but where they are sure to be found during certain hours of the day.
The women dine there, and only return to their families at night.
These houses are not numerous, probably there are not more than
six or seven in the whole city. To escape the watchfulness of the
police, these change their locale; whilst one or two close others
open, so that there is no diminution of the evil. They rather affect
quiet localities: the steep hilly streets little frequented, such
as the rampart of the capitol behind the church of _St. Joseph des
Menuisiers_, or those quarters where strangers who come to pass a
season at Rome instal themselves. There are not many women, as a rule,
in these houses; generally six and seldom more than eight. They are
frequented by young girls, and notoriously by married women. As so
many men are obliged to remain bachelors when they take orders, a
vast number of women are compelled, against their will, to embrace a
life of celibacy. Then, in a country without industry and with very
little agriculture, the lower classes have positively no resources to
marry upon. There is a disinclination, also, amongst all classes in
Rome to have children without possessing the means to educate them as
they should be educated. There is quite a passion amongst the ladies
in Rome to get married, and they put every art into requisition to
effect their end. An irreproachable character is one of the means
employed by young unmarried ladies. But once married everything is
changed, and their reserve ceases. This change is to be attributed to
too much exclusiveness and the restraint imposed on naturally strong
and libidinous instincts; at any rate it is a well-established fact at
Rome that marriage is productive of the worst passions and the most
scandalous intrigues.
These houses are subject to no visits of the sanitary police. If the
authorities are cognisant of their existence they take no notice
unless the neighbours complain of such immodest residents in their
immediate vicinity. Their existence depends in a great measure upon
the lowest members of the police force, whose secrecy is often bought
by large bribes. If money is refused them, these fellows complain
to their superiors, and the extermination of the offending house of
accommodation generally ensues.
It is no uncommon thing in England and France to hear the clamour of
drunken men and women issuing from those houses--the noise of bacchanal
lyrics mingled with oaths and curses, the immodesty of the women
joining with the blasphemy of the men; but in Italy it is different.
There is a sort of dignity amongst the Italians even in the midst of
their debauchery. An anonymous denunciation before the clergy of the
parish or the justices that a man was drunk, will often expose the
denounced individual to punishment.
The hospital of San Giacomo is set apart for syphilitic maladies, and
there the women are treated by the physicians, but unfortunately too
late.
Gay women are to be placed in the fourth category. Under this name we
include all those who make the sale of their charms a profession. Some
are mistresses to foreigners and to natives, and transmit infection
from one to the other; the others receive the first comer for a certain
stipulated sum. There are a few, however, who only receive those that
are known to them or who are well introduced. This is a measure of
personal safety; by it they elude the danger of infection, and escape
from the supervision of the police.
Syphilis is very prevalent in Rome, more so than in France; and the
influence of the climate is much felt in accelerating the approach and
increasing the virulence of the disease.
Fifthly. Prostitution in families is one of the most deplorable results
of the non-toleration of open houses of ill fame.
This actually goes on under the eyes of the parents; the mother will
introduce you to her daughter, and the little brothers will provide you
with a ladder to enter the house with.
The love of the _far niente_ is so strong amongst the Italians that
labour, when it can be obtained, is odious to them. “La travailleuse,”
says M. Jacquot, “chaude encore des baisers adultères sera bien reçue
dans l’alcôve conjugale, si elle apporte un bon pécule au bout de la
semaine;” and he adds with indignation, “for a long time I refused to
believe in the existence of such ignominy, to-day I am only too well
convinced.”
An honest woman will on no account be seen in the streets after dark,
and a servant will not go into the city from the suburbs after the day
has disappeared.
The city of Rome contains 150,000 people; and nourishes, lodges, and
takes care of more than 4000 poor people, infirm people, old people,
orphans, foundlings, etc., without reckoning assistance given at their
own houses to those who require it. There are different hospitals too:
the Trinity of the Pelerins, the deaf and dumb asylum, the madhouse,
etc. Nearly 22,000 necessitous are relieved every year. The hospital
of St. Roch gives admittance to women with child without asking their
name or condition, without inquiring whether or not they are married.
