In May 1889 a crowded trial in the District Court found Madame Brussels not guilty of procurement, and that her house was well-conducted. Later police prosecutions were also unsuccessful. In August 1898, Madame and her Lonsdale Street neighbours, Maude Mi ller and May Baker, were together tried for occupying premises frequented by persons without lawful means of support; the charges were brought by Wesleyan Methodists. After police witnesses agreed that the houses were well conducted, the chief magistrate (and mayor), Councillor McEacharn, dismissed the charges for want of evidence and made the police sit through a lecture: ‘Do you think that Melbourne would be improved if a large street like this [Lonsdale] were filled with Syrians, Hindus and Chinese?’ (File in the Public Records Office, VPRS 937:306.)

Defiant to the end, at a court appearance in March 1906, when the pressure to close the brothels was mounting, Madame Brussels arrived with her first lieutenant, Martha Atkinson, and a team of her young ladies. The press reported that she was quietly atti red, spectacled, with the appearance of a benevolent midwife. Martha Atkinson was demure in manner and dressed as if at a Wesleyan conference. The rest were ‘bobby dazzlers’ in rustling silks and satins. Madame applied her skills and ‘her tears were pouri ng in a regular deluge’. After the police magistrate said that he would let her go this time, there were fresh tears. The newspaper Truth described the trial under the headline ‘Brussells Sprouts’ and accompanied its report by caricatures of all the ladie s. (Truth, 10 March 1906.)