"The humble petition of SIMON TRIPPIT,
"Showeth,
"That your petitioner having been bred up to a cane from his youth, it is now become as necessary to him as any other of his limbs.
"That, a great part of his behaviour depending upon it, he should be reduced to the utmost necessities if he should lose the use of it.
"That the knocking of it upon his shoe, leaning one leg upon it, or whistling with it on his mouth, are such great reliefs to him in conversation, that he does not know how to be good company without it.
"That he is at present engaged in an amour, and must despair of success if it be taken from him.
"Your petitioner, therefore, hopes, that the premises tenderly considered, your Worship will not deprive him of so useful and so necessary a support.
"And your petitioner shall ever, etc."
Upon the hearing of his case, I was touched with some compassion, and the more so, when, upon observing him nearer, I found he was a prig. I bade him produce his cane in court, which he had left at the door. He did so, and I finding it to be very curiously clouded with a transparent amber head, and a blue riband to hang upon his wrist, I immediately ordered my clerk Lillie to lay it up, and deliver out to him a plain joint headed with walnut; and then, in order to wean him from it by degrees, permitted him to wear it three days in a week, and to abate proportionably till he found himself able to go alone.
The second who appeared came limping into the court; and setting forth in his petition many pretences for the use of a cane, I caused them to be examined one by one, but finding him in different stories, and confronting him with several witnesses who had seen him walk upright, I ordered Mr. Lillie to take in his cane, and rejected his petition as frivolous.