CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XIII

Prostitution and venereal disease the central problem of the sexual

question -- My belief in the possibility of the suppression of both --

Only in recent years has the scientific attack on both begun -- The

_plaie sociale_ -- Internal and local treatment -- The scientific

literature of prostitution -- Rosenbaum’s work on prostitution in

antiquity -- Aretino, Delgado, and Veniero on the prostitution of the

renascence -- Franckenaus’s first medical polemic against brothels --

The commencement of the scientific study of prostitution and venereal

diseases in the eighteenth century -- Rétif de la Bretonne and his

“Pornographe” -- “Moral Control” -- Parent-Duchatelet’s fundamental

work -- Analysis of this book -- Contemporary works on prostitution in

Paris, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lisbon, Lyons, and Algiers -- First

employment of the term “male prostitution” -- A peculiar species of

souteneur -- Prostitution in Hamburg -- Dr. Lippert’s book -- “Memoirs

of a Prostitute,” the predecessor of the “Diary of a Lost Woman” --

Gross-Hoffinger’s book on “Prostitution in Austria” -- Demonstration

of the connexion between prostitution and coercive marriage --

Celebrated chapter on “Maidservants and Prostitution” -- Schrank on

prostitution in Vienna -- Prostitution in Leipzig -- In New York --

General works on prostitution -- Jeannel, Acton and Hügel -- Books on

secret prostitution, on prostitution of girls under age, on regulation

and on brothels, and on the social importance of prostitution --

Blaschko’s recent critical investigation on the subject of

prostitution -- Results of this investigation -- Lombroso’s

anthropological theory -- The works of Tarnowsky and Ströhmberg, of

Fiaux and von Düring.

Conception and definition of prostitution -- Genuine and

pseudo-prostitutes -- Prostitution among primitive peoples --

Religious prostitution as the germinal form of modern prostitution --

This latter the product of the growth of large towns -- Medieval

conditions -- Diminution in the number of brothels since that time --

The demand for prostitutes -- Relation between the number of

prostitutes and the male population -- The supply greater than the

demand -- Causes of the male demand for prostitutes -- Prostitution as

a product of civilization -- Repression of primitive sexual instincts

by civilization -- The sexual supra- and sub-consciousness --

Transient elemental activities of the sub-consciousness -- Reports of

J. P. Jakobsen and other writers on this subject -- Gratification of

these instincts by means of prostitution -- This in part the product

of the physiological masochism of men.

The numerous causes of prostitution -- The anthropological theory and

the doctrine of the congenital prostitute -- Criticism of this view --

Proof that many of the physical and mental peculiarities of

prostitutes are acquired -- The obliteration of the secondary and

tertiary sexual characters in prostitutes -- The nucleus of Lombroso’s

theory -- The economic factors of prostitution -- Actual and relative

poverty as a cause -- Poverty a cause of prostitution in the mass --

Women’s and children’s work -- Prostitution as an accessory occupation

-- Insufficient wages -- The inquiries of 1887 and 1903 on this

subject -- Examples -- The large proportion of maidservants who become

prostitutes -- Explanation of this -- Relative poverty of maidservants

-- Psychological factors of maidservant prostitution -- Overcrowded

dwellings -- Families living in single rooms, and taking in lodgers

for the night -- Alcoholism -- The traffic in girls -- Sources of this

-- National and international preventive measures -- Work done by the

Jewish Committee to prevent the traffic in girls in Galatia --

Measures taken in Buenos Ayres -- The central police organization in

Berlin for the suppression of the traffic in girls.

The localities of prostitution -- Public prostitution -- Street

prostitution -- Character and dangers of street prostitution -- Still

_greater_ dangers of brothels -- Brothels as centres of sexual

corruption and perversity, and as foci of venereal infection -- The

high school of psychopathia sexualis -- The brothel jargon --

“Animierkneipen” -- Dancing saloons, variety theatres, low

music-halls, cabarets, and “Rummel” -- “Pensions” and houses of

accommodation -- Massage institutes -- Cafés with female attendants.

_Appendix: The Half-World._ -- Origin of the name -- The “Demi-Monde”

of the younger Alexandre Dumas -- Change undergone by the conception

at the present day -- Analogy with the Greek hetairæ -- Connexion of

the half-world with high life -- Origin -- The social influence of the

“grandes cocottes” -- The half-world in Germany -- The international

prostitute.

CHAPTER XIII

=Prostitution=, and the =venereal diseases= so intimately connected with

it, constitute, properly speaking, the =nucleus=, the =central problem=,

of the sexual question. The abolition of prostitution and the

suppression of venereal diseases would be almost tantamount to the

solution of the entire sexual problem. Imagine the extension and the

intension of the idea: No prostitution, no more venereal disease!

There is, in fact, no more gratifying notion, no more illuminating

ideal, than that of moral and physical purity in the relations between

the sexes. At a time in which, especially in social spheres, such

abundant activity and such far-seeing ideas of reform are apparent, this

notion of a campaign against prostitution and venereal diseases, in the

hope of eradicating both evils, should stand in the forefront of all the

demands of civilization, in order that finally the tragical influence,

the poisonous sting, should be removed from the disordered, unhappy,

amatory life of the present day, and herewith, unquestionably, a proper

=foundation= should be laid for a more beautiful future for that life.

This idea is unique; it is the greatest of all that man, at length

become self-conscious,[243] has ever grasped; and to this idea belongs

the future!

The French term prostitution and venereal diseases _une plaie sociale_,

a rodent ulcer in the body of society. I take this apt comparison, and

carry it a stage further, to show a clear picture of the way along which

we must go in order to eradicate prostitution; for in this respect I am

a confirmed optimist. I =believe= in the possibility of the eradication

of venereal diseases, and of the abolition of prostitution within the

civilized world by national and international measures. I do not join in

the chorus of those who say, “because prostitution has always existed,

it must always exist in the future; because venereal diseases have

always[244] existed, they are unavoidable accompaniments of

civilization.”

=How long is it=, then, since any attempt has been made to oppose

prostitution and venereal diseases? As regards the latter, it is only

within the =last few years= that we have begun, in the battle against

them, to make systematic use of the results of scientific research; and

the study of prostitution, and the measures based on that study for its

control and prevention, do not date further back than the second half of

the eighteenth century. In fact, for practical purposes, they date from

the appearance of the classical and epoch-making work of

Parent-Duchatelet (1836).

We are, indeed, =in the very first stages= of the campaign against

prostitution and venereal diseases. All that has hitherto been done has

been to make inadequate, isolated attempts to introduce unsuitable and

half-considered regulations, based upon successive misconceptions, which

have only made matters worse. =To-day= medicine, social science,

pedagogy, jurisprudence, and ethics have combined in a =common=

campaign; and this is not national merely, but unites all civilized

nations in a common cause.

Here we find an actual prospect, a credible hope, of a radical cure of

the _plaie sociale_. But such an ulcer can only be radically cured when

we are not content merely with the =local= treatment of the existing

sore; we must simultaneously attack the =internal= causes of this

chronic disease, and in the case with which we have to do the internal

causes are even more important than the external--that is to say,

=ethics=, =pedagogy=, and =social science= are even more important and

indispensable in the campaign against prostitution than =medicine= and

=hygiene=. We shall never attain our goal by considering and fighting

prostitution and venereal diseases, the consequences of prostitution,

purely from the medical and hygienic standpoint. In this case,

one-sidedness will prove tantamount to failure. The problem of

prostitution must be approached from many sides, because the causes that

have to be considered are =manifold=, alike anthropological, economic,

social, and psychological, in their nature. There are =many varieties=

of prostitution; in the same way there are numerous and various =types=

of prostitutes. It is, therefore, impossible for one who is acquainted

with actual life to hold fast in a one-sided manner to a single theory.

Thus, in one and the same case the most various points of view have to

be considered.

The =history= of prostitution is an extremely interesting chapter of the

general history of civilization, which has =not hitherto= been written

in a manner satisfying scientific and critical demands; but the

=literature= of prostitution is already alarmingly comprehensive. Here,

also, critical grasp and mode of presentation are still entirely

wanting. It is impossible, in this place, in which we speak only of the

present-day conditions, to enter at any length into the historical and

literary aspects of the question of prostitution. This I must leave for

a later, comprehensive work, for which I have for several years been

collecting the materials. Here I shall only briefly refer, for the sake

of the reader interested in the matter, to the most important writings

on the subject of prostitution which have any scientific and historical

importance.

Prostitution in antiquity is treated in a masterly manner by Julius

Rosenbaum in his celebrated “History of Syphilis in Antiquity” (Halle,

1839); this is, down to the present day, the chief source of our

knowledge of the conditions in antiquity. It is true that he starts from

the false assumption that syphilis already existed in ancient times, a

view which in the second volume of my book on the “Origin of Syphilis”

(now in course of preparation) I show to be incorrect; this work will

also contain a thorough study of prostitution among the ancients, based

upon the more recent researches published since the year 1839, when

Rosenbaum’s book appeared.

The first truly classical descriptions of the nature of modern

prostitution dated from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; these

are not scientific, belonging rather to the province of belles-lettres;

but they are of great value in respect of the accuracy of their

observations, and of their psychological insight into the nature of

prostitution. I refer above all to the celebrated “Ragionamenti” of

Pietro Aretino;[245] next, to the not less important work, published

earlier, in 1528, “Lozana Andaluza,” by Francisco Delgado (Francesco

Delicado).[246] Both these books, and also the celebrated “Zafetta” of

Lorenzo Veniero (_circa_ 1535), describe the conditions of prostitution

at the time of the Italian renascence; these display a most astonishing

similarity to the conditions of the present day, and the books mentioned

have therefore still an instructive value.[247]

From the seventeenth century we have as important documents of

civilization the description of prostitution in Holland in the

interesting work “Le Putanisme d’Amsterdam” (Brussels, 1883; the

original Dutch edition, Amsterdam, 1681), and also in the work published

in the same year, 1681, “Disputatio Medica qua Lupanaria ex Principiis

quoque Medicis Improbantur,” by Georg Franck von Franckenau,[248]

noteworthy as being the first medical polemic against brothels.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the study of prostitution

was most active in France.[249] In the second half of the eighteenth

century, according to the expression of the de Goncourts,

“pornognomonie” was a scientific problem. Various attempts at reform

were made; as early as 1763 “=moral control=” was recommended; and in

1769 there appeared the celebrated “Pornographe” of Rétif de la

Bretonne,[250] the first extensive work on the =state regulation= of

prostitution, the great historical importance of which was recognized by

Mireur, the well-known syphilologist of Marseilles, by the publication

of a new edition (Brussels, 1879).

But it was with the publication of the immortal and most admirable work

of Parent-Duchatelet,[251] on prostitution in Paris, that in the year

1836 the modern =scientific= literature of prostitution really began. It

is the first work in which full justice is done to the importance of

prostitution in =all= its relations, and it is based upon exact medical

observations and psychological and social studies. Even to-day it

remains unique in its kind, and a standing example of critical research

and of French learned zeal.

A very short account of the contents of this epoch-making book of

Parent-Duchatelet will best teach us its importance, and will give us an

insight into all the problems connected with prostitution, and

considered by the French author.

In the introduction, Parent-Duchatelet explains the reasons which led

him to undertake the work, and the literary sources he has consulted.

The first chapter then proceeds to the consideration of certain general

problems, gives a =definition= of the term prostitute, an estimate of

the =number= of prostitutes in Paris, their =origin= in respect of

native country, position, culture, profession, their =age=, and the

=first cause of their adoption of this profession=. The second chapter

discusses the =manners and customs= of prostitutes, the opinion they

have of themselves, their religious ideas, their sense of shame, their

spiritual qualities, tattooing, occupation, uncleanliness, speech,

defects and good qualities, the various classes of prostitutes, and,

finally, the _souteneurs_. The third chapter contains =physiological

observations= concerning prostitutes--namely, concerning their obesity,

the changes in their voice, peculiarities in the colour of the hair and

the eyes, the stature, the condition of the genital organs, and

fertility. In the fourth chapter he deals with the =influence of

professional prostitution on the health of the girls=, and describes the

various morbid conditions which may result from their occupation. The

fifth chapter treats of the public =houses of prostitution= (brothels),

their advantages and disadvantages, the question of brothel streets, and

the localization of prostitution in definite quarters of the town. In

the sixth chapter the =inscription of prostitutes in police lists= is

discussed; in the seventh =procurement and the owners of brothels=.

