Part 9 (1/2)
Fish also are plentiful, such as fresh cod, plaice, flounders, soles, whitings, smelts, sturgeon, oysters, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mackerel, and herrings in the season; but it must be confessed that salmon, turbot, and some other sea-fish are dear, as well as fresh-water fish.
Wine is imported from foreign countries, and is dear. The port wine which is usually drunk, and is the cheapest, is two s.h.i.+llings a quart, retailed in taverns, and not much less than eighteen or twenty pounds the hogshead, when purchased at the best hand; and as to French wines, the duties are so high upon them that they are double the price of the other at least. White wine is about the same price as red port, and canary about a third dearer.
It is computed that there are in London some part of the year, when the n.o.bility and gentry are in town, 15,000 or 16,000 large horses for draught, used in coaches, carts, or drays, besides some thousands of saddle-horses; and yet is the town so well supplied with hay, straw, and corn, that there is seldom any want of them.
Hay generally is not more than forty s.h.i.+llings the load, and from twenty pence to two s.h.i.+llings the bushel is the usual price of oats.
The opportunity of pa.s.sing from one part of the town to the other, by coach, chair, or boat, is a very great convenience, especially in the winter, or in very hot weather. A servant calls a coach or a chair in any of the princ.i.p.al streets, which attends at a minute's warning, and carries one to any part of the town, within a mile and a half distance, for a s.h.i.+lling, but to a chair is paid one-third more; the coaches also will wait for eighteenpence the first hour, and a s.h.i.+lling every succeeding hour all day long; or you may hire a coach and a pair of horses all day, in or out of town, for ten s.h.i.+llings per day; there are coaches also that go to every village almost about town, within four or five miles, in which a pa.s.senger pays but one s.h.i.+lling, and in some but sixpence, for his pa.s.sage with other company.
The pleasantest way of moving from one end of the town to the other in summer time is by water, on that s.p.a.cious gentle stream the Thames, on which you travel two miles for sixpence, if you have two watermen, and for threepence if you have but one; and to any village up or down the river you go with company for a trifle. But the greatest advantage reaped from this n.o.ble river is that it brings whatever this or other countries afford. Down the river from Oxfords.h.i.+re, Berks.h.i.+re, Bucks, &c., come corn and all manner of provision of English growth, as has been observed already; and up the river, everything that the coasts and the maritime counties of England, Scotland, or Ireland afford; this way also are received the treasures and merchandise of the East and West Indies, and indeed of the four quarters of the world.
Carts are hired as coaches, to remove goods and merchandise from one part of the town to the other, whose rates are also fixed, and are very reasonable; and for small burdens or parcels, and to send on messages, there are porters at every corner of the streets, those within the City of London and liberties thereof being licensed by authority, and wearing a badge or ticket; in whose hands goods of any value, and even bills of exchange or sums of money, may be safely trusted, they being obliged at their admission to give security. There is also a post that goes from one part of the town to the other several times a day; and once a day to the neighbouring villages, with letters and small parcels; for the carriage of which is given no more than a penny the letter or parcel. And I should have remembered that every coach, chair, and boat that plies for hire has its number upon it; and if the number be taken by any friend or servant, at the place you set out from, the proprietor of the vehicle will be obliged to make good any loss or damage that may happen to the person carried in it, through the default of the people that carry him, and to make him satisfaction for any abuse or ill-language he may receive from them.
The high streets from one end of the town to the other are kept clean by scavengers in the winter, and in summer the dust in some wide streets is laid by water-carts: they are so wide and s.p.a.cious, that several lines of coaches and carts may pa.s.s by each other without interruption. Foot-pa.s.sengers in the high streets go about their business with abundance of ease and pleasure; they walk upon a fine smooth pavement; defended by posts from the coaches and wheel- carriages; and though they are jostled sometimes in the throng, yet as this seldom happens out of design, few are offended at it; the variety of beautiful objects, animate and inanimate, he meets with in the streets and shops, inspires the pa.s.senger with joy, and makes him slight the trifling inconvenience of being crowded now and then.
The lights also in the shops till eight or nine in the evening, especially in those of toymen and pastry-cooks, in the winter, make the night appear even brighter and more agreeable than the day itself.
