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eliza and the midwife

A story in human trafficking

By JoAnn Streeter Shade Eliza and the Midwife A Story in Human Trafficking JoAnn Streeter Shade

2016 Frontier Press

Unless otherwise marked Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.

Shade, JoAnn Streeter Eliza and the Midwife A Story in Human Trafficking April 2016

ISBN 978-0-9968473-4-6

Printed in the United States of America on recycled paper CONTENTS

FOREWORD ix

INTRODUCTION xi

CHAPTER 1 | The Sinking of the Titanic 1

CHAPTER 2 | Lisson Grove 9

CHAPTER 3 | Setting the Stage 17

CHAPTER 4 | The Salvation Army Connection 29

CHAPTER 5 | Undercover Prostitute 37

CHAPTER 6 | The Scheme 47

CHAPTER 7 | Girl for Sale 59

CHAPTER 8 | There’s a Man in My Room 65

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CHAPTER 9 | Virgo Intacta 73

CHAPTER 10 | The Midwife 81

CHAPTER 11 | Off to France 89

CHAPTER 12 | Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon 99

CHAPTER 13 | The Purity Campaign 115

CHAPTER 14 | Give Us Back Our Daughter 127

CHAPTER 15 | Order in the Court 149

CHAPTER 16 | Florrie’s Diary 175

CHAPTER 17 | A Just Punishment? 193

CHAPTER 18 | Rebecca Remembers 203

CHAPTER 19 | Did It Make a Difference? 215

CHAPTER 20 | And the Midwife Died 233

CHAPTER 21 | And What of Eliza? 247

CHAPTER 22 | So What? 255

APPENDIX 261

BIBLIOGRAPHY 271

NOTES 277

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 286 WITH GRATITUDE

I am especially grateful to Eliza, Jenny, Rebecca, Florence and Louise, whose voices, both actual and imagined, give life to these pages.

The staff at The Salvation Army’s Eastern Territory College for Officer Training library provided encouragement and support when Eliza’s story was only a phrase jotted down in a notebook.

Owen Mulpetre, who created the W. T. Stead Resource Site online, made much of the research accessible to me as I sat in the comfort of my own home, often in robe and nightgown, and brought me in touch with Eliza’s voice for the first time through the trial transcripts on the site.

Dr. Judith McLaughlin has once again provided manuscript review, and is head cheerleader in my great cloud of literary witnesses in this world.

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FOREWORD

LIZA AND THE MIDWIFE is wrapped with hope, deception, redemption and passion. We see the ills of society through the lens of the mid 19th century where poverty and wealth exhibit both tremendous opportunities and oppression. All through the centuries there have been people who love, people who abuse and those people whose lives are marked by the treachery of others. JoAnn Streeter Shade expertly tells the true story of a young girl of 13 who was used as a pawn to expose the underworld of prostitution and human trafficking in 19th century London. The Salvation Army rallied to help save the life of this young woman who was sold as a sex slave by her parents. This account will show that through the decades, the exploitation of the young has not decreased, but instead today is a billion dollar enterprise. All over the world, The Salvation Army is still deeply dedicated and armed for action as they continue to “rescue the perishing.”

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JoAnn has fine detail of the facts in this account combined with a beautiful novelization of those facts not recorded. Conflict and contradiction flow through this story that ultimately affects the culture and laws of a country. Eliza and the Midwife challenges readers to take this story and battle the injustices they face in the communities where they live. May you be so empowered by Eliza’s story.

Commissioner Carolyn Knaggs The Salvation Army USA Western Territory INTRODUCTION

ORE THAN TEN YEARS AGO, I wrote down four words that have nagged at my storyteller’s heart ever since. “And the midwife died.” In 1885, a London newspaper editor, a religious leader, and a redeemed brothel owner took part in a covert action meant to draw attention to the ease at which children could be purchased for immoral purposes. Tucked away in the sensational account of that transaction, publicized as “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” was the small role Louise Rose Mourez was asked to play. As a midwife, Madame Mourez assisted in all aspects of the reproductive lives of women, and so was asked to verify the virginity of Eliza Armstrong, the thirteen-year-old girl who was purchased. As a result of her minimal action, Mourez was convicted of assault and died in prison. The story surrounding Eliza and the midwife pretended to be an unfortunate yet familiar Victorian narrative. A laboring man’s daughter was abducted and seduced, sold or bartered,

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taken as a servant or drugged and dragged into a brothel where her virginity was stolen and her life forever changed. It’s likely this type of scenario occurred weekly or even daily in nineteenth century London. What turned the sad but common story of the procurement of Eliza Armstrong into a steamy national sensation was The Salvation Army’s involvement in the purchase of the thirteen-year-old girl and the revelation that a prominent newspaperman was alone with her in the brothel room when she awakened. The story of Eliza Armstrong has been captured on the pages of Salvation Army history under the title of the “Maiden Tribute.” Eliza’s is a true story, a sensational scheme meant to draw attention to the societal problems of child prostitution and trafficking that plagued London, Great Britain, and the European continent in the 1880s. This account, partially described through the eyes of Eliza herself, as well as others who were involved, is an attempt to bring the historical event to life. The underlying issue of the day was that the law, as it stood, set the age of consent at thirteen years. This meant, a man having sexual relations with a child thirteen years or older could claim the child consented, and therefore, he could not be charged with a crime. In contemporary language, this would be described as the age when an adult could no longer be charged with statutory rape. These pages speak to the reader through a historical review of the events of 1885, but also through the voices of five women whose lives and actions are integral to the storyline. Eliza Armstrong, the purchased child, tells us her story, aided by Jenny Turner (a Salvation Army lass turned undercover prostitute), Louise Mourez (the midwife), xiii

Rebecca Jarrett (the procuress), and Florence Booth (an early Salvation Army leader). Is there some fiction on these pages? Yes. Little detail is known for certain about Eliza’s experience or her family, so the account of her life prior to June 1885 is a product of my imagination. Initially, I thought I would only know the details of her story through the reports of others, but partway through my research I was thrilled to discover Eliza’s own words as recorded in her testimony at the trial. Therefore, details of the actions of June through November 1885 are factual and reflective of her experience, as described by herself and by others. However, her feelings about those days are my own invention. As for her life after the “Maiden Tribute”, there doesn’t appear to be any mention of Eliza Armstrong in Salvation Army literature after 1885, except for one minor note that The Salvation Army cared for her “more or less,” However, census data provides some clues as to Eliza’s later life (see chapter twenty-one). All of the characters on these pages are actual people, including Jenny Turner, a pseudonym for the Salvation Army woman who spent ten days undercover in a brothel as part of the investigation. As best as I can determine, Jenny’s true identity remains unknown. There is some suggestion that she might be the mysterious Mrs. X, who apparently was present during some of the actual procurement and was later identified as Major Mrs. Carolyn Reynolds. However, it is more likely Jenny was a younger woman, identity unknown. On these pages, her voice and actions, as reported in chapter five, are embellished around the minimal account in Bramwell Booth’s memoir, Echoes and Memories, and David Bennett’s biography of William Booth, The General, William Booth. xiv

I suspect Jenny would have known Florence Booth, but their relationship is imagined as well. However, the chapter in the voice of Florence Soper Booth is based upon her own diary from those turbulent days, as written about so beautifully by Lt. Colonel Jenty Fairbank in For Such a Time. In later years, Florence’s husband became the second General of The Salvation Army. Florence’s early ministry to the young women of London develope into a worldwide network of ministry to women known as the home league. Rebecca Jarrett’s chapter speaks from her own 1928 autobiography, which is in manuscript form at The Salvation Army’s International Heritage Centre. Her words are supplemented by a biographical sketch of Rebecca as prepared by Josephine Butler, a Purity Campaign leader who aided Rebecca, as well as the War Cry report of her death. A long-term fallen woman whose recent rescue had come by way of The Salvation Army, Jarrett’s actions and subsequent testimony proved to be a weak link in the scheme. Louise Mourez was an actual midwife in Victorian London who was involved in this case, and there is some historical record of her presence at the birth of babies. But her voice and life prior to her examination of Eliza Armstrong are fully imagined. I admit my invention gives a more sympathetic view of her character than did those present during her trial who labeled her as “the old abortionist.” The backstory I’ve created for Louise offers one possible scenario of how she gained her reputation. The other voices in this book are derived from the historical record, primarily from news accounts and from writings by and about the participants. Descriptions of the events are selected from the pen of W. T. Stead, the newspaper xv man, and his daughter Estelle, who wrote a biography of her father. The members of the Booth family, including William, Catherine, Bramwell, and Catherine Bramwell-Booth (Salvation Army), were prolific writers, and they saved much of their correspondence, which was then used extensively by their many biographers. Their first-person accounts are supplemented by the words recorded in the transcripts of the formal trials accusing Bramwell Booth, W. T. Stead, and Sampson Jacques (Stead's accomplice), Mrs. Combe (a Swiss Salvation Army officer), Mrs. Jarrett (the procuress), and Madame Mourez (the midwife) on various counts of abduction and assault. Other sources utilized are newspaper accounts, War Cry reports, and various historical writings as noted in the Resources Cited section at the end of the book. While I was unable to travel to London to do archival research, as much as possible, I drew upon source materials. I am especially grateful to discover the work of Alison Plowden, The Case of Eliza Armstrong, which contained many of the trial transcripts, as well as the comprehensive W. T. Stead Resource Site maintained online by Owen Mulpetre. What originally captured my attention is the midwife. She is a bit player in this grand drama, but received the harshest prison sentence and died in prison before her punishment was completed. I was enraged that the woman who seemingly had the least culpability in the events that unfolded in June 1885 was forced to pay the dearest price for her actions. I have a deep appreciation for the person and presence of midwives and I am terribly saddened at the fate of a midwife who died two centuries ago. What I discovered as I researched the story is it was more xvi

complicated than it seemed on the surface, as are the lives of all the women whose narratives are woven through the “Maiden Tribute.” Madame Mourez was allegedly more than a midwife, the regenerated brothel-keeper (Jarrett) was placed in an untenable situation, and Eliza’s mother was painted with a drunken, villainous brush that may not be accurate. As for Jenny Turner, she could have been trafficked or killed had her ruse been discovered. As it turned out, the midwife’s death was only one small part of an account of intrigue, power, manipulation, and shame. Journalism professor Gretchen Soderlund articulates my discomfort when she discusses the results of the trial. “Not only were the working class women subjected to disproportionately harsher treatment than the middle class male journalist, but the barrister’s closing remark portrayed the two women [Jarrett and Mourez] in the most scathing and ugly terms despite the fact that Stead had masterminded the stunt, and the two women were performing a service on his behalf.”1 In attempting to change the future for young girls who were likely to be prostituted, the scheme did great harm to the women who took the risk of enacting Stead’s plan or who were trapped within its web. The story demonstrates that determination to change the culture can be successful, but it also raises the question as to how high a price must be paid for that transformation, and at what cost to those who may not be willing and/or informed participants. As The Salvation Army is currently involved in preventing the spread of human trafficking around the world, as well as caring for its victims, is there anything to be learned from Eliza’s story? Do the ends ever justify the means? Where is the line between sacrificial service in the name of Christ xvii and the inappropriate manipulation of vulnerable people? Does the abuse of power, even with good motivation, honor God? How can this historical account inform those who fight against the evils of sexual trafficking today? Perhaps it is best the events of 1885 speak for themselves. Listen in as Eliza and her contemporaries allow us a glimpse at the backstory of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.”

CHAPTER 1

THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC

Eliza Armstrong 1912

’M ELIZA ARMSTRONG West O’Donnell, mother and wife, a simple woman living in County Durham, United Kingdom. When I was just a thirteen-year-old girl, my name became a household word across London, but most days that is far from my mind. However, the news of the difficulties faced by the Titanic caught my attention as the newspapers began to spread the word of its loss on April 16, 1912. The initial report claimed no lives were lost, but by the next day’s edition of the Daily Mail, we were to discover that many were missing and believed to have perished in this great tragedy. When all were finally accounted for, more than fifteen hundred people died at sea when the great ship hit an iceberg and sank, but only one name was of interest to me: William Thomas (W. T.) Stead. From what I understand, Mr. Stead boarded the magnificent ship in Southampton for its maiden voyage to New York, from which he planned to attend a peace conference at Carnegie Hall. Prior to his death, Mr. Stead had a great desire to see peace achieved in our world, and he was asked by the United States President, Mr. William Henry Taft, to participate in that conference. It was even

3 4 rumored Mr. Stead was in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize prior to his death. Yet, as the front page of the Daily Mirror confirmed on April 18, 1912, “Mr. W.T. Stead, the friend of kings and the hater of injustice, was among one of the many hundreds who perished in the sinking of the Titanic.” Reports of his last actions are mixed. One suggested he read a book in the first class smoking room as the ship sank, while another paired him with the wealthy Mr. Astor, clinging to a raft until the frigid waters of the Atlantic drew him under. Still others claimed Mr. Stead was last seen assisting women and children into the lifeboats, completing in death what he attempted to do in life. While the image of Mr. Stead’s face still brings unease to me, I am choosing to believe he died doing what was a theme of his life, giving hope to women and children. Born the son of a preacher, from his early years Stead was a John the Baptist of his day, speaking out against injustice and corruption in many forms, especially railing against prostitution and the greedy men who sustained its practice. It was in his fight to raise the age of consent for girls, our paths crossed. Despite the harm it did to me at the time, I do understand what he and his friends were trying to do. As a mother of young girls, the protection of young women of all backgrounds is an issue I hold dear. My daughter Alice Maud Mary is a lovely girl of sixteen, while Sybil Primrose is now twelve. I look at them with great pride, but also with a motherly fierceness that desires to defend them from forces that would rob them of their innocence. May, as we call her, is just beginning to understand what it means to 5 look to the future with a young man. She has been raised to respect her body until that time comes, just as I’d been taught at the Princess Louise Home for the Protection of Young Girls, where I stayed for a while after the scandal. As for Sybil, just the thought of her in the arms of a man causes the bile to rise in my throat. She is a pure flower, her petals of beauty just beginning to unfold. Were a man to try to rob her of that promise, I would be tempted to murder. When I was just a girl of thirteen, in 1885, I was not nearly as innocent and naïve as my daughters. I had seen too much in my youth; it makes me cringe even today. Yet despite the sordid education I received in the drinking holes of Lisson Grove, I didn’t really know what a man might want to do to a girl in the darkness of the night. I also had no awareness that the law in Great Britain allowed girls as young as I was to “give consent” to having sexual relations with a man. Those who made their money in the underworld of London were quite content with that law, as it made it possible for young women of thirteen or fourteen years to become child prostitutes. But there were others, like Mr. Stead and the people of The Salvation Army, who knew a child of thirteen needed protection from the predators of the world instead of unlimited freedom so others could twist her life to their purposes. It’s been twenty-seven years since Mr. Stead’s scheme turned my life upside-down and made my name a spectacle to the people of London and beyond. Yes, I will say it again. I was only thirteen years old, a young girl living in the slums of London with my mother and the man I believed to be my father. I was sold for a promised £5 to a woman 6 working at the direction of Mr. Stead and his Salvation Army friends, and my story was then used as the basis for Mr. Stead’s newspaper series, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” While Mr. Stead did change a few of the details, I was the girl he wrote about. I was Lily. The sordid story of my circumstances spread across the pages of the Pall Mall Gazette in the month of July 1885 for the entire world to see and for them to leer at my plight. Even though they didn’t know my real name at the time, it soon came out, and I have lived under that shadow all my life. Had I a better knowledge of the Good Book at that stage of my life, I would have recognized myself in the story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers, but later to become a trusted confidante of the Pharaoh. As is recorded in Genesis 50:20, But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. While I do not believe that Mr. Stead and his Salvation Army friends actually thought evil against me, I do think their use of me to make a point was done in a deceitful way. Yet for me, and for the many girls kept from entering the life of the brothel, I do believe that God meant it unto good. That is why I am telling my story after all these years. As a thirteen-year-old girl, I wasn’t fully aware of all of the particulars happening around me, so I am depending on my copy of the trial transcript to help me in my telling. Also, it is good to have the long view of time to put some perspective on what happened. Just realize, however, while I may tell you what others had to say about what happened back in 1885, this truly is my story. Even as I attempt to put these words to paper, news of 7 another death has reached me, for the old General, William Booth, has now entered into heaven. I don’t believe he was directly involved in my procurement, as that task had been given to his son Bramwell and Bramwell’s wife, Florence. However, it is highly unlikely that Bramwell would take such a risk without his father’s knowledge and grudging permission. As it was, General Booth’s wife Catherine had been involved in the “Maiden Tribute” case, meeting with Mrs. Josephine Butler and writing to those in power, even to the Queen herself. And General Booth was the head of The Salvation Army, the mission that rescued Rebecca Jarrett from the gutter and changed the course of my life. So, once again, the news of his death, like Mr. Stead’s, is disconcerting at best. Had I been living closer to London, I would have liked to see the funeral procession for myself. The newspaper reported that Booth’s body lay in state for three days at the Congress Hall in Clapton, where 150,000 people filed past his casket. It’s said the City of London came to a standstill as the mourners moved through the city streets, and forty Salvation Army bands played Handel’s Dead March as the old man was laid to rest next to his beloved Catherine. Bramwell had this to say about his father: “If you were to ask me, I think I could say that the happiest man I ever knew was the General. He was a glad spirit. He rose up on the crest of the stormy billows, and praised God, and laughed at the Devil’s rage, and went on with his work with joy.”2 Enough of Mr. Stead and the General. Let me start at the beginning so you can get a sense of my life in Lisson Grove, one of the most impoverished areas of London in 1885.

CHAPTER 2

LISSON GROVE

Eliza Armstrong 1912

WAS BORN IN 1872 to Charles Armstrong, a chimney sweep, and his wife Elizabeth. At least that’s what I thought until June of 1885. As it turns out, Elizabeth was my mother but Charles Armstrong didn’t actually appear in my life until I was a toddler. My mother bore me out of wedlock, but Mr. Armstrong made my mother an honest woman early in my childhood. By 1885, Charles and Elizabeth were living in Charles Street, Marylebone. I liked that the name of our street was the same as my father’s name. Long before I was born, the area was a lovely place, only being quite a small town. It seems much of its downfall was a result of the Regent’s Canal that opened in 1810 and Eyre’s Tunnel of 1826, bringing all kinds of traffic to the place. By the time I was able to walk its streets in the late 1800s, Lisson Grove was one of West London’s worst slums. I’m told the local police would only patrol the district in pairs, and the women of the area were reputed to be the most drunken, violent, and foul-mouthed in all of London. I’m glad the fates spared me from long-term residence in Lisson Grove. There were definitely two sides to Lisson Grove when

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I was growing up. The one contained those known as the decent poor, but that was not where the Armstrong family lived. No, Charles Street was in the crowded and desperately poor neighborhood leading into the Edgeware Road. The Lisson Grove I knew was filled with lodging houses, dens of thieves, brothels, and gin-spinning dog holes. Our home, if I dare to call it a home, was a second story tenement room coated with the coal tar and soot of the chimney sweep and generally reeking of gin. It truly was much like the way Rev. Means described the slums of London when he wrote about them in Mr. Stead’s newspaper in 1883:

To get into them you have to penetrate courts reeking with poisonous and malodorous gases arising from accumulations of sewage and refuse scattered in all directions and often flowing beneath your feet; courts, many of them which the sun never penetrates, which are never visited by a breath of fresh air, and which rarely know the virtues of a drop of cleansing water. You have to ascend rotten staircases, which threaten to give way beneath every step, and which, in some places, have already broken down, leaving gaps that imperil the limbs and lives of the unwary. You have to grope your way along dark and filthy passages swarming with vermin. Then, if you are not driven back by the intolerable stench, you may gain admittance to the dens in which these thousands of beings who belong, as much as you, to the race for whom Christ died, herd together. 13

Eight feet square—that is about the average size of very many of these rooms. Walls and ceiling are black with the accretions of filth which have gathered upon them through long years of neglect. It is exuding through cracks in the boards overhead; it is running down the walls; it is everywhere. What goes by the name of a window is half of it stuffed with rags or covered by boards to keep out wind and rain; the rest is so begrimed and obscured that scarcely can light enter or anything be seen outside.

That’s how we lived in those days, when what little available money often went to the drink for both my mother and father. My father was in and out of our lodging, spending days at places unknown to my mum and me. When he was in his cups, he was quite the storyteller, and he told us tales of his early years in the London chimneys. He apprenticed at the age of eight to a local chimney sweep, working as a climbing boy. He would often arrived home with scraped elbows and knees, coated with coal dust, for he was sometimes forced to “buff it,” doing his filthy work in the nude. Unlike many of his peers who had come to the chimneys by way of the workhouse or orphanage, he still maintained contact with his mother, and he remembered her reaction when he turned over his first pay. “She turned the coins over and over, time after time—and the big, bright, pearl- like tears hung like dew drops from her eyelashes.”3 Having children of my own now, I believe her tears were laced with the guilt of a mother dependent on her young child to support the family. 14

Often, the master sweep would light a fire under the children to force them to climb faster, and my father watched his younger sister fall to her death when she lost her footing while trying to escape from the heat. From that day, my father vowed he would never light a fire under the children who accompanied him in his work. Nor did he require me to join him in his filthy occupation. Two of his other sisters were sent to work in match factories, and they developed phossy jaw, as fumes from the phosphorus used to coat the match sticks ate into their jawbones. Auntie Ellen escaped from the area before it got too bad for her, but Auntie Susanna, who lived with us, was not so fortunate. Her empty cheek began to ooze a foul-smelling liquid, and she succumbed to the dreaded disease at the age of twenty, as her brain ceased to function and her vital organs failed to serve her body any longer. For all that has been said about my mother and father, at least they protected me from the phossy jaw. Times were changing when I was a child, and education had become compulsory for those ages five through ten. I can’t say my attendance at the Board School was regular, for I sometimes stayed in bed when my parents were sleeping it off, but at least the pretense of education kept me from being indentured to another at an early age. I was more regular at the Harrow Road Sunday School at nine in the morning, and the Richmond Street Sunday School on Sunday nights. I enjoyed the learning, but I never did do very well with spelling, so I am having the rector’s wife help me with these words. By the time I had reached the age of thirteen, I knew it would only be a matter of time before my circumstances 15 would change. My older sister Elizabeth was already in service for some time, and I had three brothers, ages eleven, seven and four, and then of course there was the baby, who I took care of for my mother. I had a situation in Spring Street with Mrs. Hayden, where I’d done scrubbing and washing. It didn’t last for long, so I tried to make myself useful at home, futilely scrubbing the steps and floors to remove the blackness my father tracked in when he did come home. The whole family lived in one room, so it was very hard at times. I would sometimes keep my mother company as she drank at one of the public houses near our house, but she began to talk about finding a situation for me in one of the wealthier neighborhoods of the city. When the drink got the best of her, she even suggested she might be able to find a gentleman for me who would want some small favors. To say I was excited by those possibilities is perhaps an exaggeration, but I did harbor hopes of a change in my situation. I often dreamed of what it might be like to live with a mother who would buy her own daughter ribbons, or to be loved by a man who would adorn my throat with jewels. Perhaps, I thought, if I could just get the chance to get away, I might be able to find my way to my dreams of a family and maybe even a house of my own someday. Mind you, while it was a mean life, it wasn’t without its good times. There was laughter in my home, and despite all that has been said about my mother and father, they did try to keep a roof over our heads and bread on the table. I think in her heart of hearts, my mother wanted a better life for me than she had. My dad wasn’t the kindest 16

husband in the world, and many a time he would slap her around. She wanted better for me. To this day, I don’t know if my mother knew what Mrs. Jarrett had in store for me. She said she didn’t; Mrs. Jarrett said she had been clear with her. My mother was known to shade the truth to her advantage, and may not have been able to remember all that was said due to being under the drink’s power that day. But I think Mrs. Jarrett may have done her best to get me in a round-about way so she could please her Salvation Army comrades. She certainly had a long history of deception. Either way, my mother has already answered to her Maker, and Mrs. Jarrett’s day will come. I’ve forgiven them both, and if they’ve repented, the Lord will forgive them too.

CHAPTER 3

SETTING THE STAGE

LIZA’S STORY TO THIS POINT is a typical one for children living in the impoverished neighborhoods of London in the 1880s. While the laws regarding child labor and education were beginning to change, the constrictions of poverty continued to plague the city and many of its residents. Chief among the pressing issues of the day that social activists and church leaders attempted to address was the strengthening of the laws to protect children and young women. It was commonly agreed that the existing law, which set the age of consent at thirteen, needed to be changed, and a bill to amend the law had been passed twice by the House of Lords but hadn’t made its way through the House of Commons. Because of the defeat of Mr. Gladstone’s government, the subsequent changes in the ruling party threatened the proposed legislation. This dire situation was conveyed to Mr. W. T. Stead, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, by Mr. Benjamin Scott, the Chamberlain of the City of London, a man of seventy- five who urged Stead to take up the charge. “The bill is practically lost,” said, the Chamberlain. “You are the only man in the country who can save it.”4

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Mrs. Josephine Butler, a long-time advocate for the rights of girls and women, came to Mr. Stead as well. Mrs. Butler was raised in a wealthy and prominent family and worked for many years to rescue prostitutes and promote educational and moral reform. She welcomed prostitutes into her own home and also established a House of Rest that provided temporary shelter for fallen women. While her main legislative focus was the repeal of the Contagious Disease Act (which had effectively legalized the sex trade in the 1860s), she was also working towards the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act; thus her visit to Mr. Stead. The bill in question was a comprehensive legislation. As the law stood in 1885, a child of thirteen years or above was deemed legally competent, as Mr. Stead understood, to consent to her own seduction. The law also did not allow children under the age of eight to give testimony about their own experience of abuse or rape, claiming a young child couldn’t understand the nature of an oath. The reformers hoped to raise the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, to allow the word of young children to be used against their attackers, and to strengthen the law against the abduction and trafficking of children.5 The political climate of the day was evident in the slap- on-the-wrist sentencing of Mary Jeffries in the spring of 1885. Jeffries was an upscale brothel-keeper with a number of establishments who avoided prosecution for many years due to extensive bribery of local police. The anti-vice campaigners, including Mrs. Butler, were able to develop a case against her, but at her trial she was only fined £200 and told to “keep the peace” for two years. 21

Researcher Greta Wendelin suggests it was the outcome of the Jeffries trial and their on-going frustration with the political process that induced Butler and her anti-vice proponent Benjamin Scott “to play their only trump card: Stead.”6 Stead was quite the character. Alison Plowden, who developed the script for the 1974 BBC mini-series on the “Maiden Tribute,” quotes a contemporary of Stead’s (unnamed) who spoke about Stead’s behavior:

People watched it to see what Stead would do next. Whatever came into his head he had to say. The result was that the closest observer could never quite make out whether he was fraud, a maniac, or an inspired evangelist. A more self-conscious man never lived. His emotions, fancies, beliefs, whims, passing sensations, were all sacred things to him. When he was angry, he took it for granted that everybody shared his rage. When he was in hysterics, it was quite obvious to him that the whole world was weeping tremulously.7

Stead was only thirty-five years old at the time, a short man with a reddish beard and light-blue eyes. His youthful appearance belied his powerful stature in the city of London at the helm of a popular newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette. The newspaper had a high reputation of exactitude, according to Bramwell Booth, who described it as being a “paper of tone and privilege, most patronized by clubmen.”8 The young Stead had not been its editor for long, and perhaps feared for his job were he to go too far to 22

infuriate his readers. Mr. Stead admitted he was aware of the problem, but, he reported, “Like everyone else, I knew that the law ought to be amended, but also like everyone else, I knew that it had not the remotest chance of being amended as things stood.”9 The old Chamberlain may have appealed to Stead’s hubris or sense of power, or perhaps only awakened the newspaper man’s nose for a good story, but what he said to him motivated the man to action. “I do not know if you can do it, but if you cannot then we are beaten. No one else will help us. You might be able to force the bill through. Will you try?”10 Stead shared his initial reaction. “I, naturally, wanted to try, but every instinct of prudence and self-preservation restrained me. The subject was tabooed by the Press. The very horror of the crime was the chief secret of its persistence. The task was almost hopeless. No ordinary means could overcome the obstacles which were presented by the political situation.”11 Could something be done? By 1885, Stead had established himself as one who could bring pressure for change, what he himself often called “government by journalism.” In 1883, he had published “The Bitter Cry of Outcast London” by the Reverend Andrew Means, a serial exposé of urban poverty. Means’ premise was this:

Whilst we have been building our churches and solacing ourselves with our religion and dreaming that the millennium was coming, the poor have been growing poorer, the wretched more miserable, and the immoral more corrupt; the gulf has been daily 23

widening which separates the lowest classes of the community from our churches and chapels, and from all decency and civilization.12

As a result of his support of the project, as well as other investigative journalism he had undertaken, Stead was seen as someone with the heart and will to impact change. A third influence in those crucial days of 1885 came in the formidable form of the Booth family, who had been developing The Salvation Army since 1865 (although under the name of the Christian Mission until 1879). Catherine Booth was a regular partner with Mrs. Butler in the matter of purity campaigns, and Bramwell Booth’s wife Florence managed a refuge for fallen girls, so this was an issue dear to their hearts. Bramwell added his voice to those urging Stead forward. Bramwell visited Stead in the Gazette office and pled his case as Stead paced the room. While he didn’t accede to Bramwell’s entreaties at that time, he agreed to visit the Salvation Army headquarters for a meeting with Bramwell and Benjamin Scott. Following their discussion, Scott left the building but Stead remained. At that time, Bramwell invited two young child prostitutes rescued by The Salvation Army to tell their stories to Stead. They were soon joined by a former procuress, Rebecca Jarrett, who had also found a new life through The Salvation Army. William Booth biographer David Bennett describes Stead’s reaction:

These stories were so shocking that Stead was reduced to almost speechlessness. At the end he 24

arose from his seat, brought his fist down on the table with a mighty bang; “Damn!” was the only word that escaped his lips. To which Bramwell responded, “Yes, that is all very well, but it will not help us. The first thing to do is to get the facts in such a form that we can publish them.”13

Bramwell Booth spoke well of Stead’s motivations:

Stead always impressed me in that early association as a man intensely anxious to seek the guidance of God. The deepest passion which moved him was for the victory of a righteous cause. He was a journalist, but he always subordinated his journalism to what he believed to be right. Religion with him was service. He set out, heart and soul, to serve his generation. The world was cleaner and sweeter for his elegant voice.14

Stead saw the presenting concern as a religious challenge. As the son of a Congregationalist minister and of a mother active for many years in the movement to repeal the Contagious Disease Act, Stead often spoke in spiritual terms, describing his dilemma in these words:

The call of duty is the call of God. Whenever a call comes home to your heart to do some unselfish thing for your sister or brother, be they ever so poor and miserable and vile, remember that that call comes to you from the great heart of God, and if you turn a deaf ear you deny Him and are none of His.15 25

Whether evident of a strong religious conviction or an inflated sense of self, he prided himself as being the uncrowned king of educated democracy. So when help was needed for such a crucial cause, he seemed the most likely person to whom to turn. Being urged on by so many, Stead determined that he would see for himself what was happening. The elderly Chamberlain had been working on the legislation for some time but with little success, so he was pleased that the young Stead would use his influence to attempt to effect change. One of the strategies taken on by Stead was the development of a secret commission to establish the need for the change in the law. It is unclear as to how often the commission actually met together, or if Stead simply visited with them on various occasions, asking advice and seeking support for his ideas. Stead also went to prominent leaders of the day to inform them of his planned activities. He spoke with Dr. Benson, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Frederick Temple, the Bishop of London, non-conformist preacher Charles Spurgeon, and Cardinal Manning. Dr. Benson was the only one who attempted to sway Stead from his course, but he was not successful. Spurgeon himself had spoken out strongly about the Jeffries case, suggesting, “Deep is our shame when we know that our judges are not clear in this matter, but social purity has been put to the blush by magistrates of no mean degree; yes, it is said that the courts of justice have lent themselves to the covering and hushing up of the iniquities of the great!”16 An additional interview took place with a retired police officer, thought to be Howard Vincent. He confirmed what 26

Stead was hearing, telling him of the demand for virgin flesh to satisfy the appetites of the wealthy patrons, and of the ongoing debauchery taking place under the noses of the police. Stead wanted to see the extent of the problem for himself, and so began to move through the sordid streets of London, using techniques that would one day be described as those of investigative journalism. He was joined in his efforts by Mr. Sampson Jacques (a pseudonym for Mussabini, a Greek private detective), and a couple of young freelancers with whom he’d worked in the past. Their goal was to prowl the brothels in a variety of disguises so they could write effectively about the pressing problems of the day. And write they did.

