7 Unmasking an unutterable crime
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In July 1885, the Pall Mall Gazette ran a series of articles on a scandal that was so explosive that they were preceded with a content warning. “Squeamish” and “prudish” readers who preferred to live in “selfish” ignorance were advised not to read the paper. Those who dared were promised “an authentic record of unimpeachable facts, abominable, unutterable, and worse than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived”.
The articles, collectively entitled ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’, was the product of a ‘Special and Secret Commission’ led by the magazine’s editor, William T Stead, on the trafficking of young girls into prostitution in London. Stead took readers on a tour of the capital’s brothels typically frequented by wealthy men in search of ‘maidenheads’ to deflower.
Through interviews with procurers and brothel-keepers, Stead reported how girls aged 11–15 were groomed, or purchased from parents, sent to collusive doctors or midwives to have their virginity certified, drugged with chloroform, and then raped in locked rooms. “In my house,” boasted one brothel-keeper, “you can enjoy the screams of the girl with the certainty that no one hears them but yourself.”
Stead even went so far as to purchase a child for himself. Thirteen-year-old Lily (later revealed to be Eliza Armstrong) was allegedly sold by her alcoholic mother for £5. Stead described the girl’s panic when she woke to find herself locked in a room with a man (ie Stead), emitting “a wild and piteous cry… a helpless startled scream like the bleat of a frightened lamb”.
Mass revulsion
The public response to the articles was overwhelming. As the newsagent WH Smith refused to sell it, large crowds gathered at the magazine’s office to obtain copies. The reports were reprinted in European and American newspapers. On 14 August, parliament passed a Criminal Law Amendment Act, which raised the age of consent for girls from
13 to 16 and gave the police greater powers to prosecute streetwalkers and brothel-keepers. Days later, 250,000 people gathered for a demonstration in Hyde Park to demand its enforcement.
Stead had succeeded in his aim – to use human-interest stories, sensation and scandal to galvanise support for social change. He had also overstepped the mark. For his role in the procurement of ‘Lily’, the editor was convicted of child abduction and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour.