The History of Prostitution Part 26

The registered gifts to the twelve favorites amounted to upward of one hundred million dollars.[278] Lanskoi, who had held no political offices, and the whole of whose fortune was drawn from the flagitious profits of his post of dishonor, died, after less than four years of office, worth, in cash only, and exclusive of valuables, seven millions of rubles.

Potemkin's wealth, which was acc.u.mulated from all sources of public robbery and private extortion, was fabulous. At his death he owned two hundred thousand serfs; he had whole cupboards filled with gold coin, jewels, and bank-bills; he held thirty-two orders, and his fortune was estimated at sixty million dollars.[279]

In the closing days of Catharine's reign she found a lower deep into which to plunge. When upward of sixty, she took into office, as her favorite, Zuboff, who was not quite twenty-five. She now formed the Society of the Little Hermitage. This was a picked company of wits and libertines, of both s.e.xes, over whose scenes of debauchery and revelry the empress presided. An inner penetralia even of these orgies was established, and called the Little Society.

The pernicious influence of such an example, set for so long a period of time by a sovereign distinguished for ability, and whose reign had been rendered famous by its successful foreign enterprises, was the almost universal corruption of the Russian court and aristocracy of both s.e.xes.

The women, in imitation of her majesty, kept men, with the t.i.tle and office of favorites. This was as customary as any other piece of fas.h.i.+on, and was recognized by husbands. Tender intrigues were unknown; strong pa.s.sion was still more rare; marriage was merely an a.s.sociation. There was a club, called the club of natural philosophers, which was a society of men and women of the highest cla.s.ses, the object of whose meetings was indiscriminate s.e.xual intercourse. The members met to feast, and after the banquet they retired in pairs chosen by lot. This club was afterward put down by the Russian police, in common with all other secret societies. A hospital was founded by Catharine for fifty ladies affected with venereal disease. These were all to be taken care of; no question was permitted as to name or quality, and the linen of the establishment was marked with the significant word "discretion."

Catharine's end was sudden and frightful. She had grown corpulent, and her legs and body had swollen and burst. She moved about with considerable difficulty, although her imperious will would not allow her to give way in her career either of ambition or profligacy. She was at the Little Hermitage November 4, 1796, in remarkably high spirits, and even joked her buffoon, Leof Nauskin, among other things, as to his death and his fears thereupon. The next morning the dread messenger, of whose advent she had made sport, brought his orders for her. She fell into an apoplectic fit, and, after thirty-seven hours of insensibility, died unblessing and unblessed, to be succeeded by Paul, her detested son by her first lover Soltikoff.

The emperor, or as he was better known by Napoleon's sobriquet, the mad Emperor Paul, was too remarkable for his eccentricities to make himself conspicuous for his gallantries. Even in this particular he preserved his eccentricity. He neglected his wife, an amiable and handsome woman, the mother of Alexander and Nicholas, for an ugly mistress, Mademoiselle Nelidoff, and for another, Mademoiselle Lapukhin, who would not accept his addresses, but to whom he nevertheless professed the patient devotion of Don Quixote. The most noteworthy circ.u.mstance, in this connection, of Paul's life was the indirect effect of female frailty in procuring his murder. The enemies who subsequently plotted his downfall and destruction procured their return from banishment through the offices of a certain Mademoiselle Chevalier, a French actress who ruled Kutaisoff, who on his part ruled the Czar.

As we approach our own times, the description of historical characters becomes liable to the tinge of prejudice or partiality.

Alexander, the son and successor of Paul, was distinguished by the amenity of his disposition and the philosophical tone of his political theories.

He was married at an early age by order of his grandmother Catharine, who in his case insisted on making him a good husband, and took numerous precautions for that purpose, all of which her example neutralized or belied. The selection made for him might, under the conditions of humble life or a free choice, have turned out happily. As it was, he preferred the society of the ladies of his court, and in particular of the Countess Narishkin, by whom he had three children. The countess proved inconstant, and all his children by her died, to Alexander's deep grief.

After the loss of these illegitimate children, the affections of Alexander were turned toward the empress, whose true worth he recognized when it was too late. She was struck with disease, and he was on a journey to Southern Russia to select a suitable spot for a residence for her, when he was seized with the fever of which he died.

