The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life: Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd WomenAnonymous
General
The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life: Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women
Anonymous
Prostitution -- England -- London
_I return you many Thanks for the Relation of your Life: Your Advice before
has sav'd my Reputation to my Husband and the World; which he who had first
Tempted me to Lewdness, and overcame me through the Love of Money, would
have afterwards Expos'd; for which I think my self oblig'd to you: But the
Relation you have now given me, has Oblig'd me much more; for it has made
me quite out of Love with the Trade you have all along follow'd; if for
nothing else, because of the Dangers that attend it. For if you look back,
and reflect upon your first going astray, it was full of danger and hazard;
and how private so ever you thought you were in it, yet it could not escape
your Husbands Jealousie and Mistrust; and at last, when you least suspected
it, was fully discover'd by your Gallant himself. And that occasion'd your
being turn'd out of Doors; and that taking all sense of shame from you, (as
you well observed) exposed you to a thousand Temptantions; which being
suited to your own Natural Inclinations, you presently closed withal; which
in a little time was, it seems, attended by the Pox; and which besides,
many times laid you open to the Cognizance of the Civil Magistrate; and
made you afraid of every one you saw; which must needs be a very uneasy
Life.--I can speak some thing of this by my own experience: For after I had
given way to Mr. _Bramble_'s desires, and yeilded to his Unlawful Embraces,
I was so full of Guilt, that when ever my Husband call'd hastily to me, or
spoke in the least angrily, I thought it was to tell me of my playing the
Whore with Mr. _Bramble_, my guilt still flying in my Face; so that I wou'd
not be expos'd to the like Fears again, for double the value of what I
receiv'd from him. But having been over come by him, the fear of his
exposing of me, as I perceive he intended, had not you helpt me to prevent
him, caus'd me to serve him as I did._--But you cannot imagine, (said she)
what a Consternation I was put into the other Night, when a Constable that
lives hard by us, and is one of the Society for Reformation, came to our
House, and told my Husband he came to tell him of some Discoveries he had
lately made, which were worth his hearing: My blood came all into my Face,
and I did not question but that I was to be the Subject of his Discourse.
But when I had heard out his Stories, I was better satisfy'd: Tho' they
were such as sufficiently declare the Danger, that such as you are dayly
in, of being detected, as those were of whom he gave my Husband a Relation:
Which indeed I thought to be diverting enough, as long as it did not
concern me. For tho' we care not to be expos'd our selves, we are yet ready
to take a kind of pleasure in hearing that others are so.
If it were not too great a trouble (said the Bawd) I should be glad to hear
what those Discoveries were, that he made to your Husband; which perhaps
may be of use to me in knowing how to prevent the like Disasters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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