Chapters eight, nine, and ten deal with =secret prostitution= in houses

of accommodation, drinking-saloons, coffee-houses, tobacconists’ shops,

etc.; chapter eleven discusses =street prostitution=; chapter twelve,

the =diffusion of prostitution= in the various parts of Paris; chapter

thirteen, the =relation of prostitution to military life=; chapter

fourteen, =prostitution in the environs of Paris=. The fifteenth chapter

describes the =ultimate destiny= of prostitutes; the sixteenth deals

with their =medical treatment=--above all, the methods of examination to

ascertain their state of health are accurately described. Chapters

seventeen and eighteen deal with =hospitals= and =prisons= for

prostitutes; chapter nineteen, with the former taxation of prostitutes;

chapter twenty considers =questions relating to administration, and the

special branch of police dealing with the institution=--for example, the

suggestion (recently revived) is discussed of the medical examination of

the male clients of prostitutes; prurient pictures and books are also

considered, and thefts in brothels. The twenty-first chapter is devoted

to the question which still attracts attention at the present day, viz.,

the =peculiar relationship between the owner of a house and the

prostitutes living there=, and deals also with the legal aspect of the

punishments decreed against prostitutes. Chapter twenty-two is occupied

with a general discussion of the =legal questions= connected with

prostitution. At the conclusion, in chapters twenty-three and

twenty-four, the author discusses the question =whether prostitutes are

necessary=, and this question (_nota bene_, from the standpoint of

coercive marriage morality) he answers in the affirmative; he asks also

=whether the police should be entrusted with the application of measures

for the prevention of venereal diseases=, and this he agrees to

conditionally only, for he considers that the =public= recommendation of

protective measures should be forbidden by police ordinance. Finally, in

the last chapter, the twenty-fifth, he speaks of the =institutions for

the rescue of fallen women=, and he concludes his comprehensive work, in

which he has dealt so thoroughly with all the subdivisions of his

general topic, with the words:

“My work is at an end. When I commenced it, I pointed out what reasons

I had for undertaking it, what aim I wished to attain. Had I not been

firmly convinced that the investigations begun by me regarding the

nature of prostitutes might favour health and morality, I should not

have published them. I have exposed to the public gaze great

infirmities of mankind; thoughtful men, for whom I have written, will

thank me for doing so. He who loves his fellow-men will without

anxiety follow me into the department of knowledge I have described,

and will not turn away his glance from the pictures I have drawn. =He

who wishes to know the good that remains to be done, and who wishes to

learn how to pursue with good results the way by which something

better is to be attained, must first know what actually exists; he

must know the truth.=

“The profession of prostitution is an evil of all times, all

countries, and appears to be innate in the social structure of

mankind. It will perhaps never be entirely eradicated; still, all the

more we must strive to limit its extent and its dangers. With

prostitution itself it is as with vice, crime, and disease; the

teacher of morals endeavours to prevent the vices, the lawgiver to

prevent the crimes, the physician to cure the diseases. All alike know

that they will never fully attain their goal; but they pursue their

work none the less in the conviction that he who does only a little

good yet does a great service to the weak man. I follow their example.

A friend whose loss I shall always mourn drew my attention to the fate

of the prostitute. I studied them, I wished to learn the causes of

their degradation, and wherever possible to discover the means by

which their number could be limited. What experience has taught me on

this subject I have openly stated, and I am convinced that the

lawgiver, the man whom the State has empowered with authority to care

for public health and morality, will find in my book useful

information.”

Parent-Duchatelet’s book, no less admirable in its execution than in its

design, still remains the foundation for the scientific study of

prostitution. It is the exemplar for all contemporary and subsequent

works.

The powerful influence exercised by this book was shown above all in

this--that works on prostitution appeared in rapid succession in the

various capitals of the civilized world. These were all based to a

greater or less extent upon the work of Parent-Duchatelet, and thus they

constitute extremely valuable scientific monographs regarding the

conditions of prostitution in particular towns, such as since that date

have not been issued. Here there still lies hidden a wealth of material,

a large part of which has not yet been utilized.

As an enlargement and continuation of the work of Parent-Duchatelet,

there appeared three years later, in the year 1839, the work of the

Commissary of Police Béraud[252] on the prostitutes of Paris and on the

Parisian _police des mœurs_. The book is more especially distinguished

by an elaborate history of prostitution, and by the wealth of

psychological observations it contains; also by its exact information

regarding secret prostitution.

In the same year a well-known London physician, Dr. Michael Ryan,[253]

published his important book on =Prostitution in London=,[254] with a

comparison of the conditions in Paris and New York. Ryan first dealt

with the general =social= and =economic= causes of prostitution, with

critical acumen, as we could not but expect from an Englishman. His book

also contained an interesting account of the extraordinary diffusion in

England at that time of pornographic books and pictures,[255] and

concerning their publication and sale by pedlars, and the measures

undertaken to repress this traffic. Valuable also are the detailed

reports given in this book, on pp. 212-252, regarding prostitution in

the United States, and especially in New York.

The example of Ryan was followed by his countrymen, Dr. William Tait and

the Rev. Ralph Wardlaw. The former treated in a comprehensive work the

subject of prostitution in Edinburgh;[256] the latter, in a shorter

book, described prostitution in Glasgow.[257]

Very interesting is the book, of which a few copies only ever reached

Germany (one of which is in my own possession), and which even in

Portugal is extremely rare, of Dr. Francisco Ignacio dos Santos Cruz

regarding prostitution in Lisbon,[258] in which the whole subject of

Portuguese prostitution is admirably described, with special reference

to the capital city. Santos Cruz gives most careful attention to the

legislative aspect of the question. He was the first to advocate a

measure which has recently been proposed also by Lesser (doubtless in

ignorance of the work of his predecessor)--viz., the =formation of

polyclinics for the gratuitous treatment of prostitutes=.[259]

Regarding prostitution in the town of Lyons, renowned for its

immorality, Dr. Potton wrote a celebrated book, which received a prize

from the Medical Society of Lyons in the year 1841. This work was based

on official sources, and had especial reference to the relationships of

prostitution to the hygienic and economic conditions of the

population.[260]

A valuable book, also, is the work on prostitution in Algiers by E. A.

Duchesne.[261] It contains an elaborate account of “=male

prostitution=”--that is, prostitution of men for men--an expansion of

the idea of prostitution which is, as far as my knowledge goes, found

here for the first time. Naturally, in earlier works we find allusions

to men who practise pederasty for money, but the idea “prostitution” had

hitherto been strictly limited to the class of purchasable women.

We see this, for example, in the anonymous book “=Prostitution in

Berlin, and its Victims=,”[262] published in Berlin seven years before

the appearance of the work of Duchesne. The author definitely states

that “the admirable book of Parent-Duchatelet on prostitution in the

town of Paris, and its remarkable success, have chiefly given occasion

to the publication of my own work.” The book is, however, quite

independent in character, and treats of the individual relationships of

prostitution in Berlin, on the basis of =official= sources and

experience, in historical, moral, medical, and political relations, and

also from the point of view of police administration. It contains an

appendix on “=prostituted men=” (p. 207), who, however, are not

homosexual prostitutes, but, according to the writer’s own definition,

“men who make it their profession to serve for payment =voluptuous

women= by the gratification of the latter’s unnatural passions.” This

species still exists at the present day, but there is no particular name

for the type. (In the seventies, in Vienna, men who could be hired to

perform coitus were known locally as “stallions”--Ger. =Hengste=.) We

must include them in the great army of _souteneurs_, although the term

is not strictly applicable. Later we shall return to the consideration

of this peculiar variety of male prostitution.

As an enlargement of the work just mentioned, we can regard the book

published in the same year, 1846, by the Criminal Commissary, Dr. Carl

Röhrmann, on =Prostitution in Berlin=.[263]

This book is especially remarkable from the fact that it contains

“complete and candid biographies of the best-known prostitutes in

Berlin,” an idea which has recently been revived, for example, in W.

Hammer’s “The Life-History of Ten Public Prostitutes in Berlin” (Berlin

and Leipzig, 1905).

Very valuable official material is, finally, to be found in a third work

on prostitution in Berlin, written by the celebrated syphilologist F. J.

Behrend.[264] It begins with a careful history of the police regulations

regarding prostitution in Berlin, then discusses the consequences of the

abolition of the Berlin brothels in the year 1845, and proceeds to

demand new measures and regulations for the control of prostitution and

for the prevention of syphilis in Berlin. As a collection of material,

the book is of considerable value.

Little known, but thoroughly original, is the work of the Hamburg

physician, Dr. Lippert, on =prostitution in Hamburg=.[265] Blaschko even

fails to mention it in the bibliography at the end of his own work,

presently to be described. Lippert adduces numerous and interesting new

contributions to our knowledge of “the many-headed hydra, the

colour-changing chameleon,” of prostitution. After an introductory

sketch regarding the historical development of prostitution in Hamburg,

he gives a “characterization of the present moral condition of Hamburg,”

embodying important information regarding the number of brothel

prostitutes and street-walkers, the topographical distribution of

prostitution and of brothels, the secret houses of accommodation, the

remarkable decline in the number of marriages, the relationship between

legitimate and illegitimate births, and the number of drinking-saloons

and dancing-halls; and he goes on to describe with more detail these

individual factors of prostitution, and especially the opportunities

for prostitution. The third chapter contains an extremely interesting

physiological and pathological description of the Hamburg prostitutes.

According to Lippert, the principal motives of prostitution are

“=idleness=, =frivolity=, and, above all, the =love of finery=.” He

rightly lays especial stress upon the last-named cause, which, in the

more recent scientific investigations regarding the causes of

prostitution, has, unfortunately, been too much neglected. Then follow

data regarding the age, nationality, class, and occupation of

prostitutes. We learn that as early as the date of this book of

Lippert’s the greatest number of public prostitutes had originally been

=maidservants= (p. 79), not girls of the labouring classes. Thus the

fact that prostitutes recruit their ranks chiefly from the servant class

is not, as recent writers assert, exclusively the consequence of the

increasing mental culture of the modern proletariat, but is most

probably rather connected with the freer configuration of the amatory

life among the labouring classes, where the nobler form of “free love”

has long been dominant. From the very nature of the case, this must lead

to a limitation of the supply of prostitutes from this class. The

chapter closes with an elaborate description of the physical and mental

peculiarities of the Hamburg prostitutes, and of the diseases observed

in them. In the fourth chapter the various classes of prostitutes are

considered more closely--the brothel prostitutes (with an exact

description of the celebrated brothel streets of Hamburg), the

prostitutes living alone, the street-walkers, the “kept women,” the

large group of secret prostitutes. There follow in an appendix

interesting accounts of the public places which are related to

prostitution; of prostitution in the Hamburger Berg and in the suburb of

St. Pauli; and of the rescue work of Hamburg.

A very good account of prostitution in Hamburg is also found in a book

contemporary with that of Lippert, entitled “=Memoirs of a Prostitute,

or Prostitution in Hamburg=” (St. Pauli, 1847). This work, which is now

extraordinarily rare, resembles the book which recently gained such

celebrity, the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen” (“Diary of a Lost Woman”), by

Margaret Böhme, in that it was edited by a Dr. J. Zeisig, professedly

after the “original manuscript.” As usual, it has all happened before!

In the preface to his book, Lippert remarks that, since prostitution in

Berlin and in Hamburg has now been adequately described, it was

desirable that an analogous book should be compiled regarding Vienna, in

order that we might have the necessary comparative statistics of “the

three principal towns and principal factors of German prostitution.”

The actual account of prostitution in Vienna did not, however, appear

till forty years later, in the year 1886. Still, as early as 1847 the

book of Dr. Anton J. Gross-Hoffinger was published, describing

exclusively the conditions of prostitution in Austria, and naturally

chiefly concerned with conditions in Vienna.[266] In my opinion, this

book has an epoch-making significance, because therein we find asserted

for the first time, with all possible emphasis, that the institution of

=coercive marriage= is the ultimate cause of prostitution, to which all

the other causes are subsidiary. In no other book do we find so painful

a description, drawn with such astonishing clearness, of the horrible

conditions resulting from the artificial preservation of the official

and ecclesiastical coercive marriage, which was really based upon

economic conditions peculiar to the remote past. The two first sections,

“Woman the Slave of Civilization” and “Woman in her Degradation,” are

the most frightful accusations of conventional marriage. On pp. 190 and

191 the author formulates in fifteen paragraphs a law of marriage

reform, which has a very close resemblance to the previously described

ideas of Ellen Key. A perfect classic is the chapter on servant-girls

(pp. 226-284), unique in its thoroughness, and affording an admirable

description of the legal, moral, and economic relationships of domestic

service.

“=The great army of domestic servants=,” he writes, “=constitute the

ever-ready reserve force of prostitution. Daily from this reserve are

drawn new recruits for the regular service, and daily the vacant

places in the reserve are once more filled.=”

Gross-Hoffinger, in 1847, came also to the conclusion that in “free

love” or “free marriage” was to be found the only salvation from the

misery of prostitution.

The comprehensive work of Schrank upon prostitution in Vienna[267] is

distinguished by an abundance of interesting isolated observations, and

these are especially to be found in the earlier historical portion. The

second part is occupied with the administration and hygiene of

prostitution in Vienna. The work gives an exhaustive account of Viennese

prostitution down to the year 1885.

Prostitution in Leipzig was described in three chapters of a general

work on prostitution, published in the year 1854.[268] The titles of

these three chapters are: “Moral Corruption in Leipzig”; “Tolerated

Prostitutes and Tolerated Houses in Leipzig”; “Tolerated Prostitutes in

Leipzig: their Morals, their Customs, their Hygienic Condition, their

End.” Very interesting is the statement of the author that of the 3,000

maidservants in Leipzig, _one-third_ were engaged in secret

prostitution.

The prostitution in the largest town of the new world, in New York, also

found an admirable description in the sixth decade of the nineteenth

century in the great historical work of the New York physician, William

M. Sanger.[269] Of the 685 large octavo pages which the book contains,

pages 450 to 676 are devoted to the description of the conditions of

prostitution in New York. The historical portion of the book is also

extremely valuable, being based upon the best historical authorities.

