Charles VIII. entered Naples in 1495, he found the city suffering from a
plague (syphilis) to which the prejudice of the natives gave the name of
"French malady." Italy, said the writers of the day, was attacked
simultaneously by the French army and this new disease.[198] Most of the
Italian writers accuse the French of its introduction. Benevenis,
however, says they got it from the Spaniards, and Guicciardini candidly
admits that his countrymen were the real propagators of the malady. German
physicians likewise traced its origin to Naples, and placed it about the
year 1493,[199] ascribing it to an untoward planetary conjunction. The
disease appeared at Barcelona in 1493, and in other parts of Spain in the
following year.[200] But sixty years before, in 1430, public regulations
had been made in London to prevent the admission of persons attacked with
a disease very similar to syphilis into houses of prostitution, and
requiring the police to keep constant watch over such as should show
symptoms of this _infirmitas nefanda_.[201] The first authentic allusion
to the disease in France is the ordinance of the Parliament of Paris,
dated 1497, ordering all persons attacked by the "large pox" to vacate the
city within twenty-four hours, and not to return till they were cured;
providing a sort of hospital for those who can not move; and appointing
agents to bestow four _sols parisis_ on the exiles to pay for their
journey.[202] This ordinance alludes to the disease having been prevalent
for two years.
It may therefore be taken for granted that, whether syphilitic diseases
had existed before or not, they prevailed to a very alarming extent
throughout Europe at the close of the fifteenth century.
To prevent misconception, it may be as well to give the diagnostic signs
of the "French malady" as furnished by Fracastor: "The patients were in
low spirits, and broken down; their faces were pale. Most of them had
chancres upon the organs of generation. These chancres were obstinate;
when cured in one place they reappeared in another, and the work was never
ended. Pustules with a hard surface appeared upon the skin, generally on
the head first. On first appearing they were small, but gradually
increased to the size of an acorn, which they resembled in shape. In some
cases they were dry, in others humid; some were livid, others white and
pale, others again hard and reddish. They burst after a few days, and
discharged an incredible quantity of vile fetid humor. When they began to
suppurate they became true phagedænic ulcers, consuming both flesh and
bone. When they attacked the upper part of the body they gave rise to
malign fluxions, which gnawed away the palate, or the windpipe, or the
throat, or the tonsils. Some patients lost their lips, others the nose,
others the eyes, others the whole organs of generation. Many were troubled
with moist tumors on the limbs, which grew as large as eggs or small
loaves. When they burst, a white and mucilaginous liquor exuded from them.
They were usually found on the legs and arms. Some were ulcerated, others
again remained callous to the last. And, as if this was not enough, the
patients suffered terrible pains, especially at night, not only in the
articulations, but in the limbs and nerves. Some sufferers, however, had
pustules without pains, others pains without pustules; but, in most cases,
both occurred together. The patients were languid, had no appetite,
desired to remain constantly in bed. The face and legs swelled. Some had a
slight fever, but this was rare; others had severe headaches for which no
remedy could be found."[203]
At first, it seems, the faculty, strangely misapprehending its duties,
refused to treat patients assailed by this new plague. As at Rome, they
were left to the tender mercies of quacks, barbers, and old women. About
the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, the extent of the
mischief provoked sympathy from the physicians, and one or two treatises
appeared on the subject. Sudorifics seem to have been the chief agent
employed. Large use was made of holy wood (the wood of the
lignum-vitæ-tree), which was imported from America for the purpose. It was
doses of holy wood, in decoction, which are said to have saved the life of
the great Erasmus.
After the passage of the law of 1497, a house in the Faubourg St. Germain
was appropriated to the reception of the victims of syphilis; but there is
no reason to believe that any attempt was made to treat them there. They
were left to die, or to quack themselves. Eighteen years after, in 1505,
the house in question being too small for the numbers of the sick, and it
being clearly shown that syphilis was not contagious except by sexual
intercourse or positive peculiar contact with the person afflicted, a new
decree of Parliament appropriated funds for the construction of "a
hospital for persons attacked by the large pox (_les grands vérolés_),"
and directed that they should be properly cared for.[204] This decree was
never carried into effect. Thirty years afterward the condition of the
sick was far worse than it had ever been, they being left to die in the
streets. A new decree, in 1535, appointed commissioners to choose a
locality for a hospital; and, notwithstanding some opposition from the
religious authorities, they performed their task. A small hospital was
appropriated to syphilitic patients, and persons suffering from itch,
epilepsy, and St. Vitus's dance. It was soon filled, and several patients
were thrust into the same bed. Owing to mismanagement on the part of the
directors, it was short of linen, lint, and medicine. The Parliament
interfered, but without success; and, in despair, the unfortunate
sufferers contrived to effect an entrance into the hospital general, the
Hotel Dieu. They were soon admitted on the same terms as other sufferers;
but, as the establishment was far too small to accommodate all who sought
refuge there, they were thrust four and five together into the same bed,
and persons with syphilitic diseases lay by the side of men in contagious
fevers, and others with broken legs and arms.
The Parliament interfered a second time. The municipal officers of Paris
were assembled, and called upon to provide a hospital for venereal cases;
but for many years the strenuous opposition of the Hotel Dieu neutralized
all the efforts that were made. It was not till 1614 that the project of
the Parliament was realized, and a syphilitic hospital actually opened.
Up to this time, that is to say, for a period of a century and a quarter,
persons attacked by venereal disease were left to the care of Providence.
Males could, with some exertion, occasionally obtain admission to the
Hotel Dieu, where they often contracted new diseases without getting rid
of the old; but of females, not a word had yet been spoken. No one in that
hundred and twenty-five years had ever raised a voice to plead on behalf
of the prostitutes; it never seems to have occurred, even to the
Parliament which had so much sympathy for the _pauvres vérolés_, that the
women likewise deserved pity and attention.
We possess no information with regard to the treatment used in this new
hospital. It is certain, however, that, in obedience to the law of its
foundation, patients were soundly whipped when they entered and when they
left it, by way of punishing them for having contracted the disease. In
1675 the managers of the hospital declared that this practice deterred
many sick persons from coming forward and confessing their condition; but
it prevailed, apparently, for a quarter of a century afterward.
About the middle of the seventeenth century, under the reign of Louis
XIV., a hospital prison, named the Salpétrière, was established for the
reception of prostitutes; but, by a strange inconsistency, in 1658 it was
closed to women suffering from syphilis (_femmes gatées_), and physicians
were directed to examine all women "who showed symptoms of syphilis on the
face." A few years' experience showed the fallacy of this system. Diseased
women were confined in the place; should they not be treated there? The
physicians thought they should, and accordingly, though in violation of
the rules of the establishment, a small room was appropriated to this
class of patients. It appears that at this time a prostitute found some
difficulty in obtaining admission to the Salpétrière; it being not unusual
for unfortunate creatures to have themselves arrested for vagabondage, and
to submit voluntarily to the whipping which the ethics of the day required
in the case of females as well as males, in order to obtain medical
treatment. It will be seen that our New York system can not claim the
merit of originality. Prostitutes, in fact, flocked to the Salpétrière in
such numbers that the room furnished by the connivance of the authorities
was soon far too small to accommodate them. The hospital managers declared
to the royal government that medical treatment was out of the question in
so crowded an apartment, and that a putrid fever might be expected if
better accommodations were not provided. In reply, the government placed
at their disposal a ward in the hospital of Bicêtre.
This was in 1691. For nearly a hundred years afterward the severe cases of
venereal disease were sent to Bicêtre, the milder ones kept at
Salpétrière. Both establishments were a disgrace to humanity. The patients
were cheated of the food allowed them, and supplied with cheap broth and
cheese in its stead. No baths, and but few medicines were at their
command. Their ward was filthy, close, and in ruin. Patients were often
obliged to wait so long for medical attendance that their maladies became
incurable. The air in which they lived was pestiferous, and no one could
visit the hospital without being shocked at its aspect.[205] Medical men
who saw the place expressed amazement that so many persons should exist in
so small a room. Eight women slept in a bed, and in the room appropriated
to those whose turn for treatment had not come, the patients slept by
gangs, one half sleeping from 8 P.M. to 1 A.M., and the remainder from 1
A.M. to 7 A.M. The floor was covered with dirt and filth, and the windows
were nailed down, for fear of their being broken if opened. There was but
little linen, and that was in rags, and abominably dirty. One hundred
persons only were treated at a time, fifty men and fifty women. A new
batch was admitted to treatment every two months, and, as the hospital
always contained from three to four hundred sufferers, some cases remained
six or eight months without any treatment whatever. Many died before they
reached the hands of the doctors. The diet was the same for all. Those who
had not been admitted to treatment were supplied with coarse bread,
cheese, rancid butter, and (very seldom) a little meat. The surgeons of
Bicêtre usually made fortunes in a short time.[206]
If any thing farther were needed to characterize the hospital of Bicêtre
in the eighteenth century, it would be the rules in virtue of which no
diseased person could claim admission until a complete year had elapsed
from the time of their first application, and every diseased person was
turned out, whether ill or well, after six weeks' treatment. It was stated
to M. Parent-Duchatelet that the average mortality was one hundred women
and sixty men per annum.[207]
In 1787, Dr. Cullerier was appointed surgeon in charge of syphilitic cases
at Bicêtre. He commenced his administration by denouncing the state of
things he found there, and it is mainly from the _memoires_ he addressed
to the government that the preceding facts have been obtained. His
representations seem to have met with but little success. In 1789,
however, the bulk of the prisoners at Bicêtre were set free, and he
immediately availed himself of the increased room to accommodate his
patients.
The reform was so slight, or rather so vast a reform was needed, that the
moment the attention of the republican government was drawn to the
subject, it removed the syphilitic cases from the hospital of Bicêtre to
the hospital of the Capuchins. That establishment was enlarged, and named
the Hospital of the South (l'Hôpital du Midi). Gardens and baths were
provided; ample wards permitted the classification of diseases; the food
was of the best kind, and sufficient in quantity. This immense step was
the work of the republican authorities.
It was, however, only the first of a series of reforms. Originally, men
and women of all grades were admitted promiscuously. This led to grave
inconveniences. The decorum of the hospital was frequently disturbed by
the conduct of some of the men with regard to the prostitutes in the
adjoining wards. To obviate this, a new hospital was set apart, under the
reign of Charles X., for the reception of male patients only. It is the
Hospital de Lourcine.
A still more serious trouble arose from the mixture of prostitutes with
other women who, from the infidelity of their husbands, hereditary
disease, or other causes, found themselves infected with syphilis. For
some time complaints had been made on this head, but an accident, which
occurred in 1828, compelled the authorities to act. The daughter of a
professional nurse, residing in the vicinity of Paris, caught syphilis
from a child her mother was nursing, who had inherited the disease. It
took the shape of a virulent chancre on the palate, and the girl was sent
to the Hospital du Midi for treatment. She found herself thrust among the
vilest prostitutes, whose language and sentiments shocked her so terribly
that she insisted on leaving the hospital at once. The physician on duty
declined to grant her request, whereupon the poor girl contrived to get
into the yard, and threw herself into a well. She was drowned, and on an
autopsy of her corpse it appeared that she was a virgin. This dreadful
incident aroused the public mind. Hitherto the disposal of the prostitutes
had been a subject of dispute between the administration of the hospital
and that of the city, each wishing to thrust them upon the other. The
government now interfered, and special accommodation was provided for
prostitutes at the prison of Saint Lazare. The Hospital du Midi was
devoted exclusively to such women as were not inscribed on the rolls of
the police.
Before these distributions took place, when men and women were
indiscriminately received at the Hospital du Midi, the average annual
admissions, from 1804 to 1814, were 2700; from 1822 to 1828 it exceeded an
average of 3100. Twenty years ago the mortality was said to be less than
two per cent.; it was ten per cent. at Bicêtre.
At the Hospital du Midi, diseased persons who do not desire admission to
the hospital are treated outside, all the medicines they require being
furnished them free of charge.
It would appear, from stray allusions in various old ordinances, that some
sort of medical office had been established in the eighteenth century by
the government, for the purpose of affording gratuitous advice to
prostitutes, and denouncing those who were diseased; but there exists no
positive evidence of any such establishment or office. It was not till
1803 that a regulation was made by the prefect of police, requiring all
public women to submit to be visited by a physician appointed by him. The
plan was a bad one, as the physician was paid by fees which he was
authorized to exact; and it was rendered worse in practice by the
dishonesty of the man chosen for the office, one Coulon. This individual
made money and neglected his duties. The system was altered in 1810, and a
dispensary established, with a strong medical staff, who were directed to
visit all the prostitutes in Paris. This institution is still in
existence; it will be further noticed in the next chapter.
