In the reign of Canute a law was enacted by which any one found guilty of

adultery was to be punished by the loss of the nose and the ears.[288] In

the course of time the crime came to be punished by a fine paid to the

husband of the woman. This penalty soon fell into disrepute, as it was

found that some husbands and wives took advantage of it to extort fines

from persons possessing more money than prudence. By a subsequent

enactment the male adulterer became the property of the king, who might

send him to the wars, or employ him at hard labor as he pleased. By a law

of Edgar's time the adulterer of either sex was compelled to live, for

three days in each week, on bread and water for seven years. This was

treating the evil on physiological principles.

We can not infer any very strict condition of morals as the result of this

harsh legislation. When punishment is carried to an extreme entirely

disproportioned to the offense, it is as likely to fail in its object as

mistaken lenity. Forgery and arson were more frequent in England when

punished with death than they are at present; and although we have no

statistics of the time from which we can deduce any positive conclusions,

we may reasonably imagine that neither the death penalty, nor the other

barbarous punishments substituted for it, exercised any very powerful

influence in the diminution of the crime among our hardy progenitors. It

may have taught them greater caution and dissimulation in the prosecution

of their evil purposes, but it did not render them the less eager to

profit by the opportunities thrown in their way.

It has been already shown that the founders of Christianity treated

illicit sexual indulgence as a sin, and resorted to extreme measures for

its suppression, but yet, to some extent, tolerated prostitution. Shortly

after he had established himself in Britain, Augustine put some curious

queries to the Pope touching the manner in which chastity among converts

to the new faith should be enforced. The nature of these interrogatories

and replies forbids their appearance here.[289]

That Augustine required to be instructed on such prurient details proves

that he was a believer in the Jewish observances of physical ablutions and

cleansing of the person being necessary to the removal of moral

impurities, and that he carried his scrutiny into the morals of his flock

much farther than was consistent with modesty and good sense. However much

his religious teachings might have improved the manners of the people, the

regulations alluded to would have exercised no very salutary or

efficacious influence over them.

The lives of the early kings and rulers of Britain serve to illustrate the

morals of the nation during their respective reigns, not only by

exhibiting individual examples where the condition of the masses is hidden

from view, but by affording us an index to that condition when it is

considered that the manners of the court have, in all ages and all

countries, exercised an important influence on those of the people.

Augustine converted Ethelbert, but his son Endbald deserted the Christian

Church because it refused its sanction to his mother-in-law becoming his

wife. It is true that he afterward divorced her, and returned to

Christianity, but in this he was influenced rather by satiety than by the

promptings of a reviving faith. Many of the other kings of the Heptarchy

were as remarkable for the headstrong ardor of their passion as Endbald.

Canulph of Wessex had, in the year 784, an intrigue with one of his female

subjects, and frequently quitted his court to enjoy her society in the

country. During one of these clandestine excursions he was surprised and

surrounded in the night by the followers of Kynchard, a rival pretender to

the throne, and murdered in the arms of his mistress.

In the ninth century prostitution seems to have been a prevailing vice

throughout the country, and frequent references are made to it in the

discussions of the period. In the arguments used in favor of tithes, in

the time of Athelstan, it was held by some canonists that the clergy had a

right to demand one tenth of the profits earned by prostitutes in the

exercise of their calling. It is but right to add that the Church did not

persist in enforcing this extraordinary claim.[290]

Edwy, who ascended the throne at the early age of seventeen, became

involved in a controversy with the monks on the question, then first

started, of the celibacy of the clergy. The celebrated Dunstan favored

the new doctrine, but Edwy opposed it. The youthful and inexperienced

prince was no match for his sagacious antagonist, as he soon after

discovered. On the day of his coronation, which took place soon after his

marriage with his cousin Elgiva, whom he loved and resolved to wed, though

she was within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the Church, his

nobles were indulging in the pleasures of the banquet, when it was

discovered that Edwy had stolen away. Dunstan and Odo, Archbishop of

Canterbury, conjecturing the cause of his absence, proceeded to the

private apartments of the queen, and found him in her company. They tore

him from her, and dragged him back to the party. Elgiva's face was seared

with a red-hot iron to destroy her beauty, and she was transported to

Ireland. Her wounds being soon healed, and all trace of the injuries

removed, she returned to her own country, but was met by a party the

archbishop had sent to intercept her, and put to death. Thus, professedly

to preserve the morals of the king, these high ecclesiastics committed

crimes of far greater gravity than a marriage even between persons more

nearly related than Edwy and Elgiva.

Edgar, who succeeded Edwy, was of a still more passionate and licentious

disposition. He broke into a convent, and carried off one of the nuns,

named Editha, who was remarkable for her beauty. In the heat of passion,

he violated her person; and for the double offense of abduction and rape,

the Church, according to the peculiar morality of the times, punished him

by compelling him to resign his crown for the period of seven years. By a

curious inconsistency, he was permitted to retain possession of Editha,

who lived with him as a concubine.

Another of his mistresses he obtained by a less violent process. In

passing through Andover, he accidentally met the daughter of a neighboring

noble, who fascinated him by her remarkable beauty. Listening only to the

suggestion of his passion, he proceeded immediately to the residence of

the maiden's mother, and, informing her of the violent love with which she

had inspired him, demanded that she should be permitted to share his bed

that night. The mother, fearing to excite the king's anger by a refusal,

resorted to a stratagem, by which she hoped to evade his wrath, and, at

the same time, preserve the chastity of her daughter. She directed a

handsome waiting-maid to introduce herself into the young lady's chamber,

and the king was admitted after dark. When Edgar discovered the trick

which had been played on him, he manifested no resentment, and the

accidental partner of his bed became afterward his favorite mistress.

These were not his only amours. Elfrida, daughter of the Earl of

Devonshire, was distinguished by extraordinary beauty, and the fame of her

charms reached the court, although she resided in the country in strict

retirement, and had never been a mile from home. Edgar, hearing of her

beauty, and doubting whether her appearance justified the extravagant

praise lavished on it, sent one of his trusted favorites, Earl Athelwold,

to her father's residence to make a report to him on the subject.

Athelwold himself, like many a similar envoy, fell in love with the young

lady, and informed the king that rumor had greatly exaggerated her merits,

and that she was positively ungainly. This was sufficient to allay the

king's curiosity, and Athelwold shortly afterward secured the young lady's

hand in marriage. He explained the matter to Edgar by remarking that it

was her fortune which induced him to overlook her homely features. The

king desired him to introduce her at court, and Athelwold persistently

refusing, the king suspected the true state of the case. He intimated to

the earl that he had determined to visit the castle where she resided, and

the husband, dreading the consequences, implored his wife to conceal her

beauty as much as possible. Elfrida, woman-like, did precisely the

contrary, and set off her charms by the richest and most becoming toilette

in her wardrobe. Edgar was so enraged at the deception practiced on him

that he put the unfortunate earl to death, and married the widow.

The infusion of Danish blood does not seem to have exercised an improving

influence on Anglo-Saxon manners. Judging from the following, the contrary

may be inferred.

Ethelred kept a number of Danish troops in his pay, who were stationed in

different parts of the country. A complaint was made to the king that the

Danes had attained such a pitch of refinement, and made such an advance in

luxury, that they combed their hair daily, and were guilty of other acts

of personal embellishment equally reprehensible. Worse still, it was

averred that the women looked with favor on these practices of the Danes,

and that the latter debauched the wives and daughters of the English, and

disgraced the nation.[291] It is evident that women who could thus easily

be led away were only virtuous from the want of opportunity.

The legislation of this period shows that prostitution was not only

tolerated, but indirectly encouraged.

If a man seduced the wife of another, he was compelled, by an early Saxon

law, to pay a fine to the husband, and to procure for him another woman,

whom he was to remunerate for admitting him to her bed.[292] This was not

only offering a direct premium to prostitution by providing for the

debauching of a woman every time another chose to be seduced, but it shows

that females were in the habit of cohabiting with men for hire. The fines

for adultery were graduated according to the rank of the woman. If she

happened to be the wife of a nobleman, her chastity was valued at the

moderate sum of six pounds sterling (about thirty dollars); while the wife

of a churl brought to her husband as a salve for his injured honor about a

dollar and a half. The effect of these enactments could not but exercise a

demoralizing and injurious influence on the manners of the people. They

reduced the estimate of female chastity to that of a cheap marketable

commodity, whose loss could be repaid by a small money compensation.

By the laws of Ethelbert a man was permitted to buy a wife, provided the

purchase was made openly, and many such transactions are recorded, the

price being sometimes paid down in money, and sometimes in palfreys and

other kinds of property. The practice, however, was soon modified, and it

became necessary to obtain the consent of the bride. The husband was

compelled to support and protect her, and to treat her with respect. A

couple desirous of contracting marriage were formally betrothed in

presence of the priest, and this practice, having something of an

ecclesiastical obligation without any of its legal force, was frequently

productive of the same evil consequences as in Norway at the present day.

This custom of betrothal prevailed down to the time of Elizabeth.

The Normans introduced into England, if not a higher standard of morals,

at least a greater refinement in vice. Their laws were moulded by the

spirit of the feudal system which they imported with them. Under their

sway society was divided into two classes--feudal lords and their vassals.

The lord could dispose of the person and property of the vassal, limited,

indeed, by certain restrictions, but still leaving so much power in his

hands as to render the latter a virtual slave.

Thus, by the laws of the time, a vassal who seduced or debauched his

lord's wife or near relative, or who even took improper liberties with

them, might be punished by the forfeiture of his land. When a baron died,

the estate escheated to the king, who took immediate possession, and kept

it until the heir applied to do homage for it, and pay such a fee as the

king might demand. If the heir happened to be a minor, the king retained

possession of the estate until he reached his majority; and when the

inheritance devolved on a female, the king might give her any husband he

thought proper. He often turned this privilege to account by selling the

right to the hand and fortune of an heiress. Geoffrey de Mandeville paid

Henry III. a sum equal to about twenty thousand dollars for permission to

wed Isabel, countess of Gloucester, with the right to all her lands and

revenues. Even a male heir could not select his own bride except by

purchasing permission from the king, otherwise he had to accept his

majesty's choice.

We have no means of estimating the amount of licentiousness arising from

these arbitrary regulations, but we only require a little acquaintance

with human nature to arrive at the conclusion that they must have been a

prolific source of vice. The husband being selected by the king from

purely mercenary or interested motives, no attention was, of course, paid

to disparity of ages, or other circumstances on which the purity of the

marriage-bed depends. When the inclinations are forced in this way, women,

as well as men, are apt to revenge themselves on their partners by seeking

illicit enjoyments. Mercenary marriages, when projected, as they are even

in our day, from sordid motives on the part of parents or guardians,

almost invariably lead to infidelity, and many an old dotard, who forces

himself upon a girl under age, merely serves as a screen for her

clandestine amours.

In the reign of Henry III., grave disputes occurred between the civil and

ecclesiastical courts on the subject of bastardy. The common law deemed

all children to be illegitimate who had been born before marriage. By the

canon law they were held to be legitimate if the parents married

subsequent to their birth.

When a dispute of inheritance arose, it was customary for the civil to

issue writs to the spiritual courts, directing an inquiry to be instituted

into the legitimacy of the claimants; and as the bishops always returned

answers in accordance with the canon law, all persons whose parents had

married at any period were legitimate. When it is considered how strongly

most parents feel for the honor of their offspring, the tendency of such

decisions to increase prostitution becomes apparent. It may be considered

unjust to inflict disabilities on the child for the sins of the parent,

but such penalties undoubtedly have the effect of imposing a check upon

concubinage.

We have stated that the king claimed the disposal of the hands and

fortunes of heiresses: the barons claimed a still greater privilege from

their tenants. In some localities the feudal lord insisted upon enjoying

the person of one of the daughters of each tenant who happened to be

blessed with a plurality of them. He returned her to her parents within a

given time.

Every extreme is followed by a reaction in the opposite direction. The

abject condition of women, as indicated by the foregoing facts, led to the

institution of chivalry, which elevated her from the position of a slave,

and the mere instrument of sensual gratification, to that almost of a

deity, thus assigning her a rank as much above her real sphere as her

former one had been beneath it.

Previous to the advent of this system, women could not appear at any

public exhibition or place of amusement unless accompanied by a band of

armed retainers. Any female encountered alone and unprotected was liable

to insult.

Chivalry, if it did not put an end to, greatly modified this state of

things. By its rules each of its members was constituted a champion of

female virtue and honor. No man was admitted into the order whose valor

was not above suspicion, and a word uttered by him derogatory to the _beau

sexe_ excluded him from its ranks. No woman, however, was deemed worthy of

knightly protection who had not preserved her honor, it being to that

quality alone that knighthood volunteered its safeguard. At public

ceremonies, if a woman of easy virtue ventured to take precedence of a

woman of honorable fame, she was immediately reminded of the impropriety

of her conduct by some member of the order, and compelled to retire to the

rear.

This recognition of virtue had a strong tendency to promote female

chastity. It could not put a stop to voluntary prostitution, but it at

least prevented virtuous women being necessitated to yield their honor to

force. It held out, moreover, an attractive premium to correct conduct

among the sex by making it the object of heroic exploits, celebrated in

the romantic lays of minstrels and troubadours. Its observances have a

fantastic aspect in the light of modern civilization, but they

unquestionably exercised a powerful corrective influence over the female

character, so degraded at its commencement, while, at the same time, they

elevated that of the male sex by teaching them to respect themselves.