If Alexander's mild character had but little influence on his subjects, the name of his successor, Nicholas, has been identified with the very existence of the Russian people, as much as any sovereign since Peter the Great. His example and expressed will have had immense effect, both for good and evil. It is almost impossible to arrive at the true character of Nicholas at the present time, for the reasons just mentioned. In his private life as husband and father, and in his public life as ruler and politician, writers are diametrically opposed to each other. Party prejudice denies him all worth, or makes him a very Socrates. Golovin and authors of the democratic school affirm, in addition to his other offenses, that Nicholas had several illegitimate children, and also "that no woman could feel herself secure from Nicholas's importunities;" while writers like Von Tietz, Jermann, and other panegyrists of the Russian court, describe Nicholas as an exemplary husband and father, a model to his subjects in his domestic relations. They allege farther, that the gross immorality which has been the chief feature of Russian society was very much discouraged, and rendered altogether unfas.h.i.+onable by the estimable manners of the imperial family.

Truth is rarely found in extremes. The prevalent usage among sovereigns in this century has been "to a.s.sume a virtue if they have it not," and to maintain a respectable exterior for the sake of public opinion. So politic a ruler as Nicholas was not likely to reject this. He did all that could be done to bring virtue into good repute at court. But too many little incidents are told of him to justify a belief in his perfect spotlessness.

The characters of individuals, even as rulers, would be unimportant to us were it not that in Russia society is in a transition state, and shows itself plastic in the hands of an energetic emperor. "The state! I am the state!" was perfectly true in the mouth of Nicholas. By his subjects he was held in an esteem little short of idolatry, and he was, in every sense of the word, the most remarkable man in his vast dominions.

Thompson, an English traveler, who has spoken very favorably of the personal worth of the Emperor Nicholas, says of the morality of the upper cla.s.ses among the Russians, "Denied the advantages of rational amus.e.m.e.nt and innocent social enjoyments, deprived of those resources which, while they dispel _ennui_, elevate the feelings, the mind resorts to sensual indulgences and to the gratification of the pa.s.sions for the purpose of finding recreation and relief from the deadening pressure of despotism.

Immorality and intrigue are of universal prevalence, and (in a social sense) are hardly looked upon as criminal acts, while gambling and debauchery are the natural consequences of the tedious monotony from which all seek to escape by indulging in gross and vicious excitement."

Under the system of serf.a.ge, now approaching its end, it was almost impossible that there should be such a thing as public morality in the lower cla.s.ses. The Russians, both n.o.ble and serf, are false and dishonest to a proverb. Prost.i.tution in such cases is a superfluous term: a woman had no right or opportunity to be virtuous.

The morality of St. Petersburg is undoubtedly of the lowest, and yet we have not met with any accounts of local prost.i.tution there. It is a city of men, containing one hundred thousand more males than females.[280]

Kelly says the women form only two sevenths (2/7) of the entire population, and calls it "an alarming fact." The climate is unfavorable to female beauty, and it is generally conceded that the men are handsomer than the women. The German girls have an almost exclusive reputation for good looks in St. Petersburg. By reason of the disproportion of the s.e.xes, it is said that ladies can not venture out unattended. This is etiquette among the higher cla.s.ses of all Continental Europe, and the simple fact, without the reason, would not be surprising.

The attention to minutiae which distinguishes a despotism, and which is so remarkable a feature of Russian state craft, does not allow us to suppose there are no statistical papers on the subject of prost.i.tution; on the contrary, it is perfectly well known that such are in existence. The secrecy which is scrupulously maintained in all public matters, and the watchful vigilance of the police over strangers, prevents them obtaining any information except on the most patent and notorious subjects. The remarks of travelers on Russian society are very vague and general, and unsupported by any of those details which could alone authenticate them.

We have already alluded to the ancient Oriental seclusion of women among the Russians. This was so strict that a suitor never saw, or at least was presumed never to have seen, the face of his bride before marriage. In 1493, Ivan the Great told a German emba.s.sador who demanded his daughter in marriage for the Margrave of Baden, that Russians never showed their daughters to any one before the match was decided. Peter the Great abolished this lottery, and directed that the parties might see each other, but he still found it necessary to promulgate a strong ukase against parents compelling children to marry against their wishes.

