Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/112

 who was admitted into that most excellent charity.

"I was reduced," says she, "to the manifest danger of starving. I would have attempted the most laborious work, but no one would try me, although I offered my labour at half price; but even my industry was made an argument against me: I must, they said, be very bad to be reduced to that, and they supposed, I intended to steal the other part of my wages.

"To be willing and able to work, and yet to starve for want of employment, seemed a hard fate, yet it touched no heart but my own."

What a miserable prospect for helpless innocence! What a shocking case, that poor unfortunate females should be denied the privilege of obtaining a support by servitude, after being precluded earning an honest maintenance, by any other means of industry, merely to make way for a set of beings who are much better calculated for more manly employments; and, in particular, at a time when so many men are required in defence of their country. Besides, if there is not employment for the