Here and there in London by James Ewing Ritchie

The worst effects of drunkenness are, perhaps, after all, its indirect ones. It is a sad sight to see man stricken down in his prime, and woman in her beauty; to see individuals' hopes and prospects blighted; to see in that carcase staggering by the utter wreck and ruin of an immortal soul. But this is but a small portion of the damage done to humanity by the ravages of intemperance. Look at our great social evil. I need not name it. No one who walks the streets of London by night requires to be informed what that is. Has drink nothing to do with it? Ask that unfortunate, who has just commenced her evening's walk. She will tell you that when she parted with her innocence she had previously been drugged with drink; that if it were not for drink she could not pursue her unhallowed career; that her victims are stimulated by drink; and that without the gin-palace or the public-house she and such as she could not exist. I do not now speak of the worst forms of prostitution, of the gin-palaces in the East frequented by drunken sailors, where women are kept as a source of attraction and revenue; but of the better classes, of the dashing women who are supplied with expensive dresses by respectable Oxford-street tradesmen in the expectation of being paid by some rich victim; the women whom you meet dressed so gay in Regent-street or Portland-place.

Once upon a time there was a rascally old nobleman who lived in a big house in Piccadilly. Mr. Raikes describes him as "a little sharp-looking man, very irritable, and swore like 10,000 troopers, enormously rich, and very selfish. " He sat all day long at a low window, leering at beauty as it passed by, and under his window was a groom waiting on horseback to carry his messages to any one whom he remarked in the street. If one did not know that we lived in a highly moral age, one would fancy many such old noblemen lived in the neighbourhood of Portland-place, for in the streets leading thence, and reaching as far back as Tottenham-court-road, we have an immense female population, all existing and centred there, who live by vicious means -- all with the common feeling of their sex rooted out and destroyed; all intended by nature to diffuse happiness around; all a curse on all with whom they have to do. In this small circle, there is enough vicious leaven to leaven all London. It is impossible to get a true estimate of their number. Guesses of all kinds have been made, but none are exactly to be depended on. In a great capital like ours, where wealthy sensualists can and do pay enormous sums for the gratification of their whims -- (I have seen it stated that on one occasion a gentleman went into a house in Norton-street with a 500 pounds bank-note, and after staying a few hours received but 20 pounds change) -- it is not alone the professedly vicious -- the class whom we call prostitutes -- who prostitute themselves. As fine shops are pointed out in fashionable streets, which are said to be houses of the most infamous description, in spite of the display of lace and millinery in the window, so there are thousands of women, supposed to be respectable, and to live in a respectable manner, who yet are to all intents and purposes prostitutes, though they would not be classified as such. Now the number of this latter class is much exaggerated.