had heard knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back; and, unfortunately for the scheme, was required to hold her hands out of bed. But though the spirit was very solemnly requested to manifest its existence by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any present, by scratches, knocks, or any other agony, no evidence of any preternatural power exhibited itself.

The spirit was then duly informed, that the person to whom the promise was made of striking the coffin was then about to visit the vault, and that the performance of the promise was now claimed. At one o'clock in the morning the company went to the church, and the gentleman, with the clergymen, went into the vault, where the spirit was solemnly required to fulfil her promise; but the company not seeing or hearing any thing preternatural, returned back to the house.

It was now the general opinion of the assembly, that the child had some art of making or counterfeiting particular noises; but the friends of the ghost, in order to retrieve their reputation, spread a report that the coffin and body had been removed out of the vault; the person accused now feelingly interested himself in defence of his reputation, and deprived them of this last refuge, by ordering the coffin to be opened before sufficient witnesses. The coffin was soon discovered by the undertaker, and being opened before the clergyman of the parish, the clerk, the sexton, and some others, the contents exhibited the melancholy remains of mortality.

The accused now thought it high time to vindicate his character in a legal manner; when the whole was found a contrivance of Parsons, to be revenged on the other, who had sued him for a small sum of money lent while he lodged in the house; and which he found it impossible otherwise to regain.

A bill of indictment was therefore preferred against Parsons and his wife, Mary Frazer, (a woman who lived in the house and officiated as interpreter between the ghost and the spectators)

spectators) one of the clergymen, and a tradesman, who had been active dupes in the affair, for a conspiracy. On the tenth of July the cause was heard before lord chief justice Mansfield and a special jury, in the court of King's Bench, Guildhall; when, after a trial of twelve hours, the parties were all convicted of the crimes with which they were charged.

The court, however, being willing that the prosecutor, who had been sensibly injured by this iniquitous transaction, should receive some reparation from the offenders, postponed their sentence for some months, in hopes the parties would make it up in the interim. The clergyman and tradesman compromised their part of the matter by a large sum of money, and were dismissed with a severe reprimand. Parsons was sentenced to stand in the pillory three times in one month, and to be imprisoned two years; his wife was imprisoned one year; and Mary Frazer was committed to Bridewell for six months.

This year was remarkable for the birth of the Prince of Wales; for the capture of valuable Spanish prizes; and for a law which took place for the regulation of the fishery, so that the metropolis might be better supplied with those articles of life.

By this law it was enacted, "That any person, though not a fishmonger, may buy, at any market, sea-coast, or river, &c. any fish in season, and sizeable, paying the accustomed dues at the place of purchase, and may sell the same again in any fish or flesh market, paying the usual market dues, Covent Garden market and the precincts thereof excepted.

"Such fish shall not be resold by the first purchaser, be. fore the same shall be brought to London or Westminster, or to where consigned, under penalty of 201. and shall be conveyed to the places consigned, without being liable to be stopped, and exposed to sale on the way.

"Carriages employed in this service shall carry fish only, and shall be marked on the outside, Fish Machine Only; and shall be entered at the office for licensing hackney

coaches,

coaches, paying 1s. for the registering; and numbered, on penalty of 40s. and shall not be liable to be deemed common stage waggons, &c.

66

They shall be permitted to travel with four horses in pairs, or with one horse, or three horses in length, though with narrow wheels, and shall only pay the like toll as postchaises, &c. drawn by a like number of horses; and shall be allowed to travel on Sundays and holidays; as shall also the returned horses of such carriages; and neither carriage nor horses, if returning empty, shall be liable to pay toll; and if any game, or other thing besides fish, and the necessary impleplements of the carriage, be put therein for conveyance, the person putting in the same shall forfeit 57. and if the driver shall take up, or suffer any passenger, game, or other thing, to be carried therein, he shall forfeit 40s. and on non-payment shall be committed and kept to hard labour for any time not exceeding one month.

"If bulk shall be broke of any fish carriage consigned for the London markets, &c. before being brought within the bills of mortality, or sale made of the fish-before they are exposed in the said markets, the offender forfeits 101.

