| 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 shoeblack 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 Westend, 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 middleclass 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 silverheaded 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, dur-
ing 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 goodlooking and handsome, often accost men in the street, retire with them into some bylane 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 thorougfares 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.
These belong to the same class of degraded women who walk the Haymarket, and whom we have described as the most abandoned of their sex, who go about cadging and occasionally prostituting themselves to boys and degraded labouring men. They live in the lowest neighbourhoods in the east end of the metropolis, such as Lower Whitecross Street, Wentworth Street, and the low by-streets in Spitalfields, and in the lowest slums and bystreets about the New Cut, Drury Lane, Westminster, and other low localities, with dirty, low fellows, dock-labourers, bricklayers' labourers, and labourers at the workyards and wharfs.
They are in general too ugly to come out during the day with their unwashed slatternly dress, and in the evenings are often seen prowling as cadgers about the streets, and even in the dead of night waylaying and plundering drunken men; sometimes sneaking about alone, at other times two in company, and occasionally with a young simple girl by their side to screen their villainy.
They often resort to prostitution in the dark by-streets and courts with the boys and men who resort to them, which is seldom or never done by the younger girls, except by a few outcast or debased creatures among them, who might justly be comprised in the lowest class.
We now have to notice the "pickingup" women, who generally cohabit with pickpockets, burglars, clerks, shopmen, and others. Their object is to get liquor and money from persons as though they were prostitutes, without resorting to prostitution. For example, we see two welldressed young women in the attire of milliners or dressmakers proceeding along the City Road in the direction of the Angel tavern, Islington. They see a gentleman pass, and cast a wistful look at him. He returns the glance. They walk on a short distance, and look round. The gentleman in many cases turns round likewise. He will then get a nod or bow from one of them. They will walk slowly, and look round again. On his going up to them, they will enter into conversation. They ask the gentleman to treat them, if he should not first offer to do so. They will then proceed to a gin-palace, where he will give them possibly a glass of wine. He will ask one of them where she lives. She will perhaps reply: "I am afraid to tell you. If you were to come to my house, it might come to the knowledge of my husband, and he would nearly kill me;" adding "I don't mind seeing you again, and we
will then get better acquainted!" Ultimately it may be arranged to go to some place which she has chanced to know, for the purpose of prostitution, leaving the other young woman to wait for her outside. The gentleman will then possibly give a sum of money. She will either say it is not sufficient, and will not allow him to have connection with her, or she may say she cannot allow him for certain reasons; or she may make an excuse that she requires to go down-stairs on a pressing errand for a moment, or to speak to the landlady, when she decamps. Sometimes robbing him of his watch, or purse, in addition to the sum he gave her.
If he should raise an alarm the occupier of the house will request him to give her a sum of money for the use of the room, and if there is any objection made to pay it, he receives ill-treatment and is turned into the street.
On other occasions a young woman will pretend she is unmarried, and will, in a similar ingenious way, endeavour to get money from parties she meets in the street, and try to escape in a similar way, without allowing him to have connection with her. She frequently manages to steal his watch and to rifle his pockets while he may be off his guard.
The object of these women is to get the wages of prostitution and an opportunity of stealing, without incurring the anger of their paramour by prostituting their bodies to other men. It happens occasionally they are outwitted, as their schemes are beginning to be pretty well known. Their pretexts are sometimes evaded, and cases occur where they yield to prostitution rather than give back the money they have received, which classes them among prostitutes and thieves. Some women resort to this as a shift in case of necessity, while others pursue it as a mode of livelihood in different localities of London.
These persons are to be found over the chief districts of the metropolis; miserable, poorly-dressed females, as well as respectable-looking young women. Some of the poorer sort are to be found about Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Lambeth, and the Borough. Others of the better sort, in appearance, are to be met with in the City Road, New North Road, King's Cross, and Paddington.
