It seems doubtful whether it would not prove more disgusting than interesting to the delicate mind, to be made acquainted with some of the artful contrivances and base stratagems thosefine gentlemenpractise every day for the allurement of the innocent into their fatal snares. But an attempt, perhaps, to unmask these assassins of virtue, these prowlers after human blood, even should it not be very successful, might still be useful to some credulous creatures, thus to apprize them of the precipices they are standing over, and the inevitable destruction to which they are continually exposing themselves in listening to the wily tales of well dissembled but profane love, delivered either with all the ardour of fervent passion, or that whining softness which practised villains know so well how to command.
First, then, I would affirm that the character of the seducer is cowardly, dishonourable, and base; and I defy the united sophistry of the whole fraternity to refute the assertion. Is it not cowardly, I would ask the most brazen of these unblushing champions, to invade the retreats of innocence and peace, and, after trampling down virtue, change them as it were into the abodes of infernal spirits, because the inhabitantsare poor and unprotected, and consequently without any means of punishing the violator of their happiness? What prevents them from at least attempting their ungenerous designs on families of rank, but thefearthat a father or brother would wash away the insult with the heart’s blood of the foul assailant? Or is it that the tinsel logic they were taught in the school of “honour,” succeeds better in blindfolding the understanding, weakening the faith, and warping the principles of the unenlightened mind, that they thus prefer to attack poverty and weakness, and to lay in ruins that sole refuge of the poor girl—purity and virtue? What a dignified employment for “a man of the world”—“a man of honour”—the last, graceless hope, perhaps, of some ancient, noble, andtruly honourablefamily!
I think the world are pretty well agreed in their abhorrence of a swindler, though his arts are surely not half so infamous as those of the seducer; and the effects of the one, as they are felt in Society, dwindle into insignificance when compared with the overpowering misery produced by the conduct and practices of the other. The swindler at most only deprives us of our money, which perhaps his own wants, or those of a starving family, may urge, and for which at some future opportunity, as instances have occurred, he may be able to make some reparation. But the seducer places his victim out of the pale of earthly happiness, and, it is feared, in this consigns her to eternal ruin.
What excuse can he plead? One of two only. Either, envious of her happiness, he wantonly destroyed it, or esteemed the short-lived gratification of his ownbrutal lusts equivalent to the endless torture which he could not but have so much reason as to believe would thus be visited on her. An elegant writer likens the hearts of these men to a stagnant and putrifying lake, which sends forth its poisonous exhalations to corrupt and wither every plant that grows on its banks.
“The morality of a man of the world amounts to little more than prudence, and does not always come up to that; he is aware of the allowance that is made for him, and sins up to the full extent of his measure; he must be always ready to sacrifice his own life, or to take that of another; in gaming, he must observe the strictest faith, and in general must abstain from all vices that are neither elegant nor interesting in their estimation: with these limits, he is let loose upon society and public happiness, to plunder and debauch without penalty or shame. Take for instance the happiness of a private family, as it depends upon the unsullied dignity and spotless life of its females:—Are there any of those whom we call men of the world, whom any thing but fear would prevent from poisoning the heart, and laying waste the principles and virtues, of women? Is there one who has religious magnanimity enough to scare this licentious cruelty from his soul? Is there one who would not blush to be suspected of such a virtue? and how often would the indulgence of the vice meet its punishment in the anger and the execrations of the world?”
The heart sickens in contemplating the waste of human happiness which is produced by this deadly evil—Seduction. Almost all the scenes of shameless depravity, and outraged decency, met with in thestreets of London, and other populous towns, are produced from this vile unhallowed source. The hapless female who falls into the clutches of one of these plunderers, eternally on the watch for prey, soon forgets that natural modesty which forms the brightest gem in the character of the sex, and, lured by the villain’s wiles, too easily slips aside from the path of purity, and becomes consigned to ruin and disgrace, most probably for life; for too rarely does it happen that a return to virtue dries up this source of all misfortunes, or brings back the influence of those virtues which innocence alone can diffuse over the soul.
