occupations upon the morals of young girls; then the fluctuations in
the demand for labour are continually throwing the operatives out of
work, and as a means of existence they naturally resort to prostitution
to obtain a livelihood.
To show the extent to which education has spread amongst this class,
we give the number of those who signed the register well, of those who
signed badly, and of those who could not sign at all, out of 4470 girls
born and brought up in Paris.
Those who could not sign 2332
Those who signed badly 1780
Those who signed well, and sometimes
very well 110
And of those who possessed no indication
to show what they were 248
----
Total 4470
Ignorance is the prevailing characteristic of the “femmes galantes”
generally throughout the world, and we find it so in France, which
is rather singular when we consider how comprehensive the scheme of
education is in that country.
As far as religion goes, they are usually deficient in the knowledge of
the most simple articles of belief. Sometimes they are fanatical to a
degree, and always superstitious. This being the case, it will not seem
wonderful that they always receive the rites of the Church on their
deathbeds with the greatest confidence, satisfaction, and delight.
It is very well known that soldiers and sailors have a way of tattooing
themselves on the chest, the arms, and sometimes the legs. The
inscriptions are often of great size, and elaborately executed. One
man will have a battle delineated on his skin, or the likeness of his
sweetheart, but this of course depends upon his turn of mind. This
habit has been adopted in Paris by those prostitutes who live in the
houses frequented by the military. It may in the first instance have
originated from a desire on their part to ingratiate themselves with
their admirers. At all events, from whatever cause it may have arisen,
it is now an established custom. Women occasionally have been seen in
the hospital with as many as thirty lovers imprinted on the throat, the
breast and other parts of the body, although it is customary for them
to remove a lover who has been succeeded by one more favoured, and the
means had recourse to, to effect this, are often prejudicial to the
health of the girl in a fatal degree. They will not hesitate to employ
sulphuric acid, which is as likely as not to raise an ulcer which has
in very many cases ended in the death of the sufferer. Strange to say,
the figures and inscriptions are rarely, if ever, immodest or indecent.
The shibboleth of this class is always “Vive la bagatelle!” When not
actually engaged in the pursuits their avocation entails upon them,
they seldom do anything. Their existence, if not altogether dreamy and
inane, is certainly one marked rather by lassitude and inertness than
energy and briskness. They are perpetually the prey of an irresistible
craving after excitement, which devours them, and the morning and
afternoon not unfrequently serves only to recruit the nerves shattered
by the excesses of the night before. Reading is not a pastime with
them, although some may frequently be found with books in their hands.
Most prostitutes pass under false names, and they even go so far as to
change their names whenever they have an inclination to do so.
* * * * *
The names that the better class are fondest of are:--
Aumale
Zulma
Calliope
Irma
Zélie
Amanda
Pamela
Modeste
Natalie
Sidonia
Olympia
Flora
Thalia
Artemisia
Armande
Leocadia
Octavia
Malvina
Virginia
Azelina
Ismeria
Lodoiska
Palmira
Aspasia
Lucrece
Clara
Angelina
Flavia
Celina
Emily
Reine
Anais
Delphini
Fanny.
The lower class do not, as may be supposed, possess so refined a taste
as their more elevated sisters. We subjoin some of the most popular to
be found in their vocabulary:--
Roussellette
Collette
Boulotte
Mourette
La Ruelle
La Roche
La Courtille
La Picarde
Faux Cul
La Bancale
La Blonde
La Provençale
Belle-Cuisse
Belle-Lambe
Le Bœuf
Brunette
Bouquet
Louchon
Mignarde
Poil-ras
Poillong
Peloton
Cocote
Bourdonneuse.
Leaving this subject, let us touch upon another which deserves our
attention. Every prostitute has a lover; he is generally selected
from among the law students, medical students, or young barristers,
for their minds being cultivated and their address easy, the woman is
charmed by an intellectual superiority she can never hope to attain
to. A great number of prostitutes of course recruit for lovers among
the shop-boys and tradesmen of the city. They become so ardently
attached to them that they will submit to almost any indignity. The
“Paillasson” may be the greatest tyrant in his small way that ever had
the power of lording it over another, but no diminution of her regard
or passion will result from his ill-treatment. A great number of young
men in Paris have no visible means of existence, but a prostitute
will, in most instances, not only keep her lover out of the proceeds
of her prostitution, but clothe, feed, and even lodge him herself.
In fact it is more a madness than a passion. They will put up with
anything,--wounds, curses, blows, all are forgiven and forgotten.
