police, and rather notorious on account of her having attempted to
drown herself three times. Wishing to see her, the inspector took me to
the house she lived in, which was kept by an Irishwoman, the greatest
hypocrite I ever met with. She was intensely civil to the inspector,
who had once convicted her for allowing three women to sleep in one
bed, and she was fined five pounds, all which she told us with the most
tedious circumstantiality, vowing, as “shure as the Almighty God was
sitting on his throne,” she did it out of charity, or she wished she
might never speak no more. “These gals,” she said, “comes to me in the
night and swears (as I knows to be true) they has no place where to
put their heads, and foxes they has holes, likewise birds of the air,
which it’s a mortial shame as they is better provided for and against
than them that’s flesh and blood Christians. And one night I let one
in, when having no bed you see empty I bundled them in together. Police
they came and I was fined five pounds, which I borrowed from Mrs.
Wilson what lives close to--five golden sovereigns, as I’m alive, and
they took them all, which I’ve paid back two bob a week since, and I
don’t owe no one soul not a brass farthing, which it’s all as thrue as
Christ’s holiness, let alone his blessed gospel.” The woman we came
to see was called China Emma, or by her intimate associates Chaney
Emm. She was short in stature, rather stout, with a pale face utterly
expressionless; her complexion was blonde. There was a look almost of
vacuity about her, but her replies to my questions were lucid, and
denoted that she was only naturally slow and stupid.
“My father and mother,” she said, “kept a grocer’s shop in Goswell
Street. Mother died when I was twelve years old, and father took to
drinking. In three years he lost his shop, and in a while killed
himself, what with the drink and one thing and another. I went to live
with a sister who was bad, and in about a year she went away with a
man and left me. I could not get any work, never having been taught
any trade or that. One day I met a sailor, who was very good to me. I
lived with him as his wife, and when he went away drew his half-pay.
I was with him for six years. Then he died of yellow fever in the
West Indies, and I heard no more of him. I know he did not cut me,
for one of his mates brought me a silver snuff-box he used to carry
his quids in, which he sent me when he was at his last. Then I lived
for a bit in Angel Gardens; after that I went to Gravel Lane; and now
I’m in Bluegate Fields. When I came here I met with a Chinaman called
Appoo. He’s abroad now, but he sends me money. I got two pounds from
him only the other day. He often sends me the needful. When he was
over here last we lived in Gregory’s Rents. I’ve lived in Victoria
Place and New Court, all about Bluegate. Appoo only used to treat
me badly when I got drunk. I always get drunk when I’ve a chance to.
Appoo used to tie my legs and arms and take me into the street. He’d
throw me into the gutter, and then he’d throw buckets of water over me
till I was wet through; but that didn’t cure; I don’t believe anything
would; I’d die for the drink; I must have it, and I don’t care what I
does to get it. I’ve tried to kill myself more nor once. I have fits
at times--melancholy fits--and I don’t know what to do with myself.
I wish I was dead, and I run to the water and throw myself in; but
I’ve no luck; I never had since I was a child--oh! ever so little. I’s
always picked out. Once I jumped out of a first-floor window in Jamaica
Place into the river, but a boatman coming by hooked me up, and the
magistrate give me a month. The missus here (naming the woman who kept
the place) wants me to go to a refuge or home, or something of that.
P’raps I shall.”
The Irishwoman here broke in, exclaiming--
“And so she shall. I’ve got three or four poor gals into the refuge,
and I’ll get Chaney Emm, as shure as the Almighty God’s sitting on his
throne.” (This was a favourite exclamation of hers.) “I keeps her very
quiet here; she never sees no one, nor tastes a drop of gin, which she
shouldn’t have to save her blessed life, if it were to be saved by
nothink else; leastways, it should be but a taste. It’s ruined her has
drink. When she got the money Appoo sent her the other day or two back,
I took it all, and laid it out for her, but never a drop of the crater
passed down Chaney Emm’s lips.”
