2.—Prostitution and the State.State supervision and organization of prostitution does not exist in the German empire as it does in France; prostitution is merely tolerated. Disorderly houses are prohibited by law and procurers may be severely punished. But notwithstanding these laws in many German cities, among others in Mayence, Magdeburg, Altona, Kiel, Nuremberg, Worms, Freiburg, Leipsic, Regensburg, Hamburg, Augsburg, Wuerzburg, disorderly houses exist that are tolerated by the police.[90]This seems an incredible state of affairs and its contradiction to the laws must be well known to our government officials. According to German law, persons renting an apartment to a prostitute are subject to punishment. On the other hand, the police are obliged to tolerate thousands of prostitutes and to protect them in their trade if they submit to the prescribed rules, for instance, to regular examination by a physician. But if the state makes concessions to prostitutes and supports them in the plying of their trade, it is necessary for them to have a residence also; in fact, it becomes necessary to public health and order that their trade should be carried onin definite quarters. What contradictions! On the one hand the state officially recognizes prostitution; on the other hand it persecutes and punishes prostitutes and procurers. Moreover, this attitude of the state confirms, that to modern society, prostitution is a sphynx whose riddle it cannot solve. Religion and morality condemn prostitution, the laws punish it, and yet the state tolerates and protects it. In other words, our society that prides itself on its morality, its piety, its civilization and culture must suffer itself to be polluted by the slow poison of immorality and corruption. Still another conclusion follows from these conditions:the Christian state admits that marriage is insufficient and that the man is justified in seeking illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse. The woman is taken into consideration by this same state only, inasmuch as she yields to the illegitimate satisfaction of male lust, that is, becomes a prostitute. The police supervision and control of enlisted prostitutes does not include the men who mingle with the prostitutes, which ought to be a matter of course if the medical surveillance were to be partly effective at least, quite disregarding the fact that justice demands that the law should be equally applied to both sexes.This protection of the man from the woman by the state overturns the nature of conditions. It appears as if men were the weaker, and women the stronger sex, as if women were the seducer, and poor, weak man the seduced. The myth of temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to influence our conceptions and laws and sustains the Christian assumption, that “woman is the great seducer, the source of sin.” Men ought to be ashamed of the pitiable and unworthy part they are playing, but it is pleasing to them to be regarded as “weak” and as “victims of seduction” forthe more they are protected the more they may sin.Wherever men come together in great numbers, they do not seem to be able to enjoy themselves without prostitution. That was seen among other instances by the occurrences at the rifle match in Berlin during the summer of 1890. These occurrences caused 2,300 women to sign a petition to the mayor of the German capital, whichread as follows: “We beg your honor to permit our quoting what has been reported in regard to this festival by the press and other sources. These reports, which we read with the greatest indignation and disgust, among other things thus described the entertainments provided at the festival: ‘First, German Herold, greatest Café Chantant of the world’; hundred ladies and forty gentlemen; besides small variety shows and rifle ranges from which exceedingly obtrusive women molested the men; furthermore free concerts, where lightly garbed waitresses boldly and unrestrained, with seductive smiles forced their attentions alike on men and youths, on college boys and fathers of families. But the ‘lady’ who was almost nude and who invited them to visit the booths ‘The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night inSt.Pauli,’ might at least have been removed by the police. But the worst, something that plain men and women from the provinces can hardly accredit to the far-famed capital of the empire, was the fact that the committee on arrangements had permitted, that instead of waiters, young women in great numbers were engaged as waitresses and bar-maids without pay. We German women, as mothers, wives and sisters, frequently have occasion to send our brothers, husbands, sons and daughters to Berlin in service of the fatherland, and so we beg your honor, trusting to your influence as chief executive of the national capital to investigate these occurrences and to prevent a repetition of these orgies, especially at the forthcoming celebration of the victory at Sedan.”During all large festivals, including the national ones, when men come together in great numbers, similar scenesoccur.[91]The German governments made frequent attempts to do away with the contradiction that exists between the legal theories and actual practice in regard to prostitution. They introduced bills among other things, which authorized the police to assign definite places of residenceto the prostitutes. It was admitted that prostitution could not be suppressed and that it would therefore be better to limit it to certain places and to control it. Such a law—on this all were agreed—would have reinstated the public brothels that had been officially abolished in Prussia during the forties of the last century. The introduction of these bills caused great excitement and aroused much protest. It was stated that the state by extending protection to vice spread the opinion that prostitution was not averse to morality and was an officially sanctioned trade. These bills that met with much opposition in Parliament, have until now, remained unsettled. But their very introduction shows the predicament of the state.State regulation and control of vice not only create the belief among men that the state favors prostitution, it also leads them to believe that this regulation protects them from disease, and this belief makes men more reckless and increases the employment of prostitution. Public brothels do not diminish sexual diseases, they promote them, becausemen become more reckless and careless. To what conceptions the official protection of brothels leads may be seen from the term applied to the licensed prostitutes in England, who were called “Queen’s women” because they had obtained official recognition through a law enacted by the queen. Experience has taught, that neither the introduction of public brothels under police supervision nor regular medical examination insure safety from contagion.To an inquiry from the woman’s committee of Vienna for combatting the state regulation of viceDr.Albert Eulenburg wrote as follows: “In regard to the question of police supervision of prostitutes I fully share, as a matter of principle, the point of view set forth in your petition, though, of course I recognize the practical difficulty of its immediate application. I regard this practice which has been introduced in most countries as unjust, unworthy, and moreover as entirely unsuited to attain the object stated with any certain degree of safety.” On July 20, 1892, the Berlin Medical Society declared thatthe reinstatement of public brothels would be undesirable, both from a hygienic and moral point of view.The nature of these diseases is such that in many cases it cannot be recognized easily, or at once, and to attain a certain degree of safety several daily examinations would be necessary. But this is impossible, owing to the great number of women in question and the large expense it would entail. Where 30 to 40 prostitutes have to be examined in one hour, the examination is nothing more than a farce, and in the same way one or two weekly examinations are entirely insufficient.Dr.Blaschko[92]says: “The belief, that control of prostitutes furnishes protection against contagion, unfortunately is a widespread and detrimental error. Rather can it be asserted that everyone who associates with a prostitute or a frivolous girl faces a grave danger each time.”The success of these measures fails also because the men who carry the germs of disease from one woman to another remain entirely free from control. A prostitute who has just been examined and found healthy may become infected by a diseased man in the very same hour, and before the next examination takes place, or before she herself has become aware of the disease, she may have infected a number of other visitors. The control is an imaginary one. Besides the obligatory examinations by male instead of female physicians deeply injure the sense of modesty and help to destroy it completely. This statement is confirmed by a great many physicians who perform such examinations.