» Sexuality ©

’ Fernando
;

- Henriques
Author of Love in Action
illustrated
Dr. Henriques’s Suf?
‘writing on sex is neither over-statistical nor over-sentimental;
he seasons his facts with plentiful digression and illuminates
them with wit’
The Observer
Modern Sexuality
‘is a book to be highly recommended. Henriques has assembled
a great deal of useful documentary material. His attitude to
his subject matter is a rational and unprejudiced one.
He rejects puritanism no less thoroughly than romantic
exoticism. He advocates and emphasises sexual pleasure.
He correctly sees the complex of factors which produced the
particular phenomenon of nineteenth century prostitution as
being uniquely European and capitalist’
New Society
‘Dr. Henriques’s three-part tour de force* must now be
accounted the definitive word on this far-reaching subject —a
rare combination of scholarship and style’
Harper’s Bazaar

*The two earlier volumes are also available in Panther Books

 z The Tinoral Ttadinion
— (Vol. I of Prostitution and Society)

J
 Fernando Henriques

Modern Sexuality
Prostitution and Society, Volume III

A Panther Book
Prostitution and Society, Volt Lao eee
i5
Bo Book * ee ON oie a

hes Panther coe, published 1969. Gonwine © Fer

Henriques 1968

Chapter head designs by Rosamund Seymour

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by

way of trade or otherwise be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise —
circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form
binding or cover other than that in which it is published a
without a similar condition including this condition being impos l
on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is published at a net price and is supplied subjeceseoO
the Publishers Association Standard Conditions of Sale regis—
tered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956. Pi.
a

Printed in England by C. Nicholls & Company Ltd., The Phil

_ Park Press, Manchester, and published by Panther Books, 3 Up}
_ fames Street, London, W.r.
Contents

Preface

: Prostitution and the Liquor Trade: The First Phase

: The Opening Years of the Nineteenth Century
: The Map of Vice in Scotland
146 : Prostitution and the Liquor Trade: The Second Phase

174 : The Reality of the Prostitute .

201 : Victorian Sexual Morality

223 : The Client

266 : White Slavery
292 Aun
LR
W
o
oN: The Sociology of Prostitution
308 10: Contemporary Sexuality

333 Index
 Illustrations

‘Prostitution and folly dominating the world?

Child prostitute with an elderly procuress
Voyeurism in a brothel c. 1850
Kate Hamilton’s brothel off Leicester Square
How Félicien Rops saw two lesbian lovers, also
prostitutes
A French lesbian prostitute: by Félicien Rops
The only time prostitution made the pages of Punch
The reformation of nineteenth century prostitutes in
New York
Alicensed street of prostitutes in Hamburg

YT!
ss
re
eS
 In this concluding volume of Prostitution and Society an attempt
_ has been made to put forward a tentative analysis of the function
_ of prostitution in society through a discussion of certain aspects
of the problem in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Prostitution is a world-wide phenomenon: an analysis of all its
manifestations would require a study of far greater dimensions
than that which has been essayed. The work as a whole is offered
as a first, preliminary step towards that global analysis.
The author would like to acknowledge the assistance which
has been given him by many colleagues and friends. Notably the
advice and help given him by Professor A. N. Jeffares, and Stew-
art Sanderson, Director of the Institute of Folk Life Studies of
the University of Leeds, and Professor Asa Briggs of the Uni-
versity of Sussex. My thanks are also due to the Brotherton
Library of the University of Leeds, the Leeds Library, and the
London Library for their unfailing courtesy with regard to my
demands.
_ It is, however, to my wife that my deepest debt is owed.
Without her constant encouragement it is doubtful whether the
work would have been completed.

Sussex, 1967

~s‘~-
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 1: Prostitution and the Liquor Trade

THE FIRST PHASE

‘There enter the prude and the reprobate boy,

The mother of grief and the daughter of joy;
The serving-maid slim and the serving-man stout —
They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out.

Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect,

Apparently baffling its deadly effect;
But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives,
And ninety-nine perish for one who survives.’
The Upas Tree in Marybone Lane;
JAMES SMITH (1775-1839)

TuIs somewhat neglected poet, Mr. Smith, was here voicing the
sentiments possessed by so many throughout the nineteenth
century — that drinking was inherently evil, and led to the

II

pe
development of the worst vices in man. We shall endeavour to
show that such sentiments, in relation to prostitution, were only
too well founded.
The excess of the eighteenth century, the age of free-flowing
gin, are well known. It is sometimes thought, however, that the
succeeding century represents a steady development towards a
sober and industrious society. How else is it possible to explain
the transformation of Britain into ‘the workshop of the world’. It
is our opinion that this great economic expansion came about
despite the addiction of the mass of the population to alcohol. The
drinking habits established in an era when the manufacture of
gin was virtually uncontrolled underwent a modification in the.
nineteenth century but it is a modification to be associated with
changes in the structure of the liquor trade rather than with a
radical alteration in the drinking habits of the people. It is our
intention in the first place to establish that there was an intimate
connection between prostitution on the one hand and the liquor
trade on the other; secondly to demonstrate that indulgence in
alcohol had a profound effect on the development and functioning
of prostitution throughout the century. ©
The early years of the nineteenth century were the years in
which the great brewing firms of our own day were first begin-
ning to develop those monopolistic characteristics with which we
are familiar. The control of public houses, either directly or in-
directly, was eagerly sought as outlets for the sale of beer. A Select
Committee of the House of Commons in 1818 noted that there
was a ‘very large capital now invested by the brewers in the
Metropolis in the purchase or mortgage of freehold and leasehold
estates both in the Metropolis and still more in the country, or in
loans to publicans in order to secure their custom . . .”! In London
Whitbread in 1810 served 308 publicans, eighty-two per cent of
whom consisted of tied houses, Barclay Perkins in 1811 served
477, fifty-eight per cent of which were tied, and Truman Hanbury
and Buxton in 1810 served 481, seventy-eight per cent of which
were tied.? This process of control has continued up to the pre-
sent day in which the ‘free’ house, that is one not controlled by a
brewer, is a rarity. Emphasis is being laid on the control exercised
by the brewer through purchase or loan, not to demonstrate the
tendency towards monopoly, but to underline the fact that as this
control was in fact exercised, the conduct of public houses was as
much the responsibility of the brewer as it was of the publican,

12
 7-
”
7
y
The interests of the brewer were succinctly stated in a Times
leader of September 12th, 1891. ‘The natural tendency of a
brewer is simply to push the sale of his beer. Provided no for-
feiture of the licence be incurred, the especial manner in which
the business is conducted does not matter much to him. His
main desire is that the neighbourhood shall drink as much as
possible ...” This lack of concern in how public houses were
run is brought out very strongly in the evidence we consider
below.
The Police Reports for London published in the early nine-
teenth century reveal an extraordinary picture of crime and vice
on an overwhelming scale. (A picture, incidentally, which appears
__ to have been almost totally neglected by historians. There is no
entry, for example, in the index of E. L. Woodward’s The Age of
Reform, 1815-1870 for either crime or prostitution.) A case which
was presented to the Committee on the State of the Police of the
Metropolis in 1817 demonstrates the involvement of the brewers,
in this instance Meux and Co., with prostitution.
In 1813 the parish of Shadwell in Stepney was in a deplorable
condition. At that time, before the creation of a properly consti-
tuted police force for the metropolis area, the responsibility for
the maintenance of law and order lay with the trustees of the
parish. Sixty-one in number, they controlled a small police force
of constables and watchmen. A situation had developed, however,
in which their authority was consistently and systematically
defied. ‘There are also in the parish a superabundance of public-
houses, and some of them for a long time past have been the
constant resort of the most abandoned and profligate women; and
being in a situation affording a peculiar convenience for their evil
practices, and purposely fitted up for their accommodation, they
have occasioned the increase of the worst kind of houses of ill-
_ fame, the inhabitants whereof bid defiance to all decency and
restraint. The prostitutes and procuresses filled the streets both
night and day; and the parishioners have been thereby deprived
of the trade; for those public-houses, being situated in the High
Street, it was impossible for respectable persons to approach the
shops without having their eyes and ears offended by scenes and
language the most awful and disgusting. Every means adopted by
the officers failed to produce any good effect, and the parish
appeared as if it were doomed to be the receptacle of all the
profligates of the neighbourhood.”

13

~
 Because of this state of affairs the exasperated residents of
Shadwell began to complain to the local magistrate and the
trustees of the parish. Apart from the effect on trade there was an
acute moral danger. ‘... the female servants, the sons and
apprentices of the parishioners were constantly exposed to seduc-
tion, and-too often became a prey to the wretched beings with
whom they were continually surrounded; for it was a notorious
fact, that the watchmen and the patrols were constantly bribed
and paid by the very persons against whose misconduct they were
walt
ind
a8
pi
fone’
intended to guard.’* The trustees, alarmed by these complaints,
decided to take action themselves and began to patrol the
streets. They discovered that ‘... a principal source of the
mischief, and by which it derived its greatest countenance and
support, were the dancing rooms of the public-houses, and the
facilities they afforded of carrying on the nefarious practice of
betraying the innocent and unwary. The landlords who permitted
such irregularities were admonished by the trustees; they were
visited night after night; they were summoned to the police;
every lenient means was tried to persuade them to abate the
nuisance, but without avail . . .5 Eventually, acting on the advice
pe
of the local resident magistrate, the trustees decided to apply to
the licensing magistrates at the next brewers sessions for the
suspension of the licences of a number of public-houses. Appar-
ently the trustees’ petition was accepted with great reluctance
by the magistrates. In the event, however, the licences were
suspended until an appeal by the publicans was heard.
What followed is illustrative of the network of corruption ee
ee
e
ny
e

which had developed in Shadwell. “The most notorious of these

houses was the Duke of York, kept by - Hennekey, but supplied
with porter by Messrs Meux & Co. who had lent a large sum of
money upon the house, and which was producing an immense
return, the draught of beer and spirits being enormous. During
the interval between the complaint and the appeal day, Messrs
Meux & Co. used every exertion to prevent the proceedings. . .°
The individual who was most active on the brewers’ behalf was
Joseph Merceron who was himself one of the licensing magis-
trates. His power in Shadwell at that time was equivalent to that
exercised by a contemporary local party boss in the United States.
The result was that “The parties keeping the houses, and parti-
cularly Mr. Hennekey of the Duke of York, being well aware of e
a
e
ae
S
e

the powerful interest making in their favour, and as they boldly

14 :
 asserted being certain of its success, they not only continued their
indecent practices, but with the greatest impudence they defied
and threatened the parish officers, insulting them in the public
Streets, and daring them to do their worst.’7
The proceedings before the magistrates on the appeal day
showed how some of the most notorious public-houses in Shad-
q well were conducted. The bench was made up of the chairman,
Sir Daniel Williams, two clergymen, Messrs Thirlwall and Rob-
son, Merceron, and several others. Joseph Fletcher, a local
shipowner and churchwarden, had been the leader of the
parochial trustees in the fight to better conditions. In his sworn
testimony he described the conditions in certain public-houses.
‘, . [have seen on several days and on several nights, and par-
ticularly on several Sundays during divine service, the front of
the Pavior’s Arms so much surrounded with the lowest class of
prostitutes and lascars as to impede the path (public-houses were
supposed at law to close during the hours of divine service on
Sundays): that repeatedly during the last three months, and in
company of the officers of the parish now present, I have gone
into the said Paviors Arms, and found it filled with the same
description of persons, drinking, half-naked, and both men and
women sitting in indecent and improper postures, and using very
dreadful language ...’8 Fletcher had warned the publican on
several occasions that unless the latter changed his conduct he
would be likely to lose his licence. He was merely derided, and
matters proceeded as before. While he had been giving this
evidence both Robson and Merceron had heckled him from the
bench, demanding that he should be precise about dates and
times.
Fletcher then went on to discuss the White Hart and the Duke
of York. ‘He said, that those houses were situated in the High-
street, and nearly next door to each other; that each had a com-
munication with a back door, with a cross street and passage,
s filled with houses of ill-fame; that both the Duke of York and the

White Hart were fitted up for the reception of large parties; that
- jn each there was a long back room, with two rows of benches
and tables at the sides, and a large open space down the middle;
that upon every occasion when the officers had gone in, and
indeed during the whole of every day, and great part of the night,
- these rooms were continually filled with prostitutes and sailors;
_ that music was provided by the landlord, and that a succession of

T5
parties was constantly dancing and drinking . . .’® At this junc-
ture one of the clergymen on the bench, Robson, interrupted to
say ‘that dancing among sailors and their girls could not be
considered as an evil, and it was better that the women should be
in the houses than the streets; that he could see nothing in all that
had been advanced, and he affected to treat the complaint with
levity ...1° This would appear to be a somewhat surprising
comment to have been made by a clergymen. Its effect was to
make Fletcher state precisely what was occurring.
He had hoped to spare himself from going into details but now
he did not ‘hesitate to declare what was awfully true, that from
one to three hundred women of the town were constantly
assembled in these rooms, which were the high exchange of
prostitution, where every indecency and obscenity were carried
to the greatest pitch; that the procuresses and their girls walked
the streets in open day, to the annoyance and terror of the in- ee
e
habitants; that they decoyed men and boys into these houses,
where they were plied with liquor, and assailed with women and
music, that the floor was constantly occupied with their dancing
in the most libidinous manner; that amidst these scenes of riot
and debauchery, the bargain was made with the procuresses, and
the price of prostitution paid, while the immediate communica-
tion with the brothel afforded an easy transition to complete the
ruin of those who had been so unfortunately betrayed: Mr.
Fletcher further stated, that he believed Hennekey, the landlord
and reputed proprietor of the Duke of York, had himself
purchased the lease of the brothels behind his house, lately
belonging to Wolff Cohen, whom the parish had at great expense
ee
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Oe
S
prosecuted to conviction and who stood in the pillory for keeping
them. These and many more such facts, were corroborated by
the testimony of the other officers .. .”#
The effect of this evidence was to cause a heated discussion
among the magistrates. After some time, despite the advocacy of
Merceron and his friends, the licences of the three public
houses in question were withdrawn for the coming year. It was
practice in the event of a license not being renewed for the
publican to have almost a month of grace in which to get rid of
his stock. During this period Hennekey and his colleagues carried
on in exactly the same manner for which they had been indicted.
Meanwhile the parish officers and trustees printed a public notice
which contained the facts of the case to serve as a warning to the

16
 =

other
AES licensees in the parish. This does not appear to have effected
a great deal possibly because Hennekey and his friends boasted
that they would be re-licensed in the following year."
There seems little doubt that on the face of the evidence Messrs
Meux & Co. were not only fully aware of the activity of Hen-
nekey, but had probably encouraged him in his course as this had
been extremely profitable for their trade. That this indeed was
the case is seen in the extremely sordid and devious actions taken
by the brewers after the decision of the magistrates. Soon after
that event a waiter, who later proved to be an undischarged
bankrupt, and a barmaid of the Duke of York called on Fletcher,
who was of course parish officer, and said they had taken a public-
house, the King’s Arms, a few doors away from the Duke of
York, and hoped they would be allowed to open it for business.
Fletcher believed, and it is difficult not to agree with him, that
this was merely a plot on the part of Meux & Co. and Hennekey
to continue their former operations. The proposal was of course
turned down out of hand.
Subtlety (sic) having failed a more open approach was made.
‘Two representatives of Meux & Co. appeared before a meeting
of the parochial committee and stated the facts as they saw them.
Meux & Co. had advanced a large sum of money to Hennekey,
and as the Duke of York was now unlicensed they stood to lose
_ this money. They therefore wished the committee to look kindly
_ at their application for the licensing of the King’s Arms. As they
pointed out the only means of recovery they possessed was by
preserving the local connection built up by the Duke of York. It
seems an astounding plea to have been made. It should perhaps
be explained that a would-be licensee required a certificate of
_ approval from the parish officers before the licensing magistrate
would grant him a licence. This request was also dismissed.'4
The next approach came from the highest level of all. A Mr.
Lucas, who was presumed to be a partner in Meux & Co.,
begged for the favour of an interview with the churchwardens of
Shadwell (Mellish and Fletcher). At the subsequent meeting
Lucas made an impassioned plea that justice having been done
there was no necessity for the parish to prevent his firm from
recouping its losses. The churchwardens, however, were equal to
the occasion. “They pointed out to Mr. Lucas the extreme
indecency of his request; and they assured him, that they would
omit no exertion to purge the parish of such haunts of vice. Mr.

7
 ae oke

ee was very indignant at mute remarks, and d

houses were necessary in all sea-ports, and were always
at by magistrates; but as the Duke of York was closed, and Messrs
Meux & Co. had purchased another house, the King’s Arms, he —
‘supposed that Mr. Mellish and Mr. Fletcher, did not intend to —
say, that bricks and mortar could offend against morality; and
although they objected against Hennekey, Mills (the bankrupt _
‘waiter mentioned above), and Hennekey’s barmaid, they could
not be so unjust as to push the business of the King’s Arms, et
provided that a, person of good character was placed in it as
landlord.’'s At this juncture the churchwardens made, as it turned 4
out, a grave error. They agreed that there would be no objection
if a licensee of impeccable character could be found for the—
King’s Arms. The following week an agent of Meux & Co, ~
..”
appeared before the parochial committee together with a Mr. Be
Birks, the landlord-designate. Birks was warned of the conversa-
tion which had taken place between the churchwardens and _
Lucas and told that ‘if he attempted to continue the connexion,
as it had been called, between the brewers of the Duke of York _
(that is Meux & Co.) and the houses of ill-fame, the officers
would act with the utmost rigour.”" ie
Birks agreed to everything and duly licensed in. Withina _
_ month the King’s Arms was engaged in the lucrative trade of —
_ prostitution and liquor on an even bigger scale than the Duke of
York, Meux & Co, having paid for extensive alterations to be
_ carried out to the house. Birks was summoned before the police E
¥
_ magistrates, but ignored the warnings given him. Other publicans
seeing the freedom with which Birks operated began to build
_ dancing rooms, and embark on the same kind of trade. They
were all informed that their relicensing at the next brewers
sessions would be opposed. None of these warning had any
effect.!7
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ees
pea
This state of affairs continued for nearly a year. The parish was —
_ now in thorough disorder. In August 1814 a vestry meeting was
_ convened and a. number of resolutions were voted and ordered —
_ to be printed and circulated to the parishioners. Some of these —
_ resolutions indicate emphatically the conditions which obtained
in Shadwell. et a
‘It was Resolved, os -
“That the increasing number of prostitutes, who during allie ye
hours of the day and night, are continually infesting the public .
| ee

_ Streets, and using the most obscene and profane language, is an

: alarming evil, destructive to morality and good order, and which
_ requires immediate attention and redress.
“That the encouragement given by certain licensed victuallers
_ in this parish to these abandoned women, by suffering them to
use their houses as a constant resort, into which they entice the
_ unwary and the youth, where by the aid of intoxication, they
_ more effectually seduce them to their guilty purposes, is, toa very ”
_ great degree, the cause of the nuisance.
_ “That these houses being a scene of constant riot and de-
_bauchery, afford facilities for carrying on with impunity every
_ description of profligacy and vice, and have a direct and certain
_ tendency to initiate those who are unhappily persuaded to fre-
‘quent them, into habits of idleness and dissipation, which corrupt
their morals; and thus, by the persuasion and example of their.
profligate associates, they become depraved, and are rendered
- callous to every honest feeling. .. .”18 :
Other resolutions were concerned with the organization of an -
_ association of the parish officers, police, and all who cared to
_ join, to combat the evils already described. To accuse them of
acting as puritanical vigilantes would, if the streets of Shadwell
were as they described, be unjust. The parishioners were in fact
_ seriously alarmed. They further resolved to petition the magis-
trates to intervene; and that they themselves should use all
_ measures within their power to put down the number of
brothels and take action against the swarms of procuresses.'9
—
In the memorial which was subsequently presented to the
licensing magistrates particular public-houses were singled out
_ by name — the King’s Arms, its neighbour the Black Horse, the
_ Ship, the Queen’s Landing, and the Angel. As might be expected
_ the memorial was not kindly received. However, the licences of
the houses in question were suspended pending the hearing on
the appeal day. Public houses which had not been licensed be-
fore were known as new houses and were dealt with on a separate
_ day at the sessions. It was also the right of the magistrtates to
_ inspect such houses. ‘By a manoeuvre, which, no doubt, was
_ planned by some of the magistrates and their clerks, in conjunc-
- tion with Messrs Meux & Co., and the other brewers, it was con-
trived to petition for the Duke of York, the White Hart, and the
- Pavior’s Arms, as new houses.?° Unfortunately for Fletcher this
_ strategy proved successful.

At 19
 ¥
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Ss above, but diannot eainen iheete fhees cna the mor
of their visit. When they did appear outside the Duke of York ;;
large crowd gathered. It was against the background of this
crowd that the following extraordinary events took place. Fletch-
er went up to the chairman of the bench, Sir Daniel Williams,
and remonstrated with him in a polite fashion saying that al- —
though they had only just learned of the magistrate’s visit they !E
were prepared to state their case there and then. Sir Daniel’s —
reply was to say that Fletcher was too late as the magistrates had
determined to grant the licences. The latter was then abused by —
another magistrate for behaving improperly. Sir Daniel mean-
while had reached the White Hart and was about to go in when ~
Merceron intervened to say it was unnecessary as they had al-
ready decided to licence it. Whereupon the magistrates left —
' leaving behind them a flabbergasted crowd of parishioners who —
realised that the brewers and the magistrates between them had _
inflicted a defeat on the parochial committee.2! Worse, however, —
was to occur. ql
At the hearing at the licensing sessions the proceedings went :
very badly for the parish. Fletcher began his case by referring to *
the Duke of York. He was immediately ruled out of order the
chairman stating that the public-houses the subject of the prev-
ious year’s petitions were not on the agenda, and that a
matters had been settled. He attempted to persist maintaining
that the case of the Duke of York was the basis of the present _
memorial before the bench. Again he was stopped. Eventually—
Fletcher began his pleas as to the prevailing conditions in the
King’s Arms and how this had come about. As soon as he was _
finished one of the clergymen on the bench, the Reverend Mr. _
Robson, suggested that there was no proof of what had been said. _
‘We have been told, Sir, that prostitutes and sailors are fre-
quently dancing and drinking; and we all know that there must
be houses for their accommodation; there must be prostitutes
and are they not better in the back rooms of houses (publi
houses) than in the public streets? Were it not for such women, —
modest females would not be safe.’ Mr. Merceron and Mr. Storey _
(other magistrates) said, ‘Certainly not.’ Other magistrates _
acquiesced; and the chairman, said, ae be sure,> cena &

20 —
 “i
é<
he would be hanged! ... Mr. Fletcher said, it was very painful to
A him to be obliged to describe particularly most disgusting
_ Scenes ... but as the worthy magistrate desired to have evidence
_
of the obscenity, he was compelled, although relunctantly, to
_ Say, that the persons of the women were not only indecently ex-
_ posed, but both men and women were often sitting together
with their hands in improper situations; which he went on to
_ mention minutely, as having himself, as well as the officers, seen
’ in the King’s Armas... .?22
The rest of the evidence against the other public-houses men-
tioned in the memorial was of a similar order. The interesting
_ point, however, came out that several of the publicans had said
_they had been forced into this conduct because of the example of
_ the King’s Arms. If they had attempted to conduct an orderly
_ house their trade would have been ruined. Prostitution clearly
enhanced the trade in liquor. When the defence was called it
_ transpired that the brewers had discovered a new weapon. Pre-
vious to the hearing Meux & Co. had approached Fletcher and
intimated that they wished to introduce another landlord in the
_ place of Birks, whom we have mentioned above. The.shipowner
_ had categorically refused to sign the necessary certificate. Pre-
sumably having obtained a certificate elsewhere the defence now
—_= triumphantly produced a man called Gray as the landlord of the
_ King’s Arms, Fletcher was asked if he knew anything against
_ Gray, and of course could only reply in the negative. The case
_ for the memorial now started to.collapse to the apparent satisfac-
tion of a majority of the magistrates. To complete the rout
Merceron managed to produce some witnesses who proceeded to
_ state that in the /ast month or so they had found nothing amiss
_ with the conduct of the public-houses in question. Clearly care
had been taken to see that this was precisely the case.
‘The magistrates then proceeded to license the King’s Arms
and all the other houses; the landlords came down home, in-
creased the number of their musicians; filled their houses with |
- guests, and spent the night in riot and debauchery; at the same
time openly declaring, that if any one of the officers dared to
enter their houses, they should not get out again without a re-
membrance.”3 The publicans, and no doubt the brewers, were,
so delighted with their success that they bought space in both
‘The Times and the Public Ledger in order to express their grati-
tude to the magistrates.”
a
es
or ; 21
 Although thus defeated the parish sought legal advice as to
whether a criminal action would lie against the magistrates.
According to the then Attorney-General such action would not
have succeeded as in the evidence offered to him there was noth-
ing to suggest that the magistrates had acted corruptly, althoue
they might have acted against the public interest.5
In the proceedings before the Police Committee Fletchers ts
evidence was corroborated by several other parish officers from
Shadwell. But prior to this a member of the Committee, Charles _
Calvert of the great brewing firm, protested the notorious —
Pavior’s Arms was not the property of his firm, that although he
supplied it with beer he had never sought to influence the bench _
in its interest, and that he did not even supply any of the other _
houses. Fletcher was prepared to accept Calvert’s word that this
was the case. It would appear, however, that Calvert’s interven-
tion was somewhat equivocal. While Calvert & Co. had not been
guilty of the machinations of Meux & Co. it is difficult to believe
that the firm was totally unaware of the type of custom which —
was attracted to the Pavior’s Arms. By continuing to supply it _
with beer Calvert was maintaining the link between prostitution
and the liquor trade.
We have devoted considerable attention to the case of the —
parish of Shadwell and Messrs Meux & Co. because it presents
definite evidence of the type of collusive action between brewer —
and publican which promoted both their own trade and that of —
prostitution. It is as well to remember that the events described
were still going after four years. They had started in 1813 and
were still continuing as the Police Committee met in 1917. In
_ other words this was no mere temporary, accidental connection
but a long term one. Meux & Co. have not been singled out for
attack in this respect. The case of Shadwell is extremely well- —
documented and they happened to be the brewers in the case. It — 4
must be said, however, that at no time before the Committee did _
a member of the firm, or a representative, attempt to rebut the a
evidence offered, as happened in Calvert’s case. This would seem
to suggest that the facts were too well-known for such a rebuttal
to be effective. iat,
Finally the extenuating circumstances, if so they can be des- ;
cribed, of the brewers’ and. publicans’ conduct in Shadwell must a
be considered. It is a well-known feature of prostitution through-
‘out the world that its incidence is greatest in seaports. Sailbrssy 4

22
=
-—
 Ae
Bm fe
Lan :

rr

for obvious reasons, tend to be ‘natural’ clients of the prostitute.

Shadwell with its extensive dock area comes into this category.
One of the licensing magistrates, Casten Rhodes, who gave evi-
dence before the Police Committee in 1817, put the matter in
this way —‘. . . I think in the situation of things at present, there
is no cure for it (disorderly public-houses); and my reason for
that is, that I think little good can be done by taking away the
licences of houses in Shadwell, for this reason that the population
consists entirely of foreign sailors, Lascars, Chinzse, Greeks,
and other dirty filthy people of that description; that the women
of the town never cohabit with any other people than that des-
cription of people, and wherever they are, they will go in spite of
what can be done. The men (the publicans) get their bread by
these sort of people, and they cannot help admitting them . . .”26
Even allowing for Rhodes’ perhaps misplaced patriotism, it
would be far from the truth to assume that at this period London
_ boroughs away from the river were not afflicted in this way. As
we shall endeavour to show prostitutes abounded in all parts of
the city. The real point is, however, that the publicans and
brewers could have pleaded that they did not create the demand
for the type of accommodation provided — they merely supplied
it. In other words public houses which refused, not just to tolerate
prostitutes, but to allow procuresses to transact business on the
premises, quite apart from those which operated in conjunction
ia with brothels, would be forced to close their doors. If the liquor
trade knowingly encouraged the degraded prostitution typical of
the age, as appears to be the case, it is extremely difficult to
‘defend its actions.
It is not suggested that brewers encouraged prostitution
because they were inherently vicious. A kinder view is that
they were led astray in the pursuit of profit. That something
approaching this was the case transpires in the evidence
given by John Martineau, a partner in Whitbread & Co., before
the Police Committee. He was asked — ‘It has been given in evi-
dence before the Committee, that in one district of the metropo-
lis, namely, Shadwell, a great profit was made in several of the ©
public-houses by encouraging dancings, and licentious inter-
courses between the persons of both sexes that frequented the
public-houses; and that, in consequence, other persons engaged
in the victualling line, finding their houses empty while those
were full, they, consequently, making little money while the

23°
others were inven much, fellinto thesame5 courses; do:y t
therefore see that, in that instance, the person (Meux & Co.) w:
supplied the house that conducted itself in a disorderly manner,
by having a greater vent for the articles which he supplied, it be- 4 q
came to him more profitable than it would have been if it had
been managed in a more sober and restricted way, in which the
other public-houses in the district were conducted?’ Martineau
gave an equivocal answer to the effect that as only a small
amount of Whitbread’s trade lay in Shadwell he had no personal
knowledge of conditions there. He was then asked — ‘Where
great profits are made by a considerable vent of the articles you
supply, the greater the influx of the persons in that house the
greater the want? — Clearly so. Is it not then a bounty to persons
to keep disorderly houses in districts where disorderly people
are apt to frequent; thereby making a much greater sale of the
commodity they deal in, than they would if they conducted the ©
houses in a more orderly manner? — Of course, if the trade is
increased in those disorderly houses, the profits must be in pro-
portion greater.’27
The point is quite clear — that the trade would take advantage
of whatever conditions obtained in a neighbourhood in order to
push sales. Corroboration of this, and an indication of the magis-
trates’ attitude towards the problem, appears in the case of
another borough — Finsbury. Samuel Mills, one of the licensing
magistrates, stated to the Committee that the state of affairs in —
Finsbury were very akin to those in Shadwell — the public-
houses were besieged by prostitutes at night-fall. “You have
stated, that within your own knowledge there are many houses
in your district that principally owe their support to their being
a resort for thieves and prostitutes; why do those houses exist
one hour after licensing day? - I am apprehensive that if the
magistrates were to refuse the licences to all those houses against
which they had had complaints, they would suppress at least one
half of those in Whitecross Street, Golden-lane, and the alleys
leading out of them.”8 The liquor trade in Finsbury was
obviously venturing on the same course as it had in the dock area
of Shadwell.
It might be thought that the magistrates themselves were _
morally corrupt as they refused to take the obvious measure —
refusal to relicense, but there was another possibly more import-
ant, consideration which weighed with them ‘, ... The tenderness

24
 of the magistrates towards such property as is known to be em-
tae
i
barked in public-houses, has always operated against their doing
their duty in the extreme . . .”?9 It is important to realise that
that was the opinion of a magistrate. Brewing was, by the stan-
ards of the day, big business. The partners’ joint capital in three
of the major brewery firms in London — Truman, Whitbreads,
and Meux — were in 1810 £318,675, £300,000; and £480,000
respectively.3° The ‘tenderness’ of the magistrates would seem to
have been affected by the amount of money involved. With
regard to the influence of the brewer on the running of public-
houses it must be remembered that Whitbreads in 1810 con-
trolled (tied houses) 82 per cent of the publicans they served, and
_ Trumans 78 per cent.3! In 1817 an estimate given to the Police
Committee of the number of tied houses in the trade as a whole
was two-thirds or three-quarters.2
Another significant aspect of the magistrates’ attitude is seen
in the complaints against public-houses accepted at licensing
sessions. An example is the list for Bethnal Green in 1816. None
mention disorderly conduct or prostitution on the premises.
They are almost all concerned with late hours and gaming with
_ the exception of The Rosemary Branch where the entertainment
given proved too exciting for the patrons. ‘Suffering fireworks to
be let off, and a number of disorderly persons and thieves; a
representation of the battle of Waterloo.’33 From the evidence of
conditions in Shadwell and Finsbury it is extremely unlikely that
Bethnal Green was in any way different.
If it is agreed, and it seems reasonable to do so, that where he
controlled a public-house it was the responsibility of the brewer
to see that a respectable individual was appointed as landlord,
then failure to do this made the former responsible for any mis-
conduct which ensued. One magistrate’s opinion was ‘. . . the
fact is, that sufficient inquiry is not made into the characters of |
- the landlords . . .3+ This can be placed against the view of an
eminent brewer, Charles Barclay, himself a member of the
Police Committee. He declared that ‘. . . the greatest pains is
~

taken to investigate the character of the persons (publicans) we

trust; we are sometimes deceived . . .”35 We can only comment
that this was an expected answer. There is overwhelming evi-
3 dence on almost every page of the Police Report that publicans
all over London were guilty of the gravest misconduct in the
a running of their premises.

i 25
 ble
siderable orden was et Rees the Co it
_ that individual brewers had exerted pressure on the |
bench to grant licences, withdraw them, and stop initial appli:

s Cbraperitees. If the behaviour of a particular panont was a out=_

__ rageous that the house he occupied would be not re-licensed, —
then it was a simple matter for another landlord to be substituted os
before licensing day, as we saw above in the case of the Duke of
: York. In such cases the publicans rarely suffered as conditions
__ were such that he could easily obtain a licence in another part of —
‘ London, and still serve his master’s interest. The whole business _
of obtaining a certificate of character from a parish officer was a
Beoce tarce,s? .
| With regard to the direct connection of the brewers with pros- 4
- titution one other case deserves to be mentioned. It concerns _

-Merceron, whom we have discussed above. According to the d

lee.
: evidence of the Reverend Joshua King, the rector of Bethnal
2s hoy three of the public houses-were notorious for their con- _

at the Sun, a club significantly termed a cock and hen club, hi

been, and I believe still is held — In which boys and girls mee
Yes, and get drunk and debauch one another.’38 Merceron eith

Pvclve from him. All of them were supplied by Hanburyel the

Seven Stars and Three Sugar Loaves included.39
oH The influence which Hanbury was able to bring to bear on the
"sy
licensing magistrates is very strongly established in the ply

tualler has a better chance of obtaining a licence fre the licens-

_ing magistrate if he applies for that licence through the medium —t
of one person more than another? _ Rune a man i

f ofany other person than Messrs Hanbury; I ence maresis :

oeintimacy and connexion between Mr. Merceron and them, foe
 heard Mr. Merceron formerly declare, when I was on better
terms with him that I am at present, that Hanbury was a devilish
good fellow, that he was always sending him presents, that he
supplied his house with beer gratis, and that the week before he
had sent him half a barrel of porter . . .°4° It is obvious that
Merceron’s reputation must have been known to Hanbury. The
reason for his continued support of the disreputable public-
houses owned by Merceron was that they provided excellent
outlets for his beer. The appositeness of the extract from The
Times leader we quoted above was as relevant in 1816 as it was in
189g1.
We turn now from what might be called the direct influence of
the brewers on the development of prostitution to the indirect
promotion of demoralisation by the liquor trade. In other words
to discuss the general effect of the consumption of alcohol in the
functioning of prostitution in these early years of the nineteenth
century.
One of the most iniquitous practices which compelled people
to resort to the public-houses, and which persisted throughout a
great part of the century, was the custom of paying workmen’s
wages in licensed premises. The landlords were only too willing
to co-operate in the matter. ‘Are not most of the wages of the
journeymen manufacturers in the capital paid in public-houses on
-a Saturday evening? There are many of them that are and in
some cases at a very late hour, very injuriously to the morals of
the people, and in fact only to benefit public-houses. I do not see,
in all the view I have taken of it, that any good can result to
others but to the publicans, because by paying them late on
Saturday night, they get a little beer, and feel themselves com-
fortable there, and they think nothing about going home: they
stay there until twelve at night, and the houses are open again at
five in the morning, and they go again and stay until church-
- time before they are turned out, if they are turned out at all; but if
they are not obliged to leave by the appearance of the parish
- officers, they remain in probably for the whole of the day. This
very much demoralises the minds of the men, it renders them
paupers upon the parish, they remain so all their life-time, and
their children also follow their example .. .’#* It can be imag-
inged what a concourse of prostitutes infested the public-houses
on Saturday evenings.
The publicans adopted various devices to prolong the

it 27
 were not ade up. uss frases worinen
forced to drink while they waited. Meanhile their families would
collect at the door hoping to prevent all the wages being spent on —
drink. Eventually the foreman or clerk would arrive and proceed —
to have his supper, which took some considerable time. The men _
bored and anxious would start in to sing, and drink on a large
scale. The wages would not actually be paid out until ten or
eleven in the evening. Clearly this was the beginning of an ex- — ‘
tremely profitable week-end for the landlord. Some trades, _
such as coal-heavers, had, as we shall see, in another chapter, —
even more demoralising customs.
Another feature of social life which the brewers and the public-
houses encouraged was the formation of Friendly Benefit -
Societies. The brewers had begun in the eighteenth century to act
as a kind of saving bank for depositors. Clubs had been formed —
for mutual self-help which were located in the public-houses.
P. Mathias in his The Brewing Industry in England 1700-1830 } ay
(Cambridge 1959, p. 277) speaks ‘. . . of the world of self-help SE
e
P
e
Oe
ee
rae
which centred round the public-houses’, and of the fact that a

. we may surmise that their (i.e. the clubs’) most welcome —

function for the brewer was in holding a regular clientele to-
_ gether at his public-houses (the publican usually being the ©
_treasurer)’. Exactly how this worked to the advantage of the a
brewer, and the detriment of the working man emerges in —
the pages of the Report from the Select Committee on the Poor Laws,
1817-(Clement’s Edition).
‘According to the evidence of John Cunningham, Vicar of
. Harrow, the primary function of the clubs was seriously im- _
paired by their place of meeting. Apparently members paid into
the club two shillings a month. Sixpence of this had to be spent _
on beer when the club convened. All the sixpences contributediin
this way had to be spent on beer on the club night irrespective of
the number of members present. The result was described as
follows: ‘... I was examining into the case of two in which they wt!
were sixty members; a member told me there were very rarely _
twenty who attended, therefore in each of those cases they drank
sixty pots of beer, and of course got to a state in which, if they
_ could, they would drink sixty more; and that principle I believe ©
/, jt0 be almost universal’ (p, 201). The difficulty that these conviv- —

28
 ial evenings created was that public-houses seldom shut before
midnight on club nights. ‘. . . the demoralising effect of Benefit
Societies under their present constitution (i.e. meeting in public-
houses) is perfectly enormous...’ Even worse was the fact that
the publican acted as treasurer. ‘. . . the publican is very often
the treasurer of the club, and of course has considerable facility,
either in lending that money to his friends, or in borrowing for
himself; the effect of that, out of seven clubs in my own parish
and hamlets. has been that several are almost in a state of bank-
ruptcy, and two have in the space of five years become bank-
rupts ...’ (p. 201). It would appear that more than ‘self-help’
was generated by the public-houses.
We do noi of course suggest that all clubs in all public-houses
were conducted in this manner — many no doubt were of an
impeccable standard — but that the distortion in many instances
of the morally useful principle of mutual aid by brewers and
landlords in the interests of trade opened the way both to exces-
sive drinking and loose living. The world of the tavern was the
world of the prostitute, and the evidence points overwhelmingly in
the direction that the individual was easily engulfed in that world.
The law at this time permitted licensed premises to be open
on Sundays except during the hours of divine service. It was the
_ duty of the beadle or other parish officer to make the rounds of
the parish to see that the law was obeyed. Often this was neglect-
ed. In any event the public houses and gin-shops could stay open
from midnight on Saturday until 10.30 on Sunday morning. This
gave the would-be drinker ample time to fortify himself against
the dearth of the closing hours. It led to a kind of compulsive
drinking which had disastrous public manifestations. The follow-
ing, according to the beadle, was the case of St. Andrew’s parish :
in Hatton Garden. ‘Are the lower classes in your parish generally
riotous on the Sundays? — Yes, they are .. . How many are
' generally in the state you have described in Saffron-hill on the
Sunday mornings? — From three to five hundred. Are they most-
- ly intoxicated? — The greatest number of them. ... Do the liquor
shops carry on much business on a Sunday morning? — A great
deal. Do you think the week’s earnings are generally spent on the
Saturday night and the Sunday morning? - Yes, I should sup-
pose they are; the public-houses are so full that you can scarcely
get into them... They seldom call for less than a pot, but sel-
dom less than half a gallon, as commonly as can be. . .*3

yf 29
 oa which became all over London. It was not only
houses and gin shops which were open on a Sunday morning
ordinary shops opened to cater for the people who had o
~ received their wages late the previous night. The result was the
abandoned scenes in Islington Fields typical of many parts of the
metropolis. ‘Have you made any observation on the state of the
fields ajoining Islington on the Sabbath-day? — Yes; I generally
return from the extreme part of the city in the middle of the ©
Sunday, after worship; and the state of the City Road, with those
_ shops that have been frequently indicted in times past, but which —
now carry on an unrestrained trade, continue a real nuisance, so
much so, that passengers are frequently obliged to walk off the
pavement; and I may here beg to notice an evil which has much —
increased .. . and which tends powerfully to resist the claims of
reverence due to the Sabbath, the sale of Sunday newspapers; —
this traffic is carried on to great extent in the City-road, and be-
comes a central point to numbers of idle people who stop to —
read the placards, purchase the papers, or wrangle on the ~
contents. When we turn up by the Shepherd and Shepherdess, :
to cross the fields we are met by hordes of dirty artificers in their
week dress, and many of them intoxicated, in two’s and three’s —
who are constantly returning from the dog fights, and other —
_bruttish sports, which are held in the fields near Copenhagen-
house; and I understand from the inhabitants of those parts, —
hat they omit to take notice of them, from motives of fear...
and in crossing the fields, I have even observed playing at cricket —
on the Sunday ...’44 ee
The observer in question was a businessman, John Scott, who —
lived in Islington and had been one of the founders of a local _
Society for the Suppression of Vice. Scott linked all the ills he ay
described with the practice of paying wages in public-houses.*5 —
The reader may think it curious that Sunday newspapers, 3
_ intoxication, Sunday morning shopping, dog fights, and playing _
cricket should all be held to be equally heinous. It is not as _
strange as it sounds. All these activities were indulged in by
people who were by no means sober, and general behaviour was
ity disorderly iin the extreme— a cricket match could be the occasion
of a major riot when the teams were half-drunk. Many Sunday =
papers were thought to be subversive in content, and their sale ey
___ was just one more excuse for thronging the streets. On the sub- —

hi 30
 versive content of newspapers read by the masses see John Bow-
=
les, Reflections on the Political and Moral State of Society,
London 1800, footnote, pp. 164-65. The key to the whole matter
was the freedom with which public-houses operated, and all the
encouragement they gave to vicious behaviour. This was admit-
ted even by those who regarded any secular activity on the Sab-
bath as inherently wicked.
The encouragement given by the liquor trade to crime and
debauchery can be seen from a somewhat different angle from
those we have discussed so far. Amongst the hundreds of public-
houses in London were several which had achieved a special dis-
tinction as the resort of thieves and prostitutes. They were
known as flash-houses. The chairman of the Police Committee in
1817 had this to say about them: ‘. . . there are above 200 regular
* flash-houses in the metropolis, all known to the police officers,
which they frequent, many of which are open all night; that the
landlords in numerous instances receive stolen goods, and are
what are technically called fences; that this fact is also known to
many of the officers, who, for obvious reasons, connive at the
existence of these houses . . . I am in possession of a list of the
houses and of the names and residences of many hundreds of the
frequenters of them. The list enumerates the signs of the house,
and the names of the persons keeping them, which exceeds 200;
that the houses are frequented by between 11 and 12,000 persons,
out of which are about 6,000 boys and girls, living solely on the
_ town by thieving, or as the companions and associates of thiev-
Bement. *°
Such places, not necessarily public-houses, have existed in
this country from a remote period, and still exist today. The
defence offered by the police of their toleration of flash-houses in
Regency times is the same as that which would be offered in our
own. day. ‘Are you of opinion that these flash-houses tend to
facilitate the detection of offenders, or otherwise! — ] am sure
they do... they are attended with this advantage, for they often
furnish means of detecting great offenders; they afford an oppor-
tunity to the officers of going round, and knowing the suspicious
characters, or of apprehending persons described in advertise-
ments. It is desirable that the officers should know there are such
houses, for there is a regular correspondence carried on between
the thieves of Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, and
other places, and the thieves of London; and probably by going

wid 31
 -mation respecting desperate characters. in all part | OUL
try. . 247 This was the opinion of aBow Street officer. Not i
_ everyone who was connected with the police were as frank in their ;
admission of the usefulness as flash-houses. The clerk to the
magistrates at Bow Street refused to admit that such houses
existed in his locality despite the fact that one of the most _
notorious was right opposite his office.+® The reason for this will
become apparent. A parish constable in St Giles admitted their
existence but was adamant that they served no useful purpose
whatsoever.*? A more equivocal view was that of a senior police
officer in Bloomsbury — ‘I do not think very respectable officers
can long bear to be in the company of the lower class of thieves, _
on account of their conversation and their manners; notwith-
standing, on particular occasions, I think good might be done by ~ q
bearing with it a short time; but as to those flash-houses in
general, when we take into account what must naturally arise —
from the introduction of youth, and the extra bad habits that
‘those who are inclined to do evil ae gi | imbibe at such
houses, it does more harm than good...
The most reasonable defence of the oe of flash-houses ie
was that given by the eminent lawyer and magistrate, Patrick,
Colquhoun - ‘It has been frequently stated that the existence of
such houses is necessary for the purpose of enabling the Police
Officers to know where to find criminal persons . . . and it must
be acknowledged that it frequently happens that the landlords or _
occupiers of those houses do give useful information to the
officers .. .?5!
The real corruption of the flash-houses, however, lay in its
_ effect on young people of both sexes. Flash-houses were the head- ¥
quarters of youthful criminal gangs which parcelled out whole
areas of London as the scene of their activities. After their suc-
cessful depredations they would return to the public-houses to
_ divide the spoils, carouse and indulge in debauchery. ‘You mean
by flash-houses low public-houses? — Yes; to which thieves, and
people who are to be seduced to be thieves resort; at some of
a
ae these houses there is an assemblage of men, women, boys, and
girls ... Iapprehend that the greater part of juvenile depredators
occasionally cohabit with girls of their own age. The early asso-
<4
~ _ ciation of the sexes,

as
I fear, prevails to an alarming extent. We ©
have had reason to believe that there were houses exclusively for

32
__ the reception of boys and girls. It is stated, that there were sever-
al in St Giles, and that at one house four hundred beds are made
up every night; a boy who was in the habit of visiting this house
confessed that he had slept there upwards of thirty times with
girls of his own age, and he particularly named five; this boy was
fourteen years of age, the girls were to be met with at the flash-
house to which he resorted.’#2
It would appear that our contemporary concern with juvenile
sexual activity is not as recent a phenomenon as we have been
inclined to think. There is no doubt that the flash-houses opera-
ted in the way described above. The dilemma was that although
they served as forcing grounds of crime there was no question
that they could, and did, render assistance to the police. It was in
fact a moral problem whether to permit these vicious public-
houses to continue in their courses. The Police Committee treat- —
ed it as though closure of the flash-houses were possible, but in
fact as soon as one was closed another opened.
As we have seen the Committee agreed with the evidence
offered that such places were inherently evil. The sentiments
expressed by the joint secretary of a society concerned with the
study of juvenile delinquency, William Crauford, met with their
full approval. ‘. . . The encouragement which the officers of the
police give to these pestiferous haunts, termed ‘“‘flash-houses”’,
to which thieves are accustomed to resort, is a very serious evil;
in these nurseries of crime are to be found the most experienced
and notorious thieves; boys and girls from nine years of age;
women of the most profligate description, associating indiscrimi-
nately and mixing with the very men who are employed for the
preservation of public morals. . .’5
Refusal of licences by the magistrates might have had a tem-
porary effect in one area but effective control could have been
exercised from an entirely different source — the brewers. As we
know a majority of public-houses was in fact controlled by the
brewers, the rest were supplied by them. The threat of removing
the landlord, or of cutting off supplies, might have achieved a
drastic reformation of the character of the flash-house. It is
obvious why such measures were never adopted — the flash-
houses must have been among the most profitable of the outlets
‘at the disposal of the brewer. The facts were so notorious, for
these public-houses were not hidden away in back-streets — one
of the most infamous was the Black Horse in Tottenham Court

at ; 33
ib,
 iy ee genre se Aa eee
‘
TNa

Road* — that they could nott plead ignorance of what was. :

~ pening. The only interpretation is the one we have given— —tolera- :
tion, perhaps even encouragement, for the sake of trade.
Apart from the flash-houses there was another species of
public-house which lent itself to the current vices of intoxication
and depravity. These were what were known as watering-houses.
The majority of licensed premises throughout the metropolis —
were supposed to be shut by eleven at night or midnight at the — =
latest. Exception was made of those which reputedly catered-
for the need of the drivers of hackney coaches — hence their name
watering-houses.55 These could in fact stay open all night. As
can be well imagined they became the rendezvous of the worst
elements in the population — ‘. . . they are the resorts of pick-
pockets, thieves, and prostitutes .. .” The situation had, by 1814,
got so bad — the original customers having been crowded out by
criminals — that in the Hatton Garden area the coach drivers
petitioned at the licensing sessions that they should close by
1.0 a.m. This request was acceded to but was apparently very
little observed.57 Watering-houses, although fewer in number,
can be regarded as ancillaries to the flash-house — their function
in relation to prostitution and crime was the same. It is not
necessary to dilate on the advantages from the prostitute’s point
of view, of a public-house which was open all night; it provided
both refreshment and clients. Again, there is no indication that
the brewers were disturbed by the existence of such houses.
Other public-houses, such as those near Covent Garden and
other markets, and those near theatres, were privileged to keep
similar hours to the watering-houses, for the benefit of the market
people and theatregoers. This is a privilege which survives in the
unusual hours maintained by the public-houses in Covent Gar-
den in our own day. In the early nineteenth century such taverns
were noted for their disorder, a reputation inherited from the
previous century. —‘. . . there are many loose characters at the
Maidenhead, girls and chaps, in the morning and at night . . .”58
The evil of the licensed night-house, however, brimmed over
into unlicensed premises. ‘. . . there is a description of houses
which have sprung up of late years, and are more mischievous
that the public-houses, over which the Magistrates have no
summary power, they are called coffee-houses, or coffee-rooms,
and open at eleven, twelve, or one at night, and remain open
during the whole of the night, so that when idle people are driven

34
 E out of the public-houses, they first find a harbour in those places,
and can afterwards go to the early market-houses (public-
houses) . . #9 To open such a place no licence whatsoever was
required thus no control could be exercised over them by the
police. The nocturnal example of these places was followed by
numerous eating-houses or cook-shops which served roast meals
to anyone who cared to come in at any hour of the night. Coffee,
tea, ginger beer, and spruce beer were also provided.°° The
coffee-house of this type provided a meeting-place for night-
workers, such as printers, journalists, people employed in the
London markets, and women of the town but —... they are
generally resorted to by persons of the worst description of both
sexes, and are become a considerable nuisance. . .”®
The Covent Garden area apart, the neighbourhood of St Giles
was one of the most infamous in London. The coffee-shops were
particularly bad: ‘. . . I have gone round to the coffee-shops at
one, two, and three in the morning, and they have been full of
prostitutes and thieves as they could hold. . .’ Although the
attractions of being able to obtain a hot meal in the early hours
of the morning was undoubtedly there the coffee-shops also sup-
plied liquor illicitly. Some kept a stock on the premises, others
sent out for it in the manner of present-day unlicensed restaur-
ants. A minority in open defiance of the law sold liquor as openly
as though they had been taverns. The uninitiated and intoxicated
were at a disadvantage: ‘.. . people a little disguised in liquor are
brought in there by girls of the town, and robbed there. . .’”
It musc be admitted that it was a minority of coffee-houses
which offended in this way. The majority served an extremely
useful purpose in providing meals from an early hour in the
morning until the late evening. It is of some interest to note that
in 1817 the price of a pint of coffee in such a house was four-
pence.*+ The provision of food, coffee, and newspapers made them
singularly attractive to many people. On the other hand those in
bad neighbourhoods appeared to provide a stop-gap between the
public-houses closing around midnight and their opening next
morning. Prostitutes and thieves could not forgo their mainstay
of alcohol for long hence the development of the illicit serving
of liquor. This was one of the few abuses in the liquor trade
- about which the brewers and distillers could have done little.
{Contemporary opinion in these early years of the century
made a great distinction between beer drinking and spirits

Oh ie 35
 drinking. ‘... beer te: persons first heavy, then stops and )
_ then Ponaclens: the beer drinker becomes more drunken than the
drinker of spirits, and shows his condition more, but he is, in
that very proportion more harmless to society; his very helpless-
ness and inactivity give a sort of pledge for the security of others.
In the case of dram drinking, however, the effects are not besot-
ting or stupidifying; spirits are less narcotic, but more exciting
than beer; so far from incapacitating for action, they stimulate it;
they increase and irritate the passions; they heat the brain, by
inflaming the quality and quickening the circulation of the blood
. aman can in the course of the day, drink, and multitudes do
drink, twenty or more glasses of spirit, without being visibly
affected by them, while the drinker of porter or ale would soon
be reeling about the street . . . the very little time too which is
requisite for drinking drams, and the facilities for obtaining —
them which everywhere abound, are still further favourable to
that system . . .°5 This was the opinion of the clerk of Bridewell
hospital or prison in 1817. It is possible that both the alcohol
strength of beer was somewhat greater than it is now, and that
people’s capacity for strong drink was greater.
Medical authorities were even more convinced of the terrible
effects of dram drinking. ‘. . . this mode of life excites artificial
venereal appetite... A vast number of woman have been taught:
to drink, in the middle and in the higher classes, by taking in-
discriminately quack medicines containing alcohol, hot seeds,
and essential oils, such as Rymer’s Tincture for gout in the
stomach, Solomon’s Balm of Gilead, etc., I have professionally
known those articles taken to a degree of intoxication, and in-
ducing habits of dram drinking . . .”6° This authority considered
that the manufacture of spirits should be put down altogether
and greater facility given to obtaining beer. There is no doubt
that the excesses of the last century in relation to gin drinking
had a great deal to do with forming the opinion of thinking
people about the evils of spirit drinking and the fact remains that
the tippling of spirits had become an established part of social
life among all classes — the lady as well as the prostitute indulged
themselves in this way.°7
Gin-shops as such were not permitted at law. In order to
obtain a spirit licence a beer licence had first to be obtained. Thus
public-houses sold both spirits and beer, but many licensees
only provided a token amount of beer, their real business being

36

i
 the sale of gin. These were the kind designated gin-shops. The
coh
|aD
following is a typical description: ‘Are you aware of any public-
houses in London with two doors, the one for entry and the other
by which they go out, passing by a bar, where they take their
glass of gin, deposit their money, and take their departure, the
consequence of which has been, that on a Sunday morning,
between half-past six and eight o’clock, an opposite neighbour
counted 165 persons pass through one house?’6® This provision
of two doors was the cause of many public-houses losing their
licences at every brewsters sessions. It was something which the
magistrates were determined to put down. In many parts of
London the licensing magistrates would visit premises to see
that they were properly arranged for drinking — had a tap-room
where customers could sit down, and so on. They wished cus-
tomers to be forced to pass through a crowded room before pur-
chasing their drams. In this way they might be inhibited from
dram-drinking.’The advantages of a house with two street en-
trances are obvious; you could slip in one door, drink your glass
of gin on the way, and so out the other.°?
There is no question that in the eyes of the authorities gin
drinking was to be discouraged. ‘.. . I think the number of dram-
shops in the Metropolis is one of the greatest evils existing, and
it is always a primary object with me, as far as I am concerned
(this is the opinion of a magistrate), to endeavour to prevent as
many of those from being licensed as possible; for it is not the
laborious, hard-working, honest labouring man, that resorts to
dram-shops, he is generally content with his porter, but it is the
loose and dissolute who are in the habit of drinking drams, and
they drink to such excess as to reduce themselves to a state of
partial madness . . .’’° Inspection of premises before licensing
was not always the answer to the unscrupulous licensee. Often,
the licence obtained, the house was swiftly altered to provide the -
walk-in facilities which so stimulated trade. Again, the gin-shop
would attract custom away from the orthodox public-houses by
underselling them. 7!
.’ While the distillers of spirits could no doubt be blamed in
the same way as the brewers for fostering intemperate habits in
the people, and providing the occasion and the stimulus for pros-
titution, the fact remains that the responsibility of the brewer was
the greater. There were few if any gin-shops which were tied to
the distiller in the manner in which public-houses were tied to the

if 37
 brewer. In other yorde the involvement of idl distiller in tl
_ sordid world of vice was less direct despite the fact that his produc
was more potent in its effects. It is possible that the character of
the product misled contemporary public opinion in this matter.”
Another focus of vicious activity associated with drink were
7
the annual fairs held in and about London. It was estimated that
eighty days in the year were devoted to them.”? One of the most
notorious was that held in Tothill Fields in Westminster on land
owned by the Abbey, and adjacent to the school. Apparently the
fair ground in 1817 had been enclosed for the use of the scholars
but this did not prevent the fair being held.7* Advantage was
taken of the large numbers of people assembled to organise
large-scale gambling, bull-baiting which was prohibited by law
and a market for prostitution. Both private citizens and land-
lords of public-houses in the neighbourhood vied with each
other to provide facilities for such enterprises. ‘. . . at the fair,
both at public and private houses, there were rooms kept open
during the whole of the night for dancing, drinking, gambling,
and promiscuous intercourse between the sexes . . .’75 Respon-
sible citizens were particularly concerned at the effect on young
people. This metropolitan orgy lasted for three days at Easter,
and was repeated for another three days at Whitsun.7° They were
occasions on which the excesses of Gin Lane in the eighteenth
century were once more repeated.
The magnitude of what we may call the drink problem cannot
be over-emphasised. In 1816 in the East End, comprising an area
from Hackney to Poplar, there were 188,730 people, the number
of public-houses was 951. This gave about 198.5 inhabitants to
every public-house.”77 By any consideration this is an extra-
ordinary figure. The consumption per head of beer in the United
Kingdom in the same year was 28 gallons, of spirits 0.64 gallons.
This was at a time when the population was well under 14 mil-
lions. By contrast in 1935 beer consumption had dropped to
_ 13.3 gallons per head, and spirits to 0.19 gallons per head.78 —
The revenue from spirits in 1817 was £6,238,000, and from beer
£53724,000.79 Colquhoun estimated that there were 5,000 public |
houses in and around London in 1800, the estimated population
of the city in 1816 was 1,200,000. 8°
It would seem to be the case that the consumption of alcohol in
London was proportionately greater than other urban centres in ~
the country. The concentration of population and the great

38
 a | v . + 4 ~
pale "

P mannber of hi
a
Paris and gin-shops enabled the aehay,
_ tan populace to indulge itself on an enormous scale. The result
was crime and depravity of equal proportions. Country districts
were still relatively untouched. In some counties such as Corn-
wall at the beginning of the century ‘. . There were then neither
beer-shops nor gin-shops anywhere within reach .. .’8! This was a
state of affairs, as we shall see, which was to be radically altered
by the 1830’s. Thus the link between prostitution and the liquor
trade remained at this time very much a metropolitan and urban
manifestation.
The question may suggest itself why should large sections of
the population have shown such excessive addiction to beer and
spirits. We have mentioned above the pernicious habit of paying
wages in taverns but there were many other customs and pas-
times associated with drink. John Dunlop in his Artificial and
Compulsory Drinking Usages of the United Kingdom (London
1844) showed how the whole of social life was permeated by the
use of alcohol. But this in itself was not sufficient to cause the
excesses of the period. Debate was endless at the time as to
whether recourse to drink was the result of poverty, or whether
intemperance itself created poverty. There is little doubt that
many. good workmen were corrupted and destroyed by their
addiction. On the other hand those who received parochial
relief were known to exchange the goods or money received for
liquor.®? Before condemning the character of the unemployed
labourer in the early eighteenth century it should be remembered
that his modern descendant exhibits similar tendencies. The
Times reported on February 12th, 1963, that in Blackburn in
Lancashirein 1962 nearly one-third of the cases of drunkenness
were people receiving National Assistance and unemployment
- benefit. The debate is difficult to resolve but evidence of condi-
tions later in the century, to which we shall have occasion to refer,
suggests that poverty, disease, and the uncertainty of employ-
ment were important contributory factors in fostering the addic-
_ tion to alcohol.
' In establishing the connection between prostitution and the
liquor trade in the opening years of the century there is an
extremely curious anomaly to be considered. Many of the great
London brewing firms of the period, such as Truman, Hanbury,
and Whitbread had all been founded by Quakers, or had con-
nections with the Society of Friends. In view of the appalling

OM 39
 conditions which we weve described it appears stra
~ Quakers were willing to engage in such an enterprise. From their a
foundation Quakers had been resolutely opposed to any form of
intemperance. In the eighteenth century the excesses of gin-
drinking overshadowed the ill-effects of drinking beer. The
result was that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the
Society utterly condemned the use of spirits and members were
forbidden to engage in distilling or the sale of spirits.®3 On
the other hand there were no such inhibitions with regard to the
sale of beer. Clarkson in his A Portraiture of Quakerism, London
1807, while condemning distilling makes no mention of brewing.
He does, however, express the sentiment that °, . . that trade is an
evil, if any of the branches of it, through which men acquire
their wealth, are productive of mischief either to themselves or
others . . .’®+ It is very difficult to reconcile the tacit approval of
brewing and the supply and the ownership of public-houses
with such a statement. No Quaker who walked through the
streets of London on a Sunday morning could long remain
ignorant of the effects of the brewing industry.
It is even stranger to recollect that the Society condemned
dancing, theatre-going, music, and novel reading — this last
because it produced a perverted morality in the reader — and at
the same time ignored the vast sea of evil engendered by the beer
trade.*5 Moderation in drinking was of course preached, and the
member who haunted ale-houses reprimanded. ** In the seven-
teenth century members engaged in the trade had even exhibited
posters on their premises exhorting drinkers to moderation.®7
All this avoided the main issue. By the Society’s own tenets the
making and selling of beer should have been condemned as pro-
ductive of evil. The greater part of the evidence of the Police
Reports we have quoted is proof of that. In effect it is an extra-
ordinary chapter in the history of one of the more austere Christ-
ian bodies. A chapter which is possibly obscured by the fact that
the Quakers eventually came out in favour of total abstinence in
_ the 1830’s, and were thenceforth zealous in the battle against in-
temperance. Two interpretations are possible. One we have al-
ready suggested, that gin-drinking was the evil par excellence,
and to wean the individual from this to beer was looked upon as a
good in itself. The other is that to sacrifice the great vested inter-
est built upon the manufacture and retailing of beer was a task
beyond their powers. 88

40
 The true position of the brewers, Quaker and non-Quaker
alike, was admirably stated in the Report of the Select Committee
_ on the Laws relating to the Sale of Beer in 1817. ‘. .. Your Com-
mittee are fully aware that, the metropolis, which contains
above a million of human beings, there will of necessity be
found many disorderly public-houses; and that a constant
struggle may be considered as taking place between the magis-
trates in suppressing those houses and the many causes that
create them ... Without meaning to throw any reflection on as
respectable a body of men as any other division of the trade of the
country contains, it is yet evident that the brewers and distillers,
and all who deal in wine and in spirituous liquors, make for-
tunes in the proportion to the sale of their respective commodi-
ties; the greater the sale the greater the proportional profit; and
it is in evidence before your Committee that some of the worst
conducted, as well as the most profitable houses in the metropolis,
either belong to particular brewers, or are held in mortgage by
them. ... The Shadwell case demonstrates that the most dis-
orderly and licentious conduct of the houses belonging to parti-
cular brewers, does not ensure the loss of the licence; but that if
at last, from the notorious infamy of the parties complained
against, the magistrates are compelled to interfere, the least
possible punishment is inflicted, the tenant is shifted, a real or
fraudulent transfer made, and a new landlord takes possession,
to follow the old practices in the same house with aggravated
misconduct. The maxim is: “The house being brick and mor-
tar, cannot be guilty of any moral crime,” and the old system is
revived with the same profit as before...’
‘In this chapter we have endeavoured to chart some aspects of
the relationship between prostitution and the liquor trade. It is
mow necessary to examine in greater detail the structure of
prostitution in Britain in these opening years of the century.

Notes and References

1 Select Committee of the House of Commons Appointed to Con-

sider the Alleged High Price of Beer and its Inferior Quality,
1818, quoted by G. B. Wilson, Alcohol and the Nation, Lon-
don 1940, p. 82. See also Table 5, Growth of the Tied Trade

41
 First Ree Hoth the!Connie: on the State ofthe
_ Metropolis, London 1819, p. 130. This Police Co

altogether in March 1819. Confusion may be caused by

- fact that First in the above title refers to the second re]

i.e. the second, and Third, i.e. the fourth reports. The o
_ two referred to are in Clement’s Edition for 1816 and 1817
are so designated in the reference for this and the follovane
chapters.
4 Idem, p. 131.
5 Idem,p. 131.
© Tdem,p. 131.
Ag Idem,p. 131.
8 Tdem, p. 132.
ma? dem; p. 133.
10 Tdem, p. 133.
1 Tdem, p. 133.
-™ Tdem, pp. 133-4.
- 13 Tdem, p. 134.
14 Tdem, p. 134.
48 Idem, p. 135. (
16 Idem, p. 135.

3 Idem, p. 142.
a - Idem,p. 142.
25 Tdem, p.145.
ak 6 Ibid,p. 195.
7 Ibid., pp. 240-1.
Ibid, p. 227.
Ibid., p. 227.
Mathias, op. cit., p. 301.
bid., p. 133.
 r=

First Police Report (Folio Edition), op. cit., p. 229.

Ibid., p. 209. For a comprehensive list of offences see Appen-
dix 10, pp. 302 et seq.
Ibid., p. 205.
Ibid., p. 237.
See particularly First Police Report (Folio Edition), pp. 197;
243 et seq., 280 et seq.; Report of 1816 (Clements’ Edition),
Pp. 157 et sge., 263-6, and Third Report (Folio Edition),
pp. 123 et seq., 126-7.
First Police Report (Folio Edition), pp. 163-4.
Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 223.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 228.
Evidence of John Charlesworth, churchwarden of Shore-
ditch, before the Police Committee, Third Police Report
(Folio Edition), pp. 130-1.
John Dunlop, Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usages of the
United Kingdom, London 1844, pp. 181-2.
Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 528.
Ibid., pp. 581-2.
Ibid., p. 582.
Ibid., p. 796.
Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 264.
Ibid., p. 50, also Report of 1817, p. 797.
Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 544.
Ibid., p. 548.
Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 64.
Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 642.
Ibid., p. 652.
Ibid., p. 562.
Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 30.
First Police Report (Folio Edition), p. 161.
Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 107.
First Police Report (Folio Edition), p. 162.
Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 52.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 110.
Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 547.
Ibid., p. 544. For illicit liquor selling see p. 723.
64 Ibid., p. 726.
65 Ibid., p. 510.

43
 _ The Reports of the Seay for Bet
Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, Vol. 1, Landon 180

habits of fhfnaleds aK Anon., The Vices of the Tavern Dis-

sected, etc., Rotherham 1814,p. 23.
68 Police Report of 1816 (Clement’s Edition), p. 35.
69 Tbid.
7° Tbid., p. 80.
71 Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 566. :
7 See Mathias, op. cit., p. 241.
73 Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 564.
fe 7 Tbid., p. 563.
> 73 Ibid.
7 Thid., p. 603.
77 Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), p. 169.
__. 78Wilson, op. cit., pp. 331 and 334.
79 Thid.,p. 407.
80Colquhoun, P. Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, Lon-
don 1800, footnote,p.327; and Pinchbeck, I. Women Workers
and the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, London 1930, foot-
‘ note p. 3.
_ 8 Buckingham, James Silk. Autobiography, London 1855, Vol.
i I, p. 21. :
8 Police Report of 1817 (Clement’s Edition), pp. 532, §47 and
713.
__ * Clarkson, T. A Portraiture of Quakerism, London 1807, Vol. _
II, p. 64.
84 Tbid., p. 54.
. 8 Tbid., Vol. I, Chapters III, IV, V and VI contain details of
these condemnations.
— 8 Lloyd, A. Quaker Social History, 1669-1738, ae 1950,
p. 69.
‘ 87 Braithwaite,W. C. The Second Period of Oikeien London _
__-:1921, pp. 595-6.
88 It is interesting to note that A. Raistrick in his Quakers in
Science and Industry, London 1950 makes no mention of the
Quaker involvement with the brewing industry.
2: The Opening Years of the Ninteeenth Century

‘The whole may be estimated as follows;

I. Of the class of Well Educated women it is earnestly

hoped the number does not exceed 2,000
2. Of the class composed of persons above the rank of
Menial Servants perhaps 3,000
3. Of the class who may have been employed as
Menial Servants, or seduced in very early life, it is
conjectured in all parts of the town, including Wap-
ping, and the streets adjoining the River, there may
not be less, who live wholly by Prostitution, than 20,000

25,000
4. Of those in different ranks in Society, who live part-
ly by Prostitution, including the multitude of low
females, who cohabit with labourers and others

45
 ‘When a general survey is taken of the Metropolis — The great _
numbers among the higher and middle classes of life, who live
unmarried — The multitudes of young men yearly arriving at the
age of puberty — the strangers who resort to the Metropolis - The
seamen and nautical labourers employed in the Trade of the
River Thames, who amount at least to 40,000 — And the pro-
fligate state of Society in vulgar life, the intelligent mind will
soon be reconciled to the statement which at first view would seem
to excite doubts, and require investigation . . .”!
The writer is Patrick Colquhoun, the pioneer criminologist and
authority on the police. The date is 1800, a time when the popu-
lation of London was hardly above a million. As we shall see,
Colquhoun’s estimate is quite close to those made some years
later. It is, however, important to appreciate that such figures are
merely informed guesses rather than the result of a statistical
survey. In fact no entirely accurate statistics exist with regard to
_ prostitution in this country at any period in its history. The most
reliable sources are represented by individual observers. The
situation was somewhat different in the case of Europe where the
___ existence of varying systems of regulation provided a reasonable
basis of accuracy.
Several points in Colquhoun’s estimates are worth comment-
ing upon. It is noticeable that he assumed that the vast majority
___ of prostitutes belonged to the masses of the people. Their clients,
- however, were drawn not only from their own class, but from
_ the bachelors of the higher and middle classes. In other words
the prostitutes catered for the needs of the incontinent of all
_ classes. There is the implication throughout all Colquhoun’s
_ remarks on prostitution that this incontinence must be satisfied.
3 _ It is almost a philosophy of prostitution which is propounded.
_ This attitude of mind is best understood in relation to the views
of Bishop Paley and others on fornication which we discuss
below.
There was a great deal in the London of 1800 which verified —
ii the existence of a ‘profligate state of Society in vulgar life’, and

kK(46
not only in vulgar life. It is difficult to believe, but Colquhoun
maintained that the situation had deteriorated in recent years.
Difficult to believe as the latter part of the eighteenth century is
hardly notable for its restraint in sexual behaviour. ‘This un-
restrained licence given to males and females, in the Walks of
Prostitution, was not known in former times at places of public
resort, where there was at least an affectation of decency. To the
disgrace, however, of the Police, the evil has been suffered to
increase; and the Boxes of the Theatres often exhibit scenes,
which are certainly offensive to modesty, and contrary to the
decorum which ought to be maintained, and that protection to
which the respectable part of the community are entitled, against
indecency and indecorum, when their families, often composed
of young females, visit places of public resort. In this instance, the
induring such impropriety of conduct, so contrary to good
morals, marks strongly the growing depravity of the age. To
familiarise the eyes and ears of the innocent part of the sex to the
scenes which are often exhibited in the Theatres, is tantamount
to carrying them to a school of vice and debauchery. . . .”3
The theatre has always, until very recent times, been associated
with loose living. Colquhoun is perhaps not suggesting that in
fact theatres were worse than they had been, but rather that
audiences were no longer exclusively male and included respect-
able families. These were subjected to witnessing the bartering
of whore and client. That such was the case is borne out by the
same author’s comments on the Tea Gardens which had long
existed in the capital. Several had become notorious in the
previous century. They were at this time the common resort at
week-ends of all classes of people. ‘Many of them, however, have
been shut up, and this recreation denied to the people, because
Prostitutes resorted to those places; insulted public morals —-
promoted lewdness and debauchery, and banished modest and
decent families . . ."* This apparently was not the fault of the
owners of the Gardens but due to want of care on the part of the
police, and the lack of regulations ‘to restrain these excesses and
keep them within bounds. . .’5
But there was a more significant change than those concerned
with the theatre or Tea Gardens. This was the actual spread of
prostitution over the town. ‘Instead of the Walks of Prostitution
being confined as formerly, to one or two leading streets in
Westminster, they are now to be found in every part of the

47
 42)

Metropolis -- evi (
__ where the dangers arising pies Re aeced: are ‘the greatest, ‘the
abound the most of all of late years... .° Calquhoun has here
indicated the beginnings of the extraordinary process, almost the —
democratisation of prostitution, by which every borough in
London was in time able to offer its quota of whores. :
Sixteen years later the inhabitants of the City petitioned the
Lord Mayor of London and the Common Council to remove the
prostitutes from the streets. The situation had become quite
alarming. ‘It cannot be necessary to inform your Honourable
Court, that the principal streets of this City are every evening
crowded with profligate women, who, by their riotous and
obscene conduct, annoy or alarm the well-disposed inhabitants
. +. The audacity with which these women accost passengers, and
the horrid oaths and obscene language which they are accustomed
to use, your Petitioners, as fathers and as masters, interested in
the welfare of their families, cannot but consider an intolerable
grievance; for no virtuous female, however protected, can pass
- through the street in the evening without witnessing these
disgusting scenes; and the utmost vigilance your Petitioners can
use, is insufficient to preserve their sons and servants from
frequent solicitation even at their own doors ...’7
: Daily exposure to this meretricious onslaught reduced disgust
and caution in the young with the inevitable result of the ruin of
health and reputation. Shopmen and apprentices appeared to be
the most susceptible. This had the consequence of increasing the
criminal aspect of the prostitutes’ activities. Their connection
with burglars, pick-pockets, and fences enabled them to pass
on information gathered in the course of business.® It was truly
a deplorable state of affairs.
44 In response to the petition the Common Council appointed a
a
eh, committee to examine into the situation. This committee called
a
a
ayy
for evidence as to whether Bridewell Hospital, which existed for
the purpose of confining vagrants, beggers, and disorderly per-
_ sons, could accommodate the great influx of prostitutes. Con-
__vinced that this was possible they reported to the Council
accordingly. The Lord Mayor thereupon issued a proclamation
from the Mansion House that those who violated public morals
would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. Copies
_ of the proclamation were posted in all the City watch-houses and
the constables were exhorted to put down the nuisance.? No

48
id
f iy
‘gmt

_ attempt was made to bring the matter to Parliament. Clearly it

was felt that the existing laws relating to vagrants were sufficient
to deal with the situation. Bridewell, founded by Edward VI as a
kind of poor-law and charitable institution, had in the course of
time become a place of detention for disorderly people and
vagrants.
The Committee of the Council in the course of their delibera-
tions had asked the Guardian Society to make enquiries regarding
Bridewell. The Society’s functions were to preserye public
morals, and to reform prostitutes by giving employment and
relief. The London one was typical of the many which grew up in
most large towns throughout Britain in the nineteenth century.
At this time, in addition to the Bridewell inquiry, it had started
an investigation of its own, and was able to give the results to the
Committee appointed to examine the state of the police in 1817.
*,.. The result of the returns from three parishes, which appear
to have been most accurately made, will give 360 brothels and
2000 prostitutes, out of 9925 houses and 59,050 inhabitants. The
details are as follows: in St. Botolph without Aldgate, 60 brothels,
300 prostitutes, 961 houses and 5265 inhabitants: in Saint
Leonard’s, Shoreditch, 100 brothels, 700 prostitutes, 7282
houses, and 48,930 inhabitants; and in Saint Paul’s, Shadwell,
200 brothels, 1000 prostitutes, 1082 houses, and 9855 inhabitants.
This account of the number of houses and inhabitants, with
which the number of brothels and prostitutes is compared, is
from the census of 1811. . .*° A considerable degree of accuracy
can be placed on these figures as they were the result of a ques-
tionnaire which had been circulated to parish officers by the
Society. It is to be expected that Shadwell, a Thames-side parish,
would have a large number of prostitutes to cater for its transient
_ sailor population but the actual figures quoted are staggering.
_ Nearly a fifth of the number of houses in the parish were brothels.
Nearly one in ten of the inhabitants were whores. That this was
not wholly an exaggeration is supported by the evidence we have
quoted regarding Shadwell in the previous chapter. The river-
side parishes as a whole because of their special circumstances
provided one of the largest nuclei of prostitution in the metro-
olis.
4 The Bridewell inquiry shed some interesting light on the prob-
lem of the reclamation of the prostitute during this period. At
their first visit in February 1816 the Guardian officers found that

49
 out of the 130 prostitutes confined Here only 45 would comer Be:
to their questioning. Of this 45 only 21 accepted offers of re-
habilitation from the Society. The rest stated they could maintain
themselves. The officers continued to visit Bridewell until the end
of the year but out of 124 whores questioned a mere 15 availed
themselves of offers of assistance. The age range of these women
was considerable — from 14 to 54. The largest category com-
prised those between 18 and 23 — nearly half the total. A majority
stated that they had been prostitutes for two or three years.
Exceptionally, a few had been on the streets for as long as twenty
years. The conclusion drawn by the Society was that the
mortality rate was very high among prostitutes."
That there was a reluctance on the part of these prostitutes to
take advantage of the help offered by the Guardian Society can
be interpreted in different ways. A possible explanation is that
many regarded their detention in Bridewell as accidental or un-
lucky, and that on release they could continue a profitable
existence. This may have been true for a minority who were
young, disease-free, and attractive. Another, and possibly more
compelling factor, was the restrictions imposed in the Society’s
houses of refuge. These were not to be easily discounted as they
affected diet, alcohol, dress and type of work. The freedom, and
even mystery of the streets, was not to be lightly exchanged for
the safety of a prison-like regime. We hope to deal with the
development of the refuge or rescue home elsewhere. It is suffi-
cient to remark here that the ethos of such places was firmly based
on the idea that the reformed prostitute must be made aware of
her guilt. To this end were the restrictions formulated. Viewed in
another way the reluctance of the prostitute to profit by reclama-
tion can be seen as a preference for the roistering of the streets
and a short life, rather than a normal life span, supported by
infinitesimal wages as a servant or seamstress, of unrelieved
‘drudgery.
Outside the City many parishes in London could produce
figures almost as startling as those of Shadwell. Southwark ap-
peared to have been in a rather special position. The borough was
infested with brothels. ‘What do you suppose to be the causes of
such an immense number of those houses in your parish? — I
attribute it partly to its proximity to the City of London, being
within a quarter of a mile of the three bridges; the egress and
_ regress being so easy, that the women who parade the streets of

50

pied
”

mee
Lo ie ©
BUA RSH Bygete Vet
- the city and of Westminster, live on that side of the water. I _
_ attribute it likewise to the Circus theatre and to Astley’s; also it
being well known that all theatres are places of rendezvous for
women of that description; and also to the circumstances of there
being a great number of small houses lately built in that parish,
which are particularly suited for such occupants. .. .’!
Southwark clearly offered certain advantages as a home for
prostitutes. The presence of the theatres and circus meant that a
regular clientele was constantly available. On the other hand for
those who wished to live away from their work [sic] the proxi-
mity of the City was an obvious attraction. The cryptic remark of
the churchwarden of St. George’s Southwark apropos the build-
ing of small houses almost suggests that local builders were
aware of the potential demand for such dwellings. At a later
period this was certainly the case of the bijou villas of St. John’s
Wood.
No district in London was totally unscathed. Again and again
in the pages of the contemprary Police Reports there is the
. monotomous repetition of accounts of streets of brothels and in-
numerable whores. In 1817 an anonymous pamphlet entitled An
Address to the Guardian Society was published. The author
described the London scene as he saw it. ‘What is the con-
sequences of the present state of things? Why, that Seduction
stalks openly about, in broad day-light, literally seeking “whom he
may devour”. That, without a male protector, a respectable and ~
virtuous female dare scarce set her foot in the streets during the
day, far less attempt it at night. That, even guarded, she must
shut her eyes and ears to avoid infection. That she is forced to
abstain from visiting almost every public place of amusement.
That she is in fact obliged to shut herself up within the circle of
domestic privacy, and, if she be yet safe there still she is annoyed
with the sound of the distant thunder which rolls around her
. 13 Discounting the rhetoric the fact emerges that the London
streets were unsightly and unsafe for the respectable woman.
To imagine the situation, it was a London in which the areas
affected by the recent Street Offences Act were vastly multiplied
to cover the whole metropolitan’ area. The magnitude of the
problem was enormous. Wherever there were public-houses there
was prostitution. }
A gloss on the above description, which brings out a partic-
ularly repulsive aspect of the public manifestation of prostitution,

we 3 51
 Mas ME a ORD dE ome 3 3)
is provided by Erik Geijer, a Swedish ae wh
_England in 1809. ‘. . . The open and naked effrontery of the
immoral transcends fii description. They swarm round the
streets of London at all hours of the day and night. They gather
in crowds at the theatres which are regular market-places for such
- wares, and the business is done in English fashion, coarsely and
openly. The poor wretches do not understand how to give their
trade any prettier air than simple straightforward bargaining. To
practice vice with decency, to ply a despicable trade with charm,
to save appearance at all costs, this an English nature does not
understand . . .'* This coarseness of manner and business was
far removed from the charm and delicacy displayed by the con-
temporary Venetians engaged in the same enterprise.'' This
element of vulgarity in the search for sexual wares in England
may help to explain the enthusiasm with which Englishmen
sought the environs of the Palais Royal in the Paris of Napoleon
Bonaparte. “The most serious-minded people, family men among
them, could hardly wait to get out of their carriages before
rushing to “this horrible scene of debauch situated in the midst of
the great city, which has corrupted and rotted the whole
Society...”
If seduction of females was one danger of the London streets
there were others even worse according to the anonymous
pamphleteer of the Guardian Society. Those seduced and com-
' pelled to prostitution took their revenge by inflicting disease and
ruin upon men and boys. In a lyrical outburst he claimed that the
classical legend of the. Minotaur was being re-enacted on an
unprecedented scale in London claiming ten thousand young
victims of both sexes each year. It was estimated that the strum-
pets of London amounted to 40,000. ‘. . . the population of
London is reckoned 1,200,000; of this not above one-third can
be grown up females, or 400,000; here, then, is at once a tenth
part; but the unmarried grown up females cannot be above
200,000, and these 40,000 are, almost, without exception, un-
married; from this it follows that every fifth unmarried woman is
. . - The blood flies to my face and the pen drops from my
fingers, when I think of the word, which rigid truth calls upon
to use here .. .*7 Such figures are difficult to credit — that one
in five spinsters were whores — nevertheless corroboration of this
market for incontinence is forthcoming from a variety of con- —
temporary sources based on observation. The situation appears to

52
have been that at both extremes of the society — the masses and
_ the upper class — licentiousness was publicly displayed both
having recourse to prostitutes, The middle class alone preserved
a barrier against the engulfing sea of debauchery. A comparison
can be made with France in the same period. There regulation,
confinement to specific areas, and police efficiency combined to
render Paris, superficially, a far less depraved city. It was the
openness of the market for women in London which so appalled
the visitor from Europe. Excuses offered by magistrates for this
state of affairs were concerned with the inadequacies of the law -
and police, and the fact that ‘this class of women in France are
not in the use of spirituous liquors. . .”'8 This last point is not as
absurd as it sounds. While the great historian of French prosti-
tution, Parent-Duchatelet, certainly does not support such an
opinion the fact remains that spirit shops and public-houses in
England were the greatest foci of libidinous conduct.!9
We have already referred to Colquhoun’s strictures on the
theatre in 1800. Seventeen years later the situation had deterio-
rated even further. While the standard of.acting was excellent —
it was still the age of Sarah Siddons, who only retired in 1812 —as
was the style of presentation much of the audience was in search
of a different kind of entertainment. ‘.. . I mean the number of
loose women who are allowed to prowl over them (the theatres),
disturbing the performance, insulting the sober-minded and
modest part of the audience, and exhibiting the most indecent
appearance and gestures with perfect impunity, nay, apparently,
with encouragement from the profligates of the other sex .. .72°
Little was done by those responsible to mitigate this aspect of the
theatre which had a long tradition stemming from the Restora-
tion. Managers appreciated the fact that Cyprians, to use the
euphemism of the day, were good for business. Nevertheless the
use of the theatre as an adjunct to the brothel made the situation
of en famille outings difficult. It was suggested that women should
not be admitted unaccompanied, and that, if during the per-
formance women were to be seen visiting from box to box, they
shouid be conducted gently but firmly out into the street.??
Needless to say the suggestion was not acted upon.
Conditions were even more deplorable in the bars or saloons
which formed an indispensable part of any theatre. They were
referred to as ‘... these dreadful hotbeds of vice and immorality,
the saloons of the theatres. The shocking scenes that nightly occur

ai - 53
 ; . a ‘ 2 e502 ot yore
oh
in those places are perfectly disgraceful . -- Lam confid ont
ten young men are ruined by the visitors of these saloons, for
one that is led astray by the street-walkers. The females in the
streets are either faded or worn out, or low vulgar creatures;
they are generally ill-dressed, and in the dark and dirt of the
streets cannot be seen to any advantage; a man, therefore, passes
on and takes little notice of them. It is very different in the
theatres; when a young man meets there with handsome fine
looking girls, well-dressed with genteel manners, he forgets the
indecency of their appearance and the looseness and impropriety
of their language and behaviour, if these do not attract him the
more; and he gets interested and entangled with them, and is led
astray; and this the more readily as he sees around him much
older men of respectable appearance, without scruple talking,
and romping with them. . .”?
The saloon was strategically positioned near the entrance to
the boxes so that patrons could easily pass from the one to the
- other. The account quoted raises two extremely important points.
The brilliantly lit saloons did attract the better type of whore.
Here she could be seen to advantage by prospective customers,
and suffered none of the disadvantages of soliciting in the streets.
The picture evoked of middle-aged men ‘romping’ with these
superior prostitutes would seem to indicate that the saloon pro-
vided the opportunity for a limited excursion into debauchery on
the part of men who would neither pick up a woman in the
streets, nor frequent a brothel. Thus from one point of view the
influence of the saloon was more insidious in its incitement to
sexual indulgence than other less attractive places.
A vivid and amusing account of the saloon at Covent Garden
is given by Pierce Egan in his Tom and ferry, Life in London. Egan
was a well-known sportsman and man about town who had the
acquaintance of the Prince Regent. The first edition of his book
in 1821 was dedicated to that illustrious rake. It was accepted in
its day and for long afterwards — Thackeray was a great devotee
of Tom and ferry - as an authentic and diverting picture of the
Regency. Our interest here is not only in its authenticity, but in
the implied acceptance of prostitution in its various guises in the
popular mind. Full of slang terms, and complete with its own
ins it was read, dramatised, and applauded by numbers of
people
“Tom and his Coz, had scarcely reached the place for refresh-

54
(all
. *) Sa
% 2
4 a A
=. . a hs i oe
| ae “

ments, when the buz began, and they were surrounded by

numbers of the gay Cyprians, who nightly visit the place... The
_ “Fair MARIA”, dressed in a blue riding-habit, seated on a chair
in a corner, near the recess; and the “pretty ELLEN”, standing
behind her, are throwing out “‘Jures’’, in order to attract the notice
of the Corinthian and Jerry. The “Old Guy” on the top of the
stairs, with his spectacles on, ... is gently tapping, in an amorous
way, the white soft arm of “lusty black-eyed JANE”; and inviting
her to partake of a glass of wine, to which she consents in the
most “business”-like manner. Indeed, “‘Black-eyed Jane” has
often publicly remarked, that it is immaterial to her whether it is
a DUKE or his Groom, so that she receives her compliment. Several
Jewesses may also be recognised promenading up and down the
Saloon. In the motley group are several Coves of Cases (brothel-
keepers) and procuresses, keeping a most vigilant eye that none
of their “‘decked-out girls” brush off with the property entrusted
to them for the night (i.e. their clothes and finery); and other
persons of the same occupation, may be seen closely WATCHING
the females belonging to their establishments, that they are not
idle, as to the purposes for which those unfortunate girls are sent
into the SALOON . .’23
The impression created is that the saloon at Covent Garden
formed the perfect background for the display of prostitution.
The bawd, the brothel-keeper, and the whore were all able to
conduct their business with the client in an atmosphere condu-
cive to success. The theatre saloon retained its functions as a
market for prostitution throughout the century reaching its
climax in the opulence of the old Empire in Leicester Square.
_ Wh have already mentioned in the last chapter the significance
of tea-gardens and similar places for thé functioning of prostitu-
tion. Many had their origin in the previous century, such as the
Adam and Eve in Tottenham Court Road, and Copenhagan
House in Islington, and had begun by attracting the fashionable
world. In time they deteriorated and became the haunts of de-
praved characters of all descriptions. An eighteenth-century-con-
ception they clearly fulfilled the Londoner’s need for amusement
and company particularly on Sunday afternoons and evenings.
Granted the state of society at the time — the availability of women
and the male demand — it was almost inevitable that they should
degenerate into open-air brothels. Those which transcended the
idea of a tea-garden, such as Ranelagh, and Vauxhall (Cremorne

35
 Meni .a,tir
i ise
es sit,
perry Bea
Boro tie.
tare eo Ae
Es
was not yet born) had varying histories. Ranelagh diedee the’ Se
eighteenth century. Vauxhall persisted until after the middle of
the nineteenth. The masquerades, for which the latter was
famous, from time to time were occasions of riot and debauchery.
Vauxhall’s place in the complex of prostitution is discussed in
another chapter.”+
Tea-gardens were mainly places of popular resort. The same
could not be said of Almacks. These exclusive assembly rooms,
dominated by a coterie of society women, really formed a club
for the fashionable world. Though no disreputable woman was
ever admitted nevertheless Almacks provided both a marriage
market for the upper class as well as a background for the arrange-
ment of sexual liaisons in that class.25 It is perhaps significant that
Tom and ferry, which is really a polite guide to the fast life,
devotes a section to a satirical account of a visit to this holy of
holies of the haut ton. Egan compares Almacks with All-Max, the
Almacks of the East End which is in fact a public-house-cum-
brothel. The main point of contrast appears to be the informality
of All-Max where black, coloured, and white sailors and their
women-folk diseased and drunk delighted each other.*°
The part that the seafaring population of London played-in
promoting the general dissolute air of the capital must not be
underestimated. Mention has already been made of the excuses
proferred in the case of the brothel public-houses in Shadwell —
that the provision of women was almost a necessity for sailors.
The same frankness is not publicly displayed today but there is
no doubt that Cable Street made, and makes, as great a contribu-
tion to prostitution as the Bayswater Road in its heyday. At the
period in question, however, a distinction has to be made between _
the merchant marine and the navy. In the latter case the use of the
press-gang led to the confinement of sailors on board while
vessels were in port. In order to prevent mutiny women were
allowed to stay aboard ships in harbour. Even officers participated
in this privilege. The example of Prince William Henry, captain
of the Andromeda can be regarded as typical. ‘Order the 8th,
requesting and directing the First Lieutenant . . . to see all
strangers out of H.M. ship under my command at gunfire, is by
no means meant to restrain the officers and men from having
either black or white women on board through the night, so
long as discipline is unhurt by the indulgence. . .”27
Other captains attempted to use this custom toencourage ond

56
 “<i

discipline ‘he allowed women aboard, in port, “in proportion to

the merits of the men who require them .. .” ’ In other words
those guilty of naval indiscipline were denied access to women.
Captain Richard Keats even went so far as to furnish his
*. . . Master-at-Arms with a printed form, to be filled up and
presented every morning to himself. Its headings were: 1.
“Woman’s Name”: 2. “With whom”: 3. “Married or Single”:
4. “When received on board”: 5. “Conduct” ’.28 Some com-
manders, however, inspired by ideas of purity refused to coun-
tenance the presence of females. The effect was to promote
mutiny or homosexuality, or both. In one case a captain faced
with a mutiny of this origin reported the facts to his admiral.
The latter signalled in reply, send 200 women from the X to
the Y.29 With regard to homosexuality it appears that con-
temporary Courts Martial dealt with numerous cases of sodomy
on the part of seamen although the penalty was death for such
an offence.?°
This naval condoning of prostitution was still apparent in the
1840s. J. H. Talbot in his Miseries of Prostitution has this to say:
‘Lieutenants Rivers and Montmorency, of Greenwich Hospital,
assured me, that it was the common and ordinary usage for loose
women to be admitted aboard ships of war while coming into
port, when in port, and when leaving port, and they had actually
seen more unfortunate females aboard than there were men. I
will not pretend to portray the effects of such practices; not only
are they felt at home, but also in distant lands, where the curses
and imprecations of those who have been injured are poured
upon the heads of the guilty perpetrators, and our country
denounced as the scourge and bane of the world.’* Such prac- -
tices would appear to indicate that the responsible authorities
recognised that the sexual needs of the men under their command
had to be met. It was similar to the approval given to army
brothels in India to which we have referred elsewhere.2? An
approval that led to the passing of the Contagious Disease Acts in
the 1860s, which created a modified form of state prostitution
for the benefit of garrison towns.
Thus it was the merchant ships which provided the brawling,
drunken sailors who turned the public-houses of Shadwell,
Sheerness, and other riverside areas into bacchanalian dens. The
navy’s solution of the problem was to turn H.M. ships into
temporary floating brothels. The sailor’s case is probably a special

37
i ordinary sex life. It is one of the few instances which |
to the argument for the maintenance of prostitution.
If seafarers made 2 major contribution to prostitution at the
lower end of the social scale an equally vital one was given by the
upper echelons of society. This can be assessed in two ways. First
of all there is the factor of the individual upper-class patron of
brothels, and that of the noble seducer of maid-servants. ‘The case
quoted in Tom and Ferry of the unfortunate woman left penniless
by her gentlemanly seducer is quite typical of the period.
William Hickey in his Memoirs relates that his first adventure
with a whore was at 13! His subsequent exploits with women
demonstrate the fact that no young blood was worthy of the
name unless he could boast of female companionship of this
kind.3+ This patronage of prostitution by those in high places
was itself a reflection of that world of sexual intrigue which
centred on the Prince Regent. The evidence of contemporary
diaries, letters, and memoirs suggests that sexual indulgence on
the part of both men and women in the upper classes was quite
openly conducted. The royal examples of George IV and the
‘Duke of York were there for all to emulate. To gravitate between ~
Captain Gronow’s reminiscences and those of Harriet Wilson
is to possess an excellent chart to the incontinence of the
great.
Apart from the gentleman’s involvement in whoring, which
we suggest was part of his accomplishments, there was the effect
of fashionable intrigue on the world of the masses. An individual-
ist could constantly witness the spectacle of noblemen handing
their bought women into boxes at the theatre. This type of public
display on the part of the upper classes gave an implied sanction
- to the bargaining of the bedraggled females on Saffron Hill, or
at the Eagles Tavern. Prostitution had begun to be accepted as
part of ordinary sexual life.
To meet the great demand engendered by this massive exhibi-
tion of concupiscence numerous brothels came into existence.
_ These of course had no official sanction, but in many instances ©
were tolerated by the police and the authorities particularly
when their custom derived from the upper ranks of the society.
The first of the brothels on continental lines, that is houses in
which women were provided for clients rather than lodging-
houses or houses of accomodation, was opened by a Mrs,

8
 Ne

Goadby in Berwick Street about the middle of the eighteenth

century. Her venture was animmediate and splendid success.
This venture, catering exclusively for the haute monde, was
imitated by a number of similarly enterprising ladies. These
establishments were euphemistically termed seraglios and ap-
peared to have captured the imagination of their intended public.
Mrs. Goadby set an extremely high standard in terms of her
cuisine, furnishings, medical attention, and above all in the -
choice of her strumpets and their patrons. Her immediate
imitators such as Charlotte Hayes of King’s Place, Pall Mall,
Mrs. Weatherby, Mrs. Banks of Curzon Street, Mrs. Bradshaw
of Queen Anne’s Street, and Mrs. Margeram all endeavoured to
capture the same exclusive market. Others, such as Mrs. Mitchell,
set their sights lower on a more middle class clientele,?5 By the
end of the century the seraglio on this model had become an
essential part of the rake’s life.
The most splendid instance of the luxurious brothel catering
for an exclusive custom was undoubtedly the White House in
Soho Square. Madame Cornelys in the previous century had
already by the nature of her assemblies given the Square an
equivocal reputation. The White House was formerly the town
mansion of the Bellasye family, and the home of Admiral Sir
Cloudesley Shovel. Its glory was not of another kind. ‘. . . its
interior was decorated in the most lavish, and, indeed, weird
manner. One room was all gold, another all silver, yet another
all bronze, and each was known from the prevailing style of its
decorations; all were fitted with mirrors let into the walls; other
apartments were called The Painted Chamber, The Grotto, The
Coal Hole, and in one, The Skeleton Room, a skeleton was
made by a mechanical contrivance to issue from a cupboard!
All sorts of contrivances were used for the incitement and gratifi-
cation of the visitors to this house of iniquity; and it stands forth
as perhaps the most complete example of a class of resort of
which many others existed at this period.’3°
At this level of the lupanar of the haute monde two interesting
developments have to be noted. One is concerned with the
creation of a type of male brothel for the benefit of women, and
the other with flagellation.
Mary Wilson was a celebrated brothel-keeper, who, in the
years 1814-30, was remarkably successful. She operated her
business in Old Bond Street, St. Pancras, and Hull Place, St.

29
 i Pp ‘i

"Pe Ancient a ina serdar which auld enhance the expe

her clients. It would appear that she was successful for she©
acquired a considerable reputation. In 1824 she published, from
her Bond Street address, The Voluptarian Cabinet. This contained f

a section devoted to the'creation of what she called an Eleusinian

Institution. This was for the benefit of women, and was divided
into two parts. The purpose of one was to provide a secret
meeting-place for married women and their lovers. The other
catered for those who lacked lovers. ‘.... I have purchased very
extensive (sic) premises, which are situated between two great
thoroughfares, and are entered from each by means of shops,
devoted entirely to such trades as are exclusively resorted to by
ladies. In the area between the two rows of houses, I have
erected a most elegant temple, in the centre of which are large
saloons, entirely surrounded with boudoirs most elegantly and
- commodiously fitted up. In these saloons, according to their
2 classes, are to.be seen the finest men of their species I can
procure, occupied in whatever amusements are adapted to their
taste, and all kept in a high state of excitement by good living
and idleness . . .? The lady clients did not enter these saloons
but viewed their inmates from a darkened window in a boudoir.
__ *, . . Having fixed upon one she would like to enjoy, the lady
has only to ring for the chambermaid, point out the object, and
he is immediately brought to the boudoir. She can enjoy him
_ in the dark, or have a light, and keep on her mask. She can stay
__ an hour or a night, and have one or a dozen men as she pleases,
: without being known to any of them... .’
The boudoirs were decorated with paintings by Aretino and
Giulio Romano; and the saloons were the designs of Payne
- Knight, the eighteenth-century authority on Priapic worship. It
___ must have been an extrordinary expensive undertaking. Costs,
however, were defrayed by a hundred guinea subscription from
patrons. In addition the rare foods and drinks provided had to be
ailingbal
ns
paid for as in a.restaurant. The most complete system of protec-
tion and surveillance ensured that patrons were free from police —
hs ‘interference. It was really a project on the grand scale.37
References in the literature to this type of male brothel are
Tare, thus it would be reasonable to assume that they formed only
a small part of the complex brothel system in London at this time.
=tae
RINE So
__ Their significance lies in the fact that they existed at all. Through-
 a

out the history of European prostitution there is always the

recognition of the male demand for the strumpet but only
exceptionally is there an admission that women could have
similar desires. A possible explanation lies in the fact of female
existence in a male-dominated world — women had hardly any
freedom of action. The normal assumption is that women do
not have the libidinous appetite of men. It is an assumption,
incidentally, which was an essential part of the Victorian philo-
sophy of sex which considered sexual expertise the province of
the whore not that of the wife.
Mary Wilson had another, and equally successful, side to her
business — flagellation. It is not our purpose here to discuss in any
detail the significance of the relationship of prostitution to sado-
masochistic practices — we have treated it in a later chapter — but
only to point out its occurrence and effect in these opening years
of the century. The association between the two — flagellation and
prostitution — is of great antiquity. Towards the end of the
eighteenth century flagellating brothels in Britain had begun to
be prominent. In succeeding years royal cachet was given to this
practice by George IV, who was known to have visited Mrs.
Collett at her premises in Tavistock Court, Covent Garden.3®
This lady had successfully operated a whipping establishment at
that address for a number of years. Later she moved to Portland
Place, and eventually to Bedford Street, Russell Square. In all
these places the same activities were carried on. There were a
number of other brothel-keepers who provided similar facilities
such as Mrs. Collett’s niece Mrs. Mitchell, whose place of
business was at first in the Waterloo Road and later in Kenning-
ton: Mrs. James of 7 Carlisle Street, Soho, who retired to live
in jewelled splendour in Notting Hill; and Mrs. Phillips of 11
Upper Belgrave Place. The evidence suggests that whipping had
become a popular adjunct to the other pleasures provided in the
bagnios. It is worth noting that the connection is still maintained
today — the advertisements in the notorious and now defunct
Ladies Directory were almost entirely concerned with the provi-
sion of sado-masochistic services. The distribution of addresses
quoted above would seem to indicate that the West End was by
no means the only venue of these establishments.
There was one woman who was outstanding in this particular
branch of her profession, Mrs. Theresa Berkely of 28 Charlotte
Street. She had both the talent, as well as the business sense, and

61
 flagellation —the preface was by Mary Wilson — entitled Venus
School Mistress. Miss Wilson had possessed a profitable sideline
in publishing translations, by her own hand, from European — |
erotic novels. In the preface to one, published in 1828, a
translation of Le Rideau Leve by H. G. Riquettit, Comte de
Mirabeau, she had given notice to her patrons that she was giving
up her flogging -establishment in St. Pancras and took the
opportunity of recommending them to Mrs. Berkely. “She is a
clever, pleasing, and trustworthy woman, in the prime of life,
and perfectly mistress of her business. She is an excellent
ontologist, and therefore quite au fait in treating the aberrations of
the human mind. Her museum of natural and artificial curiosities
and her collection of “‘Iilustrations de arcanis Veneris et amoris’’,
are by far the most extensive to be found in any similar institu-
tion.’
The account mentioned above is a revealing document both
for its information regarding the ‘excellent ontologist’, and for
the details concerning the equipment of a superior brothel of this
kind. ‘She possessed the first grand requisite of a courtizan, viz.,
lewdness; for without a woman is positively lecherous she cannot
long keep up the affectation of it, and it will soon be perceived that
she only moves her hands or her buttocks to the tune of pounds,
shillings, and pence. She could assume great urbanity and good
humour; she would study every lech, whim, caprice, and desire
of her customer, and had the disposition to gratify them, if her
avarice were rewarded in return .. .’ This passage appears to
contradict a popular view that prostitutes are essentially frigid
and uninterested in the sexual act which fact enables them to
continue in their profession without disgust. There are in fact a
number of references in the literature to the nymphomaniac —
tendencies of whores.39
‘Her instruments of torture were more numerous than those
of any other governess.* Her supply of birch was extensive, and
_ kept in water so that it was always green and pliant; she had
shafts with a dozen whip thongs on each of them; a dozen
different sizes of thin bending canes; leather straps like coach
traces; battledoors, made of thick sole-leather, with inch nails run
* Governess used of a woman who flagellates is still a current
z euphemism.

62,
 - through to docket and currycomb tough hides rendered callous
by many years flagellation. Holly brushes, furze brushes; a
prickly evergreen called butchers bush; and during the summer,
glass and China vases, filled with a constant supply of green
nettles, with which she often restored the dead to life. Thus, at
her shop, whoever went with plenty of money, could be birched,
whipped, fustigated, scourged, needle-pricked, half-hung, holly-
brushed, furse-brushed, butcher-brushed, stinging-nettled,
curry-combed, phlebotomised, and tortured .. .” The range of
equipment appears to be considerable.
The main purpose of this array of whipping articles was to
satisfy those clients who wished to undergo punishment. A
minority, however, were sadists. who desired to inflict the same
* punishment. Mrs. Berkely, providing the beating was not exces-
sive, was prepared to submit her own person for a high fee. If the
demands were inordinate she kept a number of women specific-
ally for this purpose. But it was with the invention of what
became known as the Berkely Horse, that Mrs. Berkely really
attained her greatest fame.
“The machine. . . was invented for Mrs. Berkely to flog gentle-
men upon, in the spring of 1828. It is capable of being opened to
a considerable extent, so as to bring the body to any angle that
might be desirable. There is a print in Mrs. Berkely’s memoirs,
representing a man upon it quite naked. A woman is sitting in a
chair exactly under it, with her bosom, belly, and bush exposed
she is manualizing his embolon, whilst Mrs. Berkely is birching
his posteriors . . When the new flogging machine was invented
the designer told her it would bring her into notice, and go by
her name after her death; and it did cause her to be talked about,
and brought her a great deal of business... Mrs. Berkely had also
in her second floor, a hook and pulley attached to the ceiling, by
which she could draw a man up by the hands.
The use of the Berkely Horse and her other apparatus enabled
Mrs. Berkely over a period of eight years to invest in the funds a
sum amounting to ten thousand pounds in the money of the day.
This would seem to indicate that flagellation on this scale was
both popular and profitable. At her death in 1836 her executor, a
Dr. Vance, presented the Berkely Horse to the Royal Society of
Arts in the Adelphi. It would be of some interest to know if the
Society still possesses it. An ironical aspect of the Berkely story
is that after her death her brother, who had been a missionary in

4 swat 63
 Fk suena the origin of his jecuee he renounced allc
and returned forthwith to the Antipodes. Dr. Vance refused to
administer the estate so the profits from the energetic prostitu-
A.
tion of Mrs. Berkely became the property of the Crown.*°
Mrs. Berkely was an unique figure in the early nineteenth
century world, mainly because of her enterprise and initiative.
There were, as was pointed out, many other prominent flogging
brothels. Mary Wilson. in the Preface mentioned above, wrote:
. It is, however, a lech, which has existed from time im-
memorial, and is so entensively indulged in London at this day,
that no less than twenty splendid establishments are supported
entirely by its practice: nor is there amongst the innumerable
temples dedicated to the Paphian Goddess, which adorn this
enormous metropolis, any one, in which the exercise of the rod
is not occasionally required .. .”4"
The addiction of men to this form of masochism is well
attested in psycho-analytical literature.+? A contemporary (1830)
opinion on the function and psychology of flagellation is of some
importance. The writer is Mary Wilson. ‘The men who have a
propensity for Flagellation may be divided into three classes:
a ‘1. Those who like to receive a fustigation, more or less severe
from the hand of a fine woman, who is sufficiently robust to
wield the rod with vigour and effect.
‘2. Those who desire themselves to administer birch discipline
on the white and plump buttocks of a female.
‘3. Those who neither wish to be passive recipients nor active
administrators of birch discipline, but would derive sufficient
excitement as mere spectators of the sport.’ This trifold division
very aptly describes the main types of individuals who are
attracted by this kind of sado-masochistic practice. It is a division
which would have validity for today. It is often thought that flagel-
lation appeals almost entirely to the elderly debauchee or roue.
That this is not really the case was pointed out by Miss Wilson.
‘Many persons are not sufficiently acquainted with human
nature, and the ways of the world, are apt to imagine that the lech
for Flagellation must be confined either to the aged, or those who
__ are exhausted through too great devotion to venery: but such is
not the fact, for there are quite as many young men and men in
the prime and vigour of life, who are influenced by this passion
as there are amongst the aged and the debilitated.

64
— C.
p45

} ‘It is very true that there are innummerable old generals,

admirals, colonels, and captains, as well as bishops, judges,
barristers, lords, commoners, and physicians, who periodically
go to be whipped, merely because it warms their blood, and
keeps up a little agreeable excitement in their systems long after
the power of enjoying the opposite sex has failed them; but it is
equally true, that hundreds of young men through having been
educated at institutions where the masters are fond of adminis-
tering birch discipline, and recollecting certain sensations
produced by it, have imbibed a passion for it, and have longed
to receive the same chastisement from the hands of a fine
woman...’
That the ability to administer punishment of this kind was an
accomplishment which had to be carefully acquired is indicated
by Miss Wilson. We are also given the origin of the term
‘governess’. “Those women who give most satisfaction to the
amateurs of discipline, are called governesses, because they have
by experience, acquired a tact and a modus operandi, which the
generality do not possess. It is not the merely keeping a rod, and
being willing to flog, that would cause a woman to be visited by
the worshippers of birch: she must have served her time to some
other woman who understood her business, and be thoroughly
accomplished in the art. They must have a quick and intuitive
method of observing the various aberration(s) of the human
mind, and be ready and willing to humour and relieve them.
Such was the late Mrs. Jones, of Hertford Street and London
Street, Fitzroy Square; such was the late Mrs. Berkely, such is
Betsy Burgess, of York Square, and such is Mrs. Pryce, of Burton
Crescent . . .’43 The implication here is that the would-be
exponent of flagellation had not only to serve a kind of appren-
ticeship, but also had to have sufficient imagination to gauge the
requirements of her clients. The natural ability of Mrs. Berkely in
this direction helps to explain her success.
This predilection for the perverse in sexual relations is also
seen in the existence of brothels which provided very young girls
for their clients. An extremely celebrated one was situated in Sey-
mour Place off Bryanston Square. It was run by a Frenchwoman,
Marie Aubrey, and her lover, John Williams. It attracted a
fashionable clientele, both British and foreign, and flourished
from about 1825 to 1837. Miss Aubrey provided the best of
everything in the form of comfort and elegance. The speciality

65
 ae r his agent gre
and Italy in search of suitable material. If this supph
y; forthcoming recourse was had to ‘the milliners’ shops in Oxford
' Street. Williams’ ostensible business was that of a coal-merchant.
- _He was assisted in his brothel activities by a local doctor who
both patronised the house, and lent his services in the acquisition
of young women. Brothels of this kind frequently disguised their
real function by the assumption of false activities in the form of
innocuous sounding names such ‘Institution for the Care of
Children,’ or Boarding School, or just plainly Girls’ School.*+
The demand for juvenile and virginal prostitutes was to become
much greater as the century progressed.
The most extreme example of the association of prostitution
and perversion at this time is seen in the existence of male homo-
sexual brothels. The most notorious of these was located in the
White Swan public-houses in Vere Street, Clare Market, close
to the site of the London School of Economics. The landlord of
x the White Swan, one James Cook, permitted his premises to be
i used as a brothel where his customers could meet male prosti-
tutes.
- ‘The fatal house in question was furnished in a style most
appropriate for the purposes it was intended. Four beds were
provided in one room — another was fitted up for the ladies’
dressing-room, with a toilette, and every appendage of rouge,
&c. &c. — a third room was called the Chapel (sic), where mar-
i riages took place, sometimes between a female grenadier, six feet
_, high, and a petit maitre not more than half the altitude of his
beloved wife! These marriges were solemnised with all the
mockery of bride maids and bride men; and the nuptials were
frequently consummated by two, three, or four couples, in the
4
ge . same room, and in the sight of each other! . .. the upper part of

Pe
aa the house was appropriated to wretches who were constantly in
: waiting for casual customers; who practised all the allurements
h, _ that are found in a brothel, by the more natural description of
prostitutes; and the only difference consisting in that want of
_ decency that subsists between the most profligate men and
_ depraved women. — Men of rank, and respectable situations in
life, might be seen wallowing either in or on the beds with wret-
ches of the lowest description .. . Sunday was the general, and
grand day of rendezvous! and to render their excuse the more

66
 a

i
‘ entangled and doubtful, some of the parties came from a great
r
distance, even so much as thirty miles, to join the festivity and
elegant amusements of grenadiers, footmen, waiters . . . and all
the Catamite Brood. . .”45
The appeal of this type of brothel appears to have been spread
over all sections of the community in that patrons consisted of
members of the upper classes as well as ordinary citizens. In-
evitably, despite the discretion with which it was conducted, the
White Swan was noticed by the authorities. On a Sunday night
in July 1810, a raid was organised from Bow Street and twenty-
three individuals were taken to the watch-house of St Clement’s
Dane close by. Next morning they were taken to Bow Street for
examination. Seven of them were eventually convicted, receiving
sentences from one to three years imprisonment. Exposure in the
pillory was also part of their punishment. The London mob, in
which women were particularly prominent, as they were on the
occasion of the Oscar Wilde trials later in the century, excelled
itself. The prisoners were drawn in open cars from the yard at
the Old Bailey to Tyburn, there to be exposed in the pillory.
Long before the procession was timed to start a great crowd had
gathered outside the yard complete with what can only be des-
cribed as ammunition wagons loaded with filth and garbage of
every kind. A scene of indescribable confusion occurred when
the mob stormed the Old Bailey gates just as the prisoners’
procession started. The condition of the unfortunate men by the
time they reached Tyburn can be imagined. The strength of the
crowd had been kept up by the dispensing of free liquor bought
with subscriptions collected on the spot.*°
_ It is difficult to find an adequate explanation of the frenzied
behaviour of the mob towards these homosexuals, Considering
the context in which heterosexual debauchery was commonplace
it cannot have been the mere discovery and rooting out of another
brothel which promoted such execration, The street women’s
reactions are understandable in that male prostitutes of this
kind represented a threat to their livelihood. But the mob was
composed of far more than just street women. The apparent
abhorrence vented by all who took part in the proceedings might
suggest an ambivalence towards sodomitical practices. Violence
might have been felt to have been sufficient concealment of
sympathy. It is not too exaggerated to suggest that highly placed
male homosexuals may possibly have fomented the feelings of

Das . 67
 3, diferent to the miseries of ordinary prostitution in their mids
but were savagely provoked at a public indictment of sodomy.
Two other cases are worth mentioning in this connection. One
concerns a similar trial at Exeter some twenty-five years before
the events at the White Swan. Fifteen men were tried and ac-
quitted on a legal technicality. The Exeter mob deprived of its
pleasure proceeded to burn their effigies in the market place.
The other took place about the same time as the Vere Street
events. In the same neighbourhood as the White Swan, in St
Clement’s Lane, a brothel of similar character was raided:
‘, . the public indignation was in some measure for the moment
allayed, by the grotesque appearance of the actors: they were
seized in the very act of giving caudle to their lying-in women (a
sick-room drink of warm, sweetened wine or ale), and the new-
vf
born infants personated by large dolls! and so well did they per-
form the characters they assumed, that one miscreant escaped
the vigilance of the officers and the examining magistrates, and
was discharged as a woman!?47
The element of fantasy in the last case is most unusual, While
male homosexuals do tend to imitate the feminine, child-birth
and things associated with it are generally eschewed — they tend
to mar the sexual image built up. The St. Clement’s Lane
brothel would seem to have catered for a very limited clientele
composed of psychopaths.
As we have said, brothels catering for the upper class owed
their success to the abilities and acumen of the women who ran
them. Such attributes did not always co-exist with refinements
of the person. John Cleland has left a picture, in his Memoirs of a
Coxcomb (1751), of a brothel-keeper whose business was with the
gentry. Although applying to an eighteenth-century madame
such figures were probably more common in the early nineteenth
century than the glamorous Mary Wilson or Mrs. Berkely.
*, . » Only imagine a tartar-phiz, begrimed with powder and
sweat, that could not, however, conceal the coarseness of a dun
skin; a mob (a cap), that with all its pink ribbons was forced to
give way, all round, to the impatience of confinement of stiff
bristling, grizzly locks, every hair of which was as thick as a pea-
straw; then this gorgonhead was sunk between her two should-
;ves _ ers, and carried in mock state, something i in the style of the crown

68
 _ and cushion; descending from which blessed landscape, to where ~
‘yoo
the creases and plaits of her breast triumphed over all the dirt and
_ ceruse that encrusted it, the sight, if not the scent, was feasted
with two pailfuls, at least, of uberous flesh, which had outgrown
the size, and neither in hue and consistence deserved the names
of breasts. I go no lower than a bust description for the sake of
nice stomachs !?48
The brothels which existed for the benefit of the middle and
lower classes possessed a different character from those discussed
so far. As might be expected both the material comforts and the
inmates were of an inferior order. The proprietors, frequently
men as well as women, felt that they were providing a service
but this did not oblige them to go out of their way to solicit cus-
tom in the manner of the aristocratic bawdy-house. That this
was the case is demonstrated by the great extent of the demand
seen in the vast numbers of prostitutes. Unless the market had
been there these women would not have offered themselves.
Where the demand for any commodity is widespread there is
frequently a tendency for the quality, and the manner of its dis-
pensation, to deteriorate - many examples could be cited in con-
temporary Britain, e.g. garages.
The acceptance of the brothel as part of the ordinary social
landscape is seen in the combination of the role of brothel-
keeper with that of ordinary occupations. There is the case, for
example, of Mr. Dancer in 1817. The following transpired in the
evidence given before the Police Committee in that year. ‘Are
there many houses of ill-fame in St Giles? - A great number...
There is one in particular belonging to Mr. Dancer, in New-
street; he is clerk to the Bedford Chapel in Charlotte Street; he
has three or four houses in New-street. How long has this man
kept houses of ill-fame? — A good while, as long as I have been in
the situation of beadle. . . Is that a chapel of ease to the estab-
lished church? — It is. Do the parish officers know that this man
keeps houses of ill-fame? — I have heard it mentioned, that it has
been mentioned to some of the officers; our officers are perfectly
aware of it .. . Do the parish officers know that he (Dancer)
officiates at Bedford Chapel? — Yes, they know that perfectly well
because there was an observation made by the last watch
committee by Mr. Stables (a parish officer), that he was aston-
ished that any clergyman should suffer any man of that stamp to
assist in administering the holy sacrament at that chapel. - How

Pe
 ee the eeeofthat
Peas 7cannot speak to my own ‘a
knowledge, but I have heard it has...
en
The whole case has an atmosphere lethe bizarre about it. It is
quite clear, however, that Dancer had been able to conduct his
brothels, and act as clerk of the chapel for a number of years.
elee
Even if the matter had not been brought to the direct attention of
the clergyman in question it was a state of affairs which was
widely known in the parish. The toleration of Dancer’s activities
can only be understood-by assuming that he possessed an exces-
sive amount of local influence, or that his behaviour was nothing
out of the ordinary in St Giles.-This parish was in fact notorious
%, for its festering tenements, disorderly public-houses, and vices.
___ Dancer’s houses provided a base for both prostitution and crime.
In many instances the police traced criminals to them where the
latter were found in bed with whores. Dancer also operated at
the lowest level of all — he let rooms to women who survived on
_ prostitution and parish relief.
An instance of this is quoted in the Police Committee Report.
One of these women, one Hannah Ragin, was overheard by a
police officer to say, having got 1s 6d from the parish, ‘. . . here
this is what I’ve got from my bloody parish; come never mind,
we'll see if we cannot meet some of it down’, and they went into a
gin-shop ... I found there were several of these poor unfortun-
ate girls who-inhabit this house (belonging to Dancer); some of
them rent a room together, but this Hannah Ragin has got the
| front parlour, and she said to these girls, ‘you may as well have
iy _ some of the money, as I rent the room’, and she has the common
___ practice of these unfortunate creatures walking into her room
>
with men, and she walks out during the time they are there, and
ae then returns ...’5° | .
Ses:
oe With Dancer’s particular combination of church clerkship and
brothel owner may have been unusual it suggests that it was easy
for individuals engaged in other trades to combine this lucrative
NS
in hoe side-line with their ordinary occupation. There is a good deal of
_ evidence to suggest that this was in fact the case. Frequently the
v1
Re
wy
‘

_ individual concerned had no ostensible connection with the run-

_ ning of houses of this nature but left it to his wife. This was the
case of Mr. Cummins in Bloomsbury. He was more cautious in
his dealings than Dancer.
oe
&
; - ‘.,, the houses of Mr. Cummins are not conducted in general
as houses of that sort are: they are generally very secure; there is
no robbery in them, I understand. They are supposed to contain
much accommodation? — Yes, no doubt of it. From one hundred
to one hundred and fifty beds? — I cannot speak to the number.
Are they weekly or nightly lodgers? — Nightly I believe. Or
hourly — Yes, some of them, I apprehend. Did you ever hear that
eighteenpence or two shillings was the price? — I do not know.
Have you reason to believe that persons of both sexes go to
Cummins’ houses? — I have reason to believe so, certainly . . .’5!
It came out in evidence that Mrs. Cummins lived comfortably on
the proceeds of these brothels and houses of accommodation.
‘,.. Mrs. Cummins keeps her carriage, does not she? — No; she
only keeps a spring cart. Has she a country house? — She has a
house at Camden Town (at that time a semi-rural district), A
respectable house, and well furnished? — Yes. Is she reputed to
be a person of considerable property ?— Yes, she is. . .”5?
In the. evidence given before the Police Committee regarding
Mrs. Cummins a number of other women were mentioned as
pursuing the same method of business. Considered objectively
this husband-wife partnership must have made a distinct appeal
to certain people. The husband would conduct a business above
reproach while the wife would manage her affairs discreetly and_
competently. Charges were modest, but if the premises were
extensive enough a reasonable profit could be made. The com-
bination of bawdy house and house of accommodation ensured
that the greatest custom was attracted. This type of enterprise
was essentially middle class and far removed from the luxurious
establishments of the haute monde.
As occurs today, certain hotels developed a trade in prostitu-_
‘ tion. If discretion was exercised by the proprietor there was very
little which the authorities could do. A typical case concerned the
Union Hotel in Dean Street, Soho. This was owned by a sheriff’s
officer. It was known to be a brothel, but was so well-conducted
that no cause of complaint could be made. There were several
others of this kind in the neighbourhood. Milk Alley, which then
adjoined Dean Street, provided a kind of parade ground for
street-walkers. Contrary to the practice in other parts of the
town these women were quiet, and well-behaved. They would
obtain clients and then proceed to the Union Hotel, or one of
its neighbours. No nuisance was created and the police were

7
 Wiactin’s-le-Grand in the city: ly gir
__standing at the door enticing young people in, i and at alltimes of —
the night fighting and quarrelling, giving charge, and sometimes
men taken out . . .” In this particular instance the evidence of
people in the surrounding houses was so overwhelming that an ~
‘indictment succeeded. The brothel-keeper was sentenced to the _
pillory, and three months in prison. She proved to be pregnant so
escaped the pillory.5+ The same district also provided houses of
accommodation which were open during the day as well as at
night; ‘. . . If a girl picks up any person in the street, there are
rooms at all hours for them. . .755
While London, by reason of the concentration of trade, popu-
lation, and manufactures in the capital, became the main focus
of prostitution in the country other cities made a substantial con-
tribution to the pattern of vice. The Police Returns for 1837 give
some idea of the extent of the problem.

TABLE I
Well-dressed Low prostitutes
prostitutes Well-dressed _ living in low
living in brothels streetwalkers neighbourhoods
895. 1,612 3,924
85 257 925
3 130 260
126 129 163
55 43 353

TABLEII
No. of
Brothels Average No. of prostitute
keeping No. in accommoda- _lodging-
prostitutes each tion houses _—houses
933 4 848 15554
620 4 625 136
150 3 174 232
24 3 44 Tits
88 2 40 Po aes
7 4 46 31
 Pras ite Pete fees i * i ges ‘ ea - t
Fs
we Ny Ta

£0
PS _ These figures provide some interesting comparisons.’* It
might be expected that Bath, a cathedral city with a population
of less than 50,000 at this time, should have the lowest number
of both brothels and prostitutes. This is in fact not quite the
case. Newcastle, a considerable seaport, possessed a total of
only 58 more prostitutes than Bath. Bath, on the other hand,
could furnish 87 more of the better class of streetwalker than
Newcastle. This is possibly to be explained by the larger number
of superior clients in Bath. In the second table if Bristol is com-
pared with Liverpool at a time (1831 Census) when the popula-
- tion of the latter was almost twice that of Bristol it is seen that
the number of prostitutes in Liverpool was nearly four times the
number in Bristol — 2216 against 682. Liverpool had become one
of the greatest centres of prostitution, outside London, in the
country.
That this was the case is indicated by a report, on the cost of
crime to the city, made by a sub-committee of the Liverpool
- Corporation in 1837.57
*300 brothels, estimated to obtain a weekly income
of £5 each £78,000
1200 prostitutes residing therein, the average weekly
income 40s. each £124,800
3000 prostitutes in private lodgings, average weekly
income 30s. each £234,000
1200 men cohabiting with prostitutes, average week-
ly income 20s. each £62,400 -

Total £734,420

As we have pointed out in the absence of a system of regulation

and registration of prostitution in this country figures as to the
number of brothels and prostitutes cannot be regarded as giving
precise information. Those we have quoted were based on
police observation and estimates. There are other contemporary
sources. One of the most informative and reliable is the pam-
phlet, The Miseries of Prostitution, by J. H. Talbot, published in
1844. The pamphlet is based on a series of lectures Talbot gave
in Norwich in 1843. His work as a missionary in the City of Lon-
don had given him an opportunity of investigating the problem —
at first hand. He also engaged in correspondence with a number
of informants throughout the British Isles. On this basis he was

‘73
 t
Bable?to orediiee thefollows “anegiving t ibern
in various Cities. ye
TABLE Ii
' Dublin 355
Edinburgh 219
Liverpool 770
Manchester 308
Birmingham 797
; Glasgow 204
Hull. 175
Leeds 175
Norwich 19458

Norwich is an increasing example of a cathedral, market-town

with, for its size (population 61,110, 1831 Census), an extremely
high incidence of prostitution. Talbot estimated that the average
number of prostitutes in each brothel was two which gave a total
of 388 whores in the city. This number worked out at one pros-
titute for every fifty-two of the adult male population. Compar-
able figures given by Tait in his Magdalenism are, for Edinburgh,
one to every eighty of the adult male population, and for London,
one for every sixty.5° If we are prepared to accept these esti-
mates they would appear to run counter to the classical proposi-
. tion that large urban areas and seaports are the main foci of
prostitution in industrial societies. There is, however, another
explanation connected with the influence of the liquor trade which
we have discussed in the last chapter.
‘This city (Norwich) abounds with facilities for the perpetra-
tion of robberies. There are not less than 600 taverns and ale-
houses, besides beer-shops, in Norwich and its suburbs. It is well
known that half of these houses are of the lowest kind, open
brothels, resorts of thieves and prostitutes, where robberies are
planned, property secreted, and every means afforded for evad-
ing justice. Surely it is high time that our magistrates began to
abate this evil; to remove this disgrace from our ancient city, by
_ tefusing to continue licences to notoriously bad houses. . .”6° In
addition to the existence of disorderly public-houses the city
served as a market for a large and prosperous agricultural area
which no doubt provided a substantial male clientele for its
prostitutes.
The number of full-time whores in Norwich was considerably

74
ia oe. J ¥

r Sane by numerous clandestine prostitutes. These women

were factory and sewing girls, ‘and even married women’. Their
number was estimated at 500, which added to the figure of 388
professionals gave a total of 888, or one prostitute to every
twenty-three adult males.*t This is the highest incidence of any
city in England in the first half of the nineteenth century. Com-
parable figures for Paris and New York about this time were one
prostitute to every fifteen and one prostitute to every six or seven
of the adult males.* The figures of East Anglian metropolis were
nearer to these than to those of London.
The resort of these clandestine prostitutes were the low public-
houses of Norwich. ‘There is, in my neighbourhood, a public-
house, kept open for the reception of girls, who stay there all
night with married as well as single men. There are seldom less
than ten or twelve girls there on an evening. They had a dance
not long ago, when the girls were nearly in a state of nudity,
having only one garment on. The landlord has also opened
another public-house in the same street, the other not being large
enough, and the landlady says they can now accommodate
gentlemen with thirty girls at least in an evening, if necessary, as
they have two cottages in the garden adjoining to the public-
house. . .”53 The readiness with which a certain type of publican
embarked upon this form of business helps to explain the growth
of prostitution in Norwich. He was undoubtedly assisted by the
laxity with which the licensing laws were administered, as we
remarked in the previous chapter.
Talbot’s remarks with regard to Norwich are of the greatest
interest as there are few references in the literature to towns of
this kind — the great urban centres are most frequently referred
to. His analysis of the brothel system is equally important.
‘,.. I may venture to assert, generally, that every town, and every
village, throughout the kingdom, has its brothels, and all the
machinery for carrying forward the illicit intercourse of the
sexes . . .’°+ Talbot divided brothels into three types — regular
brothels, dress houses, and accommodation houses. Dress houses
fitted their name perfectly. ‘. .. They are houses where a number
of females are kept, who receive no other remuneration than
their board and lodging. These females are generally decoyed —
into such receptacles of infamy, and are the most abject slaves.
Upon their introduction they are stripped of the apparel, with
which parental care or friendly solicitude had clothed them, and

715
Mand clocked Gar the aan attire firniated i the keep
house. They are then compelled to walk the streets, closely wat-
ched by a female (sometimes a child!), employed for that pur-
pose. All the wages of their iniquity passes into the hands of the
master or mistress, they never being allowed to receive any
money. During the day they are clothed in such a manner as
effectually to prevent their escape. When they are no longer
serviceable, they are turned into the streets. This is the faithful,
but revolting picture of a dress house. . .”°5
The dress house appears to have been a prominent feature in
the apparatus of prostitution throughout the nineteenth century.
Pierce Egan speaks of the procuresses in the saloon at Covent
Garden ‘keeping a most vigilant eye that none of their “decked-
out girls” brush off with the property (i.e. their clothes) entrusted
to them for the night . . ."°° Egan is describing a London twenty
years before Talbot wrote. The persistence of the dress house is
to be seen in terms of the obvious advantages it gave the brothel-
keeper as regards the control of the prostitute. Cases, however,
did occur where the wretched women ran off with their tawdry
finery. Talbot cites one such. A girl left alone in London by her
widowed mother who had to go elsewhere in search of work, was
seduced into a brothel in Stepney — a common enough occur-
rence. Refusing to go on the streets she was stationed at the door
of the brothel to invite men inside. For this situation the brothel-
keeper dressed her up. Ill-treated, receiving no money, and half-
starved the girl eventually ran away in the clothes lent her. A few
days later the brothel-keeper met her in the street and gave her
in charge for theft of the clothes. On coming up for trial she was
discovered to be badly diseased, and in the event was acquitted.°7
An unfortunate woman once seduced, and enmeshed in a dress
house, was generally powerless to effect her escape. The deter-
rents were obvious — fear of arrest for theft, and having no other
means of livelihood except the prostitution of her body.
It is quite clear from the evidence that prostitution at this
period was carried on quite openly and blatantly. The public asa
whole acquiesced in a state of affairs which had been created by a
number of factors of a general nature. The law and the police
were both incapable of controlling a situation in which there was
a widespread demand for the prostitute. The official police force
was still largely embryonic, many of its duties being carried out
by private watchmen. The latter were frequently irresponsible in

76

ys oe
¥ their behaviour and very susceptible to bribery. Edwin Chadwick
in his report on the rural constabulary (1839) produced the
following evidence concerning the watchmen of Stockport.
*. . | know that the private watchmen have frequently been ,
employed for the most depraved purposes, directing persons in a
state of intoxication to houses of ill-fame. I cannot prove that
they are paid for that purpose, but there are instances of the
keepers of such houses being subscribers to the private watch ...
We have also had personal complaints, and had great reason to
suspect that the watchmen themselves have been the instigators
of the felonies committed by prostitutes . . .”68
Brothel keepers as owners of businesses were entitled to sub-
scribe to the watch as much as any other citizen engaged in any
other trade. They might meet with opposition but supporters
would always be forthcoming from amongst their clients. It is
important to realise that however much they might be execrated
they were fulfilling what was regarded as an important need of
society. In addition the men employed in the watch were of a
very poor quality. It was said of them that they committed
robberies, got drunk, and failed abominably in their duties.®°
But it was not only the watchmen who suffered from these
deficiencies — the same was true of the official constables. The
Senior Police Officer of Shropshire in 1839 could write in this
manner:
‘I find the petty constables, almost without exception, to be
pot companions of the disorderly characters in their respective
neighbourhoods . . . It has been common with one of the town-
ship constables to my knowledge, to take a bribe not to notice
breaches of the peace . . . Sometimes the constables can neither
read nor write...’7°
These nigh illiterates, the professed guardians of the public,
were paid wages comparable with their inferiority — between £26
and £30 a year plus fees for taking offenders to prison and acting
as witnesses. They provided the perfect target for bribery. It
would have been really surprising if they acted in any other way.
The danger to the public was not so much from prostitution,
deplorable as it may have been, but from the age-old association ~
of prostitution with crime. Because of the clandestine circum-
stances which have nearly always surrounded the sale of a
woman’s body the purchaser is peculiarly vulnerable to abuse by
theft and extortion. Just how dangerous this was in the 1830s is

711
Vay fa CEs,
ie va ties a nageEe ed Ts
oan

Fs

, renntie! by thecondition of onan the largest fpre “ais

- Liverpool. 7
‘, . The number of brothels has already been stated at up-
wards of three hundred. In nearly the whole of these are females,
in some two, in others ten; on an average four; or in all, twelve
hundred prostitutes; and it is estimated more than double that
number have their lodgings in other places. It is the opinion of
those experienced in police affairs, that a very large proportion of »
these do not subsist solely by prostitution, but are the compan-
ions and accessories of thieves; and, in general, themselves thieves
and pickpockets. The weakness and thoughtlessness of men give
this class of thieves peculiar facilities. Being permitted, so long as
they do not disturb the public peace, to walk the street, they find
no difficulty in coming in contact with persons who quit the
public-houses late, and in a state of intoxication and in leading
them into places of robbery and plunder. In nine cases out of
ten, even when detection ensues, the dread of exposure prevents
prosecution, from which circumstances, and the frequent dis-
inclination to commit on charges termed disorderly, and which
are discreditable to the complainants, female thieves may be said
to rob almost without fear of legal consequences. Their depreda-
tions are extensive; the robberies in one house (brothel) alone,
brought before the Magistrates in twelve months, involved no
less than one thousand pounds! ... These of themselves, there-
fore, form a grievous pestilence, but the evil they produce does
not end with their individual depredations; to the extent of nearly
one-third, each prostitute is connected with a man, who co-
habits with her, lives on her plunder, or when she is unsuccessful,
picks pockets and commits robberies himself, to which she is not
unfrequently an accessory... .’7!
It would appear from the record that libidinous attraction out-
weighed the hazards of robbery. Some no doubt found in these
same hazards a compelling erotic quality.
Granted the inadequacy and inefficiency of the police, and the
appetite and stupidity of the client, there yet remains another
factor which helped to maintain the high level of prostitution.
This was the state of the law. Prostitution itself was, and still is, a
lawful occupation provided that it is not carried on in a brothel.
Brothel keepers could be prosecuted under an Act of George II
(25 Geo. II, c. 36). Under this Act any two householders could
lay a complaint that a house was being used as a brothel. Upon

78
et, ok ae ee 4 al ~s =& ey ie atm »
Pte ee ae : ety é
cLXe @ ri ee

sworn evidence being submitted to a magistrate a warrant could

be issued. Brothel keepers being individuals of some consider-
able initiative, when indicted, habitually pleaded guilty. Where-
upon they were bound over, in their own recognizances, not to
open the house again as a brothel. This of course did not prevent
‘their doing so elsewhere. Talbot states that the most serious
punishment meted out to the keeper of a brothel, in his exper- |
ience, was one of two years’ imprisonment. Generally a trifling
sentence was imposed— a matter of days.
“The two cases (a man and his wife) of keeping a disorderly
house — a hotbed of vice and misery — a fruitful source of wretch-
edness and guilt, the justices seem to look leniently upon — ten
days imprisonment only being inflicted upon them, whilst selling
fruit on the pathway, a crime having in it no immorality what-
ever, is punished with no less than thirty days incarceration. . .’7?
It must be thought that there were no sections of the public
which were outraged by this state of affairs. But decent citizens
who found themselves the neighbours of bawdy house keepers
soon discovered that the time and money wasted on prosecutions
had little effect. Those societies interested in moral welfare, such
as the London Society for the Protection of Young Females,
found themselves in the same situation. The leniency with which
the law was administered suggests that, while no one openly
advocated prostitution, there was a tacit acceptance that the
existence of prostitutes was necessary. The brothel keeper traded
on this acceptance, and if, as occurred occasionally, things got
too uncomfortable in one neighbourhood he could always trans-
fer his business and his clientele to another.
In 1844 a serious attempt was made to remedy this drift to-
wards depravity. The then Bishop of Exeter, with the support
of a number of individuals and societies engaged in moral wel-
fare work, promoted a Bill in the House of Lords which would
have done a great deal to undermine the trade in prostitution.
Interestingly enough the Bill passed its first and second readings _
in the Lords, but at its third reading Lord Foley moved, “That it
be read that day six months’, In the event the Bishop of Exeter
withdrew his Bill, the Duke of Wellington having intimated to —
him that the Government would at some time in the future
interest itself.in the subject. It is not too extreme to suggest Foley > >:
a

could be regarded as the spokesman of the brothel interest in the

House of Lords. There is in fact no other interpretation. ih
2

|se
pi
ot
79 eo
se
a=
>
 Bill itself was Bh tins 737
__ was engaged as an entrepreneur of vice, but that the upper cdaceee 4
were convinced of the necessity of prostitution.
While government took little interest or action in the matter a
number of voluntary organisations, some dating from the pre-
ceding century, had endeavoured to reclaim women from a life
of prostitution. In their zeal their members created conditions in
their refuges and missions which served to emphasise the appar-
ent degradation and iniquity of these unfortunate women. Drab
surroundings, ugly uniforms, unremitting labour, all served to
impress upon the ‘saved’ woman that she was an outcast and
pariah who could only return to society through years of servility.
Thus it is not surprising that the numbers ‘saved’ bore little
relation to those who continued unregenerate.
The record of one of the most important of these institutions
in London was as follows:
‘The Magdalen Hospital was founded August 10, 1758, and
up to January 4, 1844, had received 6968 females; of this number
4752 had been reconciled to their friends, placed in service, or
‘other respectable and industrious situations; 107 have been
lunatic, troubled with fits, or incurable disorders; 109 have died,
_1185 have been discharged at their own request, 720 discharged
for improper behaviour, two absconded in the year 1836, and 95
were in the house January 4, 1844.’7* These figures can be com-
pared with Colquhoun’s estimate of 50,000 London prostitutes
which we quoted above.
The other major London institutions such as The Lock
Asylum, the London Female Penitentiary, the British Penitent
Female Refuge, the Guardian Society, all exhibited a similar
pattern. It was Talbot’s opinion that ‘. . . Taking the whole of
the institutions of London, up to the present time (1844), it may
be fairly estimated, that not more than 14,000 or 15,000 unfor-
tunate women have had the opportunity of returning to a vir-
tuous life. ..”75
There were some who thought that the problem was ap-
proached in the wrong way. That reclamation should begin
before the opportunity of a life of vice presented itself. Such an
individual was James Buchannan, Her Majesty’s Consul for the
State of New York. His plan, published in a letter to Lord Dun-
cannon in 1842, called for the establishment of “The Royal —
__ Victoria Colonial Sanctuary for Destitute Young Females’. The

i= 80
is
Y main idea was the setting up of wool factories outside the chief
towns of Upper Canada which would be run by young females
between the ages of eight and fourteen. In addition the children
were to be instructed in the arts of domestic economy. Finance
was to be in part provided by government on the score that such
expenditure diminished crime, and in part by voluntary associa-
tions.7° The plan was never put into execution.
Another individual, Luke James Hansard, put forward an
ingenious proposition to strike at the heart of the matter. This
was that the community should purchase the unexpired portion
of the leases of all the brothels in London. The houses would
then be turned into lodgings for the poor. The daring simplicity
of this solution failed to impress itself upon the public mind.77
Talbot, who had given much thought to the problem, was of
the opinion that the essential solution was to make seduction of a
female, of whatever age, a penal offence. In conjunction with this
he proposed that the law as it then stood should be much more
severely administered — for a second offence the individual should
suffer extreme penalties. He also suggested that parish authori-
ties, both personally and officially, should be held responsible for
seeing that the law was carried out. Every parish, moreover, was
to be responsible for setting up asylums for those women who
wished to reform. Above all the responsibility should be brought
home to the public — respectable females should see to it that they
denounced their male acquaintance who visited brothels.7* Sen-
sible as Talbot’s reforms were the habits of the people were too
deeply entrenched for them to prove successful.
Some part of this indifference to prostitution so characteristic
of the nineteenth century is still with us today. It is a remarkable
fact that under the provisions of the Children and Young Per-_
sons Act of 1933 (S. 3 (1)) an individual in charge of a child be-
tween the ages of 4 and 16 who allows the child to frequent or
reside in a brothel is only punishable by a fine of £25 or six
months imprisonment, or both. ;
So far we have discussed some of the developments concerning
prostitution which took place at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Those developments cannot be fully appreciated with-
out an understanding of the background which precipitated
them. It is to this that we now turn our attention.
‘I again appeal — shall I appeal in vain? Fathers, Mothers,
Brothers, Sisters, have you no interest in this important question?

81 i
 stem the tide ofi
iniquity now CaN Res the ind? ? That tide
‘was to become a roaring flood before the end of the century.

- Notes and References

* Colquhoun, P. Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, London

1800, pp. 340-1.
2 In 1816 the population of London was estimated at 1 5200,000.
See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers of the Industrial Revolu-
tion, 1750-1850, London 1930, Footnote, p .3.
e3 Colquhoun, op. cit., pp. 338-9.
4 Ibid.-» D. 346.

7 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of London,

in the several Mayoralities of 1814 and 1816, for clearing the
i ‘Streets of Vagrants, Prostitutes, and Idle and Disorderly
wa Persons, printed as an appendix, with separate pagination, to
_ the Report from the Committee on the State of the Police of the
_ Metropolis, Clement’s Edition, London 1816, pp. 4-5.
_ § Tbid., p. 5.
° Ibid., pp. 5-30.
° Police Report, Clement’s Edition, London 1817, p. 685.
Ibid., pp. 685-6.
2 Tbid., p. 693.
3 Anon., An Address to the Guardian Society, London 1817,
_ The Pamphleteer, London 1818, Vol. XI, No. XXI, p. 243.
™ Geijer, Erick Gustaf. Impressions of England 1809-10, trans-
lated by Elizabeth Sprigge and C. Napier; London 1932,
p. 249. s
_ % For a discussion of Venetian prostitution, see Fernando
beHenriques, Prostitution and Society, Vol. II, London 1963,
i Chapter III.

quoted by J. Robiquet: Daily Life in Facing Under Napoleon,

aie 1962, p. 165.
 y a
ates
“Y
An Address to the Guardian Society, op. cit., pp. 243 and
245.
18
Police Report 1816, Clement’s Edition, p. 28.
Parent-Duchatelet, A. J. B. De La Prostitution dans la Ville de
Paris, Paris 1857, 3rd Edition, Vol. I, m., pp. 139-40.
An Address to the Guardian Society, op. cit., p. 248.
Ibid., p. 250.
Ibid., pp. 250-1.
Egan, Pierce. Tom and Ferry, Life in London (1821), London
1869, pp. 211 and 215-16.
For an excellent description of the tea-gardens of London see
Warwick Wroth, The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteen-
th Century, London 1896.
25
The rise and fall of Almacks is described in E. Beresford
Chancellor, The Pleasure Haunts of London, London and New
York 1925, pp. 299-318. There are innumerable references to
Almacks in the memoirs and diaries of the time. Intimate
glimpses are in R. H. Gronow, Celebrities of London and Paris,
London 1865, and Last Recollections, London 1866.
Egan, Pierce. Op. cit., pp. 309-345.
Navy Records Society, Vol. XXIV, Appendix A, p. 347,
quoted by M. Lewis, A Social History of the Navy, London
1960, pp. 280-I.
Mariners Mirror, Vol. VIII, p. 317.
Lewis, op. cit., p. 282.
Tbid., footnote, p. 282.
Talbot, J. B. The Miseries of Prostitution, London 1844, pp.
14-15.
Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, Vol. 1, Lon-
don 1962, Chapter V.
Egan, Pierce. Op. cit., pp. 223-6.
Memoirs of William Hickey, ed. A. Spencer, London 1913,
Vol. I, pp. 66-7.
3. A detailed description of these seraglios is given in Anon.,

Nocturnal Revels, or the History of King’s Place and other

Modern Nunneries, Vols. I and 11, London 1779.
36 Chancellor, E. Beresford. Op. cit., p. 186.
3 s Wilson, Mary. The Voluptarian Cabinet, London 1824, pp.
_ 61-76.
Fraxi, Pisanus. Index Librorum Prohibitorum, London 1877,
p. xlii.

83
 x Pisanus Fraxi, op. cit..
3 ‘pp. F
4 Ibid. p. 399.
_- 42 See Bonaparte, Marie. Fehials Sexuality, London 1953; p. 46,
and S, Freud, A Child is being Beaten, A Contribution tothe
: Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions, Collected Papers, :
if London 1924.
e. #% Quoted by Pisanus Fraxi, op. cit., pp. 399-401.
Ei. _ 44 Ryan, M. Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of
that in Paris, New York, etc., London 1839, pp. 154 and 189.
45 Holloway, —. The Phoenix of Sodom, or the Vere Street
; Coterie. London 181 3, quoted by Pisanus Fraxi, op. cit., pp.
i 329-33.
46 Fraxi, Pisanus. Op. cit., pp. 334-8. |
_* Ibid., pp. 338 and 339.
i 48 Cleland, John, Memoirs of a Coxcomb, London N.D., p. 176.
49 ‘First Report On the State of the Police of the nl Lon-
a don 1819, pp. 152-3.
$0 Thid., pp. 153-4. . }
_ 5 Tbid., p. 166. A .
82 Tbid.
83 Police Report, London 1817, Clement’s Edition, pp. 712-13.
Sg) Police Report, London 1816, poenicate s Edition, p. 375:
55 Tbid., p. 376.
4 5 56 ‘These tables are based on the erhainal returns for 1837 given
in the First Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire as
to the Best Means of Establishing an Efficient Constabulary
Force in the Counties of England and Wales, London 1839; pp.
8 andog.
87 Tbid., pp. 11 and 12.

59 Tait, W., Magdalenism, London 1840, p. 5. °

60 Norwich Chronicle, December 2nd, 1843. -
& Talbot, J. Bs, op. cit., p. 12.
& Tait, W., op. cit., London 1840, p. 5.
1 ee) B.,; op. cit.,p.12.
 :n aeee AR cidic 7s Watch Committee Report on the poet Baou
renee in Liverpool (1837), p. 216. ; Sie
_ ” Talbot,J.B., op. cit.,p.56. i.
73 The full text of the Bill is ee in J. B. Talbot, op. cit., pp.“
—
— 61-7.
_ 7 Talbot, J. B., op. cit., p. 68. ‘a
75 Tbid.,p.69.
7 Ibid.,pp.72and 74... a
_ 77 Tbid., pp. 74-6. — if g
gy 78 Ibid., pp. 76-8. F
eS j

2; Sani

4 |
;3 .
S
¥
i |

a
‘ ~

%
= t
 aeead Seedy;
ns

PSS

3: The Map of Vice in Scotland

In 1840 there was published in Edinburgh a book entitled

Magdalenism. An Inquiry into the Extent, Causes, and Conse-
quences of Prostitution in Edinburgh, Its author, William Tait,
was house surgeon to the Edinburgh Lock Hospital for venereal
diseases, and thus was in an excellent position to pursue the sub-
ject of his enquiry. Magdalenism is in fact one of the most accur-
ate accounts of prostitution in nineteenth-century Scotland.
The following survey of conditions in the Athens of the North is
based, very largely, on Tait’s researches.
One of the major difficulties confronting the student of pro-
stitution of any period is the paucity of reliable statistical mater-
jal. This is particularly true of Britain in the first half of the
nineteenth century. Unlike the rest of Europe, in which varying
systems of registration have been current, Britain has never kept
records consistently as to the numbers of prostitutes in any given
area. Exception has possibly to be made of the years of the Con-

86
 ‘et,.2 2 ie ee an

tagious Disease Acts, to which we refer elsewhere. Edinburgh

illustrates this problem well. Observers of the local scene gave
widely different estimates — from 300 to 6000. The Captain of
the Edinburgh Police Establishment was, apparently, not in a
position to produce any figures. On the other hand the Treasurer
of the Magdalene Asylum for fallen women gave as his esti-
mate the figure of 800.' It was this number which Tait was wil-
ling to accept as it agreed with the result of his own researches,
While it was not possible to enumerate the individual prosti-
tutes in the city the number of brothels and other places in-
habited or frequented by whores could be ascertained. There
were some 200 in Edinburgh. The term brothel in this context is
to be widely interpreted. It includes licensed taverns, eating
houses, and houses of assignation which provided sexual facili-
ties for their customers, as well as straightforward bordells and
maisons de rendezvous. In all of them women who sold them-
selves either lodged or visited. According to Tait, discounting
those itinerants who only stayed for a night or two occasionally,
the number of prostitutes in such places was 600, there being
two hundred brothels with an average of three inmates. In addi-
tion there were about 200 others who lived elsewhere — with
friends or in lodgings. Thus there were 800 avowed prostitutes
in Edinburgh at a time when the population was under 100,000.
Tait calculated that such figures meant that there was one prosti-
tute for every eighty men of the adult population. He arrived at
this conclusion by taking half the population as being male and
subtracting one-third of this number as being either too young
or too old to exercise ‘their creative function’. Similar calcula-
tions have been made in our day with reference to Chicago by _
Reitman.3 :
In the assessment of the number of prostitutes in Edinburgh
it is interesting to note that many prostitutes entertained their
lovers in brothels. Such men were not, apparently, their spoony
or fancy men, that is their ponces whom they supported, but
individuals who came into a special category. They were known
as cowlies, possibly because their visits were made in disguise, the
derivation being from a monk’s cowl. This suggests that cowles
were men of a higher social class than their inamoratas, and thus
liable to suffer socially if their liaison became public. This kind
of person seems to have been confined to Scotland, as neither
Sanger with reference to the United States, nor Mayhew in

87
 co: , th con=
tions evening in ae Scottish capital. It is possible to detect
the iron influence of Calvinism in the matter.
_ That this was a factor affecting the overt incidence of prosti-
tutionin Scotland cannot be dismissed lightly. Contemporary
authorities, such as Sanger and Parent-Duchatelet, maintained
that both official figures and private estimates of prostitutes had
- to be enhanced by the number of women who were clandestinely
- engaged in prostitution. There is no reason to suppose that
* Edinburgh was any different in this respect from New York or
_ Paris. The category of the clandestine includes both the full-
time professional, and the woman who increased her income by
part-time activity. There are grounds, however, for assuming
~ that in Edinburgh the compulsion to observe, at least outwardly,
_ the proprieties engendered by a belief in Presbyterianism led to
concealment of their activities by prostitutes and their clients. In
Latin countries a less rigorous interpretation of Christianity in
relation to the flesh and the devil, has sponsored less hypocrisy.
_ Decency might have been outwardly observed in the Edinburgh
_ of the 1830s but it cloaked a moral quagmire.
‘While it was possible to count the number of brothels in the
city it was not possible to establish accurately the number of
women who were secretly engaged in the profession. There was
. also the further complication that girls might partly abandon
iy their ordinary Occupation through necessity or to increase their
73- wages, resort to prostitution, and later revert wholly to their
I original employment. Thus any estimates in this field must be
f - treated with caution.
_ A large section of those women who could not be classified as
overt prostitutes came from what Tait called the sedentary
usclasses. They comprised those engaged in factory work and such
i occupations as milliners, staymakers, and dressmakers. A perhaps
E*.surprising inclusion in this category was that of women engaged
in book binding. This would not appear to be a calling ordinarily
associated with vicious living. The explanation appears to lie in
ye ae appallingly low wages obtaining in the trade at that ume,
stitutes is of the order of two thousand, It includes not only the -
trades mentioned above but servant girls, as well as widows, and
women deserted by their husbands.
The servant girl in the nineteenth century is often depicted in
novels and stories as being at the mercy of her master and his
sons. This would seem to be an English conception of the state
of affairs as the evidence from Edinburgh at this time suggests a
somewhat different pattern. Some servants in that city were
able to indulge in a most profitable kind of prostitution. At
night, or in the absence of their masters, they admitted strange
men to the house. The parties in these clandestine sexual en-
counters were both unknown to each other. This was an advan-
tage from the woman’s point of view as it helped to keep her
activities from detection. With skill an employer’s house could be
used as a brothel for a considerable period.
A variant of this behaviour occurred when the relationship
was prolonged beyond a single night. An extreme case is quoted
by Tait. ‘. . . a student of law was known to have slept in a
gentleman’s house with a servant (who was left in charge of the
premises), for four months during the summer, while the family
were in the country; and, during all that period, neither of them
asked or knew the other’s name.’ A more usual course was for
the same individual to be entertained once or twice a week over a
long period. Students appear to have been particularly attracted
by this type of arrangement. In many instances the girls were
able to dispose of their master’s food and drink to the gratifica-
tion of their admirers.7 This was an additional very real attrac-
tion for impecunious members of the student body. The clientele
of servant-prostitutes of this type was not always drawn from the
middle or upper classes. Working class customers were apt to
realise that the occasion offered more than opportunity for sexual
satisfaction. The result was that such prostitution was inevitably
accompanied by robbery.
While there seems to be a valid reason in this context for the
servant to wish to conceal her name, and for the client, particu-
larly of the upper classes, to do likewise, this anonymous quality
in prostitution is something which has persisted into our own
day. There may be a strong psychological compulsion in the
make-up of the client that demands satisfaction from an unknown
woman. It is also a component of sexual liaisons which are not
necessarily of a meretricious nature. A contemporary instance is
 aibed in secret resented: Of these a Anes fell into the
category we have discussed above.® The rest respected the con-
ventions and their employment sufficiently to use houses of
assignation to prostitute themselves. The existence of these
_ houses served an extremely important function — they enabled
illicit sexual activity to take place with the utmost discretion. ‘It
is a notorious fact that servants, under the pretence of going to
church, obtain leave from their mistresses for several hours on
the evening of the Sabbath, with no other intention on their part
than to spend it in the haunts of wickedness . . . One girl, for in-
stance, the servant of a highly respectable family in Leith, has
been known to frequent a certain house in Edinburgh every
alternate Sabbath evening for a period of four years . . .*° The
secrecy ensured by the house of assignation enabled not only
ordinary serving maids but also their superiors — the lady’s maid
and housekeeper — to practice a covert prostitution. On a Sunday
evening, respectably dressed, carrying a Bible as if on their way
to church, there was nothing in their gait or appearance to sug-
gest that their purpose was anything but the most proper. In this
way the Sabbatarianism of nineteenth-century Edinburgh was
satisfied. .
The house of assignation also provided the means for the
employer to meet women in his own employ. Thus a gentleman
might there meet his wife’s maid or housekeeper without fear of
discovery. It is not surprising that the women who organised and
ran these houses combined an acute business sense with a great
deal of tact, discrimination, and judgement.
There was yet another purpose which the house of assignation
served. “I'wo hundred have been supposed to be about the num-
ber of married women who are addicted to a life of prostitution.
By this number must be only understood those who are in the
regular habit of visiting houses of assignation, or other places of
appointment, with gentlemen who are not their husbands. Most
of these females are married to men considerably below the rank
of those with whom they are in the habit of meeting.’ The last
part of the quotation suggests that the wives of petty tradesmen
|
bo
le
and other similarly situated resorted to prostitution as an extra
_ source of income rather than from necessity. Tait indicates that
these women were in comfortable circumstances and the mothers

90
 -<5ite BNRak 7 OR RL Casale yEAS aaa VSL TRL Ae tek ak

of children, They tended to confine their attentions to particular _

individuals rather than acting as common strumpets.
Prostitution amongst married women was by no means con-
fined to the lower bourgeoisie. Wives in Edinburgh ‘society’ used
the same device as their counterparts in the America of their day.
and their Stuart and mediaeval ancestors, based upon the model
of the profligate Roman matrons — that is disguise."2 A sexual
factor may possibly have operated amongst this group in the
sense that desire for sexual satisfaction denied them through the
neglect or impotence of their husbands may have inclined such
women to the brothel and streetwalking. Again, nymphomania
cannot be discounted as an incentive for this type of behaviour.
In New York about the same time Sanger cites a figure of well
over a thousand women out of a total of approximately 8000 pros-
titutes who visited houses of assignation for sexual gratification."
It should be remembered that the overt regard in Edinburgh
paid to the proprieties and sexual conventions of the period
made it exceedingly difficult for the upper class married woman
to conduct a sexual liaison with a man of her own milieu.
There is an extraordinary case quoted by Tait which shows
that there might be compelling, if bizarre, reasons for a tem-
porary excursion into the field of prostitution by married
women. It concerns a young professional man who met a woman
with the appearance of a streetwalker but possessing a rather
more genteel air than was usual. He arranges to meet her on a
subsequent occasion when they retire to a house of assignation.
Attempts at questioning her as to her origins and background
meet with rebuffs. But ‘At a moment when she appeared to take
no notice of what he was saying, he observed that she had placed
one of her feet on the fender, and unconsciously had drawn her
frock considerably above her underclothes, so as to display aa
very handsome foot and leg, and afford him an opportunity of
judging the quality of that part of her dress. With astonishment,
he observed that there was no harmony between these and her
outer garments; for her boots were of the most costly descrip-
tion, her stockings were the finest silk, and her slip was edged
with the richest trimming. There was nothing flimsy or tawdry
in any part of her apparel, except her bonnet, neckerchief, and
frock; everything else appeared to be made of materials of the
best quality.”"+ 3
This encounter did not seem to satisfy the curiosity aroused in —

or
Rites on Southt ‘Bidee inEdinburgh where he observed his
acquaintance fashionably dressed, and leaning on the arm of a
much older man. Leaving her escort on some pretext she man-
aged to have a brief conversation with the young man. She
begged him never to acknowledge her if they ever met again as
the man she had just left was her husband. ‘She explained briefly
that she had been married for several years, and had no prospect
of having a family, without which her husband’s ample fortune
went to distant relatives at his death, and she would be left with a
trifling annuity. From her present interesting condition she en-
tertained no alarm (being in the sixth month of her pregnancy).
Leaving him to judge who was the father of the heir-presumptive,
she bade him good-bye, and hurried from his presence. The last
interview of the parties now alluded to, explains at once the cause
that induced the lady to simulate for a time the garb of an aban-
doned woman, and subject herself to the risk of being contami-
nated by infectious disease, and of being detected by some friend
in circumstances which would have reflected the greatest dis-
honour upon herself and family...’!5
If this story is taken at its face value, and Tait is usualiy
reliable observer, it would suggest that for women in such cir-
cumstances where a great deal of property was at stake, there
must have been a compelling incentive to become a temporary
whore. In a different context such as that of eighteenth-century
France the solution was much simpler — enlisting the aid of a
male friend. Today there are artificial means to achieve the same
end. Treated merely as an anecdote it yet remains illustrative of
the sexual morals induced by a puritanical society.
Prostitution of the individual in search of an heir did not
obtain amongst the masses of the people in Scotland’s capital. To
suggest that the ordinary decencies did not occur in a great
section of the population is an understatement. ‘In some lodging-
houses, where six or eight beds are crowded into one or two
small apartments, and where twenty or more wretched beings are
- congregated together, all exhibiting an extreme degree of indi-
gence, it is no unusual thing for married men and women to
sleep promiscuously together; or should any woman be present
unaccompanied by her husband, it is not uncommon for her to
Offer to sleep with any man who would pay the expense of her

92

17
 Se
+
ee Os OAR hee ie it oe ea
aa by Te eee 7 es

mS
r=
night’s lodging. Some have been known in these lodging cellars
to rise from the side of their husbands, when they knew they
were asleep, and spend the greater part. of the night in an ad-
joining bed with a different individual . . .’:
In conditions such as these the overwhelming motive for pros-
titution was undoubtedly poverty. It was a situation where for a
woman to sell her body was hardly a step further in degradation.
Corroboration of the conditions described is forthcoming from
another source — an inquiry made on behalf of the Poor Law
Commissioners and published in 1842. ‘The dwellings of the
poor are generally very filthy in their interior, and in many cases
seem never to be subjected to any kind of cleaning whatever.
Those of the lowest grade often consist only of one small apart-
ment, always ill-ventilated . . . but perhaps the most remarkable
feature of such dwellings is the miserable scantiness of furniture
or rather in many cases, the total want of any kind of it. A few of
the lowest poor have a bedstead, but by far the larger portion
have none; these make up a kind of bed on the floor with straw,
on which a whole family are huddled together, some naked and
the others in the same clothes they have worn during the
day . 2.727 .
It was from such homes that many mothers went out to walk
the streets after locking up their children. Their motive? To
obtain enough to buy the necessities of life. In many cases, cited
by the Report alluded to above, the husband was out of work and
maintenance of the family fell upon the wife: ‘. . . He left the
infirmary in February last, where he had been confined two
months by disease. Since that time to the present (15th October,
1840), his whole earnings do not amount to 20s. .. .”!8 In other
cases the woman was a widow, or had been deserted by a hus-
band, and was desperately trying to escape from appalling con-
ditions. There is an interesting parallel with the widow in India
forbidden by custom to remarry who found that prostitution
offered the only means of survival.'® Tait’s description of these
‘fallen’ women of Edinburgh is most revealing.
‘This class have a particularly dirty and wretched appearance,
and are familiar to every one who has had occasion to traverse the
streets after midnight. Many are the insults which these wretch-
ed creatures receive from passengers, and the police; but how few
feel or know the difficulties they have to contend with, and that
theirs is no calling of pleasure or choice, but one of dire

93
aaereneiiares: cone to some opinion, did n
upper and middle classes but also-satisfied a cherate dindnent
‘the labouring population.
In many fields of endeavour a capital city acts as a focus of
attraction for its country. This is particularly true of prostitution
in Edinburgh, for a noticeable feature of the Scottish metropoli-
tan scene was the perpetual pilgrimage extending over the year,
but especially in autumn and spring, of ‘fancy’ women from all
-over Scotland, but mainly from towns in the west and north.
They were mostly from respectable surroundings in their native
towns, being dressmakers or milliners. Their habit was to go
about in pairs. A couple would arrive in the city and proceed to
take lodging on the understanding that they were at complete
liberty to entertain whom they wished. Their clothing tended to
be elaborate and fashionable. The corollary was that their fav-
ours were expensively bought. In some instances an arrange-
ment was made beforehand by a patron who sought lodgings for
them. It was understood that a girl would devote herself to her
patron for the duration of her visit, generally about a fortnight.
‘Fancy’ women of this type were particularly sought after by
commercial travellers from England who liked to have their
pleasures regularly catered for on their trips north of the border.
The more superior of these women had a special clientele from
amongst those gentlemen who came north for the shooting in
the autumn. The advantage for the latter was that they were able
to visit the women in a discreet manner in their private lodging
without having to have recourse to a house of assignation or a
brothel. A system akin to that which exists in London at the
present time was current — one gentleman would recommend
another to his ‘fancy’ woman. They were in fact the call girls of ©
their day.
When they had returned to their own homes they observed all
the properties, and no possible exception could be taken to their
behaviour. The money earned from selling themselves was spent
on clothes and luxuries. Clearly these women were at a great
' remove from the indigent whores discussed above.
Apart from the ‘fancy’ women there was a definite fluctuation
in the prostitute population of Edinburgh. For example during
the summer races at Musselburgh great numbers of whores
_ came over from Glasgow to join their sisters. At the time of the

94
“Ayr:races the prostitutes oF the Sal vad theswest coast. It
is obvious that loose women would take advantage of the crowds
gathered at racecourses. To help them in their endeavour printed
broadsheets, which purported to give details of their attractions,
were sold at the races. Today the Glaswegian migration to Mus-
_ selburgh still takes place.
Sometimes an exceptional event precipitated something in the
nature of a major change in the prostitute population. Such was
the Eglinton Tournament. This was a strange but expensive
attempt to revive the glories of the mediaeval tournament on the
part of the then Earl of Eglinton in 1839, and which attracted
great numbers of people. It was estimated that on that occasion
at least half the strumpets of Edinburgh deserted the capital for
Glasgow and other towns in the west of Scotland. According to
Tait it was only after.the passage of several months that things
reverted to normal in Edinburgh, and that when fresh recruits -
arrived in the city. These were made up of servants who had lost
their situations, country girls in search of a ‘place’, and, it is of
some interest to note, by exchanges with ‘respectable’ brothels in
Glasgow.?!
Although brothels and disorderly houses were not exactly
sanctioned by the law at this time there does not seem to have been
national legislation affecting their existence. The Disorderly
Houses Act of 1751 had application only to London, and seems to
have been directed more to the abatement of the nuisance to
neighbours such houses might cause rather than inspired by any
concern for public morality. An indictment lay at common law
for keeping a disorderly house bur this again was interpreted in
terms of the nuisance cauised.”2 It is not in fact until the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1885 that the management or keeping of
a brothel becomes an offence in itself.
This being the case it is not a matter for comment to find that
Tait was able in 1839 to identify in Edinburgh over two hundred.
premises which were used as brothels of one kind or another.
His list was as follows:
‘Genteel houses of assignation 3
Second-rate houses of assignation 15
Licensed taverns 10
Ginger-beer shops 25
Genteel public brothels 10
Second-rate brothels 18
 203723

There are several points to be considered about this classifica-

tion. We have discussed the intimate association of the drinking
trade with prostitution in London in another chapter. It would
appear that the same type of connection existed in Edinburgh.
It is not of course merely a question of the trade but of the
ambience favourable to prostitution created by the public con-
sumption of alcohol. There has been a tradition of this kind in
Europe from classical times and it still continues. The tradition is
known in Far Eastern societies, for instance in Japan.2+ An
elaborate analysis is not required to show who this should be the
case. In Edinburgh the taverns which were the known resorts of
whores were enormously successful, and when packed to capacity
had to turn people away.?5
Ginger-beer shops have an innocuous sound. They were in fact
infamous dens which had formerly been taverns. The proprietors
having lost their licences for permitting disorderly conduci put
up the pretence of selling non-alcoholic drinks as a camouflage
for running a brothel. It may be that the sale of a harmless com-
modity is a peculiarly Scottish device to mask the disposal of far
different wares. In the case of Glasgow in 1914 the sale of ice-
cream was not all it appeared to be. The Municipal Council of
that city stated in a Memorandum that ‘. . . the volume of exist-
ing immorality and the frequent violation of children, and the
existence of ice-cream shops which are merely cloaks for in-
decency’. A possible explanation is the anxiety to observe the
proprieties which has been, and still is, so much a part of the
Scottish scene. England is not entirely blameless in this respect —
in contemporary Bradford some ‘health’ stores sell male contra-
ceptives as a profitable sideline.
The overt purpose of the common eating houses was to provide
food for those unable to obtain meals in their lodgings. This was
a facility taken advantage of by both Edinburgh citizens and the
many transients attracted to the capital. While many of those
establishments were simply eating houses others provided women
for their customers. More profit was to be made out of this
__ provision than the sale of meals.

