The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 THE COURT OF LONDON “Assuming the position of a respectable widow, she secretly became a procuress of the vilest description. Oh, if all the damsels whom she has inveigled into her meshes and be- trayed to their ruin could now stand forward and bear wit- ness against her, if all the young virgins whom she has enticed beneath her roof and sold to the polluting embrace of lustful aristocrats and the hoary dignitaries of the Church could now gather here and speak out, and if the tomb could send up all the victims whom her detestable machinations have helped in consigning to it, how many broken hearts would be arrayed as terrible accusers against her! Oh, the vilest brothels, the darkest dens of infamy, have seen no wrongs and beheld no injuries inflicted upon credulous damsels more flagrant than those wrongs and those injuries which she has perpetrated in her time. Ah! was it possible that such a career could glide on tranquilly until the end? Was it natural that a life pursuing its course amidst such matchless infamies could terminate in a peaceful death-bed and in an honoured grave? No, no. I deserve it all. Yes, the Destroyer is approaching. He comes, he comes, arrayed in more than usual terrors; he has put on all his hideousness. The grim skeleton is surrounded by every horror known beyond the grave.” While giving utterance to these last words, the wretched woman started from the pallet, drew herself upright, ex- tended her long lank hands toward one corner of the cell, and fixed her glaring eyes in the same direction, as if she beheld some horrible object stationed there. Loftus likewise rose from his seat, and stepped back a pace or two as he gazed upon the doomed being with indescribable loathing and horror. He could scarcely feel any further pity on her behalf. Such shocking revelations had gushed forth from her lips, like a stream of fetid, putrid feculence, that he could scarcely persuade himself he beheld before him a being possessed of a human heart. She seemed like a fiend in female shape. ‘“‘ Oh, yes, the reality of my doom is now before me,”’ she cried, in tones of rending anguish. ‘“ The scaffold awaits me, the guillotine is raised. But who are you?” she sud- denly demanded, her wildly glaring eyes now resting upon Loftus. ‘‘ Ah! I remember,” and she sank back to a sitting posture upon the bed again. ‘‘I have been giving vent to Commiclooks CO