[93]The same is admitted even in the official report of the Berlin police department, where it says it must be admittedthat official enrollmentstill increases the moral degradation of those affected by it.[94]The prostitutes do whatever they can to escape this control.Another evil result of these measures is, that it is made very difficult, indeed almost impossible to prostitutes, to return to a decent means of livelihood.A woman who has fallen into police control is lost to society; as a rule she miserably perishes after a few years.The fifth congress for combatting immorality, held in Geneva, thus expressed itself forcibly and correctly against the state regulation of vice: “The obligatory medical examination of prostitutes is a cruel punishment to the woman, for in those who are subjected to it the last remnant of modesty that may still exist in the most depraved, is forcibly destroyed. The state that seeks to regulate prostitution by police control forgets that it owes equal protection to both sexes, it degrades and demoralizes the woman. Every system of official regulation of vice permits of arbitrary police rule and leads to the infringement of personal safety against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, against which even the lowest criminal is guarded. As these encroachments occur only at the expense of the woman, they lead to an unnatural inequality between her and the man. The woman is degraded to a mere object and is no longer treated as a person.She is excluded from the law.”How little police and medical control avail has been strikingly shown in England. Before the beginning of official regulation, in the year 1867, the number of venereal diseases in the army were, according to a military report, 91 per 1,000. In 1886, after the regulation had been in effect for nineteen years they were 110 per 1,000. In 1892, six years after the regulation laws had been repealed they were only 79 per 1,000. Among civilians the cases of syphilis were 10 per 1,000 during the years 1879 to 1882, that was during the years of public regulation. After the abolition of public regulation, from 1885 to 1889 they were only 8.1 per 1,000.The prostitutes themselves were far more affected by the regulation laws than the soldiers. In 1866 there were among 1,000 prostitutes, 121 cases of disease. In 1868 after the law had been in force for two years there were 202 cases among 1,000. After that the number gradually decreased, but in 1874 there still were 16 cases more per thousand than in 1866. The death rate among prostitutes also increased appallingly during the reign of that law. When at the close of the sixties of the last century the English government attempted to extend the regulation laws to include all English cities, a storm of indignation arose among English women. They regarded the law as an insult to their entire sex. The habeas corpus, they claimed, that fundamental law which guaranteed protection to every English citizen, was to be abolished for women; every brutal police officer impelled by revenge or other base motives, would be permitted to attack the most respectable woman if he suspected her of being a prostitute, while the licentiousness of men would not be interfered with, but would on the contrary be protected and fostered by law.The fact that English women under the leadership of Josephine Butler championed the most degraded of their sex, caused ignorant men to misconstrue their intentions and to make insulting remarks about them. But regardless of these attacks they opposed the extension of the obnoxious law with utmost energy. In newspaper articles and pamphlets arguments in favor of it and against it were fully discussed, until its extension was prevented, and in 1886 is wasrepealed.[95]The German police has a similar power, and sometimes cases have been called to public attention in Berlin, Leipsic, Cologne, Hannover and many other places, showing that abuses or “misunderstandings” easily occur with the exercise of this power, but not much is heard among us of an energetic opposition to such transgressions.[96]In Norway, brothels wereprohibitedin 1888, and in the capital, Christiania, the obligatory registration of prostitutes and the medical examination connected with it wasabolished.In January, 1893, the same ordinance was enacted for the entire country.Very correctlyMrs.Guillaume-Shack says in regard to state “protection” for men: “To what purpose do we teach our sons to respect virtue and morality if the state declares vice to be a necessary evil; if young men, before they have even attained intellectual maturity, are given women stamped like commodities by the public authorities as playthings of their passions?”A man inflicted with a sexual disease may indulge in unbridled licentiousness and may infect any number of these unfortunate beings, most of whom have been driven by seducers or by bitterest need into this abominable trade. The law leaves him unmolested. But woe to the poor, diseased prostitute who does not immediately submit to medical treatment! The garrison towns, university towns and sea port towns, where many strong, healthy men aggregate, are the chief centers of prostitution and its dangerous diseases, which are disseminated all over the land and everywhere spread suffering and destruction. The moral qualification of a great number ofour students is described in the following manner in the “Gazette for Combatting Public Immorality”[97]: “Among a majority of the students the views concerning moral questions are appallingly base, almost depraved.” From these circles that boast about their “German spirit” and “German morals,” our public officials, prosecutors and judges are obtained. How bad matters must be, especially among students, may be seen from the following: In the fall of 1901, a large group of professors and physicians, among them leading men in their professions, published an appeal to German students, in which they called special attention to the deplorable results of sexual debauchery, and also warned the young men of excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks, which in many cases have a stimulating influence on sexual debauchery. At last people are beginning to recognize that the policy of silence is a mistaken one, and that we must call a spade a spade, if we would check an immeasurable disaster. Among other classes of society also this warning should not remain unheeded.The Biblical utterance that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children applies in its fullest measure to the man afflicted with a sexual disease; unfortunately also to his innocent wife. “Apoplectic strokes among young men and women, forms of paralysis of the spine and softening of the brain, various nervous diseases, weakening of the eye sight, inflammation of the bowels, sterility and general debility are frequently due to no other cause than a neglected case of syphilis, that has, for good reasons been kept secret. As conditions are to-day ignorance and carelessness transform blooming daughters of the nation into weak and sickly creatures who must pay with chronic diseases for the extravagances of their husbands before and outside of marriage.”[98]Dr.A. Blaschko says among other things: “Epidemics like cholera, small pox, diphtheria and typhoid terrify the people, because the suddenness of the results are clearlyvisible to everybody. But syphilis is regarded by society with an appalling indifference. And yet syphilis is far more widespread and much more terrible in its effects than any of the above-mentioned diseases.”[99]The fact that we regard it as “indecent” to discuss such matters, accounts for this indifference. Even the German diet could not bring itself to provide legally for the treatment of persons afflicted with sexual diseases by means of the sick benefit funds, as in the case of otherdiseases.[100]The poison of syphilis is the most tenacious and the hardest to eradicate of all poisons. Many years after the disease has been apparently cured the evil results frequently manifest themselves in the wife of the diseased or in his new-born children, and countless sicknesses of married women and children are due to the sexual diseases of husbands and fathers. In a petition addressed to the German Parliament in the fall of 1899 by the society “Jugendschutz” (protection of the young) it was stated that there are about 30,000 children in Germany who are blind from birth due to contagion from gonorrhoea, and that among 50 per cent of childless women, sterility is due to the same cause.