[313] We do not understand this figure. The sum of the sewing trades of London is nearly twenty times this number. Perhaps Mr. Mayhew refers only to slop-work, including the very commonest garments, both woolen and cotton, or even to that portion of the trade that have their principal abode in the particular localities visited.
[314] The reader will notice that neither Dr. Ryan, Mr. Tait, nor the views as to the duration of life expressed in the portion of this work devoted to New York, agree with those German authors who have asserted the healthfulness of prostitution. See [Chapter XVI.], Hamburg.
[315] At the meeting in London to which allusion has been made, Mr. Acton (late Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary and Fellow of the Royal Medical Society) said that, “in his opinion, the subject under discussion was one worth legislating for. As a surgeon, he had investigated the subject not only in London, but in Paris and other Continental capitals, and he could speak with some authority as to the statistics of prostitution, and the manner in which the women became, as it were, absorbed in the population by whom they were surrounded. From calculations based upon the census tables, it had come out that of all the unmarried women of full age in the country one in every 13 or 14 were immoral. This might appear a startling announcement, but the calculation had been made upon returns, the truth of which had not been questioned. It was a popular error to suppose that these women died young, and made their exits from life in hospitals and work-houses. The fact was not so. Women of that class were all picked lives, and dissipation did not usually kill them. They led a life of prostitution for two, three, or four years, and then either married or got into some service or employment, and gradually became amalgamated with society. It was estimated that in this manner about 25 per cent. of the whole number amalgamated each year with the population.”
From these remarks we may deduce the same continuance of a life of prostitution as given in the text, namely, an average of four years; but they advance another theory as to its termination, substituting reformation for death. We should be slow to give an unqualified endorsement to this opinion. That cases of reformation do take place, and probably to a greater extent than is generally imagined, can not be denied; but that one fourth of the total number of prostitutes abandon their sinful life every year, and become virtuous members of society, is a conclusion that American experience will not support. In England and on the European continent there may be a class of men in the lower ranks of life who do not regard virtue as a sine qua non in the choice of a wife; indeed, the notorious facility with which the cast-off mistresses of noblemen or gentlemen can be married to a dependent sufficiently proves this; but in this country public opinion sets strongly in the opposite direction. Here, if a woman once errs, or is even suspected of error, she is rigorously excluded from virtuous society, and, although her subsequent life may be irreproachable, the lapse is seldom forgiven. The old Roman law, “Once a prostitute, always a prostitute,” is too sternly enforced on this side of the Atlantic. Mr. Acton’s speech is the first intimation we have met of so very liberal a benevolence in England.
[316] We have calculated that there are upward of six hundred thousand women in London between fifteen and forty-five years old. The proportion of married women among these would be 370,000 and upward; unmarried women over twenty years, and widows, about 314,000.
[317] A very singular fact in connection with the census is that there is not a single individual returned as a prostitute. This is not that the authorities do not take cognizance of crime, for there are 22,451 female prisoners in Great Britain, all of whom, however, except 1274, are returned as having some legal occupation. There are 7600 female vagrants, sleeping in barns, tents, etc., of whom 2600 are under twenty years of age.
[318] Thomas Fowell Ruxton, on Prison Discipline.
[319] Lord Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review.
[320] Rosa Anglica, Pavia, 1492.
[321] A brief treatise touching the cure of the disease now usually called Lues Venerea. By W. Clovves, one of her Majesty’s Chirurgeons. 1569: p. 149.