It is not often that thefts can be narrated which are calculated to excite a smile; and yet I am much mistaken if the reader doth not relax his risible faculties, when he is informed of a singular method of stealing wigs, practised in 1717. This I present him _verbatim_ from the Weekly Journal of March 30. "The Thieves have got such a villainous way now of robbing gentlemen, that they cut holes through the backs of Hackney coaches, and take away their wigs, or fine head-dresses of gentlewomen; so a gentleman was served last Sunday in Tooley-street, and another but last Tuesday in Fenchurch-street; wherefore, this may serve for a caution to gentlemen or gentlewomen that ride single in the night-time, to sit on the fore-seat, which will prevent that way of robbing." The first notice of Mr. Law, the chief Director of the Royal Bank at Paris, that I have met with, was in August 1717; when it was said he had betted that the French State-bills would not fall 10 _per cent._ within a year, and given 10 Louis to receive 100 if he won; he offered the earl of Stair 100 for 1000 in the same way, which was refused; and the event proved, that the bills fell 50 _per cent._ Gaming was dreadfully prevalent in 1718. This will be demonstrated by the effect of one night's search by the Leet Jury of Westminster, who presented no less than 35 houses to the Justices for prosecution. The Society for the Reformation of Manners published the ensuing effects of their labours for one year, ending in December 1718. Prosecuted for lewd and disorderly practices, 1253. Keeping of bawdy and disorderly houses, 31. Exercising their trades or callings on the Lord's-day, 492. Profane swearing and cursing, 202. Drunkenness, 17. Keeping common gaming-houses, 8. We have now arrived at a grand æra of villainy, the golden harvest of scheming, in which Mr. Law acted the first part in France. A person under the signature of Publicus, in the Thursday's Journal of December 17, 1719, very justly observes: "If any of the days of us or our forefathers might be called the _projecting_ age, I think this is the time. If ever there was a nation that had been 23 years ruining itself and recovered in a moment, this is the time. If ever a government paid its debts without money, and exchanged all the cash in the kingdom for bits of paper, which had neither anybody to pay them for, or any intrinsic fund to pay themselves, this is the time. If ever a credit was raised without a foundation, and built up to a height that not only was likely to fall, but indeed was impossible to stand, this is the time."