LOTTIE WILMOT ON THE RAMPAGE.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 85, 29 April 1882, Page 104

LOTTIE WILMOT ON THE RAMPAGE.

ASTOUNDING- REVELATIONS, EXPOSINGTHE HAUNTS OF VICE, CRIME AND CRUELTY.

" Beds I have slept in " is the title of a new monthly serial by the notorious Lottie Wilmot. "Misery," says the jester Trinculo in the " Tempest," " acquaints a man with strange bedfellows," and as " woman is the lessev man," the quotation applies equally to the softer sex. We hare read Lottie's first number in fear and trembling, and were much relieved when we found no mention either of the beds she slept in, nor her bedfellows, though the brochure is full of " misery," and fulfils its title as " a publication of intense and thrilling interest." Lottie's experiences, which she relates without any womanly squeamishness or reserve, are not very different from those of hundreds of other unfortunate

female* who meet with disapointment and failure. 1 Scores of women throw up comfortable situations in Britain and emigrate to the colonies in the full - expectation that they will be met at the first , port of call by a crowd of wealthy v squatters clambering ny the ship's side, impatient to offer themselves and their plethoric money-bags to the - first woman they meet on the deck, but experience a rude awakening to the sober and unromantic realities of Colonial life, where, in spite of the old saw, the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. Lottie tells us that she was born of . French parents in London in 1849. She was imbued with " a passion for public life," or in plain English, she had no taste for the homely duties of darning stockings or sewing on shirt . buttons, which are among the highest of female : . accomplishments. She went upon the stage, married " : a wealthy gentleman from Bombay," Srpftably ' some> old Nabob, " retired from public fes but became restless and impatient for adventure,"; and she very soon got her fill of it. She ■ travelled the Continent, was engaged in the

hospitals during the Franco-Prussian war, was left a widow with one child in 1874, speculated in theatrical management, leased London theatres, travelled with a large company through the provinces ; and in 1876 came out to the colonies, bringing with her the M.S. of some French dramas, which she had the sole right of performing xn English. Her troubles now began. She had only her child and a faithful dog, and on board the ship she was in " unsympathetic company," notwithstanding that she was, as she tells us herself, "handsome in person, with a lively temperament (alas !) and a strong inclination to sarcasm." The captain, a very red-nosed Scotchman and tyrant, however, was not one of the " unsympathetic." He paid " marked attention " to the charming Lottie, but receiving no encouragement (how could he with that big red nose?) began to make her life miserable by annoying her dog. But she found consolation. She had on board a case of Heiaschek's best champagne, and preferred sitting on deck looking at the stars (T) eating cake, and drinking cham-

pagne, in company with child and dog, to the company of the red-nosed captain. She had a quarrel with "an old gentleman," to whom, about four days before reaching Melbourne, she wrote demanding an apology, and receiving no reply, she horsewhipped him publicly on deck. Another " funny little incident" as showing "the lively disposition of the captain" is related by Lottie. " One morning the captain started from the cabin on a visit to the galley, distant about fifty yards (this must have been the Great Eastern). Madame being of an observant turn of mind, made a bet that he would ' scratch ' himself 13 times before reaching the galley. He scratched himself fifteen times" "No wonder," she adds, " comment is needless." On arriving at Williamstown the captain " boozed up " the Health Officer, who left without making any I enquiries. She had £200 in the Union Bank besides jewellery and wardrobe worth several hundreds more. At the first hotel the landlord objected to dogs, and she had to go elsewhere. Her troubles accumulated. Her dramas were

unsuccessful, she was imposed upon, deceived, and defrauded on all sides. The critics,, one of whom she accuses of receiving bribes and tampering with another man's wife, and whom she regrets she did not horsewhip, "slated" her. Then she went to Brisbane, where the thermometer was 120 in the shade, she had to bribe the Customs officials, she played Lady Macbeth in a dirty theatre, fell out with the manager, threatened legal proceedings, and he promptly " filed his shovel " and disappeared. Her money growing short, she refused to take an hotel, and took passage to Sydney, pawning a bracelet to raise the passage money. She took lodgings in a boarding-house which turned out to be a sly grog shop, gradually parted with her valuables, and at last induced the manager of the Theatre Royal to produce one of her dramas, " Rag Fair." Here again she was cheated, and as a last resource she rented a refreshment booth at one of Blondin's tight-rope performances. She applied to several wholesale houses for the management of a country business, but without success. "It was ex-

