John Ashton

“ It is more than probable that severe flagellation, such as military codes prescribe, would prove infinitely more formidable in detering villainy: and it is, at least, worth the experiment of a statute, which costs nothing, to try whether the penalty of 500, or 1000 lashes, which would not cost the country one shilling, would not prove a stronger barrier against larcenies, and clergyable felonies, than transportation to Botany Bay, at the enormous expense of £60 or 80 per man, which operates in reality as a heavy penalty on the Republic of honest men, and a bounty on villainy. ”

“ No history of England, that I know of, has ever given us so graphic a description of the ways and means for procuring men for the Navy, as the Newspapers of the time, and in this, as in many other things, their help is invaluable.
When we find from what classes the Navy was recruited, we wonder at what the men went through, without much murmuring; and, if their very moderate, and just, demands, had been met in a conciliatory spirit, or even, officially investigated, instead of being pooh-poohed, and shelved—there would have been no mutiny at the Nore, nor elsewhere. ”

“ What may, and must, surprise a number of Britons is, that in most of the late Opposition families of eminence, the principal servants are Frenchmen:—and it is necessary to make public, that these foreigners, under the roofs of those who give them bread, utter the most treasonable blasphemies against the present Government of this country. As some new tax may be requisite, to assist the necessary resources of Government, a most heavy impost on French servants would be extremely popular. ”

“ During the reign of the flat sole, the Ladies make more faux-pas than ever, so that we need entertain no apprehensions for them, if they chuse to get upon stilts. What with high heels and high feathers, the better half of many an honest man is just one third part of herself."— (Times, August 27, 1796.)
"Fashion would be its own murderer, if it were to be constant and permanent. The last year's dress seems to abdicate entirely; even the waist is walking down towards the hip; and three straps, with buckles in front, have abridged so much of the usurpation of the petticoat. ”

“ We are sorry to observe, that the people are instigated to riot by the false representations daily made in those Jacobin prints, which are, at all times, so eager to announce, and magnify, every public misfortune. ”

“ This was a serious riot. The mob at that time was peculiarly excitable, and had a great deal more of its own way than it has now. So a spark only was wanted to make a flame. This was found in a rumoured case of kidnapping for the army; impressing for the navy could be understood, because it had obtained from time immemorial, that when the king wanted men to man his war vessels, he took seamen, or fishermen, but this was something new, and must be put down, otherwise no man was safe. ”

“ It is a known fact, that so far are the miscreants, who usually come under sentence of transportation, from considering it a punishment, that they laugh at the joke, and consider it a very great benefit.—Adventurous spirits like those, averse to all manner of industry, insensible to ignominy, and totally unconscious of any such feelings as the amor patriæ, delight in nothing more, than shifting the scene, and being conveyed to a distant country, from that in which they have no hope of existing, but at the perpetual risk of the gallows. ”

“ It is a pity we have not the key to the portraits of the bystanders, for portraits they, undoubtedly, are, because there is such individuality in the expression of their several countenances. The players we can easily recognise—Lady Archer, at the extreme left, has won largely, rouleaux of gold, and bank notes, are before her, and on her right hand are two heaps of loose gold;—with what a smiling countenance does the painted old gambler shew her cards, saying, "The Knave wins all!" ”

“ THE BOND STREET LOUNGE.
AN IMPROMPTU.
Modo vir, modo fœmina.—Virgil.
(Times, January 7th, 1796.)
When men in Petty-Coats appear,
No wonder Wives the breeches wear:
Assuming manners quite robust,
Game, swear, drive, box, or take a thrust.
But happier far would be the case,
Were each to keep their proper place:
The fair ones wear the female dress,
And men adorn their persons less;
For such the fashion of the day,
They make it difficult to say,
Whether the pretty things we meet,
Parading through their fav'rite street,
A Male or Female we may call,
Their shapes are so equivocal. ”

“ She foretold that the united forces would not succeed in their attack upon France: that England must inevitably be speedily involved in war, from the convulsed state of the Continent:—She said, that if foreign Powers would take no hostile part against the French, that they would prey like wolves upon each other, and do more towards a Counterrevolution, by their frenzy being vented in internal discord, than all Europe would ever force them to do. ”

