The royal rescript, the statute, and the police ordinance of 1792 are founded upon the principle that prostitution is a necessary evil, which, if unregulated, tends to demoralize all society, and inflict physical suffering on its votaries; but, as it can never be suppressed, it is tolerated in order that those who practice it may be brought under supervision and control. In furtherance of this idea, another police order was promulgated in 1795, prohibiting music and dancing at the tolerated houses, and limiting the resort of prostitutes to public places of amusement. The immediate effect of this measure was to close several coffee-houses served by women (mädchen tabagieen). At the same time, the women were classified into first, second, and third classes, and the monthly tax graduated to one thaler (sixty-eight cents), two thirds of a thaler, and one third of a thaler, which was appropriated to the healing fund, as directed by the regulations of 1792. This impost was doubled at a subsequent period in consequence of public calamities.
To enforce the police directions and collect the tax, a census of the public prostitutes in Berlin was taken in June, 1792, when they amounted to 311. The toleration was withdrawn from some of these for various reasons, and the numbers were, in
| July | 269 | |
| August | 268 | |
| September | 249 | |
| October (a period of fairs and other assemblages) | 258 | |
| And the average finally settled at about | 260 |
in a population of 150,000.
In the exercise of the discretionary power vested in the police of Berlin, as in most other cities of Continental Europe, they found it necessary to extend their toleration so as to include in their supervision those private prostitutes who could not be permitted to reside in the tolerated houses because they had not reached the age prescribed by law, which in Prussia fixes majority at twenty-four years; and also another class who were secretly visited at private lodgings by those wealthy libertines whose pride would not allow them to enter a common brothel, and whose amours consequently exposed them to liabilities which the spirit of the law justified the police in encountering. The persons (mostly widows) with whom the private prostitutes resided were made answerable to the police, and subjected to the same rules as the tolerated houses.
Under the new scale of impost there were, in 1796,
| 6 | brothels | of the | 1st | class, | with inmates | 16 | ||
| 8 | " | " | 2d | " | " | 33 | ||
| 40 | " | " | 3d | " | " | 141 | ||
| — | 190 | |||||||
| Private prostitutes of the 1st class | 39 | |||||||
| """2d" | 28 | |||||||
| — | 67 | |||||||
| Total | 257 | |||||||
About this period, an epoch of general political movement, men of the highest rank in Prussia began to doubt the propriety of tolerating prostitution, and orders were given, in opposition to the remonstrances of the police, to take measures which would effectually compel brothel-keepers to close their houses. This appears to have been the first positive attempt at absolute repression, and the police intimated that illicit prostitution would be its inevitable result. In reply, they were directed that, if their prediction should be verified, they must pursue the vice more closely. In 1800 the number of registered women had decreased to 246, but it was notorious that illicit prostitution had increased largely. This fact was not denied by the police. They ascribed it, very justly, to the restrictions imposed on the tolerated houses, which were now actually less than ever, at a time when the resident population of Berlin was twenty thousand more than at the last computation, exclusive of a large influx of troops and foreigners. They were not supported in their views, but were ordered, on the ground of extensive disease among the soldiery, to “crush out” the illicit prostitution, and this order they vainly endeavored to accomplish. An inquiry into the comparative state of the venereal disease was directed at the same time, and the state physician reported that there was less disease among registered than illicit prostitutes, and inferred that a diminution of tolerated, but strictly guarded regular brothels, was not for the public benefit.
The year 1808, when the French army overran Europe, was a period of general war and trouble; the police regulations fell into abeyance, and prostitution became comparatively free and uncontrolled. The French military commanders in Berlin made complaints to the police of the lawless state of the town, particularly specifying some of the brothels, which had become nests of gamblers, wherein robbery, duels, suicides, and other offenses were of frequent occurrence. The results of an inspection were as follows:
| 50 brothels containing women | 230 | |||
| Private prostitutes | 203 | — | 433 | |
| In addition to this, there were of notorious illicit prostitutes known to the police (60 of whom were stated to have disease in its worst forms) | 400 | |||
| And also reasonably suspected of prostitution | 67 | |||
| Making an aggregate known to the authorities of | 900 | |||