Books: London in 1731
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Don Manoel Gonzales >> London in 1731
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St. Paul's School is situated on the east side of St. Paul's
Churchyard, being a handsome fabric built with brick and stone,
founded by John Collet, D.D. and Dean of St. Paul's, anno 1512, who
appointed a high-master, sur-master, a chaplain or under-master, and
153 scholars, to be taught by them gratis, of any nation or country.
He also left some exhibitions to such scholars as are sent to the
universities and have continued at this school three years. The
masters are elected by the wardens and assistants of the Mercers'
Company, and the scholars are admitted by the master upon a warrant
directed to him by the surveyor. The elections for the university
are in March, before Lady Day, and they are allowed their
exhibitions for seven years. To this school belongs a library,
consisting chiefly of classic authors. The frontispiece is adorned
with busts, entablature, pediments, festoons, shields, vases, and
the Mercers' arms cut in stone, with this inscription over the door:
INGREDERE UT PROFICIAS. Upon every window of the school was
written, by the founder's direction: AUT DOCE, AUT DISCE, AUT
DISCEDE--i.e., Either teach, learn, or begone.
The founder, in the ordinances to be observed in this school, says
he founded it to the honour of the Child Jesus, and of His blessed
mother Mary; and directs that the master be of a healthful
constitution, honest, virtuous, and learned in Greek and Latin; that
he be a married or single man, or a priest that hath no cure; that
his wages should be a mark a week, and a livery gown of four nobles,
with a house in town, and another at Stebonheath (Stepney); that
there should be no play-days granted but to the King, or some bishop
in person: that the scholars every Childermas Day should go to St.
Paul's Church, and hear the child-bishop sermon, and afterwards at
high mass each of them offer a penny to the child-bishop: and
committed the care of the school to the Company of Mercers; the
stipends to the masters, the officers' salaries, &c., belonging to
the school, amounting at first to 118 pounds 14s. 7d. 1ob. per
annum; but the rents and revenues of the school being of late years
considerably advanced, the salaries of the masters have been more
than doubled, and many exhibitions granted to those who go to the
university, of 10 pounds and 6 pounds odd money per annum. The
second master hath a handsome house near the school, as well as the
first master.
The school at Mercers' Chapel, in Cheapside, hath the same patrons
and governors as that of St. Paul's, viz., the Mercers, who allow
the master a salary of 40 pounds per annum, and a house, for
teaching twenty-five scholars gratis.
Merchant Taylors' School is situated near Cannon Street, on St.
Lawrence Poultney (or Pountney) Hill. This school, I am told,
consists of six forms, in which are three hundred lads, one hundred
of whom are taught gratis, another hundred pay two shillings and
sixpence per quarter, and the third hundred five shillings a
quarter; for instructing of whom there is a master and three ushers:
and out of these scholars some are annually, on St. Barnabas' Day,
the 11th of June, elected to St. John's College, in Oxford, where
there are forty-six fellowships belonging to the school.
As to the charity schools: there are in all 131, some for boys,
others for girls; where the children are taught, if boys, to read,
write, and account; if girls, to read, sew, and knit; who are all
clothed and fitted for service or trades gratis.
I proceed in the next place to show how well London is supplied with
water, firing, bread-corn, flesh, fish, beer, wine, and other
provisions.
And as to water, no city was ever better furnished with it, for
every man has a pipe or fountain of good fresh water brought into
his house, for less than twenty shillings a year, unless brewhouses,
and some other great houses and places that require more water than
an ordinary family consumes, and these pay in proportion to the
quantity they spend; many houses have several pipes laid in, and may
have one in every room, if they think fit, which is a much greater
convenience than two or three fountains in a street, for which some
towns in other countries are so much admired.
These pipes of water are chiefly supplied from the waterworks at
London Bridge, Westminster, Chelsea, and the New River.
Besides the water brought from the Thames and the New River, there
are a great many good springs, pumps, and conduits about the town,
which afford excellent water for drinking. There are also mineral
waters on the side of Islington and Pancras.
This capital also is well supplied with firing, particularly coals
from Newcastle, and pit-coals from Scotland, and other parts; but
wood is excessively dear, and used by nobody for firing, unless
bakers, and some few persons of quality in their chambers and
drawing-rooms.
