“At my last visit to this patient, with Dr. Forry, she made some additional revelations, which I think should be given not only to the profession, but to the public, in order that it may be known that in our very midst, there is a monster who speculates with human life with as much coolness as if she were engaged in a game of chance. This patient, with unaffected sincerity, and apparently ignorant of the moral turpitude of the act, stated, most unequivocally, to both Dr. Forry and myself that Mad. Restell, on previous occasions, had caused her to miscarry five times, and that these miscarriages had, in every instance, been brought about by drugs administered by this trafficker in human life. The only instance in which medicines failed, was the last pregnancy, when at the suggestion of Madame Restell, she probed herself, and induced the condition of things described, and which most seriously involved her own safety, as well as that of her child. In the course of conversation, this patient mentioned that she knew a great number of females, who were in the habit of applying to Madame Restell, for the purpose of miscarrying, and that she scarcely ever failed in affording the desired relief. Among others, she cited the case of a female residing in Houston-street, who was five months pregnant; Madame Restell probed her, and she was delivered of a child, which, to use her own expression, ‘kicked several times after it was put into the bowl.’ It, indeed, seems too monstrous for belief that such gross violations of the laws, both of God and man, should be suffered in the very heart of a community professing to be Christian, and to be governed by law and good order. Yet these facts are known to all who read. This creature’s advertisements are to be seen in our daily papers; there she invites the base and the guilty, the innocent and the unwary, to apply to her. She tells publicly what she can do, and without the slightest scruple, urges all to call on her who may be anxious to avoid having children. Here, then, is a premium offered for vice, to say nothing of the prodigal destruction of human life, that must necessarily result from the abominations of this mercenary and heartless woman.”
There is an erroneous impression upon the minds of a certain class of the community. They make no distinction between the commission of crime, and the means that are used to diffuse information, and remove the inducement to commit moral offence. Ignorance and prejudice—the parents of vice—have blinded or misguided those who have not or would not properly investigate the subject matter of this discussion. However, we are consoled by the reflection that the day is dawning which shall dispel the mist and vapours which have heretofore clouded and benighted the human understanding, upon matters that infinitely concern the happiness of the great mass of the human family.
We take pleasure in stating that since the publication of Mr. Owen’s little work, (now ten years,) we have good reason for believing that the public mind is better prepared for the reception of the Editor’s amended edition of his book. As each revolving year passes over, and as truth overcomes error, and as the diffusion of knowledge dispels ignorance, so will the subject elicit additional inquiry, and the merits of the work be more justly appreciated by the enlightened portion of the community. A further discussion and investigation of the subject will cause it to be better understood, and a public opinion favourable to the subject will be formed, of immense moral utility.
As in the language of the author,—How mighty and how beneficent the power which such an influence might exert, and how essentially and rapidly it might conduce to the gradual, but thorough extirpation of those selfish vices, legal and illegal, which now disgrace and brutify our species, it is difficult even to imagine.
In the silent, but resistless progress of human improvement, such a change is fortunately inevitable. We are gradually emerging from the night of blind prejudice and of brutal force; and, day by day, rational liberty and cultivated refinement, win an accession of power. Violence yields to benevolence, compulsion to kindness, the letter of law to the spirit of justice; and, day by day, men and women become more willing, and better prepared, to entrust the most sacred duties (social as well as political) more to good feeling and less to idle form—more to moral and less to legal keeping.
It is no question whether such reform will come: no human power can arrest its progress. How slowly or how rapidly it may come, is a question; and depends, in some degree, on adventitious circumstances. Should this little book prove one among the number of circumstances to accelerate, however slightly, that progress, its author will be repaid, ten times over, for any trifling labour it may have cost him.
In conclusion, the author remarks, that a knowledge of the check to population spoken of, and recommended by him, with other preventive means was for many years extensively disseminated in most of the populous towns in Great Britain; not only through the medium of “Every Woman’s Book,” but, previously to its publication, by hundreds of thousands of handbills, which were gratuitously distributed from benevolent motives. The men who were first instrumental in making them known in England, are all elderly men, fathers of families of children grown up to be men and women; men of unimpeachable integrity, and of first rate moral character; many of them men of science, and some of them known as the first political economists and philanthropists of the age. Besides the allusion to the subject already given from the Encyclopædia Britannica, it is adverted to in Mill’s “Elements of Political Economy;” in Place’s “Illustrations of the Principle of Population;” in Thompson’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and probably in other works with which I am unacquainted. It was also (disguisedly) broached in several English newspapers, and was preached in lectures to the labouring classes, by a most benevolent man, at Leeds. I do not believe the subject has ever been touched upon, in one single instance, except by men of irreproachable moral character, and generally of high standing in society. The chief difference between this little treatise, and the allusions made by the distinguished authors above mentioned, is, that what public opinion would only permit them to insinuate, I venture to say plainly.
My readers may implicitly depend on the accuracy of the facts I have stated. Though in the present state of public opinion, I may not, for obvious reasons, give names in proof, yet it is evident that I cannot have the shadow of a motive to mislead or deceive. I shall consider it a favour if any individuals who can adduce, from personal experience, facts connected with this subject, will communicate them to me.
Note. The enlightened Condorcet, in his well-known “Esquisse des progres de l’esprit human,” very distinctly alludes to the safety and facility with which population might be restrained, “If reason should but keep pace with the arts and sciences, and if the idle prejudices of superstition should cease to shed over human morals an austerity corrupting and degrading, not purifying or elevated.” See his Esquisse, pages 285 to 288, Paris Ed. 1822.
Malthus (See his “Essays on Population,” Book 3, chap. 1) “professes not to understand” the French philosopher. No Frenchman could misunderstand him.