" Their
sighs, and tears, and groans, are criminal in the eye of their tyrants,
the bully and the bawd, who fatten on their misery, and threaten them
with want or a gaol, if they show the least design of escaping from
their bondage.
"To wipe all tears from off all faces," is a task too hard for mortals;
but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet
the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched
of human beings are overlooked and neglected, with equal disregard of
policy and goodness.
There are places, indeed, set apart, to which these unhappy creatures
may resort, when the diseases of incontinence seize upon them; but if
they obtain a cure, to what are they reduced? Either to return with the
small remains of beauty to their former guilt, or perish in the streets
with nakedness and hunger.
How frequently have the gay and thoughtless, in their evening frolicks,
seen a band of those miserable females, covered with rags, shivering
with cold, and pining with hunger; and, without either pitying their
calamities, or reflecting upon the cruelty of those who, perhaps, first
seduced them by caresses of fondness, or magnificence of promises, go on
to reduce others to the same wretchedness by the same means!
To stop the increase of this deplorable multitude, is undoubtedly the
first and most pressing consideration.
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