Yet a sufficient number of watchmen, constables, and justices of the peace, was not wanting. Of these, the first were armed with halberds, which, in Shakspeare's time, were called _bills_, and they usually carried a lanthorn in one hand, and sometimes a bell in the other, resting the halberd on the shoulder.[166:A] Notwithstanding these official characters, however, the peace of the city was frequently more effectually preserved by the interference of the apprentices, than by that of the appointed guardians of public order; for it appears, from Shakspeare's dramas, that the cry of _Clubs!_ was a signal for the apprentices to arm themselves with these weapons, and quell the disturbance. Thus in _King Henry the Eighth_, act v. sc. 3., the Porter's man says:—"I hit that woman who cried out, _clubs!_ when I might see from far some forty truncheoneers draw to her succour, which were the hope of the Strand[166:B];" and in _Henry the Sixth, Part the First_, even the Mayor of London is represented, on occasion of a quarrel between the partizans of the Duke of Gloucester and the Cardinal of Winchester, as threatening to call in similar assistance:— "I'll call for _clubs_, if you will not away."[166:C] We cannot wonder that the inferior officers of the Police should be slack in the performance of their duty, when we recollect, that the Justices of the Peace, in these days, especially those resident in the metropolis, were so open to bribery, that many of them obtained the appellation of _Basket Justices_; nor did a member of the House of Commons hesitate, during the reign of Elizabeth, to describe a justice of the peace as "an animal who for half a dozen of chickens would readily dispense with a dozen penal laws."[166:D] Many customs of a miscellaneous nature might with ease be extracted from the dramas of our poet; but to give them any relative bearing or concatenation would be nearly impossible, and a totally insulated detail of minute circumstances, would prove tedious to the most persevering reader. Enough, we trust, has been collected to throw no feeble light on the general manners and modes of living, of the period under consideration, especially if it be recollected that the full picture is to be formed from a combination of this with the similar chapter, in a former part of the work, on the costume of rural life. FOOTNOTES: [89:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 289, 290.—Harrison's Description of England. [90:A] Paul Hentzner's Travels in England: translated by Lord Orford. Edward Jeffery's edit. 8vo. 1797. p. 34, 35. [91:A] Nugæ Antiquæ apud Park, vol. i. p. 361. [91:B] Ibid. p. 170. [91:C] Ibid. p. 118. [92:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 526, 527. note 2. [92:B] Ibid. vol. vi. p. 63. Much Ado About Nothing, act ii. sc. 3. [93:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 314. Act iii. sc. 2. [93:B] Ibid. vol. iv. p. 289. Act iv. sc. 4.