The Times, March 28, 1856
[in letter on trafficking of English girls to Europe for purposes of prostitution, ed.]
. . . I am an Englishwoman, and, in common with many other
Englishwomen, feel the shame and horror of such a state of things; but will you,
who thus appeal to us, or will any of your correspondents, point out what it is
our duty to do? - how we are expected to act, to speak, or even to think on such
subjects? We have been told heretofore by men whom we respect that it becomes a
woman to be absolutely silent on such revolting topics - to ignore, or rather to
affect to ignore, such a "state of things" as you allude. We have been
told that, in virtuous women, it is a breach of feminine delicacy even to
suppose the existence of certain outcasts of our own sex, or of certain
exemptions in regard to vicious indulgence assumed by yours; in short, that, as
women of virtue, we have nothing to do with such questions, though we know, too
well, how deeply they affect us, how terribly near they approach us personally,
how the far-reaching contagion of such covert vice involves in some form or
other the peace of our "virtuous" homes, the fidelity of our husbands,
the health and morality of our sons, the innocence of our daughters. We have
been allowed, indeed, to patronize penitentiaries, to read chapters of the
Bible, and distribute lugubrious tracts to wretched, sullen, disordered victims;
but, meantime, we are told - I have myself been told, half pityingly, half
sneeringly - that for every one unhappy creature we rescue out of the streets
two will be at once supplied to fill up the vacancy; that this "state of
things" is a necessary social evil; and that we virtuous women had better
not meddle with it, lest worse befall us.
So it has been said in former times; but it seems, from the
appeal you make to us, that in these days Englishwomen may feel, may think, may
speak out on such subjects; may, without reproach, take such a part in their
discussion as becomes the members of a Christian and civilized community. But
what are we to do, where law is weak, where custom is strong, where opinion is
cowardly or wavering, where our very knowledge involves an imputation on our
feminine decorum - what are we to do? . . . . That class of wretches whose sole
and profitable occupation is to hunt down and ensnare victims becomes, we are
told, more and more numerous, more and more audacious; but for whom are the
victims hunted down and ensnared, imported and exported as so much merchandise?
So long as the market exists the article will be supplied - tell us, therefore,
what we are to do? The education of your sons does not rest with us. In the
schools where boys are collected together, generally far out of the reach of
pure, healthy female society and influence, the first thing they learn is to
despise girls; and the second to regard the impetticoated half of the human
species as destined for their service or their pleasure; hence in the higher and
better educated classes early impressions which lead to the most selfish and
cruel mistakes in regard to the true position of women, and in the lower more
ignorant classes to the most terrible tyranny and brutality. . . .
Ealing, March
24.
A.J.
letter to The Times, March 28, 1856
CAUSES OF PROSTITUTION
I have to the best of my ability called attention to prostitution as existing
among us in the present day, by laying before the reader such facts as I have
been able to gather concerning it both in this and other countries. We may now,
informed as to the nature of the evil with which we have to deal, and guided by
the experience gained in foreign lands, consider what measures we can best adopt
for alleviating the evils incident to it, and for checking, so far as possible,
the system itself.
It seems not inconvenient at the outset of such a discussion
to consider the causes that produce, or tend to perpetuate, the evil state of
things with which we have in the previous chapters become acquainted. Such an
inquiry may at first appear superfluous, for unhappily these causes are neither
few nor far to seek, and only too apparent to the most careless observer. It
will, however, become evident on reflection, that a mere indistinct appreciation
of them is not sufficient for our purpose, which requires a distinct and
methodical statement, setting the different causes under their appropriate
heads, and thus enabling us to separate those inherent to human life, and
ineradicable, from those dependent on accident and circumstance, and capable of
diminution, if not of removal. Practical legislation on a difficult and
intricate subject, which requires careful and delicate handling, is the object
before us - the more plain, simple, and unambitious the legislation, the greater
chance will there be of its proving successful. Sentimental and utopian schemes
must be avoided; the line between the possible and the impossible clearly drawn;
existing facts and the conclusions fairly deducible from them, however painful,
must be recognized, to enable us to do this and to produce a plain,
straightforward, and practical remedy for the very serious evils depicted in my
earlier chapters. We must clearly appreciate not only the effect, but the Cause.
I may first of all broadly state the somewhat self-evident
proposition that prostitution exists, and flourishes, because there is a demand
for the article supplied by its agency.
Supply, as we all know, is regulated by demand, and demand is
the practical expression of an ascertained want. Want and demand may be either
natural or artificial. Articles necessary for the support, or protection of
life, such as meat, and drink, fire, clothes, and lodging, are the objects of
natural demand. In these the extent of the demand is measured entirely by the
want, and this latter will neither be increased by an abundance of supply, nor
diminished by a scarcity. Articles of luxury are the objects of artificial
demand, which depends not merely on the want, but is actually increased by the
supply; that is to say, the desire for these articles grows with the possession
and enjoyment of them. This feature is peculiarly noticeable in prostitution,
though in strictness, perhaps, it cannot be placed in the category of artificial
wants. The want of prostitutes grows with the use of them. We may also observe
that in other cases the demand is active, and the supply passive, in this the
supply is active, so that we may almost say the supply rather than the want
creates the demand.
