Berne.
The peculiar customs of the Swiss during the middle ages give an unusual character to the immorality of this country. In the canton of Berne, it was the ordinary custom of the young men to make nocturnal visits in troops to the girls of their acquaintance, generally living in the same village. These visits were made for the purpose of contracting intimate relations, and usually succeeded in doing so. Thus intrigue almost invariably preceded marriage, and it was no unusual thing for the christening of the first-born to take place immediately after the marriage of its parents.
“The inconstancy of the human heart,” says M. D’Erlach, “explains why young women often changed their lovers;” so men could go from one girl to another for years without any restriction or interruption on the part of the police.
The use of the bath was established during the middle ages, and although first erected for sanitary reasons it degenerated, as in Germany, into a rendezvous for immoral purposes, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These baths were taken in common, and this promiscuous bathing, and the peculiar dress worn, promoted the lasciviousness both of men and women.
About the end of the fifteenth century the demoralization of the people of Berne had reached its height, when the Emperor Sigismund visited it on his return to Rome. In 1528 the clergy, in spite of their professions, their oaths, and their precepts, surpassed every other class by the most scandalous profligacy. Amongst the houses of ill-fame one had acquired a shameful ascendancy. At the end of the invasion of the Republic by the French this tolerated house was established at No. 13, Rue de l’Arsenal, and it was frequented by all the great men of the day. It was afterwards moved, and placed opposite a church very much frequented by the people. Towards the end of the Helvetian Republic, it was once more translated, on account of the scandal its position occasioned, but it was finally closed in 1828 by a decree of the State Council. Until then there was not a single article of any sort against these places—not a law that bore even remotely upon houses of ill fame.
Notwithstanding the closing of this house, several others have sprung up in retired districts under the name of public baths, and are unmolested by the police, who tacitly acknowledge the fact of their existence and acquiesce in it. The girls in these establishments are engaged under various pretexts; some are supposed to be employed in the kitchen, some take care of the baths, some are housemaids, and look after the bed-rooms—an occupation, it is to be presumed, that most of them find congenial; sometimes they are imagined to be on a visit to the people of the house, at others they are relatives. The keeper of the house employs his own physician to look after the health of the girls; and these are obliged to report to the police if any of them are found infected, when the police make a personal visit, not generally conducive to the advancement of the interests of the master of the house.
Besides the women inhabiting these houses, which are not numerous, there may be 170 or 200 other prostitutes. These appear on the register, and are under the eye of the police.
There are belonging to certain families in the city, and exercising no profession, from 50 to 70 women.
Living in the city without their families, under the pretext of a profession, but without one, 120 to 130.
“These,” says M. D’Erlach, “are our prostitutes, such as one meets in the streets, the squares, &c. As in other towns, they, by their looks, by their provoking deportment, by their dress, and by their glaring colours, endeavour to arrest attention, and entice the passers-by into places where beds may be obtained, or into those public baths which are well known to harbour prostitutes.”
Another class of prostitutes is formed by those who actually have a profession, but unhappily one not sufficiently lucrative to enable them to exist. These, driven by the exigencies of their position, seek in prostitution that which their profession denies them. Among this class we see milliners, dressmakers, shop-girls, and servants. At Berne the household servants send the greatest number of prostitutes into this category. The reason is, that nine-tenths of them come from the country, and are placed in hotels, public-houses, tobacco-shops, &c., and, inexperienced, easily fall a prey to the temptations held out to them.
A few words concerning the places of rendezvous may be instructive. The girls in a certain position who have a profession of some sort, and have no locality adapted for meeting their lovers, have recourse to the public baths. In these baths each chamber has two bathing places: often the rooms communicate with one another by little doors, which facilitates the commerce of the sexes, about which the keeper of the baths is profoundly ignorant.
The legislature, as regards sanitary regulations, is mute. The only thing that can be done is to arrest the girls when it can be proved that they are infected, and they are then sent to prison.
We subjoin some extracts from the law of the 4th June, 1852, respecting drinking-houses and other analogous establishments:—
“Art. 37. The authorities of police and their servants can, in the exercise of their functions, open at any hour of the day or night the inns and other like establishments.
“Art. 39. In cases particularly urgent and important, the Executive Council is authorized to shut any inn or analogous establishment.
“Art. 55. The innkeeper must not permit in his house any infraction of the existing police regulations.”
Innkeepers are further forbidden to allow certain rooms in their houses to be used for immoral purposes.