view its manners. On the one hand we have a peasantry ill-taught, and
educated to servility; then a trading body, with another employed
in professions; and thirdly, a large order of nobles, degenerated
altogether from its ancient splendour, but preserving nevertheless all
the pride, all the indolence, all the sensuality, which characterized
it in the age of extended conquest and prosperous commerce. Upon all
these classes time has left traces, and the influence of their history
has been remarkably strong. A rich soil, a warm climate, an abundance
of precious minerals--these circumstances have been by no means without
their effect. The Roman Catholic religion, an army of priests, an
arbitrary government, and the habit of respecting persons more than
principles--these have a still more distinct impression on the national
character. A literature once illustrious but now dead, an empire once
splendid but now perished, a commerce once magnificent but now decayed,
a wealth once gorgeous and now turned to poverty, arts once noble
and now degraded--in these we find an index to the Spanish national
character. There is nothing virgin in the country, there is nothing
progressive, there is nothing with hope: all the glory of Spain belongs
to the past. The present is a wreck, and the future is a blank.
The manners of Spain present none of that simple purity which we find
in Switzerland. Every influence to which the people are subject tends
to corrupt them. Young women who stand at their windows, and see with
delight the flagellants go by, lashing themselves until the blood
splashes under their whips, cannot possess much dignity of mind. Yet
such are the spectacles which in Spain have been made familiar and
favourite to the populace. There is throughout Spanish society an
effort to appear better than they are, which in itself is an unfailing
indication of impurity. Men dare not when in company take any improper
liberties with women, even those whom they might be able privately
to seduce. On the stage they hoot a piece, which in France, or even
England, would not be regarded as in the slightest degree indelicate.
Nevertheless, in their retired rooms, ladies who are thus prudish
before the world, will suffer approaches gross enough, will amuse
themselves with obscene pictures, will pardon readily equivocal jokes,
and listen to songs of the worst indecency. Nor will they object to
behold the fandango danced, though, whatever some tolerant travellers
may say, it is proverbially obscene.
In many parts of the country, and especially in Seville, the ancient
national customs are still preserved, and young girls are always
when in the street accompanied by a duenna. In Madrid, where manners
have undergone a change, this is no longer the case; but in the more
primitive cities it is more prevalent. The guardianship of such a
companion, however, by no means implies absolutely a respectable
character, for common prostitutes, when they do walk abroad, are often
accompanied by old women who attract notice to them, and frequently
engage visitors to their places of resort.
The actual intercourse of the sexes in public is reserved, except with
respect to conversation. The gossip at a Tertullia, described by some
tourists as delightful, is characterized by English ladies not at
all inclined to satirize Spanish manners as very far from that which
women in good society among us are accustomed to hear. Children who
appear fresh from the nursery indulge in remarks which to many appear
positively obscene. The intellectual standard among them is low. Ladies
have been known who, with all the pride of an hereditary title, could
scarcely write their own names.
Good wives and good mothers are nevertheless very abundant in Spain.
It has produced heroines of every kind, from the intriguers of the
Camarilla to the defenders of a city. When “in love,” the Spanish woman
is exceedingly full of passion, and, carrying a knife, she occasionally
employs it to revenge a slight. These essential characteristics of
female manners are, however, gradually yielding under what we may term
the common law of society in Europe. Madrid is assimilating itself to
Paris, and Paris to London; so that as time progresses the peculiar
features wear off, and statistics alone may at some future period form
the measure of a people’s morality.
In the rural parts women share with men the heaviest labours of the
field. They may be observed as you pass along the highways, staggering
under the weight of enormous burdens; but this is a circumstance
attaching to poverty in all parts of the world, not to any nation in
particular. It is among the upper and middle classes in Spain, though
in many other countries the contrary is true, that women wear most
strongly a national characteristic appearance. In Madrid and the other
fashionable cities you are surprised by the vast number of women who
crowd the streets. They have no domestic occupations; they trouble
themselves little with the nurture or education of their children; they
devolve on hirelings the management of their household affairs; and
they relieve themselves from ennui by sauntering through the public
places, dressed with the minutest elegance, carrying their fans, and
bargaining on it, by every possible species of coquetry, for admiration
from the passers by.
