These physicians are allowed to be men of skill in their profession, and well versed in other parts of learning.The great grievance here (as in the law) is that the inferior people are undone by the exorbitance of their fees; and what is still a greater hardship is, that if a physician has been employed, he must be continued, however unable the patient is to bear the expense, as no apothecary may administer anything to the sick man, if he has been prescribed to first by a physician: so that the patient is reduced to this dilemma, either to die of the disease, or starve his family, if his sickness happens to be of any duration.A physician here scorns to touch any other metal but gold, and the surgeons are still more unreasonable; and this may be one reason why the people of this city have so often recourse to quacks, for they are cheap and easily come at, and the mob are not judges of their ability; they pretend to great things; they have cured princes, and persons of the first quality, as they pretend; and it must be confessed their patients are as credulous as they can desire, taken with grand pretences, and the assurance of the impostor, and frequently like things the better that are offered them out of the common road.
I come in the next place to treat of attorneys' clerks, apprentices, inferior tradesmen, coachmen, porters, servants, and the lowest class of men in this town, which are far the most numerous: and first of the lawyers' clerks and apprentices, I find it a general complaint that they are under no manner of government; before their times are half out, they set up for gentlemen; they dress, they drink, they game, frequent the playhouses, and intrigue with the women; and it is no uncommon thing with clerks to bully their masters, and desert their service for whole days and nights whenever they see fit.
As to the ordinary tradesmen, they live by buying and selling; Icannot say they are so eminent for their probity as the merchants and tradesmen of the first rate; they seem to have a wrong bias given them in their education; many of them have no principles of honour, no other rule to go by than the fishmonger, namely, to get what they can, who consider only the weakness or ignorance of the customer, and make their demands accordingly, taking sometimes half the price they ask.And I must not forget the numbers of poor creatures who live and maintain their families by buying provisions in one part of the town, and retailing them in another, whose stock perhaps does not amount to more than forty or fifty shillings, and part of this they take up (many of them) on their clothes at a pawnbroker's on a Monday morning, which they make shift to redeem on a Saturday night, that they may appear in a proper habit at their parish-churches on a Sunday.These are the people that cry fish, fruit, herbs, roots, news, &c, about town.
As to hackney-coachmen, carmen, porters, chairmen, and watermen, though they work hard, they generally eat and drink well, and are decently clothed on holidays; for the wife, if she be industrious, either by her needle, washing, or other business proper to her sex, makes no small addition to their gains; and by their united labours they maintain their families handsomely if they have their healths.
As to the common menial servants, they have great wages, are well kept and clothed, but are, notwithstanding the plague, of almost every house in town.They form themselves into societies, or rather confederacies, contributing to the maintenance of each other when out of place; and if any of them cannot manage the family where they are entertained as they please, immediately they give notice they will be gone.There is no speaking to them; they are above correction; and if a master should attempt it, he may expect to be handsomely drubbed by the creature he feeds and harbours, or perhaps an action brought against him for it.It is become a common saying, "If my servant ben't a thief, if he be but honest, I can bear with other things;" and indeed it is very rare in London to meet with an honest servant.
When I was treating of tradesmen, I had forgot to mention those nuisances of the town, the itinerant pedlars who deal in toys and hardware, and those who pretend to sell foreign silks, linen, India handkerchiefs, and other prohibited and unaccustomed goods.These we meet at every coffee-house and corner of the streets, and they visit also every private house; the women have such a gust for everything that is foreign or prohibited, that these vermin meet with a good reception everywhere.The ladies will rather buy home manufactures of these people than of a neighbouring shopkeeper, under the pretence of buying cheaper, though they frequently buy damaged goods, and pay a great deal dearer for them than they would do in a tradesman's shop, which is a great discouragement to the fair dealer that maintains a family, and is forced to give a large credit, while these people run away with the ready money.And I am informed that some needy tradesmen employ fellows to run hawking about the streets with their goods, and sell pennyworths, in order to furnish themselves with a little money.
As to the recreations of the citizens, many of them are entertained in the same manner as the quality are, resorting to the play, park, music-meetings, &c.; and in the summer they visit Richmond, Hampstead, Epsom, and other neighbouring towns, where horse-racing, and all manner of rural sports, as well as other diversions, are followed in the summer season.
