that it is an unspeakable
Grief to reflect upon them. As much as you have declaimed against
Duelling, I hope you will do us the Justice to declare, that if the
Brute has Courage enough to send to the Place where he saw us all
alight together to get rid of him, there is not one of us but has a
Lover who shall avenge the Insult. It would certainly be worth your
Consideration, to look into the frequent Misfortunes of this kind, to
which the Modest and Innocent are exposed, by the licentious Behaviour
of such as are as much Strangers to good Breeding as to Virtue. Could
we avoid hearing what we do not approve, as easily as we can seeing
what is disagreeable, there were some Consolation; but since [in a Box
at a Play,][2] in an Assembly of Ladies, or even in a Pew at Church,
it is in the Power of a gross Coxcomb to utter what a Woman cannot
avoid hearing, how miserable is her Condition who comes within the
Power of such Impertinents? And how necessary is it to repeat
Invectives against such a Behaviour? If the Licentious had not utterly
forgot what it is to be modest, they would know that offended Modesty
labours under one of the greatest Sufferings to which human Life can
be exposed. If one of these Brutes could reflect thus much, tho they
want Shame, they would be moved, by their Pity, to abhor an impudent
Behaviour in the Presence of the Chaste and Innocent. If you will
oblige us with a _Spectator_ on this Subject, and procure it to be
pasted against every Stage-Coach in _Great-Britain_, as the Law of the
Journey, you will highly oblige the whole Sex, for which you have
professed so great an Esteem; and in particular, the two Ladies my
late Fellow-Sufferers, and,

SIR, _Your most humble Servant_,

Rebecca Ridinghood.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

The Matter which I am now going to send you, is an unhappy Story in
low Life, and will recommend it self, so that you must excuse the
Manner of expressing it. A poor idle drunken Weaver in
_Spittle-Fields_ has a faithful laborious Wife, who by her Frugality
and Industry had laid by her as much Money as purchased her a Ticket
in the present Lottery. She had hid this very privately in the Bottom
of a Trunk, and had given her Number to a Friend and Confident, who
had promised to keep the Secret, and bring her News of the Success.
The poor Adventurer was one Day gone abroad, when her careless
Husband, suspecting