have been selected for their beauty and fascination. The daughter of
a labouring man, a beautiful girl, is kept by a gentleman in high
position at St. John’s Wood at the rate of 800_l._ a year. She has
now received a lady’s education, rides in Rotten Row, has a set of
servants, moves in certain fashionable circles, keeps aloof from the
gaiety of the Haymarket, and lives as though she were a married woman.
Let us take another illustration. A young girl was brought up to London
several years ago by a military man. He kept her for three weeks, and
then left her in a coffee-shop in Panton Street as a dressed lodger.
She has since been kept at Chelsea by a gentleman in a Government
situation, and occasionally drives out in her chaise with her groom
behind. She frequents the Argyle Rooms and the cafés, the Carlton
supper-rooms, and Sally’s. She was brought away from the provinces when
she was seventeen, and is now about twenty-five years of age.
These females are kept from ages varying from sixteen and upwards, and
live chiefly in the suburbs of the metropolis--Brompton, Chelsea, St.
John’s Wood, Haverstock Hill, and on the Hampstead Road.
This class of ladies are often kept by elderly men, military, naval, or
otherwise, some of them having wives and families. In such cases the
former sometimes have a younger fancy-man. They visit him by private
arrangement, and keep it very quiet. Occasionally such things do come
to light, and the elderly gentlemen part with them.
They dress very expensively in silks, satins, and muslins, in most
fashionable style, glittering with costly jewellery, perhaps of the
value of 150_l._, like the first ladies in the land. Sometimes they
become intemperate, and are abandoned by their paramours, and in the
course of a short time pawn their jewels and fine dresses, and betake
themselves to prostitution in the Waterloo Road, and ultimately go with
the most degraded labouring men for a few coppers.
Many of them are very unfortunate, and are discarded by the gentlemen
who support them on the slightest caprice, perhaps to give way to some
other young woman. To secure his object he occasionally maltreats
her, and attempts to create a misunderstanding between them, or he
absents himself from her for a time, meantime taking care to introduce
some person stealthily into her company to ensnare her, and find some
pretext to abandon her, so that her friends may have no ground for an
action at law against him.
In some instances these females after having run their fashionable
career, get married; in others they may have managed to save some money
to provide for the future. But in too many cases they are heartlessly
abandoned by the men who formerly supported them, and glide down
step by step into lower degradation, till many of them come to the
workhouse, or the hospital, or to some secluded garret, or it may be
rush into a suicide’s grave. Volumes might be written on this tragical
theme, where fact would far transcend the heart-rending recitals of
fiction.
Having briefly adverted to the higher order of prostitutes, kept as
seclusives by men of wealth, high station, and title, we shall now
turn our attention to the open prostitutes who traverse the streets
of the metropolis for their livelihood. With this view, we shall not
treat first of the lower order of prostitutes, and proceed to the
higher, but keeping in mind the principle with which we started--the
progressive downward nature of crime,--we shall commence at the higher
order of prostitutes, and afterwards notice the more debased. At the
same time we shall select several of the more prominent localities
as a sample of the whole districts of this vast metropolis. We shall
notice the Haymarket, Bishopgate Street, and Waterloo Road, the Parks,
Westminster, and Ratcliff Highway. We shall first advert to
THE PROSTITUTES OF THE HAYMARKET.
A stranger on his coming to London, after visiting the Crystal Palace,
British Museum, St. James’s Palace, and Buckingham Palace, and other
public buildings, seldom leaves the capital before he makes an evening
visit to the Haymarket and Regent Street. Struck as he is with the
dense throng of people who crowd along London Bridge, Fleet Street,
Cheapside, Holborn, Oxford Street, and the Strand, perhaps no sight
makes a more striking impression on his mind than the brilliant gaiety
of Regent Street and the Haymarket. It is not only the architectural
splendour of the aristocratic streets in that neighbourhood, but
the brilliant illumination of the shops, cafés, Turkish divans,
assembly halls, and concert rooms, and the troops of elegantly dressed
courtesans, rustling in silks and satins, and waving in laces,
promenading along these superb streets among throngs of fashionable
people, and persons apparently of every order and pursuit, from the
ragged crossing-sweeper and tattered shoe-black to the high-bred
gentleman of fashion and scion of nobility.