In the wars of the period, it was against the rules of chivalry to take

women prisoners. When a town was captured and entered by victorious

troops, the first step taken was to make proclamation that no violence

should be offered to any female. This conduct was so much at variance with

the notions and habits of soldiery, that the feelings which sustained

chivalry must have taken deep root in the minds of all classes to restrain

the passions of the military, strengthened as they were by dissolute

habits, and the absence of opportunity for their gratification during

service in the field.

To such an extreme was this feeling of deferential courtesy to the sex

carried, that the Normans were severely censured for their conduct at the

capture of the castle of Du Guesclin, it being alleged that they disturbed

the repose of the ladies. But as the tendency of every human institution

is to degenerate from its original purpose, the rigid purism which marked

the foundation of chivalry soon began to relax, and disorders crept in and

sapped the basis of a system which was too theoretically perfect to have

any extended duration.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise character of the relations which

existed between the Troubadours and the mistresses to whose service they

devoted themselves, and who were frequently married women. The knight

Bertram happened to lose the favor of his mistress, the wife of Talleyrand

de Perigord, in consequence of stories which had been related to her

implicating his fidelity, and charging him with dividing his knightly

attentions. He protests his innocence of these accusations in a lay as

impassioned as that of a lover to the object of his adoration, and invokes

a number of knightly calamities upon himself if his devotion to her be not

above suspicion.

It is hardly credible that the loves of such ardent admirers was

immaculate Platonism. On the other hand, the fact that husbands were

rarely or never jealous of them, goes some way to refute the idea that

they had a more serious character. The lords of those times were proud of

the protestations of regard offered to their ladies, and rewarded the

Troubadours with rich and valuable presents. The lords of our day, grown

wise by experience, make a point of keeping all such interlopers at a

distance.

While chivalry poised its lance in defense of the Lucretias, and then of

the Dulcineas of the day, the religious view of the commerce of the sexes

was particularly ascetic.

Although the most profound devotion was paid to woman in the abstract by

the order, the Church sought to encourage perpetual celibacy, the

seclusion of women, and the separation of the sexes. The clergy were

forbidden to marry, and the idea seemed to prevail that it was impossible

for men and women to mingle without being under the influence of

lascivious ideas, and ready to carry them into practice as soon as

opportunity offered. The attempt to organize society on such a basis had

an inevitable tendency to produce demoralization. Its obvious result,

instead of promoting chastity was to increase secret licentiousness and

encourage prostitution.

Even the voluntary vows of knights and troubadours were, in the end, as

little observed as these ecclesiastical precepts. The profligacy of the

Troubadours became open and undisguised, and the virtue of their

mistresses naturally kept pace with their example. The knights who

enlisted in the Crusades, with a large amount of zeal and but a small

share of wealth, supported their retainers by robberies on the way, and

the females who accompanied them acted as camp followers usually do. No

institution which deals merely in external observances can restrain

immorality in circumstances favorable to its development, and hence

chivalry was forced to yield before more powerful influences. That it

served its purpose in elevating the condition of woman, and in giving a

better tone to society at large, it would be unjust to deny.

Even when chivalry declined and ceased to inspire feats of

knight-errantry, we find women, instead of falling back into the degrading

position they had formerly occupied, employing themselves in intellectual

pursuits, publishing books, mixing in public controversies, distinguishing

themselves in the acquisition of languages, and even taking a leading part

in the political affairs of the times.

Among the women who acquired a historical notoriety by their position as

royal mistresses, during the epoch comprised between the Norman conquest

and the reign of Henry VIII., were the Fair Rosamond, concubine of Henry

II., and Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV. The misfortunes, as well

as the generous qualities of these fair sinners have thrown a sort of halo

around them.

Rosamond, surnamed the Fair on account of her exquisite beauty, was the

daughter of Walter, Lord Clifford, and was educated in the nunnery of

Godstow. The popular tradition concerning her is that Henry, hearing of

her charms, paid her a visit, but, finding her virtue inflexible, had to

exercise his authority as sovereign to compel her to yield to his wishes.

He placed her in a building erected in the midst of a labyrinth at

Woodstock, access to which could only be obtained by a clew of thread.

Henry located her here to protect her from the jealousy of his queen

Eleanor. She bore the king two sons, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury,

and Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln. During the king's absence in France he

intrusted the keeping of Woodstock and the care of the Fair Rosamond to

one Lord Thomas, who endeavored to seduce her. In revenge for the

rejection of his overtures, the faithless warden conducted Queen Eleanor

to her retreat, and the latter is said to have mixed a cup of poison,

which her minions compelled the unfortunate Rosamond to drink. It is also

alleged that the queen struck the poor girl on her lip with her clenched

hand.[293] Some assert that Rosamond died a natural death in a convent at

Oxford, and attribute the origin of the story of poisoning to the figure

of a cup which was sculptured on her tomb. It is more probable that this

effigy was placed there to commemorate the actual event. Rosamond was

buried in the church of Godstow, opposite the high altar, where her

remains lay undisturbed until they were ordered to be removed, with every

mark of indignity, by Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, in the year 1191. She was

regarded by the people as a saint, if not a martyr, and wonderful legends

were related concerning her.

Jane Shore, the celebrated concubine of Edward IV., was the wife of

Matthew Shore, a goldsmith in Lombard Street, London. Edward possessed a

good figure and pleasing address, and was fond of athletic sports and

exercises, which he enjoyed in company with the citizens, among whom he

became exceedingly popular. His popularity extended to many of the

citizens' wives, and it was not considered out of the natural course of

things that Mrs. Shore should be removed from Lombard Street to shine at

court as the royal favorite. Historians represent her as extremely

beautiful, remarkably gay in temperament, and of uncommon generosity. The

king, it is said, was no less charmed with her temper and disposition

than with her person. She never made use of her influence over him to the

prejudice of any one, and if she ever importuned him it was in favor of

the unfortunate.

After the death of Edward she attached herself to Lord Hastings, and when

Richard III. cut off that nobleman as an obstacle to his schemes, she was

arrested as an accomplice on the ridiculous charge of witchcraft. This

accusation, however, terminated in a public penance, with the loss of

whatever little property she possessed. Notwithstanding the severities

exercised against her, it is certain that she was alive in the reign of

Henry VIII., when Sir Thomas More mentions having seen her, poor and

shriveled, without the least trace of her former beauty. Mr. Rowe, in his

tragedy of "Jane Shore," has adopted the popular story related in the old

ballad, of her perishing from hunger in a ditch where Shoreditch now

stands, but Stow assures us that that street was thus named previous to

the time of Jane Shore.

The example of none of the English kings had a greater influence in

bringing the marriage tie into disrepute than that of Henry VIII. An

effort has been made by Mr. Fronde, in his new history of England, to

redeem the character of this monarch from some portion of the obloquy with

which it is covered, but there is no doubt that he was an unmitigated

monster. Curious to say, during his youth and early manhood he betrayed no

evidence of the brutal passions which afterward moved him. He was the

husband of Catharine for seventeen years before his domestic conduct

incurred reproach. At that late period of his career he conceived a

violent passion for Anne Boleyn, and, in order to get her to share his

bed, sought to divorce his wife. From this period he seemed to become the

prey of a restless concupiscence, which sought gratification in new

objects of indulgence, and his passion for the women he married and

beheaded was as short-lived as it was violent.

There is reason to believe that his marriage with Anne Boleyn was more

than adulterous. It is said Anne's mother had been more complaisant to

Henry than her duty to her husband or the laws of morality would have

sanctioned, and we have the authority of Bishop Fisher for concluding that

Anne was the result of this illicit connection, and that, when the king

expressed an intention of marrying her, Lady Boleyn exhorted him to

abandon his design, as Anne was his own daughter. Henry was not to be

deterred by an obstacle of this sort. He had great difficulty in procuring

a divorce, and in the mean while he and Anne had become so intimate that

she began to exhibit proofs of the connection which could not be

concealed. A private marriage was resorted to, considerations of state

rendering it prudent to keep the union secret.

Catharine was divorced through the instrumentality of Cranmer, but Henry

did not long continue to repose confidence in his new bride. Soon after

the marriage was made public, and she had been formally inaugurated as

queen, she attended a tilting-match at Greenwich, accompanied by the king

and a large concourse of spectators. The king observed her exchange

amorous signals with one of the combatants, who was also one of her

paramours. Henry had entertained suspicions of her connection with this

man, and this proof, as he regarded it, of her infidelity aroused his

jealousy. He left the scene on the instant and returned to Westminster,

where he issued orders to have her immediately arrested. She was thrown

into prison, and tried on the joint charges of adultery and incest. She

was accused of having committed adultery with four separate members of the

king's household, and of having had incestuous intercourse with her own

brother, Lord Rochford. She was tried, found guilty, and executed.

Whether she committed the entire criminality laid to her charge it is

impossible to say, but that the incidents of the career just described

were in perfect unison with the doings of Henry and his court there is no

doubt. Of the influence of such examples on the morals of the people at

large, there is, unfortunately, as little question. If court manners and

court styles are zealously followed, the vices that spring from them are

not less assiduously improved upon.

Henry's strong sexual passions, as well as his arbitrary disposition, were

bequeathed to his daughter Elizabeth. However historians may differ as to

the degree of her depravity, they all agree that her right to the title of

"Virgin Queen" was exceedingly ill founded. Many of her delinquencies with

persons of the opposite sex were notorious, although perhaps difficult of

proof. While she had not the slightest claim to beauty, she delighted in

flattery, and could swallow any amount of gross and fulsome adulation. Her

vanity so blinded her that she never perceived that the extravagant

praises lavished on her personal attractions were merely covert satire.

It is said that Elizabeth indulged in almost indiscriminate lewdness, and

that Leicester, Hatton, Essex, Mountjoy, and numerous others shared her

favors. In one of the notes appended to Hume's fourth volume, the nature

of Elizabeth's dealings with a large number of her favorites is set forth,

the author of the statement being the Countess of Shrewsbury.

Mary, Queen of Scots, at a time when friendly relations existed between

her and Elizabeth, wrote to the latter that the countess had reported that

Elizabeth had given a promise of marriage to a certain courtier, but,

finding the marriage inexpedient, had dispensed with the ceremony and

admitted him to her bed. The countess also stated that she had been

equally indulgent to Simier, the French agent, and that Hatton, another of

her paramours, had spread many reports indicative of her extreme sexual

passion.

The immediate successors of Elizabeth were of a different personal

temperament, and did not abandon themselves to such scandalous excesses.

James I. had no mistresses, and was not of a character to seek pleasure in

extravagant licentiousness, but his court was not free from the scenes

which had disgraced those of Henry and Elizabeth. James, being desirous of

uniting the Earl of Essex with the Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the

Earl of Suffolk, had the young couple betrothed, although they had not

attained the age of puberty. The earl was only fourteen years of age,

while Lady Frances was but thirteen, and it was deemed proper for the

youth to travel until both should have arrived at the maturity necessary

for the consummation of the marriage relation. After four years spent on

the Continent, the earl returned to England, and found his affianced bride

in the full lustre of extraordinary beauty, and of the fame which great

personal charms excite. He had also the mortification to find himself

repulsed when he approached her as a husband, and was met by every

manifestation of dislike and contempt. He complained to her parents on the

subject, and they compelled her to accompany him to the country.

Although the young countess obeyed this mandate literally, the feud

between her and Essex was far from terminated: she recognized him as her

husband in name only, and sedulously kept herself aloof from his society,

nor could any of his endeavors overcome her repugnance. The lady persisted

in her obstinacy; the husband redoubled his attentions and importunities,

but, finding that she was invincible, he finally abandoned the pursuit,

and separated from her.

The cause of this strange conduct on the part of the countess was the

passion which she entertained for a Scotch adventurer named Robert Carr,

who had found a favorable reception from the king, by whom he was created

Viscount Rochester. She believed that by refusing to consummate her

marriage with Essex she would not be considered by the world in the light

of his wife, and she hoped to procure a divorce, which would enable her to

marry Rochester.[294] As their mutual attachment was ardent, and their

opportunities for being together frequent, they anticipated the

probability of a marriage, and indulged their passions without waiting for

the ceremony. They did not find as much trouble in procuring a divorce as

they had anticipated.

The king, who had a strong partiality for Rochester, favored their views,

and Essex, finding that his suit was hopeless with his wife, opposed no

obstacle to the nullification of his marriage. The grounds on which the

countess sued out the divorce were of rather a curious character. The

chief allegation against Essex was impotency. At that time a firm faith

existed in the absurd notions that there were people who possessed the

power of witchcraft, enabling them, among other things, to deprive a man

of his virility. It was asserted and maintained that Essex had been

subjected to this influence, and was therefore incompetent to occupy the

position of a married man. The divorce was secured, and Rochester and the

countess experienced no farther obstacle to the gratification of their

desires.

Rochester had previously consulted Overbury on the difficulties of his

position, and the latter strongly advised him not to marry the countess.

These facts coming to the ears of Lady Frances, she induced Rochester to

have Overbury poisoned. On the discovery of the murder, Rochester and his

wife were brought to trial and convicted, but the mistaken clemency of the

king interposed between them and the doom they so richly merited. They

passed the remainder of their days in obscurity, but as bitter enemies,

and although they resided in the same house for many years, no word or

message was ever exchanged between them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

GREAT BRITAIN.--HISTORY FROM THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE PRESENT DAY.

Puritans.--Results of Asceticism.--Excesses of the Restoration.--

General Licentiousness.--Art.--Literature.--The Stage.--Nell Gwynne.--

Nationality in Vice.--Sabbath at Court.--James II.--Literature of the

seventeenth and eighteenth Centuries.--Lord Chesterfield.--House of

Hanover.--Royal Princes.--George III.--George IV.--Influence of French

Literature.--Marriage Laws.--Increase of Population.

