A comparative survey of laws in force for the prohibition, regulation, and licensing of vice in England and other countries; with an appendix giving the text of laws and police regulations as they now exist in England, in British dependencies, in the chief towns of continental Europe, and in other parts of the world ... and an historical account of English laws and legislation on the subject

Front matter

3 1924 017 705 116

The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.

Preface

aspiration for a free press, for a free right of public meeting, and for security to the person as against iiTBsponsible poHce control, is now gathering round this single question. Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and even Belgium have been, or are, all with different degrees of clearness of vision and strength of purpose awakening to wish and to make themselves free. A system which has grown up in silence and darkness may, perhaps, not long hold- its ground in the glare and the heat of public discussion. In a few years what value still attaches to the present treatise may be only historical ; though when the time comes that it records what has been and no longer what is, the work may still serve to illustrate and enforce lasting principles of just government by minutely recalling the story of the great " faUing away " and " strong delusion " which led to those principles being forgotten or neglected by 'almost every State in the world.

Wherever, for the purpose of explaining or illustrating the true import of a law or regulation, I have had occasion to cite direct testimony as to its practical operation, I have exclusively resorted to the testimony either of official persons engaged in administering the system, or of persons who are presumedly opposed to my own views. Such testimony, being in the nature of admissions, is beyond the reach of cavilling objections.

The account of the Laws and Regulations in different countries of Europe, as given in the Appendix, will serve, perhaps, even better than the text of the work

Vlll PREFACE.

itself to impart an exact knowledge and appreciation of the licensing system in all its forms, and to afford materials for a correct judgment upon it. This account is, of course, intended to be only illustrative, and by no means exhaustive.

An exact recital of the Parliamentary history of the English Acts from 1864 to 1869, which is very imperfectly known and often inaccurately referred to, is given in the Appendix, and will, it is hoped, help the conduct of the controversy in this country.

The account of the earlier practice of licensing in London between the years a.d. 1161 and a.d. 1545, and of the prohibitive laws since, as given in the words of Stow, Camden, and Fuller, and later writers, is not included for the sake of its undoubted historical interest. Some, indeed, of the arguments adduced by Fuller on both sides of the controversy are now confessedly obsolete. But the strong, clear sense and bracing moral tone of all the older writers is a refreshing contrast to much that is written and spoken on the subject at this day ; while the arguments used, on one side, at least, are often of an importance as ineffaceable for all ages as the rest of this work demonstrates them to be for all countries.

S. A.

9, King's Bench Walk, Temple.

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

INTEODtJCTION 1

Attitude of English and Foreign writers .. 15 — 21

Appendix

ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS OF THE LAWS AND POLICE REGULATIONS FOR THE LICENSING OF VICE IN THE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES OF EUROPE

Paris Rheims ...

Judgment of the Court of Rheims in reference to the

limits of Police Action

Bordeaux Marseilles

Interrogatory of a woman appearing for the first time at the office

Police Regulations for the wards of VHdpital de la Coti' ception Brest

Nantes ... ...

Berlin Hambm:g Vienna ...

Copenhagen

Madrid

England and Ireland ...

Malta

Cape Colony

New South Wales

Japan

292—300

301-303

304, 305

306, 307

308—310 311

COXTENTS.

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF THE LICENSING

SYSTEM IN ENGLAND 423

Proceedings in 1864 423—425

Textof BiUof ]864 425—429

Text of Act of 1864 429—436

Letter from Lord C. Paget to Mr. Skey, Chairman of Committee on Venereal Diseases ... ... ... ... 437 — 439

Proceedings in 1866. Selections from Report of Committee

on the Treatment and Prevention of Venereal Diseases 440 — 445 Reasons of dissent and recommendations of Depiity-In-

Debate in the House of Commons, March 22nd, 1866, and

Proceedings in 1868. Selections from evidence produced

before Select Committee of the House of Lords . . . 454 — 462

Discussion in the House of Lords, May 15th, 1868 ... 463 — 468 Marquis of Townshend's Bill to extend Act of 1866 to the

Metropolis and Corporate Boroughs ... 469, 470

Explanatory Act (31 & 32 Vict. c. 80) 470,471

Proceedings in 1869. Nomination of Select Committee of

the House of Commons, June 8th, 1869 472,473

Selections from evidence produced before Select Committee

of the House of Commons

Comparison of Acts of 1866 and 1869

Recommendations of Royal Commission of 1871

Reasons for dissenting from Report of Royal Commission as

Diseases and the Better Protection of Women" (1872)

ENGLISH LEGISLATION FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES UP TO THE PASSING OF THE CONTAGIOUS

DISEASES PREVENTION ACT OF 1864 514

^xtT&at iiom Stow^s Survey of the City of London 514

Statute of the -8th of Henry II. ... ... ... ,.. 515

Extract from Camden's ".Britom'' ... ... ... ... gjg

Extract from Fuller's " CAjtrcA ifisiori/" ... ... ... 5x9

Fuller's "Argument Pro and Con." ... ... ... ... 520

Acts for Suppression of Disorderly Houses ... ... ... 525

Bill of the Bishop of Exeter's (Dr. Philpott's) in 1844 ... 525,526

Tabular Chronological Vievr of English Legislation ... 528

481,

,482

BOOKS liEFERRED TO.

