The building of Saint Paul's Cathedral was proceeding at this time, and the work necessarily employed a large body of labourers and workmen, who, as things were and are, were not scrupulously delicate in the choice of words. Nevertheless, it was the particular care of the builders that not one offensive word should be used during the progress of the work.[47] Sir Christopher Wren framed rules which made a delinquency in this respect liable to be so summarily visited that it has been the boast of many earnest and slightly credulous people that the mighty fabric was piled up without an oath being spoken. The society certainly did good work if they had any hand in this result. In spite of the society, the question of swearing and its prevalent grossness seems to have attracted the attention of the civil courts of law at this time. In a number of Applebee's Journal for 1723, some account is given of a certain Abel Boyer, an infamous scribbler and notorious swearer of the day. It seems he had threatened some of his fellow journalists with the pains of libel because they had done him simple justice in referring to the comminations he was accustomed to use in speech. Before commencing his suit, Abel prudently sought the advice of counsel, contending that his trifling derelictions did not partake of the colour of blasphemy. The lawyers accordingly gave it against Mr. Boyer, advising that his "goddams" and kindred expletives came entirely within the prohibited pale. In March 1718, there is another instance of swearing being food for Westminster Hall, as appears from the _Flying Post_, the prominent Whig journal of the day. Mr. Richard Burridge, a scurrilous newsman attached to the _British Gazetteer_, had been tried at Hicks's Hall for addiction to blasphemous expressions, too shocking, says the _Post_, to be named. Burridge was very properly convicted, although a strong presentation was made in his favour, that when sober a better conducted man did not exist. To account for this person's unfortunate relapse, it was urged that he was "excessively drunk," a consideration that so weighed with the tribunal, that they passed upon him what was admitted on all hands to be a most moderate sentence. Burridge was ordered to take up a position at the New Church in the Strand and to be from there publicly whipped to Charing Cross. Further, he was to pay a fine of twenty shillings and be imprisoned for a month. Thenceforward a paper war was waged between the two political divisions of journalism. The Tories professed to see the Whig journalists stigmatised by the disgrace of one of their number, and the great Daniel Defoe cast censure upon them and upon Burridge from _Mist's Journal_, the Tory paper he conducted. * * * * *