The smooth-tongued seducer, like him that tempted our first mother, is every moment at her ear with dangerous suggestions to wile away her scruples, whilst by costly presents and too grateful favours, which he can easily command out of his ready means, or fruitful speculations, the poor girl is persuaded of a fixed attachment, of which no thought was ever entertained: he nevertheless, by his crafty persuasions and false promises, contrives fully to secure her credulity, and the unsuspecting victim is left entirely at the mercy of this ruthless enemy to her peace and happiness. Mercy!—Has the tiger mercy?—as well might that heavenly attribute be expected to beam forth in full influence from a demon, as to suppose that even for a moment that callous heart could be sensible of mercy, or even of pity, towards his harmless prey. No—gloating over the spoil, and exulting in his success, the licentious savage enjoys his feast until it palls upon his gross appetite; and then neglect, insult and base ingratitude prove to the wretchedmourner how misplaced has been her weak confidence, how false her expectations, how baseless all her fond hopes of happiness, for which she had sacrificed her all to her relentless destroyer.
The child of shame and remorse, devoted now to misery, no relief appearing to alleviate her distress, no soothing sound bespeaking a heart sympathizing in her sorrows, is totally given up to affliction: the displeasure of relations, if she have any living, the cold neglect of former friends, and the unfeeling scorn of the world, forbid approach to consolation; employment in the common walks of industry even is denied; and poverty, or the dread of actual starvation, leaves no alternative but the last direful one—prostitution.
The haunts of lewd revelry are ever with open doors, and the detestable bawds who preside over those disgusting receptacles are constantly on the look-out for girls in such a desolate situation. The unhappy creature quickly gets involved in the snare, sinks into the mass of corruption, and is carried along in the odious and deadly flood of intoxication, impiety, and uncurbed licentiousness, which adds another and another miserable female to the herds that infest the public streets, and walk in open day the disgrace of human nature.
“Seduction is never accomplished without the most villainous frauds, falsehoods, and often perjuries. No man ever enticed a simple, innocent female from the paths of virtue, without a complication of lies and false oaths, that would have rendered him infamous in the eyes of any virtuous person, had they been known. The injury he inflicts is aggravated bythe consideration that it admits of no reparation, and can only terminate with the life of the wretched sufferer.”
It would perhaps be impossible to form any thing like a correct comparative estimate of the quantum of misery endured by a creature whose native purity of soul and moral principles have been thus ruined. Few men, however, are so ignorant as not to know something of the passionate fondness of a mother for her offspring; and from this some idea may be conceived of the agonized and outrageous feelings that can urge her to its destruction to conceal her guilt and the shame it occasions. Will any one pretend to say that this barbarous and unnatural murder is not often occasioned by seduction? Nay, further, let me ask, Is not the seducer by profession very frequently provided withdrugs, which he hesitates not to administer to the wretch whom he has ruined, for the purpose of producing abortion? and if they fail, have not mechanical means been at times resorted to to effect the same damnable purpose?
These are facts which they cannot, dare not deny. What must we think, then, of the man who thus deliberately covers himself with innocent blood,—who wantonly takes away the life of a creature that was utterly incapable of ever having offered him any offence,—a life, too, of which he himself was the guilty author, and which by every tie of nature he was imperiously bound to cherish and protect? I do not mean to say, that every man who commits the crime of seduction, would at that same time also commit murder; but I do affirm, that there is no vice whatever,that so speedily corrupts the heart, debases its inclination, and so entirely depraves the mind, as an illegitimate intercourse between the sexes: it is a melancholy fact, not to be controverted, that even in the ordinary occurrences of life, the commission of one crime will often require and lead to many more to conceal it. The seducer, therefore, of a virtuous woman, to the enormity of that first offence, will and has been led on from one criminal act to another for the necessity of concealment, till murder has been added to the list of his foul transgressions.
The finest feather in a seducer’s plume, and on which he most prides himself, is the facility and indifference with which he can abandon his degraded victim. In this respect, indeed, it must be allowed that all of them evince considerable coolness and dexterity, consigning them in a month, or sometimes less, to rags, hunger, and infamy, leaving to perish the unhappy objects, whose confidence they had gained by solemn declarations and plighted oaths of love and regard, with the most sacred promises of never-failing protection.
