第25章 THE VICIOUS.(5)

CRUEL TREATMENT.--The devotion of these women to their bullies is as remarkable as the brutality of their bullies is abominable.Probably the primary cause of the fall of numberless girls of the lower class,is their great aspiration to the dignity of wifehood;--they are never "somebody"until they are married,and will link themselves to any creature,no matter how debased,in the hope of being ultimately married by him.This consideration,in addition to their helpless condition when once character has gone,makes them suffer cruelties which they would never otherwise endure from the men with whom large numbers of them live.

One case in illustration of this is that of a girl who was once a respectable servant,the daughter of a police sergeant.She was ruined,and shame led her to leave home.At length she drifted to Woolwich,where she came across a man who persuaded her to live with him,and for a considerable length of time she kept him,although his conduct to her was brutal in the extreme.

The girl living in the next room to her has frequently heard him knock her head against the wall,and pound it,when he was out of temper,through her gains of prostitution being less than usual.He lavished upon her every sort of cruelty and abuse,and at length she grew so wretched,and was reduced to so dreadful a plight,that she ceased to attract.At this he became furious,and pawned all her clothing but one thin garment of rags.The week before her first confinement he kicked her black and blue from neck to knees,and she was carried to the police station in a pool of blood,but;she was so loyal to the wretch that she refused to appear against him.

She was going to drown herself in desperation,when our Rescue Officers spoke to her,wrapped their own shawl around her shivering shoulders,took her home with them,and cared for her.The baby was born dead--a tiny,shapeless mass.This state of things is all too common.

HOPELESSNESS--SURROUNDINGS.--The state of hopelessness and despair in which these girls live continually,makes them reckless of consequences,and large numbers commit suicide who are never heard of.

A West End policeman assured us that the number of prostitute-suicides was terribly in advance of anything guessed at by the public.

DEPTHS TO WHICH THEY SINK.--There is Scarcely a lower class of girls to be found than the girls of Woolwich "Dusthole"--where one of our Rescue Slum Homes is established.The women living and following their dreadful business in this neighbourhood are so degraded that even abandoned men will refuse to accompany them home.Soldiers are forbidden to enter the place,or to go down the street,on pain of twenty-five days'imprisonment;pickets are stationed at either end to prevent this.The streets are much cleaner than many of the rooms we have seen.

One public house there is shut up three or four times in a day sometimes for fear of losing the licence through the terrible brawls which take place within.A policeman never goes down this street alone at night--one having died not long ago from injuries received there --but our two lasses go unharmed and loved at all hours,spending every other night always upon the streets.

The girls sink to the "Dusthole"after coming down several grades.

There is but one on record who came there with beautiful clothes,and this poor girl,when last seen by the officers,was a pauper in the workhouse infirmary in a wretched condition.The lowest class of all is the girls who stand at the pier-head--these sell themselves literally for a bare crust of bread and sleep in the streets.Filth and vermin abound to an extent to which no one who has not seen it can have any idea.The "Dusthole"is only one,alas of many similar districts in this highly civilised land.

SICKNESS,FRIENDLESSNESS--DEATH.--In hospitals it is a known fact that these girls are not treated at all like other cases;they inspire disgust,and are most frequently discharged before being really cured.

Scorned by their relations,and ashamed to make their case known even to those who would help them,unable longer to struggle out on the streets to earn the bread of shame,there are girls lying in many a dark hole in this big city positively rotting away,and maintained by their old companions on the streets.Many are totally friendless,utterly cast out and left to perish by relatives and friends.One of this class came to us,sickened and died,and we buried her,being her only followers to the grave.

It is a sad story,but one that must not be forgotten,for these women constitute a large standing army whose numbers no one can calculate.

All estimates that I have seem purely imaginary.The ordinary figure given for London is from 60,000to 80,000.This maybe true if it is meant to include all habitually unchaste women.It is a monstrous exaggeration if it is meant to apply to those who make their living solely and habitually by prostitution.These figures,however,only confuse.We shall have to deal with hundreds every month,whatever estimate we take.How utterly unprepared society is for any such systematic reformation may be seen from the fact that even now at our Homes we are unable to take in all the girls who apply.They cannot escape,even if they would,for want of funds whereby to provide them a way of release.