| The Saturday Review 22 July 1865: Stephen> | | The French Senate has exhibited some edifying zeal in | debating with closed doors a petition and a Report on the | subject of what we call the social evil ~~ but which, without | any circumlocution, is styled in Paris prostitution. This | Report has been published. Perhaps there was a little sly | pleasantry in the debate, and M. Dupin certainly availed | himself of the occasion to deliver a pungent satire on the | manners and customs of the highest French life, which | looked very like a sermon addressed to the Imperial | hostess of Compiegne and the gay company which throngs | the Tuileries. The petition came from a certain Doctor Jules | Meugy, and it was of a character so unpractical that we | can hardly believe that it was serious. The good Doctor | proposes to close all improper houses, and to increase the | penalties on all house proprietors and occupiers who | permit their property to be used for purposes of | debauchery. The Committee, declining to adopt or | recommend these prohibitory plans, pointed out that the | cure proposed would only produce other and worse evils, | and that sufficient responsibility is already attached by law | to those householders who choose to harbour improper or | suspicious inmates. To require all householders to exercise | a minute and inquisitorial scrutiny into private morality, | when there is no offence against public decency, would, | the Committee observe, be a course utterly subversive of | civil liberty. But what do the Committee recommend? As far | as we can understand, little or nothing. They have put forth | a very tedious Report, claiming, as is the French fashion, | to begin at the beginning and to exhaust the subject. The | Report, of which the author is M. G. de Saint-Germain, is of | course very philosophical in its divisions, and is a complete | historical monograph on the question; but, after informing | us which class of prostitution is

“first in the order of | ideas,”

it leaves us stumbling in the stony wilderness | of ugly facts, to pick out as we can our way to a remedy for | an evil which we are told, with great gravity . | Dividing the general idea of prostitution into

“two | categories”

~~ the

“tolerated”

and the

| “clandestine”

