[Illustration: Drop-L]ondon, at the beginning of the reign of George III., was, as it had been for many years, in a condition resembling the capital of Dahomey at the present time. It could not be entered by any suburb, including the Thames, without the nose and eyes being afflicted by the numerous rottening bodies of criminals gibbeted in chains. The heads of two rebels still looked ghastly from Temple Bar. The bodies on gibbets often created a pestilence. The inhabitants of the infected districts earnestly petitioned to be relieved from the horrible oppression. If their petition was unheeded they took means to relieve themselves. A most significant paragraph in the papers states that ‘_All_ the gibbets in the Edgware Road were sawn down in one night.’ Not only the suburban roads, but the streets and squares were infested by highwaymen and footpads. Robberies (with violence) were not only committed by night, but by day. Murders were perpetrated out of mere wantonness, and a monthly score of delinquents, of extremely wide apart offences, were strangled at Tyburn, without improvement to society. It was still a delight to the mob to kill some very filthy offender in the pillory, who generally was not more unclean than his assassins. Ladies going to or from Court in their chairs were often robbed of their diamonds, the chairmen feigning a defence which helped the robbers. A prince or princess returning to London from Hampton Court would now and then pick up a half-murdered wretch in a ditch, and drop him at the first apothecary’s in town. The brutal school boys of St. Bride’s, imitating their fathers, took to violence as a pastime. They could sweep into Fleet Street with clubs, knock down all whom they could reach, and retreat all the prouder if they left a dead victim on the field. There was anarchy in the streets and highways, but it is a comfort to find that at the Chapel Royal, there were none but ‘extreme polite audiences.’ Indeed, the sons of violence themselves were not without politeness. A batch of one hundred of those of whom the gallows had been disappointed, were marched from Newgate to the river side, to embark for the Plantations. A fife band preceded them, playing ‘Through the wood, laddie!’ The convicts roared out the song. ‘You are very joyous?’ said a spectator. ‘Joyous!’ cried one of the rascals, ‘you only come with us and you’ll find yourself _transported_!’ [Sidenote: _GOOD FEELING._]