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Victorian London - Crime - Prostitution - London Labour and the
London Poor -
Degree Of Education Amongst Prostitutes
London Labour and the London Poor
A
Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings of Those That Will Work, Those That
Cannot Work, and Those That Will Not Work.
By Henry Mayhew.
London:
Griffin, Bohn, and Company, Stationers' Hall Court. 1862.
[digitised copy kindly provided by Les
Butler, ed.]
[... back to index]
Degree Of Education Amongst Prostitutes
DEGREE OF
INSTRUCTION amongst Prostitutes compared with the Degree of
Instruction among Women not Prostitutes, arrested for breaking various
laws (London). The City not
included
PERIODS -
taking 10,000 in each period. Total of women arrested of both classes
405.362.
|
Degree of
Instruction amongst virtuous women brought up in the Police Courts for
various offences during the years elapsing from 1837 to 1854 inclusive
|
| 1st |
period
|
-
|
6
|
years
|
1837-42
|
10,000 |
Not able to
read or write
|
4,813 |
Able to
read only, or read and write imperfectly
|
4,838 |
Knowing how
to read and write well
|
327 |
Very well
instructed
|
22 |
2nd |
”
|
-
|
6
|
”
|
1843-48
|
10,000 |
4,167 |
5,534 |
279 |
20 |
3rd |
”
|
-
|
6
|
”
|
1849-54
|
10,000 |
2,802 |
1,972 |
209 |
17 |
1st |
period
|
-
|
9
|
years
|
1837-45
|
10,000 |
4,570 |
5,098 |
312 |
20 |
2nd |
”
|
-
|
9
|
”
|
1846-54
|
10,000 |
3,247 |
6,504 |
320 |
19 |
|
Total
period
|
18
|
”
|
1837-54
|
10,000 |
3,861 |
5,851 |
268 |
20 |
|
PERIODS -
taking 10,000 in each period. Total of women arrested of both classes
405.362.
|
Degree of
Instruction among Prostitutes similarly arrested.
|
1st |
period
|
-
|
6
|
years
|
1837-42 |
10,000 |
Not able to
read or write
|
4,524 |
Able to
read only, or read and write imperfectly
|
5,031 |
Able to
read and write well
|
432 |
Very well
educated
|
13 |
2nd |
”
|
-
|
6
|
”
|
1843-48 |
10,000 |
3,672 |
5,893 |
425 |
10 |
3rd |
”
|
-
|
6
|
”
|
1849-54 |
10,000 |
2,305 |
7,444 |
212 |
39 |
1st |
period
|
-
|
9
|
years
|
1837-45 |
10,000 |
4,109 |
5,424 |
455 |
12 |
2nd |
”
|
-
|
9
|
”
|
1849-54 |
10,000 |
2,821 |
6,910 |
236 |
33 |
|
Total
period
|
18
|
”
|
1837-54 |
10,000 |
3,498 |
6,129 |
351 |
22 |
This table shows us that public women
are a little less illiterate than those who together with them form the most
infamous part of the population. But we must remember that this is hardly a fair
criterion of the education of all the prostitutes, or of prostitutes as a class,
because we have only summed up those who were arrested for some crime or
offence, so we may justly suppose them to have been the worst of their class in
every respect.
We see however that of the total number
of women arrested during a period of 18 years, there were in every 10,000-
|
3,498
|
not knowing how
to read or write |
|
6,129
|
able to read
only, or read and write badly |
|
351
|
able to read and
write well |
|
22
|
educated in a
superior manner |
|
10,000
|
|
We next come to the consideration of
convives, or those who live in the same house with a number of others, and we
will commence with those who are independent of the mistress of the house. These
women locate themselves in the immediate vicinity of the Haymarket, which at
night is their principal scene of action, when the hospitable doors of the
theatres and casinos are closed. They are charged enormously for the rooms they
occupy, and their landlords defend themselves for their extortionate demands, by
alleging that, as honesty is not a leading feature in the characters of their
lodgers, they are compelled to protect their own interest by exacting an
exorbitant rent. A drawingroom floor in Queen Street, Windmill Street, which is
a favourite part on account of its proximity to the Argyll Rooms, is worth
three, and sometimes four pounds a week, and the other étages in proportion.
They never stay long in one house, although some will remain for ten or twelve
months in a particular lodging. It is their principle to get as deeply into debt
as they are able, and then to pack up their things, have them conveyed elsewhere
by stealth, and defraud the landlord of his money. The houses in some of the
small streets in the neighbourhood of Langham Place are let to the people who
underlet them for three hundred a year, and in some cases at a higher rental.
