The History of Prostitution Part 33

Of the remaining number, many had been sent to their parishes; some had eloped, and some had been expelled for improper conduct, but of several even of these favorable accounts had been afterward received: some of them were known to be married, and living creditably, and others were earning a living honestly. We have been unable to obtain any account of the operations of this inst.i.tution since the year 1837.

The London Female Penitentiary was inst.i.tuted in 1807. Of 6939 applicants, 2717 were admitted into the house. The results were:

Reconciled and restored to friends, placed in service, or otherwise provided for 1543 Discharged from various causes 631 " at their own request 350 Emigrated 47 Sent to their parishes 23 Died 28 Remaining in Penitentiary 95 ---- Total 2717

The Guardian Society was established in 1812, and from that period up to 1843 had admitted 1932 wretched outcasts to partake of the advantages it offered. The results were:

Restored to their friends 533 Placed in service, or satisfactorily provided for 455 Discharged or withdrawn 843 Sent to their parishes 53 Died 17 Remaining in inst.i.tution 31 ---- Total 1932

Besides these inst.i.tutions, others have been established with similar objects, namely, The British Penitent Female Refuge, The Female Mission, The South London Penitentiary, and one or two others. As compared with the great number of unfortunate women in London, these inst.i.tutions have effected but a very small amount of good. During seventy-seven years, ending 1835, ten thousand and five females were received within the walls of four of the London asylums, of which number six thousand two hundred and sixty-two (more than three fifths) were satisfactorily provided for, and two thousand nine hundred and eighty were discharged for misconduct.

Taking the whole of the inst.i.tutions in London up to that time, it may be fairly estimated that fourteen or fifteen thousand prost.i.tutes have had the opportunity of returning to a virtuous life.

Those who, like the Pharisee, content themselves with thanking G.o.d that they are not as other men, and even as these unfortunates, are a very impracticable set to deal with, and if such there be who read these pages, we pa.s.s them by, and pray for the better health of their souls. The gentle spirits who, imitating a blessed example, think it not pollution to extend their sympathy and saving help to publicans and harlots, may, in the following lines, written by a prost.i.tute and found in her death-bed, see matter for meditation, and ground for the belief that all efforts in the cause of the sinner will not be unsuccessful. They were headed

"VERSES FOR MY TOMB-STONE, IF EVER I SHOULD HAVE ONE.

"The wretched victim of a quick decay, Relieved from life, on humble bed of clay, The last and only refuge for my woes, A love-lost, ruined female, I repose.

From the sad hour I listened to his charms, And fell, half forced, in the deceiver's arms, To that whose awful veil hides every fault, Sheltering my sufferings in this welcome vault, When pampered, starved, abandoned, or in drink, _My thoughts were racked in striving not to think_ Nor could rejected conscience claim the power To improve the respite of one serious hour.

I durst not look to what I was before; My soul shrank back, and wished to be no more.

Of eye undaunted, and of touch impure, Old ere of age, worn out when scarce mature; Daily debased to stifle my disgust Of forced enjoyment in affected l.u.s.t; Covered with guilt, infection, debt, and want, My home a brothel, and the streets my haunt, For seven long years of infamy I've pined, And fondled, loathed, and preyed upon mankind, Till, the full course of sin and vice gone through, My shattered fabric failed at twenty-two."

The enormous extent of this evil, its deep-rooted causes, the difficulty of combating it, either by religious arguments, legislative provisions, or appeals to common sense and physical welfare, may well deter the philanthropist from the attempt to purify this stable of Augeas; but benevolence has accomplished tasks as arduous, and we can not conclude this chapter better than by a short description of the discouragements which attended the first efforts of Mrs. Fry in the reformation of the prost.i.tute felons in Newgate, and of the blessed results of her indomitable perseverance and immovable faith.[318]

This admirable woman, on her first visit to Newgate, found the female side of the jail in a condition which no language can describe: "Nearly three hundred women, sent there for every gradation of crime, and some under sentence of death, were crowded together in two small wards and two cells.

They all slept, as well as a crowd of children, on the floor, at times one hundred and twenty in a ward, without even a mat for bedding. Many of them were nearly naked. They were all drunk, and her ears were offended by the most terrible imprecations." The authorities of the prison, of course, advised her against going among them: _they were sure that nothing could be effected_! She, however, determined to make the trial; she went alone into what she felt was like a den of wild beasts. In vain the governor reasoned with her: "She had put her hand to the plow and was not to be turned back." In one short month, such was the effect of her merely _moral agency_ and religious instruction, that she felt herself justified in inviting the lord-mayor, the sheriffs, and several of the aldermen to satisfy themselves, by personal investigation, of the result of the exertions which she herself and some few lady members of the Society of Friends, who had joined her in the good work, had effected.