Introducing houses, and houses of accommodation are tolerated by the
Parisian police, for it is found impossible, and perhaps impolitic, to
suppress them. The refuse of the city, both men and women, are confined
by the police to the lowest quarters of the city, that they may be
under the immediate control of the authorities. So that the vilest and
most abandoned women are allowed to mingle with thieves, ruffians, and
malefactors of every description in a particular locality, instead of
infesting other parts of the city.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE GARDENS OF “CLOSERIE DES LILAS.” PARIS.]
The rank and title of “_Dame de Maison_,” or keeper of a house of
ill-fame, being the highest pinnacle of a prostitute’s career, and the
acme of their ambition, of course renders such a position a matter of
much envy and anticipation to them. We can divide this class into four
distinct divisions--
1st. Those who have, so to say, gone through the world, having been
kept by officers in the army, or men of property, who, perhaps, are
thrown over by their _ci-devant_ admirers, and possessing some money,
establish themselves in this way as a means of making a livelihood and
obtaining a provision for their declining years.
2nd. Those old prostitutes who have exercised some economy during their
youth, and are thus placed in a position to live somewhat at their
ease.
3rd. Old servants and confidential women who have lived in the
service of keepers of houses of ill-fame, who have an agreement with
their mistress to take her business or succeed her on her death or
bankruptcy. These women have a knowledge of the places where they have
lived, and know perfectly well how to manage the girls who resort to
these houses, and thoroughly understand the men who visit them.
4th. The fourth class is composed of women who have never been
prostitutes, who often are married and have children. The appetite of
gain has launched them in this career. It is to keep a furnished house
that they have taken in prostitutes, or having set up a public-house
they entertain loose women to make men come there.
There are in Paris some families who have kept prostitutes for several
generations, having positively no other source of revenue than the
keeping of introducing houses or houses of ill-fame. One sees the
mother exercising her profession in one quarter of the city and her
daughter in another. The daughters succeed their mother, the nieces
their aunt, etc., but in general this is very rare, one not being able
to indicate more than six families of this description.
There are some conditions which these people must subscribe to, and
which offer some guarantee to the authorities for the good management
of the house. To begin with: they must not be too young, lest they
are unable to possess sufficient authority over the women under their
jurisdiction; twenty-five is generally the lowest age, experience
teaches us, at which a woman can become a safe manager of an immoral
house. As a rule, licences are refused to those who have never been
prostitutes.
Force, vigour, energy both of mind and body are requisite to a
keeper of a house of ill-fame, as well as a habit of commanding, and
something of a masculine manner. If to these qualities they join good
antecedents, if they have not been taken before a justice of the peace,
if they are honest, if they do not favour clandestine debauchery, if
they are unaccustomed to get intoxicated, if they know how to read
and write, if while they were prostitutes they had not a tendency to
infringe the regulations, the authorisation they ask for is not refused
them; but unhappily it is found too late, that licences are given to
women who are unable to, or certainly do not, carry out these wholesome
conditions and necessary stipulations. The desire to possess this
coveted distinction, and pass from the condition of a simple prostitute
to that of “dame de maison” often fills young women with the greatest
anxiety, as they do not very well know how to invest their money, and
they often embark in this career in a speculative manner causing their
enterprise to end in bankruptcy and failure; this fills the authorities
with great trouble and they are extremely particular in giving
licences, frequently only giving a fourth-class one when the party
applying for it could easily set up a first-class establishment.
Certain speculators will often furnish a house, and place a woman in it
for immoral purposes, who will encourage other women, and it becomes a
house of ill-fame; other intriguing women will also club together and
establish a house of this sort, and install one of their creatures. Now
these installed women are not really and truly, from their subordinate
position, to be called “dames de maison” for if they do not every week
pay so much money to the speculators who have employed them, they are
instantly turned out and some one else comes in their place. It is easy
to see that this system does not give them much authority over the
women who live in their houses, and through whose instrumentality and
prostitution the money is made. Without authority disorder must ensue,
and then the police have to interfere. There were--
In 1824 -- 163 of these houses in Paris.
„ 1831 -- 209 „ „
„ 1832 -- 220 „ „
On the 1st of January, 1852, there were 1246 women in these houses. On
the 1st of December there were 1316, but making allowance for those
incarcerated, either for some offence or for illness, we find the
number reduced to about 1005 active women. There were--
In 1842 -- 193 tolerated houses in Paris.
„ 1847 -- 177 „ „
„ 1852 -- 152 „ „
In which latter year these houses contained 1005 girls.
In 1854, Paris contained 140 tolerated houses in which 1009 women
existed.
In the suburbs there were--
In 1842 -- 36 of these houses.
