he riot of Saturnalia. Instead of a decent
and cheerful solemnity, our taverns and publichouses have more business
that day than all the week beside. Our apprentices plume themselves;
nay, some scruple not to put on their swords and tie wigs, or toupees,
and the loose end of the town is their rendezvous, Sunday being
market-day all round the hundreds of Drury.

While we want servants to do our work, those hundreds, as they call
them, are crowded with numbers of idle impudent sluts, who love sporting
more than spinning, and inveigle our youth to their ruin; nay, many old
lechers, beasts as they are! steal from their families, and seek these
harlots' lurking holes, to practise their unaccountable schemes of new
invented lewdnesses; some half hang themselves, others are whipped, some
lie under a table and gnaw the bones that are thrown them, while others
stand slaving among a parcel of drabs at a washing tub. Strange that the
inclination should not die with the power, but that old fools should
make themselves the prey and ridicule of a pack of strumpets!

Some heedless youths are wheedled into marriage, which makes them and
their unhappy parents miserable all their lives; others are drawn into
extravagancies, and but too often run into their master's cash, and for
fear of a discovery, make away with themselves, or at least run away and
leave their distracted parents in a thousand tears; not to mention the
frustration of their fortune, and the miseries that attend a vagabond
life. Thus honest parents lose their children, and traders their
apprentices, and all from a liberty we have of late given our youth of
rambling abroad on Sundays; for many, nowadays will lie out all night,
or stay out so late to give no small disturbance in sober families. It
therefore behoves every master of a family to have his servants under
his eye; and if the going to church, meeting, or whatever place of
worship suited their religion, were more enforced, it would be so much
the better.

In short, the luxury of the age will be the ruin of the nation, if not
prevented. We leave trade to game in stocks; we live above ourselves,
and barter our ready money for trifles; tea and wine are all we seem
anxious for, and God has given the blessings of life to an ungrateful
people, who despise their own productions. Our very plough-fellows drink
wine nowadays; our farmers, graziers, and butchers, are above malt
liquors; and the wholesome breakfast of water-