Page:The Female Advocate.djvu/50

 out the cause of these nocturnal depredations; for we may naturally suppose, these poor unhappy women are always ready to benumb and drown their reflections with intoxicating liquors, the effects of which must lead them, with their wretched associates, into every excess of sin and wickedness, to the utter demolition of public happiness and safety, as well as incurring a heavy burden of expences upon the inhabitants.

It is said, the city of London alone pays upwards of twenty thousand pounds annually to patrols, beadles, and watchmen; and it may be a much greater sum; yet, that of itself seems a vast sum indeed, to be raised by levy, in which the honest trader must unavoidably contribute a large share. Would not that contribution answer a much better purpose in providing for the necessitous poor, such as we have just been treating of, and who are judged unfit objects to be received into a parish workhouse; being, as it is termed, able enough to earn their own bread out of the house?

Yet, so long as there continues a prohibition against women having an employment, it