Mr. A. Austin, Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner, says:

Without entering into disgusting details, the pain of perusing which could add nothing to the value of the statements, the conclusion is indisputable that much of prostitution, if not of prostitution for hire, certainly of prostitution from corrupt and profligate motives, is engendered by the vicious habits induced by habitual proximity of the sexes in early life. The prostitutes themselves frequently assign these habits as the commencement of their career of vice, and some even admit the breach of the closest natural ties during early youth, by reason of the too great facilities thus offered.[304] The great importance of this want of decency and propriety in family life can not be overrated. The contagious nature of vice is proverbial; and it is almost impossible to imagine the power attained by ill-conditioned children, and the fatal readiness with which their sinful words and practices are propagated.

The cheap lodging-houses are a pendant to the close-packed dwellings of the poor, although they do not produce the same early pernicious results as indecency and immorality in family life. The latter prepare the way to the scenes of the common lodging-house, in which the lowest depth of vice is speedily reached. Here prostitution is habitual—a regular institution of the place. The smallest imaginable quantities of food can be purchased; adults, youths, and children of both sexes are received, and herd promiscuously together; the prices of beds are of the lowest (from three to six cents); no questions are asked, and the place is free to all. A new-comer is soon initiated, or rather forced into all the mysteries of iniquity. Obscenity and blasphemy are the staple conversation of the inmates; every indecency is openly performed; the girls recite aloud their experiences of life; ten or a dozen sleep in one bed, many in a state of nudity. Indeed, the details of these places are horrible beyond description. Unmitigated vice and lustful orgies reign, unchecked by precept or example, and the point of rivalry is as to who shall excel in filth and abomination.

Example is the next immediate cause in what may be considered the natural series. There are a few prostitutes who have children. That these latter should follow the same course is quite in the common course of events, although considerable anxiety is occasionally evinced by such women to have their children brought up to better courses. Such redemption is all but impossible. In ordinary life, however, the mind of youth is often perverted by direct evil example in the elders; and, as we have already remarked, the corruption of the human affections in their fountain-head—family life—where they ought to be sweetest and purest, is more fatally demoralizing, and more certain to insure eventual ruin than almost any other. Fathers and mothers are both wanting often enough in their duty, although it is a matter of universal faith that the influence and example of the father are of less importance than that of the mother. A bad man may have virtuous children, a bad woman hardly ever. There are cases where the mother and daughter sleep in the same bed, each with a male partner. In the city of Edinburgh there are two mothers, prostitutes, each with four daughters, prostitutes; five prostitute mothers each with three prostitute daughters, ten such with two daughters each, and twenty-four such with one daughter each, all following the practices of the mothers.[305]

Such influences brought to bear on the young are irresistible. This may perhaps account for the number of sisters who carry on prostitution. The effect of mere sisterly example would be sufficient to account for the circumstance, but the parental becomes almost a compulsion, inasmuch as the parent (in such circumstances, the mother) will not only connive at, but be the main cause of her child’s ruin for her own direct profit and advantage. This, indeed, seems more accordant with our ideas of the natural tendencies of prostitutes and procuresses, than that such persons should be excessively anxious for their children’s purity and moral welfare.

Poverty is an integral part of nearly all the conditions of life which we have to consider as incentives to prostitution. In some instances, more, perhaps, than may be generally credited, poverty is a direct and proximate cause of this vice. In other words, “women previously and otherwise virtuous do prostitute their bodies for bread.” In most of the cases enumerated except that purely natural, but rare one, innate sexual desire, poverty is a remote cause. From the number of the human race who are under its griping, chilling pressure, poverty may be set down as a fruitful source of prostitution.