96
 so. £ |
Pens =

-
Houses of assignation, as we have implied above, were favoured
by the upper and middle classes. Their clientele were mainly
individuals who could not afford to risk entering a known
brothel. They also enabled married women to meet lovers of
their choice and of their own class. The discretion so desired at
this level of the society was not considered necessary by the mass
of the people who were content to frequent brothels and taverns.
The lodging house depending upon its location and standing
functioned in the manner of a house of assignation, or the
lowest form of brothel. .
As is to be expected the brothel quarter of the city was to be
found in the centre. Tait gives the following table:

‘DISTRICTS Number of
brothels
The first district includes the Hight Street from the
Castlehill to head of Canongate, and all the adjacent
closes 52
The second district includes the Grassmarket and the
Westport, and adjoining closes 12
The third district includes the Cowgate and closes,
and. Brown Square 9
' The fourth district includes the Abbey-hill and
Canongate, with wynds and closes 13
The fifth district includes the streets to the east of
Nicolson Street, from Drummond Street to the south
‘ side of the town 29
The sixth district includes all the streets and closes to
the west of Nicolson Street, from College Street to
the south side 12
The seventh district includes the South and North
Bridges, Canal Street, and Shakespeare Square Io
The eight district includes Rose Street and all the
streets to the west of St. Andrews, Duke Street,
Dublin Street, etc. 32
The ninth district includes all streets, etc., to the east
of Duke Street, St. Andrews Street, etc., and to the
north of Princes Street and Regent Bridge extending
to Stead’s Place, Leith Walk 34

Amounting inallto 20377

97):
 ~ description. It is a noticeable feature of many sume cities that —
_-- poorer areas are juxtaposed to those more properly residential.
_. This characteristic was reflected in the disposition of the different
classes of brothels in the city — those around the Grassmarket
would attract a clientele rather different from those north of
Princes Street, and so on.
: An analysis of the places of origin from which the prostitute
_ population of Edinburgh came is of considerable interest, Nearly
sixty per cent originated in the city itself. This, as we shall see,
granted the conditions of the times, is understandable. The
neighbouring city of Glasgow furnished about fifteen per cent.
- This fact was of some surprise to Tait who felt that an urban area
___ of such size and so near to the capital should have been a greater
a source of supply. The English contribution was apparently very
small. This is explained in terms of the greater opportunities and
q attractions provided by London. Those few who did originate in
: the south had either arrived in the train of a regiment, or had
i: - been brought to the city as kept women by individuals who had
me subsequently deserted them. An equally small number came from
i European countries — there were hardly any aliens amongst
_
rae
Edinburgh’s prostitutes. This may have been due to the Scots’
+¢
ere
~~ preference for their native product, for the port of Leith pro- -
vided excellent access to the Continent.
Apart from Edinburgh by far the greatest source was Scotland
itself together with a significant number from Ireland. Curiously
enough it was not the manufacturing towns with their appalling
slum conditions which were ordinarily prominently represented
but the country or market towns. It would seem reasonable to
P:_ assume that young girls already half-depraved, imprisoned in
Ve _ poverty and filth in the manufacturing towns would regard pros-
_ titution in the capital as an escape to a better world. What in fact
happened was a continuation of the trend established in the
_. eighteenth century whereby the rural areas of Britain maintained
oery a continuous flow to the urban markets of prostitution, It is a
trend, incidentally, which has by no means ceased to exist in our
_ own day. Economic factors could, however, disturb this picture
_ of rural source and urban market. If there were a trade recession
_ and many people were thrown out of work there was tendency
= ts the women in the industrial areas to travel to Edinburgh and
 ~ i —_ a? "t.2f, se a th,
R ~
Ady rhe > a* > ‘ “
Ve Ss r
i

engage in prostitution. When conditions improved they returned

to their place of origin. This of course would be classified as
temporary or intermittent prostitution and does not affect the
general pattern we have described. It is a good example of the
economic determination of prostitution which we discuss in a
later chapter.2®
From the records of the Lock Hospital in Edinburgh it is
possible to obtain an approximation of the age distribution
amongst prostitutes in the city in the period in question. The
Lock Hospital for the treatment of venereal disease was opened in
1835. From that time until 1839 a thousand female patients were
admitted for treatment. Of these considerably more than half,
six hundred and sixty-two, were between 15 and 20 years of age.
The next largest group, nearly two hundred, were women
between 20 and 25. Fifty-nine were between 25 and 30, sixteen
between 30 and 35, and only six between 35 and 4o. At either end
of the scale there were forty-two under 15 and six over 40. The
youngest girl admitted for treatment was nine years of age.?°
These figures are only an indication of both the possible age
distribution and incidence of veneral disease amongst prostitutes.
They are impaired by the fact that not only prostitutes contracted
a disease of this kind, and that many of those who were suffering
did not necessarily attend the hospital. There is also the further
consideration that the records do not state whether any of the
cases cited were in the category of congenital syphilis and thus
not due to prostitution.
A comparison of the above figures with those given by Sanger
for mid-nineteenth-century New York show a similar kind of
distribution. Out of a total of two thousand prostitutes in that
city the vast majority, one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine
were between the ages of 16 and 25.3° Parent-Duchatelet quotes
similar figures for Paris at a somewhat earlier period — of the total
of Parisian prostitutes (3517) nearly half were between the ages
of 16 and 26.3! Thus the age distribution of prostitutes in New
York, Edinburgh, and Paris towards the middle of the century
would suggest that the most active period of a prostitute’s life
was between 15 and 30. It is also possible to conclude that the
teenage prostitution of our own day is by no means a new
phenomenon.
There has been a tendency amongst modern authorities to
emphasize themental defectiveness and educational backwardness

99
 in the Mesbpoliaan Police Report ofCriminals for 1837 quoted by
Ryan in his Prostitution in London (1839). 33 According to this
Report in that year of 3103 prostitutes, 1773 could neither read
nor write, 1237 were only able to read, and the remainder (93)
were ordinarily educated. In Tait’s opinion the situation was,
quite different in Edinburgh. “Taking country and town girls to- -
gether it can be confidently asserted, that not more than thirteen
‘or fourteen per cent of the whole population of prostitutes are
unable to read . . .34 The greater part of this percentage was
made up of girls originating in Edinburgh itself and the large
manufacturing towns of Scotland. It was, apparently, an excep-
tion to meet a girl from the rural areas outside of the Highlands
who was unable to read or write. Of course the police figures for
London must be treated with caution as they do not indicate
the number of times the same individual was brought before the
Court. Again, they only include those whores guilty of mis-
behaviour and crimes. Even if allowances are made for this the
fact remains that the educational standard of the Edinburgh
prostitutes was vastly above that of their London counterparts.
It would seem that the vaunted superiority of Scottish education
over that of England extended at this period into the field of
& prostitution.
As with education so it was with religion. While Sanger could
maintain for New York that prostitutes ceased to profess their
religion throughout their careers,35 Tait suggests a somewhat
different state of affairs. His findings in this connection are of the
_ greatest interest. About forty per cent of the Edinburgh strumpets
were professing Christians. Another twenty-five per cent were
in the habit of going to one church or another. The minority
remaining were indifferent to the call of religion. The bulk of the
religiously minded were divided among the Church of Scotland,
the United Secession Church, the Relief (it is difficult to under-
stand what body is intended by the author), and the Methodists,
' There seemed to be no adherents of the Independents, the
ae tadag or Quakers. Tait normally so informative falls into a
_ mysterious reticence when he attempts to explain the addiction
of prostitutes for the austere doctrine of the Methodists. There
is almost a suggestion that the reasons are discreditable. Outside
-this main group the Irish minority were Roman Catholics, while
 fs
Li

‘avery small number of genteel whores were Episcopalian.2¢

One explanation of the religiosity of the Edinburgh prostitutes
could be in terms of the excessive Sabbatarianism of the Scottish
capital at this time, a Sabbaratianism which was so strong as to
affect even the women of the town. The mixture of depravity
and religion in the person of the whore was a microcosm of the
strange world of the city. It would be wrong to assume that such
profession of religion were necessarily hypocritical in that the
mode of life of these women was entirely opposed to religious
sentiments, Generally it can be said that the gulf created by sins
of the flesh between man and God is much more a Protestant
conception than a Catholic one. There is considerable evidence
from European societies both in the past and in our own times
to support the view that the prostitute does not regard herself,
and is not so regarded as an outcast from religion.37
The strumpets of Edinburgh had other attributes besides
literacy and churchgoing. One of their most marked charac-
teristics was an addiction to strong liquors. This could be re-
garded as a kind of occupational hazard of their profession in that
the latter provided every temptation and facility for drinking to
excess. There were however other factors in the situation. Parent-
Duchatelet had attributed a similar manifestation among Parisian
prostitutes to the belief, on the part of their clients, that venereal
complaints were aggravated by drinking. Thus an abstinent
whore was clearly a diseased one.38 In Tait’s opinion this may
well have been true of the public women of the French capital
but in Edinburgh there was evidence to suggest a different
causation.
Three different categories of prostitute-drinkers could be dis-
tinguished. There were first of all those women who came from
homes where the whole family had recourse to cheap spirits
almost from infancy. The habit thus created in childhood was
reinforced in later life by the vicissitudes inherent in the existence
they were compelled to. The second group was composed of
women who had come from respectable homes and who had
been seduced, deserted, and thus fallen into prostitution. Alcohol
for them was the only means of assuaging the torments of their
conscience and regret for the world of respectability now lost to
them. The third category consisted of those who were constitu-
tional tipplers and who spent their earnings in pursuit of intoxi-
_cation.?° In our opinion the insecurity and uncertainty of the

Io
 reasons fot h
‘remembered that the ease vand chéapness with which liquor could—
be obtained from the profusion of taverns and drinking dens in
___ the city was a factor of supreme importance. It was a time when
= the expenditure of a few pence would purchase insensibility.
This is not to discount Tait’s hypothesis but merely to emphasise
the background against which it functioned.
Deceit, dissimulation, and dishonesty as well as swearing were
other characteristics of Edinburgh’s prostitute population dis-
tinguished by Tait. They are all traits which have been associated
with women of the streets throughout their history. In the case
; of Edinburgh it was argued that in their anxiety, amounting
___- almost to an obsession, to disguise their profession such women
were forced to lie and deceive. Anxiety of this kind combined
with shame induced by their way of life led to a pathological
state in which they were incapable of differentiating between
truth and falsehood. It is possible that the Sabbatarianism re-
ferred to above may have been’a powerful influence in this
direction. Thieving and extortion were widespread in the
profession, and were regarded by many as merely an extension of —
their ordinary activities. In this respect the trulls of Edinburgh
were in no way different from their sisters elsewhere. The inti-
mate connection of prostitution and theft is documented from
almost every major centre of commercialised sex in the world.*°
‘This is in no way remarkable as the clandestine atmosphere in
which this type of sexual activity takes place lends itself to abuse
of the client. As regards swearing it can be considered as a trait
adopted from the male companions of the prostitute both fancy
man and customers. It is noticeable that obscene language is
often used in widely differing groups in order to create a sense
of security in an insecure situation — the armed services and
prison inmates are examples of this kind.
A The structure of prostitution in Edinburgh in the first part of
a) the nineteenth century mirrored the structure of the society of
a which it was an integral part. Thus the class divisions in the city
_ were reflected in the hierarchy of whores inhabiting it. The
economics of legitimate commerce had their counterpart in
es,sordid framework which governed the sale of women’s
bodies.
_ The most successful members of the profession were those who
_ operated independently of brothels, and whose clientele were
made up of army officers, and individuals of the upper class
generally. Many of them possessed accomplishments, such as the
ability to draw or paint, and play an instrument or sing, which
were typical of upper class women at this time. Some of them
were well-informed, well educated, and highly literate and thus
fit companions for the men who sought their company. In origin
they appear to have been lower middle class, and had been
trained as seamstresses or milliners. Having decided upon their
course in life they set out to acquire those attributes which would
carry them to the top. Because of their success they were enabled
to dress in a way indistinguishable from that of respectable,
fashionable women. Their public fitness, as it can be best
described, enabled their gentlemen friends to escort them to
concerts, fétes, and entertainments of all kinds without, appar-
ently, fear of censure.
Living in private lodgings, or in the houses of relatives this
type of superior courtesan used the houses of assignation of the
first grade. They might conduct their business in different ways.
If the mistress of the house affected an introduction to a client,
and provided a room she charged half of what the girl received,
If on the other hand the girl picked up a man at the theatre, or
in the street, she was merely charged a few shillings for the use
of a room for a short period. The mistress of the establishment ~
also acted as ‘a contemporary call girl agency — she kept a list of
the girls and sent a message for them if their services were
required. In such cases she also charged half the fee received by
the girl. The prostitutes of this type who wished to graduate to
the status of kept women fostered the belief in their clients that
they did not live entirely as whores. This was done by occasion-
ally pricking a finger with a needle to give the impression that
sewing was still in part their profession — deception which was
only too successful in the eyes of men already bemused by their
charms and accomplishments.
Now truly a courtesan, the respectable prostitute was main-
tained by her lover. Unfortunately this success generally caused
an outburst of extravagance. In turn this led to infidelity in order
to obtain more money. Tait instances a case in which a young
woman managed to conduct a relationship with three men
simultaneously. Carelessness eventually led to discovery, and the
end of her ingenious arrangement.*! Some kept women were

103
 ‘them are partially kept; icy receive a.certain sum per week, and
are allowed to make as much more as they can, provided always
they are to be found at their lodgings at an appointed time.
Those who deal with them in this manner are generally poor,
and are connected with some of the public offices or other places
of business in the town . . .’4?
The above quotation not only reveals the fact that economic
necessity was sufficient to overcome the jealous desire for exclu-
sive possession but that prostitution was supported by respectable
gentlemen of the Edinburgh middle class. This class-wide
_ support helps to explain the magnitude of the ‘social evil’ in the
city at this time.
The greatest hazard for these Scottish cocottes at the peak of
their careers was drink. Time,.opportunity, and money made
temptation easy. The danger was a very real one for steady indul-
gence passed easily into addiction, and loss of interest in dress and
behaviour. Such a course precipitated the descent into the lower
ranks, and finally, if the habit persisted, into the class of the most
-adject and diseased of streetwalkers. Such a course was depen-
_ dent upon the habits and temperament of the individual con-
_cerned.*? Some managed to survive for a long period, with
others their time of supremacy was excessively short.
At the other end of the scale from the courtesans were the lost
ones of depravity. Their numbers were made up of women whom
no brothel would tolerate because of their behaviour, dissipated
- wives thrown out by their families, unemployed servants,
_ orphans, deserted wives and widows, and camp-followers of the
_ army. They were divided into about three different groups. One
ie- section combined begging with prostitution. During the day,
__» with either their own or borrowed children, they begged in the
streets. Others in this group acted as street hawkers in the sum-
mer, and in the winter resorted to thieving. At night they slept
in the lowest of common lodging houses, but were constantly on
_. the move as their hosts distrusted them. Another section were
__ even too poor to afford a lodging however squalid. These often
walked about all night soliciting custom, or late at night begged
- someone to let them sleep on the floor by a fire. Some broke into
mpty houses in search of a bed, or went to the police station for
 PO TE gee ate:

' next step was death. “These wretched women are to be seen
| sauntering about the streets at all hours of the night, barefooted,
dirty, and emaciated, with their hands under their aprons and
shivering with cold; and there is good reason to believe that many
of them starve to death in the place where they lay themselves
down to rest.’44
The third group in this lowest category of Edinburgh whores
was somewhat better off. It comprised mainly unemployed ser-
vants who did not want to become inmates of a brothel, and so
be unable to escape from prostitution, and camp-followers or
soldiers’ women. Possibly because of the regular patronage forth-
coming from the army these women were able to afford slightly
better lodgings than those mentioned above. During the day the
greater part of their time was spent in waiting for their paramours
to come off duty. Their favourite haunts were Meadow Walk
near the Infirmary, and Calton Hill. There was always the possi-
bility of reclamation for the servant girls if they had not become
too addicted to drink. The time element was important — if they
managed to get a situation before they had been many months on
the street they might desert the profession altogether.45 Un-
doubtedly the general condition of the working people which
we discuss below was a major causative factor determining the
existence of these unfortunates.
Occupying a middle ground between these two extremes were
the prostitutes who lived in brothels. Two groups could be dis-
tinguished here in terms of the type of brothel concerned. The
first consisted of inmates of the first and second class houses.
These were made up of women who had gravitated from the
heights of the profession, and girls of some distinction who were
‘just entering the profession. Prostitutes from the best houses
were seldom seen in the streets unless accompanied by the
brothel-keeper or her trusted friend. If allowed out by themselves
the girls were liable to resort to taverns, and such behaviour
might impair the carefully built up reputation of the house. To
ensure the success of this kind of brothel, catering for the best
of Edinburgh society, decorum in its personnel was essential.
Their day was passed in sleeping, playing cards, making-up,
sitting idly, and drinking as much as the ‘Madame’ would allow
them. They became extremely skilful in the use of the cosmetics
of the day. Indolence appeared to be their main characteristic.
The behaviour of women in first class houses, but not those of

105
 streets at night soliciting custom in fashionable and extravagant
attire provided by the brothel-keepers. Those from a particular
‘brothel were frequently dressed all alike. No doubt this served to
distinguish them to their patrons. New wardrobes of this uniform
kind were provided on the occasion of the annual Musselburgh
races, which was a time when the normal city clientele was
swollen by visitors from out of town. Far from being indolent
these whores were impudent and vivacious in appearance and
manner.*°
It was a big step from the first category of brothel to the second.
In the latter all signs of respectability disappeared. The houses
were in many instances of the meanest kind almost devoid of
furniture. The women were entirely depraved and vicious. Little
regard was paid to their appearance: “They rarely wash them-
selves, and their clothes are hardly ever changed till they rot off
them with dirt. Their figure altogether is so uncouth and dis-
gusting, that it must be a matter of surprise to every reflecting
person how any one is attracted into their company . . .”*7 The
brothels were located mainly in the closes off the high street and
Grassmarket. Apart from streetwalking the main method of
soliciting was to congregate in a group at the mouth of a close,
and accost the passers-by offering to buy them a drink. Their
attitude was most importunate. A reluctant individual would be
quickly surrounded and his pockets robbed while he was pro-
testing.
In this category Tait makes an important distinction between
those we mentioned above, who apparently had come into prosti-
tution from other avocations, and those who had been bred up
to it by parents or friends. ‘When newly merged into woman-
hood, many . . . become very blooming and florid in their com-
plexion, and remarkably tidy in their dress. Most of them go
bareheaded, and display great taste in the manner they arrange
and ornament their hair. They are a most dangerous class of
prostitute, as their clean and healthy-like appearance is apt to
- attract thoughtless young trades lads into their company; and all
of them being expert swindlers, they are sure to rob every one
_ who ventures to associate with them . . .’** Some lived in
_ brothels; others associated with thieves and strolling players
_ and musicians, which gave them considerable opportunity to
exercise their talents for robbery. Their appearance obviously

106 2e ‘ony
ines
e [oo Sy
Me
--
Sie

‘gave them an advantage over their more dissipated sisters.

The lowest type of brothel corresponded to the most degraded
_ category of prostitute already discussed. They housed those out-
casts who did not attempt to set up on their own. The condition
of the women was really deplorable. ‘. . . the pride of cleanliness
1s so completely banished that neither their faces nor clothes are
ever washed; and. what with filth, vermin, scabs and whiskey,
they emit a most disagreeable and sickly odour . . .’49 It is a
remarkable tribute to the strength of the male libido that it was
able to function with such women in such surroundings.
Brothel-keepers reflected the quality of their houses. The very
best, whose care was the most genteel of establishments, tended _
to regard themselves, perhaps not as benefactors of society, but at
least as women of significance and importance. This was seen in
their behaviour which was modelled on that of fashionable ladies.
In addition, in order to maintain the position they arrogated to
themselves, all those over whom they exercised authority,
whether servants or shopkeepers, were treated with arrogance
and disdain. Only their equals in business, and toadying acquain- |
tances were admitted to friendship. To consolidate their position
these leaders of their profession formed a kind of trade union, or
mutual aid society. If a member attempted to entice a girl from
another house to her own she faced expulsion, and the ruin of her
business by concerted action of the members. Girls guilty of
infracation of the house rules might be expelled and blacklisted
so that they found it impossible to enter another brothel. The
interests of the union extended beyond Edinburgh. Thus contact
was maintained with similar organisations in other towns,
notably Glasgow. This enabled an exchange of girls to take place ©
from time to time, and enabled a client from Edinburgh to
carry a letter of introduction to a house of equivalent standing
in Glasgow. Altogether the brothel-keepers of the city at this
level were a highly organised, unscrupulous body of women.*°
Those not quite at the top were apt to betray their profession
by allowing their inordinate passion for extravagant clothes and
fame to overwhelm them. ‘Their peculiar swagger and the cast
of their head, with a wild and impertinent glance of their eye, at
once point out to the spectator the class of society to which they
belong . . .’5" If this were not enough their propensity to accom-
pany their servants and converse with them in the streets, or to
allow their girls to accompany them in public produced the same

107
he effect. In time iftheir Biicniclerea sntec
- improvement would be noticeable pee in their manner and
dress.
The desire and achievement of pees respectibility, so
earnestly desired by the premier Madames, sometimes led to
acutely embarrassing incidents. Tait recounts the story of a
country minister who unwittingly entertained one of these ladies
and her companions when they met with a mishap while travel-
ling. The occasion was a happy one, and on leaving the lady
pressed him if he were ever in Edinburgh to call on her. Some
months later he did so and was charmed by the dinner to which
he was entertained, the manner of its serving, and the witty con-
versation of his hostess. Next day, accompanying the lady and her
companions in the street, he met two of his fellow clergymen.
They drew him aside and informed him that he was acting as
escort to the most notorious brothel-keeper in Edinburgh. The
unfortunate minister was unable to carry off the situation, and
immediately vanished.*? In a city noted for the propriety of its
manners to be successful even in this field required the outward
semblance of gentility.
Brothel-keepers were recruited in a variety of ways. A common
method was that of the successful whore who having amassed
some money, and perhaps borrowing more, was able to buy or .
lease premises and furnish them suitably. If such women had
attained the status of kept women they were frequently able
through the good offices of a ‘friend’ to set themselves up in
business. Such women formed a majority of Madames of all
types. There were, however, many who had not been through the
_ mill of prostitution before reaching their present eminence. An
astonishing list is given by Tait. It included the widow of a
writer to the signet, wives or widows of respectable businessmen,
a Protestant minister and his wife, the wife of a police sergeant,
- and wives of officials in the excise. Doubtless such ladies carried
the decorum of their original status into their new occupation.
The process by which ordinary women succumbed to the
- attractions of running a ‘house’ was simple. A widow having
little to support her, but owning a house, might be persuaded by
friends to take female lodgers. Because of inexperience her house
might soon become the home of ladies in the profession who,
regular in their payments, gave her an assured income. She might
discover the true nature of the business they transacted when it

108 ©
 many ah
Tal

was too late to change the character of her house, and fulfil her
commitments, From this stage until she undertook the full
management of the brothel was generally only a short time. It
may sound naive in the extreme but there must have been many
worthy citizens of Edinburgh who were unaware of the existence
of vice underneath the facade of gentility.
An exceptional method of recruitment was by succession.
There were instances in Edinburgh of brothels passing from
mother to daughter, or sister to sister, and so on but these were
rare. In a few cases the business itself was kept within the family
in the sense that no outside girls were employed, clients being
catered for exclusively by members of the family. The advan-
tages of familial prostitution from a business point of view are
obvious,
The economics of brothel-keeping in Edinburgh reveal part of
its attractions as a way of life. In the first place the inmates were
compelled to pay a substantial sum, out of all proportion to the
accomodation provided, for their board and lodging. In addi-
tion half of their fees or ‘presents’, as they were called, went to
the Madame. Bearing in mind the profound difference in the
value of money the figures in question — with real money values
very different in those days — were of the following order: For
board and lodging this varied from Ios. to £1 a week according
to the grade of house. In the better houses fees earned by indivi-
dual girls varied from £5 to £35 a week. The brothel-keeper
acted as banker and took charge of the entire amount received by
the girls. An essential part of the latter’s equipment were dresses.
These were supplied by the Madame at an exorbitant price. They
were rarely new being passed down from former inmates to new-
comers. Originally such dresses were purchased second-hand
from clothes dealers, who specialised in acquiring them from
upper class lady’s maids, who had been given them by their
mistresses; or were soiled stock bought from milliners. What-
ever their origin they were always sold at the highest price to the
unfortunate girls. It was an excellent method of ensuring that the
brothel’s inmates were permanently in debt to the mistress of the —
house. An additional method of achieving the same end was to
charge the cost of public appearances at concerts, plays, and
entertainments in search of custom, to the girls. Although unfor-
tunate whores were probably aware of this continuous extortion,
if they wished to leave they could only do so without clothes or

109
 7 money. It was a1 eaten which served not sa
~ excellent profits for the Macatee ial the docility oPthe
inmates.
In lower grade brothels a variation in the dress system was
noticeable. The Madame at this level kept a pool of clothing and
accessories which she loaned out at a fee to individual girls. This
was assessed in terms of a few pence, but operated continuously
so that it was a constant drain on the income received. Board was
at the rate of 12s. to 15s. a week. The understanding between the
prostitute and the brothel-keeper was that more than half of the
fees were the latter’s due, and half of anything stolen from clients.
At the lowest level of all the-girls were compelled to provide
whatever clothing they could for themselves — the result was seen
in the tawdriness and filth of their attire.
It was suggested that the origin of the iniquitous clothing
arrangement lay in the difficulty of controlling prostitutes in
brothels, due to their unstable temperaments and dissipated
habits. This may well have been true. But there is no question
that what may have begun as a method of control hardened into
systematic extortion.5+
There was another aspect of brothel-keeping which was profit-
able. This took the form of indirect control of houses. A whore
or kept woman having obtained some capital might lease a house
She then proceeded to furnish and sub-let it to another woman
who thereupon engaged in business. The original rent might be
of the order of £5 or £6 a year, the cost of the furniture from
£12 to £30. The rent charged might be from £3 to £5 a month.
Obviously the profit here would be enormous. Women who
were fortunate in this indirect form of prostitution were enabled
_ to live very comfortably. Houses started in this way, after estab-
lishing a connection, could be very profitably disposed of. The
price of the goodwill might be as high as £300 or £400. In
addition a premium of £1 or £2 a week for the first six months
of occupancy was likely to be charged.
Indirect control took other forms. Tait affirmed that there were
ladies of the best society who possessed houses of this kind
amongst other kinds of property. They would install women to
run them for them but maintained no overt contact with them.
There were also landlords of property, including ministers of the
Church of Scotland, who were apparently indifferent to the uses
_ to which their properties were put.55 This is a phenomenon which

IIo

SS
 is not entirely absent from the London scene today. The covert
ownership of property of this kind in Edinburgh would seem to
be a further indication of the ability of an outwardly strictly
religious community to nourish an incredibly vicious core. ;
That these formidable, iron women who controlled the bawdy
houses of Scotland’s capital for the benefit of the incontinent
were not entirely devoid of human feeling is seen in their rela-
tionships with men. These concerned spoony men, fancy men,
and husbands. A spoony man was an individual who either
supported a woman of this kind or gave her financial assistance
when needed. He was loved for the money he provided, rarely for
himself. It was different with the fancy man. As his name betrays,
he was the object of the fancy or love of the Madame. Unlike the
spoony, who was responsible for launching the brothel-keeper on
her career, he generally had little means of his own, and was in
fact supported by his paramour — in more modern parlance he
was a ponce. Frequently such gentlemen were students of law or
medicine at the University. In little over a hundred years there
seems to have been a remarkable change in the sexual moral
climate, as well as the opportunity offered in this respect. There
must be few students at Edinburgh University today who find
themselves in this position.
Spoony men did not occur at the level of the inferior brothels -
clearly they would have little function in respect of the keepers.
Fancy men on the other hand were very much in evidence, not
only for their own sake, but to. act as bullies. Their function is
again suggested in the name — they kept the peace by the use of
force between the inmates and their lovers, and coerced recal-
citrant or unco-operative customers. As the status of the brothel —
decreased so did the importance of the bully. It is interesting to
note that the Madame’s fancy men exercised authority over the
fancy men of the brothel’s whores. The latter were a constant
source of tribulation to the brothel-keeper. Her charges were
often liable to forget the business in hand if they suspected their
fancy men were unfaithful to them, which in fact was frequently
the case. Poncing has as long a history as prostitution. We discuss
its significance in a later chapter.
Husbands in the context of brothel-keeping were shadowy
figures. Those that lived on the premises rarely came in contact
with clients. Others lived quite separately from the family —
activities. In many cases if there were children they grew up

a fe sy”
 BEbiooe! of their riathe
~~ game way as children of the monied classes — the archetyp
situation of Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. The marriage
partner of a Madame had often been the cause, through his
dissipated habits and indolence, of his wife adopting her career.
Once she had established herself he continued to drink, and
devote himself to idleness. With regard to his family he appears
to have had neither authority not the competence to exercise it.
The husband in fact was really a legalised fancy man — that is
someone upon whom the brothel-keeper, so implacable in
business, could exercise her tender feelings.
However, it is perhaps with regard to the exceptional spoony
man that the best side of the brothel-keeper was shown. There
were instances where a Madame would contribute considerable
amounts for the maintenance of those gentlemen who in their
better days had been extremely liberal both of their affections and
money but who were now, possible because of their former
extravagance, in reduced circumstances.57 Such tenderness and
generosity was in complete contrast to the cruelty and viciousness
displayed to the prostitutes in their employ.
Although brothel-keeping proper was a predominantly female
occupation in Edinburgh there were a few brothels which were
run by men, On the other hand the taverns and dram shops
which combined the sale of liquor with the facilities of the
brothel were almost entirely in the control of men. The pro-
minence of women on this profession is typical of European
prostitution. It is easy to see that a man in this position would
suffer from disadvantages from which women were almost
entirely free - hygiene and female ailments could be used as
___ weapons against a male proprietor.
Bawds or procuresses were indispensible adjuncts of brothels.
_ Frequently the day to day management of these establishments
was delegated by the keeper to a bawd. Her duty was not only to
run the brothel, but to see that new members were recruited who
- would attract custom. To do this she established relations with a
‘number of small shopkeepers, laundresses, and lodging house
keepers whose occupations brought them in contact with
strangers. These people would advise any likely, but unsuspecting
females, that if they called on the bawd there might be a likeli-
__hood of employment. From then on it was the responsibility of
ii _ the bawd to induct the young women into brothel life. Once in-
|alee Ss acapella
_ volved it was difficult to free herself. The male bawd or procurer
_ did not function as a housekeeper. His services were generally
_ retained by the superior houses, and he was relied upon to
supply only the more refined type of girl. Often moving in the
best circles of society he was able to be informed of likely girls
in the service of his friends and acquaintances. Sometimes
a group of gentlemen would join together for the purpose
of employing a procuress to supply them privately - in other
words to run a brothel exclusively for them. In many instances
the bawd would be installed in a shop and the premises over
it would be used as a brothel in this way. Apparently a number
of young women of quite respectable families were ruined in this
way.*4
As we have said the larger society of Edinburgh with its
gradations of status and position was mirrored in the smaller
world of prostitution. The distance between the genteel whores,
promenading in Princes Street, and the vicious and bedraggled
trulls truculently accosting passers-by in the High Street, was as
infinite as that between the lady of fashion and the poverty-
stricken labourer’s wife. Because of the city’s comparatively small
population and lack of facilities prostitution in Edinburgh was
necessarily on a smaller scale than that which existed in London,
Paris, and New York at this time. There is no question however
that despite these natural limitations it exhibited a face of vice
which could stand comparison with those cities.
We have been concerned so far in indicating the detail and
functioning of prostitution in Edinburgh. Tait devotes a large
section of his survey to the causes of prostitution. His findings
were based on the material he gathered in the course of his
investigation. An analysis of these causal factors is of importance,
not only for the elucidation of the problem under discussion, but
also for the light it sheds on contemporary thought about
prostitution.
Tait made a division between what he called natural causes,
that is those arising from some inward feeling or desire, and those
which were accidental or arising out of circumstances. The latter
were the more numerous. Natural cause consisted of Licentious
Inclination, Irritability of Temper, Pride and Love of Dress,
Dishonesty and Desire of Property, and Indolence. Tait is
necessarily cautious in his estimate of the part that nymphomania,
as we would term it today, played in the prostitute’s make-up.

<i 113
 is(enn in combinatio’ with other ¢causes, and may be said to be
a conspicuous feature in the character of the great majority of
prostitutes.’5° Authorities still differ enormously in their assess-
ment of this factor. Parent-Duchatelet, a contemporary of Tait’s,
maintained that frigidity became a characteristic of the prostitute
even if sexual passion had been responsible for her initiation. “On
peut regarder comme une regle constante que si le libertinage et
_ Pimpetuosite des passions sont la cause premiere de la prostitu-
” tion, pour un certain nombre de filles, une fois que ces mal-
heureuses sont lancees dans leur nouvelle carriere, elles restent
Ls froides et indifferentes pour tous ceux qui les approchent . . .”°°
_ Other French writers in the nineteenth century such as Raci-
borski and Commenge were inclined to support Parent-Ducha-
' telet’s views. ‘. . . among prostitutes one finds very few who are
prompted to libertinage.’®' In direct contrast to such opinions is
the statement of Sir Cyril Burt: °. . . that of all the factors making
- for sex delinquency in girls, an over-sexed constitution is at once
the commonest and the most direct .. .° The debate is still un-
resolved. A possible answer lies in the interpretation of: the
prostitute’s behaviour in psychoanalytical terms. The fact re-
mains that Tait’s observations iin this respect would find modern
wvF,-support.®
be
? While nymphomania can be said to be a factor applying in any
Pe ‘context of prostitution; Irritability of Temper appears to have
been specific to Scotland. Many of the servants in Edinburgh
iecame from the Shetlands and Highlands. Ignorant of their duties,
as_ uncouth, and bad-tempered they seldom kept their places long.
ede} _ Out of work they lived in cheap lodging houses, and went on the
5 streets at night to support themselves. In the general body of
_ prostitutes a few cases were noted where the abnormal bad tem-
_ per of the girls had forced them to leave home and become
whores.®* It does not seem entirely fanciful that this may have
:a been the case. We would, however, debate whether the strange-
ness of lifein Edinburgh may not have been as important a cause
as bad temper in the case of the Shetlanders and Highlanders
resorting to prostitution.
Pride and Love of Dress is a factor which would appear to
have wide application as a precipitant of prostitution. Tait of
4eicourse treats it in Victorian terms—a propensity which all wom-
 \

en possess, and which unless curbed in infancy, will lead to all

manner of evils. But there is more to his arguments than that. He
suggested that females in the lower classes were more greatly
endowed with this feeling, and in view of the low wages paid
them, whether as servant girls or seamstresses, had not the means
to gratify it. The latter were worse off than those in service as
their payment was even smaller than the £6 or £7 a year received
by domestics. It was not surprising therefore in such circum-
stances that girls were readily attracted by the sight of gaily
dressed females, in origin the same as themselves, parading the
streets. That the reality of the whore’s life was somewhat dif-
ferent did not appear to be a deterrent. The secret ambition was
always there that one day they would be able to run a successful
brothel.®s In the entirely different economic context of contem-
porary Britain this is still a factor. It is no longer a question of
striving to emulate the better-off from the basis of a pittance but
of seeing the advantages, in terms of luxuries, between a wage of
perhaps £8 or £9 a week and earning the same amount in one
night.
Under the heading of Dishonesty and Desire of Property Tait
distinguishes a singular group of Edinburgh whores. These
women emanated mainly from the north of Scotland, and very
largely from Aberdeenshire. Their chief characteristic was parsi-
mony, and, unlike the main body of prostitutes, they were both
sober in their dress and conduct. ‘No thoughtless and penniless
youth is admitted to their company; married and wealthy indivi-
duals being the persons whose society and friendship they are
especially desirious of securing. Their only object being to make
money, they are often exorbitant in their demands. . .’® It is an
interesting example of the application of the virtues of thrift and
temperance, which were typical of communities from which these
women came, being applied to what must be regarded as an un-
virtuous life. It is sad to relate that, when having amassed a con-
siderable sum they inevitably married wastrels, their hubands
soon reduced them to their original circumstance.
Indolence has been regarded as a prominent feature of the
prostitute’s life in many different societies. There is no doubt
that for women of limited education brothel life with its strenuous
sexual activity at night and daytime languor was, and is, con-
ducive to indolence. Matters were naturally very different for
the streetwalker. Retarded development cannot be disregarded

115
 1 4 iS 1€

“observable. in ‘many rothiee su

was of the opinion that this, as it ‘were, constitutional factor
existed amongst a great number of Edinburgh’s trulls. Such
women were distinguished by both passivity and obstinacy. Re-
“peated attempts to make them take a situation and keep it met
with failure. Then, through lack of any alternative, they drifted
into the sale of their bodies as a means of support requiring the
least effort. Contemporary cases of a similar nature could be
~ quoted. It is, however, extremely difficult to assess the signifi-
cance of indolence as a major precipitant of prostitution.
The list of Accidental Causes given by Tait is extraordinarily
varied — from seduction to desecration of the Sabbath. Many of
them would appear to be still operative today.
, ‘By seduction is to be understood the act of corrupting, tempt-
ing, or enticing females from a life of chastity, by money or false
_ promises, solely with the intention of gratifying the lust or
amorous propensities of the opposite sex.’*7 By this definition
__ Tait narrows the meaning to a specific — seduction for a single
purpose. Other authorities such as Ryan were inclined to include
within seduction all acts consensual or not by which girls lost
their virginity. If the wide definition is used it would include the
_ majority of prostitutes at any given time, as only a minority
_ embark upon their careers while still virgins. Tait estimated that,
_ according to his interpretation, eighteen per cent of the common
-women of Edinburgh had adopted their profession as a result of
seduction. ‘. . . eighty per cent of all who have been seduced,
=m _ have been led astray by individuals moving in a higher sphere
; ae than themselves.’°? This was in fact his principal point — that
_ gentlemen took advantage of their position to seduce their in-
- feriors. This was particularly true of those individuals whose
besetting passion was to deflower young girls. The actual struc-
i ture of the society lent itself to this type of abuse — gentlemen
were constantly in contact with lady’s maids, servants, milliners,
Baad the like. There are still situations today where similar con-
3 Lasditions occur, as in factories employing predominantly female
i labour with men in supervisory positions. The difference, how-
_ ever, in education and social status between men and women is
negligible. The mania for defloration which was endemic in
_ London throughout the century was reflected in Edinburgh. In
both instances it is our contention that the framework of the
 society facilitated its growth. The vast number of poorly em-
ployed women in both capitals provided a reservoir of virgins
only too easily seduced by the money and promises of gentlemen.
Ladies in Edinburgh society appeared to be immune from the
dangers of seduction. It was not so with governesses and ladies’
maids who proved a most vulnerable section of the female com-
munity. Seduction appears to have been the universal cause why
such women became whores. Ordinary servants, through less
contact with the gentry, were not so susceptible. In their case the
danger was represented by University students. A typical pattern
in all cases was that of the girl seduced in the country, taken to
the capital on the promise of marriage, and later deserted. This is
not a pattern which could be discerned today. The facility with
which sexual affairs can be conducted in our time dispenses with
the elaboration of seduction.
Probably the largest section of individuals engaged in seducing
females was to be found in the army among both officers and
men. The fact that regiments were constantly being transferred
from one town to another gave the exponents of this behaviour
an added opportunity. Servant girls who attained the reputation
of being soldiers’ women found it impossible to obtain a situa-
tion and were forced to walk the streets. The influence of the
uniform in these matters is of some importance. The Highland
regiments, complete with kilt, when stationed in Edinburgh,
attracted a far greater female following than did ordinary regi-
ments of the line with less exotic uniforms.°°
Corroboration of Tait’s estimate of the number of prostitutes
in Edinburgh, who had become so through seduction, is seen in
the figures given by Sanger for New York. Out of 2000 prosti-
tutes questioned over thirteen per cent gave seduction as the
main reason for their profession.7° The great changes which have
taken place with regard to the social status and employment of
women, as well as in our thinking and behaviour in sexual mat-
ters, have created a situation in which the seduced female has —
other alternatives besides the solution of the streets. There is —
another factor of change which applies to the whole field of
prostitution as well as seduction. This is to be seen in terms of the
revolution relating to marriage, and the equality between the
sexes, which has been admitted. For the upper and middle class
Victorian husband to expect, and to find, sexual satisfaction with
his spouse was unusual. His wife gave him children and -

117__
 “were mere rescagedens where prodigious quantities ofliquors
_ were consumed— whisky was Is. 6d. a bottle.7* The latter was
regarded in the same light as opium in the Far East — as a pass-
_ port to a brighter, more exciting world where destitution was of
no account. It was, and is, generally recognised that drinking
_ facilitates seduction. Certain local customs fostered the begin-
__ nings of an addiction to alcohol. “The tasting by young country
fi _ females at markets, fairs, and sacraments (Easter communion),
is most deleterious; and the national character of that class, from
this circumstance alone, is on the high-road to ruin.’7? We would
not perhaps put the case in such strong terms but the fact was
that on all young people’s excursions in the city or elsewhere to
_ drink was regarded as a necessary part of the proceedings — to do
otherwise would be to go against custom. It is curious that in the
_ city of Sabbatarianism movements for prohibition met with such
_ little success. Perhaps the vested interest of te whisky distillers
was too powerful to be provoked. ae
The matter starting in this way led in many instances to addic-
_tion, and the loss of virtue. Servants were peculiarly susceptible
.to intemperance having before them the example of their em-
Uw yet’. In imitation of the latter servants kept a bottle of their
_ own for the entertainment of their friends. In addition mistresses
_ dispensed a glass of whisky or porter to their servants on washing
_ days.®! But it was Sundays which provided the greatest oppor-
s tunity for indulgence. This was the evening set aside as their
own, and on which they went visiting. Entertainment in a house ©
Bk was unthinkable without the provision of alcohol. Returning in
‘the evening to their place of employment they often fell prey to
_men who prowled the streets in search of women. Houses of
assignation did a roaring trade, and the unfortunate girl arriving
teers late to an irate employer found that she no longer had a
iia In this way many gravitated to the streets.82
be Unfortunately in Edinburgh there does not seem to be the
same detailed evidence available, pointing to the connection
_ between the liquor trade and prostitution, as we have quoted in
the case of London. There is little doubt however that the dis-
_tillers’ interest in conjunction with that of the excise depart-
_ ment maintained the flow of cheap liquor to the detriment of the
orals of the city’s population. Our own view would be that
 MA
naea4fk) ee
=! 7 an“owt = maar? - he t

4
while intemperance facilitated the career of the streetwalker it
cannot altogether be regarded as an immediate cause. That is to
say it worked in conjunction with the other factors mentioned
above and was not in itself a prime cause. Edinburgh in the
1960’s no longer has a problem of this magnitude but it is in-
teresting to note that many public houses in the city do not serve
women customers, The drinking habits of males - whisky and
beer — are still a matter of surprise for the southerner. Princes
Street on a Friday or Saturday night still echoes to sounds which
Tait would find familiar.
The ease with which maidservants slipped into the sale of
their bodies appears in part to have been the fault of their mis-
tresses. Apparently the latter never enquired very closely as to
the company kept by their employees until the damage was
done. The free time of the servants was her own, and she used it
accordingly. Nursemaids in particular seem to have had both the
time and opportunity to engage in clandestine prostitution. Tait
remarks that in performing the ritual of the afternoon walk with
their charges these women would frequently resort to a brothel or
house of assignation with the children. Sometimes the latter were
left on the pavement outside while the nursemaid earned her
money within. In one instance a gentleman visiting a first class
disorderly house in the afternoon was surprised to meet his own
children there, It suggests a remarkable picture of this aspect of
life in Edinburgh: upper class children playing in the doorways
of brothels patronised by their fathers.
It has been maintained that one of the major causes of con-
temporary prostitution is a bad home life.*+ Tait maintained a
similar View. The fact that children might be presented with the
criminal or near-criminal behaviour of their parents would
predispose them to a life of crime. In the case of girls the inter-
mittent prostitution of the mother was regarded as an encourage-
ment to the adoption of the profession. The carelessness of
parents as to the behaviour of their daughters was another factor
in the ‘bad’ home situation. The background to this kind of
home was inevitably poverty. It is perhaps curious that despite
the squalor and filth in which so many of the labouring classes
lived there were yet families which were prepared if a daughter
had an illegitimate child to cast her out into the world without
any provision. The unmarried mother had practically no alterna-
tive but to engage in prostitution. The attitude of such families

“
Bae 121
 bunted States = facial Haned acts as a stimulant to keep them
alive in the depths of their misery, in the same way the Edinburgh
poor could almost boast of the offence to their pride brought
about by a daughter’s disgrace.
The dancing academies of Edinburgh provided yet another
fruitful ground for the development of vice. Many were con-
ducted soberly enough but the proprietors had no control over
their customers, mainly young men and women, who, as the
academies closed in the evening, resorted to taverns on the way
home. The step from the tavern to the brothel was very short as a
number provided facilities-on the premises. There were other
academies which did not see why they should lose custom to the
‘taverns, and therefore provided liquor and accommodation, as
well as instruction in dancing. Occasionally evening balls were
held which seem to have been a Scottish working class equivalent
of eighteenth-century London routs. Individual enterprise some-
times resulted in a social gathering being organised at which the
ladies were all whores and the gentlemen were gentlemen.*
These occasions are reminiscent of the famous octoroon assem-
blies of an earlier date, in New Orleans at which members of the
plantocracy were enabled to select their coloured mistresses. This
particular public display of prostitution appears to have dis-
appeared from modern life. A possible exception was the annual
charity balls held under the patronage of a peeress with Scotch
connections, at the Albert Hall before the war, which developed
into homosexual gatherings on a considerable scale.
“The theatre and houses of ill-fame are linked together by
mutual interests and mutual pursuits. The morals of a theatre
and the morals of a brothel are identically the same.’*° There is
no doubt that throughout the nineteenth century the theatre and
music hall provided excellent opportunities for prostitutes to
solicit custom. The pattern was still similar to that of the pre-
ceding century, and a special part of the auditorium, the gallery
slips, were set aside for whores. If Tait was right in his strictures
_ the audience were treated to a mixture of strip-tease and blas-
phemy. The effect, in his opinion; was to debase their minds and
inflame their senses so that they were ready to receive the ad-
__ vances of the ladies in the slips.87 Allowing for the natural indig-
nation of an outraged Presbyterianism it would seem that the
dramatic entertainments presented for the edification and amuse-

122
 Sie
4 2 ie nheeee a eee sy‘
ae
ee tat Bee
goo’ ao
‘ |

ment of Edinburgh audiences were not altogether free from

lewdness. Whether this was really an incitement to like lewd.
behaviour is debateable. The presence of prostitutes is another
matter, but when the streets were as he described them it would
seem that the theatre could hardly have affected an already
deplorable state of affairs. Why writers on moral problems should
have been so carried away by the dangers of theatre is a strange
problem. ‘The individuals who can appear half naked in the ©
presence of a large and promiscuous assembly, are in a more un-
enviable position, as to morality, than the most abandoned pros-
titutes; for comparatively few of the latter would commit such a
gross outrage upon common decency.’8’ A possible explanation
is that the social reformer of the time resented the influence of
the theatre in creating a world of fantasy into which the individ-
ual could escape. Resentment because the proper preoccupation
of the deprived was not with escapism but with the salvation of
his soul.
There is the same feeling running through Tait’s remarks on
the desecration of the Sabbath. This to him was a prime cause of
prostitution. Some indication of the depth of his feeling in the
matter can be gathered from the fact that he is ready to accuse the
individuals, who were attempting at this time to get the British
Museum opened on Sundays, of condoning immorality.*® He has
a better case when he condemns Sunday band concerts in Edin-
burgh. These in the lack of public amusements attracted large
crowds of young men who, after the concert, accompanied
women to the taverns and from there to the brothels. It was in
fact a noticeable fact that the brothels and houses of assignation
did their best trade on a Sunday. Unfortunately the only alterna-
tives which could be offered were to read the Bible at home or go
to church. Neither was calculated to satisfy the longings of the
masses of the people. They did not all necessarily wish to visit
brothels but they did need some alleviation of their drab worka-
day existence. A reasonable argument could be built up for the
inclusion of boredom as an incentive for prostitution in the
nineteenth century.
The sale and circulation of obscene books and prints were fair-
ly widespread in Edinburgh. The city could not of course com-
pare with London or Paris in this respect. But there were
apparently several shops which specialised in the sale of such
commodities. Brothels of the better kind were excellent customers

123 7
 - ee to the upper ees cadena s habit of carry:
person a snuff-box or book of a pornographic nature.°° In our
opinion the argument that obscene literature was a cause of pros-
titution is extremely tenuous. It seems rather that it was a reflec-
tion of the general state of sexual morals, much as it is in our
own day.
Our authority is on much surer ground when he dilates on the
cost of prostitution in conjunction with the approbation given to
it by large sections of the community. It was estimated that the
cost of vicious living in the city was of the order of £224,000
sterling a year in the money of the day. At a guess this would be
approximately two million of our money today. £200,000 was
spent on ordinary prostitution, £14,000 on the theatre, and kept
mistresses accounted for £10,000.%! The extrardinary hold that
prostitution had on the imagination is seen in the fact that satis-
’ fied upper class clients would, upon occasion, present a piece of
plate, the then normal practice in the case of a public benefactor,
to the brothel-keeper in whose house they had most enjoyed
themselves. Again, noblemen were known to reside in brothels
rather than hotels on their visits to the city. Ministers of the kirk
were known to let their manses to gentlemen for the purpose of
installing their mistresses. This approbation of vice is contrasted
with the society’s attitude towards the women who wished to
reform. There were few institutions which were interested in her
welfare. On the one hand money was generally available for vice
but there was little for its antithesis. These facts were connected
with a more subtle form of approval. The practice, which is still
common in our day, of the blue or smoking room joke indulged
in after the ladies had withdrawn was widespread. It was coupled
with the habit of making toasts at public functions which were
masterpieces of the double entendre. A man would boast private-
ly of his conquests and successful seductions — it was expected of
him, to do less was to unfit_him for the company of gentlemen.
In public he would suggest the same success by means of the
double-entendre.°* These were all indications of a public coun-
__ tenancing of prostitution which has no equivalent in our society
at the present time. It shouldbe remembered that while poverty
might have been a major precipitant of Edinburgh prostitution
__ that trade could never have attained the magnitude it did unless
_ the demand had been there. Thus the problem resolves itself

124 . toe
4
 es NE ty eae ea e a.

into ‘the Gueston why were men so eager, especially those of the
upper class, to seek the company of whores. The answer may well
lie in the one case in the poverty of the lower groups in society
which made the responsibilities of marrige to be feared. In the
other in the hollow edifice of marriage, contracted for property
rather than compatability, with a wife who by definition was
above and beyond sexual feeling.
Before discussing the general background to Tait’s analysis of
Edinburgh it is perhaps appropriate at this juncture to consider
conditions in nineteenth-century Glasgow. While authorities,
such as Logan and Wardlaw, do not furnish the minutiae of
prostitute behaviour which is characteristic of Tait’s study they
yet provide sufficient material to make a reasonable comparison.
William Logan, who was employed by the Glasgow City Mission,
first published a pamphelt, The Great Social Evil, in 1843. This
dealt with prostitution in Glasgow. Nearly thirty years later, in
1871, he issued a revised edition bringing matters up to date.
Prior to this in 1849 he had published Moral Statistics of Glasgow
which contained a section on prostitution. From these publica-
tions it is possible to obtain a fairly accurate picture of vice in the
city.
In 1842 Logan gave the following figures:
‘Number of houses of ill-fame, as near as could be
ascertained 450
Number of harlots — four on an average in each house 1800
Number of bullies, or “fancy men” — three on an
average in each house 1350
Number of mistresses (i.e. brothel-keepers) of such
houses ‘ 450

Total living directly by prostitution 3600

Number of male visitors to each house weekly 80
Number of weekly visits to the 450 brothels 36000
The girls receive, on average, 1s. from each visitor,
making a weekly for the 450 brothels of £1800
The visitors lose, on an average, 2s. 6d. from robbery
- this is a low estimate — making a weekly sum for
the 36,000 visits of £4500
Each visitor gives; on average, 2s. for drink, making
a weekly sum of . £3600

125
 Total amount arpendededir
sh a Hs [o)
__ titution weekly f
Total sum expended Soneatt aa £514800
Number of girls who die annually (six years being their average
life-time), three hundred.’ :
These figures are extremely interesting. It is important torealise
that they concern a city which possessed a population of 255,650
in 1841.°% This was at a time when Edinburgh’s population
was little more than a third of this figure. Other contemporary
estimates varied as to the number of prostitutes in Glas-
gow. The Chief Superintendent of Police in 1842, Henry Miller,
produced evidence based on police records which he gave to the
Poor Law Commissioners. ‘Number of houses of bad fame kept
by males, 49; number of females who live in or frequent the
same, 346; number of houses of bad fame kept by females, 1553
number of females who live in or frequent the same, 1129, total
number of houses of bad fame, 204; the total number who live in
or frequent the same, 1475.’°5 The surgeon in charge of the Lock
Hospital in Glasgow gave another estimate. He was ‘.. . induced
to believe that 1600 will bound the number who exclusively-and
openly abandon themselves to this vicious course of life in the
_ city of Glasgow.’°* This gentleman, Dr. Hannay, also gave as
his opinion that the causes of prostitution were ‘Drink, Dress,
and the Glasgow Fair’.°7 This statement seems to be in agree-
ment with some of the causes cited by Tait. The latter had stated,
as the reader will remember, that a considerable number of sly or
clandestine prostitutes had to be added to those who openly
practised their profession. Miller was reluctant to do this for his
own city. ‘I find it impossible to say how many females given to
prostitution there may be, who do vot frequent brothels; and on
this subject, I feel a delicacy in even giving a guess.’°? The
Reverend Ralph Wardlaw, who quoted Miller in his Lectures on
Female Prostitution, exhibited the same reluctance. ‘Whether in
Glasgow, the aggregate amount of secret bears any thing like the
__» same proportion to that of public prostitution, I will not, for the
reason assigned, pretend to say. If it did, it would oblige us to
add considerably above 2000 secret or sly prostitutes to the 1475
frequenters of the house of ill-fame. Distressing as it would be to
believe this, yet, for aught I can tell, it may be true.’99
In this apparent conflict of opinion as to the number of Glas-

126
ek
Seat.ioe
res
oe
ah
ieee Piet
Z

gow’s harlots and atale ye s Bore: are to se Orel

As a city missionary he had opportunities of investigation which
were possibly denied to the police. Again, Dr. Hannay would
only see those women who had become infected and not the
disease-free whores. If we are prepared to accept Logan’s esti-
mate as a reasonable one then a number of interesting compari-
sons can be made with Edinburgh. In the first place it would seem
that Tait’s contention that Edinburgh was really the mecca of the
Scottish prostitutes is substantiated. Two-thirds smaller than
Glasgow the capital yet housed nearly half the number of com-
mon whores (800). For its population Edinburgh possessed a far
greater number of brothels — 203 as against 450. The same rela-
tionship is exhibited in the assessment of money spent on vice in
the two cities - Edinburgh £200,000, excluding the theatre and
kept mistresses; Glasgow over £500,000.
In his evidence before the Poor Law Commissioners the
Superintendent of the Glasgow Police corroborated a number of
points made by Tait with reference to the Scottish capital. “The
average age at which women become prostitutes is from fifteen
to twenty. — The average duration of women continuing prosti-
tutes is, I think, about five years. The most common termination
of the career of prostitutes is by death, and this is to be accounted
for by the extremely dissolute life they lead. For the most part
they live in a state of great personal filthiness — the most wretched
homes — they are scarcely ever in bed till far in the morning —
they get no wholesome diet (sic) — and they are constantly drink-
ing the worst description of spirituous liquors. In addition to ~
these evils they are exposed to disease in its worst forms; and
from the dissolute habits, when disease overtakes them, a cure is
scarcely possible. - The great majority of prostitutes appear to
entertain no sense of religion whatever. Many cases, however,
occur of females brought to the office in a state of insensibility
from poison, or from having attempted to drown themselves,
and on being questioned as to their motives, the uniform answer _
is: “I am tired of life - I am very unhappy — allow me to die”’.’1°
As in Edinburgh the structure of brothels in Glasgow reflected
the stratification of the society in which it existed. Gentlemen
supported the best houses while the most inferior had the sup-
port of mechanics, apprentices, soldiers and sailors. Owing to
the city’s seaport activities these last were much in evidence as
clients. Then as now sailors provided a large section of the

127
: é trulls were theese ofhele profession. S
in the main supported by the potiencoisie Logan bassa curious
comment in this connection which shows that in one respect at
least the universities of these two cities had something in com-
mon. ‘It is generally stated that second-class houses are better
supported when the College is open.’ Apparently the two
faculties which were most willing in their support were those of
medicine and theology. Logan’s view was that medical students
should have had better sense, while theological students had
heard their professors referring to brothels as the “‘way to hell,
leading down to the chambers of death’’.’1
While the systems of prostitution in Scotland’s two greatest
cities were very similar there were differences to be noted. One
of them was in the trade of procuration. Tait emphasised its im-
portance, particularly in regard to the premier brothels. Ward-
law writing of Glasgow is moved to an overpowering eloquence.
-*They are agents of the tempter. They watch for innocence.
Night and day, they are on the look-out for such virgins’ virtue,
as, by any art, of insinuating affability and kindness, and of false
representations and alluring promises, they can contrive to decoy
to those retreats of impurity, where, in utter ignorance and simple-
hearted unsuspiciousness of what awaits them, they are handed
over to the company of some wretch, experienced in the wiles of
seduction; a wretch who gives his orders for virgin innocence as
he does for his haunch of venison or any other dainty article in
his bill of fare, a wretch . .. who by flattery, by hollow promises,
by enticing blandishments, by wine, by force, or by a combina-
tion of them all — all alike accursed — effects his nefarious purpose.
—- O! one’s blood boils over, to think of the agents of a system so
monstrous! And yet these procurers and procuresses have been
known to frequent the very house of God, in pursuit of their
diabolical ends — on the scent of their prey. ."1°
Wardlaw was carried away by the Sane of procuration. His
own city, however, according to the evidence of Superintendent
Miller, was not in grave danger from these agents of the devil.
_ “There are, I believe a few individuals in Glasgow, who employ
themselves as procuresses; but the number is very small.?'°4 It
was of course in London, as we shall see, that the art of the
procurer reached its apogee. The implication of the paucity of
_ this aspect of prostitution in Glasgow is that the trade was so

128
 7 amcaeti

constituted that it could do without the assistance of those who

elsewhere were regarded as essential middlemen. It also suggests
that the obsession with virginity which was such a marked feature ©
of commercialised vice in London and Edinburgh was lacking in
Glasgow. The procurer was indispensable for obtaining virgins.
Procuration by the 1850s had in fact taken on a more subtle
character in the capital than Tait had described. A Report on
Female Prostitution published by a group of private citizens in
1857 suggested that advertisements were being inserted in the
North British Advertiser which were designed to entrap unwary
females. The copy used gave no indication of the real purpose —
in fact the opposite impression was created. ‘Governess wanted,
a strictly moral and religious chracter indispensable . . .? The
young women who answered this would receive a call from the
procurer disguised as a clergyman. Thus lulled it was only a
matter of time before the inevitable seduction took place. The
proprietor of the North British Advertiser even went so far as to
suggest that the country was systematically travelled by these
Victorian whiteslavers.1°5
In the context of those years the importance of the liquor trade
in both cities in encouraging and creating prostitution cannot be
over-emphasised. Logan pointed out that in several Glasgow
taverns in 1842 ‘... the back ports ... were fitted up as concealed
boxes, which were regularly used for improper purposes, and
that, too, at times, in the course of the day.’1°° These notorious
places were put out of business by the New Improvement Act but
others not so much in the public eye continued to flourish. The
author of Midnight Scenes and Social Photographs published in
Glasgow in 1858 describes a night scene in one of these illicit
taverns or shebeens. Accompanied by his friends he had follow-
ed an evil-looking woman who was convoying a drunken young
man. They arrived at a small two-roomed, earthen floored house
in a court off the Gallowgates. It contained four beds with ‘two
loathsome women’ in each bed. ‘As we smell the whiskey and
pass it round, a feeling of disappointment is obviously felt... A
proposal is made to form a circle round the fire, and enjoy our-
selves. However, giving a significant look to the young man, who
by this time is beginning to be a little elevated, we make our way
towards the door, but find it locked. A trifle of money to the
doorkeeper, who remonstrates against our leaving, and forthwith
take our departure, congratulating ourselves from an escape from

129
 poetics doubled between 1825 ad cut This p
inevitably accompanied by considerable social upheaval as immi-
grants pressed into the city. It has been suggested that this
extended parturition was to some extent alleviated by cheap
liquor — whiskey at 1s. 6d. a bottle.t°* Some civic birth-pangs
may have assuaged but there is no question that the provision of
cheap alcohol exacerbated the sore of prostitution. Up to 1853
and the passing of the so-called Forbes Mackenzie Act public-
houses could keep whatever hours they liked throughout the
week including Sundays. The effect of the Act was to close the
_ public-houses at 11 p.m. As a:result there was a decrease in overt
drunkenness but a great increase in the number of shebeens, and
the sale of liquor in brothels. Various local Acts were passed in
subsequent years but they had little effect. In 1871 the Glasgow
- Daily Mail was able to expose the ‘Dark Side of Glasgow’. The
centre of the city had become a citadel of vice, with 200 houses
of ill-fame and 150 shebeens in an area of less than one-sixteenth
of a square mile. The larger . . . shebeens, which made great pro-
fits, consisted of a large room holding 30 or 40, a smaller room for
favoured customers, and overflow accommodation in the kit-
chen. There were also, in descending order of decency, the smaller
__ shebeens in the wynds, the wee shebeens on the stairheads (parti-
cularly difficult to pin down) and, lowest of all, those establish-
ments which operated at one and the same time as shebeens,
_ brothels, and thieves’ kitchens. Trade went on all night, inter-
| rupted only by ineffective police visits. The police, who were re-
quired by the Public Houses Act to catch the partner in the act of
_ selling or consuming drink, were baffled by the elusiveness of the
_ smaller shebeens and by the elaborate system of watchers and
emergency exits contrived by the larger operators. The Police
_ Act of 1866, which authorised the magistrates to grant a warrant
_ to enter and search any house complained against by a house-
___ holder as being of habit or repute either a shebeen or a house of
_ ill-fame, was nullified by the reluctance of householders to com-
Fe plain. 2109

ia _ This state of affairs was further complicated by the attitude

a and behaviour of magistrates, and that of property owners. In
__ one instance, quoted by Logan, the magistrates refused licences
*toreel notorious taverns which were in fact brothels. At a later
 i? r = Sa
%

~ stage the local licensing justices overruled the magistrates’ deci-

sion."° This kind of action is similar to that which we have
described in connection with London public houses at the begin-
ning of the century, and demonstrates the active interest of the
brewers in the maintenance of prostitution. With regard to
owners of property they seemed to be interested only in a return
on their investment. Surprisingly enough even the Glasgow Cor-
poration was not immune. One of the most infamous districts in
the centre of the city was Laigh Kirk Close at 59 Trongate. This
contained twenty brothels and three shebeens. It was owned by
the Corporation which must have been aware to what purpose
the premises were being put, but their chief tenants, Craig and
Lynch, possibly by bribery, managed to survive all the protest
made against them."
Certainly as regards facilities for drinking Glasgow has effect-
ed a remarkable change-in our own day. In 1889 there was one
public-house for every 424 of the population. In 1955 there was
one for every 806 of the population. This is the lowest figure for
any city in Britain. Two other ports, Bristol and Liverpool, in
1950 had one licensed premises for every 443 and 598 respec-
tively of the population. Bristol in 1950 is very close to the Glas-
wegian figure in 1889. It is doubtful however if contemporary
prostitution in Bristol is of the same order and magnitude as that
which prevailed in Glasgow at the close of the century. The price
of spirits is one factor, and another is the breaking of the bond
between brewer and brothel.
In Logan’s eyes ‘the drinking system’, as he called it, was the
greatest single cause of prostitution. This apart he considered -
there were a number of major and secondary causes which
existed. Of the former a quarter of the prostitute population was
to be attributed to the facility with which female servants, in inns
and taverns, could be seduced and a quarter from the mixing of
the sexes in factories and other places of work. As we shall see
there is some corroboration of this in the evidence given to
various government commissions which we discuss below. The
factory employing mixed labour is still a hazardous ground for
female virtue even today. While no one would suggest that such
places are breeding grounds of contemporary prostitution the fact
remains that young girls, surrounded by older colleagues of both
sexes, often experience difficulty in remaining chaste. Loss of
virgnity, however, even if pregnancy results, no longer necessarily

131
 ‘was mprowded a.
were engaged, and Sitar occasions. T he last ee was divid-
ed up amongst those who had been driven to the streets by
poverty and unemployment, those whose tempers and tempera-
ments rendered them incapable of keeping a situation, those
seduced by false promises, and those set up in the profession by
their mothers.
In the category of secondary causes Logan places over-crowd-
ing in dwellings and lodging houses, children cast out by their
parents, obscene books and prints, love of dress, theatres and
singing saloons.!!2 The latter appear to have been a prominent
feature of Glasgow’s social life in the nineteenth century. They
provided liquor and a form of cabaret. Nothing was charged for
- admission on the understanding that you ordered refreshments. If
_ you failed to do so a charge of sixpence was made. Patrons were
mostly young males of the lower.and middle classes generally
a -accompanied by whores from neighbouring brothels; although
_ fathers were known to bring their daughters for an evenings en-
_ tertainment. Ladies were not admitted without an escort. The
company was regaled with dancing and singing. ‘A female sang
one song, which, from her immodest gestures, caused several of
her own sex to look ashamed; but the gentlemen loudly cheered
her, and she gave the song a second time, with the objectionable
: attitudes more shamelessly . . .!%3 Such places obviously provided
_ arendezvous for prostitutes and their clients. There were similar
enterprises in most of the large towns in England. The North
| appears to have been a stronghold in this respect. Apparently a
_ blasphemous variant of this type of entertainment was in vogue
_ at Leeds where on Sunday evenings the audience in one tavern
_ would rise and sing hymns.''* The connection between public
houses and working men’s clubs with ‘cabaret’ is still maintained
_ in a number of areas in Britain. It is in-this setting that the
music-hall may be said to have had its genesis. It is only, however,
~ occasionally that the entertainment given in modern public
a houses could be said to be of a vicious character. We quote some
_ instances in another chapter. It could be suggested that the con-
temporary strip-tease club in London and Manchester is really
a the equivalent of the singing saloon. That some have, or have had,
an open connection with prostitution there can be no doubt,
ae generally the relationship is of a more subtle kind.
 ey
¥

The majority of cases adduced by Logan can be seento agree ~

with Tait’s analysis. It is significant that there is complete agree-
ment between the two authorities on the paramountancy of
alcohol as a causal factor. We shall try to show that, as import-
ant as alcohol may have been, it only assumed its significance as
a precipitant of prostitution because of the existence of other
factors which were operative in the social structure at that time.
The evidence suggests that the majority of prostitutes in
Scotland were drawn from the working classes. A consideration
of the social and economic conditions of this segment of the
population will help to explain why women were driven to adopt
this way of life. There is little doubt that in the first half of the
nineteenth century the existence of a great part of the working
people was bounded by poverty, appalling living conditions, and
disease. It is in this setting that the factor of intemperance should
be assessed.
According to the Glasgow Mortality Bill for 1840 the popula-
tion of that city was estimated to be 282,000, made up of 130,667
males and 151,433 females. It was suggested ‘. . . that at least
four-fifths of the population of the city of Glasgow and suburbs
consist of the working class and their families . . .7!"5 The highest
wages were paid in a skilled trade such as that of printing. A
printer might earn 25s. a week working an 11-hour day; a dresser
or tenter in a weaving factory could earn up to 30s. a week. But
these were the aristocrats of labour. At the other end of the scale
were the hand-loom weavers who obtained a weekly wage of
5s. to Ios. a week. We have already discussed wages paid to
female labour above.''© Such earnings have to be seen against the
cost of basic commodities as rent and food. A stone of potatoes in
Glasgow in 1840 cost 43d., a pound of meat from 5d. to 7d.,
bread from 83d. to 94d. for a 4-lb. loaf, butter Is. 1d. a pound,
salt 103d. a pound, and tea 5s. 4d. a pound."”
The rent of a single room varied from just under Is. 6d. a week
to 1s. 9d. A two-roomed house could be rented from under 2s. a
week to over 3s. The magnificence of three rooms to be obtained
for a weekly rent varying from nearly 3s. 63d. to over 55.™%
Figures for rent and food can be compared with their equivalent
today (1962) bearing in mind that the present national average
for wages is about £10 a week. For potatoes we pay between 3s.
6d. and 4s. a stone, the equivalent of a 4-lb. loaf would cost 3s.,
the cheapest butcher’s meat is 3s. a pound, butter is from 3s. to

133
 cheapest tea 3s. d. Pp Pp
room for under Ios. a week but the rent of localauthority ose
f and flats begin at over 30s. a week. Comparison are in fact very
difficult. If, however, we take the average wage in 1840 to be
- around Ios, a week budgeting for a family on that figure must
have been a very difficult process leaving absolutely no margin
for the unexpected. There was of course no social insurance of
any kind, and what were called ‘the sudden convulsions and fluc-
tuations of trade’ were liable to leave hundreds of families
destitute.
Unemployment was of such a serious nature in 1816-17 that
money was raised by voluntary-subscription in the city. Nearly
£10,000 was obtained in this way and distributed to over 23,000
ec
INT) workers. In 1832, the year of the great cholera outbreak, £18,000
from the government and private sources was given to the sick
and indigent. It should be remembered that the disablement of
the wage earner of the family for whatever cause meant the des-
cent of that family into destitution. Living conditions for many
_ people were of the most appalling nature. ‘Among the many
distressing cases in Dempster Street I found Mrs. =and two-
s other females occupying a small confined house, and the scene
almost baffles description. They were all actually in a state of
nudity, not having any clothes sufficient to cover their naked-
ness . .. The house was completely destitute of beds or other
furniture — positively nothing. The inmates were starving, hav-
_ ing no food whatever in the house and it appears they had shut
| themselves up for the purpose of dying. . .’°
Of all the types of housing in Glasgow the very worst were
those described as lodging houses. They catered mainly for those
_ newly arrived in the city in search of work; but others lived in
ch them more or less permanently. ‘. . . these lodging houses are
the great foci of poverty, vice, and crime, as well as disease.
. S These houses are generally of a very wretched description, in
__ low, unwholesome situations, exceedingly dirty and ill-ventilated,
_ and are frequently crowded to excess, it being no uncommon
_os thing to find 8, 10 and 12 persons in one small apartment, as 9
feet by 8 or 11 by 8. Some of them also have no beds whatever in
:ag them, the inmates lying on the bare floor or with a few shavings
below them, with their clothes on. ..??2"
_ It is not unexpected that filth and squalor in these surround-
hl te
ed
" a

ings generated disease. The following description of conditions

in the town of Greenock on the Clyde can be regarded as typical.
“The great proportion of the dwellings of the poor are situated in
very narrow and confined closes or alleys leading from the main
streets; these closes are generally in a cul-de-sac, and have little
ventilation, the space between the houses being so narrow as to
exclude the action of the sun on the ground. I might almost say
there are no drains in any of these closes, for where I have
noticed sewers, they are in such a filthy and obstructed state that
they create more nuisance than if they never existed. In those
closes where there is no dunghill the excrementitious and other
offensive matter is thrown into the gutter before the door, or
carried out and put in the street. There are no back courts to the
houses, but in nearly every close there is a dunghill, seldom or
never covered in... to some of these privies are attached, and
one privy serves a whole neighbourhood. The people seem so
familiarised with this unseemly state of things, and so lost to all
sense of propriety, that it is a matter of no small difficulty, in
some of the back streets, to make your way through them without
being polluted with filth.’ Thus it was that typhus and cholera
were the bedfellows of the poor.'?3 In this connection lodging
houses were particular offenders, for on an individual being taken
to hospital another immediately took his place using the same
bed clothes.!24
With whisky at 1s. 6d. a bottle intemperance was regarded by
many authorities as the major cause of destitution. Thus the
Glasgow Inspector of Sessional Poor declared in his Report for
1839 that ‘Intemperance is indeed the most powerful and the
most fruitful of all the causes operating towards an increase of
pauperism . . . The pauper drunkard, whatever place he may
once have occupied in society, after neglecting religious duties,
loses self-respect, and is soon subjected to all the miseries of
nakedness, hunger, and disease, which follow in the train of the
monster intemperance.’5 Others while upholding this type of
argument were prepared to admit that intemperance was also the
consequence of destitution. ‘... The miserable wretch, in the
desperation of utter want, snatches eagerly a temporary relief
from his sufferings in intoxication . . . Intemperate habits prevail
to a deplorable extent among the wives of labourers and artis-
ans ...’!2° There is in fact evidence to support both arguments.
The colliery district round and about the town of Tranent in

135
 ai had its head washed in whisky. It was used as a. vereign :
remedy for children’s colic. Babies at the breast suffered from
convulsions through the whisky present in their mother’s milk.
- Young boys of ten or twelve got drunk on fair days and at the
New Year. Their fathers would become intoxicated for days to-
gether. The worst period was at New Year when a whole fort-
night was turned into.a major orgiastic occasion. Women were as
bad as men, and there were cases of aged women, unable to
walk, rendered speechless by drink. ‘Many of the young men
assemble together, become disorderly, get addicted to whisky
and cockfighting, quarrel among themselves, violate every moral
_ law, break the Sabbath, and generally become profane. The girls
are little better; in many instances they early lose their innocence,
and become the mothers of natural children. I have known girls
of sixteen years of age to be the mother of natural children.’!27
_ What was in fact more common was the established practice
whereby at the slightest hint of ill-health recourse was had to
_ the bottle. When neighbours visited those confined to bed, a
Abs tipple was inevitably offered. If this custom is combined with the
- fact that destitution, induced through no fault of the individual,
was alleviated by alcohol then it is possible to assess the signifi-
cance of intemperance both causing, and being caused by,
poverty. .
_ It is against this background of poverty, bad housing, low
_ wages, unemployment, intemperance, and filth that the Scottish
prostitute had her being. In every town there were women who
_ were ready and willing to sell themselves to people of all classes.
But however available they may have been prostitution could not
:* _ have flourished unless the male demand had been there. We have
[ mentioned some of the causes for this demand above. It was
a Be ced not only by individual behaviour but by the actual nature

__ attraction created by the prostitute it is necessary to distinguish

ne "between the types of demand in the different classes in the
society.
The existence of the so-called double standard of sexual
: morals, iin conjunction with monogamous marriage, affected all
‘social groups. Amongst the upper classes the emphasis, as we
_ have suggested, on BeOverey and status in marriage rather than
 gh Oy, Be ee ee gt Nh -Ie Sbk M eney som 7 ee ee > SS4 SO ee) eek
pe Xi wy boys 0's hers
oe oy 5 PA a ale fina : attare Rear fe +9 is Faved:

upon ‘emotion kd capability made many unions temic in

terms of sexual companionship. Even in those marriages based on
affection the idealisation of the wife made it difficult for her to
fulfil a sexual role. We would suggest that the conception and
practice of marriage itself played an important part in predis-
posing the husband towards the prostitute. With marriage re-
garded as a social and contractual arrangement the unmarried _
male of this class enjoyed his bachelordom in a manner which, if
not given entire social approval, aroused no great condemnation.
The fact that reformers were constantly attacking the lack of
concern displayed by mothers at the depravity of their daughters’
suitors demonstrates the kind of approbation existing. A man’s
position and money mattered far more than his reputation or
chastity.’*® The upper class young man from an early age was
surrounded by women in a subordinate position. These were
proven sources of sexual accessibility exemplified by the be-
haviour of his elders towards them. He soon graduated from the
opportunities presented by the domestic situation to the wider-
spheres provided by the streets and brothels. At no stage in his
progress up to and beyond marriage did he meet with the dis-
approval of his peers. His sexual indulgence was expected and
approved. So long as he respected the chastity of women of his
own kind he retained the approval of his class.
It is possible to argue that the existence of a considerable
number of women, who were willing to sell themselves, tended
to increase the extent of the demand. It cannot be dismissed as a
factor in the situation. But the startling fact remains that in mid-
Victorian Scotland, notorious for its Sabbatarianism, there was
yet a recognition that both the husband and the unmarried male
should be permitted to satisfy his sexual desires with the whore
of their choice. Although never expressed openly by those who
indulged this behaviour, if attacked they would no doubt have
used the classical argument that by so doing they were protecting
the sanctity of their homes. There is this much truth in their
assertion that today, when the incidence of prostitution appears
to be considerably less, the cherished chastity of the Victorian
home is no longer so much a feature of the domestic scene. The
upper class male may be said to have surrendered his predilec-
tion for the prostitute in favour of affairs with women of his own
class. The prostitute is no longer fashionable. .
The existence of a large and open market of women, his training

137
 ~ and induction by his male elders, his own se u
apparent approval given by society at large to his a
~ conception of marriage based upon property and position all
combined to increase and inflate the demand for public women
by the male of the upper classes. The sexual initiation of the
scions of the most respectable families was in the hands of the
prostitute.* Initiation achieved it might create a life-long addic-
tion to the brothel.
At the other end of the social scale, among the lower classes,
recourse to the prostitute was in part determined by the appal-
ling living conditions in which masses of people were compelled
to exist. Herded together in an extremely squalid atmosphere it is
understandable that men would quickly take advantage of the
situation. In other words the male demand was increased and
inflamed by the ease of access. Some idea of the terrible nature of
the environment of a section of the working class can be gathered
from a report on the state of crime in Glasgow by the superin-
tendent of police in 1840.
‘In the very centre of the city there is an accumulated mass of
squalid wretchedness, which is probably unequalled in any other
town in the British dominions. In the interior part of the square,
bounded on the east by Salt-market, on the west by Stockwell-
street, on the north by Trongate, and on the south by the river,
and also in certain parts of the east side of High-street including
the Vennals, Havannah and Burnside, there is concentrated
everything that is wretched, dissolute, and pestilential. These
places are filled by a population of many thousands of miserable
creatures. The houses in which they live are unfit even for sties,
and every apartment is filled with a promiscuous crowd of men,
women, and children, all in the most revolting state of filth and
squalor. In many of the houses there is scarcely any ventilation:
*In this connection the experience of the young Stevenson in
Edinburgh is worth noting. R.L.S. came from a notable family of the
haute bourgeoisie. Speaking of the loss of his virginity his biographer,
J. C. Furnas remarks, ‘Such initiation into full-dress erotics was the
custom of the country probably observed by a large majority of Louis’
social peers in youth. In Scotland in 1869 it would have been difficult
to come effectually to grips with a girl of his own stratum this side of
marriage; and, had he tried and succeeded, her sense of degradation
might have warped both for life.’ (Voyage to Windward, London
1953, Pp. 55.) The quotation aptly summarises the function of the
prostitute — to satisfy the sexual appetite of men, and to preserve
decent women from degradation.

