"These houses are all sufficiently injurious, and do great mischief. But those I would particularly point out to your attention, are the open, avowed, low, and common bawdy-houses, where vice is rendered cheap, and consequently within the reach of the common people, who are the very stamina of the constitution. "These are the channels through which rottenness is conveyed into the bones of the artificer, labourer, soldier, and mariner; by this means weakness and distemper are entailed on their offspring, whose utility to the publick depends on their health and strength. These are the houses that harbour and protect undutiful children, idle servants, and disobedient apprentices. Let me then intreat you, as fathers, as masters, and as tradesmen, to put an end to these sinks of vice in your respective neighbourhoods. "Let not that common vulgar error, of being afraid of these people, because they are litigious, desperate, and full of threats (for these fears are groundless, and should not, nay, I hope will not) deter you from this particular duty. You present; and we will punish. "As to gaming-houses; such numbers of persons of all ranks have brought themselves, some to the greatest distresses, and others to most shameful and ignominious ends, by frequenting these houses, where gentlemen, sharpers, highwaymen, tradesmen, their servants, nay, often their apprentices, are mixed together; that, when I mention the very name of a gaming-house, I am persuaded that it conveys to your minds such ideas of mischief to society, that you will not suffer any of them to escape that come to your knowledge: and by a particular attention to the last-mentioned offences, you may be the happy means of preventing frauds, thefts, and robberies; most of which take their rise from these impure fountains of extravagance." What the Justice, speaking of the manner of the enquiry, remarks with regard to the contempt of oaths, is but too just, and alarming: "When I mention the word Oath; where shall I find language to express the hearty concern I feel, when I consider with what shameful insensibility this great defence of our lives, this barrier of our liberties, this security of our properties, an oath, is treated by the lower rank of the community! I too much fear, that one of the principal causes of this contempt is the slovenly manner in which this solemn obligation is administered; which does not only take off the awe, but even the very idea, of the presence of Almighty God." A facetious writer presented the following observations to the Editor of the London Chronicle, in June 1765. I think the Reader will find they promote the object of this work.