The connection of political circumstances with the phases of public morals is more intimate than the consideration of the superficial differences of the two matters would at first sight imply. But an attentive comparison of the state of public prosperity with the state of public crime will show that crime is somewhat dependent on food: the man with a well-filled stomach is no foe to order. Prostitution, as a means of supplying the cravings of hunger, is part of the same connection. It is true that in England there are poor-laws and work-houses, from and in which every destitute person, without reference to character, has a right to food and shelter. In the first place, however, the work-houses are objects of unmitigated aversion to the poorer classes. Various rules, in themselves hard, but rendered necessary by consideration for the rate-payers as well as for the beneficiaries, such as separation of husband and wife while receiving relief, separation of child and parent, etc., make the work-house system odious to the worthy and honest poor; while the strict rules, and the restraint and discipline enforced within the walls, make it still more odious to those who place their happiness in license and irregularity; added to this, in populous and poor districts, the claims upon the work-house in seasons of distress are too numerous for its capabilities. It is an awful truth that, notwithstanding the enormous revenues, nearly fifty millions of dollars per annum, collected for poor relief, and the immense establishments instituted throughout the country for the support and shelter of the distressed, sometimes the number of applicants is so great that their demands can not be met. Possibly, if these unfortunates could be distributed throughout the kingdom, so that the poverty of one spot could be balanced by the comparative prosperity of another, the fearful starvation in the midst of plenty, which is occasionally witnessed, need not occur. But in the mean while, and until the time when all the schemes and devices of modern improvement and advancement shall be finally perfected, and universal happiness attained, there is a mass of inconceivable wretchedness to be dealt with. In “Household Words” for November, 1855, Mr. Dickens gives a harrowing picture of London distress, of which he was himself an eye-witness.

It was a dark, rainy evening, and close against the wall of Whitechapel Work-house lay five bundles of rags. Mr. Dickens and his friend looked at them, and attempted to rouse them in vain. They knocked at the door, were admitted, saw the master of the work-house, and asked him if he knew there were five human beings—females—lying on the ground outside, cold and hungry. He did—at first he was annoyed—such applications were frequent—how could he meet them?—the house was full—the casual ward was full—what could he do more? When he found that Mr. Dickens’s aim was inquiry, not fault-finding, he was softened. The case was certainly shocking: how was it to be met? Mr. Dickens said he had heard outside that these wretched beings had been there two nights already. It was very possible. He could not deny or affirm it. There were often more in the same plight—sometimes twenty or thirty. He (the master) was obliged to give preference to women with children. The place was full. Unable to do more, Mr. Dickens left. On getting outside, he roused one of these poor wretches. She looked up, but said nothing. He asked her if she was hungry; she merely looked an affirmative. Would she know where to get something to eat? she again assented in the same way. “Then take this, and for God’s sake go and get something.” She took it, made no sign of thanks—“gathered herself up and slunk away—wilted into darkness, silent and heedless of all things.”

To what will not such misery as this compel suffering human nature? In times of commercial depression the police of London note an increase of street prostitution. It is said in the cities of England that the permanent prostitution of each place has a numerical relation to the means of occupation. In Edinburgh there are but few chances of employing female labor. Glasgow, Dundee, and Paisley are the seats of manufactures, and employ female labor extensively. According to Tait, the prostitution of Edinburgh far exceeds its proportion of prostitution to population as compared with the manufacturing towns.[306]It seems unnecessary to multiply instances of poverty and indigence, inasmuch as the fact is most miserably indisputable: shirt-making at three cents, pantaloon-making at five or six cents—unceasing labor of fourteen hours a day bringing in only sixty or eighty cents a week, and competition even to obtain this. As the London Times once said, “The needle is the normal employment of every English woman; what, then, must be the condition of those tens of thousands who have nothing but that to depend upon?” Of late years, too, a still farther competition has been introduced in that ingenious invention of our country, the sewing machine.

In order to show the relation between unpaid and excessive labor and prostitution, we will instance a few cases.

One young woman said she made moleskin pantaloons (a very strong, stiff fabric) at the rate of fifteen cents per pair. She could manage twelve pairs per week when there was full employment; sometimes she could not get work. She worked from six in the morning until ten at night. With full work she could make two dollars a week, out of which she had to expend thirty-eight cents for thread and candle. On an average, in consequence of short work, she could not make more than seventy-five cents a week. Her father was dead, and she had to support her mother, who was sixty years of age. This girl endured her mode of existence for three years, till at length she agreed to live with a young man. When she made this statement she was within three months of her confinement. She felt the disgrace of her condition, to relieve her from which she said she prayed for death, and would not have gone wrong if she could have helped it.[307]

Such a case as this scarcely comes within the term prostitution, but she stated that many girls at the shop advised prostitution as a resource, and that others should do as they did, as by that means they had procured plenty to eat and clothes to wear. She gave it as her opinion that none of the thousands of girls who work at the same business earn a livelihood by their needle, but that all must and do prostitute themselves to eke out a subsistence.

