In London, magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets proliferated during the middle decades of the 18th century. For an increasingly literate urban population, they mixed together vital visions of world affairs, national politics, news of high society, and everyday events. The Gentleman's Magazine, edited by “Sylvanus Urban, Gent.,” began publication in 1731. Among other features, each monthly issue of the magazine contained a miscellaneous chronicle of events likely to interest its cosmopolitan readers. The events often concerned contacts of ordinary people – workers and others who had no particular connections to power at a national scale – with genuine wielders of power.

For Monday the 9th of May, 1768, the chronicle reported these items from the London streets:

What should 21st-century readers make of these 18th-century reports? Today's readers need some essential background.