"Journeymen Shoemakers are desired to take notice, that by an antient statute, yet unrepealed, any of their function going sober to bed on the night of Whitsun-Monday forfeits 5_s._; upon non-payment to be levied by distress, one moiety to the informer, and the other to the poor alehouse-keepers of the Parish where the fact was committed." The horrid custom of Duelling never was at a greater height than at the above date. The newspapers from 1700 to 1719 appear to have preserved their progression faithfully; every gaming-table, despicable brothel, tavern, coffee-house, masquerade, the theatres, and even festive meetings, produced its duellist; and the universal fashion of wearing swords allowed no time for passion to subside, or reason to reflect; a walk into the street or into an adjoining room, enabled the parties to wound each other in an instant; revenge and pain maddened them; and death frequently ensued to both. Government at length interfered; but duelling has again recovered from _temporary_ interruption!--Doctors Mead and Woodward fought like a pair of butchers, in June 1719, at the very gates of Gresham-college; and every drunken rake who staggered through the streets had it in his power to plunge a sword into an unoffending breast, or to _wound_ where he now _dare_ not _strike_. Dead bodies were frequently found; and the thief and the duellist seemed emulous which should furnish the Diaries of the time with the greater number of victims. Robberies, attended with monstrous cruelty, were dreadfully frequent; and such was the general profligacy of the age, that the paragraph-writers endeavoured to convey horrid facts with a levity of expression suited to the coarseness of their style, which was truly vulgar throughout all the newspapers. Let one instance speak for me: "People sicken and die at an uncommon rate in and about this city and suburbs; and there is a sad outcry raised (especially by antient females) of a plague, pestilence, and what not, which has occasioned abundance of people to leave the town, and fly to the _countries_ for refuge, whilst horse and foot physicians, mountebanks, _dead-mongers_, parish-clerks, and other lesser _ministers of dust and ashes_, are continually in motion in one part or other to perform their several offices; and we hear that in some parishes the sexton or grave-digger can afford to employ two or three journeymen." _Original Weekly Journal, May 22, 1719._