From the lights I come very naturally to speak of the night-guards or watch. Each watch consists of a constable and a certain number of watchmen, who have a guard-room or watch-house in some certain place, from whence watchmen are despatched every hour, to patrol in the streets and places in each constable's district; to see if all be safe from fire and thieves; and as they pa.s.s they give the hour of the night, and with their staves strike at the door of every house.
If they meet with any persons they suspect of ill designs, quarrelsome people, or lewd women in the streets, they are empowered to carry them before the constable at his watch-house, who confines them till morning, when they are brought before a justice of the peace, who commits them to prison or releases them, according as the circ.u.mstances of the case are.
Mobs and tumults were formerly very terrible in this great city; not only private men have been insulted and abused, and their houses demolished, but even the Court and Parliament have been influenced or awed by them. But there is now seldom seen a mult.i.tude of people a.s.sembled, unless it be to attend some malefactor to his execution, or to pelt a villain in the pillory, the last of which being an outrage that the Government has ever seemed to wink at; and it is observed by some that the mob are pretty just upon these occasions; they seldom falling upon any but notorious rascals, such as are guilty of perjury, forgery, scandalous practices, or keeping of low houses, and these with rotten eggs, apples, and turnips, they frequently maul unmercifully, unless the offender has money enough to bribe the constables and officers to protect him.
The London inns, though they are as commodious for the most part as those we meet with in other places, yet few people choose to take up their quarters in them for any long time; for, if their business requires them to make any stay in London, they choose to leave their horses at the inn or some livery-stable, and take lodgings in a private house. At livery stables they lodge no travellers, only take care of their horses, which fare better here than usually at inns; and at these places it is that gentlemen hire saddle-horses for a journey. At the best of them are found very good horses and furniture: they will let out a good horse for 4s. a day, and an ordinary hackney for 2s. 6d., and for 5s. you may have a hunter for the city hounds have the liberty of hunting; in Enfield Chase and round the town, and go out constantly every week in the season, followed by a great many young gentlemen and tradesmen. They have an opportunity also of hunting with the King's hounds at Richmond and Windsor: and such exercises seem very necessary for people who are constantly in London, and eat and drink as plentifully as any people in the world. And now I am speaking of hired horses, I cannot avoid taking notice of the vast number of coach-horses that are kept to be let out to n.o.blemen or gentlemen, to carry or bring them to and from the distant parts of the kingdom, or to supply the undertakers of funerals with horses for their coaches and hea.r.s.es.
There are some of these men that keep several hundreds of horses, with coaches, coachmen, and a complete equipage, that will be ready at a day's warning to attend a gentleman to any part of England.
These people also are great jockeys. They go to all the fairs in the country and buy up horses, with which they furnish most of the n.o.bility and gentry about town. And if a n.o.bleman does not care to run any hazard, or have the trouble of keeping horses in town, they will agree to furnish him with a set all the year round.
The princ.i.p.al taverns are large handsome edifices, made as commodious for the entertaining a variety of company as can be contrived, with some s.p.a.cious rooms for the accommodation of numerous a.s.semblies. Here a stranger may be furnished with wines, and excellent food of all kinds, dressed after the best manner:- each company, and every particular man, if he pleases, has a room to himself, and a good fire if it be winter time, for which he pays nothing, and is not to be disturbed or turned out of his room by any other man of what quality soever, till he thinks fit to leave it.
And as many people meet here upon business, at least an equal-number resort hither purely for pleasure, or to refresh themselves in an evening after a day's fatigue.
And though the taverns are very numerous, yet ale-houses are much more so, being visited by the inferior tradesmen, mechanics, journeymen, porters, coachmen, carmen, servants, and others whose pockets will not reach a gla.s.s of wine. Here they sit promiscuously in common dirty rooms, with large fires, and clouds of tobacco, where one that is not used to them can scarce breathe or see; but as they are a busy sort of people, they seldom stay long, returning to their several employments, and are succeeded by fresh sets of the same rank of men, at their leisure hours, all day long.