“ A person who has been six months deprived of what he calls Heaven's chiefest blessing, domestic happiness, is not ashamed of thus avowing his intention of again endeavouring to regain, by Marriage, that solid felicity he so much regrets the loss of, and hopes this way to become acquainted with some Maiden Lady, who has a soul superior to vulgar prejudices, and who will venture to go a little out of the beaten road, in order to form a truly rational plan for that sociable happiness which is only to be found in the Marriage State. ”

“ Although there was now a cessation of real attacks by the Monster, the public feeling rose to very fever height. As one newspaper remarked: "The Monster is now a mischief of more than common magnitude. Inhuman himself, the villainy is visited upon all who are of the same sex: alike the source of apprehension, terror, and flight. It is really distressing to walk our streets towards evening. Every woman we meet regards us with distrust, shrinks sidling from our touch, and expects a (p. 254) poignard to pierce what gallantry, and manhood, consider as sacred. ”

“ The King, as if impressed by the weight of the obligation which he owed to Heaven for his recovery, and full of the religious solemnity with which he was going, publicly, to acknowledge that obligation to the Almighty, seemed to be unusually grave and silent; and behaved, at this first appearance in public since his recovery, in a manner which filled the spectators with reverence and awe. ”

“ People were alarmed at the rapid growth of the National Debt, and, selling out of the funds, found other investments for their capital: there had been an enormous drain of bullion to subsidise the allies, and Pitt had borrowed from the Bank in the most reckless manner. It was in vain that the Bank remonstrated with him, but still he borrowed, so that at last he had to be told that if he took any more, it would probably lead to the insolvency of the Bank. ”

“ The number of new gaming-houses, established at the West End of the town, is, indeed, a matter of very serious evil: but they are not likely to decrease while examples of the same nature are held forth in the higher circles of life. It is needless to point out any one of these houses in particular: it is sufficient for us to expose the tricks that are practised at many of them to swindle the unsuspecting young men of fortune who are entrapped into these whirlpools of destruction. ”

“ Modern languages were rarely taught, Science was all but unknown, Latin and Greek were the chief branches of education, and rich men were keen collectors of everything classical, marble statues and busts, bronzes, and coins—so Italy was naturally the bourne of these travelled youths, and John Bull, who then was, in the aggregate, a very stay-at-home animal, derided them, when they came back, with the epithet Macaroni, an elegant title derived from the popular Italian dish. ”

“ See the following quotation from the Morning Post 4th July 1789:—"There is not a man in the nation, no not even Lord Effingham, who bestows so much time and attention in rendering the external appearance of his head, elegant in the extreme, than the Earl of Scarborough. It is said that his Lordship keeps six French frizeurs, who have nothing else to do than dress his hair. ”

“ Monday evening, as a lady was passing along Long-Acre, she was jostled into a Court by a number of those abandoned wretches, who to the disgrace of our police and magistrates, infest every corner of the Metropolis, where they stripped her of her cloak, bonnet, and of almost everything she had on, besides grossly insulting her. The Public Offices of Justice (p. 247) are every morning full of these women of the town, who have been taken up for their disorderly behaviour. But, while the connection between them and the Watchmen subsists, the evil must still remain. ”

“ Among the numerous causes which may be assigned for the present high prices of provisions, especially of poultry, the uniting of many small farms into one great one, is not the least. It is a well known fact, that, where three farms have been leased, or let, to one tenant, which three farms, antecedently, had each a separate tenant, no more poultry is produced by the union, than each separately reared, when divided, so that two-thirds are, of course, lost to the public. ”

“ The women at Paris are every day divesting themselves of some of the customary articles of dress, and the rage for nudity is so great, that it is apprehended, even by the Parisian Journalists, they will shortly have the effrontery to present themselves to the public eye in a state of pure nature. ”