The compromise of the ancient custom which has been brought about by this law is that the elders of the family usually pre-contract for the juniors: then succeeds the bridal promenade, at which the young people, if unknown to each other, are led accidentally to meet in the same walk. Having thus managed an interview, the father of the young man, if all the preliminaries have been satisfactory so far, sends to the bride's father, and a general family meeting takes place, at which the arrangements are completed, the dowry determined, and then follows the betrothal. The elect pair kneel down on a fur mat and exchange rings. The preparations for the marriage are commenced, during which time the lovers have frequent opportunities of meeting and becoming better known to each other; this is a general period of visiting and parties. On the wedding-day the bridemaids unbraid the lady's hair, and she receives her husband with flowing locks. This is a remnant of ancient Russian usage, when the greatest outrage that could be committed on a woman was to unbraid her hair. It is generally believed that among the lower orders the wife is bound to draw off her husband's boots on the wedding-day, and also that the Russian peasant beats his wife at the commencement of her married life, so as to indicate supremacy. As to the substantial observance of the latter practice modern travelers differ, although it would seem that symbolically it is still maintained.[281]

A curious exhibition takes place on Whitsunday in the Petersburg summer garden, called "The Bride's Fair." All the marriageable daughters of the Russian tradesmen turn out on that day for a promenade. The young men, in their best attire, come forth to view them. The brides expectant do not limit their display to their charms, but second them by attractions of a more substantial character, adorning themselves with trinkets, jewels, or even now and then with silver tea-spoons, plate, and other valuables useful in housekeeping. This has been inveighed against as indicative of the prevalent indelicacy of the Russians, a sort of bride-market. Is it more reprehensible than many customs nearer home? It is now, however, falling into disuse.

The conjugal relations of the Russian n.o.bility were extremely loose and indefensible during the time when vice was fas.h.i.+on, and virtue in a courtier would have been deemed condemnation of the higher powers. Then, and even down to the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, marriage was simply an affair of convenience--the husband living at Moscow or St. Petersburg, the wife in Paris or Italy; such separations frequently lasting for years.[282]

The Foundling Hospital at St. Petersburg, the _Wospitatelnoi Dom_, is the most magnificent foundation of the kind in Europe, and it pleases the authorities to give information upon its features. The endowments are enormous, owing to the munificence of successive sovereigns, who have made it a kind of state caprice. The annual expenditure exceeds five millions two hundred thousand rubles.[283] The number of children in this inst.i.tution is commensurate with its wealth. Upward of twenty-five thousand are constantly enrolled on its books.

The lodge is open day and night for the reception of infants. The daily average of children brought is about twenty. The only question asked is if the child has been baptized, and by what name. If not baptized, the ceremony is performed by a priest of the Greek Church. At the time of leaving, the mother receives a ticket, the duplicate of which is placed around the child's neck. The mortality which takes place among these helpless victims of sin and misfortune is enormous. Some die in the lodge when just received; more perish during the tedious ceremonies of their baptism, which last several hours. The total number of deaths among children in the asylum and those out at nurse is probably three thousand per annum, or about one in four of the whole number committed to its charge.[284]

The children are given in care of wet nurses for about six weeks, when they are sent into the country until six years old. They are then brought back to the inst.i.tution and educated in a superior manner; the girls being qualified as governesses in Russian families, and the boys as artisans in the imperial manufactories. In cases of special capacity, they receive a scientific or musical education.

An incident which is said to have occurred at this inst.i.tution has gone the rounds of the press. The story is, that one of the young women having given birth to an infant, and the delinquent not being discovered, the Emperor Nicholas heard of the occurrence, and made a visit of inspection.

Having summoned the pupils before him, he demanded to know the guilty one, adding that, if she came forward, she should be pardoned. No one obeyed the invitation, and he was going away, with threats of disgracing the whole body, when one girl, to save her companions, came forward, threw herself at his feet, and confessed her fault. Nicholas kicked her out of the way, exclaiming that it was too late.[285]

A Lying-in Hospital is one of the appendages of this establishment.

Pregnant women may enter there four weeks before their confinement, and the strictest secrecy is maintained as to their name and character. Even the omnipotent Czar respects the privileges of the place.

The inst.i.tution at Moscow is on a similarly gigantic scale, and is managed after the same fas.h.i.+on.

The empress is the mother of the foundlings, which, be it observed, are mostly the children of such as can not or do not desire to keep their offspring. Free access, on appointed days, is permitted to the parents of the children; and, under special circ.u.mstances, the empress will permit a child to be removed from the inst.i.tution, if the parents prove their means and disposition to support it properly.