Thus was conviction forced upon the obtuse intellects of corporate authorities, and hence was dated the era of Prison Reform in England.

In our own country, where the means of diffusing intelligence are unbounded, and whose reformatory system for criminals has already claimed the attention of European statesmen and philanthropists, there can be no insuperable barrier even in so difficult an undertaking as that to which our labors are directed. Paraphrasing the opinion of one of the most distinguished essayists of this century,[319] we venture to a.s.sert that "it is impossible that social abuses should be suffered to exist in this country and in this stage of society for many years after their mischief and iniquity have been made manifest to the sense of the country at large."

CHAPTER XXVI.

GREAT BRITAIN.--SYPHILITIC DISEASES.

First Recognition in England.--Regulations of Henry VI.--Lazar Houses.--John of Gaddesden.--Queen Elizabeth's Surgeon.--Popular Opinions.--Proclamation of James IV. of Scotland.--Middles.e.x and London Hospitals.--Army.-Navy.--Merchant Service.--St. Bartholomew's Hospital.--Estimated Extent of Syphilis.

The best English and French writers are of opinion that syphilis, as it exists at present, has, in some shape or another, always existed among mankind, although it was not known to science or history, in a distinct manner, until the middle of the fifteenth century.

The period at which syphilis first made its appearance in England is involved in obscurity, but we know that it began to attract attention early in the fifteenth century. The first official recognition of it found on record is a police regulation of the year 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., excluding venereal patients from the London hospitals, and requiring them to be strictly guarded at night. In the time of Henry VIII.

there were six lazar houses in London for the reception of venereal patients, namely, at Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Highgate, Kingsland, St.

George's Gate, and Mile-End. These localities were doubtless fixed upon as being some distance from the city.

That the disease, however, must have been known long before the period above specified is certain, from pa.s.sages which are to be found in the writings of the previous century. John of Gaddesden, who wrote in 1305, and who was a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, thus speaks of the possibility of contracting the disease from leprous women: "Ille qui concubuit c.u.m muliere c.u.m qua coivit leprosas puncturas intra carnem et corium sentil et aliquando calefactiones in toto corpore."[320] Mr. Wm.

Acton, upon whose pages as an English standard writer on this subject we draw largely, is of opinion that leprosy, which was formerly so common in Europe, consisted merely of what we now call secondary syphilis. Some of the Jewish observances were no doubt dictated by a scientific appreciation of the influences which predisposed the body to the effects of syphilitic virus. The practice of circ.u.mcision seems inst.i.tuted with a direct view to the preservation of the chosen people from venereal contagion, to which, in a hot climate, and with the extreme deficiency of means for general cleanliness, they would be liable.

As to the type of the disease in former times, there seems no ground for believing that it was more severe than at present, while its numerical importance must have been much smaller. The following extract is from a treatise by Queen Elizabeth's surgeon:

"If I be not deceived in my opinion, I suppose the disease itself was never more rife in Naples, Italie, France, or Spain, than it is in this day in the realme of England. I may speak boldly because I speak truly; and yet I speake it with grief of minde, that in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in London, there hath been cured of this disease by me and three others, within five years, to the number of one thousand and more. I speak nothing of St. Thomas's Hospital, and other houses about the citie, wherein an infinite number are daily cured. It happened very seldom in the Hospital of St. Bartholomew while I staid there, among every twenty diseased that were taken into the said house, which was most commonly on the Monday, ten of them were infected with the _lues venerea_."[321]

It was supposed, in former ages, that syphilis was transmissible by personal communication, touching the clothes, drinking out of the same vessels, or even breathing the same air with infected persons, and accordingly we find the lower orders of people driven out into the fields to die, and physicians refusing to attend the sick for fear of infection.

Some writers, indeed, doubted this kind of contagious influence, and held that it required intercourse, or at least contact. But n.o.bles, and especially the clergy, preferred to ascribe their maladies to misfortune rather than to licentiousness, and sought to "put down" such innovating doctrines. The consequence was that patients were shunned universally, and left to die or get well without a.s.sistance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in numerous instances the disease should a.s.sume its most inveterate aspect, and hence the notices found among many old writers as to the supposed malignancy and incurability of what they were disposed to consider a newly-imported malady. That the disease, in reality, differed little from that which exists in our day, is proved by the fact that cases of the once formidable Black Lion are occasionally to be met with in the London hospitals.

Cardinal Wolsey, among other charges made against him by his enemies, was accused of whispering to the king, Henry VIII., and thereby casting his poisonous breath upon his royal grace, he (Wolsey) having at the time "the foul contagious disease" upon him. The belief as to contagion by this means is not entirely extinct, but is cherished by the laboring cla.s.ses of England, many of whom entertain great prejudices on the score of health against drinking from the same vessel out of which an infected person has partaken.

