In reference to the classes from which the ranks of the common women in Hamburg are recruited, Dr. Lippert states that four fifths are from the agricultural districts of the vicinity; that they live as house-servants, tavern-waiters, or in other callings for a time, and then become prostitutes “as a matter of business.” Without any desire to controvert his opinion on local questions, it may be doubted whether bad example, vicious education, ignorance of moral or religious obligations, or temptation, are not sufficient to account for their fall, aside from this sweeping denunciation, this commercial view of the question, opposed as it is to all experience in every civilized country where any inquiries on the subject have been made.
The private prostitutes, whether registered or unregistered, are mainly seamstresses or others dependent upon daily labor. These women seem to retain some natural sense of the disgrace attached to open and avowed courtesans, and in their secrecy and quiet retain a few feminine characteristics of which the common brothel woman is destitute.
We have no reliable detail of private unregistered prostitution, or of mere houses of accommodation in Hamburg; but an important fact is to be found in the number of illegitimate children, and the decrease, in proportion to the population, of the number of marriages. The following results are taken from Neddermeyer’s “Statistics and Topography of Hamburg.”
| In 1799, | the | marriages | were | about | 1 | in | 45; |
| From 1826 to 1835, | " | " | " | " | 1 | " | 97; |
| In 1840, | " | " | " | " | 1 | " | 100. |
The proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children is about 1 to 5, the actual number of illegitimate births being as follows:
| Years | Illegitimate Births. | |
| 1826 | 649 | |
| 1827 | 606 | |
| 1828 | 723 | |
| 1829 | 801 | |
| 1830 | 786 | |
| 1831 | 805 | |
| 1832 | 926 | |
| 1833 | 867 | |
| 1834 | 846 | |
| 1835 | 730 | |
| 1836 | 807 | |
| 1837 | 771 | |
| 1838 | 762 | |
| 1839 | 765 | |
| 1840 | 754 | |
| 1841 | 749 | |
| 1842 | 702 | |
| 1843 | 655 | |
| 1844 | 797 | |
| 1845 | 778 | |
| 1846 | 779 |
| The | population | of | Hamburg | was | in | 1826 | 100,902 | ||
| " | " | " | " | 1840 | 124,967 | ||||
| " | " | " | " | 1846 | 130,000 | or upward was assumed as the number. |
We have now to examine the physiological and pathological peculiarities of the Hamburg prostitutes.
The police regulations require that no registered woman shall be under twenty years of age; but in this they have a discretionary power, so as to keep under inspection and supervision some younger girls whom neither the work-house nor prison can reclaim, the experience of the Hamburg authorities having convinced them that such punitive institutions are seldom successful in the work of reformation; a truth which will, ere long, be more generally acknowledged, especially in reference to abandoned women, than it is at the present day.