Then by degrees he siddles nearer and nearer to where I stood, till at last he was close to me.

'Tis a very fine night,' says he.

'Aye,' say I, 'and so it is.' Then he takes me by the hand, and after squeezing and playing with it a little, he conveys it to his breeches," whereupon the detective seizes the man by his sexual organs and holds him until the constable comes up and effects an arrest.
At the same period Margaret Clap, commonly called Mother Clap, kept a house in Field Lane, Holborn, which was a noted resort of the homosexual.
To Mother Clap's Molly-house 30 or 40 clients would resort every night; on Sunday there might be as many as 50, for, as in Berlin and other cities today, that was the great homosexual gala night; there were beds in every room in this house.

We are told that the "men would sit in one another's laps, kissing in a lewd manner and using their hands indecently.

Then they would get up, dance and make curtsies, and mimic the voices of women, 'Oh, fie, sir,'-- 'Pray, sir,'-- 'Dear sir,'-- 'Lord, how can you serve me so ?'--'I swear I'll cry out,'-- 'You're a wicked devil,'-- 'And you're a bold face,'-- 'Eh, ye dear little toad,'-- 'Come, bus.' They'd hug and play and toy and go out by couples into another room, on the same floor, to be 'married,' as they called it." On the whole one gains the impression that homosexual practices were more prevalent in London in the eighteenth century, bearing in mind its population at that time, than they are today.[88] It must not, however, be supposed that the law was indulgent and its administration lax.