inclines and fixes itself to the most agreeable part, studiously avoiding every idea that might create disgust.

The crime of sodomy, so severely punished by the laws, and for the proof of which are employed tortures which often triumph over innocence itself, has it's source much less in the passions of man in a free and independent state than in society and a slave. It is much 1. ss the effect of a satiety in plea sures than of that education which, in order to make men useful to others, begins by making them useless to themselves. In those public seminaries, where ardent youth are carefully excluded from all commerce with the other sex, as the vigour of na. ture blooms it is consumed in a manner not only useless to mankind, but which accelerates the approach of old age.

The murder of bastard children is, in like manner, the effect of a cruel dilemma, in which a woman finds herself who has been seduced through weakness or overcome by force. The alternative is, either her own infamy or the death of a being incapable of feeling the loss of life. How can she avoid preferting the last to the inevitable misery of herself and her unhappy infant? The best method of preventing this crime would be effectually to protect the weak woman from that tyranny which exagge rates all vices that cannot be concealed under the cloak of virtue. Beccaria.

PROSECUTORS. See TRIALS.

PROSTITUTES.

In contemplating the case of these unhappy fe males, it is impossible to avoid dropping a tear of

2 C3

pity.

pity. Many of them, perhaps, originally seduced from a state of innocence, while they were the joy and comfort of their unhappy parents-many of them born and educated to expect a better fate, until deceived by falsehood and villainy, they see their error when it is too late to recede. In this situation, abandoned by their relations and friends, deserted by their seducers and at large upon the world, loathed and avoided by those who formerly held them in estimation, what are they to do? In the present unhappy state of things, they seem to have no alternative, but to become the miserable instruments of promoting and practising that species of seduction and immorality of which they themselves were the victims.* And what is the result? It is pitiable to relate.-They are compelled of necessity to mingle with the abandoned herd who have long been practised in the walks of infamy, and they too become speedily polluted and depraved. Oaths, imprecations, and obscene language, by degrees become familiar to their ears, and necessity compels them to endure, and at length to imitate, and practise in their turn, upon the unwary youth, who too easily falls into the snare. Thus it is from the multitudes of those unhappy females,

It is in the first stage of seduction, before the female mind becomes vitiated and depraved, that Asylums are most useful. If persons in this unhappy situation had it in their power to resort to a medium, whereby they might be reconciled to their relations, while uncontaminated by the vices attached to General Prostitution, numbers, who are now lost, might be saved to society. Colquhounə

1.

females, that assemble now in all parts of the town, that the morals of the youth are corrupted; that unnecessary expences are incurred, and undue, and too often criminal, means are resorted to, for the purpose of gratifying passions which, but for those temptations which constantly assail them in almost every street in the metropolis, would not have been thought of. Through this medium, apprentices, clerks, and other persons in trust, are seduced from the paths of honesty, masters are plundered, and parents are afflicted; while many a youth, who might have become the pride of his family, a comfort to the declining years of his parents, and an ornament to society, exchanges a life of virtue and industry for the pursuits of the gambler, the swindler, and the vagabond. Nor is the lot of these poor deluded females less deplorable. Altho some few of them may obtain settlements, while others bask for a while in the temporary sunshine of case and splendour, the major part end a short life in misery and wretchedness.

What has become of the multitudes of unfortunate females, elegant in their persons and sumptuous in their attire, who were seen in the streets of the metropolis and at places of public amusement twenty years ago? Alas! could their progress be developed, and their ultimate situations or exit from the world disclosed, it would lay open a catalogue of sufferings and affliction, beyond what the most romantic fancy could depict or exhibit to the feeling mind.

Exposed to the rude insults of the inebriated and the vulgar, the impositions of brutal officers and watchmen, and to the chilling blasts of the night, during the most inclement weather, in thin apparel, partly in compliance with the fashion of the day,

but

but more frequently from the pawnbroker's shop rendering their necessary garments inaccessible, diseases, where their unhappy vocation does not produce them, are generated. No pitying hand appears to help them in such situations. The feeling parent or relation is far off. An abandoned monster of the same sex, inured in the practice of infamy and seduction, instead of the consolation which sickness requires, threatens to turn the unhappy victim out of doors, when the means of subsistence are cut off, and the premium for shelter is no longer forth-coming; or perhaps the unfeeling landlord of a miserable half-furnished lodging afflicts the poor unhappy female, by declarations equally hostile to the feelings of humanity, till, at length, turned out into the streets, she languishes and ends her miserable days in an hospital or a workhouse, or perhaps perishes in some inhospitable hovel alone, without a friend to console her, or a fellow-mortal to close her eyes in the pangs of dissolution.

If no other argument could be adduced in favour of some arrangements calculated to stop the progress of female prostitution, compassion for the sufferings of the unhappy victims would be sufficient; but other reasons occur, equally powerful, why this evil should be controlled.

To prevent it's existence, even to a considerable extent, in so great a metropolis as London, is as impossible as to resist the torrent of the tides. It is an evil, therefore, which must be endured while human passions exist; but it is at the same time an evil which may not only be lessened, but rendered less noxious and dangerous to the peace and good order of society: it may be stript of it's indecency,

and

and also of a considerable portion of the danger attached to it, to the youth of both sexes.

The lures for the seduction of youth passing along the streets in the course of their ordinary business may be prevented by a police applicable to this object, without either infringing upon the feelings of humanity or insulting distress; and still more is it practicable to remove the noxious irregularities which are occasioned by the indiscreet conduct and the shocking behaviour of women of the town and their still more blameable paramours, in openly insulting public morals, and rendering the situation of modest women at once irksome and unsafe, either in places of public entertainment or while passing along the most public streets of the metropolis, particularly in the evening.

This unrestrained licence given to males and fe males in the walks of prostitution was not known in former times at places of public resort, where there was at least an affectation of decency. To the disgrace, however, of the police, the evil has been suffered to increase; and the boxes of the theatres often exhibit scenes which are certainly extremely offensive to modesty, and contrary to that decorum which ought to be maintained, and that protection to which the respectable part of the community are entitled against indecency and indecorum, when their families, often composed of young females, visit places of public resort.

In this instance, the enduring such impropriety of conduct, so contrary to good morals, marks strongly the growing depravity of the age. To familiarize the eyes and ears of the innocent part of the sex to the scenes which are often exhibited in the theatres, is tantamount to carrying them to a school of vice and debauchery.