For houses coming within the second category, that is, where independent prostitutes go to exercise their calling,

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

(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

(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—

During the years 1845 to 1854 Great Britain contributed 56 women to swell the ranks of the prostitutes in Paris, of which

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.

The returns go far to evidence the evil effects of sedentary 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.

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.

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—

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 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 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—

Each of these girls had been inscribed during the following time—

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.

All French writers have the profoundest horror of our social economics. MM. Duchatelet, Richelot and Léon Faucher, whom we have just quoted, all unite in condemning our system of blind and wilful toleration. They do not understand the temper of the nation, which would never allow the State to legislate upon this subject. But, nevertheless, we must confess that the profligacy of the metropolis of England, if not so patent and palpable as that of some continental cities we have had occasion to refer to, is perhaps as deeply rooted, and as impossible to eradicate. The legislature, by refusing to interfere, have tacitly declared the existence of prostitutes to be a necessary evil, the suppression of which would produce alarming and disastrous effects upon the country at large. When any case more than usually flagrant occurs it falls within the jurisdiction of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and the law is careful to punish anything that can be construed into a misdemeanour or a felony. In cold climates, as in hot climates, we have shown that the passions are the main agents in producing the class of women that we have under consideration, but in temperate zones the animal instinct is less difficult to bridle and seldom leads the female to abandon herself to the other sex. It is a vulgar error, and a popular delusion, that the life of a prostitute is as revolting to herself, as it appears to the moralist sternly lamenting over the condition of the fallen; but, on the contrary, investigation and sedulous scrutiny lead us to a very different conclusion. Authors gifted with vivid imaginations love to pourtray the misery that is brought upon an innocent and confiding girl by the perfidy and desertion of her seducer. The pulpit too frequently echoes to clerical denunciation and evangelical horror, until those unacquainted with the actual facts tremble at the fate of those whose terrible lot they are taught rather to shudder at than commiserate. Women who in youth have lost their virtue, often contrive to retain their reputation; and even when this is not the case, frequently amalgamate imperceptibly with the purer portion of the population and become excellent members of the community. The love of woman is usually pure and elevated. But when she devotes her affections to a man who realizes her ideal, she does not hesitate to sacrifice all she holds dear, for his gratification, ignoring her own interest and her own inclination. Actuated by a noble abnegation of self, she derives a melancholy pleasure from the knowledge that she has utterly given up all she had formerly so zealously guarded, and she feels that her love has reached its grand climacteric, when, without the slightest pruriency of imagination to urge her on to the consummation, without the remotest vestige of libidinous desire to prompt her to self-immolation, without a shadow of meretricious feeling lurking within her, she abandons her person beyond redemption to the idol she has set up in the highest place in her soul. This heroic martyrdom is one of the causes, though perhaps not the primary or most frequently occurring, of the stream of immorality that insidiously permeates our social system. The greatest, and one equally difficult to combat, is the low rate of wages that the female industrial classes of this great city receive, in return for the most arduous and wearisome labour. Innumerable cases of prostitution through want, solely and absolutely, are constantly occurring, and this will not be wondered at when it is remembered that 105 women in England and Wales are born to every 100 males, which number is further augmented by the dangers to which men are exposed by their avocations, and also in martial service by sea and land. Again, so great are the inducements held out by men of lax morality and loose principles that procuresses find entrapping girls into their abodes a most lucrative and profitable trade. Some are even brought up from their earliest infancy by their pseudo-protectors with the full intention that they shall embark in the infamous traffic as soon as their age will permit them to do so remuneratively. A revolting and horrible case exemplifying the truth of this statement came under our notice some short time back. We were examining a girl, who gave the following replies to the questions put to her.

