The History of Prostitution Part 10

Nearly half the prost.i.tutes were between the ages of twenty and twenty-six inclusive. One declared herself, or was proved to be, only twelve years old; thirty-four were over fifty; two were over sixty. On reference to the rolls of inscription, it appeared that the bulk of the prost.i.tutes registered themselves between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two; but thirty-four were inscribed before the age of fourteen, which may be a.s.sumed to be the period of p.u.b.erty in France, and a few after pa.s.sing fifty.

The following table shows the number of years during which the Paris prost.i.tutes had exercised their calling at the time the inquiry was made:

Time. Number of Prost.i.tutes.

1 year and under 439 From 1 to 2 years 590 " 2 to 3 " 440 " 3 to 4 " 485 " 4 to 5 " 294 " 5 to 6 " 139 " 6 to 7 " 150 " 7 to 8 " 143 " 8 to 9 " 96 " 9 to 10 " 100 " 10 to 11 " 109 " 11 to 12 " 93 " 12 to 13 " 99 " 13 to 14 " 98 " 14 to 15 " 107 " 15 to 16 " 80 " 16 to 17 " 19 " 17 to 18 " 14 " 18 to 19 " 17 " 19 to 20 " 4 " 20 to 21 " -- " 21 to 22 " 1 " 22 to 23 " --

M. Duchatelet made careful inquiries into the causes of prost.i.tution. He admits that, the difficulty of obtaining trustworthy information on this head being very great, many errors may have found their way into his calculations. He gives them, however, for what they may be worth.

Want 1441 Expulsion from home, or desertion of parents 1255 Desire to support old and infirm parents 37 " " " younger brothers and sisters, or nephews and nieces 29 Widows with families to support 23 Girls from the country, to support themselves 280 " " " " brought to Paris by soldiers, clerks, students, etc. 404 Servants seduced by masters and abandoned 289 Concubines abandoned by their lovers 1425 ---- Total 5183

It appears that there were in Paris, in 1832, two hundred and twenty "tolerated houses"--that is to say, brothels. The rules regarding these are numerous. They can not be established in certain localities, such as the Boulevards, or other great thoroughfares. They must not be within one hundred yards of a church, or within fifty or sixty yards of a school, whether for boys or girls; of a palace or other public building, or of a large boarding-house. The proprietor of the house must have given his consent before the house can be used as a brothel. Two houses can not be established side by side, much less can they have the same entry. As a general rule, a preference is given to small, narrow streets, especially _culs de sac_, and to places where brothels have been established before.

With regard to the interior of these houses, they must contain a room for each girl; on no account are two prost.i.tutes allowed to occupy the same room, much less the same bed. Each room must, moreover, be amply provided with utensils, soap, and water, for ablution. No house of prost.i.tution can have back or side doors, or in any way communicate with the adjoining buildings. No house can contain dark closets, or dark pa.s.sages, or concealed hiding-places. In none of them can any trade or traffic be carried on.

With regard to the cla.s.s of houses called _maisons de pa.s.se_ (a.s.signation houses), the police authorities require that in every such house two regular prost.i.tutes, inscribed on the police rolls, shall live permanently. The object of this rule is to obtain a control and supervision over these houses. Before it was adopted the police was often embarra.s.sed by denials of its authority to invade them. It is found that the prost.i.tutes, being naturally hostile to the mistresses of the houses, will act as agents of the police in the event of any scandalous proceedings.

The windows of houses of prost.i.tution must be roughed, as also must those of rooms where individual prost.i.tutes live. They can only be partially opened. These regulations were made in consequence of the shocking scenes that were witnessed at the windows of brothels after the Revolution, naked women being the least of the scandals that used to be exposed.

No one can keep a house of prost.i.tution in Paris without an authorization from the police. Men are never permitted to keep establishments of the kind. A woman who desires to open a house must apply in writing to the Prefect of Police. On receipt of her application, reference is made to the Commissary of Police of the ward to ascertain her character. If she has been condemned for crime or misdemeanor, her request is rarely granted. If she stands in the police books as a woman requiring supervision, she can not succeed. Nor can she obtain a license, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, _unless she has been a prost.i.tute herself_. The reason of this regulation is obvious; no one but a prost.i.tute understands the business thoroughly; and as the position of brothel-keeper is found to be the most demoralizing station in the world, it has been the policy of the Paris police to throw impediments in the way of persons not wholly depraved devoting themselves to so dangerous a calling. Furthermore, the applicant must have reached a certain age. She must also be of sober habits, and apparently possessed of sufficient force of character to be able to command a house full of prost.i.tutes. She must possess a sum of money sufficient to guarantee her against immediate failure, and she must own the furniture in the house she wishes to keep.

