Augusta Triumphans. Or, the Way to Make London the Most Flourishing City in the Universe
I shall not run into a description of their abuses; we know enough of those already. Our business now is to make them useful, first by ascertaining their wages at a proper standard.
Secondly, by obliging them to continue longer in service, not to stroll about from place to place, and throw themselves on the town on every dislike.
Thirdly, to prevent their being harboured by wicked persons, when out of place; or living too long on their own hands.
As for their wages, they have topped upon us already, and doubled them in spite of our teeth; but as they have had wit enough to get them, so will they, I doubt not, have the same sense to keep them, and much good may it do those indolent over-secure persons, who have given them this advantage. However, if they are honest and diligent, I would have them encouraged, and handsome wages allowed them; because, by this means, we provide for the children of the inferior class of people, who otherwise could not maintain themselves; nay, sometimes tradesmen, &c., reduced, are glad when their children cease to hang upon them, by getting into service, and by that means not only maintaining themselves, but being of use in other families. But then there ought to be some medium, some limitation to their wages, or they may extort more than can well be afforded.
Nothing calls for more redress than their quitting service for every idle disgust, leaving a master or mistress at a nonplus, and all under plea of a foolish old custom, called warning, nowhere practised but in London; for in other places they are hired by the year, or by the statute as they call it, which settles them in a place, at least for some time; whereas, when they are not limited, it encourages a roving temper, and makes them never easy.
If you turn them away without warning, they will make you pay a month's wages, be the provocation or offence never so great; but if they leave you, though never so abruptly, or unprovided, help yourselves how you can, there is no redress; though I think there ought, in all conscience, to be as much law for the master as for the servant.
No servant should quit a place where they are well fed and paid, without assigning a good reason before a magistrate. On the other hand, they should receive no abuse which should not be redressed; for we ought to treat them as servants, not slaves; and a medium ought to be observed on both sides. But if they are not restrained from quitting service on every vagary, they will throw themselves on the town, and not only ruin themselves, but others; for example, a girl quits a place and turns whore; if there is not a bastard to be murdered, or left to the parish, there is one or more unwary youths drawn in to support her in lewdness and idleness; in order to which, they rob their parents and masters, nay, sometimes, anybody else, to support their strumpets; so that many thieves owe their ruin and shameful deaths to harlots; not to mention the communication of loathsome distempers, and innumerable other evils, to which they give birth.
How many youths, of all ranks, are daily ruined? and how justly may be dreaded the loss of as many more, if a speedy stop be not put to this growing evil? Generations to come will curse the neglect of the present, and every sin committed for the future may be passed to our account, if we do not use our endeavours to the contrary.
And unless we prevent our maid-servants from being harboured by wicked persons when out of place, or living too long on their own hands, our streets will swarm with impudent shameless strumpets; the good will be molested; those prone to evil will be made yet more wicked, by having temptations thrown in their way; and, to crown all, we shall have scarce a servant left, but our wives, &c., must do the household-work themselves.
If this be not worthy the consideration of a legislature, I would fain know what is. Is it not time to limit their wages, when they are grown so wanton they know not what to ask? Is it not time to fix them, when they stroll from place to place, and we are hardly sure of a servant a month together? Is it not time to prevent the increase of harlots, by making it penal for servants to be harboured in idleness, and tempted to theft, whoredom, murder, &c., by living too long out of place? and I am sure it is high time to begin the work, by clearing the public streets of night-walkers, who are grown to such a pitch of impudence that peace and common decency are manifestly broken in our public streets. I wonder this has so long escaped the eye of the magistrate, especially when there are already in force laws sufficient to restrain this tide of uncleanness, which will one day overflow us.
The lewdest people upon earth, ourselves excepted, are not guilty of such open violations of the laws of decency. Go all the world over, and you will see no such impudence as in the streets of London, which makes many foreigners give our women in general a bad character, from the vile specimens they meet with from one end of the town to the other. Our sessions' papers are full of the trials of impudent sluts, who first decoy men and then rob them; a meanness the courtesans of Rome and Venice abhor.
