One thing united the murdered: Jack the Ripper’s victims were all prostitutes. In Victorian London, prostitution was rampant. Some have speculated that the Ripper was motivated by hatred of prostitutes borne of disease, but whilst this cannot be proven, what can be said is the prostitute class, wandering the streets at unsociable hours, often intoxicated, presented an easily available pool of victims.
The Extent of Prostitution in Victorian London
The first problem for the Victorian moral reformer was gauging the extent of prostitution in London as even the police disagreed as to the scale of the problem:
[…] the city authorities and metropolitan police are totally distinct forces from each other ; and that they differ most strangely in their estimate of prostitution ; — the one stating there are 80,000 prostitutes, and the other under 7,000, in the whole metropolis.
Michael Ryan, Prostitution in London (1839)
The Causes of Prostitution
Most of the victims attributed to Jack the Ripper were middle-aged women who had led ill-starred lives, but still they made a choice that others did not. What made them turn to prostitution? Writing in the 1840s, George Reynolds classififed the various causes of prostitution under two heads – natural and accidental – but his analysis of the occupational class of fallen women also gave insight into the causes, as he saw them:
The causes which produce prostitution are as follows:
I. Natural causes:— 1. Licentiousness of inclination. 2. Irritability of temper. 3. Pride and love of dress. 4. Dishonesty, and desire of property. 5. Indolence.
II. Accidental causes:— 1. Seduction. 2. Inconsiderate and ill-sorted marriages. 3. Inadequate remuneration for female work. 4. Want of employment. 5. Intemperance. 6. Poverty. 7. Want of proper looking after their servants on the part of masters and mistresses. 8. Ignorance. 9. Bad example of parents. 10. Harsh and unkind treatment by parents and other relations. 11. Attendance on evening dancing schools, and dancing parties. 12. Theatre going. 13. The publication of improper works, and obscene prints. 14. The countenance and reward given to vice. 15. The small encouragement given to virtue.
The proportions amongst those females who have deviated from the path of virtue may be quoted as follows:—
1. One-fourth from being servants in taverns and public-houses, where they have been seduced by men frequenting these places of dissipation and temptation.
2. One-fourth from the intermixture of the sexes in factories, and those employed in workhouses, shops, &c.
3. One-fourth by procuresses, or females who visit country towns, markets, and places of worship, for the purpose of decoying good-looking girls of all classes.
4. One-fourth may be divided into four classes:— 1. Such as being indolent, or possessing bad tempers, leave their situations. 2. Those who are driven to that awful course by young men making false promises. 3. Children who have been urged by their mothers to become prostitutes for a livelihood. 4. Daughters of clergymen, half-pay officers, &c., who are left portionless orphans.
Prostitution and Crime
Blackmail was an additional income source for the morally corrupt of Victorian London. Writing in The Mysteries of London, the author George Reynolds describes one such rouse (note that the age of consent was then twelve years):
A favourite scheme of the old woman’s was this:—One of her juvenile emissaries succeeded, we will suppose, in alluring to the den in Golden Lane an elderly man whose outward respectability denoted a well-filled purse, and ought to have been associated with better morals. When the wickedness was consummated, and the elderly gentleman was about to depart, the old hag would meet him and the young girl on the stairs, and, affecting to treat the latter as a stranger who had merely used her house as a common place of such resort, would seem stupefied at the idea “of so youthful a creature having been brought to her abode for such a purpose.” She would then question the girl concerning her age; and the reply would be “under twelve” of course. Thus the elderly voluptuary would suddenly find himself liable to punishment for a misdemeanour, for intriguing with a girl beneath the age of twelve; and the virtuous indignation of the old hag would be vented in assertions that though she kept a house of accommodation for grown-up persons, she abhorred the encouragement of juvenile profligacy. The result would be that the hoary old sinner found himself compelled to pay a considerable sum as hush-money.