it with great perspicuity and succinctness. He asserts that it is a
common thing for many law students and medical students to be kept,
or semi-supported, by loose women in Paris. This is a state of things
that I need hardly say is never observed in England. Yet there is a
class who throw all their self-respect into the background, and allow
themselves to be partially maintained by loose women who have imbibed a
partiality for them. They frequent the night-houses in Panton Street,
and often hook gentlemen out of several sovereigns, or by tossing them
for champagne make them pay for several bottles in the course of the
evening. By this it may be readily understood that they are in league
with the proprietor of the establishment; and that this is undeniably
the case in one instance I will unhesitatingly declare. It may be
so in others, but I am not prepared to say so. I need not mention
the name of the house for obvious reasons, but any one who has the
slightest knowledge of the subject will be obliged, if he values his
veracity, to corroborate my statement. The best, or the aristocracy
of fancy-men, are for the most part on the turf. They bet when they
have money to bet with, and when they have not they endeavour, without
scruple, to procure it from their mistresses, who never hesitate a
moment in giving it them if they have it, or procuring it for them by
some means, however degrading such means may be. A fancy-man connected
with a prostitute who is acquainted with a good set of men will, as the
evening advances, be seen in one of the night-houses in Panton Street.
His woman will come in perhaps about one o’clock, accompanied by one or
two men. Whilst they are talking and drinking he will come up and speak
to the woman, as if she was an old flame of his, and she will treat him
in the same manner, though more as a casual acquaintance. In the course
of time he will get into conversation with her men, and they, taking
him for a gentleman, will talk to him in a friendly manner. After a
while he will propose to toss them for a bottle of champagne or a
Moselle cup. Then the swindling begins. The fancy-man has an infallible
recipe for winning. He has in his hand a cover for the half-crown he
tosses with, which enables him to win, however the piece falls. It
is a sort of “heads I win, tails you lose,” a principle with which
schoolboys of a speculative disposition bother their friends. Sometimes
the proprietor of the house will come up and begin to talk to them,
ask them to step upstairs to have supper, and get them into a room
where the victim may be legged more quietly, and more at their leisure.
The proprietor then says that he must in his turn “stand” a bottle of
champagne, but the fancy-man, pretending to be indignant, interposes,
and exclaims, “No, let’s toss;” so they toss. The fancy-man loses the
toss, pays the proprietor at once with money, with which he has been
previously supplied, and the man is more completely gulled than ever.
He may be some man in the service up in town on leave for a short
while, and determined as long as he stays to go in for some fun, no
doubt well supplied with money, and careless how he spends it. He would
be very irate if he discovered how he was being robbed, and in all
likelihood smash the place up, and the fancy-man into the bargain, for
people are not very scrupulous as to what they do in the night-houses.
But the affair is managed so skilfully that he loses his four or five
pounds at tossing or at some game or other with equanimity, and without
a murmur, for he thinks it is his luck which happens to be adverse, and
never dreams for one instant that his adversary is not playing on the
“square.” The rows that take place in the night-houses never find their
way into the papers. It isn’t the “little game” of the proprietors to
allow them, and the police, if they are called in, are too well bribed
to take any further notice, without they are particularly requested. I
was told of a disturbance that took place in one of the night-houses
in Panton Street, not more than a year ago, which for brutality and
savage ferocity I should think could not be equalled by a scalping
party of North American Red Indians.
Two gentlemen had adjourned there after the theatre, and were quietly
drinking some brandy and soda when a woman, with a very large
crinoline, came in and went up to one of them, whom we will call A.
