If those who pass their days in plenty and security, could visit for an
hour the dismal receptacles to which the prostitute retires from her
nocturnal excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded together,
mad with intemperance, ghastly with famine, nauseous with filth, and
noisome with disease; it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence
to harden them against compassion, or to repress the desire which they
must immediately feel to rescue such numbers of human beings from a
state so dreadful.
It is said, that in France they annually evacuate their streets, and
ship their prostitutes and vagabonds to their colonies. If the women
that infest this city had the same opportunity of escaping from their
miseries, I believe very little force would be necessary; for who among
them can dread any change? Many of us indeed are wholly unqualified for
any but the most servile employments, and those perhaps would require
the care of a magistrate to hinder them from following the same
practices in another country; but others are only precluded by infamy
from reformation, and would gladly be delivered on any terms from the
necessity of guilt, and the tyranny of chance. No place but a populous
city, can afford opportunities for open prostitution; and where the eye
of justice can attend to individuals, those who cannot be made good may
be restrained from mischief.
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