Entertainer Number XII

I am giving you some more of my entertaining primary research of eighteenth-century junk. The following appeared in the 12th issue of "The Entertainer" on January 22, 1718. It is purportedly a letter form the President of a Mug House in the city [of London] to the President of the Constitution Club at Oxford. It is obviously a fake made to demonize a certain class of people but it is fun to read, nonetheless.

Sir,
As we are embark'd in one common design, I thought I could do
no less than congratulate you upon your late advancement. And, believe me,
that
the majority of voices you gain'd it by, is a greater honour that all the
Liberal Sciences in that place [Oxford] can confer. THere seems to be in this
distinction between your CLUB and ours; yours is a constitution of CAPS, and
ours is a constitution of CLUBS. I am order'd by our society to propose to you a conprehension; that the
same rights, priviliges, and immunities may be in common to
either society; and that a coalition may be more confirm'd, we demand the
privilege of being admitted ad eundem.

We doubt not but we cab
pass our examinations, and shan't disgrace your
society; we love mischief
for mischief's sake, and can bend like a blade, can
swear and forswear to
every point of the compass, insult magistracy, drink
damnation on
Alphabetically, break windows, demolish lanterns, knock down old
women,
purloin swords, steal hats, and MOHOCK the Tories.

We are as great
heroes in evil as your selves; like masked miffes [misses?: f and s
were used interchangeably in
18th century], we
own our selves children of darkness.
When danger is remote, we are commonly
boldest.

I, and four more of our gang bravely beat a boy of seven
years old, and our
Vice President held a quarter of an hour's skirmish with
a blind basket-woman of threescore and
ten [seventy years], and had like
to come off victorious.