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stranger, coming at that period to town, would have concluded that in a short time, London would be the purest city in the universe.

What was the result of all this, however! Why, that, in a short time, within a little month, the papers dropped the subject, and the business was forgotten; nay, in spite of the continued exertions of the Lord Mayor, the streets soon became as much infested as before; and no more was heard of the Guardian Society until lately, after a long lapse another public meeting having been fixed, advertisements have begun to announce it, and I presume the same exhibition will again take place, and end in the same manner.

The ostensible object, for the accomplishment of which your Society has been established, is of such importance to the prosperity, happiness, and well-being of general society, that you would be entitled to the assistance and support of every good citizen and well-wisher to his country, were the plan you have laid down, and the method you have followed, at all adequate to the end proposed. It is, therefore, only from a deep conviction that you have taken a most narrow view of the subject, have adopted a most erroneous mode of acting, and are actually squandering your funds and time upon an impossibility, that I now take the liberty of addressing you, in order to endeavour to shew where you have erred, and to point out a most glorious field, where your exertions might be of the most essential benefit to society, and would confer immortal glory and renown upon yourselves.

Your Society is declared to be," for the preservation of public morals," a most praise-worthy and highly commendable institution. But how do you propose to preserve the public morals? Why, by "providing temporary asylums for prostitutes removed by the ope"ration of the laws from the public streets, and affording to such "of them as are destitute, employment and relief." This may be very well, so far as it goes; but it is certainly going a very short way towards the preservation of public morals. Besides, it is not a novel plan, and, therefore, I do not think it at all deserving the high and extravagant praises and commendations that have been bestowed upon it. Already have we had the Asylum, the Misericordia, the Magdalen, the Philanthropic, the Penitentiary, the Refuge for the Destitute, and the Lock Asylum,-all these societies set out upon the same grounds, I believe, that the Guardian Society has done, to provide asylums for prostitutes, and to furnish them with employment and relief. Each of them made, at its commencement, almost as brilliant and luminous a figure as the Guardian Society. They still have their annual meetings; but, except at those times, they are seldom or never heard of; and even on these occasions they now shed a dimmer and a dimmer ray. With such precedents before them, it really appears surprising to me that the wery respectable gentlemen, who have been at so much pains and

trouble to form this Society, did not take a more extended view of the subject, did not endeavour to make it more generally useful by embracing objects of greater utility. I wonder that it never occurred to them, that the better way to preserve public morals would be, by endeavouring to prevent women becoming prostitutes, instead of providing asylums for them after they had run their course.

I am the more astonished at this, because the report commences in that spirit. The second paragraph runs thus: "The extensive and multiform evils which result from the deplorable profligacy that abounds in this metropolis, must be known, felt, and lamented, by every Christian philanthropist! Ought we then to remain. satisfied and inactive, while vice and wretchedness are pursuing their courses with rapid and destructive strides? While the quantum of female depravity is every day increasing, and the progress of crime is thereby accelerating in a thousand directions, are we not to interpose some friendly endeavours, on the grounds of true policy and pure Christianity, to stem the destructive torrent, and to rescue as many as we can of our fellow creatures, of both sexes, from the fangs of the destroyer." Certainly, we are bound by every tie to do so; but it really does not appear to me, that the destructive torrent can be stemmed by opening channels for it to run quietly away, or that it would be of any consequence to rescue our fellowcreatures from the destroyer, if we allow him to satiate himself on 'them before we interfere.

In the fourth paragraph of the report it is stated that the Society have directed their attention to two important objects; the first is, "to discover the best means of diminishing the number of infamous women, who frequent the public streets of the metropolis." This is certainly a very important object, but it can never be attained by merely clearing the streets of their present frequenters, unless some effectual steps be taken to prevent their places being immediately filled by fresh victims.

Were a person to be attacked with the leprosy or scurvy all over the body, but which shewed itself principally on the face and hands, surely it would not be thought sufficient to apply a wash to these parts to take away the blotches upon them, leaving the rest of the body untouched. A quack might do so, but a regular physician would say, and say justly, that that would only be driving the distemper into the constitution. And yet this appears the very thing the Society are endeavouring to do with the body-moral of this metropolis; they are labouring to clear its face of some ugly spots and specks that have appeared upon it, without seeming to be aware that those blemishes are the consequences and symptoms of a mortal distemper, which is preying upon its vitals, and, if not speedily checked will soon cause its dissolution.

I, therefore, conceive that I am perfectly correct in stating that the Society have, in their formation, taken a most confined view of the subject. And it appears equally clear to me that the Society are taking a most erroneous method of endeavouring to accomplish the object they have in view. I believe I might not limit it to one method; I think I could state several, but I mean to confine myself to one, because I conceive it to be most particularly erroneous, and that is, the associating virtuous females in their labours. I cannot conceive how it can possibly have happened, that so many persons of respectability, as your Society appears to be composed of, could allow their zeal to get the better of their judgment, their prudence, their caution, their knowledge of the world, so far as to induce them to consent to, far less to be active in pro-moting, so impolitic, so imprudent, so improper, and so hazardous a step. The reverend gentlemen, who have taken an active share in the Society, appear, in this particular, to have completely forgotten the precept of their divine master, so prominently stated by him, and so frequently repeated by his Apostles: " fly from tempstation, avoid temptation;" nay, the very form of prayer taught them, "lead us not into temptation." A prayer which ought to be daily made by every virtuous female in this country, and should more particularly have been used by those ladies, who were requested to become of the committee, for this more than useless, this dangerous occupation.