Of eating-houses and cook-shops there are not many, considering the largeness of the town, unless it be about the Inns of Court and Chancery, Smithfield, and the Royal Exchange, and some other places, to which the country-people and strangers resort when they come to town. Here is good butcher's meat of all kinds, and in the best of them fowls, pigs, geese, &c., the last of which are pretty dear; but one that can make a meal of butcher's meat, may have as much as he cares to eat for sixpence; he must be content indeed to sit in a public room, and use the same linen that forty people have done before him. Besides meat, he finds very good white bread, table- beer, &c.
Coffee-houses are almost as numerous as ale-houses, dispersed in every part of the town, where they sell tea, coffee, chocolate, drams, and in many of the great ones arrack and other punch, wine, &c. These consist chiefly of one large common room, with good fires in winter; and hither the middle sort of people chiefly resort, many to breakfast, read the news, and talk politics; after which they retire home: others, who are strangers in town, meet here about noon, and appoint some tavern to dine at; and a great many attend at the coffee-houses near the Exchange, the Inns of Court, and Westminster, about their business. In the afternoon about four, people resort to these places again, from whence they adjourn to the tavern, the play, &c.; and some, when they have taken a handsome dose, run to the coffee-house at midnight for a dish of coffee to set them right; while others conclude the day here with drams, or a bowl of punch.
There are but few cider-houses about London, though this be liquor of English growth, because it is generally thought too cold for the climate, and to elevate the spirits less than wine or strong beer.
The four grand distinctions of the people are these:- (1) The n.o.bility and gentry; (2) the merchants and first-rate tradesmen; (3) the lawyers and physicians; and (4) inferior tradesmen, attorneys, clerks, apprentices, coachmen, carmen, chairmen, watermen, porters, and servants.
The first cla.s.s may not only be divided into n.o.bility and gentry, but into either such as have dependence on the Court, or such as have none. Those who have offices, places, or pensions from the Court, or any expectations from thence, constantly attend the levees of the prince and his ministers, which takes up the greatest part of the little morning they have. At noon most of the n.o.bility, and such gentlemen as are members of the House of Commons, go down to Westminster, and when the Houses do not sit late, return home to dinner. Others that are not members of either House, and have no particular business to attend, are found in the chocolate-houses near the Court, or in the park, and many more do not stir from their houses till after dinner. As to the ladies, who seldom rise till about noon, the first part of their time is spent, after the duties of the closet, either at the tea-table or in dressing, unless they take a turn to Covent Garden or Ludgate Hill, and tumble over the mercers' rich silks, or view some India or China trifle, some prohibited manufacture, or foreign lace.
Thus, the business of the day being despatched before dinner, both by the ladies and gentlemen, the evening is devoted to pleasure; all the world get abroad in their gayest equipage between four and five in the evening, some bound to the play, others to the opera, the a.s.sembly, the masquerade, or music-meeting, to which they move in such crowds that their coaches can scarce pa.s.s the streets.
The merchants and tradesmen of the first-rate make no mean figure in London; they have many of them houses equal to those of the n.o.bility, with great gates and courtyards before them, and seats in the country, whither they retire the latter end of the week, returning to the city again on Mondays or Tuesdays; they keep their coaches, saddle-horses, and footmen; their houses are richly and beautifully furnished; and though their equipage be not altogether so s.h.i.+ning and their servants so numerous as those of the n.o.bility, they generally abound in wealth and plenty, and are generally masters of a larger cash than they have occasion to make use of in the way of trade, whereby they are always provided against accidents, and are enabled to make an advantageous purchase when it offers. And in this they differ from the merchants of other countries, that they know when they have enough, for they retire to their estates, and enjoy the fruits of their labours in the decline of life, reserving only business enough to divert their leisure hours. They become gentlemen and magistrates in the counties where their estates lie, and as they are frequently the younger brothers of good families, it is not uncommon to see them purchase those estates that the eldest branches of their respective families have been obliged to part with.
Their character is that they are neither so much in haste as the French to grow rich, nor so n.i.g.g.ardly as the Dutch to save; that their houses are richly furnished, and their tables well served.
You are neither soothed nor soured by the merchants of London; they seldom ask too much, and foreigners buy of them as cheap as others.
They are punctual in their payments, generous and charitable, very obliging, and not too ceremonious; easy of access, ready to communicate their knowledge of the respective countries they traffic with, and the condition of their trade.