"The fish, after being so brought up, shall be forthwith sorted, and exposed to sale in some public market the next morning, Sundays excepted; and until such fish is so exposed, no part thereof shall be sold by retail, on penalty of 10. but mackrel brought up by such carriages, may be sold on Sundays.

"All contracts made for fish, except for salmon and lobsters, are vacated after May 1, 1762, and the parties discharged from the penalties of their contracts; and persons contracting after the said time for buying up fish, other than salmon and lobsters, before the same shall be first brought to market, and duly exposed to sale there, shall forfeit 501. and the contract is declared void.

"And after May 1, 1762, no contract for British salmon and lobsters shall be in force longer than one year; and the like shall take place with respect to any parole contracts.

"After

"After May 1, 1762, no person shall employ, or be employed, in buying at the markets of London and Westminster, &c. any fish brought thither for sale, to be afterwards divided among fishmongers, or others, to be sold; nor shall any person buy, in the said markets, any fish but what shall be for his own sale or use, on penalty of 201.

"No salesman or other person shall refuse to sell, or enter into an agreement not to sell, to or for any particular person's use, any fish exposed to sale at a public market, on penalty of 201.

"And all fish of the respective sorts hereafter specified, brought after May 1, 1762, for sale to the London markets, shall be openly sold at the first hand, and in no greater number or quantity in a lot than is hereafter prescribed; and every lot shall consist of one sort of fish only, viz.

"All fresh salmon, sturgeon, large fresh cod, skait, turbot, bret, bril, pearl, kingston, ling, and dorys, by the single fish all half fresh cod, not exceeding two in any one lot: all quarter fresh cod, not exceeding four in any one lot: all mullets, cole-fish, salmon-trout, and other trouts, not exceeding two in any one lot: all small cod, not exceeding twenty-four in any one lot, in Billingsgate market, or within one hundred and fifty yards of Billingsgate Dock; and in any other market within the weekly bills of mortality, not exceeding eight in any one lot.

"Small pike, Billingsgate, six in a lot; other markets four.

"Large haddock, Billingsgate, four; other markets two. "Small haddock, Billingsgate, twenty-four; other markets eight.

"Perch, above six inches long from the eye to the fork of the tail, Billingsgate, twelve; other markets eight. "Carp, gurnet, tench, and sea-bass, Billingsgate, six; other markets four.

"Thornbacks, Billingsgate, two; other markets one. "Large soals, Billingsgate, four pair; other markets two pair.

VOL. I. No. 22.

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"Small

"Small soals, Billingsgate, eight pair; other markets four pair.

"Mackrel, whitings, whiting-pouts, plaice, dabbs, herrings, pilchards, garb-fish, flounders, and maids, Billingsgate, sixty; other markets thirty.

"Smelts, Billingsgate, fifty-two; other markets twenty

six.

"Eels, Billingsgate, twenty pound; other markets ten pound, unless any single fish shall exceed that weight.

"Large lobsters and crabs, of either sort, at Billingsgate, twenty; other markets ten.

Small lobsters and crabs, Billingsgate, forty; other markets ten.

"None of the said several species of fish shall be bought or sold at the first hand, in the said markets, in a greater number or quantity in a lot than is prescribed above, nor more than one sort of fish in a lot shall be sold, or offered for sale, on penalty of 51.

"But a smaller number of any of the said fish than a lot consists of, if it contains more than one; and also a lesser weight of eels than makes one lot, may be sold or exposed to sale in the said markets.

"No fish shall be sold again, or exposed to sale the same day, in the same market where it was before sold, on penalty of 107. but the buyer may sell the same, whilst sound and wholesome, in any other place.

"Before any fish, to be sold at the first hand in any of the said markets, be exposed to sale, an account of the sorts, and quantity of each, in large legible characters, shall be put up at the fish-stand (the number of flounders, plaice, dabbs, excepted; and also of mackrel, maids, herrings, and pilchards); and if any other fish of the sorts mentioned in the act be brought for sale, before the market of the day is over, they shall likewise be added to the account, before they are exposed to sale; and the said accounts shall be kept up, undefaced, till all the fish be sold, or the market be over, on penalty of 57. Or if any person, before such