puysaunt rybaudes, the whiche wyll not laboure, but lyve, as these beggers, without doynge ony thynge, the whiche be dronke oftentymes. They be well at ease to have grete legges and bellyes eten to the bonis; for they wyll not put noo medycynes therto for to hele them, but soner envenymeth them, and dyvers other begylynges of which I holde my pease. O poore frantyke fooles, the whiche robbeth them that hathe no brede for to ete, and by adventure dare not aske none for shame, the auncyent men, poore wedowes, lazars, and blynde men. Alas! thynke thereon, for truely ye shall gyve accomptes before Hym that created us." In the year 1566, Thomas Harman, Esq., probably a justice of peace, published a very singular and amusing work, entitled, "A Caveat, or Warning for Common Cursetors (runners) vulgarely called Vagabones;" in which he has described the several sorts of thieving beggars and other rogues with considerable humour, and has collected together a great number of words belonging to what he humorously calls the "leud lousey language of these lewtering luskes and lazy lorrels, wherewith they bye and sell the common people as they pas through the countrey." He says they term this language _Pedlar's French_, or, _Canting_, which had not then been invented above thirty years. As the book has lately been reprinted, it will be proper, on this occasion, to use it more sparingly, and to mention only such of Harman's vagabonds as fall under the begging class. These are 1. The _Rufflers_; particularly mentioned in the Stat. xxvii. Henry VIII. against vagabonds, as fellows pretending to be wounded soldiers. These, says Harman, after a year or two's practice, unless they be prevented by twined hemp, become,--2. _Upright Men_; still pretending to have served in the wars, and offering, though never intending, to work for their living. They decline receiving meat or drink, and take nothing but money by way of charity, but contrive to steal pigs and poultry at night, chiefly plundering the farmers. Of late, says the author, they have been much whipped at fairs. They attack and rob other beggars that do not belong to their own fraternity, occasionally admitting or installing them into it by pouring a quart of liquor on their pates, with these words, "I do stall thee, W. T., to the rogue, and that from henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant for thy living in all places." All sorts of beggars are obedient to them, and they surpass all the rest in pilfering and stealing. 3. _Hookers_, or _Anglers_; these knaves beg by day, and pilfer at night, by means of a pole with a hook at the end, with which they lay hold of linen, or any thing hanging from windows or elsewhere. The author relates a curious feat of dexterity practised by one of them at a farm house, where, in the dead of the night, he contrived to hook off the bed-clothes from three men who were lying asleep, leaving them in their shirts, and when