Hired Prostitutes.—There are a number of female prostitutes kept by Jewesses and English women of low character. These girls are dressed in good style, in silks and light muslin and cotton dresses, with their
hair put up in ringlets or in fancy nets. They are mostly from seventeen to twentytwo years of age, some younger and others older, some with false hair and ringlets. The brothels we refer to are chiefly about the West-end. There is often a cigar-shop attached to them, and the best looking girls are generally found standing by the doors, or ogling through the windows to decoy the passers-by into their infamous dens. Some of these girls have been prostitutes from their girlhood, and belong to the lowest class in society, their mothers having been prostitutes before them. Several have been in these houses for a considerable number of years, who have kept their appearance better than other prostitutes who have had a more changeable and precarious mode of livelihood. Strange to say, some look nearly as young and as fresh as they did ten years ago.
You seldom see the old execrable hags who keep these houses loitering about the doors or standing at the windows. They generally keep out of sight, but are sometimes to be seen peering through the edge of the window-blinds, which are generally drawn down, in the first floor above; or you may occasionally see them in the back parlour, skulking about. They are often very stout, and look like matrons in the maturity of life. They take gentlemen into their houses during the day as well as during the evening, but mostly in the evening.
The girls are then dressed in gaudy finery, with shining head-dresses and jewellery glittering on their breast over their light dresses. Yet there is a low vulgarity in their appearance which repels and disgusts; they look, in many cases, so sensual and debased. They use no art to conceal the life they are leading, as some other prostitutes do, who try so far to screen the baseness of their profligacy.
They generally keep old female servants they call "slaveys" to do the drudgery work of the house. These degraded women live in the house with them, wash their clothes, get their meals ready, clean their boots, brush their clothes, run errands for them out of doors, and show gentlemen into the bed-rooms.
There is often a man in these brothels, a paramour of the old bawd, who is a loafer about the house, and is occasionally employed to act as a bully. These men are in general rough-looking men, dressed in black shabby clothes, and in many cases look more degraded than common thieves. Some are dissipated and pale, others are bloated, their faces covered with pimples and blotches.
As we pass along Wych Street, Strand, in the dark evenings, we see several of the brothels we refer to. There the cigar shops are lit up, and the girls are arrayed in their best attire, and beaming their most inviting smiles to entrap the unwary. We may see brilliant lights in the rooms on the flat above through chinks in the shutters and blinds, where orgies are nightly transacted too gross and disgusting to mention.
Brothels of the same kind are to be found in Exeter Street and Chandos Street, Strand, and other localities of the metropolis.
These girls occasionally walk the Strand and Holborn to decoy gentlemen into their dwellings. They generally belong to the third class of prostitutes and the lowest class of society. Some may have come down through dissipation from the second class, and have formerly been in better positions. They do not steal from persons when sober, as they could be so easily detected, and as this would injure the brothel; but they occasionally pilfer from drunken men, where they are able to do it with impunity. Some of them occasionally get as much money as many of the more genteel girls in the Haymarket.
They never take clothes from the gentlemen who enter their houses, but occasionally give him rough treatment should he enter their house without plenty of money in his purse.
They chiefly confine their pilfering depredations to drunken men. As they walk in the evenings along the crowded thoroughfares lighted up by the street lamps, and the bright illumination of the shop windows, the "slaveys" walk frequently at a short distance behind them, to see that they do not receive gentlemen without the knowledge of the keepers of the brothel, and to watch that they do not run away with the clothes. The slaveys are paid something additional for every gentleman the girls go with, which stimulates them to look better after them, and promotes the selfish ends of the execrable old bawd who hires them.
Park Women.—There are three kinds of women who usually resort to the parks. We find numbers of kept women of the highest class maintained by persons in high life, such as have been governesses, ladiesmaids, and the daughters of respectable tradesmen and others, promenading in Hyde Park. They live in fashionable style at Brompton and other localities. In summer they come to the park about half-past five or six in the afternoon. There are not so many in the winter time, when the
season is cold, and the landscape faded. While gentlemen and ladies are taking their evening's ride, these ladies often walk along Rotten Row as far as Kensington Gardens, and frequently have a little pet dog, with a ribbon or string attached to it.
These females are dressed in the most fashionable and expensive style, in silk and satin dresses, with expensive shawls, mantles, or paletots, and have light muslin dresses in summer. On such occasions there are great numbers of fashionable gentlemen riding on horseback and walking along the side of the drive.