138
 le a Ct hi ee am Ay ree t , + peee 7 aan? hk ie Pe rate
3
vag? 7
, : “h ; Faire 4 ts ofyey J - . A te ” eee. i
ayer:
7

_dunghills lie in the vicinity of the dwellings; and from the ex-
tremely defective’ sewerage, filth of every kind constantly
accumulates. In these horrid dens, the most abandoned charac-
ters of the city are collected, and from thence they nightly issue
to disseminate disease, and to pour upon the town every species
of crime and abomination . . . The people who dwell in these
quarters of the city are sunk to the lowest possible state of per-
sonal degradation, in whom no elevated idea can be expected to
arise, and who regard themselves, from the hopelessness of their
condition, as doomed to a life of wretchedness and crime . . .’!29
Clearly only a minority struggled for existence in this sewer in
the heart of Glasgow. The evidence, however, indicates that the
great mass of the people in the urban areas of Scotland lived in
conditions not very far removed from those described above.
We would suggest that men living in an acute state of depriva-
tion, in which filth and hopelessness predominate, will tend to
regard sexual intercourse and alcohol as the only palliatives avail-
able. For the Scottish worker both could be bought cheaply, and
the addiction for the one reinforced the desire for the other. ;
Loneliness, frustration, facility and poverty all played their part
in the working class demand for the whore, Marriage, as we have
seen, was often hastily entered without consideration and fre-
quently ended by desertion. In such circumstances the prostitute
found a ready market.
Thus in the two extremes of the society male demand for the
prostitute was governed by somewhat different factors. For the
gentleman a visit to the brothel was not only a necessary part of
his education but a pleasurable adjunct to his social life. For the
working man the bought refuge of a woman’s body was almost a
necessity.
The middle ranks of society probably provided the least
number of the prostitute’s clients. In fact it was this section
which played the leading part in the attack against prostitution.
It must be said, however, that the ordinary bourgeois in his
youth was apt to ape gentlemanly behaviour in this respect as
evinced in the escapades of university students. Once married,
in contrast to upper class husbands, their interest in the brothel
declined. Marriage in this group could afford to be more concern-
ed with compatability than property as there was less of the latter _
to dispose of. The moral vigour of Sabbatarianism engendered by
Calvinism was at its greatest in the middle class and cannot be

fe
et
ae
139
 es
oo
discounted as a factor inhibiting that class’s demand|
titute. Like so many other efforts in the direction of social reform
_ the middle class movement for the abolition of prostitution often
became a matter of preaching to the converted. ‘There must have
been few in that crowded and exclusively male audience on an
October night in 1860 in the Glasgow City Hall, which had
come to hear the Rey. William Arnot, who were not already con-
vinced of the wickedness of prostitution. The habituees of the
brothels were presumably elsewhere.
‘This is a costly taste of yours that demands creatures formed
in God’s image as fuel to its flame. Look at the fruit of your
doings in that imbruted soul and bloated body, with hardly any
human features left, a mass of incurable corruption now. That
lump of yet living flesh was once a woman, her spirit now depart-
ing in darkness, and her body returning to dust before the time.
Look at that wreck, brother — all that remains of an immortal —
Thou art the destroyer. I arraign thee, murderer, before the bar
' of God, her God and thine; that ghastly form will confront thee
then, if unrepentant, and the flimsy excuses you use before your
fellow-men will not avail you before the righteous Judge.’13°
Castigations of this kind no doubt helped to maintain the temple
of middle class marital fidelity in Scotland. That they affected
the behaviour of the upper and lower classes, judging by the
extent of prostitution throughout the century, remains a matter
of considerable doubt.
_ Thus it would appear that the male demand for the prostitute
varied from class to class. It was strongest at the two extremes of
the class structure but, as we have seen, the factors at work in the
two cases were quite different. Sexual gratification in terms of
the whore in the one case was a pleasurable hobby - in the
other an attempted release from the prison of the worker’s en-
vironment. It was at its weakest in the middle classes, the tradi-
tional guardians of sexual morality. But it must not be forgotten
that many respectable bourgeois remained convinced that the
- continued existence of the prostitute was a shield for the chastity
of their families.
We have endeavoured in this chapter to trace some part of the
pattern of prostitution as it existed in mid-nineteenth-century
Scotland, and to make a tentative analysis of some of the major
_ factors which helped to produce that pattern. Concentration on
Edinburgh and Glasgow was inevitable in view of the lack of |

140
 A

material for other urban centres. It is not, however, entirely

unjustifiable to suggest that the picture presented by these two
Major cities was reflected to a lesser degree in the majority of
Scottish towns.

Notes and References

I
Tait, William. Magdalenism, An Inquiry into the Extent,
Causes, and Consequences of Prostitution in Edinburgh, Edin-
burgh 1840, p. 3.
Ibid., pp. 4-5.
Ibid., p. 5. See also Fernando Henriques, Europe and the
New World, Prostitution and Society, Vol. 11, London 1963,
Ch. IX; and B. Reitman, The Second Oldest Profession,
London 1936, pp. 268-9.
Sanger, W. W. The History of Prostitution, New Edition,
N.Y. 1919, pp. §75—-627.
Tait, op. cit., p. 7.
Ibid., pp. 8-9.
See The Scotsman, April 11th, 1840. :
Ruhen, Olaf. Tangaroa’s Godchild, London 1962, pp. 79-81.
Tait, op. cit., p. 10.
Ibid., pp. 10-11.
Ibid., p. 12.
This topic is discussed in Henriques, op. cit., Vol. I, London
1962, Ch. III, and Vol. Ia, London 1963, Chs. II, III, and
VIII.
Sanger, op. Cit., p. 584.
Tait, op. cit., pp. 17-18.
Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid., p. 13. ;
Reports on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population
of Scotland, In Consequence of An Inquiry Directed To Be
Made By The Poor Law Commissioners, House of Lords,
Sessional Papers ,1842, XXVIII.1, London 1842, p. 156.
18 Ibid., p. 158.
19 See Henriques, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 194.
20 Tait, op. cit., p. 13.
21 Ibid., p. 3.

4p oe
a, a ik
: ny vir CRUE Sas a arnoe a

Lek For cases on this point see James, T. E.Erinn ion Gand th
Law, London 1951,p. 38. - ‘
23 Tait, op. cit., p. 22. {
24 Henriques, op. cit., Vol. I, Ch.-VII.
| 25 Tait, op. cit., p. 23.
26 Marchant, J. The Master Problem, London 1917, p. 208.
27 Tait, op. cit., pp. 21-2.
28 For a discussion of the origin of Edinburgh prostitutes see
Tait, op. cit., p. 25.
29 Tait, op. cit., p. 24.
3° Sanger, op. cit., p. 452.
31 Parent-Duchatelet, A. J. B. De La Prostitution Dans La Ville
De Paris, 3rd Edition, Paris 1857, Vol. I, pp. 90-3.
32 See Burt, Sir Cyril, ‘Causes of Delinquency in Girls’, Health
and Empire, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 2513; E. Glover, “The Psycho-
pathology of Prostitution’ in The Roots of Crime, London 1960
p. 252; and T. Kemp, Prostitution, Copenhagen and Lon-
don 1936, pp. 125-6.
33 Ryan, Michael. Prostitution in London, with a Compara-
tive View of that in Paris, New York, etc., London 1839,
p. 84.
Tait, op. cit., p. 26.
Sanger, op. cit., p. 26.
Tait, op. cit., pp. 29-31.
See Henriques, op. cit., Vol. II, Ch. II, de Maupassant’s
story Tellier’s and Gavin Maxwell, The Ten Pains of Death,
London 1959, Ch. 12, “The Priest’.
Parent-Duchatelet, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 139-40.
Tait, op. cit., pp. 36-7.
For particular instances see Henriques, op. cit., Vol. I,
Cha. V, Vol. II, Ch. VII; and Henry Mayhew, London
Labour and the London Poor, ‘Those That Will Not Work’,
Extra Fourth Volume, London 1862, pp. 223-6.
Tait, op. cit., footnote, pp. 65-6.
2 Ibid. p. 65.
Ibid., pp. 66-7.
Ibid., p. 74.
Ibid., pp. 73-4.
Ibid., pp. 69-70.
Ibid., p. 71.
48 Ibid., p. 72.

142
 =Cea Oak ees al] A,

49 Thid., p. 7.3
5° Tbid., pp. 47-8. _
Se Thid.,
p. $82 0”
52 Tbid., pp. 58-61.
53 Ibid., p. 61.
54 Tbid., pp. 48-51.
55 Ibid., pp. 53-4.
56 Tbhid., p. 56.
57 Tbid., p. 57.
58 Tbid., pp. 75-7.
59 Thid., p. 84.
Parent-Duchatelet, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 150.
Raciborski, A. Traité del’ Impuissance, Paris 1845, p. 20.
6 Quoted by Mrs. Neville Rolfe, ‘Biological Aspects of Prosti-
tution’ in C. P. Blacker (Ed.), A Social Problem Group,
Oxford 1937, pp. 98-9.
63 ‘This and similar problems are discussed in later chapters.
64 Tait, op. cit., pp. 85-7.
65 Ibid., pp. 87-90.
66 Tbid., p. Of.
67 Thid., p. 96.
68 Thid., p. 96.
69 Tbid., pp. 98-9.
70 Sanger, op. cit., p. 488.
70a See Henriques, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 213-16.
7 Tait, op. cit., p. 100.
7 Tbid., footnote, p. 110.
73 Ibid., p. 113.
7 Tbid., p. 114.
75 Tbid., p. 120.
76 Sanger, op. cit., pp. 488 et seq.
77 Tait, op. cit., p. 115. ~~
S

78 Mack, J. A., in the Third Statistical Account of Scotland, —

Glasgow, eds. J. Cunnison and J. B. S. Gilfillan, Glasgow
1958,
p. 635.
79 Tait, op. cit., p. 117.
80 An instance of Edinburgh’s nineteenth-century reputation ©
for Sabbatarianism is given in Wilkie Collins’ The Lady and —
the Law, London 1892, pp. 279-80.
81 Tait, op. cit., p. 118. BAW
eS
eel
ee
P
< r
82 Tbid.,p. 118.

=
 ceca ed. C. H. Rolph: Genin1955.
85 ‘Tait, op. cit., pp. 136-7.
86 Ibid., pp. 137-8.
87 Tbid., p. 139.
88 Tbid., p. 140.
89 Ibid.; p. 141.
9° Thid., p. 145.
1 Tbid.,p. 146.
% Tbid., pp. 147-9.
% Logan, William, The Great Social Evil, London 1871; p. 72.
94Encyclopedia Britannica, ro Edition, Edinburgh 1879, Vol.
X, p. 638.
95 Quoted by Logan, op. cit., pp. 73-4.
%° Quoted by Wardlaw, Rev. Ralph. Lectures on Female Prosti=
tution, Glasgow.
97 Logan, op, cit., p. 73.
98 Quoted by Wardlaw, op. cit., p. 32.
99 Wardlaw, op. cit., pp. 32-3.
“100 Quoted by Logan, op, cit., p. 74.
' ‘Tor T_ogan, op, cit.,p.108.
eeabid.
103 Wardlaw, op. cit., pp. 80-1.
~ 10 Quoted by Wardlaw, op. cit., p. 81.
_ 105 Logan, op. cit., pp. 125-6.
t06 Tbid., p. 75.
—%07 Quoted by J. Mack, op. cit., pp. 635-7.
108 Mack, J. op. cit., p. 635.
109 Tbid., pp. 637-8.
tro Logan, op, cit., p. 75.
"1 Mack, J., op. cit., p. 638.
2
an
Logan, op. cit., pp. 53-4.
_ 3 JTbid., footnote,p. 54.
m4 Tbid. ;
8s Reports on the Sanitary Condition ... Scotland, op. Cit., pp.
160-2. :
124 Ibid., p. oe.
15 Ibid., p. 181.
76 Tbid.,p. 143.
17 Tbid., pp. 104-5. |
128 See The Dial, February 15th, 1860. “o
/ 29 Reports on the Sanitary Condition... Scotland, nu cit., PP. ‘
72-3.
130 Togan, op. cit., pp. 143. 3va
4: Prostitution and the Liquor Trade

THE SECOND PHASE

THROUGHOUT the nineteenth century in Britain the prostitute

sought both solace and custom from the tavern. The connection
between her profession and that of the publican was demonstrated
in a variety of ways. At times it was flagrantly displayed in the
manifestation of the brothel-public-house but more frequently
the relationship was of a more subtle and insidious character. The
over-riding factor in the situation was the cheapness and facility
with which liquor could be obtained in a context where the
public-house provided almost the only source of pleasure for the
masses of the people. The brewer and the spirit merchant were
primarily interested in the disposal of their products. That in so
doing they assisted the development of a vicious element in the
lives of the people was not their concern. Evidence for the sup-
port of these statements is to be found both in the observations
of contemporaries, and government reports.

146
 Pa

"To appreciate fully the significance of the liquor trade for

prostitution it is necessary to examine the background against
which that trade operated. By the thirties of the century the
public-house had almost completed its evolution from the
mediaeval tavern and was becoming the phenomenon with
which we are familiar today. But at this time two rivals were
beginning to appear — the beer-house, and the gin palace. Up to
the passing of the Beerhouse Act in 1830 in order to sell intoxi-
cating liquor it was necessary to obtain a licence from the licens-
ing justices, who had the power to refuse or revoke such a
licence. In other words the licensing system exercised some -
control over the way in which licensed premises were conducted.
The Act of 1830 was to produce a radical change with regard to
the sale of beer.
The qualifications to obtain a beer licence were minimal.
Provided you were a householder mere application to the local
excise officer, and the payment of two guineas, entitled you to
use your dwelling as a beer house. It might be thought that those
responsible for the passing of the Act would have been aware of
the possible disastrous consequences. The then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Goulburn, had no such fears. “This measure would,
he had no doubt, work well. It would conduce at once to the
comfort of the people in affording them cheap accommodation;
to their health in procuring them a better and more wholesome
beverage; and to their morality in removing them from the
temptations to be met with in a common alehouse, and intro-
ducing them to houses of a better order which were guarded by
stricter securities than formerly . . .”! In fact it did none of these
things but produced far worse conditions than those it was
designed to remedy.
Opposition to the Act had come from the great brewers who
saw in the advent of the beer house a threat to their monopoly of
the trade. With the growth of the system of tied houses through-
out the country the brewers had an almost complete control of
the manufacture and retailing of beer. If anyone and everyone
was to be at liberty to brew and sell their own beer the con-
sequences would be serious for their monopoly. Such fears could
not of course be publicly expressed. Instead the moral dangers
were emphasised. Charles Calvert, one of the great London
brewers, suggested in the House of Commons that the title of
the Bill should be amended to read: ‘An Act for the increase of

147
ht
8e

N-
 ; p
to (o borne out
Eby events.
Six months after the passing of the Act over 24,000 individuals
had applied for licences. Within eight years this figure had risen
to 45,717. It was almost as if the country had been suffering an
enormous deprivation and was now rejoicing in its release. Some
indication of this rejoicing may be gained from the figures for
drunkenness in one provincial town — Leeds. In the three years
prior to the passing of the Act there were 630 cases before the
courts. In the thirty-one-month period after the Act there were
2023 such cases.? In 1833 Leeds, with a population of about
145,000, had 700 licensed premises of which 400 were beer-
houses. This gives a figure of approximately one licensed premise
to every 200 of the population.
The coming of the beer-house was to have a much greater
effect on the morals of the people in the provinces and the
countryside as a whole than in the metropolis. In considering the
conditions which now began to develop it is essential to realise
_ the paucity of entertainment and of places of recreation and
amusement at the disposal of the public. The railway age had not
yet come — people were more or less bound to the place they
_ lived and worked in. Public parks hardly existed. There was in
_ fact no alternative to the public-house or the beer-house as a
_ place of relaxation. To a majority it meant an escape from the
monotony of dingy lodging, or a depressing house. In the rural
areas it was the only substitute for loneliness. In particular beer-
houses could and did exist in districts where public-houses could
not have survived. For the would-be proprietor of a beer-house
_ there was the misguided conception that he too would make his
_ fortune even as the brewers had. It is in these terms that the
_ enormous, and sudden popularity of the beer-house is to be
he explained.
Outside of the towns public-houses tended to be found on
main roads. On the other hand any dwelling, wherever situated,
could be set up as a beer-house. Many in fact began to appear in
_ lonely and remote places. Inevitably they became the local
rendezvous, not only of the farm labourers in the neighbourhood,
_ but of all the petty thieves and criminals of the parish. For the
x latter’s purposes the beer-house could not be bettered— it was
: ‘subject neither to police surveillance nor to magisterial inspec-
f
 _—- -

* tion. It was the ideal place to plan the stealing of sheep, or rob-
bing a barn. In the opinion of the magistrate in Ingatestone in
Essex: ‘. . . one crime in ten is now concocted in a beer-shop or
‘connected with it .. .’5 From another part of Essex, the parish
of Stebbing, an even blacker picture emerges. “There is no order
kept in them. I close my doors at ten o’clock, and lay my keys
upon the table and perhaps when I’ve been in bed two hours of
a night I am awakened by fellows going to the beer-shops. On
Sunday I passed by one of these beer-shops at a quarter before
eleven. The house was full of people, and the constable drinking
with them; and when I came back from church they were doing
the same. . .”° Admittedly the evidence is biased — it is that of a
licensed victualler — nevertheless it could be corroborated from
all over the country.
It was not only a question of criminal activity; there was also
the facility for drinking which the beer-houses provided.
‘*. -» Many of the farmers who have complained, say that some
of their men who were very industrious and sober men, have
become very much addicted to drinking in consequence of those
houses being very near to the fields and in remote places; it often
happens that a man in the middle of the day leaves his work,
and goes and spends his money in the beer-shop. I know that to
be the fact .. .”7 The image conjured up of neglected fields and
rotting corn while labourers roistered in the beer-houses is per-
haps exaggerated, but there can be little doubt that when
the opportunity presented itself the agricultural worker
was not averse to drinking in his working hours. As the
clerk to the magistrates in Paulton in Somerset put it beer-
houses were ‘. .. mere mumping houses, where beggers are
received...’8
Most beer-house keepers were of the same class as their cus-
tomers, that is working men. They shared the same tastes as the
people who frequented their houses. Sometimes this led to appal-
ling consequences as those that occurred in a ‘mumping house’ at
Paulton. ‘Last Saturday three weeks, I was at George Magg’s
beer-house at Paulton; I got there in the evening about five or
six o’clock; there were four people in the room at the same time
I came in... about ten o’clock; the above-named persons forcibly
stripped me stark naked, and put me on a carpenter’s bench;
Maggs was not in the same room, but in an adjoining room;
after they had stripped me they burnt my privates with a candle;

149
 _ George Maggs; they Metersmy ‘shiteto pieces, and threw it in
f the fire; they also threw my small-clothes into the fire: I was
forced through the passage, naked, to near the room where the
women and George Maggs were, and Mr. Maggs laughed at me,
the women saw me; George Maggs did not afford me any
assistance, but afterwards he came into the room and said, “‘Do
not serve him no more tonight;” he did not go with me to a
magistrate, nor send for any constable. Mr. Maggs has not
adopted any proceedings towards the people who ill-treated me
at his house to bring them to punishment .. .’° Maggs’ participa-
tion in this scene of misplaced bucolic humour cost him, on
conviction, £5 in the money of the day.
While it is to be hoped such occurrences were not typical the
fact that they took place at all is indicative of the general thieves’
kitchen atmosphere of these democratic drinking-dens. Through-
out the pages of the report of the Select Committee on the Sale of
Beer 1833 there are innumerable references to the deplorable con-
ditions and activities which the beer-houses encouraged. The
little parish of Wargrave on the Thames could boast of seventy
people on a Sunday morning crammed into a beer-house and
spilling out onto the road, drunk and fighting, and obstructing
the godly from going to church.’° In Sussex badger baiting,
cock fighting, gambling were all carried on in beer-houses in
¥ defiance of the law.!! At Arundel intoxicated customers even
set light to the premises.!2
Their location, type of housing, clientele, landlords all helped
__ the beer-house to become a natural focus of demoralisation. |
__ What saved them from an entire iniquity was the lack of a spirits’
licence. There might be outbreaks of smuggling spirits in remote
_ areas, as in East Sussex, but the majority of beer-shops had to rely
on beer.’ The absence of hard liquor, however, did not prevent
_ the appearance of prostitution in the ambit of the ‘mumping-
house’. .
is Liverpool in the eighteen thirties possessed a population of
approximately 200,000. To satisfy the needs of this population
_ there were 1200 regular public-houses and nearly 600 beer-
_shops.'* This somewhat high figure is in part to be explained
__ by the presence of large numbers of seamen who then as now were
excellent customers of the publicans. But there were other _
7}
ge ‘ ve

ae
demands which the jerry-shops or beer-shops of Liverpool were
willing to supply.
*. . - I could prove that three-fourths of them are kept open
over the time (the licensed hours were 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. on week
days), in fact, the whole of the night, and harboured all descrip-
tions of loose boys and girls in them drinking. This document
states that the young man going by the end of Preston-street, was
accosted by a woman carrying a basket, in which she had oysters,
and she asked him to purchase, he asked her the price; this was
after the clock had struck 12; she said, ‘if you want any had you
not better go into a house where you can see what you are taking.
I can introduce you to a very nice jerry-shop, kept by two young
women, and I will introduce you to one of them as a sweetheart;’
he went with her up an entry at the back part of the house, and
there found 12 or 14 persons in one room, from the age of 16 to”
22, drinking and smoking, as if it were six o’clock at night; they
appeared very loose characters, and he began to fear, and wished
to get out again. . .715
The seafaring element in the Liverpudlian population cannot
be blamed entirely for the flowering of beer-house prostitution.
Two other sections were held by contempories to be directly
involved in this development. One was the young people.
*, . . another class are young men in the lower walks of life,
rising from 15 upwards, and they meet with dissolute girls that
are harboured in those houses a public house would be disgraced
by having persons admitted there that are admitted to beer-
shops .. .° As we shall see the latter part of this statement was
not altogether in accordance with the facts. But it was not only
the lower orders that were concerned. An attorney’s clerk
‘, .. found his boy staying out at night, and he found he was
harboured in one of those houses with a common strumpet.’!7
It would appear that some of the aspects of our contemporary
problems of juvenile delinquency are not altogether a recent
phenomenon. é
The other section which supported the sexual side of the liquor
trade was the Irish. Employed mostly as labourers they had an.
unenviable reputation before the opening of the beer-houses.
Subsequently they contributed a great deal to the unsavoury
reputation Liverpool obtained. ‘. . . I think that the additional
temptation given to them, particularly in consequence of their
masters keeping beer-shops, has made them more drunken than

151
 ‘The Chief Carnesble! of that city had this to say: ‘... frequently
_ persons that get a little into a state of intoxication are : picked up in
the streets of Leeds by the disorderly women, and taken to the
- beer-shops, and there they are frequently robbed by the com-
panions of the women . . .”'° The Mayor of Leeds in his evidence
_ before the Select Committee put the case against the urban beer-
house extremely well. Leeds is still a city of alley ways and ginnels ~
and in the period in i question these become the site of deplorable
_ licensed premises.
‘Another objection arises from many of those beer-shops being
_. found in many out-of-the-way parts of the town, up alleys, for
instance, where there is no thoroughfare, and in various obscure
_ corners, which are out of the range of our watchmen and patrols
__,.. we see persons whom we have known for years to be people
of bad character, and have no possible way of getting their liveli-
___ hood (acting as publicians), we cannot help thinking that there is
something mischievous, and something immoral and something
improper going on in those places. It appears that any house
rated at £5 a year may get a licence from the Excise without any
question being asked. They do not ask them where the house is,
or what sort of house they have. I believe they require them to
have two rooms, and that appears to be the only necessary
faBees acation; and they get those licences, and put a painted board
ee over the door, and the neighbours are annoyed by the introduc-
tion of a disorderly house, probably in an obscure part... I
_ believe it is the general opinion of all the magistrates of the
it borough of Leeds that the beer-shops have introduced a greater
_| degree of demoralisation, and an increase of drunkenness that we
__ have ever had occasion to complain of before . . .”2°
____ It is quite clear that the weakness of the Act was precisely that
_ itgave every man, including the most wayward characters, the
right to set up as a publican. This was seized upon by a variety
of ne’er-do-wells who attracted a vicious company for whom
Ne, "prostitution was merely another aspect of their already depraved
existence. Sometimes a respectable man became involved despite
eya_ himself. “There was an individual that I happened to know,a
ka _gardener of my own, avery steady and diligent man, and he began
_ to keep a beer-shop, and asked my consent; I said, I think you are
sips wandering from the path of rectitude; however he kept the beer-
 pete
eye ina £ = A
i shop, and in less than six months his wife became a common
prostitute . . .727
For most beer-house keepers no doubt the danger of their
wives fulfilling the sexual needs of their patrons was no doubt
fairly remote. On the other hand the respectable labourer enticed
by the proximity of the beer-house easily fell victim to the loose
women so frequently found there. A clergyman and magistrate
in Cambridge was of this opinion. ‘. . . I have within my own
knowledge several persons that I know to be~extremely in-
dustrious and worthy before the introduction of the beer-shops,
are now become completely demoralised. The fact is, that they
meet together at those houses, and in many places they are
enticed there by meeting persons of the other sex; in short, I am
sure, from my own knowledge, there are some in my neighbour-
hood that are little better than brothels.’2?
The casual encounter could be placed on a more orthodox
commercial basis as occurred in some parts of Lancashire. ‘. . . the
last case that came before me, which was in March, it appeared
that the man not only supplied beer, but that he had four rooms,
and you paid 2d. for a quart of ale, and if you made it a shilling,
you were entitled to have the privilege of this beer, and there was
a girl prepared to each of the rooms; this was stated .. . as being
the constant practice of the house . . .”3 The
, phenomenon of the
brothel-beer-house might be said to be due to the intense com-
petition which was the result of the flood of applications for
licences being granted. The enterprising keeper attempted to
offer attractions which others could not. The provision of women
was an obvious choice granted the context of the times. A picture
begins to emerge of metropolitan sophistication beginning to
spread into the small towns and rural areas. The case of Ringwood
in Hampshire can be taken as typical. “They (the beer-house
keepers) suffer gambling, and in fact they endeavour to outvie
each other; one of those shops, for instance, has a card party;
another procures a certain number of girls, perhaps ten, and a_
fiddler to attract the people in the neighbourhood; there is card
playing, nine-pins, and a sort of nine-pins indoors, which was
thrown at by string. I can state one instance on the first of April,
where a party assembled and commenced card-playing, and, I
believe, kept it up nearly all night, and after so doing, they
concluded with a fight... .”4
The amazing, and perhaps deplorable, success of the

153
oe
.
Me
i Ae as
ay! ON
"ple4 ea Aesba ‘

~ beer-house suggests that its advent fulfilled a real need

- part of a large section of the population. It can possibly be likened
to the spread of bingo playing in our-own day. To a television-
drugged public bingo provides opportunity for social intercourse
and gambling. For the country dweller of over a hundred years
ago the beer-house provided glamour and excitement hitherto
lacking in his bucolic wilderness.
The evidence before the Select Committee suggests that while
the beer-houses performed a positive social function, particularly
in the country, in providing a meeting-place where people could
drink near to their homes nevertheless they were natural foci for
criminal and depraved activities of all kinds. This was especially
the case with regard to young people — in the beer-house they met
with every encouragement to embark on crime and sexual
irregularity. A development which assisted this aspect of the beer-
house was the combining of the latter with the keeping of a
common lodging-house. Lodging-houses at this period were
incredibly filthy dens but had no licence to sell liquor. The Beer
Act gave them the means to engage in the trade. This is exem-
plified in, what according to the police, had occurred in the town
of Warwick.
. We have now five or six (beer-houses) that are actually
keeping common lodging-houses. I can go there in the night, and
there you see boys and girls with those men, without shoes and
stockings, some almost without a shirt, and there they are'sitting
round tables and drinking and gambling. Now I never saw this
in an old public-house in my life. Were there not lodging-houses
in existence before the beer-shops? — There were. Were they well
conducted ?— No, the lodging-houses were never well conducted.
What is the difference between the lodging-houses at that time
and at this time? — A great deal of difference, because a person
that kept a common lodging-house would not admit a person
unless he had taken his lodgings; but now, if a person keeps a
beer-house, he takes the boys and girls of the town there to drink,
and I know what effect it has on the morals of the boys and girls.
Why should the lodging-house of the present day be worse then
the lodging-house formerly, merely because they have the power
of drinking there? — I do not say that they are any worse, but
they have a worse tendency, because the common lodging-house,
previous to this Act (the Beer Act), would not suffer any person
to go there except they were regular lodgers; now at this time

154
 “ol
Par bk aeaed oeBe
eee ed OAT oS. WS a = we eee

Eraiere are loose Batic go there, and associate, and it produces

acquaintance between them... .”5 |
The beer-cum:
cum-lodging-house provided the ideal setting for the
fostering of prostitution, and it would appear that a considerable
number of individuals took advantage of this felicitous, from
their point of view, combination to encourage a trade in women.
It must not be thought that these forays into iniquity which we
have cited were the entire responsibility of dissolute characters.
Without the support of the brewers these people could not have
continued to exist. Initially the brewers had opposed the Beer Act
as it appeared to be designed to destroy the monopoly established —
in the trade. The idea had been that beer-house keepers would
seize the opportunity to brew their own beer. Nothing of the
sort occurred, and in a short space the brewers were beginning to
enjoy an unprecedented and unexpected boom in business. Some
idea of the brewers’ control of the beer-house trade may be
gained from the fact that in Newcastle-on-Tyne not a single beer-
house brewed its own beer, and in one part of Sussex out of
73 beer-houses only 27 brewed their own beer.?° The brewers’
monopoly was in fact enhanced by the Act. Our point here is
that the very real advantage of increased sales overcame what-
ever moral objections the brewer may have had to the beer-house.
The fact that beer-houses encouraged prostitution was really no
concern of his. Yet without his support prostitution could not
have successfully exploited this new outlet. The evidence of a
prominent Hampshire brewer, Abraham Cowley, before the
Select Committee leaves no doubt in the mind as to the increase
in trade for the brewing industry. ‘. . . it has also been very
advantageous to some brewers, having opened a vast field for
their industry and the employment of capital from which under
the old system they were very much precluded . . .”7 The old
system means here the difficulty of obtaining new licences where
other licensed premises already existed. Once he was assured that
beer-house keepers had neither the skill not the time to brew
their own beer the brewer embarked upon the exploitation of the
new trade so kindly provided by the government. Thieves and
whores might abound where his beer was consumed but that
was very much a secondary consideration.
While the brewers were enchanted by these new developments
the attitude of the gentry in the countryside was somewhat
equivocal. As farmers and growers of barley they profited in

wid 155
much ire same way as the Srewers 2sthe consumptic ni of be r
_ increased. But the beer-house diminished their power and controb
over licensed premises. Hitherto a local magnate had been able to
restrict the number of public-houses in his neighbourhood, and
to grant or withhold licences as he pleased. Now hewas powerless.
Something of this conflict between power and pocket trans-
pires in the somewhat strange opinions voiced by William
Holmes, a magistrates’ clerk and former Mayor of Littlehampton.
‘I have seen boys smoking with pipes in their mouths and
drinking continually; and as far as my observation goes. I think
I have seen the droppings of human excrements more frequent
than before in these beer-houses; I have seen people less delicate
where they go; I have a mile and a half to walk twice a day, to
and from my office, and I have made considerable observation;
I am quite satisfied that it has increased the marriages of the
lower orders; I have heard a great deal of Little Hampton; the
clergyman, to whom I wrote, called upon me, and gave me what I
am reading; “‘I had many complaints made of the beer-shops and
various depredations during divine service in particular; in con-
sequence I got a gentleman to do part of my duty, and after the
service was over, and before the sermon, I left the church, and
_ went to the beer-shops; I found them full — several people intoxi-
cated — and amongst the latter several receiving parochial relief to
my knowledge. The depredations, since the beer-shops, have
very considerably increased, and they are open at all times of the
night.” I asked him if he thought marriages had increased, and he
gave me this answer “Marriages have increased.” Did you ask
marriages or improvident marriages ?— No; he states, ““Marriages
have increased; I published last Sunday three banns, and one girl
only sixteen years of age. Some of the men I saw the next
morning drunk, as I passed these beer-houses. The man asked
me to take a drop, impudently assuming the right to be there at
that time. I remonstrated, and asked the man (the beer-house
keeper) to turn them out, but he declined.” 728
_ Itis difficult to comment on this bizarre juxtaposition of foul-
ing the floor, and the increase of marriages amongst the lower
orders, It is possible that in the Mayor’s mind they were both
instances of the creeping depravity engendered by the beer-
house. Boys starting to smoke and drink might become careless
where they relieved themselves. Again, the atmosphere of the
beer-house, licentious in tone, might lead them to sexual desires

156 f '
 Pina Me teen Se ae UY.

_ which apparently could only be gratified in marriage. It could

almost beinterpreted to mean that promiscuity was preferable
to marriage for the lower classes.
Despite the reports of successive Parliamentary Committees
the beer-houses continued to enjoy their freedom until 1 869 when
all licensing came under the authority of magistrates. But even
then those created prior to the 1869 legislation retained their _
licences. The beer-houses remained a powerful factor in the
maintenance of prostitution throughout the nineteenth century.
The nineteenth-century beer-house flourished in a context of
social deprivation. It is not unexpected that the latter produced at
times, strange patterns of behaviour. The lace-making village of
Pavenham in Bedfordshire is an interesting example. In his
evidence before the Select Committee on Public Houses in 1854
James Balfour, a research worker for various temperance bodies
and the Statistical Society, had this to say of the village Pavenham
in Bedfordshire.
‘,.- Lhe population, I think, was somewhere between 600 and
700. The male proportion of the population were mat makers and
agricultural labourers, and the females were lacemakers. I found
the people, as far as their health was concerned, in a good state,
and their dwellings were tolerable, but I found them in a fearful
state of ignorance; an average number of, I believe, about 70 per
cent could not read or write. The women were extremely
ignorant of their domestic duties, for instance they could not
make a drop of gruel or soup. I found the females in a very
demoralised state, and a large number had had illegitimate chil-
dren ... I dated the demoralisation and frequency of chance
children amongst the females, which occured in mothers and
daughters of one family at the same time, to their visiting public-
houses with the men... and another thing they were much
addicted to was, that 16 out of every 20 women were opium
eaters ... The majority of females at Pavenham are consumers of
opium; I discovered it by close investigation at first, of a young
female, the mistress of the lace school; I was very much aston-
ished at her different appearance towards the latter part of the
day to what it was in the morning, when I first went in. I said to
the lady at whose house I was staying, the proprietor of the
village inn, that it struck me that opium was consumed. She said,
“No.” I said, ““My strong impression is that it is, and I must
investigate it.” I did so, and found that it was, and had for a

a
157
ae
Dee aA sana. ar Bic nance +SA

considerable number of :years been con

was sold in as small quantities as a halfpenny orn
~ hucksters’ shops. . .729
Granted the endinods the really surprising element in that
account is that if opium were so easily and cheaply obtainable
greater use was not made of it throughout the country. Possibly
the consumption of cheap beer and spirits in the company of
others was more attractive. Pavenham may have beenexceptional;
this was certainly not the case of conditions in the cities of Old-
ham and Leeds. Both can be regarded as typical mid-nineteenth-
century industrial centres. Oldham, and Lancashire, had evolved
a special type of unlicensed beer-shop known as a hush-shop.
The name is eloquent.
In his Report for 1851 the Oldham Superintendent of Police
‘stated: ‘. . With reference to the hush-shops, I am sorry to say
they are on the increase (their number was 387 at a time when
the city population was about 60,000), and continue to be a fruit-
ful source of intemperance and its consequences. Little can be
done in bringing the keepers to justice . . . you will find that in
two years only 32 persons have been convicted out of a total of
387 who have followed this unlawful calling . .. These houses are
the seat of the greatest vice; prostitution is openly carried on, and
a race is springing up which will add no small number to the
already criminal and immoral community of the country . . .”3°
The views of police superintendents with regard to moral decay
do not seem to have changed much in the last hundred years.
Oldham’s excellent representative in his Report was careful to
give the exact number — 21 — of hush-shop owners who were
living in ‘fornication’ .3"
It becomes clear that the man or woman who staciedsa hush-
shop must have been totally without even that minimum of
respectability which was sufficient to satisfy the authorities for
the grant of a licence for a beer-shop. Licences were obtained
from the contemporary equivalent of the Board of Trade. Only
after the third conviction for running disorderly premises could
the licence be taken away by the magistrates. Even this was not a
deterrent — as an example from Leeds shows. ‘. . . I have known
several cases in which the same house has been re-licensed, and if
possible to a worse person; in fact it has been nothing better than
a common brothel. . .’32
The beer-shops in Leeds appeared to have been as bad as any

158

ss at
 — a> > b i. ee en pF
ae
wi
ets ‘ Mee ¥
c
in the country. ‘. . . There was one particular house kept by some
parties who now keepa beer-house at the present time... At
this place there was a number of boys, say from’ 16 to 18 years
of age, assembled of an evening after they had left the factories,
and also young girls of corresponding ages, and it came to my
knowledge, from private sources, that they were in the habit,
12 of them, of putting down a penny piece and them throwing
dice in a basin or milk bowl, and the one that thréw the highest
number was the winner of the prize, and that prize was, that he
could select any of those girls and take her upstairs for prostitu-
tion. I succeeded in detecting them, and brought them before
the magistrates, and they were fined £5 each case. . .’33
An interesting point arises out of the facility for sexual en-
counters which the beer-shop created for teenagers. The diatribe
which the older generation currently conducts against the sexual
moral habits of young people today, as compared with those of
the past, loses a great deal of its force in the light of the evidence
we have quoted.
In establishing the thesis that drink was a major contributory
factor in the development of prostitution in the nineteenth
century the excessive, by contemporary standards, consumption
of liquors must be borne in mind. In 185r the population of
England and Wales was 17,927,609. In the previous year
3,044,758 gallons of rum, 15,213,681 barrels of beer, 6,247,698
gallons of wine, 22,962,012 gallons of whisky and gin were
consumed.35 This is a startling total. It becomes quite terrifying
when compared with figures for this century. In 1949 2,783,257
gallons of rum and 3,908,229 gallons of whisky and gin were
consumed.3° The Census of 1951 gave the population of England
and Wales as 43,757,888. These figures demonstrate that in the
1850s a population considerably less than half that of a century
later consumed more than five times as much whiskey and gin.
Consumption patterns of drink are undoubtedly affected by
_ facility, price, and wages. We have already discussed some aspects
of the facility with which liquor was obtained. Prices by present
day standards were alarmingly low. In Messrs Hedges and
_ Butler’s Wine List for 1857 Golden Sherry is quoted at 36s. a
dozen, Pale Sherry at 42s. Irish whisky could be bought for
3s. 6d. a bottle. Burgundy and Port were 28s. a dozen. A quart
bottle of Pale Ale was 43d.37 Gin was 4d. a quartern (a quarter
_ bottle), and beer 33d. a quart in the public houses.?®

159
at ’
, oe

3 )
 - Prices offauen Weve to be related to th (
in 1849 a man working as a refiner in an iron works in Sout V
could earn as much as £1 19s. 6d. a week. A mechanic in a cotton
mill in Manchester could earn £1 8s. od. a week. These were at
the top end of the scale. At the other end a power loom helper
received 4s. 8d. a week.39 Such figures as these do not take into
account the long periods of unemployment due to successive
depressions. Some statistics do allow for this as the following
which apply to the city of Leeds for 1838. The figures of weekly
wages are corrected to allow for the period of unemploy-
ment. Thus a woodsawyer whose wage was 20s. a week for
I2 months being employed for only 9 months would receive
15s. a week over the year; a mason working for 10 months
would receive 18s. 4d. a week instead of 22s.; a joiner at 19s. 6d.
working for Im months would take home 17s. I1d.; and so
on.?*°

In the General Report on the Wages of the Manual-Labour

Classes in 1886 it is stated that the average weekly wage for
women in 23 trades in the United Kingdom was 12s. 8d., for
girls under 18 in 19 trades 6s. 4d., for men in 38 trades it was
24s. 7d., for boys under 18 in 37 trades it was 8s. 11d. Merchant
seamen and naval ratings and petty officers all received £1 a week
all found, 15s. a week was the average agricultural wage for
England and Wales.*! In’ London in 1898 a domestic servant had
her keep and 7s. 6d. a week. In the rest of the country this figure
was reduced to 6s. 8d. 4
Some family budgets were quoted in the roth Edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica (1902). In the case of a typical artisan
family in 1860 it was estimated that the father’s weekly earnings
were 28s. Rent accounted for 3s.; they consumed, amongst other »
items, 2lbs. of bacon at 8d. a pound; 20 Ibs. of potatoes cost them
Is.; 8 pints of milk 1s.; 5 lbs. of meat 2s. 83d.; 8 quartern loaves of
bread 4s. 4d.; 14 cwt. of coal Is. 6d.; clothes and sundries
accounted for 5s. 2d. These are interesting figures as they show
that less than*ten per cent of income was spent on rent, about
four and a half per cent on fuel, nearly sixteen per cent on bread,
nearly ten per cent on meat. Comparable figures for an agricul-
tural worker’s family with an income of 12s. a week were almost
half (5s. 3d.) was spent on bread, over eight per cent on rent,
and just over ten per cent on clothes and sundries. Meat does
not appear at all.#

160 :
 PA). i oda ied ER aay
baxepeeeetee oe tS Oe Pe
tideseeie age
;
SeahMA) Se
Ty al gear.
- aah
ane a" yt
= eS ara te np ; :
‘an.

Liquor is not distinguished as an item in either budget. The

only conclusion to be drawn is that it is concealed under the —
amount given for clothes and sundries. That this must have been
the case is supported by the estimate that prior to the first World
War twenty-five per cent of the average poor family’s income
was spent on drink.++ The estimate for the per capita consump-
tion of beer for 1891 was forty-six ‘standard’ gallons.45 A
dramatic comparison can be made between the figures for
charges of drunkenness in our own age and the last century. In
the London Metropolitan Police Area in 1833 nearly 30,000
people were so charged. In 1948 proceedings were taken through-
out England and Wales in 32,871 cases.46
It is safe to conclude that despite the low level of wages the
mass of the population throughout the nineteenth century was
enabled to develop drinking habits on an excessively large scale.
According to some observers the French were extraordinarily
temperate as compared with Englishmen.
*, . . the 6000 British railway labourers I went amongst in
France, I found mixed up drink with the concerts and dancing
amusements of the French with great avidity. I spent three
_ months among them on the railway from Havre to Rouen, and
also up as far as Paris. I have been in some of their largest
French festivals. It was the anniversary of the Revolution of 1830,
which was kept in what they call the Champs Elysees, the
Gardens of Pleasure, and to my gratification not a single French-
man did I find during the whole time in a state of intoxication.
But unfortunately I have seen my own countrymen, the railway
labourers, bricklayers, and carpenters, in the French prisons for
intoxication, and no other crime... What were the habits of the .
6000 Englishmen; were they equally disposed to drink as they
are here? Yes, quite; the French authorities told Messrs Brassey
and Mackenzie (the contractors) that, although they wanted the
railway from Havre, they would rather dispense with it than have
our men there with their bad habits . . .’47
The reputation for intemperance which the English had
acquired in Europe is more than borne out by the domestic
evidence. It is our contention that inebriation was the finest hand
maiden of prostitution. ;
The licensing laws of the 1850’s permitted a publican to keep
his premises open all day and all night if he so desired. Clearly
a majority did not do so.*® Nevertheless there were many

161
 public-houses where |
of the morning.
‘My opinion is, that the house should be eesed By 100 ep chock
(on Saturday), and certainly not later than 11 every night, looking
at it socially and morally. Take the crime of wife-beating; men
do not beat their wives before 10 o’clock at night; a working man
goes to a public-house where he has men of his own class to talk
with, he calls for his pipe, and sits talking comfortably, till say
10 o’clock; he is then what the publicans call mellow, and if the
house closes then he would go home, and take some beer to his
wife; if you keep that man till he is getting really drunk, and he
keeps on drinking till 12, he is then perhaps turned out of the
house, creates a disturbance in the street, or else goes home and
beats his wife... 1am merely speaking of it as a fact which I have
noticed in the police reports that these offences are committed
against the law after 10 o’clock.. .’49
The English wife-beating syndrome does not seem to have
altered with the years. Contemporary information suggests that
this particular maritial pastime tends to occur most frequently on
Friday and Saturday nights when the pubs are closed. It would
appear, if there is a correlation between intemperance and wife-
beating, then its incidence in the nineteenth century must have
been much greater than today.
A direct correlation can be established, however, between
prostitution and the nineteenth-century Englishman’s facility of
being able to drink at all hours.
. Upon the question of prostitution, one woman who kept
_ 26 bad houses told me that if all the public-houses were closed
early, she would have to close some of her houses. The women
I have placed in institutions tell me that their best time is when
men are excited with drink; they come out of the houses at 11,
_ 12, or 1 o’clock in the morning, and during those hours they have
more command over the men than at other times .. .”5°
There is little doubt that drinking increased the susceptibility
of the prostitute’s clients. Apart from the ordinary pleasures of
social drinking there were two other important factors which
facilitated inebriation, and thus prostitution. One was drinking
usage in factories and workshops, and the other was the custom
of paying workmen’s wages in public-houses. We have already
referred to the latter’s existence in the first decades of the nine-
teenth century in the previous chapter. In the 1850’s the custom

162

aig
Ses eee Meet ee Om Pape SEL
a vali ON) ‘ eg ee - * Rak ¢
yy

___ Was still remarkably strong. The National Temperance Society, .

__ and other organisations published a statement with regard to this i
and other matters, which was produced before the Select Com-
muttee on Public Houses in 1853.
“We further express our disapprobation of any pecuniary con-
nection between the foremen of factories and workshops and
individuals who keep public-houses, or foremen keeping public-
houses themselves; and all bribing of foremen and others by drink
to bestow work. We object to payment of wages in public-
houses, as of the most extensively ruinous tendency; and also
linking or grouping men together with large bank notes or gold,
leaving them to procure change where they can. And, in con-
clusion, we bear testimony from our constant and painful
experience, to the injurious consequences of the ceaseless
and unmeaning connection between business and strong drink,
in a variety of ways, far too multifarious to be here enumer-
ated.”51
The Select Committee was greatly concerned with this question
which clearly affected drinking habits. ‘. . . the principal attrac- ;
tion to the public-houses in the building districts I have found, %
and in many other districts, has been the payment of wages at
the public-houses, which I have always in every case found to —
have a very demoralising and injurious tendency . .. where there t
is a great amount of building carried on, the small builders and
masters mostly pay their men at public-houses . . .52 Many
workmen did not accept the situation which they knew to be
dangerous but they were helpless in the face of their masters, :
and the mockery of their mates. ‘...I know the men complain
of their pay-table being at public-houses, they say to meat times, ©
we are told to be at a certain public-house by seven o’clock, and
we do not get our wages till half-past 11, and the publican looks
black, or the men joke us if we do not drink, and we are obliged
to drink. When the wages come, there are 2s. or 35. to pay over a
to the landlord, which we cannot afford.’s3
Henry Mayhew writing in the 1850’s mentions other trades —
which had practised the paying of wages in public-houses. Fore-
most among them were the coal-backers or coal-porters. © — a
‘, . . Many of the backers are paid at the public-house; the =
wharfinger gives them a note to receive their daily earnings of =
the publican, who has the money from the merchant. Often the tae
backers are kept waiting an hour at the public-house for their
: \
i
 _may ehioiesto all for.“While waiting, they mostly have od
- three pots of beer before they are paid; and the drinking once
commenced, many of them return home drunk, with only half
their earnings in their pockets. .. the coal-backers are mostly an
intemperate class of men. This arises chiefly from the extreme ©
labour and the over-exertion of the men, the violent perspiration
and the intense thirst produced thereby. Immediately a pause
occurs in their work, they fly to the public-house for beer. One
coal-backer made a regular habit of drinking sixteen half-pints of
beer, with a pennyworth of gin in each, before breakfast every
morning . st
“In some aden such as those of coal-heaving and ballast load-
ing, the master was also the publican. Labour was recruited in
the pubs and paid in the pubs. The effects for those concerned in
such trades was to lead them into wife-beating, theft, and -whore-
dom.
Drinking usages in workshops and factories are in a different
_ category. These were the inspiration of the workmen themselves
not that of their masters. In some instances the origins may pos-
sibly have been mediaeval, and they are not entirely extinct today.
They can be likened to the practice in Oxford colleges of being
sconced or fined in drink for the commission of a breach of
etiquette such as talking ‘shop’ at table. The apprentice or work-
man who failed to fulfil the rules of his trade was fined in a like
manner. Either he provided drinks and drank himself, or he was
subject to a range of penalties. The latter were appalling.
. We consider the following penalties, instituted to keep up
ue
the drinking and paying of fines and footings, to be of the most
revolting and oppressive description, viz., sending men to
Coventry, putting them out of the pale of goodwill-and friend-
ship; inhumanly refusing to teach apprentices work, their drink
footings being unpaid; constraining starving men, who from
sickness, or otherwise, have been out of work, or indeed any
_ parties whatever, to pay journeymen’s drink footings, by threats
and other means; secreting men’s clothes, and dirtying, tarring,
cutting, and destroying them; gaping, notching, and otherwise
_ injuring tools, or sending both to the pawnbroker’s shops, and in {
_ a felonious manner pledging them for the regulation drink fines;
__ forcing conspiracies. to force out of workshops and factories men
¢¥ who decline to pay footings; maltreating respectable individuals

164

a ; wil
 ce
Be ee x , “ies ’
's on
a , i ¢
1

this account, by taunts, mockings, a variety of insults, blows

and blood, and other injuries . . .’56
One interpretation of this curious cluster of usages might be
that it helped to increase the solidarity of the working man vis-a-
vis the employer. No doubt there was an element of this kind
but it seems more reasonable to assume that beer or spirits being
so easily obtainable at any hour it was accepted as natural that
drinking should be associated with work.57
Apart from his compulsory attendance at public-houses for
either employment, or the payment of wages, the working man,
and woman was an assiduous customer through choice. Social
life to a great extent centred on the pub as it does today. The
publican was primarily interested in selling his wares. That
there were deplorable repercussions of his trade was really no.
concern of his. ‘. . . during the time that I was a temperance
missionary in the St. Giles’ district (Just off the Tottenham
Court Road), which is a very bad district indeed, I have never
known the publican remove people. I have known women go in
with children in their arms, and get drunk at the bar, and I have
seen them come out, and fall down with those children... A
publican may, in fact, be harbouring bad characters to any ex-
tent, and people may be drinking to excess in his house, but the
policeman has no right to enter, and it is nobody’s duty to remind
the publican that he should remove those characters? — It is
nobody’s duty at all .. .58
One of the great attractions of the public-houses in the middle
years of the century was the presentation of concerts, dramatic
performances, and provision for dancing. They became immen-
sely popular. Inevitably they acted as a magnet for the loose
women of the town.
‘Will you state what you consider to be the evils of the saloons,
or dancing places and concerts . . . what is the mischief or danger
of their being connected with public-houses? — Because of the
drink being sold of an intoxicating nature. Have you any ex-
perience of disorder and vice following from the two combined?
— Yes. In St. George’s in the East, in the neighbourhood of the
Docks, in Seven Dials, and in St. Giles’s also, I have gone into
these places and see in them common street-walkers. To what
sort of places do you refer? — To the concerts at public-houses.
You found in the places where music was going on, there were
women of the town? — Yes; there are attractions for young people

165
 f doing wrong when they go
r . and seduced; there are. always facilities in the lowes
oe brothels in those districts which I could point out in the four
quarters of London . . . out in the east of London there are large
places, especially about the docks; but they are principally used
by unfortunate women with sailors . . . The most detrimental
place I know, as far as females are concerned, is the Eagle Tavern
in the City Road. . «there is a very large theatre; I visited it on a
Sunday, and the scene I could not possibly describe to the Com-
mittee ... I have seen women there whom I have recognised
next day as common street-walkers . . . I am satisfied from ex-
perience that it is, as far as females are concerned, one of the
most demoralising, if not the most demoralising place in London
“ . the gardens are open with alcoves, and boxes on eachside, and
ee jade and young persons are taken in there, and oe with
‘ drink. . .”59
It becomes clear that public-houses like the Eagle not only
encouraged prostitutes but provided the means whereby young
girls, still innocent, were literally seduced into prostitution.
Admission cost 6d., and it must be appreciated that there were
ABa a
ee
op
; few other types of entertainment available on a Sunday for the
mass of the people. It was a choice between the church and the
pub,
dy ‘What are the amusements on Sunday? — There are none at all
___ but promenading about. No gentleman, well dressed, can pro-
? menade there (the gardens of the Eagle Tavern) without being
A, _ solicited by a femaleto go to houses of accommodation outside,
i?_ whether he be aged, middle-aged, or young. I had not sat down
__ about five minutes when I was solicited twice and told there
Bess were houses outside for me to go to... . If you walk from the
____ Angel in the City-road down to the Conner of Tottenham Court-
Be._ road, there is no place in London where there are so many dis-
__ reputable women as will be found in that one walk...’
___. Dancing, by the middle of the century, had henonie a popular
pastime of the working classes. Their needs were met not only
_ by the public-houses, such as the Eagle, but public dancing
_ Saloons. Sometimes they were on a grand scale like the notorious

ia _ ments. Most of them had licences to serve alcohol. The pro-

i Beesctor faced slightly different shapes than those of the
 , a a
/

F- ‘publican. He was probably indifferent to the fact that the

women of the town used his premises as rendezvous but was
disturbed by improper dancing.
‘Am I to understand that if a person is dancing improperly
you will not allow him to remain that evening? — It is like looking
after thieves; we are obliged to watch them all the time and check
them ... While they are dancing we are obliged to stand before
them, and tell them they are dancing improperly. Sometimes
young men do not care how they dance; they have a nasty habit
of dancing in the French style, called ““CanCan’”’ . . .”6°
It is not entirely irrelevant to recollect that the theatrical
licence of the old Alhambra music hall was withdrawn for pre- —
senting performances of the CanCan as danced in Paris. To. our
contemporary jaded sexual palates surfeited on a diet of strip-
tease and ‘bunnies’ it is difficult to imagine the erotic-making
qualities of the display, in the CanCan, of long female drawers.
For the Victorians, however, used to clandestine or discreet
seduction, the public exhibition of women’s underwear was
anathema.
While the Eagle Tavern and its rival provided entertainment
for the masses a more genteel, if that is the word, clientele was
attracted by the dancing saloons of the West End and its peri-
phery.’ Such places as the Holborn Casino, the Portland Rooms,
the Sans Souci in Leicester Square, the Argyll Rooms, and the
National Assembly Rooms in Holborn were extremely popular.
It is possible that some people had occasion to go to them merely
for the dancing but they were in fact dancing centres for prosti-
tution. They all possessed licences to serve drinks — their opera-
tion would have been impossible otherwise.
The Portland Rooms were thus described. ‘... balls were held
in the winter season only. They began after midnight and went
on till four or five in the morning. The ladies and gentlemen
_ came in ball costume. English Bohemianism at its most elegant
could there be seen, all the ladies in low dresses no longer wearing
mantillas and hats, the gentlemen also in ball costume with
white waistcoats and collars. The CanCan was danced there, ina
very unrestrained form, the women. behaving in a more bac-
chantic fashion than in other places, but the police did not inter-
rere:oF
Bribery of the police to look the other way was as common in
London then as it is now in the United States. The National

167
 . y VxAl ig
green and gold oe ae thewall-high mirrors, in whieh the
dream-like reflection of this bright world of dance is doubled and
trebled. Sounds of Italian music come from the gilt trellis-
enclosed orchestra. This is the home of Verdi, and the women
lovely and sensual, who recline in the green damask armchairs, .
are his Bacchantes. Everywhere is light, perfume, and enjoy-
ment, but it is all an illusion — if the light of day could but sud-
denly shine through the curtains, how grey, how dull, how pale
and faded it would all appear — the velvet, the gold, the mirrors
_and the women themselves. But it is night, and the gas-light
- sheds its deceptive lustre over them.’®
The writer need have had no fears — patrons only saw the
Rooms by night. Granted the authenticity of such a description
it is not surprising that respectable young men were quickly
ensnared by the ‘Bacchantes of Verdi’. .
Curiously enough despite the number of premises where the
public could consume alcoholic drinks they were not regarded as
sufficient. Tea-gardens had achieved an unsavoury reputation
from the seventeenth century onwards — one of the most famous
was the notorious Dog and Duck in St. George’s Fields which
existed from 1643 to 1812.°* Sir Joseph Paxton was much con-
cerned to make people go on a Sunday to his creation of the
Crystal Palace, rather than to what he called ‘tippling houses’.
. they go to low tea-gardens, where there is a system carried
on Of putting gin or brandy over the wall; it is carried on to an
extent in some places beyond any conception almost... I con-
sider all those small places are very objectionable in deed; they are
mere places of resort, but on the other hand the Crystal Palace,
with the various objects in it, would have an elevating ten-
dency...’
The public did in fact flock to the Crystal Palace but unfor-
tunately after being duly elevated by the assembled objects
found occasion to indulge the weaker side of its nature in the
' numerous taverns and tea-gardens which lined the roads to the
_ Palace. The ingenious practice, mentioned by Sir Joseph, of
dispensing gin in unlicensed premises has its contemporary
' parallel in the dance halls of Iceland where young people are
fet permitted to drink only soft beverages. Schnapps is kept in a

168
 Seekat ee
7” Me fl «ent cy ee
ee
fee cL
Sie. RN
245) 8 Oe -
Pee
fa wa yD i
oe y=.

B33;
al bottle at the customers’ feet under the table.®s
_ If the upper-class gentleman bent upon pleasure did not fancy
dancing there were other amusements at hand. ‘. . . There is
another place to which I paid a visit some years ago — the Coal-
hole Tavern in the Strand; that is rather of a higher grade, the
working classes do not go there. I visited it in the company of
some gentlemen, who wished to see the low parts of London. We
went there, and certainly the singing which I heard there I should
not have expected to have heard, if I had been accustomed to go
to such places, in a common brothel; it was no double meaning,
but plain out . . . We visited another place called the “Shades”,
in the Adelphi; and there was a scene I could not possibly des-
cribe; in fact, the whole of us were solicited to retire if we pleas-
ed. With women? — With women; I called the proprietor of the
place, and said we wished to be alone: it was a very singular
place, constructed under the arches of the Adelphi . . .’® ;
The customer of the Coalhole Tavern, his senses inflamed by
brandy and obscene songs, found satisfaction very near at hand.
‘, .- When I have been very late at night outside the house in —
Bow Street, and also outside the Coalhole, I have seen gentlemen
come out in a state of intoxication and of course they have been
very shortly picked up by those ladies that walk the Strand and
Covent Garden,’67
There is some confusion with regard to another place of public
refreshment, This is the night-house. It can mean nothing more
or less than a fashionable brothel, such as the notorious Kate
Hamilton’s in the Haymarket about which Henry Mayhew wrote.
In its prior meaning, however, it refers to what was ostensibly
coffee houses which remained open all night to serve the needs of
nocturnal workers such as cabmen and printers. Vagrants also
used them. ‘There are some houses in which there are to be seen
30 people perhaps fast alseep; poor men and women, who have
no shelter, can, by paying a penny for a cup of coffee, stay ata
coffee shop for hours. I have seen them in the departments six in
a box, all sleeping together.’6® The coffee house or shop also
functioned in another way. ‘. . . Some of them are very badly
conducted, others are not; people can often get liquors . . . Fifty
people have told me that they can get liquors at certain houses.
Then again some of them are brothels; there are accommodation
rooms, for which the people pay 2s. or 3s. You have no doubt
with respect to the coffee-shops that a great number are used as.

169
there are very few iin ouri eaHaH in th
crowded. I was in Wych-street at three o *clock on a
morning, and I saw several of those places; there are one or two
in the parish of Marylebone.”®°
The coffee or night-house of this kind appears to have been
used as the cheapest kind of brothel. Homeless female paupers
would find it easy to _prostitute themselves for money with which
to get through the following day.
By the middle of the century the great rival of the ordinary
public-house was the gin-palace. In London they were generally
situated on main thoroughfares, and in contrast to the ordinary
tavern went out of their way to publicise their wares. Gas-
lighting, which had become common in the metropolis by 1816,
undoubtedly helped to create an atmosphere of attractive jollity.
Customers were not encouraged to sit down — there was a great
deal of space for standing but few seats. The gin-palace became
extremely popular. ‘. .. There is one house in the centre of the
parish at which there is every attraction held to draw the people;
this is a large gin-palace with a great deal of gilding and plenty
_ of gaslight; there is a self-acting organ in the bar which cost
120 guineas. The bar was crowded with men and women; it is
divided into two large compartments; a large number were drunk
and they were generally a dirty and low class of person... I
believe it is an offence against the law to harbour bad women. I
see in many of the gin-palaces women standing for an hour or
two together. The mischief of gin-palaces in your view is, that
they are attractive, and offer facilities for people to go in and out
after drinking and that it is more tempting to people to drink
there than in the other public-houses? — The men have talked to
me on the subject, and they say, ““There is plenty of gas and
company to keep us alive’; that is why they prefer the gin-shop
to the respectable licensed victualler’s house... .’7°
The nearest contemporary equivalent to the mid-nineteenth-
century gin-palace which the author has seen was a public-
house in Leeds. This, now demolished, was a vast underground
cavern in the centre of which was an electric organ gleaming with
vari-coloured lights. It was immensely popular.
We have endeavoured in this chapter to show that there were
very effective links between the drink trade and prostitution
_ throughout the nineteenth century. All contemporary observers

170
 ration of prostitution in that century. But it must peeremem-
oe bered that intemperance flourished in a context of appalling
poverty and degradation.
‘I have made a survey of a place called the Rookery, in St.
Giles’s .. . in the latter part of 1847, and the beginning of 1848;
the Rookery is a street running behind New Oxford Street; I
suppose it is in existence now (1853) and it is one of the most
deplorable places in London; the largest number we found
occupying one room was 23, composed of six families; there was
not what we call a bed in many of the rooms, nor a bedstead, nor -
a table, nor what might be termed a chair; the only accommoda-
tion they had was two planks to lay across two broken chairs, so
| that they could not slip . . . Nearly all the people living on that
side of the street were from the county of Cork... there were
street beggars, thieves, and the commonest and lowest sort of
street prostitutes . . . I should not go beyond the mark at all if I
stated that half have brought themselves to their present degrad-
ed state through drink.’”!
Comment is superfluous.

Notes and References

Faye
“Fi
a
Ce

t Quoted by G. B. Wilson, Alcohol and the Nation, London

kr
becei
cae
1940, p. 100.
2 Idem, p. ror.
3 Idem.
> Minutes of Evidence given before The Select Committee on the

Sale of Beer, London 1833.

5 Ibid., para. 501.
6 Tbid., para. 1538.
7 Ibid., para. 2032.
8 Ibid., para. 2383. a
a

9 Ibid., para. 2390.

Se
nga
aee
gl
Cie
te,a
10 Tbid., para. 2080. <n}

1 Tbid., para. 904.

_ 12 Jhbid., para. 698.
13 [bid., paras. 3172-3.
re
14 Tbid., para. 4253.
es fee
Ibid., para. 4299. |
Ibid., para. 4303.
Ibid., para. 4302.
Ibid., para. 4168.
Ibid., para. 1735.
Ibid., para. 4062.
Ibid., para. 1927.
Ibid., para. 2262.
Ibid., para. 1319.
Ibid., paras. 3082-7.
Ibid., para. 755.
Ibid., para. 3350.
Ibid., paras. 738-9.
Report from the Select Committee on Public Houses, London
1854.
Ibid., para. 3694.
Ibid., para. 3694.
Ibid., para. 3244.
Ibid., para. 3364.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Edition, London 1879, Vol. 8,
p. 220.
‘Report... on Public Houses,’ op. cit., p. 145.
Levy, H. Drink: An Economic and Social Study, London
1951, p. 75- :
These figures are taken from the London Illustrated News
_advertisements in issues for the first half of 1857.
‘Report ...on Public Houses,’ op. cit., para. 1739. ‘
wo
Porter, G. R., ‘On a Comparative Statement of Prices and
Wages during the Years from 1842 to 1849,’ Fournal of the
oo.

Statistical Society of London, London 1850, Vol. XIII, pp.

‘210-18.
4- ‘Condition of the Town of Leeds and its Inhabitants,’ fournal
of the Statistical Society of London, London 1839, Vol. II,
Pp. 422. «
41
General Report on the Wages of the Manual Labour Classes,
London 1893, pp. xiii, xviii, xxix, xxiii, 25, 26, 27, 470 et seq.
4N
Report on the Money Wages of Indoor Domestic Servants,
London 1899, pp. 8, 10.
4 ao
Encyclopedia Britannica, toth Edition, London 1902, Vol.
XXxXili, p. 720.

172
— alla i ON, 9 eae > alt

ae Levy, H., Op. Cit.,p.31.

45 Tbid., p. 79.
Report from the Select Committee on Inquiring into Drunken-
ness, London 1834, p. 437; and H. Levy, op. cit., p. 85.
‘Report... on Public Houses,’ op. cit., para. 1282.
Tbid., para. 354.
Ibid., para. 181.
Ibid., para. 182.
Ibid., para. pp. 64-5.
Ibid., paras. 1150-1.
Ibid., para. 186.
Quennell, P. Ed. Mayhew’s London, London 1949, p. §37.
Ibid., pp. 540-1.
‘Report ... on Public Houses,’ op. cit., p. 65.
See in this connection John Dunlop, Artificial and Compulsory
Drinking Usages of the United Kingdom, London 1844.
‘Report... Public Houses,’ op. cit., paras. 1205 and 1210,
Ibid., paras. 1219-35.
Ibid., paras. 4798 and 4800.
Anon. Aus den Memoiren einer Sangerin, Berlin 1870, Vol. II,
p. 196.
62 Williams, Montague. Leaves of a Life, London 1890, Vol. I,
p. 263.
Rodenberg, J. Day and Night in London, Berlin 1862, pp. 252
and 254.
Wheatley, H. B. London Past and Present, London 1891, Vol.
II, p. 99.
See Mai Zetterling’s documentary film on Iceland.
‘Report... on Public Houses,’ op. cit., paras. 1265 and 1270.
Ibid., para. 1279.
68 Ibid., para. 124.
69 Ibid., paras. 134-5.

7° [bid., paras. 24 and 195.

71 Ibid., paras. 1193-4, 1198, 1201.

173

a
ai esid
5: The Reality of the Prostitute

IN fiction the idea of the prostitute has always exercised the

most extraordinary fascination for the male writer. There are
doubtless a number of psychological and social factors which
have fostered this development; preoccupation with sexual
relationships, a moral involvement, the attraction of vice have all
contributed. There is a universality in this appeal if the long line
of authors from Alciphron through Cleland and Zola to Sartre is
considered. The problem posed, however, is how close to the
authenticity does the writer come? Is it possible, particularly for
the male writer, to understand and portray the character and
psychology of the prostitute? In our opinion feelings of guilt,
especially in the nineteenth century, have led to an excessive
romanticisation of the subject. The prostitute with the heart of
gold acts as an anodyne to the sore of permitted exploitation.
Suzie Wong must be given reality to helpsward off the corrosion of
commercialised vice.

