always species of torture; to repeat the probable modes would be far from pleasant.
Whatever may have been the other inventions of the idle to obtain bread, that of begging in all its ramifications was the most antient; the fraternity of mendicants have resisted every attempt to dissolve their body, nor will they vanish till the last day shall remove every living creature from the surface of the earth. After the establishment of Christianity, flocks of Christians determined to devote themselves to the service of the Lord in their way, and work no more; such were some orders of Monks and Friars mendicants! The monasteries afterwards, acting upon a mistaken idea of charity, gave alms, and fed the poor and idle indiscriminately at their gates: thus a wretch might invigorate his body with the viands of the Abbots and Monks in the day, and pass the night in attacks upon the defenceless traveller, perhaps often relieved in presence of the depredator by the blind religious.
In vain have the Monarch, the Law, and the Judge, from the days of the Aborigines down to the present moment, exerted their authority and terrors; and I am compelled, for brevity's sake, to confine myself to the disgraceful acts of a single century. To mention the numbers who were condemned at the Old Bailey in 14 years from 1700, will be sufficient, without particularizing their crimes.
In the mayoralty of Sir Francis Child, 1732, 502 persons were indicted at the Old Bailey; 70 of whom received sentence of death; 208 of transportation; eight fined, imprisoned, or pilloried; four burnt in the hand; four whipped; and 288 acquitted.
In 1722, ten pounds reward was offered by the Clerk of the New River Company, for the apprehension of persons who had wantonly tapped the pipes, and others that had cut the banks to let water on their own possessions.
Lotteries.—These pernicious contrivances to raise money were in full vigour at the commencement of the century. There was the "Greenwich Hospital adventure," sanctioned by an Act of
Parliament, which the managers describe as "liable to none of the objections made against other Lotteries, as to the fairness of the drawing, it being not possible there should be any deceit in it, as it has been suspected in others." Mr. Sydenham's Land Lottery, who declared it was "found very difficult and troublesome for the adventurers for to search and find out what prizes they have come up in their number tickets, from the badness of the print, the many errors in them, and the great quantity of the number of the prizes:" the Twelve-penny or Nonsuch: and "the Fortunatus."
Esquire Sydenham's lady's gentlewoman obtained an estate worth 600l. per annum, in her master's Lottery; but the unfortunate holders of blanks, suspecting foul play, advertized an intended meeting on the 11th January 1700, for the purpose of entering into an investigation of their real or fancied wrongs. This produced a denial on the part of his Trustees, but did not prevent the meeting from taking place, when it was unanimously resolved to appoint an eminent goldsmith in Lombard-street cashier, for the receipt of subscriptions to carry their purposes into effect; which being accomplished, they exhibited a Bill in Chancery against the unfortunate Squire[90:A].
Guinea-dropping was practised in 1700; and it was customary for thieves to carry cocks into retired or vacant places to throw at them, in order to collect spectators, and empty their pockets. The following extract from the Protestant Mercury of February 14, 1700, point out three of those places of iniquity: "Last Tuesday, a Brewer's servant in Southwark took his walks round Tower-hill, Moor-fields, and Lincoln's-Inn-fields, and knocked down so many cocks, that, by selling them again, he returned home twenty-eight shillings odd pence a richer man than he came out."