Observing her at close hand to be “a female of lewd aspect and lascivious comportment,” he at once surmised the true nature of her attentions to the gentleman; namely, that she was robbing him, in his intoxicated stupor, and that she was the lowest form of criminal, a “bug-hunter.” Constable Johnson promptly arrested her.
The saucy minx put her hands on her hips and glared at him in open defiance. “There’s not a pogue upon me,” she declared, which words must surely have given Constable Johnson pause. He faced a serious dilemma.
In the Victorian view, proper male conduct demanded that all women, even women of the lowest sort, be treated with caution and consideration for the delicacy of their feminine nature. That nature, noted a contemporary paliceman’s manual of conduct, “with its sacred emotional wellsprings, its ennobling maternal richness, its exquisite sensitivity and profound fragility, i.e., all those qualities which comprise the very essence of womanly character, derive from the biological or physio-logic principles which determine all the differences between the sexes of male and female. Thus it must be appreciated that the essence of womanly character resides in every member of that sex, and must be duly respected by an Officer, and this despite the appearance, in certain vulgar personages, of the absence of said womanly character.”
The belief in a biologically determined personality in both men and women was accepted to some extent by nearly everyone at all levels of Victorian society, and that belief was held in the face of all sorts of incongruities. A businessman could go off to work each day, leaving his “unreasoning” wife to run an enormous household, a businesslike task of formidable proportions; yet the husband never viewed his wife’s activities in that way.
Of all the absurdities of the code, the most difficult was the predicament of the policeman. A woman’s inherent fragility created obvious difficulties in the handling of female lawbreakers. Indeed, criminals took advantage of the situation, often employing a female accomplice precisely because the police were so reluctant to arrest.
Constable Johnson, confronted by this drafted minx on the night of November 5th, was fully aware of his situation. The woman claimed to have no stolen goods on her person; and if this was true, she would never be convicted, despite his testimony that he had found her bug-hunting. Without a pocket watch or some other indisputably masculine article, the girl would go free.
Nor could he search her: the very idea that he might touch the woman’s body was unthinkable to him. His only recourse was to escort her to the station, where a matron would be called to perform the search. But the hour was late; the matron would have to be roused from her bed, and the station was some blocks distant. In the course of being escorted through dark streets, the little tart would have many opportunities to rid herself of incriminating evidence.
Furthermore, if Constable Johnson brought her in, called for the matron, raised all manner of fuss and stir, and then it was discovered the girl was clean, he would look a proper fool and receive a stiff rebuke. He knew this; and so did the girl standing before him in a posture of brazen defiance.
Altogether it was a situation not worth the risk or the bother, and Constable Johnson would have liked to send her off with a scolding. But Johnson had recently been advised by his superiors that his arrest record left something to be desired; he had been told to be more vigilant in his pursuit of wrongdoing. And there was the strong implication that his job hung in the balance.
So Constable Johnson, in the intermittent, sputtering glow of the bursting fireworks, decided to take the bug-hunter in for a search— to the girl’s open astonishment, and despite his own rather considerable reluctance.
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Dalby, the station sergeant, was in a foul humor, for he was called upon to work on the night of the holiday, and he resented missing the festivities that he knew were taking place all around him.
He glared at Johnson and the woman at his side. The woman gave her name as Alice Nelson, and stated her age was “eighteen or thereabouts.” Dalby sighed and rubbed his face sleepily as he filled in the forms. He sent Johnson off to collect the matron. He ordered the girl to sit in a corner. The station was deserted, and silent except for the distant pop and whistle of fireworks.