breast,
And therefore proper at a sheriff's feast.

Besides a portrait of William the Third, and a judge, the hall is
ornamented with a full length of that illustrious hero Sir William
Walworth, in commemoration of whose valour the weapon with which he slew
Wat Tyler was introduced into the city arms.

[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE 8.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE GROWN RICH, AND SHERIFF OF LONDON.]

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE IX.

THE IDLE 'PRENTICE BETRAYED BY A PROSTITUTE, AND TAKEN IN A NIGHT CELLAR
WITH HIS ACCOMPLICE.

"The adulteress will hunt for precious life." Proverbs, chap. vi.
verse 26.

From the picture of the reward of diligence, we return to take a further
view of the progress of sloth and infamy; by following the idle
'prentice a step nearer to the approach of his unhappy end. We see him
in the third plate herding with the worst of the human species, the very
dregs of the people; one of his companions, at that time, being a
one-eyed wretch, who seemed hackneyed in the ways of vice. To break this
vile connexion he was sent to sea; but, no sooner did he return, than
his wicked disposition took its natural course, and every day he lived
served only to habituate him to acts of greater criminality. He
presently discovered his old acquaintance, who, no doubt, rejoiced to
find him so ripe for mischief: with this worthless, abandoned fellow, he
enters into engagements of the worst kind, even those of robbery and
murder. Thus blindly will men sometimes run headlong to their own
destruction.

About the time when these plates were first published, which was in the
year 1747, there was a noted house in Chick Lane, Smithfield, that went
by the name of the Blood-Bowl House, so called from the numerous scenes
of blood that were almost daily carried on there; it being a receptacle
for prostitutes and thieves; where every species of delinquency was
practised; and where, indeed, there seldom passed a month without the
commission of some act of murder. To this subterraneous abode of
iniquity (it being a cellar) was our hero soon introduced; where he is
now represented in company with his accomplice, and others of the same
stamp, having just committed a most horrid act of barbarity, (that of
killing a passer-by, and conveying him into a place under ground,
contrived for this purpose,) dividing among them the ill-gotten booty,
which consists of two watches, a snuff-box, and s