Hamburg.
Hamburg, from its peculiar situation and the extent of its commerce, may be considered one of the great centres of trade at present existing in the world, and for that reason it deserves more than a cursory glance or a casual notice.
Documents drawn up during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries relating to public women are still in a state of preservation.
There is a Code Municipal for the city of Hamburg (1292), which contains the most ancient regulations of this description.
The 17th, 18th, 19th, and 30th of this code regulates in detail the costume of women of ill-fame and the districts where they are allowed to dwell. Their number is not chronicled, but it appears to have been considerable.
The contractors or speculators in women were by successive enactments heavily taxed in 1562: the sum fixed for each woman was from 75 talents to the extraordinary sum of 569; but this is explained by an urgent want on the part of the municipality.
The provisions of the ancient code were maintained up to 1603, when laws of unexampled rigour were passed. Brothels were closed, women and their paramours were publicly exposed, and, as far as possible, outlawed.
In order to describe the state of prostitution in the 19th century we must call the attention of our readers to an enactment of the year 1807: it is of some length, and we have only extracted briefly from it.
1. Every person who lodges women must send to the pretor’s office a list of the names of people living there, with their age, their birthplace, and the time of their entering the establishment.
2. When a new girl arrives she must be presented at the office.
3. When a woman leaves, the office must be informed of the fact in writing, and her new abode pointed out.
4. The landlord or landlady must particularly impress upon the lodgers not to have connection with men having a contagious malady.
5. When a woman discovers herself to be infected she must intimate the circumstance to her landlord, and abstain from practising her avocation, under pain of severe punishment.
6. The employer who makes the lodger infringe this regulation subjects himself to imprisonment and the pillory.
11. The landlord must look carefully after the health of his lodgers, who must submit to a surgical examination by the municipal physician every fifteen days, and follow his advice punctiliously.
17. Landlords are forbidden to attract foreign women by false promises who have not yet been debauched.
18. The same penalties are inflicted by the law upon a brothel-keeper who prevents a repentant woman from leaving her course of living.
19. Intoxicated men are not to be robbed, but to pay simply the charge put down in the general tariff.
A short time afterwards the French occupied the city, when this edict was repealed and another substituted in its place in the year 1811.
In 1834 the position of women and brothels was regulated, an account of which may be seen in the blue book.
It will be nothing new if we remark that marriage seems to be on the decrease in every populous city, and especially in Hamburg, as we had occasion to notice before.
In 1825 and 1826, among 208 marriages one can count no less than 108 women accouched three or four months after marriage.
We subjoin a table of illegitimate births in proportion to legitimate marriages:—
| Years. | Legitimate Children. | Natural Children. |
|---|---|---|
| 1701—1715 | 16 | 81 |
| 1780—1790 | 11 | 1 |
| 1790—1800 | 9 | 1 |
| 1800—1811 | 7 | 1 |
| and from 1836—1846 | one in five. | |
There are many foreign women in Hamburg, for among 512 women inscribed at the prefecture in 1846, 101 only were born in the city. Many girls are, in point of fact, known prostitutes, though not positively known as such to the authorities, for they must have the consent of their parents before they can be inscribed, which gives a larger number of strangers, who are fettered by no such restrictions.
Holstein, Prussia, and above all Brunswick and Hanover, contribute more than any other countries. Austria and France are unrepresented.
At Hamburg a woman who is in want of money may make more by a single act of indiscretion than by an entire week of labour.
It may be interesting to state the ages of the women inscribed in 1844 at the office of police:—
| 16 | women | were less | than 20 | |
| 401 | „ | „ from | 20 to 30 | |
| 74 | „ | „ | 30 to 40 | |
| 11 | „ | „ | 40 to 50 | |
| Total | 502 |
The police regulations to prevent young girls not yet twenty from abandoning themselves are, as these statistics prove, totally insufficient.
The Hamburg women are generally, thanks to their strong constitutions, healthy and robust. It is remarkable that the public women possess better teeth than the rest of the feminine population.
Syphilis is not so virulent as in former times or in some other cities, and is, as the annexed hospital returns evidence, upon the decline amongst men.
| In | 1843 | there were | 355 | men infected. |
| 1844 | „ | 335 | „ | |
| 1845 | „ | 316 | „ |
The way in which women of ill-fame at Hamburg end their career offers nothing remarkable: some marry, some adopt different professions, sufficiently lowly; they sell flowers, for instance, they keep cabarets, and not often houses of evil repute, a very small number become domestic servants, and some die in prison, where they have been sent to expiate an offence against the laws.
Registered women may accost persons of the male sex neither by day nor night, may show no light in their rooms unless behind drawn curtains, nor receive men under twenty years of age, nor be in the streets unaccompanied after 11 P.M., under penalties, both to herself and the landlord of the house she lives in, of from two to eight days’ imprisonment on bread and water diet. She is also strictly forbidden, when out of doors, by any speech or gesture to indicate her object.
The examination with the speculum, which takes place at home twice a week, is conducted by a staff of three medical officers and an inspector of police, who sign the bill of health or remit the individual to the hospital forthwith, as the case may be.
Marriage seems to be on the decline in Hamburg, for in 1840 there was only one marriage among every one hundred of the population.