On gaining the ascendant, the Puritans endeavored to reform the general

corruption of society by cutting to the root of the disorders that

afflicted it. Instead, however, of applying the knife judiciously, they

excised the sound as well as the unhealthy parts. Their measures went to

the extreme of killing all the affections and impulses natural to the

human breast, in order to repress the excesses arising from too free an

abandonment to them. Some fanatics, for instance, gravely suggested that,

in order to put an end to fornication and adultery, all intercourse should

be prohibited between the sexes.

In our days it is found that innocent amusements are the best safeguard

against criminal indulgence, but the Puritans thought otherwise, and

looked upon joyous exhilaration of any kind as almost sinful. They

enforced their gloomy doctrines with a tyranny as unbending as their

tenets themselves were harsh and unnatural. Theatrical entertainments,

dancing, etc., were sternly placed under ban, and Puritanism presented

merely a heavy and murky atmosphere, with scarcely a social star to

enliven its gloomy aspect.

When the Restoration removed the oppressive weight of fanaticism from the

public spirit, it rebounded as far above a healthy pitch as it had been

formerly depressed below it. An immediate revolution took place in the

manners and habits of the people. The theatres, which had been closed by

the Puritans, were at once reopened, and the populace abandoned themselves

to pleasurable excesses with an eagerness proportionate to the restraint

which had been imposed on them. This license would, in time, have been

checked by reflection, had not the impulse been supplied from the quarter

where a repressive influence should have been exercised. The Merry Monarch

and his court led the race in this national carnival, and the examples

which they set only served to stimulate the public appetite for

debauchery. Indeed, the court of Charles was little better than a public

brothel, and the wit with which its orgies were embellished only served to

increase the dangers arising from its conspicuous position, and its power

over men's minds as the centre from which all rank and consideration

flowed. The conduct of the courtiers was strictly modeled on that of their

royal master, and their social accomplishments only imperfectly varnished

over the gross features of a coarse sensuality. Women were flattered and

caressed, but not respected, and the homage paid them was such as no

decent woman in our time would consent to receive.

The most faithful portraiture of the manners of this epoch is to be found

in its dramatic literature. The staple incidents of the pieces represented

at the theatres consisted of love intrigues, seductions, and rapes. The

fop of the play never elicited such hearty applause as when he recounted

his exploits in the ruin of female virtue among the citizens' wives.

The theatre not only fostered lewdness by depicting it in glowing and

attractive colors, but its actors spread abroad the corruption which it

was their business to delineate. Their personal character corresponded, in

too many instances, with the parts which they performed, and they

re-enacted in private the debaucheries which they presented on the stage.

The theatre itself became a central rendezvous for immoral characters, and

the place where assignations were most conveniently fixed. Lively wenches,

under the pretense of selling oranges to the spectators, frequented the

pit, and took their places in the front row, with their backs to the

stage. It was well understood that they were as ready to sell favors as

fruit, and, in fact, that they had come from the neighboring brothels for

that express purpose.

Deep drinking was another characteristic feature of the times, and

bacchanalian orgies were freely indulged in by all classes, from the king

to the beggar, differing little in the extremes to which they were pushed.

Conversation, even in what was called the best society, was disfigured by

the grossest obscenity and blasphemy, and _bon ton_ consisted in the

extravagance to which this vicious conduct was extended.

Even the peasantry endeavored to imitate the costumes and carriage of the

courtiers, and country women were to be seen in flaunting dresses cut so

as to expose as much as possible of the person.

Up to this period no female had ever appeared upon the English stage;

where women were introduced, their parts had been filled by boys. Neither

was it customary for a monarch to show himself at a public representation

of a play; but, when they were enacted for his amusement, the performance

took place in some apartment of the royal palace. In Charles's reign,

women for the first time appeared on the stage, and performed the parts

allotted to the heroines of the drama.

The king and queen became regular frequenters of the theatre, and

encouraged by their presence the _double entendre_ and broad indecencies

of the pieces in vogue. We may remark, parenthetically, that unmarried

actresses usually adopted the title Mistress before their names, the word

Miss, as then applied, signifying that she who bore it was a concubine. In

modern days it is the habit to reverse this practice, as the marriage

state is considered to divest the actress of half her attractions.

There were but two theatres in London at this period: the King's Theatre,

where the celebrated Nell Gwynne and Mrs. Rebecca Marshall were the chief

actresses, and the Duke's, where another company performed. One day the

reigning favorites at the King's Theatre had a violent quarrel, and Mrs.

Marshall called Nell "Lord Buckhurst's mistress." Nell contented herself

with rejoining that she was but one man's mistress, though brought up in a

brothel, while Mrs. Marshall bore the same relation to three or four,

notwithstanding she was the daughter of a Presbyterian. Their own accounts

of each other leave no doubt as to their morality.

The pieces represented in the London theatres in the time of Charles II.

were, as we have before stated, filled with indecent allusions, and their

interest with the public turned on the number and intensity of these

prurient passages. The ladies never attended the first representation of a

comedy except in masks; and when the dames of the court, with their

established reputations for gallantry, were apprehensive of being seen at

them, some idea may be formed of the licentious character of the pieces

most in favor.

But many of these plays are still in evidence to speak for themselves. It

will be seen that in the majority the plot is so framed as to admit the

greatest license in libidinous allusions. The distinguishing feature of

them is that the most immodest passages are put into the mouths of women,

and, indeed, we know that that actress was the most successful who took

the greatest liberties with the text, and most improved upon its lewdness

of expression.

As a specimen of the general character of these plays, we may name "All

Mistaken, or the Mad Couple," quite a favorite with the public in its day.

The hero is importuned by six clamorous unfortunates whose ruin he has

effected, and dunned in addition by the nurses of their illegitimate

offspring for wages owing to them. The delectable superstructure of

obscene dialogue which is raised on this foundation may be better imagined

than described.

The usual hour at which the theatres opened their doors was four in the

afternoon, and after the close of the performances the audience generally

repaired to some garden or other place of public amusement. Here scenes

were enacted which proved a fit sequel to those witnessed on the stage.

The orange-girls had a superior known as "Orange Moll," who occupied a

position somewhat analogous to that of the modern brothel-keeper. She

attended the girls to the theatre, and superintended and directed their

operations there. During the _entreactes_ lewd conversations were carried

on between the orange-girls and the gallants, which were interspersed with

obscene jokes, and highly relished by the audience. The custom of

interpellating the gay women who frequented the theatre was continued to a

period comparatively recent. Every one has heard the story of Peg Plunket

and the Duke of Rutland, in the days when the gods of the Dublin theatre

were esteemed the most discriminating, though boisterous and rollicking

audience of the three kingdoms.

Charles selected several of his mistresses from the stage, for which he

had a passionate fondness. Miss Davis literally sang and danced her way

into his affections. Her conquest of the king was consummated by the

manner in which she sang the popular ballad "My lodging is on the cold

ground." Charles thought she was deserving of warmer quarters, and raised

her to his own bed. He established her in a splendid residence, and

lavished on her the most extravagant gifts.

The queen at first resented the open and undisguised infidelities of the

king, and publicly manifested her sense of them on one occasion by

quitting the theatre when Miss Davis made her appearance on the stage;

but, finding it impossible to reclaim him from his vicious propensities,

she abandoned all hopes of restricting his libertinism, or even of keeping

him within the bounds of conventional decency.

The Countess of Castlemaine (afterward created Duchess of Cleveland) was

of a more jealous temperament than the queen, and took a more

characteristic revenge on Charles for his frailties. She took another

lover, and went to reside at his house, very much to the comfort of her

royal patron, who had a kingly dislike of trouble.

After quarreling with Lord Buckhurst, Nell Gwynne returned to the stage,

but had not long resumed her profession when it was rumored that she had

made a conquest of the king. These reports were apparently contradicted by

her continued appearance at the theatre, and the progress she made in her

art, which could only be the result of careful study. A tragedy by Dryden

was advertised, the principal character to be performed by Nell; but,

before the night of its first representation arrived, it was found

necessary to postpone the performance, owing to Nell's not being in a

condition to appear. From this time her connection with Charles no longer

remained a secret.

Nell, like her predecessors, was not long suffered to maintain uncontested

her supremacy over the king's affections. When the Duchesse d'Orleans, the

sister of Charles, paid a visit to the English court in 1670, she had in

her train a handsome maid, who was admired for her simple and childish

style of beauty. Whether instigated by the courtiers who accompanied her

mistress, whose visit was a political one, or prompted by her own

sagacity, she made her acquiescence in the king's desires conditional upon

his executing the shameful treaty which gave France such important

advantages, and rendered Charles a mere tributary to the French king. This

girl, Louise de Querouaille, became the rival of Nell Gwynne, and had a

child by Charles, who was created Duke of Richmond.

So scandalously public had the relations of Charles with the loose women

who surrounded him become, and so flagrant and unblushing was the conduct

of the latter, that the queen could no longer reside in the palace of

Whitehall, and accordingly removed to Somerset House in the Strand. This

feeling of indignation on the part of her majesty soon extended to the

virtuously disposed part of the public. Efforts were made to apply a

remedy to the disorder which threatened to corrupt the whole framework of

English society. In Parliament it was proposed to levy a tax on the

play-houses, which had become undisguised nests of prostitution. The

debate which ensued elicited a witticism which led to serious consequences

to the gentleman who uttered it. On Sir John Birkenhead's remarking that

"the players were the king's servants and part of his pleasures," Sir John

Coventry was imprudent enough to inquire "whether the king's pleasures lay

among the men that acted or the women." For this offense to Charles he was

waylaid by some of the courtiers, who slit his nose, and otherwise

maltreated him.

It is impossible, however, to deny that this very license of manners

rendered the king popular with a certain class of his subjects. The only

exception taken by them to his conduct was the selection of a foreigner as

one of his mistresses, and even this would have passed without comment but

for the political consequences of the connection. It was generally

understood among the people that Mademoiselle de Querouaille, or Mrs.

Carwell, as she was commonly called, was an agent used for the purpose of

securing the ascendency of French interests. This brought upon her the

hostility of the populace, who availed themselves of every opportunity of

manifesting their dislike to her.

Nell Gwynne was an English woman, a Protestant, and the idol of the town.

She was known by the title of the Protestant mistress, while Mrs. Carwell

went by that of the king's Popish concubine. Nell was one day insulted in

her carriage at Oxford, and came very near being mobbed by the populace in

mistake for Mrs. Carwell. With her usual wit and presence of mind, she put

her head out of the window, and quieted the rioters by telling them that

she was "the Protestant w--e."

As the literature of the times reflected the general licentiousness of

manners, it was not to be expected that the arts would escape their

demoralizing influence. Most of the paintings then executed were

characterized by the same freedom of expression which was used on the

stage. There is an old print extant of the Duchess of Portsmouth,

reclining on a bank of violets, wearing no other covering than a lace

robe; and in another Nell Gwynne is represented in the same semi-nude

condition. It is said that this dress had belonged to the duchess, and had

been much admired by the king, but that, with her usual love of mischief,

Nell had purloined it, greatly to the amusement of her royal lover, and

very much to the chagrin and mortification of the duchess.

The king had his own peculiar way of celebrating the Sabbath. On that day

he usually collected his mistresses around him, and amused himself by

toying with them and humoring their caprices. We have a picture by a

contemporaneous writer of one of his Sunday evenings at Whitehall, where

the court resided. It was shortly before his death. Charles sat in the

centre of a group of these women, indulging in the most frivolous

amusements, and apparently in high humor. At a little distance stood a

page singing love-songs for the delectation of the king's mistresses,

while round a gambling-table were seated a number of his courtiers,

playing for stakes which sometimes ran as high as ten thousand dollars of

our money.[295] The orgies of the night were kept up until daylight broke

in upon the revelers. At eight o'clock the same morning the king was

seized with a fit of apoplexy, and died within a week.

James II., though of a grave and stern character, was scarcely less

amorous in his temperament than Charles. They differed, however, in their

tastes. Charles required beauty in his mistresses; and Nell Gwynne and

some of his other concubines were not only beautiful in person but

possessed of intellectual graces which gilded their gross sensuality.

James cared but little for personal attractions, and lavished his favors

on coarse-featured and coarse-minded women. His wife was below him in

rank, and he did not stoop to her for her beauty, for she was plain, if

not downright ugly in her features. He soon transferred his affections to

a still plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His strongest attachment

was, however, that which he entertained for Catharine Sedley, who

possessed a powerful influence over him. She was the daughter of Sir

Charles Sedley, and seems to have inherited from him the strong passions

and reckless disregard of public opinion by which he was distinguished.

Sedley's writings were more licentious than those of any of his

contemporaries. His literary talents were not of a high order, but he

possessed fair conversational abilities, which made his society

attractive. The extreme dissoluteness of his life and disregard of all

decency provoked censure even in that age of loose morals. On one

occasion, after a drunken revel with some of his profligate companions, he

presented himself on the balcony of a tavern near Covent Garden in a state

of complete nudity, and commenced a harangue so full of lewdness and

obscenity that the crowd pelted him with stones and other missiles, and

compelled him to withdraw into the house. A daughter inheriting these

propensities, and brought up under the influence of this example, could

not fail to become conspicuous for similar traits of character. Her person

possessed none of the attributes which render women attractive. A lank,

spare figure, a hollow cheek, sallow face, and an eye of glaring

brightness comprised the sum total of her charms.