We must not here lose sight of the
fact that the desire for sexual intercourse is strongly felt by the male on
attaining puberty, and continues through his life an ever-present, sensible
want; it is most necessary to keep this in view, for, true though it be, it is
constantly lost sight of, and erroneous theories, producing on the one hand
coercive legislation, on the other neglect of obvious evils, are the result.
This desire of the male is the want that produces the demand, of which
prostitution is a result, and which is, in fact, the artificial supply of a
natural demand, taking the place of the natural supply through the failure of
the latter, or the vitiated character of the demand. It is impossible to
exaggerate the force of sexual desire. We must, however, bear in mind that man
is not a mere material existence; his nature includes also mind and spirit, and
he is endowed with conscience to admonish, reason to regulate, and will to
control his desires and actions. Woman was created to be the companion of man,
and her nature presents the exact counterpart of his. It is evident, that if so
composite a being permits any of the different constituent parts of his nature
to attain to undue proportions, he thereby impoverishes and weakens the others,
and in proportion as he does this, and accords indulgence to one set of
qualities and inclinations at the expense of the rest, he deteriorates from his
real nature. He is, in truth, an unmanly man, who devotes all his time and care
to athletic and physical pursuits and enjoyments. So is the man who forgets or
despises his body, and gives all his care to the mind and intellect. And so also
is the man who withdraws from life its enjoyments and duties, and devotes
himself exclusively to meditation and spiritual exercise. Men, in proportion as
the different elements in their being receive fair play and produce their
desires, may be considered to approach more or less nearly the standard of human
perfection.
The intercourse, therefore, of man or woman ought to appeal
to their threefold organization of body, mind, and spirit. If the first
predominates over and excludes the others, sexual desire degenerates into lust;
when all are present, it is elevated into love, which appeals to each of the
component parts of man's nature. The men who seek gratification for, and the
women who bestow it on, one part of their being only are in an unnatural state.
And here we may distinguish the indulgence of unlawful love from commerce with
prostitutes, the one is the ill-regulated but complete gratification of the
entire human being, the other affords gratification to one part only of his
nature.
One other distinction also we must carefully notice, and that
is that in the one case the enjoyment is mutual, and that in the other the
enjoyment is one-sided, and granted not as the expression and reward of love,
but as a matter of commerce. But if it be derogatory to their being, and
unnatural to bestow gratification on one part of their nature only, what shall
we say of the condition of those unfortunate women to whom sexual indulgence
affords no pleasure, and who pass their lives in, and gain their living by,
affording enjoyments which they do not share, and feigning a passion which has
ceased to move them? The woman who abandons herself for gain, instead of in
obedience to the promptings of desire - who,
while her Lover pants upon her breast,
Can mark the figures on an Indian chest;-
is in an
unnatural state, and so is the man who uses her, and obtains for a mere money
consideration that enjoyment of the person which should be yielded only as the
result and crowning expression of mutual passion. We may further observe that
commerce with a prostitute is an ephemeral transaction, which (though it may be
followed by serious consequences) yet entails no obligations. Illicit
attachments are more lasting, though usually transitory, and entail limited
obligations. Both conditions are substitutes for, or imitations of the
relationship resulting from love, and known as the married state, which, arising
from mutual desire, and granting the highest privileges, imposes corresponding
obligations, and is usually as lasting as life itself, and proves at once the
mainspring and chief safeguard of society.
We may now consider a little more in detail the want, the
demand, and the supply. The want is, in its inception, a natural want, and is
simply the perversion of the natural desire of every male for female
companionship; it is asserted by some writers that indulgence in sexual
intercourse is necessary for the male as soon as he has attained puberty, and
they present us with pitiable pictures of the unhappy condition to which many
are reduced, who from timidity or religious or moral influences refrain from
giving free scope to their desires, and who deduce from this the somewhat
startling proposition that freer sexual intercourse than is at present
countenanced by the conscience and practice of society, should be accorded. No
doubt the cases cited by the supporters of this theory are very pitiable; they
will, however, scarcely have the hardihood to assert that marriage immediately
on attaining puberty would tend to the proper development of the man, or be
otherwise than injurious. Rather than marriage or sexual gratification, we would
suggest, as the true remedy, that morbid excitement should be corrected by
healthy bodily exercise and mental application. If the young permit themselves
to dwell unduly on sexual ideas a demoralized condition of mind and body must
result. For helpless sufferers, if such there are, and their existence be not
simply due to the imagination of prejudiced advocates of immorality and
wickedness, the cure is to be found in the cricket-field, the river, or the
racquet-court, and the different athletic sports and intellectual studies
suitable to their age. I confidently assert that marriage or sexual indulgence,
before maturity is attained, is most prejudicial.
To show that abstinence is not in itself injurious, the case
of the ancient Germans may be cited, to whom the company of the other sex was
strictly prohibited until their age had exceeded twenty years. Their stalwart
frames and reckless valour were the admiration and terror of the more dissolute
Romans, to whose well-armed and disciplined legions their naked prowess opposed
a long, doubtful conflict; their vigorous bodies, martial countenances, and
intrepid conduct, proved that abstinence from sexual indulgence had neither
tamed their spirit nor weakened their physique. It may be objected that the
times with which we have to do are more artificial, and that it is impossible
for the boy to emerge into youth and manhood without having sexual ideas
presented to his mind. The difference is one only of degree. Let him eschew
sexual thoughts and obscene conversation, and give himself to healthy exercise
and vigorous study, and sexual abstinence, far from proving injurious, will
scarcely seem a hardship.
