"HINTS BY THE COBLER OF CRIPPLEGATE, 1761[336:A].

"He could wish to see Butchers' boys, who gallop through the streets of London, punished for so doing, or at least their horses seized for the use of the poor of the parish in which they so offend; for, though a poor man's life may not be worth preserving, his limbs may be of use to him while he crawls upon earth.

"Brewers starting their butts in the day-time, he considers as an intolerable nuisance.

"Ruinous Houses ought to be pulled down, because they may as well tumble upon the head of an Alderman as upon that of a Cobler.

"A regulation in Smithfield-market, he thinks, ought to take place, because a mad Ox may as well gore the lady of a Knight Banneret, as a poor Oyster-wench.

"Worn-out Hackney-coaches should in a particular manner be looked into, because none but those in easy circumstances can be affected by their breaking-down in the streets. This regulation in no shape regards my family, because I never suffer my Moll to enter one till I have first properly surveyed it.

"That Cheesemongers should not set out their butter and cheese so near the edge of their shop-windows, nor put their firkins in the path-ways, by which many a good coat and silk gown may be spoiled; as by advertising in the papers his shop will be sufficiently known, without carrying home the shop-bill upon their clothes.

"Ladders, pieces of timber, &c. should by no means be suffered to be carried upon men's shoulders within the posts of this City, because, by a sudden stop, they may as well poke out the eye of a rich man as that of a poor one.

"Chairmen, as they are a kind of human nags, ought to amble without-side the posts as well as other brutes.

"It is needless for ladies of a certain cast to patrole the streets at noon-day with a bundle in one hand, as they carry an evident sign of their profession in their eye.

"Long swords are a nuisance in the City at Change-time, as the wearer may very well receive a bill without that dangerous weapon; and as it is not often he comes into it to pay one.

"Churches are no places to sleep in, because, if a person snores too loud, he not only disturbs the congregation, but is apt to ruffle the preacher's temper.

"Barbers and Chimney-sweepers have no right by charter to rub against a person well-dressed, and then offer him satisfaction by single combat.

"Splashing a gentleman with white silk stockings designedly is a breach of decency, and utterly unknown at Wapping or Hockley in the Hole.

"That reading these hints and not endeavouring to redress them, will be a fault somewhere, but not in

Crispin."

"To the Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Faith.

"I have observed of late years, that the London meeting-houses of all Sectaries have crowded audiences, and that the Prayers of our established Church are read, and the Sermons of her Ministers preached, to empty seats, unless at places where some new-fangled doctrines are propagated to captivate weak minds. It becomes me as an honest man, and agreeable to the oath I have taken, earnestly to admonish you to attend the service of the Church on Sundays, unless prevented by occasions that are lawful.

"It requires I should give you this notice publicly, that no person may have reason to think me over-officious, if he finds his name among the presentments my oath obliges me to exhibit before the Ecclesiastical Court at the expiration of my office.

David Rice, Churchwarden."

"To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common-Council assembled.

"We your Committee, appointed by your order, of the third day of October last, to manage the entertainment for their Majesties at the Guildhall of this City, on the then ensuing Lord Mayor's Day, beg leave to report, that duly sensible of the great honour done us in this appointment, we cheerfully devoted our time and utmost endeavours to prepare and regulate the said entertainment, so as best to answer the intention of this honourable Court.

"In the preparations for the intended feast, your Committee omitted no expence that might serve to improve its splendour, elegance, or accommodation: whilst on the other hand they retrenched every charge that was not calculated to that end, however warranted by former precedents. Their Majesties having expressed their Royal inclinations to see the Procession of the Lord Mayor to Guildhall, the Committee obtained Mr. Barclay's house in Cheapside for that purpose, where proper refreshments were provided, and every care taken to accommodate their Majesties with a full view of the whole cavalcade.

"The great hall and adjoining apartments were decorated and furnished with as much taste and magnificence as the shortness of the time for preparation and the nature of a temporary service would permit: the Hustings where their Majesties dined, and the new Council Chamber, to which they retired both before and after dinner, being spread with Turkey carpets, and the rest of the floors over which their Majesties were to pass with blue cloth, and the whole illuminated with near three thousand wax tapers in chandeliers, lustres, girandoles, and sconces.