Charles, whose taste was more cultivated, remarked that his confessor must

have recommended Catharine to his brother as a penance for his sins. She

herself had the discrimination not to be insensible to the truth of this

remark, and was even in the habit of boasting of her own plain looks. Her

taste for finery was as great as if she possessed attractions worth

setting off by its aid. James, when he formed this connection, had

advanced to middle age, and it is difficult to account for the influence

which she contrived to exercise over him. On his accession to the throne

he promised the queen to abandon her, but his good resolutions soon gave

way. Whenever the absence of his wife afforded the opportunity, Chiffinch

might be seen conducting Catharine through the private passage leading to

his chamber. Notwithstanding all the affected austerity of his manners,

James was, in reality, but little better than his volatile brother.

At no period in the history of England, as we have just shown, had the

licentiousness of the court been greater than it was during the reigns of

Charles II. and James II.; only to be exceeded, perhaps, by the fearful

abyss of debauchery and atheism which a few years later was beheld in the

courts of Louis XV. and the Regent of France. The vigor and intellect of

the early part of the reign of Louis XIV., the magnificence of his tastes,

and the glory of his enterprises, stand out in powerful contrast to the

doings of the imbecile, corrupt, and utterly profligate and debased court

of England. The influence of this most pernicious example it is somewhat

difficult to arrive at. The great body of the people, especially in the

country, in those times of difficult communication, were probably but

little affected by the extravagance of the restored Cavaliers, added to

which there was a powerful leaven of religious feeling working through the

country, which did not for some time settle down into the apathy that

called for a new manifestation of Puritan feeling in the establishment of

Wesleyan Methodism. In the upper classes of society, however, the

core-rottenness of the courts of Charles and James was yet felt,

throughout the reigns of the succeeding sovereigns, even down to the time

of George III. The writings of contemporary authors, especially of the

comic dramatists, "the abstract and brief chronicles of the times," are a

fair type of the public morals and intelligence in all ages. At this epoch

we have from these sources overwhelming evidence of the reaction which had

taken place.

After the removal of the compulsory restraint of Puritan control, the

nation seemed at once to have lost its reason: modesty and decency were

badges of Puritan Republicanism, and therefore unsuited to loyal men, who

showed their attachment to the monarchy by their abandonment of decorum

and violation of every moral virtue. The productions of the favorite

authors teem with coarse images, unequivocal allusions, and gross facts.

Wit degenerated into blasphemy, liveliness into obscenity, metaphors into

lasciviousness. The scenes that took place in the court, and which

constituted its daily amusements, were disgusting to the last degree. The

mere commerce of the sexes, and the libertinism of the period in that

respect, were the smallest vices, and might almost be considered merely

follies, but the venality and corruption were open and shameless. The

courtiers cast aside the last rag of patriotic propriety, and avarice,

cruelty, lust, and perjury filled the measure of wickedness. On one

occasion, it is said, an infant was prematurely born in one of the rooms

of the palace, and Charles, with many jocular remarks, had the body

conveyed to his own closet for dissection by his own hand! An incident of

such brutality, which might be frequently paralleled by others equally bad

in degree, though different in fact, shows the hideous destitution of all

decency with which the court must have been cursed. The pages of

Rochester, Etherege, Buckingham, Congreve, Vanburgh, and Fletcher, in the

close of the seventeenth, and Prior, Gay, Swift, and scores of inferior

writers in the commencement of the eighteenth century, all exhibit this

state of affairs, while the noble Muse even of a Dryden could stoop to

earn base applause by lending her powers to the decoration of vice, and

voluntarily quitting her native regions to wallow in the mire.

The vices of this period must have left an ineradicable taint behind them,

when, after the full tide of iniquity had swept on, and purer waters were

succeeding, we find Lord Chesterfield, a British statesman of

distinguished ability and high position, thus advising his own son: "Let

the great book of the world be your principal study. _Nocturna versate

manu versate diurna_, which may be rendered thus: Turn over men by day and

women by night: I mean only the best editions."

While, as we have already observed, there was probably a wholesome

religious element in a portion of the population, which operated as an

antiseptic against the rottenness of the court, it is impossible but that

the capital must have been imbued with the reckless iniquity, outrageous

dissoluteness, and general immorality of the higher classes. The poets,

playwrights, essayists, and biographers of the age all bear traces of the

effects of bad example in high places on public manners. A critic of those

days says, "The accomplished gentleman of the English stage is a person

that is familiar with other men's wives and indifferent to his own, and

the fine lady is generally a composition of sprightliness and falsehood."

A thorough disrespect for female virtue, or rather the admiration of

libertinism, tainted the life's blood of the capital. And when, passing

over the coarse wit of Prior, or the perverted genius of Dryden, we come

to the sober and moderate writings of essayists and satirists, we find

material which gives us some little insight into the lower London life of

the period, and that which has more immediate interest for us in this

inquiry.

In the delightful and ever youthful pages of the Spectator, there are some

incidents of great pathos touching the state of those unfortunates whose

condition was then, as now, one of the disgraces of civilization. One

paper contains a singularly apposite remark. "I was told," says the writer

(a woman of the town), "by a Roman Catholic gentleman last week, who I

hope is absolved for what then passed between us, that in countries where

Popery prevails, besides the advantages of licensed stews, there are

larger endowments given for the _Incurabili_, I think he called them. This

manner of treating poor sinners has, we think, great humanity in it; and

as you, Mr. Spectator, are a person who pretends to carry your reflections

upon all subjects which occur to you, I beg therefore of you to lay before

the world the condition of us poor vagrants, who are really in a way of

labor instead of idleness."

At another time the Spectator himself meets "a slim young girl of about

seventeen, who, with a pert air, asked me if I was for a pint of wine. I

could observe as exact features as ever I had seen; the whole person, in a

word, of a woman exquisitely beautiful. She affected to allure me with a

forced wantonness in her look and air, but I saw it checked with hunger

and cold. Her eyes were wan and eager; her dress thin and tawdry; her mien

genteel and childish. This strange figure gave me much anguish of heart,

and, to avoid being seen with her, I went away, but could not avoid

giving her a crown. The poor thing sighed, courtesied, and with a

blessing, expressed with the utmost vehemence, turned from me. This

creature is what they call _newly come upon the town_."

The arts of the procuresses; their experiments on inexperienced country

girls; their attendance at coach-offices and public places to hunt for and

entrap the unwary; the regular customers they have for new wares; the

mode, first of offering them to private sale, and, when the first gloss is

worn off, casting them on the public market, are all as true of 1858 as of

the day for which it was written. In one case, the Spectator, being at a

coach-office, overhears a lady inquiring of a young girl her parentage and

character, and especially if she has been properly brought up, and has

been taught her Catechism. Desirous of seeing a lady who had so proper an

idea of her duties to servants, he peeps through and sees the face of a

well-known bawd, thus decoying a young girl just arrived in London. One

amusing cheat in the business of these go-betweens is complained of by a

lady correspondent: for a consideration, they profess to introduce some

ambitious foreigner or country gentleman to the favors of ladies of high

degree, ruling toasts, leading belles, etc. Some lady, Wilhelmina Amelia

Skeggs, is foisted upon the deluded customer, who must, of course, be

ignorant of the person of his inamorata, and he walks off boasting, in

great self-gratulation, of his good fortune, to the great injury of an

irreproachable woman's fame.[296]

It was reserved for the reign of George III. to give a favorable turn to

court morals and to make virtue respectable. The Georges I. and II. had

exercised but a negative influence on their subjects. They were merely

viewed as political necessities, and held in little or no personal esteem.

Their uncouth manners, foreign mistresses, and decidedly heavy _liaisons_

had no charm for either eye or fancy. With George III. and his queen,

virtue in courts became in some degree fashionable; the slough of

libertinism in which Louis XV. and the Regent Orleans had plunged

themselves seemed in France to have created some reaction. Louis XVI. in

Paris, and George III. in London, presented the rare spectacle to their

respective subjects of two well-conducted men, whose domestic life and

character were unimpeachable. But as the sons of George III., especially

the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, attained their majority, they

were surrounded by bands of flatterers and parasites, who stimulated and

encouraged the natural proneness of youth to pleasure and dissipation. The

libertinism and excesses of the Stuarts again became _bon-ton_, devoid, it

is true, of political debasement and national dishonor; checked also by

parental disapprobation, and by the influence of public opinion. This,

though very weak, was not quite powerless; and, though lenient to the

errors of youth, it drew an unfavorable comparison between the reckless

extravagance and dissolute tastes of the princes, and the moderate and

personally estimable conduct of the king and queen.[297]

The masses of the English people were distinguished for plain good sense,

and attachment to the cause of religion and morality; and although

drinking, gambling, boxing, and racing were, in honor of the royal

princes, fashionable amusements, and their attainment coveted and emulated

by many of the rising generation, still the general sentiment of the

nation at this period was condemnatory of these vices. Those inclined to

charitable views of human nature found excuses in the temptations of

youth, a fine person, a commanding position, and, lastly, in the infamous

counsels of those who found political capital in the encouragement of

these excesses, thereby promoting a division between the heir to the

throne and his sovereign parent. Others there were who beheld in George

IV., whether as prince or monarch, a modern Tiberius, a man of

ungovernable lusts; a ruthless libertine and a debased sensualist, without

any redeeming qualities. As a fact, apart from causes and political

prejudices, George IV. was undoubtedly a debauchee and a man of dissolute

habits;[298] but he was a man of liberal education, of cultivated taste,

of distinguished appearance, and elegant manners. He and the Count

D'Artois, brother of Louis XVI., were considered the most finished

gentlemen in Europe, so far as mannerism went. These externals glossed

over, and even lent a charm to, the vices of his youth; and the mysterious

orgies of Carlton House were associated in the public mind with the

brilliant wit of Sheridan, the manly grace of Wyndham (that _beau ideal_

of an English gentleman), the vast talent of Fox, and the enchanting grace

of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the bright particular star amid a

galaxy of minor luminaries. The respectability belonged to the court

party; the genius and fascination were ranged on the side of the Prince of

Wales.

It is difficult, even at this brief lapse of time, and when so many

eye-witnesses are yet surviving, to speak with any degree of confidence of

the state of general public morals in England as affected by the French

Revolution, and the violent Tory and Whig contests of the period. The

literature which preceded and accompanied the French Revolution went the

whole length of undermining and unsettling every established institution,

both of politics and religion, without building up an effective substitute

in place of the structure destroyed. The doctrines of moral obligation and

the balance of general convenience, which, according to the Volney,

Voltaire, and Rousseau school, were to supersede the effete and worn-out

dogmas of the Gospel, were little known and less liked in England. At the

outset of the French movements, the cause had the sympathy of the English

Liberals; but afterward, when the social and political excesses of the

time disgusted even its moderate British supporters, and when the

deep-rooted and apparently innate antagonism of the two nations was

revived by the war, the hatred and contempt of the English people for

French manners, French literature, French men, French every thing, knew no

bounds. Thus, while the leaven of Parisian philosophy was fermenting in

the breasts of all Continental Europe, it is our opinion that its

influence in England was purely of a reactionary character; and as under

the last Stuarts patriotism and libertinism went hand in hand, so, in the

end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth centuries, an

Englishman's love of his own country and his hatred of France were

associated with a detestation of the heresies of French philosophers and

patriarchs.

Of the effect produced on the morals of the people by the loose manner in

which, previous to 1753, the marriage ceremony was performed, we have the

evidence brought forward in the debates on Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Bill.

Anterior to that time, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve years of age

might marry against the will of their parents or guardians, without any

possibility of dissolving such marriage. The law, indeed, required the

publication of banns, but custom and the dispensing power had rendered

them nugatory. A dispensation could be purchased for a couple of crowns,

and the marriage could take place in a closet or a tavern, before two

friends who acted as witnesses. But dispensations were not always

necessary. There were privileged places, such as May Fair and the Fleet,

where the marriage ceremony could be performed at a moment's notice, and

without any inconvenient questions being asked.

Gretna Green, on the borders of Scotland, was long a famous place for

runaway matches. It has been questioned how far the Scotch law of marriage

was conducive to morality; but, judging from its effects upon the people

themselves, it can scarcely be considered an ally of vice. This law, which

has only been repealed within a few years, treated marriage as a civil

contract, valid if contracted before witnesses, and required no ceremony

or preparatory notice. That unions so formed were binding, admits of no

possible dispute: the question has been tried in the British courts of law

on every conceivable ground, and their legality has been always affirmed,

but in the case of marriages at May Fair or the Fleet the same certainty

did not exist. Gretna Green is the first village after passing the

dividing line between England and Scotland, and owes its fame to its

locality. It has doubtless been the scene of many heartless adventures,

for which the actual law of the land must be held accountable.

The marriage act which came into operation in 1754, had for its object the

prevention of clandestine marriages in England, but did not interfere with

the law of Scotland. It sought to effect this reform by making it

necessary to the validity of a marriage without license, that it should

take place after the proclamation of banns on three Sundays in the parish

church, before a person in orders, between single persons consenting, of

sound mind, and of the age of twenty-one years, or of the age of fourteen

in males and twelve in females, with the consent of parents and guardians,

or without their consent in cases of widowhood. The new marriage act of

1837 allows marriage, after notice to the superintendent registrars in

every district, either in the public register offices in the presence of

the superintendent registrar and the registrar of marriages, or in duly

registered places of worship.

We have no statement as to the number of marriages previous to the year

1753. All we know is, that from 1651 to 1751 the population only increased

sixteen per cent., the increase being only one million and fourteen

thousand in one hundred years. Since the act of 1753 came into operation,

the registers of marriages have been preserved in England, and show an

increase of marriages from 50,972 in the year 1756, to 63,310 in 1764.

