"An Accidental Kiss"

In the article “An Accidental Kiss,” the Illustrated Police News describes a sexual assault that happened on a London street in April 1896. An upper-class woman was harassed by a group of men while leaving her home, and one of the men, Frank Gilbert Law,grabbed her neck and kissed her without her consent. The small article includes details such as the fact that Law was a “well

dressed clerk” that the victim was only jeered at because she was “mistaken for a common woman,” and that the victim only pressed charges because did not receive an apology from law. The article reports that while Law claimed the assault was “accidental,” Mr. Lane, who was seeing his case, laughed at this claim, stating, “Oh! You don’t kiss a woman by accident!” Law then received a fine of 10 shillings.

This article interested me because of its imagery and description of the case, as well as its brevity. The article is very short but includes interesting details, and the image that goes along with the story depicts a pack of well dressed men, and Law’s assault of a frightened woman. Though the article is brief, it has deep and telling undertones of gender and class dynamics; the men are depicted as wealthy, well dressed people in positions of power-- the reason they even choose their victim here was because they believed she was of a lower class than she actually was. The idea of intent is brought into question here-- the perpetrator of the crime claims that the assault was not intentional, and the court does recognize that this excuse does not hold any merit, and punishes him. Even if the punishment was mild, it was still recognized that his attempt to excuse away his crime using his power and privilege  did not work in this instance. This reminds me of Tess, as she was cornered by a man with wealth and privilege as well, demonstrating classist undertones the power dynamics in sexual assault cases. It also brings into question guilt vs innocence, which is reminiscent of Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret-- in Lady Audley’s case, all her actions stemmed from her genuine belief that her husband abandoned her with no intention to return, yet she is still vilified for her “accident,” while the man in this case committed intentional harassment and tried to claim it was “accidental,” demonstrating the disparity on forgiveness along gendered lines in the 19th century.