Who can withhold the heartfelt, justly-merited tribute of approbation, from the poor industrious parents who are seen struggling cheerfully with want, enduring the chilling blasts of winter, and, after toiling through the day, retiring at night to a miserable ill-covered pallet, to stifle the cravings of hunger; and all borne without a murmur, that thus they may save a pittance to procure for a beloved child the blessing of ever so little knowledge, and thus infuse into her young mind a love of virtue? Who would dare the presumptionthat these humble honest people do wrong in cherishing the fond hope that she may contribute something hereafter towards the support of their declining years? Or would the seducer rather advise the mind of the child to remain unenlightened, that she might the more blindly fall into his snares? In that, will any man, however depraved and hardened in wickedness, lay his hand on his breast, and answer fairly, whether he does not think the ruin of such an innocent being a more heinous crime than murder, in almost any of the aggravated circumstances in which it has hitherto been exposed to public abhorrence? Will not the shame and sorrow of the parents be infinitely more afflictive than if they had seen their child deposited in the silent grave, if but unpolluted? And finally, will not the friends of human happiness sympathize more with the heart-broken parents, than if a robber had carried away the whole of their little property, and even left them without the last remains of sustenance—a morsel of bread?
That amiable Christian philosopher and excellent moralist, Dr. Paley, has expressed his sentiments on this subject in pointed and forcible terms. “Upon the whole,” says he, for I must be allowed to quote them, “if we pursue the effects of seduction through the complicated misery which it occasions; and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mischief they knowingly produce; it will appear something more than mere invective to assert, that not one half of the crimes for which men suffer death, by the laws of England, are so flagitious as this.”
There are cold-blooded mortals in the world, self-denominatedsages or philosophers, who can excuse and even sanction the most disgraceful excesses, under the specious plea of what they term reasonable allowance for youthful levity—the summer of life, when all the passions flow impetuously through the free channels of the vital system, though, like other violent streams, if left to themselves they will soon become exhausted and dried up. If this sophistical mode of reasoning deserve not the name of genuine philosophy, it claims at least the peculiar merit of novelty.
Is it not fair to infer, that persons who advocate principles so hostile to the true interests of society, have themselves been profligates through life, and are still in reality the enemies of mankind? Does it follow, that because the vices of early life in themselves have in a premature old age brought on their punishment, other fountains are to be suffered to exhaust themselves in like wickedness? Whence, it may be asked, has any man derived the right to destroy the happiness of his fellow creature? or what reparation will he be able to make for unprovoked injuries so wantonly inflicted, so irreparably endured?
But unfortunately the perpetration of such crimes is not confined, in virtuous indignation it must not be concealed, to the young alone; they are practised also by men whose hoary locks and tottering steps would beguile one in charitable thought to hope, that sentiments of a far different nature should influence them to prepare for that other world, on the verge of which they seem already standing. So great indeed is the general regard I have for grey hairs, that it sometimes amounts to veneration. How much morecongenial, then, would it prove to screen the foibles of that so much honoured period, than to expose any of those failings from which no part of our earthly existence is entirely free!
But when we see an old man voluntarily stripping himself of the dignity of years, and meanly descending from that eminence on which reverence and regard had placed him, to vicious indulgences which exhausted nature and the many infirmities of a debilitated frame render him incapable even of enjoying,—when we see him, I say, still hovering around those criminal gratifications which poison his every sober joy, and of which he cannot now, except in prurient imagination, be a partaker, what can or should save him from just contempt and merited indignation?
How many are there in high life, several of whom I could mention, (and were it done, it would be perhaps but the discharge of a christian duty,) who live in a state of unconcealed adultery,—fathers of families taking up with women young enough to be their daughters! At the present moment of writing, I know of two men who have grand-daughters some years older than two country girls they have under protection, as it is called, and whom they doubtless pay enormously for pampering their feeble appetites, and feeding their silly vanity. Can reformation of the young be reasonably expected, while the old continue to set such an example?