When the dispensary was established, its medical officers were directed to
offer to prostitutes the choice of being treated at home or going to the
hospital. Almost all chose the former. The physicians then undertook to
decide themselves which should go to the hospital and which remain in
their houses. The results of their experience, and the policy it compelled
them to adopt, are shown in the following table, which was compiled by
Parent-Duchatelet:
Year. Treated
at home.
1812 276
1813 300
1814 296
1815 No report.
1816 "
1817 123
1818 No report.
1819 25
1820 19
1821 27
1824 27
1825 7
1826 4
The system of treating prostitutes at home was, in fact, given up. It was
found they could not be compelled to take the medicines given them; and
that, though laboring under the most severe disease, they would not
abstain from the exercise of their calling.
The tables prepared by the sanitary office, or dispensary, at Paris,
afford a clear view of the extent and progress of disease in that city. Of
those which are furnished by M. Parent-Duchatelet, we shall take a few of
the most striking. The following gives the aggregate disease for a period
of twenty years:
Years. Average Total.
Patients. Patients.
1812 51 612
1813 79 948
1814 102 1224
1815 Report missing.
1816 88 1056
1817 76 912
1818 68 816
1819 58 696
1820 62 744
1821 55 660
1822 Report missing.
1823 69 828
1824 84 1008
1825 81 972
1826 93 1116
1827 Report missing.
1828 104 1248
1829 99 1188
1830 91 1092
1831 110 1320
1832 78 936
-----
17376
Add approximate estimate for three years wanting 3250
-----
Total diseased in twenty years 20626[208]
Other tables, apparently drawn with care, show that the proportion of
disease to prostitutes varies widely in different years. In 1828 it was
six per cent., that is to say, six out of every hundred prostitutes were
diseased; but in 1832 it was barely three per cent. Four or five per cent.
would seem a tolerably fair average.[209]
From another table compiled by the same author we gather that, during a
period of eighteen years, January was found the most fatal month for
prostitutes; next came August and September; while February, April, May,
and July seemed seasons less favorable to disease. M. Duchatelet, however,
candidly admits that he can trace the operation of no law here, and
inclines to the belief that the variation is wholly due to chance.[210]
CHAPTER X.
FRANCE.--PRESENT REGULATIONS.
Number of Prostitutes in Paris.--Their Nativity, Parentage, Education,
Age, etc.--Causes of Prostitution.--Rules concerning tolerated
Houses.--Maisons de Passe.--Windows.--Keepers.--Formalities upon
granting Licenses.--Recruits.--Pimps.--Profits of Prostitution.--
Inscription.--Interrogatories.--Nativity, how ascertained.--
Obstacles.--Principles of Inscription.--Age at which Inscription is
made.--Radiation.--Provisional Radiation.--Statistics of Radiation.--
Classes of Prostitutes.--Visit to the Dispensary.--Visiting
Physicians.--Punishment.--Offenses.--Prison Discipline.--Saint
Denis.--Tax on Prostitutes.--Inspectors.--Bon Pasteur Asylum.--
(Note: Duchatelet's Bill for the Repression of Prostitution.)
It remains to describe the state and system of prostitution at Paris at
the present day. The vast importance of the subject will doubtless justify
the length at which it must be treated.
It was usual, during the last century, to estimate the number of
prostitutes in Paris at twenty-five or thirty thousand. Even as late as
1810, the number was said by good authority to be not less than eighteen
thousand.[211] The police rolls show that these calculations were wide of
the mark. According to them, the average number of prostitutes inscribed
had risen, from about 1900 in 1814, to 3558 in 1832, the last year of
which we have any record. Assuming that the number at present is 4500, or
thereabouts, which would suppose an increase equal to that noted before
1832, the prostitutes are one to every two hundred and fifty of the total
population. Of these the city of Paris furnishes rather more than one
third. The remainder come from the departments; those bordering on Paris
being the most fruitful of prostitutes, and the north being largely in
excess of production over the south.
The vast majority of these prostitutes are the children of operatives and
mechanics. Of 828 fathers, there were
Weavers 19
Peddlers 12
Masons and Tilers 28
Water-carriers 11
Stage and Carriage Drivers 35
Shoemakers 50
Farmers and Gardeners 31
Servants 23
Individuals employed in Foundries, etc. 18
Day-laborers 113
Carpenters 31
Liquor-sellers 22
Smiths 23
Grocers and Fruit-sellers 18
Soldiers, on pensions 30
Clock-makers and Jewelers 16
Barbers and Hair-dressers 16
Persons without trade or calling 64
Tailors 22
Plasterers, Pavers, etc. 21
Coopers 11
Painters, Glaziers, and Printers 25
Whereas there were only
Surgeons, Physicians, and Lawyers 4
Teachers 3
Musicians 9
The inference drawn by M. Parent-Duchatelet from this is, that brothels
are supplied from the classes of domestics and factory-girls; and that
girls not bred to work rarely find their way into them. Rather more than
one third of the fathers of these prostitutes were unable to sign their
names.
Of the prostitutes born at Paris, about one fourth were illegitimate; of
those born in the departments, one eighth were illegitimate.
Rather more than half the Paris prostitutes could not write their names; a
degree of ignorance which argues very remarkable neglect on the part of
parents, for at Paris every one may learn to write gratuitously, and a
person who can not write will always experience difficulty in obtaining
employment.
Nearly half the prostitutes were between the ages of twenty and twenty-six
inclusive. One declared herself, or was proved to be, only twelve years
old; thirty-four were over fifty; two were over sixty. On reference to the
rolls of inscription, it appeared that the bulk of the prostitutes
registered themselves between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two; but
thirty-four were inscribed before the age of fourteen, which may be
assumed to be the period of puberty in France, and a few after passing
fifty.
The following table shows the number of years during which the Paris
prostitutes had exercised their calling at the time the inquiry was made:
Time. Number of
Prostitutes.
1 year and under 439
From 1 to 2 years 590
" 2 to 3 " 440
" 3 to 4 " 485
" 4 to 5 " 294
" 5 to 6 " 139
" 6 to 7 " 150
" 7 to 8 " 143
" 8 to 9 " 96
" 9 to 10 " 100
" 10 to 11 " 109
" 11 to 12 " 93
" 12 to 13 " 99
" 13 to 14 " 98
" 14 to 15 " 107
" 15 to 16 " 80
" 16 to 17 " 19
" 17 to 18 " 14
" 18 to 19 " 17
" 19 to 20 " 4
" 20 to 21 " --
" 21 to 22 " 1
" 22 to 23 " --
M. Duchatelet made careful inquiries into the causes of prostitution. He
admits that, the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy information on this
head being very great, many errors may have found their way into his
calculations. He gives them, however, for what they may be worth.
Want 1441
Expulsion from home, or desertion of parents 1255
Desire to support old and infirm parents 37
" " " younger brothers and sisters, or nephews and nieces 29
Widows with families to support 23
Girls from the country, to support themselves 280
" " " " brought to Paris by soldiers, clerks, students,
etc. 404
Servants seduced by masters and abandoned 289
Concubines abandoned by their lovers 1425
----
Total 5183
It appears that there were in Paris, in 1832, two hundred and twenty
"tolerated houses"--that is to say, brothels. The rules regarding these
are numerous. They can not be established in certain localities, such as
the Boulevards, or other great thoroughfares. They must not be within one
hundred yards of a church, or within fifty or sixty yards of a school,
whether for boys or girls; of a palace or other public building, or of a
large boarding-house. The proprietor of the house must have given his
consent before the house can be used as a brothel. Two houses can not be
established side by side, much less can they have the same entry. As a
general rule, a preference is given to small, narrow streets, especially
_culs de sac_, and to places where brothels have been established before.
With regard to the interior of these houses, they must contain a room for
each girl; on no account are two prostitutes allowed to occupy the same
room, much less the same bed. Each room must, moreover, be amply provided
with utensils, soap, and water, for ablution. No house of prostitution can
have back or side doors, or in any way communicate with the adjoining
buildings. No house can contain dark closets, or dark passages, or
concealed hiding-places. In none of them can any trade or traffic be
carried on.
With regard to the class of houses called _maisons de passe_ (assignation
houses), the police authorities require that in every such house two
regular prostitutes, inscribed on the police rolls, shall live
permanently. The object of this rule is to obtain a control and
supervision over these houses. Before it was adopted the police was often
embarrassed by denials of its authority to invade them. It is found that
the prostitutes, being naturally hostile to the mistresses of the houses,
will act as agents of the police in the event of any scandalous
proceedings.
The windows of houses of prostitution must be roughed, as also must those
of rooms where individual prostitutes live. They can only be partially
opened. These regulations were made in consequence of the shocking scenes
that were witnessed at the windows of brothels after the Revolution, naked
women being the least of the scandals that used to be exposed.
No one can keep a house of prostitution in Paris without an authorization
from the police. Men are never permitted to keep establishments of the
kind. A woman who desires to open a house must apply in writing to the
Prefect of Police. On receipt of her application, reference is made to the
Commissary of Police of the ward to ascertain her character. If she has
been condemned for crime or misdemeanor, her request is rarely granted. If
she stands in the police books as a woman requiring supervision, she can
not succeed. Nor can she obtain a license, under ordinary circumstances,
_unless she has been a prostitute herself_. The reason of this regulation
is obvious; no one but a prostitute understands the business thoroughly;
and as the position of brothel-keeper is found to be the most demoralizing
station in the world, it has been the policy of the Paris police to throw
impediments in the way of persons not wholly depraved devoting themselves
to so dangerous a calling. Furthermore, the applicant must have reached a
certain age. She must also be of sober habits, and apparently possessed of
sufficient force of character to be able to command a house full of
prostitutes. She must possess a sum of money sufficient to guarantee her
against immediate failure, and she must own the furniture in the house she
wishes to keep.
When all these conditions are fulfilled, the applicant receives a
pass-book, in which the number of girls she is allowed to keep is
specified. In this book she is bound to enter the name of every prostitute
she receives, whether as a boarder or a transient lodger; her age, the
date of her entry into her house, the date of her inspection by a
physician, and the date of her departure from the house. A printed form in
the beginning of the pass-book reminds the mistress of the house that she
is bound, under heavy penalties, to inscribe on the police rolls every
girl she receives within twenty-four hours of her arrival.
In the event of the neglect of these rules by the keepers of houses of
prostitution, the license is revoked. It is understood that the police
enforce this regulation with due rigor.
Much has been said and written about the manner in which the keepers of
houses of prostitution obtain recruits. M. Parent-Duchatelet, whose
sources of information were the best, gives it as his opinion that most of
the prostitutes are obtained from the hospitals, especially the Hospital
du Midi, where female venereal diseases are treated. It appears that this
hospital and others are haunted by old women who have been prostitutes,
and who, in their old age, eke out a livelihood by enticing others into
the same calling. They soon discover the antecedents and disposition of
every young girl they find in hospitals; and if she be pretty or engaging,
she must either have much principle or careful friends to rescue her from
the clutches of the old hags. While she lies ill on a bed of pain, the
latter are constantly with her, and gain her friendship. They know the
devices that are needed to impose on her simplicity, and not unfrequently
are enabled to strengthen their promises by small donations in money, or a
weekly stipend during her convalescence. For a pretty girl as much as
fifty francs will be paid by a brothel-keeper. As the girls in France,
with few exceptions, come to Paris to be cured when they have contracted
disease from association with lovers, it seems quite likely that, as M.
Parent-Duchatelet supposes, these hospitals are a fruitful source of
prostitutes.
Other brothel-keepers have female agents in the country towns, who send
them girls. One well-known woman, who kept for many years one of the
largest establishments in France, employed a traveling clerk with a large
salary. Some obtain boarders from their own province or native city;
others, who have followed a trade, get recruits from the acquaintances
they made at the workshop. Latterly, it would seem, pimps have carried on
their trade with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was
noticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from Rheims.
They all came provided with the name and address of the houses to which
they were destined, and drove there from the stage-office. Information was
sent to the police authorities of Rheims, and on their arrival the girls
were sent back again. The design of the authorities was baffled for a
while by the cunning of the pimps, who sent their recruits round by other
roads; but the police finally triumphed by refusing, for a year or two, to
inscribe any prostitutes from Rheims.
It is notorious, however, that the same traffic is carried on at the
present day to an alarming extent between London and Paris, London and
Brussels, and other large cities in the neighborhood. Several societies
have been formed, and the police have made great exertions to suppress the
trade, but without any particular success.
It is understood that the prostitutes of Paris receive nothing for their
"labors" but their board, lodging, and dress. The latter is often
expensive. In first-class houses it will exceed five hundred francs, which
in female attire will go as far at Paris as five hundred dollars will in
New York. The whole of the fees exacted from visitors goes to the
mistress, and the girls are reluctantly permitted to retain the presents
they sometimes receive from their lovers. They are usually in debt to the
mistress, who, having no other means of retaining them under her control,
hastens to advance them money for jewelry, carriages, fine eating, and
expensive wines. No written contract binds them to remain where they are;
they may leave when they please, if they can pay their debts; and the
obligation they incur for the latter is one of honor only, and can not be
enforced in the courts.
