The ushering of ladies out of the pit was one of the formal indications that serious mischief was afoot. This was the first ceremony observed at Drury Lane in January 1740, when the riot took place consequent on the non-appearance of a French dancer, Madame Chateauneuf. When the ladies had been sent home, a noble marquis suggested, and warmly recommended, that it would be well and proper to set fire to the house! This atrocious proposal was considered but not adopted. The aristocratic rioters contented themselves with destroying the musical instruments, fittings, and costly adornments, sweeping down the panel partitions of the boxes, and finally pulling down the royal arms. The offence, however, was condoned, on the most noble marquis sending £100 to the manager, who submitted to defray the remainder of the cost of reparation rather than further provoke his excellent patrons. The mixture of ferocity and gallantry in the audiences of these times was remarkable. When Miller, most unlucky of clergymen, produced his farce of the "Coffee-House," he caused the Temple to heave with indignation. Under the temple gate there was a coffee-house, kept by Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, and as there was not only a similar pair in Miller's piece, but a woodcut on the title-page of the printed copy, which bore some likeness to the snug little place where Templars loved to congregate, those gentlemen took offence as at an insult levelled at their fair hostesses, and went down in a body to the theatre, whence they procured the expulsion of the piece. Nor did they ever suffer a subsequent play of Miller's to succeed. The Templars never forgave him his unintentional caricature of the buxom hostess, and Hebe her daughter, who presided over the aromatic cups dispensed by them beneath the Temple gates. In contests like these, where opposition was expected, it was no unusual thing for one or both parties to hire a body of professional "bruisers." The side which possessed the greatest number of these Bashi-Bazouks generally carried the day. When the town took sides, in 1743, in the quarrel between Garrick and Macklin, where the right was altogether with the former, Dr. Barrowby headed a phalanx of sturdy Macklinites; but Garrick, or Garrick's friends, sent against them a formidable band of thirty boxers, who went in, cracked skulls, cleared the pit, and established tranquillity!