Not to speak of the first class of kept women, who are supported by
men of opulence and rank in the privacy of their own dwellings, the
whole of the other classes are to be found in the Haymarket, from
the beautiful girl with fresh blooming cheek, newly arrived from the
provinces, and the pale, elegant, young lady from a milliner’s shop in
the aristocratic West-end, to the old, bloated women who have grown
grey in prostitution, or become invalid through venereal disease.
We shall first advert to the highest class who walk the Haymarket,
which in our general classification we have termed the second class of
prostitutes.
They consist of the better educated and more genteel girls, some of
them connected with respectable middle-class families. We do not say
that they are well-educated and genteel, but either well-educated or
genteel. Some of these girls have a fine appearance, and are dressed
in high style, yet are poorly educated, and have sprung from an humble
origin. Others, who are more plainly dressed, have had a lady’s
education, and some are not so brilliant in their style, who have come
from a middle-class home. Many of these girls have at one time been
milliners or sewing girls in genteel houses in the West-end, and have
been seduced by shopmen, or by gentlemen of the town, and after being
ruined in character, or having quarrelled with their relatives, may
have taken to a life of prostitution; others have been waiting maids
in hotels, or in service in good families, and have been seduced by
servants in the family, or by gentlemen in the house, and betaken
themselves to a wild life of pleasure. A considerable number have come
from the provinces to London, with unprincipled young men of their
acquaintance, who after a short time have deserted them, and some of
them have been enticed by gay gentlemen of the West-end, when on their
provincial tours. Others have come to the metropolis in search of work,
and been disappointed. After spending the money they had with them,
they have resorted to the career of a common prostitute. Others have
come from provincial towns, who had not a happy home, with a stepfather
or stepmother. Some are young milliners and dressmakers at one time in
business in town, but being unfortunate, are now walking the Haymarket.
In addition to these, many of them are seclusives turned away or
abandoned by the persons who supported them, who have recourse to a gay
life in the West-end. There are also a considerable number of French
girls, and a few Belgian and German prostitutes who promenade this
locality. You see many of them walking along in black silk cloaks or
light grey mantles--many with silk paletots and wide skirts, extended
by an ample crinoline, looking almost like a pyramid, with the apex
terminating at the black or white satin bonnet, trimmed with waving
ribbons and gay flowers. Some are to be seen with their cheeks ruddy
with rouge, and here and there a few rosy with health. Many of them
looking cold and heartless; others with an interesting appearance.
We observe them walking up and down Regent Street and the Haymarket,
often by themselves, one or more in company, sometimes with a gallant
they have picked up, calling at the wine-vaults or restaurants to get
a glass of wine or gin, or sitting down in the brilliant coffee-rooms,
adorned with large mirrors, to a cup of good bohea or coffee. Many of
the more faded prostitutes of this class frequent the Pavilion to meet
gentlemen and enjoy the vocal and instrumental music over some liquor.
Others of higher style proceed to the Alhambra Music Hall, or to the
Argyle Rooms, rustling in splendid dresses, to spend the time till
midnight, when they accompany the gentlemen they may have met there
to the expensive supper-rooms and night-houses which abound in the
neighbourhood.
In the course of the evening, we see many of the girls proceeding with
young and middle aged, and sometimes silver-headed frail old men, to
Oxenden Street, Panton Street, and James Street, near the Haymarket,
where they enter houses of accommodation, which they prefer to going
with them to their lodgings. Numbers of French girls may be seen in
the Haymarket, and the neighbourhood of Tichbourne Street and Great
Windmill Street, many of them in dark silk paletots and white or dark
silk bonnets, trimmed with gay ribbons and flowers, or walking up
Regent Street in the neighbourhood of All Souls’ Church, Langham Place,
and Portland Place, or coming down Regent Street to Waterloo Place and
Pall Mall, and hovering near the palatial mansions or the Clubs; or
they might be seen decoying gents to their apartments in Queen Street,
off Regent’s Quadrant, from which locality they were lately forcibly
ejected by the police. Most of these French girls have bullies, or what
they term by a softer term ‘fancy men,’ who cohabit with them. These
base wretches live on the prostitution of these miserable girls,--hang
as loafers in their houses or about the streets, and many of them, as
we might expect, are gamblers and swindlers. Several of them, we blush
to say, are political refugees, exiles for fighting at the barricades
of Paris, for the liberty of their country; while they live here with
courtesans in the purlieus of Haymarket, in the most infamous and
degrading of all bondage.