Houses of prostitution, when well conducted, are very profitable in Paris.
It is estimated that the net profits accruing from each girl ought to be
ten francs or more per day. Many keepers of houses have retired with from
ten to twenty-five thousand francs a year, and have married their
daughters well. The good-will of a popular house has been sold for sixty
thousand francs (twelve thousand dollars).
We now come to the great feature of the Paris system: the inscription of
prostitutes in a department of the Prefecture of Police, called the
_Bureau des Moeurs_. It seems that some sort of inscription was in use
before the Revolution, but no law referring to it, or records of the
rolls, can be found. Various systems were employed during the Republic and
the Empire. The one now in use was adopted in 1816, and amended by a
police regulation of 1828.
Prostitutes are inscribed either
1. On their own request;
2. On the requisition of the mistress of a house; or,
3. On the report of the inspector of prostitutes.
When a girl appears before the bureau under any of these circumstances,
she is asked the following questions, the answers being taken down in
writing:
1. Her name, age, birth-place, trade, and residence?
2. Whether she is a widow, wife, or spinster?
3. Whether her father and mother are living, and what their calling
was or is?
4. Whether she lives with them, and if not, when and how she left
them?
5. Whether she has had children, and where they are?
6. How long she has been at Paris?
7. Whether any one has a right to claim her?
8. Whether she has ever been arrested, and if yes, how often, and for
what offenses?
9. Whether she has ever been a prostitute before, and for what period
of time?
10. Whether she has, or has had, venereal disease?
11. Whether she has received any education?
12. What her motive is in inscribing herself?
The answers to these inquiries suggest others, which are put at the
discretion of the officials. Their practice is so great that they are
rarely deceived by the women; M. Parent-Duchatelet affirms that they could
tell an old prostitute merely by the way she sat down.
The interrogatory over, the girl is taken by an inspector to the
Dispensary and examined, and the physician on duty reports the result,
which is added to the inquiry. Meanwhile, the police registers have been
consulted, and if the girl has been an old offender, or is known to the
police, she is now identified.
If the girl has her baptismal certificate (_extrait de naissance_) with
her, she is forthwith inscribed, and registered among the public women of
Paris. As prostitutes rarely possess this document, however, a provisional
inscription is usually effected, and a direct application is made to the
mayor of the city or _commune_ where she was born for the certificate.
This application varies according to the age of the girl. If she is of age
it is simply a demand for the "_extrait de naissance_ of ---- ----, who
says she is a native of your city or _commune_." If, on the contrary, she
is a minor, the application states that "a girl who calls herself
--------, and says she was born at ----, has applied for inscription in
this office. I desire you to ascertain the position of her family, and
what means they propose to take in case they desire to secure the return
of this young girl."
It often happens that the family implore the intervention of the police;
in that case the girl is sent back to the place whence she came. In many
cases the family decline to interfere, and then the girl is duly inscribed
on the register. She signs a document, in which she states that, "being
duly acquainted with the sanitary regulations established by the
Prefecture for Public Women, she declares that she will submit to them,
will allow herself to be visited periodically by the physicians of the
Dispensary, and will conform in all respects to the rules in force."
Of course this procedure is occasionally delayed by falsehoods uttered by
the women. It often used to happen that the mayors would report that no
person of the name given had been born at the time fixed in their city or
commune. In that case the girl was recalled, and made to understand that
truth was better policy than falsehood. Girls rarely held out longer than
a fortnight or so, and, at the present time, the number of false
declarations is very small indeed. They seem satisfied that the police are
an omniscient machine which can not be deceived.
When the girl is brought to the office either by a brothel-keeper or an
inspector, the proceeding is slightly varied. In the latter case she has
been arrested for indulging in clandestine prostitution, but she almost
invariably denies the fact, and pleads her innocence. The rule, in this
case, is to admonish her and let her go. It is not till the third or
fourth offense has been committed that she is inscribed. When the mistress
of a house brings a girl to the office, interrogatories similar to the
above are put to her. If she has relations or friends at Paris, they are
sent for and consulted. When the girl appears evidently lost, she is duly
inscribed; but if she shows any signs of shame or contrition, she is
often sent home by the office at the public expense. It need hardly be
said that when a girl is found diseased she is sent to hospital and her
inscription held over. It occasionally happens that virgins present
themselves at the office and desire to be inscribed; in their case the
officials use compulsion to rescue them from infamy.
In a word, the Paris system with regard to inscriptions is to inscribe no
girl with regard to whom it is not manifest that she will carry on the
calling of a prostitute whether she be inscribed or not.
From the following table, prepared by M. Parent-Duchatelet from the
records of a series of years, it appears that the mistresses of houses
inscribe over one third of the total prostitutes:
Girls inscribed at their own request 7388
" " by mistresses of houses 4436
" " by inspectors 720
-----
Total 12544
The age at which girls can be inscribed has varied under different
administrators. Under one it was seventeen, under his successor eighteen,
under the next twenty-one years; but now the general rule is that no girl
should be inscribed under the age of sixteen. Exceptions to this rule are
made in the case of younger girls--of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, who
lead a life of prostitution, and are frequently attacked by disease. From
a regard to public health, they are inscribed notwithstanding their age.
Only second in importance to the subject of inscription is that of
"radiation," the obliteration of an inscription. This is the process by
which a prostitute takes leave of her calling, throws off the control of
the police, and regains her civil rights. At Rome, as has been shown
already, no such formality as radiation was known to the law; _once a
prostitute, always a prostitute_, was the Roman rule. This system did not
long sustain the test of a Christian examination.
The policy of the French _Bureau des Moeurs_ on this head is governed by
two very simple maxims: 1st. The amendment of prostitutes ought to be
encouraged as much as possible; 2d. But no prostitute should be released
from the supervision of the police and the visits of the Dispensary
physicians until there is reasonable ground for believing that her
repentance and alteration of life are sincere and likely to be permanent.
A person desiring to have her name struck from the rolls of public women
must make a written application, specifying her reasons for desiring to
change her mode of life, and indicating the means of support on which she
is henceforth to rely. In three cases the demand is granted forthwith:
1st. When the girl _proves_ that she is about to marry; 2d. When she
produces the certificate of a physician that she is attacked by an organic
disease which renders it impossible for her to continue the calling of a
prostitute; and, 3d. When she has gone to live with her relations, and
produces evidence of her late good behavior.
In all other cases the office awards a "provisional radiation." For a
period of time, which varies, according to circumstances, from three
months to a year, the girl is still under the supervision of the police,
such supervision being obviously secret and discreet. When the girl passes
triumphantly through this period of probation, her name is definitely
struck from the roll of prostitutes.
When a girl, after having her name thus struck out, desires to be
inscribed afresh, her request is granted without delay or inquiry, it
being wisely supposed that she has repented of her decision. A
re-inscription also takes place when a girl, after radiation, is found in
a house of prostitution even as a servant.
A prostitute is struck from the rolls by authority of the office when she
has disappeared, and no trace of her has been found for three months.
M. Parent-Duchatelet gives the following table of radiations, which, taken
in connection with the table already given of the number of prostitutes
registered, shows the movement of reform:
+------------------------------------------+
| | Women struck off the Rolls of |
| | Prostitutes |
|Years.|-----------------------------------|
| | At their |In consequence| |
| |own request.| of absence. | Total.|
|------|------------|--------------|-------|
| 1817 | 485 | 575 | 1060 |
| 1818 | 477 | 582 | 1059 |
| 1819 | 469 | 571 | 1040 |
| 1820 | 415 | 716 | 1131 |
| 1821 | 433 | 733 | 1166 |
| 1822 | 417 | 739 | 1156 |
| 1823 | 502 | 605 | 1107 |
| 1824 | 442 | 602 | 1044 |
| 1825 | 456 | 527 | 983 |
| 1826 | 486 | 554 | 1040 |
| 1827 | 490 | 542 | 1032 |
| 1828 | 572 | 415 | 987 |
| 1829 | 298 | 536 | 834 |
| 1830 | 334 | 502 | 836 |
| 1831 | 284 | 452 | 736 |
| 1832 | 449 | 718 | 1167 |
| |------------|--------------|-------|
| | 7009 | 9369 | 16378 |
+------------------------------------------+
Once inscribed, prostitutes are divided into three classes:
1st. Those who live in a licensed or "tolerated" brothel.
2d. Those who live alone in furnished rooms.
3d. Those who live in rooms which they furnish, and outwardly bear no mark
of infamy.
In the eye of the law there is no difference between the three classes;
all are equally subject to police and medical supervision. Every girl that
is inscribed receives a card bearing her name, and the number of her page
in the register; a blank column of this card is left to be filled by a
memorandum of the date of each visit by the physicians of the Dispensary.
But the three classes differ in respect of the place where they are
visited. The Dispensary physicians visit the inmates of brothels in the
houses where they live; all other prostitutes visit them at the
Dispensary. Yet another visit is made by the Dispensary physicians to the
Dépôt, or Lock-up, at the Prefecture of Police; as there are always a
certain number of prostitutes arrested for drunkenness or disorderly
conduct every night, it was thought well to seize the opportunity of their
confinement to inquire into the state of their health.
All houses of prostitution are visited by the Dispensary physicians once a
week; the hour of the visit is known beforehand, and every girl must be
present and pass inspection. The examination is private; the result is
noted in a "folio" kept by the physician, and a corresponding memorandum
is made in the pass-book of the house and on the card of the prostitute.
When disease is detected, the mistress of the house is notified, and
cautioned not to allow the girl diseased to receive any visitors. That
afternoon, or the next morning, she comes or is brought to the Dispensary,
where she undergoes a second examination, and, if the result is the same
as at the first, she is forthwith sent to Saint Lazare for treatment.
Free prostitutes, that is to say, those who live in lodgings or rooms
furnished by themselves, are bound to visit the Dispensary, and submit to
examination once a fortnight. They choose the time and day themselves, but
more than a fortnight must not elapse between the visits.
It appears, from tables published by M. Parent-Duchatelet, that these
rules are strictly enforced. Free prostitutes are visited nearly thirty
times a year, and prostitutes in tolerated houses more than fifty times.
We have alluded elsewhere to the results of the visits.
Experience has proved that the only safe method of punishment for
prostitutes is imprisonment. Formerly they were whipped, and at a later
date their hair was cut off; but the humane spirit of modern legislation
has rejected both these punishments as unduly cruel. At the present day,
offenses against the rules concerning prostitution (_delits de
prostitution_) are punished by imprisonment; misdemeanors and crimes
provided against by the code being within the cognizance of the ordinary
courts in the case of prostitutes as well as other persons.
_Delits de prostitution_ have been divided by the _Bureau des Moeurs_ into
two classes, slight offenses and grave offenses; slight offenses are:
1. To appear in forbidden places.
2. To appear at forbidden hours.
3. To get drunk, and lie down in doorways, streets, or other
thoroughfares.
4. To demand admittance to guard-houses.
5. To walk through the streets in daylight in such a way as to attract
the notice of people passing.
6. To rap on the windows of their rooms.
7. To absent themselves from the medical inspection.
8. To beg.
9. To remain more than twenty-four hours in their house, after having
been pronounced diseased by the physician.
10. To escape from the Hospital or Dispensary.
11. To go out of doors with bare head or neck.
12. To remain in Paris after having been ordered to leave, and
presented with a passport.
This class of offenses is punished by imprisonment for not less than a
fortnight or more than three months. One month is the usual term.
A prostitute is held to be guilty of grave offenses when she
1. Insults outrageously the visiting physician.
2. Fails to visit the Dispensary.
3. Continues to prostitute herself after being pronounced diseased.
4. Uses obscene language in public.
5. Appears naked at her window.
6. Assails men with violence, and endeavors to drag them to her home.
These offenses are punished by imprisonment for not less than three
months, and not more than a year, rarely more than six months. The time is
fixed in these cases with reference to the former character of the
prostitute.
When a prostitute is arrested she is taken to the Prefecture of Police,
where there is a room specially appropriated to her class. She is tried
within forty-eight, usually within twenty-four hours of her arrival. When
condemned, she is conveyed in a close carriage or van to the prison.
The prison at Paris usually contains from four hundred and fifty to six
hundred inmates. They are all obliged to work. A few are generally found
incapable, either from idiocy, blindness, or incorrigible obstinacy, of
performing even the simplest work. These are lodged in a department called
"the ward of the imbeciles." The others are allowed to choose their work;
the bulk naturally take to sewing. They are paid a small sum for what they
do, partly as they proceed with the work, and the balance when they leave
the prison. Industrious girls receive, from the money coming to them, from
five to eight _sous_ daily. That this, added to the ample food supplied by
the prison, suffices for their wants, is proved by the frequent purchases
they make of flowers and other superfluities. Formerly, prostitutes in
prison were not expected to work, and at this period fights and
disturbances were of constant occurrence. Now the discipline is excellent
and the prisoners orderly. The only penalty for disobedience of rules or
misconduct is close confinement in the _cachot_.
