benches, and compares their dress and artificial allurements must have
either very strong nerves or very bad sight, if he persist in saying
that there is more danger to be apprehended from the former than the
latter. He knows very little of modern manners and must be a very
suckling in the ways of the world who imagines that a young man has any
thing to fear from the actresses on the stage, who has gone through the
ordeal of a common ball-room, or even walked of a fine day through our
streets. The ladies of London, Dublin, New-York, Philadelphia and
Baltimore, have thrown those of the stage quite into the back ground in
the arts of the toilet. Nor is this qualification confined to those of
the _haut-ton_, but has descended to tradesmen's wives and daughters; to
chambermaids, laundresses, and wenches of the kitchen white, yellow, and
black, coloured and uncoloured.

Familiarity with impressive objects soon robs them of their influence;
and if our natural disgust and anger at the shameful innovations in the
female costume for which Great Britain and America stand indebted to the
_virtues_ of France, be blunted by the constant obtrusion of them on our
sight, it is to be hoped that the pernicious influence of them upon
public morals will be diminished also. In those regions where a tropical
sun renders clothing cumbersome, and the costume of the ladies of
necessity exceeds a little that of ears in transparency and scantiness,
familiarity renders it harmless; little or nothing is left for the
imagination to feed upon; cheapened by their obviousness, the female
charms are rejected by the fancy which loves to dwell on what it only
guesses at, or has but rarely seen, and the youthful heart finds its
ultimate safety in the apparent excess of its danger. Thus the stage, if
it ever possessed, has lost its vitious allurements, as a bucket of
water is lost in the ocean. To test this reasoning by matter of fact we
appeal to the general feeling, and have no fear of being contradicted
when we assert that, with reference to their comparative numbers, more
mischievous throbs have been excited in every theatre in London,
New-York, and Philadelphia for some years past before, than behind the
curtain.

We are aware that there are some who will object, as a thing taken for
granted, the greater licentiousness of a player's life; but this, before
it can be admitted in argument, must be proved, and the proof of it
would be very difficult indee