This class of prostitutes do not live together on account of a gregarious
instinct, but simply from necessity, as their trade would necessarily exclude
them from respectable lodging-houses. They soon form an acquaintance with the
girls who inhabit the same house, and address one another as "my
dear," an unmeaning, but very general epithet, an hour or two after their
first meeting. They sometimes prefer the suburbs to reside in, especially while
Cremorne is open; but some live at Brompton and Pimlico all the year round. One
of their most remarkable characteristics is their generosity, which perhaps is
unparalleled by the behaviour of any others, whether high or low in the social
scale. They will not hesitate to lend one another money if they have it, whether
they can spare it or not, although it is seldom that they can, from their innate
recklessness and acquired improvidence. It is very common, too, for them to lend
their bonnets and their dresses to their friends. If a woman of this description
is voluble and garrulous, she is much sought after by the men who keep the cafés
in the Haymarket, to sit decked out in gorgeous attire behind the counters, so
that by her interesting appearance and the esprit she displays, the habitués of
those places, but more usually those who pay only a casual visit, may be
entrapped into purchasing some of the wares and fancy articles that are retailed
at ten times their actual value. In order to effect this they will exert all
their talents, and an inexperienced observer would imagine that they indeed
entertain some feeling of affection or admiration for their victim, by the
cleverness with which they simulate its existence. The man whose vanity leads
him to believe that he is selected by the beautiful creature who condescends to
address him, on account of his personal appearance, would be rather disgusted if
he were to perceive the same blandishments lavished upon the next comer, and
would regret the ten shillings he paid with pleasure for a glove-box, the
positive market value of which is hardly one-fifth of the money he gave for it.
There is a great abandonment of
everything that one may strictly speaking denominate womanly. Modesty is utterly
annihilated, and shame ceases to exist in their composition. They all more or
less are given to habits of drinking.
"When I am sad I drink," a woman
once said to us. "I'm very often sad, although I appear to be what you call
reckless. Well! we don't fret that we might have been ladies, because we never
had a chance of that, but we have forfeited a position nevertheless, and when we
think that we have fallen, never to regain that which we have descended from,
and in some cases sacrificed everything for a man who has ceased to love and
deserted us, we get mad. The intensity of this feeling does wear off a little
after the first; but there's nothing like gin to deaden the feelings. What are
my habits? Why, if I have no letters or visits from any of my friends, I get up
about four o'clock, dress ("en dishabille") and dine; after that I may
walk about the streets for an hour or two, and pick up any one I am fortunate
enough to meet with, that is if I want money; afterwards I go to the Holborn,
dance a little, and if any one likes me I take him home with me, if not I go to
the Haymarket, and wander from one café to another, from Sally's to the
Carlton, from Barn's to Sam's, and if I find no one there I go, if I feel
inclined, to the divans. I like the Grand Turkish best, but you don't as a rule
find good men in any of the divans. Strange things happen to us sometimes: we
may now and then die of consumption; but the other day a lady friend of mine met
a gentleman at Sam's, and yesterday morning they were married at St. George's,
Hanover Square. The gentleman has lots of money, I believe, and he started off
with her at once for the Continent. It is very true this is an unusual case; but
we often do marry, and well too; why shouldn't we, we are pretty, we dress well,
we can talk and insinuate ourselves into the hearts of men by appealing to their
passions and their senses.”
This girl was shrewd and clever, perhaps
more so than those of her rank in the profession usually are; but her testimony
is sufficient at once to dissipate the foolish idea that ought to have been
exploded long ago, but which still lingers in the minds of both men and women,
that the harlot's progress is short and rapid, and that there is no possible
advance, moral or physical; and that once abandoned she must always be
profligate.
Another woman told us, she had been a
prostitute for two years; she became so from necessity; she did not on the whole
dislike her way of living; she didn't think about the sin of it; a poor girl
must live; she wouldn't be a servant for anything; this was much better. She was
a lady's maid once, but lost her place for staying out one night with the man
who seduced her; he afterwards deserted her, and then she became bad. She was
fonder of dress than anything. On an average she had a new bonnet once a week,
dresses not so often; she liked the casinos, and was charmed with Cremorne; she
hated walking up and down the Haymarket, and seldom did it without she wanted
money very much. She liked the Holborn better than the Argyll, and always
danced.