[170:A] Poems for Children six feet high, 1757.
[185:A] In other words a Ventriloquist.
[191:A] The worthy Magistrate was right in his conjecture, for highway robbery is very uncommon at present in the neighbourhood of London.
CHAP. III.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INHABITANTS OF LONDON FROM 1700 TO 1800.
A Weekly Paper, intituled "The Dutch Prophet," was published at the commencement of the Century. The Author, in one of those, gives the outlines of each day in the week as employed by different persons; it is a filthy publication, and the following is almost the only decent part. "Wednesday, several Shop-keepers near St. Paul's will rise before six, be upon their knees at chapel a little after; promise God Almighty to live soberly and righteously before seven; take half a pint of Sack and a dash of Gentian before eight; tell fifty lies behind their counters by nine; and spend the rest of the morning over Tea and Tobacco at Child's Coffee-house."
"Sunday, a world of women, with green aprons, get on their pattens after eight; reach
Brewers-hall and White-hart court by nine; are ready to burst with the Spirit a minute or two after, and delivered of it by ten. Much sighing at Salters-hall about the same hour; great frowning at St. Paul's while the service is singing, tolerable attention to the Sermon, but no respect shewn at all to the Sacrament," &c. &c.
These extracts inform us that Tradesmen were in the habit of attending Matins, which is certainly not the case at present; that they breakfasted upon sack and the root Gentian, and drank tea and chewed tobacco at the Coffee-house. Mark the change of 100 years: they now breakfast upon tea, and never chew tobacco; nor do many of them enter the Coffee-house once in a year.