Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/18

2 the expression of their countenances to any thing so like, as that of a sportsman when he sees a covey of partridges rise from the stubble.—Sometimes the likeness is greater, when two sharpers, like two sportsmen, pursuing the same game, meet unexpectedly: "What are you after?" demands one, "Catching of flats," is the reply; and they cordially join in hunting down their prey.

Smashing is the first depredation to which strangers are exposed, upon setting foot in London, and consists in passing bad money in change, or pretending you yourself have paid such base coin. Without particularising any one description of characters at the inns, who would, be more likely than another to practise this species of cheatery, I must be allowed to say, they are all liable—Coachmen, guards, clerks, and waiters—to be themselves imposed upon, and although not guilty, are nevertheless likely to pass bad money. The original evil arises with fellows who hang about the inn yards, pretending to make themselves useful, or selling and buying some article or other; some of these we shall have occasion to say a word or two about, under the title of "," and others called " or ."