have entailed on the community by the pledges he has left them to support through his thoughtlessness and neglect, cannot be precluded from an asylum in these last resorts and general receptacles (with some few exceptions) of the vicious and the wretched, who must, of course, reduce themselves to that condition of distress “that will render them capable, by dint of practice, of the greatest duplicity: then, when disease overtakes them, and they can no longer minister to the sinful gratifications of others, they can have immediate access to these promising asylums; and have only to patch up a few falsehoods to procure a prompt admission."

After several extraneous observations upon the internal economy of this institution, and the prompt admission of applicants, we have an extract given us from

the committee's report.

"After suitable

probation, every prudent means will be employed to induce the relations or friends of the reclaimed female to receive her into their protection, and to provide a proper situation for her;" if this, however, should prove unsuccessful, which distinction Mr. H. has not noticed, in his remarks, then “endeavours will be made by the Society to place her in a safe and respectable situation." Now as the design of the ladies to procure the reclaimed penitent a situation rested upon contingencies, he ought not merely to give us his mind upon the principles he condemns, but to allow some merit to the unexceptionable means of inducing her friends to receive the reformed prostitute-as upon the committee's good or bad success her future fate depended; and whether they resorted at all to those steps, so reprehensible in his judgment. But I should hope, for the

4

honour of human nature, and that laudable jealousy usually entertained by families for their good name and welfare, that they would not be deaf to the voice of humanity, or the powerful claims of their long-lost relative, restored to them through the honourable exertions of disinterested individuals; which claims would be enforced, by the committee's representation of the sincerity which, from experience, they attached to her professions of amendment, and earnest desire to live in future in some honest employment, shuddering at the recollection of her past conduct. Should, however, her relatives be callous to her supplications, and the reclaimed object be destitute of other friends, then it is that the Asylum undertakes to place her in a respectable and suitable situation. This, in my opinion, is the most objectionable part of the whole system; and I certainly think, that as there are in this

E

great metropolis, and in most towns where the establishment of penitentiaries is necessary, manufactories or shops where women of this description might be employed, it would be a much more eligible plan to gain them admittance there: at the same time, I have no idea of the evil extending to that magnitude, or being attended by such paralizing effects, as Mr. H. forebodes; as many of these "abandoned, diseased prostitutes, whose hardened counte, nances had ceased to blush at the grossest indecencies," have (before the establishment of this Society) been led to see the iniquity of their pursuits, as will be seen, in particular, in an account published by Messrs, Williams & Smith, of the conversion of four prostitutes, and the happy death of three of them. And if any of those who are sent out into the world, under the sanction of this Society, to comfortable and respectable situations, should

desert the principles they önce professed, their change, of course, would be immediately discovered, and the extent of the mischief must be very circumscribed: or should they happen to be known to the servants in the neighbourhood, and any one should be inquisitive or unfeeling enough to make any observation on her former condition, I think she could not give a very enviable description of it—on the contrary, nothing but one continued detail of deprivation and suffering, such as no human being, capable of reflection, would wish to undergo.

"Oh, comfortless existence! hemm'd around With woes; which who that suffer would not kneel, And beg for exile, or the pangs of death?"

Again, the author says that this mischievous Institution "opens wide its doors for the reception of the most abandoned prostitutes, whenever they choose to go in;