Portal:London/Quote/09 2009

All these, except the Wyck-house, are within a few years so encreas'd in buildings, and so fully inhabited, that there is no comparison to be made between their present and past state: Every separate hamlet is encreas'd, and some of them more than treble as big as formerly; Indeed as this whole town is included in the bills of mortality, tho' no where joining to London, it is in some respects to be call'd a part of it.

This town is so remarkable for the retreat of wealthy citizens, that there is at this time near a hundred coaches kept in it; tho' I will not join with a certain satyrical author, who said of Hackney, that there were more coaches than Christians in it. Daniel Defoe (1659-1731), "Letter 6, Part 1: Middlesex, Hertford and Buckinghamshire", A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927)


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