of procuring an honest livelihood but through such medium, and that the objects are still open to the penalties due to their depraved practices, but that, being admitted into this Asylum, and abandoning their former iniquities, there are the fewer of these ensnaring harpies left to walk the streets, and beguile, by their indecent solicitations, the unwary passenger.

Mr. H. states, "That if any govern

ment proceeds upon the principles of declaring to the public that those who commit certain crimes shall go unpunished, and be kindly treated as though they were guilty of no offence, that government, in its public capacity, is answerable for the disruption of morals occasioned by the fatal example of this violation of their duty. This same reasoning will apply with equal or more force to the London Female Penitentiary." And farther, why did not the

F

(

"Society for the Suppression of Vice build

an asylum, and proclaim aloud that it was

for the sellers of obscene prints in the schools of our children?" But here I

must again observe, that the Asylum has

not removed a penal statute, nor is it their province to put in force the penalties of the law; neither would it be a very proper step on the part of that government who have enacted laws, to do away their force in this way:no, let the persons in power exercise the rod of correction. And if a Society unconnected with this Institution will by their philanthropic exertions assist the hand of magisterial authority, they will unitedly act as a spur to the operative usefulness of the Penitentiary, at that period when its funds are happily so much increased that the establishment can receive more females into its care than those who apply for admission of their own accord. And here I

would suggest, that if females are so readily disposed to enter this place of confinement, which course of treatment will best promote the ultimate reformation all wish to see realized in their conduct and condition; viz. that recommended by Mr. Hale to the conductors of the Penitentiary, when he says, "The first thing they ought to have done, should have been to prosecute lewd women; and after they had endured the punishment of their crime in a solitary place of confinement, then, and then only, would have been the time to have brought them into a Penitentiary,” -or the means at present pursued by the Institution. I make my appeal to the candour and unprejudiced understanding of the reader who is at all experienced in the character and passions of the human heart, if it is not evident to his senses that there is a much better prospect of the greater amendment taking place in that

female's manners who is admitted from her own unbiassed application, than of her who, being first prosecuted by this Asylum, and through their means having endured confinement in a solitary place, is then informed that by discipline she is now rendered a qualified candidate for their protection and patronage. I am convinced of the truth of my position, when I assert that not one fourth of those unfortunate women so proceeded against, would be induced to accept the proffered boon,

What parallelism can be drawn between the enormous crimes of those who corrupt the principles of youth, by selling them obscene prints, and the objects of the Penitentiary, I am at a loss to conceive, Vice in all its forms is odious, but there are gradations in iniquity: and I would here urge the greater atrocity of those incendia

ries who by their execrable attempts, aimed at the corrupt and dormant passions of youth of both sexes, at that critical and tender age when under a course of education, too often fan the latent spark of unlawful desire into a flame; and the deep and abiding impressions their minds admit of at this interesting period of life. After considering the baneful consequences of their poisonous infusions, what arguments can be urged in behalf of an asylum for these agents of barbarity, with that propriety and force they can be for the Penitentiary, I have no conception. They first went into their detestable employments by choice; they experience no privations in the pursuit of them, and have a thousand occupations to which they could resort to procure a livelihood, if they would abandon them; they had no beguiling solicitations and false promises to seduce them from the paths of