“27. A keeper punishable for the disease of a man in his house, and liable for the charges of cure.”
The remaining sections relate to the collection of the tax; the penalties for violation are fine and imprisonment.
Having thus briefly sketched the progress of legislation on prostitution in Hamburg, based upon the principle that “prostitution is a necessary evil, and, as such, must be endured under strict supervision of the authorities,” it seems an appropriate place to copy the following remarks of an eminent local writer:
“That brothels are an evil no one can deny; still, the arguments against the sufferance of brothels are, except as to that incontestable truth, no answer to the ‘necessity,’ which is the very gist of the thing, and which necessity is based on the uncontrollable nature of sexual intercourse, and on the circumstances of our social condition.”
“The sufferance of brothels is necessary,
“1. For the repression of profligacy, of private prostitution as well as of its kindred crimes, adultery, rape, abortion, infanticide, and all kinds of illicit gratification of sexual passion. The latter cases occur very rarely with us. Of Pæderasty or Sodomy we find but few instances; and of that unnatural intercourse of women with each other, referred to by Parent-Duchatelet as common among the Parisian girls, we find no trace.”
“The sufferance of brothels operates to the suppression of private prostitution, in so far as brothel-keepers and the ‘inscribed’ women are, for their own interest, opposed to it, and are serviceable to the police in its detection. Unquestionably, private prostitution is an incalculably greater evil than public vice.”
“2. On grounds of public policy in regard to health. It is quite erroneous to suppose that these legalized brothels contribute to the spread of syphilitic maladies. This should rather be imputed to the private prostitution which would ensue on the breaking up of the brothels, and from which that medical police supervision that now limits the spread of infection would, of course, be withdrawn. The experience of all time proves that, by means of secret prostitution, the intensity and virulence of venereal disorders have been aggravated, to the multiplication of those appalling examples familiar to every medical reader, and which cause one to shudder with horror; while numerically, disease and its consequences have been carried into every class of society. It is precisely our knowledge of these very facts which has induced the sufferance, or, rather, the regulation of these brothels.”
“3. Suppression is ABSOLUTELY IMPRACTICABLE, inasmuch as the evil is rooted in an unconquerable physical requirement. It would seem as if the zeal against public brothels implied that by their extinction a limitation of sexual intercourse, except in marriage, would be effected. This is erroneous, for reliable details prove that for every hundred brothel women there would be two hundred private prostitutes, and no human power could prevent this. In a great city and frequented sea-port like Hamburg, the hope of amending this would be purely chimerical.”
Thus much for Hamburg legislation, and the sound arguments in its favor. We will now give some facts illustrative of the vice as it exists at the present time, using a pamphlet by Dr. Lippert, entitled “Prostitution in Hamburg. 1848.”