The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-27
SWEARING IN ENGLAND.
Lord Byron, recounting his famous hero's
first adventure in England says

Lord Byron, recounting his famous hero's
first adventure in England, says
''Juan die not understand a word
OF English, save their shibboleth Cd d-n!
And even that he had so rarely heard
lie sometimes thought twas only their Salam,
or God be with you and 'tls not absurd
To think so for, half English as am
ITO my misfortune), never can say
heard them wish God with "a save that way"
1t is not pleasant to know that the use of a
specially repulsive imprecation is accepted
abroad as indisputable proof of an English
mans nationality, but it is true neverthe-
less. popular living actor tells good
story illustrative of the melancholy fact.
Driving about the streets of Havana, his
horse stumbled in puddle, and splashed a
parade bound Spanish soldier from head to
foot Drawing his sword, the angry soldier
fiercely attacked the unlucky black driver
of the volante, and by the time the aston
ished comedian could jump out of the
vehicle had sent the man bleeding to
the ground. Being arrayed in linen
tail-coat and Panama hat, the crowd, attracted
by the row, took the actor for an American,
and made no attempt to stop the soldier from
assaulting him in the same style. AS his
'wonld-be murderer rushed towards him, the
Englishman put himself in an attitude of de-
fense, and in his extremity shouted, c
your eyes, what do you mean?" upon which
the excited spectators roared out, 'Tnglese!
Inglese" and the soldier pulled himself up,
with the vehicle, while ashopkeeper kindly in
vited the actor to take shelter in his shop.
Swearing lost caste in Anne's reign; at
least the IdtIer assures us it was eschewed
by all well-bred men, and left to bullies, who,
hoping sound and noise might pass for sense
and courage, delighted in '"ounds, "thun-
der" "furies, and such rumbling expletives,
and adorned their conversation with oaths
and blasphemies, by way of tropes and
figures. 1t divides the lovers of these ex-
crescences of talk into two sects, the high and
low, the low swearer being generally phleg-
matte, the high swearer a choleric coxcomb.
''The man of phlegm is sensible of the empti-
ness of his discourses, and will tell you that
Il fackins, such thing is truer or if you
warm him little he mayrun into passion, and
Cry, 'Ods bodkins, you do not say right But
thehigh affects sublimity in dullness, and in
vokes hell and damnation at the breaking of
a glass or the slowness of the drawer" The
IdtLeT'S assertion that swearing had one out
of fashion is, however, contradicted by the
story of the Duchess of Marlborough calling
upon Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield,
and not finding him in, refusing to leave her
name. ''I could not make out, sir, who she
was" said his clerk, "but she swore so
dreadfully that I am sure she mnst be lady
of quality :" Nor could there be said to be
any sign of reform in another part of the king
dom. Swift, in one of his famous ''Drapier
Letters, says it is unnecessary to state that
swearing is pet vice among Irishmen
and computes that one-third of the popula-
tion may be designated Swearing souls. "
He proposes tax of twelve-pence per oath;
calculating to thereby raise ninety-one thou
sand pounds year from five thousand gen.
tlemen able to afford an oath every day.
twenty-five thousand pounds from ten thou
sand farmers and a like amount from the
rest of the people This he calls a modest
calculation, since every one knows there
is a much greater consumption of
hundred pretty fellows that swear at
least fifty oaths head daily, while small
Connaught fair was good for three thousand,
and the militia on muster-day would get
through three hundred in the course of eight
hours. SIT is true, he owns, 'it would be
impossible to turn all oaths into ready money;
for shilling is so great duty on swearing
that, if it was carefully exacted, the common
people might as we'll pretend to drink wine
as to swear, and an oath would be as rare
among them as a clean shirt"
In IVA English ladies minced out go
Lud.' with their pretty lips the Crabtrees
and Backbites larding their scandal with slife,
'sdeath, or fore gad. Honest Bob Acres,
revelling in such eccentric ordinations as
''odds whips and wheels, ''odds bushes and
blooms, "odds triggers and fiints," declares
seded by new method of swearing, Invented
by commander of our militia, who says that
there is no meaning in the common oaths,
and that nothing but their antiquity makes
them respectable because, he says the an
clients would never stick to an oath or two,
but would say by Jove, or by Bacchus, or by
Mars or by Venus, or by Pallas, according to
the sentiments SO that, to swear with
propriety, the oath should be an echo to the
sense, and this is called the oath Preferential
or sentimental swearing" Ridiculous as all
this seems, Sheridan was guilty of little or no
exaggeration such was the practice of the
dandies of the day, who thus avoided what
Lady Wallace calls the gT0sSiorete of an oath,
although not so utterly as her own Daffodil
\ with his d. /. o., for ''damme, I'm off p
an example of initial swearing perhaps sur
passed by the official who condensed refusal
into three letters by writing U. B. d. on the
corner of the applicants epistle.