Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-04-02 00:00:00

The great bulk of these sinners in the city, have been born.l
and bred in sin, and have never known a better life.. From
the cradle they have lived in an atmosphere of guilt, among
thieves and prostitutes, and have never known a mother's
love, or experienced a Lther's care. They have never: had
an idea of a different mode of life, and, independently of the
influence of parental exampre and the absence of any other
means of livelihood, they naturally follow the only profession
familiar to them thieving and prostitution.
Many, though not born in this impure atmosphere, owe
their sad lot to the odious neglect of their parents, who,
from a desire for a quite house, or not to have their revels
disturbed, drive them into the streets, or, from over-
indulgence,
allow them to wander forth, indifferent about
the hour of their return. Young children, on their way
from school and evening services, are oftentimes enticed to
evil by caresses and sweetmeats, or by money, which enables
them to go to cheap theatres and other places of amuse-
ment, the parents meanwhile remaining ignorant of the
precocious degradation of their children. But there are
parents who have not the excuse of ignorance to plead,
who expose their children to corruption with a view
to profit, or offer them for hire, or actually sell them for
money. Conscience offers but a feeble resistance when
children have grown up forgetful of delicacy and decency,
from the disgraceful practice of relatives of different ages
and sexes, married and unmarried, sleeping in one room,
and sometimes in one bed,—a practice which has rendered
the common lodging-house a sink of iniquity and the nur-
sery of crime. Among other causes of the ruin of young
persons ought to be enumerated cheap theatres and dancing-
rooms, fortune-tellers, and obscene books.
Sometimes a mistaken sense of duty drives mothers, par-
ticularly widows or those deserted by their husbands, to
earn bread for their starving children by this infamous
trade; and occasionally young women, who have been
trained to employments that do not remunerate, make up
the insufficiency of their wages to support an aged parent
by this disgraceful resource ; neither class seeks to live on
the wages of sin till other means of subsistence have failed.
In fact, indigence, resulting from insufficient earnings, helps
to make women. into prostitutes, as it makes men into
thieves. In addition to the pressure of want, intrigues
and tricks are resorted to at home and abroad, by infamous
agents, largely recompensed, to satisfy the exhaustless
demands of licentiousness Young women who, for love
of change, or ill•treatment at home, or desire of
work, come into town from the country to engage.as do-
mestics, are entrapped by them, and, under pretence of.
being shown suitable lodgings, are led to houses of ill-fame.
If they subsequently refuse to yield to caresses and cajoleries,
violence and terror, they are drugged with narcotics, and
there are many instances of them seeking relief in suicide,
when returning consciousness reveals to them the degrada-
tion they have endured. Of those who walk the streets in
London, eight thousand are said to perish annually by
suicide or disease ; and the maintenance of the vice is said
to cost eight millions of money per annum. In Edinburgh,
with a populatien not half that of Liverpool, the enormous
sum of two hundred thousand is annually expended on its
support.
Our heart sinks within us when we contemplate the
state of our own city, which is said to surpass London in
vice. Thousands of vessels unceasingly enter its docks, and
hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the United King-
dom and the Continent make it their temporary abode on
their way to the land of the West. In this immense vat
the elements of prostitution collect, ferment, and boil over.
Untrammelled and unchecked, it stalks abroad unblushingly
in open day, like a roaring lion, seeking whom it my devour.
In the evening it is said to be impossible to walk along with-
out being stopped or addressed in the most obscene
manner, and in language of the most revolting kind.
Almost every man that passes their place of resort is
taken by the arm or the skirts of his coat by bad women,
and, if he refuses their company, he is cursed and insulted
in language described as brutish and disgusting. They
want men, and men they will have at any cost, if it be only
to rob them ; for prostitution has become the assured
refuge of theft, and robberies of a daring character are
almost daily committed through its instrumentality. Public
morality is ruined, whilst the Legislature, local and
national, turns away in disgust from the hideous picture,
or remains dumb and inactiee in its presence.
It is lamentable to contemplate the number of women
who are apprehended in our city by the police for offences
against the law. For the year eadine. September 29th,
1858, the police returns show 'the number to have been,
for indictable offences, 1,551, of whom 620 were known
thieves,' and 424 were prostitutes. For offence4. summa-
rily determined, there were apprehended 8,102 women, of
whom 4,349 were for being drunk and disorderly ; of these
females 611 were known thieves, and 2,633 were prosti-
tutes. Out of 1,370 persons who were sent for trial, 612
were females. There were at large, known to the police,
in September last, 2,579 prostitutes, of whom 64 were
under 16 years of age : there were also 257 other females
who were either thieves, or the receivers of stolen goods.
There were also 887 houses of ill fame, besides 358
other houses of bad character, the resort of thieves
and' prostitutes ; but these figures do not express the
total number, as there are many- females known to
the police, under the age of 16, and of more mature
years, who, • though following other occupations, live par-
tially by prostitution. This is what the police know ; but
as Leon Faucher observes, they do not know all.
And what has to be done with this poisonous swamp of
vice and degradation, which is said to be more dangerous
in its ravages than influenza, plague, or cholera ? Con-
fine the tempters to their dens, exclaims the indignant
citizen who has met them prowling about day and night,
with bold gaze and in gaudy attire, and has, perhaps, had
to lament the fall of a youthful son who, if left to himself,
would never have sought their haunts. But it
is not nscessary as . a physician observes, to be
a husband or a father to feel all the fatal effects of
prostitution; it is sufficient to have a 'mother,
and to reflect how the sex to which she belongs is
degraded by the condition and habits of prostitution. Not-
withstanding that it is a revolting spectacle in our streets,
the exhaustless source of crime, the companion of robbery
and violence, the parent of suicide and murder, the channel
of loathsome and infectious disease, and the ruin of families,
and that, stamped with the last seal of infamy as the most
hideous moral stain in the eyes of mankind, it consigns to a
speedy and an eternal death, it will be followed as long as it
affords enjoyment to the licentious, money to the covetous,
bread to the famishing, and a hearth to the homeless. In
defiance of public contempt, •in despite of the brutality of
which they are the victims, of the frightful diseases they
contract, and of the suffering, mental and physical, they
endure, women will be found to earn a livelihood by the
wages of sin, as long as men are found base and worthless
enough to pay them for a degradation which [they do not
share.

