Notice to Our Readers: a Frank Warning (P.M.G. July 4, 1885)
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..
W.T. Stead to Mark Whitwill
(November 29, 1885)
Holloway Gaol (November 29, 1885)
My dear sir
I have been unpardonably long in acknowledging
the [letter] of sympathy and appreciation which you were so kind to send
to me as long ago as the 20th.
It's very wrong of me and I pray you to
pardon me. I thank you so much for your kindness and I am very glad that
the meeting….. ask for my release.
I am very happy working very hard and I
am of the opinion that but for this blessed imprisonment of ours the conservative
gvt would be very much tempted to revive the C.D. Acts.
Now however that they have declared that
even a momentary touch of a woman even by a woman demands six months with
hard labour - regardless of motive - for the person who touches and one
month imprisonment for those who aid and abet, they cannot enforce the
surgical violation of fallen women by threat of imprisonment for very
shame.
So this trial and persecution will deliver
us...
Yours...
W.T.Stead
Webmaster's note... This letter came from an album which was auctioned by Clevedon Salesrooms in September, 2001. The album, which also included letters from Charles Dickens, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Alexander Graham Bell, belonged to Victorian philanthropist and businessman Mark Whitwill, who ran a successful shipping agency in Bristol during the late 1800s. My thanks to Clevedon Salerooms for this contribution.
Stead by his Peers 