Women in a good position, who wish to conceal the fruits of a culpable
amour, can receive every attention by paying 3 scudi (or about 4_s._
6_d._ of our money) a month. The child is taken to the _Pia casa di
Santo-Spirito_. Both men and women when discharged from hospital are so
weak that they cannot pursue their avocations. When this is the case
they are received into the refuge for convalescents, called the Trinity
of the Pelerins, that we have had occasion to refer to before. This
hospital has received six hundred thousand inmates since the year 1625.
As things are at present constituted at Rome there is little more to
be said respecting it, but we cannot conclude without expressing our
admiration of the numerous charitable establishments that one finds
there. Every infirmity is cared for with no sparing hand, and the
defenceless and the destitute are not deserted by the state and the
charity of private individuals.
TURIN.
Turin is as important in every way as Rome, and deserves considerable
attention. Its population, if we include the floating inhabitants, is
more than 150,000.
Almost up to the present day, that is, until very lately, the
supervision of the police was very imperfectly exercised, and the
propagation of disease was the inevitable result. In 1855, M. Ratazzi,
Minister of the Interior, wishing to establish a better organization,
asked Doctor Sperino, well known in the world of letters for his works
upon syphilis, to conceive a project bearing upon this important
department of the public health.
These new ordonnances established a reform not only in Turin, but
throughout the kingdom.
The public women who were visited before 1856 were at Turin 180; since
a scrupulous supervision has been established, the number is increased
to 750. When we compare these figures, we shall see how much this
department of the sanitary police was neglected, and how necessary and
efficacious the measures suggested by M. Sperino were. This is proved
in a better way still by the notable diminution of disease among the
garrison. When the _surveillance_ of prostitution is badly exercised
the disastrous results can escape the notice of the government, but the
registry kept of the soldiers who go into hospital is an index always
to be relied on.
After a long time, a hospital specially devoted to venereal diseases
has sprung up in Turin, called the _Syphilocome_. Tainted women
are here treated gratuitously. They also receive women sent from
the provinces. Married women not prostitutes, who are nursing their
children, are received here in chambers set apart for them. In 1856 the
number of admissions was 1661. A similar institution is about to be
erected at Genoa.
Prostitutes are now inscribed on the registers, and they must renew
their licence annually. The cost of the licence in the first instance,
and the cost of renewal, is
For prostitutes belonging to f. c.
tolerated houses 2 0
For free women of the 1st class 2 0
„ 2nd „ 1 0
„ 3rd „ 0 60
The 88th article of the fifth section of the new regulations says, “The
cost of the visits of the physicians made to independent prostitutes at
their own houses is 1 f. 50 c., and those attached to different houses
is fixed at--
For those in houses of the f. c.
1st class 1 0
For those independent, who
come to the sanitary office,
of the 1st class 1 0
„ 2nd „ 0 50
„ 3rd „ gratis.
In the third class we only include the destitute.”
Art. 89. All the taxes imposed upon prostitutes and upon the chiefs
of houses of tolerance must be paid to the director of the sanitary
office, and are devoted to paying the numerous expenses attendant upon
the supervision of prostitution.
Article 40 of the third section.--The heads of houses of tolerance must
not, in any case, oppose the visits of the agents of police, by day or
night, when the said visits are deemed necessary for the interests of
public security.
41. The number of prostitutes in each house is fixed by the police.
49. In houses of the first class, three-fourths of the fixed price goes
to the master, the other fourth to the prostitute.
50. The masters of houses of all kinds must pay to the officer of
inspection, besides the tax for sanitary visits made to prostitutes
living in the house, an annual sum, fixed as follows:
For houses in the first category, that is, where prostitutes have a
fixed abode,
1st class 400f.
2nd „ 200f.
3rd „ 100f.
For houses coming within the second category, that is, where
independent prostitutes go to exercise their calling,
1st class 100f.
2nd „ 60f.
3rd „ 40f.
Payments for sanitary visits must be made every fifteen days, and the
latter tax three months in advance; at the moment of inscription the
woman is subjected to the first sanitary visit.
Women in houses of ill fame must not present themselves at the windows
or stand in the doorway. Every immoral provocation on the part of the
keeper is absolutely forbidden. All servants in these houses under
forty-five shall be inspected by the doctors.