[101]As a matter of fact an alarmingly large number of marriages is childless, and moreover the number of childless marriages is increasing. Feeble-mindedness and idiocy among children is also not infrequently due to the same cause, and many instances have shown what disasters can be caused with vaccination by a single drop of blood inoculated with the poison of syphilis. The great number of persons suffering from a sexual disease has caused several suggestions to be made for the enactment ofa national law providing special treatment for persons so afflicted. But until now no such step was taken, probably because one feared the enormity of the evil that would then become manifest. Medical authorities have generally gained the conviction, that gonorrhoea, which was formerly regarded as harmless, is one of the most dangerous of these diseases. This disease continues to act upon the human system even after it has been apparently cured. AsDr.Blaschko reported in a lecture in Berlin on the 20th of February, 1898, the medical examinations of prostitutes reveal only one-fourth, or at best one-third of the actual number of cases. As a matter of fact, the overwhelmingly great majority of prostitutes are afflicted with this disease, while only a small percentage of the cases are properly diagnosed. Of those in whom the disease is recognized it is again only a small percentage with whom a permanent cure is effected. Here society is confronted by an evil for which it has no remedy as yet, but which is an imminent peril to mankind, especially to its female half.[90]Paul Kampffmeyer—Prostitution as a social class phenomenon and the social and political struggleagainst it.[91]“When the Farmers’ Association convenes in the Circus Bush, or large conventions are being held in Berlin, there is a rise in price of human flesh.” Satyr—Life at Night in theFriedrich Strasse, Berlin, 1907.[92]Handbook of Hygiene, published byTh.Weyl,M. D.Hygiene of Prostitution and Venereal Diseases, compiled byDr.A. Blaschko, Berlin.[93]“As a matter of fact the system of regulation does not successfully fight the venereal diseases, nor even noticeably diminish them. The delusive feeling of safety given to men makes them more reckless. The increase in the number of correlation heightens the danger of contagion by at least as much as it has been diminished by the removal of a few who were seriously diseased.” August Forel—The Sex Question, Munich, 1907.[94]Third report of the royal police department of Berlin for the years 1881 to 1890.[95]The most reliable supporters of the women were the English workingmen. In her famous publication on “The History of a Crusade,” Josephine Butler says: “We resolved to appeal to the nation. In the fall of 1869 we sent personal letters to every member of Parliament of both houses and to many other leaders of political and religious parties. Of all the replies received only very few expressed complete agreement with our point of view. As we obtained so little encouragement from those circles whose interest we had hoped to win, we turned to the working class population of the country. I am conscious of the fact that the working class has its faults and is no less devoid of egotism than other classes of the population. But I am firmly convinced that when the people are appealed to in the name of justice they almost invariably show a loyal and reliable conviction.”[96]In 1901 it occurred in Vienna that a French lady was abused by the police agent, Newhofer, amidst the shouts of a mob, was imprisoned among prostitutes and subjected to a forcible medical examination. This case led to five interpellations in the diet. In 1902 in Hamburg and Kiel ladies were arrested as prostitutes and were treated with brutality. These occurrences led to a gigantic meeting of protest in Hamburg on September 8, that was attended by members of all parties.[97]August 15, 1893, Berlin.[98]The detrimental results of prostitution.Dr.Oscar Lassar, Berlin, 1892, August Hirschwald.[99]Treatment of sexual diseases in sick benefit fund institutions and hospitals, Berlin, 1890.[100]The ordinance of the insurance laws which enabled communities to refuse the payment of sick benefits in cases of sexual diseases was repealed by a law on May 25, 1903, that went into effect January 1, 1904.[101]Examinations in asylums for the blind showed that the following number of persons were blind from birth through infection: Berlin, 21.3; Vienna, 31; Breslau, 35.1; Budapest, 47.9; Munich, 73.8.—Th.Weyl, Social Hygiene, Jena, 1904.
2.—Prostitution and the State.State supervision and organization of prostitution does not exist in the German empire as it does in France; prostitution is merely tolerated. Disorderly houses are prohibited by law and procurers may be severely punished. But notwithstanding these laws in many German cities, among others in Mayence, Magdeburg, Altona, Kiel, Nuremberg, Worms, Freiburg, Leipsic, Regensburg, Hamburg, Augsburg, Wuerzburg, disorderly houses exist that are tolerated by the police.[90]This seems an incredible state of affairs and its contradiction to the laws must be well known to our government officials. According to German law, persons renting an apartment to a prostitute are subject to punishment. On the other hand, the police are obliged to tolerate thousands of prostitutes and to protect them in their trade if they submit to the prescribed rules, for instance, to regular examination by a physician. But if the state makes concessions to prostitutes and supports them in the plying of their trade, it is necessary for them to have a residence also; in fact, it becomes necessary to public health and order that their trade should be carried onin definite quarters. What contradictions! On the one hand the state officially recognizes prostitution; on the other hand it persecutes and punishes prostitutes and procurers. Moreover, this attitude of the state confirms, that to modern society, prostitution is a sphynx whose riddle it cannot solve. Religion and morality condemn prostitution, the laws punish it, and yet the state tolerates and protects it. In other words, our society that prides itself on its morality, its piety, its civilization and culture must suffer itself to be polluted by the slow poison of immorality and corruption. Still another conclusion follows from these conditions:the Christian state admits that marriage is insufficient and that the man is justified in seeking illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse. The woman is taken into consideration by this same state only, inasmuch as she yields to the illegitimate satisfaction of male lust, that is, becomes a prostitute. The police supervision and control of enlisted prostitutes does not include the men who mingle with the prostitutes, which ought to be a matter of course if the medical surveillance were to be partly effective at least, quite disregarding the fact that justice demands that the law should be equally applied to both sexes.This protection of the man from the woman by the state overturns the nature of conditions. It appears as if men were the weaker, and women the stronger sex, as if women were the seducer, and poor, weak man the seduced. The myth of temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to influence our conceptions and laws and sustains the Christian assumption, that “woman is the great seducer, the source of sin.” Men ought to be ashamed of the pitiable and unworthy part they are playing, but it is pleasing to them to be regarded as “weak” and as “victims of seduction” forthe more they are protected the more they may sin.Wherever men come together in great numbers, they do not seem to be able to enjoy themselves without prostitution. That was seen among other instances by the occurrences at the rifle match in Berlin during the summer of 1890. These occurrences caused 2,300 women to sign a petition to the mayor of the German capital, whichread as follows: “We beg your honor to permit our quoting what has been reported in regard to this festival by the press and other sources. These reports, which we read with the greatest indignation and disgust, among other things thus described the entertainments provided at the festival: ‘First, German Herold, greatest Café Chantant of the world’; hundred ladies and forty gentlemen; besides small variety shows and rifle ranges from which exceedingly obtrusive women molested the men; furthermore free concerts, where lightly garbed waitresses boldly and unrestrained, with seductive smiles forced their attentions alike on men and youths, on college boys and fathers of families. But the ‘lady’ who was almost nude and who invited them to visit the booths ‘The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night inSt.Pauli,’ might at least have been removed by the police. But the worst, something that plain men and women from the provinces can hardly accredit to the far-famed capital of the empire, was the fact that the committee on arrangements had permitted, that instead of waiters, young women in great numbers were engaged as waitresses and bar-maids without pay. We German women, as mothers, wives and sisters, frequently have occasion to send our brothers, husbands, sons and daughters to Berlin in service of the fatherland, and so we beg your honor, trusting to your influence as chief executive of the national capital to investigate these occurrences and to prevent a repetition of these orgies, especially at the forthcoming celebration of the victory at Sedan.”During all large festivals, including the national ones, when men come together in great numbers, similar scenesoccur.