Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/356

 Englishman believed in his own capacity to detect an impostor for himself, and paid little heed to the warning of the expert.

In truth London was full of signs of judicial severity and precautions against riot. "There are pillories for the neck and hands," says a foreigner, "stocks for the feet, and chains for the streets themselves to stop them in case of need. In the suburbs are oak cages for nocturnal offenders." He saw a lad of fifteen led to execution for stealing a bag of currants, his first offence. There were gibbets along all the roads outside the gates. Nor was it only the poor malefactor who paid the penalty of detected crime. The headsman's axe was busy on Tower Hill, and the great were taught to walk warily in perilous times. The heads of traitors were impaled on London Bridge; and the first sign of growing humanity was their removal to the Southwark Gate.

A somewhat turbulent part of the community consisted of the London apprentices, who were at once recognisable in the streets. They wore blue cloaks, breeches and stockings of white broadcloth, with the stockings sewn on so that they were all one piece; they wore flat caps on their heads. They stood against the open fronts of the shops to guard their masters' wares, bareheaded, with their caps in their hands, "leaning against the wall like idols," says a French visitor. They were always ready for any mischief, and foreigners complained of their rudeness. They expressed only too clearly the prevailing sentiment about foreign affairs, and even the ambassadors of unpopular countries suffered at their hands. The