“Your observation is true,” replied he; “but it does not prove that those who submit to this, to prevent their becoming prostitutes, do not judge better than those who become prostitutes, and then submit to this. In different countries,” continued he, “people think very differently on subjects of this kind. The parents of this girl, to my knowledge, have refused considerable offers from men of fortune, to be allowed the privilege of _visiting_ her. They are so very careful of preventing every thing of that nature, that she actually lies in the same bed with them both, which is another piece of indelicacy not uncommon among the lower people in Italy. These parents have the more merit in refusing such offers, as their acting otherwise would by no means be thought extraordinary; nor would it raise the same degree of indignation here as in some other countries of Europe. Breach of chastity, in females of low rank, is not considered here in the same heinous light that it is in some parts of Germany and Great Britain; where it is deemed a crime of such magnitude, as to require expiation, by a public rebuke from the parson in the middle of the church. I have heard of a clergyman in the North, who had occasion to rebuke a young woman for having borne a child before marriage. The accomplice in her guilt had married her immediately after her recovery; but this did not abate the parson’s indignation against the wickedness they had previously committed. Magdalen,” said he, with an aweful tone of voice, to the woman, “you stand before this congregation to be rebuked for the _barbarous_ and _unnatural_ crime of fornication.” “The reverend clergyman, said I, in all probability intended to terrify his parishioners from such irregularities; and for this purpose imagined there would be no harm in putting them in the most odious point of view.” “This is attended, however, by one dreadful consequence,” replied the artist, “that these unhappy creatures, to conceal a fault of which such a horrible idea is given, and to prevent the shame of a public exposition in the church, are sometimes tempted to commit a crime which is in reality barbarous, and unnatural in the highest degree.” “There is nothing,” continued he, “which has a greater tendency to render any set of people worthless, than the idea that they are already considered as such. The women all over Great Britain, who live in an open and avowed breach of chastity, are generally more daringly wicked, and devoid of principle, than the Italian women who take the same liberties.” “Would you then,” said I, “have women of that kind more respected in Great Britain, in hopes that it might, in time, make them more respectable?”