London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History -- 18th century
And as to water, no city was ever better furnished with it, for every man
has a pipe or fountain of good fresh water brought into his house, for
less than twenty shillings a year, unless brewhouses, and some other
great houses and places that require more water than an ordinary family
consumes, and these pay in proportion to the quantity they spend; many
houses have several pipes laid in, and may have one in every room, if
they think fit, which is a much greater convenience than two or three
fountains in a street, for which some towns in other countries are so
much admired.
These pipes of water are chiefly supplied from the waterworks at London
Bridge, Westminster, Chelsea, and the New River.
Besides the water brought from the Thames and the New River, there are a
great many good springs, pumps, and conduits about the town, which afford
excellent water for drinking. There are also mineral waters on the side
of Islington and Pancras.
This capital also is well supplied with firing, particularly coals from
Newcastle, and pit-coals from Scotland, and other parts; but wood is
excessively dear, and used by nobody for firing, unless bakers, and some
few persons of quality in their chambers and drawing-rooms.
As for bread-corn, it is for the most part brought to London after it is
converted into flour, and both bread and flour are extremely reasonable:
we here buy as much good white bread for three-halfpence or twopence, as
will serve an Englishman a whole day, and flour in proportion. Good
strong beer also may be had of the brewer, for about twopence a quart,
and of the alehouses that retail it for threepence a quart. Bear Quay,
below bridge, is a great market for malt, wheat, and horse-corn; and
Queenhithe, above the bridge, for malt, wheat, flour, and other grain.
The butchers here compute that there are about one thousand oxen sold in
Smithfield Market one week with another the year round; besides many
thousand sheep, hogs, calves, pigs, and lambs, in this and other parts of
the town; and a great variety of venison, game, and poultry. Fruit,
roots, herbs, and other garden stuff are very cheap and good.
Fish also are plentiful, such as fresh cod, plaice, flounders, soles,
whitings, smelts, sturgeon, oysters, lobsters, crabs, shrimps, mackerel,
and herrings in the season; but it must be confessed that salmon, turbot,
and some other sea-fish are dear, as well as fresh-water fish.
Wine is imported from foreign countries, and is dear. The port wine
which is usually drunk, and is the cheapest, is two shillings a quart,
retailed in taverns, and not much less than eighteen or twenty pounds the
hogshead, when purchased at the best hand; and as to French wines, the
duties are so high upon them that they are double the price of the other
at least. White wine is about the same price as red port, and canary
about a third dearer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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