DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0300
266 LIFE OF JOHN ELWES, ESQ.
tent. He was the founder of great part of Marylebone ;
Portman Place, Portman Square, and many of the adja-
cent streets rose out of his pocket; and had not the fatal
American War put a stop to his rage for building, much
of the property he then possessed, would have been laid
out in bricks and mortar. He judiciously became his own
insurer, and stood to all his losses by conflagrations. He
soon became a philosopher upon fire; and, on a public-
house which belonged to him being consumed, he said,
with great composure, “Well, there is no great harm
done ; the tenant never paid me, and I should not have
got rid of him so quickly in any other way.”
It was the custom of Mr. Elwes, whenever he came to
town, to occupy any of his premises which might then
chance to be vacant. In this manner he travelled from
street to street, and whenever any person wished to take
the house in which he was, the owner was instantly ready
to move into any other. A couple of beds, the same
number of chairs, a table, and an old woman, comprized
all his furniture, and he moved them about at a minute’s
warning. Of all these moveables, the old woman was the
only one that gave him any trouble ; for she was afflicted
with a lameness, that made it difficult to get her about
quite so fast as he chose; and besides, the colds she took
were amazing ; for sometimes she was in a small house in
the Haymarket, at another in a great house in Portland
Place; sometimes in a little room with a coal fire, at
other times with a few chips which the carpenters had lef t
in rooms of most splendid, but frigid dimensions, and
with a little oiled paper in the windows for glass. It
might with truth be said of the old woman, that she was
“ here to-day, and gone to-morrow and the scene which
terminated her life is not the least singular of the anec-
dotes recorded of Mr. Elwes.
He had come to town, and as usual, had taken up his
abode
tent. He was the founder of great part of Marylebone ;
Portman Place, Portman Square, and many of the adja-
cent streets rose out of his pocket; and had not the fatal
American War put a stop to his rage for building, much
of the property he then possessed, would have been laid
out in bricks and mortar. He judiciously became his own
insurer, and stood to all his losses by conflagrations. He
soon became a philosopher upon fire; and, on a public-
house which belonged to him being consumed, he said,
with great composure, “Well, there is no great harm
done ; the tenant never paid me, and I should not have
got rid of him so quickly in any other way.”
It was the custom of Mr. Elwes, whenever he came to
town, to occupy any of his premises which might then
chance to be vacant. In this manner he travelled from
street to street, and whenever any person wished to take
the house in which he was, the owner was instantly ready
to move into any other. A couple of beds, the same
number of chairs, a table, and an old woman, comprized
all his furniture, and he moved them about at a minute’s
warning. Of all these moveables, the old woman was the
only one that gave him any trouble ; for she was afflicted
with a lameness, that made it difficult to get her about
quite so fast as he chose; and besides, the colds she took
were amazing ; for sometimes she was in a small house in
the Haymarket, at another in a great house in Portland
Place; sometimes in a little room with a coal fire, at
other times with a few chips which the carpenters had lef t
in rooms of most splendid, but frigid dimensions, and
with a little oiled paper in the windows for glass. It
might with truth be said of the old woman, that she was
“ here to-day, and gone to-morrow and the scene which
terminated her life is not the least singular of the anec-
dotes recorded of Mr. Elwes.
He had come to town, and as usual, had taken up his
abode