Another woman, a case more directly in point, also said she could not earn more than seventy-five cents. She was a widow, and had three children when her husband died. Herself and her children had to live on these seventy-five cents. She might have gone into the work-house, and been there better supported than by her labor. Had she done so, the laws of the work-house are inexorable, she would have been separated from her children. Although one child died, she was now so reduced that she could not procure food. She took to the streets for a living, and she declared that hundreds of married and single women were doing the same thing for the same reasons.

A widow who had buried all her children could not support herself. From sheer inability to do so she took to prostitution.

A remarkably fine-looking young woman, whose character for sobriety, honesty, and industry was vouched by a number of witnesses as unimpeachable, had been compelled to work at fine shirts, by which she could not earn more, on an average, than thirty-five cents a week. She had a child, and, being unwilling to go to the work-house, she was driven by indigence to the streets. Struck with remorse and shame, and for the sake of her child determined to abandon prostitution, she fasted whole days, sleeping in winter-time in sheds. Once her child’s legs froze to her side, and necessity again compelled her to take to her former course. Her father had been an Independent preacher.

These circumstances, and innumerable others, will establish incontestably the intimate relation which poverty bears to prostitution. A consideration of such circumstances as the foregoing, and the every-day observation of hosts of others of a similar character which will come within the cognizance of any one who searches into human motives, must incline all but the most outrageously virtuous to judge more tenderly of the failings and errors of their fellow-creatures.

All young females engaged in sewing are liable to the same distress, and the same resource against it is, of course, open to all. The hard labor and long hours are the least part of the evil, although in that light even there would be ground for commiseration.[308] The real grievance is that the most patient and industrious can not, by any hours of labor, earn a sufficiency to support themselves. It is true that the work-house is the legal refuge of the poor; but the tender mercies of the work-house have passed into a proverb. The policy of the poor-laws as administered is to deter the needy from applying for relief except in very extreme cases. Hence many rules are made, and much formality is interposed, which render the legal provisions so irksome and unbearable that many fly to the nearest means of satisfying their wants rather than demand their legal rights.

Domestic Servants are, in respect of their removal from absolute want while in service, more happily situated than those who are thus dependent upon the needle. But they are open to influences of another kind—we mean seduction by masters and male members of the household. Where this evil begins is an exceedingly difficult question to determine. When corrupted, they become themselves, by the very opportunities they possess, ready and dangerous instruments of corruption, and contribute to disseminate the poisons of immorality and of bodily disease. We have already incidentally mentioned that this class is at times open to a great deal of poverty and distress, namely, when out of service, and at such times they are peculiarly the mark for the lures of persons who make seduction their business and profitable occupation.

The domestic servants and the sewing-women are the principal adult laborers of Great Britain, except the factory girls. In 1851 there were,

Female domestic servants		905,165
Dress-makers		270,000
Seamstresses		72,940
Stay-makers		12,969

and of these one third were under twenty years of age.

Places of Public Amusement in England are few when compared with those of the Continent, and their influence must be proportionately less. On the Continent dancing saloons are a prominent feature; in England this character of entertainment is almost unknown. In London there are a few places of this sort, such, for example, as Cremorne Gardens. Mr. Tait lays some stress on the evil effects of dancing-houses in Edinburgh. We should be inclined to think the cases of misconduct traceable to these places actually few in number, though not unworthy of notice. The single females who frequent dancing-rooms, theatres, and other similar places in England, without friends or family escort, have very little virtue to risk. The country fairs are far more injurious; they are indiscriminately attended by all ages and sexes, and their effects upon the female agricultural population are often very pernicious. Greenwich Fair, a three days’ scene of rollicking and junketing, was held at Easter and Whitsuntide, in the outskirts of London, but is now abolished. It had its uses a century or two ago, but recently had been attended by all the idlers of London, of both sexes, and was justly dreaded by the friends of youth. It is proverbial that more young women were debauched at Greenwich Fair (allowing for its duration) than at any other place in England.