Kohl, who gives us particular, and even minute accounts of the management and arrangement of the public hospitals, makes no mention whatever of the syphilitic wards. The high system of efficiency in which the military infirmaries are maintained might have encouraged a hope for more detailed information on this subject.

CHAPTER XXII.

SWEDEN AND NORWAY.

Comparative Morality.--Illegitimacy.--Profligacy in Stockholm.-- Infanticide.--Foundling Hospitals.--Stora Barnhordst.--Laws against Prost.i.tution.--Toleration.--Government Brothels.--Syphilis.--Marriage in Norway.

The ancient Scandinavian peninsula, land of the Scald and the Rune, with its Vikings and Beisckers, has sent down to us many a legend of war and conquest, but few of social manners or moral relations. The high esteem in which the ancient Germans held their women, and the affinity of laws and customs between the Nors.e.m.e.n and the Teutons, justify us in believing that the blue-eyed maids of the Scandinavian heroes were as much respected for virtue as beloved for beauty. The eternal virgins in the Walhalla of Western mythology were not a.s.sociated with the grosser pleasures with which the impure fancy of the Koran invested the houris of the Mohammedan Paradise; and the Nors.e.m.e.n, through their posterity, the Normans, introduced, among the other amenities of chivalry, that prominent obligation of true knighthood, "_devoir aux dames_," perhaps not the least humanizing incident of the inst.i.tution.

Pa.s.sing, by a long stride, at once to modern times, we find in the joint kingdom of Sweden and Norway two territories as distinct in their social condition as they are in their geographical divisions. Norway has always been remarkable for a simple and hardy population of fishermen and small farmers, elements in the highest degree favorable to virtue and independence, and their poverty and isolation from the continental interests of Europe have exempted them from politics and war. Sweden, on the other hand, though not much wealthier as a nation, has had an hereditary n.o.bility, and the ambition and ability of some of her monarchs, especially of the great Gustavus, caused her to play a part in history wholly disproportionate to her territorial importance. If, however, the historical significance of Sweden be somewhat greater than that of the less pretentious sister kingdom, statistics do not accord to the former the same estimation, in point of morals, as they concede to the latter.

The average of illegitimate births, though not infallible, is generally accepted as a fair test of the immorality of a people. Taken by this standard, Sweden ranks lower than almost any country of Europe. But if the character of the general population be indifferent, that of Stockholm "out-Herods Herod."

In Stockholm, in 1838, there were 1137 illegitimate to 1577 legitimate; in 1839 there were 1074 illegitimate to 1492 legitimate births.

The average of illegitimate to other births in the capital and throughout the country was as follows:[286]

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ 1835. 1838. 1839. ----------------------- ------------ ------------ ------------ In Stockholm 1 in 244 1 in 247 1 in 238 In other towns 1 in 618 1 in 618 1 in 640 In the country 1 in 2041 1 in 2001 1 in 2001 Throughout the kingdom 1 in 1520 1 in 1469 1 in 1494 +--------------------------------------------------------------+

As regards the average of the whole kingdom, the proportion is much the same as that of England and France. What, then, must be the condition of the towns, and, in particular, of the capital?[287] The figures are such as to justify the allegation against Stockholm of being the most immoral capital in Europe, and also the presumption that the late decrease in its population, from which it is but recently recovering, is a direct consequence of the vice that stains it.

With so large an amount of illegitimacy, it is not surprising that infanticide should be of common occurrence. The penalty of this crime is death, although, from a growing aversion to capital punishment, it is generally commuted.

There are numerous foundling hospitals throughout the kingdom of Sweden; one in particular, the _Stora Barnhorst_ in Stockholm, established by Gustavus Adolphus, originally intended for the children of military men of broken health and fortunes. It has been perverted from the simplicity of its original foundation, and now receives children of all comers, who pay an entrance fee of about thirty-five dollars. No questions are asked on the presentation of an infant to the asylum, and, excepting the fee, it is in no respect different from the ordinary foundling hospitals. This very fee, however, it is considered by some writers, makes all the difference, as it in some measure justifies those parents who, having adequate means, choose to release themselves of the care and expense of their offspring, and who use this payment as a salve to their consciences, considering that they have to that extent done their duty. The Stora Barnhorst is wealthy, having an income of above one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum.

