Part 20 (2/2)
”_Preamble._ It has been brought to notice that simple young girls, especially from the smaller towns, under the craftiest pretensions to place them in good situations, have been brought to Berlin, and, without their knowledge of the fact, taken to brothels, and therein, against their will, led astray to their ruin, and to the life of a common prost.i.tute.
”At the same time, it is matter of remark that common prost.i.tutes, after they have been diseased, continue their practices as long as the state of their sickness permits, and thereby farther infection is extraordinarily increased and extended.
”With the express view of meeting such infamous seductions, and the highly injurious results of the before-mentioned communication of venereal disease, the following directions are brought to the cognizance and perfect information of the keepers of houses of prost.i.tution, and of the females who make a trade of their persons.
”1. No one can set on foot a brothel, or keep women for the purposes of prost.i.tution, without having communicated previously with the Police Directory on the subject, and obtained their permission in writing. Whoso acts contrary to this shall, together with absolute withdrawal of his license, be liable to one or two years in the House of Correction.
”2. Every brothel-keeper must, before taking a girl into his service, produce her before the Police Directory, and must not conclude any contract with her until the Police Director has given him written leave to do so; whereupon, forthwith the conditions upon which the keeper and said woman have agreed are to be registered with the police, and an abstract thereof shall be given to each party, for which eight groschen are to be paid as fees. The before-mentioned brothel-keepers, to whom the Police Director's toleration is extended, must, at his order, produce the common prost.i.tutes, and submit the same to a similar license, and the conditions must be drawn up for them in the before-mentioned manner. If a keeper omits the same, and is accused of having any woman for common use in his house for forty-eight hours without such notice, he shall pay a fine of fifty thalers, and, upon the third offense, in addition to the said fine, his trade shall be stopped, and he shall not carry on the same any more. Further, it shall be no excuse that the person in question was not there for the purpose of prost.i.tution, inasmuch as he is enjoined to point out every female whom he receives into his house, without exception, and neglect of this shall be taken as a proof of contravention. Under penalty of the same punishment, he must give a similar notice if a common woman comes to him from another house.
”3. Females under age, who have not, before the publication of these ordinances, notoriously abandoned themselves to common prost.i.tution, are not to be received by any brothel-keeper, and when he produces such persons before the Police Directory the permit shall not be allowed. If he acts contrary to this prohibition, he shall be punished with two years' labor in jail.
”4. The departure from a brothel of any woman who desires to change her mode of life, and to subsist in a respectable manner, is not to be checked or prevented. Even on account of sureties entered into or debts incurred, the keeper is not to retain any such against her will, at the risk of losing his permit, and the police are charged to give every a.s.sistance. If, however, any such person desire only to remove to another house of prost.i.tution, this can not be done without the consent of her former keeper, until after three months' notice given, when it will be permitted upon proof of brutal treatment by the keeper, or other good and reasonable grounds shown to the police. No woman who seeks to quit a brothel for the purpose of carrying on prost.i.tution for pay on her own account will be permitted to do so; and if any person, having, on pretense of an honest calling, quitted a house of prost.i.tution, shall be adjudged guilty of prost.i.tution on her own account, she shall have four weeks at the House of Correction, with a welcome and farewell. And whereas it is known that many brothel-keepers, who treat their girls with an unbearable harshness, keep so strict a watch upon them that they can not succeed in bringing their complaints before the authorities, information shall from time to time, _ex-officio_, and without the presence of the keeper, be taken, whether the girls have any well-founded complaints to bring forward against the said keeper.
”5. The common prost.i.tutes in the brothels are strictly prohibited from enticing or inviting pa.s.sengers in the streets, with looks or signs from the houses or windows, and the keepers are on no account to permit the same. Diligent regard to this is to be had by the police, and those who act contrary will be punished, the first time with three days, and, on a repet.i.tion of the offense, with a week's solitary confinement, one half of the time on bread and water. The keeper who is shown to have been party to the same will suffer double punishment.
