"3. A ward for full admission.

“ 4. A ward for diseased objects; for it is the full intention of the conductors of this charity to exclude none but those who exclude themselves.

"A portion of their earnings is allowed to them.-Each female sleeps in a separate bed.

"After a period of two years, every prudent means having been first employed to restore them to their relations or friends, it is intended to provide proper situations for them, such as may be best suited to their capacity and qualifications; and afterwards to encourage them by suitable rewards, on testimony of their good beha

viour.

"Since the opening of the house (Jan. 1, 1808) it has always been full; and the most painful feeling with which the committees are exercised, is the absolute necessity of refusing two or three every week,

for want of room. This distressing sensation can only be exceeded by the unfeigned grief depicted on the countenances of the disappointed applicants. The premises are, however, capable of additional buildings; and a liberal public have it in their power to prevent the recurrence of these painful sensations, by enabling the committee to enlarge their house by additional buildings, if it were only by degrees,

"The average of all the ages of those who have applied, appears to be only sixteen! Hence it is obvious, how many there must be under that tender age! Children, that claim the pity and sympa. thy of a generous public!-and shall they plead in vain?

The Institution has exhausted the whole of its funds; they have numerous applications for reception; and to enlarge the sphere of the usefulness of the society would be a blessing indeed!"

If, as the author has predicted, such deadly contagion will attend the baneful influence of this Asylum, and time and experience will, when too late, convince its present supporters of the calamitous consequences of their misguided zeal; we might urge, with equal propriety, that workhouses, as constituted receptacles for the same melancholy objects, would, in a proportion nearly amounting to that of the London Female Penitentiary, open their doors to licentiousness and vice, excepting in the particular of rewards and punishments: but to counterbalance this system of encouragement, we must take it into consideration, that workhouses, from their public situation, together with the sanction of parliamentary authority, must be much better known to the unhappy women as retreats from the practice of their iniquities than the Asylum at Pentonville can possibly be. And as Mr. H. holds

out such direful presages of the injurious tendency of the principle he deprecates, how much more effectual would the remedy be, to procure a repeal of the implacable statute, which, by its enactments, sanctions such nurseries for prostitution. and here I would appeal to the candour of the unprejudiced public, whether the London Female Penitentiary is not better adapted than poor-houses for the reception of sorrowful penitents, by its select organization; and whether it is not likely to be more useful in obtaining for them appropriate situations in society, after their probationary confinement, through the connexions of those ladies who conduct its internal concerns, and the gentlemen of the committee, together with the great body of its supporters, who must all feel interested in the reputation and usefulness of the society, by their future propriety of behaviour, and industrious habits,

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when sent out into the world from under its probationary discipline and religious instruction.

I have now to notice an assertion, which, in the unqualified form Mr. H. has given it, has not the shadow of a defence; that "females who, having once deviated from the paths of virtue, and are desirous of being restored to religious instructions, are not to be found in the nocturnal walks of abandoned prostitution, nor in the bro thels of iniquity:" on the contrary, I as sert, that such characters are to be found even in the common haunts of prostitution and vice, let their iniquities be what they may; for conscience is ever on the watch, and, in spite of every obstacle, will unremittingly exert its voice with more or less effect, and especially in the hearts of those who, in early life, have been blessed with a religious education. He farther says,

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