Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/148

132 beset by half a score Urchins, who have been sitting up, waiting for the return of the sisters (perhaps) of one or more of them. By a troop of both sexes thus composed, and probably the unnatural parents themselves, is the dishonest pursuit kept up, until their game has been robbed of every shilling he has, together with his watch and miscellaneous property, including his coat, hat, shoes, or other clothes. The unfortunate, silly man, is then to be mystified (to borrow a French word) respecting the place he has visited; for which purpose they throw themselves in his way, in order to misdirect him; and this they contrive to do, even although he should be too drunk, or too sulky, too enquire, by means of a conversation among themselves. The reflections and researches of the next morning, teach him how weak an animal is man! How nearly resembling the brute beast (when reason has departed at the approach of ebriety), is that man, who dares to kill his fellow animal, and ask for impunity, because it is devoid of that reason, which he himself has bartered away for a few moments' gratification.

We must not deny that very many of those girls have pretty faces, and appear as if just escaped the trammels of a parent's care, or the drudgery of a manufactory, and thus it is they