Suppose some of the sparks of the present day, who infest and dishonour every place of public amusement, were to commit the utmost extravagance, even to indulge in a seraglio, how awkwardly would the fathersof many of them remonstrate, themselves in the daily practice of like crimes, differing only in degree? In obscene conversation, too, such antiquated sinners have left their juvenile rivals far behind. What indeed can be more shockingly disgusting, than to contemplate an old wretched offender of this description seated at his own table, entertaining a large company of old and young with the infamous exploits of his licentious villainy? Silence and shame should displace the boasting that proves him only dead to principle and character.
It is an evil of no inconsiderable magnitude, that vice, be it ever so odious, will find some one or other of rank to countenance, if not to flatter it. On what rational principle shall we attempt to account for the reception which the most notorious seducers find in society of the first distinction, where they are not only allowed to make their appearance, but are generally treated with polite and even marked civility, not unfrequently the kindest attention, too, paid them by females who have been considered eminent for religion, piety, and moral virtue? What is to be said of such conduct, particularly when many who in this manner appear to make themselves partisans of seduction, are themselves mothers of lovely daughters, on whose loss of happiness those monsters would revel without a single feeling of remorse, and reduce to the same degraded level with all the rest of their credulous victims, some one or other of whom, perhaps, might have that very day been abandoned to shame, poverty, and misery?
An able writer of deserved celebrity has well observed, that “the confederacy amongst women ofcharacter to exclude from their society kept mistresses and prostitutes, contributes more perhaps to discourage that condition of life, and prevents greater numbers from entering into it, than all the considerations of prudence and religion put together.” Why, in the name of justice, should these unhappy objects, who are too often only deluded agents, be excluded from society, while the real authors of their errors, the men who have betrayed, and still keep them enslaved in the vilest thraldom, are received and countenanced without opprobrium or animadversion?
It is really with infinite reluctance and painful feelings that a single reprehensive glance should be cast at any part of the conduct of my fair countrywomen, and nothing but an anxious wish to see every female, rich or poor, mantled in the pure robes of captivating virtue and modesty, could induce me to assume the presumptuous language of reproof; but when the ruin of an innocent soul is threatened, who can be silent and offend not?
Britain is the only nation, perhaps, that can boast (as enviously conceded even by sister countries) of women in whom are united the three uncommon qualities of beauty, talents, and virtue. Who would not, then, have them nobly maintain this dignified superiority? Let their morals not be corrupted by the frivolous example of their volatile neighbours. Let them unanimously drive from their presence the notorious and plausible rake, who, however he may flatter, would betray and destroy. If enthusiasm can be applauded in any case, it is where the glory of a nation is the object; and let it never be forgotten, that from theearliest periods of the world, those countries have always been the greatest where the female character was the most virtuous and unsullied.
If we refer to the most obvious consequences attendant on the crime of seduction, we shall observe, that in almost every case the victim is reduced to the dreadful necessity of seeking a desultory and precarious subsistence byprostitution, which can never fail to expose the ill-fated object to a degree of wretchedness too painful for sensibility and virtue to picture even in imagination.
Before pronouncing a sweeping sentence, however, of unqualified condemnation on the horrid life these miserables lead, it would be just to pause a little, and inquire whether an alternative is left to them.—Forsaken and disowned by their relations; cruelly deserted by their seducers; shunned and despised by those who formerly were proud, perhaps, to cultivate their acquaintance; they stand, as it were, alone in the world, an awful memento of the loathsomeness of sin.
If to this state of unhappy feeling be added the resistless calls of hunger, the effects of cold and wet on a delicate frame, but thinly clad, and ill-protected against the severity of season, with the melancholy prospect of being compelled to perish in the streets, we may have some idea of their deplorable condition. But even this picture, dark and dreary as it is, presents a faint image only of the indescribable gloom, terror, and dismay, which lower over the tempestuous visitationsof the heart-rending conflict of shame, want, and misery!
What exquisite, what pure felicity must enliven his heart, who in this extremity of vice can become the instrument, with the divine aid, of restoring to a sense of religion and virtue, and of bringing back and restoring to her family, in the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, a poor deluded young female, ere her mind has been depraved in vicious intercourse with the abandoned of her sex, who vengefully in turn have become seducers, and practise upon man the same vile arts by which they themselves had been betrayed! If any period indeed of their wretched career be favourable for reformation, this appears to be the most propitious; and surely the salvation, the happiness of a fellow creature are objects too sacred, too glorious to be given up without at least an effort. But too often, unfortunately, is this opportunity suffered to slip by; for the benevolent few, who would promptly and joyfully extend the hand to save, know not the dangerous situation in which the object of such benevolence is placed, while the general mass of mankind looks on indifferent as to the destructive consequences inevitably to result!
