It is true that a large number of milliners, dress-makers, f_London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

hat-binders, silk-binders, tambour-makers, shoe-binders, slop-women,

or those who work for cheap tailors, those in pastry-cooks, fancy

and cigar shops, bazaars, servants to a great extent, frequenters of

fairs, theatres, and dancing-rooms, are more or less prostitutes and

patronesses of the numerous brothels London can boast of possessing;

but these women do not swell the ranks of the class we have at

present under consideration. More probably they are the daughters of

tradesmen and of artizans, who gain a superficial refinement from

being apprenticed, and sent to shops in fashionable localities,

and who becoming tired of the drudgery sigh for the gaiety of the

dancing-saloons, freedom from restraint, and amusements that are not in

their present capacity within their reach.

Loose women generally throw a veil over their early life, and you

seldom, if ever, meet with a woman who is not either a seduced

governess or a clergyman’s daughter; not that there is a word of truth

in such an allegation--but it is their peculiar whim to say so.

To show the extent of education among women who have been arrested by

the police during a stated period, we print the annexed table, dividing

the virtuous criminals from the prostitutes.

DEGREE OF EDUCATION AMONGST PROSTITUTES.

DEGREE OF INSTRUCTION amongst Prostitutes compared with the Degree of

Instruction among Women not Prostitutes, arrested for breaking various

laws (London). The City not included.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERIODS--taking 10,000 | Degree of Instruction amongst virtuous women brought

in each period. Total of women | up in the Police Courts for various offences during the

arrested of both classes 405·362.| years elapsing from 1837 to 1854 inclusive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------+--------+---------+-------------+-----------+-------------

1st period 6 years 1837-42 | 10,000 | 4,813 | 4,838 | 327 | 22

2nd „ 6 „ 1843-48 | 10,000 | 4,167 | 5,534 | 279 | 20

3rd „ 6 „ 1849-54 | 10,000 | 2,802 | 1,972 | 209 | 17

---------------------------------+--------+---------+-------------+-----------+-------

1st period 9 years 1837-45 | 10,000 | 4,570 | 5,098 | 312 | 20

2nd „ 9 „ 1846-54 | 10,000 | 3,247 | 6,504 | 320 | 19

---------------------------------|

Total period 18 „ 1837-54 | 10,000 | 3,861 | 5,851 | 268 | 20

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERIODS--taking 10,000 in each | Degree of Instruction among Prostitutes similarly

period. Total of women arrested | arrested.

of both classes 405·362. |

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------+--------+---------+-------------+-----------+-------------

1st period 6 years 1837-42 | 10,000 | 4,524 | 5,031 | 432 | 13

2nd „ 6 „ 1843-48 | 10,000 | 3,672 | 5,893 | 425 | 10

3rd „ 6 „ 1849-54 | 10,000 | 2,305 | 7,444 | 212 | 39

---------------------------------+--------+---------+-------------+-----------+-------

1st period 9 years 1837-45 | 10,000 | 4,109 | 5,424 | 455 | 12

2nd „ 9 „ 1846-54 | 10,000 | 2,821 | 6,910 | 236 | 33

---------------------------------|

Total period 18 „ 1837-54 | 10,000 | 3,498 | 6,129 | 351 | 22

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This table shows us that public women are a little less illiterate

than those who together with them form the most infamous part of the

population. But we must remember that this is hardly a fair criterion

of the education of all the prostitutes, or of prostitutes as a class,

because we have only summed up those who were arrested for some crime

or offence, so we may justly suppose them to have been the worst of

their class in every respect.

We see however that of the total number of women arrested during a

period of 18 years, there were in every 10,000--

3,498 not knowing how to read or write.

6,129 able to read only, or read and write badly.

351 able to read and write well.

22 educated in a superior manner.

