The Contagious Diseases Acts : the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864, '66, '68 (Ireland), '69, from a sanitary and economic point of view : being a paper read before the Medical Society of University College, London, on Thursday, November 30th, 1871 / by C.W. Shirley Deakin.

  • Deakin, Charles Washington Shirley.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Contagious Diseases Acts : the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864, '66, '68 (Ireland), '69, from a sanitary and economic point of view : being a paper read before the Medical Society of University College, London, on Thursday, November 30th, 1871 / by C.W. Shirley Deakin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    8/36 (page 8)
    selves), there were in 1864, 4812 apprehensions for infractions of the law, 3155 punishments being inflicted at St. Lazare.* Further, in Paris every public woman who really desires to renounce prostitution, may obtain the erasure of her name from the Kegister of the Police, on stating her means for procuring an honest livelihood, and the erasure is attended with no difficulty in the case of women who are going to marry; in some cases a woman so applying is subject to two or three months' special surveillance, and after that, if her conduct has been satis- factory, she obtains the erasure. About 700 or 800 women annually abandon prostitution, or disappear from the streets of Paris. A woman in one of the tolerated houses, I admit, can be subjected to but few influences likely to make her desire a change of life. Speaking of this class, Parent Duchatelet says they are obliged to abandon themselves to the first comer who calls for them if even he is covered with the most disgusting sores. Alphonse Esquiros thus describes the downward course of a prostitute— The young, the pretty, and plea- sant-looking girl commences her career in the better class of houses; but each year, each month, robs her of a charm, and produces a wrinkle . . . Stepping down from one house to another, from affronts to affronts, from one quarter of the town to another, from St. James to St. Giles .... The girl must quit the boudoir to walk in the streets, must walk them in the rain and in the cold ; yes, and must do so half clothed, seeking that uni- versal and lost husband who pushes her aside with his elbow .... Let a girl once enter these houses she must necessarily bid adieu to heaven, to liberty, to honour, and to the world. I would write over the door of such a house those celebrated words of the Italian poet, ' All hope abandon ye who enter here.' It is these licensed brothels that are the dark spots of the Parisian system, which is further too exacting and oppressive on the women. We shall see later on that the English Contagious Diseases Acts, achieving that happy golden mean, have avoided these two errors, and aim at not being unpopular among the prostitutes themselves. A number of the opponents of any legislation for the control and repression of vice, utterly regardless of statistical results, do not hesitate to affirm as a consequence of legal control and repression, (1st) that syphilis has increased, (2nd) that clandestine prostitution has greatly extended itself. For instance, Dr. Chapman in his article in the Westminster Review, January, 1870, says as follows, p. 51 ; The group of facts we have last described may be thus summed up : there are 1000 beds in the Paris • Prostitution in Paris, London, and New York. 1867. Vintr»s.