“When I was six years old I was brought up to tailoring. I was kept very close to work--always on the board, working. I even took my meals there. I don’t consider it was hard, for it was done for my own benefit. If there was no work going on I used to be made to learn verses out of the Bible. I highly respected my master, for I consider this was done for my benefit. He died in the country, and I was sorry for it; for if I had known it, I would have gone anywhere to see him buried--ay, even if it had been a hundred miles off. I stopped with this party till I was ten years old. “The next party I was with I was ’prenticed to, but he failed when I had been with him three or four years, and then I had more the keeping of him than he of me; I had that resolve in me even at that young age. “After I finished my ’prentice articles I went with my society card on the tramp. I went all through Yorkshire, going to the tailors’ houses of call, where the clubs are held, and a certain sum of money subscribed weekly, to relieve what are called tramps. In some towns I worked for months--such as Leeds. What is called ‘a tramp’ by tailors, means a man searching for work about the country. After I got back to London I went to my trade again, and I was particularly fortunate in getting good situations. Whenever I was out of work I’d start off to the country again. I was three years in Brighton, doing well, and I had six men under me. “It’s about eight years ago that I first exhibited in the streets. It was through a friend of mine that I did this. Me and my wife was at Greenwich-hill one Sunday. I was looking through a pocket-telescope of mine, and he says, ‘Look through mine.’ I did so, and it was a very good one; and then he says, ‘Ah, you should see one I’ve got at home; it’s an astronomical one, and this is terrestrial.’ I did so, and went and saw it. The first planet I saw was Venus. She was in her horns then, like the moon. She exhibits the same phases as the moon, as does also Mercury; sometimes horns, sometimes half a sphere, and so on; but they’re the only two planets that’s known that does so. When I saw this, I said, ‘Well, I must have something of this sort.’ I went to a telescope-maker up at Islington, and I made a bargain with him, and he was to make me a day-and-night telescope for five suits of clothes. Well, I bought the cloth, and raised all the money to complete my part of the contract, and then, when the telescope was finished, it wasn’t worth a d----. You might as well have looked through a blacking-bottle. When I told him of it he said he couldn’t help it. It was worth something to look at, but not to look through. I pawned it for 15_l._ and sold the ticket for 5_l._ The gentleman who bought it was highly satisfied with it till he found it out. I took this one out in the streets to exhibit with, but it was quite useless, and showed nothing; you could see the planetary bodies, but it defined nothing. The stars