Here, ranged on long narrow wooden benches, which extended from one side of the market to the other, and over which sloped a narrow, eaves-like roofing, that projected sufficiently forward only to shelter the sitter from the rain, were to be seen the many merchants of the streets—the buyers of hareskins—the bone-grubbers, and the rag-gatherers—the “bluey-hunters,” or juvenile purloiners of lead—the bottle collectors—the barterers of crockery-ware for old clothes—the flower-swoppers—the umbrella menders—and all the motley fraternity of petty dealers and chapmen. Each had his store of old clothes—or metal—or boots—or rags—or bonnets—or hats—or bottles—or hareskins—or umbrellas, spread out in a heap before him. There sat a barterer of crockery and china, in a bright red plush waistcoat and knee breeches, with legs like balustrades, beside his half-emptied basket of “stone-ware,” while at his feet lay piled the apparently worthless heap of rags and tatters, for which he had exchanged his jugs, and cups, and basins. A few yards from him was a woman done up in a coachman’s drab and many-caped box-coat, with a pair of men’s cloth boots on her feet, and her limp-looking straw-bonnet flattened down on her head, as if with repeated loads, while the ground near her was strewn with hareskins, some old and so stiff that they seemed frozen, and the fresher ones looking shiny and crimson as tinsel. Before this man was a small mound of old cracked boots, dappled with specks of mildew—beside that one lay a hillock of washed-out light waistcoats, and yellow stays, and straw bonnets half in shreds. Farther on was a black-chinned and lantern-jawed bone-grubber, clad in dirty greasy rags, with his wallet emptied on the stones, and the bones and bits of old iron and pieces of rags that he had gathered in his day’s search, each sorted into different piles before him; and as he sat waiting anxiously for a purchaser, he chewed a piece of mouldy pie-crust, that he had picked up or had given him on his rounds. In one part of the Exchange was to be perceived some well-known tinker behind a heap of old battered saucepans or metal tea-pots, side by side with an umbrella mender, in front of whom lay a store of whalebone ribs and sticks. In another quarter might be seen the familiar face of some popular peep-showman, with his “back-show” on the form on one side of him, while on the other were ranged the physic phials and wine bottles and glass pickle jars that he had taken of the children for a sight at his exhibition; and next to him was located a flower-seller, with his basket emptied of all its blooming and fragrant contents, with the exception of one or two of the more expensive plants, and the places of the missing flowers filled with coats, waistcoats, boots, and hats.