After reciting that "the punishments provided by the laws now in being are not adequate to such heinous offences" the Statute enacts, that if any persons to the number of twelve or more, being unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of the public peace, at any time after the last day of July 1715, and after being commanded by any one or more Justice or Justices of the Peace, or by the sheriff, etc., by proclamation in the Kings name, to disperse themselves, shall unlawfully continue together for the space of one hour after such command, then such continuing together to the number of twelve or more, shall be adjudged felony without benefit of clergy, "and the offenders therein shall suffer death as in the case of felony without benefit of clergy." The method of making the proclamation is as follows:--The Justice of the Peace or other authorised person "being among the said rioters, or as near to them as he can safely come" shall command silence, and after that shall openly and with loud voice make proclamation in these words:--"Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King." To constitute a riot it is essential that alarm should be caused amongst the King's subjects, and if the four last words of the proclamation are omitted the reading of the Riot Act has no virtue. If after proclamation has been made the rioters do not disperse within an hour, any or all of them may be apprehended by force, and if they make resistance, the persons killing or injuring them are indemnified and discharged of all liability with respect to any death or lesser injury they may happen to inflict. The general tone of public opinion was constantly being lowered by the degrading spectacles that were everywhere displayed. Government itself set the example of brutality and violence by countenancing the procession to Tyburn, the use of the pillory, and the setting up of whipping-posts in the public streets; with the result that imitators sprung up in abundance to practice the lessons so sedulously taught by the authorities. The punishment of the pillory was in itself sufficiently severe, but the method of its infliction practically amounted to the official legalising of Lynch Law, because the populace were permitted to torture the sufferer almost to any extent; stone-throwing was nominally forbidden, but the prohibition was not enforced, and, if a victim died of the ill-usage to which he was subjected, no one was punished.