I think the only avenue of hope lies in a different direction. In the first place a number of public lodging houses, properly sanitated and equipped, should be established. These could be run on the lines which at present obtain; the necessary payment being the only qualification for admission. There could be, however, an official attached to the house to whom the girls could go for advice, if they wanted any. There should not be the least hint of compulsion, but an unprejudiced woman of good manners and humanity, in such circumstances, might be of real assistance. If, for instance, a girl has a taste for dressmaking—and so many of them do wonders with their needle—the Registrar or Secretary, whatever her title might be, could take a note of the applicant’s qualifications and put her in touch with a firm in need of a hand. This is but one branch of commerce for which these young and quick-brained creatures would be eligible. There is plenty of capacity among them, and, as I have said, very little vice. What has happened to them is what happens to many. They have missed the train of life at a certain junction and have been left behind. The least little assistance—proffered frankly and uncoloured by preaching—would help them catch the train at the next stopping place. Stern, inflexible officialdom, the solution of the reformatory, institution, or “Fallen Home,” is worse than useless; they are all tarred with the same brush; they all postulate the same thing—that the prostitute is intrinsically evil and must be purged by fire. It is the entire absence of moral superiority that gives the Salvation Army such a great influence. Your social reformer wants always to reform; the Salvation Army, so far as I know it, wants only to help. There is a whole world of difference in the result of these two opposite ideals.
An astonishingly high standard of self-respect is maintained among these girls. Directly they earn a shilling they will spend fourpence of it in a bath. They neglect no opportunity of washing their underwear, and their clothes are carefully brushed, indeed I have often wondered how they manage to appear so spick and span. I have been in the kitchen of a lodging house and seen a girl whom I met a few days before, enter almost dead with exhaustion. She has been two nights without a bed and has staggered into the kitchen for half-an-hour’s rest before she “walks” again. Her feet are swollen and bleeding, the cheap silk stockings all in holes, but she still maintains a meticulous neatness about her small hat and her cheap coat and frock. Powder, rouge and lipstick repair the ravages of fatigue, a borrowed needle and cotton deal with the stockings and she sets forth again looking like a rose refreshed. Their clothes are of the cheapest, generally bought from the little shops in Soho, or in the East End of London. The material is not high class, cotton plays a great part in its composition, but the cut is very good, and not always supplied by the tailor. Very often the girl will alter it herself, with a companion’s help and the aid of a few pins. So much comprehension, such amazing generosity, such swift compassion; all wasted in prostitution for the want of common sense, help and understanding.
Furthermore, at the risk of repetition, I must state again that there is little or no drinking among this type of prostitute, and that the root cause of their condition is an economic one. It will be argued, very rightly, that a little strength of mind, a small amount of courage, would have saved them from such a plight. The domestic who has outstayed her allotted hour; the girl who has slipped out of her home; the nursery governess who has taken French leave, all these could have retrieved their position had they faced the music. But unless you have been in direct contact with the type of which I am writing, you cannot understand how difficult, if not impossible, it is for them to approach a woman of a different social caste. Embedded in their psychology is the belief that their employer will, and must, not only censure, but punish their lapse from duty, and in the main their belief is right. The average mistress, faced by her domestic after a night’s absence, or even part of a night, would inevitably tell her to go without further notice. It is to avoid this unpleasantness that the defaulting absentee does not return. She prefers to join the ranks of the destitute.
The older women, not of the prostitute class, who frequent lodging houses are semi-permanents. These semi-permanents have regular, if poorly paid work. They are office cleaners, jobbing laundresses, daily cooks at cheap restaurants. The money they pay per week for their bed would rent a room in a poor locality, but even if such accommodation were available, and they could collect the necessary furniture, there is one overwhelming obstacle to such a mode of life. For the single woman well on to middle age, to live alone is to court a desolation of spirit that saps vitality. The loneliness of such an existence is intolerable. Few of these odd women have friends, or even acquaintances; they sustain their hold on life through the younger women whom they meet at the lodging house. They feed their emotions on the emotions of these others, gaining a spurious excitement from their tragedies and amusements.
It is not
