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

by Mayhew, Henry

  These girls are fifteen years of age and upwards. Some of them, if good-looking, get married, and are rescued from the jaws of prostitution. Others linger on for a time with shattered constitutions, wasted by grief, want, anxiety, and irregular life, and glide into premature graves. Others are sheltered in workhouses, while a considerable number become withered or brutal, and degenerate into the lowest class of abandoned women.

  We come now to treat of the lowest class of prostitutes—those old women of the town who prowl about the thoroughfares and main streets, chiefly in the evenings and at midnight. They are often dressed in a shabby, dirty cotton skirt, faded dark bonnet, and old shoes; some bloated, dissipated, and brutal in appearance; others pale and wasted by want and suffering. Many of them resort to “bilking” for a livelihood, that is, they inveigle persons to low houses of bad fame, but do not allow them to have criminal dealings with them. Possibly the bodies of some may be covered with dreadful disease, which they take care to conceal. While in these houses they often indulge in the grossest indecencies, too abominable to be mentioned, with old grey-headed men on the very edge of the grave. Many of these women are old convicted thieves of sixty years of age and upwards. Strange to say, old men and boys go with these withered crones, and sometimes fashionable gentlemen on a lark are to be seen walking arm in arm with them, and even to enter their houses. Few of these old women are married, though many of them cohabit with low coarse fellows, who wink at their conduct, and live on the proceeds of their obscenities.

  For example, in Granby Street, Waterloo Road, there were orgies occasionally indulged in by such women, with persons having the appearance of gentlemen, too abominable to be mentioned.

  These belong to the same class of degraded women who walk the Haymarket, and whom we have described as the most abandoned of their sex, who go about cadging and occasionally prostituting themselves to boys and degraded labouring men. They live in the lowest neighbourhoods in the east end of the metropolis, such as Lower Whitecross Street, Wentworth Street, and the low by-streets in Spitalfields, and in the lowest slums and by-streets about the New Cut, Drury Lane, Westminster, and other low localities, with dirty, low fellows, dock-labourers, bricklayers’ labourers, and labourers at the workyards and wharfs.

  They are in general too ugly to come out during the day with their unwashed slatternly dress, and in the evenings are often seen prowling as cadgers about the streets, and even in the dead of night waylaying and plundering drunken men; sometimes sneaking about alone, at other times two in company, and occasionally with a young simple girl by their side to screen their villainy.

  They often resort to prostitution in the dark by-streets and courts with the boys and men who resort to them, which is seldom or never done by the younger girls, except by a few outcast or debased creatures among them, who might justly be comprised in the lowest class.

  We now have to notice the “picking-up” women, who generally cohabit with pickpockets, burglars, clerks, shopmen, and others. Their object is to get liquor and money from persons as though they were prostitutes, without resorting to prostitution. For example, we see two well-dressed young women in the attire of milliners or dressmakers proceeding along the City Road in the direction of the Angel tavern, Islington. They see a gentleman pass, and cast a wistful look at him. He returns the glance. They walk on a short distance, and look round. The gentleman in many cases turns round likewise. He will then get a nod or bow from one of them. They will walk slowly, and look round again. On his going up to them, they will enter into conversation. They ask the gentleman to treat them, if he should not first offer to do so. They will then proceed to a gin-palace, where he will give them possibly a glass of wine. He will ask one of them where she lives. She will perhaps reply: “I am afraid to tell you. If you were to come to my house, it might come to the knowledge of my husband, and he would nearly kill me”; adding “I don’t mind seeing you again, and we will then get better acquainted!” Ultimately it may be arranged to go to some place which she has chanced to know, for the purpose of prostitution, leaving the other young woman to wait for her outside. The gentleman will then possibly give a sum of money. She will either say it is not sufficient, and will not allow him to have connection with her, or she may say she cannot allow him for certain reasons; or she may make an excuse that she requires to go down-stairs on a pressing errand for a moment, or to speak to the landlady, when she decamps. Sometimes robbing him of his watch, or purse, in addition to the sum he gave her.

  If he should raise an alarm the occupier of the house will request him to give her a sum of money for the use of the room, and if there is any objection made to pay it, he receives ill-treatment and is turned into the street.

  On other occasions a young woman will pretend she is unmarried, and will, in a similar ingenious way, endeavour to get money from parties she meets in the street, and try to escape in a similar way, without allowing him to have connection with her. She frequently manages to steal his watch and to rifle his pockets while he may be off his guard.

  The object of these women is to get the wages of prostitution and an opportunity of stealing, without incurring the anger of their paramour by prostituting their bodies to other men. It happens occasionally they are outwitted, as their schemes are beginning to be pretty well known. Their pretexts are sometimes evaded, and cases occur where they yield to prostitution rather than give back the money they have received, which classes them among prostitutes and thieves. Some women resort to this as a shift in case of necessity, while others pursue it as a mode of livelihood in different localities of London.

  These persons are to be found over the chief districts of the metropolis; miserable, poorly-dressed females, as well as respectable-looking young women. Some of the poorer sort are to be found about Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Lambeth, and the Borough. Others of the better sort, in appearance, are to be met with in the City Road, New North Road, King’s Cross, and Paddington.