M. Parent-Duchatelet admits that the prison discipline is so gentle that
the punishment has no terrors for prostitutes. It is quite common to find
girls who have been thirty times condemned to imprisonment. He recommends
the use of the tread-mill as a corrective.
His experience led him to question the utility of nuns and priests in the
prostitutes' prison. He does not think they do any good, and inclines to
the belief that the counsels and visits of married women, who look rather
to the moral than religious reform of the women, would be productive of
more benefit.
The old practice in France was to admit visitors to the prostitutes'
prison at certain hours and in a certain room, but this was found to be
productive of great evils. The scenes in the visitors' room were
outrageous, and a new system was accordingly adopted. No one was allowed
to visit a prostitute but a _bona fide_ relation, and even such a one was
required to obtain a written permit from the Prefecture of Police.
A certain number of prostitutes are sent every year to the prison of St.
Denis. These are those who, from physical or mental infirmities, such as
recto-vaginal fistula, cancer, incurable organic disease, idiocy, etc.,
are incapacitated from pursuing their calling, and run risk of starvation.
Not more than eight or ten of these are sent to St. Denis in the course
of the year. The mortality among them there is not less than twenty-five
per cent. per annum.[212]
Until a few years ago, a tax was levied on the Paris prostitutes for the
support of the Dispensary. Each mistress of a house paid twelve francs per
month; each girl living alone, three francs per month. A fine of two
francs was also laid on all prostitutes who were behind their time in
visiting the Dispensary. The product of these various taxes amounted to
from seventy-five to ninety thousand francs per annum. The system was
abolished on the ground of its immorality. A popular notion is said to
have prevailed that the police received half a million or more from the
tax on prostitution, and attacks on the administration in consequence were
incessant. The police authorities gave way at last, and the municipal
council of the city undertook to defray the cost of the Dispensary for the
future. Similar taxes appear to have existed at Lyons, Strasbourg, and
other cities.[213]
Allusion has been made to inspectors. At the time M. Parent-Duchatelet
wrote there were ten inspectors, who had each charge of one tenth of the
city. Their business was to see that the regulations governing prostitutes
were carried out. They arrested offending women, and transferred them to
the Prefecture of Police. In case of resistance, they summoned the aid of
the ordinary police of the ward. They were not allowed themselves to use
violence either to arrest or drag a girl to prison. They were usually
picked men of good character. Their salary was twelve hundred francs a
year, besides handsome presents.[214]
In conclusion, a word must be said of the establishment called the _Bon
Pasteur_. It is a Magdalen Asylum established many years ago by some
benevolent ladies, and now mainly supported by an annual vote from the
city of Paris, and an allowance from the hospitals. It receives
prostitutes who desire to reform; feeds, clothes, and instructs them;
provides them with places when they desire to leave, or with work when
they wish to remain in the establishment. The rule is that no prostitute
can be received under eighteen or over twenty-five years of age. Beyond
these limits it has been found that the humane efforts of the directresses
of the establishment have rarely led to any result. No compulsion is used
in any case by the managers. Girls are free to leave as they are free to
come. So long as they remain, however, they must conform to the rules of
the establishment, which are strict without being monastic. The average
admissions to the asylum for the first twelve years of its existence were
twenty per annum. The mortality among the residents was very large, being
equal to twenty per cent. on the total number during the twelve years. Of
the whole number (two hundred and forty-five), forty were dismissed for
insubordination; twenty-seven left of their own accord, and probably
returned to their old courses, and fifteen were returned to the police.
The remainder were either restored to their families, or placed in
situations in the hospitals or elsewhere.
Small as these numbers appear in comparison with the large army of
prostitutes exercising their calling at Paris, it is not at all doubtful
but the establishment is a useful one. No one can help but concur with M.
Parent-Duchatelet when he observes that, "did it not exist, it would be
necessary to create it."
NOTE.--As M. Parent-Duchatelet has written the best, we might almost
say the only philosophical work on prostitution extant, it may be
useful to subjoin the test of the statute which he proposed to
regulate the subject of prostitution.
LAW RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF PROSTITUTION.
_Art. 1._ The duty of repressing prostitution, whether with
provocation on the public highway or otherwise, is intrusted at Paris
to the Prefect of Police, and in all the other _communes_ of France to
the mayors respectively.
_Art. 2._ A discretionary authority over all persons engaged in public
prostitution is vested in these functionaries, within the scope of
their powers.
_Art. 3._ Shall constitute evidence of public prostitution either,
1st, direct provocation thereto on the public highway; 2d, public
notoriety; or, 3d, legal proof adduced after accusation and trial.
_Art. 4._ The Prefect of Police at Paris, and the mayors in the other
_communes_, shall make any and all regulations which they may deem
suitable for the repression of prostitution, and such regulations
shall bear upon all those who encourage prostitution as a
trade--lodgers, inn-keepers and tavern-keepers, landlords and tenants.
_Art. 5._ The Dispensary at Paris for the superintendence of women of
the town is placed on the same footing as the public health
establishments. Other similar dispensaries may be established wherever
they are needed.
_Art. 6._ A full report of the proceedings of these dispensaries shall
be forwarded annually to the Minister of the Interior.
M. Duchatelet conceived this short law to be adequate for the purpose.
It may be presumed that he took for granted that the mayors of the
_communes_ would never attempt to carry out original views of their
own on the subject; he doubtless gave them credit for sufficient
self-abnegation to adopt, without question, the elaborate and sensible
plan which experience has taught the authorities of Paris. How far
this assumption was justifiable appears uncertain, in view of the fact
that at Lyons and Strasbourg, the prostitutional system has always
differed from that of the capital. In both those cities a tax has been
levied on prostitutes till a very late period; at Lyons it was
exacted, it is believed, in 1842.
CHAPTER XI.
ITALY.
Decline of Public Morals.--Papal Court.--Nepotism.--John XXII.--Sextus
IV.--Alexander VI.--Effect of the Reformation.--Poem of Fracastoro.--
Benvenuto Cellini.--Beatrice Cenci.--Laws of Naples.--Pragmatic Law of
1470.--Court of Prostitutes.--Bull of Clement II.--Prostitution in
Lombardy and Piedmont.--Clerical Statute.--Modern Italy.--Laws of
Rome.--Public Hospitals.--Lazaroni of Naples.--Italian Manners as
depicted by Lord Byron.--Foundling Hospitals.--True Character of
Italian People.
Birth-place of modern art and literature, dowered with the fatal heritage
of beauty, Italy, in the varied passages of her career among the nations,
has been as remarkable for the vice and sensuality of her children as she
has been eminent for their talents and acquirements.
The heart of the historical student thrills with respectful sympathy over
the sorrows and ennobling virtues of her patriots in all ages, or his
intellect is captivated with enthusiastic admiration and reverence in
considering the monuments of resplendent genius given to mankind by her
sons. Let him turn the page, and his soul recoils in disgust and deepest
horror from the narrative of corruption the most abandoned, ambition the
most unscrupulous, lust the most abominable, crime the most tremendous, to
which the history of the world scarcely offers a parallel, and which
brands the perpetrators with the execration of all succeeding generations.
The most glorious era of the Italian republics immediately preceded their
downfall. Like shining lights, they perished by their own effulgence. The
mutual jealousies of Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Lucca, and the numerous
independent cities and states, stirred up in them a "noble and emulous
rage" to excel each other in the encouragement they gave to art and
letters, and the mighty works produced by their respective citizens. But
the same sentiment also roused them to deadlier feuds, and the common
field of national patriotism being shut up, they exhausted themselves and
each other by desperately-protracted struggles and incredible sacrifices
of blood and treasure. Thus they paved the way to the introduction of the
foreigner and the mercenary, who completed their ruin; until, in place of
the small but illustrious republics which formed a diadem of brightest
gems, arose a system of petty tyrants, who plunged the country into misery
and degradation. These, in turn, were swept away by the strong arm of a
despotism which has never since relaxed its grasp of this loveliest
country of the earth.
No influence played a more important part in bringing about this
catastrophe than that of the court of Rome. By the intrigues of the Roman
pontiffs the mutual jealousies of the states were exacerbated and their
quarrels fomented. While these results were caused by the political
actions of the popes and their advisers, the worst effects were produced
upon public manners and morals by their example. The abuses which had
established themselves among the Roman hierarchy were the natural
consequences of long and undisturbed enjoyment by the clergy of their vast
immunities and privileges. The demoralization and dissoluteness which thus
existed, and which spread its poison throughout the civilized world, but
especially throughout Italy, are attested to posterity by all contemporary
writers.
The enormous iniquity which distinguished such men as John XXII., Sextus
IV., or Alexander VI., is notorious to all. Although the character of
communities is not to be inferred from the actions of exceptional
prodigies, either of virtue or vice, it is evident that the system which
could place monsters like these in the august positions they filled must
have been rotten to the core. The worth of a Leo X. or a Clement VII.
consisted in the absence of the grosser vices rather than in any positive
excellence, and the encouragement given by such men to objectionable
practices did more to confirm a laxity of morals than the odious and
unpardonable offenses of their predecessors.
Some of the political profligacy of the court of Rome, and, through its
example, of the other Italian courts, was owing to the system which had
sprung up of each pope providing for his family. The term _nepote_
(nephew) was in common use as expressing the relationship which existed
between the pope and the individuals selected for advancement. The priests
of all denominations had nephews and nieces to provide for, and the abuses
covered by the term were objects of the keenest satire. In fact, Innocent
VIII. thus provided for eight openly avowed sons and daughters.[215] The
pseudo-avuncular obligations of Sextus IV. were also well known. Other
popes, whose sins were not in this particular direction, having no sons,
adopted a _bona fide_ nephew, and one or two, feeling the want of ties of
kindred or family relationship, actually adopted strangers. In one
instance, the Donna Olimpia, a niece by marriage, and "a lady of ability
and a manly spirit," took the place of a nephew in the court of Innocent
X., without any imputation on the character of either pope or niece.[216]
The effect produced by this example in high places, particularly upon the
clergy, and through them on the community, can be imagined. By a decree of
the Church in the eleventh session of the Lateran Council it appears that
the clergy were accustomed to live in a state of public concubinage, nay,
more, to allow others to do so for money paid to them by permission.
Dante, in one of his daring flights, compares the papal court to Babylon,
and declares it a place deprived of virtue and shame. In the nineteenth
canto of the Inferno, Dante, visiting hell, finds Nicholas III. there
waiting the arrival of Boniface, who again is to be succeeded by Clement.
The Reformation compelled some attention to morals among the clergy, and
for a time an earnest endeavor was made at a purification of the Church.
This was one of the chief labors of the famous Council of Trent. That
council certainly did repress the abuses among the general clergy, but the
law-makers were law-breakers. They could not touch the cardinals,
archbishops, or the Pope himself, and thus little radical change was
effected among the chief dignitaries.[217]
There are not wanting writers who acquit the Italian national character of
blame in the matter, attributing the general corruption partly to the
frightful example of foreign invaders. The invasion of Charles VIII.,
himself a dissolute monarch, with the universal licentiousness of the
French troops, did undoubtedly contribute largely to ruin the morals of
the people at large, but, to use the words of Machiavelli, "If the papal
court were removed to Switzerland, the simplest and most religious people
of Europe would, in an incredibly short time, have become utterly depraved
by the vicious example of the Italian priesthood."[218]
The ecclesiastics did not confine themselves to licentiousness of conduct.
The clerical writers are charged with a taste for that lowest practice of
debased minds, obscenity, in which particular they exceed the lay writers.
Roscoe, an accomplished Italian scholar and a man not given to railing,
maintains this allegation.[219] This reminds us of Pope's lines:
"Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of decency is want of sense."
For the limited range of our present subject, history, so profuse of
illustration of war, bloodshed, and the personal adventures of men
noteworthy by their position or character, is exceedingly chary of
materials. In the case of Italy the testimony as to the morals of men in
high places is superabundant, and these and the legislative enactments of
the period will furnish some of the information of which we are in search.
In the fifteenth century, Charles VIII., in his wars to gain Naples from
the Spaniards, drew down unspeakable miseries upon the wretched Italians.
His armies are reputed to have indulged in every excess of unbridled
license and rapine; and it was during the siege of Naples that the
venereal disease is said to have first made its appearance, although the
particulars given of this malady in Chapter IX., under the head of France,
show that syphilis existed in Naples two or three years before the siege.
