Opening Your Shutters

I shouldn't find this funny. Interesting, too, that indecent exposure in the street was - although ultimately prosecuted - apparently tolerated for a good while.

A BEAST.—On Tuesday, William Wallace, a haggard-looking man, wearing a Scotch plaid coat, was placed at the bar charged with indecently exposing his person to several females and others. Mr. Amos, a linendraper in the Blackfriars-road, stated that some time ago his female servants complained of the disgusting conduct of a man who presented himself in front of the parlour windows when they were undoing the shutters of a morning; that, with the view of punishing such a miscreant, he employed a policeman to watch for the fellow, and that morning the prisoner again appeared, as on former oncasions, in front of his parlour windows and exposed his person. The policeman and one of the female servants gave evidence, and confirmed the account given of the prisoner's beastly propensities. Mr. Power, a gentleman residing in Nelson-square, stated that for the last six months the prisoner was in the habit of acting precisely in a similar disgusting manner in front of his house, particularly on the occasions when any of the females approached the windows; that he had witnessed his abominable behaviour, and had run out of the house and pursued him, but he was such an extraordinary quick runner that he always outstripped him, and escaped. Mr. A'Beckett said the prisoner's conduct was unnatural and disgusting in the extreme, and that he should commit him for three months to gaol.