There are a great many seats placed on the grass at Rotten Row in the summer, where these ladies sit and talk with gentlemen. They are generally from eighteen to twenty-four years of age, in the full bloom of life and beauty. The gentlemen consist of blooming youths and old tottering gallants of sixty, civilians and military, professional men, gentry, and nobility.
These ladies sit chatting together with hundreds of people seated around them in this gay promenade. Many assignations are thus made as to when and where to meet. They are sometimes seated close by the Serpentine under the trees in the dusk of the summer evenings, and middle-aged gentlemen—sometimes elderly—often come and meet them, and sit and converse beside them under the starlit gloom of the park, with few persons near them.
There is another class of females who visit the parks, consisting of servants and the daughters of labouring men and poor mechanics. In general, they are poorly educated, but respectably dressed, and belong, according to our classification, to the third class of prostitutes. They generally come out in the evening for the purpose of prostitution. Many of them are freshlooking, averaging in age from fifteen to twenty-five, and are to be found all over the park, chiefly from Stanhope Gate to Victoria Gate, where they sit on the seats with men of respectable appearance— tradesmen and others. These females often use indecent liberties with gentlemen without having connexion with them. This is done in the evening from dusk up to the time of shutting the park, and during this sensual excitement robberies are frequently effected by the women of purses, watches, pins, and other property. Information is sometimes given to the police, but these felonies are often concealed by the persons plundered, as they are ashamed to make it known. Many of these dupes are married men, who would be sadly disgraced were
the news to come to the ears of their wives and families.
A third class of females who attend the parks are the lowest old prostitutes, dissipated, debased wretches, from twenty-five to fifty years of age. They generally frequent the Lovers' Walk, from Grosvenor Gate to the statue of Achilles, and are to be seen in other parts of the park near the Marble Arch.
They are miserably dressed, many of them having barely rags to cover their wretchedness. They are utterly shameless in their habits. We find them dressed in a dirty cotton gown, nearly black, an old faded ragged shawl and tattered old boots, with scarcely a sole to them. Some are blotched in appearance; others are pale, shrivelled, and haggard, miserable spectacles.
They may sometimes be seen sitting on the settles in the parks from dusk till the time of closing the gates of the park. These women indulge in the same obscene practices as the girls we have already mentioned, with a lower class of people, such as gentlemen's servants, labouring men, and low mechanics, and sometimes have connexion with them in the park. On such occasions, these filthy hags are busy rifling the pockets of their victims.
Soldiers' Women.—There is only one class of prostitutes termed soldiers' women, who live in Westminster. They chiefly reside in the courts leading out of Orchard Street, St. Ann Street, Old Pye Street, New Pye Street, Castle Lane, Gardener's Lane, York Street, and Blue Anchor Yard. They are from sixteen to thirty years of age, and several even older. Some have been in the streets for seventeen years and upwards. They live in the greatest poverty, covered with rags and filth, and many of them covered with horrid sores, and eruptions on their body, arms, and legs, presenting in many cases a revolting appearance. Many of them have not the delicacy of females, and live as pigs in a sty. This is not exaggeration. On the officers of police entering their houses, they often find them in a state of nudity. They have no feeling of shame, and conduct themselves with the greatest indifference. Two of them generally occupy a room. They often take two other lodgers into their room, and lie on the floor. Their furniture consists of an old deal table, one or two old rickety chairs, a few broken cups and saucers, a wooden table, a wash-hand basin and chamber utensil, and an old shattered bedstead with scarcely any bedding. These rooms—generally about ten feet square—
are let under the name of furnished apartments, and there is generally a deputy employed to collect the rents of the house. These girls pay on an average 3s. 6d. or 4s.
of weekly rent. Many of them pay 8d. or 10d. for the room per day, as the landladies do not trust them a week's rent. They often come home drunk about twelve or one o'clock at midnight.
They generally get up in the morning about eight or nine o'clock. If they have any coppers they get in something to eat. Food is seldom seen in their cupboards, as they generally have only enough for the occasion. After they have had their breakfast—a cup of tea or coffee and bread— they chat with each other over the past night's adventures, and pass the time till evening.