------

10,000

We next come to the consideration of convives, or those who live in

the same house with a number of others, and we will commence with

those who are independent of the mistress of the house. These women

locate themselves in the immediate vicinity of the Haymarket, which at

night is their principal scene of action, when the hospitable doors

of the theatres and casinos are closed. They are charged enormously

for the rooms they occupy, and their landlords defend themselves

for their extortionate demands, by alleging that, as honesty is

not a leading feature in the characters of their lodgers, they are

compelled to protect their own interest by exacting an exorbitant

rent. A drawing-room floor in Queen Street, Windmill Street, which is

a favourite part on account of its proximity to the Argyll Rooms, is

worth three, and sometimes four pounds a-week, and the other _étages_

in proportion. They never stay long in one house, although some will

remain for ten or twelve months in a particular lodging. It is their

principle to get as deeply into debt as they are able, and then to

pack up their things, have them conveyed elsewhere by stealth, and

defraud the landlord of his money. The houses in some of the small

streets in the neighbourhood of Langham Place are let to the people who

underlet them for three hundred a-year, and in some cases at a higher

rental. This class of prostitutes do not live together on account

of a gregarious instinct, but simply from necessity, as their trade

would necessarily exclude them from respectable lodging-houses. They

soon form an acquaintance with the girls who inhabit the same house,

and address one another as “my dear,” an unmeaning, but very general

epithet, an hour or two after their first meeting. They sometimes

prefer the suburbs to reside in, especially while Cremorne is open;

but some live at Brompton and Pimlico all the year round. One of their

most remarkable characteristics is their generosity, which perhaps is

unparalleled by the behaviour of any others, whether high or low in the

social scale. They will not hesitate to lend one another money if they

have it, whether they can spare it or not, although it is seldom that

they can, from their innate recklessness and acquired improvidence.

It is very common, too, for them to lend their bonnets and their

dresses to their friends. If a woman of this description is voluble

and garrulous, she is much sought after by the men who keep the cafés

in the Haymarket, to sit decked out in gorgeous attire behind the

counters, so that by her interesting appearance and the _esprit_ she

displays, the _habitués_ of those places, but more usually those who

pay only a casual visit, may be entrapped into purchasing some of the

wares and fancy articles that are retailed at ten times their actual

value. In order to effect this they will exert all their talents, and

an inexperienced observer would imagine that they indeed entertain some

feeling of affection or admiration for their victim, by the cleverness

with which they simulate its existence. The man whose vanity leads

him to believe that he is selected by the beautiful creature who

condescends to address him, on account of his personal appearance,

would be rather disgusted if he were to perceive the same blandishments

lavished upon the next comer, and would regret the ten shillings he

paid with pleasure for a glove-box, the positive market value of which

is hardly one-fifth of the money he gave for it.

There is a great abandonment of everything that one may strictly

speaking denominate womanly. Modesty is utterly annihilated, and shame

ceases to exist in their composition. They all more or less are given

to habits of drinking.

“When I am sad I drink,” a woman once said to us. “I’m very often sad,

although I appear to be what you call reckless. Well! we don’t fret

that we might have been ladies, because we never had a chance of that,

but we have forfeited a position nevertheless, and when we think that

we have fallen, never to regain that which we have descended from,

and in some cases sacrificed everything for a man who has ceased to

love and deserted us, we get mad. The intensity of this feeling does

wear off a little after the first; but there’s nothing like gin to

deaden the feelings. What are my habits? Why, if I have no letters

or visits from any of my friends, I get up about four o’clock, dress

(”_en dishabille_“) and dine; after that I may walk about the streets

for an hour or two, and pick up any one I am fortunate enough to meet

with, that is if I want money; afterwards I go to the Holborn, dance a

little, and if any one likes me I take him home with me, if not I go

to the Haymarket, and wander from one café to another, from Sally’s

to the Carlton, from Barn’s to Sam’s, and if I find no one there I

go, if I feel inclined, to the divans. I like the Grand Turkish best,

but you don’t as a rule find good men in any of the divans. Strange

things happen to us sometimes: we may now and then die of consumption;

but the other day a lady friend of mine met a gentleman at Sam’s, and

yesterday morning they were married at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

The gentleman has lots of money, I believe, and he started off with her

at once for the Continent. It is very true this is an unusual case; but

we often do marry, and well too; why shouldn’t we, we are pretty, we

dress well, we can talk and insinuate ourselves into the hearts of men

by appealing to their passions and their senses.”

