Part 31 The History of Prostitution

Part 31

FACTORIES are made accountable by many writers for much juvenile immorality and prost.i.tution. Factories in England are, as most of our readers are aware, inst.i.tutions materially differing in some respects from those of our own country. In no feature is there so wide a dissimilarity as in the character of the work-people. The factory children of England are the offspring of the poorest of the community, whose only heritage is pauperism, with wages at no time too good, and often at starvation point.

The miserable earnings of the factory operatives are still farther reduced by constant strikes and contests with their employers, in which it is a foregone conclusion that the workmen must yield. Macaulay tells us that, two centuries ago, the employment of children in factories, and the dependence of the parent's bread upon the children's earnings, was a notorious fact, much condemned by philanthropists. The introduction of machinery and the value of child-labor gradually aggravated all the horrors of the factory system, the enormity of which called down the indignation of the non-manufacturing community, and compelled the protective interference of Parliament. The Ten Hours' Bill, the Factory Childrens' Education regulations, appointment by government of factory commissioners and inspectors, have all contributed to ameliorate the hard lot of the factory child. The employment of very young children in factories is still to be regretted, or rather its necessity, for probably it is better they should be employed in a not very laborious occupation than left to roam the streets.

The direct influence of factory work on juvenile prost.i.tution is insisted on by many writers; by others, some reservations have been introduced, such as, The young a.s.sociate only during hours of recreation. In business hours they are generally employed in different parts of the building. They have a certain amount of education. Their parents are generally, or very often, employed in the same establishment. a.s.sume that these children were not in the factory, where would they be, and what could they do? Are evil influences rife only in the factory? The overcrowding at home; the frequent drunkenness and debauchery of their parents and a.s.sociates; the endless indigence; the frequent visits to the work-houses, are all circ.u.mstances which have been considered and argued in the case. But of the fact of juvenile prost.i.tution and depravity in factory populations none can doubt; of its being exclusively or chiefly attributable to factory life, others are not certain.

That children who labor in factories, and thereby contribute to the family earnings and their own support, could do better in the present condition of English society, is doubtful. Mill-owners are required to devote a portion of their time to education. Sunday-schools are established; personal attention is paid by leading mill-owners to the improvement of the poor; many build good cottages (for which, by the way, they receive a good interest in the way of rent); many inspect the schools; some build school-houses and pay the teachers. The good example of benevolent mill-owners in a measure compels others, whose moral perceptions are less keen, to follow them.

We would not be supposed to argue that English cotton factories are types of the Millennium, any more than are similar inst.i.tutions on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, we have a very decided opinion on the matter, but common honesty requires that the opinion of all who have investigated the subject should be fairly recorded. In submitting the various arguments adduced in favor of factory labor and its bearing on immorality, we present merely subjects for consideration.

DISEASE IN CHILDREN.--A fact of importance to public health is the disease acquired by children. In the first address issued by the London Society for the Protection of young Females, it is stated that in three of the London hospitals during the preceding eight years there had been no less than two thousand seven hundred cases of venereal disease in children between eleven and sixteen years of age.

Dr. Ryan, on the same subject, speaking from his professional experience as medical officer of several charities, mentions the shock he felt on seeing numerous cases of venereal disease in children.

Mr. Miller, of Glasgow, testifies to the same fact.

The very imperfect data which exist on this important branch of our subject will not enable one to form any sound opinion on the spread of disease from these juvenile sources. It is, however, reasonable to conclude, from the few facts, and from the very facilities afforded at their age for intercommunication between children, that the spread of disease from direct contamination, and the deterioration of health and const.i.tution from unknown excesses, must be very great.

OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS.--Of these there are vast numbers, and the extent of juvenile contamination from this source must be very great. The Society for the Suppression of Vice, in London, reports having seized, at different periods, thousands of obscene books, copper-plates, and prints, all of which they caused to be destroyed. Within a period of three years they procured the destruction of

Blasphemous and impure books 279 Obscene publications 1,162 Obscene songs (on sheets) 1,495 Obscene prints 10,493

and even this was but an item in the calculation.

