East End Prostitutes
"Some shades of prostitution unknown to
the more fashionable West are to be discerned in the East
End of London. To acquaint myself with these, I made a
pilgrimage in company with Captain Harris, Assistant
Commissioner of Police, to the notorious Ratcliffe
Highway. We were attended by the Superintendent of the
Executive Branch of the Metropolitan police, and two
Inspectors. The night being very wet, the streets were
comparatively empty, and therefore I can say little or
nothing from personal observation about the condition of
street prostitution in this district. I understand that
it in no respect differs from what we see elsewhere. The
first house we entered was one in which prostitutes
reside. It was kept by a dark, swarthy, crisp-haired
Jewess, half creole in appearance, who stated that she
was a widow, and that having married a Christian, she had
been discarded by her own people. To my inquiry whether
she knew of many Jewesses who led a life of prostitution,
she replied in the negative, giving as a reason that the
Jews look after their people better than Christians, and
assist them when in distress. The police Inspectors
corroborated her statement, which seems to contradict the
prevalent notion that houses of ill-fame are frequently
kept by Jewesses. We went upstairs, and saw the rooms,
eight in number, which were let out to as many women. The
landlady told us that they pay 2s. when they bring home a
visitor, and she thought that on an average they are
lucky when they bring two each in the course of the
evening. This woman was clearly indisposed to let us into
her secrets, seeing us accompanied by the Inspectors, and
entered into a rambling statement as to the care and
leniency with which she treated her lodgers when they
were 'out of luck'. She asserted, and the statement was
corroborated by the girls, that they kept themselves; two
may chum, or sleep together, when disengaged; but they
receive the money they earn, and are not farmed out. The
utmost pressure put upon them is, perhaps, that they are
induced to go out and persevere in prostitution when
otherwise indisposed to do so. When ill, they apply to
the hospital, and St Bartholomew's appeared to be the
favourite establishment. This house may be taken as a
fair sample of the brothels existing in the East End of
London.
The Inspectors next introduced us into a long, dirty
room, behind a public-house. In the distance was a German
band, such as one often sees in the streets. Several
couples were waltzing, and other visitors were arranged
round the room, smoking long pipes and drinking beer. We
were next ushered into a large music-hall connected with
a public-house. On the stage some interesting drama was
going on, while the spectators drank and smoked; the
majority were men, but they were in many instances
accompanied by their wives and sweethearts. To make
observations on the latter was my object, and I noted
that in and out of the passages and bar were passing
crowds of well-dressed women, according to East End
fashions; some were prostitutes, but many were married
women, according to the belief of my informants. This
curious amalgamation - this elbowing of vice and virtue -
constituted a very striking feature, and was to me a
novel one. It is brought about, I presume, by the modern
plan of these public-house amusements, enabling the
mechanic, his wife and his daughters, to rationally spend
the evening, as it is called, in witnessing plays,
hearing music, and seeing dancing, at the same time that
the man can smoke his pipe and drink his beer by the side
of his wife. The landlords - two brothers, Jews, who told
us they had been in Australia - assured us that they took
the greatest pains to maintain order and decorum. My
chief interest lay in considering the effect produced
upon married women by becoming accustomed at these
reunions to witness the vicious and profligate sisterhood
flaunting it gaily, or 'first-rate', in their language -
accepting all the attentions of men, freely plied with
liquor, sitting in the best places, dressed far above
their station, with plenty of money to spend, and denying
themselves no amusement or enjoyment, encumbered with no
domestic ties, and burdened with no children. Whatever
the purport of the drama might have been, this actual
superiority of a loose life could not have escaped the
attention of the quick-witted sex.
What the result may be remains to be seen, but the
enormous increase of establishments similar to the above
must, I think, tend to the spread of immorality both in
the East and West End of London. One explanation that I
have received of the phenomenon, and it seems to me a
plausible one, is that it is not unusual for the
mechanic's wife to have sisters who are frail, and to
these are accorded the greatest measure of kindness, and
a sort of commiseration, which not infrequently
culminates in their having a drop o' gin' together, and
so forgetting for a time their mutual troubles - for the
mechanic and the mechanic's wife have their troubles, and
very serious ones, in providing for their daily wants,
and any persons connected with them whom they see
well-dressed, and with money in their pockets, command a
kind of respect, although the source from whence the
means are obtained may be a disreputable one. This same
mingling of vicious with presumably respectable women is
also noticeable at the Alhambra and other music-halls at
the West End of London, and in this respect they seem to
me to exercise a more evil influence on the public morals
than the casino, as to these last the notoriously
profligate only resort."
(From William Acton,
Prostitution, considered in its Moral, Social, and
Sanitary Aspects 2nd edition 1870)
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