From The Lights I Come Very Naturally To Speak Of The Night-Guards
Or Watch.
Each watch consists of a constable and a certain number
of watchmen, who have a guard-room or watch-
House in some certain
place, from whence watchmen are despatched every hour, to patrol in
the streets and places in each constable's district; to see if all
be safe from fire and thieves; and as they pass they give the hour
of the night, and with their staves strike at the door of every
house.
If they meet with any persons they suspect of ill designs,
quarrelsome people, or lewd women in the streets, they are empowered
to carry them before the constable at his watch-house, who confines
them till morning, when they are brought before a justice of the
peace, who commits them to prison or releases them, according as the
circumstances of the case are.
Mobs and tumults were formerly very terrible in this great city; not
only private men have been insulted and abused, and their houses
demolished, but even the Court and Parliament have been influenced
or awed by them. But there is now seldom seen a multitude of people
assembled, unless it be to attend some malefactor to his execution,
or to pelt a villain in the pillory, the last of which being an
outrage that the Government has ever seemed to wink at; and it is
observed by some that the mob are pretty just upon these occasions;
they seldom falling upon any but notorious rascals, such as are
guilty of perjury, forgery, scandalous practices, or keeping of low
houses, and these with rotten eggs, apples, and turnips, they
frequently maul unmercifully, unless the offender has money enough
to bribe the constables and officers to protect him.
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