The first instalment took up six pages. Stead attacked vice with eye-catching subheadings: "The Violation of Virgins", "The Confessions of a Brothel-Keeper", "How Girls Were Bought and Ruined". He argued that, while
consensual adult behaviour was a matter of private morality and not a law enforcement issue, issues rife in London existed that did require legislative prohibition, listing five main areas where the law should intervene: Stead commented that "Children of twelve and thirteen cannot offer any serious resistance. They only dimly comprehend what it all means. Their mothers sometimes consent to their seduction for the sake of the price paid by their seducer. The child goes to the introducing house as a sheep to the shambles. Once there, she is compelled to go through with it. No matter how brutal the man may be, she cannot escape". A
madam confirmed the story for him, stating of one girl that she was rendered unconscious beforehand, and then
coercively given the choice to continue or be
homeless afterwards: also known as the 'Stead Act' or 'Stead's Act'. From its inception, one of the goals of the series was to influence public policy. W. T. Stead wrote that its object was "to pass a new law, and not to pillory individuals, there was no need to mention names."
Aftermath Stead and several of his accomplices were later brought to trial as a result of the unlawful
investigative methods they used (see the
Eliza Armstrong case) and Stead himself served three months in prison. Stead's reports were, according to Roland Pearsall, "using the weapons of pornography to right a wrong; it was the death knell of responsible journalism". Stead's account was widely translated and the revelation of "padded rooms for the purpose of stifling the cries of the tortured victims of lust and brutality" and the symbolic figure of "
The Minotaur of London" confirmed European observers' worst imaginings about "Le Sadisme anglais" and inspired erotic writers to write of similar scenes set in London or involving sadistic English gentlemen. Such writers include
Gabriele D'Annunzio in
Il Piacere,
Paul-Jean Toulet in
Monsieur de Paur (1898),
Octave Mirbeau in
Jardin des Supplices (1899) and
Jean Lorrain in
Monsieur de Phocas (1901). The title evokes the
Greek myth of the
Minotaur's virgins tribute. Stead's
allegory about the
Minotaur and
human sacrifice inspired
George Frederic Watts to create the painting
The Minotaur in 1885. ==See also==