In 1871, a sensationalist Victorian newspaper called The Day's Doings published an article titled 'How To Choose a Wife By Her Legs.' It's really quite something. Let's take a closer look!
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Here's the first part of the article, in which two men begin to perv on a girl who has been bathing at the beach. "It is not usually safe to form an opinion of a girl from a back view..."
The story continues... and immediately becomes incestuous.
The author begins to unpack his philosophy: that it's possible to determine the "character and appearance" of a woman simply by observing her legs.
So what, according to this demented author, might be learned from observing a Victorian woman's legs? A long list of character flaws, of course!
"I believe firmly in strong ankles; they betoken strong minds."
"I believe firmly in strong ankles; they betoken strong minds."
A dire warning: scope out the podginess of your betrothed's ankles, lest you fall into the trap of marrying a woman who reads "parlour novels."
Here, at last, is what constitutes the 'perfect' pair of legs. "You should be able to send a stream of water under [her instep] without wetting the sole, so exquisitely shaped should it be." It's the Victorian thigh-gap...
At last, we reach the end. Conclusion: only by finding the perfect legs will you marry a girl who is "possessed of a soul." The fact that he didn't make this into a sole/soul pun is, frankly, the most disgusting thing about the whole article.
'How To Choose a Wife By Her Legs'
- The Day's Doings (1871)
- The Day's Doings (1871)
But there's more! Soon after, the Society for the Suppression of Vice took the Day's Doings to court for indecency. Several images and articles were produced as evidence, including this one. The judge highlighted 'How To Choose A Wife By Her Legs' as being "decidedly indecent'!
Here's one of the other images that were presented in court by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Having read the article you will now, of course, be able to form a full opinion of each girl's character flaws.
- The Day's Doings (1871)
- The Day's Doings (1871)
Lots of the offending images came from the paper's extra-pervy Christmas special, which was chiefly devoted to a 'Behind the Scenes' tour of a theatre packed with shapely ballet girls...
(1871)
(1871)
Here are some more images from the 'Behind the Scenes' Christmas edition of The Day's Doings. (1871)
Even MORE images from the Christmas edition of 'The Days Doings.' If you thought they'd already exhausted the erotic potential of ballet girls' dressing rooms, I've got news for you... (1871)
The paper must've known that it was pushing at the boundaries of public taste, but it was always quick to attack those who accused it of indecency:
They were particularly keen to highlight the hypocrisy of 'respectable' newspapers. Here, they used their front page to highlight the "shameless audacity" displayed by the Daily Telegraph in its alarmist coverage of the Prince of Wales' illness. (1871)
The paper defended itself - like pornographers often do - by claiming that their illustrations were no different to depictions of nudity in celebrated works of art. Why could works hung in the Royal Academy depict nudity and not an illustrated newspaper? Here's their Lady Godiva.
Following the paper's first court appearance, it promised to stop publishing obscene content. The following week they printed a version of The Charmer by the artist Charles Gleyre, with some drapery added for modesty!
You won't be surprised to learn that they were back in court a few days later. The judge ruled that the addition of drapery made the picture *MORE* obscene!
I suspect that they might have been trying a similar trick by draping the figure in this artwork, but I can't find an image of the original. The caption reads "The Cherished Captive - after the celebrated picture by Saint-Pierre." Anybody know it?
I think they were being deliberately provocative, not just looking for a loophole to print nudes. They were rabidly keen to expose hypocrisy and double-standards among those who policed public tastes. Here they stress that Gainsborough Musidora was hanging in the Royal Academy.
From the moment the paper launched, they were fighting a culture war against the forces of mid-Victorian respectability. Against the newsagents who wouldn't sell their paper, the newspapers who wouldn't advertise it, the critics who called it obscene, etc...
Plenty of Victorian publishers battled against the same forces, but The Days' Doings went on the offensive and routinely articulated this resistance in its opening editorial. It's a treasure-trove for historians working on low-brow print culture & early new journalism.
They lost the war. The court judged against them and threatened a heavy fine & imprisonment if more obscenity appeared in The Day's Doings. The paper's reputation was in tatters, and it went through several rebrandings before collapsing.
It happened again. I started a thread talking about sex, and it's turned into a discussion of nineteenth-century journalism history. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To bring things full circle, it turns out that I've actually posted quite a lot of material about Victorian foot/leg fetishes over the years. Here's an old thread on the craze for 'Trilby' feet:
After that sexy (?!) interlude, back to some journalism history. The Days' Doings was published at 300 Strand, near to the Opera Comique theatre and Holywell street, which was infamous for the sale of pornography and spicy literature. The paper reflected its surroundings.
Disclaimer: I'm provisionally using an OS map from the early 1890s, and a street directory from 1882, to locate the offices of a newspaper published in 1871. So, it's hard to pinpoint a specific building. It should be *roughly* correct though.
But we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss this as a 'bad' area. As I found when researching the Illustrated Police News a few years ago, these low-brow papers were often published a stone's throw from their high-class rivals. The ILN is the Illustrated London News.
Just like the Illustrated Police News, The Days' Doings occupied a liminal (and often rather ambiguous) space between the worlds of respectable illustrated journalism & underground pornography. Not quite bad enough to be illegal; but not pure enough to be respectable.
This tension plays out in this court report. The prosecutors reveal that an advert in The Days' Doings was used to order "a most indecent picture" through the post. Meanwhile, it's editor argues that his illustrations were less "gross" than those in the higher-class Graphic.
There's so much going on here in terms of class, space, gender & culture dynamics. Obscenity treated as contextual rather than inherent; a nude image becomes pornographic when sold in a cheap newspaper & "flaunted in our face at every street corner" by working class newsboys.
Robert Buchanan mentioned The Days' Doings in his famous attack on the 'Fleshly School' of sensual poetry by the likes of Rossetti and Swinburne. He wasn't a fan, but I think the paper would've liked his insistence that this fascination transcended class & cultural boundaries.
He goes on to rail against the rampant eroticisation of legs, which finally brings us back to where we started. "The Leg, as a disease, is a subtle, secret, diabolical. It relies not on merely on its own intrinsic attractions, but on its atrocious suggestions." /fin
(This thread is what happens when I start the day by saying, "I'll just have a quick browse in the @BNArchive before I check my emails and get on with work...")