With the year 1860, or thereabouts, this first period of the scientific

literature of prostitution, characterized by monographs dealing with

individual =towns=, in pursuance of the example of Parent-Duchatelet,

came to a close. Just as Parent-Duchatelet had inaugurated this kind of

description, so the French now undertook the introduction of the further

researches into prostitution. First of all, Dr. J. Jeannel summarized

the results of the books we have already mentioned in a general work on

prostitution,[270] which contained a comparative view of the conditions

in various countries and towns. An Englishman, W. Acton, also wrote a

similar general work on prostitution;[271] whilst yet another general

work on the subject was written by the German Hügel.[272]

The extremely important question of =secret= prostitution has been

elucidated especially by the writings of Martineau[273] and

Commenge;[274] the not less important question of prostitution practised

by =girls under full age= is treated by Augagneur;[275] the =problems

of regulation and of brothels= have been studied by Fiaux, whose work is

comprehensive and based upon carefully compiled statistics, and the

author attempts the solution of these problems;[276] the sometime French

Minister Yves Guyot has discussed the problem of prostitution from the

higher philosophical and social point of view;[277] in short, the French

physicians illuminated this obscure province of thought from every side,

and =laid the foundations for the scientific and critical study of

prostitution=, which began with the last decade of the nineteenth

century.

To Alfred Blaschko unquestionably belongs the credit of having broken

entirely new ground in connexion with the problem of prostitution, by

means of the debate instituted by him in the year 1892 in the Medical

Society of Berlin, and by several works distinguished by a

sharp-sighted, critical faculty.[278] Upon his exhaustive scientific

studies, and upon the most careful practical considerations, Blaschko

bases the demands:

“=Abolish Regulation!=

=Away with Brothels!=”

At the same time, Blaschko is a convinced advocate of the economic

theory of prostitution.

Almost at the same time, Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated alienist and

criminal anthropologist of Turin, propounded his =anthropological=

theory of prostitution, and enunciated the doctrine, which attracted so

much attention, of the “Donna delinquinte e prostituta,” of the

“=congenital prostitute=.”[279] This doctrine found an unconditional

supporter in the St. Petersburg syphilologist Tarnowsky; whilst the

latter strongly opposed the efforts made by the International

Federation, founded in 1875 by Mrs. Josephine Butler, for the abolition

of the regulation of prostitution.[280] Ströhmberg, in an interesting

work on prostitution,[281] takes the same standpoint as Lombroso and

Tarnowsky.

It is, however, noteworthy that quite recently the French observers

also, and, above all, the experienced Fiaux, are inclining to the views

of Blaschko, of the accuracy of which I myself am now fully convinced,

notwithstanding the fact that in my work on prostitution in

England,[282] which appeared eight years ago (October, 1900), I still

advocated regulation. E. von Düring also, who, as professor of medicine

in Constantinople for many years, has made elaborate study of the

conditions of prostitution in that town, adheres, in an essay well worth

reading, without qualification to the opinion of Blaschko regarding the

uselessness of regulation and of brothels.[283]

After this brief enumeration of the most important descriptive and

scientific studies of prostitution, we shall now proceed to a short

account of the conditions that obtain at the present day.

The idea of “=prostitution=” is in no respect clearly and sharply

limited. Parent-Duchatelet considered that prostitution only occurred

“when a woman was known to have accepted money for this purpose on

several successive occasions, when she was openly recognized as being

engaged in this occupation, when an arrest had occurred and the

offence had thus been definitely discovered, or when in any other way

it was proved to the satisfaction of the police” (vol. i., p. 11).

But in this way he entirely excluded the so-called “secret”

prostitution--that is to say, he excluded by far the largest category of

prostitution.

As soon as we take this latter into consideration, we find it necessary

to have a wider conception of the term “prostitution.” This is

recognized by the French physician Rey in his little book on “=Public

and Secret Prostitution=” (German edition, p. 1; Leipzig, 1851). He

regards as prostitution the act “by which a woman allows the =use of her

body by any man, without distinction=, and =for a payment made or

expected=.”

In this admirable definition we see the two most important

characteristics of prostitution: =complete indifference with regard to

the person of the man demanding the use of her body=, and the fact that

=the act is done for reward=. The only point omitted from consideration

is the condition mentioned by Parent-Duchatelet--namely, the =frequent

repetition= of the act of prostitution with =different= men.

Schrank combines all these characteristics of prostitution in a much

briefer phrase, by defining them as “=professional acts of fornication

performed with the human body=,” by which, in the first place, we

include male and female =homosexual= prostitution, which are not covered

by the definitions previously quoted, and, in the second place,

Schrank’s definition lays stress on the fact that in =genuine=

prostitution the =monetary reward= is the aim of the act of prostitution

much more than any kind of enjoyment. Where enjoyment plays a prominent

part, =in addition to= the earning of money, we are no longer concerned

with genuine prostitution. Even a prostitute, who in other respects is

typically a woman of that class, ceases at that moment and for that time

to be a prostitute, when her earnings become a secondary consideration,

and the =man= to whom she gives herself the principal consideration.

For this reason, strictly speaking, a large proportion of secret

prostitutes and numerous members of the half-world cannot be reckoned as

prostitutes in the proper sense of the term--at any rate, =not always=;

not when, for instance, the man who supports and pays them is at the

same time their “lover”;[284] they then belong for the time being to the

not less dangerous province of “wild love.” But in practice this

distinction cannot be strictly maintained, for the =same= woman will

very frequently undertake a genuine act of prostitution.

It is only the “sale of the sweet name of love,” as the celebrated

politician Louis Blanc expresses it, which constitutes prostitution--the

=complete lack= of all spiritual and all personal relationships on the

one side, and the ignominious predominance of the =mercantile= character

of the sexual union on the other. Hence there may be prostitution in

marriage, although this always remains widely different from the sale of

the body to =numerous= and =frequently changing= individuals.

The “prostitution” of primeval times, in which social relationships were

so utterly different from ours, unquestionably resembled rather the wild

love of the present day than our own prostitution. It was sexual

promiscuity, not professional fornication. According to Heinrich

Schurtz, prostitution is indeed not an exclusive product of higher

civilization, but occurs also among primitive peoples, and appears

everywhere where the unrestricted sexual intercourse of youth--wild

love--is prevented, without early marriage taking its place. But what he

describes as prostitution--for example, the living of several unmarried

girls in the houses of men--is still no more than a peculiar form of

wild love. Still, according to the reports of numerous travellers, there

are among primitive peoples also =purchasable= women, and this must be

explained, just as in our own case, from the combined influence of

individual, social, and economic conditions.

To my mind there is no doubt that the so-called “=religious=”

prostitution is to be regarded as at least a =germinal form= and

=predecessor= of the prostitution of the present day. In this case also

we had to do with =professional= fornication; only, although the

temple-girls, just like our modern prostitutes, gave themselves

=indifferently to any man= that offered the money paid for this service,

that money did not, in the case of religious prostitution, go to the

girl herself, but to the deity, or to the crafty priests who represented

him; thus the priests really played the part of our modern

brothel-keepers. It is absolutely unquestionable that in this religious

prostitution a more ideal element also played a part. This subject was

discussed at considerable length above (pp. 100-112).

Prostitution is everywhere a product of the =growth of large towns=; its

peculiar characteristics are developed only in large towns. To the

country it was always foreign until those beautiful times of the middle

ages, in which prostitution was regarded as a =necessary of life=, like

eating and drinking, and was organized in guilds, so that everywhere

“women-houses” were instituted for the public, unconstrained use of all

classes, for peasant and prince. At that time quite small towns also had

their brothels. The appearance of syphilis, and the awakening of modern

individualism, brought these conditions to an end; the brothels

disappeared everywhere; and this tendency to a =continuous decrease= of

barrack prostitution, to a progressive diminution in the number of

brothels, has continually strengthened. On the whole, the rural

districts to-day do not know prostitution; there we have only free love

and wild love. The existence of prostitution is confined to the large

towns, because in these all the necessary conditions are fulfilled, and,

above all, because in large towns the possibilities for the

gratification of the sexual impulse by marriage or by free love are in

the case of men much more limited than they are in the country. In the

town there is even a =demand= for prostitutes, but not in the country.

It is true that the demand on the part of men does not correspond to the

extension which modern prostitution has assumed in the large towns; this

demand corresponds, as it were, to a portion only of prostitution. In

his admirable work on the campaign against prostitution (_Journal for

the Suppression of Venereal Diseases_, vol. ii., pp. 311-313) F.

Schiller proves that prostitution has not increased merely in proportion

to the increase in the male population, =but that in reality, in recent

decades, it has increased, on the whole, in a much greater proportion

than the population, and that different towns exhibit the most

remarkable contrasts in the respective ratios of prostitutes to male

population=.

For example, in Berlin prostitution has increased =to an extent almost

double= that of the increase in male population. A similar relationship

is to be observed in other large towns. Everywhere the supply of

prostitutes =exceeds= the demand; and we cannot doubt that by this great

supply the need for prostitutes is to a large extent at first aroused.

Street-walkers and brothels =allure= many men to sexual intercourse who

otherwise would not have felt any need for it.

But, on the other hand, the existence of a =voluntary demand= for

prostitutes on the part of =men= is a fact which cannot be denied. In

this sense prostitution has been described as mainly a “man’s question.”

Here we touch upon an extremely difficult problem, and one which, as far

as I can see, no one before myself has definitely stated, perhaps

because no one has =ventured= to do it--and yet, for our knowledge of

prostitution, the question is one of great importance.

What precisely is the “need of man for prostitution” of which Blaschko

speaks? Is it merely the sexual impulse? Or is there any other factor in

operation?

Certainly the sexual impulse, simple sensuality, plays a large part in

this male demand for prostitutes; but this does not explain the fact why

married men, and so many men who, if not married, have yet opportunities

for other sexual intercourse, have recourse to prostitutes; it does not

explain the fact, by which I am myself continually and anew astonished,

of the peculiar attractive force which prostitutes exercise upon

cultured men with delicate æsthetic and ethical perceptions. Is there

any deeper physiological relationship here involved?

I answer this question unconditionally in the affirmative.

It is not by chance that prostitution is mainly a product of

civilization, that it finds in civilization its proper vital conditions,

whereas in primitive states it cannot properly thrive.

In primitive times, unrestrained by the (just) demands of a higher

civilization, and by the social morality intimately associated

therewith, men could, without fear or regret, satisfy their wild

impulses, no less in the sexual sphere than in others; they could

give free play to those peculiar biological instincts of a sexual

nature which lie hidden in every man. Their sexual “supra- and

sub-consciousness,” to use the happy phrase which Chr. von Ehrenfels

invented to denote the dualism of modern sexuality, were still

=monistic=. To-day, however, the primitive instincts are =repressed= by

the necessities of civilized life, and by the coercive force of

conventional morality; but these instincts still slumber in every one.

Each one of us has also his sexual sub-consciousness. Sometimes it

awakens, demands activity, free from all restraint, from all coercion,

from all convention. In such moments it seems as if the man were an

entirely different being. Here the “two souls” in our breast become a

reality. Is this still the celebrated man of learning, the refined

idealist, the sensitive æsthetic, the artist who has enriched us with

the most magnificent and the purest works of poetry or of plastic art?

We recognize him no longer, because in such moments something quite

different has awakened to life; =another= nature stirs within him and

urges him with an elemental force to do things from which his

“supra-consciousness,” the consciousness of the civilized man, would

draw back in horror.

Such a delicate sensitive nature, open to the finest spiritual

activities, as that of the Danish poet J. P. Jakobsen, must feel this

contrast in an especially painful manner; it is precisely such

natures--those in which the extremes we have described appear most

sharply and most clearly--which afford us proof of the existence of a

double consciousness. The primitive instinct breaks out, like a

monomania--of which old psychiatric doctrine of “monomania” we are

involuntarily reminded when we see how even men of light and leading,

men who in other respects live only in the highest regions of the

spirit, are subjected to the domination of this purely instinctive

sexualism, so that they lead a “secret” inner life, of whose existence

the world has no suspicion.

In “Niels Lyhne” J. P. Jakobsen has admirably characterized this double

life.

“But when,” he writes, “he had served God truly for eleven days, it

often happened that =other powers= gained the upper hand in him; by an

overwhelming force he was driven to the coarse lust of coarse

enjoyments; he yielded, overcome by the human passion for

self-annihilation, which, while the blood burns as blood only can

burn, demands degradation, perversity, dirt, and foulness, with no

less force than the force which inspires the equally human passion for

becoming greater than one is, and purer.”

These human instincts can be satisfied only by prostitution. By the

purchasable prostitute this desire, described so aptly and with so much

insight by Jakobsen, can be fully satisfied. To the origin of the desire

we shall return in another connexion. The common, the rough, the brutal

animal in the nature of prostitution, exercises a formal magical

attractive force on large numbers of men.

Ludwig Pietsch, in his “Recollections of Sixty Years,” vol. ii., p. 337

(Berlin, 1894), tells of the celebrated cocotte of the Second French

Empire, Cora Pearl, whom he saw in Baden-Baden:

“I have never been able to understand how it was that she exercised so

powerful an attraction. In her appearance, her tumid, painted

‘pug-face,’ the secret was certainly not to be found. Perhaps the

influence which she exercised on so many men rested principally in the

quality which the royal friend of the Danish Countess Danner described

to the latter, when explaining to her the reason of the power, to

others quite incomprehensible, which Cora Pearl had exercised on his

own heart. He said: ‘=She is so gloriously vulgar=.’”

This word speaks volumes, and illuminates the peculiar influence of

prostitutes and prostitution upon man in an apt and powerful way.[285]

Admirably, also, has Stefan Grimmen, in his novelette “Die Landpartie”

(published in _Die Welt am Montag_, No. 22, May 28, 1906), described

this influence, which in this case was exercised by two demi-mondaines

lying in the grass, upon the masculine members of a picnic-party, who

were so enthralled as completely to forget the ladies of their company.

The de Goncourts were also aware of the specific allurement exercised by

prostitutes, for in one place in their diary they recommend a wife to

adopt certain customs of prostitutes, in order to bind her husband to

her for a long time.

