FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>  
none are exactly to be depended on. In a great capital like ours, where wealthy sensualists can and do pay enormous sums for the gratification of their whims--(I have seen it stated that on one occasion a gentleman went into a house in Norton-street with a 500 pounds bank-note, and after staying a few hours received but 20 pounds change)--it is not alone the professedly vicious--the class whom we call prostitutes--who prostitute themselves. As fine shops are pointed out in fashionable streets, which are said to be houses of the most infamous description, in spite of the display of lace and millinery in the window, so there are thousands of women, supposed to be respectable, and to live in a respectable manner, who yet are to all intents and purposes prostitutes, though they would not be classified as such. Now the number of this latter class is much exaggerated. Towards the close of the last century, when the population of London amounted to about a million, Dr. Colquhoun, magistrate of the Thames Police, asserted the number of prostitutes to be at least 50,000. If prostitution has followed the same ratio of increase as the population, the number now must be considered as truly appalling. But evidently the Doctor's estimate is exaggerated. At a period much nearer to our own, Mr. Chadwick puts down the number, excluding the City, at 7,000; Mr. Mayne, at from 8,000 to 10,000. The City Police estimates the number at 8,000, and this estimate is supported by Dr. Ryan, and Mr. Talbot, secretary to the Association formed in London for the protection of young girls. This is a very high figure; but a recent French writer tells us that in London, in the higher ranks of life, the proportion of vicious women to virtuous are as one to three! and in the lower ranks virtue does not exist at all!!! At any rate, there is reason to believe that in London there are 5,000 infamous houses. If besides we reckon up the procuresses, the keepers of low gin-palaces and beer-shops, where women are the bait, we are lost and bewildered, and dare not trust ourselves to give in numbers any idea of the persons directly and indirectly connected with prostitution, or of the sum spent annually in London on that vice alone. And all this is carried on in the most methodical way. There are men and women whose constant employment is to search all parts of the metropolis for fresh victims; and to them young girls from the country and servant maids-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>  



Top keywords:

number

 

London

 

prostitutes

 
vicious
 
houses
 

infamous

 
population
 

estimate

 

prostitution

 

exaggerated


Police
 

respectable

 

pounds

 

French

 

writer

 
higher
 

recent

 

figure

 

virtue

 
virtuous

depended

 
proportion
 

formed

 

excluding

 

capital

 

Chadwick

 

secretary

 
Association
 

reason

 

protection


Talbot

 

estimates

 

supported

 

methodical

 

carried

 

annually

 

constant

 

country

 

servant

 

victims


employment

 

search

 

metropolis

 

connected

 

palaces

 

keepers

 
procuresses
 

nearer

 

reckon

 

persons