"In Brick Lane ... scenes are to be witnessed on Sunday mornings which afford a companion picture to those in Whitechapel. The East End English have also, like the Jews, their 'poor man's market,' and where Shoreditch, Bethnal Green and Spitalfields meet at the northern part of Brick Lane, which is in Spitalfields, the poorest and meanest of them are to be found. In the early part of Sunday morning, for a couple of hours or so, there is a woman's market where cast-off clothes, tawdry finery, and the newest things in hats and feathers are bartered. Heterogeneous heaps of clothing, boots and shoes included, lie spread over the ground, and some amusing scenes are to be witnessed. Pass along Sclater Street and new scenes meet the eye. The women are left behind, and men and boys are met with. Instead of old clothes one sees and hears twittering birds. Here come the pigeon fanciers from all parts of Bethnal Green and Spitalfields; birds of all kinds are to be bought, and the noise and bustle are in striking contrast to the subdued, sorrow-stricken tone of the women's market. It does not require any long acquaintance with these scenes to discover that the men are fonder of their birds than of their wives. Nowhere is bird-fancying and pigeon-breeding more general than in the crowded East End. Where one would think there was not house-room enough or food enough for human occupants, prize birds of great value are reared--most probably with money that should have gone to feed and clothe the children." The special markets where the poor buy and sell are not, however, exactly tempting to the well-to-do, unless in search of "copy" or other experience. For those London visitors who do not appreciate the slums, yet whose olfactory organs are not too fastidious, the big London markets, Covent Garden, Smithfield, Billingsgate, will perhaps afford a sufficient experience in that line. Billingsgate is the most perilous excursion of the three. Its aroma is strong and lasting, and the stranger in its diverging courts and alleys runs considerable danger of having winkle-barrels or fish crates descend on his devoted head, as they are lowered from the wharves on to their respective carts. Yes, a little of Billingsgate will undoubtedly go a very long way; yet it is an interesting place to have seen, and the strange, sudden appearance of ancient churches,--St. Dunstan's, St. Magnus, St. Mary-at-Hill,--incongruously calm amid the wild turmoil all round them,--gives a momentary peace even "amid the City's jar." The language of Billingsgate fish-wives and porters is proverbial, yet it is perhaps hardly worse than in many other less fishy quarters of London. The Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, has, with its broad flight of steps, on which people sit, itself a kind of ecclesiastical look. The fish market opens at five in the morning.