Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/449

 rendezvous. The police always deny their existence. But they contrive to exist, sometimes exist a considerable length of time, on a greater or smaller footing. The police, particularly as many policemen are homosexual, know when to know a thing—or not. An amusing example of this fact occured [sic] to an Austrian homosexual, a year or so ago. Solemnly assured by a comely young police-official in -Milan that there was no maison de rendezvous for male prostitution in the Lombardian capital (!) about a week later he was offered the policeman in a well-conducted establishment, not ten minutes from the officer's station—the whole personnel and custom being masculine, his former acquaintance always at service of the house! In Paris, such clandestine resorts are many. In Asiatic and African cities, similar houses are plentiful. In Egypt, English military-rule has practically overlooked their existence, and the English patronage in Cairo, Alexandria and Port-Said justifies such myopia. The farther East, the more open and numerous are facilities of male prostitution. Regular 'boy-houses', as they are sometimes styled, are maintained in Farther-India, Japan, China, etc. In the baths at St. Petersburg, (generally speaking, in all large baths in Russia, the male-prostitute has a curious degree of tolerance and opportunity. In Italy, France and Germany, more or less orderly and clean assignation-houses are common. A resident contingent of vendable men and boys enables the proprietor to have a supply that can at any moment be summoned for a patron's choice—all types. But in a large part of Europe the law is fairly vigilant to root out and to punish such rendezvous and their frequenters.

When effort is made to maintain such establishments in cities where homosexual sorts Numerous intercourse is severly [sic] punished—New York, London, Berlin,- Munich, etc.,—the resort is masked in many different ways. If it is to be