ALGERIA.

A pamphlet has lately appeared in France on the subject of Prostitution in Algiers. Its author, Dr. E. A. Duchesne, has rendered service by collecting a large number of important facts and statistical data.[247]

When the French conquered Algiers in 1830, they found prostitution established there, and prevailing to a large extent. So far as we are able to ascertain, it had always been a leading feature of Algerian society; travelers had noticed it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1830 it was estimated that, with a population of thirty thousand, Algiers contained three thousand prostitutes. We have already had occasion to notice the unreliable character of similar estimates in general, but there is no doubt that the number of lewd women at Algiers under Arab rule was inordinately large. They were mainly Moors, Arabs, and negresses. All were under the control of the chief of the native police—the Mezonar. He kept a list of them, and laid a tax amounting to about two dollars per month on each. As he paid a fixed sum to the government for the privilege of collecting this tax, it was to his interest to increase the number of prostitutes as much as possible, and he appears to have done so. He kept in his employ a number of spies, who watched women suspected of immoral habits, and denounced them whenever they were detected, in which event they were inscribed on the Mezonar’s list, and became prostitutes for life. He was empowered to compel every prostitute to discharge the duties of her calling, and was frequently applied to by strangers to supply them with women. He was not allowed, however, to lease women to Christians or Jews. Twice a year the Mezonar gave a public fÊte, to which all the male inhabitants of Algiers were invited; the prostitutes formed the female portion of the assemblage, and the public officer profited by the increased patronage they obtained during the festivities, as well as by the sale of tickets for the entertainment.[248]

It is right also to add that the French found that other feature of Oriental manners, unnatural habits, largely developed at Algiers. The cafÉs, the streets, the baths, the public places were full of boys of remarkable beauty, who more than shared with the women the favor of the wealthier natives. Owing to a criminal negligence on the part of the French authorities, no systematic endeavor has ever been made to eradicate this shameful vice, which appears still to prevail to an alarming extent.

The influx of population, mainly soldiery, into a city thus steeped in immorality, produced natural results. A few weeks after the invasion, the French general was compelled to establish a Dispensary, and to decree that all dissolute women must undergo an examination there once a week. A tax of five francs per month was laid upon prostitutes to defray the expenses of the establishment. Within less than a year, such grave abuses had crept into the collection of this tax that it was resolved to farm it out, and it was adjudged at auction to a man who agreed to pay 1860 francs per month for its proceeds. In 1832 the monthly tax was raised successively to seven ⁴⁴/100, and nine francs per girl, and on these rates it was farmed to one BalrÉ, who paid 1666⁸⁰/100 for the privilege of collecting it. He was also entitled to levy and retain the amount of all fines imposed by the police on prostitutes, and to charge women ten francs each time they went to a fÊte outside the city, and five francs if the fÊte were within the limits. The profits of the farm were so great that in 1835 BalrÉ was able to pay the government 2250 francs (four hundred and fifty dollars) per month.[249]

Under this system the gravest inconveniences occurred, and became so troublesome that in November, 1835, the governor promulgated a decree remodeling the regulations in force on the subject. It appears the farm system was then abandoned, and the government agents who were intrusted with the collection of the tax robbed both the prostitutes and the state shamefully.

Hence, in December, 1837, a new decree was issued by the governor, repealing all former laws and regulations, and placing the whole subject under the control of the Commissary of Police. The leading provisions of that decree were as follows:

This law is in force at the present time, and is said to have led to great inconvenience. Police agents are accused of levying black mail on the prostitutes to an enormous extent, in the shape of fines, dues for going to balls, hush-money for escaping the visit to the Dispensary, presents to the policeman on the birth of his children, etc. The product of the tax is inordinately large, amounting, independently of fines, to one hundred and twenty francs, or twenty-four dollars per annum for each girl. Several administrators have recommended its diminution or total suppression, but it is still retained.[251]

In the year 1838, when the present law was passed, the number of women inscribed on the police register was 320, the total population of Algiers being 34,882, of whom two thirds were Africans and one third Europeans; but the mayor of the city gave it as his opinion that this figure (320) was in reality far below the truth. In 1846 measures were taken for enforcing the police regulations more strictly than before, and some care was used to procure correct statistics of population and prostitution.[252] We compile the following table from several given by Dr. Duchesne:

To these figures, some of which are only approximative, must be added the number of French soldiers in the garrison at Algiers. At times the effective force has been as large as twelve or fifteen thousand men.

