ABSTRACT
This practice, far more commodious than the rude and inconvenient mode of carrying their merchandize from town to town, has become general, not only in this, but in every other business; and it may now be asserted, that the whole of the internal wholesale trade of England is carried on by Commercial Travellers-they pervade every town, village and hamlet in the kingdom, carrying their samples and patterns, and taking orders from the retail tradesmen, and afterwards forwarding the goods by waggons, or canal barges, to their destination;—they form more than one half of the immense number of persons who are constantly travelling through the country in all directions, and are the principal support of our Inns, the neatness and comfort of which are so much celebrated throughout Europe. The commercial travellers are in a great measure the causes of this neatness and comfort, for they soon find out the best houses of entertainment; and, being gregarious, the news is readily communicated, and the best houses of course become more frequented: a circumstance which excites emulation among the Innkeepers. These travellers are a body of men exhibiting intelligence and acuteness, combined, in many instances, with self-conceit and the superficial information acquired by reading newspapers.
