According to Lady Wentworth, "They put an old woman into a hogshead, and rolled her down a hill; they cut off some noses, others ' hands, and several barbarous tricks, without any provocation. They are said to be young gentlemen; they never take any money from any." (Wentworth Papers, 277)
Historians have found little evidence of any organized gang,[2] though in spring 1712 there was a flurry of print accounts of the Mohocks, their lawlessness, impunity and luridly violent acts. In response there was also some derision from satirists at what they perceived to be sensationalism by the Grub Street press.[2]
Various other gangs of street bullies are alleged to have terrorized London at different periods, beginning in the 1590s with the Damned Crew and continuing after the Restoration with the Muns, the Tityré Tūs, the Hectors, the Scourers, the Nickers, and the Hawkubites.
In fiction[edit source]
John Gay (better known for The Beggar 's Opera) wrote a play in 1712 titled The Mohocks - this was printed but never acted in his lifetime.
Daniel Defoe 's 1722 novel Moll Flanders describes Mohocks attacking people at a market.
In the historical novel Manituana by Wu Ming, a 1770s incarnation of the Mohock gang tries to contact Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader in visit to the king, and they apply to become the seventh Iroquois nation.
The Charlie Trees A Jacobite Novel by B. Dew Roberts Published by Chatto & Windus 1951 (page 10: 'Set upon? By those damned Mohocks, I suppose? ')
G. K. Chesterton 's short story The Hammer of God centres on the Bohuns, a fictional aristocratc
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