London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

We may take each class of prostitutes and illustrate it in the order set down, extending our field of observation over the wide districts of the metropolis; or we may select several leading districts as representatives of the whole, and proceed in more minute detail. We adopt the latter plan, as it presents us with a fuller and more graphic view of the subject.

The first class consists of young ladies, in many cases well-educated and well-connected, such as the daughters of professional men, physicians, lawyers, clergymen, and military officers, as well as of respectable farmers, merchants, and other middle-class people, and governesses; also of many persons possessed of high personal attractions—ballet-girls, milliners, dressmakers and shop-girls, chambermaids and table-maids in aristocratic families or at first-class hotels. Many of them are brought from happy homes in the provinces to London by fashionable villains, military or civilian, and basely seduced, and kept to minister to their lust. Others are seduced in the metropolis while residing with their parents, or when pursuing their avocations in shops, dwelling-houses, or hotels.

Many a young lady from the provinces has been entrapped by wealthy young men, frequently young military officers, who have met them at ball-rooms, where they may have shone in all the beauty of health and innocence, the darlings of their home, the pride of their parents’ hearts, and the “cynosure of every eye,” or these fashionable rakes may have got introduced to their families, and been shown marked kindness. But in return they entice the poor girls from their parents, dishonour them, and destroy the peace of their homes for ever.

Many young ladies possessing fair accomplishments are also entrapped in the metropolis—at the Argyle Rooms, Holborn Assembly-room, and other fashionable resorts. In many cases pretty young girls, servants in noblemen’s families, barmaids, waiting-maids in hotels, and chambermaids, may have attracted the attention of gay gentlemen who had induced them to cohabit with them, or to live in apartments provided for them, where they are kept in grand style. Some are maintained at the rate of 800l. a year, keep a set of servants, drive out in their brougham, and occasionally ride in Rotten Row. Others are supported at still greater expense.

As a general rule they do not live in the same house with the gentleman, though sometimes they do. Such women are often kept by wealthy merchants, officers in the army, members of the House of Commons and House of Peers, and others in high life.

As a rule gay ladies keep faithful to the gentlemen who support them. Many of them ride in Rotten Row with a groom behind them, attend the theatres and operas, and go to Brighton, Ramsgate, and Margate, and over to Paris.

When the young women they fancy are not well educated, tutors and governesses are provided to train them in accomplishments, to enable them to move with elegance and grace in the drawing-room, or to travel on the Continent. They are taught French, music, drawing, and the higher accomplishments.

Sometimes these girls belong to the lower orders of society, and may have been selected for their beauty and fascination. The daughter of a labouring man, a beautiful girl, is kept by a gentleman in high position at St. John’s Wood at the rate of 800l. a year. She has now received a lady’s education, rides in Rotten Row, has a set of servants, moves in certain fashionable circles, keeps aloof from the gaiety of the Haymarket, and lives as though she were a married woman.

Let us take another illustration. A young girl was brought up to London several years ago by a military man. He kept her for three weeks, and then left her in a coffee-shop in Panton Street as a dressed lodger. She has since been kept at Chelsea by a gentleman in a Government situation, and occasionally drives out in her chaise with her groom behind. She frequents the Argyle Rooms and the cafés, the Carlton supper-rooms, and Sally’s. She was brought away from the provinces when she was seventeen, and is now about twenty-five years of age.