Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in serialized Victorian popular fiction, known as "penny dreadfuls". A story called "The String of Pearls" was published in a weekly magazine during the winter of 1846-47. Set in 1785, the story featured as its principal villain a certain Sweeney Todd and included all the plot elements that were used by Sondheim and others ever since. The murderous barber’s story proved instantly popular – it was turned into a play before the ending had even been revealed in print. An expanded edition appeared in 1850, an American version in 1852, a new play in 1865. By the 1870s, Sweeney Todd
Oldest profession (phrase) called “the oldest profession in the world", a profession which is carried on in Piccadilly, Regent street, and other parts of London with great energy every night … In the same year the "Pall Mall Gazette" reported a speech in which "Mrs. Ormiston Chant … implored us to stand shoulder to shoulder and destroy what Kipling has called 'the oldest profession in the world'". The phrase was frequently used as a euphemism when delicacy forbade direct reference to prostitution. Kipling was not the first to employ the phrase "the most ancient profession" in an opprobrious sense. The Irish poet Henry