When all these conditions are fulfilled, the applicant receives a pa.s.s-book, in which the number of girls she is allowed to keep is specified. In this book she is bound to enter the name of every prost.i.tute she receives, whether as a boarder or a transient lodger; her age, the date of her entry into her house, the date of her inspection by a physician, and the date of her departure from the house. A printed form in the beginning of the pa.s.s-book reminds the mistress of the house that she is bound, under heavy penalties, to inscribe on the police rolls every girl she receives within twenty-four hours of her arrival.

In the event of the neglect of these rules by the keepers of houses of prost.i.tution, the license is revoked. It is understood that the police enforce this regulation with due rigor.

Much has been said and written about the manner in which the keepers of houses of prost.i.tution obtain recruits. M. Parent-Duchatelet, whose sources of information were the best, gives it as his opinion that most of the prost.i.tutes are obtained from the hospitals, especially the Hospital du Midi, where female venereal diseases are treated. It appears that this hospital and others are haunted by old women who have been prost.i.tutes, and who, in their old age, eke out a livelihood by enticing others into the same calling. They soon discover the antecedents and disposition of every young girl they find in hospitals; and if she be pretty or engaging, she must either have much principle or careful friends to rescue her from the clutches of the old hags. While she lies ill on a bed of pain, the latter are constantly with her, and gain her friendship. They know the devices that are needed to impose on her simplicity, and not unfrequently are enabled to strengthen their promises by small donations in money, or a weekly stipend during her convalescence. For a pretty girl as much as fifty francs will be paid by a brothel-keeper. As the girls in France, with few exceptions, come to Paris to be cured when they have contracted disease from a.s.sociation with lovers, it seems quite likely that, as M.

Parent-Duchatelet supposes, these hospitals are a fruitful source of prost.i.tutes.

Other brothel-keepers have female agents in the country towns, who send them girls. One well-known woman, who kept for many years one of the largest establishments in France, employed a traveling clerk with a large salary. Some obtain boarders from their own province or native city; others, who have followed a trade, get recruits from the acquaintances they made at the workshop. Latterly, it would seem, pimps have carried on their trade with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was noticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from Rheims.

They all came provided with the name and address of the houses to which they were destined, and drove there from the stage-office. Information was sent to the police authorities of Rheims, and on their arrival the girls were sent back again. The design of the authorities was baffled for a while by the cunning of the pimps, who sent their recruits round by other roads; but the police finally triumphed by refusing, for a year or two, to inscribe any prost.i.tutes from Rheims.

It is notorious, however, that the same traffic is carried on at the present day to an alarming extent between London and Paris, London and Brussels, and other large cities in the neighborhood. Several societies have been formed, and the police have made great exertions to suppress the trade, but without any particular success.

It is understood that the prost.i.tutes of Paris receive nothing for their "labors" but their board, lodging, and dress. The latter is often expensive. In first-cla.s.s houses it will exceed five hundred francs, which in female attire will go as far at Paris as five hundred dollars will in New York. The whole of the fees exacted from visitors goes to the mistress, and the girls are reluctantly permitted to retain the presents they sometimes receive from their lovers. They are usually in debt to the mistress, who, having no other means of retaining them under her control, hastens to advance them money for jewelry, carriages, fine eating, and expensive wines. No written contract binds them to remain where they are; they may leave when they please, if they can pay their debts; and the obligation they incur for the latter is one of honor only, and can not be enforced in the courts.

Houses of prost.i.tution, when well conducted, are very profitable in Paris.

It is estimated that the net profits accruing from each girl ought to be ten francs or more per day. Many keepers of houses have retired with from ten to twenty-five thousand francs a year, and have married their daughters well. The good-will of a popular house has been sold for sixty thousand francs (twelve thousand dollars).

We now come to the great feature of the Paris system: the inscription of prost.i.tutes in a department of the Prefecture of Police, called the _Bureau des Moeurs_. It seems that some sort of inscription was in use before the Revolution, but no law referring to it, or records of the rolls, can be found. Various systems were employed during the Republic and the Empire. The one now in use was adopted in 1816, and amended by a police regulation of 1828.

