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ERRAT A.

Page 22. n. 1. 27. for a folemn contract-read fidelity. 23. n. 1. 5.

ditto.

67. 1. 10. for very feeble-read comparatively feeble to what it once was, before the abolition of the writ de bæretico comburendo, 29 Car. II. c. 9.

72. 1. 11. for valiies-read vallies.

79. n. 1. 8. for liver on the right fide, and heart on the left-read liver on the left fide, and heart on the right.

144. n. 1. 15. for 161-read 152.

207. 1. 6 from the bottom, for Tvn-read τnv.

296. 1. 2. n. after P. add 249.

298. 1. 28. after p. add 175-177.

TO THE

PRESIDENTS,

VICE-PRESIDENTS,

AND OTHER

GOVERNORS

Of thofe well-intended Charities, and benefi-
cent Inftitutions

The Afjylum: Mifericordia-Magand Lock-Hofpital.

dalene

HE AUTHOR of the following Treatise

THE

cannot fix on a more proper patronage for a work of this kind, than that of those noble and honourable persons, whose compaffion on the miseries of the female fex, has led them to inftitute public charities for its preservation and relief.

As our laws are at prefent framed, women are exposed to seduction, prostitution, and ruin,

VOL. I.

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almost without controul;-they seem to be looked upon as lawful prey to the luft, treachery, cruelty, and mean artifices of licentious and profligate men, who can seduce and then abandon them at their will.

That a want of good government among us in these respects, is one fource of all those evils, which your difinterested and humane endeavours are intended to prevent or remedy, is furely apparent on the slightest. confideration.

A fyftem of laws which leaves the horrid crime of adultery not only out of the lift of its capital punishments, but even exempts it, as a public offence, from any animadverfion whatsoever in our courts of criminal judicature, must be attended with all those mifchiefs that arife from the encouragement which impunity affords to vice.

The fame may alfo be obferved, with refpect to the defenceless state, in which the weaker fex in general is left against the Stronger; fo that any man may feduce, and abandon at his pleasure, the unhappy and deluded objects of his brutal appetite.

To

To exhibit a system far different from this to fet forth the divine law as the contrivance of infinite wisdom, for the security, peace, preservation, and protection of the female fex, is the purpose of the following pages. Were this to be made the bafis of our municipal laws, it would prove an adequate remedy for all thofe mifchiefs, which, in comparatively few inftances, can now only find a partial palliation, from benevolence like yours, but which muft, in general, be ftill the portion of those, whom GOD's law was formed to protect.

Many of you, my LORDS and GENTLE

MEN, are members of the LEGISLATURE; and if, from what fhall be faid on the matters treated in this book, they should become the subjects of your ferious confideration in your legislative capacity, the author will gain one defirable end of his labours.

This furely must be allowed-that, in point of fact, the alarming increase of female proftitution and ruin, calls loudly for fome remedy: the self-evidence of this, is the very foundation of those benevolent designs, which

22

which distinguish the feveral public charities to which you so generously contribute.

Let Government adopt the system of heavenly wisdom, which adorns the pages of the SACRED VOLUME, and it will find a remedy in its own hands-what that system is, it has been the author's most serious endeavour to enquire, and to recommend it to all, but more especially to the confideration of those, whofe care, expence, and vigilance, for the good of their fellow-creatures, has occafioned them the trouble of this addrefs from

Their most humble fervant,

And ardent well-wifher to their good defigns,

THE AUTHOR.

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