May Fair, which had long been falling into disrepute, now ceased to be held. It was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex four years successively as a nuisance; and the county magistrates then presented an address to the Crown, praying for its suppression by royal proclamation. Pennant, who says that he remembered the last May Fair, describes the locality as "covered with booths, temporary theatres, and every enticement to low pleasure." A more particular description was given in 1774, in a communication from Carter, the antiquary, to the "Gentleman's Magazine." "A mountebank's stage," he tells us, "was erected opposite the Three Jolly Butchers public-house (on the east side of the market area, now the King's Arms). Here Woodward, the inimitable comedian and harlequin, made his first appearance as Merry Andrew; from these humble boards he soon after made his way to Covent Garden Theatre. Then there was 'beheading of puppets.' In a coal-shed attached to a grocer's shop (then Mr. Frith's, now Mr. Frampton's), one of these mock executions was exposed to the attending crowd. A shutter was fixed horizontally, on the edge of which, after many previous ceremonies, a puppet laid its head, and another puppet instantly chopped it off with an axe. In a circular stair-case window, at the north end of Sun Court, a similar performance took place by another set of puppets. In these representations, the late punishment of the Scottish chieftain (Lord Lovat) was alluded to, in order to gratify the feelings of southern loyalty, at the expense of that further north.