The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1809 - 106: Sir Arthur Sets the Direction for Development

Perhaps if someone else had come, they wouldn’t understand why Arthur suddenly mentioned Ledley and Yellow Chrysanthemum Street, but the Devil sitting by the window with a small bottle already saw through this little brat’s tricks.

After all, when it comes to time spent with Arthur, Agares might have been the longest in this world.

The Red Devil well knows that this York punk never jokes about emotions—he simply wants to use Fiona’s suspicion to make her more diligently monitor Ledley’s recent actions and ensure that gentleman in drag is genuinely working for Sir Arthur Hastings lately.

Perhaps those who do intelligence work are always like this. Fiona also suffers from severe suspicion.

Arthur’s words alone are not enough to make her believe that Arthur and Ledley’s relationship is clean.

With this lady’s temperament, she’s likely to have someone monitor for three or four months before she can be completely at ease.

Of course, she naturally wouldn’t say these words outwardly. Instead, she acts as if she firmly believes in Arthur’s arguments, so the other party lets their guard down, allowing her to catch them red-handed someday.

But just as Fiona wouldn’t disclose all her thoughts to Arthur, Arthur has his calculations too.

If it weren’t absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t be willing to use the line at Nightingale Mansion.

Though these ladies have various advantages in gathering intelligence and often obtain unexpected information,

considering that Arthur no longer has an official standing at Scotland Yard, it’s always inconvenient to openly protect them.

Luckily, even Thomas Gath’s Royal Family illegitimate child status doesn’t withstand scrutiny, hence dealing this matter to Nightingale Mansion is quite a fit.

Although the church and middle-class bourgeoisie’s moral purification movement increasingly sees brothels as symbols of a degenerate city, seeking to reduce the number of nightingales and shut down brothels as key markers in improving social moral standards,

the government’s attitude towards such establishments has always been ambiguous, contradictory, even somewhat hypocritical.

Sex trade has never been explicitly legalized in Britain, nor eagerly abolished by the government.

In terms of law, the 1751 Vagrancy Act and the 1824 Public Spaces Act have always been the primary legal foundations for governmental intervention in moral matters; however, none of the clauses specifically targets sex trade.

The Vagrancy Act is usually cited to penalize brothels with a regulation stating: anyone who operates a disorderly house should be regarded as a public nuisance and can be legally prosecuted.

While the Public Spaces Act targets vagrants, its provisions state: any rover causing disturbances or indecency on public streets or highways can be deemed as a rogue.

Thus, the charges for those caught at Scotland Yard are usually twofold: disturbance suspected of disrupting public order or loitering on streets identified as rogue.

This legal ambiguity grants extensive discretion to local governments and police departments in related cases.

And punishment for such crimes typically varies from high to low.

If the case is merely due to a neighbor’s complaint, typically it’s a civil suit, resulting in fines.

However, if the cause is media attention or perhaps the Home Office’s recent crackdown directive, the city government promotes some urban purification action... Then, unfortunately, this time it’s not so lucky—it’s a criminal suit route, with a start point of six months maximum punishment. Later, it may be court-ordered shutdown or at least a conservatory behavior notice requiring the suspect to guarantee no repeat offenses.

Indeed, such experiences mainly happen to lone nightingales or lower-grade "entertainment venues."

If it’s those high-end clubs frequently visited by nobility and social celebrities, like Nightingale Mansion, they generally aren’t easily closed down. Typically, before any related action starts, someone tips them off to close ahead. Of course, in very rare cases, even tip-offs don’t help if they’re drawn into a political whirlpool.

However, even those ordinary small venues need not overly worry about government clean-up actions.

Because the frequency of the government’s cleanup of related criminal actions does not fundamentally depend on their desire to raise social moral standards, but on whether there is any embarrassing major event needing a cover-up.

If a Royal family member recently stirs some scandal, or if the cabinet is frazzled due to parliamentary struggles and security incidents have simultaneously erupted on the streets, then this Saturday evening, when citizens are most indulgent with alcohol, Scotland Yard may very well host a high-profile moral rectification action under the slogan "promote civility and build new trends."

And the actual frequency of Scotland Yard’s clean-up actions, if one meticulously calculated through a calendar, usually occurs when the officers "can’t find anything to do, yet must do something," that is, when there’s nothing else going on, then they’ll execute one action.

On average, about once every two years, there’s a "grand-scale" cleanup.