Part 25 (2/2)
CHAP. XII.
_The Consideration of the causes of the progress and increase of Crimes pursued.--The condition of the unhappy Females, who support themselves by Prost.i.tution--Their pitiable Case.--The progress from Innocence to Profligacy explained.--The morals of Youth corrupted by the mult.i.tudes of Prost.i.tutes in the streets.--These temptations excite desires which suggest undue means of obtaining money.--Apprentices and Clerks are seduced--Masters are robbed--Parents are afflicted.--The miserable consequences of Prost.i.tution explained.--The impossibility of preventing its existence in a great Metropolis.--The propriety of lessening the Evil:--By stripping it of its indecency and much of its immoral tendency.--The shocking indecency which has lately been suffered by Prost.i.tutes at the Theatres.--The number of Prost.i.tutes in the Metropolis estimated--Suggestions for rendering the consequences arising from Female Prost.i.tution less noxious to Society.--The advantages of the measure in reducing the ma.s.s of turpitude.--Reasons offered why the interests of Morality and Religion will be promoted by prescribing Rules with respect to Prost.i.tutes.--The example of Holland, Italy, and the East Indies quoted.--Strictures on the offensive manners of the Company who frequent Public Gardens:--Imputable to the want of a proper Police.--Tea Gardens under a proper Police might be rendered beneficial to the State.--The Ballad Singers might also be rendered instruments in giving a right turn to the minds of the Vulgar.--Crimes generated by immoral Books and Songs.--Responsibility as it relates to the execution of the Laws rests no where at present.--The nature and advantages of the Police System explained._
In addition to the prominent causes, which contribute to the origin and the increase of crimes, which have been developed in the preceding Chapter, there are other sources of a minor nature still to be traced, from which infinite evils to the Community spring.
Among these the most important is, the state and condition of the unhappy Females, who support themselves by Prost.i.tution in this great Metropolis.
In contemplating their case, it is impossible to avoid dropping a tear of 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.[92] 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 indure, and at length to imitate, and practise in their turn, upon the unwary youth, who too easily falls into the snare.
[Footnote 92: 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 Prost.i.tution_, numbers, who are now lost, might be saved to Society.]
Thus it is from the mult.i.tudes of those unhappy Females, that a.s.semble 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 pa.s.sions, which but for these temptations, which constantly a.s.sail 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. Although some few of them may obtain settlements, while others bask for a while in the temporary sun-s.h.i.+ne of ease and splendour, the major part end a short life in misery and wretchedness.
What has become of the mult.i.tudes 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 Amus.e.m.e.nt 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 fas.h.i.+on of the day, but more frequently from the p.a.w.nbroker'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 s.e.x, 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 Prost.i.tution, Compa.s.sion for the sufferings of the unhappy victims would be sufficient; but other reasons occur equally powerful, why this evil should be controlled.
To prevent its 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 pa.s.sions 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 its indecency, and also of a considerable portion of the danger attached to it, to the youth of both s.e.xes.
The lures for the seduction of youth pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sing along the most public streets of the Metropolis, particularly in the evening.
This unrestrained licence given to males and females, in the Walks of Prost.i.tution, 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 ent.i.tled, against indecency and indecorum, when their families, often, composed of young females, visit places of public resort.
In this instance, the induring 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 s.e.x to the scenes which are often exhibited in the Theatres, is tantamount to carrying them to a school of vice and debauchery--
Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft--familiar with her face, We first endure--then pity--then embrace.
For the purpose of understanding more clearly, by what means it is possible to lessen the evils arising from Female Prost.i.tution in the Metropolis, it may be necessary to view it in all its ramifications.
In point of extent it certainly exceeds credibility: but although there are many exceptions,--the great ma.s.s, (whatever their exterior may be,) are mostly composed of women who have been in a state of menial servitude, and of whom not a few, from the love of idleness and dress, with (in this case) _the misfortune of good looks_, have partly from inclination, not seldom from previous seduction and loss of character, resorted to Prost.i.tution as a livelihood.
They are still, however, objects of compa.s.sion, although under the circ.u.mstances incident to their situation they cannot be supposed to experience those poignant feelings of distress, which are peculiar to women who have moved in a higher sphere and who have been better educated.--
_The whole may be estimated as follows:_
1. Of the cla.s.s of Well Educated women it is earnestly hoped the number does not exceed 2,000
2. Of the cla.s.s composed of persons above the rank of Menial servants perhaps 3,000
3. Of the cla.s.s who may have been employed as Menial Servants, or seduced in very early life, it is conjectured in all parts of the town, including Wapping, and the streets adjoining the River, there may not be less, who live wholly by Prost.i.tution, than 20,000 ------ 25,000
4. Of those in different ranks in Society, who live partly by Prost.i.tution, including the mult.i.tudes of low females, who cohabit with labourers and others without matrimony, there may be in all, in the Metropolis, about 25,000 ------ Total 50,000
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