One day while pulling around the shipping below London bridge in a small boat, I came across one of the "Bum Boat" men, who might, I believe, be taken as a very fair specimen of his class, or calling, once numerous, but now only a scattered remnant of their former numbers. [Sidenote: STOCK IN TRADE.] This fellow, a sun-browned-looking man of thirty years of age or thereabout, was impelling a craft, a strongly constructed, broad bottomed barge or yawl, in and out among the smoky looking coal barges, fish and oyster craft and coasting steamers. He wore a dark blue guernsey shirt and a yellow oil-skin jacket, with heavy water boots which encased his large legs from the knees downward. An immense "Sou'-wester" shaded his broad face, and he was trying to drive the fog away by smoking a dreadful black clay pipe. At the stern of the boat was a rough canvas awning, and under this the "Purl" man told me that he slept for weeks and months, while his boat lay at anchorage in some of the nooks of the busy river. [Illustration: BUM BOAT MAN.] He seldom or ever went ashore, excepting when necessity compelled him to debark for the purpose of laying in beer and other stock for his customers. In the bottom of the boat were heaps of fresh onions, a bag of potatoes, a couple of bushels of Swedish turnips, parsnips, carrots, some packages of tea and coffee in small square brown parcels, tied with white string, a tin box full of mutton chops and beef steaks, cut ready for sale, and other articles of food that would be most relished by seafaring men on their return from a voyage. There were also in the boat a small patent sheet-iron furnace, two little casks of beer, each containing about four gallons of that beverage, a can with a gallon of gin of the cheap and fiery brand, and two tin pannikins in which he warmed the beer, or "Purl," as it is called, upon the small sheet-iron stove. This he sold hot to the sailors, oystermen, and coal bargees, at four pence a pint. It was most wonderful to see the dexterous manner in which this Bum Boat man passed in and out between the numerous craft, paddling and ringing a hand bell the while, without any collision or trouble, and then to hear through the fog, the answering cries from the sailors who recognized his welcome bell: "Boat ahoy!" "Bell ah-o-o-y!" "P-i-n-t o' P-u-r-l a-h-o-o-y!" Then for an instant the bell would cease, and the dark shapes of the "Bum Boat" and its proprietor would be seen, as the latter stood up to reach a noggin of gin to a bargee, or a pewter pint of foaming hot "Purl" to some thirsty soul of a tar just arrived from Greenwich, Glasgow, or Cork.