In this respect, we cannot fail to recognize a certain masochistic trait

in the sensibility of men, which appears especially remarkable when we

call to mind the contrast between the nature of the above described

spiritually lofty persons and the nature of a prostitute. In this way we

should be led to the view that =prostitution is in part a product of the

physiological male masochism=--that is to say, of the impulse from time

to time to plunge into the depths of coarse, brutal, sexual lust and of

self-mortification and self-abasement, by surrender to a comparatively

worthless creature. This attraction towards prostitutes is one of the

most remarkable phenomena in the psyche of the modern civilized man; it

is the curse of the evolution of civilization.

“The most ideal man also is unable to free himself from his body,”

says Heinrich Schurtz; “refinement leads ultimately to an unnatural

over-nicety, =which must necessarily be permeated from time to time by

a breath of fresh unrefinement and coarse naturalism=, if it is not to

perish from its own inward contradiction.”

In a certain sense the same need finds expression also in Gutzkow’s

remark in the “Neue Serapionsbrüder,” vol. i., p. 198 (Breslau, 1877),

that man sometimes has a need for “=woman-in-herself=,” not woman with

the thousand and one tricks and whimsies of wives, mothers, and

daughters.

Without question, this need is much more characteristic of man than of

woman. Still, I am not prepared altogether to deny its existence in the

latter. In another connexion I shall return to this extremely important

question.

Naturally in this we see no more than a =favouring factor= of the

appearance of prostitution =in the mass=; we do not speak of it as the

definite cause of the production of any individual prostitute.

Speaking generally, I consider the dispute regarding the causes of

prostitution as superfluous; a number of causes are in operation, and in

each individual case it is always an unfortunate =concatenation= of

circumstances, of subjective and objective influences, which have driven

the girl to prostitution. The various =theories= regarding the causes of

prostitution have therefore only a relative value. Not one of them

explains it wholly; each explanation demands the assistance of others.

This is, above all, true of the celebrated theory of Lombroso, regarding

the “=born prostitute=,” a theory which states, to put the matter

shortly and clearly, that the girl is born with all the =rudimentary

characteristics= of a prostitute, and that these rudimentary

characteristics have also a =physical= foundation, in the form of

demonstrable =stigmata of degeneration=.

Lombroso’s “born prostitute” is, above all, distinguished by a complete

lack of the moral sense, by typical “moral insanity,” which is the true

“=root=” of the prostitute life, for he regards that life as very little

dependent upon the sexual. Prostitution, therefore, according to

Lombroso, “is only a special case of the early tendency to all evil, of

the desire which characterizes the morally idiotic human being from

childhood upwards, to do that which is forbidden.”[286] The individual

cause of prostitution, according to this view, is to be found, not in

the sexual, but in the ethical province. With the ethical defects are

associated greediness, the love of finery, a tendency to drink, vanity,

dislike of work, mendacity, and an inclination towards criminality. To

this moral degeneration there corresponds the presence of stigmata of

degeneration, such as anomalies of the teeth, cleft palate, abnormal

distribution of the hair, prominent ears, asymmetry of the face, etc.

The above-described type of degenerate woman does, as a fact, exist.

But, in the first place, such women constitute only a small fraction of

prostitutes, and such women are found =following other occupations=.

Thus, the expression “born prostitute” is a false one; it should run,

“born degenerate,” for not all born degenerates become prostitutes.

In the second place, =not all degenerate prostitutes are born

degenerates=. In many cases the degeneration is a result of the

professional unchastity.

“No one,” says Friedrich Hammer, “who has not personally investigated

the matter can conceive how =rapidly= and =completely= the =process of

transformation from an honourable girl into a prostitute

proceeds=--the transformation into a street-walker. A few weeks before

she was clean-looking and trim, perhaps with a somewhat frivolous

appearance, but still able to understand the position in which she

found herself; now, however, she seems to have completely ‘gone to

pieces’; she is dirty and verminous, and on her face is an expression

of absolute wretchedness, not, as you perhaps might imagine, of

unbridled sensuality--=no, rather one of indifference=, of complete

helplessness and loss of will, of unresponsiveness alike to punishment

and to benefit.”[287]

The earlier investigators of prostitution, including the first of all,

Parent-Duchatelet, did not fail to recognize that the mental and

physical abnormalities of the prostitute were =changes= due to her mode

of life. In many prostitutes we can observe a =typical obliteration of

the secondary and tertiary sexual characters= after a prolonged practice

of their profession. Virey remarked, very justly, that “in consequence

of the frequent embraces of men, prostitutes gain a more or less

masculine appearance”: their neck is thicker, their voice harsher and

more masculine (J. J. Virey, “Woman,” pp. 157, 158; Leipzig, 1827).

Most prostitutes have done more or less injury to the functions of the

human body, have completely disordered their sexual life, and are

sterile. It is not to be wondered at that this sometimes manifests

itself in their outward appearance--as, for example, in the slight

development of the breasts, which often amounts to a simple atrophy. The

“unmistakable development” of the tertiary characters of the male in

individual prostitutes, which has led Kurella to propound the

interesting hypothesis that prostitutes are a sub-variety of the

homosexual,[288] rests for the most part upon their assumption of a

masculine mode of life and masculine habits, which in the long-run

cannot fail to influence also the bodily development--as, for example,

smoking and the excessive use of alcohol, pot-house life, gluttony, and

other masculine habits. The “deep masculine voice” of many prostitutes

is unquestionably in most cases the result of the excessive use of

tobacco and alcohol. To this striking =gradual= change in the voice

Parent-Duchatelet devoted considerable attention (vol. i., pp. 86-88, of

the German edition); it also attracted Lippert’s notice.

Parent-Duchatelet refers the common development in prostitutes of the

masculine voice to their excessive indulgence in alcoholic beverages,

and to their exposure to frequent changes of weather (catching cold,

etc.). Smoking also certainly plays a part.

Lippert draws attention to other changes (“Prostitution in Hamburg,” pp.

80 and 90):

“By the daily practice of their profession for many years their eyes

acquire a piercing, rolling expression; they are somewhat unduly

prominent in consequence of the continued tension of the ocular

muscles, since the eyes are principally employed to spy out and

attract clients. In many the organs of mastication are strongly

developed; the mouth, in continuous activity either in eating or in

kissing, is conspicuous; the forehead is often flat; the occipital

region is at times extremely prominent; the hair of the head is often

scanty--in fact, a good many become actually bald. For this reasons

are not lacking: above all, the restless mode of life; the continued

running about in all weathers in the open street, sometimes with the

head bare; the often long-lasting fluor albus from which they

suffer;[289] the incessant brushing, manipulation, frizzling, and

pomading of the hair; and, among the lower classes of prostitutes, the

use of brandy.

“The rough voice is the physiological characteristic of the woman who

has lost her proper functions--those of the mother.”

However, the =majority= of =youthful prostitutes= exhibit purely

=feminine= characteristics; it is only late in life that the

above-described type becomes predominant, and this shows us that the

masculine characteristics are the result of =objective= influences. From

five to ten years bring about a notable difference. In the year 1898 I

treated a maidservant for syphilis. At that time she was of an elegant,

genuinely feminine appearance. Seven years later, in the year 1905, I

saw her once more. What a change! Her face was bloated and widened; her

eyes, once so bright and clear, had become cloudy and expressionless;

her voice was rough; all the specific feminine forms and characters had

been obliterated by extreme corpulence. It was no longer a woman, it was

a “prostitute,” a special type of humanity, but one which had been

=gradually produced=, and as a result of no more than six years of the

practice of professional prostitution.

These facts do not by any means exclude the existence of =genuine

degenerates= among prostitutes in a greater percentage than among

non-prostitutes;[290] nor do they exclude the existence of genuine

homosexuals among prostitutes. To this extent Lombroso’s theory contains

a nucleus of truth; but it concerns only a fraction of the entire world

of prostitutes. Lombroso has himself been repeatedly compelled to

recognize the frequency with which he has encountered among prostitutes

women of normal appearance, and even beautiful women.[291]

Finally, the doctrine of the “born prostitute” is contradicted by the

fact that the same types of degenerate which are described by Lombroso

among prostitutes are found also among women who are not

prostitutes.[292] In fact, Lombroso has been led to this view by the

recognition of an “equivalent of prostitutes among the upper classes”;

but in this way he has only proved that the =same= moral degeneration

that is encountered in a certain proportion of prostitutes is also seen

in misconducted women of other and higher classes. There are, in fact,

prostitute natures among the “upper ten thousand.”

The best limitation of the general value of the doctrine of the “born

prostitute” is the concluding chapter of Lombroso’s book upon

“Occasional Prostitutes.” He begins with the pertinent remark:

“Not all prostitutes are ethically indifferent--that is to say, they

are =not all born prostitutes=; in this province =opportunity= also

plays its part.”

Lombroso proceeds to develop this thesis, thus markedly limiting the

application of his own theory, and recognizing that, in addition to

natural predisposition, quite other causes and influences come into play

in the production of prostitution.

Above all, the =economic= factors are of greater importance in the

genesis and growth of prostitution, even though their influence is not

an exclusive one.

I distinguish here between =real, genuine poverty= (lack of food, proper

housing accommodation, etc.) and merely =relative poverty=. Hitherto, in

considering the economic causes of prostitution, these two elements have

not been distinguished with sufficient clearness.

=The fact that real, absolute poverty and lack of the necessaries of

life drives many girls to a life of prostitution can, in view of recent

statistical data, no longer be disputed.= More exact material dealing

with this subject is to be found in the above mentioned writings of

Blaschko, one of the principal advocates of the economic theory of

prostitution; also in the works of Georg Keben,[293] Oda Olberg,[294]

Anna Pappritz,[295] Pfeiffer,[296] Paul Kampffmeyer,[297] E. von

Düring,[298] and many others. Here we have a superabundant material, a

quantity of distressing and tragical individual data and proofs of

Gutzkow’s thesis, that =the material evils of society always and

everywhere undergo transformation into immorality=. Here unquestionably

must we =first= apply the lever for the removal of this economic

predisposing condition of prostitution. _Hic Rhodus, hic salta!_ I am

myself firmly convinced of this fact, although I do =not= consider that

the causes of prostitution are to be found =exclusively= in economic

conditions--an opinion which Anna Pappritz, for example, maintains in

the most extreme form. It is quite true, however, that our entire sexual

life at the present day is so intimately connected with the =social

question= that the reform of the sexual life demands as an unconditional

preliminary a reform of economic conditions. Prostitution =on the large

scale=, as it manifests itself in modern days, and its =continuous

increase= to an extent quite unparalleled in former times, is only

explicable by the rapid transformation of economic conditions--as, for

example, by the concentration of population in large towns, by the

industrial revolution, and by the development of great aggregations of

capital, by the consequent greatly increased severity of the struggle

for existence, the postponement of marriage, and the ever-increasing

number of individuals who are not economically and professionally

independent. The increase in =child-labour= (naturally we refer

especially to children of the female sex) has also to be considered as a

remarkable phenomenon of modern industrial life; but, above all, we must

take into account the fact that =woman’s work= is on the average

regarded at a very low valuation, and is paid accordingly.

The insufficiency of their earnings is the immediate cause of the fact

that so many women and girls seek =accessory earnings= in the form of

prostitution. It is well known that employers reckon on this fact in

drawing up their pay-lists, and frequently are so brutally cynical as to

point out to their female employees the possibility of increasing their

earnings in this manner--one very convenient to the employer!

The _Reichsarbeitsblatt_, No. 2, of the year 1903, publishes a very

remarkable account of the conditions of work and life of the =unmarried

female factory employees= in Berlin. It is based upon the reports of the

professional factory inspectors in Berlin, who have access to material

affording them accurate information regarding the mode of life of

factory women. The reports concern 939 unmarried factory hands, and

include all occupations in which in Berlin a considerable number of

women were employed. The average age of the women who came under

observation was 22-1/2 years; the oldest was 54 years; 53·5 % of the

whole number were over 21 years of age; 42 % were between 16 and 21

years of age; 4·5 % were below 16 years of age. The average number of

hours of daily work was 9-1/2; 3·2 % of all the women worked from 7-1/2

to 8 hours; 37·2 %, 8 to 9 hours; 47·7 %, 9 to 10 hours; and 11·9 %, 10

to 11 hours. The weekly wage amounted on the average to 11·36 marks

(shillings); individually, the wages were very variable; 4·3 % of the

women were paid less than 6 marks (shillings); 1·1 % were paid from 20

to 30 marks (shillings). =In a very large majority of instances the

wages varied between 8 and 15 marks.= Supplies from a source independent

of their wages, in the form of money, clothing, and means of

subsistence, were received, according to their own statement, by 88 of

the women; among these, 41 were assisted by parents, 4 by other

relatives, 3 in other ways; 542 of those examined lived with their

parents, 57 with other relatives--that is, altogether 64·2 of the total

number--21·5 % lived in common lodging-houses, 14 % in their own rooms.

