MM. Duchatelet, Richelot and Léon Faucher, whom we have just quoted,
all unite in condemning our system of blind and wilful toleration.
They do not understand the temper of the nation, which would never
allow the State to legislate upon this subject. But, nevertheless, we
must confess that the profligacy of the metropolis of England, if not
so patent and palpable as that of some continental cities we have had
occasion to refer to, is perhaps as deeply rooted, and as impossible
to eradicate. The legislature, by refusing to interfere, have tacitly
declared the existence of prostitutes to be a necessary evil, the
suppression of which would produce alarming and disastrous effects upon
the country at large. When any case more than usually flagrant occurs
it falls within the jurisdiction of the Society for the Suppression of
Vice, and the law is careful to punish anything that can be construed
into a misdemeanour or a felony. In cold climates, as in hot climates,
we have shown that the passions are the main agents in producing the
class of women that we have under consideration, but in temperate
zones the animal instinct is less difficult to bridle and seldom
leads the female to abandon herself to the other sex. It is a vulgar
error, and a popular delusion, that the life of a prostitute is as
revolting to herself, as it appears to the moralist sternly lamenting
over the condition of the fallen; but, on the contrary, investigation
and sedulous scrutiny lead us to a very different conclusion. Authors
gifted with vivid imaginations love to pourtray the misery that
is brought upon an innocent and confiding girl by the perfidy and
desertion of her seducer. The pulpit too frequently echoes to clerical
denunciation and evangelical horror, until those unacquainted with the
actual facts tremble at the fate of those whose terrible lot they are
taught rather to shudder at than commiserate. Women who in youth have
lost their virtue, often contrive to retain their reputation; and even
when this is not the case, frequently amalgamate imperceptibly with the
purer portion of the population and become excellent members of the
community. The love of woman is usually pure and elevated. But when
she devotes her affections to a man who realizes her ideal, she does
not hesitate to sacrifice all she holds dear, for his gratification,
ignoring her own interest and her own inclination. Actuated by a
noble abnegation of self, she derives a melancholy pleasure from
the knowledge that she has utterly given up all she had formerly so
zealously guarded, and she feels that her love has reached its grand
climacteric, when, without the slightest pruriency of imagination
to urge her on to the consummation, without the remotest vestige of
libidinous desire to prompt her to self-immolation, without a shadow of
meretricious feeling lurking within her, she abandons her person beyond
redemption to the idol she has set up in the highest place in her soul.
This heroic martyrdom is one of the causes, though perhaps not the
primary or most frequently occurring, of the stream of immorality
that insidiously permeates our social system. The greatest, and one
equally difficult to combat, is the low rate of wages that the female
industrial classes of this great city receive, in return for the most
arduous and wearisome labour. Innumerable cases of prostitution through
want, solely and absolutely, are constantly occurring, and this will
not be wondered at when it is remembered that 105 women in England and
Wales are born to every 100 males, which number is further augmented by
the dangers to which men are exposed by their avocations, and also in
martial service by sea and land. Again, so great are the inducements
held out by men of lax morality and loose principles that procuresses
find entrapping girls into their abodes a most lucrative and profitable
trade. Some are even brought up from their earliest infancy by their
pseudo-protectors with the full intention that they shall embark in
the infamous traffic as soon as their age will permit them to do so
remuneratively. A revolting and horrible case exemplifying the truth
of this statement came under our notice some short time back. We were
examining a girl, who gave the following replies to the questions put
to her.
“My name is Ellen, I have no other. Yes, I sometimes call myself by
various names, but rarely keep to one longer than a month or two. I was
never baptized that I know of; I don’t know much about religion, though
I think I know the difference between right and wrong. I certainly
think it is wrong to live as I am now doing. I often think of it in
secret, and cry over it, but what can I do? I was brought up in the
country and allowed to run about with some other children. We were not
taught anything, not even to read or write; twice I saw a gentleman
who came down to the farm, and he kissed me and told me to be a good
girl. Yes, I remember these things very well. I was about eleven the
last time he came, and two years after I was sent up to town, carefully
dressed and placed in a large drawing-room. After I had been there some
time a gentleman came in with the person I had been sent to, and I
directly recognized him as the one I had seen in the country. For the
first time in my life I glanced at a looking-glass that hung on the
wall, they being things we never saw in the country, and I thought the
gentleman had changed his place and was standing before me, we were so
alike. I then looked at him steadily for a few moments, and at last
took his hand. He said something to me which I don’t remember, and
which I did not reply to. I asked him, when he had finished speaking,
if he was my father. I don’t know why I asked him. He seemed confused,
and the lady of the house poured out some wine and gave me, after that
I don’t know what happened.”
