the West-end.

His Majesty remarked, with some approach to severity, on the
neglect of delicacy and taste, gradually introduced into the trade
by the new school: a profligate and inferior race of impostors who
took jobs at almost any price, to the detriment of the old school,
and the confusion of their own misguided employers. He considered
that the trade was overdone with competition, and observed speaking
of his subjects, 'There are too many of 'em.' He believed, still,
that things were a little better than they had been; adducing, as a
proof, the fact that particular posting places were now reserved,
by common consent, for particular posters; those places, however,
must be regularly occupied by those posters, or, they lapsed and
fell into other hands. It was of no use giving a man a Drury Lane
bill this week and not next. Where was it to go? He was of
opinion that going to the expense of putting up your own board on
which your sticker could display your own bills, was the only
complete way of posting yourself at the present time; but, even to
effect this, on payment of a shilling a week to the keepers of
steamboat piers and other such places, you must be able, besides,
to give orders for theatres and public exhibitions, or you would be
sure to be cut out by somebody. His Majesty regarded the passion
for orders, as one of the most unappeasable appetites of human
nature. If there were a building, or if there were repairs, going
on, anywhere, you could generally stand something and make it right
with the foreman of the works; but, orders would be expected from
you, and the man who could give the most orders was the man who
would come off best. There was this other objectionable point, in
orders, that workmen sold them for drink, and often sold them to
persons who were likewise troubled with the weakness of thirst: