The preamble admits that the existing laws were not sufficiently powerful to meet the circumstances for which they were designed. A more onerous scale of penalties was to be prescribed, commencing with a fine of one shilling in the case of a labourer, and rising to five shillings in the case of a swearer of gentleman's degree. That this measure should not want for publicity, it was ordered to be read quarterly in every church and chapel throughout the kingdom. A curious instance of punishment for neglect of this saving provision, is noticed in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1772. In July of that year a rich vicar and a poor curate were condemned to pay into the hands of the proper officer a sum of 15_l._ for neglecting to read in church the Act against swearing. This clause was only repealed by an enactment of the present century. We have some means of knowing whether the fines recoverable under this statute were in point of fact actually inflicted, and from the importance attached by the public prints to the decisions of magistrates on this head, we are justified in thinking that the statute was very rarely put into requisition. In the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for July 1751 we read that a woman convicted of uttering a profane oath and unable to defray the shilling penalty, was sentenced to ten days' hard labour in Bridewell. In December of the same year a tradesman was committed for a matter of three hundred and ninety oaths, the fines amounting to upwards of 20_l._, which he was unable to pay. Convictions under the statute were at this time seriously attracting public attention. That the calculations of Dean Swift should not be altogether lost to the world, one rigid economist practically entertained the notion of adding to the national resources by preaching a crusade against the opulent classes of swearers. There was a Mr. Matthew Towgood, who in 1746 prepared a treatise 'Upon the Prophane and Absurd use of the Monosyllable Damn.' It is enough to say that neither imagination nor research seem to have been the especial gift of Mr. Towgood. It is a whining piece of work, in which the author gravely informs us that he had taken up his residence at a seaport town in order the more closely to observe the impious language of the sailors. We should, however, do the author the justice to refer to the one distinctive experience he seems to have gathered in his marine retreat. He had discovered,--so at least he solemnly assures us,--that the monosyllable in question was a "hortatory expression" by which the chaplains in His Majesty's navy were accustomed to summon British seamen to their prayers.