In 1497, James IV. of Scotland, in consequence of the frightful prevalence of venereal disease in his kingdom, issued a proclamation banis.h.i.+ng the infected from Edinburgh. His majesty "charges straitly all manner of persons being within the freedom of this burt, quilks are infect.i.t, or has been infect.i.t, uncurit with this said contagious plague, callit the grandgor devoyd, red and pa.s.s furt of this town, and compeir upon the sandis of Leith at ten hours before none; and thair sall thai have and find boatis reddie in the havin ordainit to them by the officers of this burt, reddy furneist with victuals, to have them to the Inche (Inchkeith), and thair to remain quhill G.o.d provyd for thair health." Those evading this ordinance "salle be byrnt on the cheik with the marking irne, that thai may be kennit in tym to c.u.m."

A remnant of this barbarous system was retained in the regulations of Middles.e.x Hospital, London, by which an admission fee of forty s.h.i.+llings sterling (ten dollars) was directed to be paid by venereal patients. The reason a.s.signed for it was, that a hospital intended for the virtuous might not be made subsidiary to purposes of vice. The regulation, however, became a nullity, and was repealed, owing princ.i.p.ally to the fact that the work-house guardians were in the habit of paying the forty s.h.i.+llings and sending in pauper patients, well knowing that the cost of cure in the work-house would far exceed the admission fees.

In the London Hospital a similar regulation exists even now, but is openly evaded, however, by the house surgeon describing the disease as a cutaneous one.

The extent of this disease in Great Britain is matter of opinion alone.

There are no positive data whatever upon which to form any conclusion with respect to the general population, while the hospital lists are very imperfectly kept, and it is only in the army and navy returns that we can find any real a.s.sistance.

BRITISH ARMY.

The army reports quoted extend over a period of seven years and a quarter, and enter into the details of the various venereal affections of the soldiers, amounting to the aggregate strength of 44,611 quartered in the United Kingdom. The cases admitted into hospitals were:

Syphilis Primary 1415 " Consecutive 335 Ulcer p.e.n.i.s non Syphilitic.u.m 2144 Bubo Simplex 844 Cachexia Syphilitica 44 Gonorrhoea 2449 Hernia Humoralis 714 Stricture Urethra 100 Phymosis and Paraphymosis 27 ---- Total 8072

Ratio: 181 per 1000 men, or nearly one in five in the whole number.

These returns show that the venereal disease is of much more frequent occurrence in the British than in the Belgian army.

BRITISH NAVY.

The navy reports extend over a period of seven years, and include 21,493 men, employed on home service; that is to say, on the coasts or in the ports of Great Britain. Of this number, 2880 were attacked with venereal disease. Ratio: one in seven.

BRITISH MERCHANT SERVICE.

The returns of the "Dreadnought," hospital s.h.i.+p for seamen of all nations, extend over a period of five years, during which 13,081 patients, laboring under surgical and medical diseases, were admitted. Out of these, 3703 came under treatment for venereal affections, showing a ratio of two in seven.

As a mode of testing these returns, we turn to the a.n.a.lysis of the surgical out-patients of Messrs. Lloyd and Wormald, a.s.sistant surgeons of Saint Bartholomew's, the largest of the London hospitals. These out-patients are attended gratuitously by the hospital officers:

+-----------------------------------------------------+ Venereal Cases. Attended by --------------------------------------- Men. Women and Children. Total. ------------- -------- --------------------- -------- Mr. Lloyd 1009 245 1254 Mr. Wormald 986 273 1259 -------- --------------------- -------- Total 1995 518 2513 +-----------------------------------------------------+

These cases were part of a total of 5327 general patients.

This last item alone would not enable one to form any idea of the number of sufferers from this terrible scourge. There are in London nine great hospitals, besides smaller ones, and dispensaries in every parish, or division of a large parish, and other means of gratuitous medical a.s.sistance. Suppose the smaller medical foundations put aside, and their patients thrown into the aggregate of the great hospitals, we should have 22,617 venereal patients. Suppose the private practice of the London army of medical men to yield only half as many more, we have 35,000 venereal patients in London only. Without reckoning the Lock Hospital, parish doctors, barracks, and all the other inst.i.tutions, one would very readily imagine that London alone furnished 50,000 venereal patients per annum.

Again, on the number of single men and widowers in London above twenty years of age (upward of a quarter of a million), the venereal cases, if in the same proportion as among soldiers and sailors, would in the same period amount to 30,000 and upward.