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On the Misery and Wretchedness of Female Prostitution.

[p243] I am extremely desirous that all persons who read this particular Chapter, should be acquainted with the real motives which have induced me to write it; and I trust and believe that they will favour them with their approbation.

Among the modern, new-fangled, and soi-disant philosophers of the present age, lost in longevity and putrified in matter, one of whom tells us that no man could die if the mind was not prejudiced by the fear of death, which makes him incapable of the necessary degree of volition [p244] to live. I own I do not understand, in this sense, the meaning of the word volition. He might, in my humble opinion, as well talk of the air balloon of life as the volition of life, which nought but the Almighty can give and take away.

Another of these wretched animals and idiot blasphemers, whom it is degradation to mention, who draws the breath of life, and dares to assert, that if there be such a thing as what is called God, it can be only matter.¹

These men, by arrogating to themselves a knowledge which can belong only to the Supreme Being, who made this world [p245] and every thing in it,² have, I am sorry to say, induced some unthinking persons to doubt the validity of certain points in religion³ which constitute our chief happiness in this world, and can alone conduct us to happiness hereafter. Religion, now-a-days, is much out of fashion. But I confess I am not ashamed to own that I am old-fashioned enough to have some religion in me, and glory in an ardent, unshaken belief in God. Yet at the same time that I view the atheist with abhorence,⁴ I despise the superstitious bigot.

[p246] I have read the Works of these half-enlightened exotic philosophers, who spring up from the faeces of human corruption, are bred in the hot-bed of atheism, and are fostered by wickedness and depravity; these Ark-wright, literary, spinning jennies, who spend their time in spreading cobwebs to catch the wavering flies; these turnspits, who, in the metaphysical wheel, turn the spit of conjecture, while they emit the fumes of a distempered imagination, and the vapours of a sickly brain; -- who think that they have travelled far in philosophy; but, like the dog in the wheel, end where they began. They have not brought me over to their no-faith, nor have they, in the slightest degree, shaken my belief. [p247] Stronger toils must they spread to entangle me. The little finger of common sense, by one single movement, wipes away such cobweb films, which for an instant may dazzle, but never can blind the true and perfect vision.

If one of these men were to ask me how I know that there is a God, I would give him for answer the words of the poor ignorant Arab of the desert; who, when asked that question by one of these metaphysical turnspits in philosophy, replied, "In the same way that I am able to tell, by the print impressed on the sand, whether it was a man or a beast which had passed that way." I should like to be informed by one of these philosophers, what confines the sun between the tropics. It is not to be accounted for by any philosophical hypothesis. [p248] He who walks daily in the great temple of Nature, and contemplates her wondrous works, wants no assistance to assure him of the existence of a Creator: his wondrous works all nature proclaims aloud; it is conspicuous to every one, and is known even to the blind; for, though deprived of sight, they feel the warmth of the sun; and the untutored Indian sees God in the clouds, and hears him in the winds. We cannot even draw our breath without conviction. How fated to misery is that nation, governed by a king, who fears not a future state of remuneration! there is hardly any excess, cruelty, or oppression, of which he may not be guilty.

It is not possible to keep society together without religion: such is my irrevocable opinion. But I certainly am no [p249] bigot: and I have ever thought that there is a wide difference between priestcraft and religion. Nor does any one see the folly of superstition in a more ridiculous point of view than myself. Nor am I one of those hypocritical psalm-singing repentants, who, conscious of the infamies they have committed in their more early days, think for certain, that, to insure their future and eternal happiness, it is necessary to set apart so many hours of the day to prayer and hymning. One self-approving hour far outweighs whole years of Tabernacle prayer and Tabernacle praise.

The mens conscia recti is a surer guide to happiness hereafter, than all the formularies that have ever been established. I know the use and the necessity of public [p250] worship; but the daily attendance at a parish-church will be of little avail, both for this world and that which is to come, if we do not contrive to establish a chapel of ease in our own breast. There I learn, from the preachings of Conscience, an heavenly-gifted orator, ordained to its holy work by God himself, that it is my duty, as it is my inclination, to support and plead the cause of seduced, deserted, and miserable woman.