174
)ee A | 7 a, ee

;vege If, as is suggested, guilt feelings are an important component

in the literary conception of the prostitute, the idea of sexual
freedom embodied in the whore is of equal significance. Com-
parison of two very different novels makes this clear. ,
Emile Zola’s Nana is probably the most successful nineteenth-
century novel of prostitution. All the familiar ingredients of the
harlot’s life are there. Preoccupation with money, the difficulties
of a timetable for clients, the pleasures of luxury are presented in
the most brilliant fashion. Designed as a moral tale Nana yet
involves the reader in the exciting pleasures of vice to such an
extent that the moral implications seem unnecessary. As if to
make amends the novel ends with one of the most powerful and
revolting descriptions of a prostitute’s death.
‘She went away; she shut the door. Nana was left alone, with
upturned face in the light cast by the candle. She was the fruit of
the charnel-house, a heap of matter and blood, a shovelful of
corrupted flesh thrown down on the pillow. The pustules had
invaded the whole of the face, so that each touched its neigh-
bour. Fading and sunken, they had assumed the greyish hue of
mud, and on that formless pulp, where the features had ceased to
be traceable, they already resembled some decaying damp from
the grave. One eye, the left eye, had completely foundered
among bubbling purulence, and the other, which remained half
open, looked like a deep black ruinous hole. The nose was still
suppurating. Quite a reddish crust was peeling from one of the
cheeks, and invading the mouth, which it distorted into a horrible
grin. And over this loathsome and grotesque mask of death, the
hair, the beautiful hair, still blazed like sunlight and flowed
downwards in rippling gold. Venus was rotting. It seemed as
though the poison she had assimilated in the gutters, and on the
carrion tolerated by the roadside, the leaven with which she had
poisoned a whole people, had but now remounted to her face
and turned it to corruption... .”!
But in her heyday of achievement Nana represents the ficti-
tious wonderland of success that is the reputed dream of every
street walker.
‘Thereupon Nana became a smart woman, mistress of all that
is foolish and filthy in man, marquise in the ranks of her call-
ing .. . She at once became queen among the most expensive of
her kind, Her photographs were displayed in shop windows, and
she was mentioned in the papers. When she drove in her carriage

175
 eign, whilst the object of their ddcenties jotted easily backin her *
diaphanous dresses, and smiled gaily under the rain of little
golden curls which ran riot above the blue of her made-up eyes
and the red of her painted lips .. . Her movements were lithe as a
serpent’s, and the studied and yet seemingly involuntary care-
lessness with which she dressed was really exquisite in its ele-
gance. There was a-nervous distinction in all she did which
suggested a well-born Persian cat; she was an aristocrat in vice,
and proudly and rebelliously trampled upon a prostrate Paris like
a sovereign whom none ae disobey. She set the fashion, and
great ladies imitated her .
The authenticity, or Oe of Zola’s Nana is perhaps
exhibited in the following anecdote of Alphonse Daudet quoted
‘in the Goncourt’s Fournal.
‘Daudet told me this evening that one day during the serial-
isation of Nana, he met Zola coming out of Charpentier’s and
had taken him to a cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Michel where
most of the customers were women. They had scarcely sat down
before one of the local cocottes came in with a copy of the Vol-
taire that she had just bought. She sat down beside them, spread
the paper out on the table at the serial page, and turning towards
them without knowing who they were, exclaimed: *‘Merde, if this
) isn’t a smutty one, I’m not going to read it.” This rather upset
Zola, who decided it was too hot in the cafe and is a
going somewhere else.”3
It is a naive assumption to imagine that because prostitutes
transgress overt sexual conventions that they are necessarily
7" devoid of notions of bourgeois sexual morality. The contem-
porary successors of the nineteenth-century cocottes are just as
likely to be offended by certain passages in Joyce’s Ulysses.
' Amore realistic test of authenticity can be made of Nana if the
novel is compared with the life of Céleste Mogador. This woman
started lifein a brothel, and became an outstanding courtesan
_and circus performer. She subsequently married Count Lionel
de Chabrillan, who became French Consul-General in Mel-
_ bourne. Her career demonstrates the fact that the rewards of
Ps
’ ayprostitution are not inevitably syphilis and penury as many
h ~ novelists would have us think. On the other hand the picture left
ae by Céleste Mogador in her Memoirs — she was a contemporary of
ns
i.
‘Prosti tion an ue) & poe> 5
Me) 3
Si= iss]=)SG oD 5 se} from an etchi ing by
le)e —
Félicien Rops
Child prostitute with an elderly procuress: froma drawing
by Félicien Rops
Above: Voyeurism in a brothel c. 1850. Below: Kate Hamilton’s
famous brothel off Leicester Square, showing ‘Madame’ herself
receiving a guest
How Félicien Rops saw two lesbian lovers, also prostitutes
A French lesbian prostitute: by Félicien Rops
 ill

Semtiecd
csveritekainy
est7

eGR
ehh
Ree

x oe,
we 5

THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL.

Time :—~Midnight. A Sketch not « Hundred Miles from the Haymarket
Pella. “As! Fanny! How Lona wave You BEEN ‘Gavl”

The only time prostitution ever made the pages of Punch during
the Victorian era
 Oe NON es
SEE =a

Nose
AN
AN NS

The reformation of nineteenth century prostitutes in New York

V posusol]JO0TI1s
Jo soINiMsoId
UT oy} UeWIIEL
Ajo Jo ‘Sinquiezy
sJUST[D 19}1eq saomd YUM 94} UsUIOM
ysnosmy
ayi uado ‘sMopurm poonposdoy
Aq Asaynoo
Jo ayi oippy saw woyny einjo1g Azerqry]
 “ a.

“
oe

Zola’s — agrees in detail with the fictitious background of prosti-

‘tution so carefully described by Zola.4
However advanced one’s ideas may be, and Zola was well in
the van of progress, the morality of the age invests you. If Zola
had written of the countless Célestes who achieved a moderate
success after a life of prostitution in nineteenth-century France
the country would have been outraged. By all means depict the
splendours, but the end must always be misery. Even the whore
herself does not escape the moralising taint. In the Mogador
Memoirs there is this passage:
“The feelings that will guide me. . . are better than those that
controlled my behaviour. I was never interested in pornographic
books; whilst I did wrong I admired all that was good; I lived in
vice but loved virtue, and so I shall try to describe as chastely
as possible the most unchaste life in this world. . .’5
To win the world and respectability the reformed prostitute
must demonstrate that although sinning she was aware of her
enormities. If she attains luxuries and success they must be seen
in retrospect as hollow triumphs only enjoyed through weakness of
the flesh. The striving for respectability in the midst of whore-
dom on the part of practitioners and novelists is a phenomenon
which has not been closely studied. It would appear to be, on the
European scene, a manifestation of overt, traditional morality or
behaviour.
The really successful prostitute in our own day goes to great
lengths to create an atmosphere which is indistinguishable from
the most conventional bourgeois circles. The absurdity of the
situation is typified in the apocryphal anecdote of the Edinburgh
whore. Having invited a client to her room on a Sunday she is
horrified to hear him whistle as he undresses. Appalled she shows
him the door with the exhortation; ‘I’ll no copulate with a man
who whistles on the Sabbath.’
Nevertheless the reality does remain to illustrate the baffled
war the prostitute fights in order to overcome the rejection
experienced from the society. This is a permanent situation. The
stereotype of the whore is that of a woman bent upon the destruc-
tion of the family hearth, of someone who can delight in pleasure
while the unfortunate wife strives to keep the home together.
Confronted with the meretricious silks of the reputedly pleasure-
giving woman the Marthas of domesticity close their ranks in
defence and rejection. The phenomenon in fact represents what

177
 The Bachar partof the Christian, Fcnopuneds famil> is eae
shunned whore. In pagan Greek society the high status of the
hetaira is the counterpart of the inferior status of the Greek wife.
_ This again is exemplified in Greek literature. This is entirely free
_ from the moralising inherent in what we have quoted.
, The sentiment expressed by Alciphron iin the first of his Letters
_ from Courtesans, Phryne to Praxiteles, is not to be found in the
Christian era. ‘You need not be afraid, even if you have set up a
statue of your mistress in-a-temple precinct. The work is a
___ masterpiece and no one has ever seen a thing more beautiful
é _ made by men’s hands. I stand between your own Aphrodies and
your own Eros. Do not be jealous of the honour paid me; it is
_ Praxiteles that people praise as théy look at me, and because I am
your workmanship the men of Thespiae have thought me not
unworthy of a place between two divinities. One more favour I
still want. Come yourself to me, and in this enclosure we will fall
into one another’s arms. The gods will not be shocked; they are
our own creation. Good-bye. 45
The same feeling is apparent in the lyrical deccriptiogs of
aa prostitution to be found in classical Hindu literature. As we have
tried to show in other parts of this study Europe has been the
_ prime mover in the degradation of the status of the prostitute.
r= So far it would appear that in France, at least, there was a cor-
respondence between fiction as exemplified by Zola and the
_ realities of the whore’s existence. Nana was chosen as an out-
_ standing example. There are a great many other prostitute
a heroines to be found in novels and stories by Balzac, Daudet, de
Bik Maupassant, and other writers. In England, as might be expect-
a i ed, the situation is somewhat different. The anxieties associated
tk with the strains of sexual hypocrisy produced some very strange
_ literary efforts. One of the most interesting is a half-forgotten
_ novel of Wilkie Collins called The New Magdalen.
__ The heroine of The New Magdalen, Mercy Merrick, is a re-
_ Claimed prostitute who attempts jto fight her way back into res-
pectable society. Her efforts meet with little success until she
encounters, while acting as a nurse in the Franco-Prussian war,
an orphaned gentlewoman. The latter appears to have been
 ie sa) Si ti

a
by 3 - ee

ing, to take her place. The matter is easy as the young woman was
on her way to a rich benefactress in London whom she had never
seen. At first Mercy is successful, but innumerable complica-
tions ensue and she decides to tell the truth. Society recoils but
the fashionable clergyman who originally befriended her persists
in his intention to take the unthinkable step of marrying her.
Her benefactress, who has grown to love her supports them in
their endeavour to regain Society. But this can never be, and
the book ends with the couple sailing to the New World.
In a last effort to compel Society to accept the reformed pros-
titute Mercy’s benefactress gives a ball in her honour on the
eve of their departure to America. Mercy’s husband describes
the scene. ‘. . . It is done and over. Society has beaten Lady
Janet ... We were rather late in arriving at the ball. The magni-
ficent rooms were filling fast. Walking through them with my
wife, she drew my attention to a circumstance which I had no-
ticed at the time . . . I observed that a few people passed by us to
the dancing-room. I noticed next that of those few, fewer still
were young. At last it burst upon me. With certain exceptions (so
rare as to prove the rule), there were no young ladies at Lady
Janet’s ball . . . The guests were still arriving. We received the
men and their wives, the men and their mothers, the men and
their grandmothers — but, in place of their unmarried daughters,
elaborate excuses offered with a shameless politeness wonderful
to see... I really had no adequate idea of the coarseness and
rudeness which have filtered their way through Society in these
later times until I saw the reception accorded to my wife. The
days of prudery and prejudice are days gone by . . . To see the
women expressing their liberal forgetfulness of my wife’s mis-
fortunes, and the men their amiable anxiety to encourage her
husband .. . and then to look round and see that not one in
thirty of these very people had brought their unmarried daugh-
ters to the ball, was, I believe, to see civilised human nature in its
basest conceivable aspect. The New World may have its dis-
appointments in store for us — but it cannot possibly show us any
spectacle so abject as the spectacle which we witnessed last night _
at my aunt’s ball...’7
It would appear it was just as well they were emigrating to the
States. Wilkie Collins wrote The New Magdalen in 1873.
Throughout the nineteenth century all the organisations en-
gaged in the reclamation of the prostitute report the same

179
=
 neighbours discovered fe hast In Britain ea was, aneremains, :
one of the fundamental realities of the prostitute’s life. The sin is
irrevocable. It is not the loss of chastity or virginity which is
important apparently but the taking of money for sexual services.
The attitude of rejection is extremely complex. Superficially it
would appear that the mothers at Lady Janet’s ball were fright-
_ ened that their daughters would be contaminated by contact with
the unfortunate Mercy. A similar attitude is betrayed today by
churchgoing lower middle-class women with regard to the un-
married mother. This component of the complex is itself made
up of the old superstitious dread that contact with the outcast or
pariah destroys the individual, and fear that those around will
associate you with the evil. In other words the virtue of one’s
daughter might be suspect. Another component of equal impor-
tance is the possibly, unconscious, jealousy of the woman who is
free to control her own sexual life. The housewife bound to the
domestic hearth cannot enjoy the luxury of the strumpet’s life.
‘That this is largely illusory does not affect its validity. Outstand-
ing examples in the last century, women like Skittles who enter-
- tained Mr. Gladstone to tea, and Adah Menken, who had the
- distinction of being the mistress of both Swinburne and Alex-
‘ander Dumas; excited the imagination of Victorian housewives.
- Their only weapon against the tide of luxury and sexuality
_ embodied in these flamboyant creatures was rejection.
An important aspect of the mechanism of rejection is the fact
_ that this is almost entirely female. The successful whore at any
‘period has been admitted to a large part of male society. This
was especialy true of the last century. The contemporary
businessman’s mistress will be accepted by his colleagues but not
by their wives. The world of international gambling, of the jet
nal _ Set, of the theatre and films, of entertainment in general is very
much open to them. The Miss Keelers of our day may suffer
_ fejection from the average housewife but cannot complain that
_ their lives in consequence are devoid of company.
But if the whore gives up her profession, or is ‘reclaimed’,
then the situation is very different. This is the opportunity for
which the respectable woman has been waiting. Now she can
= = exult in her righteousness, and hold the gate of hell open for the
to ) EPL nw See eee ee 5 Ve tn
$ =
7a f
«+o. a ol

sinner. Paradoxically the reformed Magdalen wants above all to

attain suburban respectability. If she manages to begin life afresh
in a new area exposure may not come for a long time but when it
does life becomes impossible.
It is possible that the fear of rejection is.a factor which inhibits
the prostitute from giving up her trade. Attempts at reformation
by organisations throughout the long history of prostitution in
Europe and America have been remarkable for inefficacy.®
Again, a comparison with the treatment of the unmarried mother
is valid. In almost all instances the whore in the process of re-
clamation is made to feel extraordinarily guilty. The belief here
is that only through suffering can atonement and forgiveness be
achieved. The psychology of the reformer has to be studied but
there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that he may have ex-
perienced pleasure in the correction of sexual misdemeanours. It
is difficult to read Acton or Wardlaw, to mention two promi-
nent nineteenth-century reformers, and not be aware of this
concealed enjoyment.
The.assumption behind this type of thinking is that not only
is prostitution wrong and wicked but that the prostitute is either
aware of this or must be forced to acknowledge her turpitude.
But granted the circumstances existing at any given time in the
society, is this assumption necessarily correct? As we shall see a
quite reasonable case can be made out that the prostitute is per-
forming a useful function in society by providing a sexual service.
One possible avenue of escape from the trade is through mar-
riage. Some prostitutes dream of a Haroun al Rashid figure who
will walk into their lives and transport them to a dream world of
opulence and comfort. For most, however, it is merely the
opportunity of meeting the successful man who will propose
marriage. Undoubtedly such opportunities do occur but it is
difficult to assess their frequency. On the other hand marriage as
a device of escape can be disastrous. The description given by
Sheila Cousins in her life story, To Beg I am Ashamed (London
1953), exposes this particular pitfall.
There are other hazards which inhibit the successful marriage
of the prostitute. There is the extraordinary strength of the
ponce-whore relationship, which makes it extremely difficult for
the woman to opt out on her own volition. The physical dangers
of this relationship have been vividly described by the anonymous ~
author of Streetwalker (London 1959).

181
 e bed, hurling me into
‘He stands over me, CR I bring up my arms to shicld
z: ae_ my face. He pulls me to my feet, pushes my useless defence out
of the way, and holds me against the wall by the throat, con-
__ stricting so that I am choking.
___-¢ “What were you doing?”
5 ‘I can’t speak through the pressure on my neck. He grasps it in
that broad hand I loved so much, drags my head forward by my
hair, and then cracks it against the wall, not once, but again and
again. I try to tear his fingers away, but mine are powerless. He
____ changes his hold to my chin.
_._ € “Now tell me what happened.”
ff *«T was in the law station. They got me early. They kept me
in. I couldn’t help it.”
‘Tell that to the fairies. Now, what really happened?”
‘He brings his knee up into my stomach and digs it in,
hard.
_». § “It’s true, Pete. It’s true —on my life, it’s true.”
Crash, goes my head against the wall again. Pain thuds
__. through it, making me dizzy.
____ € “Who were you with?”
nes _ £“The law, Pete. The law, honestly.”
' £*T)on’t give me that.” He slaps me first with the left hand,
a :_ and then with the right. “Pll teach you to tell lies—I’ll teach you.”
it _ ‘He pushes me into the easy chair, standing behind me and
___ holding my head with an arm under my chin. Then he takes his
nail file, with its cruel, curved tip, out of his pocket, and holds
it close to my cheek. Here it is, then, the ultimate test, with its
ultimate failure... .’9
ae All the students of prostitution have remarked on the violence
__ which characterises the relationships of ponce and whore. For
_ the woman this is part of the price she pays for the emotional
_ Satisfaction of being needed. It only becomes intolerable when
. 2_ ‘ she wishes to break away and marry someone outside the arena.
x Cases where the prostitute accuses her ponce of assault inevitably
__
“chia go by default as the woman will eventually refuse to give evidence
_ against the ponce. There is also danger for the prospective bride- -
groom who may easily be ‘cut’, that is slashed with a razor; by
_ friends of the outraged ponce.
es ae re eee
t F) " § : é
% Es

Marriage appeals much more to the unsuccessful prostitute.

For the whore who is doing reasonably well there is an excite-
ment and tension in her existence entirely missing on the domestic
front. Again, it means an entire readjustment to living — she can
no longer stay in bed through the morning — and suburban life
will appear excruciatingly dull after the cafe and club milieu. The
adjustment required for the reformed prostitute is similar to that
which many members of the armed forces experienced at the end
of the war. Civilian life lacked the glamour and excitement of an
army in war-time.
In a somewhat special category are those women, especially in
Europe, who are either engaged or married, and who deliberately
embark upon prostitution for a definite period with the idea of
saving money to assist their fiance or husband’s career. Clinical
evidence from French psychiatrists communicated to the writer
suggest that this is by no means an unusual phenomenon in
France. Clearly in such cases return to ‘ordinary’ life does not
present the difficulties we have discussed.
The ability, or otherwise, which prostitutes display in making
the transition from one way of life to another involves the ques-
tion of their intelligence and character. This we have discussed in
another chapter. It may be said here, however, that if the great
majority of prostitutes was, as many authorities insist, sub-nor-
mal or retarded none would be capable of ever leaving their pro-
fession. The innumerable proprietresses of cafes and restaurants
throughout Europe who have achieved success in dispensing ser- _
vices of one kind through money obtained from another kind of
service are proof to the contrary.
Another facet of the reality of the prostitute is her appearance.
European folklore presents her as a glamorous monster preying
on the defenceless paterfamilias or callow youth. For the respect-
able woman an individual who sells what she dispenses freely
must inevitably be a brazen hussy. There is, however, no single
type — the range of types represents the class structure of the
society. Any large city in the world today can present a hierarchy
of whores from the Shakespearean drab to the lacquered un-
touchability of the millionaire’s doxy. The increasingly parochial
quality of the world as exemplified in art and industry — new
towns. in Britain, the U.S.A., in Finland exhibit the same
featureless qualities — is reflected in prostitution. The whores of
Cable Street in the East End have their counterparts in Hamburg,

183
 Be tary
ibaa which suport to expose ae vicious aide of life iin the ie
a

capital. What was extremely noticeable was the contrast between

_ the sleazy ‘model’ and the successful call girl. Glamour is not
- purchaseable in the lower income groups. This is the prerogative
of the former expense account nabobs.
Clothes, behaviour, setting, and appearance allcontribute to
the differentiation of one grade of prostitute from another. How-
ever, despite the range of gradations there remains a powerful
factor of unity which spans-the world of commercialised sex.
_ Frequently the successful whore at any level represents a physi-
cal type which is the antithesis of currently held concepts of
~ gexual attractiveness. At its most extreme this is seen in the re-
he warding activities of women with some physical defect such as
one arm or eye, or with a limp. An outstanding example before
_ the war was the one-eyed whore of Piccadilly known as Nelson.
_ At the more ordinary level there is no question that many fam-
- ‘ous strumpets of the last hundred years have been excessively
a_ plain by the standards of the day.
_. Acontemporary observer had this to say of one famous grande
- _ cocotte of the last century, Cora Pearl: ‘I have never been able to
Se understand how it was that she exercised so powerful an attrac-
tion. In her appearance, her tumid, painted “‘pug-face”, the
e secret was certainly not to be found. Perhaps the influence which
, she exercised on so many men rested principally in the quality
__ which the royal friend of the Danish Countess Danner described
oe _ to the latter, when explaining to her the reason of the power, to
_ others quite incomprehensible, which Cora Pearl had exercised
. on his own heart. He said: “She is so gloriously vulgar’’.’?°
_ Another cocotte of the same period, Mabel Gray, was described
as ‘the most notorious, extravagant, vampirish, demi-mondaine
of her day.’™ Photographs reveal her as entirely frumpish.
The woman who swept the literary and artistic world of the
f essixties and seventies into a delirium of ecstasy, Adak Menken,
an “looked like a fairly intelligent servant girl, The Edwardian
es:queen of the demi-mondaine, La Belle Otero, who died only
7 ‘tecently, seems to have relied more on a naive wit rather than ie
 predilection forShs rather than theattractive in women
of this kind is possibly to be explained in terms of a nostalgia
pour la boue. This in fact was the opinion of Ivan Bloch, the
great German historian of prostitution. ‘In this Tespect, we can-
not fail to recognise a certain masochistic trait in the sensibility
of men... In this way we should be led to the view that prostitu-
tion is in part a product of the physiological male masochism— that
is to say, of the impulse from time to time to plunge into the .
depths of coarse, brutal, sexual lust and of self-mortification and
self-abasement, by surrender to a comparatively worthless
Creatures... =
Another German authority, Vem Schurtz, went further.
‘the most ideal man also is unable to free himself from his body,
refinement leads ultimately to an unnatural over-nicety, which
must necessarily be permeated from time to time by a breath of
fresh unrefinement and coarse naturalism, if it is not to perish
from its own inward contradiction.’ This use of the prostitute .
as a therapeutic medium was a popular notion in the latter part
of the nineteenth century. The man, it was felt, needed to be
away from the cosy domestic hearth from time to time, and have
his spirit revived by a woman who was all woman and not a wife
and mother.'*
This rationalisation of lust as therapy was balanced by the
voice of doom describing the awful appearance and condition
which characterised the prostitute.
‘By the daily practice of their profession for many years their
eyes acquire a piercing, rolling expression; they are somewhat
unduly prominent in consequence of the continued tension of
the ocular muscles, since the eyes are principally employed to spy
out and attract clients. In many the organs of mastication are
strongly developed; the mouth, in continuous activity either in
eating or kissing, is conspicuous; the forehead is often flat; the
occipital region is at times extremely prominent; the hair of the
head is often scanty — in fact, a good many become actually bald.
For this reasons are not lacking: above all, the restless mode of
life; the continued running about in all weathers in the open
street, sometimes with the head bare; the often long-lasting fluor
albus from which they suffer; the incessant brushing, manipula-
tion, frizzling, and pomading of the hair; and, among the lower
classes of prostitute, the use of brandy.

185
 . BC ¢
Meeaie tinslost oeproper senetionee those ofthe rock
If that description of prostitutes in1 Hamburg iin the 1840s is
authentic it is difficult to imagine how the profession flourished.
Only the most unbridled appetite could have driven men into
the arms of such apparent harpies.'®
Ivan Bloch propounded the interesting theory that as prosti-
tutes lead a life not intended by nature (sic) they begin in the
course of their career to develop male characteristics. ‘. . . Most
prostitutes have done more or less injury to the functions of the
human body, have completely disordered their sexual life, and
are sterile. It is not to be wondered at that this sometimes mani-
fests itself in their outward appearance — as, for example, in the
slight development of the breasts, which often amounts to a
simple atrophy. The “unmistakable development”’ of the tertiary
characters of the male in individual prostitutes, which has led
Kurella to propound the interesting hypothesis that prostitutes
are a sub-variety of the homosexual,'7 rests for the most part
upon their assumption of a masculine mode of life and masculine
habits, which in the long run cannot fail to influence also the
bodily development — as, for example, smoking and the excessive
use of alcohol, pot-house life, gluttony, and other masculine
habits. The ‘deep masculine voice” of many prostitutes is un-
questionably in most cases the result of the excessive use of
tobacco and alcohol... .’18
It is conceivable that both Bloch and Kurella had drawn
inspiration from the curious notion of Virey that ‘. . . in con-
sequence of the frequent embraces of men, prostitutes gain a
more or less masculine appearance . . .”!° This is too much like
_ sympathetic magic to be acceptable. The unconscious grounding
for this kind of belief was that by her behaviour the prostitute
was unsexing herself, destroying her female character.
The evidence of Parent-Duchatelet, one of the most acute
observers of nineteenth-century prostitution, does not support
this hypothesis of the metamorphosis of the prostitute into a
male. In fact it is very much to the contrary. He remarks that
while a number of prostitutes are thin, and even emaciated, an
even larger number are distinguished by the superb develop-
ment of their breasts. This, apparently, was popularly believed.
to be due to the use of mercuric compounds on the bosom.
Parent-Duchatelet, however, attributes this mammary abundance

aid
186
ifC to Ssa slothful
Pe .
life, greediness, and above all to the excessive
es in Y y be . : a ; 4 - *

amount of hot baths indulged in by whores. An interesting fea-

ture of this embonpoint phenomenon was that it rarely took
place before the age of twenty-five or after.2° This would suggest
that a continuing life of prostitution tended to emphasise female
physiological characteristics.
While it is difficult to disprove the effect of a prolonged treat-
ment of hot baths on the female breast our own view would
incline to more emphasis being placed in the gourmandising
propensities of the French strumpets.
The only male characteristic which Parent-Duchatelet takes
note of is the development of a harsh and raucous voice. This is
not, in his opinion, due to the gradual assumption of a male role
through a process of masculinisation as Bloch would have it but
simply through these women’s addiction to strong drink, and
inevitable drunkenness. Other contributory causes cited were
abuse of the voice in pursuit of their calling, and exposure of
the body and chest when streetwalking as an inducement to
custom.?!
Contemporary observation of the prostitute world suggests
that Bloch’s hypothesis cannot really be maintained. The varia-
tion of physical attributes amongst the whores of any large city
suggests that the manifestation of particular male characteristics
is not a prominent phenomenon. There is, however, another
aspect to be considered which Bloch foreshadowed.
In our own day both Caprio and Glover have suggested that
there is a strong homosexual component in prostitutes. The les-
bian practices of many prostitutes are a prominent feature of
brothel existence. The absence of organised brothels in Britain in
contrast to Europe has, in our opinion, led to its prominence
being overlooked as a feature of prostitution in general. The
commonsense view would be that, bearing in mind the emotion-
al sterility of the prostitute’s professional existence and the pre-
cariousness of the ponce relationship, the development of lesbian
attachments is almost inevitable. Closer analysis reveals a more
complicated situation.
Edward Glover in his The Psychopathology of Prostitution
remarks that sexual frigidity is common amongst experienced
prostitutes, but also, and this is extremely significant, that ‘. . . the
factors most closely associated with frigidity are those of uncon-
scious homosexuality and unconscious antagonism to the male...

: 4 -_ 187

ical
ia
_ Thisisa ‘develonmient which:
- infantile sexuality when the child’s sexual ‘iaplaes have become
fixed on the parent of the same sex. ‘.. . Individuals of this type _
often nourish a good deal of overt or latent hostility to men.
This is associated with strong, unconscious jealousy of the male,
together with a good deal of unconscious hostility to the client
as a substitute father image . . .”? The financial exploitation of
the client, downright theft from him, infecting him with disease
- could all be regarded as components of this hostility. Glover goes
so far as to say there is some evidence to suggest that the prosti-
tute’s career ‘. . . is, in a sense, a denial and denigration of nor-
mal sexuality ...+ If we are prepared to accept this hypothesis
then the development of lesbian practices would appear to be
logical.
Caprio maintains the majority of prostitutes he interviewed in
various parts of the world were unable to achieve orgasm with
their clients. For sexual satisfaction their recourse was either to
masturbation or lesbianism.?5 Such evidence is not in accordance
with the extraordinarily widespread existence of the ponce or
souteneur. It is difficult to accept the fact, if Caprio is held to be
correct, that the ponce relationship is devoid of sexual gratifica-
tion for the prostitute. In contrast to Caprio Glover is much
more modest in his claims.
Dr. Helene Deutsch in her Psychology of Women does not
speak explicitly of a homosexual component in the prostitute’s
make-up. On the other hand she lends support to Glover’s hypo-
thesis of hostility. In a family of several girls the youngest in
puberty may form a special relationship with the father. As she
grows up the father’s attitude may change. Interpreted as rejec-
tion this can lead to a fixation of rejecting all men and desire for
sadistic revenge, and so to a life of prostitution.”6
From the evidence it would appear that it is reasonable to
assume that in some instances the prostitute has homosexual ten-
dencies which have contributed to the adoption of her profes-
sion. To go further and suggest that these instances are in a
. Majority is not in accordance with the facts. In a minority of in-
stances these tendencies foster lesbian relationships among pros-
titutes. In our opinion the prevalence of lesbianism amongst
whores is very largely a brothel manifestation induced by propin-
quity and the absence of the ponce.
This opinion is supported by the older authorities. Havelock

188

sive
- 72
 awe, hive egDS | 4 y .

_ Ellis quotes the German authority Moll to the effect that about a
quarter of the prostitutes in Berlin in the 1860s had lesbian
tendencies.?7 ‘. . . in London, so far as my inquiries extend
homosexuality among ‘prostitutes is very much less prevalent,
and in a well-marked form is confined to a comparatively small
section .. .28 This bears out our view that an organised brothel
system as existed in Germany in the last century helps to promote
lesbianism among prostitutes.
Brothel-induced lesbianism can have an effect on whores out-
side the brothel system. ‘. . From my experience of the Parisian
prostitute, I gather that Lesbianism in Paris is extremely preva-
lent, indeed, one might almost say normal. In particular, most of /
the chahut-dancers of the Moulin-Rouge, Casino de Paris, and
the other public balls, are notorious for going in couples, and,
for the most part, they prefer not to be separated, even in their
most professional moments with the other sex. In London, the
thing is, naturally (sic), much less obvious, and, I think, much
less prevalent; but it is certainly not infrequent. A certain num-
ber of well-known prostitutes are known for their tendencies in
this direction, which do not, however, interfere in any marked
way with the ordinary details of their profession. I do not know
personally of a single prostitute who is exclusively Lesbian. I
have heard vaguely there are one or two such anomalies . . .”29
Interestingly enough Havelock Ellis bases his argument for the
occurrence of homosexuality in prostitutes on the growth of the
business element in her sexual relations which, in his opinion,
tended to drive out the chances of sexual satisfaction. To achieve
the latter the choice was thus between the ponce or bully and a
woman.3° He was also of an opinion, similar to that of Lombroso
and other European criminologists that many whores were
physically degenerate. ‘. . . The irregular life of the prostitute,
the undue amount of sexual irritation, and indulgence in alco-
hol still further emphasise this unbalancing influence; and so we
have an undue tendency to homosexuality, just as we have it
among criminals, and, to a less extent, among persons of genius
' and intellect.’32 While few modern authorities accept Lombroso’s
sweeping statements as to the inherited degeneracy of prostitutes
his other arguments for the existence of lesbianism amongst
them are more acceptable. ‘(a) excessive and often unnatural
_yenery; (b) confinement in a prison, with separation from men;
(c) close association with the same sex, such as is common in

189
: age |
i seaccetsaad eee to sexual inversion; (e) disgust
men produced by a prostitute’s profession, combined with He 4
longing for love ...33 All these might still be said to be contribu-
tory factors to the ‘prostitute-homosexual complex.
So far we have discussed the development of lesbianism
amongst prostitutes as a means of individual sexual satisfaction
but there is also an active, commercial aspect. This has two
separate sides. One is devoted to the gratification of female
clients. The other to providing ‘spectacles’ of lesbian activity
for male clients.
The history of lesbianism is-as long as that of prostitution. It
-was, however, only in the nineteenth century that scientific
interest began to be exhibited in this phenomenon. Parent-
Duchatelet was probably the first scientist to remark on the
existence and strength of homosexual unions in brothels. In the
latest edition of his famous study on prostitution in Paris, which
was revised and extended by Urbain Ricard in 1901, a descrip-
tion is given of the public manifestation of lesbianism in the
_ capital of Europe.
. The tribade35 in search of her equal has a distinctive
sign, it is a magnificent poodle, curled, perfumed, beribboned,
combed, which accompanies her on her outing, on foot or in a
carriage.
"In the Champs-Elysees an observer easily notices the man-
oeuvres of the elegant lesbians in search of adventure. Here is a
superbly equipped carriage; in the carriage a woman alone, her
toilet more or less luxurious, with the inevitable poodle beside
her. This woman, going down to the Etoile, looks closelyat the
ladies promenading, principally at those walking between the
Rond-Point and the Place de la Concorde. One of them sees the
lady with the poodle, their eyes meet, and at the same moment
she makes a rapid movement of her lips and tongue; it is the con-
ventional sign adopted by tribades, to indicate: “I am for wom-
en”. Soon the carriage makes a half turn, goes up the avenue
again, and the lady with the poodle, ordering her driver to stop, -
greets the unknown like a friend, and takes her to dinner in a
private room.
‘This is publicly practised, one would be blind not to see it.
At the theatre, at balls, at the races, charity sales, at exhibitions,
_ the tribades of society, of the demi-monde, recognise each other.

i)
190
4 er In Ey nae

_ And these desperate women do not wait for evening for their
_ reconaissances: in the Bois de Boulogne, there is an avenue,
PAllee des Poteaux, where the soliciting of women by women
takes place, even in the morning from Io to 12. The lesbians of
the Champs-Elysees prefer the evening, from about 4 o’clock
until nightfall, that is to say until the time of the return from the
promenade in the Bois. These promenading tribades, who hold
themselves in readiness for society women and fashionable tarts,
are ordinarily women of twenty-five to thirty years of age, who
are not ostentatious, but have a certain chic; they wear their hair
short, have clothes of a masculine cut, and have a boyish allure.
One could take them for odd originals, but for all that honest
women, if one ignored the existence of their speciality; one could
say they were Russian students belonging to the monied classes.
One should not be astonished at this comparison: in the big cities
of Russia, lesbianism is of an even greater extent than in
Paris.’3¢
The reference to Russia is an interesting one. The public baths
in the nineteenth century were notorious for all kinds of prosti-
tution.37 Russian female students of the period tended to dress as
much like men as possible. Poodles were not always merely used
as an advertisement — they had other functions.
‘, » - In spite of my wish to confine myself to the limits of
science, I cannot however neglect to notice certain circumstances
under which Sapphism is practised, and I am compelled to tell
you that these women do not shrink from having recourse to
animals, and to point out to you the use for which they intend
those magnificent poodles which they take for walks and tend
with such passionate care. A patient education has trained these
animals to afford their mistresses those caresses, which an equal
disgust for one and the other sex leads them to seek, I repeat, in
the society of animals. To overcome the repugnance which these
sometimes indocile instruments display for their pleasures, these
women employ certain rather primitive processes, which consist
not in gilding, but in sugaring the pill... .”3°
The poodle in London, prior to the Street Offences Act, was
also used by the more refined type of streetwalker. The dog
served not only as a sign of her occupation but also gave her an
excuse for walking the streets. It is of course absurd to suggest
_that the increasing popularity of the poodle in Britain in recent
years has any connection with the spread of prostitution.

Ig1
a Niativations! for noodle wedtehinesamong:
“be as innocent as the veneration.paid to that aa of
generation, the obelisk, by the Victorians. ’
It is not surprising to find that in view of the tolerated public
display of lesbianism in late nineteenth-century France, special
brothels came into being to cater for a lesbian clientele.
‘The brothels facilitate the practice of Sapphism through their
opening their doors, which have hitherto been reserved to men,
to those women who wish to be sapphised, or to sapphise the
women of the house. I could thus mention several houses in
Paris, where Sapphism is practised upon a large scale. Every day
women come in, generally one-after the other, demi-monadines,
kept women, but rarely married women, to sapphise or to be sap-
phised by the women of the house. The women pay their
entrance like men clients. The price varies between 5, 10, and 20
francs.
‘According to the information which I have received, there are
numerous clients from abroad. Several times a year women come
from England, Russia and Germany to pay a visit to these
houses. Often they take away one of the women of the.house to
spend a few days with them: they pay to the house a sum which
is left to their generosity, and then bring her back. It is an
interesting fact that in those houses where the Sapphism of the
_ men by the woman was formerly most frequent it is now almost
abandoned, the women preferring to devote themselves to this
new kind of prostitution. . .”39
It would seem to be the case that the French toleration of
lesbianism attracted such women from countries elsewhere in
Europe. This is borne out by the fact that none of the English
authorities such as Acton, Mayhew, or Talbot make any mention
of lesbian brothels in Britain.
Another French student of the subject Pierre Delcourt, in his
study Le Vice a Paris (Paris 1889), writes of lesbian brothels,
which catered only for the aristocratic world. He estimated there
were about forty of these establishments in the neighbourhood
_ of the Madeleine and the Chaussee d’Antin, the then fashionable
quarter of Paris. The most outstanding of these was close to the
church of the Madeleine, and functioned in an unusual way. ‘It is
of respectable appearance and possesses two perfectly distinct
entrances; it has two different sets of clients, and frequently
carriages may be seen drawing up in front of it, one conveying

4
192
| eee ! Sie Se8 ee

Monsieur and the other Madame, and who each enter at their
separate door.
‘Madame comes to meet her amiable “friends”; Monsieur
comes to have a little converastion with some agreeable ladies.
Neither of them feels at all uneasy at their being separated by so
slight a distance . . . The reputation of the house is carefully
maintained; no rowdy behaviour is permitted to disturb the _
equanimity of the visitors. Madame never replies to any indis-
creet questions, and the respectable ladies and gentlemen who
honour her by a visit, hold her therefore in high esteem. . .’4°
Lesbianism would appear to have become a kind of vogue in
fin de siecle Paris. Fashionable approval and addiction would
have been unthinkable in Britain at the same period as indeed it
would be today. Part of the attraction very probably lay in fan-
tasies of transvestism. ‘One of them (a lesbian) at the time of the
Exhibition of 1889, was greatly sought after; she used to look
charming in male attire, and in the privacy of her rooms, used
to put on a false beard of a light shade and pointed shape which
made her resemble General Boulanger; she went by the name of
‘Handsome Ernest”’.4? Boulanger made an unsuccessful attempt
to become dictator of France before the advent of Louis Napo-
leon. No doubt the popularity of ““Handsome Ernest”’ was in part
due to her ability to comment on the political scene.’
Martineau in the course of the work from which we have
quoted raises an interesting point with regard to the influence of
men on the encouragement of lesbianism. ‘. .. I am speaking of
married men, of men living in concubinage of having only an
ephemeral liaison. These men, whose genesis (?) ardours are
more or less extinct, try to excite them by awakening strong
voluptuous sensations in the woman. To obtain this result, they
do not hesitate to have recourse to paid agents. Therefore we see
them after a joyous supper, conducting their companion to
special houses, to submit her to Sapphism, and thus to develop
in her, most frequently ignorant of the act, a genesic passion
which she will be the more inclined to satisfy, in proportion to
. the amount of the pleasure which has obtained from it. But,
from this moment, the woman seeks for Sapphism with ardour,
only yields herself to the man with repugnance, and soon takes
rank among intermittent or professional tribades. Such is the
confession of many of my patients. I do not exaggerate...’
Martineau does not state whether these men of jaded appetites

193
 y
with danger Bon the male point of view a
_ this kind would destroy attraction for men. What is of concern
here is the implication that there were brothels which specialised
in providing this tribadistic service. It is doubtful whether the
equivalent of such houses exist today possibly because the dan-
_ ger mentioned above is more appreciated. On the other hand the
_ idea of the ‘spectacle’, that is a lesbian display, has been a
perennially popular method of creating erotic arousal in men. In
nineteenth-century France the slang for this type of performance
was the working fleas. In order to ensure that genuine passion
_. was exhibited by the participants care was taken to choosea
couple who had formed a liaison in the brothel.#
a All contemporary authorities on prostitution agree that the
- witnessing of ‘spectacles’ or ‘circuses’ of lesbian practices is
extremely widespread all over the world. These may be live, or
on film, Ordinarily the client must have access to a brothel or a
source which provides this kind of entertainment. Exceptionally
he may be approached by a pair of streetwalkers who will offer
_ for an agreed sum, to stage such a performance in a hotel room
Beacon flat,
ye - According to Magnus Hirchfeld, in the period between the
_ two wars Continental brothels of the de luxe class were patronised
tee
Teeos by clients accompanied by their wives or mistresses. The latter,
_ after suitable entertainment, were induced by their escorts to have
_ intercourse with other men while they looked on.*+ The popu-
larity of so-called ‘blue’ films, i.e. those depicting sexual activity,
the wide incidence of strip-tease shows, the frequency of
_ ‘peeping tom’ cases brought before the courts all testify to this
- deep-rooted male urge to be erotically aroused by visual
-_ representations of sexual behaviour.
Voyeurism or scopophilia may take extreme, pathological
forms in which case the individual is incapable of achieving sexual
- ' satisfaction except through such means. In some brothels the
__ two-way mirror has provided some clients satisfaction at the
7 expense of other clients. Spyholes in hotel bedrooms have
cia functioned in a similar way. A brilliant analysis of the thoughts
.%)and feelings of a voyeur is given by the French writer, Henri
Barbusse in his novel, Hell, published in 1908. Investigations
made by Kinsey and others indicate that voyeurism is an almost
Bern eat ;
os
E- if =

entirely male phenomenon. Only a minority of women are

affected by such scenes.*5 There is possibly an exception to this
assertion in the large female following of all-in wrestlers whose
performances do have erotic overtones. The female response in
all mammalian species to erotic representations is low.‘
Although the majority of women do not react to scenes of this
kind Caprio has suggested that in those brothels which stage
lesbian performances a number of unattached women came as
spectators, and will admit to have been stimulated sexually.+7
There is no doubt that in the case of males amongst all mammals
the vast majority is erotically aroused by witnessing sexual or
near sexual activity.+® This is understandable in terms of hetero-
sexuality. What is not so clear is the basis of attraction of acts of
female homosexuality for the male. Psychiatrists have indicated
that this-may represent the unconscious projection of latent
homosexual tendencies on the part of the individual. If male
homosexuals, however, were involved, this would produce
intense feelings of guilt. In other words lesbian performances
satisfy their homosexual desires without inducing guilt.+9 If this
hypothesis is accepted it suggests that, in view of the popularity
of lesbian ‘spectacles’, the homosexual component in male
sexuality is greater than is generally supposed.
The lesbian activities of prostitutes for the benefit of clients are
not always confined to the provision of ‘spectacles’ for males —
they include sexual services for women. While this cannot be
said to be on the scale of prostitution for the male nevertheless it
is a significant if minor aspect of the prostitute’s contribution to
sexual life. One American Madam, Beverly Davis, who operated
up to the thirties, claimed that women clients were the mainstay
of exclusive brothels in the afternoons. They were catered for by
the female inmates and sometimes by male prostitutes. The same
authority claimed the great majority of prostitutes was homo-
sexual. A lady of equal stature in the field, Polly Adler, was by no
means convinced that this was the case. We would merely
emphasise the fact that the exigencies of the prostitute’s life are
conducive for the development of homosexuality.
The contemporary situation with regard to this type of prosti-
tution is that in most large centres of population in the world
there are to be found brothels or their equivalent which cater
for homosexual women.:? The open flaunting of lesbianism
- described by Maryse Choisy at Parisian cafes of the twenties is
i

A i" | : 195
pene but fe it iepe assumed a moreSpdechee: fi n. So long as —
the difficulties of ordinary lesbian life continue to exist there will
always be a demand for the lesbian prostitute.54
If prostitutes possess a strong, unconscious homosexual com-
ponent, as Glover suggests,55 then as they persist in their pro-
fession the lesbian element will tend to become overt and
pronounced. On the other hand if this component is lacking
initially, as occurs in many cases, the male abuse of the prosti-
tute’s body may induce lesbianism as a physical and emotional -
refuge. In connection with the latter a general proposition would
be that everywhere women are confined as in prisons, or are
congregated together exclusively as in schools, or institutions,
there is a strong likelihood of emotional and physcial intimacies
developing amongst them. Brothels would come into this
- category as clients remain as clients, and do not penetrate into
the exclusive female world of the inmates. An early sixteenth-
century account of women’s baths in Turkey brings out this
point.
. . Although men own the baths they do not do the washing
_ themselves, for being most particular on this point they employ
- women who wash those who come without a slave or servant.
But most of the women go in parties twenty at a time and wash
each other in a friendly manner — one neighbour with another,
and sister with sister. But it is common knowledge that as a result
of this familiarity in washing and massaging women fall very
_ much in love with each other. One often sees a woman in love
__ with another one just like a man and woman. And I have known
_ Greek and Turkish women, on seeing a lovely young girl, seek.
_ occasion to wash with her just to see her naked and handle her.
And many women go to baths outside their own neighbourhood
to do this, although the custom is to go to baths in one’s own
- district . . .°56
Seduction by association is, we suggest, an important part of
____ the process by which a young woman can develop homosexual
_ behaviour. An older woman, herself a lesbian, may set out to
achieve this object. Where prostitution is not directly concerned
_ such action may be prompted not only by passion but by a
_ compulsion for revenge on men. A great number of plays and
_ novels have dealt with this theme. In the story, Paul’s Mistress,

196
 t

v.
Oy de Maupassant, the hero’s grisette is stolen from him by a trio
of lesbians. After discovering her in the arms of their leader Paul
drowns himself. In Jean Jacque Bernard’s play, The Secret
Orchard, a young wife is successfully weaned from her adoring
husband by an older woman companion. Prostitution, as we
have suggested above, may be itself an act of revenge for
rejection by the father. The action of the lesbian prostitute in
seducing a heterosexual colleague is part of the same constella-
tion of revenge.
The basic insecurity of the prostitute does not spring merely
from the hazards of her way of life but from the inherent emo-
tional deprivation of her childhood. Thus the motivation is
always there for her to seek security through the ponce or a
lesbian companion. Homosexual tendencies may be repressed for
a long period but eventually helped by the daily contamination
of heterosexual contacts, the repression is often overcome, and
they become active lesbians. Latent predisposition and induction
both play their part in the creation of the homosexual strumpet.
In this chapter considerable emphasis has been laid upon the
lesbian component in prostitution. In our opinion an under-
standing of this aspect of the prostitute’s life is essential for a
proper. analysis of the institution itself.
What is the reality of the prostitute? The Lombrosian type
criminal with flattened, distended ears conjured up to salve the
conscience of nineteenth-century Europe; the drunken, raucous
whore of Covent Garden and the Paris gutters; the diseased
wretches in the cages of Bombay; the sophisticated, machined
turned girls who beckon from the seats of Mercedes in German
cities; the frowsy ‘models’ of Soho; the full-blown but sad
inmates of the Reeperbahn in Hamburg; the melancholy beauty
of the coloured girls in the waterfront clubs of Port of Spain — all
these are part of the reality.
. Our is a trade —aren’t there many different ways of earning
a living? Ours is one of them— we earn our livings with (our)
bodies. It’s a trade, and I can’t understand why anyone finds it
odd. Don’t we work too? .. . We open at nine in the morning
here, and we close at midday to eat, and then reopen at three in
the afternoon to close at ten on ordinary days or at midnight on
fiesta days ... I’m a woman before I’m a prostitute. Many don’t
know that — they think of a prostitute as something to abuse, a
being that doesn’t count in society. Isn’t a prostitute flesh and

197

Seana
ae
 Notes and References

Zola, Emile. Nana, Nate York 1946, pp. 467-8.

Ibid., pp. 305-6.
Pages from The Goncourt Aoirnal. edited, translated and intro-
duced by Robert Baldwick, London 1962, pp. 271-2.
Sepa Francoise. Vie et Aventures de Céleste Mogador, Paris
1935.
Quoted by Charlotte Haldane, Daughter of Paris, Lon
1961, p. II.
Alciphron. Letters Brann the Town and Country, trans. F. A.
Wright, London and New York N.D., p. 169.
Collins, Wilkie. The New Magdalen, onder 1894, pp. 400-2.
onFor English statistics of the period see The Westminster Review, —
Vol. LITI, 1850, pp. 500-1.
eo
Streetwalker, pp. 180-1. i
Pietsch, Ludwig. Recollections of Sixty Years, Berlin 1894,
Vol. II, p. 337.
Quoted by Cyril Pearl in The Girl with the Swansdown Seat,
London 1955, p. 161.
eeniz Bloch, Ivan. The Sexual Life of our Time, trans. M. E. Paul,
London 1909, pp. 324-5.
Quoted by Bloch, op. cit., p. 325.
See in particular K. Gutskow, Neue Serapionsbruder, Hieiisg
1877, Vol. I, p. 198.
Lippert, H. Prostitution in Hamburg, Hamburg 1848, pp. 88
and 90.
Moral indignation may have affected the author’s vision.
Kurella, H. ‘A Contribution to the Biological Comprehen-
sion of Physical and Psychical Bisexuality, Zentralblatt fur
_Nervenheilkunde, 1896, Vol. XIX, p. 239.
Bloch, op. cit., pp. 326-7.
Virey, J. J. Women, Leipzig 1827, pp. 157-8.
Parent-Duchatelet, A. J. B. De La Prostitution aks La Villede
Paris, Brussels and London 1837, p. 63.
Ibid., pp. 63-4.
de ala aa
p 2 Glover, Edward. “The Psychopathology of Prostitution,’ The
Roots of Crime, London 1960, p. 255.
Ibid., p. 256.
Ibid.
Caprio, F. S. Female Homosexuality, London 1957, p. 95.
Deutsch, Helene. Psychology of Women, London 1946, Vol. I,
Pp. 205-6. .
Ellis, Havelock. Studies in the Psychology of Sex, London 1900,
Vol. I, p. ror.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 102.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 102-3.
Lombroso, C., and Ferrero, G. La Donna Delinquente, la
prostituta e la donna normale, Turin 1893, pp. 410 et seq.
Parent-Duchatelet, op. cit., p. 33.
Lesbianism is the general term for female homosexuality. A
tribade is a lesbian who imitates the movements of the male
in coitus, sexual satisfaction being achieved by external
friction of the female genitalia. A sapphis is a lesbian who
practices cunnilingus, that is mouth-genital contact.
Parent-Duchatelet, A. J. B. La Prostitution Contemporaine a
Paris, etc., edited and revised by Urbain Ricard, Paris 1901,
pp. 89-90.
See Fernando Henriques, Prostitution and Society, London
1963, Vol. II, pp. 122-3.
Martineau, L. Prostitution et Deformations vulvaires et anales,
quoted by J. Jacobus, Crossways of Sex, New York N.D., p.

Sapphism of the man means in this context, oral contact on

the part of the woman with the male genitalia.
Quoted by J. Jacobus, op. cit., p. 305.
+
>Ye]
volt
Ibid, footnote, p. 330.
Martineau, op. cit., quoted by Jacobus, op. cit., pp. 311-12.
Jacobus, op. cit., p. 316.
Hirschfeld, Magnus. Sexual Anomalies and Perversions, edited
by Norman Haire, London 1956, p. 627.
Kinsey, A. C., et al. Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female,
Philadelphia and London 1953, pp. 662-3.
Ibid., p. 661.

199

‘ai
 Divs lay. Call sue Madam, New York. Fe
- Adler, Polly. A House is not a Home, London 1959.
52 See Beverley Davis, op. cit., and H. H. U. Cross, The Lust —
Market, London N.D., pp. 231-2.
' Choisy, Maryse. A Month Among the Girls, N.Y. 1960,
Pp. 71-9.
- Fora discussion of these. difficulties see Bryan Magee, “The
Facts about Lesbianism,’ Statesman, 26 March 1925.
5 Glover, Op. Cit., p. 255.
de Zara, Bassano. I Costumi et i modi particolari de la vita
_ Turchi, Milan 1510, pp. 5-6.
57 Maxwell, Gavin. The Ten Pains of Death, London 1959,
r pp. 162, 167, and 168.
6: Victorian Sexual Morality

WE have stressed throughout this work that there is an intimate

connection between the marital structure of a society and the
kind and type of prostitution which develops within it. Over-
whelming evidence for such a thesis is provided by a considera-
tion of Victorian Britain.
The commercial success of the middle classes combined with
the spread of the evangelical movement to create a sexual. morality
which destroyed, at any rate overtly, the libertine morality of the
previous century. The price paid for this apparent victory over
the flesh was an extraordinarily high one. It must also be remem-
bered that righteousness only prevailed in the middle and upper
classes — the masses of the people were altogether weaker vessels. -
The aristocracy did not give in easily. A few exhibited a remark-
able tenacity for the old ways in the face of vehement attack. A
notable example was that of Lord Palmerston. While Foreign
Secretary he frequently stayed at Windsor Castle as the guest of

201
 es Victoria. He bellaved much as
~ the Regency— persuaded a Lady of the B dchamber to ie
his mistress and used her room for assignations. Apparently one o
night he mistook the room and the cries of the unwilling Lady —
roused the royal household. This romantic episode was the
foundation of Victoria’s abhorrence of Palmerston.!
There were other instances of the desperate rearguard action of
the aristocracy against the new morality. Both Lord Conyngham,
as Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Uxbridge, as the Lord Steward,
installed their mistresses as housekeepers in Buckingham Palace.”
But these were isolated cases. By the 1860’s the aristocracy had
capitulated. It is interesting-to speculate how a contemporary
Britain overwhelmed by Profumo would have reacted to similar
disclosures concerning a Foreign Secretary.
The great bastion of the new morality was the family. The
husband was supposed to have all his sensual delights, whether of
the table or the bed, catered for within its confines. This was the
Evangelical heaven on earth to which many aspired, and some
achieved. Two extremely important factors affected the tran-
sition of this ideal into reality. One was concerned.with the
conception of woman as wife, mother, and lover; the other
with the economic facts of life. Both merit detailed discus-
sion.
A recent study of Victorian middle class family life pointed out
that the social and financial requirements for marriage were con-
siderable.3 In fact they were so considerable that they inhibited
marriage before thirty for the man. The implications of this for
the sexual life of young men was very much apparent at the time.
The Times published a letter on 7 May 1857, from a gentleman
calling himself Theophrastus. “The laws which society imposes
in the present day in respect of marriage upon young men belong-
ing to the middle class are, in the highest degree, unnatural, and
are the real cause of most of our social corruptions .. .’ The
writer goes on to say that fathers having started in humble
circumstances demand that their sons shall not marry until they
_ are financially successful. ‘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 . . . But stay awhile,
society. Your pictures of marriages at thirty-five, with a Bel-
gravian house for the happy couple . . . is very pleasing; but
there is a reverse to the canvas, and that a very dark one. How has

202 .

' a
 ni et x
pag cae
2 Cage anh aoe a 90) Rat.

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...
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 . . . Living in the midst of temptation, they have
not sufficient principle to resist its fascination .. . 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 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
an even more terrible result of the present state of things —
medical men will understand what I mean — but I dare not, and
I have said enough...’
Here then was part of the Evangelical dilemma with regard to
their conception of marriage — the preliminaries to achieving the
bastion of morality were concubinage and prostitution. A Times’
Leader of May 9th, 1857, illustrates this. ‘... A great law of 3
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 .. . It is not, then, because we wish
for a moment to encourage improvident marriages, but because
we feel convinced that our modern caution has outstepped all
reasonable limits, has become extravagant ... 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.’
The point we are trying to emphasise is that by delaying
marriage the advocates of the new sexual morality promoted the
very conditions which they were attempting to combat. The
primarily economic conception of marriage had other equally
disastrous results. ‘.. . A great proportion of the marriages we
see around us, did not take place from love at all, but from
interested motives, such as wealth, social position, or other

203
 - advantages;- and iin fact it is rare to see a marriage i
“love has been the predominating feeling on both sides..
Clearly such marriages take place today. The point here is that
they were of much greater frequency at this period. The loveless
matriage with all its concomitant tragedies is an ever-recurrent |
theme in the novels of George Eliot, Thackeray, and Charlotte
Bronté.
One of the most savage indictments of the system is made by
- Tennyson in his poem Aylmer’s Field:

Nature crost ,
Was mother of the foul adulteries
That saturate soul with body ...
He had known a man, a quintessence of man,
The life of all — who madly loved — and he,
Thwarted by one of these old father-fools,
Had rioted his life out, and made an end.5

The attitude of two very different nineteenth-century writers

to the problem of chastity are of some relevance in this context.
Trollope in his Autobiography had this to say: ‘... Ihad passed all
my life at public schools, where I had seen gay things, but had
never enjoyed them . .. There was no house in which I could
habitually see a lady’s face and hear a lady’s voice. No allurement
_ to decent respectability came my way. It seems to me in such
circumstances the temptations of loose life will almost certainly
prevail with a young man .. . The temptation at any rate pre-
vailed with me . . . Could there be any escape from such dirt? I
would ask myself; and I always answered that there was no
_ escape ...’° Trollope attributes his fall from grace to circum-
_ stance — young and alone in London, a situation common to
many. He does not attempt to moralise but merely deplores that
he fell into ‘dirt’.
It is otherwise with Thomas Hughes. In a passage from Tom
Brown at Oxford it epitomised the official, evangelical view of the
assaults of the flesh: ‘... We have most of us walked the like
marches at one time or another of our lives .. . Times they were
___ of blinding and driving storm, and howling winds, out of which
voices as of evil spirits spoke close in our ears — tauntingly,
temptingly whispering to the mischievous wild beast which lurks
? ; in the bottom of all our hearts .. .’7 All this is apropos Tom

204
” =

—
Pr ivowin's’§ encounter with an Oxford barmaid. There is no hint
- that he could possibly yield to the foul power. of the ‘wild beast’
of lust lurking within him. Trollope and Hughes represent two
aspects of Victorian sexuality. The one succumbing remorsefully
to temptation; the other trumpeting his defiance of lust with,
apparently, no possibility of defeat.
W. R. Greg, a minor but representative writer on social affairs,
adopted a somewhat equivocal attitude with regard to the en-
forced chastity created by late marriage: ‘Into the question of the
possibility of men in general leading a chaste life before marriage,
where marriage is so long deferred as prudence and justice require
it to be in England, under present social arrangements — we must
at present decline entering . . .” He goes on to say, however,
... Is it not certain that all of the delicate and chivalric which
still pervades our sentiment towards women, may be traced to
repressed, and therefore hallowed and elevated passion? ... Are
We not aware that a young man can have no safeguard against
sensuality and low intrigue, like an early, virtuous, and passionate
attachment ...’ Greg appears to have been in favour of as long
an engagement as possible as a safeguard against falling into vice.
This was a view, as we have pointed out, which was not shared
by a number of commentators on the mid-Victorian social scene.
Greg goes on to make an interesting admission. ‘Without further
discussion, however, we are prepared to concede that, as society
is at present constituted, illicit intercourse will and must prevail
to a very considerable extent; and from this, prostitution, we
fear, must inevitably flow...’8
But why were the Victorians so fearful of sexual indulgence?
In part this is explained by the reaction against the libertinism of ©
the Regency. They thought of themselves as modest, sober, pious
men building an edifice (marriage) against the evils of the world,
the flesh, and the devil. This noble endeavour took place in a
context where the attentions of the whore could be obtained as
easily as a quart of beer. The Victorian reaction away from sex
can be compared to the attitude of the Early Fathers of the
Church faced with the licentiousness of the declining empire of
Rome. At times their fulminations become almost identical. In
one instance Swinburne is the victim. -
‘No language is too strong to condemn the mixed vileness and
childishness of depicting the spurious passion of a putrescent
imagination, the unnamed lusts of sated wantons . . .” Swinburne

205
ee
ar
ettr ica

| was- eating, his lyre ina stye among the namel ess
~ abominations which inspire him with frensied deli
ironical to think that when John Morley wrote that review of.
Poems and Ballads in 1866 London was one of the major centres
of the white slave traffic with brothels catering for every taste.
Swinburne’s crime was that he made explicit, and accepted,
the fact of sexual love. To Morley, and many others, this was
selling the pass, allowing the enemy access to the citadel of purity.
A further component in this essentially paradoxical situation was
the fear that French novelists and poets such as Balzac, Eugene
Sue, George Sand, and Baudelaire with their emphasis on sen-
suality would corrupt right thinking people. Faced with the vast
extent of prostitution in the nineteenth century it would seem
‘these fears were less than groundless.
Nevertheless the fear remained. Mathew Arnold was outraged
by Renan’s statement that ‘Nature cares nothing about chas-
tity’.1° The vein of paradox continues further. While many con-
demned the infiltration of French erotic literature — in passing it
should be noted that the young ladies who read Sue’s Mysteries of
Paris behind locked doors may have been corrupted, mentally
but showed few signs of a heightened sexual appreciation as
wives — others such as W. R. Greg praised the French system
for the regulation of prostitutes. Prostitution ‘. .. exists in France
to at least as great an extent as with us, yet without being pro-
ductive of nearly the same amount of mischief either to society,
or to the unfortunate women themselves... .”!!
Equally dangerous was advocacy of the doctrine of free-love
which had been propounded from the early years of the century
by a succession of eminent thinkers and writers including Shelley,
Mary Wollstonecrfat, and Robert Owen. Obviously free-love
was a much greater threat to the family as conceived by the
Victorians than prostitution. Its wholesale adoption would mean
the virtua] extinction of the family. The reality of the situation,
however, was that neither insiduous French literature nor the
doctrine of free-love had any real effect on the vast kingdom of
-whoredom called into existence in the name of chastity and
sensible marriage.
_ In theory the respectable Victorian young man ‘repressed’ his
sexual feelings until they could find expression in marriage after
his thirtieth year. In practice his passions were allayed by strum-
pets. His recourse to the prostitute was also in part governed by

206
 Bete; aoe Re Ste
general ideas of woman and womanhood. i
A key to the attitudes influenced by what may be called the
ideology of womanhood is to be found in the development of
the concept of the double standard of sexual morals. This of
course has always existed in Western society, but a special de-
velopment took place in nineteenth-century English middle class
society. Excellent legal ground for it was provided in 1875 by the .
then Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth.
‘A wife might, without any loss of caste, and possibly with
reference to the interests of her children, or even to her husband,
condone an act of adultery on the part of the husband; but a -
husband could not condone a similar act on the part of a wife.
No one could venture to suggest that a husband could possibly
do so, and for this, among other reasons . . . that the adultery of
the wife might be the means of palming spurious offspring upon
the husband, while the adultery of the husband could have no
such effect with regard to the wife.’!
Thus both law and the notion of property were combined to
provide the double standard with a sure foundation. Socially
interpreted the doctrine gave the man complete sexual freedom.
On the other hand a woman had to guard her most precious
possession — her honour, the slightest sexual pecadillo resulted in
ostracism. Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan is a classical example —
of the penalties for indiscretion.
Many writers concerned with social problems had, from the
early years of the century, been aware of the disadvantaged
position of women. In an anonymous address to the Guardian
Society of London — a body concerned with the reclamation of
prostitutes — in 1817 the author makes this explicit: ‘. . . females
of every age and every degree, unmarried or married, are not
only expected to be virtuous, but are punished by expulsion from
society if they are not. In this last class, the society of this country
stands pre-eminent; for there a woman who transgresses Is not
merely expelled or excluded from general society, but is actually
deprived of her natural protectors, is driven from her parental
residence, and is forced to die of want, or to support a wretched
existence by a repetition of the crime for which she is suffering. —
I am aware that I shall be told, that all this is for the good of
society; and I freely acknowledge, that, to a certain degree, it is
my firm belief that it is so . . . the existence of society... depends
upon the virtuous, the moral conduct of our females... But if the

207
 a 7 RS : .
: ‘ Pes

happiness of man as wall:as women depends ur on t

~ should the whole weight of the transgression be allowed to fall “4 :
upon the latter, while the former is completely exempt! Because,
I shall probably be told, a woman’s transgression affects society
more. Granted. — But who established this society! who formed
the rules by which it is regulated! Why, man — selfish man, to
serve his own gratifications. Is it then just, is it equitable, is it
moral, that he himself should be allowed to break these very
laws and arrangements, with perfect impunity, whenever he
thinks proper? . .’%3
The writer, of course, is not suggesting that women should be
encouraged to indulge in sexual freedom — both men and women
should refrain from sin but if either transgressed the punishment
should be the same. An ideal sentiment which carried little weight
in the ensuing years of the century. By the 1850’s the situation, if
anything, was worse. In 1857 another commentator on the social
scene, W. R. Greg, whom we have quoted above, was writing
in even stronger terms.
. For that almost irresistible series of sequences, by which
one lapse from chastity conducts ultimately to prostitution, we —
the world — must bear the largest portion of the blame. What
makes it impossible for them to retrace their steps? — almost im-
possible to pause in the career of ruin? Clearly, that harsh, savage,
unjust, unchristian public opinion which has resolved to regard a
whole life of indulgence on the part of one sex as venial and
natural, and a single false step on the part of the other as
irretrievable and unpardonable . . . we turn contemptuously
aside from the kneeling and weeping Magdalen, coldly bid her
to despair, and leave her alone with the irreparable... a door
‘is shut upon her, every avenue of escape is closed . . . she is
driven into prostitution by the weight of all society Gee. upon
ther’. ...°%4
Betore judgement is passed on the inherent selfishness of the
male in the last century it is as well to remember that despite the
emancipation of women the contemporary treatment of the un-
married mother leaves much to be desired. Sexual arrangements
_ may be a matter of the individual of either sex but the woman
- with an illegitimate baby is still made to suffer.
The social reformers’ attack on the double standard of morals
was really an attack on the seducer, who was held responsible for
_ the degradation of pure womanhood into prostitution.

208
>= 3

Pare.
 eS525 —<— fe, Fem F
EB.aa > 2+ f

ie
ad
on : how is the vice of unchastity confined within boundaries
so rigid in the case of the female sex? . . . it is because men esti-
mate chastity in women highly; it is because a fallen woman has
ruined her prospects; it is because even an unchaste man will
marry none but a chaste woman. Do women thus check immorality
in the other sex? Do they address to men the demand, which
men so inflexibly address to them? No. For five, ten, fifteen years
a man is a rake and profligate. The thing is notorious. His
friends at the club know it; it is known in the families where he
visits. During all these years he may be a seducer, a frequenter
of vile haunts, a gentleman who “protects” an unfortunate
female. But he has gold. He has, perhaps, rank. At all events he
is in a position to marry. Does his notorious unchastity stand in
his way, when he finds that step convenient! Not a bit. He finds
the marriage market open. A mother who would shrink from the
thought of unchastity welcomes him to her house; a daughter
who is as pure as a flower accompanies him to the altar; he takes
his place in society as one who has sown his wild oats, and is
henceforth respectable . . . that is the grand stem-root of the
Social Evil! Let women in England look upon a proposal of
marriage from a profligate man as men in England would regard
a proposal of marriage with a Haymarket outcast. Let every
pure-minded girl shrink with contempt and loathing from the
advances of a rake. Let every mother close her doors against the
known profligate . . . He is now permitted to alternate the haunt
of infamy with the drawing-room. Let him know that is no
longer possible — let him feel sternly stamped upon him the
brand of social exclusion — and unchastity in men will become as
rare as it is in women... the streams which feed the hideous
pool of female depravity will have dried up; the regeneration of
the social system will have commenced .. .’!5
It is sad to relate that such imaginative appeals had practically
no effect on Victorian middle class sexual morality. No doubt a
feeling of guilt occasionally troubled the breast of the seducer but
was quickly obliterated. Even when a male audience was publicly
' castigated for its sins remorse, judging by prostitution statistics,
was very temporary indeed. The Rev. William Arnot addressed
such an audience in Glasgow in October, 1860, in these terms:
‘This is a costly taste of yours that demands creatures formed
_ in God’s image as fuel to its flame. Look at the fruit of your
; doings in that imbruted soul and bloated body, with hardly any

209

or
Ee
 ~ living flesh wa sonce a woman, |
ness, and her body returning to janice the time. Leak at
i _ wreck, brother — all that remains of an immortal soul -Thou art
the destroyer. I arraign thee, murderer, before the bar of God,
her God and thine; that ghastly form will confront thee then, if
unrepentant, and the flimsy excuses you use before your fellow-
men will not avail you before the righteous judge.’?®
On this occasion Arnot not only painted this dramatic picture
but put forward a novel suggestion that the newspapers should
publish the names of those who frequented bawdy houses.!7 It is
feared that if the proposal had been acted upon special editions
would have had to have been printed such would have been the
enormous number of names involved.
The view of the seducer as the prime mover in the downfall of
the, hitherto, chaste woman was based in part on misconceived
notions regarding the sexuality of the female: ‘. . . Woman’s
desires scarcely ever lead to their fall; for . . . the desire scarcely
exists in a definite and conscious form, till they have fallen. In this
point there is a radical and essential difference between the sexes:
the arrangements of nature and the customs of society would be
more unequal than they are, were it not so. In man, in general,
the sexual desire is inherent and spontaneous, and belongs to the
condition of-puberty. In the other sex, the desire is dormant, if
aot not non-existent, till exacted; always till excited by undue
familiarities; almost always till excited by actual intercourse...
Women whose position and education have protected them from
_ exciting causes, constantly pass through life without ever being
cognizant of the promptings of the senses. Happy for them that
itis so! We do not mean to say that uneasiness may not be felt —
that health may not sometimes suffer; (sic) but there is no con-
sciousness of the cause... this may be affirmed as a general fact.
Were it not for this kind decision of nature . . . the consequences
would, we believe, be frightful. If the passions of women were
ready, strong, and spontaneous, in a degree even remotely ap-
_ proaching the form they assume in the coarser sex, there can be
little doubt that sexual irregularities would reach a height, of
which, at present, we have happily no conception. Imagine for a
moment, the sufferings and struggles the virtuous among them
i would, on that supposition, have to undergo, in a country where,
to hundreds of thousands marriage is impossible, and to hundreds
 Ve aya ST a ah lS =
er,

x of thousands
more, is postponed till the period of youth is passed;
and where modesty, decency, and honour, alike preclude them
from that indulgence which men practice without restraint or
shame. No! Nature has laid many heavy burdens on the delicate
shoulders of the weaker sex; let us rejoice that this at least is
spared them. . .’#8
We have quoted this opinion at some length as it is funda-
mental to an understanding of sexual morality at this time. The
fact that it was generally accepted that chaste women did not have
sexual desires equivalent to men. produced the attitude of mind
in the Victorian wife which regarded sex as a duty not a pleasure.
This helps to explain the male recourse to the whore. As an
unchaste woman she possessed real sexual feelings, and could.
reciprocate the male passion. The husband did not expect to find
sexual pleasure in the marriage bed — that was for procreation.
The whole complex of ideas surrounding female chastity is one
of the cornerstones of prostitution.
The Victorian middle and upper middle class boy picked up
his notions of sex at school. His first sexual encounters occurred
at home or at school with female domestics. These adolescent
fumblings provided the grounding for the later great division
between women who were sacrosanct, and those who were at
his disposal. In the first category belonged his mother and sisters,
and those of his friends. From the latter would be chosen his
chaste bride. She would be the guardian of his home and children.
For pleasure there was a legion of women of a different social
class awaiting seduction, or already veterans of the brothels.
In most cases, although the whore or servant might be the
vehicle of pleasure, as a person she was treated with the most
profound indifference. ‘. . . But in all classes of society (i.e. the
middle and upper classes) young men, as a whole . . . are capable
of joking on this subject, as if the victims of their own and other’s
lusts were worth less than so many sheep . . . This symptom of
character may be explained in various ways; but the fact is un-
_ deniable: it is simply cruelty of a peculiarly brutal kind, and in
|
' no other relation of life is it to be discerned . . .”1°
We would dispute the author’s contention that it was simply
cruelty that made men act in this way. There were other, power-
ful, considerations which had assisted them to callousness. The
- gulf between the upper classes of the society and the masses was
enormous. It was difficult for thinking men to bridge the gap

211
=<
 paras i Hehes similar to his ee Again, tt
those women within the sacred arcana of the family meant
n that
those outside were not to be considered — were in fact to be ~
despised. This comes out very strongly in one of the most curious
documents of the period — the anonymous My Secret Life. This is
‘. .. the sexual memoirs of a Victorian gentleman who began
to memorialise himself at a very early age and who continued to
do so for more than forty years . . .2° The following incident
illustrates the point made above. Visiting the farm of his cousin,
Fred, the author goes for a walk in the fields. ‘ ““There are half-a-
dozen girls in the field I would not mind sleeping with.” ’ ‘ “Why
don’t you have them?” ’” said Fred. ‘ “I don’t want to lose my
character here”.’ ‘ ““That be damned; you can always have a
field-girl; nobody cares — I have had a dozen or two.” 72!
This lack of appreciation of the feelings and sentiments of the
masses by the other classes is a constant theme in Victorian
novels. It is rare, however, for the theme of sexual condemnation
of the lower class woman to be treated openly. Wilkie Collins’
The New Magdalen, and Mrs. Gaskell’s Mary Barton are out-
- standing exceptions.
But even if a young man were able to overcome his training
av and wished to marry the girl he had seduced there was the
dreaded authority of the Victorian paterfamilias to be faced. ‘A
_ thoroughly conventional man in good society would sooner that
his son should consort with prostitutes than that he should marry
a respectable girl of a distinctly lower station than his own:
indeed, it is not going too far to say that he would probably rather
that his son should seduce such a girl, provided there were no
scandal, than marry her. . .2? The attitude of the Victorian
middle class male towards the vehicles of their sexual pleasure
was very similar to that of the British in India towards the
_ ‘natives’ — in both cases refusal to recognise those outside their
caste. ‘Natives’ and fallen women could be worked for, and
_ assisted but could never be admitted to simple human and social
_ equality.* The rigidity of class barriers in the nineteenth century
is an important component in the perpetuation of prostitution.
If the Victorian boy obtained his sex education from his com-
*In India this attitude of the non-recognition of servants as people -
_ went so far as to permit Memsahibs to be bathed by male attendants.
| ees ee
Zi
yn
F
panions at school his sister was totally uninstructed. Presumed
devoid of sexual feeling she was led to the slaughter — literally —
of the marriage night. No doubt the frigidity induced by the
barbarous handling of a husband used to the ministrations of
strumpets helped her to achieve domestic bliss in pregnancy and
the cares of the household. For the young husband it merely
confirmed the doctrine of his father — that sexual pleasure was
not to be sought in marriage.
The deification of the wife-mother balanced by the whore-
mistress reaches its finest expression in the cocottes and expen-
sive kept womien of the period. While the ordinary prostitute was
sufficient to satisfy immediate incontinence the grande cocotte
supplied other pleasures in addition to the sexual. The villas of
St. John’s Wood in London are a touching memorial to them.
Many Victorian businessmen, careful as they were in ordinary
affairs, could be exceptionally lavish when it came to gratifying
their senses. Judging by the photographs which have come down
to us of such legendary figures as Cora Pearl and Skittles it is to
be hoped that their intellectual allure was of a better order than
their physical charms.
Skittles, or Catherine Walters, could be described as rep-
resentative of those at the height of her profession. The list of
her lovers includes both the wealthy aristocracy and captains of
industry, as well as bankers, both in Britain and Europe. She
attracted others of a very different kind. Amongst her admirers
were Wilfred Blunt, Alfred Austin the poet laureate, Edwin
Landseer, the Rothschilds, the future Edward VII, and even
Gladstone. She must have been a remarkable woman, more than
the equal of her famous predecessors in other centuries.
One of her endearing characteristics, which must have been
an unfailing source of attraction for the Victorian habituated to
the chaste utterances of women of his own class, was an extensive
scatological vocabulary. This was combined, and herein resides
the secret of her charm, with the fact that ‘She was interested in
modern art, knew something about music, liked serious reading,
even on religious subjects. Her comments were piercing as well
as racy — and her letters although illiterate were highly enter-
taining.’23 The combination of vulgarity and aestheticism was in
fact irresistable.
There is little doubt that Skittles inspired the feelings of love
in the young William Blunt. Much of his earlier work — Esther,

213
LRP
a
aie
‘ti
a
 19) : ‘
Skittles set his passion so full ablaze at it pant out once for all.
No other woman after her could do more than stir the embers.”
- Blunt wrote of her:

Kind fute held me, heedless of my prayers,

A prisoner to its wise mysterious ways.
And forced me to thy feet — ah, fortunate me!’25

Here again is the essential paradox of Victorian sexuality — that a

successful whore could inspire feelings of Tennysonian rapture
in a young poet.
Skittles became in fact a kind of national institution. There was
even a correspondence in The Times concerning her. Her un-
successful sisters in the trade might be despised, but she was the
accepted mid-Victorian queen of male society.
; She appeared everywhere. She adopted the new sport of roller-
__ skating, and was to be seen at the fashionable rinks in London and
Tunbridge Wells surrounded by admirers. She drove her phaeton
and ponies in Hyde Park, and rode steeplechasers in Rotten Row.
_ Her Sunday afternoon parties in Chesterfield Street, and later
- South Street, Mayfair, were much sought after. The Prince of
_ Wales remained her great friend. Perhaps the most surprising
__ friend to come to tea was Gladstone. He ‘came alone to take tea
_ with her, having sent her beforehand twelve pounds of Russian
tea.”2° Gladstone throughout most of his life had concerned him-
_ self with the reclamation of prostitutes. At times this exposed him
to serious risks of blackmail, and public scandal. His advisors and
_ friends remonstrated with him again and again that he should
‘ give up his dangerous hobby.?? His practice was to take walks
late at night in the West End and accost any likely looking
female, and ask her to accompany him home to meet his wife,
_ and thus start the process of reform. Clearly this was behaviour
oa _which could be misinterpreted. What is interesting is that he kept
__up this practice when it could have accomplished his political
ruin.
_ Clearly his having tea with Skittles was not part of his campaign
ay of reclamation. He went because he wished to enjoy her company.
__ On the other hand he did not suggest she should meet his wife. —
as Gladstone was also involved with a later rival of Skittles for the
E
ae

a throne of their profession. This was Lily Langtry the great friend
of the Prince of Wates. It was said of this lady that as an actress
she made love ‘with all her arms and breasts’.28 Whatever her
acting abilities Lily Langtry attained much the same position in
London ‘society’ that Skittles had twenty years before. Gladstone
met her at a party in Sir John Millais’ studio. Knowing that her
patron, the Prince of Wales, wished her to be received into ‘good’
society Gladstone took it upon himself to call on her. This. was
the beginning of a long friendship which caused great anxiety to
his friends. Gladstone even went so far as to allow her the very
special privilege of writing to him under his code-sign, which
meant that he received her letters unopened by his secre-
taries.?9
It would be wrong to read too much into this strange friend-
ship between the great Prime Minister and the great demi-
mondaine. Gladstone at this time was seventy-two. It nevertheless
remains curious that his monumental respectability allowed him
to consort with two of the most famous kept women of his day.
It may be, as his most recent biographer, Sir Philip Magnus, says
that ‘He was visably and invariably refreshed by the society of
pretty women.’° While he was capable of these indiscretions
which gave him pleasure it was quite a different matter when
divorce and the family were involved. Gladstone’s behaviour in
relation to the Parnell case has to be seen in the light of a defence
of that noble, sacred institution — the Victorian family. If O’Shea
had not brought divorce proceedings, and Parnell had maintained
Kitty O’Shea as his mistress, the world, and Gladstone, might
have been unmoved. It was accepted that you might keep a mis-
- tress. What you must not do was to legitimise your affairs with
the aid of divorce. That was to attack the family — a most
heinous offence.
It is of some interest to note how there has developed an almost
complete reversal in the contemporary sexual ethos. The recent
Munsinger affair in Canada, and the Profurno case demonstrate
this. If the individuals involved had wished to divorce their
wives and marry their paramours public opinion might not
have been excited. Lord Palmerston might have been more
discreet than some contemporary politicians in his choice of
mistresses — they were nearly always aristocratic women of
impeccable British antecedents — but his political downfall could
not have been brought about by disclosures concerning his

215
>
 reach of iheguilty party ina diverted
Enclosure at Ascot. :
The cornerstone of Victorian sexual morality was the chastity
of the wife and the sexual freedom of the husband. This repres-
ents the finest manifestation of the double standard of morals.
Once a daughter left the parental roof with her husband his
word was law. This at time produced somewhat curious results
as in the strange case quoted by the Countess of Cardigan, wife
of the Balaclava hero.
Constance de Burgh, a.great friend of the Countess, married
Lord Ward. ‘. .. he was a pleasant man, but he had extraordinary
ideas of how to treat a wife, ideds which could only be tolerated
by a tactful woman who could laugh at them, and forget all the
unpleasantness they entailed. Poor Constance was not tactful, and
not accommodating. Her husband worshipped the beautiful; he
had selected his wife partly on account of her beauty, and he
treated her like some lovely slave he had bought. He hada strange,
almost barbaric passion for precious stones, and he bought
quantities of them and lavished them on his wife, who appeared
at great entertainments literally ablaze with diamonds.
‘What pleased Lord Ward more than anything was to make
_ Constance put on all her jewels for his special benefit when they
_ were alone. He would admire her thus for hours delighting in her
_ lovely unclothed figure, and contrasting the sheen of her ropes of
» pearls with her delicate skin, as she sat on a black satin-covered
| couch.
; “These strange proceedings at first terrified and then disgusted
__ Constance. She appealed to her father, but her parents decided
_ that her husband’s peculiarities came within the meaning of the
_ marriage vows, and she was told she must submit to her hus-
band’s humours.’
_, Some time later a Lord Dupplin became Constance’s lover.
Constance at this time was pregnant. One night coming home
from a ball Ward saw Dupplin leaving his house. He immediately
__ Went up to his wife’s bedroom and accused her of committing
_ adultery with Dupplin. ‘Get up, madame. . . my house is yours
¥ no longer; arrangements shall be made for your future, but
sir, henceforth you are no wife of mine.’ Tears and entreaties were
ia useless, and Constance was obliged to dress; William Ward then

tay ‘ ; 4
i 4 - aon
4 . ‘ . , ines
at . . cw Lam
7 ‘ ‘Tr.
 ine Bh iN Nae ¥
a

Sais
led ey past the Scandalived servants who were waiting down
stairs, and turned her out of doors.
“The poor frightened girl managed to reach her parents’ house
in Grosvenor Crescent, and implored them to give her shelter,
but they were as heartless as her husband, and told her they could
not take her in. More dead than alive, she turned her steps to
Conduit Street, where her singing master lived, and this gentle-
man, full of compassion for his unfortunate pupil, allowed her to
remain there until the next day, when she went to Ostend.’3!
All the classic ingredients of the period are in that story — the
chaste and ignorant bride confronted by a slightly perverted
husband, her parents’ insistence that she submit to her husband,
the aristocratic lover, the turning forth into the night, the recourse
to the kind music-master, and the flight to Ostend. The story
ended tragically for poor Constance died in child-birth on the
Continent. Her husband had her body brought home, and bizarre .
to the end, forced a friend to observe the fact that his dead wife
had had rotten teeth by forcing her mouth open for him to
see.
Although the prostitute was sanctioned as the guardian of the
home, and those at the pinnacle of success might enjoy the
adulation of the greater part of the male society — picture post-
cards of Lily Langtry sold in their thousands — she was still
treated as a pariah by respectable middle and upper class society.
It is difficult to resolve the paradox. There is no question that the
average male’s attitude towards the prostitute was profoundly
ambivalent. On the one hand she provided sexual pleasures diffi-
cult if not impossible to seek with his wife. On the other he was .
forced to despise her as a creature vastly his social inferior, and
he could hate her for providing the very pleasure that he enjoyed.
Evangelical teaching insisted that the beast of lust within man
should be kept in check. If the beast overcame him the experience
might be enjoyable, but remorse was inevitable, as was the
degradation of the vessel which was the receptacle of his lust -
the whore. William Lecky in his History of European Morals,
first published in 1869, gives a brilliant picture of the Victorian
official Christian view of the prostitute.
. That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak
ae eanpears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degrada-
tion and the sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice,
she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her

217
Aee
 p happ
~ polluted, and not a few , in thep “un
chastity, think of her with a wipes shudders would have
known the agony of remorse and despair. On that one degraded
and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have —
filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and
civilisations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity,
blasted for the sins of the people.’
This is the essence of the doctrine of the whore as the protec-
tor of the home. Lecky, however, goes on to demonstrate that
there were not only religious arguments for this view but funda-
mental social reasons.
‘It is said that the preservation of domestic purity is a matter
of such transcendent importance that it is right that the most
crushing penalties should be attached to an act which the
imagination easily transfigures, which legal enactments can
never efficiently control, and to which the most violent passions
may prompt. It is said, too, that an anathema which drives into
obscurity all evidence of sensual passions is peculiarly fitted to
restrict their operation — for, more than other passions, they are
dependent upon the imagination, which is readily fired by the
sight of evil. It is added that the emphasis with which the vice is
stigmatised produces a corresponding admiration for the oppos-
ite virtue, and that a feeling of the most delicate and scrupulous
honour is thus formed among the female population, which not
only preserves from pay sin, but also dignifies and ennobles
the whole character.
This argument oie appear to mean that unless the prosti-
tute was utterly degraded the passions felt for her would over-
turn society. It is the perfect expression of the ambivalence we
have mentioned. In addition it is suggested that the anathema-
tisation of the whore edified the chaste woman. A gloss on this
would be that the husband deliberately sought the prostitute in
order to appreciate the purity of his wife the more. He may even
have believed intercourse with a strumpet purged him of his
grossness so that he was a a fit mate for his almost virgin
spouse.
Lecky’s presentation of the Evangelical thesis raised the im-
portant issue of the element of hypocrisy in Victorian sexuality.
It would appear that for an individual to guard the chastity of his
home, and at the same time to countenance prostitution abroad,

218
 J AK SS EW dies 29 ne eee al Ce ee a> e Ry I Ph
4 8 te eo= |
AS sii re 4 He aes $4 re ey ; Se
- ite ts
clas Biba rear :

is to be hypocritical. 'The father who cast his daughter Soni the

hearth because of a sexual misdemeanour was likely to have his
mistress in the suburbs. The evasion of the reality of life — of the
poverty and vice around them, and the refuge taken in pietism
and morality are the unmistakable signs of hypocrisy. One
authority has suggested that the Victorians, possibly the more
enlightened, would have admitted this.35
The charge, however, is more serious than mere hypocrisy.
The extraordinary preoccupation with the condemnatory aspects
of sexual matters suggests that there was a strong element of
enjoyment in their puritanical crusades. The Victorians created
sexual situations where none existed in order to have the pleasure
of being shocked. To separate male and female authors on library
shelves, and to drape the legs of pianos is to create suggestive-
ness. Excessive modesty of this order stimulates the very feelings
it is designed to avoid.3* The art of concealment was so highly
developed that they may even have persuaded themselves that
the world of vice around them was entirely imaginary.
If the nineteenth-century files of two great periodicals, Punch
and the J/lustrated London News, which were taken in almost all
middle class homes, are examined not a single reference to pros-
titution will be found.* To all intent and purposes it did not
exist for the wholesome mind. Swinburne could be attacked for
the literary expression of sensuality while the reality was being
acted out daily in hundreds of saloons, brothels, and drinking
dens in London.
Fashionable churches might be filled Sunday after Sunday by
well-to-do citizens but many of these same citizens had called
into being a high-powered literary industry to serve their porno-
graphic interests. It was the century of ‘curiosa’, and ‘rare’ books
as well as the century of Spurgeon.
It might be thought that the Victorians are being accused of a
lack of candour which they could not possibly have possessed
due to the actual spirit of the age. This is not quite the case. A
comparison with France makes this clear. One of the fears of the
Victorians, as we have said above, was the invasion of French
literature. The French attitude towards sexual morality was
quite different from that which obtained in Britain. While the
* This pudeur is stil) with us. In one of the most brilliant studies
of the period —- G. M. Young’s Early Victorian England (1934) -
there is no mention of prostitution whatsoever.

