The Woman of the Streets
By Robert Blatchford
Consider now the outcast Jezebel of the London pavement. Fierce and cunning, and false and vile. Ghastly of visage under her paint and grease. A creature debased below the level of the brute, with the hate of a devil in her soul and the fire of hell in her eyes. Lewd of gesture, strident of voice, wanton of gaze, using language so foul as to shock the pot-house ruffian, and laughter whose sound makes the blood run cold. A dreadful spectre, shameless, heartless, reckless, and horrible. A creature whose touch is contamination, whose words burn like a flame, whose leers and ogles make the soul sick. A creature living in drunkenness and filth. A moral blight. A beast of prey who has cast down many wounded, whose victims fill the lunatic ward and the morgue; a thief, a liar, a hopeless, lost, degraded wretch, of whom it has been well said, “Her feet take hold of hell; her house is the way to the grave, going down to the chamber of death.”