Is there a man so base and so unfeeling, who walks the streets of this metropolis at late hours, without feeling the utmost pity and compassion for the miserable objects whom they behold taking up their night's lodging on some dunghill, or under gateways, waiting for the early opening in the morn of some noxious [p251] gin-shop, their sole and only residence or abode, whilst the vile seducer, at that moment, revels in every luxury of life?

Amongst the lower order of people, though highly culpable, yet the seducing a virgin, and turning her adrift on the wide world without any maintenance whatever, and absolutely compelling her to prostitute herself in the public streets to satisfy the calls of hunger, is more easy to be accounted for: but in respect to the gentleman of education and fortune, there is no palliation or the smallest excuse for the crime, and the infamy is increased an hundred fold. Yet, how many women do I know, who have been seduced by such men, and prevailed on to quit their parents and desert an hospitable home, with every assurance of the tenderest regard and protection! Some have not, to my knowledge, [p252] even scrupled to offer matrimony to accomplish their treacherous designs -- that nuptial bait so calculated to lead a fond and doating woman to the arms of the seducer: yet, after all, and ever promise of the most tender and sacred nature, they have taken the lovely all-credulous fair one to some common brothel, where, after having gratified their barbarous passion, they have left her to the power of a mercenary, unrelenting, infernal procuress: she is soon brought in debt to the Lady abbess, who threatens to send her to prison, or to turn her into the streets, unless she consents to her infamous designs. To her parents she cannot return. Deserted by the man on whom she has placed her affections, and in whom she had reposed the utmost confidence, she has no alternative: a prison, famine, or prostitution await her. Of these three [p253] cruel evils, the wretched being chooses that which appears to her, to be the least; and nought remains for her but to become the victim of despair, or to seek for refuge from the pangs of her bosom, in a life of profligacy and intemperance: painful disease, and confirmed depravity, too often close the scene. Some few, before they arrive at this miserable situation, have found protecting friends, who have provided them with a comfortable home, and restored them to comparative happiness: but, after all, they are but few indeed, when compared with the thousands, who sink by degrees into the lowest gulph of prostitution and infamy. Alas! how many of those who have rolled along the streets of London in their elegant equipage, who have been decked in golden array, and were finest at every fine show, have [p254] closed their short lives in a workhouse or an hospital!

Can any man professing Christian morality, or even professing nothing more than the character of a gentleman, reconcile such deeds to his mind? Is there a man so unfeeling, so destitute of principle, as to enjoy one moment's sound repose on his pillow, when he reflects that some poor, wretched female, once fair and beauteous, though now no longer an object of desire, is reduced to the most miserable condition, by his base seduction and perjured vows? Perhaps she has not a bed of straw on which to repose her weak and weary limbs. Destitute of food, with scarce a garment to protect her from the piercing cold, and courting the lust of the lowest vagabond or midnight robber for [p255] a momentary subsistence, it is her final allotment to curse her seducer and to die. Yet such men there are, who dare to walk the streets in open day, and arrogate to themselves the character of men of honour and of gentlemen; nay more, would attempt to cut the throat of any one who even suspects them of a contrary conduct. Monster! for man thou are not, if perchance thou shouldst cast thine eye on these pages, though perjured, base, and infamous wretch, I hurl my contempt and execration at thee! But you deserve much more from the injured fair one; vengeance, nay death, inflicted by her hand, would be but a just atonement for her sufferings; and were she to stab thee in the heart, and give freedom to thy soul to quit its cursed above, and fly thy base, inhuman trunk, it is no more than thou [p256] mightest expect, though it would be a punishment inadequate to thy crime.