Is it not as humiliating as distressing to reflect, that for one who has true greatness of soul sufficient to pity and assist such a poor bewildered girl, there are a hundred heartless sensualists that would take advantage of her misfortunes, and plunge her still deeper in a foul guilt? But she is not allowed long to hesitate between virtue and vice. Some veteran harpy not far off, ready to satisfy her keen hunger with a temptingfeast, and cover her naked, shivering limbs with decent dress, soon fairly enlists her under the banners ofprostitution, where she is compelled to endure insults the most degrading, to hear oaths and imprecations, and suffer obscenity the most revolting, to which a little time speedily familiarizes her.
Endowed perhaps by nature, for better purposes, with talent, she becomes easily a proficient in all the arts and tricks of practised criminality; she gains the favour and confidence of her mistress, or more properly her gaoler, who sends her forth to levy contributions on all whom she can entangle in her toils, particularly spread with malicious enmity for the open generosity of unguarded youth. In this manner bankers’ clerks, apprentices to shop-keepers and tradesmen, and other young men in trust, are often entrapped, and lavish away money which these females induce them to pilfer from their masters or parents: neglect of business, or other irregularity, at length rouses the suspicion of the hitherto confiding employer, who now deems it necessary to resolve on dispensing with the young man’s further services, and turns him upon the world to live as he can. How often has it happened, that a desperate effort to regain that respectability thus justly forfeited, brings him to an untimely and disgraceful end, or consigns him to distant exile for life! Hence arises another pitiable waste of parental affection.
Many a valuable young man has thus been lost to his family and the world: nor is the fate of the poor unhappy females generally much more enviable. Some of them, it is true, do occasionally succeed in obtainingsettlements from old dotards; and others in appearance enjoy all the conveniences of ease, luxury and affluence; but truth will allow the suggestion, that there is not one in a thousand who does not on some occasion or other experience every sorrow and anguish that can contribute to fill up life’s bitterest cup. Where is there, or ever has been, a woman of this abandoned class, who did not feel at some sad hour of reflection most acutely the degradation of her state? Which of them has not in the cravings of hunger, houseless and friendless, in feelings of heart-consuming and unavailing sorrow, tacitly acknowledged the slavish chains and bondage in which she was inextricably trammelled and held down by sin?
A lingering sense of shame, perhaps, drives some other of those unhappy and forlorn beings to a lodging of such a description as suits her scanty means. There, in a room which is seldom half furnished, the degraded and desolate object, with a forced and pitiable cheerfulness badly harmonizing with the settled marks of sorrow in her countenance, induces the visits of companions of the other sex, unknowing or careless that, by this wretched means of obtaining to herself a subsistence, she is leading him, in whom centre the cherished hopes, perhaps, of some respectable family, from the paths of duty into future and unavoidable iniquity. Thoughtless youths of this description find it easy to purloin money and articles from home, to secure the good opinion of their attractive mistress. The still unhappy creature, though above the dread of want, puts on a new character, becomes prudent fromnecessity, and loses no chance of improving her present harvest.
Too often, however, will pity say, the picture is reversed. Some low, designing wretch, struggling with want and subsisting by the meanest schemes, contrives to gain the fair one’s notice, is permitted to visit, and by dint of assiduities and moving representations of his altered fortunes, in a well tissued tale of distress he wins her compassion; and the generous girl (for the generosity of the confiding female heart is boundless) admits the plausible miscreant to her table, and shares with him her purse; nor has the worthless vagabond the slightest sense of shame or compunction in subsisting wholly on her miserable gains. Soon, then, she begins to feel misfortune keenly; her favouring visitors fail, the sources of her sad emolument are dried up; her clothes and trinkets go to the pawnbroker’s; her ingrateprotegé, no longer to batten on her miserable resources, robs her; and the unfeeling landlord, or his vociferous drunken wife, pretends now for the first time to have found out her way of life, and, under the pretence of conscientious abhorrence, turns her into the street without an article save what is on her person.