The worst-paid workwomen lived chiefly with their parents; as soon as

the wage sufficed to support them away from home a great many left their

parents’ houses. The housing accommodation was ascertained in 846

instances; in 758 of these a single room constituted the dwelling, in 82

cases a kitchen, in 2 cases an attic, in 3 some other room. In isolated

cases quite unsuitable places were used to sleep in. =Speaking

generally, the conditions were worse= than appears from the above

figures. Of 832 workwomen, only 169 had a room to themselves; 193 slept

in a room with one other person, and 470--that is, 56·6 %--=with several

persons=. With regard to the cost of their dwellings, there were 464

reports; the average payment was 1·79 marks (shillings) per week. The

cost of the food (dinner and lesser meals) amounted on the average, in

the case of 568, to 6·77 marks (shillings); of these, 205 paid less than

6 marks (shillings), 109 more than 8 marks (shillings) per week. The

total cost for lodging and food amounted in the case of 867 workwomen on

the average to 7·62 marks; 44·7 % had their principal meal at midday;

55·3 % in the evening; 79·4 % took it at home; 9·4 % in the factory;

11·2 % in a public kitchen, a cooking-school, or an eating-house. With

regard to the expenditure for clothing, etc., =very scanty= details were

obtained--too scanty to be worth recording. Of the 939 workwomen of whom

inquiry was made on the point, 197, or 21 %, contributed money to the

education or support of relatives or children; about 10 % paid (direct)

taxes, with a mean expenditure of 8 pfennige (one penny) per week. For

amusement, 233 women recorded an average weekly expenditure of 1 mark

(shilling). To a considerable number of those examined it was possible

to put a little money by; in most cases the amount averaged from half to

one mark (sixpence to one shilling) per week; in many cases, however,

the money saved =was spent at some other time during the year=, in

consequence of diminished earnings or illness. The figures obtained,

although in many cases they require further examination, elaboration,

and illustration, still suffice to show that much remains to be done for

the improvement of the conditions of life of female factory employees.

That these wages are quite insufficient is shown by the following table

of the daily expenditure of a sempstress for food and lodging (based on

the reports of von Stülpnagel):

Mk. Pf.

Bedroom and coffee 0 20

Second breakfast 0 15

Dinner (midday) 0 30

Afternoon tea 0 15

Supper 0 20

Two bottles of beer 0 20

-------

Total 1 20

That amounts per week to 8 marks 40 pfennige (eight shillings and

fivepence) for board-lodging. For the rest, clothing, washing, and a

little amusement, have to be provided for, and this is only possible in

the case of the highest wages, varying from 12 to 15 marks; but this

higher wage =often enough= suffices, as Anna Pappritz herself admits. In

many cases the weekly wage is only 5 to 8 marks. In the majority of

occupations connected with the manufacture of ready-made clothing, trade

is only brisk for four to six months in each year. Thus, there is

necessarily a great deal of unemployment.

According to the Statistical Annual for the town of Berlin for the year

1907, the =annual wages= amounted:

For tailoresses to 457 marks

„ sempstresses „ 486 „

„ hand buttonhole workers „ 354 „

„ machine buttonhole workers „ 700 „

„ other women factory employees „ 354 „

According to the report of the Statistical Bureau, the average yearly

income of women factory employees throughout the German Empire was only

322 marks!

It is, therefore, no matter for surprise that the industrial councillors

of Frankfurt-on-the-Main and of Wiesbaden, in their published reports on

the wages of female factory employees for the year 1887, state:

“In Frankfurt, at the end of last month, among 226 persons under the

observation of the _police des mœurs_ (that is, not reckoning secret

prostitution), 98 were female factory employees. Since for their

necessary bare support (food and sleeping accommodation only), the

minimum daily sum needed is 1·25 marks, it appears that the wages

which can be earned by female employees of 1·50 to 1·80 marks can

hardly suffice to provide for all their needs. It would seem,

therefore, that the lowness of their earnings must play some part in

the matter under discussion.”

The reports of the industrial councillors of Düsseldorf, Posen, Stettin,

Neuss, Barmen, Elberfeld, Gladbach, Erfurt, etc., have a similar

signification.

Important in relation to the incontrovertible connexion between material

poverty and prostitution is the fact that in the majority of cases the

prostitution of female factory employees is only =occasional=, and not

professional prostitution--that is to say, such women have recourse to

prostitution only when compelled thereto by deficient means.

As regards genuine =professional= prostitution, female factory

employees, who live in a state of comparative freedom, contribute a

smaller contingent of recruits than =maidservants=, whose position is

always a =more dependent= one, and who are much less experienced in the

struggle for existence, although, generally speaking, they live in

better conditions. From a computation based upon figures for the years

1855, 1873, and 1898 (those for 1855 and 1898 relating to far too small

a number of cases), Blaschko derives the opinion that formerly female

factory employees provided a greater number of recruits to prostitution

than they do at present; but that, on the contrary, the contribution of

maidservants to the ranks of professional prostitution has enormously

increased. This assertion cannot pass without contradiction.

Gross-Hoffinger, in the work previously mentioned, pointed out that the

class of maidservants was the true nucleus of prostitution, and devoted

to this fact a long and illuminating chapter of his book. And at about

the same time (1848) Lippert also wrote (_op. cit._, p. 79): “The

principal sources of prostitution are =maidservants=, sempstresses,

flower-girls, tailoresses, hairdressers, shop-girls, and barmaids.”

(Gross-Hoffinger himself emphasizes the word “=maidservants=.”)

We see, therefore, that the preponderance of ex-maidservants in the

ranks of professional prostitution is by no means a new phenomenon,

although, possibly, that preponderance is even =greater= now than it was

in former times. And though in isolated instances it may happen that

simple poverty forces a maidservant to become a prostitute, this

explanation does not suffice for the generality of cases. The same

reservation must be made in respect of seduction and illegitimate

motherhood as causes of prostitution. And in so far as poverty is a

cause, we must speak rather of =relative= poverty, poverty which has

more of a subjective than an objective character.

Schiller rightly remarks, in his admirable essay on the “Prevention of

Prostitution,” that in respect of prostitutes who have been

maidservants, in the majority of cases there can be no question of

insufficient wages and actual poverty (if we except the badly paid

servants in public-houses, laundry-maids, and a few others), since the

maidservant receives, in addition to her wages, free board and lodging,

and therefore is in a much better position than the majority of female

factory employees and of women engaged in home industries.

Notwithstanding this, maidservants supply the largest proportion of

prostitutes.

The majority of maidservants come from the country, where lax views

prevail regarding sexual relationships. In addition, girls usually come

to town when still very young. The want of education and experience of

life is, in their case, very striking; and this is increased by their

permanently dependent position, in contrast with the early independence

of the town factory-women, who are speedily initiated into all the

possible evils of town life. In addition, there comes into the question

an influence which hitherto has been underestimated: the =love of

finery=. Among maidservants this is especially powerful, since, in this

respect, they are continually exposed to suggestive influences, arising

from the clothing of their mistresses. This love of dress, in

association with a far greater unscrupulousness in sexual matters than

exists among workwomen, drives many servant-girls, even =without= real

poverty, to prostitution. After they have lost their place, after they

have acquired a distaste for work, have given birth to an illegitimate

child, or have been infected with venereal disease, they very readily

enter the ranks of professional prostitution.

This =subjective psychological= factor plays nearly as great a rôle as

the economic factor. Blaschko himself draws attention to the fact that,

in proportion to the hundreds of thousands of women who are compelled to

earn their bread by hard, badly paid toil, the number of those who

ultimately become prostitutes is really almost infinitesimally small;

and that, therefore, we must regard as accessory causes of prostitution,

defective will-power, want of industry, of perseverance, and

of moral instincts, and, finally, also--and here Lombroso is

justified--congenital deficiency. Hellpach is right when, in his most

readable essay on “Prostitution and Prostitutes” (Berlin, 1905), he lays

the principal stress on this “social-psychological” explanation of

prostitution, and regards the purely economic factor as “the ultimate

turning-point” in the fatal road that leads to prostitution. (Earlier

than Hellpach, Anton Baumgarten attempted to give a social-psychological

explanation of prostitution. See his essays, containing much valuable

material, “Police and Prostitution,” and “The Relations of Prostitution

to Crime,” published in the eighth and eleventh volumes respectively of

the “Archives of Criminal Anthropology.”)

We must, therefore, hold firmly to the fact that the most =diverse= and

=heterogeneous= vital conditions may ultimately lead to prostitution.

Among these, =lack of education=, =premature habituation= to sexual

depravation by =casual observation= and by =deliberate seduction=, play

an important rôle. And these causes are themselves to a large extent

secondary to the =miserable housing conditions= in great towns, recently

so dramatically described by von Pfeiffer and Kampffmeyer.

“It is easier,” says Pfeiffer, “to thunder against immorality from the

top of a lofty tower, than it is to resist every allurement in dull,

narrow dwellings, in the midst of poverty and deprivation.... The

lodger flirts with the wife; the married or free-loving pair, also

living in the house, do not wait to begin their caresses until the

children are out of the way. The children are witnesses of many scenes

which are little adapted to the preservation of pure morals; they see

things which they later come to regard as matters of course, and when

they have the opportunity they act in the same way themselves, for

they have not learned otherwise, and they think that every one does

the same....

“The servant-girl becomes pregnant; no one knows what has become of

her child’s father. Driven out of her place, she remembers that she

has a married sister, and after long search she finds her in a damp

basement dwelling. This dwelling consists of a single room and a dark

kitchen; three shivering, dirty children are playing on the floor; the

husband is out of employment; but still they can find room for this

sister-in-law and her illegitimate child. Then perhaps there are

better days for a time. But within the narrow limits of the one-roomed

dwelling the association is too intimate, and the sister-in-law again

becomes pregnant, and ultimately in the same week both the sisters are

delivered as the result of impregnation by the same man. When we think

how all this has taken place in the =only= available room, we can

understand that the children must have seen a great deal little suited

to childish eyes.”

The housing statistics of Berlin for the year 1900 give horrible reports

regarding this, and even much worse conditions--conditions which are

sufficiently explained when we consider how often families living in a

single room take in a =male= or a =female lodger= for the night.

One-roomed dwellings in which from four to seven sleep every night are

common; those in which eight to ten sleep are by no means rare!

After what has been said above, no elaborate demonstration is needed to

show that =alcoholism= everywhere, in the most diverse conditions,

prepares the soil for prostitution. Kräpelin and O. Rosenthal have

thoroughly exposed this intimate connexion between prostitution and

alcoholism.

An even more important source of prostitution is to be found in

=procurement= and in the =traffic in girls=--this grave social evil of

our time. How often are children initiated into the practice of

prostitution, for the sake of pecuniary gain, by their own parents, or

by some other individual devoid of all moral feeling, and taught to

serve as mere instruments of earning money by lust! Paris offers more

examples of this traffic than any other European city, but London is not

far behind, as was proved by the _Pall Mall Gazette_ scandals of 1883,

to which we shall return in another connexion. In Berlin itself in

recent years the number of half-grown, and even childish, prostitutes

has enormously increased. Prostitutes from thirteen to fourteen years of

age are no longer rare.

An even sadder phenomenon is the modern =traffic in girls=, a

characteristic product of the age of commerce, although earlier times

were, indeed, familiar with it, especially France in the eighteenth

century,[299] witness more especially the accounts of the celebrated

_Parc-aux-Cerfs_.

The modern traffic in girls[300] is intimately connected with the

=brothel question=. We can, in fact, assert that if there were no

brothels there would be no traffic in girls. This is proved also by the

=growing dislike= to brothels felt by prostitutes, who prefer a free

life. For this reason, it becomes more and more difficult for the

keepers of brothels to obtain inmates, and the international traffic in

girls attempts to fill the continually increasing deficiency in the

number of girls entering brothels.

The traffic in girls is to-day almost exclusively recruited from Eastern

Europe. As regards its original sources, we find that Galicia--_i.e._,

Austrian Poland--supplies 40 %, Russia 15 %, Italy 11 %, Austria-Hungary

10 %, Germany 8 %, of the “White Slave Trade.” Most of the girls are

transported to the Argentine, where we find them in the brothels.[301]

The traders in girls, or “kaften” as they are called in Brazil, are, for

the most part, Polish Jews. Rosenack shows, in his report on the

campaign against the traffic in girls (a campaign actively taken up by

the Western European Jewish Unions, and especially by the Jewish

Association for the Protection of Girls and Women), that five out of six

of the Galician Jews engaged in this traffic are what are called

“Luftmenschen” (men of air)--that is, men without any definite or secure

means of livelihood--and that only an improvement in their social

conditions can put an end to the traffic in girls. As regards that part

of the world, he considers that the measures resolved upon by the

=National= and =International Conference for the Suppression of the

Traffic in Girls= (Berlin, 1903; Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1905) are not

adapted to offer any important hindrances to the traffic. More effective

has been the work of the Jewish Branch Committee in Germany for the

suppression of the Galician traffic in girls. Dr. Rosenack, Berta

Pappenheim, and Dr. Sera Rabinowitsch, in furtherance of the work of the

committee, studied the local conditions; the population was instructed

verbally and by leaflets and pamphlets. Endeavours have been made to

improve the economic condition of the workwomen of Galicia. For this

purpose, instructed female assistants are sent from Germany to Galicia.

It has been possible to awaken in Galicia general interest in the work

of the suppression of traffic in girls. In a Conference held at Lemberg,

the Galician clubs and Jewish committees made representations to German

and other societies, in order to formulate a plan, and to devise

measures for the improvement of Galician conditions.

In Buenos Ayres, the principal town of entry for Galician girls, a

committee has been formed to oppose the traffic in girls, the members of

this committee being of all religions and nationalities. This has had

one good effect--that the traders in girls have become alarmed; they no

longer practise their profession so openly as before. The Argentine

police are also taking an active part in the fight with the traffic. Not

more than two of the judges at Buenos Ayres were found to make common

cause with the “traders,” and to discharge them on receipt of large

bribes. A law has been drafted for the punishment of those engaged in

this traffic, by imprisonment for six years and confiscation of their

property.