Ill-assorted Marriages are decidedly a cause of prostitution. Certainly breach of the marriage vow is one thing, prostitution for hire another. In estimating the number of prostitutes in Edinburgh at eight hundred, Mr. Tait adds two hundred to them under the head of married women, which he considers accrue from ill-assorted marriages. That the marriage was ill-assorted is plainly shown by its result, and that want of congeniality and temperament is the cause of prostitution to the extent thus named we have no ground to question. He speaks of such women selling their favors generally to one lover only, occasionally to any one who will pay; although the latter forms what is commonly known as prostitution, no other construction can be put upon the former.

Love of Dress is another incident which many writers, and Mr. Tait among them, have introduced into the direct causes of prostitution. We should consider it doubtful if any woman ever positively sold her virtue for a new gown or a knot of ribbons. Of course, after the Rubicon is crossed, all subsequent steps are easy, and may be taken from any motive. The love of admiration, which, under regulation, is sometimes a commendable instinct, when uncontrolled, becomes a snare. The love of dress is a modification of this sentiment, and may help to work out the effect when other causes have overthrown the balance of the mind.

Juvenile Prostitution.—We have now arrived, in the consideration of the causes of prostitution in England, at decidedly the most painful of all the phenomena connected with this condition of human life, namely, the immense extent of juvenile depravity. We have already sketched the evils of insufficient house accommodation and its noxious effects upon the morals of the rising generation. In this connection, also, bad example is particularly prominent; perhaps, indeed, with respect to the young, evil communications are the greatest dangers.

The work-house was formerly one great hot-bed of vice, and the greatest license and irregularity prevailed in every department. That children born or brought up in such a place should grow up debased was perfectly in the expected course of things. Now, however, under the new Poor-Laws Commission, the scene is stripped of its more revolting accessories. The sexes do not mingle, children do not associate with adults: some modicum of education is given. The sweetest and holiest of all ties, that of family, is yet wanting, and self-respect is totally deficient. In the absence of these protective influences, the wonder is, not that so many children should turn out ill, but that so many girls should turn out well. Formerly, also, there was a system of compulsory pauper apprenticeship, and the interests of the parish apprentice out of doors were very little looked after. This, again, has been altered, both in town and country, and the improvement is marked.

Even with all this, it is recorded in the London Times (June, 1848) that a correspondent, visiting one of the metropolitan work-houses, was struck by the happy and healthy appearance of the female children, and inquired of the master of the work-house what became of all of them. He was informed that they were sent out, at the age of fourteen, as servants or in other capacities, and that nine tenths of them, after coming backward and forward from their places to the work-house, eventually got corrupted and took to the streets.

Factories are made accountable by many writers for much juvenile immorality and prostitution. Factories in England are, as most of our readers are aware, institutions 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 prostitution is insisted on by many writers; by others, some reservations have been introduced, such as, The young associate 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. Assume 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 associates; the endless indigence; the frequent visits to the work-houses, are all circumstances which have been considered and argued in the case. But of the fact of juvenile prostitution 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 institutions 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 constitution 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 principal 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 prostitution these publications must contribute. It is matter of question what number of prostitutes have become such directly from this cause. The results of visitorial inspection do not show among London prostitutes, 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 prostitution, 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 prostitution 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 passions apply to those with which prostitution is chiefly implicated.

In the present generation it is generally assumed 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 quantity, 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	33·53	33·32	33·21	32·35	31·00	29·77	30·61	30·66
Imperfectly educated	53·48	55·57	56·67	58·32	57·60	59·28	58·34	59·51
Well educated	10·07	8·29	7·40	6·77	8·02	8·12	8·38	7·71
Superior education	0·32	0·37	0·45	0·22	0·47	0·42	0·37	0·34
Unascertained	2·60	2·45	2·27	2·34	2·91	2·41	2·30	1·78
	100·	100·	100·	100·	100·	100·	100·	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 circumstances, 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 CÆsar 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 Cassius 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 Middlesex 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 Middlesex 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 circumstance. London is included in Middlesex, with its vast seething mass 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 circumstances in Gloucestershire.

Dr. Ryan, writing on this point, refers to the Metropolitan Police Report for 1837, by which it appears that of prostitutes 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 prostitution in London to be such that an average proportion of all classes of courtesans pass 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 prostitutes (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 prostitutes, for that a prostitute 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 prostitute 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 classed with details of prostitution. 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 prostitute in a town; as it is, she is no better; still, she is not a prostitute for hire. But to proceed to details.

