Any of your readers who may have visited the capital of British India will recollect the native _kitaub-wallahs_, or booksellers, who drive a good trade in the streets of Calcutta by thrusting their second-hand literature into the _palanquins_ of the passers, and their pertinacity and success in fixing _master_ with a bargain. For the information of the untravelled, I may further remark that these _flying bibliopoles_ draw their supplies from {200} the daily auctions arising out of the migratory habits or the mortality to which the residents in that city are subject; and it would somewhat astonish our _Sothebys_ and _Putticks_ to see the extent of these sales of literary property, and derange their _tympanums_ to hear the clamorous competition among the aforesaid half-naked dealers for lots not catalogued with their bibliographical precision. The books thus purchased, I may further observe, are subject to the overhaul of the better-informed of the tribe before they make their appearance in the streets; when deficiencies are made good, bindings vamped, and lettering attempted: finally, they are placed in the hands of the hawkers, when the following peculiarities are detectable:--where a title or last leaf may have been wanting, these _Calcutta editions_ occasionally display a _prophane_ book with a _sacred_ title; or a _pious treatise_, for the sake of the word "Finis," made complete by affixing the last leaf of _Tristram Shandy_ or the _Devil on Two Sticks_! Less intelligent jobbers will open their book, and, finding the first word "Preface," clap it incontinently in gilt letters on the back! I leave the imagination of the reader to fill up the _cross-readings_ which would likely result from such practices, and revert to my anecdote, which I had almost lost sight of. Some twenty years ago, then, the dingy tribes were startled, and the auctioneer gratified by the appearance of a new face in the _bidders' box_--a brisk little European, who contested every lot, aiming, apparently, at a monopoly in the second-hand book trade. Shortly thereafter, this individual, having located himself in a commanding position, came forth in the daily papers as a candidate for public favour; and, in allusion to the reformation he contemplated, and his sovereign contempt for his black brethren, headed his address, to the no small amusement of the lieges, in the _Falstoffian_ vein: "... No eyes hath seen such _scarecrows_. I'll not march thro' Coventry with them, that's flat!"