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, Icannot 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.