This position is further strengthened by the analogy of the
lower creation. Stallions are not put too early to the stud. The rams reserved
till two years old produce a better progeny than those employed for this purpose
at one year old. Bulls may be used at nine months, but those destined to
perpetuate the short-horn and other valuable breeds are permitted first to
attain the age of two years. So much for the natural want. The want that finds
relief in prostitutes, is the unbridled desire of precocious youths and vicious
men. In like manner, the demand is occasioned by the indulgence of the vicious,
and therefore unnatural, want. It arises from men forgetting that they are not
placed in this world merely to gratify their appetites. Life has its lawful
pleasures; it has also its duties and obligations. Idleness is easier than
industry, but the rewards of life are given to the diligent. ... To steal is
easier than to work, self-indulgence than self-restraint ... Man's plain
duty is to seek in honourable love the gratification of manly desire, and to
wait for enjoyment till he has earned the right to it. 'Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth,' is the Divine reason for the presence of the
sexual instinct. 'Flee youthful lusts,' the Divine rule of life. There is a
right and wrong way of gratifying natural desires: it is, as we have seen, not
only possible to choose the right, but more beneficial both to mind and body....
The demand for prostitution arises, then, from ill-regulated
and uncontrolled desire, and may be referred to the following heads:
The natural instinct of man.
His sinful nature.
The artificial state of society rendering early marriages
difficult if not impossible.
The unwillingness of many, who can afford marriage, to submit
to its restraint, and incur its obligations.
To a man's calling preventing him from marrying, or debarring
him when married from conjugal intercourse.
The unrestrained want and lawless demand, call for the
infamous supply; but want and demand are insufficient of themselves to create
supply; there are strong provoking causes, but not creative. We must go a step
further to discover the sources of supply. It is derived from the vice of women,
which is occasioned by:
Natural desire.
Natural sinfulness.
The preferment of indolent ease to labour.
Vicious inclinations strengthened and ingrained by early
neglect, or evil training, bad associates, and an indecent mode of life.
Necessity, imbued by the inability to obtain a living by
honest means consequent on a fall from virtue.
Extreme poverty.
To this black list may be added love of drink, love of dress, love of amusement,
while the fall from virtue may result either from a woman's love being bestowed
on an unworthy object, who fulfils his professions of attachment by deliberately
accomplishing her ruin, or from the woman's calling peculiarly exposing her to
temptation. ...
Prostitution is at once a result produced by and a cause
producing immorality. Every unchaste woman is not a prostitute. By unchastity a
woman becomes liable to lose character, position, and the means of living; and
when these are lost is too often reduced to prostitution for support, which,
therefore, may be described as the trade adopted by all women who have abandoned
or are precluded from an honest course of life, or who lack the power or the
inclination to obtain a livelihood from other sources. What is a prostitute? She
is a woman who gives for money that which she ought to give only for love; who
ministers to passion and lust alone, to the exclusion and extinction of all the
higher qualities, and nobler sources of enjoyment which combine with desire, to
produce the happiness derived from the intercourse of the sexes. She is a woman
with half the woman gone, and that half containing all that elevates her nature,
leaving her a mere instrument of impurity; degraded and fallen she extracts from
the sin of others the means of living, corrupt and dependent on corruption, and
therefore interested directly in the increase of immorality - a social pest,
carrying contamination and foulness to every quarter to which she has access,
who,
like a ... disease, ...
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, ...
... and stirs the pulse,
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
Such
women, ministers of evil passions, not only gratify desire, but also arouse it.
Compelled by necessity to seek for customers, they throng out streets and public
places, and suggest evil thoughts and desires which might otherwise remain
undeveloped. Confirmed profligates will seek out the means of gratifying their
desires; the young from a craving to discover unknown mysteries may approach the
haunts of sin, but thousands would remain uncontaminated if temptation did not
seek them out. Prostitutes have the power of soliciting and tempting. Gunpowder
remains harmless till the spark falls upon it; the match, until struck, retains
the hidden fire, so lust remains dormant till called into being by an exciting
cause.