"The rage of marrying is very prevalent," writes Lord Chesterfield in the

latter year; and again in 1767, "In short, the matrimonial phrensy seems

to rage at present, and is epidemical." After many fluctuations, the

marriages rose to seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred thousand

annually, and in 1851 to one hundred and fifty-four thousand two hundred

and six. Fourteen millions were added to the population, an increase of

187 per cent., or at the rate of one per cent. annually.[299]

CHAPTER XXV.

GREAT BRITAIN.--PROSTITUTION AT THE PRESENT TIME.

Influence of the Wealthy Classes.--Devices of Procuresses.--Scene at a

Railway Station.--Organization for entrapping Women.--Seduction of

Children.--Continental Traffic.--Brothel-keepers.--"Fancy Men" and

"Spooneys."--Number of Brothels in London.--Causes of Prostitution.--

Sexual Desire.--Seduction.--Over-crowded Dwellings.--Parental

Example.--Poverty and Destitution.--Public Amusements.--Ill-assorted

Marriages.--Love of Dress.--Juvenile Prostitution.--Factories.--

Obscene Publications.--Census of 1851.--Education and Crime.--Number

of Prostitutes.--Female Population of London.--Working Classes.--

Domestic Servants.--Needlewomen.--Ages of Prostitutes.--Average

Life.--Condition of Women in London.--Charitable Institutions.--Mrs.

Fry's benevolent Labors.

The corruption of court morals alone, and without circumstances of

national weight and moment, has seldom, we take it, affected the bulk of

the population. It is nevertheless undeniable that a lax morality, and, _à

fortiori_, a system of absolute profligacy among the wealthy classes of

society, will contribute in a significant degree toward the increase of

prostitution in metropolitan cities. It is in the service of her wealthy

customers and patrons that the professional procuress is chiefly employed,

and, stimulated by high gains, she plies her vile calling, and exerts all

her hellish ingenuity to discover new sources of amusement and

gratification for them.

In Fletcher's "Humorous Lieutenant," written in 1690, a court bawd is

introduced reading her minute-book, and calling over the register of the

females at her command. "Chloe, well--Chloe should fetch three hundred and

fifty crowns; fifteen; good figure; daughter of a country gentleman; her

virtue will bring me that sum, and then a riding-horse for her father out

of it; well. The merchant's wife, she don't want money. I must find a

spark of quality for her." The representation of such character is out of

vogue in these days on the English stage; but, while the proprieties are

observed, the omission is but a veiling of the subject. The reality

exists, though unseen.

In the London _Times_ of July, 1855, an incident is thus related by a

correspondent: "I was standing on a railway platform at ----, with a

friend waiting for a train, when two ladies came into the station. I was

acquainted with one of them, the younger, well. She told me she was going

to London, having been fortunate enough to get a liberal engagement as

governess in the family of the lady under whose charge she then was, and

who had even taken the trouble to come into the country to see her and her

friends, to ascertain that _she was likely in all respects to suit_. The

train coming in sight, the fares were paid, the elder lady paying both. I

saw them into the carriage, and the door being closed, I bowed to them and

rejoined my friend, who happened to be a London man about town. 'Well, I

will say,' said he, with a laugh, 'you country gentlemen are pretty

independent of public opinion. You are not ashamed of your little

transactions being known!' 'What do you mean?' I asked. 'Why, I mean your

talking to that girl and her duenna on an open platform.' 'Why, that is

Miss ----, an intimate friend of ours.' 'Well, then, I can tell you,' said

the Londoner to me, coolly, 'her friend is Madam ----, one of the most

noted procuresses in London, and she has got hold of a new victim, if she

is a victim, and no mistake.' I saw there was not a minute to lose; I

rushed to the guard of the train, and got him to wait a moment. I then

hurried to the carriage-door where the ladies were. 'Miss ----, you must

get out; that person is an unfit companion for you. Madam ----, we know

who you are.' That was one victim rescued, but how many are lost?"

In another case, the practices of a scoundrel named Phinn were made the

subject of a public warning by the Lord Mayor of London from his judicial

chair. This fellow's plan was to advertise from abroad for ladies to go to

Cologne, or other places on the Rhine, to become governesses in his

family, which was traveling, and whose governess had unexpectedly left

them, or been taken ill, or was otherwise got rid of. The candidates were

to pay their own passage to the place of rendezvous, when the appointments

of the situation were to commence. In some cases in which the practices of

this rascal had failed of their full effect, he had succeeded in

defrauding poor women of their funds, and they had found the utmost

difficulty in making their way home again.

While it is impossible to have any precognizance of the persons and

circumstances among which these wretches find their prey, some cases are

peculiarly within the scope of their operations. Young females who have

lost their natural protectors, and are brought into contact with the world

under their own guidance, are easily imposed upon by the pretended

friendship of these persons, and being under a pretense of employment

inveigled into their houses, are there kept until their fall is

accomplished by persuasion or force. It is said that women even attend

regularly at churches and Sunday-schools for the purpose of decoying

female children. They first accost them, and interest them, without making

any direct advances. The next time they proceed a little farther, and soon

invite them to accompany them a little distance, when they lead them to a

brothel. They have been known to take the children away in the presence of

the teacher, who, seeing them act as acquaintances, had no suspicion of

the real nature of their associations.[300]

The London Society for the Protection of Young Females have recorded

instances of children of eleven years of age being entrapped by

procuresses into houses of prostitution. Those who are thus decoyed are

not permitted to escape, nor to go into the streets for two or three

months. By that time they are supposed to be incapable of retracing their

steps, or to have become reconciled to their mode of life, and are

permitted to go or remain. Occasionally they are turned adrift to seek new

lodgings, their places being supplied by fresh arrivals. Some of these

children find their way home again, but the majority of them are of

course irretrievably lost, and continue in the course into which they have

been thus indoctrinated.

The procuresses have agents in different parts of London, whose business

it is to discover young persons, servant-girls and others, who are

dissatisfied with their earnings and condition in life, and who may be

considered suitable subjects. The number of servants out of place, in

London alone, is enormous--many thousands in number; and as "service is no

inheritance," such a body constitutes a very favorable field of

operations. The intermediate agents in these cases are small shop-keepers,

laundresses, charwomen, and such others as from their avocations have the

opportunity of becoming acquainted with young women in service. Common

lodging-house-keepers too, residing in the suburbs of London, contribute

their quota of assistance. Young women coming fresh from the country, and

sleeping in such places for a night, receive recommendations to

procuresses and brothel-keepers as servants. Intelligence-offices for

hiring servants, which in London are called "Servants' Bazars," and are

not under any license, are visited by these people in search of new faces.

In some cases procuresses are found to act on behalf of particular

individuals only. In one case, such a woman kept a small shop, to which

she invited servant-girls in the neighborhood after a little acquaintance.

By her assistance, aided by liberal entertainment with wines and spirits,

her employers (two men of property) were enabled to corrupt eight

servant-girls in a short space of time.

A constant trade in prostitution is carried on between London and Hamburg,

London and Paris, and London and the country. Three or four years ago a

trial took place at the Central Criminal Court (London) of a man and woman

who were engaged in the importation of females for purposes of

prostitution. The prisoners were convicted. The details of the trial show

that a regular organization existed. In some cases, Parisian prostitutes

were hired in Paris for the London market by the ordinary agents in such

contracts; in other cases, the parties in both capitals decoyed young

women into their service on pretense of reputable engagements, and shipped

them over to their consignees. Of course, every care is taken in these

matters to keep the transaction confidential; for, although the English

laws are practically most defective, still, in cases exciting any degree

of notoriety, and in which the offense can be satisfactorily established

by legal proof, prosecutions do take place.

We can not close this branch of our subject better than by once again

quoting from the Spectator, and giving a genuine letter, which, although

written a century and a half ago, is just such a one as might, for a

similar purpose, be penned at the present day. It as accurately describes

the mode in which "articles of trade" in the procuress line are disposed

of now as then.

"MY LORD,--I having a great esteem for your honor, and a better

opinion of you than of any of the quality, makes me acquaint you of an

affair that I hope will oblige you to know. I have a niece that came

to town about a fortnight ago. Her parents being lately dead, she came

to me, expecting to have found me in so good a condition as to set her

up in a milliner's shop. Her father gave fourscore pounds with her for

five years. Her time is out, and she is not sixteen: as pretty a

gentlewoman as ever you saw; a little woman, which I know your

lordship likes; well-shaped, and as fair a complexion for red and

white as ever I saw. I doubt not but your lordship will be of the same

opinion. She designs to go down about a month hence except I can

provide for her, which I can not at present. Her father was one with

whom all he had died with him, so there is four children left

destitute; so, if your lordship thinks fit to make an appointment,

where I shall wait on you with my niece, by a line or two, I stay for

your answer, for I have no place fitted up, since I left my house, fit

to entertain your honor. I told her she should go with me to see a

gentleman, a very good friend of mine; so I desire you to take no

notice of my letter by reason she is ignorant of the ways of the town.

My lord, I desire, if you meet us, to come alone, for, upon my word

and honor, you are the first that I ever mentioned her to."

Next to procuresses in this gradation of iniquity are the brothel-keepers,

who, although often procuresses, are not necessarily so. Shakspeare, who

included all human existence in the sphere of his observation, says of

them,

"A bawd! a wicked bawd!

The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live: do thou but think

What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back

From such a filthy vice; say to thyself,

From their abominable and beastly touches

I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.

Canst thou believe thy living is a life?

So stinkingly depending."

Many of these persons have been prostitutes themselves, and when past

service in the one branch of business have naturally fallen into the

other. Others, without having been such, adopt the trade from inclination

or circumstances. The condition of these people and the interior of their

houses are as various as the people themselves. At the west end of London

there is a considerable degree of style; in the lower parts of the town

they are sordid and filthy habitations, fit only for deeds of darkness.

They are confined to private streets, alleys, and lanes out of the great

thoroughfares. The law is usually put in operation in England against the

brothel-keepers as the representatives of the whole class. As they get the

chief profits of the trade, so they run all the legal risks. The

indictments against them, however, are comparatively few. There is no

public prosecutor in England, as with us. The police administration of the

metropolis, perhaps the best organized, the most efficient and cheapest

department of the public service, does not include the prevention of

brothels within its duties, which are confined to the preservation of life

and property. The prosecution of brothel-keepers and abolition of their

establishments are usually undertaken by the parish authorities when the

places are so conducted as to become a nuisance to the neighborhood; and

police officers merely interfere to prevent the assemblage of prostitutes

in the public streets, or the solicitation of passengers by them.

Virtually this provision is little better than a dead letter, and the

women evade it by walking when an officer is in sight, and thus deprive

him of the only proof which would enable him to make an arrest.[301]

Some of the girls who pay exorbitant board also stipulate to give their

mistresses one half of their cash receipts, which are frequently very

large in the case of attractive women, amounting sometimes to one or two

hundred dollars a week. The mistress is treasurer, and the prostitutes

rarely succeed in receiving back what ostensibly belongs to them. The very

prosecution before mentioned originated in a French girl's being cheated

by the brothel-keeper. The clothing is furnished by the mistress, and for

this she charges prices which absorb the entire earnings of the girls.

She even contrives to furnish them with such a number of showy and useless

garments that she keeps them always in her debt, and so has a lien on each

to prevent her leaving as long as she is a profitable member of the

establishment. Some girls who have been seduced have, when entering on a

life of prostitution, extensive and valuable wardrobes. The mistress runs

them into debts of her own contracting, and if they become dissatisfied

with their treatment and desire to leave, they are held for the debt. By

the common law of England, all debts incurred for an immoral purpose are

void, but this law is of little value to those who are ignorant of its

existence; besides which, the brothel-keepers have possession of the

booty, and thus effectually drive the debtor to an adjustment of the

matters in dispute.

Such of the brothel-keepers as have no lawful husbands form intimacies

with some man whom they support. In slang dialect, there is a class of men

called "spooneys," who support the women, or furnish them with funds when

necessary. They set them up in business, become responsible for their

debts, and assist them in all their difficulties. The "fancy men" are

those who do nothing for them, but live at their expense. The lower class

of brothel-keepers have no "spooneys," but they invariably have "fancy

men," who act as bullies, and settle by physical force any disputes that

may arise between the inmates and their visitors. These men spend the day

in taverns, and the night in the particular brothels to which they are

attached, and are frequently felons of the deepest dye.

Some of the brothel-keepers are married women, and even mothers of

families. The husbands are lazy, worthless wretches, addicted to gambling

and drinking, and brutally indifferent to the sources from which their

luxuries are supplied. In some cases the wealthier individuals have been

known to send their children to good schools away from home, and to have

kept them in ignorance of their own wretched vocation. Thus sin entails

its own punishment.

The number of brothels in London has been variously estimated. The whole

number of houses at the last census was three hundred thousand and upward.

Among them it was calculated, and probably correctly, that there were five

thousand brothels, including houses of assignation. The rents of these

establishments vary as much as the houses and situations (from fifteen

hundred down to one hundred dollars a year). In good neighborhoods we

should be slow to believe that landlords had any previous knowledge of the

purposes to which their houses are to be applied. Independent of moral

objection, such a house deteriorates the character of the property.

Indeed, the clauses in leases of the great London properties are very

strict, and include all objectionable trades as causes of forfeiture.

