SIR,

I AM the unfortunate wife of the grocer whose letter you published about ten weeks ago, in which he complains, like a forry fellow, that I loiter in the fhop with my needle-work in my hand, and that I oblige him to take me out on Sundays, and keep a girl to look after the child. Sweet Mr. Idler, if you did but know all, you would give no encouragement to fuch an unreasonable grumbler. I brought him three hundred pounds, which fet him up in a fhop, and bought in a stock, on which, with good management, we might live comfortably; but now I have given him a fhop, I am forced to watch him and the shop too. I will tell you, Mr. Idler, how it is. There is an alehouse over the way with a ninepin alley, to which he is fure to run when I turn my back, and there loses his money, for he plays at ninepins as he does every thing else. While he is at this favourite fport, he fets a dirty boy to watch his door, and call him to his customers, but he is long in coming, and fo rude when he comes, that our custom falls off every day.

Those who cannot govern themselves, must be governed. I have refolved to keep him for the future behind his counter, and let him bounce at his customers if he dares. I cannot be above stairs and below at the fame time, and have therefore taken a girl to look after the child and dress the dinner; and, after all, pray who is to blame?

On a Sunday, it is true, I make him walk abroad, and fometimes carry the child; I wonder who should carry it! But I never take him out till after church

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time,

time, nor would do it then, but that, if he is left alone, he will be upon the bed. On a Sunday, if he stays at home, he has fix meals, and, when he can eat no longer, has twenty ftratagems to escape from me to the alehouse; but I commonly keep the door locked, till Monday produces fomething for him to do.

This is the true state of the case, and these are the provocations for which he has written his letter to you. I hope you will write a paper to fhew, that, if a wife must spend her whole time in watching her husband, she cannot conveniently tend her child, or fit at her needle.

I am, SIR, &c.

SIR,

THERE is in this town a fpecies of oppression which the law has not hitherto prevented or redreffed.

I am a chairman. You know, Sir, we come when we are called, and are expected to carry all who require our affistance. It is common for men of the most unwieldy corpulence to crowd themselves into a chair, and demand to be carried for a fhilling as far as an airy young lady whom we fcarcely feel upon our poles. Surely we ought to be paid like all other mortals in proportion to our labour. Engines fhould be fixed in proper places to weigh chairs as they weigh waggons; and those whom ease and plenty have made unable to carry themselves, fhould give part of their fuperfluities to those who carry them.

I am, SIR, &c.

NUMB. 29. SATURDAY, November 4, 1758.

SIR,

To the IDLER.

HAVE often obferved, that friends are loft by difcontinuance of intercourfe without any offence on either part, and have long known, that it is more dangerous to be forgotten than to be blamed; I therefore make hafte to fend you the rest of my story, left, by the delay of another fortnight, the name of Betty Broom might be no longer remembered by you or your readers.

Having left the laft place in hafte to avoid the charge or the fufpicion of theft, I had not fecured another fervice, and was forced to take a lodging in a back street. I had now got good clothes. The woman who lived in the garret oppofite to mine was very officious, and offered to take care of my room and clean it, while I went round to my acquaintance to enquire for a mistress. I knew not why fhe was fo kind, nor how I could recompenfe her; but in a few days I miffed fome of my linen, went to another lodging, and refolved not to have another friend in the next garret.

In fix weeks I became under-maid at the house of a mercer in Cornhill, whofe fon was his apprentice. The young gentleman used to fit late at the tavern, without the knowledge of his father; and I was ordered by my mistress to let him in filently to his bed VOL. VIII. under

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under the counter, and to be very careful to take away his candle. The hours which I was obliged to watch, whilst the rest of the family was in bed, I confidered as fupernumerary, and, having no business affigned for them, thought myself at liberty to spend them my own way: I kept myfelf awake with a book, and for fome time liked my ftate the better for this opportunity of reading. At last, the uppermaid found my book, and fhewed it to my mistress, who told me, that wenches like me might spend their time better; that she never knew any of the readers that had good defign's in their heads; that she could always find something else to do with her time, than to puzzle over books; and did not like that fuch a fine lady fhould fit up for her young master.

This was the first time that I found it thought criminal or dangerous to know how to read. I was difmiffed decently, left I fhould tell tales, and had a fmall gratuity above my wages.

I then lived with a gentlewoman of a fall fortune. This was the only happy part of my life. My miftrefs, for whom publick diverfions were too expenfive, fpent her time with books, and was pleased to find a maid who could partake her amufements. I rofe early in the morning, that I might have time in the afternoon to read or liften, and was fuffered to tell my opinion, or exprefs my delight. Thus fifteen months ftole away, in which I did not repine that I was born to fervitude. But a burning fever feized my mistrefs, of whom I fhall fay no more, than that her fervant wept upon her grave.

I had lived in a kind of luxury, which made me very unfit for another place; and was rather too de

licate for the converfation of a kitchen; so that when I was hired in the family of an East India director, my behaviour was fo different, as they faid, from that of a common fervant, that they concluded me a gentlewoman in difguife, and turned me out in three weeks, on fufpicion of fome design which they could not comprehend.

I then fled for refuge to the other end of the town, where I hoped to find no obftruction from my new accomplishments, and was hired under the housekeeper in a fplendid family. Here I was too wife for the maids, and too nice for the footmen; yet I. might have lived on without much uneafinefs, had not my mistress, the housekeeper, who used to employ me in buying neceffaries for the family, found a bill which I had made of one day's expences. I suppose it did not quite agree with her own book, for the fiercely declared her refolution, that there fhould be no pen and ink in that kitchen but her

own.

She had the justice, or the prudence, not to injure my reputation; and I was eafily admitted into another house in the neighbourhood, where my businefs was to fweep, the rooms and make the beds. Here I was, for fome time, the favourite of Mrs. Simper, my lady's woman, who could not bear the vulgar girls, and was happy in the attendance of a young woman of fome education. Mrs. Simper loved a novel, though fhe could not read hard words, and therefore, when her lady was abroad, we always laid hold on her books. At laft, my abilities became fo much celebrated, that the houfe-fteward ufed to employ me in keeping his accounts. Mrs. Simper then