A rake's progress. Book illustration from Library of Congress

The fourth plate from Hogarth's series, in which two baliffs have stopped the Rake's sedan chair in St. James's street but are foiled in their attempt to arrest him for debt by a woman he had seduced and abandoned who offers them her purse. In the foreground is an interesting group of children. Two bootlbacks, a newspaper-seller, and a gin-seller sit gambling by the roadside. They are barefoot and ragged, and one smokes whie another steals a handkerchief from teh Rake. The vices of the children are echoed by the proximity of Whites, a notorious gambling club at that period, in the background.
By William Hogart, 1735.
Illus. in: The Original Works of William Hogart (London: J. and J. Boydell, 1790).
Ref. copy may be in LCQJ, Summer 1982.
This record contains unverified data from caption card.
Caption card tracings: Transportation; Cartoons, Br.; Gt. Br. London St. James St.; Child Labor; Gamboling; Publ. Ind.