This girl was shrewd and clever, perhaps more so than those of her rank

in the profession usually are; but her testimony is sufficient at once

to dissipate the foolish idea that ought to have been exploded long

ago, but which still lingers in the minds of both men and women, that

the harlot’s progress is short and rapid, and that there is no possible

advance, moral or physical; and that once abandoned she must always be

profligate.

Another woman told us, she had been a prostitute for two years; she

became so from necessity; she did not on the whole dislike her way of

living; she didn’t think about the sin of it; a poor girl must live;

she wouldn’t be a servant for anything; this was much better. She was a

lady’s maid once, but lost her place for staying out one night with the

man who seduced her; he afterwards deserted her, and then she became

bad. She was fonder of dress than anything. On an average she had a new

bonnet once a week, dresses not so often; she liked the casinos, and

was charmed with Cremorne; she hated walking up and down the Haymarket,

and seldom did it without she wanted money very much. She liked the

Holborn better than the Argyll, and always danced.

_Board Lodgers._

Board lodgers are those who give a portion of what they receive to the

mistress of the brothel in return for their board and lodging. As we

have had occasion to observe before, it is impossible to estimate the

number of brothels in London, or even in particular parishes, not only

because they are frequently moving from one district to another, but

because our system so hates anything approaching to _espionage_, that

the authorities do not think it worth their while to enter into any

such computation. From this it may readily be understood how difficult

the task of the statistician is. Perhaps it will be sufficient to say

that these women are much more numerous than may at first be imagined;

although those who give the whole of what they get in return for their

board, lodging, and clothes are still more so. In Lambeth there are

great numbers of the lowest of these houses, and only very recently

the proprietors of some eight or ten of the worst were summoned before

a police magistrate, and the parish officers who made the complaint

bound over to prosecute at the sessions. It is much to be regretted

that in dealing with such cases the method of procedure is not more

expeditious and less expensive. Let us take for example one of the

cases we have been quoting. A man is openly accused of keeping a

ruffianly den filled with female wretches, destitute of every particle

of modesty and bereft of every atom of shame, whose actual occupation

is to rob, maltreat, and plunder the unfortunate individuals who so

far stultify themselves as to allow the decoys to entrap them into

their snares, let us hope, for the sake of humanity, while in a state

of intoxication or a condition of imbecility. Very well; instead of

an easy inexpensive process, the patriotic persons who have devoted

themselves to the exposure of such infamous rascality, find themselves

involved in a tedious criminal prosecution, and in the event of failure

lay themselves open to an action. Mysterious disappearances, Waterloo

Bridge tragedies, and verdicts of found drowned, are common enough in

this great city. Who knows how many of these unfathomable affairs may

have been originated, worked out, and consummated in some disgusting

rookery in the worst parts of our most demoralized metropolitan

parishes; but it is with the better class of these houses we are

more particularly engaged at present. During the progress of these

researches, we met a girl residing at a house in a street running out

of Langham Place. Externally the house looked respectable enough; there

was no indication of the profession or mode of life of the inmates,

except that, from the fact of some of the blinds being down in the

bed rooms, you might have thought the house contained an invalid. The

rooms, when you were ushered in, were well, though cheaply furnished;

there were coburg chairs and sofas, glass chandeliers, and handsome

green curtains. The girl with whom we were brought into conversation

was not more than twenty-three; she told us her age was twenty, but

statements of a similar nature, when made by this class, are never to

be relied on. At first she treated our inquiries with some levity, and

jocularly inquired what we were inclined to stand, which we justly

interpreted into a desire for something to drink; we accordingly

“stood” a bottle of wine, which had the effect of making our informant

more communicative. What she told us was briefly this. Her life was

a life of perfect slavery, she was seldom if ever allowed to go out,

and then not without being watched. Why was this? Because she would

“cut it” if she got a chance, they knew that very well, and took very

good care she shouldn’t have much opportunity. Their house was rather

popular, and they had lots of visitors; she had some particular friends

who always came to see her. They paid her well, but she hardly ever got

any of the money. Where was the odds, she couldn’t go out to spend it?