“My name is Ellen, I have no other. Yes, I sometimes call myself by various names, but rarely keep to one longer than a month or two. I was never baptized that I know of; I don’t know much about religion, though I think I know the difference between right and wrong. I certainly think it is wrong to live as I am now doing. I often think of it in secret, and cry over it, but what can I do? I was brought up in the country and allowed to run about with some other children. We were not taught anything, not even to read or write; twice I saw a gentleman who came down to the farm, and he kissed me and told me to be a good girl. Yes, I remember these things very well. I was about eleven the last time he came, and two years after I was sent up to town, carefully dressed and placed in a large drawing-room. After I had been there some time a gentleman came in with the person I had been sent to, and I directly recognized him as the one I had seen in the country. For the first time in my life I glanced at a looking-glass that hung on the wall, they being things we never saw in the country, and I thought the gentleman had changed his place and was standing before me, we were so alike. I then looked at him steadily for a few moments, and at last took his hand. He said something to me which I don’t remember, and which I did not reply to. I asked him, when he had finished speaking, if he was my father. I don’t know why I asked him. He seemed confused, and the lady of the house poured out some wine and gave me, after that I don’t know what happened.”

This may be a case of rare occurrence, but it is not so morally impossible as at first it appears.

In 1857, according to the best authorities, there were 8600 prostitutes known to the police, but this is far from being even an approximate return of the number of loose women in the metropolis. It scarcely does more than record the circulating harlotry of the Haymarket and Regent Street. Their actual numerical strength is very difficult to compute, for there is an amount of oscillatory prostitution it is easy to imagine, but impossible to substantiate. One of the peculiarities of this class is their remarkable freedom from disease. They are in the generality of cases notorious for their mental and physical elasticity. Syphilis is rarely fatal. It is an entirely distinct race that suffer from the ravages of the insidious diseases that the licence given to the passions and promiscuous intercourse engender. Young girls, innocent and inexperienced, whose devotion has not yet bereft them of their innate modesty and sense of shame, will allow their systems to be so shocked, and their constitutions so impaired, before the aid of the surgeon is sought for, that when he does arrive his assistance is almost useless.

We have before stated (p. 211) the assumed number of prostitutes in London to be about 80,000, and large as this total may appear, it is not improbable that it is below the reality rather than above it. One thing is certain—if it be an exaggerated statement—that the real number is swollen every succeeding year, for prostitution is an inevitable attendant upon extended civilization and increased population.

We divide prostitutes into three classes. First, those women who are kept by men of independent means; secondly, those women who live in apartments, and maintain themselves by the produce of their vagrant amours, and thirdly, those who dwell in brothels.

The state of the first of these is the nearest approximation to the holy state of marriage, and finds numerous defenders and supporters. These have their suburban villas, their carriages, horses, and sometimes a box at the opera. Their equipages are to be seen in the park, and occasionally through the influence of their aristocratic friends they succeed in obtaining vouchers for the most exclusive patrician balls.

Houses in which prostitutes lodge are those in which one or two prostitutes occupy private apartments; in most cases with the connivance of the proprietor. These generally resort to night-houses, where they have a greater chance of meeting with customers than they would have were they to perambulate the streets.

Brothels are houses where speculators board, dress, and feed women, living upon the farm of their persons. Under this head we must include introducing houses, where the women do not reside, but merely use the house as a place of resort in the daytime. Married women, imitating the custom of Messalina, whom Juvenal so vividly describes in his Satires, not uncommonly make use of these places. A Frenchwoman in the habit of frequenting a notorious house in James Street, Haymarket, said that she came to town four or five times in the week for the purpose of obtaining money by the prostitution of her body. She loved her husband, but he was unable to find any respectable employment, and were she not to supply him with the necessary funds for their household expenditure they would sink into a state of destitution, and anything, she added, with simplicity, was better than that. Of course her husband connived at what she did. He came to fetch her home every evening about ten o’clock. She had no children. She didn’t wish to have any.

