London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

They consist of the better educated and more genteel girls, some of them connected with respectable middle-class families. We do not say that they are well-educated and genteel, but either well-educated or genteel. Some of these girls have a fine appearance, and are dressed in high style, yet are poorly educated, and have sprung from an humble origin. Others, who are more plainly dressed, have had a lady’s education, and some are not so brilliant in their style, who have come from a middle-class home. Many of these girls have at one time been milliners or sewing girls in genteel houses in the West-end, and have been seduced by shopmen, or by gentlemen of the town, and after being ruined in character, or having quarrelled with their relatives, may have taken to a life of prostitution; others have been waiting maids in hotels, or in service in good families, and have been seduced by servants in the family, or by gentlemen in the house, and betaken themselves to a wild life of pleasure. A considerable number have come from the provinces to London, with unprincipled young men of their acquaintance, who after a short time have deserted them, and some of them have been enticed by gay gentlemen of the West-end, when on their provincial tours. Others have come to the metropolis in search of work, and been disappointed. After spending the money they had with them, they have resorted to the career of a common prostitute. Others have come from provincial towns, who had not a happy home, with a stepfather or stepmother. Some are young milliners and dressmakers at one time in business in town, but being unfortunate, are now walking the Haymarket. In addition to these, many of them are seclusives turned away or abandoned by the persons who supported them, who have recourse to a gay life in the West-end. There are also a considerable number of French girls, and a few Belgian and German prostitutes who promenade this locality. You see many of them walking along in black silk cloaks or light grey mantles—many with silk paletots and wide skirts, extended by an ample crinoline, looking almost like a pyramid, with the apex terminating at the black or white satin bonnet, trimmed with waving ribbons and gay flowers. Some are to be seen with their cheeks ruddy with rouge, and here and there a few rosy with health. Many of them looking cold and heartless; others with an interesting appearance. We observe them walking up and down Regent Street and the Haymarket, often by themselves, one or more in company, sometimes with a gallant they have picked up, calling at the wine-vaults or restaurants to get a glass of wine or gin, or sitting down in the brilliant coffee-rooms, adorned with large mirrors, to a cup of good bohea or coffee. Many of the more faded prostitutes of this class frequent the Pavilion to meet gentlemen and enjoy the vocal and instrumental music over some liquor. Others of higher style proceed to the Alhambra Music Hall, or to the Argyle Rooms, rustling in splendid dresses, to spend the time till midnight, when they accompany the gentlemen they may have met there to the expensive supper-rooms and night-houses which abound in the neighbourhood.

In the course of the evening, we see many of the girls proceeding with young and middle aged, and sometimes silver-headed frail old men, to Oxenden Street, Panton Street, and James Street, near the Haymarket, where they enter houses of accommodation, which they prefer to going with them to their lodgings. Numbers of French girls may be seen in the Haymarket, and the neighbourhood of Tichbourne Street and Great Windmill Street, many of them in dark silk paletots and white or dark silk bonnets, trimmed with gay ribbons and flowers, or walking up Regent Street in the neighbourhood of All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, and Portland Place, or coming down Regent Street to Waterloo Place and Pall Mall, and hovering near the palatial mansions or the Clubs; or they might be seen decoying gents to their apartments in Queen Street, off Regent’s Quadrant, from which locality they were lately forcibly ejected by the police. Most of these French girls have bullies, or what they term by a softer term ‘fancy men,’ who cohabit with them. These base wretches live on the prostitution of these miserable girls,—hang as loafers in their houses or about the streets, and many of them, as we might expect, are gamblers and swindlers. Several of them, we blush to say, are political refugees, exiles for fighting at the barricades of Paris, for the liberty of their country; while they live here with courtesans in the purlieus of Haymarket, in the most infamous and degrading of all bondage.

The generality of the girls of the Haymarket have no bullies, but live in furnished apartments—one or more—in various localities of the metropolis. Many live in Dean Street, Soho, Gerrard Street, Soho, King Street, Soho, and Church Street, Soho, in Tennison Street, Waterloo Road, at Pimlico and Chelsea, several of the streets leading into Fitzroy Square, and other neighbourhoods, and pay a weekly rent varying from seven shillings to a guinea, which has to be regularly paid on the day it is due. In many cases little forbearance is shown by their heartless landladies. Many of these girls have gentlemen who statedly visit them at their lodgings, some of whom are married men. Most of them are very thoughtless and extravagant, with handfuls of money to-day, and in poverty and miserable straits to-morrow, driven to the necessity of pawning their dresses. Hence there are many changes in their life. At one time they are in splendid dress, and at another time in the humblest attire; occasionally they are assisted by men who are interested in them, and restored to their former position, when they get their clothes out of the hands of the pawnbroker. Their living is very precarious, and many of them are occasionally exposed to privation, degradation, and misery, as they are very improvident. They are frequently treated to splendid suppers in the Haymarket and its vicinity, where they sit surrounded with splendour, partaking of costly viands amid lascivious smiles; but the scene is changed when you follow them to their own apartments in Soho or Chelsea, where you find them during the day, lolling drowsily on their beds, in tawdry dress, and in sad dishabille, with dishevelled hair, seedy-looking countenance, and muddy, dreary eyes—their voices frequently hoarse with bad humour and misery.

