Besides The Two Postilions Whom I Payed For This Excursion, At
The Rate Of One Stage In Posting, There Was
A fellow who posted
himself behind one of the chaises, by way of going to point out
the different views
Of the cascade; and his demand amounted to
four or five pauls. To give you an idea of the extortion of those
villainous publicans, I must tell you that for a dinner and
supper, which even hunger could not tempt us to eat, and a
night's lodging in three truckle beds, I paid eighty pauls,
amounting to forty shillings sterling. You ask me why I submitted
to such imposition? I will tell you - I have more than once in my
travels made a formal complaint of the exorbitancy of a publican,
to the magistrate of the place; but I never received any
satisfaction, and have lost abundance of time. Had I proceeded to
manual correction, I should have alarmed and terrified the women:
had I peremptorily refused to pay the sum total, the landlord,
who was the post-master, would not have supplied me with horses
to proceed on my journey. I tried the experiment at Muy in
France, where I put myself into a violent passion, had abundance
of trouble, was detained till it was almost night, and after all
found myself obliged to submit, furnishing at the same time
matter of infinite triumph to the mob, which had surrounded the
coach, and interested themselves warmly in favour of their
townsman.
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