What did she want with money, except now and then for a drain of white

satin. What was white satin? Where had I been all my life to ask such

a question? Was I a dodger? She meant a parson. No; she was glad of

that, for she hadn’t much idea of them, they were a canting lot. Well,

white satin, if I must know, was gin, and I couldn’t say she never

taught me anything. Where was she born? Somewhere in Stepney. What did

it matter where; she could tell me all about it if she liked, but she

didn’t care. It touched her on the raw--made her feel too much. She was

’ticed when she was young, that is, she was decoyed by the mistress

of the house some years ago. She met Mrs. ---- in the street, and the

woman began talking to her in a friendly way. Asked her who her father

was (he was a journeyman carpenter), where he lived, extracted all

about her family, and finally asked her to come home to tea with her.

The child, delighted at the making the acquaintance of so kind and so

well-dressed a lady, willingly acquiesced, without making any demur,

as she never dreamt of anything wrong, and had not been cautioned by

her father. She had lost her mother some years ago. She was not brought

direct to the house where I found her? Oh! no. There was a branch

establishment over the water, where they were broken in as it were.

How long did she remain there? Oh! perhaps two months, maybe three;

she didn’t keep much account how time went. When she was conquered and

her spirit broken, she was transported from the first house to a more

aristocratic neighbourhood. How did they tame her? Oh! they made her

drunk and sign some papers, which she knew gave them great power over

her, although she didn’t exactly know in what the said power consisted,

or how it might be exercised. Then they clothed her and fed her well,

and gradually inured her to that sort of life. And now, was there

anything else I’d like to know particularly, because if there was, I’d

better look sharp about asking it, as she was getting tired of talking,

she could tell me. Did she expect to lead this life till she died?

Well she never did, if I wasn’t going to preachify. She couldn’t stand

that--anything but that.

I really begged to apologize if I had wounded her sensibility; I wasn’t

inquiring from a religious point of view, or with any particular

motive. I merely wished to know, to satisfy my own curiosity.

Well, she thought me a very inquisitive old party, anyhow. At any rate,

as I was so polite she did not mind answering my questions. Would she

stick to it till she was a stiff ’un? She supposed she would; what else

was there for her? Perhaps something might turn up; how was she to

know? She never thought she would go mad; if she did, she lived in the

present, and never went blubbering about as some did. She tried to be

as jolly as she could; where was the fun of being miserable?

This is the philosophy of most of her sisterhood. This girl possessed

a talent for repartee, which accomplishment she endeavoured to exercise

at my expense, as will be perceived by the foregoing, though for many

reasons I have adhered to her own vernacular. That her answers were

true, I have no reason to question, and that this is the fate of very

many young girls in London, there is little doubt; indeed, the reports

of the Society for the Protection of Young Females sufficiently prove

it. Female virtue in great cities has innumerable assailants, and the

moralist should pity rather than condemn. We are by no means certain

that meretricious women who have been in the habit of working before

losing their virtue, at some trade or other, and are able to unite the

two together, are conscious of any annoyance or a want of self-respect

at being what they are. This class have been called the “amateurs,” to

contradistinguish them from the professionals, who devote themselves to

it entirely as a profession. To be unchaste amongst the lower classes

is not always a subject of reproach. The commerce of the sexes is so

general that to have been immodest is very seldom a bar to marriage.

