Travels in England in 1782 | Page 7

myself, refund to the correspondent
of the merchant here the sum which he here pays me in English money.
I should otherwise have been obliged to sell my Prussian
Fredericks-d'or for what they weighed; for some few Dutch dollars
which I was obliged to part with before I got this credit they only gave
me eight shillings.
A foreigner has here nothing to fear from being pressed as a sailor,
unless, indeed, he should be found at any suspicious place. A singular
invention for this purpose of pressing is a ship, which is placed on land
not far from the Tower, on Tower Hill, furnished with masts and all the
appurtenances of a ship. The persons attending this ship promise simple
country people, who happen to be standing and staring at it, to show it
to them for a trifle, and as soon as they are in, they are secured as in a
trap, and according to circumstances made sailors of or let go again.
The footway, paved with large stones on both sides of the street,
appears to a foreigner exceedingly convenient and pleasant, as one may
there walk in perfect safety, in no more danger from the prodigious
crowd of carts and coaches, than if one was in one's own room, for no
wheel dares come a finger's breadth upon the curb stone. However,
politeness requires you to let a lady, or any one to whom you wish to
show respect, pass, not, as we do, always to the right, but on the side
next the houses or the wall, whether that happens to be on the right or
on the left, being deemed the safest and most convenient. You seldom
see a person of any understanding or common sense walk in the middle
of the streets in London, excepting when they cross over, which at
Charing Cross and other places, where several streets meet, is

sometimes really dangerous.
It has a strange appearance--especially in the Strand, where there is a
constant succession of shop after shop, and where, not unfrequently,
people of different trades inhabit the same house--to see their doors or
the tops of their windows, or boards expressly for the purpose, all
written over from top to bottom with large painted letters. Every person,
of every trade or occupation, who owns ever so small a portion of a
house, makes a parade with a sign at his door; and there is hardly a
cobbler whose name and profession may not be read in large golden
characters by every one that passes. It is here not at all uncommon to
see on doors in one continued succession, "Children educated here,"
"Shoes mended here," "Foreign spirituous liquors sold here," and
"Funerals furnished here;" of all these inscriptions. I am sorry to
observe that "Dealer in foreign spirituous liquors" is by far the most
frequent. And indeed it is allowed by the English themselves, that the
propensity of the common people to the drinking of brandy or gin is
carried to a great excess; and I own it struck me as a peculiar
phraseology, when, to tell you that a person is intoxicated or drunk, you
hear them say, as they generally do, that he is in liquor. In the late riots,
which even yet are hardly quite subsided, and which are still the
general topic of conversation, more people have been found dead near
empty brandy-casks in the streets, than were killed by the musket- balls
of regiments that were called in. As much as I have seen of London
within these two days, there are on the whole I think not very many
fine streets and very fine houses, but I met everywhere a far greater
number and handsomer people than one commonly meets in Berlin. It
gives me much real pleasure when I walk from Charing Cross up the
Strand, past St. Paul's to the Royal Exchange, to meet in the thickest
crowd persons from the highest to the lowest ranks, almost all
well-looking people, and cleanly and neatly dressed. I rarely see even a
fellow with a wheel-barrow who has not a shirt on, and that, too, such a
one as shows it has been washed; nor even a beggar without both a shirt
and shoes and stockings. The English are certainly distinguished for
cleanliness.
It has a very uncommon appearance in this tumult of people, where
every one, with hasty and eager step, seems to be pursuing either his
business or his pleasure, and everywhere making his way through the

crowd, to observe, as you often may, people pushing one against
another, only perhaps to see a funeral pass. The English coffins are
made very economically, according to the exact form of the body; they
are flat, and broad at top; tapering gradually from the