Bad roads and ill-lighted ways are said to be proofs of indifferent civilisation when they are to be found in the neighbourhood of great cities. If this be so, then civilisation was not greatly advanced among us, in this respect, a century and a quarter ago. Thus we read that on the 21st of November 1730, ‘the King and Queen, coming from Kew Green to St. James’s, were overturned in their coach, near Lord Peterborough’s, at Parson’s Green, about six in the evening, the wind having blown out the flambeaux, so that the coachman could not see his way. But their Majesties received no hurt, nor the two ladies who were in the coach with them.’ If here was want of civilisation, there was positive barbarity in other matters. For instance, here is a paragraph from the news of the day, under date of the 10th of June 1731. ‘Joseph Crook, _alias_ Sir Peter Stranger, stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, for forging a deed; and after he had stood an hour, a chair was brought to the pillory scaffold, in which he was placed, and the hangman with a pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and with a pair of scissors slit both his nostrils, all which he bore with much patience; but when his right nostril was seared with a hot iron, the pain was so violent he could not bear it; whereupon his left nostril was not seared, but he was carried bleeding to a neighbouring tavern, where he was as merry at dinner with his friends, after a surgeon had dressed his wounds, as if nothing of the kind had happened. He was afterwards imprisoned for life in the King’s Bench, and the issues and profits of his lands were confiscated for his life, according to his sentence.’ It was the period when savage punishment was very arbitrarily administered; and shortly after Sir Peter was mangled, without detriment to his gaiety, at Charing Cross, the gallant Captain Petre had very nearly got hanged at Constantinople. That gallant sailor and notable courtier had entertained our ambassador, Lord Kinneal, on board his ship, and honoured him, on leaving the vessel at nine o’clock at night, with a salute of fifteen guns. The Sultan happened to have gone to bed, and was aroused from his early slumbers by the report. He was so enraged, that he ordered the captain to be seized, bastinadoed, and hanged; and so little were King George and Queen Caroline, and England to boot, thought of in Turkey at that day, that it was with the greatest difficulty that the British ambassador could prevail on the Sultan to pardon the offender. The court laughed at the incident. Cromwell would have avenged the affront.