The generality of the girls of the Haymarket have no bullies, but
live in furnished apartments--one or more--in various localities
of the metropolis. Many live in Dean Street, Soho, Gerrard Street,
Soho, King Street, Soho, and Church Street, Soho, in Tennison Street,
Waterloo Road, at Pimlico and Chelsea, several of the streets leading
into Fitzroy Square, and other neighbourhoods, and pay a weekly rent
varying from seven shillings to a guinea, which has to be regularly
paid on the day it is due. In many cases little forbearance is shown
by their heartless landladies. Many of these girls have gentlemen who
statedly visit them at their lodgings, some of whom are married men.
Most of them are very thoughtless and extravagant, with handfuls of
money to-day, and in poverty and miserable straits to-morrow, driven to
the necessity of pawning their dresses. Hence there are many changes
in their life. At one time they are in splendid dress, and at another
time in the humblest attire; occasionally they are assisted by men who
are interested in them, and restored to their former position, when
they get their clothes out of the hands of the pawnbroker. Their living
is very precarious, and many of them are occasionally exposed to
privation, degradation, and misery, as they are very improvident. They
are frequently treated to splendid suppers in the Haymarket and its
vicinity, where they sit surrounded with splendour, partaking of costly
viands amid lascivious smiles; but the scene is changed when you follow
them to their own apartments in Soho or Chelsea, where you find them
during the day, lolling drowsily on their beds, in tawdry dress, and in
sad dishabille, with dishevelled hair, seedy-looking countenance, and
muddy, dreary eyes--their voices frequently hoarse with bad humour and
misery.
Large sums of money are spent in luxurious riot in the Haymarket; but
it has not been so much frequented by the gentry and nobility for
several years past, although considerable numbers are to be seen in the
summer and winter seasons.
Strange midnight scenes were wont to be seen occasionally in Queen
Street, Regent Street, where the French girls reside. Let us take an
illustration. Some fast man--young or middle aged--goes with them to
the cafés and music halls, perhaps proceeds to the supper rooms, and
after an expensive supper, retires with them to their domicile in Queen
Street. Meantime their bully keeps out of sight, or sneaks behind the
bed-room door. In many cases, not contented with the half-guinea or
guinea given them, their usual hire for prostitution, they demand more
money from their victim. On his declining to give it, they refuse to
submit to his pleasure, and will not return him his money. The bully is
then called up, and the silly dupe is probably unceremoniously turned
out of doors.
There are few felonies committed by this class of prostitutes, as
such an imputation would be fatal to their mode of livelihood in this
district, where they are generally known, and can be easily traced.
The second class of prostitutes, who walk the Haymarket--the third
class in our classification--generally come from the lower orders of
society. They consist of domestic servants of a plainer order, the
daughters of labouring people, and some of a still lower class. Some of
these girls are of a very tender age--from thirteen years and upwards.
You see them wandering along Leicester Square, and about the Haymarket,
Tichbourne Street, and Regent Street. Many of them are dressed in a
light cotton or merino gown, and ill-suited crinoline, with light
grey, or brown cloak, or mantle. Some with pork-pie hat, and waving
feather--white, blue, or red; others with a slouched straw-hat. Some
of them walk with a timid look, others with effrontery. Some have a
look of artless innocence and ingenuousness, others very pert, callous,
and artful. Some have good features and fine figures, others are
coarse-looking and dumpy, their features and accent indicating that
they are Irish cockneys. They prostitute themselves for a lower price,
and haunt those disreputable coffee-shops in the neighbourhood of the
Haymarket and Leicester Square, where you may see the blinds drawn
down, and the lights burning dimly within, with notices over the door,
that “beds are to be had within.”