The owners of the houses are of all classes. The Almonry of Westminster,

once the abode of Caxton, which within these six or eight years has been

pulled down, was one of the vilest aggregations of vice and crime in

existence. This was the property of the dean and chapter of Westminster

Abbey. The common law of England, as already mentioned in the matter of

dress, prohibits the recovery of the rents of houses let for immoral

purposes. Many of the brothel-keepers themselves hire houses, furnish

them, and sublet them. It has been made a matter of reproach that

landlords should, even indirectly, derive income from such sources. But

poverty and vice are closely allied; where poverty exists, vice will come.

It is impossible for a landlord to exclude any class of tenants in a

particular neighborhood suited to them, and those who know aught about the

improvement and ventilation of large cities, and the breaking up of bad

neighborhoods, are well aware that they are accompanied with a fearful

amount of extra misery to the very poor.

In a subsequent portion of this work we have endeavored to analyze the

causes of prostitution as it exists in the city of New York. It may be

reasonably supposed that the same reasons would be applicable to the

kindred people of Great Britain. We give the following, mainly deduced

from English writers, as indicating the sentiments of the best-informed in

that kingdom as to the sources of so deep-rooted an evil, which must be

sought in a variety of circumstances, national as well as personal.

A professional man, Mr. Tait, to whose pages we have turned for

information as to prostitution in Great Britain, classifies the causes as

natural and accidental. The natural he subdivides into licentiousness of

disposition, irritability of temper, pride and love of dress, dishonesty

and love of property, and indolence. The accidental include seduction,

ill-assorted marriages, low wages, want of employment, intemperance,

poverty, defective education, bad example of parents, obscene

publications, and a number of minor causes. Without assenting to the

classification, we will accept the enumeration.

The operation of sexual desire on the female sex is a mooted question

among English writers on prostitution. Whether it is latent, and never

powerful enough to provoke evil courses until it is itself stimulated and

roused into energy by external circumstances, or whether it be an active

principle impelling the ill-regulated female mind to sacrifice

self-respect and reputation in the gratification of dominant impulses, has

been frequently discussed. Many consider that its influence on the

inducement of prostitution is no less unsatisfactory of solution than the

physiological problem, alleging that those who have followed the bent of

their natural appetites would undoubtedly prefer to ascribe their lapse to

other circumstances. This subject is treated more fully elsewhere, and it

is needless to repeat here the views there expressed.

That sexual desire, _once aroused_, does exercise a potent influence on

the female organization, can not be questioned. Self-abuse, which is a

perverted indulgence of the natural instinct, is well known to English

physicians as being practiced among young women to a great extent, though

in a far less degree than among young men. Its frightful influences upon

the latter have been the subject of the liveliest anxiety to those who

have made the care of youth their profession, and this source of trouble

is shared to some degree by female teachers. Such subjects seem by common

consent to be banished from rational investigation by the majority of

people, as if shutting one's eyes to the fact would prove its

non-existence. This false delicacy is more injurious than is commonly

supposed; for the unchecked indulgence in such habits is not only

destructive of health, but in the highest degree inimical to the moral

feeling, and directly subversive of all self-respect, leaving but one step

to complete the final descent.

SEDUCTION.--The effect of undue familiarity, and too unrestrained an

intercourse between the sexes, can not be exaggerated as paving the way

for the last lapse from virtue. It is precisely these familiarities which,

in ill-regulated minds, excite the first impulses of desire; and even

where such a result does not immediately flow from too free an

intercourse, it breaks down that modesty and reserve which so much enhance

the beauty of woman, and constitute her best safeguard. The inclined plane

by which the female who permits the first freedom glides unchecked to

final ruin, though gradual, is very difficult to retrace. The unrestricted

intercourse permitted, or rather encouraged between the sexes at places

of public amusement much facilitates the opportunities of seduction.

Prostitutes frequently, and we believe with truth, allege seduction as the

first step toward their abandoned course of life, and the allegation

itself should induce a sympathy for the misfortune of their present

existence. Although in some cases the story can not be implicitly

believed, at the same time there is no doubt that a heartless seduction is

but too frequent a circumstance in such cases, and contributes its sad

quota of heavy account to prostitution.

It is a general opinion that cases of (so called) seduction in England

occur between employers and female servants, and that of these are vast

numbers. By seduction in such circumstances is meant the inducement to do

wrong by promises or other suasives, in opposition to the commonly

received idea, which makes the fall the result of strong personal

attachment. In a work like this we must notice the largest definitions,

and can not consistently limit ourselves to the inducement customarily

brought forward in law proceedings, namely, "a promise of marriage." In

this sense, illegitimate children may be said to be the consequence of

seduction. Certainly not all of them, however, because many persons,

voluntarily and with their eyes open, enter upon cohabitation

arrangements; but doubtless many are. Once seduced, of course the female

becomes herself the seducer of the inexperienced.

The policy of English law, of late years, has been to compel the woman to

protect herself--in the main, a wise policy. But the balance of human

justice is very unevenly maintained. The male, the real delinquent, incurs

no legal punishment, and but little social reprobation. Actions for

seduction are very unpopular, and those brought bear but an infinitesimal

proportion to the occurrence of the crime. The _onus_ of proof in bastardy

affiliations of course rests upon the woman. Of late years the alterations

in the law have thrown great difficulties in her way by what is called the

necessity of corroborative evidence, namely, some kind of admission,

direct or indirect, or some overt act which will furnish oral or

documentary testimony other than the woman's unsupported statement. This

may be strictly expedient, but it renders the man almost irresponsible if

he only play his part with knavish prudence. Lastly, popular feeling is

against charges of rape: acquittal is very frequent, and the usual

rebuttal is to impeach the character of the prosecutrix. The opinion of

one of England's greatest judges has passed into a proverb: "No charge so

easy to make, none so difficult to disprove." Queen Elizabeth's mode of

proving her disbelief of rape is also expressive of public opinion.

From the combination of these circumstances, it would seem that seduction

must, almost as a matter of course, lead to prostitution, inasmuch as, in

ordinary English parlance, the mother of a bastard and a prostitute are

almost synonymous.

OVERCROWDED DWELLINGS.--The natural impulses of animal instinct in both

sexes seem to be implicated in the effect of crowded sleeping apartments,

as met with in the habitations of the poor both in town and country. In

the latter we have the show, and sometimes the reality, of family life and

virtuous poverty. In the towns we find abodes of poverty sometimes honest,

sometimes in closest propinquity or intimacy with vice, and there too we

have the dwelling-places of the lowest depravity and vagabondism.

Those who have not given their attention to the condition of the poor, and

the relation which their lives hold to the ordinary habits of decency and

morality, have much difficulty in comprehending, or even believing,

statements which embody the plainest every-day truths. It is hard to

realize things as they are, if the mind has been full of ideal pictures of

things as they should be. The Dives of society has been often reproached

with his ignorance of Lazarus. The sin lies exactly in that ignorance. As

Carlyle finely says, "The duty of Christian society is to find its work,

and to do it." Negative virtue is of no practical use to the community.

But yet the ignorance is natural enough, and no easier of removal than

other ignorance. It has been generally attributed to the wealthy and upper

classes of society, but it exists just the same, differing only a little

in degree, in the middle class and moderately rich members of the English

social system.

The misery and inconvenience which the poor suffer from the straitness of

their domestic arrangements are beyond belief. Grown-up girls and boys

sleep in the same bed; brothers and sisters, to say nothing of less

intimate relations, are in the closest contiguity; and even strangers, who

are admitted into the little home to help in eking out the rent, are

placed on the same family footing. This momentous question to the moral

well-being of the poor has excited very lively interest in England, and

has called into active operation several philanthropic associations,

which have in view the employment of capital in improving and cheapening

the dwellings of the working classes.[302]

In London this system of close lodging was carried to a fearful pitch. In

some places from five to thirteen persons slept in a single bed, while in

the country the evil was nearly as bad, although, from the slight

restraint imposed by family ties, the actual evil is positively less;

though the moral contamination is of nearly the same extent, and paves the

way for other relations out of doors. The facts which justify these

conclusions are to be found in a variety of shapes--parliamentary reports,

statistical tables, appeals from clergymen, addresses from philanthropic

associations, etc., etc.[303]

The Honorable and Reverend S. O. Osborne, a clergyman well known for his

philanthropic exertions in behalf of the poor, says of country life in

England:

"From infancy to puberty the laborer's children sleep in the same room

with his wife and himself; and whatever attempts at decency may be

made, and I have seen many ingenious and most praiseworthy attempts,

still there is the fact of the old and the young, married and

unmarried, of both sexes, all herded together in one and the same

sleeping apartment. * * * * I do not choose to put on paper the

disgusting scenes that I have known to occur from the promiscuous

crowding of the sexes together. _Seeing, however, to what the mind of

the young female is exposed from her very childhood, I have long

ceased to wonder at the otherwise seeming precocious licentiousness of

conversation which may be heard in every field where many of the young

are at work together._"

Mr. A. Austin, Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, says:

"The sleeping of boys and girls, young men and young women, in beds

almost touching one another, must have the effect of breaking down the

great barriers between the sexes. The accommodation for sleeping is

such as necessarily to create early and illicit familiarity between

the sexes."

Without entering into disgusting details, the pain of perusing which could

add nothing to the value of the statements, the conclusion is indisputable

that much of prostitution, if not of prostitution for hire, certainly of

prostitution from corrupt and profligate motives, is engendered by the

vicious habits induced by habitual proximity of the sexes in early life.

The prostitutes themselves frequently assign these habits as the

commencement of their career of vice, and some even admit the breach of

the closest natural ties during early youth, by reason of the too great

facilities thus offered.[304] The great importance of this want of decency

and propriety in family life can not be overrated. The contagious nature

of vice is proverbial; and it is almost impossible to imagine the power

attained by ill-conditioned children, and the fatal readiness with which

their sinful words and practices are propagated.

The cheap lodging-houses are a pendant to the close-packed dwellings of

the poor, although they do not produce the same early pernicious results

as indecency and immorality in family life. The latter prepare the way to

the scenes of the common lodging-house, in which the lowest depth of vice

is speedily reached. Here prostitution is habitual--a regular institution

of the place. The smallest imaginable quantities of food can be purchased;

adults, youths, and children of both sexes are received, and herd

promiscuously together; the prices of beds are of the lowest (from three

to six cents); no questions are asked, and the place is free to all. A

new-comer is soon initiated, or rather forced into all the mysteries of

iniquity. Obscenity and blasphemy are the staple conversation of the

inmates; every indecency is openly performed; the girls recite aloud

their experiences of life; ten or a dozen sleep in one bed, many in a

state of nudity. Indeed, the details of these places are horrible beyond

description. Unmitigated vice and lustful orgies reign, unchecked by

precept or example, and the point of rivalry is as to who shall excel in

filth and abomination.

EXAMPLE is the next immediate cause in what may be considered the natural

series. There are a few prostitutes who have children. That these latter

should follow the same course is quite in the common course of events,

although considerable anxiety is occasionally evinced by such women to

have their children brought up to better courses. Such redemption is all

but impossible. In ordinary life, however, the mind of youth is often

perverted by direct evil example in the elders; and, as we have already

remarked, the corruption of the human affections in their

fountain-head--family life--where they ought to be sweetest and purest, is

more fatally demoralizing, and more certain to insure eventual ruin than

almost any other. Fathers and mothers are both wanting often enough in

their duty, although it is a matter of universal faith that the influence

and example of the father are of less importance than that of the mother.

A bad man may have virtuous children, a bad woman hardly ever. There are

cases where the mother and daughter sleep in the same bed, each with a

male partner. In the city of Edinburgh there are two mothers, prostitutes,

each with four daughters, prostitutes; five prostitute mothers each with

three prostitute daughters, ten such with two daughters each, and

twenty-four such with one daughter each, all following the practices of

the mothers.[305]

Such influences brought to bear on the young are irresistible. This may

perhaps account for the number of sisters who carry on prostitution. The

effect of mere sisterly example would be sufficient to account for the

circumstance, but the parental becomes almost a compulsion, inasmuch as

the parent (in such circumstances, the mother) will not only connive at,

but be the main cause of her child's ruin for her own direct profit and

advantage. This, indeed, seems more accordant with our ideas of the

natural tendencies of prostitutes and procuresses, than that such persons

should be excessively anxious for their children's purity and moral

welfare.

POVERTY is an integral part of nearly all the conditions of life which we

have to consider as incentives to prostitution. _In some instances, more,

perhaps, than may be generally credited, poverty is a direct and proximate

cause of this vice._ In other words, "_women previously and otherwise

virtuous do prostitute their bodies for bread_." In most of the cases

enumerated except that purely natural, but rare one, innate sexual desire,

poverty is a remote cause. From the number of the human race who are under

its griping, chilling pressure, poverty may be set down as a fruitful

source of prostitution.

The connection of political circumstances with the phases of public morals

is more intimate than the consideration of the superficial differences of

the two matters would at first sight imply. But an attentive comparison of

the state of public prosperity with the state of public crime will show

that crime is somewhat dependent on food: the man with a well-filled

stomach is no foe to order. Prostitution, as a means of supplying the

cravings of hunger, is part of the same connection. It is true that in

England there are poor-laws and work-houses, from and in which every

destitute person, without reference to character, has a right to food and

shelter. In the first place, however, the work-houses are objects of

unmitigated aversion to the poorer classes. Various rules, in themselves

hard, but rendered necessary by consideration for the rate-payers as well

as for the beneficiaries, such as separation of husband and wife while

receiving relief, separation of child and parent, etc., make the

work-house system odious to the worthy and honest poor; while the strict

rules, and the restraint and discipline enforced within the walls, make it

still more odious to those who place their happiness in license and

irregularity; added to this, in populous and poor districts, the claims

upon the work-house in seasons of distress are too numerous for its

capabilities. It is an awful truth that, notwithstanding the enormous

revenues, nearly fifty millions of dollars per annum, collected for poor

relief, and the immense establishments instituted throughout the country

for the support and shelter of the distressed, sometimes the number of

applicants is so great that their demands can not be met. Possibly, if

these unfortunates could be distributed throughout the kingdom, so that

the poverty of one spot could be balanced by the comparative prosperity of

another, the fearful starvation in the midst of plenty, which is

occasionally witnessed, need not occur. But in the mean while, and until

the time when all the schemes and devices of modern improvement and

advancement shall be finally perfected, and universal happiness attained,

there is a mass of inconceivable wretchedness to be dealt with. In

"Household Words" for November, 1855, Mr. Dickens gives a harrowing

picture of London distress, of which he was himself an eye-witness.

