London Coffee Houses of 1765
"On alternating Thursday, a gang of freethinkers - eventually dubbed the "The Club of Honest Whigs" by one of its founding members, Benjamin Franklin - met at the coffeehouse (in the shadows of St Pauls), embarking each fortnight on a long, rambling session that has no exact equivalent in modern scientific culture. (The late-night bender at an industry conference probably comes closest: the sharing of essential, potentially lucrative information while stimulated by the chemical cocktail of caffeine, alcohol and nicotine). Boswell visited the "Honest Whigs" on occasion and he had this to say about the experience:
It consists of clergymen, physicians and some other professions...(including) Mr Price who writes on morals... we have wine and punch upon the table. Some of us smoke a pipe, conversation goes on pretty formally, sometimes sensibly and sometimes furiously: At nine there is a sideboard with Welsh rabbits (rarebit?) and apple-puffs, porter and beer"
From Chapter One, "The Invention of Air", Steven Johnson.
Ah, a copy of the Economist article on Coffee Houses I wanted to link to...
Note to self: must start re-reading Quicksilver.
As an aside, searching for the quote above led me to the Google Books entry for Conversation by Stephen Miller. This is the first direct purchase I've made as a result of finding the text in Google Books. So there ;-p
