{"product_id":"2940013112315","title":"\"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon\" and \"England on Her Defence! Being a Reply to The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon\"","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon\" was necessary horror. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith it, William T. Stead opened doors, threw back shutters, drew curtains and let pitying Christian eyes see the sights  over which voluptuous Londoners were nightly gloating. He showed gins and snares in which simple country girls were  nightly caught, to leap and shriek like a hare with the feel of the wire on its foot; he showed the girl-poacher mad  with joy in this damnable sport. Stead allowed us to see the stinging, girlish tears, and hear girlish voices full of  wild, pitiful despair; which makes us revolt at the cruelty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUpon publication, this noble work was the talk of every home in all England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe appearance of this little known newspaper, Pall Mall Gazette, with \"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,\" articles,  amazed, staggered and stupefied Londoners.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe principal news-agents, who are practically the censors of the British press, canceled orders for the \"Pall Mall  Gazette\" for every book-stall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen by afternoon of that memorable day the facts at last broke, unemployed costermongers of the city flocked to  Northumberland street in crowds so large, and so terribly eager for the suppressed paper, that the street was crammed  and blocked to suffocation, and in no part of the city was there such peril to human life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo policemen appeared.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePolice were asked  \u003cbr\u003efor, but the same authorities who had refused to help Stead to get his facts, refused now to help him to save his  \u003cbr\u003eoffice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStead's vivid pen and burning brain and abandoned pity, wrote about all this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd England shrieked, \"Indecent!\" As if subjects like these could ever be made decent. Unerring excellence of taste,  which makes subjects like these \"decent,\" belongs to the novelists whom languid voluptuaries of clubs and drawing-rooms  adore. Stead did not want to make such things decent: it would secure their sale on bookstalls—but what of that? To make \u003cbr\u003ethem decent would be a horrible lie to the facts as they had been burned into his own brain. Revolting reading, reading  to harrow and madden its readers—that was his aim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But it is illegal,\" said Cavendish Bentinck (a mouthpiece for hosts whose God is 'The Law.') \"He has outraged the law!\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCool critics and legal authorities who pace law courts, and study statutes, do not understand such men; how could they  understand the anguished author of the \"Maiden Tribute?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"All lies; excogitated from his own brain,\" said many others who were able to bear very sweeping personal testimony to  the excellent conduct of London brothels. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrue enough, maybe, the coloring of horror, and shame, and rage, which he had given his facts was projected into them by  \"his own brain.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrue enough, his burning disdain, without bounds, without qualification, without mercy, of the offender, who at a weak  moment of nervous, silly girlhood, dared to spoil a woman's life, all for a momentary pleasure. Does this seem to be  \"all lies?\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut behind the lurid personal coloring of Stead's glaring scorn was fact-substance, and from the brothel-keepers came  loud denials. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo, in the interest of the public, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Cardinal Archbishop of  Westminster,   agreed to examine Mr. Stead's evidence and after five days of investigation, they certified the  substantial truth of all his statements, and published their decision to the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLaws in England changed. The Queen's practically unprotected subjects were now protected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWilliam T. Stead's method of correcting a wrong, landed him in jail...","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069755212016,"sku":"2940013112315","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013112315_p0.jpg?v=1763576979","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013112315","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}