Waterbury Democrat., 1901-09-27
1oNDoN's RoUGHs.

must surely occur to the reflective mind that the existence of the mod ern Hooligan is a comparatively flick
 ering one, and can afford the pessi7 | mist no reasonable point of argument that our society is degenerating.
 There are those still among Us who 1 can tell of horrors of our London thoroughfares undreamed of in our own days; and one need go but avery Little further back than the memory of the living to find in the records or | London life stories which leave no shadow of doubt of the accuracy or I Hogarths more gruesome prints.
 An English writer, none other than Fielding, has told us how, in his day the streets of London were thronged with a drunken, brutish mob, who in suited foot passengers by day and knocked them down by night, that not even coach could pass along the streets without the utmost difficulty and danger, and that these uncouth ruffians were even bold enough to drive ladies of fashion from the parks on Sunday evenings And again, in 1753, in the month of August, in his own words: "I was almost fatigued to death with several long examina- tions, relating to five different mur- | ders. all committed within the space of q week, by different gangs of street robbers.'
 l It seems almost i1icenceiyable that i this should have been the normal state 1 of London's thoroughfares at date nearly five hundred years after the es- l tablishment of the city watch. But mainly because of their narrow mind l edness, the civic authorities were inn potent, and in 1744 they for once had the good sense to acknowledge it. The | frequent acts of robbery, rapine and murder had become so alarming that we find the Lord Mayor and aldermen | going before the king with a petition setting forth ''that divers confederaries of great numbers of evil-disposed per sons, armed with b1udgeons, pistols, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons infest not only the private lanes and passages, but likewise the public streets and places of usual concourse, and commit most daring outrages upon ! the persons of your majesty's good subjects. whose affairs oblige them to pass through the streets, by terrify ing, robbing and wounding them; and these facts are frequently perpetrated at such times as were heretofore deemed hours of security"
 Fancy this in our own day; picture our dignified city magnates attending in sheer desperation, the court of Ed ward VII, and owning their authority over the streets of London to be void and of no effect. The very fact that it appears so utterly ridiculous is proof that we have progressed in more than one direction. But those old-time worthies from the Guildhall were ready with suggestion. They pc titioned the king to hang, and George II promised he would hang. Moth ing" said he, ''shalI be wanting on my part to put the laws in execution, to support the magistrates. vigorously to punish such heinouS offenders"
 What fond yearning some of us may have for what we strangely allude to as ''the good old times," there can be little attraction for the modern Hooli- gan in that possibility of hanging. But there were others, wiser than they, who saw in the feeble street lighting
 f those days the chief cause of the
 
 few fiickering oil lamps. placed at odd corners, there was nothing to guide the passenger through the glooms of the night but the torches of the link-boys. These officious night-birds, with their rough torches, were often in league with the gangs of street robbers. Get ting their unwary charge into a quiet street, the would suddenly dash down their lights and then out from the darkness would spring the Hooligan band, surround the unfortunate pas senger, rob him and make off again into the night, rarely leaving him with out some bodily harm.
 The hackney coachman of those days were not the least dangerous of eigh- teenth-century Hooligans. Coarse and brutish at all times, these ill-mannered ruffians were actually allowed an extra fee by their masters for every private carriage they could overthrow or de- stroy. Says an old copy of the Weekly Register: "What havoc these industri- ous sons of blood and wounds have made within twenty miles of London in the compass of a summers season is best known by the articles of accidents in the newspapers; the miserable shrieks of women and children not be- ing sufficient to deter the villains from doing what they call their duty to their masters.
 With such a fire of lawlessness rag ing at comparatively modern date in the history of our city. is it to be wondered at that it's embers should still, on occasion, burst into flame in our lower districts In those "good old times," when London made her despairing petition to the king, the remedy advocated by the wiser minds was soon after carried into effect. A proper spstem of street lighting was inaugurated, typical of the enlighten- ment of the mind; the far grander rem edy for such ruffianism, which follow ed the passing of the Education acts.
 It is not within the province of this | article to propound or discuss q remedy | for the Hooliganism of today Let it | suffice to show that. in the matter of | order and safety, the streets of our world of London have not degenerated. | The fact that our government is, at 1 present, more greatly concerned with | DuniShing the alleged rl1ffianiSm of q |