The police of London take but little interest in this matter. The above-mentioned society is the princ.i.p.al agent in the repression of this infamous species of depravity. There are certain places in London in which the trade still lives and flourishes, notwithstanding the attacks made upon it. Holywell Street, in the Strand, and the vicinity of Leicester Square, are places of disgraceful notoriety in this respect. The secret is, that wherever there is a public demand, no repressive laws will ever prevent trade. The attempt at repression but makes it more profitable.

To the corruption of the youthful mind and the preparatives for prost.i.tution these publications must contribute. It is matter of question what number of prost.i.tutes have become such directly from this cause. The results of visitorial inspection do not show among London prost.i.tutes, any more than elsewhere, a taste for books and prints of an obscene tendency.

Their taste in literature is that which would prevail among persons of low intellectual calibre. Startling tales, romances with a plentiful spice of horrors, thrilling love-stories, highly wrought and exaggerated narratives, are their taste. In the practice of prost.i.tution, the use of indecent or prurient prints is chiefly for the adornment of visitors'

rooms in brothels.

EDUCATION.--In the relations between education and crime are found no distinctive marks whereby prost.i.tution may be separated from any other development of vice or immorality. It is to be presumed that the same general laws which apply to the unregulated manifestation of the pa.s.sions apply to those with which prost.i.tution is chiefly implicated.

In the present generation it is generally a.s.sumed that crime is the offspring of ignorance, therefore Education! is the cry. Education has become a party watchword in England. The necessity of education, the quality and the quant.i.ty, with all the minor propositions that branch off from the main question, are, and have been for years, the subject of the hottest polemics. But recent results, evolved from statistical inquiries, would seem to call up the previous question as to the value of education at all. The present work is not the place in which to discuss the fact, or to point out a remedy, or indicate the deficiencies of a system which can suffer such a question to arise. We give the facts. From the Parliamentary reports of 1846-1848, it appears that the number of educated criminals in England was at that time more than twice, and in Scotland more than three and a half that of the uneducated:

+---------------------------------------------------------+

Years.

England.

Scotland.

--------

------------------------

-----------------------

Educated.

Uneducated.

Educated.

Uneducated.

--------

-----------

------------

----------

------------

1846

16,963

7698

3155

903

1847

19,307

9050

3562

1048

1848

20,176

9671

3985

911

+---------------------------------------------------------+

In calculating a percentage on certain criminal returns during the undermentioned years, the results were:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

1839.

1840.

1841.

1842.

1843.

1844.

1845.

1846.

--------------------

-----

Uneducated

3353

3332

3321

3235

3100

2977

3061

3066

Imperfectly educated

5348

5557

5667

5832

5760

5928

5834

5951

Well educated

1007

829

740

677

802

812

838

771

Superior education

032

037

045

022

047

042

037

034

Unascertained

260

245

227

234

291

241

230

178

-----

100

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

This table, which on its face conclusively establishes an increase in criminals imperfectly educated, and a decrease both in those who could read and write well, and those who could not read or write at all, may be, and has been made, the subject of much pseudo-philosophical remark, as proving the injury of education. In the first place, it only shows the effects of partial education, if it shows any thing. But the misfortune of statistical results is that they are relied on too implicitly, with a narrow-minded subservience to figures and facts, whereas they require to be accompanied with explanatory circ.u.mstances, which may either enhance their value up to the point of mathematical demonstration, or may so pare them away as to render them perfectly worthless. In the consideration of the above figures, all that would seem to appear is that there was an increase of education keeping pace with the increase of population, and that in the statistics of crime the increase of imperfectly educated people would be as perceptible as elsewhere. Mere reading and writing, unaccompanied by moral elevation, will not reform mankind. Alone, they will not prevent a hungry man from satisfying his hunger. The words of Caesar apply to criminals equally as to conspirators:

"Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nights: Yon Ca.s.sius has a lean and hungry look."

