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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 7
Ww
We cannot follow a befter model of legiflation and police, than what is fet us by the
Creator. Asit is the bufinefs of legiflation to punifh the wicked without partiality, and
reward the good with a liberal hand ; fo the police, which is fubordinate to it, ought to
have no other objeét than to give it the means of rewarding virtue and punithing vice.
To go farther than this, and endeavour to make moral evil phyfically imspoflible, is an
offence both againft God and man.
Human jultice knows of no evils but thofe which {pring from offences which are hurt-
ful to fociety ; fhe and her handmaid the police have no night to turn a tribunal of jul-
tice into a tribunal of confeffion, nor imperioufly to extend their power to the internal
morals of aman. Even if the generality of mankind had much more worth of charac-
ter, and much greater moral feelings than they have, yet ought there not to be fuch
an inquilition as fubfifts in this place, by the eftablifhment of the confiftorial police and
other courts.
Probably Vienna is the only cityin the world which has a court called a fpecial com-
miffion of chaftity. A few years ago the {pies of this extraordinary tribunal ufed to
follow the young people into their houfes ; not only fo, they ufed to break into their bed-
chambers and vifit their beds in the middle of the night. The horror which this raifed
in fociety was fo univerfal, that the Emperor found himfelf obliged to ufe all his influ-
‘ence with his mother (who promifed herfelf great things from thefe exertions) to obtain
fome limitations of them. ‘The fpies of the police were in contract with the whores ;
thefe ufed to decoy the young men to their houfes, and when they were together betray
them. ‘The young people had then nothing for it but to allow themfelves to be plun-
dered, in order to avoid being carried before the commiflion of chaltity, and the {pies
and the whores divided the booty between them. The evil is now in fome degree cor-
rected by the interpofition of the Emperor, but the public walk called the Prater is ftill
furrounded by tenanted fpies, who trace the young men to trees and bufhes, in order to
prevent offences that are only poffible, and have not actually been given.
It is the opinion here, that the beft way of preventing fornication and child-murder,
and of increafing population, is to compel a man who has a child {worn to him to marry
the woman immediately. I was told a curious ftory on this fubject. A young man was
fummoned before the confiftory, to make anfwer to a young woman who claimed him
for a hufband. As he was in the outer chamber waiting for her, he faw another poor
young woman who was come there en a like errand. Having made himfelf acquainted
’ with all the circumftances of her cafe, and finding that the fuppofed father of the child
was fled, and not likely to appear, he offered her a good fum if fhe would take him in
the {tead, and date her complaint prior to the time of that which he expected to be
brought againft him. She promifed him that fhe wou!d do fo, and he went to the judges
full of confidence in the fuccefs of his projet. The court having afked him whether he
had flept with the perfon before him, and he having confeffed, he was told that he wasa
father, and muft give the womaa his hand. To this he made anfwer that he had no
objection, but that there was a perfon in the anti-chamber who had older claims upon
him. Upon her being called in, it appeared vifibly that fhe was farther gone than the
other. ‘The firit plaintiff was therefore ordered tocontent herfelf with a fum of gold
and go away. ‘The young man now pleaded that he had compounded matters with the
other lady; but, to his inexpreffible aftonifhment, fhe denied it. ‘The judges then
afked for witneffes, and he having none to produce, he was obliged to give his hand to
one, whom he had feen a quarter of an hour before for the firft time in his life.
I know feveral men who have been made hufbands of in this manner. Their wives,
fora time, drove on a general trade quietly with their cuftomers. When thefe began
Ba to
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