The depravity of manners amongst boys and girls begins so very

early, that they think it rather a distinction than otherwise to be

unprincipled. Many a shoeblack, in his uniform and leathern apron, who

cleans your boots for a penny at the corners of the streets, has his

sweetheart. Their connection begins probably at the low lodging-houses

they are in the habit of frequenting, or, if they have a home, at the

penny gaffs and low cheap places of amusement, where the seed of so

much evil is sown. The precocity of the youth of both sexes in London

is perfectly astounding. The drinking, the smoking, the blasphemy,

indecency, and immorality that does not even call up a blush is

incredible, and charity schools and the spread of education do not seem

to have done much to abate this scourge. Another very fruitful source

of early demoralization is to be looked for in the quantities of penny

and halfpenny romances that are sold in town and country. One of the

worst of the most recent ones is denominated, “Charley Wag, or the New

Jack Shepherd, a history of the most successful thief in London.” To

say that these are not incentives to lust, theft, and crime of every

description is to cherish a fallacy. Why should not the police, by act

of Parliament, be empowered to take cognizance of this shameful misuse

of the art of printing? Surely some clauses could be added to Lord

Campbell’s Act, or a new bill might be introduced that would meet the

exigencies of the case, without much difficulty.

Men frequent the houses in which women board and lodge for many

reasons, the chief of which is secrecy; they also feel sure that the

women are free from disease, if they know the house, and it bears an

average reputation for being well conducted. Men in a certain position

avoid publicity in their amours beyond all things, and dread being

seen in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket or the Burlington Arcade at

certain hours, as their professional reputation might be compromised.

Many serious, demure people conceal the iniquities of their private

lives in this way.

If Asmodeus were loquacious, how interesting and anecdotical a

scandal-monger he might become!

Another woman told me a story, varying somewhat from that of the first

I examined, which subsequent experience has shown me is slightly

stereotyped. She was the victim of deliberate cold-blooded seduction;

in course of time a child was born; up to this time her seducer had

treated her with affection and kindness, but he now, after presenting

her with fifty pounds, deserted her. Thrown on her own resources, as

it were, she did not know what to do; she could not return to her

friends, so she went into lodgings at a very small rental, and there

lived until her money was expended. She then supported herself and

her child by doing machine-work for a manufacturer, but at last bad

times came, and she was thrown out of work; of course the usual amount

of misery consequent on such a catastrophe ensued. She saw her child

dying by inches before her face, and this girl, with tears in her eyes,

assured me she thanked God for it. “I swear,” she added, “I starved

myself to nourish it, until I was nothing but skin and bone, and little

enough of that; I knew from the first, the child must die, if things

didn’t improve, and I felt they wouldn’t. When I looked at my little

darling I knew well enough he was doomed, but he was not destined

to drag on a weary existence as I was, and I was glad of it. It may

seem strange to you, but while my boy lived, I couldn’t go into the

streets to save his life or my own--I couldn’t do it. If there had been

a foundling-hospital, I mean as I hear there is in foreign parts, I

would have placed him there, and worked somehow, but there wasn’t, and

a crying shame it is too. Well, he died at last, and it was all over.

I was half mad and three parts drunk after the parish burying, and I

went into the streets at last; I rose in the world--(here she smiled

sarcastically)--and I’ve lived in this house for years, but I swear

to God I haven’t had a moment’s happiness since the child died, except

when I’ve been dead drunk or maudlin.”

Although this woman did not look upon the death of her child as a crime

committed by herself, it was in reality none the less her doing; she

shunned the workhouse, which might have done something for her, and

saved the life, at all events, of her child; but the repugnance evinced

by every woman who has any proper feeling for a life in a workhouse or

a hospital, can hardly be imagined by those who think that, because

people are poor, they must lose all feeling, all delicacy, all

prejudice, and all shame.

Her remarks about a foundling-hospital are sensible; in the opinion of

many it is a want that ought to be supplied. Infanticide is a crime

much on the increase, and what mother would kill her offspring if she

could provide for it in any way?

It is true that a large number of milliners, dress-makers, furriers,