A futile plan has long been in use, intended to lessen the number of women of the town; and particularly in 1762, when the Society for the Reformation of Manners followed an old and unprofitable example, by sending some of their
constables through the streets to apprehend those miserable young persons; 40 were taken to Bridewell, eleven were whipped, one sent to the Magdalen, and the remainder are said to have been returned to their friends. Such has been the practice at long intervals ever since, perhaps with some variations in the punishment inflicted, and I am afraid an omission of enquiring for their friends. One need only pass through the Strand and Fleet-street late in the evening, to perceive how ineffectual this method of reformation has been.
It appears from a very solemn address to the publick inserted in the Newspapers for 1762, that the brutal custom of throwing at Cocks on Shrove Tuesday was not then so uncommon as it happily is at present.
When we are passing through the streets of London, it but too frequently happens that our ears are offended by hearing shocking oaths, repeated with an emphasis which indicates violent irritation; but, upon observing the parties thus offending against the laws of morality and of the realm more closely, it may be immediately perceived that nothing particular has occurred to produce anger, and that the vice has become so much a custom, that oaths are now mere flowers of rhetorick with the vulgar.
However unpleasant the reflection, we may console ourselves in the certainty that we are not
more reprehensible than our predecessors have been; as a proof, I present the reader with an excellent Charge delivered by Sir John Fielding, April 6, 1763, at Guildhall, Westminster.
"A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury, at the General Quarter Session of the Peace, held at Guildhall, Westminster, on Wednesday, April 6, 1763, by Sir John Fielding, Knight, Chairman of the said Session. Published at the unanimous Request of the Magistrates then present, and the Grand Jury."
In order to remind the Grand Jury of their duty, rather than to inform them of it, Sir John Fielding considers, 1st, the object of the enquiry they are expected to make, and 2dly, the manner in which it might be made.
The object of it is, offences towards God, the King, to one another, and to the publick in general.
Speaking of the offences against God, "I cannot sufficiently lament (says this devout Magistrate) that shameful, inexcusable, and almost universal practice of prophane swearing in our streets: a crime so easy to be punished, and so seldom done, that mankind almost forget it is an offence; and, to our dishonour be it spoken, it is almost peculiar to the English nation! I beg, Gentlemen, you would use your utmost endeavours to suppress this dreadful evil wherever you