ild young men enough to rush through
the streets, wrenching off knockers, insulting quiet people, and
defying the watch. Indeed the watch were, as a rule, as unwilling to
interfere with dangerous revellers as were the billmen of Messina, and
seem to have been little better than thieves or Mohocks themselves.
They are freely accused of being ever ready to levy black-mail upon
those who walked abroad at night by raising ingenious accusations of
insobriety and insisting upon being bought off, or conveying their
victim to the round-house.

[Sidenote: 1714--Clubs]

The Fleet Ditch, which is almost as much of a myth to our generation as
the stream of black Cocytus itself, was an unsavory reality still in
the London which George the First entered. It was a tributary of the
Thames, which, rising somewhere among the gentle hills of Hampstead,
sought out the river and found it at Blackfriars. At one time it was
used for the conveyance of coals into the city, and colliers of
moderate size used to ascend it for a short distance. But towards the
end of Anne's reign, and indeed for long before, it had become a mere
trickling puddle, discharging its filth and refuse and sewage into the
river, and poisoning the air around it.

May Fair was still, and for many years later, celebrated in the now
fashionable quarter which bears its name. The fair lasted for six
weeks, and left about six months' demoralization behind it. "Smock
races"--that is to say, races run by young women for a prize of a laced
chemise, the competitors sometimes being attired only in their
smocks--were still to be seen in Pall Mall and {73} various other
places. This popular amusement was kept up in London until 1733, and
lingered in country places to a much later time. Bartholomew Fair was
scarcely less popular, or less renowned for its specialty of roast
sucking-pig, than in the days when Ben Jonson's Master Little-Wit, and
his wife Win-the-Fight, made acquaintance with its wild humors. There
is a colored print of about this time which gives a sufficiently vivid
presentment of the fair. At Lee and Harper's booth the tragedy of
"Judith and Holofernes" is announced by a great glaring, painted cloth,
while the platform is occupied by a gentleman in Roman armor and a lady
in Eastern attire, who are no doubt the principal characters of the
play. A gaudy Harlequin and his brother Scaramouch invite the
attention of the passers-by. In another booth rope-dancin