Many of those young girls--some of them good-looking--cohabit with
young pickpockets about Drury Lane, St. Giles’s, Gray’s Inn Lane,
Holborn, and other localities--young lads from fourteen to eighteen,
groups of whom may be seen loitering about the Haymarket, and often
speaking to them. Numbers of these girls are artful and adroit thieves.
They follow persons into the dark by-streets of these localities, and
are apt to pick his pockets, or they rifle his person when in the
bedroom with him in low coffee-houses and brothels. Some of these
girls come even from Pimlico, Waterloo Road, and distant parts of the
metropolis, to share in the spoils of fast life in the Haymarket.
They occasionally take watches, purses, pins, and handkerchiefs from
their silly dupes who go with them into those disreputable places, and
frequently are not easily traced, as many of them are migratory in
their character.
The third and lowest class of prostitutes in the Haymarket--the fourth
in our classification--are worn-out prostitutes or other degraded
women, some of them married, yet equally degraded in character.
These faded and miserable wretches skulk about the Haymarket,
Regent Street, Leicester Square, Coventry Street, Panton Street and
Piccadilly, cadging from the fashionable people in the street and from
the prostitutes passing along, and sometimes retire for prostitution
into dirty low courts near St. James’ Street, Coventry Court, Long’s
Court, Earl’s Court, and Cranbourne Passage, with shop boys, errand
lads, petty thieves, and labouring men, for a few paltry coppers. Most
of them steal when they can get an opportunity. Occasionally a base
coloured woman of this class may be seen in the Haymarket and its
vicinity, cadging from the gay girls and gentlemen in the streets. Many
of the poor girls are glad to pay her a sixpence occasionally to get
rid of her company, as gentlemen are often scared away from them by
the intrusion of this shameless hag, with her thick lips, sable black
skin, leering countenance and obscene disgusting tongue, resembling a
lewd spirit of darkness from the nether world.
Numbers of the women kept by the wealthy and the titled may
occasionally be seen in the Haymarket, which is the only centre in the
metropolis where all the various classes of prostitutes meet. They
attend the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, and frequently indulge in
the gaieties of the supper rooms, where their broughams are often seen
drawn up at the doors. In the more respectable circles they may be
regarded with aversion, but they here reign as the prima-donnas over
the fast life of the West-end.
Occasionally genteel and beautiful girls in shops and workrooms in
the West-end, milliners, dressmakers, and shop girls, may be seen
flitting along Regent Street and Pall Mall, like bright birds of
passage, to meet with some gentleman _on the sly_, and to obtain a few
quickly-earned guineas to add to their scanty salaries. Sometimes a
fashionable young widow, or beautiful young married woman, will find
her way in those dark evenings to meet with some rickety silver-headed
old captain loitering about Pall Mall. Such things are not wondered at
by those acquainted with high life in London.
We now come to take a survey of the general state of prostitution
which prevails over the metropolis, having Bishopgate, Shoreditch, and
Waterloo Road more particularly in our eye as a sample of the other
districts. These prostitutes in general reside in the dingy lanes
and courts off the main streets in these localities, and have small
bed-rooms poorly furnished, for which they pay four shillings and
upwards a-week. They live in disreputable houses, occupied from the
basement to the attics by prostitutes--some young, others more elderly;
some living alone, others cohabiting with some low wretch of a man, a
“tail” pickpocket, labourer, or low mechanic.
The prostitutes of these localities generally belong to the third
and fourth class. The better educated and more genteel girls who
live by prostitution in most cases go to the Haymarket. Numbers may
occasionally be seen in the neighbourhood of the Bank of England, at
Islington, near the Angel tavern, in the City Road, New North Road,
Paddington, at the Elephant and Castle, and other localities; though
in most cases they only come out occasionally _on the sly_, and are
engaged in shops, factories, warerooms, and workrooms, during the
day, or secluded in their houses, supported by tradesmen, mechanics,
shopmen, clerks, or others, and only live partially by prostitution.