Another point of interest is the nationality of the prostitutes of Algiers. It is known that the native women are loose in their morals. In many parts of the interior it is common for fathers or brothers to let out their daughters or sisters by the night or the week to strangers, and the young women themselves are only too willing to ratify a bargain which promises to gratify their unbounded sensuality. The following table gives the nationality of the registered prostitutes during the period 1846-1851.[253]

On inquiring for the causes of prostitution at Algiers, Dr. Duchesne found that they might be summed up under three heads: 1st. Poverty, mainly due to the French conquest and the wars which followed. To the present day it appears that it is not unusual for an Arab chief to relieve his wants by sending his prettiest daughter to Algiers to perform a campaign as a prostitute. 2d. The idleness in which all Arab and Moorish women are trained. It was proved that, while all the European women were capable of working at some calling or other, and did work during their stay in the hospital, not one of the native women had any idea of manual employment. A few could sing, and had at one time gained a livelihood as street-singers, but the immense majority were absolutely incapable of doing any thing for a livelihood. 3d. The Oriental idea that the woman is a chattel, to be sold or hired out by her legitimate owner, father, brother, or husband. This idea, which prevails in many savage nations, among others, many of our own Indian tribes, is, of course, the best of all entering wedges for prostitution.[254]

There are fourteen houses of prostitution at Algiers, all kept, it seems, by Europeans, and the greater part by retired prostitutes. The natives object to living under the control of a brothel-keeper. They live alone in their own rooms. Sometimes three or four of them club together and form a partnership. Their rooms are generally shabby and ill furnished.[255]

Arab prostitutes seldom appear in the streets, and when they do, they are veiled and dressed like modest women. They may be seen at their windows of an evening, peeping through small holes contrived for the purpose, and smoking cigarettes. Their customers are procured by means of runners, who are mostly small boys.

As may be inferred from the amount of the tax on prostitutes, clandestine prostitution is very extensively practiced at Algiers. We have no details or even approximate estimates of the number of clandestine prostitutes, but it doubtless exceeds that of the registered women. Many of them are attached to the garrison, and are handed from regiment to regiment, shielded from the police by being claimed as wives by some of the soldiers. Others in like manner prevail upon some colonist to afford them a temporary home, and so elude the visit of the physician. Dr. Duchesne had reason to believe that syphilis prevailed to an alarming extent among the secret prostitutes, and that, until the tax was removed, and they were encouraged to register themselves on the police roll, it would continue to be general and virulent.[256]

Formerly the baths were the great haunts of clandestine prostitutes. It is known that in most eastern countries the bath is not only a sanitary necessity, but a common ally of sensuality. At Algiers, before the conquest, men and women are said to have bathed promiscuously, and frightful scenes of debauchery occurred daily. Under French rule this has been reformed. Men may not bathe from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.; but Dr. Duchesne was led to believe that it was quite common for men to introduce women into the baths at night, with the connivance of the bath officials. Indeed, some of the latter appear to fill the same office to the Algerine bathers as the Roman bath servants did to the dissolute men of that day.[257]

It now remains to speak of the Dispensary at Algiers. It was established, as has been stated, within a few days after the capture of the place. For nearly ten years it was a scandal to the faculty and the authorities. The wards were too small; there were not beds enough for the women; every thing was either deficient in quantity or objectionable in quality. In 1839, orders were given for the establishment of a proper and commodious Dispensary. Three old Moorish houses were hired and divided into wards. They contain at present thirteen wards, with beds for seventy-seven patients; a bath-room, containing six baths; a hall for the visits of prostitutes; and the necessary offices, etc. The staff of the Dispensary consists of a director, treasurer (econome), physician, apothecary, clerk, cook, assistant apothecary, porter, five laborers, and four police agents. All the washing is done in the establishment. The commissariat is on the amplest scale; meat, soup, vegetables of all kinds, rice, eggs, fruit, etc., being supplied in abundance to the patients.[258]

Every morning at seven o’clock the women are visited by the physician, assisted by the apothecary. Those who are able to walk are examined in the salle de visite, the others in their beds. The average number of patients during the year appears to be from five hundred and fifty to six hundred. The average duration of the treatment is from twenty-four to thirty-four days. The cost to the Dispensary averages from one and a half to one and three quarters franc per day for each girl (about thirty or thirty-five cents).[259]

The Dispensary physician reported to Dr. Duchesne that, so far as his observation went, syphilis was more severe on the sea-coast than in the interior; and in the months of September, October, November, and December, than at any other period of the year.[260]

Prostitutes are punished for being more than twenty-four hours behind time in visiting the Dispensary; for leaving it during treatment; for insulting the physician or other authorities; for continuing to exercise their calling after being attacked by disease. The penalty is imprisonment, either in the ordinary prison or in the solitary cell. Formerly, the tread-mill was used, and in bad cases a girl’s hair was cut off, and her nose slit; but these savage relics of Moorish legislation were long since abandoned. Solitary confinement is found to answer every useful purpose.[261]