You can order, if you please, a cup of coffee without anything to it; and, for so doing, you may sit if you wish for five or six hours in succession.
I have said that coffee-houses are excellent places for reading; I might have added, for meditation also. For unlike public-houses, there are no noisy discussions and disputes in them. All is calm, tranquil, and comfortable. The beverage, too, which is drank as a beverage, as I before remarked in a previous chapter, cheers, but not inebriates.
The remarks are generally equally original, and the facts, no doubt in some degree truths, are all alike humorous; the more so when the aspect of the book and the names of the respectable publishers suggest the higher class of readers to whom it is addressed. Little anecdotes are interspersed, concerning Harriet, of Coventry-street, who didn’t mind her stops; and James, behind the Mansion-house, who knew everybody’s appetite, that enliven the descriptive portions of the work, which is in its very inappropriateness the more amusing, and cannot be read without reaping both information and instruction on topics which no other author would have had the temerity to discuss.
But these are only words. Let PUNCH, the rival of this Caledonian Asmodeus, do justice to the man whose “character is stamped on every page (of his own), who yet is above pity; poor, yet full of enjoyment; humble, yet glorious; ignorant, yet confident.”
GRANT’S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.
THE MONEY MARKET.
Tin is 14 per cwt. in London, and this, allowing a fraction for wear and tear, gives an exchange of 94 36-27ths in favour of Hamburgh.
The money market is much easier this week, and bills (play-bills) were to be had in large quantities. A large capitalist who holds turnpike tickets to a large amount, caused much confusion by letting some pass from his hands, when they flew about with alarming rapidity. Several persons seemed desirous of taking them up, but a rush of bulls (from Smithfield) rendered this quite impossible.