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 nobility 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 shillings the load, and from
twenty pence to two shillings the bushel is the usual price of oats.
The opportunity of passing 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 principal 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 shilling, but to a chair is paid one-third
more; the coaches also will wait for eighteenpence the first hour,
and a shilling 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
shillings per day; there are coaches also that go to every village
almost about town, within four or five miles, in which a passenger
pays but one shilling, and in some but sixpence, for his passage
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 spacious 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 noble river is that it brings
whatever this or other countries afford. Down the river from
Oxfordshire, Berkshire, 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 spacious,
that several lines of coaches and carts may pass by each other
without interruption. Foot-passengers 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 passenger 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 pass 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
circumstances 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.
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