We tend to look on trafficking of women as a feature of modern life, yet almost two hundred years ago men were luring English governesses to France on the pretext of good employment.
‘Caution to Governesses.–At the Mansion-house, London, on the 18th, Mr. Beard, solicitor, called attention to certain systematic attempts which were being made to prevail upon young women in this country, chiefly governesses, to go to France, by holding out to them tempting offers of employment and remuneration, but with the real though secret intention, as there was reason to believe, of entrapping them for purposes of prostitution. A few weeks ago many very respectable young women of the class alluded to were induced to reply to an advertisement which appeared in the Times, the result of which was to bring them into communication with a Mr. F. Robertson, who was supposed to be a Frenchman assuming an English surname. He (Mr. Beard) had letters which this Mr. Robertson had addressed to three young women, and all of which were to the same purport. Writing from an address in the Rue du Paradis-Poisonniere, he stated that he could introduce his correspondent as a governess to a highly-respectable French famiy, where it would be her duty to instruct, chiefly in English, two young ladies about 13 and 15 years of age. The writer added that the conditions of “our firm” were–commission 4l. to be paid in four months, at 1l. a month, and she would be expected to send immediately a post-office order for 1l., the first month’s commission, with her references. There was reason to believe that about 20 young women had been induced to embrace the offers held out to them and to go to Paris ; but on arriving there they discovered that they had been allured from their homes for immoral purposes. On the 17th, about as many more young women met Robertson by appointment at an office in Lower Thames-street, to make arrangements for going to Paris for situations which he had undertaken to procure them. The man in charge of the offices, surprised at seeing so many well-dressed lady-like women, and strongly suspecting something amiss, entered the room and mentioned his suspicions to the Frenchman. Robertson then left the place, and had not since been seen there, nor had the man in the occupation of the office in Lower Thames-street.’
Stamford Mercury, 27 March, 1863.