In the middle of the day they sometimes wash their skirt, the only decent garment many of them have—their under clothing being a tissue of rags—starch and iron it, and get it ready towards the evening, when they wash themselves and sally forth again.
In the evening, most of them go to some low public-house, and sit in company with soldiers, who drink and carouse with them. The soldiers who sit with them generally belong to the Foot Guards, Scots Fusileers, Coldstream, and Grenadier Guards.
The Life Guardsmen do not generally associate with this class. If a stray soldier of the line in other regiments should happen to come on a furlough to this district, some of the prostitutes decoy him to their house, and get money from him professedly for prostitution. They slip out of the room while he is asleep in bed, and spend the money they have got with the Foot Guards. Sometimes they bring one of the Foot Guards to bully him out of the room. They treat civilians in a similar manner.
Some of them dress and go out and walk with the soldiers during the day, but this is seldom. In general they do not go out till the evening at dusk.
In some instances the soldiers remain absent in the evening, and manage to avoid the patrols, and stop carousing with these girls till the public-houses close at four o'clock in the morning, when they go with these prostitutes to their dens, and often remain the whole of next day—sometimes remaining for a fortnight with them.
Some of these females are young, strong, healthy girls. When they have been for some years in this mode of life, they become dissipated in appearance, and their constitution is often broken up by their irregular wild life. The younger girls keep them-
selves more reserved for a time, but the bad example of the others very soon induces them to abandon themselves to all kinds of dissipation.
If a young woman is so unfortunate as to come among them and to keep herself reserved, the others bully her out of it, unless she go to the same excess of dissipation as themselves.
Their mode of stealing is to get people to their houses, where they plunder them. A sober man seldom thinks of going to their infamous abodes. In most cases the persons who go are the worse for liquor. On their way home they go into a publichouse with the girls, after which they accompany them to their room, where they get some more liquor.
The companions of a girl may see her coming home with a man, and may suppose him, from his appearance, to have money. They come into the house, and get a portion of the drink. In some instances the drunken person gives the woman money to go out for drink, when she decamps, and gets some of the prostitutes in the adjoining room to bully him out of the place. In other instances the girls wait their time till he goes to sleep, when they plunder him.
There are seldom fastenings on their doors, which are never locked. There is an understanding between parties in the same house, and some persons in the adjoining rooms enter while the man is in bed, and carry away his clothes and money. He cannot accuse the girl in the room, as she is lying in bed beside him.
In some cases the girl disappears during the night, and leaves the man naked in the room. She may remove to some other neighbourhood if the booty is of value, and live in some other part of Westminster. The dupe is seldom or never able to identify her, as he may have been much the worse for liquor while in her company.
These prostitutes chiefly look out for drunken men, whom they decoy to their houses, and afterwards plunder. They prowl along Parliament Street and Whitehall Place, and other streets in the vicinity. A great number of them go as far as Knightsbridge, where there are concert rooms. They loiter about these localities till these places close, and are to be seen about the doors of those public-houses where persons resort after leaving the concert rooms. When they pick up a drunken man they bring him home in the manner already described.
Many of these girls come from different parts of the country, and have formerly
been servants in town. A good number have been orphans left without friends, and have been basely seduced. The relatives of some have taken them home into the provinces, but they have come back again to London.
The police constables often find as many as four girls in one small room at night— two lying on a miserable bed, and two lying on the hard floor, with scarcely any covering but their petticoat thrown over them. Two soldiers are frequently found lying in the room with them, or one is seen lying between two girls.
It is surprising that any soldiers, however poor, who have an ordinary regard to decency, should lie down among such heaps of filthy rags; far less should we expect such base and unmanly conduct from the Queen's Foot Guards, when we look to the fine appearance and manly bearing of many of them on parade. It kindles our indignation when we learn that not a few of those poor degraded females were formerly in the service of respectable families, and were there seduced and driven to open prostitution by some of these unprincipled soldiers, who still add to their villainy the despicable crime of basely plundering the poor girls they have ruined of the wretched earnings of their dishonour and crime.
To the honour of the regiments of Foot Guards, we are happy to say there are many noble and excellent men in their ranks, who reflect high credit on our army by their exemplary character, and who are as benevolent in heart as they are brave on the battle-field. Some of these go to the other side of the street to avoid meeting with their fellow-soldiers when associated with degraded women. The others we refer to are heartless ruffians in their conduct, and a disgrace to the British service.