How many honest women, those of the inferior sort especially, get loathsome distempers from their husband's commerce with these creatures, which distempers are often entailed on posterity; nor have we an hospital separated for that purpose, which does not contain too many instances of honest poor wretches made miserable by villains of husbands.
And now I have mentioned the villany of some husbands in the lower state of life, give me leave to propose, or at least to wish, that they were restrained from abusing their wives at that barbarous rate, which is now practised by butchers, carmen, and such inferior sort of fellows, who are public nuisances to civil neighbourhoods, and yet nobody cares to interpose, because the riot is between a man and his wife.
I see no reason why every profligate fellow shall have the liberty to disturb a whole neighbourhood, and abuse a poor honest creature at a most inhuman rate, and is not to be called to account because it is his wife; this sort of barbarity was never so notorious and so much encouraged as at present, for every vagabond thinks he may cripple his wife at pleasure; and it is enough to pierce a heart of stone to see how barbarously some poor creatures are beaten and abused by merciless dogs of husbands.
It gives an ill example to the growing generation, and this evil will gain ground on us if not prevented; it may be answered, the law has already provided redress, and a woman abused may swear the peace against her husband, but what woman cares to do that? It is revenging herself on herself, and not without considerable charge and trouble.
There ought to be a shorter way, and when a man has beaten his wife, which by the by is a most unmanly action, and great sign of cowardice, it behoves every neighbour who has the least humanity or compassion, to complain to the next justice of the peace, who should be empowered to set him in the stocks for the first offence; to have him well scourged at the whipping-post for the second; and if he persisted in his barbarous abuse of the holy marriage state, to send him to the house of correction till he should learn to use more mercy to his yoke-fellow.
How hard is it for a poor industrious woman to be up early and late, to sit in a cold shop, stall, or market, all weathers, to carry heavy loads from one end of the town to the other, or to work from morning till night, and even then dread going home for fear of being murdered? Some may think this too low a topic for me to expatiate upon, to which I answer, that it is a charitable and Christian one, and therefore not in the least beneath the consideration of any man who had a woman for his mother.
The mention of this leads me to exclaim against the vile practice now so much in vogue among the better sort as they are called, but the worst sort in fact; namely, the sending their wives to madhouses, at every whim or dislike, that they may be more secure and undisturbed in their debaucheries; which wicked custom is got to such a head, that the number of private madhouses in and about London are considerably increased within these few years.
This is the height of barbarity and injustice in a Christian country, it is a clandestine inquisition, nay worse.
How many ladies and gentlewomen are hurried away to these houses, which ought to be suppressed, or at least subject to daily examination, as hereafter shall be proposed?
How many, I say, of beauty, virtue, and fortune, are suddenly torn from their dear innocent babes, from the arms of an unworthy man, whom they love, perhaps, but too well, and who in return for that love, nay probably an ample fortune and a lovely offspring besides, grows weary of the pure streams of chaste love, and thirsting after the puddles of lawless lust, buries his virtuous wife alive, that he may have the greater freedom with his mistresses?
If they are not mad when they go into these cursed houses, they are soon made so by the barbarous usage they there suffer; and any woman of spirit, who has the least love for her husband, or concern for her family, cannot sit down tamely under a confinement and separation the most unaccountable and unreasonable.
Is it not enough to make any one mad to be suddenly clapped up, stripped, whipped, ill-fed, and worse used? To have no reason assigned for such treatment, no crime alleged, or accusers to confront? And what is worse, no soul to appeal to but merciless creatures, who answer but in laughter, surliness, contradiction, and too often stripes?
All conveniences for writing are denied, no messenger to be had to carry a letter to any relation or friend; and if this tyrannical inquisition, joined with the reasonable reflections a woman of any common understanding must necessarily make, be not sufficient to drive any soul stark staring mad, though before they were never so much in their right senses, I have no more to say.