219
hx
sp
~ forces of vice the Branch with a problem
- came to terms with it. The prostitute. although not rec
the ‘best’ society was tolerated not hounded. The sexual urges of
men were regarded as a normal manifestation which had to be
satisfied-in a normal way which was not furtive and underhand.
De Maupassant put it very well in his story Tellier’s
‘People went there every evening at about eleven o’clock, just
as to a cafe.
‘They would meet there, six or eight of them, always the same
people; they were not profligates, but respectable business men
and young men of the town; they would have their Chartreuse,
joke a bit with the girls, or chat soberly with Madame, whom
everyone respected. Then they would go home to bed before
midnight. The young ones sometimes stayed on.. .’37
Here is plain, ordinary acceptance of the local brothel as part
of social life. It is difficult to conceive of any of de Maupassant’s
English contemporaries being able either to express the same-
sentiment, or indeed to find its reality. This would have been the
most grievous sin of all — to admit that prostitution had a neces-
sary part to play in life. When the prostitute appears in English
literature it is almost always as a ‘problem’, or person to be
pitied, as in the novels of Mrs. Gaskell or Wilkie Collins. The
prostitute characters of Zola and Balzac have no counterparts in
English fiction.
The French attitude towards prostitution in the nineteenth
century is best summed up in the pages of the Goncourt Journals.
The frequent references to harlots indicate that they were accept-
ed as being part of the normal sexual life of men.
In our opinion Victorian sexual morality represents a reaction
against the libertinism of the Regency. It was a morality which
fostered prurience and hypocrisy. From the stronghold of the
chaste, monogamous family it enabled the individual to fulmi-
nate against all vicious living while clandestinely he sowed his
wild oats. It encouraged wives to become sexual ninnies while
_ their husbands contracted venereal disease. It hounded ‘fallen’.
women to become whores in the name of God. Fear and Evan-
gelicalism must bear the responsibility.

220
Sg Gute MS eee e at
‘ Notes amd References’

ee Roger. The Prince Consort, London 1949, pp. 60-1.

i
Banks, J. A. prerrerey and Parenthood, London 1954, Chap-
ters 3 and 4.
>
Drysdale, G. R. The Elements of Social Science, London 1872,
Pp. 357.
Lines 373-7 and 388-91.
pos Anthony. An Autobiography, Hee 1946, pp. 61-

Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown at Oxford, Nelson Classics,

London N.D.., p. 83.
Westminster Review, Vol. §3, 1850, pp. 480-81.
Saturday Review, Vol. 22, August 4th, 1886, pp. 145-7.
Arnold, Mathew. ‘Numbers,’ Discourses in America, London
1885, pp. 40-I. '
Westminster Review, op. cit., pp. 481 et seq.
Hansard, 1857, Vol. 145, col. 813.
Anon. ‘An Address to the Guardian Society,’ The Pamphle-
teer, London 1818, p. 239.
Westminster Review, op. Cit., p. 47.
Logan, William. The Great Social Evil, London 1871, pp.
I4I-2.
Quoted by Logan, op. cit,. p. 143.
Ibid. ~»
Westminster Review, op. cit., pp. 456-7.
Lyttleton, Rev. E. Training of the Young in Laws of Sex,
London 1901, pp. 39-40.
Marcus, Steven, The Other Victorians, New York 1966, p. 83.
Quoted by Marcus, op. cit., pp. 136-7.
Lyttleton, op. cit., p. 43.
Finch, Edith. Wilfred Scawen Blunt, London 1938, p. 44.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 45.
Ibid, p. 43.
Magnus, Philip. Gladstone, London 1963, Pp. 305.
Quoted by Cyril Pearl, The Girl With The Swansdown Seat,
London 1955, p. 167.
Magnus, op. cit., p. 306.
Ibid.

a 221

e c-
Se
 W. E. H. History of
European M rals.
Pt. II,p. 119.
34 Tbid:
35 Houghton, Walter E. The Victorian Frame of Mind, Bier,
___ -Haven 1963, pp. 394-5. Ss
_, 36 For the psycho-analytical implications of this see Edward ;
Glover, ‘Victorian Ideas of Sex’ in Ideas and Beliefs of the
. Victorians, BBC, London 1949. :
37 Maupassant, G. de. ‘Tellier’s’ in Short Stories of Today and
Tae Yesterday, London 1929,p. 121.

mas
 7: The Client

‘ADVANCING Civilisation will gradually clothe Prostitution in

more pleasing forms, but not till the end of the world will it be
banished from the earth.’ ‘It is impossible to eradicate Prostitu-
tion, because it is an integral part of our social institutions.’ ‘How
can the large number of voluntary and involuntary celibates
satisfy their natural needs otherwise than by plucking the for-
bidden fruit of Venus Pandemos ?”!
These are all opinions of nineteenth-century authorities on
prostitution. Such opinions taken in conjunction with the statis-
tics relating to prostitution indicate that the clientele of the whore
_ in the last century was of enormous proportions. It is instructive
to review some of these statistics.
Nineteenth-century estimates of the prostitute population of
the United Kingdom cannot be taken as accurate. The police
returns are the only authentic source. Unfortunately they rep-
resent mainly those prostitutes who were prosecuted for criminal

“Ra / 223
 for England ae Wales. 738 per |cent eh been prosecu'
_ variety of crimes. The United Kingdom estimate for whores of
this kind was 46,000. But if to these were added those ‘whose ~
appearance in the streets as such never takes place — who are not
seen abroad at unseemly hours — who are reserved in manners,
quiet and unobtrusive in their houses or lodgings, and whose
' general conduct is such that the most vigilant of constables.
could have no pretence to be officially aware of their existence’
the figures reach the gigantic proportions of 368,000. These
~ would of course include the vast army of clandestine harlots that
existed in all European cities at this time.? The estimated number
of prostitutes must be seen against the total population figures —
for England and Wales which in 1861 were 20,119,314. Although
the figure of 368,000 whores appears vast nevertheless all con-
temporary accounts agree in asserting that the numbers were
indeed very great.
Table I below gives the number of registered prostitutes in
various European cities in the middle years of the century.
Several points are to be noted in this table. The most import-
ant is that most European countries at this time enjoyed a state

TABLE I?
Number of
Popula- Prostitute clandestine
Year Place tion population prostitutes Total
’ estimated
1857 London 2,803,989 9409 15,000 24,409 .
(1861)
1849 Berlin 300,000 770 10,000 10,770 —
(1861)
1856 Brussels 270,000 660 — - 660
1854 Paris 1,500,000 4206 30,000 34,206
1856 Lyons 300,000 690 — 690
1856 Marseilles 233,817 700 = 700
1852 Copenhagen 129,695 195 “— 195
(1850)
1853 Madrid 270,000 1000 — 1000
1856 Rotterdam 96,749 362 _ 362
1855 Amsterdam 258,000 700 — ay (ere)
1856 Turin 150,000 750 = 750

224
 ara eee
ees
ah £4zr 2 abi

_ system for the regulation of prostitution. Britain only brought in

limited legislation of this kind in 1864 — it lasted twenty-two
years. Thus the figures under the heading prostitute population
apply to registered prostitutes, i.e. those on the police records.
The British figures are arrived at from a record of prostitutes
charged with criminal offences. Whores not inscribed on the
police records come under the heading of clandestine prostitutes,
All authorities agree that this category was far larger than the
official one. They similarly agree at the enormous difficulty in
reaching anything like a reasonable estimate of the women in-
volved in clandestine activity.
On the other hand from the estimated figure for Paris of
30,000 it is possible to assume that Marseilles, with approxi-
‘mately a sixth of the Parisian population, had something of the
order of 5,000 clandestine whores. In the same way estimates for
other European cities could be arrived at. What emerges is that
throughout Europe the male, of whatever class or condition,
would find a harlot available for him.
Some idea of the extreme facility with which sexual services
could be obtained from the urban female population can be
deduced from the following account of a city not listed in the
above table — Stockholm. .
*There are no houses of prostitution there and the city would
be scandalised at the idea of allowing such a thing. A few years
ago (1837) two were established, and the fact was no sooner
known than a virtuous mob arose and pulled them down. And
yet Stockholm has been called the most licentious city in Europe,
and, I have no doubt with the most perfect justice. Vienna may
surpass it in the amount of conjugal infidelity, but certainly not
in general incontinence. Very nearly half the registered births are
illegitimate, to say nothing of the illegitimate children born im
wedlock. Of the servant-girls, shop-girls, and seamstresses in the
city, it is very safe to say that scarcely ten out of a hundred are
chaste; while, as rakish young Swedes have coolly informed me,
many girls of respectable parentage, belonging to the middle
- class are not much better. The men, of course, are much worse
than the women; and even in Paris one sees fewer physical signs
of excessive debauchery. Here the number of broken down young
men, bleary-eyed, hoary sinners is astonishing. I have never
_ been in any place where licentiousness was so open and avowed,
and yet where the slang of a sham morality was so prevalent...

225
 cir hands babhisiiaely upon their bosoms. . . One does not
-wonder when he is told of young men who have passed safely
_ through the ordeals of eae and Paris, and have come at last to
Stockholm to be ruined.
i London in the 1960's s pas clearly not compete with the
if Stockholm of the 1850’s. While there is no doubt that the Swed-
ish capital was a major centre of prostitution it should be re-
i membered that the illegitimacy rate emphasised above was not
necessarily a true indication of sexual immorality. The pre-
‘industrial society of Sweden, in common with many others in
- Europe, had developed ‘. . . a structuralised system of mores
controlling the meeting and mating of the young within which
‘4 sexual experimentation could occur . . . if a pregnancy occurred
f the male partner was practically always known and marriage fol-
: lowed .. .25 Mayhew in his account of Swedish prostitution
__ points out that ‘. . . though the government brothel was aban-
doned, others were multiplied in its place; and vice, which had
-rioted under a mask, appeared in her proper form, among the
citizens of Stockholm. Nevertheless numbers of the restaurants
and houses of public entertainment still retain their original
character as the secret resorts of prostitutes and their com-
panions.’® In passing it can be remarked that Heidelberg in the
nineteen twenties still retained some of this Swedish bravura in
_ sexual matters — in many beer cellars the waitress after serving a
customer would climb on his lap.
_ While the nineteenth-century English male tended towards a
certain discretion, and indeed hypocrisy, with regard to his
: illicit amours the same inhibitions did not apply on the other side
of the Atlantic. The scene described below could not have taken
_ place in any parliamentary building in Europe. It is taken from
an account in the New York Herald of March roth, 1895, and
describes the closing scene of the Fifty-third Congress in the
> Na at Washington during the presidency of Grover Cleve-
q jand
ey “Those curious students of their kind who have attended a
_ New York French ball will be able to grasp the situation and
will understand the picture thrown upon the curtain. Sunday |
_ night at the Capitol. Women there were galore — lively women,
__white and black; women who would have looked better, perhaps,
in 1 pinktights and impenetrable masks. Among them, going and
~ coming, were the wives and daughters of Senators, and the wives
_ and daughters of American nobility from the various States of
the Union.
‘I saw an aged Senator pass into the private dining-room with
hilarious “peaches” on his arms, where a bottle of champagne
finished the business possibly begun in a committee-room . . .
Two old men in an advanced stage of inebriety were plying a
young girl with liquor — a bright young girl of not more than
sixteen ... Two women whose calling was plainly indicated in
their faces were sipping beer in the corner and soliciting trade on
the sly.
‘One member was borne away struggling with his captor
friends — fighting drunk. A private secretary playfully pulled a
distinguished member’s beard and poured beer down his neck —
on the outside. Some members were in a state that emboldened
-the proprietor to refuse them any more liquor. “It is disgraceful !”’
exclaimed Mr. Murray to me, ‘“‘and it makes me sick. But you
see I can’t help myself. It is their place — and confound them, I’m
their barkeeper for 12 hours yet.”
‘Hearing songs and laughter issuing from an adjacent commit-
tee-room, I peeped in as I went by. A woman with her daintily-
booted foot elevated on a committee table and a glass of cham-
pagne elevated in her hand was singing a merry song, while a
dozen members and their friends sat around smoking and enjoy-
ing the society of this lady.’
The smoking-room of the House of Commons can never have
witnessed scenes like this. The combination of the spirit of fun
and bacchanal at, literally, the seat of government seems to have
been a peculiarly American institution.
In nineteenth-century Britain the evidence suggests that
brothels existed to cater for all sections of the population. There
were three main categories of lupanars. “Third-class houses are
chiefly frequented by persons from the country, mechanics,
apprentices, soldiers, and sailors. I have often been struck with |
the fact that harlots who reside in the neighbourhood of the
shipping in Glasgow, and the barracks, are more depraved not
only physically but morally. This is equally true of other sea-
ports and where the military are stationed ...’? This is as true
today as it was in the middle years of the last century = the lowest
‘class of prostitutes, and the brothels housing them are to be

227
ee Curragh. The women were Freaks cachontatealiye as
wrens and lived communally in ‘nests’ of branches and bushes. _
‘There was a common look, shocking to see, of hard depravity —
the look of hopeless, misreable, but determined and defiant
wickedness ... All day they lounge in a half-naked state, clothed
simply in the one frieze petticoat, and another equally foul cast
loosely over their shoulders, though towards evening they put on
decent attire ...’8
‘Second-class brothels are chiefly supported by men in busi-
ness, clerks, warehousemen, shopmen, etc. I had little idea of the
number of respectable-looking men who frequented this class of .
disreputable house till the fact was forced on my attention . . .’°
As we noted in Chapter IV in university towns this type of
brothel had additional custom from the undergraduates.
Women in this type of brothel were of a superior order and kind
to those who catered for the masses. No doubt they possessed
qualities which would appeal to the bourgeois susceptibilities of
their clients. The most elevated category in the lupanar hierarchy
was that which served ‘noblemen, wealthy merchants, sea cap-
tains, and gentlemen who move in the higher circles of society
... 7° Here we are in a well-ordered world where civility and
good manners dominated the sexual arrangements.
‘Some time ago a most elegant piece of plate was presented to a
common brothel-keeper in this city (Edinburgh) by the gentle-
men who were in the habit of frequenting her house, as a mark of
esteem for the excellent manner in which she conducted her
establishment, and for the great anxiety she had always mani-
fested to render it worthy of their approbation and patronage.’
This is an interesting example of the British pursuit of ‘good
form’ extending into the field of sexual irregularity. It comes out
even more forcefully in the following instance: ‘. . . a festive
meeting — (a dinner I presume, according to the etiquette when
distinguished persons are to be complimented) — was not long —
since held, in a brothel of the highest description, by the gentle-
men accustomed to frequent it, at which a nobleman presided, —
to express their gratitude, congratulations, and good wishes to the —
mistress of the establishment, on her retiring from business and
transferring the house to another; and to show countenance and |

228
 wv -

ee fellowship to her successor on her entrance on her honour-

able charge!2 Clearly the nineteenth-century upper class
brothel had become fully integrated into the institutional frame-
work of the time.
In Europe a similar pattern of brothels distinguished accord-
ing to the class stratification existed but in addition there were,
what appeared to be, more democratic establishments. These
were Animierknetpen, or drinking saloons. They seem to have
been a Teutonic invention, but the French had their equivalent
in the cabaret. The waitress-prostitutes were known as Kellner-
imnen in Germany, and Inviteuses in France. ‘Many “animier-
kneipen” . . . by their mysterious-looking interior; by the heavy
curtains, which produce semi-obscurity; by small very discreet
chambres séparées, lighted by little coloured lanterns and with
erotic pictures on the walls; by their Spanish walls and their
enormous couches — obtain the appearance of small lupanars.
To these the richer customers are brought, whilst the ordinary
habitual guests commonly assemble in the larger bars...’
To Germany was also owed another invention somewhat
lower down in the social scale — the Tingel-Tangel. This is a very
low class of variety theatre and also ‘. . . nothing more than a
brothel, the only difference being that the actual sexual inter-
course does not take place in the house itself . . . The singers
appearing in these “‘tingel-tangel” are all low-class prostitutes.
In most cases, whilst one of their number is practising the “‘art of
song” (sit venia verbo), the others, sitting about the hall in
shameless décolleté, display their charms, and incite (“‘animier-
en”) the visitors to drink.’'* One of the most famous streets of
Tingel-Tangel was the still notorious Reeperbahn in Hamburg.
On the same social level as the Tingel-Tangel were the Tanz-
wirthschaften or low class dancing saloons. ‘In the K6nigstadt (in
Berlin) there is a drinking saloon, where, besides the wife of the
host, there are two young girls who exceed all compeers in
shamelessness and depravity. The elder betrays secondary
syphilis in her voice; the younger has such noble features, is of
' such beauty, and is altogether of such prepossessing appearance,
that the infamy of her conduct is incredible. In the evening these
girls and the host are generally drunk. At one or two in the morn-
ing the place is a perfect hell, the whole company, guests, hosts,
and girls, being mad with liquor. Some are dancing with the
‘girls to a tinkle of the guitar . . . others are roaring obscene songs.

229
"morning, area the girls retire t dwi xs comp:
with one or other of their guests.”!5 The apnple sexual pleasures
of the Berlin proletariat appeared to have been accompanied by a ©
certain abandon.
There thus seems to be little doubt that whatever his social
condition the individual nineteenth-century male in Britain or
Europe had at his disposal a varity of means for satisfying his
incontinent desires. But what sort of men were they who sup-
ported prostitution in this expansive fashion? Havelock Ellis
was of the opinion that a large number of the clients of prosti-
tutes were married men.'© He quotes from a book, Beichte einer
Gefallen, by a former German courtesan, Hedwig Hard, with
regard to the motives of married men seeking prostitutes. In one’
part a man speaks of his wife in the following way: ‘. . . She is
cold, cold as ice, proper, and above all phlegmatic. Pampered
and spoilt, she lives only for herself; we are two good comrades.
and nothing more. If, for instance, I come back from the club in
the evening and go to her bed, perhaps a little excited, she be-
comes nervous and she thinks it improper to wake her. If I
kiss her she defends herself, and tells me that I smell horribly of
cigars and wine. And if perhaps I attempt more, she jumps out
of bed, bristles up as though I were assaulting her, and threatens
~ to throw herself out of the window if I touch her. So, for the sake
of peace, I leave her, and come to you .. .”!7 For the reaction of
the wife we have to blame the backeround of Victorian sexuality
which we have discussed. That concept was by no means con-
fined to Britain. Ellis comments ‘.. . the wives, from a variety
_ of causes, have proved incapable of becoming the sexual mates.
of their husbands. And the husbands without being carried
away by any impulse of strong passion or any desire of infidelity,
seek abroad what they cannot find at home.’!* This would appear
to be a very strong motivation for the married male to become —
the client of prostitutes. It is, however, the kind of motivation
which no longer has the same validity. Today the frustrated
_ husband has no need to resort to the whore as he has sexual
access to women of his own class and standing.
Another component of the urge to seek the harlot is found.
where, despite sexual compatability, the husband is impelled to
seek another woman for the sake of variety. Pepys in the seven-

ne Ec
 Fc i Lea

y teenth and Boswell in the eighteenth century are typical examples

of happily married men who must find alternatives to connubial
sex of a temporary kind. This, again, in our day can be accommo-
dated without recourse to prostitutes.
There remained, however, a general source of attraction for
both the unmarried and married male of the last century. As
Ellis put it ‘. . . She has unbridled feminine instincts, she is
mistress of the feminine arts of adornment, she can speak to him
concerning the mysteries of womanhood and the luxuries of sex
with an immediate freedom and knowledge the innocent maiden
cloistered in her home would be incapable of. She appeals to him
by no means only because she can gratify the lower desires of sex,
but also because she is, in her way, an artist, an expert in the art
of feminine exploitation, a leader of feminine fashions . . . Her
uncertain social position makes all that is conventional and
established hateful to her, while her temperament makes per-
petual novelty delightful . . 2° Combined with this was the factor
of loneliness which invested all those who came to the big cities
for the first time. Interestingly enough the same factor is opera-
tive in our own age.?°
The situation can be put in this way. For the relatively un-
sophisticated the prostitute represented a kind of glamour not
possible in any other kind of social or sexual relationship. For the
experienced and ultra-sophisticated she provided a kind of
nostalgie de la boue. Sometimes this has a practical rationalisation
as exemplified in the character of Bercaillé in Henri de Regnier’s
novel Les Recontres de M. Bréot. Bercaillé regarded sexual
pleasure as a service which should be rendered by servants just as
they rendered any other. On the other hand the enjoyment of the
vulgarity of the whore - the precise quality which helps to
explain the success of Skittles — is savoured as something which
enchants yet demeans the man. This is strikingly apparent in the
life and work of Baudelaire. A more minor but still striking
instance is that of the chief character in the Danish novelist J. P.
Jakobsen, Niels Lyhne. The hero is tormented by the lust which
drives him to degraded women. He recovers only to fall again
' and again. This masochistic trait - a desire for humiliation —
undoubtedly was a powerful element in the make-up of the
respectable Victorian male who sought solace with the bodies of |
“women that publicly he had to despise.
The remaining category amongst the Victorian clientele of the

231

Rene
 desire could not, and canine, be demanded
Chapter VI we quoted the case of Lord Ward and his innocent
wife. Ward’s mild fetichism —he demanded very little of his wife-
produced a very negative reaction. In cases of a more extreme
kind not only would the wife be unwilling but the husband could
not bring himself to.ask her to co-operate. His only solution was
the whore. Havelock Ellis quotes a most instructive case history
of a young Strand prostitute.
‘, . . She knew a young man, about twenty-five, generally
dressed in a sporting style, who always came with a pair of live
pigeons, which he brought in a basket. She and the girl with
whom she lived had to undress and take the pigeons and wring
their necks; he would stand in front of them, and as the necks
were wrung orgasm occurred. Once a man met her in the street
and asked her if he might come with her and lick her boots. She
agreed, and he took her to a hotel, paid half a guinea for a room,
and, when she sat down, got under the table and licked her boots,
which were covered with mud; he did nothing more . .. one man
came home with her and her friend and made them urinate into
his mouth. She also had stories of flagellation, generally of men
_ who whipped the girls, more rarely of men who liked to be
whipped by them . .. One man, who brought a new birch every
time, liked to whip her friend until he drew blood. She knew
another man who would do nothing but smack her nates violently.
Now all these things, which come into the ordinary day’s work
of the prostitute, are rooted in deep and almost irresistible impul-
ses... They must find some outlet. But it is only the prostitute
who can be relied upon, through her interests and training, to
overcome the natural repulsion to such actions, and gratify ~
desires which, without gratification, might take on other and
more dangerous forms.”2!
Cases of this kind are to be found throughout the Psychopathia
Sexualis of R. von Kraft-Ebing, the great nineteenth-century
__ work on sexual perversions. These ‘deep and almost irresistible
urges’ still exist as the pages of the Ladies’ Directory, and from
time to time the columns of the Sunday Newspapers demon-
strate. The prostitute remains the major outlet. Some circles in
the society, as the Argyll divorce case showed, can satisfy some
of these urges without the services of the common prostitute.

%! 232
* oa
ul .. ia?

XN : aed
oa yoysoaksBo?
y
What, however, distinguishes the last century from our own in
this respect is the extraordinary preoccupation with defloration
associated with child prostitutes, and flagellation.
In Chapter II we discussed how flagellation was extremely
popular in anumber of brothels in London in the early part of the
nineteenth century. By the middle of the century London had
become the flagellation capital of the world. At that time the
female buttocks occupied in male eyes the position the breasts do
today. Giovanni Frusta in his Flagellation and the Fesuit Con-
fessional published at Stuttgart in 1834 stated that both men and
women were aesthetically aroused by ‘. . . the sight of the callipy-
gean charms uncovered and this leads to the enchantment of the
sensibility of the organs of sight and touch. . .”2 What may have
originated as aesthetic very swiftly became associated with active
sexuality. One historian of prostitution, Michael Ryan, went so
far as to say ‘Flagellation and uncovering are inseparable, and
often cause erection even in children . . 2 Ryan was in fact anti-
cipating what was expressed scientifically later in the century by
Ivan Bloch. ‘Flagellation is, therefore, the principal means by
which sadistic tendencies become active, because in this manner
all the physiological sadistic accompaniments of sexual inter-
course unite, and make their appearance with a stronger poten-
tiality . . The voluptuous gratification during flagellation varies
in character according as the flagellation is active or passive. The
_ nature of the latter is as follows: by vigorous friction and blows,
especially in the region of the genital organs, and more parti-
cularly on the buttocks, a peculiarly increased voluptuous
stimulus is induced by the painful sensations. Simple massage
and friction of the skin suffices to produce such an effect, es-
pecially after warm baths, as has long been known in the East,
‘and is employed in the so-called “Turkish Baths”. More espec-
ially the rubbing of the buttocks evokes a purely physical reflex
stimulation of the spinal and sympathetic ejaculatory centre; still
more rapidly is this produced by flogging and whipping of these
parts (the so-called “lower discipline”). The painful sensations
are said ultimately to undergo complete transformation into
voluptuous sensations; unquestionably the imagination must
here render much assistance, and the masochistic element is
especially marked in those who undergo passive flagellation. The
increased flow of blood to the genital organs, to which the
flagellation necessarily gives rise, must also obviously play a part

233
 thening the volu
pee Siaaa ibis: conection gives: rise to ere
penis... .’23
Freud has given us 1 the explanation as to how the Oochanign
is set in motion which produces the adult craving for this kind of
sexual gratification.?4 Clearly there are individuals who through
some childhood experience arrive at this condition — beatings at
school or by parents — but their number is necessarily limited.
What has to be explained is the massive addiction which
apparently occurred in the period under discussion. It would
appear that corporal punishment was a prominent part of school
discipline in boys’ schools in the Victorian age. We have already
_ discussed the idealisation of the wife-mother in another chapter.
It is suggested that these two factors combined to produce in a
great number of individuals a strong predilection for flagella-
tion. This is borne out by Stekel in his study of sadism and
masochism where he says: ‘All these people have a double
valuation for women. They are impotent with the respect-
able woman, potent with the prostitute, because the respectable
woman is asexualised on account of the infantile associations.’5
Such an hypothesis does seem to fit the facts of the Victorian
situation,
Bloch associates flagellation with tendencies to be fettered
_ when flogged, and for the flogger to wear tight clothing, and so
on, All these are to be found in the present day prostitution com-
plex. It is interesting to note that a switch is one of the furnish-
ings in the brothel depicted in Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress. In
other words flagellation was associated with prostitution from
the eighteenth century. It has, of course, a considerably longer
literary history. Brantéme in his Lives of Gallant Ladies mentions
several instances of the restorative powers of whipping for sexual
enjoyment. A well-known passage in The Satyricon of Petronius
Arbiter testifies to the awareness of this in the Ancient World.
One of the most remarkable statements of this flagellation com-
plex is to be found in the Restoration play Venice Preserv’d
(Act IIT, Scene I) by Thomas Otway. The Elizabethans were
also aware of the connection between flagellation and the genital
urge. This comes out in Christopher Marlowe’s epigram:

‘When Francis comes to solace with his whore,

He sends for rods and strips himself stark naked;

+234
 Pah» Sy x aefi Go ils ,
Trot bao’) |
* f

. For his lust sleeps, and will not rise before

By whipping of the wench it be awaked.
I envy him not, but wish I had the power, —
To make myself his wench but one half hour.?6

We have already noted in the first chapter the growing popu- —

larity in England of the flagellation brothel from the latter part
of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth.
This vogue continued unabated throughout the Victorian period.
Numerous books were published in London dealing with
whipping from the sixties onward. With Rod and Bum; or Sport
in the West End of London (1898), by Ophelia Cox; The Romance
of Chastisement or Revealations of the School and Bedroom (1870),
Anon.; The Experimental Lecture of Colonel Spanker (1879),
Anon.; The Convent School, or Early Experiences of a Young
Flagellant (1876), Rosa Belinda Coote; are some typical examples.
The titles are indicative of their contents.
The male readers of such compilations had, for the most part;
been subjected to this form of discipline at school. The connec-
tion with later sexual activity had already been perceived in the
seventeenth century. In Act IV of Thomas Shadwell’s The
Virtuoso, there is a brothel scene in which an old voluptuary,
Snarl, asks a strumpet to flog him. She asks: ‘I wonder that a
thing which I like so little should give you so much pleasure.’
Snarl replies: ‘I got so used to it at Westminster school that I
have not been able to do without it since.’ The attention which is
given to school beatings in the memoirs of such varied individ-
uals as Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Alexander Somerville, ©
suggests that there was a component of sexual pleasure in their
sufferings. There is absolutely no doubt that their chastisers,
amongst whom are numbered some of the greatest headmasters
in English education —- Keate, Vaughan, Colet, enjoyed their
duties.
What is not so readily appreciated is the fact that discipline in
girls’ schools was quite commonly exerted by whipping. The .
London magazine, Society, which existed towards the end of the
century, had a long correspondence regarding this. “Your cor-
respondents often ask whether corporal punishment is still in
force in the better class girls’ schools. I can assure you that it does
still exist and that for various reasons it grows daily in popular-
_ ity. Many schools in which corporal punishment had hitherto not

225
 what i is mae Teneponge that iss hitting i hands wi 1
I do not believe in these methods, as they may easily cause injury
to the bones and sinews. It would be much better to use a pliant
-reed cane than an unyielding stick, which only injures without
causing the sharp pain desired. Others of our better class girls
schools use the old-fashioned canes, sticks and scourges, some-
times on the upper and sometimes on the lower parts of the
body.”27
Ordinary newspapers such as The Times, Telegraph and Daily
News, were prepared to accept advertisements of the following
kind: ‘Vicious character, Hysteria and Laziness can be cured by
-a Severe Discipline and a Careful Education.’ ‘I undertake the
education of wilful Young Ladies. The Best References I can
give are my two Pamphlets, Advice for the Education of children,
and The Birch, 1 shilling. Advice by Letter, 5 shillings. Address:
Mrs. Walter, High-School House, Clifton, Bristol.’2® It does not
seem to have occurred to the newspapers in question that such
advertisements could be, and often were, equivocal in character.
Even such a respectable organ as the Family Herald found that its
readers were extraordinarily interested in debating the merits and
demerits of flogging in girls’ schools. The editor was somewhat
naive in his approach.| Apparently when the correspondence
appeared to be waning he would receive ‘one of those extra- -
ordinary letters, so many of which we cast aside, begging for a
further explanation, dissertation on, and defence of flogging in
girls’ schools, which she declares is necessary, and without which
no school can be well-conducted.’29
Evidence of this kind suggests that Britain in contrast to the
rest of Europe, not only accepted but encouraged corporal
punishment in schools. It is our contention that childhood
experience of this kind may well have fostered the adult male
addiction to sexual flagellation.
Similar correspondence took place in the columns of the
Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, which had been started by
the husband of the famous Mrs. Beeton in 1870. This was so
successful that the letters were later published in a two shilling
. pamphlet entitled Letters addressed to the Editor of the English-
woman’s Domestic Magazine on the Whipping of Girls, and the
General Corporal Punishment of Children. Equally equivocal was
the correspondence of the previous decade in the same magazine.

a iid
 This was concerned with the sensual pleasure produced by tight-_
¢ 7

lacing. There appeared to be general agreement among the

female correspondents that it created a ‘delightful sensation’. My
nieces . . . respectively sixteen and seventeen years old... havea
governess who is very severe with them in the matter of tight-
lacing and insists, through my orders, on the utmost compression
that they can bear... The elder. . . is always anxious to help her
maid and governess in their efforts with the staylace, and delights
in the half-pleasure, half-pain, of the intense pressure.’ Gentle-
men too savoured similar pleasures: ‘the sensation of being tight-
ly laced in an elegant, well-made, tightly-fitting pair of corsets is
superb’ was the opinion of one male reader. The popularity of
this correspondence resulted in the publication of a book — The
Corset and the Crinoline.3°
The correspondence in the periodical Society referred to
above led to the appearance of letters which discussed the use of
chastisement in marriage. ‘With my whole heart I endorse the
opinion of your correspondent with regard to the reciprocal
punishment of man and wife; family discords of many sorts can
easily be avoided thereby, and I think it is a wonderful excuse
for the renewal of old healing remedies — the kissing habit, etc.
There is an unique attraction in whipping one’s own wife or in
being whipped by her hand. I hope a time will come when all
quarrels will be settled by the rod.’3!
The whipping of girl apprentices in a number of trades, such
as bonnet makers, millinery, and stay makers, appears to have
been relatively common. The public chastisement of malefac--
tors, including prostitutes, has a long history in England. The
public correction of prostitutes in Bridewell, at certain periods,
was regarded as a fashionable show. This is demonstrated in the
seventeenth century in Edward Ward’s London Spy. The public
whipping of women was not abolished until 1817 (57 Geo. Iil.,
c. 75). Our contention is that a definite tradition of flagellation
existed in Britain over a long period, and that this tradition helps
to explain the addiction which characterised so many of the
prostitute’s clients in the nineteenth century. :
In the preface to a pornographic book - Venus School Mistress
which first appeared at the beginning of the century, and which
went through several editions, the last appearing in 1860, flagella-
tion and its devotees is thus described: ‘It is, however, a lech,
which has existed from time immemorial, and is extensively

237
Soe
. Peete
a Xk“
ee Pa hasin Lon vs
splendid establishments are poor entire ly y; pr
(sic): nor is there amongst the innumerable temples dedicated to
the Paphian Goddess, which adorn this immense metropolis,
any one, in which the exercise of the rod is not occasionally re-
quired... The men who have a propensity for Flagellation may
be divided into three classes: 1. Those who like to receive a fusti-
gation, more or less severe, from the hand of a fine woman, who
is sufficiently robust to wield the rod with vigour and effect.
2. Those who desire themselves to administer birch discipline on
the white and plump buttocks of a female. 3. Those who wish
neither to be passive recipients nor active administrators of birch
discipline, but would derive sufficient excitement as mere spec-
tators of the sport. Many persons not sufficiently acquainted
with human nature and the ways of the world, are apt to imagine
that the Jech for Flagellation must be confined either to the aged,
_ or to those who are exhausted through too great a devotion to
venery: but such is not the fact, for there are quite as many
young men and men in the prime and vigour of life, who are in-
fluenced by this passion as there are amongst the aged and debili-
tated ...’33
The author stated the facts of the case as they were. There
were a number of outstanding successors to the notorious Mrs.
Berkely in the earlier part of the century. One of the most pro-
minent of these was Mrs. Sarah Potter, alias Stewart. At various
times she had brothels specialising in flagellation in Castle Street,
Leicester Square; Wardour Street; Albion Terrace, off the
King’s Road, Chelsea; Howland Street, Tottenham Court
Road; the Old Kent Road; and eventually in Lavina Grove,
King’s Cross, where she died in 1873. The following account of
Mrs. Potter is taken from a contemporary pamphlet published at
the time of her arrest in 1863.
. under the auspices of the Society for the Protection of
Females, seizure was made at the then notorious “Academy” of
. Sarah Potter, alias Stewart, in Wardour Street, and a rare collec-
tion of Flagellation appurtenances taken to the Westminster
Police Court, when the general public for the first time, became
aware that young females were decoyed into Stewart’s School of
Flogging, to undergo the ordeal of the birch from old and young
Flagellists, for the benefit of the woman Stewart. These curious
‘specimens of her stock-in-trade consisted of a folding ladder,

238

Bo
 Pe, 1

_ with straps, birch rods, furze brooms and secret implements , for
the use of male and female.
“Her method of conducting business was to get hold of young
girls, board, lodge, and clothe then, and in return they were
obliged to administer to the lust of the patrons of the boarding-
house. They were flogged in different ways. Sometimes strapped
to the ladder, at others they were flogged round the room — at
times they were laid on the bed. Every device or variation which
perverted ingenuity could devise was resorted to to give variety
to the orgies, in return for which the mistress of the house was
paid sums varying from £5 to £15. The profits of this school
enabled Stewart to keep a country house and fancy man, to the
great scandal of the community.’3+
Mrs. Potter operated successfully for quite a long period. She
provided facilities for clients to beat as well as to be beaten. An
added attraction, which still obtains at the present time, was the
dressing up of the young whore. “These children she would dress
up in fancy clothes and teach them various tricks for the amuse-
ment of her customers.’35
A point to emphasise in regarding this phenomenon is that the
clientele of such brothels does not necessarily fall into the cate-
gory of the perverted. They might be so regarded today when
they form a definite section of the contemporary prostitute’s cus- _
tomers, but at this period it is suggested the addiction was so
common as to suggest a norm. The opinion of W. T. Stead is
relevant to this. ‘Flogging or birching goes on in brothels to a
much greater extent than is generally believed. One of Mrs.
Jeffries’ rooms was fitted up like a torture chamber (in a street
leading off Gray’s Inn Road). There were rings in the ceiling for
hanging women and children up by the wrists, ladders for strap-
ping them down at any angle, as well as the ordinary stretcher to
which the victim is fastened so as to be unable to move. The
instruments of flagellation included the birch, whips, holly
branches and wire-thonged cat-o’-nine-tails.’3°
The Mrs. Jeffries referred to above was the queen of the pro-
fession of brothel keeping in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century. She started her career as a prostitute in the exclusive and
expensive Madame Berthe’s establishment in the 1840’s. Berthe’s
had been operating since the 1820’s under different owners, and _
had built up an almost exclusively aristocratic clientele. But
it had refused to’ move with the times — it merely provided

239
a
e
growing cappeiee for ‘perversion’. Mrs. Jeffries in 1875,
obtained capital from a number of wealthy clients, decided to open
amore contemporary house. Church Street in Chelsea was the
scene of her endeavours. Her efforts were remarkably successful
that in a short space of time she maintained four houses — 125,
127, 129, and 155 Church Street. In addition a brothel solely
devoted to flagellation was created in Rose Cottage, Hampstead;
assorted perversions were catered for off the Gray’s Inn Road;
and a white slave entrepét operated in a house at Kew.37
Apart from flagellation and associated practices the other
major addiction of the prostitute’s clientele in the nineteenth
century was, as we have mentioned, for defloration and the child
whore. We discuss this in a subsequent chapter on white slavery.
In view of the magnitude of prostitution in the last century the
question could be asked as to why the wide prevalence of venereal
disease did not act as a deterrent. There is no doubt that the
figures for the ‘social’ diseases were extraordinarily high. It was
estimated that in a seven-year period in the middle years of the
century one-fifth of the army quartered in Britain, and one-
seventh of the navy based on British ports was infected with
syphilis or gonorrhoea. In London the estimate was that 50,000
patients were treated each year for V.D.3® The figures of the
London hospitals are quite frightening. Of between 7,000 and
8,000 patients annully admitted to St. Bartholomew’s (1854) near-
ly half suffered from V.D.39 In France towards the end of the
century it was estimated that seventeen per cent of the popula-
tion was infected with syphilis.*° ‘. .. In America a committee of
the Medical Society of New York... reported as the result of ex-
haustive inquiry that in the City of New York not less than a
quarter of a million of venereal disease cases occurred every
year, and a leading New York dermatologist has stated that
among the better class families he knows intimately at least one-
third of the sons have had syphilis. In Germany eight hundred
thousand cases of venereal disease are by one authority estimated
to occur yearly, and in the larger universities twenty-five per
cent of the students are infected every term, venereal disease
being, however, specially common among students. . .”4!
_ The most accurate figures available are those from the end of
the century in Germany. Dr. A. Blaschko, the venereologist,
published a paper in 1900 which gave the result of an enquiry

240
 ve eeA
TS \e (eS oe ae a en er a. 7 i ar
m

4 7 4 f a ‘ i :

_ made by a large commercial organisation having branches all

over Germany. The following table is adapted from Blaschko,

TABLE II
Venereal Diseases affecting various classes of the
population of Berlin
Secret prostitutes 30 per cent
Students / 25 per cent
Shop assistants 16 percent
Workmen 9 per cent
Soldiers 4 per cent

An interesting point arising out of these figures is that shop

assistants had a considerably higher rate than workmen. This
would appear to indicate that they had greater recourse to pros-
titutes. We have already commented above on the high incidence
of V.D. amongst students in Britain. The Berlin figures are of
the same order. Another conclusion reached by Blaschko was that
‘of the men who entered on marriage for the first time when
above the age of thirty years, each one had, on the average, had
gonorrhoea twice, and about one in four or five had been infect-
ed with syphilis.’4 F
While we are perturbed today by rises in the rate of V.D.
amongst teenagers, recent figures for England and Wales, and
the U.S.A. demonstrate that the decline from estimated figures
at the end of the nineteenth century is very great. This decline
can be correlated with the apparent general decline in prostitu-
tion. Recent statistics for England and Wales based on attend-
ance at public clinics show that in 1963 there were 1,099 cases of
male and female syphilis, and 31,547 cases of gonorrhoea in
men and women.* In the U.S.A. 22,045 cases of syphilis were
reported in 1962-3, and 270,076 cases of gonorrhoea in the same
period.*+
The incidence of infection amongst soldiers, 4 per cent, is very
low compared with the British figures we quoted — 20 per cent.
The answer may lie in the more effective medical control of the
Prussian army, and its severer discipline. The figures for the
whole of the Prussian army are even lower than those for Berlin -
0.15 per cent.‘5 Interestingly enough Prussia enjoyed a state
system of regulation and medical inspection of prostitutes. The
British figure of 20 per cent is that for the last year, 1882, of

241
ee
ei
 the sli. Which caused men to expose saan | again and
again to that risk by consorting with prostitutes? The evidence
suggests that despite knowledge and information to the con-
trary individuals regarded the risk lightly. It was the other
_ person who would get infected not oneself. There was even
medical opinion to support such an attitude. The erudite Dr.
Acton had this to say: ‘. .. the venereal infections now seen in
private practice are slight. Patients come to the medical man
early ... To this cause I attribute to a great extent the mildness
of the disease, and the rapidity of cure in the majority of cases.
__No doubt can exist that improved treatment and a more correct
__ diagnosis are operating in the same direction; science has been
be. assisted by the almost complete abstinence of the upper classes
- generally from intoxication, though not from liquor, and the
____ liberal ablutions now so much and so beneficially in fashion.
‘The loss of the virile organ is, nowadays, a thing almost un-
heard of in private practice.’47 Acton was writing in 1857. His
____ last remark suggests that induced castration as a result of syphilis
__was quite common at one time. The real point, however, is that
__ many individuals relied on their doctors to effect a cure, and no
doubt in many instances were cured so that they could become
oh _ reinfected. Upper class men who refrained from combining
he drunkenness and whoring were, as Acton points out, decreasing
their risk of infection. Bloch was of the same opinion. “Thus a
p man under the influence of alcohol requires a longer time for the .
_ completion of the act of sexual intercourse than a sober man, and
in this way the danger of venereal infection is notably increased,
for the contact with the infecting person is considerably lon-
_ ger.’48 Provided he did not become drunk and observed elemen-
_ tary hygienic precautions a man felt safe from infection. If by
some mischance he became diseased he relied on his doctor to
cure him swiftly and efficaciously. These considerations un-
_ doubtedly affected the prostitute’s clientele. But there were
__ other factors at work.
_ Man is extremely susceptible to the judgement of his peers. It
was the accepted mode of behaviour to visit the brothel. A num-
_ ber of clients became so through the pressure of their friends.
‘Men swim with the current; they fall in with accepted habits
‘and customs, in order to escape being ridiculous, and custom
4 etal
ce ee os Se 7A
a

established in this way is practically imposed on successive

generations.’*° In other words a kind of social compulsion existed
which made the visit to the brothel obligatory. In association
with this was the element of boasting — that one had ‘had so many
women, etc. A man would not be regarded as being a real man
until he had contracted a venereal disease. This is an attitude
which exists in many parts of the world today, as we have re-
marked upon elsewhere.*° An extreme case was that of a
Swedish military club to which no officer could be elected until
he furnished proof of having contracted syphilis,5"
A third, and important, factor affecting the client was the
existence of prostitution itself. The latter was a highly organised
industry which set out to cater for all the requirements of its
customers. In the best European and British brothels the client
was provided with music, an excellent table, and alcohol. Lower
down the scale the refinement dropped away but the ingredients
were the same. The individual was constantly aware that his
sexual desires could be gratified. He might not feel an over-
powering physiological urge but the social context in which he
moved provided every means of excitation. It is not surprising,
therefore, that granted this social context, clients chose to dis-
regard the existence of the appalling incidence of venereal disease
and to remain consistent customers of their favourite harlots.
This was a state of affairs which in fact persisted up to the
First World War. In the immediate post-war world the situation
was very little different.
At the end of May 1925 the 47th Federal Gymnastic Féte was
held in the city of Strasbourg. 15,000 young men came from all
over Europe for this occasion. ‘. . . several thousands of young
‘men from 16 to 18, among them children from 13 to 15, formed
in continuous queues during the evenings . . . in the street where
— under the cover of the Prefectorial permit — in one of the most
frequented quarters of the town, 200 yards from the University,
twelve houses of debauchery are open day and night for all those
who choose to enter ... What we saw on Monday night, between
9 and 10 p.m., cannot be told. There are no words to describe it
with. In front of each brothel (‘Au rendez-vous des Alasciens’’,
“A la Renaissance rendez-vous,” “‘Chez Jacqueline,” etc., etc.),
brilliantly lighted, crowds of human beings were gathered, beat-
ing the doors, demanding their turn. From time to time half-clad
women came out begging the most excited to have patience a little

a 243
 paaatio ict anldiets and aonan en
ed, a human stream emerged and ene rushed to ente : Many
in this ignoble crowd were children from 13 to 15 years old. Ques-
tioned by the writerof these lines, two of these unfortunate
children admitted they were 134 years old. At each end of the
street a crowd of passers-by, men and women arrested by the
hideous ciamour, stood there to view the scene. We will only
quote one of their comments. “This is the way to destroy a
nation!”’ said an old ear Little girls, even, were there craning
__ their necks to see better.’>
The scene described ne an almost eighteenthcentuey quality.
_ Itis to be hoped that the sexual activities of these young athletes
‘did not impair their performance on the field. Before this extra-
i ordinary incident is attributed to the reputed licentiousness of the
- French it should be remembered that a considerable sporting
event anywhere in the world attracts a prostitute element to
“serve the needs of those attending it. France in the twenties still
had a system of maisons tolérées. In the case of Strasbourg this
_ had the effect of concentrating the known prostitute population
of the city in a defined area, which made police and medical
_ Supervision so much the easier.
_ The conditions which we have described as existing in the
_ latter part of the nineteenth century continued to expand and
develop until the Great War of 1914. The aftermath of that war
was to affect the demand for the prostitute in considerable ways.
_
Before discussing this, however, the situation in the opening years
of the twentieth century must be considered. According to
_ Flexner, the American authority on prostitution: ‘At the present
_. time, the demand on the part of the continental European male is
be practically universal; so true is this, that until quite recently
- questioned, it has been taken to be an ultimate and inevitable
_ physiological fact. Male continence has not been required by
__ either tradition or opinion. A low regard for women has practi-
cally left the matter one to be regulated by men on such stand-
ards as they themselves approve.’
__ The conditions which prevailed in Germany can be said to be
_ indicative of those which affected most European countries. ‘In
the country and in the urban proletariat, no one dreams of con- |
_ tinence beyond adolescence . .. Among the working classes, city
tor country, abstinence is excessively rare, and in the higher
 ke
classes, practically insignificant.’s+ There is little doubt that this
excessive demand was met by the prostitute. Venereal diseases
were widespread. ‘. . . roughly speaking, one may say that most
German men have had gonorrhoea, and about one in five
syphilis.’55 Apparently this did not affect the volume of the
demand for the services of the whore. Expert opinion appalled
by the state of affairs began to challenge the, hitherto, unques-
tioned assumption that the physiological sex drive of the male
was irresistible. “There is not a shadow of proof to show that con-
tinence is damaging to health. — To the continent, continence be-
comes progressively easier.” Unfortunately this counsel of per-
fection made little appeal to German men. A life of moderation
and application to work was recommended. ‘Altogether healthy
. men, sexually normal, can, without danger of illness, for the most
part get along far into maturity without sexual intercourse, if
they do not purposely excite themselves or if temptation is not
pressed upon them, especially so if, instead of such stimulation,
they resort to moderate exercises and adequate mental employ-
ment. The idler cannot remain continent.’57 Despite this excel-
lent advice however industrious the early twentieth-century
German male may have been, it seems to have had little effect on
his sexual appetite. Such opinions, advocating restraint, are
merely the quasi-scientific re-statement of the views of Christian
social reformers of the nineteenth century.
An interesting suggestion was made by Professor Johann Ude
at the Geneva Conference of the Abolitionist Federation in 1920.
‘,.. habitual prostitutes, as well as the men who habitually con-
sort with them, ought to be removed from society as being dan-
gerous to the commonwealth.’s* Prostitution itself has rarely
been regarded as a criminal activity. Legislation has been direct-
ed rather against brothel-keeping, procuration, white slavery,
and soliciting. The departure envisaged by Ude would have had
incalculable repercussions. “The professional prostitute being a
social outcast may be periodically punished without disturbing
the usual course of society: no one misses her while she is serving
out her turn — no one, at least, about whom society has any con-
cern. The man, however is something more than a partner in an
immoral act: he discharges important social and business rela-
tions, is as father or brother responsible for the maintenance of
others, has commercial or industrial duties to meet. He cannot be
imprisoned without deranging society . . .’°° In part this is the

245
rs Conditions in London in 1916 and I917 were very similar to
those we have described in Germany in the early years of the
twentieth century. The music halls of the West End such as the
_ Alhambra and the Empire, attracted a predominantly male
clientele. ‘Here we see the extraordinary convenience of the
music-hall, especially that which has promenades, for marketing
prostitution. The vague-minded, who has money to spend and
time on his hands, strolls into the promenade or the stalls, and is
immediately placed in an environment which is calculated to turn
_ his mind steadily in one direction. Though he has not formed an
intention, he is brought into contact with those that have. Sexual
vice meets him on the stairs, she sits beside him in the stalls,
_ ~ walks in front of him in the promenade; it is suggested by those
around him, hinted at not obscurely on the stage; it surrounds
him, pervades the air he breathes, stares him in the face. If he has
not made up his mind to be a purchaser before the performance is
over, at any rate the market has done its best.’6° The writer is
perhaps a little naive. The reputation of the London music halls
was not only well known throughout the country, but throughout
the Empire. It would be reasonable to assume that a majority of
\ the male patrons went to music-halls with the intention of pick-
ing up a woman.
The state of some London streets was far worse than the
_ Bayswater Road at the time of the Street Offences Act. Sir Max
_ Pemberton, perhaps better known as a writer of adventure stories
__ ‘was much concerned at the dangers to which young soldiers were
i _ exposed. He wrote a series of articles for the Weekly Despatch
entitled The Grave Sex Plague. A young officer who came from
- Scotland to a hotel near Regent Street .. . From its door to the
z >. Piccadilly Tube, a walk of a few hundred yards, he was accosted
“ae sixteen times — sometimes by those who appeared to be mere
children. To arelative who met him later he said: “No healthy
lad could long withstand this kind of temptation.” It is a true
_ saying. They cannot, and we should not expect it of them, It is
Sree
_ Our part to remove that temptation from their path . .. There is
i no city so absolutely vicious as London has been since the out-.
break of war ... We do not wait for dark in the West End to
open this dance of death. From the early hours of the afternoon, __
 aa i

the soldiers’ steps are dogged by women. In the tea-shops, in the

hotels, in kinemas, in music-halls they wait for them. He must
jostle them upon the pavement and have them at his elbow when-
ever he stands to greet a friend. And 70 per cent of them are
diseased, as one great authority computes . . .’6t
Allowing for the exaggeration, inevitable in an account of this
Kind there is no doubt that the demand for prostitutes was greatly
increased during those war years. Although the First World War
saw this overt increase in prostitution it also set in motion the
revolution in woman’s status and role which was to affect even-
tually the whole problem of prostitution. This can really be dated
from the advent of women into factories and workshops through-
out Europe from 1914 onwards. It was the foundation of the
present libertarian sexual mores which allows women far greater
sexual freedom than in the past. This has meant a considerable
diminution in the male demand for sexual services from the pros-
titute. Today a considerable part of the whore’s potential clientele
can indulge in relationships with women of their own social
class.®
The clientele of the prostitute is an aspect of prostitution
which has attracted the least attention in the vast literature of
prostitution. One of the few analyses of the middle class client is
contained in a paper given by R. G. Randall at the Sexual Re-
form Congress in London in 1929. Randall points out that users
of middle class harlots are created by geographical, economic,
and social circumstances. Thus professional men in rural areas
cannot risk or afford frequent visits to large towns where prosti-
tutes are to be found. On the other hand: “The middle class har-
lot may be kept in her flat by one or more men who visit her once
a month, once a fortnight, or twice a week; she may be irregularly
visited by other patrons who call upon her casually and spon-
taneously, either because they cannot restrain their appetite or
because they happen to be in the proximity of her flat; or she
may go out on the street or into cafés or dancing halls and be
selected by men in need of prostitutes.’®
Randall attributes considerable importance to Christian educa-
tion which emphasises purity and chastity. Such education
suggests to the adolescent boy that sexual intercourse with wom-
en of his own class is taboo. Love in fact is dis-associated from _
- sex, so that the whore becomes the sexual object freed from the
conception of ordinary women. He feels inferior with women of

: 247
Se
e a
 and he en
tion apart the author suggests that "Individuals with a strong —
libido, particularly among clever, abnormally stupid, and ugly
Set people form a large section of habitual clients. They have the
- opinion that the world cannot give them love and therefore seek
a meretricious sexual relationship as a kind of compensation. A
further category is made up of those who are stimulated by
_ impersonal sexual relations. Such people will choose a profession
such as the theatre, films, or advertising which provides them
with the opportunity to develop such relations. Many are
_ married but feel impelled to have.a mistress or go to prostitutes.
_ The Don Juan type and the sexually abnormal comprise other
sections of the middle class patrons of the harlot. One of the most
substantial categories, according to Randall, was those whose
sexual life was dictated by occupation. ‘Long peaceful nights in
bed with his wife are a very rare occurrence in the lives of fire-
men, policemen, commercial travellers, nightwatchmen, market
Say:
SO.
A ~
gardeners, family practitioners, butchers and attendants of wagon-
ie lits. The list is itself ridiculous; it may be that this ridiculousness
reveals the prejudice that there is against treating seriously the
_ personal problem of those who regard sexual intercourse crudely
or lightly.’6
___ As we shall see much of Randall’s analysis is applicable to
_ present day conditions. His findings in the late twenties occurred
__ ina period which saw the beginnings of our contemporary sexual
| attitudes. . :
___ An American contribution, that of Dr. William J. Robinson,
__ to the same Congress approached the problem of the prostitute’s
_ clientele quite differently. Robinson’s answer to the question why
_ do men patronise prostitutes was what else could they do. From
the age of fifteen when the sex instinct was fully awakened society
allowed them no sanctioned outlet until the age of twenty-five
x
_ or thirty when they were able to marry. On the other hand
brothels claimed with some justification that half their clients
a were married men. Robinson explained this as due to the poly-
je _ gamous nature of man — his craving for variety. In this con-
ay"6 nection the services of the prostitute frequently had a therapeutic
effect in restoring lost potency with a wife. In such cases she |
a peade the monogamous marriage bearable. Monogamous mar-
prostitution. Minor causes were fear of making one’s wife preg-
nant, and the illness or disability of the wife. Amongst the un-
married clients of whores were men who dreaded the idea of
marriage and its responsibilities; and men who could only be
potent with a whore because the idea of her being used by others
stimulated them. Others suffered from premature ejaculation or
excessive virility and in neither case would be willing to enter
marriage for fear of offending the partner.
Robinson summarised his findings with regard to the prosti-
tute’s clientele in this way: ‘Men patronise prostitution because
they possess a normal sex instinct which, because of our social-
economic conditions and moral code, they can satisfy in no other
way, and because that instinct has, in many men, retained its
strongly polygamous, not to say promiscuous, character.’
Robinson was somewhat exceptional in his frank acceptance of
the necessity of prostitution granted the contemporary structure
of society. He visualised the prostitute as performing a useful
social function and her clientele was driven to her by necessity.
With one or two exceptions his categories of clients agree with
those of Randall.
In contrast to these two essentially masculine views as to why
man seek prostitutes the opinion of a prominent social worker,
Gladys Hall, is of considerable interest. In her book, Prostitution:
A Survey and a Challenge, published in 1933, she deals with the
category of the married client. ‘Prostitutes everywhere report
that their trade is in large measure financed by married men, who
weary of the indifference or antagonism of their wives turn to
public women for sympathy and gratification .. .’ There appear
to ‘be several reasons for this, one being the attitude towards sex
intercourse adopted by some husbands, to whom it is merely a
form of indulgence and whose excessive and growing demands
exceed all bounds. Such husbands are a severe problem in the
many cases which come within the knowledge of social workers
by reason of the wreckage of womanhood they achieve in the
person of their wives. I have one record of the medical warning
given to a clergyman, on the restoration of his wife after treat-
ment for mental breakdown, that her illness had been solely
caused by his excessive claim for “marital rights”. All social
workers who are intimately acquainted with the home life of their
poorer friends, where family interests are totally or largely non-
existent, know of the countless cases where wives, even when

al 249
‘ee or facetto thesrecsefor the intercourse they cannot or w '
not forgo. On the other hand a precisely opposite case may be
found in the attitude adopted by some wives to the intimate
relationships of marriage. For various reasons — innate aversion or
aversion. caused by shock in childhood or at marriage, from
selfishness, or ignorance — a wife will maintain a cold frigidity
towards an affectionate husband which has an incalculably bad
effect on his whole life. The effect of such an attitude in some
cases is found in the patronage of prostitutes in a vain attempt to
assuage the feeling of frustration and loneliness for which the
wife is responsible.’®
The author’s comments on the woman’s fear that the husband
will go elsewhere, and the frigidity of the wife leading to patron-
age of the prostitute is corroborated by a number of studies of
working class life. For example in a study of urban working class
marital relationships made during the last war it is stated: ‘Lack
of interest in sex relations, boredom and even dislike were fairly
common among women... Sexual incompatability was com-
mon, men nearly always having stronger desires than women;
when both partners had little desire, this was accepted thankfully
by both.’°7 We ourselves have come across cases of middle-aged
women who admit to having had intercourse only when a child
was wanted. This can almost be regarded as a relic of the Vic-
torian woman’s attitude towards sex — either reluctantly to
indulge the man, or for procreation. In our opinion the lack of
sympathy and understanding on the part of married couples
for-each other’s sexual problems is by no means confined to the
working class.
Ten years after Gladys Hall’s study the League of Nations
Advisory Committee on Social Questions issued a Report on the
prevention of prostitution. It listed a number of factors we have
discussed above as causing the demand for prostitution. In
addition the point was made that ‘. . . this demand becomes
' effective — that is to say, it succeeds in calling a supply into
existence — only where women are subordinated socially, intellec-
tually, and, above all, economically, to men... These causes may
all play their part. There are, however, others, less frequently
mentioned, which supplement them and which also help to
explain the rise and fall in prostitution at different times. In
countries and periods where there is great poverty and hardship,

250
 ge
E
e prostitution becomes rare. It appears to require for its existence a
certain surplus of wealth and energy among at least one class of
the population and to be favoured by an unequal distribution of
wealth,’68 .
We are inclined to agree with the first part of the statement —
that the social and economic subordination of women makes the
demand for prostitution effective. It is equivalent to saying that
prostitution will always exist as there is no society extant in
which there is complete sexual equality. It is, however, fallacious
to assume that there is a necessary correlation between the
existence of wealth and the development of prostitution. The
latter does not exist only to cater for wealthy clients. The poverty
stricken urban areas of all societies manage to support large
numbers of brothels. Poverty and destitution may of themselves
induce prostitution as was seen by the Allied occupation troops
after the Second World War. If driven by necessity women will
sell themselves for a very small monetary return. A factor which
was not mentioned in the Report at all concerns the fairly pros-
perous wife who turns to prostitution in order to buy expensive
- luxuries. This is a phenomenon we observed in contemporary
Israel where a certain number of middle class Jerusalem house-
wives were known to prostitute themselves in Haifa or Tel-aviv.
It is of course a type of prostitution which tends to occur in all
societies when the standard of living rises abruptly, and indivi-
duals are anxious to outdo their neighbour. This type of prostitu- -
tion is in the same category as that concerning women who
prostitute themselves in order to obtain a theatrical or film
engagement.
Kinsey in his report on male.sexual behaviour was probably
the first researcher to provide reliable statistical data on the
incidence of contacts with prostitutes. He established that about
69 per cent of the total white male population of the U.S.A. had
some experience with prostitutes. But these contacts were limited
to one or two experiences in the case of the majority. Only
between 3.5 and 4 per cent of the male population had their sole
sexual outlet with prostitutes.°° With regard to the factors
which cause a man to seek a prostitute Kinsey puts forward the
majority of those already discussed above. As well as these he
mentions the fact that some men think that the risk of venereal
disease is less from a prostitute in a brothel than from a casual
*- encounter with an ordinary girl. In the category of the ‘perverted’

251

eee
EF
ee
 he indicates tharpr fied53) r t the on cans:
activity outside the ‘normal’. This Appaeeny: means mou th- —
genital contacts. Again voyeurism — witnessing the sexual
activity of others — is really only possible in the brothel.7°
A factor which appears to be unique to the American scene is
the effect of the ‘dating’. complex in the society on perference for
intercourse with a prostitute. Kinsey points out that large num-
bers of young males insisted that intercourse with a ‘date’ was
only possible after the expenditure of a great deal of time and
money, in terms of presents and entertainment. In the ’forties
prior to American involvement in the war, ‘. . . the average cost
of a sexual relation with a prostitute was one to five dollars. This
was less than the cost of a single supper date with a girl who was
not a prostitute .. .’7!
An interesting class distinction with regard to contacts with
prostitutes is made by Kinsey. His data showed at lower social
levels there was a tendency to prefer intercourse with whores on
the ground that the overriding interest of such males was in actual
coitus. Ordinary girls expected both petting and interest to be
exhibited in them. Whereas on the other hand upper level males
disliked the lack of interest shown by the whore in petting, and
lack of erotic response.7”
A popular view of the prostitute, which we discuss in a later
chapter, is that she is invariably either mentally deficient or has
an unstable personality. It is interesting to see that one authority —_-
- Mrs. Sybil Rolfe — holds a similar view of the client. In her
opinion the majority of men who seek prostitutes are undergoing
abnormal emotional strain or have adolescent personalities.7
Clearly a number of clients would come into this category but a
large number would not if we are to accept the factors discussed
above as governing their behaviour. It is an opinion which refuses
to admit the possibility that individuals as normal as oneself may
adopt a course of conduct which we regard as repugnant. The
distinction between ‘normal’ people and those with personality
disorders is not always very clear. It would be wrong to assume
_ that men who do not visit prostitutes are protected by a ‘mature’
personality. The latter personality is akin to the ‘model’ world of
the economist — it is necessary to postulate its existence but almost
impossible to find in reality. It was pointed out in one of the best
_ studies of contemporary prostitution —- Women of the Streets — that
*, »- Many prostitutes receive customers who confess that they are

Bs Aa52 |
 Were es |
PIO res T : oa = S my “f J ~ : xe {

4 partially impotent with other women; I have met men who find
relief in relations with a prostitute, for she is a woman whom
they can despise and so dominate. The prostitute in turn is
completely without physical or emotional feeling for the man;
in her ability to remain detached from the relationship, she views
the apparent self-indulgence of the man with distaste. There is a
transference of guilt on to the partner. The man frequently
criticises the prostitute’s immorality, and the prostitute the man’s
infidelity to his wife. How far this is a reflection of guilt only
over the immediate situation, their present function, and how far
it can be regarded as being a reflection of the unconscious
morality I am unable to determine.’”4
What emerges from clinical material is that if we regard the
client’s recourse to the prostitute as deviant behaviour such
behaviour is frequently only part of a personality structure which
is normal in other respects. That is to say many perfectly
ordinary, respectable citizens have contacts with prostitutes.75
It is relevant here to consider how the prostitute sees her
clients, and it must be remembered that her attitude is in part
determined by the general attitude prevailing in the society with
regard to prostitution. The traditional status of the prostitute in
the Far East — Japan and China — is considerably higher than
that accorded her in the West. The Chinese client.of the harlot
even in the West treats her with a kind of respect. There is ‘...
a gentlemanliness about all Chinese men . . . She would not
dream of walking any streets except those of Chinatown.’7
The normal situation in our kind of society is for the client to go
to the prostitute despising her for providing the very service he
desires.
Prostitutes as a whole seem to agree that a large part of their
clientele is made up of men who require unusual types of sexual
satisfaction. This may not necessarily mean what is ordinarily .
understood as perversion. “They’re dogs, those men, dirty rotten
dogs,’ says twenty-nine-year-old Marsha Green in her eighth
month. ‘But I should worry. I’m not married to them, thank
God, and I don’t want nothing they got to give except money.
I see them one time or maybe a couple, so why should I care what
I do with them? You wouldn’t believe it, would you, but I been ;
making more money ever since this baby started in showing. a
Tricks (clients) who never gave me a tumble before think ’m -
something special now. Fools. I can name you plenty of times *g

oY > ( ? * 253
oa ie
¥ a ‘tien I see eee ie pias ite yor and take me a
instead. Not just me, old hags with no teeth in their mouths.’7
The predilection for old whores is a-well-known phenomenon
in New York and may be explained in terms of the desire to
degrade commerce with the whore as much as possible.7®
Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex relates the violent
reaction of a prostitute to an innocent ‘perversion’. “The girl
insisted that ninety per cent of her customers had vices .. . if
they were too imaginative, they frightened her. A German officer
wanted her to parade naked around the room with an armful of
flowers, while he imitated a bird taking flight; despite his
generosity and politeness, she fled whenever she saw him coming.
Marie-Thérése abhorred all such vagaries, though they were
priced much higher than simple coitus and often gave the girl
less trouble.’79
The prostitute is aware of her role as a despicable one, and this
helps to explain the hatred of clients who enjoy a respected status
in the world but with her are beasts. Helene Deutsch brings this
out very clearly in her analysis of a prostitute patient. ‘She had no
moral opinion on the subject of prostitution, and her contempt
for the outside world was genuine. The social order was for her
represented by men occupying high and important positions ...
Asked why she hated and despised these men, she would
answer: “Why not? Don’t we know better than anyone that
these men easily drop the mask of gentility, self-control, and
importance, and behave like beasts? ... . These men come to us
expecting to have their way with us for money. If they meet the
slightest resistance, they snivel, beg or fly into a rage.” ’®°
The range of fantasies which the prostitute is called upon to
help project is extraordinary. Some typical examples cited in a _
recent autobiography of a prostitute are acting the part of a
virginal bride, to perform coitus in the normal way but to wear
button boots while doing so, to pretend to be a subordinate in an
office caught in some wrongdoing, to treat the client as a sick -
and naughty child.®* At time the sadistic element in the fantasy
_ becomes paramount and the unfortunate prostitute may be
severely injured. In one case-a naval officer spoke of flagellation
to the prostitute. ““You mean you want to try it on me”, I said.
I recognised the tremulous jocularity in which a man will cloak
a request he daren’t make openly. He admitted he did. He pro-
mised eagerly he wouldn’t hit hard. Since he seemed quite gentle

254 . |
~ and Sobers Iwent over toAlice’sflatand Saeed a cat-0’-=nine-
_ tails she kept in a drawer. No sooner was it in his hands than he
_ lost all control of his desires. It seemed as if the power of hurting
_ me had intoxicated him in a moment. He whirled the knotted
cords above his head and lashed out till the blood streamed down
my back and I screamed with pain . . .’82
Many customers may demand the assistance of the whore in
acting out their fantasies but many others have entirely different
needs. ‘Others, among the malingerers who incite pity, are the
vast army of lonely, unloved and unwanted men who come to us
seeking an oasis in their loneliness, fooling themselves out of
desperation that the friendliness they have bought is genuine,
feeling at home in the warm pink glow of shaded lamp and fire
and feminine company, relaxing, replenishing themselves, treat-
ing one for as long as they are allowed to as their own, shyly or
urgently clinging, and loth to break the spell, to leave their short
moment of content, so that in the end one has to be brutal, to
remind them of what they are and where they are, and that their
time is up.’83
In our opinion not enough attention has been paid in the
literature to the component of loneliness in the motivation of the
client. It is a component which has become more significant as
urban life has increased with its inevitable emphasis on the anony-
mous and the impersonal. The therapeutic aspect of the prosti-
tute’s role in Western society has been overshadowed by the more
sexually obvious characteristics of that role. The failure to.
- recognise this is a reflectionof the general disrepute in which the
‘harlot is regarded. This same disregard can be traced back to its
origins in Victorian sexuality. In contrast Japan, traditionally,
accepted the therapeutic function of the-whore in the person of
‘ the geisha whose sexual role is minimal. It should be remem-
bered, however, that in the West for many blind, malformed,
diseased, and lonely men the prostitute’s room is the os haven
they can obtain.
_All clients, whether perverted or lonely, appear to share a
_ propensity to deceive or trick the woman they have bought. On ~
her side the prostitute will adopt similar methods to extract
money from the client. This varies from petty pilfering to black-
mail with the aid of her ponce. The normal procedure is for the
whore to demand her money before intercourse takes place. If
‘this is not forthcoming the deal is off. Occasions may arise, such

255
asa drunken customer, when pay! ent is only
In some instances the client will produce half the:money
the rest will follow when he is satisfied. Bilking by this method c
is frequent. Nevertheless payment is important for the client for
it enables him to rationalise that this is a bought woman and
therefore degraded and to be despised. He is degrading himself
by being a partner in her degradation.
In the light of the above discussion it is possible to make an -.
attempt to classify the contemporary clientele of the prostitute:

A. Sado-masochistic perverts.
B. Clientele determined by occupation — the sailor is the
prototype.
C. The functionally impotent.
D. The malformed, diseased, and lonely.
E. The adolescent.
F, The ordinary person.

