The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-04 00:00:00

THE MEN IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES.
From The Times

For a whole month the public curiosity has been fed,
though probably not satiated, by the details of the most
extraordinary case we can remember to have occurred
in our time. The "revelations" came to an end on
Monday, and the two prisoners, Boulton and Park,
were committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court,
bail being refused. The existence of such a scandal
is a social misfortune. The charges made by the
prosecution are such as are seldom advanced in this
country, except against the lowest, the most ignorant,
and the most degraded. That there should be
in English society an association of young men,
with ramifications not yet defined, some of the meni-
berg of which are accused of the most hateful
immorality, while the relations of most of them
to each other are supposed to have been fa-
miliar and indelicate beyond expression, is a
thing of which we cannot help being ashamed. We
have been accustomed to associate such offences
with the sensuous civilization of antiquity, and with
the barbarism or demoralization of certain races
in our own day. But we are not prepared to
find even the suspicion of them attaching to youths
of respectable family and position. The world
might fancy that it had a general knowledge of dissi-
pation as practised in the nineteenth century' but the
ev:ience in this matter might surprise an Old Bailey
attorgrey, or A police inspector, or a gaol surgeon, or
any other* person who thought he had not much to
learn of the wickedness of the world. However the
owe may end, we cannot but feel that this androgynous
clique and its associates have committed the worst
possible social outrage, and will fully deserve any
Nodal exenasmunication with which they may be
visited.
Some of them appear to be merely fools. We hope
that as many of them as possible will be able to con-
vince the world that they belong to this comparatively
respectable class and may claim immunity from any
worse suspicion- How "drag" orivinated we do not
pretend to know. But it appears that for some years
past it has been the fancy of some empty-headed,
effeminate young men to play female parts in amateur
theatricals. The public stage may have suggested by Con.
tract, to the theatre-going youths the ideaof such a trans-
formation. The modern burlesque refire f or success on the
adoption of male costume by handsome and well-made
youpg women. The leading actresses all want to be
young Princes, and so forth. An assiduous study of this
noble form of the drama may, perhaps, have put it into
the heads of one or two of these young men that it
would be a slever thing to turn the effeminacy of their
own features to account by playing women's parts, just
se women on the regular stage makeup as young men.
This seems to have been the beginning of a course of die'
guises which, on the assumption most favourable to
tie prisoners' bare been carried far beyond the bounds
of decency. As far as we can learn from the evidence,
Bonito" :and Park were the first of the set to act
woman's parts and to go about in women's clothes.
They seem n have possessed considerable theatrical
Ability, and, no doubt, attracted curiosity and made
many acquaintances.
It is, of course, conceivable that when young men
were known as players of female parts, and as cul-
tivating generally an effeminate appearance to fit them
for the career, they would be addressed jestingly as
women by the men of their acquaintance without any-
thing more criminal than very miserable taste. This,
of course, will be the defence, and it will be the effort
of the prisoners' counsel to persuade the jury so to inter-
pret the letters which have been put in evidence, some
of which have been read, while others will first be made
public on the trial. But, whatever the relations between
the prisoners and their friends, there can be no doubt
that for more than a year they have carried on the
practice of appearing LI drag,' and, indeed, parading

the town in it. Their conduct was so audacious that
one can hardly imagine them to have been conscione of
the scandalous nature of their acts, the interpretation
that !mutt be put upon them, and the danger they i
w mild inevitably rim. They went to theatres, took
private Ir.xes, talked with that man and that, and,
whether dressed as men or as women, contrived, it
would seem, to convey the impression that they were
women. It is in evidence that they were frequently
turned out of public places, and th.gigh we would not
give implicit credence to all that is stated by such a
class of witnesses as deposed to this part of the stery.
yet it cannot be doubted that the prisoners were well
aware if the scandal they gave, that they were too
thoroughly warned for their later offences to he con-
sidered a frolic, and that on any supposition they have
beige gull y of an outrage on propriety with which the
law I sight to deal.
The most curious part of the etory is the influence
which theee rersonations had en other you
zegolemen of similar test, s. If the prisoners had
beru more cautious, and abstained from alternating
their costumes under the eyes of the same policemen
and the same beadles, there is no saying bow far things
might have gone in a year or two. "Drag"
might have become quite an institution, and
open csrriages might have displayed their die-
gniaed occupants without suspicion, except to
the initiated. If anythieg can add to the scan-
dal of the case, it is that at 3 hall given at a London
hotel, at the expense of a youth just of age, not lees
than six men in women's clothes should have appeared,
the giver of the ball himself being one. The fact that
some thirty men should have been present at such a
scene, and conscious of the disgraceful travesty makes
us rejoice that such practices have received a cheek.
It will be sail, in defence of Gibbings and some of the
others, that their acts began and ended in mere folly. Ile
it an; but there sea folly which verges so nearly ou
nality that it ought not to escape the severest reproba-
tion, even if they were nopniiishineet provided [unit. As
if the ball were not a sufficient escapade, we huel
Giblxin,gs and another going to the boat-race in broad
day. Acccr ling to Gibbings himself,—" We went
in a brougham hired at the hotel. Our faces were
powdered and painted. We had false hair and
chignons, stays, ladies' boots. We met two gentlemen
at the boat-race," &c. Taking the mrit favourable
view of this young man's conduct, can any one doubt
that he richly merits some of that wholesome cor-
rection which is applied to his juniors in years.
At all events we roust protest against any more sham
women b ing allowed to parade their effeminacy in
future no ler any pretence. The law is supposed to have
a weal on in it, armoury against such an abuse; and if
this prices to have been blunted by lime, it may be re-
eharpened by the I.ezislature. Men in chignons leering
at other men from a brougham aes bad enough, but the
outrage is mere intolerable when they presume to go to
places of public entertaiu went like ix theatre, frequented
by ladies, and are enabled bv their disguise to enter
rooms reserved for women. We find it was the practice
of several members of this epicene college to appear in
public dressed with such care and success that it was
almost impossible to recognize their sex. Should any
one of them intrude himself among decent people again,
it would he pardonable for any gentleman present to
take the law into his own hands, and inflict on the
offender a suitable casitigation at once.
We cannot conclude without expressing a hope that
the public will soon hear the last of this disgusting
case. As it has to he gone through, we hope it will be
consistent with the interests of justice on both sides to
try it at the next Semi us and have done with it.
There is not hiug we would noire willingly forget. For
a whole ir mill it has lingered in the police-court, and,
from the dimensions it has assumed, there he reason to
fee: it will run to an extraordinary length at the Old
Bailey. If the prosecution can hasten its further in.
quince and compress its evidence, it will be doing a
real public service.