~~ the Committee refer it to the Minister | of the Interior to inquire whether tolerated | prostitution cannot be kept within narrower limits by | restricting infamous houses to certain fixed localities, and | by suppressing street-walking; while, as to | clandestine licentiousness, as far as we can | understand the Report, it is suggested that the women who | practise it should in some way or other, but what way we | are not told, be placed under official surveillance. It can | hardly be said that we learn much from this; nor can we | hope that Sir George Grey will be encouraged by the | example of our neighbours’ success to undertake the task | which some day or other will force itself upon the English | Legislature, of dealing with a state of things which is fast | becoming intolerable. Our own reason for adverting again | to this not very important incident in the French Senate is | rather to keep the matter before public attention than from | any conviction that the solution of the question is in the | least facilitated by the Report of the Committee. The only | principle, as far as we can discover, that is laid down by | the French Catos, is that the prohibition of street-walking | depends upon the toleration of brothels. | From which it seems to follow that here in London we are | not to expect any substantial improvement in the streets till | we adopt the French, and indeed the common-sense, | principle of regulating houses of ill-fame. This is, of course, | a question which is not to be settled by theory, but it is well | to remember that this is the conclusion which is the result | of no little experience. Meanwhile it would be very | important, with a view to what must come before us sooner | or later, if we had some available report on the working of | the recent Act which attempted to do something with | prostitution in our English seaports and garrison towns; | especially we should like to know what has been its effect | on the state of the streets of Plymouth and Chatham and | Portsmouth. | But, quite apart from this technical and formulated | prostitution, the Report adverts to what it marks as the evil | of the day; and though the Conscript Fathers of Paris have | nothing either new or striking to say on the | demi-monde, still, that they say something, and that the | subject has been brought before a Senate, though it be | such a Senate as that of Imperial France, is a remarkable | fact. The subject is approached in a serious spirit. There is, | remarks the Committee, another kind of clandestine | prostitution which, if it is not kept in check by responsible | example, has a tendency to become an institution, and to | be productive of the most terrible social consequences. | Although quite as reprehensible in a moral aspect as any | other sort of prostitution, there are few traces of vulgarity in | it. And then the Report goes | on to say that, though there is nothing absolutely new in all | this, and though the reign of courtesans is part of all history, | yet there is a speciality which distinguishes this vice in our | day. For the first time, it is a recognised condition of life. | The fashionable Lais of the day was formerly an exception; | now the existence of this class is a rule of our social | condition. Formerly she defied public opinion, now she is | recognised by it. The Report goes on to point out the | general lowering of the moral standard which this state of | things has a tendency to produce. The courtesan of | fashion used to be a strange sight; now she is a lesson and | an example ~~ something to imitate rather than a | spectacle to be astonished at. The terse epigrammatic | structure of the French language puts this not amiss. | In the presence of this august | aspect of vice, even the Committee of the Senate retire, | hopeless of a remedy; where the power of the law fails, | that of morals commences. And then, of course, they quote | Montesquieu, and might quote Horace: ~~ | | and they go on to observe that, in this general and growing | relaxation of public morals, those of the higher classes | have much to answer for who allow, in their own private | circles, anything like an imitation of the manners and habits | of this particular and novel form of social life. | The evil must have attained a portentous growth when it | requires this sor of notice; and though it is possible that | political considerations impelled M. Dupin to enlarge on the | theme, we may apply the lesson to ourselves. The | Procureur-General says, with considerable truth, that the | question of the day is not about public prostitution in Paris. | he recalls the times when the Palais Royal was one vast | and public house of ill-fame; but he is almost disposed to | think, not only that no substantial gain has been made by | the clearance of this notorious scandal, but that public | morality, though not public decency, was never at a lower | ebb than it is now. Perhaps, if he ever heard of it, he would | say that Burke’s fallacy has received it most forcible | refutation; and that vice, by losing much of its grossness, | has only doubled its general attractions. M. Dupin is a man | of some experience; and it is as well we should know that | he is of opinion that in those countries where the Inquisition | undertakes to prohibit prostitution, vice is worse than | where it is tolerated. He does not approve of any plan | which should confer further domiciliary powers on the | police; but he goes on to observe that, while existing | legislation is strong enough to deal with any outrageous | violations of public decency, there are classes and there | are vices, infinitely more dangerous, which no legislation | can touch. Strictly speaking, M. Dupin’s speech does not | directly bear on the state of things in England, where there | is neither legal recognition nor toleration, and therefore no | regulation of what is called the social evil; and where we | bear the double burden of an inevitable scourge, which is | daily on the increase, and of a public hypocrisy which | pretends not to see the most serious canker of modern | society. As we pretend, or claim, to be the most moral | people on earth; as we flaunt our domestic virtues in the | eyes of all Europe; as we wipe our mouths and thank God | and the Established Church, King William and the | Protestant religion, that we are not as other men and | women ~~ that our English home is the model fireside, | non obstante an occasional little revelation of | the Divorce Court, that there are no bribery and corruption | in our political life, no breaches of the Seventh | Commandment in any department of life, that our retail | tradesmen are all honest, and our working-men all sincerity, | truthfulness, sobriety, and admirably fitted for the franchise | ~~ it is just as well to consider whether certain questions | which M. Dupin puts to the French Senate can be | satisfactorily answered here in London. He says that | now-a-days the courtesan is to be seen in a brilliant equipage, | and in all public places. We doubt whether there is | anything very new in all this. There is a curious story in | Leslie’s and Taylor’s Life of Reynolds, which | relates how, with the connivance and in the presence of | that most moral of monarchs, George III., Kitty Fisher was | introduced to Secretary Pitt,

“the great commoner,” |

at a review in Hyde Park. The odd scene to which this | incident gave rise is not to our present purpose, but, as far | as it goes, we have no reason to suppose that such a thing | could occur in the present day. It was a coarse joke, and | was taken as such, and it certainly did not do half as much | harm as what is of constant occurrence among ourselves. | The whole world would laugh if some wag contrived to | introduce, say, Earl Russell to

“Anonyma;”

but we | are not disposed to laugh at M. Dupin’s very unpleasant | query. | And it is very important to | mark with the utmost precision what is the exact character | of the prevailing vice of our times. In the days of our early | Georges, and the annals of the Court of Louis XIV., a sort | of tacit condonation was afforded to harlotry in | excelsis, or rather in excelissimis. Lady | Cowper, one of the best of her sex, was on visiting terms | with George II.’s mistresses. Kings have dispensed with | the Maitresse en titre in these moral days, but | we have our doubts whether, for all substantial purposes, | we have made an advance. A century or two centuries ago, | harlot adopted the manners, the language, and the general | bearing of virtue; among ourselves, on the contrary, it is | virtue and matronly honour and maidenly purity which think | proper to imitate the dress, the habits, and not seldom the | language of hetaerism. The balance is against us. We are | not saying that our wives are less chaste or our daughters | less honest than they used to be. But the demi-monde | is a perilous model; and there is a consensus | of authorities as to the fact ~~ and it is a new fact ~~ | that a polluted woman is a model for respectability and | virtue. We are not fond of quoting Scripture, but he was a | wise man at any rate who asked: ~~ ~~ or, for | the matter of that, can a woman ~~ |