In 1836, prost.i.tution was forbidden, by express enactment, throughout all Sweden, and women who had not a legally recognized occupation were liable to imprisonment as disorderly characters. The prost.i.tute, of course, came within the category. It was a.s.serted at the time that there was no common prost.i.tution, but a counter statement was made by the jurist Angelot, who affirmed that every house of entertainment was a brothel, and every servant a loose woman.

This prohibitory system did not work so well as had been antic.i.p.ated, and in 1837 a change was effected. A large hotel was taken by the corporation, and, after the plan of various cities in the Middle Ages, was managed by public officers. Thus a government brothel was established. Nor did this lewdness by authority have the desired effect. The brothel was filled with women, but no customers appeared. Private brothels were resorted to for a time, and were opened under regular licenses. They have now disappeared, and as the inefficient police management never succeeded in repressing illicit prost.i.tution, even while tolerated brothels were in existence, it will surprise no one to learn that Stockholm is now one vast, seething hot-bed of private harlotry.

There are Lock Hospitals throughout Sweden, established by public funds, and kept up by direct taxation as a charge upon the munic.i.p.al rates. The Stockholm Hospital for syphilis in 1832 received seven hundred and one patients, of whom one hundred and forty-eight were from the country, and the remainder from the city. The capital contained in that year 33,581 persons of both s.e.xes above the age of fifteen, consequently _one person in every sixty-one was affected with syphilis_.

The superficial aspect of society in Sweden is certainly not such as here described. The upper cla.s.ses are cultivated, polite, and observant of all the usual refinements of modern society, while to the humbler cla.s.ses, excepting that intercourse is free and unrestrained among them, there is no ground for attributing any unusual departure from modesty and propriety. Neither are the laws remarkably stringent: although difficulties are thrown in the way of affiliation, they are the same in principle as those which have been adopted by the modern statute law of England. Still, that there is such an excess of immorality can not be doubted. The official statistics of the country prove it, were any possible doubt thrown upon the statements of the many travelers, of the highest repute for correctness and reliability, who have noticed it. The latest publication upon the matter is from Bayard Taylor, who, writing from Stockholm under date May 1, 1857, says,

"I must not close this letter without saying a word about its (Stockholm's) morals. It has been called the most licentious city in Europe, and I have no doubt with the most perfect justice. Vienna may surpa.s.s it in the amount of conjugal infidelity, but certainly not in general incontinence. Very nearly half the registered births are illegitimate, to say nothing of the illegitimate children born in wedlock. Of the servant-girls, shop-girls, and seamstresses in the city, it is very safe to say that scarcely one out of a hundred is chaste, while, as rakish young Swedes have coolly informed me, a large proportion of girls of respectable parentage are no better. The men, of course, are much worse than the women, and even in Paris one sees fewer physical signs of excessive debauchery. Here the number of broken-down young men and blear-eyed, h.o.a.ry sinners is astonis.h.i.+ng. I have never been in any place where licentiousness was so open and avowed, and yet where the slang of a sham morality was so prevalent.

There are no houses of prost.i.tution in Stockholm, and the city would be scandalized at the idea of allowing such a thing. A few years ago two were established, and the fact was no sooner known than a virtuous mob arose and violently pulled them down. At the restaurants young blades order their dinners of the female waiters with an arm around their waists, while the old men place their hands unblus.h.i.+ngly upon their bosoms. All the baths in Stockholm are attended by women (generally middle-aged and hideous, I must confess), who perform the usual scrubbing and shampooing with the greatest nonchalance. One does not wonder when he is told of young men who have pa.s.sed safely through the ordeals of Berlin and Paris, and have come at last to Stockholm to be ruined. * * * * Which is best, a city like Stockholm, where prost.i.tution is prohibited, or New York, where it is tacitly allowed, or Hamburg, where it is legalized?"

We have spoken of the difference between Sweden and Norway in their moral relations. At first this is not apparent, for illegitimacy is as frequent in one as the other; but there are attendant qualifying circ.u.mstances, which go to const.i.tute a material variation in the conclusion to be drawn from the unexplained fact. We may remark that street-walking and open prost.i.tution are rare. Illegitimacy is of considerable extent, averaging one in five, or, in some parts, one in three of the total births.