  Hired Prostitutes.—There are a number of female prostitutes kept by Jewesses and English women of low character. These girls are dressed in good style, in silks and light muslin and cotton dresses, with their hair put up in ringlets or in fancy nets. They are mostly from seventeen to twenty-two years of age, some younger and others older, some with false hair and ringlets. The brothels we refer to are chiefly about the West-end. There is often a cigar-shop attached to them, and the best looking girls are generally found standing by the doors, or ogling through the windows to decoy the passers-by into their infamous dens. Some of these girls have been prostitutes from their girlhood, and belong to the lowest class in society, their mothers having been prostitutes before them. Several have been in these houses for a considerable number of years, who have kept their appearance better than other prostitutes who have had a more changeable and precarious mode of livelihood. Strange to say, some look nearly as young and as fresh as they did ten years ago.

  You seldom see the old execrable hags who keep these houses loitering about the doors or standing at the windows. They generally keep out of sight, but are sometimes to be seen peering through the edge of the window-blinds, which are generally drawn down, in the first floor above; or you may occasionally see them in the back parlour, skulking about. They are often very stout, and look like matrons in the maturity of life. They take gentlemen into their houses during the day as well as during the evening, but mostly in the evening.

  The girls are then dressed in gaudy finery, with shining head-dresses and jewellery glittering on their breast over their light dresses. Yet there is a low vulgarity in their appearance which repels and disgusts; they look, in many cases, so sensual and debased. They use no art to conceal the life they are leading, as some other prostitutes do, who try so far to screen the baseness of their profligacy.

  They generally keep old female servants they call “slaveys” to do the drudgery work of the house. These degraded women live in the house with them, wash their clothes, get their meals ready, clean their boots, brush
their clothes, run errands for them out of doors, and show gentlemen into the bed-rooms.

  There is often a man in these brothels, a paramour of the old bawd, who is a loafer about the house, and is occasionally employed to act as a bully. These men are in general rough-looking men, dressed in black shabby clothes, and in many cases look more degraded than common thieves. Some are dissipated and pale, others are bloated, their faces covered with pimples and blotches.

  As we pass along Wych Street, Strand, in the dark evenings, we see several of the brothels we refer to. There the cigar shops are lit up, and the girls are arrayed in their best attire, and beaming their most inviting smiles to entrap the unwary. We may see brilliant lights in the rooms on the flat above through chinks in the shutters and blinds, where orgies are nightly transacted too gross and disgusting to mention.

  Brothels of the same kind are to be found in Exeter Street and Chandos Street, Strand, and other localities of the metropolis.

  These girls occasionally walk the Strand and Holborn to decoy gentlemen into their dwellings. They generally belong to the third class of prostitutes and the lowest class of society. Some may have come down through dissipation from the second class, and have formerly been in better positions. They do not steal from persons when sober, as they could be so easily detected, and as this would injure the brothel; but they occasionally pilfer from drunken men, where they are able to do it with impunity. Some of them occasionally get as much money as many of the more genteel girls in the Haymarket.

  They never take clothes from the gentlemen who enter their houses, but occasionally give him rough treatment should he enter their house without plenty of money in his purse.

  They chiefly confine their pilfering depredations to drunken men. As they walk in the evenings along the crowded thoroughfares lighted up by the street lamps, and the bright illumination of the shop windows, the “slaveys” walk frequently at a short distance behind them, to see that they do not receive gentlemen without the knowledge of the keepers of the brothel, and to watch that they do not run away with the clothes. The slaveys are paid something additional for every gentleman the girls go with, which stimulates them to look better after them, and promotes the selfish ends of the execrable old bawd who hires them.

  Park Women.—There are three kinds of women who usually resort to the parks. We find numbers of kept women of the highest class maintained by persons in high life, such as have been governesses, ladies-maids, and the daughters of respectable tradesmen and others, promenading in Hyde Park. They live in fashionable style at Brompton and other localities. In summer they come to the park about half-past five or six in the afternoon. There are not so many in the winter time, when the season is cold, and the landscape faded. While gentlemen and ladies are taking their evening’s ride, these ladies often walk along Rotten Row as far as Kensington Gardens, and frequently have a little pet dog, with a ribbon or string attached to it.

  These females are dressed in the most fashionable and expensive style, in silk and satin dresses, with expensive shawls, mantles, or paletots, and have light muslin dresses in summer. On such occasions there are great numbers of fashionable gentlemen riding on horseback and walking along the side of the drive.

  There are a great many seats placed on the grass at Rotten Row in the summer, where these ladies sit and talk with gentlemen. They are generally from eighteen to twenty-four years of age, in the full bloom of life and beauty. The gentlemen consist of blooming youths and old tottering gallants of sixty, civilians and military, professional men, gentry, and nobility.

  These ladies sit chatting together with hundreds of people seated around them in this gay promenade. Many assignations are thus made as to when and where to meet. They are sometimes seated close by the Serpentine under the trees in the dusk of the summer evenings, and middle-aged gentlemen—sometimes elderly—often come and meet them, and sit and converse beside them under the starlit gloom of the park, with few persons near them.

