Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
846/952 page 748
![FORTY- FIFTH DAY. Mr. R.B. Williams. 13 Mav 1871. siipiily find demand. I do not think that is the case, tions from men to indulge in similar atrocious practices. I could give one or two horrible instances of this. 20,350. Do you think it is any proof of what yon liave just said that these notices for these girls to appear for periodical examination are produced and presented to men when soliciting them ?—That is the use they make of them—the invariable use. 20.353. You spoke with regard to voluntary Homes. Do you really think if Government Avas tolmild Homes voluntary ettbrts would sustain them ?—I do not think there is any need for the action of Government at all. 20.354. Did I not understand you to say so?—You were speaking of Industrial Homes for young children ? 20.355. Those only ?—Those only for young chil- dren. If Government would offer to pay the rent, it need not be done on any very extravagant scale, simply the rent of so many small and distinct houses in any given town, I believe it would be provocative of charity to a great extent. Homeless children, gutter children, and neglected orphan children would be gathered in and saved from the streets. 20.356. With reference to your Homes, how many fallen girls have you applied for admission in a year ? —The Ecscue Society receives yearly on an average 500 and rejects yearly on an average 500 from want of room and funds. 20.357. You reject 500 more than you can accom- modate ?—Yes, yearly. 20.358. Is there any other point Avhich you desire to lay before this Commission? — I should like to have given the actual insfances of girls who were just on the brink of evil being pushed over and pre- cipitated 'into vice by this system, in consequence of the action of the police bi inging them up for examina- tion. I have many instances of that character, if you could have given me the necessary time. 20.359. Have you any paper which you could pro- duce and put in ?—I have many papers here, with important facts and statements which I should like to bring out, if time psrmitted, but I may just state this as to the increasing depravity of the women and their decreasing hopefulness, that I have the testimony here of several other persons engaged in the work, and amongst them that of Mrs. Macdonald, the matron of the Exeter Penitentiary, who receives a large number of cases from Plymouth, whose statement is that she finds the operation of the Acts has been most demoralizing, the women being quite unlike what they were before the Acts came into operation, and that the chance of their reformation is very much ou the decrease. I am authorised by her to use that statement in any way I like. I have the same testi- mony from Mrs. Clayton, the matron of a Home at Woolwich, who also combines missionary efforts with that. She finds it utterly hopeless to go amongst the women. They will ]iot enter Homes now. Their con- duct in the streets is very flagitious, brazen, and hard- ened. They pride themselves on being Government girls, and look down on the others, and boast of being treated so much better in hospital than the ordinary London women, and look upon themselves as a privi- leged class. She feels her work is hopeless. And also states that Mrs. Walker, the matron of Penton- ville Institution, will not receive the Government women, as nothing is to be done with them. Then there is my own Avork. I carry this card continually with me, * Neither do I condemn thee ; go and sin no more.'—John viii. 2. If you should be desi- rous of quitting your present mode of life, go to the Society for the Rescue of Young Women and Children, 85, Queen Street, Cheapside, where you may either receive assistance or advice any day between 11 and 4 o'clock, and I had a share in reclaiming, before the Acts came into operation, many women from Greenwich and Woolwich. I find it is no use to make them the offer of a Home now. They will, instead, defend their mode of life and argue that they are necessary. 20.360. {Cluiirma')!.) You find that these cards are not made use of as they used to be?—No. 20.361. {Mr. Applegarth.) Have you any restric- tions in your Homes with regard to inducing the girls by threats not to go, to compel them to stay when they get there ?—No. 20.362. They ai'e free to go as they please ?—They enter with the understanding that the object sought is their reclamation, and they are to remain a sufficient time with us until we get them out. They put them- selves entirely in our hands; but a girl can leave at any time by giving three days' notice if she wishes to go. That is not very frequently the case. 20.363. You provide them with food, clothing, and shelter, and a situation as soon as you can ?—Yes. 20.364. And yet you find that since the Acts came into operation in the Woolwich district the girls hesitate to go ?—Yes, they will not go. One reason may bo that they are so much moi'e prosperous in their traffic. 20.365. {Mr. Holmes Cooic.) Are you aware of the fact that the speculum is very rarely used in the venereal wai'ds, and the girls would object to it very strongly. The cases get Avell without such unnecessary exposure and treatment ?—In voluntary hospitals I am aware of that fact that they are very rarely examined with the speculum. 20.366. It demoralizes them to have a number of young men staring at them ?—It does, and in some cases where it has been done women have bitterly complained to me. 20.367. It is hardening ?—It is hardening. 20.368. {Chairman.) Where was that case of a woman being examined within six or seven weeks of her confinement ?—That was at Greenwich. 20.369. Who was the examining surgeon ?—Dr. Stewart. There were two women at Greenwich. 20.370. {Mr. Applcgarth.) Although so entirely opposed as you are to these Acts, do you consider that the public agitation to which they have given rise will result in jmblic attention being called to prosti- tution, and will lead to philanthropic and benevolent jjeople devising means both for preventing prostitution and ameliorating the condition of the prostitute ?— That is my firm conviction. 20.371. Are you sanguine enough to believe that if this Commission should recommend the repeal of the Acts an enterprising public-spirited people would organise efforts for the purpose of preventing prostitu- tion and ameliorating the condition of the prostitute ? —I have before stated that I look upon that as the certain result of this agitation. 20.372. Do you think that public attention is more likely to be directed to the various causes which lead to prostitution ?—I think so, most decidedly. 20.373. Do you think if to-morrow all the prosti- tutes could be cleared out of the streets without striking at the root you would be merely passing a large number through the ranks of prostitution continually ?—Unless you strike at the roots. 20.374. And you believe public attention would be directed to the causes?—I do. The public mind wil. fasten itself ou the moral rather than the medical aspects of this question. 20.375. And therefore if those who are so strongly in favour of these Acts turn round and say. Now we will go in for the repeal of them, they would claim a vast amount of advantage and good from these Acts ?—In hereafter diminishing the moral evils which partly, as they say, brought the Acts into existence. 20.376. {Chairman.) Do you contemplate the pos- sibility of extinguishing prostitution ?—I contem- plate its reduction, that it may be quite reduced to a minimum. 20.377. But without going into considerations which are obvious, in your experience of the world do you think it possible materially to diminish the number of prostitutes ? Is not it very much a question of supply and demand —I think there is a very gi'eat error in that universal opinion that it is a question of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365945_0846.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