It was a dark, rainy evening, and close against the wall of Whitechapel

Work-house lay five bundles of rags. Mr. Dickens and his friend looked at

them, and attempted to rouse them in vain. They knocked at the door, were

admitted, saw the master of the work-house, and asked him if he knew there

were five human beings--females--lying on the ground outside, cold and

hungry. He did--at first he was annoyed--such applications were

frequent--how could he meet them?--the house was full--the casual ward was

full--what could he do more? When he found that Mr. Dickens's aim was

inquiry, not fault-finding, he was softened. The case was certainly

shocking: how was it to be met? Mr. Dickens said he had heard outside that

these wretched beings had been there two nights already. It was very

possible. He could not deny or affirm it. There were often more in the

same plight--sometimes twenty or thirty. He (the master) was obliged to

give preference to women with children. The place was full. Unable to do

more, Mr. Dickens left. On getting outside, he roused one of these poor

wretches. She looked up, but said nothing. He asked her if she was hungry;

she merely looked an affirmative. Would she know where to get something to

eat? she again assented in the same way. "Then take this, and for God's

sake go and get something." She took it, made no sign of thanks--"gathered

herself up and slunk away--wilted into darkness, silent and heedless of

all things."

To what will not such misery as this compel suffering human nature? In

times of commercial depression the police of London note an increase of

street prostitution. It is said in the cities of England that the

permanent prostitution of each place has a numerical relation to the means

of occupation. In Edinburgh there are but few chances of employing female

labor. Glasgow, Dundee, and Paisley are the seats of manufactures, and

employ female labor extensively. According to Tait, the prostitution of

Edinburgh far exceeds its proportion of prostitution to population as

compared with the manufacturing towns.[306]

It seems unnecessary to multiply instances of poverty and indigence,

inasmuch as the fact is most miserably indisputable: shirt-making at three

cents, pantaloon-making at five or six cents--unceasing labor of fourteen

hours a day bringing in only sixty or eighty cents a week, and competition

even to obtain this. As the London _Times_ once said, "The needle is the

normal employment of every English woman; what, then, must be the

condition of those tens of thousands who have nothing but that to depend

upon?" Of late years, too, a still farther competition has been introduced

in that ingenious invention of our country, the sewing machine.

In order to show the relation between unpaid and excessive labor and

prostitution, we will instance a few cases.

One young woman said she made moleskin pantaloons (a very strong, stiff

fabric) at the rate of fifteen cents per pair. She could manage twelve

pairs per week when there was full employment; sometimes she could not get

work. She worked from six in the morning until ten at night. With full

work she could make two dollars a week, out of which she had to expend

thirty-eight cents for thread and candle. On an average, in consequence of

short work, she could not make more than seventy-five cents a week. Her

father was dead, and she had to support her mother, who was sixty years of

age. This girl endured her mode of existence for three years, till at

length she agreed to live with a young man. When she made this statement

she was within three months of her confinement. She felt the disgrace of

her condition, to relieve her from which she said she prayed for death,

and would not have gone wrong if she could have helped it.[307]

Such a case as this scarcely comes within the term prostitution, but she

stated that many girls at the shop advised prostitution as a resource, and

that others should do as they did, as by that means they had procured

plenty to eat and clothes to wear. She gave it as her opinion that none of

the thousands of girls who work at the same business earn a livelihood by

their needle, but that all must and do prostitute themselves _to eke out a

subsistence_.

Another woman, a case more directly in point, also said she could not earn

more than seventy-five cents. She was a widow, and had three children

when her husband died. Herself and her children had to live on these

seventy-five cents. She might have gone into the work-house, and been

there better supported than by her labor. Had she done so, the laws of the

work-house are inexorable, she would have been separated from her

children. Although one child died, she was now so reduced that she could

not procure food. She took to the streets for a living, and she declared

that hundreds of married and single women were doing the same thing for

the same reasons.

A widow who had buried all her children could not support herself. From

sheer inability to do so she took to prostitution.

A remarkably fine-looking young woman, whose character for sobriety,

honesty, and industry was vouched by a number of witnesses as

unimpeachable, had been compelled to work at fine shirts, by which she

could not earn more, on an average, than thirty-five cents a week. She had

a child, and, being unwilling to go to the work-house, she was driven by

indigence to the streets. Struck with remorse and shame, and for the sake

of her child determined to abandon prostitution, she fasted whole days,

sleeping in winter-time in sheds. Once her child's legs froze to her side,

and necessity again compelled her to take to her former course. Her father

had been an Independent preacher.

These circumstances, and innumerable others, will establish incontestably

the intimate relation which poverty bears to prostitution. A consideration

of such circumstances as the foregoing, and the every-day observation of

hosts of others of a similar character which will come within the

cognizance of any one who searches into human motives, must incline all

but the most outrageously virtuous to judge more tenderly of the failings

and errors of their fellow-creatures.

All young females engaged in sewing are liable to the same distress, and

the same resource against it is, of course, open to all. The hard labor

and long hours are the least part of the evil, although in that light even

there would be ground for commiseration.[308] The real grievance is that

the most patient and industrious can not, by any hours of labor, earn a

sufficiency to support themselves. It is true that the work-house is the

legal refuge of the poor; but the tender mercies of the work-house have

passed into a proverb. The policy of the poor-laws as administered is to

deter the needy from applying for relief except in very extreme cases.

Hence many rules are made, and much formality is interposed, which render

the legal provisions so irksome and unbearable that many fly to the

nearest means of satisfying their wants rather than demand their legal

rights.

DOMESTIC SERVANTS are, in respect of their removal from absolute want

while in service, more happily situated than those who are thus dependent

upon the needle. But they are open to influences of another kind--we mean

seduction by masters and male members of the household. Where this evil

begins is an exceedingly difficult question to determine. When corrupted,

they become themselves, by the very opportunities they possess, ready and

dangerous instruments of corruption, and contribute to disseminate the

poisons of immorality and of bodily disease. We have already incidentally

mentioned that this class is at times open to a great deal of poverty and

distress, namely, when out of service, and at such times they are

peculiarly the mark for the lures of persons who make seduction their

business and profitable occupation.

The domestic servants and the sewing-women are the principal adult

laborers of Great Britain, except the factory girls. In 1851 there were,

Female domestic servants 905,165

Dress-makers 270,000

Seamstresses 72,940

Stay-makers 12,969

and of these one third were under twenty years of age.

PLACES OF PUBLIC AMUSEMENT in England are few when compared with those of

the Continent, and their influence must be proportionately less. On the

Continent dancing saloons are a prominent feature; in England this

character of entertainment is almost unknown. In London there are a few

places of this sort, such, for example, as Cremorne Gardens. Mr. Tait lays

some stress on the evil effects of dancing-houses in Edinburgh. We should

be inclined to think the cases of misconduct traceable to these places

actually few in number, though not unworthy of notice. The single females

who frequent dancing-rooms, theatres, and other similar places in England,

without friends or family escort, have very little virtue to risk. The

country fairs are far more injurious; they are indiscriminately attended

by all ages and sexes, and their effects upon the female agricultural

population are often very pernicious. Greenwich Fair, a three days' scene

of rollicking and junketing, was held at Easter and Whitsuntide, in the

outskirts of London, but is now abolished. It had its uses a century or

two ago, but recently had been attended by all the idlers of London, of

both sexes, and was justly dreaded by the friends of youth. It is

proverbial that more young women were debauched at Greenwich Fair

(allowing for its duration) than at any other place in England.

ILL-ASSORTED MARRIAGES are decidedly a cause of prostitution. Certainly

breach of the marriage vow is one thing, prostitution for hire another. In

estimating the number of prostitutes in Edinburgh at eight hundred, Mr.

Tait adds two hundred to them under the head of married women, which he

considers accrue from ill-assorted marriages. That the marriage was

ill-assorted is plainly shown by its result, and that want of congeniality

and temperament is the cause of prostitution to the extent thus named we

have no ground to question. He speaks of such women selling their favors

generally to one lover only, occasionally to any one who will pay;

although the latter forms what is commonly known as prostitution, no other

construction can be put upon the former.

LOVE OF DRESS is another incident which many writers, and Mr. Tait among

them, have introduced into the direct causes of prostitution. We should

consider it doubtful if any woman ever positively sold her virtue for a

new gown or a knot of ribbons. Of course, after the Rubicon is crossed,

all subsequent steps are easy, and may be taken from any motive. The love

of admiration, which, under regulation, is sometimes a commendable

instinct, when uncontrolled, becomes a snare. The love of dress is a

modification of this sentiment, and may help to work out the effect when

other causes have overthrown the balance of the mind.

JUVENILE PROSTITUTION.--We have now arrived, in the consideration of the

causes of prostitution in England, at decidedly the most painful of all

the phenomena connected with this condition of human life, namely, the

immense extent of juvenile depravity. We have already sketched the evils

of insufficient house accommodation and its noxious effects upon the

morals of the rising generation. In this connection, also, bad example is

particularly prominent; perhaps, indeed, with respect to the young, evil

communications are the greatest dangers.

The work-house was formerly one great hot-bed of vice, and the greatest

license and irregularity prevailed in every department. That children born

or brought up in such a place should grow up debased was perfectly in the

expected course of things. Now, however, under the new Poor-Laws

Commission, the scene is stripped of its more revolting accessories. The

sexes do not mingle, children do not associate with adults: some modicum

of education is given. The sweetest and holiest of all ties, that of

family, is yet wanting, and self-respect is totally deficient. In the

absence of these protective influences, the wonder is, not that so many

children should turn out ill, but that so many girls should turn out well.

Formerly, also, there was a system of compulsory pauper apprenticeship,

and the interests of the parish apprentice out of doors were very little

looked after. This, again, has been altered, both in town and country, and

the improvement is marked.

Even with all this, it is recorded in the London _Times_ (June, 1848) that

a correspondent, visiting one of the metropolitan work-houses, was struck

by the happy and healthy appearance of the female children, and inquired

of the master of the work-house what became of all of them. He was

informed that they were sent out, at the age of fourteen, as servants or

in other capacities, and that _nine tenths_ of them, after coming backward

and forward from their places to the work-house, eventually got corrupted

and took to the streets.

FACTORIES are made accountable by many writers for much juvenile

immorality and prostitution. Factories in England are, as most of our

readers are aware, institutions materially differing in some respects from

those of our own country. In no feature is there so wide a dissimilarity

as in the character of the work-people. The factory children of England

are the offspring of the poorest of the community, whose only heritage is

pauperism, with wages at no time too good, and often at starvation point.

The miserable earnings of the factory operatives are still farther reduced

by constant strikes and contests with their employers, in which it is a

foregone conclusion that the workmen must yield. Macaulay tells us that,

two centuries ago, the employment of children in factories, and the

dependence of the parent's bread upon the children's earnings, was a

notorious fact, much condemned by philanthropists. The introduction of

machinery and the value of child-labor gradually aggravated all the

horrors of the factory system, the enormity of which called down the

indignation of the non-manufacturing community, and compelled the

protective interference of Parliament. The Ten Hours' Bill, the Factory

Childrens' Education regulations, appointment by government of factory

commissioners and inspectors, have all contributed to ameliorate the hard

lot of the factory child. The employment of very young children in

factories is still to be regretted, or rather its necessity, for probably

it is better they should be employed in a not very laborious occupation

than left to roam the streets.

The direct influence of factory work on juvenile prostitution is insisted

on by many writers; by others, some reservations have been introduced,

such as, The young associate only during hours of recreation. In business

hours they are generally employed in different parts of the building. They

have a certain amount of education. Their parents are generally, or very

often, employed in the same establishment. Assume that these children were

not in the factory, where would they be, and what could they do? Are evil

influences rife only in the factory? The overcrowding at home; the

frequent drunkenness and debauchery of their parents and associates; the

endless indigence; the frequent visits to the work-houses, are all

circumstances which have been considered and argued in the case. But of

the fact of juvenile prostitution and depravity in factory populations

none can doubt; of its being exclusively or chiefly attributable to

factory life, others are not certain.

That children who labor in factories, and thereby contribute to the family

earnings and their own support, could do better in the present condition

of English society, is doubtful. Mill-owners are required to devote a

portion of their time to education. Sunday-schools are established;

personal attention is paid by leading mill-owners to the improvement of

the poor; many build good cottages (for which, by the way, they receive a

good interest in the way of rent); many inspect the schools; some build

school-houses and pay the teachers. The good example of benevolent

mill-owners in a measure compels others, whose moral perceptions are less

keen, to follow them.

We would not be supposed to argue that English cotton factories are types

of the Millennium, any more than are similar institutions on this side of

the Atlantic. In fact, we have a very decided opinion on the matter, but

common honesty requires that the opinion of all who have investigated the

subject should be fairly recorded. In submitting the various arguments

adduced in favor of factory labor and its bearing on immorality, we

present merely subjects for consideration.