The traders in girls constitute an international ring, and the centre of

their organization is in Buenos Ayres.

In Berlin, since 1904, there has existed a =central police organization=

for the suppression of the international traffic in girls, the activity

of which extends throughout the Empire. Every case of this traffic which

comes to the notice of the police in Germany is reported to the central

police organization. This draws up a list of all the traders in girls

whose names are definitely known. It has started an album containing

photographs of traders who have been punished, and it exchanges

experiences with the police of other countries. It is to be hoped that

in comparison with the other countries of Europe the number of German

girls exported to brothels abroad will continually grow smaller, and

that the local measures undertaken in Galicia and the Argentine will

have a good effect in limiting, and ultimately suppressing, this

traffic.

Henne am Rhyn has shown that to and from other countries--for example,

from England to Belgium and Germany (Hamburg), from Galicia to Turkey,

from Italy to North America, etc.--individual girls are transported.

According to Felix Baumann, the number of traders in girls in New York

approaches 20,000. They have close relations to the police, and they

employ young handsome men, called “cadets,” to attract the girls. The

abolition of brothels would here also be the best means of abolishing

the traffic in girls.

Having now learned the sources of prostitution, we must proceed to give

a brief account of the places in which it is carried on. Here we have

first of all to distinguish =public= from =secret= prostitution.

As regards public prostitution, there are only =two= principal varieties

to consider: street prostitution, where the women seek their victims in

the streets, in order to carry them off either to their =own dwellings=

or to =houses of accommodation=; and =brothel prostitution=. At the

present day in most countries public street prostitution is far the most

general form, and this is especially true as regards Germany, where in a

few towns only brothels continue to exist. In many places this street

prostitution--for example, in the Friedrichstrasse of Berlin, and also

on the boulevards of Paris--gives rise to conditions which recall the

worst days of imperial Rome. The =contact= between public life and

professional prostitution is unquestionably a great evil. The activity

of prostitutes in the open streets, the shameless and lascivious display

of their sexual charms, their bold solicitation _coram publico_, the

stimulating character of professional unchastity--all these poison our

public life, obliterate the boundary between cleanliness and

contamination, and display daily a picture of sexual corruption--alike

before the eyes of the pure, blameless girl, those of the honourable

wife, and those of the immature boy. Aptly has this =street=

prostitution been termed the _cloaca_ of our social life, which empties

into the open street, whereas at least =brothel= prostitution only

represented a hidden _cloaca_, whose offensive odour need not annoy all

the world, as inevitably happens in the case of street prostitution. In

addition, we have to consider the serious dangers involved in the

practice of professional fornication in private dwellings and houses of

accommodation, as they involve the decent families living in such

houses. What do the children living in such houses see and hear?

Frequently prostitutes are admitted to confidential family intercourse,

and they seduce the daughters of poor people to join them in the

practice of prostitution, and the sons to a vicious life or to become

souteneurs. That the danger of contamination of the lower classes of the

population by means of prostitution is by no means imaginary, is clearly

shown by numerous examples from actual life. I subscribe to all that the

advocates of brothels say in this respect.

And yet =brothels= are a =still= greater evil! They constitute an

incomparably =more dangerous= centre of =sexual corruption=, a worse

=breeding-ground of sexual aberrations= of every kind, and last, not

least, the =greatest focus of sexual infection=. With reference to the

last point, the matter will be discussed more fully in the chapter

dealing with the question of regulation in connexion with the

suppression of venereal diseases.

The brothel is the =high-school= of refined sexual lust and perversity.

The detailed proof of this I must leave to the descriptions of the two

writers most experienced in the life of brothels, Léo Taxil[302] and

Louis Fiaux.[303]

It is a fact well known to all that many young men learn in brothels for

the first time the manifold and artificial ways in which natural sexual

intercourse can be replaced by perverse methods of sexual activity.

=Here, in the brothel, psychopathia sexualis is systematically taught.=

And what the old debauchee demands from the prostitute and pays her for,

perverse intercourse, is =spontaneously offered to the youthful

initiate=, because competition between the prostitutes, and the hope of

a higher payment, lead them to do so. The opinion of the French authors

just mentioned is perfectly credible--that there are young men who in

this way have learned about perverse sexuality =before= they were fully

acquainted with natural sexuality, and who thus have permanently

acquired more inclination for these mysteries of Venus than for a

natural and normal sexual intercourse.

“=Brothel-jargon=,” or “=brothel-slang=,” contains a number of words

almost peculiar to this dialect, by which the contra-natural, abnormal

methods of sexual intercourse are denoted in a more or less cynical

manner; for example, _faire feuille de rose_ = anilinctus; _sfogliar la

rosa_ (to pluck the leaves from the rose) = pædicare; _faire tête-bêche_

= reciprocal cunnilinctus of two tribades; _punta di penna_ =

masturbatio labialis; _pulci lavoratrici_ (learned fleas!) = tribades,

etc.

A learned investigator like Fiaux is led by his observations of many

years to the conclusion that =brothels= constitute not only the most

=dangerous= form of public prostitution, but the most dangerous kind of

prostitution that exists at all, and that it is urgently necessary that

they should be abolished in all countries as soon as possible.

In addition to the two varieties and localities of “public”

prostitution--that is, prostitution carried on under the observation of

the police--there is a much more extensive =secret= prostitution, in

connexion with which, however, the word “secret” must always be accepted

with reserve, since in its case also it comes more or less under the eye

of the public. This secret prostitution is, for example, accessible at

numerous places, and these are very different one from another. Secret

prostitution also has its types, its peculiarities--in short, its

definite local colouring, according to the place in which it is

practised. Let us give a brief account of the various localities of

secret prostitution.

1. =Public-houses with Women Attendants, the so-called

“Animierkneipen.”=--The =waitress= (barmaid) is the true exemplar of the

secret prostitute, and further, in consequence of the perpetual

association with alcoholism, is the most dangerous variety;[304] for the

barmaid allures the guest even more to the excessive consumption of

alcohol than to sexual indulgence. For this purpose barmaids receive a

percentage of the receipts from the sale of liquor, and this sum, in

addition to free board, is their only wage.

The “animierkneipen”[305] and the restaurants with women attendants can

be plainly distinguished from a considerable distance by their

=curtained= windows, and by the =red, green, or blue glass panes= over

the doors of entry. These coloured panes are so characteristic of these

places of lust and gluttony that at the last year’s District Synod of

the Friedrichswerder section of the town of Berlin the attempt was made

(_cf._ _Vossische Zeitung_, No. 248, May 30, 1906) to forbid the use of

such illuminated panes for the advertisement of the houses of

entertainment in Berlin with female attendants. To this proposal the

reasonable objection was made that if this distinguishing mark were

abolished, there would be no means of recognizing such places, and

therefore no warning signal for blameless individuals.

Many “animierkneipen”--the French similarly term the girls in such

places “_les inviteuses_”[306]--by their mysterious-looking interior; by

the heavy curtains, which produce semi-obscurity; by small very discreet

_chambres séparées_, lighted by little coloured lanterns and with erotic

pictures on the walls; by their Spanish walls and their enormous

couches--obtain the appearance of small lupanars. To these the richer

customers and the initiates are brought, whilst the ordinary habitual

guests commonly assemble in the larger bars, where also music--it must

be admitted very bad music--in the form of a piano- or a zither-player,

is not wanting.

The whole shameless activity of these “animierkneipen,” in which alcohol

and indecency play the principal rôle, has recently been described by

Hermann Seyffert in a manner no less perspicuous than true to life.[307]

The clients of such places are, for the most part, immature lads, who

squander here the money of their parents or their employers; but we find

there also the habitual guests, usually elderly married men, who find in

this atmosphere a welcome variety in comparison with the monotony of

their homes. The quantities of alcohol which are consumed in the

“animierkneipen,” both by the guests and by the attendants, are

enormous. The barmaids must always drink at the cost of the guests, in

order that the sales of liquor may be larger. O. Rosenthal[308] speaks

of barmaids who consume twenty to thirty glasses of beer a day, and

more, without mentioning brandy and liqueurs!

2. =Ball-Rooms and Dancing-Saloons.=[309]--Properly speaking, these are

only a sub-variety of the places described in Section 1; they are

enlarged “animierkneipen,” with the addition of (better) music and of

dancing. But the beautiful days of the Bal Mabille and the Closerie des

Lilas, or of Cremorne Gardens, the Portland Rooms, the Argyll Rooms, and

the Orpheum have long passed away. The majority of the ball-rooms of

Berlin and Paris (in London they disappeared long ago) have sunk to a

lower level. Prostitution is now dominant. The “intimacy,” which in the

earlier more idyllic ball-rooms felt so much at home, is now no longer

to be found there. It is only necessary to visit the celebrated

ball-rooms of Berlin--the Ballhaus in the Joachimstrasse, the

“Blumensäle,” etc., not to speak of the seats of baser prostitution, as,

for example, Lestmann’s Dancing-Saloon--in order to be aware of this

fact. Here also the principal thing is drinking, and always more

drinking! In Paris, in the dancing-rooms of Montmartre, we can see the

“inviteuses” in full cry; some of the French dancing-rooms, however,

appear more attractive from the æsthetic point of view than the haunts

of Terpsichore in Berlin. A dancing-saloon that was not exclusively

concerned with prostitution was that of Emberg in the Schumannstrasse,

but in the year 1906 this was closed for ever. Now, similar great

ball-rooms exist, properly speaking, only in the suburbs--in Halensee,

Grünau, Nieder-Schönhausen, etc. Here also, however, the dance is not

the principal thing--procurement and prostitution are widely diffused,

as was pointed out fifty years ago by Thomas Bade in his essay, in this

respect most convincing, “Ueber Gelegenheitsmacherei und Öffentliches

Tanzvergnügen”--“Procurement in Relation to Public Ball-Rooms” (Berlin,

1858).

3. =Variety Theatres, Low Music-Halls, and Cabarets.=--The principal

object of these places, so characteristic of our time, is “to kill time”

in as amusing a manner as possible, “amusement” being what the “average

sensual man” of to-day, dull and empty-headed, demands. What he wants is

the satisfaction of his desire for sensations by the appearance of more

or less décolleté singers, dancers, acrobats, male and female, by the

representation of tableaux vivants in which the parts are played by

beautiful women, by the kinematograph, or by pantomime, by spicy songs,

by the performance of clever jugglers, by wrestling and boxing matches

between men and women, by juggling, and all kinds of spectacles, etc. In

short, the most diverse “varieties”--hence the name--of amusement are

offered here, and it is significant that these places of pleasure first

appeared in the great seaports of Liverpool, London, Hamburg, and

Marseilles, where the sailors, after the weary monotony of long sea

voyages, found satisfaction in the variegated display of enjoyment

offered to them in such places. Now the monotony, the emptiness of their

life, drives innumerable crowds of townsmen to the variety theatres,

which, even though as little as the drinking-saloons can they be called

true “places” of prostitution, still serve as localities in which

prostitutes meet their clients; and in this way evening after evening a

large number use them as the field of their activities.

The lowest class of variety theatre, the “_Tingel-Tangel_” (low

music-hall), also euphemistically called “Academy of Music,” is, in

fact, nothing more than a brothel, the only difference being that the

actual sexual intercourse does not take place in the house itself, as so

often occurs in the similar “animierkneipen.” The singers appearing in

these “tingel-tangel” are all low-class prostitutes. In most cases,

whilst one of their number is practising the “art of song” (_sit venia

verbo_), the others, sitting about the hall in shameless décolleté,

display their charms, and incite (“animieren”) the visitors to drink.

Clerks and students form the indulgent audience; in seaport towns the

audience consists generally of sailors. Who is not familiar with the

most celebrated tingel-tangel streets in the world, the Spielbudenplatz

and the Reeperbahn, in St. Pauli, near the docks of Hamburg? In these

streets we see one variety theatre after another, and all are crowded by

a smoking, drinking audience, taking part in the choruses of the songs.

A peculiar kind of these places of pleasure is constituted by the

so-called “=Rummel=,” a speciality of Berlin. Wherever, within or

without the town limits, by the demolition of old houses or in any other

way, a large area remains free from building for a considerable time,

these tingel-tangel proprietors invade the place, erect merry-go-rounds

and cake-stalls, and there develops in the place a manifold activity, in

which the lower classes of the population exclusively share. Here the

very lowest types of prostitute seek their prey, and find it.

4. “=Boarding-Houses=” (“=Pensionate=”) =and Maisons de Passe= (=Houses

of Accommodation=).--Anyone walking through the streets of Berlin will

not fail to notice boards at the doors of certain houses, bearing the

inscription, “Here rooms can be hired by the month, week, or day.” I do

not assert that this announcement =always= represents an invitation to

fornication, or the provision of an opportunity therefor; but in many

cases these announcements serve as indications of the “intercourse”

obtainable in such dwellings. Often several stories, or even the entire

house, is devoted to this purpose. It professes to be a “Private Hotel”

or Furnished Lodgings; but in reality it is a masked brothel, a “house

of accommodation” for prostitutes and their clients, a place in which

the landlord--in most cases the landlord is of the female sex--has for

principal occupation the practice of procurement. Other dwellings,

=without= these sufficiently well-known and suspicious boards attached

to the door-posts, passing under the less striking name of a “pension,”

are adapted rather for the exquisite and artificial enjoyment of the

richer classes, and are employed for sexual orgies of a more extensive

character, for the procurement and seduction of young girls, and for the

assignations of the higher classes of the demi-monde and their

clientèle.

