The Enquirer

From the Philadelphia Daily Advertiser.

Z. Poison,

The following observations are extracted from a work lately Published in London, entitled "The Society of Friends, or people commonly called Quakers, examined by John Bristed," and are recommended to the serious attention of persons who habituate themselves to the shameful and degrading practice of profane swearing. and it is believed his remarks on Judicial Oaths are well worthy the consideration of persons of all descriptions : Please give them publicity.

K.

"As to the custom of common swearing in ordinary discourse, there can be but one opinion : Every one must allow, that it is the most absurd, beggarly, vile and unproductive vice in all the dark catalogue of human iniquities. I have generally observed this deformity to prevail in the inverse ratio of a man's understanding : a circumstance of no very difficult solution : for--in proportion to the weakness of a man's intellect, and the scantiness of his knowledge, must he find himself at a loss, both for ideas & for words, wherewith to support a conversation for any length of time, and therefore has recourse to the miserable expedient of stopping up all the gaps in discourse, made by his want of sense with a great variety of oaths and curses ; hence your thorough solid blockhead contrives to eke out the bareness of his brain, by making his conversation consist of one part of pure, unalloyed dulness, and the other two parts, of absolute vice and degrading deformity, arrayed in the hideous garb of cursing and swearing, oaths and blasphemy."