The mob carried the same brutality more brutalised to the feet of the gallows; and even while the miserable wretches, who afforded them a spectacle, were supplicating that forgiveness which the laws of morality denied on earth, they were interrupted by shouts and execrations, and injured by stones, dirt, and filth, thrown with violence in every direction. At an execution, June 1721, several persons had their limbs broken, others their eyes almost beaten out; and Barbara Spencer, carried to Tyburn to be strangled and burnt, was beaten down by a stone when beseeching on her knees the mercy of Heaven. These wretches frequently robbed the Surgeons.
The wretched manner in which the lowest description of people lodged in 1721, may be gathered from the ensuing extract from an order of the Court at a General Quarter Session, October 4. "It is now become a common practice in the extreme parts of the town, to receive into their houses persons unknown, without distinction of age or sex, on their paying one penny or more per night for lying in such houses without beds or covering; and that it is frequent in those houses for 15 or 20, or more, to lie in a small room."
These miserable people, thus indiscriminately mixed, corrupted each other, and licentiousness reigned triumphant amongst them; in truth, the population of London always exceeded the means
of subsistence; and I believe there are now, upon an average, three families to each house, and thousands of homeless wanderers. Fleet marriages were common in 1723; and the wonderful omissions of government at that period, in permitting so sacred an office to be celebrated, and registers of marriages kept at ale-houses and brandy-shops within the rules, where 32 couples are known to have been joined in three days, was one cause of the overgrown community. An author of the time alluded to says: "It is pleasant to see certain fellows plying by Fleet-bridge to take poor Sailors, &c. into the noose of matrimony every day throughout the week, and the clocks at their offices for that purpose still standing at the canonical hour, though perhaps the time of the day be six or seven in the afternoon."
Macky gives a good sketch of the manner of living in 1724. The following is extracted from his Journey through England, vol. I. p. 190.
"I am lodged in the street called Pall-mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity to the King's Palace, the Park, the Parliament house, the Theatres, and the Chocolate and Coffee-houses, where the best company frequent. If you would know our manner of living, it is thus: we rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables. About twelve the beau-monde assembles
in several chocolate and coffee-houses; the best of which are the Cocoa-tree and White's chocolate-houses, St. James's, the Smyrna, and the British coffee-houses; and all these so near one another, that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs (or sedans) which are here very cheap, a guinea a-week, or a shilling per hour, and your chairmen serve you for porters to run on errands as your gondoliers (watermen) do at Venice.
"If it be fine weather, we take a turn in the Park till two, when we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at Picket or Basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna and St. James's. I must not forget to tell you, that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory will be seen at the coffee-house of St. James's.
"The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee-houses much frequented in this neighbourhood, Young-man's for officers, Old-man's for stock-jobbers, pay-masters, and courtiers, and Little-man's for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life, as when I entered into this last: I saw two or three tables full at Faro, heard the box and dice rattling in the room
above-stairs, and was surrounded by a set of sharp-faces, that I was afraid would have devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half-crowns at Faro, to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I was so got rid of them.