For four weeks, aided by two or three coadjutors of whose devotion and self-sacrifice, combined with a rare instinct for investigation and a singular personal fearlessness, I cannot speak too highly, I have been exploring the London Inferno. It has been a strange and unexampled experience. For a month I have oscillated between the noblest and the meanest of mankind, the saviours and the destroyers of their race, spending hours alternately in brothels and hospitals, in the streets and in refuges, in the company of procuresses and of bishops.17

W.T. Stead, the minister’s son and affectionate father, had written about the horrors of prostitution for many years, but now he was to know the dreadful truths of the underworld firsthand. What exactly did he do? Here’s how 27 he described it: “With the aid of a few faithful friends, I went disguised into the lowest haunts of criminal vice and obtained only too ample proof of the reality of and extent to the evils complained of.”18 The “few faithful friends” that Stead described included his main Salvation Army contact, Bramwell Booth, along with Booth’s wife, Florence Soper Booth, and Bramwell’s parents, General William Booth and his wife Catherine. How—and why—did The Salvation Army get involved in such a sordid scheme?

CHAPTER 4

THE SALVATION ARMY CONNECTION

HE SALVATION ARMY BEGAN in in 1865 as the Christian Mission, when William and Catherine Booth left the Methodist New Connexion, determined to strike out on their own to save the world for Jesus. The son of a pawnbroker, William was a preacher at heart, and so the early days of his mission were spent preaching in various locations in the poverty-stricken East End of London. Catherine, also an effective speaker, helped to support that fledgling mission by her preaching and her courting of wealthy supporters, particularly in the West End of London. While they did not begin with the intention of creating a social service mission, they soon discovered there were pressing needs among those they hoped to bring to salvation. Over the years of The Salvation Army’s development, they also integrated their children into the mission, and by 1885, their eldest son Bramwell, given the title of Chief of the Staff, was the right-hand man to his father in the operations of The Salvation Army. The elder Booths were concerned over the plight of young women for many years, and in the infancy of their mission, Catherine spoke at the Midnight Movement, where two to three hundred “unfortunate women” were

31 32

gathered in a schoolroom. Catherine’s first biographer, her son-in-law, Frederick de Latour Booth-Tucker, noted that as a result of those meetings, “not only did she view with compassion their unhappy condition, but her indignation knew no bounds that public opinion should wink at such cruel slavery.”19 An attempt at opening a temporary shelter for girls wanting to escape prostitution was made as early as 1868, but within three months it was forced to close due to limited resources and the ill health of the worker involved. Soon after, the Christian Mission became the Salvation Army, Mrs. Elizabeth Cottrill, a baker’s wife, began to take troubled young girls into her home. Over time, her ability to care for the many girls who came to her strained her family life too greatly, so she visited Bramwell Booth with her dilemma. He instructed her to find a house to rent so the girls could live there instead of in her own humble home. That refuge was opened in Hanbury Street, thus beginning the rescue home work of The Salvation Army in 1881. By 1884, the Hanbury Street Refuge was already filled and more girls wanted to enter. What had sounded like a good idea to Bramwell now raised a new problem for The Salvation Army: how to care for the girls and what to do with them so they could find a place in the world outside the brothel. Florence Soper Booth, the daughter of a Welsh doctor and the newlywed wife of Bramwell, was summoned to that location by the General. “Flo had better go down there,” said the elder Booth, “and see what she can do in her spare time. Let her superintend.”20 Here’s how Bramwell described his wife’s experience at Hanbury Street: 33

Before she had been at her task for six months, it was brought home to her that a frightful state of things existed in London. She was prepared for the evidence of widespread prostitution, terrible as that is; but it came upon her as an appalling revelation to find that young girls—children, really, of thirteen and fourteen— were being entrapped by a vicious network of carefully devised agencies and in their innocence condemned to a life of shame. She declared further that there existed a regular traffic in these girls; that it had widespread ramifications, both in England and on the Continent; that it was maintained by the most atrocious fraud and villainy and involved such anguish and degradation as, in her opinion, could not be matched by any trade in human beings known to history. 21

Bramwell later to confided in his memoir that “during the first year or two of our married life, the skies were often overcast on this account.”22 The overwhelming sense of impotency in the face of such evil made an indelible impression on Florence, and Bramwell was soon to have his own revelation. A girl appeared at Queen Victoria Street who came up from the country and became entrapped into a brothel. Bramwell described her as “a decent, well-favoured girl of about seventeen, wearing a very beautiful red silk dress.” In the midst of her distress, young Annie Swan remembered she had a songbook with the address of General Booth. She was convinced he was the one person in all the City of London who could help her, and so “at 4 a.m. when the house was silent, she crept through the side-door used by 34 departing clients and hiked three miles to Queen Victoria Street to await William Booth.”24 After his pivotal meeting with the young woman in red, Bramwell’s heart was further stirred when his wife brought some of the girls from Whitechapel to meet him. As Bramwell described the meeting, “One of them, about fourteen years old, manifestly enceinte [with child], told a terrible story of how she had been met in the street by a very ‘nice’ woman, taken to a music hall, persuaded to meet her ‘friend’ again, and so dragged into virtual imprisonment and the last outrage.”25 Bramwell’s reaction, which he recorded in his memoir, Echoes and Memories, set the stage for his involvement with Mr. Stead, for he vowed: “No matter what the consequences might be, I will do all I can to stop these abominations, to rouse public opinion, to agitate for the improvement of the law, to bring to justice the adulterers and murderers of innocence, and to make a way of escape for the victim.” Bramwell was adamant in his belief that something must be done to both change the law and to save the young innocents calling out to be rescued. Fanny Crosby gave voice to Bramwell’s feelings in her poignant words often sung by Salvationists:

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave, Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.27

Was there a prophetic tone to Bramwell’s words? What of the dangers to those involved, to the reputation of the 35 fledgling Salvation Army, even to Bramwell’s freedom itself? And what could have happened to the young Salvationist, Jenny Turner (a pseudonym), who worked her way into a house of ill repute in Wanstead and spent ten days posing as a prostitute? Her imagined voice, built upon the few details preserved from her venture into the haunts of sin and shame as noted in Bramwell Booth’s Echoes and Memories and in David Bennett’s The General: William Booth, provide us with a glimpse into the world of the brothel of 1885.

CHAPTER 5

UNDERCOVER PROSTITUTE

Jenny Turner, 1885

N THE HISTORY BOOKS of The Salvation Army, I am known as Jenny Turner, although that is not my real name. I did not meet Eliza Armstrong until after the trial, although I was present in the Old Bailey with Flo Booth when Eliza testified before the jury. But it was partly my covert experience in a brothel in the East End of London that motivated Mr. Stead and Bramwell to proceed with their plan to prove a child could be purchased for illicit purposes. My connection to Eliza’s story began when I was twenty, for that was when I left home to join The Salvation Army. Unlike many of its converts, I did not come from the lower classes of London. Instead, I was a dear friend of Florence Soper, and was with her on that fateful evening in 1880 when she first heard Mrs. Catherine Booth speak. I was touched by Mrs. Booth’s words, but my friend Flo was absolutely entranced. As Flo later told me, she had never before understood what serving Christ meant. Flo was born in Wales, the daughter of a doctor, and had hoped to follow in his footsteps someday. However, the hand of God was upon her in her introduction to The Salvation Army, and what others might determine to be

39 40 chance, Flo saw to be divine providence. She became friendly with the Booth family, initially with Kate, but then even more so with Bramwell, the eldest son of General and Mrs. Booth. Bramwell’s sister Kate was going to France to spread the work of The Salvation Army and the Lord Jesus, and Mrs. Booth wanted a French-speaking woman of some ability to go with her, as the Booths were rightly concerned over the travels of their young daughter. My friend fit the bill, and so the task of accompanying Miss Booth fell to Florence Soper. What an experience they had. When the local police forbid them to preach, they wore sandwich boards to silently proclaim the good news. They were pelted with mud and stones, and Flo told me men often reached for their bonnet strings in order to choke the voice out of them. When I heard her tell of their work for Jesus, I cried out, “Oh, to be able to suffer for Jesus like that.” Within the year, Flo was recalled to London by the General, where she and Bramwell were to be wed. Although her father was not in favor of the union, concerned as he was over the life before her, she grudgingly received his permission when she was twenty-one and they married on October 12, 1882. The wedding was unlike any I had ever seen, as the bridal couple exchanged their vows in front of a crowd of 6,000 people, most of them recruits of The Salvation Army. Spectators were charged a shilling to enter, and the newlyweds purchased the Eagle Tavern with the funds collected. It had been a place of great notoriety but it would thenceforth be used in the great Salvation War. I myself had spent some time at the training garrison 41 in London, and was by then a young lieutenant in the General’s army. My parents were quite concerned with my efforts and I’m sure my mother prayed daily for God’s protection over her foolish and fearless daughter. But despite her anxious worries, in the years to come I would find my life’s work in the slums of London. In 1884, The Salvation Army began to work among the poor, neglected girls of London. They obtained a house in Hanbury Street and right away, it filled to capacity. Someone had to take charge of the operations, and so the General said to his son, “What about Florrie? She is very young, I know, but if she feels her heart drawn that way, then let her have charge.” That was all that needed to be said, and so by mid-July, Flo left her home in Clapton Common each day and headed to Whitechapel High Road, often serving with her young daughter Catherine in a basket by her side. By 1885, I was fully engaged in the war, preaching in the taverns and highways of the corner of London as assigned. I saw Flo Booth from time to time as we met to pray together, and I rejoiced as first Catherine and then Mary were born. How Florence managed to care for her children as well as “her girls” is a mystery to me. She described her experience on her first day to me: “How acute are the contrasts in my life at this time. Such bliss at home, the purest love of husband and my darling baby . . . then suddenly these terrible revelations!”28 Florence struggled dearly with the needs of her girls, and was tempted to ask for release from this heavy burden. But then, the Lord clarified her calling: 42

Heavy with my thoughts, I walked slowly, but was aroused by a blow on the head from a missile hurled at me by a costermonger’s boy, who had taken a potato from his barrow. The effect was electric! This assault seemed to dispel my fears. I interpreted it to mean opposition, and knew that the Devil does not waste his ammunition.29

While Florence’s heart broke for the young women in her care, causing her to cry herself to sleep each night, she also was growing angrier by the day at the vicious network that captured these children in its grasp. She told me, “Whitechapel seemed so far away from Castlewood Road [her home] for a work which I realized would need daily attention. I felt, too, that I was entirely ignorant of the condition into which I was to inquire.”30 In early May of 1885, my fiancé, Captain Frank Carpenter, joined me in the home of Flo and Bramwell to discuss our hope to marry by the end of the year. But the conversation soon turned to the plan that Bramwell and his newspaper friend, Mr. W. T. Stead, had devised to explore the terrible streets of the underworld. Mr. Stead, Sampson Jacques (the Greek detective), and a handful of Stead’s young journalists were to visit the brothels to gain first-hand knowledge of the extent of the degradation sweeping across our city. “That is all well and good that the men will explore the underworld of the city,” I said, “but what of the experience of the women? What is it truly like to live the life of a prostitute?” By the end of the evening, my own question formed an 43 answer. I would be the woman who would answer it from her own experience. With Mr. Stead’s support, I would work my way into a brothel and report on my experience. It was decided I would be given a pseudonym for my time of undercover exploration; I would be Jenny Turner. If I could manage to get into one of the brothels in London, the plan was simple. I would tell the brothel- keeper that, while I was experienced in the work of the house, I was selective in the men to whom I would offer my services. At that moment, I had a regular customer who would visit me nightly and compensate me liberally, but only if I did not receive other men. Since my “friend” paid quite nicely, hopefully she would be satisfied with the arrangement, if only for a time. I would be supplied with adequate funds to give to the madam of the house. Each evening, a rather pale man with ice-blue eyes would come for his nightly treat, but instead of the activities my fellow inmates were forced to perform, I would recount my observations of the brothel to Mr. Stead—and then hand over the filthy lucre he gave me to the mistress of the house. At first it seemed a bit of a lark, especially as Flo and I determined how I might be adorned, but as we knelt together to pray before I headed to Hyde Park, I became overwhelmed by fear at what could happen to me. Could I possibly live in a brothel and protect my own virginity? What if I was discovered? Would my life be in danger? But as my dearest friend laid her hands upon me, she breathed into me the words of 2 Timothy 1:7: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 44

Oh, how I drew upon those words as I stood in Hyde Park, waiting to see if a procuress would select me to enter her keeping. Through my own Salvation Army work, I had known a number of girls rescued from prostitution, but seldom had I studied them in their pre-conversion state. Could I act in such a way that I would convince an experienced procuress of my supposed character? After all, I wasn’t young enough to pass for a newcomer to the practice, and my safety depended on my ability to assure the brothel-keeper I wasn’t in need of her customers because I had a regular one of my own. As I lived and breathed the life of a prostitute, I pulled off the deception for nearly ten days, although, thank God, without the consummation required of the poor girls in the house night after night. There were some harrowing moments to be sure, as my inquiries of the other girls began to raise some concern among them. We agreed at the start I was to stay for two weeks if they would have me, but by the second week I was beginning to fear for my life. Even though I had my familiar, regular customer, it seemed the demand for girls on the Continent was great, and it was rumored in the house that I was to be shipped to Belgium, in charge of a party of teenagers. Upon being made aware of this possible arrangement, Mr. Stead began to make plans to rescue me from this perilous situation. He contacted Mr. Jacques to be ready for a battle, and determined they were prepared to save me by force if necessary at Charing Cross Station, which was the main London terminal for the port of Ostend, my proposed destination. However, their intervention was not in time to save me, 45 for on the ninth day, I was discovered by the procuress of the house. When I first entered into this venture, I had slipped my Salvation Army badge into the lining of my jacket, and from time to time I gathered its folds into my hands so I might draw strength for my mission. By pure happenstance, the mistress of the house discovered it, and from then on, I was locked away from the other girls. Plans were quickly being made to ship me across the channel by another route. When Mr. Stead came that evening, he was told I was indisposed and could not see him, which worried him greatly. Although I was kept from the other girls, I was able to slip a message to the maid for my dear Frank, and he and a group of Salvation Army officers actually stormed the house to rescue me. By that time, I had given up hope and had leaped from a high window into the garden. I wrenched my ankle badly, and fainted away from the pain. I awoke as my beloved Frank lifted me in his arms, with the shrieks of the brothel-keeper ringing in my ears. Buoyed by his Salvation Army comrades, he carried me from the house of evil and placed me carefully on the seat of the hansom. Fearless though I thought I was, and protected though I truly was by the Spirit of God, I was terribly shaken by my close call. Stead told me there was indeed a worldwide trade in these poor girls, and unwilling girls were drugged and then transported in nailed-down coffins with only a few air holes to allow them to breathe. Some were even known to awaken on their journey, coming to a terrifying death in their attempt to claw their way out of their prison. I do not know what I would have done had the procuress decided to use me in her household rather than ship me 46 off to the Continent upon discovering my deception. In those last hours of confinement, I prayed over and over again, “Jesus, save me,” but it soon became clear that I might have to do what I could to be saved from what I knew was only moments away—thus my jump from the window. Fortunately, my ankle soon healed, and although I developed a serious attack of pneumonia as a result of my perilous endeavor, I was able to rejoin the ranks of active service in the Army. However, Frank and I quickly decided we would marry as soon as possible, and asked the General himself to hear our vows. I did not want to risk that the procuress might try to track me down and force me to give my body to another in retaliation for my deception. My close call in the brothel was one I would not dare repeat, but I don’t regret my decision to place myself in harm’s way, if only my actions could save even one poor lost girl from what I witnessed in that house. I often called upon the story of Esther during those days of uncertainty. Indeed, Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? I surely learned that the word of the Lord as given to the prophet Isaiah is true: When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. In the years since, whenever I repeat this verse, I do add one last phrase: “and when thou jumpest from the window of the brothel, I will catch thee.” Thanks be to God—and to my dearest Frank. CHAPTER 6

THE SCHEME

S BOTH STEAD AND BRAMWELL Booth obtained firsthand knowledge as to the extent of the dangers faced by mere children in the underworld of London, they were faced with a dilemma. What could be done? What must be done? While the details of the planning are not recorded, might there have been a meeting of Bramwell and Florence Booth, Jenny Turner and her beloved Frank, W.T. Stead, and Sampson Jacques to share their information? Bramwell had already had some conversation with his parents, and Stead had been in touch with his advisors to ask their counsel, but they needed to determine their next step. If these young people (Stead was thirty-five, Bramwell, twenty-nine, and Florence, twenty-three) did gather together in May 1885, they would have done so with the knowledge that their exploratory operation hadn’t provided them with enough ammunition to change the minds of the people of England, or the hearts of the men in the House of Commons. Beyond whatever meetings these main actors may have had, there was purportedly a secret commission under Stead’s leadership that the Pall Mall Gazette had assembled. Salvation Army historian Robert Sandall

49 50 reports these members “ventured their substance, reputation, liberty and even life itself in a daring attempt to obtain first-hand evidence which should bring home to the imagination, the heart, and the conscience of the country the horrors of this organized system of criminal vice.”31 Stead acknowledged the support of The Salvation Army to his commission when he stated:

Our commission would have been almost helpless without the aid which was extended to us [by The Salvation Army] without stint at any hour of the day or night, at any sacrifice, personal trouble, or risk of personal danger, by the intrepid soldiers of that admirable organization . . . the aid we received from Mr. Bramwell Booth and his devoted comrades was of incalculable value and far exceeding that rendered by all the other existing organizations put together.32

Beginning their work on Whit Monday (May 25), the commission decided there must be further action on their part. As David Bennett described it, “What was necessary was a sensational, provable incident upon which Stead could base his campaign and with it seek to prick the nation’s conscience.”33 Ultimately, they determined to find a way to establish that a child could actually be procured, thus proving the need for a change in the law. It is unknown which of the conspirators first broached the idea, but once it was decided upon, they were ready to move ahead with it. As Bramwell wrote, “We then decided 51 to make an experiment with an actual case and to carry it through in such a way that we could call evidence from people of repute with regard to what had happened. We thought out the plan most carefully, and it was put into execution on the Derby Day of 1885.”34 What did the elder Booths think of this? Catherine Booth wrote of her concern to her daughter Emma in Switzerland:

Oh, how wicked the world is! Bramwell and Stead have been engaged in some investigations about the child prostitution of London, and their discoveries are awful. I wrote the Queen on Thursday about it, and received a most gracious reply. I have never known anything take such hold of Bramwell for years. I told him I never felt so proud of him in my life. But all this on top of our other work is killing.35

While both Mrs. Booth and the General took a prominent role in the later campaign to change the law, it appears as though William was not as fond of Stead and his plan as was his son. Biographer Roger Green suggests:

[T]he General and W. T. Stead were often in conflict; as a matter of fact, William was much more reticent about the Purity Crusade than was Catherine, partly because he feared that Stead, in his enthusiasm, was taking the Army along a path that should not be trod. In his correspondence with Catherine during the campaign and trial, William is often critical of Stead and his measures.36 52

Booth’s early biographer, Edward Begbie, comes to a similar conclusion:

William Booth, in my opinion, was never greatly attracted by Mr. Stead. He was more or less suspicious about this thrusting, eager, and headlong journalist, who did much to help the Salvation Army and who was a brave champion from early days of its innovating General. William Booth used Mr. Stead and was grateful for his assistance, but he never greatly warmed to him, never wholly trusted his judgment, and was sometimes disposed to regard him as one who shilly-shallied with the great decision of Christian life. . . . On the other hand, Bramwell Booth—at that time young and ardent— not only admired Mr. Stead as a journalist, but felt for him a generous affection.37

It is unlikely the General or Mrs. Booth took part in whatever commission meetings there actually were, but with or without his parents’ official blessing of the details, Bramwell and Stead moved ahead with their plans. The scheme to which Booth and Stead agreed was dependent on finding a way to purchase a child. It was clear neither Florence nor Jenny could pass as a procuress in the mean streets of Lisson Grove, and so they were forced to enlist the assistance of Rebecca Jarrett, a woman rescued from a long life of infamy by The Salvation Army. Rebecca Jarrett was born in 1850 to a respectable tradesman and his wife, and was either one of seven children in the family (as some report), or thirteen, as 53

Rebecca herself wrote in her autobiographical notes. As was quite a common story at the time, her father took to the drink, and he died when she was still a child. There is some confusion as to what happened after that. It is possible she may have been an innocent child who was met by a deceiver and led away from the path of virtue, as she suggested happened with an older man when she was at the age of fifteen. It is also possible her mother forced her own daughter to take up the trade of prostitution at an early age, as it is believed her mother and brother operated their own houses of ill repute. It is known there was much tragedy in the family, as two brothers were lost at sea, two other siblings died of cholera, and her sister immigrated to Australia. With an older brother at the Woolwich docks, Rebecca was left alone with her mother, who would take her as a child to Cremorne Gardens, known as a Chelsea pleasure garden. As her mother took her pleasure in gin, Rebecca, age eight, was forced to find her own way in life. In her own hand, Rebecca described an encounter with an old man she met at the bus stop who took her into the park after dark. “I could not see him but I found as he was moving what his meaning was.”38 The facts of her early life are hazy, but what is clear is that by the age of fifteen or sixteen, she was thrown out of her home by her brothers, was the mistress of an older man, and birthed two of his children. When he tired of her, he took her to a brothel in Manchester. She was badly injured and spent time in the hospital there. When released, she was told one of her children had died and her other child had been sent away 54 to school, but the father would not give the location to Rebecca. Mrs. Butler later described Rebecca’s reaction: “Her heart turned to bitterness . . . [for she had lost] the one thing she had been longing for and living for—to hear the voice of her children.”39 After many years of prostitution and drunkenness, Rebecca’s path crossed with that of The Salvation Army. She saw a notice that said: “Great Doings Led by the Hallelujah Clergymen and the Hallelujah Sweep— Great Firing by Great Guns,” and was curious as to what they possibly could be doing. She later described what happened at that meeting: “I felt ill so I sat inside, close to the door, but the place was so hot and crowded that I fainted. They were very kind to me. They wanted to know where I lived. But I wouldn’t tell them. I did not want the man to see all those people with strange bonnets, some with tambourines in their hands.”40 She left on her own, but as Alison Plowden wrote, “The Salvation Army had scented a soul in need. They found Rebecca next day, took her in and nursed her slowly back to health.”41 Jarrett finally agreed to enter a rescue home in London and was saved. After a hospitalization at Mrs. Butler’s House of Rest, Jarrett was placed in a home of her own and began to care for young girls who were being rescued. Florence Booth described Rebecca’s difficulties in a letter to Josephine Butler:

I have stood over her and wiped the great drops of perspiration from her forehead when for hours she has wrestled in a kind of death-grip with her 55

old temptation—the love of strong drink. Once she obtained a glass of spirits after some hours of depressing faintness and exhaustion through her self-imposed abstinence. With this standing before her, she prayed in an agony; I watched her, prayed with her, and pleaded for her; and she conquered and thrust it from her.42

Based upon her unfortunate background and experience, Rebecca seemed to be the commission’s best option for locating an appropriate child. There was only one problem: she was resistant. Here’s how Josephine Butler described Jarrett’s response to their request to re- enter the wicked world she had so recently escaped, as recorded in Butler’s testimony in the court proceedings:

I am the wife of Canon Butler, of Winchester. I have a hospital there for the assistance of poor women who have been in trouble—it is called “The House of Rest.” I made the acquaintance of Rebecca Jarrett in January last when Mrs. Bramwell Booth introduced her to me. I had heard of her coming under her influence, or of the Salvation Army people at Northampton, some little time before. [Subsequently] she was a patient in my hospital for some weeks; then I introduced her to mission work in our own town, and in Portsmouth, to carry out the mission work. She continued under my superintendence to work in that way until May, when she came to London, and after that she resumed; but up to May she worked continuously at mission work, 56

and gave entire satisfaction to me, and conducted herself apparently well and zealously. During the last week in May I had a communication from Mr. Stead, in consequence of which I spoke to Rebecca Jarrett to see whether she would go up to London, and told her what she had to do. She was unwilling to come, on account of her own feelings. She had lived on intimate terms with me as a friend and fellow-worker, and I communicated to her my intense desire to reform this system; and then I urged upon her that to make reparation for her past life she should do what was required of her, and she partook of my feelings in the matter.43

Further pressure came from Stead, who was said to have told her that since she had ruined scores of innocent girls in her previous life, she should agree to this as a way to make amends. With his compelling voice, as well as those of the Salvationists who knew Jarrett, she finally gave in to their request and went in search of a child. Jarrett describes her experience in her own words:

My Jesus has done a perfect work in me. I had nine girls wich I had got off from their bad life. I prayed with them each day told them How God had changed my Heart. I had a good Home a nice large house. I had every help I needed when I was asked to prove I could get a poor child of thirteen years of age. I was asked to prove it wich you all know I did. The mother was in the public house drinking with the money I had just given her. Told her I was a loose woman 57

she did not even come over to bid her goodbye. The poor child was taken the greatest care off taken too a lovely home with a real titled lady so I was sent to prison for six months.44

And so, ready or not, the stage was set for the procurement of the child on Derby Day, 1885.

CHAPTER 7

GIRL FOR SALE

Eliza Armstrong, 1885

T’S ME, ELIZA AS I RESUME my story. In June 1885, I was thirteen years old. When I heard from Lizzie Stephens that a woman was looking for a young girl, I was excited by the possibility of getting out of Lisson Grove and beginning to make a way forward for myself. I went into the room to talk with my neighbor, Mrs. Broughton, to find out more about it. She asked if my mother might let me go into service, and I told her I would go and ask my mother if that would be possible. She then asked me, “Where is your mother?” and I went and fetched my mother into the room. My mother asked Mrs. Broughton about who was wanting a girl. Mrs. Broughton said it was the woman seated at her table, and she told us the woman’s name was Mrs. Sullivan (I was later to find out her true name was Rebecca Jarrett). My mother then asked her if she was the woman who was looking for a girl, and she told her yes. She asked Mrs. Sullivan where she was from, and the woman told my mother she was “from the country.” At that point, my mother told her she did not want me to go with her. While I was disappointed, I thought there was to be nothing more to her offer, and my mother and I returned home. On the next day, June 3, 1885 (I remember that especially

61 62 because it was Derby Day), Mrs. Sullivan (Jarrett) returned to see Mrs. Broughton with her repeated request to find a girl. Mrs. Broughton wasn’t doing too well that morning, and, as Jarrett later recounted their exchange in her testimony in court, Mrs. Broughton said she was “dying for a livener.” Mrs. Sullivan gave her a half sovereign and she went out and got some whisky. When she returned, Mrs. Sullivan asked again, “Nancy, have you got me a girl?” Mrs. Broughton replied, “No, I couldn’t get you one. I did try.” Mrs. Sullivan responded, “I’m very sorry, for I’ve come from the country and I don’t want to go back without one.” After, Mrs. Broughton went down to the street where she met my mother and convinced her to come upstairs and have a drink with her. I wasn’t with my mother at that point, but I understand that when my mother came into the room, she reached for a glass of whisky, and then said to Mrs. Sullivan, “Are you still in want of a girl?” “Yes,” was Mrs. Sullivan’s reply. “Are you willing to let me have Eliza then?” My mother responded to her, “Yes, for after you left yesterday, Eliza did nothing but worry me about it.” “Do you know who I am?” Mrs. Sullivan asked my mother. “Well,” my mother said, “I saw you down the street when you was on your crutches.” Mrs. Sullivan then told her, “I have gone back again with Sullivan to live with him, and we keep another house, a gay house. I want a little girl about your daughter’s age. She must be pure. Is Eliza pure?” 63

Jarrett testified in court that she told my mother she wanted me for an immoral life and if she liked to let me go with her, she would give her some money, with a bit more for Mrs. Broughton as well. According to Jarrett’s testimony, my mother hesitated at that point and drew back a little. Then she said, “Very well. I will let her go.” (My mother had a different recollection of this conversation when she testified in court about it.) Mrs. Sullivan then said, “Are you quite willing to let her go?” and my mother said yes. That’s when I came into the room. Mrs. Sullivan spoke to me: “I hear you’ve been worrying your mother to let you go with me. Are you quite willing to come?” and I told her, “Yes.” When the subject of clothing arose, Mrs. Sullivan said that she would take me to get new clothes. First, however, I must go to my room and wash myself and get myself ready. As I had never had brand new clothing in my life, I was pleased to hear this and gladly went with her. We went to the boot shop at the corner of Charles Street as well as several other shops. She bought me boots, a frock, trimmings for the hat, and a scarf. When we returned with the new clothing, I dressed in Mrs. Broughton’s room while Mrs. Sullivan trimmed my new hat. While I was getting ready, my mother came back into the house, and her mouth was bleeding badly. She told us she had wanted to go to a funeral but my father wouldn’t let her and so he hit her. She asked Mrs. Sullivan for money, and then quickly left the house, whether to go to the cemetery as she said or the tavern, I do not know. While I had kissed my mother before she had gone out, I did hope she would return to Mrs. Broughton’s house 64 before we were to leave at three o’clock, but she did not. I did not really have a word of farewell with my mother or my father. I did go home and have dinner and saw my mother there, but I don’t remember if I did see my father then. Mrs. Broughton, Mrs. Sullivan, and I (with my beautiful new hat) started off, first visiting a public house where the two women had something to drink. Then, at the corner of Chapel Street, Mrs. Sullivan and I got into an omnibus and bid our farewells to Mrs. Broughton. To this day, I do not know what my mother did or did not know about what Mrs. Jarrett had in mind for me. Jarrett later claimed in court that both women knew exactly why she wanted me, although I was not sure at the time what that meant. My mother, when pressed in court, said she thought I was going to be a servant. Perhaps there is some truth to the account of each of the three women. I only know I was to go with Mrs. Sullivan and there had been an exchange of money. Where I was to go remained unclear, but I had to trust Mrs. Sullivan to know the way. CHAPTER 8

THERE’S A MAN IN MY ROOM

Eliza Armstrong, 1885

HE RIDE IN THE OMNIBUS was crowded that day, with so many people out and about because of it being Derby Day. I had heard about the yearly celebration at Epsom, but of course I had never been myself. But London was abuzz with excitement awaiting the news of the winner, which I was later to find was Melton. Perhaps Mr. Stead and Mr. Booth planned for me to be purchased on that day so that Mrs. Sullivan and I could blend in on the crowded streets filled with celebrating Londoners. I had such mixed feelings that afternoon. There I was, ready to begin the next chapter of my young life. I was excited to think I might actually have my own bed in my new lodging, and was sure to watch all around me at what was happening that day. I can’t say I was frightened, even though I was leaving my home with a woman I didn’t know, but I was a bit anxious, hoping I would please my new mistress. Mrs. Sullivan was quite kind to me, although she didn’t tell me much about what was going to happen. We got off the omnibus past the Marble Arch and we went to a private house. I later found out it was 16 Albany Street. Mrs. Sullivan and I went into the sitting room and there was a young lady there who I had never seen before.

67 68

Mr. Stead came in as well, but I didn’t know his name, nor did I know the name of the young lady. Mr. Stead asked me if I went to school, and I told him I went to the Board School. I also told him I attended the Harrow Road Sunday School at nine in the morning and in the afternoon as well, and I also went to the Richmond Street Sunday School on Sunday nights. He asked me if I had any of the treats there, and I told him I had gone once to Epping Forest not long after the Queen designated it as the People’s Forest, and I also went twice to Richmond. He also asked me if I wrote any grammar at the schools and I told him I did. I didn’t know who Mr. Stead was and why he was asking me questions, but Mrs. Sullivan seemed to know him so I thought it was all right to talk with him. We all had tea together before Mrs. Sullivan asked me to go into the other room, and the young lady came with me, too. I heard Mr. Stead say farewell to Mrs. Sullivan, and then she took me out once again to one of the shops to buy me some new underclothing. When we returned to Albany Street, Mrs. Sullivan told me to put on my new clothing and I did, wrapping the old clothing up in a parcel. That is when Mrs. Sullivan was combing my hair. One thing I remember from that day with perfect clarity is Mrs. Sullivan wanted to cut my hair across my forehead. I thought the Piccadilly fringe she wanted to give me was unbecoming and would make me look ugly. I also knew my mother disliked it, so I would not allow her to do so. She did trim my hair and put a smart ribbon in it before we departed. Strange, isn’t it, what we remember from days gone by? The young lady was still with us, and she and Mrs. 69

Sullivan changed hats before we left the house. There was a hansom cab at the door, and Mrs. Sullivan and I got into it while the young lady said she had to go somewhere else. The cab took us to a house in Milton Street, Dorset Square early in the evening. Mrs. Sullivan got out, paid the driver and went to the house—it was number three. It was a private house, and when Mrs. Sullivan knocked, she asked the servant who opened the door if Madame was in. I did see a stout man standing outside the house but I didn’t know who he was, although I did hear him speaking French as we waited to be admitted. When we went into the house, I saw Madame Mourez for the first time. She was French, and she could only speak English a little. Mrs. Sullivan and Madame Mourez spoke quietly together but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Madame Mourez took me into a little room and she pulled up my clothing. I was standing up, and she put her hands in my private parts, touching the flesh. I tried to get away and she put her hands down. She did not say anything to me before doing this. I was upset, as I didn’t want anyone touching my body in that way. When she let me go, I went into the next room (the door had been open during this time) and I told Mrs. Sullivan that Madame was a dirty woman. Mrs. Sullivan made no reply, and she and Madame went out of the room, leaving me alone for about half an hour. I didn’t know what was happening and no one would answer my questions, leaving me there to cry a bit and to wish for my mother. When the two women came back in the room, Mrs. Sullivan took me away from that house and we got into a four-wheeled cab waiting on the street. I was still carrying 70 the parcel of my old clothing I had brought with me. When we left, I did not see the French man outside the house any longer. Mrs. Sullivan asked the cabman to take us to Poland Street, Oxford Street. We stopped opposite a ham and beef shop where Mrs. Sullivan got change so she could pay the driver. The two of us walked a little ways towards Oxford Street where I saw two men waiting, one of whom I now know to be Mr. Jacques. Mrs. Sullivan and I went into a house on Poland Street that the men had gone into. Mrs. Sullivan and I went upstairs, where she took me into a front bedroom. By then it was dark but I didn’t want to go to bed yet. Mrs. Sullivan had something to drink and she gave me a picture book to look at, telling me we would stay there that night because she lived in a place a long way off and it would take a very long time to get there. She did not say where we were going in the morning. The bedroom was lovely. I had not seen anything like it before, and I was later told it was a four poster bed. It was surrounded by flimsy curtains you could somewhat see through. Mrs. Sullivan again asked me to go to bed, and I did what she asked, undressing and getting into the bed. Mrs. Sullivan didn’t undress, as she said she was waiting up for the young lady to come home. I think Mrs. Sullivan thought I had fallen asleep but I was still awake when she lay beside me and put a handkerchief up to my nose. I threw it away, and she put it again to my nose and said, “Give a good sniff up.” I told her I would not have it and threw it away. Mrs. Sullivan said it was scent but it had a nasty smell, and I was still awake. After she got off the bed, I heard the door open and someone came in. I could not see who it was because of 71 the curtains around the bed, but I heard Mrs. Sullivan say to the visitor, “She is all right,” or something like that. I then heard a man’s voice, but I did not hear what was said. I screamed out, “There’s a man in the room!” The man went away when I screamed out and shut the door after him. Mrs. Sullivan said, “What is the matter?” I told her there was a man in the room. She pulled up the curtains and said there was no man in the room, but I knew there was one but he had gone out. She left the room and returned in two or three minutes, telling me that there were too many men in the house. I believe by then it was about one o’clock in the morning, and we had been there about an hour. I got up and dressed, she put her jacket and hat on, and we went out of the room and downstairs. I didn’t see any men on my way out. We got into a cab waiting outside the house, and a man I did not know got on the box seat. The cab drove to another house where the man got off the box and went in, leaving Mrs. Sullivan and I to wait inside the cab for about an hour. The house was No. 27, Nottingham Place, a nicely furnished private home. Mrs. Sullivan and I went into a bedroom, undressed and went to bed. She had the sofa and I slept in the bed. They tell me I was examined by Doctor Smith sometime that evening or early the next morning, but I have no recollection of it. I have since read the newspaper accounts of my Derby Day experience and this is what Mr. Stead wrote to describe the night:

All was quiet and still. A few moments later the door opened, and the purchaser entered the bedroom. 72

He closed and locked the door. There was a brief silence. And then there rose a wild and piteous cry—not a loud shriek, but a helpless, startled scream like the bleat of a frightened lamb. And the child’s voice was heard crying, in accents of terror, “There’s a man in the room! Take me home; oh, take me home!” and then all once more was still.45 CHAPTER 9

VIRGO INTACTA

HILE THE PROBLEMS associated with prostitution in nineteenth-century Britain were widespread, much publicity was given to the practice of brothel-keepers who desired to entice or to even kidnap young girls to serve their ravenous customers. As early as the 1830s, it is estimated that four hundred people in London alone made their living by kidnapping girls for this purpose. The luring of children into these houses of ill repute was frequently described in the press, but the true blame had to be placed upon the male patrons of the brothels and their appetite for young women, especially virgins. There was, however, little threat of punishment, either for the men who frequented the bedrooms or the women who provided the opportunities. The majority of the brothel- keepers in that day were women, and it was especially heinous that these procuresses could do such a thing to their own gender. Yet even when the owners were arrested by the authorities, very few were convicted of any crime against these children and they were soon back to work. As part of his secret commission work, Stead described his confidential interview with one of the most experienced police officers, who for many years was in a position to

75 76 possess an intimate acquaintance with all phases of London crime.

I [Stead] asked him, “Is it or is it not a fact that, at this moment, if I were to go to the proper houses, well introduced, the keeper would, in return for money down, supply me in due time with a maid—a genuine article, I mean, not a mere prostitute tricked out as a virgin, but a girl who had never been seduced?” “Certainly,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation. “At what price?” I continued. “That is a difficult question,” he said. “I remember one case which came under my official cognizance in Scotland-yard in which the price agreed upon was stated to be £20. Some parties in Lambeth undertook to deliver a maid for that sum to a house of ill fame, and I have no doubt it is frequently done all over London.” I continued, “Are these maids willing or unwilling parties to the transaction – that is, are they really maiden, not merely in being each a virgo intacta in the physical sense, but as being chaste girls who are not consenting parties to their seduction?” He looked surprised at my question, and then replied emphatically: “Of course they are rarely willing, and as a rule they do not know what they are coming for.” “But,” I said in amazement, “then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated 77

in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?” “Certainly,” said he, “there is not a doubt of it.” “Why,” I exclaimed, “the very thought is enough to raise hell.” “It is true,” he said; “and although it ought to raise hell, it does not even raise the neighbours.”46

It would seem as though the £5 purportedly paid for Eliza was below the going rate for a child of her age. In the brothel economy, virgins were a highly marketable commodity, and it was not unusual for a child to be sold for up to £25, a large amount of money. As a comparison, the average wage for a skilled worker was £62 per year. Why were children so desirable? Besides whatever fantasy the customer might have about his ability to deflower a young girl, her virgin status also served as a preventative measure against the widespread scourge of venereal disease rampant throughout London brothels. So in Stead and Booth’s plan, they considered it essential to ascertain the virginity of Eliza prior to and after the supposed seduction. It’s likely their reasoning was two- fold: to prove it could be done and to protect the reputation of Mr. Stead. Based upon the rest of the narrative, perhaps there was also some concern over Eliza’s reputation, but that was probably only a secondary motivation. It is likely Bramwell Booth arranged for the services of the doctor who examined Eliza after Stead entered the brothel room. Dr. and Mrs. Heywood Smith were steadfast and useful friends and supporters of The Salvation Army, 78 and so Dr. Smith, a London gynecologist, was a logical choice to help out in this delicate situation. From his own testimony to the court, here is Dr. Heywood Smith’s description of his involvement. It is noted that Eliza did not testify to this, and apparently the chloroform worked so that, unlike her encounter with Madame Mourez, Eliza had no recollection of his examination:

I was introduced to Mr. Stead to be of any help I could to him in the investigation he was about to make, and I arranged with Mr. Stead to go to 27 Nottingham Place on the night of the 3rd June. I think it was about 11 o’clock at night; I was then at home. He came to my house in Harley Street. Eliza Armstrong was with him, and Jarrett. Mr. Stead came to speak to me first, and then Jarrett and Eliza Armstrong came in. I did nothing at all to Eliza Armstrong at my own house. When they left my house I knew where they were going to; I gave them a letter to a Miss Hutchinson at 27, Nottingham Place, asking Miss Hutchinson to take in Mrs. Sullivan and the child who accompanied her, “urgent case; money no object.” I believe Mr. Stead, Jarrett, and Eliza Armstrong left in the cab, and subsequently I went to Nottingham Place; I got there, I think, a little after 2. Miss Hutchinson let me in. She had taken in patients for me before, and I knew she was connected with the Salvation “Army.” Mr. Stead was not there when I got there. I had a conversation with Miss Hutchinson, 79

and I gave Miss Hutchinson some chloroform, which I had taken with me. I gave her instructions to give it to the child, and I went into the room while Miss Hutchinson was administering the chloroform. Jarrett was in the room in bed all the time, in a different bed from the child; she was awake. The chloroform affected the child, she went off under the influence of it. I examined her just by the touch only; I examined her private parts, to see in fact whether the child was a virgin. Of course I had understood, and fully believed, that the child had been purchased. It is possible to ascertain whether a child is a virgin merely by touch; the child did not wake at all during the time. I subsequently wrote out a certificate that I had forwarded to Mr. Stead; I sent it under cover which I directed to Mr. Bramwell Booth, 101, Queen Victoria Street, I think. I did not make more than one copy of it, but the substance of the certificate was to the effect that I had examined Eliza Armstrong, and found her to be virgo intact.47

It is possible that Dr. Smith had some awareness of the plot devised by Stead and Booth, and so may have played his part with knowledge and consent. The less informed Madame Mourez was not complicit in the scheme developed by the men, yet ended up bearing the greatest punishment. Her account as told in the next chapter is fully imagined, but it is perhaps not too far from what may have happened to Louise Mourez.

CHAPTER 10

THE MIDWIFE

Louise Mourez, December 1885, Millbank Prison

HEN I THINK OF THE TWISTS and turns my life has taken, I should not be surprised that the knock on my door on the evening of Derby Day, 1885, has brought such heartache. While I knew some of my work was outside of the law, I did not expect to pay so dear a price for a simple examination. But I am not a stranger to sorrow and injustice, so I should have expected there would be consequences to what I was doing before my life ended. I was born in Paris in 1811 and given the name Louise Rose. My mother wanted to combine the strength of a warrior (the meaning of Louise) with the beauty of the rose. I was a beautiful child, the joy of my mother’s heart, and early in my womanhood I caught the eye of Pierre Mourez, a confidante of King Louis Philippe. We were married on my twentieth birthday and settled down in Paris to create a home of our own. We had a happy life in those early days in Paris. I visited the court from time to time, and Pierre was well-liked by the king. Yet sorrow knocked on our door as well. We had two children, a little girl, Angeline, who lived only five days, and a little boy we named Philippe, who fell from a tree and broke his neck just days before his tenth birthday.

83 84

I still remember that day, as Philippe’s friend Jean Claude came to our door in a dreadful fright. By the time I reached my son’s side, there was nothing I could do. We were not blessed with any other children, and so I have no one to visit me in the gaol, no one to mourn my passing, which I believe is coming soon. As often happened in the monarchy, trouble was brewing, and the knock on the door on February 23, 1848, brought much terror to my soul. Pierre was being called to the palace because the king’s troops had fired on people demonstrating against Louis Philippe’s leadership. The next day, Pierre returned home to tell me he was leaving for England with Louis Philippe, and he would send for me as soon as he could. Later, Pierre told me he helped the king escape his county by disguising him as a Mr. Smith and sending him out of the city in an ordinary cab. Louis Philippe settled in Surrey, but he was only to live two years in his country of exile, dying on August 26, 1850. When the exiled king died, it was as though Pierre died with him. He took to his bed for many weeks, and I was forced to try to find work to support us. Our neighbor in Surrey was a midwife who was getting too old to practice that art on her own, and she graciously offered to teach me what I needed to know to help the women around us. It was hard for me because I barely spoke English, but in those early days, as I began to learn my trade, I watched and waited, wiping the laboring woman’s brow, helping to cut the cord and to bathe the mother after her ordeal. Pierre never recovered from the tragedy of the king’s banishment and death, and only a year later, in 1851, I was left a widow at the age of forty. With no one to care for me 85 in this foreign land, I had to make my way on my own. I thought about returning to Paris, but it wasn’t safe for me to do so as the leaders of France have a long memory, even for the wife of a man who supported the former king. But I struggled to earn enough to survive, so I left Surrey for the more populated Paddington, where I began using my midwifery skills to earn my living. My role as a midwife gave me the opportunity to assist many women in their time of need. Yes, I delivered many babies, but as the women grew to trust me, they began to ask me about their other needs as well. After their tenth, twelfth, or fifteenth child, they looked at me and invariably said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And so I was able to use my knowledge and experience to help them prevent pregnancy, and, even at times, end a pregnancy. While I enjoyed welcoming life to the world, I also understood the threat of death in childbirth was quite high as the women got older. Should a mother leave her children as orphans? I had quite a scare in 1873, for I was charged with murder and taken before the coroner’s jury. One of my patients, Anna Simon, died at Twickenham on February 18 at the age of thirty-eight. I had visited her the week before, and she had asked me for help in facing yet another unwanted pregnancy. As I did for some women over the years, I provided her with a potion to add to her tea for three days and told her to send for me if she was not well. I did not hear from her again until a neighbor’s boy came to my door with the news that she had died. The coroner’s jury decided there was enough evidence to charge me with administering drugs to bring about an abortion, and in April I was tried for murder at the Old 86

Bailey. After the case was brought to the court, my counsel submitted there was no real evidence to support the charge and I was found not guilty. I was afraid the court would force me to give up my profession but that did not happen. However, I felt it better if I changed locations, and that’s when I moved to the Marylebone area. By 1881, I was working from a house in Milton Street. I continued to deliver my mothers, and more than one honored my work by naming a daughter after me. By that point, I had also become known by those who ran the houses of ill-repute for my skill at repairing the damage done by men who cared little for the girls they visited. Yes, I was paid well for the work I did, but I also had a true compassion for the girls under my care. Had I not been there to stitch up the tears in their private parts, I don’t know what might have happened to them. However, in order to be able to do that necessary work, the same brothel owners required me to examine the new girls before they were taken into their houses. There was a great demand for young girls whose virginity could be verified, and so I provided that confirmation as well. I was disgusted by what I had to do and I often vowed not to continue, but when the knock came at my door in the late hours of June 3, 1885, I agreed to perform the examination. But I was also quick to provide the procurer with a vial of chloroform so as to ease the violation upon the child’s body, as I knew she would have a difficult time. It was because of that knock on my door late in the evening on Derby Day, that I was once again in the docks at the Old Bailey in October 1885. It was hard to believe I was charged with indecently assaulting Eliza Armstrong. 87

I hadn’t caused any physical harm to the child. In fact, I had hoped my words of caution might change the mind of the procuress, but that wasn’t to be the case. This time, however, my fate was not to be spared. I was found guilty and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment at hard labor. The judge said he had looked at my case differently than the others, as he had been told I was a professional abortionist. However, there was no proof of that presented to the court, only ugly rumors. While some of my work may have been suspect, I did what needed to be done for the poorest of women in the streets of London. I brought their babies into this mean world, I attempted to repair the damage caused by the brutes who demanded young flesh, and sometimes I did what a woman begged me to do. Yes, I knew what was planned for those unfortunate girls, but I also knew that if I didn’t do what I was asked, they would find someone else to do so who may have had a rougher hand. If I have regrets, it is only that I answered the knock on my door one last time. I have learned in my seventy-four years that life is not fair. I should have spent my last years in the home of my beloved Pierre in our longed-for homeland, not facing life and death between the legs of laboring women. I should have been found in the royal court of France, not in the dock at the Old Bailey. I, who only did what I was asked on that night, should not have paid more dearly than those who contrived the scheme that stole the child and kept her from her parents, or the physician who performed the same exam but who walks free today. I entered Millbank Penitentiary on the riverbank near 88

Vauxhall Bridge on November 10, six months after I first opened my door to Mrs. Jarrett on that fateful night. My hard labor consisted of picking a pound and a half of coir each day, a task which I struggled to complete as my fingers were not able to manipulate the tarred rope. It was soon determined that I was not able to do that work and so I was given knitting to do each day. Within two weeks, I became quite ill, and was admitted to the prison’s infirmary as my kidneys, lungs and heart were beginning to fail. I receive visits from my friends and they bring me nourishing food, including meat, wine and fruit. I do not know if I will live to leave this place, but I am at peace. C’est la vie. My days are numbered, and as I go to meet my Maker, I will answer for what I have done, for the pain I caused and the pain I relieved, for the lives I welcomed and the lives I touched. I pray God will be gracious, and I will be reunited soon with my beloved Pierre, my precious son Philippe, and my tiny rosebud, Angeline, taken too soon from my arms.

Louise Rose Mourez, midwife, died in the Millbank Penitentiary on January 20, 1886. CHAPTER 11

OFF TO FRANCE

One of the challenges facing Stead’s secret commission was what to do with the child after she was purchased and their point proven. It’s not clear as to how much advance thought was given to this particular aspect of the operation, but the Salvation Army literally came to the rescue and whisked the child off to France.

Eliza Armstrong, 1885

OLLOWING THE VISIT BY DR. SMITH (which I do not remember), I slept the rest of the night, and in the morning I was met by Mrs. Combe, one of The Salvation Army folk. It was Mrs. Combe who then accompanied us to The Salvation Army headquarters in Paris, France, a trip of more than two hundred miles. Mrs. Combe was a widow of independent means from Geneva, Switzerland, who worked at the Clapton Rescue Home for some time. She told me she had many little children (I think she meant the girls at the rescue home), as well as two sons of her own, one who was in The Salvation Army and one who had died. When I went down to breakfast, Mrs. Combe (who I had never seen before) asked me if I should like to go to a place along with her, but I told her no. She and Mrs. Sullivan then went out of the room together, and I began to cry because I didn’t know what was happening. When the two women returned, the same young lady was there, the one who had changed hats with Mrs. Sullivan. Mr. Stead also came into the house. Mrs. Sullivan sent the young lady to go and buy me a cloak. She had not yet returned when Mr. Stead said, “The cab is all ready; let us go down now.” So we got in the cab to go to the railway

91 92 station. I didn’t know the name, but I now believe it was the Charing Cross station, where Mr. Stead bade us farewell on the 4th of June. I was still quite unsure about what was happening to me, but I decided I would make the best of it as an adventure I might never have again. The station itself was quite imposing, with a single span wrought iron roof that arched over six platforms, constructed on a brick arches viaduct. While we were there, the young woman arrived with the cloak of grayish brown, and so I had that to keep me warm on our journey, as it did get a bit cold in the night. The train carried the three of us, (Mrs. Sullivan, Mrs. Combe and me), to the English Channel crossing at Dover, where we boarded a ferry. When we arrived at the station in Dover, I expected to get off the train and board a boat, but the train car itself was loaded on the ferry and then shunted off the boat onto the French rail tracks. We then took the Fletche (Golden Arrow) to Calais, and changed trains for Paris, arriving many hours later at the Gare du Nord. By the time of our arrival at 6 p.m., I was quite exhausted, as we had been journeying for what seemed like days on end, even though it was less than one full day. Blanche Young, an officer in The Salvation Army, was living at the headquarters on the Avenue Laumiere, which is where our journey ended. She was only told I had been rescued by The Salvation Army, and she was to look after me kindly. She did as instructed, not questioning that direction, as she had often been asked to provide a similar service. By that time, I had become much attached to Mrs. Sullivan, and even though I had only known her for a few 93 days, I was sad when she told me she had to return to London. She told me she had to go back to get her place ready for me to go there, and that Mrs. Combe would take me to a shop and buy me some more clothes. As she prepared to leave (it was then Saturday, June 6), she kissed me and told me to be good. She said I could write a letter to her if I wanted to, and that she had given the captain her address. She also said that my mother did not give me to her for service, but for something worse. I still didn’t understand fully what she meant, but she turned and left before I was able to ask her more. While I was in Paris, I got to know Miss Booth, who they called the Marshall, and Miss Green, the cook. Sometimes I was able to sell the magazine (the War Cry) in the streets of Paris with Captain Young. Even though I did not know the language, I did enjoy getting out into the fresh air and seeing what Paris looked like. I especially liked the wide boulevards and the lovely fountains. My favorites were the four fountains called the Fontaines des Champs-Élysées that were between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe. Sometimes I would gaze at the sculpture of the girl brushing her hair and remember when my mother would brush my hair. Those were the times when I missed my mother the most. While in France, I was able to write letters to my mother and to Mrs. Combe, who was so kind to me during our travel together, and I also wrote to Mrs. Sullivan. Don’t mind the spelling—I wasn’t a very well-educated girl at the time. Here is a letter I wrote to Mrs. Combe while I was in France: 94

My dear Mrs. Combe, I write these few lines to you hoping you are quite well. I am a good girl. Does all that Fanny tells me to. My cotton dress is finished and I keeps it very nice and clean. And I sow my buttons on my cloak and I have washed the stains out of my dress. The captain is very good to me indeed. All the girls give their love to you and Captain gives her love to you and the major as well. I hope you are soon coming home again. And the Captain gave me the paper to write with. She is very kind to me. I love her very much, and I love you to. It is raining very much at home. Two of the girls are going away soon. I liked your letter very much. Well that is all I got to say at present. Good by and God bless you.48

They also let me write to Mrs. Sullivan, and here is that letter:

My dear Mrs. Sullivan; I write these few lines to you hoping you are quite well. I am very happy. The Captain is very good to me. Mrs. Combe is going away for a little time. She is gone about her business. She is soon coming back again. I hope you are going on all right. I have asked the Lord to bless you every night, and I hope you are soon coming to see me. I am getting on all right. I has plenty to eat and drink, and if you would write me a little letter it would be very pleasant to have one from you; and I hope I shall be able to go and see my mother soon and my little brothers and 95

sisters. The Captain is going away for two months, and I am going to be a good girl while she is gone. Well, that is all I got to say at present. Good-bye, and God bless you for my sake. As I was lying in my bed, some little thoughts came in my head; I thought of one, I thought of two, but first of all I thought of you. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx49

I did receive a letter back from Mrs. Sullivan (Jarrett) from Hope Cottage, Highcliff, Winchester. Here’s what she wrote:

My dear Child, I received your beautiful letter, which I had been longing to get from you, but I forget the address, and Mrs. Combe promised to write to me about you, so I was expecting to hear from you. I am not coming to see you, but you are coming to me. A lady has got to bring you straight to me. You are to come to my little cottage, but you are to see your mother and father, but you are God’s child, and I hope that you are trying to be good to Jesus, and then you can go home and tell your mother and father what He has done for you. I pray for you every night and morning, my dear child. I must say good-bye, my dear child, till I see you. I hope it will be next week or the week after, but the Captain will tell you. I am your true friend, Mrs. Sullivan50

Later, Mrs. Combe left for a while, telling me she wouldn’t 96 be gone long. She asked me to call her Elizabeth, but I had a hard time doing so; she was such a lovely Swiss lady. By that point, I had been in Paris for about four weeks. While she was away, her son, Lieutenant Combe, took me away. He was a Frenchman who also spoke English, and he was about twenty-five years of age. We started at 8 p.m. and no one else was with us, and no one saw us off. We traveled all night and the next day we arrived at Loriol, where he took me to the house of Monsieur and Madame Berard. It was nice there, and there were some children, along with an English governess, Miss Fielder. I think Madame Berard was a French countess. While I was there, I was employed as a servant and I helped to clean their large home as well as aided the cook with serving the meals. While at Loriol, I did receive a letter from Lieutenant Combe, as he said he would write to me. His letter was written on July 19. I also wrote while I was there, both to my mother and to Mrs. Combe. I believe both letters were put into one envelope by Madame Berard and addressed to Mrs. Combe, and what I now understand is there was no address given on the letter to my mother. In my letter, I told my mother I was very happy and had a good place, which was a long way away in France. Also, I had good food to eat and all I wanted. I ended my letter to my mother with the same rhyme as I had written to Mrs. Sullivan (Jarrett). “As I was lying on my bed . . . .” The day before I departed from France, I received a letter from my mother that included the following: “Me and your father were so pleased to hear from you, but not so pleased as we should be if we saw your dear face. . . . 97

And let me know where that woman took you to when you left me to go to service. . . And how you came to know those little rhymes you wrote in your letter?” When her letter arrived, I was at Plaines de Bec, which was a little way from Loriol, where M. Berard had a country house. I wrote another letter to my mother while at Plaines de Bec. Miss Fielder wrote part of it for me and the envelope. Two gentlemen came for me when we returned to Loriel. One was Captain Raby of the Salvation Army. Miss Fielder told me to get ready to go, but we had some dinner before we left. When I saw the two gentlemen I cried, because I did not know what the men were going to do with me at first, but I did go with them by train as far as Arras, and then on to Paris. We ended up back at the headquarters of The Salvation Army where I saw Miss Booth and Miss Green again. Miss Green brought me back to England, where I arrived on Sunday, August 23.

CHAPTER 12

MAIDEN TRIBUTE OF MODERN BABYLON

HILE ELIZA WAS BEING SPIRITED OUT of the country, Stead was busy with his pen, writing a series of articles that sent shock waves from the center of London to the outskirts of Europe, Australia, and even the United States. Publication day arrived on Monday, July 6, 1885, as the first of Stead’s ten articles appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette. Stead’s account caused such a furor it is estimated the circulation of the paper went from 12,000 copies to one million. Its pages were so much in demand the news vendors in the streets raised the price of each copy from a penny to threepence, then sixpence, and then even to a shilling a copy. Stead’s account was so lurid that one of the popular bookstalls of the day, W. H. Smith, refused to sell the Pall Mall Gazette, claiming the articles were indecent. Twelve of the paper’s newsboys were put under arrest for distributing pornographic materials, but the charge was dismissed by the Lord Mayor, “who declared Stead’s view as high and honourable.”51 To get the paper into the hands of the people, the Booths turned The Salvation Army’s International Headquarters into a distribution center, and the cadets in training sold the newspapers on the streets.

101 102

Owen Mulpetre, a Stead scholar who maintains the attackingthedevil.co.uk website that contains much information on Stead, as well as the transcripts of the trials themselves, has this to say about Stead’s writing: “Written in successive installments, Stead’s ‘infernal narrative,’ as he called it, revealed to a respectable readership ‘a criminal underworld of stinking brothels, fiendish procuresses, drugs, and padded chambers, where upper-class paedophiles could revel in the cries of an immature child.’”52 Wendelin suggests, “this pathetic interaction of a helpless girl cornered by the lustful stranger, relayed in the sensationalist language of screams, peril, and domination, demarcated the limits of Stead’s pornographic imagination.”53 Stead himself gave ample warning to his readers when he wrote of the soon- to-be published series:

We [the Pall Mall Gazette] have, therefore, determined, with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to such a decision, to publish the report of a Special and Secret Commission of Inquiry which we appointed to examine into the whole subject. It is a long, detailed report, dealing with those phases of sexual criminality which the Criminal Law Amendment Bill was framed to repress. Nothing but the most imperious sense of public duty would justify its publication. But as we are assured on every hand, on the best authority, that without its publication the bill will be abandoned for the third time, we dare not face the responsibility of its suppression. We shall, therefore, begin its publication on Monday, 103

and continue to publish de die in diem until the whole infernal narrative is complete. But although we are thus compelled, in the public interest, to publish the case for the bill, or rather for those portions of it which are universally admitted to be necessary, we have no desire to inflict upon unwilling eyes the ghastly story of the criminal developments of modern vice. Therefore we say quite frankly to-day that all those who are squeamish, and all those who are prudish, and all those who prefer to live in a fool’s paradise of imaginary innocence and purity, selfishly oblivious to the horrible realities which torment those whose lives are passed in the London Inferno, will do well not to read the Pall Mall Gazette of Monday and the three following days. The story of an actual pilgrimage into a real hell is not pleasant reading, and is not meant to be. It is, however, an authentic record of unimpeachable facts, “abominable, unutterable, and worse than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived.” But it is true, and its publication is necessary.54

Stead used the Monday edition of the newspaper to again plead his case and issue a word of warning to those who might be offended by what was to come. Thus warned, the people of London were greeted with the following headlines through the week: “Liberty for Vice, Repression for Crime”; “The Violation of Virgins”; “The Confessions of a Brothel Keeper”; “The London Slave Market”; “Why the Cries of the Victim are Not Heard”; “Strapping Girls Down”; and the final chapter, “A Child of Thirteen Bought for 5£.” Stead began his articles by referring to the ancient Greek 104 myth of the Minotaur, where the Athenians were required to pay a “maiden tribute” to King Minos every nine years. These fourteen young men and maids were given to the oppressor and they were forced to wander in a labyrinth until devoured by the Minotaur, a wicked creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Stead then presented his case:

This very night in London, and every night, year in and year out, not seven maidens only, but many times seven, selected almost as much by chance as those who in the Athenian marketplace drew lots as to which should be flung into the Cretan labyrinth, will be offered up as the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. Maidens they were when this morning dawned, but tonight their ruin will be accomplished, and tomorrow they will find themselves within the portals of the maze of London brotheldom. Within that labyrinth wander, like lost souls, the vast host of London prostitutes, whose numbers no man can compute, but who are probably not much below 50,000 strong. Many, no doubt, who venture but a little way within the maze make their escape. But multitudes are swept irresistibly on and on to be destroyed in due season, to give place to others, who also will share their doom. The maw of the London Minotaur is insatiable, and none that go into the secret recesses of his lair return again.55

As the father of six children, Stead once listed his hobbies in Who’s Who as cycling, boating, and playing with 105 his children. He especially enjoyed and valued children, and his passion came through in his writing.

If the daughters of the people must be served up as dainty morsels to minister to the passions of the rich, let them at least attain an age where they can understand the nature of the sacrifice which they are asked to make. And if we must cast maidens— not seven, but seven times seven—nightly into the jaws of vice, let us at least see to it that they assent to their own immolation, and are not unwilling sacrifices procured by force and fraud.56

His style of writing was sensational, using exaggeration to prove his point at times. In doing so, he intended to “set forth the ghastly and criminal features of this infernal traffic.” As he explored his subject, he portrayed London as “a resurrected and magnified City of the Plains, with all the vices of Gomorrah, daring the vengeance of long- suffering Heaven.” He described his experience as having “to drink of the purulent matter that flows from the bodies of the damned.”57 Stead was also willing to make enemies. He quoted an unnamed but prominent member of Parliament as saying:

These are the girls who can be had at so much a head; but it is nonsense to say it is rape; it is merely the delivery as per contract of the asset virginity in return for cash down. Of course there may be some cases in which the girl is really unwilling, but the regular supply comes from those who take a strictly 106

businesslike view of the saleable value of their maidenhood.

On the same subject, he quoted a former brothel- keeper:

Maids, as you call them—fresh girls as we know them in the trade—are constantly in request, and a keeper who knows his business has his eyes open in all directions, his stock of girls is constantly getting used up, and needs replenishing, and he has to be on the alert for likely ‘marks’ to keep up the reputation of his house.58

That same man bragged of his methods, using disguises, even the dress of a parson, to bring country girls to the city.

