A dangerous life

Although no murder was ever committed in Strait Street, two Maltese women, who used to frequent the bars there, died on separate occasions from multiple stab wounds.

Police and crime historian Eddie Attard explained that in December 1898 a rule on lodging houses stipulated that "provided that whoever shall keep or manage or share with others in the management of any brothel shall be punished with a multa (fine) or with imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months".

The regulation laid down further on that in any house in which more than one public prostitute lives shall, for the purpose of the law, be considered as a lodging house. But is was unlawful for any prostitute to live with another prostitute in the same house without giving notice thereof to the police.

Prostitution continued to rise at the beginning of the 20th century. Quoting from a list of contraventions of the regulations on prostitution, Mr Attard recalled that in 1903 there were 1,499 such infringements while in 1923 the number had shot up to 3,307 but then started to dip as the government of the day began to clamp down on the trade.

For example, one of the restrictions outlawed prostitution in the streets of Valletta allowing prostitutes to operate only in Strada Fontana and Strada Sant'Anna.

According to the 1920 Venereal Disease Ordinance, prostitutes were liable to be examined four times a month by a medical officer and "at any such other time as may be considered necessary by the chief government medical officer".

The danger that loitered did not only consist of disease.

Mary Grech, 28, known as Mary is-Sewda, 28, who had two children, used to work as a barmaid in Strait Street. In 1970 she was found dead in her house in Strada Fontana, her naked body mutilated by knife cuts.

An American sailor, Huston Eustace Featherstone, 19, of Chester, Pennsylvania was accused of the murder and found to be of an unbalanced mind. He detained at Mount Carmel Hospital but was later transferred to the US.

On February 6, 1972, the naked body of Irene Johnson, 45, was found in a zinc bathtub in her house in Strada Fontana. She had been knifed repeatedly.

Police investigations revealed that a foreigner, possibly an American serviceman, committed the murder but the case was never solved, many believing the perpetrator had left the island by the time the investigation got underway.

"These two murders unleashed a wave of fear among all those who worked in Strait Street for they no longer felt safe," Mr Attard said.

In the wake of the murders big fights broke out between Maltese men and American troops. After 1971, the Labour government banned American ships from visiting the island as part of its policy of neutrality.

The last prostitute killed before Mary is-Sewda was Rosina Crisofalli, from Catania, who was killed in Lion Street, Floriana in 1880 by Giuseppe D'Urso, a Sicilian.

Mr Attard, whose book Delitti F'Malta has sold 10,000 copies, - the second book in the Delitti F'Malta series has just been published - recounts a curious incident.

"At the beginning of the 20th century the Police Commissioner was responsible for issuing the immigration permits for the artistes that performed in Strait Street. While excavating the foundations of the house of former Police Commissioner Tancred Curmi, who occupied that office in the early 20th century, workers came across two skeletons.

"At the time, the police theorised that the skeletons were those of two of the foreign artistes who for some reason had had their lives cut short. Mr Curmi had much earlier been dismissed from his post for something unrelated to foreign artistes," Mr Attard added.

Readers are invited to send comments, photographs and anecdotes about Strait Street to gcini@timesofmalta.com