And, certainly, if England ever needed earnest, enthusiastic labourers, it was now. During this very year of 1738, not fewer than fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn; and within the last two years about 12,000 persons had been convicted, within the Bills of Mortality, of smuggling gin, or of selling it without the £50 per annum licence. Sunday traffic had become such a nuisance in London and its suburbs, that even the court of aldermen interfered, and commanded the marshals, and all constables, beadles, and other public officers, to use their best endeavours to suppress it. They were also to apprehend all shoeblacks cleaning shoes in the public streets; and to take notice of all vintners, ale and coffee house keepers, barbers, and others, who exercised their ordinary trades on Sundays. A committee of the House of Lords “to examine into the causes of the present notorious immorality and profaneness,” stated, in their report, that they had sufficient grounds to believe that a number of loose and disorderly persons had of late formed themselves into a club, under the name of _Blasters_, and were using means to induce the youth of the kingdom to join them. The members of this impious club professed themselves to be votaries of the devil, offered prayers to him, and drank his health. They also had been heard to utter “the most daring and execrable blasphemies against the sacred name and majesty of God; and to use such obscene, blasphemous, and before unheard of expressions as the Lords’ committee think they cannot even mention, and therefore they pass them over in silence.” The same committee further reported, that “of late years there had appeared a greater neglect of religion and of all things sacred—a greater neglect of Divine worship, both public and private, and of the due observance of the sabbath, than had ever before been known in England. There was a want of reverence to the laws and to magistrates, and of a due subordination in the several ranks and degrees of the community. There was an abuse of liberty, a great neglect in education, and a want of care in training children, and in keeping servants in good order; while idleness, luxury, gambling, and an excessive use of spirituous and intoxicating liquors had grown into an alarming magnitude.” The report concludes by recommending that the bishops be desired, at their visitations, to particularly charge the clergy to exhort the people to a more frequent and constant attendance at Divine services; and that visitors of the universities and of schools require the fellows and masters carefully to instruct the youth committed to their care, in the principles of religion and morality; to which recommendation the House of Lords agreed.