Human Physiology. 77 



us ask simply, is there any capital in Europe where such undis- 

 guised profligacy is permitted to force itself upon the gaze of 

 the public? In the Haymarket and the adjoining streets, from 

 eleven o'clock at night to three or four in the morning, the 

 pavement presents a crowd composed of the lowest prostitutes 

 and, those who come there for the purpose of encountering 

 them. A sprinkling of professional thieves hovers on the verge 

 of this assemblage, as sharks prey round a shoal of herrings ; 

 and harpies of both sexes, ready to pander to any extent of 

 depravity, make their hideous trade but too apparent. Chil- 

 dren of tender years are hawked about for the- most profligate 

 purposes (two vile offenders in this particular were committed 

 for trial at Bow Street lately); obscenity of language and 

 indecency of demeanour meet the ear and the eye at every 

 step; every respectable man avoids the street; no decent 

 woman dare venture near it; and drunkenness and dissipation, 

 enlivened with a little variety of robbery, reign supreme. We 

 permit these gross orgies to take place every night of our lives, 

 and on some of the morrows we attend meetings and subscribe 

 for missionaries to distant climes for the civilisation of the 

 scvages ! Bushmen at the Cape, the most untutored denizens 

 of the remotest isles in the Indian Ocean, have far less real 

 need of such aid than the habitual frequenters of that locality, 

 which has earned for itself the infamous sobriquet of Hell 

 Corner. 



The public tolerance for gross immorality has never been 

 shown more strangely in England than by the exposure in 

 thousands of shop windows in the most fashionable streets of 

 London, and even in country towns, of photographs of notori* 

 ous women of ill-fame. They were exhibited by the side of 

 portraits of Royal and celebrated personages, because there 

 was a large demand for them. What but interest in, and 

 sympathy for vice, could make thousands of people pay their 

 shillings for the portrait of a common prostitute, who has been 