This declaration of the avaricious old woman was easily credible,
except the laying out the money for her victim’s advantage. The gin,
in all probability, if any had been bought, had been monopolized in
another quarter, where it was equally acceptable. As to the woman’s
seeing no one, the idea was preposterous. The old woman’s charity, as
is commonly the case, began at home, and went very little further. If
she were excluded from men’s society she must have been much diseased.
I find the women who cohabit with sailors are not, as a body,
disorderly, although there may be individuals who habitually give
themselves up to insubordination. I take them to be the reverse of
careful, for they are at times well off, but at others, through
their improvidence and the slackness of the shipping, immersed in
poverty. The supply of women is fully equal to the demand; but as
the demand fluctuates so much I do not think the market can be said
to be overstocked. They are unintelligent and below the average of
intellectuality among prostitutes, though perhaps on a par with the men
with whom they cohabit.
_Soldiers’ Women._
The evil effects of the want of some system to regulate prostitution in
England, is perhaps more shown amongst the army than any other class.
Syphilis is very prevalent among soldiers, although the disease is not
so virulent as it was formerly. That is, we do not see examples of the
loss of the palate or part of the cranium, as specimens extant in our
museums show us was formerly the case. The women who are patronized by
soldiers are, as a matter of course, very badly paid; for how can a
soldier out of his very scanty allowance, generally little exceeding a
shilling a day, afford to supply a woman with means adequate for her
existence? It follows from this state of things, that a woman may,
or more correctly must, be intimate with several men in one evening,
and supposing her to be tainted with disease, as many men as she may
chance to pick up during the course of her peregrinations, will be
incapacitated from serving her Majesty for several weeks.
The following quotation from Mr. Acton’s book will suffice to show what
I mean. He is speaking of a particular regiment.
“In 1851, Dr. Gordon, surgeon to the 57th, read a paper before the
Surgical Society of Ireland, in which he states, (see ‘Dublin Medical
Press,’ February 26th, 1851,) that during the year ending 31st March,
1850, the following number, out of an average strength of 408 men, were
treated for venereal diseases in the head-quarters hospital--
“Number admitted 113
Number of days in hospital 2519
Amount of soldiers’ pay £136 10 9
“At the first blush, the economist would be apt to imagine that a
very large sum of money is lost to the state annually by the inroads
of syphilis. It is but fair to state that this is not the case, as
tenpence a day is stopped from each man’s pay while he is in hospital,
so that about five-sixths of his wages are recovered. The actual
loss to the country is his time, which, however, during peace, is
non-productive.
“From the statistical reports on the sickness, mortality, and
invaliding among the troops in the United Kingdom, the Mediterranean,
and British America, presented to Parliament some years ago (1839), it
would appear that syphilis is a fatal enemy to the British soldier.
“Total cases during seven and a quarter years 8,072
Total aggregate strength for do. 44,611
Annual mean strength for ditto 6,153
“Thus 181 per 1000, or about one man in five appear to have been
attacked.
“Let us compare this with the following statistics extracted from a
report on army diseases from 1837 to 1847.
“Aggregate strength:
Cavalry 54,374
Foot-guards 40,120
Infantry 160,103
-------
Total 254,597
“Extent of venereal disease:
Cavalry 11,205
Foot-guards 10,043
Infantry 44,435
------
Total 65,683
Deaths 17
“Number of men per 1000 of strength admitted during ten years:
“Cavalry 206
Foot-guards 250
Infantry 277
“This report was drawn up by Dr. Balfour and Sir Alexander Tulloch,
and the reason that a distinction is made between the line and the
foot-guards, is that the line contains a large number of recruits and
men returning from foreign service, whereas in the foot-guards, there
is usually a much greater proportion of soldiers who have arrived at
maturity, on the one hand, and who, on the other, have not served in
foreign climates. As these circumstances were likely to have affected
the amount of sickness and mortality, the returns of the two classes
were kept distinct and separate in preparing the tables.
“Few infected soldiers escape notice, as health inspections are made
once a week, which is the general rule in the service. If a soldier is
found at inspection to be labouring under disease, he is reported for
having concealed it to his superior officer, who orders him punishment
drill on his discharge from hospital. In order to induce him to apply
early for relief, the soldier is told that if he do so, he may probably
be only a few days instead of several weeks under treatment.