[91]The German governments made frequent attempts to do away with the contradiction that exists between the legal theories and actual practice in regard to prostitution. They introduced bills among other things, which authorized the police to assign definite places of residenceto the prostitutes. It was admitted that prostitution could not be suppressed and that it would therefore be better to limit it to certain places and to control it. Such a law—on this all were agreed—would have reinstated the public brothels that had been officially abolished in Prussia during the forties of the last century. The introduction of these bills caused great excitement and aroused much protest. It was stated that the state by extending protection to vice spread the opinion that prostitution was not averse to morality and was an officially sanctioned trade. These bills that met with much opposition in Parliament, have until now, remained unsettled. But their very introduction shows the predicament of the state.State regulation and control of vice not only create the belief among men that the state favors prostitution, it also leads them to believe that this regulation protects them from disease, and this belief makes men more reckless and increases the employment of prostitution. Public brothels do not diminish sexual diseases, they promote them, becausemen become more reckless and careless. To what conceptions the official protection of brothels leads may be seen from the term applied to the licensed prostitutes in England, who were called “Queen’s women” because they had obtained official recognition through a law enacted by the queen. Experience has taught, that neither the introduction of public brothels under police supervision nor regular medical examination insure safety from contagion.To an inquiry from the woman’s committee of Vienna for combatting the state regulation of viceDr.Albert Eulenburg wrote as follows: “In regard to the question of police supervision of prostitutes I fully share, as a matter of principle, the point of view set forth in your petition, though, of course I recognize the practical difficulty of its immediate application. I regard this practice which has been introduced in most countries as unjust, unworthy, and moreover as entirely unsuited to attain the object stated with any certain degree of safety.” On July 20, 1892, the Berlin Medical Society declared thatthe reinstatement of public brothels would be undesirable, both from a hygienic and moral point of view.The nature of these diseases is such that in many cases it cannot be recognized easily, or at once, and to attain a certain degree of safety several daily examinations would be necessary. But this is impossible, owing to the great number of women in question and the large expense it would entail. Where 30 to 40 prostitutes have to be examined in one hour, the examination is nothing more than a farce, and in the same way one or two weekly examinations are entirely insufficient.Dr.Blaschko[92]says: “The belief, that control of prostitutes furnishes protection against contagion, unfortunately is a widespread and detrimental error. Rather can it be asserted that everyone who associates with a prostitute or a frivolous girl faces a grave danger each time.”The success of these measures fails also because the men who carry the germs of disease from one woman to another remain entirely free from control. A prostitute who has just been examined and found healthy may become infected by a diseased man in the very same hour, and before the next examination takes place, or before she herself has become aware of the disease, she may have infected a number of other visitors. The control is an imaginary one. Besides the obligatory examinations by male instead of female physicians deeply injure the sense of modesty and help to destroy it completely. This statement is confirmed by a great many physicians who perform such examinations.[93]The same is admitted even in the official report of the Berlin police department, where it says it must be admittedthat official enrollmentstill increases the moral degradation of those affected by it.[94]The prostitutes do whatever they can to escape this control.Another evil result of these measures is, that it is made very difficult, indeed almost impossible to prostitutes, to return to a decent means of livelihood.A woman who has fallen into police control is lost to society; as a rule she miserably perishes after a few years.The fifth congress for combatting immorality, held in Geneva, thus expressed itself forcibly and correctly against the state regulation of vice: “The obligatory medical examination of prostitutes is a cruel punishment to the woman, for in those who are subjected to it the last remnant of modesty that may still exist in the most depraved, is forcibly destroyed. The state that seeks to regulate prostitution by police control forgets that it owes equal protection to both sexes, it degrades and demoralizes the woman. Every system of official regulation of vice permits of arbitrary police rule and leads to the infringement of personal safety against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, against which even the lowest criminal is guarded. As these encroachments occur only at the expense of the woman, they lead to an unnatural inequality between her and the man. The woman is degraded to a mere object and is no longer treated as a person.She is excluded from the law.”How little police and medical control avail has been strikingly shown in England. Before the beginning of official regulation, in the year 1867, the number of venereal diseases in the army were, according to a military report, 91 per 1,000. In 1886, after the regulation had been in effect for nineteen years they were 110 per 1,000. In 1892, six years after the regulation laws had been repealed they were only 79 per 1,000. Among civilians the cases of syphilis were 10 per 1,000 during the years 1879 to 1882, that was during the years of public regulation. After the abolition of public regulation, from 1885 to 1889 they were only 8.1 per 1,000.The prostitutes themselves were far more affected by the regulation laws than the soldiers. In 1866 there were among 1,000 prostitutes, 121 cases of disease. In 1868 after the law had been in force for two years there were 202 cases among 1,000. After that the number gradually decreased, but in 1874 there still were 16 cases more per thousand than in 1866. The death rate among prostitutes also increased appallingly during the reign of that law. When at the close of the sixties of the last century the English government attempted to extend the regulation laws to include all English cities, a storm of indignation arose among English women. They regarded the law as an insult to their entire sex. The habeas corpus, they claimed, that fundamental law which guaranteed protection to every English citizen, was to be abolished for women; every brutal police officer impelled by revenge or other base motives, would be permitted to attack the most respectable woman if he suspected her of being a prostitute, while the licentiousness of men would not be interfered with, but would on the contrary be protected and fostered by law.The fact that English women under the leadership of Josephine Butler championed the most degraded of their sex, caused ignorant men to misconstrue their intentions and to make insulting remarks about them. But regardless of these attacks they opposed the extension of the obnoxious law with utmost energy. In newspaper articles and pamphlets arguments in favor of it and against it were fully discussed, until its extension was prevented, and in 1886 is wasrepealed.[95]The German police has a similar power, and sometimes cases have been called to public attention in Berlin, Leipsic, Cologne, Hannover and many other places, showing that abuses or “misunderstandings” easily occur with the exercise of this power, but not much is heard among us of an energetic opposition to such transgressions.