She asked him for something to drink, and he, perceiving she was very
drunk already, chaffed her a little. Angry at his _persiflage_, she
leant over and seized his glass, which she threw into a corner of the
room, smashing it to atoms, and spilling its contents. While doing so
her crinoline flew into the air, and A. put out his hand to keep it
down. She immediately began to slang him and abuse him immoderately,
declaring that he attempted to take indecent liberties with her, and
attempting finally to strike him he good-humouredly held her hands;
but she got more furious every moment, and at last he had to push
her down rather violently into a chair. A man who was sitting at an
opposite table commented upon this in an audible and offensive manner,
which excessively annoyed A., who however at first took no notice of
his conduct. Presently he handed the woman over to one of the waiters,
who with some difficulty turned her out. Then the man who had before
spoken said, “D--d plucky thing, by Jove, to strike a woman.” A. made
some reply to this, and the other man got up, when A. flew at him and
knocked him down. Two waiters ran up and seized A. by either arm,
when the man got up from his recumbent position and struck A., while
he was being retained by the waiters, a tremendous blow in the face,
which speedily covered him with blood. A., exerting all his strength,
liberated himself, and rushed at the coward, knocking him over a table,
jumping over after him, seizing his head and knocking it against the
floor in a frightful manner. The door porters were then called in, and
A. with great difficulty turned out. A.’s friend had been waiting his
opportunity, which had not yet come. When A. was at the door the man
he had knocked down raised himself up. A.’s friend seized him by the
collar and by one of his legs, and threw him with all his force along
the table, which was covered with glass. The velocity with which he was
thrown drove everything before him until he fell down on the top of the
broken glass in a corner stunned and bleeding. His assailant then put
his head down and charged like a battering-ram through the opposing
throng, throwing them right and left, till he joined his friend in the
street.
Many low betting-men are partially kept by prostitutes--men who
frequent Bride Lane and similar places, who, when out of luck, fall
back upon their women. Many thieves, too, are fancy-men, and almost
all the ruffians who go about “picking up,” as the police call it,
which I have explained before to be a species of highway robbery.
The prostitute goes up to a man, and while she is talking to him the
ruffians come up and plunder him. If the victim is drunk so much the
better. Most low prostitutes have their fancy-men, such as waiters at
taverns, labourers--loose characters, half thieves half loafers. It is
strange that such baseness should find a place in a man, but experience
proves what I have said to be true; and there are numbers of men in
the metropolis who think nothing of being kept by a prostitute on the
proceeds of her shame and her disgrace.
* * * * *
_Bullies._--Bullies are men attached to brothels and bawdy-houses; but
this remark must not be understood to apply to houses of a superior
description, for it would not pay them to extort money from their
customers, as they have a character and a reputation to support.
The bullies attached to low bawdy-houses are ostensibly kept to
perform the functions of door-keepers, but in reality to prevent men
from going away without paying enough money; they are in many cases
a necessary precaution against “bilking,” or going away without
paying anything. If a well-dressed man went into an immoral house in
Spitalfields, Whitechapel, or Shadwell, he would assuredly be robbed,
but not maltreated to any greater extent than was absolutely requisite
to obtain his money, and other valuables he might chance to have about
him, at the time the depredation was committed.
A man a little tipsy once found himself, he hardly knew how, on the
transpontine side of Waterloo Bridge, not far from Stamford Street.
It was past twelve, and on being accosted by a woman, he half
unconsciously followed her to her rooms in Stamford Street, which were
situated about half-way down, near Duke Street, Blackfriars. When
upstairs he sent the servant out for some brandy and soda-water, and
not having enough silver gave her half-a-sovereign for that purpose,
telling her to bring him the change. She soon returned with a bottle
of brandy, which she said cost eight shillings, and two bottles of
soda-water, and keeping one shilling for herself, told him she had
no change to give him: he put up with this extortion, for he was too
tipsy to make any resistance. The time passed quickly, and he spent two
or three hours in her society, until the soda-water somewhat sobered
him, when he put on his hat and declared his intention of going away.
The woman sprang up to stop him, and placed her back against the door,
meantime calling some one with all her might. Being a strong powerful
man, he seized her by the arm and flung her on a sofa. Opening the
door, he heard some one rapidly coming up stairs; he rushed back to the
room and laid hold of a chair, which he threw at the advancing figure;
it missed it, but had the effect of causing it to retreat. Chair after
chair followed until the room was nearly denuded of its furniture, the
woman being all the time too frightened to take any part in the affray.