To prove, therefore, that you have, in reality, some spark of honour, some sense of crime, hasten, ere it be too late, to atone, by future charity and kindness, for thy past offence. Go, seek the deserted fair one far and wide, whom thou hast seduced and forsaken, and, by a generous conduct in future, make all the satisfaction in thy power for thy horrid infamy. But if thy cankered heart is hardened in misdeed, go, boast the number thou hast debauched and abandoned, and sacrifice fresh victims to thy infernal passions. But know, that injured virtue will be avenged; another world has its punishments prepared for wretches such as thou art. Satan, at thy entry into his dominions, shall [p257] pay thee homage; while the inferior demons shall greet thee with the fraternal kiss, and make thee partakers of their destiny. Be not troubled with any alarm at the posthumous reproaches of this world after death; I will insure thee the praises of posterity. Half a dozen seven-shilling pieces shall purchase thee as many paragraphs in the public papers, which shall hold thee up to the admiring multitude as a paragon of virtue, and an example for the age in which thou hast lived; and who will dare to contradict the assertions of those authentic, candid, and impartial repositories of the current events of the world?

But what am I writing? If your heart is so hardened, if you are so lost to all sensibility of what is truly honourable in the human character, you will laugh at [p258] the opinion of the world: and if, in a moment of returning virtue, you should repair, to the utmost of your power, the wrongs which you have done, you will secure the favour of all those whose approval is honour, and whose friendship is happiness. To err is in the nature of man, but to persevere in error, in spite of the dictates of honour, the suggestions of conscience, and the precepts of religion, belongs only to the votaries of the devil. -- This is a very momentous concern, in which we are all deeply interested: I beseech you, therefore, ye gallant, gay Lotharios of the age, to look to it.

Before I shall propose any method by which lovely woman may be more protected than she is at present, I shall state the justice of the law of the land, by which every man may obtain [p259] not only redress, but heavy damages, from the person who does him an injury, traduces his character, or vilifies him so as to affect his worldly interest. If a nobleman or private gentleman is vilified or libelled, the law gives him ample redress to heavy damages. If a tradesman is vilified or libelled, he prosecutes, and the law gives him damages according to the injury he is supposed to have received, or may receive, relative to his trade. Unmarried women of fashion have received heavy damages⁵ for scandalous paragraphs against them even in the newspapers: men and women of all descriptions have redress open to them from the law of the land, except the much to be [p260] pitied seduced and abandoned fair one, whose injury is by far the greatest that man or woman can sustain. As for the nobleman or gentleman, when the aspersions on his characters are cleared up in public court, it is sufficient to his honour; the fining or imprisonment of the libeller is but of little consequence to him; the verdict of a jury sets all right between him and the world.

Before I mention the actual and only redress that a woman who has been seduced and abandoned can obtain from a court of justice, I will ask a few questions of those barristers who are in the most constant habits of pleading at the bar, from the celebrity of their talents and oratory. Do they often receive a brief to plead the cause of a woman who prosecutes for the non-compliance in a promise of [p261] matrimony, and at the same time acknowledges, that, in consequence of that promise, she has given up her person to the defendant? I believe they will not answer me in the affirmative. Let us therefore examine what redress a woman, in such a situation, can obtain in a court of justice. I never yet heard of a woman appearing to prosecute for a non-compliance of marriage, who instructed her counsel, in his pleadings, to state, that on the defendant's promising her marriage, she yielded to his wishes. I am of opinion that her counsel would advise her to keep that part of the history to herself. But might not the opposite counsel, on cross-examination, inquiry whether she had ever submitted her person to the defendant? And might it not be observed, with some degree of effect, to the jury, that it would have been more prudent to have gone to [p262] church first, and then consummated the nuptials? What charge would a judge give to the jury on such an occasion? and what damages would they give to such a woman? The action, I fear, would be soon got rid of, and I have my doubts whether or not she might not be told that she was an impudent hussey for demanding damages for a breach of promises of marriage, when she had wantonly put herself in a situation in which it would have been disgraceful in any man to have fulfilled it.