"A select band of music, consisting of fifty of the best hands, placed in a superb gallery, erected on purpose at the lower end of the Hall, entertained their Majesties with a concert during the time of dinner, under the direction of a gentleman justly celebrated for his great musical talents; whilst four other galleries (all covered with crimson, and ornamented with festoons) exhibited to their Majesties a most brilliant appearance of five hundred of the principal Citizens of both sexes.

"Their Majesties table was served with a new set of rich plate, purchased on this occasion, and covered with all the delicacies which the season could furnish, or expence procure, and prepared by the best hands.

"A proportionable care was taken of the several other tables provided for the Foreign Ambassadors and Ministers; the Lords and Gentlemen of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council; the Lord Chancellor and Judges; the Lords and Ladies in waiting; the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Common Council; and many others, both of the Nobility and Gentry: the whole number of guests within the Hall, including the galleries, being upwards of twelve hundred; and that of the Gentlemen Pensioners, Yeomen of the Guard, Horse and Horse-Grenadier Guards, and servants attendant upon their Majesties, and the Royal Family, and who were entertained at places provided in the neighbourhood, amounting to seven hundred and twenty-nine.

"And that this Court may form some judgment of the manner of the entertainment, your Committee have hereunto subjoined the bill of fare of their Majesty's table, and the totals of the several bills on this occasion, amounting to 6898l. 5s. 4d.; which, your Committee have the satisfaction to acquaint this Honourable Court, have been all ordered for payment.

"Your Committee, likewise, having provided a great variety of the choicest wines, took care that every guest should be supplied with plenty and dispatch; and yet the various services performed without hurry or confusion.

"For this purpose your Committee issued no more tickets for admission than what (considering the necessary number of attendants, amounting to two hundred and forty persons) would fill the Hall without incommoding the Royal Personages for whom the feast was intended.

"And to prevent as much as possible the intrusion of strangers (too frequent on such occasions) your Committee directed a temporary porch to be erected in the front of the Hall, where gentlemen of trust were placed at three several bars.

"Upon the whole, your Committee omitted no care or pains to render the entertainment as commodious and agreeable as possible to the Royal Guests, and in some measure expressive of the zeal and veneration of this Honourable Court for their august Sovereign, his most amiable Consort, and illustrious Family, and of their sense of his gracious condescension in honouring this City with his Royal Presence: happy if they have in any degree answered expectation, and are allowed to have done justice to the honourable trust reposed in them. Signed this 15th day of June, 1762.

"A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury, at the General Quarter Session of the Peace, held at Guildhall, Westminster, on Wednesday, April 6, 1763, by Sir John Fielding, Knight, Chairman of the said Session. Published at the unanimous Request of the Magistrates then present, and the Grand Jury."

In order to remind the Grand Jury of their duty, rather than to inform them of it, Sir John Fielding considers, 1st, the object of the enquiry they are expected to make, and 2dly, the manner in which it might be made.

The object of it is, offences towards God, the King, to one another, and to the publick in general.

Speaking of the offences against God, "I cannot sufficiently lament (says this devout Magistrate) that shameful, inexcusable, and almost universal practice of prophane swearing in our streets: a crime so easy to be punished, and so seldom done, that mankind almost forget it is an offence; and, to our dishonour be it spoken, it is almost peculiar to the English nation! I beg, Gentlemen, you would use your utmost endeavours to suppress this dreadful evil wherever you can; but this you will best do by your own example, as the offence is punishable in a judicial way before a Magistrate. Nor should I mention it here, was I not sensible that I am speaking in the presence of a great number of peace-officers, whose immediate duty it is to apprehend such miscreants, and carry them before a Magistrate; and who are not only blameable, but punishable, for the neglect of this duty.

"The last offence I shall mention on this subject is, the breach of the Sabbath; a practice as shameful as it is common: but, as these are unworthy members of the Church, and not only disgraceful, but noxious members of society, they will therefore, I doubt not, meet with the detestation of all honest and pious men, and consequently with every punishment due to such an insolent crime, which it may be in your power to inflict; for this sort of impious neglect partakes of the deepest ingratitude from the creature to the Creator."