Attention is drawn to the following publications which (among others) have been of service to the Author in the preparation of this Treatise ; — De la Prostitution dans la ville de Pa/ris consid^rSe sous le rapport de I' Hygiene

Puhlique, de la Morale, et de I' Administration. Par A. J. B. Parent-

DuchS,telet. Troisifeme Edition, par MM. A. Trebuchet et Poirat Duval.

Paris : 1857.

Za Prostitution A Paris et d, Londres, 1789 — 1871. Par C J. Lecour, Chef de

la Premifere Division k la Prefecture de Police. Deuxifeme edition. Paris :

1872.

De VEtdt aetwd de la Prostitution Parisienne. Par C. J. Lecour. Paris :

1874.

De la Prostitution dans les grandes Villes au Dix-Neuvieme si^cle et de Vextinction

des Maladies VSnlriennes. Par le Doctear J. Jeannel (de Bordeaux).

Deuxifeme Edition. Paris : 1874.

La Syphilis et la Prostitution dans leur Rapports avec V Hygiene la Morale et la

Loi. Par M. le Docteur Hippolyte Mireur (de Marseilles). Paris :

Prostitution considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects in London

and other Cities and Garrison Towns ; with proposals for the cont/rol and

prevention of its attendant evils. By William Acton, M.E.C.S., formerly

Exteme to the Venereal Hospital in Paris, &c., &c. Second edition.

London: 1870.

Prostitution: Government Experiments in controlling it. Reprinted from the

Westminster Review. By Dr. John Chapman. London: 1870. Compulsory Medication of Prostitutes. (Westminster Review.) By Dr. John

Chapman. London : 1871.

On the Repressive Measures adopted in Paris compa/i-ed with tJie uncontrolled

prostitution of London and New York. By Dr. AchiUe Vinfras. London :

1867.

La Prostitution a Geneve au point de vue Jwidique. Par M. Joseph Hornung,

Professeur de droit pubUo et de droit p&al k TAcad^mie de Genfeve.

Bulletin de la Soei4tS Genevoised'UtilitS PuUique. Genfeve : 1873. Maisons de toUrance devant le droit et la Morality PuUique. Par M. le Pasteur

Borel. Genfeve: 1875.

Vierte Auflage. Berlin : 1869.

XVI BOOKS EEFERREn TO.

Report on the Surveillance of Prostitution and on the means to prevent ike diffusion of Syphilis (5th Congress of Italian Medical Association). By Dr. P. Castiglioni. Rome : 1872.

A Visit to the United States of America. By Henry J. Wilson and Rey. J. P. Gledstone. Sheffield: 1876.

Report from the Committee appointed in 1864 by the Admiralty and the War Office to inquire into the pathology and treatment of Venereal Disease and to suggest measures for its prevention ; with the evidence. Presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1868.

Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Contagious Diseases Act, 1866, together with the proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix. Printed in July, 1868.

Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Contagious Diseases Act (1866), together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. Printed in July, 1869.

Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts, with Evidence. Vols. I. and II. London : 1871.

Annual Report for 1875 of Captain Harris, Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, on the operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Printed in June, 1876.

Publications of tJie Association for promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1866 to the Civil Population of the United Kingdom. Late Walton, Gower Street.

Publications of the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. 2, Westminster Chambers, London.

Publications of the British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution. 383, Park Road, Liverpool

Hansard's Parliamentary Debates,

Statutes at Large and Parliamentary Papers.

COMPARATIVE SURVEY

01'

LAWS POE THE REGULATION OE YICE.

CHAPTER I. Chap. I. INTEODUCTION

Theee are many indications that the problem of the Paris Contrue relation of the State to sexual vice is becoming ™^^®' the subject of an exact and critical treatment which is entirely new. One of the chief questions which fofmed the subject of a variety of important communications and of an eager discussion at the International Medical Congress at Paris, in 1867, was, " Whether it is possible to propose to the diiFerent Governments some efficacious measures for restricting the propagation of venereal diseases." The Inter- Vienna, 1873. national Medical Congress of Vienna, in 1873, taking up the line of the International Medical Congress of Florence, in 1870, not only agreed to an elaborate report aiming at the generalisation and enforcement of the laws existing in different countries for the prevention of venereal diseases, but prepared an analytical draught of an International Convention in pursuance of which the laws of all countries on that subject might be assimilated.

The International Congress at Brussels, in 1875, Beussels, again took up the subject of the State regulation of prostitution, and in the course of the report which opened the proceedings, M. Warlomont, the general