„ 1847 -- 53 „ „
„ 1852 -- 65 „ „
In 1852 the number of girls living in them was 417.
In 1854 there were 64 houses containing 493 women.
The number of these tolerated houses, it will be seen, does not
fluctuate or change very largely, with the exception of those existing
in the suburbs, in which in ten years, that is to say from 1842 to
1852, the number was increased by 29. We have shown that the summit of
a prostitute’s ambition is generally to keep a house of ill-fame, and
such being the case it is only wonderful that the number of such houses
is not larger than it is.
A vast deal of prostitution goes on in the small smoking shops, the
low public-houses, the brandy shops, and the wine houses. These
refuges exist all over Paris, they are innumerable, but one finds
them collected especially at those points where the workmen and the
industrial classes meet together, such as the larger barriers, nearly
all the outside boulevards, those of the Hospital and the Temple, the
“Rue Fromenteau” and neighbouring places, the streets that touch the
large bridges, etc.
So far back as 1818, the commissioners of the police consulted about
this evil, and the necessity for suppressing it; for not only did it
encourage secret vice and defeat the ends of the authorities, but it
was a source of drunkenness and fighting, and indeed of all sorts of
disorders.
In December, 1851, a decree was promulgated by Louis Napoleon which has
had some effect in reducing the evil, for several drinking shops have
been closed since then for offences against the decree.
It may be interesting to know that frequently girls take a dislike to
their revolting avocation, and return voluntarily to their parents.
From the 1st January, 1821, to the 30th December, 1827, 254 girls whose
names were erased from the registers were taken back by their friends,
who promised to provide them with the means of subsistence, and gave
guarantees for their good conduct. Amongst this number--
133 were reclaimed by the mother only.
72 „ „ the father only.
22 „ „ the mother and father together.
22 „ „ their brothers.
9 „ „ their sisters.
5 „ „ an aunt.
2 „ „ an uncle.
Each of these girls had been inscribed during the following time--
120 from 1 to 6 months
37 more than 6 months
16 „ 1 year
55 „ 2 years
9 „ 3 years
6 „ 7 years
8 „ 8 years
3 „ 9 years
---
Total--254
The sanitary regulations in Paris are beneficial to the community
at large in the highest degree. Physicians are appointed by the
prefecture, who make periodical visits, generally twice a month, for
the purpose of ascertaining the state of the health of their numerous
clients. If they should discover one infected, she is immediately sent
to the hospital.
In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to give a brief exposé of
the dark side of the brilliant volatile city of Paris. Such a subject
gives ample scope for volumes, but the nature of this work confines us
to dry facts and statistics.
PROSTITUTION IN LONDON.[91]
The liberty of the subject is very jealously guarded in England, and
so tenacious are the people of their rights and privileges that the
legislature has not dared to infringe them, even for what by many
would be considered a just and meritorious purpose. Neither are the
magistracy or the police allowed to enter improper or disorderly
houses, unless to suppress disturbances that would require their
presence in the most respectable mansion in the land, if the aforesaid
disturbances were committed within their precincts. Until very lately
the police had not the power of arresting those traders, who earned an
infamous livelihood by selling immoral books and obscene prints. It is
to the late Lord Chancellor Campbell that we owe this salutary reform,
under whose meritorious exertions the disgraceful trade of Holywell
Street and kindred districts has received a blow from which it will
never again rally.
If the neighbours choose to complain before a magistrate of a
disorderly house, and are willing to undertake the labour, annoyance,
and expense of a criminal indictment, it is probable that their
exertions may in time have the desired effect; but there is no summary
conviction, as in some continental cities whose condition we have
studied in another portion of this work.
To show how difficult it is to give from any data at present before the
public anything like a correct estimate of the number of prostitutes
in London, we may mention (extracting from the work of Dr. Ryan) that
while the Bishop of Exeter asserted the number of prostitutes in London
to be 80,000, the City Police stated to Dr. Ryan that it did not exceed
7000 to 8000. About the year 1793 Mr. Colquhoun, a police magistrate,
concluded, after tedious investigations, that there were 50,000
prostitutes in this metropolis. At that period the population was one
million, and as it is now more than double we may form some idea of the
extensive ramifications of this insidious vice.
In the year 1802, when immorality had spread more or less all over
Europe, owing to the demoralizing effects of the French Revolution, a
society was formed, called “The Society for the Suppression of Vice,”
of which its secretary, Mr. Wilberforce, thus speaks:--
“The particular objects to which the attention of this Society is
directed are as follow, viz.--
“1. The prevention of the profanation of the Lord’s day.
