A shocking instance of depravity occurred in March 1718. A Quaker potter, of the name of Oades, who resided in Gravel-lane, Southwark, had four sons, whom he admitted into partnership with him, and at the same time suffered them to carry on business on their own account. This method of proceeding naturally led to jealousies and envy on both sides, which increased to a degree of rancour, that the father and sons appear to have acted towards each other as if no connection subsisted between them. The immediate cause of the horrid event that renders the tale odious, was the arrest of Oades by his sons, for the violation of the peace, which they had bound him in a penalty to observe, and the consequent expulsion of their mother from her dwelling. This act attracted the notice of the populace, who seldom fail to adopt the right side of a question of justice, and as usual they began to execute summary vengeance on the house. The sons, an attorney, and another person, secured themselves within it, whence they read the Riot Act, and fired immediately after; a bullet entered the head of a woman, who fell dead; the assault then became more furious, and persons were sent for Mr. Lade, a Justice; that gentleman bailed the father, and commanded the sons to submit in vain: he therefore found it necessary to send for a guard of Soldiers, who arrived and commenced a regular siege, but the fortress was not stormed till two o'clock in the morning, when a courageous fellow scaled a palisade on the back part of the house, and admitted his party, who rushed in, and secured the garrison. The son of Oades, who shot the woman, was tried for the murder, found guilty, but pardoned on his father's intercession, provided he banished himself. The villain who occasioned the ensuing advertisement mixed cruelty with his fraud. "Whereas a person who went by the name of Dr. Cock, did about two months since come to Mrs. Robinson, in Putney, being indisposed; he pretended to come from an acquaintance of hers from London to give her advice; accordingly he applied a plaster to her stomach, by which she has received a great deal of injury. He had for his fee ten shillings, and demanded six shillings for his plaster; it is supposed he took a handkerchief with him and a shirt. It appearing that nobody sent him, whoever can give notice of him, &c."