Glebes, Tithes, Advowsons, Rectories and Lectureships; North's
Undue Elections, False Polling, Scrutinies, etc.; Hamlin's,
Infant-Baptism, Lay-Ordination, Free-Will, Election and
Reprobation; Batson's, the Prices of Pepper, Indigo and Salt-Petre;
and all those about the Exchange, where the Merchants meet to
transact their Affairs, are in a perpetual hurry about
Stock-Jobbing, Lying, Cheating, Tricking Widows and Orphans, and
committing Spoil and Rapine on the Publick.

[Illustration: WHITE'S AND BROOKES', ST. JAMES'S STREET]

In the eighteenth century beer and wine were commonly sold at the coffee
houses in addition to tea and chocolate. Daniel Defoe, writing of his
visit to Shrewsbury in 1724, says, "I found there the most coffee houses
around the Town Hall that ever I saw in any town, but when you come into
them they are but ale houses, only they think that the name coffee house
gives a better air."

Speaking of the coffee houses of the city, Besant says:

Rich merchants alone ventured to enter certain of the coffee
houses, where they transacted business more privately and more
expeditiously than on the Exchange. There were coffee houses where
officers of the army alone were found; where the city shopkeeper
met his chums; where actors congregated; where only divines, only
lawyers, only physicians, only wits and those who came to hear them
were found. In all alike the visitor put down his penny and went
in, taking his own seat if he was an habitue; he called for a cup
of tea or coffee and paid his twopence for it; he could call also,
if he pleased, for a cordial; he was expected to talk with his
neighbour whether he knew him or not. Men went to certain coffee
houses in order to meet the well-known poets and writers who were
to be found there, as Pope went in search of Dryden. The daily
papers and the pamphlets of the day were taken in. Some of the
coffee houses, but not the more respectable, allowed the use of
tobacco.

[Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE POLITICIANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: THE GREAT FAIR ON THE FROZEN THAMES--1683

From a broadside entitled _Wonders on the Deep_. Figure 2 is the Duke of
York's Coffee House]

Mackay, in his _Journey Through England_ (1724), says:

We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find
entertainment at them till el