It must not be supposed that if some, perhaps a majority of them, eventually become comparatively respectable, and merge into the ocean of propriety, there are not a vast number whose lives afford matter for the most touching tragedies,—whose melancholy existence is one continual struggle for the actual necessaries of life, the occasional absence of which entails upon them a condition of intermittent starvation. A woman who has fallen like a star from heaven, may flash like a meteor in a lower sphere, but only with a transitory splendour. In time her orbit contracts, and the improvidence that has been her leading characteristic through life now trebles and quadruples the misery she experiences. To drown reflection she rushes to the gin palace, and there completes the work that she had already commenced so inauspiciously. The passion for dress, that distinguished her in common with her sex in former days, subsides into a craving for meretricious tawdry, and the bloom of health is superseded by ruinous and poisonous French compounds and destructive cosmetics. A hospital surgeon gave us the following description of the death of a French lorette, who at a very juvenile age had been entrapped and imported into this country. She had, according to her own statement, been born in one of the southern departments. When she was fourteen years old, the agent of some English speculator in human beings came into their neighbourhood and proposed that Anille should leave her native country and proceed to England, where he said there was a great demand for female domestic labour, which was much better paid for on the other side of the Channel. The proposition was entertained by the parents, and eagerly embraced by the girl herself, who soon afterwards, in company with several other girls, all deluded in a similar manner, were leaving the shores of their native country for a doubtful future in one with the language of which they were not even remotely acquainted. On their arrival their ruin was soon effected, and for some years they continued to enrich the proprietors of the house in which they resided, all the time remitting small sums to their families abroad, who were unwittingly and involuntarily existing upon the proceeds of their daughters’ dishonour, and rejoicing in such unexpected success. After a while Anille was sent adrift to manage for herself. Naturally of a refined and sensitive disposition, she felt her position keenly, which induced a sadness almost amounting to hypochondria to steal over her, and although very pretty, she found this a great obstacle in the way of her success. She knew not how to simulate the hollow laugh or the reckless smile of her more volatile companions, and her mind became more diseased day by day, until she found it impracticable to think of endeavouring to hurl off the morbidity that had taken possession of her very soul. At last she fell a victim to a contagious disorder, the neglect of which ultimately necessitated her removal to the hospital. When there, she was found to be incurable; an operation was performed upon her but without success. She bore her illness with childish impatience, continually wishing for the end, and often imploring me with tearful eyes by the intervention of science to put an end to her misery. One afternoon, as usual, I came to see her. She exclaimed the moment she perceived me, I am cheerful to-day. May I not recover; I suffer no pain. But her looks belied her words; her features were frightfully haggard and worn; her eyes, dry and bloodshot, had almost disappeared in their sockets, and her general appearance denoted the approach of him she had been so constantly invoking. Unwrapping some bandages, I proceeded to examine her, when an extraordinary change came over her, and I knew that her dissolution was not far distant. Her mind wandered, and she spoke wildly and excitedly in her own language. After a while she exclaimed, “J’ignore où je suis. C’en est fait.” An expression of intense suffering contracted her emaciated features. “Je n’en puis plus,” she cried, and adding, after a slight pause, in a plaintive voice, “Je me meurs,” her soul glided impalpably away, and she was a corpse. As a pendant to these remarks, I extract an expressive passage from an old book. “There are also women (like birds of passage) of a migratory nature, who remove after a certain time from St. James’s and Marylebone end of the town to Covent Garden, then to the Strand, and from thence to St. Giles and Wapping; from which latter place they frequently migrate much further, even to New South Wales. Some few return in seven years, some in fourteen, and some not at all. During their stay here, like birds they make their nests upon feathers, some higher, some lower than others. At first they generally build them on the first-floor, afterwards on the second, and then up in the cock-loft and garrets, from whence they generally take to the open air, and become ambulatory and noctivagous, and as their price grows less, their wandering increases, when many perish from the inclemency of the weather, and others take their flight abroad.”[92]

Seclusives, or those that live in Private Houses and Apartments.

Two classes of prostitutes come under this denomination—first, kept mistresses, and secondly, prima donnas or those who live in a superior style. The first of these is perhaps the most important division of the entire profession, when considered with regard to its effects upon the higher classes of society. Laïs, when under the protection of a prince of the blood; Aspasia, whose friend is one of the most influential noblemen in the kingdom; Phryne, the chère amie of a well-known officer in the guards, or a man whose wealth is proverbial on the Stock Exchange and the city,—have all great influence upon the tone of morality extant amongst the set in which their distinguished protectors move, and indeed the reflex of their dazzling profligacy falls upon and bewilders those who are in a lower condition of life, acting as an incentive to similar deeds of licentiousness though on a more limited scale. Hardly a parish in London is free from this impurity. Wherever the neighbourhood possesses peculiar charms, wherever the air is purer than ordinary, or the locality fashionably distinguished, these tubercles on the social system penetrate and abound. Again quoting from Dr. Ryan, although we cannot authenticate his statements—“It is computed, that 8,000,000l. are expended annually on this vice in London alone. This is easily proved: some girls obtain from twenty to thirty pounds a week, others more, whilst most of those who frequent theatres, casinos, gin palaces, music halls, &c., receive from ten to twelve pounds. Those of a still lower grade obtain about four or five pounds, some less than one pound, and many not ten shillings. If we take the average earnings of each prostitute at 100l. per annum, which is under the amount, it gives the yearly income of eight millions.

