Читать книгу The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World - William W. Sanger - Страница 20

1. On their own request;

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

3. On the report of the inspector of prostitutes.

When a girl appears before the bureau under any of these circumstances, 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 prostitute 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 prostitute 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 prostitutes rarely possess this document, 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 document, 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 prostitution, 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 prostitute 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 prostitutes:

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 prostitution, 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 prostitute 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 prostitute, always a prostitute, was the Roman rule. This system did not long sustain the test of a Christian examination.

The policy of the French Bureau des Mœurs on this head is governed by two very simple maxims: 1st. The amendment of prostitutes ought to be encouraged as much as possible; 2d. But no prostitute 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.

A person desiring to have her name struck from the rolls of public women must make a written application, specifying her reasons for desiring to change her mode of life, and indicating the means of support on which she is henceforth to rely. In three cases the demand is granted forthwith: 1st. When the girl proves that she is about to marry; 2d. When she produces the certificate of a physician that she is attacked by an organic disease which renders it impossible for her to continue the calling of a prostitute; and, 3d. When she has gone to live with her relations, and produces evidence of her late good behavior.

In all other cases the office awards a “provisional radiation.” For a period of time, which varies, according to circumstances, from three months to a year, the girl is still under the supervision of the police, such supervision being obviously secret and discreet. When the girl passes triumphantly through this period of probation, her name is definitely struck from the roll of prostitutes.

When a girl, after having her name thus struck out, desires to be inscribed afresh, her request is granted without delay or inquiry, it being wisely supposed that she has repented of her decision. A re-inscription also takes place when a girl, after radiation, is found in a house of prostitution even as a servant.

A prostitute is struck from the rolls by authority of the office when she has disappeared, and no trace of her has been found for three months.

M. Parent-Duchatelet gives the following table of radiations, which, taken in connection with the table already given of the number of prostitutes registered, shows the movement of reform:

Years.	Women struck off the Rolls of Prostitutes
At their own request.	In consequence of absence.	Total.
1817	485	575	1060
1818	477	582	1059
1819	469	571	1040
1820	415	716	1131
1821	433	733	1166
1822	417	739	1156
1823	502	605	1107
1824	442	602	1044
1825	456	527	983
1826	486	554	1040
1827	490	542	1032
1828	572	415	987
1829	298	536	834
1830	334	502	836
1831	284	452	736
1832	449	718	1167
	7009	9369	16378

Once inscribed, prostitutes are divided into three classes:

1st. Those who live in a licensed or “tolerated” brothel.

2d. Those who live alone in furnished rooms.

3d. Those who live in rooms which they furnish, and outwardly bear no mark of infamy.

In the eye of the law there is no difference between the three classes; all are equally subject to police and medical supervision. Every girl that is inscribed receives a card bearing her name, and the number of her page in the register; a blank column of this card is left to be filled by a memorandum of the date of each visit by the physicians of the Dispensary.

But the three classes differ in respect of the place where they are visited. The Dispensary physicians visit the inmates of brothels in the houses where they live; all other prostitutes visit them at the Dispensary. Yet another visit is made by the Dispensary physicians to the Dépôt, or Lock-up, at the Prefecture of Police; as there are always a certain number of prostitutes arrested for drunkenness or disorderly conduct every night, it was thought well to seize the opportunity of their confinement to inquire into the state of their health.

All houses of prostitution are visited by the Dispensary physicians once a week; the hour of the visit is known beforehand, and every girl must be present and pass inspection. The examination is private; the result is noted in a “folio” kept by the physician, and a corresponding memorandum is made in the pass-book of the house and on the card of the prostitute. When disease is detected, the mistress of the house is notified, and cautioned not to allow the girl diseased to receive any visitors. That afternoon, or the next morning, she comes or is brought to the Dispensary, where she undergoes a second examination, and, if the result is the same as at the first, she is forthwith sent to Saint Lazare for treatment.

Free prostitutes, that is to say, those who live in lodgings or rooms furnished by themselves, are bound to visit the Dispensary, and submit to examination once a fortnight. They choose the time and day themselves, but more than a fortnight must not elapse between the visits.

