Prostitution

It is observed by Henne-am-Rhyn—no friend of toleration— that their suppression was followed by the appearance of the crime of infanticide, by the establishment of hospitals for found lings and for syphilis. This suggests an indictment against hu manity which is hardly justified by the facts. Infanticide was no new thing, and foundling hospitals date from the beginning of the 13th century. Their marked increase and the establish ment of syphilitic hospitals came a century later than the Ref ormation campaign against the Frauenhauser. The suppression of the latter did not affect the prevalence • of prostitution. In the 17th century another spasm of severity occurred. In 1635 an edict was issued in Paris condemning men concerned in the traffic to the galleys for life; women and girls to be whipped, shaved and banished for life, without formal trial. These ordi nances were modified by Louis XIV. in 1684. The Puritan enact ments in England were equally savage. Fornication was punish able by three months' imprisonment, followed by bail for good behaviour. Bawds were condemned to be whipped, pilloried, branded and imprisoned for three years ; the punishment for a second offence was death. In Hamburg all brothels were pulled down and the women expelled from the town. If these measures had any effect, it was speedily lost in a greater reaction; but they have some historical interest, as the present system was gradually evolved from them.

The Protection of Health.

It would be tedious and unprofit able to follow all the steps, the shifts and turns of policy, adopted in different countries during the 18th century for the suppression or control of an incurable evil. They involve no new principle, and merely represent phases in the evolution of the more settled and more systematic procedure in force at the present time. Its chief feature, as compared with the past, is the establishment of an organized police force, to which the control of prostitution is entrusted, coupled with a general determination to put the sub ject out of sight and ignore it as far as possible. The procedure on the continent of Europe is virtually a return to the old Roman system of registration and supervision, except that there is no State tax, and names can be removed from the register. The objects are the same, namely, public order and decency, with one important addition, which has given rise to much controversy. This is the protection of health.

From what has gone before, the reader will have gathered that it is not, as frequently supposed, a new thing. Already in the middle ages the question occupied the attention of parliament in England, and a weekly examination of public women by the bar ber (the surgeon of that time) was instituted at Avignon. The practice was adopted in Spain from about isoo, and later in many other places. But the abolition of licensed brothels, and the consequent growth of private prostitution, rendered it a dead letter. To meet the difficulty, registration was devised. It was

first suggested in France in 1765, but was not adopted until 1778. The present regulations in France are based on the ordinances of that year and of 178o which in their turn were borrowed from those of the 16th and 17th centuries, previously mentioned. The theory of the modern attitude towards prostitution is clearly laid down by successive ordinances issued in Berlin. Those of 1700 stated that "this traffic is not permitted, but merely toler ated"; the more precise ones of 1792 pronounced the toleration of prostitution a necessary evil, "to avoid greater disorders which are not to be restrained by any law or authority, and which take their rise from an inextinguishable natural appetite"; and the regulations of 185o and 1876 are headed : "Polizeiliche Vorschriften zur Sicherung der Gesundheit, der offentlichen Ordnung and des offentlichen Anstandes." This embraces the whole theory of present administration, and if Gesundheit be omitted, is not less applicable to the United Kingdom than to the continent. The last attempt to suppress prostitution in Germany is worth noting, as it occurred so late as 1845. Registration was stopped and the tolerated houses were closed in Berlin, Halle and Cologne. The attempt was a complete failure, and it was abandoned in 1851 in favour of the previous system.

White Slave Traffic.

In recent years the question of prosti tution has become international through the movement to sup press the "white slave traffic." A congress was held in London in 1899, and in 1902 the French Government summoned an offi cial conference, which resulted in the Convention of 1904, signed by the 12 principal European nations, with the exception of Aus tria. By this Convention the States bound themselves to co ordinate information relative to the procuring of women from abroad, to keep a watch at places of entry and to repatriate women who wished it. In 1910 the United States passed the White Slave Traffic Act, which imposed severe penalties on the transport of women for immoral purposes. In the same year an international Convention for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic was signed in Paris by 13 nations, including Austria. This convention went much farther than the previous one. It bound the parties to punish anyone who had "procured, enticed or led away, even with her consent, a girl under age for immoral pur poses" and also anyone who had "by fraud or by means of vio lence, threats, abuse of authority or any other method of com pulsion, procured a girl or woman over age for immoral pur poses, notwithstanding that the various acts constituting the of fence may have been committed in different countries." This involved altering the internal law relating to prostitution in cer tain countries. Voluntary committees were formed in the prin cipal countries to collect information and push the matter.