A Spanish woman is a natural coquette, and when married cannot abandon
the habit familiarly known as flirtation. This gives rise to jealousy
on the husband’s part, which produces infinite misery.
Marriage is held in law a solemn and irrevocable contract. It is under
many legal regulations, and subject to the authority of the Roman
Catholic Church. In the hands of the clergy, indeed, there is vested a
prodigious arbitrary power, which they are careful to exercise, lest it
should become obsolete by disuse. They may still be seen interfering
in matrimonial affairs; and a glance at the manners of the Spaniards
some centuries ago will show that the clerical power has not decreased.
Public morality was carefully guarded under the rule of the Visigoths,
only to be tolerated during the Middle Ages, since which time it has
been at one time lax, at another severely regulated: at the present day
we find it in a strange state of confusion.
In the year 586-601, the king of the Visigoths of Spain forbade
prostitution in a most absolute manner under pain of severe punishment.
The daughter and the wife born of free parents, convicted of having
delivered themselves over to abandonment, received for the first
offence three hundred blows with a stick and were ignominiously
driven from the city; a relapse was punished with the same corporal
punishment, after which the culprit was handed over to a poor person,
who was obliged to employ her in performing the most menial offices.
If the parents were convicted of being accomplices and of having
participated in the gain derived by their daughter’s prostitution, each
one received one hundred blows. The slave who gave herself up publicly
to libertinage received three hundred blows, and when she was sent back
to her master, her head was shaved, and she was banished from the city
or sold in a place from whence she could not return. The master who
refused to submit to these stipulations of the law received in public
fifty blows with a stick or a whip, and the slave became the property
of some poor man pointed out by the king or the judge, under condition
of never being seen in the city again. If the master had participated
in the debauchery of his slave, that is if he had reaped any profit, he
received the same chastisement as the culprit.
This decree, made especially to repress prostitution in the cities,
applied equally to women of ill fame who infested the boroughs, the
villages, and the country at large.
This was at the commencement of the seventh century, and such were the
severities of the laws passed by the king of the barbarians, Recard by
name. The power of the Visigoths was broken a hundred years afterwards
by the Arabs. The conquered fled to the hilly country, taking refuge in
the mountains of the Asturias; but what laws were in force amongst them
we do not know--we only know that the manners of the age were shameful.
Perpetual wars, the capture and consequent pillage of villages, the
license of the soldiery, helped to constitute a state of things not at
all favourable for the developement of female chastity. The Christians
and the Mussulmans held in captivity the women taken in battle and
treated them as slaves.
The Arabs were soon in their turn conquered by the Moors, and, as
the struggle was less bloody, the two people mingled and exercised a
mutual influence over one another; but the influence of the Arabs was
more direct. “The loose manners of the East,” says M. Guardia, “and
the luxury ever prevalent amongst orientals, were impalpably engrafted
on the austerer habits of the Christians. Chivalry was found to be
perfectly compatible with debauchery.” The corruption of manners made
rapid strides. Prostitution reappeared in all its forms; nor was it, as
amongst the Arabs, hampered by municipal restrictions or fettered by
arbitrary and severe legislation.
In the fifteenth century the old regulations were resuscitated, and
immorality found itself once more compelled to bow to the dicta of
priests. Nevertheless these rigorous measures proved that the remedy
was worse than the evil. Secret debauchery took the place of public
libertinage, and clandestine prostitution increased accordingly.
In the year 1552, Charles V. promulgated an edict against the
keepers of houses of ill fame, considerably augmenting the existing
punishments. Four years later this law was confirmed by Philip II.
The sequel, however, proves that laws were powerless against public
corruption. Immorality is buoyant and contagious, and never so
mischievous as when it is hidden.
The end of the fifteenth century witnessed a reform. Prostitution came
to be regarded as a branch of the public administration, and placed
under severe laws and precise regulations.