The sexual passion is strong in every man, but it is strong
in proportion as it is encouraged or restrained; and every act of indulgence
only makes future abstinence more hard, and in time almost impossible. Some
consider that prostitution is the safety valve of society, and that any serious
diminution of the number of prostitutes would be attended with an increase of
clandestine immodesty. Such a consequence is not one that I think need be
apprehended; the insinuation that virtuous women, to be made to yield, require
only to be assaulted, is a base and unworthy calumny; nor is it to be supposed
that the man who will use a harlot is prepared to insult or injure a modest
woman. But intercourse with depraved women debases the mind, and gradually
hardens the heart, and each act of gratification stimulates desire and
necessitates fresh indulgence; and when grown into a habit, not only breeds
distaste for virtuous society, but causes the mind to form a degraded estimate
of the sex, until all women seem mere objects of desire and vehicles of
indulgence. The prostitute is a sad burlesque of woman, presenting herself as an
object of lust instead of an object of honourable love - a source of base
gratification, instead of a reason for self-restraint; familiarizing man with
this aspect of women till he can see no other, and his indulged body and debased
mind lead him to seek in them only sensual gratification, and to make, if
possible, of every woman the thing that he desires - a toy, a plaything, an
animated doll; a thing to wear like a glove, and fling away; to use like a
horse, and send to the knackers when worn out; the mere object of his fancy and
servant of his appetite, instead of an immortal being, composed, like himself,
of body, soul and spirit - his associate and consort, endowed with memory and
hope and strong affections, with a heart to love, to feel, to suffer; man's
highest prize and surest safeguard; the inspirer of honest love and manly
exertion, powerful
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
It thus appears that prostitution depends not only on demand
and supply, and external causes, but is itself a cause of its own existence,
because the possibility of indulgence weakens the force of self- restraint, by
creating the idea in the mind of unlawfully and basely gratifying the natural
instinct, to which indulgence adds force and intensity, and thus in a measure
creates the want, producing from a desire capable of restraint a habit
impossible to shake off. While the supply being active, and itself desiring
exercise, does not wait for the demand, but goes about to seek it, suggesting,
arousing, stimulating evil thoughts and unhallowed passions....
The divine command, 'Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish
the earth' . . . is the law of our being, and our instincts accord with the law.
It is impossible, therefore, that the sexual passion can ever die out, nor is it
to be desired that it should; so long as it continues, however, prostitution is
at least possible.
The children of Adam not only possess this instinct - they
have also a sinful nature, which is as much a part of their being as the natural
instinct: the one is as ineradicable as the other, and so long as this natural
instinct remains allied with a sinful nature, human beings will be liable to be
dragged into impurity and unlawful indulgence, and so long as they remain in
this condition prostitution is inevitable....
I consider it would be alike ungenerous to attempt to
paraphrase, and impossible to express better than himself, the ideas of 'Theophrastus',
upon the anti-matrimonial tendencies of modern middle- class society, in his
communication entitled, The Other Side of the Picture', to the editor of The
Times, May 7, 1857:
The laws which society imposes in the
present day in respect of marriage upon young men belonging to the middle class
are, in the highest degree, unnatural, and are the real cause of most of our
social corruptions. The father of a family has, in many instances, risen from a
comparatively humble origin to a position of easy competence. His wife has her
carriage; he associates with men of wealth greater than his own. His sons reach
the age when, in the natural course of things, they ought to marry and establish
a home for themselves. It would seem no great hardship that a young couple
should begin on the same level as their parents began, and be content for the
first few years with the mere necessaries of life; and there are thousands who,
were it not for society, would gladly marry on such terms. But here the tyrant
world interposes; the son must not marry until he can maintain an establishment
on much the same footing as his father's. If he dare to set the law at defiance,
his family lose caste, and he and his wife are quietly dropt out of the circle
in which they have hitherto moved. All that society will allow is an engagement,
and then we have the sad but familiar sight of two young lovers wearing out
their best years with hearts sickened with hope long deferred; often, after all,
ending in disappointment, or in the shattered health of the poor girl, unable to
bear up against the harassing anxiety. Or even when a long engagement does
finally end in marriage, how diminished are the chances of happiness. The union,
which, if allowed at first, would have proved happy under worldly difficulty,
has lost its brightness when postponed until middle life, even with competence
and a carriage. Perhaps the early struggles would have only strengthened the
bonds of affection; but here I feel that I am on dangerous ground. Already I
hear society loudly exclaiming that I am advocating improvident marriages, that
I would flood the country with genteel paupers, that I am advising what is
contrary to the best interests of society
But stay awhile, society. Your picture of marriages at
thirty-five, with a Belgravian house for the happy couple, a footman in splendid
uniform, and at least a brougham, is very pleasing; but there is a reverse to
the canvas, and that a very dark one. How has the bridegroom been living since
he attained his manhood? I believe that there are very many young men who are
keeping themselves pure amid all the temptations of London life. God's blessing
be with them, for they are the salt of our corrupt city. But I know that there
are thousands who are living in sin, chiefly in consequence of the impossibility
(as the world says) of their marrying. Some go quietly with the stream, and do
as others do around them, almost without a thought of the misery they are
causing, and the curse they are laying up for themselves. But many, perhaps most
of them, are wretched under the convictions of their conscience. Living in the
midst of temptation, they have not sufficient principle to resist its
fascination, and although they know where God intends that they shall find their
safety, yet they dare not offend their family, alienate their friends, and lose
their social position by making what the world calls an imprudent marriage. The
very feeling which Heaven has given as a chief purifier of man's nature is
darkening their conscience and hardening their heart, because the law of society
contradicts the law of God. I might touch upon even a more terrible result of
the present state of things - medical men and clergymen will understand what I
mean - but I dare not, and I have said enough.
I must in sadness confess that in the face of the powerful
tyranny of social law in this country, it is difficult to suggest any general
remedy for this evil. But the mischief is on the increase with our increasing
worship of money, and public attention ought to be appealed to on the subject.
