Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/456

 Prostitutions" this topic is presented in its French aspects very fully; as in many dictionaries of slang, of argot français, etc., are French terms the most universal of use. There is a large and cryptically crude English stock.

Below the high aristocracy-professed of this curious half-world, are the recruits already indicated as still in touch with their legitimate occupations; waiters in restaurants and clubs, petty officials, domestics in private families, robust young mechanics, youthful shopmen on small wages, students, and so on. Valets more or less homosexual or complaisant, for the sake of place and money, are plentiful. From these upper ranks secede some of the most dangerous types of prostitutes for a respectable Uranian's intimacies. In all large cities certain restaurants and cafés are known as places where the homosexual visitor can meet with friendly social circles, or find types to suit his taste. The whole personnel is sometimes made up of homosexual servants, the patrons are almost wholly philarrhenic. Particularly Russian and Turkish baths everywhere are a rendezvous for homosexuals. At least fifty baths, in fifteen or twenty capitals, have established, widely-circulated reputations, as being homosexual meeting-places, among Uranians who live in the cities in question or travel about the world.

One such bath; in a large Central European capital, has achieved international renown, as not only the great local market for homosexual prostitution, but also for its amazingly mixed and democratic clientage; being of its kind rather unique. It is a very large establishment, in one of the best quarters of the city," adjoining the chief public park. It was opened many years ago, with no obvious intention of development into a homosexual rendezvous; but it soon acquired that colour, and has maintained it ever since. The entire