The principal, and, indeed, only satisfactory reason given for the extreme severity with which females, who have fallen from the path of virtue, are treated in this country, is the necessity of separating them entirely from the virtuous, in order to prevent contamination. This it is, which drives them from their homes, their friends, and their connexions ;-this it is, which makes them avoided, as if they had the plague. If a female of character is seen · associating with them, or even speaking to them, she is immediately marked, as one who, if not already gone, is, at least, on the high road to destruction. The line, therefore, is fully drawn, and the separation complete.-What is it the Society have done and are doing? all in their power to break down this line. With, I firmly believe, a purely anxious desire to do good, they are risking doing a great evil. Not content with endeavouring to bring back lost woman across this line themselves, they take virtuous woman to the other side of it for this purpose :-dangerous experiment!

A virtuous woman ought not only to be pure in body, but in mind: she should be kept perfectly ignorant of those things. But what has the Society done? Its own report will best state this, and is perfectly sufficient to justify all that I have asserted; it informs us, that a committee of ladies, as most suitable for that department, had been appointed to superintend the internal affairs of the

establishment."-"That those ladies had instituted complicated inquiries as to the truth of the statements that had been received, taking as little as possible upon trust." Since the opening of the asylum, though the means of the committee have, in every respect, been limited, nearly two hundred forlorn objects have been admitted. From the investigation of these cases, the ladies-committee have derived a considerable quantity of important, though afflicting information. A part of it is submitted to the notice of this meeting."" They feel themselves compelled, by a sense of duty, which they owe to the public, to state, what they found to be one of the most constantly operating, yet least known causes of the vice and misery which this meeting deplores, and which, it is hoped, with heart and hands they will endeavour to diminish. They will labour, however, to discharge this somewhat irksome duty with as much propriety and decorousness of expression as possible:" and further on, it says, "However difficult it is FITLY to write on such subjects" and, in another place," the committee will not impose upon the delicacy or harass the feelings of the meeting further." Can it be possible that any set of men could have been so infatuated, so bigoted, so blind, as to place their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, or female acquaintance, in a situation to hear the tales of two hundred of most depraved wretches, of the off-scour ings of the earth, of the sweepings of the streets, to hear such tales, that they themselves find it irksome and a labour to repeat even a part of them, a part of the best of them, with any propriety or decorousness of expression, or fitly. I think it perfectly unnecessary to make any further comments on this; the thing speaks for itself most completely.

The object to be gained would have required to have been very important indeed, and the certainty of obtaining it very great, to have at all justified, or even excused, the adoption of such means. It appears to me, however, that the object of the Society's labours, even if they were crowned with complete success, would be, comparatively, of very little consequence. The title-page of the report states, that the Society has been formed to provide "temporary asylums for prostitutes, removed, by the operation of the lares, from the public streets." Now, I believe, the operation of the laws never takes place until these women have behaved themselves ill, have got drunk and behaved saucily, have been attempting to pick pockets, or, at the very least, have descended so low in the scale of degradation as to be openly forcing their company and blandishments upon every man passing.-Bad, profligate, and abandoned, as the strollers on the streets have become, still this conduct is yet confined to a few, and many a poor woman is forced, by necessity, to walk the streets, who would sooner throw herself into the river than be guilty of it.

But, taking it for granted that the Society intend to extend their assistance to all the prostitutes who are to be found on the streets; and, supposing it possible that they could convert the whole of them, still they would have made very little progress towards the reformation of the public morals, and far less to their preservation. -Above twenty years ago the number of women in London living by prostitution was estimated at forty thousand; those who make a practice of prowling the streets do not, I believe, amount to one thousand. A few of those may have been accomplished women, who have fallen into that situation after having gone through several progressive gradations; but the far greater proportion are girls from the lower classes, who, having had a very confined education, have nothing but their personal charms to recommend them; and being, for the most part, seduced by young men of nearly their own class, who are unable to support them, they are, generally, almost immediately turned, loose into the streets, where they soon sink into the lowest state of depravity.

The object of the Society's labours is, evidently, therefore, of very minor importance, even if complete success were to crown them; but I do not hesitate to declare it to be my most decided opinion, that it is perfectly impossible to be attained. Reformation of prostitutes, who have prowled the streets of London, who have been removed from thence by the operation of the laws!-as well might you attempt to wash the Ethiop white, or to take the spots out of the leopard's skin. I am convinced that that woman who has lost, not merely the delicacy, but the feelings of her sex so much, who has so completely degraded herself, as to wander the streets, offering her person indiscriminately to every man she meets, who has associated with the profligates of both sexes to be found there, and has wallowed in all their vices, can never again become fit to be a member of the society from whence she has been expelled. She may see the evil of her ways,-she may leave them off, and may reform,-but she never can recover that delicacy of feeling, that ignorance of evil, that innocence of mind, requisite to fit her for a companion to virtuous females. It is perfectly impossible, as well might you endeavour to restore her body to its former healthful state, after it has been destroyed by dissipation, debauchery, and disease.

However amiable, therefore, however praise-worthy, the endeavouring to ameliorate the lot and to lessen the sufferings of these unfortunates may be, yet the attempting to restore them to their former place in society appears to be a hopeless project, impossible to be executed, and which ought never to be attempted. Indeed, I conceive, that, in doing so, the Society are completely wasting