Because I knew that they are lightly poor,
And Shooter's Hill was fitter far for me,
When pass'd releases for my own poverty.
He then proceeds to tell in verse how the inns are often kept by landlords in league with highwaymen, who not infrequently spend thrice as much as honest travellers, or whose servants are either placed there by the knights of the road, or are bribed by them to investigate the contents of travellers' saddle-bags and valises.
Having done this, the hints he next gives to innkeepers, on how to distinguish between highwaymen and decent travellers, seem rather superfluous. As to the stigmata of the highwaymen themselves, besides those
vizards, hoods, disguise,
Masks, muzzles, mufflers, patches on their eyes;
Those beards, those heads of hair, and that great wen,
Which is not natural.
there are the following simpler devices: