3-052-322 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Unwelcome Guest, drawn by J. A. Pasquier, 1872. 'In the scene, half humorous, half-serious, of old English social history, which Mr. Pasquier has set before us, we recognise one of those disagreeable adventures, related in the chronicles of a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, showing the unsafe condition of many parts of the country for want of an efficient police...Most of the adventures...are supposed to have taken place out of doors...at a distance from human habitations. But the criminal statistics of Great Britain, if they had in that age been correctly recorded, would also have shown a large number of cases in which lonely country-houses were attacked by the wandering bands of robbers; or a roadside hostelry, by the connivance, possibly, of its treacherous landlord..., was suddenly invaded with a formidable show of intended violence, to extort ransom from the unlucky...wayfarers then taking their ease in its parlours and chambers. This may explain the alarming figure whose apparition at the door of a room, where three or four respectable gentlemen, with their servant, are quietly disposing of a jug of punch and a few pipes of tobacco, strikes the company with natural consternation, in Mr. Pasquier's imaginary sketch...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.