I bring her up, take her here and there, giving her plenty to eat and drink—especially drink. I take her to the theatre, and then I contrive it so that she loses her last train. By this time she is very tired, a little dazed with the drink and excitement, and very frightened at being left in town with no friends. I offer her nice lodgings for the night: she goes to bed in my house, and then the affair is managed. My client gets his maid, I get my £10 or £20 commission, and in the morning the girl, who has lost her character and dare not go home, in all probability will do as the others do, and become one of my ‘marks’—that is, she will make her living in the streets, to the advantage of my house.59 107

When describing Rebecca Jarrett, Stead changed the details of her life, but the account is similar to the other brothel-keeper. The procured virgin girl, usually under age fifteen, is described as “frightened and friendless, her head aching with the effect of the drowse and full of pain and horror,” who “gives up all hope, and in a week she is one of the attractions of the house.”60 It is not clear as to whether Stead is talking specifically about Madame Mourez or not, but he does write at length about the role of the midwife in the brothel operations. Initially, he describes how certain midwives or doctors are used to verify virginity before a full payment is made for a child, but he also talks about an even more heinous role of the midwife that must have been disturbing to many London readers:

When I was prosecuting these inquiries at the East-end, I was startled by a discovery made by a confidential agent at the other end of the town. This was nothing less than the unearthing of a house, kept apparently by a highly respectable midwife, where children were taken by procurers to be certified as virgins before violation, and where, after violation, they were taken to be “patched up,” and where, if necessary, abortion could be procured. The existence of the house was no secret. It was well known in the trade, and my agent was directed thither without much ado by a gay woman with whom he had made a casual acquaintance. No doubt the respectable old lady has other business of a less doubtful character, but in the trade her repute 108

is unrivalled, first as a certificator of virginity, and secondly for the adroitness and skill with which she can repair the laceration caused by the subsequent outrage. That surely was sufficiently horrible. Yet there stood the house, imperturbably respectable in its outward appearance, apparently an indispensable adjunct of modern civilization, its experienced proprietress maintaining confidential relations with the “best houses” in the West-end. This repairer of damaged virgins is not a procuress. Her mission is remedial. Her premises are not used for purposes of violation. She knows where it is done, but she cannot prevent that. What she does is to minimize pain and repair as effectively as possible the ravages of the lust which she did not create, and which she cannot control.61

Londoners were horrified by Stead’s description of padded rooms in the brothels. Here is how he described them: “Padded rooms for the purpose of stifling the cries of tortured victims of lust and brutality are familiar enough on the Continent. ‘In my house,’ said a most respectable lady, who keeps a villa in the west of London, ‘you can enjoy the screams of the girl with the certainty that no one else hears them but yourself.’”62 Stead concluded his sensational series with the story of Lily, a thirteen-year-old child who had been procured. The passage is quite long, but from the details, it is clear it is the story of Eliza Armstrong. Stead embellished the story, suggesting that a purchase was about to happen when a 109 drunken neighbor came into the house and offered up her “Lily,” a “bright, fresh-looking little girl, who was thirteen years old last Christmas.” When the first sale fell through, the procuress agreed to a sale of the child for £5, with £3 paid down and the remaining £2 after “her virginity had been professionally certified.” Stead described the mother as “poor, dissolute, and indifferent to everything but drink.”63 Stead noted the father, also a drunken man, was disinterested in where she was going. Surely those less- than-flattering descriptions later made the Armstrongs determined to refute the claims of Stead’s columns. Stead described the certification of Lily’s virginity, noting it was a difficult task because the “child was absolutely ignorant of the nature of the transaction which had transferred her from the home to the keeping of this strange, but apparently kind-hearted woman.” The examination was very brief and completely satisfactory, Stead noted.

But the youth, the complete innocence of the girl, extorted pity even from the hardened heart of the old abortionist. ‘The poor little thing,’ she exclaimed. ‘She is so small, her pain will be extreme. I hope you will not be too cruel with her’—as if to lust when fully roused the very acme of agony on the part of the victim has not a fierce delight.64

As to the details of Lily’s seduction, Stead was vague. In his account, he reported:

From the midwife’s, the innocent girl was taken to a 110

house of ill fame, No _____, P_____ Street, Regent Street, where, notwithstanding her extreme youth, she was admitted without question. She was taken upstairs, undressed, and put to bed, the woman who bought her putting her to sleep. She was rather restless, but under the influence of chloroform she soon went over. Then the woman withdrew.65

Then, as Eliza has described the scene, “all was quiet and still.” After his description of Lily’s awareness of a man in her room, Stead says no more about a seduction, but he concludes the series with these words:

That was but one case among many, and by no means the worst. It only differs from the rest because I have been able to verify the facts. Many a similar cry will be raised this very night in the brothels of London, unheeded by man, but not unheard by the pitying ear of Heaven—‘For the child’s sob in the darkness curseth deeper than the strong man in his wrath.’66

In Stead’s desire to make his account credible and for Lily to appear to be a real child, he included details describing her at school and able to read and write. He indicated her experience of the world was limited to the London quarter where she was born, and that she had been on two school trips to Richmond and one to Epping Forest—revealing information that helped the Armstrongs to recognize their child. His inclusion of a childish verse from a letter Eliza had 111 written was probably the action that sealed his fate, along with the fate of Jarrett, Mourez, and Jacque. He described it like this: “In a little letter of hers which I once saw, plentifully garlanded with kisses, there was the following ill-spelled childish verse” (which she had included in her letter to her mother as well as in the one she wrote to Mrs. Combe):

As I was in bed Some little forths gave in my head. I forth [thought] of one, I forth [thought] of two; But first of all I forth [thought] of you.67

The week following the publication of the series, Stead wrote again, saying,

[T]he trumpet blast which we sounded over land and sea last week has roused the world. The conspiracy of silence has failed. All England is ringing with the echoes of our exposure. Nor is it England only. There is not a capital on the Continent in which public journals are not reproducing with mingled wonder and horror the frightful revelations which we have brought to light.68

Viewing the content of Stead’s writing from the perspective of twenty-first century literature, television, and film, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” while dramatic and excessive, isn’t overly graphic or revealing. It would not meet United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s iconic definition of pornography in 112 today’s world: “I know it when I see it.” Pornographic or not, Stead’s words created such a disturbance in London that the changes in the law were made less than six weeks after the series of articles appeared. If his true purpose in exposing the atrocities of the brothels was to change the law, Stead succeeded. The circulation of his newspaper also benefitted from his writing for a time, as the newsboys cried out, “£5 for virgin guaranteed pure,” but its popularity was not to last. The revelation of Stead’s deception and the subsequent trial caused its readership to fall off, and in 1889 Stead left the paper’s leadership. Within a few years, it returned to its more conservative roots, its history marked forever by “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” and its investigative and sensational journalism. As for Stead, Roger Green’s description is accurate: “W. T. Stead was either much maligned, some of that coming from competitor newspapers jealous of the instant popularity of his paper, or hotly defended.”69 Initially, hostile crowds gathered outside the newspaper offices and police protection was requested and given through Parliament. Robert Sandall describes the support that poured out for Stead: “Bags of letters expressing the profoundest thanks rolled in upon Stead from all parts of the Empire,” including “members of both houses of Parliament, bishops, clergy and ministers of all denominations, working men’s clubs, friendly and co-operative societies.”70 The Reverend Benjamin Waugh, a friend and later biographer of Stead, tells an amusing story of being mistaken for Stead as he waited for the door of the newspaper building to be opened. “That’s the cove as has 113 done it,” shouted one of the men who had gathered in the crowd. “The next moment a man in a blue jersey, with a close-cropped head, handed him his handkerchief (he had picked his pocket) and said, ‘I wouldn’t rob you for the world!’’71 Bramwell Booth remarked on the powerful impact of Stead’s words: “The hot waves of public feeling quickly swelled and lapped up to the doors of the House of Commons.”72 Those hot waves of public feeling turned “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” into a polarizing force in the moral climate of Victorian England. It broke barriers of propriety long accepted in the higher classes, and challenged the religious, political, and civil systems of its day to address issues of poverty and morality long ignored. Few agreed fully with the way Stead and Booth approached this vital concern, yet the publication of the “Maiden Tribute” series had a profound impact on the culture of its day, as well as on the future of the British Empire.

CHAPTER 13

THE PURITY CAMPAIGN

S THE SCANDALIZING REPORTS of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” swept through the city, an influential group of Londoners met to examine the accuracy of Stead’s writings. This committee included the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, Cardinal Manning, Mr. John Morley, and Sir Robert Reid, Q.C. It is unclear as to what this committee determined and if their work had any bearing on the charges that would later be levied against the conspirators. At the same time, there was a concerted push by The Salvation Army and its Purity Campaign partners to take advantage of the public’s outrage and get the law changed. It is believed there were some strategic meetings including Josephine Butler, Florence Soper Booth, and Ellice Hopkins, co-founder of the White Cross Army and described by University of East London professor Frank Mort as a “central figure in the feminist agitation for criminal law regulation in the 1880s.”73 William and Catherine Booth also exchanged correspondence regarding the best ways to attack the evil confronting them and their beloved Salvation Army, while still providing adequate protection for the Army.

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Even before the articles were published, Catherine Booth had taken up paper and pen and begun a letter- writing campaign. She wrote to Queen Victoria on June 3:

May it please your Majesty; My heart has been so filled with distress and approbation on account of the rejection by the House of Commons of the Bill for the Protection of Young Girls from the consequences of male profligacy, that, on behalf of tens of thousands of the most pitiable and helpless of your Majesty’s subjects, I venture to address you. First, I would pray that your Majesty will cause the bill to be re-introduced during the present session of Parliament; and Second, I would pray that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to insist on the limit of age being fixed at sixteen. I feel sure that if your Majesty could only be made acquainted with the awful sacrifice of infant purity, health, and happiness, to the vices of the evil-minded men who oppose the raising of the age, your mother’s heart would bleed with pity. The investigation in connection with our operations throughout the kingdom of cases continually transpiring, brings to our knowledge appalling evidence of the enormity of the crimes daily perpetrated, crimes such as must, ere long, if something is not done, undermine our whole social fabric and bring down the judgment of God upon our nation. 119

If I could only convey to your Majesty an idea of the tenth part of the demoralization, shame, and suffering entailed on thousands of the children of the poor by the present state of the law on this subject, I feel sure that your womanly feelings would be roused to indignation, and that your Majesty would make the remaining years of your glorious reign (which I fervently pray may be many) even more illustrious than those that are past, by going off merely conventional lines in order to save the female children of your people from a fate worse than that of slaves or savages. May He who is the Avenger of the oppressed, incline the heart of your Majesty to come to His help in this matter, pray Yours, on behalf of the innocents. Catherine Booth74

On June 6, Catherine received a reply from Balmoral, with the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe indicating the Queen, while “fully sympathizing with Mrs. Booth on the painful subject to which she referred, had already commented thereon with a lady closely connected with the government to whom her letter would be immediately forwarded.”75 Catherine’s efforts didn’t stop. She wrote again on July 14, 1885, asking the Queen make a public “word of sympathy and encouragement to be read at our mass meetings in different parts of the kingdom.”76 The Dowager Marchioness of Ely replied to this letter, indicating Catherine’s request had “received Her Majesty’s 120 careful consideration.” However, her answer was not to Catherine’s liking, for “the Queen feels very deeply on the subject to which her letter refers, but Her Majesty has been advised that it would not be desirable for the Queen to express any opinion upon a matter which forms at present the object of a Measure before Parliament.”77 Catherine, not one to give up easily, wrote again on July 24. In that missive, she indicated she “fully appreciate[d] the delicacy of Her Majesty’s position at the present juncture.”78 However, Catherine proposed she would read the Queen’s note publicly the next week. She indicated that she expected a reply by post or by telegram, and if she did not receive one, she would assume she could share the Queen’s earlier response. Having received no reply, Catherine proceeded to do that very thing, telling those gathered at the upcoming rallies “the heart of the Queen was with them in this cause!”79 Catherine also wrote to others in the government, including Prime Minister Gladstone, as well as his successor, Lord Salisbury, when he became Prime Minister in July of that year. Catherine was tenacious in her approach, and the prompt responses to her letters indicate the status of The Salvation Army in this campaign, as well as in the culture of the times. As a second point of attack, Catherine Booth took to the platform, speaking at Prince’s Hall, St. James’s Hall, and Exeter Hall. She was joined by William, Bramwell, and Florence Soper Booth, Josephine Butler, W. T. Stead, Samuel Morley, Professor Stuart, and others. Her words were powerful as she raised the issue of human rights for the poor. Catherine explained her passion: “I felt as though 121

I must go and walk the streets and besiege the dens where these hellish iniquities are going on. To keep quiet seemed like being a traitor to humanity.”80 The various speeches and admonitions were reported regularly in the War Cry throughout the summer of 1885. An excerpt from one of her speeches, given at a meeting at Exeter Hall, showed Catherine’s fury at the suggestion of one member of Parliament that the age of consent be reduced to age ten. Catherine responded vehemently:

I read some paragraphs from the report of a debate in the House of Commons which made me doubt my eyesight. I did not think we were so low as this—that one member should suggest that the age of these innocents . . . should be reduced to ten and, Oh! my God, pleaded that it was hard for a man—HARD— for a man—having a charge brought against him, not to be able to plead the consent of a child like that . . . . Well may the higher classes take care of their little girls! Well may they be so careful never to let them go out without efficient protectors. But what is to become of the little girls of unprotected widows? Of the little girls of the working classes of this country? . . . I could not have believed that in this country such a discussion amongst so-called gentlemen could have taken place.81

Stead later described Catherine Booth during these days: 122

Mrs. Booth was a splendid fighter. She was pre- eminently one of those whom you would choose to have at your back in a fight. There was in her a whole-hearted zeal, a thorough-going earnestness, a flaming passion of indignation, that cheered one like the sound of trumpet. No wonder I learned in that trying and testing time to know her and to love her.82

The General himself took up the cause, if perhaps not as enthusiastically as Catherine. In the week following the publication of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” William Booth chaired a meeting at Exeter Hall, and had the following to say:

There is a great deal of talk about the unwisdom [of publishing the exposures] but it seems to me more like complaining of the dogs that bark in order to show the enemy is there rather than of the wolves that bite! There ought to be some proportionate measure of concern as to the horrors they exposed. What matters it whether the alarm bell that tells them of fire has a harsh or grating sound, if it is not loud enough? Ring it louder! If a gentle voice cannot do it, let us have it in a voice of thunder, though I believe there are some people who, when the trump of doom is sounded, will not be satisfied.83

William Booth was also quick to reinforce his strong belief that political action was not the ultimate answer. “To prevent any misunderstanding here let it be known that we only know of one way of stripping the miseries of 123 men—that is by stripping them of their sins.”84 Following the mass meeting in Exeter Hall, the General went on a speaking tour in the north of England, visiting Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It may have been more of Catherine’s battle, but William also did his part during those days to raise awareness of the needed legislation. The War Cry, the twice-weekly publication of The Salvation Army, also announced the call to petition the House of Commons that began to be circulated in July 1885. By the time the petition was presented to the House of Commons, it contained 390,000 signatures. These signatures were gathered in seventeen days, and then the pages of the petition were assembled into one roll. This two-mile long petition was draped with the red, yellow and blue Salvation Army colors and “conveyed through London to Trafalgar Square, accompanied by an escort of mothers and the men cadets’ band.”85 A dray pulled by four white horses carried the petition. The white canopy that hung over the carriage read, “In the Name of God and the People and the Queen Mother, The Salvation Army demands that this iniquity shall cease.” As the Salvationists marched from Congress Hall at Clapton to Trafalgar Square, they gathered additional supporters from working class areas such as Hackney, Shoreditch, and Bishopsgate. At Trafalgar Square, most of the participants had to stop and watch, as it was not lawful for that many people to march on the House of Parliament. Instead, the massive petition was carried on the shoulders of eight Life Guards to the House of Commons, where it was officially presented to Professor James Stuart, MP. Even in its relative infancy, 124

The Salvation Army had its flair for the dramatic! The petition itself read:

1. The age of responsibility of young girls must be raised to eighteen.

2. The procuration of young people for seduction or immoral purposes must be made a criminal offence, having attached to it a severe penalty.

3. The right of search, by which a magistrate shall have power to issue an order for the search of any house where there is reason to believe that girls under that age are detained for immoral purposes, or where women of any age are so detained against their will.

4. The equality of women and men before the law; seeing that whereas it is now a criminal act for a woman to solicit a man to immorality, it shall be made equally criminal for a man to solicit a woman to immorality.86

The presentation of the petition was followed by a mass rally at St. James’ Hall on August 21 and an open- air meeting on August 22, reportedly drawing 250,000 people. Supporting all of these efforts was a broad-based coalition including clergy, liberals, purists, feminists, and trade union members, joined together under the name of the National Vigilance Association. Stead’s exposé, along with The Salvation Army’s extensive lobbying efforts, finally brought the matter to a 125 vote. The Home Secretary, Sir Richard Cross, reintroduced the bill with the cooperation of Sir William Harcourt, the previous Home Secretary, and on August 14, 1885, the age of consent was raised to sixteen years by a vote of 179 to 71 dissenting votes. Stead describes the result of the campaign:

The Ministry capitulated to the storm of popular passion. The Bill which they had abandoned as hopeless, they revived and strengthened and passed into law with the utmost celerity and dispatch. It was one of the greatest achievements which any journalist singlehanded had ever accomplished in the coercion of an unwilling legislature and a reluctant Ministry.87

Grateful for what had been accomplished, the Salvationists and their partners planned a thanksgiving meeting held in Exeter Hall, Strand, celebrating this major victory for purity in England. The fledgling Salvation Army seldom missed a chance to draw attention to what it was doing, and it is likely the Booths’ keen awareness of public perception played a part in the decision to hold this meeting. Writing in the War Cry, William Booth had a final word to say regarding this chapter of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” campaign:

While we thank God for the success He has given to the first effort of The Salvation Army to improve the laws of the nation, and pray that God may use 126

the measure to put an end to at least some of the infamous iniquities that have been exposed during the last weeks, we must proceed to the adoption of such measures as seem likely to make the law productive of the largest amount of blessing to those in whose interest it has been passed.88

In the eyes of both Bramwell Booth and Stead, victory was achieved. But alas, there were chapters yet to be written in this complicated story. CHAPTER 14

GIVE US BACK OUR DAUGHTER

HE FOLLOWING APPEARED IN THE Pall Mall Gazette on July 13, 1885:

At Marylebone police-court on Saturday, a poor but apparently respectable woman renewed an application to Mr. Cooke for his advice in regard to her daughter, whom, she said, she had not seen or heard of since last May. A neighbour of hers, she informed the magistrate, asked her if she would like her daughter to go out to service, and that if she did she knew of a very nice situation. The girl was spoken to, and after some consultation the applicant was persuaded to consent to the girl going to the place, which was said to be at Croyden, the only condition being that an opportunity should be given her daughter, who was a fairly good scholar, to write home to her parents once a week. She left home to go to the lady at Croydon on Derby day, and she had not heard tidings of her since. Her neighbour had stated that she had received a letter from the girl’s mistress and a sovereign, and that her daughter was quite well, but when she

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(applicant) wrote to her daughter at the address given, which was near Manchester, the letter was returned by the Post Office officials as “not known.” Witness said her girl was only thirteen years of age, and after having read what had recently been published in an evening newspaper she greatly feared some harm had overtaken her daughter. Mr. Cooke: But do you mean to say that you let the girl go away with strangers without having made further inquiry than what you have just explained? Applicant: Well, sir, she said I should hear from her every week. Mr. Cooke: Then I consider it very great negligence on your part. You know you are the mother of the girl, and she is under age. By direction of the magistrate, Sergeant Carden (chief warrant officer) made inquiry into the matter, and subsequently reported that he had ascertained that the woman who had got the girl had been at one time a fellow-servant of the applicant’s neighbour, that she had been in an infirmary, that the Charity Organization Society had helped her into a situation, and that she had since got married. The reason for the letter being returned by the Post Office was that it had been addressed to a place near Manchester instead of near Winchester. Mr. Cooke directed that the matter should be further inquired into.

As noted in the above newspaper report, Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong had begun to search for her daughter during the weeks between Eliza’s procurement and the final passage 131 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act on August 14. She determined the girl spoken of in “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” articles, published more than a month after Eliza’s departure from her home, was in fact her daughter. Stead’s use of the little poem, as well as the details regarding the child’s visits to Epping Forest and Richmond, proved to Mrs. Armstrong he was writing about Eliza. It was also probable the neighbors had been talking about the newspaper account and figured out Lily was Eliza. In his attempt to vilify Eliza’s parents, Stead had been disparaging in his articles and quite vehement in his defense of his actions. He told a public meeting, “we took that child from a place that was steeped in vice; from a mother who has admitted that she was going to a brothel as she thought, and instead of taking her to a brothel we placed her in good and Christian guardianship.”89 Yet as social historian Gavin Weightman concluded, Stead had never even been to Charles Street where Eliza lived. He “relied entirely on a vague memory of what he had been told by Rebecca Jarrett,” and “he described Eliza’s parents but he never met them.”90 Mrs. Armstrong did go to the police, but she was also aided in her search for Eliza by rival newspaper reporters looking for a good story. Those newspapers protested against Stead’s articles, accusing him of attempting to increase the circulation of his paper and engaging in gutter journalism. The Weekly Times wrote:

We venture to say that no other capital in Europe would tolerate for an hour the spectacle presented in the main thoroughfares of London at the present 132

moment, of men, women and children offering to men, women and children copies of a newspaper containing the most offensive, highly coloured, and disgusting details concerning the vicious ways of a small section of the population.91

As Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper reported on August 9, 1885:

During the past month Mrs. Armstrong, the mother of the missing girl, Eliza Armstrong, has been many times before the magistrate of the Marylebone Police Court, to urge upon him the necessity of further and sterner action in the matter. The poor woman has devoted nearly all her time to the search, and night and day she says she is grieving over the sad fate which she has heard has befallen her unfortunate child.

Mrs. Armstrong also went to visit Bramwell Booth at The Salvation Army’s International Headquarters. Reports of these meetings are mixed, but at least one suggests that in response to Mrs. Armstrong’s entreaties, Booth threw down a paper with the address: Mons. Th. Berard, Drome, France. At one point, Bramwell even suggested if she wanted her daughter back so badly, she should go to France and get her, a next-to-impossible task for a poor woman such as Mrs. Armstrong. Finally, however, The Salvation Army and Mr. Stead acquiesced to Mrs. Armstrong’s request, perhaps at the threat of police action if they did not. 133

When the case was reviewed in the Bow Street Police Court in September, the following described the search for Eliza:

On Derby day, the 3rd of June, the prisoner, Rebecca Jarrett, took away from Marylebone a child, by name Eliza Armstrong, a little over thirteen years of age, who was the daughter of Charles Armstrong and Elizabeth his wife. We do not propose to-day to enter into the circumstances under which the child was taken away, but the fact is undoubted that the child was taken away by the prisoner [Jarrett] on the pretence that the child was wanted to aid the prisoner in her household work at her house at Croydon, where she said she lived. From that day until Monday, 24th August, neither mother nor father set eyes on their child. Repeated efforts were made to find out what had become of the child, and on the 14th of July the prisoner was at Winchester, and she wrote from there to the mother of the child to say that the child was then all right. She had written previously on the 10th of June to say that the child was all right. As soon as it was known that the child was at Winchester, Inspector Borner went there, but he was unable to find the prisoner. Mrs. Armstrong then applied at the Marylebone police-court to see if she could obtain any information as to what had become of the child. On August 1 she obtained the child’s address from Mr. Bramwell Booth, which was at L’Oriol, in 134

the department of the Drome, France. The child had not been taken with the prisoner to Winchester in July, but was taken from this country on Thursday, June 4, first to Paris, and then, when inquiries were being made after the child, she was sent nearly 400 miles from Paris to the Drome. The father of the child was taken by Police-inspector Tornow to France, so that he might obtain possession of the child. The father started from this country for that purpose on Wednesday, the 19th of August, because it was not until shortly before that time that definite information had been obtained by the police. The police-officer received every assistance from the French police and authorities. When the father got there the child was not to be found. She had been sent away back to Paris for the purpose, no doubt, of being brought back to this country, because it must have been obvious to the people who had stolen the child that the “game was up.” The child was brought back to this country and restored to the mother on Monday, August 24. I should say that perhaps a better word than restored would be recovered, because it was through the instrumentality of the police that ultimately the child was recovered. The mother and the father were most anxious to know where the child had been detained and what she had been detained for.92

During the court proceedings, it was also explained that Mrs. Jarrett had written a number of times to Marylebone with the intent to deceive Mrs. Broughton and Mrs. 135

Armstrong as to where Eliza was. On the 11th of July, Mrs. Jarrett wrote to Mrs. Broughton: “Dear Nancy, I have been very poorly, but Eliza is all right and doing well, but if anyone wishes to see her I will send her up to London next week with a friend of mine.”93 Since Mrs. Broughton was illiterate, she would have had to get someone from the neighborhood to read this message to her. A similar postcard was addressed to Mrs. Armstrong, indicating that Jarrett had been doing so poorly she had not been to her own home yet, but that she would send the girl to visit the next week. Court records also make mention of the fact that Mr. Bramwell Booth was visited by the police on July 16th. At the time, he indicated he did not know the child’s address, but he would attempt to find out and let the Chief Commissioner, Mr. Monroe, know where she was. It does not appear that Booth followed through on this request. Around the same time, Mrs. Armstrong was taken by train to Winchester by Mr. Hales, a reporter of Lloyd’s Newspaper, to look for the girl, but without success. During this same period of time, Mrs. Combe arranged for Eliza to move to the south of France, nearly four hundred miles from Paris. To do so, she wrote to her brother Theodore:

Dear Theodore, You will look for the arrival of Edouard [Madame Combe’s son], if that has not already taken place, with a little girl thirteen years old. I cannot, for prudence sake, give you at this moment an explanation of her circumstances, but she is a modest little girl, and if you don’t take her in at 136

this critical moment she will be lost body and soul. Take care of her, then, until I release her. Put her to whatever work you like, for she is handy and active, and you can let her go where you like, telling her that I am informed of her behaviour. If you require it, you will be compensated; but if you give her food in return for her work and a little kindness in her desertion, God will lay it to your account. You are a shelter to her. Embrace my son for me, and send me news of him; say that she is a little servant, but not that it is the Army that has got her for you. Edouard, your nephew, is not known as an officer. Try and obtain the Pall Mall Gazette of the past week, and you will see something that will astonish you. Kisses and caresses to the dear ones. Your affectionate Sister94

Eliza wrote to her mother from L’Oriol. Here is the text of her letter home:

My dear mother, I dare say you are thinking of me very much. I should like to know how you are getting on. I is in a very good place in the country. I hope I shall come and see you very soon, and I hope I shall see my sisters and little ——. I love him very much. I is a very good girl, I hope you are not fretting about me, because I is all right. I is not with the lady who brought me. She left me at a place, and was a very long time fetching me again. Give Mrs. —— my 137

love. I sure I did go to a meeting every night to hear them speak about God. They has got a little baby here. I nurse it every day. I has good food to eat, and all I want. Mother, you know I love you very much, and the little baby. I hope she can walk now, and I hope John is a very good boy. I have asked the Lord to bless you. Where I am the people talk French and I am learning to talk it. Good-bye, God bless you and my brothers and sisters, 100 kisses when we meet, from your Eliza.95

In the meantime, continued visits occurred to Bramwell Booth in the parents’ attempt to reclaim their child. Booth’s response managed to stall the process for quite some time, as described again in the court testimony from Mr. Poland, counsel for the prosecution:

They [the police officers] spoke to Mr. Bramwell Booth on July 31, and the officer reminded him he had not sent the address of the girl to Mr. Monroe as he had promised to do. Mr. Booth then said since the interview of July 16 circumstances had very much altered, because, he said, “The child is with some friends of mine in the south of France.” The officer told him the mother was seeking for the recovery of her child, and Mr. Booth said: “Oh, since you were here last my position as regards the child is very much altered. She is under my control with some friends on the Continent. She is in a very good situation, and it would be a shame for the mother to have her again.” 138

The officer let Mr. Booth know that Mr. Cooke, the magistrate, had been spoken to on the subject, and Mr. Booth was good enough to say he was willing to make an application to make the child a ward in Chancery. Then he said, “Of course, if the mother really wants her, she had better come with you and I will see her tomorrow.” On the following day (Saturday, August 1), the officer took the mother to see Mr. Booth, who said to her, “Are you the mother?” and she said she was. He then said to her, “You cannot have your child back.” “Why not?” asked the mother. Then said Mr. Booth, “Have you got £100?” She replied, “No, sir, I am a poor woman.” “Well,” said he, “that is what it cost me to send her away, and you cannot have her.” The officer, of course, let Mr. Booth know the mother had been to the magistrate, and wanted the child back, and Mr. Booth said, “Well, won’t you take her wages?” And then he offered to pay to the mother the wages which the child was supposed to have earned. The mother would not take them, and told Mr. Booth she was alarmed at what she had seen in the Pall Mall Gazette, and she wanted to show that the vile story about selling her daughter for £5 was a pure fiction. Mr. Booth said, “When I received the child she was pure, and I have a doctor’s certificate to prove that fact.” The mother expressed her joy that he was able to assure her the child was safe, and had not been molested in the way referred to in the Pall 139

Mall Gazette of July 6. The officer said, “You had better give the mother the address,” and Mr. Booth produced the address from a drawer. It was then given for the first time. Mr. Booth then said, “Well, now, go away and consult your husband; and if you really want the child back, you shall have her.” The mother consulted with her husband, and then wrote to Mr. Booth a letter, of which she did not keep a copy, to the effect that she was brokenhearted about her child, and intimating of course she desired her restoration. The letter was posted on Bank Holiday, August 13. It is not in the terms of a lawyer’s letter. “I and my husband hereby demand that you restore,” &c.—but it was written in terms which made pretty clear to Mr. Booth the real desire of the parents. Mr. Bramwell Booth having professed to be ready to restore this child to the parents drew up a letter for the purpose of giving possession of the child, which is dated 5th of August. It is written to M. Berard in French. This is the letter:

Headquarters Salvation Army, 101, Queen Victoria-street, London 5th August, 1885.

To Thomas Berard, Dear Sir, We [that is, Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Booth, and the rest of them] beg of you to send the little Eliza Armstrong by the bearer of this authority with a 140

view to take her back to London. Saluting you, and with best thanks for your kindness. WM. Bramwell Booth96

Bramwell’s letter might have suggested that he was willing to restore Eliza to her family at that time, but instead, he wrote to the police inspector, Mr. Borner, to see if he had heard anything further from the Armstrongs, as they were to communicate their decision through the police. He told Borner, “From recent statements in the newspapers I cannot tell whether the woman is really anxious to have the child back or whether she is simply being made the tool of others. I rely upon you letting me know what is the fact.”97 Inspector Borner was on vacation, and did not receive Booth’s letter until much after the month of August. Meanwhile, accompanied by a police officer, Eliza’s father traveled to France to get his daughter, but when he finally got to the address where she was supposed to be staying, he did not find her. British historian Charles Terrot noted this was quite the adventure, as Mr. Armstrong was “twice lost in the brothels of Paris and also got into trouble with the French police for being drunk and disorderly. On his own admission, he had the time of his life.”98 The accompanying police officer was none too pleased with Armstrong’s behavior. Mr. Poland testified to what happened in the expedition:

It was then determined that the father should go over to L’Oriol and claim the possession of his child. The girl’s letter having been received in London on August 141

17 no time was lost, and he started on the 19th. Of course before this date the matter had been in the hands of the Solicitor to the Treasury, and the moment the letter was brought under his attention and it was shown that the address given by Mr. Booth was the correct one, the officer Von Tornow, went with the father post haste to the address. They arrived at L’Oriol on the 20th and on the morning of the 21st August the officer called in the assistance of the French police and the municipal authorities. When they got to L’Oriol, however the child was not there. M. Berard and his family had gone about thirty miles distant to a place called Plaines des Bex. Then the officer went to M. Berard and asked, “Where is this child?” M. Berard at once produced Mr. Booth’s letter, dated 5th August, gave it up to them, and said. “That is my authority for not giving up the child, and the child is gone.” Before the arrival of the father the child had been taken possession of and two ladies were to take the girl away back to Paris. But here Captain Raby, of the Salvation Army, who had been connected with Jersey, came upon the scene and instead of the two ladies taking the child away—as she imagined—she found Captain Raby and another officer, of not so high rank (Laughter). The child, who cried when she found she had to go with the two men, was taken under the charge of Captain Raby and another man, shortly before the arrival of the father and the officer, to claim that she should be delivered up for nearly 400 miles in the night train back to Paris.99 142

Here’s how Eliza testified as to her return to England:

When we got back, I was taken to Mr. Stead’s house at Wimbledon. He asked me to go into the garden to pick some flowers. He asked me whether I liked the place where I had been, and whether I had gotten sick on the water as we crossed the Channel. Mr. Jacques was there as well, and he came into the garden to ask me if I should like to go to a place, as that would be better than returning to a drunken home. If so, he would take me to a gentleman’s family near the Bayswater Road. By that point, I was very lonely for my mother, so I told him that I would see what my mother says. He asked me if I should like to go and see my mother, and I told him, “Yes, very much.” He then took me into a room where I slept, and then I saw my mother and sister at Mr. Stead’s house on the Monday, August 24. Mrs. Stead, [Emma] who was quite kind as well, suggested that I should be taken to a room where I could be alone with my mother and sister. We talked for about half an hour, and then we had some luncheon. I was glad to see them. After that, my mother, my sister and I were taken to the Wimbledon Railway Station, where we were met by Inspector Borner, Mr. Jacques, and Mr. Thicknesse. We all went to the office of the Solicitor to the Treasury, where I made a statement that was taken down by Mr. Pollard.100

By the time of Eliza’s return, many people were involved 143 in assuring her well-being, including Ralph Thicknesse from the Minors’ Protection Society. It is likely he became involved in order to assure the safety of the girl. Here are some of his recollections of those days in August:

When I saw Mr. Stead on Saturday, 22nd August, he told me that the child was coming to England, I understood, and would arrive on Sunday morning⎯he did not say she was abroad, but I understood she was in Paris; this was between seven and eight o’clock on Saturday night. I do not think he had made up his mind where she was coming to. He may have mentioned that Miss Green was bringing her, I do not know. I dined with Mr. Stead and Jacques on that Saturday at the National Liberal Club, where the interview was, and after the dinner Jacques and I went up to the house to try and see the mother. I had not been there before; that was my first visit. When I say that I thought it a pity the child should go back to that house, it was not entirely in consequence of what I read in the Pall Mall Gazette; it was not on account of the fact that I understood that the mother had sold the daughter, but if she went back to that home a great deal of harm would be done to her which had not been done already. Mr. Jacques went with me to Charles Street on Monday morning. Inspector Borner was in the room. I did not know who he was, but Mrs. Armstrong said might he go with her; he explained who he was, and I said he had better go, when I knew who he was. We all went to Wimbledon together, and the 144

eldest daughter Elizabeth (Armstrong) went too. Mrs. Stead met us and put us in the drawing-room. Mrs. Armstrong was with me, and Mr. Jacques went out with her to fetch Eliza, and then came back, and Eliza walked into the room. Mrs. Armstrong was sitting on the chair, and she said “Why, Eliza, where have you been?” and Eliza came up to her and put her arms around her mother’s neck, and Mrs. Stead took the mother and two daughters into the dining-room, as we had previously arranged, and they were left alone, so that they might talk about anything. Inspector Borner said his instructions were to take the mother to Wimbledon, and not to interfere with her discretion; if she wished to take the child away his instructions were to bring her to Scotland Yard. He did not interfere with her in any way. I had not the least idea that there were detectives about the house. After lunch I had a talk with Mrs. Armstrong— myself, Jacques, and Mrs. Armstrong were present, but Eliza was not present. I understood from Mrs. Stead that nothing would induce the mother to leave the girl. I gave that up as hopeless. She seemed firm upon that. Mrs. Stead said that Mrs. Armstrong said she would take her child home with her, and I told Mrs. Armstrong that it was a great pity, but we accepted it as decided by that time. I did not hear Mrs. Armstrong say to Eliza, “They took you to a bad house, Lizzie.” I asked her if she was satisfied that her daughter was all right, and had been well looked after, and so on, and whether she had any reason 145

to believe from her conversation with her daughter that she had been subjected to any outrage.101 One final report on Eliza’s return. The Pall Mall Gazette published the following on August 25, 1885.

