Coffee Houses

LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES AND THE SECLUSION OF A GREAT CITY

Silliman Vol. 3 at 103-105

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During six months that I have lived principally in London, I have dined when in town, more or less every week, at a particular Coffee-house. The master and the servants have become familiar with me, that they know my preferences and habits as to food, and obviously consider me as a steady guest; with the countenances of many of the other guests I am also familiar, but I have no reason to suppose that an individual there knows me; that any question was asked regarding me when I came, or that any enquiry will be made for me mow that I have dined there, as I suppose, for the last time. Thus in London a man may appear and disappear, like an apparition rising from the ground and then sinking into it again, and with as little knowledge on the part of the observer, and with much less of interest as to his origin or destination.

This Coffee-house, which is in Leicester Square, and a genteel house, but not extravagant, is just such a place as a man bent on business and improvement would wish to find. Dinner is ready at all times from two o’clock to six. Within those hours you may consult your own convenience as to time. Tables are placed in little alcoves or recesses, where you ca be by yourself if you choose. You are served, as so as you come in, with a printed bill of fare, containing all the articles which are ever prepared at that house: of course they will not all be ready on a given day; you know which are prepared, by the prices being filled out in writing against them. Thus a selection is made by a guest according to his choice, and he knows beforehand, what his bill will be. If he prefers dining for one shilling and sixpence, this will give him a cut of roast beef, potatoes, bread, and beer or porter; he may add a cauliflower for six pence more, and a tart for six pence more, and a half pint of wine for one and three pence, or one and six pence more; thus one shilling and six pence will give him a meal sufficient to sustain his strength, two shillings and six pence will afford him some delicacies, and three shillings and nine pence or four shillings, the comfort of wine. It is a very great advantage, compared with the habits of our boarding-houses, that in London, one can exactly consult his own ability, fancy and convenience, and you are not obliged, at such houses as I have described, to call for more wine than you wish to drink, nor indeed for any if you do not choose to do it.

The expense of living very comfortably in London, and with the advantage of a suit of furnished rooms, and your breakfast and tea in them, at your own hours, and without intrusion, is not greater than that at our first boarding-houses in America, nor indeed so great as at the very first houses—and one may so manage to make it much less.

In the meantime you are not encumbered by the gregarious assemblage of persons, with whom you are obliged, in our boarding houses to sustain some conversation, and to whom you and your affairs will become to a degree known.

It is true you miss also some opportunities of information, and some interesting interviews; these, however, are not entirely precluded in the English houses; you may, without being considered intrusive, seek conversation with those whom you casually meet at the Coffee-houses.