“It is contrary to the rules of the service, to treat men out of
hospital; even were it otherwise, the habits of the soldier, and the
accommodation in barracks, would not favour celerity of cure.”[93]
In the brigade of Guards, though the average of syphilis primitiva is
heavy, as above stated, only 11 per cent. of the cases are followed by
secondary symptoms, which, however, follow 33 per cent. of the cases in
the line. Dr. Balfour says a mild mercurial system is usually pursued
in the army; and indeed mercury by many surgeons is held absolutely
necessary for hard, or Hunterian chancres.
A woman was pointed out to me in a Music Hall in Knightsbridge, who
my informant told me he was positively assured had only yesterday
had two buboes lanced; and yet she was present at that scene of
apparent festivity, contaminating the very air, like a deadly upas
tree, and poisoning the blood of the nation, with the most audacious
recklessness. It is useless to say that such things should not be.
They exist, and they will exist. The woman was nothing better than a
paid murderess, committing crime with impunity. She was so well known
that she had obtained the soubriquet of the “hospital” as she was so
frequently an inmate of one, and as she so often sent others to a
similar involuntary confinement.
Those women who, for the sake of distinguishing them from the
professionals, I must call amateurs, are generally spoken of as
“Dollymops.” Now many servant-maids, nurse-maids who go with children
into the Parks, shop girls and milliners who may be met with at the
various “dancing academies,” so called, are “Dollymops.” We must
separate these latter again from the “Demoiselle de Comptoir,” who is
just as much in point of fact a “Dollymop,” because she prostitutes
herself for her own pleasure, a few trifling presents or a little money
now and then, and not altogether to maintain herself. But she will
not go to casinos, or any similar places to pick up men; she makes
their acquaintance in a clandestine manner: either she is accosted in
the street early in the evening as she is returning from her place of
business to her lodgings, or she carries on a flirtation behind the
counter, which, as a matter of course, ends in an assignation.
Soldiers are notorious for hunting up these women, especially
nurse-maids and those that in the execution of their duty walk in the
Parks, when they may easily be accosted. Nurse-maids feel flattered
by the attention that is lavished upon them, and are always ready to
succumb to the “scarlet fever.” A red coat is all powerful with this
class, who prefer a soldier to a servant, or any other description of
man they come in contact with.
This also answers the soldier’s purpose equally well. He cannot afford
to employ professional women to gratify his passions, and if he were
to do so, he must make the acquaintance of a very low set of women,
who in all probability will communicate some infectious disease to
him. He feels he is never safe, and he is only too glad to seize the
opportunity of forming an intimacy with a woman who will appreciate
him for his own sake, cost him nothing but the trouble of taking her
about occasionally, and who, whatever else she may do, will never by
any chance infect. I heard that some of the privates in the Blues and
the brigade of Guards often formed very reprehensible connections with
women of property, tradesmen’s wives, and even ladies, who supplied
them with money, and behaved with the greatest generosity to them,
only stipulating for the preservation of secrecy in their intrigues.
Of course numbers of women throng the localities which contain the
Knightsbridge, Albany Street, St. George’s, Portman, and Wellington
Barracks in Birdcage Walk. They may have come up from the provinces;
some women have been known to follow a particular regiment from place
to place, all over the country, and have only left it when it has been
under orders for foreign service.
A woman whom I met with near the Knightsbridge barracks, in one of the
beer-houses there, told me she had been a soldiers’ woman all her life.
