Letter V. To Robert Dingley, Esq.; being a proposal for the relief and employment of friendless girls and repenting prostitutes / [Jonas Hanway].

  • Hanway, Jonas, 1712-1786.
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter V. To Robert Dingley, Esq.; being a proposal for the relief and employment of friendless girls and repenting prostitutes / [Jonas Hanway]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ »3 ] As to motives derived from piety, I have known a man in 'Portugal marry an abandon'd proditute, in hopes, by converting her, to atone for - an atrocious crime. In Rome> Venice, Lucca, Pifa, and other places in Italy, they have their convertite, or convents defigned to reclaim thefe tranfgrcffors. If our church has lefs zeal, it has more true charity ; and in point of policy, I hope we fhall never give place to Italians. Perhaps we are not in general fo abandoned, with regard to this part of irreligi¬ ous condud, as thofe people arc 5 and there is great reafon to think that the fenfc of fhame is Wronger in the breads of our women, even among the common fort, when we obferve that the greater crime of murder has been too often committed, to conceal an illegal amour. And we find in the character of our ladies a higher fenfe of honor, and a truer notion of duty as grounded on religious principles, than are ufually to be met with amongd the women of any other country, which I have known. But it • ' i . * w ■ - i. i • «* .* •> where fhall we find fuch an abandon'd race, as that which infeds the mod: public flreets of London, where the number of proditutes is fo great in the evening, that we fhould doubt whether every woman we meet, is not of that damp, were they not didinguifhed for the mod part, by that fort- of condud which is totally devoid of honor, decency or fhame. If we confidcr the principles on which thofe ad, who believe the doc¬ trine of the Romifh church, we mud commend the zeal of thofe ladies, even of the fird rank, who have condefcended to ferve in menial offi¬ ces, thofe proditutes who are become converts. This height of devotion however is not adapted to our church, or climate : it is alfo not fuited to the delicacy of our ladies, nor is it at all necedary, to our prefent pur-r pofe, that it fhould; but yet we may flatter ourfelves that the mod fen- fiblc