I sit down to write a little treatise, which will subject me to abuse from the self-righteous, to misrepresentation from the hypocritical, and to reproach even from the honestly prejudiced. Some may refuse to read it; and many more will misconceive its tendency. I would have delayed its publication, had the choice been permitted me, until the popular mind was better prepared to receive it; but the enemies of reform have already foisted the subject, under an odious form, on the public: and I have no choice left. If, therefore, I prematurely touch the honest prejudices of any, let them bear in mind, that the occasion is not of my seeking. The subject I intend to discuss is strictly a physiological subject, although connected, like many other physiological subjects, with political economy, morals, and social science. In discussing it, I must speak as plainly as physicians and physiologists do. What I mean, I must say. Pseudo-civilized man, that anomalous creature who has been not inaptly defined “an animal ashamed of his own body,” may take it ill that I speak simply: I cannot help that. A foreign princess, travelling towards Madrid to become queen of Spain, passed through a little town of the peninsula, famous for its manufactory of gloves and stockings. The magistrates of the place, eager to evince their loyalty towards their new queen, presented her, on her arrival, with a sample of those commodities for which alone their town was remarkable. The major domo, who conducted the princess, received the gloves very graciously; but when the stockings were presented, he flung them away with great indignation, and severely reprimanded the magistrates for this egregious piece of indecency. “Know,” said he, “that a queen of Spain has no legs.”[2] I never could sympathize with this major domo delicacy; and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this book aside at once. If you have travelled and observed much, you will already have learnt the distinction between real and artificial propriety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably know, that when the grand seignor’s wives are ill, the physician is only allowed to see the wrist, which is thrust through an opening in the side of the room, because it is improper even for a physician to look upon another man’s wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than propriety.[3] If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know that they consider a woman’s virtue sacrificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on the public road to speak to her lover:[4] and if you have read Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers, who were determined their sister should not survive her dishonor.