Clearly an individual might appear in more than one of these

categories. Nevertheless it is suggested that a classification on
these lines is helpful for an analysis of the clientele which seeks
sexual intercourse for money.
It is possible that group A may constitute the largest number
of clients. Support for such a view is to be found in a paper by
Petiziol and Tolentino — Contribution al étude de la personalité de _
Vhomme éui fréquente la prostitute - given at the international
Abolitionist Federation Congress at Cambridge in 1960.** The
authors based their study on information provided by 215 prosti- -
tutes concerning their clients. Of the cases considered 29 per cent
were completely free from any elements of perversion. The
remaining 71 per cent were divided as follows: 19 per cent
masochists, 14 per cent fetishists, 11 per cent voyeurs, 10 per cent
masochists with homosexual tendencies, 9 per cent sadists and
9 per cent pornolists, that is individuals only capable of sexual
excitation through abuse. According to another authority a
category missing from this group comprises those individuals
who wish the prostitute to perform fellatio — mouth-genital
contact. It is maintained that this is increasing in France at the
present time, and is common in the centre of cities. The prosti-
tute picks up single men in cars at traffic lights. They drive to a
lonely street where she performs this service, and swiftly returns _

256
 Oe WRT ge
y to her beat. *s It is possible that the 29 per cent of perversion-free
_ Clients might be further reduced as a number of them while free
from overt manifestations would indulge in fantasies of perver-
sion during their contact with prostitutes.
In our opinion Group A is a constant factor. That is to say
while different circumstances might affect the numbers involved
in the other groups the perverted individuals are not influenced
by such factors. For example change of occupation will not make
a person less perverted while the sailor who comes permanently
ashore may very well change his sexual habits.
The hazards affecting Group B are fairly obvious. Employment
which involves considerable separation from home life exposes
the individual to seek the prostitute both from loneliness and
sexual desire. It could of course be said that character defects
have led such men into this kind of occupation. And further, that
they prefer impermanent sexual relationships.*
The functionally impotent in Group C represent an interesting
section of the prostitute’s clientele. While they are probably rep-
resented in all the groups nevertheless they can be distinguished
as a separate category. For sexual congress to be achieved all ideas
involving repression must be excluded. In the case of the func-
tionally, impotent repressive ideas inhibit the completion of
coitus. It has been suggested that this phenomenon is the result
of conditioning in terms of education.®7 It is a conditioning which
affects a small but significant section of society in this country —
the upper middle class. The inhibitions induced by their special
upbringing and education produce an individual whose beha-
viour is impeccably ‘correct’ in all circumstances but who is
incapable of free expression. In sexual terms his impotence will
disappear in a relationship with a prostitute. It is with his wife
from his own social background that he finds himself incapable.
In our opinion this Group is the contemporary manifestation of
the Victorian ethos which excluded sexual pleasure from the
marital relationship but permitted and encouraged it with women
of an inferior social class — harlots.
We have already discussed above the function of the prostitute
- with relation to Group D. The most controversial category is
undoubtedly that comprising adolescent males, Group E. While
many people would be prepared to admit that in the case of the
categories discussed so far there are compelling reasons why they
~ seek the services of the prostitute the same cannot be said of

wf 257

e
 1
example, oe fatal loss of respect for the other:pares in an illici
union... Such, and other, disastrous consequences are inevitable —
when the emotional reactions of the sex act are experienced out-
side the creative and self-giving settings of a daily and life-long ~
union, or of the begetting and nurture of children.’** Thus the
former Bishop of Rochester. It is a view which at the present time -
is being steadily eroded. A revolutionary Christian view is that
of the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge (H. A. Williams). In
discussing the Church’s condemnation of sexual intercourse out-
side marriage he maintains this condemnation is on grounds of
the exploitation of an individual. In fact, Williams says, there are
circumstances in which exploitation may not occur — he cites the
incident of the sailor and the prostitute in the Dassin film Never
on a Sunday. ‘*. . The prostitute gives herself to him in such a
way that he acquires confidence and self-respect. He goes away
a deeper, fuller person than he came in. What is seen is an act of
charity which proclaims the glory of God. . .’8° This is very far
removed from the orthodox view of the Bishop of Rochester
quoted above.
The difficulty arises in the confusion between the desire for
sexual intercourse and love. There is an insistence, by some
authorities, that there must be a coincidence of the two: ‘. . . the
sex relation is not love, and . . . sexual relation with the prostitute
has from the beginning nothing to do with love. Such an associa-
tion is a degradation of the word love and of all that it rep-
resents.’°° What has to be considered is that in adolescence the
libidinal drive is at its height. Hitherto masturbation has provided
the outlet. In adolescence the urge is directed outwards to the
female, and it is at this point that the prostitute can perform a
necessary service. It is absurd to expect that the first sexual
experience of a boy will result in a life long relationship. It may
do, and may very well be the ideal. What the prostitute can do,
precisely because of the relationship between the couple, is to
provide an initiation into love-making. As Oswald Schwarz has
put it: “The service the prostitute renders to the adolescent, and
through him to society, is to teach him the technique of sex
life and to offer themselves as a training ground. The impersonal _
character of this kind of association is essential for this purpose,
_____ because any emotional contact would interfere with the uncon-
 7 - ~~ © —

eee with frie but the mere action. And this practical
training is indispensable for the satisfactory performance of the
complex act of making love.’
In a recent French enquiry into pte-marital sexual activity
some interesting material came to light. The sample consisted of
149 married males who were practising Catholics. 60 per cent
admitted to such activity. Of these 8 per cent had their first sex
experience with the girl they later married, 44 per cent with a
girl friend, and 47 per cent with a prostitute. It is true to say
that in Europe the traditional method of sexual initiation requires
the services of the prostitute. Michael Schofield in his The Sexual
Behaviour of Young People (1965) supports the view that adoles-
cents in Britain have minimal contact with prostitutes. His con-
_ tention is that the vast majority of sexual encounters are with
girl friends — steadies, acquaintances, and strangers.°3 This of
course is contrary to Kinsey’s findings in America which we have
already quoted. It is also in conflict with the evidence produced
by Dr. T. C. N. Gibbens in a clinical enquiry. Gibbens remarks
that formerly young men had their first sex experience in the
army but that “Today, it is the holiday trip to Spain, France or
Italy, with friends who have heard where the night spots are,
which provides the opportunity and frees them from the re-
straints of home. A good deal of V.D. seems to be brought back
» from these holidays.’®+ It is possible that there were few young
people who had taken holidays abroad in Schofield’s sample. Our
own view would agree with Gibbens’ that a significant number
of initial sexual contacts on the part of young males are made with
|. prostitutes. There can be little doubt that this number was much
greater in the past, and that as a more liberal sex ethic develops
pre-marital intercourse will be between peers. Whether this will
provide the same knowledge of the techniques of love-making
as that imparted by the prostitute is debateable.
The last category we suggested, F, that of the ordinary person,
is somewhat broad. Within it can be discerned a number of
sections. Firstly there are the individuals who go with a prostitute
_ through a fortuitous encounter - a meeting in the street coinci-
ding with a strong sexual urge. Secondly there are men whom for
_ avariety of reasons do not wish to enter on an emotional relation-
ship but at the same time have strong sexual feelings. A third
"group is made up of married men whose wives either refuse to
” respond sexually, or will not tolerate any deviation whatsoever of

sot | 259
 iecbne ised ingroup saivity where they fe a
to go with a prostitute in order to demonstrate their virility.
In a fifth section could be placed businessmen visiting London. ©
The host firm places call girls at their disposal, and they succumb
to the invitation. The last section is composed of prominent
.
individuals, such as film stars, who find that, because of their
social position ordinary affairs with women of their own class
may lead to undesirable complications and thus they prefer a
straightforward commercial arrangement.
It is possible to put forward the hypothesis that ail the clients
:
-of the prostitute being promiscuous, possess an incapability for
proper sexual relationships. To that extent they are abnormal or
SAN
Ay
ORiRb
deviants from the norm of those who do possess this capacity.
Such individuals have developed in this manner through child-
hood failure to establish reciprocal parental relationships. That is
disorders in the emotional development of the individual in
childhood lead to the emergence of adult patterns of promiscuity.
It has been put in this way: ‘Habitually promiscuous individuals
never reach full sexual maturity; each of their numerous sexual
affairs has a playful character and resembles masturbatory gratifi-
cation more than a mature union; the multiplicity of their affairs
points to a search for the unobtainable. In other words, habitual
promiscuity is a reactive phenomenon related to frustration early
in life. In their phantasy lives, the habitually promiscuous feel
themselves deprived of, and deceived about, what they regard as
their due. Their promiscuity is a compulsive-repetitive expres- _
sion of their demands.’95
Such a hypothesis to be substantiated would need a great deal
77of clinical evidence to support it. Unfortunately there have been
remarkably few investigations of the psychology of the prosti-
tute’s client. On the other hand indirect evidence, especially with
ie regard to the last group in our classification, suggests that circum-
stance may be as compelling a motivation as a defective per- _
sonality. It must also be remembered that the ordinary feelings of _
guilt associated with any form of sexual activity in our society
may well promote the feeling that the individual who associates
with prostitutes must be deviant or abnormal. That a man in his
__ right mind, with no severe character defects, should wish to have
__ intercourse with a whore because he needs sexual release is not a
 ollaaie aia
ieaaa
ae
Ta
4 confortable ae Tf ak facnens it can only degrade the
concept of sexual love.
“What are the exceptions to the statement that sex is impossible
without love? Are the sexual relations of a man with a prostitute
to be considered an expression of love? The answer must be yes.
The sexual feelings of a man for a prostitute express his love for
her in his desire for closeness and in the fact of erection. Unfor-
tunately, sexual love in our culture is not free from secondary
feelings of shame, disgust, guilt, and hostility. Their presence ina
person distorts the significance of the sexual act and undermines
its values. They may render the expression of sexual love impos-
sible except under conditions that permit the release of these
associated feelings. The man who can function sexually only
with a prostitute indicates thereby that he is capable of only loving
a prostitute, not a woman of his own class and standing . . .’%
The desire for the prostitute from a multiplicity of motivations
appears to be constant. The client himself is as varied as the
prostitute.

Notes and References

1 Quoted by August Babel, Woman, London N.D., pp. 92-3.

2 These figures are taken from an article in the Westminster
Review, Vol. 36, 1869, pp. 184-5. The article describes the
difficulties of arriving at an accurate estimate.
wo This table was compiled from figures given in W. Acton,
Prostitution, London 1857, pp. 18-19; the Westminster Review,
Vol. 37, 1870, p. 163; and A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet, Histoire
de la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris, Paris 1857, Vol. I, p.
36, and Vol. II, pp. 443, 464, 755, 794 834, 840, and 872.
> Taylor, Bayard, ‘Northern Travels,’ quoted in the West-
minster Review, Vol. 37, 1870; p. 141.
ua Myrdal, Alva. Nation and Family, London 1945, p. 42. See
also K. Rob. V. Wikman, ‘Die Einleitung der Ehe’ in Acta
Academiae Aboensts, XI, Abo 1937.
' 6 Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor, Extra
Fourth Volume, London 1861, pp. 176-7.
i Logan, William. The Great Social Evil, London 1871, pp.
107-8.

261
 : ia
Oued by ie Wardlaw, Lectures |on Female Promo Pe
Glasgow 16425 95.
Ibid.
Bloch, I. The Sexual Life of our Time, London 1909, p. 341.
For a detailed study of the Animierkneipen see H. Seyffert, ©
‘Animierkneipen and their Secrets’ in Freie Meinung, Berlin
1906, Nos. 26 and 27; also Report on Impropriety at Inns with
Female Attendants in Prussia, with especial Reference to the
Conditions in Cologne, Berlin 189K,
Bloch, op. cit., pp. 343-4.
Sanger, W. H. The History of Prostitution, New York 1919,
pp. 246-7.
Ellis, Havelock. Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Philadelphia
1913, Vol. VI, p. 296.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 299.
See in this connection C. H. Rolph, editor, Women of the
Streets, London 1955.
Ellis, op. cit., p. 298.
Ryan, Michael. Prostitution in London, etc., London 1839,
p. 382.
Bloch, I., op. cit., p. 571.
Freud, S. ‘A Child is being Beaten, A Contribution to the
“Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions’ in Collected Papers, )
pe
ams
2S
LS Vol. II, London 1957.
Stekel, W. Sadism and Masochism, N.Y. 1929, Vol. I, p. 363.
keer
eet
- bv
oN
un
a
Works of Christopher Marlowe, London 1826. Vol. III, p. 454.
ed Quoted by Bloch, op. cit., p. 373.
ST
ee Quoted in an article in Le Paris, December 24th, 1889.
= Quoted in Rev. W. M. Cooper, The History of the Rod,
_ London N.D., p. 465.
-
Yen)

Quoted by Cyril Pearl, The Girl with the Swansdown Seat, —

London 1955, pp. 238-9.
Quoted by Bloch, op. cit., p. 375.
Cooper, op. cit., pp. 395-6. ,
Fraxi, Pisanus. Index Librorum Prohibitoru, London 1877, pp. —
399-400.
 pai Sa" one 4 dale Pe th eat i. bald
; es Ska 5
te , ' chi

34een by PisanusI Fraxi, Op. cit., pp. 312-13.

35 Ibid., p. 313.
36 Quoted by Charles Terrot, The Maiden Tribute, London 1959,
Dp. 54.
37 Mrs. Jeffries’ career with reference to white slavery is dis-
cussed in the chapter on that phenomenon.
38 Sanger, op. cit., pp. 357-8.
39 Acton, op. cit., pp. 35-6.
40 Ellis, op. cit., p. 327.
at Ibid.
42 Bloch, op. cit., pp. 393-4.
43 King, Ambrose. “Venereal Disease among Young People,’
WHO Chronicle, Vol. 19, No. 4, April 1965, p. 146.
44 Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year 1965, pp. 175-6.
45 Bloch, op. cit., p. 394.
46 Scott, Benjamin, A State Iniquity, London 1890, p. 48.
47 Acton, op. cit., pp. 49-50.
48 Bloch, op. cit., p. 293.
49 Flexner, A. Prostitution in Europe, N.Y. 1914, pp. 44-5.
50 Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, London 1963,
Vol. II, p. 208.
t Flexner, op. cit., p. 45.
wo

52 Gemahling, Paul. ‘Maisons Tolérées Scandal in Strasbourg,’

The Shield, Third Series, Vol. IV, No. 6, Aug.—Sept. 1925,
PP. 235-6.
on
Flexner, op. cit., pp. 41-2.
$3 ‘Zeitschrift fiir Bekampfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten,
Leipzig N.D., XIII, pp. 154 and 164.
55 Quoted by Flexner, op. cit., p. 43.
56 yon Grubner, M. Die Prostitution, Vienna 1905, p. 40.
57 Zeitschrift, op. Cit., p. 70.
58 The Shield, Third Series, Vol. III, No. 3, April 1921, p. 137.
59 Flexner, op. cit., p. 108.
60 The Shield, Third Series, Vol. I, No. 3, Oct. 1916, p. 158.
6: Pemberton, Sir Max. Weekly Despatch, June 2nd, 1917.
62 An interesting paper on this development in Germany during
the First World War is that of Marianne Weber, ‘Moral,
Problems in Germany,’ The Shield, Third Series, Vol. I,
No. 7, Dec. 1917; pp. 440-6.
_ 6 Randall, R. G. ‘Individual Aspects of Prostitution Among the
English Middle Class,’ in Report of the Sexual Reform Congress

a 263
pbc?
 ah t
‘the World, itsPOnin Causes and its Future,’ in pee
of the Sexual Reform Congress, op. Cit., p. 288.
66 Hall, Gladys. Prostitution: A Survey and a Gnekerer, London
1933, PP. 99-100.
67 Slater, Eliot, and Woodside, Moya. Patterns of Marriage, K
London 1951, p. 273.
68 Prevention of Prostitution, League of Nations Publications,
C.26, M.26, 1943, [V, Geneva 1943,p. 26.
69 Kinsey, A. C., et al., Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male,
London and Philadelphia 1948, p. 597-
70 Tbid., p. 607.
7 Ibid.
7 Thbid., p. 609.
73 Rolfe, Mrs. Sybil. Social Biology and Welfare, London 1949;
p. 188. .
74 Rolph, C. H., editor. Women of the Streets, London 1955, p. 8.
75 See T. C. N. Gibbens’ pamphlet, The Clients of Prostitutes,
The Josephine Butler Society, London 1962, p. 6.
76 Murtagh, John M., and Harris, Sara. Cast the First Stone,
London, 1961, p. 17.
77 Tbid., p. 15.
78 Tbid., pp. 15-16.
79 de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, Paperback Edition,
London 1960, p. 268.
8° Deutsch, Helene. Psychology of Women, London 1944, Vol. I,
Pp. 209.
& Cousins, Sheila. To Beg I am Ashamed, London 1959, pp. 138,
139, and 140.
82 Tbid., p. 151. A comparable experience is given in Anon.,
Streetwalker, London 1959, pp. IOI—10.
8 Anon. Streetwalker, London 1959, p. 17.
* “In La Prostitution: ‘Quelques Problémes Actuels,? Revue —
' Abolitionniste, No. 186 bis’ (3e. série) 86e année, Geneva,
Hiver 1960-1.
8 le Moal, Dr. Paul. ‘The Client of The Prostitute? in The
Participants in Prostitution, Report of the International ;
Abolitionist ‘Federation Conference at Athens 1963, Geneva _
1964; pp. 7-8.
+
Pm—
 Meee
te :
a3 a ne 5 Oe
a - rae PE
Pee
> 24 ; aK
ee i
Sk 64 Pan
4
he
t
Se aA
¥i! ‘

Ss 7 i ee) : , + oN er i ees
86 See afiaiedop. cit.9D: 9.
87 Walker, Kenneth, and Fletcher, Peter. Sex and Society,
London 1958, pp. 152-3. See also S. Freud, ‘Contributions to
the Psychology of Love: The Most Prevalent Form of De-
gradation in Erotic Life (1912), Collected Papers, London
1925, Pp. 203-17.
88 Chavasse, Rt. Rev. C. M., Bishop of Rochester, “The Church
and Sex,’ The Practitioner, No. 1030, Vol. 172, 1954, p. 352.
89 Williams, H. A. “Theology and Self-Awareness,’ Soundings,
ed. A. R. Vidler, Cambridge 1964, p. 81.
9° Je Moal, Dr. Paul, op. cit., p. 4.
1 Schwarz, Oswald. The Psychology of Sex, London 1949,
pp. 75-6.
9 le Moal, Dr. Paul, op. cit., p. 5.
9 Schofield, Michael, The Sexual Behaviour of Young People,
London 1965, p. 86.
% Gibbens, H. N. C., op. cit., p. 7. See also L. A. Kirkendall,
Premarital Intercourse and Interpersonal Relationships, N.Y.
1961.
95 Wittoker, E. D., and Cowan, J. ‘Some Psychological Aspects
of Sexual Promiscuity,’ Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol. VI,
No. 4, October 1944, p. 292.
9° Lowen, Alexander. Love and Orgasm, London 1966, p. 41.

265

PES
Es
te
 8: White Slavery

-RECRUITMENT to prostitution is either voluntary, or by force.

The press-ganging of European women into service as harlots
gave rise to the use of the term White Slave Trade at the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century. The activity — the procuration of
women against their will — is as old as prostitution itself. One of
the characteristics of the male demand for prostitutes has been.
the desire for variety. In response to that desire an elaborate net-
work of procuration was created to supply brothels with ‘foreign’
whores. Thus an international traffic in women has existed since
classical times. The trade has-contracted and expanded at dif-
ferent periods in the history of prostitution. It had, and has, two
_ main purposes — to supply the internal market, and to satisfy the .
overseas demand.
It is not our purpose here to chart the whole history of the
White Slave Trade but to analyse certain aspects of that trade
from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the present
time.

266
 1WONG
See Acta OS
Ml eM a n aisewDiane aaa a
f In the Britain of the 1880s procuration was concerned to
satisfy the needs of brothels for foreign girls, to arrange the ex-
port of English girls to Europe, and to provide virgins for domestic
consumption. This last gave rise to one of the most extra-
ordinary developments in white slavery. The ramifications of this
particular aspect of the trade was first brought to the notice of the
public in a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885,
entitled “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’. The Gazette
at that time had as its editor a most remarkable man — W. T.
Stead. The son of a Congregational Minister in the North, Stead
had achieved the editorship of the Northern Echo in Darlington.
In 1877 he was offered the assistant-editorship of the Gazette
under John Morley and moved to London. The year before he
_ had become interested in white slavery through the work and
propaganda of the great social reformer, Mrs. Josephine Butler.
Stead was determined to expose the evils of the modern Babylon
— London. His crusading zeal was so enormous that he invited
imprisonment, and served a term, for procuring girls under the
age of consent.
The Gazette set up a secret commission under the leadership of
Stead. Its object was to make a first hand investigation of prosti-
tution in London, and to present its results to the public. One of
the most strange features of the London brothel complex at that
time was the almost insatiable appetite of clients for virgins. The
demand was so great that a number of fairly obvious subterfuges
were adopted in order to deceive customers. The latter on their
part always insisted, before payment, on being given a certificate
signed by a doctor or a midwife attesting that the girl was a virgo
intacto. It is extremely difficult to find an explanation for this
outbreak of defloration mania in London at this time. Brothels
all over the world have always had to cater for a minority of
clients with this predilection, but it is only in Britain that the
demand ever reached immense proportions. In Europe it
appears to have been kept within reasonable bounds. In one of
the stories attributed to Cervantes, La tia finigida, mention is
made of devices similar to those used in London in the nineteenth
century in gulling the practitioner of defloration."
Many writers in the first part of the century comment on the
existence of child brothels in London. Ryan was able to identify a
number of these establishments both in Bedford Square, and the
; East End in the 1830s.? French observers were amazed at the

f
267
extentatof childpeosttation There was even ar :
where they could be bought for any purpose. ‘Entre Spitalfields —
et Bethnal Green, sur une route dont l’accroissement de la
population a fait une rue, se tient, les lundis et les mardis, entre
six et sept heures du matin, un marché aux enfants.’ The Lon-
don correspondent of the Figaro noted that twelve- and fifteen-
year-old girls paraded up and down between Piccadilly Circus
and Waterloo Place.*
Towards the end of the century the appetite noticed in the first
decades had reached impressive proportions. The Englishman’s
reputation on the Continent became that of a flagellant, and a
despoiler of virgins. Stead illustrates vividly how that reputation
came about. At the beginning of his enquiry he asked an experi-
enced police officer: ‘ “. . . If I were to go to the proper houses,
well introduced, the keeper would, in return for money down,
supply me in due time with a maid — a genuine article, I mean,
not a mere prostitute tricked out as a virgin, but a girl who had
never been seduced?” “Certainly,” he replied without a mo-
ment’s hesitation. ‘“But,” I continued, “are these maids willing
or unwilling parties to the transaction — that is, are they really
maiden, not merely in being each a virgo intacta in the physical
sense, but as being chaste girls who are not consenting parties
to their seduction ?”” He looked surprised at my question .. . “Of
course they are rarely willing, and as a rule they do not know.
what they are coming for.” ’5
Later on in his researches Stead remarks that some of the vir-
gins he interviewed. were not really aware of what the loss of |
their maidenheads implied, and in any event did not know the
physical processes involved. Many screamed and were violent
when deflowered. In some cases they had to be held down by the
brothel keeper, or strapped to the bed, while the act was accom- _
plished. The screams of the wretched girls, through suitable —
arrangements, could rarely be heard outside the room. The resis-
tance and screaming of their victims was part of the attraction
for clients. “To some men, however, the shriek of torture is the
essence of their delight, and they would not silence by a single
note the cry of agony over which they gloat.’
Girls deflowered in this way did not necessarily or immediately
become prostitutes. One brothel keeper told Stead: ‘Our business |
is in maidenheads, not in maids. My friends take the girls to be
seduced and take them back to their situations after they have

268 ,r
F
Ree a
eth sete: and thatiis an end of it i as far as we are concerned.
We do only with first seductions, a girl passes only once through
our hands, and she is done with. Our gentlemen want maids, not
damaged articles, and as a rule they only see them once . .. Lhey
all go back to their situations or places but ... they all on the
Streets after a time. When once a girl has chen bad she goes
again and again, and finally she ends like the rest. There are
scarcely any exceptions.’
The girls were recruited by a variety of means. One of the
commonest practices was through advertisements in country
papers for situations for domestic service. On arrival a girl
would be duly installed in a house with a kind mistress. Grad-
ually, introduced to strong drink, she would be enlightened as to
the real purpose of the ‘house’. The awakening might be trau-
matic but there was very little she could do. Normally the local
police would have been bribed so that recourse to them was use-
less. With no money, and honeyed inducements as to the life
she would be able to live, the wretched child inevitably succumb-
ed. Another popular method was the use of decoys in places of
work such as cafés and dress shops. The decoy set out to con-
vince the potential recruit that to follow her advice would mean a
life of ease and finery.
_ Anexcellent source of supply was to be found in young Irish
girls coming to England in search of work. They were met on the
_wharf at Liverpool by a stranger who offered to show them
a cheap hotel. Once in the brothel their money was taken to pay
_ for board and lodging, and the softening-up process began in the
way suggested above. Some girls escaped the traps at Liverpool
_ and arrived in London. There an extremely effective device was
utilised. A woman dressed as a Sister of Mercy would approach
them saying she had been sent from a convent to meet them, and
take care of them. Introduced into the brothel the system worked
as in the other methods — drink, no money, and the life of luxury
awaiting them.
All first class procuresses employed decoys to operate in the
A main thoroughfares and stations in London. Any young girl out
alone was liable to be accosted by a well-spoken woman who
offered her assistance for shopping, or directions. Many were
lured into brothels in this way. Stead maintained that several
theatres and departmental stores in London were in fact no
_ better than brothels '= - the employees being at the disposal of

ie
LP SO Re rr wo
management. This is a state of affairs not entirely t
- today. .
Inevitably the corruption of the police in a society where state
control was unknown was a necessary part of the structure of the
system. One brothel keeper informant said: ‘The police are the
brothel keeper’s best friends .. . They keep things snug. And the
brothel keepers are the police’s best friends, ’cos they pay them.’
Three pounds a week was average payment for a small house.
Larger establishments might find their protection bill as much as
£500 a year plus reasonable access to the inmates as a fringe
benefit.
To satisfy his mania the client was obliged to pay according to
the quality of the girl, and the type of brothel. The procuress, if
she dealt with an, as it were, wholesale firm, would pay £5.
Retail in an East End bordell the price to the customer was £10.
In a superior establishment in the West End this was doubled.
‘The wholesalers’ profits were considerable. “Taking the average
price of a maid at £5, we sometimes take a £1; but sometimes
we take it all, and merely make the girl a present.’
One of Stead’s informants was a Member of Parliament who
gave him the following information. “That you can contract for
maids at so much a head is true enough. I myself am quite ready
to supply you with 100 maids at £25 each... There are plenty
of people among us entirely devoid of moral scruples on the
score of chastity, whose daughters are kept straight until they are
sixteen or seventeen, not because they love virtue, but solely be-
cause their virginity is a realisable asset, with which they are
told they should never part except for value received. These are ©
the girls who can be had at so much a head; but it is nonsense to
say it is rape; it is merely the delivery as per contract of the asset
virginity in return for cash down ...’ Such statements illustrate
the fact that virginity was regarded merely as a commodity by -
both procuress and client.
Apart from the methods of recruitment we have mentioned
above there was another, even more revolting, practice: ‘Another
. very simple mode of supplying maids is by breeding them. Many
women who are on the streets have female children. They are
worth keeping. When they get to be twelve or thirteen they be-
come merchantable. For a very likely “mark” of this kind you
may get as much as £20 or £40. I sent my own daughter out on
the streets from my own brothel. I know a couple of very fine

= a ;
 SM er a
i- little girls now rwdlowill be sold heaeeyvery long. They are bed
_ and trained for the life. They must take the first step some time,
s
and it is bad business not to make as much out of that as possible.
Drunken parents often sell their children to brothel-keepers. In
one street in Dalston you might buy a dozen .
London had become by this time a kind of entrepét for white
slavery. European brothels were not nearly so interested in
maidenheads as those in London so that a lucrative aspect of the
trade was the sending of ‘parcels’, that is women, already broken
in to prostitution to cities in Northern Europe. Brussels, Ant- —
werp, Lille, Boulogne and Ostend were all good customers of
English procurers. About one in three however, were virgins.
Exports of this kind were about 250 girls a year. ‘Girls as a rule
’ do not stay long in one house. They are constantly being ex-
changed and passed on from one brothel to another, so there is
no knowing how far into the interior of the Continent they may
ultimately make their way. They begin in Belgium, and the
North of France, and are worked gradually inland.’
Sensational as Stead’s articles were in the Pall Mall Gazette
their substance was entirely correct. This was vouched for by the
committee, set up to examine its authenticity, consisting of the
Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, the Bishop of
London and two eminent M.P.s, one a Q.C. They issued a signed
statement to this effect. Further evidence that there was a gigan-
_ tic network of prostitution in London had been supplied by the
trial of the notorious brothel-keeper Mrs. Jeffries in April 1885.
| The trial itself was a farce. The lady arrived at Court in a
brougham given her by an Earl, surrounded by guards officers,
and said to reporters: ‘Nothing can be done with me, as my
clients and patrons are of the highest social order.’ Mrs. Jeffries
possessed a chain of brothels throughout London which catered
for every conceivable whim of clients from maidenheads to
- birching. She had in fact a clientele of impeccable social posi-
_ tion. Their spokesman in the House of Commons was Cavendish-
Bentinck. Matters were arranged at the trial so that Mrs. Jef-
’ fries pleaded guilty and was fined £200, and was bound over for
' two years on the security of £200. Her military following was
assiduous in its attentions. She is reported to have said on an
occasion prior to the trial: ‘Business is very bad. I have been
» slack since the Guards went to Egypt.’
The effect of Stead’s articles was to achieve the passing! into

x <p
4;
Be 271
a
 Teigsen caWe ASNT

- Vic., c. 69) which made further provision for the prote

women and children, and for the suppression of brothels. It was
a considerable time, however, before the law proved effective.° |
The basis of the traffic in women and girls was undoubtedly
the necessity of brothels to provide variety for their customers.
‘The bordell is inseparable from the traffic in girls.’ “Without
bordells, no white slave traffic.’7 These are the opinions of two
eminent European authorities on prostitution. There does
appear, however, to be some doubt as to the nature and extent of
the traffic in the decade prior to the First World War. Flexner
was of the opinion that at this time the trafficker’s trade through
legislation and the tightening up of police control, had been
severely curtailed on the international scale. “The traffic in
youth has been hampered; but a traffic in women still remains —
traffic which, though it will not restore prosperity to the bordell,
is absolutely dependent for its existence on the prolonged life of
the house of prostitution.’® The terrible revelations made by
Stead of girls transported from England into European bordells
appeared to be no longer valid. Dr. Robert Heindl in Germany
had found that white slavery involving German girls for des-
patch overseas was of the greatest rarity, that it was doubtful if
German ports were ever used for this purpose, and no genuine
case of White Slavery had been discovered in Saxony in the last
ten years (1903-13).°
_ Nevertheless Flexner had to admit that the international traffic
persisted. ‘On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that
European cities and ports are utilised for purposes of transit to
South American ports where the trade still flourishes. A traffick-
er may entice a girl from Poland and Galicia on the promise of
marriage or work; indeed every police officer in Europe has a list ©
of men thus engaged. The countries from which women are
procured are believed to be mainly Hungary, Galicia, Poland,
and Roumania; the countries to which they are carried, Brazil,
Argentina, South Africa and the Levant. The pair steal through
- Vienna and Berlin and appear at the dock in Hamburg, Rotter-
dam, London, or some less prominent port just as the boat sails
for Rio Janeiro, Buenos Aires or a South African arbour — too
late to procure a warrant or detailed proof.’!°
However, the mainstay of the trade was the internal European
traffic. Some idea of the extent of this may be gained from figures

il
272
on,
.
concerning a group of thirteen brothels in the town of Teplitz,
in what is now Czechoslovakia, near the German frontier. In the
eighteen-month period between January 1909 and July 1910 550
girls passed through them. One brothel with only two prostitutes
had a population of 65 in this period."
It was not only a question of providing variety for clients
which created an inflated demand for women onthe part of the
brothel. At this period the European bordell was supplying re-
finements of perversion on a scale comparable to that of London
in the preceding century. ‘The bordell is a veritable school of ab-
normality. The Paris bordells are elaborately equipped for every
conceivable form of perverse indulgence. The inmates compete
with one another in forcing upon the youthful customer the
knowledge of unnatural and artificial forms of sexual gratifica-
tion.’? But it was not only Paris which competed in this field.
Every capital city in Europe had its quota of ‘special’ brothels. In
Stockholm: ‘. . . the girl-house is the main seat of perversity;
soon Stockholm will be as bad as Paris.’ Authorities agreed
that the strain imposed on these girls was far worse than the
working conditions of the streetwalker. Brothel-prostitutes of
this type could not hope for a long period of service. Thus the
turnover in inmates of such bordells tended to be high. |
There is a great deal-of evidence to suggest that the inter-
national traffic in women extended far beyond Europe and South
America in the decade before the 1914 War. Singapore, circa
1912, could offer an even greater variety of women and perver-
sions than Paris. Malay Street in the city was known as the
Babylonian Hell of the East. ‘It is the show street of the East for
women of ill-fame from every nationality under the sun. It is
said that there are 510 Babylonian houses in this street, and that
each house contains from eight to thirty women of ill-repute.
_ Fabulous prices have been paid for the goodwill and stock-in-
trade of some of the “‘best houses”’ in the street . . . Each house
has a large stone veranda, with overhead balconies, where from
three o’clock in the afternoon until ten or eleven o’clock in the
evening the poor, painted creatures, bedecked in their tinsel, sit
sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes, and accosting passers-by with
the invitation, “(Come here please” . . . Malay Street shelters"
-thousands of Japanese women, ninety per cent of whom, it is
said, are diseased; thousands of Chinese women; and hundreds of —
women of Germany, France, Austria, Russia and other countries.

273
 a that theoy crapine oujlder could afford to dispense with the
services of women from his own country. _
Curiously enough although Englishwomen were debarred by
local regulations from following the trade of a prostitute in the
Far East, no doubt from considerations of prestige, the same did
not apply to women from the United States. There was in facta —
strong demand for North American women. ‘At Hong Kong,
Shanghai, Siam, Borneo, and Calcutta, well-organised system of
supplying the demand for American women exists. The market
in those centres are. controlled by gangs or agents or “‘trusts”’ at
New York and California, and every detail of the unsavoury
- business is organised. Some of these “trusts” or “‘rings” are said
to be influential and wealthy. One thing is sure — they boldly
carry on a fearful trade in American girls, and most, of not all,
: of their number do not know what the inside of a gaol is like. The
-_ orders for girls for the Eastern “‘trade” are generally booked by —
cable, with the agents in the New York or Californian centres
_... 15 American officials in the Far East were apparently chary |
of making any attempts to stop the traffic because of possible
repercussions at home in terms of the violation of the rights of
American citizens!"© It should be noted that clients of these —
brothels were mainly Asians — Europeans preferred the more bs
exotic, from their point of view, localwomen. _ 4
Where the English prostitute was immensely popular was in _
i South America. That continent has long maintained a reputa- _
! tion for an amazing catholicity in its brothel services. Buenos
Aires before the 1914 War had nearly 1500 registered prosti-
tutes, of which less than 300 were Argentinian. The remainder
__- were entirely recruited from all over Europe. In the seventy first
. class houses of assignation in Buenos Aires English girls, freshly _
+ imported, were the only harlots offered to clients.17
With the international white slave traffic organised on this
scale is it not altogether surprising that official reactions were in-
_ clined, as suggested above, not to emphasise its importance. In
_ many instances the authorities through inadequate legislation -
___ were powerless to hinder the trade. National pudeur inhibited
_ frank discussion of the problems involved. No such inhibitions
_ applied to Wilhelm Joest, author of a book entitled From Japan
to Germany through Siberia. He writes: ‘. . . in no country in the

IA HEN
ag -

aoe
ee.
4

- world is such a trade with white slaves carried on as in Germany

and Austria; and from no country of the world are such numbers
of these human wares exported . . .”'8 According to Joest there
were three main routes and areas of reception. The first was via
Hamburg to South America. Brazil and Chile were minor mar-
kets while the Argentine and Uruguay were extremely profitable.
The Far East was supplied by German women travelling over-
land to Italy and thence to Egypt, India, and Malaya. The most
interesting information concerns the third area. ‘Russia is sup-
plied from East Prussia, Pomerania and Poland. The first station is
generally Riga. Here the dealers from St. Petersburg and Moscow
pick out what suits them, and send their wares in large num-
bers to Nijni-Novgorod and over the Ural to Irbit and Krestof-
sky, as far as the interior of Siberia . . This enormous business is
thoroughly organised, it is transacted by agents and commercial
travellers, and if the Ministers of Foreign Affairs were to demand
reports from all the German consuls very interesting statistical
tables might be made out.’9
The First World War created havoc in the white slave trade
through the disruption of trade routes and lines of communica-
tion. The traffic was not really to recover until the 1930s. In the
immediate post-war years the new League of Nations began to
interest itself in this vicious activity. Most European countries at
that time had systems of state regulated prostitution. In the view
of critics from countries where regulation was not in force
(abolitionist), such as Britain, the two aspects of prostitution —
the traffic in women and a state regulated system — were com-
plementary. Destroy the one and the other was incapable of
being carried on. There is a great deal in this argument. In the
case of Holland, which abolished regulations in 1906, it was said
in 1907 by traffickers: ‘Do not go to Amsterdam, there are no
licensed brothels; there is no business there for traffickers.’?°
Prior to this the situation was described in this way: ‘In one of
these large brothels, authorised and protected by the police, he
found that, during a year and a half, there had been no less than
77 French minors of 17 and 18 years of age procured from Paris
for Amsterdam and the Hague. All of them had passed through
the Police Office, and as the age-limit was 23 years the police had
passed these girls of from 16 to 18 as women of 23 years of
age.”2!
TReGélation in fact meant a number of things. There were

275

NE
ere
 - licensed house. But there were num! unlicer
‘tolerated’ houses. These had no- official existence, and wer
merely a matter of arrangement or bribery with local police
officers. When a directive was issued to expel foreign women
from licensed houses the women merely went into the ‘tolerated’
houses. The system of regulation gave rise to the most revolting
‘ abuses, and at the same time encouraged the traffic in women.
Opinion was divided in the twenties as to whether workers in the
field should press for abolition in every way, or be prepared to
compromise with the regulationist countries in the hope of sup-
pressing the white slave trade. It is a debate which has continued
right up to the present time.
The rise of the movement for women’s rights had given
ty enormous encouragement to those who were attempting to com-
bat the Social Evil. The first international Agreement which
bound the signatory countries to set up a central authority to
co-ordinate information regarding the traffic in women, and to
control procuration, was signed in Paris in 1904. Another was
signed in Paris in 1910 which set out obligations in greater detail.
The first League of Nations’ Convention regarding the traffic
Came into being in 1921. The following year the Assembly of the
League recommended the abolition of the employment of foreign —
women in maisons tolérées. The Advisory Committee of the
League passed a resolution in favour of the recommendation.
Denmark, Italy, Japan and Poland voted for it; France and
_ Uruguay against, and Roumania and the U.S.A. abstained. As a
| result of this Revolution a Committee of Inquiry into all the rami-
fications of the traffic was set up by the League in 1923. It is
" interesting to note that if Italy and Japan, both ocuntries with
regulation, had chosen to vote with France and Uruguay the
_recommendation would have been defeated. It is difficult to
___ explain the apparent equivocation of the United States.
_. The experts of the Committee of Inquiry brought out their . |
__- report in 1927. It is a most instructive document being the first
impartial survey of the whole problem. ‘Many hundreds of
P _- women and girls — some of them very young — are transported
if each year from one country to another for purposes of prostitu-
mt tion. Many of these, but not all, were prostitutes in their own
country, but nearly always there was evidence that their move-
ments were controlled by others, and many of them could not
 have realised the sort of life to which they would be subjected.
In some countries, where the number of registered prostitutes is
very high, 70 per cent are foreign women . . there is a constant
_ stream of foreign women proceeding to certain countries . . . the
numbers known are sufficiently large to constitute a serious
problem. . .”22
The main points which emerge from the Report are that in a
comparatively short space of time the traffic had re-established
itself after the disruption caused by the war, and that the meth-
ods, trade routes, and sources of supply were very similar to
what they had been before the war. The typical South American
pattern of prostitution is described in this way: ‘In the...
Theatre from one to two hundred clandestine prostitutes nightly
patrol the balcony in search of customers. These women are per-
mitted by the management to ply their trade and may enter
without paying any admission fee. The majority of these women
are of foreign birth. Many had just arrived and admitted that
they came there principally to make money, expecting after hav-
ing done so, to return to their native lands. These women are free
to operate in this way because the law does not prohibit soliciting,
except upon public streets. Rarely, if ever, except in red-light
prostitution districts, has the investigator — in a somewhat wide
experience — seen such a varied supply of women as in this inter-
national market place.’23
The registered prostitutes of Buenos Aires in 1924 numbered
1200 of which 75 per cent were foreigners. The number of
clandestine prostitutes, that is unlicensed, was estimated at any-
thing between 5000 and 10,000 of which a similar percentage was
thought to be alien. This calculation gave an estimate of 4500
foreign harlots in the city.?* Of the registered foreign prostitutes
the largest contribution was from France (102), England and
Portugal contributed only one each, Russia’s quota was 10, and
Poland 65.25 In direct contrast to the conditions in Buenos Aires
were those in Athens. There were 1040 registered prostitutes in
that city of which over 94 per cent were of Greek origin. On the
other hand Greece acted as an entrépét for the international
traffic.?¢
The Far Eastern aspects of the problem had to wait until 1937
_ before the League organised a conference of interested countries.
This met at Bandong in Java in February 1937. The problems
facing it were far greater than those of the 1927 meeting. The

277.
 ; ee ad nehieee a CR oFacute distress concerning —
Russian women. After the Russian Revolution in 1917 a consider-
_ able number of refugees had fled to Manchuria and China.
Tremendous hardship was experienced by these people. This ‘f
was particularly true of the women. ‘. . . there were (1937) 1800 _
Russian women at Harbin alone living by prostitution, while 300
of those women were isolated in the so-called Chinese part of the
town. In addition, according to a no less cautious estimate,
there were as many as 800 Russian women engaged in prostitu-
tion at Shanghai, while 900 more Russian women were in danger
of the same fate on account of the deplorable conditions in which
they lived... .”27
It was estimated that less than 5 per cent had been prostitutes
in Russia. It was almost impossible for these women to find nor-
H mal work in China. Many of them had been children at the time
;
of the emigration and had grown up as refugees, and found it im-
n
‘ possible to compete with the local low paid female labour. They
were quite literally forced into prostitution in order to support
themselves and their families.28
A comparison with conditions inside the Soviet Union is per-
haps relevant here. Czarist Russia had enjoyed a system of
_ regulation, and there were estimated to be 25,000 prostitutes
_ tegistered in-Moscow alone at the time of the Revolution. The e
a
e

_ new government introduced abolition, and claimed they were on

the way to eliminating prostitution. However, in a circular
issued by the Venereal Section of the People’s Commissariat of
Public Health and published in Izvestiya for December 16th,
1922, it was stated that: ‘... The New Economic Policy has again
called forth an increase in prostitution, which had begun to dis-
appear. News reaches us from various parts of the Republic of a
revival of all kinds of commercial prostitution, of secret centres
of vice, and of procuring. The tide of prostitution, which dis-
integrates social life, is rising . . .’ The response to this challenge
was the formation of a special militia to deal with prostitutes, and
the establishment of prophylactoria as centres of rehabilitation
and training for former prostitutes. ‘The prophylactoria are
work-rooms attached to a home and medical department in
which venereally diseased, workless, and untrained women,

278
 VA

<
iatmainly prostitutes, are received, medically treated, kept at work,
eth

and re-educated in a proletarian spirit. At the end of the treat-

ment the pupils in these prophylactoria are placed in factories,
‘in order to introduce them into working life . . .2° These institu-
tions were established all over the Soviet Union. The first and
largest of them was initiated in Moscow, where the women pro-
duced sacks and underclothing. In 1925-6 the inmates numbered
368, the largest group being in the age range of 18—25.3° The task
of the prophylactoria was: ‘. . . to change the whole habit of mind
and spirit of the women inmates. To that end everything is done
— sometimes even by means of artifice — to rouse their interest in
reading, in learning and knowledge, and to make them conscious
of the great difference between the present and the past .. .’!
Soviet philosophy insisted that prostitution was entirely due
to economic conditions, change these and prostitution would
wither away. As we have seen this is not necessarily the case.
But there was also a contradiction between the idea of the
prophylactoria, in which prostitutes were more or less forcibly
confined, and the spirit of the revolution. E. J. Dillon, who was
one of the great English experts on Russia at the time, wrote:
‘The Soviet woman, emancipated in both meanings of the word,
is the equal of her male fellow citizen in private and public life,
has unlimited power over her body, which she may dispose of as
she lists, without incurring the slightest penalty . . .32 The Mos-
cow streetwalker of the ’twenties confronted by the militia, and
asked to accompany them to the nearest prophylactorium hardly
exemplified this theory.
Information regarding the contemporary situation in a
Soviet Union is sparse. So far as we are aware prostitution in
Russia was not discussed at either of the two recent conferences
of the International Abolitionist Federation at Cambridge in
1960, and Athens in 1963. One American commentator on the
Russian scene in 1960 noted that there had been a recrudescence
of prostitution since the thirties. Owing to the shortage of
- accommodation prostitutes were utilising taxi-cabs in the row
near the Moskva Hotel in Moscow, as in the famous American
phrase, ‘brothels on wheels’. In the Stalin era this would not
have been possible. The manifestation can be taken as part of the
general relaxation of the control over the lives of citizens in the
Soviet Union which is a phenomenon of our times.
As we have said, the core of the struggle against the white

279
the saasser esof Britain, Seiodidacte Holland, Germany anes
Yugoslavia most European countries either had maisons tolérée or
a system of registration for prostitutes. The most prominent of —
such countries were France and Italy. Im some of the countries
which had no official system of registration and control there
were, nevertheless, a number of tolerated areas. For example the
prostitutes’ quarters in Amsterdam, and in Hamburg. The
world figures indicated that 50 countries had some form of offic-
ial regulation and 29 had not. In many of the latter brothels
flourished with the connivance of the police.3+
By the 1950’s France and Italy had abolished their brothel
systems, and there were 119 abolitionist countries against 19
which still possessed some form of regulation and medical
inspection. But exactly the same considerations would apply as
they did in the ’thirties — that local arrangements are made with
the police and authorities in many countries to allow the con-
tinued existence of brothels.35
_ The demoralisation which is the corollary of state regulation is _
very well illustrated by France. This did not only appertain to —
metropolitan France but affected French overseas territories. In
_ September 1934 a public company — Société d’Urbanisme et a
‘
44
_ @ Enterprise général au Maroc — was floated in Paris. It trans- — >‘*|
- pired that its purpose was certainly urban in the sense that its 6

' objective was to raise capital to extend the prostitutes’ quarter in

_ Marrakech to accommodate 15,000 women. In conjunction with _
_the scheme the Resident-General of Morocco forwarded a re-
quest from the famous Pasha of Marrakech, El Glaoui, foraloan —
of fifty million francs. Unfortunately for the promoters of the
- scheme knowledge of its real purpose leaked out, and the matter
_ could not proceed.3¢
In 1938 the high living indulged in by 150 out of the 400 police
’ agents at Marseilles aroused suspicion. It appeared that the
Morals Police were receiving a great deal of money from the
~ various groups engaged in the white slave traffic in the seaport
city. (Daily Telegraph, October 21st, 1938.)
Although the war of 1939 disrupted the traffic to a considerable 4

extent this did not apply in all areas. One of these was Egypt.
That country had long had a system of regulation and Alexandria

280
 Nee) Pere y
z : 4 t
tad become one oFee iaane reception depdts for the wade: In
a
oy
1935 a commission appointed by the Egyptian Government had
recommended that steps should be taken over a period of three
years to abolish the system. By the outbreak of war contrary to
this recommendation the Government had sponsored the open-
ing and licensing of even more brothels. Disturbed by the' pos-
sible consequences to British troops stationed in Egypt the
Association for Moral and Social Hygiene in this country had
written to the War Office in May 1941 asking that brothels out-
side the army’s jurisdiction should be put out of bounds for all
troops. Where the army had control the brothels should be
closed, and that no officer should in any way bring to the notice
' of troops the existence of brothels. The response to this appeal
_ was merely a printed acknowledgement. The Association wrote
again in October 1941. A reply from the Director of Personnel
Services at the War Office was received in the following Decem-
ber. We quote from it: ‘. . . It should, however, be appreciated
that the placing of brothels out of bounds is not always a solut-
tion to the problem, as the result is often that prostitution makes
its appearance elsewhere. I am to point out that the alleged ex-
ploitation of women in Egypt and other countries in the Middle
East is a matter of legislation by the Governments concerned,
and is outside the scope of the military authorities.’37
It is interesting to note that the attitude of the War Office had
not changed substantially since the days in the last century when
prostitutes actually figured on the strength of units in India. We
have discussed this phase of prostituion in India elsewhere.3* In
1939 in response to an enquiry from the League of Nations
Advisory Committee on Social Questions the Egyptian Govern-
ment had given the following information with regard to the
system of regulation in force. There were 831 licensed brothels
in the country. The greater part of them were in Cairo, Alex-
-andria, the Canal Zone and Suez which accounted for nearly half
the total. There were 2374 licensed prostitutes with an additional
number of Egyptian women of dubious status registered with
the police. Among these were 146 alien women. The Greek con-
tribution was the highest - 50, England contributed only 1, the
i French 39, and the Russians 5.3° These figures of course do not
reveal the vast clandestine trade in women for which Egypt was
notorious. In 1924 41 per cent of the total of 1356 registered
prostitutes in Alexandria alone had been foreigners. In 1923

281
 474 girls under age com outsider Esgyp
- traffickers.4° It is difficult to accept that
the fillipgiven to
0 Eeyp= Ss
tian prostitution by the Second World War did not in fact result
in a very real increase in the numbers of those involved.
It is ironical that although the 1927 Report of the League of
Nations on this topic makes no mention of the involvement of
the port authorities at Alexandria in the traffic, the Egyptian
Government saw fit to make the following comment: ‘It is
through the agency of the storekeepers of the “Messageries
Maritimes” boats and of certain French dragomen that women
and young girls coming to Egypt succeed in entering in order to
earn a living there. Enquiries made on this subject by the
competent authorities show that some of the sailors on these
boats are concerned in this traffic. It is not true that the port
authorities encourage the landing of such girls.’4" This, in the
light of what was known, was a massive understatement.
A forgotten episode relating to prostitution in Britain during
the second World War was the appearance of Regulation 33B of
the Defence of the Realm Act. This empowered Medical Officers
to request the attendance of any woman suspected to be a source
of venereal infection for examination. In intent it was very similar
to the notorious Contagious Diseases Acts of the last century,
which were in force from 1864-86 and were the nearest approach
to a system of regulated prostitution ever possessed by this
country. The first case under 338 was brought before the magis-
trates at York on March Sth, 1943. It concerned a young married
woman in the East Riding who was suspected of having infected
two people. She was requested to attend for examination, pro-
mised she would, and then failed to do so. This occurred twice.
She was subsequently arrested on a warrant, pleaded guilty, and
was sentenced to two months imprisonment.‘ Under the regula-
tion, as under the old C.D. Acts, quite innocent women might be
arrested and suffer enormous indignity and public shame.
Fortunately there do not appear to have been many prosecutions
brought under. 33B.
France, we have suggested, has always played a key role in the
' development both of prostitution and that particular aspect of it
_ concerned with trafficking in women. This was particularly the
case in the 1950’s. It has to be understood that prostitution in
Europe is frequently accepted as part of normal life. It isalsoa
normality which offers chances of commercial success. This is

282
 bs ~~ % i
ae 7

> Fstritingly borne out in the case of Brcachidominered Maroses:

In 1953 Madame Legrand-Falco, a tireless worker in the cause
of abolition iin France, informed a UNESCO conference that the
prostitute quarters of Moroccan towns were huge commercial
enterprises‘, . . closed towns, citadels, shut up under padlock,
stretch for headrads of hectares and include police stations, post
offices and all the administrative buildings of a huge commun-
ity .. .’ This was corroborated by Professor Massignon of the
Collége de France, who was Vice-President of the Comité
France-Mahgreb: ‘Since the closing of tolerated brothels in our
capital city (Paris), the tenanciers (traffickers) have transferred
the centre of their operations, a marshalling place for South
America, their bands of French women, and their luxurious
_ establishments for their use and the accomplishment of their
purposes to Morocco, where they have obtained official recogni-
tion and financial protection from the administration . . . the
large towns of. Morocco have consequently included in their
town planning schemes “reserved”, specially desirable sites for
two kinds of luxurious establishments for vice, enormous extra=
mural barracks for the “‘bousbirs” (soldiers) where the native
- women supply soldiers only, by forced labour, to boost their
morale; and sumptuous “Yoshiwaras” (brothel quarters, after
the world famous district in Tokio) where a contingent of French
~ ‘women from the motherland, who are periodically brought by
air or by sea, work for a higher price for the benefit of a consort-
0 ee
ium of “respectable” gentlemen . . . the consortium set up at
Meknes, a building which dominates the town and even offered
| me, as “father of a family’’, foundation shares. Later on, amongst
many others, they set up on the beach at Casablanca, at Fedhala,
a still more gorgeous Yoshiwara Palace. . .’+
If these conditions still exist it is perhaps just as well the pro-
hibitions affecting travel to non-sterling areas have come into
_ being. It is difficult to imagine a similar situation in the context of
this country. Before its independence the relationship of Moroc-
co to France might have been compared to that of the Channel
' Islands to Britain. Thus it has to be imagined that the States-
' General of the islands were to form a consortium with the pur- —
pose of creating an international centre of prostitution, and
attempt to float a loan for this purpose in the City. Clearly such -
an occurrence is impossible.
The consortium in Morocco was sufficiently powerful to

283
Peete
=e
 ee ay RB Pitas
arrange for the promilleaticn of:
a deen on Ap “il29th,
-_ which reduced the fines inflicted on procurers, and lowered the
age at which women could consent to prostitution from 21 to 16
years of age. This could only have occurred in a climate of
opinion which was, if not favourable to, at least extraordinarily
tolerant of, prostitution. The historical context is of considerable
importance in assessing this situation. The French suzerainty of
Morocco was the work of one of their greatest colonial leaders — _
Marshal Lyautey —- who engineered the French protectorate in
1912. He has remained a revered figure in France. This helps to
explain the reaction of a member of the Academie Frangaise,
Claude Farsére, to the decree mentioned above. He wrote an
article in Ici Puris Hebdo in July 1954. This was entitled: ‘How
and why Lyautey, when founding modern Morocco, created the
reserved quarter, according to the policital views inherited from
St. Louis and Napoleon.’ The citing of these famous names is a
reference to the fact that both were responsible, in widely
separated centuries, in creating prostitute quarters in North
Africa. The article contains this paragraph: ‘Thus there exists the _
cité des dames réservées which Lyautey the African created. It is
not expedient to destroy any part of the tremendous work of the —
Marshal who created the modern empire of the Maghreb, spread- —
ing among the native peoples peace and prosperity, and upon
France a dazzling glory which deserved to last.’ Apparently
history, glory, and finance combined to ensure a brilliant success _
for Moroccan prostitution.
That a leniency, as it were, towards prostitution still exists in
France came out at the time (1960) of the notorious case con-
cerning the so-called Ballet Rose. A number of extremely promi-
' ment people in Paris were involved in a prosecution which
alleged that the accused had organised sexual orgies on a magnifi-
cent scale with the forced co-operation of young girls including
one of 12 years of age. The details revealed made the Profumo —
case of the year before appear quite insignificant. Altogether
twenty-three, people were accused, among them the then 75-
year-old le Troquer, former Minister of the Interior and Presi-
dent of the National Assembly, Pierre Sorlut, an inspector of the
mobile division of the French Secret Police, Countess Elisabeth
Pinaieff, Guillaume, an internationally known hairdresser who
assisted with the Queen’s coiffure on her visit to Paris, Count

284
F’
%
SN le
ae man
a
SS Rete een
fe -
eae
~~
i
-
kg Oe
f i
_ Mario Amelotti, a number of department store owners, and
; high-ranking police officers. In fact a very catholic selection.
_ Sorlut was held to have been the chief conspirator in planning
_the orgies. Apparently parties were held at the homes of various
_ of the accused. On one occasion the official residence of the
Presidents of the French Assembly — the Pavilion de Butard, the
equivalent of Chequers — was used for this purpose. The girls
were plied with whisky and ginger cake, and then danced naked
for the edification of the guests. Perhaps it is unnecessary to state
_ that the hearings were held in camera.*®
While white slavery has the connotation of European girls
being involved in prostitution, other women, non-European, are
also trafficked in for the purposes of prostitution. This is endemic
in Arabia and Iran. An investigation of this traffic in this area
was made by a German journalist, G. Troeller. He published an
article concerning his findings in Der Stern on April 5th, 1964.
‘Officially slavery has been forbidden for a long time, but all the
same “Black Ivory” from Nigeria, Mali, Mauretania, Congo,
Ethiopia and many other states is brought through the Sudan,
Somalia or Kenya to the great interchange markets for Saudi
_ Arabia, the Yemen and the Sultans of the South Arabian Federa-
‘tion. . . . Slaves are brought secretly to the coast of Persia (the
Persian Gulf) from there to be transported to Saudi Arabia,
- Oman and Bahrein . . . I was directed to a little village to the
north of Bandar Abbas... I discovered twenty miserable straw
huts. Each one was a brothel. Girls from Mekran and Balu-
_chistan stand about at the disposal of the sailors and lorry drivers
/,.. some of the girls are slaves, and one Madame declared that
.the girls belonged to her as camels or goats and could, like any
_ other property be sold. This situation seemed to cause the girls
little trouble. They lived generally just like the free prostitutes.
_ The only difference was in the payment of them. While the free
“women received a fixed percentage of their earnings the slave
girls got a little pocket money. On the other hand they were fed
and clothed while the free girls had to pay for their own food
and clothing. By and large they were more prized and only hired
"to eminent clients as they were young and beautiful. Here also man
_paid more attention to his own property than to his neighbour’s.’
- The traffickers’ best customers in this area are the petty
‘sheikhs and sultans. The almost complete control which the

285
* atiedine to ae ihe system Sime gee hk
slavery exists, as it has done for | generations, side by side with
sexual slavery. With regard to the latter in the case of Kuwait —
even if the police are aware of a market in women it is impossible
for them to arrest the important people, even princes, who may
be involved.*7
The most recent official investigation of the traffic in women
was that made by the United Nations Department of Economic
and Social Affairs. Its Study on Traffic in Persons and Prostitution
was published in 1959. The pattern of inquiry was similar to
that of former studies —a questionnaire was sent out to member
‘states. Replies to these appeared to indicate that few cases of —
international traffic were discovered. This did not mean, how-
ever, as the Study was careful to point out, that the problem ~—
could now be regarded as solved. The replies of governments —
were based on the statistics of offences recorded, which in fact
bore little resemblance to the real state of affairs.+8
In the ’twenties and ’thirties the pattern of procuration ee,
been fairly blatant and open, with bribery of officials as an im- —
portant ingredient in the process. An informative account of this —
period has been given by Albert Londres in his The Road to
Buenos Ayres (London 1934). By the "fifties, however, this pat- —
tern had been greatly modified. New legal restrictions had made ~
it difficult to follow the traditional methods of individual agents
travelling with women as their relatives or wives. To overcome —
this procurers now organise troupes of dancers and entertainers —
to work in various parts of the world. Girls are recruited in large _
European cities — the emphasis being on physical attractiveness
rather than on talent. The contract signed will generally include —
a clause requiring the girl to ‘entertain’. This opens the way to —
future prostitution. This kind of activity has been very notice-
able with regard to Austria since the war.*°
French girls have been recruited not only for theatrical —
troupes, but as waitresses and bar attendants for work overseas.
In the case of Luxembourg it was reported that traffickers were
bringing groups of girls into the country ostensibly as tourists.
They operate as prostitutes from a hotel base for a short time,
then leave the country.5° On the whole the Study implies that.
the volume of the traffic was very much less than it was in the
period between the wars. The only country which reported thata

286
syconsiderable number of its prostitute population was recruited
_ from abroad was Venezuela—31 per cent.s!
The effectiveness of international control of trafficking across
the world is demonstrated by developments reported from the
_ Argentine. Before the second world war the trade here was
' dominated by the Polish Zwi Migdal syndicate with world-wide
connections. In the sixties a man named Derderian, believed to
_ be a Rumanian, revived the Migdal organization in a limited
way. Young Argentinian girls between 15 and 20 were kid-
napped and sent to brothels in Comodoro Rivadavia in Pata-
gonia in the far south of the country. This is the petroleum area
of the Argentine where there are twice as many men as women.
Derderian’s export trade was through remote ports in the south
to Venezuela and the Caribbean. His method of recruitment was
‘the traditional one — the accosting of girls, newly up from the
country, at railway stations with offers of assistance in finding
jobs and accommodation.** Similar reports regarding an internal
traffic in girls have been reported in recent years from Mexico.
_ Only two major attempts to create a white slave syndicate on
the European model have been attempted in Britain in the last
thirty-five years. One concerns Max Cassel, alias Emil Allard.
Cassel had excellent connections with the French trade and
_ managed to operate successfully in London for some time. He
_ was murdered in January 1934. It was said that his activities had
-_ been known to the police for a long period before his death, but
_ that he had been left at large in the hope that he would provide
-_ evidence of the international network of which he was a part.* -
___ The second attempt was of an even more notorious character —
' that concerning the Messina Brothers. The Messinas were res-
_ ponsible for the organisation of vice in London on a vast scale.
_Again, there was evidence to indicate that a European and inter-
national traffic was involved. The brothers were eventually
_ arrested at Brussels in 1956, and tried at Tournai in the summer
of that year. In view of their activities the sentences awarded
"appear light — Eugene received seven years, and Carmelo ten
_ months.*5
i While the traffic in women and children still goes on there
seems to be little doubt that the volume of the trade is greatly
' diminished since its peak in the ’thirties. This has been due to a
number of factors. Governments in many instances are very alert
¢to the activity, and are invoking regulations which were allowed

Z : 287
a suppression of the traffic, approved by the General Aces in
December 1949, had ten years later been acceded to by over
thirty countries. Unfortunately only five of the Central and South
American states, which as a whole have provided centres for the
traffic in the past, were amongst the signatories.5° We do not
agree with the opinion expressed in the Study that the improve-
ment in the status of women, and higher standards of living and __
education will necessarily reduce the risk of women becoming ~
victims of traffickers. Such women are either beguiled by clever
and attractive promises made, or believe that the economic return
possible on their activity will ensure an exciting and comfortable
life. Improvement in status and education would not in many
cases affect these considerations. On the other hand the emphasis
made in the Study on the importance of the trend towards aboli-
tion is extremely significant. If state regulated prostitution were
abolished everywhere there is no question that the most lucrative
markets of the trafficker would disappear. This of course would
not mean the disappearance of prostitution but that the ready —
made market of the trafficker would be eliminated. His search for
markets would become a much more speculative affair attendant —
with greater risks. This, undoubtedly, would curtail his activities.
White slavery remains a particularly unsavoury part of the
complex of prostitution. In contemporary venal sexual activity it
persists as an important component in that complex. To suggest —
that is was and is a ‘popular bogey’, as was recently the case in ~
an American book on prostitution, is a failure to understand the —
nature of prostitution.57

Notes and References

™ de Cervtantes, M. ‘La tia finigida,’ Obras Completas, Madrid —

1863-4, Tome 8, pp. 277-8.
2 Ryan, Michael. Prostitution in London with a Comparative View
of that in Paris, etc... .. London 1839, p. 124.
3 France, Hector. Les Va-nu-pieds de Londres, quoted by I.
Bloch, Sexual Life in England, London 1958, p. 179.
Ibid.
nu
This, and all subsequent quotations, unless otherwise stateds

288
 are taken from the Pall Mall Gazette issues of 6, 7, 8, and
10 July 1885. '
The whole period is of the greatest interest to students of
prostitution. We have not attempted to cover many aspects.
The reader will find detailed information in: Charles Terrot,
The Maiden Tribute, London 1959; Ann Stafford, The Age of
Consent, London 1964; A. S. G. Butler, Portrait of Josephine
Butler, London 1954; El Moberley Bell, Yosephine Butler,
London 1962.
Baumgarten, Dr., and Bloch, Dr. I., quoted by A. Flexner,
Prostitution in Europe, N.Y. 1914, p. 185.
Flexner, op. cit., pp. 184-5.
Heindl, Dr. Robert. Berliner Tageblatt, No. 298.
Flexner, op. cit., p. 93.
Tbid., p. 184.
Ibid., p. 191. Details of ‘abnormal’ Parisian brothels are given
in Louis Fiaux, Les Maisons de Tolérance, Paris 1896.
Report of the Swedish Commission for the study of the Regulation
of Prostitution, Stockholm 1910, Vol. III, p. 66.
Mackirdy, Mrs. Archibald, and Willis, W. N. The White
Slave Market, London circa 1912, pp: 123-4. °
Ibid., pp. 187-8.
Ibid., p. 187.
Marchant, James. The Master Problem, London 1917; pp.
49-50.
Quoted by August Bebel, Women, London N.D., p. 99.
Ibid., pp. 99-100.
N° The Shield, Third Series, Vol. IV, No. 1, April-May 1923,
p. 11. The Shield is the journal of the former Association for
Moral and Social Hygiene now The Josephine Butler Society,
and has been in the vanguard of the battle against regulation
and the compulsory medical examination of prostitutes in
Britain.
21 Ibid.
22 Report of the Special Body of Experts of Traffic in Women and
Children, C. 52, M. 52, 1927, IV Geneva 1927, Part I, Chapter
95 P- 43-
Ibid., p. 13.
Ibid., Part II, p. 17.
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., pp. 97 and 96. An admirable summary of, and

289

ee
aes,
~
7—
 Bandoeng, Java, League of Nations,Ss 476, M.
I 3
IV, Geneva 1937; Pp. 71.
28 Tbid.. ‘a
Halle, Fannina. Women in Soviet Russia, London 1933, Pp.
233. :
Ibid., pp. 233 and 234. / na
Ibid., p. 237 4
Dillon, E. J. ‘Russia To-day and Yesterday,’ London 1929,
quoted in The Shield, 4th Series, Vol. I, No. 2, July 1932, a
p. 64. eis
ee Harrison E. To Moscow and Beyond, London 19605)i
p. 76-7. &
Thhe Shield, 5th Series, Vol. VIII, No. 1, May 1940, pp. 8-9.
Benjamin, H., and Masters,R. E. L. Prostitution and Morality, —
London, 1964. p. 373. 4
The Shield, 5th Series, Vol. III, No. 3, November 1943)“4
p. 112. i
The Shield, 5th Series, Vol. IX, No. 1, February 1942, Pp.2
41-2. :
Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, London 19625
se Vol. I, ChapterV.
The Shield, 5th Series, Vol. IX, No. 1, February 1942, p. 37.
Report of the Special Body .. ., op. cit., Part II, p. 64. }
Ibid., p. 309.
Report in the Yorkshire Evening Press, 6 March 1943.
Quotedin The Shield, 6th Series, Vol. I, No. 1, January 195¢
pp. 16.
44 Ibid., pp. 16-17.
Ibid., p. 17.
See report in the News of the World, 1 May 1960.
| The Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigines’ Friend, a VI, a
Vol. 12, No. 1, March 1962, p. 18.
Study on Traffic in Persons and Prostitution, United Nation
to N.Y. 1959; 59, IV, 5.m,p. 4.
Traffic in Women and Children, Summary of Annual Reports fe
the period 1948-50, United Nations, N.Y. 1952, p. 22. _
50
Ibid.-) Pp. 22-3, and Study on Trafficin Persons, etc., op. ¢
 he Sunday Telegraph, 25 Aovenber 1962.
“33 Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 March 1964. 5
54 The Shield, 5th Series, Vol. IV, No. 3, April 1936, pp. 98-9. —
& 55 An account of the Messinas is given in Sean O’Callaghan,
_ The White Slave Trade, London 1965, pp. 132-40.
86 Study on Trafficin Persons ..., op. cit., Annex II, p. 37.
_ 37 Benjamin, H., and Masters, R. E. L., op. cit., p. 267.
 ¢
%

4
a
t)
&

@
a

9: The Sociology of Prostitution

WEHAVE emphasised constantly throughout this work that in

any society the type of prostitution which exists is directly related
to the familial and marital institutions. Thus the status and role
of the wife in classical Greece is linked to that of the hetaira. The
limited sexual function of the mid-Victorian female spouse —
reproduction and good manners — has as its counterpart the
uninhibited sexuality of the London brothel. The status accorded
the prostitute in a society is very largely dependent upon the
prevailing sexual ethos. This is strikingly evident in the case of
nineteenth-century Britain. It has been our contention that con-
temporary behaviour and attitudes associated with prostitution
are, to a great extent, still governed by nineteenth-century
notions.
No society has existed, or can exist, which does not order the
sexual behaviour of its members. It is obvious that this is neces-
sary to prevent incessant conflict over women, and to ensure the

292
Ee
ae
,

proper transmission of property. The biological urge of man is

_ thus institutionalised into marriage and its preliminaries, and the
family. In our own type of society, with its emphasis on mono-
gamy, there has always existed the acute problem of extra-marital
_ Sexual activity. Adultery, from the traditional Christian point of
view, is a serious sin. Although one of the consequences of
adultery may affect inheritance few Western societies have
_ legislated against it. Such legislation does occur in the statutes of
some states in the U.S.A. such as New York, but is seldom, if
ever, invoked. Adultery remains a private, sinful, individual,
socially condemned act. Society’s weapons against the adulterer
are ostracism and condemnation.
In contrast to the essentially individual or idiosyncratic
character of adultery prostitution is institutionalised. Its usages
and practices are formalised in the same way as other sexual
institutions in the society. It has, however, to be distinguished
from other sexual institutions in the society that serve erotic
gratification. Marriage and the family are necessary for the per-
petuation of society whereas prostitution merely caters to male
incontinence. This is a fundamental distinction and helps to
explain the way in which prostitution is regarded, Unalloyed
pleasure in sex for its own sake is traditionally regarded as bestial.
- The Catholic view of marriage is that ‘The primary purpose of
the contract is the generation and education of offspring; its
- secondary purpose is mutual help and the allaying of concupi-
scence.”! Sexual gratification would appear to be incidental to
the major purpose of procreation. It is precisely this attitude
j which maintained the opposition in the Catholic Church, until
j
f very recently, against contraception. Reformation divines,
notably Jeremy Taylor, enunciated a different doctrine which
admitted the importance of the sexual relationship between
husband and wife. But at no time has either major division of
the Christian church exphasised the sexual as opposed to the
procreative function of the marital relationship. Outside of
marriage the prostitute provides a sexual service — erotic gratifi-
' cation — which within marriage is, at best, it appears, only
tolerated.
We have tried to show that, depending on a variety of factors,
the status of prostitution and the prostitute has varied consider-
- ably in historical time. There have been periods in the Middle
Ages when approbation was given to municipal and even
cy

e
ral
 nence had to be chictaa for the community might as
‘The present day counterparts are the tolerated houses in Amster-
dam and Hamburg. The consideration here is that the large,
transient sea-faring population would, if provision of this kind
ae were not made, constitute a danger to virtuous females. In most [
periods, however, modified social approval has been extended
in the face of the impossibility of destroying the institution. Itis
probably true to say that this approval has occurred more fre- |
quently in Latin Catholic rather than in Anglo-Saxon Protestant _
countries, Gratification of incontinence is undoubtedly a sin of ~
the flesh but such sins have been more lightly regarded in the _
one case than the other.
be The control of sexual behaviour is essential for the persistence
of a society. All societies possess institutionalised forms by which
7
mating is controlled. The forms may vary — monogamy, poly-
gyny, concubinage — but the purpose is the same, to ensure that—
the individual conforms to a socially approved pattern of beha-
viour. Marriage binds the libidinal urge to reproduction, and thus —
ensures the society’s perpetuation. Neither prostitution, which is ;|
“purely concerned with erotic gratification, nor celibacy, which~
excludes reproduction, can meet with the same social approval.
In the first volume of our survey we gave a very wide deiaiae
tion of prostitution to cover all forms of venal sexual activity? —
It is possible within that broad definition to distinguish at least Sp
Na two definite types. One can be termed normal in which the |
prostitute receives a monetary or other consideration for the -
performance of a sexual service, which consideration is for her —
own use, or that of her ponce, or brothel owner. The other is’
_ where the consideration passes to a socially approved individual,—
or body. This can be defined as religious or quasi-religious prosti-
f‘ tution.3 It would appear that the esteem in which the religious
prostitute is held is rarely, if ever, attached to the normal prosti- i |
tute. Presumably the temple which profits from her services | ,
performs a necessary social function and the prostitute is assisting Ҥ
that function. The earning of dowry through prostitution, as in
’ Algeria and Cyprus, falls into the category of the quasi-religious.+
Although in opposing the religious to the normal harlot it. ;
could be maintained that the social status of the prostitute will be
infinitely superior in the case of the sacred prostitute, there:are

e204},
} aaa
_ other considerations to be borne in mind. There are instances
where the normal whore has achieved a status almost as high as
that of those associated with religion. The hetaira in Greece, and
the prostitutes of classical India are two outstanding examples.
The problem becomes one of finding an explanation to account
for both the high and low status enjoyed by the normal prosti-
_ tute in different societies. In our opinion such an explanation is
to be sought in terms of the sexual ethos of the particular society.
In both the cases cited — India and Greece — there is consider-
able evidence to suggest that sensual enjoyment was a prominent
component of the cultures. There were no religious sanctions
equivalent to those inherent in, for example Pauline Christianity,
to inhibit the enjoyment of sex. If this enjoyment is regarded as
_ heinous unless associated directly with procreation then it would
follow that the vehicle of that expression — the whore — must be
utterly condemned. This is the type of condemnation which
extended, until quite recently, to any unmarried woman who
indulged in sexual activity. As we have tried to show, the guilt
engendered by the sexual ethos of the time turned the Victorian
prostitute into a scapegoat.
The opposition to, and the distinction from the family, of
prostitution has to be carefully examined. The differentiation
between the two institutions is essentially in terms of function.
- Procreation is entirely, except fortuitously, lacking from the
client-prostitute relationship whereas it is the normal] expectation
of the marital unit. Kingsley Davis has emphasised that there are
other important elements of distinction. ‘It (prostitution) is
distinguished by the elements of hire, promiscuity, and emotional
indifference — all of which are incompatible with primary or
gemeinschaft association.’s
Psychiatric material suggests that all three elements mentioned
_ by Kingsley Davis can be, and are, found in the marital rela-
_ tionship. For example, there are some wives who are promis-
¢
cuous, some who are frigid in relation to their husbands, and
_ some whom the husbands have to pay before intercourse will be
| permitted. Apart from procreation the distinction between famil-
ial relationships and prostitution would appear to be in terms
_ of permanence. Prostitution is primarily fugitive in character
' whereas the family is not.
In any analysis of prostitution it is necessary to examine two
* major aspects — the causal factors involved in the creation of
3

wal 295
 the existence of prostitution. If it is ranced that man’s sexu
drive has to be satisfied, and that in individual cases for a variety
of reasons this eee always be satisfied in marriage, then
conditions are created in which the male demand for venal sex ~
appears. Its corollary is the appearance of the pron to
gratify that demand.
In our kind of society in which the competitive eieenent is
heavily emphasised, and in which women are economically dis-
advantaged, women can and do use sex as a means of enhancing sy
their social and economic status. The most blatent example of -
such use is in prostitution. In other words both the structure and
the atmosphere of contemporary western society are conducive
_ to the development of prostitution. It is possible that these factors —
- operate in a non-western society. Our analysis of Nigerian prosti- i
tution elsewhere is a case in point.° Typical examples of near=
_ prostitution in western society are women who in order to—
obtain employment — particularly in the theatre — or a rise in 5
salary, or promotion, will allow their employers to have sexual —
favours.
The great debate amongst early twentieth- and nineteenth- ;
century social reformers concerned the economic motivation for ;
prostitution. Many of them, including the great French authority
_ Parent-Duchatelet, attributed the widespread incidence of prosti-
tution to the low wages paid to female workers, and the appalling —
destitution amongst the latter. It must be remembered that they
were writing against a background in which extreme poverty was —
the norm for large numbers of women.” Low wages coupled ar
with trade depressions undoubtedly produced throughout this—
period the most extreme poverty. On the other side experts such
as Woods Hutchinson and W. H. Sanger in America, Ferriani in -
Italy, Hammer in Germany, and Havelock Ellis in Britain found -
from their investigations that the economic motive of poverty
could not be regarded as the major factor affecting recruitment
- to prostitution.
Part of the argument for economic causation was based on the
_ idea that women’s wages were so low that in order to make ends
meet they had to resort to prostitution. Thus if such wages were
raised there would be no real incentive remaining.? What these

