Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/213

Rh under their roofs. No greater mischief can exist than a none more baleful to the morals of youth who may frequent his house, by the encouragement his smile gives to the theory, and the sanctuary his walls afford to the practice of thieving. Let a man of experience talk lightly of crime before a young man of acute disposition, and the bulwarks of his morals give way, then is he fit to be enlisted into the first knot of desperate fellows who may sally forth, to make a prey of the defenceless and the unsuspecting.

The major part of those who keep public houses of the second, third, and lower degrees, are men who have filled menial situations in life; of course they are not expected to exhibit much refinement of manners; civility being the nearest approach to it, they ever reach, and that is enough in the general way. It were well if 'twere no worse. Some are churls, and endeavour to controul [sic] those they cannot persuade to deal with them; others are unjust, and take advantage of those whom chance throws in their way; others again, cheat, by what is called chalking double, or charging more liquor than has been taken. Not a few of those combine also the Swindler with the other parts of their character, in learning to beat their