“As for you,” he added, turning to Mrs. Sinclair, “it is evident you have betrayed your husband's honour. I do not propose to make a scandal which would end in the Divorce Court, or even to tell my brother anything about it- for he is a poor weak sort of chap, very different from me, and it would perhaps break his heart. But I cannot allow you to play the whore and not suffer for it, and so I and my friends intend to give you a good flogging on your bare bottom-one that you will not forget in a hurry, and that you will feel all the more because it is administered in the presence of your paramour.”
It may be as well to make a short digression here for the purpose of explaining who this man was. He belonged to a self-constituted Society of National Purity, which, as the sequel will show, rather helped to spread unclean practices and create impure thoughts; as for the rest, is the natural tendency of all such associations. These men sometimes took upon themselves to apply the necessary correction, or antidote, and the world at large would be indeed startled did it know of the impure punishments inflicted in its name and for its social purification. Now and again the radical newspapers hinted at their goings on, and occasionally a prosecution would result, but this nefarious gang still exists to rape our girls under pretence of saving their virtue; violate our wives the better to preserve their chastity; and batten on the bodies of the outcast in order to satisfy their own lusts when occasion offered. We give an account of the latest member of this gang brought to justice, the prisoner having been one of the chief acolytes of Mrs. Sinclair's brother-in-law.
THE MASSAGE SCANDAL
At the Old Bailey, before the Common Serjeant, George Francis Robertson, aged 27 years, described as a musician, was placed in the dock to answer a charge of having demanded money with menaces from Janette Aspeaslagh. There were two other charges of demanding money with menace from two other young women. Mr. J. R. Randolph, who prosecuted, said if the evidence of the prosecutrix was true, the case was one of about as mean and as despicable a character as could well be imagined. The accused, who was a man of education and address, by vocation was a music-writer and known to several members of the Church of England. The allegations against him were that for some time past he had engaged himself on a pretended scheme for the suppression of massage establishments and houses of bad repute in the metropolis, in the course of which operation he had pursued a system of blackmailing of a heartless character. He called on Miss Aspeaslagh at St. John's Wood in October, and having paid her money, he subsequently demanded it back, saying that he was a “detective,” and that unless she refunded the money he would lodge an information against the occupier of the house. As the result of the threat, the prosecutrix returned a sum of 10 s. which the prisoner had given her, although he had had carnal connection with this lady several times, he being a vigorous, very full-blooded man, so that she had been forced to cry out: “for God's sake not to split her in two.
Miss Aspeaslagh, a stylishly-dressed young woman with fine large breasts, hips like a Callipyge, roguish eyes and merry smile, described the visit which Robertson paid her, and said she was terrified by the prisoner into giving him his money back. Two letters were addressed to the National Vigilance Society by the prisoner. In one of these, Robertson, after referring to certain information which he said he had given to the police, went on to write:
“I am a little suspicious of the police and fear they may be guilty of bribery, and indeed often mount the girls and women they are supposed to suppress. I am delighted to think that there is a chance of something being done… Madame M — is very artful, but anyone willing to spend a pound or more there can get any amount of beastliness and immorality; the girls will practice all the genital perversions known, such as flagellation, penis- sucking, etc. described in Dr Jacobus's Ethnology of the Sixth Sense, and Genital Laws; Madame herself being a “taker-on” and a whore of no mean capacity… If I can help you I will, but I don't want to give evidence in court. Address me as follows: “Care of Rev. H. Mosley, M. A., Trinity Mission Club, Tenbyroad, Stratford.”
In a second letter, the prisoner wrote:
“All the printed matter sent by you is of great interest to me, and, though it reveals a terrible amount of Satanic dealings organized with persistency and skill, yet certainly the success of your work is matter for great thankfulness-Your letter confirms my fears as to the practices universally carried on in the treatment for rheumatism, manicure, chiropody, etc-I strongly suspect that women of shameless life are engaged in these practices.”
The writer concluded the letter with a graphic description of a visit he paid to a massage establishment, where he saw ten naked women offering their various charms for all sorts of purposes, and enclosed papers which he said would show his good faith. He added that “Canon Scott Holland was a great friend of his.”
A number of clergymen and other witnesses attended and gave the accused an excellent character, but the jury found him “Guilty.”
Sergeant Croxton mentioned that there were similar cases against the accused, who would give information to the police, and then, learning that a warrant was out, go and attempt to get money from and operate on the bodies of the persons interested.
Mr. Geoghegan said the prisoner's knowledge of Canon Scott Holland was merely in a business capacity.
The Common Serjeant said the one thing in the case which made the conduct of the prisoner so odious was that he pretended to be carrying out a religious propaganda. That a man should be guilty of the conduct imputed to the prisoner, and indulge in religious exercises while fornicating and blackmailing like this, was a horrible revelation.
Mr. Geoghegan: He only writes music for religious journals. The prisoner instructs me that he never took any active part in the work of the mission. A man may perhaps appear a hypocrite to the external world and yet believe himself thoroughly conscientious.
The Common Serjeant: It is difficult to picture a more odious crime and the only redeeming feature is that prisoner has not gone into the witness-box and perjured himself, as was now so common a practice. I have no doubt that the prisoner has been carrying on this nefarious and abominable traffic in going to these houses and indulging himself in immorality and then demanding money from unfortunate women, for some time past. The prisoner was sentenced to four year's penal servitude.
Let us now return to the excited group in the train, where in a first-class compartment of the “Flying Scotchman,” a refined lady is to be unjustly and shamefully beaten by, and in the presence of, strange men.
Little had she dreamt, poor woman, in boarding the train at Euston, that in the space of a few hours she was first to be forcibly ravished, and experience pleasure in the ravishment even against her own will, and finally have her silk dresses and petticoats tucked up, her linen torn, and she, a lady of education and position, held down by rough firm hands while her naked elegant, plump, white-velvet, beautifully rounded backside was exposed to the fury of a merciless whipping. Fate has indeed bizarre surprises in store for many of us, surpassing the ravings of poets, or the unreal dreams of neurotic novelists.
At a signal from the spokesman, the other men seized hold of Mrs. Sinclair by the arms, and despite her struggles, laid her face downwards upon the seat of the compartment.
She seemed like a mere child in their grasp and with a few rapid movements, to which they were evidently accustomed, they soon had the struggling woman helplessly fastened with silk handkerchiefs bound round her wrists and arms.
But her legs were still free and she used them to very good purpose, for already one of the men had received such a kick in his balls that we warrant he must not have been able to have rogered his wife for at least eighteen months afterwards. He simply howled with pain, and was about to strike the woman a blow when he stopped suddenly short at a look from his leader, who muttered between his teeth: “The whorish bitch shall pay you back for that with her arse.
She screamed loudly for help, and kicked and struggled in a most desperate way, but these gentlemen were evidently thoroughly habituated to such scenes, for their eyes sparkled with delight and their lips wore a grim smile of enjoyment while they tried to master the terrified woman.
Never again, we undertake to say, would a railway compartment be destined to witness such a glorious