At the end of July, Mrs. Armstrong presented herself before Mr. Bramwell Booth at the headquarters of The Salvation Army in company with two inspectors of the police, and asked if she could see her child Eliza. She was assured that her daughter was safe and well in France. The address of the child was given to her in writing, and at the close of the interview she stated that she would go home and consult with her husband as to whether they would ask for their child to be delivered up. Since that time Mrs. Armstrong had made no communication whatever to Mr. Bramwell Booth. Expecting, however, that the mother might at any time reappear and demand her daughter, Eliza was a week ago brought to Paris to be in readiness for instant delivery, in case her parents really insisted upon her return to Charles Street. On Friday night, having publicly accepted all responsibility for the girl, and having therefore liable to be called upon to produce her, Mr. Stead asked Mr. Bramwell Booth to deliver the girl over to him, a request that was at once complied with, and Eliza Armstrong arrived in the afternoon all safe. Up to this time no application has been made to the Pall Mall Gazette for the girl. On that Sunday, however, Mr. R. Thicknesse, hon. Secretary of the Minors’ Protection Committee, 146

called upon the mother in Charles Street, and was assured by her that she really wished her daughter to be returned to her. While fully sympathizing with her desire, Mr. Thicknesse suggested that, seeing the talk that there had been about the case, it would be better for the girl if instead of returning to Charles Street, she were to be placed in a respectable situation in town where her parents could visit her, and she would not be the centre of all the gossip of the neighborhood. This she promised to consider, and Mr. Thicknesse undertook on his part to communicate with the Pall Mall Gazette. As we have always been perfectly ready to restore the child whenever a formal application was made to us by the mother, or by anyone acting on her behalf, we at once complied with Mr. Thicknesse’s request, and arranged that Mrs. Armstrong and her eldest daughter should see Eliza, in company with Mr. Thicknesse and a member of our staff yesterday morning. The interview took place in the presence of Inspector Bonner, who accompanied the party. Mrs. Armstrong was assured that while no objection whatever would be made to her taking Eliza home, seeing the commotion made by those who had published her name to all the world, it would be advisable, in the interest of the girl herself, to place her in some situation elsewhere than in Charles Street. As, however, the mother and daughter both wished to go home, it was agreed at once that they should do so. Her wages were paid and the mother signed the following receipt: August 24, 1885. “I 147

have received my daughter safe and sound, together with double wages agreed upon for all the time she has been away. My daughter tells me that she has been very happy and comfortable, that the people with whom she has been have been very kind to her. I am quite satisfied that she has been subjected to no outrage or bad usage.” The whole party then adjourned to Scotland Yard, from whence they went to the Treasury, where the statements of all concerned were taken separately, after which Eliza Armstrong and her mother returned home. Eliza has grown a great deal since she left England, and her mother repeatedly expressed herself as much pleased at the improvement in her appearance. Eliza herself spoke in a most grateful manner of Mrs. Sullivan [Rebecca Jarrett], and laughed at the idea that any harm had been done to her.102

Eliza Armstrong reunited with her family on August 24, eighty-one days since her procurement on Derby Day, 1885.

CHAPTER 15

ORDER IN THE COURT

OR A SHORT TIME AFTER the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, it seemed as though all would be well for the varied participants in the “Maiden Tribute” scheme. The furor died down, the legislation passed, and Eliza Armstrong was finally returned to her parents, relatively unscathed as she herself reported. Yet “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” was yet to have another very public chapter. William Booth’s early biographer, Edward Begbie, wrote about the fatal flaw in the plan:

In his eagerness to prove his contention, in order to convert public opinion to his view, Stead had broken the criminal law. The purchase of Eliza Armstrong was a crime. That is to say, the reformer in his zeal for truth had technically broken the law of abduction. To the astonishment of a great many people, a Government prosecution was set on foot and, with Stead and Rebecca Jarrett, Bramwell Booth was placed in the dock.103

The first of the defendants, Rebecca Jarrett, was brought before the court on September 2, 1885. At that

151 152 time, it was noted that Edward Borner, an inspector of the Metropolitan Police Force, had a warrant for the arrest of Rebecca Jarrett dated August 22, 1885. Borner indicated he had been trying to locate Mrs. Jarrett, traveling to Winchester to look for her in July, but was unable to find a trace of her. However, the court was told that once the police communicated with Mr. Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Jarrett made arrangements to surrender herself and did so accompanied by Captain Susan “Hawker” Jones of The Salvation Army. At that point, a Mr. Lewis came into the court, appearing for Mr. Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette. He indicated Mr. Stead was abroad in Switzerland due to ill health, but he would be contacted as soon as possible and appear as soon as he could. Thus it was that William T. Stead, Bramwell Booth, Madame Elizabeth Combe, Sampson Jacques, and Madame Louise Mourez (Mourey) were summoned to appear in court to join Mrs. Jarrett. They were charged under a law passed in 1861, Offenses Against the Person, initially accused of abducting Eliza from her father. On September 8, they each stood in the Bow Street Police Court to answer the charges. On September 26, they were committed for trial. By September 1885, it appeared as though public opinion was shifting as well. Competing newspapers wrote of the details of the plot and many readers were disgusted with the way Stead went about his “investigation.” Those changing opinions were evidenced by the crowd gathered outside the Bow Street Court during the committal hearing. Lloyd’s News suggested there were as many as two thousand people gathered, many of the roughest 153 type. They were quite noisy in their protest, and hung the defendants in effigy. Bramwell Booth later wrote about his experience: “Every blackguard in London must have assembled in Bow Street while the case was before the magistrate . . . to gloat upon the discomfiture of these modern Galahads. I was mobbed more than once, dragged out of a cab and maltreated, and only rescued with difficulty by a police inspector.”104 The defendants were finally spirited away from Bow Street each night in a Black Maria, a police van used to transport prisoners. Mr. Vaughan, the magistrate at Bow Street presiding over the committal hearing, had strong feelings about Stead’s motivation, for even before the hearing began, he addressed that question:

Mr. Stead’s motive may have been a lofty, it may have been a very pure one, but although he may have had a desire to remove this child from impure associations, that can be no legal justification at all for the offence with which he is charged. But it may also have been a different motive. There may have been a motive existing in his mind, a desire to get together materials for the publication of that deplorable and nauseous article which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette on 6 July—an article which certainly has given great pain and sorrow to many very good people, and has greatly lowered the English people in the eyes of foreign nations!105

During the preliminary hearing and the trials, the public galleries were packed to capacity. The Daily Telegraph 154 reported, “thanks to the excellent arrangements made by the sheriffs and under-sheriffs regulating the admission of the public, the court was not inconveniently crowded and persons having legitimate occasion to be present experienced the minimum amount of inconvenience.”106 Of course, not all of those attending had “legitimate occasion” to be there—some were just plain curious, attracted by the continued publicity surrounding the case. The Pall Mall Gazette described the setting on the first day of the preliminary hearing at Bow Street:

Early on Monday morning, the 7th of September, the day appointed for the first hearing of the case, a large crowd had assembled in Bow-street to catch a glimpse of any one who was to take a part in the trial. By half-past ten the large court was what an impartial critic would call ‘filled to its utmost capacity.’ No such thing. If there is one room in the world which has elastic properties it is a police-court on the day of an important trial. They came, and still they came, counsel and counsels’ clerks, solicitors and solicitors’ clerks, artists, reporters, and messengers forming the legitimate members of the audience to whom every one gives way by right. What may be termed in distinction the illegitimate crowd unfortunately comes too, and pushes and bribes its way in, until the whole is a mass of human beings wedged in almost inextricably. Seats were always found for a number of ladies interested in the case, among them being, Mrs. Josephine Butler, Mrs. Stead, and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who formed one group.107 155

Testimony opened at Bow Street with the young Eliza Armstrong, described by Stead as “a warm-hearted industrious little thing, a hardy English child, slightly coarse in texture, with dark black eyes and short, sturdy figure.”108 Court documents note she was dressed in a grayish brown cape with a large straw “Duchess of Devonshire” hat, heavily trimmed. Her story was straightforward, not nearly as dramatic as was Stead’s account in “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” As Plowden said, “it had never been any part of Stead’s plan that his guinea-pig should be actually hurt or frightened—he’d done his best to ensure that she was shielded from any knowledge of what was going on.”109 Grace Eckley, who completed a biography of W.T. Stead in 2007, comments: “The prosecution brought forward much that was unfairly prejudiced and untrue. Clearly they had coached Eliza to represent events in a light favorable to her mother.”110 However, regardless of the slant of her evidence, Eliza was not able to give testimony as to any agreement between her mother and Rebecca Jarrett, as she was not present for the conversation. Had Mrs. Armstrong knowingly sold Eliza for prostitution? Eliza couldn’t answer that question. Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong was the next witness, and her testimony carried through three days. The trial transcripts suggest she was pressed hard by Rebecca Jarrett’s defense counsel, Charles Russell, who attempted to cast her as the villain Stead wrote about. Her previous run-ins with the law were brought up in court, including assault, drunkenness and the use of obscene language in the street, to which she replied, “Oh, I often swear.” This ready admission met with 156 laughter from the observers. When Mr. Russell asked her if her husband had paid her fine for drunkenness (for she had been arrested for drunkenness on the day of Eliza’s departure from Marylebone) she answered, “He might have done; it was very kind of him if he did. It has nothing to do with this case what I have done; (vehemently) and I’m not going to answer any further questions, and there you are!”111, which garnered cheers from the back of the courtroom. At one point, in answer to Mr. Russell’s questioning, the Pall Mall Gazette described Elizabeth Armstrong’s reaction. “The witness at once put her arms akimbo, and defiantly shouted, ‘You are not going to baffle me! You are not going to cross-examine me as you have my child!’ Sensation in court.”112 Was Mrs. Armstrong “poor, dissolute, and indifferent to everything but drink,” as Stead accused her of being, or was she a loving mother who was simply trying to do her best for her child? Her testimony, with its inconsistencies and bursts of anger, has not allowed history to satisfactorily answer that question. Following Mrs. Armstrong’s lengthy testimony, her neighbor, Mrs. Nancy Broughton, testified. Plowden asks a similar question about Mrs. Broughton’s character: Was she just “an honest woman trying to do a good turn to a neighbour’s little girl, or an evil parasite dealing in innocent flesh?”113 Wearing a bright purple bonnet, she was at times vague as to the details of what took place in June. In the Bow Street proceedings, the defense did not call witnesses, but each of the barristers prepared lengthy speeches to bring before the court. Stead was especially 157 eager to speak, and prepared a written copy of his words to provide to the court which he would sign when finished. The magistrate, Mr. Vaughan, reminded Stead he could not speak to motive, and so as Stead began to speak, there were a number of objections from the magistrate. Stead insisted motive was the central fact, while Vaughan responded, “motives are immaterial in the charges before me.”114 In the end, Mr. Vaughan disallowed about fifteen pages of Stead’s statement, but true to form, Mr. Stead was going to have his say, and so printed the entire proclamation in the Pall Mall Gazette for all the world to see. Stead’s summation is worth repeating:

The case before your worship is not whether any or all of the incidents in the Gazette story are true or false, but whether I and those whom I induced to assist me in this particular transaction are or are not guilty of certain specified offences. I submit that there is no case to submit to a jury, for according to the evidence of the witnesses for the prosecution these offenses were never committed. There can be no abduction where there is consent, and the consent of the mother was admittedly given for the departure of the child. It may be said that my method of dealing with the child was very extraordinary, but the circumstances were extraordinary, and nothing short of some such demonstration could have convinced a skeptical public of the ease and impunity with which crimes of the nature I have endeavoured to expose could 158

be perpetrated. I am aware of the risks of my proceeding. I have exasperated all those to whose lusts London brotheldom administers. That class is highly placed. It has representatives in the Court, in the legislature, in the press and I know not where. Had so many influential people not been permeated with this corruption there would have been no need for the tremendous experiment of arousing the consciences of the masses of the people by the Report of our Secret Commission. But that experiment was our only resource. If any of my agents did not execute my instructions, that of course is another matter. But if it be that in the execution of my instructions they have transgressed unwittingly the law which we were seeking to strengthen, I would pray that the sole punishment might fall upon me. But if your worship considers that you must commit the case to trial, I beg of you to remember that mine was the guiding brain and this the directing hand which alone is responsible for what was done. (Great applause.)115

The magistrate responded with his closing statement to the preliminary hearing:

I say that the law of this country cannot be broken for the gratification of any motive, however good, and I for my own part, cannot see that, supposing any religious enthusiast were to think it fitting to enter a family and take a child out of the family whose parents entertained a different religious belief from 159

that religious enthusiast—I cannot understand how, on the same principle as this case is justified, that taking away also should not be justified. It seems to me that it would be most fatal and most perilous if such an infraction of the law were to be permitted for such a motive as this. And I say it appears to me that if such a usurpation of authority over the moral and over the religious life of individuals were not to be restrained by law, that there would be an end to freedom and of security and of independence of every family in this country.116

Mr. Vaughn concluded by ruling, “Upon principle, upon law, and upon the facts, it is my duty to commit the defendants for trial upon the various offences charged, exception that I dismiss the charge of indecent assault brought against Mrs. Combe and Mr. Bramwell Booth.”117 However, the abduction charges did remain in place for Booth and Combe. When the formal court proceedings began at the Old Bailey, the attorney general announced he would charge the defendants under section 55, a misdemeanor to abduct an unmarried girl under age sixteen, and added the charge of aiding and abetting an indecent assault on Eliza Armstrong. Of the charges, Mrs. Josephine Butler wrote: “No great thing has ever been done without suffering. The Salvation Army are not wrong in taking for their device the words ‘Blood and Fire.’ Revolutionists for God and for purity must be ready to go through blood and fire.”118 As it happened, there were two trials for the accused— the first for the abduction of Eliza from the care of her father, which had been elevated to a felony according 160 to the Act of 1861, Offenses Against the Person. While some have suggested Booth and Stead were the first to be charged under the Act they fought to get approved, technically this was not true, as their alleged crime occurred prior to the passage of the new law. What is ironic is that the justice system could have used the provisions of the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1861 all along to address the procurement of child prostitutes, but had chosen not to do so. The second trial was to determine the guilt of Stead, Jacques, Mourez, and Jarrett on the charge of aiding and abetting an indecent assault on Eliza (the examination by the midwife). As Sandall notes, Madame Mourez was the only defendant whose connection with the charge was “actual and criminal,” and he too suggests her role in examining girls prior to the consummation of their sale was well known to the police, although “no evidence was produced against her other than that associated with the Maiden Tribute.”119 In the days following the committal hearing, William Booth wrote to his wife Catherine, outlining his concerns for The Salvation Army and for Bramwell. He believed that any way the verdict went, “the Army cannot suffer much,” for if “B. goes to prison they will make a martyr of him, and this alone will make him a heap of new friends and bind the Army.”120 But Booth cautioned his wife as to what she might say or do publicly in regard to Stead, “I hardly see how you can be wrong in a few words bearing upon what has led up to the Revelations . . . you should not say anything that links Bramwell with STEAD in ANYTHING— any day, some more unwise things may come out.”121 161

William Booth also cautioned against a potential suit for libel and damages, noting, “There are a lot of scoundrels who would find money for anything to get at our throats.” A postscript to that letter indicated George Scott Railton, an early Army leader, counseled against any public meetings in support of Bramwell, suggesting, “Explanations are beneath us,” but proposing a more positive response in a public focus on the Rescue Work the Army was undertaking.122 Already this young Army was learning how to strategize in order to protect its public image in the face of crisis. A defense fund of six thousand pounds was raised in preparation for the trial, equivalent to nearly half a million dollars in 2016 terms. Bramwell himself was represented by Mr. S. D. Waddy, Q. C., assisted by Mr. Horne Payne and Mr. R. F. Colam. Mrs. Combe was defended by Mr. Sutherst. Rebecca Jarrett had assistance from Mr. Charles Russell and Mr. Charles Matthews, while Mr. Jacques was represented by Mr. Henry Matthews. No mention is made in the history books of counsel for Madame Mourez, but the court transcript indicates it was a Mr. Overend. As for Stead, he decided to defend himself, although his case was “watched” by Mr. Charles Matthews (Jarrett’s co-counsel). For the prosecution, Attorney General Sir Richard Webster, who later became Lord Alverstone and Lord Chief Justice of England, was aided by Mr. Harry Poland and Mr. R. S. Wright. The judge appointed to preside at the trial was Mr. Justice Henry Charles Lopes. Bramwell Booth didn’t think too highly of the judge, noting that Lopes had behaved “with great civility personally to Bramwell, but he believed the judge was against the defendants from the 162 beginning, and wouldn’t allow for motives to be suggested at the trial.”123 Lopes was said to have “exceptional ability in a certain class of case, but not even his closest legal friend would claim a place for him among the great lawyers of his time.” While the judge himself was unexceptional, those on either side of the aisle brought considerable experience and ability, and as Bramwell further noted, “any distinction which the bench lacked . . . was fully made up in the well of the court.”124 Stead also mentioned what he called the undisguised animus of the judge. In his charge to the jury, Mr. Justice Lopes “constructed a series of questions, to which the jury would have to answer yes or no, with the care that it was simply impossible for them to do other than return the verdict of guilty.”125 The cast of characters that played a role in the legal drama was distinctive. The barristers appeared in court clad in robes and the traditional wig with its horsehair strands frizzed on top and arranged in four rows of seven curls each. The opera-loving Mr. Poland was a great authority on criminal law, and the Irishman, Mr. Russell, brought an imposing presence and a resonant voice to the court. The ruddy Stead was unconventional as always and sometimes shabbily dressed. Mrs. Armstrong had a bold face and wore a tattered bonnet and gray shawl, while Eliza wore the new clothes Mrs. Jarrett had purchased for her. On the first day of proceedings at the Old Bailey, Bramwell Booth, a tall man with a slight bend in his shoulders and mild, rather pallid features, complained he could not hear what was going on, so permission was given for him to 163 use his ear trumpet. Bramwell Booth admitted he was “personally treated with consideration” throughout the trial.126 Provision was made for the defendants to use the robing room, and any unpleasant aspects were dispensed with, although they were locked up in the cells for a few minutes each morning before being taken into the dock. Who were these people? Was Mrs. Armstrong a loving mother or a callous woman who sold her daughter for a drink? Did the florid-cheeked Charles Armstrong care about what happened to Eliza? Or, as Plowden notes, did Charles say, “It had nothing to do with me.”127 In the end one of the more truthful statements of the account, was that he was not the child’s biological father. Was Mrs. Broughton a saucy witness, a brothel-keeper as described by Stead, or a woman of faith, as the images of the Stations of the Cross in her lodging indicated? Perhaps the truth was somewhere in between the pictures painted by the defense and the prosecution. When the Old Bailey trial itself finally began, Mr. Webster made the opening statement for the Crown. A champion runner in his university days, the Pall Mall Gazette described Webster as both successful and popular among his fellow barristers. He addressed the jury, outlining the charge against the defendants and urging them to “dismiss from your minds anything you may have heard or read about this case; because no one can doubt that the question involved has been much discussed on both sides in the public press and elsewhere.”128 The actual testimony in the formal trial followed the same pattern as did the Bow Street hearing. The entire transcript is available online at www.attackingthedevil.co.uk 164 and much of it is also reproduced in Alison Plowden’s book, The Case of Eliza Armstrong. While there were some tense moments as well as some amusing ones, very little new information emerged at the trial itself. Even the cross-examination of the witnesses seemed to bring little new light to the case. However, Stead’s questioning of Mrs. Armstrong brought tears from the mother as she recounted the days of uncertainty as to Eliza’s safety and location. Yet Mrs. Armstrong was feisty as well on the stand, as illustrated by her response when Stead asked her why she didn’t challenge Mrs. Broughton on the payment she received for Eliza. Elizabeth Armstrong answered Stead: “I daresay if I had as much sense as you, I should have done,” and then finally answering, when pressed, “I don’t know. That is my business.”129 Stead prepared to call a number of witnesses to the stand who could testify to the wider issues of the case. These included the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Dalhousie, and forty other witnesses, but none were allowed to take the stand, for, as Justice Lopes said repeatedly, “The intention has nothing to do with it.” As Plowden recognized,

All those impeccably respectable public figures who could have corroborated his story of vice flourishing unchecked in the underworld, who could have shown that he had had no criminal intent, who could have testified that his motives had been of the purest, were excluded from the witness-box one after the other. Stead had, in fact, finally lost the battle to be allowed to present his case as a whole.130 165

Through the preliminary hearing and the two trials, the accused were supported by the presence of many from The Salvation Army. Florence Booth spent her twenty-fourth birthday watching from the gallery of the police court with her four-month-old baby in her arms. She, of course, was concerned for her husband Bramwell, but perhaps more so for Rebecca Jarrett, who was the least able to withstand the examination of the many barristers. Speaking to Mrs. Butler about the case, Florence said, “Mrs. Butler, how little do these men understand what it is for a poor creature to free herself from vicious surroundings and her past life. How little do they know of God’s patient dealing with such souls struggling out of the darkness.”131 Writing in her 1949 book on the “Maiden Tribute,” Madge Unsworth comments as to Rebecca’s struggle:

Rebecca made heavy weather. Her friends saw that her evidence, confused and at times contradictory, because of conflicting loyalties to the old companions and the new friends, was not producing a favourable impression. Once she even lied to protect her erstwhile confederates lest, as she explained afterward with tears, they should scorn a redeemed woman for breaking her word to them.132

Rebecca was in a difficult place. She was a recent convert after many years of heavy alcohol use, and apparently her brother still ran a brothel, so she did not want to go against him in her testimony. She also could not be sure of what the future would bring if she was sentenced to 166 prison, and who she might be able to depend on in that situation. It is easy to imagine the tension between wanting to please those who helped to change her life (perhaps by attempting to paint her actions in a better light) and the many years of deception, of doing what she had to do just to survive. Even though Rebecca’s testimony was suspect, her barrister presented a two-hour closing argument that left the gallery in tears. By the conclusion of his remarks, Rebecca became a convenient scapegoat. The judge called her “a most abandoned woman” before she’d even been convicted. Lloyd’s newspaper named her “a worthless creature,” and “convicted liar.” Stead was not kind either, suggesting her “muddled brain and defective memory” had misled him, even if it wasn’t fully intentional.133 Writing in the Pall Mall Gazette in November, he said: “Rebecca, unwillingly overborne by my overbearing will, reluctantly undertook to play a part for which, as the result proved, she was but imperfectly fitted. Compelled to play a fictitious role, she confused her parts, and involved everyone in a confused tangle of misconception.”134 As to the other defendants, the charge against Mrs. Combe was dismissed by the trial judge before the case was given to the jury, as her involvement was seen to be peripheral. Sampson Jacques does not seem to have testified at the trials, with the exception of a word or two about his beard and mustache. As for Madame Mourez, it is likely she may not have understood fully the proceedings, as she did not speak English well, and there is no record of testimony from the midwife. When it came to the closing statements, Stead suggested 167 that if he had known there would be a need to testify in court, he would have “taken precautions to get better proof of Mrs. Armstrong’s and Mrs. Broughton’s guilt.” However, he noted,

[A] transaction of that nefarious character is [not] always drawn up in form, and signed in the presence of witnesses; and I do not think it would have been possible to get evidence with the explicitness that would have been necessary to convince persons who are absolutely persuaded that English mothers never sell their daughters to vice.135

His next words speak to the possibly unreliable role of Mrs. Jarrett.

What I did was to employ a woman Mrs. Butler assured me I could trust, and I sent her to do her work in her own way, as she knew best how to do it. As to the discrepancies between my evidence and Jarrett’s as to what she told me—all I can say is that to the best of my belief that which I committed to writing four weeks after she told me the facts, was exactly that which she told me. My own impression was that the father was a drunken sweep who did not care where his girl was going to. I may be right or wrong, but I am absolutely convinced that so far as the mother and Mrs. Broughton were concerned, the child was handed over to me for an immoral purpose. I acted upon that belief, and that belief governed every subsequent step in the proceedings. 168

What I tried to do was not to abduct a child, but to raise up such a sentiment in the country as to render abduction and all kindred offences more dangerous than they had been.136

In summing up his case, Stead admitted the difficulty it brought him:

You know now how I succeeded. I admit I made many blunders and mistakes. I only ask you to judge me as a fellow man. You know what it has cost me, and what it must have cost a man reared as I was, and trained as I have been, to go down there and all for what? Mr. Attorney General says we must protect the children of the poor. Was not that the object that I did all this for? You know it was, and you know that was why Jarrett did it, and Jacques did it, and Bramwell Booth did it. It was not in order to abduct a girl, but to rescue her from what we believed to be her inevitable doom; and if in the exercise of your judgment you come to the conclusion that you can take no note of motive, no note of character, no note of the intent and scope of our operations, all I have to say is, that when you return your verdict I make no appeal to any other tribunal. My lord has told me the question of motive may be considered afterwards, but if you find me guilty by your verdict, I shall make no appeal. By your verdict I stand or fall, and if in the opinion of twelve Englishmen born of Englishwomen, possibly the fathers of English girls, if they say to me “You are guilty,” I shall take my punishment and I shall not flinch.137 169

In his charge to the jury, Mr. Justice Lopes responded to Stead’s words:

Stead was not represented by counsel, but he defended himself; and I think you will agree with me that he has not suffered on that account. A speech more impressive I think few of us have ever heard. Though I was unable to agree with many of the observations he made, I could not but admire the power and ability with which he delivered his address.138

By the end of the trials, Sandall reported, “the jury had made several attempts to show that they considered a difference should be recognized between offences which were merely technical and those in which criminal intent was present, but the judge would have none of it.”139 In fact, it was reported that the foreman of the jury visited Mrs. Stead after the trial was completed to express his sympathy to her, as well as his frustration at having to follow the judge’s charge to the jury. When the jury sent word they had reached a verdict, Lloyd’s Weekly noted the prisoners “were refreshing themselves with a basket of grapes, [when] there came a sudden stir, which thrilled like an electric flash through the throng, presaging the anxiously expected verdict.”140 Stead describes the moment when the verdict was reached:

Suddenly there was a thrilling whisper: “They are coming, they are coming.” Everyone hushed his talk. Those who had seats sat down. Those who crowded 170

the corridors craned their necks towards the jury box. The twelve good men and true, headed by their foreman, filed back into the box. Then the judge, in a silence profound as death, asked if they had agreed upon their verdict. “We have,” said the foreman. Everyone held his breath and waited to hear the next fateful words.141

Bramwell Booth was found “Not guilty.” The Frenchwoman (Mourez), the ex-procuress (Jarrett), and the Greek war correspondent (Jacques) were found guilty. Stead too heard the word “guilty,” but he noted the jury added an extraordinary rider. He was found guilty of being deceived by his agents. “They recommended me to mercy, and they wished to put on record their high appreciation of the services I had rendered the nation by securing the passage of a much needed law for the protection of young girls.”142 Stead described the reaction in the court after the first trial: “When the last word was spoken the tension was relaxed and the whole court hummed with excitement.”143 Yet with the verdict, the accused were not immediately taken into custody, for there was to be another trial. Madame Mourez, Stead, Jarrett, and Jacques had also been charged with indecent assault stemming from the midwife’s examination of Eliza. Neither Stead nor Jarrett gave a defense in this trial, while Jacques reportedly “made a spirited speech in his own defense.”144 Madame Mourez’ counsel suggested that a female couldn’t make an indecent assault on another female, but the judge was not willing to accept that proposal. As expected, the guilty verdicts 171 were announced. All guilty, with the recommendation for merciful consideration for Stead, Jarrett and Jacques—but not for the midwife. Finally, the sentences were ready to be handed down. Then, Stead remembered,

[A]ll our friends crowded round us cheering us with all manner of friendly assurances, and not less friendly imprecations on the prosecution. My dear wife, who had displayed the most splendid courage through it all, bade me good-bye, and then the gaoler led us down dark corridors into Newgate. The contrast between the dark crowded court and the cold silent cell was very great. Another hour passed and then we were packed into the prison van and driven through the streets of London to Coldbath- in-the-Fields prison.145

There was to be no cheering crowd gathering around Madame Mourez. The words of the judge were harsh:

Louise Mourez, I cannot look at your case in the same light as the others. I have considered it with much anxiety. It has been stated over and over again by those charged with you, that you are a professional abortionist, and that you obtain your living in that way. That statement proceeding from them only, I am not in a position to say whether it is correct or not. I trust that it is not, and I do not think I should be justified in acting upon it as correct. . . . I fear much that at that time you knew, or had reason 172

to suspect, the child was intended for outrage; at any rate, I know you could have been animated by no good motive. . . . In these circumstances, not knowing whether you deserve all the imputations cast upon you, the sentence I pass on you is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for six calendar months.146

The trial transcript notes Madame Mourez threw up her hands as if in astonishment, shook her head at Rebecca and muttered something in French. Alison Plowden expressed her sympathy for Madame Mourez. “One can’t help feeling rather sorry for Madame Mourez. She may have been everything Stead and the others said she was, but at the same time she’d been deliberately tricked into giving herself away.”147 In the end, the case itself turned on the lack of permission for the sale by Eliza’s father, aided by the lack of a written receipt or agreement on Eliza’s situation. Stead later wrote of the difficulty:

But the consent of the father [Eliza’s] had never been obtained, and the judge ruled that this was fatal to our defense and that the jury had no option but to return a verdict of guilty. But if I had but persisted in asking one question, this fatal fault would have been wiped out. I wanted to ask the mother for her marriage lines. Sir Charles Russell, who was leading counsel on our side, protested against a question that imputed immorality to any woman, no matter how degraded she might be, unless there was solid 173

basis to go upon. I said that I had nothing to go upon beyond the fact that she was admittedly a drunken woman, who in my belief had sold her own daughter into prostitution. “That,” said the great barrister, “is not enough. I will never be a party to such license of cross-examination.” I gladly concurred, for I had frequently protested against the way in which women were insulted in the witness-box by cross- examining counsel. But months after I had served my sentence and come out of gaol, it was discovered at Somerset House that the child had been born out of wedlock, and that the nominal father had no legal rights over the girl who bore his name. It was then too late, and I have never ceased to be grateful that the fact was not discovered till afterwards. If I had asked that question I should probably have been acquitted and so have lost that experience in prison which was one of the most valuable lessons of my life.148

While Bramwell Booth, W.T. Stead, Jacques, Elizabeth Combe, Rebecca Jarrett, and Louise Mourez stood trial, the young Florence Soper Booth faithfully observed the proceedings. She helps to fill in a few of the blanks of the story from the perspective of the personal diary she kept in 1885. Her diary has been transcribed by Salvation Army historian Jenty Fairbank in “For Such a Time.” The selected entries record her immediate reaction to the events of 1885.

