To be caught in the rain was a terrible ordeal for the curls; but accidents by fire were still more calamitous. At a display of fireworks, an old writer says, the spectators screwed themselves up in the balconies to avoid the fireworks, “which instantly assaulted the perukes of the gallants and the merkins of the madams.” Wigs, too, being of considerable value, were frequently stolen from the head. Gay gives an instance of a very artful dodge: “Where the mob gathers swiftly shoot along, Nor idly mingle in the noisy throng. * * * * * Nor is thy flaxen wig with safety worn. High on the shoulder, in the basket borne, Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred, Plucks off the curling honours of the head.” To be brought into actual contact with a powdered beau, was reckoned one of the misadventures which a prudent man would wish to avoid. “You’ll sometimes meet a fop of nicest tread, Whose mantling peruke veils his empty head, At every step he dreads the wall to lose, And risks, to save a coach, his red-heeled shoes; Him, like the miller, pass with caution by, Lest from his shoulders clouds of powder fly.” While the coarser sex revelled in all the luxury of full perriwigs, we may be sure the fair sex bestowed as great attention on their hair. If enterprises of great moment were undertaken by the wigs, there was fearful slaughter of human hearts from the masked batteries of the ladies’ smiles. In “Love’s Bill of Mortality,” given at length in the _Spectator_, we read of one, “Jack Freelove, murdered by Melissa in her hair.” “The toilet,” says Addison, “is their great scene of business, and the right adjustment of their hair the principal employment of their lives.” “At her toilet she puts on every toy That ladies use when eager to destroy; Three hours by the clock, (and some say four), She sat in polishing her form all o’er, And culling arrows from her fatal store.” The resources of a lady’s toilet were too numerous to be brought within the compass of Cowley’s verse. He declines “To relate The strength and riches of their state-- The powder, patches, and the pins, The ribbons, jewels, and the rings, The lace, the paint, and warlike things, That make up all their magazines.”