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; I cannot 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.