visit also every private house; the women have such a gust for
everything that is foreign or prohibited, that these vermin meet
with a good reception everywhere. The ladies will rather buy home
manufactures of these people than of a neighbouring shopkeeper,
under the pretence of buying cheaper, though they frequently buy
damaged goods, and pay a great deal dearer for them than they would
do in a tradesman's shop, which is a great discouragement to the
fair dealer that maintains a family, and is forced to give a large
credit, while these people run away with the ready money. And I am
informed that some needy tradesmen employ fellows to run hawking
about the streets with their goods, and sell pennyworths, in order
to furnish themselves with a little money.

As to the recreations of the citizens, many of them are entertained
in the same manner as the quality are, resorting to the play, park,
music-meetings, &c.; and in the summer they visit Richmond,
Hampstead, Epsom, and other neighbouring towns, where horse-racing,
and all manner of rural sports, as well as other diversions, are
followed in the summer season.

Towards autumn, when the town is thin, many of the citizens who deal
in a wholesale way visit the distant parts of the kingdom to get in
their debts, or procure orders for fresh parcels of goods; and much
about the same time the lawyers are either employed in the several
circuits, or retired to their country seats; so that the Court, the
nobility and gentry, the lawyers, and many of the citizens being
gone into the country, the town resumes another face. The west end
of it appears perfectly deserted; in other parts their trade falls
off; but still in the streets about the Royal Exchange we seldom
fail to meet with crowds of people, and an air of business in the