They are miserably dressed, many of them having barely rags to cover their wretchedness. They are utterly shameless in their habits. We find them dressed in a dirty cotton gown, nearly black, an old faded ragged shawl and tattered old boots, with scarcely a sole to them. Some are blotched in appearance; others are pale, shrivelled, and haggard, miserable spectacles.
They may sometimes be seen sitting on the settles in the parks from dusk till the time of closing the gates of the park. These women indulge in the same obscene practices as the girls we have already mentioned, with a lower class of people, such as gentlemen’s servants, labouring men, and low mechanics, and sometimes have connexion with them in the park. On such occasions, these filthy hags are busy rifling the pockets of their victims.
Soldiers’ Women.—There is only one class of prostitutes termed soldiers’ women, who live in Westminster. They chiefly reside in the courts leading out of Orchard Street, St. Ann Street, Old Pye Street, New Pye Street, Castle Lane, Gardener’s Lane, York Street, and Blue Anchor Yard. They are from sixteen to thirty years of age, and several even older. Some have been in the streets for seventeen years and upwards. They live in the greatest poverty, covered with rags and filth, and many of them covered with horrid sores, and eruptions on their body, arms, and legs, presenting in many cases a revolting appearance. Many of them have not the delicacy of females, and live as pigs in a sty. This is not exaggeration. On the officers of police entering their houses, they often find them in a state of nudity. They have no feeling of shame, and conduct themselves with the greatest indifference. Two of them generally occupy a room. They often take two other lodgers into their room, and lie on the floor. Their furniture consists of an old deal table, one or two old rickety chairs, a few broken cups and saucers, a wooden table, a wash-hand basin and chamber utensil, and an old shattered bedstead with scarcely any bedding. These rooms—generally about ten feet square—are let under the name of furnished apartments, and there is generally a deputy employed to collect the rents of the house. These girls pay on an average 3s. 6d. or 4s. of weekly rent. Many of them pay 8d. or 10d. for the room per day, as the landladies do not trust them a week’s rent. They often come home drunk about twelve or one o’clock at midnight.
They generally get up in the morning about eight or nine o’clock. If they have any coppers they get in something to eat. Food is seldom seen in their cupboards, as they generally have only enough for the occasion. After they have had their breakfast—a cup of tea or coffee and bread—they chat with each other over the past night’s adventures, and pass the time till evening.
In the middle of the day they sometimes wash their skirt, the only decent garment many of them have—their under clothing being a tissue of rags—starch and iron it, and get it ready towards the evening, when they wash themselves and sally forth again.
In the evening, most of them go to some low public-house, and sit in company with soldiers, who drink and carouse with them. The soldiers who sit with them generally belong to the Foot Guards, Scots Fusileers, Coldstream, and Grenadier Guards.
The Life Guardsmen do not generally associate with this class. If a stray soldier of the line in other regiments should happen to come on a furlough to this district, some of the prostitutes decoy him to their house, and get money from him professedly for prostitution. They slip out of the room while he is asleep in bed, and spend the money they have got with the Foot Guards. Sometimes they bring one of the Foot Guards to bully him out of the room. They treat civilians in a similar manner.
Some of them dress and go out and walk with the soldiers during the day, but this is seldom. In general they do not go out till the evening at dusk.
In some instances the soldiers remain absent in the evening, and manage to avoid the patrols, and stop carousing with these girls till the public-houses close at four o’clock in the morning, when they go with these prostitutes to their dens, and often remain the whole of next day—sometimes remaining for a fortnight with them.