Sailors' Women.—There are two classes of prostitutes termed sailors' women to be found in Ratcliff Highway, near the London Docks, at the east end of the metropolis. These belong to the third and fourth classes in our classification of the prostitutes of London.
The better of the two classes are generally composed of younger and more respectable-looking girls, most of them residing in the neighbourhood, others coming from a distance. The generality of them reside in the Highway and in Palmer's Folly, Albert Square, Albert Street, Seven Star Alley, and other adjacent streets and alleys. A few strange girls come occasionally from the Surrey side, such as Kent Street and other localities in the Borough,
and remain for a few days only, as they may have committed some depredation in their own district, and wish to be away for a short time from the surveillance of the police. In like manner some of the girls residing in the neighbourhood of Ratcliff Highway, when they have plundered a sailor, leave the locality for a short time, till the ship to which he belonged has set sail, when they return again. There are a number of very good-looking girls of this class, most of them Irish cockneys. There are also a few German and Dutch prostitutes who frequent the Highway who live in Albert Street. These foreign girls do not have bullies or fancy men. Some of them are good looking, and some are not. They generally frequent the German and Dutch music and dancing saloons in Ratcliff Highway. Both of them attend the publichouse with the Swedish flag. This class of girls frequents the various saloons in the Highway. They do not generally steal money or watches when they are well paid, and but few steal the sailor's clothes.
They dress tolerably well, in silk and merino gowns with crinolines, and bonnets gaily attired with flowers and ribbons. Many of them have velvet stripes across the breast and back of their gowns, and large brooches with the portrait of a sailor encased in them. They generally lay their hair back in front in the French style.
Some of them have fancy men, and others have not. Their fancy men in many cases are watermen, but being lazy in inclination they hang about as loafers, and live on the prostitution and crime of the girls they cohabit with. These females take their dupes to their own houses or into low coffee-houses and brothels, or other houses of accommodation. Some of them allow the sailors to have connexion with them; others who cohabit with watermen and others, pretend to be prostitutes, and allow men to take indecent liberties with them, but seldom or never allow them to proceed farther.
There is another class of prostitutes to be found in Ratcliff Highway, more dissipated and abandoned than those we have noticed. They reside in or near Bluegate Fields, Angel Gardens, and other streets and lanes in that neighbourhood. Many of them have a robust, coarse, masculine frame, some of them with great protruding breasts. A few of the same class come from a distance, followed by a low, brutal man. The latter are termed "cross-girls." They pick up a sailor, take him into some dark by-street as if for the purpose of prostitution, get all the money they can from
him, and seldom allow carnal connexion. If possible, so soon as they have effected their purpose, they run away; this is termed "bilking."
The rough-looking prostitutes of this class seldom attend the music saloons, as they would be far outshone in personal appearance by the younger girls of the other class referred to. We see them late in the evening skulking about the dark lanes, or patrolling the streets, on the watch for drunken sailors, whom they take into low coffee-houses and beer-shops, and sometimes drug by putting snuff, or other ingredients—sometimes laudanum—in his liquor. They look out for north country sea-captains and sailors just come ashore, and sometimes visit their ships lying in the river, at King James's Stair, Wapping, Ratcliff Cross, Horseferry, Regent's Canal Dock, Stone Stairs, or New Crane Stairs, Shadwell.
Some of these brutal women have bullies, convicted thieves, who are sometimes
dressed as sailors; some of them are river pirates, and from their childhood have led a criminal life.
The average age of these prostitutes is from twenty to thirty-four. Many are slovenly dressed, and very dissipated and callous in appearance. Some of them are women of colour, whom we have seen brought to the police station at King David's Lane, charged with plundering coloured sailors of their money and clothes.
Number of felonies in the metropolitan districts, by prostitutes, during 1860 . . . . . .
692
Ditto, ditto, in the City . .
102
----
794
Value of property thereby abstracted in the metropolitan districts .
£ 2,651
Ditto, ditto, in the City . .
323
------
£ 2,974
