I pr’ythee tell me why a Wife
Thy am’rous Fancy never warms?
What! without Danger o’thy Life,
Cannot thy Cod-pice stand to Arms?
And again, B. 1. Ep. 74.
Nullus in urbe fuit tota, qui tangere vellet
Uxorem gratis, Cæciliane, tuam
Dum licuit: sed nunc, positis custodibus, ingens
Turba fututorum est. Ingeniosus Homo es.
There’s no Man, Cæcil, in the Town,
Would, gratis, have enjoy’d thy Spouse;
But how thou art so jealous grown,
Lord! what a Croud about the House!
You’ve lock’d her up, t’increase her Value;
In short, you are a cunning Fellow.
The Public Stews will not encourage Men to be lewd, but they will encourage them to exercise their Lewdness in a proper Place, without disturbing the Peace of the Society, and with as little Detriment to themselves as possible. And, as to the Women, there’s not the least Shadow of Encouragement: For no modest Woman ever lost her Maiden-head with the dismal Prospect of becoming a Public Courtezan: And if a Woman is not modest, the licensing of the Public Stews is no more an Encouragement for her to practise, than the allowing a certain Number of Hackney-Coaches every Sunday is an Encouragement for the rest to ply; when the very Licence, to some, expresly implies a Prohibition of the rest.
Having now sufficiently proved the Institution of the Public Stews to be a Political Good, and answer’d all the religious Objections against it; I shall conclude with observing, That I have the Authority of Italy, the most Politic Nation in the World, to back me in the first Part of my Argument; and the Opinion of Holland, one of the strictest Reformed Churches, to vindicate me in the second; and that we ourselves enjoy’d the Benefit of this Institution till we were depriv’d of it by the over-hasty Zeal of our first Reformers in the sixteenth Century.
The Public Stews were antiently kept in Southwark, by an express Licence from the Government, and open Permission both Civil and Ecclesiastical, for they paid regular Taxes to the Lord-Mayor of the City, and to the Bishop of the See.
We do not find that they were ever molested ’till the 25th of Edward the Third, when, in the Parliament at Westminster, at the Request of the Londoners, says Daniel, an Act passed, obliging all Common Whores to distinguish themselves, by wearing Hoods striped with divers Colours, or Furs, and their Gowns turn’d inside out.
This, indeed, was but a Trifle to what they suffer’d thirty Years after by Wat Tyler’s Rebellion.
In the fifth of Richard the Second, Wat marched up from Dartworth, with a true Spirit of Reformation, fully resolv’d to burn and destroy every thing that oppos’d him: If the Archbishop’s Palace at Lambeth could not escape, there was little Mercy to be expected for the Stews [9]; besides, Whoring was not the least of Wat’s Grievances: He began his Rebellion by killing a Collector of the Poll-Tax for being a little too brisk upon his Daughter; and his Antipathy to the Stews was still increased, by the Lord-Mayor’s shutting the City-Gates, and denying him Entrance; for he could not revenge the Affront more effectually, than by cutting off so large a Branch of his Lordship’s Revenue.