The Chapter Coffee-house in Paternoster Row, an ancient building with low rooms and heavy beams, was in the eighteenth century the resort of all the booksellers and publishers; and the literary hacks, the critics, and even the wits, used to go there in search of ideas or employment. This was the place about which Chatterton wrote, in those delusive letters he sent to his mother at Bristol, while he was starving in London. The Chapter also retained traditions of Oliver Goldsmith. In later years it became the tavern frequented by University men and country clergymen who were up in London for a few days, and, having no private friends or access into society, were glad to learn what was going on in the world of letters, from the conversation which they were sure to hear in the coffee-room. At one time leather tokens were issued by the proprietor; and the Chapter was noted for being entirely managed by men, no women servants being kept. In the north-east corner of the coffee-room was a box known as the Witenagemote, which in the early morning was occupied by a group of individuals nicknamed the Wet Paper Club. The name was derived from their habit of opening the papers as soon as these were brought in by the newsman, and reading them before they were dried by the waiter; a dry paper was regarded as a stale commodity. In the afternoon another party enjoyed the wet evening papers. A gentleman who was considered a fixture in this box was Mr. Hammond, a Coventry manufacturer, who evening after evening, for nearly forty-five years, was always to be found in the same place, and during the entire period was well known for his severe and often able comments on the events of the day. Here he pontificated throughout the days of Wilkes, of the American War, and of the French War, and, being on the side of liberty, was constantly in opposition to almost everyone else. The Chapter continued to be a coffee-house up to 1854, when it became a tavern. The Royal Exchange was the resort of all the trading part of the City, foreign and domestic, from half an hour after one till near three in the afternoon; but the better sort generally met in the Exchange Alley a little before, at three celebrated coffee-houses called Garraway’s, Robin’s, and Jonathan’s. In the first the people of quality who had business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens, congregated. In the third met buyers and sellers of stock. The Royal Exchange Coffee-house resembled a gaming-house more than anything else, being full of gamesters, with the same sharp, intent looks, with the difference only that there it was selling of Bank stock, East India, South Sea, and lottery tickets, instead of the cards and dice dear to ordinary gamblers.