228 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



of the law that can keep people of this description 

 in order. Their evidence ought always to be 

 suspected. Oaths have little weight: they are so 

 used to them. One of our poets says, 



" Of all the nauseous complicated crimes 

 " Which both infect and stigmatise the times, 

 "There's none which can with impious oaths compare, 

 " Where vice and folly have an equal share.' 1 



But, bad as these reprobate oaths are, there are 

 others which I think are still worse; and these are 

 the numerous oaths used, and indeed imposed, on 

 so many and on such improper occasions, where 

 Omnipotence is impiously appealed to in all the 

 little dirty transactions between man and man. It 

 would be well to remember that "an honest man's 

 w r ord is as good as his oath, and so is a rogue's 

 too." 'Tis a pity some better way cannot be hit 

 upon to remedy these evils; perhaps a tattooing 

 upon the shaved head might have some effect in 

 checking swearing vices, especially in perjury, 

 bearing false witness, and when a man is proved 

 to have broken his word and his honour. 



There is another vice, of an odious complexion, 

 advancing with rapid strides to enormity, which 

 cries aloud to be checked. Bad men, with 

 hardened effrontery, only laugh at their breaking 

 down every barrier to modesty and virtue, and 

 thus disrobing innocence, and rendering deformed 

 that which ought to be the brightest feature of 

 civilisation. The crime to which I allude needs 

 only to be examined to convince any one of its 

 cruelty to the fair sex, and its extensively demoral- 

 ising influence on society. Let any man ask 

 himself how he would feel were his daughter or 

 his sister to be betrayed. This question ought to 



