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24
The police, however, from time to time cleared them out,
and brought them to Mount-street Workhouse. For instance,
in January 1863 was brouhgt one aged 16; in February one
aged 19; in April, one aged 19 ; in May, four, aged 19,20,
21, and 22 ; in June, three, aged one 17 and two 19; in
July, twelve, two aged 17, two aged 18, four aged 19, one
22, one 26, and two 30; in August, two aged 17, and one 19;
in September, nineteen; in October, thirteen; in November,
two; in December, two, including a woman, set. 24, ill of fever.
Sixty altogether.
One of these unfortunate creatures, aged 17 (the register
of death says 15), died at Mount-street on the 10th November
of syphilis and gangrene. We were able to obtain admission
for another into the Refuge, Stone House, Commercial
Road South, Pimlico, where she is going on favourably.
The thing to aim at, by the due execution of existing
laws, or by framing new ones if necessary, is not to allow
any young girl under age to lead a life of notorious, open,
undisguised vice combined with vagrancy. If elder women
choose such a course, there may be no help for it; but all
experience shows that the very youngest are the worst of
these unfortunates, and the most prone to maladies which
are only too easily propagated.
C. J. B. ALDIS, M.D.
R. DRUITT.