Pursuing this question, and turning to the population tables of 1851, the period of the last census, we find that Middles.e.x was the most generally educated county, taking the signature of the marriage register as the test of education. Eighty-two per cent. signed the marriage register, yet in the list of criminality Middles.e.x stood third of all the counties of England. Gloucester, which was first in crime, was far from being the most ignorant. There sixty-five per cent. signed the register. The general average of the whole population by the same list is forty per cent. Here again is a qualifying circ.u.mstance. London is included in Middles.e.x, with its vast seething ma.s.s of human misery and corruption to swell the record of crime, while its general population is, of course, about the most intelligent of the British empire, so that in the same spot is found at once the greatest intelligence and the greatest misery. We are not aware of such qualifying circ.u.mstances in Gloucestershire.

Dr. Ryan, writing on this point, refers to the Metropolitan Police Report for 1837, by which it appears that of prost.i.tutes arrested in that year there

Could not read or write 1773 " read and write imperfectly 1237 " " " " well 89 Had received a good education 4 Total 3103

This is a tolerably fair criterion; for although, as before said, the police only interfere with peace-breakers, and all these came under the technical term of "drunk and disorderly," still we believe the state of prost.i.tution in London to be such that an average proportion of all cla.s.ses of courtesans pa.s.s through the hands of the police during the year.

Mr. Tait, speaking of Edinburgh, confirms the view put forward as to educational influences. A large proportion of the Edinburgh prost.i.tutes (eighty-seven per cent.) read and write. The Scottish peasantry are perhaps the best-educated in Europe, and those girls who come to Edinburgh from the country are no exception to the rule. The uneducated, Mr. Tait thinks, are city girls.

As to the religious denomination of prost.i.tutes, for that a prost.i.tute may have a religion we may say, in the kindly spirit of Corporal Trim, but doubtingly, "A negro has a soul, your honor." In Edinburgh they include all sects except Independents, Baptists, and Quakers. There may be those who smile at the idea of a prost.i.tute having any belief. How many of us are there whose actions are accordant with our religious professions? Of London we have no data on this point.

ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS seem, by common consent of most writers, to be cla.s.sed with details of prost.i.tution. In France, it is said by those who profess intimate local knowledge, there is almost a prejudice against marriage, although it can be performed as a legal ceremony. We think Bayle St. John states this fact. In the poorer districts of London, the east end, for example, it is notorious that numbers live in a state of concubinage.

Again: in the country, and away from the dense population of towns, a woman of immoral habits may often be found who has had two or three illegitimate children by different men with whom she has cohabited. Such a woman would most probably have been a prost.i.tute in a town; as it is, she is no better; still, she is not a prost.i.tute for hire. But to proceed to details.

The number of illegitimate births in every thousand births in the various counties is as follows:

c.u.mberland 108 Norfolk 105 Hereford 100 Salop 99 Nottingham 91 Cheshire 89 Westmoreland 87 Suffolk 81 Derby 81 Berks 79 Leicester 79 North Wales 78 South Wales 72 York 71 Stafford 69 Suss.e.x 68 Cambridge 66 Lincoln 64 Middles.e.x 40

c.u.mberland is a pastoral and mountainous county, with a thinly-settled population. Norfolk is an agricultural and grazing county, broken up into large farms. Neither county has many large towns. Stafford is a manufacturing county, with a long list of thickly-populated small towns, in which as great indigence and misery can be found as in any part of England. Middles.e.x contains London. Here, then, we see at once that illegitimacy and prost.i.tution are not the same thing. Where there are no prost.i.tutes there are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but the women in the country are mostly employed; they are obliged to work in the fields, rough country labor, or in some domestic manufacture such as b.u.t.ton-making, stocking-making, etc.

An apparent paradox may be here mentioned, although not intimately affecting these investigations. The preponderance of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds is accompanied by a preponderance of early marriages. This has been accounted for by the theory that both are dependent on s.e.xual instincts precociously or excessively stimulated, which seek marriage when practicable, or illicit intercourse where not.[309]

Illegitimacy is somewhat regulated by the disproportionate number of the s.e.xes. In an excess of females there are few b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; in an excess of males there are many. Upon this fact, unattended by qualifying circ.u.mstances, might be based an argument as to the innate s.e.xual instinct in females. It might have been expected the relations would be somewhat different, namely, an increase of prost.i.tution with an excess of men, but an increase of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with an excess of women.

