Spit fires [graphic]

"A scene on Clerkenwell Green, outside the 'Sessions House Crerenwell' [sic], whose door is on the extreme left. Two termagants face each other in the foreground; one spits at her enemy, arms akimbo, the other tries to use her fists but is held back by an elderly man who grasps her round the waist and kicks her, losing his tie-wig. The former woman is fashionably, the latter roughly, dressed. Both have coarse faces with a certain comeliness. In the background constables with staves are shepherding women through the door of the Sessions House, where the Middlesex magistrates sat. Other constables and women are suggested behind the 'Spit Fires'. On the right are old-fashioned gabled houses."--British Museum online catalogue