CHAPTER 16

FLORRIE’S DIARY

Florence Soper Booth

S I SAT IN THE BOW STREET Police Court day after day, watching and waiting while Bramwell’s life lay in the balance, my fingers kept busy with my knitting but my mind traveled over the course of our life together. By that point, I hadn’t even been married for three years. Little did I know as I stood before six thousand witnesses on my wedding day that I’d spend my third wedding anniversary waiting for Bramwell’s trial to start, nor that I would by then be a mother of two small daughters. Even though these days have been quite trying, I have attempted to write a few words in my diary each night so as to preserve my impression of the day’s events and my feelings about them. First, from Saturday, September 12, 1885:

Birthday spent in Bow Street Police Court. Quite forgot this a.m. that it was my birthday until, opening letters in cab, found three from home and dear Dad’s cheque for £2.00. Came out of court 4:30 and thinking pity to wait while B had consultations, came home with Mrs. Bulman. Darling one came home with bad blow on nose—been wretchedly mobbed coming out of court by Magistrates door.149

177 178

Indeed, God has given me a precious gift with my husband Bramwell. A few years before we met, his mother had written to him to say, “All you want now is a wife, one with you in soul with whom you could commune and in whom you could find companionship and solace. . . . God will find you one, and I shall help Him.”150 Yes, we have found that in these days. Even though we have not seen much of each other, when we do come together, there is a genuine solace, one to the other. Finding my place in this unique family hasn’t been easy, and I wasn’t always sure I reached the standards Mama (Catherine Booth) set. Raising the children was difficult, and I don’t know that I did what I needed to for Bramwell, especially in those ever-changing days of 1885. One evening, as we were sitting by the fire a few months after the trial was over, Mama allowed me to read the letters she had sent to the General during that time. Her words helped to set my heart at rest, for she had written to him: “All seems well here. Florrie has done well today. I do think she helps Bramwell much. I am sure she will prove a great power for good and a helper of our joy and usefulness beyond what some have feared.”151 As I looked at the birthday gift from my father on that September day, I wondered what he might be thinking of all of the fuss about the “Maiden Tribute.” After all, when I first joined with Miss Booth on our journey to Paris, he had expressed a “longing anxiety” over my choice to serve in The Salvation Army, and he had reminded me to be sure, “not to let [my] zeal get the better of [my] judgment.”152 Oh, perhaps these were words Mr. Stead and even my Bramwell should have heeded as well. 179

I do bear some responsibility for Bramwell’s passion in this regard. After all, it was my involvement in the Hanbury Street refuge that caused Bramwell to take full notice of the work with the poor girls who were attempting to make new lives for themselves. I had been to Ireland in June, 1884, to assist in some of the meetings there. Here’s how I remember those days: “This was the first separation from baby Catherine, and the homecoming was delightful. On returning from Ireland I heard of the work which had begun in the East End of London among outcast girls.”153 That was when the Founder first commanded I go down there to see what could be done. I’m not sure he understood what “in my spare time” might mean for our family or for The Salvation Army, but I was willing to go, as I wanted to find my own corner of mission work. I did what he asked, making my first trip to Hanbury Street on July 18, 1884. It was not an easy work for me. “I felt depressed and unhappy. I had not then even realized there were such people as prostitutes, nor defined to myself what this evil was.”154 Easy or not, I was committed to following through on the charge given me by my father- in-law, the General.

The first days were spent in interviewing those already in the cottage. God had shown me ‘my corner,’ but what a very dark and dismal corner it seemed. . . . When I heard from the lips of these young girls just in their teens the stories of their destruction; when I understood that women kept houses of ill-fame in which other women were practically prisoners; and that if they were thirteen 180

years of age, or if there were reason to believe they had reached that age, the men who destroyed them could not be punished; that for these outcast women there seemed no place of repentance on earth; and the majority, even if they wished to return, were cast out of their homes and no one would give them employment; I felt this was a mystery of iniquity indeed. . . . This underworld seemed indeed a scene of diabolic confusion and darkness155

Hoping to learn more about the work, I visited a number of other rescue homes throughout London, but I came away quite discouraged. The rooms were dismal and there were no second chances for the women if indeed they fell.

I could not imagine myself becoming any better for a long stay in similar circumstances. I determined therefore to make, at first, no rules for the refuge. I realised that there is no power in a mere removal from certain circumstances to reform the heart, and especially I felt that what these women most needed was a real home, for they were homeless, and that they needed support in their first efforts to earn their own living and return to respectable society.156

God helped us a great deal in those early days at Hanbury Street. In the first six months it was open,

[We] received no fewer than eighty-four girls, four of them from prison. Twenty-one were still under the care of the refuge as of January 12, 1885. Of the 181

sixty-three who had left, forty were doing well, one had emigrated, two were happily married, thirty- two were in domestic employment, five who had been reconciled to their parents were living at home and seven had been passed on to other institutions. Only twelve had returned to their old ways, and four had been lost sight of. I am firmly convinced of the wisdom of leaving them all free to quit the refuge at any moment. Those who do not desire to stay are better away. Of the five who have run away, four have come back to us, literally seeking again a place of repentance, with tears.157

In the early days of 1885, Captain Susan “Hawker” Jones contacted us regarding a woman who was in urgent need of care. The woman in question was named Rebecca Jarrett, who told the captain, “I was too old to be reclaimed, besides, I was almost dying with the drink. How could I [give up the drink]? It made me have a bit of life. It was drinking to deaden your feeling, to meet the men. If you were not bright they would not come again.”158 We gave Captain Jones permission to bring Rebecca to Hanbury Street. As I noted in my diary at the beginning of 1885, “Her very appearance was a challenge to my faith, for the marks of her dissolute life were very plain, the expression of her face almost repulsive, and showed plainly the ascendancy that alcohol had gained over her.” Thus, unknown to me at the time, but known by our Heavenly Father, another step on the road to “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” was taken. Rebecca was quite ill, so she was admitted to the hospital 182 and then finally to Mrs. Butler’s home in Winchester. By March, Rebecca was doing much better and was set up in a tiny rescue home of her own in Winchester, supported by Mrs. Butler, where she herself would care for fallen girls. She seemed to do well there for a bit, and threw herself wholeheartedly into rescue work. Later on, Josephine told me about Rebecca’s successful endeavors:

Rebecca’s influence here was something extraordinary. She went straight into the worst dens of infamy, full of men and women of the lowest type, and would get them down on their knees, pray with them and teach them to pray; when other persuasions failed, she related to them what she herself had been and what God had done for her. The reality struck home.160

By April, my thoughts were torn away from Rebecca’s plight by word I received from my home on the seventh day of the month. My stepmother, Mary Levick Soper, was quite ill with erysipelas, a terrible skin condition, and I longed to go to her, but I was not able to do so. It was the General’s fifty-sixth birthday, and on the evening of April 11, we gathered for dinner to mark that occasion. Later that night, I received a telegram that said, “Entering the gates since morning. Only at perfect rest at six this evening.”161 Oh, how I wept for the loss and for my father, who would now bury a second wife. Bramwell would have gone down but the last train had left by then. I was unable to go, as ten days later I called the midwife to deliver our new baby. 183

I wrote on that day: “Made white walking dress for baby at the machine. Obliged to call for Mrs. Crick [midwife] after tea. Baby born at 1:15 on Wednesday morning, April 22, 1885. I called her Mary, after the grandmother she would never know.”162 Rebecca Jarrett was to surface again a few weeks after Mary’s birth. On Saturday, May 16, 1885, I wrote: “Rebecca came at twelve. Has been missioning in Portsmouth and became discouraged through losing a woman. . . . The Winchester cottage work is too much for her singlehanded. I trust she will hold on until I can get our house and have her.” Shortly after her arrival, I took her for a carriage ride, along with Hicks and my two babies. Just as we were driving off, we met Dr. and Mrs. Heywood Smith, good friends of ours, and, “the fact of his converging upon Castlewood Road on the same day as Rebecca [was] not without significance.”163 In hindsight, this seemed as though another piece of the puzzle fell into place, all in God’s timing. The next days were quite busy. Stead and Bramwell began the work of investigation in earnest. They spoke with Mrs. Butler, as did Mrs. Booth, at Rookwood. I traveled on May 28th for a few days to see my father at Blaina, and Bramwell went to Manchester. My diary entries were brief during those days:

June 2: Eliza Armstrong seen by R at Mrs. Broughton’s.

June 3: I feel I need more and more saving from the opinion of those I love and honour. God has 184

delivered me from other fear, but this also must go if the works of the Spirit are to be brought forth in me. Eliza Armstrong bought.

June 4: Another beautiful day. The babies out all day —Catherine with her wheelbarrow and digging in the beds etc. Telegram from B saying business with Rebecca and purchase of girls etc. satisfactorily concluded. Had a sweet time with the Lord— Hebrews and Deuteronomy. No condemnation now I dread. Eliza Armstrong to Paris.

June 5: Paris.

I remained at Blaina with my father, and while there I received the following letter from Bramwell:

This last three weeks I have been wading through a sea of sin and defilement in others. What I have seen, and what I have been compelled to hear has filled me with horror as well as astonishment and pity. It has seemed, many a time, a sin to think even of my precious one at all—but my heart when sickened and appalled has turned to you and worshipped, in gratitude to God, the spotless purity and tender love which are yours and yet are mine also. . . . I have many things to tell you. Some I want to tell you, which, though they will grieve your soul for the sins of the people, yet it will rest my mind to tell you. Many things I must not tell you—you need never, I hope, know all—the world is too dreadful to go on 185

very long—I hope I shall not very greatly burden you with what I feel burdened about; but I think I would like you to know what I know for we are one, and I believe you will believe that I am the same— only that I love you more.164

I arrived home from my father’s on Monday, June 15. I was so glad to see Bramwell, although he looked very worn. I called at Rookwood [the residence of the elder Booths], “just to show the babies.” I made the following notations in my diary:

June 19: I was welcomed back to the refuge; Miss S. and the officers had a very bright welcome for me, and Esther Walker had worked upon pieces of red stuff “Welcome Home,” “God bless the Chief and his Wife,” etc. Went to Holiness meeting in the evening led by the General. B. gone to Stead and not home till 11:30.

June 20: Worked hard all day packing ready to move. . . Bramwell not home to dinner—has not been once since I returned yet. Said he would come at 8 but did not arrive until __. Feel he cannot go on at this long. I must keep him on the altar and trust in God.

June 22: Moved into our new house, at 89 Darenth Road. Very busy to pack up, being Sunday, things were not in good order; also I am a novice at this and there was no one to help us. Bailey and Hicks worked well. There was more furniture than Mr. 186

Eason reckoned for, and at least three more loads, so we did not get done till 11 p.m. We were all dead tired.

June 23: In the midst of putting the house straight came telegram from Mrs. Butler asking me to go to Winchester as poor Rebecca was much discouraged and upset, wanting to give up the work and return to London. We wired and wrote, deciding to go tomorrow.

June 24: Went down to Winchester by 2:15 train, taking the little baby and Alice [the Training Home nurse]. Rebecca met us at the station. We drove to Mrs. Butler’s who was out and then on to Rebecca’s cottage and had tea with her five rescue girls—or rather I had tea with Rebecca alone and had nice talk and prayer. She had in great measure gained the victory that morning.

June 25: Went to dinner with Rebecca and her girls. Had two minutes prayer afterwards. Then went visiting in the worst street of the town with Rebecca. Got into one brothel where the keeper had been ill. Had talk with her and three girls and prayer. The old woman went on her knees for the first time in her life she said. Promised to go and see Rebecca. . . . The bus didn’t call for us and we missed the train. Had to wait until 7:40, not getting home until 11. B. came home just after us. He is working infinitely hard and will knock up. It is a trial to me to give him 187 up to this. My beautiful pure angel—He can never be the same quite.

June 26: Was going to the meeting but Mama [Mrs. Booth] came in just as I was washing baby to go and said I was too knocked up, which I was.

July 3: B very late doing Stead’s business with Vint and reading proofs of what is to appear on Monday.

July 5: Anniversary [20th] of Salvation Army. I marched down with the General and corps to Congress Hall, stayed morning meeting and walked up again. G talked splendidly upon “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who walk” etc.

July 8: After refuge work in the morning [the day the third part of the “Maiden Tribute” appeared], went on to 101 [headquarters] to speak to Bramwell. Found him just going somewhere on the ‘devilish business’ and not able to speak to me. Got home about 3:30. Too dead tired to eat anything. [Young Mary would have been about 10 weeks old at this time].

July 13: Prince’s Hall Meeting for Ladies only.

July 14: Prince’s Hall Meeting, Samuel Morley in the chair. 188

July 16: Mass Meeting in Exeter Hall.

July 22: Woman’s Meeting Exeter Hall. Splendid. Body of Hall nearly full. Mrs. Booth A.1. Two little ruined girls thirteen and fifteen brought on to platform. General at Albert Hall, Sheffield.

July 28: Large meeting Congress hall, General, mama, Professor Stuart M.P.

August 9: Great anxiety about R. J.

August 11: Such a rush. No time for diary. 101 [headquarters] in morning, WBB at Rookwood till past 11. HBB [Herbert Booth] in for a bath.

August 12: A long day at the refuge today. Rebecca went yesterday down to Mrs. Reynolds and saw St. James’ Gazette, so was rather upset thereat. Wanted to start off to Colchester alone last night. Felt better after a good talk with me. Mama [Catherine Booth] came down to see her.

August 13: A Woman’s meeting at Congress Hall at night. Curtain down, but quite full. One of Mama’s stirring address. Refuge girls all there.166

It was August 29th when detectives came to see Bramwell to ask where Rebecca Jarrett was. He didn’t tell me until the next day, as he was afraid it would worry me. On the Sunday, I went to see Rebecca but found her very 189 down. She was asleep, but I awoke her and had a cheer up talk with her. I gave her a pillow that said, “Counted worthy to suffer for Jesus’ sake.” I was very tired when I came back, and Bramwell was very poorly as well. On Wednesday, September 2, I wrote these words:

Saw Rebecca, who had a good cry, poor thing. The lies and the being called ‘that woman’ she felt so much. She was in a most disagreeable stinking hole—a very small cell with just a bench round; a very bad smell. She could only be seen and spoken to through a small square grating, and opposite to hers were other similar ones. A low looking man [the gaoler] could look at them all the time.167

The committal hearings lasted six days, during which all of the defendants were released on bail. We had continued support from comrades, with Commissioner and Mrs. Railton coming to our home with their children, as well as Frederick de Latour Tucker, who would later marry Bramwell’s sister Emma. He came to our home to sleep, and our little Cath was so amused at him: “funny man, all toes.” His Indian garb was what caught the little one’s attention. By October, I was being run down. Still doing the holiness meeting each week, I felt “very tired and burdened. Refuge a great anxiety—all rescue people seem so unbelieving.”168 While I missed the holiness meeting on October 11 because of my cold, a day with Bramwell’s sister Evie [Evangeline] provided rest and refreshment, and I noted in my diary that I “took fresh courage.”169 190

On our wedding anniversary, October 12, I went to the refuge as usual, dismissed one of the girls, and when I returned home, I rested, so wasn’t up to greet Bramwell when he came home. I had a toothache. There was interesting talk about the sacraments and India after dinner. As the Old Bailey trial began on October 23, there were once again houseguests at our home, including Dr. Washington Ranger, who was the Army’s faithful solicitor, and Major Mrs. Caroline Reynolds, who had worked with Stead on the Secret Commission. It was hard to hear Dr. Smith’s testimony on the 27th. He was embarrassed as he spoke, and later on he lost his position at the hospital and suffered persecution as well; such a burden for our good friend. As the trial went on, I came to a point where my “whole soul seems swallowed up with the desire to be better, more after God’s pattern. Would that God could lay our hearts open before the judge and jury—it seems so impossible to get the truth out when everyone is interested in misrepresenting us and will drag the precious Army down if they possibly can.”170 Bramwell was finally called to the box on Tuesday, November 3. God “wonderfully supported him,” although “my dear one’s partial deafness made his cross- examination an ordeal for me as I could not be near him to help.”171 Finally, after the judge spent five hours summarizing the case and charging the jury, they began to deliberate. As we waited, I knitted and Bramwell wrote letters. I especially cherish these words he wrote on that fateful day, knowing 191 he could be taken to prison within the hour: “Another line, while we are waiting for the coming in of the jury. I love you more than ever I did in my life—your whole-hearted bravery in this thing all through has been more to me than words can tell. Keep believing.”172 The verdict? My Bramwell was relieved to be spared a prison sentence. Thank God. Although I must admit that after hearing Mr. Stead talk about his imprisonment, “I almost came to feel that it might have been better if my dear one had had to yield to compulsory rest of that kind [as did Stead], instead of being immersed in the overwhelming strain of Salvation Army work immediately.”173 Mrs. Combe’s case was dismissed for lack of evidence. But the others all were sentenced to prison. I especially was concerned about Madame Mourez, that “poor old thing, for she was a pitiable sight all day.”174 I am not sure as to the punishment. Were someone to take my darling Mary or Catherine from my home only on the word of my husband, of course I would be devastated, so in that sense, the Armstrongs were right to seek after their child. Yet I know the heart of my Bramwell and of Mr. Stead, and they believed—no, we believed—our plan had to proceed. I am sorry for Mrs. Jarrett, for we pressured her to assist us and now she will go to prison. Yet, she truly was used by God as an instrument “to bring to light the evil in the underworld of London.” and I am grateful for her courage. And as for Madame Mourez, she was only doing what she was asked to do. She is an old woman, and while her life actions are questionable, she also did come to the aid of many a woman just as my own midwife has. Six months at hard labour seems a terrible price to pay for one so old.

CHAPTER 17

A JUST PUNISHMENT?

ID THE PUNISHMENT FIT the crime? Were those involved appropriately held responsible for what they did? What can be said of the trial, the guilty verdict, and the subsequent sentences? Bramwell Booth later reflected the trial itself was anticlimatic. “It was a cross-scent for the real achievement, namely the violent awakening of the public conscience.” The motivation to bring the charges may have been payback for the negative publicity “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” brought to the justice system, a politically-driven response to the embarrassment cast upon the standing government, or a result of pressure by rival newspapers. Regardless of motivation, however, there was a price to be paid for the actions of Derby Day 1885. Did the results of the trials provide a just punishment for those involved? The Standard Press thought so:

As we read the address of the judge, in which Mr. Stead’s offence is made to stand out plainly in its almost cynical recklessness, divested of all moral disguises, the wonder grows that it should ever have been possible for a moment to conceal

195 196

such atrocious proceedings under the mask of a holy purpose, or to enlist such infamies in the ostensible service of virtue. The mere recital of the abominations prompted and carried through by the principal defendant almost suggests a doubt whether anything short of monomania can have led to the idea that such a sacrifice of all that was right and true and virtuous in the lives of so many people was really demanded as the price to be paid for a victory over vice.177

As far as the individual punishments are concerned, the unevenness of the length of prison stay, as well as the varied treatment experienced by the prisoners raise questions of justice. The Morning Post took notice:

In our opinion, upon the evidence before the court, it would have been more consonant with the principles of justice to have awarded heavier sentences to Stead, Jarrett, and Jacques, without whose confessedly illegal intervention Eliza Armstrong would never have been brought to Mdme. Mourey, than to that woman who, however reprehensible her conduct, did not do one-hundredth part of the injury to the child that was done by the other defendants.178

As for the Greek detective, little is known about Jacques, but perhaps he chalked up his one month in prison to the cost of doing business as a detective and investigative journalist in that day and age. When the judge sentenced Jacques, he indicated agreement with the jury: 197

I now deal, Jacques, with your case. You have not been found guilty of the charge of abduction, and I fully agree with the verdict the jury found in that case, because we must look at it only by the light of evidence, and I do not think, on the evidence, that you knew or had reasonable means of knowing that the child had not been taken with the consent of the parents. You have only been found guilty of indecent assault, and the sentence on you is one month’s imprisonment without hard labour.179

Justice Lopes did seem to have some sympathy for Rebecca Jarrett as he pronounced her sentence:

I now come to the case of Rebecca Jarrett, and there is no doubt a mitigating circumstance in your case, but there is also an aggravating circumstance. The mitigating circumstance is that you only undertook what you did under extreme pressure, but the aggravating circumstance is that, after a most patient hearing, and having regard to the finding of the jury, I am firmly convinced you misled your employer, Stead. In these circumstances, the sentence I pass on you is that you be imprisoned without hard labour for six calendar months.180

When sentencing Stead, Justice Lopes was clear in his disgust:

Your experiment, instead of proving what it was intended to prove, has absolutely and entirely 198

failed, for the jury have found that Eliza Armstrong, the subject of that experiment, was never bought for immoral purposes at all. I regret to say that you thought fit to publish in thePall Mall Gazette a distorted account of the case of Eliza Armstrong, and that you deluged, some months ago, our streets and the whole country with an amount of filth which has, as I fear, tainted the minds of the children that you were so anxious to protect, and which has been—and I don’t hesitate to say, ever will be—a disgrace to journalism. An irreparable injury has been done to the parents of this child, and they have been subjected to the unutterable scandal and ignominy of having sold their child for violation. The child has been dragged through the dirt, examined by a woman who bears, or, in your opinion, at any rate, bore a foul character, subjected to chloroform, taken to a brothel, and then sent to the South of France, her letters to her mother suppressed, and the child refused when demanded. All that has been done by you, relying on the statements of a woman whose character you knew and whom you trusted with money—and I think this no small part of the offence you committed—to bribe parents to commit the greatest sin they could commit—viz. to sell their own children for immoral purposes. Well, I feel that I cannot and ought not to punish you as I would punish a person who had been found guilty of abduction, and who had been actuated by sordid and sinful motives. I am going to give 199

credit to any good motives as far as I possibly can; I am going to give effect to the recommendation of the jury which they made on Saturday night, but I cannot forget that you are an educated man, who should have known that the law cannot be broken to promote any supposed good, and that the sanctity of private life cannot be invaded for the furtherance of the views of an individual who, I am inclined to believe, thought that the end would sanctify the means. Now in these circumstances, I need not say that I have given the most intense and anxious consideration to your case, and I have come to the conclusion that I cannot pass anything but a substantial sentence, and that is that you be imprisoned without hard labour for three calendar months.181

After their sentencing, Jarrett and Mourez were sent to Millbank Prison. Stead and Jacques, after an hour or two in Newgate, were driven through the streets of London to Coldbath-in-the-Fields prison for processing. While there, Stead was treated as an ordinary criminal convict, “sleeping on a plank bed and picking oakum.”182 Cardinal Manning sent him an encouraging note, while Canon Wilberforce preached about the need of society to “deprecate plain speaking about plain sins, to endure unblushingly the visible manifestation of evil, and to prudishly hide the head when such evils are denounced . . . by their proper names.”183 Stead was soon transferred to his new temporary home 200 at Holloway Gaol. While still technically in prison, Stead was actually treated as a first class misdemeanant. He was able to wear his own clothing and his wife and children were allowed to visit often and to bring in meals to him. He wrote a Christmas letter to his family describing his circumstances:

If any of you imagine that I, being a prisoner, am needing consolation and that you ought to address me at this Xmas-tide in accents of crape, don’t. . . . ‘Weep not for me though you know I am here’—A free rendering of an old hymn—is my admonition to you. But rather rejoice, yes, exceedingly rejoice. For I am here in the pleasantest little room imaginable, with a snug arm-chair and a blazing fire, and the walls all gay with Christmas cards and evergreens, and the cupboard full of Christmas cheer; and what is far more, my heart full of joy and peace and good- will to all men, including Mr. Justice Lopes and all the rest.184

Unlike the women, who sat alone on Christmas day without even a cup of tea, Stead enjoyed a merry Christmas party in his cell on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, as his five children played blind man’s buff, puss-in-the- corner, and other Christmas games. “Never,” Stead said, “was the grim old prison a scene of a happier festival.”185 The Salvation Army’s reaction to the verdicts was strong. It was understood that Bramwell was found not guilty because of what Stead had told him about the details of the operation and so acted in good faith. He reflected 201 on the result of the trial: “We, a gang of subterranean engineers, were hoist with our own petard.”186 His mother added her own revulsion: “An iniquitous farce! All this has revealed some rottenness behind the scenes. Truly we are far sunk as a nation. But touching this evil is like bearding hell itself.”187 William Booth’s distaste for Stead is evident in his letter to Catherine on the eve of the sentencing. “Stead won’t be put in prison, in my opinion, but will drop back into his role of journalist, and leave us smeared with the tar of this affair to fight it out with blackguards and brothel- keepers all over the world.”188 His prediction as to Stead’s sentence proved to be incorrect, but still he was especially critical of what he saw as Stead’s abandonment of “poor Rebecca.” As for poor Rebecca, her incarceration was certainly unpleasant. However, even with her health problems and her past alcohol use, she did not return to her former life when she left prison, and she seemed to have survived its hardships without lasting effects. Perhaps the accommodations of the jail were not much worse than what she had faced in her life of drunkenness and debauchery. As a result of her role in the “Maiden Tribute,” she became quite the celebrity in Salvation Army circles, and seemed to garner attention from the Booth women and others during her stay in prison, as well as afterwards. When she died in March of 1928, after a period of illness, the War Cry gave quite a tribute to her, indicating she “made it possible for a smashing blow to be struck at this hydra-headed monster, and [therefore] soon the heart of Christendom was stirred.”189 Rebecca’s voice as 202 recorded in her autobiographical writing, in addition to Mrs. Butler’s pamphlet of 1885 about Jarrett, fill in some additional details in her story. CHAPTER 18

REBECCA REMEMBERS

ATE IN LIFE, REBECCA JARRETT penned a handwritten narrative, to which some punctuation has been added. A transcription is available on the Mulpetre website, and the original manuscript of Rebecca’s account is in The Salvation Army’s International Heritage Center in London. Here’s how she told her life story:

Her experience written by herself for God Glory not for my Glory, for herself but for God alone. Well a great many heard a lot about me some years ago. What a bad character I had been. Well yes it was true but a lot has to do with the bringing up. My father died and left my mother with seven young children with no means to keep them . . . Of course the life I led with my mother and her drink I took to drink. I got such a sodden drinker I cared for nothing to eat. I went time after time to the doctors. They said I must give up the drink or it would take me off. I tried hard. I could not eat so the drink was what I live on for some years till one day I stopped at the hotel seeing [a sign that read] . . . Salvation Army Jail great doing were going on

205 206

Sunday. . . Out of curiosity I went [to] the Salvation Army. I expect my dress drawed the attention of some of the Salvation Army people. Then my hat with great blue feathers and my fair hair drawed their attention. They found out where I was stopping. They came to see me in the hotel. They found me so ill they took me to their doctor. He told them it was drink. They got me up to London to see Mrs. Booth. I was introduced to Mrs. Bramwell Booth in a Poor little home in Hanbury at Whitechapel. I had to go into the hospital for their poor little home was not able to nurse and look after me; in fact they never had such a bad drink case. I was taken to the London hospital, kept their for ten weeks, came out cured and well been watched with the greatest care by the Salvation Army and Mrs. Josephine Butler and other precious friends. Right up till to day I have neither taken any or even wanted as each year makes me stronger and stronger not only from the drink but from my unclean life all together. My Jesus has done a perfect work in me. My aim directly was to help others wich I did try at the time of the Armstrong case came on. I had nine girls which I had got off from their bad life. I prayed with them each day. Told them how God had changed my Heart. I had a good Home, a nice large house. I had every help I needed when I was asked to prove I could get a poor child of thirteen years of age. I was asked to prove it wich you all know I did. The mother was in the Public house drinking with the money I had just given her. Told her I was a loose 207 woman, she did not even come over to bid her good bye. The poor child was taken the greatest care off taken too a lovely home with a real titled lady so I was sent to prison for six months. The care I proved God took off me made me more and more stronger in his work. Of course my home had to be closed while I went to prison. The poor sick girls were cared for by the Salvation Army. I was taken to Clerkenwell House of Detention for a time [prior to the preliminary hearing]. I was in their a week. One afternoon all at once I heard some one singing. The Prisoners who was there detained as well as me shout out the Salvation Army was coming in singing. No never alone, he has promised never to leave me. When near were I was I found it was Miss Eva Booth come to cheer me up. From their I went to Bow Street what a time. Not one hair off my head got hurt. We prayed each night like poor Daniel going down into the lions den for our Father care. It was given to me one night I had to walk out alone right down in the middle off those people. Another time I was put into a cab by one dozen policemen who started me with one hundred round me yelling at the top off their voices trying to turn the cab over but the police kept the mob off. Then my trial commenced. I was out on Bail, I valued 500 pounds. I often laughed over it all. Then I went back to finish my trial. My sentence was six months in Millbank Prison. I must say I was treated by all the officers with the greatest kindness and care and respect. The dear old Army Mother walked 208

with ninety ladies with many more names to get me out but the Home Secretary came to see me. Asked me how I was in my health; I said pretty fair but I felt the cold. Through the petition I got a warmer cell. I had indoor exercise. On Xmas day I spent in my prison cell a tin cup of gruel was my Xmas breakfast with a dry small loaf. The dear old Commissioner Railton wrote me such a lovely letter to cheer me up. He wished he could take my place but the Chaplin Mr. Merrick told me they could not for if they let me free they would have to do for others who really got like poor children for the immoral purpose. The dear old Army mother [Catherine Booth] wrote to me, Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Josephine Butler and about twenty other. The warm vest I had sent into me, four warm shawls made by ladies, one old lady made me a rug worked in wool with her own hands. The words were “with loving kindness has I drawn thee, therefore with love will I watch over thee.” So I had done my six months in Millbank prison, I left with 7s 6d good conduct money. I left early 8 o’clock, was dress with no end of parcels, over two hundred letters. Every one of the officers bid me good bye and helped me with all my parcels and letters. I had a cab waiting outside for me. I got in with all my luggage. The cab was told me to take me to Westminster bridge. At 8:15 I got then one carriage I was told to get out and see who it was in it. As I got near I see a bonnet there sat one off my faithful friend Mrs. Bramwell Booth who took me 209

and all my parcel to get some tea as I had no gruel as I was leaving early. Alleluia Praise God for allowing me to do something for his Blessed Name, Jesus. Here I am forty years since I first entered the Salvation Army Home in Hanbury St. a poor drunken broken up woman. Mrs. General and Mrs. Bramwell Booth did not look at that side. I was degraded sunken down low by drink. Their work was to try and raise me up. . . Today I have defeated the devil drink thirty-nine years. Here I am living amongst those who like myself once were fighting the drink. I pray each day for God to help me. I am now nearing my other Home. I am near seventy-nine years in age but I am closing my earthly life with sincere gratitude to the Salvation Army and the precious officers for their care and devotion to me.

As a supplement to Rebecca’s own words, Mrs. Josephine Butler assembled a pamphlet shortly after the trial to testify to Jarrett’s character. Her opening is powerful: “The trial is over. Our tongues are now loosed; and we can speak. And we will speak.”190 Mrs. Butler wanted first of all to speak to Rebecca’s motives. She was clear that if Rebecca misled Mr. Stead, as the verdict of the jury declares, she did not mislead him intentionally.

She was put in an exceptionally difficult position for a person of her poor education and miserable antecedents. Her head ached and her brain reeled under those long hours of cross-examination, and 210

her memory (never a good one) often failed her; but I, who knew her most intimately, here record my profound and unshaken conviction that throughout her heart was true—true to the cause which she had learned to love as we do—true to me, and true to Mr. Stead, whom she had heartily desired to help in the work which she had learned to see to be necessary.191

During the trial, Rebecca Jarrett was said to have lied on the witness stand, but Butler gives an explanation as to that action. According to Butler, Rebecca had been frightened by the appearance of some male companions from her former life who stalked her for weeks at Winchester prior to the purchase of Eliza. They had “haunted our neighbourhood and shaken Rebecca’s nerves and feelings exceedingly by their threats,”192 so much so that Mrs. Butler requested police protection. She described Rebecca’s affection for them as one that “resembles almost the fierce love of the tigress for those whom her natural instinct leads her to defend.”193 At one point in Winchester, Rebecca invited these men to her cottage where she pled for their souls, concluding that afternoon with the promise she would never bring them trouble, made in the name of God. So when asked on the witness stand to turn against her former companions, she could not do so and therefore was false in her response to the court. Butler described Rebecca’s dilemma:

We, Rebecca’s friends, saw the device in advance, we saw the fatal snare laid for her: but she, poor 211

soul! did not. She answered truly as far as she could, until it came to the giving of an address which would have involved others in trouble. Then there flashed across her the promise made in her evil days, and the promise made later from better motives, under her new character. There rose afresh in her mind the desire that those to whom she had given her promise should see that a reclaimed woman would not break her word. She was standing between two oaths—the first, made to her old friends; the second, made in the witness-box, to speak “nothing but the truth.”