Every woman found in any of these houses without being furnished with
a licence, and without being inscribed, shall be considered as giving
herself up to clandestine prostitution.
The master of the house, in this case, shall have his licence
suspended, or altogether taken away from him.
The police give every assistance in their power to those prostitutes
who wish to quit their way of living.
Houses of ill fame are to be closed at certain hours determined by the
police.
The rules passed in 1857 are very strict, and place loose women
completely in the power of the police, without whose sanction they
can do nothing. As long as they remain prostitutes they are in a
complete state of servitude; but this severe supervision is productive
of beneficial results, as far as the curtailing of the extension of
syphilis goes; and, after all, this should be the main consideration
with every legislator upon this much-vexed question.
BERNE.
The peculiar customs of the Swiss during the middle ages give an
unusual character to the immorality of this country. In the canton of
Berne, it was the ordinary custom of the young men to make nocturnal
visits in troops to the girls of their acquaintance, generally living
in the same village. These visits were made for the purpose of
contracting intimate relations, and usually succeeded in doing so. Thus
intrigue almost invariably preceded marriage, and it was no unusual
thing for the christening of the first-born to take place immediately
after the marriage of its parents.
“The inconstancy of the human heart,” says M. D’Erlach, “explains why
young women often changed their lovers;” so men could go from one girl
to another for years without any restriction or interruption on the
part of the police.
The use of the bath was established during the middle ages, and
although first erected for sanitary reasons it degenerated, as in
Germany, into a rendezvous for immoral purposes, during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. These baths were taken in common, and
this promiscuous bathing, and the peculiar dress worn, promoted the
lasciviousness both of men and women.
About the end of the fifteenth century the demoralization of the
people of Berne had reached its height, when the Emperor Sigismund
visited it on his return to Rome. In 1528 the clergy, in spite of their
professions, their oaths, and their precepts, surpassed every other
class by the most scandalous profligacy. Amongst the houses of ill-fame
one had acquired a shameful ascendancy. At the end of the invasion of
the Republic by the French this tolerated house was established at No.
13, Rue de l’Arsenal, and it was frequented by all the great men of the
day. It was afterwards moved, and placed opposite a church very much
frequented by the people. Towards the end of the Helvetian Republic,
it was once more translated, on account of the scandal its position
occasioned, but it was finally closed in 1828 by a decree of the State
Council. Until then there was not a single article of any sort against
these places--not a law that bore even remotely upon houses of ill fame.
Notwithstanding the closing of this house, several others have sprung
up in retired districts under the name of public baths, and are
unmolested by the police, who tacitly acknowledge the fact of their
existence and acquiesce in it. The girls in these establishments are
engaged under various pretexts; some are supposed to be employed in the
kitchen, some take care of the baths, some are housemaids, and look
after the bed-rooms--an occupation, it is to be presumed, that most of
them find congenial; sometimes they are imagined to be on a visit to
the people of the house, at others they are relatives. The keeper of
the house employs his own physician to look after the health of the
girls; and these are obliged to report to the police if any of them are
found infected, when the police make a personal visit, not generally
conducive to the advancement of the interests of the master of the
house.
Besides the women inhabiting these houses, which are not numerous,
there may be 170 or 200 other prostitutes. These appear on the
register, and are under the eye of the police.
There are belonging to certain families in the city, and exercising no
profession, from 50 to 70 women.
Living in the city without their families, under the pretext of a
profession, but without one, 120 to 130.
“These,” says M. D’Erlach, “are our prostitutes, such as one meets in
the streets, the squares, &c. As in other towns, they, by their looks,
by their provoking deportment, by their dress, and by their glaring
colours, endeavour to arrest attention, and entice the passers-by into
places where beds may be obtained, or into those public baths which are
well known to harbour prostitutes.”
Another class of prostitutes is formed by those who actually have a
profession, but unhappily one not sufficiently lucrative to enable
them to exist. These, driven by the exigencies of their position, seek
in prostitution that which their profession denies them. Among this
class we see milliners, dressmakers, shop-girls, and servants. At Berne
the household servants send the greatest number of prostitutes into
this category. The reason is, that nine-tenths of them come from the
country, and are placed in hotels, public-houses, tobacco-shops, &c.,
and, inexperienced, easily fall a prey to the temptations held out to
them.