DISEASE IN CHILDREN.--A fact of importance to public health is the disease

acquired by children. In the first address issued by the London Society

for the Protection of young Females, it is stated that in three of the

London hospitals during the preceding eight years there had been no less

than two thousand seven hundred cases of venereal disease in children

between eleven and sixteen years of age.

Dr. Ryan, on the same subject, speaking from his professional experience

as medical officer of several charities, mentions the shock he felt on

seeing numerous cases of venereal disease in children.

Mr. Miller, of Glasgow, testifies to the same fact.

The very imperfect data which exist on this important branch of our

subject will not enable one to form any sound opinion on the spread of

disease from these juvenile sources. It is, however, reasonable to

conclude, from the few facts, and from the very facilities afforded at

their age for intercommunication between children, that the spread of

disease from direct contamination, and the deterioration of health and

constitution from unknown excesses, must be very great.

OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS.--Of these there are vast numbers, and the extent of

juvenile contamination from this source must be very great. The Society

for the Suppression of Vice, in London, reports having seized, at

different periods, thousands of obscene books, copper-plates, and prints,

all of which they caused to be destroyed. Within a period of three years

they procured the destruction of

Blasphemous and impure books 279

Obscene publications 1,162

Obscene songs (on sheets) 1,495

Obscene prints 10,493

and even this was but an item in the calculation.

The police of London take but little interest in this matter. The

above-mentioned society is the principal agent in the repression of this

infamous species of depravity. There are certain places in London in which

the trade still lives and flourishes, notwithstanding the attacks made

upon it. Holywell Street, in the Strand, and the vicinity of Leicester

Square, are places of disgraceful notoriety in this respect. The secret

is, that wherever there is a public demand, no repressive laws will ever

prevent trade. The attempt at repression but makes it more profitable.

To the corruption of the youthful mind and the preparatives for

prostitution these publications must contribute. It is matter of question

what number of prostitutes have become such directly from this cause. The

results of visitorial inspection do not show among London prostitutes, any

more than elsewhere, a taste for books and prints of an obscene tendency.

Their taste in literature is that which would prevail among persons of low

intellectual calibre. Startling tales, romances with a plentiful spice of

horrors, thrilling love-stories, highly wrought and exaggerated

narratives, are their taste. In the practice of prostitution, the use of

indecent or prurient prints is chiefly for the adornment of visitors'

rooms in brothels.

EDUCATION.--In the relations between education and crime are found no

distinctive marks whereby prostitution may be separated from any other

development of vice or immorality. It is to be presumed that the same

general laws which apply to the unregulated manifestation of the passions

apply to those with which prostitution is chiefly implicated.

In the present generation it is generally assumed that crime is the

offspring of ignorance, therefore Education! is the cry. Education has

become a party watchword in England. The necessity of education, the

quality and the quantity, with all the minor propositions that branch off

from the main question, are, and have been for years, the subject of the

hottest polemics. But recent results, evolved from statistical inquiries,

would seem to call up the previous question as to the value of education

at all. The present work is not the place in which to discuss the fact, or

to point out a remedy, or indicate the deficiencies of a system which can

suffer such a question to arise. We give the facts. From the Parliamentary

reports of 1846-1848, it appears that the number of educated criminals in

England was at that time more than twice, and in Scotland more than three

and a half that of the uneducated:

+---------------------------------------------------------+

| Years. | England. | Scotland. |

|--------|------------------------|-----------------------|

| | Educated.| Uneducated.| Educated.| Uneducated.|

|--------|-----------|------------|----------|------------|

| 1846 | 16,963 | 7698 | 3155 | 903 |

| 1847 | 19,307 | 9050 | 3562 | 1048 |

| 1848 | 20,176 | 9671 | 3985 | 911 |

+---------------------------------------------------------+

In calculating a percentage on certain criminal returns during the

undermentioned years, the results were:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

| |1839.|1840.|1841.|1842.|1843.|1844.|1845.|1846.|

|--------------------|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|

|Uneducated |33·53|33·32|33·21|32·35|31·00|29·77|30·61|30·66|

|Imperfectly educated|53·48|55·57|56·67|58·32|57·60|59·28|58·34|59·51|

|Well educated |10·07| 8·29| 7·40| 6·77| 8·02| 8·12| 8·38| 7·71|

|Superior education | 0·32| 0·37| 0·45| 0·22| 0·47| 0·42| 0·37| 0·34|

|Unascertained | 2·60| 2·45| 2·27| 2·34| 2·91| 2·41| 2·30| 1·78|

| |-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|

| |100· |100· |100· |100· |100· |100· |100· |100· |

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

This table, which on its face conclusively establishes an increase in

criminals imperfectly educated, and a decrease both in those who could

read and write well, and those who could not read or write at all, may be,

and has been made, the subject of much pseudo-philosophical remark, as

proving the injury of education. In the first place, it only shows the

effects of partial education, if it shows any thing. But the misfortune of

statistical results is that they are relied on too implicitly, with a

narrow-minded subservience to figures and facts, whereas they require to

be accompanied with explanatory circumstances, which may either enhance

their value up to the point of mathematical demonstration, or may so pare

them away as to render them perfectly worthless. In the consideration of

the above figures, all that would seem to appear is that there was an

increase of education keeping pace with the increase of population, and

that in the statistics of crime the increase of imperfectly educated

people would be as perceptible as elsewhere. Mere reading and writing,

unaccompanied by moral elevation, will not reform mankind. Alone, they

will not prevent a hungry man from satisfying his hunger. The words of

Cæsar apply to criminals equally as to conspirators:

"Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nights:

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look."

Pursuing this question, and turning to the population tables of 1851, the

period of the last census, we find that Middlesex was the most generally

educated county, taking the signature of the marriage register as the test

of education. Eighty-two per cent. signed the marriage register, yet in

the list of criminality Middlesex stood third of all the counties of

England. Gloucester, which was first in crime, was far from being the most

ignorant. There sixty-five per cent. signed the register. The general

average of the whole population by the same list is forty per cent. Here

again is a qualifying circumstance. London is included in Middlesex, with

its vast seething mass of human misery and corruption to swell the record

of crime, while its general population is, of course, about the most

intelligent of the British empire, so that in the same spot is found at

once the greatest intelligence and the greatest misery. We are not aware

of such qualifying circumstances in Gloucestershire.

Dr. Ryan, writing on this point, refers to the Metropolitan Police Report

for 1837, by which it appears that of prostitutes arrested in that year

there

Could not read or write 1773

" read and write imperfectly 1237

" " " " well 89

Had received a good education 4

Total 3103

This is a tolerably fair criterion; for although, as before said, the

police only interfere with peace-breakers, and all these came under the

technical term of "drunk and disorderly," still we believe the state of

prostitution in London to be such that an average proportion of all

classes of courtesans pass through the hands of the police during the

year.

Mr. Tait, speaking of Edinburgh, confirms the view put forward as to

educational influences. A large proportion of the Edinburgh prostitutes

(eighty-seven per cent.) read and write. The Scottish peasantry are

perhaps the best-educated in Europe, and those girls who come to Edinburgh

from the country are no exception to the rule. The uneducated, Mr. Tait

thinks, are city girls.

As to the religious denomination of prostitutes, for that a prostitute may

have a religion we may say, in the kindly spirit of Corporal Trim, but

doubtingly, "A negro has a soul, your honor." In Edinburgh they include

all sects except Independents, Baptists, and Quakers. There may be those

who smile at the idea of a prostitute having any belief. How many of us

are there whose actions are accordant with our religious professions? Of

London we have no data on this point.

ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS seem, by common consent of most writers, to be classed

with details of prostitution. In France, it is said by those who profess

intimate local knowledge, there is almost a prejudice against marriage,

although it can be performed as a legal ceremony. We think Bayle St. John

states this fact. In the poorer districts of London, the east end, for

example, it is notorious that numbers live in a state of concubinage.

Again: in the country, and away from the dense population of towns, a

woman of immoral habits may often be found who has had two or three

illegitimate children by different men with whom she has cohabited. Such a

woman would most probably have been a prostitute in a town; as it is, she

is no better; still, she is not a prostitute for hire. But to proceed to

details.

The number of illegitimate births in every thousand births in the various

counties is as follows:

Cumberland 108

Norfolk 105

Hereford 100

Salop 99

Nottingham 91

Cheshire 89

Westmoreland 87

Suffolk 81

Derby 81

Berks 79

Leicester 79

North Wales 78

South Wales 72

York 71

Stafford 69

Sussex 68

Cambridge 66

Lincoln 64

Middlesex 40

Cumberland is a pastoral and mountainous county, with a thinly-settled

population. Norfolk is an agricultural and grazing county, broken up into

large farms. Neither county has many large towns. Stafford is a

manufacturing county, with a long list of thickly-populated small towns,

in which as great indigence and misery can be found as in any part of

England. Middlesex contains London. Here, then, we see at once that

illegitimacy and prostitution are not the same thing. Where there are no

prostitutes there are bastards, but the women in the country are mostly

employed; they are obliged to work in the fields, rough country labor, or

in some domestic manufacture such as button-making, stocking-making, etc.

An apparent paradox may be here mentioned, although not intimately

affecting these investigations. The preponderance of bastards is

accompanied by a preponderance of early marriages. This has been accounted

for by the theory that both are dependent on sexual instincts precociously

or excessively stimulated, which seek marriage when practicable, or

illicit intercourse where not.[309]

Illegitimacy is somewhat regulated by the disproportionate number of the

sexes. In an excess of females there are few bastards; in an excess of

males there are many. Upon this fact, unattended by qualifying

circumstances, might be based an argument as to the innate sexual

instinct in females. It might have been expected the relations would be

somewhat different, namely, an increase of prostitution with an excess of

men, but an increase of bastards with an excess of women.

The number of rapes in England seems to be governed by the excess of men

over women. Where the number of illegitimate children exceeds the average,

rape is less frequent.

The cases of abuse of children between the ages of ten and twelve are

three in every ten million of the whole population. There is some

difficulty in this matter, arising from a legal technicality on the

subject of age. In any case, neither of the last items of criminality is

of any value, inasmuch as they include only those cases judicially

investigated and proved to conviction. Many are guilty, yet acquitted; and

many more are never charged with the offense. Shame prevents parties

prosecuting; or, in the case of children, the fact does not transpire, or

else it is compromised.

Keeping a brothel is, as we have said, an offense at common law. We have a

computation of the number of offenses of this kind based upon every ten

million of the population. In Middlesex it was two hundred and ninety-six,

in Lancashire one hundred and eighty-three. Both counties include the most

populous towns in England. Lancashire contains Manchester and Liverpool.

This fact also is of little value, owing to the peculiar administration of

the law on the subject. Remote or indirect injuries to the public safety

are not noticed in England. The police may be well aware of crime

meditated and planned, and of the haunts of crime, but the theory of

public justice is cure, not prevention.

Concealment of birth is an offense which, as it emanates from undue sexual

intercourse, is generally associated with prostitution. In Hereford and

other counties, the proportion of illegitimate births is eighty-eight out

of every thousand born, and there were twenty-two concealments to every

thousand bastards.

In four counties the illegitimate births were fifty-eight in a thousand,

and the concealments thirteen in a thousand illegitimates.

In fifteen counties there were fifty-three illegitimates in every thousand

births, and twenty-seven concealments to every thousand illegitimates.

With the largest proportion of illegitimates there are the fewest

concealments; namely, with seventy-nine illegitimates out of a thousand

births, there were only twelve concealments to a thousand illegitimates.

It is absolutely impossible to ascertain the number of prostitutes in

London with any degree of certainty, and even a satisfactory approximation

is exceedingly difficult; nevertheless, it is most important to attain as

nearly as possible to the actual facts, because without this knowledge no

adequate idea can be formed of the vast seed-bed of disease and corruption

in constant action in a great capital city, shedding forth and

disseminating its pernicious growth on every side, through channels

unknown and unsuspected.

Mr. Colquhoun, a magistrate of the British metropolis toward the close of

the last century (1796), made an arbitrary enumeration, fixing the number

of prostitutes in London at fifty thousand. Drs. Ryan, Campbell, Mr.

Talbot, and others, carry their estimate in 1840 to eighty thousand!

Mr. Mayne (now Sir Richard Mayne), chief commissioner of the Metropolitan

Police in 1840, made an estimate of the number of regular London

prostitutes, which he considers were then eight thousand and upward. The

seemingly irreconcilable discrepancy of these numbers is no doubt to be

found in the loose terminology of the one party, and the technicality of

the other. The term "prostitute" would seem to be best applied to those

unhappy females who make prostitution their sole calling, and may

therefore be styled "regular" prostitutes, while the larger estimate

includes all shades, both "regular" and "occasional" or "irregular," by

which is understood those females with whom prostitution is auxiliary to

some reputable calling.

We can not find that any reliable or detailed returns have been made on

this branch of public life by the London police, although they must

possess peculiar and exclusive powers of preparing them. As long back as

1837 the following rough calculation was made.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

| | 1st | 2d | 3d | |

| |Class.|Class.|Class.|Total.|

|----------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|

|Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels | 813 | 62 | 20 | 895 |

|Well-dressed prostitutes walking the | | | | |

| streets | 1460 | 79 | 73 | 1612 |

|Prostitutes infesting low neighborhoods | 3533 | 147 | 184 | 3864 |

| |------|------|------|------|

| | 5806 | 288 | 277 | 6371 |

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+