O happy, happy daughters of virtue! when you contrast your situation with that of this frail and wretched sister, be grateful to Heaven for the blessings you enjoy; guard your every step with prudent vigilance, lest at any moment you be tempted to go astray from the ways of “pleasantness and peace.” Perhaps the misfortune of this wretched girl has drawn her from astate once as delightful as your own; education and the seeds of early virtue may have been implanted in her bosom, and were lovely in their growth, until blasted by the seducer: observe now her once beautiful form, worn down and emaciated by want and sickness, nay worse, tainted with that destructive disease which is ever attendant on such a course; see her, in short, pining and wasting away under multiplied sorrows, and sinking rapidly into a premature grave!
Yet, even before that relief arrives, her wretchedness is too probably increased by associating with depraved females of the same class; (for how can she avoid those amongst whom she must live?) their habit of drinking spirits becomes familiar to her; the delusive poison affords a temporary relief, but hastens on a painful, lingering death, which takes place, perhaps, in some forsaken shed, or unfurnished weatherbeaten room: there, without fire, light or comfort of any kind, there see the emaciated, diseased, starving, and desolate being sigh out the last breath of a miserable life;—no friend is nigh to comfort—no accustomed voice is heard to sooth or cheer her last awful moments of existence, or, by once pronouncing her name, to seek assurance that as yet her soul may not have taken flight!
In this faint sketch, which, mark! is from very life, I have endeavoured to point out some of the innumerable evils which follow the baneful footsteps of those flagitious traders in female virtue and happiness. How many a poor sorrowing female, who has once listened to the destructive tempter, and suffered hergood sense to be blinded by seductive art, has been obliged to tread in such a painful road of thorns, debasement and affliction!
From the humble, bashful servant-maid, who has been seduced by the fellow servant, in order to win her over to a diabolical design laid by another as low in infamy if not condition as himself, for the ruin of her young mistress, and which too often through her persevering wicked agency becomes successful, up to the dashing woman of pleasure, maintaining a proud establishment by the base traffic and barter of female innocence,—all is a bloated mass of wickedness and falsehood. Most unhappy indeed, and lamentable, is the lot of those innocent, unpolluted girls who are drawn within the incantations of such licentious syrens, smiling but to destroy, while their execrable purpose is always enveloped in blandishments and charms, to lull the apprehensions of the modest and virtuous victim, led along as unsuspecting of danger as the lamb that licks the slaughtering knife.
The humble but industrious and virtuous girl apprenticed to a respectable dress-maker is marked down by another class of prowlers, more showy, specious and experienced. These, to dazzle at once the eyes of the hapless virgin, make a grand display of equipage, servants in livery, splendid house and luxurious table; the softest protestations, the most alluring promises, and apparently fondest expressions possible, are ever at hand. Thus, with the aid of presents, and by force of ever-renewed compliments, against which how few female minds can be duly guarded! the giddy creature in an unlucky moment forgets all the precepts of ananxious mother, and of a revered father whose grey hairs and sacred profession should have protected from the insult,—all vanish before the wily tempter’s skill, and disappear until woful experience opens the eyes of the infatuated girl to a sense of her lost reputation, and despair prepares her for the worst, the dernier fate of those in such condition.
Turn, inhuman destroyer!—take the last look at your heart-bleeding victim before you leave her to utter destruction. If a spark of honour, of even self-regard, lurk yet among your base unbridled passions, pause for a moment,—let recollection flash on the youthful days of your amiable wife;—such a villain as you have now become would have separated her life from yours:—You have daughters—cast a father’s look on them, and judge from your own feelings, if a father’s feelings can be yours, what you must have inflicted, in the disgrace of that ruined girl, who, now fallen and by you debased, clings around your feet, upon the hearts of a peaceful, respectable, and hitherto happy family.
