Although shops still had small frontages of about 15 feet and the
windows had small panes of bottle glass which partly obscured the
view of the goods, there were magnificent shops with large windows
displaying fine goods, bookshops, and print shops with prints of
political satire with caricatures. The shops were generally open
six days a week from 7 am to 8 pm, and over the years later to 10
pm. In 1675 Josiah Wedgwood opened a showroom in London for his
high quality pottery from Staffordshire. Consumption was on a mass
scale, many people buying what they wanted instead of just what
they needed. There were circulating libraries, public concert
halls, and professional boxing matches. At coffee houses,
chocolate houses, and taverns, people played at dice and cards,
gambled, talked politics and read daily newspapers, in which there
was advertising, reports of marriages and deaths, grain prices,
and book reviews. Different professions and classes and groups,
such as the whigs, the tories, classical scholars, scientists,
clergymen, intellectuals, actors, writers, and journeymen of
particular crafts, had their favorite meeting places. Coffee
houses reflected the character of their neighborhoods. They acted
as postal centers, lost property offices, business addresses,
physicians' consulting rooms, lawyers' and merchants' business
transactions, matrimonial agencies, masonic lodges, auction rooms,
and gambling dens.
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