Our roguery comes to an end

I think I could spend countless hours combing through the American Periodical Series. The resources we have at our fingertips is truly amazing.
I'm going to make this last blog short and sweet because the end-of-semester work is quickly piling up.
To me, the prostitution cases were the most interesting because this is such a social issue. Before I came to the National Police Gazette, in a women's journal I found an article relating the story of one most unfortunate girl who had been forced into prostitution by her mother. In another article from the police reports, I found two little pieces on young girls, "rescued from infamy." One, "a sweet young girl, of French descent" and "another" were taken from separate brothels and returned to their mothers. The report ends with a warning: "Girls do you realize that the average of a life of prostitution is five short years!" It seems to me two things are happening here. One--Mothers are forcing their daughters into prostitution, then feigning relief at their recovery. Two--daughters are running away to lives of prostitution to escape their mothers, or abusive families. Of course, there are alterior reasons for prostitution: money, independence, power, entertainment, etc.
I was surprised to find quite a few other pieces about prostitution, outside of the police reports. In one article from the Philadelphia Minerva (1796), a prostitute confronts one of her customers, saying "Can you reasonably imagine that I covet your false smiles, and empty applause? No, Sir, be assured that I hate you, and all your sex, for the sake of him who first deceived and ruined me." This seemed to be another resonant theme: Girls who are once seduced are forever fallen.
Another article also speaks out for prostitutes: "There are those who maintain, that female prostitutes are necessary to good order, and they argue from the necessity, that a few should be sacrificed for the good of the community at large...Prostitutes have been styled women of pleasure; they are women of pain, of sorrow, of grief, of bitter and continual repentence, without hope of obtaining pardon" (from Weekly Visitor, or Ladies' Miscellany, 1804). To me, this is interesting proof of the ongoing social dialogue concerning prostitution that is not so clear from reading fictional texts, or even the non-fictional (at least, in part) accounts we have read for this class.