health, he laboured incessantly. He often sat on the bench for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, returning to Bow Street after a long day's work to resume it from seven p.m. till midnight. He did a great public service in devising and executing a plan for the extirpation of robbers, although the benefit was but temporary. This was in 1753, when the whole town seemed at the mercy of the depredators. The Duke of Newcastle, at that time Secretary of State, sent for Fielding, who unfolded a scheme whereby, if £600 were placed at his disposal, he engaged to effect a cure. After his first advance from the Treasury he was able to report that "the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed, seven of them were in actual custody, and the rest driven, some out of the town, the rest out of the kingdom." He had nearly killed himself in the effort. "Though my health was reduced to the last extremity ... I had the satisfaction of finding ... that the hellish society was almost entirely extirpated"; that, instead of "reading about murders and street robberies in the newspapers every morning," they had altogether ceased. His plan had not cost the Government more than £300, and "had actually suppressed the evil for a time." It was only for a brief space, however; and his brother, blind Sir John Fielding, who succeeded him at Bow Street, frankly confessed that new gangs had sprung up in place of those recently dispersed. But he bravely set himself to combat the evil, and adopted his brother's methods. He first grappled with the street robbers, and in less than three months had brought nine of them to the gallows. Next he dealt with the highwaymen infesting the road near London, "so that scarce one escaped." The housebreakers, lead-stealers, shoplifters, and all the small fry of pickpockets and petty larcenists were increasingly harried and in a large measure suppressed. He organised a scheme for protecting the suburbs, by which the residents subscribed to meet the expense of transmitting immediate news to Bow Street by mounted messengers, with full particulars of articles stolen, and the description of the robber; the same messenger was to give information at the turnpikes and public-houses _en route_, and thus a hue and cry could be raised and the offender would probably soon be captured. At the same time a notice would be inserted in the _Public Advertiser_ warning tavern-keepers, stable-keepers, and pawnbrokers, the first against harbouring rogues, the second against hiring out horses to the persons described, the third against purchasing goods which were the proceeds of a robbery.