The day of General Thanksgiving was very sober, comparatively. Both Houses of Parliament attended Divine service, as did the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, who went in state to St. Paul’s. Most of the churches were well filled, and flags flew, and bells rung, all day. In July came a General Election, which evoked a lawless saturnalia throughout the length and breadth of the land. An election in our own times—before the ballot brought peace—was bad enough, but then the duration of the polling was nothing like it was in the days of which I write. The County polling lasted fourteen days; Boroughs, seven days. The _Morning Herald_, July 14, 1802, thus speaks of the Middlesex election: “During the business of polling, the populace amused themselves in varieties of whimsicalities, one of which was the exhibition of a man on the shoulders of another, handcuffed and heavily ironed, while a third was employed in flogging him with a tremendous cat-o’-nine-tails, and the man who received the punishment, by his contortions of countenance, seemed to experience all the misery which such a mode of punishment inflicts. The shops were all shut in Brentford, and the road leading to London was lined on each side with crowds of idle spectators. It is impossible for any but those who have witnessed a Middlesex election to conceive the picture it exhibits; it is one continual scene of riot, disorder, and tumult.” And, whilst on the subject of Politics, although they have no proper place in this history, as it deals more especially with the social aspect of this portion of the Century, yet it is interesting to be acquainted with the living aspect of some of the politicians of the time, and, thanks to Gillray, they are forthcoming in two of his pictures I have here given.