This may be a case of rare occurrence, but it is not so morally
impossible as at first it appears.
In 1857, according to the best authorities, there were 8600 prostitutes
known to the police, but this is far from being even an approximate
return of the number of loose women in the metropolis. It scarcely
does more than record the circulating harlotry of the Haymarket and
Regent Street. Their actual numerical strength is very difficult to
compute, for there is an amount of oscillatory prostitution it is easy
to imagine, but impossible to substantiate. One of the peculiarities of
this class is their remarkable freedom from disease. They are in the
generality of cases notorious for their mental and physical elasticity.
Syphilis is rarely fatal. It is an entirely distinct race that suffer
from the ravages of the insidious diseases that the licence given
to the passions and promiscuous intercourse engender. Young girls,
innocent and inexperienced, whose devotion has not yet bereft them of
their innate modesty and sense of shame, will allow their systems to
be so shocked, and their constitutions so impaired, before the aid of
the surgeon is sought for, that when he does arrive his assistance is
almost useless.
We have before stated (p. 211) the assumed number of prostitutes in
London to be about 80,000, and large as this total may appear, it
is not improbable that it is below the reality rather than above
it. One thing is certain--if it be an exaggerated statement--that
the real number is swollen every succeeding year, for prostitution
is an inevitable attendant upon extended civilization and increased
population.
We divide prostitutes into three classes. First, those women who are
kept by men of independent means; secondly, those women who live in
apartments, and maintain themselves by the produce of their vagrant
amours, and thirdly, those who dwell in brothels.
The state of the first of these is the nearest approximation to the
holy state of marriage, and finds numerous defenders and supporters.
These have their suburban villas, their carriages, horses, and
sometimes a box at the opera. Their equipages are to be seen in the
park, and occasionally through the influence of their aristocratic
friends they succeed in obtaining vouchers for the most exclusive
patrician balls.
Houses in which prostitutes lodge are those in which one or two
prostitutes occupy private apartments; in most cases with the
connivance of the proprietor. These generally resort to night-houses,
where they have a greater chance of meeting with customers than they
would have were they to perambulate the streets.
Brothels are houses where speculators board, dress, and feed women,
living upon the farm of their persons. Under this head we must include
introducing houses, where the women do not reside, but merely use the
house as a place of resort in the daytime. Married women, imitating the
custom of Messalina, whom Juvenal so vividly describes in his Satires,
not uncommonly make use of these places. A Frenchwoman in the habit of
frequenting a notorious house in James Street, Haymarket, said that
she came to town four or five times in the week for the purpose of
obtaining money by the prostitution of her body. She loved her husband,
but he was unable to find any respectable employment, and were she not
to supply him with the necessary funds for their household expenditure
they would sink into a state of destitution, and anything, she added,
with simplicity, was better than that. Of course her husband connived
at what she did. He came to fetch her home every evening about ten
o’clock. She had no children. She didn’t wish to have any.
It must not be supposed that if some, perhaps a majority of them,
eventually become comparatively respectable, and merge into the ocean
of propriety, there are not a vast number whose lives afford matter
for the most touching tragedies,--whose melancholy existence is one
continual struggle for the actual necessaries of life, the occasional
absence of which entails upon them a condition of intermittent
starvation. A woman who has fallen like a star from heaven, may flash
like a meteor in a lower sphere, but only with a transitory splendour.
