good prostitutes quote

[Simon Wood]

Hi Joe,

“The profession of a prostitute is the only career in which the maximum income is paid to the newest apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the beginning the only exertion is that of self-indulgence; all the prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever-new embodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost farthing."

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.

Regards,

Simon

[Roy Corduroy]

Polly Nicholls was a Whitechapel whore, which tells us much, for they were a species apart. These were no lasses with fresh blooming cheeks, newly arrived from the provinces and fallen upon evil ways. Nor were they the pale, rather elegant young milliners' assistants whom one could pick up at night in the Haymarket, or in Lower Regent Street, and who offered at least an allusion of gaiety and charm. No, these were female tramps whom poverty and gin had robbed of whatever allure they might once have had, and in this respect, Polly Nicholls was typical. Only five feet two in height, she gave an overall impression of drabness, with mouse-colored hair, a sallow complexion, and five front teeth missing from her lower jaw, souveneir of a brawl.

Brawls were not infrequent among them. In his memoirs Cambridge Professor Tomas Okey, who was born in Spitalfields, pictures the women of this district as "swearing, fighting, clawing, ritu foracum, with lacerated, bloody faces and breasts." This occured, of course, when they were drunk, which was often. Alcohol was their means of rebelling against a society which condemned them to making matchboxes at tuppence farthing a gross. It was their means of hitting back at husbands who begat children in too quick succession.

Yet, for the collectors of human eccentricity, these women had a certain appeal. They were sharply limned - it was as though the constant battling with life had flayed away all externals. And they were fiercely independent. Not for them the workhouse - they preferred to vagabond, sleeping rough in Itchy Park, when they lacked the price of a kip. The knowledge that they had no farther to fall seems to have given these trollops a certain courage, even humor.

When London Walked in Terror, Tom Cullen, 1965, pf 33-34

[Joe]

thank you very very much both of you, highly useful for me..

now.. another request for a quote in general about the ripper murders... ive got.. 'There was a general panic, a great many excitable people declaring that the evil one was revisiting the earth' so far but maybe another one to compliment this?

and John, yes thanks for the info, ive been using Victorian London quite abit for the last few months, its highly useful

[John Bennett]

Joe, is there any particular reason for requiring such quotes? A dissertation, essay, required for college or school perchance?

A hint about context is always helpful...

JB

[Joe]

ha ha yes, im doing my dissertation on the Ripper murders and thought some nice quotes would look good for the start of each chapter...
for the ripper murders, something about their being a panic, how contemporaries thought of the murders a big deal, and maybe something about how the murders affected Whitechapel in general.. but any nice ripper quotes will be considered
thanks

[caz]

Hi Joe,

Someone will no doubt recognise instantly the quote I'm thinking of, but one that you might find relevant to both the prostitutes and the ripper murders is where an unfortunate said something along the lines that it would be a mercy for the likes of her to run into Jack and be quickly put out of one's misery, rather than face slow starvation at the hands of an equally uncaring society.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Hi again,

Stewart Evans very kindly provided me with the following, and gave me permission to post it in case it is the type of quote that Joe was looking for:

From the Pall Mall Gazette, November 4, 1889, quoting from article by American journalist R. Harding Davis on 'The Whitechapel Tragedies', citing Inspector Henry Moore as the source -

"And then they are so miserable and so hopeless, so utterly lost to all that makes a person want to live, that for the sake of fourpence, enough to get a drunk on, they will go in any man's company and run the risk that it is not him. I tell many of them to go home, but they say they have no home, and when I try to frighten them and speak of the danger they run they'll laugh and say, 'Oh, I know what you mean. I ain't afraid of him. It's the Ripper or the bridge with me. What's the odds?' And it's true; that's the worst of it."

Love,

Caz
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