Prostitutes who do not conform to the regulations and place themselves under supervision, are to be arrested and imprisoned for three months, and, when their term of imprisonment has expired, are to be sent to the “work-houses,” and detained there until they have inclination and opportunity for honorable employment. Any females, not being inmates of the tolerated houses, who had intercourse while suffering from disease, and thereby infected men, are declared liable to an imprisonment for three months.
This comprehensive legal enactment left many matters of detail to the discretion of the police, and accordingly they issued their rules. The opposition these subsequently encountered makes them important in the history of Prostitution in Berlin, and although they are in many points a mere repetition of the terms of the statute, we give them in extenso. They are entitled,
“PROVISIONS AGAINST THE MISLEADING OF YOUNG WOMEN INTO BROTHELS, AND FOR PREVENTION OF THE SPREAD OF VENEREAL DISEASE.
“Preamble. It has been brought to notice that simple young girls, especially from the smaller towns, under the craftiest pretensions to place them in good situations, have been brought to Berlin, and, without their knowledge of the fact, taken to brothels, and therein, against their will, led astray to their ruin, and to the life of a common prostitute.
“At the same time, it is matter of remark that common prostitutes, after they have been diseased, continue their practices as long as the state of their sickness permits, and thereby farther infection is extraordinarily increased and extended.
“With the express view of meeting such infamous seductions, and the highly injurious results of the before-mentioned communication of venereal disease, the following directions are brought to the cognizance and perfect information of the keepers of houses of prostitution, and of the females who make a trade of their persons.
“1. No one can set on foot a brothel, or keep women for the purposes of prostitution, without having communicated previously with the Police Directory on the subject, and obtained their permission in writing. Whoso acts contrary to this shall, together with absolute withdrawal of his license, be liable to one or two years in the House of Correction.
“2. Every brothel-keeper must, before taking a girl into his service, produce her before the Police Directory, and must not conclude any contract with her until the Police Director has given him written leave to do so; whereupon, forthwith the conditions upon which the keeper and said woman have agreed are to be registered with the police, and an abstract thereof shall be given to each party, for which eight groschen are to be paid as fees. The before-mentioned brothel-keepers, to whom the Police Director’s toleration is extended, must, at his order, produce the common prostitutes, and submit the same to a similar license, and the conditions must be drawn up for them in the before-mentioned manner. If a keeper omits the same, and is accused of having any woman for common use in his house for forty-eight hours without such notice, he shall pay a fine of fifty thalers, and, upon the third offense, in addition to the said fine, his trade shall be stopped, and he shall not carry on the same any more. Further, it shall be no excuse that the person in question was not there for the purpose of prostitution, inasmuch as he is enjoined to point out every female whom he receives into his house, without exception, and neglect of this shall be taken as a proof of contravention. Under penalty of the same punishment, he must give a similar notice if a common woman comes to him from another house.
“3. Females under age, who have not, before the publication of these ordinances, notoriously abandoned themselves to common prostitution, are not to be received by any brothel-keeper, and when he produces such persons before the Police Directory the permit shall not be allowed. If he acts contrary to this prohibition, he shall be punished with two years’ labor in jail.
“4. The departure from a brothel of any woman who desires to change her mode of life, and to subsist in a respectable manner, is not to be checked or prevented. Even on account of sureties entered into or debts incurred, the keeper is not to retain any such against her will, at the risk of losing his permit, and the police are charged to give every assistance. If, however, any such person desire only to remove to another house of prostitution, this can not be done without the consent of her former keeper, until after three months’ notice given, when it will be permitted upon proof of brutal treatment by the keeper, or other good and reasonable grounds shown to the police. No woman who seeks to quit a brothel for the purpose of carrying on prostitution for pay on her own account will be permitted to do so; and if any person, having, on pretense of an honest calling, quitted a house of prostitution, shall be adjudged guilty of prostitution on her own account, she shall have four weeks at the House of Correction, with a welcome and farewell. And whereas it is known that many brothel-keepers, who treat their girls with an unbearable harshness, keep so strict a watch upon them that they can not succeed in bringing their complaints before the authorities, information shall from time to time, ex-officio, and without the presence of the keeper, be taken, whether the girls have any well-founded complaints to bring forward against the said keeper.