Can this man make any recompense for his barbarous crime? He titles as a Lord; but vain are his immense treasures, his glittering equipages, to restore her lost innocence: no—no effort of his can sooth the remorse of her whom his guilt has made so miserable. Poor is the refuge from a worrying conscience, in the thought that ample provision has been made for the sorrower’s support, whose early death will relieve her at once from his odious bounty and her intolerable misery.
Endless as distressing would be the undertaking toparticularize the detestable variety of iniquity thus practised; or to enumerate all the suicides, child-murders, and secret crimes which hence originate, in all their turpitude. Of this one deplorable fact I have had assurance in the case of the female convicts late under my care on board the Morley, who invariably acknowledged, when on the subject of their misfortunes, thatseduction first led the way to guilt, and that the baneful career in which the sentence of the law had arrested them, might be decidedly dated from the fatal moment of their fall from virtue.
To arrest the progress of female prostitution, various expedients and measures have been proposed, and as numerous arguments urged in favour of their efficacy. The most ingenious British writer on the subject seems to be Dr. Colquhoun, whose zealous labours have long indeed been meritoriously directed to his country’s benefit. While his active vigilance has in many cases been successfully devoted to the investigation and repression of crime, his opinions in the main are correct and luminous.
In the remedy, however, which he proposes for female prostitution, his love of police system appears to me to have carried him beyond his depth, further perhaps than he intended. The measure he recommends is modestly covered by a few superficial, ingenious arguments, but, when divested of this learned covering, presents an appearance not very satisfactory to an English eye, and to that of stern virtue is even truly frightful—granting to prostitutes legal licenses!
The learned Doctor first endeavours to soften the scruples of his timid readers by argument both speculativeand specious; after which he gravely asks, “Where then is the objection?” and then immediately answers his own question, “In vulgar prejudice only.” He continues, “By those of inferior education, whose peculiar habits and pursuits have generated strong prejudices, this excuse may be pleaded; but by the intelligent and well-informed it will be viewed through a more correct medium.”
It might have the appearance of presumptuous temerity to oppose an opinion to this sweeping dogma of the learned Doctor; for, agreeably to his definition, I must confess that I am one of thoseof inferior education and vulgar prejudiceswhom he so designates. It may however be permitted me candidly to state, that I have viewed his proposition in every possible light, and have had some few opportunities of observing the effects of such a system, but somewhat modified, in several parts of the world; and that, after reflection as close and intense as my mind is capable of giving to any subject, I have decidedly formed an opinion, that the result of such an arrangement would be the very reverse of what he pronounces. It would, I firmly believe, be impossible for ingenuity to invent any thing that could contribute more effectually to vitiate the public opinion, and entirely extinguish the moral principle, than the open toleration or licensing of public brothels.
The Doctor surely must have forgotten that indulgence in this sin, more than any other, prepares the mind for the admission of every vice, and is generally the forerunner of the most diabolical and desperatedepravity in vulgar life; and in the higher walks even leads to dissoluteness, profligacy, and total disregard of moral and religious obligations: or would he venture with confidence “to prescribe rules ‘Thus far shall you go, and no further?’” Under the superintendence even of so able a magistrate as himself, would it be possible to apply this rule? But of this I am confident, that no plain honest man who wishes to promote the cause of morality, and the general welfare of his country, will ever desire to see this experiment tried in England.
In support of the propriety of this salutary measure, the Doctor adduces examples drawn from Holland, Italy, and India. In the first of those countries my own observation has been rather limited, though quite sufficient to convince me, that under no circumstances or modifications whatever could the Doctor’s expectations of the system in its consequences be realized. That the morals of the people of that country were formerly as pure, or “the purest of any in Europe,” as he states, I am nothing loth to admit; but that their corruption and degeneracy have been in a great measure occasioned by this very sanction, or connivance, cannot, I think, be disputed.
In Italy, it is true, the system has had a wider range, and its effects have been fully developed. The Doctor’s intercourse with that country must have been limited indeed, else he would have known, that long established habits of libertinism had indisposed and incapacitated the majority of them for all useful intellectual pursuits; and that their minds generally weretoo enervated to give birth to, much less sustain, any of those noble virtues which only and irresistibly command admiration.
