number of
deaths. But a fresh supply is always obtained without the least trouble;
seduction easily keeps pace with prostitution or mortality. Those that
die are, like factory children that die, instantly succeeded by new
competitors for misery and death." There is no hour of a summer's or a
winter's night, in which there may not be found in the streets a ghastly
wretch, expiring under the double tortures of disease and famine. Though
less aggravated in its features, the picture of prostitution in New York
or Philadelphia would be of like character.

In such communities, the unmarried woman who becomes a mother, is an
outcast from society--and though sentimentalists lament the hardship of
the case, it is justly and necessarily so. She is cut off from the hope
of useful and profitable employment, and driven by necessity to further
vice. Her misery, and the hopelessness of retrieving, render her
desperate, until she sinks into every depth of depravity, and is
prepared for every crime that can contaminate and infest society. She
has given birth to a human being, who, if it be so unfortunate as to
survive its miserable infancy, is commonly educated to a like course of
vice, depravity, and crime.

Compare with this the female slave under similar circumstances. She is
not a less useful member of society than before. If shame be attached to
her conduct, it is such shame as would be elsewhere felt for a venial
impropriety. She has not impaired her means of support, nor materially
impaired her character, or lowered her station in society; she has done
no great injury to herself, or any other human being. Her offspring is
not a burden but an acquisition to her owner; his support is provided
for, and he is brought up to usefulness; if the fruit of intercourse
with a freeman, his condition is, perhaps, raised somewhat above that of
his mother. Under these circumstances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted
by the strongest of human passions--unrestrained by the motives which
operate to restrain, but are so often found insufficient to restrain the
conduct of females elsewhere, can it be matter of surprise that she
should so often yield to the temptation? Is not the evil less in itself,
and in reference to society--much less in the sight of God and man? As
was said of theft--the want of chastity, which among females of other
countries is sometimes vice, sometimes crime--among the free of our own,
much more aggravated; among slaves, har