London has always appealed to the imagination of the adventurous country youth to be the home of golden promise. If he can only get there he believes that his successful career has commenced, but it appears that in Elizabeth's reign there was pretty much the same difficulty in obtaining employment as there is now. This is illustrated by a curious account of the early life of John Sadler, a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, which has come down to us. "He joined himself to the carrier, and came to London, where he had never been before, and sold his horse in Smithfield, and having no acquaintance in London to recommend him or assist him he went from street to street, and house to house, asking if they wanted an apprentice, and though he met with many discouraging scorns and a thousand denials he went on till he lighted on one Mr. Brokesbank, a grocer in Bucklersbury, who, though he long denied him for want of sureties for his fidelity, and because the money he had (but ten pounds) was so disproportionate to what he used to receive with apprentices, yet upon his discreet account he gave of himself and the motives which put him upon that course, and promise to compensate with diligent and faithful service whatever else was short of his expectation, he ventured to receive him upon trial, in which he so well approved himself that he accepted him into his service, to which he bound him for eight years." The outdoor life of his time, with the men and women who frequented the streets, is brought vividly before our eyes in Ben Jonson's plays. The useful and useless members of society pass across the stage. The water-carriers who congregate around the conduits are represented by Cob in _Every Man in His Humour_. Before Sir Hugh Myddelton made the New River and brought to men's houses, all water that was wanted had to be fetched from the conduits. The men who supplied the town drew off the water into large wooden tankards, broad at the bottom, but narrow at the top, which held about three gallons. This vessel was borne upon the shoulder, and to keep the carrier dry two towels were fastened over him, one to fall in front and the other to cover his back. The narrowness of the old London streets is strikingly shown in _The Devil is an Ass_, where the lady and her lover speak gentle nothings to each other from the windows of two contiguous buildings.