during the controversial period. The Swedish commission reports on
hearsay that “the experience of countries which do not have special
suppression of whole-time prostitution as such” is deplorable; but
Professor Johansson notes in reply that “it would have been well to
indicate the countries in question.”[601] Christiania alone is mentioned
by name, and as to that, candor requires them to add that “nothing
really importunate or offensive was observed in the conduct of the
women.”[602]
I have given above the verdicts of the police who have lived under both
systems, an experience entitled to great weight. There is every
indication that the popular verdict coincides. In the Canton of Zurich,
a referendum, proposed in favor of returning to the abandoned system,
was defeated by a vote of 49,806 to 18,016.[603] A newspaper comment on
the result warns the “interests” in favor of regulation that “every
proposition emanating from them is hopeless. If ever a revision of the
present statute is undertaken, the initiative will have to come from
disinterested jurists, physicians, and judges. We hope there will be no
such occasion.”[604]
A comparison of the streets of abolition cities with those of regulation
cities sustains the conclusion to which the preceding statements point.
Christiania is as decent as Stuttgart. As between Zurich and Geneva, the
contrast is all in favor of Zurich, though it is twice as large. Even
the seaport towns constitute no exception. Copenhagen and Rotterdam are
at least as quiet as Bremen and Hamburg; indeed it would be impossible
to find in the abolition sea-ports anything resembling the street scenes
enacted in the bordell quarters of regulated ports. The sailors’ quarter
of Rotterdam—the Schiedamschedyk—is a cosmopolitan affair, with drinking
and dance halls of variegated character. Prostitutes and their customers
come together in them; at times a woman standing in a door-way salutes a
passer-by. But up to the small hours of the night, the streets were free
of scandal.
Reference to the statutes previously described will show the reader that
the police generally enjoy the right to proceed against the prostitute
as a vagabond. This is the abolitionist counterpart of the regulationist
provisions directed against women “without a definite domicile.” The
vagabondage proviso is largely used only in Copenhagen, where there
exists great difference of opinion as to its value. Its prominence in
the Danish law betrays the dread under which the lawmakers worked. It
was feared that simple repeal of regulation might be interpreted to mean
that the law had no objection to a woman’s earning her living by
prostitution;[605] the prostitute was therefore made expressly amenable
to punishment as a vagabond, if proved to be without proper means of
support. Most of the arrests in the statistics before given[606] are due
rather to vagabondage than to solicitation—217 out of 288, 241 out of
344, 251 out of 432, 243 out of 414, 200 out of 353. The provision
operates in this way. The police having noticed a woman walking the
streets (not soliciting) at all hours, presume her to be without
legitimate occupation; she is warned; on a second warning her name and
address are taken and a printed notice is sent, requiring her to obtain
employment and to report the fact. Between 200 and 300 notices of this
kind are annually sent; in 1909, 216 women were once punished, 45 twice,
11 thrice on this charge.[607]
Serious objections are raised to this method of dealing with
prostitution. It is criticized as an indirect method of making
prostitution in itself a crime, and open as such to the objection that
it bears on the woman alone, and on only the stupid woman at that.
Justice would require that vagabondage be similarly treated, be the
vagabond a man or a woman; but this statute undoubtedly involves
discrimination in favor of the male vagabond. A quasi-regulatory system
might undoubtedly be introduced beneath its cover by a reactionary
official. The provision is at any rate a somewhat disingenuous
subterfuge, for, strictly speaking, the vagrant is homeless; but the
prostitute may be treated as a vagabond, despite the fact that she
possesses a home.
From a practical point of view, there is the further objection that the
statute is so easily evaded as to make its application uncertain and
inequitable. The street-walker, attacked as a vagrant without means of
support, claims to be a servant, earning a minimum sum,—say twelve
crowns monthly; she escapes punishment by pointing to the old woman for
whom she works, though the correct relationship is just the reverse, for
the older woman is the servant of the prostitute; or the accused vagrant
becomes a cigar-vender, a “laundress,” a “friseuse,” thus increasing the
number of counterfeit employments. Like regulation, the vagrancy
provision results in harrying the dull unfortunates, while leaving the
more pretentious and the more clever quite unscathed.