A few words concerning the places of rendezvous may be instructive. The
girls in a certain position who have a profession of some sort, and
have no locality adapted for meeting their lovers, have recourse to
the public baths. In these baths each chamber has two bathing places:
often the rooms communicate with one another by little doors, which
facilitates the commerce of the sexes, about which the keeper of the
baths is profoundly ignorant.
The legislature, as regards sanitary regulations, is mute. The only
thing that can be done is to arrest the girls when it can be proved
that they are infected, and they are then sent to prison.
We subjoin some extracts from the law of the 4th June, 1852, respecting
drinking-houses and other analogous establishments:--
“Art. 37. The authorities of police and their servants can, in the
exercise of their functions, open at any hour of the day or night the
inns and other like establishments.
“Art. 39. In cases particularly urgent and important, the Executive
Council is authorized to shut any inn or analogous establishment.
“Art. 55. The innkeeper must not permit in his house any infraction of
the existing police regulations.”
Innkeepers are further forbidden to allow certain rooms in their houses
to be used for immoral purposes.
THE CITY OF PARIS.
From time immemorial the immorality of the city of Paris has been
proverbial. Every historian, no matter what period of Parisian
history he may have been describing, has dwelt more or less on the
characteristic profligacy of the French nation. Yet all documents
relating to the middle ages must be received with some diffidence, as
they were chiefly drawn up by ecclesiastics, whose interest it has
often proved to distort facts and falsify statistics. Nevertheless,
the levity of the French people has always been a matter for comment
amongst the inhabitants of other countries; and although we may not
find much to instruct us in the papers relative to prostitution in
former times among the Parisians, there is much to be relied upon which
is not altogether uninteresting.
The first document which we possess upon the number of prostitutes in
Paris was drawn up about the year 1762. “This document,” says M. Parent
Duchatelet, “is not much known. We found the MS. in the archives of the
Prefecture, with other papers relating to prostitution.” It contains
a memoir presented anonymously to the lieutenant of police of that
period. It is written very carefully, and with great sagacity, showing
a profound knowledge of the subject of which it treats. The writer
estimates the number of prostitutes exercising their profession in the
city of Paris at 25,000. A few years later, another writer, alluding to
the same subject, reckons the number of all classes upon the pavement
of Paris at 20,000; but neither of these give the sources from whence
they derived their calculation.
The celebrated M. Boucher places the number of prostitutes before the
Revolution at 30,000. These figures are, however, supposed to include
gay women of every kind--actresses, shop-girls, manufacturing women,
and public women, openly known as such.
It is easy to see that there is a great uncertainty in this calculation
of the number of prostitutes before the Revolution, but in the year
1802, Fouché, then Minister of Police, having an idea of erecting
dispensaries in every city in France, estimated, in speaking of Paris,
that it actually did contain 30,000 public women.
Eight years later, in 1810, the Police Minister demanded from
his subordinate officer an approximate estimate of the number of
prostitutes in the city; and the return furnished to him places the
number at 18,000, of whom one-half were kept-women. In 1825 the author
of the “Biographie des Commissaires de Police” was of opinion that the
actual number did not exceed 15,000.
It was not until after the administration of Baron Pasquier, and
especially since 1816, that any reliable documents were prepared. The
researches were executed with great care, and every woman who practised
with sufficient publicity was placed on the returns.
According to M. Duchatelet, the total number of prostitutes inscribed
on the register
in 1812 was 15,523
1813 20,113
1814 22,866
1815 22,249
1816 26,226
1817 28,953
1818 31,042
1819 31,280
1820 32,957
1821 34,966
1822 34,831
1823 32,510
1824 31,845
1825 31,483
1826 29,948
1827 29,663
1828 31,956
1829 34,118
1830 36,337
1831 39,128
1832 42,699
(This is amalgamating the monthly inscriptions during the entire year.)