But a greater misfortune attends the incautious, credulous, unsuspicious fair one, who, from real affection, and knowing the sincerity of her own heart, suspects neither deceit or perjury from her seducer. She has no witnesses to bring forward to attest his perjured promises: before Heaven, [p263] and in secret, those vows were made: she therefore has not, nor can she have redress. But I must, at the same time, beg leave to ask, if a woman is seduced and abandoned, is not the injury done to her greater than the libelling or vilifying the character of a gentleman or a tradesman? Yet they have ample redress: the gentleman, when his character is cleared up, suffers not in the least, and has the pleasing gratifications, in all companies where he goes, of being complimented and congratulated on the honest of his conduct, every one deprecating the villany of the assassin of his character. The tradesman even benefits from the false aspersion; for, such is the natural compassion of mankind, that many are induced to deal with an injured, honest man, who otherwise would not have thought about him, or, perhaps, have ever heard of him. [p264] But where does the kind, incautious, and affectionate woman find redress? Nowhere. If, indeed, in addition to the heart-breaking misery of being thus abandoned, she should have the additional misery of being with child, she may certainly swear the child to the seducer, and compel him to pay forty pounds to the parish, who will take care of the infant, if she chooses to part with it; but it must be an unnatural mother who does not wish to have the care of her own offspring. In this place, I believe I am correct, the parish will only allow her at most three shillings per week. Thus the infernal perjured miscreant gets rid of the woman and the child; for she cannot compel him to give her any maintenance. Thus, deserted by her friends, and forsaken by him, she is left to make her way in the world as well as she can. Many, it cannot [p265] be denied, are compelled, from impending starvation, to seek the means of satisfying hunger by prostitution; but they are very few indeed, when compared with the great family of women who are supported by it.

In former days, every unmarried woman who had a child was compelled to stand publicly in the church, in a white sheet; but the shame and exposure of this punishment frequently produced the most unnatural of crimes, as the terror of such a public exposition was the cause of many women murdering their children, for which reason that fatal ceremony is now altogether omitted: nevertheless, the unfeeling and censorious part of the world deride and censure a woman who has had this misfortune. They, alas! never look into their own conduct, [p266] but are ever greedy to slander others; and yet people with such a disposition go to church constantly, and dare call themselves Christians; but little do they imitate or think of the all-forgiving love and kindness of the Author of their religion, who even pardoned the woman taken in adultery.

Before I give any opinion how these unfortunate and injured women might be redressed and protected, I will related three instances of villany perpetrated by unfeeling monsters, which, within a few years, have come to my knowledge, and I pledge my honour to the truth of them.

A young woman, the daughter of a reputable tradesman, happened to gain the friendship of the daughter of a gentleman of wealth and consequence, and [p267] such was her amiable manners, that the parents of the young lady were induced to take her into her house and complete her education. There an officer persuaded her by the usual arts, and a most solemn promise of marriage, to elope with him to the Isle of Wight. But he remained only one night with her; and, without giving her the least suspicion of his intentions, went on board the fleet then lying at Spithead under sailing orders for the West Indies. When she arose in the morning, and inquired after her lover, the waiter of the inn informed her that the gentleman had taken his trunk away with him, and was gone in a boat on board the fleet at Spithead. At the same time he informed her that every thing was paid in the house, supposing her, from the conduct of this ruffian, to be a woman of pleasure.

[p268] I need not tell the reader the distraction and misery of mind she must have suffered. Having quitted her parents and her protectors, where she was educated, to them she could not return; and, in this wretched situation, she knew not what step to take, or what measure to pursue. At length she recollected that two young ladies, with whom she had been in the strictest habits of friendship, lived not far from the place of her misery. She wrote to them, requesting they would be so kind as to call on her; at the same time informing them in general terms, that, from some unforeseen and extraordinary events, she was in the greatest distress. They immediately came to her, when she related to them the whole of her misfortune. These excellent girls went home to their father, and told him the whole history. That worthy man [p269] instantly took her to his own house, treated her with the utmost affection and tenderness, soothed her sorrows, and after a certain time, the affair being known only to his family, he reconciled her parents to her, and restored her to them. -- The villainous miscreant of a seducer died of the yellow fever shortly after his arrival in the West Indies.

