Thirdly, there are houses where the girls neither live nor sleep, but where they are sure to be found during certain hours of the day. The women dine there, and only return to their families at night. These houses are not numerous, probably there are not more than six or seven in the whole city. To escape the watchfulness of the police, these change their locale; whilst one or two close others open, so that there is no diminution of the evil. They rather affect quiet localities: the steep hilly streets little frequented, such as the rampart of the capitol behind the church of St. Joseph des Menuisiers, or those quarters where strangers who come to pass a season at Rome instal themselves. There are not many women, as a rule, in these houses; generally six and seldom more than eight. They are frequented by young girls, and notoriously by married women. As so many men are obliged to remain bachelors when they take orders, a vast number of women are compelled, against their will, to embrace a life of celibacy. Then, in a country without industry and with very little agriculture, the lower classes have positively no resources to marry upon. There is a disinclination, also, amongst all classes in Rome to have children without possessing the means to educate them as they should be educated. There is quite a passion amongst the ladies in Rome to get married, and they put every art into requisition to effect their end. An irreproachable character is one of the means employed by young unmarried ladies. But once married everything is changed, and their reserve ceases. This change is to be attributed to too much exclusiveness and the restraint imposed on naturally strong and libidinous instincts; at any rate it is a well-established fact at Rome that marriage is productive of the worst passions and the most scandalous intrigues.
These houses are subject to no visits of the sanitary police. If the authorities are cognisant of their existence they take no notice unless the neighbours complain of such immodest residents in their immediate vicinity. Their existence depends in a great measure upon the lowest members of the police force, whose secrecy is often bought by large bribes. If money is refused them, these fellows complain to their superiors, and the extermination of the offending house of accommodation generally ensues.
It is no uncommon thing in England and France to hear the clamour of drunken men and women issuing from those houses—the noise of bacchanal lyrics mingled with oaths and curses, the immodesty of the women joining with the blasphemy of the men; but in Italy it is different. There is a sort of dignity amongst the Italians even in the midst of their debauchery. An anonymous denunciation before the clergy of the parish or the justices that a man was drunk, will often expose the denounced individual to punishment.
The hospital of San Giacomo is set apart for syphilitic maladies, and there the women are treated by the physicians, but unfortunately too late.
Gay women are to be placed in the fourth category. Under this name we include all those who make the sale of their charms a profession. Some are mistresses to foreigners and to natives, and transmit infection from one to the other; the others receive the first comer for a certain stipulated sum. There are a few, however, who only receive those that are known to them or who are well introduced. This is a measure of personal safety; by it they elude the danger of infection, and escape from the supervision of the police.
Syphilis is very prevalent in Rome, more so than in France; and the influence of the climate is much felt in accelerating the approach and increasing the virulence of the disease.
Fifthly. Prostitution in families is one of the most deplorable results of the non-toleration of open houses of ill fame.
This actually goes on under the eyes of the parents; the mother will introduce you to her daughter, and the little brothers will provide you with a ladder to enter the house with.
The love of the far niente is so strong amongst the Italians that labour, when it can be obtained, is odious to them. “La travailleuse,” says M. Jacquot, “chaude encore des baisers adultères sera bien reçue dans l’alcôve conjugale, si elle apporte un bon pécule au bout de la semaine;” and he adds with indignation, “for a long time I refused to believe in the existence of such ignominy, to-day I am only too well convinced.”
An honest woman will on no account be seen in the streets after dark, and a servant will not go into the city from the suburbs after the day has disappeared.