Note 137 — Chapter III

Besides factory workers domestics form a very considerable percentage of the prostitutes. As the Berlin statistics cited above show the percentage of workers has diminished and that of domestics has increased. According to Dr. Blaschko the cause of the diminution of the percentage of factory workers is to be found not only in the fact that, the year 1898 being very prosperous, poverty did not come in as an important factor in the same measure as formerly, but also in the raising of the intellectual and moral plane of the Berlin working-women. It is impossible to speak of a similar raising of the plane of the domestics. The nature of their occupations prevents their forming associations; they are therefore deprived of the moral effect of the trades union.137 The causes of the importance of the contingent furnished to prostitution by the domestics are of different kinds. Besides the reason I have just mentioned, the fact is to be noted that it is not from among the most intelligent and best of the working classes that domestic servants are ordinarily drawn. For these prefer the less dependent position of working-woman to that of domestic. In the second place there is the influence of the occupation itself. (There are still others, of which I shall speak later.)