Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/315

Rh them from morning to night; who in requital reward us with nothing but treachery and the pox. For when our money is gone, they are every moment threatening to inform against us, if we will not go out and look for more. If any thing in this world be like Hell, as I have heard it described by our clergy, the truest picture of it must be in the back room of one of our alehouses at midnight; where a crew of robbers and their whores are met together after a booty, and are beginning to grow drunk; from which time, until they are past their senses, is such a continued horrible noise of cursing, blasphemy, lewdness, scurrility, and brutish behaviour, such roaring and confusion, such a clutter of mugs and pots at each other's heads; that Bedlam, in comparison, is a sober and orderly place. At last they all tumble from their stools and benches, and sleep away the rest of the night; and generally the landlord or his wife, or some other whore who has a stronger head than the rest, picks their pockets before they wake. The misfortune is, that we can never be easy till we are drunk; and our drunkenness constantly exposes us to be more easily betrayed and taken.

This is a short picture of the life I have led; which is more miserable than that of the poorest labourer who works for four pence a day; and yet custom is so strong, that I am confident if I could make my escape at the foot of the gallows, I should be following the same course this very evening. So that upon the whole, we ought to be looked upon as the common enemies of mankind; whose interest it is to root us out like wolves and other mischievous vermin, against which no fair play is required.

If I have done service to men in what I have. IX.