It appears, from tables published by M. Parent-Duchatelet, that these rules are strictly enforced. Free prostitutes are visited nearly thirty times a year, and prostitutes in tolerated houses more than fifty times. We have alluded elsewhere to the results of the visits.

Experience has proved that the only safe method of punishment for prostitutes is imprisonment. Formerly they were whipped, and at a later date their hair was cut off; but the humane spirit of modern legislation has rejected both these punishments as unduly cruel. At the present day, offenses against the rules concerning prostitution (delits de prostitution) are punished by imprisonment; misdemeanors and crimes provided against by the code being within the cognizance of the ordinary courts in the case of prostitutes as well as other persons.

Delits de prostitution have been divided by the Bureau des Mœurs into two classes, slight offenses and grave offenses; slight offenses are:

1. To appear in forbidden places.

2. To appear at forbidden hours.

3. To get drunk, and lie down in doorways, streets, or other thoroughfares.

4. To demand admittance to guard-houses.

5. To walk through the streets in daylight in such a way as to attract the notice of people passing.

6. To rap on the windows of their rooms.

7. To absent themselves from the medical inspection.

8. To beg.

9. To remain more than twenty-four hours in their house, after having been pronounced diseased by the physician.

10. To escape from the Hospital or Dispensary.

11. To go out of doors with bare head or neck.

12. To remain in Paris after having been ordered to leave, and presented with a passport.

This class of offenses is punished by imprisonment for not less than a fortnight or more than three months. One month is the usual term.

A prostitute is held to be guilty of grave offenses when she

1. Insults outrageously the visiting physician.

2. Fails to visit the Dispensary.

3. Continues to prostitute herself after being pronounced diseased.

4. Uses obscene language in public.

5. Appears naked at her window.

6. Assails men with violence, and endeavors to drag them to her home.

These offenses are punished by imprisonment for not less than three months, and not more than a year, rarely more than six months. The time is fixed in these cases with reference to the former character of the prostitute.

When a prostitute is arrested she is taken to the Prefecture of Police, where there is a room specially appropriated to her class. She is tried within forty-eight, usually within twenty-four hours of her arrival. When condemned, she is conveyed in a close carriage or van to the prison.

The prison at Paris usually contains from four hundred and fifty to six hundred inmates. They are all obliged to work. A few are generally found incapable, either from idiocy, blindness, or incorrigible obstinacy, of performing even the simplest work. These are lodged in a department called “the ward of the imbeciles.” The others are allowed to choose their work; the bulk naturally take to sewing. They are paid a small sum for what they do, partly as they proceed with the work, and the balance when they leave the prison. Industrious girls receive, from the money coming to them, from five to eight sous daily. That this, added to the ample food supplied by the prison, suffices for their wants, is proved by the frequent purchases they make of flowers and other superfluities. Formerly, prostitutes in prison were not expected to work, and at this period fights and disturbances were of constant occurrence. Now the discipline is excellent and the prisoners orderly. The only penalty for disobedience of rules or misconduct is close confinement in the cachot.

M. Parent-Duchatelet admits that the prison discipline is so gentle that the punishment has no terrors for prostitutes. It is quite common to find girls who have been thirty times condemned to imprisonment. He recommends the use of the tread-mill as a corrective.

His experience led him to question the utility of nuns and priests in the prostitutes’ prison. He does not think they do any good, and inclines to the belief that the counsels and visits of married women, who look rather to the moral than religious reform of the women, would be productive of more benefit.

The old practice in France was to admit visitors to the prostitutes’ prison at certain hours and in a certain room, but this was found to be productive of great evils. The scenes in the visitors’ room were outrageous, and a new system was accordingly adopted. No one was allowed to visit a prostitute but a bona fide relation, and even such a one was required to obtain a written permit from the Prefecture of Police.

A certain number of prostitutes are sent every year to the prison of St. Denis. These are those who, from physical or mental infirmities, such as recto-vaginal fistula, cancer, incurable organic disease, idiocy, etc., are incapacitated from pursuing their calling, and run risk of starvation. Not more than eight or ten of these are sent to St. Denis in the course of the year. The mortality among them there is not less than twenty-five per cent. per annum.[212]

Until a few years ago, a tax was levied on the Paris prostitutes for the support of the Dispensary. Each mistress of a house paid twelve francs per month; each girl living alone, three francs per month. A fine of two francs was also laid on all prostitutes who were behind their time in visiting the Dispensary. The product of these various taxes amounted to from seventy-five to ninety thousand francs per annum. The system was abolished on the ground of its immorality. A popular notion is said to have prevailed that the police received half a million or more from the tax on prostitution, and attacks on the administration in consequence were incessant. The police authorities gave way at last, and the municipal council of the city undertook to defray the cost of the Dispensary for the future. Similar taxes appear to have existed at Lyons, Strasbourg, and other cities.[213]

Allusion has been made to inspectors. At the time M. Parent-Duchatelet wrote there were ten inspectors, who had each charge of one tenth of the city. Their business was to see that the regulations governing prostitutes were carried out. They arrested offending women, and transferred them to the Prefecture of Police. In case of resistance, they summoned the aid of the ordinary police of the ward. They were not allowed themselves to use violence either to arrest or drag a girl to prison. They were usually picked men of good character. Their salary was twelve hundred francs a year, besides handsome presents.[214]

In conclusion, a word must be said of the establishment called the Bon Pasteur. It is a Magdalen Asylum established many years ago by some benevolent ladies, and now mainly supported by an annual vote from the city of Paris, and an allowance from the hospitals. It receives prostitutes who desire to reform; feeds, clothes, and instructs them; provides them with places when they desire to leave, or with work when they wish to remain in the establishment. The rule is that no prostitute can be received under eighteen or over twenty-five years of age. Beyond these limits it has been found that the humane efforts of the directresses of the establishment have rarely led to any result. No compulsion is used in any case by the managers. Girls are free to leave as they are free to come. So long as they remain, however, they must conform to the rules of the establishment, which are strict without being monastic. The average admissions to the asylum for the first twelve years of its existence were twenty per annum. The mortality among the residents was very large, being equal to twenty per cent. on the total number during the twelve years. Of the whole number (two hundred and forty-five), forty were dismissed for insubordination; twenty-seven left of their own accord, and probably returned to their old courses, and fifteen were returned to the police. The remainder were either restored to their families, or placed in situations in the hospitals or elsewhere.

Small as these numbers appear in comparison with the large army of prostitutes exercising their calling at Paris, it is not at all doubtful but the establishment is a useful one. No one can help but concur with M. Parent-Duchatelet when he observes that, “did it not exist, it would be necessary to create it.”

Note.—As M. Parent-Duchatelet has written the best, we might almost say the only philosophical work on prostitution extant, it may be useful to subjoin the test of the statute which he proposed to regulate the subject of prostitution.

LAW RELATIVE TO THE REPRESSION OF PROSTITUTION.

Art. 1. The duty of repressing prostitution, whether with provocation on the public highway or otherwise, is intrusted at Paris to the Prefect of Police, and in all the other communes of France to the mayors respectively.

Art. 2. A discretionary authority over all persons engaged in public prostitution is vested in these functionaries, within the scope of their powers.

Art. 3. Shall constitute evidence of public prostitution either, 1st, direct provocation thereto on the public highway; 2d, public notoriety; or, 3d, legal proof adduced after accusation and trial.

Art. 4. The Prefect of Police at Paris, and the mayors in the other communes, shall make any and all regulations which they may deem suitable for the repression of prostitution, and such regulations shall bear upon all those who encourage prostitution as a trade—lodgers, inn-keepers and tavern-keepers, landlords and tenants.

Art. 5. The Dispensary at Paris for the superintendence of women of the town is placed on the same footing as the public health establishments. Other similar dispensaries may be established wherever they are needed.

Art. 6. A full report of the proceedings of these dispensaries shall be forwarded annually to the Minister of the Interior.

M. Duchatelet conceived this short law to be adequate for the purpose. It may be presumed that he took for granted that the mayors of the communes would never attempt to carry out original views of their own on the subject; he doubtless gave them credit for sufficient self-abnegation to adopt, without question, the elaborate and sensible plan which experience has taught the authorities of Paris. How far this assumption was justifiable appears uncertain, in view of the fact that at Lyons and Strasbourg, the prostitutional system has always differed from that of the capital. In both those cities a tax has been levied on prostitutes till a very late period; at Lyons it was exacted, it is believed, in 1842.