Nothing seems grander than to hear of a city illuminated in honor of a victory or peace, or the King's birthday. For the most part, however, the grand illumination consisted of nothing but a thin candle stuck in a lump of clay in the window. In the days before the policeman there was a good deal of rough-and-ready justice done in the streets--pickpockets were held under the pump till they were half-dead; informers were pelted through the streets, tarred, and feathered; those worthy citizens who beat their wives were serenaded with pots and pans, and had to endure the cries of indignant matrons. The stocks were always in view; the pillory was constantly in use. Now, the pillory was essentially punishment by the people; if they sympathized with the culprit, he escaped even disgrace; if they condemned him, addled eggs, rotten potatoes, turnips, dead cats, mud and filth, flying in his face, proclaimed aloud the opinion of the people. One thing more--the universal patten. When women went abroad all wore pattens; it was a sensible fashion in days of bad pavements and muddy crossings, as Gay wrote kindly, yet with doubtful philology: "The patten now supports each frugal dame, Which from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name." There was also great expense and ostentation observed at funerals; every little shopkeeper, it was observed, must have a hearse and half a dozen mourning-coaches to be carried a hundred yards to the parish church-yard. They were often conducted at night, in order to set off the ceremony by hired mourners bearing flambeaux. The amount of flogging in the army and navy is appalling to think of. That carried on ashore is a subject of some obscurity. The punishment of whipping has never been taken out of our laws. Garroters, and robbers who are violent are still flogged, and boys are birched. I know not when they ceased to flog men through the streets at the cart-tail, nor when they left off flogging women. The practice certainly continued well into the century. In the prisons it was a common thing to flog the men. As for the severity of the laws protecting property, one illustration will suffice. What can be thought of laws which allowed the hanging of two children for stealing a purse with two shillings and a brass counter in it? Something, however, may be said for Father Stick. He ordered everything, directed everything, superintended everything. Without him nothing was ever done; nothing could be done. Men were flogged into drill and discipline, they were flogged into courage, they were flogged into obedience, boys were flogged into learning, prentices were flogged into diligence, women were flogged into virtue. Father Stick has still his disciples, but in the last century he was king.