Now, in these and all the other laws of any given period, we find in the first place, from their particularity, a great additional help towards becoming familiar with the times in which they were passed; we learn the names of various officers, courts, and processes; and these, when understood, (and I suppose always the habit of reading nothing without taking pains to understand it,) help us, from their very number, to realize the state of things then existing; a lively notion of any object depending on our clearly seeing some of its parts, and the more we people it, so to speak, with distinct images, the more it comes to resemble the crowded world around us.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 by Various

He had been drinking with some sailors at their house of rendezvous near Westminster Bridge, and in his way home wanted to stop at the house above mentioned, but was denied admittance; on which he attempted to break the windows with his cane, but that dropping into the area, he jumped down after it, fractured his skull, and died without speaking a word.
— from Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century; Vol. 2 (of 2) Including the Charities, Depravities, Dresses, and Amusements etc. by James Peller Malcolm