ver compelled to be
obsequious in manner, they should altogether lose their perception of
what is due to common sense and to common consideration for others--

"And by the body's action teach the mind
A most inherent baseness."

If such be the actual result in some instances, then is that consequence
still more to be regretted than the other.

Moreover, if the master-tradesmen are willing to sell themselves into
this slavery, the consequence, to the much more numerous classes of
apprentices and journeymen, remains to be taken into the account. The
apprentices, at least, are not paid for the hardships which ensue to
them. There is an occurrence mentioned by George Alexander Steevens, of
a fashionable frequenter of taverns in his time, who threw the waiter
out of the window, and told the landlord to put him into the bill. Had
the landlord himself been the party ejected, this might or might not
have been a satisfactory proceeding, according to the light in which he
might be disposed to regard a contusion or a fracture. But it will
hardly be contended that such a proceeding could be satisfactory to the
waiter. Yet, we may seriously say, that the fate of the waiter was not
more to be deprecated, than that of some descriptions of the apprentices
of the trades-people who contend for the custom of the fashionable
world.

Many is the milliner's apprentice whom every London season sends to
her grave, because the dresses of fine ladies must be completed with a
degree of celerity which nothing but night-labour can accomplish. To the
question, "When must it be done?" "Immediately;" is the readiest answer;
though it is an answer which would perhaps be less inconsiderately and
indiscriminately given, if it were known how many young creatures have
come to a premature death in consequence of it, and how many hearts have
been hardened by the oppression which it necessitates. Nor does the evil
stop there. The dressmakers' apprentices in a great city have another
alternative; and it is quite as much to escape from the intolerable
labours which are imposed upon them in the London season, as from any
sexual frailty, that such multitudes of them adopt a vocation which
affords some immediate relief, whilst it ensures a doubly fatal
termination of their career. The temptations by which these girls are
beset might be deemed all-sufficient, without the compulsion by which
they are thus as it were, driven out into the streets. Upon them,