The White Slaves of England

by John C. Cobden

"One species of immorality, which is peculiarly prevalent in Norfolk and Suffolk, is that of bastardy. With the exception of Hereford and Cumberland, there are no counties in which the percentage of bastardy is so high as it is in Norfolk—being there 53.1 per cent. above the average of England and Wales; in Suffolk it is 27 per cent. above, and in Essex 19.1 per cent. below the average. In the two first-named counties, and even in the latter one, though not to the same extent, there appears to be a perfect want of decency among the people. 'The immorality of the young women,' said the rector of one parish to me, 'is literally horrible, and I regret to say it is on the increase in a most extraordinary degree. When I first came to the town, the mother of a bastard child used to be ashamed to show herself. The case is now quite altered; no person seems to think any thing at all of it. When I first came to the town, there was no such thing as a common prostitute in it; now there is an enormous number of them. When I am called upon to see a woman confined with an illegitimate child, I endeavour to impress upon her the enormity of the offence; and there are no cases in which I receive more insult from those I visit than from such persons. They generally say they'll get on as well, after all that's said about it; and if they never do any thing worse than that, they shall get to heaven as well as other people.' Another clergyman stated to me, that he never recollected an instance of his having married a woman who was not either pregnant at the time of her marriage, or had had one or more children before her marriage. Again, a third clergyman told me, that he went to baptize the illegitimate child of one woman, who was thirty-five years of age, and it was absolutely impossible for him to convince her that what she had done was wrong. 'There appears,' said he, 'to be among the lower orders a perfect deadness of all moral feeling upon this subject.' Many of the cases of this kind, which have come under my knowledge, evince such horrible depravity, that I dare not attempt to lay them before the reader. Speaking to the wife of a respectable labourer on the subject, who had seven children, one of whom was then confined with an illegitimate child, she excused her daughter's conduct by saying, 'What was the poor girl to do! The chaps say that they won't marry 'em first, and then the girls give way. I did the same myself with my husband.' There was one case in Cossey, in Norfolk, in which the woman told me, without a blush crimsoning her cheek, that her daughter and self had each had a child by a sweep, who lodged with them, and who promised to marry the daughter. The cottage in which these persons slept consisted of but one room, and there were two other lodgers who occupied beds in the same room; in one of which 'a young woman occasionally slept with the young man she was keeping company with.' The other lodger was an old woman of seventy-four years of age. To such an extent is prostitution carried on in Norwich, that out of the 656 licensed public-houses and beer-shops in the city, there are not less than 220, which are known to the police as common brothels. And, although the authorities have the power of withholding the licenses, nothing is done to put a stop to the frightful vice."

A want of chastity is universal among the female peasants of Wales, arising chiefly from the herding of many persons in the small cottages. In the vicinity of the mines, the average of inhabitants to a house is said to be nearly twelve. The Rev. John Griffith, vicar of Aberdare, says—

"Nothing can be lower, I would say more degrading, than the character in which the women stand relative to the men. The men and the women, married as well as single, live in the same house, and sleep in the same room. The men do not hesitate to wash themselves naked before the women; on the other hand, the women do not hesitate to change their under garments before the men. Promiscuous intercourse is most common, is thought of as nothing, and the women do not lose caste by it."

The Welsh are peculiarly exempt from the guilt of great crimes. But petty thefts, lying, cozening, every species of chicanery and drunkenness are common among the agricultural population, and are regarded as matters of course.

Infanticide is practised to a terrible extent in England and Wales. In most of the large provincial towns, "burial clubs" exist. A small sum is paid every year by the parent, and this entitles him to receive from £3 to £5 from the club on the death of the child. Many persons enter their children in several clubs; and, as the burial of the child does not necessarily cost more than £1, or at the most £1 10s., the parent realizes a considerable sum after all the expenses are paid. For the sake of this money, it has become common to cause the death of the children, either by starvation, ill-usage, or poison. No more horrible symptom of moral degradation could be conceived.

"Mr. Chadwick says, [101] 'officers of these burial societies, relieving officers, and others, whose administrative duties put them in communication with the lowest classes in these districts, (the manufacturing districts,) express their moral conviction of the operation of such bounties to produce instances of the visible neglect of children of which they are witnesses. They often say—You are not treating that child properly, it will not live; is it in the club? And the answer corresponds with the impression produced by the sight.

"'Mr. Gardiner, the clerk of the Manchester union, while registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by a labouring man for the death of a child unsatisfactory, and staying to inquire, found that popular rumour assigned the death to wilful starvation. The child (according to a statement of the case) had been entered in at least ten burial clubs; and its parents had had six other children, who only lived from nine to eighteen months respectively. They had received from several burial clubs twenty pounds for one of these children, and they expected at least as much on account of this child. An inquest was held at Mr. Gardiner's instance, when several persons, who had known the deceased, stated that she was a fine fat child shortly after her birth, but that she soon became quite thin, was badly clothed, and seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of food.... The jury, having expressed it as their opinion that the evidence of the parents was made up for the occasion and entitled to no credit, returned the following verdict:—Died through want of nourishment, but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food, or by disease of the liver and spine brought on by improper food and drink or otherwise, does not appear.

"'Two similar cases came before Mr. Coppock, the clerk and superintendent-registrar of the Stockport union, in both of which he prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was tried with the mother and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be transported for life, but the mother was acquitted. In the other case, where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused, the father, was, to the astonishment of every one, acquitted. In this case the body was exhumed after interment, and arsenic was detected in the stomach. In consequence of the suspicion raised upon the death on which the accusation was made in the first case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and examined, when arsenic was found in their stomachs. In all these cases payments on the deaths of the children were insured from the burial clubs; the cost of the coffin and burial dues would not be more than about one pound, and the allowance from the club is three pounds.

"'It is remarked on these dreadful cases by the superintendent-registrar, that the children who were boys, and therefore likely to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned; the female children were the victims. It was the clear opinion of the medical officers that infanticides have been committed in Stockport to obtain the burial money.'"