The London Underworld in the Victorian Period: Authentic First-Person Accounts by Beggars, Thieves and Prostitutes: v. 1

by Mayhew, Henry

  In some instances these females after having run their fashionable career, get married; in others they may have managed to save some money to provide for the future. But in too many cases they are heartlessly abandoned by the men who formerly supported them, and glide down step by step into lower degradation, till many of them come to the workhouse, or the hospital, or to some secluded garret, or it may be rush into a suicide’s grave. Volumes might be written on this tragical theme, where fact would far transcend the heart-rending recitals of fiction.

  Having briefly adverted to the higher order of prostitutes, kept as seclusives by men of wealth, high station, and title, we shall now turn our attention to the open prostitutes who traverse the streets of the metropolis for their livelihood. With this view, we shall not treat first of the lower order of prostitutes, and proceed to the higher, but keeping in mind the principle with which we started—the progressive downward nature of crime,—we shall commence at the higher order of prostitutes, and afterwards notice the more debased. At the same time we shall select several of the more prominent localities as a sample of the whole districts of this vast metropolis. We shall notice the Haymarket, Bishopgate Street, and Waterloo Road, the Parks, Westminster, and Ratcliff Highway. We shall first advert to

  The Prostitutes of the Haymarket.

  A stranger on his coming to London, after visiting the Crystal Palace, British Museum, St. James’s Palace, and Buckingham Palace, and other public buildings, seldom leaves the capital before he makes an evening visit to the Haymarket and Regent Street. Struck as he is with the dense throng of people who crowd along London Bridge, Fleet Street, Cheapside, Holborn, Oxford Street, and the Strand, perhaps no sight makes a more striking impression on his mind than the brilliant gaiety of Regent Street and the Haymarket. It is not only the architectural splendour of the aristocratic streets in that neighbourhood, but the brilliant illumination of the shops, cafés, Turkish divans, assembly halls, and concert rooms, and the troops of elegantly dressed courtesans, rustling in silks and satins, and waving in laces, promenading along these superb streets among throngs of fashionable people, and persons apparently of every order and pursuit, from the ragged crossing-sweeper and tattered shoe-black to the high-bred gentleman of fashion and scion of nobility.

  Not to speak of the first class of kept women, who are supported by men of opulence and rank in the privacy of their own dwellings, the whole of the other classes are to be found in the Haymarket, from the beautiful girl with fresh blooming cheek, newly arrived from the provinces, and the pale, elegant, young lady from a milliner’s shop in the aristocratic West-end, to the old, bloated women who have grown grey in prostitution, or become invalid through venereal disease.

  We shall first advert to the highest class who walk the Haymarket, which in our general classification we have termed the second class of prostitutes.

  They consist of the better educated and more genteel girls, some of them connected with respectable middle-class families. We do not say that they are well-educated and genteel, but either well-educated or genteel. Some of these girls have a fine appearance, and are dressed in high style, yet are poorly educated, and have sprung from an humble origin. Others, who are more plainly dressed, have had a lady’s education, and some are not so brilliant in their style, who have come from a middle-class home. Many of these girls have at one time been milliners or sewing girls in genteel houses in the West-end, and have been seduced by shopmen, or by gentlemen of the town, and after being ruined in character, or having quarrelled with their relatives, may have taken to a life of prostitution; others have been waiting maids in hotels, or in service in good families, and have been seduced by servants in the family, or by gentlemen in the house, and betaken themselves to a wild life of pleasure. A considerable number have come from the provinces to London, with unprincipled young men of their acquaintance, who after a short time have deserted them, and some of them have been enticed by gay gentlemen of the West-end, when on their provincial tours. Others have come to the metropolis in search of work, and been disappointed. After spending the money they had with them, they have resorted to the career of a common prostitute. Others have come from provincial towns, who had not a happy home, with a stepfather or stepmother. Some are young milliners and dressmakers at one time in business in town, but being unfortunate, are now walking the Haymarket. In addition to these, many of them are seclusives turned away or abandoned by the persons who supported them, who have recourse to a gay life in the West-end. There are also a considerable number of French girls, and a few Belgian and German prostitutes who promenade this locality. You see many of them walking along in black silk cloaks or light grey mantles—many with silk paletots and wide skirts, extended by an ample crinoline, looking almost like a pyramid, with the apex terminating at the black or white satin bonnet, trimmed with waving ribbons and gay flowers. Some are to be seen with their cheeks ruddy with rouge, and here and there a few rosy with health. Many of them looking cold and heartless; others with an interesting appearance. We observe them walking up and down Regent Street and the Haymarket, often by themselves, one or more in company, sometimes with a gallant they have picked up, calling at the wine-vaults or restaurants to get a glass of wine or gin, or sitting down in the brilliant coffee-rooms, adorned with large mirrors, to a cup of good bohea or coffee. Many of the more faded prostitutes of this class frequent the Pavilion to meet gentlemen and enjoy the vocal and instrumental music over some liquor. Others of higher style proceed to the Alhambra Music Hall, or to the Argyle Rooms, rustling in splendid dresses, to spend the time till midnight, when they accompany the gentlemen they may have met there to the expensive supper-rooms and night-houses which abound in the neighbourhood.

