Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/144

128 hesitation is ruin; irresolution will destroy you; want of decision is want of sense, and will soon prove the want of pence. KNOCK THEM DOWN, after having given them one notice to that effect; especially if it be late at night, or in a dark place adapted to robbery. Should you not adopt this advice instantly, your ideas of prudence will soon bend before your carnal appetites; and a couple of Cyprians will empty your pockets of their contents with the facility of a conjuror's wand. This advice may seem harsh to those who whine and cry out about "striking a weak woman." (Not so weak neither.) But I know what I am saying: when a woman ceases to behave like a woman, and assumes the character of the worst description of men, they are no longer women, but brutes. Shall a wonjan be allowed to exercise muscular powers, in aid of her lustful appetites,—to say nothing of meditated robbery—and then plead the weakness of her sex? The proposition is ridiculous, if not monstrous: a foot-pad robbery, then, is to be committed with impunity, because the perpetrator wears petticoats, and !

"Hands off!"—"Stand clear, there!"—"Get out, or I'll tip you a floorer!" These are the expressions, which, as they are