We frequently meet with the pieman in old prints; and in Hogarth's "March to Finchley," there he stands in the very centre of the crowd, grinning with delight at the adroitness of one robbery, while he is himself the victim of another. We learn from this admirable figure by the greatest painter of English life, that the pieman of the last century perambulated the streets in professional costume; and we gather further, from the burly dimensions of his wares that he kept his trade alive by the laudable practice of giving "a good pennyworth for a penny." Justice compels us to observe that his successors of a later generation have not been very conscientious observers of this maxim. [Illustration: HOGARTH'S PIEMAN.] [Illustration: NICE NEW! NICE NEW! All hot! All Hot Hot! All Hot! _Here they are, two sizes bigger than last week._] At this date there was James Sharpe England, a noted flying pieman, who attended all the metropolitan festive gatherings; he walked about hatless, to sell his savoury wares, with his hair powdered and tied _en queue_, his dress neat, apron spotless, jesting wherever he went, with a mighty voice in recommendation of the puddings and pies, which, for the sake of greater oddity he sometimes carried on a wooden platter. [Illustration: JAMES SHARPE ENGLAND, _The Flying Pieman_.] The London pieman, as he takes his walks abroad, makes a practice of "looking in" at all the taverns on his way. Here his customers are found principally in the tap-room. "Here they are, all 'ot!" the pieman cries, as he walks in; "toss or buy! up and win 'em!" For be it known to all whom it may concern, the pieman is a gambler, both from inclination and principle, and will toss with his customers, either by the dallying shilly-shally process of "best five in nine," or "best two in three," or the desperate dash of "sudden death!" in which latter case the first toss decides the matter, _viz_:--a pie for a penny, or your penny gone for nothing, but he invariably declines the mysterious process of "odd man," not being altogether free from suspicion on the subject of collusion between a couple of hungry, and not over honestly inclined customers. Of the "stuff" which pie-dealers usually make their wares, much has been sung and said, and in some neighbourhoods the sight of an approaching pieman seems to get about an immediate desire for imitating the harmless cat and its "Mee-yow," or the "Bow-wow-wow!" of the dog. And opprobrious epithets are hurled at the piemen as they parade the streets and alleys, and even kidnapping has been slyly hinted at, for the mother of Tom Cladpole, finding her son so determined to make a "Jurney to Lunnun"--least he should die a fool, tries to frighten the boy out of his fixed intention by informing him in pure Sussex dialect that:-- "Besides, dey kidnap people dere, Ah! ketch um by supprize, An send um off where nub'dy knows, Or _baak um up in pies_."