As generally happens with new diseases, whether from fear or ignorance of
the means to control them, it was represented that the affliction was of a
malignity never since known. Its frightful ravages and disgusting
character impressed the minds of men with a belief that it was a new
scourge, sent specially as a punishment for the debauchery and
prostitution of the period, each party retorting on the other the charge
of having introduced it, and styling it _Morbo-Gallico_ or _Mal de
Naples_, according to the nation to which they belonged. No class seems to
have been exempt from it. Sextus della Rovere, nephew of Sextus IV., one
of the wealthiest and most dissolute ecclesiastics of the age, was "rotten
from his middle to the soles of his feet."[220] Even the haughty and
majestic Julius II. would not expose his feet to the obeisance of the
faithful, because they were discolored by the Morbus Gallicus:[221] Leo,
his accomplished and munificent successor, was said to have owed his
elevation to the fact that he was in such a depraved state of body as to
render necessary a surgical operation in the Consistorium while the
election was proceeding, the cardinals selecting the most sickly candidate
for the papal tiara.[222] An unequivocal allusion to the pontiff's
pursuits is found in an honorary inscription to Leo X. on his entrance
into Florence, of which he was a native.
_Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora: tempora Mavos
Olim habuit; nunc sua tempora Pallas habet:
Mars fuit; est Pallas; Cypra semper erit._
Formerly Venus reigned supreme, then Mars, now Pallas:
Mars was, Pallas now is, Venus shall always be.
Cardinals were not ashamed to contend openly for the favors of celebrated
courtesans, and Charles VIII., when on his march to Naples, was provided
by Ludovico Sforza and his wife Beatrice, his liberal entertainers, with
the most beautiful women that could be procured.[223] Charles, indeed, is
by some authors asserted to have been actually the first who introduced
the venereal disease into Italy.
An eccentric trophy of public license is to be found in the poem of
Fracastoro, a physician and accomplished writer--a really elegant
production under the title of Syphilis. The argument of it is drawn from
the sufferings of Syphilus, a shepherd who has been punished by Apollo
with a malignant disease for impiety. In this work the author introduces
the reader to the inner regions of the earth; to the mines, minerals, and
attendant sprites, and explains the discovery of mercury, and its
beneficent and healing influences on the invalid, who, once cured, is
enjoined to pay his vows to Diana.
In 1520, that turbulent and reprobate artist Benvenuto Cellini, in his
autobiography (one of the most spirited representations of national
manners extant) gives an account of a syphilitic disease which he
contracted from a courtesan. He says little of the mode of cure, but it
is evident from the above that the use of mercury was known at a very
early period after public attention was generally directed to the
disorder.
The excesses of this iron age were not limited to ordinary licentiousness;
crimes against nature seem to have been prevalent, and are even alleged to
have been a source of revenue. In a collection of papal lives which has
fallen under our notice, but which is not very particular in giving its
authorities,[224] we find it stated that a memorial was presented to
Sextus IV. by certain individuals of the family of the Cardinal of St.
Lucia for an indulgence to commit sodomy, and that the Pope wrote at the
bottom of it the usual "_Fiat_."
The case of Beatrice Cenci is better attested. Every one recollects the
accumulated horrors of the story. The father, hating his children, his
wife, all mankind, introduces prostitutes to his house, and debauches his
daughter Beatrice by force. Through the instrumentality of a bishop she
procures him to be murdered, and, with her step-mother, was executed for
the crime, the Pope refusing to show any mercy. The Count Cenci had been
addicted to unnatural offenses, and had thrice compounded with the papal
government for his crimes by paying an enormous sum of money, and the
narrator says that the acrimony of the Pope toward the wretched daughter
was for having cut off a profitable source of revenue.
In Naples, the laws on the subject of prostitution were extremely severe.
Previous to the thirteenth century, every procuress endeavoring to corrupt
innocent females was punished, like an adulteress, by mutilation of her
nose. The mother who prostituted her daughter suffered this punishment
until King Frederick absolved such women as trafficked with their children
from the pressure of want. The same prince, however, decreed against all
who were found guilty of preparing drugs or inflammatory liquors to aid in
their designs upon virtuous females, death in case of injuries resulting
from their acts, and imprisonment when no serious harm was effected. These
laws proved insufficient for their purpose, and toward the end of the
fifteenth century profligacy ran riot in Naples. Ruffiani multiplied in
its streets, procuring by force or corruption multitudes of victims to
fill the taverns and brothels of the city. Penalties of extreme severity
were proclaimed against them. The Ruffiani were ordered to quit the
kingdom, and prostitutes were prohibited from harboring such persons among
them. Any woman who disobeyed was condemned to be burned in the forehead
with an iron, whipped in the most humiliating manner, and exiled.
Under King Roger a charge of seduction was never taken, but William, the
successor of that prince, punished with death the crime of rape. The
victim, however, was required to prove that she had shrieked aloud, and
that she had preferred her complaint within eight days, or that she had
been detained by force. When once a woman had prostituted herself, she had
no right to refuse to yield her person to any one.
In Naples, prostitutes, in spite of the law passed to confine brothels to
particular quarters, established themselves in the most beautiful streets
of the city in palatial buildings, and there, with incessant clamor,
congregated a horde of thieves, profligates, and vagabonds of every kind,
until the chief quarter became uninhabitable. In 1577 they were ordered to
quit the street of Catalana within eight days, under pain of the scourge
for the women, the galleys for such of the proprietors as were commoners,
while simple banishment was declared against the nobles.
One example of good legislation was the pragmatic law of 1470, to protect
unfortunate women against the cupidity, the extortions, and the frauds of
tavern-keepers and others. Men were in the habit of going into places of
amusement with single girls, contracting a heavy debt, and then leaving
their victims to pay. These were then given the choice of a disgraceful
whipping or an engagement in the house. They often consented, and spent
the remainder of their days in dependence on their creditors, without
ability to liberate themselves. By the new law, masters of taverns were
forbidden to give credit to prostitutes for more than a certain sum, and
this only to supply them with food and clothing absolutely necessary. If
they exceeded this amount they had no means of legal recovery.
The most remarkable feature in Neapolitan legislation on this subject was
the establishment at an unknown, but early date, of the Court of
Prostitutes. This tribunal, which sat at Naples, had its peculiar
constitution, and had jurisdiction over all cases connected with
prostitution, blasphemy, and some other infamous offenses. Toward the end
of the sixteenth century it had risen to extraordinary power, and was
prolific of abuses. It practiced all kinds of exaction and violence, every
species of partiality and injustice, and even presumed to promulgate
edicts of its own. The judges flung into prison numbers of young girls,
whom they compelled to buy their liberty with money, and sometimes even
dared to seize women who, though of lax conduct, could not be included in
the professional class. This was discovered, and led to a reform of the
court in 1589. Its powers were strictly defined, and its form of procedure
placed under regulation, while the avenues to corruption were narrowed.
The institution existed for nearly a hundred years after this.
In Rome, in the eleventh century, a brothel and a church stood side by
side, and five hundred years after, under the pontificate of Paul II.,
prostitutes were numerous. Statutes were enacted, and many precautions
taken, which prove the grossness of manners at that epoch. One convicted
of selling a girl to infamy was heavily fined, and if he did not pay
within ten days had one foot cut off. The nobility and common people alike
indulged habitually in all kinds of excess. Tortures, floggings,
brandings, banishment, were inflicted on some to terrify others, but with
very incomplete success. To carry off and detain a prostitute against her
will was punished by amputation of the right hand, imprisonment, flogging,
or exile. The rich, however, invariably bought immunity for themselves.
Among the most extraordinary acts of legislation on this subject was the
bull of Clement II., who desired to endow the Church with the surplus
gains of the brothel. Every person guilty of prostitution was forced, when
disposing of her property, either at death or during life, to assign half
of it to a convent. This regulation was easily eluded, and proved utterly
inefficacious. A tribunal was also established having jurisdiction over
brothels, upon which a tax was laid, continuing in existence until the
middle of the sixteenth century. Efforts were made to confine this class
of dwellings to a particular quarter, but without success.
In some of the Italian states, as in Lombardy, men were forbidden to give
prostitutes an asylum. They were prohibited from appearing among honest
citizens, and were prevented from purchasing clothes or food, and from
borrowing money by the hire of their persons.
After a time, however, a system of licensed brothels, in imitation of the
institutions founded at Toulouse and Montpellier, was introduced into
parts of Italy, and the brothels became very numerous. There was one at
Mantua, and Venice was a very sink of prostitution. In 1421, the
government enlisted women in this service to guard the virtue of the other
classes. A matron was placed over them, who governed them, received their
gains, and made a monthly division of profit. The names of several women,
the most notorious and beautiful of the Venetian courtesans, are preserved
by Nicolo Daglioni. A very small sum was paid them by their patrons.
The laws regulating prostitution and prostitutes seem to have had a
wonderful similarity throughout Europe. Among other enactments were those
regulating clothing, which were at one time promulgated in every state.
Some of these were sumptuary, and merely prohibited the wearing of
fashionable attire. Others directed particular costumes as a badge of the
prostitute's calling, and to distinguish them in public from
well-conducted women. At Mantua, prostitutes, when they appeared in the
streets, were ordered to cover the rest of their clothes with a short
white cloak, and wear a badge on their breast. At Bergamo the cloak was
yellow; in Parma, white; in Milan, at first black woolen cloth, and then
black silk. If disobedient, they might be fined; and in case of a second
offense, whipped; and any one might strip off the garment of a girl
illegally attired.
In the Duchy of Asola, in Piedmont, a regulation was established that a
mother could disinherit her daughter for leading a vicious life, but she
lost this privilege if it was proved that she had connived at her
immorality. The father had equal authority, but with one curious
limitation. When, says the law, a father has sought to marry his daughter,
and has endowed her sufficiently, if she refuses to marry and becomes a
prostitute, he may cut her off; but if he have opposed her marriage until
she has reached the age of twenty-five, and she then become a libertine,
he can not refuse to bequeath her his property; and the woman, on every
opportunity to marry, is bound to present herself before her father and
demand his consent. If he refused it, he was not allowed to punish her in
cases where, at the age of thirty, she became a harlot.
The efforts to root out prostitution from houses and neighborhoods in
Italy had, as elsewhere, the result of driving loose women to places of
public resort. The baths were regularly frequented in every city in the
Peninsula (hence the use of the word _bagnio_, as expressive of a
disreputable place), so that there was scarcely a bath-keeper who was not
also a brothel-keeper.
In Avignon, which, in consequence of the schism of the popes, may be
considered a second Rome, a statute of the Church, in 1441, interdicted to
the priests and clergy the use of certain baths, notorious as brothels.
The license of prostitution was soon taken away in Avignon. The residence
of the popes in that city had attracted a concourse of strangers from all
parts of the globe, and brothels sprung up at the doors of the churches,
and close to the papal residence and bishops' palaces. They brought so
much scandal on the community that an edict was passed driving prostitutes
out of the city.
In endeavoring to investigate the condition of prostitution in modern
Italy, our inquiries and researches have been almost profitless, from the
dearth of reliable statistical information as to any part of that most
interesting country. In the fine arts, and in certain departments of
abstract science, the republic of letters can show numerous records of
Italy's state and progress. In all that tells of the people, their
condition, their relations to each other, and their rulers, the statements
of writers, both native and foreign, are so contradictory, so imbued with
party passions and prejudices, or so flippantly careless and inaccurate,
that we must peruse them with constant suspicion. At the same time,
official documents are so sparingly given to the world that it is hopeless
to fall back upon them.[225]
It is customary to think and speak of Italy, like Germany, as a whole. In
reality, however, a wide difference prevails among the inhabitants of
Piedmont, Tuscany, and Austrian Italy, the Papal States, and Naples. Rome,
though not the political capital of Italy, must be considered the capital,
in virtue of her papal court, her past traditions, and her large concourse
of foreigners. But even her manners scarcely give the tone to the
remainder of the country.
In Rome, prostitution is tolerated, though not legally permitted. There
are no statistics from which the number of prostitutes can be calculated.
At one time there were said to be five thousand of these unfortunates in
the city; but this estimate is only another sample of the carelessness
which is to be observed in writers on this subject. Under Paul IV. there
were only fifty thousand inhabitants; forty years after they had increased
to one hundred thousand. Public prostitutes are now as rarely seen in the
streets of Rome as in those of other Italian cities. It is said, also,
that there are scarcely any public brothels.[226] There is a law that a
woman guilty of adultery shall be imprisoned for three months, but Italian
usages are averse to legal proceedings; the scandal is offensive to
society; besides, the courts require positive proof of the offense. With
regard to seduction, the laws are equally stringent; but such cases, when
brought to notice, are usually compromised by permission of the
authorities, either by payment of a sum of money, or by marriage. Syphilis
is always of considerable extent in Rome, and the venereal ward in San
Jacomo is always full.[227] After the siege of Rome by the French in 1849,
the disease was frightfully prevalent.
In 1798 there were thirty thousand poor, or about one fifth of the
population of Rome, upon the lists of the curates of the several parishes.
