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The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from the Spectator
The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from the Spectator Author:Joseph Addison Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 3. Night At night, the tin vessels that served for in London. lamps diffused so little light, that every man with an honest errand engaged a torch-bearer to ligh... more »t him on his way. As for protection, every man had to trust to his own rapier. "Apparelled in thick, heavy great-coats, the watchmen perambulated the streets, crying the hour after the chimes, taking precautions for the prevention of fire, proclaiming tidings of foul or fair weather and awakening at daybreak all those who intended setting out on a journey."1 Neither watchman nor constable, however, had enough wit to serve an honest man in time of danger. The greatest fear at night came not from ordinary criminals, though these were common enough, but from bands of aristocratic young rowdies, who seized peaceable men and women on the streets, tattooed or slashed their faces, rolled reputable women round in barrels, or, imitating the fox hunt, chased some citizen about town till finally they had him at their mercy. Then they kept him dancing with pricks of their swords. Of these ruffians, the most notorious were the Mohocks. It was probably of these that Dr. Johnson was thinking when he wrote the lines: Some fiery fop with new commission vain, Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man- Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, Provokes a broil and stabs you for a jest. 1 Sydney: England and the English in the Eighteenth Century. chapter{Section 4The town was full of young men who had 4. Tbe Bean. ... . ,, , , , , 1-1 nothing to occupy them but brawls, drinking bouts, card-playing, and fine dress, and of these no small proportion spent all their serious attention on dress. The fashionable fop or beau enveloped his head in a well-powdered wig, which needed constant attention, and his neck and wrists in lac...« less