Bills were posted up through night, by hands that durst not have been seen at the work through day; and the agents of the Spirit of Darkness, calling themselves the Friends of the People, held secret meetings, and hatched plots to blow up our blessed King and Constitution.
Yet the business, though fearsome in the main, was in some parts almost laughable.

Every thing was to be divided, and every one made alike: houses and lands were to be distributed by lot; and the mighty man and the beggar--the auld man and the hobble-de-hoy--the industrious man and the spendthrift--the maimed, the cripple, and the blind, the clever man of business and the haveril simpleton, made all just brethren, and alike.
Save us! but to think of such nonsense!!--At one of their meetings, held at the sign of the Tappet Hen and the Tankard, there was a prime fight of five rounds between Tammy Bowsie the snab, and auld Thrashem the dominie with the boulie-back, about their drawing cuts which was to get Dalkeith Palace, and which Newbottle Abbey.

Oh, sic riff-raff!!! What was worst of all, it was an agreed and determined on thing among them, these wise men of Gotham, to abolish all kings, clergy, and religion, as havers.

No, no--what need had such wise pows as theirs of being taught or lectured to?
What need had such feelosophers of having a king to rule over, or a Parliament to direct them?
There was not a single one among their number, that did not think himself, in his own conceit, as wise as Solomon or William Pitt, and as mighty as King Nebuchadnezzar.
It was full time to put a stop to all such nonsense.

The newspapers told us what it had done abroad; and what better could we expect from it at home?
Weeds will not grow into flowers anywhere, and no man can handle tar without being defiled; the first of which comparisons is I daresay true, and the latter must be--for we read of it in Scripture.