"It appears that they have made good harvest, this summer, of female credulity, and have often gained a guinea on a Sunday. Not only young girls, panting for matrimony, have been their dupes, but the well experienced dames, curious to trace the steps of their dear _spouses_, have paid liberally for discovery, as the following story will prove: On Thursday, as two Gentlemen, who dined at Norwood, were looking out of a window, they observed a respectable, well-dressed woman in deep consultation, for a sum paid to the old gypsey. They observed the good woman greatly agitated, and heard her ask 'If she was sure it was true'? On being answered 'As sure as God was in heaven' she gave the gypsey a further sum, and made further enquiry, and at last gave her a good pocket-handkerchief, and departed seemingly full of vengeance. The gentlemen, curious to learn the nature of the good woman's consultation, sent for the old gypsey, who candidly told them, that she enquired of her if her husband was continent, and that she answered he was not, and thereby obtained three presents instead of one."--(_Times, Aug. 22, 1797._) Partridge shooting began on 14th September then, instead of the 1st as now. "FOURTEENTH OF SEPTEMBER. "Bemired up to the knees, wetted from head to foot by the incessant rain, fatigued and disappointed, the Cocknies yesterday returned from their annual field-sport, with very little game indeed. A detachment from Cheapside, which had filed off early in the morning, toward Hampstead, with the locks of their fowling-pieces wrapped up in their handkerchiefs, were so galled by the rain, that they got no further than _Old Mother Red Cap's_, where they diverted themselves all day with firing from a window at some Dutch-pins in the skittle ground. One of these pins was mortally wounded in the belly by Ensign _Tight Breeches_, a man milliner's foreman, who drove a ball into it, at the amazing distance of two yards, without letting the gun fall out of his hand. "Six journeymen weavers, from Spital-fields, who went in a chaise cart, to Ealing, with two guns, were rather more fortunate, in respect to Game. They killed a lame hen at Acton, shot one goose on the Common, wounded a large sow, and filled their pockets and Game-bags with turnips, and cabbages. They imagined they sprung a pheasant near Gunnersbury House,--but it proved to be an old turkey-cock. At Eleven, they returned, very wet, and very drunk, having lost one of their guns, and broke the stock of the other, by flinging it at a tame rabbit, in a farmer's yard.