In time her orbit contracts, and the improvidence that has been her
leading characteristic through life now trebles and quadruples the
misery she experiences. To drown reflection she rushes to the gin
palace, and there completes the work that she had already commenced
so inauspiciously. The passion for dress, that distinguished her
in common with her sex in former days, subsides into a craving for
meretricious tawdry, and the bloom of health is superseded by ruinous
and poisonous French compounds and destructive cosmetics. A hospital
surgeon gave us the following description of the death of a French
lorette, who at a very juvenile age had been entrapped and imported
into this country. She had, according to her own statement, been born
in one of the southern departments. When she was fourteen years old,
the agent of some English speculator in human beings came into their
neighbourhood and proposed that Anille should leave her native country
and proceed to England, where he said there was a great demand for
female domestic labour, which was much better paid for on the other
side of the Channel. The proposition was entertained by the parents,
and eagerly embraced by the girl herself, who soon afterwards, in
company with several other girls, all deluded in a similar manner, were
leaving the shores of their native country for a doubtful future in
one with the language of which they were not even remotely acquainted.
On their arrival their ruin was soon effected, and for some years
they continued to enrich the proprietors of the house in which they
resided, all the time remitting small sums to their families abroad,
who were unwittingly and involuntarily existing upon the proceeds of
their daughters’ dishonour, and rejoicing in such unexpected success.
After a while Anille was sent adrift to manage for herself. Naturally
of a refined and sensitive disposition, she felt her position keenly,
which induced a sadness almost amounting to hypochondria to steal over
her, and although very pretty, she found this a great obstacle in the
way of her success. She knew not how to simulate the hollow laugh or
the reckless smile of her more volatile companions, and her mind became
more diseased day by day, until she found it impracticable to think of
endeavouring to hurl off the morbidity that had taken possession of
her very soul. At last she fell a victim to a contagious disorder, the
neglect of which ultimately necessitated her removal to the hospital.
When there, she was found to be incurable; an operation was performed
upon her but without success. She bore her illness with childish
impatience, continually wishing for the end, and often imploring me
with tearful eyes by the intervention of science to put an end to her
misery. One afternoon, as usual, I came to see her. She exclaimed the
moment she perceived me, I am cheerful to-day. May I not recover; I
suffer no pain. But her looks belied her words; her features were
frightfully haggard and worn; her eyes, dry and bloodshot, had almost
disappeared in their sockets, and her general appearance denoted the
approach of him she had been so constantly invoking. Unwrapping some
bandages, I proceeded to examine her, when an extraordinary change came
over her, and I knew that her dissolution was not far distant. Her
mind wandered, and she spoke wildly and excitedly in her own language.
After a while she exclaimed, “J’ignore où je suis. C’en est fait.” An
expression of intense suffering contracted her emaciated features.
“Je n’en puis plus,” she cried, and adding, after a slight pause, in
a plaintive voice, “Je me meurs,” her soul glided impalpably away,
and she was a corpse. As a pendant to these remarks, I extract an
expressive passage from an old book. “There are also women (like birds
of passage) of a migratory nature, who remove after a certain time from
St. James’s and Marylebone end of the town to Covent Garden, then to
the Strand, and from thence to St. Giles and Wapping; from which latter
place they frequently migrate much further, even to New South Wales.
Some few return in seven years, some in fourteen, and some not at all.
During their stay here, like birds they make their nests upon feathers,
some higher, some lower than others. At first they generally build
them on the first-floor, afterwards on the second, and then up in the
cock-loft and garrets, from whence they generally take to the open air,
and become ambulatory and noctivagous, and as their price grows less,
their wandering increases, when many perish from the inclemency of the
weather, and others take their flight abroad.”[92]
_Seclusives, or those that live in Private Houses and Apartments._
Two classes of prostitutes come under this denomination--first, kept
mistresses, and secondly, prima donnas or those who live in a superior
style. The first of these is perhaps the most important division of the
entire profession, when considered with regard to its effects upon the
higher classes of society. Laïs, when under the protection of a prince
of the blood; Aspasia, whose friend is one of the most influential
noblemen in the kingdom; Phryne, the chère amie of a well-known officer
in the guards, or a man whose wealth is proverbial on the Stock
Exchange and the city,--have all great influence upon the tone of
morality extant amongst the set in which their distinguished protectors
move, and indeed the reflex of their dazzling profligacy falls upon
and bewilders those who are in a lower condition of life, acting as an
incentive to similar deeds of licentiousness though on a more limited
scale. Hardly a parish in London is free from this impurity. Wherever
the neighbourhood possesses peculiar charms, wherever the air is
purer than ordinary, or the locality fashionably distinguished, these
tubercles on the social system penetrate and abound. Again quoting
from Dr. Ryan, although we cannot authenticate his statements--“It is
computed, that 8,000,000_l._ are expended annually on this vice in
London alone. This is easily proved: some girls obtain from twenty to
thirty pounds a week, others more, whilst most of those who frequent
theatres, casinos, gin palaces, music halls, &c., receive from ten to
twelve pounds. Those of a still lower grade obtain about four or five
pounds, some less than one pound, and many not ten shillings. If we
take the average earnings of each prostitute at 100_l._ per annum,
which is under the amount, it gives the yearly income of eight millions.