Prost.i.tutes are inscribed either

1. On their own request;

2. On the requisition of the mistress of a house; or,

3. On the report of the inspector of prost.i.tutes.

When a girl appears before the bureau under any of these circ.u.mstances, she is asked the following questions, the answers being taken down in writing:

1. Her name, age, birth-place, trade, and residence?

2. Whether she is a widow, wife, or spinster?

3. Whether her father and mother are living, and what their calling was or is?

4. Whether she lives with them, and if not, when and how she left them?

5. Whether she has had children, and where they are?

6. How long she has been at Paris?

7. Whether any one has a right to claim her?

8. Whether she has ever been arrested, and if yes, how often, and for what offenses?

9. Whether she has ever been a prost.i.tute before, and for what period of time?

10. Whether she has, or has had, venereal disease?

11. Whether she has received any education?

12. What her motive is in inscribing herself?

The answers to these inquiries suggest others, which are put at the discretion of the officials. Their practice is so great that they are rarely deceived by the women; M. Parent-Duchatelet affirms that they could tell an old prost.i.tute merely by the way she sat down.

The interrogatory over, the girl is taken by an inspector to the Dispensary and examined, and the physician on duty reports the result, which is added to the inquiry. Meanwhile, the police registers have been consulted, and if the girl has been an old offender, or is known to the police, she is now identified.

If the girl has her baptismal certificate (_extrait de naissance_) with her, she is forthwith inscribed, and registered among the public women of Paris. As prost.i.tutes rarely possess this doc.u.ment, however, a provisional inscription is usually effected, and a direct application is made to the mayor of the city or _commune_ where she was born for the certificate.

This application varies according to the age of the girl. If she is of age it is simply a demand for the "_extrait de naissance_ of ---- ----, who says she is a native of your city or _commune_." If, on the contrary, she is a minor, the application states that "a girl who calls herself --------, and says she was born at ----, has applied for inscription in this office. I desire you to ascertain the position of her family, and what means they propose to take in case they desire to secure the return of this young girl."

It often happens that the family implore the intervention of the police; in that case the girl is sent back to the place whence she came. In many cases the family decline to interfere, and then the girl is duly inscribed on the register. She signs a doc.u.ment, in which she states that, "being duly acquainted with the sanitary regulations established by the Prefecture for Public Women, she declares that she will submit to them, will allow herself to be visited periodically by the physicians of the Dispensary, and will conform in all respects to the rules in force."

Of course this procedure is occasionally delayed by falsehoods uttered by the women. It often used to happen that the mayors would report that no person of the name given had been born at the time fixed in their city or commune. In that case the girl was recalled, and made to understand that truth was better policy than falsehood. Girls rarely held out longer than a fortnight or so, and, at the present time, the number of false declarations is very small indeed. They seem satisfied that the police are an omniscient machine which can not be deceived.

When the girl is brought to the office either by a brothel-keeper or an inspector, the proceeding is slightly varied. In the latter case she has been arrested for indulging in clandestine prost.i.tution, but she almost invariably denies the fact, and pleads her innocence. The rule, in this case, is to admonish her and let her go. It is not till the third or fourth offense has been committed that she is inscribed. When the mistress of a house brings a girl to the office, interrogatories similar to the above are put to her. If she has relations or friends at Paris, they are sent for and consulted. When the girl appears evidently lost, she is duly inscribed; but if she shows any signs of shame or contrition, she is often sent home by the office at the public expense. It need hardly be said that when a girl is found diseased she is sent to hospital and her inscription held over. It occasionally happens that virgins present themselves at the office and desire to be inscribed; in their case the officials use compulsion to rescue them from infamy.

In a word, the Paris system with regard to inscriptions is to inscribe no girl with regard to whom it is not manifest that she will carry on the calling of a prost.i.tute whether she be inscribed or not.

From the following table, prepared by M. Parent-Duchatelet from the records of a series of years, it appears that the mistresses of houses inscribe over one third of the total prost.i.tutes:

Girls inscribed at their own request 7388 " " by mistresses of houses 4436 " " by inspectors 720 ----- Total 12544

The age at which girls can be inscribed has varied under different administrators. Under one it was seventeen, under his successor eighteen, under the next twenty-one years; but now the general rule is that no girl should be inscribed under the age of sixteen. Exceptions to this rule are made in the case of younger girls--of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, who lead a life of prost.i.tution, and are frequently attacked by disease. From a regard to public health, they are inscribed notwithstanding their age.

Only second in importance to the subject of inscription is that of "radiation," the obliteration of an inscription. This is the process by which a prost.i.tute takes leave of her calling, throws off the control of the police, and regains her civil rights. At Rome, as has been shown already, no such formality as radiation was known to the law; _once a prost.i.tute, always a prost.i.tute_, was the Roman rule. This system did not long sustain the test of a Christian examination.

The policy of the French _Bureau des Moeurs_ on this head is governed by two very simple maxims: 1st. The amendment of prost.i.tutes ought to be encouraged as much as possible; 2d. But no prost.i.tute should be released from the supervision of the police and the visits of the Dispensary physicians until there is reasonable ground for believing that her repentance and alteration of life are sincere and likely to be permanent.