Part 20 (1/2)
Again, turning to the pages of Fiducin, we find that, ”in all the great towns of the German Empire, the public protection of women of pleasure (_l.u.s.t dirnen_) seems to have been a regular thing,” in proof of which he says, ”Did a creditor, in taking proceedings against his debtor, find it necessary to put up at an inn, one of the allowed items of his expenditure was a reasonable sum for the company of a woman during his stay (_frauen geld_).” This was a question of state etiquette in Berlin in 1410, a sum having been officially expended in that year to retain some handsome women to grace a public festival and banquet given to a distinguished guest, Diedrich V. Quitzow, whose good-will the citizens desired to cultivate.
During this period of toleration the expediency of controlling public women was unquestioned; but the first Berlin enactment of material importance to this investigation bears date in 1700, and is remarkable as clearly enunciating the principles which have been adhered to, with only a short interval, ever since. The first section declares, ”By law this traffic is decidedly not permitted (_erlaubt_), but simply tolerated (_geduldet_) as a necessary evil.”
Sections 2, 3, and 4 require the keeper of any house of prost.i.tution to give notice to the commissary of the quarter when any of his women leave him, or when he receives a new one, and restrain him from keeping more women than are specified in his contract.
Sections 5 to 9 provide that a surgeon shall visit every woman once a fortnight, ”for the purpose of protecting the health of revelers (_schwarmer_), as well as that of the women themselves;” that every woman shall pay him two groschen for each visit; and that, upon observing the slightest signs of disease, the surgeon shall require the housekeeper to detain the woman in her room. If the keeper neglect this order, he is made responsible for the entire costs of the illness which any visitor could prove was contracted from one of his women. If the surgeon finds the woman already so far infected that she can not be cured by cleanliness and retirement alone, he is authorized to order her removal to the Charite, ”where she will be taken care of in the pavilion free of charge.”
Sections 10 and 11 provide that the debts of a woman must be paid before she can remove from one house of prost.i.tution to another, or before she can leave one house to commence another on her own account.
Section 12 enjoins that any woman who desires to quit her mode of life altogether shall be entirely discharged from any debts to the housekeeper.
The last section requires every housekeeper who has music to pay six groschen a year for the permit to his musicians, the money to be applied to the benefit of the poor-house.
The ”toleration but not authorization” clause is the noticeable feature in these regulations, and indicates the policy which was then generally adopted throughout the kingdom.
In reference to the period succeeding the issue of these rules, which continued in force till 1792, we find some information in the pages of Fiducin. Thus, in 1717, an inquiry proved that the inmates of brothels, and also the secret prost.i.tutes, were mostly the children of soldiers, who ”had been brought to vice as a trade, either from the want of a proper bringing up or of a skillful handicraft.”... _All measures for the extermination of the evil having been found ineffectual_, ”they were obliged to adopt the system of a larger toleration of common brothels, to be strictly watched over by the police, as a necessary outlet for the tendency to immorality.” The number of houses of ill fame increased in proportion to the population, the influx of strangers, and the additions to the garrison made under Frederick II.; and still more so after the close of the seven years' war. In the year 1780, there were one hundred such houses in Berlin, each containing eight or nine women. They were divided into three cla.s.ses; the lowest were those in which the women dressed in plain clothes, and were frequented mostly by Hamburg or Amsterdam mariners; the second cla.s.s of women paraded themselves with painted faces, haunted the more retired corners of the town, had little attractive about their persons or dress, and were princ.i.p.ally visited by mechanics and laborers; the third, and apparently the most select of the kind, was a description of coffee-house, frequented by females, who were designated ”_Mamselles_:” these did not live in the houses, but used them merely as a convenient rendezvous.
In 1792 a new code of regulations appeared, the bulk of which continued in force in Berlin and other towns for many years. The rules of 1700 were too vague, made no provision for a variety of cases likely to arise, and were silent as to the question of private prost.i.tution. Many inconveniences had arisen from these omissions, and, in consequence, a memorial was addressed to the government by the police director, Von Eisenhardt, containing suggestions for amendments to the law.
The preamble of the royal reply to this application acknowledges the attention of the police to the matter with much satisfaction; admits prost.i.tution (_hurenanstalten_) to be ”a necessary evil in a great city where many men are not in a position to marry, although of an age when the s.e.xual instincts are at the highest, in order thereby to avoid greater disorders which are not to be restrained by any law or authority, and which take their rise from an inextinguishable natural impulse;” but expressly reiterates that it is ”only to be tolerated (_zu dulden_);” and that it can not, ”without impropriety and consequences injurious to morality, be established by the public laws, which do not contain any sanction whatever to common prost.i.tution.”
The sections following this preamble provide that any one who seduces a woman, or induces her to carry on a venal traffic with her person, shall be liable to one year's imprisonment in the House of Correction, and on repet.i.tion of the offense, besides doubling the punishment, shall be whipped and driven from the country; declare any man or woman who communicates the venereal disease liable for the expenses of the cure and incidental damages (_sonstigen interesse_), together with imprisonment for three months, commutable by paying a fine of one hundred dollars; prohibit taking young women from the country into houses of prost.i.tution by any device against their will, and authorize the punishment of any man who willfully infects a common woman.
In reference to the special directions touching brothels and prost.i.tutes, the doc.u.ment provides, ”as a leading point, that every thing which exceeds the mere gratification of the natural pa.s.sions, and tends to the advancement of debauchery, or the misuse of our toleration of a necessary evil, must be prevented;” and accordingly the women are prohibited from increasing their attractions ”by painting or distinguis.h.i.+ng attire,” and also from soliciting pa.s.sengers in the public streets, or at the doors or windows of their houses, ”as this is not only in contravention to public morals, but especially perilous to male youth; and such means of increasing the gains of people seeking their livelihood in this manner is not to be tolerated.” For similar reasons, the keepers of houses were restrained from offering wines or other strong drinks to their visitors, although it is admitted ”they can not be prevented from providing refreshments,” yet stimulants are forbidden, ”because they are great inducements to debauchery, whereby other excesses may be caused.”
