This gay and dashing youth, whose pock-holes were possibly in those days regarded as but beauty-spots, with the additional recommendation of showing that their wearer had passed through the then dreaded and terrible ordeal, was doubtless an idle apprentice travelling in the direction since made famous by one who served his full indentures. Ugly as the young gentleman just described may seem to the hypercritical tastes of the nineteenth century, he, as we will presently show, is a perfect beauty compared with any individual specimen picked out at random from the long lists of criminals published in old newspapers. From these lists some conception may be formed of the ravages of the small-pox, and its effect upon the appearance of the great bulk of the population. Every man and woman seems to have been more or less marked--some slightly, some frightfully pitted or fretted, as the term then was; yet even now we have every day instances of violent and ignorant opposition to vaccination, an opposition which is loud-mouthed and possessed of considerable influence over the lower orders, who are led to believe that vaccination is the primary cause of all epidemic disease, including that which it most professes to prevent. About this time highwaymen, who during the wars were almost unknown, began to exhibit a strong interest in the portable property of travellers; and as they took horses whenever they could find them, notices of lost, stolen, or strayed animals became frequent. It is much to be feared that the dashing knight of the road, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, is a complete myth, and that the thieves who infested the highway were neither brave nor handsome, and not above picking up, and keeping, the most trifling things that came in their way. The quality of these riders may be guessed by means of the following, from the _Mercurius Politicus_ of February 1659, the subject of which, singularly different from the “prancing prads” of which enthusiasts have written, seems to have been borrowed by one of them:-- A Small black NAG, some ten or eleven years old, no white at all, bob-Tailed, wel forehanded, somewhat thin behind, thick Heels, and goeth crickling and lamish behind at his first going out; the hair is beat off upon his far Hip as broad as a twelvepence; he hath a black leather Saddle trimmed with blew, and covered with a black Calves-skin, its a little torn upon the Pummel; two new Girths of white and green thread, and black Bridle, the Rein whereof is sowed on the off side, and a knot to draw it on the near side, Stoln out of a field at _Chelmsford_, 21 _February_ instant, from Mr _Henry Bullen_. Whosoever can bring tidings to the said Mr _Bullen_, at _Bromfield_, or to Mr _Newman_ at the Grocer’s Arms in _Cornhil_, shall have 20s. for his pains.