While Butler hoped to paint an alternate portrait of the woman who risked so much for the cause and paid such a heavy price, she also had a feminist agenda to proclaim to the world, and used Rebecca’s situation as a powerful example.

Down all the ages, since that hour when Christ and the outcast woman were face to face in the Temple, and every man in the surrounding crowd was pointing the finger of scorn at her, the world has continually been pointing the finger at this typical figure of woe, as the scapegoat upon whom, justly or unjustly, the sins and miseries of society must be heaped. The question has always been, “What shall we do with her?” Never till this last “new era” has dawned upon us, has it been asked, “What shall we do with him ?”—him, her companion in sin. And now at last this woeful figure stands forth, perhaps for the 212

first time in the world’s history, as a fellow-worker in a great and noble cause for the emancipation of women from galling slavery to vice and to the hard judgment of men.195

Mrs. Butler quoted a note sent to her while Rebecca stood in the dock:

Dear Mrs. Butler, I do thank you very much for your love and kindness to me during all this time of trouble; and more especially for your confidence in me after all the terrible things you have heard said of me by the Prosecution in this Court. I am not at all flinching from the punishment which will be put upon me. God will be with me in prison, and with all of us. What we did was done for a good end; and God will stand by us all. But think of me; pray for me. You know how unwilling I was to do all that; but I do not mind what people think of me. God knows all about it. Remember me very kindly to Canon Butler, and to all I know at Winchester, Miss Humbert, Mrs. Hillier, Mrs. Jones. My love and deepest gratitude to yourself and your sister, Mrs. Meuricofire. God bless you. From your Rebecca196

One final thought from Mrs. Butler’s pamphlet. On the night after the first verdict, she brought Rebecca home with her. The next day, a Sunday, they had a meeting in the House of Rest in support of Rebecca. Canon Butler spoke 213 on Paul and Silas in prison, who sang praises to God even at the midnight hour. Rebecca said, after the meeting; “Don’t trouble about me, kind friends; I don’t mind the prison. This is how I take it. I have been a great sinner in the past; and I take this going to prison as a chastisement for my past, and not for what I did for Mr. Stead, which I did with a good motive.”197 Rebecca was faithful to The Salvation Army and to her faith until the day she died. The War Cry made this report upon her death.

Among Rebecca Jarrett’s greatest treasures was the Bible given to her by Mrs. Booth, and, until a week or two before her death, she would turn its pages, and with deep emotion point to a verse which Mrs. Booth, realizing the nature of the test prison life would mean, had specially underlined. This was Isaiah 41:10: “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” Since July of last year [1827] she had been confined to her bed. During these days she was reminded that she would be able to see the Founder when she crossed the River. Her face shone as she lifted her hand and shouted, “Hallelujah!” Speaking to Commissioner Catherine Booth [the daughter of Bramwell and Florence Booth], she said, “Give my love to your dear father and mother. I owe everything to them.” (March 10, 1928)

CHAPTER 19

DID IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

HE FULL ACCOUNT OF “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” is discomforting for the twenty-first century observer. Sexual trafficking remains a scourge on humanity and The Salvation Army is quite active in attempting to combat its evil, but The Salvation Army could not think of attempting to orchestrate such a stunt in today’s world, nor is it likely the press could manipulate a story as did Stead. This account raises historical questions of the reach of The Salvation Army and the press, the status of The Salvation Army in Victorian England, the lack of protection for its unwilling or less-than-fully informed participants, the role of a church or non-profit in advocacy and lobbying of the government, and the belief in the role of God’s protective covering for its ministry. Bramwell Booth and W. T. Stead were young men when they vowed to wage war against the evils of child prostitution and slavery. Reverend Benjamin Waugh, a contemporary of Stead and Booth, wrote of Stead’s determination demonstrated when Waugh took Stead to his society’s shelter and introduced him to two of “the Queen’s practically unprotected subjects.”198 One was a seven-year-old girl, and the other just shy of five years of

217 218 age. Waugh described the second child as a pretty little girl who “had a waking nightmare whenever she came near a strange man, and who spoke a little sentence that you needed only to hear to break your heart.” Waugh recounted the scene:

As she sat timidly upon his [Stead’s] knee, and at length played with his watch, and put out her little hand for the monies he gave her, I saw the light of a tenderer woo than I had ever seen in a man’s eyes before; but which I have so often seen in the hundred days of summer and autumn which have followed that day.199

Stead’s devastated reaction was captured by Waugh’s words:

As he went out of the Shelter his eyes filled with tears; he lost strength, his knees failed him, and I felt him lean upon my arm as with the weariness of a broken-hearted, bowed-down old age. Then it was—in that moment of quiet woe—that I felt the homage for him which has deepened through all the strange weeks which have passed since. “And the Papers will say nothing about these cases,” Waugh added; “the details are too revolting.” Then the woe changed, and the silence broke, and erecting himself with the thrill of an awful indignation, he burst out, “Mr. Waugh, I will turn my Paper into a tub; I will turn stump orator, I will. I will damn and damn. I’ll cease to be a Christian; I’ll be a prophet, and damn, and damn!”199 219

Waugh shared his own response to Stead:

With all the impetuosity of a pure child there was blended the majesty of a rare man. It was extraordinary. I was awed. . . . I seemed to feel a wind, as of a prophet sweeping by me in a chariot of fire, so utterly and sublimely in earnest was he, and so intense was his woe. He was not thinking of the legal wrongs of my babies alone; all the facts of his past horrid vigils were mingling with these.201

Bramwell’s declaration was strong as well: “No matter what the consequences might be, I will do all I can to stop these abominations.”202 From a contemporary perspective, their willingness to place a young Salvation Army woman in a brothel was definitely unwise, but their arrangement to procure a thirteen-year-old girl seems unconscionable. It can be said that it was a different Salvation Army from today, and a different press as well, which is true, but even for the standards of the day, Booth and Stead operated outside the boundaries of acceptable organizational behavior. Most of their contemporaries would have agreed that something needed to be done, but their quarrel was with their method. It is difficult to determine whether this ill-fated adventure gave The Salvation Army an enhanced status in the world in which it operated. There were many who were forcibly against the actions of the “Maiden Tribute,” and in their eyes, The Salvation Army was painted with the same brush as was Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette. However, while the Pall Mall Gazette was ultimately unable to 220 sustain its operations following the demise that began with Stead’s “Maiden Tribute,” The Salvation Army didn’t seem to be impacted negatively by its involvement in “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” In fact, Bramwell later wrote that,

[T]he trial did the Army a great deal of good. It made us known, and put us at one stroke in the very front rank of those who were contending for the better treatment of the lost and poor . . . we gained friends in political circles . . . and were brought into touch with Queen Victoria and with some of her Court who ever since have been interested in what we have been doing.203

Based upon a War Cry report from October 16, 1885, there was some concern that The Salvation Army had been involved in the actual abduction of the child. Speaking at a National Conference at St. James Hall, Stead himself addressed those charges.

I will tell you about Lizzie Armstrong if you wish it. The Salvation Army is as innocent of taking the girl away from her home as Mr. Stansfield; they had absolutely nothing to do with it. I, and I alone, am solely responsible for taking Lizzie Armstrong away from her mother’s house, and I say this, that those good men and philanthropic journalists who are so anxious to restore that child to her mother’s house are taking upon themselves a responsibility greater by far than ever the Secret Commission of the Pall 221

Mall Gazette took upon itself. We took that child from a place that reeked with vice. . . . They [The Salvation Army] had nothing whatever to do with taking her from her mother’s house or taking her to a brothel, but have had to bear contumely, reproach and slander from those who call themselves Christian men.

What of the possibility the scheme may have put its participants in danger? Where was the line between sacrificial service in the name of Christ and protection of its workers? A telling exchange is noted in Grace Eckley’s Maiden Tribute: A Life of W. T. Stead that provides some perspective on this question, as reviewer Charles King describes. Stead learned that in Darlington two delicate Salvation Army lasses converted so many drunks that police cells were suddenly uncharacteristically empty on Saturday nights. Eckley describes the young women officers as “building up a congregation out of the human refuse that other churches despaired.” Says Eckley: “He [Stead] remonstrated with General William Booth; if the lasses broke down Booth should be charged with manslaughter. The General replied: ‘You would never do for a General … [who] must not be afraid to spend his soldiers in order to carry positions.”’204 Jenny Turner, Rebecca Jarrett, Elizabeth Armstrong, Elizabeth Combe, and Louise Mourez were adults at the time of the “Maiden Tribute” scheme. They were, at least to a certain extent, willing participants in its endeavor, even if they were not fully aware of its ramifications. However, Eliza Armstrong was not. She was a child, the 222 same child the plot was intended to protect. Was she ever in danger? Being poked and prodded as to her virginity; crossing the sea to France; being deprived of contact with her family, however dysfunctional they may have seemed; walking the streets of an unknown city to sell the War Cry; being transported hundreds of miles in the company of a young man? Was there any concern as to the trauma she faced, or were Stead and Booth so sure of the righteousness of their plan that they couldn’t see what might hurt Eliza? It was a different time and place to be sure, but in their zeal to combat the trafficking of young women, Stead, Booth, and all those who were complicit in the plan did just that to Eliza, even if not for immoral purposes. Yet it doesn’t appear any of those among the conspirators recognized the fraudulence behind their actions. From a contemporary view, their strategy was deeply flawed, even if it was motivated by what they thought to be virtuous intentions. While Stead and the young Booth focused on the rescue of children and the change to the law, the elder Booths were more likely to speak to the warfare that was occurring in the spiritual realm. Son-in-law Frederick de Latour Booth- Tucker noted after the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed,

Catherine left London with the General for the provinces, eager to use the widespread interest of the hour in awakening universal attention to the one great theme: the salvation of the world. The General, in particular, was anxious to remind his followers 223

that the subject which had lately engrossed the public mind was but a single manifestation of the all- prevailing sin which, in a thousand different forms, was the source of the miseries of mankind. Nothing has perhaps more emphatically contributed to the success of the Army than the persistency with which its leaders have ever kept the one main object in view.205

Booth-Tucker reinforces his point: “As has already been remarked, the spiritual work of The Salvation Army was not allowed to be interrupted during the year.”206 In the end, as misguided as they seem from the perspective of one hundred and thirty years, the actions of Stead and Bramwell Booth were effective. The law was changed, and who is to tell how many children may have been prevented from entering a life of sorrow? Also as a result, the awareness raised through “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” gave motivation for the expansion of Salvation Army services. Many more rescue homes were opened, and what later became known as its Missing Persons Bureau had its beginnings in the Army’s work to reunite trafficked children with their families. In the intervening years, The Salvation Army has struggled with how to address the topics of advocacy and lobbying. While Mrs. Catherine Booth wrote directly to the Queen without getting permission from anyone, as the Army has expanded, it has developed guidelines for its practices, including that of advocacy. A statement approved for use in the United States in 1976, for example, suggests The Salvation Army advocate 224 has two roles: that of acting as an advocate for a client, and that of working to change the system when it has proven faulty or inadequate. The caution is given that any action must conform to the officially established position, and that action on national issues should be taken only after being cleared by National Headquarters.208 Although not stated directly in the position statement, (then) National Social Services Secretary Paul Bollwahn reminded front- line staff that the divisional and territorial headquarters have “jurisdictional authority and responsibility,” and therefore, they are “directly responsible for speaking out on behalf of the organization and those for whom it exists.” At times, a concern over the Army’s need to be non- partisan hampers its ability to effectively advocate for vital causes, as does the wide range of political views of its officers, soldiers and employees. As one example, its presence was virtually absent from the civil rights dialogue, which certainly impacted many of its clients and soldiers. The Salvation Army continues to be challenged in the development of strong positions on topics such as capital punishment, abortion, gun control, and homosexuality by the varied opinions of its officers and employees, the fear of alienating donors of varied political persuasions, and the implications of a worldwide ministry operating in a multitude of local cultural settings. However, especially in the area of human trafficking, The Salvation Army is stepping up its efforts to protect the most vulnerable. The Salvation Army’s national website in the United States speaks of the heritage of the “Maiden Tribute” from 1885, and notes its “advocacy efforts were a major catalyst in the bill’s passage.” It suggests, “now, 225 more than a century later, The Salvation Army in the United States and abroad is part of a reviving movement for the abolition of sex trafficking and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation.”209 The Salvation Army also established an International Social Justice Commission with offices in New York City. Its goals are to raise strategic voices to advocate with the world’s poor and oppressed, to be a recognized center of research and critical thinking on issues of global social justice, to collaborate with like-minded organizations to advance the global cause of social justice, to exercise leadership in determining social justice policies and practices of The Salvation Army, and to live the principles of justice and compassion and inspire others to do likewise.210 As to the question of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’s” lasting impact on the culture of its day, that is difficult to measure. While there does seem to be some truth to Eckley’s description, “England was stripped naked and shamed before the world but she did not like it,”211 was there any way to determine the impact of that shameful time? In one instance, it is likely the success of the Purity Campaign in changing the legislation in 1885 may have helped Mrs. Butler in her on-going struggle against the Contagious Disease Act. By 1886, the legislation targeted by Josephine Butler for many years was finally repealed. This act was first passed in 1864 with the intent to control the spread of venereal disease in the armed forces. The act required prostitutes within certain areas be tested regularly for venereal disease, and if they were infected, 226 they were taken to what was known as lock hospitals, where they could be interned for as long as a year. Yet there was no mandatory testing or punishment for the men who frequented the prostitutes. Butler explained her position: “It is unjust to punish the sex who are the main victims of vice and leave unpunished the sex who are the main cause both of the vice and its dreaded consequence.”212 Butler battled against the double standard of this legislation for years, with its implied legalization of prostitution, as did W. T. Stead’s mother and even Florence Nightingale. It was Butler’s Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts that bore most of the credit for the final repeal of the law. As to other cultural issues, historian Ann P. Robson suggests in The Significance of the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon that it did impact its culture in ways well beyond the change in the law. She argues that Stead’s series “ended a conspiracy that protected the double standard, a conspiracy which had been acquiesced in by the majority of both sexes, because the double standard was an integral part of the relationship between the sexes and fundamental to the stability of the Victorian family.”213 Robson recognized there was a double moral standard, one for “women and men of the lower classes and for all other men outside their homes; and one for women of the respectable classes and for their men within their home.”214 Robson argues when:

[The newspaper] called a prostitute a prostitute and a lecher, a lecher, when it printed a recital of verifiable 227

facts without euphemism or circumlocution, when it delivered with the tea and crumpets a description of money changing hands for the rape of unwitting and unwilling little victims, gave details of the medical examination performed to obtain a certificate of virginity to satisfy the purchaser, of leather straps, padded rooms and smothered screams, W. T. Stead was not simply exposing vice but challenging Victorian society.215

Women’s history researcher Deborah Gorham raises the question of how the “agitation against child prostitution combined an attempt to analyze a social problem in a dispassionate and even scientific way with a fervent evangelical enthusiasm.”216 Were the social expectations of the middle class, that of “close and careful monitoring of the behavior and moral welfare of middle class daughters,”217 being placed upon the poor and working class, where close monitoring was impossible? After all, poor children older than twelve years of age were expected to be wage earners, and their domestic work would take them out of the family circle. The reformers also seemed unwilling to recognize the causes of juvenile prostitution “were to be found in an exploitative economic structure”218 Using a rhetoric of protection, some believed, “those who are in need of protection are either so weak and defenseless or so ignorant they cannot protect themselves against an obvious danger.”219 And, in doing so, their wish “to extend to ‘friendless’ girls the surveillance that respectable young women received from careful parents 228 involved an undeniable, if covert, element of coercion,”220 thus forcing middle class values upon all young women. While the Booths most likely saw the issue as individual sin in need of individual redemption, social reformers like Josephine Butler or W. T. Stead may have seen things differently. On July 11, 1885, Stead proclaimed, “The exposure has been made and that it must tell in a revolutionary direction no human being can doubt.”221 Robson concludes Stead was correct in his prophecy, the movement to prevent legalized prostitution in England became transformed into “a movement for moral equality between men and women and between class and class, a movement which demanded in effect a social revolution to replace the double standard in morality by a single stand and that the women’s.”222 Beyond its influence on the society of its day, the story itself has lived on in history. Stead’s biographers often note the impact the “Maiden Tribute” had on his life, and a recent conference marking the anniversary of his death featured presentations on “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” As a sign of significance in the twenty-first century world, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” has its own Wikipedia page. “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” narrative also holds a place in Salvation Army history. Eliza Armstrong may not be as well known as her contemporary, Eliza Shirley, who brought the work of The Salvation Army to the United States six years before Eliza Armstrong was purchased, but a typical reaction to the explanation of the “Maiden Tribute” story is, “Yes, I remember hearing something about that.” 229

George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright who freelanced at the Pall Mall Gazette when Stead’s series was published, had offered to help sell the newspapers when their distribution was threatened. Later, when he discovered that some of Stead’s claims had been exaggerated, Shaw was disgusted by his colleague. British columnist A. N. Wilson reports that Shaw complained fiercely: “We backed him over the Maiden Tribute only to discover the Eliza Armstrong case was a put-up job of his. After that, it was clear he was a man who would not work with anybody, and nobody would work with him.”223 Perhaps there was a bit of revenge at work when Shaw decided on a name and character for the play he completed around the time of Stead’s death. Journalist Ronan Thomas suggests, “It is more than likely that Shaw drew on personal memories of the Maiden Tribute affair whilst penning the play Pygmalion,” the five-act comedy he completed in 1912. In his play, it is thought his leading lady, Eliza, was inspired by the “Maiden Tribute” scandal from 1885. Like Eliza Armstrong, Shaw’s Eliza was from Lisson Grove, was sold to Professor Higgins for £5, and their fathers were of similar background, with one a chimney sweep and the other a dustman. Pygmalion was later adapted for the stage and screen as My Fair Lady. Described by Thomas at its centenary as “a gentle comedy,” it was also “a commentary on class, manners and social mobility.”225 Eliza’s story was also broadcast in 1974 in a six- episode BBC television series called The Case of Eliza Armstrong. Directed by Rodney Bennett, actress Susan Payne portrayed the young Eliza Armstrong. The short 230 series was accompanied by a book by British writer Allison Plowden, known for bringing the little-known stories of British history to light. The Case of Eliza Armstrong is a treasure trove of trial transcripts, as well as photographs and drawings. After all was said and done, did the actions of a handful of people in 1885 make a difference in the world around them? Writing in Twenty-one Years Salvation Army, George Scott Railton observed:

The Armstrong prosecution has done more to assist us in becoming the rescuers of those who have fallen, or are in danger of falling, than fifty years of desperate labour on our part could possibly have done. Not only were we [The Salvation Army] fully recognized all over the world as being engaged with all our might in this rescue business, but [we] are looked upon as the people who are never likely to be beaten because we are never likely to stop short at any difficulty or danger where a great object is to be attained. Consequently, we have not only the joy of harbouring hundreds of these poor wanderers and striving to lead them to Christ and to a new life, but from the police, from parents, from friends and even from enemies, we have received inquiries as to those who were missing and whom we have already been privileged in a great many cases to restore to now happy homes.226

In reporting Rebecca Jarrett’s death in 1928, the War Cry noted the following: 231

Her passing created great interest. The newspapers of the Metropolis, where these epic scenes had been enacted, told of her promotion to Glory, described the joyful scenes at the graveside, and, in retelling the stories of the days of the Maiden Tribute, showed how God is using our Army to effect His glorious purposes in the world.

There is one final question to be asked of any historical narrative: Whatever happened to its participants? For a brief period in 1885, less than six months in total, the paths of a number of people curiously intersected in London. Where did they go from there?

CHAPTER 20

AND THE MIDWIFE DIED

O WHAT BECAME OF the participants? Eliza already told us of Mr. Stead’s death on the Titanic. Prior to that fateful voyage, by 1890 Stead had given up daily journalism in order to produce a monthly journal entitled Review of Reviews. In that publication, he continued crusading to end child prostitution, to reform England’s criminal code, and to maintain world peace. Stead became interested in spiritualism, and from 1893 to 1897 he ran the journal Borderland, which reported on ghosts, psychical experiments, and messages from the dead. In 1904, Stead attempted to start a newspaper, The Daily Paper, but it failed, nearly driving Stead to bankruptcy. Mulpetre notes after the “Maiden Tribute,” Stead’s “journalistic reputation never fully recovered and his growing fascination with spiritualism exposed him to the ridicule of many of his peers.”227 Between his spiritualist leanings and his continuing pacifist pronouncements, he had ceased to have much influence in mainstream British culture prior to his death. Roy Hattersley, an award-winning journalist and former Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, described Stead’s preoccupation:

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He had become a spiritualist and, after the death of his son, was convinced that Julia A. Ames—an American journalist who had met him in London shortly before her death—was sending him messages in which she “described what life was like for Willie on the other side.” She also warned him of impending disaster. In 1912 Stead was invited to join the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Shortly before he left he told a friend: “I shall die a violent death.” Asked how he knew, he replied: “I cannot tell. But I have had a vision and I know it to be true.” The disaster in which he died had been foreshadowed in an article which he had written for the Pall Mall Gazette 20 years before. It concluded: “This is exactly what might take place and will take place if liners are set free short of lifeboats.” When the Titanic (only 1,178 boat spaces for 2,224 passengers) hit the iceberg, he made no attempt to save his own life.228

Stead himself reflected on the results of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon”:

It is not often that a man can look back upon his conviction and sentence as a criminal convict with pride and exultation. Such however is my case. . . . I was sent to gaol on November 10th, 1885, and every tenth of November since then has been as a Red- Letter Day in my life, and will be so until I die. 229

On the auspicious anniversary day each year, Stead 237 would don his prison uniform, proudly wearing it from his Wimbledon home to his office. Since he wasn’t required to wear this uniform daily once he got to Holloway Gaol, perhaps his annual donning of this garb was symbolic rather than actually reminiscent of his time in prison. The Daily Mirror wrote the following upon confirmation of his death:

There seems no more room for hope that the greatest Englishman on board the Titanic has survived the catastrophe. Death’s cold, ironic hand fell upon William Thomas Stead, one of the grandest journalists of his time and prevented him from recounting the [most] awful catastrophe that any journalist has ever witnessed. If he be indeed among the dead, not England alone, but the world, will mourn the loss of one of its great men. For Mr. Stead was a world-politician, a friend of freedom, an enemy of oppression in any form throughout the globe. The greatest tragedy of Mr. W. T. Stead’s life was that, being present at the most disastrous shipwreck in the world’s history, he was unable to send off a full and vivid description of what really happened. He had more than an eloquent pen, he had the seeing eye—a rarer gift. He was the greatest truth- seer and the greatest and most fearless truth-speaker. Nothing would have been kept back of the last terrible hours of the Titanic. We should have had the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His story would have covered everything that there was to be seen. 238

We should have had a story, every detail of which could be relied upon. His sense of what was news and his method of getting at the facts were remarkable.230

The Daily Mirror provides an interesting detail as to his purpose in sailing that sheds a distinctive light on Stead’s decision to travel to the United States:

“For some time past,” writes Mr. Stead, “it has been noted in the United States that the Churches are falling more and more into the hands of women. . . . To arrest this tendency and to restore the requisite masculine element to popular religion in the States a syndicate was formed for the purpose of uniting Evangelical Churches in America, and of combining effort to bring men and boys into the Church. The committee has been kind enough to ask me to address a meeting, held under their auspices, on the ‘World’s Peace’ in Carnegie Hall, New York, on April 21, at which President Taft and others will be among the speakers. I expect to leave by the Titanic on April 10, and hope I shall be back in London in May.”231

Was Stead’s view on the feminization of the church influenced by his interaction with The Salvation Army? That is unclear, but in the years after the “Maiden Tribute,” William and Catherine Booth watched as their precious mission expanded beyond their wildest dreams under the leadership of both men and women. However, in January 239

1886 it was announced that Catherine was gravely ill, and she died as a result of breast cancer on October 4, 1890. Thousands passed by her glass-lidded coffin at Congress Hall, Clapton. The bereft General kept at the war against sin, but a large part of his heart died with Catherine. He continued to lead The Salvation Army until his death in 1912, and even blindness in the last few years of his life did not keep him from continuing to preach the gospel whenever and wherever he could. His book, In Darkest England and the Way Out, purportedly influenced and perhaps edited by W. T. Stead, was published in 1890. In it, Booth confirmed his belief in the transforming power of the Holy Ghost:

I have no intention to depart in the smallest degree from the main principles on which I have acted in the past. My only hope for the permanent deliverance of mankind from misery, either in this world or the next, is the regeneration or remaking of the individual by the power of the Holy Ghost through Jesus Christ. But in providing for the relief of temporal misery I reckon that I am only making it easy where it is now difficult, and possible where it is now all but impossible, for men and women to find their way to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.232

Following the dramatic events of the “Maiden Tribute,” young Bramwell Booth and his wife Florence added more children to their family, and the girls—Catherine, Mary, Miriam, Dora and Olive—all followed in their parents’ footsteps into Salvation Army officership, as did their 240 sons. Bernard joined the family in 1889, and a last child, Wycliffe, was born in 1895, after which Florence was quite ill. Even with all her Salvation Army leadership responsibilities, particularly in regards to the work of the women’s social, Florence still managed to hold a series of weekly holiness meetings, as well as to teach her children at home. She noted, “in later years, the claims at home became more urgent, and, to my regret, I found it impossible to give the children adequate attention in the classroom.”233 However, the older girls were able to go to a nearby school, and she was able to get assistance in the form of visiting teachers for the four younger children. It was a great loss to Bramwell and Florence when Miriam fell ill at the training home and was an invalid for seven years prior to her death in 1917. Florence’s brother and two sisters also joined the ranks of The Salvation Army, and Florence rejoiced in the word that her father had come to faith prior to his death. Florence was also responsible for the development of The Salvation Army women’s Home League, a name that did not especially please her. In the meantime, Bramwell continued to provide support for his father, who remained active in the fight up until his death. When his father died, a document was opened revealing the successor to the General. Bramwell’s name was enclosed, and Florence made note of his reaction: “Beloved so pleased to learn that the decision was made in his mother’s lifetime, and on this very date, August 21,” the day after the elder Booth’s death.234 Bramwell gave leadership as General until 1929, when 241 he was removed from office due to ill health, an event that rocked the Army world and grievously wounded Bramwell and Florence. Bramwell died on June 16, 1929, while Florence lived another twenty-eight years, being Promoted to Glory on June 10, 1957. Catherine Bramwell- Booth, their eldest daughter, who served as a Salvation Army commissioner, was nominated three times for the position of General, but was not elected, perhaps because of a concern over continued nepotism. She never married, and she died in 1987 at the age of 104. In his memoir, Bramwell reflected on the “Maiden Tribute”: “As to the case, I have no regrets as to what I did. The mistakes and accidents all through have only been such as are only attached to all human enterprises. I regret them, but I could not prevent them, glad as I would have been to do so.”235 Doctor Heywood Smith, who confirmed Eliza’s virginity following Stead’s visit to her room, had been a friend to The Salvation Army for quite some time. In 1885, he was a well respected physician at the Lying-in Hospital, but he lost his position there due to his participation in Stead’s scheme and suffered some abuse. However, he was able to successfully continue in his medical practice, and later served as the president of the British Gynaecological Society. He died in Chichester in 1928. What of Jenny Turner, the young Salvation Army woman who went undercover in the brothel in Wanstead? As far as can be ascertained by the research of the author, her true identity remains a mystery, as most of the sources mentioning her role in this grand adventure simply indicate a young woman or a young Salvationist. There 242 is not even consistent evidence that she was an officer. There does not appear to be a record of her given name, nor of her marriage and subsequent life with her fiancé, Captain Frank Carpenter. It is hoped someone may know of her name, for her courage is remarkable, even if her actions appear overly risky. Yet in her anonymity, she joins many unnamed women who share in the proclamation of the gospel and in sacrificial service in hopes of changing social behavior. Might Jenny’s experience have resulted in what journalist David Wood describes as a moral injury of war, the kind of injury that goes unnoticed in the midst of the horrific challenges of war? Wood suggests this injury doesn’t mean the soldier has done something wrong, “only that they have seen or experienced things which violate their own sense of who they are, their own sense of right and wrong, their own sense of moral compass.”236 While she was, at least according to some sources, a willing participant in the salvation war, might this bizarre experience resulted in a bruise on her soul as Wood suggests? There was also the figure of Major Caroline Reynolds, who is mentioned in some of the accounts as Major X. Could she have been the young woman who was present during the procurement of Eliza? If not, who was that young woman, for there is no indication in the trial transcripts that the police had determined the woman’s identity. However, Carolyn Reynolds is given credit for providing much help to the Secret Commission. “Captain Mrs. Caroline Reynolds” is noted in Salvation Army history as the recipient of the first Salvation Army flag, presented to her by Catherine Booth at the corps 243 at Coventry. Colonel Sallie Chesham suggests Carrie (presumably Caroline) Reynolds opened the work of the Christian Mission in Coventry on Valentine’s Day, being one of the first women to command a station. Her husband accompanied her, but his chronic illness kept him from being actively involved in the salvation war.237 Another source indicates she commenced the work of the Salvation Army in Belfast in 1880, while Canadian historian Andrew Eason notes that as a widow, she was the first female officer to assume command of a division, serving in Northern Ireland.238 As for Mrs. Jarrett, by her own account the Salvation Army rescued her from a life of sin when she was near death, and her regeneration was witnessed and celebrated. Expecting Rebecca Jarrett to re-enter the immoral world she had only so recently escaped did seem to place her at risk, if not physically, at least in terms of exposing her to the temptations of the world of depravity. It is possible after her initial resistance, she was encouraged to give all for the sake of the cause, for the sake of Christ, a dangerous precedent to set among the converts of Booth’s army but not an unusual one. Catherine herself was close to Jarrett so perhaps she helped to persuade her, an action, from a contemporary perspective, seems to be undue manipulation of a damaged woman, but likely would be seen at that time as an expected sacrificial service for Jesus. While Rebecca was in prison, the Salvation Army women kept in touch with her, visiting her once a month (as allowed) and writing to her often. After Rebecca’s release from prison, the Salvation Army women continued to care 244 for her. She was taken at first to a home Mrs. Josephine Butler opened, as it was felt there might be less possibility of being discovered in that location. According to the War Cry report upon her death in 1928, Mrs. Jarrett “felt her imprisonment keenly,” and “again and again she almost yielded to despair.” But Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Florence Booth did not abandon her, spending hours with her in her struggles against discouragement. “Their prayers, their love, and faith prevailed, and by the blessing of God she conquered.” After her stint in prison, there was some thought that a change of scenery might do her good. So Jarrett was sent to the United States (or perhaps Canada) for a time, where she was to work for the Army, but she reportedly did not manage well during the transition to a new country and she returned to London in March of 1887. She was placed under Florence Booth’s care, and she lived at 259 Mare Street, Hackney until she died. Her funeral was in Abney Park Cemetery and was conducted by Commissioner Lamb and Commissioner Catherine Bramwell-Booth. According to a Booth family anecdote, upon their first meeting, Florence went to make Rebecca a cup of tea. As she left the room, she entrusted the small Catherine to Jarrett’s care, and that early connection with Catherine Bramwell- Booth remained close until Rebecca’s death. Of all the consequences of the “Maiden Tribute,” perhaps the most challenging to accept is found in one small phrase hidden among the written narratives. “And the midwife died.” While a cursory reading of the story simply notes her presence as the one who confirmed Eliza’s virginity at the time she was purchased, it would 245 appear that as a midwife, Louise Rose Mourez was not purely the neighborhood obstetrical aide. Instead, she provided a variety of reproductive services to her patients, including childbirth, treatment of disease, and abortion. She may also have been a brothel-keeper, but that was never proven. It seems just as likely she simply had a room in her lodging where she examined her patients. The British Library’s website includes an “Untold Lives” blog, authored by various library staff members. In her post, “Whatever Happened to Eliza Armstrong?” historian Margaret Makepeace provides a side note to Eliza’s story. Shortly before the knock on her door that led to her involvement in Stead’s scheme, Louise Mourez delivered a baby girl on May 1, 1885, who was named May Louise Smith, the middle name chosen to honor the kindness and skill of the midwife. May Louise Smith was the grandmother of researcher Margaret Makepeace.239 Was her prison sentence so harshly administered due to the circumstances of her life that fell outside the boundaries of the specific charge against her? Is this perhaps a case where the punishment fit the supposed criminal rather than the crime? Was her death to be understood simply as a result of old age, accepted as the necessary collateral damage in a larger battle, or as justified payment for her sinful lifestyle? Or might Stead and Booth actually bear some responsibility for her death in prison? Who stood at Louise Mourez’s graveside?

