<P> When Parliament passed the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 (which allowed the local constabulary to force any woman suspected of venereal disease to submit to its inspection), Josephine Butler's crusade to repeal the CD Acts yoked the anti-prostitution cause with the emergent feminist movement . Butler attacked the long - established double standard of sexual morality . </P> <P> Prostitutes were often presented as victims in sentimental literature such as Thomas Hood's poem The Bridge of Sighs, Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton, and Dickens' novel Oliver Twist . The emphasis on the purity of women found in such works as Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House led to the portrayal of the prostitute and fallen woman as soiled, corrupted, and in need of cleansing . </P> <P> This emphasis on female purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women, who helped to create a space free from the pollution and corruption of the city . In this respect, the prostitute came to have symbolic significance as the embodiment of the violation of that divide . The double standard remained in force . Divorce legislation introduced in 1857 allowed for a man to divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce if adultery were accompanied by cruelty . The anonymity of the city led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships . Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanisation and industrialisation of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were used up . Moral reform movements attempted to close down brothels, something that has sometimes been argued to have been a factor in the concentration of street - prostitution . </P> <P> Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, only four years after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire . The anti-slavery movement had campaigned for years to achieve the ban, succeeding with a partial abolition in 1807 and the full ban on slave trade, but not slave ownership, which only happened in 1833 . It took so long because the anti-slavery morality was pitted against powerful economic interests which claimed their businesses would be destroyed if they were not permitted to exploit slave labour . Eventually, plantation owners in the Caribbean received £ 20 million in compensation . William E. Gladstone, later a famous reformer, handled the large payments to his father for their hundreds of slaves . The Royal Navy patrolled the Atlantic Ocean, stopping any ships that it suspected of trading African slaves to the Americas and freeing any slaves found . The British had set up a Crown Colony in West Africa--Sierra Leone--and transported freed slaves there . Freed slaves from Nova Scotia founded and named the capital of Sierra Leone "Freetown". </P>

What were the values of the victorian era