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

Cumberland		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
Sussex		68
Cambridge		66
Lincoln		64
Middlesex		40

Cumberland 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. Middlesex contains London. Here, then, we see at once that illegitimacy and prostitution are not the same thing. Where there are no prostitutes there are bastards, 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 button-making, stocking-making, etc.

An apparent paradox may be here mentioned, although not intimately affecting these investigations. The preponderance of bastards is accompanied by a preponderance of early marriages. This has been accounted for by the theory that both are dependent on sexual 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 sexes. In an excess of females there are few bastards; in an excess of males there are many. Upon this fact, unattended by qualifying circumstances, might be based an argument as to the innate sexual instinct in females. It might have been expected the relations would be somewhat different, namely, an increase of prostitution with an excess of men, but an increase of bastards 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 Middlesex 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 sexual intercourse, is generally associated with prostitution. 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 bastards.

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 prostitutes 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 prostitutes 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 prostitutes, 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 “prostitute” would seem to be best applied to those unhappy females who make prostitution their sole calling, and may therefore be styled “regular” prostitutes, while the larger estimate includes all shades, both “regular” and “occasional” or “irregular,” by which is understood those females with whom prostitution 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 Class.	2d Class.	3d Class.	Total.
Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels	813	62	20	895
Well-dressed prostitutes walking the streets	1460	79	73	1612
Prostitutes 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 prostitutes in various cities.

Edinburgh		800
Glasgow		1800
Liverpool		2900
Leeds		700
Manchester		700

All parties are, however, agreed in representing that it is impracticable to form any thing like a correct estimate of “the number of female servants, milliners, and women in the upper and middle classes of society who might properly be classed with prostitutes, or of the women who frequent theatres, barracks, ships, prisons, etc.”

In 1851, the police of Dublin published in their statistical returns the number of prostitutes in that city, which is the only public or official paper on the point having any appearance of system or accuracy. It is as follows:

1848		Brothels		385		Prostitutes		1343
1849		"		330		"		1344
1850		"		272		"		1215
1851		"		297		"		1170

This table shows a steady decrease in the number of these women. We are uninformed as to any local causes for this, nor do we know whether it has been balanced by an increase of “sly” or occasional prostitution.

From the preceding figures a calculation has been made of the regular prostitutes relatively to the population in the several towns. It appears to have been based on the number of inhabitants at the date of the various estimates. That of Dublin is according to the census of 1851, the remainder according to that of 1841.

Proportion of Prostitutes to Population.

	Number of Prostitutes.	Proportion to Population.
		To Males.		To Females.		To total Population.
Liverpool	2900	1 to	43	1 to	45	1 to	88
Manchester	700	1 to	156	1 to	169	1 to	325
Leeds	700	1 to	70	1 to	75	1 to	145
Edinburgh	800	1 to	106	1 to	130	1 to	236
Glasgow	1800	1 to	87	1 to	97	1 to	184
Dublin	1170	1 to	101	1 to	119	1 to	220
Cork[311]	350	1 to	113	1 to	134	1 to	247

The mean of the above maybe taken as a fair representation of the general state of the kingdom. The qualifying circumstances to which we have already made allusion as peculiar to each city or district are, of course, neutralized by the aggregate.

For example, Liverpool is a great sea-port town, and a large number of regular prostitutes would be inevitable there. In Manchester, a large manufacturing city, with an immense pauper and factory operative population, the trade of prostitution would meet with less profitable custom; accordingly, we find the proportion much smaller. Glasgow is both manufacturing and commercial; there, again, the proportion is larger. Dublin has but little commerce, but is a capital city, and has a court and a large garrison. The combination of all these circumstances is found in London, and a fair estimate would be obtained by adding all the preceding proportions together, which would give a mean of about 1 in 232, and this upon the population (2,362,000) is within a fraction of ten thousand.

We have seen that Mr. Mayne in 1840 stated his opinion to be that there were about eight thousand regular prostitutes in London, qualifying that statement by a profession of total ignorance as to the irregulars who did not make prostitution their only means of living. Mr. Mayne had peculiar sources of information open to him, and it is more than probable that his opinion was well founded. From the above calculation, from the best sources available to us on this very obscure question, we are satisfied to assume ten thousand as at least a probable approximation to the number of regular prostitutes in London.