When by this means a wicked husband has driven a poor creature mad, and robbed an injured wife of her reason, for it is much easier to create than to cure madness, then has the villain a handle for his roguery; then, perhaps, he will admit her distressed relations to see her, when it is too late to cure the madness he so artfully and barbarously has procured.
But this is not all: sometimes more dismal effects attend this inquisition, for death is but too often the cure of their madness and end of their sorrows; some with ill usage, some with grief, and many with both, are barbarously cut off in the prime of their years and flower of their health, who otherwise might have been mothers of a numerous issue, and survived many years. This is murder in the deepest sense, and much more cruel than dagger or poison, because more lingering; they die by piecemeal, and in all the agonies and terrors of a distracted mind.
Nay, it is murder upon murder, for the issue that might have been begot is to be accounted for to God and the public. Now, if this kind of murder is connived at, we shall no doubt have enough, nay, too much of it; for if a man is weary of his wife, has spent her fortune, and wants another, it is but sending her to a madhouse and the business is done at once.
How many have already been murdered after this manner is best known to just Heaven, and those unjust husbands and their damned accomplices, who, though now secure in their guilt, will one day find it is murder of the blackest dye, has the least claim to mercy, and calls aloud for the severest vengeance.
How many are yet to be sacrificed, unless a speedy stop be put to this most accursed practice, I tremble to think; our legislature cannot take this cause too soon in hand. This surely cannot be below their notice, and it will be an easy matter at once to suppress all these pretended madhouses. Indulge, gentle reader, for once the doting of an old man, and give him leave to lay down his little system without arraigning him of arrogance or ambition to be a lawgiver. In my humble opinion, all private madhouses should be suppressed at once, and it should be no less than felony to confine any person under pretence of madness without due authority.
For the cure of those who are really lunatic, licensed madhouses should be constituted in convenient parts of the town, which houses should be subject to proper visitation and inspection, nor should any person be sent to a madhouse without due reason, inquiry, and authority.
It may be objected, by persons determined to contradict every thing and approve nothing, that the abuses complained of are not so numerous or heinous as I would insinuate. Why are not facts advanced, they will be apt to say, to give a face of truth to these assertions? But I have two reasons to the contrary; the first is, the more you convince them, the more angry you make them, for they are never better pleased than when they have an opportunity of finding fault; therefore, to curry favour with the fault-finders, I have left them a loophole: the second and real is, because I do not care to bring an old house over my head by mentioning particular names or special cases, thereby drawing myself into vexatious prosecutions and suits at law from litigious wretches, who would be galled to find their villanies made public, and stick at no expense or foul play to revenge themselves. Not but I could bring many instances, particularly of an unhappy widow, put in by a villain of a husband, and now continued in for the sake of her jointure by her unnatural son, far from common honesty or humanity. Of another, whose husband keeps his mistress in black velvet, and is seen with her every night at the opera or play, while his poor wife (by much the finer woman, and of an understanding far superior to her thick-skulled tyrant,) is kept mean in diet and apparel; nay, ill-used into the bargain, notwithstanding her fortune supplies all the villain's extravagances, and he has not a shilling but what came from her: but a beggar when once set on horseback proves always the most unmerciful rider.
I cannot leave this subject without inserting one particular case.
A lady of known beauty, virtue, and fortune, nay more, of wisdom, not flashy wit, was, in the prime of her youth and beauty, and when her senses were perfectly sound, carried by her husband in his coach as to the opera; but the coachman had other instructions, and drove directly to a madhouse, where the poor innocent lady was no sooner introduced, under pretence of calling by the way to see some pictures he had a mind to buy, but the key was turned upon her, and she left a prisoner by her faithless husband, who while his injured wife was confined and used with the utmost barbarity, he, like a profligate wretch, ran through her fortune with strumpets, and then basely, under pretence of giving her liberty, extorted her to make over her jointure, which she had no sooner done but he laughed in her face, and left her to be as ill-used as ever. This he soon ran through, and (happily for the lady) died by the justice of heaven in a salivation his debauches had obliged him to undergo.
