THE IDLE 'PRENTICE RETURNED FROM SEA, AND IN A GARRET WITH A COMMON
PROSTITUTE.
"The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase him."--LEVITICUS XXVI. 36.
[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, PLATE VII.]
The profligate and degraded apprentice, returned from his voyage,
is now exhibited in a garret with a common prostitute. Tired
of a seafaring life, where we may naturally suppose he met with
punishment adequate to his crimes, he returns to London. By the
pistols, watches, etc. which lie upon and near the bed, it seems
evident that the source of his present subsistence is from robbery on
the highway. Horror and dismay are strongly depicted in his agitated
and terrified face.--What a contrast to the serenity displayed in
the countenance of his fellow-'prentice! To prevent surprise, the
door is locked, double bolted, and barricaded with planks from the
floor; notwithstanding these precautions, the noise occasioned by
a cat having slipped down a ruinous chimney, throws him into the
utmost terror. Not so his depraved companion; solely engrossed by
the plunder upon the bed,[160] she looks with delighted eyes at a
glittering earring. The broken jug, pipe, knife, plate, dram-bottle,
glass, and pistols, are very properly introduced; and the rat, who
makes a precipitate retreat, instinctively conscious that its natural
enemy is near, renders this filthy and disgusting scene still more
nauseous. The lady's hoop is a good specimen of the fashion of that
day, when this cumbrous, inconvenient, and ungraceful combination of
whales' bones was worn by women of the lowest as well as the highest
rank.