Under the administration of the French, up to 1814, the proportion had
been diminished to one ninth. Since that period it has been on the
increase.
There are in Rome nineteen hospitals for the treatment of the sick. In
eight public hospitals the average number of patients daily is about
fourteen hundred, who cost nineteen cents each per day. There are fourteen
semi-convents where young girls are gratuitously received and educated,
receiving a small dowry when they leave to marry or become nuns. The
Hospital of St. Roch is for pregnant women.[228]
The Albergo dei Poveri at Naples is the finest poor-house in Italy. It
accommodates upward of three thousand paupers of both sexes, and is
provided with workshops and schools, so as to afford suitable employment
and instruction. Notwithstanding this model establishment, and numerous
others, whose annual revenues amount to nearly two millions and a half of
dollars, Naples is infested with a large mendicant population in addition
to the numbers accommodated in the poor-houses. The Lazaroni are a class
peculiar to the place. Many of them utterly refuse to work, and prefer to
subsist on the smallest coin of the kingdom which they can gain by
begging. They bask in the sun all day, sleep on the ground or on the steps
at night, and starve with the utmost complacency. An Epicurean might find
in this abnegation of the cares of life a sound practical philosophy. That
such a class is in the highest degree obnoxious to society must be
apparent to every one. In the famous rising of Cardinal Ruffo, at the
time of the French occupation in 1805, the Lazaroni perpetrated the most
frightful excesses, and are said to have been relied on by the imbecile
Bourbon government as their chief friends and supporters against the
dangers of French Republicanism. Modern progress has drawn even Naples and
the Lazaroni within its magic circle, and an accomplished traveler
expresses doubts of their alleged unconquerable laziness, for he has seen
them work, wear clothes, sleep at home, earn money when they had a chance,
and conduct themselves very much like other people.[229] Perhaps, as with
the Irish, a want of fair remuneration may be at the root of their
idleness.
A singular institution of Italian society is the _Cicisbeo_, or _Cavaliere
Servente_. This is a distant male relative, or friend, who invariably
attends a married lady on all occasions of her appearance in public. He
pays her all conceivable attentions, and performs even the most servile
offices; carries her fan, her parasol, or her lapdog. We are not aware
that any foreigner has been able to settle this anomaly of social life to
his satisfaction. The Italians themselves sometimes maintain that there is
no immorality or impropriety in the arrangement--that it is a matter of
etiquette, in which the heart is in no way concerned. The husband is
perfectly cognizant of it, and the appearance of the cicisbeo with the
lady is more _de regle_ than that of her husband. Originally, there can be
very little question that the institution was of an amorous character, and
the parties met privately at the Casini, where certain apartments were
specially dedicated to the use of the ladies and their cavalieri.[230]
With the French occupation of 1800 the custom became the subject of
immoderate raillery and satire, and there is reason to believe it has been
but partially revived.
In place, however, of the cicisbeo or cavaliere servente, whose services
and attentions were a form of society, it is, we fear, undeniable that
more intimate though less avowed relations exist between many Italian
ladies and other men than their husbands. That there are numerous and
admirable exceptions to the rule, if it be a rule, we freely admit; but,
unless the concurrent testimony of all writers and travelers in Italy be
absolutely false, and either basely slanderous or culpably careless, the
marriage vow can only be regarded as a cloak for a license that is
inadmissible to the unmarried woman.
The testimony of a profligate man is rarely to be taken against women; and
though the witness be a lord and a poet, we do not know that this should
make a difference were the case one of mere abuse. Coupled, however, as
the inculpation is with extenuatory remarks, we think Lord Byron's
observations valuable. In a letter to Mr. Murray, the celebrated London
publisher (February 21, 1820), he says:
"You ask me for a volume of manners in Italy. Perhaps I am in the case
to know more of them than most Englishmen. * * * * * I have lived in
their houses, and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as
_Amico di Casa_, and sometimes as _Amico di Cuore_ of the _Dama_, and
in neither case do I feel justified in making a book of them. Their
moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not
understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you
would all understand. * * * * * I know not how to make you comprehend
a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their
characters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions
and passions which are at once sudden and durable. * * * * * I should
know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience
among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the _Nobil Dama_
whom I serve. * * * * * They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as
furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it,
and keeping them always to them in public as in private. * * * * * The
reason is, that they marry for their parents and love for themselves.
They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honor, while they pay
the husband as a tradesman. You hear a person's character, male or
female, canvassed, not as depending on their conduct to their husbands
or wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto I don't
know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is
to be observed, that while they do all this, the greatest outward
respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by
their _serventi_, particularly if the husband serve no one himself
(which is not often the case, however), so that you would often
suppose them relations, the _servente_ making the figure of one
adopted in the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive, and
elope, or divide, or make a scene, but this is at the starting,
generally when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a
foreigner, or some such anomaly, and is always reckoned unnecessary
and extravagant."
As a counterpoise to these opinions of Lord Byron, it is but fair to give
that of M. Valery, a traveler whose personal opportunities may have been
less than in the case of the noble poet: "The morals of the Italian
cities, which we still judge of from the commonplace reports of travelers
of the last century, are now neither better nor worse than those of other
capitals; perhaps at Naples they are even better."
The Countess Pepoli, a lady of patriotic and literary family, has written
an able educational manual, in which she claims consideration for the
number of "good and virtuous women" in Italy, whose existence is ignored
by the prejudiced writers of extravagant diatribes. But we are afraid that
the very exception, and the pains she takes to prove the temptations to
which the married woman is exposed, only affirm the truth of the general
charge.
Whatever allegations of veracious or exaggerated unchastity or immorality
may be made against the Italians, they are generally to be laid at the
door of the aristocracy and upper classes. Among the humbler Italians, the
peasantry and the country poor, there is no ground for ascribing to them
either greater idleness or worse morals than are to be found in other
parts of Europe.
Foundling hospitals are to be met with in most great cities of Continental
Europe. Among Protestants, a strong prejudice exists against these
institutions. That they prevent infanticide is self-evident. Their
operation as an encouragement of illicit intercourse can not be estimated
without some minute inquiries into the illegitimacy of places which
encourage them, and of others which are without them.
The proportion of children in the foundling hospitals of Italy is
certainly large, but it is believed, on good grounds, that a considerable
number of them are legitimate, and are abandoned by their parents on
account of their poverty. Of the really illegitimate, there are no means
of saying with accuracy (nor, as far as we know, have any attempts been
made to do so) to what class of society the infants belong. Meanwhile,
although there is no ground for assuming a larger proportion of
illegitimate children than in northern climates, on the other hand, the
publicly displayed prostitution of Italy is infinitely less.
Naples has a population of about four hundred thousand. Of fifteen
thousand births there are two thousand foundlings; we can not say
illegitimates, for, owing to the reasons already specified, there are no
means of ascertaining the facts.
In Tuscany, in 1834, there were twelve thousand foundlings received into
the various hospitals.
The Hospital of the Santo Spirito at Rome is a foundling asylum with a
revenue of about fifty thousand dollars per annum.
About one in sixteen of these children is claimed by its parents; the
majority are cared for, during infancy and childhood, either in the
hospitals or with the neighboring peasantry, with whom they are boarded at
a small stipend. When of sufficient age they are dismissed to work for
themselves; but in many of the hospitals they have some claim in
after-life on occasions of sickness or distress.
We have already alluded to the wide differences of national character in
the various political divisions of Italy. The vices of laziness,
mendicancy, and their kindred failings of licentiousness and unchastity
are chiefly confined to the towns, large and small.[231] The peasantry of
Naples and of the Papal States are industrious, temperate; and the peasant
women, even those who, from the vicinity of Rome, frequent the studios of
the artists as models, are generally of unexceptionable character.[232]
The mountaineers of the Abruzzi, long infamous as banditti (a stigma
affixed by the French or other dominant powers on those who resisted their
rule), in harvest-time brave the deadly malaria of the Campagna to earn a
few liri honestly for their starving children, although in so doing the
many that never return to their mountain homes show the risks that all
have run. The corn, wine, and oil raised in Italy, the well-supplied
markets of Rome and other cities, are evidence that the peasantry do not
all eat the bread of idleness. The Papal States contain some of the
finest, richest, and best cultivated provinces in Italy.[233] It is in the
towns we must look for the worst results of misgovernment and bad example.
CHAPTER XII.
SPAIN.
Resemblance between Spanish and Roman Laws on Prostitution.--Code of
Alphonse IX.--Result of Draconian Legislation.--Ruffiani.--Court
Morals.--Brothels.--Valencia.--Laws for the Regulation of Vice.--
Concubines legally recognized.--Syphilis.--Cortejo.--Reformatory
Institutions at Barcelona.--Prostitution in Spain at the Present
Day.--Madrid Foundling Hospital.
Between the ancient Spaniards and the Romans a most intimate connection
subsisted from an early period of the Roman republic, and the laws and
customs of the former bore the closest resemblance to those of the latter.
This affinity continued so long as the Roman empire had a name, and after
the establishment of Christianity as the state religion, the ties of
kindred and dependence were drawn still closer, for the Spanish kingdom
has ever been the favored heritage, and its rulers the most obedient sons
of Rome. Thus the maxims of the Roman civil law were early incorporated
into the political system, and they still remain the chief pillars of
Spanish jurisprudence. Accordingly, we find, in their legislation on
prostitution, that the Spaniards, together with the general theories,
adopted the specific enactments of other Latin nations.
By the code of Alphonse IX., in the twelfth century, procurers were to be
condemned to "civil death." Such offenders were thus classified:
1. Men who trafficked in debauchery; these were to be banished.
2. Keepers of houses of accommodation, who were to be fined, and their
houses confiscated.
3. Brothel-keepers who hired out prostitutes, which prostitutes, if
slaves, were to be manumitted; if free, were to be dowried at the cost
of the offenders, so that they might have a chance of marriage.
4. Husbands conniving at the prostitution or dishonor of their wives:
these were liable to capital punishment.
5. A class of persons styled Ruffiani (whence the modern word
ruffian).
These latter were analogous to the pimp and bully of the present day, and,
from the repeated and very severe laws against them, seem to have given
great trouble to the authorities. They were banished, flogged, imprisoned;
in short, got rid of on any terms. Girls who supported them were publicly
whipped, and the general laws upon the matter were similar to those noted
in the previous chapter on Italy.
In Spain, the profligacy of public morals attained a pitch beyond all
precedent, possibly owing, in some measure, to Draconian legislation.
Further laws were, from time to time, passed against the Ruffiani, as
preceding edicts had fallen into desuetude, and their presence and traffic
was encouraged by the prostitutes. These latter were forbidden to harbor
the men, and on breach of this prohibition were to be branded, publicly
whipped, and banished the kingdom. Procurers, procuresses, and
adulteresses were punished by mutilation of the nose. Mothers who
trafficked in their children's virtue, _except under pressure of extreme
want_, were also liable to this barbarous punishment.
In 1552 and 1566, edicts were again passed against the Ruffiani. They
were styled a highly objectionable class, dangerous to public order. On
the first conviction as a ruffiano, the offender was sentenced to ten
years at the galleys; for a second conviction, he received two hundred
blows or stripes, and was sent to the galleys for life.
Up to this time the court of Spain seems to have been almost as strongly
tinctured with licentiousness as those of other nations. About the middle
of the fifteenth century, Henry IV. divorced his wife, Blanche of Aragon,
after a union of twelve years, the marriage being publicly declared void
by the Bishop of Segovia, whose sentence was confirmed by the Archbishop
of Toledo, "_por impotencia respectiva_, owing to some malign influence."
Henry subsequently espoused Joanna, sister of Alphonse V., King of
Portugal. The bride was accompanied by a brilliant train of maidens, and
her entrance into Castile was greeted by the festivities and military
pageants which belonged to the age of chivalry. In her own country Joanna
had been ardently beloved; in the land of her adoption her light and
lively manners gave occasion to the grossest suspicions. Scandal named the
Cavalier Beltran de la Cueva as her most favored lover. He was one of the
handsomest men in the kingdom. At a tournament near Madrid he maintained
the superior beauty of his mistress against all comers, and displayed so
much prowess in the presence of the king as induced Henry to commemorate
the event by the erection of a monastery dedicated to St. John.[234] It
does not appear, however, whom Beltran de la Cueva indicated as the lady
of his love on this occasion.
Two anecdotes may be mentioned as characteristic of the gallantry of the
times. The Archbishop of Seville concluded a superb _fête_, given in honor
of the royal nuptials, by introducing on the table two vases filled with
rings garnished with precious stones, to be distributed among his female
guests. At a ball given on another occasion, the young queen having
condescended to dance with the French embassador, the latter made a solemn
vow, in commemoration of so distinguished an honor, never to dance with
any other woman.