”6. In these houses the keepers shall not supply visitors with wine, brandy, liquor, punch, or other strong drinks, or with food, but only with tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, or similar beverages; further, it is not permitted for the visitors to bring in drink or food. For every case of contravention the keeper shall pay five thalers, or a week's detention; on repet.i.tion, he shall be punished more severely; if this will not suffice, the permit shall be withdrawn from the house. No brothel-keeper shall allow any guest to remain after twelve o'clock at night, nor allow any one to enter after that hour. Whoso acts contrary shall, for the first offense, pay ten thalers; on repet.i.tion, the fine is doubled; for the third time, the keeper shall lose his permit.
”7. Should thefts, a.s.saults, or other offenses take place in such houses, the keeper is in all cases liable to the injured party if he can not get his redress elsewhere. Further, the said keeper is suspected of complicity in the offense so long as the contrary is not proved, and if it appear that he did not use all possible means for the prevention of such offense, he shall be punished by fine or in person.
”8. In case any innocent female shall, by fraud or violence, be brought into any brothel, the keeper and those who are accomplices in such infamous offense shall undergo public exhibition, and four to ten years' House of Correction, with welcome and farewell. Besides this, the permit will be withdrawn. It shall be no excuse for him to allege that he neither knew nor a.s.sisted the said seduction, inasmuch as he had no right to receive any female into his house without first giving notice thereof to the Police Directory, and receiving from them, after inquiry into the circ.u.mstances, permission to do so.
”9. In like manner, a brothel-keeper may not, under penalty of twelve months' imprisonment, give any one (whatever his rank may be) facility to carry on criminal intercourse with any woman who has been brought into his house; and it is absolutely forbidden for any person to bring a female to such house, and there to have any private communication with her, which shall be only with the regular women of the place, inasmuch as by section 2 no keeper is permitted to receive any woman as servant-maid, or under any pretense whatever, among his inmates, without previous notice to the police, and their a.s.sent to the same.
”10. In order to combat the frequent infection of common prost.i.tutes, and, if possible, prevent them from severe attacks of venereal disease, or its farther extension, and at the same time not only to restrain the rapid progress of this highly pernicious malady, but, so far as possible, entirely to root it out, the brothel-keepers and the women kept by them are bound to give their most observant attention thereto, both for their own advantage, and also for the diminution of their own misfortunes and severe punishment. To this end, the brothel-keepers are not to oppose the appointed surgeons in each quarter, so often as the same make their visits to the women at their houses; and every woman shall be subject to these visits. For the information of every brothel-keeper, and of the prost.i.tutes kept by him, a copy of printed directions, prepared by competent authority, shall be given to the brothel-keeper, whereby the signs of actual infection and of the commencement of venereal disease may be known, and they shall be clearly instructed by the duly appointed surgeon how to form an opinion upon their own state of health, and be able to explain the same on his visits, so that thereby the detection of venereal disease at any time may be facilitated. Furthermore, upon perceiving the symptoms whereby venereal disease is known in a man, they should abstain from carnal intercourse with him.
”11. Should a woman suspect that she is infected, she must permit no one to have connection with her, but shall mention the same as well to her keeper as to the surgeon of the district, upon which steps shall forthwith be taken for her cure. If she neglect this she shall be punished with detention, three months for the first time, on repet.i.tion of the offense with six months in the House of Correction, with welcome and farewell. If the said woman, through concealment of her venereal malady, has given occasion to a wider spread thereof, she shall the first time be liable to twelve months in the House of Correction, with welcome and farewell. In case the brothel-keeper shall know of the diseased condition of such woman, and shall not hinder her from the exercise of her trade, or shall keep her therein, he shall be liable to the same punishment, and, moreover, shall be liable to the costs and charges of cure and attendance of the man so infected by such woman, if he requires it, or if he can not pay such expenses. For this reimburs.e.m.e.nt a brothel-keeper shall be held liable even if he did not know the diseased condition of a woman kept in his house, inasmuch as such obligation shall, for the public weal, be taken to be a risk and burden incident to the trade permitted to be carried on by him.
