ugh an endless succession of Saracens'
Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue Bears, and Golden Lambs, which disappeared when
they were no longer required for the direction of the common people.

When the evening closed in, the difficulty and danger of walking about
London became serious indeed. The garret windows were opened, and pails
were emptied, with little regard to those who were passing below. Falls,
bruises and broken bones were of constant occurrence. For, till the last
year of the reign of Charles the Second, most of the streets were
left in profound darkness. Thieves and robbers plied their trade with
impunity: yet they were hardly so terrible to peaceable citizens as
another class of ruffians. It was a favourite amusement of dissolute
young gentlemen to swagger by night about the town, breaking windows,
upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, and offering rude caresses
to pretty women. Several dynasties of these tyrants had, since the
Restoration, domineered over the streets. The Muns and Tityre Tus had
given place to the Hectors, and the Hectors had been recently succeeded
by the Scourers. At a later period arose the Nicker, the Hawcubite, and
the yet more dreaded name of Mohawk. [123] The machinery for keeping the
peace was utterly contemptible. There was an Act of Common Council which
provided that more than a thousand watchmen should be constantly on the
alert in the city, from sunset to sunrise, and that every inhabitant
should take his turn of duty. But this Act was negligently executed.
Few of those who were summoned left their homes; and those few generally
found it more agreeable to tipple in alehouses than to pace the streets.
[124]

It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of the reign of Charles
the Second, began a great change in the police of London, a change which
has perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body of the people as
revolutions of much greater fame. An ingenious projector, named Edward
Heming, obtained letters patent conveying to him, for a term of years,
the exclusive right of lighting up London. He undertook, for a moderate
consideration, to place a light before every tenth door, on moonless
nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of the
clock. Those who now see the capital all the year round, from dusk to
dawn, blazing with a splendour beside which the illuminations for La
Hogue and Blenheim would have looked pale, may perhaps smile to think of
Heming's lanterns,