The influx of population, mainly soldiery, into a city thus steeped in immorality, produced natural results. A few weeks after the invasion, the French general was compelled to establish a Dispensary, and to decree that all dissolute women must undergo an examination there once a week. A tax of five francs per month was laid upon prostitutes to defray the expenses of the establishment. Within less than a year, such grave abuses had crept into the collection of this tax that it was resolved to farm it out, and it was adjudged at auction to a man who agreed to pay 1860 francs per month for its proceeds. In 1832 the monthly tax was raised successively to seven 44/100, and nine francs per girl, and on these rates it was farmed to one Balré, who paid 1666-80/100 for the privilege of collecting it. He was also entitled to levy and retain the amount of all fines imposed by the police on prostitutes, and to charge women ten francs each time they went to a fête outside the city, and five francs if the fête were within the limits. The profits of the farm were so great that in 1835 Balré was able to pay the government 2250 francs (four hundred and fifty dollars) per month.[249] Under this system the gravest inconveniences occurred, and became so troublesome that in November, 1835, the governor promulgated a decree remodeling the regulations in force on the subject. It appears the farm system was then abandoned, and the government agents who were intrusted with the collection of the tax robbed both the prostitutes and the state shamefully. Hence, in December, 1837, a new decree was issued by the governor, repealing all former laws and regulations, and placing the whole subject under the control of the Commissary of Police. The leading provisions of that decree were as follows: "Every public woman who desires to prostitute herself must declare her intention beforehand to the Comptroller of Public Women, who shall enter her name in his register, and present her with a pass-book which he shall sign." "Every girl inscribed on the register shall place in the hands of the treasurer of the Dispensary, monthly, a sum of twenty francs if she be a kept woman, and ten francs if she be not kept. The treasurer shall give her a receipt for the same, and record it in his account-book." "The mayor shall be authorized to remit this monthly due, as well as any fines that may have been incurred, when the girl owing the same can prove by a certificate from the comptroller, the treasurer, and the physician that she is indigent." "Every girl who shall not have paid her monthly due, as well as her fines, within ten days after the visit to the Dispensary, shall undergo an imprisonment of not less than five days and not more than three months, unless she establish her indigence as aforesaid."