ceedingly repugnant to her feelings to have to submit to the insolent leer, • the voluptuous glances at her person from some of the apparently well-to-do traders." Poor innocent! Defeated on every side, penniless, with all her jewellery gone, and nothing but her wardrobe, she started the " Nil Desperandum Cigar Divan," a moneylender advancing £20 on a bill of sale over her wardrobe for £50. She was victimised by what she calls " bloated young swells," who got cigars "on tick," and by bank clerks, who would purchase a threepenny weed and spoon half the day with the assistant. " Then there were the old men rakes, who were a fearful nuisance. Several times she thought of having a large card printed, informing them of the hour she left off business to go home, in order to save unnecessary questioning." Next her creditors came down upon her, and the boarding-house keeper demanded a settlement. When she asked for time the ruffian replied, " No good-looking woman in Sydney need be poor." Being in arrears with rent, her stock and fixtures were seized, she removed to fur-

nished lodgings, and began to turn her "atijeiitio^fe ,to religion. Here she received a visit frpm|tiiff|| money-lender, who ofEered to give her a receipting I full on certain terms, but "knowing him to be a ;- married man, with a grown-up family, Madame ; declined the honour." Having sunk lower and ; lower in poverty, and being beset by a perfect network of troubles, she appears all at once tohave become inspired with the idea that " she/ had a mission," but it was some time before she :/. discovered that destiny had fitted her to become > a temperance lecturer. She adopted^ a new style of dress— plain black — with bands similar to the •' orthodox clergy, and began her " mission." She lectured also on " Courtship and Marriage,^' " Woman's Eights," and other kindred subjects. In this capacity she became acquainted with "an ' old man, a Mormon by faith, who was selling newspapers and oranges for a living, and on Sundays preaching his faith in the hope of making converts." He liked Madame's freedom of religion, and " showed his appreciation in many ways." He brought fruit for the little girl, '

also books and papers from Utah." Lofcti was opposed to polygamy, but she "never allowed difference of religion to affect friendship." She next received an offer of marriage from a lawyer, and pillar of the Presbyterian Church. She discovered that his lawful spouse was still in the flesh, and disagreeably near. _ "A curious littleincident occurred one day in his office. A young woman brought a pile of letters, to sue a man in the Civil Service for breach of promise of marriage. She was evidently soon to become a mother. Some days afterwards, while seated in his office, the lawyer asked Lotti to witness a deed, which she did. On the table were £50 in sovereigns. Some of these the young woman took away with her, and some remained. The affair had been compromised, as the young man, being in Government employ, could not afford the exposure. Upon asking how long the defendant had known the lady, the lawyer replied, "Three months." Madame said, "Then that cannot be his child." " No," replied the m&n of business, rubbing his hands, " I have three^nore

,i on the string to sue for that job yet." Lotti sold : one of her dramas for £50, paid £10 to the usurer, and her board bill, and had a balance of £25, with which she determined to try her fortune in Melbourne. She warns people against the Sydney boarding-houses, many of which she says are simply brothels, frequented by people "on the look-out for flats," adventurers, lazy remittance men who give themselves the airs of . £10,000 a-year, and gentlemen lodgers, who are on good terms with the landlady and boast that she dare not turn them out, and who often hold fictitious bills of sale over the furniture. She went to Melbourne, resumed her temperance lectures, took a small furnished house, and fell sick. Again she got in arrears with her rent, xind the landlord," a professed church-going Christian, when " his victim was lying between life and death, because she would not admit him, bombarded the house, threw heavy stones on the roof and against the walls." Dr L. L. Smith came to her rescue, and through his successful treatment " a talented being was retained in this world" to work out her next "mission." This was a lecture on " The Social Evil," which drew down on her the fierce invectives of the orthodox clergy, but her lectures were attended by members of Parliament, clergymen, the bar, publicans, married women, and all classes of Melbourne society. The Argus having refused to publish the words " social evil " in her advertisement, she substituted " Social Problem," while the same moral paper actually had an article, in glaring capital letters, headed " Contagious Diseases Act." Throughout her strange and eventful career Lotti seems to have been doomed to a succession of disappointments and failures, which soured her temper and drove her to misanthropy. The secretary of the Melbourne Trmporance Hall — " a pale-faced, cadaverous psalm-singer " — refused to let her have the use of the building, and the Grand Master of the G-ood Templars charged her with having committed the heinous sin of drinking a glass of stout one day at dinner ! Lotti, resenting this rude remark, retorted, " Had I required it, I should have drank two. Ido not take liquor to my bedroom to drink," This led to the severance of her connection with the temperance societies, and she found a new outlet for ]ier energies and curiosity by engaging a detective to conduct her through all the dens and haunts of vice. She had " put her foot down," she says, and was " determined to brave all opposition." Fastidious people would use another term. Here, for the j>resent, Lotti pauses to . survey the diversified field over which she has travelled, und to excite the expectations of her readers by an epitome of the exceedingly tropical country that lies before, among which arc the " Freaks of an amorous (spelt ' amarous ') rake," " Old lovers prove bitter enemies," "Why don't you marry ?" and " Weaker sex again triumphant." If Lotti is to be regarded as a specimen of the " weaker sex," we think it is triumphant — the triumph of a species of literary can-can.