DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0053
THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.
PLATE IV.
With pallid cheek and haggard eye,
And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh,
Unpitied, hopeless of relief,
She drinks the bitter cup of grief.
In vain the sigh, in vain the tear,
Compassion never enters here ;
But justice clanks lier iron chain,
And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.
The situation, in which the last plate exhibited our wretched female, was sufficiently
degrading, but in this, her misery is greatly aggravated. We now see her suffering the
chastisement due to her follies ; reduced to the wretched alternative of beating hemp, or
receiving the correction of a savage task-master. Exposed to the derision of all around,
even her own servant, who is well acquainted with the rules of the place, appears little
disposed to show any return of gratitude for recent obligations, though even her shoes,
which she displays while tying up her garter, seem by their gaudy outside to have been
a present from her mistress. The civil discipline of the stern keeper has all the severity
of the old school. With the true spirit of tyranny, he sentences those who will not
labour to the whipping-post, to a kind of picketing suspension by the wrists, or having
a heavy log fastened to their leg. With the last of these punishments he at this moment
threatens the heroine of our story, nor is it likely that his obduracy can be softened
except by a well applied fee. flow dreadful, how mortifying the situation! These
accumulated evils might perhaps produce a momentary remorse, but a return to the path
of virtue is not so easy as a departure from it.
To show that neither the dread, nor endurance, of the severest punishment, will deter
from the perpetration of crimes, a one-eyed female, close to the keeper, is picking a
pocket. The torn card may probably be dropped by the well-dressed gamester, who
has exchanged the dice-box for the mallet, and whose laced hat is hung up as a compa-
nion trophy to the hoop-petticoat.
One of the girls appears scarcely in her teens. To the disgrace of our police, these
unfortunate little wanderers are still suffered to take their nocturnal rambles in the most
public streets of the metropolis. What heart, so void of sensibility, as not to heave a
pitying sigh at their deplorable situation? Vice is not confined to colour, for a black
woman is ludicrously exhibited, as suffering the penalty of those frailties, which are
imagined peculiar to the fair.
12.
PLATE IV.
With pallid cheek and haggard eye,
And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh,
Unpitied, hopeless of relief,
She drinks the bitter cup of grief.
In vain the sigh, in vain the tear,
Compassion never enters here ;
But justice clanks lier iron chain,
And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.
The situation, in which the last plate exhibited our wretched female, was sufficiently
degrading, but in this, her misery is greatly aggravated. We now see her suffering the
chastisement due to her follies ; reduced to the wretched alternative of beating hemp, or
receiving the correction of a savage task-master. Exposed to the derision of all around,
even her own servant, who is well acquainted with the rules of the place, appears little
disposed to show any return of gratitude for recent obligations, though even her shoes,
which she displays while tying up her garter, seem by their gaudy outside to have been
a present from her mistress. The civil discipline of the stern keeper has all the severity
of the old school. With the true spirit of tyranny, he sentences those who will not
labour to the whipping-post, to a kind of picketing suspension by the wrists, or having
a heavy log fastened to their leg. With the last of these punishments he at this moment
threatens the heroine of our story, nor is it likely that his obduracy can be softened
except by a well applied fee. flow dreadful, how mortifying the situation! These
accumulated evils might perhaps produce a momentary remorse, but a return to the path
of virtue is not so easy as a departure from it.
To show that neither the dread, nor endurance, of the severest punishment, will deter
from the perpetration of crimes, a one-eyed female, close to the keeper, is picking a
pocket. The torn card may probably be dropped by the well-dressed gamester, who
has exchanged the dice-box for the mallet, and whose laced hat is hung up as a compa-
nion trophy to the hoop-petticoat.
One of the girls appears scarcely in her teens. To the disgrace of our police, these
unfortunate little wanderers are still suffered to take their nocturnal rambles in the most
public streets of the metropolis. What heart, so void of sensibility, as not to heave a
pitying sigh at their deplorable situation? Vice is not confined to colour, for a black
woman is ludicrously exhibited, as suffering the penalty of those frailties, which are
imagined peculiar to the fair.
12.