Page:Elizabethan People.djvu/137

 head, which she wore upon her middle finger as a sign of her profession. In the house of correction she was compelled to wear by way of punishment a blue gown.

Street walkers were innumerable. They were frequently preceded by a "squire," made assignations in the theatres, and in St. Paul's, where "every wench takes a pillar."

Brothel houses and their inmates were made the subjects of many writings. In Middleton's Five Gallants, a pack of courtesans and their house are imposed upon a gull as a music school. Such houses were fitted out with expensive fittings and furniture. Refreshments, such as stewed prunes, muscadine and eggs, and other aphrodisiacs were furnished gratis. Kept mistresses were also common; and the following is probably not exceptional as illustrative of the manners of a large portion of the substantial middle class:

"The woman crying her ware by the door (a most pitiful cry, and a lamentable hearing that such a stiff thing as starch should want customers), passing cunningly and slily by the stall, not once taking notice of the party you wot on, but being by this some three or four shops off, Mass, quoth my young mistress to the weathercock her husband, such a thing I want, you know: then she named how many puffs and purls [fringes] lay