670 
cious logicians! they did indeed prove 
that they themselves were “ redeemed by 
no virtue; that their private feelings . 
were as detestable as their political con- 
duct; that they are as hardened to all 
humanity as they are to all shame; and 
that they would as wantonly abuse their 
power to increase the sufferings of the 
brute creation, as they have abused it to 
the increase of human misery. It was 
their system to brutalize the people whom 
pr oppressed, and they acted consist- 
ently, 
This subject of cruelty to animals .in- 
troduces quotations from Cowper, and 
from the life of Cowper, for Mr. Pratt 
is in truth a Gleaner. He then travels 
to London, and here a new world of sub- 
jects is opened to him. ‘The female fa- 
shions,are thus well ridiculed. 
««Thave it, therefore, in contemplation 
to propose aduty upon the legs, arms, shou]- 
ders, and bosoms of those ladies who undress 
in the highest style of fashionable nakedness. 
- Jn our tax on window-lights only such a por- 
tion of distance is allowed betwixt one pane 
of glass and another, and the tax operates on 
its passing the given bound. This might be 
a good precedent for regulating what I have 
_ thoughts of calling the nudity-tax. The point 
ot decency would very easily be settled, and 
to that point every lady might go; but the 
exposure of every inch beyond, whether 
above or below, would be subject to the tax. 
«© Besides the usual rewards to informers, 
there might be a certain number of persons 
licensed by government. These might go 
their rounds to espie the nakedness of the 
land; a kind of inspectors, in the way of ex- 
cise officers, invested with authority to mea- 
sure limbs exposed, guage bosoms displayed, 
&e. whenever it is obvious the degree of na- 
kedness allowed by law is exceeded. At the 
same time to avoid all this danger of the fair 
sex being annoyed in public by these exa- 
miners, the legislature would do well to esta- 
blish a proper number of nudity-oflices, 
where ladies, on entering their names, and 
going prepared with the precise point of de- 
nudation they determined upon, might obtain 
certificates, and pay the price of every joint, 
from the taxation part of the ancle upwards 
to the knee, and from the limited point of the 
arm to the unlawful part of the shoulder, 
and so downwards again. Only it might be 
advisable to increase the weight of the tax 
according to the nature of the parts to be ex- 
osed. A lady, for instance, should not 
jave the privilege of wholly uncovering her 
bosom, nor of entirely baring her shoulders, 
without reference being had to both the per- 
sonal and political mischief that may be done 
to civil socicty in an exhibition, and should 
be taxed accordingly. 
MISCELLANIES. 
«<Tt might save trouble, also, if such ladies 
as are legally entitled to go great lengths, afd 
take all Liberties with the public, should ex- 
hibit their right so todo. This might easily 
be managed by forming the certificate itself 
into an ornament, on the cap, wig, train, 
apron, or any other part of the body, before ~ 
or behind, that happens to be shaded, with 
the word permit in legible characters, either 
fo or wrought, no matter how simply 
or splendidly, either in beads, spangles, foil, 
ot jewels. The permit will, indeed, not only 
prevent the importunity of the nudity sur- 
veyors, but will be hung out as a signal 
to the spectators who have a taste for naked 
figures.” 
The markets, the shops, the theatres, 
are all visited by this Gleaner. Hevde- 
scribes the prisons, and the misery of their 
tenants, with sorhe feeling; but this feel- 
ing, with all the theatrical sentimentalism 
which accompanies it, terminates in some 
wretched common-place reasons, to make. 
his readers feel satisfied that all things are 
as they should be. ‘Fhe prisons of London, 
he says, are more splendid in their ex- 
ternal appearance than either Bucking- 
ham House, or St. James’s Palace! 
Doubtless this must be a consolation to 
the debtors who are living upon bread 
and water within! Who can doubt that 
the splendour of the prison must alle- 
viate the sufferings of the prisoner? that 
a culprit at the bar must be flattered to 
see counsellors and judge dressed out in 
robes and wigs purely on his account? - 
and that hanging is a cheerful operation 
to the party concerned, because the peo- 
ple make a holiday on the occasion, and 
call it hang fair? 
«¢ We must not take our ideas,” says 
Mr. Pratt, “ from any thing which our 
moralists or malcontents say of the ge- 
neral hardship of our places of confine, 
ment.” Moralists or malcontents !—we 
recommend this synonim to Mrs. Piozzi’s _ 
notice for the next edition of her liberal 
and accurate work. ‘This morsel has 
been sugared for those readers who take 
up the book at the tea table, and love to 
be told that they live in the best of all 
possible times, and in the happiest of all 
possible societies. Mr. Pratt has too 
good a heart to kecp on in this story; ~ 
upon enquiry, he says, it appears, that 
‘more than twenty thousand persons are 
at this time prisoners for debt ; 
*<—Jet us therefore coolly enquire what is 
she sum of evil which the imprisonment of 
debtors brings upon our country. 
“+ It seems to be the opinion of the late 
