From Tom Crewe’s review of A Very Queer Family Indeed: Sex, Religion and the Bensons in Victorian Britain in the London Review of Books:
“At 11am on 22 November 1827 Francis Place, the reformer and radical, stuck his head out of his bedroom window in Charing Cross and put down on paper the activity he could see outside:
Horses/Carriages
8 – 2 stage coaches with 4 horses each
8 – 2 ditto standing at The Ship
4 – 1 ditto [standing] at the Silver Cross
2 – 1 dray delivering ale
6 – 1 wagon coming along loaded with Swedish turnips, drawn by six horses
14 – 7 hackney coaches and cabriolets…
It goes on, until he has counted 102 horses and 37 carriages in a single street. We have a semi-miraculous view of a vanished world about its business, watched without realising it, made visible just for a moment.”