earn on inquiry, the lower class of people
generally are contented. N.B. I have altered my opinion since writing
this....

"Thus far on our journey we have had a very pleasant time. There is great
difference I find in the treatment of travellers. They are treated
according to the style in which they travel. If a man arrives at the door
of an inn in a stage-coach, he is suffered to alight without notice, and
it is taken for granted that common fare will answer for him. But if he
comes in a post-chaise, the whole inn is in an uproar; the whole house
come to the door, from the landlord down to boots. One holds his hand to
help you to alight, another is very officious in showing you to the
parlor, and another gets in the baggage, whilst the landlord and landlady
are quite in a bustle to know what the gentleman will please to have.
This attention, however, is very pleasant, you are sure to be waited upon
well and can have everything you will call for, and that of the nicest
kind. It is the custom in this country to hire no servants at inns. They,
on the contrary, pay for their places and the only wages they get is from
the generosity of travellers.

"This circumstance at first would strike a person unacquainted with the
customs of England as a very great imposition. I thought so, but, since I
have considered the subject better, I believe that there could not be a
wiser plan formed. It makes servants civil and obliging and always ready
to do anything; for, knowing that they depend altogether on the bounty of
travellers, they would fear to do anything which would in the least
offend them; and, as there is a customary price for each grade of
servants, a person who is travelling can as well calculate the expense of
his journey as though they were nothing of the kind."

"_London, August 15, 1811._ You see from the date that I have at length
arrived at the place of my destination. I have been in the city about
three hours, so you see what is my first object.... Mr. and Mrs. Allston
with myself took a post-chaise which, indeed, is much more expensive than
a stage-coach, but, on account of Mrs. Allston's health, which you know
was not very good when in Boston (although she is much benefited by her
voyage), we were obliged to travel slowly, and in this manner it has cost
us perhaps double the sum which it would have done had we come in a
stage-coach. But necessity obliged me to act as I have done. I found
myself in a land of strang