Eliza Armstrong Case - Reactions To The "Maiden Tribute"

Reactions To The "Maiden Tribute"

The "Maiden Tribute" was an instant hit. While W.H. Smith & Sons, who had a monopoly on all the news stalls, refused to sell the paper due to its lurid and prurient content, volunteers consisting of newsboys and members of the Salvation Army took over distribution. Even George Bernard Shaw telegraphed Stead offering to help. Such was the demand for the paper that crowds gathered in front of the Pall Mall Gazette offices fighting tooth and nail for a copy. Second-hand copies of the paper sold for as much as a shilling -- twelve times its normal price.

Within days, Stead had been getting telegrams from across the Atlantic inquiring about the scandal. By the end of the series he had thrown Victorian society into an uproar about prostitution. Fearing riots on a national scale, the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt pleaded with Stead to cease publication of the articles; Stead replied that he would comply if the Bill would be passed without delay. Since Harcourt could not make that guarantee, Stead ordered the Pall Mall Gazette presses to continue until paper ran out.

Stead's revelations struck a responsive chord in the public. Amidst the hysteria it provoked a wide variety of reform groups and prominent individuals called to an end to the scandal. Dozens of protest meetings were held throughout London and the provincial towns. Thousands, including wagon loads of virgins dressed in white, marched to Hyde Park demanding that the Bill be passed. The government was soon on the defensive and those members of Parliament who had previously opposed the Bill, now understood that opposition would not only mean denying the existence of child prostitution, but condoning it as well. While many of them wanted to have the paper prosecuted under obscenity laws, they bowed to the inevitable. On Wednesday July 8 debate resumed over the bill, on August 7 it passed its third and final reading, and passed into law a week later.