The Merry Past 



The brokers were considered the servants of the 

 merchants, and all beneath them were thought 

 scarcely deserving any name, though, to distinguish 

 them from those still meaner beings who were not 

 permitted to exist within its sacred walls, they were 

 dignified with the title of Freeman of the City. 

 I The City was divided into mercantile residences, 

 private residences, warehouses, and shops, and such 

 was their uniformity that the description of one 

 quarter and the manners and practices of its in- 

 habitants will give a correct idea of the whole. To 

 begin with the lowest : the shopkeepers saw their 

 shops opened and put in order, cleaned themselves 

 for the day, breakfasted, and took their stations 

 behind their counters for that day, and, when that 

 was ended, closed again at night. Their women 

 formed neighbourly parties at home ; the men met 

 in the back parlours of a public-house, to spend the 

 evenings, as they called it, or in a neighbourly club ; 

 the wholesale men, who held themselves above that, 

 congregated with the upper class of merchants' 

 clerks in some coffee-house ; all their different sets 

 were sure to be at their parish church regularly on 

 Sunday mornings clothed in their best ; thence 

 they formed neighbourly parties to walk in Moor- 

 fields, which had the imposing name of the City 

 Mall ; then returned home to dinner ; again to 

 church in the afternoon, and then, if they were 

 quite at ease, a pleasant walk in the country, to Mile 

 End, Hackney, Islington, White Conduit House, or 

 Bagnigge Wells, whence, having had their fill of 



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