The drawing is a picture of daily life in London. Marlboro Street was infamous for its criminal element, particularly its thieves. The scene depicts two women setting on a man who is pinned against a wall “which carries notices of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, venereal disease, and The Belle's Strategem”, a play by Mrs. Hannah Cowley (see Surtees, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 5).