Another French writer in 1784—M. La Combe—published a book, entitled ’A Picture of London,’ in which, _inter alia_, he says: ’The highroads thirty or forty miles round London are filled with armed highwaymen and footpads.’ This was then pretty true, though the expression ’filled’ is somewhat of an exaggeration. The medical student of forty or fifty years ago seems to have been anticipated in 1784, for M. La Combe tells us that ’the brass knockers of doors, which cost from 12s. to 15s., are stolen at night if the maid forgets to unscrew them’—a precaution which seems to have gone out of fashion. ’The arrival of the mails,’ our author says, ’is uncertain at all times of the year.... Persons who frequently receive letters should recommend their correspondents not to insert loose papers, nor to put the letters in covers, because the tax is sometimes treble, and always arbitrary, though in a free country. But rapacity and injustice are the deities of the English.’ M. La Combe does not give us a flattering character. ’An Englishman,’ he says, ’considers a foreigner as an enemy, whom he dares not offend openly, but whose society he fears; and he attaches himself to no one.’ Perhaps it was so in 1784, but such feelings have nearly died out—at least, among educated people. M. La Combe, in another part of his book, exclaims: ’How are you changed, Londoners! ... Your women are become bold, imperious, and expensive. Bankrupts and beggars, coiners, spies and informers, robbers and pickpockets abound.... The baker mixes alum in his bread ... the brewer puts opium and copper filings in his beer ... the milkwoman spoils her milk with snails.’ Do more recent writers judge of us more correctly? We shall see.