"To the dear and regretted memory of the best and most potent of cheap liquors, _Geneva_; the solace of the hen-pecked husband, the kind companion of the neglected wife, the infuser of courage in the _tame_ and _standing_ army, the source of the thief's resolution, the support of pawnbrokers, tally-men, receivers of stolen goods, and a long _et cetera_ of other honest fraternities, alike useful and glorious to the Commonwealth. A _Victor_, fuller of fire than Bajazet, and who destroyed more men than Tamerlane in his numerous conquests. The bane of chastity, the foe of honesty, the friend of infidelity, the _very spirit of sedition_, through the inhuman malice of ---- and ----, by the edge of an Act of Parliament, cut off in her prime September 19, 1736, _anno regni Georgii secundi decimo_. Her constant votary Nicholas _No-shoes_, in testimony of a friendship subsisting after death, erects this monument. "Attend, my Sons, and you, my friends, draw near, And on my last remain bestow a tear; Your dear, dear _Punch_, must yield his nect'rous breath, And ere to-morrow noon submit to death. No hopes of pardon, no reprieve is nigh, My death is sign'd: and must I, must I die? It is resolv'd.--Then rouse your noble souls, And crown _this_ night with cheerful flowing bowls; Let none but you, my friends, support my pall, And bilk those fops who triumph in my fall[51:A]." Numberless evasions of the Act were practised; and even Apothecaries were tempted to retail Gin under the specious name of a medicine or cordial. The month of July 1736 afforded a singular _popular explosion_, contrived in the following strange manner. A brown paper parcel, which had been placed unobserved near the side-bar of the Court of King's-bench, Westminster-hall, blew up during the solemn proceedings of the Courts of Justice assembled, and scattered a number of printed bills, giving notice, that on the last day of Term five Acts of Parliament would be publicly burnt in the hall, between the hours of twelve and one, at the Royal Exchange, and at St. Margaret's hill, which were the Gin Act, the Smuggling Act, the Mortmain Act, the Westminster Bridge Act, and the Act for borrowing 600,000_l._ on the Sinking fund. One of the bills was immediately carried to the Grand Jury then sitting, who found it an infamous libel, and recommended the offering of a reward to discover the author.