"A person takes a ticket at the door, and pays a shilling for it; he then goes to a servant with whom he is acquainted, who returns the shilling to him, and takes his ticket, for which the master must allow the servant a shilling when he comes to account with him. In this case, it is manifest, the person is admitted for nothing. In the other case, the servant may make a private advantage of the tickets, and that as follows: a person sells his ticket to the servant (suppose for ten pence), here the servant would gain two-pence, which is all the person pays for being admitted; and the master gets nothing, because he must allow the whole shilling to the servant as above. "As it is obvious from these several considerations, that the company may be vastly incommoded, and the master in danger of being ruined; because servants may be induced to encourage great numbers of the inferior sort to come to the gardens, since this would be so much to their advantage: for these reasons he humbly presumes, that the publick will be fully convinced of the necessity he is under of taking a shilling at the gate for the future, without giving a ticket for it; and his servants have strict orders to solicit no person to call for any thing, upon pain of being immediately discharged." Some wags _amused_ the publick with a most solemn exhibition in June 1736, which originated from a call of Serjeants at Law. Those merry gentlemen, well acquainted with classic story, dressed a huge _Owl_ in a coif and band, and placed him on a broom staff over a door opposite Lancaster-court. Minerva's favourite bird was afterwards observed to behave with great gravity, and particularly during the time his learned brethren were passing in procession under him; one flap of his band was inscribed _Ecce!_ the other _Fratrem_. The recent amusements afforded by riding asses as ponies, and racing on them, although strong efforts of modern sagacity, were anticipated by our forefathers. An Ass-race attracted vast crowds of people to May-fair in 1736, where there was doubtlessly much good betting. Fleetwood, the proprietor of Drury-lane Theatre, offered a reward of fifty guineas for the discovery of the author or authors of an incendiary letter sent to him in 1737: "SIR, "We are willing to admonish you before we attempt our design; and provide you will use us civil, and admit us into your gallery, which is our property according to formalities; and if you think proper to come to a composition this way, you'll hear no further; and if not, our intention is to combine in a body _incognito_, and reduce the playhouse to the ground; we are "INDEMNIFIED."