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SWANSEA 186 SWEABING chief exports are tin, terne, and black plates, coal and coke, copper, zinc, and their ores, iron and steel, alkali, super- phosphate, arsenic, etc. The charter dates from the days of King John and Henry III., renewed by subsequent sover- eigns. The castle, of which a tower still remains, was founded in 1099 by the Earl of Warwick, but in the reign of Edward IV. passed by marriage from the Her- berts to the Somerset family, and is still the property of the Dukes of Beaufort. The grammar school dates from 1682. Pop. (1919) 160,810. SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, a co- educational institution for higher educa- tion, founded in 1864, by the Society of Friends of Swarthmore, Pa. In 1919 there were 487 students and 45 instruc- tors. President, Joseph Swain. SWARTZ, MIFFLIN WYATT, an American educator, born at Winchester, Va., in 1874. He was educated at the University of Chicago and began teach- ing at Fort Worth, Texas, in 1900, be- coming president of the Woman's College of Alabama in 1915. He was a member of the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges and wrote "Personal and Dramatic Characteristics of the Old in the Dramas of Euripides" (1910). SWAT, or SUWAT. a region in Cen- tral Asia, W. of the upper Indus river. It is but little known. Its ruler is a chief, called the Akhoond. SWATAU, a seaport of China which has been opened to foreign trade since 1869; at the mouth of the Han river, 225 miles E. of Canton, in the province of Kwang-tung. It is the seat of great sugar refineries, and bean cake and grass cloth manufactures. Imports (1919) $30,000,000; exports, $11,000,000. The im.- ports consist principally of bean cake and beans, cottons, opium, rice, metals, hemp, silks and woolens, and wheat. Sugar forms the chief item among the exports; besides it tobacco, cloth and nankeens, joss paper, grass cloth (made from a kind of hemp fiber), and tea are sent abroad. Pop. 110,000. SWAZILAND, a South African native state; on the W. side of the Libomba mountains, and forming geographically an intrusion into the E. side of the Transvaal Colony. It has an area of 6,678 square miles; a pop. of 99,959 na- tives and 1,700 Europeans. Tobacco, maize, millet, and ground nuts are raised. Considerable tin is exported. The territory is rich in minerals that await development. Revenues (1919) £70,842. Expenditure £82,006. In 1906 the administration of the state was given to the High Commissioner of South Africa. The independence of this little state was recognized by its power- ful neighbors, the South African republic (now the Orange River Colony) and the British Government, in 1884; in 1890 the white settlers, mainly gold miners, were put under joint "government committee," appointed by Great Britain and the Boers. SWEARING, the habit of using the name or attributes of God in a light and familiar manner by way of asseveration or emphasis. It was specially con- demned by the Mosaic law, was long pun- ished by severe penalties, and is still an actionable offense in England. By oaths are loosely understood many terms and phrases of a gross and obscene char- acter, as well as those words the use of which specially implies profanity proper. Again, there is a legitimate use of imprecations and curses when intense hatred is to be expressed, and when it is justifiable. It is only taking the sacred name in vain that need be condemned. To call God to witness is a thing natural enough on occasions of grave asseveration, as in giving witness in courts of law and the like, and it has been from the beginning a custom to take oaths on things sacred or august, as the head of the emperor, the beard of the prophet, the sword blade or hilt, and the Gospels. Swift's "Swearer's Bank" (Scott's "Swift," vol. vii.) is a characteristic sa- tire on the profanity of his day. It is computed by geographers, he begins, that there are 2,000,000 in this kingdom (Ireland), of which number there may be said to be 1,000,000 of swearing souls. It is thought that there may be 5,000 gentlemen, each with one oath a day at a shilling each, yielding an annual revenue of $456,250. All classes of citi- zens contribute to this revenue, the farmers, the commonality, the hundred pretty fellows in Dublin alone at 50 oaths a head daily, the oaths of a little Connaught fair themselves computed at 3,000. Militia under arms are to be exempted, etc. The Church ever denounced profane swearing, but was powerless to check the practice. St. Chrysostom spent 20 homi- lies on it, and St. Augustine's judgment is summed up with unnecessary severity in the solemn passage, "Not less do they sin who blaspheme Christ reigning in heaven, than did they who crucified Him walking about on earth." For much of our popular swearing is little more than