Large sums of money are spent in luxurious riot in the Haymarket; but it has not been so much frequented by the gentry and nobility for several years past, although considerable numbers are to be seen in the summer and winter seasons.

Strange midnight scenes were wont to be seen occasionally in Queen Street, Regent Street, where the French girls reside. Let us take an illustration. Some fast man—young or middle aged—goes with them to the cafés and music halls, perhaps proceeds to the supper rooms, and after an expensive supper, retires with them to their domicile in Queen Street. Meantime their bully keeps out of sight, or sneaks behind the bed-room door. In many cases, not contented with the half-guinea or guinea given them, their usual hire for prostitution, they demand more money from their victim. On his declining to give it, they refuse to submit to his pleasure, and will not return him his money. The bully is then called up, and the silly dupe is probably unceremoniously turned out of doors.

There are few felonies committed by this class of prostitutes, as such an imputation would be fatal to their mode of livelihood in this district, where they are generally known, and can be easily traced.

The second class of prostitutes, who walk the Haymarket—the third class in our classification—generally come from the lower orders of society. They consist of domestic servants of a plainer order, the daughters of labouring people, and some of a still lower class. Some of these girls are of a very tender age—from thirteen years and upwards. You see them wandering along Leicester Square, and about the Haymarket, Tichbourne Street, and Regent Street. Many of them are dressed in a light cotton or merino gown, and ill-suited crinoline, with light grey, or brown cloak, or mantle. Some with pork-pie hat, and waving feather—white, blue, or red; others with a slouched straw-hat. Some of them walk with a timid look, others with effrontery. Some have a look of artless innocence and ingenuousness, others very pert, callous, and artful. Some have good features and fine figures, others are coarse-looking and dumpy, their features and accent indicating that they are Irish cockneys. They prostitute themselves for a lower price, and haunt those disreputable coffee-shops in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket and Leicester Square, where you may see the blinds drawn down, and the lights burning dimly within, with notices over the door, that “beds are to be had within.”

Many of those young girls—some of them good-looking—cohabit with young pickpockets about Drury Lane, St. Giles’s, Gray’s Inn Lane, Holborn, and other localities—young lads from fourteen to eighteen, groups of whom may be seen loitering about the Haymarket, and often speaking to them. Numbers of these girls are artful and adroit thieves. They follow persons into the dark by-streets of these localities, and are apt to pick his pockets, or they rifle his person when in the bedroom with him in low coffee-houses and brothels. Some of these girls come even from Pimlico, Waterloo Road, and distant parts of the metropolis, to share in the spoils of fast life in the Haymarket. They occasionally take watches, purses, pins, and handkerchiefs from their silly dupes who go with them into those disreputable places, and frequently are not easily traced, as many of them are migratory in their character.

The third and lowest class of prostitutes in the Haymarket—the fourth in our classification—are worn-out prostitutes or other degraded women, some of them married, yet equally degraded in character.

These faded and miserable wretches skulk about the Haymarket, Regent Street, Leicester Square, Coventry Street, Panton Street and Piccadilly, cadging from the fashionable people in the street and from the prostitutes passing along, and sometimes retire for prostitution into dirty low courts near St. James’ Street, Coventry Court, Long’s Court, Earl’s Court, and Cranbourne Passage, with shop boys, errand lads, petty thieves, and labouring men, for a few paltry coppers. Most of them steal when they can get an opportunity. Occasionally a base coloured woman of this class may be seen in the Haymarket and its vicinity, cadging from the gay girls and gentlemen in the streets. Many of the poor girls are glad to pay her a sixpence occasionally to get rid of her company, as gentlemen are often scared away from them by the intrusion of this shameless hag, with her thick lips, sable black skin, leering countenance and obscene disgusting tongue, resembling a lewd spirit of darkness from the nether world.