  There is another class of females who visit the parks, consisting of servants and the daughters of labouring men and poor mechanics. In general, they are poorly educated, but respectably dressed, and belong, according to our classification, to the third class of prostitutes. They generally come out in the evening for the purpose of prostitution. Many of them are fresh-looking, averaging in age from fifteen to twenty-five, and are to be found all over the park, chiefly from Stanhope Gate to Victoria Gate, where they sit on the seats with men of respectable appearance—tradesmen and others. These females often use indecent liberties with gentlemen without having connexion with them. This is done in the evening from dusk up to the time of shutting the park, and during this sensual excitement robberies are frequently effected by the women of purses, watches, pins, and other property. Information is sometimes given to the police, but these felonies are often concealed by the persons plundered, as they are ashamed to make it known. Many of these dupes are married men, who would be sadly disgraced were the news to come to the ears of their wives and families.

  A third class of females who attend the parks are the lowest old prostitutes, dissipated, debased wretches, from twenty-five to fifty years of age. They generally frequent the Lovers’ Walk, from Grosvenor Gate to the statue of Achilles, and are to be seen in other parts of the park near the Marble Arch.

  They are miserably dressed, many of them having barely rags to cover their wretchedness. They are utterly shameless in their habits. We find them dressed in a dirty cotton gown, nearly black, an old faded ragged shawl and tattered old boots, with scarcely a sole to them. Some are blotched in appearance; others are pale, shrivelled, and haggard, miserable spectacles.

  They may sometimes be seen sitting on the settles in the parks from dusk till the time of closing the gates of the park. These women indulge in the same obscene practices as the girls we have already mentioned, with a lower class of people, such as gentlemen’s servants, labouring men, and low mechanics, and sometimes have connexion with them in the park. On such occasions, these filthy hags are busy rifling the pockets of their victims.

  Soldiers’ Women.—There is only one class of prostitutes termed soldiers’ women, who live in Westminster. They chiefly reside in the courts leading out of Orchard Street, St. Ann Street, Old Pye Street, New Pye Street, Castle Lane, Gardener’s Lane, York Street, and Blue Anchor Yard. They are from sixteen to thirty years of age, and several even older. Some have been in the streets for seventeen years and upwards. They live in the greatest poverty, covered with rags and filth, and many of them covered with horrid sores, and eruptions on their body, arms, and legs, presenting in many cases a revolting appearance. Many of them have not the delicacy of females, and live as pigs in a sty. This is not exaggeration. On the officers of police entering their houses, they often find them in a state of nudity. They have no feeling of shame, and conduct themselves with the greatest indifference. Two of them generally occupy a room. They often take two other lodgers into their room, and lie on the floor. Their furniture consists of an old deal table, one or two old rickety chairs, a few broken cups and saucers, a wooden table, a wash-hand basin and chamber utensil, and an old shattered bedstead with scarcely any bedding. These rooms—generally about ten feet square—are let under the name of furnished apartments, and there is generally a deputy employed to collect the rents of the house. These girls pay on an average 3s. 6d. or 4s. of weekly rent. Many of them pay 8d. or 10d. for the room per day, as the landladies do not trust them a week’s rent. They often come home drunk about twelve or one o’clock at midnight.

  They generally get up in the morning about eight or nine o’clock. If they have any coppers they get in something to eat. Food is seldom seen in their cupboards, as they generally have only enough for the occasion. After they have had their breakfast—a cup of tea or coffee and bread—they chat with each other over the past night’s adventures, and pass the time till evening.

  In the middle of the day they sometimes wash their skirt, the only decent garment ma
ny of them have—their under clothing being a tissue of rags—starch and iron it, and get it ready towards the evening, when they wash themselves and sally forth again.

  In the evening, most of them go to some low public-house, and sit in company with soldiers, who drink and carouse with them. The soldiers who sit with them generally belong to the Foot Guards, Scots Fusileers, Coldstream, and Grenadier Guards.

  The Life Guardsmen do not generally associate with this class. If a stray soldier of the line in other regiments should happen to come on a furlough to this district, some of the prostitutes decoy him to their house, and get money from him professedly for prostitution. They slip out of the room while he is asleep in bed, and spend the money they have got with the Foot Guards. Sometimes they bring one of the Foot Guards to bully him out of the room. They treat civilians in a similar manner.

  Some of them dress and go out and walk with the soldiers during the day, but this is seldom. In general they do not go out till the evening at dusk.

  In some instances the soldiers remain absent in the evening, and manage to avoid the patrols, and stop carousing with these girls till the public-houses close at four o’clock in the morning, when they go with these prostitutes to their dens, and often remain the whole of next day—sometimes remaining for a fortnight with them.

  Some of these females are young, strong, healthy girls. When they have been for some years in this mode of life, they become dissipated in appearance, and their constitution is often broken up by their irregular wild life. The younger girls keep themselves more reserved for a time, but the bad example of the others very soon induces them to abandon themselves to all kinds of dissipation.