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.
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