  In the course of the evening, we see many of the girls proceeding with young and middle aged, and sometimes silver-headed frail old men, to Oxenden Street, Panton Street, and James Street, near the Haymarket, where they enter houses of accommodation, which they prefer to going with them to their lodgings. Numbers of French girls may be seen in the Haymarket, and the neighbourhood of Tichbourne Street and Great Windmill Street, many of them in dark silk paletots and white or dark silk bonnets, trimmed with gay ribbons and flowers, or walking up Regent Street in the neighbourhood of All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, and Portland Place, or coming down Regent Street to Waterloo Place and Pall Mall, and hovering near the palatial mansions or the Clubs; or they might be seen decoying gents to their apartments in Queen Street, off Regent’s Quadrant, from which locality they were lately forcibly ejected by the police. Most of these French girls have bullies, or what they term by a softer term ‘fancy men,’ who cohabit with them. These base wretches live on the prostitution of these miserable girls,—hang as loafers in their houses or about the streets, and many of them, as we might expect, are gamblers and swindlers. Several of them, we blush to say, are political refugees, exiles for fighting at the barricades of Paris, for the liberty of their country; while they live here with courtesans in the purlieus of Haymarket, in the most infamous and degrading of all bondage.

  The generality of the girls of the Haymarket have no bullies, but live in furnished apartments—one or more—in various localities of the metropolis. Many live in Dean Street, Soho, Gerrard Street, Soho, King Street, Soho, and Church Street, Soho, in Tennison Street, Waterloo Road, at Pimlico and Chelsea, several of the streets leading into Fitzroy Square, and other neighbourhoods, and pay a weekly rent varying from seven shillings to a guinea, which has to be regularly paid on the day it is due. In many cases little forbearance is shown by their heartless landladies. Many of these girls have gentlemen who statedly visit them at their lodgings, some of whom are married men. Most of them are very thoughtless and extravagant, with handfuls of money to-day, and in poverty and miserable straits to-morrow, driven to the necessity of pawning their dresses. Hence there are many changes in their life. At one time they are in splendid dress, and at another time in the humblest attire; occasionally they are assisted by men who
are interested in them, and restored to their former position, when they get their clothes out of the hands of the pawnbroker. Their living is very precarious, and many of them are occasionally exposed to privation, degradation, and misery, as they are very improvident. They are frequently treated to splendid suppers in the Haymarket and its vicinity, where they sit surrounded with splendour, partaking of costly viands amid lascivious smiles; but the scene is changed when you follow them to their own apartments in Soho or Chelsea, where you find them during the day, lolling drowsily on their beds, in tawdry dress, and in sad dishabille, with dishevelled hair, seedy-looking countenance, and muddy, dreary eyes—their voices frequently hoarse with bad humour and misery.

