Lodgings & Dining Out

London Lodgings & Dining Out

Vol. 1 (131-133)

May 21.—Not being engaged in commercial business, I took lodgings near Cavendish Square, in a part of Westminster, which is at once airy, clean, and quiet. The recommendation of a friend in New York, who had resided in the same house, gave me entire confidence in the people, and a letter of introduction from him (for he had been a great favorite there) procured me all the kindness and sedulous attention which I could have wished.

The method in which men without families usually live in London is very different from that which prevails in our great towns. Here, boarding-houses are unknown, or, if known, are hardly reputable places of residence. Single men therefore reside in lodgings, that is, they have furnished apartments in private houses, commonly a bed chamber and a parlor; sometimes they have a third room for a dressing chamber; but this is an unnecessary appendage. The apartments will cost from half a guinea to three or four guineas a week, according as they are more or less splendid, or are situated in a fashionable or obscure part of the town, and their location is a matter of no small importance to the reception of a stranger. The Londoners will not call on a man who resides in some dirty alley or dark court, for the impression is at once that he is not genteel. In general, lodgings sufficiently comfortable and respectable may be obtained from one to two guineas a week. In them it is expected that the tenant will take his breakfast and tea, which is procured by him by the servants of the house, at his own expense, over and above the rent of the rooms. The articles are purchased for him, and he pays the neat cost without any additional bill for the labor of preparing the food. He is expected to dine out either at a coffee-house or wherever business or engagements of civility may lead him. In some houses they will prepare an occasional dinner for you, when ill health or bad weather renders it inconvenient to go abroad, but this is regarded as an extra indulgence, which you cannot claim as a right. This method of living is much more comfortable than ours, and it secures to one the command of his own time, with all the retirement of domestic life.

May 22.—The number of eating houses in London is immense. You can hardly pass through a street without finding one, and in the earliest excursion which I had occasion to make for a dinner, I went into the first house of this description which I saw. I cannot say that it was very cleanly or comfortable, and accordingly, a charge of only one shilling and six pence was made for the dinner. On returning to my lodgings, I was beginning to boast to Mr. D.--- how cheaply I had dined, but he soon silenced me by declaring that he had just dined for six pence. You will not suppose that I shall be solicitous to extend my experiments very far in this way, but these facts will tend to evince how completely in London a man may accommodate his living to his wishes or circumstances. He may, if he pleases, dine at the London Coffee-house for a guinea, or he may descend into a cellar and dine for three pence.