“Suppose the average expense of 80,000 amounts to 20_l._ each,
1,600,000_l._ is the result. This sum deducted from the earnings leaves
6,400,000_l._ as the income of the keepers of prostitutes, or supposing
5000 to be the number, above 1000_l._ per annum each--an enormous
income for men in such a situation to derive when compared with the
resources of many respectable and professional men.”
Literally every woman who yields to her passions and loses her virtue
is a prostitute, but many draw a distinction between those who live
by promiscuous intercourse, and those who confine themselves to one
man. That this is the case is evident from the returns before us. The
metropolitan police do not concern themselves with the higher classes
of prostitutes; indeed, it would be impossible, and impertinent as
well, were they to make the attempt. Sir Richard Mayne kindly informed
us that the latest computation of the number of public prostitutes was
made on the 5th of April, 1858, and that the returns then showed a
total of 7261.
It is frequently a matter of surprise amongst the friends of a
gentleman of position and connection that he exhibits an invincible
distaste to marriage. If they were acquainted with his private affairs
their astonishment would speedily vanish, for they would find him
already to all intents and purposes united to one who possesses charms,
talents, and accomplishments, and who will in all probability exercise
the same influence over him as long as the former continue to exist.
The prevalence of this custom, and the extent of its ramifications is
hardly dreamed of, although its effects are felt, and severely. The
torch of Hymen burns less brightly than of yore, and even were the
blacksmith of Gretna still exercising his vocation, he would find his
business diminishing with startling rapidity year by year.
It is a great mistake to suppose that kept mistresses are without
friends and without society; on the contrary, their acquaintance,
if not select, is numerous, and it is their custom to order their
broughams or their pony carriages and at the fashionable hour pay
visits and leave cards on one another.
They possess no great sense of honour, although they are generally more
or less religious. If they take a fancy to a man they do not hesitate
to admit him to their favour. Most kept women have several lovers
who are in the habit of calling upon them at different times, and as
they are extremely careful in conducting these amours they perpetrate
infidelity with impunity, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
escape detection. When they are unmasked, the process, unless the man
is very much infatuated, is of course summary in the extreme. They are
dismissed probably with a handsome douceur and sent once more adrift.
They do not remain long, however, in the majority of cases, without
finding another protector.
A woman who called herself Lady ---- met her admirer at a house in
Bolton Row that she was in the habit of frequenting. At first sight
Lord ---- became enamoured, and proposed _sur le champ_, after a little
preliminary conversation, that she should live with him. The proposal
with equal rapidity and eagerness was accepted, and without further
deliberation his lordship took a house for her in one of the terraces
overlooking the Regent’s Park, allowed her four thousand a year, and
came as frequently as he could, to pass his time in her society. She
immediately set up a carriage and a stud, took a box at the opera
on the pit tier, and lived, as she very well could, in excellent
style. The munificence of her friend did not decrease by the lapse of
time. She frequently received presents of jewelry from him, and his
marks of attention were constant as they were various. The continual
contemplation of her charms instead of producing satiety added fuel to
the fire, and he was never happy when out of her sight. This continued
until one day he met a young man in her _loge_ at the opera, whom she
introduced as her cousin. This incident aroused his suspicions, and he
determined to watch her more closely. She was surrounded by spies, and
in reality did not possess one confidential attendant, for they were
all bribed to betray her. For a time, more by accident than precaution
or care on her part, she succeeded in eluding their vigilance, but at
last the catastrophe happened; she was surprised with her paramour in
a position that placed doubt out of the question, and the next day his
lordship, with a few sarcastic remarks, gave her her _congé_ and five
hundred pounds.