If our American eulogist be right in commending pluck' as one of our distinctive
characteristics, it is not our young men who should lack the quality. If they
will shake off the affectations of club life, and claim a position in society
for themselves and for their wives, because they are qualified for it by
education and character, and not merely because they represent so much money,
they will soon force the world to give way, and strike down one of the greatest
hindrances to their own happiness, both temporal and eternal. It will not in
general be difficult to bring the daughters over to the same opinion. Mothers
and sisters are seldom very hard-hearted in such cases, and by united efforts
the stern father may be induced to give his blessing, even though the happy
couple (ay, happy, let the world sneer as it will) have to begin on little more
than the proverbial bread and cheese.
The recognition of this principle would do much to check some
of our most deadly social evils. It would make many a girl whom the tyranny of
the world now dooms to a joyless celibacy a happy wife and mother. It would
raise the tone of character of our young men, bringing out into healthful
exercise the home affections, which are now denied them, at the very time of
life when their influence is most beneficial. It would drive away all frivolity
and effeminacy before the realities of steady work, which early marriage would
oblige them to face. It would purify our streets, and check many a bitter pang
of conscience, and save many a soul. We are experiencing the bitter fruits of
man's law - let us see whether God's law will not work better.
The upper ten thousand too often, I fear, forget that the outside million - among whom, it has been quaintly said, they condescend to live' - cannot be relied on to travel for ever in the grooves cut out for them by their betters, and assume that if no overt and organized resistance to the Medo-Persian ukases of society and fashion appears on the surface, those edicts are immutable - that tyranny permanent. But the fact is - and they should be reminded of it - that with regard to some things, and among them marriage, there is a numerous and increasing class, by no means the waifs and strays of the community, who are disposed, not to question or propose any change in the law, but simply to ignore it, and to put up', as they say, with the consequences'.
The numberless cases of mésalliance daily occurring,
whereof the majority entail, beside the paltry consequence of Coventry', the
very serious ones of unfruitfulness and domestic infelicity, seem to me to point
the finger of warning to the guardians of our social code. That finger indicates
a blot upon the table of the law - cause of a nascent canker, which -. not,
perhaps, for many a long day, but certainly some day - if left untreated, will
corrupt the fabric.
I extract the following passages from the admirable editorial
remarks upon the foregoing letter of 'Theophrastus':
Do we not make difficulties for ourselves here, even where
nature makes none, and create by our system a huge mass of artificial temptation
which need never have existed? . . . A great law of Providence cannot be
neglected with impunity, and this undue, artificial, and unnatural postponement
of marriage ends in a great blot upon our social system. Vice is the result, and
vice creates a class of victims to indulge it. If Providence has ordained that
man should not live alone, and if conventional maxims or mere empty fashion and
the artificial attractions of society lead to overlooking, or superseding, or
tampering with this law, the neglect of a Providential law will surely avenge
itself in social disease and corruption in one or other part of the system. It
is not, then, because we wish for a moment to encourage improvident marriages,
but because we feel convinced that our modern caution here has outstepped all
reasonable limits, has become extravagant, has from being a dictate of natural
common sense become a mere conventional and artificial rule, the voice of empty
fashion, and a gratuitous hindrance to social happiness and the designs of
Providence, that we call serious attention to this subject. The fear of poverty
has become morbid, and men cry out not only before they are hurt, but before
there is any reasonable prospect of it. They must see in married life a
perfectly guaranteed and undisturbed vista of the amplest pecuniary resources
before they will enter upon it. They forget that married men can work, and that
marriage is a stimulus to work, and again and again elicits those latent
activities of mind which produce not only competency, but affluence.
But, from present signs, so sadly do I, with Theophrastus',
despair of any contraction, by the lawgivers of fashion, of the ample line of chevaux
de frise they have skilfully disposed round lawful wedlock; so ferocious, on
the contrary, is the 'struggle for position', so terrible an AEgis lurks in the
bitter sound of 'genteel beggary', that I am more inclined to look for the
sanction by society of self-immolation by superfluous virgins, the revival of
convents, or the Malthusian modes of checking population which prevail
elsewhere, than for the rich, still less the poor genteel, to permit their
unfeesimpled or undowered offspring to increase and multiply young, so-called
'paupers', of still less estate, without the fear of mammon's law before their
eyes, and in obedience to the will of Him who feeds the young ravens.
The foregoing remarks apply, of course, almost exclusively to
the upper sections of society, but hindrances to marriage are not confined to
the upper classes. I am, however, only concerned with this fact, that by the
unwritten custom of society, persons must not marry unless they be in possession
of a certain income. We may be thankful that the ecclesiastical law forbidding
the clergy to marry, and thereby letting loose on the community thousands of men
in danger and adding to the numbers of the tempters and tempted, is no longer in
force in this country ...
But prostitution abounds not only in places where large
numbers of unmarried men are collected together, but also where in the course of
their daily work the sexes are brought into close and intimate relations.
Factory towns, therefore, must be included in the list of places peculiarly
liable to the presence of prostitution, though perhaps in this case the
prevailing mischief may be more accurately termed general immorality, or
depravity, than prostitution proper; the difference, however, is not very great,
and, for the purposes of this work, immaterial.