As for bread-corn, it is for the most part brought to London after
it is converted into flour, and both bread and flour are extremely
reasonable: we here buy as much good white bread for three-
halfpence or twopence, as will serve an Englishman a whole day, and
flour in proportion. Good strong beer also may be had of the
brewer, for about twopence a quart, and of the alehouses that retail
it for threepence a quart. Bear Quay, below bridge, is a great
market for malt, wheat, and horse-corn; and Queenhithe, above the
bridge, for malt, wheat, flour, and other grain.
The butchers here compute that there are about one thousand oxen
sold in Smithfield Market one week with another the year round;
besides many thousand sheep, hogs, calves, pigs, and lambs, in this
and other parts of the town; and a great variety of venison, game,
and poultry. Fruit, roots, herbs, and other garden stuff are very
cheap and good.
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 shillings 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 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. But there is now seldom seen a multitude of people
assembled, 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 noblemen 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 hearses.
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
nobility and gentry about town. And if a nobleman 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 principal taverns are large handsome edifices, made as
commodious for the entertaining a variety of company as can be
contrived, with some spacious rooms for the accommodation of
numerous assemblies. 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 glass 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
nobility 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 class may not only be divided into nobility 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 nobility, 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
assembly, the masquerade, or music-meeting, to which they move in
such crowds that their coaches can scarce pass 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
nobility, 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 shining and their servants so numerous as those of the nobility,
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 niggardly 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.
As to their way of life, they usually rise some hours before the
gentlemen at the other end of the town, and having paid their
devotions to Heaven, seldom fail in a morning of surveying the
condition of their accounts, and giving their orders to their
bookkeepers and agents for the management of their respective
trades; after which, being dressed in a modest garb, without any
footmen or attendants, they go about their business to the Custom
House, Bank, Exchange, &c., and after dinner sometimes apply
themselves to business again; but the morning is much the busiest
part of the day. In the evening of every other day the post comes
in, when the perusing their letters may employ part of their time,
as the answering them does on other days of the week; and they
frequently meet at the tavern in the evening, either to transact
their affairs, or to take a cheerful glass after the business of the
day is over.
As to the wives and daughters of the merchants and principal
tradesmen, they endeavour to imitate the Court ladies in their
dress, and follow much the same diversions; and it is not uncommon
to see a nobleman match with a citizen's daughter, by which she
gains a title, and he discharges the incumbrances on his estate with
her fortune. Merchants' sons are sometimes initiated into the same
business their fathers follow; but if they find an estate gotten to
their hands, many of them choose rather to become country gentlemen.
As to the lawyers or barristers, these also are frequently the
younger sons of good families; and the elder brother too is
sometimes entered of the Inns of Court, that he may know enough of
the law to keep his estate.
A lawyer of parts and good elocution seldom fails of rising to
preferment, and acquiring an estate even while he is a young man. I
do not know any profession in London where a person makes his
fortune so soon as in the law, if he be an eminent pleader. Several
of them have of late years been advanced to the peerage; as Finch,
Somers, Cowper, Harcourt, Trevor, Parker, Lechmere, King, Raymond,
&c., scarce any of them much exceeding forty years of age when they
arrived at that honour.
The fees are so great, and their business so engrosses every minute
of their time, that it is impossible their expenses should equal
their income; but it must be confessed they labour very hard, are
forced to be up early and late, and to try their constitutions to
the utmost (I mean those in full business) in the service of their
clients. They rise in winter long before it is light, to read over
their briefs; dress, and prepare themselves for the business of the
day; at eight or nine they go to Westminster, where they attend and
plead either in the Courts of Equity or Common Law, ordinarily till
one or two, and (upon a great trial) sometimes till the evening. By
that time they have got home, and dined, they have other briefs to
peruse, and they are to attend the hearings, either at the Lord
Chancellor's or the Rolls, till eight or nine in the evening; after
which, when they return to their chambers, they are attended by
their clients, and have their several cases and briefs to read over
and consider that evening, or the next morning before daylight;
insomuch that they have scarce time for their meals, or their
natural rest, particularly at the latter end of a term. They are
not always in this hurry; indeed, if they were, the best
constitution must soon be worn out; nor would anyone submit to such
hardships who had a subsistence, but with a prospect of acquiring a
great estate suddenly; for the gold comes tumbling into the pockets
of these great lawyers, which makes them refuse no cause, how
intricate or doubtful soever. And this brings me to consider the
high fees that are usually taken by an eminent counsel; as for a
single opinion upon a case, two, three, four, and five guineas; upon
a hearing, five or ten; and perhaps a great many more; and if the
cause does not come on till the next day, they are all to be fee'd
again, though there are not less than six or seven counsel of a
side.
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