“Here, then, are two things which may be done without opening any visionary trenches. The police may be directed to deal with prostitutes as they do with mendicants, and the centres of pollution may be brought under proper regulation.
“We know well enough that in such a capital as London it is hopeless to expect that vice of this description can be expunged altogether from the catalogue of our national sins, but at least let as many difficulties as possible be thrown in its way. Again: the benevolent persons who have taken it in hand to deal with this monstrous evil assert that the introduction of foreign prostitutes, or, what is still worse, of girls yet uncontaminated, for the purposes of prostitution, might be discouraged much more than it is, perhaps well-nigh totally prevented. Undoubtedly England does not desire free trade in prostitution. Preventive measures upon this subject are surrounded with difficulties; but that is no reason for despair, but one for additional exertion. Very numerous and influential meetings have been held upon this subject, and we augur well of their success. There was no display of ultra-Puritanic rigor, no attempt to deal with impossibilities. The speakers in the main contended that the public exhibition of prostitution might be successfully dealt with, even if the vice were beyond their reach. Our streets, at least, can be purged of the public scandal, the disgraceful night-houses may be deprived of their powers of corruption, the keepers of brothels may be brought under the lash of the law, and the importation of foreign prostitutes may be diminished, if not put down altogether, if the public will take the subject up in earnest. Such were the principal points on which the speakers insisted; at least their views deserve a trial.”
This plan is calculated to restrict prostitution by placing it under surveillance. It requires no additional licensing system, as every public house, wine-shop, or cigar-shop in London, whether kept open at day or night, whether of a respectable or immoral class, requires a license under the excise laws. The proposals just quoted urge that the permission to keep these places of entertainment should be limited, and “given only in the cases of persons who offered some guarantees of their respectability.” It will be necessary for the reader to bear in mind that “night-houses” are not houses of prostitution, but merely resorts for prostitutes, as already mentioned, as, in default of this, a natural construction would be that the Times proposed to license brothels. The two are as distinct as possible, and it would be as consistent to style some of the fashionable oyster-saloons and restaurants of New York houses of ill fame because abandoned women resort to them, as to class the “night-houses” of London in that catalogue. They are simply places for public refreshment in the neighborhoods of theatres, markets, etc., which are permitted to continue open all night in deference to a supposed public requirement, and though, from the character of their visitants, they can not be considered schools of morality or decency, yet no prostitution takes place in them. The interests of the proprietors guard against this, as it would immediately cause the licenses to be revoked, and consequently close the place entirely.
By placing the resorts of London prostitutes under this restriction much would be gained, so far as the public decency of the streets and the transit of passengers are concerned, but no possible check would be imposed on the ravages of disease. The proposition at the meeting to license the brothels would do this, but, as was anticipated by the speaker, “it would be very distasteful to the religious public,” and the act of recognition would be immediately construed as an act of approval, or at least of sanction. That it would not merit this censure must be evident. The only approval or sanction given to the vice would, in fact, consist in saying to the keepers of houses of ill fame: We shall not attempt to close your doors, for we know that would be impossible, but we shall claim the right of entry at any moment to watch your proceedings.
It has ever been an unquestioned policy to choose the least of two evils when you must take one, and if the British government should ever license brothels, they will certainly adopt the theory. To the population of London less danger would inure from this toleration than from the unknown, unwatched courtesans who haunt their streets. Many an apparently respectable man will follow a woman into a house of prostitution when it is conducted quietly and furtively, who would hesitate before he accompanied her into a known and licensed brothel, while many a stranger who may date his physical ruin, and possibly the loss of character and honor, from the hour when he entered a private house of prostitution, would be saved many a bitter memory had an official recognition of its true character met him on its threshold, and intimated that it was the resort of the abandoned and vicious. In London, as in New York, we do not believe that illicit sexual intercourse can be carried to any greater extent than it is now; so no danger of an increase of vice need be apprehended there from any measures calculated to remove some of the ulterior and fatal effects of dissipation.
In contrast to the public display of immorality in the streets of London, is the following description of prostitution in Paris. It is extracted from the foreign correspondence of a New York journal:
“Paris, Thursday, May 27, 1858.
“In a late letter on the subject of the ‘turning-boxes’ of the Foundling Hospitals I spoke of the repugnance of Protestant communities to any official compromise with one sin in order even to destroy a greater; for, that the secret reception of illegitimate children by the state does contribute enormously to the extinction of the crime of infanticide, while it does not generally increase the number of these unfortunate children, is too well shown by statistics to remain longer a question for discussion. But we have another and a more striking example of this repugnance to a collusion with one evil in order to smother out another and a greater in the want of legislation in Protestant countries on the subject of prostitution.
“For many months, as you know, the municipality officers, the church-wardens, and the journals of London have been excited over this very question of prostitution; and no wonder. One need but to leave Paris and fall suddenly in the streets of London at an advanced hour of the evening to comprehend the excitement of its citizens on this subject. To the Frenchman, crossing the Channel is like crossing the River Styx; he falls suddenly into a pandemonium of street disorder and drunken licentiousness for which he is not prepared. He recalls Mery’s terrible picture in ‘Nezim,’ and does not find it overdrawn. He sees nothing like this in his own city, and he is surprised beyond measure, for he has been taught to believe in the Puritanism of Protestant countries.
“When an American or an Englishman, habituated to the revolting night-scenes of New York or London, first arrives in Paris, he is astonished at the absolute absence of similar scenes in our streets. He has, perhaps, arrived here with the impression—most foreigners do—that prostitution, and revelry, and drunken debauchery stalk forth in the day and render hideous the night. But he forgets that he has arrived in a city where there are laws and a police to execute them—in a city where refinement and the proprieties of life are carried to their extreme perfection, and where such license and debauchery as prevails in English and American cities would be an absolute contradiction to the spirit and habits of the people. The reader will please observe that I do not speak of the morals of the people, but of their ideas of decorum and of the proprieties of life; of what is due to decency and an ordinary respect for appearances.