Story: Sex work

While prostitutes were sometimes seen as 'wicked women', by the late 19th century they were also considered to be 'soiled doves' whose downfall was often the outcome of male lust and the moral disapproval of other family members. This 1889 cartoon by William Blomfield charts the 'seven ages of a lost sister'. The victim of seduction and the mother of an illegitimate child, she migrates from work in a luxurious brothel to soliciting on the streets. Her dead body is discovered by a policeman. Blomfield's cartoon illustrates the concern about the 'social evil' of sex work in late-19th-century New Zealand.