“When I was sixteen,” she said, “I went wrong. I’m up’ards of thirty
now. I’ve been fourteen or fifteen years at it. It’s one of those
things you can’t well leave off when you’ve once took to it. I was
born in Chatham. We had a small baker’s shop there, and I served the
customers and minded the shop. There’s lots of soldiers at Chatham, as
you know, and they used to look in at the window in passing, and nod
and laugh whenever they could catch my eye. I liked to be noticed by
the soldiers. At last one young fellow, a recruit, who had not long
joined I think, for he told me he hadn’t been long at the depot, came
in and talked to me. Well, this went on, and things fell out as they
always do with girls who go about with men, more especially soldiers,
and when the regiment went to Ireland, he gave me a little money
that helped me to follow it; and I went about from place to place,
time after time, always sticking to the same regiment. My first man
got tired of me in a year or two, but that didn’t matter. I took up
with a sergeant then, which was a cut above a private, and helped me
on wonderful. When we were at Dover, there was a militia permanently
embodied artillery regiment quartered with us on the western heights,
and I got talking to some of the officers, who liked me a bit. I was a
---- sight prettier then than I am now, you may take your dying oath,
and they noticed me uncommon; and although I didn’t altogether cut
my old friends, I carried on with these fellows all the time we were
there, and made a lot of money, and bought better dresses and some
jewellery, that altered me wonderful. One officer offered to keep me
if I liked to come and live with him. He said he would take a house
for me in the town, and keep a pony carriage if I would consent; but
although I saw it would make me rise in the world, I refused. I was
fond of my old associates, and did not like the society of gentlemen;
so, when the regiment left Dover, I went with them, and I remained with
them till I was five-and-twenty. We were then stationed in London,
and I one day saw a private in the Blues with one of my friends, and
for the first time in my life I fell in love. He spoke to me, and I
immediately accepted his proposals, left my old friends, and went to
live in a new locality, among strangers; and I’ve been amongst the
Blues ever since, going from one to the other, never keeping to one
long, and not particler as long as I get the needful. I don’t get
much,--very little, hardly enough to live upon. I’ve done a little
needlework in the day-time. I don’t now, although I do some washing and
mangling now and then to help it out. I don’t pay much for my bed-room,
only six bob a week, and dear at that. It ain’t much of a place. Some
of the girls about here live in houses. I don’t; I never could abear
it. You ain’t your own master, and I always liked my freedom. I’m not
comfortable exactly; it’s a brutal sort of life this. It isn’t the sin
of it, though, that worries me. I don’t dare think of that much, but I
do think how happy I might have been if I’d always lived at Chatham,
and married as other women do, and had a nice home and children; that’s
what I want, and when I think of all that, I do cut up. It’s enough to
drive a woman wild to think that she’s given up all chance of it. I
feel I’m not respected either. If I have a row with any fellow, he’s
always the first to taunt me with being what he and his friends have
made me. I don’t feel it so much now. I used to at first. One dovetails
into all that sort of thing in time, and the edge of your feelings, as
I may say, wears off by degrees. That’s what it is. And then the drink
is very pleasant to us, and keeps up our spirits; for what could a
woman in my position do without spirits, without being able to talk and
blackguard and give every fellow she meets as good as he brings?”
It is easy to understand the state of mind of this woman, who had
a craving after what she knew she never could possess, but which
the maternal instinct planted within her forced her to wish for.
This is one of the melancholy aspects of prostitution. It leads to
nothing--marriage of course excepted; the prostitute has no future. Her
life, saving the excitement of the moment, is a blank. Her hopes are
all blighted, and if she has a vestige of religion left in her, which
is generally the case, she must shudder occasionally at what she has
merited by her easy compliance when the voice of the tempter sounded so
sweetly.
The happy prostitute, and there is such a thing, is either the
thoroughly hardened, clever infidel, who knows how to command men and
use them for her own purposes; who is in the best set both of men and
women; who frequents the night-houses in London, and who in the end
seldom fails to marry well; or the quiet woman who is kept by the man
she loves, and who she feels is fond of her; who has had a provision
made for her to guard her against want, and the caprice of her paramour.
The sensitive, sentimental, weak-minded, impulsive, affectionate girl,
will go from bad to worse, and die on a dunghill or in a workhouse.
A woman who was well known to cohabit with soldiers, of a masculine
appearance but good features, and having a good-natured expression, was
pointed out to me as the most violent woman in the neighbourhood. When
she was in a passion she would demolish everything that came in her
way, regardless of the mischief she was doing. She was standing in the
bar of a public-house close to the barracks talking to some soldiers,
when I had an opportunity of speaking to her. I did not allow it to
pass without taking advantage of it. I told her I had heard she was
very passionate and violent.
