The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 4 | Page 5

or my pride, and I
applied to him by a letter, but had no answer. I writ in terms more
pressing, but without effect. I then sent an agent to inquire after him,
who informed me, that he had quitted his house, and was gone with his
family to reside for some time on his estate in Ireland.
However shocked at this abrupt departure, I was yet unwilling to
believe that he could wholly abandon me, and therefore, by the sale of
my clothes, I supported myself, expecting that every post would bring
me relief. Thus I passed seven months between hope and dejection, in a
gradual approach to poverty and distress, emaciated with discontent,
and bewildered with uncertainty. At last my landlady, after many hints
of the necessity of a new lover, took the opportunity of my absence to
search my boxes, and missing some of my apparel, seized the
remainder for rent, and led me to the door.
To remonstrate against legal cruelty, was vain; to supplicate obdurate
brutality, was hopeless. I went away I knew not whither, and wandered
about without any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual
expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious offices, afraid to meet
an eye that had seen me before, and hopeless of relief from those who
were strangers to my former condition. Night came on in the midst of
my distraction, and I still continued to wander till the menaces of the
watch obliged me to shelter myself in a covered passage.
Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward garret of a mean house,
and employed my landlady to inquire for a service. My applications
were generally rejected for want of a character. At length I was
received at a draper's, but when it was known to my mistress that I had
only one gown, and that of silk, she was of opinion that I looked like a
thief, and without warning hurried me away. I then tried to support
myself by my needle; and, by my landlady's recommendation obtained

a little work from a shop, and for three weeks lived without repining;
but when my punctuality had gained me so much reputation, that I was
trusted to make up a head of some value, one of my fellow-lodgers
stole the lace, and I was obliged to fly from a prosecution.
Thus driven again into the streets, I lived upon the least that could
support me, and at night accommodated myself under pent-houses as
well as I could. At length I became absolutely pennyless, and having
strolled all day without sustenance, was, at the close of evening,
accosted by an elderly man, with an invitation to a tavern. I refused him
with hesitation; he seized me by the hand, and drew me into a
neigbouring house, where, when he saw my face pale with hunger, and
my eyes swelling with tears, he spurned me from him, and bade me
cant and whine in some other place; he for his part would take care of
his pockets.
I still continued to stand in the way, having scarcely strength to walk
further, when another soon addressed me in the same manner. When he
saw the same tokens of calamity, he considered that I might be
obtained at a cheap rate, and therefore quickly made overtures, which I
no longer had firmness to reject. By this man I was maintained four
months in penurious wickedness, and then abandoned to my former
condition, from which I was delivered by another keeper.
In this abject state I have now passed four years, the drudge of
extortion and the sport of drunkenness; sometimes the property of one
man, and sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness; at one
time tricked up for sale by the mistress of a brothel, at another begging
in the streets to be relieved from hunger by wickedness; without any
hope in the day but of finding some whom folly or excess may expose
to my allurements, and without any reflections at night, but such as
guilt and terrour impress upon me.
If those who pass their days in plenty and security, could visit for an
hour the dismal receptacles to which the prostitute retires from her
nocturnal excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded together,
mad with intemperance, ghastly with famine, nauseous with filth, and
noisome with disease; it would not be easy for any degree of
abhorrence to harden them against compassion, or to repress the desire
which they must immediately feel to rescue such numbers of human
beings from a state so dreadful.

It is said, that in France they annually evacuate their streets, and ship
their prostitutes and vagabonds to their colonies. If the women that
infest this city had the same opportunity of escaping from their miseries,