When all these conditions are fulfilled, the applicant receives a pass-book, in which the number of girls she is allowed to keep is specified. In this book she is bound to enter the name of every prostitute she receives, whether as a boarder or a transient lodger; her age, the date of her entry into her house, the date of her inspection by a physician, and the date of her departure from the house. A printed form in the beginning of the pass-book reminds the mistress of the house that she is bound, under heavy penalties, to inscribe on the police rolls every girl she receives within twenty-four hours of her arrival.
In the event of the neglect of these rules by the keepers of houses of prostitution, the license is revoked. It is understood that the police enforce this regulation with due rigor.
Much has been said and written about the manner in which the keepers of houses of prostitution obtain recruits. M. Parent-Duchatelet, whose sources of information were the best, gives it as his opinion that most of the prostitutes are obtained from the hospitals, especially the Hospital du Midi, where female venereal diseases are treated. It appears that this hospital and others are haunted by old women who have been prostitutes, and who, in their old age, eke out a livelihood by enticing others into the same calling. They soon discover the antecedents and disposition of every young girl they find in hospitals; and if she be pretty or engaging, she must either have much principle or careful friends to rescue her from the clutches of the old hags. While she lies ill on a bed of pain, the latter are constantly with her, and gain her friendship. They know the devices that are needed to impose on her simplicity, and not unfrequently are enabled to strengthen their promises by small donations in money, or a weekly stipend during her convalescence. For a pretty girl as much as fifty francs will be paid by a brothel-keeper. As the girls in France, with few exceptions, come to Paris to be cured when they have contracted disease from association with lovers, it seems quite likely that, as M. Parent-Duchatelet supposes, these hospitals are a fruitful source of prostitutes.
Other brothel-keepers have female agents in the country towns, who send them girls. One well-known woman, who kept for many years one of the largest establishments in France, employed a traveling clerk with a large salary. Some obtain boarders from their own province or native city; others, who have followed a trade, get recruits from the acquaintances they made at the workshop. Latterly, it would seem, pimps have carried on their trade with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was noticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from Rheims. They all came provided with the name and address of the houses to which they were destined, and drove there from the stage-office. Information was sent to the police authorities of Rheims, and on their arrival the girls were sent back again. The design of the authorities was baffled for a while by the cunning of the pimps, who sent their recruits round by other roads; but the police finally triumphed by refusing, for a year or two, to inscribe any prostitutes from Rheims.
It is notorious, however, that the same traffic is carried on at the present day to an alarming extent between London and Paris, London and Brussels, and other large cities in the neighborhood. Several societies have been formed, and the police have made great exertions to suppress the trade, but without any particular success.
It is understood that the prostitutes of Paris receive nothing for their “labors” but their board, lodging, and dress. The latter is often expensive. In first-class houses it will exceed five hundred francs, which in female attire will go as far at Paris as five hundred dollars will in New York. The whole of the fees exacted from visitors goes to the mistress, and the girls are reluctantly permitted to retain the presents they sometimes receive from their lovers. They are usually in debt to the mistress, who, having no other means of retaining them under her control, hastens to advance them money for jewelry, carriages, fine eating, and expensive wines. No written contract binds them to remain where they are; they may leave when they please, if they can pay their debts; and the obligation they incur for the latter is one of honor only, and can not be enforced in the courts.
Houses of prostitution, when well conducted, are very profitable in Paris. It is estimated that the net profits accruing from each girl ought to be ten francs or more per day. Many keepers of houses have retired with from ten to twenty-five thousand francs a year, and have married their daughters well. The good-will of a popular house has been sold for sixty thousand francs (twelve thousand dollars).
We now come to the great feature of the Paris system: the inscription of prostitutes in a department of the Prefecture of Police, called the Bureau des Mœurs. It seems that some sort of inscription was in use before the Revolution, but no law referring to it, or records of the rolls, can be found. Various systems were employed during the Republic and the Empire. The one now in use was adopted in 1816, and amended by a police regulation of 1828.
Prostitutes are inscribed either
1. On their own request;