Prostitution in Europe / by Abraham Flexner.

  • Abraham Flexner
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prostitution in Europe / by Abraham Flexner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    able: in the first place, because in any case the mul- tiple is probably too small; in the second because the fluctuation in arrests shows clearly that arrests do not increase ‘‘ pari passu ’’ with the increase in popula- tion, while clandestine prostitutes increase still faster. An estimate of 80,000 was once current for London, —an unquestionable exaggeration. The Home Office reported in 1837 that the total number of prostitutes known to the police as living in houses of ill-fame, walking the streets and infesting low neighbourhoods was 9,409; twenty years later a similar return made by Sir Richard Mayne, Commissioner of the Metro- politan Police, based on detailed reports from the several districts yielded a total somewhat smaller, 8,600; a decade later the number similarly reached had fallen to 6,515. An unofficial count recently made disclosed 8,000. If the figures for 1837 and 1857 are fairly representative, the later ones are cer- tainly much too low. Equally uncertain calculations have from time to time been put forth respecting other great cities. ‘Dufour estimated the clandestine prostitutes of Berlin at 50,000 in 1896, at a time when just above four thou- sand were enrolled, assuming, that is, 12 clandestine for every registered woman. In three successive years, 1889, 1890, 1891, the morals police arrested for solicitation and similar offences 3,220, 3,537, and 4,019 women respectively ; of these, 640, 735, and 792 respectively were registered by the police on the ground that they were incorrigible; the rest were
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