I must not forget to include among local causes the serious
mischief incidental to the gang system in various agricultural districts. Public
attention has on several recent occasions been prominently called to the evils
thus arising, and it is not unreasonable to hope that adequate steps will be
taken for improving the moral condition of the agricultural poor. Where women
and men, and girls and boys are working together indiscriminately in the fields,
with, in many cases, long distances to traverse in going to and returning from
the scenes of their labours, it is obvious that opportunity cannot be wanting,
and that temptations must not infrequently be yielded to, and that the morals
and habits of the people will be of a very low order.
We may, however, expect to find large cities contribute in a
greater degree than other places to the manufacture and employment of
prostitutes. Here always abound idle and wealthy men, with vicious tastes, which
they spare neither pains nor expense to gratify. Here also are the needy, the
improvident, and the ill-instructed, from whose ranks the victims of sensuality
may be readily recruited. The close proximity of luxury and indigence cannot
fail to produce a demoralizing effect upon the latter. Garrison, seaport, and
factory towns, and large cities, are all places peculiarly liable to the
presence of prostitution, containing, as they do, within themselves in an
eminent degree the seeds and causes of vice. Some places, such as London,
combine within themselves all these qualities, and are therefore notably and
exceptionally exposed to this evil. It is impossible to suppose that in such
localities prostitution can ever become extinct. Wherever men are peculiarly
exposed to temptation by the State, it seems only just that the State should
take care that the evil condition that it imposes should be rendered as little
injurious as possible. This position has of late years, as we have seen,
received a tardy recognition; it is reasonable, I think, to extend this
principle a little further, and to adopt a similar course in all cases where we
know that the existence of vice is inevitable; it is useless to shut our eyes to
a fact; it is better to recognize it - to regulate the system, and ameliorate,
if possible, the condition of its victims....
The causes of the supply have now to be examined; and first
we may consider how far seduction operates in bringing women into the ranks of
prostitution. It appears to be pretty generally admitted that uncontrollable
sexual desires of her own play but a little part in inducing profligacy of the
female. Strong passions, save in exceptional cases, at certain times, and in
advanced stages of dissipation, as little disturb the economy of the human
[female] as they do that of the brute female....
That seduction in the proper meaning of the word can be
charged with causing the unhappy condition of many of these unfortunate women
is, I think, extremely doubtful; that numbers fall victims to the arts of
professional and mercenary seducers is, I fear, equally true.
While visiting the Lock Hospital at Aldershot, the resident
medical officer, Dr Barr, drew my attention to an interesting-looking girl, aged
fifteen. As her case is one illustrating the fall from virtue of many another
female, I may insert the story here, and can do no better than give it in Dr
Barr's own words:
A few months since, E. P-, a
pleasing-looking young girl, aged fifteen, was brought by the police to the
examining room. I found it necessary, as she was painfully diseased, to detain
her for treatment, and a few days since, being recovered, she was sent home to
her parents. Her story is shortly, that for some months previously she had been
nursemaid in a respectable family, but having quarrelled with her mistress, who
was too exacting, and being very unhappy, she resolved to leave her situation.
While on an errand one evening she met with a girl not much older than herself
to whom she imparted her intention. This young person, who had lately been
seduced by a soldier, and had heard a glowing account of Aldershot from him,
told E. P of her intention to visit this place, and spoke of advantages they
might both gain by travelling together. Unfortunately this girl's tale was too
readily listened to, and that evening the subject of my narrative called on her
parents, who are honest tradespeople in --- Street, Borough, and receiving from
them some clothes, etc., without informing them of her intention, left London
with her adviser on September 12 last.
Between London and this locality she was persuaded to yield
to the solicitation of a man known by the girl with whom she travelled, but on
arriving at the station and tiring of her companion, she separated from the
latter, who remained in Aldershot. Afraid to return to her home she determined
with imperfect ideas of distance to proceed to Yeovil, Somerset, where she
believed some relative lived. The few shillings she possessed being soon spent
she was forced to sell her bundle of clothes to procure food; and being by this
time truly miserable, she resolved to go back to her friends, and retracing her
steps again passed through a part of this district on her road to London.
Without a penny remaining, weak for want of food, footsore and exhausted by
travel, this poor young creature was accosted by the fellow alluded to above,
who, quickly detecting her condition, commiserated her, and offered to supply
her with food, clothing, and lodging if she would consent to meet a soldier or
two who were friends of his. Alternate persuasion and threats overcame her
resistance.
She was taken by her rascally protector to places where the
soldiers congregate. A new and pretty face was sufficient attraction, and she
became a toy for them during the evening; sleeping afterwards with 'Ginger', to
whom, according to agreement, she handed the money received for her
prostitution. This course lasted from the Friday of her arrival until the
following Tuesday, her protector hiding her from the police in the daytime, but
on the last-named day they took hold of her and brought her to me for
examination. The girl's evidence having been heard, the parents were written to
by Inspector Smith, and almost immediately the mother and sister came to see
her.
Accustomed as I have been to witness meetings between those
lost and their friends, and to listen to the heartrending details of sin and
grief, I shall not easily forget the scene that occurred on this occasion. The
mother, a well-conducted woman, told me that the family had been almost
heartbroken by the sad event. As soon as it was known that the girl had left her
situation without notice of her intention, they put an advertisement in The
Times, and had numerous handbills printed and circulated, imploring her return.
