These Are The People That Cry Fish,
Fruit, Herbs, Roots, News, &C, About Town.
As to hackney-coachmen, carmen, porters, chairmen, and watermen,
though they work hard, they generally eat and drink well,
And are
decently clothed on holidays; for the wife, if she be industrious,
either by her needle, washing, or other business proper to her sex,
makes no small addition to their gains; and by their united labours
they maintain their families handsomely if they have their healths.
As to the common menial servants, they have great wages, are well
kept and clothed, but are, notwithstanding the plague, of almost
every house in town. They form themselves into societies, or rather
confederacies, contributing to the maintenance of each other when
out of place; and if any of them cannot manage the family where they
are entertained as they please, immediately they give notice they
will be gone. There is no speaking to them; they are above
correction; and if a master should attempt it, he may expect to be
handsomely drubbed by the creature he feeds and harbours, or perhaps
an action brought against him for it. It is become a common saying,
"If my servant ben't a thief, if he be but honest, I can bear with
other things;" and indeed it is very rare in London to meet with an
honest servant.
When I was treating of tradesmen, I had forgot to mention those
nuisances of the town, the itinerant pedlars who deal in toys and
hardware, and those who pretend to sell foreign silks, linen, India
handkerchiefs, and other prohibited and unaccustomed goods. These
we meet at every coffee-house and corner of the streets, and they
visit also every private house; the women have such a gust for
everything that is foreign or prohibited, that these vermin meet
with a good reception everywhere. The ladies will rather buy home
manufactures of these people than of a neighbouring shopkeeper,
under the pretence of buying cheaper, though they frequently buy
damaged goods, and pay a great deal dearer for them than they would
do in a tradesman's shop, which is a great discouragement to the
fair dealer that maintains a family, and is forced to give a large
credit, while these people run away with the ready money. And I am
informed that some needy tradesmen employ fellows to run hawking
about the streets with their goods, and sell pennyworths, in order
to furnish themselves with a little money.
As to the recreations of the citizens, many of them are entertained
in the same manner as the quality are, resorting to the play, park,
music-meetings, &c.; and in the summer they visit Richmond,
Hampstead, Epsom, and other neighbouring towns, where horse-racing,
and all manner of rural sports, as well as other diversions, are
followed in the summer season.
Towards autumn, when the town is thin, many of the citizens who deal
in a wholesale way visit the distant parts of the kingdom to get in
their debts, or procure orders for fresh parcels of goods; and much
about the same time the lawyers are either employed in the several
circuits, or retired to their country seats; so that the Court, the
nobility and gentry, the lawyers, and many of the citizens being
gone into the country, the town resumes another face. The west end
of it appears perfectly deserted; in other parts their trade falls
off; but still in the streets about the Royal Exchange we seldom
fail to meet with crowds of people, and an air of business in the
hottest season.
I have heard it affirmed, however, that many citizens live beyond
their income, which puts them upon tricking and prevaricating in
their dealings, and is the principal occasion of those frequent
bankruptcies seen in the papers; ordinary tradesmen drink as much
wine, and eat as well, as gentlemen of estates; their cloth, their
lace, their linen, are as fine, and they change it as often; and
they frequently imitate the quality in their expensive pleasures.
As to the diversions of the inferior tradesmen and common people on
Sundays and other holidays, they frequently get out of town; the
neighbouring villas are full of them, and the public-houses there
usually provide a dinner in expectation of their city guests; but if
they do not visit them in a morning, they seldom fail of walking out
in the fields in the afternoon; every walk, every public garden and
path near the town are crowded with the common people, and no place
more than the park; for which reason I presume the quality are
seldom seen there on a Sunday, though the meanest of them are so
well dressed at these times that nobody need be ashamed of their
company on that account; for you will see every apprentice, every
porter, and cobbler, in as good cloth and linen as their betters;
and it must be a very poor woman that has not a suit of Mantua silk,
or something equal to it, to appear abroad in on holidays.
And now, if we survey these several inhabitants in one body, it will
be found that there are about a million of souls in the whole town,
of whom there may be 150,000 men and upwards capable of bearing
arms, that is, between eighteen and sixty.
If it be demanded what proportion that part of the town properly
called the City of London bears to the rest, I answer that,
according to the last calculations, there are in the city 12,000
houses; in the parishes without the walls, 36,320; in the parishes
of Middlesex and Surrey, which make part of the town, 46,300; and in
the city and liberties of Westminster, 28,330; in which are included
the precincts of the Tower, Norton Folgate, the Rolls, Whitefriars,
the Inns of Court and Chancery, the King's palaces, and all other
extra-parochial places.
As to the number of inhabitants in each of these four grand
divisions, if we multiply the number of houses in the City of London
by eight and a half, there must be 102,000 people there, according
to this estimate.
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