[96]In Norway, brothels wereprohibitedin 1888, and in the capital, Christiania, the obligatory registration of prostitutes and the medical examination connected with it wasabolished.In January, 1893, the same ordinance was enacted for the entire country.Very correctlyMrs.Guillaume-Shack says in regard to state “protection” for men: “To what purpose do we teach our sons to respect virtue and morality if the state declares vice to be a necessary evil; if young men, before they have even attained intellectual maturity, are given women stamped like commodities by the public authorities as playthings of their passions?”A man inflicted with a sexual disease may indulge in unbridled licentiousness and may infect any number of these unfortunate beings, most of whom have been driven by seducers or by bitterest need into this abominable trade. The law leaves him unmolested. But woe to the poor, diseased prostitute who does not immediately submit to medical treatment! The garrison towns, university towns and sea port towns, where many strong, healthy men aggregate, are the chief centers of prostitution and its dangerous diseases, which are disseminated all over the land and everywhere spread suffering and destruction. The moral qualification of a great number ofour students is described in the following manner in the “Gazette for Combatting Public Immorality”[97]: “Among a majority of the students the views concerning moral questions are appallingly base, almost depraved.” From these circles that boast about their “German spirit” and “German morals,” our public officials, prosecutors and judges are obtained. How bad matters must be, especially among students, may be seen from the following: In the fall of 1901, a large group of professors and physicians, among them leading men in their professions, published an appeal to German students, in which they called special attention to the deplorable results of sexual debauchery, and also warned the young men of excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks, which in many cases have a stimulating influence on sexual debauchery. At last people are beginning to recognize that the policy of silence is a mistaken one, and that we must call a spade a spade, if we would check an immeasurable disaster. Among other classes of society also this warning should not remain unheeded.The Biblical utterance that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children applies in its fullest measure to the man afflicted with a sexual disease; unfortunately also to his innocent wife. “Apoplectic strokes among young men and women, forms of paralysis of the spine and softening of the brain, various nervous diseases, weakening of the eye sight, inflammation of the bowels, sterility and general debility are frequently due to no other cause than a neglected case of syphilis, that has, for good reasons been kept secret. As conditions are to-day ignorance and carelessness transform blooming daughters of the nation into weak and sickly creatures who must pay with chronic diseases for the extravagances of their husbands before and outside of marriage.”[98]Dr.A. Blaschko says among other things: “Epidemics like cholera, small pox, diphtheria and typhoid terrify the people, because the suddenness of the results are clearlyvisible to everybody. But syphilis is regarded by society with an appalling indifference. And yet syphilis is far more widespread and much more terrible in its effects than any of the above-mentioned diseases.”[99]The fact that we regard it as “indecent” to discuss such matters, accounts for this indifference. Even the German diet could not bring itself to provide legally for the treatment of persons afflicted with sexual diseases by means of the sick benefit funds, as in the case of otherdiseases.[100]The poison of syphilis is the most tenacious and the hardest to eradicate of all poisons. Many years after the disease has been apparently cured the evil results frequently manifest themselves in the wife of the diseased or in his new-born children, and countless sicknesses of married women and children are due to the sexual diseases of husbands and fathers. In a petition addressed to the German Parliament in the fall of 1899 by the society “Jugendschutz” (protection of the young) it was stated that there are about 30,000 children in Germany who are blind from birth due to contagion from gonorrhoea, and that among 50 per cent of childless women, sterility is due to the same cause.[101]As a matter of fact an alarmingly large number of marriages is childless, and moreover the number of childless marriages is increasing. Feeble-mindedness and idiocy among children is also not infrequently due to the same cause, and many instances have shown what disasters can be caused with vaccination by a single drop of blood inoculated with the poison of syphilis. The great number of persons suffering from a sexual disease has caused several suggestions to be made for the enactment ofa national law providing special treatment for persons so afflicted. But until now no such step was taken, probably because one feared the enormity of the evil that would then become manifest. Medical authorities have generally gained the conviction, that gonorrhoea, which was formerly regarded as harmless, is one of the most dangerous of these diseases. This disease continues to act upon the human system even after it has been apparently cured. AsDr.Blaschko reported in a lecture in Berlin on the 20th of February, 1898, the medical examinations of prostitutes reveal only one-fourth, or at best one-third of the actual number of cases. As a matter of fact, the overwhelmingly great majority of prostitutes are afflicted with this disease, while only a small percentage of the cases are properly diagnosed. Of those in whom the disease is recognized it is again only a small percentage with whom a permanent cure is effected. Here society is confronted by an evil for which it has no remedy as yet, but which is an imminent peril to mankind, especially to its female half.[90]Paul Kampffmeyer—Prostitution as a social class phenomenon and the social and political struggleagainst it.[91]“When the Farmers’ Association convenes in the Circus Bush, or large conventions are being held in Berlin, there is a rise in price of human flesh.” Satyr—Life at Night in theFriedrich Strasse, Berlin, 1907.[92]Handbook of Hygiene, published byTh.Weyl,M. D.Hygiene of Prostitution and Venereal Diseases, compiled byDr.A. Blaschko, Berlin.[93]“As a matter of fact the system of regulation does not successfully fight the venereal diseases, nor even noticeably diminish them. The delusive feeling of safety given to men makes them more reckless. The increase in the number of correlation heightens the danger of contagion by at least as much as it has been diminished by the removal of a few who were seriously diseased.” August Forel—The Sex Question, Munich, 1907.[94]Third report of the royal police department of Berlin for the years 1881 to 1890.[95]The most reliable supporters of the women were the English workingmen. In her famous publication on “The History of a Crusade,” Josephine Butler says: “We resolved to appeal to the nation. In the fall of 1869 we sent personal letters to every member of Parliament of both houses and to many other leaders of political and religious parties. Of all the replies received only very few expressed complete agreement with our point of view. As we obtained so little encouragement from those circles whose interest we had hoped to win, we turned to the working class population of the country. I am conscious of the fact that the working class has its faults and is no less devoid of egotism than other classes of the population. But I am firmly convinced that when the people are appealed to in the name of justice they almost invariably show a loyal and reliable conviction.”[96]In 1901 it occurred in Vienna that a French lady was abused by the police agent, Newhofer, amidst the shouts of a mob, was imprisoned among prostitutes and subjected to a forcible medical examination. This case led to five interpellations in the diet. In 1902 in Hamburg and Kiel ladies were arrested as prostitutes and were treated with brutality. These occurrences led to a gigantic meeting of protest in Hamburg on September 8, that was attended by members of all parties.[97]August 15, 1893, Berlin.[98]The detrimental results of prostitution.Dr.Oscar Lassar, Berlin, 1892, August Hirschwald.[99]Treatment of sexual diseases in sick benefit fund institutions and hospitals, Berlin, 1890.[100]The ordinance of the insurance laws which enabled communities to refuse the payment of sick benefits in cases of sexual diseases was repealed by a law on May 25, 1903, that went into effect January 1, 1904.[101]Examinations in asylums for the blind showed that the following number of persons were blind from birth through infection: Berlin, 21.3; Vienna, 31; Breslau, 35.1; Budapest, 47.9; Munich, 73.8.—Th.Weyl, Social Hygiene, Jena, 1904.
