BREAKFASTING HUT IN 1745.
This quaint announcement, in a handbill of the time, shows how cheaply those who lived a century or so past could enjoy suburban pleasures in merrie Islington:—
"This is to give notice to all Ladies and Gentlemen, at Spencer's original Breakfasting-Hut, between Sir Hugh Middleton's Head and St. John Street Road, by the New River side, fronting Sadler's Wells, may be had every morning, except Sundays, fine tea, sugar, bread, butter, and milk, at fourpence per head; coffee at threepence a dish. And in the afternoon, tea, sugar, and milk, at threepence per head, with good attendance. Coaches may come up to the farthest garden-door next to the bridge in St. John Street Road, near Sadler's Wells back gate.—Note. Ladies, &c., are desired to take notice that there is another person set up in opposition to me, the next door, which is a brick-house, and faces the little gate by the Sir Hugh Middleton's, and therefore mistaken for mine; but mine is the little boarded place by the river side, and my backdoor faces the same as usual; for
I am not dead, I am not gone,
Nor liquors do I sell;
But, as at first, I still go on,
Ladies, to use you well.
No passage to my hut I have,
The river runs before;
Therefore your care I humbly crave,