at once. As
to the latter, she is as lazy and sluttish as her mistress; and because
she complains she has too much work, we can scarcely get her to do any
thing at all: nay, what is worse than that, I am afraid she is hardly
honest; and as she is intrusted to buy-in all our provisions, the jade,
I am sure, makes a market-penny out of every article.

But to return to my deary.--The evenings are the only time, when it is
fine weather, that I am left to myself; for then she generally takes the
child out to give it milk in the Park. When she comes home again, she is
so fatigued with walking, that she cannot stir from her chair: and it is
an hour, after shop is shut, before I can get a bit of supper, while the
maid is taken up in undressing and putting the child to bed.

But you will pity me much more, when I tell you the manner in which we
generally pass our Sundays. In the morning she is commonly too ill to
dress herself to go to church; she therefore never gets up till noon;
and, what is still more vexatious, keeps me in bed with her, when I
ought to be busily engaged in better employment. It is well if she can
get her things on by dinner-time; and, when that is over, I am sure to
be dragged out by her either to Georgia, or Hornsey Wood, or the White
Conduit House. Yet even these near excursions are so very fatiguing to
her, that, besides what it costs me in tea and hot rolls, and sillabubs,
and cakes for the boy, I am frequently forced to take a hackney-coach,
or drive them out in a one-horse chair. At other times, as my wife is
rather of the fattest, and a very poor walker, besides bearing her whole
weight upon my arm, I am obliged to carry the child myself.

Thus, Sir, does she constantly drawl out her time, without either profit
or satisfaction; and, while I see my neighbours' wives helping in the
shop, and almost earning as much as their husbands, I have the
mortification to find that mine is nothing but a dead weight upon me. In
short, I do not know any greater misfortune can happen to a plain
hard-working tradesman, as I am, than to be joined to such a woman, who
is rather a clog than a helpmate to him.

I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,

ZACHARY TREACLE.[1]

[1]An unknown correspondent.

No. 16. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1758.

I paid a visit yesterday to my old friend Ned Drugget, at his
country-lodgings. Ned began trade with a very small fortune; he took a
small house in an obscure street, and for some ye