  Large sums of money are spent in luxurious riot in the Haymarket; but it has not been so much frequented by the gentry and nobility for several years past, although considerable numbers are to be seen in the summer and winter seasons.

  Strange midnight scenes were wont to be seen occasionally in Queen Street, Regent Street, where the French girls reside. Let us take an illustration. Some fast man—young or middle aged—goes with them to the cafés and music halls, perhaps proceeds to the supper rooms, and after an expensive supper, retires with them to their domicile in Queen Street. Meantime their bully keeps out of sight, or sneaks behind the bed-room door. In many cases, not contented with the half-guinea or guinea given them, their usual hire for prostitution, they demand more money from their victim. On his declining to give it, they refuse to submit to his pleasure, and will not return him his money. The bully is then called up, and the silly dupe is probably unceremoniously turned out of doors.

  There are few felonies committed by this class of prostitutes, as such an imputation would be fatal to their mode of livelihood in this district, where they are generally known, and can be easily traced.

  The second class of prostitutes, who walk the Haymarket—the third class in our classification—generally come from the lower orders of society. They consist of domestic servants of a plainer order, the daughters of labouring people, and some of a still lower class. Some of these girls are of a very tender age—from thirteen years and upwards. You see them wandering along Leicester Square, and about the Haymarket, Tichbourne Street, and Regent Street. Many of them are dressed in a light cotton or merino gown, and ill-suited crinoline, with light grey, or brown cloak, or mantle. Some with pork-pie hat, and waving feather—white, blue, or red; others with a slouched straw-hat. Some of them walk with a timid look, others with effrontery. Some have a look of artless innocence and ingenuousness, others very pert, callous, and artful. Some have good features and fine figures, others are coarse-looking and dumpy, their features and accent indicating that they are Irish cockneys. They prostitute themselves for a lower price, and haunt those disreputable coffee-shops in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket and Leicester Square, where you may see the blinds drawn down, and the lights burning dimly within, with notices over the door, that “beds are to be had within.”

  Many of those young girls—some of them good-looking—cohabit with young pickpockets about Drury Lane, St. Giles’s, Gray’s Inn Lane, Holborn, and other localities—young lads from fourteen to eighteen, groups of whom may be seen loitering about the Haymarket, and often speaking to them. Numbers of these girls are artful and adroit thieves. They follow persons into the dark by-streets of these localities, and are apt to pick his pockets, or they rifle his person when in the bedroom with him in low coffee-houses and brothels. Some of these girls come even from Pimlico, Waterloo Road, and distant parts of the metropolis, to share in the spoils of fast life in the Haymarket. They occasionally take watches, purses, pins, and handkerchiefs from their silly dupes who go with them into those disreputable places, and frequently are not easily traced, as many of them are migratory in their character.

  The third and lowest class of prostitutes in the Haymarket—the fourth in our classification—are worn-out prostitutes or other degraded women, some of them married, yet equally degraded in character.

  These faded and miserable wretches skulk about the Haymarket, Regent Street, Leicester Square, Coventry Street, Panton Street and Piccadilly, cadging from the fashionable people in the street and from the prostitutes passing along, and sometimes retire for prostitution into dirty low courts near St. James’ Street, Coventry Court, Long’s Court, Earl’s Court, and Cranbourne Passage, with shop boys, errand lads, petty thieves, and labouring men, for a few paltry coppers. Most of them steal when they can get an opportunity. Occasionally a base coloured woman of this class may be seen in the Haymarket and its vicinity, cadging from the gay girls and gentlemen in the streets. Many of the poor girls are glad to pay her a sixpence occasionally to get rid of her company, as gentlemen are often scared away from them by the intrusion of this shameless hag, with her thick lips, sable black skin, leering countenance and obscene disgusting tongue, resembling a lewd spirit of darkness from the nether world.

  Numbers of the women kept by the wealthy and the titled may occasionally be seen in the Haymarket, which is the only centre in the metropolis where all the various classes of prostitutes meet. They attend the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, and frequently indulge in the gaieties of the supper rooms, where their broughams are often seen drawn up at the doors. In the more respectable circles they may be regarded with aversion, but they here reign as the prima-donnas over the fast life of the West-end.