5. “=Massage Institutes.=”--To these distinctly modern establishments,

which mainly subserve the purposes of masochistic prostitution, we shall

return in the chapter on masochism. Many prostitutes have some knowledge

of massage, and masquerade as “masseuses”; their supplementary

profession is ordinary prostitution, and for this reason we are

justified in alluding to them in this section.

6. =The Weibercafés.=--These are found in all the large towns,

especially in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Buda-Pesth, and they

serve as the principal places in which =prostitution is carried on by

day=. Prostitutes sit here in great numbers hour after hour, and wait

for their clients, who, of course, must pay for drinks which are

consumed. Certain cafés in Berlin--as, for example, the “Café National,”

the Café Keck in the Leipziger Strasse, etc.--are typical =nocturnal

cafes=, in which from the onset of darkness until early in the morning

prostitutes await their clients.

Naturally, the above classification does not include all varieties of

modern prostitution, which exhibits many other modes of activity. Most

of these others, however, have some sort of relationship to the

varieties already described, and it is, therefore, unnecessary to deal

with them all at length. Prostitution can, of course, be practised

anywhere; and its allurements are found in all places in which great

numbers of human beings come together.

APPENDIX

THE HALF-WORLD

To prostitution in the wider sense of the term belongs also the

“=half-world=” (“demi-monde”), under which name, first used by the

younger Dumas, we include the various categories of “mistresses,” femmes

soutenues (kept women), lorettes, cocottes, and fast women.

Alexandre Dumas, in the celebrated passage of his play “Demi-Monde” (Act

II., Scene 9), gives by the mouth of Olivier de Jalin the following

definition of the half-world:

“All these women have made a false step in their past; they have a

small black spot upon their name, and they go in company as much as

possible, so that the spot may be less conspicuous. They have the same

origin, the same appearance, the same prejudices as good society; but

they no longer belong to it, and they form that which we call the

half-world (demi-monde), which floats like an island upon the ocean of

Paris, and draws towards itself, assumes, and recognizes, everything

which falls from the firm land, or which wanders out or runs away from

the firm land, without counting the foreign shipwrecked individuals

who come no man knows whence.

“Since the married men, under the protection of the legal code, have

had the right to banish from the bosom of the family a woman who has

forgotten her duty, the morals of married life have undergone a

revolution which has created a new world--for what becomes of all

these expelled, compromised women? The first of them who found herself

shown the door, bewailed her fault, and hid her shame in retirement;

but--the second? She sought the first one out, and as soon as there

were two of them, they called the fault a misfortune, the crime a

mistake, and began to make excuses for one another mutually. Having

become three, they asked one another to dinner; having become

four--they danced a quadrille. Now round these women there grouped

themselves young girls also who had begun their life with a false

step; false widows; women who bore the name of the lovers with whom

they lived; some of those rapid ‘marriages’ which had lasted as

liaisons of many years’ duration; finally, all the women who wished

people to believe that they were something else than they really were,

and did not wish to appear in their true colours. At the present day

this irregular world is in full bloom, and its bastard society is

greatly loved by young men. For here love is less difficult than in

circles above--and not so expensive as in circles below.”

From the last sentence we see that the original idea of the “half-world”

was not so wide as that of the present day; above all, the former notion

did not, as it does at present, include the idea of prostitution. The

ladies of the half-world of Dumas were “not so expensive” as ordinary

prostitutes. Our modern demi-mondaines are characterized by the fact

that their price is high. They are prostitutes for the upper ten

thousand. And yet they have this in common with the other

demi-monde--that they do not, like prostitutes properly speaking, give

themselves indifferently to anyone able to pay the price, but they lay

stress on the social position of their lover for the time being, and

upon his character as a “gentleman.” They can even exhibit something of

the nature of love. The modern half-world can most aptly be compared

with the Greek hetairism. It forms a characteristic constituent of

modern “high life.” Whether this especially manifests itself on the

racecourse, at first nights at the theatre, in great charitable bazaars,

at masked balls, at fashionable seaside resorts, at Monte Carlo, at

floral festivals, and the like, there also we encounter the half-world;

and its members, in respect of beauty, toilet, distinguished appearance,

cultivation, and conversation, are in no way to be distinguished from

the ladies of high society. Certain types of the demi-monde realize, in

fact, the ideal of the Greek hetairæ; but even more than these, the

modern demi-mondaine represents elaborated enjoyment. These women are

thoroughly cultivated, the true law-givers of fashion, the arbiters in

every question of taste. Mondaines and demi-mondaines are in outward

appearance hardly to be distinguished one from the other; at least,

this is the case in Paris, where a witty writer defined the distinction

between them in this way--that the former received their lovers only in

the daytime, the latter also by night.[310] It is only the connoisseur

who is able to detect the “half-world aroma,” that indefinable quality

which gives the demi-mondaine such an exceptional value in the eyes of

the _jeunesse dorée_.

From what circles do the recruits of the half-world come? The ladies of

the theatre, the stars of the variety stage and of the ballet, send

their contingent; the aristocracy is also represented in their ranks;

but many a distinguished lorette or “fille de marbre” is of low origin,

and yet understands admirably how to adapt herself rapidly to all the

demands of high life, to drive her dog-cart as smartly as the most

genuine Countess, and in Longchamps, Karlshorst, Ostend, or Trouville,

to play the part of the fine lady.

The one distinction between them--and it is the distinction of half a

world--is the fact that this fashionable life of the demi-monde is not

provided out of their own means, but out of the pockets of one, or more

often of several, rich galants.

The type of the “grande cocotte” is encountered in its genuine and

unadulterated form only in Paris. Here the demi-mondaine plays a great

part in public life. The time of the earlier mistresses of princes, with

their political intrigues and their far-reaching spheres of influence,

is indeed over--a Lola Montez, an Aurora Königsmark is to-day no longer

possible; and yet the Parisian demi-mondaine maintains influential

relationships with the new great power of our time--the power of the

=press=. The journalists who are in the service of the demi-monde are by

George Dahlen termed the “Press-Fridoline,” because “their pens are

paid, not with ducats, but with more or less enviable hours of love in

distinguished boudoirs”;[311] and Victor Joze also describes the

advertisements--paid for by a night of love, or perhaps only by a

smile--which the writers of Paris give in the newspapers to the

distinguished cocottes of the Quartier Marbœuf or of the Avenue du Bois

de Boulogne, in order to attract the attention of Indian nabobs, Russian

Grand Dukes, or American millionaires, to this or that fashionable

beauty. This is characteristic of Paris. In other great capitals

marketable gallantry does not seek publicity in this way, but pursues a

more hidden course.

For what the German, and especially what the Berliners, term the

“half-world” is very different from the type we have just described of

the true Parisian demi-mondaine. Our half-world (the half-world of

Berlin) is recruited for the most part from intelligent prostitutes, who

are to be found chiefly in the public gardens, in the Zoological

Gardens, in the Lehrter Ausstellungspark, and in the leading

restaurants. Here =every evening= they seek new prey, every evening they

sell their charms to a new lover for a definite sum of money; whereas

the true lady of the half-world never has at any time more than one or

two admirers, who provide for all the expenses of her life, and she

never--at any rate =in public=--practises professional prostitution, as

do the women just described.

Finally, there is yet another type, which must not be confused with the

demi-monde. This is the =international prostitute=, who journeys from

one place to another, has indeed often the appearance of a distinguished

lorette, but leads a much more insecure, unstable life than the true

demi-mondaine, and often combines with prostitution the profession of an

adventuress. Now she is in Paris, now in London, now at Biarritz, now at

Monte Carlo (the principal field of her activity), now in

Constantinople, Smyrna, St. Petersburg, or Berlin. Sometimes she

undertakes a voyage of discovery to the New World. Germany provides a

not insignificant percentage of these international cocottes. Such

wanderers are especially well known in the circles of officers and of

speculators on the Bourse; by these they are not seldom “recommended,”

after the manner in which a traveller is given letters of introduction.

They may even be “raffled for,” as recently happened in an officers’

mess in Munich, and so pass to the share of the fortunate (generally

much to be commiserated) winner. Abroad they prefer to adopt French or

exotic names.

[243] Here, in the phrase “man at length become self-conscious,” we

have the animating idea of this work, as it is of all fruitful efforts

at the amelioration of the human lot. See the admirable development of

this idea in E. Ray Lankester’s Romanes lecture, “Nature and Man”; and

also in H. G. Wells’s later writings, more especially “A Modern

Utopia” and “New Worlds for Old.”--TRANSLATOR.

[244] That this opinion is false, I have proved incontestably as

regards syphilis in my book, “The Origin of Syphilis” (Jena, 1901).

For the European and Asiatic world, syphilis is a specifically modern

disease, not more than 400 years old.

[245] Venice, 1534.

[246] “La Lozana Andaluza” (“The Gentle Andalusian”), by Francesco

Delicado. Traduit pour la première fois, texte Espagnol en regard par

Alcide Bonneau, 2 vols., Paris, 1888. Regarding this work, see my book

“The Origin of Syphilis,” vol. i., pp. 36-43.

[247] _Cf._ also the interesting work of Salvatore di Giacomo,

“Prostitution in Naples in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth

Centuries, based on Unpublished Documents,” revised in accordance with

the German translation, and provided with an introduction by Dr. Iwan

Bloch (Dresden, 1904).

[248] Reprinted in his “Satyræ Medicæ XX.,” pp. 528-549 (Leipzig,

1722).

[249] _Cf._ my work on “Rétif de la Bretonne,” p. 504 _et seq._

(Berlin, 1906).

[250] The contents of this work are enumerated in my above-mentioned

book, pp. 505-512.

[251] A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet, “De la Prostitution dans la Ville de

Paris,” third edition, 1857 (Paris, 1836).

[252] F. F. A. Béraud, “Les Filles Publiques de Paris” (Brussels,

1839, 2 vols.).

[253] Dr. Michael Ryan was an acquaintance of Arthur Schopenhauer, who

in June, 1829, sent Ryan a copy of his book “Theoria Colorum.” _Cf._

Eduard Grisebach, “Schopenhauer: the History of His Life,” p. 168

(Berlin, 1897).

[254] M. Ryan, “Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of

that of Paris and New York” (London, 1839).

[255] _Cf._ in this connexion also the report from other sources given

in my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii., pp. 315-319, 440-447

(Berlin, 1903).

[256] W. Tait, “Magdalenism: An Inquiry into the Extent, Causes, and

Consequences of Prostitution in Edinburgh,” second edition (Edinburgh,

1842).

[257] R. Wardlaw, “Lectures on Female Prostitution; its Nature,

Extent, Effects, Guilt, Causes, and Remedy,” third edition (Glasgow,

1843).

[258] F. I. dos Santos Cruz, “Da Prostituiçao na Cidade de Lisboa”

(Lisbon, 1841).

[259] “Estabelecimentos de Beneficencia para as Consultas Gratuitas,”

pp. 203-206.

[260] A. Potton, “De la Prostitution et de ses Conséquences dans les

Grandes Villes, dans la Ville de Lyon en Particulier” (Paris and

Lyons, 1842).

[261] E. A. Duchesne, “De la Prostitution dans la Ville d’Alger depuis

la Conquête” (Paris, 1853).

[262] “Die Prostitution in Berlin und ihre Opfer” (Berlin, 1846).

[263] C. Röhrmann, “Der sittliche Zustand von Berlin nach Aufhebung

der geduldeten Prostitution des weiblichen Geschlechts”--“The Moral

Condition of Berlin after the Abolition of Tolerated Prostitution of

the Female Sex” (Leipzig, 1846).

[264] F. J. Behrend, “Prostitution in Berlin, and the Measures it is

Desirable to Adopt against Prostitution and against Syphilis,” etc. A

work based on official sources, and dedicated to His Excellency the

Minister von Ladenberg (Erlangen, 1850).

[265] H. Lippert, “Prostitution in Hamburg” (Hamburg, 1848).

[266] A. J. Gross-Hoffinger, “The Fate of Women and Prostitution, in

Relation to the Principle of the Indissolubility of Catholic Marriage,

and especially in Relation to the Laws of Austria and the Philosophy

of our Time” (Leipzig, 1847).

[267] Josef Schrank, “Prostitution in Vienna in Historical,

Administrative, and Hygienic Relations” (Vienna, 1886, 2 vols).

[268] “The Moral Corruption of Our Time and its Victims in their

Relationship to the State, to the family, and to Morality, with

especial Reference to the Conditions of Prostitution in Leipzig”

(Leipzig, 1854).

[269] W. M. Sanger, “The History of Prostitution” (New York, 1859).

[270] J. Jeannel, “Prostitution in Large Towns in the Nineteenth

Century, and the Abolition of Venereal Diseases.”

[271] W. Acton, “Prostitution in its Various Aspects,” second edition

(London. 1874).

[272] Hügel, “The History, Statistics, and Regulation of Prostitution”

(Vienna. 1865).

[273] L. Martineau, “La Prostitution Clandestine” (Paris, 1885).

[274] O. Commenge, “La Prostitution Clandestine à Paris” (Paris,

1897).

[275] V. Augagneur, “La Prostitution des Filles Mineures” (Paris,

1888).

[276] L. Fiaux, “La Police des Mœurs en France et dans les Principales

Villes de l’Europe” (Paris, 1888); “Les Maisons de Tolérance, leur

Fermeture,” 3me édition (Paris, 1862); “La Prostitution ‘Cloitrée’”

(Brussels, 1902).

[277] Yves Guyot, “La Prostitution: Étude de Physiologie Sociale”

(Paris, 1882).

