A bitter hostility exists between the tradesmen who occupy shops and pay what they consider to be exorbitant rents, and the street sellers. No sooner has a street seller made a round of custom for himself and advertised his wares sufficiently, than the blue-coated policeman is sure to appear, armed with the authority which cannot be disobeyed, and he is compelled to move his stand or barrow. The hawker or peddler is forced to pay four or five pounds a year for a license to sell in this precarious way, and yet in London he has no legal right to occupy a stand or booth. He has always to move on, like the boy Joe in Bleak House. It is more than wonderful to think of the shifts made by the poor classes of London to make a living. [Sidenote: SECOND-HAND BOOTS AND SHOES.] The rich man passes by objects in the crowded streets every day with scorn or loathing, which serve to yield a sustenance to the indigent population, and even the offal of the streets will bring a price when offered for sale. The work of the class who gather this material is generally done before daybreak, and in some cases their earnings are considerable. The second-hand metal and tool sellers are to be found chiefly as proprietors of booths or barrows in the vicinity of Petticoat and Rosemary Lanes. The street trade of the city is, to a great extent, done by those who have barrows, and as it is convenient for them to move their barrows from place to place, the costermongers are found all over the metropolis. I made it my business to go almost incessantly among those street hawkers, and I got from them a vast amount of useful information, and a great many statistics. Some of them tell curious stories, and have considerable wit of a coarse kind, but to the wandering American they are, with few exceptions, very civil, and will relate their checkered life-histories with great eagerness. There are hundreds of old boot and shoe shops and stands, where a great business is carried on in the mending, patching, and vending of old shoes and boots. In one branch of the street trade alone, it will be interesting to give some statistics which may be deemed reliable, as having been collected by Mr. Henry Mayhew. There are shops and stands included in this trade alone-- In Drury Lane and streets adjacent, 50 shops. Seven Dials, " " 100 " Monmouth Street, " " 40 " Hanway Court, Oxford Street, 4 " Lisson-grove, " " 100 " Paddington, " " 30 " Petticoat Lane, " " 200 " Somerstown, 50 " Field Lane, Saffron Hill, 40 " Clerkenwell, 50 " Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, 100 " Rosemary Lane and vicinity, 30 " ---- 744 shops.