Imatges de pàgina
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lieve that any man can look on, or can touch, a "beautiful bosom," or even a "female bosom" of any quality, and not be visited with a consequent impulse of feeling in some degree or other tending towards "the fruition of the tangible."

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Ir now becomes proper to examine more directly, whether the familiarities which have been adverted to, as pregnant with danger to the safety of the woman, are consistent with modesty, delicacy, or decency? And if the details of professional exposition and direction, to which reference is made, should make women blush, better they should do so in safety in the closet while alone, than find themselves suffused with shame under the immodest visitation and practices of a man-midwife in the accouchement chamber when abused in act

"From their abominable and beastly touches."

SHAKESPEARE.

when blush they must, if not wholly lost to modest feelings. And

"As some women lose their reputation rather for want of discretion than for want of virtue, so others preserve theirs by their discretion only."("Connubialities,"-from the London and Paris

Mag.)

so may the mere discretion of the sex be influenced, supposing that the absolute principle of virtue is not sufficiently strong, within some, to guard such of them against the dangers of man-midwifery. And as to husbands, when they reflect as they read--if their chests heave not with emotion, if the shortdrawn breath evinces not the quickened pulses of the heart, if the warm blood boils not with jealous and indignant passion" they must be more, or less, than men.'

"Isabella.

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I'll to my brother,

Tho' he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour,
That had he twenty heads to tender down,
On twenty bloody blocks he'd yield them up,
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr'd pollution."

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Yes, let husbands read, and reason will settle them in firm resolve no longer to be the facile slaves to a vile custom :

"Law to ourselves; our reason is our law,"

else will they be obnoxious to the biting sarcasm of the clown:

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She will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands, as pilchards are to herrings, the husband's the bigger."

TWELFTH NIGHT.

The professional quotation next to be placed before the reader for consideration relates to the mode of touching, and the objects therein; explained and described in the following words :-"Touching is performed by introducing the forefin

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vagina, in order to feel the os inter"num and the neck of the uterus; and "sometimes into the rectum, by discovering the stretching of the fundas.

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By some, we are advised to touch with "the middle finger, as being the longest ; "and by others, to employ both that "and the first; but the middle is too "much encumbered by that on each "side to answer the purpose fully, and "when two are introduced together, the "patient never fails to complain. The "design of touching is to be informed. "whether the woman is, or is not with

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child, to know how far she is ad"vanced in her pregnancy; if she is in

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danger of a miscarriage; if the os "uteri be dilated; and in time of labour, "to form a right judgment of the case, "from the opening of the os internum, "and the pressing down of the mem"branes with their waters; and lastly, "to distinguish what part of the child "is presented.

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