While the queen's levity laid her open to suspicion, the licentiousness of
her husband was undisguised. One of Joanna's maids of honor acquired an
ascendency over Henry which he did not attempt to conceal, and after the
exhibition of some disgraceful scenes, the palace became divided by the
factions of the hostile fair ones. The Archbishop of Seville did not
blush to espouse the cause of the paramour, who maintained a magnificence
of state which rivaled royalty itself. The public were still more
scandalized by Henry's sacrilegious intrusion of another of his mistresses
into the post of abbess of a convent in Toledo, after the expulsion of her
predecessor, a lady of noble rank and irreproachable character.
These examples of corruption influenced alike the people and the clergy.
The middle class imitated their superiors, and indulged in an excess of
luxury equally demoralizing and ruinous. The Archbishop of St. James was
hunted from his see by the indignant populace in consequence of an outrage
attempted on a youthful bride as she was returning from church after the
performance of the nuptial ceremony.[235]
Under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella a total change was effected.
"They both exhibited a practical wisdom in their own personal relations
which always commands respect, and which, however it may have savored of
worldly policy in Ferdinand, was in his consort founded on the purest and
most exalted principles. Under such a sovereign, the court, which had been
little better than a brothel in the preceding reign, became the nursery of
virtue and generous ambition. Isabella watched assiduously over the
nurture of the high-born damsels of the court, whom she received into the
royal palace, causing them to be educated under her own eye, and endowing
them with liberal portions on their marriage."[236]
Joanna, the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was unfortunate in
her marriage to Philip, son of the Archduke Maximilian, and sovereign--in
right of his mother--of the Low Countries. The couple embarked for
Flanders in the year 1504, and soon after their arrival the inconstancy of
the husband and the ungovernable sensibility of the wife occasioned some
scandalous scenes. Philip was openly enamored of one of the ladies in her
suite, and his injured wife, in a paroxysm of jealousy, personally
assaulted her rival, and caused the beautiful locks which had excited the
admiration of her fickle husband to be shorn from her head. This outrage
so affected Philip that he vented his indignation against Joanna in the
coarsest and most unmanly terms, and finally refused to have any farther
intercourse with her.[237]
Public brothels were established in Spain, as in other countries of
Europe, one of great extent being in existence in Valencia in the
fifteenth century. It constituted a complete suburb in itself, similar to
the Ghetto, or Jews' suburb of most capital cities. Indeed, from its
description, it is doubtful if it was not a rogue's sanctuary, similar to
the well known Alsatia in London. It was surrounded by a wall with one
gate only, at which a warder was stationed. He was a public city officer,
and one of his duties was to warn all comers of the risk their property
ran in visiting such a place. If they wished to leave valuables in his
care they could do so, and receive them on their exit. There were some
hundreds of girls resident in this vast den of iniquity. To add to the
disgrace of the locality, the place of public execution was at its gate.
In 1486, the rents, profits and emoluments of the public brothels of
Seville were assigned to Alonzo Fajardo, the master of the royal table.
In 1559, there is an enactment in Granada fixing the rents to be paid by
the women for their rooms and accommodation in public brothels, and also
detailing the furniture and food with which they were to be provided in
return. This is similar to the minute legislation of the German cities.
This public provision having been made, no person was allowed to lend
these women bed-linen.
The authorities of various cities might not permit a prostitute to reside
in the town without previous examination by a duly licensed physician, who
was to declare, upon oath, whether the woman then was or had recently been
diseased.
By some of the Spanish laws, _varraganas_ (kept mistresses or concubines)
seem to have been a legal institution, for men of rank were forbidden to
take slave-dancers, tavern-servants, procuresses, or prostitutes as
concubines. This breach of the ordinary institutions of Christianity may
probably have been a compromise of Moorish and Christian usages and
morals. Before the final deadly struggle which ended in the expulsion of
the Moors, intermarriages were not uncommon among the two peoples.
Interchange of friendship and close intimacy existed between the races,
and a mutual tolerance of each other's laws and customs was maintained,
except by the enthusiasts of either religion.
The Spanish jurists distinctly recognized the woman's right to recover the
wages of her infamy. The scholiasts struck out various fine distinctions,
for which the monkish dialecticians were so deservedly ridiculed by the
free-thinkers of the eighteenth century, and these were debated and
discussed with the utmost eagerness.[238] One question was whether, if
the man paid beforehand, and the woman refused to complete the contract,
he could compel her? The weight of opinion seemed to be that, as he
contemplated an immorality, he could neither recover the money nor enforce
the agreement. Another equally important point was the use to which the
gains of prostitution might be lawfully applied. The legality of their
gains would seem to have overridden the mode of their expenditure, but
casuists thought otherwise, and, by a royal edict of Alphonse IX., it was
decided that priests could not receive funds obtained from such impure
sources.
By the old Spanish law prostitutes were subjected to various disabilities
in matters of inheritance or testamentary disposition. As mentioned in the
review of the old German customs, the Church considered it a meritorious
act to marry a harlot, on the assumption that thereby a brand was saved
from the burning.[239] It is related of a young man that, while being led
to the scaffold, a courtesan, struck by his manly beauty and bearing,
offered to marry him, whereby, in virtue of a law or usage, his life would
be saved. He rejected her proposition, as existence was not worth
redemption at such a price. It is added that his life was nevertheless
spared, in consideration of his spirit and courage.
In 1570, by order of Philip II., the regulations in force in the principal
towns of Andalusia were extended to those of Castile. By these it was
enacted that a woman became a prostitute of her own free will, and that no
one could compel her to continue such, even though she had incurred debts.
A surgeon was directed to pay her a weekly visit at her house, and report
to the deputies of the Consistory those who were diseased, in order that
they might be removed to hospital. The keeper of a brothel could not
receive into his house any one who had not been previously examined, nor
allow any one who was diseased to remain there, under a fine of a thousand
maravedis, with thirty days' imprisonment. Each room was to contain
certain furniture, and the house was to be closed on holidays, during
Lent, Ember Week, and on all fast days, under a punishment of a hundred
stripes to each woman who received visitors, as well as to the keeper of
the house. These and other orders were to be hung upon different parts of
the house, under a fine (about six dollars) and eight days' imprisonment.
The subject of venereal disease in Spain has acquired some interest from a
generally received opinion that its appearance was made in that country,
whence it was disseminated throughout Europe. Columbus and his crew were
reported to have introduced it from America, but later investigations have
proved that syphilis was not known on this side of the Atlantic until
imported by Europeans. Facts have been advanced in preceding pages showing
its almost simultaneous appearance in Italy and Spain, and we recur to the
subject now merely with reference to the theory of its American origin. A
late work, _Lettere sulla Storia de Mali Venerei, di Domenice Thiene,
Venezia_, 1823, enumerates some proofs on the question. The main points
are: 1. That neither Columbus nor his son allude, in any way, to such a
disease in the New World. 2. Among frequent notices of the disease in the
twenty-five years following the discovery of America, there is no mention
of its originating there, but, on the contrary, a uniform derivation of it
from some other source is assigned. 3. That the disorder was known and
described before the siege of Naples, and therefore could not be
introduced by the Spaniards at that time. 4. That it was known in a
variety of countries in 1493 and the early part of 1494; a rapidity of
diffusion irreconcilable with its importation by Columbus in 1493. 5. That
the first work professing to trace its origin in America was not published
till 1517, and was the production, not of a Spaniard, but a foreigner. The
question of its origin is more definitely settled by a letter of Peter
Martyr, noticing the symptoms in the most unequivocal manner, and dated
April 5, 1488, about five years before the return of Columbus. Some doubts
have been thrown upon the accuracy of this letter, but they do not
invalidate it.[240]
In Madrid, in 1522, a special hospital for venereal patients was founded
by Antoine Martin, of the order of St. Jean de Dieu. In 1575 the Spaniards
passed an ordinance that no female domestics under forty years of age
should be taken to service by unmarried men. The tenor of this law
bespeaks the evil intended to be remedied.
In the present day, little is done in Spain in reference to prostitution
by legislation on the subject. In his memoir on the subject to the
Brussels Congress, Ramon de la Segra tells us that the old edicts have
gradually become obsolete, and that neither the municipal authorities or
general government take any farther interest in the question than an
occasional enforcement of the catholic laws against immorality and women
of ill fame. It is said that in Seville first-class houses of prostitution
have a custom of retaining the services of a physician at their own
expense, whose office is to attend and make examinations of the women.
Cadiz is notorious for its attractive climate and its dissipations.[241]
In the last century a tone of manners prevailed in the Spanish peninsula
which was materially changed by the French occupation sweeping away many
of the laxities of the age. In 1780 the Italian system of an attendant
upon married ladies was adopted in Spain. These were termed _Cortejos_,
and it is stated that in the cities they were principally military men,
but in the country the monks performed the duty. The fidelity and
affection of the women were directed to their gallants, and it even was
thought discreditable, without very sufficient reason, to be guilty of
fickleness in this particular. Married men were even the _cortejos_ of
other men's wives, neglecting their own, or leaving them to follow the
bent of their private inclinations. No husband was jealous, but it was
etiquette for Spanish ladies to keep up an external decorum, and to
abstain from marked attentions to a _cortejo_ in the husband's presence,
although he might be perfectly aware of his wife's infidelity, and of her
lover's presence in the house.[242] A curious illustration of this
extraordinary state of public manners is given in an incident that
occurred in Carthagena. A gentleman one morning remarked to a friend,
"Before I go to rest this night the whole city will be thrown into
confusion." He occasioned this public disorder by going home an hour
sooner than his usual time, whereby his wife's _cortejo_ was compelled to
beat a precipitate retreat. The _cortejo's_ arrival at his own house
produced a similar effect, which was multiplied through polite society all
round the town.
By the Spanish laws, which were in many provinces especially favorable to
women, they could make _ex parte_ cases against their husbands of ill
treatment, and if they had beaten them the punishment might be made very
severe. These laws were, as may be supposed, the frequent means of
flagrant injustice.
In Barcelona there was a Magdalen institution, having the double object of
reforming prostitutes and of correcting women who failed in the marriage
vow, or who neglected or disgraced their families. The former department
was called the Casa de Galera; the latter, the Casa de Correccion. The
prostitutes were partially supported at the public cost, their extra food,
beyond bread and meat, being provided by their own labor, to which they
were obliged to devote themselves all day. The lady culprits were
supported by their relations. They were imprisoned by the sentence of a
particular court, on the complaint of a member of their family, and they,
as well as the prostitutes, were required to work. When deemed necessary,
these offenders received personal correction. Drunkenness was one of the
grounds of incarceration. The precise offenses are not mentioned by our
author,[243] but the fashions and customs of nations are so distinct, that
indiscretion, or even familiarity in one, might be immorality in another.
A leading principle in Spanish manners is not to give offense. People may
be as vicious as they please; it may be even notorious that they are so,
but their manners must be outwardly correct. There is little doubt the
violation of this maxim was the principal cause of imprisonment.
In Barcelona there was also, in 1780, a foundling hospital liberally
supported. A curious custom was observed in reference to the girls. They
were led in procession when of marriageable age, and any one who took a
fancy to a young woman might ask her hand, indicating his choice by
throwing a handkerchief on her in public.
In the Asturias certain forms of disease appeared with excessive
virulence, and were very common. Syphilis was prevalent. There was a
hospital at Oviedo for its cure, but patients had considerable reluctance
to apply to it. Whether incident to this prevalence of syphilis or not, we
have no means of ascertaining, but leprosy was very general, and there
were twenty or more large houses for its cure in the Asturias. The common
itch in a highly aggravated form was also general, and often productive of
parasitical vermin.
The present state of Spanish society is the subject of the usual
discrepancies between travelers, owing to their different prejudices,
means of information, or opportunities of making observations. No country
of Europe retains more of its original peculiarities and national habits
than Spain. Under the fervid sun of Andalusia, the same rigorous
observance of proprieties is hardly to be found as in the northern climate
of Biscay, whose hardy sons have ever been the defenders of their rights
and political privileges. Madrid, as the capital, might be thought a fair
illustration of the habits and manners of the great bulk of the city
populations, whose peculiarities of race have not been smoothed away by
intercommunication, the traveling facilities of Spain being yet among the
worst in Europe. The descendants of the Goth and the Moor are still
distinct in character. A general prejudice exists as to the morality of
Southern nations in Europe, and the Spanish women are by no means exempt
from a full share of this unfortunate opinion. Nevertheless, a recent
writer says:
"I speak my sincere opinion when I say that, with the exception of a
few fashionable persons, whose lives do indeed seem to pass in one
constant round of dissipations, whose time is spent in driving on the
Prado, attending the theatre, the opera, or the ball-room, precisely
as their compeers do in every other great city, the Spanish women are
the most domestic in the world, the most devoted to the care of their
children, the most truly pious, and the best _ménagères_. This latter
circumstance may arise from the fact that their fortunes are rarely
equal to their rank, and that a lavish expenditure would soon bring
ruin upon the possessors of the most ancient names and most splendid
palaces in Madrid."[244]
This opinion is confined solely to the higher classes of the city of
Madrid. It expresses nothing as to the great bulk of the population, and,
however gratifying the record of worth may be, we fear the eulogy must be
taken _cum grano salis_.
