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In the winter of 1830, I was requested to go to a house of ill fame in Anthony street, to perform for a deceased woman that part of the funeral services connected with my profession. She was born in Albany, seduced to ignoble living in early life, beguiled to this city, and kept by a man in Pearl street, who, after having lived with her four years, married another girl. The day on which the marriage was to be performed, in the ravings of her bereavement, for she loved the man as her life, she could not be comforted, but sunk into despair, took opium, cursed the man, spoke no more, and died. This is the account that was given by more than twenty persons present in the room when I entered it.

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While in this house, a suicide was committed in a neighboring house, and several women went to see the corpse. This was the third suicide that had been perpetrated within three days in that neighborhood, and the city register of deaths for that week had entered in it neither of these cases.

On those interesting trains of thought suggested by this brief narrative, I have, at the present, but one reflection to make. It is a painful one. It relates to SEDUCTION-Seduction, a crime committed in innumerable instances not only in the higher classes, but in every other walk of life-a crime which, if my observation be correct, is more prolific of public prostitution, than any other it is possible to name.

The heinousness of the offense is no longer considered, and the seducer, instead of being branded with infamy, is admired for his crime, and praised for his successful villany-even the female part of the world, whose interest it would be to punish the offender, far from shunning his company, think themselves flattered by his notice, and throw all the obloquy of the offense on the poor injured and deceived woman. Let not, however, the deceiver suppose that because a misjudging world shall gloss over his enormities, they will not militate against him hereafter. No! in the dread hour of judgment they will appear in terrible array! Then must he answer for the many, many hours of misery, the life of wretchedness and vice, caused to the unhappy victim of his deceit-and oh! more dreadful than all in what way will he vindicate himself when the ALMIGHTY JUDGE shall lay to his charge the damnation of her soul! yes, the

damnation of her soul!! For it was his villany that lured her into vice-it was his deceiving tongue that first taught her to follow sinit was he that led her from the paths of virtue, and it was his desertion that left her no other choice but to plunge still deeper in the slough of wickedness, or perish by famine, by want-"a mark for the finger of scorn to point at!"

The misery and wretchedness which the unfortunate victims of seduction experience make the heart shudder. How many instances occur of a female, once famed for beauty and worth, happy in the consciousness of right, being seduced by the deceiving arts of a villain, and after passing through the variety of scenes which are usually the routine of such unfortunates, at length reduced to the utmost misery, diseased, emaciated, and without the means of subsistence, perishing in the streets, unsheltered from the "pitiless pelting of the storm." Oh! that the seducer could but see his victim in this last stage of mortality; then would I ask him where is that beauty, that elegance of form which first raised the passion in thy bosom, that could not be satisfied but by the ruin of its object? These sunken, lifeless eyes-are they the once sparkling orbs that beamed with love and pleasure while listening to thy deceitful tongue? These pale and hollow cheeks-did they once bloom in health, and shame the beauty of the rose, while blushing in maiden modesty at thy false tale of love? This wasted, fleshless arm, now without power to raise itself-canst thou have hung on this, delighted? on this have sealed thy vows so falsely, falsely broken? Nay, shrink not from the test-this is the maid you loved! But she, you say, was lovely-and this poor object creates abhorrence and disgust. True, true, thou canst not know her now, yet she did once charm thine eyes, once beamed in all the pride of beauty, till thou, the FELL DESTROYER, came, and, like the rude winter's breath, wrenched the loved flower from its native soil, robbed it of all its sweets, and left it to perish in the path of vice, forever scorned by unrelenting virtue.

Oh! that these sensualists could but feel the pangs they give to others. How would they rave at the ruin of their daughters! their sisters! The honor of their house they prize-would die to save it from blemish-and yet will coolly and deliberately destroy another's!

P. S.-A PROBLEM FOR SENSUALISTS.

Suppose that there are annually in New York not less than one hundred female suicides in the houses you visit; what portion of the criminality of those one hundred suicides rests on your souls? Be serious-solve the problem. It will be solved for you. Better solve it here than hereafter, for what shall it profit you to gain a world of animal pleasure in this life, and a hell of misery in that life which is to come! Your reformation would prevent those one hundred suicides, and render Magdalen asylums needless things. Nay, it would do much more. But you may hear of this in a future number. For the present, I leave you to your sober meditations.

No. 15.

TWO FEMALES.

An extract from my essays ON VICE, in the Genius of Temperance of Dec. 22, 1830.

A few weeks since two females were found in a cellar. in Orange street, destitute of food, and suffering by a peculiar sickness to such a degree, that one of them was unable to turn in bed, and the other to walk erect. Here they had been for four weeks. When their case was known to the alderman of the ward, he kindly sent provisions and medicine for their relief, and soon after removed them to the alms-house hospital.

These were both young and beautiful females. One of them was the victim of force by a boarder, and the other of seduction. Disgrace excluded them from the society of the chaste, and despair drove them to ruin. They lived in a house where female boarders are the only commodity, (strong drink excepted,) to which the lewd have particular attachments. When they became sick, the doors were opened and these two girls were directed to leave the house. A negro permitted them to stay in the rear apartment of his cellar, a place where deeds were committed in the presence of these females, from the naming of which all that is delicate in our nature involuntarily shrinks. These females were fed by the generosity of impure men. But they needed little, for one was reduced so low that she could take little else than a piece of a cracker and a cup of cold water, as she had neither tea nor coffee.