My next history is of a girl, the daughter of a reputable tradesman in a country town, who had for two or three years lived as lady's maid in a genteel family in the neighbourhood. An officer of one of his Majesty's regiments prevailed on this girl to quit her place, with every promise of protection, and to live with him. When she had been with him only twenty-four hours, the father, being informed of her elopement, made a diligent search after [p270] her throughout the quarters of the regiment; but her seducer concealed her so as to elude the vigilance of her father, and sent her with a soldier's wife to an inn in London, assuring her that, as soon as his duty would permit him, he would follow her. Four days after, he sent her four guineas, and told her by letter that it was impossible for him to live with her; for, if his parents should discover the connection, it would prove his ruin. I am of opinion, that, in injustice, they should have discarded him for ever for so base a conduct towards the woman he had thus seduced and deserted. I most solemnly declare, that I would make a son of mine, if I had one, allow a woman in this predicament an ample maintenance, according to his power; or I would disinherit him for ever. By the greatest chance in the world, the wife of an officer [p271] in the navy came up from Chatham to the same inn, when, observing this girl extremely miserable, she prevailed on her to disclose her distress, and this amiable and generous woman took her into her own family. She has since, as I have been informed, married an officer in the navy.

It is but an act of justice to mention, in this place, how kind, affectionate, and generous the gallant tar is to woman. There is scarcely an instance of a sailor deserting a woman, or using her ill. Rough at sea as the boisterous billows, unconquerable they ride over the foaming surge, and, masters of the waves, to woman, and to woman only, do they own subjection. They know the value of the loveliest part of human nature, and treat them as they deserve, with honour, sincerity, and protection. Would [p272] I could say the same in general of their brethren in war! But with sorrow do I relate, that many seek as much to ruin a woman, as others seek a civic crown; and regard every virgin sacrificed to their infernal lust, as a fresh laurel on their brow. Nor are there a few who feel as little remorse in turning a woman on the town, as in turning a horse for the winter, to save expence, on a common. I am no friend to an increase of penal statues; we have enough of them. Yet I should wish to see another, with heavy punishments for female seduction, added to the number.

The third and last instance of the baseness and villany of man towards woman, with which I shall trouble the reader, although I could give fifty more, is of a servant girl who lived with a woman that [p273] was kept by an opulent citizen. He visited this woman for some months, allowed her an income, which was paid her punctually every week; but he never let her know his name, and desired she never would ask who he was. This is a constant practice among citizens who are not known at the west end of the town: nay more, they often pass by fictitious names; it is their constant practice; and there are many women at this moment who are sumptuously maintained by merchants, whose real name they never know, and whose interest it is not to know it; for, if these delicate factors should suspect that they were discovered, it is an hundred to one if they ever entered the house again.

This honest citizen at last took a fancy to the servant, prevailed on her to quit [p274] her mistress and take an apartment, promising to maintain her in comfort and independence: the girl yielded to his wishes; and the following morning he quitted her altogether, and left her to pay the lodging.

Let me soberly and seriously ask my readers what they think of these three miscreants? My opinion is, that they merit the gallows; but so, alas! it is, that, in a country renowned for the wisdom of its legislature, there is no law that can reach them.

I shall now propose the outlines of a remedy, to prevent such inhuman monsters from perpetrating their acts in infamy, at the expence and ruin of too credulous, confiding woman. It certainly is in the power of the legislature to afford [p275] the sex more protection; and it is my prayer to Heaven, that some true lover of them, now in Parliament, may undertake their cause. I pledge myself, or ever I should have the honour of a seat in the House of Commons, to consult some of the most able men in this country, in order to bring forward a bill for the better protection of woman, and to afford relief and maintenance to a female, seduced and abandoned by any faithless and unfeeling man: and I trust, that, in such a just, humane, and laudable design, I should find a warm and animated support, both in the hearts and voices of a great and commanding majority of the British senate.

