In 1888, London was a divided city. In the west, the rich led comfortable, pampered lives, but for the thousands of poor crammed into the slums of the east end, life was no party. Many shared one room with six or seven other people. Each night, up to 8000 women and children queued for a place in a lodging house. Women were so desperate they would prostitute themselves for a few pennies, or a loaf of bread. Many of the men who paid them for their services were affluent west end gents, slumming it in the dark, stinking streets of ‘outcast London’.