“ I think it is the duty of every good master, and mistress, to stop, as much as possible, the present ridiculous, and extravagant, mode of dress in their domestics. View, on a Sunday, a tradesman's family coming from church, and you would be puzzled to distinguish the porter from his master, or the maid from her mistress. Formerly a plaited cap, and a white handkerchief, served a young woman three, or four, Sundays. ”

“ When the dinner hour arrives, after these sprightly and heroic gentlemen have 'slain their thousands, and ten thousands,' according to their own account, in the field, with as little winking and blinking as Major Sturgeon himself, they then attire themselves in order to enjoy the pleasures of the table, and, however deranged they may afterwards be by convivial excess, they march or stagger away to the Rooms, as circumstances may determine, and entertain the Ladies with elegant and decent gallantry. ”

“ Far be it from me to throw any odium on an unfortunate class of people immured in the walls of either of those places, there are no doubt, imprisoned, as worthy, and as good a set of people, as any in society. ”

“ On Thursday night there was an attempt made to raise a riot in St. George's Fields, at the Milk House, the corner of the London Road, the master of which is a temporary Serjeant to recruit for some of the volunteer corps; but by the spirited behaviour of the recruits, soldiers and light horse volunteers, in that quarter, the incendiaries did not proceed to acts of violence. It was evidently apparent that the mob was led on by persons above the common rank, whose sole aim is, if possible, under the idea of some pretended grievance, to raise a general riot in the metropolis. ”

“ We hope the Ladies in London, who stand upon a nice point of honour, will follow the example of the Bath Ladies, and exclude the odious, and pitiful, custom of taking card-money at their houses. It is a meanness, which no persons who pretend to the honour of keeping good company, ought to allow. ”

“ We had flattered ourselves with the hope, that the very fair, and public, investigation which took place on the Coroner's Inquest, which sat on Saturday last on the body of the unfortunate man, Howe, who threw himself out of a window of a Recruiting House, would have satisfied every man's mind, that Howe was a Lunatic, and had been so for many years past: and that it was in a fit of Lunacy, that he destroyed himself. ”

“ That we will, on every occasion, exert ourselves, on the first appearance of Tumult, or Disorder, to maintain the public peace, and to act in support of the civil authority, for suppressing all Riots, and for bringing the promoters of them to legal punishment. ”

“ MEN'S DRESS.
The latter part of the last century was noticeable for the great, and grave, mutations which took place in masculine attire, and, most particularly, during the times here treated of. Previously, the wig, and dress (quaker cut) coat, had long had a successful run, but people visited the Continent more, especially France, and brought back French fashions, which at this time were particularly fantastic. The Prince of Wales, too, delighted in fine dress, and was "arbiter elegantiarum" of his sex. ”

“ No man of common sense can suppose that the Lottery Wheels are fair, and honest, or that the proprietors act upon principles anything like honor, or honesty; for, by the art, and contrivance, of the Wheels, they are so constructed, with secret springs, and the application of gum, glue, &c., in the internal part of them, that they can draw the numbers out, or keep them in, at pleasure, just as it suits their purposes; so that the insurer, robbed, and cajoled, by such unfair means, has not the most distant chance of ever winning: the whole being a gross fraud, and imposition, in the extreme. ”

“ Marines.—A young man of respectable connections, and of the best morals, is very anxious to be in the service of his King, and Country, in these momentous times, and therefore ardently intreats the patronage of any Lady or Gentleman, who has the interest to procure him, or the power to bestow upon him, a Lieutenancy of Marines. ”

“ There can be no doubt whatever, but that large sums of specie have been drawn out of the Bank, and concealed in the houses, or gardens, of private persons. As this stoppage of general circulation is highly prejudicial to the Public Weal, we have only to observe to such persons, that their extreme, and foolish timidity, may produce, to themselves, the very consequences they seek to avert: and that, instead of being richer, they may fall the first victims of their alarms. ”

“ There are three powerful reasons why the very great number of arrivals here from France should excite the immediate attention of Government. One, that it may occasion a rapid rise in the price of provisions, already at a height that occasions much complaint among the lower orders of people. Second, lest under the appellation of fugitives, a multitude of insidious and evil-designing persons should intrude themselves, with the intention of raising similar disturbances in this kingdom. ”