been making
his calculations on that very particular, and he found by computation,
that the number of servants kept by all sorts of people, tradesmen as
well as others, was so much increased, that there are in London, and the
towns within ten miles of it, take it every way, above a hundred
thousand more maid-servants and footmen, at this time in place, than
used to be in the same compass of ground thirty years ago;[20] and that
their wages amounted to above forty shillings a-head per annum, more
than the wages of the like number of servants did amount to at the same
length of time past; the advance to the whole body amounting to no less
than two hundred thousand pounds a-year.

Indeed, it is not easy to guess what the expense of wages to servants
amounts to in a year, in this nation; and consequently we cannot easily
determine what the increase of that expense amounts to in England, but
certainly it must rise to many hundred thousand pounds a-year in the
whole.

The tradesmen bear their share of this expense, and indeed too great a
share, very ordinary tradesmen in London keeping at least two maids, and
some more, and some a footman or two besides; for it is an ordinary
thing to see the tradesmen and shopkeepers of London keep footmen, as
well as the gentlemen: witness the infinite number of blue liveries,
which are so common now that they are called the tradesmen's liveries;
and few gentlemen care to give blue to their servants for that very
reason.

In proportion to their servants, the tradesmen now keep their tables,
which are also advanced in their proportion of expense to other things:
indeed, the citizen's and tradesmen's tables are now the emblems, not of
plenty, but of luxury, not of good house-keeping, but of profusion, and
that of the highest kind of extravagance; insomuch, that it was the
opinion of a gentleman who had been not a traveller only, but a nice
observer of such things abroad, that there is at this time more waste of
provisions in England than in any other nation in the world, of equal
extent of ground; and that England consumes for their whole subsistence
more flesh than half Europe besides; that the beggars of London, and
within ten miles round it, eat more white bread than the whole kingdom
of Scotland,[21] and the like.

But this is an observation only, though I believe it is very just; I am
bringing it in here only as an example of the dreadful profusion of this
age, and how an extravagan