State supervision and organization of prostitution does not exist in the German empire as it does in France; prostitution is merely tolerated. Disorderly houses are prohibited by law and procurers may be severely punished. But notwithstanding these laws in many German cities, among others in Mayence, Magdeburg, Altona, Kiel, Nuremberg, Worms, Freiburg, Leipsic, Regensburg, Hamburg, Augsburg, Wuerzburg, disorderly houses exist that are tolerated by the police.[90]This seems an incredible state of affairs and its contradiction to the laws must be well known to our government officials. According to German law, persons renting an apartment to a prostitute are subject to punishment. On the other hand, the police are obliged to tolerate thousands of prostitutes and to protect them in their trade if they submit to the prescribed rules, for instance, to regular examination by a physician. But if the state makes concessions to prostitutes and supports them in the plying of their trade, it is necessary for them to have a residence also; in fact, it becomes necessary to public health and order that their trade should be carried onin definite quarters. What contradictions! On the one hand the state officially recognizes prostitution; on the other hand it persecutes and punishes prostitutes and procurers. Moreover, this attitude of the state confirms, that to modern society, prostitution is a sphynx whose riddle it cannot solve. Religion and morality condemn prostitution, the laws punish it, and yet the state tolerates and protects it. In other words, our society that prides itself on its morality, its piety, its civilization and culture must suffer itself to be polluted by the slow poison of immorality and corruption. Still another conclusion follows from these conditions:the Christian state admits that marriage is insufficient and that the man is justified in seeking illegitimate satisfaction of the sexual impulse. The woman is taken into consideration by this same state only, inasmuch as she yields to the illegitimate satisfaction of male lust, that is, becomes a prostitute. The police supervision and control of enlisted prostitutes does not include the men who mingle with the prostitutes, which ought to be a matter of course if the medical surveillance were to be partly effective at least, quite disregarding the fact that justice demands that the law should be equally applied to both sexes.
This protection of the man from the woman by the state overturns the nature of conditions. It appears as if men were the weaker, and women the stronger sex, as if women were the seducer, and poor, weak man the seduced. The myth of temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise continues to influence our conceptions and laws and sustains the Christian assumption, that “woman is the great seducer, the source of sin.” Men ought to be ashamed of the pitiable and unworthy part they are playing, but it is pleasing to them to be regarded as “weak” and as “victims of seduction” forthe more they are protected the more they may sin.
Wherever men come together in great numbers, they do not seem to be able to enjoy themselves without prostitution. That was seen among other instances by the occurrences at the rifle match in Berlin during the summer of 1890. These occurrences caused 2,300 women to sign a petition to the mayor of the German capital, whichread as follows: “We beg your honor to permit our quoting what has been reported in regard to this festival by the press and other sources. These reports, which we read with the greatest indignation and disgust, among other things thus described the entertainments provided at the festival: ‘First, German Herold, greatest Café Chantant of the world’; hundred ladies and forty gentlemen; besides small variety shows and rifle ranges from which exceedingly obtrusive women molested the men; furthermore free concerts, where lightly garbed waitresses boldly and unrestrained, with seductive smiles forced their attentions alike on men and youths, on college boys and fathers of families. But the ‘lady’ who was almost nude and who invited them to visit the booths ‘The Secrets of Hamburg, or a Night inSt.Pauli,’ might at least have been removed by the police. But the worst, something that plain men and women from the provinces can hardly accredit to the far-famed capital of the empire, was the fact that the committee on arrangements had permitted, that instead of waiters, young women in great numbers were engaged as waitresses and bar-maids without pay. We German women, as mothers, wives and sisters, frequently have occasion to send our brothers, husbands, sons and daughters to Berlin in service of the fatherland, and so we beg your honor, trusting to your influence as chief executive of the national capital to investigate these occurrences and to prevent a repetition of these orgies, especially at the forthcoming celebration of the victory at Sedan.”
During all large festivals, including the national ones, when men come together in great numbers, similar scenesoccur.[91]
The German governments made frequent attempts to do away with the contradiction that exists between the legal theories and actual practice in regard to prostitution. They introduced bills among other things, which authorized the police to assign definite places of residenceto the prostitutes. It was admitted that prostitution could not be suppressed and that it would therefore be better to limit it to certain places and to control it. Such a law—on this all were agreed—would have reinstated the public brothels that had been officially abolished in Prussia during the forties of the last century. The introduction of these bills caused great excitement and aroused much protest. It was stated that the state by extending protection to vice spread the opinion that prostitution was not averse to morality and was an officially sanctioned trade. These bills that met with much opposition in Parliament, have until now, remained unsettled. But their very introduction shows the predicament of the state.
State regulation and control of vice not only create the belief among men that the state favors prostitution, it also leads them to believe that this regulation protects them from disease, and this belief makes men more reckless and increases the employment of prostitution. Public brothels do not diminish sexual diseases, they promote them, becausemen become more reckless and careless. To what conceptions the official protection of brothels leads may be seen from the term applied to the licensed prostitutes in England, who were called “Queen’s women” because they had obtained official recognition through a law enacted by the queen. Experience has taught, that neither the introduction of public brothels under police supervision nor regular medical examination insure safety from contagion.
To an inquiry from the woman’s committee of Vienna for combatting the state regulation of viceDr.Albert Eulenburg wrote as follows: “In regard to the question of police supervision of prostitutes I fully share, as a matter of principle, the point of view set forth in your petition, though, of course I recognize the practical difficulty of its immediate application. I regard this practice which has been introduced in most countries as unjust, unworthy, and moreover as entirely unsuited to attain the object stated with any certain degree of safety.” On July 20, 1892, the Berlin Medical Society declared thatthe reinstatement of public brothels would be undesirable, both from a hygienic and moral point of view.
The nature of these diseases is such that in many cases it cannot be recognized easily, or at once, and to attain a certain degree of safety several daily examinations would be necessary. But this is impossible, owing to the great number of women in question and the large expense it would entail. Where 30 to 40 prostitutes have to be examined in one hour, the examination is nothing more than a farce, and in the same way one or two weekly examinations are entirely insufficient.Dr.Blaschko[92]says: “The belief, that control of prostitutes furnishes protection against contagion, unfortunately is a widespread and detrimental error. Rather can it be asserted that everyone who associates with a prostitute or a frivolous girl faces a grave danger each time.”