The orders farther provide that no woman shall become a resident in a house of prost.i.tution without previously appearing before the police, and obtaining permission from them; and the police are directed not to allow this permission to any female under age, unless they are satisfied that she has previously made a trade of prost.i.tution. The section containing this stipulation is prefaced by a statement that ”keepers of these houses seek especially to obtain blooming young girls, who can not be procured without infamous seduction, calculated to lead to debauchery.”
In reference to precautions against infection, it provides that the prost.i.tutes and keepers of houses shall be instructed by some competent surgeon in the signs of venereal diseases, so that they may detect it in their visitors or themselves; also that any man communicating infection to a prost.i.tute may be sentenced to make ample compensation if the woman can identify him; and farther, that the punishment inflicted upon girls infecting their visitors shall also be inflicted on the housekeepers, ”as, although they may be innocent, their being included in the punishment for an incident of their trade is for the general weal.” All fines received were to accrue to the medical inst.i.tutions provided for the cure of syphilis.
Again, it was deemed that ”the venereal disease was much extended by common street-walkers,” and no women but such as resided in the known houses, where medical visits of inspection were constantly paid, were to be tolerated, and the night-watch were instructed to arrest those common women who were in the habit of plying their trade in the streets after dark--a portion of the penalty exacted being awarded to the officers who made such arrests, ”to encourage their zeal.” But they were strictly cautioned against annoying innocent persons, ”inasmuch as blunders in such matters create ill impressions against the authorities, and because the honor and happiness of the person might be irretrievably injured, so that it would be better to pa.s.s over a guilty person here and there, than to inculpate a single innocent one.” The royal rescript concludes by directing that a strict _surveillance_ be kept over the females of the garrison, many of whom are stated, in very plain language, to be of improper character.
These directions were subsequently embodied in the general statute, or law of the land (_landrecht_), and upon that the police regulations which we quote hereafter were based.
The statute formally declares procurers and procuresses liable to imprisonment for from six months to three years in the House of Correction, with ”a welcome and farewell;” _Anglice_, a sound whipping when admitted, and another when discharged. In the cases of parents or guardians who may aid in or connive at the prost.i.tution of their children or wards, the term of imprisonment is doubled, and made more severe. It requires all common women to reside in the tolerated houses ”under the eye of the state,” which houses are only to be permitted in populous cities, and ”not elsewhere than in retired and back streets therein, the consent of the police authorities having been first obtained.” And in any case where a house of prost.i.tution was established without this consent, or in defiance of the public orders, the keeper was to be liable to one or two years' imprisonment. The police are strictly commanded to keep all tolerated houses under strict and constant _surveillance_; to make frequent visits in company with medical men, so as to check the progress of venereal disease; to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors therein; to see that no woman was introduced without the knowledge and permission of the authorities, under a fine of fifty thalers, for each offense; and, more especially, that no innocent female was, by force or deceit, compelled or induced to live therein; which latter offense imposes ”a public exhibition,” in the stocks or pillory, we presume, and from six to ten years' imprisonment, with ”welcome and farewell,” on the keeper, who was not to be allowed to keep such a house again under any circ.u.mstances.
The police are farther enjoined to see that the mistress of the house informs the authorities of the pregnancy of any woman residing in the house as soon as she is aware of it herself, but if it is concealed she (the mistress) is liable to imprisonment, especially if a secret birth takes place. The mistress is required to take charge of any woman who becomes pregnant, if there is no public inst.i.tution to which she can be removed, and is at liberty to seek compensation from the father of the child, or, if he can not be found, she has a claim upon the mother. The child must be removed from the house as soon as it is weaned, and is to be cared for at the public cost if the parents have not means to do so.
If the keeper of the house, or the inmates themselves, conceal any venereal infection from the knowledge of the police, they render themselves liable to imprisonment from three months to a year, with ”welcome and farewell.”
If thefts, a.s.saults, or other offenses occur in such houses, the keeper is, in all cases, liable to the injured party, who can not in any other way obtain his indemnity, and is also suspected of complicity in the offense so long as the contrary can not be substantiated; and if it is proved that he did not exert all his power to prevent such occurrences, his neglect is to be punished by fine or imprisonment.
No woman desirous of leaving a tolerated house to change her mode of life, and support herself honestly, can be retained against her inclination, and no difficulties may be thrown in the way of her doing so; nor will the master be allowed to force her to remain, even though she may be in his debt, under the penalty of the loss of his permission from the police.
Prost.i.tutes who do not conform to the regulations and place themselves under supervision, are to be arrested and imprisoned for three months, and, when their term of imprisonment has expired, are to be sent to the ”work-houses,” and detained there until they have inclination and opportunity for honorable employment. Any females, not being inmates of the tolerated houses, who had intercourse while suffering from disease, and thereby infected men, are declared liable to an imprisonment for three months.
This comprehensive legal enactment left many matters of detail to the discretion of the police, and accordingly they issued their rules. The opposition these subsequently encountered makes them important in the history of Prost.i.tution in Berlin, and although they are in many points a mere repet.i.tion of the terms of the statute, we give them _in extenso_.
They are ent.i.tled,
”PROVISIONS AGAINST THE MISLEADING OF YOUNG WOMEN INTO BROTHELS, AND FOR PREVENTION OF THE SPREAD OF VENEREAL DISEASE.