“Passionate!” she replied; “I believe yer. I knocked my father down and
well-nigh killed him with a flat-iron before I wor twelve year old. I
was a beauty then, an I aint improved much since I’ve been on my own
hook. I’ve had lots of rows with these ’ere sodgers, and they’d have
slaughter’d me long afore now if I had not pretty near cooked their
goose. It’s a good bit of it self-defence with me now-a-days, I can
tell yer. Why, look here; look at my arm where I was run through with a
bayonet once three or four years ago.”
She bared her arm and exhibited the scar of what appeared to have once
been a serious wound.
“You wants to know if them rowses is common. Well, they is, and it’s no
good one saying they aint, and the sodgers is such ---- cowards they
think nothing of sticking a woman when they’se riled and drunk, or
they’ll wop us with their belts. I was hurt awful onst by a blow from a
belt; it hit me on the back part of the head, and I was laid up weeks
in St. George’s Hospital with a bad fever. The sodger who done it was
quodded, but only for a drag,[94] and he swore to God as how he’d do
for me the next time as he comed across me. We had words sure enough,
but I split his skull with a pewter, and that shut him up for a time.
You see this public; well, I’ve smashed up this place before now; I’ve
jumped over the bar, because they wouldn’t serve me without paying for
it when I was hard up, and I’ve smashed all the tumblers and glass, and
set the cocks agoing, and fought like a brick when they tried to turn
me out, and it took two peelers to do it; and then I lamed one of the
bobbies for life by hitting him on the shin with a bit of iron--a crow
or summet, I forget what it was. How did I come to live this sort of
life? Get along with your questions. If you give me any of your cheek,
I’ll ---- soon serve you the same.”
It may easily be supposed I was glad to leave this termagant, who was
popular with the soldiers, although they were afraid of her when she
was in a passion. There is not much to be said about soldiers’ women.
They are simply low and cheap, often diseased, and as a class do
infinite harm to the health of the service.
_Thieves’ Women._
The metropolis is divided by the police into districts, to which
letters are attached to designate and distinguish them. The
head-quarters of the F division are at Bow Street, and the jurisdiction
of its constabulary extends over Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and St.
Giles’s, which used formerly to be looked upon as most formidable
neighbourhoods, harbouring the worst characters and the most desperate
thieves.
Mr. Durkin, the superintendent at Bow Street, obligingly allowed an
intelligent and experienced officer (sergeant Bircher) to give me any
information I might require.
Fifteen or twenty years ago this locality was the perpetual scene of
riot and disorder. The public-houses were notorious for being places
of call for thieves, pickpockets, burglars, thieving prostitutes,
hangers-on (their associates), and low ruffians, who rather than work
for an honest livelihood preferred scraping together a precarious
subsistence by any disreputable means, however disgraceful or criminal
they might be. But now this is completely changed. Although I patrolled
the neighbourhood on Monday night, which is usually accounted one of
the noisiest in the week, most of the public houses were empty, the
greatest order and decorum reigned in the streets, and not even an
Irish row occurred in any of the low alleys and courts to enliven the
almost painful silence that everywhere prevailed. I only witnessed one
fight in a public-house in St. Martin’s Lane. Seven or eight people
were standing at the bar, smoking and drinking. A disturbance took
place between an elderly man, pugnaciously intoxicated, who was further
urged on by a prostitute he had been talking to, and a man who had
the appearance of being a tradesman in a small way. How the quarrel
originated I don’t know, for I did not arrive till it had commenced.
The sergeant who accompanied me was much amused to observe among those
in the bar three suspicious characters he had for some time “had his
eye on.” One was a tall, hulking, hang dog-looking fellow; the second
a short, bloated, diseased, red-faced man, while the third was a
common-looking woman, a prostitute and the associate of the two former.
The fight went on until the tradesman in a small way was knocked head
over heels into a corner, when the tall, hulking fellow obligingly ran
to his rescue, kindly lifted him up, and quietly rifled his pockets.
The ecstasy of the sergeant as he detected this little piece of sharp
practice was a thing to remember. He instantly called my attention to
it, for so cleverly and skilfully had it been done that I had failed to
observe it.