Of the Italian women it is really an ungracious and painful task to be compelled at all to speak: but although I cannot in justice give them my unqualified approbation; and although censure, if it deserve that name, be given in gentleness, yet it must be declared that that prompt and resolute decision against guilt, and its indulgence, which forms so amiable a portion of the English character, is not often, I fear, to be met with in the women of Italy.
Against the opposition which he expected would be raised against his favourite plan, the Doctor urges “Plus apud me ratio valebit quam vulgi opinio;” but in proposing Italy, where morals and chastity have long dwindled to a name, and are now deplored as nearly extinct, as a model for British imitation, does he keep in sight the best part of his own maxim?
The introduction of Italian manners and customs amongst our females, might certainly gratify the utmost wish ofthe man of the world, and every professed rake or libertine; but it would be leaving the husband most probably no other security for his wife’s fidelity than the want of a paramour and suitable opportunity. The people of that country are notoriously licentious, practising without a blush, in open day, the most immoral and disgraceful excesses. I regret as deeply as any one, the vicious propensities of our own countrywomen, which it is grievous to observe are so extensively a subject for reprehension: yet it is far from gratifying or honouring to our nature, to entertain a convictionwhich follows from the lamentable fact, that the degradation of female chastity is, beyond all proportion, greater in Italy than it is at home.
I shall detain the reader with only a remark or two on the unhappy class of females in India, to whom the Doctor alludes as being devoted to indiscriminate intercourse, but whose morals in other respects, he says, are strictly guarded, and whose minds are not susceptible of that degree of depravity which prevails in Europe. It is with much reluctance, and no small degree of diffidence, that I feel it necessary to differ from one whose shining talents have contributed so eminently to the public good. However, as I have reason to presume that he never was in India, he must have had his information from a second, who probably had his from a third, and who most likely felt himself authorized to take advantage of the traveller’s privilege. Be this as it may, I am well assured that the purity he speaks of as there existing, is no where to be found, and that the behaviour of prostitutes in that country is marked by all the depravity of mind, and corruptness of manners, that can tend to imbrute the feeling, and fill the mind of the observer with the most sickening disgust.
But allowing the Doctor’s notion of the subject to be correct, and admitting all the force of his political maxim, “Qui non vetat peccare cum possit, jubet,”—still, I think, it would be extremely difficult, and attended with the utmost danger, to apply them to practice[32]. If the positive commands of God, and the awfuldenunciations of his wrath, can be violated and disregarded in one case, what is there to ensure obedience and respect to them in any other? In the 13th chapter 4th verse of the Hebrews it is declared, “whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” If the Legislature can grant a license to commit this crime with impunity, and thus far neither judges nor condemns, why may it not also, as moral principle alone is concerned, give one for committing murder, or any other deadly sin? In short, what would there be then to defer from trampling on the Decalogue, or the Bible itself, provided the countenance of Government, upon some view of mere policy, could be obtained in the shape and denomination of a license?
Having thus expressed an entire and unqualified disapprobation of any measure that could be construed into a public sanction of brothels, and their wretched inmates, it may be expected that I should myself substitute some efficient proposition on the subject. I should indeed consider such a task a duty, and feel pleasure in its performance, as far as my competency might extend, were I not fully satisfied that there are many, very many, in the country, whose zeal and abilities more eminently qualify them for a disquisition so important, while their political influence is such as to give them a hope, to me not in prospect, of successfully advocating the cause of innocence, virtue, religion, and social happiness.
31.A Government ordernowexists, requiring the Surgeon Superintendent of every convict ship to establish a school, and perform divine worship regularly during the voyage.
31.A Government ordernowexists, requiring the Surgeon Superintendent of every convict ship to establish a school, and perform divine worship regularly during the voyage.
32.The above observations were written during the voyage to New South Wales, when the Author was ignorant of the heavy loss sustained by the public in the death of that highly talented Magistrate.
32.The above observations were written during the voyage to New South Wales, when the Author was ignorant of the heavy loss sustained by the public in the death of that highly talented Magistrate.
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
Printed by R. and A.Taylor.Shoe Lane London.
Printed by R. and A.Taylor.Shoe Lane London.
Printed by R. and A.Taylor.Shoe Lane London.
Printed by R. and A.Taylor.
Shoe Lane London.