The success of these measures fails also because the men who carry the germs of disease from one woman to another remain entirely free from control. A prostitute who has just been examined and found healthy may become infected by a diseased man in the very same hour, and before the next examination takes place, or before she herself has become aware of the disease, she may have infected a number of other visitors. The control is an imaginary one. Besides the obligatory examinations by male instead of female physicians deeply injure the sense of modesty and help to destroy it completely. This statement is confirmed by a great many physicians who perform such examinations.[93]The same is admitted even in the official report of the Berlin police department, where it says it must be admittedthat official enrollmentstill increases the moral degradation of those affected by it.[94]The prostitutes do whatever they can to escape this control.
Another evil result of these measures is, that it is made very difficult, indeed almost impossible to prostitutes, to return to a decent means of livelihood.A woman who has fallen into police control is lost to society; as a rule she miserably perishes after a few years.The fifth congress for combatting immorality, held in Geneva, thus expressed itself forcibly and correctly against the state regulation of vice: “The obligatory medical examination of prostitutes is a cruel punishment to the woman, for in those who are subjected to it the last remnant of modesty that may still exist in the most depraved, is forcibly destroyed. The state that seeks to regulate prostitution by police control forgets that it owes equal protection to both sexes, it degrades and demoralizes the woman. Every system of official regulation of vice permits of arbitrary police rule and leads to the infringement of personal safety against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, against which even the lowest criminal is guarded. As these encroachments occur only at the expense of the woman, they lead to an unnatural inequality between her and the man. The woman is degraded to a mere object and is no longer treated as a person.She is excluded from the law.”
How little police and medical control avail has been strikingly shown in England. Before the beginning of official regulation, in the year 1867, the number of venereal diseases in the army were, according to a military report, 91 per 1,000. In 1886, after the regulation had been in effect for nineteen years they were 110 per 1,000. In 1892, six years after the regulation laws had been repealed they were only 79 per 1,000. Among civilians the cases of syphilis were 10 per 1,000 during the years 1879 to 1882, that was during the years of public regulation. After the abolition of public regulation, from 1885 to 1889 they were only 8.1 per 1,000.
The prostitutes themselves were far more affected by the regulation laws than the soldiers. In 1866 there were among 1,000 prostitutes, 121 cases of disease. In 1868 after the law had been in force for two years there were 202 cases among 1,000. After that the number gradually decreased, but in 1874 there still were 16 cases more per thousand than in 1866. The death rate among prostitutes also increased appallingly during the reign of that law. When at the close of the sixties of the last century the English government attempted to extend the regulation laws to include all English cities, a storm of indignation arose among English women. They regarded the law as an insult to their entire sex. The habeas corpus, they claimed, that fundamental law which guaranteed protection to every English citizen, was to be abolished for women; every brutal police officer impelled by revenge or other base motives, would be permitted to attack the most respectable woman if he suspected her of being a prostitute, while the licentiousness of men would not be interfered with, but would on the contrary be protected and fostered by law.
The fact that English women under the leadership of Josephine Butler championed the most degraded of their sex, caused ignorant men to misconstrue their intentions and to make insulting remarks about them. But regardless of these attacks they opposed the extension of the obnoxious law with utmost energy. In newspaper articles and pamphlets arguments in favor of it and against it were fully discussed, until its extension was prevented, and in 1886 is wasrepealed.[95]
The German police has a similar power, and sometimes cases have been called to public attention in Berlin, Leipsic, Cologne, Hannover and many other places, showing that abuses or “misunderstandings” easily occur with the exercise of this power, but not much is heard among us of an energetic opposition to such transgressions.[96]In Norway, brothels wereprohibitedin 1888, and in the capital, Christiania, the obligatory registration of prostitutes and the medical examination connected with it wasabolished.In January, 1893, the same ordinance was enacted for the entire country.Very correctlyMrs.Guillaume-Shack says in regard to state “protection” for men: “To what purpose do we teach our sons to respect virtue and morality if the state declares vice to be a necessary evil; if young men, before they have even attained intellectual maturity, are given women stamped like commodities by the public authorities as playthings of their passions?”
A man inflicted with a sexual disease may indulge in unbridled licentiousness and may infect any number of these unfortunate beings, most of whom have been driven by seducers or by bitterest need into this abominable trade. The law leaves him unmolested. But woe to the poor, diseased prostitute who does not immediately submit to medical treatment! The garrison towns, university towns and sea port towns, where many strong, healthy men aggregate, are the chief centers of prostitution and its dangerous diseases, which are disseminated all over the land and everywhere spread suffering and destruction. The moral qualification of a great number ofour students is described in the following manner in the “Gazette for Combatting Public Immorality”[97]: “Among a majority of the students the views concerning moral questions are appallingly base, almost depraved.” From these circles that boast about their “German spirit” and “German morals,” our public officials, prosecutors and judges are obtained. How bad matters must be, especially among students, may be seen from the following: In the fall of 1901, a large group of professors and physicians, among them leading men in their professions, published an appeal to German students, in which they called special attention to the deplorable results of sexual debauchery, and also warned the young men of excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks, which in many cases have a stimulating influence on sexual debauchery. At last people are beginning to recognize that the policy of silence is a mistaken one, and that we must call a spade a spade, if we would check an immeasurable disaster. Among other classes of society also this warning should not remain unheeded.
The Biblical utterance that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon their children applies in its fullest measure to the man afflicted with a sexual disease; unfortunately also to his innocent wife. “Apoplectic strokes among young men and women, forms of paralysis of the spine and softening of the brain, various nervous diseases, weakening of the eye sight, inflammation of the bowels, sterility and general debility are frequently due to no other cause than a neglected case of syphilis, that has, for good reasons been kept secret. As conditions are to-day ignorance and carelessness transform blooming daughters of the nation into weak and sickly creatures who must pay with chronic diseases for the extravagances of their husbands before and outside of marriage.”[98]Dr.A. Blaschko says among other things: “Epidemics like cholera, small pox, diphtheria and typhoid terrify the people, because the suddenness of the results are clearlyvisible to everybody. But syphilis is regarded by society with an appalling indifference. And yet syphilis is far more widespread and much more terrible in its effects than any of the above-mentioned diseases.”[99]The fact that we regard it as “indecent” to discuss such matters, accounts for this indifference. Even the German diet could not bring itself to provide legally for the treatment of persons afflicted with sexual diseases by means of the sick benefit funds, as in the case of otherdiseases.[100]
The poison of syphilis is the most tenacious and the hardest to eradicate of all poisons. Many years after the disease has been apparently cured the evil results frequently manifest themselves in the wife of the diseased or in his new-born children, and countless sicknesses of married women and children are due to the sexual diseases of husbands and fathers. In a petition addressed to the German Parliament in the fall of 1899 by the society “Jugendschutz” (protection of the young) it was stated that there are about 30,000 children in Germany who are blind from birth due to contagion from gonorrhoea, and that among 50 per cent of childless women, sterility is due to the same cause.[101]As a matter of fact an alarmingly large number of marriages is childless, and moreover the number of childless marriages is increasing. Feeble-mindedness and idiocy among children is also not infrequently due to the same cause, and many instances have shown what disasters can be caused with vaccination by a single drop of blood inoculated with the poison of syphilis. The great number of persons suffering from a sexual disease has caused several suggestions to be made for the enactment ofa national law providing special treatment for persons so afflicted. But until now no such step was taken, probably because one feared the enormity of the evil that would then become manifest. Medical authorities have generally gained the conviction, that gonorrhoea, which was formerly regarded as harmless, is one of the most dangerous of these diseases. This disease continues to act upon the human system even after it has been apparently cured. AsDr.Blaschko reported in a lecture in Berlin on the 20th of February, 1898, the medical examinations of prostitutes reveal only one-fourth, or at best one-third of the actual number of cases. As a matter of fact, the overwhelmingly great majority of prostitutes are afflicted with this disease, while only a small percentage of the cases are properly diagnosed. Of those in whom the disease is recognized it is again only a small percentage with whom a permanent cure is effected. Here society is confronted by an evil for which it has no remedy as yet, but which is an imminent peril to mankind, especially to its female half.
[90]Paul Kampffmeyer—Prostitution as a social class phenomenon and the social and political struggleagainst it.[91]“When the Farmers’ Association convenes in the Circus Bush, or large conventions are being held in Berlin, there is a rise in price of human flesh.” Satyr—Life at Night in theFriedrich Strasse, Berlin, 1907.[92]Handbook of Hygiene, published byTh.Weyl,M. D.Hygiene of Prostitution and Venereal Diseases, compiled byDr.A. Blaschko, Berlin.[93]“As a matter of fact the system of regulation does not successfully fight the venereal diseases, nor even noticeably diminish them. The delusive feeling of safety given to men makes them more reckless. The increase in the number of correlation heightens the danger of contagion by at least as much as it has been diminished by the removal of a few who were seriously diseased.” August Forel—The Sex Question, Munich, 1907.[94]Third report of the royal police department of Berlin for the years 1881 to 1890.[95]The most reliable supporters of the women were the English workingmen. In her famous publication on “The History of a Crusade,” Josephine Butler says: “We resolved to appeal to the nation. In the fall of 1869 we sent personal letters to every member of Parliament of both houses and to many other leaders of political and religious parties. Of all the replies received only very few expressed complete agreement with our point of view. As we obtained so little encouragement from those circles whose interest we had hoped to win, we turned to the working class population of the country. I am conscious of the fact that the working class has its faults and is no less devoid of egotism than other classes of the population. But I am firmly convinced that when the people are appealed to in the name of justice they almost invariably show a loyal and reliable conviction.”[96]In 1901 it occurred in Vienna that a French lady was abused by the police agent, Newhofer, amidst the shouts of a mob, was imprisoned among prostitutes and subjected to a forcible medical examination. This case led to five interpellations in the diet. In 1902 in Hamburg and Kiel ladies were arrested as prostitutes and were treated with brutality. These occurrences led to a gigantic meeting of protest in Hamburg on September 8, that was attended by members of all parties.[97]August 15, 1893, Berlin.[98]The detrimental results of prostitution.Dr.Oscar Lassar, Berlin, 1892, August Hirschwald.[99]Treatment of sexual diseases in sick benefit fund institutions and hospitals, Berlin, 1890.[100]The ordinance of the insurance laws which enabled communities to refuse the payment of sick benefits in cases of sexual diseases was repealed by a law on May 25, 1903, that went into effect January 1, 1904.[101]Examinations in asylums for the blind showed that the following number of persons were blind from birth through infection: Berlin, 21.3; Vienna, 31; Breslau, 35.1; Budapest, 47.9; Munich, 73.8.—Th.Weyl, Social Hygiene, Jena, 1904.
[90]Paul Kampffmeyer—Prostitution as a social class phenomenon and the social and political struggleagainst it.
[91]“When the Farmers’ Association convenes in the Circus Bush, or large conventions are being held in Berlin, there is a rise in price of human flesh.” Satyr—Life at Night in theFriedrich Strasse, Berlin, 1907.
[92]Handbook of Hygiene, published byTh.Weyl,M. D.Hygiene of Prostitution and Venereal Diseases, compiled byDr.A. Blaschko, Berlin.
[93]“As a matter of fact the system of regulation does not successfully fight the venereal diseases, nor even noticeably diminish them. The delusive feeling of safety given to men makes them more reckless. The increase in the number of correlation heightens the danger of contagion by at least as much as it has been diminished by the removal of a few who were seriously diseased.” August Forel—The Sex Question, Munich, 1907.
[94]Third report of the royal police department of Berlin for the years 1881 to 1890.
[95]The most reliable supporters of the women were the English workingmen. In her famous publication on “The History of a Crusade,” Josephine Butler says: “We resolved to appeal to the nation. In the fall of 1869 we sent personal letters to every member of Parliament of both houses and to many other leaders of political and religious parties. Of all the replies received only very few expressed complete agreement with our point of view. As we obtained so little encouragement from those circles whose interest we had hoped to win, we turned to the working class population of the country. I am conscious of the fact that the working class has its faults and is no less devoid of egotism than other classes of the population. But I am firmly convinced that when the people are appealed to in the name of justice they almost invariably show a loyal and reliable conviction.”
[96]In 1901 it occurred in Vienna that a French lady was abused by the police agent, Newhofer, amidst the shouts of a mob, was imprisoned among prostitutes and subjected to a forcible medical examination. This case led to five interpellations in the diet. In 1902 in Hamburg and Kiel ladies were arrested as prostitutes and were treated with brutality. These occurrences led to a gigantic meeting of protest in Hamburg on September 8, that was attended by members of all parties.
[97]August 15, 1893, Berlin.
[98]The detrimental results of prostitution.Dr.Oscar Lassar, Berlin, 1892, August Hirschwald.
[99]Treatment of sexual diseases in sick benefit fund institutions and hospitals, Berlin, 1890.
[100]The ordinance of the insurance laws which enabled communities to refuse the payment of sick benefits in cases of sexual diseases was repealed by a law on May 25, 1903, that went into effect January 1, 1904.
[101]Examinations in asylums for the blind showed that the following number of persons were blind from birth through infection: Berlin, 21.3; Vienna, 31; Breslau, 35.1; Budapest, 47.9; Munich, 73.8.—Th.Weyl, Social Hygiene, Jena, 1904.