[305] Tait’s Prostitution in Edinburgh.
[306] These conclusions are not always reliable. Other causes may operate. If we recollect rightly, Edinburgh is a garrison town. In factory towns, moreover, we should always expect to find a very large amount of immorality, which would somewhat displace open and avowed prostitution for hire.
[307] Mayhew’s Letters to the London Morning Chronicle.
[308] When Mrs. Sydney Herbert instituted her Distressed Needlewoman’s Society, a great deal was thought to have been accomplished in one particular branch of female labor—the millinery and dress-making business—when the leading employers had been induced to promise that the working-day should be restricted to twelve hours.—Needlewoman’s Society Report, 1848.
[309] It would be interesting to know whether this illicit intercourse is by way of cohabitation or merely temporary. Instances are not rare of people cohabiting who allege themselves too poor to pay the marriage fees. In order to obviate this, it is customary for ministers in poor and populous parishes in England, where the circumstances of individual parishioners are not known to them, to invite all parties who are living in concubinage to come and be married free of expense. Many avail themselves of this offer.
[310] While this work was passing through the press, we met with a recent publication by Wm. Acton, Esq., M.R.C.S. of London, entitled “Prostitution considered in its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects,” which gives later information on this point. The Metropolitan Police estimated the number of prostitutes in London in 1841, and again in 1857, with the following results:
| 1841. | 1857. | |
| Well-dressed prostitutes in brothels | 2071 | 921 |
| Well-dressed prostitutes walking the streets | 1994 | 2616 |
| Prostitutes infesting low neighborhoods | 5344 | 5063 |
| Total | 9409 | 8600 |
Mr. Acton says, “The return gives, after all, but a faint idea of the grand total of prostitution. * * * * Were there any possibility of reckoning all those in London who would come within the definition of prostitutes, I am inclined to think that the estimates of the boldest who have preceded me would be thrown into the shade.”—P. 16-18.
[311] An estimate of Cork was made in 1847 for the Medico-Chirurgical Review, which gave two hundred and fifty prostitutes living in eighty brothels, besides one hundred clandestine prostitutes. Their ages were stated as between sixteen and twenty years.
[312] This may be deemed a foregone conclusion, but it was based upon previous inquiries in individual cases.