Mr. Mayne, in his statement on this subject, mentioned that there were 3335 brothels. Some authors have attempted to make a calculation of the number of prostitutes on the basis of this number of houses; one has assumed three, another ten. Dr. Wardlaw has fixed upon five women per house, without, as it appears to us, any precise reason for preferring that figure. These different opinions may be thus worked out:

5 women in each house would give			16,675	prostitutes.
4""" (as in Dublin)	would give		13,340	"
3""" (as in Cork)	""		10,005	"

We have not been able to obtain Mr. Mayne’s statement ipsissimis verbis, and failing that we may be in error, but we should be inclined to think that, in his official capacity as a magistrate, and in his personal character as a lawyer, Mr. Mayne would be apt to assign the term “brothel” indiscriminately to all houses trading in prostitution, whether houses of assignation or houses in which prostitutes habitually reside. If our reading of the word “brothels” in this sense be correct, it is clear that any attempt to enumerate on the basis of the women attached to each house would be fallacious. The expression used by the Dublin police is “houses frequented or occupied,” and its ambiguity shows that the authorities there considered the word “brothel” in the sense given to it by English jurists.

How does this number of ten thousand regular prostitutes bear on the population?

In London there are, above twenty years of age,

		Male.		Female.
Bachelors		196,851
Spinsters				246,124
Husbands		398,624
Wives				406,266
Widowers		37,064
Widows				110,028
Totals		632,545		762,418

Omitting fractions, the proportions would be,

On bachelors and widowers		1	in	23
"total male population		1	"	63
""female "		1	"	76
"aggregate population above twenty years of age		1	"	139

This would establish ten thousand as the nucleus of the prostitution system of London. Those females who come within the designation of “irregular prostitutes” are in no respect less prejudicial to the community than the “regulars.” The difference is that they have some other real or nominal occupation, which they follow according to circumstances. An even moderately correct estimate of their number is little better than guess-work, and we therefore think it expedient to put our readers in possession of our own limited means of information, and take them on to a conclusion. There are so many elements to be taken into the account, and the data are so scanty, that we only consider ourselves justified in intimating an opinion rather than announcing a satisfactory conclusion.

To show the extremes to which the doctrine of possibilities may lead in this development of misery and vice, we will recur to the statement of some of the London prostitute needle-women themselves. We quote from Mayhew’s letters to the Morning Chronicle:

“I now come to the second test that was adopted in order to verify my conclusions. This was the convening of such a number of needle-women and slop-workers as would enable me to arrive at a correct average as to the earnings of the class. I was particularly anxious to do this, not only with regard to the more respectable portions of the operatives, but also with reference to those who, I had been given to understand, resorted to prostitution in order to eke out their subsistence. I consulted a friend, who is well acquainted with the habits and feelings of slop-workers, as to the possibility of gathering together a number of women who would be willing to state that they had been forced to take to the streets on account of the low prices for their work.[312] He told me he was afraid, from the shame of their mode of life becoming known, it would be almost impossible to collect together a number of females who would be ready to say as much publicly. However, it was decided that at least the experiment should be made, and that every thing should be done to assure the parties of the strict privacy of the assemblage. It was arranged that this gentleman and myself should be the only male persons visible on the occasion, and that the place of meeting should be as dimly lighted as possible, so they could scarcely see or be seen by one another or by us. Cards of admission were issued privately, and, to my friend’s astonishment, as many as twenty-five came on the evening named to the appointed place, intent upon making known the sorrows and sufferings that had driven them to fly to the streets, in order to get the bread which the wretched prices paid for their labor would not permit them to obtain.

“Never in all history was such a sight seen or such tales heard. There, in the dim haze of the large bare room in which they met, sat women and girls, some with babies sucking at their breasts, others in rags, and even those borrowed in order that they might come and tell their misery to the world. I have witnessed many a scene of sorrow lately; I have heard stories that have unmanned me; but never, till last Wednesday, had I heard or seen any thing so solemn, so terrible as this. If ever eloquence was listened to, it was in the outpourings of these poor, lorn mothers’ hearts for their base-born little ones, as each told her woes and struggles, and published her shame amid the convulsive sobs of others—nay, of all present. Behind a screen, removed from sight, so as not to wound the modesty of the women, who were nevertheless aware of their presence, sat two reporters from this journal, to take down verbatim the confessions and declarations of those assembled, and to them I am indebted for the following report of the statements made at the meeting.”