"The most bare-faced robberies are practised in even what are called '_the respectable dress-houses_.' A gentleman, wearing a handsome watch and chain, is pretty certain to have it stolen from him; and when he remonstrates, he is perhaps met with a counter-accusation of having given a bad sovereign in payment for champagne, on the preceding evening. On one occasion, a young gentleman who was so plundered, and so accused, carried the business to the Marlborough Street Police-Office. Mrs. Harpy attended, denied the robbery in the most indignant manner, and persisted in the accusation relative to the base sovereign. The proceedings took such a turn that the young gentleman was searched; and in his pockets were found _other counterfeit sovereigns_, exactly resembling the _one_ produced by Mrs. Harpy. Then Mrs. Harpy sent for her wine-merchant, her butcher, and her baker, who were all her near neighbours: and those tradesmen declared that Mrs. Harpy kept a most respectable boarding-house, and that she was a lady of good connexions and undoubted integrity. The magistrate then appealed to the policeman within whose beat Gerrard Street was included; and as he received five guineas a year from Mrs. Harpy for shutting his eyes, it was not likely that he would open them on that occasion. He fully corroborated the evidence of the wine-merchant, butcher, and baker; and the young gentleman was committed for trial for passing base money. Mrs. Harpy's story was that he had presented himself on the preceding evening at her house, and arranged to become a boarder in her establishment; that he obtained from her the change for the bad sovereign; and that, when accused of the act, he had turned round with a counter-charge relative to his watch. The magistrate declared that there was no doubt of Mrs. Harpy's perfect respectability, and commented severely on the '_infamous behaviour of the prisoner, in trumping up so vile an accusation, as a means of releasing himself from the odium of the charge laid against him_.' This young man belonged to a highly respectable family; and he had given a fictitious name in answer to the magistrate's question, _for he had only been married six months_, and was naturally anxious to conceal his visit to a brothel from the knowledge of his friends. But when he was committed for trial, he was forced to send for them, confess his indiscretion, and implore them to save him from the ignominy of exposure in a court of justice. A compromise with Mrs. Harpy was accordingly effected: she _paid_ fifty pounds in forfeit of her recognizances to prosecute: and she _received_ two hundred to abstain from farther proceedings! I need scarcely say that the young gentleman really had been plundered of his watch, and that the entire business of the counterfeit money had been arranged to ruin him. Again I declare that no one knows the woeful risks he incurs when he sets foot in a house of ill-fame. That one false step may embitter the remainder of his