The populace had not indulged in their favourite excesses for several years; but, an opportunity occurring in September 1729, they seized it with avidity. The King had been to Hanover, and, returning in safety, a party from Whitechapel chose to express their loyalty by breaking many hundreds of windows on each side of the way between that place and Charing-cross, under a pretence that the inhabitants should have illuminated them. The damage done by these desperadoes is said to have amounted to more than 1000_l._; and it is remarkable that the King rode through the same street within an hour after the havock had been committed; no doubt, infinitely vexed that he was the innocent cause of so much injury to his peaceable subjects. The public mind was greatly agitated in 1733 by the introduction of an Excise bill into the House of Commons, which experienced great opposition, and was deferred till June in that year. The populace, highly elated, made effigies of the Minister, burnt them in various places, and demonstrated their joy by breaking numbers of windows. This excess was repeated on the anniversary of the above event with increased violence, when, in addition to breaking the Lord Mayor's windows, they broke his officers' heads; but several of the ringleaders were apprehended, and sent to different prisons. On the 30th of March, 1734, a disgraceful tumult occurred in Suffolk-street, Charing-cross, occasioned by several young men whose situation in life ought to have produced far different conduct. They met at a house in the above street under the denomination of the Calves-head club, prepared a fire before the door, and after several indecent orgies appeared at the first-floor windows with wine and a calf's head dressed in a napkin cap, which they threw into the flames with loud huzzas. As the populace assembled round the fire were entertained with plenty of beer, they shouted at many of the toasts drank by the _Club_; but, some being proposed that interfered with the Majesty of the People, they were considered as the signal for attack, which immediately commenced with so much impetuosity as to render it necessary for the founders of the feast to fly for their lives. The mob broke all the windows of the house, forcibly entered it, and demolished every article in their way, to the amount of several hundred pounds. The royal guards put an end to the tumult. I have a print, published immediately after the transaction, which faithfully represents the wickedness and folly of it.