About 1623, the health of the community began to be considered, and
hygienic measures were introduced. This was a great step, and one
rendered the more necessary by reason of the terrible ravages committed
by lues venerea, which at this epoch assumed the form of a terrible
epidemic.
Three quarters of a century elapsed, and the subject was carefully
studied, for in 1704 the council decided that the mayors of towns
could arrest and imprison immodest women, who showed themselves in
crowds upon the public promenades, and became an object of scandal
and disorder. But these coercive measures often repeated were without
effect. Soon the law was found to be powerless against corruption.
Since this epoch, public morality has been lax and openly disregarded.
The provinces imitated the example of the capital. At the end of the
eighteenth century an attempt was made to legislate, but nothing came
of it. In 1822, the Cortes passed a Bill relating to public health,
which, in point of fact, was nothing more or less than to establish
houses of ill fame and recognise their existence. This fell to the
ground through the opposition of a physician named Garcia.
In 1853, the population of Madrid was estimated at 270,000. These
figures include the floating portion, which is not insignificant.
Every woman who chooses to prostitute herself for money is perfectly
at liberty to do so; she has to render no account of her conduct, no
authorisation of any sort is necessary. The police give no passes nor
is there any registry. Under these circumstances statistics are next
to an impossibility. Not only does the law tolerate and acknowledge
prostitution, but it actually appears to cherish and foster it, by
permitting the grossest disorder, and by placing no obstacle in the
way of the incessant progress of debauchery. Local authority confines
itself to noticing only the most flagrant occurrences--such as a too
great number of women in the promenades and public thoroughfares,
or when a large number of men amongst the soldiers in garrison fall
victims to the ravages of syphilis. It follows from such a state of
things that the hospitals are gorged with sufferers, and frequently do
not suffice to contain all those who wish to enter. The consequence
is that this disease takes the most alarming forms, and does serious
injury to the public health.
We cannot possibly make anything like a correct estimate of the number
of women who live by prostitution in Madrid, although some manuscript
notes furnished to M. Guardia, place it at about one thousand. This
may only be an approximate calculation, and it is clearly putting
it at its minimum rather than its maximum. Two hundred of these are
kept women; though we are inclined to believe this much below the
actual numbers, as manners are very loose in Madrid, and the habits
of Spaniards incline in a singular degree to concubinage. Probably
six hundred women live in houses of ill fame, the keepers of which
exercise the most absolute authority over the unfortunates that come
into their power. In every one of these houses one finds an indefinite
number of young women, which varies from eight to ten. The woman who
keeps the place lodges and dresses them. In many of these places
there are only two or three resident women, for there are also houses
of appointment and convenience. If the number of indoor pensioners is
limited, those who walk about the streets are like locusts or the sand
of the sea-shore, next to innumerable. They have their abode, perhaps,
in their own families, or else they return to their lodgings. Most of
these public women are either milliners, seamstresses, laundresses,
and pastrycooks, or employed in the manufacture of tobacco. The people
who keep houses of ill fame find it to their interest to preserve the
health of their lodgers, which they are not, as a rule, negligent of,
but yet it is a fact that syphilis is prevalent in Spain to a frightful
extent. The authorities are at no pains to prevent its ramification,
and the climate is only too favourable for its growth and extension.
We divide the women who live by prostitution in Madrid into three
classes: 1st, Those who are kept; 2nd, Those who live in houses of
ill fame; and 3rdly, Those who are free, and merely make use of the
above-mentioned houses for a short time. Within this latter category
we must include about three hundred prostitutes, who constitute the
lowest grade and infest the worst parts of the capital. These have been
recruited perhaps from all classes, having sunk lower and lower, until
every vestige of shame and modesty having totally disappeared, they
traffic for the bare means of subsistence and submit to any and every
degradation to obtain it. They even exercise their avocation in the
streets and public places. On the other hand, prostitution has plenty
of places of resort, such as cafés, public houses, and refreshment
rooms.
The police are fully empowered to take into custody any woman guilty of
an open breach of the law, although they may not interfere with her for
plying her trade, or we might, with some justice, say her profession.
Sometimes the magisterial authorities banish them from Madrid, thus
getting rid of the most dangerous characters, who, however, like black
sheep in the provincial flocks, only serve to carry corruption into
districts hitherto uncontaminated.
There is in Madrid a hospital for foundlings, but the fecundity of
Spanish prostitutes is not considerable. This is an asylum for every
child found in the streets or brought by mothers who wish to get rid of
their children. On an average it receives annually from 4500 to 5000
infants. It was founded in the sixteenth century by charitable people.
AMSTERDAM.
One is astonished--exclaim MM. Schneevooght (first physician at
the hospital of Amsterdam), Van Frigt (assistant surgeon to the
same hospital and the syphilitic dispensary), Van Oordt (student in
the Parisian hospitals)--one is astonished that in a country where
legislation adapts itself to the exigencies of modern times, among a
people signalized by a practical genius, an enlightened administration
has only very lately adopted the only measures to check the scourge of
prostitution.
In Holland religious scruples have yielded before considerations of a
higher nature. The Government of the Netherlands has at last decided
to leave to the _Communes_ the power of preventing by regulation the
sad consequences of free and unrestrained prostitution. Supervision,
independantly of the services which it renders to the public health,
assists to prevent the extension of the evil of which we write.
It is easy to suppose that the capital of Holland offers peculiar
facilities for the growth of this vice, which always flourishes in
commercial and maritime cities, and more especially when the two are
combined.
In 1851 1852 1855
The municipal population
was 221,111 240,669 250,304
Floating 3,532 5,687 7,357
Military 881 1,030 793
The number of strangers that come here, the mariners that commerce
attracts, the luxury that reigns among the upper classes, the number of
young men of good family, who are condemned to a life of celibacy by
inadequate means, unite to relax the morals of the Dutch.
Even now the municipal authorities recoil before the difficulties
thrown in their way by the independent spirit of the people, who do not
like restrictions imposed by authority, however salutary they may be.
A curious book which appeared in 1648 relates an edict published in
1506, by virtue of which only agents of the municipal police were
allowed to open and keep disorderly houses and in certain designated
quarters.
In 1789 a commission of health was convoked, and strict precautions
taken to guard against infection. It followed from this that 177 women
were doctored in one year, a number nearly double that of the year
before.
The author of a book about medicine, which appeared in Amsterdam in
1820, complained bitterly of the depravity of manners which led to the
decrease of marriages, and of the great number of prostitutes who day
and night frequented the streets and other public places to attract
passengers by indecent gestures and immodest proposals: more than 800
were known to the police, of which about 200 lived in tolerated houses.
Coming back to modern times, during the year 1850 we find there were in
Amsterdam 764 illegitimate births, among 21,365 unmarried inhabitants,
between 16 and 30 years, of the male sex, and among 25,207 of the
female sex. At the same time there were twenty disorderly houses and
400 prostitutes not inscribed, but simply known to the police.
There is a society in Amsterdam for rescuing fallen women who wish to
lead a new life. It is called the Sternbeck Asylum, and is productive
of great good.
To allude to the insignificant part played by the police is to avow the
insufficiency of the hygienic department.
Although the girls in the tolerated houses are supposed to be compelled
to submit to examination, any inspection, in reality, is voluntary on
their part. Unfortunately there are a vast number of quacks in the
city, who only prolong and aggravate disease, instead of curing it.
There is a hospital for venereal affections, with two wards, one with
24 beds for the men, the other with 50 beds for the women, which are
all at the service of those affected with syphilis. Besides this there
is a syphilitic dispensary, where gratuitous attendance may be obtained.
Syphilis has increased very much lately among the soldiers in garrison.
For instance take the subjoined figures, extending over five years:
1852 1853 1854 1855 1856
---- ---- ---- ---- ----
87 94 199 156 182
All women must be inscribed, whether living in houses or by themselves.
