"For days and nights it is as if I had suffered the penalties inflicted upon the lost souls of the Moslem hell, for I seemed to have to drink of the purulent matter that flows from the bodies of the damned. But the sojourn in this hell has not been fruitless. The facts which I and my coadjutors have verified I now place on record at once as a revelation and a warning--a revelation of the system, and a warning to those who may be its victims. In the statement which follows I give no names and I omit addresses. My purpose was not to secure the punishment of criminals, but to lay bare the working of a great organisation of crime. But as a proof of good faith, I am prepared to substantiate the accuracy of every statement contained herein."
I can only paraphrase and hint at the nature of the burning pages which heralded the most awful revelations of London life ever presented to the public, revelations which ended in a revolution in the laws affecting immorality. And I must not stay to do more than pay a slight tribute of respect to the brave and courageous man who did so much for womenkind.
As some of my readers may be aware, in the earlier part of this year--1912--I had occasion in a public work of mine to pay a man whom I never saw, but with whom I had been in intimate correspondence about various social matters for a very considerable time, a tribute of respect I had long wished to make. One of the last letters, upon a subject affecting public thought, ever written by Mr. Stead was written to me--just before he made his final voyage in the Titanic.
I am telling here, for the first time, some of the secret history of that "Maiden Tribute" movement--for it was _to Mr. Charrington_ that Mr. Stead came in the first instance in order to find out the truth of what was going on in the East End. Up to that time, Mr. Charrington, though, of course, he had been painfully aware of many of the horrors that surrounded him, had been too occupied with his other campaigns, and his evangelistic work, to take sword in hand, himself, against this particular aspect of the immorality of the darkest portion of London.
Do not misunderstand me. You have just read of what Mr. Charrington, with the most fearless courage, did in the case of the Battle of the Music Halls. What I mean is that he had not yet begun the extraordinary campaign against the brothels of the East End, of which I have to tell in this chapter.