Prostitutes in Bern (Berne) being punished by collecting night-soil in the streets. Engraving by C. Warren, ca. 1790.

The arcades or covered promenades of Bern are shown in the background: shopkeepers open up their shops. "In Berne, as indeed in the rest of Switzerland ... female prostitutes, when become notorious, are apprehended and sentenced to cleanse the public streets. Four, or sometimes six, are harnessed or linked to the scavenger's cart, which, on pain of the lash, they are compelled to drag step by step through the streets; while others sweep, gather up the soil, and shoot it into the cart" (Bankes, op. cit., p. 887)