This calculation extends over 21 years, and the author declares the
numbers to be reliable. It is extremely interesting to the statistician
to notice the fluctuations of vice during different periods of a
country’s history. In 1815 it will be perceived that the number
sensibly diminishes, but it increases gradually and regularly from
1816 to 1822, a time at which the inscriptions are augmented by more
than 2900. In 1827 they are again lowered, only to be considerably
increased in 1830. These oscillations must arrest attention, but
it is incontestable that prostitution has advanced with rapid and
irresistible strides during each successive year that has succeeded,
and to prove such to be the fact we accept from the same authority a
table indicating the number of women inscribed on the registers within
the following 22 years, which will bring us up to 1854, when there is a
monthly average of 4200.
The total number of women inscribed on the register
in 1833 was 44,676
1834 45,382
1835 45,759
1836 45,811
1837 46,584
1838 47,881
1839 47,630
1840 47,153
1841 46,635
1842 46,089
1843 45,846
1844 46,340
1845 47,559
1846 49,915
1847 51,422
1848 51,298
1849 50,015
1850 52,291
1851 52,918
1852 51,620
1853 50,614
1854 50,790
(It must be understood that the registry is repeated every month.)
It has been asserted that Paris was the rendezvous of all debauched
women in France, and that out of every ten thousand immodest women
in the kingdom nine thousand at least are to be looked for in the
capital. “Not only,” wrote Restif de Bretonne, “will you find in
Paris ‘Lyonnaises, Picardes, Champenoises, Normandes, Provencales,
Languedociennes,’ &c., but foreigners, Germans, Swiss, Poles, Saxons,
Spaniards, Italians, and even English, have resorted there, so that we
may even denominate Paris the worst place in Europe.”
At the time that Restif wrote, it may be almost supposed that Parisians
were not to be found among the prostitutes of the capital.
Among 12,707 women inscribed at Paris since April 1816, up to April
1831--that is to say, during 15 years--24 were not able to tell what
country they were born in, 31 came from different countries foreign to
Europe, 451 belonged to European countries foreign to France, 12,201
were born in French departments.
Among the 31 strangers to Europe were--
18 Americans.
11 Africans.
2 Asiatics.
During the years 1845 to 1854 Great Britain contributed 56 women to
swell the ranks of the prostitutes in Paris, of which
London sent 30
Bristol 1
Brighton 3
Liverpool 1
Southampton 1
Sundry Villages 14
Ireland 4
Scotland 2
--
Total 56
From the 16th March, 1816, up to the 31st April, 1831, the total number
of girls inscribed on the registers has been 12,607, of which Paris has
furnished 4469, the chief towns 6939, and the others have come from
various places. These statistics we consider sufficient to prove the
fact of the emigration of prostitutes to Paris.
It has been supposed that almost all prostitutes are natural children.
That this is not the case is abundantly proved by a careful analysis by
M. Duchatelet, in which he evidences the contrary; out of 1183 children
born in Paris not quite one-fourth were illegitimate.
The list of the professions practised at one time by women who have
subsequently become prostitutes is alarming, from its extensiveness,
including as it does no less than six hundred distinct trades,
among which we perceive seamstresses, those in the linen trade,
breeches-makers, flannel-waistcoat makers, glovers, upholstresses
or tapestry-makers, darners and menders, strap-makers, botchers,
milliners, embroideresses, gauze-workers, flowerists, feather-makers,
those that colour or illuminate, knitters, lace-makers, fringe-makers,
rope-makers, furriers, wool-workers, hair-weavers, machinists,
cotton-spinners, silk-weavers, gold and silver gauze veil-makers,
shawl-makers, bonnet-makers, and innumerable others; indeed, every
trade may truly be said to be adequately represented in this social
congress for the propagation of vice. There are also those who have
once been much better off. For instance: seven had been shopkeepers
in a very respectable way of business, three were midwives, one an
artist, six were musicians and gave lessons on the harp and the piano,
sixteen had been actresses in Paris and the provinces, and three (this
is a very rare case, and an exception to the general rule,) possessed
an income of 200 francs, of 500, and even 1000. It is not easy to
determine what inducement a life of prostitution could hold out to
these women.
The total number of women whose professions were known amounts to 3120.