Disorderly houses are under the supervision of the police. The keeper
of one of these houses may not change his residence, under penalty of
a fine of 7 florins and the loss of his licence, without communicating
with the authorities, and loose women must be provided with a license.
The regulations are very much the same all over the country, at
Utrecht, Haarlem, &c.
BELGIUM.
In the year 1856 the floating population of Brussels and its suburbs
was 260,080, to which the garrison contributed 2414. In the same year
the total registration of prostitutes, according to the law in their
respect provided, numbered 638; these were divided into “filles de
maison” and “éparses.” Although the police regulations are remarkably
stringent, their effect upon public morality is absolutely nil,
although it must be admitted that their _surveillance_ has a beneficial
effect upon the public health. Prostitutes in Brussels, disgusted by
the exercise of municipal power, fly without the walls, and withdraw
to St. Josse, which, with other extra-mural spots, is much infested
with them. The same state of things is observable, more or less, in
Antwerp, Bruges, Ostend, Ghent, Mons, Liege, and Namur. By the Belgian
regulations the circulation of prostitutes in the streets after sundown
is prohibited; women under twenty-one may not be inscribed, and the
medical visitation takes place twice a week by the divisional surgeon,
and whenever else he may please by the superintending officer. All the
éparses and third-class filles de maison are seen at the dispensary,
and the first and second classes of the latter order at their
domiciles. The éparses may secure this privilege by payment of an extra
franc per visit.
The tariff of duties payable by houses and women is as follows:--
Every first-class maison de passe pays 25 francs per month.
Every second-class maison de passe pays 15 francs per month.
Every third-class maison de passe pays 5 francs per month.
Every first class “maison de débauche” pays 60 to 78 francs monthly,
according to the number of its authorized occupants--from 6 to 10--and
2 francs extra for each such additional person.
Every such second-class house pays 20 to 32 francs for from 3 to 7
women, and 1 franc extra for every additional.
Every such third-class house pays from 8 to 16 francs for from 2 to 7
women, and 1 franc extra for each additional.
Every first-class fille éparse pays on each inspection 40 centimes.
Every second-class fille éparse pays on each inspection 30 centimes.
Every third-class fille éparse pays on inspection 15 centimes.
Upon punctuality for four successive visits these payments are
returned, for inexactitude they are doubled.
Directly a male military patient is taken into hospital he is minutely
questioned by the surgeon who attends him as to the exact locality
of the house wherein he thinks he was infected, and the appearance
of the woman. She is soon arrested; and if the result of the medical
examination should prove her diseased, she is placed on the police
surgeon’s list and sent to hospital, where she is restrained for some
time from spreading contagion.
HAMBURG.
Hamburg, from its peculiar situation and the extent of its commerce,
may be considered one of the great centres of trade at present existing
in the world, and for that reason it deserves more than a cursory
glance or a casual notice.
Documents drawn up during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
relating to public women are still in a state of preservation.
There is a Code Municipal for the city of Hamburg (1292), which
contains the most ancient regulations of this description.
The 17th, 18th, 19th, and 30th of this code regulates in detail the
costume of women of ill-fame and the districts where they are allowed
to dwell. Their number is not chronicled, but it appears to have been
considerable.
The contractors or speculators in women were by successive enactments
heavily taxed in 1562: the sum fixed for each woman was from 75 talents
to the extraordinary sum of 569; but this is explained by an urgent
want on the part of the municipality.
The provisions of the ancient code were maintained up to 1603, when
laws of unexampled rigour were passed. Brothels were closed, women
and their paramours were publicly exposed, and, as far as possible,
outlawed.
In order to describe the state of prostitution in the 19th century we
must call the attention of our readers to an enactment of the year
1807: it is of some length, and we have only extracted briefly from it.
1. Every person who lodges women must send to the pretor’s office
a list of the names of people living there, with their age, their
birthplace, and the time of their entering the establishment.
2. When a new girl arrives she must be presented at the office.
3. When a woman leaves, the office must be informed of the fact in
writing, and her new abode pointed out.
4. The landlord or landlady must particularly impress upon the lodgers
not to have connection with men having a contagious malady.