SOCIETAL VIEWS

In the 1890s, the city of Victoria's residents' views on prostitution seemed to range from hostile tolerance to sympathetic acceptance.

Many shared the view that "society's... army of prostitutes" exist for the unmarried, young men, soldiers, sailors, and "all who do not choose to bear the burdens of family" and are "tolerated as necessary evils." (Link to actual text) Nonetheless, prostitution, originally tolerated as an inevitable social structure of a lower-class newly-populated town, was never fully accepted by the rising middle-class.

The Daily Colonist's coverage of the dramatic suicide of a local prostitute, Edna Farnsworth, suggests that many perceived the 1889 event as an opportunity to closely examine the tragic plight of the average prostitute. Editorials speculated as to the cause of her suicide, suggesting, "it may be that she was disgusted with the life that she was leading, that she despised herself, and that she felt that it was impossible for her ever again to take a place amongst honest women."

The article goes on to reveal Victorian society's typical treatment of prostitutes:

"Heaven may be merciful to her for man or woman seldom is...Almost every avenue to a better life is closed against her. She sees the finger of scorn always pointed at her. She is feared and despised and avoided."

Many Victorians shared the common fear that those involved with prostitution "are what they are - the outcasts of society, [and are] fast becoming the body of society itself."
Soon after the suicide, community leaders began to appeal for reform by arguing that as the inhabitants of the provincial capitol, the "advanced" people of Victoria had a duty to confront and heal the city's "ulcers."

Others took a more sympathetic approach. At a Victoria City Council meeting, members of a large religious organization began their reform movement with an appeal to the sentiment of council members:

"Whence are these poor victims of male lust recruited? Are they not somebody's precious girls, daughters and sisters, whose confiding hearts and susceptible natures have been led on toward the abyss...often after long and artful persuasion by men of fiendish motives, to be heartlessly abandoned in their discrowned womanhood and bereft of virtue."

Overall, pressure was mounting on politicians as society seemingly became increasingly sympathetic to the socio-economic causes of prostitution, and more demanding of opportunities for reform.

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