Let us enter Houndsditch, a place where the Jews collected together long before the royal house of Guelph occupied its present pleasant position on the English throne. Poverty and wretchedness, it may be, are bashful at the West End, but they are not so here, “Where no contiguous palace rears its head, To mark the meanness of their humble shed.” In a little court on our left, a little way down, we come to a building known as the Old Clothes Exchange. The building was erected some dozen years ago by one of the leading merchants in the old clothes line. A small entrance fee is demanded. You had better pay, as otherwise admission will be denied you. You had better not attempt to pass in without paying, as the toll-collector is an ex-prize-fighter; and the chances are, in a set-to, you would come off second best. If it be Sunday you had better not, especially if the weather be warm, attempt a passage at all. The scrambling, and wedging, and pushing, and driving are dreadful. A man must have some nerve who forces his way in. In the week day, and you are a seller, you are soon pounced on by the Jews hungering and thirsting after bargains. In that peculiar dialect affected by the ancient people you have the most magnificent offers made. “My coot friend, have you cot any preakage?” says one. “Cot any old boots?” says another. “I alvays gives a coot prishe,” says a third. And the seller is surrounded by an eager crowd, as if he had the Koh-i-noor, and was going to part with it dirt cheap. If you are a buyer, you are quite as quickly attacked. “Want a new hat?” says one. “Shall I sell you a coot coat?” says another; and whichever way you turn, you see the same buying and selling. The cheap jewellery, the china ornaments, the general wares, are not of the most _recherché_, but of the most popular character. You may buy a stock close by that will set up all the fairs in England. Here a seller of crockery ware has come back, and is disposing of the treasures he has acquired in the course of his travels. There a woman is discharging a similar miscellaneous cargo. All round are buyers, examining their goods. Everything here will be made useful. That bit of old iron will become new; those boots, ruined, as you deemed them, will be vamped up, and shall dance merrily to accompanying shillalaghs at Donnybrook fair; that resplendent vest, once the delight of Belgravia, in a few weeks will adorn Quashie as he serenades his Mary Blane beneath West Indian moons. Even those bits of waste leather will be carefully treasured up and converted into a dye that may tint the rich man’s costly robe. Now, you need not wonder why you find suspicious-looking men and women bargaining with your servants for left-off clothes, or rags, or plunder of any kind, and you are not surprised when you hear even out of this dirty trade riches are made, and the gains are great.