“Suppose the average expense of 80,000 amounts to 20l. each, 1,600,000l. is the result. This sum deducted from the earnings leaves 6,400,000l. as the income of the keepers of prostitutes, or supposing 5000 to be the number, above 1000l. per annum each—an enormous income for men in such a situation to derive when compared with the resources of many respectable and professional men.”

Literally every woman who yields to her passions and loses her virtue is a prostitute, but many draw a distinction between those who live by promiscuous intercourse, and those who confine themselves to one man. That this is the case is evident from the returns before us. The metropolitan police do not concern themselves with the higher classes of prostitutes; indeed, it would be impossible, and impertinent as well, were they to make the attempt. Sir Richard Mayne kindly informed us that the latest computation of the number of public prostitutes was made on the 5th of April, 1858, and that the returns then showed a total of 7261.

It is frequently a matter of surprise amongst the friends of a gentleman of position and connection that he exhibits an invincible distaste to marriage. If they were acquainted with his private affairs their astonishment would speedily vanish, for they would find him already to all intents and purposes united to one who possesses charms, talents, and accomplishments, and who will in all probability exercise the same influence over him as long as the former continue to exist. The prevalence of this custom, and the extent of its ramifications is hardly dreamed of, although its effects are felt, and severely. The torch of Hymen burns less brightly than of yore, and even were the blacksmith of Gretna still exercising his vocation, he would find his business diminishing with startling rapidity year by year.

It is a great mistake to suppose that kept mistresses are without friends and without society; on the contrary, their acquaintance, if not select, is numerous, and it is their custom to order their broughams or their pony carriages and at the fashionable hour pay visits and leave cards on one another.

They possess no great sense of honour, although they are generally more or less religious. If they take a fancy to a man they do not hesitate to admit him to their favour. Most kept women have several lovers who are in the habit of calling upon them at different times, and as they are extremely careful in conducting these amours they perpetrate infidelity with impunity, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred escape detection. When they are unmasked, the process, unless the man is very much infatuated, is of course summary in the extreme. They are dismissed probably with a handsome douceur and sent once more adrift. They do not remain long, however, in the majority of cases, without finding another protector.

A woman who called herself Lady —— met her admirer at a house in Bolton Row that she was in the habit of frequenting. At first sight Lord —— became enamoured, and proposed sur le champ, after a little preliminary conversation, that she should live with him. The proposal with equal rapidity and eagerness was accepted, and without further deliberation his lordship took a house for her in one of the terraces overlooking the Regent’s Park, allowed her four thousand a year, and came as frequently as he could, to pass his time in her society. She immediately set up a carriage and a stud, took a box at the opera on the pit tier, and lived, as she very well could, in excellent style. The munificence of her friend did not decrease by the lapse of time. She frequently received presents of jewelry from him, and his marks of attention were constant as they were various. The continual contemplation of her charms instead of producing satiety added fuel to the fire, and he was never happy when out of her sight. This continued until one day he met a young man in her loge at the opera, whom she introduced as her cousin. This incident aroused his suspicions, and he determined to watch her more closely. She was surrounded by spies, and in reality did not possess one confidential attendant, for they were all bribed to betray her. For a time, more by accident than precaution or care on her part, she succeeded in eluding their vigilance, but at last the catastrophe happened; she was surprised with her paramour in a position that placed doubt out of the question, and the next day his lordship, with a few sarcastic remarks, gave her her congé and five hundred pounds.

