ABSTRACT
But how I hate such odious greeting, When two old stagers have a meeting Foh! out upon the filthy pother! What! men beslobber one another!
We have indeed no knight errants but in politics…It is no wonder, therefore, if the monsters and pests of society have so greatly of late gained ground upon us: nor will it be more to be wondered at, if, their enormities being winked at as they have been, they should still gain greater ground, to the utter destruction of our national character, and the diffusion of an universal degeneracy of manners. Nothing can more contribute to this, than our mistaken lenity, in treating suspicious character with personal respect
Till their broad shame come staring in the face
and they expose themselves to the objects of public detestation. What would become of the chastity, and what would we think of the modesty, of the fair sex, if coquetry were to be countenanced, and female levity encouraged, till they ripened into prostitution? What would become even of the morals of men, if vices of every kind were not nipped in the bud, and immorality discountenanced in the first and earliest stages of guilt? Are we to wink at theft till it grow bold enough for robbery? to put up with violence till it proceed to murder? It is thus indeed that the mercenaries of justice eventually co-operate to promote the perpetuation of capital crimes; a petty criminal is not worth their pursuit…
It is observed, as a remarkable instance of the modesty of our English laws, that the crime against nature is denonimated nameless, or not fit to be named among Christians: an argument this in favour of the virtue of our ancestors; in times when so unnatural a fact was hardly ever heard of, it was natural to forbear giving so abhorred an idea a name. The language of the divine law, however, is less modishly delicate; nor can I think the squeamishness of our municipal style, in times so grossly depraved as the present, of any utility, either political or moral. It is indeed attended with a palpable absurdity, while our courts of justice treat so gross a depravity with evident lenity, on the completion of the horrid act, it is true, the laws give the judges no discretionary power; but surely there is the same criminality, as far as concerns the intention of the assailant, which in this case chiefly constitutes the crime, in a palpable attempt as in the actual perpetration! And yet such attempts, though in actu proximo, are usually punished by a short imprisonment and momentary penance; as if the law had thought it sufficient to expose, as a scandal to society, the wretch, who must have already digested the shame of being a disgrace to human nature.
