London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History -- 18th century
It is computed that there are in London some part of the year, when the
nobility and gentry are in town, 15,000 or 16,000 large horses for
draught, used in coaches, carts, or drays, besides some thousands of
saddle-horses; and yet is the town so well supplied with hay, straw, and
corn, that there is seldom any want of them. Hay generally is not more
than forty shillings the load, and from twenty pence to two shillings the
bushel is the usual price of oats.
The opportunity of passing from one part of the town to the other, by
coach, chair, or boat, is a very great convenience, especially in the
winter, or in very hot weather. A servant calls a coach or a chair in
any of the principal streets, which attends at a minute’s warning, and
carries one to any part of the town, within a mile and a half distance,
for a shilling, but to a chair is paid one-third more; the coaches also
will wait for eighteenpence the first hour, and a shilling every
succeeding hour all day long; or you may hire a coach and a pair of
horses all day, in or out of town, for ten shillings per day; there are
coaches also that go to every village almost about town, within four or
five miles, in which a passenger pays but one shilling, and in some but
sixpence, for his passage with other company.
The pleasantest way of moving from one end of the town to the other in
summer time is by water, on that spacious gentle stream the Thames, on
which you travel two miles for sixpence, if you have two watermen, and
for threepence if you have but one; and to any village up or down the
river you go with company for a trifle. But the greatest advantage
reaped from this noble river is that it brings whatever this or other
countries afford. Down the river from Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Bucks,
&c., come corn and all manner of provision of English growth, as has been
observed already; and up the river, everything that the coasts and the
maritime counties of England, Scotland, or Ireland afford; this way also
are received the treasures and merchandise of the East and West Indies,
and indeed of the four quarters of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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