Of the other results feared in connection with abolition, none have
materialized to a perceptible extent. It was urged, for example, that
when bordells were dismantled, men would annoy respectable women on the
streets. It is indeed one of the queer features of all police dealings
with prostitution, that, whereas solicitation by a prostitute is an
offence, accosting by men is, unless outrageously flagrant, quite
overlooked. This is generally true in both abolition and in regulation
countries; but curiously enough, the evil is worse in regulated Germany
than anywhere else. In Swiss, Dutch and English towns—all abolition—the
offence is exceptional; in Berlin, many men habitually turn in order to
observe women, and at night do not hesitate to venture a word by way of
experiment. The annoyance of decent women has, therefore, not followed
as a result of abolition and is commonest in certain regulation
countries,—not, however, in my opinion, as a consequence of regulation.
It was feared that under abolition the percentage of pimps or souteneurs
would rise; there is, however, no confirmatory evidence. Even bordell
women frequently support pimps; the low grade prostitute everywhere has
her pimp, regardless of regulation or abolition, and everywhere protects
him loyally, as the few successful prosecutions show. In something over
a year, only 39 men were arrested as pimps in Rotterdam, 30 of whom were
sentenced to hard labor in a tramp-colony for terms running from three
months to three years.[608] The bully is indeed a parasite unaffected by
the existence of either regulation or abolition as such.
The situation as regards houses of assignation is everywhere on the
Continent in such confusion that no definite statement is possible. I
have pointed out the fact that these resorts are unopposed in Paris; are
harried from time to time in Germany, chiefly on the score of furnishing
facilities to clandestine prostitutes; are tolerated in Budapest, on
condition of submitting to certain rules,—with the result that both
regular and irregular resorts exist there. Abolition towns are in theory
hostile to _rendezvous_ houses; but it can not be said that their
prosecution has yet accomplished much more than the enforcement of
greater caution and quiet—no slight gain, to be sure,—in the conduct of
the business. The actual reduction in their number is, as far as one can
judge, nominal.
Regulationist police are honestly afraid that abolition renders it
difficult or impossible to keep track of prostitution. I have pointed
out what seems to me the real inwardness of regulation,—that it
furnishes the police with a method of keeping in touch with criminal and
criminally-inclined prostitutes and their associates. The registered
prostitute is tethered to the police; once or twice a week she is pulled
back; she can not get far away without being noticed; if she does, her
disappearance is soon known and efforts at least are made to trace her.
Abolition is said to do away with all this and to leave the police
helpless.
But the case is not so desperate after all. The continental police have
methods of keeping up with other people,—reputable and criminal alike;
and if the machinery which keeps up with the reputable will not answer
for the prostitute, assuredly the machinery which is with such
difficulty eluded by law-breakers will. For example, life and property
are probably equally secure in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Birmingham.
