One must not, again, charge the City at this time with being more than commonly pestered by rogues. The revelations of the Elizabethan moralists, and the glimpses we get of mediæval rogues, forbid this accusation. At the same time there was a good standing mass of solid wickedness. Contemporary literature proves this, if any proof were wanted, abundantly. There is a work of some literary value called the _Life of Meriton Latroon_, in which is set forth an immense quantity of rogueries. Among other things the writer shows the tricks of trade, placing his characters in many kinds of shops, so as to give his experiences in each. We are thus enabled to perceive that there were sharpers and cheats in respectable-looking shops then, as now. And there seems no reason to believe that the cheats were in greater proportion to the honest men than they are now. Besides the tricks of the masters, the honest Meriton Latroon shows us the ways of the London prentice, which were highly promising for the future of the City. He robbed his master as much as he dared: he robbed him of money; he robbed him of stuffs and goods; he ruined the maids; he belonged to a club which met on Saturday nights, when the master was at his country-box, and exchanged, for the common good, the robberies of the week. After this they feasted and drank with young Bona Robas, who stole from them the money they had stolen from their shops. It is a beautiful picture, and would by some moralists be set down to the evil example of King Charles, who is generally held responsible for the whole of the wickedness of the people during his reign. But these prentices knew nothing of the court, and the thing had been going on all through the Protectorate, and, for that matter, I dare say as far back as the original institution of apprenticeship. One would fain hope that not all the City apprentices belonged to this club. Otherwise, one thinks that the burning of London ought to have been the end of London.