Before I was introduced to the Victorian dictionary, I was under the impression that there was a small problem with youth on the streets and bad working conditions, but the truth of the time period is quite staggering. The poor, and especially poor women of the time, were taken advantage of. Capitalists had figured out that if they used women for the same factory work as men, they could pay them less. During slack times in work the women, according to Lee Jackson, would have to fall back on any work they could get. This led many of them to end up in prostitution.

Having no job security and no family or support in London led to a horrid state of affairs for women. Many articles spoke of women and children getting themselves arrested so as to get out of their situation for a short period of time; preferring prison to the workhouses or the streets. Children could be paid even less than both the sexes and since feeding unwanted children was a burden for poor families many children were either thrown to the streets or forced into child-prostitution by their own parents. The laws had nothing to say about child prostitution at the time and policemen turned a blind eye to “flower-girls” on the streets. If these women happened to get pregnant the cycle got worse and worse leading to an estimate of “no less than 100,000” prostitutes in London. The irony was that other women were told at the time that no “decent lady” even knew of such happenings in their society. This led to a great social problem not even being acknowledged. http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm

Unwanted boy children were in the business of thievery and crime. Both sexes could be employed by capitalists for shillings a day but we must remember that a work shift was from dawn to dusk and crime paid the children more. If one could not afford to take care of oneself, then they were put into workhouses where board and rent were exchanged for back breaking labor and which all agreed the streets or prison were preferable to.