”12. On the other hand, a prost.i.tute can prosecute any one for having infected her by means of connection, and such person shall, upon the complaint and showing of her and the brothel-keeper, bear the expense of cure and maintenance for so a long time as, pursuant to the orders of the authorities of the Charite, the woman may have to remain in the Charite; and further, shall be liable to a fine of fifty thalers, or three months' imprisonment in the House of Correction.
”13. If any woman, before declaring her venereal disease, shall have concealed it so long that, by opinion of competent persons, she must have known the same for a considerable length of time, she shall, whether she shall or shall not have infected other persons, be liable to the same punishment as if she had infected others.
”14. Whereas, it has been the practice for the women to conceal their venereal diseases; and whereas, they have intrusted themselves to incompetent persons for cure; and whereas, the brothel-keepers are bound to refund to the Charite the expenses of the cure and attendance, which sometimes fall ruinously heavy upon them: it is hereby directed, for the removal of this difficulty, that a healing fund (_heilings ca.s.se_) shall be established, by means whereof the keepers and their women, on the occurrence of disease, may be relieved of the heavy expenses to which they are put, and may be a.s.sured against the destruction of their bodies and health, which ensue from the growth of this terrible disease. To this fund every brothel-keeper shall contribute a monthly sum of six groschen (twelve cents) for each woman that he keeps, and shall give in a statement of the name and place of birth of such woman; for which, at the commencement of the following month, he shall receive an acknowledgment, and he shall recover such sum from every woman on whose account he shall have paid the same. Nevertheless, any brothel-keeper who shall have allowed more than one of these monthly payments to run into arrear with the women, shall not, on that account, be able to prevent her leaving him, if, as before ordered, she desires to change her way of life. If a woman goes from one brothel to another without the six groschen having been paid for her, the brothel-keeper to whom she goes must pay this amount in due time for her. This shall happen notwithstanding that she is bound to give notice of her removal to the police commissary of the quarter.
The monthly payment of this tax is to be made to the duly appointed medical officer of the quarter, who shall pay over the whole amount of the same to the collector of the healing fund, who shall give him for the same a receipt under his own hand; whereupon the comptroller shall compare the list of the same with the list of the brothel-keepers and women in the several districts, and shall compel defaulters to pay the outstanding tax.
”15. A perfect account is to be kept of this healing fund, and out of the same every diseased woman shall be taken to the Charite, and, without farther charges to herself or keeper, shall be maintained and thoroughly cured without being sent, as formerly directed, to the work-house. Farther, the woman shall not intrust herself either to the visiting surgeon or to any other person for cure, but such shall take place only in the Charite.
”16. No brothel shall be tolerated in the respectably inhabited and frequented streets and squares of the city, but they shall be established at a moderate distance from the same, so that the police can watch them and speedily correct any disorder; otherwise only in the smaller streets and thoroughfares.
”17. The matters that are ordered and prescribed in the foregoing articles to the brothel-keepers, are also to be observed by female brothel-keepers under like penalties.
”18. Single women living by themselves for purposes of prost.i.tution must give in their notices to the Police Directory in the same manner as the women in the brothels; must also undergo examination by the medical officers of the quarter in which they reside; must pay their six groschen a month to the healing fund, and be subject to all the directions applicable to brothel-keepers and their hired women, and to the like punishments in case of offending against the directions.
”19. Procurers and procuresses, who make it their business to provide opportunities in their houses for criminal intercourse of men and women (whatever their condition), shall be strictly watched, and, upon conviction, shall be liable to three months' detention in the House of Correction.
”20. The street-walkers roaming the streets after dark are not to be tolerated, but where they can be met with are to be taken into custody, and after being cured, if they are affected with venereal disease, shall be sent from six to twelve months to the House of Correction.
”21. Whoever can not pay the fines shall receive a corresponding corporal (_am leibe_) punishment.
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