A whole month having passed without hearing anything of her, their misery can
hardly be described, and to add to their unhappiness, the husband, a
hard-working, industrious man, sustained a fracture of the leg, and was removed
to a hospital. The poor mother, in the midst of her misfortune, fearing the
worst results, whenever she heard of a body being found in the river or
elsewhere, rushed to make inquiries, fully expecting to recognize her lost child
in the inanimate form before her. Thus, until hearing from the police inspector,
she was ignorant of the fate of her daughter during the period named. She
finished by saying the girl had always been a good, engaging child at home; had,
with the rest of the family, regularly attended Sunday school, and though poor,
until this unfortunate occurrence, they had been a happy family. To make this
sad story still more painful, and to add to the great affliction of this poor
family, the girl is pregnant. The Association for the Protection of Women have
taken up this case against the man referred to. A detective has been employed to
search into the affair, and in the interests of humanity I trust he and similar
scoundrels will receive their just punishment.
We have seen that many women stray from
the paths of virtue, and ultimately swell the ranks of prostitution through
being by their position peculiarly exposed to temptation. The women to whom this
remark applies are chiefly actresses, milliners, shop girls, domestic servants,
and women employed in factories or working in agricultural gangs. Of these many,
no doubt, fall through vanity and idleness, love of dress, love of excitement,
love of drink, but by far the larger proportion are driven to evil courses by
cruel biting poverty. It is a shameful fact, but no less true, that the lowness
of the wages paid to workwomen in various trades is a fruitful source of
prostitution; unable to obtain by their labour the means of procuring the bare
necessaries of life, they gain, by surrendering their bodies to evil uses, food
to sustain and clothes to cover them. Many thousand young women in the
metropolis are unable by drudgery that lasts from early morning till late into
the night to earn more than from 3s. to 5s. weekly. Many have to
eke out their living as best they may on a miserable pittance for less than the
least of the sums above- mentioned. What wonder if, urged on by want and toil,
encouraged by evil advisers, and exposed to selfish tempters, a large proportion
of these poor girls fall from the path of virtue? Is it not a greater wonder
that any of them are found abiding in it? Instances innumerable might be adduced
in support of this statement. I have said enough to acquaint the reader with the
miserable condition of these children of want; it is not my purpose to pain and
horrify or to distract the attention from the main purpose of my book; those who
desire a narrative of facts fully supporting this statement, I would refer to Mr
Mayhew's work on London Labour and [the] London Poor. Misplaced
love, then, inordinate vanity, and sheer destitution are the causes that lead to
woman's fall and that help to fill the ranks of prostitution. But love should
not lead to the forfeiture of self- respect. Vanity may be restrained; want may
be relieved from other sources.
A still more frightful cause remains behind - more frightful
because here the sinner has had no choice, so far as man can see, except to sin.
Neither love nor vanity nor want have induced the surrender of virtue, for in
this case virtue never existed, not even the negative form of virtue, the
not-sinning state, the children of the very poor or very vile, what is their
lot? It is a picture from which one recoils with horror, and the reality of
which in this Christian country it is hard to believe. The cause to which I now
allude is found in the promiscuous herding of the sexes (no other word is
applicable through the want of sufficient house accommodation). I cannot better
convey an adequate notion of the miserable dwellings of the very poor and the
indecent mode of life resulting therefrom than by inserting the following
extract from a letter written by Mr Mayhew to the Morning Chronicle some
years since. If any doubt its accuracy, let them visit for themselves these
wretched hovels, and see what barriers they form against decency and virtue. He
says:
Let us consider, for a moment, the
progress of a family amongst them. A man and woman intermarry, and take a
cottage. In eight cases out of ten it is a cottage with but two rooms. For a
time, so far as room at least is concerned, this answers their purpose; but they
take it, not because it is at the time sufficiently spacious for them, but
because they could not procure a more roomy dwelling, even did they desire it.
In this they pass with tolerable comfort, considering their notions of what
comfort is, the first period of married life. But, by- and-by they have
children, and the family increases until, in the course of a few years, they
number perhaps from eight to ten individuals. But all this time there has been
no increase to their household accommodation. As at first, so to the very last,
there is but the one sleeping room. As the family increases additional beds are
crammed into this apartment, until at last it is so filled with them that there
is scarcely room left to move between them. As already mentioned, I have known
instances in which they had to crawl over each other to get to their beds. So
long as the children are very young, the only evil connected with this is the
physical one arising from crowding so many people together in what is generally
a dingy, frequently a damp, and invariably an ill-ventilated apartment. But
years steal on, and the family continue thus bedded together. Some of its
members may yet be in their infancy, but other of both sexes have crossed the
line of puberty. But there they are, still together in the same room - the
father and mother, the sons and the daughters - young men, young women, and
children. Cousins, too, of both sexes, are often thrown together into the same
room, and not unfrequently into the same bed. I have also known of cases in
which uncles slept in the same room with their grown-up nieces, and
newly-married couples occupied the same chamber with those long married, and
with those marriageable but unmarried.
