“‘See,’ says my Indian, ‘what a Bevy of Gallant Ladies are in yonder Coaches; some are Singing, others Laughing, others Tickling one another, and all of them Toying and devouring Cheese-cakes, March Pane, and China Oranges. See that Lady,’ says he; ‘was ever anything so black as her Eye and so clear as her Forehead? one would swear her face had taken its Tincture from all the Beauties in Nature.’ ‘And yet perhaps,’ answered I to my Fellow-Traveller, ‘all this is but Imposture; she might, for ought we know, got to Bed last night as ugly as a Hagg, tho’ she now appears like an Angel; and if you did but see this Puppet taken to pieces, her whole is but Paint and Plaster ... these are Birds to amuse one, that change their Feathers two or three times a Day.... In a word, the generality of Women are Peacocks when they walk: Water-wagtails when they are within doors, and Turtles when they meet Face to Faces.’”
Even in broad daylight the fashionable throngs were liable to be subjected to annoyance. In the Post Boy of 7th June 1695 it says:
“Some days since several Persons of Quality having been affronted at the Ring in Hide Park, by some other Persons that rode in Hackney Coaches with Masks, and Complaint thereof being made to the Lords Justices, an order is made that no Hackney Coaches be permitted to go into the said Park, and that none presume to appear there in masks.”
The law against hackney coaches survives, and they are still only allowed to cross between the Park and Kensington Gardens. Masked ladies and gallants have ceased to exist, although a music-hall performer, apparently wishing to attract attention and advertisement, drove through Hyde Park fully masked in 1906, and even plunged into the Serpentine to rescue a boy she presumed to be drowning. The modern policeman on duty probably had never heard of the old law forbidding masks to be worn in the Park, and let the good lady pass with a smile.
The deplorable condition into which affairs had fallen is duly admitted in the Act of Parliament passed in 1695, the preamble of which recites: “Whereas the crimes of burglary and breaking open of houses in a felonious manner, and the crime of stealing goods privately out of shops and warehouses, commonly called Shop-lifting, and the stealing of horses, are of late years much increased.” However, the method adopted for dealing with the growing evil shows how little the true means of diminishing crime and handling criminals was then understood. The Act provided that—
“All and every person or persons, who shall apprehend and take any person guilty of any of the felonies beforementioned, and prosecute him, her, or them so apprehended and taken, until he, she, or they be convicted of any of the aforesaid felonies, such apprehenders and takers, for his, her, or their reward, upon every such conviction, without any fee or reward to be paid for the same, shall have forthwith, after every fresh conviction, a certificate, which shall be under the hand or hands of a judge, Justice or justices, before whom every such conviction shall be had, certifying such conviction, etc. ... which certificate shall and may be once assigned over and no more, and the original proprietor of such certificate, or the assignee of the same, whomsoever of them shall have the interest therein, by virtue thereof and this present Act, shall and may be discharged of and from all and all manner of parish and ward wherein such felony or felonies shall be committed, and such party or assignee is hereby declared to be discharged therefrom.”
A fee of one shilling was charged for the enrolling of this certificate, which became known as the “Tyburn Ticket,” and acted as a small incentive to the righteous to bring the thief to the gallows. It remained in use for more than a century.
As late as 1772 the state of Hyde Park was so bad that a bell used to be rung at stated intervals in Kensington, to gather together people who had ventured from London and were wishing to return. When a sufficient number had assembled the party started eastwards, and were safely escorted through the lonely neighbourhood of Hyde Park by the guard. Mr. Horsley, the artist, mentions in his Memoirs that a friend of his childhood could remember this arrangement, and he himself knew the time the Park gates were closed at eight o’clock in the evenings.
Tyburn Ticket.
Preserved in the Guildhall Library. Market value in the 18th Century was from £25 to £30.