With regard to offences committed against the Publick in general; "Of these (says this diligent Magistrate) there are a great variety, but I shall confine myself to the three following, viz. public lewdness, bawdy-houses, gaming-houses. And first, as to public lewdness:

"It is the observation of a moral writer of eminence, 'That there is some degree of virtue in a man's keeping his vices to himself:' for, as example is allowed to be more efficacious than precept in recommendation of virtue, where men act as it were in opposition to the depravity of human nature, how must the open and public example of lewdness draw men into the tide of wickedness, when their own passions and inclinations serve as winds to carry them down the stream! Men like these deserve punishment as public as their crimes. But, as this offence belongs to none but the most abandoned mind, I thank God it is not common; and perhaps it would be much less seen, were those persons punished, who exposed to sale the most abandoned prints of lewdness, and the most infamous books of bawdry, which are considerably bought by curious youths, to the danger of their modesty, the hazard of their morals, and too often to the total destruction of their virtue.

"As to bawdy-houses, they are the receptacles of those who still have some sense of shame left, but not enough to preserve their innocence.

"These houses are all sufficiently injurious, and do great mischief. But those I would particularly point out to your attention, are the open, avowed, low, and common bawdy-houses, where vice is rendered cheap, and consequently within the reach of the common people, who are the very stamina of the constitution.

"These are the channels through which rottenness is conveyed into the bones of the artificer, labourer, soldier, and mariner; by this means weakness and distemper are entailed on their offspring, whose utility to the publick depends on their health and strength. These are the houses that harbour and protect undutiful children, idle servants, and disobedient apprentices. Let me then intreat you, as fathers, as masters, and as tradesmen, to put an end to these sinks of vice in your respective neighbourhoods.

"Let not that common vulgar error, of being afraid of these people, because they are litigious, desperate, and full of threats (for these fears are groundless, and should not, nay, I hope will not) deter you from this particular duty. You present; and we will punish.

"As to gaming-houses; such numbers of persons of all ranks have brought themselves, some to the greatest distresses, and others to most shameful and ignominious ends, by frequenting these houses, where gentlemen, sharpers, highwaymen, tradesmen, their servants, nay, often their apprentices, are mixed together; that, when I mention the very name of a gaming-house, I am persuaded that it conveys to your minds such ideas of mischief to society, that you will not suffer any of them to escape that come to your knowledge: and by a particular attention to the last-mentioned offences, you may be the happy means of preventing frauds, thefts, and robberies; most of which take their rise from these impure fountains of extravagance."

What the Justice, speaking of the manner of the enquiry, remarks with regard to the contempt of oaths, is but too just, and alarming:

"When I mention the word Oath; where shall I find language to express the hearty concern I feel, when I consider with what shameful insensibility this great defence of our lives, this barrier of our liberties, this security of our properties, an oath, is treated by the lower rank of the community! I too much fear, that one of the principal causes of this contempt is the slovenly manner in which this solemn obligation is administered; which does not only take off the awe, but even the very idea, of the presence of Almighty God."

A facetious writer presented the following observations to the Editor of the London Chronicle, in June 1765. I think the Reader will find they promote the object of this work.

"It is common with the old men to assert, that times alter for the worse, and that every age increases in ignorance and folly. At the Theatres, they will tell you, that Garrick and Mrs. Cibber are tolerable performers, but they will not allow them to be equal to Booth and Mrs. Oldfield. 'When I was a boy, things were otherwise,' is their common expression. Now, Mr. Printer, in despite of all this, I affirm, that instead of altering for the worse, we daily improve, not only in Commerce, but also in Manners and the Polite Arts. Think not by the Polite Arts I mean only the Exhibitions in Spring-gardens and Maiden-lane. No, Sir, my inference is a general one; I include artists of every denomination, from the genteel Mr. Pencil, the Portrait-painter, to honest Brush, the Sign-painter; both Mr. Heeltap, the Shoemaker of St. James's, and plain Crispin, the Cobler of London-house-yard. And that we only began to improve of late years, is evident from the sarcastic sneer of a shop-keeper at Epping, who, about ten years ago, had painted over his door, 'All sorts of Manchester stuffs sold here; also cardinals, nails, and hats.' The force of the witticism is too plain to need an explanation. This, I imagine, gave rise to the number of Dancing-masters, who have of late filled England; and that we are, since that time, greatly polished, no one, I dare say, will attempt to deny; but that it may not be thought that I assert what I am unable to prove, I will only remind your readers of the revolution that common things have undergone in their names. Have we now any shops? Are they not all turned into warehouses? Have we not the English warehouse, the Scotch warehouse, the Irish warehouse, the shirt warehouse, the stocking warehouse, the shoe warehouse, the hat warehouse, nay, even the buckle and button warehouse? In like manner our drinking-houses are refined: they no longer go under the vulgar denominations of gin-houses, purl-houses, ale-houses, and porter-houses, but are all turned into coffee-houses without coffee, taverns without wine, and inns without a stable-yard. Not content with this, they even left off the showy sign-post and exuberant sign, which formerly distinguished the best-accustomed houses: convinced of their own merit, they have come to a right understanding of the words simplex munditiis; and therefore only put up a black board with the name of their quondam sign upon it. But I would just hint to them, that it would be something more grammatical, if, instead of 'This is the Boar's-head,' they were to say, 'This was the Boar's-head.' Indeed I cannot help thinking, that a very great improvement might be made by one of these alehouse innkeepers on the Essex road, who has a board with a large punch-bowl painted on it, and under it these words: 'The Boar's-head Inn.' Surely he would have more custom, if (like the man at Bath, who changed his sign of the Royal Oak into that of the Owl in the Ivy-bush, and wrote under it, 'This is not the Royal Oak') he would say under his punch-bowl, 'This is not the Punch-bowl Inn.'"