The man next took the poker in one hand the lamp in the other, and
began to descend the stairs, which he did with some difficulty, as the
chairs rather impeded his progress. He had no doubt his adversary was
waiting for him at the bottom, and it was evident that it was there the
real struggle would take place. He descended very cautiously until he
was very near the end of the stairs, when he saw a tall strongly-built
man awaiting him with a bludgeon in his hand. The gentleman carefully,
in the short space he had, reconnoitred the exit to the street by
throwing the light of the lamp full into the passage. The bully finding
he was discovered began to curse and make demonstrations of hostility,
but remained where he was, as he was possessed of the best position.
The gentleman when he was within three or four steps of the ground,
hurled the lamp with all his force at the bully, striking him on the
forehead. The lamp was smashed to atoms, and everything directly
plunged in darkness. After this he ran in the direction of the door,
but he found the chain up: while he was unfastening this as well as
he could in the dark, he heard his antagonist picking himself up and
muttering threats of vengeance. In a moment or two he began to grope
his way towards the door, but fortunately the gentleman had succeeded
in undoing the chain, and flinging the door wide open, he emerged into
the street and began to run in the direction of the Waterloo Road as
fast as he could. He made his escape; but if he had not had presence of
mind, and been strong and powerful enough to fight with the bully, the
result might have been very different.
A man who would be a bully at a bawdy-house would stick at nothing.
During the daytime they either sleep or lounge about smoking a short
pipe, or go to the pawn-shops for the women, or else to the public for
gin.
The men who used to keep the Cocoa Tree in St. James’s Street were
two brothers, who, when they were young, held a position of no great
importance in their mother’s house, which was nothing more than a house
of ill fame. They might have degenerated into something of the same
sort, but they had a certain amount of talent and opportunities, and
once being possessed of this gambling house, which was famous enough in
its day, they made money quickly enough.
It is not men though, who have been amongst these scenes when they are
young, who take to this sort of life. It is generally returned convicts
or gaol birds, who look upon themselves as victims, and get desperate,
and do not care very much what they do as long as they can have an easy
time of it and enough to eat and drink.
Sometimes, if they watch their opportunity, they may become proprietors
of bawdy-houses themselves. Great events spring from little causes;
and good management and a good locality will always make a bawdy-house
remunerative; but bullies generally have no energy, and are wanting in
administrative capability, and more often than not die of disease and
excess in the gutter.
The Argyle Rooms were once a small public-house called the “Hall of
Rome,” where _tableaux vivants_ and _poses plastiques_ found a home and
an audience; but energy and a combination of causes have made it the
first casino in London.
A bully in a house in one of the streets near the Haymarket, who was
loafing about a public-house, told me in return for some spirits I paid
for, that he was a ticket-of-leave man--“he didn’t mind saying it, why
should he? he’d got his ticket-of-leave, he had, and he’d show it me in
two twos.
“When he comed back from Norfolk Island, which he’d been sent to for a
term of seven years, he knew no one in town, his pals mostly was lagged
by police, and his most hintimit friend was hanged by mistake at the
Old Bailey--he knew it was by mistake, as his friend was hincapable of
such an act without he was riled extraordinary. Well, he took to the
bullying dodge, which paid. He couldn’t work, it wornt in his natur,
and he took to bullying, kindly--it suited him, it just did, and that
was all about it.”
The bullies are the lowest ruffians going, and will not mind doing any
act of iniquity, although they stand in great dread of the police, and
generally manage matters so as to keep out of their clutches.
CLANDESTINE PROSTITUTES.
The next division of our subject is clandestine prostitution, whose
ramifications are very extensive. In it we must include: 1. Female
operatives; 2. Maid-servants, all of whom are amateurs, as opposed
to professionals, or as we have had occasion to observe before, more
commonly known as “Dollymops”; 3. Ladies of intrigue, who see men to
gratify their passions; and 4. Keepers of houses of assignation, where
the last-mentioned class may carry on their amours with secresy.
This in reality I regard as the most serious side of prostitution. This
more clearly stamps the character of the nation. A thousand and one
causes may lead to a woman’s becoming a professional prostitute, but if
a woman goes wrong without any very cogent reason for so doing, there
must be something radically wrong in her composition, and inherently
bad in her nature, to lead her to abandon her person to the other sex,
who are at all times ready to take advantage of a woman’s weakness and
a woman’s love.