We shall refer to the two classes of open prostitutes generally to
be seen over the various districts of the metropolis, such as those
residing in the disreputable neighbourhoods we have mentioned.
Some of the better class have the appearance of girls who serve in
coffee-houses, barmaids, and servants, and others of the lower orders.
Numbers of them are good-looking and tolerably well dressed. Some have
been ironing girls, and others have sold small wares on the streets,
and been engaged in similar employment.
Many of these unfortunate girls have redeeming traits in their
character. Some are kind-hearted and honest, and not a few are even
generous and self-denying. The great mass, however, are unprincipled
and base, ever ready to take an advantage when an opportunity occurs.
The vast majority of them are thieves, similar to the third class we
have sketched in the Haymarket. They not only steal from the persons
they meet on the street under the dark cloud of night in by-streets and
courts, but take men to their houses, and plunder them. They rifle the
pockets of those who go for a short time with them, and steal their
gold pins, watches, and money. This is generally done in low houses of
accommodation. They frequently decamp with the clothes of their victim,
who has taken a bed with them for the night, and leave him in a strange
house in a state of nudity. Married men frequently get into this sad
predicament, but the matter is in most cases hushed up. When it does
get abroad, the party robbed, to screen his profligacy from his wife
and relatives, pretends in many cases that he has been drugged.
These prostitutes, some of them good-looking and handsome, often accost
men in the street, retire with them into some by-lane or by-street, and
patter about their pockets, while they encourage him to use indecent
freedoms with their persons; and while they inflame his passions, rifle
his pockets, and decamp with his money. This is frequently done in
cases where the man does not have carnal connection with them.
They are generally dressed in a light cotton or merino gown, a light or
brown mantle, a straw bonnet trimmed with gaudy ribbons and flowers,
and sometimes with a pork-pie hat and white or red feather.
Some of these girls in those lower localities have better traits in
their character than many of the more brilliant-dressed girls in the
Haymarket, and are sometimes better looking. Not a few of them are very
sedate, and will not go with any man whom they do not like. But there
are many others more unscrupulous.
When they meet a man the worse of liquor, they decoy him into a brothel
and get his money from him, when they try to get up a quarrel with
him, and run off crying out they are ill-used by the man. They do this
frequently where they do not allow the drunken man to have carnal
dealings with them--not from a lustful purpose, but to get his money or
other property.
These girls are fifteen years of age and upwards. Some of them,
if good-looking, get married, and are rescued from the jaws of
prostitution. Others linger on for a time with shattered constitutions,
wasted by grief, want, anxiety, and irregular life, and glide into
premature graves. Others are sheltered in workhouses, while a
considerable number become withered or brutal, and degenerate into the
lowest class of abandoned women.
We come now to treat of the lowest class of prostitutes--those old
women of the town who prowl about the thoroughfares and main streets,
chiefly in the evenings and at midnight. They are often dressed in
a shabby, dirty cotton skirt, faded dark bonnet, and old shoes;
some bloated, dissipated, and brutal in appearance; others pale and
wasted by want and suffering. Many of them resort to “bilking” for a
livelihood, that is, they inveigle persons to low houses of bad fame,
but do not allow them to have criminal dealings with them. Possibly
the bodies of some may be covered with dreadful disease, which they
take care to conceal. While in these houses they often indulge in
the grossest indecencies, too abominable to be mentioned, with old
grey-headed men on the very edge of the grave. Many of these women
are old convicted thieves of sixty years of age and upwards. Strange
to say, old men and boys go with these withered crones, and sometimes
fashionable gentlemen on a lark are to be seen walking arm in arm
with them, and even to enter their houses. Few of these old women are
married, though many of them cohabit with low coarse fellows, who wink
at their conduct, and live on the proceeds of their obscenities.
For example, in Granby Street, Waterloo Road, there were orgies
occasionally indulged in by such women, with persons having the
appearance of gentlemen, too abominable to be mentioned.