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It may be proper to state, in few words, the immediate circumstances which induced me, at the present time, to write and publish this treatise.

Some weeks since, a gentleman coming from England brought with him two pretty specimens of English typography. One represented a triumphal arch with a statue of the late king, and was made up of 17,000 different pieces of common printing type; the other, an altar piece, having the Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments, printed within it, and composed of about 13,000 separate pieces. The gentleman was requested by a Brighton printer who executed them, to present these, as specimens of English typography, to some of his brethern craftsmen in America. He presented them to me. I admired the ingenuity displayed in the performance; but thought they ought to have been presented rather to some printers’ society than to an individual. I therefore addressed them to our Typographical Society in New York, accompanied by a note simply requesting the society’s acceptance of them, as specimens of the art in England.

I thought no more of the matter, until I received, the other day, my specimens back again, with a long and not a little angry letter, signed by three of the members, accusing Robert Dale Owen of principles subversive of every virtue under heaven, and calculated to lead to the infraction of every commandment in the decalogue: and, more especially, accusing him of having given his sanction to a work, as they expressed it, “holding out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of their daughters, sisters, and wives.”

I subsequently learned, from one of the society, circumstances which somewhat extenuate (albeit nothing can excuse) their childish incivility. A gentleman who busied himself last year in making out a notable reply to the “Society for the Protection of Industry,” got up, at a late Typographical meeting, and read to the Society several detached extracts from a pamphlet written by Richard Carlile, entitled “Every Woman’s Book,” which extracts he pronounced to be excessively indecent; and asked the Society whether they would receive any thing at the hands of a man who publicly approved a book of a tendency so dreadfully immoral; which, he averred, I had done. The society were (or affected to be) much shocked, and thereupon chose a committee to return to me the heretical specimens, which committee penned the letter to which I have alluded.

Probably some members of the society really did believe the work to be of pernicious tendency. Had some garbled extracts only from it been read to me, I might possibly have utterly misconceived its tone and tendency, and its author’s motives. But he must be blind indeed, who can read the pamphlet through, and then (whether he approve it or not) can attribute other than good intentions to the individual who was bold enough to put it forth.

As to the book itself, I was requested, two years since, when residing in Indiana, to publish it, and declined doing so. My chief reasons were, that I doubted its physiological correctness; that I did not consider its style and tone in good taste; but chiefly (as I expressed it in the New Harmony Gazette) because I feared it would be circulated in this country only “to fall into the hands of the thoughtless, and to gratify the curiosity of the licentious, instead of falling, as it ought, into the hands of the philanthropist, of the physiologist, and of every father and mother of a family.” The circumstances I have just detailed may afford proof, that my fears regarding the hands into which it might fall, were well founded.

My principles thus officiously and publicly attacked, I have felt it a duty to the cause of reform to step forward and vindicate them; and this the rather, because, unless I give my own sentiments, I shall be understood as unqualifiedly endorsing Richard Carlile’s. Now, no one more admires than I do the courage and strength of mind which induced that bold advocate of heresy to broach this important subject; and to him be the praise accorded, that he was the first to venture it. But the manner of his book I do not admire. There is in it that which was repulsive (I will not say revolting) to my feelings, on the first perusal; and though I afterwards began to doubt whether that first impression was not attributable, in a great measure, to my prejudices, yet I cannot doubt that a similar, and even a more unfavourable impression, will be made on the minds of others, and thus the interests of truth be jeopardized. Then again, I think the physiological portion of his pamphlet somewhat incorrect as to the facts, and therefore calculated to mislead, where an error might be of fatal consequence.

It may seem vanity in me to imagine, that this treatise is free from similar objections; yet I have taken great pains to render it so.

R. D. O.