There is a tone of morality throughout the rural districts of England,
which is unhappily wanting in the large towns and the centres of
particular manufactures. Commerce is incontestably demoralizing. Its
effects are to be seen more and more every day. Why it should be so,
it is not our province to discuss, but seduction and prostitution,
in spite of the precepts of the Church, and the examples of her
ministers, have made enormous strides in all our great towns within
the last twenty years. Go through the large manufacturing districts,
where factory-hands congregate, or more properly herd together, test
them, examine them, talk to them, observe for yourself, and you will
come away with the impression that there is room for much improvement.
Then cast your eye over the statistics of births and the returns of
the Registrar-General, and compare the number of legitimate with
illegitimate births. Add up the number of infanticides and the number
of deaths of infants of tender years--an item more alarming than any.
Goldsmith has said that “honour sinks when commerce long prevails,”
and a truer remark was never made, although the animus of the poet was
directed more against men than women.
* * * * *
_Female Operatives._--When alluding casually to this subject before, I
enumerated some of the trades that supplied women to swell the ranks
of prostitution, amongst which are milliners, dress-makers, straw
bonnet-makers, furriers, hat-binders, silk-winders, tambour-workers,
shoe-binders, slop-women, or those who work for cheap tailors, those in
pastry-cook, fancy and cigar-shops, bazaars, and ballet-girls.
I have heard it asserted in more than one quarter, although of course
such assertions cannot be authenticated, or made reliable, for want
of data, that one out of three of all the female operatives in London
are unchaste, and in the habit of prostituting themselves when
occasion offers, either for money, or more frequently for their own
gratification.
I met a woman in Fleet Street, who told me that she came into the
streets now and then to get money not to subsist upon, but to supply
her with funds to meet the debts her extravagance caused her to
contract. But I will put her narrative into a consecutive form.
“Ever since I was twelve,” she said, “I have worked in a printing
office where a celebrated London morning journal is put in type and
goes to press. I get enough money to live upon comfortably; but then I
am extravagant, and spend a great deal of money in eating and drinking,
more than you would imagine. My appetite is very delicate, and my
constitution not at all strong. I long for certain things like a woman
in the family way, and I must have them by hook or by crook. The fact
is the close confinement and the night air upset me and disorder my
digestion. I have the most expensive things sometimes, and when I can,
I live in a sumptuous manner, comparatively speaking. I am attached
to a man in our office, to whom I shall be married some day. He does
not suspect me, but on the contrary believes me to be true to him, and
you do not suppose that I ever take the trouble to undeceive him. I am
nineteen now, and have carried on with my ‘typo’ for nearly three years
now. I sometimes go to the Haymarket, either early in the evening,
or early in the morning, when I can get away from the printing; and
sometimes I do a little in the day-time. This is not a frequent
practice of mine; I only do it when I want money to pay anything. I am
out now with the avowed intention of picking up a man, or making an
appointment with some one for to-morrow or some time during the week.
I always dress well, at least you mayn’t think so, but I am always
neat, and respectable, and clean, if the things I have on ain’t worth
the sight of money that some women’s things cost them. I have good feet
too, and as I find they attract attention, I always parade them. And
I’ve hooked many a man by showing my ankle on a wet day. I shan’t think
anything of all this when I’m married. I believe my young man would
marry me just as soon if he found out I went with others as he would
now. I carry on with him now, and he likes me very much. I ain’t of
any particular family; to tell the truth, I was put in the workhouse
when I was young, and they apprenticed me. I never knew my father or my
mother, although ‘my father was, as I’ve heard say, a well-known swell
of capers gay, who cut his last fling with great applause;’ or, if you
must know, I heard that he was hung for killing a man who opposed him
when committing a burglary. In other words, he was ‘a macing-cove what
robs,’ and I’m his daughter, worse luck. I used to think at first, but
what was the good of being wretched about it? I couldn’t get over for
some time, because I was envious, like a little fool, of other people,
but I reasoned, and at last I did recover myself, and was rather glad
that my position freed me from certain restrictions. I had no mother
whose heart I shou’d break by my conduct, or no father who could
threaten me with bringing his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.
