The man whose figure affords the subject of the next Plate is a journeyman Prickle-maker, and works in a cellar on the western side of the Haymarket. A prickle is a basket used by the wine-merchants for their empty bottles; it is made of osiers unpeeled and in their natural state, and the basket is made loose with open work, so that when it is filled with bottles it may ride easy in the wine-merchant's caravan, and without the least risk of breaking them. The maker of prickles begins the formation of the bottom of the basket by placing the osier twigs in the form of a star flat upon the ground; he then with another twig commences his weaving by twisting it under and over the ends of the twigs which meet in the centre of the star, and so he goes on to the extent of the circumference of the intended prickle; he then bends up the surrounding twigs, which are in a moist state, and binds them in the middle and the top, and thus the prickle is finished. The formation of hampers for wine-merchants' sieves, and baskets for the gardeners and fishmongers, and indeed that of all other basket work, is begun in the same way as the prickle. The basket-maker is seated upon a broad flat stage consisting of at least four boards clamped together, touching the ground at one end, on which his feet are placed, but elevated about six feet. Upon the end where he is seated free air passes under him, and thus he takes less cold from the ground of the cellar. In Lapland large baskets are made by two persons, a man and a woman. Their mode of forming their baskets in every particular is similar to that of the English. On the banks of the Thames, from Fulham to Staines, there were formerly numerous basket-makers' huts, but opulent persons, anxious to have houses on those delightful spots, purchased the ground on the expiration of the leases, and erected fashionable villas on their site. The inducement for the basket-makers occupying the sides of the Thames, was the great supply of osiers or young willows which grow on the aits, particularly at Twickenham and Staines. The usual price of each prickle is two shillings and three pence. Notwithstanding the numbers of osiers grown in this country, the produce is not sufficient, as an extensive importation of twigs is annually made from Holland, where immense quantities of baskets of every description are made. The Dutch are particularly neat and famous for their willow sieves, which find a ready market in every country. The reader may probably be amused with a list of those trades exercised in Holland, which in their pronunciation and meaning resemble the same in this country, beginning with the