The impropriety and folly of employing young and vigorous men to serve female customers with articles of dress, and those silly catch-pennies idly supposed ornaments to the person now so prevalent, is by no means a new trait in our customs; that it should be continued, though severely reprehended even so long since as 1765, is astonishing. At that time the antient sisterhood of tire-women were almost extinct; but now what head can be dressed fit to be seen without the assistance of a smart male hair-dresser? or what lady will purchase her bandeaus, her ribbands, gloves, &c. &c. from the hands of a young woman, when the same shop contains—a young man? Unfortunately this is a fatal custom to many fine blooming females, who, thus consigned to idleness and temptations, often fall victims to seduction.

A strange infatuation prevailed for many years in that class of the community which might be termed demi-fashionables, of sending their daughters to Convents in France for education; if that could be so termed, which amounted to nothing more than speaking the French language tolerably correct, cutting and pasting coloured paper together in silly shapes, and learning tambour, or working in imitation of lace. To mention the disadvantages attending the practice would be futile; the Revolution in France, the dissolution of Monasteries, and our endless wars, have totally abolished the custom, at least as far as relates to Convents; though I have no doubt that, should Peace ever again smile on us, French boarding-schools will be preferred to British.

Many of the pernicious customs which disgrace the populace of London may, and indeed must be continued, by their attendance at the various Fairs still held near the Metropolis; some that are now suppressed, and that of St. Bartholomew's London, will be noticed hereafter. As long as the Legislature think proper to permit the exhibition of wild beasts, and the anticks of human brutes, the wicked and the curious will attend them: thus the profligate receives legal authority to continue his baneful and licentious manners, and the curious innocent learns to imitate them without restraint as something very worthy of imitation. It is well known that the passions of human nature require the utmost coercion, even in families of undoubted honour and virtue: is it then prudent, much less wise, to send apprentices, youth from schools, girls the offspring of the lower classes, and servants, into these regular scenes of riot and systematic violations of order and decency, where customs must be acquired which will not bear repetition? The very tradition of the origin of Horn fair, held at Charlton and Blackheath, though ridiculously unfounded, was a sufficient cause for its abolition, when we recollect the absurd reference it had to a shocking offence against the laws of society. The frequenters of this fair went to it prepared to laugh at those injured by seduction; and the exhibition of articles made of Horn invited constant inuendos and vulgar double entendre.

Accident this very day afforded me other arguments against Fairs. Entering the Kingsland-road, I was astonished at the scene before me: the foot-paths and the carriage-way were crowded with pedestrians and vehicles, from the humble dung-cart to the hackney-coach; the two latter filled with every description of persons, and the whole rushing, impelled by one governing mind, to Edmonton fair. Hundreds of carts and waggons, provided with seats placed on the sides, and others lengthways in the midst, were stationed by the owners in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch church, where several principal streets communicate with the road to Edmonton; and were immediately filled by the infant, its sisters, brothers, parents, the journeyman, the apprentice, and the master, and the female servant, all dressed in their best clothing; many of the latter and the daughters of tradesmen in white muslin, silk spencers, and new straw bonnets, worth at least 30s. each. I would ask what the conversation of five-and-twenty persons thus assembled in a cart or waggon, some of whom consisted of the very dregs of society, could well be at noon-day, when sober; but what at night on their return, when some at least were intoxicated? We will say nothing of the fun of the Fair.