The registered women are designated as “Brothel women” (Bordell dirnen), who live in licensed houses; as “Private women” (für sich wohnende dirnen) when they live by themselves, in which case their landlords are mostly mechanics, hucksters, or laundresses; and the common “Street-walkers” (Strassen dirnen), who ply their trade in the streets, and find shelter in the abodes of indigence and misery. These last are the lowest grade of the registered women.
Most of the brothels (bordelle) are in the oldest parts of the city, to which they were originally limited, but the leading houses may be found in the Schwieger strasse, a street of moderate traffic in a good neighborhood. Here the women are seated at the windows, conspicuously dressed up and prepared for the public eye, making themselves known to passengers by their gestures and salutations. Some of these houses accommodate as many as fourteen inmates. They are well supplied with good mahogany furniture and fine draperies, and are neat and elegant throughout. The women are generally from twenty to twenty-five years old, and are attractively dressed and decorated. The venereal disease is very rare among this class, great attention being paid to personal cleanliness, and the bath very frequently used. The men who visit this neighborhood consist of merchants, the richer public and business employés, officers, and especially the numerous commercial men who resort to Hamburg at all seasons of the year.
The denizens of the Dammthorwall, the Drehbahm, and Ulricas strasse lead but a dull life, as it is the custom in those localities for the women to sit at the windows all day. Their great diurnal event is the visit of the hair-dresser (friseurian), who, while contributing to the adornment of the person, a very serious affair, owing to the quantity of false hair required, and the necessity of making to-day’s effect vary from yesterday’s, also retails the latest items of interesting news or scandal. Whenever any of these women go out to walk, it is customary for the keeper to send together two who are at variance with each other, so as to establish a mutual check. The hair-dressing and walk over, the next important occurrence is dinner, after which they spend their time solely at the doors or windows.
The hours of closing in these first and second rate brothels are not so strictly enforced by the police as in the lower parts. Occasionally the women are allowed to visit the balls at the celebrated Hall of Mirrors, or other well-known dancing saloons in the vicinity.
In first-rate houses the accounts between the keeper and the women are but little understood. As already observed, some of them hire their clothes; others purchase from the landlord on credit, and he charges accordingly; but these matters trouble the women very slightly. If they leave one house to reside in another, the new keeper pays the old one’s bill; if a woman abandons prostitution entirely, the host’s demand is totally irrecoverable.
In the second and third rate houses the charges for board and lodging are better understood. It will average about twenty marks (five dollars) a week, washing, fire, and light being extra charges. The keeper will supply fortunate or attractive women with articles of dress to any reasonable amount, but his liberality is restricted toward those who have fewer visitors. His endeavor is to keep all in debt, and in this he is usually successful. Their ornaments are usually the property of the landlord, and form a common stock distributed among his boarders in the manner best calculated to increase or display their powers of fascination, and resumed by him at discretion.
Passing over some intermediate classes of brothels, which present no remarkable characteristics, to those in the Gangen, we find the lowest grade of registered houses and registered women. Most of these are drinking-shops, and the police exercise the right of determining the prices to be charged for liquors. Here may frequently be seen host, guests, and girls, drinking and frolicking together in a small back room, where scenes of gross indelicacy (to use a mild term) frequently take place. The women in this district have literally to work hard, and are generally required to perform all the domestic labor of the establishment. In winter it is a common occurrence for them to take a shovel and clear the snow and ice from the pavement in front of their domicile. Like others of their calling, they are seldom out of the landlord’s debt, their board costing them from ten to fourteen marks weekly (say three to four dollars). Washing, fire, and light cost a dollar more, and the hair-dresser’s charge is about fifty cents. In addition to this, they must pay the weekly medical and monthly police tax. They spend a miserably monotonous existence, seldom leaving the house for weeks or even months, except when they are required to visit the doctors or the police. Their visitors are from the roughest and most animalized of the population, and the treatment they receive is merely that of purchasable commodities, intended to supply the grosser wants of men whose lives are centred in sensuality. Like their compeers of the St. Paul Suburb, they are usually women of great strength and endurance, but soon degenerate into mere passive, passionless tools. Could it be imagined that they were of reflective habits, it would be impossible to conceive a more severe punishment than their own sense of the degradation, the total loss of all womanly feelings, exhibited in their daily existence.
The brothel-keepers, among whom are some Jews, have no striking peculiarities as a class. It has been already shown that both sexes are engaged in the hideous trade, and, despite the police regulations and restrictions, the obligations and disabilities under which they are placed, it is undoubtedly a most lucrative occupation. The rental of a registered house is usually double the ordinary charge for similar tenements. There are some keepers who own the houses in which they live. In their liabilities must be included the regulation which makes them responsible for thefts committed in their houses, and for any violence or disorder which may take place there, the penalties for which are fine, imprisonment, and loss of license. They also sustain considerable losses from the repentance of some of their inmates; but, in spite of all untoward circumstances, they contrive to make money rapidly.
The period during which they continue in business is uncertain, many of them continuing their houses from inclination long after they have accumulated sufficient property to retire. Of the female keepers some are young and handsome, but these do not find much favor with their women, who dread the effects of an opposition. They are rarely married, but cohabit with some man for the sake of his protection. Among these pro tempore husbands are some whose qualifications and previous positions render it surprising that they should consent to purchase existence from so polluted a source.
The housekeepers of the Hamburger Berg are not only under a separate municipal jurisdiction, but are in themselves a different class of people. They are mostly men, their dealings being principally with sailors, and their visitors sometimes demanding more physical strength than a woman could command to restrain them within the prescribed limits. Their houses are but indifferently furnished, and the whole arrangements are very humble and unpretending in character. A few years ago fatal quarrels were not uncommon among their customers, but this pugnacious tendency has been materially checked by a stricter and more constant police visitation. Even now, jealousy will sometimes cause a furious contest between two of the hardy sons of Neptune. The singular fidelity of some sailors to particular women will account for this. When a man returns from a long voyage, he is desirous of paying his attentions to the female who has before shared his affections and his wages, and if he finds her under the protection of another man, the natural result is a trial of strength as to who shall be the possessor of the beauty in dispute. These tournaments, or the general fray which sometimes arises at the close of the Sunday evening dance, require to be subdued by no gentle means: hearty blows are far more effectual peace-makers than words or threats.