“2. Blasphemous publications.
“3. Obscene books, prints, etc.
“4. Disorderly houses.
“5. Fortunetellers.”
When speaking of the third division a report of the Society says--
“In consequence of the renewed intercourse with the Continent,
incidental to the restoration of peace, there has been a great influx
into the country of the most obscene articles of every description, as
may be inferred from the exhibition of indecent snuff-boxes in the shop
windows of tobacconists. These circumstances having tended to a revival
of this trade the Society have had occasion within the last twelve
months to resort to five prosecutions, which have greatly tended to the
removal of that indecent display by which the public eye has of late
been too much offended.”
Before the dissolution of the Bristol Society for the Suppression of
Vice, its secretary, Mr. Birtle, wrote (1808) to London the following
letter:--
“Sir,--The Bristol Society for the Suppression of Vice being about to
dissolve, and the agents before employed having moved very heavily, I
took my horse and rode to Stapleton prison to inquire into the facts
contained in your letter. Inclosed are some of the drawings which I
purchased in what they call their market, without the least privacy
on their part or mine. They wished to intrude on me a variety of
devices in bone and wood of the most obscene kind, particularly those
representing a crime “_inter Christianos non nominandum_,” which they
termed the _new fashion_. I purchased a few, but they are too bulky for
a letter. This market is held before the door of the turnkey every day
between the hours of ten and twelve.”
At the present day the police wage an internecine war with these
people, who generally go about from fair to fair to sell indecent
images, mostly imported from France; but this traffic is very much on
the decline, if it is not altogether extinguished.
The reports of the Society for the Suppression of Vice are highly
interesting, and may be obtained gratis on application at the Society’s
chambers.
Another Society was instituted in May 1835, called “The London Society
for the Protection of Young Females, and Prevention of Juvenile
Prostitution.” We extract a few passages from its opening address.
“The committee cannot avoid referring to the present dreadfully immoral
state of the British metropolis. No one can pass through the streets
of London without being struck with the awfully depraved condition of
a certain class of the youth of both sexes at this period (1835). Nor
is it too much to say that in London crime has arrived at a frightful
magnitude; nay, it is asserted that nowhere does it exist to such an
extent as in this highly-favoured city. Schools for the instruction of
youth in every species of theft and immorality are here established *
* * * *. It has been proved that 400 individuals procure a livelihood
by trepanning females from eleven to fifteen years of age for the
purposes of prostitution. Every art is practised, every scheme is
devised, to effect this object, and when an innocent child appears in
the streets without a protector, she is insidiously watched by one of
those merciless wretches and decoyed under some plausible pretext to an
abode of infamy and degradation. No sooner is the unsuspecting helpless
one within their grasp than, by a preconcerted measure, she becomes a
victim to their inhuman designs. She is stripped of the apparel with
which parental care or friendly solicitude had clothed her, and then,
decked with the gaudy trappings of her shame, she is compelled to
walk the streets, and in her turn, while producing to her master or
mistress the wages of her prostitution, becomes the ensnarer of the
youth of the other sex. After this it is useless to attempt to return
to the path of virtue or honour, for she is then watched with the
greatest vigilance, and should she attempt to escape from the clutches
of her seducer she is threatened with instant punishment, and often
barbarously treated. Thus situated she becomes reckless, and careless
of her future course. It rarely occurs that one so young escapes
contamination; and it is a fact that numbers of these youthful victims
imbibe disease within a week or two of their seduction. They are then
sent to one of the hospitals under a fictitious name by their keepers,
or unfeelingly turned into the streets to perish; and it is not an
uncommon circumstance that within the short space of a few weeks the
bloom of health, of beauty, and of innocence gives place to the sallow
hue of disease, of despair, and of death.
“This fact will be appreciated when it is known that in three of the
largest hospitals in London within the last eight years (that is to
say, from 1827 to 1835), there have not been less than 2700 cases of
disease arising from this cause in children from eleven to sixteen
years of age.”
Léon Faucher, commenting on this, exclaims with astonishment, mixed
with indignation, “Deux mille sept cents enfants visités par cette
horrible peste avant l’âge de la puberté! Quel spectacle que celui-là
pour un peuple qui a des entrailles! Et comment éprouver assez de
pitié pour les victimes, assez d’indignation contre les bourreaux!” A
Frenchman, looking at the way in which his own illustrious country is
governed, would very naturally exclaim against the authorities for not
taking steps to prevent so much crime and misery, but he forgets that
although a system may work well in France, it is no criterion of its
excellent working among a nation totally dissimilar in their habits and
disposition to his own.