During her confinement, the villain of the madhouse frequently attempted her chastity; and the more she repulsed him the worse he treated her, till at last he drove her mad in good earnest. Her distressed brother, who is fond of her to the last degree, now confines her in part of his own house, treating her with great tenderness, but has the mortification to be assured by the ablest physicians that his poor sister is irrecoverably distracted.
Numberless are the instances I could produce, but they would be accounted fictitious, because I do not name the particular persons, for the reasons before assigned; but the sufferings of these poor ladies are not fictitious, nor are the villany of the madhouses, or the unnatural, though fashionable barbarity of husbands, chimeras, but too solid grievances, and manifest violations of the laws of God and man.
Most gracious and august queen Caroline! ornament of your sex, and pride of the British nation! the best of mothers, the best of wives, the best of women! Begin this auspicious reign with an action worthy your illustrious self, rescue your injured sex from this tyranny, nor let it be in the power of every brutal husband to cage and confine his wife at pleasure, a practice scarce heard of till of late years. Nip it in the bud, most gracious queen, and draw on yourself the blessings of numberless of the fair sex, now groaning under the severest and most unjust bondage. Restore them to their families; let them, by your means, enjoy light and liberty; that while they fondly embrace, and with tears of joy weep over their dear children, so long withheld from them, they may invoke accumulated blessings from heaven upon your royal head!
And you, ye fair illustrious circle! who adorn the British court! and every day surround our gracious queen: let generous pity inspire your souls, and move you to intercede with your noble consorts for redress in this injurious affair. Who can deny when you become suitors? and who knows but at your request a bill may be brought into the house to regulate these abuses? The cause is a noble and a common one, and ought to be espoused by every lady who would claim the least title to virtue or compassion. I am sure no honest member in either honourable house will be against so reasonable a bill; the business is for some public-spirited patriot to break the ice by bringing it into the house, and I dare lay my life it passes.
I must beg my reader's indulgence, being the most immethodical writer imaginable. It is true I lay down a scheme, but fancy is so fertile I often start fresh hints, and cannot but pursue them; pardon therefore, kind reader, my digressive way of writing, and let the subject, not the style or method, engage thy attention.
Return we, therefore, to complain of destructive gaming-houses, the bane of our youth, and ruin of our children and servants.
This is the most unprofitable evil upon earth, for it only tends to alienate the proper current of specie, to maintain a pack of idle sharping rascals, and beggar unwary gentlemen and traders.
I take the itch of gaming to be the most pernicious of vices, it is a kind of avaricious madness; and if people have not sense to command themselves by reason, they ought to be restrained by law; nor suffered to ruin themselves and families, to enrich a crew of sharpers.
There is no playing on the square with these villains; they are sure to cheat you, either by sleight of hand, confederacy, or false dice, &c.; they have so much the odds of their infatuated bubbles, that they might safely play a guinea to a shilling, and yet be sure of winning. This is but genteel pocket picking, or felony with another name, and yet, so fond are we of it, that from the footboy to the lord, all must have a touch of gaming; and there are sharpers of different stations and denominations, from Southwark-fair to the groom porters. Shame, that gentlemen should suffer every scoundrel to mix with them for gaming sake! And equal shame, that honest laborious tradesmen should be obstructed in crossing the public streets, by the gilt chariots of vagabond gamesters; who now infest the land, and brave even our nobility and gentry with their own money.
But the most barbarous part of this hellish trade is what they call setting of young gentlemen, apprentices, and others; this ought to be deemed felony without benefit of clergy; for it is the worst of thievery. Under pretence of taking a bottle, or spending an evening gaily, they draw their cull to the tavern, where they sit not long before the devil's bones or books are found accidentally on purpose, by the help of which they strip my gentleman in an instant, and then generously lend him his own money, to lose afresh, and create a debt which is but too often more justly paid than those more justly due.