I had a pretty good example to follow set before me, and I didn’t
scruple to argue that I was not to be blamed for what I did. Birth is
the result of accident. It is the merest chance in the world whether
you’re born a countess or a washerwoman. I’m neither one nor t’other;
I’m only a mot who does a little typographing by way of variety. Those
who have had good nursing, and all that, and the advantages of a sound
education, who have a position to lose, prospects to blight, and
relations to dishonour, may be blamed for going on the loose, but I’ll
be hanged if I think that priest or moralist is to come down on me with
the sledge-hammer of their denunciation. You look rather surprised at
my talking so well. I know I talk well, but you must remember what a
lot has passed through my hands for the last seven years, and what a
lot of copy I’ve set up. There is very little I don’t know, I can tell
you. It’s what old Robert Owen would call the spread of education.”
I had to talk some time to this girl before she was so communicative;
but it must be allowed my assiduity was amply repaid. The common
sense she displayed was extraordinary for one in her position; but, as
she said, she certainly had had superior opportunities, of which she
had made the most. And her arguments, though based upon fallacy, were
exceedingly clever and well put. So much for the spread of education
amongst the masses. Who knows to what it will lead?
The next case that came under my notice was one of a very different
description. I met a woman in Leadenhall Street, a little past the
India House, going towards Whitechapel. She told me, without much
solicitation on my part, that she was driven into the streets by want.
Far from such a thing being her inclination, she recoiled from it with
horror, and had there been no one else in the case, she would have
preferred starvation to such a life. I thought of the motto Vergniaud
the Girondist wrote on the wall of his dungeon in his blood, “Potius
mori quam fœdari,” and I admired the woman whilst I pitied her. It
is easy to condemn, but even vice takes the semblance of virtue when
it has a certain end in view. Every crime ought to be examined into
carefully in order that the motive that urged to the commission may be
elicited, and that should be always thrown into the scale in mitigation
or augmentation of punishment.
Her father was a dock labourer by trade, and had been ever since he
came to London, which he did some years ago, when there was great
distress in Rochdale, where he worked in a cotton factory; but being
starved out there after working short time for some weeks, he tramped
with his daughter, then about fourteen, up to town, and could get
nothing to do but work in the docks, which requires no skill, only a
good constitution, and the strength and endurance of a horse. This
however, as every one knows, is a precarious sort of employment, very
much sought after by strong, able-bodied men out of work. The docks are
a refuge for all Spitalfields and the adjacent parishes for men out of
work, or men whose trade is slack for a time. Some three weeks before I
met her, the girl’s father had the misfortune to break his arm and to
injure his spine by a small keg of spirits slipping from a crane near
to which he was standing. They took him to the hospital, where he then
was. The girl herself worked as a hat-binder, for which she was very
indifferently paid, and even that poor means of support she had lost
lately through the failure of the house she worked for. She went to
see her father every day, and always contrived to take him something,
if it only cost twopence, as a mark of affection on her part, which
he was not slow in appreciating, and no doubt found his daughter’s
kindness a great consolation to him in the midst of his troubles. She
said, “I tried everywhere to get employment, and I couldn’t. I ain’t
very good with my needle at fine needlework, and the slopsellers won’t
have me. I would have slaved for them though, I do assure you, sir;
bad as they do pay you, and hard as you must work for them to get
enough to live upon, and poor living, God knows, at that. I feel very
miserable for what I’ve done, but I was driven to it; indeed I was,
sir. I daren’t tell father, for he’d curse me at first, though he might
forgive me afterwards: for though he’s poor, he’s always been honest,
and borne a good name; but now--I can’t help crying a bit, sir. I ain’t
thoroughly hardened yet, and it’s a hard case as ever was. I do wish I
was dead and there was an end of everything, I am so awfully sad and
heart-broken. If it don’t kill me, I suppose I shall get used to it in
time. The low rate of wages I received has often put it into my head to
go wrong; but I have always withstood the temptation, and nothing but
so many misfortunes and trials coming together could ever have induced
me to do it.”
This, I have every reason to believe, was a genuine tale of distress
told with all simplicity and truth, although everything that a woman
of loose morals says must be received with caution, and believed under
protest.