Thronging around this neighbourhood, and proffering their services with most assiduous perseverance, are a host of most amiable-looking porter women, liveried in white aprons and sleeves, with a pair of huge peck baskets dangling on their arms. Tumbling, and bumping, and jostling among them, drowning their pleadings in a deafening chorus of discordant cries, come the itinerant venders of small wares—“lucifers three boxes a penny,” “cabbage-nets only a penny,” “reels of cotton two for a penny,” little dangling bunches of skewers, ranged in progressive order on queer and mysteriously twisted holders, that seem designed to puzzle any mechanical skill to get them off again, “only a penny;” laces, and saucepans, and stationery, and kettles, thrust into notice as though haberdashers, and tinmen, and stationers were simultaneously rushing off to the gold diggings, and disposing of their goods piecemeal by auction. Ere the next range of stalls may be explored, the pathway is obstructed by some “literate” specimen of the blind, with an attendant concourse of listeners eagerly drinking in the titles of his sheet of hundred songs for a penny. “There’s a good time coming,” “All’s lost now,” “My bark is on the shore,” and “I’m on the Sea,” &c. &c.; or should any great tragedy or judicial murder have occurred recently, to furnish him with a still more profitable stock in trade, such as a “last dying speech and confession,” or “full, true, and particular account” of some “shocking and brutal outrage,” somewhat may be seen and heard of how the minds and tastes of the ignorant are vitiated, and the morbid cravings of diseased imaginations fed; and the hawker of this food for the million, forms living evidence that the eye is not the only member through whose aid vice may gain entrance to the soul. But there is little time or opportunity to philosophize amid the din of importunity that is ringing upon the ears, “What d’ye luke for? fine guse? butifull fowill?” And there stands one who claims especial notice—the merry bacon woman, amid her throng of earnest customers. There she stands, or rather moves; stillness is a state to which she must be a total stranger, we could fancy. “Good day, ma’am.” “What’s for you, sir?” “Nice pork, _dear_? black meat? I’ll wait _of ye_ this minute, sir.” “Yes, ma’am, beautiful ham; did you please to want any? Oh, thank you; very well, another day I shall be _proud_ to wait _of ye_.” “No harm in asking,” she adds, turning apologetically to her more profitable customers. And so she goes on, ever moving, ever talking, ever cheerful, civil, and attentive, one never-ending strain of courtesy and kindness pouring from her lips, while her hands are ever busy cutting and weighing, and folding up in fine white linen cloths, her sausages and bacon, and black meat, and still nicer white juvenile-looking pork, just fresh from the pickle. Probably she has a home somewhere, but her sphere of usefulness and theatre of