SWEARING IN THE PAST CENTURY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

SWEARING IN THE PAST CENTURY.

The early part of the nineteenth century was the age of heavy, drinking and bad language. Gentlemen swore at each other because an oath added emphasis to their asservations. They swore at inferiors because without it their commands would not receive prompt obedience. The, chaplain cursed the sailors because- it made them listen more attentively to their admonitions. Ladies swore orally and in their letters. Lord Baxfield, a famous Scotch ludge, offered to a lady at whom he. swore* because she played badly at whist, the sufficient apology that he had mistaken her for his wife.

Erskine swore at the bar, and Lord Thurlow swore on the. bench. George IV. was always swearing. A profame oath also accompanied this Defender of the Faith's expression of approval of the wearer, a horse, or a drinking bout. His accomplished brothers envied his powers In this field of endeavour. ".Socrety clothea itself with cursing as with a garment"

Vauxhall then still a fashionable resort, must have been a delectable place, with its feasts of curse words, amd flow of oaths. Other amusements were bull baitIng, cock fighting, and prize fighting. Wilberforce and Sheridan supported a bill in 1802 to abolish bull baiting, which was opposed, by Mr Windham, on the ground that it was "the first result of the conspiracy of the Jacobins and Methodists to render the people grave and serious."