Hamburg has a well organized regulatory system; Rotterdam is
abolitionist, but catalogues prostitutes; Birmingham is abolitionist and
ignores the prostitute until she becomes disorderly or criminal,
whereupon, like other disorderly or criminal people, she suffers as
such. “As far as crime is concerned,” a prominent London police official
remarked to me, “crime committed by a prostitute is not different from
other crime; it is handled just as other crime is handled and no
weakness has been felt in consequence of this procedure.” In this, as in
all the other points considered, if abolition has done no harm,
regulation could at best have done little or no good. Nor does it follow
that thoroughgoing abolition is at all inconsistent with just as
complete knowledge of local prostitution as is possessed by
regulationist police, should such information be desired. The English
police, as I have said, take no interest in the matter until the law is
violated,—of course, knowing and observing women given to transgression,
precisely as they know and observe other suspects. Influenced doubtless
by continental tradition, the police of abolition Rotterdam catalogue
women of suspected virtue; they possess a list of 1,465, eight hundred
of whom are professional and avowed prostitutes. The police of abolition
Zurich know 400 persons who rent rooms for prostitution though the
evidence falls short of technical completeness; in Christiania some 500
prostitutes are known to the authorities; the Amsterdam Bureau is
preparing a list for all Holland; after four years of work it contains
some 7,000 names; similar lists of pimps, traffickers, etc., with
photographs where possible, are found there just as in regulationist
Dresden or Vienna. The houses in which the prostitutes of Amsterdam live
have also been studied. At first two, afterwards four, men were assigned
to the task with the result that increasingly complete information has
been procured. In 1908, 292 houses with 548 girls were located; in 1909,
366 houses with 656 girls; in 1910, 510 houses with 854 girls; in 1911,
597 houses with 968 girls.[609] Copenhagen, fearful of a too sudden
plunge into abolition manages through its “warnings” to reach a similar
result; some 300 to 400 women are thus kept under observation,—though,
as happens under regulation, the women do not report as systematically
as the law contemplates, some evading, some leaving, some being in
prison.[610] It is clear, therefore, that abolition is consistent with
as complete knowledge of the local situation as the authorities think it
worth while to procure; in Holland, indeed, there has been more activity
along this line since abolition than previously.
For the sake of completeness, it is perhaps worth while to insert
another word before closing, as to the bearing of abolition on other
forms of prostitution than those I have considered at some length,—the
dance hall, the café, and similar establishments that furnish the
prostitute an advantageous opening. Neither regulation nor abolition as
such involves any particular policy in reference to these resorts. On
the Continent little has been done to insure their decent conduct or to
interrupt their connection with the exploitation of vice. In Great
Britain, the liquor and amusement traffic have been more effectually
supervised and beyond question with good results, as far as the matter
has yet gone. But effective management of the difficulties here touched
on takes us far beyond the immediate subject of our present inquiry. For
vicious liquor and amusement resorts are not bad because prostitutes
fasten upon them; prostitutes fasten upon them because they are bad.
They are problems, therefore, to be dealt with quite irrespective of
prostitution, though prostitution is indeed deprived of a foothold and
an incentive when they are thus dealt with.
That abolition favors police honesty is the unanimous testimony of
officials who have experimented with both systems. I was informed at
Zurich that the bordell system associated with regulation had resulted
in corruption that “for so small a town had reached enormous
proportions.” An official report of the year 1892 declared that proof of
punishable pandering was rarely possible because “before the
investigation ordered could be accomplished, the accused had received
notice of their peril through some secret channel or other.”[611] Again,
in Copenhagen, I learned that, as elsewhere, at the time when police and
prostitute were closely related, corruption prevailed; a certain
inspector even owned an interest in a house of prostitution and
committed suicide on exposure. The Dutch police are outspoken to similar
purpose. As I pointed out in dealing with Germany, general corruption is
nowhere alleged and the integrity of the head officials is never
impugned; but it is believed that, wherever the partial regulatory
policy is in operation, that is, wherever one rule is applied to some
women, another to others, a condition is created favorable to more or
less demoralization.
It is, however, obvious that, while abolition at once places all
prostitutes on the same footing before the law, it does not necessarily
follow that a morals police is superfluous. The morals police is
imperilled if it is in a position to award favors; under abolition, this
peril disappears. Now that this particular force is no longer exposed to
any peculiar danger, is it not worth retaining in the interest of
specialization? European experience does not warrant an affirmative
answer. Regulation Rome deals with its problems without morals police.
Certain towns of abolition Holland tend to create a morals division to
observe prostitution; a few men are detailed for the purpose at the
Hague; two inspectors, one social worker and twelve patrolmen at
Rotterdam.[612] Copenhagen retains a morals police. The English cities
are, of course, without any such division. It would appear that the
scope of a morals police in abolition cities is at best narrow. Certain
it is that no European city relies on the existence of the morals police
to maintain the integrity of the main body of the force. That integrity
is undoubted, but it is due, as I have already pointed out, first and
foremost to the character and tenure of the upper officials, to the way
in which patrolmen are chosen and trained, and to the sort of relation
that exists between the police department and the other government
departments.