While the poor infatuated creatures are in health and
spirits. to follow their sinful calling, those who are instru-
mental in bringing them to ruin are all kindness and
attention; bnt the moment any of them fall sick, they are
treated with unkindness, cruelty, and neglect. Their course
is rapid and brief; for in prostitution. there is a constant
descent in the scale of.debasemeut. They break down in a .
few years, sometimes in as many months, under the united
influence of spirituous liquors, misery, and disease. The
passion for drink becomes irresistible; they cannot bear
life without it, nor stand the memory of. what they have
been, nor the thought of what they are. Forced to wander
the streets by day and by night, through icy Niinds and
snow and rain, struggling against hunger, cold, and disease,
supporting life anil strength by stimulants, • .and killing
remorse by excitement, rejected from every home, they sink
down at last in the wretched haunt of characters worse than
themselves, and, without protection and without mercy, rot
in want, filth, and disease, "On a wretched pallet, in a
filthy garret," writes an eloquent Reviewer, " with no
companions. but the ruffians, drunkards, and harlots with
'whom she, had cast her lot ;• amid brutal curses, ribald
language, . and drunken laughter ; with a past laying its
weight upon her soul • with a prospective beyond the
grave which the little she retains of her early religion' lights
up for her with the lurid light of hell, this poor daughter
of huny.nity terminates a life, of which, if the sin has been
grievous and the weakness lamentable, the expiation has
been fearfully tremendous,"

Our object in this address is not to excite your sympathy
for those who are still_ plying their infamous trade, but to
implore your charity for those who are willing to abandon
it. They have felt the weight of their chains, and entreat,
with impassioned earnestness, to be allowed to regain,
through penance and forgiveness, their lost pOsition. bin
and licentiousness have yielded to. remorse and shame, and
from the depths of their wretchedness they seek to be ad-
mitted into their Father's house,' not even as hired servants,
but that they may do penance for their sins, that they may
wash the feet of Jesus with their tears, and wipe them
with the hairs of their head, and kiss them and anoint them.
Who shall spurn the kneeling and weeping Magdalene from
His presence, when He, who will. come to judge her and
113, has said, "Many sins are forgiven her, -for silo bath
loved much : go in vee, thy sins are forgiven thez.."*
Will you refuse the victim of seduction an asylum wherein"
she may do penance, when you do not hesitate to receive
her betrayer into your family circle ? Will you shut the
door of hope against her, whilst you admit him to be the•
companion of your daughters ? Shall he be allowed to take
his place among tha innocent, and she be left alone with
the irreparable ? God forbid !
The charity of the faithful, and especially of one who
does not let the left hand know what the right hand
Both, but whose alms our Heavenly Father, who seeth
in secret, will n'ply, has enabled us to open an
asylum, under the affectionate care of the Sisters of the
d Shepherd, with the best results. It has not accom-
otdhotuo
though not
away
acfull, com-
modation for
nmotore than fifty-seven, it has long been
opened a year, and the good .sisters are
our intention to erellictain'y applicants for admission.. It is
table house in the open and
healthy neighbourhood of the Ford Cemetery, as soon as the