Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations.

  • Pehr Kalm
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of births, deaths, and marriages in several of the largest towns of Europé, from which to draw a comparison with London, and to show the size of London. I will in the last volume (D.V.) of these traveis give how many are annually born, die, &c., in London. [This promise was never fulfilled.] Now I will only shortly state them con- cerning the foreign places, as they stood entered in this book. [Pp. 446 and 447 of T. I. contain Tables for Nine towns.] [T. I. p. 447.] Several good institutions in London. In several places, especially in the larger streets, where the people stream backwards and forwards, there sit either men or old women with shoe-brushes, blacking, and such like, ready to clean shoes for anyone who may require their services. Thus when [T. I. p. 448] one walks in the Street, and gets muddy about the shoes, he tums to one of those who stand in the Street, and allows him to clean his shoes. It is not necessary to take off one’s shoes for this purpose, but one sets the feet with the shoes on upon a little table, stol, which is put there on purpose, when they are cleaned. A halfpenny is paid for each shoe. This is a great advantage in this place, where the women are so very careful about their clean and white floors, besides that, one can go neat about the feet. In many places, and almost everywhere in the large streets, there stand carriages for hire, hyr-vagnar, ready to carry, on payment, anyone who wishes to use them. These hire-coachmen, hyr-kuskar, do not get to take payment, accordingto their own judgment, if they are employed in the town, but they have a certain Taxa, how much they shall receive from the one place to another, above which they cannot go without a fine,
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