CHAPTER 21

AND WHAT OF ELIZA?

NE LAST QUESTION REMAINS: What happened to Eliza? Of all the actors in this fascinating drama, why is she not more prominently remembered in Salvation Army history? Was this a child the Booths wanted to distance themselves from due to the notoriety her experience brought to them? Did The Salvation Army continue to have contact with Eliza after she rejoined to her family? Or did her parents keep her out of the public view and potentially the grasp of the Booths after she was returned to them? Did her experience scar the young girl, or did it ultimately rescue her from the slums of London? Here’s what is known. Eliza rejoined her parents on August 24, 1885, nearly three months after she was first taken into The Salvation Army’s custody. Lloyd’s Weekly reported the following on August 30th:

On Monday night, thousands of persons congregated in the street at Marylebone where Eliza Armstrong’s parents reside, owing to the information getting about that the girl had been brought home. The door of the house was literally besieged by anxious

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inquirers, but there was a strong force of police, and all information, by order of the authorities, was positively refused. It appears, however, that on Sunday two gentlemen called upon the mother at her house, who came as friends and mediators between the mother and those who had possession of the girl. They informed her that the girl could be at a certain address on Monday, at which the mother could go and see her, but on the solemn assurance that she would not attempt to take her away. The mother professed to consent to the arrangement, according to the version given by the friends, and then communicated with the detectives at Scotland- yard. An arrangement was made that the mother should keep the appointment, and when the gentlemen called for her she should go with them. They came on Monday morning and she went with them. A body of detectives followed in a cab behind, and then the mother was taken to the home in Wimbledon where her daughter was taken and the detectives very quickly put in an appearance and claimed the mother’s right to the girl. It is stated that the persons at the house were greatly surprised, and gave the girl up with the best grace they could. She was neatly dressed, and when she arrived in the street with her mother and the detectives, she was carrying a small bouquet of flowers.

Gavin Weightman was able to track Eliza to the Princess Louise Home for the Protection of Young Girls 251 in Wanstead, where she resided in 1888. The home itself was at an old country place called Woodhouse, named as such because of a visit from the Princess Louise. It was a fee-paying institution and apparently the money to keep Eliza came from donations from people who contacted Mr. Poland, the prosecuting counsel, with the offer to help the Armstrong family. Charles Dickens, Jr. described the Home’s purpose as to,

[S]ave young girls (not thieves) between the ages of eleven and fifteen, whether orphans or otherwise, who are, from any circumstance, in danger of becoming abandoned; to educate, train, feed, clothe, and prepare them for future usefulness as domestic servants; to protect them during the most critical period of life, to land them safe into womanhood, to procure situations for them, to provide them with an outfit, and generally to watch over them, to advise, counsel, and reward them, and in every possible way to become their guardians.240

The newspapers also reported Eliza was offered a handsome fee to appear in Music Hall, but her parents turned it down.241 Another Booth biographer, Roy Hattersley, suggested,

[T]he Armstrongs were elevated to the status of innocent victims. Eliza was sent (by public subscription) to a home which would prepare her for domestic service. Her parents were bought a house and furniture. Charles Armstrong was set 252

up in business by the presentation of “two sets of sweeping machines capable of reaching the tops of the highest chimneys built.”242

In his memoir, Bramwell concluded his chapters on the “Maiden Tribute” with the notation that since then, The Salvation Army had assisted Eliza “more or less.”243 It’s unclear what specific assistance was given to Eliza, but The Salvation Army did open a crèche (day nursery) in Marylebone in 1887, and according to Sandall, the very first child to participate in its twelve-hour care was Eliza Armstrong’s little sister. Apparently, Mrs. Armstrong placed her in the early daycare center and paid threepence per day for her care. It was also reported the Armstrong home later became a slum officers’ quarters (housing). The name of the street where Eliza lived was changed from Charles Street to Ranston Street due to its notoriety, as no one wanted to live in such a dishonorable location after its name had been sullied. Grace Eckley reported Charles Armstrong did initiate an action against the Salvation Army for additional funds but let it expire. At some point in time, Stead indicated Eliza wrote a letter to him, telling him she had a good husband, and was the proud and happy mother of six children. She supposedly wrote again requesting assistance when her husband died.244 There is no record of any further contact between Stead and Eliza. Writing on a blog entitled Untold Lives, Margaret Makepeace of the British Library provides the following census records, suggesting Eliza, if indeed the same girl, was able to make a new life away from her family. 253

In 1891, Eliza Armstrong, aged nineteen and born in London, was a nursemaid in the household of architect Charles Clement Hodges in Hexham Northumberland. Hodges was particularly interested in church architecture, and he sculpted the Northumbrian cross featured at Bede Memorial in Cliff Park, Sunderland North. In 1893, Eliza Armstrong married Henry George West, a plumber and gas fitter born in Islington, London. Eliza and Henry settled in South Shields and the 1901 census shows three children: Alice Maud Mary age five, William Frederick, age three, and Sybil Primrose, age nine months. Henry George West died in 1906 at the age of forty- two. By 1911 Eliza became the wife of Samuel O’Donnell, a lead worker from Donegal. They lived in Jarrow with three children from Eliza’s first marriage: May, age fifteen (probably a nickname for Alice Maud Mary), Henry, age six, and Reginald, age four; their own children—Maurice, two, and baby Frederick; and two lodgers. A ten-year-old, Sybil West, was a pupil at the National Children’s Home in Alverstoke Hampshire. Perhaps it was about this time that Eliza wrote to Mr. Stead. United Kingdom birth registers suggest Eliza and Samuel had three more children: David (born 1911), Minnie (born 1913), and Norman (born 1915). For the last two births, the mother’s maiden name is included in the index entries and it is indeed Armstrong. Eliza was widowed for a second time when Samuel died in 1917 at the age of forty-eight. The death of Eliza O’Donnell at the age of sixty-six is recorded in County Durham in 1938. Was this the Eliza of “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon”? A definitive answer may never be possible. 254

Perhaps it was in the anonymity of Eliza’s later life that she found healing from the events of 1885. And perhaps there came a day when she took her own daughter upon her lap and said, “Let me tell you a story about Derby Day, 1885.”

CHAPTER 22

SO WHAT?

OVELIST TONI MORRISSON told Time magazine: “I’m interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.”245 Eliza’s story does give us a glimpse of life today, and, if we approach history thoughtfully, we can learn a great deal about ourselves as well, which brings us to the question, “So what?” It’s been one hundred and thirty years since “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” rolled off the presses in London. Yes, it’s a fascinating story, but what does it have to do with twenty-first century life? What do Eliza and Louise, Florence, Jenny and Rebecca say to us today? Let’s start with Florence Soper Booth, and, by family connection, Catherine, Bramwell and William Booth. Their messages to us ring clear, one hundred and fifty years after the first days of the Christian Mission/Salvation Army. Remember your calling to the poor, to the lost. Use the power of community, of church, of mission. Lift up your voice. Push the limits of propriety, and go beyond them if necessary. Write to the Queen. Gather the people. Do not be afraid to get involved. Disturb the present to better the future.

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It’s likely Jenny Turner would simply say: step out in faith and do what you can. She might point us to the words of writer Heather Caliri:

When Jesus calls us to be His witnesses to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, He is asking us for more than some quick words and a three-point testimony. He’s asking us to stick our necks out. . . . Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is a blessing, even if it makes you realize how very hungry and thirsty you are. But once you start witnessing injustice, you cannot stop. Once you see the faces of people telling unvarnished stories, once you start feeling real anger and rage about ugliness in this world, you cannot go back to being a bystander.246

Jenny Turner helps us reflect on our lives by asking, “What is the most courageous thing you have done in your ministry?” From Jenny’s example, we are reminded that while vivid depictions of societal problems are vital in advocacy, it’s the verbs that create the change desired: to learn, to raise awareness, to pray, to keep vigil, to organize, to train, to care for struggling women, to connect, to report, to speak out, to befriend, to advocate, to walk, to petition, to remember the midwife—and, when the time is right, to jump! Rebecca Jarrett shows us not all of us are called to follow in Jenny Turner’s courageous (and naïve) footsteps of active involvement in societal change. As Rebecca reflected on the events of the “Maiden Tribute,” it is probable she realized she wasn’t cut out for a public role 259 in the salvation of the world; a claim she made to the Booths and Mr. Stead from the beginning. She was a simple woman, a broken woman, and as such, she really wasn’t prepared to re-enter the underworld of London. She was not well-suited for intrigue or public advocacy. Yet what Rebecca’s life shows us in the years after the “Maiden Tribute” is it is possible to live for Jesus daily, without fanfare or spotlight, caring for the needs of others in a faithful, quiet way. As a follower of Jesus, Rebecca came to understand, as did Jenny Turner, we do what we can. For those of us who find ourselves in a similar position to Rebecca, we can still be involved in making a difference. Perhaps you could recruit the quilters in your community to work together on an anti-trafficking prayer quilt. Each square can feature an image or a written prayer. Arrange to have the completed quilt put on permanent display, or give it to a domestic violence shelter. Another response could be a personal one, with a commitment to pray for change. As Eddie Byun suggests in Justice Awakening, you can join The Red Light Initiative, in which each time you are waiting at a red light while in traffic, “you pray for the removal of the red-light districts in your city, community and country. Pray for the victims of sex trafficking to be set free and healed.”247 A word from Louise is perhaps more difficult to discern. Of the five women, her story on these pages is the most imagined, as there is little factual information about her. Perhaps the best counsel from her is the realization of the price to be paid for our actions. While motives and actions are seldom black and white, totally good or evil, what we do has an impact on others and on ourselves. We 260 do need to be careful in what we say and what we do, for the ripples spread far beyond our own lives. As for Eliza, she best speaks to the role of resilience and strength in every child of God. It is tempting to see the poor, the refugee, the battered woman, the trafficked child, as the victim to be saved, the poor lost soul to be rescued. The natural next step is to see them as less than, other, one to be pitied, apart from who we are. Yet we are so much more alike than we are different, and we see that in Eliza’s story—her abhorrence of the proposed Piccadilly fringe, her delight in her new clothing and bonnet, her trust in Mrs. Jarrett, her longing for her mother, her willingness to make the best of a difficult situation, her fear in the unknown, and her resilience as she testified at the Old Bailey. Just as we have much to receive from the Florence Booths and Jenny Turners in our lives, so too can we receive from the Rebecca Jarretts, the Louise Mourezs, and the Eliza Armstrongs. The prophet Jeremiah lamented, Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city (Lamentations 3:48, 51). There are times when we are called to sit and weep with the prophet, and yet there are times when we, like Jesus, are called to dry our eyes to preach the gospel to the poor, . . . heal the brokenhearted . . . preach deliverance to the captives and . . . set at liberty them that are bruised (Luke 4:18).

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. —Fanny Crosby APPENDIX

263

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS PRAYER STATIONS (adapted from www.sendthefire.ca)

Human trafficking continues to be a scourge on the world today. As we pray about human trafficking, it may be helpful to use the prayer station model, which provides specific direction to our prayers, as well as interaction with our senses as we pray. The following prayer station guide is provided as a tool to raise awareness and to encourage action in combating human trafficking.

PRAYER STATION 1: MEMORIAL FOR CAPTIVES OF THE SEX INDUSTRY

Display: Pictures, stories, candles, matches or lighters.

Scripture: Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6-7 NIV)

Prayer Guide: You are at a memorial to women and children who are captives of the sex industry. These candles represent the countless lives of those currently caught up in or trafficked into the sex industry. Take some time to be still before the Lord and offer yourself as a vessel of prayer on behalf of those who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Read their stories. If you wish, light a candle 264 as a memorial to those enslaved, and as a symbol of your offering of a prayer unto the Lord on their behalf. Pray for their protection and ultimate deliverance.

PRAYER STATION 2: THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT

Display: Red light (emergency light), picture, coins, dollars. Maps on the floor or table (change prayer guide wording if necessary).

Scripture: “Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.” (Leviticus 19:29 NIV)

Prayer Guide: On the floor [table] you will see area maps of a few of the world’s largest red-light districts. Kneel down next to one of the maps and use the prayer guide to cry out to God on behalf of all those used and abused in the commercial sex industry.

• Pray the demonic strongholds and resulting bondage over these areas of the world would be broken in Jesus’ name. Pray for physical health and spiritual freedom for all those who are working (by choice or by force) in red-light districts. • Pray for the customers who frequent these red- light districts, that they would be released from their enslavement to sex and will find new hope and purpose in Jesus Christ. • Ask God to unify, strengthen, and empower believers 265

serving him as missionaries/native missionaries in these areas of the world. • Pray that God would send more messengers of love and compassion into the red-light districts. • Ask God to highlight a specific area of the world to your heart, so you can continue to hold the women, men and children in that place before him in prayer.

PRAYER STATION 3: DEMAND

Display: Chains, handcuffs, locks, high heels, boas, photos.

Scripture: “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” (Ezekiel 18:30-31 NKJV)

Prayer Guide: Trafficking in persons is a demand-driven phenomenon. If consumers stopped buying sex today, sex trafficking would not exist tomorrow. Prostitution, pornography, strip clubs, adult entertainment, massage parlors, and other forms of commercial sex are all sustained by the exploitation of persons being used and abused for the sexual gratification of consumers.

• Pray that God would convict those who are purchasing commercial sex to repent from their behaviors and turn to God for strength to live lives of sexual integrity and honor. 266

• Pray that those who purchase commercial sex in any form would be convicted of their sin and would turn to God in repentance. • Pray in Jesus’ name that the messages being sent through media and culture encouraging sexually exploitative behavior would not take root in people’s hearts, but would fall to the ground void.

PRAYER STATION 4: HEALING FOR SURVIVORS

Display: Candles, white t-shirt with hand mirror on it, bloodied white t-shirt with cracked hand mirror on it.

Scripture: “I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,” declares the Lord, “because you are called an outcast . . . for whom no one cares.” (Jeremiah 30:17 NIV)

Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desire with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-15 NIV)

Prayer Guide: Sexual exploitation has devastating effects on a person’s physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. The abuse done to those prostituted is inconceivable evil, and it can ravage them. Even after they are rescued from prostitution/trafficking, they carry a well 267 of excruciating experience that can severely impair their ability to lead fulfilling lives. The good news is that there is hope. There is an indestructible value in every person. No matter how devalued a person has been, God’s value of a person never diminishes. God values people so much that he sent his Son Jesus to offer his life as a sacrifice on the cross for them. Through this precious sacrifice, healing and new life are available to all who believe.

• Pray survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation will receive new life through the love of Jesus Christ. • Pray for a supernatural restoration of all that was lost during their time of abuse. • Pray for healing for victims of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation: inner healing, emotional healing, physical healing, psychological healing, and spiritual healing. • Pray that God would call more people to minister his healing to survivors.

PRAYER STATION 5: A UNITED RESPONSE

Display: Globe, pictures, pamphlets, website printouts.

Scripture: There should be no division in the body. . . Its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corinthians 12:25-26 NIV) 268

Prayer Guide: There is a growing response to the trafficking of persons in the world today, but we need to pray the response to this terrible injustice will increasingly formulate with a united front. In order to eradicate the activity of the traffickers and exploiters, we need to respond to their actions with the same and even greater degree of organization, determination, and unity.

• Ask God to protect all those working to combat commercial sexual exploitation. • Pray that God would unify the various groups who are working against trafficking. • Ask God to weed out any current divisions between people/groups and to protect the people working in this field from future divisions. • Pray that God would raise up peacemakers in this fight to serve as ambassadors to other faith groups. • Ask God to raise up public officials with integrity, strength, and a passion for ending commercial sexual exploitation. • Ask God to make you a vessel of truth, peace, and strength.

PRAYER STATION 6: JUSTICE

Display: A scale or photo of Lady Justice, a police badge or hat, photos of courtrooms, prisons.

Scripture: Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your 269 righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. (Psalm 37:5-6 NKJV)

Prayer Guide: Our God is the Ancient of Days who will someday return to this earth and right every wrong. He will not forget the terrible offenses that have been, and are being committed against those who are exploited and abused. He sees the corruption and the injustice allowing this horrific crime to flourish, and he wants to take vengeance. We are called to be the mediators of God’s justice on the earth. In the light of these truths, pray for justice on behalf of those who are sexually exploited.

• Pray that the corruption contributing to trafficking will end. • Pray for law enforcement officers of integrity. Pray for the preservation and implementation of the • rule of law in all countries throughout the world. Pray that justice would be done on behalf of those oppressed through commercial sexual exploitation. • Pray through Psalm 37.

PRAYER STATION 7: PERSONAL REFLECTION

Display: A cross, pens, paper.

Scripture: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10 NIV)

Prayer Guide: Spend time reflecting on God’s greatness 270

and goodness. What has he been saying to you as you’ve prayed through these stations? Is he calling you to action or to prayer? Will you partner with him to bring justice, peace, and hope? Using the journal pages provided, write your thoughts, feelings, and commitments down, and then place them at the foot of the cross.

Rise and walk in faith in the path to which God has called you!

271

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NOTES

1 Gretchen Soderlund, Sex Trafficking, Scandal and The Transformation of Journalism, 1885-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), p. 58. 2 Bramwell Booth, Funeral sermon. (The Salvation Army International Heritage Center, 1912). http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/history/ william-booth (Accessed January 12, 2015). 3 Janet Humphries, “Because They Are too Menny: Children, Mothers and Fertility Decline.” In Gendering the Fertility Decline in the Western World, edited by Angelique Janssens. (Bern, Switzerland: European Academic Press, 2007), p. 144. 4 Frederic Whyte, The Life of W. T. Stead (New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925), p. 160. 5 Frederick L. Coutts, Bread for My Neighbors: An Appreciation of the Social Action and Influence of William Booth(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978), p. 47. 6 Greta Wendelin, “The Rhetoric of Pornography. Private Style and Public Policy, in ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.’” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 2012, p. 383. 7 Alison Plowden, The Case of Eliza Armstrong: A Child of Thirteen Bought for £5 (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1974), p. 420. 8 B. Booth, Echoes and Memories (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1925), p.123. 9 Estelle Stead, My Father: Personal and Spiritual Reminiscences (London: William Heinemann, 1923), p. 125. The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://attackingthedevil.co.uk (accessed December 10, 2014). 10 E. Stead, p. 125. 11 E. Stead, p. 125. 12 Andrew Means, “The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor.” The Pall Mall Gazette, 1883. The W.T. Stead Resource Site.http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk. (Accessed December 13, 2014). 13 David Malcolm Bennett, The General: William Booth. Volume 2, The Soldier (Xulon Press, 2003), pp. 216-17. 14 B. Booth, p.151. 278

15 E. Stead, p. 122. 16 Robert Sandall, The History of The Salvation Army: 1878-1886. Vol. 2 (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1950), p. 28. 17 W. T. Stead, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon”, Pall Mall Ga- zette, July 4-10, 1885. The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://attackingthedevil.co.uk. (Accessed December 5, 2014). 18 E. Stead, p. 126. 19 Madge Unsworth, Maiden Tribute: A Study in Voluntary Social Ser- vice (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1949), p. 2. 20 Jenty Fairbank, For Such a Time: The Story of the Young Florence Booth (London: Salvation Books, 2007), p. 67. 21 B. Booth, p. 120. 22 B. Booth, p. 118. 23 B. Booth, p. 120. 24 Richard Collier, The General Next to God (New York: HarperCollins, 1965), p. 119. 25 B. Booth, p. 120. 26 B. Booth, p. 120. 27 Fanny Crosby, “Rescue the Perishing.” (1869) Public Domain. 28 Unsworth, p. 12. 29 Unsworth, p. 12. 30 Unsworth, p. 12. 31 Sandall, p. 31. 32 Sandall, p. 31. 33 Bennett, p. 220. 34 B. Booth, p. 134. 35 Frederick de Latour Booth-Tucker, The Short Life of Catherine Booth: The Mother of the Salvation Army, volume 1 (London: Butler and Tanner, 1892), p. 424. 36 Roger J. Green, “Catherine Booth, the Salvation Army, and the Purity Crusade of 1885”, Priscilla Papers Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer, 2008), p. 16. 37 Edward Begbie, The Life of William Booth, the Founder of the Salva- tion Army (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), p. 42. 38 Rebecca Jarrett, Rebecca Jarrett’s Narrative (Salvation Army Heritage Center, 1928), p.3, The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk. (Accessed January 4, 2015). 39 Josephine Butler, Rebecca Jarrett (London, 1885) p. 23, https://archive.org/stream/b21450973/b21450973_djvu.txt. (Accessed January 18, 2015). 279

40 Plowden, p. 92. 41 Plowden, p. 92. 42 Plowden, p. 92. 43 Old Bailey Transcripts. 1885. Old Bailey Online. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18851019103 1&div=t18851019-1031&terms=maiden (Accessed January 12, 2015). 44 Jarrett, Rebecca Jarrett’s Narrative. 45 W. T. Stead. 46 W. T. Stead. 47 Old Bailey Transcripts. 48 Pall Mall Gazette. W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/pmg/tribute/mt1.php. Accessed January 2, 2015. 49 Plowden, p. 56. 50 Pall Mall Gazette. 51 Bennett, p. 224. 52 Owen Mulpetre. The W.T. Stead Resource Site (2015). http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk. 53 Wendelin, p. 378. 54 W.T. Stead. 55 W.T. Stead. 56 W.T. Stead. 57 W.T. Stead. 58 W.T. Stead. 59 W.T. Stead. 60 W.T. Stead. 61 W.T. Stead. 62 W.T. Stead. 63 W.T. Stead. 64 W.T. Stead. 65 W.T. Stead. 66 W.T. Stead. 67 W.T. Stead. 68 W.T. Stead. 69 Roger J. Green, Catherine Booth: A Biography of the Cofounder of The Salvation Army (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), p. 255. 70 Sandall, p.33. 280

71 Sandall, p. 33. 72 B. Booth, p. 123. 73 Frank Mort, Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830. (Routledge, 2000), p. 93. 74 Green, p. 255. 75 Sandall, p. 33. 76 Green, p. 256. 77 Green, p. 257. 78 Green, p. 257. 79 Green, p. 258. 80 Booth-Tucker, p. 481. 81 Green, pp. 254, 257. 82 B. Booth, p. 334. 83 Bennett, pp. 228-229. 84 Bennett, p. 229. 85 Coutts, Bread for My Neighbors, pp. 54-55. 86 Green, p. 259. 87 E. Stead, p. 126. 88 War Cry. “Passing of Rebecca Jarrett.” (March 10, 1928). The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/related/ passing.php. (Accessed December 12, 2014). 89 St. James Gazette, October 17, 1885. 90 Gavin Weightman, “Paper Delivered at Stead 2012 Conference at the British Library”, April 17, 2002. http://gavin-weightman.co.uk/blog (Accessed January 2, 2015). 91 Bennett, p. 225. 92 Pall Mall Gazette. 93 Pall Mall Gazette. 94 Pall Mall Gazette. 95 Pall Mall Gazette. 96 Pall Mall Gazette. 97 Pall Mall Gazette. 98 Terrot, Charles, The Maiden Tribute: A Study of the While Slave Traffic of the NineteenthCentury. (London: Frederick Muller, 1959) 99 Pall Mall Gazette. 100 Pall Mall Gazette. 101Old Bailey Transcripts. 102 Pall Mall Gazette. 103 Begbie, p. 44. 281

104 Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper. August 30, 1885. The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http ://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/steadworks/ gov.php. (Accessed December 20, 2014). 105 Sandall, p. 41. 106 Plowden, p. 53. 107 Pall Mall Gazette. 108 Plowden, p. 18. 109 Plowden, p. 23. 110 Grace Eckley, The Maiden Tribute: A Life of W.T. Stead. (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2007), ch. 5. 111 Plowden, p. 27. 112 Plowden, p. 29. 113 Plowden, p. 30. 114 Plowden, p. 35. 115 Plowden, p. 49. 116 Plowden, p. 51. 117 Plowden, p. 51. 118 Unsworth, p. 32. 119 Sandall, p. 42. 120 Begbie, p. 47. 121 Begbie, p. 48. 122 George Scott Railton, The Authoritative Life of General William Booth: Founder of The Salvation Army. (New York: The Reliance Trading Company, 1912). 123 B. Booth, p. 130. 124 B. Booth, p. 115. 125 E. Stead, p. 130. 126 Booth, p. 123. 127 Plowden, p. 75. 128 Plowden, p.54. 139 Plowden, p. 67. 130 Plowden, p. 116. 131 Unsworth, p. 34. 132 Unsworth, p. 34. 133 Plowden, p. 136. 134 Pall Mall Gazette. 135 Old Bailey Transcripts. 136 Plowden, p. 119. 137 Plowden, p. 119. 282

138 Plowden, p. 123. 139 Sandall, p. 43. 140 Plowden, p. 132. 141 E. Stead, p. 133. 142 E. Stead, p. 133. 143 E. Stead, p. 134. 144 Plowden, p. 133. 145 Plowden, p. 135. 146 Plowden, p. 135. 147 Plowden, p. 135. 148 E. Stead, pp. 129-130. 149 Fairbank, p. 1. 150 Catherine Bramwell-Booth, Bramwell Booth. (London: Rich and Cowan, 1933), p. 149. 151 Begbie, p. 49. 152 Fairbank, p. 28. 153 Fairbank, p. 67. 154 Fairbank, p. 67. 155 Fairbank, p. 68. 156 Fairbank, p. 68. 157 Fairbank, p. 70. 158 Fairbank, p. 80. 159 Fairbank, p.80. 160 Plowden, p. 92. 161 Fairbank, p. 86. 162 Fairbank, p. 87. 163 Fairbank, p. 87. 164 B. Booth, p. 179. 165 Fairbank, p. 97. 166 Fairbank, pp. 97-106. 167 Fairbank, p. 106. 158 Fairbank, p. 110. 169 Fairbank, p. 111. 170 Fairbank, p. 116. 171 Fairbank, p. 116. 172 C. B-Booth, p. 184. 173 Fairbank, p. 119. 174 Fairbank, p. 118. 175 Plowden, p. 80. 283

176 B. Booth, p. 116. 177 Plowden, p. 137. 178 Plowden, p. 137. 179 Plowden, p. 135. 180 Plowden, p. 135. 181 Plowden, pp. 134-135. 182 E. Stead, p. 137. 183 E. Stead, p. 138. 184 E. Stead, p. 139. 185 E. Stead, p. 147. 186 B. Booth, p. 127. 187 Sandall, p. 44. 188 Begbie, p. 50. 189 War Cry, March 10, 1928. “Passing of Rebecca Jarrett.” The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/related/ passing.php. (Accessed December 12, 2014). 190 Butler, p. 6. 191 Butler, p. 9. 192 Butler, p. 11. 193 Butler, p. 12. 194 Butler, p. 15. 195 Butler, p. 13. 196 Butler, p. 49. 197 Butler, p. 52. 198 Benjamin Waugh, W. T. Stead: A Life for the People, Ch. III. The W. T. Stead Resource Site. http://attackingthedevil.co.uk/worksabout/ waughbook.php (Accessed December 15, 2014). 199 Waugh. 200 Waugh. 201 Waugh. 202 B. Booth, p. 120. 203 Plowden, p. 139. 204 Charles King, “Book Review: The Maiden Tribute: A Life of W. T. Stead 2008”. The Salvation Army International Headquarters. http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/9C3A9AD8EBA039EC80 25753000121B9C. Accessed February 5, 2015). 205 Booth-Tucker, pp. 489-490. 206 Booth-Tucker, p. 502.

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207 Paul Bollwahn, The Salvation Army’s Role in Advocacy. (Alexandria, VA: The Salvation Army National Headquarters, 2004), pp. 13-14. 208 Bollwahn, pp. 8-9. 209 The Salvation Army United States National Website. http:// www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/combating-human-trafficking. (Accessed February 1, 2015) 210 The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission Website. http://www.salvationarmy.org/isjc 2015. (Accessed February 1, 2015) 211 Eckley, Ch. 5. 212 Plowden, p. 80. 213 Ann P. Robson, “The Significance of the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon”, Victoria Periodicals Newsletter 11 (1978), p. 52. 214 Robson, p. 51. 215 Robson, p. 51. 216 Deborah Gorham, “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon Re-Exam- ined: Child Prostitution and the Idea of Childhood in Late Victorian England.” Victorian Studies Vol. 21, No.3 (Spring 1978), p. 364. 217 Gorham, p. 364. 218 Gorham, p. 357. 219 Gorham, p. 364. 220 Gorham, p. 365. 221 W. Stead. 222 Robson, p. 56. 223 A. N. Wilson, The Victorians. (WW Norton and Co., 2003). 224 Ronan Thomas, “Pygmalion Centenary”, (2012), p. 475, http://www.coventgardenmemories.org.uk/page/pygmalion_ centenary (Accessed January 12, 2015), p. 2. 225 Thomas, p. 1. 226 Sandall, p. 39. 227 Owen Mulpetre, The W. T. Stead Resource Site. http://attackingthedevil.co.uk. (2015), p. 1. 228 Roy Hattersley, “Skill for Scandal”, The Guardian (1999), p. 1. http:// www.theguardian.com/books/1999/oct/16/books.guardianreview. (Accessed February 5, 2015). 229 E. Stead, p. 123. 230 Daily Mirror, April 18, 1912. The W.T. Stead Resource Site. http:// www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/titanic/mirror1.php. (Accessed Janu- ary 12, 2015). 285

231 Daily Mirror. 232 William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out. (London: The Salvation Army, 1890), iii. 233 Fairbank, p. 136. 234 Fairbank, p. 146. 235 B. Booth, p. 129. 236 David Wood, “Moral Injury is the Signature Wound of Today’s Veterans.” National Public Radio. (Accessed on January 21, 2015) http://www.npr.org/2014/11/11/363288341/moral-injury-is-the- signature-wound-of-today-s-veterans. (Accessed on January 21, 2015). 237 Sallie Chesham, Preaching Ladies: An Historical Restoration of the Founding of The Salvation Army in America. (New York: The Salvation Army, 1983), p. 5. 238 Andrew Mark Eason, Women in God’s Army: Gender and Equality in the Early Salvation Army. (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2003), p. 150. 239 Makepeace, Margaret. “Whatever Happened to Eliza Armstrong.” British Library Untold Lives Blog. http://britishlibrary.typepad. co.uk/untoldlives/2012/04/whatever-happened-to-eliza- armstrong.html. (Accessed January 7, 2015) 240 Charles Dickens, Jr. Dickens’s Dictionary of London. (London: All the Year Round Office, 1879). http://www.victorianlondon.org/ dickens/dickens-f.htm. (Accessed February 5, 2015). 241 Weightman, http://gavin-weightman.co.uk/blog. (Accessed January 2, 2015), p. 5. 242 Hattersley, p. 3. 243 B. Booth, p. 132. 244 Eckley, Ch. 5. 245 Paul Gray, “Books: Paradise Found.” Time, January 19, 1998. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987690,00. html. 246 Heather Caliri, “Rejecting Silence in the Face of Injustice.” Relevant Magazine, April 24, 2015. www.relevantmagazine.com/ reject-apathy/rejecting-silence-face-injustice#m3YSDWcp2HW 2xwgh.99. 247 Eddie Byun, Justice Awakening: How You and Your Church Can End Human Trafficking. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2014), p. 115. 286 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JoAnn Streeter Shade has walked alongside many women in a variety of settings for nearly forty years, and enjoys writing about women from a historical perspective, as she did in Eliza Duncan: An Imagined Memoir; The Other Woman: Exploring the Story of Hagar; and WomenVoices: Speaking from the Gospels with Power. She has known of the story of Eliza Armstrong for many years, and is glad to have finally given voice to Eliza, Rebecca, Louise, Jenny and Florence. She has ministered in Salvation Army congregations and social service programs in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and has served at North Coast Family Foundation, a Christian counseling center in Northeast Ohio. She is also a weekly columnist for the Ashland Times-Gazette. She is married to Larry, is the mother of three adult sons, Greg, Drew and Dan, and Lauren, a beloved daughter- in-law, and is Nana to the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful Elizabeth Holiday. With a Master of Arts in pastoral counseling and a Doctor of Ministry in the Women in Prophetic Leadership track from Ashland Theological Seminary, she combines her academic training with a writer’s eye, a pastor’s heart, and a grandmother’s joy through Gracednotes Ministries. You may reach JoAnn via email at gracednotesministries@ gmail.com