Under such conditions the traffic in women assumes huge dimensions. It is carried on in the midst of civilization on a large scale and in a well organized manner, and is but rarely detected by the police. An army of male and female jobbers, agents and transporters carry on the trade in as cold-blooded a manner as if they were bartering a commodity. Certificates are made out that contain an exact description and qualification of the various “pieces” and are handed to the transporters as a bill of lading for the customer. As with all merchandise, the price varies according to the quality, and the “goods” are assorted and shipped from different places and countries according to the taste and requirements of the customers. By skilful manipulations the traders seek to escape the pursuit of the police, and sometimes large sums are employed to bribe the guardians of law and order. A number of such cases have been revealed in Paris.[105]
To Germany belongs the deplorable reputation of being a market for women to half the world. The rambling spirit, which is innate in the German people, also seems to affect a portion of the German women, so that they furnish a larger quota to international prostitution than the women of other nations, with the exception of Austria and Hungary. German women populate the harems of the Turks and the public brothels in the interior of Siberia and as far as Bombay, Singapore, San Francisco and Chicago. In his book on travel “From Japan, through Siberia to Germany,” the author, W. Joest, says the following about the German white-slave trade: “In our moral Germany, people often grow indignant over the slave trade carried on by some negra sovereign in western Africa, or over conditions in Cuba or Brazil, while we ought to consider the beam in our own eye. In no other country of the world white slaves are bartered to the same extent, from no other countries are such large quantities of this living merchandise shipped as from Germany and Austria. The course taken by these girls can be clearly traced. From Hamburg they are shipped to South America, Bahie, Rio de Janeiro; the greater part are bound for Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, while a few go through the Straits of the Magellan to Valparaiso. Another stream is directed over England to North America, but there competition with the domestic product is unfavorable to the trade, so the girls are shipped down the Mississippi to Texas and Mexico. From New Orleans the coasts down to Panama are furnished. Other troops of girls are sent across the Alps to Italy and on to Alexandria, Suez, Bombay, even to Hongkong and Shanghai, Dutch India and eastern India, especially Japan are poor markets, because Holland will not tolerate white girls of this sort in its colonies, and because in Japan the native girls are far too pretty and cheap. Moreover, the trade must reckon with American competition from San Francisco. Russia is supplied by eastern Prussia, Pomerania and Poland. The first station is Riga. Here the dealers from St. Petersburg and Moscow assort their merchandise and send it in great quantities to Nishny Novgorod across the Ural Mountains to Irbit and Krestowsky and even into the interior of Siberia. In Tschita, for instance, I met a German girl who had been traded in this way. This trade is thoroughly organized—agents and traveling salesmen carry on the negotiations. If the foreign office of the German Empire would ask its consuls for reports on this trade interesting tables might be compiled.”
That this traffic is flourishing, has been repeatedly stated by Socialist deputies in the German Parliament.
Other centers of the white-slave trade are Galicia and Hungary, from where women are sent to Constantinople and other Turkish cities. Especially many Jewesses, who are otherwise rarely met with in public brothels are bartered to the Turks. The prices for the journey and other expenses are usually paid to the agents in advance. In order to deceive the public authorities, fictitious telegrams, that are not likely to attract attention, are sent to the customer. Some of these telegrams read: “Five kegs of Hungarian wine will arrive in Varna to-morrow,” meaning five beautiful girls; or “Have shipped three barrels of potatoes by S. S. Minerva.” This refers to three less beautiful girls: “Common goods.” Another telegram reads: “Will arrive next Friday per S. S. Kobra; have two bales of fine silk on board.”
[102] “What the street engulfs.” Social novel in 3 vols., Berlin. A. Hoffmann & Co.
[103] Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell—The Moral Education.
[104] Mantegazza—L’Amour Dans L’Humanitè.
[105] The relation of the police to prostitution is an interesting one in more than one respect. In 1899 it was shown in a trial in Berlin that a police commissioner employed a prostitute to watch and question a student whom he suspected of being an anarchist. In Prague the wife of a common policeman had her license for maintaining a disorderly house revoked because her husband had ill-treated a prisoner. So the police rewards its officers by giving them licenses for the maintenance of disorderly houses. What lovely conditions!