Such places as this--the cheaper halls, gaffs, and singsongs--are the principal places of resort of the ladies and gentlemen of the slums who have coppers to spare for amusement. But the streets themselves offer to many a variety of entertainments for which there is no charge. A horse down is a great source of quiet enjoyment; a fight attracts hundreds; and round in one dark spot we came upon an _al fresco_ gambling establishment, where some hundreds of lads were watching half a dozen of their companions playing some game at cards on a rough deal stand, presided over by a villainous-looking Jew. What the game was we could not stay long enough to study, for our approach was signalled by scouts, and as we came close to the crowd it dispersed as if by magic, and the gentleman with the board produced from his pocket a quantity of cough-drops, and flung them upon the board, bawling aloud, 'Six a penny, six a penny!' in a manner intended to convince us that this was his occupation. Possibly we were mistaken for plain clothes policemen; at any rate, we were followed and watched for fully a hundred yards. The mock-litany scoundrel had a big crowd in one street, and an infant phenomenon--a boy who played all the popular airs down the spout of a coffee-pot--was largely patronised; but the biggest audience of the evening surrounded a gentleman who, mounted on a cart, was at once carrying on the business of an ointment vendor and the profession of an improvisatore. His ointment was only a penny a box, but its intrinsic merits were priceless. It was warranted to draw glass or iron or steel from any part of the human body with one application; also to cure weak eyes, bad legs, and sores of all descriptions. The gentleman indulged in anecdotes full of ancient and modern history, all proving the value of his ointment, and every now and then he dropped into rhyme:= ```'If you have a bad leg, and physicians have given you up, ```Or you have been to the doctors, who've half poisoned you with nasty `````stuff, ```Perhaps you fancy that it's no good--that your leg can't be cured; ```But Moore's ointment will do, of that rest assured. ```Try it; if it don't succeed, you're only a penny the worse. ```If you don't try it, you may think of it too late, when you're in your `````funeral hearse. ```It's cured hundreds, and thousands will testify ```It is good for even the tenderest baby's eye. ```Why pay a doctor, or in hospital lie for months, ```When this ointment will cure you by only applying it once?'=