The number of rapes in England seems to be governed by the excess of men over women. Where the number of illegitimate children exceeds the average, rape is less frequent.

The cases of abuse of children between the ages of ten and twelve are three in every ten million of the whole population. There is some difficulty in this matter, arising from a legal technicality on the subject of age. In any case, neither of the last items of criminality is of any value, inasmuch as they include only those cases judicially investigated and proved to conviction. Many are guilty, yet acquitted; and many more are never charged with the offense. Shame prevents parties prosecuting; or, in the case of children, the fact does not transpire, or else it is compromised.

Keeping a brothel is, as we have said, an offense at common law. We have a computation of the number of offenses of this kind based upon every ten million of the population. In Middles.e.x it was two hundred and ninety-six, in Lancashire one hundred and eighty-three. Both counties include the most populous towns in England. Lancashire contains Manchester and Liverpool.

This fact also is of little value, owing to the peculiar administration of the law on the subject. Remote or indirect injuries to the public safety are not noticed in England. The police may be well aware of crime meditated and planned, and of the haunts of crime, but the theory of public justice is cure, not prevention.

Concealment of birth is an offense which, as it emanates from undue s.e.xual intercourse, is generally a.s.sociated with prost.i.tution. In Hereford and other counties, the proportion of illegitimate births is eighty-eight out of every thousand born, and there were twenty-two concealments to every thousand b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

In four counties the illegitimate births were fifty-eight in a thousand, and the concealments thirteen in a thousand illegitimates.

In fifteen counties there were fifty-three illegitimates in every thousand births, and twenty-seven concealments to every thousand illegitimates.

With the largest proportion of illegitimates there are the fewest concealments; namely, with seventy-nine illegitimates out of a thousand births, there were only twelve concealments to a thousand illegitimates.

It is absolutely impossible to ascertain the number of prost.i.tutes in London with any degree of certainty, and even a satisfactory approximation is exceedingly difficult; nevertheless, it is most important to attain as nearly as possible to the actual facts, because without this knowledge no adequate idea can be formed of the vast seed-bed of disease and corruption in constant action in a great capital city, shedding forth and disseminating its pernicious growth on every side, through channels unknown and unsuspected.

Mr. Colquhoun, a magistrate of the British metropolis toward the close of the last century (1796), made an arbitrary enumeration, fixing the number of prost.i.tutes in London at fifty thousand. Drs. Ryan, Campbell, Mr.

Talbot, and others, carry their estimate in 1840 to eighty thousand!

Mr. Mayne (now Sir Richard Mayne), chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in 1840, made an estimate of the number of regular London prost.i.tutes, which he considers were then eight thousand and upward. The seemingly irreconcilable discrepancy of these numbers is no doubt to be found in the loose terminology of the one party, and the technicality of the other. The term "prost.i.tute" would seem to be best applied to those unhappy females who make prost.i.tution their sole calling, and may therefore be styled "regular" prost.i.tutes, while the larger estimate includes all shades, both "regular" and "occasional" or "irregular," by which is understood those females with whom prost.i.tution is auxiliary to some reputable calling.

We can not find that any reliable or detailed returns have been made on this branch of public life by the London police, although they must possess peculiar and exclusive powers of preparing them. As long back as 1837 the following rough calculation was made.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

1st

Cla.s.s.

Total.

----------------------------------------

------

Well-dressed prost.i.tutes in brothels

813

895

Well-dressed prost.i.tutes walking the

streets

1460

1612

Prost.i.tutes infesting low neighborhoods

3533

147

184

3864

------

5806

288

277

6371

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

On this return Mr. Mayne very probably based his estimate of 1840.[310]

Mr. Talbot, the secretary of the Society for the Protection of Young Females, made the subject one of special inquiry, both personally and with the aid of the local police of the different cities; and although his details are very meagre, he professes to have satisfied himself of the general accuracy of the following figures, showing the regular prost.i.tutes in various cities.

Edinburgh 800 Glasgow 1800 Liverpool 2900 Leeds 700 Manchester 700

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