These women are rarely possessed of education, although they undeniably
have ability. If they appear accomplished you may rely that it is
entirely superficial. Their disposition is volatile and thoughtless,
which qualities are of course at variance with the existence of
respectability. Their ranks too are recruited from a class where
education is not much in vogue. The fallacies about clergymen’s
daughters and girls from the middle classes forming the majority of
such women are long ago exploded; there may be some amongst them, but
they are few and far between. They are not, as a rule, disgusted with
their way of living; most of them consider it a means to an end, and in
no measure degrading or polluting. One and all look forward to marriage
and a certain state in society as their ultimate lot. This is their
bourne, and they do all in their power to travel towards it.
“I am not tired of what I am doing,” a woman once answered me, “I
rather like it. I have all I want, and my friend loves me to excess.
I am the daughter of a tradesman at Yarmouth. I learned to play the
piano a little, and I have naturally a good voice. Yes, I find these
accomplishments of great use to me; they are, perhaps, as you say, the
only ones that could be of use to a girl like myself. I am three and
twenty. I was seduced four years ago. I tell you candidly I was as
much to blame as my seducer; I wished to escape from the drudgery of
my father’s shop. I have told you they partially educated me; I could
cypher a little as well, and I knew something about the globes; so I
thought I was qualified for something better than minding the shop
occasionally, or sewing, or helping my mother in the kitchen and other
domestic matters. I was very fond of dress, and I could not at home
gratify my love of display. My parents were stupid, easy-going old
people, and extremely uninteresting to me. All these causes combined
induced me to encourage the addresses of a young gentleman of property
in the neighbourhood, and without much demur I yielded to his desires.
We then went to London, and I have since that time lived with four
different men. We got tired of one another in six months, and I was
as eager to leave him as he was to get rid of me, so we mutually
accommodated one another by separating. Well, my father and mother
don’t exactly know where I am or what I am doing, although if they had
any penetration they might very well guess. Oh, yes! they know I am
alive, for I keep them pleasantly aware of my existence by occasionally
sending them money. What do I think will become of me? What an absurd
question. I could marry to-morrow if I liked.”
This girl was a fair example of her class. They live entirely for
the moment, and care little about the morrow until they are actually
pressed in any way, and then they are fertile in expedients.
We now come to the second class, or those we have denominated prima
donnas. These are not kept like the first that we have just been
treating of, although several men who know and admire them are in
the habit of visiting them periodically. From these they derive a
considerable revenue, but they by no means rely entirely upon it for
support. They are continually increasing the number of their friends,
which indeed is imperatively necessary, as absence and various causes
thin their ranks considerably. They are to be seen in the parks, in
boxes at the theatres, at concerts, and in almost every accessible
place where fashionable people congregate; in fact in all places
where admittance is not secured by vouchers, and in some cases, those
apparently insuperable barriers fall before their tact and address.
At night their favourite rendezvous is in the neighbourhood of the
Haymarket, where the hospitality of Mrs. Kate Hamilton is extended
to them after the fatigues of dancing at the Portland Rooms, or
the excesses of a private party. Kate’s may be visited not only
to dissipate ennui, but with a view to replenishing an exhausted
exchequer; for as Kate is careful as to who she admits into her
rooms--men who are able to spend, and come with the avowed intention
of spending, five or six pounds, or perhaps more if necessary--these
supper-rooms are frequented by a better set of men and women than
perhaps any other in London. Although these are seen at Kate’s they
would shrink from appearing at any of the cafés in the Haymarket, or
at the supper-rooms with which the adjacent streets abound, nor would
they go to any other casino than Mott’s. They are to be seen between
three and five o’clock in the Burlington Arcade, which is a well known
resort of cyprians of the better sort. They are well acquainted with
its Paphian intricacies, and will, if their signals are responded to,
glide into a friendly bonnet shop, the stairs of which leading to
the cœnacula or upper chambers are not innocent of their well formed
“bien chaussée” feet. The park is also, as we have said, a favourite
promenade, where assignations may be made or acquaintances formed.
Equestrian exercise is much liked by those who are able to afford
it, and is often as successful as pedestrian, frequently more so. It
is difficult to say what position in life the parents of these women
were in, but generally their standing in society has been inferior.
Principles of lax morality were early inculcated, and the seed that has
been sown has not been slow to bear its proper fruit.
[Illustration: A NIGHT HOUSE.--KATE HAMILTON’S.]