  Occasionally genteel and beautiful girls in shops and workrooms in the West-end, milliners, dressmakers, and shop girls, may be seen flitting along Regent Street and Pall Mall, like bright birds of passage, to meet with some gentleman on the sly, and to obtain a few quickly-earned guineas to add to their scanty salaries. Sometimes a fashionable young widow, or beautiful young married woman, will find her way in those dark evenings to meet with some rickety silver-headed old captain loitering about Pall Mall. Such things are not wondered at by those acquainted with high life in London.

  We now come to take a survey of the general state of prostitution which prevails over the metropolis, having Bishopgate, Shoreditch, and Waterloo Road more particularly in our eye as a sample of the other districts. These prostitutes in general reside in the dingy lanes and courts off the main streets in these localities, and have small bed-rooms poorly furnished, for which they pay four shillings and upwards a-week. They live in disreputable houses, occupied from the basement to the attics by prostitutes—some young, others more elderly; some living alone, others cohabiting with some low wretch of a man, a “tail” pickpocket, labourer, or low mechanic.

  The prostitutes of these localities generally belong to the third and fourth class. The better educated and more genteel girls who live by prostitution in most cases go to the Haymarket. Numbers may occasionally be seen in the neighbourhood of the Bank of England, at Islington, near the Angel tavern, in the City Road, New North Road, Paddington, at the Elephant and Castle, and other localities; though in most cases they only come out occasionally on the sly, and are engaged in shops, factories, warerooms, and workrooms, during the day, or secluded in their houses, supported by tradesmen, mechanics, shopmen, clerks, or others, and only live partially by prostitution.

  We shall refer to the two classes of open prostitutes generally to be seen over the various districts of the metropolis, such as those residing in the disreputable neighbourhoods we have mentioned. Some of the better class have the appearance of girls who serve in coffee-houses, barmaids, and servants, and others of the lower orders. Numbers of them are good-looking and tolerably well dressed. Some have been ironing girls, and others have sold small wares on the streets, and been engaged in similar employment.

  Many of these unfortunate girls have redeeming traits in their character. Some are kind-hearted and honest, and not a few are even generous and self-denying. The great mass, however, are unprincipled and base, ever ready to take an advantage when an opportunity occurs. The vast majority of them are thieves, similar to the third class we have sketched in the Haymarket. They not only st
eal from the persons they meet on the street under the dark cloud of night in by-streets and courts, but take men to their houses, and plunder them. They rifle the pockets of those who go for a short time with them, and steal their gold pins, watches, and money. This is generally done in low houses of accommodation. They frequently decamp with the clothes of their victim, who has taken a bed with them for the night, and leave him in a strange house in a state of nudity. Married men frequently get into this sad predicament, but the matter is in most cases hushed up. When it does get abroad, the party robbed, to screen his profligacy from his wife and relatives, pretends in many cases that he has been drugged.

  These prostitutes, some of them good-looking and handsome, often accost men in the street, retire with them into some by-lane or by-street, and patter about their pockets, while they encourage him to use indecent freedoms with their persons; and while they inflame his passions, rifle his pockets, and decamp with his money. This is frequently done in cases where the man does not have carnal connection with them.

  They are generally dressed in a light cotton or merino gown, a light or brown mantle, a straw bonnet trimmed with gaudy ribbons and flowers, and sometimes with a pork-pie hat and white or red feather.

  Some of these girls in those lower localities have better traits in their character than many of the more brilliant-dressed girls in the Haymarket, and are sometimes better looking. Not a few of them are very sedate, and will not go with any man whom they do not like. But there are many others more unscrupulous.

  When they meet a man the worse of liquor, they decoy him into a brothel and get his money from him, when they try to get up a quarrel with him, and run off crying out they are ill-used by the man. They do this frequently where they do not allow the drunken man to have carnal dealings with them—not from a lustful purpose, but to get his money or other property.