When The Pall Mall Gazette published the first in a series of controversial articles about child prostitution in July 1885, a scandal broke out in London. The six-page text about the rape of virgins and the sale of minors to playhouses was merely a prelude to the biggest pedophile scandal in Victorian England.
The series of articles by English journalist William Thomas Stead entitled "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" caused a real storm in the British Isles. In addition to shocking headlines such as "The Violation of Virgins", "The London Slave Market" and "Why the Cries of the Victims are not Heard" ( no one hears the cry of the victims ” ) it was impossible to pass by indifferently.
"How children are bought and ruined"
In just a few days, Stead's lyrics became an international sensation. Publishers from all over the world approached the London editorial office of The Pall Mall Gazette, asking for material to be reprinted. And it's hardly surprising. The English writer and an experienced journalist at that time did not mince words, describing bluntly and in detail the shameful practice to which both the authorities and the Victorian society turned a blind eye for years.
William Thomas Stead - author of touching articles exposing the scandal
Comparing nineteenth-century child prostitution to the sacrifice of seven girls and as many boys made by the Athenians to the mythological Minotaur, he reported:
On this night in London - and on any other night, year after year - not only seven but many more virgins, chosen almost at random ... will be sacrificed to modern Babylon.
Before the next dawn, they will be ruined, and tomorrow morning they will find themselves in the maze of London brothels. In this maze, like lost souls, masses of prostitutes wander, the number of which is impossible to determine, but probably close to 50,000.
In subsequent articles, he revealed the hideous backstage of the sex business in which children fell victim (mostly girls, but not only) coming from the poorest families. He managed to reach pimps who shared with him their methods of sourcing fresh fry for the needs of wealthy customers. As Stead later described:
Some children are caught in the streets, imprisoned and "prepared" for work, either by drug-inducing them or by being held in a locked room for a long time, where the weaker ones simply give up after a long fight.
Other victims are "delivered to order":bought from their parents or lured with promises of a better tomorrow into dark rooms that they must not leave until they lose what is more precious to a woman than their own life.
Kidnapped, drugged and raped
One of the interviewed owners of the "funhouses" told the reporter about a girl who had been intoxicated until she was unconscious during the rape. Once she woke up, she was given a choice - to either continue working as a prostitute or end up on the street.
For years, they turned a blind eye to this practice
Before starting his journalistic investigation on the streets of London, Stead also interviewed an "seasoned Scotland Yard officer" who revealed that a wealthy man can acquire an exclusive virgin for £ 20. When asked if the girls involved in the transaction do it of their own free will, the policeman replied that they usually do not even know what awaits them, and that the entire sexual act bears all the hallmarks of rape. As the reporter summed up:
Children aged twelve or thirteen do not put up much resistance. They hardly realize what it all means.
Sometimes they are seduced with the consent of mothers who sell their daughters to rapists. Such a child then goes to the attacker's house like a lamb led to the slaughter. Once there, there's no turning back. No matter how brutal the man is, the girl can't get away.
And that's not all! Stead also noted the flourishing of the regular child trafficking right under the noses of officials . According to his arrangements, for a price of between 15 and 40 pounds, brothels and pimps from the European continent were stocking up on "fresh goods" in England.
The demand for twelve-year-old girls was so great that some pimps were involved in the practice of ... "breeding" young prostitutes. How? They searched for homeless women with tiny daughters, and then gave them "care". When the victim grew up to the appropriate age, she was taken from her mother and sold for a smaller or larger sum - depending on the attractiveness and wealth of the potential foreign client.
Victorian Incarnation Journalism
The international scale of the trafficking in juvenile sex slaves meant that the revelations revealed by the journalist were widely echoed not only in the British Isles, but throughout Europe, and even overseas.
Stead's articles became the basis for legislative changes. In 1885, England passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which was to limit child prostitution by changing the so-called age of consent from 13 to 16 and the criminalization of homosexual intercourse.
But it's not just Stead's lyrics themselves that turned out to be controversial. The journalist himself also came under fire when the methods by which he obtained information for his articles were revealed.
Stead's investigation led to legislative changes
Well, in order to reach pimps and customers eager for virginity, he hired a number of people to help, including an employee of "The Pall Mall Gazette", a young woman from the Salvation Army and ... thirteen-year-old Eliza Armstrong, whom he used as a "bait" (he bought the girl for just 5 pounds from her alcoholic mother, and then had his coworkers drug her with chloroform and take her to a brothel where he then faked a rape.
For his involvement in a criminal practice which he condemned in his texts, Stead was eventually sentenced to three months in prison (He was plunged by testimony of Eliza Armstrong's mother, who claimed that she had no idea why she had sold her daughter and was convinced that the girl would become a housekeeper at an elderly gentleman's estate.)
He served his sentence at Coldbath Fields and Holloway. A sad end to his biography was followed by life itself - he died on April 15, 1912 in the Titanic crash. He was last seen (most likely) trying to escape a sinking ship in a makeshift raft. Later he would speak from the beyond - or so his daughter Estelle insisted - but that's a completely different story ...