"On John Wilkes's life for one year, now doing at 5 _per cent._--N. B. Warranted to remain in prison during that period. "On a declaration of war with France or Spain in one year, 8 guineas _per cent._ "And many other innocent things of that kind. "But when policies come to be opened on two of the first Peers in Britain losing their heads within a year, at 10_s._ 6_d. per cent._ and on the dissolution of the present Parliament within one year, at 5 guineas _per cent._ which are now actually doing, and underwrote, chiefly by Scotsmen, at the above Coffee-house; it is surely high time for Administration to interfere, and by exerting the rigour of the laws against the authors and encouragers of such insurances (which must be done for some bad purpose) effectually put a stop to it." There are certain wags who find great amusement in contriving wonderful stories for the publick, which are sometimes circulated verbally, and frequently inserted in the newspapers.--This waggery has recently received the elegant term of _hoaxing_. Twice very lately crowds have been sent to the ship-yards below London to witness the launching of men of war and Indiamen which were not ready to launch; and last winter _re-produced_ an old story of a gardener digging a pit to receive the body of a servant he had seduced, _whom he intended to have murdered_, had not his master luckily discovered the plan by the intervention of a dream. Many of these inventions are so slightly contrived that persons of very little sagacity might detect the impostor; and yet numbers are deceived. The newspapers of 1772 furnish a rare instance of this description, which take _verbatim_: