Some of these registered hosts have followed their calling for many years. One noble incident in connection with them must not be omitted. In the severe winter of 1846, the landlord of the “Four Lions,” a brothel-keeper of twenty-four years’ standing, maintained at his own cost, for some months, nearly one hundred poor families, many of them with three or four children each.
In the dance-houses there is music every evening except Saturday; on week-days from six to eleven, and on Sundays from four to eleven. At eleven the music is stopped, and at twelve the house is peremptorily closed. The evenings during the week are comparatively dull affairs, and male visitors are sometimes so scarce that the women are compelled to dance with each other, or sit in inglorious idleness. A scene of the wildest uproar and most uncontrolled mirth is exhibited on Sunday evenings. Every variety of national dance may then be seen—cachucha, reel, jig, contré-dance, waltz, and hornpipe have each their several admirers. Songs and shouts are heard in every conceivable dialect, and the room becomes literally “confusion worse confounded” until the hour arrives for closing.
Of the registered women living by themselves there is little to note. They are more industrious than those in brothels. Many of them have a fixed occupation, but resort to prostitution to increase their income. Money earned in this way is occasionally required for the common necessaries of life, but is more frequently spent in personal gratification, in the way of fine dresses, ornaments, etc., or is appropriated to support the extravagance of some lover, who repays the generosity by a little flattering attention, or an occasional escort to some dancing saloon in the suburbs. The visitors to these women are more select than those to the courtesans hitherto described.
In the lowest ranks of prostitution, the common “street-walkers,” to be met at all times and places, under all circumstances and of all ages, we find the most prolific sources of infection. A certain, though very small remnant of decency, seconded by the invaluable watchfulness of the police, secures the visitor from disease among the inmates of registered houses, but the street-walker is under no such control. Young girls scarcely more than children, old women almost grandmothers, ply their frightful trade on the “walls” around the city, and in other obscure places, where a trifling present will purchase their caresses. Their principal customers are young boys and very old men, their practices being continued under the shades of evening until the arrival of the night-watch drives them to their wretched dens.
The Hamburg police are perfectly cognizant of these proceedings, and wage perpetual war against individuals, but find it altogether impossible to suppress the class, among whom are the habitual tenants of the jail and the House of Correction. No one can differ in opinion from Dr. Lippert, who says, “In this class of women the most pernicious results of prostitution are to be found.”
Private or domestic prostitution, so widely extended in every great town, exists in less proportion in Hamburg than in other capital cities of the same extent. That disgraceful union in evil occasionally met with on the Continent, in which husband and wife mutually agree to follow their inclinations or lusts untrammeled by each other, is scarcely known. The kept woman is comparatively rare. The expense attendant upon such an appendage of luxury is a serious consideration, and none but the wealthy patrician or successful business man venture on the step. It is assumed, on very good authority, that there are not fifty “mistresses” in Hamburg. Those residing there are under no police control, as in a public point of view they commit no breach of law.
Under the second head of private prostitution we find those who, having legitimate employment, increase their earnings in this manner. We have alluded already to the same class of registered women, but the greater portion keep themselves aloof from police observation as long as possible. They are composed of needle-women, laundresses, hair-dressers, shop-girls, and others, but it must not be supposed that they represent the majority of women dependent upon those occupations. The contrary is the fact; for in Hamburg, as every where else, are to be found many bright examples of chastity in the midst of poverty; of patient, persevering industry and integrity in unfavorable circumstances. Those working women who are willing to accept the price of sin are known in the streets by a peculiar gait, by their searching and inviting glances, or their treacherous but winning smile, and also by frequently walking in the same neighborhood. They are seldom seen abroad during the day, but in the afternoon, about “’change hours,” they begin to resort to the streets near the Bourse, encountering the men as they hurry to and from the centre of business. In the evening they promenade in the vicinity of the hotels and theatres, on the Jungfernstig, the new walls, etc., when night helps their incognito, and shrouds them in a little more mystery. They are fond of attending the theatres and dancing saloons on Sundays and holidays, like the Parisian grisette, in company with a lover, but the sum of their enjoyment is complete if they can participate in the annual Shrove Tuesday ball and masquerade at the Apollo Saal, the Elb Pavilion, or the theatre.
Another class of private prostitutes is known to the police by the term “Winklehuren” (hedge w——). These are of the lower class of female operatives. Servant-girls, from their proximity to the junior members of families, often spread disease in the household of their employers. Dr. Lippert records as a medical fact that examinations have frequently shown the domestics in the highest families to be literally saturated with venereal disease, and he states his opinion that six out of every ten servant-girls who are found in the streets at night are accessible to pecuniary temptation. This ratio is very large, but as it is a local matter with which he is presumed to be well acquainted, it would be out of place to attempt either to sustain or controvert it.
All these private prostitutes resort to the houses of accommodation (Absteigequartiere), which exist in spite of the constant watchfulness of the police. When they are hunted up and rooted out of one place, they reappear under another guise elsewhere; a removal being facilitated by the slender nature of their equipment, which seldom consists of more than furniture for one room. For “genteel” delinquents, they are placed where the accommodation is veiled under the French disguise of petits soupers, or some such flimsy artifice.
To the question, “What becomes of the prostitutes?” Hamburg offers no special reply. Under favorable circumstances, they abandon their calling, and become the wives of mechanics or small tradesmen; or they carry on some business for themselves, and strive to become reputable members of society; or they become companion to some man, and follow his fortunes, usually reverting to common prostitution. When their charms are entirely lost, and no hope remains of earning a living from their sale, they sometimes, but very rarely, become brothel-keepers; sometimes procuresses; and, more frequently, servants in the registered houses.