These women are rarely possessed of education, although they undeniably have ability. If they appear accomplished you may rely that it is entirely superficial. Their disposition is volatile and thoughtless, which qualities are of course at variance with the existence of respectability. Their ranks too are recruited from a class where education is not much in vogue. The fallacies about clergymen’s daughters and girls from the middle classes forming the majority of such women are long ago exploded; there may be some amongst them, but they are few and far between. They are not, as a rule, disgusted with their way of living; most of them consider it a means to an end, and in no measure degrading or polluting. One and all look forward to marriage and a certain state in society as their ultimate lot. This is their bourne, and they do all in their power to travel towards it.

“I am not tired of what I am doing,” a woman once answered me, “I rather like it. I have all I want, and my friend loves me to excess. I am the daughter of a tradesman at Yarmouth. I learned to play the piano a little, and I have naturally a good voice. Yes, I find these accomplishments of great use to me; they are, perhaps, as you say, the only ones that could be of use to a girl like myself. I am three and twenty. I was seduced four years ago. I tell you candidly I was as much to blame as my seducer; I wished to escape from the drudgery of my father’s shop. I have told you they partially educated me; I could cypher a little as well, and I knew something about the globes; so I thought I was qualified for something better than minding the shop occasionally, or sewing, or helping my mother in the kitchen and other domestic matters. I was very fond of dress, and I could not at home gratify my love of display. My parents were stupid, easy-going old people, and extremely uninteresting to me. All these causes combined induced me to encourage the addresses of a young gentleman of property in the neighbourhood, and without much demur I yielded to his desires. We then went to London, and I have since that time lived with four different men. We got tired of one another in six months, and I was as eager to leave him as he was to get rid of me, so we mutually accommodated one another by separating. Well, my father and mother don’t exactly know where I am or what I am doing, although if they had any penetration they might very well guess. Oh, yes! they know I am alive, for I keep them pleasantly aware of my existence by occasionally sending them money. What do I think will become of me? What an absurd question. I could marry to-morrow if I liked.”

This girl was a fair example of her class. They live entirely for the moment, and care little about the morrow until they are actually pressed in any way, and then they are fertile in expedients.

We now come to the second class, or those we have denominated prima donnas. These are not kept like the first that we have just been treating of, although several men who know and admire them are in the habit of visiting them periodically. From these they derive a considerable revenue, but they by no means rely entirely upon it for support. They are continually increasing the number of their friends, which indeed is imperatively necessary, as absence and various causes thin their ranks considerably. They are to be seen in the parks, in boxes at the theatres, at concerts, and in almost every accessible place where fashionable people congregate; in fact in all places where admittance is not secured by vouchers, and in some cases, those apparently insuperable barriers fall before their tact and address. At night their favourite rendezvous is in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket, where the hospitality of Mrs. Kate Hamilton is extended to them after the fatigues of dancing at the Portland Rooms, or the excesses of a private party. Kate’s may be visited not only to dissipate ennui, but with a view to replenishing an exhausted exchequer; for as Kate is careful as to who she admits into her rooms—men who are able to spend, and come with the avowed intention of spending, five or six pounds, or perhaps more if necessary—these supper-rooms are frequented by a better set of men and women than perhaps any other in London. Although these are seen at Kate’s they would shrink from appearing at any of the cafés in the Haymarket, or at the supper-rooms with which the adjacent streets abound, nor would they go to any other casino than Mott’s. They are to be seen between three and five o’clock in the Burlington Arcade, which is a well known resort of cyprians of the better sort. They are well acquainted with its Paphian intricacies, and will, if their signals are responded to, glide into a friendly bonnet shop, the stairs of which leading to the cœnacula or upper chambers are not innocent of their well formed “bien chaussée” feet. The park is also, as we have said, a favourite promenade, where assignations may be made or acquaintances formed. Equestrian exercise is much liked by those who are able to afford it, and is often as successful as pedestrian, frequently more so. It is difficult to say what position in life the parents of these women were in, but generally their standing in society has been inferior. Principles of lax morality were early inculcated, and the seed that has been sown has not been slow to bear its proper fruit.