William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress 4

Moll is now in prison, and for all the ghastly mistakes she has made, the hypocrisy of those around her and the heartlessness of a twisted legal system have only hastened her demise. How could doing her yet more harm return her to being that innocent girl who first came to London? 

Moll is forced to beat hemp, which will in turn be used to make the hangman's nooses for executing those society considers to be the worst of criminals. She is hesitating in the task, so the jailer threatens her with the lash. Meanwhile, the jailer's wife winks while she steal some of Moll's clothes. 

Moll's servant grins back at the theft, as she also appears to have taken her mistresses fine shoes. How is one to learn anything about virtue in such a den of scoundrels? 

Critics observe how the other prisoners decrease in social class from left to right. The well-dressed man, who has his dog with him, is probably a card sharp, given how his cheating cards have slipped out of his sleeve. 

Next are some working-class women and a girl, perhaps with Down Syndrome, next to the inscription "the wages of idleness." How dare they have the nerve to be unemployed or homeless? 

Finally, there is an African woman who also seems to be pregnant, a condition she may have used to escape the hangman for whatever crime she is said to have committed. 

Observe the man in the stocks, who has surely been placed there because he refuses to be treated like a slave. The inscription above is the ultimate irony of the whole situation, "better to work than stand thus." 

I only had this recently pointed out to me, but back on the right is a work of prison graffiti of a hanged man, which has the initials of the same magistrate who condemned Moll in Plate 3, Sir John Gonson. 

If I can ever get people to look at art like this, they are quick to judge the times, overlooking how we still treat our own "offenders" as if they were no better than animals. The accidents change, as the vices remain the same. 

William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress, Plate 4 (1732)