To form an adequate idea of the extent of this vice, and of the evils it produces, it is hoped the Genius of Temperance will lend efficient aid. The peace and welfare of the world demand it. The royal Felix trembled before his prisoner who reasoned on righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come. Many a modern Felix will tremble when we reason on the same topics. The day is come when VIRTUE AND STATE must be united. And it is cheering to know the sword of justice is placed in the hands of one man in the sixth ward, who wields it in terror to evil doers.

The question now before us is, Can any thing be done to rescue the unfortunate females of this city from the unutterable miseries they endure, and to restore them again to virtue ?

Some say, "It is vain to think of it. The attempt would be quixotic." But on what ground is the proposition treated with such contempt? Are these females capable of feeling pleasure and pain? Are they less worthy of being the objects of our sympathy and bene. volence than the poet's dead fly? A misanthrope, in the bitter sullenness of his own envious, contracted soul, can steel his heart against the piteous state of a fellow-mortal. Such men resign their

title to philanthropy, and are alike unworthy of a hearing, as of a refutation. The following fact illustrates the truth of it. One W. a colored man two months since, besides an eating cellar in Orange street at the Five Points, kept a number of white females. Among the number was a French woman, once as the story goes, a lady in this city. This woman, W. beat with a leather strap, or some other instrument, so that in a fortnight after, when she was received into the asylum, it was ascertained by the matron, that she bore bruises on her body the size of the hand. But this man said, "it is vain to think of it." He is now dead. FIVE POINTS.

No. 16.

AN ALDERMAN'S LETTER, AND DR. JOHNSON'S HUMANE ACT.

An extract from the Genius of Temperance, of Dec. 29, 1830.

The question now before us is, Can any thing be done to rescue the unfortunate females of this city from the unutterable miseries they endure, and to restore them again to virtue ?

W., the colored man, remarked, the attempt to do any thing of that nature for them would be in vain; and a large portion of our citizens believe the African's decision is true and just. As the grounds of this agreement are various, all who join in the African's sentiment are not to be indiscriminately ranked in the lines of those who wage war on the peace and purity of the domestic circle. From the long and profound silence on the subject, and the vague but fatal supposition that with unfortunate women vice must be a second nature, irresistible in its habits, many supposed they were beyond recovery, and still more believed it, as they had never known one to return to the paths of rectitude. The same considerations operated on the public mind in reference to the intemperate a few years since. Had the friends of temperance then judged the evil so great, and the difficulties so formidable, that it was vain to put forth an effort to rescue the perishing, and preserve the safe, we should to-day be groaning under the insufferable burdens we sustained five years ago. But it is cheering to know that the attention of leading gentlemen in this city is turning directly to the contemplation of this subject. Some have resolved in the strength of the Most High to do something. Others are beginning to feel an interest in the state of unfortunate women. The subjoined letter is from a gentleman well known in this city as deeply interested in every good work pertaining to the improvement of prison discipline. As he is minutely

informed on all the affairs of the police, and inspects the prisons, the utmost confidence may be placed in his statements.

DEAR SIR,

The great number of benevolent individuals in this city, which are known by their acts of charity, are small compared with the number that would be willing to go and do likewise, if they could be pointed to proper objects with a reasonable hope of doing good. The one I am about to name is one of the greatest importance, and calls loudest for our assistance, and yet one of the most difficult to manage. But that it can be managed, there can be no doubt. One of the greatest reasons why there has not any thing been done, is because that it affects a class of the most humane, liberal, and persevering men, whose time and resources are already employed and without them we can do but little. A virtuous female cannot help despising those who have so degraded their sex. They no doubt are right. That being the case, should not the gentlemen, who are better acquainted with the cause and the effects, take them into their serious consideration. We have in this city a very great number of unfortunate females, who have been brought up in the most tender manner, under the care of a dear mother. Sometimes the mother had to leave them by death; sometimes poverty caused them to part; but the greatest cause is THE AWFUL DECEPTION OF A BRUTE IN THE SHAPE of a man. This we all know to be a fact not to be disputed. Now finding of that most shamefully neglected class at least 5000 in this city, can nothing be done? It is said no; it has been tried, and no good was done. And so we may say of a number of experiments, that no good was done on the first trial. If steamboats had been abandoned on the first, second, or third trial, we should still have to sail against wind and tide. But there can now be no doubt of success. We have experience, and can commence and go on to perfection in this, as has been the case in many other new charities. Shall we fold our arms and see 5000 of our once most beautiful human beings suffering in the most filthy, loathsome holes, and not try to provide a place for them? It cannot be. We must be up and doing. Where is the father, the brother, that will not lend a helping hand? They have no home now but the penitentiary, and there they must be put into large rooms, each containing from 25 to 50. Here females, the most abandoned of the human race, are thrust into the same room with the most tender and delicate of

their sex. What improvement can be expected? They cannot call on an acquaintance, and as for friends they have none. They are compelled to go on from bad to worse. How many dear mothers, seeing their daughters in the way to destruction, could and would stop them if they had some place to put them until they could consider their ways. Yours, &c.

Many gentlemen have expressed views similar to those of the author of this letter, and until ample accommodations can be provided in a retired situation for those females who voluntarily abandon their wicked ways, provision is made for their support by the Female

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