I am conscious of my own inability to frame a law for the prevention of such abuses; therefore I shall only give the outlines, trusting that some generous and [p276] able senator will undertake the framing and completion of this grateful task. I propose, therefore, that every man who seduces a woman, if he does not marry her, shall be compelled to give her a maintenance, such as the legislation may judge that she has a claim to receive, and that the man, according to his circumstances and situation in life, is able to bestow. Not that I would, by any means, wish that a woman's oath should alone convict a man, and make him father a child, when she has been connected with others, which she may now do, and lay her infant at any man whom she chooses to pitch upon, although he never has been within twenty miles of her; a circumstance that has happened to many men, and particularly to an acquaintance of my own, who was thus compelled to father his brother's misdeeds. I am sanctioned for wishing to [p277] exclude a woman's oath without some corroborating testimony, when I inform the reader, that Madame La Chevaliere d'Eon, when she personated, for some years, Le Chevalier d'Eon, had a child sworn to her. -- Substantial proof should be produced, the same as in cases of crim. con.; and, I think, were the court to compel the seducer to maintain the woman, it would be full as laudable an act as the endeavour to make a man pay 13,000l. for defiling the chaste bed of a taylor.⁶ It may be truly said, that many men could not pay such damages, and must be confined to a prison; but are not all those who are found guilty of crim. con. compelled to pay the verdict, lie in prison, or [p278] fly the country? Is not the one crime, morally speaking, as great as the other?

To consider this matter further, I am certain it would considerably lessen the number of those wretched women whom we every night see roving the streets to supply the necessaries of life, if man in certain cases, and in certain cases ONLY, (which I have minutely spoken of in my chapter on Matrimony and Polygamy,) were permitted to marry a second wife during the life of the former. To the above-mentioned chapter I refer the reader for my reasons, which are stated at a considerable length. I am confident, if these two regulations were enforced, and permitted by the legislature, that in a very few years prostitution would lose one half of its wretched victims. The Magdalen, [p279] Foundling Hospital, and other charities, are laudable institutions: but, in effect, they are no more than attempting to lave the River Thames with hand-buckets; you must strike at the fountain-head, to dry up the stream.

Having spoken so fully of the detestation and abhorrence in which I hold the crime of seducing and abandoning women; in justice to myself, and for my own satisfaction, and particularly on account of that respect I so truly profess for all censorious old maids, church-going hypocrites, and pious, regenerated, methodistical sinners; as well as to save them the trouble of making any pleasant remarks relative to my conduct in this instance, I here most solemnly, and in the face of Heaven, declare, that I never seduced a virgin in my life. I confess that my poverty has [p280] sometimes been the cause of my never having committed such an act, because I have ever conscientiously held it the greatest of crimes to seduce a woman, without making a suitable provision for her.

Reader, thou mayest say that I have no great virtue to boast of, and that my character is not distinguished by any pre-eminent morality. I do not claim the distinction: but truth I claim; and God, who reads my heart, knows the truth of the assertion I have just made; the fact is so. -- And here let the chapter close.

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Notes:

¹ Know then thyself, presume not god to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man. [ back ]

² Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves Old Ocean, and who wings the storms. [ back ]

³ Reason, to think of God when she pretends,
Begins a censor, an adorer ends.[ back ]

⁴ I never heard of one of these men who had ridiculed every thing serious, when on their death-bed, and apprised of their approaching dissolution, who did not make a watery end. [ back ]

⁵ Mr. Tattersall paid 4000l. damages for a paragraph in the newspaper of which he was proprietor, though he never knew it was inserted until he arrived from his country-house. [ back ]

⁶ Damages were laid at 13,000l. and the verdict was very heavy, amounting to several thousands. With the specific sum I cannot charge my memory. [ back ]