‘ 3 + 296 Ape
 ean Sia
| ok tne aa ee . Paes ashee a

F
cies

experts failed to realise was that however wages night'srise the

demand for harlots would remain constant. The effect would be
to increase the price for sexual services and this would provide a
greater incentive than before. In fact it might actually increase
the number of whole-time prostitutes as there would be no need
for any other occupation to be followed. ‘Like every other
industry prostitution is governed by the demand of the need to
which it responds. As long as that need and that demand persist,
they will provoke an offer.’'°
It is perhaps worth noticing Havelock Ellis’ view in this con-
nection. It was generally agreed that the biggest single category
from which prostitutes were recruited was that of domestic
servants. The latter were provided with food and lodging, and
in many instances clothing, by their employers. In other words
they operated from a far more secure base than their contem-
poraries in workshops and factories."!
While we would support the contention that economic factors
are not the main ones concerned in the recruitment of women to
prostitution there are exceptional circumstances in which they
_ appear to be so. The most recent example is that of occupied
Europe after the Second World War. The poverty and destitu-
tion induced by the aftermath of war impelled many women to
prostitute themselves in order to survive. Similar conditions
might be said to have arisen in the Soviet Union in the years
_ immediately after the Revolution when it was said that ‘a con-
siderable part of the prostitutes of the largest cities of the Soviet
Union, Moscow for instance, is formed from members of former
high society, the great aristocracy.” Upper class women in
Soviet Russia at this time would have found it impossible to
obtain ordinary employment. Both these instances are excep-
tional, and do not invalidate the main argument against economic
motivation.
If the problem is considered from the angle of what inhibits
recruitment to prostitution then a different set of factors begin to
appear. Moral considerations form part of the sexual ethos at any
given time. The Christian sexual ethic, despite Mary Magdalene,
has been interpreted to mean the outright condemnation of fe-
male sexual irregularity. For such falls from grace society has
exacted extreme penalties of ostracism and complete loss of
status. The whore is made to feel a pariah - a woman unfit for
decent society, and certainly from the Victorian point of view

het ag
 someone. ae of complete rehabili
~ ments have to be borne in mind inconsidering moral inhibition =
as a deterrent of recruitment to prostitution. The individual —
may feel a profound sense of guilt in transgressing the sexual
moral code of the society, and there is the very real social
penalty to be paid. The two together may well prevent a woman
from hiring her body. This is, of course, to presuppose that in
terms of the prostitute we are dealing with a normal woman _
subject to the influence of ordinary moral and social pressures. ;
This in fact may not be the case. The most famous exponent of |
the view that prostitutes were both biologically and psychologic-
ally abnormal was Cesare Lombroso, the Italian criminologist. In
Lombroso’s opinion prostitution in women took the place of |
ordinary crime in men. It sprang from idleness, misery, and
_ alcoholism connected with organic deficiencies.13 While Lom- -
broso’s theories are no longer fashionable his twentieth-century _
successors have laid considerable emphasis on the component of —
instability in the prostitute’s character. That in fact we are {
dealing with an abnormal personality who is impelled into her _
way of life by her defects.
Edward Glover in his The Psychopathology of Prostitution dis-
tinguishes three common groups of prostitutes. Of the street-
- walker of ‘drab’ type he writes: “They are apathetic and hopeless I
in attitude, some mentally disordered, others mentally backward; _
others, again, prone to form associations with criminals. They
incline also to excessive use of alcohol. Most of these attribute
their choice of profession to emotional disturbance in adoles- :
cence.* A number of investigations in the last sixty years —
would appear to confirm Glover’s opinion. The League of
Nations report on the early lives of prostitutes published in 1938 :
contains the results of a questionaire submitted to a number of
governments. The questionnaire asked for the results of an
investigation concerning fifty prostitutes. In the case of the —
U.S.A. seventeen were described as of superior or normal intelli- _
gence, and thirty-three ranged from dull to imbecile. The replies
from Norway, India, Uruguay, and Rumania indicated that a
' Majority were mentally normal.'s The most powerful support
for the ‘abnormal’ school of thought comes from the researches
of Tage Kempe in Denmark. Kempe found that of 530 women —
questioned by the police des moeurs in Copenhagen between 1931 ;
-and 1935 less than 30 per cent could be classified as mentally

2098
y Teacna and eho defective intelligence.!6 Cyril Burt was of
the opinion that: ‘. . . of all the factors making for sex delin-
quency in girls, an over-sexed constitution is at once the com-
monest and the most direct.’'7 More recent opinion tends to the
view that prostitutes are inclined to be frigid. The evidence
suggests that the prostitute either naturally possesses a sexual
anaesthesia or develops one in time.
The evidence from the researches of the ‘abnormal’ school do
not appear to be conclusive. It is very possible that a substantial
‘Minority of prostitutes could be classified as having abnormal
personalities. It is also likely that if similar investigations were
made regarding secretaries or night club performers similar
results would be shown. What vitiates a great number of
inquiries of this kind in the case of prostitutes is that the sample
chosen is taken from the criminal element among harlots — that
is those in prison or before the courts. The majority of prostitutes
do not serve prison sentences and therefore do not come within
the scope of the inquiries made. Thus a somewhat one-sided
impression is created. But, and this was our original point,
ordinary moral considerations cannot operate as inhibitory
factors against entering prostitution in the case of defective per-
sonalities.
It is relevant here to discuss theories concerned with the exis-
<> tence of a definite prostitute psychological type. These are not
to be confused with the Lombrosian theory of a biologically
degenerate, criminal prostitute. The most extreme expression of
the psychological theory is to be found in the work of Otto
Weininger. In his Sex and Character, Weininger postulated that
women could be divided into two categories — the mother and
the prostitute. These were the two poles of femininity. The
_ prostitute comprised not only actual prostitutes but large num-
bers of respectable, and married women. What distinguished
_ them from the mother was their relative sterility, and their atti-
tude and behaviour in relation to sex. Most women, however,
had the possibilities of both mother and prostitute within them.
Women did not become prostitutes because of economic and
eh
HB
EE<
social conditions: ‘Prostitution is not a result of social conditions,
but of some cause deep in the nature of women; prostitutes who
have been “reclaimed” frequently, even if provided for, return
to their old way of life . .. Prostitution cannot be considered as a
‘state into which men have seduced women... where there is no

299
 inclination for a¢ certain course, the coursee will wo ag ck
218 , ' *

What Weininger in effect is saying is that there is a pre-

disposition in some women towards prostitute-like behaviour.
Given the right circumstances this pre-disposition will become
operative and prostitution will be adopted as a way of life. The
propensity of women to return to their profession after re-
clamation, or indeed their reluctance to leave, is corroborated
by Charles Booth in his survey of London.!? It is difficult to rule
out altogether the possibility that a pre-disposition of this kind
may exist. More contemporary psychiatric research, however,
does not support Weininger’s hypothesis.
Helene Deutsch, an American psychiatrist, asks the question:
;
‘Are there women whose motherliness vanishes completely in
favour of their sexuality? ... Although I have studied numerous yg
g
professional prostitutes, I have never met the aggressive type of —
prostitute who is without a trace of tenderness, a prostitute who
is not only unmaternal but amaternal. This completely un- P
motherly type is possibly a fantasy product in a certain type of —
men who have in their own imaginations established a sharp
division between sexuality (prostitutes) and motherliness (un- ee
ee
ra
sexual mothers).’2°
On the other hand there is anthropological material to suggest —
that, granted certain conditions, a society may evolve a female
personality type which is devoid of motherliness. This was true
of the Marquesas Islands in the Pacific where the sexuality of the
women was greatly emphasised.2! Dr. Deutsch’s comment on the
Marquesan female personality is that: “The absence of maternal
instinct is perpetuated from generation to generation; and yet we
feel that an individal element must be present in addition to the
inherited disposition, operating to strengthen the latter. My own —
conjecture is that the atrophy of maternal feelings begins imme- _
diately after the event of birth. The first manifestation of the oral _e
.e

drive of the newborn baby probably produces in the Marquesas _

woman a panic fear, cannibalistic in origin, that she will be de-
voured by her child. This fear has a real basis, for the suckling i
_ Child actually does eat a part of the mother’s body.’22
The evidence would seem to indicate that the prostitute type _
may exist in our society, but that there are not present those _#
factors which emphasise female sexuality to the exclusion of —I
motherliness, as in the case of Marquesan society. Weininger’s
—

300
 Pa

bi #
a rell-aown misogynism may have given him an insight into
female character but there is an exaggeration in his analysis
which is not borne out by the facts.
Psychological material does suggest an inferior home life. The
deprivation of love and affection, and the inability to form suc-
cessful relationships with others all play their part in impelling a
girl towards prostitution. In some cases there may be a kind of
revenge motive — the girl deliberately degrades herself in order
to injure the person who refused her love. This kind of back-
ground is connected with the real or apparent attractions of the
profession. There is no question that a girl with a minimum of
physical attractiveness can earn in a day what in a normal occupa-
tion would require more than a week. In theory this will enable
her to lead a life of comparative luxury. She rises late, has a good
wardrobe, and on her off days can enjoy the excitement of clubs
and dancehalls. The older authorities, as we have shown, stressed
the glamour and excitement as precipitating factors. In our
opinion these still obtain today. Even if its antithesis is found to
be the reality nevertheless there are some who achieve success
and who act as beacons to their less successful sisters. —
The aristocrat of prostitution today is without question the
call-girl. Throughout the western world, if she is personable and
has the necessary capital to furnish her flat attractively if not
- luxuriously, she can hope to earn a very high income. In Britain
- since the passing of the Street Offences Act in 1959, a whole hier-
archy of call-girls has developed. This varies from girls opera-
ting in sleazy back rooms in Soho to the undetectable inmate of
the Mayfair penthouse. In our society which refuses to accept
both the maison tolerée and street-walking the call-girl is the
logical answer. In September 1960 Anthony Greenwood told the
International Abolitionist Federation congress in Cambridge
that: ‘There has been a tremendous growth in the call girl sys-
i
tem, the girls adopting such methods of advertising as the use of
touts at railway stations to invite travellers to “parties”; the use
of advertising for “models” or “dancing partners” in shop
windows; and the insertion of advertisements in various publica-
te
or tions.’23 Earnings from customers collected in this way can be as
_ much as £600 a week.**
As the general standard of living in the West has risen so has
the standard of the ancillary sexual services provided by the
_ prostitute. The client who employs a high class call-girl may have

301
 See 5" heBee Ae eee eema i. er 4

‘to payvie a cnetdeable amount of onen ut

~ entertained in very agreeable surroundings. In West German:
1965 investigations by income tax ‘authorities revealed that call-
girls’ incomes varied between £800 and fi8000 a year. It was esti-
mated that there were 45,000 call-girls in the country with an
estimated tax free income of £150 millions a year. The authori-
ties, provided taxes were paid, were willing to grant allowances
for publicity and trading expenses, hairdressing expenses allow- me
able in view of wear and tear involved, and other items. Therewas
strong opposition from the Church organisations against this, q
apparently logical step, by government. Some months later the 4
Financial Court in Munich ruled that earnings from prostitution x
_

came neither from an occupation nor a service as defined in the

‘appropriate paragraph of the existing tax law, and were thus not ae

liable to taxation.?5
The above is of some significance as it demonstrates the lucra-.
_ tive returns of the profession, and the definite demand for ser-
vices of this kind. Further, ecclesiastical opposition to prostitute
taxation was presumably on the grounds that the state should not
profit from immoral activity. But there is also the possibility that
they saw in the possible recognition of prostitutes as taxable
individuals, who were in this capacity no way different from other
citizens, an enhancement of their status. This of course was un=
thinkable.
An interesting development of the call-girl industry has been
their involvement with business firms both here and in the
United States. In some instances call-girls are taken on to the ~
public relations staff of a firm. The girls are put at the disposal of —
visiting clients of the firms. In 1959 a businessman in a broad- _
cast in New York described how this system operates to the ad-
vantage of the firm. “This is the fastest way I know of to have an
intimate relationship established with a buyer. The point is I
Psai
know a buyer has spent the night with a prostitute I have provi- ti i
ae
t
i
am
a
ded. In the second place, in most cases the buyers are married,
with families.-It sort of gives me a slight edge; well, we will not.
call it blackmail, but it is a subconscious edge over the buyer. It is
a weapon I hold, and I could discreetly drop it any time when
the (buyer’s) wife is present ...’26
It is clear that prostitution Ate lee developments of this kind
is responding to an increased and specialised demand. That ty —
demand exemplifies the thesis which we have stressed through-

e
L

302
 out this work — that the type of prostitution which occurs is
dependent upon the structure of the society in question. The
call-girl constellation has arisen in response to social and economic
_ changes in our society — legislation against street soliciting com-
bined with economic expansion.
The motivations of the other party in the contractual relation-
ship of prostitution, the client, we have discussed in some detail
in another chapter. Economic conditions clearly do not affect the
biological urge of the client. The urge is a constant, but increased
income can lead to a demand for better service. Thus neither
poverty nor wealth create prostitution but their absence or pres-
ence help to determine the kind and quality of prostitution. The ©
affluent call-girl of New York is satisfying the same basic demand
as the inmate of the small town Sicilian brothel although the
quality of that satisfaction may be of a very different order and
Kind.
In an analysis of demand three basic categories can be distin-
guished. These are the diseased, malformed, and abnormal; the
wa,
» adolescent group; and large groups of men deprived of sexual
companionship as found amongst seafarers and armies. These in
Als
2
_ our opinion form the hard core of the demand for the prostitute
in any society. An extremely important factor affecting the inci-
‘dence, and possible future, of prostitution in our society is the
‘development of a more liberal sexual attitude.?7 It is our conten-
tion that however libertarian such attitudes become they will not
alter the extent and character of the hard core demand. The
latter is dependent upon quite different factors from those which
aEee ‘control ordinary sexual relationships. In other words complete
REE
TSO
social approval of pre-marital sexual activity will not diminish
’ the demand for the services of the prostitute by, for example, the
functionally impotent or the serving soldier. Both require the
_ telease of sexual tension without the complication of an emotion-
al relationship. What the development of liberal sexual stand-
2PRRards will do is to diminish the possibly substantial potential
REE,
er
- clientele.
Granted the biological nature of man, and the necessity for
society to control the forms of mating, then it would appear that
sey:
prostitution is ineradicable. Whatever social or moral condemna-__
Paves
tion extended by society to the participants in prostitution the
hard core demand will always be present, and that demand will
e-

be met. Prostitution is not like masturbation - a substitute for

Bit. 303
ail
Sin
a
ee :z
"acti oe
e
 sexual intercourse. It epeecents for the client afi
he cannot achieve in any other way. If this is ‘accepted
“society can do a great deal to alleviate the conditions of prostitu- :
tion. That is to say the most prominent features of exploitation _
of the prostitute through brothels and ponces can be eliminated
through. direct action.
West Germany has apparently accepted this reality. Brothels as
such were abolished in Germany in 1927. There is, however, a
long tradition of the state control of prostitution. Since the last
war the only legally tolerated area of prostitution was the notor-
ious Reeperbahn district in Hamburg. By 1965, faced with an
increased demand, the attitude of the authorities changed.
. the general policy is to accept the indestructibility of prosti-
tution and to demand only two forms of limitation: the avoid-
ance as far as possible of open offence to public sensibilities and
the protection of the young. With this in mind, city authorities
have cautiously assisted the concentration of prostitutes into
comfortable, well-inspected quarters in discreet parts of town
where they can carry on their trade in an orderly manner. The
public is protected from soliciting, the girls are protease—
the tyranny of the pimp.. .”28
This has led to the building of Dirnenwohnheime — prosti- } |
tutes’ hostels. It is illegal in Germany as it is in Britain to live
directly off ‘immoral’ earnings, but to build such a hostel and take
rents from it is not so regarded in the Federal Republic. The
largest built so far, in Dusseldorf, is thus described: ‘Itisanopu-
lent new block with many floors, and the windows only a few _
feet away from the trains, are screened by little awnings of lemon- —
coloured frosted glass . . There are rooms in it - much in de- —
mand— for 180 girls. They work there, inspected by the sanitary
authorities and registered by the city police, fed from a large
communal kitchen, charged 8s. a day rent plus laundry, meals,
drinks and the rest, visited by a steady stream of Germans and —
foreign workers, earning on average perhaps {50 a night .. .’29
Such a development is possible in Germany with its tradition
of state controlled prostitution. Reactions in Britain to a similar
_ proposal would no doubt raise a storm of disapproval. Such dis-
approval has in fact been expressed in Germany by religious — ee Pe
SO
e
organisations, nevertheless the Diisseldorf model is being fol- ~
lowed. Britain would no doubt prefer to deal with the problem ir *
soliciting by legislation, as in fact has occurred, and make no" ao

+304
£
ie attempt to con the situation. If this means the continuing
exploitation of the prostitute then that is considered her own
fault. To allow the state to intervene through supervision would
be not only to condone, but to encourage sexual immorality. Or
so the argument would run.
Is Britain’s response really the answer? If the inevitablity of
prostitution is accepted — and to imagine that it can be eliminated
through the rehabilitation of harlots, the strengthening of family
ties, and sex education is a refusal'to face reality; then surely
- discussion of ways and means of eliminating the exploitive ele-
ment in prostitution is both socially and morally necessary. That
such a discussion would produce a moral convulsion is irrelevant.
If the exploitive element could be diminished, and the status of
the prostitute enhanced, then much of the repugnant aspect
~ would be removed from the ‘social evil’.

Notes and References

1 Davis, Henry, S.J. Moral and Pastoral Theology, London

1959, Vol. IV, p. 53.
2 Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, London 1962;
Vol. I, pp. 17-18.
3 Jbid., ChapterI.
4 Ibid., pp. 357 and 26-8.
5 Davis, Kingsley. ‘The Sociology of Prostitution,’ American
Sociological Review, Vol. I1, No. 5, 19375Pp.749-
6 Henriques, Fernando, op. cit., pp. 387-94.
7 There is a considerable literature on this topic. See in parti-
cular: Anna Pappritz, The Economic Causes of Prostitution,
Berlin 1903. Oda Oldberg, Poverty in the Domestic Industry of
Making Ready Made Clothing. P. Kampftmeyer, ‘Poverty and
Overcrowding in Large Towns,’ Journal for the Suppression
of Venereal Diseases, Vol. I, 1903, pp. 145-60. Eugéne Buret,
Dela misére des classes laborieuses en Angleterre et en France,
Brussels, 1843, pp. 547 et sq. Ivan Bloch, The Sexual Life of
our Time, London 1909, pp. 329-30. I. Federow in Archives
- @Anthropologie Criminelle, Nov. 15th, 1901. A. J. B. Parent-
Duchatelet, De La Prostitution dans le Ville de Paris, Paris
1857, Vol, I, p. 107.

305
 8 Hutchinson, Woods, “The Economics of Prostitution,’
American Gynaecologic and Obstetric Journal, Sept. 1895.
W. H. Sanger, History of Prostitution, N.Y. 1919, p. 488. W.
Hammer, Monatschrift fiir Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle
Hygiene, Berlin 1906, Heft 10, p. 460. Havelock Ellis, Studies
in the Psychology of Sex, Philadelphia 1913, Vol. VI, pp. 259-
66.
.-J Michels, R. Sexual Ethics, London 1914, p. 112.
to de Molinari, G. La Viriculture, Paris 1897, p. 155.
t co) Ellis, Havelock, op. cit., pp. 264-6.
NS
Batkis, Dr. G. ‘The Problem of Prostitution in USSR,’ Nor-
man Haire, editor, Report of Sexual Reform Congress 19295
London 1930, p. 250.
I we Lombroso, Cesare. Crime, Its Causes and Remedies, London
I9II, p. 186. See also C. Lombroso and G. Ferreo, La donna
delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale, Turin 1893.
14 In The Roots of Crime, London 1960, p. 254.
1s League of Nations Inquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of
Prostitutes, (Part I) ‘Prostitutes - Their Early Lives,’ Geneva
C. 218, M. 120, 1938, IV, quoted by Mrs. Sybil Neville-
Rolfe, in Social Biology and Welfare, London 1949, pp. 193-4.
16 Kempe, Tage. Prostitution, London 1936, pp. 242-3.
™7 Quoted by Mrs. Sybil Neville-Rolfe, ‘Biological Aspects of
Prostitution’ in C. P. Blacker, editor, A Social Problem
Group ? London 1937, pp. 98-9. This paper gives a very use-
ful review of a number of investigations with relation to the
biological background of prostitution.
78 Weininger, Otto. Sex and Character, London 1908, pp. 216—
17.
™9 Booth, Charles. Life and Labour of the People of London,
London 1902. Final Volume, ‘Notes on Social Influences,’
pp. 126-7.
7° Deutsch, Helene. The Psychology of Women, London 1947,
Vol. II, pp. 33-4.
7x Linton, R.,.in A. Kardiner, The Individual and his Society,
N.Y., 1939, pp. 154 et seq.
Deutsch, op. cit., pp. 37-8.
73 Report in The Guardian, September 29th, 1960.
74 See reports in The Times, October 25th, 1960.
75 See reports in The Sunday Times, April 18th, 1965, and The
Times, October 13th, 1965.
\

306
 Report in The Guardian, January 21st, 1959.
NS a
This is discussed in detail in the chapter on contemporary
sexuality.
The Observer, July 11th, 1965.
ON o
Ny
Ibid., see also the account in the News of the World, August
Ist, 1965.

1397
te
BOSSA 4

10: Contemporary Sexuality

THE great sexual debate of our time is concerned with pre-

marital sexual activity, particularly as affecting adolescents, and
not with prostitution. This is a measure of the great changes
which have taken place in the sexual ethos of western society
since the nineteenth century. The revolution in thought, attitude
and behaviour has been brought about mainly by the success of
the movement for the emancipation of women, helped and
assisted by the social and economic effects of two major world
wars.
Women have ceased to be regarded merely as producers of the
next generation or erotic playthings. Society is no longer pro-
foundly disturbed at the prospect of an intelligent woman choos-
ing to live with a man rather than marry him, as it was in the last
century by the George Eliot-Henry Lewes ménage, The adult
male or female is deemed to be almost fit to decide how they
should choose to arrange their sexual relationships so long as
they do not conflict with the law.

308
> a
*
4

os
Pp i This description sounds idyllic. Unfortunately there are flaws
in this splendid libertarian facade. Two, at least, are of consider-
able significance. The first is the fact of the great preoccupation
of many adult thinkers and writers with the ‘problem’ of teenage
sexual activity. Professor Carstairs suggested in one of his Reith
Lectures that: ‘It has always been those whose own sexual impul-
ses have been precariously repressed who have raised the loudest
cries of alarm over other people’s immorality.' What is dis-
turbing about this phenomenon is the refusal to regard the bio-
logical urge of the young as just that, and the insistence on the
‘problem’ approach. From the adolescent’s viewpoint their
sexual life as controlled by adults is rather like the civil service -
the arrival of a carpet in your office is dependent upon promotion
to a superior grade.
Academics are not exempt from joining the chorus which
attributes a kind of moral degeneracy to the young, who engage
in sexual promiscuity because they are impelled by the base
material values of our society. ‘Most of the time when people are
engaged in promiscuous sexual relationships they are looking
for human relationships and, although they don’t find them go on
in the hope that they will. It is a self-defeating process, a blind
alley.” In that statement there is no suggestion that one of the
impelling reasons for sex is the seeking of pleasure. Of course
people want to develop human relationships but surely sexual
relations foster such developments ?
The second flaw in our contemporary attitude is precisely this
— in our grudging admission that sex instruction of the young is
perhaps necessary we refrain from imparting any information
that sex is both pleasurable and unpleasurable. The latter in the.
sense that it is often a problem for adults as well. This is done on
the grounds that children would not understand if the informa-
tion were given.? The absurdity of the situation is of course
that most adolescents have discovered that masturbation is a
source of pleasure. They can only regard the omission of such
information as adult hypocrisy.
Professor Carstairs’ Reith Lectures met with a great deal of
criticism at the time (1962). As might be expected most of this
emanated from clerical quarters. The Church of Scotland in the
persons of the Rev. John R. Gray, and the Rev. Professor John
G. McKenzie were in the forefront of the attack. The major
charge was Carstairs’ questioning chastity as the supreme moral

309
 virtue. Mr. Gray emphatically rejected, in the name of the
Church, pre-marital sexual relations as being contrary to God’s
purpose. This fine, ecclesiastical fulmination was impaired, how-
ever, by advancing other, material grounds, for rejection —
venereal disease and illegitimacy. A further argument by Mr.
Gray, that the first act of intercourse dominated all subsequent
ones, is, as Clinical material shows, quite unfounded. If it were
really the case the divorce rate would be infinitely higher than
it is.4
Carstairs summed up his own position in an article in The
British Weekly of 27 December 1962. ‘I am still unconvinced
about the special spiritual significance of chastity and monogamy.
From my anthropologist’s point of view it is society which makes
the rules and sometimes changes the rules. In any society there
have to be rules. What I ventured to suggest was that in our
society the rules governing sexual behaviour are already chang-
ing, and may yet change even more...’
1962 can be regarded as a turning point in the sexual debate
of our time. The Reith Lectures were the first occasion when the
‘problem’ was ventilated before an audience of millions, Hitherto
it had been conducted in the relative obscurity of books and
conferences. A most extreme example of the orthodox clerical
view came from the Rev. Lord Soper in 1961. He wrote: ‘To
accept the pleasures of sexual attitudes and practices without
relating them to the purposes for which these pleasures were
intended is a form of perversion and must be condemned as
delinquent .. . A boy who takes sex because he wants it will tend
to take somebody else’s goods for precisely the same reason. The
girl who is encouraged to see nothing wrong in pleasing herself
with somebody else’s body will be unlikely to see any objection
in pleasing herself with somebody else’s money . . .’5 The
equation made between premarital sex and theft is quite extra-
ordinary. The argument cannot be conducted at that level.
In February of the year before, at the Scottish Christian Youth
Assembly in Edinburgh a clarion call had been sounded by the
Rev. Denis Duncan, editor of The British Weekly. There was an
‘exaltation of the seamy side of the god-given gift of sex. ..a
proud city like London, behind its bowler-hatted respectability,
had taken on the appearance of a modern Sodom and Gomorrah,
with its so-called theatre clubs, many of them prospering on sin;
its public sale of call-girl lists; its backstreet shops filled with

310
">
in

advertisements disguised as models; photography and massage —

agencies (how unfair to the respectable ones); its back-street
. purveyors of pornography .. .Ӣ It is difficult to assess the effect
of this kind of rhetoric on a teenage audience. In this case either
the Scottish Christian Youth congratulated themselves that they
were safe from the metropolitan contamination, or it proved an
incentive to the traditional Scottish emigration to the south. In
fact their safety was illusory.
In October 1960 the Medical Officer for Edinburgh, Dr. H. E.
Seiler, produced a report on teenage sexual behaviour in Edin-
burgh ‘ .. there are many young girls in Edinburgh who have
sexual intercourse frequently and casually with different youths
who they may not know or meet again... There is a considerable
number of young men and young women who are sexually
amoral and quite promiscuous. . .’7
Apart from moral considerations two main dangers are stressed
_ by the opponents of teenage unchastity — venereal disease and
illegitimacy. Frequent statements are made as to the growth of
these two evils amongst young people. It is as well to consider
the actual figures in this respect. Schofield in his report on teenage
sexual behaviour estimated, on the basis of attendance figures at
clinics, that in 1963 one in over 1600 British-born teenage boys
was infected by V.D., and one in a thousand teenage girls.* The
overall figures for syphilitic infection of the whole population
_ of England and Wales shows a rise from 1960 to 1961, and a
decline from 1961 to 1963. There was a hundred less cases in
1963 than in 1961 — 1099 against 1199.9 The teenage incidence
can in part be attributed to lack of knowledge about venereal
disease, a point which Schofield brings out. The remedy lies in
better dissemination of information concerning these diseases
amongst young people. But to use figures such as these as an
argument against unchastity is like wishing to abolish the car .
. because accidents occur.
With regard to illegitimacy the incidence of illegitimate births
_ in the teenage female population (15-19) of England and Wales
in 1962 was less than one per cent. The incidence of premarital
conceptions, that is births occurring within the first eight months
of marriage in 1962, for the same group, was I.9 per cent."
The national incidence of illegitimacy in 1957 was 4.8 per cent.
The teenage contribution cannot be regarded as excessive. Again
it can be suggested that it is fallacious to argue from the existence

wil’. 311
of illegitimacy that premarital unchastity must be discouraged.
There are two factors operating here. One is the spread of know-
ledge about, and the use of contraceptives, and the other is the
relative immunity of the female adolescent to conception. ‘It
seems probable that in the human female and in the mammals
which have thus far been studied, there is generally an interval
of anything up to five years or more between menarche and the
ability to procreate, during which the female is functionally
sterile and unable to reproduce.”!! We have discussed this
phenomenon, in relation to a number of societies, elsewhere.”
There does appear to be considerable evidence to suggest that
the female adolescent does.experience a period of relative
infertility.
Another popular criticism of teenage sexual morality is based
on the apparent decline from the standards of the past. We have
already produced significant material in other chapters to indicate
that our own age shows in fact a decided improvement when
compared with a number of other historical periods. Figures from a

Mayhew with regard to the nineteenth century are relevant here. e

In 1848 one in every 14.8 births was illegitimate.'3.This is

considerably higher than the figures we have quoted above. The
highest and lowest incidence occurred in two rural counties,
Cumberland 108 illegitimate births per thousand births, and
a
Cornwall .47. It is difficult to comment on this disparity.
Between 1841-50 the average number proceeded against for
brothel keeping was 133.5. The 1962 figures were 163.15 What
has to be borne in mind is that our present population is nearly
three times as great as it was in 1851. So in fact there has been,
comparatively speaking, a big decline in prosecutions for keeping
disorderly houses. Other comparisons could be made which
would illustrate the point that as compared with the nineteenth
century despite the social upheavals caused by two major wars
our own century has a better record in terms of ‘vice’ control.
The kind of criticism made is in our opinion confused by the
class bias of thé critic. The latter is, in most instances, a middle
class adult. He notices that young people of his own class have
much greater sexual freedom then he himself experienced at their
age. The conclusion drawn is that there has been a decline in
sexual moral standards. This is attributed not only to his own
class but to all classes. Such an assumption does not agree with
the facts. While it is true that young middle class women are no

312

T
T
e
TT
ee
ee
ea
ee
Ne
 ‘

4 Jonger eased: to the extent appeared to be up to 1939 -— |

holiday expeditions with boys are the order of the day — no one
having regard to the sexual behaviour patterns of the preceding
- centuries, could suggest that the mass of young people today are
more depraved than their predecessors. The child-prostitutes of
the nineteenth century are no longer a prominent feature of the
sexual landscape.
To go back even further— to the heyday of Christendom in the
_ Middle Ages — the contrast in terms of sexual licence and beha-
viour is even greater. ‘In erotic conceptions of the Middle Ages
_ two diverging currents are to be distinguished. Extreme in-
decency showing itself freely in customs, as in literature, contrasts
with an excessive formalism, bordering on prudery . . .”!° If a
comparison is made between the Quaker pamphlet on sex and a
- fourteenth-century manual of female instruction it is obvious
that we are remarkably restrained today. The mediaeval author
_ of the manual uses stories of a near-obscene nature to demon-
strate the necessity for virtue.'7 Most authorities on the mediaeval
period would agree with the opinion that “The conception of
_ morality does not seem to have been very developed, and great
_licentiousness and immodesty appear to have been general in
every class of society.’8
4 It is perhaps not extravagant to suggest that the conception of
modern sexuality as departing widely from Christian standards
_ of the past is very largely a myth. It is the myth of the Golden
_ Age-—that things were always better in the old days. It is harmless
except when it is used as a stick to castigate contemporary
(pe
youth.
e: _. The difference between the Middle Ages and ourselves is to be
©
*
he seen in terms of self-consciousness. Today there is an agonising
.
b ‘search to find an acceptable standard of behaviour, to find a
uo ‘satisfactory compromise between Freud and Pauline Christianity.
¢ This comes out very strongly in the literature.
‘
‘gs
§4 The Profumo case was indicative of this soul-searching. The
_world was amazed and fascinated at the spectacle of a nation in
f_ the twentieth century convulsed by a debate on morality. The
- author remembers in 1963 in a remote Druse village in Israel
_ being questioned as to the latest developments in the case. Clearly
_ in another century the affair would have been glossed over. The
_*odd notion that Cabinet Ministers must not be guilty of sexual
Begscettrities would not have occurred to John Wilkes’

‘eA 313
if contemporaries in tthe’ ei
~ of Lord Denning’s Report in that century would have
cerned with practically every publicfigure of note.
There appeared to be two major issues in the Profamorecon-
stellation — sexual depravity in high places, and the purely moral __
tissues of lies told publicly. Other ingredients were the security _1
angle, that the Minister of War shared a mistress witha member
of the Soviet Embassy, and the apparent success of a working
class girl — Christine Keeler. Underlying the baying of the watch-
dogs of public morality was the assumption that a politician’s
sexual morality is relevant to his public role. Is this necessarily +

the case? Another, and more famous Tory politician, Disraeli,

had disreputable love affairs but was also a consummate political
leader. Profumo’s error was his denial of his relationship with
Christine Keeler. If he had refrained from any comment on this _
the conclusion might have been very different.
A most interesting aspect of the situation was the bewilderment _
of those with strong moral convictions who were supporters of
the government of the day. Impelled to moral condemnation é—
they wished to avoid an equal condemnation of the government. —
This is very apparent in the long correspondence in The Time
which the case evoked. The casuistry with which reconciliatio:
was attempted between outraged morality and Tory allegian
was worthy of a mediaeval scholastic debate.1° The questio
still remains — is it imperative that we demand impeccable sexual
morals as a prerequisite of political life? If this demand had bee
made in other countries in this century much would have bee
— lost. It is absurd to suggest that if the orgiastic element had not
existed in Kemal Ataturk’s life he would have been a better
politician. Or that James Fox’s contribution to Parliament was ee
impaired by his frequentation of brothels. The downfall of
Parnall or Charles Dilke in the nineteenth century did nothing—“<
to improve political morality. Was Palmerston’s ability for the ae —
highest ministerial offices impaired by his penchant for mis-
tresses? Such«questions are endless. oF
Despite the tremendous parading of moral considerationsi: ao
‘not the real issue the possibility that, if Christine Keeler had not _
suffered from an unfortunate predilection for the eclectic in her —
choice of friends but had confined her friendships to the British-
born the whole unfortunate business might not have been ven- _
tilated? The only proper guide in sexual matters is an individual’s

314 . ao
4 ag ae
conscience. - Public pronouncements and moral indignation on a
_ national scale are notjsubstitutes for this.
: Since Professor Carstairs’ Reith Lectures and the Profumo case
_ the debate has returned to the theme of pre-marital chastity, and
sexual activity outside marriage in general.
Up to the present the churches have presented a united front
over the necessity of chastity prior to marriage. It is of great
_ interest to note that nowhere in the Old or New Testaments is
_ there any explicit condemnation of premarital sexual intercourse.
_ The foundation of the attitude is to be found in St. Paul. His
_ famous dictum: ‘It is better to marry than to burn’ was followed
_ up by his successors among the Holy Fathers. We have dealt
- with this theme elsewhere.?° The Pauline conception of sex has
been re-interpreted from time to time — notably in the seven-
_ teenth century in England. Sex is regarded officially as a raging
_ torrent which must be kept within bounds. The individual,
_ however, must not imagine that marriage gives him a licence to
indulge the flesh. Richard Bolton in the seventeenth century is
' very clear on this point. ‘Even in wedlock intemperate and
4 unbridled lust, immoderation and excess, is deemed both by
ancient and modern divines, no better than plain adultery before
_ God.”* Another divine in the same century wrote: ‘.. . if the
sind be left to the power of lust, and only marriage trusted to
t for the cure, with many it will be found to be an insufficient
~ cure.’22
_ It would be wrong to assume that seventeenth-century theo-
logians’ preoccupations with sexual behaviour are irrelevant to
_ our contemporary attitudes. In a. pamphlet published in the
_ nineteen-sixties G. B. Bentley gives an insight into modern
_ ecclesiastical thinking on sex. The pamphlet is called God and —
_ Venus. Venus is used here in its eighteenth-century connotation
_ = describing copulation and the impulse to perform it. He
_ writes: “Marriage is the only context in which the daemonic
_ power of sex can be exorcised without renunciation of the
'delights of sex.’ Further, “The sexual act, whatever else may be
_ made of it, is plainly designed for begetting children .. . There-
fore the sexual act is only in place when it is performedin the
rcontext of such monogamous union.’ This would appear to be a
_fairly orthodox Christian view. What, however, really disturbs
| Mr. Bentley is the modern infiltration, as it were, of the secular
B _view that sex in itself is important and significant and is not

315
 theSerine of sexual intercourse “which eytheerotic classe f
paganism under contribution. In other words, we have wel- —
comed into Christian marriage erotic arts for the enjoyment of —
which men in pre-Christian times usually resorted, not to their
wives, but to professionals.’
The dangers are very real of professionalism in i the marriage
bed. ‘What is alarming in the present situation is the light-hearted _4
assumption that we can safely write off the fears of the early
Christians altogether, and that by simply transferring the art
_ which professionals originally developed from the brothel to th
marriage bed we tame and domesticate venus automatically and
effectively. The art may be needed... but .. . Through the age
husbands have been warned against letting their wives learn those
arts too well, because wives who have acquired the technique ar
apt to look around for lusty young sparks to exercise it with .

only that he or she is erotically attractive and capable.’

The value of Mr. Bentley’s views is not in terms of his con
demnation but in his recognition in an outspoken way of the real
change which has come aboutiin our sexual thinking. Many men

sexual proficiency both in and outside marriage enhances th

love relationship. There is in fact the recognition of sexu
pleasure as a thing in itself apart from procreation. This is cer my
tainly a revolution with regard to the middle class which in the _
nineteenth century certainly did not admit this as an ingredient
of the marital relationship. The attitude is based partly on :
great changes which have occurred in the status and social
significance of women in our society, and in part in the realisation
that women’s need for sexual fulfilment is as great as men’s.
The first real breach in the orthodox Christian view of sexual
matters was made by the Quaker pamphlet, Towards a Qua,
View of Sex, which was published in 1963. For the first time
group of people with a religious orientation were willing
consider sexual problems in a rational way. For example, | a
direct contrast to Lord Soper’s opinion, which we quoted abov
the authors discuss the problem of initial sex contacts. ‘With

| } 316
ee sae f (* ay* (oe

- the fent of‘pregnancy Gvhich modern contraceptives are steadily

Bpaecucing); without the special guilt-feelings which her upbring-
_ing has often laid on the girl, man and maid are in this position on
equal terms. Hither can be frightened, hurt, and damaged by
what is for them the wrong kind of sexual experience. It must,
SPiowever, be accepted as fact that light-hearted and loving casual
contacts can be known without profound damage or “moral
_ degeneracy” being the result in either partner.’ The difference
_ in thought and feeling between such a statement and those of
_ Lord Soper and Mr. Bentley are profound. In our opinion this is
_ a recognition of the situation with regard to a great number of
_ young people.
It is possible that this kind of recognition — of the facing of
reality - is easier to achieve for a small independent Christian
_ body as the Quakers are than for a large, organised church such
$ _as the Anglican community. This comes out in the opinions of
_ the Rev. Dr. Sherwin Bailey. In his Common Sense About Sexual
_ Ethics, published in 1962, it is quite apparent that the views
2 expressed about chastity are merely a reformulation of the tradi-
$tional, official thought. His main contention is that coition
~ belongs to marriage alone — it can never be justified in the wrong
context: ‘. . . casual indulgence in venereal adventures yields at
- most a sensual pleasure or physical relief which is far removed
bers from the complete personal satisfaction attained
e when coition is the natural expression of true love.”25 The Quaker
_ view is thus implicitly rejected. The fear on the part of church-
Fmen appears to be’that recognition of sex outside marriage will
irrevocably impair the institution of marriage. Again the facts do
' not bear this out. If we accept that premarital sexual activity has
_ increased there has been no corresponding decrease in the mar-
_ Tiage rate. It is very possible that sexual experimentation is con-
ducive to a high marriage rate, and for better sexual adjustment
; in matriage.
a It has to be remembered that to tolerate or accept permissive-
_ness in this area of behaviour is, from the point of view of the
$ churchman, to reject or modify profoundly the Pauline doctrine
aeon the subject. This is the basic difficulty confronting the
k‘churches — a combination of a real or imagined fear for the
- institution of marriage, and the rejection of St. Paul. Other
| grounds of venereal disease and seaateered are rationalisations
| of this basic difficulty.
. Bi
3 -
te
fo
by often of the fbort Sex and M rality eha if
British Council of Churches. For a abemuene of this kind th
report was outstandingly liberal. It was published before pr
sentation to the British Council of Churches meeting at Lambeth -
at the end of October 1966. Critical response to the liberali
expressed was swift. The Archbishop of York presided over
meeting which included the Bishops of Coventry, Blackburn.
and Liverpool amongst other clerics. They issued a stateme
‘, . we believe that the Christian Church should say plainly tha
sexual intercourse outside marriage is less than the best kind o
loving and therefore wrong. Anything that weakens this fun
_ mental Christian standard cannot in our view do anything b
disservice to the personal and family life of the nation.’26 T.
was in effect a reaction to what has been called ‘situational’ ethi
that is conduct should be regulated according to the circ
stances at the time in preference to an undeviating standard. This —
was stated as a minority view of some members of the committee
which prepared the report. ‘. . . we should leave the individ
parties free to decide whether a personal relationship has achiev
the intimacy and tenderness of which sexual intercourseis
appropriate expression, either in cases where a marriage i
tended, or where it is not.’”27 Even though the majority thou
that this was an unacceptable view unless the proviso was n
that the man knew that this expression was one of true lov
clearly as was pointed out very difficult to ascertain when pass
clouds the senses — many critics were appalled that the sentim
could be expressed at all. 4
The very sentiments which outraged the orthodox — ‘
Christian is not so much concerned to tie men and woment
single fixed position on sexual morality as to commend a chara
teristic attitude to persons’ and ‘No rule can cover all the variaa
and complex situations in which men and women find the
- selves’2® — were the ones which the journal of the modern w:
of the Anglican Church, New Christian, thought worthy of
commendation.?® As might have been expected, Dr.
Robinson, the Bishop of Woolwich, said: ‘The report’s kin
morality — like that of Jesus and Paul in opposition to the Jewi
law — helps people to come to responsible decisions for th
selves.’3° :
The real value of the report was in its willingness to enter

318
FSieber: about the Deobicans of sexual eoranne one chapter was
cast in dialogue form— to come down as it were into the market-
place and discuss the real situation as it confronted people. This
in fact was unprecedented. The normal practice has always been
_ for the churches to issue fundamental pronouncements from an
Olympian distance. In its willingness to face reality the report has
_ much in common with the Quaker contribution to the debate.
__ The reluctance with which the Council accepted the Report is
_ indicative of the conflict within the churches (The Times, 27
- October 1966).
_ Young people’s attitude towards the churches teaching with
_ regard to sexual morality can be compared with their attitude to
g the same churches’ teaching on war. The commandment expli-
y citly states “Thou shalt not kill’ yet ecclesiastical opinion has
_ always equivocated. In our own day the fact that ‘national
& churches support their countries in a ‘just’? war must appear
_ cynical to the highest degree. The adolescent might well argue if
cynicism appears in the most important sphere — that is human
¥Be tence — can it not also be present in the field of sexual morals?
_ What are the facts which create the sexual moral problem of
4 our time— the pros and cons of extra-marital sexual activity? As
regards this country the Schofield Report‘. .. estimated that at
4 the age of eighteen 34 per cent of the boys and 17 per cent of the
4 girls are sexually experienced.’3! This does not appear to be an
4excessively high figure. ‘Our results have made it clear that
_premarital sexual relations are a long way from being universal
"among teenagers as over two-thirds of the boys and three-
"quarters of the girls in our sample have not engaged in sexual
e intercourse. On the other hand it is equally apparent that teenage
premarital intercourse is not a minority problem confined to a
few deviates. It is an activity common enough to be seen as one
iee tion of teenage conformity.’22
How does this incidence compare with other western coun-
"tries? One of the difficulties in making such comparisons is that
ifew research projects employ exactly the same methods to make
‘them strictly comparable. The Schofield research involved inter-
= with 1873 teenagers of both sexes between fifteen and
_nineteen years old. In the most recent French enquiry, the result
_ of a questionnaire involving 10,000 young people between six-
i:and twenty years of age, 62.6 per cent of the boys were in
" favourof sexual intercourse before marriage, and 32.4 per cent of

4 wt : 319
 girls.33 Of course
c Seungin lewone
- sarily mean that the.individual pennies

ence enquiry a group ofmarried women between ventas

and twenty-four years of age when asked if they had intercourse—
with their husbands before marriage 37 per cent gave an affirma-
tive reply. If we discount the difference in the size of sample sana4
the different age groups involved, the impression is still left that—
considerably more French women than English women have
had premarital sexual experience. : yr
The most nearly comparable American research to that con=
ducted by Schofield in Britain is by Kirkendall in 1961 and
Christensen in 1962. In the former the incidence of premari
intercourse among eighteen-year-old students was 54 per cen
In Christensen’s twenty-year-old group the incidence was 50 pe
cent.3+ Kinsey in 1948 gave an incidence of 68.2 per cent for hi:
eighteen-year-old sample.35 One interesting conclusion of Kinse
was that as the educational level of the individual rose th
percentage of those with sexual experience of this kind dropped. rh.
In the highest educational group only 30.8 per cent had had ©
premarital sexual experience.3° Unfortunately no compariso
can be made with the Schofield research as no breakdowno
educational levels is given. Even if the lowest American figure i
taken this is, at 50 per cent, considerably higher than the British —
figure. The correlation made by Kinsey between educational level —
and sexual activity suggests that limited education decreases the—
inhibition against intercourse. %
While most western societies have seen cause for alarm in
apparent increase in premarital sexual experimentation the si
tion has been very differently regarded in Scandinavia. In com-
parison with other European countries Denmark, Norway, :
Sweden have a highly liberal attitude towards youthful se:
experimentation. Unlike other forms of Protestantism the
Lutheran Church, which is the dominant church in all thr
countries, does not appear to be convinced of the inherent sinfu
ness of sexuality. It is very possible that an important compon
in the formulation and practice of Scandinavian sexual liberal
has been the long tradition of trial marriages and asso
customs. The comparatively late industrialisation of this part |

320
 _ analysis and ‘free love’.37 The result is a group of societies
_ remarkably free from the sexual inhibitions characteristic of most
_ western societies. This agrarian pattern of sex relations was not
_ confined to Scandinavia. It can be regarded as a Germanic
_ phenomenon. It still exists in an attentuated form in the Black
Forest region of Germany. The influence of the churches in
conjunction with other factors have led to its decline.3®
A comparatively recent survey in Denmark amongst a group
of 284 married women indicated that only 1.4 per cent were
virgins at the time of marriage. While this would be regarded in
Britain as evidence of a high degree of promiscuity with a con-
sequent high venereal disease rate this in fact is not the case. The
total number of all types of V.D. cases in Denmark in 1956 was
363.39 Further evidence of the libertarian sexual atmosphere in
Denmark is seen in the open sale of erotic literature in bookshops
_ in Copenhagen similar in status to the Times Bookshop in
~ London.
No specific studies have been made of premarital sexual
__ behaviour in Norway but opinion seems to be general that the
_ incidence is extremely high. “The most common practice among
_ the unmarried is to go to bed together after three or four dates...
Sexuality seems to be accepted, especially by the young, as a
- normal and natural experience.’+°
-__ In Sweden the premarital affair is the norm among adolescents.
_ A survey of a group of men and women (1000 men and 1314
women), married and unmarried in the nineteen-fifties showed
95 per cent of the married men aged 40 had had premarital affairs;
and 80 per cent of twenty-year-old unmarried men had had
similar experiences. Amongst the married women 80 per cent
had had sexual intercourse before marriage.*t With regard to
venereal disease there has been a decline from 1943 to 1955. In
1943 there were 936 syphilitic cases and 19,000 of gonorrhoea.
Bs In 1955 there were 193 cases of syphilis and 13,852 of gonor-
_ rhoea.#?
It is useful at this point to compare the rate of V.D. in Sweden,
>=_ where the incidence of premarital sexual activity is probably the

highest among western societies, with that of Britain where such

~ incidence is comparatively low.
<3
. It would appear from the following table that Sweden with
approximatel
RS
ar y a sixth of the population of England and Wales
oie
has an incidence of Gonorrhoea considerably more than twice as,

TEP
ee 321
 TABLE I
V.D. cases
Population Syphilis. Gonorrhoea Year
England and
Wales 46,072,000 1,390 36,049 1963
(1961 Census)
Sweden 79542459 193 13,852 1955
(1962)
much, and that the incidence of Syphilis is about the same. It
would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that such figures
demonstrate the venereal disease danger of permissive sexuality.
It must be remembered that the comparatively large prostitute
population of the major Swedish ports makes a major contribu-
tion to such diseases. In other words if adolescent sexual experi-
mentation is regarded as good in itself the existence of venereal
disease is not a ground on which it should be condemned. It is
possible with adequate legal backing to control the spread of the
social diseases much more effectively. The problem is far more a
social and legal one than it is medical.
So far we have made comparisons between some western
societies. These can be put into perspective by considering data
from research made in Israel. A detailed project concerned with
Israeli sex life was undertaken in 1954 by S. Z. Klausner. Israeli
society has two major ethnic components — European Jews and
those from the Middle East. The project comprised both ele-
ments. The results obtained are of great interest. Almost half of
the males interviewed had had sexual experience by the age of ©
seventeen, and all of them by twenty-two. Of the females only
Io per cent had had similar experiences by late adolescence, and
about one-third by the age of twenty-two.** Compared with the
figures given by Schofield for England (34 per cent) it would seem
that Israeli male adolescents are more sexually active. While the
Israeli females in mid-adolescence are less active than their
English counterparts.
An aspect which has a considerable bearing on sexual activity
- masturbation — was investigated by Klausner. With regard to
female masturbation he found that two-thirds of the girls in his —
sample had begun masturbation by the age of sixteen, and by —
twenty-two almost all had had the experience. 40 per cent of the
orgasms during the earlier twenties were through this outlet.

322
es fa .

ca ‘Unfortunately Schofield did not investigate this aspect so no

_ comparison can be made. However, the Israeli results can be
contrasted with Kinsey’s investigation of female masturbation.
_ Kinsey found that: ‘At age fifteen, it (masturbation) accounts for
_ 93 per cent of the total outlet and for about half of the weekly
orgasms at age twenty-five.’4* Kinsey also found that 20 per cent
of his sample had had coital experience between sixteen and
_ twenty-five years of age, but only 3 per cent by fifteen years of
age.5 Schofield’s figures, quoted above, showed that 17 per cent
of girls by the age of eighteen were sexually experienced.
It is reasonable to assume that the female rate of masturbation
_in England is comparable to that of the U.S.A., that is, it is very
_ high in early adolescence but decreases with age, but still
accounts for something like half of female orgasms by the age of
twenty-five. If this assumption is correct it may be possible to
_ establish in adolescence a positive correlation between a high *
__ incidence of female masturbation and a low rate of coital exper-
__ ience. It would certainly appear to be the case in the United
States. Whether the critics of so-called adolescent sexual promis-
| cuity would approve of this manifestation it is difficult to know.
_ Masturbation is, of course, a sin but unlike sexual intercourse
; outside wedlock presumably it is more in the category of the
_ venial rather than the mortal.
¥rf If the clock were put back in western societies in terms of
Hf- women’s emancipation, and the traditional sexual code of the
_ churches rigorously enforced it is interesting to speculate as to
_ the results in terms of sexual behaviour. Any Middle Eastern
society today reproduces these conditions almost exactly.
_ Women’s status in these societies approximate very much to
~ what it was in nineteenth century Europe. Virginity in females
‘ is enormously prized — defection from this standard may mean
heostracism and possibly death. Forbidden by custom to have
_ sexual access to females of their own group young adolescent
4males have recourse to masturbation, homosexuality, and prosti-
tution. Research carried out in Iraq bears this out.
. By the age of twenty less than 12 per cent of Iraqi males have
4had sexual intercourse with a female companion. On the other
hand by the early twenties three out of four have visited prosti-
‘tutes. Nearly three-quarters of the group studied, by the early
4twenties, were practising masturbation. With strong sanctions
iagainst heterosexual behaviour outside of marriage it is not

Be 323
 o

surprising to find that throughout the Middle East homo-

sexuality is common amongst both men and women.**
It is our opinion that critics of a developing permissive sexual
morality in western societies should be aware of the implications
of the imposition of a strict code of sexual abstinence until
marriage. It would not only encourage masturbation and an
enormous clandestine market in pornography as substitutes, it
might also lead to a re-development of prostitution on the mas-
sive scale of the preceding century.
We have already mentioned above the belief that sexual per-
missiveness promotes illegitimacy. This does not appear to be
borne out by the facts. A comparison between permissive and
restrictive societies in Europe brings this out. Sweden, in the
former category, in 1938 had an illegitimacy rate of 12.7 per
cent while in Roman Catholic restrictive Austria the rate was
20.9 per cent. The figures for 1957 were 10.1 and 13.3 respec-
tively.47, The contrast is even more dramatic if restrictive
Guatemala with an illegitimacy rate of 76.1 per cent (1944) is
compared with permissive Denmark with a rate of 6.9 per cent
(1957).48 In South American countries middle class girls have
little opportunity for sexual encounters with male companions.
The corollary is that the incidence of illegitimacy, venereal dis-
eases, and prostitution in these societies are among the highest
in the world.*9 Evidence of this kind should be helpful to those
who insist on a connection between bastardy and liberal sexual
attitudes.
There are two important factors which affect our thinking
about sexual behaviour. One concerns virginity, the other the
component of mystery in sex. As we have shown in another
chapter, virginity both inside and outside marriage can adopt the
character of an obsession. It is an obsession shared with a number
of so-called primitive societies throughout the world. Sophis-
ticated societies such as our own are not above resorting to arti-
ficial means to preserve the fiction of virginity on marriage.
*, « - for about £20 the young lady can enter the hospital de-
flowered and leave it with a plastic membrane guaranteed to be
indistinguishable from the real thing . . .?5° So are matters.
arranged in Japan. No doubt a similar service is available in this
ey but possibly not provided by the National Health —
ervice. ee
Egocentricity on the part of the male — the maidenhead is his

324
~ and his alone — undoubtedly plays a part in this complex. The
male attitude affects female behaviour so that a girl’s virginity
becomes the supreme, and sometimes the only, gift a bride can
give her husband. It is possible that notions concerning the inter-
pretation of the ‘Fall’ of man as a sexual act has affected Christ-
ian thought on the subject. The antithesis of virginity obsession
is also found in our society — both men and women obtaining
_ Sexual stimulation from knowledge that their partners have had
other experiences. Freud demonstrated that the first act of
coitus for a woman may induce a type of sexual thraldom in
which she becomes completely dependent on the man.’ The
egocentricity of the male is obviously enhanced by this know-
_ ledge. On the other hand there is no really adequate sociological
_, analysis of the phenomenon of virginity.
- The inherent ambivalence of our society in sexual matters is
_ exhibited by the cultivation of mystery in relation to sexual
intercourse. This is shown by the reluctance with which sex
instruction is given to the young and the careful omission of any
reference to the pleasurable aspects. At the same time hints
Pte
ee
abound — in terms of innuendoes and jokes — of the ineffable
_ mystery|which at some future date the young will be allowed to
_ penetrate. The vagina is symbolised as a mystic portcullis which
will be forced only at the appropriate time. That is one set of
attitudes. Another is the unconscious and conscious exploitation
of sex in every conceivable form in advertisements for the sale of
such disparate commodities as chocolate and brassieres, in plays,
Rr
A
er
PRP films, and books. This, it should be remembered, is promoted
and organised by adults not by teenagers. In our opinion the
contradictions created by this adult ambivalence is not condu-
cive to the development of viable sexual standards for adoles-
cents. The honest adult may admit his inefficiency in this respect
Poet
Rey
Phe
but will he also admit that his jealousy of the younger generation
is at the root of his condemnation of adolescent sexual behav-
eT jour?
On the basis of the information we have attempted to provide
5

_ in this chapter it is possible to make some suggestions as to the

_ development of future trends in sexual behaviour. What has
ont
Poe
“—
_ begun to emerge in the debate over adolescent sexual patterns is
" that a divorce is beginning between the traditional association of
&:

- love and sex. Young people are beginning to realise that at their
- sexual peak in adolescence satisfaction can be obtained from

ao= 325

pee
 each other without necessarily involving a lifetime relationship.
We would suggest that in the next twenty-five years this divorce
will have become complete. In this connection it should be
remembered that although modern marriage is reputedly based
on love and a mutual relationship between the couple that this is
in fact a comparatively recent notion. For the greater part of the
history of this country marriages in the landed and merchant
classes were a matter of arrangement of the interests of the two
contracting families. The fact that the couple might like each
other or not was entirely peripheral to the main purpose of the
union — the consolidation and increase of property. At the pres-
ent time a vast number of societies use exactly the same principle
in establishing marital relationships. As regards the mass of the
people in this society prior to the industrial revolution their
attitude towards marriage was very similar to that of contem-
porary French peasant society — the economic and social interests
of the families must be paramount.
It is worth noting that the thirteenth-century troubadour con-
ception of romantic love explicitly stated that it was impossible
of achievement by. married couples. Adultery was the perfect
partner of romance. It has been said that ‘. . . To judge from
contemporary poems and romances, the first thought of every
knight on finding a lady unprotected and alone was to do her
violence . . .”52
It would be a worthwhile exercise to subject the contemporary
notion of love to a proper analysis. To discover, for example,
how many of our ideas concerning love are derived from plays
' and films of an inferior kind. Or how far are the lady romantic
novelists responsible for the sentimentality surrounding the idea
of sexual love. So far as we are aware such an analysis has not
been attempted.
The churchmen, especially those safe from the assaults of the
flesh in the haven of marriage, have regarded sex for its own sake
as a sin. Sex from this angle can only be permitted if a lifelong
union has been entered into. This may suit some people but the
evidence suggests that a growing number of young people in
western societies are using sex initially as a source of pleasure.
Initially is the key word in that statement. It can be safely pre-
dicted that however great the development of sexual freedom for
the young they will, after a period of experimentation, settle into
marriage. The biological pull towards the creation of a family

326
- will maintain that institution whatever patterns of permissive-
ness may develop. Itis also possible that if sexual experimentation
in youth becomes the norm, and the evidences suggests
_ that this is likely, that they will bring to marriage a greater
understanding not only of sexual matters but of human relation-
ships. In our view in the long term the churches will have to find
an accommodation in the face of the adolescent demand. It is
_ perfectly reasonable that the responsibility for entering a sexual
_Yelationship should be placed in the hands of the partners. That
_ if both enter such a relationship, aware of its implications, it is
absurd that they should be castigated for taking one course
rather than another. There are signs, in the form of the two
_ pamphlets we have discussed, Sex and Morality and A Quaker
View of Sex, that some churchmen at any rate are willing to start
_ adialogue with youth in these terms.
____ It can also be predicted that in the next few years an absolute-
_ ly safe method of birth control will be evolved based on “The
_ Pill’. When this occurs the argument against permissiveness on
_ the grounds that it increases illegitimacy will have been destroy-
ed. If sufficient attention can be focused on venereal diseases it
_ is very possible that they will be virtually eliminated within the
- next decade.
Our optimism with regard to a change in the ecclesiastical
attitude towards sexual permissiveness is based on a comparison
- with the modification in the Roman Catholic attitude towards
_ contraception. Ten years ago no one would have ventured to
_ suggest that such a modification could have taken place. It has
’ occurred because of the immense amount of feeling on the
"matter amongst Roman Catholics. The Protestant churches are
_ less intransigent than Rome, so to that extent our optimism is
| justified.
A recent book in Sweden by a psychiatrist, Dr. Lars Uller-
| ‘stam, advocates the use of sex as a therapy in mental sickness and
_ personal trouble. Ullerstam suggests that brothels perform a
useful social function and should be directed by the state. The
_ Swedish Medical Council in conjunction with doctors and social
_ workers should supervise them. The vicious paraphernalia of
> prostitution — the pimp, ponce, white slaver and brothel-
_keeper — would be eliminated. If good conditions of service
could be created for both male and female prostitutes prostitu-
"tion might attract an excellent type of person. In Ullerstam’s
%

oY 327
opinion the social and medical services catered for almost all
the needs of people in modern society, but there is a consider-
able area of neglect in the sexual needs of middle-aged people,
those in hospital, and mental patients. Mobile facilities should be
made availble for these.’53
Ullerstam’s views may appear extreme but nevertheless it is
perfectly correct that a great number of people are sexually
deprived in western society. For the able-bodied in this category
it is usually suggested that they should find fulfilment in some
occupation which allows their parental urge an outlet. This ad-
vice if followed sometimes leads to disastrous conclusions. For
the blind, in institutions, the convalescent in hospital, for the
relatively aged society’s presumption is that they have no posi-
tive sexual urge. This is wishful thinking of an extreme kind.
Whether it would be possible to persuade the society in Britain
to adopt Dr. Ullerstam’s solution is very debatable. It would .
require a degree of enlightenment of vast proportions. Neverthe-
less, the problem is a very real one.
With regard to prostitution it would appear that the hard core
of the demand, which we have referred to in other chapters, will
continue to exist, Prostitutes themselves will tend to fall into
three main categories — the call girl, the inmate of the Dirnen-
wohnheime on the German model, and the casual prostitute of —
the seaports and military encampments, either ‘streetwalking or
in a brothel. The ordinary streetwalker as such has an uncertain
future. The German example suggests that societies impelled to
impose a visual decency in cities may also be impelled to sponsor
semi-state brothels under strict control. Whether this is desirable —
or not is an open question. Clearly if the state can offer pro-
tection and an improved status to the prostitute this is to be ad-
vocated. On the other hand to do so the state has to promote vice,
which many would say is deplorable. The choice remains the
promotion of ‘respectable’ vice, or a continuance of the laissez
faire which profits the entrepreneur but creates misery for the —
prostitute. If it is a choice between two evils then the lesser is
obvious. :
The hard core demand cannot change for there is no other
source of sexual satisfaction available to the perverted, the de-
fective personality, and the physically impotent. Whether sexual
permissiveness is accepted for adolescents or not, whether the
incidence of extra-marital sexual activity increases or not, the

328
 e“certain, hard core demand for the prostitute willcontinue.
¢ SO
society has produced that demand. Prostitution remains the
b iy of our society.

ber
uy

ENotes and References

ees
Carstairs, G. M. This Island Now, London 1963, p. 51.
>
; Dr. Howard Jones in an address to the National Marriage
‘3

v
Guidance Conference, Swanwick, Derbyshire, May 1963 as
reported in the News of the World, May 19th, 1963.
wo
On this topic see the comments of a Swedish gynaecologist,
i
a Dr. T. Sjévall, ‘Sex and Human Relations’: Some Reflections
in Proceedings of the International Planned Parenthood Federa-
ee tion Conference, London 1964, London 1965, p. 27.
Report in The Times, December 27th, 1962. Both D. H. Law-
eh
rence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Jules Romains’ The
Body Rapture are informative on this subject.
omeum Soper, Rev. Lord. Does Pornography Matter, ed. C. H. Rolph,

London 1961, pp. 48-9.

Rey. Denis Duncan as reported in The Times, February 12th,
1960.
~ 7 Quoted in The Guardian, October 8th, 1960.
__* Schofield, Michael. The Sexual Behaviour of Young People,
London 1965, p. 114.
_ ® See report in The Times, November Ist, 1962, and WHO
_ Chronicle, Vol. 19, No. 4, April 1965, p. 146. :
1° Registrar-General’s Statistical Review, London 1962.
-™ Chan, K. T., and Wright, J. M. ‘Gynaecological Notes:
___ Canton Hospital,’ China Medical Fournal, 1925, pp. 684-7.
_ Various opinions on this phenomenon are expressed in: M. F,
Ashley-Montagu, ‘Adolescent Sterility,’ The Quarterly
Review of Sterility, Vol. XIV, 1939, pp. 13-34 and 192-219;
§. Zuckerman, ‘The Physiology of Fertility in Man and
Monkey,’ The Eugenics Review, Vol. XXVIII, 1936, p. 395
and C, B. Hartman, ‘On the Relative Sterility of the Adoles-
cent Organism,’ Science, Vol. LXXIV, 1931, pp. 226-7.
x Henriques, Fernando. Love in Action, London 19595 Chapter
‘Ipp. 42-61.
_ Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor, Extra

Base 7 329
see
. 9<a a
7r°F
 Soe fs Beta te wae
‘ se. at Will Io WO ek ndaon

‘p. 4690 : fr a ae |
Tbid., p. 467 ee
1962, Cmd. 2120, p. 27.
Huizinga, J. The Waning of the Middle Ages, London 1955Sy
p. I10. ;
17 Le Livre du chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’enseignement dile
ses filles, trans. Thomas Wright, London 1868. .
he 18 Nyrop, C. Storia dell’epopea francese nel medio evo, T = y
1888, p. 353. See also A. Luchaire in E. Lavisse, Histoire
France, Paris 1901-11, Vol. II, Part II, p. 21. ‘
°
See in particular The Times for June 11th, 12th, 13th, and ©
14th, 1963. ;
20 Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, London 19633
Vol. II, ChapterI.
; 21
Bolton, Richard. General Directions for a Comfortable Wi
ing with God, London 1634, p. 242.
uaz Baxter, Richard. A Christian Directory; London 1673, PartII,
Chapter VII, dir. 2.
23 Unfortunately no page references can be given as the fpage
the pamphlet are unnumbered.
The Guardian, October 19th, 1966.
Bailey, Sherwin. Common Sense about Sexual Ethics, Londoyn
1962. "
Sex and Morality, a Report to the British Councilof
Churches, London 1966, p. 28. +
Ibid., p. 63.
> New Christian, October 2oth, 1966. a
In a television broadcast reported in The Guardian, October
20th, 1966. ook
Schofield, Michael, op. cit., p. 247. a
Ibid., p. 248. ‘
Report in The Guardian, October 1oth, 1966.
Remy, J.j;-and Woog, R. Patterns of Sex and Love, Loi
1964, p. 105. The book is based on a study made by
French Institute of Public Opinion advised by Dr.
Bontommier of the Sorbonne and Dr. Gessain of the M
de ’homme.
: Kirkenstall, L. A. Premanit Intercourse and Incrpers
 Y.
F - penter, ‘Value Behaviour Discrepancies in three western
_ cultures,’ American Sociological Review, Vol. 27, pp. 66-74.
_ 35 Kinsey, A. C., et al. Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male,
_ Philadelphia and London 1948, p. 550.
o 6 Thid.
_ 37 Myrdal, Alva. Nation and Family, London 1945, p. 45.
- 38 Anon. Les Nuits D’Epruves des Villageoises Allemandes Avant
Le Mariage, Brussels 1877. We have discussed this group of
customs in some detail in Love in Action, London 1959, pp.
‘170-5.
_ 3° Bohm, Ewald. Encyclopedia of Sexual Behaviour, ed. A. Ellis
and A. Arbarbanel, London 1961, Vol. II, pp. 914 and 915.
4 ° Johnstad, Trygve. Encyclopedia of Sexual Behaviour, op. cit.,
SPAR,
i
~ Pp. 917 and 918.
~
4« Bohm, Ewald, op. cit., pp. 920-1.
4Martindale, L. Venereal Disease, London 1945, p. 29, and
Ewald Bohm, op. cit., p. 921.
43 Klausner, S. Z. ‘Sex Life in Israel’ in Encyclopedia of Sexual
Behaviour, op. cit., pp. 563-4.
44 Ibid.,p. 562.
_ 45 Kinsey, A. C., et al. Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female,
Philadelphia and London 1953, p. 288.
Klausner, S. Z. ‘Sex Life in Islam’ in Encyclopedia of Sexual
Behaviour, op. cit., pp. 553; 550, and 547.
47 Wimperis, Virgina. The Unmarried Mother and her Child,
rs
Hs

London 1960, pp. 32 and 21.

et
ec
eee 48 Tbid., pp. 34 and 21.
_ 49 Henriques, Fernando. Prostitution and Society, London 1963,
Vol. II, Ch. VI.
4 ee° -Osbert, R. Japan’s Plastic Women, New Statesman, April
-Ioth, 1964.
4 Freud, S. ‘Contributions to the Psychology of Love: The
Cal

abil
a Taboo of Virginity,’ Collected Papers, London 1935, Vol. IV.
sual Traill, H. D., and Mann, J. S. Social England, London 1893-
7, Vol. II, p. 782.
53 Ullerstam, L. The Sexual Minorities, Stockholm 1966.
 _ Adolescent behaviour, 309-13,
_—«-319-22, 325-26
_ Adolescents, as clients of prosti-
tutes, 258, 259-60
Adultery, 293
Alcohol, see Liquor
Alhambra Music Hall, 167, 246
_ Almacks, 56
b Annual fairs, notoriety of, 38
sagt Alfred, 213
adBeecrclay, Charles, 25
Barclay Perkins (brewers), I2
_ Bath, prostitution in, 72, 73
a Bawd, see Procuration
a Beer-House: cum lodging house,
a - 154-5; effect on population,
___147, 148-60; prostitution, 151,
Bm) 8152-53
_ Beer Licence, qualifications for,
+» 147, 148
Berkely, Theresa, 61-4, 238
_ Bethnal Green, public houses in,
q 25, 26-7
Birth control, 327
_ Blunt, Wilfred, 213
iBordell, see Brothels
_ Bridewell Hospital, 48-50
b Bristol, prostitution in, 72, 131
British Council of Churches, 318
-Brothel-keepers, law relating to,
P84
|Brothel-keeping, 108-12
Brothels: child, 267; clients of,
P. 228-32; European, 194, 229,
_ 272-3; lesbians, 192-3; in
beer-houses, 153; in relation
- to white slave trade, 272, 2735
male, 59-60; male homosexual,
66-7; numbers of, 49, 743
provision of young girls, 65-6;
types, 68-9; use of hotels, 71-2
Buenos Aires, prostitution in,
274-5, 277-78
Butler, Josephine, 267
Call-girls, 95, 183-4, 259, 301-3
Calvert, Charles, 22, 147
Child prostitutes, 233, 240, 267-9,
271
Christian attitudes, 315-6, 317,
318-9, 326
Christian education, 247-8
Christianity, amongst prostitutes, ©
100-1
Coffee-houses, 34-5
Coffee-shops, 169-70
Cohen, Wolff, 16
Collins, Wilkie, 178
Conygham, Lord, 202
Corporal punishment, in relation
to flagellation, 233, 234-7
Cowley, Abraham, 155
Cranworth, Lord, 207
Cunningham, John, 28
Dancing Academies, 122
Dancing Saloons, 166, 167
Defloration, 233, 239, 267, 268-9
Domestic servants: drinking hab-
its, 120; use as prostitutes, 89—
90, 114, I2I—-2, 297
Dram drinking, 36
Dress houses, 75-6
Drinking usages, 164
Edinburgh, brothel-keeping, 107-
112; brothels, 95-8, 106-73
333
al
2
eyPea
bd
ye at ere See
cesioumenes in, 118-03 fluctua-
mo
Les! sm
prostitu

‘tion of prostitute Homosexuals, punishme

lation, 94-5; poverty, 93-4, 67-8
119; prostitute drinkers, 101—- kee trade in prostitution, 7::
2; prostitution in, 86-90, 94,
102; types of women, 103-5 Hush shop, 158
Educational backwardness of pro-
stitutes, 99-100 Illegitimate births, 311-2, 324-5
Edward VI, King of England, 49 Impotence, 252-3, 257-8
Edward, Prince of Wales (later India, 295
Edward VII), 213, 215 Ireland, source for prostitutes, 9)
Egypt, 280, 281-2 Israel, 322

‘Fancy Women’, 93-4 Juvenile delinquency, 32,33.

Finsbury, public houses in, 24 Keeler, Christine, 313, 314
Flagellation, 59, 61-65, 232-403 King, Rev. Joshua, 26
association with prostitution,
61; brothels specializing in, Landseer, Edwin, 213 “e
238-9; instruments of, 62-3 Langtry, Lily, 215, 217 ‘+ La
Flash-houses, 31-2, 33 League of Nations, inquiries into
Fletcher, Joseph, 15, 16, 17, 18, White Slave Trade,. 2759 ei
19, 20 77> 281, 298
France, prostitution in, 206, 219- Leeds: beer shops in, I
20, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285 drunkenness in, 148, 152
-Free-love, 206 : Lesbianism, in prostitutes, 187ine
Friendly Benefit Societies, 28
188-94, 195, 196-7 iva
Licensing laws, 36, 161,162
George IV, ing of England, 58, Liquor: amount sold, 161; con
61. sumption of, 38; i
Gin drinking, 12, 36, 37-8 habits, 12; drinking hab:
Gin Palace, 147, 170-1 Edinburgh, 119-203 in fi
Ginger-beer shops, 96 budget, 161
_ Gladstone, William, 213, 214-5 Liverpool: Waselsns beer )
Glasgow: lodging houses, 134-5; in 150-1; brothels in, 78-9 ~
poverty, 135, 136, 1393 prosti- Lock Hospital, Edinburgh, 86,
tution in, 95, 96, 125-333 London: conditions in, 246} co!
public houses, 130-1; singing sumption of alcohol, 38, —
saloons, 132-3; unemploy- prostitute population, 52,
ment, 134 733 spread of prostitution.
Greece, 295 London Society for Protect
Guardian Society, 49, 50, 52, 207 Young Females, 79
Loneliness, 255
Hanburys (brewers), 26, 27, 39
_ Hennekey, Mr, 14, 15, 16, 17 Magistrates, attitude to b
Home life, effect on children, 121 ' 24-5, 26

334
ots
 Feceniane: 136, 137, 293, 294, Perversion, 655 66, see alsaSexual —a
attitudes in literature, 204,-5 perversions
ig 212; escape from prostitution, Physical attributes of prostitutes,
81-2, 183; Victorian atti- 183-7
tudes, 117-8, 202 Police: bribery of, 167; corrup-
; Married women, as prostitutes, tion of, 270
bs 90, 91-2 Potter, Sarah, 239
_ Martineau, John, 23 Poverty, 296
_ Masturbation, 322-3 Premarital affairs, 315, 317-8,
f Mayhew, Henry, 163, 169 319-22
_ Mellish, Mr., 17 Procuration, 76, 112; 266-7,
_ Merceron, Joseph, 14, 15, 16, 20, 269-70
t 21, 26-7 Profumo affair, 202, 215, 284, 313
_ Meux. and Co. (brewers), in- Promiscuity, 295, 311
volvement with prostitution, Prostitute: abnormal pervonatine
| 13-22, 24, 25 298; appearance, 184-6; in
” Millais, Sir John, 215 literature, 175-6, 178-80; in
_ Mogador, Celeste, 176-7 relation to wife, 180; male
Moral welfare, voluntary work, characteristics, 186; marriage
80-1 of 183; place in society, 177;
Morals, Victorian sexual, 202-3 population, 223-4; reclama-
__—«- 206, 212-13, 216, 219-20 tion, 178, 182; rejection by
Morocco, 283, 284 society, 177, 180
_ Munsinger affair, 215 Prostitute’s clientele, 240, 247-
_ Musselburgh, migration of pros- 50, 253-9, 302-4
__ titutes, 95 Public houses: attractions of,
166; clubs in, 28, 29; in rela-
_ National Temperance Society, tion to prostitution, 13-23;
4 163 numbers of, 38; Sunday open-
4“Newcastle, 72 ing, 29
New York, 99
BeNight house, 170 Quakers, 39-40, 316-18
_Noblemen, patronage of prosti-
» tution,58 Regulation of prostitution, 73,
| Norwich, prostitution in, 73, 74-
3 242, 274-5; 280-1, 304
ae 6 Religion, 295
_ Nymphomania, QI, 113 Robson, Rev., 15, 20
iz Russia, prostitution in, 277-80
¥
Obscene literature, sale of, 123-
Sailors: as clients, 20; contribu-
“otttam,158 tion to prostitution, 57
Sapphism, 101-3
Paley, Bishop, 46 Scotland, prostitution in, 136-41,
es, Lord, 201-2, 215 see also Edinburgh, Glasgow
‘Paris, 99, 225, 226; lesbianism in, Seduction of females, 52, 115-8,
peg 5°:191, 192 209-10, 269

335
 ons, Sarah, 53
i” Skittles, see Walters, Catherine Virgins, demand for, 66, ;
_ Society for the Suppression of 268, 271, see also Defloration _
Vice, 30 Voyeurism, 194, 252
me Society of Friends, 40
Soldiers, as prey to prostitution Wages, paying on licensed pre-
246-7 mises, 27, 162, 163-4, 165
«es
Southwark, prostitution in, 50 Walters, Catherine, 213, 232
Stockholm, 225-6 Watchmen, activities of, 13, 77:
Sundays, behaviour on, 29-30 Watering-houses, 34
124 = __ West Germany: brothels in, 22
‘a
Sweden, 320, 321, 327 30, 304; prostitution in, 245
Whipping, see Flagellation
Tea gardens, 47, 48, 56, 168 Whisky drinking, 136
Theatres: 122; saloons in, 53-6; Whitbread and Co. (brewers),
use by prostitutes, 47, 53 12, 23, 24, 25, 39
Thirlwall, Mr., 15 White Slave Trade: 239, 266,6
Truman, Hanbury and Buxton 271, 272-89; disrupted ,
(brewers), 12, 25 War, 275; international t
272-5, 276, 279-80, 284-5
Unemployment, 39-40 Williams, Sir Daniel, 17,22
United States of America, 298, Wilson, Mary, 59, 62, 64, 65
320, 323 Women, sexuality of, 299-301
Uxbridge, Lord, 202 World War I, conditions 7
by, 244, 247, 275
Venereal disease, 99, 240-3, 282, World War II, conditions caus ed
311, 322 by, 251 Vee
Victoria, Queen of England, 201,
202 York, Duke of, 58
 PROSTITUTION AND SOCIETY
Volume Ill

MODERN SEXUALITY is the third and concluding volume

of Professor Fernando Henriques’s detailed historical and
analytical study PROSTITUTION AND SOCIETY. In it, he
explores the close, almost interdependent bonds that
existed in Victorian times between the prostitute and the
liquor trade—1 9th Century pubs were much less innocent
than those of today. He goes on to examine the
fundamental hypocrisy that underlay Victorian attitudes
towards sex and prostitution, illustrating how the prostitute Pr
”
was a necessary means towards preserving the chastity
and virtue of the ‘respectable’ housewife and fiancee.
Intriguing studies of the client, the whore’s relationship
with her ponce and white slavery are included, as well as
a rational and unprejudiced look at contemporary sexual
mores and notions of ‘permissiveness’. — 9

‘A book to be highly recommended... a great deal of

useful documentary material ... rational and unprejudiced’
New Society

FERNANDO HENRIQUES is Professorial Fellow and

Director of the Centre for Multi-Racial Studies, University off
Sussex, and Director of the combined University of the
West Indies and University of Sussex Centre for Multi-
Racial Studies, Barbados, West Indies. His other major
works include THE PRETENCE OF LOVE and THE
IMMORAL TRADITION (volumes | and Il respectively of
‘Prostitution and Society’) and LOVE IN ACTION: the
Sociology of Sex (all available in Panther )

U.K. 10/-(50p) AUSTRALIA $1.55 NEW ZEALAND $1.45 SOUTH AFRICA R1.20