If we look into some late bankruptcies we shall find some noted gamesters the principal creditors; I think, in such cases it would be but justice to make void the gamester's debt, and subject his estate to make good the deficiencies of the bankrupt's effects. If traders have no more wit, the public should have pity on them; and make it as penal to lose as to win; and, in truth, if cards, dice, &c., were totally suppressed, industry and arts would increase the more; gaming may make a man crafty, but not polite; one may understand cards and dice perfectly well, and be a blockhead in everything else.
I am sorry to see it so prevalent in the city among the trading part of mankind, who have introduced it into their clubs, and play so high of late that many bankrupts have been made by this pernicious practice.
It is the bane of all conversation; and those who can't sit an hour without gaming, should never go into a club to spoil company. In a word, it is mere madness, and a most stupid thing to hazard one's fortune, and perplex one's mind; nay, to sit up whole nights, poring over toys of pipped ivory and painted pasteboard, making ourselves worse than little children, whose innocent sports we so much ridicule.
To sum up all, I think it would be a noble retribution, to subject gamesters' estates to the use and support of the poor widows and orphans of their unfortunate bubbles.
Sunday debauches are abuses that call loud for amendment; it is in this pernicious soil the seeds of ruin are first sown. Instead of a day of rest, we make it a day of labour, by toiling in the devil's vineyard; and but too many surfeit themselves with the fruits of gluttony, drunkenness, and uncleanness.
Not that I am so superciliously strict, to have the sabbath kept as rigidly here as in Scotland, but then there ought to be a medium between the severity of a fast, and the riot of Saturnalia. Instead of a decent and cheerful solemnity, our taverns and publichouses have more business that day than all the week beside. Our apprentices plume themselves; nay, some scruple not to put on their swords and tie wigs, or toupees, and the loose end of the town is their rendezvous, Sunday being market-day all round the hundreds of Drury.
While we want servants to do our work, those hundreds, as they call them, are crowded with numbers of idle impudent sluts, who love sporting more than spinning, and inveigle our youth to their ruin; nay, many old lechers, beasts as they are! steal from their families, and seek these harlots' lurking holes, to practise their unaccountable schemes of new invented lewdnesses; some half hang themselves, others are whipped, some lie under a table and gnaw the bones that are thrown them, while others stand slaving among a parcel of drabs at a washing tub. Strange that the inclination should not die with the power, but that old fools should make themselves the prey and ridicule of a pack of strumpets!
Some heedless youths are wheedled into marriage, which makes them and their unhappy parents miserable all their lives; others are drawn into extravagancies, and but too often run into their master's cash, and for fear of a discovery, make away with themselves, or at least run away and leave their distracted parents in a thousand tears; not to mention the frustration of their fortune, and the miseries that attend a vagabond life. Thus honest parents lose their children, and traders their apprentices, and all from a liberty we have of late given our youth of rambling abroad on Sundays; for many, nowadays will lie out all night, or stay out so late to give no small disturbance in sober families. It therefore behoves every master of a family to have his servants under his eye; and if the going to church, meeting, or whatever place of worship suited their religion, were more enforced, it would be so much the better.
In short, the luxury of the age will be the ruin of the nation, if not prevented. We leave trade to game in stocks; we live above ourselves, and barter our ready money for trifles; tea and wine are all we seem anxious for, and God has given the blessings of life to an ungrateful people, who despise their own productions. Our very plough-fellows drink wine nowadays; our farmers, graziers, and butchers, are above malt liquors; and the wholesome breakfast of water-gruel and milk potage is changed for coffee and tea. This is the reason provisions and corn, &c., are so dear; we all work for vintners, and raise our prices one upon another to such a degree, it will be an impossibility to live, and we shall, of course, become our own devourers.