The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-07-16 00:00:00

OESERV•TIONL

It may appear unnecessary to trouble the reader
with any remarks on the justice and propriety of
restoring to women those employments, which de-
cency and moral fitness seem to have exclusively
marked for their own. To men, the extended com-
merce and increased manufadlutes, the unbounded
enterprise and unrivalled prosperity, of Britain, will
supply countless occupations, adapted to every turn
of mind, and to every shade and gradation of talent.
At the present crisis, and probahl,' for some years
to come, the strength and vigour of every male arm
will be wanted, for the defence and promßion of our
rnried country. To %omen, there can be opened,
at best, but a limited scope of aaion ; and it is for
the benefit of all, looking to the increase of the
general fund, that they should not be precluded
flout contributing their portion of produalve indus-
try. Not merely the husband, the father, the bro-
ther, are interested in their possessing the means of
employment, but the community at large, every
member of society most feel the benefit of sn
great an addition to natio :al produce, and moral
virtue.
Is charity the nbjeit ?—Reason and praaical ex-
perience will demonstrate, that to enable even a few
individuals to live by the exertions of industry, and
to preserve them from vice and indigence, is an ea
cf greater and more useful charity, than to feed
thnu•:mds in gratuitous idleness. The operation is
in itsiU more easy; and the effea once produced, the
labour ceases, and only the pleasure and gratification
remain•
Ti.ese are general motives, applicable to every
period and region of the world : but they must have
ten-fold weight, in the British empire, at the present
hour. A pestilential disease, of the most malignant
nature, has corrupted the morals and mental sanity
of a large portion of Europe. In older to exclude
the itifedion, some line of demarcation is necessary
to be drawn between Britain and the infeaed re-

gions ; and, if more cannot be done, at least that
set, to whose early care :aid instrueion, we owe the
religious and virtuous impre►sions of the infantine
ansi youthful age, should be preserved pure and im-
maculate ; so as to be rendered the instruments of
health and safety to others, whom curiosity or inat-
tention may have exposed to the contagion.
If we will take the trouble to compare the moral
and religious state of England with that of France
and Italy, and to appreciate the probable charaeter
of masters imported from either of those countries,
we may judge bow far it can Se wise and j :elicious,
or even fit and decent, that the instralion of our
daughters and sisters, in music, drawing, French,
and the variety of crowded and incumbered accom-
plishments, which do now make essential parts of
female education in every rank and station of life,
should be intrusted to such adventurers, tin.tured as
many of them Must be with foreign habits and vice;
and this too, of young women in the bloom of youth,
at the period when the female charafler is to be
formed, and when every exertion ought to be made
to fix 114 elensal and ancaried print/ides' ,f religion
end rinse on Vie mind. Those who have
had any opportunity of appreciating the superior de-
gree of taste, talent, refinement of fePling, and sym-
pathy of chArafter, which many English women
pusseu, may correily ascertain, whether they are
by nature unfitted to communicate instruCtion to
their own sex, and how tar the employment of fo-
reign men, for the education of English semen, is a
necessary and incorrigible evil.
The personal attendance of male hair-dressers,
shoe-makers, and stay-makers, in the dressing rooms
and private apartments of our fair countrywomen,
has beet frequently noticed, not only as indecorous,
but as derogatory to the charafter and intrinsic pu-
rity of the sex. It should seem natural fee lemale
delicacy to accept, as an attendant at the toilet, the
assistance of a virtuous and well educated English
man, in preference to men, unknown, unaccree
dick!, and no otherwise reeonunended than by hay-
ing beet. imported from Use shores of Fraace or

Italy. It sheiid also seem natural for ladies who
feel what is due, either to their own charaner, or
to the unprotected of their own sex, to desire to fre-
quent those shops only, from wh.nce the employ-
ment and assistance of women are not entirely ex-
cluded; and to avoid- those, where files of athletic
men, ranged in order behind the counter, are em-
ployed, like Hercules in the service of Omph tie, in
the most minute, trivial, and effeminate occapations
of the female sex.

In the execution of the proposed plan, it is of great
importance for those ladies, whose talents and dis-
cretion will dire the efforts of their benevolent co•
adjutors, to caution them not to attempt too many,
or too extensive objects; an attempt, which may.ex-
cite the jealousy and hostility of some, who might
otherwise have been disposed to have given, 11,4
merely their wishes, but their aid, to the attainment
of proper and practicable objects. If, without car-
rying the war into the aggressor's country, the fair
sex can only regain the territory which h is been
wrested from them,—or (to drop the inerAph,-) if,
without interfering with any occti;,ation which pro-
perly belongs to men, they can resume those which
do peculiarly and exclusively appertain to their own
sex, those which public monds and female de-ency
require to be in the hands of women, and which the
candour and good sense of every unprejudiced man
would admit to be proper for women only; and if
to this they can add, for the benefit of the ignorant
and unproteted of their own sex, such a degree of
ed 'cation, as may make them useful to themselves
and to society, and may impress them with the prin-
ciples of religious and moral truth ; millions, who
might otherwise have sunk in misery and vice, will
live innocent and happy; will live to commernoraie
the viruses, and record The names, of their benefte-
tress^s; as the friends, not only of their country,
but of the human race.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

FoarsmouTu, JULY 13..

. -
Sailed the Prospero and Meteor bombs, to join the
squadron off Havre; and the Scourge sloop of war,
with a convoy for the Dosvns.
The Orpheus frigate, and the Ranger sloop of war,
were ordered to be fitted for foreign service.
The Prolpero and Meter sailed by signal, in con-
sequence of the gun-brigs at H.svre having been
reinforced, and ready to come out. _

VIAL, JULY 13.
Sailed His Majesty's ship Rezalas lot Yarmouth.
Arrived the //innev sloop of war from Yarmouth.
Came down the nigstow armed ship, and remains
in the Downs with die ship :13 per last.

ir•L;LucrH, Jur y U.

Arrived the .I.::ktand packu, Capt:tin Sbuyler,
with a Mail from LiL'-on, in eight days passage.
Sailed the Priocr .1.601p1.us packet, Captain-Boul-
derson, for Barbadoes and Jamaica; the Dirties.
packet, St. Aubyn, for Lisbon; Princess Apulia
packet, Captain Stevens, for Halifax, and New
York ; Led.. and Squirrel sloops of war, with
the following ships under convoy, viz. the
Ant, Bowles, for St. Vincent's, Dish of Palialetl,
Barclay, Diaae, Barnard, Rebecca, Prolamin, and
Charming kilts,, Hodgson, for the South-fleas ; and
Little gone, l.attin, for Africa.HisNalesty's ship Gibrakar, of 80 guns, with a
fleet under convoy from the Mediterranean, arc ar-
rayed off Portland.—Wind N.E.