In another local paper we find:
“Prostitution, which had previously kept out of sight in dark and retired corners, now came forward boldly and openly; for it found protection and countenance in the large number of its supporters, and no police care could restrain it. The prostitutes did not merely traverse the streets and frequent the public thoroughfares to hunt their prey, thereby insulting virtuous women and putting them to the blush, they crowded the fashionable promenades, the concerts, the theatres, and other places of amusement, where they claimed the foremost places, and set the fashion of the hour. They were conspicuous for their brilliant toilettes, and their example was pre-eminently captivating and pernicious to the youth of both sexes.”
From a work called “Berlin,” by Sass, we obtain the annexed view of
PUBLIC LIFE IN BERLIN.
“No city in Germany can boast of the splendid ball-rooms of Berlin. One in particular, near the Brandenburg gate and the Parade-ground, is remarkable for its size, and presents a magnificent exterior, especially in the evening, when hundreds of lamps stream through the windows and light up the park in front. The interior is of corresponding splendor, and when the vast hall resounds with the music of the grand orchestra, and is filled with a gay crowd rustling in silks or satins, or lounging in the hall, or whirling in the giddy waltz, it is certainly a scene to intoxicate the youth who frequent it in search of adventure, or to drink in the poison of seductive and deceiving, although bright and fascinating eyes. Should the foreigner visit this scene on one of its gay nights, he may get a glimpse of the depths of Berlin life. Many a veil is lifted here. This splendid scene has its dark side. This is not respectable Berlin. This whirling, laughing crowd is frivolous Berlin, whether of wealth, extravagance, and folly, or of poverty, vice, and necessity. The prostitute and the swindler are on every side. Formerly the female visitors were of good repute, but gradually courtesans and women of light character slipped in, until at length no lady could be seen there. And the aforesaid foreigner, who lounges through the rooms, admiring the elegant and lovely women who surround him in charge of some highly respectable elderly person, an ‘aunt,’ or a ‘chaperone,’ or possibly in company with her ‘newly-married husband,’ seeks to know the names and position of such evident celebrity and fashion. ‘Do not you know her? Any police officer can tell you her history,’ are the replies he receives. There is a class of men at this place who perform a function singular to the uninitiated. These worthies are the ‘husbands’ of the before-mentioned ladies. They play the careless or the strict cavalier; are Blue-beards on occasion; appear or keep out of sight, according to the proprieties of the moment.”
From the same writer we extract the following sketch of a
DANCING SALOON.
“The price of admission is ten groschen (about twenty cents), which insures a company who can pay. The male public are of all conditions, and include students, clerks, and artists, with, of course, a fair share of rogues and pickpockets. The majority of the women are prostitutes: there may be found girls of rare beauty, steeped to the lips in all the arts of iniquity. The philosopher may see life essentially in the same grade as in the last description, but in a somewhat less artificial condition. Scenes of bacchant excitement and of wildest abandonment may be witnessed here. The outward show is all mirth and happiness; pleasure unrestrained seems the business of the place. Turn the picture. The most showy of the costumes are hired; the gayety is for a living; the liberty is licentiousness. These creatures, who, all blithesome as they seem, the victims of others who fleece them of every thing they can earn, are now engaged in securing victims from whom they may wring the gains which are to pay the hire of their elegant dresses, or furnish means for further excesses, or perhaps to pay for their supper that evening. It is the fashion of the place for each gentleman to invite a lady to supper, where the quantity of wine drunk is incredible. How many a young man has to trace not merely loss of cash and health to such a place, but also loss of honor! The ladies who have no such agreeable partners sit apart, sullen and discontented; oftentimes they have no money to pay for their own refreshments. Pair by pair the crowd diminishes, until toward three or four o’clock, when the place is closed.”
The lowest dancing-houses are the Tanz wirthschaften, inferior to the saloons, where (again quoting)
“The dance is carried to its wildest excess, to ear-splitting music in a pestilential atmosphere. The poor are extravagant; drunkenness and profligacy abound. Servants of both sexes, soldiers and journeymen, workwomen and prostitutes, make up the public. Here, on the most frivolous pretenses, concubinage and marriage are arranged, and from this scene of folly and vice the family is ushered to the world. The wet-nurse is met here, “the type of country simplicity,” who, after a night of tumult and uproar with her lover, will go in the morning to nurse the child whose mother neglects her parental duties at the dictates of fashion. The working classes have their representatives, who drown their cares in drink, while boys and girls make up the motley party. In these assemblies there is a difference. Some are attended by citizens of the humbler classes, by working men and women; others by criminals and their paramours. In these latter resorts the excesses are of a more frightful character than in those where a show of decency restrains the grosser exhibitions; youth of both sexes are among the well-known criminals, who are habituated to smoking, drinking, and the wildest orgies, long before their frames have attained a proper development. Physiognomies which might have sprung from the most hideous fancy of poet or painter may be met with.”