[278] A. Blaschko, “The Problem of Prostitution,” published in the

_Berliner Klin. Wochenschrift_, pp. 430-435 (1892); “Syphilis and

Prostitution from the Hygienic Standpoint” (Berlin, 1893); “Hygiene of

Prostitution and of Venereal Diseases” (Jena, 1900); “Prostitution in

the Nineteenth Century” (Berlin, 1902); “The Dangers to Health

resulting from Prostitution, and the Contest with these Dangers”

(Berlin, 1904).

[279] C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero, “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute.”

[280] B. Tarnowsky, “Prostitution and Abolitionism” (Hamburg, 1890).

[281] C. Ströhmberg, “Prostitution: a Socio-Medical Study” (Stuttgart,

1899).

[282] E. Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “The Sexual Life in England,” vol. i.,

pp. 201-445 (Charlottenburg, 1901).

[283] E. von Düring, “Prostitution and Venereal Diseases” (Leipzig,

1905).

[284] Goethe, in the poem “Der Gott und die Bajadere,” has very

beautifully described the ennoblement of gross love by means of ideal

love.

[285] Henry Murger, in his “Vie de Bohème,” also alludes to the

“incomprehensible” fact that “persons of standing who sometimes

possess spirit, a name, and a coat cut according to the fashion, out

of their love for the common will go so far as to raise to the level

of an object of fashion a creature whom their very servant would not

have chosen as a mistress.”

[286] C. Lombroso, “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute,” p. 550.

[287] Friedrich Hammer, “The Regulation of Prostitution,” published in

_The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases_, vol. iii., No.

10, p. 380 (Leipzig, 1905).

[288] H. Kurella, “A Contribution to the Biological Comprehension of

Physical and Psychical Bisexuality,” published in the _Zentralblatt

für Nervenheilkunde_, 1896, vol. xix., p. 239.

[289] Syphilis is not to be forgotten.

[290] This modified Lombrosism is advocated by B. A. H. Hübner in his

interesting work concerning prostitutes and their legal relations

(_Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie_, 1907, pp. 1-11). He found

that among sixty-four insane prostitutes, under observation in the

Hertzberg Asylum in Berlin, not less than 59·45 % were already

intellectually defective at the time they had come under police

control as prostitutes.

[291] C. Lombroso, “Recent Advances in the Study of Criminals.”

[292] Schrank observes (“Prostitution in Vienna,” vol. ii., p. 216)

that striking physical peculiarities do not appear to be either more

or less frequent among prostitutes than they are among the generality

of the population.

[293] G. Keben, “Prostitution in its Relation to Modern Realistic

Literature” (Zurich, 1892).

[294] Oda Olberg, “Poverty in the Domestic Industry of Making

Ready-made Clothing” (Leipzig, 1896).

[295] Anna Pappritz, “The Economic Causes of Prostitution” (Berlin,

1903).

[296] Pfeiffer, “Poverty and Overcrowding in Great Towns and in

Relation to Prostitution and to Venereal Diseases,” published in _The

Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases_, 1903, vol. i., pp.

135-144.

[297] P. Kampffmeyer, “Poverty and Overcrowding in Great Towns,” etc.,

published in _The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases_,

1903, vol. i., pp. 145-160; “Bad Housing Accommodation in Relation to

Prostitution and ‘Night-Lodgers’; the Necessary Legal Reforms,” _op.

cit._, 1905, vol. iii., pp. 165-229.

[298] E. v. Düring, “Prostitution and Venereal Diseases.” p. 11.

[299] _Cf._ the description of the astonishing development of the

French procurement of that day which is given in my “New Researches

concerning the Marquis de Sade,” pp. 88-98 (Berlin, 1904). The Marquis

de Sade, in his novel “The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom,” has

very fully described the traffic in girls of his time. Incredible

revelations of this traffic, of the almost absolute power of the

procuresses, and of their relations to the police, led in October,

1906, to an action against the procuress Regine Riehl, who, under the

mask of a dressmaker’s shop, had for years conducted a brothel, in

which the girls were entirely robbed of their freedom, were subjected

to corporal punishment, and never received payment for their “work.”

_Cf._ A. Blaschko, _The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal

Diseases_, 1906, vol. v., pp. 427-433; also Karl Kraus, “The Riehl

Trial” (Vienna, 1906).

[300] The literature of the “White Slave Trade” is extensive. I shall

mention a few works only: Alfred S. Dyer, “The Trade in English Girls”

(Berlin, 1881); the celebrated work of Alexis Splingard, “Clarissa,

from the Dark Houses of Belgium,” with an introduction by Otto Henne

am Rhyn, fourth edition (Leipzig, 1897); Otto Henne am Rhyn,

“Prostitution and the Traffic in Girls” (Leipzig, 1903); Julius

Kemény, “Hungara--Hungarian Girls in the Market: Revelations regarding

the International Traffic in Girls” (Buda-Pesth, 1903). _Cf._ also the

extensive references in _The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal

Diseases_, 1904, vol. ii., pp. 207-212 (Report of the Jewish

Commission for the Suppression of the Traffic in Girls). Regarding the

traffic in girls in Holland, _cf._ J. Rutgers, “Sketches from

Holland,” _ibid._, 1906, vol. v., pp. 531-355.

[301] _Cf._ regarding the conditions in South America, the report of

Major D. Wagner, Secretary of the German National Committee for the

Suppression of the Traffic in Girls, published in _The Journal for the

Suppression of Venereal Diseases_, 1900, vol. v., pp. 378-382.

[302] Léo Taxil, “La Corruption Fin-de-Siècle,” p. 169 _et seq._

(Paris, 1894).

[303] Louis Fiaux, “Les Maisons de Tolérance: leur Fermeture,”

troisième édition, pp. 169 _et seq._, 248, 250, 251 (Paris, 1892).

[304] According to recent statistical data, from 80 to 90 % of

barmaids (in Germany) are infected with venereal diseases, so that

they perhaps represent the most dangerous class of prostitutes.

[305, 306] “=Animierkneipen.=”--_Kneipe_ signifies a drinking-saloon

or pothouse, equivalent to the French _cabaret_. The _Animierkneipe_

is a beer-saloon at which the attendants are women (_Kellnerinnen_),

who are engaged on the terms described in the text, and whose

function, therefore, is to attract the male customers of the place, to

incite them (_animieren_) to drink freely, and to play the part of

prostitutes when required. Thus they correspond to _les inviteuses_ of

the similar drinking-saloons in Paris.--TRANSLATOR.

[307] H. Seyffert, “Die Animierkneipen und ihre Geheimnisse”

(“Animierkneipen and their Secrets”), published in _Freie Meinung_,

1906, Nos. 26 and 27. See also “Impropriety at Inns with Female

Attendants in Prussia, with especial Reference to the Conditions in

Cologne” (1891).

[308] O. Rosenthal, “Alcoholism and Prostitution,” p. 46 (1905).

[309] _Cf._ the elaborate descriptions by Hans Ostwald, “Berliner

Tanzlokale” (Berlin and Leipzig); regarding the earlier dancing-rooms

of London, see my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 324-334.

[310] Victor Joze, “Paris-Gomorrhe. Mœurs du Jour,” p. 173 (Paris,

1898).

[311] Georg Dahlen, “Sketches of European Society,” p. 126 (Berlin,

1885).

CHAPTER XIV

VENEREAL DISEASES

“_In co-operation with alcoholic intoxication and with tuberculosis,

syphilis plays in our day the part which in the middle ages was played

by bubonic plague._”--ALFRED FOURNIER.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XIV

Prostitution the focus, not the cause, of venereal diseases --

Philosophy of venereal diseases -- Their age -- Time and place of

their first appearance -- The origin of syphilis -- Practical

importance of the proof of the recent character of syphilis -- The

theologico-animistic theory of venereal diseases -- Refutation of this

theory -- Blameless infection (_syphilis innocentium_) -- The notion

of specific infective disease -- Scientific campaign against venereal

diseases -- Syphilis as a specific disease of modern times --

Description of its symptoms, its course, and its termination --

Consequences of syphilis to the family, to the offspring, and to the

race -- Congenital syphilis of the first and second generations --

Racial degeneration in consequence of syphilis -- The age at which

infection with syphilis occurs in man and in woman -- The soft chancre

(chancroid) -- Gonorrhœa -- Change in our views regarding the dangers

of gonorrhœa -- Urethral gonorrhœa in the male -- Acute and chronic

stages -- Complications -- Gonorrhœa in women -- The “diseases of

women” -- Blindness due to gonorrhœa.

_Appendix_: Venereal Diseases in the Homosexual.

CHAPTER XIV

The central problem of the sexual question is, as I pointed out at the

commencement of the previous chapter, the suppression of prostitution

and of =venereal diseases=, the former evil being the principal focus of

the latter. I say the principal “=focus=,” not the “cause.” For, if all

prostitutes were =healthy=, we could leave prostitution quietly

alone--leaving out of consideration the moral depravity to which it

gives rise--and venereal diseases would spontaneously disappear.

This opinion I advance at the beginning of the chapter on venereal

diseases because, even at the present day, there is a remarkable species

of =philosophy, or rather theology, of venereal diseases=, which

propounds the most extraordinary hypothesis regarding their =origin=.

For example, the Alsatian writer Alexander Weill, in his confused work

“The Laws and Mysteries of Love,” writes:

“Why should we bother our heads about the cure of syphilis? If anyone

wishes to get rid of any evil, he must first of all ascertain its

causes in order to remove these. If the cause of it is removed, the

evil disappears spontaneously. If the snake has been killed, its

poison no longer does any harm. But how can we put an end to the

causes of syphilis, when this disease is spontaneously renewed and

increased day by day by means of neglected prostitution, and by our

social laws which combine to oppose the monogamy of youth and the

increase of population? If to-day we could cure all patients suffering

from syphilis, =to-morrow the same disease would return in a new form,

for it would be recreated by the same irregularities that first led to

its production= (!) It is absolutely useless to employ iodide of

potassium and mercury, for every new infringement of natural laws

would again bring into being new incurable diseases, which can only be

avoided by those who have firmly resolved to observe these laws

strictly.”

Weill, indeed, goes so far as to maintain that every man who

=simultaneously, or rather in brief succession, has intercourse with two

healthy women, acquires syphilis=, even although both these women remain

faithful to him, because “=any kind of libertinism in sexual intercourse

suffices by itself to give rise to this disease=!”

According to this view, which is shared by many members of the laity,

venereal diseases, and, above all, the worst of them, syphilis, would be

as old as sexual licentiousness itself--that is, =as old as the human

race, and an inalienable associate of that race=.

In my book on “The Origin of Syphilis” I have disproved this view. I

have answered the question, so important alike on general philosophical

and on social-hygienic grounds, regarding the true nature of syphilis,

and have proved that syphilis (and also the other venereal diseases) had

a definite =local= and =temporal= origin; that syphilis has not existed

since the beginning of time; and that some day, when certain definite

conditions are fulfilled, the disease will disappear.

The history of syphilis is a matter of profound =practical= importance.

From that history we learn with certainty that the most dangerous and

most dreaded of the venereal diseases has, for the European world, and

for the “old world” in general, the character of a =pure chance comer=;

and we learn that =retrospectively=--regarded from the point of view of

our present experience--at the time when the disease first began to

flourish, it might perhaps have been nipped in the bud.

It is hardly possible to overestimate the =practical= importance of the

recognition of this fact--that for the old civilized world syphilis

represents a historical phenomenon, that it has a history, a beginning,

or, as Voltaire half-ironically remarks, a genealogy.

Is there not a deliverance, a redemption, in the idea that for the old

world there was a time in which syphilis did not exist; that this time,

in comparison with the time which has elapsed since syphilis first

appeared, was almost infinitely long; and that for this reason, when we

look out into the future, the history of the lues venerea assumes the

character of a simple episode in the history of European civilized

humanity?

At the same time, the definite acceptance of this view would be an

urgent warning to all those obscurantists of both sexes who imagine that

the problem of the diffusion of venereal diseases can be solved

exclusively by religious and moral considerations, and who thus confuse

the simplest and clearest relationships, place everything upon an

insecure foundation, and exclude every possibility of a successful

campaign against syphilis.

Even to-day it unfortunately happens that many continue, as of old, to

believe that sexual intercourse is a sin for which a punishment has been

provided, and that this punishment is a venereal disease--for example,

syphilis. Tylor, the celebrated English anthropologist, has proved that

this idea has developed out of the =animism= extending back into

prehistoric times, which regarded all illnesses as the work of demons.

We are still influenced by this doctrine, this gloomy, demoniacal

conception in respect of everything sexual. I need hardly remind the

reader of the ideas of Tolstoi, and of his disciple, the unhappy Dr.

Weininger, a disciple exceeding even his master in respect of fanatical

condemnation of sexual intercourse. Until recently the laws regulating

our German system of workmen’s insurance against illness continued to

exhibit definite traces of our legislators’ adhesion to this view. The

majority of physicians and historians who said that syphilis was as old

as sexual intercourse itself, who employed the phrase _ubi Venus ibi

syphilis_, were unconsciously influenced by this idea, that venereal

diseases are to be regarded as a mark of the Divine wrath.

This theological theory, as we may call it, of the origin of syphilis is

opposed by certain incontrovertible facts, which suffice to show its

utter nullity and untenability.

The mere fact that there exists a =blameless= infection with syphilis

(_syphilis innocentium_), that, for example, in certain districts of

Russia as many as 90 % of the cases of this disease are acquired =quite

independently= of sexual intercourse, by simple contact, shows the

absurdity of this superstitious idea.