Keystone cops

While some young gentlemen were drinking lately at a tavern in Whitechapel, one of them who happened to be considerably in debt, was informed of two bailiffs loitering about the door  on which they held a council, and came to a resolution to send for two men, who lived just by, who were ordered to nail the two bailiffs by their cloaths to the post which they leaned against. This being effected unperceived, they gave the men a crown for their trouble, and paying their reckoning went out; when the bailiffs going to do their duty, and attempting to move from their station in a hurry, each of them got a most violent fall on the stones, and before they could disengage themselves, the young gentlemen made off. The mob who were gathered about the bailiffs were highly diverted with the affair.