The ‘Inspector’ of the _London Daily Advertiser_ took his friend the old Major, to Cupid’s Gardens (as they were still called) on a pleasant August evening in this year. The Major was delighted with all he saw. “Now I like this. I am always pleased when I see other people happy: the folks that are rambling about among the trees there; the jovial countenances of them delight me ... here’s all the festivity and all the harmless indulgence of a country wake.”[281] The country wake element was in evidence late in the evening, and constables stationed at the gate had occasionally to interfere. One night, for instance, a pretty young woman, accompanied by a friend, promenaded the gardens dressed as a man wearing a long sword. No small sensation was caused in the miscellaneous company, which included a physician, a templar, a berouged old lady and her granddaughter, and the sedate wife of a Cheapside fur-seller. “A spirited young thing with a lively air and smart cock of her hat” passed by. “Gad,” said she, as she tripped along, “I don’t see there’s anything in it; give us their cloathes and we shall look as sharp and as rakish as they do.” “What an air! what a gate! what a tread the baggage has!” exclaimed another. But the days of Cuper’s were numbered. In the early part of 1752 the statute-book had been dignified by the addition of 25 George II., cap. 36, entitled, “An Act for the better preventing thefts and robberies and for regulating places of public entertainment and punishing persons keeping disorderly houses.” By section 2 of this enactment it was required that every house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing or music, &c., within the cities of London and Westminster, or twenty miles thereof, should be under a licence. The Act took effect from December 1, 1752, and the necessary licence for the season of 1753 was refused to the management of Cuper’s Gardens. The widow Evans complained bitterly that she was denied the liberty of opening her gardens, a misfortune attributed by her to the malicious representations of ill-meaning persons, but which was really owing, no doubt, to the circumstance that Cuper’s was degenerating into the place which Pennant says he remembered as the scene of low dissipation. Meanwhile Mrs. Evans threw open the grounds (June 1753) as a tea-garden in connection with the Feathers, and the walks were “kept in pleasant order.”