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 mud of the street supplied a ready weapon. Festival days tended to become their Saturnalia, and sometimes they executed wild justice of their own. They wrecked taverns which they thought were ill-conducted, and spoiled a playhouse of which they did not approve. We even find that "they despitefully used the sheriffs of London and the constables and justices of Middlesex ". It is not surprising that James I. addressed the Lord Mayor:—

"You will see to two things—that is to say, to the great devils and the little devils. By the great ones I mean the waggons, which, when they meet the coaches of the gentry, refuse to give way and yield, as due. The little devils are the apprentices, who, on two days of the year which prove fatal to them—Shrove Tuesday and the first of May—are so riotous and outrageous that, in a body three or four score thousand strong, they go committing excesses in every direction, killing human beings and demolishing houses."

As regards apprentices, however, we find an economic cause coming into operation which slowly wrought a change. The increasing importance of commercial life was altering their position. Whereas ten pounds had been a sufficient premium for an apprentice, the payment steadily rose to twenty, forty, sixty, and even a hundred pounds. This meant that the boys came from a higher class of society, and ceased to be in part menials who carried water and performed domestic duties.

I have been endeavouring in a fragmentary and imperfect way to bring together a few illustrations of matters which either then or now had some relation