The labourers and weavers of Spitalfields were infected with a contagious _mania_ at the same period, which led them to suppose that numbers of Irishmen had recently arrived in London, for the purpose of working at under-prices and starving them. Influenced by a species of despair they assembled in crowds, and proceeded to Brick-lane, Whitechapel, where they immediately attacked a house supposed to contain Irishmen, and completely destroyed it, bearing away the furniture in triumph; but they lost one man, and had several wounded, by a musket discharged amongst them from the house. The neighbouring Magistrates, alarmed at this outrage, immediately attended at the scene of action, and read the Riot Act, but without effect, although the Tower Hamlet association and a party of the Tower guard were summoned to their assistance; nor did they desist till a company of Regulars dispersed them by force. Several severe combats occurred between the English and Irish in other parts of the town, in which much mischief was done to each party. The cause appears to have originated chiefly through the parsimony of the person who contracted to erect the new church of St. Leonard Shoreditch, in employing no other than Irish labourers at five or six shillings a week, when the British demanded twelve shillings. These two affairs occurring nearly together led government to suspect the authors of the paper-plot, and the rioters, or at least their leaders, to have been connected in seditious if not treasonable designs. An estimate was made in July 1738 of the numbers convicted under the Act for preventing the excessive use of spirituous liquors. Claims were entered at the Excise-office by 4000 persons for the 5_l._ allowed to the informer from the penalty of 100_l._, 4896 such convictions having taken place. 3000 persons paid 10_l._ each to avoid being sent to Bridewell; and it was computed that 12,000 informations had been laid within the bills of mortality only. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the newspapers frequently mentioned the quiet and decency observed in the streets subsequent to these convictions; but in effecting them several informers were killed, and others dreadfully hurt, by the mob.