"It appears that they have made good harvest, this summer, of female credulity, and have often gained a guinea on a Sunday. Not only young girls, panting for matrimony, have been their dupes, but the well experienced dames, curious to trace the steps of their dear spouses, have paid liberally for discovery, as the following story will prove: On Thursday, as two Gentlemen, who dined at Norwood, were looking out of a window, they observed a respectable, well-dressed woman in deep consultation, for a sum paid to the old gypsey. They observed the good woman greatly agitated, and heard her ask 'If she was sure it was true'? On being answered 'As sure as God was in heaven' she gave the gypsey a further sum, and made further enquiry, and at last gave her a good pocket-handkerchief, and departed seemingly full of vengeance. The gentlemen, curious to learn the nature of the good woman's consultation, sent for the old gypsey, who candidly told them, that she enquired of her if her husband was continent, and that she answered he was not, and thereby obtained three presents instead of one."—(Times, Aug. 22, 1797.)
Partridge shooting began on 14th September then, instead of the 1st as now.
"FOURTEENTH OF SEPTEMBER.
"Bemired up to the knees, wetted from head to foot by the incessant rain, fatigued and disappointed, the Cocknies yesterday returned from their annual field-sport, with very little game indeed. A detachment from Cheapside, which had filed off early in the morning, toward Hampstead, with the locks of their fowling-pieces wrapped up in their handkerchiefs, were so galled by the rain, that they got no further than Old Mother Red Cap's, where they diverted themselves all day with firing from a window at some Dutch-pins in the skittle ground. One of these pins was mortally wounded in the belly by Ensign Tight Breeches, a man milliner's foreman, who drove a ball into it, at the amazing distance of two yards, without letting the gun fall out of his hand.
"Six journeymen weavers, from Spital-fields, who went in a chaise cart, to Ealing, with two guns, were rather more fortunate, in respect to Game. They killed a lame hen at Acton, shot one goose on the Common, wounded a large sow, and filled their pockets and Game-bags with turnips, and cabbages. They imagined they sprung a pheasant near Gunnersbury House,—but it proved to be an old turkey-cock. At Eleven, they returned, very wet, and very drunk, having lost one of their guns, and broke the stock of the other, by flinging it at a tame rabbit, in a farmer's yard.
"Four gentlemen from Leadenhall-Market, who went on the long-coach to Woolwich, as there are partridges in that part of Kent, killed two crows in Hanging-Wood Lane, blinded a jackass near the Warren, and wounded a sparrow, several feathers being perceived to drop from its wings. They had tolerable good sport with a bat, their terriers being of an excellent breed, and having worried a flock of ducks in a ditch, and killed one, they returned from Partridge shooting about nine at night, very much fatigued indeed.
"Five gentlemen who went sporting from Kent Bar to Lewisham, notwithstanding the wetness of the day, had tolerable good luck.
"They belonged to the Trained Bands, and depended more upon their bayonets, than their guns. At the Half-Way-House they killed a fine buck-cat, as he was watching a chaffinch. From the Half-Way-House to New-Cross Turnpike, every sparrow was affrighted by the noise of their guns: but the rain by this time having completely wetted the locks, and damped the powder, they were obliged to charge with bayonets, and every tree bore marks of their prowess, to the Lion and Lamb at Lewisham, where they dined, got drunk, killed two hogs, and a Chinese sow, and, in the evening, were carried home by the Lewisham stage.
"St. George's Fields, once the mart of London sportsmen, being now almost covered with houses, very few prentice-boy gunners were seen there. The birds which now inhabit that quarter, are many of them jail-birds, and if the new Magistrates were to sport their authority a little more than they do, they might bring down some of the most dangerous game with which a neighbourhood was ever infested.
"Very few were the sportsmen on Blackheath, to the great joy of sheep and jackasses, and to the safety of stage-passengers, who were often endangered by the random shot of those one-day sportsmen. As to partridges, their lives were in no danger, not one of those sportmen out of fifty knowing the difference between a partridge and a crow; besides, as their dogs are generally of the bull-dog kind, of the terrier, or the fox breed, the game are in very little danger of injury from their ability."—(Times, Sept. 15, 1797.)