A case also came to my notice - already alluded to in
connexion with another branch of the subject - in which two sisters, who were
married on the same day, occupied adjoining rooms, in the same hut, with nothing
but a thin board partition, which did not reach the ceiling, between the two
rooms, and a door in the partition which only partly filled up the doorway. For
years back, in these same two rooms, have slept twelve people, of both sexes and
all ages. Sometimes, when there is but one room, a praiseworthy effort is made
for the conservation of decency. But the hanging up of a piece of tattered cloth
between the beds - which is generally all that is done in this respect, and even
that but seldom - is but a poor set-off to the fact that a family, which, in
common decency, should, as regards sleeping accommodations, be separated at
least into three divisions, occupy, night after night, but one and the same
chamber. This is a frightful position for them to be in when an infectious or
epidemic disease enters their abode. But this, important though it be, is the
least important consideration connected with their circumstances. That which is
most so is the effect produced by them upon their habits and morals. In the
illicit intercourse to which such a position frequently gives rise, it is not
always that the tie of blood is respected. Certain it is that, when the
relationship is even but one degree removed from that of brother and sister,
that tie is frequently overlooked. And when the circumstances do not lead to
such horrible consequences, the mind, particularly of the female, is wholly
divested of that sense of delicacy and shame which, so long as they are
preserved, are the chief safeguards of her chastity. She therefore falls an
early and an easy prey to the temptations which beset her beyond the immediate
circle of her family. People in the other spheres of life are but little aware
of the extent to which this precocious demoralization of the female amongst the
lower orders in the country has proceeded.
But how could it be otherwise? The philanthropist may exert
himself in their behalf, the moralist may inculcate even the worldly advantages
of a better course of life, and the minister of religion may warn them of the
eternal penalties which they are incurring; but there is an instructor
constantly at work more potent than them all, an instructor in mischief, of
which they must get rid ere they make any real progress in their laudable
efforts - and that is, the single bed- chamber in the two-roomed cottage.
Bad as are these pauper dens, nurseries of
vice more fearful still abound in our Christian capital. In the former some
effort after decency may be made, but in the latter, not only is there no such
effort, but the smallest remnant of modesty is scouted and trampled down as an
insult and reproach. I allude to the low lodging-houses which afford to the
homeless poor a refuge still more cruel than the pitiless streets from which
they fly. In these detestable haunts of vice men, women, and children are
received indiscriminately, and pass the night huddled together, without
distinction of age or sex, not merely in one common room, but often one common
bed; even if privacy is desired, it is impossible of attainment; no
accommodation is made for decency, and the practices of the inmates are on a par
with the accommodation. It is fearful to contemplate human beings so utterly
abandoned, reduced below the level of the brute creation. By constant practice,
vice has become a second nature; with such associates, children of tender years
soon become old in vice. This is no fancy sketch, or highly-coloured picture. In
this manner thousands pass from childhood to youth, from youth to age, with
every good feeling trampled out and every evil instinct cherished and matured;
trained to no useful art, and yet dependent for a living on their own exertions,
what wonder if all the males are thieves and all the females prostitutes. The
crowding together of the sexes, and consequent indecency, is not entirely
confined to the large towns.
... The extreme youth of the junior portion of the
street-walkers' is a remarkable feature of London prostitution, and has been the
subject of much comment by foreign travellers who have published their
impressions of social London. Certain quarters of the town are positively
infested by juvenile offenders, whose effrontery is more intolerably disgusting
than that of their elder sisters. It is true, these young things spring from the
lowest dregs of the population; and, from what I can learn of their habits,
their seduction - if seduction it can be called - has been effected, with their
own consent, by boys no older than themselves, and is an all but natural
consequence of promiscuous herding, that mainspring of corruption among our
lower orders. That such as these are generally the victims of panders and old débauchées
is as untrue as many of the wretched fallacies set about by some who write
fictions about social matters in the guise of facts; but whatever the prime
cause of their appearance in the streets as prostitutes, it is none the less
strange and sad - none the less worth amending - that the London poor should
furnish, and London immorality should maintain, so many of these half-fledged
nurselings, who take to prostitution, as do their brothers of the same age to
thieving and other evil courses, for a bare subsistence.
Although a large number of women fall victims as above, it
cannot be denied that others early evince a natural indisposition to do work
when they might obtain it, and may thus be said to court admission into the
ranks of prostitution. That idleness and vanity are almost inevitable bequests
from parent to child, is proved by the fact that the children of the numerous
diseased prostitutes, consigned by the police to the St Lazare Hospital in
Paris, notwithstanding all the religious teachings of the Sisters of Charity and
the excellent secular education given them within the walls of that institution,
where they are received as old as seven or eight years, almost invariably become
prostitutes. The foundlings, or deserted children, oftentimes illegitimate, who
crowd our workhouses, are in like manner a very fruitful source for the
recruitment of the metropolitan pavé.
With the absolute neglect of children by parents, and the
interminable scheming of lustful men, I may end the roll of causes which have
operated in this direction since the dawn of civilization, and, singly or
combined, will so continue, I presume, to operate for all time.
William Acton, Prostitution, considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects 2nd edition 1870
see also Thomas Archer's Terrible Sights of London - click here