Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/135

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JEALOUSY, FATAL—FIRE.
119

by day; they are less likely to undergo repetition than these, and terminate in the night that gave them birth. Whereas the man who is open to woman's snares, while the mind is its own, is caught by the mind; the very day-light adds a gusto to the illicitness of the amour, and its repetition is the consequence. The thousand numerous ills which follow, can scarcely be imagined; for many a sad catastrophe never has come to light.

Possibly, the jealousy of two persons out of four is excited; for, women of the town can be jealous of the wife of a man with whom they cohabit; or, her former paramour may feel the same rankling passion, and avenge it by murder: or, perhaps, he may perpetrate the same horrid deed, with the connivance of their common mistress, when her cupidity has been excited by the display of much property on the victim's person. Now and then, we hear of a gentleman being lost, unaccountably: a few years since we knew of a learned gentleman being burnt, with the house, in Chandos Street, for which accident no other reasonable motive could be assigned, than the last mentioned one, since he had a great deal of money about him.

Not to quit our subject, we proceed to descant