Of the education of Spanish women, Mrs. Donn Piatt states that, by reason
of the small fortunes of the nobility, the daughters of an ancient house
must be made useful before they are accomplished; that the first
consideration, however, is their religious education, to which, and to the
preparation for confirmation--the great juvenile rite of Catholic
countries--the utmost care and attention are devoted. Next after their
religious tuition, the greatest pains are taken to make them accomplished
housekeepers. They are taught to make their own clothes, to keep accounts,
to regulate their expenditure, and to attend to the most minute details
of the family economy. The advantages of a good solid education are not
neglected; their natural capacity and innate taste for the arts,
especially as musicians and painters, rapidly develop themselves, under
very moderate tuition, to acquirements of a superior character, and the
productions of young women of high station are spoken of with much
admiration. One trait of Spanish character that speaks loudly in favor of
the women is the devotion, respect, and obedience paid by sons to their
mothers long after age has relieved them from maternal tutelage.
In Madrid there is a hospital for foundlings, which are said to amount to
about four thousand annually. These are actual foundlings, exposed
publicly to the compassion of the charitable. It is principally served by
the Sisters of Charity. The infants are intrusted to nurses, and at the
age of seven they are transferred to the _Desamparados_ (unprotected)
college, where they receive instruction in the simpler rudiments of
education, and their religious and moral training is cared for. There is
also an asylum to which others are drafted to learn some practical
handicraft, such as glove-making, straw-hat making, embroidery, etc., and
which seems, in a great measure, a self-supporting institution.
There are three Magdalen Hospitals: St. Nicholas de Barr, founded in 1691
for women of the better class, who are banished for misconduct from the
homes of their husbands and fathers; that of the _Arrepentidos_, for
penitents; and that of the _Recogidos_, founded in 1637, for the
correction of women sent there by their families, in order that they may
be induced to return to the paths of virtue.
CHAPTER XIII.
PORTUGAL.
Conventual Life in 1780.--Depravity of Women.--Laws against Adultery
and Rape.--Venereal Disease.--Illegitimacy.--Foundling Hospitals of
Lisbon and Oporto.--Singular Institutions for Wives.
A writer on Portugal, in the year 1780, complains of the scandalous
licentiousness of the monks and nuns, of whom there were no less than two
hundred and fifty thousand in a population of two millions. It is said
that the convent Odivelas, the harem of the monarch John V., contained
three hundred women, accounted the most beautiful and accomplished
courtesans in the kingdom. The great Marquis de Pombal suppressed many of
these convents, and was the general reformer of the religious orders.
Of the effect of such an example from such quarters on the population at
that time, sunk, as they were, in the most imbecile ignorance, little need
be said. The women of Portugal were reputed to surpass all European
females in gallantry, and their attractions were such that only one
interview was necessary to complete the conquest. To this condition of
common immorality, the rigor of their husbands and male relations may have
contributed not a little. They are said to have been outrageously jealous,
and to have made no scruple of murdering any stranger who gave them even
the weakest grounds of suspicion.
In the fundamental laws of Portugal, promulgated in 1143, it is enacted
that, "if a married woman commit adultery, and the husband complain to the
judge, and the judge is the king, the adulterer and adulteress shall be
condemned to the flames; but if the husband retain the wife, neither party
shall be punished."
In the case of a rape perpetrated on the person of a lady of rank, all the
property of the ravisher went to the lady; and in case the female were not
noble, the man, without regard to his rank, was obliged to marry her.
The writer whom we have already quoted[245] speaks of the venereal disease
as being, at the time he wrote (1770-1780), habitual in Portugal, and that
the Portuguese not knowing how to cure it, its malignity had become so
intensified that, in some cases, individuals who had contracted a peculiar
form of the malady had died in a few hours, as though struck down by an
active and deadly poison. This is most probably the exaggeration of
popular opinion on the subject. More recent writers are chary of
information, and avoid the mention of matters so offensive to ears polite.
The manners and morals of the higher ranks of society must have undergone
a material change for the better in the present century, for an English
nobleman (Lord Porchester, since Earl of Caernarvon) speaks in very
favorable terms of the propriety, amiability, and excellence of the
Portuguese ladies, which, excepting in the matter of intellectual
education, left them in no wise behind the worthy of their sex in other
countries of Europe.
Among the lower classes, however, it would not seem that the tone of
morals had been very much amended, whether we consider their regard for
female virtue, or their cultivation of the maternal tenderness and
solicitude natural to all created beings.
In the neighborhood of Oporto, country women may be met conveying little
babies to the Foundling Hospital, four or five together, in a basket.
These helpless creatures are the illegitimate children of peasant girls,
openly deserted in the villages, and thus forwarded by the authorities to
the care of those pious strangers who undertake their nurture and
preservation.[246]
In these cases, says Mr. Kingston, the females are not treated by their
parents with any harshness or rigor. They are rather compassionated for
their misfortune, and are only sent away from home when found obstinately
persistent in a course of evil.
As may be supposed, the foundling hospitals have abundant claims on their
funds. The Real Casapia, at Belem, near Lisbon, and another hospital in
Lisbon attached to the Casa de Misericordia, receive together nearly three
thousand children, who are brought up to different callings, and otherwise
prepared for active life, as is usual in such institutions. There is a
similar asylum, equally frequented, in Oporto. In this city there is also
an asylum in which husbands may place their wives during their own absence
from home. It often happens that ladies, on such occasions, enter the
asylum of their own accord.
There is also in Oporto an establishment in the nature of a Penitentiary,
in which husbands may immure their faithless wives, or even those who give
grounds of suspicion. It is presumed that in the nineteenth century, even
in Portugal, this must be done under color of some legal authority.
CHAPTER XIV.
ALGERIA.
Prostitution in Algiers before the Conquest.--Mezonar.--Unnatural
Vices.--Tax on Prostitutes.--Decree of 1837.--Corruption.--Number of
Prostitutes and Population.--Nationality of Prostitutes.--Causes of
Prostitution.--Brothels.--Clandestine Prostitution.--Baths.--
Dispensary.--Syphilis.--Punishment of Prostitutes.
A pamphlet has lately appeared in France on the subject of Prostitution in
Algiers. Its author, Dr. E. A. Duchesne, has rendered service by
collecting a large number of important facts and statistical data.[247]
When the French conquered Algiers in 1830, they found prostitution
established there, and prevailing to a large extent. So far as we are able
to ascertain, it had always been a leading feature of Algerian society;
travelers had noticed it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In
1830 it was estimated that, with a population of thirty thousand, Algiers
contained three thousand prostitutes. We have already had occasion to
notice the unreliable character of similar estimates in general, but there
is no doubt that the number of lewd women at Algiers under Arab rule was
inordinately large. They were mainly Moors, Arabs, and negresses. All were
under the control of the chief of the native police--the Mezonar. He kept
a list of them, and laid a tax amounting to about two dollars per month on
each. As he paid a fixed sum to the government for the privilege of
collecting this tax, it was to his interest to increase the number of
prostitutes as much as possible, and he appears to have done so. He kept
in his employ a number of spies, who watched women suspected of immoral
habits, and denounced them whenever they were detected, in which event
they were inscribed on the Mezonar's list, and became prostitutes for
life. He was empowered to compel every prostitute to discharge the duties
of her calling, and was frequently applied to by strangers to supply them
with women. He was not allowed, however, to lease women to Christians or
Jews. Twice a year the Mezonar gave a public fête, to which all the male
inhabitants of Algiers were invited; the prostitutes formed the female
portion of the assemblage, and the public officer profited by the
increased patronage they obtained during the festivities, as well as by
the sale of tickets for the entertainment.[248]
It is right also to add that the French found that other feature of
Oriental manners, unnatural habits, largely developed at Algiers. The
cafés, the streets, the baths, the public places were full of boys of
remarkable beauty, who more than shared with the women the favor of the
wealthier natives. Owing to a criminal negligence on the part of the
French authorities, no systematic endeavor has ever been made to eradicate
this shameful vice, which appears still to prevail to an alarming extent.
The influx of population, mainly soldiery, into a city thus steeped in
immorality, produced natural results. A few weeks after the invasion, the
French general was compelled to establish a Dispensary, and to decree that
all dissolute women must undergo an examination there once a week. A tax
of five francs per month was laid upon prostitutes to defray the expenses
of the establishment. Within less than a year, such grave abuses had crept
into the collection of this tax that it was resolved to farm it out, and
it was adjudged at auction to a man who agreed to pay 1860 francs per
month for its proceeds. In 1832 the monthly tax was raised successively to
seven 44/100, and nine francs per girl, and on these rates it was farmed
to one Balré, who paid 1666-80/100 for the privilege of collecting it. He
was also entitled to levy and retain the amount of all fines imposed by
the police on prostitutes, and to charge women ten francs each time they
went to a fête outside the city, and five francs if the fête were within
the limits. The profits of the farm were so great that in 1835 Balré was
able to pay the government 2250 francs (four hundred and fifty dollars)
per month.[249]
Under this system the gravest inconveniences occurred, and became so
troublesome that in November, 1835, the governor promulgated a decree
remodeling the regulations in force on the subject. It appears the farm
system was then abandoned, and the government agents who were intrusted
with the collection of the tax robbed both the prostitutes and the state
shamefully.
Hence, in December, 1837, a new decree was issued by the governor,
repealing all former laws and regulations, and placing the whole subject
under the control of the Commissary of Police. The leading provisions of
that decree were as follows:
"Every public woman who desires to prostitute herself must declare her
intention beforehand to the Comptroller of Public Women, who shall
enter her name in his register, and present her with a pass-book which
he shall sign."
"Every girl inscribed on the register shall place in the hands of the
treasurer of the Dispensary, monthly, a sum of twenty francs if she be
a kept woman, and ten francs if she be not kept. The treasurer shall
give her a receipt for the same, and record it in his account-book."
"The mayor shall be authorized to remit this monthly due, as well as
any fines that may have been incurred, when the girl owing the same
can prove by a certificate from the comptroller, the treasurer, and
the physician that she is indigent."
"Every girl who shall not have paid her monthly due, as well as her
fines, within ten days after the visit to the Dispensary, shall
undergo an imprisonment of not less than five days and not more than
three months, unless she establish her indigence as aforesaid."
"Girls detained in prison shall, on the first symptoms of syphilis, be
transferred to the Dispensary for treatment, after which they shall be
remanded to prison to serve the remainder of the time."
"The physician of the Dispensary shall not only treat patients in that
establishment, but shall pay _periodical, accidental, and all
necessary visits_ to the prostitutes, who are hereby subjected to such
visits. He shall visit the Dispensary twice a day, from 7 to 9 A.M.
and from 3 to 4 P.M. He shall enter upon his memorandum-book, and upon
the pass-book of the girl, the result of all accidental or necessary
visits. He shall receive a salary of two thousand francs."[250]
This law is in force at the present time, and is said to have led to great
inconvenience. Police agents are accused of levying black mail on the
prostitutes to an enormous extent, in the shape of fines, dues for going
to balls, hush-money for escaping the visit to the Dispensary, presents to
the policeman on the birth of his children, etc. The product of the tax is
inordinately large, amounting, independently of fines, to one hundred and
twenty francs, or twenty-four dollars per annum for each girl. Several
administrators have recommended its diminution or total suppression, but
it is still retained.[251]
In the year 1838, when the present law was passed, the number of women
inscribed on the police register was 320, the total population of Algiers
being 34,882, of whom two thirds were Africans and one third Europeans;
but the mayor of the city gave it as his opinion that this figure (320)
was in reality far below the truth. In 1846 measures were taken for
enforcing the police regulations more strictly than before, and some care
was used to procure correct statistics of population and
prostitution.[252] We compile the following table from several given by
Dr. Duchesne:
+-------------------------------------------------+
| |Registered | POPULATION. |
|Year.|Prostitutes|-------------------------------|
| |(average). | African |European.| Total. |
| | |(estimated).| | |
|-----|-----------|------------|---------|--------|
|1847 | 442 | 25,000 | 42,113 | 67,113 |
|1848 | 387 | 25,000 | 37,572 | 62,572 |
|1849 | 395 | 25,000 | 37,572 | 63,072 |
|1850 | 479 | 26,000 | 29,392 | 55,392 |
|1851 | 342 | .... | .... | 55,392 |
+-------------------------------------------------+
To these figures, some of which are only approximative, must be added the
number of French soldiers in the garrison at Algiers. At times the
effective force has been as large as twelve or fifteen thousand men.