ome other trinkets. In
the midst of this wickedness, he is betrayed by his strumpet (a proof of
the treachery of such wretches) into the hands of the high constable and
his attendants, who had, with better success than heretofore, traced him
to this wretched haunt. The back-ground of this print serves rather as a
representation of night-cellars in general, those infamous receptacles
for the dissolute and abandoned of both sexes, than a further
illustration of our artist's chief design; however, as it was Mr.
Hogarth's intention, in the history before us, to encourage virtue and
expose vice, by placing the one in an amiable light, and exhibiting the
other in its most heightened scenes of wickedness and impiety, in hopes
of deterring the half-depraved youth of this metropolis, from even the
possibility of the commission of such actions, by frightening them from
these abodes of wretchedness; as this was manifestly his intention, it
cannot be deemed a deviation from the subject. By the skirmish behind,
the woman without a nose, the scattered cards upon the floor, &c. we are
shown that drunkenness and riot, disease, prostitution, and ruin are the
dreadful attendants of sloth, and the general fore-runners of crimes of
the deepest die; and by the halter suspended from the ceiling, over the
head of the sleeper, we are to learn two things--the indifference of
mankind, even in a state of danger, and the insecurity of guilt in every
situation.

[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE 9.

THE IDLE 'PRENTICE BETRAYED BY A PROSTITUTE.]

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE X.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE ALDERMAN OF LONDON; THE IDLE ONE BROUGHT
BEFORE HIM, AND IMPEACHED BY HIS ACCOMPLICE.

"Thou shalt do no unrighteousness in judgment." Leviticus, chap.
xix. verse 15.

"The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands." Psalms, chap.
ix. verse 16.

Imagine now this depraved and atrocious youth hand-cuffed, and dragged
from his wicked haunt, through the streets to a place of security,
amidst the scorn and contempt of a jeering populace; and thence brought
before the sitting magistrate, (who, to heighten the scene and support
the contrast, is supposed to be his fellow-'prentice, now chosen an
alderman,) in order to be dealt with according to law. See him then at
last having run his course of iniquity, fallen into the hands of
justice, being betrayed by his accomplice; a further proof of the
perfidy of